Hi.

Why a catholic monk?

Any particular order?

I prefer the Trappists. They make beer.

Welcome!

I'd just like to echo what HisWillness said: we can be nasty to people who are either stridently ignorant, purposefully bellicose, or are here just to proselytize. For the most part, though, respect is treated with respect. You should definitely be able to defend your beliefs, or be willing to admit when they are irrational, or (better yet) be willing to change your mind. That's about the only requirement.

I too would like to hear your story, about why you believe what you believe, and why you wish to be a monk. That's a pretty interesting vocational decision.

I don't think there are any former clergy here, but there are definitely former clergy atheists - most Prominent being Dan Darker.

"I ate the soul of a monk once... tasted like chocolate"

Ok im done >.> hehe

Wow. Any particuliar reason you would pick a life that frowns on all sexual contact?

The order is Benedictine, the specific monestary is Subiaco Abbey, located in Arkansas. I am not sure I can point to any specific reasons for looking at the monk life. I have always been of a spiritual mindset, though I CONSTANTLY dabble back and forth between belief and nonbelief. I really don't think anyone should completely jump into any purely faith based thought and never look back. That being said, I am somewhat introverted and I highly dislike change. The monk life has a set schedule of work and prayer most days which suits my personality well. As for lack of sexual contact, a friend recently described me as "the least romantic person on the planet." 

I have an uncle that is a Trappist monk, I wonder if a monk gene runs in the family?

Chris

So? I'm commonly described as "that quiet pacifist kid who never shows any emotions..." Doesn't seem to hurt my sexual contact.

You could easily be classed as "That non-romantic guy who still gets lucky and gets oodles of ass (or brass depending on which way you fly)," so don't give up just because of that.

As for a well-scheduled life, you can have that without resorting to Monkery (sorry if that sounds insulting, I'm not sure of the word for it). Plenty of people's lives revolve around schedules that they make, and for the most part, they are pretty happy. No downtime=no boredom!

Hi Chris. Welcome to the forums.

Well, I can't help but comment on the whole sex-thing, like everyone else. It shouldn't be surprising that it is fascinating/odd/intruiging to most people when someone chooses to turn away from sexual contact completely. But I will say up front, that after my comment, I will personally stop proding that particular subject, and would encourage everyone else to make one comment and then leave it at that, because after all, there is more to life than sex, and it would be a shame to hijack your post here to be only about you defending that particular choice.

But here goes:

I think that many people I know (mostly women) have more sex, and sex with more people, than is really productive for them. Many people feel presured by society to be sexually proliferent, if not promiscious. That's a shame, because if it knocks you mentally off balance, not to mention cause you physical problems like STD's or unwanted pregnancy, then you shouldn't be doing it the way you are doing it.

However, I also know many people who are sexually frustrated, and I see that as just as mentally (and physically!) detremental, as having too much, or rather the wrong kind of, sex.

It makes you feel unwanted, overlooked, and generally uneasy, to not experience the wonderful experience that is good sex, and the romantic emotional attachments that come with it. Of course, much of this, though not all of it, will be aliviated if it is a free choice of celibacy, as opposed to an unwanted inability to establish romantic relationships with people. 

On the physical side, it is stressful to have a body that is constantly urging you to go out and get laid, and I genuily believe that it is unhealthy. Masturbation aliviates this to a large degree, but of course, that requires that you don't have any hangups with that particular activity.

In short, one of the things I think is very important for you to consider, before entering a life of self-imposed celebacy, is your own sexuality. You have to be very honest with yourself about your needs and desires, and should also prepare yourself for the fact that your sexuality is irrevocably tied up with your mental and physical health, so you need to be ready to listen to your body and your emotions too, not just upon entering into a life of celebacy, but continually, throughout that life.

That's all I have to say about that. I don't condemn you for your choice, as long as you are honest with yourself. And remember, that's the good thing about your own sexuality: it's only yourself you have to be honest with, so you don't have to air your deepest darkest desires to anyone else.

...But you'll HAVE to admit them to yourself. Otherwise I don't think you can suceed in lving a healthy life of celebacy.

Now, I think you should ask some questions about the things you would like to know about us. Of course you can also read through the different discussions on these boards, but you seem like such a friendly and open-minded person, I'd love for you to contribute to the forums. We get alot of insecure, angry, self-rightious people on here, which is very frustrating, so to hear from someone smart and friendly is a breath of fresh air indeed.

