Theological Ramblings.

I'll just cut straight to the colander please, and skip all the messy half assed ***in the middle, praise to his noodley appendages!

The scientific method is based on systematic observation. No observation = no scientific method = no proof. Are you going to give me a new way of thinking about atheism or are you going to play semantics with me?

Does religion really offer much in the way of individual meaning? I was raised Catholic and interacted with several sects of Protestants, including Born-again evangelicals and the various cadres of non-denominationals. Christianity is largely about making life on Earth better for everyone (by which I mean, that's largely what Jesus taught, not necessarily what all Christians have done) while working to earn a pleasant afterlife, but in terms of the individual, there's not so much meaning as just reward. Islam is similar from what I know.

Even Buddhism and Hinduism seem to be focused more on reward, though they tend to suggest that finding some personal epiphany and raison d'être is a part of that (Hinduism more than Buddhism in that respect -- Buddhism seeks to eradicate most of the trappings of self).

You also use a particularly bleak image. If the planet is wiped out tomorrow, that's it: humans are gone from the universe and, considering we've only sent a few artifacts on their way outside our solar system, will probably never have a meaningful impact on the rest of this universe. Even if there is an afterlife, it doesn't seem to exist in what we perceive right now, so even if Heaven is a place in our universe, no surviving human would know about it during his/her lifetime and, assuming that, say, the Christian version of life and death is true, no other mortal should be able to access heaven 'til post mortem.

If anything, I'd argue that atheism specifically strives to create meaning for people and their lives. It is often the same kind of meaning that a religious person can achieve, but it is part of the individual rather than being tied to predestination or the wheel of reincarnation or the various other "Your life is ultimately not your own" stories that religions tend to tell.

For most people, the meaning they will achieve and the meaning they can bring is in providing for the future, either by passing on their genes or in some way adding to the sum knowledge and culture of the species. Daoism and Shintoism both have ancestor worship as a part of their methods and seem to thereby be the only ones that accord much meaning to otherwise unremarkable individuals (being famous can score you points in most other religions, e.g., sainthood in the Catholic Church).

Without the comfort of knowing one is eternal, one is faced with either indulging every passing whim on hedonism (which is so often the backstory for Christian converts that it's cliché) or trying to contribute to the species in the knowledge that you've only got a maximum of 8 or 9 decades. With belief in an afterlife, you can sit in a room for 70 years praying the rosary and feel satisfied that you've done something. Which one is truer depends on what is true, yes?

Of course, my favorite thing when engaging philosophy is to remember to go back to first premises/start with the givens. So what is meaning?

Really don't see why people have an issue with semantics, they truly do make the difference.

There's no "thinking about atheism" but let's not get distracted on that.

Your understanding of the scientific method is amateur at best, and your attempt at postulating a decent argument based upon it is either admirable or sad, not sure which yet.

I guess your question is fine to confuse those who have never really paid attention.

To start off with your assertion/questions requires a certain set of variables to be true to make your claim.

They aren't.

First your idea of "meaning" isn't universal.

Not to mention your idea of "evidence" is quite lackluster.

Lastly your "point of reference" just isn't true, we have numerous ways to observe the universe, and very few of them are in "first person."

Hey now, don't play semantics.

The one point you made I would say has to deal more with secular humanism than anything else, while some attribute that to atheism, they are not the same thing.

You have a habit of responding to posts without ever really getting what the point is, and instead argue over the meaningless crap contained within. I'm just going to ignore it and respond to Onorgul instead.

I'm sorry that you have an issue with clarification.

I got to the point, your premises are off base, way off base, therefore your conclusions and therefore questions are irrelevant.

I went through the trouble of going into detail as to why (like you asked, actually) and then you dismiss it.

I'm sorry if you had a hard time following.

As for what Onorgul said, thank you for a post that actually seemed thought out. As much as I see value in secular humanism, it really is that bleak view of the end that kills it for me. I dunno, I guess I need to think about it more.

People, including you are scared of death, go figure.

It's called growing up, everyone has to cope with getting old and dying.

Well, take it up with Chanti if you don't agree. He seems to have understood that I did


Oh hey, another entry from the big book of generic internet comebacks.

Just because I don't agree with your BS doesn't mean I don't understand it. Another certain unnamed member of this forum is also very guilty of this.

Just trust me on this. Any attempt to go outside of "You believe X; I think X is stupid" is going to end badly for you so just don't do it.

I don't know what's so hard about just acknowledging the fact that other people think what you believe is stupid. Don't need to get this defensive about it.

You're trying too hard. You know what I was getting at. I'll reword it in a way you can answer though. Existence stops, so what's the point? Can you handle that one?

Actually I'm not scared of death. I don't look forward to the associated pain that could accompany it and what my family would have to go through, but what comes after doesn't scare me one bit.

Nice call out, but it's quite often people don't understand what I'm trying to say, and yet it still happens.

I'll work on trying to word things better for you Ihina.

People have this outrageous idea that all ideas are created equal.

Hell I stopped taking it personally long ago when people thought I was insane, for some reason they think "religion" is a protected class of illogical thought.

Then you should clarify more as to what you put in bold, as that's the typical extrapolation of that thought.

Edit: I can somewhat feel on the family bit, didn't care up until the point I had a kid, now I just want to stick around long enough to set her straight, as the other half of her gene pool sure as hell won't do it. side rant

The bleak view at the end from an atheist perspective, not from my own.

Then my original comment still stands.

Clever. I think.

Also one can still be an atheist and still hold beliefs about an afterlife, the two aren't mutually exclusive concepts, I'm sure depending on one's definition, but from the majority of them, they aren't.

