Religious teaching in Education

[Edric O]

On other subjects:

Why do atheists give? Because they want to. Because they feel rewarded by the giving process, or altruism, not because it saves them from hell, but because like a parent on Christmas Day, it feels good to help someone.

Yes. Like I said before, that's precisely the problem. To an atheist, acts of altruism are a personal choice, something you do when you feel like it and stop doing when it no longer feels "rewarding". To a Christian, it is a holy duty. It is not negotiable.

I prefer duty and service to personal choice. That is why I love the Christian worldview. It is so refreshingly illiberal, an island of obligation and commandments and sacrifice in a sea of despicable selfish individualism. A sister in Christ once told me that she thought the appeal of joining the Church is somewhat like the appeal of joining the military. I've never been in any military, but I think she was right.

Edric, you describe how religion gives you strength to "fight for the greater good", but would your fight be necessary if people realized that this is all there is?

Of course the fight would still be necessary. If anything, the capitalists would become even more vicious if they no longer had to pretend to uphold any kind of religious morality. Do you know Ayn Rand and her "philosophy"? That is the kind of attitude that would prevail among capitalists in an atheist society. The class struggle would get more intense, not less.

I wonder how many people are content to allow their capitalist overlords to run roughshod over them because of the imaginary reward waiting for them in the sky?

A few, no doubt. But without that reward, they would be far more likely to simply fall into despair than to become communists.

You mention martyrs as people that are important. I see martyrs as masochists shaped by a system that rewards truth and suffering. Why suffer for the "truth" when you can lie, and in lying, subvert the exploiting system from the inside. Have you ever seen Schindler's List?

Sure, lying is sometimes more useful and martyrdom is not always the answer. But martyrdom is certainly sometimes the answer. Since you mentioned Schindler's List, consider the example of another person who could have been a martyr in WW2 but decided against it: Pope Pius XII. Hitler was nominally Catholic, and much of the Wehrmacht was composed of devout Catholics. Pius could have excommunicated Hitler and pronounced an anathema on anyone supporting the Nazis. If he was feeling particularly militant, he could have even called a crusade against the Reich (technically they can still do that). Pius would have been tortured and killed for it, to be sure. But through his martyrdom, he could have delivered a crippling blow to the Axis war effort and earned himself a place among the saints in the process. The Reich would have suddenly found itself fighting every Catholic in the world. Instead, Pius chose to take a different path, and went down in history as a collaborationist coward.

Besides, it's interesting to think about for religion can drive one to fight versus how rationalism can create some of the most powerful weapons that actually win wars. Wars aren't won on feelings, they're won by technology.

I am by no means opposed to rationalism. On the contrary, I enthusiastically support science and technology. There is no conflict between faith and reason.

Speaking of Nazis, I feel that supporting the work of someone with Eras's worldview is similar to saying that Hitler's persecution of the Jews was alright because his policies stabilized the German economy.

That's ridiculous hyperbole. Eras is not calling for genocide.

Oh yes, and atheist governments: I feel an atheist government would be one which is entirely unaffected by religious posturing, and therefore would need to exist in a (predominantly) atheistic country.

Well, in that case the British and Dutch governments probably qualify, among others.

[SandChigger]

Was there ever a yawn smiley here?

[Dragoon Knight]

See, you've been speaking of hell as if it were a punishment. That's certainly true when you compare it to heaven. But compared to what atheists expect to get after death - compared to non-existence - hell is a gift.

Some will get pleasant eternal lives and some will get unpleasant eternal lives, but we will all live forever. The knowledge that hell is the worst that could happen to me is a source of enormous optimism. I do not fear hell. I fear non-existence.

[colour=#005FFF]I'm actually really surprised to hear you say this, Edric. I've always heard of "god-fearing" individuals, but to value an eternity of utter torment over non-existence due to simple fear? That strikes me as very odd.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't hell meant to be (for most people, anyway) an inescapable, endless torture? I would imagine that your worst fears would be laid bare in that place, and played upon over and over. What's to stop your punishment from being something as gruesome as having your soul flayed from your body, your senses seared away, until all you could experience for the rest of infinity was neverending, incomprehensible agony?

I'm sorry, but in comparison to that, I would think anyone would prefer the release of oblivion. When doctors and families agree to a D.N.R., they do it to end a person's suffering - not because there's a promise of eternal life afterwards.[/colour]

Christianity offers you reward or punishment, while atheism offers you the worst fate imaginable, which you cannot escape no matter what you do. Atheism should produce learned helplessness more than any other belief system. If it doesn't, that is only because atheists do not seem to comprehend the full horror of what they believe.

[colour=#005FFF]You say that atheism doesn't offer a middle-ground, and I agree with you on that. From my agnostic perspective, it offers no "false hopes", as some would deem them. But the thought of nothingness shouldn't be reason enough to cling to religion for hopes of life after death, paradise or otherwise. I respect religious people who use their religion as their strength, whether that be internal confidence or external charity, but I find myself disdaining this sort of thought; that everyone else who isn't a paid up member of the Jesus Club is either damned or oblivious as to their horrible, horrible fate. I've said before that I can't comprehend a state of true nothingness, but that doesn't mean I don't understand what it would entail. I'm slightly insulted at the assumption, in fact. Precisely how would ceasing to exist be a worse fate than an eternity of torture, Edric, since I wouldn't be around to experience said fate?[/colour]

I do not see how you can believe that and not scream in despair at the festering cesspool of disease, violence and death that is the human condition. Without God, there is only darkness, and all hope is in vain.

Stare long and hard into the abyss, and then you will understand the need for faith.

[colour=#005FFF]I'm sorry, but really? You think that humanity's only current salvation is found in the afterlife and/or God? That sort of thinking will only cause more problems. If people don't focus on making things better in the here and now, in the lives they actually have as opposed to the afterlife they believe they will have, then things will stay terrible for a lot longer. The "human condition", as you put it, won't improve if people are reliant on belief in a higher power to such an extent. I understand that you yourself probably don't believe that we're devoid of free will, that we can't make a difference if we each try... but I don't understand how this gels with a belief in a higher power. Things being part of "God's plan", so to speak... lesser people would use that as an excuse to ignore the atrocities that you mention, or at least dismiss them as not their responsibility. Equally, some religiously-minded people might see it as their duty to remedy such situations to the best of their ability.

My point here is that it can go both ways. There's nothing that compels the average Christian (as an example) to do anything more than an atheist or an agnostic. There are different levels of dedication to a belief, just as there are many interpretations of the Bible. But no interpretation should be as blithe as to assume that everything will be alright just because it says you will live forever. There's no harm in having God as your strength to fix the world, but it's not a requirement, and it's not a guarantee either. There are Christians that will make a massive effort to help and there are those who will do nothing short of ask for a priest on their death bed so they can feel better. Don't assume that just because you find the thought of oblivion to be worse than heaven or hell that others don't have a valid outlook, or that a lack of belief in a higher power means that they can't understand their fate.

I zone out whenever this sort of topic comes up normally, because I tend to find religious beliefs in and of themselves ridiculous. But when it comes to the discussion of what we should be teaching the next generation about religion? I've got opinions.

I think that children should be given the ability to learn about different religions, as part of a balanced education. They should learn about how religion plays a huge part in the world today, how it influences and sometimes dictates the laws of entire countries. As part of this, they should be taught how the overriding basic message of all religion is that of peace and belief in a higher power, and that there is nothing wrong with it. While they should have the opportunity to explore any aspect of this further, in no way should they be told that any of the views are definitely true. They should not be indoctrinated into a belief system from such a young age. Religion should be a choice made when a person is capable of making decisions, and not effectively forced on a child from very early on.[/colour]

[ErasOmnius]

On other subjects:

Yes. Like I said before, that's precisely the problem. To an atheist, acts of altruism are a personal choice, something you do when you feel like it and stop doing when it no longer feels "rewarding". To a Christian, it is a holy duty. It is not negotiable. I prefer duty and service to personal choice. That is why I love the Christian worldview. It is so refreshingly illiberal, an island of obligation and commandments and sacrifice in a sea of despicable selfish individualism...

I am by no means opposed to rationalism. On the contrary, I enthusiastically support science and technology. There is no conflict between faith and reason.

Very well put.

Eracist...

As I sit in my library at home, look out the window over my backyard, see the Fenceposts At the edge of the woods, and meditate on the Dawn of a new day -- I would hope that name-calling would go by the wayside.

[Edric O]

I'm actually really surprised to hear you say this, Edric. I've always heard of "god-fearing" individuals, but to value an eternity of utter torment over non-existence due to simple fear? That strikes me as very odd.

What if you were experiencing torment here on Earth, with no hope of escape? Many people are in situations like that, due to disease or poverty. I gave some examples in one of my previous posts. Would you say that non-existence is better, and therefore commit suicide? Or would you struggle to survive, no matter how difficult and painful it might be?

Most atheists do not choose death as an escape from suffering. They prefer to struggle and suffer than die. This shows that most atheists agree with me that suffering is better than non-existence.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't hell meant to be (for most people, anyway) an inescapable, endless torture?

No. Not for most people. The punishments of hell are supposed to be in proportion to your sins (well, at least that's the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, anyway). All people are sinful, so all would be punished. But for people with relatively few sins (e.g. Gandhi), hell can be no worse than your average daily life on Earth. If they suffered on Earth, hell may even seem like an improvement by comparison. The extreme tortures you imagined are reserved for those who are exceptionally sinful (e.g. Hitler).

In fact, perhaps "punishment" is not the right term. In Christian doctrine (and this time I think I can speak for all Christians), hell is not a place prepared by God for sinners. Hell is separation from God. Hell is what happens to your soul when God leaves you to your own devices. Going to hell isn't like being sent to the dungeon, it's more like being sent into exile. What you will find in exile depends on you, not on the one (God) who exiled you.

Precisely how would ceasing to exist be a worse fate than an eternity of torture, Edric, since I wouldn't be around to experience said fate?

