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This may be a bit of a tangent, but personally, I can't understand Dawkins' crusading attitude about religion. If I believed, as he does, that there is no God,

This may be a bit of a tangent, but personally, I can't understand Dawkins' crusading attitude about religion. If I believed, as he does, that there is no God, that all wonder and amazement and desire and love are merely chemical reactions, and that all consciousness will die with the universe, I wouldn't bother trying to convince others of it. "You should believe this because it eliminates all meaning and purpose in life." Hey, great sell! I think I'd just eat, drink, and be merry before I died. Who cares what others believe? If you're a Christian (as I am), you believe you've got good news to tell others. If you're an atheist, what's good about your news, and what difference does it make to tell anyone?

loumf 15y ago
Your good news is that atheists are going to burn in hell for eternity. My beliefs don't eliminate all meaning and purpose in my life -- that's just silly to think about atheists. I am trying to make a difference with my life, not because I expect some reward in the afterlife, but because of personal drive to make the world better. When I see a person suffering, I don't think, "It's ok, because when they die, God will take care of them" -- I think: "Holy shit, we need to do something about this right now!"
3pt14159 15y ago
Because Atheism is not a lack of ethics. My dad is an atheist and I'm a Christian but we're both concerned with the truth. Many atheists grew up in homes where the parents enforced a very strick household so they are trying to end what they see as a form of oppression. Either way, I wish these types of discussions would stay off HN.
MrScruff 15y ago
If you're a Christian (as I am), you believe you've got good news to tell others. If you're an atheist, what's good about your news, and what difference does it make to tell anyone? The reason you think that is because you're only capable of seeing the world from your own perspective (as with anyone). I'm not religious, and I've always found the universe a thing of great wonder. Nothing would interest me more than a better understanding of the nature of reality and conciousness. However, I find the answers given by religion unsatisfying and arbitrary - hardly good news. Also, it's very well established that the driving force behind wonder, amazement, desire, love and pain are merely chemical reactions. It's only the subjective experience of those sensations (conciousness itself) that is not well understood.
mattgreenrocks 15y ago
Atheism doesn't necessarily remove all meaning and purpose in life. It just removes any divine purpose(s) in the process of removing God. That said, I've never been impressed by reductionism. It seems presumptuous to assume you can use one form of intelligence (logic) to understand absolutely everything else about the world. You can describe the aesthetic sense via chemical reactions that take place in the brain, but that doesn't take you any closer in understanding it. In other words, we don't expect experts in processor microcode to tell us anything novel about functional programming, do we? Of course not: FP's concepts are implemented via the microcode, enabling FP to concern itself with much higher-level abstractions. And the things that FP 'thinks' about are quite different than that of a processor. The other thing that bugs me is often the new atheists are so angry on the Internet. Angry about how everyone won't change. Angry about how much religion has done. And it is justified anger, sometimes. But if we use their line of thinking, there's only one life to live -- why waste it in anger? Why try to convince everyone? You've already admitted they're all stupid, right? It seems like there's this reluctance to just let go of that which cannot be changed. I've been angry for a good deal of my life, and I'm just writing this as a cautionary note. Be very careful. Humans don't seem to tolerate anger for very long without side effects.
- Tichy 15y ago
  It would be a lot easier to tolerate the religious people if they kept their thoughts to themselves and would not try to exert their morals over other people...
- jorangreef 15y ago
  Re: "It just removes any divine purpose(s) in the process of removing God." And it removes any right on the part of the divine to reveal itself.
  - mattgreenrocks 15y ago
    Good insight. I've run afoul of this myself, and the only thing I have to blame is my own pride.
Tichy 15y ago
For me it is the other way round: belief in god would eliminate all meaning, wonder and purpose in life. After all with a god, everything would be arbitrary (whatever god wants). So what would be the point in doing anything, trying to understand anything? God could just change the thing I just understood in the next millisecond, and all my effort would have been wasted. Also, what would there be to wonder about, if the answer is always "god made it so"? And, presumably god would already understand the thing he created, so what would be the point in me trying to understand it - the puzzle would already be solved. It would merely be cruel of god to withhold the information from me. It's a bit like modern Hollywood movies: computer graphics have enabled arbitrary visual effects, so they have become boring to me (the effects, I mean). I almost never wonder "how did they do that". Also Dawkins wrote a lot about the issue you present, and he makes good points about the universe without a god being fascinating.
Udo 15y ago
Being an atheist is not about "good news", it's about reality - or more precisely, the perception thereof. I'd personally rather be right than tell others fictional good news. There is a stereotypical misunderstanding hiding in your assumptions about atheism and religion: > If I believed, as he does, that there is no God, that all wonder and amazement and desire and love are merely chemical reactions, and that all consciousness will die with the universe, I wouldn't bother trying to convince others of it. For many people who don't believe in deities, the contention that our existence is based on "mere" chemistry is not necessarily denigrating. On the contrary, the chemistry of life is awesome and beautiful. A mundane and scientifically valid model of how the world works is not automatically a nihilistic act of sacrilege against the universe. You see, for those people who don't believe, the attribution of everything meaningful to an external (fictional) entity with an oppressive agenda is just as bleak and meaningless as your perception of a life without god. > You should believe this because it eliminates all meaning and purpose in life. Now we have crossed into pure flamebaiting. Atheism makes no statement about the meaning and purpose of life. If you don't believe in god, you're an atheist. Atheism is not a philosophy, it's the absence of religion. As such, it can't and won't make statements to the effect you're describing. Also, the phrasing here is extraordinarily inflammatory in its nonsensical twistedness. I can't imagine anybody, whether theist nor atheist, saying this phrase. It's a total non-sequitur. Looking past the straw man into the underlying assumption here, I feel prompted to point out that atheism does not eliminate meaning. Atheists don't necessarily have any traits in common. Some may indeed struggle with depression and existential worries, but my perception is that most of them do not. You fail to understand that for (most?) Atheists the absence of a belief in gods is extremely liberating and it enhances the sense of wonder they feel towards the universe and their own existence. That doesn't mean most people drop the belief in gods just because it feels better, instead they become atheists because it wouldn't make sense for them any other way. Where they go from there is entirely up to them individually. Personally, I say this to you: whatever floats your boat is totally okay. Nobody should be telling you what to believe or what to not believe - and neither should you. I believe you inadvertently come across as hostile towards non-believers and that is also not good. How would you feel if I made the same untrue statements you made about atheism about your life choices? It doesn't solve anything.

