On religion:

On religion:

Weak people need the old religions, for what are they to do in their hours of greatest weakness? They need an interpretation of existence that relieves their suffering. This interpretation must be based on a model of the universe, a schematic of the rest of the universe outside themselves, and this schema will of course be greatly simplified. All models are simplifications anyway, and given that we are talking about weak people here (which means: slow in the head and/or body, but above all in the head, since our species' greatest strength is intelligence) theirs will be an especially simplified model; an absurd caricature of reality, when all is said and done; a grossly simplified and exaggerated image of it, but still nevertheless an image of it, which is to say a view of the universe from a certain perspective. And just as a mole's view of the forest is extremely murky and basic and simple while an imaging satellite's is vastly clearer and more complex — but still depicts the same object nevertheless: the forest, and hence is by no means entirely dissociated from reality — is not a "pure fantasy" in other words, and certainly contains an amount of truth in it and useful information, such that for someone who had seen the satellite data and had the capacity to parse it and who was then given an image of the mole's viewpoint, he could identify, if he was perceptive enough, that yes, they depict the same forest, and here is a clump of trees that is common to both viewpoints, only at a different resolution and viewed from different angles, so will the philosopher treat the old religions' particular beliefs, examining each in turn and pronouncing them extremely murky and simplistic, yes, but still ultimately true, when all is said and done.

...

If I were able to be an atheist, I think I would be happier. Instead, I have to deal with being a good person and upholding my ethics, reconciling free and divine will, contemplating life after death, and all of the thing that come with metaphysics.

Life would be far simpler if I just thought of life as biological and social impulses and death as a dissolution into atoms and energy

What's the source for this? Because outside of the context it reads like some bullshit dreamt up by an edgy 18-year-old.

He's like 40, as far as I know.

Except Atheism is nothing to do with being good and upholding ethics or not. It's whether you believe God exists. Why can someone who doesn't believe in God not think about being a good person?

Because in his insane worldview ethics can only be sourced from God.

>think about being a good person
wew

Because he wouldn't feel the need. Consciously, some atheist might claim that he has morals etc. but in reality, subconsciously, he doesn't care at all, because objectively, if you truly thought you go into nothingness after death, you wouldn't hold any kind of abstract, non-material belief, that includes moral. Atheist people can't be moral, true atheists can't be anything at all, because they kill themselves. The endgame of atheism is nihilism which leads into suicide, anyone who is an atheist and still has a moral system, believes in free will (partial or complete) and so on is funny.
>b-but if everything is pointless so is suicide
It isn't pointless because it rids you of the pointlessness itself.

>for

Dropped.

Once you properly understand christian ethics nothing else feels like the real deal.

>if you truly thought you go into nothingness after death
You can only think that if you believe in souls. You're so indoctrinated that you can't even imagine people who don't believe in souls. It's ironic that you say atheists can't care about the world when it is YOUR beliefs that say this world is flawed and will eventually be moved part.

>Weak people need
Stopped reading there. I already know every stupid sentence that could possibly come out of your mouth.
Now, I did read your post, after typing that first greentext. The only thing that caught me off guard was the very end conclusion.
Your picture of religion is the only thing that's murky and simplistic here. First of all, the religious picture of reality is different depending on religion, so here I will take Christianity, because the following is not all true for the others.
Okay, so let's take the proposition that somebody who views the world through the lens of Christianity ultimately views a murky or murkier picture than somebody who views the world through the lens of science. This is not a good proposition, because you are supposing that the scientifically inclined person views the same world as the religiously inclined person. A better analogy: there is only one lens, and many different worlds to view with it. The lens is the individual, the different realities he can view are his varying moods and mentalities. Let me clarify.
Religion deals primarily with universals, that means the poetical, the aesthetical, the ethical and etc. Science deals with particulars, that means relationships from one thing to another, models of things, abstractions of things, observations made about a thing not in itself but through some medium, the medium might be time, motion, or other properties known only in relation to another property.
The more immediate kind of knowledge is the former, religious knowledge, because it is immediate, a medium is not needed. One simply becomes the thing known through his inclination to it, this is the notion of knowledge via connaturality, and it's the basis for all artistic or universal knowledge.
Science cannot for instance adjudicate beauty in its immediacy, it can only adjudicate beauty through the medium of what constitutes beauty. This fact constitutes something your allegorical satellite would not be able to see, which religion could. Making religion (here Christianity) ultimately more precise when it comes to universal knowledge. I'll stop here, for who knows why. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse. I'm Catholic though, just fyi.

