There's no consensus in the group of atheists except that they reject the idea of a god. Trying to frame it like there are more common assumptions ("Atheist interpretation: <your assumptions what you and other atheists think>") seems generalizing to me.

Speak for yourself. I'm an atheist and I see how people have purpose and I also find meaning in life (although I struggle with it all the time like many other people including theists).

I think this is pretty universal POV among atheists, but if you disagree - whatever. I never even claimed it's the only possible interpretation.

Avoiding pain and seeking pleasure seems to be a built in goal to almost all living beings.

No living thing creates that goal for themselves, it comes built in.

One of the easiest way to find meaning then, is to strive to reduce other sentient beings sufferings, and to increase their happiness.

There is no need for a god, or an idea of a god to promote this point of view.

The only goal that all livings things share is the drive to reproduce. Anything without that drive dies out, which explains why it's essential to life.

This is basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism and the simple counterexample to that is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster

At any rate - it's clear to me that these goals are self-created, and different between different people, so claiming them to be universal seems wrong.

They come with that built into their neurochemistry, and so do we.

It's the closest thing to a universal moral system I could think of.

And I don't see it as utilitarianism, I was thinking of Buddhist ethics which also contains other precepts to counteract some of the pathological cases in utilitarianism.[1]

[1] Does it do so perfectly? Probably not, but it attempts to be a practical set of precepts, you still have to use your brain.

Atheism by definition has "no theology". You are free to experience life as you see fit.

Kant would say that this is indeed God.

Another corollary: When searching for an absolute maximum in a population of individuals with the ability to communicate with each other, it may be helpful to compare notes with those who appear to be at higher levels on the dimension whose maximum you are seeking.

Also, choose the right dimension (or projection).

Someone tell that to the millions of children who have died of AIDS.

I'm not a religious person, but I see how people see meaning in their belief systems. I don't see any underlying beliefs in your comment that have a positive attitude, it has a rather negative focus (without trying to neglect it).

I just happen to wonder what your goals are. What are you fighting for with this statement, what is the underlying belief system that leads you to this statement?

It's about as deep as is necessary. The answer is really that simple, people just don't like it.

> Modern theology isn't that ignorant of suffering and its origin as you might imagine.

Theology is (and has been for many centuries) expending a lot of effort to handwaving away the answer people don't like, that much is true.

I'm not religious and I don't think life has a purpose, but this sounds like a contradiction. How can life be good if it's not comfortable and easy ? You're basically saying she's making life better by making it worse. That makes no sense.

> My point is this: experiencing a hard time doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong - it can come just as easily to someone doing everything right as to someone doing everything wrong

Of course it doesn't, but that doesn't mean there is some higher power guiding it. Life is just random, bad stuff happens for no reason, so does good stuff.

Do you have fun playing tic-tac-toe? The harder a game is the more rewarding it is to succeed at it. Some games are so hard they can crush you but if you manage to rise up again and eventually succeed then you will be stronger for the experience and happier.

One example of this is the game of regular jobs vs the game of startups. A regular job is easy and comfortable but few people are content and the ceiling of achievement is not that high.

A startup can make you have mental breakdowns but if you manage to eventually win you'll be much richer /respected than someone who played it safe.

No it's not. I hate games that are too hard. Back in the day when cheat codes were still a thing I used to play most games in 'god mode' all the time.

Also, what do you define as 'success'. For me a comfortable and easy life is success.

Even if you're not ambitious you still don't play the simplest games possible, you still try to play games that are somewhat difficult.

The analogy for computer games cheats in real life are drugs / wireheading. If your goal is to just feel good regardless why not do heroin?

Not really. I mainly play games for the story.

> If your goal is to just feel good regardless why not do heroin?

Because that also has negative consequences. If all it did was make you feel good, then sure.

> Because that also has negative consequences

Well that's just your perspective, maybe someone might believe that 10 years of pure bliss is more worthwhile than 60 years of playing tic tac toe.

Everyone chooses which games they want to play and at which difficulty. I choose to play hard life games because my goal in life is to maximize my fitness and that of everyone around me. You might choose otherwise but you must make that choice consciously.

Really? As soon as you encounter discomfort or difficulty, life's no longer good? That philosophy will be wearying over the years.

Yes. I'm also of the opinion that the good doesn't compensate for the bad. Life is suffering, and being born is the worst thing that can happen to a person (I'm an anti-natalist and supporter of the voluntary human extinction movement).

I'm amazed, humbled, and grateful to be alive (not to any sentience, mind you, just grateful). To be the universe experiencing itself.

Life includes suffering, yes, but also the opportunity to ease the suffering of self and others.

I interpret your point of antinatalism that you see humanity as the fluke of the probability. Personally, I think we give ourselves meaning, and I can think of no better long-term mission for existence than beating heat death of the universe, even if it's simply to give a middle-finger to the universe for the suffering people endure.

What kind of energy are hedonistic people taking ? Electric ? Kinetic ? Thermal ? Magnetic ?

