June 5, 2010
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Pointless Arguments
Whenever I see a religion vs. atheism posting I'm tempted to enter the fight. Usually it's a waste of time. The atheist's arguments generally have huge holes in them and those are plugged with hyperbole. They also tend to be rather smug in their presentation like they've discovered a truth only the greatest of minds and purest of souls can grasp. What should be the obvious conclusion of their "revelation" is that everything is meaningless. The idiot and the genius both end up in the grave - and it seems like the idiot often gets there last. The evil live longer and the good die young. Of course "good" and "evil" are just empty labels based on what a particular culture and/or society believes.
Great job, you've stumbled upon a philosophy of life that makes life pointless and limited. And for some reason you feel like robbing people of their "ignorance" is more noble than letting them remain happy, stupid sheep. I'd ask you for a reason to live but that too would be pointless. Continue to live or killing yourself is of equal value so might as well go with whichever is easier - and I'm sure that'll fluctuage eventually.
You have no point so why bother trying to make one? Go blog about...something else. Meh, forget that suggestion. You might as well blog about religion and how dumb you think it is. Any blog your write is of the same value - zilch. Enjoy your pride - a lot of good it'll do you. You're still going to die and end up as nothing. You're worm-food, I'm worm-food, and anyone who survives us will be wormfood eventually.
I'd say that reading this was a waste of time but seeing as all time is wasted because all actions end in the same result you might as well waste it here. Hi, I'm JJ and I'll be eating up a small portion of your doomed existence. I do have some good news though; nothingness is very easy to take.
So bring on your arguments, lay them all before me. I'll congratulate you on how well worded they are and then present your prize - a reminder that you're heading for the void. Quit running, take up smoking, drink until your liver cries - enjoy yourself. Here's a drinking game to pass the time - every time you spoot a typo in a post take aa driink. I gave you some easy ones to get started on.
Please don't take from me just because you've got nothing to offer.
Comments (27)
sarcasm much?? Very articulate snarkiness. I like it =D
worm food... i think if we have good intentions, we will bulk up, so that the worm would never got hungry again after finishing us...
I always enjoy reading your posts.
I like the aa typo. lol From what I have seen their purpose in life is to post athiestic posts on Xaanga.
Interesting post.
"The atheist's arguments generally have huge holes in them and those are plugged with hyperbole."
As opposed to this blog which is all about the logic.
I agree.
nice...
I wrote something about this in a comment earlier. You must be a person of clarity. Screw truth, right?
So you've seen enough to know what happens when we "wake up." And you know that delusion makes life worth living.
If I have to enter the argument, I usually touch on how the human god that we know from scripture is completely different than the cosmos of experience and that all relates to one in a way of ascent.
If they're set on creationism then I usually try to talk about catastrophism vs other theories instead of an argument that can't be answered with the human mind like how something came from nohting.
There is a point to the argument. You are unable to look at the bigger picture and see that the reason why atheists are pissed off is because religion affects everyone. It affects laws, politics, public school curriculum, war, etc. It doesn't benefit atheists to just sit back and let the religious whack jobs go about in their ignorance especially when they are allowed to enact policies that affect us.
If you want to keep your religion then fine. Keep it to yourself. How about you follow the teachings of the Holy Bible, particularly Matthew Chapter 6 verse 6:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
@agnophilo - well I'm certainly not going to plug any holes in my argument if you won't point them out!
@AtheistInfidel - and atheism doesn't affect everything? What humans believe will always affect their behavior. If you believe you'll be judged for you actions you'll live differently than if you believe that nothing truly matters. But even if someone knows the "truth" they can still apply it inappropriately. Although I'd say if our existence is entirely natural then "appropriate" and "inappropriate" are merely vain attempts at creating meaning where there is none - which is natural for humans. We look for meaning and reason - we wired that way by either God or Nature. If it's Nature, it seems like a cruel joke. If it's God, there's purpose although our ability to understand that purpose will be limited if that God is infinite.
Thank you for dropping by!
@ShamelesslyRed - if I have to be a pest I'd like to be an entertaining one.
@maniacsicko - I am rather fond of worms...but isn't American society rather hostile towards fat people? I'm torn! Feed the worms or conform to social norms - what's a guy to do?
@mtngirlsouth - Thanks! I aim to entertain and provoke thought - either will do!
@dropsofjupiterihh - well I guess all things being equal from an atheistic point of view, they might as well. Gotta kill time somehow, right? Heh.
@Olebob - thank ye. Hope to see you around.
@Colorsofthenight - the existence of a "higher power" seems more likely than all that exists coming from nothing. Delusion only provides fulfillment because it mimics what we're truly meant to experience - the presence of God. If we are created by God then there is a high probability we were created for some reason. If we search for God aren't we more likely to discover that purpose and exchange deluded fulfillment for the sustanence that is truth?
Glad you dropped by - it's always nice to hear new opinions.
@JJ_Ames - it's not new. I've been fomented further than the arguments presented, all cliche to me -- as to you. All human thoughts have been had by humans. My thought-process has collected within me, a deviant, as a reaction to, yet I produce nothing that hasn't been prior as of date, though that would be a goal of my own. Is it possible?
@Colorsofthenight - if we assume that there is no thinking foreign to the human mind then no, there is nothing to discover. It would all just be a rehash of what has come before. But why conjure up the idea of the divine? What is there in nature that would suggest a God? The argument that nature created the divine has the cart before the horse. An understanding of the spiritual led to humans attributed spirituality to the unexplainable, not the unexplainable giving birth to the thought of the spiritual. If it were not so there never would have been a concept of the divine because the divine is foreign to human experience UNLESS the divine exists and planted that thought within humans. It requires divine action to conceptualize the divine.
