Religious Questions from the Faithful and the Believers

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Aside from that, I don’t see where there is any contradiction. I was merely sharing my own experience. I was sympathizing with the fact you cannot relate to it.
You put invaluable trust in your senses. I put invaluable trust in that which responsible for experience. You consider sensory experience very trust worthy and valuable. I consider is a very flawed way to understand the world around us. I trust in the systems that run it, the unflappable metaphysics that runs the show. I trust more in the law of nature then the nature itself. I look more at the reason something is, than that it is.

Sure other people helped you in your life? Same here, why? Because they love you? Perhaps? Why do they love you? What is love? Is there a rational explanation for someone to love you when its no benefit to them to do so?

As far as you accusations about what Christians are or do, seems to me you’re just applying a stereotype. Who says Christians hate muslims? Or gay people? That’s a stereotype propagated by our friend the media. It’s horseshit. For instance the piano player at my church was queer as a 3 dollar bill, everybody knew and nobody cared. He was treated just like everybody else. Wasn’t our business, didn’t make it our business. So you are just following stereotypes there.
The only Muslims we have a problem with are the ones trying to kill us in God’s name.

As far as sourcing your morality and purpose, you don’t think those are reasonable questions? What do you base your morality on? Just yourself? So that if you change your mind about something, then morality itself changes? I don’t think that, and I seriously doubt you believe that.
And I don’t know if I have a ‘higher purpose’ or not. I don’t believe I or anything exists for ‘no reason’. I very much side with Spinoza in that there are ‘no brute facts’. It’s not necessary reasonable to believe I exist for some ‘higher purpose’. It’s not reasonable at all to believe I exist for no reason. That I am a brute fact of the universe which itself is not a brute fact.[/quote]

Here’s your stereotypes from the media:

“conservativedog” is a Christian and he has filled the forum with attacks on black people, posted pictures of penises, and all sorts of other outlandish stuff.

kneedragger has posted all sorts of things about gay sex.

pushharder talks about cum in other mens hands.

As far as I can tell the non-believers on this forum seem to have a lot more love for gay people than the believers do. I’m sure that’s just the media though. [/quote]

So what you are saying, is on the basis of 2 posters, whose words were taken out of context. All believers are hypocrites?
Further, if we profess to be believers are we not allowed to discuss important current events as we see fit?
Are we not to have a sense of humor, even if crude sometimes?

It seems to me, and ever more apparent that you are readily passing judgement on Christians, Christianity as a whole, etc.
Not by reading theology and dogma, but on the behaviour of a few.
You are passing judgement on those who you profess are passing judgement. Sound about right?

Loving ones neighbor doesn’t consist of liking or accepting everything everyone does and giving it a thumbs up. It deals with the default human dignity of every person as an individual not a group.

You know some in the gay community haven’t been exactly nice either, throwing feces at churches screaming foul things at clergymen, etc.
Is one behaviour to be excused while the other criticized?

If you are truly interested, you’d be better served looking at what the church teaches and actually stands for rather than at some people who fall short of perfection and passing swift harsh judgement on everybody.
It seems, it’s the judgements of Christians that most piss you off, but here you are returning the favor. Judge, judge, judge.
Are you without sin to cast these stones? Or is it that you don’t believe in sin so you can throw as many as you like?

If you want fair, then be fair yourself.

102

[quote]AceRock wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Sure other people helped you in your life? Same here, why? Because they love you? Perhaps? Why do they love you? What is love? Is there a rational explanation for someone to love you when its no benefit to them to do so? [/quote]

People have helped other people for a multitude of reasons, from selfishness to altruism, and everything in between. Hard to make generalized statements.

People love me because I’m awesome. (Jokes; I couldn’t resist!)

Seriously though, people love for the same reason they feel any other emotion: it is part of the human experience.

Love is an emotion, an experience, and a chemical reaction in the body/brain. It is fantastically dramatized in most western cultures, since the Greeks, at the least. It serves several purposes: reproduction and lowering the murder rate. You always hurt the one you love, sorta thing.
[/quote]
Love is an emotion, huh? It’s just a bunch of chemical reactions? So if the chemical reactions in yoru mom’s brain changes or is different she won’t love you any more. If a person is having a bad day, and is emotionally spent, angry and tired they don’t love you anymore?

