Atheistic Materialism Automatically Disqualifies Free Will

Sorry.

OK. I get the humor. I hope you do.

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At your age, I couldn't see myself in that picture, either. Boy, do I wish I was a soon to be 20 year old instead of a soon to be 30 year old.

See, I'm reaching a point where I'm okay with being a pile of atoms. If everyone else is, so what? We all know we're gonna die. So what if death is just really the end?

In order to really get to this point -- to see life like this and be okay with it -- your mind has to be built for it. So, in that regard, I do understand the need for arguments to persuade a person.

I don't know if I can persuade you, though. I know from experience how hard it is to change someone's mind, because I've been you where it was hard to change your mind. Sometimes at certain times in your life... you just can't accept a worldview like this. Sometimes you can and the worldview makes everything dark and dreary, though. You know it, but you'd rather not go near it. Sometimes, though... sometimes you know it and you're not afraid of it. And I think I'm getting there. I've gotten there more than ever. I used to not like it at all. I used to fight against it. But I've changed and I've had more input put inside my head. If I ever change my mind again, though... well, that will be what happens.

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Why must everything be labelled by people? Can't people just be satisfied that some like myself are non-religious and leave it at that?

And what would happen if I completely disregard the label which I fall under? Who would jump down my throat?

No idea. I wish everyone could be happy with choosing their own paths in life and the afterlife, but even I admit that other people's opinions can cause myself to want to argue.

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sam harris is a piece of ****

Do you believe in humanity then? Are there any values in life? I mean, if we are all just a bunch of atoms according to you and NOTHING more, why aren't we just objects? What makes us more than wood, for instance?

I know that question sounds ridiculous, but for you every life is just an illusion created by certain actions and reactions in a brain. Why is that worth anything more than for instance a spinning mill or a computer or anything like that? What makes your life more than that?

I know that I'm exceeding the limits of the conversation here, but my main question to you is: What do you really get out of life according to your theory? What gives it value? Is human life only special because the reactions between the atoms are more complex than for example in a stone?

I think you're looking at everything from a way too technical side. You act like what you're saying is factual, while it's not. Maybe it would be more logical to sell everything as a fact if science could solve every question we have about life and existence, but it obviously can't, up to this day. It doesn't even show us how the universe originated. Yes, there is the big bang, but still there has to be something before that. Something can not just start existing out of nothing. This all suggests that there has to be something we clearly don't know about or that we can't even grab with our limited ability of understanding during our life on earth.

I'm not saying science has no meaning, of course! I'm just assuming that it's not that irrational to believe that there is something outside of it aswell.

Can you honestly say that all your questions are answered by your theory?

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It's absolutely spellbinding to think of our vast universe and question the nature of existence and how we got here and what our purpose in being here is, etc.

It brings to mind all sorts of ideas about life and what it means. As human beings, conscious of our existence, feeling like we have free will and all that (when I say we don't) it absolutely does seem like there must be something more to it. If not, then I don't think we'd have spent a vast amount of time and energy thinking about these things.

I remember fondly my days of believing in all sorts of divine things. In fact, those days have not really completely stopped. I'm still partial to the idea of spiritualism and meaning to life and even maybe a higher level of intelligence -- a higher being, perhaps -- something that guides us along in life and looks out for us. I think that may actually exist in nature. I think that some force like that may be at work in the world, which is why I say the supernatural may really just be natural.

I'll even say that I am open to the idea of life after death, but I don't know how it works or why. I do fear, though, that thinking too much about it might lead me astray and lead me towards the wrong answers and the wrong truth. But, I mean, I haven't died. I haven't seen the truth if there's something there to see.

All I know is... life IS special. Life absolutely should be thought of as special. I'm sure there are plenty of darker minded people who would think otherwise, but I'm actually not one of them.

Religion can be rather dark sometimes to people who just wanna enjoy life for what it is and not be bothered by, you know, ideas of going to Hell for your sins and whatnot. I don't go for that stuff at all. If we have no free will, then God would be sick for sending people to Hell. It would mean God has no free will, too. He would truly be a tyrant and Hell would be everywhere and everything, in my opinion.

It's ridiculous to think of yourself as not being different than wood or a computer. Obviously, you're not supporting a house. You're not sitting in Best Buy waiting for someone to buy you. You're not letting someone read Movie Forums. You are a human being. You're a magnificent creature. You're an intelligent animal on a planet in outer space.

Maybe the universe has a meaning for us that we are not aware of. Maybe you wouldn't even like the meaning if you knew what it was. The thing is, you're here, and I say you no have free will, so you're here and you're gonna live out your life in a certain way and there's nothing you can do about it. Accept it and move on. Or don't accept it and do something else. I don't care. I say whatever happens, happens. You can be happy or you can be sad and miserable and depressed. Take your pick.

The way I look at it is this: live for the moments of this life.

I don't make any decision by pondering "hmm, will this get me closer to the gates of Heaven when I die?" I do everything based on the physical world that I'm living in right now, as well as based on my morals.

If you do think about the afterlife and what happens there, good on you, I have no complaints with you. That's just my opinion on the whole thing. I guess we'll never know who's right in the end, until later of course .