Like I said above, it's not necessarily an eternity of torture (though it can be, for those who are evil enough). Also, consider this question: out of all the things that might happen to you here on Earth, what kind of things, repeated for eternity, would be enough to drive you to suicide (meaning non-existence)? I bet there are not very many of those. I bet you, like most people, will nearly always prefer suffering over non-existence, except in the most extreme cases.

Terminal medical conditions are not a good comparison, because in those cases you know that you'll die soon anyway. Instead, imagine various bad things that might happen to you, but under the knowledge that you'll live forever unless you commit suicide.

I'm sorry, but really? You think that humanity's only current salvation is found in the afterlife and/or God?

No, no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm a communist, after all. I believe that all the social and economic problems of Humanity can and should be fixed in this world. However, they won't be fixed tomorrow. In the best case scenario it will take decades to have revolution and then spread socialism across the globe. In the worst case it will take centuries. In the meantime, suffering will continue. That's what I meant. The fact is that people are suffering immensely, and even in the best case scenario it will take 40-50 years to stop it. Many will die long before then, and we can't save them.

Also, there was a great deal of suffering in the past, and nothing we do in the future can erase that.

My point here is that it can go both ways. There's nothing that compels the average Christian (as an example) to do anything more than an atheist or an agnostic.

In terms of fighting to make the world a better place, you are right, both Christians and atheists can find reasons to be complacent. However, in terms of more general altruism, the Christian does have a clear duty while the atheist does not.

[Dante]

As I sit in my library at home, look out the window over my backyard, see the Fenceposts At the edge of the woods, and meditate on the Dawn of a new day -- I would hope that name-calling would go by the wayside.

I'm not sure what's funnier, that you think you're being subtle or that you think you're being clever. Dance on, little man, your contortions and gyrations are as a jester.

On the subject of hell...

If I were inclined to take comfort in my own philosophy, and I'm not, I would argue that there is a wonderful... finality about it. A certainty. And if I bothered to care about such things, a beautifully terminal equality.

Quite simply, there will eventually come a day when what was a thinking person will become, in seconds, inert flesh. Everything that they thought, remembered and did will cease. Forever. There's no coming back, no hanging on, no "better (but largely undefined) place." Only a collection of organs and bones, meat, soon to rot and become earth. And one day even those bones will be no more. The people who remembered them will die, the photographs or paintings of them will decay. There will be no cogito, for there is no sum. And this will happen to you, it will happen to me, it will happen to all the Edrics, Sandchiggers and eracists of this world. Gloriously fair, awesomely inevitable. If you must refer to the terrible suffering and pain of this mortal coil, at least you can be comforted to know that it won't last forever. I don't give it much thought, prefering to dwell on the beauty of the system.

On a related note, if anything atheists are more moral than religious types. After all, we don't have eternal consequences (or thought police) to fear, but by and large we still behave ourselves.

I prefer duty and service to personal choice. That is why I love the Christian worldview. It is so refreshingly illiberal, an island of obligation and commandments and sacrifice in a sea of despicable selfish individualism. A sister in Christ once told me that she thought the appeal of joining the Church is somewhat like the appeal of joining the military. I've never been in any military, but I think she was right.

Well that's just depressing. But then I hold most militaries in as low regard as I do churches, so no surprises there.

Strange how we can come to such different conclusions from the same data. We look at the world and see needlessness, chaos, purposeless action and a host of competing philosophies and structures. Your reaction appears to be to claw through the structures in search of the right one and, having found it, impose it upon the chaos as the superior way. Mine is to see chaos as the natural state of things and accept it. You desperately seek certainty and order, as do I, but I find yours illusory and you find mine arbitrary (which it is, and I make no bones about that).

We're both seekers of order, I think. Of a certainty on which to base other certainties. And what better order is there than autocracy? Remember the days when I argued as a monarchist? It was because I too found comfort in the rigidity of a hierarchical pyramid. The only difference was that mine was physical and yours spiritual.

I've moved beyond that. I don't need a drill sargeant, cosmic or otherwise, to bellow an order that's right because he makes right.

But on the subject of what you actually said, rather than what I inferred: militaries provide structure, order and unquestionable rules. And I understand that it's comforting, not having to think the difficult thoughts. To obey rather than question, forever trusting that those above know what they're doing. How nice it must be, to have such certainty!

Certainty borne of autocracy. All rules summed: OBEY. OBEY and you will have order. OBEY and you will have certainty. OBEY and you will have a place in the world, a role to play, a purpose to fulfil. Militaries and churches, both stifling more than individuality, stamping out thought. They don't want people, they want drones, unthinking machines that OBEY for their leader demands it and for no better reason than that.

They ask you to sacrifice self determination, and in exchange you get a pyramid no less arbitrary than any other. It's disgusting.

Most atheists do not choose death as an escape from suffering. They prefer to struggle and suffer than die. This shows that most atheists agree with me that suffering is better than non-existence.

I have to strongly disagree with this. Atheists believe that existence is better than non-existence.

Or at the very least, better the evil you know, mm?

I bet you, like most people, will nearly always prefer suffering over non-existence, except in the most extreme cases.

Wanting something doesn't make it true.

In terms of fighting to make the world a better place, you are right, both Christians and atheists can find reasons to be complacent. However, in terms of more general altruism, the Christian does have a clear duty while the atheist does not.

Neither does the atheist have a duty to purge differing opinions from society. Indeed, we are under no arbitrary obligations at all. Personally I quite like that.

And you want to believe that there is no afterlife, no justice for victim and perpetrator, no solace for grieving mothers, no reunion of lovers separated by death, no relief from torment for the slaves and the child prostitutes and the sweatshop workers? I do not see how you can believe that and not scream in despair at the festering cesspool of disease, violence and death that is the human condition. Without God, there is only darkness, and all hope is in vain.

Stare long and hard into the abyss, and then you will understand the need for faith.

As I hope I've demonstrated, I've seen what you call the abyss. It doesn't bother me so much. This world? It's not meant to be anything. It's not meant to be pleasurable, it's not meant to be nice. Neither is it meant to be torturous or nasty. It has no purpose. It isn't good or bad or even indifferent it just is. You see what you choose to see, and you couldn't find anything infallible in the world, so you made one up. What I choose to see is brilliance. And I mean that in the original sense of the word, a light so bright that it dazzles and you have to look away lest you be harmed.

This world is beautiful. Complexity is everywhere, patterns and shapes and systems that make our own lumbering silicon creations look oafish by comparison. The worm that burrows through a child's eye is possessed of intricate detail, astounding evolutionary strength, wonderous capacity to seek out a niche and occupy it, defend it, hold it for as long as it can in a genetic tide that will eventually overcome it as it becomes its own replacement. Grief is, at its best, raw emotion, painful to experience and painful to observe. It's a powerful expression, a human being (one assumes) reacting in one of the most basic ways we know. Despair has been with us for centuries and it remains unchanged, powerful, capable of engendering great creation and great destruction. Creation is beautiful. New life in a squalid hovel. New seeds in a sunny meadow. Destruction is beautiful. Soaring towers of concrete and even higher towers of numbers, tumbling down, shattering as they go, a thousand thousand pieces. Sixty six thousand lives snuffed out in a blink of an eye. Sixty six thousand thinking minds, with all their wonderful agonies and ecstacies and mundanities, ended. Leaving nothing more than a great cloud. Final. Insurmountable. Beautiful.

You see the world through a lens of "how it should be," and because of that you can never be happy with it. You are the maker of your own downfall in this respect. Rather than cursing the world for not living up to my expectations (which smacks of hubris), I love it as it is. Every disease, every cure, every corruption, every purification. I might not *like* all of them, and I will forcefully argue against those patterns and systems that I believe to be harmful, but I appreciate their intricacy even as I try to destroy them.

I believe in one thing above all others and that is truth. I believe, therefore, in what is so. And what is so is the world. I believe in what is.

That's why I'm an atheist.

And as a final nod to the topic title...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbBV4XBo3uo

People who are so mentally ill that they could damage their children should perhaps not be allowed to have children, mm?

[ErasOmnius]

I'm not sure what's funnier, that you think you're being subtle or that you think you're being clever. Dance on, little man, your contortions and gyrations are as a jester.

As I play basketball with my youngest son; see my daughter master another language; watch my eldest son complete alcohol rehab in December, and enter college this week; I will dance. We helped a man who had been beaten up, and was laying/dying/sleeping, next to the dumpster behind our Shelter building. We got him stitches and a tetanus shot, from a Christian volunteer Physicians Assistant. Three of us helped him vomit the contents of his stomach, and gave him juices so he wouldn't de-hydrate. When I left he was sleeping normally, probably for the first time in months, so I will dance...

Hell: Non-existence is better than hell. There can be nothing worse than spending eternity alone, in a furnace area, completely dark, breathing sulphur fumes.

The Fear of God: It's a good thing, not a bad thing. It is a motivator, it gives human beings parameters. Knowing that there is punishment eternally for bad behavior has helped guide society for centuries. Segments of society now believe so fully in Evolution that they believe Heaven and Hell have been explained away. Everyone has really become their own gods -- which is unsustainable as a culture and society. People invent their own strange and unusual morality -- believing that if a Court says that abortion, for example, is okay -- then it simply must be okay. Reject the evidence otherwise, reject ultrasounds, reject cognitive learning that babies experience in utero. Reject it all.

It's sad when a worm burrowing into a child's eye is reduced to just another evolutionary function, or when children are seen as a burden to so-called Gaia. What a desperately unhappy world that people have created in their minds. It gives those people, the complete ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want. There is no love in a completely evolutionary world, it's just a series of reinforced brain chemical reactions. There is no hate either, it's simply reinforced cognitive thought patterns through the brain.

As Edric said, this quote from The Silver Chair, I believe, is more appropriate than ever, from Puddleglum the Marsh-Wiggle,

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all of those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones....I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia."

Since I believe in a God who cares about humanity, I care about humanity. What exactly have I lost out on? If I am delusional about God, why do you care? If we are all just molecules in motion, why do my beliefs about bad behavior, especially sexual, concern anyone? If human beings are just trillions of molecules in motion; why the put downs from certain individuals, why the over-concern?

