> If I believed, as he does, that there is no God, that all wonder and amazement and desire and love are merely chemical reactions, and that all consciousness will die with the universe, I wouldn't bother trying to convince others of it.

For many people who don't believe in deities, the contention that our existence is based on "mere" chemistry is not necessarily denigrating. On the contrary, the chemistry of life is awesome and beautiful. A mundane and scientifically valid model of how the world works is not automatically a nihilistic act of sacrilege against the universe. You see, for those people who don't believe, the attribution of everything meaningful to an external (fictional) entity with an oppressive agenda is just as bleak and meaningless as your perception of a life without god.

> You should believe this because it eliminates all meaning and purpose in life.

Now we have crossed into pure flamebaiting. Atheism makes no statement about the meaning and purpose of life. If you don't believe in god, you're an atheist. Atheism is not a philosophy, it's the absence of religion. As such, it can't and won't make statements to the effect you're describing. Also, the phrasing here is extraordinarily inflammatory in its nonsensical twistedness. I can't imagine anybody, whether theist nor atheist, saying this phrase. It's a total non-sequitur.

Looking past the straw man into the underlying assumption here, I feel prompted to point out that atheism does not eliminate meaning. Atheists don't necessarily have any traits in common. Some may indeed struggle with depression and existential worries, but my perception is that most of them do not. You fail to understand that for (most?) Atheists the absence of a belief in gods is extremely liberating and it enhances the sense of wonder they feel towards the universe and their own existence.

That doesn't mean most people drop the belief in gods just because it feels better, instead they become atheists because it wouldn't make sense for them any other way. Where they go from there is entirely up to them individually.

Personally, I say this to you: whatever floats your boat is totally okay. Nobody should be telling you what to believe or what to not believe - and neither should you. I believe you inadvertently come across as hostile towards non-believers and that is also not good. How would you feel if I made the same untrue statements you made about atheism about your life choices? It doesn't solve anything.

No, totally not.

Do you know who conceived of the 'Big Bang'?

It was Father David LeMaitre - a Catholic Priest - and Physicist.

The Catholic Church is 100% behind the 'big bang' and 'evolution'. There's little dissonance between the church and science.

The 'difference' between atheists and religious types - should be better described as the difference between 'materialists' and 'spiritualists'.

'Materialists' (atheists are usually de-facto this) - believe that the material world is all there is, and that's that.

'Spiritualists' believe that life is an expression of something greater.

'Science' is actually rooted in Metaphysics, which is the trunk of the tree below 'Physics' (see Descartes). The problem with most scientists/rationalist/atheists today is that they have forgotten their metaphysical underpinnings ...

"Both have very little effect on actual day to day living."

I see what you're saying - but maybe not.

If you believe in something greater than you, you might be more inclined to think much more long term, make sacrifices for the greater good, for the community, for future generations.

If one believes that 'this is all there is', then one might be inclined to simply pursue highly selfish and hedonists endeavours, because after all 'sympathy' and 'empathy' are just 'emotions' - and in a purely material world there is no 'right and wrong' etc.

It'd be nice if all schools at least taught metaphysics in high school, i.e. the underpinning of how we think about the universe. As it stands, most public schools teach a very materialist viewpoint by default.

And yes, there are tons of atheists in 'Catholic Schools' because they tend to be very good. You should wonder why all those crazy religious catholics basically invented common education as we understand it, and established most of the best universities (100% of the Ivy League, Cambridge, Oxford etc. etc. :) :) (mostly not Catholic, but religious nonetheless)

Anyhow - it'd be nice for people to have a little more choice in education, without having to entirely deconstruct public education, which is important.

P.S. I'm not Catholic :)

I have two others:

1) Atheists do exist.

2) There have been insane and outrageous atrocities to humanity, science, and the natural world -- this might just be the next chapter in that saga. Either that saga continues until Humanity doesn't, God comes knocking, or a "Star Trek Federation" type scenario comes around.

Also, in the realm of morality, everything atheism purports to be true is completely optional. We can all agree that murder is wrong, but what's to stop an independent person from asking the logical question "who says?". Objectively, why is murder wrong? Societies are very delicate things, and it does not take much to spin them out of control. When chaos rises, people will trade their freedoms for order, and there will be guns in the street. Just look at the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

Have a look at the series "How Should We Then Live?" by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer. His insights into art, music, and architecture being a reflector and record of history is fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Hr0RLHxnI&list=PLl7doUcMOr...

So people may very well give up their beliefs, for a time, but then the pendulum will swing back the other way hard, and societies will be grasping at some other explanation to answer those basic questions: who am I? why am I here? where am I going?