Sounds to me like love is much more than that. I may have a bad day, be on meds, or a litany of other circumstances that alter not only my brain chemistry but my emotional state. I may not feel particularly loving but I still love my family, where my brain chemistry can be completely different, nearly unrecognizable to another time where I still loved my family.
Sorry, don’t buy the electro-chemical-emtional basis for love.
Any married person whose been married for a while knows loves is a hell of a lot more than what you feel.
True love is loving and being loving even when you don’t feel like it.

Love can also be the most painful experience ever. How many people have killed themselves over love? Love superseding the desire to even live. Love is not selfish, if it is, then it’s not really love.

What if you cannot see the results of your actions? What if you quit caring if they cause joy or pain? Does morality change because you changed your mind?
I didn’t say you’re heartless, but what does that even mean? To imply that you have a heart and care, implies you adhere to a maxim greater than yourself, but yet you say you are the maxim on which your morality is based.
Further, you can become heartless, anybody can, would that change the morality of the actions?

[quote]

[quote]pat wrote:
And I don’t know if I have a ‘higher purpose’ or not. I don’t believe I or anything exists for ‘no reason’. I very much side with Spinoza in that there are ‘no brute facts’. It’s not necessary reasonable to believe I exist for some ‘higher purpose’. It’s not reasonable at all to believe I exist for no reason. That I am a brute fact of the universe which itself is not a brute fact.[/quote]

They are both perfectly reasonable, for the exact same reasons. You believe your side, I believe the other. Done.

There is nothing at all you can say/do to prove there is a reason for being. That does not mean there IS no reason, simply there is no PROOF.

Good questions.[/quote]
Bullshit. I can at least superficially say my reason for existence is the laws of nature, biology, cosmology. Those are some reasons for my existence right there. So I can say easily that I exist for a reason and not ‘no reason’. You cannot say I exist for no reason, I gave you several reasons for my existence right there. I could run off a shit ton more.
Do you exist for no reason? You just popped in to existence out of nothing for no reason whatsoever? Pardon, but I find that difficult to believe.

103

[quote]Sloth wrote:

  1. To be more accurate, you mean there weren’t actually any rights to take away in the first place? No moral obligations to observe? Which would have to mean no wrong was done.
  2. I don’t believe rights and moral obligations are taken away. I believe they’re trespassed upon, not lived up to, etc. If I didn’t believe this, I would laugh at myself for even claiming that I have a right to be treated this or that way. I would laugh at the fantasy I’ve concocted for myself of charity being a ‘good’ thing. Yeah, I guess I could just make it up, “charity is a good.” “Pillage, plunder, and rape is wrong.” But that honest voice in my head would say “you know you just made that up. You have no business declaring things you yourself don’t even actually believe to be truths.”
    [/quote]

Here’s an easy way for you to know you’re making a strawman:

When you start out with “so you’re saying” or “so you mean.”

That’s a pretty big key that you are attempting to build something up that I didn’t say.

I never said slavery wasn’t wrong. I never said might makes correct. Those are invented views you put on me.

I think your view of gays is immoral and hypocritical. You don’t think so. That’s called a difference. I’m not going to say “so you think gays should be slaughtered by the truckloads then” unless you say that simply because you oppose same sex marriage.

You’re not actually trying to go to logical conclusions or if you are you aren’t using my actual words to get there. You’re creating words to take you to the places you think my worldview has to go.

I think slavery was wrong. Back then and now. I’m basing that off my metrics of right and wrong which you already said (for some reason) I can’t have.

Clearly the metrics of the slave owners back then were different from me. In fact some of them used the book you say is the source of all truth to come to that conclusion. THAT DOESN’T MEAN I THINK SLAVERY WASN’T WRONG BACK THEN. I never said anything to take you there no matter how hard you try to. I said CLEARLY me thinking that in 2014 doesn’t do shit for them. Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the declaration didn’t do that for them. Didn’t help them any. I think it’s hypocritical as shit to say that and have slavery. Yet you say I can’t judge that but you can?

Your rights still exist is just a fun game to play on the internet. Great, the rights of slaves still existed. I’m sure when they were being whipped and forced to work everyday they thought “well, at least my rights are just being infringed, but I know they definitely exist right now.”

The REALITY of what those rights mean is what I have been talking about and history is FULL of examples of those being taken away IN REAL LIFE. Not in some fairy tale theory that God has never seen the need to intervene in on his own God given rights.

