Here’s a question. Do we as atheist need to form a new dogma to give atheist like ourselves something to believe in. I know a lot of atheists have problems with the meaninglessness of life. Is there a way we can have a core philosophy that we can all get behind while also remaining free thinkers?
Good try, @Bronzsonator
Have you considered turning the core philosophy you’ve developed into perhaps a scifi book?
The research I did in my 50s for a book proved valuable for what I did in my 60s and part of my 70s. It all provided meaning for 25 of my retirement years. Writing a memoir of the complicated family I grew up in filled my 80s. I now have two candidates for a meaning for my 90s. They both require critical thinking.
Absolutely not. Individual Atheists can largely believe whatever they want, but we aren't a monolith. I mean sure there's some overlap, most atheists I know of tend to share similar political veiws, but the only thing that makes us Atheists is that we don't believe in a god, so I think even that were to happen (good luck getting all
Atheists on board, by the way) I think it would only give more ammo to those claiming "Atheism is just another religion" and distract from the larger question of wether or not there's a god.
That being said I do have a lot of sympathy for those who are struggling with the "meaninglessness of life" because I used to be there. How I personally got out of it was by realizing that life can mean whatever I want it to because there's no Intrinsic meaning. That's something that might have to dealt with on a case-by-case basis, because different people have different brains, and brains are really weird to say the least. I don't think there's a silver bullet that could cure that for everyone, and if there is it shouldn't be presented dogmatically it should be allowed to stand on its own merits like any other claim.
Believe me if you will, we do not need a single extra dogmatic person . We need INSTEAD of philosophy a simple set of processes that we can use to get closer( but not reach) the truth. Philosophy has no crunch point to eliminate false paths. The set of processes is called science and it could be as powerful to us the bible is to Xians.
Meaning isn’t taken from cosmology. Meaning is taken from life. Look to family, friends, education, jobs to find meaning. My daughter and our relationship has meaning, not some cosmological view of our position in the universe. Live in the now.
Karma will always run over your dogma....
"Drive your karma, curb your dogma" -- Swami Beyondananda
I know a very many atheist as I am involved in the community with people that I know from all over the world. I am almost wondering if this is trolling but I believe you are serious so I will continue to give a serious answer.
Do non-golfers need a philosophy to hold dear to their hearts because golfers "believe" in the sport? Does it mean that I have no purpose if I don't play golf?
Most atheist find meaning in life by helping others, it is that simple.
Oddly enough though I have made the point that there is no reason to have a core philosophy I personally do have one.
KEEP IT REAL. I live my life by what I can know is real. That is it. I was indoctrinated to believe things that were not real. I do not need to "replace" that with anything. What gave me meaning as a Christian was in fact meaningless as it was not real. So the theist belief that religion gives them purpose may be real but the foundation of that belief is not.
I have a condition that causes me to hallucinate every day. I spend much time trying to figure out if my memories are correct or hallucinations. Again I simply keep it real. I can most often know when I hallucinated but sometimes I have to ask my kids or girlfriend. Nothing wrong with that the important thing is that I live my life and make decisions according to what is real.
I get a hell of alot of meaning in my life helping others to determine what is real. One has to answer those questions for themselves. The trick is helping them to discover the questions to ask so thatnone can make that determination themselves.
The last thing we need to do is add dogma someplace it is not needed. Do we need dogma to relieve our bowels? If not just flush that shit down the toilet.
Sorry but you lost me at the " something to believe in" bit and again when you commented that " I know a lot of Atheists have problems with the meaninglessness of life.....,"
Imho, you are either attempting to be a Troll here OR are somewhat misled on what Atheists think, need and understand.
Atheists, many of us btw, once followed the religious dogmas UNTIl we actually read the bible and discovered it to be 100% meaningless, irrelevant and utterly useless.
That is when we shed the dogmas that abound aplenty, became true Free-Thinking Human Beings and discovered for ourselves that LIFE is not meaningless, it is wonderful, varied, sometimes dull, uninteresting, boring BUT it IS Life and it IS as good or bad as YOU choose to make it for yourself.
Most religions, the 3 main Abrahamic derived ones especially, seek only to teach that Life is something that has to endured until Death comes along and relieves you from its drudgery and takes you the 'After-life' where you will finally gain eternal happiness BUT that is ONLY on the Proviso that YOU believe in their God/s and worship them/him/her/it in both life and the After-Life.
Whereas we worship No God/s, we live the life we are born to live we because we know that at some time we will die, cease to exist completely except in those memories we have left in the minds of others and that IS the Be All and End All of it.
So, WHY I ask, would we need a 'New Dogma' in the first place when we have had more than enough of the old Religious dogmas force-fed to us before and rejected them?
Dogma means a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
"the rejection of political dogma"
incontrovertibly means not able to be denied or disputed.
Atheism by definition and premise is: no God OR Gods exist.
Atheism is proven to be wrong and incorrect because it only requires 1 style of God to prove atheism wrong. It is not required to prove all styles of gods exist to show athiesm wrong.
An atheist dogma by any means would not work. If atheism was only in denial that Harry Potter style God exist, then it might work unless someone could demonstrate Harry Potter style whiz bang capabilities.
Quite an accomplishment.....questioning "dogma", "meaninglessness of life" and being, remaining free thinkers". Just don't usually associate the one, with the other two.
not sure why so many avowed atheists would find any value in an "agnostic" site anyway, but fwiw believers all think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, right, when in fact the world has never been better, by any measure you could name, than it is right now! And we have indices for this, "moralityindex.com" et al, "a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in"
Myself as an atheist don't think I need to form a new dogma.
And the reason for that is because I don't think any authority can tell me what I should be thinking, and demanding that what I think is true.
I again can't speak for others and this is just my opinion, but my life isn't meaningless, I find it anything but that...shure life gets hard at times but who doesn't experience that.
Describing oneself as an atheist is solely about one particular thing you don't believe in - i.e. theism. It has nothing to do with what any given atheist does believe in. I think it would be a fool's errand to try to find any commonality of belief among atheists besides our atheism.
My atheism follows from some of my other beliefs, it does not lead to them.
Yeah, we can't even agree on the definitions of the words we use as labels...