Can atheism explain love?

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Yuujin

@Atheris

Yuujin how do any of those actions follow from an atheistic worldview?

One of the leading figures in atheism Richard Dawkins says this;

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. . . . We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. That is exactly what we are here for.”

He is saying what we are here for NOT 'why".
We can, and do make our own reasons why we do what we do.

What he says is essentially correct, and it is only the act of huge arrogance and hybris to pretend that nature is adjusted to our needs by a divine presence. In fact I challenge anyone to explain half of what happens as if the world conformed to that suggestion in the slightest.

If there is a God, then he is not that which is characterised by your religion or any for that matter.

[James_S_Saint]

@Atheris

James S Saint according to you, any conceivable idea also exists in reality.

If you really want to get technical about it, ideas exist in physical reality in form of neurological connections in the brain. But if you have an idea of a car in your brain it doesn’t mean you have a car in your brain but an IDEA of it (OBVIOUSLY).

It is the IDEA of a God that influences human actions which affect reality, not God itself.

Note how his argument began, a premise:

Since God exists in man’s imagination …

By that premise, a definition of God is being implied. And it is a common definition, “God = the greatest being imaginable”. Considering that definition, the logic follows that God has physical existence.

That isn’t at all the definition that I prefer, but it is a common one.

[AutSider]

By that premise, a definition of God is being implied. And it is a common definition, “God = the greatest being imaginable”. Considering that definition, the logic follows that God has physical existence.

That isn’t at all the definition that I prefer, but it is a common one.

And how exactly does it follow? What exactly do you mean by greatest?

The greatest being wouldn’t allow holocaust to happen. Holocaust happened, therefore there is no greatest being since any being that lets holocaust happen is not the greatest being, as the greatest being would be capable of preventing it and would want to prevent it. Sounds familiar?

If there truly is a God I can imagine a being greater than that God, a being that would have stopped Holocaust, therefore that God is not the greatest imaginable being since I can easily imagine a greater one.

Also, it seems to me you’re trying to use the original version of the ontological argument. Are you? Cause if so, you should be embarrassed.

[James_S_Saint]

@Atheris

By that premise, a definition of God is being implied. And it is a common definition, “God = the greatest being imaginable”. Considering that definition, the logic follows that God has physical existence.

That isn’t at all the definition that I prefer, but it is a common one.

And how exactly does it follow? What exactly do you mean by greatest?

The greatest being wouldn’t allow holocaust to happen. Holocaust happened, therefore there is no greatest being since any being that lets holocaust happen is not the greatest being, as the greatest being would be capable of preventing it and would want to prevent it. Sounds familiar?

The debate concerning which philosophy is the greatest idea with which to control life on Earth has been going on for thousands of years. Unless you have the greatest idea yourself, how would you know what that philosophy/idea would demand or permit?

@Atheris

If there truly is a God I can imagine a being greater than that God, a being that would have stopped Holocaust, therefore that God is not the greatest imaginable being since I can easily imagine a greater one.

You can’t imagine a greater one until you do. And once you do, there is the greatest. Many have accepted that God is “the Becoming”, “God creates himself”, and “God is the beginning and the end”. Many surmise that God cannot be known (the greatest cannot be known), but in the mean time, like the scientists, we will control all the world with the best we can imagine at the time, ie. “God [at the time]”.

Personally, I know that it is a better idea to leave it alone until you have a very, very confirmed idea. Of course, they have to learn how to confirm ideas before they can do that, but someday maybe they will figure that out (it isn’t like they haven’t been given clues). The idea, “try it and see until we get it right” is notably NOT the best.

@Atheris

Also, it seems to me you’re trying to use the original version of the ontological argument. Are you? Cause if so, you should be embarrassed.

I wouldn’t trust myself to guess what you mean by “the original” of anything.

[Fixed_Cross]

[dp]

[Fixed_Cross]

@Lev Muishkin

God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus probandi rests on the theist. Sir Isaac Newton says:

Hypotheses non fingo, quicquid enim ex phaenomenis non deducitur hypothesis, vocanda est, et hypothesis vel metaphysicae, vel physicae, vel qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicae, in philosophia locum non habent.

