Any fellow apostates reach that point where they're tired of arguing over religion? Nothing annoys me more than seeing a wall of text that's some Christfag's respin on arguments from subjective experience, argument from design, prime mover, Pascal's wager, or by Jove hopefully not the moral argument.
These days I spend more time thinking about values I should have given that I consider my godless model of the world accurate. So let's talk that: Do you feel you have a solid foundation of ethics and meaning, user? Have any philosophers or works of literature become essential to who you are? Or did you fall into nihilism?
Why would I not "fall into nihilism"? I look at this world and all I see is bullshit. All value, all sense of morality, all imperative is either just opinion or instinct.
David Taylor
>tired of arguing with religion >only ever argues with christfags There's your problem. Arguing with buddhists for example is a hoot. Anyway there is no solid foundation for ethics and meaning which is why religion exists in the first place.
Owen Lee
See, what stops the nihilism for me is the realization that even if a god existed, that wouldn't change anything. If human opinion on right and wrong don't matter, then a god's shouldn't either. But people seem to want an all-powerful being who makes sure everything will be alright. It's like we never truly grow out of wanting a father figure. But for that reason, we should proudly grow up and become masters of our own destiny. Why beg for a coloring book when you already have a canvas? Never found an argumentative Buddhist it seems, sadly. Reincarnation sounds dumb though, and it wouldn't even be comforting if it were true. >be a prince in my last life >dont remember shit about it So the prince is basically dead.
Luis Ward
>Do you feel you have a solid foundation of ethics and meaning, user? No but I'd only think I needed that if I had some reserved feelings about morality. I don't intionally hurt people like a sadistic fucktard for no reason, if that's the basic sum of the question. I like to see people do well because it seems to have a butterfly effect of some kind.
Jaxon Richardson
I had some strong feelings I was a tiger for a while because of a very vivid first person dream, like I was warging into one. It's highly unlikely but it would be cool.
Easton Ross
>Do you feel you have a solid foundation of ethics and meaning, user? Don't do bad thing to other people because they will experience pain and pain is bad. Seeing someone else in pain causes me pain. Live life doing thing you enjoy without causing pain to others. Is that concrete enough for you? Sorry I not Mr Smartie like you.
I guess the main difference is you have to take the initiative when it comes to buddhists. They're slippery snakes that get their converts with a thousand cuts instead of kicking down the door and demanding that you accept Christ this very moment. Don't be fooled though they are trying to convert people and successful at it too. Buddhism is just as much proselytizing as Christianity and they do get spiritual gbp for converting people. You have to confront them directly whenever they start subtly pushing their bullshit. On the bright side though they try so hard to give buddhism a nice image that simply openly stating that you have a distaste for buddhism is enough to get them rustled, a lot of their power comes from the general assumption that people see it favourably.
Angel Gutierrez
I can accept the belief in a god or creator since we dont actually have an answer and the best we have is pondering about the probability
I cannot accept the belief in any specifc god or creator, it seems incredibily stupid to me that anyone would think >yeah all other religions are wrong, but my one is right because I grew up with it.
Michael Price
>basically the none agression principle thats the best foundation for morality user glad even someone who considers himself dumb can realise this.
Elijah Harris
are we talking about Indian Buddhists or Tibetan/Shinto Buddhists that basically just worship nature and eat barely any food?
Zachary Wilson
>Do you feel you have a solid foundation of ethics and meaning, user? For ethics, not really. I think that morals and ethics don't exist and for them to exist, one needs to believe in the supernatural. For meaning, only kinda. I just try to do what feels and sounds good.
Logan Cook
>I think that morals and ethics don't exist and for them to exist, one needs to believe in the supernatural. >morals dont exist subjective morality absolutely exists, and can exist without any objective morality
Nathan Long
Sounds about right. I tend to be reactive. Won't look for dumb shit, I'll just wait for it to be presented to be. But in my experience, buddhists seem rather smug that we're finding benefits to meditation. However I've seen that be used as a gateway to >btw let me teach you about buddha's path to enlightenment (not so bad, but I'm wary of dogma) >btw if you get good enough at this you can get superpowers >btw you're actually experiencing a deeper spiritual reality when you meditate Hopefully over time we can figure out all the unnecessary fat and cut it off for clean secular use soon. NAP sounds good in theory to me until it's used to justify ancap. Violence over resources is inherent to humans, so ancap is about as realistic a utopia as communism (until the machines take over.)
Kevin Ramirez
Give a definition of morality and explain how it differs from emotions/feelings. Also explain what is the source for it. I'm not that much against the idea of subjective morality, but I think it's redundant to use the word "morality" in this case. Semantics, I know.
