One Reason Atheism Doesn’t Really Answer Anything

[rug]

May 11, 2014
By Frank Schaeffer

Most people don’t really want to live only according to narrowly defined material facts. Most of us try to direct our human primate evolutionary process along ethical non-material lines. We impose standards that do not come from nature. Nature is cruel yet we try not to be. We prosecute people for war crimes that are no more destructive than what happens every day in the churning cauldron of life where everything is eaten and where death is the only incubator of life. We call murder wrong although it’s the most natural thing on earth.

We’ve decided to let an imagined utopian ideal, a future Eden if you will, rule our present despite this being a spiritual non-material-universe-based choice that flies in the face of natural selection. We impose ethics that exist only in our heads upon the material universe. We are part of nature yet we have decided to be nicer than nature. There would be no war crimes trials unless our ethically evolved selves questioned the method of evolution itself. There would be no tears after the death of a friend, unless we had it in us to dream beyond what by now we should be used to.

A spiritual non-material-based way of life turns out to be the actual way we live no matter what we say we believe. We live by ethics not found in nature and we enrich our lives with art. That says something to me. Maybe a purely material view of the universe and of ourselves is not in fact a fact.

We have moments when we say to ourselves, “This is as good as it gets.” When we use the word good it has as much intrinsic meaning to us as the words “two plus two equals four.” Each of us may have a variation on what prompts us to say, “This is as good as it gets,” but we all know what we mean by the phrase and what others mean.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/05/one-reason-atheism-doesnt-really-answer-anything/

[edhopper]

1. Atheism only answers the question

of whether there are gods.
Atheist can live lives just as fulfilled as believers, they just understand that their meaning for life comes from within.

Other than that the article is a giant steaming pile of falsehoods, unsubstantiated claims and plain bullshit.

[rug]

4. It doesn't even answer that. It simply declines belief in god(s).

[edhopper]

7. Yes

I meant to say it answers for the individual, not a definitive answer.

Of course religious belief doesn't answer any questions either.

[upaloopa]

2. I practice Buddhism. There is no need

for me to have a god to live an ethical life.
I try to do it for the betterment of myself and other people.
No need for reward and punisent from god to motivate me.
I see most religions having their origins in the minds of men.
The Budda was a man.

[longship]

3. Ginormous pile of straw manism.

As are many, many articles about atheism and atheists.

Maybe that's why atheists and atheism are so despised.

[rug]

5. Can you think of one thing atheism has answered?

[catbyte]

8. One thing that comes to mind is the Bible, Koran, etc were written by MEN, not

GOD, ALLAH, etc. So all the religious strife, hate, and bigotry is created by US, not some divine being and the responsibility is ours.

[edhopper]

9. Can you think of one thing belief in God

has answered?

[rug]

13. Yes.

[edhopper]

15. I'll bite

What is that?

[rug]

23. That we are not random molecules awaiting disspiation.

Religious beliefs are all about questions and answers, even if you neither accept nor like any of the answers.

But, really, atheism doesn't even ask a question.

[cleanhippie]

25. Belief in god didn't answer that question, science did.

Belief in god has produced millions of questions, but not a single answer.

Well, I take that back. For the most ignorant among us, "god did it" is the only answer needed.

[rug]

26. No it didn't. Show me the alleged link.

I demand evidence!!!1!!1

[cleanhippie]

27. advocating for the "god did it" crowd, I see.

[rug]

28. No, debunking bullshit.

I'm skeptical. Where's the proof?

[intaglio]

19. Ed was responsive to your question - do him the courtesy of returning that favour

do not act like a petulant child because you believe that any response you make is insufficient.

[rug]

22. I have a jury out at the moment.

I'll return to this later.

BTW, you should check your assumptions before you make snide personal remarks.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. It's answered many things, but only ever with wrong answers.

There is, pretty much tautologically, no question where belief in God has helped or could help arrive at a correct answer.

[rug]

33. That is, as you realize, an opinion.

A wrong opinion, imo.

[longship]

10. I think that's yet another straw man.

Atheism is the disbelief in gods. Nothing more; nothing less.

It says nothing about purpose, morals, or any other questions and answers. Those would be orthogonal concepts.

