To all of the atheists- if we have no soul, and are nothing but electrical pulses inside a shell of some sort with a life span determined by time and chance but nothing else, and once it's over it's over, then why is it immoral to kill?

Those being the circumstances what have I done really? I ended a life- but what did that life mean exactly, what was it's worth if there is nothing else?

There's no such thing as right and wrong everybody knows this. Which is why homosexuality isn't wrong

I have never said we have no "soul". I don't know. I certainly feel moral obligations, but that isn't a proof that god exists. You don't have to be religious to have a strong sense of morals.

If there is no after life, doesn't that mean that a life is extremely valuable? If this is it, ending someones time prematurely is denying them one of the most precious things concious beings are given - that is tools that enable us to sense and interact with the things around us.

So to answer your question, it is obviously immoral. Being the most concious beings on the planet (the ones with the highest developed brains), we, either consiously or subconciously, recognize life as tremendously valuable because we recognize that death is inevitable.

because life can be enjoyable, and if u kill you are ending some1's enjoyment

Good question. It's a difficult answer, and here's how I come to grips with it:


Interpretation #1
Just because we are nothing more than electrical impulses and massive quantum mechanical systems doesn't mean that there is no meaning in life. It only means that there is no intrinsic meaning outside of the meaning that we as humans give to it. Life is meaningful because we give it meaning.

As humans, we can agree that life (in general) is enjoyable and worth saving. We enjoy it, we savor it, so therefore it is meaningful to us. Even if consciousness is only an illusion, it is still an illusion that is meaningful to those who are totally unable to escape the illusion. Humans are very good at attaching emotion and meaning to many things that are not at all worthy of it. Heck, people cry at (fiction) movies.

So I would argue that the meaning of life comes from the fact that it is meaningful to us as humans. I enjoy my life and even if my enjoyment is nothing more than an emergent behavior brought about by neurons and chemicals doesn't mean that I, who is totally stuck within my own illusion of consciousness, would soon give it up. If everything is intrinsically meaningless, but I find enjoyment (even if it is fake enjoyment) then there is no harm in living my life. It is valuable to me. Therefore, killing another is destroying what is valuable to them.

Interpretation #2:

There is an arrow to history. Humans in general are building toward an intimate goal of achieving total enlightenment through technological and mental evolution. In order to continue along this road, we much (for the time being) exist as a society of individuals. In order to survive and eventually achieve the ultimate goal of history (enlightenment, whatever that means, or whatever else the ultimate goal of history may be) we must prevent ourselves from killing ourselves. Therefore, under the system of justice that ensures the survival and advancement of human kind, murder is clearly unjust because it damages society in general.

So, in summary, my arguments are

1) Happiness and life, if not inherently good, are good under the illusion of consciousness

2) Murder hurts society and reduces the chances that human beings will live out to achieve our ultimate goal/purpose in this universe

Of course, this is all philosophy.

If there is no consequence for our actions- if when it is all said and done, nothing happens- there is no reason why life should not be just a free for all- kill em all, and let nobody sort out the bodies, because nobody truly cares, at least no one of consequence, because consequence does not exist.

We don't recognize life as truly valuable- don't equate an unwillingness to die as being giving life the due it should be given, as a race we don't even come close. We have an inate sense of caring about ones self and one owns interest but I would dare say that at this point in history for the majority life is less than valuable.




Guys, if I sound a little not like myself it's because for the past like 24 hours I have been reading Ann Coulters book "Godless" and just letting my mind consider different things, one of them being the true value we put on life as a society or even more pinpointed as Americans.




As always, I enjoy reading your take on damn near everything. Well put.

i've taken philosophy classes that were less interesting than some of your posts. two additional questions:

1 - what do you do for a living?

2 - can i hire you this saturday for a party? there's going to be a bunch of artsy chicks there and i could use a speechwriter.