No translation of the full sentence seems readily available. Please correct this if it’s wrong.

"I feign no hypothesis, whatever is not derived from phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses either metaphysical, or physical, or of occult quality, seated in mechanics, have no place in philosophy. "

To all proofs of the existence of a creative God apply this valuable rule. We see a variety of bodies possessing a variety of powers: we merely know their effects; we are in a estate of ignorance with respect to their essences and causes. These Newton calls the phenomena of things; but the pride of philo- sophy is unwilling to admit its ignorance of their causes. From the phenomena, which are the objects of our attempt to infer a cause, which we call God, and gratuitously endow it with all negative and contradictory qualities. From this hypothesis we invent this general name, to conceal our ignorance of causes and essences. The being called God by no means answers with the conditions prescribed by Newton; it bears every mark of a veil woven by philosophical conceit, to hide the ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. They borrow the threads of its texture from the anthropomorphism of the vulgar. Words have been used by sophists for the same purposes, from the oc- cult qualities of the peripatetics to the effuvium of Boyle and the crinities or nebulae of Herschel. God is represented as in- finite, eternal, incomprehensible; he is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate. Even his worshippers allow that it is impossible to form any idea of him: they exclaim with the French poet,
Pour dire ce qu’il est, il faut etre lui-meme.
Lord Bacon says that atheism leaves to man reason, philo- sophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and everything that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: hence atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear- sighted, since he sees nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life. — Bacon’s Moral Essays.
1The first theology of man made him first fear and adore the elements themselves, the gross and material objects of nature; he next paid homage to the agents controlling the elements, lower genies, heroes or men gifted with great qualities. By force of reflection he sought to simplify things by submitting all nature to a single agent, spirit, or universal soul, which, gave movement to nature and all its branches. Mounting from cause to cause, mortal man has ended by seeing nothing; and it is in
1.Beginning here, and to the paragraph ending with Systeme de la Nature," Shelley wrote in French. A free translation has been substituted.
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this obscurity that he has placed his God; it is in this darksome abyss that his uneasy imagination has always labored to fabric- ate chimeras, which will continue to afflict him until his know- ledge of nature chases these phantoms which he has always so adored.
If we wish to explain our ideas of the Divinity we shall be ob- liged to admit that, by the word God, man has never been able to designate but the most hidden, the most distant and the most unknown cause of the effects which he saw; he has made use of his word only when the play of natural and known causes ceased to be visible to him; as soon as he lost the thread of these causes, or when his mind could no longer fol- low the chain, he cut the difficulty and ended his researches by calling God the last of the causes, that is to say, that which is beyond all causes that he knew; thus he but assigned a vague denomination to an unknown cause, at which his laziness or the limits of his knowledge forced him to stop. Every time we say that God is the author of some phenomenon, that signifies that we are ignorant of how such a phenomenon was able to operate by the aid of forces or causes that we know in nature. It is thus that the generality of mankind, whose lot is ignor- ance, attributes to the Divinity, not only the unusual effects which strike them, but moreover the most simple events, of which the causes are the most simple to understand by whomever is able to study them. In a word, man has always re- spected unknown causes, surprising effects that his ignorance kept him from unraveling. It was on this debris of nature that man raised the imaginary colossus of the Divinity.
If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction. In proportion as man taught himself, his strength and his resources augmented with his knowledge; science, the arts, industry, furnished him assist- ance; experience reassured him or procured for him means of resistance to the efforts of many causes which ceased to alarm as soon as they became understood. In a word, his terrors dis- sipated in the same proportion as his mind became en- lightened. The educated man ceases to be superstitious.
It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence,
8
submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees? That is because, in primit- ive times, their legislators and their guides made it their duty. “Adore and believe,” they said, “the gods whom you cannot un- derstand; have confidence in our profound wisdom; we know more than you about Divinity.” But why should I come to you? It is because God willed it thus; it is because God will punish you if you dare resist. But this God, is not he, then, the thing in question? However, man has always traveled in this vicious circle; his slothful mind has always made him find it easier to accept the judgment of others. All religious nations are foun- ded solely on authority; all the religions of the world forbid ex- amination and do not want one to reason; authority wants one to believe in God; this God is himself founded only on the au- thority of a few men who pretend to know him, and to come in his name and announce him on earth. A God made by man un- doubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man.
