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Simply going by the evidence. Secular philosophy has been working on some basic objective supportable axioms for morality for 2500 years--still zero consensus among the competing (equally unbacked) models.

Have five atheists write down their "top 5" ethical premises, put them in a hat, and draw them out. There will be a nearly 0% correlation.

So, what we have in practice is a hyper-simplistically rendered single axiom--some variant of the Golden Rule, as directly stolen from theism, and unsupportable -within the context of atheism- as destroyed by a single question... "why is that the correct action, objectively"?

To suggest atheism has, or reasonably can have, an actual consistent moral system is to admit entire ignorance of the field and history. Start simple--with the "is-ought problem". What one should do is not derivable from a description of material existence. Provably so. And that's all your worldview has to derive axioms from.

The evidence of history and logic demonstrates atheism can't, and won't, address ethics in a meaningful way, ever. But that's okay, because that's exactly what you want. An utterly empty and plagiarized pseudo-ethics you can ignore any time you feel like it, while wrapping yourselves in an equally empty claim to having "ethics" that has no actual content other than the mere word itself.

If you can't wrap your head around the sound of silence, I guess you're just stuck with wall of sound. If you can understand that the amount of a thing matters as to the meaning of the thing, then you can understand that the absence of something is an amount of it, and can have meaning.

However, the absence of Theistic beliefs is agnosticism, not Atheism. That's why Atheism is nothing like a TV that is off. Atheism is defined not by being without a thing, (theism) but by rejecting it. A theist who stops believing becomes agnostic, just like a person who never believed. A person who is against Christianity because God hates them, that is who becomes an Atheist.

atheism follows the same general structure and societal behaviors as a religion. plus most early atheist organizations branded themselves with names similar to churches but with an anti theism twist such as calling themselves the church of non believers.

That's like saying a non-smoker is a smoker. It is a complete contradiction.

Atheism is a lack of theism.

I know, I know. You're just trolling with ignorance. But here's how it works.

Atheism is just a lack of beliefs in gods. It's not a religion. Now you have have an atheist who is dogmatic about other things, usually ending in -ism. Capitalism, communism... But if you question what their theology is (theism being key) you don't get capitalism as an answer.

It's exactly the same as someone being Christian and being a right wing capitalist. Even if the two may statistically go hand in hand, when you ask that person what their theology is, you get Christian as an answer.

Words and concepts matter. You don't get to throw them out for 10 seconds so you can say something, but then expect YOUR OWN words to carry weight.

Okay, we're clearly at an impasse--claiming peer-reviewed, quantified, eye-witness accounts of what theism predicts being what happens post-death is not evidence, is, well, simply you lying, and/or failing to understand what "evidence" is.

I do hope you resolve your confusion on basic evolutionary theory, and your bizarre notion that abstract concepts have specific genetic representations that can be selected for or against. It does correspond to your overall inability to grasp that scientific materialism is insufficient for a coherent position on your part (as thoroughly demonstrated by the Logical Positivism movement, should you choose to investigate knowing something about it, as a "logician").

I do hope also you come to understand that characterization is not an argument, and call it "fairy tales" as many times as you like, you'll simply demonstrate yourself an incompetent who thinks he can counter evidence and massively greater demographic adherence by silly fiat.

There are no ad hominems, there are only questions you still fail to answer. That's what will remain of this discussion, available for the wider reader, as you are an irrelevancy. I hope you'll fix your nonsensical and self-contradictory worldview. If not, well, others will, and we agree on what awaits you.

But that was really my point - you make statements that simply aren't true. Even the peer-reviewed evidence you refer to is not evidence of theism, it's research you've chosen to claim is evidence of theism, but it's nothing of the sort.

As for the trend - well, you brought it up. You made this weird claim that atheists were all going to die out because they were being selected against, something that again there is no evidence of right now, and in fact the contrary - there is a growing atheist population, and a declining theist population in developed nations (and as nations become more developed and better educated the trend is always towards declining theism).

