What Do You Believe? Question from a Creationist

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What Do You Believe? Question from a Creationist

Yet another question from a Creationist posed to me...  Any input from my fellow 'infidels'?

 

What do you believe?

I think I have my answers already but I want to confirm it and see if I'm on the mark.

Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild? Man is a highly developed ape? A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?
Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes? Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

If so what is important to you? Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking? If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones? How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?

Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system? With no such thing as supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?
(i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?


How do you answer these questions?
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is wrong with the world?
How is what is wrong, be made right?
What is my purpose?
  Thanks guys!!

 


butterbattle
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Oh oh oh, pick me! I have

Oh oh oh, pick me! I have input.

JAustinTX wrote:

What do you believe?

I think I have my answers already but I want to confirm it and see if I'm on the mark.

Okay. Let's see how good you do. 

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Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild?

That's not...quite...on the mark. I assume you mean "gone wild." I'm not sure what that means.

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Man is a highly developed ape?

We are apes. Highly developed? I'm not sure what that means. We're not any more "developed" than pretty much any other organism.

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A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?

Right, there is no absolute reason for us being here. We're not an accident though. There is cause and effect; it's not random.

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Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes?

Nothing? Only nothing is nothing. An accident? No. A mistake? No. That would assume that there is some inherently correct or ideal result. A result of random evolutionary processes? Yes, we evolved via evolution, but it's not random. Evolution is not a random process. 

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Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

Well, that's my purpose, to enjoy my life and be happy.  I wouldn't only consume though. Giving away things and helping others is good too. 

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If so what is important to you?
 

Hmmm, my life, happiness, intelligence, integrity, my girlfriend, family, friends, science, my university, etc.  

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Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking? If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones? How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?
 

Yes. Admittedly, I've never yet had to experience the death of someone very close to me, but if it happened, I suppose I would grieve. It would, uuuhh, sharpen(?) my sense of loss? Yes, of course I have a sense of loss.

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Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system? With no such thing as supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

I believe that we can only explore what we can explore.... 

I'm a scientific naturalist. I don't technically reject everything supernatural, but I don't believe in any of it either. I believe that supernatural claims, by definition, cannot be reliably evaluated. Any claim that is professed to be outside the scope of science and reason cannot have any objective evidence supporting it; if it did, it wouldn't be supernatural.    

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Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?
(i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?

I am a moral subjectivist, a meta-ethical relativist.

I believe cultural relativism is only true to the extent that different cultures have different standards of morality. Normative cultural relativism is internally inconsistent.

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Who am I?

butterbattle. 

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Why am I here?

On this forum - I enjoy discussing and debating these issues with people.

On this planet - There's no reason.

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What is wrong with the world? How is what is wrong, be made right?

Oh man, there's so many different things. I don't want to answer this one right now.

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What is my purpose?

Thanks guys!! 

To be happy. 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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JAustinTX wrote:Who am I? I


JAustinTX wrote:

Who am I?
 

I am a human who was born in this world and will die in this world.No more, no less.

I don't need god, in order to live and enjoy my life(with its ups and downs).

JAustinTX wrote:

Why am I here?
 

I am here for the same reason any other animal is here, to keep the species alive.

While i do that, i can also grow up, get an education, a job, and a family.

 

JAustinTX wrote:

What is wrong with the world?
 

In my opinion: everything.

besides the earth itself, everything manmade is "broken".

But that doesn't mean that there aren't good things in this world. 

JAustinTX wrote:

 

How is what is wrong, be made right?
 

It can't. it can only be continuously perfected and bettered, but nothing can be made perfect.

JAustinTX wrote:

 

What is my purpose?
 

Besides survival, none. so try living your life like everyone else, because knowing that there is no god doesn't mean you can do anything you want, it's a knowledge meant to show you that you don't have to live in fear of going to hell every time you do something normal (like going a little wild for one night), or simply because of who you are. 

 

 

"I don't believe in afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear."


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 JAustinTX wrote: Yet

 

JAustinTX wrote:

 

Yet another question from a Creationist posed to me...  Any input from my fellow 'infidels'?

What do you believe?