104

[quote]pat wrote:

So what you are saying, is on the basis of 2 posters, whose words were taken out of context. All believers are hypocrites?
Further, if we profess to be believers are we not allowed to discuss important current events as we see fit?
Are we not to have a sense of humor, even if crude sometimes?

It seems to me, and ever more apparent that you are readily passing judgement on Christians, Christianity as a whole, etc.
Not by reading theology and dogma, but on the behaviour of a few.
You are passing judgement on those who you profess are passing judgement. Sound about right?

Loving ones neighbor doesn’t consist of liking or accepting everything everyone does and giving it a thumbs up. It deals with the default human dignity of every person as an individual not a group.

You know some in the gay community haven’t been exactly nice either, throwing feces at churches screaming foul things at clergymen, etc.
Is one behaviour to be excused while the other criticized?

If you are truly interested, you’d be better served looking at what the church teaches and actually stands for rather than at some people who fall short of perfection and passing swift harsh judgement on everybody.
It seems, it’s the judgements of Christians that most piss you off, but here you are returning the favor. Judge, judge, judge.
Are you without sin to cast these stones? Or is it that you don’t believe in sin so you can throw as many as you like?

If you want fair, then be fair yourself.[/quote]

Taken out of context? Taken out of context?! Wow. Those words were DIRECTLY from a thread. What is the “love your neighbor” context of the words I quoted? I didn’t expect you to attempt to defend them and frankly I think it is massively hypocritical for you to do so. And that is being fair.

Where did I pass judgment on Christianity as a whole? You said that’s all coming from the media. I said here are some examples from the forum. I never said I think ALL CHRISTIANS FEEL THIS WAY nor have I said it. In fact I can name Christians on this board who seem to walk the walk, namely Trib and Sloth.

I don’t agree with those guys, but I give them props. You talk about my judgement left and right in a thread where you’re doing the exact same thing to me? Seriously, it’s another hypocritical stance to take. Just be consistent.

I would never and have never defended a gay person who would do something horrible to someone else.

Maybe it seems as if you’re looking at the actions of a few gay people and judging the whole? I didn’t ask for a thumbs up and neither did Jesus. He said love they neighbor as yourself. Do you think those words are living up to it and if not why do you refuse to call them out from believers when you see them?

Your focus in this forum seems to largely be centered on those who don’t believe in a higher power, not on those who say they do, but don’t actually attempt to follow the teachings. The exact opposite of what I’d do if I was in your shoes.

That is post number two that is demonstrably one giant contradiction waiting for you to say “nah, what I meant by that was…”

Also count better. I mentioned 4 posters, not two. 4. One of whom I directly quoted and apparently took those spiteful words out of context. I’m sure they were out of love for one’s neighbor? That’s how you’d interpret them since we’re talking about interpretation so much?

105

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]AceRock wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]AceRock wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Neuroscientists plant false memories in the brain
MIT study also pinpoints where the brain stores memory traces, both false and authentic.

And for the True Detective viewers.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/but-not-simpler/2014/03/03/depressing-things-true-detective-says-self-true/#.UyI3b4VvDq4

"The ‘you’ that rationalizes and chooses and deliberates is simply a way for the brain to navigate the world. Having a sense of a self that apparently controls the body from behind the eyes is an efficient way to deal with other sentient creatures, and evolved along with our intelligence, or so psychologists like Hood suggest. This conclusion doesn’t necessarily have to come from a scientific perspective either. In Buddhist philosophy, the term ?anattā? refers to Rust’s contention of the ‘not-self’ or the self illusion. If you simply pay attention to the nature of perception–what you feel and how–eventually you will notice that the sensation of a singular sense of self melts away. Of course, that kind of meditation does not work for everyone, and does not prove there is no ‘you.’ Maybe shrinking your mirror down to the size of a quarter will help.

Think about the brain’s self modeling like The Matrix. In that film, humans are kept alive and thinking by electrical inputs wired straight into their brains. The humans in turn create a sense of self and experience from these inputs alone. But their sensory experience is completely illusory, and they’d never know it. Is that really any different from how we experience the world? Isn’t the self just a jumbled of sensory input that is stitched together like some rag doll that looks terrible up close? Now that’s thinking like Rust Cohle."