There is also of course something that can survive - the subsection of the species that are atheists, those who are less genetically pre-disposed to believing in theism, and hence are more productive and more useful members of society in a developed world. In contrast, nature is selecting against the sub-section of the human race that remains attached to theism.

So as I said, you aren't interested in intelligent discussion because we have a combination of you making things up, lying, and getting confused against fairly basic scientific concepts. Again, all you want to do is preach, but I'm not buying what you're selling, I don't do fairy tales, I do science and logic and no amount of you trying to re-declare logic as the thing you do but isn't will make it so. You're still wrong and the only way you can be right is by dropping the whole theological mysticism nonsense.

There's a certain irony in your ad-hominem attacks on me given that you cried so hard about them last post. I used them because I knew it was pointless trying to engage with you, you're using them because you know deep down you've already long lost the argument but are too desperate and insecure in your beliefs to ever admit it.

No, they are not convoluted nonsense, you are simply evading responding to clear questions in a manner that directly disqualifies you from your self-proclaimed status as a "logician".

To recap:

1. Do you acknowledge a distinction between "evidence" and "proof"?

2. Do you acknowledge the existence of evidence for theism? Peer-reviewed evidence was provided as published in among the most respected medical journals in existence earlier in the thread. Refusing to acknowledge evidence as evidence does not change the definition of "evidence". Having an alternate explanation forwarded for evidence does not make it then non-evidence.

3. By what possible means do you know there is "no evidence" anyone has encountered, as this is tantamount to a claim of psychic powers? A person can know "what happened at the corner of State and Main at 2 AM". It is impossible for anyone to know that nobody knows. In this case and regarding theistic evidence, your claim is directly epistemologically and logically invalid, universally.

4. What difference does it possibly make what the "trend" is? You all die off regardless. You may as well cite a statistical increase in the number of people born with brown eyes. In neither case does it have any effect on the outcomes per our respective worldviews. Invoke your preferred statistic, see if it helps you from your own biological end.

5. Do you acknowledge that there is literally nothing you can reference from a material-reductionist standpoint as something regarding atheism that can "survive"? I'll avoid going down the more direct route of addressing your whole viewpoint as a reification fallacy, "logician", and pointing out that not-X is not something, it is nothing, regardless of what "X" is... including "theism". Simply answer the question. State what it is in existence you are claiming will survive in 150 years, so we can measure its existence empirically.

You continue to evade these basic questions. Because, you have no way to address them without self-contradiction. Self-contradiction usually avoiding by "logicians", except, apparently, ones with as much motivated bias as you. Why so strident in insisting on your own annihilation?

You know you already lost the debate like 5 days ago right?

You seem to think if you keep posting drivel it'll somehow change the reality of the fact that atheism is on the rise, and theism is in decline in the developed world. It really wont. You're still a dying breed, and no amount of flapping about is going to change that.

You keep spouting mis-logic and I really really would like to give you the benefit of the doubt in thinking that you're just trolling and aren't actually that stupid, but I don't think it's really true is it? I mean, you really are actually so dumb that you a) believe what you're saying, b) fail incredibly hard at even the most basic forms of logical thinking, and c) really don't even understand half the concepts you're referencing.

When I talk about dying out, you know I'm talking about the segment of the human race that has the now undesirable genes that cause them to believe in fairy tales. I'm not talking about individuals but the whole, and again, folks like you with those undesirable genes that leave you believing in fairy tales are on the decline, there's just no place for people with such poor mental capacity as to believe that stuff in the gene pool as the gene pool increases in intelligence. Your anti-intellectualism is a relic, a no longer fit trait. This is why people like you are in decline, and people like me are not.

But I'll tell you what, let's do a deal, I'll go back to being a productive member of society, an atheism, part of the rising and growing and successful trend of humanity. You go back to being a relic that is easily fooled by the most nonsensical of discussion and that is part of the declining segment of humanity because you no longer have anything to offer the species. I'm sure you wont want this, because you can't accept that you're a dead end in the gene pool, but oh well, it's not really my problem is it? I'm not part of the dying trend.

