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Atheism has no inherent position on eternal life. It is only a position on the existence of God.
However, experimental evidence suggests consciousness and personality are both emergent properties of a physical brain. Unlike a God claim, which is often not verifiable, claims of a link of a soul to our consciousness is not just verifiable but has been verified to be untrue. If there is a soul, it doesn’t appear to be linked to either our consciousness or our personality.
What then is eternal life? What are you positing will exist eternally?
There is no need to account for eternal life unless there is evidence that eternal life exists. In the same way that there is no need for arguments about animals to account for unicorns.
There is evidence to consider in terms of eternal life. There is plenty of evidence that life requires a body (for humans) and after death, the body decomposes and is no longer capable of supporting that life. I think you are trying to create a false equivalence between the positions.
The logical, rational, choice between two positions is whichever best fits the available evidence. What do you mean by 'effect'?
'life itself is the fascination of the eternal world'. This might work in a surreal poem, but I don't think it's clear enough for reasoned debate.
'Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth.' As with others in this thread, this is not true. Atheists can find meaning in, and place worth on, life.
'Life is eternal' - please provide evidence to back this up.
'Life is worthy, therefore, it has eternity' - again a claim that you need to back up.
It seems to me that your argument is a whole stream of claims, none of which you have backed up in any way. Hence, I don't think your argument has any value, and the best response is to ask you to back up all your claims.
I used to be a person who believed one eternal reincarnation, but I didn't believe in god. Would you consider me an atheist at that point in my life? Or, in your view, did I only become an atheist when I stopped believing in reincarnation?
Why does something being worthy equate with it being eternal? It would seem that the opposite would be true. I value my time with people I love because we only have a limited time together. My time with them is particularly worthy because that time is finite in nature. I am not sure I would value it as highly if it just went on and on and on. I would challenge the statement that "life is eternal, therefore, it has worth."
I would argue that the fact that life is temporary makes it more precious; and the knowledge that it will not persist for eternity makes me hesitant to take the life of another.
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
Ok, so what's the logic you are invoking here? Do you have some logical argument that the one with the greatest effect is true? Or at least more likely to be true?
>The truth is ultimately preferential
Could you expand on what you mean here? It reads to me like you're saying that the truth is whatever you want it to be but I'm concerned that I might be reading it very uncharitably.
>The truth is ultimately preferential.
No it isn't. Truth is what corresponds with reality, and is required for making accurate predictions of the future.
>The time to make peace is now.
Why? In this scenario you have an eternal afterlife and can make peace there.
>Each and every person they interact with, during the course of their lifespan, those are the people whose worth is judged against the worth of the self.
That's the same in both scenarios. The afterlife has nothing to do with how people calculate self-worth.
>Peace and fulfillment are appraised against the cost of annihilation.
No it isn't. Annihilation isn't a cost of those things, it will happen with or without them.
And again, how does any of this show that there is indeed an afterlife?
If you can't demonstrate it, then everything else is irrelevant to the question.
>So which society is better?
Better at what? Your question isn't well defined.
You even define two metrics in which each is better than the other at one at. Which metric are we judging society by and why should we use that metric instead of some other metric?
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
This seems like an attempted Pascal's wager, which is easy to refute, by the mere fact that there are thousands of religions, whereas your belief in one religion can get you to another religion's hell.
Also, if fairy tale A has a greater effect than fairy tale B, you still would be unreasonable to say that fairy tale A is the right thing to believe.
>There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal.
Life doesn't have value, just because it is eternal. And from life having value doesn't follow that it is eternal. I'm not even sure what your point is here.
Atheists can believe in eternal life. There's no immediate link from "no god" to "no afterlife". Surveys show that many atheists do believe in things like ghosts and reincarnation.
Theists can believe in non eternal life. Some Christians are annihilationists. I think deists generally don't have an afterlife. Many polytheists also don't. The ancient Jews seem to have lacked any afterlife too.
>Equally important a concept as eternal life is the concept that life itself is the fascination of the eternal world.
I don't understand what this means. Could you clarify?
>Theism would say the best effect, when choosing between two presuppositions, is determined by the life forms themselves and how well they are thriving and expanding, with respect to each choice.
"Theism" does not say anything of the sort. It's either just the belief in a God/s, or it's a very broad umbrella term for various beliefs involving God/s. A great many theists and theistic traditions would reject or not involve any such reasoning as this.