1) Physicist

2) lol

You will need me at the party to ask dumbass simple minded questions, and maybe a little CrowTrobot for questions that go nowhere. Lady killers all 3.

nowhere but over your head usually




read any dostoyevsky lately lol?

i´ve heard that being brought up by religious people in discussions several times and i really don´t get it.
i don´t fear any divine consequences for my actions, yet i´ve never killed someone, never wanted to and am fairly certain that i never will.
now you seem to propose that the reason people don´t just shoot the guy who found the parking spot 5 seconds before them is that god would write them a ticket.
now, what i´m gonna write now may sound mean, but i´m actually just curious as to where you get the idea from. are you deriving this from yourself? if someone somehow could prove to you that god didn´t exist, would you think to yourself "cool, tomorrow i´ll go out and kill someone for a mp3-player and a happy meal."? can´t you value other people´s lifes so you need a omnipotent figure holding you under its thumb to prevent you from doing nonsense?
like i said, i´m not trying to offend you, i´m just wondering where the idea stems from.

also, i don´t think this repression theory works. religion is as effective in preventing violent crime as is the death penalty. if people, for whatever ****ed-up reason, have a desire to hurt/kill other people, then they´ll find a non-religious way to legitimize it in case they don´t believe in god and they´ll find a religious way to legitimize it if they do believe in god.

what is this, humility? i thought i was supposed to not like you?



you really know how to push my buttons. which one did you have in mind?

moralistic social behavior is the result of natural selection

Humility comes from being awesomely wrong quite a bit, which I own up to. As far as what Crow said, which books should I be reading by this whoever the heck it was you said I may be reading right now? Quite honestly,though, I have been reading that one Ann Coulter book I mentioned and it has sparked some thought process that has been fun to think about.

I was thinking along the lines of truly valuing life, and what that would consist of. I think right now in my mind I see a clear line between enjoying living and actually valuing life, and that could be from the extreme( I really like where I am at right now so this fetus has got to go) to the more simple( I realize these cheeseburgers are slowly killing me and diabetes is tommorows fate but damn extra cheese tastes good.) We do so many things that show a blatant disregard for life, and suprisingly the one we show the least respect for many times is our own.

Well, my answer to this question is Mu. Since I don't believe in an objective right and wrong, or morality, asking me if something is mornal or immoral is a nonsensical question. I don't think it's "wrong" to kill someone, because I don't believe in "wrong". I do think it's to a societies distinct advantage to make murder illegal. If murder is legal, then the society is apt to be bloody, choatic and
short lived. Making Murder, and other violent crimes illegal is a social stablizer. So what's stopping me from killing someone, you ask? Risk to reward ratio. The risk (IE life in prison and/or death penalty, or losing my life in my attempt to commit the crime) far out weighs any sort of reward thus far in my life. There are a couple of people I would actually like to kill, who have wronged my friends and family, and if the risk wasn't so high, I would. So, you ask, could the reward was raised high enough to outweigh the risk would I be willing to commit murder? Yes, it could, and yes I certainly would. But since I don't think anyone is going to be offering me a million dollars to kill you anytime so, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

MU!

Are you saying that if it wasn't for your belief in consequences for you actions in the afterlife, you would go on a murderous rampage?

Anyway, there are consequences in this life, that's why we have laws. If you kill somebody, chances are you will either be killed yourself, or end up rotting away in prison. This is neither good for the believer nor the atheist (although some believers don't mind the death part, and would actually be discouraged in killing if they believed nothing awaited them afterwards).



We do assign a high value to life. Maybe not as much as it should be, but we do. Engineers always design for low occurence events. They sacrifice a bit of safety for economy. Indirectly, this puts a price on human life. But as a whole, we don't put that great a price on other humans lives, especially when we don't know, or will never meet these people.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the inate sense of caring about ones self. For most people, killing someone will cause them huge emotional distress, because they think of what it would be like if someone did that to them, or that they killed someones son/don, etc. Obviously, most of us (who don' thave children anyway), cherish our own life as the most precious thing on earth. This is why it makes it hard for us to kill people. This is where or sense of "morals" about killing our whatever you want to call it comes from. It all relates back to the golden rule. When we know we wouldn't want something to happen to us, we usually don't do it to others (or if we do, we know it's wrong deep down unless we have psychological problems - which not all atheists do ). So in a sense, this is where we derive our values from. And different values are assigned varying levels of meaningfulness, depending on our own outlook on life. But generally, the biggest ones are the same for all humans (don't kill, don't steal, etc), while the smaller ones are similar for most but become more and more blurred. Human law tries to define the blurriness of these values.

What about those who live lifetimes of pain, or those for whom their objective is to inflict pain on others?

There are a lot of people that live lives of pain that have it great, and vice versa. Anyway, people have to learn from themselves to appreciate life. If they have nothing but misery (or choose to see things that way), well that is their bad luck. They can keep up the struggle and hope things pan out, try to find a better alternative, or kill themselves if they can't cope. Sounds harsh, but that's life.

