I haven't slept for over 30 hours and I'm not exactly sober (that's all I'll say). Any lack of clear communication can be blamed on my mental state. I grouped them together because both ideas, while different, claim that the personal quest for meaning is valuable, a premise I reject.
I'm not saying that valuing things denies you personal meaning, I'm questioning why valuation gives things meaning. If valuing X more than Y gives X meaning, then a shot of heroin could be more meaningful than the life of your child. If you aspire to do or be something, that is a fact. If you had an experience, that is a fact.
Fact A: You had a wonderful experience last night.
Fact B: You have a rock in your shoe.
You derive personal meaning from Fact A because of how much you value it. I'm questioning why that gives it meaning in the first place. It's basically a non-cognitivist argument. I reject the idea that personal meaning has any conceptual worth.
Arguing that the concept of meaning is non-cognitive is not semantics. I may have overstated things in my initial post, but I do thinki nihilism is the worldview most consistent with atheism, which is why I'm a nihilist.
I'm not arguing that Christian societies were ever equal or anything like that. It also took them a long time to get from "soul equality" to "human equality". That being said, the idea of equality as a primary societal goal does come from Christendom. It's only nations with Christian history that apply ideals like that.
The Nuclear Family has its roots in evolution? Maybe in the sense that everything we do has roots in evolution. The advent of the Nuclear Family was during industrialization. Increases in living standards is what made that family model possible, as opposed to the models with more family members. Monogamy may not be exclusively Christian, but it is rooted in religion. There's lots of anthropological and sociological research that suggests many tribal societies had a minority of men monoplizing the sexual reproduction with the majority of women. I'd love to see something that suggests the Nuclear Family is something throughout human evolutionary history, because that contradicts every piece of sociology that claims it started in the 19th century.
It's hardly a leap of logic to assume that someone who advertises themselves as an atheist online would be familiar with what's going on in the online atheist community. Also, the vast majority just identify as "Atheists". In fact, I've never heard anyone self-identify as a "New Atheist". I never claimed secularism or humanism were new. I brought up the "New Atheists", because for most people who keep up with modern philosophy it would summon images of Dawkin and Hitchens and the like. You've never heard the term, so it didn't. The label is irrelevant. You've been going on about this after I already said it was a colloquialism, and you accuse me of "semantic wriggling". I would think a man in his 40s would be more aware of his condecension, but alas.
Rhazakna
Conceptual worth? Whose conceptual worth are you talking about? Are you objectifying concepts? That isn't what you were saying with that initial post of your's. If you accept you "overstated" things in your first post (perhaps to be shocking), then you have been wriggling over semanitcs all this while. Perhaps you should not engage in debate while your personal resources are so depleted, rather than excusing yourself and blaming your mental state and sobriety.
Please do show me some evidence that mongomy is rooted in religion. It was inherrently Christian earlier in your view. Is this more slippage?
What atheist community are you talking about? Since it is a personal belief, there is no community I know of. People over 40 can still be condescending, especially if people they think they're having a debate with keep changing their story, not explaining themselves well and blaming aspects of their lives they can easily control rather than just themselves. Perhaps if i was a nilhilst, I wouldn't have felt any point in living this long.
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