Professional philosophers devote long books to this debate. I'm amazed you figured solved the issue with such absolute certainty.

But, maybe it's just your opinion.

The post seems to presume that morality is subjective. If morality is objective, a reviewer could censor false normative statements as well. While epistemically knowing whether certain moral statements are true or false may be difficult, it is not always difficult. I don't see why censoring, for example, "cannibalism is good" should be a tough call.

Your thoughts are not that far off from mine although we are arriving there from different angles. Also, I'm more hesitant to use the word God because it is so different than what people mean by "God" here in Texas.

But much respect for where you are coming from. We can both keep searching.

I kind of like the notion of a God just accidentally creating worlds without even knowing it while just going on about its own business. That would make sense in some ways.

Cool article. I really enjoyed it. I hadn't thought about Thor 4 in that way.

Thanks so much. That is actually very helpful.

I agree with your entire post. A complete lack of sensory organs makes me question whether this conscious density would even know anything as you point out. And, most certainly, what it is like to be this density (its consciousness) would be nothing like ours. I'm not even sure it would have any higher order consciousness because there is not a brain network - - everything might be too dense for pathways.

I also don't think any current relationship with humans other than parts of it literally became us. But just miniscule parts.

On the other hand, it is all of the universe's consciousness condensed into a tiny point. That seems... interesting. But as you say it raises more questions than answers.

I also tend to think this probably wouldn't qualify as a god under most definitions, but I did want others' opinions.

It's a strange place for me to be: "Hi I'm atheist but I do give pretty high credence to this weird thing at the beginning of the universe."

I'm an amateur philosopher who has watched a lot of philosophy podcasts and so forth.

I tentatively think Russellian monoism / panpsychism is a good theory of consciousness. It recently occurred to me that, if Russellian monoism is correct, cosmology suggests there was an extremely high density of all of the universe's matter/consciousness at the time of the big bang expansion.

I don't know much about this density:

1. All of the universe's consciousness condensed in one density prior to the big bang expansion.
2. When the expansion happened, the consciousness spread out all over the place in space (and perhaps time).
3. I don't know if the density has or had any will or caused the expansion.
4. I have no reason to attribute moral attributes to the density.
5. I don't know if the density had any knowledge (probably not much else going on for it to know about?).
6. I don't know if the density had powers. Just a heck of a lot of consciousness.
7. I don't know if the density or echoes of it continue to have any influence on our universe now.

Two questions:

A. I didn't previously consider myself a theist, but does this density qualify as a god?

B. Does anyone know of other people who went down the same line of thought and may have resources (papers, videos, whatever) that would address what I'm thinking? Does anyone know of a label for this line of thought? It seems sort of like a naturalistic pantheism perhaps?

None of that strikes me as an objective ultimate purpose. You're just following the subjective will of God instead of your own subjective will.

Obviously, follow it if you think it's true. But I fail to see an advantage over naturalism in terms of providing an ultimate objective purpose.

Anyway, great discussion. I really enjoyed it! All the best.

Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with God via dream. Many on this board will dismiss this out of hand, but I don't. But, it doesn't convince me because I haven't had such an experience and people of all faiths (many of which conflict) have had such experiences. Thus, from my outside perspective, the experiences either represent a common psychological phenomenon or, if something spooky is going on, point to perrenialism.

I grew up Christian and am very familiar with William Lane Craig, the historical debates over the resurrection, and so forth. I find WLC very unconvincing. Graham Oppy's response to contingency arguments persuades me instead.

I'm not convinced of Jesus's resurrection because the evidence is (1) Paul's letters reporting a vision of Jesus decades after the death and (2) the synoptic Gospels (first Mark) recording Christian oral tradition even later than that. Really, not that much from my perspective.

Indeed, I think the best evidence for the resurrection is the eleven sworn written statements of witnesses - to the golden tablets of Joseph Smith. But I don't find those eleven witnesses convincing probably for about the same reasons you probably don't.

Anyway, if you are happy with your beliefs I have no desire to convince you to the contrary so long as you aren't harming others. I also don't care to debate in this thread, but did want you to know where I am coming from.

More interesting to me, what if I grant to you for the sake of argument that the Bible is literally God's message to us? I still think you cannot establish an ultimate objective purpose to life based on this. At best, you have God's subjective perspective. Now, I might do what God says so he wouldn't smite me if I thought it was true, but that's just compliance based on threats. It doesn't establish an objective purpose any more than a man pointing a gun at you can establish your objective purpose in life.

I'm also curious if you are fluent in classical Arabic. Because I have heard Muslims argue that if you study the entire Quran in its original language that its insurmountable beauty and truth will overwhelm you and you will have no doubt of the truth of Islam.

I'm not going to bother exploring that path. Life is short, and I don't care to spend years on what may be (I suspect is almost certainly) a dead end. How about you? Are you going to shut down that potential ultimate truth without full explorarion? You might be forfeiting infinite reward. What is a decade of your life in comparison?

Now, what if the time commitment instead of years is one year? Or one month. Or one week. Or one day. Or one hour. Or one minute. I don't have a problem letting people decide for themselves how much of their limited time they want to spend on such matters.

