Ask an Atheist

Not to step on a pixies toes

Buildings are interesting. Traditition is interesting. Stories are interesting. Hope is interesting. It's an unfortunate fact that atheism lacks all four.

Have you been an atheist all your life?

Oh, I have all four.

But this may hinge on just what one means by "atheism". If that means simply "a lack of belief in a god or gods", then I'll agree with you that is boring. If the entire world were atheist, the reasons for belief/nonbelief in members of the divine persuasion would be a boring subject to discuss, and I would discuss other things.

However, if atheism can refer to nontheistic ways of life, then the field of values opens up tremendously.

Buildings: Any building not dedicated to some religious ideal or purpose could reasonably be seen as a humanistic one, serving human purposes or ideals. How many buildings are not churches, temples, or mosques? Well, it looks like I have plenty of buildings to enjoy.

Tradition: Again, any secular or humanistic past could count here. The history of the West since the Renaissance is a tradition of a gradual shifting of cultural ideas to secular and humanistic ones. Progress is our tradition.

Stories: Ayn Rand is just one of many atheistic authors who wrote stories in which no god was thought to exist. While she, or the other authors, might not be to your taste, you can't say the stories don't exist.

Hope: We have plenty of hope. We can hope for our own happiness and that of others, for the gradual improvement of the human condition, and that everyone can learn to focus on what is good in life instead of obsessing over their own finitude and inventing grandiose escape clauses.

So, I think you'll find much of interest outside of theism.

Be not afraid of a dear pixies toes sir, for they do not exist anyway

I opened this thread an an intended discussion between everyone, not just myself/believers, so feel free to answer these questions yourself also.

If you're an atheist then there's a whole realm of purpose you're missing out on

Purpose for an Atheist must be wholly subjective

You're not an Objectivist are you?

Why hope though?

Montalban: Yes I believe in many objective truths, mainly in regard to science. However, there are some relms of the human experience (ie, morality) where I do not believe there is an object truth.

The objective truth behind my purpose, the one that it true regardless of what I think of it, is that I am here to spread my genes. That's cool, I accept that. However I also superimpose my own subjective meaning, things like "I want to use my life to help people", etc. When we are getting into psychology, how people think, etc, nobody thinks the same way, and so there can be few objective truths of the mind, conciousness and thought process. Of the natural world though, yes there are many objective truths.