I think I have my answers already but I want to confirm it and see if I'm on the mark.

Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild? Man is a highly developed ape? A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?

Humanity, and every other life-form on the planet, evolved from a population of single celled organisms, by a process of random small changes, with those that lead to more successful survival giving rise to more descendants. You can call that 'going wild' if you like, but really they were all 'wild' if you mean in the usual sense of 'not-domesticated', in other words, not under any guiding control. They never 'went wild', they were always 'wild'.

We are a highly developed primate, we share a common ancestor with the apes, who are also 'primates'.

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Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes? Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

Obviously humanity is not 'nothing'. Our origin did have an element of chance. 'Mistake' assumes some external governing agent, which is something that has yet to be demonstrated, so that doesn't apply.

As I said above, we are the result of an evolutionary process, which has elements of randomness, but is also driven by the process of natural selection to be adapted to our environment.

We are not here to 'do' anything in particular. I get a feeling of satisfaction and personal reward by sharing with friends, helping others, and hoping to leave some aspects of the world a iittle better for me having been here. And enjoying whatever pleasures I can which don't hurt others.

I am not into consuming that much. I think that is a real problem with a lot of Western countries, especially the US. Why do so many Christians there spend so much time 'consuming'? It certainly is not particularly an 'atheist' problem.

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If so what is important to you? Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking? If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones? How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss? 

Improving my knowledge and understanding of "Life, the Universe, and Everything". Exercising and improving what skills I possess.

Of course I have 'down' times. Shit happens. Of course I grieve over lost friends and family, but not forever. That is 'wired' into us, as social animals. All of the more intelligent species seem to do this, especially if they are social.

It certainly has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you believe in a God.

Although, if you believe in an afterlife, I would have to ask why would you grieve over someone who you believe has gone to heaven??

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Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system? With no such thing as supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

I believe truth can only be grasped by discarding as many presuppositions as possible, such as belief in a God of any kind. IOW without any such lens. And also be prepared to adjust our initial assumptions if they can shown to not fit reality as well as some others.

Anything that can cause something to actually happen in our reality has to be part of it.

It is not helpful to understanding to divide reality into the 'natural' and the 'supernatural'. We just study everything that exists and happens, that we can observe and detect in some way, and try and work out how it all fits together.

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Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?

(i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?

I believe a true ethics has to be based on some sort of consensus of what causes harm and suffering to other members of our society, and what sorts of things will improve our general level of happiness. Our natural empathy is a good guide to this, but we need to check it against what really seems to cause others distress.

Rather than on some set of rules handed down from our ancestors, whether or not they believed they were inspired by some God they happened to believe in.

BTW, the holocaust was largely inspired by religious hatred of the Jews, encouraged in Germany by Martin Luther, partly based on ideas such as that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.

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How do you answer these questions?

Who am I?

A member of the species Homo sapiens, a citizen of Australia, a friend to a number of other people, who seem to enjoy my company.

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Why am I here?

Because my parents had sex. Other than that, no particular reason.

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What is wrong with the world?

Too much irrationality, and hatred of people for silly reasons, like they believe in the wrong God. Too much self-obsession, like humans are all that matters, and all that matters is personally securing a ticket to heaven. Not caring about the future of the planet that we are leaving to our descendants.

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How is what is wrong, be made right?

Dunno, really. Try and encourage more people to gain real understanding of the world, and get them to realize that they are not likely to get very far relying too much on the ideas of a bunch of people living a few thousand years ago.

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What is my purpose?

Like I said before, exercise my skills, help others, leave some positive legacy if I can, and get some personal enjoyment in while I can.

 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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I like all these answers,

I like all these answers, however I would add that I personally think our main purpose is to advance the species, want too or not, that is what we are for.

There will always be something wrong in the world. Without something wrong there is no need to strive to do any better, we would become stale and boring.

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


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JAustinTX wrote:What do you

JAustinTX wrote:
What do you believe?

That I can trust my senses and reason to figure stuff out.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild?

 

Single celled? Hardly. The evidence is strongly against that.