One of the greatest comforts to me in knowing that God exists; is the viciousness and rabidity of the put downs, the name-calling, the misguided story-writing; from those who simply cannot handle words from the The New Covenant being quoted to them.

[Lord J]

Thanks Dante, now who's the elegant one? :D

BTW, that's the style of church I was raised in. Crazy. It reminds me of the "sounds from hell" (it's nice hearing Art Bell's voice again after all these years) -- Ignore all of the nutty text.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6h2dZ51iy8

Edric: Sometimes I wonder if you're really an atheist and you expound on these religious topics in an attempt to help build atheist rhetoric. You're kind of like an immunization; a little bit of the craziness to help atheists deal with the real crazies.

DK pretty much addressed my problems with your assertion that hell is preferable to nonexistence. Heaven is certainly preferable to either, although that depends somewhat on its makeup, but hell just cannot be good. Not even for Gandhi.

As for how people would react if there was no religion: it's moot. We're both throwing our theories at each other, but without good numbers there is no way to make any definitive decision. The fact of the matter remains that humans seek causal relations, and when they don't understand the causality that exists, they make it up. God is the easiest answer, but "thoughts", "science", and yes, even "evolution" can fill that placeholder. The difference being, of course, that science is based upon the physical, and some "beliefs" can be tested.

Which addresses your next point, science is, by nature, agnostic. We don't know the answer. Starting from the religious assumption is what gave us the geocentric model, alchemy, and Cartesian psychology. The underlying concept of Christianity, that we exercise our free will to make decisions that either save or damn us is used to justify the American capitalist system whereby an individual can "pull themselves up by the bootstrings" to improve their lot in life. Science and religion are very nearly diametrically opposed, why do you think that a majority of academics are liberal atheists?

Eras's philosophy is culturally genocidal. It consists of a wish to utterly destroy an type of sexual expression that does no more harm to the species than celibacy because it's icky.

I feel like this is becoming a high school "whose is bigger" contest. At the very least it's severely off-topic. Maybe you should split the last twenty or so posts into "Religion Part Two"?

[Dante]

I was inspired. ;) As for being off topic, this is more interesting than the topic at hand anyway.

And on a related note, glad you got out of that madhouse. That sound clip... kind of sounded like a swimming pool. Lots of shouting and a bit of distortion from the water.

I doubt anyone's going to make a debate of it, but I thought I'd add a word on Lord J's assertion that science is agnostic. Firstly that he's absolutely correct, the scientific method is for observable, testable knowledge. That which is neither directly or indirectly observable nor testable is outside the realm of science.

Everything outside the realm of science, however, is neither observable nor testable. In other words, it could be anything. And if it could be anything, it's as good as nothing. Even if there was anything out there, that we cannot observe or test it makes its value to us null anyway. Agnosticism is certainly science's natural position, but that at least is my reasoning for how it gels with atheism.

Ah eracist, you remain as incapable of independent thought as ever. Someone clearly didn't learn anything from previous threads.

I've given you the benefit of more patience than you plainly deserve. You are a monstrous bigot who hides behind his occasional philanthropic work to avoid criticism of his horrendous beliefs. Yeah, Habitat for Humanity, huh? Did that for 8 years--you renovated a kitchen. I built entire damn houses with my bare hands. But I don't need to brag about that to make the point that I'm a "good person." Why do you? Every post you participate in is about two things: (1) your hatred of male homosexuality, and (2) the "good things" that you do.

Except we can now add Fenceposts to that, can't we? I guess we must have hit a nerve. Cry more, jester boy.

Your misconceptions, aka "things that you are wrong about:"

> That evolution disproves heaven or hell. Seriously, this is like saying that electricity disproves Buddha. Non-sequiter does not a valid point make.

> That the law of man is strange and unusual. Seriously, do you even know how courts work?

> That saying "evidence" is the same as providing any.

> That you understand... anything. Good grief, did you seriously get the idea from my post that atheists are unhappy? Can you read?

> That a pleasing illusion is better than the truth.

> That disbelief in an invisible sky wizard somehow renders one completely devoid of perspective on the world and everything in it. Your opinions concern us - and indeed any sane individual - because they are ridiculous, outdated, unjustified and above all harmful. You cause harm. You are a force for evil, if such a thing exists.

Still, I am rather pleased that you accept your role as cosmic whipping boy for an imaginary middle class white man. That's taking pitiable to a whole new level.

[ErasOmnius]

Creation is beautiful. New life in a squalid hovel. New seeds in a sunny meadow.

Interesting.

Destruction is beautiful. Soaring towers of concrete and even higher towers of numbers, tumbling down, shattering as they go, a thousand thousand pieces. Sixty six thousand lives snuffed out in a blink of an eye. Sixty six thousand thinking minds, with all their wonderful agonies and ecstacies and mundanities, ended. Leaving nothing more than a great cloud. Final. Insurmountable. Beautiful.

Where else can one go? Where else but here? My friends ask: Why <blank>, why do you stand for the put downs? Why do you go and seemingly waste your time in 'that Dune Forum'? The endless sparring, the butting of heads.

One of my responses is this when talking about Religion: There is a gentleman named Dante who is a good writer, the polar opposite of my beliefs. He will describe their side's beliefs with such candor and accuracy, with no pretense, no hypocrisy of that one gets from the atheistic/agnostic crowd. Where else can anyone find such interesting, strange descriptions of a great calamity? An Earthquake, a Nuclear Explosion? Only you Dante, could describe what would be a catastrophe of nature or war as Beautiful.

How did an individual get like this? What were the thought processes that led to this? Did sexuality cause change in belief systems? Or did belief systems solely shape sexuality? Were there 'dark nights of the soul' that led to this type of thinking?

[athanasios]

Άβυσσος η ψυχή του ανθρώπου

: Man's soul is an abyss.

[Dante]

I was an atheist long, long before I realised I was gay, if that's what you're asking. You're not the first to suggest a connection, but trust me, there really isn't one. It's irrelevent to the topic at hand, but my personal development has never been one of tortured indecision; I come across a question, examine the evidence, and solve it, at least to my own satisfaction. When I came to the conclusion that there is no god I felt no disappointment, no fear, nothing more than a sense of gratification at having solved the argument. It's a feeling that recurs every time a new point of view crops up to challenge it and is overcome. This is fairly regularly as I move in philosophical circles.

What made me the way I am? Liberal practice of the Socratic method. Now why do you care?

[ErasOmnius]

There are various reasons that I an interested.

1. Our [human-kind's] role in the world and Urban Planning -- aka Where The West is Going.

2. The Marriage of Evolution and Its' Faith. Just how far will atheists/agnostic non-traditional sexual practicioners who believe in Evolution; argue in their belief and defense of Evolution.

3. The Rise of Nihilism. The believers in Nothing find no problem in believing in nothing greater than themselves. But you taken it one step farther. You have described the burrowing worm in hungry child's eye as a simple Natural selection act. You have described what is either a Nuclear Explosion or an Earthquake as something of almost Beauty, even knowing that tens of thousands have died.

As someone who is married to a woman with a Masters in Psychology, although her career and second Degree is in Urban Planning (I suppose there is more money in Planning than Psychology), I find myself reading those huge Psychology books from her days at the University 25 years ago. In doing so, agnostic and atheistic beliefs are discussed and written about, but more of the agnostic and atheist writings are reserved and the people are near-hypocritical.

So I have found an individual who tells his beliefs 'the way that it is'.

In the Evolution of Sexual Organ thread, I am/was looking for your input -- especially since you seem to have a botany, biology, or anatomy backround. No one, not any professor at the University of Michigan or Michigan State University, has EVER given me a satisfactory answer.

I do not do this because I seek change for myself. I have examined all philosophies, all historical texts, and have found the only way that renews hope for myself and for mankind -- Christianity. If it is a fairy tale in believing that the Son of God is my loving older brother, and that he cares for me and every single human equally -- regardless of wealth, race, or ethnicity -- then I choose the fairy tale.

And obviously, we are all here to perhaps change the ones that we engage in debate. We all do change with each post. We make decisions every time we read a post, to either become more resolute in our beliefs, or more open-minded.

[Dante]

A further list of misconceptions:

> That "Urban Planning" is synonymous with "the destiny of the human race." I'll just ignore the (somewhat racist) implication that the only humans worth consideration are those in "The West."

> That believers in evolution share some sort of quasi-religious dogma. Listen, evolution isn't something one "believes" in. To paraphrase a wittier man than I, it would be like believing in the postman. It just is, regardless of your opinion of it. One might as well "believe" in rocks.

> The word is "further." The word "farther" denotes advancement in physical distance, while "further" refers to advancement to any greater degree, such as in time, emphasis or dedication.

> There is intricate detail and beautiful complexity in everything. It's hardly my fault that your outdated philosophy insists on seeing ugliness because it can't appreciate reality.

> That saying "I read something and disagreed with it" is the same as saying, for example, "I read about the Cartesian Circle and fail to see how it doesn't act as a useful basis for knowledge, since his notion of 'Clear and Distinct Ideas' is so well defined." I'm not going to explain my entire philosophy like some sort of student looking for a critique. If you want an argument, provide a starting point. That's why your feeble "evolution of sexual reproduction" thread failed, because you lacked the interest in the topic to skip back a few pages to find the links that were posted before. That exposed the thread as a transparent attempt to troll, and I'm not going to dignify your trolling with an answer until you do what everyone in that thread told you to do and posit a detailed criticism of current theory. This should be easy, given how many professors and books you must have consulted.

> That we care even a little bit about your qualifications or those of your wife. Seriously, you bring them up at every opportunity and it just makes you look like a blowhard.

Also I'm going to dedicate a whole paragraph to "non-traditional sexual practicioners" because there are so many things wrong with it that it deserves an entirely seperate category.

1. Tradition is not inherently "good." If it were we would still be passing people through holes in boulders to cure them of the plague.

2. If you mean gay just say it, using flowery words doesn't make you sound like less of a bigot, it just makes you sound like an asshole. Though I understand that American bigots use that technique a lot, so it's not like you haven't copied from the best in that regard.