(I kind of love this argument for Islam because of its sheer audacity. Imagine spending a decade getting to the point where you can personally examine the claim and being like, yeah, still not convinced.)

What's the alternative? I'm happy to consider it. I'm exploring. Also, I'm kind of a spooky naturalist so you might be surprised what I would go along with.

Sorry to be dismissive but I've examined a lot of claims so will be pretty surprised if you have something new.

Also, one thing I value is present experience. It has nothing to do with necessarily lasting into the future. Do you?

Feel free to continue in private message if you prefer. I'm enjoying the conversation. I think the conversation has value even if our memories are erased and Reddit disappears.

Thesis: People can be fine with naturalism because it is the best available option.

The thesis above is what you must disprove to move the needle at all. Saying that you think naturalism is terrible is irrelevant if the other options are worse.

It is analogous because after you die your memories are gone.

On your last question, of course there is still value if you enjoy writing.

Your position seems to be that, for example, my personal experience of holding my child or my wife has no value but only the illusion of value. My position is that is absurd. I know it has value. You can throw up as many arguments as you want, and it does zero to diminish the value those things have to me. The heat death of the universe doesn't effect the value one iota.

You can say this is just subjective. I'm not sure because there are objective biological underpinnings to pain and pleasure etc. But even if there is not, who cares? I care about holding and loving my wife way, way more than I care about trying to justify my values as being objective.

Besides, you are offering no alternative at all. So even if naturalism is lacking, there is no other option on the table in this discussion. If you want to put something on the table, I can readily explain to you why you also have no basis to claim an ultimate objective purpose.

My primary objection to theism is that it doesn't provide explanatory value over naturalism. You can pose a thousand questions that naturalism cannot answer, and it does nothing to move the needle if you can't establish a better alternative.

You're avoiding talking about theism, but your objections to naturalism are irrelevant if you can't establish a better alternative.

And I vehemently disagree that I lack "real purpose, morality, and human value." It's just rediculous and kind of insulting from my perspective.

Your perspective seems to be that only eternal things have value. I think that's just entirely wrong. If I take you to a nice restaurant, you should enjoy the meal rather than fretting that you will be hungry again tomorrow or crying about the eventual heat death of the universe.

Yeah we will have to agree to disagree. I can't fathom how you think life doesn't seem to match naturalism because naturalism, by definition, isn't adding anything beyond what you are observing.

I disagree that naturalism has all of the gaps ("lack of") that you suggest. And I am not aware of any alternative to naturalism that would fill those gaps. Theism tends to submit itself to a subjective God belief and the subjective whims of the believed God.

Coincidentally, this post came up today. This guy is enjoying the scenery. I think he has a great perspective.

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/107azr7/sitting_here_and_something_occurred_to_me/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

You're conflating whether naturalism is the ontological reality with a belief in naturalism.

If there is no afterlife (I frame it that way because I can't be certain this is the case even on naturalism), then there is no life jacket regardless of your belief. You can be theist and it doesn't matter there is no life jacket.

On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, I think my present beliefs provide just as much chance of a good outcome (a life jacket) as anything else on offer.

If your only point is that you think people should investigate the possibility of an afterlife and whether or not they can improve their afterlife outcome, I'm not sure. I am doing that because I enjoy the process. But if someone doesn't enjoy that search, I don't see why they should spend the finite boat ride that they know exists searching for a mythical life jacket in case of a shipwreck that may or may not happen when they could be enjoying the scenery instead.

Sure. What I'm saying is, I'm not convinced naturalism is a worse life jacket than anything else on offer.

Also, believing true things has its own benefits.

1. Generally yes.

2. If it was good, sure.

I'm not horrified at all. The way I see it, I'm astronomically lucky to have the life I have so I should make the most of it. When I die that's fine. It will or will probably be like the time before I was born, and that certainly doesn't stress me out. The universe has given me much and owes me nothing.

Also, there might be an afterlife. I don't know there isn't.

Naturalism seems correct based on using my mind to the best of my ability. I don't believe in naturalist-rewarding God.

But if I'm wrong, a good and just God will deal with my honest mistake in accordance with justice and kindness. Thus, a belief in naturalism potentially provides infinite reward (in the event that naturalism is not true).

You posit reward for theism belief if naturalism is not true. I posit reward for naturalism belief (or really for any belief that results from someone doing the best they can) if naturalism is not true.

I agree with your final point. Many theists will also have nothing to fear if there is a good and just God because they did their best. (Really eventual universalism is the only ultimately good or just outcome given how long infinity is compared to our finite lives.)

What if there is a God who punishes people who accept ancient books and without reason (on faith) rather than using their rational faculties to make the best judgment they can?

The God I posit above is already giving the atheists infinite reward. The theists would be wise to seek It perhaps.

I don't think such a God exists. But such a God seems more likely to be a moral and just being than that of Abrahamic theism. We're wise to go with the most moral and just God theory because if God is a liar or unjust, there is no basis to think following the God will do any good at all.