Great atheists on the meaning & purpose of life

Commander Dutch said:
Agreed on not prescribing to the philosophies wholesale.

While there's a lot to be said for "Hope for the best, but plan for the worst", pessimism seems to focus upon plan for the worst to avoid disappointment and forgets the "hope for the best."

Materialism, like money, is necessary for survival up to a point. Starvation and protection from physical elements can be fatal, but how much food and shelter do people need to be happy? The Uber-Rish in the US have more money than they can ever hope to spend. People live in houses they can barely afford with more room than two or more families while driving cars worth more than 2-4 times the median income.

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Übermensch, as I understand it, is maximizing one's potential strictly within the material universe, which is fine. As with Guno's story about the Rabbi and the atheist, it can be very noble. Most people can benefit from trying to "be all they can be", but I feel that isn't possible solely within a physical context. I believe that to maximize oneself it must be in all three realms of physical, mental and spiritual.
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Agreed that a belief in a materialistic existence is not the same thing as hedonism. A purely physicalist view of self fulfillment in life is not a licence to be hedonistic.

I do think there has to be general, universal agreement on what actually constitutes right action and right thought. That's not something you can just look up in a book of biology or evolution. That was something we inherited from the religions of the axial age, even when they become secularized and stripped of religious context.

Ritual child sacrifice made perfect sense to the religious sensibilities of many Bronze Age societies. The Homeric ethos of the ancient Greeks and the Roman Republic had generally focused on reputation, honor, courage, and nothing was really written about social justice, the proper treatment of orphans, widows, the poor, or pacifism and universal love. There is not just some scientific law that just naturally makes us act with a certain ethos.
 
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Hume said:
One problem. Cypress lied about these thinkers.
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That's something you wish were true, but is not actually true.

Ground zero of Marx's program was that humans were being alienated from the free use of their creative energies by capitalism. This kind of human freedom was at the core of his prescription for human self fulfillment and progress

Ubermensch and an ethos beyond Christianity is fundamental to Nietzsche.

Schopenhauer's prescription for self fulfillment in a life with no spirituality or higher transcendent meaning was a contemplation of the aesthetic life.


None of this is a lie
 
Cypress said:
Agreed that a belief in a materialistic existence is not the same thing as hedonism. A purely physicalist view of self fulfillment in life is not a licence to be hedonistic.

I do think there has to be general, universal agreement on what actually constitutes right action and right thought. That's not something you can just look up in a book of biology or evolution. That was something we inherited from the religions of the axial age, even when they become secularized and stripped of religious context.

Ritual child sacrifice made perfect sense to the religious sensibilities of many Bronze Age societies. The Homeric ethos of the ancient Greeks and the Roman Republic had generally focused on reputation, honor, courage, and nothing was really written about social justice, the proper treatment of orphans, widows, the poor, or pacifism and universal love. There is not just some scientific law that just naturally makes us act with a certain ethos.
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Agreed it's not written in stone. It's an evolving consensus of what allows society to function best, most efficiently. In that regard, society becomes like a species of animal which is well adapted to its environment, but if the environment changes, such as the dinosaurs and the asteroid, can quickly become non-adaptive and die out.

The main trend I see is that as societies become larger, they need to become more tolerant otherwise they end up eating themselves.
 
Cypress said:
Hume said:
One problem. Cypress lied about these thinkers.
Click to expand...
That's something you wish were true, but is not actually true.

Ground zero of Marx's program was that humans were being alienated from the free use of their creative energies by capitalism. This kind of human freedom was at the core of his prescription for human self fulfillment and progress

Ubermensch and an ethos beyond Christianity is fundamental to Nietzsche.

Schopenhauer's prescription for self fulfillment in a life with no spirituality or higher transcendent meaning was a contemplation of the aesthetic life.


None of this is a lie
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Don't expect an intellectual response from a dull-witted troll boy. He's an idiot.
 
Commander Dutch said:
Agreed it's not written in stone. It's an evolving consensus of what allows society to function best, most efficiently. In that regard, society becomes like a species of animal which is well adapted to its environment, but if the environment changes, such as the dinosaurs and the asteroid, can quickly become non-adaptive and die out.

The main trend I see is that as societies become larger, they need to become more tolerant otherwise they end up eating themselves.
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Good points.

I've never really been a fan of the concept there are scientific laws of sociology and anthropology that drive us inexorably towards more just behavior and egalitarian societies.

Millions of Nazi era Germans and Cultural Revolution era Chinese were easily convinced that a large segment of their unarmed civilian neighbors needed to be murdered and eradicated. German officers were ordered to withhold any humanitarian or charitable help to Russian and Ukrainian civilians in the occupied lands, because they weren't quite as human as occupied Danes, Austrians, or French
 
Cypress said:
I've never really been a fan of the concept there are scientific laws of sociology and anthropology that drive us inexorably towards more just behavior and egalitarian societies.

Millions of Nazi era Germans and Cultural Revolution era Chinese were easily convinced that a large segment of their unarmed civilian neighbors needed to be murdered and eradicated. German officers were ordered to withhold any humanitarian or charitable help to Russian and Ukrainian civilians in the occupied lands, because they weren't quite as human as occupied Danes, Austrians, or French
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Agreed there are no scientific laws as such. What does exist are scientific laws and theories regarding life in general such as limits upon existence and theories such as the Red Queen Hypothesis. While there is no law driving life toward "just behavior and egalitarian societies" laws of the Universe and theories of life certainly push us toward survival.

Why would they do this? For the same reason why MAGAts hate immigrants, seek to subjugate minorities and women and attacked Congress: they see it as a matter of survival. Survival of their "way of life". In the MAGAt's cases, their perception of a Euro-American male dominated society. In all three cases they are employing the law of the jungle: Might makes Right. All three cases are brutal and anti-intellectual...which is why such forces attack the intelligentsia, the free press and anyone who disagrees with them.
 
