The problem with atheism.

[xxjs]

I see no problems with atheism, but huge problems with atheism discussions.

I personally have problems when people think that discussing the nature of our existence should be avoided as if it should be regarded as taboo or reserved for the elephant in the room.  Absolute truth can be established, and by definition absolute truth takes precedence over everything else.  But if you'd like this can be a discussion about cat memes or something equally trivial.

The problem is that every fucking word gets twisted. When I put forward an argument that god is not necessary, i get Hah! - I knew it! You believe that it is not necessary - you  are a beliver - but you don't belive in god - so it must be the devil - you are evil - I'll have to kill you

[the joint]

I see no problems with atheism, but huge problems with atheism discussions.

I personally have problems when people think that discussing the nature of our existence should be avoided as if it should be regarded as taboo or reserved for the elephant in the room.  Absolute truth can be established, and by definition absolute truth takes precedence over everything else.  But if you'd like this can be a discussion about cat memes or something equally trivial.

The problem is that every fucking word gets twisted. When I put forward an argument that god is not necessary, i get Hah! - I knew it! You believe that it is not necessary - you  are a beliver - but you don't belive in god - so it must be the devil - you are evil - I'll have to kill you

That's why I made a post explaining how there are higher and lower levels of logical syntax, and how people frequently mix varying levels of syntax in their arguments, thereby resulting in both confusion and misunderstanding.  I also provided an example illustrating how it is possible to bypass this problem.  I've spent (over) the 10 most recent years of my life heavily devoted to the subject, and I believe I have insight into the topic that others can benefit from.  Truth is not purely relative, but most people choose to believe it is because they don't have the logical skill set required to recognize when they're mixing their syntaxes.  When syntaxes are mixed without awareness, infinite regressions result along with seemingly unreconcilable paradoxes and an endless line of apparently valid counter arguments.

[gurcani]

and I was wondering, how people obtain hero member status...

[the joint]

I see no problems with atheism, but huge problems with atheism discussions.

I personally have problems when people think that discussing the nature of our existence should be avoided as if it should be regarded as taboo or reserved for the elephant in the room.  Absolute truth can be established, and by definition absolute truth takes precedence over everything else.  But if you'd like this can be a discussion about cat memes or something equally trivial.

The problem is that every fucking word gets twisted. When I put forward an argument that god is not necessary, i get Hah! - I knew it! You believe that it is not necessary - you  are a beliver - but you don't belive in god - so it must be the devil - you are evil - I'll have to kill you

Semantics are important in these sorts of discussions. One man's "lazy-ass Santa Claus in the sky that people pray to", is a another's "immaterial mind-ether that mysteriously enables qualia and consciousness."

Actually, I'm curious. How do atheists explain the problem of qualia? Even the concept of numbers seems to be a quale. When I see "2" apples, I experience an understanding that there are 2 of them. A smart-phone's camera could capture an image of those apples, and it could even have sophisticated software that analyses the image, "counts" them and reliably prints the correct answer on-screen, but it's still a lifeless machine that has no concept of numbers, colour, sound, or any other senses.

Some of the discussion in that wikipedia article tries to explain qualia from a purely atheistic perspective: that maybe they arise out of complexity? Or perhaps one day we'll be able to use sufficiently advanced language and/or millions of words to communicate these concepts (e.g.: the 'redness' of 'red') without resorting to comparisons or assumptions? Both of those possibilities basically seem like an appeal to magic. How is that better than believing in unprovable things?

That's why we have the language of perception, a languge that is shared by everyone and one that carries with it no assumptions or inference.  Indeed, it's only through perception that something can be known or 'proven' absolutely.  Otherwise, the next best thing we can do is create a tautological model of reality based upon logic which is inherently entwined with the language of perception.

[hawkeye]

There is no empirical proof that universal noncontradiction is valid [ ~(A & ~A)], you are accepting universal noncontradiction on *faith*.
Faith, by definition, is a belief *not* based on proof.  If something is verifiable, it is no longer faith.  Yet you are asking for proof.

