What is an atheist/materialist alternative to or critique of existentialism?

Ah, the problem of people who think they're philosophers or theologians. They only have two positions to meeting someone who doesn't care about pretending to have figured out existence: "Everything is God/philosophy, so you are just like me but inferior!" and "Nothing else is worth thinking about but God/philosophy, so you must not really think like me!" Sad. Everyone is apparently either too dumb to realize everything is God, or that everything is philosophy, because their silly definitions make that claim.

What is life's "own terms" though?

Your "no true Scotsman" expanded definition of religion is bullshit. Of course I was raised in society. I was raised without any belief in a supernatural force or entity that required worship. And my life is lots of fun: the more so because I'm not concerned with winning Brownie points for an afterlife.

Dealing with the physical and social realities around me as they come, without filtering them through some lens of cosmic significance (or insignificance).

>I was raised without any belief in a supernatural force
How do you define what's natural and what's supernatural?
Or do you simply believe stuff without questioning it? (You do, it's a rhetorical question.)
It's ok to not be an intellectual and it's ok to be a normie, but you're not an atheist.

Then you are a robot then.

You're offering nothing here. I didn't just say "supernatural," and you're trying desperately to expand the meaning of being religious to include all manner of contingent belief in anything without proof. I have no belief in the existence of deities: I am a fucking atheist. Stop the moving-goal-posts bullshit. You don't get to take my "atheist card" away because I have contingent beliefs in the existence of Australia and the Sun.

No, I'm pretty normal in practice. You're a very silly person. God isn't important to anything much in modern life, and religious people act and live just like irreligious, 99% of the time.

>this much ideology
keep eating from that trashcan senpai

I'm not the OP btw. I'm not saying God is important for day to day life but you do have to have some kind of underlying religious logic to enable you to justify your own actions in the long term. As in a conscious subject has to relate to some eternal something, (the thing in itself, the logos etc.) in order for it to be able to function effectively.

*a true atheist would tear anything outside of itself apart and be trapped in a kind of schizoid/solipsistic state, largely catatonic and/or incomprehensible. Read madness and modernism by Louis A Sass for further insight.

You are wrong.
There is nothing special about being an atheist nowadays.
My niece and cousin are raised by baptized non practicing christians who dont have any faith, and who decided to not baptize their kids

"if they want to be christians one day, then they can choose to get baptized when they are adults, but then they may choose to be atheists or buddhists or whatever"

They have no religious beliefs of any kind.
Christmas is just a part of the year in which they get gifts from Santa.

I think they think you stop existing when you die, they didnt tell them their grandparents who died went to heaven.

is this copy-pasted from reddit or something?

or are we reddit?

Since when are opinions reddit?

No, you're just having a hard time understanding how unimportant faith is.
>you do have to have some kind of underlying religious logic to enable you to justify your own actions in the long term.
"Justify"?? I justify my actions through a measured observation of how they affect other people and society. There's no "longer term" than that.

>As in a conscious subject has to relate to some eternal something, (the thing in itself, the logos etc.) in order for it to be able to function effectively.
"Effectively"? I relate to every real thing in the world. That's quite enough.

so their parents aren't christians then.

the word "christian" is thrown around too lightly these days tbqh. it (etymologically) means "like christ." if someone doesn't have faith, if someone doesn't try their best every day to follow christ, the name "christian" is baseless. don't be deceived. this does not make christianity outdated, it just means that a lot of people are too weak to actually live it out, but they understand the ideology enough to think jesus is gonna help them out, even though he clearly said he hated both hypocrisy, and people who are "lukewarm" in their faith.

>Justify"?? I justify my actions through a measured observation of how they affect other people and society. There's no "longer term" than that.

You must have some ideological or moral framework through which you do that through. This is still religious thinking as any epistemological, metaphysical or ethical framework has to have some grounding upon which it is built from. That grounding has to be by definition unchanging and hence eternal. Anything relating to the eternal requires some narrative that relies on no further justification, ie faith.

Even if you don't consciously think about philosophy, you follow preconceived notions of one.

Take for example, the all-partying, pleasure seeking person, can be considered a hedonist, even as such person doesn't know a thing about the school of it, but I am working from a presumption too, as I reduce such person to an easy label without looking to the farther implications, this philosophy might be called materialist reductionism (indeed, our secular modern world falls in line with this).

And of course, because many atheist are either materialist reductionist, or simply can't bother to have something larger than them (except the Allmighty State, or themselves), they don't understand any abstract thought, unless proven by empirical evidence e.g. the reign of quantity, unless they willingly accept contradictions to their ideology, which many do.

>"Justify"?? I justify my actions through a measured observation of how they affect other people and society. There's no "longer term" than that.

So relativism. At least your honest, a much underrated virtue these days, assuming you actually think virtue exist.

Bad bait
This is false.
When they come from a place of total ignorance and pride.
>I justify my actions through a measured observation of how they affect other people and society.
Why is this good or valid, utilitarianism is a joke.
>I relate to every real thing in the world
real things exist cuz i sed so

>Other people were born into religion and personally rejected it.
>You were raised without religion and personally did nothing.
>You don't even think it's worthwhile to learn about religion(s).
>You are the "Real Atheist"
iCringed

Bullshit.

An athiest who still has some remnant spiritual longing can just resort to philosophy.

Philosophy touches the same nerves as religion. It gives you a deep subjective sense of truth and coherence when properly conducted.

I hate to do this to you but

>The specific character of despair is precisely this: It is unaware of being despair.