3. Being gay has nothing to do with belief in god and neither of them has anything to do with a belief in evolution. You are making an association where one doesn't exist, and it's ridiculous. There are gay christians, I dated one once, there are religious scientists, some of them very highly regarded, and believe it or not there are a great many straight people who believe in evolution!

What you're saying makes about as much sense as "Just how far will conservatives/zoo keepers argue in their belief and defence of the planet Saturn?" As I said before, non-sequiter does not a valid point make.

Here's the thing: you're so trapped in your philosophy that anything outside of it doesn't make sense to you. In the same way that I would be mystified at the concept of making a ham sandwich without any bread, you are mystified by the concept of anything making sense without god. Everything you read (and for the record, I seriously doubt you've read as much as you say you have) is filtered through the ingrained layers of christianity; it can't be fairly examined because your viewpoint is so skewed. The proof of that is that you're willing to cling to it even if it were false. You'd rather entertain a lie than think critically, would prefer to be ignorant than alone. You chose comfort over truth. That is cowardice, and like all cowards you lash out at things which impune upon the lies you tell yourself.

No wonder you think fear is a good thing. Your worldview is built on it.

[SandChigger]

No one, not any professor at the University of Michigan or Michigan State University, has EVER given me a satisfactory answer.

Michigan? Jesus Christ, what do you expect?!

Try someone at Ohio State next time! :)

[ErasOmnius]

A further list of misconceptions:

> That "Urban Planning" is synonymous with "the destiny of the human race." I'll just ignore the (somewhat racist) implication that the only humans worth consideration are those in "The West."

I am interested in the concept that you consider me a racist, as you call me Eracist. Do you feel that homosexuality is a race?

> That believers in evolution share some sort of quasi-religious dogma. Listen, evolution isn't something one "believes" in. To paraphrase a wittier man than I, it would be like believing in the postman. It just is, regardless of your opinion of it. One might as well "believe" in rocks.

No telling of the past history of mankind can ever be more than a theory. Each side has holes that can never be fully explained. Therefore, Evolution should not be taught as the sole scientific dogma.

> There is intricate detail and beautiful complexity in everything. It's hardly my fault that your outdated philosophy insists on seeing ugliness because it can't appreciate reality.

You're talking about the worm burrowing into the child's eye, correct--or the natural disaster/explosion? The only time that I have been a natural disaster was long ago when a powerful waterspout tornado hit land, and swept over the northeastern part of the Detroit metro area. Since one area was only a few blocks from our home, I was able to get near to the site. One could see the hand of an individual under the wood and aluminum rubble of their own home. Was that human simple carbon matter, under ruined metal and wood matter?

You talked about grief, as well. Is grief simply one homo sapiens response to the loss of a familiar homo sapiens organism? Something that a religious person would call a 40-year marriage between a man and wife. Other people that adhere to purely scientific evolution always want to couch that statement with something akin to, "But that man or woman who lost their life partner has lost their partner of the Universe", or some phrase new-agey mumbo-jumbo. So do you belief that emotion is nothing more that a set of learned responses, re-inforced by the circulation of blood to specific areas of our brain?

That's why your feeble "evolution of sexual reproduction" thread failed, because you lacked the interest in the topic to skip back a few pages to find the links that were posted before. That exposed the thread as a transparent attempt to troll, and I'm not going to dignify your trolling with an answer until you do what everyone in that thread told you to do and posit a detailed criticism of current theory. This should be easy, given how many professors and books you must have consulted.

There is no current theory, except backwards thinking: That sexual reproduction is beneficial to the species, so therefore Evolution simply MUST have made it happen.

> That we care even a little bit about your qualifications or those of your wife. Seriously, you bring them up at every opportunity and it just makes you look like a blowhard.

I share backround about me...hopefully we will all become a bit more familiar with each other.

3. Being gay has nothing to do with belief in god and neither of them has anything to do with a belief in evolution. You are making an association where one doesn't exist, and it's ridiculous. There are gay christians, I dated one once, there are religious scientists, some of them very highly regarded, and believe it or not there are a great many straight people who believe in evolution!

This is the part that I don't like. Because this is the part when you sound dis-ingenuous. I see this as a regression to dialog. If you can't admit that Christianity is hostile to homosexuality, then we can caught up in circles. As I have posted time and time again in 2010, there are no documents between 30 AD and 1957 AD in any Christian writings, that condone sex between the same gender.

The beliefs in/of the Eastern feritlity goddess, such as Isis or Cybele. The beliefs of the fermented beverage gods, such as Bacchus are examples where homosexuality is tolerated. Evolution, Neo-pagan, or wiccan beliefs tolerate same-sex beliefs. Some Evolutionary thought is tolerant, as well.

Do you feel that Christianity should continue as a religion?

[Dante]

Oh look, you're regressing back into so-stupid-it's-funny territory again. Surprise surprise.

I feel that every religion, all of them, should be annihilated. The good they can provide is vastly outweighed by the harm, plus they're largely based on lies and wishful thinking anyway. I said that I believe in truth, and I do. It's more important than comfort, justice, love, hope, law, whatever. And religions are essentially lies made institutions. They are anathema to me.

Having said that, I recognise that some people need their fuzzy pink comfort blankets in order to make sense of the big bad world, and also that while not every opinion is valid, everyone does have a right to their own. Therefore despite my hostility to religion as an operation, I have no problem with people who are religious. So long as they aren't douchebags.

I do think that Christianity is hostile to homosexuality. But that wasn't what you said, you made a connection between atheism and homosexuality that's just too much of a generalisation to stand up. See here, here and here.

Not being religious myself, I don't have much in the way of justification for that. But then if you paid any attention to Wolf's arguments mere weeks ago, I shouldn't have to.

I am interested in the concept that you consider me a racist, as you call me Eracist. Do you feel that homosexuality is a race?

Hello Stupid.

This was actually explained to you some time ago (you can remember more than a few days, right?), but since you don't appear to recall and it's an argument worth repeating, allow me to remind you:

Yes, it is really sad--on the one hand because this indicates that you, yet again, failed to grasp my point, and on the other because your behavior still represents the classic pattern of thinly-veiled prejudice. Let me break it down for you.

Caveat:

1. Who you date, marry, or associate with has nothing to do with whatever inner prejudicial feelings you may have. In fact, if you think it does have something to do with your wider perceptions about race or sex, then you are, in fact, engaging in prejudicial behavior. Do you understand why? It's because who you date, marry, or associate with should be dependent on that person as an individual--not because of their membership in any larger group. So, I don't care how many LGBTQ friends you have or how many people of color you've dated, married or associated with--those associations are between you and them, and if you do think this imparts any form of "street cred" to you on matters of race, gender or sexuality, then that, in itself, is prejudicial (racist, sexist, homophobic) behavior. Kapish? You bring up the "welcoming Hispanics" point as if we're supposed to laud you for your progressive tendencies, but you fail to qualify why you welcome Hispanics--wouldn't the race-neutral (i.e. valid) perspective be, "I welcome all people to the U.S.A. who are seeking a better life," why did you pick Hispanics? It is this behavior that is fundamentally prejudiced, and backwards, and it is extremely sad that you do not pick up on this.

Argument:

1. I'm not calling you a racist, per se, but I am pointing out that your behavior is pretty much identical to racist, or any other form of prejudiced discourse. For example:

a. Use of alienating terminology to separate yourself from the target group: "I don't care what they do," "It's not normal," "What I have heard them say." [EDIT 2: You even emphasize this terminology yourself, for Chrissake!] Contrast this with, "those who choose to engage in X activity" (this does not impart any "membership qualities" on the individuals), or "homosexuals cannot help their latent attraction to people of the same sex" (this imparts membership qualities on individuals, but does not necessarily separate the speaker from the group). When your discourse does not justifiably ascribe membership qualities to a group, or does not justifiably separate you from the group in question, you are engaging in discriminatory or alienating behavior--this is inherently prejudiced. Why I keep bringing up "racist" was because I thought it was a simple way for you to grasp the concept that if you simply replaced "homosexual" with "(insert race here)" you would see that the language was classically racist. You didn't; so now you get to experience Civil Rights Discourse with Wolf 101.

b. (a) wouldn't be a huge problem if you didn't also contextualize your speech with derogatory associations. "It's not natural," "it's perverse," "it's wicked," "it's not okay." These statements create a negative value judgment, which allows us properly to infer that you are not only discriminating, but you are discriminating in a way that seeks to subjugate a class of persons, or, in other words, to reduce their overall "personhood." They are "damaged," in a way, "not right," or "in need of correction."

2. (a) + ( are the cornerstones of institutionalized discrimination, of which the greatest example is institutionalized racism in the United States. Until your behavior or attitude changes, I feel I am completely justified in analogizing your behavior to that of 19th-20th century American racists.

EDIT: (And make fun of you :P)

Additionally: you treated the phrases "human-kind's role in the world" and "where the west is going" as synonymous. How is that not racist? You ignored (thus, dismissed as human) everyone outside the west. Also, the word is "humanity."

Of course it's entirely possible that you're just trolling again, but for the sake of completeness: no, homosexuality is not a race. You're just such a massive bigot that racist is an applicable term.

No telling of the past history of mankind can ever be more than a theory. Each side has holes that can never be fully explained. Therefore, Evolution should not be taught as the sole scientific dogma.

"Theory," see here.

Listen, stupid, science works by testing and observation. If something is a scientific theory then it has not only been postulated, it has been tested and observed. There is evidence. Evolution by natural selection is so strongly supported by the evidence that is has as much scientific weight and certainty as the theories of electricity and atomic matter.

There is no other explanation with even half the accrued confidence as evolution. If you'd done any reading, you'd know that.

One could see the hand of an individual under the wood and aluminum rubble of their own home. Was that human simple carbon matter, under ruined metal and wood matter?

Yes. It may also be a tragedy, or a blissful release. Perhaps it was a poignant reminder of mortality. Or a corpse. A child grown old. A lifetime of potential cut short.

You're trying to get me to conform to your stereotype of atheists as soulless androids with no appreciation for or understanding of emotion or humanity. Sorry stupid, I appreciate them better than you do.

