KevinSim wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:45 pm
Meadowchik, are you planning on dying young, or do you think there's a good chance that you'll live to be old enough to take advantage of society's provision of special resources for the elderly? Resources provided by younger people for older people? Resources that last generation won't have? If you do live long enough to take advantage of those services, can you live with yourself by using those services knowing that future generation won't have access to them? Society is sort of a pyramid scheme. With most pyramid schemes a small group's wealth is built on the back of a lot of people who get screwed. With the society I speak of there isn't quite the imbalance, but the people at then still get screwed. I think we owe it to them to make sure that last generation doesn't happen, and that means preserving the human race forever, and that means God.
Well, that’s put together a little better. But I still don’t see an actual argument that starts with a premise I would accept and flows in a logically valid way that ends with “therefore, I, as an atheist, have a [moral] obligation to invent God [as defined by KevinSim.
I think you’re intermingling two different ideas in a way that doesn’t make sense. One is accumulation of wealth. The other is the nature of moral obligations between generations.
The two aren’t necessarily related, and you haven’t explained how you think they are.
But there’s clearly a piece of your thinking you haven’t shared with us: what you called “the society I speak of.” I’m guessing you have a whole theory of how to construct a society that avoids the whole pyramid scheme/people getting screwed over by the rich. Maybe I missed where you laid that out. But, your system has a problem: The last generation, whenever that is, still gets screwed. So, Deux ex Mechanica, you just imagine a God to take care of your problem. It’s not that humanity needs God — it’s that you need God to make your notion of society consistent with your own ethical standards.
None of that says anything about whether there is a Gods you’ve defined it. Or whether humans can create such a being. Or whether it is possible at all for the human race continue forever. All it says is that you wish such a good existed so that your vision of society will work to type satisfaction.
But your wish doesn’t obligate anyone to do anything to make your wish come true. Even you.