Commander Dutch said:
Agreed there are no scientific laws as such. What does exist are scientific laws and theories regarding life in general such as limits upon existence and theories such as the Red Queen Hypothesis. While there is no law driving life toward "just behavior and egalitarian societies" laws of the Universe and theories of life certainly push us toward survival.

Why would they do this? For the same reason why MAGAts hate immigrants, seek to subjugate minorities and women and attacked Congress: they see it as a matter of survival. Survival of their "way of life". In the MAGAt's cases, their perception of a Euro-American male dominated society. In all three cases they are employing the law of the jungle: Might makes Right. All three cases are brutal and anti-intellectual...which is why such forces attack the intelligentsia, the free press and anyone who disagrees with them.
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I agree with most of that.

The only requirement of biology and evolution is survival and the transmittal of genetic information.

We have developed social contracts of justice and cultural values through law, religion, and government.

But at the primal level, human nature has remained largely the same. The things we did to other human beings in the 20th century would have shocked even Mayan sacrificial priests.
 
Cypress said:
Karl Marx: Self fulfillment and meaning is achieved through the free exercise of an individual's creative powers through their labor and creations.
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Karl Marx was a shitty person. His doctrines have always denied human nature and ignored individual liberties. Marx felt that others are necessarily fulfilled by their labor, whether it is forced slave labor or recreational hobby. All labor in which he benefitted was legitimate, unless it was his labor, because he always felt that others should labor for him in his stead.

Cypress said:
Frederich Nietzsche: Meaning and purpose are achieved by the rejection of the saintly values of Christianity and the pursuit of the heroic life of self mastery and self discovery embodied by the Homeric values of the ancient Greeks.
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Frederich Nietzche was a shitty person. Kindness, compassion and other human qualities of caring had no place with Nietzche.

Cypress said:
Arthur Schopenhauer: Self fulfillment is achieved by the immersion into aesthetic beauty, music, art.
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Arthur Schopenhauer was a moron. He considered fulfillment to be a measure of how unproductive you could be. He hated being a craftsman of useful things and preferred to spend his time criticizing others.
 
Cypress said:
I agree with most of that.

The only requirement of biology and evolution is survival and the transmittal of genetic information.

We have developed social contracts of justice and cultural values through law, religion, and government.

But at the primal level, human nature has remained largely the same. The things we did to other human beings in the 20th century would have shocked even Mayan sacrificial priests.
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Yes, human beings have developed social contracts as noted by the child-sacrificing Mayans and the Third Reich along with a few good ones. :D

As Katrina and the Fall of Saigon proved, when society collapses, so do all the social contracts. It often becomes the Law of the Jungle real quick for the very reason you mentioned: ag the primal level human beings are still the same animals as existed in the Veldt over 100,000 years ago.
 
Commander Dutch said:
Yes, human beings have developed social contracts as noted by the child-sacrificing Mayans and the Third Reich along with a few good ones. :D

As Katrina and the Fall of Saigon proved, when society collapses, so do all the social contracts. It often becomes the Law of the Jungle real quick for the very reason you mentioned: ag the primal level human beings are still the same animals as existed in the Veldt over 100,000 years ago.
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Thanks, and agreed.

I don't think there were scientific laws or immutable principles driving us naturally to the ethos of humanitarianism, liberality of justice, or egalitarian rights and activities.

David Hume certainly thought a social contract is what we figured out to use to protect ourselves from primal human nature, and that social contact can be legal, religious, or authoritarian in practice and principle.
 
Cypress said:
Thanks, and agreed.

I don't think there were scientific laws or immutable principles driving us naturally to the ethos of humanitarianism, liberality of justice, or egalitarian rights and activities.

David Hume certainly thought a social contract is what we figured out to use to protect ourselves from primal human nature, and that social contact can be legal, religious, or authoritarian in practice and principle.
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He's right, but that complex system can fall apart with the collapse or even partial collapse of society. Example: the losing fans of a soccer championship.
 
Cypress said:
Brain fart: Thomas Hobbes not David Hume

British soccer fans are the worst!
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No worries. The thought is the same; the more complex the society, the more important become social contracts that people can believe in.

At the moment in the US our social contract is eroding after decades of both political parties chipping away at it. Hence the division wedged between We, the People". Unless our leaders start finding ways to unite more Americans, they might be finding themselves on the wrong side of a revolution.
 
Commander Dutch said:
No worries. The thought is the same; the more complex the society, the more important become social contracts that people can believe in.

At the moment in the US our social contract is eroding after decades of both political parties chipping away at it. Hence the division wedged between We, the People". Unless our leaders start finding ways to unite more Americans, they might be finding themselves on the wrong side of a revolution.
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One need only look at Trump and his MAGA fans to realize how shallow the instinct is for charity, mercy, and humanitarian relief towards strangers is: Trump and the MAGA cult wanted to withhold federal natural disaster relief from California.
 
Cypress said:
One need only look at Trump and his MAGA fans to realize how shallow the instinct is for charity, mercy, and humanitarian relief towards strangers is: Trump and the MAGA cult wanted to withhold federal natural disaster relief from California.
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Hypocrisy and cruelty are not their worst features. :)
 
Cypress said:
You would only write that if you were fairly ignorant of human intellectual and cultural history. A program of self fulfillment and self mastery does not include an admonition to be an asshole. Confucius taught a version of the Golden Rule 500 years before Christianity even existed.
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you mean the second half, right......the whole thing is love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself.......Confucius was more like Confused when it came to the first half.......

and what is attributed as his "golden rule" if he actually wrote it is far more self centered than the Biblical version......it is translated as "if you don't want someone to do something to you, don't do it to them"........
 
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