Samantha Rinne
Resident Genderfluid Writer/Artist
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.
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).
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Suppose you just try to live life fully. You build monuments, you go skydiving, bullriding, and try to amend relationships with others.
- 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.
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).