loumf 15y ago

Your good news is that atheists are going to burn in hell for eternity. My beliefs don't eliminate all meaning and purpose in my life -- that's just silly to think about atheists. I am trying to make a difference with my life, not because I expect some reward in the afterlife, but because of personal drive to make the world better. When I see a person suffering, I don't think, "It's ok, because when they die, God will take care of them" -- I think: "Holy shit, we need to do something about this right now!"

3pt14159 15y ago

Because Atheism is not a lack of ethics. My dad is an atheist and I'm a Christian but we're both concerned with the truth. Many atheists grew up in homes where the parents enforced a very strick household so they are trying to end what they see as a form of oppression. Either way, I wish these types of discussions would stay off HN.

MrScruff 15y ago

If you're a Christian (as I am), you believe you've got good news to tell others. If you're an atheist, what's good about your news, and what difference does it make to tell anyone? The reason you think that is because you're only capable of seeing the world from your own perspective (as with anyone). I'm not religious, and I've always found the universe a thing of great wonder. Nothing would interest me more than a better understanding of the nature of reality and conciousness. However, I find the answers given by religion unsatisfying and arbitrary - hardly good news. Also, it's very well established that the driving force behind wonder, amazement, desire, love and pain are merely chemical reactions. It's only the subjective experience of those sensations (conciousness itself) that is not well understood.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago

