So you're an atheist. Ok, what next?

[plumjam]

Can you cite some evidence to support your apparent belief that atheism is synonymous with materialism. It's certainly not true of the atheists I know.

Exclusive materialism. A materialism which denies the possibility of supposedly non physically verifiable entities like souls, gods, God, demons etc..
I am speaking to this forum, and my experience of this forum is that every atheist I have spoken to or read has been an exclusive materialist.

 

[plumjam]

linusrichard,

I was going to answer your long response, but what you wrote was about 80% facetious and not particularly related to atheism, so I decided not to.

Thanks anyway, and good luck in your job and pastimes.

 

[linusrichard]

Really, need I say any more?

Assuredly no.

 

[plumjam]

Try to leave the world a little better off than when I arrived. However you want to measure "better".

Is that inspired by your atheism, or would you have done that anyway?

Which, speaking of "better", is far, far "better" than trying to proselytize some poor sods into thinking that playing a harp forever is a good thing.

you have a pretty inadequate view of religion, those proselytizers must have been crap

 

[86kam]

do you remember entering a lotter before birth? no. thus it was not a thing of chance.

Are you serious? Prove one has to be cognizant to win something? Ever get a lotto ticket for a birthday gift?

being concerned with truth and facts does not necessitate atheism, so that is not a plausible atheist characteristic

Big fat effin strawman here, I'm not surprised. Where did I say that being concerned with facts necessitates atheism??? Try R.E.A.D.I.N.G. what I stated.. I stated:

Most atheists I know are merely concerned with truth and facts.

You are bordering on cognitive dissonance here...

we hear about them all the time on this forum, and they're admired by the majority.. such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris etc..

They state their views publicly, wonderful. Where do they go out of their way to turn people from one belief to another... I am remembering something I learned about catholics and native americans, there's a hint.....

sure, but I bet becoming atheist did not in any way help you in this regard

Stop moving those goalposts. That wasn't the original question was it??

of course it's a belief system, commonly it's a belief in exclusive materialism

There is no "belief" in atheism... how can it be a belief system??? If it's a belief system, what are the tenets and doctrine?? Even a child can figure this one out. It is a position held based on the evidence.

sorry, but that's just naive. Lack of belief in certain things, such as the spiritual, commonly promotes beliefs and values based on a world view based on their opposite.. i.e. materialism

Incorrect. Atheism is simply lack of belief in a deity. Any other philosophy is simply subjective reasoning. Stop throwing all your strawmen about... the crows will come a calling.

the clue is in the question

Concerning the Red Cross?? Oh Please... do enlighten me.

that's an intergovernmental organisation covering all nations, with their varying religions, so it couldn't be religious
it's not exactly a charity as the term is commonly used

Really? What does UNICEF do then? You distort the role to suit your argument.. It is ABSOLUTELY a charity, one can donate, one can claim said donation on a tax form. You lose on ALL counts..

 

[Graham Ross]

Exclusive materialism. A materialism which denies the possibility of supposedly non physically verifiable entities like souls, gods, God, demons etc..
I am speaking to this forum, and my experience of this forum is that every atheist I have spoken to or read has been an exclusive materialist.

Every christian I've ever met has enjoyed U2. Does that mean christians and U2 fans are the same thing?

 

[dglas]

That's all fine.. but none of that, as far as I can see, is derived from a belief in atheism, rather it's derived from you examining your conscience as any decent theist would do also.
Atheism does not encourage mankind to see equal value in our fellow beings, yet theism does, quite insistently.

Ehhhntt!!! Dead wrong!
If there is anything that distances humanity more from itself than religion, I cannot imagine it. From the farcical self- and other-hatred represented by original sin (intrinsic evil) to the devaluation of humans below that of a delusional webwork of lies. This is precisely what I am talking about when I speak of philosophies being tools, not truths. Philosophies exist to serve people, not the other way around. As tools philosophies can be powerful servants. As "Truths" philosophies can be enslavement machines.

