The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[Martinus]

Why should an atheist be suicidal? It's the theist who is the plaything of a powerful, capricious being.

Because his living body and and his dead one have the exactly the same intrinsic value.

Is this the answer? I just cleared my calendar and was about to resign my job and stock up on food and toilet paper so I could devote 3 months to properly contemplate this, but I guess I don't need to anymore. Thanks Raz!

No, you don't need to clear your calendar.  You just need to keep in your mind at every waking hour.  At work, at home, in the morning, at night, all the time.  Imagine being in an elevator for all eternity.  Imagine your desperation to get out, and how you can't.  Imagine screaming, clawing at the door, imagine crying. Imagine your own skull, old and dry and yellowing.  Imagine that all you ever were in confines of that funny little bone.  Imagine how people walking by it not giving it a second thought.  Imagine the atoms of your body floating in space billions of years from now all floating separately across the cosmos for eternity.  Now think about those things at least every half hour for three months no matter what else you are doing.  Good luck!

Ok, Raz can say this, but when I told him the same (just in fewer words) I got banned. 

[Martinus]

They kill themselves because they're unhappy and don't enjoy the experience of living.

Bingo.  Now pain and unhappiness don't happen to dead people in the materialist viewpoint and because life has no intrinsic value it is better to be dead then to be unhappy or in pain particularly if you don't see a way alleviate those circumstances.

You could have an intrinsic feeling of empathy, and imagine how your suicide will affect the people you know.  You could also have the intrinsic feeling of self-preservation, and just not actively fight it.

You could also think about how what you will do will affect people who will live after you.

[Martinus]

In a materialist universe not at all.  In such a universe the idea that you can shoot up music venue to get to a higher plane of existence is objectively wrong.  Here's the kicker, though.  Going on a shooting rampage is not objectively wrong.  It is no more right or wrong then winning the Nobel prize in peace.

I told you guys - Raz fits the school shooter profile. However, thanks to the SJW phenomenon, he has found a "healthy" outlet for his hatred for humanity, and that is lashing at people about how intolerant and smallminded they are.

P.S. Can we all agree that not cropping your quotes is objectively wrong?

[Razgovory]

Why should an atheist be suicidal? It's the theist who is the plaything of a powerful, capricious being.

Because his living body and and his dead one have the exactly the same intrinsic value.

Is this the answer? I just cleared my calendar and was about to resign my job and stock up on food and toilet paper so I could devote 3 months to properly contemplate this, but I guess I don't need to anymore. Thanks Raz!

No, you don't need to clear your calendar.  You just need to keep in your mind at every waking hour.  At work, at home, in the morning, at night, all the time.  Imagine being in an elevator for all eternity.  Imagine your desperation to get out, and how you can't.  Imagine screaming, clawing at the door, imagine crying. Imagine your own skull, old and dry and yellowing.  Imagine that all you ever were in confines of that funny little bone.  Imagine how people walking by it not giving it a second thought.  Imagine the atoms of your body floating in space billions of years from now all floating separately across the cosmos for eternity.  Now think about those things at least every half hour for three months no matter what else you are doing.  Good luck!

Ok, Raz can say this, but when I told him the same (just in fewer words) I got banned. 

Except you didn't.  You told me to kill myself. Or more precisely

And kill yourself.

Blow your brains out, overdose on pills, hang yourself, anything.

I told someone to think about something depressing.  Poor dumb Marty, I don't even know what a SJW is.  Did you ever figure out when the Bronze age is?   Maybe you can tell us how, like, you just figured out God can't exist because God can't create a rock so big that God couldn't lift it!

[Razgovory]

In a materialist universe not at all.  In such a universe the idea that you can shoot up music venue to get to a higher plane of existence is objectively wrong.  Here's the kicker, though.  Going on a shooting rampage is not objectively wrong.  It is no more right or wrong then winning the Nobel prize in peace.

I told you guys - Raz fits the school shooter profile. However, thanks to the SJW phenomenon, he has found a "healthy" outlet for his hatred for humanity, and that is lashing at people about how intolerant and smallminded they are.

P.S. Can we all agree that not cropping your quotes is objectively wrong?

http://homelandsecurity.iowa.gov/documents/misc/FBI_School_Shooter_Guide.pdf

Apparently there isn't a "profile" for a school shooter.  Since the FBI doesn't have one, why don't you send one in.

[Eddie Teach]

SJW = social justice warrior. Somebody who hectors people on the internet for not being progressive (enough).

[Razgovory]

SJW = social justice warrior. Somebody who hectors people on the internet for not being progressive (enough).

Must be my impeccable record on Transsexual rights or my deep concern over the institutional racism at MU.

[katmai]

Why should an atheist be suicidal? It's the theist who is the plaything of a powerful, capricious being.

Because his living body and and his dead one have the exactly the same intrinsic value.

Is this the answer? I just cleared my calendar and was about to resign my job and stock up on food and toilet paper so I could devote 3 months to properly contemplate this, but I guess I don't need to anymore. Thanks Raz!

No, you don't need to clear your calendar.  You just need to keep in your mind at every waking hour.  At work, at home, in the morning, at night, all the time.  Imagine being in an elevator for all eternity.  Imagine your desperation to get out, and how you can't.  Imagine screaming, clawing at the door, imagine crying. Imagine your own skull, old and dry and yellowing.  Imagine that all you ever were in confines of that funny little bone.  Imagine how people walking by it not giving it a second thought.  Imagine the atoms of your body floating in space billions of years from now all floating separately across the cosmos for eternity.  Now think about those things at least every half hour for three months no matter what else you are doing.  Good luck!

Ok, Raz can say this, but when I told him the same (just in fewer words) I got banned. 

[Jaron]

Why should an atheist be suicidal? It's the theist who is the plaything of a powerful, capricious being.

