A topic for Memorial Day — a holiday for celebrating the fallen with cookouts and car sales.Why do we have holidays to remember the dead? It isn’t FOR the dead people (they don’t care) — it’s for US. So often we spend so much time REMEMBERING the best attributes of the dead that we forget to apply those attributes to ourselves (I always thought THAT was the point). Why remember if not to learn and improve?
udonman,
The media is just propaganda controlled by our government pretty much, so I doubt they will do anything worth while, although I do wish they would talk more about killings and less about sex, money and other useless stuff concerning celebrities.
The media should talk about the this upcoming holiday anyway.
You talk of straw-man and then make one yourself. Isn’t survival a purpose? Besides, we give life meaning. It’s what we make of it.
Don’t quite understand what you mean here. I’m talking about improving to the point where everyone has a chance to have a happy and fulfilling life, free of poverty and starvation. Where if they get sick, they can have the medicine they need. Everyone deserves this.
well to tell you the truth i am probably a little biased in this instance being trans myself.
so maybe I was letting my own emotions getting in the way as far as it being a hate crime.
not all crimes are hate crimes unfourtunatly right now I am getting to the point where I am about to fall a sleep on my keyboard (graveyard shift) but if you want to talk about this more email me @ udonman@gmail.com
Tony
messed up there
It’s important for mankind, as a whole, to move forward. This doesn’t mean leaving anyone behind. As a species, we need to take care of each other. That’s how we survive.
Yes, and I shouldn’t generalize like that. Sorry.
What I mean is any war, any side. Most of the time they fail to understand the other viewpoint. I’m sure the German soldiers didn’t understand any of the Allied viewpoints in WWII. Going back to what I said before, I understand not all xstians like war, I didn’t mean to generalize. It’s good to hear you oppose it.
Memorial Day, like funerals, is for the living since the dead are in a state of nonexistence. I think it is especially important for atheists to reflect on the loss of life since we undertsnad that this life is all we get. Life is all the more precious for us than for a xian who thinks that this is just the appetiser before the main course.
GH said “since i am not american i really can’t comment the war like you can.”
Yes because European hands are so free from war’s bloodshed. Anyone else sick as fuck of European anti-Americanism as I am? Yes the war in Iraq was a mistake but it is just one mistake in a long list of unjustified wars.
Happy Memorial Day to all-spend the time contemplating those who are no longer with us.
Alex
alexgator1,
As a matter of fact I am sick of of Europe being so anti-American. I mean come on, its not like I hate the French for the horrific French Revolution. People need to look past our countries wars and into what makes this country great, tolerance (although we still have a long way to go).
udonman,
I can’t use email until the 5th (kinda long story) but I will email you sometime and see what other thoughts you have.
Everyone else,
Random but: don’t you hate those protesters who lay down on the roads but complain if someone accidentally runs them over. I mean, come on, it is a stupid thing to be on the road like that…hold up a sign. Its foolish to risk one’s life so recklessly…
Has this ever been effective? Has any war or act of aggression been stopped by laying in the road? If they don’t mind torturing people why would they stop from running someone over. They’re just speed bumps.
HeatheNZ
I supplied an explanation. It’s right there in your blockquote
HeatheNZ
So prior to evolution,what was the theory then?
GooseHenry,
Unfortunately Creationism was considered valid before evolution proved Creationism wrong.
Brodie
Well if evolution is true life cannot have an purpose.
If we are free to give life a purpose ourselves it is entirely subjective, and possibly has nothing to do with objective reality, right?
From an evolutionary perspective isn’t life all about individual survival? Why then care about the welfare of others (except where others survival benefit the individuals survival)?
How do you make the transition from evolutionary theory, the indivuals survival, to the statement that it is important for mankind to move forward?
I mean there is no afterlife right? We have neither good nor evil to fear. We will end up as entropic dust, it is just a matter of time. Why then bother with improving mankind and not just my own life?
GooseHenry,
Helping others should make you feel better, plus, if everyone helps everyone, then you WILL live a wonderful life. Don’t you love your mother? I love mine. This is a win-win for myself, simply because she helped keep me alive while I help her out and promise to take care of her when she gets too old to do it herself.
What is wrong with that? Our very NATURE almost requires us to help on other to life. For instance, helping a tree will help your o2 supply. An Atheist helping a Theist can have a double effect. The Theist will not think Atheists as evil (therefore one less bigot) and the Atheist will have helped a fellow human out.
I could go on with but in a short quote: “What goes around comes around.”
Anthony
But you agree that helping others in cases where my own life isn’t improved is pointless?
I do love my mother but i do not help her just because she has taken care of me. This goes for all people around me.
My original question was however: by what standard do atheists evaluate things as good/bad? These concepts are not found in nature, nor is there any natural cause for them.
BTW, my entire family is atheist/non-christian and i do love them.
Goose
You’re not getting it.
The very act of helping others improves our own lives.
GooseHenry,
Most kind thing we do is from our altrustic instincts and are sans faith. Plus, Karen has a point.