As for the latter, that it why we have created laws, prisons, etc.

I enjoy reading your posts.

As far as an enlightened humanity is concerned, I think we're going backwards.

It depends on the scale that you are examining.

lol... to keep the society together...

on another note... if there is a god and you're off to paradise why not kill yourself? and if you don't get to heaven by suicide (don't remember if suicide will send you yo hell) why don't you join OUR TROOPS IN IRAQ and die with some glory?????


EDIT: I didn't really answer the question but it's hopeless (read: impossible and pointless) to argue with a certain type of religious people anyway...



I'll join in with the others and say: well put, this is my final answer...

As everyone does, I appreciate your well thought out replies. Now, deal with this! Counterpoints!

A.) Let's assume both of your points are approximately correct. Humans are building towards total enlightenment. As we progress along 2) though, towards total enlightenment, we will begin to understand more and more the intrinsic meaninglessness of life. Will we not gradually begin to escape the illusion of meaning, assuming it is an illusion? I guess my only point is that 2) and 1) are in a sense diametrically opposed, as I see it. I think I can make this point better in the future.

B.) I'm just dealing with your first point here. We have meaning because we create our meaning, our life is enjoyable under the illusion of consciousness. I don't believe it follows that we shouldn't end the lives of others. If ending my friends life somehow increases the quality of my life, adds to my enjoyment, I should probably do it. I have no access to his consciousness, there is no good reason for me to accept that he even has one. I have direct access to mine, and my life will be better if he is dead, probably because he has a mango that I want to eat.

Even if I am convinced that he is consciouss (I hate this word, I never know if I'm spelling it right..), why should I be concerned about his emergent mental states? If I truly understand that that is all he really is, how can it be wrong to snuff out these chemical reactions and whatever else is going on. Even if they are meaningful to him, I understand that the "him" is just an illusion, and my illusion is not concerned with aiding his illuision. It seems clear to me that my emergent mental states should only be concerned about my emergent mental states, which will improve if I have his mango. I owe fundamentally meaningless emergent mental states nothing.

I hope I am somewhat clear at least, and if I'm not, I'm sure you'll be gracious enough to pretend it was. I may set up an AntiRodReynolds account to argue myself, as I've thought up counterpoints to my counterpoints.

As an aside, where are you a physicist? Student, or full-fledged? I used to be on that road also.

Welcome to Religion Forum RodReynolds.

Thank you, glad to be here.

That's a discombobulated train of thought worthy of, well, me Rob. Welcome to the religous forum. That being said, I understood whre you were going with it and it's along the lines of the conclusion that I came up with if in fact there is no post life recompence for ones actions.

Put it this way- if in fact we find out life is utterly meaningless, and any meaning we give it is inherited, created by peers and self taught illusion, than it would be the truly enlightened ones who decide to take the step to just do whatever it is that they please, because they see above the illusion. I want that mango- bye bye. Now, let me extrapilate this a little- this is already being done in corporate america, where decisions are made by people we never meet that benefit the company and that's it- corporate america gets away with atrocities every day that you and I would be lynched for, but that's the way it is and for the most part when these atrocities are brought to light we recognize it for what it is, and how inherintly wrong some of these decisions are because they take no consideration for the greater good. But, ultimately if atheists are right than corporate america is right the **** on, and should be recognized for it's brilliant proggressive ways.

I haven't read all of the posts, but I do have a question that I would like to find the answer to....some have seemed to imply that murder is wrong in an atheistic universe simply because it would take away the happiness of others, etc. In other words, an immoral thing is something that detracts from the greatness happiness of the greatest number of people, and since murder does this, murder should be considered immoral, as well as any other thing that someone does that takes away the happiness of other people.

My question is this: WHY should anyone follow such standards? Why should I not do things that would take away from someone's happiness? Really, who even cares? If it makes me happy to kidnap your mother or wife, rape her, and murder her, why should I care if that does other people harm or not? If there is no objective moral standard, then whatever feels right or good to me is fine for me, what does it matter if someone else objects to what I am doing? In fact, why should I even care about someone else's happiness or whether I am harming someone else? Do other animals care about these things?

I am sure I will get several responses, which is what I was hoping for, because I really do not understand an atheist's justification for holding these type of things...