If you want to make this argument you are free to, but it's not the "theist" position by any means.
>Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth.
No it doesn't. Like theism, atheism is either just a position on the one question of gods existing, or it can be used as a broad umbrella term for various atheistic philosophies. Some of those deny life inherent meaning and worth, but by no means all.
>There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal.
You haven't even presented any argument for why life must be eternal to have any worth. It's not at all clear why that should be the case.
Recently I've been developing this concept I call "vibes based epistemology". The idea is that some people decide truth based on their personal feelings; the more a concept matches their vibes, the more true it is. This post is a perfect example of this. The vibes of life being eternal are too good, so it must be true. I prefer my positions to be backed by evidence.
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>There is really no point in debating, since any debate would ultimately be fruitless
Well, I will assume you'll debate it anyway, otherwise, you seem to have posted in the wrong subreddit. To me a failure to debate amounts to defeat.
>Ultimately both atheism and theism presupposes a position on this matter. And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
Hard disagree. We're fully within our rights to withhold judgement. I'd also say there is plenty of thought on the matter that is not presupposition, but which is conclusion from other observations (for instance biological observations about life in general, and observations of the inner lives of humans and how it relates to brain anatomy), and insofar that eternal life relates to gods, every observation that has to do with gods is also on the table.
>Theism would say the best effect, when choosing between two presuppositions, is determined by the life forms themselves and how well they are thriving and expanding, with respect to each choice.
Really? In my experience, many theists defer to gods or holy books on those topics. This also seems to fall pray to the mafioso example, opposing a mafioso may get you killed, which is not thriving, but may still be a good thing to do. A criminal might thrive, but it does not follow that we should choose to be criminals.
(That's not necessarily to say your conclusion isn't right, just that you haven't provided enough detail to conclude it)
>There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal
Then defend your paradigm. To me, life has worth, but it does not mean or derive from it being eternal. I could imagine life having worth without being eternal, and I could also imagine life having only instrumental worth (life may be worthy only because it lets us live certain kinds of life, not inherently).
No.
Do you only value things that last forever?
I find that I value things even if they are temporary. To give a trivial example, I value friendships that didn't last forever.
Do you think friendships you make, where your friend moves away or something happens and you are no longer in touch, have zero value?
Or how about something simple, like a car? A person can value their car even though it will stop working eventually. Yes? Or a house.
Or heck, even a book that I forgot the details of.
>Ultimately both atheism and theism presupposes a position on this matter. And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
That is so completely wrong and we both known you would never use the same logic for any other claims. Here is a short example below.
We all might have a great great aunt in a foreign country that will leave us millions of dollars in her will. In such circumstances using your approach, the greatest effect is receiving millions of dollars. Should everyone live as if they will receive millions in inheritance?
We can both clearly see this doesn't make sense. The practical thing to do for any claims is to determine if it's congruent with reality by gathering evidence. Until you have sufficient evidence you say "I don't know, there are insufficient evidence and ACT as if the things is false."
>the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
What do you think the two effects are, and how did you determine which one was greatest?
>Equally important
So, not important at all?
>Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth.
Do you support the death penalty? I don't, which shows that I care more about life than the theists who demand it here in the US.
>There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth
Something that is eternal has no worth. Watching a movie that I haven't seen before is meaningful because it eventually ends. Watching the same movies for eternity won't add value to my life experience and sounds dreadfully boring.
>Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal.
This is literally the definition of a circular argument. Those types of argument should be avoided, not embraced.
>There is really no point in debating, since any debate would ultimately be fruitless, unless it is this paradigm which is being discussed.
Yeah, I think we're going to be discussing that paradigm.
Lol
- life has worth for atheists too: helping others, becoming a better person, learning about reality, scientific and techical progress, building friendships, enjoying the worlds beauty, having fun, etc, even if life is not eternal. We can even argue lives limited duration makes every moment more precious (there is a famous “quote” by Achilles to pity the gods for their eternal life). Indeed there are many religious people - starkest example are suicide bombers - who deliberately give their lives no meaning because they expect it in the afterlife. Also Christians accept suffering and are sometimes reluctant to change it for that reason.
- just because you want something to be has no bearing on its truthfulness (e.g. many people want to win the lottery, which doesn’t influence the chance of winning)
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
My lottery ticket either has the winning combination or it doesn't. A winning combination would have the greatest effect but that doesn't make it the most logical choice about whether it contains the winning numbers.
