The Problem of Purpose

[Samantha Rinne]

Most theism has a Problem of Evil that it must address. With atheism, this isn't as big a thing, as it can be written of in terms of "some humans are evil." Not sure why that same approach can't extend to theism, but anyway...

Atheism instead has a different problem. I noticed this while watching a marathon of Game of Thrones. The author's mindset kinda came through, and it felt like the person I identified most with (despite being extremist as hell) was the High Sparrow, when he started talking about how he was living it up in drunken orgies and he woke up one day and got disgusted with all of that, so this made him leave his current life and become religious.

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

1. Suppose you are a wicked wicked person, the very type of person that theists like to accuse atheists of being. You cheat on your taxes, you eat children and puppies, and you burn things for fun. You also have sex with men and women in giant orgies, and use a crossbow to practice on living humans. You also torture and mutilate people, and any other horrible thing imaginable.
2. Suppose you are trying to be moral. You do all sorts of good works (remember Game of Thrones? Think of who he's talking to, and how she tried to do all kinds of charity), protect animals/environment, or just generally do randomly kind things.
3. Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
   
4. Suppose you are a suicidal. You've concluded that nothing matters, since no matter what you do, nothing really makes a difference in the long term. So you kill off yourself, hurting a few doesn't people who care about you in the process, because you can't figure out how to end your life quietly.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is. The Jews had a sort of grey afterlife named Sheol, yet even that had a sense that one's life had purpose.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

Game of Thrones is a rather dark story, and it doesn't seem like there is any sense of favor. Loyal and conniving alike are killed, and the only thing vaguely resembling justice is revenge (particularly from Arya Stark).

 

[dfnj]

Most theism has a Problem of Evil that it must address. With atheism, this isn't as big a thing, as it can be written of in terms of "some humans are evil." Not sure why that same approach can't extend to theism, but anyway...

Atheism instead has a different problem. I noticed this while watching a marathon of Game of Thrones. The author's mindset kinda came through, and it felt like the person I identified most with (despite being extremist as hell) was the High Sparrow, when he started talking about how he was living it up in drunken orgies and he woke up one day and got disgusted with all of that, so this made him leave his current life and become religious.

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

1. Suppose you are a wicked wicked person, the very type of person that theists like to accuse atheists of being. You cheat on your taxes, you eat children and puppies, and you burn things for fun. You also have sex with men and women in giant orgies, and use a crossbow to practice on living humans. You also torture and mutilate people, and any other horrible thing imaginable.
2. Suppose you are trying to be moral. You do all sorts of good works (remember Game of Thrones? Think of who he's talking to, and how she tried to do all kinds of charity), protect animals/environment, or just generally do randomly kind things.
3. Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
   
4. Suppose you are a suicidal. You've concluded that nothing matters, since no matter what you do, nothing really makes a difference in the long term. So you kill off yourself, hurting a few doesn't people who care about you in the process, because you can't figure out how to end your life quietly.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is. The Jews had a sort of grey afterlife named Sheol, yet even that had a sense that one's life had purpose.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

Game of Thrones is a rather dark story, and it doesn't seem like there is any sense of favor. Loyal and conniving alike are killed, and the only thing vaguely resembling justice is revenge (particularly from Arya Stark).

First of all don't knock orgies unless you've been in one.

Atheism has no problems at all. People who are atheists are just as moral and have just as much purpose as anyone else. People love creating and enjoying culture. It has nothing to do with religion. If you think all atheists are nihilists you do not know many atheists. The ones I know can drink, party, and do drugs in equal proportions to any theist I know!

Game of Thrones is a popular and fun story. You may be surprised to find out writers know exactly what they are doing. Writers know exactly what makes a story good, and what makes a story boring crap. It's actually well understood:

Each character in the Game of Thrones follows the pattern outlined in the reference video. I thought the Game of Thrones was great. Jon Snow went from ******* to king of the north. Brienne of Tarth become a proven knight. Grey Worm fell in love. Game of Thrones is about heroes doing heroic things. What more could you ask for? Justice! If you want Justice watch this movie:

and bid them make bricks without straw.

