Summary of four worldviews: 1. Materialist atheism

This is also known as scientism (as opposed to science)

MATERIALIST ATHEISM:  reality is purely atoms and energy arranged according to mathematically describable laws with consciousness an accidental by-product without any meaning

 Creation of universe: it was not created.

Duration of universe : eternal, since it was not created. This contradicts the Big Bang model  for creation of space-time-energy-matter ex nihilo 13.8 billion years ago

Future of universe: ultimately total disorder. This follows from the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Afterlife:  none, since life is merely an epiphenomenon associated with special arrangements of matter & energy. It is asserted that no other mode  of conscious experience can exist.

Basis for universal morality: none. Only human laws to go by. These tend to be those by which the greatest number of people flourish but the definition of ‘flourish’ differs (e.g. Nazism vs Communism vs Capitalism) In effect power decides, i.e.  might is right. Any assertion by a materialist atheist that any human or social act is morally better than any other contradicts the foundational belief in conscious thought as an accident..

Hope for individual: all depends on luck, how well you are able to use the abilities you have been dealt and how well you are able to exploit others. Hope is only a state of mind.

Fears of individual: illness, accidents and natural disasters.  Fear of loss of friends and relatives. No fear of one’s own death except possible deathbed illusions of hell etc.  but ultimately there is just total oblivion.

Free will: none. All is determined by physical laws, from the atomic to the macroscopic.All decisions are illusory as is the concept of culpability and responsibility. 

Social order: only sustainable in the long term by despotism since without it there will be chaos.

Justice: purely a social construct  in a meaningless reality.

Truth: no absolute truth to aim for. What we call truth is that which works , and that depends on who is in power or on observations to date.  Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Quantum Entanglement and Goedel’s Theorem  of Undecidability  dictate that the realiity discoverable by science is finite.

Science and technology: will decline as faith in hidden order disappears and truth is regarded as an illusion

Being written are summaries on spiritual atheism, deism and Christianity.

See also

Summary of worldviews. 2. Spiritual atheism

John Sears

author

2077:Knights of Peace

reach me at

cosmik.jo@gmail.com