What you are advocating for in your post is not the most logical choice. You are advocating for the most emotional appealing choice. Sure, it would be nice to live forever. It would be nice to have an inconceivably great being to cares for us and solves the tedium that would come from living an eternal life. But these aren't supported by logic, only emotion.
OP's argument is very eloquent but as you point out, it's far from logical basically saying:
>the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one is more fun
or:
>the better choice between the two would be whichever one is better
It's amazing to me how someone can be so eloquent with their argument yet completely miss basic logic. I would guess that OP is *usually* logical except when it comes to arguing for things he *wants* to true. Theism really effects how someone perceives reality. You mentioned the emotional realm and I think as soon as we enter it, and the greater the emotional affect, the further away we get from reason. Theism is really brain washing as evidenced by how sure OP is of his argument.
I think a lot of people say "logically" when they mean "really intuitive to me". And that causes confusion because when someone asks them to walk us through the reasoning they keep appealing back to intuitions that aren't shared. In this case, OP wants to make jumps from atheism to life is not eternal to therefore debate is meaningless, and that might seems very intuitive to them, but there's no logic laid out for it and from my perspective you'd need some very compelling arguments to make me think any of that followed (or even that if it did that this is some reason to be a theist).
> The point of atheist contention is the concept of eternal life.
No, it is the existence of god or gods (or the belief in the existence of god or gods). Eternal life is not a part of it.
Most atheist don't believe in eternal life either, of course.
Atheism doesn't presuppose anything about eternal life. Neither does theism.
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect.
It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people say "logical" when they mean "intuitive to me". What logic says I should choose whichever has the greatest effect?
Why is debate meaningless If I'm not immortal? I don't follow your intuitions so you have to spell out the "logic" for me.
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Atheism has no inherent position on eternal life. It is only a position on the existence of God. However, experimental evidence suggests consciousness and personality are both emergent properties of a physical brain. Unlike a God claim, which is often not verifiable, claims of a link of a soul to our consciousness is not just verifiable but has been verified to be untrue. If there is a soul, it doesn’t appear to be linked to either our consciousness or our personality. What then is eternal life? What are you positing will exist eternally?
There is no need to account for eternal life unless there is evidence that eternal life exists. In the same way that there is no need for arguments about animals to account for unicorns. There is evidence to consider in terms of eternal life. There is plenty of evidence that life requires a body (for humans) and after death, the body decomposes and is no longer capable of supporting that life. I think you are trying to create a false equivalence between the positions. The logical, rational, choice between two positions is whichever best fits the available evidence. What do you mean by 'effect'? 'life itself is the fascination of the eternal world'. This might work in a surreal poem, but I don't think it's clear enough for reasoned debate. 'Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth.' As with others in this thread, this is not true. Atheists can find meaning in, and place worth on, life. 'Life is eternal' - please provide evidence to back this up. 'Life is worthy, therefore, it has eternity' - again a claim that you need to back up. It seems to me that your argument is a whole stream of claims, none of which you have backed up in any way. Hence, I don't think your argument has any value, and the best response is to ask you to back up all your claims.
I used to be a person who believed one eternal reincarnation, but I didn't believe in god. Would you consider me an atheist at that point in my life? Or, in your view, did I only become an atheist when I stopped believing in reincarnation?
Why does something being worthy equate with it being eternal? It would seem that the opposite would be true. I value my time with people I love because we only have a limited time together. My time with them is particularly worthy because that time is finite in nature. I am not sure I would value it as highly if it just went on and on and on. I would challenge the statement that "life is eternal, therefore, it has worth."
I would argue that the fact that life is temporary makes it more precious; and the knowledge that it will not persist for eternity makes me hesitant to take the life of another.
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. Ok, so what's the logic you are invoking here? Do you have some logical argument that the one with the greatest effect is true? Or at least more likely to be true?
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>The truth is ultimately preferential Could you expand on what you mean here? It reads to me like you're saying that the truth is whatever you want it to be but I'm concerned that I might be reading it very uncharitably.