You talked about grief, as well. Is grief simply one homo sapiens response to the loss of a familiar homo sapiens organism? Something that a religious person would call a 40-year marriage between a man and wife. Other people that adhere to purely scientific evolution always want to couch that statement with something akin to, "But that man or woman who lost their life partner has lost their partner of the Universe", or some phrase new-agey mumbo-jumbo. So do you belief that emotion is nothing more that a set of learned responses, re-inforced by the circulation of blood to specific areas of our brain?

> Grief is many things. It's a response to trauma that allows others to see that we are traumatised, generally in the hope of eliciting comfort and sympathy. It's a learning response: once we've felt it we try to avoid it in future, thus encouraging us to look after each other. It's a communal sharing: shared grief brings a community closer together. It's a powerful creative force, inspiring great works of art. It's a powerful destructive force, inspiring great works of spite and anger. It's a reaction of chemicals. It's therapeutic: expression of grief makes us feel better about ourselves, generally.

> I cannot emphasise this strongly enough: Science is not the same as new age mumbo jumbo shit. Evolution would never support anything so ridiculous as there being only one unique partner for everyone in the universe, it's preposterous. That you make any such connection strongly suggests to me that you possess all the scientific comprehension of a spoon.

> A response can't be circulated in the blood, though a chemical can. Stop putting metaphor into reality, moron.

> Emotion is chemical. It's also purposeful, social, useful. Scientifically, what it is is a chemcial reaction. That has little bearing on what it means, however.

There is no current theory, except backwards thinking: That sexual reproduction is beneficial to the species, so therefore Evolution simply MUST have made it happen.

That is wrong and even a cursory Google search will demonstrate this. Don't think that just by repeating stupidities you can bait me into correcting you, I'm not going to be drawn on this until you can make a proper argument.

I share backround about me...hopefully we will all become a bit more familiar with each other.

Yeah, you've been sharing the same useless, irrelevent data for months now. Knock it off; nobody cares and it strengthens your position by all of nothing.

I once said, somewhere on this forum, that there are two kind of people who doesn't believe in evolution. Those that don't understand it and those that don't want to understand it. Given your apparent inability to research anything on your own, I'm inclined to believe that you fall into the latter category. You're so terrified that you might find something that contradicts your precious philosophy of lies that you don't even make the attempt. Coward.

[Edric O]

I don't want to split the thread, because the on-topic discussion is so intermixed with the off-topic that there is no good way to divide them. However, if this turns into yet another argument about homosexuality, I will split off the relevant posts. This is basically a general religion thread now, so it's ok to mention homosexuality as part of the discussion, but please don't let that one subject take over the whole debate. I'm looking at you Eras.

Having said that, I will first respond to Dante. And I will start with a response to an older post:

Aren't you just endorsing dictatorship there? It's always struck me as a little odd that you should fight it so vociferously in the physical realm while endorsing spiritual despotism, but I think this is more a physical matter than philosophical. Personally I would prefer to avoid thought police, especially those so insidious that they get you to do their work for them.

I oppose dictatorship in the physical realm - that is to say, human dictatorship - because no human can be trusted with absolute power. I would not have any objection to a dictator giving people orders, if those orders were indeed for the greater good. The problem us, no dictator ever acted for the greater good, and no dictator ever will. That is why (human) dictatorship must be opposed. Freedom from dictatorship is not good in and of itself. It is only good as long as the dictator is evil or corrupt. Which happens to be every single time when a human becomes dictator.

In philosophical terms, my opposition to dictatorship is contingent, not absolute. But it is contingent on something that always happens when humans are involved, so I can see why it looks absolute.

God, on the other hand, is not human. He is free from human corruption and evil. He is the one single "dictator" who acts for the greater good. So I have no objections to His "dictatorship". In fact, I support it.

For the same reason, I might support a society ruled by other non-human entities - for example, thinking machines - if it could be proven beyond any doubt that those non-human entities will always act for the greater good. I would never trust humans with absolute power, but I might trust machines. Maybe. My standards for proof of their benevolence would be very high.

Belief alters behaviour. Belief in Jesus requires - to some extent - a belief in forgiveness. But belief in forgiveness does not depend on a belief in Jesus, or indeed any philosophy besides itself. If one believes in forgiveness so strongly as to alter one's actions then surely it is because one is convinced of the moral rightness of forgiveness, not the say-so of a book? If that is so then there is no need for the book, and if it is not then one could substitute any book as the reader clearly lacks any capacity for indepedent thought.

It's not that simple. Belief is not a binary "yes/no" issue. You speak as if people who are convinced of the moral rightness of forgiveness will always act kindly and forgive without fail. That's not how it works. You can be convinced of the moral rightness of something and still fail to act on your beliefs. Besides, the strength of conviction itself is a continuous variable.

What religion does is to strengthen your moral beliefs. It makes you take them more seriously, act on them more often, and try to persuade other people to adopt them too. Without religion, the formerly religious people would still continue to believe in forgiveness, but their belief would be weaker, they would put it into action less often, and they would not try to spread it in society. As a result, there would be less forgiveness in the world as a whole.

Now, I will respond to the most recent post addressed to me:

Quite simply, there will eventually come a day when what was a thinking person will become, in seconds, inert flesh. Everything that they thought, remembered and did will cease. Forever. There's no coming back, no hanging on, no "better (but largely undefined) place." Only a collection of organs and bones, meat, soon to rot and become earth. And one day even those bones will be no more. The people who remembered them will die, the photographs or paintings of them will decay. There will be no cogito, for there is no sum. And this will happen to you, it will happen to me, it will happen to all the Edrics, Sandchiggers and eracists of this world. Gloriously fair, awesomely inevitable. If you must refer to the terrible suffering and pain of this mortal coil, at least you can be comforted to know that it won't last forever. I don't give it much thought, prefering to dwell on the beauty of the system.

Frankly, Dante, that sounds like something I would expect to hear from some stereotypical evil death-cultist in a computer game. I have no idea how you can possibly take comfort in such beliefs. I don't see how any sane person who held those beliefs could feel anything other than crushing despair.

You like the idea that you're a worthless sack of water and carbon with a brief, pointless existence in a vast universe with no purpose or meaning? To each his own, I guess, but I do not understand you at all.

On a related note, if anything atheists are more moral than religious types. After all, we don't have eternal consequences (or thought police) to fear, but by and large we still behave ourselves.

Nope, sorry, you can't get away with claiming to be moral when you don't believe in objective morality. You're not moral. According to your own beliefs, you just follow an arbitrary code of behavior that is no better or worse than any other code of behavior that anyone else might follow. According to your beliefs, there is no such thing as morality.

By the way, for the sake of the argument, suppose that someone said his code of behavior requires him to kill all gay people. It's not far-fetched, it actually happens pretty often. On what grounds could you say that he is wrong?

Strange how we can come to such different conclusions from the same data. We look at the world and see needlessness, chaos, purposeless action and a host of competing philosophies and structures. Your reaction appears to be to claw through the structures in search of the right one and, having found it, impose it upon the chaos as the superior way. Mine is to see chaos as the natural state of things and accept it. You desperately seek certainty and order, as do I, but I find yours illusory and you find mine arbitrary (which it is, and I make no bones about that).

Yes, I think you are correct about that.

But on the subject of what you actually said, rather than what I inferred: militaries provide structure, order and unquestionable rules. And I understand that it's comforting, not having to think the difficult thoughts. To obey rather than question, forever trusting that those above know what they're doing. How nice it must be, to have such certainty!

Certainty borne of autocracy. All rules summed: OBEY. OBEY and you will have order. OBEY and you will have certainty. OBEY and you will have a place in the world, a role to play, a purpose to fulfil. Militaries and churches, both stifling more than individuality, stamping out thought. They don't want people, they want drones, unthinking machines that OBEY for their leader demands it and for no better reason than that.

Ha ha, Dante, you have a talent for using just the right words to evoke the emotional response you want. Sorry, but it doesn't work on me. I suppose I should dislike obedience and value self-expression for some vague undefined reason, because that's what our culture tells us to do? No. You can't appeal to cultural values.

See, for all your emotional talk about "drones" and "stamping out thought", the fact remains that armies win wars, and disorganized mobs of "free thinking individuals" do not. The fact remains that obeying orders is necessary for victory, and disobeying orders tends to lead to defeat. I don't care if you think the structure of the military or the Church is icky. I don't care if you have philosophical objections to obedience. It gets things done. That is what matters.

Also, you should learn the difference between thinking and disagreement. I don't need to disagree with the Church just to prove that I can think on my own. I have thought on my own and arrived at the conclusion that the Church is correct (about the supernatural, to be exact; when it comes to human society, the Church is often very wrong).

I have to strongly disagree with this. Atheists believe that existence is better than non-existence.

What? Come on, that's a pathetic cop-out. For many atheists, existence = suffering. Yet they don't commit suicide. There's no way to get around this, Dante. You DO believe that suffering is better than non-existence.

If you want to show otherwise, please describe exactly what situations would make you decide to kill yourself. If the answer is "none" or "terminal illness", then my point stands. If you would never kill yourself unless you were certain you were going to die anyway, then you agree that non-existence is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you - worse than living and suffering.

As I hope I've demonstrated, I've seen what you call the abyss. It doesn't bother me so much. This world? It's not meant to be anything. It's not meant to be pleasurable, it's not meant to be nice. Neither is it meant to be torturous or nasty. It has no purpose. It isn't good or bad or even indifferent it just is.

And that is why I could never be an atheist. This complacency, this apathy, this willingness to accept the world as it is - because "it's not meant to be any other way" - is disgusting. We are Humankind. We are meant to be the masters of our destiny, the masters of this universe! The stars themselves belong to us!

We must banish suffering, injustice and inequality from among us, and then we must go out and bring life to this dead universe. We will terraform, we will move comets and moons and planets, we will build ringworlds and dyson spheres, we will harness the power of entire galaxies. We will make every molecule in existence testify to the glory of Humanity and our God.

That is how I envision the future. I daresay it's a much brighter vision than your fatalism.