Faith, in a religious sense, is used as an excuse for not putting forward evidence.  Faith, in the religious sense, is saying, "believe what I tell you, it's the truth, even though I've got no idea what the truth is myself". 

If you make a claim, then yes, I want proof.  For me, I make no claim regarding a god and so have nothing to prove.  There might be some type of god or gods or there might not.  It seems unlikely to me, but I don't know obviously one way or the other.

No religion has any proof at all.  When asked for proof they usually go back to some thousands of years old book.  Books aren't in and of themselves proof of anything.   Therefore no proof.  So what religious figures should be saying is "I don't know if there's a god/s or not".  But that wouldn't bring in the dough, would it?

[the joint]

There is no empirical proof that universal noncontradiction is valid [ ~(A & ~A)], you are accepting universal noncontradiction on *faith*.
Faith, by definition, is a belief *not* based on proof.  If something is verifiable, it is no longer faith.  Yet you are asking for proof.

Faith, in a religious sense, is used as an excuse for not putting forward evidence.  Faith, in the religious sense, is saying, "believe what I tell you, it's the truth, even though I've got no idea what the truth is myself".  

If you make a claim, then yes, I want proof.  For me, I make no claim regarding a god and so have nothing to prove.  There might be some type of god or gods or there might not.  It seems unlikely to me, but I don't know obviously one way or the other.

No religion has any proof at all.  When asked for proof they usually go back to some thousands of years old book.  Books aren't in and of themselves proof of anything.   Therefore no proof.  So what religious figures should be saying is "I don't know if there's a god/s or not".  But that wouldn't bring in the dough, would it?

There's no proof in science at all, either.  You can never say "prove" in science and be correct because of the problem of induction.  You can use inference to support a point, but not to prove it.  

However, there is proof/knowledge available through direct perception, and so those who say they had a "spiritual experience" of god or something similar, assuming they are not lying, actually had as much proof as you could spend all of eternity looking to find.

[lophie]

I actually like atheists because they have a relatively open minds with logic chippering but what I hate is the religious atheists when they get all religious on me about how theism wasted my life and I would be better off it and if I don't get to be an atheist I will burn in atheists' hell  .

Logic wise, Dawkins sucks. His arguments were defeated numerous times. Even I (a theist) got better ones pro-atheism.

[User705]

...

There's no proof in science at all, either.  You can never say "prove" in science and be correct because of the problem of induction.  You can use inference to support a point, but not to prove it.  

However, there is proof/knowledge available through direct perception, and so those who say they had a "spiritual experience" of god or something similar, assuming they are not lying, actually had as much proof as you could spend all of eternity looking to find.

Can you clarify what you mean?  How is science without proof?  How is math and geometry without proof?  How is physics without proof?  Also from my limited understanding the problem of induction refers to predictions of things doesn't it?  And predictions are just that predictions which one seeks to prove or disprove.  If I'm doing geometry I can prove it through repeatable calculations that something is true or false.  How can one repeat a "spiritual experience"?  If one saw God in a trance can he/she go back and see him again under the same conditions?  Are you saying that I can't "prove" that the sun is a fiery ball of mostly hydrogen and I might as well believe it to be the sungod RA and if I get high enough to see his face after looking directly into the sun and that proves it through direct observation of a spiritual experience?  Granted there's plenty of theoretical stuff out on the leading edge of science but it's just that "theoretical".

[dank]

Someone who is atheist is someone who does not understand god.  To find god is to find understanding of what god is, to find peace.

I was atheist until last year when I tripped LSD at the beach.  I realized we are god, the universe is god.  God exists and every form of it.

[the joint]

...

There's no proof in science at all, either.  You can never say "prove" in science and be correct because of the problem of induction.  You can use inference to support a point, but not to prove it.  