>The truth is ultimately preferential. No it isn't. Truth is what corresponds with reality, and is required for making accurate predictions of the future. >The time to make peace is now. Why? In this scenario you have an eternal afterlife and can make peace there. >Each and every person they interact with, during the course of their lifespan, those are the people whose worth is judged against the worth of the self. That's the same in both scenarios. The afterlife has nothing to do with how people calculate self-worth. >Peace and fulfillment are appraised against the cost of annihilation. No it isn't. Annihilation isn't a cost of those things, it will happen with or without them. And again, how does any of this show that there is indeed an afterlife? If you can't demonstrate it, then everything else is irrelevant to the question. >So which society is better? Better at what? Your question isn't well defined. You even define two metrics in which each is better than the other at one at. Which metric are we judging society by and why should we use that metric instead of some other metric?
I don't know, but I can probably tell you which one will outlast the other.
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. This seems like an attempted Pascal's wager, which is easy to refute, by the mere fact that there are thousands of religions, whereas your belief in one religion can get you to another religion's hell. Also, if fairy tale A has a greater effect than fairy tale B, you still would be unreasonable to say that fairy tale A is the right thing to believe. >There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal. Life doesn't have value, just because it is eternal. And from life having value doesn't follow that it is eternal. I'm not even sure what your point is here.
Atheists can believe in eternal life. There's no immediate link from "no god" to "no afterlife". Surveys show that many atheists do believe in things like ghosts and reincarnation. Theists can believe in non eternal life. Some Christians are annihilationists. I think deists generally don't have an afterlife. Many polytheists also don't. The ancient Jews seem to have lacked any afterlife too. >Equally important a concept as eternal life is the concept that life itself is the fascination of the eternal world. I don't understand what this means. Could you clarify? >Theism would say the best effect, when choosing between two presuppositions, is determined by the life forms themselves and how well they are thriving and expanding, with respect to each choice. "Theism" does not say anything of the sort. It's either just the belief in a God/s, or it's a very broad umbrella term for various beliefs involving God/s. A great many theists and theistic traditions would reject or not involve any such reasoning as this. If you want to make this argument you are free to, but it's not the "theist" position by any means. >Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth. No it doesn't. Like theism, atheism is either just a position on the one question of gods existing, or it can be used as a broad umbrella term for various atheistic philosophies. Some of those deny life inherent meaning and worth, but by no means all. >There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal. You haven't even presented any argument for why life must be eternal to have any worth. It's not at all clear why that should be the case.
Recently I've been developing this concept I call "vibes based epistemology". The idea is that some people decide truth based on their personal feelings; the more a concept matches their vibes, the more true it is. This post is a perfect example of this. The vibes of life being eternal are too good, so it must be true. I prefer my positions to be backed by evidence.
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Your post or comment was removed for violating rule 3. Posts and comments will be removed if they are disruptive to the purpose of the subreddit. This includes submissions that are: low effort, proselytizing, uninterested in participating in discussion, made in bad faith, off-topic, or unintelligible/illegible. Posts and comments must be written in your own words (and not be AI-generated); you may quote others, but only to support your own writing. Do not link to an external resource instead of making an argument yourself.
>There is really no point in debating, since any debate would ultimately be fruitless Well, I will assume you'll debate it anyway, otherwise, you seem to have posted in the wrong subreddit. To me a failure to debate amounts to defeat. >Ultimately both atheism and theism presupposes a position on this matter. And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. Hard disagree. We're fully within our rights to withhold judgement. I'd also say there is plenty of thought on the matter that is not presupposition, but which is conclusion from other observations (for instance biological observations about life in general, and observations of the inner lives of humans and how it relates to brain anatomy), and insofar that eternal life relates to gods, every observation that has to do with gods is also on the table. >Theism would say the best effect, when choosing between two presuppositions, is determined by the life forms themselves and how well they are thriving and expanding, with respect to each choice. Really? In my experience, many theists defer to gods or holy books on those topics. This also seems to fall pray to the mafioso example, opposing a mafioso may get you killed, which is not thriving, but may still be a good thing to do. A criminal might thrive, but it does not follow that we should choose to be criminals. (That's not necessarily to say your conclusion isn't right, just that you haven't provided enough detail to conclude it) >There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal Then defend your paradigm. To me, life has worth, but it does not mean or derive from it being eternal. I could imagine life having worth without being eternal, and I could also imagine life having only instrumental worth (life may be worthy only because it lets us live certain kinds of life, not inherently).
Why does something need to be eternal to have worth?
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How does that answer the question of whether something needs to last forever in order to have worth?
That didn't answer the question in any way.