There's a simple answer. We have what are called "laws." If you were to murder somebody, you'd be arrested and go to jail. And that's bad for you. So, in a society of laws, the reason that we don't murder others is obvious.

This question differs from the one from the OP in that it is not asking why murder is wrong, but rather why one should not murder (which are different questions). The follow up question is, "why should murder be illegal?"

That is the question that I tried to address above.

More on this as I thought on this topic on the way home from work- o.k., assumeing that I am wrong and there is no afterlife, which I don't even know if atheists say that for a fact, just that we cannot prove one therefore cannot live as if there is one, if ther is no afterlife- what is there exactly? Well, we would be reduced to what is in front of us, the here and now and the temporary, and that is it. Once that is over there are ones that will recall you and have memories of you, a certain percentile will be remembered for works of art, books, films, physical proof of existence that is left behind that would not otherwise be here if not for that person- this percentile has a publicly identifiable legacy. For the rest of us we pretty much just procreate and a part of us lives on because of it. O.k., but this to shall end, because this earth was obviously not built to last, or more to the point we are seemingly somehow meant to destroy it. The earth is consumeable, and we are consumers. So, when this ends as well, and the physical proof is lost gone, and all human consciousnes ends- we have nothing. So, I then have to conclude that if I were to believe the opposite of what I do now, if I were to ask myself "What is this life for? " The answer would have to be, " Not much." Not because it's sexy, or it sounds good becasue really it doesn't- that's a horrible thought, but because that would be what I have to face.

So, having went through all of this in my head, I am a little intrigued by this line of thinking,so Crow, Yorke, Wakefield and anybody else who I respect if you could go ahead and point out the holes for me and be so kind as to point me in the right direction when it comes to books that follow this line of thinking, I would really appreciate it.

on a more serious note... i am trying to reply to this thread but i can't. the more i think of the issue the less i seem capable of answering it. loismustdie: is your question still: why should murder be wrong? or is it: what is this life for if there is no god.

No, the original question was if there is no afterlife what would be the reasoning for adhering to any kind of rules, considering that this life is temporary and inconsequential, my adverse effect if, let's say I murdered a fellow talking meatstick, the adverse effect would be less then negligable. In the grand scheme of things, since there is no grand scheme any actions that I take would be quite alright.

the meaning to life can be what we make it - even if it's just to have fun and do whatever makes you happy and fulfilled. no shame in that, even if it's ultimately meaningless as far as history is concerned. i'm enjoying life too much to kill myself.

it's also possible (although not likely any time soon) that humans will ultimately move beyond earth and populate other areas of the universe, which would at least give meaning to the existence of humanity as a whole.

also i'm only an atheist when it comes to christianity. otherwise i think it's at least a possibility that there is some underlying purpose/meaning to our existence, although i wouldn't bet much on it.



the thing is our social evolution has progressed to the point where there ARE adverse effects to society when murder happens. thus murder is morally (socially) wrong from any standpoint.

hmmm. i'll have to think about it for a bit before i try to reply... but by then yorke has probably posted...

Maybe, but we can't be sure. Yes, in the future humans may come to the universal conclusion that life itself is meaningless and take part in some sort of mass suicide. But I content that no matter how much humans realize and come to grips with the fact that consciousness is merely an illusion, if they are still indeed conscious, they will still be a part of that illusion. Our machine brains realize that they are nothing more than machines, but they still possess the ability to think and (presumably) to feel, so at least some part of them is permanently attached to the illusion and therefore it still provides some meaning to them on some level.



So, I didn't really claim to have created complete and self consistent philosophy. To fill in the gaps, I will refer to my favorite philosopher.

Kant argued that the only self consistent and a priori morality would be one derived from what he called the categorical imperative. This is just a form of the "Golden Rule," meaning that we should act as if our actions would be applied universally.

Of course you could argue, "who cares about morality, I am the only one I care about, and I only know and care of my own consciousness."

I guess I can't really argue against that without evoking societal considerations (which I think you were trying to avoid by indicating that you were only discussing my first statement, right?). And, now that I think about it, Kant's categorical imperative is just that: a societal consideration. So, no, there is no way for me to argue that murder is bad if we have no consideration for others.

If you don't intrinsically believe in any morality, then I can't convince you of it. I would conjecture that Kant's arguments about the categorical imperative only apply if we first assume that there exist an a priori morality (or maybe even one that is driven from societal concerns).

