Sum up the meaning of life in one sentence.

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Interesting interpretation. The context for saying some people enjoy destroying others was that a general statement had been made that all people are inherently beneficent. I merely indicated that was not true.

That I see no Lord and don't chase mirages is, to me a very positive statement that I am free to make my own decisions with no misconceptions of invisible beings. It brushes away nonsense. Very positive.

"Don't let yourself be suckered is a very positive intelligent caution. Do you prefer I should advise people to be suckered?

In general I am advising people to not be gulled by nonsense and to look around themselves at the real world and wake up to reality. I merely do not tolerate bullsh it and that is as positive an attitude as anybody could desire.

Which means that you are being as intolerant of others' beliefs as those Christians who put Galileo on trial for his beliefs.

It could always work in the opposite direction Sand, someone could just as easily say that the belief that there is nothing but the physical world is a foolish and uneducated concept given the order that is observable in the world. And sure you could argue that back and forth, but the POINT is.... minimizing or insulting other people's beliefs is not constructive. More constructive is engaging in meaningful debate where you present your evidence to the contrary of their beliefs.

Tossing out entirely someone else's beliefs as a mere trifle will not benefit any conversation in a positive way. It will only cause a negative result as those with those beliefs will become more emotional and less rational.

I have been attempting meaningful debate for about 80 years now and have come to the conclusion that there is no meaningful debate with people seduced by idiotic delusions of living forever on the big rock candy mountain. Debate requires reason and evidence and there is none whatsoever on the religious side. People refuse to accept there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny if the alternative is oblivion. I am not particularly fond of that alternative either but it is the only conclusion that makes sense and I simply have no respect for things that make no sense. And I find that extremely positive.

For most lives: experience, learning, and building inner-steel. those who are pounded into the dirt where they're made weaker and weaker by their struggles are either taught by that experience (based on context ) not to judge (themselves, perhaps previously them judging someone else) or that evil does in fact matter whether it effects your own bubble or not.

So then you are indeed intolerant of those alternative viewpoints. Then why bother engaging in the discussion at all if you see "no point" in debating? Just to insult? Why not just say nothing at all?

If you find it insulting to have pointed out inconsistencies and lack of evidence then it is you who decline reasonable debate. I may indicate it is useless but it is worth the effort on a dull evening.

So then the whole purpose of you posting such things is entertainment for yourself?

Do you object to me enjoying myself?

Philotix, strong atheists are right - period. You may not understand that one, I can't fully grasp it myself, but No God is true certainty and a full positive in their books. Its not just Sand, its quite a few.

I don't have a problem with it, I'm just trying to understand where you stand... what your motivations and purposes are and how you come to your conclusions and decide what to post and what not to post.

Now I think I understand, so I can let it drop from this point on. Go about your way, do what you do. Now that I know why, I have no further questions for, or quarrels with, you.

I can't grasp how anyone who's ever spent any time thinking about it can believe in a god. It's never made sense to me. I can see how the idea is appealing, and how it provides support to some people, but I can't believe in something for which there's no evidence and which when examined closely appears completely absurd. Having said that, I'm not as quick to ridicule it as Sand. If people want to believe then that's their business; but I do draw the line at that creationist nonsense when it's used to indoctrinate kids. That surely deserves all the ridicule and contempt that can be heaped upon it.

I am not interested in being contemptuous of people. I am interested in getting them to grasp the reality of being alive and to value intensely every moment of it since I consider it the only real value. That people attack and impose horrible cruelties upon each other for the unproven idiotic fantasies that scam operators invent to profit from their fears and sadnesses disgusts me. There is enough real horror in the world without adding unnecessarily to what exists and must be withstood. I despise lying and obvious untruths. They deserve no respect at all.