Goose,
I assume you are referring to
This is a description of the term strawman. I’m aware of what a strawman argument is, my complaint is that you call it a strawman without explaining why you consider it to be so.
You need to say how it is not a fair description of your position in order for others to be able to judge your accusation on its merits.
Goose
The question is irrelavant. The point is to show you that evolution does not underpin atheism as you claimed. Can you admit you are in error?
According to what I was told when I went to church years ago, this life is meaningless, because it’s what comes after that matters. But since becoming an atheist I’ve come to realize that this is the only chance I get. It matters what I do now, how I treat others. Every moment is important. To me, at least, evolution is the process of life. Moving forward, which is something religion doesn’t do very well. If someone can better explain it, please do.
No, just the opposite. It’s the species that matters. The individual is a part of it. Do you care about others? If so, why? If you do so only if it helps you, this is very selfish and accomplishes nothing in the long run. If I help someone, it’s not because I’ll get some reward in the after life, it’s because that’s just what I should do. Caring and helping others is an evolutionary trait, because by helping others, you help your species.
See above.
Hey noones forcing you to help others. Is this your viewpoint, or are you just posing a question? Is the afterlife the only purpose for you? Did you come to this blog to antagonize or for something meaningful?
GooseHenry,
I think you have hit the nail on the head as far as the benefits of religion. Right or wrong, the religions of the world have given hope and purpose when people could find none on their own, encouraged kindness and generosity and frightened those who would take advantage of others into treating them more fairly.
If one gives up on religion, then one is free: free to be selfish if that is the only purpose one can find in oneself. But I also think that, even without religion, there is a good case for caring beyond yourself:
http://embracing-reality.wikispaces.com/A+Case+for+being+Altruistic
You have been posting here for some time. Have you not seen any nonbelievers here who you consider to be caring or who you think have found worthwhile goals in life? If so, then this is clearly possible without religion, if not necessarily easy.
hey everybody,
I haven’t been follow things here too closely for the last couple days, but I came across an old article by Ann Druyan (science writer and widow of Carl Sagan) that I thought I’d like to share. I love this bit about the Garden of Eden myth:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-11/ann-druyan.html
GH “Well if evolution is true life cannot have an purpose.”
Life has whatever meaning we give to it. Love is the ultimate meaning that we can assign to our lives in my opinion. This is why my immediate family and I are so close and practice real family values becasue we know how fleeting and temporary life is.
Also, from a purely biological point, life’s purpose is to create more life (selfish gene theory).
Why do you need an outside agent to give life meaning? I don’t understand why religious people can’t understand that life is meaningful for it’s own sake and that a god(s) isn’t necessary to give life a point.
Alex.
R4D,
Thanks for the link. The story is indeed preposterous, even when considered an allegory.
Silly Goose is always entertaining.
“Then what has the brain developed for? Please enlighten me”
If Silly Goose ever got enlightened, I might begin to believe in god and miracles.
Silly Goose thinks life should have a “purpose”. Why? Our purpose is to please god? What kind of wimpy god is that? What’s going to happen in heaven? Do we get to suck god’s sexual organs to get him/her off?
What has god ever done for us?
Brodie — “Moving forward” seems rather misleading in the context of evolution. Consider the shark, who has been around a long time, or the chimpanzee, who sprouts from the same branch as homo sapiens, but is now endangered in the wild as a result of humankind. “Forward” in this sense is hardly progress. In the sense of change over time, “forward” says nothing — things have always changed over time, even religion.
Also, I don’t think the assertion “It’s the species that matters” provides any moral guidance. Matters for what? The human species has certainly overrun the planet, and the planet has been harmed.
I would disagree that helping others only if it helps you “is very selfish,” and that it “accomplishes nothing in the long run.” I think we all act first and foremost in our own self-interests. Bono gets some deep, personal satisfaction in being Bono, George W. gets some deep, personal satisfaction in being Dufus-in-Chief.
It’s an odd and complex world.
Totally off topic:
Just wanted to note that ABC is reporting a miracle….
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2008580&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
I should have been more clear in what I meant. I was meaning more along the lines of an “afterlife reward”.
HeatheNZ
The assumption that i only care if people are saved or not and therefore could drop a bomb on all of them. Not my position
Why only the memorial to soldiers. U.S. soldiers have killed a hundred or a thousand times more people, the great majority civilians, than their numbers that have died.
There were the Indian wars, the Mexican wars, the occupation of the Philippines in 1900, interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. In Vietnam about 55,000 American soldiers died, compared to 2 to 3 million Vietnamese.
Were all these soldiers really fighting for America and Americans, or were they just fighting for the American oligarchy and its corporate business interests?
Some of these soldiers simply enjoyed the slaughter, like Custer for example.
It would be better to have a memorial day for the civilian victims of war than for their willing or unwilling killers.
HeatheNZ
By all means! What was the atheistic theory of the origin of life before evolution?
Karen
So in the case where helping others doesn’t improve my life i should avoid it?h