Atheism remains silent on the matter, as it does on so many other important issues.
Thus those who are atheists will be less likely to be regularly exposed to the positive moral exhortations typical of theism.
That doesn't mean any individual atheist is bound to be more immoral, but the general influence will be in that direction.

Again, entirely mistaken. One can derive or acquire one's values from any of a number of sources. I see no particular reason why one should derive one's values from the webwork of lies and anti-humanity hatred that is religious truth-think. That so-called morality is a means to an ends - the subjugation of humanity to one philosophy, which cannot but be a serious error.

Better, I would say, to recognize that one's values are a result of the persons around you, the reasonable expectations you have of them and that they have of you and attempts to try to universalize these, and do away with the nonsense of "objective morality" grounded in a psychopathic monstrosity.

Positive secular values? Longer life spans with better quality of living, progress in terms of human efficacy, a better tomorrow for our children. That some cannot (scratch that!) refuse to see these things as positive without the gawd element is not a sign of an atheist's failure - it is a symptom of an attempt to define all things in terms of gawd and render meaningless anything that does not derive from it. It is a shoehorning of positive human traits into the wrong shaped slots.

The future is not meaningless. Children are not meaningless. Other people are not meaningless. We can perceive them as having value in themselves, entirely without gawd. In fact, we must do away with gawd to allow their value to become clear, rather than subordinate to some miscellaneous, anonymous, third-rate, ill-conceived, cynical, anti-human dogma. People are more than cogs in a dogmatic machine; more than a means to an end. It is not the atheist's failure that the religious cannot (will not) see this.

Atheism doesn't necessarily lead to these particular values, but without it we don't even have a chance of reaching them - the lie of "Truth" gets in the way.

In reality, religious thinking is so rife with contradictions and incoherencies that it does not, in fact, consistently prohibit or encourage anything at all. To those who say that without gawd, there is no guiding light, the only proper answer is to point out just how dim that "light" is, that light that advocates murdering children and killing non-believers on sight, indoctrinating the young with self-hatred and terror, covering up sexual abuses, the list or exemplary morality goes on and on and on. If that's morality, it's time to leave morality by the wayside and come up with something better. There's a reason that "light" is so dim; it is not founded in humanity. It is the subjugation of humanity - the sickness that infects us when we elevate philosophies to Truths and think them more important the people.

It's time to do better, and we can do better...but not until we have pulled ourselves from the quagmire of superstition, horror, hatred, cruelty, self-loathing and subjugation of humanity that is religion, and the symbol and icon of that anti-human thinking, gawd.

Atheism is the first step towards a morality for living, breathing, loving, multi-faceted, full-living-colour humanity, not just abstracted pawns in a two-dimensional black & white dogmatic scheme.

Religion qua pre-packaged morality is a deliberate failure to accept responsibility for one's attitudes, not just one's actions, but one's attitudes. How many more young women have to die of cancer caused by HPV before we realize that the "high road" is a dead end?

 

[linusrichard]

linusrichard,

I was going to answer your long response, but what you wrote was about 80% facetious and not particularly related to atheism, so I decided not to.

None of it was facetious.

Most of it was unrelated to atheism because your open-ended questions ("What do you do now?"; "What can you do that is positive?") had nothing to do with atheism. Open-ended questions elicit longer responses. The questions you wrote that did relate to atheism were easily answered with a "yes" or a "no," so I didn't write much about them. That's the root of the disparity. If you want people to write more about atheism, ask more open-ended questions about atheism.

 

[Modified]

if they are the right things God will approve. your conscience will help you to work it out

You could use that logic to justify all sorts of nasty behavior.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

what are the great contributions of humanism to humanity?

Recognizing that we don’t need to invent celestial beings and arbitrary doctrines thereof in order to enjoy life to the fullest; recognizing the also numinous nature of life without devaluing that with supernatural explanations; realizing that our short existence here is exceptional and real, and we can make the best of it, towards ourselves and others, without having to rely on celestial dictums.

In short: everything in terms of goodness that theist claim to have a prerogative for, is a faculty all humans can share, without religious incantation.

Or as I would perhaps put it: Wake up and smell the coffee!