Atheism doesn't necessarily remove all meaning and purpose in life. It just removes any divine purpose(s) in the process of removing God. That said, I've never been impressed by reductionism. It seems presumptuous to assume you can use one form of intelligence (logic) to understand absolutely everything else about the world. You can describe the aesthetic sense via chemical reactions that take place in the brain, but that doesn't take you any closer in understanding it. In other words, we don't expect experts in processor microcode to tell us anything novel about functional programming, do we? Of course not: FP's concepts are implemented via the microcode, enabling FP to concern itself with much higher-level abstractions. And the things that FP 'thinks' about are quite different than that of a processor. The other thing that bugs me is often the new atheists are so angry on the Internet. Angry about how everyone won't change. Angry about how much religion has done. And it is justified anger, sometimes. But if we use their line of thinking, there's only one life to live -- why waste it in anger? Why try to convince everyone? You've already admitted they're all stupid, right? It seems like there's this reluctance to just let go of that which cannot be changed. I've been angry for a good deal of my life, and I'm just writing this as a cautionary note. Be very careful. Humans don't seem to tolerate anger for very long without side effects.

Tichy 15y ago
It would be a lot easier to tolerate the religious people if they kept their thoughts to themselves and would not try to exert their morals over other people...
jorangreef 15y ago
Re: "It just removes any divine purpose(s) in the process of removing God." And it removes any right on the part of the divine to reveal itself.
- mattgreenrocks 15y ago
  Good insight. I've run afoul of this myself, and the only thing I have to blame is my own pride.

Tichy 15y ago

For me it is the other way round: belief in god would eliminate all meaning, wonder and purpose in life. After all with a god, everything would be arbitrary (whatever god wants). So what would be the point in doing anything, trying to understand anything? God could just change the thing I just understood in the next millisecond, and all my effort would have been wasted. Also, what would there be to wonder about, if the answer is always "god made it so"? And, presumably god would already understand the thing he created, so what would be the point in me trying to understand it - the puzzle would already be solved. It would merely be cruel of god to withhold the information from me. It's a bit like modern Hollywood movies: computer graphics have enabled arbitrary visual effects, so they have become boring to me (the effects, I mean). I almost never wonder "how did they do that". Also Dawkins wrote a lot about the issue you present, and he makes good points about the universe without a god being fascinating.

Udo 15y ago

Being an atheist is not about "good news", it's about reality - or more precisely, the perception thereof. I'd personally rather be right than tell others fictional good news. There is a stereotypical misunderstanding hiding in your assumptions about atheism and religion: > If I believed, as he does, that there is no God, that all wonder and amazement and desire and love are merely chemical reactions, and that all consciousness will die with the universe, I wouldn't bother trying to convince others of it. For many people who don't believe in deities, the contention that our existence is based on "mere" chemistry is not necessarily denigrating. On the contrary, the chemistry of life is awesome and beautiful. A mundane and scientifically valid model of how the world works is not automatically a nihilistic act of sacrilege against the universe. You see, for those people who don't believe, the attribution of everything meaningful to an external (fictional) entity with an oppressive agenda is just as bleak and meaningless as your perception of a life without god. > You should believe this because it eliminates all meaning and purpose in life. Now we have crossed into pure flamebaiting. Atheism makes no statement about the meaning and purpose of life. If you don't believe in god, you're an atheist. Atheism is not a philosophy, it's the absence of religion. As such, it can't and won't make statements to the effect you're describing. Also, the phrasing here is extraordinarily inflammatory in its nonsensical twistedness. I can't imagine anybody, whether theist nor atheist, saying this phrase. It's a total non-sequitur. Looking past the straw man into the underlying assumption here, I feel prompted to point out that atheism does not eliminate meaning. Atheists don't necessarily have any traits in common. Some may indeed struggle with depression and existential worries, but my perception is that most of them do not. You fail to understand that for (most?) Atheists the absence of a belief in gods is extremely liberating and it enhances the sense of wonder they feel towards the universe and their own existence. That doesn't mean most people drop the belief in gods just because it feels better, instead they become atheists because it wouldn't make sense for them any other way. Where they go from there is entirely up to them individually. Personally, I say this to you: whatever floats your boat is totally okay. Nobody should be telling you what to believe or what to not believe - and neither should you. I believe you inadvertently come across as hostile towards non-believers and that is also not good. How would you feel if I made the same untrue statements you made about atheism about your life choices? It doesn't solve anything.