Dominic Long
I guess I'm a deist. The Abrahamic God is an absolute ass, and the many gods of the other religions seem too human to be actually true. But my brain cannot absolutely think of a way for the universe to exist otherwise. Well, I'm no different from an atheist practically anyway. I believe that there are two good goals in life: to be happy or to stop suffering while not causing other people harm. I suppose the first one is achievable by doing creative shit like art, writing, even something humble like carpentry. Seems like many jobs today lack the meaningful connection to fruits of labor that makes those jobs satisfying. The second point is achievable by adopting somewhat of a Buddhist lifestyle, simplifying, living in the woods, etc., albeit, rejecting the supernatural shit. Meditating and mindfulness can help with the seeming nonmeaningfulness of existence.
Nolan Anderson
Theological non-cognitivist, closest thing is basically an ignostic, not an agnostic, an ignostic.
Jacob Moore
>principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour. You can have your own subjective principles about what you consider right and wrong and why, it may be based off emotion or it could be based soley on self interest
for example a sociopath who cares not for empathy may see the none agression principle as beneficial to his self interest, he doesnt want others to steal from him so he doesnt steal from others, now this hypothetical person isnt empathising he just see's that if everyone follows the none agression principle that it benefits him. Which would be an example of a moral set being figured out without emotion.
alterantively someone else could base all their morals on emotion.
but just because morality is subjective doesnt mean that it doesnt exist
Jace Rodriguez
I am an atheist from Europe. I acknowledge cooperative evolutionary benefits religion provides to normies though.
As for ethics - some approximation of negative utilitarianism would be enough to have a nice life.
Ayden Martin
... also the fact that morality is subjective does not mean that there is no common genetic/biological basis of moral behavior that is shared among the majority of the population.
Owen Kelly
If you've brought into the meditation meme you're already under buddhist influence. Adding any voodoo to your thinking doesn't make it better. Obviously it's good to relax and think deeply but don't muddle your thinking with "spiritual enlightenment". I avoid using the M word completely because it's got so much baggage.
Ian Wright
I've been extremely selfish and completely egoist, so for me ethics and whatnot never mattered. Only a very special individual would earn an ethical, and equal, treatment from me. They would have to be someone whom I considered to be so close that our ego was one. As for atheism? I'm technically more of an agnostic in that I acknowledge the possibility that, well, anything could have happened, but realistically and based on what I know, it doesn't seem likely anything but the natural settling of the universe created humanity. It's kind of weird how much people see our existence in a backwards light, as if this world was created for us and not that we adapted and grew to suit this world.
Jackson Jones
All sorts of buddhists. One of my main gripes with buddhism is that it's like a parasite that slowly consumes and subverts other cultures, and then uses said cultures as a shield to protect buddhism from criticism. "well that nonsense is because of shintoism/shamanism/hindusism/ect, real buddhism doesn't xxx"
Nathaniel Martinez
OP, one apostate to another, why should anyone try to be a good person? You could argue that it will make your life better because you will like yourself more. But then you violate the most important element of goodness, that you act without bias in your own favor.
Ian Price
I don't think it could have an affect on me either way, I most definitely have ADHD or something so I couldn't meditate if I wanted to.
Angel Nguyen
If you think buddhists are somehow clearing their mind when they're meditating then you've been memed on. They're normally thinking about a corpse or something dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=40_meditation_subjects
Carter Cooper
Where are you getting this rule of goodness from?
Colton Richardson
Not him. But defining morality is difficult, especially if your standards are that the definition is exhaustive and is derived from what the term is commonly understood to mean, since it's subject to so much disagreement. Loosely speaking, it's a code of conduct that is concerned with behavior toward others. There are systems of morality that don't just reduce to your personal feelings, though. A utilitarian would recognize the death of a family member to be as morally significant as the death of a stranger in another country, despite the fact that the latter would have almost certainly no effect on him emotionally. This. Our ethical sense comes from a stable game theoretic equilibrium our genes played for survival. When you have in-group preferences (empathy) and out-group bias, you get all the benefits of cooperation while staving off all the detriments of being a push over one greedy malicious fucker could take advantage of. But the upside is that we're now aware of our in-group bias, so we can see when we're being hypocrites for no good reason. I'm aware that meditation isn't what they're touting it to be. There are studies that confirm stress management aspects, but there's no evidence it'll help you with depression for example. And again, they muddle it with bullshit, so I'd like to see the claims systematically broken down since they're using something that has legitimate benefits as a gateway.
