Are atheists inevitably pessimists?

The Common Potato said:
Oh, sod off David. (Sorry, mods.) You are being totally dishonest in your approach, IMO. You do not want to discuss anything. You are getting a little thrill out of this. I have no evidence of this, but that won't worry you.

Serious question: how old are you? I'd guess 14.
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Are you realizing that you say nothing except you are very upset. I am sorry, but if you go into the debate without worrying about the "dishonesty" of the opponents maybe we could exchange ideas instead aprehensions.
 
JesseCuster said:
Why?

Do we have to justify all our actions? Blowing my nose? Deciding what to wear in the morning? Or is just moral actions? Important moral actions? Do we have to justify them in terms of not believing in God? Justify our actions to ourselves? Justify our actions to others?

I'm genuinely perplexed by where you're coming from and where you're heading with all of this. To me (and perhaps it's just me), this is just another grand declaration about what atheists must or do do, and when they disagree with you, I'm going to predict that the statement "you must find justification for your actions in a godless world." is going to be watered down until it becomes some dull self-evident and/or inconsequential truth like the other grand statements you've made in this thread.

Is there an overall coherent point to all this?
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I am genuinely perplexed by your perplexity. It is obvious that I was not referring to every action, but just those that were justified by the belief in God and his representatives in earth.

I am speaking mainly of justification in front oneself.

And this is not a trivial question. In the 19th century someone summed up the question with a famous sentence: "If God is dead everything is permitted". After that universal literature and philosophy continue to spinning around the subject that is none other than "What to be done?" or "What can I expect?". Even in this forum the question arise continuously.

No. It is not a trivial question.
 
Robin said:
God or no God, justification for action always ultimately boils down to "because I want to"

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So, if God is dead, everything is allowed. Everything you like. Everything the other person would like to do to you. Absolute relativism.

This is not a banal answer. It shows that denial of God has important consequences for an atheist. He can totally despise others, be depraved, cruel, cowardly... No one is calling him to account.

Well, well...
 
David Mo said:
So, if God is dead, everything is allowed. Everything you like. Everything the other person would like to do to you. Absolute relativism..
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Nope. Read what I said again. A little more carefully this time.

I said "God or no God"

So scratch those words you were trying to put in my mouth and try again.
 
In any case, it is a little like saying that the consequences of rejecting leprechauns is that we have to relinquish all that free gold at the end of the rainbow.

Well, well.
 
I note that the officials position of the NSW Anglican Church on gender dysmorphia is that it is a consequence of Man's disobedience in the Garden of Eden.

And you say we are missing something important if we don't include such views when considering a rational philosophy for life.

Seriously?
 
David Mo said:
I don't understand the question.

I have told you that if you are a consistent atheist you must find justification for your actions in a godless world. Not that you should find the justification of the gods.
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My question, about how the world might be changed in some way to make me assume that some Gods exist, was a response to your saying:
David Mo said:
I was proposing you a mental experiment that began with the assumption that God exists.
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So let me rephrase the question to see if your confusion can be lifted: If nothing changes, how can I usefully consider the assumption that some God exists when the world as it is leads me to conclude otherwise?

Try for example to consider that the Norse pantheon exists. What would we do differently? Nothing changes. There's no sign that they exist. There's no instruction arriving from Odin to indicate what we must do to please him. Why would I do anything differently? Why indeed would I begin to believe they exist?
 
Robin said:
Nope. Read what I said again. A little more carefully this time.

I said "God or no God"

So scratch those words you were trying to put in my mouth and try again.
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What have I to scratch?

This is your absolute relativism manifesto: `justification for action always ultimately boils down to "because I want to"'. If you would believe in God you cannot affirm this. It is because you don't believe in God that you claim for absolute relativism.
 
Robin said:
I note that the officials position of the NSW Anglican Church on gender dysmorphia is that it is a consequence of Man's disobedience in the Garden of Eden.

And you say we are missing something important if we don't include such views when considering a rational philosophy for life.

Seriously?
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I am not speaking of particular beliefs in particular religions. There are still worse that you quote. I have laid clear that I was speaking of the deny of a general concept of God. Because that the atheist don't believe in any god all inquiry about particular precepts is improcedent.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Thankfully "allowed" (in the implied sense of allowed by some or other God) is not the guide humans generally use when choosing which actions to take.
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Tell that to a believer and you'll see what a face he makes. There's a Christian way of life. And if you don't follow it, get ready for Pedro Botero's cauldron. For further instructions read the Gospels.
Something similar for Odin's followers. Did you hear about Valhalla? There is a guy who will explain to you what you have to do to get there.

Even if the believer constructs a personal religion, a fundamental element of it will be how to keep his god happy. And practically everyone I know concludes that some kind of reward or punishment will result.
 
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David Mo said:
Tell that to a believer and you'll see what a face he makes.
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Sure enough. Some people trap themselves in the delusion that morality is obedience to their God's wishes rather than their God's wishes being a just-so story explaining how their society would like its members to act, and ultimately that story was created from its authors' innate sense of right and wrong.

It leads people to say stuff like
David Mo said:
`justification for action always ultimately boils down to "because I want to"'.
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as they imagine that "because I want to" is a bad thing and will result in anarchy as people just do whatever selfish or psychopathic thing crosses their mind. They have blinded themselves to the trivial fact that most people most of the time don't want to do mean things because they will feel bad about it. Evolution made us that way. Mostly we are kind, considerate and cooperative. Sometimes we are selfish but we know instinctively to conceal such unfair behaviour because it will affect how others treat us.

Only people who have been bamboozled into thinking the only reason they're not a psychopath is that God will punish them for it are confused by this.
 
David Mo said:
I am genuinely perplexed by your perplexity. It is obvious that I was not referring to every action, but just those that were justified by the belief in God and his representatives in earth.
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What actions are those then? I'm an atheist and I'm not sure what actions I do that I ever actually justified with a belief in God. So I don't know what need is actually going unfulfilled and what consequences there are to the need not being met.

Besides, why do actions formerly justified by belief in God need a justification after one becomes an atheist? What happens if you don't come up with a new justification for doing those things? Or some of them, anyway. I do all sorts of things I don't bother justifying to myself at all.

Again, you talk of things like "must" and "needs" as if there's some terrible consequence for not doing these things.
 
David Mo said:
This is your absolute relativism manifesto: `justification for action always ultimately boils down to "because I want to"'
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Firstly it is not s manifesto, just a statement of how things are.

Secondly it is not relativism since it is a universal statement that applies to all occasions
If you would believe in God you cannot affirm this.
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Tell me, do you think that believing Christians want to go to heaven? Or not?
 
Matthew Ellard said:
A person only needs to apply a hypothesis to an observable phenomena.

As there is no observable phenomena that requires any "God" from the set of potential god types, to be included in a hypothesis, I don't have to contemplate any "God". Therefore I don't have to believe in any "God".
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David Mo said:
This is a reasonable answer. It only needs some clarifications.
Defenders of the theory of Intelligent Design claim that the hypothesis of God is verified when phenomena are investigated. Do you agree? Why not?
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There is no observable phenomena that indicates intelligent design. If, hypothetically, an alien were to introduce genes into a species, those genes would still have to go through the standard eliminating processes of evolution like random mutations, anyway. Unless some alien can simultaneously eliminate all forms of natural evolution, intelligence design makes no sense whatsoever.
 
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