Should it not, then, be for the priests, the inspired, the meta- physicians that should be reserved the conviction of the exist- ence of a God, which they, nevertheless, say is so necessary for all mankind? But Can you find any harmony in the theological opinions of the different inspired ones or thinkers scattered over the earth? They themselves, who make a profession of ad- oring the same God, are they in Agreement? Are they content with the proofs that their colleagues bring of his existence? Do they subscribe unanimously to the ideas they present on nature, on his conduct, on the manner of understanding his pretended oracles? Is there a country on earth where the sci- ence of God is really perfect? Has this science anywhere taken the consistency and uniformity that we the see the science of man assume, even in the most futile crafts, the most despised trades. These words mind immateriality, creation, predestina- tion and grace; this mass of subtle distinctions with which theology to everywhere filled; these so ingenious inventions, imagined by thinkers who have succeeded one another for so many centuries, have only, alas! confused things all the more, and never has man’s most necessary science, up to this time acquired the slightest fixity. For thousands of years the lazy
9
dreamers have perpetually relieved one another to meditate on the Divinity, to divine his secret will, to invent the proper hypo- thesis to develop this important enigma. Their slight success has not discouraged the theological vanity: one always speaks of God: one has his throat cut for God: and this sublime being still remains the most unknown and the most discussed.
Man would have been too happy, if, limiting himself to the visible objects which interested him, he had employed, to per- fect his real sciences, his laws, his morals, his education, one- half the efforts he has put into his researches on the Divinity. He would have been still wiser and still more fortunate if he had been satisfied to let his jobless guides quarrel among themselves, sounding depths capable of rendering them dizzy, without himself mixing in their senseless disputes. But it is the essence of ignorance to attach importance to that which it does not understand. Human vanity is so constituted that it stiffens before difficulties. The more an object conceals itself from our eyes, the greater the effort we make to seize it, because it pricks our pride, it excites our curiosity and it appears interest- ing. In fighting for his God everyone, in fact, fights only for the interests of his own vanity, which, of all the passions produced by the mal-organization of society, is the quickest to take of- fense, and the most capable of committing the greatest follies.
If, leaving for a moment the annoying idea that theology gives of a capricious God, whose partial and despotic decrees decide the fate of mankind, we wish to fix our eyes only on the pretended goodness, which all men, even trembling before this God, agree is ascribing to him, if we allow him the purpose that is lent him of having worked only for his own glory, of exacting the homage of intelligent beings; of seeking only in his works the well-being of mankind; how reconcile these views and these dispositions with the ignorance truly invincible in which this God, so glorious and so good, leaves the majority of man- kind in regard to God himself? If God wishes to be known, cherished, thanked, why does he not show himself under his fa- vorable features to all these intelligent beings by whom he wishes to be loved and adored? Why not manifest himself to the whole earth in an unequivocal manner, much more capable of convincing us than these private revelations which seem to accuse the Divinity of an annoying partiality for some of his
10
creatures? The all-powerful, should he not heave more convin- cing means by which to show man than these ridiculous meta- morphoses, these pretended incarnations, which are attested by writers so little in agreement among themselves? In place of so many miracles, invented to prove the divine mission of so many legislators revered by the different people of the world, the Sovereign of these spirits, could he not convince the hu- man mind in an instant of the things he wished to make known to it? Instead of hanging the sun in the vault of the firmament, instead of scattering stars without order, and the constella- tions which fill space, would it not have been more in conform- ity with the views of a God so jealous of his glory and so well- intentioned for mankind, to write, in a manner not subject to dispute, his name, his attributes, his permanent wishes in inef- faceable characters, equally understandable to all the inhabit- ants of the earth? No one would then be able to doubt the ex- istence of God, of his clear will, of his visible intentions. Under the eyes of this so terrible God no one would have the audacity to violate his commands, no mortal would dare risk attracting his anger: finally, no man would have the effrontery to impose on his name or to interpret his will according to his own fancy.
In fact, even while admitting the existence of the theological God, and the reality of his so discordant attributes which they impute to him, one can conclude nothing to authorize the con- duct or the cult which one is prescribed to render him. Theology is truly the sieve of the Danaides. By dint of contra- dictory qualities and hazarded assertions it has, that is to say, so handicapped its God that it has made it impossible for him to act. If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has, filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?