Really, there's a spectrum, from fully fledged religious extremist (i.e. you, ISIS), through to people who say "Yeah I'm Christian" in the census, but don't practice it or necessarily even believe in it, to people who identify as atheists.

People who actually identify as atheists are growing in number, all the other groups are shrinking. It doesn't really matter what the total numbers are when you were talking about dying out - the trend is still the opposite of what you're claiming, the trend is still that atheism is growing and theism is dying out.

The only places where this isn't true are backwater third world nations. It's true in the West because as people become more educated they stop believing in religious fairy tales, and the West is becoming ever more educated. Unfortunately, hold outs like you still like to pretend you prefer the 3rd world undereducated mentality and make a laughing stock of yourselves, so this is what we do, we laugh at you, because you're so wrong that it's really kind of funny - I mean, let's be clear here, you're preaching logic to a logician, whilst bastardising it and reaching false conclusions, to me that's incredibly hilarious, it's like watching a fat kid stumbling, panting and falling over repeatedly along a 100 metre sprint 2 hours after everyone else has already finished but insisting he's going to win.

The best bit is that you don't even realise you're the fat kid, I'd feel sorry for you if you weren't also such a blatant preachy dickhead that somehow believe he can spread his child-mind world view by spouting nonsense and pretending he has logic on his side.

You're basically failing at everything here.

Look, atheism is vastly outnumbered by theism demographically. In conjunction with that, it has even less representation politically.

We are not "dying off". I am limiting myself entirely to your terms, in which case you are a tiny minority protected entirely by -our- norms. By your terms, as the preponderant subculture, there is no reason you can name we shouldn't simply kill you all off to expand our dominance over resources. Be clear here. You live because of our ethical norms, as you try to destroy them. That is why, this isn't even a religious thing--you are an offense to logic and all notions of positive value, objectively, philosophically, with religion or without. You are pure parasite.

There is no "bile" here. These are -your- required conclusions. This is -you-, according to -you-. You simply refuse to draw the logically-required conclusions, temporarily blocking logic and reality from your consciousness, as you know, not as a matter of my opinion, but as objective fact, you should not exist. Thank the grace of theists that you do, for no justification you can name.

No other species works to "reduce their impacts". They seek to survive in the immediately optimal way, period.

Curious how some insist we are special, while denying we are special.

If we are impacting the environment, we are doing it within the context of a lot of other biological actors, within the same system as those actors. An with us "in" that system, there is no non-subjective basis for claiming X degrees is the "right amount of impact".

If there's a wider metaphysical system than that, that imposes legitimate moral imperatives due to us being unique... well, this is Slashdot, so we know how an introduction of the only supportable basis for that, theism, will go.

No TL;DR here. Read your post carefully. Here's where I disagree:

Theism is about the belief in a god or gods. It does not speak to the existence of a god or gods. Just belief; faith. That's the very nature of theism, of religious faith that there is a god - it doesn't require consensually experiential observation, repeatability, falsification, or peer review. It does not, in fact, require the existence of anything. Theism is about a state of mind, conviction: faith.

Now, the cargo cult believes in a god; so yes, they are theists.

You, OTOH, believe in the existence of prince Philip; and he actually exists. This makes you a pretty mundane observer of reality, not a theist, in and of itself. If you believe prince Philip is a god, okay then, now you are a theist.

It's pretty important to understand what a god represents, as opposed to things that are not god (or gods.) It is also important to understand how simplistic outlooks can lead to people erecting bombers made of bamboo in hopes the GIs will come back; or looking at lightning and thunder and coming to the conclusion that Thor is actually a thing.

You, however, seem to be coming from the position that yes, you agree, lighting and thunder is a thing. But you're not asserting that Thor is a thing. When (if) you transition from the former to the latter, okay, again, now you're a theist. It's not about what the Vikings take on pure faith; it's about what you take on pure faith. So: Believing in prince Philip, lightning and thunder doesn't make you a theist.

