Atheists who believe in moral truth must be nihilists.

[_Blixa]

And you are continuing to congratulate yourself...

What on earth do you expect with how you started your thread? "Look here you atheists! Here's a link that says atheists are murders! Response?"

That's about the level at which you started this "debate." Why continue or respond when you've already located the discussion within a whole set of irrational assumptions so deeply ingrained you don't even see them. That's why you think someone pointing them out to you is "derailing" your thread. You can't grasp that it IS the thread as you have constructed it.

[_Who Knows]

Off-topic forum?

[_A Light in the Darkness]

For example, my life is meaningful to my wife and daughter. If my life is meaningful to real, sentient, human beings, then my life is in fact meaningful.

Unless the the meaning they see is an illusion.

Why should the abstract concept of an infinitely long universe take precedence over my family when evaluating whether or not my life has meaning?

Translation: I also didn't read the paper.

Here is the short of the argument:

A necessary condition of a person being morally obligated to engage in an action is that the performance or consequence of the action either increases positive value or prevents the decrease of positive value. If the future is infinite, it is impossible to increase or decrease the amount of value.

[_Blixa]

I think you're right, Who Knows.

[Guest]

What on earth do you expect with how you started your thread? "Look here you atheists! Here's a link that says atheists are murders! Response?"

See? My expectation was right. I got blasted for the merely suggesting a link between lacking god belief, believing in moral truth, and being a nihilist. Yet, here you are stating exactly the same thing: my thread title was going to be met with dismissive hostility. Now you're just implying I deserve it. How, praytell, does one start a thread about how the nihilist implications of atheism?

What's worse, you've equated it with me calling atheists are all murders, an obviously false, bigoted assertion, to imply the view contained in this paper is false and bigoted without supplying any argument to that effect. All I've gotten is hyperventilating dismissals and attacks on my character. I tried using one of the most influential atheist philosophers alive, Quentin Smith, to insulate myself against that. It would seem not even that can protect me from the reflexive assault that I, apparently, deserve for merely suggesting an intellectual position you don't like.

That's about the level at which you started this "debate." Why continue or respond when you've already located the discussion within a whole set of irrational assumptions so deeply ingrained you don't even see them.

One wonders why this isn't the reply Smith got when he had his paper published in a refereed journal.

That's why you think someone pointing them out to you is "derailing" your thread. You can't grasp that it IS the thread as you have constructed it.

My thread contains a view that the MD thought police cannot tolerate, so it by its very nature demands a derailing response. Is that how you engage in reasoned discourse? Not through applying reason and evidence to ideas, but through shouting down what sounds negative to you?

[_The Dude]

Ultimately, it may well be meaningless, but my life is meaningful to me and I'm the one living it. People close to me also find my life and work meaningful, even if *ultimately* nothing has meaning.

This is the realization that drives some people (say, Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard) to make up fanciful tales that give an illusion of meaning. While tales of "pre-existence" and "post-morality" may expand the scope of our life into something bigger, at the ultimate limits there is still nihilism. I've often wondered if Elohim (assuming he's really there) ever lies awake at night -- staring beyond space and time as only He can do -- and says to Himself "What's the f*cking point?"

For atheists the nihilism may be closer to the lives we live on earth -- but just the same for theists, nihilism is out there and is just as real.

[_Some Schmo]

My butt hurts. Quit screwing with me.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

Ultimately, it may well be meaningless, but my life is meaningful to me and I'm the one living it. People close to me also find my life and work meaningful, even if *ultimately* nothing has meaning.

You've just contradicted yourself. Or more likely, you've made a subtle switch in the word "meaning" in the two uses in that sentence. If your life is meaningless, then it is meaningless. What you are really saying here is that you chose to live your life as if it had meaning. That you prefer the illusion of meaning to facing up to the reality that when you say things like, "Jews shouldn't be tortured to death" you aren't saying anything that's true, as it really doesn't matter one way or another. I suppose we can all be grateful for that, but it admits the fundamental truth of the argument. What's unfortunate is that you then attack others for creating "fanciful tales that give an illusion of meaning."

For atheists the nihilism may be closer to the lives we live on earth -- but just the same for theists, nihilism is out there and is just as real.

One of the consequences of your beliefs, if true, is a bleak, meaningless world. You seem to accept as much here. I cannot say the same for mine. Now you might assert, as you have done here, that my beliefs about God and the universe are wrong and I'm fooling myself. However, I'm not inclined to agree and this thread doesn't really concern that.

[_Blixa]

"How, praytell, does one start a thread about how the nihilist implications of atheism?"

Hmmm...yeah, how would one do that? Maybe something like, "Is atheism necessarily nihilist? Atheist philospher Quentin Smith make this argument."

"I tried using one of the most influential atheist philosophers alive, Quentin Smith.."

Well, that's debatable. Philosophy is one my areas of academic expertise, and Smith is not on my radar. But then again, I don't deal in metaphysics, which is where, judging by his own website, most of his work tends (even his work on language).

"One wonders why this isn't the reply Smith got when he had his paper published in a refereed journal." Had he begun with expectations of flushed, hyperventilating faces, that is exactly the reply he would have gotten, and I'm speaking as a referee of more than a few journals.

"Is that how you engage in reasoned discourse?" No, as I pointed out, its not. That's why I have done nothing other than describe your rhetoric. I don't see the possibility for reasoned discourse here.

[_The Dude]

I suppose we can all be grateful for that, but it admits the fundamental truth of the argument.

Yes, I admit the fundamental truth that there is nihilism. I don't think about it from day to day. Why should I? That's a bummer.

What's unfortunate is that you then attack others for creating "fanciful tales that give an illusion of meaning."

Sorry you took that as an attack. You must be defensive or something. Hopefully you can see that I'm not defensive about this.

Now you might assert, as you have done here, that my beliefs about God and the universe are wrong and I'm fooling myself. However, I'm not inclined to agree and this thread doesn't really concern that.

Why can't you admit the fundamental truth that there is nihilism at the limits of your belief system. Oh, it's off topic for you to admit that. Gotcha.