scumble

Becuase I'm tired of David's inability to understand what being an atheist actually means, I suggest another discussion where the atheists here can talk about their worldviews.
We establish at first that atheism really only indicates a non-belief in a God of any description. An atheist does not, by their personal experience and learning, find themselves believing in a deity, Christian or otherwise. This (and this is my current guess) most likely comes from admitting the limits of knowledge.

Anyway, my particular worldview is far from clear to myself, even. I do not consider this to be a failing on my part, or a problem with being an atheist.

I can't see any absolute purpose to the universe, or life. Life seems to be quite a mystery to me, even though we have some good guesses as to where it came from. It indicates that life is a kind of amazing improbable event, and we don't really understand evolution that well (those who are willing to admit organisms have changed in the last few billion years).

It seems to me that humans have inherent tendencies to respect and love each other under many circumstances, although much gets in the way in a lot of cases. If we didn't have something, no-one would really find the time to co-operate and group up, stay committed to survival together. Humans would all have died, or not been very successful. We'd be useless, say, against a pack of wolves. In our current rarefied societies we forget that other animals can be a threat.
Humans trust each other implicitly on so many levels in our current life, even if we can fight over parking spaces and other trivial stuff.

There is a problem with people having a kind of "purpose crisis", but most still find purpose in other humans, directly or indirectly.

On the other hand, I can't deny my individuality, or a certain amount self-centeredness. I can be selfless sometimes though, and often this can be of benefit, reflected in the way people treat you back and the way you feel about yourself.

There are always exceptions, thus I don't believe in a set of rigid rules to live by. Some people don't appreciate being treated nicely, and you have to point it out. Some people can try and hurt you, and you need to defend yourself, maybe do something you'd rather not do.

OK, I'm not trying to write an enormous essay here, just trying to get some discussion on worldviews of those who don't believe in a God who arbitrarily defines the rules. It's tedious to keep talking about the meaning of atheism again and again...

Jamie_L

Excellent choice of thread topic.

Like scumble, I'm still formulating the definition of my worldview, although I feel I have a fairly consistent philosophy that I understand intuitively even if I haven't completely figured out how to express it.

I tend to associate myself with most closely with naturalism and materialism (see associated sections in the II library). I came to this conclusion not by considering those worldviews and then accepting them, but rather by coming to my own conclusions, and then comparing them with those philosophies. My views seem to match to those pretty well.

My favorite self-description is a hard-core skeptic, naturalist, materialist, atheist.

Jamie

sir drinks-a-lot

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly a worldview is!

world·view Pronunciation Key (wûrldvy)
n. In both senses also called Weltanschauung.
The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.


I guess they are mostly looking for answers to questions like: Is there a god or gods? Where did the universe come from? and so on. To questions like that, I just say "I don't know."

But I don't think that anyone knows.

Mageth

I'd go along with Jamie_L's "favorite description."

I would also add a touch of secular humanism to that.

As far as life, I'm of the leaning that, instead of being highly improbable, laws of self-organization and complexity, as expressed by Stuart Kaufman, for example, may make the origin and existence of life in our universe highly probable, perhaps even inevitable given the proper conditions.

<a href="http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho32.htm" target="_blank">At Home in the Universe</a> by Stuart Kaufman

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

acronos

I am still learning, and so my worldview is evolving. My beliefs changed from Christianity about a year ago. When things started to settle from the upheaval of a belief system change, I found that my beliefs most closely matched those who called themselves “atheists.” I was very shocked by this discovery, but I shouldn't have been. This made sense when I examined the word a-theist "without belief in God." Since I actively disagree with Christianity, and no other religion appeals to me, I would call myself a strong rather than weak atheist. If you want to consider science a religion, then I guess that would be me. I didn't choose atheism; I was chosen by the random noise that makes up reality.

My morals did not change very much with my change of belief. I do not think that morals only come from God. Notice that this makes sense, since I don't believe in God, and I think I have good morals. I have no idea where my morals actually come from; I just know I have them. I would guess that culture and genetics are the major players in their creation.

I look at the world in a problem-solving way. Anything that exists in the universe is automatically "natural" to me. "Natural" does not equate to "good." It was "natural" that all the dinosaurs were wiped out, but I don't think it would be "good" if it happened to us. My worldview is basically an attempt to understand what is "natural." If something exists but is outside of what I can sense or know, then from my perspective, it is just as if it didn't exist. Until it is revealed to me in a way I can detect or accept, I don't believe in it.

