Atheism=Nihilism?

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Polsky215' timestamp='1308594741' post='2256371']
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Yes im quoting myself but i need to fix a mistake when i see it. Here is the response to those who call the women priest question sexist.
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[/quote]
Why are you trying to html tag your posts?

[Polsky215]

i dont know what im doing. im new here

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Polsky215' timestamp='1308595871' post='2256378']
i dont know what im doing. im new here
[/quote]
Do you normally write in html on other web pages? IPBoard uses a set of tags kind of similar to html, but it uses square brackets [ ]. It also uses much less than, say, the html editor in blogspot.

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='fullerej' timestamp='1308591603' post='2256357']I wonder if this is a religious/moral reason, or more of a socioeconomic reason. Atheists are also under represented in the poorer socioeconomic levels as well. Just a thought.[/quote]More income, social support, education, and intelligence tends to result in less religiously.

From personal experience and observation, I notice atheists/agnostics are more compelled to be individually and socially responsible.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat

[stevil]

[quote name='Polsky215' timestamp='1308594741' post='2256371']
Here is the response to those who call the women priest question sexist.
[/quote]

Sorry to go off topic, but I am still a bit baffled as to why Catholics don't think an all male priesthood is not a form of sexism.

Here is a definition from Wikipedia [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism"]Sexism - Wikipedia[/url]
"[b]Sexism[/b], also known as [b]gender discrimination[/b] or [b]sex discrimination[/b], is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas"

So doesn't the adherance of a belief that god doesn't want females to be ordained fit this description? Here we have a belief that the characteristics implicit to females indirectly affect their abilities to perform the role of a preist.

I guess it comes down to thinking whether the role of a preist is related or unrelated to the characteristics implicit to females. I don't know what those characteristics would be and why they would impact performance within the role.

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1308650244' post='2256715']Sorry to go off topic, but I am still a bit baffled as to why Catholics don't think an all male priesthood is not a form of sexism.[/quote]Catholics view it as gender roles, not as employment opportunity. But I am baffled as you are, because you are correct, it is technically discrimination and sexism.

[xSilverPhinx]

-Double post -

Edited June 21, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

It would help to define what you mean by nihilistic before asking whether it logically follows from atheism.

From Wiki:

[quote]Moral nihilism

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_nihilism"]Moral nihilism[/url], also known as [b]ethical nihilism[/b], is the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics"]meta-ethical[/url] view that morality does not exist as something inherent to objective reality; therefore no action is necessarily preferable to any other. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong. Other nihilists may argue not that there is no morality at all, but that if it does exist, it is a human and thus artificial construction, wherein any and all meaning is relative for different possible outcomes. As an example, if someone kills someone else, such a nihilist might argue that killing is not inherently a bad thing, bad independently from our moral beliefs, only that because of the way morality is constructed as some rudimentary dichotomy, what is said to be a bad thing is given a higher negative weighting than what is called good: as a result, killing the individual was bad because it did not let the individual live, which was arbitrarily given a positive weighting. In this way a moral nihilist believes that all moral claims are false.[/quote]

These are not exactly my views. Though I don't think that objective morality coming from an objective source exists, I still see moral systems having to obey certain rules in order to be called moral. Those can be inconsistent and vary between contexts so not absolute, but moral systems have their own intrinsic quality without which they would not be moral.

They're also a product of social cooperation whose goal is to thrive.

I would call myself a metaphysical nihilist, and that follows from [i]my[/i] atheism, though there are atheists who believe in some sort of metaphysical reality though without gods.

[Polsky215]

Yes, the catholic stand point is that implicitly in the female person there is an inability to be a priest reguardless of whether they can preform the material "jobs" involved in being a priest. Likewise, implicitly males cannot be mothers, whether or not science inables them to do the "job" of being a mother by giving them an artificial womb (all women in the church are called to be mothers whether spiritually or physically). Men and women are different but equal in unity. Remember that catholics believe in a soul that separates there natures. No material reconfiguring done by science can change there essential nature that is controlled by the God given soul.