"Let my people gooooo!"

 

[dfnj]

**mod edit** that you are saying that theism has the problem of evil ?

and at current moment which damn hell religion is in power huh? it is British/American government who is ruling entire world, and spoiling it with there whores ( or so called scientists or intelligent men { aka whores }) and passing whimsical laws,

but still it is fun to hear from unintelligent people like you. what is what ( indeed rightly it is said that people in general are not very intelligent in the first place ) thus what is the value of your nonsense ? if you are not intelligent ? huh?
____________
and these europeans ruling over entire world is an very big trouble for everyone, for they have plunged the whole world affairs into mismanagement.

and whatever evil is there within this world it is due to them, and why people will not learn to cheat ? when the government is pack of theives themselves ? huh? there is nothing wrong iwth people in general. but everything is wrong with these europenas ruling over the entire world and passing there whimsical laws.

I think what she meant was people have argued the problem of evil implies God does not exist:

 

[joe1776]

As I see it, life does have a purpose beyond mere survival. That purpose is determined by the pain and pleasure functions of our brains. We are punished with guilt when we do something morally wrong. We feel the urge to punish others when they cause serious harm to others. When we treat others with kindness, we are rewarded with pleasure. We feel good about it.

We are born this way. The normal human brain comes hard-wired with this moral intuition that we refer to as conscience. Conscience is a moral guide. We can follow its guidance or not. However, if we learn to always try to do the right thing, we will make moral progress. One's beliefs about God and religion don't matter in the least.

The purpose of life is to make moral progress. If we inherited the genes of a serial killer but manage to live a life without causing serious harm to anyone, we can be proud of our achievement.

Using the reward and punishment method, our brains are determining that life's purpose is moral progress.

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Most theism has a Problem of Evil that it must address. With atheism, this isn't as big a thing, as it can be written of in terms of "some humans are evil." Not sure why that same approach can't extend to theism, but anyway...

Atheism instead has a different problem. I noticed this while watching a marathon of Game of Thrones. The author's mindset kinda came through, and it felt like the person I identified most with (despite being extremist as hell) was the High Sparrow, when he started talking about how he was living it up in drunken orgies and he woke up one day and got disgusted with all of that, so this made him leave his current life and become religious.

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

1. Suppose you are a wicked wicked person, the very type of person that theists like to accuse atheists of being. You cheat on your taxes, you eat children and puppies, and you burn things for fun. You also have sex with men and women in giant orgies, and use a crossbow to practice on living humans. You also torture and mutilate people, and any other horrible thing imaginable.
2. Suppose you are trying to be moral. You do all sorts of good works (remember Game of Thrones? Think of who he's talking to, and how she tried to do all kinds of charity), protect animals/environment, or just generally do randomly kind things.
3. Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
   
4. Suppose you are a suicidal. You've concluded that nothing matters, since no matter what you do, nothing really makes a difference in the long term. So you kill off yourself, hurting a few doesn't people who care about you in the process, because you can't figure out how to end your life quietly.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is. The Jews had a sort of grey afterlife named Sheol, yet even that had a sense that one's life had purpose.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

Game of Thrones is a rather dark story, and it doesn't seem like there is any sense of favor. Loyal and conniving alike are killed, and the only thing vaguely resembling justice is revenge (particularly from Arya Stark).

The atheist may see purpose but it will be only in this life and whatever he deems it to be. It could be moral or immoral, good or evil.

As a Christian, for me, it is not just that God has a purpose for me and what I do. It is...'without God and Christ, I have no purpose'.

