What motivates Atheists and Evolutionists?

Question

Seriously, you guys defend your religious beliefs with a zeal that puts the majority of Christians to shame. Here are some questions, feel free to answer any that you like:
1. Who do you expect will reward you for your efforts? Evolution? A non-Being?
2. What will you have accomplished when the world grinds to a halt because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
3. Why should I bother to possess or "understand" your ideas when it is certain we will both die eventually?
4. What makes you so sure that you are right when the Big Bang, Abiogenesis and macroevolution are demonstrably false?
(please oh please bring them up as questions!)

FYI to the "virtue is its own reward types", nice viewpoint, but you need to ask yourself if a transitory reward is worth your life. There are lots of people in the world who are willing to lay down their lives for others. How does Atheism explain that?

Answer 1

#1 rewards come from myself...I don't need anyone else's confirmation to know I am doing the right thing.
#2 My accomplishments are the personal goals that I have set for myself to achieve whether they are accomplished by the time my life ends or not is why they are called goals..something to strive for during my life...
#3 Of course we will both die eventually, what you believe during your life is not my business I don't need you to "understand" anything...my beliefs are all I need for myself in my lifetime
#4 I believe when I die I die, not really sure how but I do believe there is no "greater or higher" power waiting to tell me whether I have passed his or her test during my life time.

What is the question that you are begging me to bring up and ask you? I have no interest in your beliefs so why would I care to ask you something about them? I am not being spiteful with my answers....just being honest!

Answer 2

I'm agnostic.
I don't defend religious beliefs because I have no religion.
1. I don't expect that anyone will reward me for my efforts. Why should I?
2. I will die long before the world grinds to a halt. My hope is that I live a good life and provide a good life for my children. You see, those are things I actually have some control over.
3. Why should I possess yours? Yes, I agree. We will both die eventually, but NOBODY can prove anything beyond that.
4. I don't claim to know everything, but YOU do. I don't know if there is or isn't a god because I have no evidence either way. You on the other hand, do claim to know a thing or two so the BURDEN OF PROOF is yours.

Answer 3

1) Just because I believe in science does not mean that I do not believe in God. I am just not Christian.
2) If you had a single clue what the second law of thermodynamics was, and how it applies to the Earth, the Solar system, and the Universe at large, you would not even bring this one up. Energy is not draining away from the earth. We have this tremendous heat engine that fuels all life, evolution, and existence on this planet. You might have heard of it. It is called the SUN.
3) I do not expect you to understand my ideas. Only the religions of Moses have a directive for Evangelical duty. Not mine.
4) None of the things you mention are "demonstratively false." If you would read a book other than the Bible and listen to real scientists instead of the brain washers at the Christian Science Monitor (which has nothing to do with science) you might actually learn something.

Answer 4

1. I do not expect anyone to reward me. My life and the things I do with it are their own reward.
2. I will be long gone when, billions of years from now the "world grinds to a halt..." As will everyone I will ever know and everyone they will ever know and so on.
3. I don't know why you should bother. Understanding others is one of the things that make this world fascinating. It also lets me understand why the ongoing discussions of evolution and god in this forum never change and how truly sad that is.
4. Unless you can come up with a demonstration that does not depend on a speculation as its basis, this statement doesn't mean anything. Creation is also not provable. You could at least try to demonstrate why your view is any more valid than the one you bash.

You should make some effort to understand your adversary. Try to see how they could have their opinion. It will make your arguments much better.

Answer 5

La-de dah. Ask and ye shall learn.

1) No-one is going to come along and reward me for attempting to add as much as I can to the world and bieng the most honest, and best, person I can. Will that stop me from doing it? Hell no! I'm not so selfish as to do something only for the reward it will give me.

If you really can't get that, just think about it in terms of creating a society in which my kids have the greatest chance of surviving; that is the 'reward' even though I don't get heavenly pleasures for eternity, it is enough for me. Creating such a society is in fact my version of morality, if you really want to know. (approximately but there is more to it than that)


2) I know all about the 2nd law. Unfortunately for you, the sun provides enough energy so that we can maintain low-entropy states on the earth, in return for a greater amount bieng present in the universe. It is just a local minima.