Yeah, its definitely a problem. I had a debate with AG on some things a while back and if I understand this right, I think the best defense and reasoning though for making the choice of 'gnostic' atheism is that its really a logistical concern - we can't know the universe, many answers are beyond our reach, therefore in the absence of absolute truth the idea is that we're somewhat morally bound to take local truths as absolute truths and then, only then, repeal earlier held beliefs that were factually incorrect if we are able to disprove them later. From that viewpoint it makes perfect sense to be against fundamentalism or religious law, then again I think most agnostics, most spiritual but not religious, many theists also are very much against those things. Where I see the divergence though between the modernly spiritual and modern strong atheist though is the assertion that those in the middle are just degenerate biproducts of their religious heritage. I can understand, with the 'us outward' schematic of thought that people would strongly discourage spirituality or the idea of God just because, I think the tendency is there to be afraid that people will take it too seriously - that I can understand. If someone would say chase that farther and say 'No, I see almost clear certainty that there is no God, no soul, no life hereafter' though - I worry a bit; on the macro we're dealing with a universe (if not many) largely made of dark matter, dark energy, antimatter, we have nonlocality issues like proton entanglement, the whole mess sits in this strange thing we call 'space time' to where we also speculate at subspace or hyperspace, here on earth everything seems pretty clear but out there it starts heading off to the absurd a little. Thats no proof of God, just that it seems a little strange for us to declare that we fully know our reality right now - either in life or outside of it.

I'm not at all saying that this is rational proof for theism or deism, I'm not at all saying that atheists are wrong to assemble the facts one way and say "I see these things and I firmly believe that its probabilisitic zero that there is a God, human spirit, etc." - the way I think of that though, whether someone chooses desim, theism, or atheism, is largely in their first and founding thoughts on things and as sterile as atheism tries to portray itself... I hate to say it... its built on just as many assumptions as well as characatures of deistic/theisic possibility as many fundamentalist theists may have toward atheists. I don't believe that religion or that sort of metaphysics has a place invading the public sphere or telling people what they can or can't do, I just have a problem with the idea that its wholly irrational to hold any such beliefs or that people who do are necessarily afraid of oblivion. In my own life - atheism is the healthiest alternative, mainly from what I've been through and continue here and there to go through in life - it absolves any deity from messing with my life, absolves me of all past failings where they weren't my fault, and it means that once I'm dead I can completely relax - never have to be me again. At the same time, while I do feel a great wave of relief crash over me with those thoughts, I still find too many anomalies in life and the world around me to believe that atheism is the ultimate answer; ideas on origin of the universe (if its the first and only rather than multiverse), what consciousness is, infinite probabilistic resources as its own working teleology if we have a multiverse, many of the strange urges that we naturally have as people to spiral upward in humanity and intelligence when evolutionarily speaking we couldn't be genetically fitter or healthier than had we just stayed in the jungles and let nature and predators as well as mating cull the weak or sick - add to that then the possibility of psychic phenomena or that some amounts of miracles, wrought of our own physical properties or possibly of unified field; to really be a full on 100% atheist one has to close their eyes and block them out, much like a creationist theist has to clench their eyes and plug their ears on science.

I think that's about the best way I can explain my confusion - it seems like any group belief out there, by necessity, embellishes the meaning of certain facts and bullheads through or ignores, out of necessity, others and I see this as no exception. I have no desire to lampoon atheism because, I have strong sympathies to it and particularly for people who just choose it on a personal level rather than those who do feel like its the world's salvation from its benighted mystical heritage. Nervous systems are all different, perceptions all come with capacities and incapacities, that and what makes us tick at all is largely genetic - some gain energy on some things, some lose it, we all have to sort of play by the rules laid out by our bodies and minds. Usually though - when people are strident - its a defence against a very specific zone of reality that they had to cut out or close their eyes to, and usually from that stridence its pretty easy to infer just what that zone is (and I'll reiterate - on whatever matter, religious or otherwise). I won't say that strident people are outside their path or what they 'should' be, IMO that's impossible, but I still feel like knowledge and understanding of the human condition is worth something whether we can tell up from down on a broader scale or not.

We exist therefore we Are.

Thats pretty much the meaning of life in a nutshell.

ascan wrote:

At one time germs were not known in the animal kingdom. If there are beings that are invisible to us because they are too small for us to see, why wouldn't there be beings that are too large for us to see as well. I believe what I feel to some extent. I can feel the spirit in nature. I'm not sure what it is, but I trust my senses enough to know that there are higher beings than humans.

I fully agree with this statement... which is why I'm an agnostic and can't stand the people that say "There IS a God!" OR "There ISN'T a God!" and "know" it for CERTAIN!

That just seems absurd to me.