Atheism is not meant to answer anything except that the atheist does not believe that gods exist.

But that doesn't stop people from saying silly things about atheists. Like, they don't believe anything. Like they believe in Satan. Like they have no source for morals. Etc. Or that atheism should somehow answer everything.

So my response is: No, I cannot think of anything that atheism, in and of itself, has answered. Why would anybody expect it to? It is just like religion in that respect.

Hope you are well, rug.

[enki23]

14. Yes. The question is "are all these people full of shit?"

The funny thing is, most all of them agree with us. About most everyone else.

[Gore1FL]

24. The same thing as any religion.

Who ever said it was an answer?

[enki23]

6. Holy shit, that guy is an idiot.

(That was supposed to be the reaction, right? Because it is.)

[Jim__]

11. It sounds like an interesting book.

From Amazon:

Caught between the beauty of his grandchildren and grief over a friend’s death, Frank Schaeffer finds himself simultaneously believing and not believing in God—an atheist who prays. Schaeffer wrestles with faith and disbelief, sharing his innermost thoughts with a lyricism that only great writers of literary nonfiction achieve. Schaeffer writes as an imperfect son, husband and grandfather whose love for his family, art and life trumps the ugly theologies of an angry God and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe. Schaeffer writes that only when we abandon our hunt for certainty do we become free to create beauty, give love and find peace.

I definitely disagree with some of what he says. For instance:

A spiritual non-material-based way of life turns out to be the actual way we live no matter what we say we believe. We live by ethics not found in nature and we enrich our lives with art. That says something to me. Maybe a purely material view of the universe and of ourselves is not in fact a fact.

Maybe. But, some aspects of the way we live may not be directly due to the requirements of evolution. Intelligence seems to be a natural by-product of evolution. But, consciousness? Maybe there is a limit on the intelligence level of non-conscious beings; and consciousness, once present may just continue to develop. And, along with consciousness, art?

[Humanist_Activist]

17. "...atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe." Tells you right there he has nothing to offer.

I'm not buying a book that insults my intelligence like that.

[intaglio]

12. Let's look at the first paragraph

Most people don’t really want to live only according to narrowly defined material facts.

This is unsupported assertion probably not based on anything except Mr Schaeffer's gut feelings and in any event what has this to do with atheism? Is Mr Schaeffer claiming that atheists are only interested in narrowly defined facts? Is he really asserting that atheists do not look beyond the bounds of local mechanistic causes and effects?

Most of us try to direct our human primate evolutionary process along ethical non-material lines.

Well apart from the obviously contemptible use of the word "evolution"; Mr Schaeffer is ignorant of simple biology. Primates are an order that includes humans and humans are a member of the order primate. Using them in the style of Mr Schaeffer borders on tautology and seems to be purposed to give the article an air of scientific rationality.

We impose standards that do not come from nature

Unsupported assertion, indeed bordering on a complete falsehood. It might be pleasant if Mr Schaeffer identified some standards that are unnatural.

Nature is cruel yet we try not to be

I thought this stupidity went out in the 1950s. Most obviously "nature" is not cruel as nature is not an agent. By this Mr Schaeffer seems to wish to return to a Pagan faith where everything is infused with some sort of spiritual essence.

We prosecute people for war crimes that are no more destructive than what happens every day in the churning cauldron of life where everything is eaten and where death is the only incubator of life

Well, I'll try but this is a ridiculous portmanteau of a sentence. We prosecute people for war crimes - i.e we seek revenge against those who have offended the standards of our society; and how is this different from chimps seeking out those who have offended their society? Then to complete his nonsense Mr Schaeffer falls back on the old and very discredited "nature red in tooth and claw," which is an absolute falsehood. compassion - even interspecies compassion - is very common amongst vertebrates. In any event is the occasional slaughter of a herbivore by a pride of lions in any way "worse" than the industrialised mass slaughter upon which our own "civilized" society is utterly dependent.