[/quote]

This is essentially exactly what I believe. If you disagree, I ask you: where is the self?
[/quote]

I don’t claim to know. I believe it’s a mix of primal instincts and nurture. Where is it? Don’t know.
[/quote]

You know, from a believer, that makes perfect sense to me. You don’t know where God is, but that doesn’t deter you in your belief. It follows.

Definitely side-stepped the whole point of your own post, however. Sorry for the short tone, again, on my phone.

[/quote]

Well, one point of the post is related to the idea that even many atheists start with a fundamental leap of faith.

The second is that there might not be a “self” to be harmed.

That so much of ‘life’ is possibly an ‘illusion’–the brain/mind so unreliable (see the implanted memories article above)–to ask “how can one know another self even exists” if even our own self is questioned, can hardly be silly.

[/quote]

“We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion” TOOL

Reality as we know it is an illusion. This is a basic, observable fact. The self does not exist in the way that it convinces itself that it does. These are not new concepts, or really that interesting in my book.

What is interesting, to me, is that we still act as if that’s not the case. We can “know” this truth, but ignore it every second of the day. Only a select few even WANT to operate differently. It is exactly like the Matrix: those inside are so blind they will fight to the death to defend it. They are the enemy.

106

[quote]pat wrote:
Love is an emotion, huh? It’s just a bunch of chemical reactions? So if the chemical reactions in yoru mom’s brain changes or is different she won’t love you any more. If a person is having a bad day, and is emotionally spent, angry and tired they don’t love you anymore?

Sounds to me like love is much more than that. I may have a bad day, be on meds, or a litany of other circumstances that alter not only my brain chemistry but my emotional state. I may not feel particularly loving but I still love my family, where my brain chemistry can be completely different, nearly unrecognizable to another time where I still loved my family.
Sorry, don’t buy the electro-chemical-emtional basis for love.
Any married person whose been married for a while knows loves is a hell of a lot more than what you feel.
True love is loving and being loving even when you don’t feel like it.
[/quote]

I didn’t speak to my mother for 6 years. Would you call that love? Maybe we didn’t have “true love,” as you call it. Maybe it was fake love.

Your painting a picture of love as a choice, an effort made through the mind. A decision. If you don’t feel love, then what is love? How do you know you love someone when you don’t feel it? What does “loving and being loving”[sic] look like, if you can’t feel it?

I’m not selling anything, go to the market if you’re in need.

I’ve been married for years.

[quote]Ace:
I don’t understand how loving someone ISN’T in their best interest, unless of course you love someone who has severe problems and causes you pain rather than returns that love. Love feels delicious. That’s as selfish as it gets.
[/quote]

[quote]pat:
Love can also be the most painful experience ever. How many people have killed themselves over love? Love superseding the desire to even live. Love is not selfish, if it is, then it’s not really love.
[/quote]

That’s why I was put on suicide watch last month after my wife left. 2 for 2, pat. Obviously, in your opinion, I don’t understand “true love.”

[quote]pat wrote:
What if you cannot see the results of your actions? What if you quit caring if they cause joy or pain? Does morality change because you changed your mind?
I didn’t say you’re heartless, but what does that even mean? To imply that you have a heart and care, implies you adhere to a maxim greater than yourself, but yet you say you are the maxim on which your morality is based.
Further, you can become heartless, anybody can, would that change the morality of the actions?[/quote]

If I sacrifice my life for my compatriot in battle, I won’t see the result. I will die, and I have no way of knowing whether they lived and won the fight, or were overtaken and fell. What does that matter? I gave my life for love, regardless of the outcome.

My morality changed when I changed my mind. Society’s morality did not. Are you talking about a Platonic ideal of morality? Like I could influence that? I don’t think so.

I said I was not heartless. I don’t understand the confusion over this.

You are repeating the same question. I answered it, twice now.

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Ace:

[quote]pat wrote:
And I don’t know if I have a ‘higher purpose’ or not. I don’t believe I or anything exists for ‘no reason’. I very much side with Spinoza in that there are ‘no brute facts’. It’s not necessary reasonable to believe I exist for some ‘higher purpose’. It’s not reasonable at all to believe I exist for no reason. That I am a brute fact of the universe which itself is not a brute fact.[/quote]

They are both perfectly reasonable, for the exact same reasons. You believe your side, I believe the other. Done.

There is nothing at all you can say/do to prove there is a reason for being. That does not mean there IS no reason, simply there is no PROOF.

