Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
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.
What is this benefit of faith that believing in a Just and Loving God maximizes?
For one, there’s consequences for your life as a whole, so you’re never left without motivation and purpose, which humans require constantly given our evolution. God is a “final consequence” that makes sense for every human; if you remember doing well in school and showing a parent, or getting the praise of a teacher you admire, God is constructed as a maximization of these experiences. He’s Parent/Mentor but also King (powerful and grand) and Judge (righteous, truthful). So you are always motivated to do your best because you will answer to the greatest possible human (or human-like being, more precisely). I’m not saying here that “the God in the Bible is all-loving”, I don’t care about that, I am saying “if you define for yourself that God is the most loving and just you can conceive”, that is taking full advantage of your mind. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more satisfying basis for a teleology. You can wake up every day and examine all of existence and be happy, not confused. It’s a good basic source code.
The other benefit is prayer, common to so many religions, because humans are social. Being able to always communicate with this maximal Being aids happiness and motivation. I mean, if you’re choosing what to believe, what is better than believing in this? Human psychology shows that simply observing something beautiful is beneficial to mood. And so if we’re deciding on the best teleology, certainly willing ourselves to believe in the most beautiful Being/World is the best thing to do before we die. The act of praising God is the act of organizing our mind around our best memories. Which is gratitude training.
Then I would just say, the fact that monotheism expanded so well in humanity’s most competitive era is probably good proof that it is useful. And the 2500 years of poetry and stories on God is beneficial simply because now you have libraries upon libraries to bolster your teleology. Whereas thinking atheists just have Dawkins, Hitchens, maybe some Sam Harris, Rick and Morty…
I have motivation and purpose. Theists still have crises of faith, so it doesn't look like much of an improvement. Besides, brainwashing oneself into a belief that I'm glaringly aware is false doesn't sounds like something a "thinking" atheist does.
God as Father and Lord also does not motivate me in particular. If I had reason to believe he existed, I would likely feel smothered and shackled by the existence of such a being. The most Loving and Just a God can be is to effectively not exist and free up the celestial throne for the uplifted humanity.
Of course, you can continue to call "finding value in things out of your reach" faith and "if God is real, it better be me" religion if you want. I find that really tortured and useless for the purpose of explaining power, though.
Most literature isn't purely Godly the way you've picked out the counterexamples to be "purely atheistic". I reject the attempt of Christianity to claim full credit for all those 2500 years.
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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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