But thankfully humans have enough intrinsic drive to be good to one another in general due to our evolutionarily past that we don't have to worry too much about a general feeling of apathy toward our neighbors.

Don't worry, fellas, I am not looking to off anyone here. You are all safe.

Except for you.

You can kill me. I won't care since consciousness is just an illusion.

Lois,

Why do you think an atheists view on life is one of utter meaninglessness? Just because there is no afterlife, does not mean a life has no meaning.

Your thoughts on morals being an illusion of society (given life has no meaning) has been played out in a dozen movies. However, I think that you're neglecting the one overriding feature of evolution, that is, the continuation of a species. In the end, greed, murder, vengeance, etc, goes agianst the greater good of the species, which is not what we are designed for. That's why the meaning we give life is common theme throughout various cultures and civilizations. It's part of what helped us get where we are today. It also runs very close to the basic morals the church teaches.



Good question. Actually, leave out the no afterlife part, and just ask what happens to us when we die. This is one I can answer 100% truthfully. Ready....

I don't know.

Whew. That feels good. Now, can you answer the same question with the same level of honesty?



Another interesting point. Yes, our physical selves obviously get recycled back into the universe - actually, our body recycles every one of its cells an average of 7 years while we are alive - but what happens to the concious part capable of thoughts, imagination, emotion, and everything else? Hmm....again, I don't know. It could be something grand, or it could be something dull.



Let me ask you this. What is a monkey's life for? Or your dog's? Or a cockroach? Or the dinosaurs? They are all living, but they don't get invited to hand out with the big man upstairs.

Again, there does not have to be an afterlife for your life to have meaning. Quite the opposite. If you knew this was a one time deal, wouldn't you spend more of your life living?

Also, just because I'm an atheisist, does not believe I don't believe in an afterlife. Something wonderful may happen to you when you die, I don't know. But I do know it is very unlikely that you live on clouds, with a old guy with a white beard, all your dead relatives (the ones that praised the bearded man anyway), in your human form, doing all the **** you loved on earth whenever you want.

you're not an atheist

Screech, what I am doing is looking at things from different angles and coming up with my own ideas if I were to actually buy into the angle that I was looking from.


You asked an interesting question- What is a monkeys life for? Well, looking form an atheist point of view it would not matter, or at least from my take on it- the only thing that would mattter is self preservation and of those I happened to care about or loved- which is even questionable, I have heard different atheists at times go so far to say that love itself is not even real, it is just chemistry manifested. I have seen a few of you mention the continuation of the species, yet this is never brought up when speaking of, say, abortion- I think we could all agree that thousands die per day and are barely even accounted for. My point is that my actions in the scheme of things mean nothing, they are barely a ripple UNLESS somehow these actions live on and I am held accountable for them through eternity.

Speaking of abortion- and I don't want to debate this but it's just something I read today that was interesting- not a whole lot of women abortionists, mostly men, like you pretty much can't find a woman doing these procedures. That made me think a little, and actually I was annoyed that I had never though to ask that question myself.

Back on track- it would seem by some of screech remarks that he isn't really an atheist. Woud that be a correct statement?

I guess my main point is that in a scientific materialistic worldview, although "intrinsic morality" is explainable via evolutionary arguments, they are impossible to justify via rational argument. The idea that there could be an "a priori morality" in such a worldview seems extremely difficult or impossible to argue for.

There are many individuals that have no qualms regarding murder and/or rape, torture etc For them, within a vacum, these acts are not immoral.

However we are social animals and as such have developed empathy, from which we derive our morals. This is consistent with other social animals who also have crime and punishment type behaviours.

Morals are a by-product of survival and when observed in a group are present when other 'needs' are satisified. Murder is a simple example. All social groups find it objectional yet all will quite happily kill when threatened. This is hardly unique to man

What I don't understand is why anyone would want to kill somebody else, regardless of consequence. I don't think someone needs to worry about burning in hell to keep them from killing another person. I think it is enough just to know that I value my life, and I wouldn't want anyone to kill me. Therefore it only seems natural that others would think the same or along similar lines.

Why would I be so selfish? Just because I don't believe in god?




Ann Coulter? Not to appear biased, but I can't imagine what would compel anybody to read a book by someone who is quite obviously filled with hate for so many people. She definately can't be described as a "compassionate" conservative.

I read alot of stuff- sometimes the message is decent regardless of the messanger. She makes some great points.