[Socrates]

As Catholics, we believe that the God's Natural Law is written on the hearts of all men, so we should not be shocked if atheists and unbelievers live decent moral lives. We're not Calvinists who believe in the total depravity of man.

However, there's absolutely nothing about atheist itself (lack of belief in God) that dictates that people should live morally.

An atheist's morality by definition would have to come from something outside of atheism.
Most atheists would say that morality is simply a set of man-made rules or consensus, and thus is subjective, and subject to change.


While most people, atheist are otherwise, are not monsters, if there is no God, and no moral absolutes, there is no absolute reason why people should not commit acts of mass murder and the like if they think it is the best way to accomplish their goals.
As has been often pointed out, most of histories greatest mass-murderers have been atheists or men who reject or disregard traditional religion.

And if there is no intrinsic meaning to human life or human actions, and all we are ultimately is meaningless protoplasm trying to spread genes, we have no absolute criteria for condemning even obviously evil actions, outside of subjective personal preference.
By such purely materialist standards, if we follow them consistently, the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews, for instance, has no more ultimate meaning or moral value than one strain of bacteria killing off another strain of bacteria.

Of course, most atheists don't follow atheism/materialism to its ugly nihilistic logical conclusions.


And while most atheists may be decent enough folks, I don't see much of the really heroic or saintly levels of self-giving from atheists - those that give up everything to serving others. Where's the atheist version of a Mother Theresa or St. Francis of Assisi?
I'm not saying atheists can't be charitable, but atheism just doesn't seem to inspire the same amount of extreme self-giving that fervent Christian faith can lead to. Of course, most of us Christians are nowhere near that level of sanctity, either, but this kind of really radical self-giving found in many of the saints seems to come only from radical devotion to Christ. As does turning the other cheek and praying for one's persecutors, and loving one's enemies, as taught by Christ - things that go beyond mere human virtue.

There have been many cases of irreligious people who lived self-centered or even evil and criminal lives, who underwent a dramatic conversion to virtue and self-giving after having a conversion to Christ. I'm not aware of many devout Christians who had a similar change towards virtue after becoming atheist.


[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1308558922' post='2256276']
The golden rule, a humanistic outlook and adherence to the governing laws tends to keep people including Atheists on the straight and narrow.
Going by an American report based on religious affilliation, Atheists are under represented in comparison to percentage of population in prisons with respect to their percentage of population outside of prison. We tend to be quite law abiding.
[/quote]


[quote name='fullerej' timestamp='1308591603' post='2256357']
I wonder if this is a religious/moral reason, or more of a socioeconomic reason. Atheists are also under represented in the poorer socioeconomic levels as well. Just a thought.
[/quote]
I'm sure if the figures in that study took into account actively religious Christians (those that attend church weekly or so, read the Bible and pray regularly, active in their church), their levels of incarceration would be even lower than atheists.

There are many, many people in this country (probably now a solid majority) who may not be actively atheist, and may have been baptized or loosely affiliated as Christian, but who rarely if ever attend church, pray, or read the Bible, and generally don't care much about religion one way or the other.

I think I can safely say that most of the people committing crimes are not living actively religious Christian lives. After all, if one murders, rapes, or robs, he is directly violating the moral teachings of Christian religion.
If you want to blame Christianity or religion for higher crime rates, you're going to have to provide some evidence that a significant portion of those crimes are somehow religiously motivated, or at least that religion was a factor. Otherwise, i don't see a compelling case.

But if you insist on going with the correlation = causality fallacy, it could be noted that whites are proportionately under-represented in the prison population, and that blacks and hispanics are over-representated. You could just as easy blame race (or racism) as religion. (Not to get into that whole debate here, just illustrating the dangers of equating correlation with causality.)