@JJ_Ames -
You made an argument?
@JJ_Ames - ways of ascent. We are still only humans. I think we see what we believe with what we create. That is new, but thoughts, no, thoughts are never new because we are a reaction to our environments. Indeed, our products are as well, but our products were not before while our thoughts were.
@JJ_Ames - sheesh... these americans need to know about the plight of those starving worms!!
@agnophilo - I argued that atheism is an empty philosophy with only one logical conclusion - that no course of action is preferable as all ends in nothingness. I'm pretty sure I was redundantly redundant in stating that. For the atheist, what is the purpose of living? What is the ultimate good? What is the ultimate evil? Does atheism answer these questions or simply focus on attacking theism without providing a viable alternative?
I'll try to answer some of your questions. At first I didn't take you seriously at all because you write like some type of raving mad man but after reading some of your other posts I realized that is normal for you.
Good and Evil:
I think even if you are a Christian there isn't really a well defined good or evil. In reading the Bible the most obvious conclusion would be evil is whatever God says is evil or sin. This standard for measuring good and evil because irrelevant in our world. The Bible has a whole collection of laws given to us by God most of which we disregard and for good reason. According to this method of determining what is evil, wearing clothes made of more than one fabric, growing a variety of crops on the same field, allowing multiple types of cattle to graze together, having sex with a woman on her period are all acts of pure evil. It is irrelevant because we pick and choose what we think is evil anyway.
There are certain things that people just seem to have an internal sense about and can tell that they are evil. This is where some people say "oh that's the power of Jesus in you" or something like that. They can't admit that humans have the ability to tell right from wrong without a god telling them. Animals exhibit the same types of behavior and they don't have a bible. Murder, rape, stealing, and lying seem to be the worst evils.
In general if something causes harm to an individual or society we might not label it as evil but we know it is bad. Crack cocaine and methamphetamine didn't exist when the Holy Bible was written. If we only went by the law of God they would be legal. We have determined that they are detrimental to our well being as a society and thus made them illegal. Humans figured that out themselves without a god appearing to them and saying "drugs are bad mmmmkay".
The ultimate evil is to cause harm to others. The ultimate good would be to love one another.
The purpose of living is to survive. For whatever reason humans seem to have a desire to survive and reproduce. Again Christians might say this is God inside you while scientists may be trying to learn about the parts of the brain that give us the survival instinct. Ultimately there is no greater purpose to life. To the individual there is purpose though. Friends, family, and personal goals are all reasons to live. I think this life would be less meaningful if we lived on for eternity after it was over. To the Christian, life has very little meaning for it is only a test of faith to determine if one is worthy enough to walk hand in hand with Jesus. To me this life is all I have and then I'm wormfood, I'd like to enjoy it while I can.
@JJ_Ames -
"I argued that atheism is an empty philosophy with only one logical conclusion - that no course of action is preferable as all ends in nothingness." No, you claimed that. There's a difference.
There is no logic to that statement, as a non-belief in the existence of yahweh has as much to with an atheist's sense of morality and meaning as a non-belief in the existence of unicorns.
I could see how if one thought our ethics were dictated by unicorns they might reach a similar conclusion, that without unicorns we can have no ethics etc. But had it ever occurred to you that not everyone's worldview might be built upon the axioms you build your own worldview?
"I'm pretty sure I was redundantly redundant in stating that. For the atheist, what is the purpose of living?"
Atheists are above all things individuals, and I cannot answer that question for all atheists because there is no doctrine of atheism. However to me the problem is with assuming that there is one grand central "meaning" to everything, one reason everything happens, one plan etc. And I can't fathom any "plan" grand enough to justify millenia after millenia of suffering. I think it's much easier to find meaning in life by looking for less grand everyday meaning. Life doesn't have to be a page out of lord of the rings to be meaningful. Instead of asking "what is THE meaning of life?", try asking "what makes life meaningful?". You will find the answers come more readily.
"What is the ultimate good? What is the ultimate evil?"
What do you mean by "ultimate"? Like what's the best thing someone can do and the worst thing someone can do? Does ranking this stuff really matter? I promise you if someone does either I'll take notice.
"Does atheism answer these questions or simply focus on attacking theism without providing a viable alternative?"
Atheists are often anti-theistic, but only because of the effects of religion in society. I know many religious people who are equally disgusted by religion and get mad if someone says they're religious or calls them a christian because the term has become synonymous with so much negativity and bullshit, televangelists etc.
However if you want a viable alternative to morality secular moral philosophy has generally been ahead of the curve when it comes to morality, ethics like the golden rule were stated by more than a dozen philosophers centuries before christ - socrates, the "buddha" (Siddhattha Gotama), confucius, lao tsu etc just to name a few. And if you want an alternative as far as purpose and meaning go, try secular eastern philosophy.
Though I warn you, as long as you "need" something you will never understand it. Clinging to beliefs for meaning distorts truth, whoever does it. Seek reality, harsh and hard to understand as it can be, and have "faith" that whatever you find will be bearable.
Btw I did this blog on the subject of good/evil meaning etc awhile back, which you might find interesting.
http://agnophilo.xanga.com/727606423/chemistry-and-the-meaning-of-life/
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