 

Wild? What species on this planet is not wild? Seriously, the concept of “not wild” really doesn't work for me, if for no better reason than the fact that evolution is a very slow process and anything that would fall outside of any reasonable definition of wild would need far more time to develop than we have had on this planet.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Man is a highly developed ape?

 

Well, Man is a hominid and therefore an ape. I don't really see the “highly developed” thing. Is a rottweiler a highly developed wolf?

 

JAustinTX wrote:
A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?

 

Have you read Dawkins “the Blind Watch Maker”? I suppose that one could say that we just kind of happened. However, one could just as easily say that we are here due to a fairly complex set of rules that comes from survival of the fittest and we are a product of that rule set.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes? Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

 

See above. As far as consuming and enjoying, yah, I am fine with that as long as one does not define consuming as that which is good for huge corporations.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
If so what is important to you? Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking? If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones? How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?

 

I would imagine that everyone has felt the sting of loss at some point. It really does suck but what are you going to do about it? Both of my parents are dead many years now but wishing will not make them come back.

 

Really, my experience is that one ought not to “try to get over it” but rather, one must learn to accept that some things really suck. In the case of loss of one's parents, it sucks really hard.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system?

 

Truth can be viewed through observation and reason. However, I am not so sure about the whole closed system thing. If not for the rather large input of the sun into our general environment, we would get very cold. In fact, there are some interesting hints at the very edge of cosmology that suggest that the universe as a whole may not be a closed system but that it may be subject to influences from other universes.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
With no such thing as supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

 

Well, what is the supernatural anyway? If anything has a casual connection to that which can be known, then it can be measured and is subject to reason. Therefore, it must be part of nature.

 

Sure, we simply do not know everything and some of the stuff that we do not know fully may seem, in some sense, magical. However, lots of things that would confuse out ancestors are old news to us.

 

Is that inherently atheistic? Well, I am reminded of the interaction between LaPlace and Napoleon. When Napoleon asked why he did not mention god in his treatise on mathematics, LaPlace replied that he had no need of that hypothesis.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?

(i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?

 

I believe that history shows time and again that the victor writes the interpretation of the events. So yah, there are few among us who think that the holocaust was a great idea. However, I suspect that it is reasonable to come up with a moral construct that goes against what has been written.

 

As an example, Samuel Adams in the years leading up to and during the American Revolution wrote extensively about resisting a tyrannical government. However, once he had the state of Massachusetts, he changed his tune. In later life, he was of the opinion that it must be a death penalty matter to rebel against a government that was not a monarchy.

 

Let me ask you a question: Can a republic become a tyrannical entity?

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Who am I?

 

Um, some dude who has opinions. Remember that opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and everyone else's probably smells like shit.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
Why am I here?

 

Jim Morrison said this well (in my opinion). To get some kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
What is wrong with the world?

 

We all have competing interests.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
How is what is wrong, be made right?

 

I don't know if it can. However, if I am made dictator of the planet, I promise not to do anything too silly.

 

I am a large supporter of renewable energy, even if it can only meet perhaps 15~20% of our current needs. I am also a large supporter of population reduction. Let's get the population of the planet back to perhaps 1~2 billion people. Then renewable energy will be a much larger part of the equation.

 

My one concession to silly dictatorial tactic is that I hate the letter Q. Under my rule, it shall be expunged from the dictionary.

 

JAustinTX wrote:
What is my purpose?

 

That could be a huge question. However, for most people, getting drunk and laid seems to work. We can start there.

NoMoreCrazyPeople wrote:
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."

