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Notes -
I want to resurrect a variant of an old question that has got me wondering again. Is it possible for an atheist to think deeply about life without losing motivation to live well?
It’s trite to phrase it like this, but the atheistic model still seems utterly devoid of motivation or purpose when you dwell on it. Obviously, if you don’t dwell on the facts of life, you can distract yourself with various concerns and pursuits. But what if you don’t distract yourself? Someone with a religious model involving a loving God can ponder his existence forever and be motivated and purpose-filled, provided that they forever presuppose a loving God as an article of faith. But I’m trying to envision an atheist pondering life while still maintaining motivation to live vibrantly and maximally. How do they do it, do they do it, or are they just distracting themselves?
Eg, “an atheist believes they need to make life count” —> count for what? Your life does not count, by your own definition. You will cease to exist, like the dinosaurs, who surely did not count. So why are you programming your own Operating System as a hobby? It doesn’t count! “But it makes me happy” —> drugs will surely make you more happy. Why not do them?
Frankly, you seem overly dismissive when people tell you their motivation. You can always ask "why?" until you hit a terminal value, and if you effectively answer "terminal values don't count for atheists" well, what am I to tell you, exactly? For every "why?", there is a "why not?".
For me personally, it seems obvious that the universe doesn't care, that there are no intrinsic goals or values and that as a result you've got to make your own or choose a pre-made team that comes with them such as a religion. I hold very little against religions these days, they are a perfectly fine source to derive values from - they're just not the only way.
Your behaviour strikes me the same way as some people who seem not only incapable of playing sandbox games because they don't tell you what to do, but who also thinks lowly of people who do enjoy them. I like sandbox games. I also have no problem of choosing values in this world for no other reason but their own sake, and falling into a spiral of depression due to nihilism seems just stupid to me. I can enjoy live vibrantly and be motivated just fine without religion. In fact, I think you've already simply done the same by choosing your religion, even if you may be in denial about it. I can dwell on the fact that live is intrinsically without pre-determined values and the only thing this causes is a renewed drive to think deeper about the values I want to live by.
Would you play a sandbox game if what you made is destroyed, and in fact you have no memory of ever having played the game? Well, maybe you would play it to pass the time. Is this how you see life, though? If you see life as a way to pass the time, then my thesis that conscious atheism prevents motivation and purpose would be correct.
Surely you can see how I accuse atheists of not thinking about the consequences of their belief fully. What is the “inherent value” of something that will be destroyed and forgotten, never to be seen or remembered, for all intents and purposes being as if it never existed? There will be no observer, no judge, no human, no memory, no trace. Which value is “inherent” yet becomes valueless and forgotten? If there is a value underlying it, that’s very close to theism, and I would just call if God. If there is no underlying value, then it becomes valueless.
It seems to me, and again I’m just not persuaded by the arguments I’ve read so far (but perhaps I need to reread them), that the way out is necessarily that the atheist creates his own faith — the same process as theism, no more “realistic” — or he falls into hedonism, where the only value is what feels good. If the only value is what feels good, this results in humans lying to themselves and others to obtain what feels good, and ignoring anything that’s for a longterm social good. It means there’s no purpose in any moral training, because we’re only going to do what feels good. And it means ignoring the suffering of others because by ignoring if I feel good.
The sandbox game in this scenario is all I have, pretty good, and I don't remember ever not playing it. Why wouldn't I act as if it's the only thing that matters?
We say that something matters because of its consequences. “Life matters” is obvious from the standpoint of maximizing pleasure — pleasure is real, I like to feel good, this is obvious. What’s not obvious is why a thinking atheist should care about such things as:
the lives and happiness of others
longterm betterment of humanity
improvement in any way that does not lead to more pleasure
society at large
doing anything “good”
“important” issues in politics and culture
The consequence is that I saw it (or foresaw it), and I saw that it was good. These issues bring joy to my heart whether I accept that it's the prosocial genetic instincts and memetic indoctrination, or I don't - and choose to convince myself of religious stimuli instead.
If you’re just assenting to memetic indoctrination, you’re halfway to theism already, because our culture is still upheld by the residue of religion. A “thinking atheist” would not simply do what others tell him. That’s my point.
If it feels good to do good things, I think you’ll find that people choose the goodest feelings over rational analysis. This leads to virtue signaling, people dumping money into failed charitable projects, etc.
Why not, if he finds that he prefers the world where he followed the rules over the one where he didn't? You're just substituting an edgelord psychopath for a "thinking atheist". But even psychopaths understand the value of good habits and good reputation, especially thinking ones. And while religion did take over as the substrate of prosocial memes for a long time, I see no reason to view it as the origin.
Suppose I really do believe that prosociality as I see it will lead to maximal flourishment of humanity, including, yes, more pleasure.
In the absence of objective morality, or in other words, a final judgment, then a thinking person would not “prefer to follow rules”. Why would they? They would prefer to feel good, right? What would be the point of feeling worse, if there’s no reason to? They would not conclude that following the rules leads to feeling good, because every time they have the choice of either following the rules or feeling good, they would choose feeling good. To prioritize rules over feeling good, following the rules must have existential importance. Otherwise what would be the purpose of following the rules?
But, perhaps an atheist can will himself to believe that following the rules actually does have existential importance. I intuit that you might have done this, as you go immediately to “lead to maximal flourishment of humanity”. (There is no reason to care about this in atheism, because it doesn’t matter. It feels good to give to someone you like, due to evolutionary prosociality, but it does not feel good to construct rigid systems of maximal flourishment of humanity, which is artificial.) I suppose I agree an atheist can have this kind of faith. But at that point, they might as well maximize the benefit of faith by believing in a Just and Loving God.
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It is equally not obvious why a thinking Christian theist should care about any earthly affairs and do not concentrate only on saving souls from eternal fire. In theistic universe, all worldly things will soon perish with no consequence, while hell is eternal.
Christians do not have the power to save souls from eternal hellfire. Each person chooses whether or not they want to accept salvation, and by far the best influence you can have on their decision is to be genuinely involved in their lives. If they are concerned with earthly affairs, being involved in their lives is going to require you to be at least a little concerned with earthly affairs as well. Being a Christian does involve putting a hard cap on how concerned one is with earthly affairs, though.
Well, how many Christians' concern with worldly life crosses the line (and by a lot). It seems the case of overwhelming majority of them.
Perhaps, or perhaps not. Certainly caring more about earthly affairs is an error I'm prone to, which I must constantly try to resist, and a lot of people calling themselves Christians don't seem to be on the right side of the line. On the other hand, I'm not confident that either of us can rigorously identify where the line between "making a good-faith effort" and "only pretending to try" is, and I'm certainly not confident that most non-Christians even understand what Christians are aiming for.
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A thinking Christian would consult the Gospel as a guide, where he would find that God actually wants us to celebrate and be happy in honor of his glory, as well as to reduce the suffering of others. But a more general point can be made. Can we devise a teleology where purpose and motivation are maximized? Such that a person dwelling on the purpose of things and the nature of life can actually be motivated toward bettering the world, and not say to himself “well I will be dead so who cares”? Yes, we can. The easiest way is to believe in a loving judge, something shared broadly among theistic religions. Another would be a reward or punishment cycle based on deeds, which is the karmic wheel.
In the theist worldview, while the material world is fleeting, human action is immensely important — every action will be accounted for. Therefore there is motivation to behave according to a standard.
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