However, there is proof/knowledge available through direct perception, and so those who say they had a "spiritual experience" of god or something similar, assuming they are not lying, actually had as much proof as you could spend all of eternity looking to find.

Can you clarify what you mean?  How is science without proof?  How is math and geometry without proof?  How is physics without proof?  Also from my limited understanding the problem of induction refers to predictions of things doesn't it?  And predictions are just that predictions which one seeks to prove or disprove.  If I'm doing geometry I can prove it through repeatable calculations that something is true or false.  How can one repeat a "spiritual experience"?  If one saw God in a trance can he/she go back and see him again under the same conditions?  Are you saying that I can't "prove" that the sun is a fiery ball of mostly hydrogen and I might as well believe it to be the sungod RA and if I get high enough to see his face after looking directly into the sun and that proves it through direct observation of a spiritual experience?  Granted there's plenty of theoretical stuff out on the leading edge of science but it's just that "theoretical".

Science is like a courtroom - proof in science is equatable to "proof beyond a reasonable doubt," and so that's why you read in published studies things like "The findings show that a statistically significant correlation exists between x and y, p < .05" or something similar.  The problem of induction arises whenever you try to infer predictions from a set of observations.  If you see me eat breakfast at McDonald's for 30 straight mornings, this is not proof that I will eat breakfast at McDonald's on the 31st morning, nor is it even an indicator of likeliness that I will visit McDonald's on the 31st day.  With respect to things that we assume are laws such as the laws of gravity or entropy, the same thing applies.  And while some might say, "Well it's just simply obvious that gravity is a law, try jumping off a building if you aren't so sure of it."  Well, that's fine and dandy and I might not jump off a bridge, but to try to apply validity to inductive reasoning using your experiences as a means for that application only means that you're using inductive reasoning to give inductive reasoning validity!

Math and geometry are abstract, self-contained languages.  Math proofs and geometry proofs are called proofs because of this self-containment - in and of themselves, they are proof of the solutions they express.  However, when you take a math or geometry proof and try to pin it to something tangible in reality, then the problem of induction creeps up again.  You might consider some mathematical expression to constitute proof of some real-life occurrence (E.g. d = m/v), and this might seem true because your observations have aligned with that particular expression, but it's still inductive reasoning.

Can you "prove" the sun is a fiery ball?  Well, I have a close example that exemplifies what I'm saying...

Suppose you go outside and feel the warmth of the sun on your face.  You know it's warm, you can feel it.  You can touch your fingers to your face, feel the heat on it, and you say, "Wow, that's warm!"  And I say, "Warm, you say?  Prove it to me."So, you get out your spot thermometer and take a temperature reading of your face and you say, "Look, 102 degrees.  It's warm."  What you don't know is that I just got back from a stream room at the gym where the temperature was 140 degrees.  I say, "I don't know, seems pretty cool to me."  So, which is it?  Is it warm or hot?  We have some arbitrary piece of evidence (i.e. 102 degrees) and yet there is no possible way for you to prove to me that 102 is warm unless I had the same direct perception of that warmth as you did while feeling the warmth on your face.

Now, you might say, "But that's a relative example!  Warm and cool are relationally opposed - I proved to you that it was 102 degrees!  Well, I say that 102 degrees is relational!  102 degrees is relational to something that we, for example, defined to be 0 degrees, and if we had defined that other thing to be something other than 0 degrees, then the object you just measured at 102 degrees would be measured at some other figure.  Geometry is relational to math, and math and physics are relational to philosophy.

Inductive reasoning has been called "the glory of science and the downfall of philosophy."  Because philosophy is a self-contained system that is inherently entwined with logical expression, it is possible to form logical tautologies that are totally unbreakable.  But when philosophy branches into mathematics (abstract) and physics (physical) and you attempt to link the two, you automatically begin formulating assumptions that aren't present with a strict philosophical model, namely that mathematical models can always be applied to their physical analogues.

