a person whose heart is pure will not be satisfied with atheism and want a way out- will crave for there to be a God (and thus justice as without God this world is one of injustice and there is no justice for people) — Ram

If "without God this world is one of injustice and there is no justice for people", then the theodicy problem is about how the world can be considered just *with* god. And so that question remains open. (And I beg you not to try to answer it in a post--at least not before checking against the existing literature that your answer is not a repetition of an existing attempt and that it does not have any serious weaknesses; in which case you are more than welcome to submit it to an academic publisher, as it will be genuinely appreciated by the community.)

*edit*
I did not take your post as an attack on anyone. Rather, that was the impression that I had about how you might perceive atheism. Forgive me if I was mistaken.

*edit*
p.s. I'll be back... (These problems aren't going to dissolve anytime soon, anyway. :) )

If you want to think atheism doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that life is essentially meaningless... I mean... you're free to think what you want. But I do think life is essentially meaningless from an atheist perspective. — Ram

Could you please explain how the belief "There is no god" rules out any other source of meaning for life? I think this is what I fail to see and the cited article only speaks about atheists and suicide. It does not provide any argument whatsoever.
I agree that atheism does not *provide* a meaning. But how does it rule out any (including subjective) meaning?

Give me some time to read your post and think about what you wrote. ;) (I assume that this is what you would prefer.)

Now as far as 1)- I already made a thread about that. I can't remember the title off the top of my head and I want to be quick so I can respond to more people. I'm getting a lot of responses.

Anyways, if you look in the religion section, I think you'll find a thread by me called something like "there is no secular basis for morality". So there's already a whole thread on that one issue. — Ram

I have seen that one. I must admit that I have stopped reading after page 2. The initial argument however was not completely clear to me. Is it that there is no secular basis for objective morality? (In this case there is a debate about moral realism and I would recommend dealing with those people as they seem to be quite convinced.) Or is it that there is no basis for morality *at all*? In this case, we should talk about what exactly we assume 'morality' to mean. If it means some kind of behavioural norms and rules then it seems we can certainly find a basis for them.
Certainly, I do not see that atheism would provide those, so a base would have to be found somewhere else.

(Again, I would recommend reformulating that initial argument in a way that we know what we are talking about. Otherwise there is a lot of midunderstandings and unnecessary back and forth.)

In my defense, it's been said that Kant was a great philosopher and a terrible writer. I definitely believe in what I believe as far as my religion but I don't think I'm a particularly good writer or claim to be. But like I said- it's possible for example for Kant to be a good philosopher and a bad writer. So whether my writing is particularly good is not necessarily the barometer of whether or not I'm right or not. — Ram

On a side note: Let's not bring Kant into this and just stick to the claims at hand. (Comparing oneself with that calibre can only bring ridicule.)

Well which one is it? I got one post telling me that my post was excessively long and now this one telling me I didn't go in depth enough. — Ram

My remark was not about the length but about the clarity of the argument. I suspect that more thought about how exactly to formulate your points more clearly will actually lead to a shorter post.

It is also very difficult to have a debate about many claims at once because it becomes hard to follow which claim some comment applies to. Concentrating on the most important claims (you decide which that might be) also leads to shorter posts. After clarifying one claim, the debate can then move on to the next. (This is the reason why I picked only few claims--those which seemed clear enough to discuss while still central enough to what I assume your post is about.)

So, no, on the contrary I would have preferred a shorter post. In some parts the claims were very vague--especially beginning with "they...". It wasn't clear to me who you refer to and it wasn't clear to me what the point to be thought through is at that instance.

It does seem that you do what you want:

I do what I do because I want to please God. — Ram

That does not necesseraly mean that you do *whatever* you want, but you certainly are guided by something that you *want*.

I do what I do because I want people around me and everywhere to thrive and prosper (and this also includes myself, but not preferentially). Furthermore, I want all beings to prosper (whatever that might mean, I'm still in the process of thinking this through). We both do what we do because of something we want. I fail to see the fundamental difference here.

Atheists are caught between two things. On hand, they are given an incentive. An atheist might give one of those strangely pious-sounding lectures on "good without God" for PR purposes- but beneath the surface- they know: atheism gives them a license to do whatever they want. They might deny this for political reasons- they know, though. This is the inescapable conclusion of moral relativism which they don't deny atheism leads to.

On the other hand, atheism leads to the conclusion that life is meaningless. — Ram

Firstly, the claim that "atheism gives them a license to do whatever they want" would require a separate argument as it is not self-evident to me: While atheism might not give behavioural prescriptions, it does not rule out other sources of behavioural rules. I fail to see how it would grant any license at all. What those other (subjective/intersubjective/objective) sources of morality might be, is discussed in large parts of moral philosophy and ethics and there is no need (and not enough space) to repeat that discussion here. (20-50 years of study would not be enough. And I'm sorry to say that, but if you think that you have grasped it all, then I'm inclined to think that you have not understood it. This is meant as an expression of my hesitation to take your word on that, not as a judgement of your intelligence.)

Secondly, the claim that "atheism leads to the conclusion that life is meaningless" seems to require a very thorough argument as well: Again, atheism might not provide a meaning for your or anyone's life, but it does not rule out meaning either. And again whatever you might intend by 'meaning' can have sources elsewhere. (I personally have found sources for both morality and meaning--albeit subjective.)

Therefore, although you seem to imagine atheism to be a dark and desolate place, it is not necessarily so. Yes, it might require some work to establish all of those things. (It's worth the time and thought for me at least. And I don't see anyone solving the theodicee problem anytime soon.)

I apologize for not addressing all of your points, but it seems to me that they all would require some work in their exposition to warrant a proper debate.