Yes we are inevitably flawed, it is the nature of anything that is real. Perfection is purely an abstract and subjective concept. "Cursed with some original sin" is a poetic exaggeration of course. The complexities of dealing with 'real life' and its compromises and conflicting demands and trade-offs, mean that there can be no one 'right' choice in so many situations. Then when you throw in the effects of our emotions and desires, of course human society is going to display all the faults that trouble you - and me as well, of course, altho we probably differ in detail as to what we see as the most serious flaws.

This scenario of finite imperfect beings stumbling through life, inevitably making all sorts of mistakes, less-than-optimum choices, is just what  we would expect to arise from an natural evolutionary process. It makes no sense that an all-wise, all-powerful being would be responsible for such a mess.

Certain truth? About the only thing we can be certain of is that we can never be certain whether our specific ideas about the ultimate nature of existence are even close to being true. And that our individual internal thoughts and intuitions, constrained as they are by our all-too-limited and error-prone perceptions and imaginations, are a very imperfect guide.

The best approach we have so far devised to partly overcome these limitations is compare observations and guesses with each other, test our guesses against external reality as best we can, let others try to find faults in our ideas that we have overlooked, and so on... IOW - science.

As for salvation, of course it is understandable that we would like some father figure to absolve from that feeling of guilt when we think of all the things we wish we could undo, to the extent that some people convinced themselves that it must be true, and started one of the various narratives that have emerged to comfort us when we contemplate life's hassles.

Each person seeks what purpose they feel they need in their own individual way. Some feel they need to justify their existence as the subjects of some authority figure, either temporal or imagined, so they see their 'purpose' as determined by forces beyond themselves. Atheists generally formulate their own purpose.

Pretty rare AFAIK. I never was drawn to Theism.

Well, pretty much all the evidence we have points to our consciousness fading out when our brain ceases to function.

Personally, its not so much the 'lights out' that disturbs me, as much as a drawn out process of dying, of failing health, that I don't like to think about.

Generally the absence of any decent evidence for the existence of God[s], and the lameness of the arguments for it.

I'll answer them all, with the caveat that this is just me talking, and not "atheists in general". That hardly needs mentioning does it? I mean, it should be obvious. Even so, I don't think I am a typical atheist, if such a thing exists (which I doubt actually), so I imagine others will have very different answers than me.

Yes I do, but I have a very hard time trying to pin it down with words. I live my life very much from day to day, and rarely think in very transcedent terms about the future. I'm a happy, secure, and much loved and loving person, so I rarely feel the need to think much further than to: which one of my many friends or familymembers am I going to spend my day with?

That sounds banal I know, and I am youngish (28 years old) so I might think in deeper terms as my life goes on, but simply enjoying the moment is where I draw most of my meaning from at present.

But of course there are "bigger" things that give my life meaning. They are all hopes for the future.

I hope to raise a family some day. I absolutely love kids, and I feel very strongly about leading a new person through life. I also have 2 nephews and 6 nieces, all of whom I try to see as much of as possible, and hope to be another positive influence in their lives. Being a guide and a support for future generations is one thing that gives my life meaning.

Then there's the hope for the future of mankind. This is a bit more tricky, because I honestly rarely believe that I have any noticable impact on anything bigger than my immediate circle of friends and family. But I still try to touch as many people's lives as possible (one of the reasons I go on messageboards) to talk and discuss and enlighten, and be enlightened. The future of mankind, as I see it, hinges on communication between people. So that's what I spend alot of energy on. Talking to, and listening to, people.

Also, I don't fear for the future of mankind in the sense that I fear they might die out. You can visit the "too many people..." thread on these boards, to see my thoughts on that. I only fear that the future may hold more pain, suffering, loneliness and unhapiness, unless we all take an active interest in trying to turn that around.

Then there's that Cliché term: self realisation. Most of this is just the above feeling of being happy from day to day and enjoying myself, but there is also the slightly more longterm goals of singing in a band and writting stuff, both fiction, poetry and essays/philosophical musings. I do all these things allready, but I want to continue doing it, and perhaps take it further than I have at the moment.

And then there's this girl... I hope to be something for her that noone else can, to fill a role in her life that will give meaning to her life, thus giving my life meaning too. She certainly gives my life meaning simply by being my girlfriend now. I hope we last.