By P B Shelly

As Uccisore noted somewhere, Pol Pot and all those have disproven Bacons claim about atheism.

And this hearsay Shelly speaks of is hardly limited to religion, is it?

How many humans know scientific concepts to apply, by having proven and verified them? And how much is not presented in academia as “science” that is rooted in no phenomenal proof at all?

[AutSider]

@Lev Muishkin

@Yuujin

@Atheris

Yuujin how do any of those actions follow from an atheistic worldview?

One of the leading figures in atheism Richard Dawkins says this;

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. . . . We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. That is exactly what we are here for.”

He is saying what we are here for NOT 'why".
We can, and do make our own reasons why we do what we do.

What he says is essentially correct, and it is only the act of huge arrogance and hybris to pretend that nature is adjusted to our needs by a divine presence. In fact I challenge anyone to explain half of what happens as if the world conformed to that suggestion in the slightest.

If there is a God, then he is not that which is characterised by your religion or any for that matter.

I agree with everything Lev said, couldn’t have put it better myself. I just want to add that I agree with Dawkins there. That doesn’t make me love my family and friends or enjoy life any less.

So I still don’t see why any of those immoral actions follow from Dawkins’s worldview. I myself think you’re either misunderstanding Dawkins’s quote or pretending to.

[Yuujin]

@Atheris

I agree with everything Lev said, couldn’t have put it better myself. I just want to add that I agree with Dawkins there. That doesn’t make me love my family and friends or enjoy life any less.

So I still don’t see why any of those immoral actions follow from Dawkins’s worldview. I myself think you’re either misunderstanding Dawkins’s quote or pretending to.

So you’re saying you’re not gonna have an affair or leave your wife even if you found out she can’t have your children, since you regard those actions as immoral, right? I am glad to see that you have a sense of what’s morally right.

But then, you also say you agree with Dawkins, which means you believe what he says below to be true, right?

“We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. That is exactly what we are here for.”

If you commit yourself to and be faithful to a woman who can’t conceive, it will guarantee that you will not make more copies of your DNA.

According to Dawkins above, which you agree with btw, propagating your DNA is the truth of what we’re here for … so, if loving your wife who can’t conceive is more important to you (which I agree, that’s who we’re supposed to be), you’re not following the truth (defined by atheism) after all.

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Fixed Cross

@Lev Muishkin

God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus probandi rests on the theist. Sir Isaac Newton says:

Hypotheses non fingo, quicquid enim ex phaenomenis non deducitur hypothesis, vocanda est, et hypothesis vel metaphysicae, vel physicae, vel qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicae, in philosophia locum non habent.

As Uccisore noted somewhere, Pol Pot and all those have disproven Bacons claim about atheism.

And this hearsay Shelly speaks of is hardly limited to religion, is it?

How many humans know scientific concepts to apply, by having proven and verified them? And how much is not presented in academia as “science” that is rooted in no phenomenal proof at all?

If Pol Pot disproves a claim about atheism (whatever that is supposed to be), how much more effectively does Torquemada, Saladin, Henry VIII, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, and Julius Caesar disprove the notion that THEISM provides some protection against despotism or that it is capable of guaranteeing a moral standard?
Atheism has nothing to do with morality, it is just a position that finds theism absurd.

It’s not relevant that Shelly’s heresy is limited to religion, the fact it that he correctly characterises the claims of Theism: it is enough.
Science can be wrong too. It just makes Theism look worst still.
But you miss the point about Isaac Newton. What he did was to not stress an hypothesis, but simply to model and describe what he sees. That is science at its best: Hypotheses non fingo. And that is how it is higher than the claims of Theism which asserts a hypothesis it cannot support or maintain.

[AutSider]

Yuujin living beings have strong natural instincts for reproduction which aren’t present without a reason, those instincts are there to ensure the survival of the species, the continuance of life. That does not, however, mean that those instincts cannot be overcome, even though they are strong.