This world is beautiful. [...] Destruction is beautiful. Soaring towers of concrete and even higher towers of numbers, tumbling down, shattering as they go, a thousand thousand pieces. Sixty six thousand lives snuffed out in a blink of an eye. Sixty six thousand thinking minds, with all their wonderful agonies and ecstacies and mundanities, ended. Leaving nothing more than a great cloud. Final. Insurmountable. Beautiful.

Beautiful? Beautiful? The only way I could possibly describe what you've just said is twisted and monstrous. Suffering is not beautiful. Death is not beautiful. They are evil, they are obstacles to be overcome, enemies to be conquered. The world is not beautiful. The world is ugly and fallen. It is our task to make it beautiful, by advancing goodness and pushing back evil.

By the way, notice the irony of the fact that I am the one calling for progress and science and mastery over nature and all the other things secular humanists like to brag about, while you are talking about quiet contemplation.

You see the world through a lens of "how it should be," and because of that you can never be happy with it. You are the maker of your own downfall in this respect.

Downfall? No, people who see the world through a lens of "how it should be" are the makers of change. They are the makers of progress. They have a drive, a passion to reshape the world. They are the people who fight to abolish slavery, who lead revolutions and bring down tyrants. Our entire modern world, with its politics, economics and social structure, is the product of centuries of struggle by people who refused to accept the world they inherited from their parents, and gave their lives to fight for utopia. And our future will be shaped by others like them. People who see the world through a lens of "how it should be" are the great movers of history. People like you are the apathetic baggage that gets carried along for the ride.

Again, just like in the military analogy, what my side has to offer is accomplishment. Great victory or glorious defeat. A leading role in the story of the human species. What your side has to offer is apathy and introspection. We do things. You sit around and feel superior.

[Edric O]

Lord Johnsonius:

BTW, that's the style of church I was raised in.

Heh. I can see what pushed you to atheism. :) The Christian tradition that I belong to is

.

Edric: Sometimes I wonder if you're really an atheist and you expound on these religious topics in an attempt to help build atheist rhetoric. You're kind of like an immunization; a little bit of the craziness to help atheists deal with the real crazies.

Well it's a good thing that's not the case, because if I were trying to make atheists come up with better arguments, I would have had to admit failure and give up by now. :P

DK pretty much addressed my problems with your assertion that hell is preferable to nonexistence. Heaven is certainly preferable to either, although that depends somewhat on its makeup, but hell just cannot be good. Not even for Gandhi.

Since DK's post, I have pointed out that atheists in real life always choose suffering over death (with very few exceptions), so, in fact, the majority of atheists are living proof that hell (suffering) is better than non-existence (death, according to atheism).

Which addresses your next point, science is, by nature, agnostic. We don't know the answer.

Yes. I know. I have nothing but admiration and praise for science. What I am attacking is atheism, which is a philosophical stance, not a scientific hypothesis.

Starting from the religious assumption is what gave us the geocentric model, alchemy, and Cartesian psychology.

No. The geocentric model was invented by Ptolemy, and it was a perfectly good scientific theory - it matched observed reality - until more precise measurements of planetary movements proved it wrong. Likewise, I don't know how alchemy or Cartesian psychology have anything to do with religion. They were reasonable ideas given the limited scientific knowledge of their time. Blaming alchemists for not understanding real chemistry is like blaming Newton for not understanding Relativity.

The underlying concept of Christianity, that we exercise our free will to make decisions that either save or damn us is used to justify the American capitalist system whereby an individual can "pull themselves up by the bootstrings" to improve their lot in life.

Actually, the majority of Christian support for capitalism comes from Calvinist Protestants, who believe in predestination and deny free will.

Also, as a matter of general principle, even if it were true that the poor could get rich by doing certain things, capitalism would still be evil. An unjust system is not made just simply by giving the oppressed a chance to join the oppressors. For example, if slaves had a chance to win their freedom by working hard, that would not make slavery ok. Getting beaten up by someone is not made ok if you are given a chance to beat him the same way in return. Slavery and capitalism would be wrong even if the exploited and the exploiters switched places every day.

Science and religion are very nearly diametrically opposed, why do you think that a majority of academics are liberal atheists?

I don't care about the opinions of scientists on religion for the same reason why I don't care about my doctor's opinions on astronomy. Being a trained professional in one field doesn't make you any better than the average layman in another field. Dawkins is a great example of this. A brilliant biologist, but a complete idiot in matters of philosophy.

Eras's philosophy is culturally genocidal. It consists of a wish to utterly destroy an type of sexual expression that does no more harm to the species than celibacy because it's icky.

What exactly is "cultural genocide" and how precisely can it be compared with mass murder? Killing people is not the same as, you know, not-killing people. Comparing mild oppression to severe oppression cheapens the suffering of those under severe oppression. Being forced to hide your sexuality is in absolutely no way comparable to being sent to a gas chamber with your family. Don't call something a genocide unless it involves actually killing large numbers of people.

All Eras wants to do is to return society to 19th century attitudes and laws towards homosexuality. Sure, that's reactionary and repressive, but it's very mild repression by historical standards. And there's no chance in hell that he will get his way, so there's no reason to make a fuss about it.

[Edric O]

Chigger:

LOL. Edric as Bene Gesserit! :D

I honestly don't know if you're serious about the sh...stuff you're posting here, or just taking the piss. I'll assume you're deadly serious. And will titter quietly to myself in response.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt your liberal feelings by mentioning the obvious truth that people's behavior is shaped by their environment, and that it is therefore possible to improve this behavior by making suitable changes in the environment - such as introducing religion? Does it offend your misguided notions of individual sovereignty?

Filling little children's heads with a lot of nonsense about Invisible Friends is just another form of child abuse.

Really? Why is that? Because you think religion is false? So you believe that lying to children is child abuse? Riiiight...

Eras:

Hell: Non-existence is better than hell. There can be nothing worse than spending eternity alone, in a furnace area, completely dark, breathing sulphur fumes.

Like I said earlier, people who go to hell will only be punished in proportion to their sins, so the vast majority will not suffer what you describe. At least that is what my Church believes. You may believe differently.

But in any case, even if what you said were true, hell would still be better than non-existence. Anything is better than non-existence.

If you can't admit that Christianity is hostile to homosexuality, then we can caught up in circles. As I have posted time and time again in 2010, there are no documents between 30 AD and 1957 AD in any Christian writings, that condone sex between the same gender.

Dante is not a Christian, so he has no stake in this matter. But I do. Christianity is not "hostile to homosexuality". Christianity considers sexual intercourse between the same gender to be a sin. That's it. This does not mean that gay people can't be Christians. Of course they can be. They are sinners, yes, but we are all sinners. To be Christian means to admit your sins, accept Christ, get baptized into His Church, and struggle to avoid sinning as much as possible in the future. This does not mean that you will stop sinning - only that you will try to. When St. Paul spoke against same-sex intercourse, he was speaking to a Christian community (meaning that there were gay Christians), and he did not at any point suggest that being gay made those people any less Christian. He only told them to stop sinning.

As a Christian, I do not understand your obsession with homosexuality. Yeah, sure, sexually active gay people are sinning, so they are hurting their souls. Same as billions of non-gay people. What's the big deal? We should be concerned with the world's more pressing problems, such as hunger, disease, poverty, all their consequences on the human body and soul, and the capitalist global system that makes it all happen. After we have fixed all that, then we can worry about private sexual sins.

[SandChigger]

(yawn)

[ErasOmnius]

As a Christian, I do not understand your obsession with homosexuality. Yeah, sure, sexually active gay people are sinning, so they are hurting their souls. Same as billions of non-gay people. What's the big deal? We should be concerned with the world's more pressing problems, such as hunger, disease, poverty, all their consequences on the human body and soul, and the capitalist global system that makes it all happen. After we have fixed all that, then we can worry about private sexual sins.

I am not obsessed with homosexuality. But I am finding that pure Athiestic Evolutionary thought is most fully expressed by homosexuals. It is not my intent to attack any individual in any way, but I know it can be hard not to be interpreted like that.

As I have stated before, in other Forums, people adhere to a type of Deistic Evolution. God helping-along Evolution through the zillions of years till today. They want to hold on to God -- which is in a way admirable.

But I am intently interested, and still remain interested, in the viewpoints of people who believe solely in Pure Evolution.

Sexual Sins: Edric, I am an old man. Sexual sins usually lead to poverty. The cheating husband who traded in his wife for a woman half her age is probably the Number 3 reason that families show up at the Shelter. So, as well as Economic Injustice, all Sin should be cured.

As far homosexuality goes, it will never go 'back in the box' before the Return of the Son. Soon true Christianity will be a minority view, and people like me will be on the way to 're-education camps'.

[Edric O]

I am not obsessed with homosexuality. But I am finding that pure Athiestic Evolutionary thought is most fully expressed by homosexuals.

There is no logical connection between the two. Pure Atheistic Evolutionary thought should be expressed by pure atheists, regardless of sexual orientation or anything else. Presumably gay people are overrepresented among pure atheists, because they feel that Western religion is hostile to them, so they are more likely to become atheists.

As I have stated before, in other Forums, people adhere to a type of Deistic Evolution. God helping-along Evolution through the zillions of years till today. They want to hold on to God -- which is in a way admirable.

Umm, you should be aware that the majority of Christians worldwide adhere to a type of Deistic Evolution. The Catholic Church has said that evolutionary theory is compatible with Christianity, and that Church alone accounts for over half of the world's Christians. In my experience, the vast majority of Orthodox also take the same stance, although there have been no official statements on the matter from our Church. And of course there are plenty of Protestants who believe the same thing.

Really, creationism is a very small minority viewpoint among Christians.

Sexual Sins: Edric, I am an old man. Sexual sins usually lead to poverty. The cheating husband who traded in his wife for a woman half her age is probably the Number 3 reason that families show up at the Shelter. So, as well as Economic Injustice, all Sin should be cured.

Ask yourself this: why is the abandoned wife unable to provide for herself and her children, so that she ends up needing the Shelter? The cheating husband is only part of the source of the problem. The other part is the fact that the wife cannot make ends meet on her own, so the loss of the husband throws her into deep poverty.