And incidentally, Charles Murray, in a survey of American whites (he chose to include only non-hispanic whites to avoid the results turning into debates over race and racism) found that the socio-economic top 20% of the white population was far more religiously active than the bottom 30%. See video lecture here: http://www.aei.org/video/101414

[Socrates]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1308650244' post='2256715']
Sorry to go off topic, but I am still a bit baffled as to why Catholics don't think an all male priesthood is not a form of sexism.

Here is a definition from Wikipedia [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism"]Sexism - Wikipedia[/url]
"[b]Sexism[/b], also known as [b]gender discrimination[/b] or [b]sex discrimination[/b], is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas"

So doesn't the adherance of a belief that god doesn't want females to be ordained fit this description? Here we have a belief that the characteristics implicit to females indirectly affect their abilities to perform the role of a preist.

I guess it comes down to thinking whether the role of a preist is related or unrelated to the characteristics implicit to females. I don't know what those characteristics would be and why they would impact performance within the role.
[/quote]
Again, if the priesthood is nothing but nonsensical superstitious hocus-pocus (the only consistent position an atheist could take on it), why should you care if females are excluded from it?

[Mr.Cat]

Stevil didn't suggest he cared what the practices of Catholicism are, he is concerned that Catholics are denying what seems apparent because its inconvenient. Not that I would expect someone like socrates to understand.

Edited June 21, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat

[stevil]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1308693750' post='2256983']
If you want to blame Christianity or religion for higher crime rates[/quote]
Certainly not the point I was making. Atheists are generally decent people and generally act sociably and compassionately during our lives, it seems that we do care about our lives and others lives and aren't nonchalant about our existence or existence in general as nihilism might suggest.

[Aragonn]

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat' timestamp='1308438827' post='2255735']
No, atheism does not imply nihilism. In fact, most atheists/agnostics I know are [b]not[/b] nihilists. "[i]Divine Command[/i]" in my personal opinion is a poor, if not faulty, ethical model.
[/quote]


Just because a lot of atheists are not nihilists does not mean that the logical consequences of atheism are not nihilism. It is. There's no way around that. The most intelligent atheists embraced this (like Nietzsche) while your garden-variety atheist of 2011 lack a rudimentary understanding of philosophy and fail to make the connection (like Dawkins). Here's why: purpose requires intentionality. If the world began intentionally (as theists believe) then there is the possiblity of a purpose to our existence (I say possibility because deists would argue otherwise). If, however, there is no intentionality behind the existence of our universe (as atheists believe) then there cannot possibly be any greater meaning.

Moral relativism is also a logical consequence of atheism. Stevil stated that atheists don't believe in moral objectivity but "that doesn't mean they don't try to be good people". Do I even need to bother pointing out the contradiction in that statement? "Good" doesn't really exist, but it's still something that we're aiming for? When "the good" has no basis in objective reality then its reduced down to one's own personal preferences. It becomes an empty word signifying whatever we find most pleasing or acceptable. Jeffrey Dahmer could describe himself as a good person under those circumstances.

None of these are, in and of themselves, arguments against atheism. Just because something is ugly doesn't make it false. It does however highlight two very important points:

1. Most atheists hold inconsistent views
2. Atheism is unable to account for humanity's search for transcendence or the existence of conscience. If atheism is correct then man is an inherently irrational animal because he desires something that does not exist and lives his life by rules that have no basis in reality.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Aragonn

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Aragonn' timestamp='1309350459' post='2260194']
Moral relativism is also a logical consequence of atheism. Stevil stated that atheists don't believe in moral objectivity but "that doesn't mean they don't try to be good people". Do I even need to bother pointing out the contradiction in that statement? "Good" doesn't really exist, but it's still something that we're aiming for? When "the good" has no basis in objective reality then its reduced down to one's own personal preferences. It becomes an empty word signifying whatever we find most pleasing or acceptable. Jeffrey Dahmer could describe himself as a good person under those circumstances.[/quote]

A question: what exaclty do you see as "good"? The god of the bible?