For the child of God, the absence of God is hell. For the atheist, the presence of God is hell.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Howard Is]

**mod edit** that you are saying that theism has the problem of evil ?

and at current moment which damn hell religion is in power huh? it is British/American government who is ruling entire world, and spoiling it with there whores ( or so called scientists or intelligent men { aka whores }) and passing whimsical laws,

but still it is fun to hear from unintelligent people like you. what is what ( indeed rightly it is said that people in general are not very intelligent in the first place ) thus what is the value of your nonsense ? if you are not intelligent ? huh?
____________
and these europeans ruling over entire world is an very big trouble for everyone, for they have plunged the whole world affairs into mismanagement.

and whatever evil is there within this world it is due to them, and why people will not learn to cheat ? when the government is pack of theives themselves ? huh? there is nothing wrong iwth people in general. but everything is wrong with these europenas ruling over the entire world and passing there whimsical laws.

There is no need to be insulting and aggressive.
In fact, there is a need not to be.

You misunderstood @Samantha Rinne anyway, as @dfnj pointed out.

Please maintain a respectful attitude to other members.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The normal human brain comes hard-wired with this moral intuition that we refer to as conscience.

Our brains are not hard-wired, all that is learnt behavior.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Most theism has a Problem of Evil that it must address. With atheism, this isn't as big a thing, as it can be written of in terms of "some humans are evil." Not sure why that same approach can't extend to theism, but anyway...

Atheism instead has a different problem. I noticed this while watching a marathon of Game of Thrones. The author's mindset kinda came through, and it felt like the person I identified most with (despite being extremist as hell) was the High Sparrow, when he started talking about how he was living it up in drunken orgies and he woke up one day and got disgusted with all of that, so this made him leave his current life and become religious.

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

1. Suppose you are a wicked wicked person, the very type of person that theists like to accuse atheists of being. You cheat on your taxes, you eat children and puppies, and you burn things for fun. You also have sex with men and women in giant orgies, and use a crossbow to practice on living humans. You also torture and mutilate people, and any other horrible thing imaginable.
2. Suppose you are trying to be moral. You do all sorts of good works (remember Game of Thrones? Think of who he's talking to, and how she tried to do all kinds of charity), protect animals/environment, or just generally do randomly kind things.
3. Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
   
4. Suppose you are a suicidal. You've concluded that nothing matters, since no matter what you do, nothing really makes a difference in the long term. So you kill off yourself, hurting a few doesn't people who care about you in the process, because you can't figure out how to end your life quietly.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is. The Jews had a sort of grey afterlife named Sheol, yet even that had a sense that one's life had purpose.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

Game of Thrones is a rather dark story, and it doesn't seem like there is any sense of favor. Loyal and conniving alike are killed, and the only thing vaguely resembling justice is revenge (particularly from Arya Stark).

If it was true nihilism, we wouldn't even be here.

That's the most simplest and direct way it could be put.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Our brains are not hard-wired, all that is learnt behavior.

I tend to agree. The seeds of such might be in our brains but we develop our conscience and moral intuition throughout our development - and which accounts for so many lacking such in my view.

 

[Mock Turtle]

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

Apart from living? I mean, this is what everyone experiences, whether they have certain beliefs or not. Lacking any such religious beliefs just frees us from such and allows us to create our own purpose in life. Which no doubt one can see many examples of without religious views playing any role. In fact religious beliefs often hinder such abilities to find and create that which might benefit oneself and others - because we often obliged to follow certain doctrines. Certain interpretations of Islam and its relationship to music and dance might be cited here.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is. The Jews had a sort of grey afterlife named Sheol, yet even that had a sense that one's life had purpose.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

This is still just clinging to the notion that religions are necessary for one to be moral, and which is just not the case. If I truly believed that an afterlife might affect my current life then I think I would be quite likely to be the person who, getting drunk, did something horrible which they would not normally do when sober, but which was there in their persona such as to be a ticking time bomb. And the same goes for religious rules and codes. If you really need to have a big stick waved at you then you are inherently a danger to yourself and others. I prefer the easier option, of actually being the person who just wouldn't do that which was not part of my nature.

