Purpose and morals of atheists.

"Moral relativists" and "purposeless wanderers" are two derogatory labels given unfairly to atheists by those who commit the offense mentioned in my previous post: judging the "outgroup" in ways that creates division instead of mutual understanding. The problems of morality and purpose to those who do not believe in a personal god are real, and various atheists tackle this problem in different ways, if at all. Though I can't speak for every atheist, I will do my best to relate my experience to what I suspect occurs in many others.

As one slowly realizes that there is no higher intelligence comparable to our own in the universe, the budding atheist will probably enter a period of despair. "Nothing matters!" "What's the point?" and "Why shouldn't I just kill myself!?" could be common reactions. Though some may become stuck in this morass, it is more common to migrate towards a sense of purpose and morality that I have found to be more deep and rewarding than my previous state. In my case, I have clung to the golden rule for two primary reasons. One is purely practical. I want others to treat me like they would be treated, and acting that way myself is one method of promoting that behavior in society. More broadly, the golden rule leads to increased internal satisfaction and to a stable society in which suffering is minimized and liberal and libertarian ideals allow for individuals to prosper.

As for purpose, I am no longer stuck with a sense of perpetually trying to please the ultimate Father Figure. My purpose does not come from an external locus, but rather is derived from my own internal motivation to leave this world in a better state than I found it. I just hope my efforts are meaningful and successful as measured by those outside my immediate circle of family and friends when I die.

A revelation?

After a series of debates with passionate theists, I think I have come to the conclusion that there may not be an absolute truth. I have worked under the assumption that truth is absolute for as long as I can remember, and I am still not certain about this conclusion and do not wish to give it up quite yet, though I am heading that way.



This conclusion grew up through a series of "logical discourses" where the theists honestly thought they were debunking my statements. I won't rehash the arguments, but I would see them develop their argument "if a, then b, then c, then conclusion" and I would be left dumfounded that any of those connections could be made by a cognitive entity. Being recently accused of similar acts of fallacy and of eluding their arguments, I realized what was going on. We were very much talking past each other, each side being dumfounded by the other. The second accusation of elusiveness was accurate, as I had felt embarrassed for those making such arguments and felt that replying would be insulting because the errors were so obvious.

If such basic logical inferences can be interpreted by two people in two different ways, then our brains are obviously working in very different manners. At this point, it just seems like debate with the intention of persuasion is pointless. This realization, however, has been freeing. From now on, such entrenched individuals will to me become an object of study and wonder. I know what it's like in my own mind, but I have no clue what it's like in the head these other people. I will do my best to ask questions with the goal of understanding, not of persuading. To be kind, I should say that more persuadable minds are less fascinating, as they, by definition, act in ways that I already understand.

Mischaracterizations of your opponent bug me.

It strikes me as the height of arrogance to build up a weak conceptual effigy of your opponent and go on to easily dismantle the shoddy characterization. Discourse should either be a two way street where one is permitted to create their own message, which is then vulnerable to criticism, or to stick to laying out the strengths of one's own framework.



I have recently seen several such treatments of liberalism and atheism. Growing up Christian, I was endowed with a decent sense of right and wrong during Sunday school and from my friends and the other members of the community. I remember in middle school feeling a little bit odd about faith, about belief without evidence, but I countered these uncomfortable thoughts with renewed zeal. Once I actually read the basis of our faith, however, I realized that we could not have obtained our morals from such a backwards text. Obviously there are wise Proverbs, beautiful Psalms, and compassionate lessons from Jesus, but for every gem there seemed a piece of nonsense or outright horrific law. How could an omniscient being inspire so much nonsense? How are we supposed to sift the two sides of the Bible apart?

And then it struck me that our morals are the result of learned and ingrained norms that evolve over cultural and evolutionary time and that it is our obligation to move towards a more just and fair world. This obligation does not come from above, but from within, from our need to live in a large, interconnected world where no individual wants to suffer. If morals were endowed upon us by our Creator, why have they changed so much over the past 4000 years?

A theist I know says that this "moral relativism," which would also result if we had no immaterial self, leads to the logical conclusion that Mother Theresa is equivalent to Hitler (I'll leave the point that Mother Theresa's place as the pinnacle of morality is bogus for another day). He goes on to say that since we obviously do not act according to that conclusion, that atheists are living with some sort of cognitive dissonance and are intellectually bankrupt. I counter that a morality based on an interpretation of a book where any act from genocide to slavery is justified is far more relativistic and dangerous. The fact that no one in their right mind actually bases their morality on the bible is evidence that it is useless. Even if there were a god, pretending that we can glean its divine code seems to be another arrogant assumption.

In response to "Socialism collapsing in on itself"

A response to complaints by some conservatives that Greece is an example of failure because of socialism, mixed with a few other progressive ideas:



The Greek financial crisis has two major causes. Excess spending ("socialism collapsing in on itself") and failed investments (ultimately caused by the collapse of mortgage-backed securities after the housing bubble burst). Socialism is working just fine in Scandinavia, where responsible finances are mixed with a strong social safety net. The result is a very high standard of living resulting from shared wealth. Much of their wealth is from natural resources, the proceeds from which are shared, as they are viewed as societal property, not the property of whomever extracts it.

Concerning the general fear that the Left is trying to take over people's lives, isn't it possible that a happy medium can be found? A decrease in government regulation has been the trend over the past quarter century has not worked very well. Deregulated energy systems create power outages in CA. Unregulated health systems create a situation where people are unable to purchase insurance at any price. Deregulated mining safety systems create lax standards leading to preventable mine collapses and oil spills. The repeal of financial regulation leads to institutions that take unnecessary risks and leave the taxpayers with the bill once they achieve "too big to fail" status.

The Left doesn't want to control people and doesn't think people are too dumb to make good decisions (OK, some on the left do, but I will be speaking for myself), but rather wants to provide a strong safety net because anybody can find themselves in dire straits and all people are bad at judging risk. I would be much less likely to buy auto insurance if I wasn't forced to do so, and I would have a small but real chance of total financial ruin because of it. Very low probability events that have very high risks are hard to judge, and an error in judgement could have such drastic effects that a mandated safety net is generally the best bet for society. As long as everyone chips in, everyone benefits. Unfortunately, voluntary taxes do not work.

Finally, Marxism is influential to me not because I think it's the best economic system (it is probably the worst, it just doesn't take human nature into account), but it does provide an admirable system of personal responsibility: "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs" is tweaked to: "I, personally, should benefit society as much as I can, and I should take enough only to meet a median level of comfort."