This is all very well trodden territory. People chase their tails their entire lives trying to live without God, and end up being right back where they started at the end of their lives, just like Bertrand Russell did.

In fact, I have no desire to discuss religion at all. I was trying to make the observation that I believe there are 3 over-reaching concepts that play together in various ways in various cultures -- and such interplay is not just a human construct.

Death is the end of life, and any further meaning anyone might add, is completely arbitrary.

Yes, death exists. We all choose what meaning to assign it. I may decide to become a doctor to prevent it. I may decide to give my life in a war. I may choose to creatively explain what happens after it. The point is that it is a concept that is part of intelligent existence.

Suffering a result of chemicals in the brain? Perhaps as perceived by the person. From an external viewpoint, however, suffering seems to be part of watching things live. I'm not sure what the chemical makeup of an antelope's brain is the minute the cheetah catches it, but it can't be very happy. The process looks like suffering to the external viewer.

The larger point is that metaphysical concepts can allow us to reason about other life forms in the universe. If that's a true statement, then I think that's pretty cool.

Meaning is still here.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos&t=2m25s

> Einstein had a strong feeling for the presence of awe and wonder at the far horizon of the cosmos and saw evidence for the existence of a unifying, rational presence in the mathematical order of the cosmos. But since then the universe of theoretical physics has become random, complex, paradoxical, and barren of divine presence.

At least the atheist brigade remains constant. That's a comfort.

"Take homosexuality for example... as recent as a few decades back, it was an abhorrent crime, hated by society, hated by government." <- and in ancient greece it was normal and accepted

"Take dress code as another item" <- Fashion in dressing has changed over the course of the centuries

"The harmful nature of swine has been studied and documented to the nth degree. The bacteria it contains, and the susceptibility of the meat to transmit viruses is well known within certain research communities" <- The same could be said of other animals such as bovine and birds.

"On the contrary. Human beings have killed people." <- But in the name of religion! And not only in the name of the 3 major monotheistic religions, but the monothoeistic religions happen to be less tolerant with other's beliefs. There are many examples, the crusades, inquisition, witch hunts...

"The death toll in Iraq has gone off the scale. The death toll in Afghanistan has reached into it's hundreds of thousands. These are Atheist wars!" <- Doesn't ex-president Bush Jr told the world that the bad ones where islamic fanatic terrorists? He even wanted to call the war "Divine Justice" or something alike.

"Religion has brought, not only moral truth" <- again, that is very debatable. Religion claims it has The Truth, yet every religion claims the same, and their truths are different from each other.

"In modern history, Atheism has killed more people than centuries of religiously motivated killings." <- That is absolutely demagogic. Atheism hasn't killed anyone. People kills people, and in modern wars is it is always for economic reasons.

"The Islamic Golden Age has contributed an invaluable amount to almost every aspect of our existence today" <- That is exactly correct. And during the Islamic Golden Age, muslims where not as fanatical as they are nowadays. On the contrary, on that age, christians were as fanaticals as muslims ara nowadays.

"What has atheist brought really?" <- Freethinking, a neutral vision of nature and the universe, curiosity and the ability to ask questions and look for answers beyond "it is god's <change your deity name here> will". If it were for religion, we will still think that earth is plain.

"than just ignorant and prejudice ideas?" <- That is exactly what I would say that religion has given to humanity.

Atheism won't die out, but atheists largely will. The atheists of the future will have had religious parents. In this way, atheism is a persistent freerider, gluing itself to the coattails of belief.

The point of the passage is that everyone needs a source of meaning in their life, and that religious is more psychologically healthy option than the alternatives.

You generalize atheists and atheism so much as to dilute your target, a common and cheap practice in debate. Atheism is already diluted enough because it's a non-belief, nothing else, so there's little target for generalization there even though you love to employ it in a desperate attempt to find something to latch on to and debate. And the atheists I know, most are relative moralists. That doesn't mean they don't think humanity doesn't have a moral compass, in general, but they tend to mean that there's no facts to demonstrate moral code, as you just said in your link. There's so much wrong with your arguments there, I don't know where to start.

To not believe in afterlife, you explicitly have to not believe it, so even the denying of afterlife is based on a (negative) faith.

Atheists don't seem aware of being their position a simple negative faith response to a positive faith.

We atheists believe things. We just don't believe in gods.

You can find spiritual atheists and superstitious atheists and atheists who are flat earthers. All manner of nonsense. But they don't believe in gods.

Some people use "nihilism" to mean belief in nothing, but there are self-proclaimed nihilists who are offended at that.

There is a world of difference between thinking something caused our universe to exist and perhaps giving it the name "god", and believing in a specific god or specific claims about any god.