Good questions.[/quote]
Bullshit. I can at least superficially say my reason for existence is the laws of nature, biology, cosmology. Those are some reasons for my existence right there. So I can say easily that I exist for a reason and not ‘no reason’. You cannot say I exist for no reason, I gave you several reasons for my existence right there. I could run off a shit ton more.
Do you exist for no reason? You just popped in to existence out of nothing for no reason whatsoever? Pardon, but I find that difficult to believe.[/quote]

Bullshit. You cannot say you exist for those laws. None of those laws have an explanation for where they came from. They do not contain a creation story. Therefore, none of those laws explain anything about the reason why we, and the cosmos, are here. They merely describe the observable “facts” contained therein.

Your laws are causes, not reasons. Causes caught in the web of causality. One leads to another, and the chain goes back. This has been beat to death recently. I will not discuss uncaused causes here. Not for 20 some odd pages, for damn sure.

107

Well I keep making the quote thing worse…

Aaaaannnnnnd… it’s fixed! Kinda. Whatever, I quit editing.

108

[quote]stefan128 wrote:
For the nonbeliever: What do you think happens when you die? Since you do not believe in heaven, where do you go once you die? Everything goes black and that’s it…[/quote]

It’s hard to imagine. When I look into the emptiness or blackness of space at night I often wonder if our consciousness could ever cease to exist. I suppose if it did, I would never know.

109

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

So what you are saying, is on the basis of 2 posters, whose words were taken out of context. All believers are hypocrites?
Further, if we profess to be believers are we not allowed to discuss important current events as we see fit?
Are we not to have a sense of humor, even if crude sometimes?

It seems to me, and ever more apparent that you are readily passing judgement on Christians, Christianity as a whole, etc.
Not by reading theology and dogma, but on the behaviour of a few.
You are passing judgement on those who you profess are passing judgement. Sound about right?

Loving ones neighbor doesn’t consist of liking or accepting everything everyone does and giving it a thumbs up. It deals with the default human dignity of every person as an individual not a group.

You know some in the gay community haven’t been exactly nice either, throwing feces at churches screaming foul things at clergymen, etc.
Is one behaviour to be excused while the other criticized?

If you are truly interested, you’d be better served looking at what the church teaches and actually stands for rather than at some people who fall short of perfection and passing swift harsh judgement on everybody.
It seems, it’s the judgements of Christians that most piss you off, but here you are returning the favor. Judge, judge, judge.
Are you without sin to cast these stones? Or is it that you don’t believe in sin so you can throw as many as you like?

If you want fair, then be fair yourself.[/quote]

Taken out of context? Taken out of context?! Wow. Those words were DIRECTLY from a thread. What is the “love your neighbor” context of the words I quoted? I didn’t expect you to attempt to defend them and frankly I think it is massively hypocritical for you to do so. And that is being fair.
[/quote]
Are they the whole thread in context of the discussion that was taking place at that time? Perhaps I didn’t read it but it must have been a really short discussion if that’s all there was.

Is it not what you have been doing? Criticizing the church for X, or not doing enough for something, or if God does exist why is he such a big meany? Are you not proposing that religious belief is antiquated, evil, hypocritical, silly, and stupid.
You haven’t accused religious people for not practicing what they preach? When you quote from scripture and then say ‘Why are you not doing this?’, you are presupposing to know what we actually believe and that we are all hypocrites by default because based on what you’ve seen, religious people do some evil shit.
You assume religious people teach and practice hatred of gays or whatever is the flavor of the day attack.

And where did I do that exactly?

Well that seemed to go right over your head. The point was to illustrate that you are quick to condemn religious people for acts you deem hateful and horrible. But if you are only looking at the actions of one side and not the other, then you are not giving the subject fair analysis.
I didn’t say either was right. I am saying you are bringing up examples of where religious people have failed to act with love, but at the same time ignoring the injustices of subjects of that which you are defending.
I am simply pointing out, that if you want to go, tit-for-tat on who’s done what to whom we can go back and forth all day.
What I am saying is rather than look at the actions of a few, where they have failed, look at the actual teaching.

Well if you see that, then you are simply misunderstanding the point, deliberately or otherwise. I have not been contradictory, I simply deal with the questions in front of me.

[quote]
Also count better. I mentioned 4 posters, not two. 4. One of whom I directly quoted and apparently took those spiteful words out of context. I’m sure they were out of love for one’s neighbor? That’s how you’d interpret them since we’re talking about interpretation so much? [/quote]

My bad I miscounted. Are you not acting defensive and spiteful here?