You realize that's self-evident bullshit, right? Tell me you do. Despair is an emotion. If you're not feeling it, you're not suffering from it.

Where in the world did you get the idea I didn't learn about religion? I've read and studied various religions, faiths, and mythology for years. Do you think that would naturally lead to my conversion or something?

You poor sap. The closest thing to a rebuttal you managed was
>Why is this good or valid, utilitarianism is a joke.

--and it still shows you don't get it. My attitude to life doesn't have to be "good" or "valid" by your terms or anyone else's. It doesn't matter what you think of utilitarianism, positivism, or relativism. The point is that they don't require the slightest faith in deities to function.

What is Lits problem with Atheism

>The same guy who plays "No true Christian" wants to argue that anyone with any semblance of morals must not be an atheist.

i never made that argument though, that doesn't even make sense.

>This is still religious thinking as any epistemological, metaphysical or ethical framework has to have some grounding upon which it is built from. That grounding has to be by definition unchanging and hence eternal. Anything relating to the eternal requires some narrative that relies on no further justification, ie faith.

Unmitigated horseshit. "Religion" is belief in deities, not any form of certainty whatsoever. I've already addressed this foolishness. And no, an ethical framework absolutely does not require "an unchanging eternal" framework. Ethics and morals can (and should, and always are, bullshit aside) contingent, negotiable, relative, and human in scale. As I said, you don't get to claim any vague moral principle as evidence of someone being a theist: it's horseshit. I don't need to believe in a god to decide not to kill children for fun: I can base my decision on a desire to not hurt them, because I wouldn't want those parents to kill my kids, to stay out of jail, sheer laziness, not wanting to be a social outcast, not wanting to get blood on my shoes, or any other excuse. Religion is a traditional way to enforce tribal codes, but it's not the foundation of them. "Because God says so" is never the actual reason any law or taboo was thought up: the reasons are practical, immediate, and contingent on local power structures--just like secular laws.

Sorry, I thought you were the "that's religious thinking!' guy. My browser doesn't indicate speakers.

I suppose it can be a bit unsatisfying, but you can see from the survey threads that a significant amount, if not the majority of the board is atheist. That's something that edgy posters have adopted christianity over, especially edgy variants of christianity, sincerely or just to bait

what ideology though?

>This is still religious thinking as any epistemological, metaphysical or ethical framework has to have some grounding upon which it is built from. That grounding has to be by definition unchanging and hence eternal.

absurdism rests on the tension between wanting meaning and there being none. since only humans seek meaning and humans are not eternal, the absurd is not eternal.

>Where in the world did you get the idea I didn't learn about religion?
>Addressing the nature of the human condition through ontology is time-wasting fun for theists
>not sensible people
I merely assumed, since you consider this, the main activity of religion, to be a waste of time and not for "sensible people" (presumably you). Unless, of course, you mean that you have "studied religions" from some detached cultural perspective without engaging their ideas.

>Do you think that would naturally lead to my conversion or something?
Of course not. I am not religious either, by the way.

Also:
>I don't need a life philosophy of any sort.
>Enjoy life and die.
>implying this isn't a "life philosophy", lazy and uncritical as it might be.

Interesting. Yes, the perspective is detached and cultural, but it couldn't be otherwise for me, any more than a Christian studying Hinduism is actually considering the validity of their worldview on a supernatural level. I have no concern about questions like possible afterlifes or greater meaning on a personal level, so there's a limit to how much time I'll spend engaging with them--as their should be. Without a personal connection, becoming an expert on a faith is an odd hobby--and ultimately, I am no more able to take their ontology seriously than they can accept mine.

Yes, one can argue that "enjoy life and die" is a philosophy, but since I have no consistency to it, it's still a mislabel. I'm not a dedicated hedonist, for instance. Just because somebody acts like a Christian in their general actions doesn't mean they're Christian: they're missing the crucial intent and belief. They aren't "Christians who just don't know it," are they? I have no dedicated conscious philosophy, so it's more than a little presumptuous to insist that I'm anything beyond atheist, and uninterested in grand frameworks or conjectural meaning for life. The endless projection is the worst part of arguing theists on these points: bizarre assertions that equate atheism with nihilism, and so on. From a detached perspective, foolishness like Pascal's Wager and Anselm's Proof are pathetic in their attempt to force logic to do the work of faith. They make no sense, insist on absurd limitations of possibilities, and confuse the puny limits of human thought and vocabulary with cosmic realities, as if there must needs be some similarity between our little musings and whatever engine runs the universe, or as if they're justified in saying "you mean our God!" whenever such a force is hypothesized. It's very silly.

I agree with more or less everything you said here. I am an atheist as well although my parents made me go to church growing up (I am even a confirmed Catholic!). I read your post as being dismissive of even attempting to understand religious perspectives. I think I probably didn't give you enough credit. I do enjoy reading religious texts, Christian or otherwise, although I have yet to be converted. This is probably a result of my interest in philosophy as there is some overlap here. I am more interested in the abstractions of religions than the specifics.

>I'm not a dedicated hedonist, for instance
I also assumed you were a hedonist, from 'enjoy life and die'. It seems I was attacking the "straw man".

>religious people act and live just like irreligious, 99% of the time.

Ok this is bullshit.

...

Please leave this thread. I'm not even trying to be mean but clearly this isn't the place for you right? We're here to discuss philosophy and if you don't need philosophy then what are we supposed to say to you?