=


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JAustinTX wrote:   Do you

JAustinTX wrote:

 


Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild? Man is a highly developed ape? A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?
We are a wise (species Homo) man-like (genus Homo) Great Ape-esque (family Hominidae) opposable thumb-bearing (order Primates) lactating (class Mammalia) spinal (phylum Chordata) animal (kingdom Animalia)    
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Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes? Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?
I don't really care

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If so what is important to you?
“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” This has always been His desire – to be God, and it is the very temptation he used in the Garden of Eden to get Eve to disobey God: “You shall be as God”   In essence, Nietzsche's "Will to Power"
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Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking?
Oh yes, quite often in fact. Most of the time it is attributable to the incompetence and banal, self-made ignorance of others -including those who claim to despise ignorance and point it out frequently in others; it often amuses me to no end, watching particularly pompous and arrogant individuals 'dance around uncomfortably' within their own bodies and minds after I simply point out their habitual desire for stroking one's ego as well as their own intellectual dishonesty - all because I'm incredibly talented when it comes to social and psychological observation. It never ceases to amaze (or entertain) me how easily others fall for this particular behavioral 'trap'.   The rest of the time I feel voided of character and empty it is due to my own incompetence, of some particular sort or another. While it is true that quite a bit of personal character and talent is determined by 'environment' (i.e. we are nurtured to act in certain ways much more readily than our nature dictates), I've learned to hold myself accountable for personal success and failure and find this practice much more productive than simply bitching about other people getting in my way and gazing at my navel over how much I've been held back and stifled by others. I can't realistically ask someone else to fix my circumstances and after struggling with said circumstances for roughly 20-27 years, I have to accept that there is only one reliable individual I could look to for improving my condition:me. And since I have accepted that, I haven't felt like as much of a 'loser' any more. Of course, it helps to go on the internet and 'sniff out' the mental and emotional failings of others along with their false notions of great intellect and philosophical superiority. Watching others stumble over their own faulty sense of intellectual superiority is basically a joke that never gets old!  
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If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones?
To grieve, I'd have to actually have a loved one to lose. I'd also have to get over how ridiculously sentimental others can be towards the loss of loved ones- or rather, people they feel socially obligated to. What makes no sense whatsoever to me the amount of tear-jerking, dizzying array of histrionics... the ridiculous levels of tragic expression in general! It's like a pity party that everyone can participate in, and worse(!); I'm going have one of those in my name when I die! Fuck that nonsense...  ...although the thought of maggots nibbling away at my stinking cadaver brings me a macabre moment of humor, and a mortiferous grin to my face. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Occasionally, there are others who I would consider mourn-worthy; these individuals are admirable in some manner or another and are also 'misplaced by society', to a degree (in some cases forgotten/discarded by society altogether.)
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How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?

If you mean my sense of compassion towards others (because 'sense of loss' does not make sense here), it nullifies quite a bit of it. "Think of the starving kids in bumblefucksomewhere" is a horrificly botched cliche for a reason. I also have a bit of the "nobody ever gave much of a shit about me during my most hellish years alive" thing going on for a good bit of my adolescence. On the other hand, I do eventually find people who I think must be defended from the 'harm' of a largely human (and often self-destructive) world (usually the 'gifted' or 'innocent, docile, and nurturing' women and children-Zombiejesus and Clockcat seem to be prime examples of the latter qualities), or people to whom others should follow (men and women who are 'charismatic, decisive, well-disciplined, yet ambitious'-Sapient, atheist extremist, Unrepentant Elitist, "Allison", and Answers appear to fit this role elegantly. HBD at least seems to embody 'decisive' and 'ambitious' ), there's my 'archetype', the observant contemplater; myself(when I'm not acting Bipolar, hehe), Bi66er, neptewn, ZuS, Nigel DarthJosh, Luminon, Marquis, Bobspence1, Jormangandr, and awelton85 (I probably left out a shitload of names here, but oh well) and of course, there's the fourth, scarcer archetype... the village advisor, of which Jake, cj, Brian37, and... Renee Obsidianwards(...?) could be considered a part of. (There's also the very elusive HellKat archetype that I came very close to finding an example of at RRS... unfortunately this individual plays for the wrong team. o.O So I keep looking... hopefully not in vain! )
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Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system?
naturalistic materialism? eeerrrrr?

Truth is relative, and HIGHLY prone to subjective reasoning. The Scientific Method, in the pursuit of knowledge? Not so much.