And finally, if none of the above pans out: if my girlfriend leaves me, and I never fall in love with another like her, if I never get anywhere with my music and writing. If I never have children, and find myself impotent (pun intented) to do anything to "change the world", as it were, I'm still fairly certain my life will not be devoid of meaning.

I think I am too happy, and too optimistic a spirit to ever give up on it all. Who knows, I might choose to live a monastic life of quiet contemplation and meditation then, though not in an actual monestary, because I was born an atheist, and I am pretty sure I'll die an atheist.

Having grown up in a society (Denmark) in which religion has almost completely disappeared, except as nostalgic traditions, I have nothing to drift back to. My family has never discussed religion, and go to church only for marriage, babtism and funerals, and on Christmas Eve.

When we do, I have always felt, even as a little child, that this was a tradition of my family, not a philosophical pursuit. The only person to have called herself an atheist in my family, was my grandmother, who was a communist, but I've always felt that neither my parents, grand parents, uncles or aunts, ever believed any of the stories of the Bible, or believed in God or an afterlife in any concrete sense. I hesitate to call them all atheists as such, but they are certainly all the kind of agnostic who doesn't care about wether religion is true or not. It's simply not a part of their lives.

However, I consider myself a very emotional person, and I'm more concerned with language, art and emotional pursuits, than I am with science, math and hard cold facts. (Not that I don't take an interest in science, but I am, first and foremost a student of the humanities).

As such, I have often considered the thought experiment that had I been born in a more religious society, and into a more religious family, would I have been a devout theist? I think I probably would have been. Especially if I had been born into a not-so-dogmatic religious tradition. The more flowing and fluid a thought is, the more it is appealing to me. Poetry touches me more than dogma, so maybe in Saudi Arabia, or some other "God Is The Law" tradition I would still have been at odds with religion.

I don't know if that makes any sense to you. Rest assured though, that the thing I am most sure of, is that I am not sure of anything, so I drift alot. The things I am most sure of are my loved ones. I know I love them, and I trust, deeply trust, that they love me.

A fellow Star Wars fan I see That certainly puts you in my good books.

I'll quote Mark Twain from memory, so it's not the excact qoute: "I was dead for millions of years before I was born, and it never caused me the slightest inconvenience."

I think of that quote alot when I think of death.

When C-3PO has his mind wiped, really what happens is he ceases to be C-3PO. They don't portray this at all well in the movies, because he seems to retain his personality from the prequels to the sequels. But then, the minds and behavior of droids in SW doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense

It's interesting, however, that you use the example of a droid mindwipe, because the droid doesn't cease to be in the material sense: the body is still there, but in the "spiritual" sense, nothing of the "person" that was the previous droid remains.

It's almost as if you have a hard time accepting that a person, such as yourself can simply "cease to be", so you use an example where something lives on (the body), but you at the same time recognize the innate feeling we all have, that dead means dead, so you understand the concept of "ceasing to be" (the mind, and thus everything that is the person/droid, is gone). It's as if you are torn between two conflicting parts of your mind.

I saw a film of a lecture on richarddawkins.net reasantly, entitled "why we believe". It was some scientist, who argued for various psychological mechanisms that might be the sources of religious belief. I'll try and find the link and post it later.

At one point, he talks about how humans have so advanced brains, that we are capable of having eloborate talks and interactions with people who aren't there, in our imaginations. This is simply a result of our complex brains, and a very useful tool for a social animal, for a variety of reasons. However, it also results in a problem we have with dead people.

If a person that you know well drops dead right in front of you, one part of your brain observes the obvious: what was a moment ago a person, is now a corpse. However, another part of your brain is still capable of imagining that person alive: you can remember what they were just saying, and you can imagine what they might have said next. You can, in short, still experience that they are alive, even though you can also experience that they are dead, by looking at the corpse.

This creates a problem for your mental framework, and the leap to imagining a "soul" from there, is a pretty short one. It's not always easy being human But the fact that people cry at funerals tells us that there are parts of us, all of us, that know what is obvious: that when you die, you cease to be. Why cry for someone who is going to heaven after all?

My own feelings about death? I rarely fear it, but that's because I'm young, healthy, and live in an incredably safe society. But like everyone, I do think of it sometimes, and I don't like the idea of that final memory-wipe anymore than you do. But there are many things that console me:

Richard Dawkins opening to "Unweaving the Rainbow" has some nice thoughts on the subject. It's the bit about "we are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones"... Please, if somebody can find that quote, please post it. To you Aftershock, perhaps you can find a youtube video of him reading it or something. Otherwise, you'll just have to take my word for it that it is consoling until somebody posts it. I can't really explain it without remembering the excact passage.

