Consciousness is an accident, the universe is an emergent property of physical laws, and there is no purpose to any of it; no gods, no guiding intention, no natural morality, no afterlife. Just entropy.
This is a good, positive thing to understand.
If there is no intrinsic morality, then we are free to define morality for ourselves. This is a burden, but it something that we can recognise and think critically about, rather than just taking whatever tradition we were raised in, and picking and choosing as is convenient.
If there is no afterlife, then every act of alturism, every kind thing we do we can do because we want to. Not because we are afraid of damnation, but because we decided that it was the right thing to do.
If we leave nothing behind but dust, then we must be aware of the impact we have now, because our time is limited and brief.
If we are a random collection of atoms, a brief coherent pattern among the chaos, then we can recognise that every single other person is the fundamentally the same.
Optimistic Nihilism.
Consciousness is an accident, the universe is an emergent property of physical laws, and there is no purpose to any of it; no gods, no guiding intention, no natural morality, no afterlife. Just entropy.
This is a good, positive thing to understand.
If there is no intrinsic morality, then we are free to define morality for ourselves. This is a burden, but it something that we can recognise and think critically about, rather than just taking whatever tradition we were raised in, and picking and choosing as is convenient.
If there is no afterlife, then every act of alturism, every kind thing we do we can do because we want to. Not because we are afraid of damnation, but because we decided that it was the right thing to do.
If we leave nothing behind but dust, then we must be aware of the impact we have now, because our time is limited and brief.
If we are a random collection of atoms, a brief coherent pattern among the chaos, then we can recognise that every single other person is the fundamentally the same.