And humans aren’t exactly on the verge of extinction, they’re one of the most prosperous species on the planet. One couple not having children wouldn’t make much difference. So why would you think that not abandoning your wife is contradictory to evolution? The practical implementation of such high moral standards is exactly what separates us and animals and what has allowed us to become the most intelligent and ultimately dominant species on the planet.

I can’t honestly speak about what I myself would do since I’m asexual. And no, I’m not making it up just to avoid the question, there is a thread in off topic I made far before you came here explaining and examining my asexuality, you can find it rather quickly using the search function. I think I would stay with my wife though, but as I pointed out, it isn’t in conflict with evolution.

What you also have to keep in mind is that some people would abandon their wives.

But all of that has nothing to do with atheism, it has to do with evolution and is loosely connected to naturalism, but it literally has nothing to do with atheism.

And about your earlier post, I don’t see how having multiple wives is immoral if they agree to it and are aware of each other.

[phyllo]

Yuujin living beings have strong natural instincts for reproduction which aren’t present without a reason, those instincts are there to ensure the survival of the species, the continuance of life.

Inanimate matter has randomly evolved to have an instinct to ensure the survival of the species. That’s an odd instinct. Why would that happen (especially initially)?

One couple not having children wouldn’t make much difference. So why would you think that not abandoning your wife is contradictory to evolution?

But the individuals have the instinct to pass on their own dna. It is not in the of the childless individual to have others pass on their dna, unless they are related family members.

You are writing as though it is the purpose of a human to ensure the survival of humanity.

The practical implementation of such high moral standards is exactly what separates us and animals and what has allowed us to become the most intelligent and ultimately dominant species on the planet.

Our high moral standards have allowed us to become intelligent and dominant? How would that work in the context of evolution? And you must be referring to moral standards that developed prior to the recent times (last 15 thousand years when theists and religions got morals from gods).

You will also find that bacteria and insects are dominant.

[Yuujin]

Atheris, you’re not getting my point.

@Atheris

Yuujin living beings have strong natural instincts for reproduction which aren’t present without a reason, those instincts are there to ensure the survival of the species, the continuance of life. That does not, however, mean that those instincts cannot be overcome, even though they are strong.

As I repeatedly said in this thread, I perfectly understand the first part of what you’re saying here and don’t need that to be explained.

What I don’t understand is the second part. If the atheistic view of what we’re here for is true, why would the instincts for reproduction need to be overcome? Why do you think it’s better that we overcome them and stay in a situation where we won’t materialize the truth of what we’re here for?

If there’s something more important so that we should overcome those instincts, then propagating our DNA is not our ultimate purpose, is it?

OK, let’s just say for the sake of argument, that I am an atheist, and I believe the truth of what we’re here for is to propagate my DNA, as Dawkins says.

Why would you regard my action as immoral (as in your previous posts), if I wanted to leave my wife upon finding her infertility, because I intend to follow the truth (defined by Dawkins)?? Why is it wrong if I did what it takes to pursue the purpose of what I’m here for??

@Atheris

What you also have to keep in mind is that some people would abandon their wives.

I said that already myself as below, and you haven’t answered the question.

"Also, if your spouse ever gets ill or injured and deemed incapable of procreating, what’s wrong with leaving him/her? I guess there are people who’d do that, but most people look unfavorably on those who do, and favorably on those who don’t. Why? "

@Atheris

But all of that has nothing to do with atheism, it has to do with evolution and is loosely connected to naturalism, but it literally has nothing to do with atheism.

Are you saying atheism and naturalism literally have nothing to do with each other?? Aren’t the atheistic understanding of the world and the naturalistic understanding of the world the same? If you take the beliefs in god/spirituality out of the picture, what else will there be, other than naturalism?

[Lev_Muishkin]

Literarians, thinkers, philosophers, and poets have considered the question of Love since time immemorial.
The results of reading about this trope can only leave one with the thought that love is a multiplicitous and multifarious thing, not easily boiled down to any simple meaning, function or definition.
But the worst we have is in the twisted and hateful conception of love we are offered from the priesthood, who have bound it to their own grim and disgraceful purpose and so misconstrued it so that it is characterised as a sinful, dirty and guilty practice.