Then there's the Mark Twain quote from above.

I know (or I should say, I believe) that once I have entered into death, I won't worry about it. It will be like before I was born. It is only as I die, that I have anything to fear. So depending on how I die, it's not going to last for long. My grandmother died an old woman, having lived a long and happy life full of love from her, and for her. And when she died she was "on top of her game" as it were. She had no seriously debilitating healthproblems, or lack of energy, she was just very old. She regularly hosted gatherings of the whole family, and she did volenteer work. She went to sleep one night, suffered a brain-embolism in her sleep, and never woke up.

What a way to go!

We all miss her terribly, but she had lived a fuller life than I could ever hope to live, and she died a peaceful death, that didn't even involve a period of illness where she knew that death was coming.

I fear the death of my loved ones more than I fear my own, because I will be around to suffer their deaths. My own will be over as soon as I'm done dying.

But don't get me wrong. I fear my own death too. But so does everyone else. So that's not going to lead me to theism. Everyone fears death, theists do so no less than atheists.

That's a tough one. There are many many different kinds of arguments for theism. Almost as many different reasons for believing as there are believers.

I suppose one of the first things I think of when I read through something a theist writes on these boards, is that it is not so much that God doesn't exist in reality that is obvious, but rather that the God that exists in fiction is so obviously fictional.

What I mean is, all religious texts I am familiar with are so obviously (to me) man-made. They read like any other myth, any other story, any other law-book, or any other morality tale.

It's not that I don't find some passages of the Bible or other religious texts profound, it's just that I find parts of Beowulf, The Iliad, and Lord of the Rings profound too, and for the same reasons.

As an avid student of literature, and a huge geek for fantasy, sci-fi, myth and fairytales, I am drawn to, and inspired by all sorts of fiction. Never have I found that I had to believe any of it to be literally true, in order to find it inspiring though.

To me, religion is so obviously man-made because it all centers on the thoughts, hopes, dreams, and not in the least, fears of men. I know some would argue that this is because man can only understand the world through his own eyes, so God's message, whatever it might be, is "spoken in the language of human comprehension" so to speak, but I don't find that argument very compelling.

Religion just "feels" like a human invention to me... I know that's not the sort of argument one usually gets from an atheist. But I put alot of stock in the way I "feel" about the universe. Weirdly, I am still a materialist... Go figure...

haha, well, now that you've seen my posts, perhaps you won't feel all that bad about rambling

And thank you for your kind words.

Ironically, you will probably stick around to have many fruitful discussions with us. Teaching us something, and being tought something yourself. And yet, from your friendly demeanour, and your open mind, I find you just the sort of theist that I have absolutely no interest in "converting". Clearly you are a good and honest and kind man, and I respect and applaud your beliefs.

Meanwhile, the kinds of people I get annoyed at for not changing their minds, people like Chuck the troll, also known as Fringy_J or Flingy_J or something like that, is the kind of person who starts throwing insults and immature tantrums at the first person who engages them in adult conversation.

It's seems possible that I might be able to bring you around to my way of thinking, and yet, I have no interest in that, whatsoever. You seem like you are a possitively delightful person just the way you are. The angry, self-rightious theists on these boards, however, are people I would so like to see change their minds just a little bit, and yet, they are by far the least likely to ever do so.

What cruel irony...

Personally, I'm completely open to the idea of, well, anything. The only major factors are the amount of compelling evidence and the probability of the idea. But yes, I am staunchly against religion, especially fundamentalism. 

Yep, and because an intelligent entity being infinite, eternal, immaterial, existing before space/time, omnisomething, etc. raises innumerable more issues than a natural cause, we have to assume the natural cause. But, really, since this is mostly a matter of probability, it is also correct to say that we simply don't know. Sign, the "I don't know" position is so rare. 

Well, it's not as fantastic as it might seem at first. Be careful here. While the diversity of life is explained by the theory of evolution, the origin of life is labeled abiogenesis. Although both propositions explain life, they explain different aspects of its existence, so we must not confuse evolution and abiogenesis. Even if God created life, evolution would still be the unifying theory of biology, unless God purposefully buried all the fossils, sequenced our genomes, created vestigial organs and limbs especially in embryos, and did many more tricks just to fool us. 