Why does shitty bait like this always get responses

Spooked by individuality.

If I see one more stirner meme I'm going to have a fucking aneurysm.

Maybe you'll be less haunted after the arteries in your brain burst like a frayed expandable garden hose.

ur not srs

You can't be spooked if you're dead.

>Because he wouldn't feel the need.
sorry you only experience atheism as an edgy teenager but when you stop being a complete faggot you actually care about good and bad.
>Consciously, some atheist might claim that he has morals etc. but in reality, subconsciously, he doesn't care at all, because objectively, if you truly thought you go into nothingness after death, you wouldn't hold any kind of abstract, non-material belief, that includes moral.
What is moral non-realism. Go read something other than genre fiction you cretinous worm. Just like the other guy said, you're so far removed from the way atheists see the world that you're completely incapable of understanding secular philosophy.
> Atheist people can't be moral, true atheists can't be anything at all, because they kill themselves.The endgame of atheism is nihilism which leads into suicide.
i fucking read this shit in kermit's voice
What is all of existentialist philosophy
>anyone who is an atheist and still has a moral system, believes in free will (partial or complete) and so on is funny.
When secularists talk about free will, a lot of them are talking about acting in such a way that one is not simultaneously morally or intellectually opposed to that action- completely different from the theistic model of free will, which cannot be grounded in a deterministic or a random universe, nor has been observed or explained by neuroscience, and is therefore grounded in magic.
"A decision is a weighing of impulses but i still have free will because magic doesn't need to be logical"
fucking theists make me sick
>b-but if everything is pointless so is suicide
>It isn't pointless because it rids you of the pointlessness itself.
Yes, nihilism is imo the logical conclusion, but so fucking what
you don't need to rationally justify living your life. The experience of life is good enough to justify existence.
nihilism is true but you only care if you're depressed
[nihilism is true but you only care if you're depressed]
[[nihilism is true but you only care if you're depressed]]
[[[nihilism is true but you only care if you're depressed]]]

here's a wild tip you stupid, fart breathing fuck
your moral system, the legitimate goodness of your religious tenets, is grounded in the factuality of your religious texts. that means that even if one has an objective basis for good when he believes in your god, he can't prove that they're actually good to anyone unless he can prove that his religious text is objectively true. sorry to break it to you, you bottom-feeding slug, but your religious system is still just relativistic as someone who says "i just believe that these things are good".

consider me thoroughly baited

>secular philosophy
While you're right to be triggered by him, the only gud secular philo is critical theory, but critical theory belongs to the Catholics desu, it fell into the wrong hands, we are just waiting for the next swing of the dialectical pendulum and then after we understand the relationship between metaphysics and quantum mechanics we can have a true socialist monarchy.

Damn fine post, guy. Highly underated

You're dead inside. That's why you need religion do fill your dead soul. Better than filling it with science, true, but still bad.

...

>Stopped reading there. I already know every stupid sentence that could possibly come out of your mouth. Now, I did read your post, after typing that first greentext. The only thing that caught me off guard was the very end conclusion.Your picture of religion is the only thing that's murky and simplistic here. First of all, the religious picture of reality is different depending on religion, so here I will take Christianity, because the following is not all true for the others.

>Okay, so let's take the proposition that somebody who views the world through the lens of Christianity ultimately views a murky or murkier picture than somebody who views the world through the lens of science. This is not a good proposition, because you are supposing that the scientifically inclined person views the same world as the religiously inclined person. A better analogy: there is only one lens, and many different worlds to view with it. The lens is the individual, the different realities he can view are his varying moods and mentalities.

>Let me clarify. Religion deals primarily with universals, that means the poetical, the aesthetical, the ethical and etc. Science deals with particulars, that means relationships from one thing to another, models of things, abstractions of things, observations made about a thing not in itself but through some medium, the medium might be time, motion, or other properties known only in relation to another property. The more immediate kind of knowledge is the former, religious knowledge, because it is immediate, a medium is not needed. One simply becomes the thing known through his inclination to it, this is the notion of knowledge via connaturality, and it's the basis for all artistic or universal knowledge.

>Science cannot for instance adjudicate beauty in its immediacy, it can only adjudicate beauty through the medium of what constitutes beauty. This fact constitutes something your allegorical satellite would not be able to see, which religion could. Making religion (here Christianity) ultimately more precise when it comes to universal knowledge. I'll stop here, for who knows why. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse. I'm Catholic though, just fyi.