 

[Tricky]

on a personal level, in my case (which is the only case I can speak about with any authority) I would say that throughout my adult life, even when I was an atheist, I was reasonably moral, with my faults. Theism, however, has tended to reduce my feeling of separation from other sentient beings, resulting in a greater feeling of empathy and compassion.
It'll be different for every individual, but I believe that is the general trend.

For me, it was just the opposite. But it shouldn't surprise you that whatever you belive now, you feel that it is the right way. Otherwise, why would you believe it?

If and when they do that they're wrong. It's a practice much more common and intense in moral systems which expressly forbid theism.

They don't think they're wrong. And I don't think you can support your second statement. Religious wars have been going on since the earliest recorded history. (Note: In this space we can insert a long discussion about Stalin and Pol Pot. It's been done. Let's not derail.)

Is it? Or is it just that your mind focuses on the self-serving bits rather than the huge charitable part?

I see both. But church charities also benefit the church. Where do you think they got all those nice buildings? They are not totally altruistic. Of course, if you can show me some elaborate atheist temples, I'll concede this point.

There is no central dictat, but then that is not needed. They commonly keep silent on the consequences of moral and political systems that have shared their exclusive materialism.

No they don't. They just don't announce their atheism. The reason is that a good idea should stand on its own, not be propped up by an appeal to false authority.

well, we just saw Bill Gates.

Where did Bill Gates announce that his charity was in the name of atheism? Somebody else mentioned it. As far as I know, he doesn't advertise his beliefs at all. Very moral of him.

If you interpret all this as insulting that's your prerogative. It wasn't meant as an insult; I started the thread to try to get atheists to face up to the 'what next?' aspect of their belief system... which IMO is basically a big nothing.

I answered your question about what's next. But I honestly don't understand how you can say that atheists tend to be less moral than theists without it being insulting.

Now if I said, "It is my observation that theists tend to have lower intelligence than atheists," would you find that insulting?

I would never say any individual atheist is likely to be less moral than any individual theist. But there is massive denial about the dangers of exclusive materialism when that philosophy is allowed to be expressed in the form of moral and political systems.

Do you think so? I have the idea that you are switching between two different definitions of materialism. We aren't all in the Ayn Rand "get what you can for yourself" boat. Scientifically, materialism only states that there is no evidence for anything beyond the material world. That has no moralistic connotations whatsoever. Once again, doing something good for a spiritual reward is less moral, IMO, than doing it because of pure empathy. It is like the child who will only do their homework if their parent is watching.

I don't believe this has yet been fully admitted or reflected upon by the great majority of atheists.

It has not been admitted because it is not true. It's been reflected on plenty.

Further to that, the kind of politicking in favour of exclusive materialism going on recently.. if that were translated into political power, I'm sure the great majority of atheists here would be horrified by the end results.

Maybe you'd better define what you mean by "materialism" before we go on here. It almost sounds as if you're using it as a synonym for greed.

Sure, it's not likely to get far off the ground, but the likely consequences if it did are not something ever honestly addressed here.

You've been here fewer than six months. I think you would be surprised at the number of things that have been honestly addressed here. Unless by "honest" you mean "agreeing with you".

 

[plumjam]

None of it was facetious.

Most of it was unrelated to atheism because your open-ended questions ("What do you do now?"; "What can you do that is positive?") had nothing to do with atheism. Open-ended questions elicit longer responses. The questions you wrote that did relate to atheism were easily answered with a "yes" or a "no," so I didn't write much about them. That's the root of the disparity. If you want people to write more about atheism, ask more open-ended questions about atheism.

why doesn't it surprise me that you're a lawyer?
everyone else has implicitly recognised that the 'what next' is obviously related to how atheism affects the 'what next'

 

[plumjam]

You could use that logic to justify all sorts of nasty behavior.

it's up to your own conscience whether you would use that to justify nasty behaviour or not

 

[plumjam]

Recognizing that we don’t need to invent celestial beings and arbitrary doctrines thereof in order to enjoy life to the fullest; recognizing the also numinous nature of life without devaluing that with supernatural explanations; realizing that our short existence here is exceptional and real, and we can make the best of it, towards ourselves and others, without having to rely on celestial dictums.