Of course all sin should be cured, but we should also be realistic. We cannot hope to directly end sin. We can't actually stop people from being lustful, for example, or greedy. What we can do is create a society where there are fewer temptations, and where the consequences of one person's sins are less bad for the people around him.

Soon true Christianity will be a minority view, and people like me will be on the way to 're-education camps'.

The first half of that statement is true. The second is nonsense. Yes, Christianity will certainly become a minority view in the United States within the next 50 years if present trends continue (that's a big IF, by the way; never underestimate history's ability to surprise you). But 're-education camps'? Come on, they don't even do that to Christians in Iran.

If you want to see what happens when Christianity becomes a minority in a Western country, just look at the Netherlands. Sure, there are things about it that we don't like, but you have to admit that, in general, it's not all that different from any other Western country.

[Dante]

Finally, a reply I can sink my teeth into! I feel like I've been subsisting on soggy vegetables for far too long, and now here's something meaty at last. Better get started.

First an apology for not bothering with the colours for everyting. I like to be accurate about these things, but I anticipate so many quotes, it's just going to be annoying trying to keep track of them all. [Edit: turns out there's a limit on the number of quote blocks we can use now? Alright, I'll just use colours to mark them]. Now.

The point about dictatorship: yes, I see where you're going with that. It seems that we oppose dictators for different reasons. I am a little disturbed by the prospect of supporting even a benign dictator. While we appear to have some common ground in that I do think it would be an ideal system, I go further in that I don't think the ideal dictator is possible, human or otherwise. And certainly not the Judeo-christian control freak with anger management issues.

You're submitting to circular reasoning. If a dictator always acts for the greater good, and the dictator is the moral compass which defines good, then the dictator can do as it pleases and you have no guarantee besides the dictator's own that it is doing good. We wouldn't accept that kind of contradiction from a human, or a machine, I see no reason why we should accept it from any other creature. Saying "because it is perfect" is just entering the circle all over again.

"What religion does is to strengthen your moral beliefs. It makes you take them more seriously, act on them more often, and try to persuade other people to adopt them too. Without religion, the formerly religious people would still continue to believe in forgiveness, but their belief would be weaker, they would put it into action less often, and they would not try to spread it in society. As a result, there would be less forgiveness in the world as a whole."

You're making the basic mistake of assuming that people can't be moral without god. They certainly can, and for some people it's very important to share those beliefs where possible. Regardless of that, while I disagree with your generalisation, even if I agreed I would still find it a sacrifice worth making. You believe that doing good is important, no matter the cost. I believe that behaviour control through lies is a cost too far.

"Frankly, Dante, that sounds like something I would expect to hear from some stereotypical evil death-cultist in a computer game. I have no idea how you can possibly take comfort in such beliefs. I don't see how any sane person who held those beliefs could feel anything other than crushing despair.

You like the idea that you're a worthless sack of water and carbon with a brief, pointless existence in a vast universe with no purpose or meaning? To each his own, I guess, but I do not understand you at all."

Heh, death cultist. I was always a little irked by such depictions. "Woo, lets kill the protagonist because death is pure etc!" Or something else equally pointless. Just because someone appreciates death doesn't mean that they automatically want to deliver it to as many people as possible.

Anyway, my contention is that I don't need philosophical buttresses to stay sane. Humans are a needy bunch. They need to feel safe, they need to feel significant, they need to feel loved, each to varying degrees. The thought that we might not even be important enough to warrant continued existence is petrifying to many. And we have forever been terrified of death. We recoil from corpses, make up traditions and practices all designed to keep death away from us. Why? Because the thought that we will one day simply cease to be is so frightening that we deny it is even a possibility and create a pleasing fantasy to replace it, even if that fantasy is hell.

I do not need those fantasies. I do not fear for my soul, for there are no souls. I do not fear nothingness, for why fear the inevitable? To the people who think they're always safe, always loved, always important, this must appear very bleak. It's not, really, and it's only that perspective which makes it appear so. In fact, it brings a whole new appreciation for existence. Life becomes that much more precious when you know it's all the time you've got, all the time anyone's got. The world becomes that much more beautiful when you realise that you'll only see it for an instant. You appreciate yourself more, not less, when you realise that you are free of cosmic expectations.

In short: while others obsess over the nothingness at the end, I see it as a reason to celebrate what we have while we have it. And as for the decay speech, why should rot be any less wonderous to observe than life? We're instinctively repelled by it (and I am no excpetion, when exposed to the stench of a decaying corpse I'll gag along with everyone else, and yes I do know that from experience), but can still appreciate the aesthetics of it.

Back when I was agnostic, I used to take great pleasure in swatting flies. And wasps. These days I'm something of a pacifist when it comes to insects. I don't like killing things, for precisely the reasons outlined above. Once something is dead, it's dead forever. Make of that what you will.

On a more personal note: you question how I can find comfort in being pointless, purposeless, meaningless. It is because it allows me the freedom to choose my purpose and meaning myself. The idea of submitting myself to judgement by some self-satisfied monarch revolts me. I will not be told my worth, I will not be held to the standards of another, especially if those standards are part of the whole moral justification loop that I mentioned above.

If I were religious (any religion), I might choose to make my purpose to explore, to witness creation and behold its wonder. Then I could die and stand before judgement and be informed "yes, well, you had good intentions but you didn't really help your fellow man."

Or I might dedicate my life to economics, determined to make as much wealth as possible in the firm belief that by spreading money around I could better the lives of my fellow man. They I could die and be told "actually, money is evil, you're totally going to hell. Yeah, good intentions don't count for much around here, it's actions that we notice."

Or I could become a priest, dedicate my entire life to my religion, die and come to judgement and be told "hey, aren't you the guy who told your neighbour he could plant different kinds of crops in the same field? To hell with you!"

I haven't seen a single monotheistic religion whose god isn't a tyrannical despot. Choosing my own measure of worth rather than adhering to the whims of another strikes me as a great deal more fulfilling, albeit a system that's easy to abuse by the lazy (lower standards to the point where they're already met? I think not).

"Nope, sorry, you can't get away with claiming to be moral when you don't believe in objective morality. You're not moral. According to your own beliefs, you just follow an arbitrary code of behavior that is no better or worse than any other code of behavior that anyone else might follow. According to your beliefs, there is no such thing as morality.

By the way, for the sake of the argument, suppose that someone said his code of behavior requires him to kill all gay people. It's not far-fetched, it actually happens pretty often. On what grounds could you say that he is wrong?"

Of course, Dante only cares about the gays, lets give him an example about murdering them, because it's not like any other minority, or even non-minority would have quite the same punch. He'd probably just laugh if we asked him about murdering jews, prostitutes, kittens or the Irish, one-issue monomaniac that he is.

You're better than that, Edric.

I would say that the onus is on that person to prove the validity of his case, logically. I'm very confident I could poke holes in any argument put forth - it's what I'm good at. I try not to tell people "your point of view is wrong because it's not the same as mine." Far more productive to expose the contradictions in their own philosophies.

If you want me to say that I can't tell him he's morally wrong, you're right, I can't. What I can do, and what I do do, is acknowledge that while there is no such thing as an absolute moral standard, society needs structure in order to function. Since there is no shared moral standard upon which to build rule of law, it must instead be built on something arbitrary. The principles that most modern justice systems are built on - fairness, freedom, etc - are arbitrary, but they provide for a safe, stable, largely non-repressive society. In other words, such a hypothetical person would be breaking the law.

We can get into the exact justification for rule of law in another topic if you want, starting it here would take up more space than I'd like. That includes the "what if it's not against the law in X country?" question, to which the answer is "X country's laws are wrong because they are not the same as mine."

Sooner or later, that's what all moral justifications boil down to.

Again, I feel I should point out that I'm not a representitive sample here. I may disbelieve in objective morality, but that doesn't mean that other atheists do. I imagine you'll find a fair few atheist lawyers or utilitarians or environmentalists or something. These people are moral. They're moral by their own standards and objectively speaking that means sweet FA, but moral nevertheless.

Yeesh, that was more tiresome than it had to be.

"Ha ha, Dante, you have a talent for using just the right words to evoke the emotional response you want. Sorry, but it doesn't work on me. I suppose I should dislike obedience and value self-expression for some vague undefined reason, because that's what our culture tells us to do? No. You can't appeal to cultural values."

I respect you too much to deliberately try that trick. I just got kind of carried away with the rhetoric. I mean I don't get to use it very often, and it's wonderful fun. If only I believed in more things more strongly I might get to do it more often. Maybe write a few speeches. Alas, it isn't to be.

"See, for all your emotional talk about "drones" and "stamping out thought", the fact remains that armies win wars, and disorganized mobs of "free thinking individuals" do not. The fact remains that obeying orders is necessary for victory, and disobeying orders tends to lead to defeat. I don't care if you think the structure of the military or the Church is icky. I don't care if you have philosophical objections to obedience. It gets things done. That is what matters."

I don't object to obedience per se (as you say, it's sometimes necessary), I object to the reasoning behind it. Militaries and churches both follow a basic hierarchy than be be condensed into two phrases:

"Why should I obey?"

"Because I say so."

There is no higher ideal. There is no universal law by which these commands are issued. This is true whether or not God exists: militaries and churches are just feudalist social structures.

All the time you stick to your cause (which I am led to believe is the advancement of the human race). You're willing to sacrifice planets to the cause, people to the cause, choices to the cause, free thought itself to the cause, to get. It. Done.

...Besides making you look like a worse monster than I could ever hope to be, don't you worry that perhaps there will be nothing remotely human left about this cause by the end of it?

"What? Come on, that's a pathetic cop-out. For many atheists, existence = suffering. Yet they don't commit suicide. There's no way to get around this, Dante. You DO believe that suffering is better than non-existence."

I believe that suffering is of greater value than nonexistence only insofar as it is impossible to suffer unless you exist. To exist is greater than not to exist because "something" is of greater value than absence of something. It's practically a tautology.

I'm kind of getting the impression that you don't understand atheism. There are any number of reasons not to die, even while suffering. It's just that few of them are metaphysical (I should probably clarify that I don't necessarily personally subscribe to all of the following, I just believe that they are valid reaons).