Edit:  Don't forget, ratio is the root word of rationale.

[BitChick]

I am late to the discussion here.  I love to discuss religion and philosophy so I wish I had joined sooner.

I do find it interesting that the OPs problem with Atheism seems to be the logical conclusion that it is all really meaningless.  I often thought that myself.  It is a bit depressing really.  If there is no God, then what is really the point?  Perhaps the "smart" ones are the ones that are the most hedonistic?  The ones that are chasing the next great feeling because if this life is all that there is, why not?

For the record, I am not an atheist.  I have the philosophy that this world is the closest to Hell that I will ever be in.  Of course, Hell is a whole different discussion.  I believe that God is fair and just and will not just throw everyone into Hell that has not prayed the "prayer."  That is not a popular thought in my "circle" for sure!  Being one that takes the Bible extremely literally, I am unusual in my belief that everyone will get a fair chance and will even get that "chance" after death.  It is not an excuse to "live and let live" but it has reduced my frantic feeling of helplessness and even the thought that "how could a loving God damn people to Hell that never even heard of Him?"  The answer I believe is that He doesn't!  He let's them decide in the afterlife if they did not decide here.  Of course, I do believe that some have made a distinct choice here to reject God.  That is a bit risky I think.  

On that note, I had a deep discussion with a Hindu once.  He said, "I believe all paths are valid."  I said, "If you really think all paths are valid and Christians say that there is only one way to the Father and it through Jesus, wouldn't the logical choice be to follow Jesus then?"  He smiled and said that I was quite persuasive.  I am not sure what ever happened though since he was a stranger I met on the beach.  But regardless of how logical that point was, it really is a matter of the heart.  People have an amazing ability to believe what they want to believe regardless of how logical or illogical.  

Also, I find that the more I study science (true science and not the made up theories that pose as "science" nowadays) my faith is strengthened.  The complexity of a single cell points to an intelligent designer.  It would be mathematically impossible for even a cell to evolve from nothing but somehow evolution has become "fact" instead of "theory" in the world we live in.  I have no problem with it being called what it is, a "theory."

[User705]

@BitChick My opinion is religion is a faith based explanation for the unknown.  Once the unknown becomes know religion moves further up the line.  Keep in mind that a few hundred years ago there wasn't even a concept of a cell.  So the fact that you currently say a cell couldn't have evolved simply means you don't know how it came about.  If it turns out we were created by aliens then I'm sure religion will move to the statement "well then God must have created the aliens that designed us"
@the joint While conceptually I understand what you are saying you seem to be contradicting yourself.  1st you say there is no "prove" in science then you say math proofs are self contained systems.  What I'm saying is that many if not most religious statements have turned out to be provably false.  1st god is fire, oops that's provably not it.  Then god lives in the sky, oops once we got up there that's provably not it.  Then god is proof of living organism coming from manure, oops once we got better microscopes that's provably not it.  Now the god de jour is intelligent design.  I'm man enough to simply say I don't know and it's hard for me to respect people who after looking over the 1000 year history of this type of moving target but absolute statements still want to pimp religion to others with a straight face.

[the joint]

@BitChick My opinion is religion is a faith based explanation for the unknown.  Once the unknown becomes know religion moves further up the line.  Keep in mind that a few hundred years ago there wasn't even a concept of a cell.  So the fact that you currently say a cell couldn't have evolved simply means you don't know how it came about.  If it turns out we were created by aliens then I'm sure religion will move to the statement "well then God must have created the aliens that designed us"
@the joint While conceptually I understand what you are saying you seem to be contradicting yourself.  1st you say there is no "prove" in science then you say math proofs are self contained systems.  What I'm saying is that many if not most religious statements have turned out to be provably false.  1st god is fire, oops that's provably not it.  Then god lives in the sky, oops once we got up there that's provably not it.  Then god is proof of living organism coming from manure, oops once we got better microscopes that's provably not it.  Now the god de jour is intelligent design.  I'm man enough to simply say I don't know and it's hard for me to respect people who after looking over the 1000 year history of this type of moving target but absolute statements still want to pimp religion to others with a straight face.