I didn't actually read your post I just felt like removing some of the unnecessary line breaks that make your post look retarded.

The only part that annoyed me was the bit about free will. Free will is inherently supernatural, being atheist means to accept the full control of biological and physical laws. There can be no locus of agency unless you grant a non physical soul.

>implication
You're only dead if you are spooked throughout your life. Of course, making a spook out of spooks will only keep you there. So have fun by being spooked and dying.

i am
I think we may be using "secular" differently. I mean any philosophical position that doesn't appeal to religious principles.
I think you thought i meant a philosophy centered on religious equality? What word do you think i should use instead?

> Free will is inherently supernatural, being atheist means to accept the full control of biological and physical laws
You're using the religious definition of free will, remember what i said:
>When secularists talk about free will, a lot of them are talking about acting in such a way that one is not simultaneously morally or intellectually opposed to that action- completely different from the theistic model of free will.
When determinists use the words "free will" they're referring to something completely different than when religious people use it. I'm an atheist, I also don't believe in theistic free will. You seem to be saying that i do.
no magic -> no theistic free will. We agree.
I'm not sure about the locus of agency. individuals still exist even if the world is deterministic.

In a completely materialistic world, there is nothing separating the operation of the brain and body from the operation of every other object, being determined by physical and biological laws. You can define free will as some action that doesn't go against your values etc., but from a physical deterministic perspective, you haven't chosen those values. It's all based on the chemical reactions of the materials in the universe.

The only way that you could have an agency in control of yourself as an individual is if you posit that there exists some aspect of reality that is separate to that physical chain of reactions. Some kind of supernatural entity (i.e., a soul). The only way you can claim there is ultimate meaning or purpose (i.e., ultimate agency) is to do the same for reality as a whole (i.e., god).

You reject the supernatural possibility of ultimate choice, you reject the possibility of personal choice.

>The only way you can claim there is ultimate meaning or purpose is to do the same for reality as a whole
how do you mean ultimate?
What's wrong with being guided by principles that you can't extend to strangers?
Isn't the feeling that your values have to be everyone else's values to be /real/ just the product of religious thinking? As opposed to being evaluated on their logical consistency and existential merit.

Just stating a fact and hoping it would bait a filthy papist my dude. I'm well aware that every idea (even e.g. the notion of digestion) can become a spook when it's fixed.

You're making valid points about ethics, but you're missing mine about metaphysics. I'm saying for agency to exist AT ALL then there would need to be some supernatural aspect of reality (i.e., an aspect separate to the influence of physical laws). To accept materialism is to give up free will. Your choices and values are then completely out of your own control.

Religion as a narcissistic lifestyle choice is a crutch. Deeply considered mystic religious experience is absolutely terrifying.

Actually speaking personally. Due to some conspiracy stuff I've only managed to reluctantly accept the truth of Christianity. Its hardly comforting because the floodgates have been open. Under a materialist perspective one can simplify his existence to what is empirically observable and whatever some certain authorities disseminate. But once things begin to be taken on faith, one must also recognize the possibility of literally anything. The filter isn't one of possibility, plausibility or probability but rather relevance and level of abstraction. For instance I can filter out the tooth fairy because the trappings of such an entity have no real bearing on me. On the other hand I might become very paranoid about the possibility of curses and various other forms of spiritual attack. I must remain vigilant about not spiritually degrading myself either.

In my time as a materialist I always felt the most comforting affirmation was that I would eventually die and be resorbed into oblivion. Now most people are stupid and prefer immortality to oblivion but I always understood what a relief this would be as it would finally be the end of all turmoil and discomfit. Now I regrettably must assimilate the doctrine of eternal hellfire which I find myself morbidly reflecting on its implications. I try to reconcile the justice of how literally 10s of billions of people will be subject to condemnation of this sort based only on contingent factors of their existence such as geographic removal from the opportunity to hear the gospel. The conclusions I reach are mostly unfavorable to God. Naturally I figure out of these 10s of billions of souls God is playing spiritual cookie clicker with, I wonder why shouldn't I be numbered among them (especially being unable to reconcile my vision of god with the concept of love and justice) and then I can be given over to paroxysms and fits of terror imagining a malevolent God controlling our reality.

Even if you bypass these first two steps and like most Christians you have this attitude of "I have my salvation Jack" then you are still left to fret over the nature of what faith is and what might be required for salvation and under what epistemological scheme this might be realized. You can easily lose sleep over being in the wrong denomination and having the wrong religious understanding.