110

[quote]AceRock wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Love is an emotion, huh? It’s just a bunch of chemical reactions? So if the chemical reactions in yoru mom’s brain changes or is different she won’t love you any more. If a person is having a bad day, and is emotionally spent, angry and tired they don’t love you anymore?

Sounds to me like love is much more than that. I may have a bad day, be on meds, or a litany of other circumstances that alter not only my brain chemistry but my emotional state. I may not feel particularly loving but I still love my family, where my brain chemistry can be completely different, nearly unrecognizable to another time where I still loved my family.
Sorry, don’t buy the electro-chemical-emtional basis for love.
Any married person whose been married for a while knows loves is a hell of a lot more than what you feel.
True love is loving and being loving even when you don’t feel like it.
[/quote]

I didn’t speak to my mother for 6 years. Would you call that love? Maybe we didn’t have “true love,” as you call it. Maybe it was fake love.

Your painting a picture of love as a choice, an effort made through the mind. A decision. If you don’t feel love, then what is love? How do you know you love someone when you don’t feel it? What does “loving and being loving”[sic] look like, if you can’t feel it?

I’m not selling anything, go to the market if you’re in need.

I’ve been married for years.
[/quote]
I am not attempting to define love, nor your experience with it. I am just debunking the notion that such a thing is just the result of bio-chemistry. Love is metaphysical anyway, you cannot define it or contain it with science. If anything scientifically indiscernible, love has to top the list.

[quote]pat:
Love can also be the most painful experience ever. How many people have killed themselves over love? Love superseding the desire to even live. Love is not selfish, if it is, then it’s not really love.
[/quote]

That’s why I was put on suicide watch last month after my wife left. 2 for 2, pat. Obviously, in your opinion, I don’t understand “true love.”
[/quote]
I am sorry to hear that, truly. I know it doesn’t mean shit to say that, not one damn bit of difference.
I never claims you know or don’t know what love is. Hell, I can’t say I know what it is. All I am saying, the only thing I am saying is that it’s not limited to physical phenomena and biology.
But I know you are in a lot of pain. I know you are suffering terribly. I wish there was something I could do for you. One way or another this will pass.
If there is anything I can do for you let me know. I will do it.

I think you are misunderstanding the term ‘reason’. Those are reasons for my existence. I do not know what the purpose is for my existence, hopefully I bring about some kind of good to those around me. And if that’s my purpose, then I am fine with that.
I exist for a reason, I believe I have a purpose, but I cannot prove that. It’s murky water to muddle in. Who knows, maybe I am here to help you. :slight_smile:
I want to help you.

[quote]
Your laws are causes, not reasons. Causes caught in the web of causality. One leads to another, and the chain goes back. This has been beat to death recently. I will not discuss uncaused causes here. Not for 20 some odd pages, for damn sure.[/quote]

I don’t want to get into that either. Especially in light of the things you said. I know what you are going through. I would be happy to discuss it with you offline somehow. I commend you on your drop-dead honesty and vulnerability. I wasn’t really expecting that. If you want to talk off line, I am more than willing. I am not willing to discuss these deeply personal issues in view for all to see. This is where I wish like hell PM’s still worked so I could pass along my email information to you.
If you would like to correspond privately, we can work something out. There I will be more candid. Damn man, I am truly, truly sorry.

111

It has been a joy to read this thread and just lurk. It’s nice to see posters being respectful to the others on a potentially hot button topic.

118

[quote]pushharder wrote:

In light of your above answer please tell me what your purpose in life is and why it’s a valid one.

[/quote]

I give purpose to my life through the friendships I cultivate, intimate relationships I enjoy, children (I will probably eventually I assume) sire and endeavours I undertake. I understand that my time alive is very finite and I must make the most of it now.

How an atheist defines his purpose in life is highly individual but generally speaking what I wrote above is the broad strokes for most IMO.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
and why it’s a valid one.[/quote]

Valid based on what?

120

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
and why it’s a valid one.[/quote]

Valid based on what?[/quote]

I think that is kinda the point.

Without which to measure something, you can’t measure it.

Sort of like the “we don’t have voter fraud, why do we need an ID.” Well, of course we “have” very little voter fraud, we have no way of measuring it.