Nathan Evans
I got it from C.S. Lewis.
Evan Robinson
Meitation as a concept is bullshit. It's like the people saying they got huge revalations from taking weed, when you ask them what these revalations were they always draw a blank. Truth comes from outside not within. The stress management is just a side effect of taking a moment to relax, and obviously the sort of person that can afford to take the time to meditate is going to be less stressed. Thinking is for analizing infomation not generating it.
Gabriel Kelly
Pretty much what I expected. The problem we have as atheists is that we've taken much of our values and morals from christians. You've got to remember not everyone shares these values. As they say, Atheists are the best Christians because they actually take Christian thought to its logical conclusion.
Cooper Roberts
It feels better to behave in accordance with your conscience. I mean, maybe not to an absolute, but there seems to be something in me that says I should behave in certain ways and causes guilt when I don't. Similarly when I'm stagnating something akin happens. Start to feel like I should be reaching my potential. I think that's where a lot of our sense of dissatisfaction comes from on this board, despite living in a world where you can watch or listen to anything for free.
Mason Davis
I guess I would be consider a nihilist but I just think I'm stupid and lazy, I can't be fucked to care about anything.
Evan Diaz
imo I'm ignostic but I am a better christian than the ones trying to disillusion vulnerable people in rehabs with my own stupid cope. but, I am also still an alcoholic, so I am biased.
David Flores
What's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic in your mind?
Dominic Rogers
oops nvmind, just googled ignosticism, brb
Wyatt Anderson
Ignosticism sounds stupid to me. I'm pretty sure most people have a prtty clear idea on what God is and saying otherwise would be dishonest
Blake Hall
>Ignosticism sounds stupid to me. You think it's stupid that the human brain can't comprehend the full complexity of the so-called omnipotent being that created us, despite there being actual references in the Bible about how human beings can't hear the true voice of God. But dude schizophrenic people are totally fine bro lol the voices are real.
Carson Perry
I literally never argue with atheists as a Christian. They obviously are retards and way to contrarian.
Though if I sometimes see and atheist-cuck ready to tip his fedora to spread his wokeness why not troll him a bit?
Like it's funny how agressively some atheists push for a debate. It's also funny how they only oppose christianity, but not any other religion. Also funny how most are SJW's ala Atheism+.
Atheists are fucking pathetic and worthy of being made fun of.
Lots of not real things can't be comprehended. I'm not ignostic about any of lovecraft's horrors even though I can't comprehend them, I know they are fake. >But dude schizophrenic people are totally fine bro lol the voices are real. What did you mean by this?
Ryder Stewart
The assumption baked in here is that there's an omnipotent being that created us, almost as if the term was coined by a rabbi or something
Grayson Garcia
My dad is a bishop. Me and my whole family have read the bible. And not church-tier bible reading. I mean we've actually read it beginning to end when I was 12 or 13.
I won't discuss why I don't believe in god because I've had the exact same discussion with """christian"""s so many times now (ending in "well god is different for everybody" not realizing why that ruins the credibility of its existence) it busts the character limit every time.
But ethics and morals is entirely separate from god, even to religious people. If you believe in a god to keep you from raping/killing/stealing, you do not own any morals, and only few extremists are like this. The majority of people are not strong in their faith, their morals are basic and genuine.
Nihilism is for the truly ignorant. On my tier list its Atheism=agnostic>deists>theists/religion>nihilists
Its the first stage after questioning the existence of a god. They begin to understand how awfully convenient it is for us to live in an afterlife full of eternal happiness, but simply because that might not be true they feel meaningless. Nihilists don't understand any sort of perspective or how meaning works. Meaning to what? Yourself? Your family? Your country? The world? Making more than a spec in a seemingly infinite universe? "The meaning of life is a life of meaning". Life is usefull or useless to who? What would it take for you to consider it useful? I hate nihilists. They are a degenerate and devolved, thoughtless, pitifull form of an athiest.
Even if this is bait, its because Christianity is the most loosely followed religion by the common, it gets torn apart so easily because 9 out of 10 people in a christian church cant even name each book of the bible, it has the most denominations and they don't care because "god is different for everyone :^)". Sjws also drink water, you're not a filthy sjw are you?
Levi Stewart
Why is raping killing and stealing wrong though?
Cooper Brooks
>Lots of not real things can't be comprehended Look at what the fuck I am dealing with. You can't even see every color in the spectrum, nigga, how are you going to tell me you can define what "god" is? This. If you are unironically following abrahamic faith in the current year you're a complete shit for brains nothing person.