Because his living body and and his dead one have the exactly the same intrinsic value.

Is this the answer? I just cleared my calendar and was about to resign my job and stock up on food and toilet paper so I could devote 3 months to properly contemplate this, but I guess I don't need to anymore. Thanks Raz!

No, you don't need to clear your calendar.  You just need to keep in your mind at every waking hour.  At work, at home, in the morning, at night, all the time.  Imagine being in an elevator for all eternity.  Imagine your desperation to get out, and how you can't.  Imagine screaming, clawing at the door, imagine crying. Imagine your own skull, old and dry and yellowing.  Imagine that all you ever were in confines of that funny little bone.  Imagine how people walking by it not giving it a second thought.  Imagine the atoms of your body floating in space billions of years from now all floating separately across the cosmos for eternity.  Now think about those things at least every half hour for three months no matter what else you are doing.  Good luck!

Ok, Raz can say this, but when I told him the same (just in fewer words) I got banned. 

[Razgovory]

Personally I find Atheism much more comforting than the idea of an intelligent being designing a capricious and violent universe for individuals to suffer in, and in which there is no physical evidence that there is anything after death.  However awful nothing is an all powerful being out to cause pain is much worse, even if redemption is supposedly possible.

The idea of dying and all of my existence going away doesn't bother me, it's an intrinsic part of life.  Whatever minimal point my life has it would be diminished if by continuing to exist I prevented something else from having its chance at life.  To be bothered by the idea of the universe ceasing to exist billions of years from now strikes me as silly, I'm much more bothered by the idea that there are incredible and amazing things going on in other places and times of the universe that I'll never get to see.

I get to choose the point of my life, it only matters to me and it won't matter at all once I'm dead.  I don't have the ego or hubris to think my life should matter more than that.

Is the Universe capricious and violent?  Seems operate by pretty regular rules.  I see this sort of response  a lot but I think it comes from a fear of responsibility of our own actions.  Is the world cruel?  Yes.  Why?  Because we are cruel.  I think we all innately know this, but want to deny our responsibility in and at the same time fear being called answer for it.

[Tamas]

Personally I find Atheism much more comforting than the idea of an intelligent being designing a capricious and violent universe for individuals to suffer in, and in which there is no physical evidence that there is anything after death.  However awful nothing is an all powerful being out to cause pain is much worse, even if redemption is supposedly possible.

The idea of dying and all of my existence going away doesn't bother me, it's an intrinsic part of life.  Whatever minimal point my life has it would be diminished if by continuing to exist I prevented something else from having its chance at life.  To be bothered by the idea of the universe ceasing to exist billions of years from now strikes me as silly, I'm much more bothered by the idea that there are incredible and amazing things going on in other places and times of the universe that I'll never get to see.

I get to choose the point of my life, it only matters to me and it won't matter at all once I'm dead.  I don't have the ego or hubris to think my life should matter more than that.

Is the Universe capricious and violent?  Seems operate by pretty regular rules.  I see this sort of response  a lot but I think it comes from a fear of responsibility of our own actions.  Is the world cruel?  Yes.  Why?  Because we are cruel.  I think we all innately know this, but want to deny our responsibility in and at the same time fear being called answer for it.

I think he means something like Yossarian said in Catch 22:

Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements?

That's pretty much my take on it: this world, without an omnipotent creator, is a beautiful place where the smallest thing is a thing of wonder.

But if it was created by an omnipotent being (ie. he could have created whatever he wanted to) then it's a cesspool of a sadistic prick who is only worthy of contempt and disgust, not praise.

[frunk]

Is the Universe capricious and violent?  Seems operate by pretty regular rules.  I see this sort of response  a lot but I think it comes from a fear of responsibility of our own actions.  Is the world cruel?  Yes.  Why?  Because we are cruel.  I think we all innately know this, but want to deny our responsibility in and at the same time fear being called answer for it.

Of course humans can be cruel, as well as loving, sadistic, kind, happy, sad, violent, depressed and peaceful the whole range.  Who would deny that?  If cruelty can only be performed by sentient beings, how much crueler than humans is the being that created a world with earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, disease and all the other suffering that isn't man made? 

[Razgovory]

Because there are natural phenomenon that can cause you harm, God must be evil?  These things like volcanoes and or hurricanes that are necessary elements to life existing on this world indicate cruelty? They are objectively bad?  I would say that volcanoes lack a moral character, and that people ascribe a moral character because they can suffer from them.  People must have the ability to suffer or else free will is fairly meaningless.  They must also have the ability to die for similar reasons.

[Valmy]

Because there are natural phenomenon that can cause you harm, God must be evil?  These things like volcanoes and or hurricanes that are necessary elements to life existing on this world indicate cruelty? They are objectively bad?  I would say that volcanoes lack a moral character, and that people ascribe a moral character because they can suffer from them.  People must have the ability to suffer or else free will is fairly meaningless.  They must also have the ability to die for similar reasons.

I guess the thinking is that an omnipotent and good God would make things good for me all the time. Since they are not he is evil...or something.

[Tamas]

Because there are natural phenomenon that can cause you harm, God must be evil?  These things like volcanoes and or hurricanes that are necessary elements to life existing on this world indicate cruelty? They are objectively bad?  I would say that volcanoes lack a moral character, and that people ascribe a moral character because they can suffer from them.  People must have the ability to suffer or else free will is fairly meaningless.  They must also have the ability to die for similar reasons.

I guess the thinking is that an omnipotent and good God would make things good for me all the time. Since they are not he is evil...or something.

If he is omnipotent, then all suffering is because he wants those sufferings to be. If a man chooses to cause pain and suffering when he doesn't have to, we call that evil. So why should not we call this evil as well?