Theism: belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not just YWHA, it's not just Quetzalcoatl, it's not just Odin. A god or gods. Any one, or any combination. There you go.

Thanks for clearing that up. That means I'm not an atheist, because I believe in the existence of Prince Philip.

Could you be more specific?

I'll try.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not "rejection of belief", and it's not the "position there are no deities."

Theism: belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not just YWHA, it's not just Quetzalcoatl, it's not just Odin. A god or gods. Any one, or any combination. There you go.

The root 'a' means "without."

So atheism means "without belief in a god or gods."

There is no book, no canon, no mantra. Nothing about it speaks to rejection or assertion or anything at all, in fact. It's the state of lacking these specific beliefs. It's what a baby has, or a dog has. No belief. It's like having no money. Either you have it, or you don't. And when you don't, talking about what kind of money you have... that's intellectually bewildered. Likewise, when you don't hold a belief, to say it's this or it's that... it's nothing. Either you have it, which makes you a theist, because that's what a theist is, or you don't, which makes you an atheist, because that's what an atheist is.

Anything else - is something else and doesn't even address the issue.

Rejection of someone's belief? That's all you, or whomever. Assertion of some state or lack thereof? That's all you, or whomever. It's not atheism.

Can you be atheist - without belief in a god or gods - and hold such views? Of course - because atheism doesn't say yea or nae about that, or anything else. You can be atheist and like peanut butter sandwiches; you can be atheist and send people to gulags; you can be atheist and with, or without knowledge.

And while knowledge and meaning are both, however cursorily, on the table, you're either atheist, or you're not. Agnostic is not a third position - it doesn't even deal with the same question, which is belief. It deals with knowledge. It's not a modifier, either, it's about what you (think you) know, which does not speak to belief at all; "atheist agnostic" is just like "atheist peanut butter assembler" and "theist agnostic" is just like "theist peanut butter assembler."

Historically speaking, theists, being both in the majority and in control of most media and definition sources, have usually characterized atheism in a way most convenient, or perhaps familiar, to them. You'll find it called out as "disbelief" in many places, and you'll find people claiming "it's a religion" and "it's a belief" just as often. All are incorrect, and serve, if anything, as a wall between actual understanding of the issue at hand, and the fog of name-calling that stands in for idea exchange in most conversations about this. And that's not to say that there aren't atheists out there who have bought into the idea that lack of belief is somehow belief, or disbelief. There are. Maximum clarity requires isolating every idea in this space and understanding it at a fundamental level. What you do not want to do is start tacking modifiers like "hard" or "soft" or "agnostic" or "peanut butter assembler" onto a basic position as if it were actually a fundamental position in itself. Because it isn't. Any more than "peanut butter liking lego builder" is a basic position.

By all means, hold whatever ideas you want to. What I'm saying here, basically, is that if you can identify which ideas actually accrue to what fundamental facets of your mental state, your education, your social outlook and so on, you'll be much clearer headed overall, and you're likely to be able to understand others much better as well.

That, and Wikipedia's atheism article is a mess. :)

Anyone with any sense knows that counting on Wikipedia for fundamental accuracy is, and has always been, hugely hit-and-miss. As it stands now, some pages by their very nature settle out at one extreme or another; one I am familiar with is the page on Atheism, which begins with one accurate sentence, and then wanders off into absolute theist-oriented nonsense before the paragraph is done.

Could you be more specific? Looking at the first paragraph of the Atheism article, as an agnostic/atheist, I don't see anything in there that is incorrect. It doesn't always apply to me personally, since there are multiple levels/flavors of atheism, just as their are in most things:

Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists.

Nothing wrong there, atheism has been an umbrella term encompassing hard atheists whose denial of any theism brims with a religious fervor of its own, to very weak atheists who don't think there's any god because they've yet to see compelling proof, but are still open to a possibility. They're not all the same and they have varying levels of certainty.

This isn't a country of vigilante justice, but rule of law

That's the rhetoric. The reality is other.

