Atheism

[Jack]

As a former atheist, (now a theist) I agree with NAI, I think Existentialism addresses your questions as an atheist. Granted, there is no objective meaning, different existentialists have different ideas of creating meaning for onesself, you just have to create your own.

As far as Free Will goes, that was an argument Lewis made against a mechanistic model of the universe, that if your beliefs are the result of mechanistic processes that you have no control over, your conclusion and/or decision toward that end is inherently suspect.

Whether you accept that argument or not I don't know, but it seems to me like an interesting conundrum.

 

[TheLastMohican]

Have you always a non-believer? If not, when did you change your mind?

I became an atheist about 15 months ago (although I'd say the process was clearly in motion at least six months to a year before then). That concluded a lifelong identification with Christianity (7 years since being "born-again"). To be honest, however, I was never as securely rooted in Christianity as I had thought: near the end, one of the most compelling realizations was that other Christians were claiming a feeling of "faith" that I had never had, and most held a disdain for the evidence-based approach that I had taken (and which had caused a couple of "crises of faith" for me in the past). So even though I considered myself a Christian for most of my life, others found reason to say that I was not a real one.

How do you get by while thinking that you're nothing but a soulless accumulation of matter?

I know I'm self-aware. A soul would not make me more so. Furthermore, I find it rather liberating to have no previously defined purpose in life. I get to make my own purpose, according to my own motivations. Of course, if that purpose is harmful to a large part of humanity, then they are likewise free to prevent me from fulfilling it, but fortunately our instinctive moral compasses are sufficiently fine-tuned and cooperative to avoid that situation for the most part.

How do you justify your existence? How do you make your life meaningful if you don't believe that meaning exists?

A certain observation by Richard Dawkins has kept me motivated at times: he noted just how lucky each of us is to exist at all, and at such a good time. Why not make the most of that privilege? Countless ancestors lived and died under lesser circumstances to provide us (albeit unknowingly) with our remarkably developed bodies and minds. Now you and I are among the comparatively minuscule population that has won the genetic lottery. If you see yourself as part of the culmination of billions of years of life, you might find at least a feeling of responsibility to make it worthwhile.

 

[Shai Gar]

How do you define the difference between meaning and worth?

Meaning is definition
Worth is value