I'm not contradicting myself.  Math proofs can be called proofs because they simply abide by math's rules.  The scientific method tries to infer abstract models from observable phenomenon, and this is where you lose the ability to say that you can prove anything because you cannot prove the infallibility of the model.  Most scientists assume that repeated testing of a model that yields consistent results constitute proof of this infallibility, but this is really just for practical utility.  It's not technically proof of anything, or at least we can't call it such, and that's why no good published scientific paper will ever claim that they have "absolute" findings, but rather "statistically significant" ones.

I can drop an apple from a building in Earth's atmosphere and I can test numerous times that its acceleration is 9.8 m/s^2.  I might then test this at a variety of locations and come up with the same result.  Then, someone will posit a theory, "The law of the universe is that g = 9.8 m/s^2" and this is inferred through your observations on Earth.  No matter who tests this theory on Earth in standard Earth atmosphere, they will not be able to prove you wrong.  But then, some guy goes up in a shuttle to the moon and they do one test - one single test, which shows that g on the moon is about 1/6 of g on earth.  That one single test now discredited your inference despite having possibly millions of cases that supported your initial claim.  With that one test, we have completely wiped out our initial inference and we need to create a new inference, "g on EARTH is 9.8 m/s^2".  Now, it's important to note that none of the math you might have done while calculating your observed phenomena is wrong.  In fact, the math is all perfectly correct.  But your assumption of how that math describes reality was wrong, and that is how the problem of induction is invoked.  We can never get around this problem empirically.

Phrased another way, the problem with induction essentially lies with the idea that you would have to already know what it is that you're looking for before you've found it.  Let's hypothetically assume that we're conducting an experiment with an interaction between variables x and y in hopes of finding an event z that implies 'proof' of god.  We let x and y interact and, in fact, z is the result!  So we throw up our hands and we say, "Look!  We found z!  This is proof of god!"  Well, that's sure funny that you already somehow knew what z is and what it looks like before you ever saw it.  In other words, this means that you "recognize" z when in fact you've never encountered z in your life until just now.  This is just another form of confirmation bias.

[hawkeye]

Of course, I do believe that some have made a distinct choice here to reject God.  That is a bit risky I think.  

Atheists don't reject God.  They say that there is no more proof that the Christian God exists than any of the other Gods invented by men exist.    I'm assuming you are talking about the Christian God of course since you reference Hell and such.  You can't reject something if you don't know if it even exists or not.

Why is it risky to reject ancient myth and superstition?

God gives me a brain with which I can reason.  Then he offers up no proof or evidence of his existence and he's going to punish me for not believing old stories, many of which are very silly?  I've said many times that I think the Christian God is quite petty.  Which doesn't make sense to me if he's wise, all-knowing and benevolent.  Religious leaders on the hand...

There's no proof in science at all, either.  You can never say "prove" in science and be correct because of the problem of induction.  You can use inference to support a point, but not to prove it.  
 

Science doesn't have anything to do with it.  You could disprove science tomorrow and there would still be no evidence of God, no reason to believe in it.  

[BitChick]

Of course, I do believe that some have made a distinct choice here to reject God.  That is a bit risky I think.  

Atheists don't reject God.  They say that there is no more proof that the Christian God exists than any of the other Gods invented by men exist.    I'm assuming you are talking about the Christian God of course since you reference Hell and such.  You can't reject something if you don't know if it even exists or not.

Why is it risky to reject ancient myth and superstition?

God gives me a brain with which I can reason.  Then he offers up no proof or evidence of his existence and he's going to punish me for not believing old stories, many of which are very silly?  I've said many times that I think the Christian God is quite petty.  Which doesn't make sense to me if he's wise, all-knowing and benevolent.  Religious leaders on the hand...