I mean hell, even by the popular few, some entire religions still fall under the category of atheists.

OK from now on we'll call one who lacks a belief a frupla and one who actively denies a gnostic atheist, does that satisfy everyone?

Me as a frupla, still has beliefs but they have nothing to do with my lack of belief in a deity. Granted the beliefs I do have very little backing them up (I've found some far fetched (inb4 pokemon joke) stuff about them, but nothing definitive) so I'll classify them as illogical for now, as I have no concrete evidence backing it up. Granted if I did have evidence to back it up, that I found on my own, I'd probably go down in the history of science or something, as it's not very highly covered concepts, at least to the general public. The few actual scientists I've talked to about it, seemed like it was certainly possible.

But I'm droning on.

Someone needs to explain to me how being submissive to a homicidal maniac is supposed to give your life meaning.

Even if you're a literal slave, you can die and get out of it.

Make the big man upstairs angry and supposedly he'll torment you for all eternity.

It wasn't a comeback, it was a question. Hence the question mark that you conveniently edited out.

Anyhow, I accept that "people" can believe I'm stupid. Since belief is irrational, it is easily dismissible.

Mortality scares the ever-loving crap out of me. I assure you, I'd like nothing more than to know that my mind will continue even when my body fails. I won't know that until I'm past the point of no return... at least, presumably. If we do figure out how to digitize the mind before the year 2100, I might have a chance at pseudo-immortality. Until then, well, there's a reason I'm a writer.

The problem is there is no proof and I just don't do well taking things on faith. Part of it is related to why the theology departments in major universities are staffed by atheists (or non-theists, anyways): after you've studied a couple religions -- which I did as part of my Catholic education, ironically -- it's difficult to believe any of them.

It's not even the convenient "Let's just dismiss this as nonsense" argument that Jetackuu or Ihina is likely to take, either. The resurrection of Christ is virtually identical to half a dozen other stories from the region between modern Iran and modern Egypt. You could take it as a sign that something else is going on, perhaps, but even if you have that much faith, to what power or idea do you ascribe the credit?

Is it bleak to imagine that you're once-and-done, a collection of molecules jumping around in particularly complex and interesting ways but ultimately no more significant than a clump of dirt? For a lot people, yes. I'm Daoist, so it doesn't bother me as much, but I'd still rather keep my molecules where they are. But it is even more bleak to imagine some of the things that are the canon and dogma of major religions. Is it really all that comforting to imagine that you're a creation of something so self-absorbed that it needs constant worship and adherence to a semi-arbitrary list of moral imperatives for the sake of an ill-defined reward? I know I'm using a deliberately unkind description, but it sounds rather like a 9-year-old with an ant farm, doesn't it?

I certainly understand that literally any price is worth immortality (well, provided it isn't the Greek myth kind of immortality where you become old and infirm and crumble into sentient dust). The problem is knowing who is quoting me the right price. Talk to some radical jihadist living in a cave in Afghanistan and I need to strap explosives around my *** and try to blow up Detroit. Talk to a cloistered monk and I get to eat ***and sit at the same four walls of a 20 sq. ft. room for the best part of a century. Talk to a Hindu guru and I can basically do whatever I want (even if I fail to fulfill my dharma, I'll come back as a goat or something and have another try to move up the ladder).

This is just my belief, but meaning has to be where you find it. I certainly don't think I have, not least because I still have to wonder why I don't just indulge my id and steal, screw, and kill to my heart's empty delight.

Asserting that someone didn't 'get' your point because they don't agree with it is like internet arguing 101.

You should really stop the facade, no one's buying it.

Your hyperbole is thick, but to your credit that final sentence does apply to most Christian sects....

Yeah you're too smart to fall for my gotcha question.

Darn tootin'

There's a considerable amount of debate about that if you go to the right circles (i.e., theological scholars rather than the drooling masses). Christ forged a New Covenant based on forgiveness, he died on the cross for the sins of humanity, and the closest he came to talking about eternal torment was saying that it'd suck to be stuck inside the local incinerator (paraphrasing).

For the first 1,000 years of Christianity, the crucifix displayed the risen Christ, triumphant and clothed and emphatically not nailed to the damned thing. The crucified Christ would occasionally be used for Good Friday services but was not the norm. After 1,000 years of waiting for the Kingdom to appear and Christ to return, though, Christians lost patience and there was a radical shift from a celebratory religion of redemption and reward to the death cult we still have today. The rise of fear and punishment came with it and was certainly not aided by events like the Black Plague.

I've mentioned it before, but my old priest caused no end of comment whenever he'd tell a sermon in which God on his throne beheld the gathered masses of saints and sinners at the end of days and welcomed both unconditionally into his kingdom. This is literally the story of the Prodigal Son yet the meaning of both never seems to sink in because Calvinism did such a good job of making guilt and misery and death the focus of Christian beliefs.

Some sects like Calvinism believe you're already fated for damnation before you were born.

I don't even try to talk with those people anymore, I just walk away now. The stupidity hurts my brain.

Yeah, it's called "our belief sounds too horrible, let's just say it's not true anymore"

It's really, really common among religious folks.

Never did agree with the "tossing out the old law" excuse...

Then again, I've only read about 1/4 of the whole book straight through and got bored, skimmed the rest over the years.

Your contributions are always gripping. Like constipation, for instance.

Had you read a word I wrote, of which there is no doubt you did not, you might grasp that the horrible beliefs are the modern perversions rather than the original ones.

Irrational, knee-jerk response to anything perceived as threatening or unpleasant...

Not trying to get into your lovers squabble but that's open to interpretation, hardcore, at the least.