I don't believe in souls (in the metaphysical sense), ghosts, ESP, God, Satan, unicorns, or a “universal good.”

I believe in hallucinations, both the conscious and the unconscious mind, what I can see touch and feel, evolution, what other people tell me that I trust and that fits with my current worldview, truth (an accurate reflection of reality), love, hope, that I exist, and good and evil (from a human perspective).

Kharakov

I believe in trying to understand and enjoy all worldviews, in the sense they all have a certain artistic merit.

I am mentally agile enough that I can learn to enjoy conversation with a xian (or some other religionist/fundie) about their beliefs and still enjoy the freedom of agnostic thought.

I believe that I am free in my admitted lack of knowledge, and that anyone who shackles themselves with a belief system (theist or atheist) is a fool who refuses to enjoy the full variety of experience offered by nature. I also believe that not indulging in belief systems can limit your ability to experience different views of nature as well. (you need to be able to enjoy the world from many different views, don't be a nimwit and stick to one (be shackled by one))

-k

philechat

I am an atheist by action, though I do not shun artistic activities associated with religion (read religious texts, play religious classical music, etc). Worldview-wise I do not believe in absolute knowledge, and I am constantly plagued with the "what-ifs" my mind raised.

If the Biblegod really exists I would most likely reject him out of aesthetic disgust. In my opinion freedom of thought and art are the most essential ingredients of life.

I think diversity is good for its own sake, and I hate authoritarianism and conformity of any kind. I am a moral subjectivist; in my opinion, morality is dependent upon an individual's character and experience. "Cultural identity" is meaningless--people are exercising "bad faith" if they insisted on the superiority of following cultural mores and conventions.

I believe aesthetics to be more important than ethics, and that imaginative activities (including mythmaking) are essential to human life. I do not believe in any one metaphysical system that could incorperate all human experiences.

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Philosoft

I'll go along with those who say it's worthwhile to admit that one's knowledge about the nature of existence is woefully incomplete. However, religion has rarely seemed to me like an intellectually honest attempt to answer existential questions. I suppose it's for that reason that I approach the study of religion from a largely psychological standpoint.

Personally, I think it's exceedingly silly to seriously discuss the possibility that there are causes and purposes that are by definition outside the purview of humanity.

Bill

Like <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/e_haldeman-julius/index.shtml" target="_blank">E. Haldeman-Julius</a>, I am a militant agnostic. The credo of the militant agnostic is I DON'T KNOW, AND YOU DON'T EITHER! That credo applies to virtually all assertions of absolute knowledge, of a god or anything else alleged to be the source of all that exists.

As far as my worldview go, I am (in accordance with the accepted worldview of the Internet Infidels) a metaphysical naturalist. The metaphysical naturalist equates all that exists with the natural world, excluding all things that are in any way "supernatural" (beyond the natural world) from actual existence. In other words, if any god does really exist, that god is just some sort of a powerful alien. Even the "creator" of our "Big Bang" universe could still fit that definition, as <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/crsc.html" target="_blank">I show here</a>.

As far as Christianity goes, I'm as hard-core of an atheist as anybody can be. Christianity has been demonstrated to be a false religion beyond any reasonable doubt, to my total satisfaction.

And as for "the meaning of life," or any "purpose" for our existence here as humans, I deny that any purpose exists outside of what mankind chooses for ourselves. And of course, all of mankind hasn't agreed on any such purpose for the entirety of recorded history. Before that would be pure speculation, of course. But from the perspective of humanity, only humans have intentionality in their actions, thus all intentional causes are of human origin, almost by definition.

That is pretty much the guts of my worldview.

== Bill

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Bill ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

Here goes.

I have been an atheist all of my life. Basically, if I can not grasp some way that some phenomena or entity works in terms of 6 elements and 4 forces, then it does not exist.

Gods, angels, ghosts, psychic phenomena, intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, all go away.

And I have my doubts about consciousness.

When I was 15 years old, sitting in an economics class, I reflected on my mortality and thought that the one thing I would most like to do in the time I have on this planet would make the world a better place. But, then, what counts as a "better place?" 18 years later I left graduate school with a pretty clear idea.

The only values that are real -- that are relevant to real-world decision making -- describe relationships between states of affairs in the world and desires. Without desires, there is no value. But, since desires are real, and states of affairs in the world that relate to those desires are real, values are real.

And a "better world" is that world which fulfills the most and the strongest desires.

So now I know what to aim for as I try to make the world a better place.