> Optimism: hey, things could get better.

> The path of least resistance: deciding to die is not a decision than a healthy mind makes easily.

> Pride: I'm better than that.

> Spite: I'll show the damned world it can't have me.

> Love: life might be miserable for me, but my departure would hurt others.

> Patience: I'm going to die anyway, why speed the inevitable?

> Action vs inaction: the default state is to keep living.

> Fear:

To be, or not to be– that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep

No more – and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to – 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Forgive me my overlong quotation. The first five lines are especially relevant, but in the context of this discussion the rest of the soliloquy rather seems to indicate that uncertainty (scientific agnosticism again!) is a valid reason not to test the afterlife hypothesis until necessary.

To answer your question though: the circumstance in which I would prefer to not exist is one wherein I am entirely paralysed. That's no walking, no talking, no chewing, no blinking. A brain trapped in an unresponsive shell of meat. Possibly for years. I suppose insanity might be interesting for a while. And then again, maybe I'd construct a dreamland to live in instead. I'd need to experience it to know for sure, which is kind of a bummer as there'd be no way of letting anyone outside know my decision (though hey, when we can transfer our consciousnesses into machines, I am there), but for the sake of this argument that's my reply.

Now one could arguably refer to that as a terminal illness, which is technically inaccurate but I'll run with it because I have a counterpoint anyway.

If I faced eternal life singing praises, having no desire for anything else, if I faced losing my will to becoming that sycophantic drone who OBEYS, then I would prefer to end it, thank you. Being me is one of the few things I can be certain of, and I'm not just talking about being gay ("But in heaven we won't need physical things!" Well thanks for that, but physical things are what make us human and becoming inhuman does not make the prospect any more attractive); I'm talking about choosing whether fairness or tradition is more important, choosing my friends and enemies, choosing what to do on a Tuesday afternoon. Basically I'm talking about self determination. If I faced eternity contingent on losing self determination then, I suspect, I would refuse it. It would be living a lie. And you know how I feel about lies.

("In heaven you won't want those things, you'll only want to be close to god!" Yeah, way to prove my mindless drone point)

"And that is why I could never be an atheist. This complacency, this apathy, this willingness to accept the world as it is - because "it's not meant to be any other way" - is disgusting. We are Humankind. We are meant to be the masters of our destiny, the masters of this universe! The stars themselves belong to us!

We must banish suffering, injustice and inequality from among us, and then we must go out and bring life to this dead universe. We will terraform, we will move comets and moons and planets, we will build ringworlds and dyson spheres, we will harness the power of entire galaxies. We will make every molecule in existence testify to the glory of Humanity and our God.

That is how I envision the future. I daresay it's a much brighter vision than your fatalism."

I can see why you might have gotten that impression. However, you're working from half an axiom, your conclusion is flawed. I didn't give the other half of the story. It wasn't relevant until now.

I'll start with an axiom of my own: the world changes. Nobody can deny this. Seventy million years ago dinosaurs still stomped around. Seventy thousand years ago the sky at night looked quite different. Seventy years ago the Second World War was in progress. Seven years ago- you get the picture. But just because it was different does not mean that it was false. Truth, my standard, changes all the time. The truth of your existence is a new truth, supplanting the previous truth of your nonexistence.

Ergo, "the way it is" constantly changes. One couldn't say "this is the way things are meant to be," (didn't I point that out before?) only "this is the ways things are." This makes no judgement on the value of change.

Further (point 2, if you will), if "the way things are" constantly changes, then there is no imperative against acting to change it further. You see? If the truth of the world is in flux then more flux is hardly going to ruin everything.

Finally (point 3), we are not outside observers of the world. We change the world just by being in it. Given that we are changing the world anyway, why not do it deliberately?

All this is to say that just because the world is one way doesn't mean that it can't be another. And just because it isn't meant to be a paradise (and it isn't) doesn't mean that one couldn't attempt to turn it into one. After all, what kind of sense does it make to appreciate everything that is without appreciating everyting that could be? Far from complacency, acknowledging that the world has no inherent purpose simply broadens the possibilities for what it could become. Maximises potential, if you like, and you certainly seem to have a grasp of potential.

Having said that, I have two further asides to make.

Firstly, you're rather unfairly tarring all atheists with the same brush. Not all are as nihilistic as I, and practically all of them have a stronger sense of right and wrong. My moral relativism actually makes me fairly atypical (Lord J, you'd agree with that, right?). But even in that case, as I hope I've shown above, just because I believe that the world has no purpose does not mean that I am averse to it adopting one. Or rather, someone adopting one on its behalf.

In short, I'm not particularly representitive of atheists. I'm sure that many would be quite offended by my perspective. If you don't like it, do keep in mind that there are highly moral varients of atheism. I just don't follow any.

Secondly, I know why you believe it, but I find your human-centric rhetoric... disturbing. Hubris is the word that springs to mind. Not because of lofty ambition, far from it. I couldn't call myself a scientist if I didn't believe in pushing boundaries. No, what disturbs me is that you're treating our species as far more important and far more deserving than it is.

I suppose much of it comes down to a basic disagreement - I see us as part of a continuum that neither planned nor desires us (a continuum isn't exactly capable of conscious thought), while you see us as what, the chosen ones? But that aside, I just can't see how you can treat a species as a cause, not without contradicting our (biological) origins.

Science- biology doesn't work like that. An ecosystem is a collection of interactions, of balances between competing forces. If one entity gains the advantage to monopolise the system then that system is invariably destroyed. You might argue that our technological marvels have freed us from adherence to natural systems, and this is true, but at what cost? Our domination has already brought more harm than good to everything except ourselves. You would, I think, sacrifice anything and everything to further humanity's goals. I don't see that as a worthy sacrifice.

Additionally, on the subject of god. You sound like a colonialist. And we all know what they did, firm in the belief that they were bringing a better way, a more valuable way.

I firmly believe that we should possess the knowledge to move stars. I also believe that we should not use it if our advantage in doing so is outweighed by negative consequences. Also the phrase "humanity and our god" gives me the creeps and I'm sure you meant it to do so.

"By the way, notice the irony of the fact that I am the one calling for progress and science and mastery over nature and all the other things secular humanists like to brag about, while you are talking about quiet contemplation."

I'm not particularly interested in "mastery." I'll settle for understanding. That aside, I hope that my responses have shown that I'm a bit more active than you seem to have assumed.

We have different senses of aesthetics. I can appreciate twistedness and monstrosity. I might not like it, ala my point about gagging at the stench of rot, but I appreciate it.

"Well it's a good thing that's not the case, because if I were trying to make atheists come up with better arguments, I would have had to admit failure and give up by now. :P "

Come now, just because you've answered them to your satisfaction doesn't mean that they weren't good points to begin with. I'm not really convinced by your response to the whole "existing/suffering/not existing" matter, though admittedly my own arguments have proven tricky to explain in a way that is both accurate and free of confusion.

"Downfall? No, people who see the world through a lens of "how it should be" are the makers of change. They are the makers of progress. They have a drive, a passion to reshape the world. They are the people who fight to abolish slavery, who lead revolutions and bring down tyrants. Our entire modern world, with its politics, economics and social structure, is the product of centuries of struggle by people who refused to accept the world they inherited from their parents, and gave their lives to fight for utopia. And our future will be shaped by others like them. People who see the world through a lens of "how it should be" are the great movers of history. People like you are the apathetic baggage that gets carried along for the ride.

Again, just like in the military analogy, what my side has to offer is accomplishment. Great victory or glorious defeat. A leading role in the story of the human species. What your side has to offer is apathy and introspection. We do things. You sit around and feel superior."

A conclusion for a conclusion.

People like me? People like me do exactly what people like you do, we just have a better sense of our motives. Since when did I advocate inactivity, or eternal contemplation? Just because the human body is an astounding wonder doesn't mean that I sit around and stare at my hands all day. Just because I can see an obliterated rainforest and be aware of the great power brought against it, of the sheer greed and callousness of those who destroyed it, of the tragedy that was its passing, does not mean that I must discover and appreciate every nuance before moving on to save the next one.

I don't act to change the world because I have some notion of "how it should be," I do so because I have a notion of how I want it to be. Just like every other person on the planet. Like I said, I'm more aware of my motives.

Apathetic baggage doesn't care. Since when did I say that I don't care? I care about a whole lot more than you do, it seems. I don't see humanity as the be all and end all, I see it as just one consideration in a system with countless others. I care about the system. I care about what is, and that we do not lose it. There is a place for destruction, don't get me wrong, but destruction is cyclical. It brings forth creation. In my utopia, there is a place for decay and rot. There is a place for ugliness. How could there not be? If there were no corpses there would be no saprophytes, if there were none of those then corpses would remain forever. Not only would that soon provide a bit of a problem with storage, but the loss of the saprophytes, while tragic in itself, would rapidly lead to the collapse of everything else as nutrients became locked up in bodies, never released back to plants and when the plants go so too do we.

You are a utilitarian. You support the needs of the many over those of the few. In a strange kind of way, so am I. I support the needs of the system over those of a single member of it.

"People like you" indeed.

...

Wow, that was kind of exhausting. I can see why you took so much time over yours. Forgive me my rush, I'm kind of impatient when it comes to argument. Sometimes that leads to mistakes.

In any case, you may not appreciate this but it's good to clash swords with someone who has a brain. Regardless of how heated the conversation gets, and regardless of how much we may recoil at each other's notions of... well, everything, I do appreciate that you're actually thinking. It's good to know.

[Dante]

And so we return to the soggy vegetable. I suppose all good things must come to an end.

That's quite the persectution complex you've got there, eracist. One would almost think that you were the one nailed to the cross, the way you carry on.

What you are finding, by the way, is that evolution and my take on atheism are being expressed by me. Being gay doesn't make one a better scientist, nor does it impart a predisposition towards explaining things to laymen. And I am certainly not typical of homosexuals, scientists or atheists.

I actually had a bit more here, but Edric rather dealt with the other points so... yeah.

And as a side note, SandChigger, you could at least try to join in. Nihilism is all very well, but if you're going to comment at all it might as well be properly.