Most Atheists accept the Universe as cold, pitiless, & indifferent. Why do Believers find this so difficult?

Question

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Atheists see humans as exactly like any other form of life.
Why do believers insist we are singled out as special?

We all are born.
We all have good times and bad.
We both interact and spend time alone.
Eventually we die.

Those words equally well describe earthworms & emus, cows & cuckoos, geckos & goldfish, hawks & humans. Perhaps even pines & periwinkle.

What reason do Believers have to smugly feel that humans have some special fate? Why is such belief not simply a perpetuation of ancient myth?

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Answer 1

They are, as Richard Dawkins would put it, "speciesists".

Answer 2

by using fact there's no longer the rest interior the universe to create goodness, heat temperature, kindness, worrying, artwork or society. Interpersonal accountability and quite taking good care of others is the only way wherein atheists can probable create a extra acceptable international. there is not any supernatural being who will magically make all of it extra acceptable. there is not any after-existence which will eliminate all the concerns of this international. without one yet another, we've got not something. and because there is not any God, we atheists haven't any recourse to blaming some supernatural, omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful rigidity that works in mysterious techniques. we've not got self belief we are being examined, or punished, or rewarded for our sturdy recommendations. Our loss of religion in a deity potential that we've self belief that we are all able to turning out to be the international a extra acceptable place. We may well be waiting to assist one yet another and make a extra acceptable destiny. To us, the shortcoming of a god, and a chilly, pitiless impersonal universe actually makes for a international which would be greater if all of us artwork mutually.

Answer 3

I am an Atheist. I do not believe that humans have some special fate. But I do not see humans in the same way I see all other life forms. We are unique and obviously ''above'' other forms of life. Although some are far more above it than others. I also believe that animals have a much more complex range of emotion than some people think. They should be treated with as much kindness as possible. I'm just saying.

Answer 4

Very good question

I believe in something more. Its really that simple.

I'm not sure I'm better than a worm, and i know that the most adapted animals on this planet are, with no doubt, the insects. They are also the most beautiful. And yes The universe could be easily viewed as "pitiless, & indifferent", for me thats not hard to grasp although for some theists it seems to be, still, I believe in something more. Thats it

Paz de Cristo

Answer 5

J.J.,

I'm sorry those are the only options you see.

If our world was not created by a sentient and powerful outsider, then there was no such entity to give it meaning. Giving the world meaning is *our* job.

I believe that people are "just animals" in the same way that I believe I am "just a person". I can be a certain kind of person who makes unique contributions to the world, without holding myself superior to other people. Animals can do some incredible things, so can we agree not to let that hold us back?

Love and companionship have a social component as well; they do not exist within any one person. Thus they cannot be merely chemical/electrical. This statement is unrelated to the existence of a soul—an idea which, in my opinion, raises more questions than it answers.

Right, wrong, justice, and crime are also social conventions. I believe in liberty and equality. In the eyes of the law, all people are equal; second to this principle, people should be allowed maximal freedom. Killing is wrong because it impinges on someone else’s more basic right to live. Stealing is wrong because it impinges on someone else’s more basic right to have stuff (in cultures where “personal property” has meaning). If you want to do something that does not interfere with someone else’s rights, what’s wrong with it?

We don’t need a creator in order to have rules of conduct. And since you’ve decided we do need one, there’s a very important question to settle: how do we know which creator is the right one? Various religious traditions give us different sets of laws. How do we know which laws are the right ones?

You seem to believe that “animal nature” is to steal, rape, and murder, but I disagree. Our system of rules works as a social convention, only as long as people agree to make it work. Animals cannot have such agreement, because some of them need to eat other animals in order to survive. I think you’ll find a lot of compassion, community, and order among animals when one is not threatening the life of another. Humans behave the same way, for the most part.

“When the chips are down it's really every man for himself.” I can see why you hate atheism, if this is what you think it entails.

“Civility, morality, humanity, and God are all just illusions that we have created to protect ourselves from this truth.” Maybe so. All of these illusions take on a quality of realness when enough people agree with them (just like currency, which is all but worthless without the agreement of the people who use it). Certainly this is true for the first three, which have to do with how people act: they are automatically made true by the people who believe in them. I dearly love these first three illusions. I have no problem with the idea of God, until people start using it as a tool to degrade those three.