But even so, if you're partying all the time then somebody has to pay to keep the lights on. Somebody has to clean up after you and somebody has to constantly buoy your emotional state and protect you from the negative thoughts that might otherwise threaten your party.

I would contend that all of this takes "energy" as defined in the canon of physics.

Sure, but that's not what I would call and 'easy and comfortable' life. If I live alone on an island with enough food growing around me to feed me, that would be an easy life. What would that take of other people ?

Sounds lovely though. Sounds like a very nice holiday.

Wouldn't want to get sick.

Also, being a westerner it's one of those concepts I've heard a lot about but almost certainly don't completely grasp, so I wouldn't feel comfortable using it for any kind of rigorous analysis.

It's bollocks, of course, and often pacifies folks from working to improve their own personal situations. Nietzche's religious critiques come to mind in this type of situation.

It doesn't need to because it doesn't face hardship.

Good question. Nietzsche talked alot about this issue, this was his very main concern when he talked about "becoming oneself" as one of many desirable (subjective) goals in life that can give us meaning. You don't even need religion to endure suffering with meaning.

It depends on your definition of a good life. I hope you see that it's not a objective truth that life is good when it's comfortable and easy. It can be that you see it as your goal, but e.g. I don't want that - but this isn't even relevant. Important is to understand that all truths that we believe in are assumptions (some of them called "facts" which are assumptions commonly shared by many people or in a group) and that they can differ between individuals which means that we perceive reality differently. Objectively describing what reality is is not possible - this is one key aspect of epistemology.

"Bad stuff" and "good stuff" has also subjective and normative aspects. What do we perceive as good or bad? It's based on values and a belief system. For a nihilist there's not even "good" or "bad" because those can only be defined with a belief system. Nihilists have a collapsed belief system which says that nothing has inherent value. But the question is: What is the motivation for an individual to become a nihilist? (pro: you don't have to take responsibility and fight for your beliefs, con: it can suck alot to have a meaningless life)

Does your belief system enables you to be happy and fulfilled (in your terms)? This is the relevant question I would personally use to assess if a belief system is enabling or hindering you.

For me it's simple: an easy, comfortable life with as little contact with human beings as possible.

> Objectively describing what reality is is not possible

I disagree. I believe there is such a thing as absolute, objective truth. A 'fact' is not a shared assumption, a fact is any statement to which a truth value can be assigned.

for example a belief system can look like this:

belief_system("earth is flat") -> false

belief_system("life is meaningless") -> true

Where is the truth value coming from? For a flat earther: They can e.g. use a emotional and individual belief system to determine truth values. For a scientific-minded person: They assign truth values based on scientific evidence (which is a type of assumption).

btw: saying there is absolute and objective truth is highly unscientific - science is based on the premise that you can replace theories with another theory if the evidence suggests it. The problem of induction shows the limit of empiric evidence and I hope that most scientists are aligned with this scientific principles (otherwise they aren't scientists by definition). IMHO there is no absolute truth that can be identified as such (I'm not assuming that there isn't objective truth, but merely that we couldn't identify it if there is such a thing).

It's like IT security, it is a relative measurement and the relations (in this case) are made by belief systems. There is a consensus that there is no "absolute security" in the security sector. If you accept that there is no absolute security in IT systems and only "reasonable security" (I do not assume that you do assume this), why do you have problems to accept that there might not be a way to recognize the "true truth values"? If you see absolute security as a given you don't have to solve this conflict.

I'm merely exercising logic here using my assumptions (and yes, some of them I call "facts", but I see them as something which gets defined by my belief system).

your belief:

belief_system("there is such a thing as absolute, objective truth")

my belief:

belief_system("truth as we use it in our daily lives is defined by our belief systems")

btw, would love to see discussions using assumptions and then logically deriving conclusions. Especially funny when somebody has conflicting assumptions (logic of explosion).

Where is the evidence coming from if there is no underlying absolute and objective truth (a.k.a. 'the real world') to generate that evidence ?

> There is a consensus that there is no "absolute security" in the security sector. If you accept that there is no absolute security in IT systems and only "reasonable security" (I do not assume that you do assume this)

To use your analogy, of course there is such a thing as absolute security. As in, it is theoretically possible for a system to be 100% secure. The difficulty lies in designing one and proving it. It's not fundamentally impossible.

Just because it's very hard or even impossible to discover the objective truth, that doesn't in any way mean there isn't one.

Subjective idealism states that there don't has to be objective reality to get truth values from it. Trying to understand this from a materialistic point of view is not easy because those philosophies are basically in contradiction to each other.

It's just important to realize that the belief that objective reality exists is one of many points of view.

> As in, it is theoretically possible for a system to be 100% secure. The difficulty lies in designing one and proving it.

> It's not fundamentally impossible.

How is "100% secure" defined in this context if you can't prove it?

In a sufficient complex logical system Gödel's incompleteness theorems are turning relevant. It might not be possible to prove some aspects of it if the system is logically consistent. This may also apply if you model reality in a logically consistent way. Logics has its limits.

Although I agree with you, I think it's important to realize that our positions are and can't exceed to be beliefs or even strong beliefs called facts.