Why is it risky to reject God and the Bible?  What if the so called "superstitions" are true?  It is risky then because you are rejecting God's offer of eternal life.

He puts evidence of His existence all around us.  How can we not look at the beauty of creation and deny that there is no God?  Yet people do it all of the time and the Bible even warns that we will do this.

That said, if a person was walking on a cliff that was blind and someone warned him to be careful not to go over the edge and the blind person responded, "I don't believe that there I am even on a cliff!"  Would that keep him from walking off the edge?  When he stepped over the side he would still fall to the ground, perhaps saying, "Oops.  My Bad!" Weather or not a person believes something does not change what the truth really is.

God does give us brains for reason.  Many people have distorted who God is and because of that people have mixed up views.  Hence why it is imperative for people to read the Bible for themselves and try to come to an understanding of who He really is.  To just ignore Him though is dangerous and not wise, IMHO.  


All of this said, I do believe that God is fair and just and He will give everyone a chance.  I personally people that sincerely have never had the chance to accept or reject Him will get that chance in the afterlife.  It is not a popular thought in many Christian circles, but knowing that God is just and would not arbitrarily send someone to Hell without giving them that chance is what I believe, and there is some scriptural evidence supporting this as well.  But for those that blatantly reject Him, they are the ones that I believe are playing with "fire."

[Akka]

That said, if a person was walking on a cliff that was blind and someone warned him to be careful not to go over the edge and the blind person responded, "I don't believe that there I am even on a cliff!"  Would that keep him from walking off the edge?  When he stepped over the side he would still fall to the ground, perhaps saying, "Oops.  My Bad!" Weather or not a person believes something does not change what the truth really is.

So you are saying Atheist have some sort of crippled senses/thinking, like a blind person. And because they will never be able to understand you reasoning, like the blind person will never be able to see they have to trust the reasoning of the theists for ever, unable to understand it.

Or don't have atheist crippled sense and their senses tell them there is no cliff. Then your analogy doesn't work.

Or theist are the blind ones that just believe there is a cliff because they haven been told so by other blind one their entire live?

[Nikinger]

Why is it risky to reject God and the Bible?  What if the so called "superstitions" are true?  It is risky then because you are rejecting God's offer of eternal life.

No. To not believe isn't more riskier because a deity could exists which punishes superstition and irrationalism.

He puts evidence of His existence all around us.

Doesn't make sense. If there are evidences, why a christian needs to believe?

[gurcani]

I hope we all agree at least that the probability of the existence of any given god is a set of probability measure zero.

I don't get the point about nothing having any meaning after that.

To me it basically means that you can define the meaning of your own life. If you want to devote it to science or pleasure or death and destruction, you can set up your own ethics system completely independent of the one imposed by the society, which will help you achieve those goals.

The only point is that you need some kind of ultimate goal. a sort of metha-ethics. For a scientist that may be "understanding", for an hedonist it may be "pleasure", for a veganarchist/ecologist it may be to make the planet a better place.

In contrast if a god existed, nothing you do would have any meaning, since your desires/choices, pleasures, understanding, or the situation with the planet etc. would be completely meaningless. it would be his desires that would matter. In that case all of us would really have to be religious freaks, praying to the God the whole day.

I mean seriously, think about it, if a classical judeo-christian or musllim God existed, nothing in your life would have any meaning. You should give up everything and give yourself completely to the god. It is by definition more important than everything else.

[semaforo]

If sensory data is all of reality and there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless. You can enjoy your life, but all of your enjoyment will be the same as if it had never been once you die and your memories rot. Or if you get alzheimers. If you make the planet a better place and are remembered well for it, your contribution is pointless once the planet is consumed by the sun when it expands into a red giant, unless humans have spread to other planet byt hen. Even then, eventually entropy is going to catch up, eradicate all life forms that benefit from your contribution, and the universe will collapse into a super dense mega black hole, and your contribution is therefore meaningless.