We call murder wrong although it’s the most natural thing on earth

Continuing the (sorry there is no other word) stupidity of this first paragraph. Does Mr Schaeffer really think that hunting another species for food aligns with "murder"? Perhaps he regards an escherichia coli breeding itself and so killing its host murder? Is Mr Schaeffer so utterly ignorant of the real world that he has never heard of Elephant matriarchs hunting for the killer of a calf, does he truly believe that these creatures are not seeking to punish a killer? Has he never watched a crow attacking a human who has destroyed its nest?

I will try to read the rest of what seems to be the most unalloyed tripe - but I hold no regard for an author who makes so many infantile errors in his introductory paragraph.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. WOW.

Ok, I was going to do a takedown along those lines but that was extremely thorough, and you even came up with two objections I didn't even consider.

Damn yo. That was nice.

[Humanist_Activist]

16. Damn, this is a fail starting with the nonsensical title. n/t

[Fumesucker]

20. Atheism doesn't purport to answer anything

Argues against a point no one is making.

Don Quixote would be green with envy.

The existence of atheists and atheism seems to drive some people to say the silliest things.

[intaglio]

21. Paragraph 2

We’ve decided to let an imagined utopian ideal, a future Eden if you will, rule our present despite this being a spiritual non-material-universe-based choice that flies in the face of natural selection.

Split this into its 2 elements:
a) We’ve decided to let an imagined utopian ideal, a future Eden if you will, rule our present Utterly and completely incoherent. Rationalism and skepticism (requirements for modern Western atheism) do not require governance based upon a possible ideal future but rather the inspection of what futures are possible. After that we can then attempt, or not, to acheive those that seem more beneficial or least harmful -but all the time inspecting our assumptions and the available evidence.
b) ... despite this being a spiritual non-material-universe-based choice that flies in the face of natural selection. This farago ask us to assume that atheists make "spiritual" choices and that such choices are inconsisent with confection that Mr Schaeffer's 19th Century re-imagining of natural selection.

We impose ethics that exist only in our heads upon the material universe.

No, completely false. Ethics are displayed every species that we care to examine and seem to spring from the real mechanics of social living. Mr Schaeffer seems to be confusing ethics with morals - the latter being handed down to us by authority.

We are part of nature yet we have decided to be nicer than nature.

Again Mr Schaeffer seems to have come to the conclusion that "Nature" is some sort of personified ideal which can be nice or nasty. Well I'm sorry to break it to Mr Schaeffer, but the world does not work that way and neither do humans. What ethics does Mr Schaeffer imagine are "nicer" than nature's? Exposing children on a mountainside? Keeping a deformed fetus with two brains in a single body to term so that both awarenesses (if they develop them) can suffer agonies and malfunctions? Is it truly ethical in Mr Schaeffer's world to foster a brain-dead woman in the vague hope of not offending some imagined deity? Let me break it to Mr Schaeffer - it is humans that perform such acts that are "against Nature".

There would be no war crimes trials unless our ethically evolved selves questioned the method of evolution itself.

This garbage again; other non-human species practice similar mass acts of Justice, just ask the pack of wolves that kills hunters or hippopotamuses playing catch with the carcass of a foolish crocodile. What is more Mr Schaeffer really should try and find out what "evolution" means rather than believing some fantastic concoction spawned from the brain of a rabid religionist.

There would be no tears after the death of a friend, unless we had it in us to dream beyond what by now we should be used to.

So how does this follow from the rest of the paragraph and why does Mr Schaeffer irrationally imagine that atheists are incapable of feeling sorrow; empathy is not a spiritual phenomena it is a normal part of brain function and all species with brains seem to have developed the mirror neurone system that assists that. Why does the author assume that rationalists cannot imagine what is beyond now and voyage (inside their minds) into the might-have beens?

[mike_c]

29. yum, word salad....

Actually, I'm quite happy to live a secular life in a natural universe. Seriously.

[Humanist_Activist]

30. This is a classic example of the hubris of the religious, what a disgusting display. n/t

[LostOne4Ever]

31. Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of god(s)

Nothing more. It does not claim to give any answers or has any beliefs.

If we want answers we must find them on our own. That is what makes it great!

[rug]

34. That's right. Therefore, it gives no answers.

[LostOne4Ever]

35. You say that as if that were a bad thing. (nt)

[rug]

36. Not bad, just inconsequential.