Here is the reality that converted me from a God believer to an Atheist
The concept of an Afterlife,
If you think about this concept logically, scientifically, or in any other way, you realize that it's impossible, illogical, and completely made up by man for religious purposes.
If there is No afterlife, then Man has no purpose,
and that God has no influence on you this life, nor the next life.
There Is no greater justice, there is no spiritual evolution, there is no goal what so ever, no enlightenment, no escape from the flesh and suffering.
Humans have no purpose, as we all know, we are born, we eat and we die, Just like every other animal. All we can hope for is for our selfish gene to live on, through another human, that is our only purpose, creating more humans
That is the purpose of all life, to create more of the same
There is no higher purpose, No God, and No after life nor reincarnation
All the afterlife nonsense has been made up by man to use as a means of controlling other humans through religion and guilt, and hope for a better life after death.
Bluring, I'm not "trying" to be anything. I'm just not hooked into the entire mental aspect of all of this because it has almost nothing to do with reality.
Reality is the geyser that arises in our awareness. Taking this "neat," without extruding it through beliefs, takes a pretty good set of balls, IME. You make it sound like I waver, like I have some moral imperative to make some definitive statement but the geyser - thar she blows.
Meanwhile Craig is demanding that our mental content - be it truth or delusion - is apparently a bigger deal than the geyser itself - meaning our interpretation is bigger than the shizzle itself. Or maybe our interpretation (truth, belief, delusions, definitive religious statements) IS the shizzle.
That much said, our thoughts and beliefs DO create our reality -so what's a man to do.
Not some geyser of self indulgence in delusional folly that seems to satisfy your spiritual quest
That she blows . . .
The funny thing is that that rant is part of the geyser, and what I think or believe and profess about it, how I quantify or describe or feel about it mean nothing.
Taking it "neat" means taking Bluring just as he is, no preference that he be different.
Fact is, some people struggle mightily with beliefs - that God does nor does not exist. Or whatever.
But most of this is just so much mentalizing. You end up in the same place.
JL
I like that.
I definitely take people neat.
Blue and I have hung out and I adore him - even though politically and
religiously we don't have anything in common at least on paper. But if ya get the confusion and propaganda out of the way many of us agree much more than we realise.
There are a million things I look for in friends.
But mostly that they are just nice people, funny people and cool people.
Blue is a nice person and he is cool and he is funny.
Still these political discussions - they are very serious and shape the future of our country.
We need to be far smarter.
So they do get serious as far as our debating on ST - I rarely talk about this stuff in real life - not even with my kids.
Being an atheist was a progression - for me it was lots of reading and thinking and finally awareness concerning how society developed and how we learned to understand our world and deal with life. If you can look at the big picture concerning human history and many different cultures and religions this entire conversation is very elementary on an academic level.
But you add death to it and it changes - I see death everyday and there are reasons for faith beyond the academic.
We are here and then we are gone - that is something, especially concerning loved ones, that we can and will never understand.
huh? Riley,,, "these discussions shape the future of our country"??? Had no idea supertopo was THAT popular, i better start wearing a Tie when i post! ;-)
huh? Riley,,, "these discussions shape the future of our country"??? Had no idea supertopo was THAT popular, i better start wearing a Tie when i post! ;-)
Not us specifically - but the greater decisions we are talking about are shaping our future all the time.
How we deal with debt, the environment,each other, and how we communicate and think about the world.
If lying, Robber Barron, scum are elected through manipulation and propaganda and destroy the world it greatly shapes our future.
Evil Dictator and Corporation controlled Government or a Governement By The People and for The People.
Whether we are honest, caring, intelligent and rational or wasteful,selfish and ignorant has shaped every society since civilization began.
Global warming, failing oceans, pollution, radioactivity, enough weapons to destroy everything, endangered species, quality of life, etc etc..
It all matters a lot and is being decided in small and large extents every time we vote.
Nothing at all. My parents raised me in a completely religion-free home. They weren't the least-bit anti- religion. They actually never had a word for or against as I recall. Our family just sort of.. ignored it.
Life's a lot simpler in Atheist-land. Live for now since when you die... you're done.
PS: Thanks for the nice post about me on pg1 honey.
I'm in. Was brought up by parents who were deeply religious early in their respective lives and dropped it once they got married in NYC City Hall because each was of a different religion (mom=southern baptist, dad=eastern orthodox) and my dad's side sent death threats to my mom, quite the wake up call. So I was never indoctrinated with religious precepts and revealed truths... And my Sundays were free and clear then and remain so to this day.
My wife was selectively religious when we first met. I have since broken her of that fence-sitting and she fell onto the evil non-believer side with me. However, she did send two of our kids to a Lutheran pre-school where my son began to believe in hell and that god is vengeful. Yikes, had to break him of that.
I can say that the entire Gunkie Gang is now living on the evil side of the fence. More can be learned from the attached video below.
Let us know!