What is your critical analysis based on?
Atheists: What's the Purpose of Living?
- Thread starter Thoreau
- Start date
Great to see you back Spidey
Depends on what it is. For example, my analysis of if a bishop told me to go dig a well in Africa and go on a crusade and commit genocide are completely different. I meant analysis of the words of religious leaders. And then...it will be based upon my best available information, the payoffs ( eg. getting arrested, tried and executed for murder ), the laws of the land, my own understanding of religion, my own moral and ethics code .etc Mostly I will analyze it Game Theory style. So far, nothing dramatic. If all fails, then I rely on my feelings. So far, I don' have to go too far. I agree with a lot of ideas and doctrine of my religion, and I am living a full, good and productive life, with and I'm in good physical and mental condition, and I feel great emotionally. There isn't much to analyze atm...it is not like I have been asked to kill everyone that is not Mormon or anything.
I am Mormon, btw. I mean Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints mormon, just in case you are wondering.
It doesn't bother you that the founder of your religion is a proven fraud?
By whom?
That is the big question.
I can try to prove you are in fact a canine, but will it make a difference to you?
Lets see, what have he gained...
He was persecuted...he got tarred and feathered...he lost a lot of his children...lost lots of sleep...was exiled from any states, officially or unofficially...got jailed for 6 months in terrible conditions...got assassinated in the end...worked his ass off...
Jolly, sounds like great payoffs to me.
He finally found some people stupid enough to indulge in his frauds, and a loophole in the law which says that you can claim anything and get money from people as long as you call it a religion.
I don't remember him being rich or had a jolly life, or just chilled around while everyone else did their jobs, in fact he did a lot more then most people. He gave his own share, in fact he was a lot worse off then a lot of the church members. His descendants didn't get shit from my church, they separated into a separate church, last I checked it is called the Community of Christ or something...
Mine is the one that went to Salt Lake City, they stayed in Kirtland. As far as the law is concerned, nobody gave a shit what the mobs did to him...
In fact, if I wanted to, I can get all the budget information and the spendings on my church, and if I had the time and resources, I can check it. In my church, everything is volunteer, and in theory I can do whatever I wish save for the damning sins and not get excommunicated, getting excommunicated is a huge and delicate process. Our bishops don't get paid bro, no officer of the church in any level gets paid if any way, shape or form.
I won't distract from the purpose of this thread, but if any fool can create a religion that gives sincere people like you value, then the value of religion has nothing to do with it's truth.
If you look at it from that point of view, that is. You are entitled to your beliefs, point of view and your choices, and I respect that.
I wouldn't want to debate further either, it might get ugly and turn into another battlefield.
why is that essential, and to what process?
Look around you. The world is a constant cycle of assembly and disassembly. We plant the seeds which draw nutrients from the Earth. We eat the plant and return our waste back to the Earth, where we plant the seeds for the cycle to continue. We evolved from and are part of these cycles. Plants, people, solar systems, stars, galaxies... They all have their own life cycles and are all part of the process. I thought it was rather self evident. :shrug:
that premise doesn't jive with god as our creator, and the fact that we've ended up a very complex, powerful, sentient, intelligent, and consciously driven species, who is lying to itself, and hurting itself, if it believes it's own existence is meaningless. the proof is in the result. our lives do have meaning. we are powerful. what we do and what we think matters. what we believe matters. we all evolve according to it. and you think this is all the result of some random accident? when what i experience and observe living my own life doesn't back that theory up any better than religion does.
I think life is inevitable with the right conditions, anywhere. Chemistry and physics aren't random, they have rules and fixed behaviors, and if it happened here, there's no reason to believe it can't elsewhere. There's nothing special about Earth, it just met certain criteria. It would be odd to find out that we were the only occurrence.
It may take us a long time to find life elsewhere, but when we do it will be probably even more earth shattering to some than learning we weren't the center of the universe. I'm sure though that some religions will adapt, they always manage to find stuff in their writings that predict the new info, if interpreted right.
the non-randomness of it; the rules and behaviors and criteria, are a way i see god.
also from what i've seen, the alien life phenomenon will most likely spur on another religion all it's own. yippee. just what we need, another religion.
"Chemistry and physics arent random, they have rules and fixed behaviors".
So your theory of matter self manifesting, replicating and adjusting itself to form complex organisms make more sense than a god (ultimate source of consiousness, awareness) creating it?
What makes you think chemistry is supposed to follow rules and fixed behaviors. What gives us the will to survive anyways why is it important to the universe whether consiousness exists or not if anything there is a bigger input of energy required than the output thus existance itself doesent make much sense. Which is why athiests dont claim they know the awnser they just claim that there is no god.
What do you mean "supposed"? It just does.
Who says it does matter to the universe?
Where? Why doesn't it "make sense"?
Wrong as a generalisation.
As you have been informed more than once.
You didn't answer Lori's question as to why death was essential.
The approximately 4 billion years of life on Earth without humans doesn't jive with us being the intent and focus of a creator, who capriciously wiped out 99% of all species that ever lived, and who has placed our solar system on a collision course with the Andromeda system, as well as put us in the path of enormous meteors that sometimes cause catastrophic mass extinctions. What is it about thinking this is all the action of a creator that makes life meaningful?
Our pride should come from recognizing our struggle in a godless universe and our accomplishment in creating civilizations, art, music, politics, science, theater, architecture, and all the rest.
Our children need us to die in order to live.
Do you think we are not a part of the system?
OK - Let me put this in simplest terms... On a local planetary scale if no one died we would eventually run out of room. We need to die to make room for our children. (Seems fairly obvious to me.)