I think being an atheist does not mean we have no ethical or moral values. That would be a mistake. Pornography relates to sex fragmented from sexuality, for sexuality is an integrated aspect of human nature: emotional, social, psychological aspects integrated with passion, desire, love, affection, tenderness, responsability, etc.... Thus, pornography is not something we can endorse, as if it was something "good" as opposed to bibles. The idea of Fairy Tales for Fairy Tales makes a lot more sense, it depicts and ridicules religion more accurately, does not depict us atheists as "amoral people", and it is something we can freely offer kids fond of recycling.
The fact is that many evolutionary steps mankind has taken are clothed in religious thinking, and we should nos discard the good stuff with the clothing. It is a complicated stuff. I am a militant atheist, as I said, not an agnostic, but I cant deny that Lao Tse´s thoughts, together with Buddha and other religious characters, have imbedded lot of wisdom. Incidentally, Buddha was a self confessed agnostic!! We must be open to dialogue with any path of human thinking... while militantly defending and building an atheist view of nature, the world, and everyting that exists.
Yet I must clarify that what we understand by "romantic love" is ussually a peculiar behaviour often very difficult to differentiate from an obsesive compulsive behaviour. But it is not always so. More often it is an idealized relationship, with an idealized person... yet it is probably an easy way two people that have no idea of who they are themselves, meet another person, completely unknown too, and find a space to express their sexual impulse... Only then, and after some time, when idealizations collapse and the real persons appear behind their masks and ungranted virtues, that finally LOVE can happen. And that seems to be something very simple: two people collaborating in order to have better chances survive by mutually supporting each other, and building a most significative advantage for the survival and further evolution of their offspring, biologically, intelectually, technologically, culturally, etc....
I am afraid I disagree. There are very powerful biological forces that support romantic love too. Homo sapiens sapiens is not the only species to have strong atachments. Some other species, such as parrots, albatross, etc., tend to form long lasting relationships, often life long. It seems that the "attachment" hormone is oxitocine, which also induces prolactin, childbirth contractions and movements, and frienship ion general. Species endowed with high levels of oxitocine tend to form strong group relationships, and long lastingt couple relationships. True, there is a biological logic in the argument of "seeding" our genes in as many partners as possible, yet there is a counter biological logic to that too: the advantage of a stable relationship in terms of the survival of your offspring (thus your genes) far outweighs for some species the multiple partners multiple offspring evolutionary strategy. It would be very difficult for an intelligent rabbit (if such species had evolved) to raise the cultural, emotional, intelectual, technological, etc., level of their offspring when having 6 to 10 kids, 4 to 5 times a year.
I AM AN ATHEIST, NOT AGNOSTIC, BECAUSE AS A SCIENTIST, I NEVER NEED THE GOD HYPOTHESIS. IT WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY INCONGROUS TO ACT DIFFERENTLY IN ANY OTHER SPHERE. AS SCIENTISTS WE SIMPLY DISCARD WORTHLESS HYPOTHESIS. IT WOULD BE DISHONEST TO ACT OTHERWISE. YET, I AGREE WITH NOT BEING DESTRUCTIVE WITH RELIGIOUS PEOPLE WHEN RELATING WITH THEIR LIMITATIONS.
You must have noticed that the "google ads" consistently come from religious communities trying to "convert" us. What a bore!!! And I find that very aggressive.
I am an atheist because cosmos is knowable and understandable without any need to resort to a supranatural existance "that explains it all" as an external presence, force, whatever it may be called, i.e. a god. Whatever is placed within the idea of a "god", such as "a creative force", "the source of meaning", "transcendence", etc., do not need, in actual fact, the idea of a god in order to be present in our thoughts and deeds. The source of meaning is the product of our own will to improve life for everybody´s benefit,. The "creative" force is a value free natural phenomena even before the Big Bang, etc. Instead, the believe in a god is always an obstacle for human knowledge and personal growth for it leads us to find answers and meaning from an external supranatural dimension, not from cosmos itself. And the question of whether I can prove that god doesn´t exist is absurd, for I can´t prove that something non existant does not exist. Ridiculous!
May be there is a correlation the other way around, i.e.: the more emotionally dependant and insecure a person is, the more it needs to cling to someone, or to some beliefs in order to calm down and survive. That might explain, at least in part, the issue you raised. After all, you do need a minimal emotional stability to accept the inevitability of death and suffering, to accept that that is it, it is all over once we die, and that we are all going to die, and still say: "it´s OK, I accept that with no problems and can go along living, and doing my best to make life happier, to free myself and others from unnecessary suffering, to make existance more significant, more beautiful, enjoyable and better for everybody, including myself". Isn´t that a most ethical statement?
I was most positively amazed of the weath of replies, the wealth of thinking and knowledge shared- Thank you very much!!
I like this thought of yours. As a matter of fact, believers are always trying to convert each other to their particular church of belief, and of course are trying to rescua us atheists from our disbelief. And the blatant contradiction between their public preaching and their actual behavior often reaches a scandal. We as Atheists must be ethical and posiitive, or (let me invent the word) ethicative, in the sense that we build ethics with every step we take in life. There is nothing more ethical than being an atheist, for there are no comfortable lies in our behevior. We say that death is real, that there is nothing we can do about it, that we are all going to die, and invent no paradise, nor any Santa Claus to deny it. Instead we build a better life, at least a little better life for everybody, including ourselves. That is our reply. That is the meaning of life we build ourselves, for life by itself has no inherent "meaning"....
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Medley