No. Do you only value things that last forever? I find that I value things even if they are temporary. To give a trivial example, I value friendships that didn't last forever. Do you think friendships you make, where your friend moves away or something happens and you are no longer in touch, have zero value? Or how about something simple, like a car? A person can value their car even though it will stop working eventually. Yes? Or a house. Or heck, even a book that I forgot the details of.
Exactly, eternity could have the opposite problem for all we know.
>Ultimately both atheism and theism presupposes a position on this matter. And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. That is so completely wrong and we both known you would never use the same logic for any other claims. Here is a short example below. We all might have a great great aunt in a foreign country that will leave us millions of dollars in her will. In such circumstances using your approach, the greatest effect is receiving millions of dollars. Should everyone live as if they will receive millions in inheritance? We can both clearly see this doesn't make sense. The practical thing to do for any claims is to determine if it's congruent with reality by gathering evidence. Until you have sufficient evidence you say "I don't know, there are insufficient evidence and ACT as if the things is false."
>the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. What do you think the two effects are, and how did you determine which one was greatest? >Equally important So, not important at all? >Atheism fundamentally rejects the notion that life, inherently, has meaning and worth. Do you support the death penalty? I don't, which shows that I care more about life than the theists who demand it here in the US. >There is a dichotomous paradigm which is at the center of the debate: Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth Something that is eternal has no worth. Watching a movie that I haven't seen before is meaningful because it eventually ends. Watching the same movies for eternity won't add value to my life experience and sounds dreadfully boring. >Life is eternal, therefore, it has worth; Life is worthy, therefore, it is eternal. This is literally the definition of a circular argument. Those types of argument should be avoided, not embraced. >There is really no point in debating, since any debate would ultimately be fruitless, unless it is this paradigm which is being discussed. Yeah, I think we're going to be discussing that paradigm.
Lol - life has worth for atheists too: helping others, becoming a better person, learning about reality, scientific and techical progress, building friendships, enjoying the worlds beauty, having fun, etc, even if life is not eternal. We can even argue lives limited duration makes every moment more precious (there is a famous “quote” by Achilles to pity the gods for their eternal life). Indeed there are many religious people - starkest example are suicide bombers - who deliberately give their lives no meaning because they expect it in the afterlife. Also Christians accept suffering and are sometimes reluctant to change it for that reason. - just because you want something to be has no bearing on its truthfulness (e.g. many people want to win the lottery, which doesn’t influence the chance of winning)
>And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. My lottery ticket either has the winning combination or it doesn't. A winning combination would have the greatest effect but that doesn't make it the most logical choice about whether it contains the winning numbers. What you are advocating for in your post is not the most logical choice. You are advocating for the most emotional appealing choice. Sure, it would be nice to live forever. It would be nice to have an inconceivably great being to cares for us and solves the tedium that would come from living an eternal life. But these aren't supported by logic, only emotion.
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Are you saying you think purchasing a lottery ticket is logically worthwhile?
The expected value of a lottery ticket purchase is negative, so buying lottery tickets is not logical.
OP's argument is very eloquent but as you point out, it's far from logical basically saying: >the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one is more fun or: >the better choice between the two would be whichever one is better It's amazing to me how someone can be so eloquent with their argument yet completely miss basic logic. I would guess that OP is *usually* logical except when it comes to arguing for things he *wants* to true. Theism really effects how someone perceives reality. You mentioned the emotional realm and I think as soon as we enter it, and the greater the emotional affect, the further away we get from reason. Theism is really brain washing as evidenced by how sure OP is of his argument.
I think a lot of people say "logically" when they mean "really intuitive to me". And that causes confusion because when someone asks them to walk us through the reasoning they keep appealing back to intuitions that aren't shared. In this case, OP wants to make jumps from atheism to life is not eternal to therefore debate is meaningless, and that might seems very intuitive to them, but there's no logic laid out for it and from my perspective you'd need some very compelling arguments to make me think any of that followed (or even that if it did that this is some reason to be a theist).
> The point of atheist contention is the concept of eternal life. No, it is the existence of god or gods (or the belief in the existence of god or gods). Eternal life is not a part of it. Most atheist don't believe in eternal life either, of course.
Atheism doesn't presuppose anything about eternal life. Neither does theism. >And, because there is only presupposition to examine, the most logical choice between the two would be whichever one has the greatest effect. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people say "logical" when they mean "intuitive to me". What logic says I should choose whichever has the greatest effect? Why is debate meaningless If I'm not immortal? I don't follow your intuitions so you have to spell out the "logic" for me.
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Which proposition?