In short: everything in terms of goodness that theist claim to have a prerogative for, is a faculty all humans can share, without religious incantation.

Or as I would perhaps put it: Wake up and smell the coffee!

sounds nice enough, but rings hollow to me. It's all surface, with no deeper meaning or directionality.

 

[Tricky]

sounds nice enough, but rings hollow to me. It's all surface, with no deeper meaning or directionality.

Are you not capable of finding your own direction? Must you be given one?

 

[plumjam]

For me, it was just the opposite. But it shouldn't surprise you that whatever you belive now, you feel that it is the right way. Otherwise, why would you believe it?

People can go for years believing something in a pretty superficial way, all the time with the uneasy feeling that there's something wrong with it.

They don't think they're wrong. And I don't think you can support your second statement. Religious wars have been going on since the earliest recorded history. (Note: In this space we can insert a long discussion about Stalin and Pol Pot. It's been done. Let's not derail.)

well, yeah, but that's more avoidance isn't it.. whenever atheism has been tried on a grand scale it has been disastrous, much worse than any religious abuses in the past.

I see both. But church charities also benefit the church. Where do you think they got all those nice buildings?

cathedrals etc are generally built to glorify God, many took many decades to build, so the original instigators were dead at completion

Of course, if you can show me some elaborate atheist temples, I'll concede this point.

You're adding to my argument here. Atheists are not inspired enough by their atheism to want to build even a shack in the back garden.

I answered your question about what's next. But I honestly don't understand how you can say that atheists tend to be less moral than theists without it being insulting.

we've had this conversation before, and i've never made that accusation on any individual level, but remember the moral funneling concept.

Now if I said, "It is my observation that theists tend to have lower intelligence than atheists," would you find that insulting?

not at all, in fact to some extent it would make some sense.
intellectual types are more apt to identify with their head than their hearts or souls, whereas often 'simpler' people identify more with their hearts and thus find that the spiritual approach to life resonates more with them. There are plenty of famous saints who were not intellectual, or academic.. many were semi literate or illiterate altogether.

Do you think so? I have the idea that you are switching between two different definitions of materialism. We aren't all in the Ayn Rand "get what you can for yourself" boat. Scientifically, materialism only states that there is no evidence for anything beyond the material world. That has no moralistic connotations whatsoever. Once again, doing something good for a spiritual reward is less moral, IMO, than doing it because of pure empathy. It is like the child who will only do their homework if their parent is watching.

do you really think religious people generally do things because of that? I agree with you that it's better to do it out of empathy. Spiritual practice is a tried and tested millenia old method of developing one's existent empathy.

Maybe you'd better define what you mean by "materialism" before we go on here. It almost sounds as if you're using it as a synonym for greed.

exclusive materialism in the philosophical sense, i.e. denying the possibility of things like Gods, the afterlife, objective morality.. etc
Not consumerism.

You've been here fewer than six months. I think you would be surprised at the number of things that have been honestly addressed here. Unless by "honest" you mean "agreeing with you".

perhaps, but my experience is that the moral consequences of exclusive materialism (atheism) have not been adequately faced.

 

[plumjam]

Are you not capable of finding your own direction? Must you be given one?

talking about objective meaning and directionality, not the subjective 'life's what you make it' meaningless 'meaning' and 'directionality.

 

[plumjam]

ok folks, lots of answers, cheers... going for a kip now

 

[Dr Adequate]

Let's say you've lived at least a couple of decades, you've examined the options, and you've arrived at atheism.

Well.
Here you are.

What do you do now?

Lunch.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

sounds nice enough, but rings hollow to me. It's all surface, with no deeper meaning or directionality.

Meaning and directionality is what we make of it. There are people who are uncomfortable with ‘is’ and will rather live in ‘ought’ regardless of how preposterous such ambition might form into. I guess it says more about the person than the actuality of the situation thou. Unless you can’t find solitude in existence (in and of itself), then you might be searching endlessly, and never endingly projecting what's not there. A waist of this precious existance I think.