 I believe the simplest (and thusly most intuitive) explanations are also the most fruitful. I'll try to elaborate on this closer to the bottom of this post.  
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With no such thing as (the) supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

Counter-question: With no ability to quantify, know for certain of, reliably understand, or even manipulate the intangible qualities of the universe, why should ANYONE be honestly bothered to give much of a damn about said qualities
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Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?
 Ethics need not be culturally based at all, and can be defined along well-defined lines of logic and even creative reasoning, if necessary.  It is, at least, possible to develop ethics with nearly universal guidelines. The only problem in this case is 'advertising' the supremacy of such 'ethics' to others, and attempting to convince others in the superiority of your (and others') ability to reason. 
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So ethics are culturally negotiated?
pffffttt... in the minds of weaklings, maybe.


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How do you answer these questions?
 EASY: Okham's razor 
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Who am I?
I'm the guy who likes to think '*HE* IS THE "man of lawlessness"
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Why am I here?
To

 DESTROY DIVINE LAW

so that no one will feel coerced to follow it ever again!

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What is wrong with the world?
That there is SUCH AN IRRATIONAL CONCEPT as "divine law" in the world.
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How is what is wrong, be made right?
 Asked and answered, already.
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What is my purpose?
 Ditto with what I've already said  
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Thanks guys!! 

No, thank you!

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)


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JAustinTX wrote:Do you

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild? Man is a highly developed ape? A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?

I would ask your creationist friend: "Is God just a cosmic accident with no reason or rhyme? Either you keep asking 'what is the reason?' or you finally accept something as 'just is', as Christians accept that God 'just is'. Is it possible that the universe isn't 'just is' and had a creator? Sure... but it's also possible that the world came into being just 5 minutes ago, all your memories included. Atheists believe in the existence of the universe because we can see it and have evidence. It might be all there is, there might be something more, but we see no reason to believe in something further until we have the evidence."

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes? Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

Here I'd say: "While I do believe humanity is the result of evolutionary processes, it seems that these processes did not create us as beings that just like to consume and joy. To put it from a cold "survival of the fittest" perspective, that apes that used team work beat the apes that didn't. That means that the apes that survived developed complex relational instincts, those that both tie us to our fellow human at some times well as compete at others. These instincts mean that we can be at loss without friendship, that we genuinely can feel another's pain, that and that we can get genuinely altruistic feelings for another person. Psychologists and anthropologists have often found that consumption alone does not satisfy a person and that most of our needs are social."

JAustinTX wrote:
If so what is important to you? Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking? If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones? How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?

I believe that we all have our own unique "straight from the heart" answers to this one.

JAustinTX wrote:
Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative? (i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?

I would say that ethics have an objective basis in our human nature. For us to meet our human needs, which include our empathetic needs to remove our friend's suffering as well as our own, there are going to be right and wrong ways to make this world a better place to live in. While our method of developing ethics might be through cultural negotiation, you could say that we are discovering rather than inventing. I hope your friend finds our answers interesting! Smiling


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Ho-hum. It's more of the,

Ho-hum. It's more of the, "Don't you feel there is something more? Don't you require something more?" bullshit that Christians like to pull out.

No. There is nothing more. What you see is what you get. Why does life need a reason? Why should you believe in fairy tales just because they make you feel better?

The only things we know are those things we can observe and measure. Everything else is essentially fantasy. Sure, it's fun to speculate about things we can never know, but that really is about as productive as watching a movie. It passes the time in an entertaining way, and might incite a few new ideas, but otherwise it in no way reflects reality.

The question becomes, Would you rather live knowing reality, or pretending a fantasy?

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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Quote:What do you

Quote:

What do you believe?

Things that are inherently and rationally true.  I disbelieve in logically falsified things, such as the common (honest) definitions of 'god'.


Quote:
Do you believe humanity is a single celled organism con wild?

No, humans are collectives of single cells gone "organized"- and barely restrained from their roots.  It depends on where you draw the line for 'human' though- cancers are single cells "gone wild" and are technically still human, as they are possessed of human DNA.

 

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Man is a highly developed ape?

 

Man is an ape, this is a fact by definition of biological classification.

I do not consider humans to be highly developed, but development is subjective, and implies a goal or ideal which doesn't exist.

 

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A cosmic accident with no real rhyme or reason?

Accident implies purpose or intent is possible- it is impossible that there be any cosmic purpose.