   It's not like we are talking about just Christianity- every culture in the world has had wise people or prophets who have had visions of these relities, whether they call them spirit or shadow realms, paradise, the unseen, the kingdom of heaven, shangri la, the pure lands, so on and so forth. You know a tree by its fruit- if you really want to say that every respected community leader for the last tens of thousands of years was just making stories up because they didn't have microscopes and telescopes, fine. But if you look at what the European civilization has wrought in a few hundred year of using the scientific method, well, that's not the way I want to go. It's certainly a useful tool, but to use it excusively to construct a cosmology is not only ineffective, it's insulting to our ancestors. It should rather be seen as one tool among many- even the scientific worldview informs us that light, for example, can be viewed as partciles or as waves, depending on the observation. Empirical observation organized by the scientific method is one mode of perception.

 If you look into the field of consciousness studie, you will find that there are many other modes of observation that yield data without the use of the five senses. Prophets, gurus, saints, wise men and women, and the like have achieved profound insight into the nature of reality by using all of the observational capacity available to them, and they have attempted to explain this to those of thus who have not attained such a level of consciousness. If you look sincerely you can find a common thread through most of the accounts of spiritual reality.

  I was originally repulse by religion because of the threat making- "you are going to hell if you don't believe what I believe." The more power a system of thought has, the more potential it has to be abused by power hungry groups or individuals attempting to use the truth in it to their own worldly benefit. This is a confirmation of the truth of this reality rather than a contradiction of it, and it simply means that we should use our own reasoning when someone claims to be offering us the truth- and we must always ask if the person telling us stands to benefit from us accepting what they are saying. Those who are on the right path will never expect material compensation for sharing their knowledge.

  The purity of source texts is also an issue. We have to consider what data we have about the original authors of the source documents, who translated them, how many versions there are, and how much evidence we have of their authenticity to the source. For example, if we want to learn the teachings of Buddha, we must strive to find out who originally wrote down the teaching, how long after the original teaching it was written, was the person who wrote it trustworthy, what documentation do have from other sources of their character or corroboration that they actually personally received the teaching of Buddha, what language Buddha spoke in and what language the written version was written in, and so on and so forth. Every translation and every degree that the knowledge is separated from the one who originally taught it is a chance for corruption of the message to seep in. Think about if you are sailing in a boat from california to japan- if you are just one half of a degree off course, you could end up far from the intended destination- likewise, when trying to apply a complete spiritual system of life, the tiniest error could end up having devastating consequences.

[gurcani]

If sensory data is all of reality and there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless. You can enjoy your life, but all of your enjoyment will be the same as if it had never been once you die and your memories rot. Or if you get alzheimers. If you make the planet a better place and are remembered well for it, your contribution is pointless once the planet is consumed by the sun when it expands into a red giant, unless humans have spread to other planet byt hen. Even then, eventually entropy is going to catch up, eradicate all life forms that benefit from your contribution, and the universe will collapse into a super dense mega black hole, and your contribution is therefore meaningless.

I disagree. If I stopped suffering, made the world a better place and understood the workings of the universe. That is not a meaningless life for me, just because I and all the things I am linked to are localized in space-time. You make your part of the 4d universe a better place. Yeah there are some other parts which may still remain wild, and untouched. Who cares, they are far away, mostly unkown, unknowable.

The thing that is meaningful to me is what I am part of anyway. I don't care about a future race of superhumans living in the year 150013 BCAD, who might very well have destroyed my race and may have values completely different from mine. That is like a far away planet to me that has only a very weak connection to me. But i want my life to contribute to the change.

You realize that "meaningfullness" in itself a psychological/mental concept. There is no sense of meaningfullness without a brain to feel it. That is why something that is meaningless to you, can be meaningful to me. In order to claim that there is a divine meaningfulness, you already need to assume that there is a divine something.