Religious revelation is actually the most confusing, frustrating and uncomfortable experiences a person can have in my honest opinion. The reason religion seems feeble-minded is because in most cases it is so unconsidered that it IS feeble minded. But religion is even more intellectually taxing than materialism.

The reason i didn't respond to your first paragraph is that i largely agreed with it.
>I'm saying for agency to exist AT ALL then there would need to be some supernatural aspect of reality
I don't see how a supernatural aspect is necessary for decisive agency to exist (by decisive agency, I mean to exist as an individual who makes one choice rather than another)
Why do you suppose we have to invoke the supernatural to explain that living creatures, when faced with a multitude of possible actions, will act in accordance with which ever course is categorized by the most impulsive weight?
I choose the steak over the apple because my brain has been coded to believe that fat and salt are a rare commodity, thus the steak is greater impulsive weight in the decision making process.
Now suppose i am to pick between going home from the party, and taking advantage of an inebriated girl. I would wager that beside the sexual impulse, this consideration is guided entirely not by basal instinct but by principle (which we might agree is rooted in basal instinct, of the sort developed by social animals, especially humans). Does an understanding of, an empathy of, her terror the next day not put impulsive weight on the decision to go home instead? Do you suppose empathy can not be explained by physical laws? Now what about my disgust of the thought of statutory rape (the consideration of how others will perceive me, and how i will perceive myself)? Can these not be engendered by biological principles emergent of physical laws?
Species which organize themselves in groups would do well to avoid internal conflict. Thus emerge the impulsive weight of empathizing.
we may agree that there is no real "picking between the two," that instead it is clear that man is a machine. But to say that this machine can be guided by basal instinct but not principles which emerge from these instincts through evolution seems to me an ignorance of the most basic concepts of the field of evolutionary ethics.

I think we may agree that we can't blame, in a material universe, the man for choosing rape, because he only did so only because he lacked certain principles. But the act of punishing or shaming is itself a way to engender these principles if not in the man then in those around us (recall my revulsion to being perceived/ perceiving myself as a rapist)

I was an atheist and reached this conclusion. The best way to mitigate hedonic disutility is to simply not exist.

>I would eventually die and be resorbed into oblivion.
But there is no "you" in the first place. Your model is still flawed.

you're being stupid user.

Get a load of this guy.

If I were able to be a christian, I think I would be happier. Instead, I have to deal with my gut feelings telling me no and my morals telling me there is nothing wrong. I would enjoy having free and divine will, and know that someone is always looking out for me, and knowing in my heart that I am special.

Life would be far simpler if I just thought of life as spiritual and social impulses and death as divine fates orchestrated by a benevolent creator.

these deductions don't logically follow
kill yourself unironically

You're not one to take world views seriously.

I unironically believe that worldview is something people make up to feel good about themselves and that there is no 'proper' way to view the world, as the term the world is often just a fuzzy abstract belief you can't actually explain.

The worst worldview of them all is the worldview that there is nothing to it, since it still assumes that there is an 'it'

Yes but he displayed an understanding of atheism meanwhile you are displaying a pants-on-head-retarded fedora lord understanding of Christianity. You probably think your redneck baptist parents are -Christian- haha no. Burn protestants OK.

>Weak people need the old religions
I can already tell you've never actually given religion a chance. The closest you've gotten is South Park reruns and other dross satire. It's sad, but unavoidable that psueds like you think your opinion matters.

tl;dr

The manifestation of principles and ethical behaviours, in a materialistic universe, is a product of physical laws. Your going home is determined by physical laws. The rapist taking advantage of that girl is determined by physical laws. You thinking "even though he was controlled by material interactions beyond his control, if I punish him it will shape those physical parts in such a way that he will be less likely to do it again" is a thought determined by physical laws. If there is a part of you that is acting FREE FROM THE DETERMINISM of those physical laws, then it cannot be physical. Then you have a soul, as unphysical and unprovable as any other non-physical (i.e., supernatural) entity.

get out!

yes, i never disagreed with you that higher order impulses are the product of physical laws.

Atheism is for when you are too much of a cretin to understand religion.

Religion is the direct anathema to understanding, if understanding is taken to mean having and acquiring true and justified beliefs.

t. doesn't understand the lack of belief.
signed, someone with two atheist parents.

Yeah, yeah. Atheism is a simple negation when it's convenient to the atheist. I've heard it before.