atheism is not nihilistic but…
Atheism is not intrinsically nihilistic, but some atheists/agnostics can be.
One of the criticisms often levelled at atheists is that without a god hanging round, there’s no purpose to life. There are various responses to this, one is that we don’t need purpose in a pre-defined sense, another is that it leaves us free to find our own purpose. A third excellent reply, is that it doesn’t much matter whether or not it would be nicer for god to exist and for life to have intrinsic meaning, because that doesn’t alter reality. Which is that there’s no satisfactory evidence for god or gods.
Most atheists are happy to either self-define the meaning of their life, or live without it. But not all.
A friend of mine was telling me about her depression, and how difficult she finds her understanding of reality to be at her lowest moments. For her, as for me, there is no happy ending, no supernatural watching over us, just regular day to day life. She actually does find it depressing that there is no meaning to life.
Now, I guess that this is primarily a function of her depression, and that whatever world view she held wouldn’t provide enough comfort to lift her mood. Because I think that’s kind of how depression works.
There’s nothing I can really say to her. We all love her and she means a great deal to us. Despite her opinions to the contrary she is a vital, important, much needed and wanted person. And sometimes I tell her so (don’t know whether that’s a good idea or not).
The thing about being atheist is that it only means lacking belief in god(s). Nothing else. It’s not a religion, a set of beliefs, and doesn’t have any ethical position. I get the impression that most atheists are, like me, fundamentally happy with their non-belief. But we aren’t all the same - some of us find being an atheist challenging.
Sometimes it’s a pity that you can’t really do anything about belief, or lack of it.
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I’m Back… with a Little Rant
So, I’m back after a long hiatus. Apologies to the 10 people that subscribe to the religious atheist - it really sucks when real life gets in the way of blogging.
Anyway, my friend Pinyo who is a personal finance blogger, wrote a post about the Iowa floods and how you should probably check that you have flood insurance. Obviously, that’s a natural target for a comment about how God must be punishing America for having gays. 
Curt thinks that it couldn’t be a coincidence that California legalised same sex marriage at about the same time as Iowa flooded. I’m not entirely sure what rationale he’s basing that reasoning on, but I’m fairly happy that it’s a load of nonsense.
What is it with people postulating that God is a mean and vengeful being, and that that’s ok? Who would want to bow down and worship someone who thought that two men or two women committing their lives to each other is a crime worse than torture, rape or murder? Or that as a result of some people doing something in a completely different place, random Iowans (as far as I know, not known for their immense liberalism) should be punished.
Of course, looking at it from the worldview that God is a figment of some/many people’s imaginations, it’s easy to see where they’ve gone wrong. And Curt, is clearly a bit odd - I’m sure there are plenty of theists who don’t think the way that he does.
As with many slightly deluded Christian types, he suggests that it’s nearly the end of the world. Giving me the opportunity to say “Come the rapture, can I have your car?” although I resisted, as it’s not really fair to Pinyo. Even better than that is his Curt’s follow up comment:
It’s not the gays that are causing natural disasters. The gays are not controlling the universe.
This is just so funny. It makes me wonder whether there are people who think that *the gays* are controlling the universe - and of course, that those people must never, ever gain power.
Random, off-topic, zealots making themselves look stupid without any help from anyone else. That kind of thing makes my day.
[Edited to make it clearer that Pinyo is not weird and it’s Curt that I’m laughing at]
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Science and Belief
At the moment, the only thing that I really believe in is essentially that of the scientific method. Explanations must fit reality. If reality disagrees with what you expected to happen, then you must improve your explanation. I believe this in the sense that I hold it to be self-evident.
Reality is Everything
I truly don’t understand any point of view that wishes to ignore reality, and rejects the most likely explanations for things. I try to accept that people can believe different things, but like everyone else, I reach a limit. That’s not to say that I don’t accept such people for who they are, simply that I don’t *get* them.
To me, reality is everything, and the simplest (not necessarily the easiest) explanation wins every time.
The Simplest Explanation
What is the simplest explanation?
Now this is an interesting question. Broadly speaking, I find the simplest explanations to be the scientifically accepted ones. They are generally open to repeatable experiments and don’t rely on the supernatural - things which in my book, are good.
Someone else may disagree with my chosen explanation, especially when there isn’t a conclusive scientifically accepted one, and that’s just fine. Other people may be happy with explanations that rely on the supernatural. I disagree that they are the simplest - an explanation that requires belief, doesn’t seem to me to be much of an explanation. But, if they fit reality, and are pretty simple, then they’re ok.
Belief
There are a lot of people who think as I do. They hold the need for explanations to agree with reality as self-evident and the scientific method as the best way of determining the simplest possible explanation. Does this constitute belief?
I don’t know that it does in the usual meaning of the word belief, any more than holding as a self-evident truth the statement “all men are equal” and acting upon it.
I can be offended when people say that science is a belief. It tends to imply that there are many equally useful alternatives, and that it is somewhat irrational - both things that I disagree with. Science is more of a way of looking at the world than a belief system. In terms of creating useful things, it is unequalled. It is strictly rational in its use and application, although as a human, anyone that uses science is likely to be irrational at times.
What do you think? Is the scientific point of view something you agree with? Do you think it is a belief system?
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