[phyllo]

But the worst we have is in the twisted and hateful conception of love we are offered from the priesthood, who have bound it to their own grim and disgraceful purpose and so misconstrued it so that it is characterised as a sinful, dirty and guilty practice.

Who said that love is sinful, dirty and a guilty practice?

[AutSider]

If the atheistic view of what we’re here for is true, why would the instincts for reproduction need to be overcome?

To enjoy life and avoid pain which would be caused to you and your wife if you left her?

Reproducing and passing on our genes is one of our strong instincts, but the strongest instinct of all which cannot be overcome and is the one that ultimately can overcome all others is the instinct for pleasure. Different people find pleasure in life differently, some people can’t find it at all.

If somebody finds pleasure in being with a certain person, that instinct of pleasure, living an enjoyable life, can overcome the instinct for reproduction.

Why would you regard my action as immoral (as in your previous posts), if I wanted to leave my wife upon finding her infertility

Actually, I wouldn’t find it immoral. A person has the right to choose a partner and is not obliged to stay with anybody.

I’d consider you an asshole, but not immoral.

Are you saying atheism and naturalism literally have nothing to do with each other?? Aren’t the atheistic understanding of the world and the naturalistic understanding of the world the same?

There are spiritual atheists too, though admittedly, they’re a minority.

[Yuujin]

Theism simply means to have a belief in god’s existence, and has little to do with any human-made religion, as I don’t belong to a religion. Whatever ‘some’ priests may have taught (with a twisted notion that comes from themselves) doesn’t attest to the non-existence of god.

[phyllo]

To enjoy life and avoid pain which would be caused to you and your wife if you left her?

Reproducing and passing on our genes is one of our strong instincts, but the strongest instinct of all which cannot be overcome and is the one that ultimately can overcome all others is the instinct for pleasure. Different people find pleasure in life differently, some people can’t find it at all.

If somebody finds pleasure in being with a certain person, that instinct of pleasure, living an enjoyable life, can overcome the instinct for reproduction.

If that was true, then animals would have died out long ago. Animals do all sorts of dangerous and deadly things just to reproduce. Look no farther than the human male adolescent for evidence.

I’d consider you an asshole, but not immoral.

Why is he an asshole? And what’s the difference between calling him immoral or calling him an asshole?

[Yuujin]

@Atheris

Are you saying atheism and naturalism literally have nothing to do with each other?? Aren’t the atheistic understanding of the world and the naturalistic understanding of the world the same?

There are spiritual atheists too, though admittedly, they’re a minority.

This really doesn’t answer my question. Can you answer with yes or no?
Are the atheistic understanding of the world and the naturalistic understanding of the world the same or different? If different, how?

Thanks, phyllo, for asking the same question I was thinking too.

[AutSider]

Theism simply means to have a belief in god’s existence, and has little to do with any human-made religion, as I don’t belong to a religion. Whatever ‘some’ priests may have taught (with a twisted notion comes from themselves) doesn’t attest to the non-existence of god.

This really doesn’t answer my question. Can you answer with yes or no?
Are the atheistic understanding of the world and the naturalistic understanding of the world the same or different?

I thought you’d understand, but fine, I’ll elaborate.

The same way theism is belief in God’s existence, atheism is disbelief in God’s existence, just a different position concerning the existence of a deity.

Atheism is not a worldview. Atheists may have worldviews, but those worldviews aren’t derived from their atheism.

Some atheists are also naturalists, some aren’t. It’s not necessary to be a naturalist in order to be an atheist.

[AutSider]

If that was true, then animals would have died out long ago. Animals do all sorts of dangerous and deadly things just to reproduce. Look no farther than the human male adolescent for evidence.

I wasn’t speaking about animals, in regards to that, animals are very different to humans I agree.

Why is he an asshole? And what’s the difference between calling him immoral or calling him an asshole?

Thinking about it a little more, not sure if I would even call him an asshole. I mean, if the guy wants to have kids, his own kids, and the woman is infertile then how can I blame him for leaving her? You can’t really blame him for not loving her enough, since you can’t pick who and how much you love.