Humans, however, are an inevitable result of causality, and there is "rhyme" and order to everything.

Reason can imply purpose, which there is none save what we "chose".

 

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Do you believe humanity is really nothing, an accident, a mistake, a result of random evolutionary processes?

 

No, evolution is not random.  Any suggestion that it is reveals a misunderstanding of evolution.  Evolution is as inherent as gravity as an emergent statistical force.

Neither mistake nor accident, there being no goal in mind, nor mind at all to have a goal.

 

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Here to consume and enjoy, to make the most of it?

 

We are not here to do anything- we were neither sent not made for any purpose.

We do what we do.
 


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If so what is important to you?

 

You could call me Epicurean, or even ascetic.  I seek things that are more meaningful to me, like knowledge, art, and furtherance of social compassion and bettering of the world (from my perspective), and my positive effect on the world to maximize self-identity and self actualization.

 

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Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking?

 

Wanting- of course.  When we stop wanting, we pretty much stop living, in any sense that life is worth living.  Life is a level grind- when we reach the level cap, there's not much left to do.

Empty- no.  What does that even mean?

Hopeless- not in regards to all things.  Some causes seem hopeless, though- like getting nutters like Eloise or Paisley to see rationality.  There are some things I don't try to do because I find them hopeless- but I keep going on other fronts.

Lacking- not relative to other people.

 

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If so, do you grieve over lost loved ones?

A little bit.  Grief is a fairly selfish thing, though- it's all crying about not being able to see somebody anymore.  I know they aren't suffering at the hands of an malevolent deity, so that's fair comfort.  I grieve more for lost potential and un-done things.

 

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How does that effect your sense of loss, or do you have a sense of loss?

It affects my sense of loss by diverting it in the direction of motivation to make things better.  Rather than wallow, I can re-realize that potential, and try to do those un-done things for that loved one.



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Do you believe truth can only be viewed through the lense of naturalistic materialism with nature as a closed system?

Yes.  Anything else is incomplete or patently absurd.  I consider anybody who questions this to be ignorant or objectively insane- not open minded.  An open mind has some discretion, otherwise it is no longer a mind, and no longer open (having already concluded its acceptance of all things absurd).

 

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With no such thing as supernatural therefore inherently athiestic?

Assuming the definition of supernatural means beyond naturalism, and assuming all gods are by definition supernatural beings, yes.

These are definitions consistent with usage and common dictionary and encyclopedic listings, so they would be reasonable assumptions.



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Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative?
(i.e. holocost, etc.) So ethics are culturally negotiated?

 

Ethics are not just culturally based, but entirely relative- they vary from person to person.  We can judge people based on personal ethics, or relative to their cultures if we wish.  Any judgment requires an ethics set from which to judge people- which we use depends on how we want to judge them.  Any statement of value judgment must necessarily be qualified by what values are being used in the process.
 



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Who am I?

I am my definition of my self- I am how I define myself.  The limits of self are made much more murky in many-worlds, and I don't think that's so much a problem as a clarification.  "We" only exist to the extent that we strive for self definition, and realization of what we are and do, because without that definition, it's all too hazy to draw any lines or distinctions- an undefined thing is not.


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Why am I here?

I was caused by the sum total of the universe, and by everything that is inevitable.  This is not for a purpose of a higher being, because then it wouldn't be the sum total, and wouldn't be inevitable.


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What is wrong with the world?
How is what is wrong, be made right?
What is my purpose?

I choose my own purpose, and a large part of that is the process of putting right what in my opinion is  wrong.  Going into what is wrong, in my opinion, would seem to be irrelevant to these questions, but I can sum it up as "suffering, waste, and dishonesty".


badpanda84
Posts: 2
Joined: 2010-04-23
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" Do you ever feel wanting,

" Do you ever feel wanting, empty, hopeless or lacking?"

That why they call relgion the opiate of the masses .  Cause that exactly how some people deal with those feeling -  by taking drugs

 

"Do you believe ethics are culturally based and therefore relative"

 

Of course.  2000 years ago slavery was acceptable and today its not