 

[Left Coast]

Atheism instead has a different problem. I noticed this while watching a marathon of Game of Thrones. The author's mindset kinda came through, and it felt like the person I identified most with (despite being extremist as hell) was the High Sparrow, when he started talking about how he was living it up in drunken orgies and he woke up one day and got disgusted with all of that, so this made him leave his current life and become religious.

The Problem of Purpose goes like this: regardless of belief in a deity, most atheism (aside from Buddhism which has trappings of religion) has a specific problem as a result of no firm sense of anything beyond death. Because of this, no matter what you do, nothing seems to matter.

I disagree. The things that matter are the things that we decide matter. We don't need our purpose dictated to us, we can create it. And we do so all the time. And so do theists, I would argue - they just convince themselves that their purpose has a divine seal of approval which makes it "legit."

1. Suppose you are a wicked wicked person, the very type of person that theists like to accuse atheists of being. You cheat on your taxes, you eat children and puppies, and you burn things for fun. You also have sex with men and women in giant orgies, and use a crossbow to practice on living humans. You also torture and mutilate people, and any other horrible thing imaginable.
2. Suppose you are trying to be moral. You do all sorts of good works (remember Game of Thrones? Think of who he's talking to, and how she tried to do all kinds of charity), protect animals/environment, or just generally do randomly kind things.
3. Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
   
4. Suppose you are a suicidal. You've concluded that nothing matters, since no matter what you do, nothing really makes a difference in the long term. So you kill off yourself, hurting a few doesn't people who care about you in the process, because you can't figure out how to end your life quietly.

Then you die, and in all cases your body dies, and that's it. In fact, the more moral or fulfilled the life you have, the more of a loss it is.

How did you arrive at your final conclusion in bold there? Humans are a social species. We're interdependent on each other to survive and thrive. Being completely hedonistic and selfish may bring temporary pleasure, but long-term the pleasure fades. One doesn't need to believe in a god to recognize this.

You seem to have this idea that if there's no God or afterlife, then we should just abandon all morality and throw caution to the wind. What atheism allows one to realize is that this life is precious precisely because it's the only one we're promised. There are no second chances. Morality and pro-social behavior help us thrive during the one life we know we have.

How does one answer the Problem of Purpose for atheism? That is, you say you don't need religion to be moral, but obviously the idea that there is no afterlife actually would tend to revert everything to nihilism, wouldn't it?

Well let's test that hypothesis, shall we? How many atheists do you know? How many of them are amoral nihilists?

 

[joe1776]

Our brains are not hard-wired, all that is learnt behavior.

Nope. ..."A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life..."
The Moral Life of Babies

 

[joe1776]

I tend to agree. The seeds of such might be in our brains but we develop our conscience and moral intuition throughout our development - and which accounts for so many lacking such in my view.

The idea that conscience is learned behavior and the product of reasoning is wrong. It is a popular myth like the flat earth once was. Science, over the past 20 years is proving this moral myth false.

We humans go wrong because we willfully ignore the guidance of conscience, not because we don't know the difference between right and wrong.

The New Science of Morality | Edge.org

"Humans are born with a hard-wired morality, a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone," wrote Paul Bloom, Yale's Brooks and Suzanne Ragen professor of psychology, in an opinion piece for CNN.com.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The Moral Life of Babies

Sure, the baby understood that the naughty puppet will deprive him of the ball if the naughty one gets a chance. That is why he punished him with a smack. One-year old babies are not without intelligence. They have been learning things for one and a half year.

 

[BSM1]

Purposes? We don't need no stinkin' purposes....

