Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:06 pm
But what's "just" about striving for an "equality" that reality shows us does not ever naturally exist? And how do we know that the moral or "just" goal would be "equality," especially since reality offers us no dimension in which we are "equal" inherently?
You're getting all hung up on 'physical equality' and inferring that equality cannot exist because of it. I am referring to a state of mind. I do address the issue of 'physical equality' form time to time here, because you keep bringing it up. I am of equal value/worth/importance as any other intelligent being in the Universe and/or beyond. As an atheist that concept shouldn't be so hard for you to grasp. You consider yourself to be of no more importance to reality than a rock. Perhaps this will help...
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage:” Richard Lovelace.
I am equal to all, because I consider myself to be equal to all.
“I think, therefore I am” René Descartes
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:06 pm
Even in your denial above, you reaffirm the same claim. Right here, you say, "I am neither more or less important a being than you." How on earth do you know you're not either more or less "important" than me?
What would ground such a claim?
And
to whom would you mean by the word "important"?
The cosmos does not think you OR me important, so far as the Atheist telling of things goes...we're both matters of utter indifference. So how do you get this notion of "importance"?
The entire problem with religion is the notion of subservience to others, the God(s) and those who profess to speak for them. If a god exists, I am its equal, I may not know as much, or be as powerful, but we are both beings. We both have the same 'inherent right' to be. Given that fact, what 'right' does said god have to tell me how to 'be'? Or to attempt to influence my 'being' with “carrot and stick”?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:06 pm
But so what? So what if some entities in the universe can feel nothing, and others can experience pain or "have a brain"? Both brains and rocks are contingent products of an indifferent universe, according to Atheism. And "choosing," well, what tells us that things that can wriggle are "better" than things that cannot? Both are indifferent products headed to nowhere, according to Atheism.
And yet, you still get up in the morning, and live out your day.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:06 pm
I think you're new to this debate, so to a certain extent you're feeling the need to go over territory covered many times long before you arrived. But there is no reason to think, on an Atheist account, anything in the universe is either value-better than a rock or deserving of a "just" outcome, whether "equality" or not. If you think there is such, you should provide it, I would say.
Bow down before the god that you call atheism you mean?
You've gone way too far.
'There is no right or wrong.'
'There is no just or unjust.'
'There is no happy or sad.'
'There is no love or hate.'
'There is no...' Reason to be.
Come back out of the cold. There doesn't have to be a creator, but nor does there have not to be.
Becoming truly just, makes you truly happy, in an uncertain universe. I neither believe in, nor disbelieve in creation, I don't have a need to.