>You can't even see every color in the spectrum, nigga, how are you going to tell me you can define what "table" is? please don't say you actually think like this. I don't see how you can be ignostic about god without also being ignostic about tables.
Nicholas Sanchez
Morality is treating others the way you want to be treated
Ian Williams
What if I'm a masochist? This post is now original.
Luis Brown
No it isn't. How do you use the golden rule to solve the trolley problem? >I wouldn't want to be run over by a trolley well isn't that just lovely
I don't bother debating with anyone about it, never really have actually because I think a debate between an Atheist and Theist is one hell of a fruitless endeavour, who really goes into it and thinks they're going to change the mind of the other? For me, religion and the existence of gods is just something that fundamentally disagrees with me, unless a god appeared, stared me in the face and said "hello" there is literally no way I can take it seriously.
As for philosophy, stoicism was always something I could relate to after I discovered it, it's like it was created just for me.
>I like mint choclates >my friend likes orange chocolates >therefore I should give my friend mint chocolates uhhh
Matthew Watson
If all humans agreed that they disliked certain things happening to them, and mutually we all choose not to do them for our own safety, how is that not a reason?
What?
David Hernandez
All humans have not agreed that though, or else there would be no murder theft or rape in the world. Even so, if all humans agreed something it wouldn't make it true.
Matthew Reyes
>what just applying the golden rule to my distribution of chocolates
Easton Brown
Kek, I know what you're talking about. I've heard meditators talk about their "deep" insights before. Still, if we can prove that there's no significant difference in outcomes between people who undergo 30 minutes of some form of alternative relaxation a day and someone who meditates 30 minutes a day (for example) then I'll be satisfied that you're right. But my main point was still in agreement with you. Buddhists use something with secular benefit as a gateway for dumb shit.
Christopher Long
yeah but so long as you don't forget meditation is as secular as praying
Chase Barnes
Depends on what you're actually doing. If by meditation, all we mean is that you're focusing on your breath while trying to not get distracted, then no, that's not even remotely as stupid as prayer. And that's the sort of context of practice these things get studied under.
Isaiah Ramirez
True, but to not feel pain is something we all desire, those with morals don't inflict pain on others because they know they will feel it as we would.
A better use of the golden rule would be to give him his preferred choice of chocolate, that way you would be treated with your preferred chocolate.
Dominic Mitchell
By praying I just meant putting your hands together, closing your eyes and trying to find the answers to your questions by asking for them. Honestly I'd be interested in how praying for 30 minutes a day compares to meditating for 30 minutes a day for the health benefits.
Zachary Bailey
>he doesn't know about psycho-electric physics and parahuman existence
that's adding stipulations to the golden rule though. Strictly following doing as I would like to be done by, I would not like to be given an orange chocolate, therefore it would be immoral to give my friend an orange chocolate. I'm aware of how stupid this sounds but I'm just trying to demonstrate that it's an ambiguos concept and that you need other moral structures in place for the golden rule to have any meaning.
Levi Cook
>someone that kills and steals to protect his family doesn't have morals >someone that would rape but not kill doesn't have morals I don't think so. In some cultures it's not immoral to rape your wife for example. You just have christian morals because you were brought up by a christian.
Cameron Rogers
Fine user, consider me thoroughly trounced. I can tell this is a hill you're ready to die on until I take your exact stance.
Logan Barnes
You're welcome. I hope you'll remember this next time you reccomend cross legged prayer
David Garcia
I found both of those statements to be true.
In some cultures it is not seen as immoral to rape, but rape is immoral.
Liam Bennett
how can that be so when your entire basis for what is moral is what other people think is moral?
Noah Lopez
The basis for what is morale is what people desire as humans, not their cultural beliefs. No human enjoys or desires pain
Jace Collins
>why should the person who created everything be able to decide how the world should work
no god has ever shown himself to me so he doesn't exist
books from middle eastern farmers full of inconsistency isn't proof.
Oliver Martin
Nah, i love arguing with them, I know quite a lot about religion history (at least more than your average christ-cuck) and it's fun to just point out all the contradictions they believe. I never actually argue against the existence of god, what really pisses them off is when you say that they aren't actual christians, just tell how they completely misunderstood what christ said and how the church used this to control them. They always reply with the "muh interpretations" and make giant mind stretches to see what they want on the bible.
About my moral beliefs, everyone knows the "don't do bad things to other people", the problem is that it's impossible to not do bad things at all, so you should think about what your priorities are, I always put myself first, then family, nature and order but this is all very subjective and I try to think about each situation separately instead of having an universal moral code.