The idea of 'purpose' is probably one of the greatest hoax pulled on mankind by the leaders of Western religion since medieval times. No one can ever tell you their "purpose" beforehand; all "purposes" are defined after the fact. For instance, if someone saves a puppy from a burning building, than someone in the tearful crowd will usually say that was that person's purpose. No one ever looked at a stranger on the street and said that saving the puppy will be his or her purpose in life.
Another personal example that just came to mind. My wife has RA. Thankfully she's in remission and her medication allows her to live an active life, but for a while I had to take care of her almost 24/7. I'm in perfect health, so this was not a problem for me. A friend of ours made the comment that "God kept me healthy on purpose to take care of her...", ergo that was my purpose for being here. I didn't say anything but I thought: So God allowed this wonderful, beautiful, loving creature to suffer terribly just to test my noble purpose? Ha!

Anyway man, imho, has absolutely no, nada, zilch purpose in life other than (a stretch here) to react to the forces and scenarios that happen in our day to day life; and to learn from the experience.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Our brains are not hard-wired, all that is learnt behavior.

What do you think of the possibility morality can be instinctual?

There's no question we have predisposed traits that make up the person who we presently are.

 

[Aupmanyav]

What do you think of the possibility morality can be instinctual?

IMHO, they are all learnt. The only instinctual are the autonomous reactions, run, cring, hide, howl, growl, etc.

 

[joe1776]

Sure, the baby understood that the naughty puppet will deprive him of the ball if the naughty one gets a chance. That is why he punished him with a smack. One-year old babies are not without intelligence. They have been learning things for one and a half year.

Twenty years ago, research found that people make moral decisions immediately and intuitively (Haidt 2000). The reasoning they do is after-the-fact justification. Following that experiment, there has been a lot of research including the Bloom research which you so easily discarded.

I gave you enough links to get you started on a web search for research that should change your mind. But you would have to be willing to risk the possibility of having to change your mind.

 

[Mock Turtle]

The idea that conscience is learned behavior and the product of reasoning is wrong. It is a popular myth like the flat earth once was. Science, over the past 20 years is proving this moral myth false.

We humans go wrong because we willfully ignore the guidance of conscience, not because we don't know the difference between right and wrong.

The New Science of Morality | Edge.org

"Humans are born with a hard-wired morality, a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone," wrote Paul Bloom, Yale's Brooks and Suzanne Ragen professor of psychology, in an opinion piece for CNN.com.

As I said, the seeds of such are there, and babies seemingly recognising the good from the bad is an indicator of this, but how could one disentangle any teaching imparted along with the knowledge they obtain as they mature? It is hardly sophisticated to know when someone has your interests at heart - like your mother - as opposed to any other individual who just ignores you. Are you going to place newborn babies in the judge's chair?

 

[joe1776]

As I said, the seeds of such are there, and babies seemingly recognising the good from the bad is an indicator of this, but how could one disentangle any teaching imparted along with the knowledge they obtain as they mature? It is hardly sophisticated to know when someone has your interests at heart - like your mother - as opposed to any other individual who just ignores you. Are you going to place newborn babies in the judge's chair?

You didn't need your mother to teach you that causing intentional harm to innocent people is wrong. You didn't need her to teach you that accidentally harming someone innocent isn't immoral (although you might have needed the experience to teach you that your action that caused the accidental injury should be avoided in the future).

You didn't need your mother to teach you that intentionally causing harm to someone who attacks you is justified. Your mother didn't have to explain to you that only enough harm to stop the attacker is justified. It would be wrong to kill someone in self-defense if you could stop the attack by simply restraining them.

You needed your mother to explain the various ways that one might insult people because those are things which will vary from culture to culture. But you didn't need your mother to explain that insults cause harm and that intentionally insulting people is wrong in all cultures.

You didn't need your mother to explain that justice is only possible to minds unbiased on the relevant issue. For example, you know intuitively that the sentencing of a convicted rapist would likely be unfair if done by the mother of the rapist or the father of the victim.

Your mother is/was not a moral authority. If she told you that killing is always immoral and you accepted her opinion, she misled you. Conscience does not support absolute rules like that. It makes judgments case-by-case when all of the facts of the situation are known.