WJ

Hans!

Good post, and I hope David responds. You said:

"First I'll address purpose. Intent and desire are the product of will. If the origin of life has no will of its own then life has no purpose. Even if one found a will in the origin of life it would not guarantee that life has any intended or desired effect as there may have been know desired or intended effect. For instance, For all we know life could have been an accident or unintended side effect of some other process. Regardless, one would need to establish what the origin of life is in order to deduce whether a purpose exists or not... . The meaning, or importance and value, of life and the individual self on a universal scale is seemingly non existent. That is, the universe would seem to exist with or without either."

1. I think one would have to create a human being in order to answer the question 'conclusively'.

2. If, as you say, the wills product's are intent and desire, and the meaning of life is seemingly non existent, then how can you conclude that the discovery of the origns of the will would not solve meaningless existence? Something that possesses a will, say a divine will as it relates to cosmology and metaphysics which in turn all relate to purpose, by its extrapolated definition (from what we know of our will) would, in theory, disclose purpose to us. It would because consciousness would be explained.

This is more or less the basic thrust behind the term cosmological *mystery* (theory of consciousness and will) aside from the ultimate discovery of whether our understanding of 'rational' existence is 'absolute' and 'true'. No?


Jaymama

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

WJ

Hi John!

"Atheism for god! John"

I thought God didn't believe in atheism? Besides, God's tool is bigger than your tool. I know, I've seen his tool and it's quite large...pretty damn big!

So much for your convoluted rationalism

John Page

You misunderstand, not "Atheism for god" but "Atheism for god".

My convoluted rationalism, you say? Must be my complex brain......

Theism for nogod! John

Hans

I'm unsure if you're mixing up purpose and meaning. David Mathews did not use them in a sence where they are synonymous. He wrote: "Purpose and meaning." Not purpose or meaning.

In answer to your question as it is written, I suppose that one can at least imagine a scenario where life and its origin are dependent on each other. For instance, a person may make a coat to protect himself from the cold. In this scenario, without the person there would be no coat and without the coat there would be no person. In the example above one would simply need to interchange the word person with 'the origin of life' and the word coat with 'life'.

But again, I will emphasize that the origin of life is unknown. A fact that I feel is critical to the rationality of my point of view.

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Hans ]</p>

Graeme

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Automaton

Do not feed the troll, or he will just continue to post insulting, willfully uninformed attacks on atheism and then refuse to actually respond to any of the criticisms.

Soul Invictus

Hello All,

I have watched this board for a while, thanks to a member at a discussion board on google. This is my first post, but to David you propose some interesting questions of proof for a worldview by atheists. I cannot claim as a devout atheist..yet. I have been raised in a Christian household, but over the years I've tried to put the pieces together for myself. I cannot see how atheism is qualified to explain one's philosophical beliefs on life and purpose. Atheism is a disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods...nothing more, nothing less. How atheists feel about life or purpose can differ, because these would require the person to explain what that person believes about that particular concept. Put simply, atheists can differ on opinion about life,love, purpose because these topics along with many others are not predicated on a belief in God.

(I hope I represented myself fairly well on my first post)

P.S. I enjoy the intelligent discussion forum this site has. This is one of the better forums I've come across compared to many newsgroups and BB's

AtlanticCitySlave

As already pointed out, it is rather nonsensical to ask for an atheistic worldview. What would be more proper is to ask atheists, assuming they have one, what their worldview is. There are atheists that don't have any overall worldview. As an atheist, my worldview, if you will, is a form of naturalism. I am not sure what camp I fall into exactly at this point, although a physicalist one is currently my cup of tea. This is a reasonable view because, so far, naturalism and physicalism (especially in the philosophy of mind) have take the cake, and I feel these views are the most rational to take.
WJ's constant contention that we cannot explain our own existence is unfounded, as I have pointed out in other threads (we can easily explain our existence as the result of physical, biological processes). WJ seems to take an existential position with his use of "Being" often, but I simply view that as question begging. I see no reason to assume we have a "Being", or "essence", or what not.
Atheists have many different worldviews, if they have any, but I think, overall, the majority of us would fall into a naturalistic camp.

In addition, you (David) continually ignore answers to your questions, either responding to something else or just starting a new thread. People have been telling you since you started posting on these boards that atheism is not a worldview, yet you still act like it is. Why do you not read and remember what the people on this board write to you? It's only making you look idiotic or intellectually dishonest when you repeatedly ignore what other people say. At least to me, it's really getting annoying. If you're going to ask questions, have the proper courtesy to actually read what is written to you and remember the responses.

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: AtlanticCitySlave ]</p>

sir drinks-a-lot

I am not sure what you are looking for here. First of all, most atheists will not state that God does not exist. Instead they just do not make the statement that God does exist.

As far as my worldview, it is probably not complete in the sense of explaining everything in the universe. Alot of theists like to proclaim that their worldviews are complete and consistent, which often leaves me asking 'Who cares?' Complete and consistent worldviews are trivial. I can come up with hundreds!

On the other hand if you can show that a specific worldview held by atheists is inconsistent, then you will be acomplishing something.

David Mathews

Hello Helen,

David: For people who merit annoyance that philosophy is most legitimate.

Love,

David Mathews