We use "labels" to describe things. Calling someone "tall" is a label that describes their physical appearance. "Atheist" and "Christian" are labels that describe someone's beliefs. Even "non-religious" is a label, though you seem to have no issue with it. So I have no idea what you're complaining about. As is becoming the norm, you seem to just be thinking out loud without much regard for how coherent it is.

What does this mean?

Neither do Christians. We're not trying to rack up some Karmic High Score for the express purpose of salvation.

If we dig into what your morals are, I'm almost certain they'll prove to be incompatible with doing things only "based on the physical world." If you're a reasonably moral person you almost certainly do things that you have no reasonable expectation will benefit you directly.

Also, virtually everybody does things based on their morals, so it doesn't really explain much to say that. The question is where your morals come from and why you abide by them. Without that, it's a circular explanation.

I appreciate the conciliatory tone here, and I'm not trying to go after you with these questions, but I'm not sure what you're saying here fits with the rest of the post, where you make Christians sound like spiritual mercenaries.

By the by, it's worth pointing out that this thread isn't supposed to be a catch-all for any religiously-themed thoughts. We have a bunch of those already that people are free to resurrect. But this thread is for a specific idea about materialism and determinism.

it's about determinism. it's definitely not about materialism. it basically has nothing to say about god and even less about existing religions.

Well, the fact that this topic is about atheists automatically disqualifying free will, it is inevitable that God or at least 'the ungraspable' comes in the picture for the sake of giving alternative scenarios in which there is something like free will.
Otherwise there wouldn't be a discussion or a thread.

Yes, it is about materialism, unless you're going to deny me the right to define my terms before making a philosophical argument. Which would be especially weird given that my definition of the term is concordant with almost everyone else's, anyway.

And while it has nothing to say about God directly (which I'm pretty sure I've already said numerous times), it has plenty to say about the possible implications of rejecting God.

it's not really because people don't know what they're talking about usually. sorry, but it's true.

everyday life tells us something about cause and effect. it also tells us something about randomness and the exceptions to causes, but no one is warranted to say the story of determinism is true. and until you can show that, this business with the argument (which the vast majority of time in this thread is spent in) is nonsense.

it's more or less on the level of arguing about Walt's inner motives. it's a fiction. in the end, there are no inner thoughts.

no you're not allowed to define your own terms because those are elements in the argument that make it function. you're dead in the water before you even begin. you're arguing about nothing. determinism as a picture of the world we live in is definitely false and you have no reason to believe it either.

i said this to you last months ago. the same thing. as long as you keep this thread up and i feel interested in responding, i'm gonna keep repeating this.

And as long as you keep repeating it, I'm gonna keep pointing out that you're failing to recognize that these arguments apply to people who already hold certain beliefs. They're often already empiricists, for example, and already grant the thing you're disputing. The argument applies to them given the other things they believe. Nothing is refuted by questioning the premises both they and I share (and which I acknowledge they and I have to share for the argument to be valid) from the get-go about causality and/or empiricism.

I think you're probably wrong about determinism anyway, but that's not even worth getting into until the above is acknowledged.

Free will doesn't exist because your choices are not freely made. What you say or do or think next is not made under any conscious control. You cannot choose what you feel like you're choosing. Choice is an illusion. Write down a bunch of stuff and notice how weird it is that you picked that stuff to write instead of something else. Think of a movie - any movie - pick one - keep it in mind - and then ask yourself, "Why didn't I pick some other movie?" Cause you know lots of movies, but you picked just that one.

The feeling of choice is an illusion. People like Planet News just don't wanna fail at their arguments, but the fact is you're not in control of yourself. Unconscious processes in your brain are.

that's just what i mean

you want to play in your pretend world. also, you use the word "empiricist" and the philosophical meaning basically makes any thought like determinism impossible, but this won't even come up.

if you want to play with people in your pretend world and argue about nothing, then keep going like it means something. you seem to enjoy it and others do as well. but if you want to actually see why you're wrong and think a little harder about what it is you're actually saying, then you've got to put all the things you've said in this thread on major hold.

you can get anyone to agree with whatever thing you say and get any arguments from it. there's no real name for that really. it's just some kind of general symbolic exchange. you can argue all you want with people about how a warp core works, and i'm sure that's fun. but if you want those arguments to be able the world, then you're doing philosophy.

also people might assent to your statements, but that's because you force them into them. if i were to ask them question what they really experience, they might say something different. and to really get at the heart of what that is is thinking philosophically. you can get anyone to agree with you in the moment if you phrase things a certain way. you're just a con man then. and really that's what i see with these arguments. they don't contain curiosity or an exploratory attitude. they aren't even necessarily confident. they're just manipulative into a place you've mapped out for yourself many times.

i honestly can't believe you're not dead bored of saying it over and over again. leads me to believe it's just the act of arguing that you enjoy. the very act of steering people in line with what you want them to say. the lack of openness to the slightest possibility of an escape is what leads me to think that. it might be something, but it isn't philosophy, and it doesn't have a content other than your social interaction with the people you're arguing with (not totally pointless but from the point of view of thought, yeah).

(yes, i want to provoke you into some real thinking)