# Atheist Materialism Interrogated: Why Choose Life? **URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/atheist-materialism-interrogated-why-choose-life/85308 **Category:** Debates **Tags:** atheism, materialism **Created:** [April 23, 2026, 2:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/atheist-materialism-interrogated-why-choose-life/85308 "2026-04-23T14:44:35Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 10
### Author: ![TheIllustriousMrCat](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/user_avatar/www.ilovephilosophy.com/theillustriousmrcat/32/25783_2.png) [@TheIllustriousMrCat](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/TheIllustriousMrCat) #### Post date: [April 25, 2026, 2:00pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/atheist-materialism-interrogated-why-choose-life/85308/10 "2026-04-25T14:00:45Z")
**APPEAL TO AUTHORITY** = celebrity’s opinions arbitrarily valued. My arguments don’t need them. Philosophy isn’t tech-driven, expertise is generalised to all people. Plato’s Thrasymachus is self-explanatory: he justified tyranny with **materialistic reasoning** , making Materialism absurd, and _Absurdism agrees_. **REDUCTION AD ABSURDUM or CIRCULAR LOGIC:** You assume Plato is pointless despite my explaining, then you compare it to pointless Vedas in a pointless polemic against Islam - but you haven’t shown why Vedas are pointless. Reducing my argument _with_ absurdity is when _Reductio_ becomes a **fallacy**. #1: **YOU SAY:** Pleasure Principle being bad misses the point of Epicureanism’s refined categorisations of pleasures. **I SAY:** I am your interlocutor, not a Muslim _ **for now.** _ Remember, you said: **“I have objections on the simplistic categorizations of Epicureans and I identify differently the criteria to achieve happiness”** plus _l agree_ that Epicurus’s refinements are irrelevant against the hard reality of Death. #2: **I SAY:** Your point about drug **use** is nullified as it’s not a special case, life is pain regardless. Drug **overdose** is not a pained life, it can be a pleasant _ **END** of life_ (suicide clinics, rock star dying on toilet). #3: **YOU ARGUE:** Epicurus wants a prolonged life, “death nullifies sentiment” supports this. **I SAY:** That makes life an end to itself and thus meaningless. **The deliberate ending of life (1) brings forth the inevitable and (2) returns to zero an unjustified deviation from zero (aka life)** #4: **I SAY:** In my academic studies (neuroscience dual honours graduate) l’ve never seen an account of what precisely causes death that was different 1μs before or after. _Matter’s form at point of death, seems no different to its form just before and just after._ You may say _yes, reasons for life are mere sentiment but sentiment is matter_. BUT: How does life come from matter? At precise moment of death, nothing physical changes. #5: **I SAY:** You tacitly accept Materialism is unfalsifiable and _fiat_. My point is, death is not a matter of faith, so suicide, as a means to death, has greater merit than all other arguments including religion - **if this life is all there is.** You say you can explain consciousness but not right now. \*\*This is handwaving _(and frankly suicidal in debate)_\*\*_._ In my neuroscience degree l saw no such thing. #7: **I SAY:** You admit there’s no material basis of consciousness because you admit that good or evil pleasure (the driving force of life) lack **physical correlates**. My usage of “matter” is fine. #8: **I SAY: There is no axiom if the opposite idea _also_ exists as an axiom** , it becomes an unresolved matter; if unfalsifiable then it is _faith_. You say my arguments are faith not logic. My arguments are unrefuted, your Materialism is essentially faith and it stumbles when confronted with suicide. Suicide trumps Materialism because Death is absolute, not _fiat_. #9: **I SAY:** Q7 asked how good and evil pleasures differ. **Your reply** was: “_anything related to objectivity is rejected._” **I say:** Pleasure is the driving force of life and you cannot show its dipole - good / evil pleasure - to have material basis. Objective good and evil don’t exist to you. Regardless, there’s still no material difference in the person experiencing good vs. evil pleasure. Thus there’s **no correlate between sentiment and matter.** Materialist claim to sentiment is thus effectively nullified. **CONCLUSION: Suicide (1) brings forth the inevitable and (2) returns to zero the unjustifiable, absurd (ref: Absurdism), deviation from zero that life is** Suicide is justifiable, Materialist life philosophy is _not_. It is seen: - Atheism’s reason for life is the Pleasure Principle - Materialist right and wrong is a farrago of fashion styles - The most coherent Materialist response to life is not Pleasure, but Suicide - it’s non sentimental, in harmony with death being unavoidable and life thus being absurd; secondmost is to die during one act of deadly pleasure e.g. a drug overdose on the toilet. **AS AN ASIDES, TAKE OR LEAVE, LARGELY UN-ARGUED:** I feel Religion works better because it resonates with the Soul, it doesn’t entrain denial of the Soul. The Soul is the inner criterion we are all born with (good feeling preferable to evil). Religious scripture is the outer criterion (law), which is revealed through Messenger Prophets, whose character and deeds compel the Believer to believe, and the scripture itself will have compelling proofs. **You won’t immediately suicide because you have a soul** , defined as pure existence, in turn defined as Infinite Actual. Rather, your soul is an infinitesimally small fraction of a degree of that Infinite Actual. It is Real, pure existence, it wants to exist, just as God “just is” (I am That I am). Whether you are theist or atheist, good or evil, you pay homage to God via honouring your soul’s will to exist. Even the pursuit of good or evil pleasure is derived from the soul because happiness is the unit of pleasure, and hapiness’s work surface is the Soul. **Logical derivation:** Emotions can only be explained by the soul, because they are non physical, and thus non material, and thus not of the finite reality, thus of the Inifnite True Reality. The infinite true reality is pure existence because infinity is complete, it needs nothing more, it has no change. Thus God just is (“I Am That I Am”) - and the Soul, which comes from God, “just is”. Observation: Emotions may be modulated by chemistry but **there’s absolutely zero basis for attributing emotions to chemistry.** A dead body at precise moment of death has all chemicals in place yet it aint fine, nor is a jar of serotonin. **Closing Remark:** Our physical selves, our finite lives are pointless, because they sum to zero. The soul, via our emotions, directs us to another reality other than physical. We only have meaning via God. i.e. in our worship. Materialism cannot say better. (@promethean75 should note) --- _[View the full topic](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/atheist-materialism-interrogated-why-choose-life/85308)._