This is the country where you can never be forgiven for anything. Where a bad credit report, an arrest, adjudication withheld, conviction, a tweet, or just the lack of a Facebook account can result in a distinct narrowing — or complete loss of — job opportunities. Why? Not because of the law. Because people have chosen retribution over rehabilitation, and further have taken retribution into their own hands, which they are encouraged to do by their peers, by the media, and directly by the government through one-way enabling mechanisms such as public lists designating no-fly, no-buy and of course violent and sexual offender. Also by much of theism, which, as always, specializes in pointing at anyone not of a particular faith and labeling them in some negative way. Atheists, those despicable human beings not of any faith, have been specifically called out by various legislation as not suitable for public office, etc., and of course huge numbers of people blithely and comfortably declare they wouldn't elect them anyway. Many posters here regularly cheer the activities of vigilante groups. We have met the enemy, and they are us.

Considering that this is the accepted norm for the behavior of the average citizen, I fail to see how anyone expects to get any meaningful number of said citizens significantly upset about the government's recent tendency to take another inch in its never-ending crusade against "things that might cause things that might be bad things or be inconvenient for the courts, law enforcement, or public officials."

The masses swallow every little dollop of "FOR THE CROTCH-BLOSSOMS! TERRORWITS! DWUGS!" they are fed. They don't know a meaningful statistic from any other number flung at them by the media or the government. They think cops are heroes doing such a dangerous job that no rule is inviolate. Very few could tell you what the constitution says, and even fewer have any idea of what the overall thrust of the document is, much less a grasp on specific meanings, either as "interpreted" by the judiciary or as likely intended by the people who wrote it.

Fulminating about things on the Intarwebz isn't going to accomplish anything. Well, other than draw the attention of some facet of law enforcement. You won't get people unglued from their televisions and apps. A very small number of people have been yelling about these erosions for decades now; the course the nation has taken has remained uniformly towards more authoritarian law, ever more tenuous lip service to the constitution, all the while constantly throwing up carefully-crafted bogymen to keep the masses well focused away from the core problems. People don't listen. They don't care. They're pretty comfortable overall, and the plight of the relatively small number of people the system screws — just a few percent — means basically nothing to them until it is them, and then it's far too late.

I have no suggestions. I think the people have screwed themselves far beyond any hope of redemption. It would be lovely to be proven wrong, but so far... no sign of that.

That's a good summary!

Stupid justice whiners are ignorant of a few things:

* Why are they disrespectful to everyone who doesn't kowtow to their ideology?
* Why are they so insecure that someone has a different opinion?
* ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away,
* When opinions are so homogenized that it leads to cargo cult science you effectively have created reverse discrimination -- the very definition of intolerance,
* How the fuck is incorrect information supposed to be corrected with factual information, since by definition that could be seen as 'dissenting opinion' ?

When speech has to resort to censorship, you've already "lost." All that has changed is you've changed _what_ is being censored. How about growing the fuck up and stop being so insecure that you feel the need to impose _your_ values on every else who disagrees with your narrow-minded myopic perspective? True freedom in speech is respecting everyone's opinion even if it disagree with yours. America was founded upon the ideology of I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it.

Not everyone shares the same opinion, and that's OK. When individuality is marginalized then you have become the very thing you originally fighting against.

--
Cult, noun, A belief system that "Our way is the only way". Modern common examples include: Stupid Justice Whiners, Fundamental Atheism, Fundamental Theism, etc.

"And so I wondered, if you also would conclude that because humans die all the time, and this is seen as natural, we shouldn't care if humans die because of human involvement."

Of course we should care. And then we should do something about it that has more than zero possibility of changing that outcome.

I suggest theism.

As for lunch, by what moral principle do you declare that the animal in your hamburger (substitute non-vegetarian dish of your choice) has no right to exist, but you do? I know the answer from my worldview. Do you have some basis for your hominid species being "special", from yours?

Your bias is showing. Mono-theism has no monopoly on suicide bombers. The first group ( omitting WWII Kamikazes) to use suicide bombers were the thankfully now defunct Tamil Tigers.