There are currently several hypotheses for the origin of life. I can't explain this very well so I'll wait for someone else. Or, maybe, try this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf62sE

Wow, that's a really good question. Previously, I assumed that the vast majority of atheists were simply hardcore liberal democrats, but as I've met and socialized with more people, I've noticed that a ton of atheists are libertarians, which is great since I'm a moderate libertarian myself.  

Pff! What a typical atheist thing to say!

 van helsing shows the reason why 

I do harbor a ton of doubt about a ton of things in the Bible. I have a few reasons for not wanting to act on that doubt. I am very impressionable, and I tend to make decisions based on "feelings" or "gut instinct." So some days I look at events in the news such as someone suffering with a terrible disease. I am quick to wonder why god would let this kind of stuff happen. I can only ever come up with three possibilities. God isn't completely good, God doesn't exist, or these terrible natural happenings are allowed to occur in order to allow us to actually exercise our free will (I know alot of atheists don't actually believe in a truly free will). Assuming we have free will, imagine a situation where God arranges things so there is absolutely no chance of us hurting ourselves. No way to sin even if we wanted to. In such a situation we could not have any possible sort of free will.  Without contrast we cannot see ourselves as we are.

So lets say we have a person that comes from a long line of serial killers. Lets say everyone in his family is a serial killer, they are rotten to the core, its genetic, and we know for sure that this person will too go on to be a serial killer. Do we lock the guy up and take away his free will even before he has done anything? Now I already know that putting this argument out there I have just opened up a whole can of something bad but you will have to slap me later : P

First off, I want to put a few things out there. I am still clinging to Theism because I am not convinced that God didn't cause the big bang, and I have only just started reading up on abiogenesis (I watched that video which was really cool) but I am not yet convinced that replicators could have formed in such a way. The areas of what was before the big bang and proving abiogenesis are the two big battleground areas in my mind that will ultimately decide which way I swing.

Drifting back to God, suffering, and free will. Ok, the Bible has huge problems here. If God created me, he knows what I will do. So why condem me to hell for the sins I sometimes commit? This is the main problem that causes me so much doubt. My only answer to it is my gut instinct, though I do believe we all deserve a better answer from God than what my gut instinct tells me. Anyways, my gut, and maybe my experience with people as well, tells me that we are all tragically flawed, and are destined to destroy ourselves unless we find some kind of salvation. I think this is what leads me to the monestary. Taking a look at my personal life I have little discipline when it comes to what I do with my free time. As it stands now, after work I spend much of my time drinking and well...doing worse things. I have actually stayed three months at the monestary back in 2005. Through the disciplined schedule, I became a much happier person, and I actually became physically fit, almost ripped (lots and lots of yard work to be done at the monestary). I couldn't help but feel that reaching for God in this way made me a better person in every way.

Yuck, I am not done with my rambling, but it is 6am and I need to sleep : (

Chris

Yeah, I had to face that, too. It leads to the whole permissive versus active will debate. But you can actually boil it down to a simpler question: Does an intervention by god remove free will? Apparently not, as the bible shows god intervening many times, and it apparently does not strip one of free will. Would you say that Paul was stripped of his free will on the road to Damascus? Or Moses with the burning bush? If it does, then god routinely stripped people of free will. If is does not, then it should be no problem for god to intervene now. The only question would be as to the scale of that intervention.

This, as an aside, raises the question of why his miracles seem to have changed. The god of the Old Testament would routinely perform vast miracles, from columns of fire and smoke to stopping the sun to burning up religious rebels. I have always thought that a person would have to be downright insane to see even one of those miracles and still rebel, especially given the obvious propensity in humanity towards accepting bizarre beliefs(see Mormonism, Scientology, Hale-Bopp cult, Jehovas Witnesses, etc). Yet, we are told to believe that the majority of the Israelites routinely saw these things, and still strayed on many occasions. This makes no sense at all.

If this were actually possible, and you knew for certain that he would become a serial killer somehow, then yes, I think it would be entirely rational to stop him. You wouldn't let a rabid stray dog run loose if you had the power to stop it, would you? The caveat here is that we have no such assurance in real life, so such an action could not be condoned outside of the hypothetical situation.

And that's fine. I think you will find(like I did) that many of your doubts about the science are fueled by an emotional responses, and not actual problems with the science.