“People say that logic says that there is no God.” I’m aware that some people say that. I’ve spent most of my life studying and teaching mathematics, so I know a few things about logic. As logic is of little value without axioms, I don’t believe logic is very effective in religious debate. I’ll elaborate some other time, but suffice it to say that I disagree with your stance that logic implies the existence of a world too bleak for even logic to blossom.

Answer 6

People want to believe that their lives matter, because they have so much need. They long for love and attention, safety and comfort, and to live forever in some form. God and faith offer a route to that, in many people's eyes. If they accepted the idea that the universe is random and amoral, they may find themselves lacking purpose. They may feel that if they are not important, they therefore deserve nothing, and that nothing they do is important or worth doing. Belief can motivate them to be productive and make the most of their lives, even if somewhere deep inside they can recognize it as a lie.

Personally though, I consider myself Agnostic rather than Atheist - just as there is there is no solid proof that God exists, there is no solid proof that God does not exist. Atheists can be pretty smug in their beliefs, too.

Answer 7

First of all, I will say that I am a Theistic Agnostic. Second, I will say that there is a large population of believers who are NOT Christian, Jew, or Muslim.

Now, in many religions that are not of those three, they do accept the idea of a non-speciest universe. In fact, some hold animals in higher regards(like many animist and pagan religions).

Many of these religions, and in fact, even the Old Testament suggests this too, is that we merely have take care of this planet. Because of our proven psychological differences between humans(like advanced curiosity, instinctive grasp for language with a grammatical system, and the ability to study ourselves) and animals, that gives us an edge to oversee our actions with the planet.

The idea that nature is "ick" and "unholy" is fairly new and dumb.

Answer 8

Good objectively-stated question.

Answer: People who can't accept reality are "postmodernists".
They reject or ignore or want t replace the real to get special advantages, because they're afraid to deal with reality, because thy know they're failures.
They're free to believe whatever they want to. But what they do is say, "Since I can't or won't deal with what's real, I need someone infallible to tell me what to do; or else they say, "So I'll have to pretend to be infallible so everyone else will be forced to believe what I do, do what I say and obey orders."
That's why they do what they do--fear.
That's what they really want--to be part of or head of a dictator-slave group, as a system for telling other people (by force) what they have to say they beieve or don't believe, what they can do or can't do, what they need to pay of agree to receive."
Someone who does that is a collectivist, totalitariam, tyrant or slave, criminal, pseudo-religious dictator--anything but an American.
But that's why so-called believers do what they do.
They're not afraid to die in all cases--but in every case, they're afraid to live, at least by the laws of real space-time.

Answer 9

Well to answer your question from a believer's point of view, I think such belief certainly is a perpetuation of ancient truths, though you may not believe them to be true. I feel that I have a special fate because I fail to find a point in living when faced with an eternity of nothingness, in other words it seems to me that, logically, when faced with eternity, any number is negated, any action is pointless... hope that helps understand at least my viewpoint. And I think that all animals also believe and love and might have a spiritual continuance of life.

Answer 10

I tips me 'at. *tips hat*

My ego directs me add my my own thoughts ...
Cold and pitiless? Like beauty, it's all in the eyes of the beholder but I dare say that outside of this planet's protective shell most of it 'out there' would be rather cold and there's no thing out there to take pity on you so ...

The ego needs speshull attention.
It does not like to know its time is limited; it needs to know it is infinite; it's why there's excellent money to be made from religion IF you can keep a straight face.

The Invisible Sky Critter was made in our image from the expectations of the the insecure and pushed by the parasites into the minds of willing receivers.

Answer 11

Actually, you are incorrect. Most atheists do not see the Universe as cold, pitless and indifferent. As a matter of fact, researchers in the Netherlands a few years ago found that the mean frequency of brainwave that humans emit that matches the mean frequency, so to say, of the Universe is the brainwave we emit when we are feeling compassion.