[quote]2. Atheism is unable to account for humanity's search for transcendence or the existence of conscience. If atheism is correct then man is an inherently irrational animal because he desires something that does not exist and lives his life by rules that have no basis in reality.
[/quote]

Everyday I draw closer to the conclusion that man [i]is [/i]an inherently irrational animal and when religion becomes a mess between what mankind expects the universe to be and what it actually looks like, it shows.

[Aragonn]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1309388612' post='2260499']
A question: what exaclty do you see as "good"? The god of the bible?
[/quote]

Yes. Although you may want to study biblical hermeneutics before you start talking about how much of a bully God is in the Old Testament (if that's what's coming next).

God's most complete revelation of Himself is given to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.



[quote]
Everyday I draw closer to the conclusion that man [i]is [/i]an inherently irrational animal and when religion becomes a mess between what mankind expects the universe to be and what it actually looks like, it shows.
[/quote]

If man is an inherently irrational animal then you have no reason to believe that your atheism is correct or correlates to the reality of our situation.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Aragonn

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Aragonn' timestamp='1309394851' post='2260555']
Yes. Although you may want to study biblical hermeneutics before you start talking about how much of a bully God is in the Old Testament (if that's what's coming next).

God's most complete revelation of Himself is given to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.[/quote]

I see Jesus as a radical, not a revelation of god or bringer of god's message.

Why is good, good? If it objectively exists, then there should be no problem describing it.


[quote]If man is an inherently irrational animal then you have no reason to believe that your atheism is correct or correlates to the reality of our situation.[/quote]

Something tells me that you'd say the same if you were an atheist and I were a theist. What's rational about religion?

[Kia ora]

[quote name='Aragonn' timestamp='1309350459' post='2260194']
Here's why: purpose requires intentionality. If the world began intentionally (as theists believe) then there is the possiblity of a purpose to our existence (I say possibility because deists would argue otherwise). If, however, there is no intentionality behind the existence of our universe (as atheists believe) then there cannot possibly be any greater meaning.[/quote] I'd rather have a life devoid of purpose than a life given a purpose by someone else. But that's just me. I happen to think that a universe with God at its head is just as nihilistic as a universe without a God.

[quote name='Aragonn' timestamp='1309350459' post='2260194']
1. Most atheists hold inconsistent views[/quote] Inconsistent with...?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Kia ora' timestamp='1309594073' post='2262036']I'd rather have a life devoid of purpose than a life given a purpose by someone else. But that's just me. I happen to think that a universe with God at its head is just as nihilistic as a universe without a God[/quote]

An interesting thought, and I agree.

[Aragonn]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1309399089' post='2260589']
I see Jesus as a radical, not a revelation of god or bringer of god's message.
[/quote]

Pity that that's not how any of the people that knew him or wrote about his life saw him

[quote]
Why is good, good? If it objectively exists, then there should be no problem describing it.
[/quote]

Good is good because it comes from and leads us back to our Creator, the ultimate source of all Goodness. Any action that brings us closer to love of God and neighbour is good, any that takes us further away is evil, and any that makes no difference one way or the other is morally neutral.

[quote]
Something tells me that you'd say the same if you were an atheist and I were a theist.
[/quote]

I think you missed my point. You said that you believe humans are inherently irrational animals. If that is the case then there's no reason to believe that any of your opinions or thoughts (assuming you're a human, right?) have any correlation to reality at all. You would have no way of knowing anything to be true or false at all. This would include your atheism.

I don't believe that humans are inherently irrational, in fact I believe the exact opposite, and therefor I do not have to worry about that particular epistemological question.


[quote]
What's rational about religion?
[/quote]

Because man has a Creator and religion is the natural response to that Creator.

Tell me what you think is irrational about religion (Catholicism in particular) and I'll tell you why I think it's rational.