Are we tragically flawed? I would agree wholeheartedly. However, this does not lead to the existance of a deity. Consider the fact that we are animals. Look at the behavior of our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos. You will see most of our "bad habits" mirrored in those species. Murder, violence and segregation all have their chimpanzee analogs. Our sexual promiscuity is clearly analogous to the bonobos' "swinging" ways. Imagine that you took a chimp, for example, and layered on a human level intellect WITHOUT removing the underlying chimp behaviors. Now, you have a chimp that will still be driven to "bad" behaviors, but with the intellect to see that these are counter productive and undesirable(an understanding which will largely come from the ability to imagine himself on the receiving end). This realization made human behavior so much easier to understand and deal with for me. My own behavior came into focus, and I find that I have more control over my behavior, along with a more compassionate view of both my failings, and those of my fellow man.

I suppose I should stop and tell you a bit more about myself. I, too, tend to be a weird mix of logic and "gut" passions. Once I am convinced of something, I become the fiery defender. I always viewed my conversion to Catholicism as a logical progression. Once I was Catholic, I was 100% Catholic. I would say the rosary in (college) class, challenge philosophy instructors in class and hand out "miraculous medals" like candy at Halloween. I found receiving the eucharist in the hand to be borderline blasphemy, and I knelt to receive unless forced not to by the priest. I was the one taking the most undesirable timeslots for adoration. Yadda yadda. I was a hardcore Catholic.

Then, my dad(who was the other hardcore Catholic in the family) decided that he might want to become Eastern Orthodox. Well, I fought him every step of the way, attacking his arguments with ferocity. And, then it dawned on me. I was mad. Seething mad. This whole debate about Catholic versus Orthodox was born out of my emotions. And, as I had been so proud of my "logical" conversion, this shook me.

So, I stepped back from it. I cleared my head, and decided that it was time to examine both of those faiths with an unbiased eye. I would take nothing to the table but logic, and see which one made sense. My decision had to be cold and calculated. The problem was, neither stood up. I found that when I left my emotions on the sidelines, neither Catholicism or Orthodoxy made a hell of a lot of sense. I tried to build up my faith again by going back to the church fathers. It didn't have any effect. I finally had to accept that if I held my own faith up to the same level of critical thought that I held up other religions, it would also fail. I quietly became an atheist, as the only explanations that stood up to scrutiny were naturalistic.

I decided to bury my beliefs and live my life as a Catholic anyway. I saw this as the only palatable compromise. However, I began seeing that the irrationality of religion primed people for the acceptance of other irrational beliefs and behaviors, and how much damage it was causing. I finally admitted to my wife what happened. Then, I marched over to my father's house, and told him. He still thinks it is some rebellious phase.

I was scared of how empty my life would be, but it is far from the reality of what happened. I can be honest in ways I never really knew I wasn't before. My relationships with pretty much everyone except my father has been strengthened, even though most of them still don't know of my "defection" to the dark side. It really is like a block taken off of my shoulders.

That should be fun. Once I began to look for the fallacies in arguments from family anf friends, it became easy to see why their arguments failed. You could start with something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy 

Once you understand the basics of logical fallacies(and I'm not saying you already do not; I know nothing of your training in logic, so this is just general advice), you will find that most of their arguments boil down to a handful of common fallacies and emotional appeals.

Frankly, if a page of gentle probing questions and comments actually converted you, you were already an atheist looking for confirmation. I would not expect that. My goal in this is not to convert you. You simply had a similar story to mine, and I was sharing my experience and thoughts.

I think that you will find that atheists hold a variety of opinions on the matter of abortion. Most will probably tend towards a pro-abortion stance. There are also anti-abortion atheists. I am still trying to sort my emotions from the facts, and come up with a coherent position. 

After receiving a much needed lesson on this issue from Hamby, I'm really not sure what my position is now. However, what I am sure of is that we must take the most logical position, not one fueled by religion or emotion. It is not correct to claim that the fetus is completely without worth nor is it correct to claim that the fetus is always more important than the rights of the mother. Thus, anywhere from "no abortion except in incest, rape, might harm the mother" to "end of second trimester" seems possible for me. Or, leave it up to the states? Bleh.

While it is certainly closer to the god that Thomas Jefferson envisioned , being one willing to accept an intellectual  challenge, BOTH your statement and the attitude  of Jefferson still fail.

It merely is your mind wishing for utopian figure one inserts in order to fill in the gaps where answers are lacking.

