kctan

How come nobody is asking how sure are you that the stupid creator created you with a purpose in mind ?

The creator could have created you as an after thought leaving you nothing more then an effect. The creator don't value you nor care about a purpose for you. The creator leave you to believe whatever you like.

With the above, either there's a purpose or not will not determine if there exist a creator or not. Both are mutually exclusive.

post-it

First you must define purpose. Then you must prove that humans have a purpose beyond that which is self-imposed. Then you can argue that this absolute purpose was given to mankind by a creator god.


Purpose: a reason for man’s existence that is greater than just the fact of his existence. The actual Purpose may not and is most likely not known to man. But that is not relative to the argument.

Self-imposed purpose is nothing more than values created by the object (man). Thus, this self-imposed purpose is not a fact but a belief since only a creator is capable of instilling purpose in its creation.

Here is an example:
I created a computer program that could reason (limited) using AI, but not to the degree that it could figure out the fact that I created it to find a cure to cancer which plagues mankind. In fact, I have not even placed into the program any information about the existence of cancer, rather just the programming that allows it to reason in general. It can reason that it has a purpose because it can itself use the programming to accomplish certain information. It can even reason that it has a purpose and attempt to guess what that purpose may be. Yet it can’t discover it’s purpose or even if it has a purpose beyond it’s current existence. That purpose is only known to me, its creator.

This is why I’m claiming that it is not a requirement that we must know what our purpose is, but for some reason man generally believes he has a purpose greater than just his existence. The computer program must either reason it has a greater purpose or it has no purpose in which case it shouldn’t have a problem with it’s own death.

It can’t be wrong to destroy the computer or any man if we have no greater purpose than our own self-imposed purpose. Yet we have been programmed to “know” that murder is wrong, even without others “teaching” us it is wrong. We have brain-programming from birth to survive and prevent the death of others. We are generally brained-programmed from birth to sacrifice our own life if it prevents the death of others.

Philosoft

Is it your position that the mere belief that we have a purpose is enough to establish that we probably do have a purpose?

This fallaciously assumes there are no other acceptable definitions of "wrong."

Our programmed "knowledge" clearly does not consist solely of "murder is wrong." The set of "rules" about when it is OK to kill and when it is not is far more complex.

These simplistic assertions really don't invite debate. Surely you realize you are essentially mocking the complexity of human behavior?
This one is going to require some support. I doubt you are basing this assertion on any kind of real evidence.

99Percent

Hello post-it,

Purpose of our lives seems at first glance quite insignificant in view of the whole universe, but we must realize that the valuer of purpose comes from ourselves as individuals, not from some unseeable whole. Its easy then to see that our purpose is ourselves and the happiness that we can achieve by being us in our capacity as human beings which is what we really are.In fact I think its very important. How can we act if we don't even know what our purpose is? We are then subjected to a series of commandments (coming from the bible written by men) of which we still must interpret in our capacity as human beings, of which we still have no clear idea as to what our final absolute purpose is.There is in fact no self-imposed purpose when no creator is involved in beliefs. Our purpose in life as evidenced itself is our own lives and the happiness that we can achieve in this life, because death is final. Death is what forces us to a purpose in this life. Theism, by denying that death is final, OTOH does involve an imposed artificial purpose, a purpose outside of our lives and our capacity to understand it.And do you think that would be fair for this self reasoned computer program? How can that computer program ever be happy if it doesn't know what is his fulfilment of being?No. The life of another man, who can think, create and reason like me is of much more value for me and me only than that of a stone or any other animal. I would rather that others respect my life for what I might be able to offer them, to help them fulfill their own happiness, than because of some weird commandment from a book or fear of an imagined hell.

Shadowy Man

post-it:

You answered the first part of my post; i.e. you defined purpose. Now would you please address the second part: Prove that humans have an absolute purpose.

Family Man

Yet one more breath-taking unsupported assertion. I wonder how you consider sociopaths -- people who have no feelings for others -- which are AFAIK caused by being badly treated while young (i.e. they are not taught to emphasize with others).

I wish I knew more about human psychology, but I'm fairly certain that it would pretty much destroy post-it's argument.

post-it

That has been my point all along. The atheist has to prove that man has a purpose greater than just existing as part of chaos. If you can't prove that man has a greater purpose, then it can't be wrong to murder.

As a theist, I can assume (even if false) that man has a purpose as known by his creator, thus I can believe that it is wrong to murder etc. Right and Wrong exists.

You as an atheist can't assume right and wrong exists since humanity is on the same level of importance in the universe as rocks. It isn't wrong to crush rocks or murder and rape humans. Yes, it's against the law, it hurts, it's cruel, it's cold-blooded etc, but it is not in and of itself wrong. Man can assign the word wrong and a collective meaning to these horrible acts, but it is just a collective belief with no basis of fact. With out a creator, life means nothing in the grand scheme of the universe.

Theli

Once again you completely ignore providing any sorts of explainations to why value must have purpose, and purpose can only come from creation. And what excacly is greater purpose, and why should we (the small people living on our small planet) even care about that?
From our little corner of the galaxy we cannot change the fate of the universe, so why would we have purpose to it? If that is what you mean by "greater purpose".
What purpose, you parrot?
And where is this intergalactic right and wrong that you tend to look for? From my experience, we humans create our own rights and wrongs to better our society. Nothing universal there...
If you would like to be best friend with a peice of rock, then you could conclude that destroying it would be considered wrong.

I'm constantly amazed over how some christians can take their own ideals and blow them completely out of porportion, saying that they are the set standards of the universe. But even the church changes it's "absolute" standards now and then.
Yes, ofcourse. So is the theist's morality. You cannot see big signs saying "RIGHT" and "WRONG" on every act you are about to take.

<<IMPORTANT>>
If you can show me how an act is objectivly wrong, that is, without someone or something telling you it is wrong, but just out of your own observations I would gladly see it.

But you can't.

post-it

You just agreed with the point of my argument here. You are saying that Murder and rape is not objectivly wrong. This means when you see a child murdered by a cold blooded killer etc., it may be against the law, but is not objectivly wrong since we are just effects of the universe and have no greater purpose than existing for a while then dying. And you are right, this point of view must be the case with atheists. The only wrong you can see is that it violates your wishes, desires, laws etc as a collective, but it is still not a true and objective wrong, since objective right and wrong can't exist in the world of an atheist.

Shadowy Man

So, how do you know that murder is wrong?