3) Ok, don't understand our ideas and live your life some other way, just doing some job where you don't need to know about it. No loss.

4) Oh really? Demonstrably false? I've read the creationist books, seen all the websites you can think of to link to, and I a yet to come across any such thing. But please - do go ahead and try to mount your own argument - if you do manage to accomplish such a feat there is going to be a Nobel prize - or several - in it for you!

5) For moral people laying down their lives, like soldiers, then like I said above with the 'create a society where we have the greatest chance of surviving' thing. For immoral people or otherwise, simply inaccurate cognition is enough.

Answer 6

1. Non question. Who needs rewards to continue? The weak minded. Hence the need for a "reward" to get the weak minded in line.

2. See answer one. Why do I have to have accomplished anything. Life is life, it's for living.

3. Good question. Let's turn it around and ask it of you as well. (As far as I am concerned you don't have to possess or understand the ideas that I support (they aren't really mine, they're based on scientific method).

4. Demonstrably false? Not proven false, or false beyond a shadow of a doubt, but demonstrably false. That's akin to what a magician does by demonstrably making something disappear. There is no way to prove a negative, so you can't prove that the big bang didn't happen or that evolution doesn't occur because you aren't applying any scientific method. Your proof is a book written by a group of folks of who promise you that it's the word of an invisible guy who lives in the sky. (There is just as much "proof" that the new new testament that the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints subscribes to is the "word" of god).

As for pushing what we subscribe to as true (not religious beliefs you see, because, actually I don't have any), It's easy to defend what's been proven through scientific means (That's what a theory is by the way, a hypothesis that has been proven through scientific means). So you know.


May (insert your deity here) bless.

Answer 7

(*applause for JewishGirl's comment about psychology and the need for an external reward*)

What motivates some people to assume that belief in evolution is incompatible with a belief in God (or any Higher Power)? Unless one insists on a completely literal interpretation (7 days = 7 24-hour periods, etc.) of the KJV Bible, the two are not mutually exclusive. Ask a fundamental scientist and a die-hard Christian, and they'll both tell you the same order for the appearance of dry land, life (and which came first: plants, then fish, then birds and animals) and finally humans. Is it so hard to consider that evolution could be the mechanism by which God created life?

Answer 8

My efforts. I don't expect a reward. I expect acceptance of my beliefs as equally, if not moreso, valid when compared to other faiths.

I will not have accomplished anything. The problem with your logic about the Second Law arises, in my opinion, because we don't know the "maximum entropy" of the universe (if there is one at all).

You should understand my ideas because it'll help you relate, and give insight into the universe and the human psyche.

And I will be sure in my opinions until someone actually PRESENTS this alleged "evidence" against these things. I'm often told "those have been proven false", but no one can tell me how.

Answer 9

While I do support truth, science, I am not an "evolutionist." This is a strange term. If we use this, then I am also a "gavitationist" since I believe in the theory of gravity as well. Supporting science does not make a person separate, and an Atheist either.

1. I do not live my life to be rewarded for who I am. I do believe there is an afterlife, as the soul is immortal.
2. Do you even know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is? Besides, we're not in a closed system.
3. You should be educated and learn about science, as it is important to not be an idiot in society.
4. The "evidence" to disprove everything you have listed isn't usually from credible sources.

Answer 10

Not an atheist, but an evolutionist.
1.We don't want to see humanity continue to wander in ignorance.
2.Nothing, if the world grinds to halt. The universe could end up expanding forever in a big freeze, collapse back and burn up in a big crunch, or could continue in an oscillating universe.
3.The same reason we get up everymorning and live our lives instead of putting a gun to our head.
4.They are not demonstrably false. Macroevolution is all but proven. We have photographs of the big bang (because images are light and that light is still traveling into the depths of the universe today. Abiogenesis-we still don't know much, so I can't comment on that.
What makes you so soure they are false?