The problem is that of efficancy. How long are you willing to wait in the hopes god will clue you in? Would you wait for a paycheck forever after it was passed due and still continue working? He clues some people in. doesn't clue others in, and people fight over who was clued in and who wasnt? That is not the sign of a god existing, but wrather a sign that people make up fantastic stories and fight over which one is real.

I get what your saying in the sense that I understand your words, but I don't understand your reasoning at all. The above might as well be giberish to me.

Again, this is simpy not true in my experience. Life for most people is wonderful from where I'm standing. I know it's a matter of perspective, but even so, your reasoning is not universal. I'm seeing the glass as half full, and your reasoning doesn't make any sense to me.

Why not put up with it? The thing is, life is great, and I could never comtemplate leaving it behind. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I have everything I could ever want, and that things don't go shitty for me from time to time. It's just that I'm an optimist, so the mere idea that there is no point to life is unfathomable to me.

I think it's a question of outlook. Never have I comtemplated an afterlife or a God or anything like that, because if I'm going to hope for something, might as well be something in this life. I just hope for a good time with my niece tonight, we're gonna be cooking dinner together. That's all the point to existence I could ever need: today.

So I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right. I'm just saying your argument: "There needs to be a point to life" is simply incomprehensable to me. How could there not be a point to life? Life is the point.

I don't know that that helps you at all, but I just think you should know, the argument is not universal, insofar as to some of us, it doesn't make any sense at all.

Have you ever met someone that claimed to be a Christian but didn't really understand what true belief in Christianity entails?  If I were a hardcore Bible thumping Christian and I believed that everyone in the world will be tortured in hell if they don't accept Christ, I would lead a very different life. If all I had to worry about was the afterlife then I would have no job other than spreading the gospel of my religion. And how could any half decent person who truly believes these things do anything else? We are talking about billions of people spending eternity in hell here!

Likewise, I don't think athiests really understand what the inevitibility of the nonexistence of EVERYTHING means. No only will you not remember your life, but eventually nobody will remember you. Eventualy, even the planet you once lived on will not exist. The puporse you may have attributed to yourself in this live will cease to have any meaning. Life is prescious, yes, but only while there are still minds that can attribute that worth to it.

Sigh, have to do some homework, will finish this thought later.

Chris

I don't know even know what true belief in Christianity entails. Are to referring to being virtuous?

Ah, okay then, I've met very few Christians in my lifetime that understood what a true belief in Christianity entailed, such terrified individuals, terrified by their all-loving God.  

Really?

My purpose in this life is to be happy and make some contributions to humanity. The first purpose has already been fulfilled. I'm working towards the second. 

For clarification, "I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose." Ayn Rand

I don't really know what true belief in Christianity entails, either, so I'd be a bad judge.

Sure they do. It's only scary for the first little while, letting go of old ideas. Then you realize it's actually very liberating. Yes, it all will die.

True.

Yup.

Yeah. That's fleeting anyway.

Sure. Same holds true for gold or a flower. You may find this perspective that you're illustrating odd, but since we assign value, value wasn't here before we were, so when we're gone, it goes, too. Valuation is just a part of what we do, it's not something that comes from somewhere else.

So while there are still minds that can attribute worth (there are), life is precious. In the future, life may be gone. Yes.

I know, I know - it's like a space-walk. Trying to imagine getting along without the fatherly influence of an invisible deity. But it's very, very liberating. I don't think I can explain how unless you try it.

I suppose he would.

Literally.

It's okay to acknowledge that you simply don't know. In fact, that's agnostic atheism (hint hint).

Oh, it's kind of depressing when you put it that way.

Congratulations?

That's just speculation though. There's nothing to say one way or the other. Maybe we'll exist a billion years from now, maybe not. Evidence of our existance will survive for billions of years. Who knows what life might stumble upon the relics, and what they'll learn? And that's just if we die, what if we continue?

Even if people forget who you were, your influence still exists. Frankly I wouldn't want to be remembered the way certain figures have been anyway. Having people put words in your mouth and say this or that about you a thousand years after your death. None of them having the slightest clue who you really were and what you'd really do. "Jesus would do this, Einstein would do that, Darwin said this", fuck all those arrogant morons. These types don't have the slightest idea what historical figures would do or say today. Obscurity is prefferable. People can't line you up for shots and use you for stupid agendas.

God is even worse. Infinate unchanging existance. Yeah...that sounds real fun...