Purpose! If you listen to a Christian, they will imply that there is no prospect of an atheist having purpose because they have no reason to live beyond the 'greater glory of god'.
Possession of a purpose is actually the most important quality a person can possess because it underpins all else; your judgement, how you relate to people and things. The Christian is actually the most morally deprave person because they sabotage their capacity to possess a purpose. Why?There are three reasons:
1. Dogmas are not rational, i.e. There is no justification for their values
2. There is no prospect of a hierarchy of values; dogmas like statutory laws recognise no context.
3. If there is no meaning to your values, then there can be no emotional or psychological value proposition entailed in pursuing them. Which is why Christians are such vacuous, repressed persons. As I debate them, there is nothing stirring inside; just a blank space. 'Vacant'.
What can motivate a Christian to do anything - if they have no purpose? Well, first of all, not all Christians accept Christ as readily or completely as some. By the type most people reach adulthood, they have evolved as more 'practical' people than their Christian branding would imply. Most of these minds go unchallenged by a culture which accepts and legtimatises Christianity. These people have some semblance of purpose, compartmentalised or detached from their Christian beliefs. They live a life of Christian rhetoric (on Sundays), or maybe when it simply serves them, as a succession of detached rationalisations.
So where do atheists find purpose?
They find it where every other living thing finds purpose - in their nature. Humanity, like all higher species of animal, find curiosity a value by virtue of their faculty of consciousness. Bombarded by stream of sensations, protected by nurturing mothers (and fathers), animals come to feel comforted by like-minded species around them. Even observation of other species affirms the idea of life.
The highest of animal species rely only on their capacity to correlate good and bad events with certain mental sensory experiences. Animals draw upon these correlations from their life experience to survive.
Humans however possess a quality which differentiates them from animals. Its called conceptualisation or abstraction. This goes beyond the simple naming of objects, which is really a form of correlation which animals can grasp. It extends to the identification of qualities inherent and extraneous from the object under consideration. Animals cannot grasp these 'non-existent' elements. This is why animals cannot use higher level language, conceive of a post office or the field of politics.
Sadly, a great many humans cannot grasp these concepts either, but for another reason. They sabotage their minds, and thus their motivation for knowing better. They diminish their respect for logic, and they ingratiate themselves in a world of indulgence they choose not to know the greater significance of. The implication is that we have 'disciplined' Christians renouncing life for the sake of a non-existent abstraction, which is simply 'not natural', i.e. A negation of what is, and for those who cannot rightly accept Christianity, we have the 'recovering Christian' who no longer renounces, but falls into the trap of renouncing all ethical standards, a sense of purpose, and becomes therefore an utter subjectivist or collectivist. This is the legacy of Christianity. Dogmatists are destined to fall prey to collectivism, whether fascism or socialism, or whatever form they can justify. Cult leader or follower, it makes no difference. It is fundamentally a choice between victim or perpetrator. That is the legacy of Christianity. We are told Christianity is about love. No love is possible without fundamental principles or logic...yet Christianity renounces logic. We need to accept on faith, i.e. Acceptance without evidence. This is not a value system for humans; its a value system for slaves, and 3000-4000 years ago, the leaders of the Ancient World realised this. In more recent times, politicians just realise the practicality of associating with a powerful institution, particularly one with so much entrenched power. Ignorant parents raise their kids Christians thinking that they are giving them an ethical framework. They are not. They are destroying their minds. You good discipline comes from the mindless 'renounciation of values'. Life is about the pursuit of values. Not any values, but meaningful, logical, integrated, life-affirming values. For animals, they can mean 'bonking' the nearest genetically pleasing species. For humans, there is a more profound, conceptual frame of references, i.e. There is a notion of 'conceptual selection'. Evolution switched when humanity was created. We no longer evolve through 'genetic selection', we evolve through values selection. i.e. Those people with the healthiest values survive and succeed. Well, this is how it should be, if not for the legacy of Christianity. We have actually deteriorated as a society, because the intangibility of conceptualisation actually means we struggle to identify a meaningful path for living. i.e. We are destined to become materialists, both in terms of sex, wealth, reputation, and other such values. We want the tangible, because under the influence of Christianity, too many have renounced their minds. Those who retain their minds are persecuted for doing so in a democracy, so we reward materialism, the mindless extortion of wealth and soul.
In the process they will retain their Christian beliefs of renounciation, i.e. Life for society (i.e. non-self), live for dictator (i. non-self), life for the plants and animals (i.e. non-self), live for the environment (i.e. non-self). This is a negation of self, and thus a negation of your nature as a human being. It represents a disdain for your nature as a human being. Why? Because they failed to develop the right methodology, which means they were denied the validation, self-respect and efficacy that accrues to a person who knows how to use their minds.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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