Materialists

Jem:
>It was Bertram Russell the atheist who once said, "Unless
>you assume the existence of God, then the purpose and
>meaning of life is irrelevant."

Me:
>One man's opinion and it sure as hell doesn't match mine.

Jem:
>Yeah but russell was a very prominent thinker. And I
>think the argument would be better served if you negated
>it with a reasoned argument.

Well first -- he wasn't "prominently thinking for me".

Second, you use the word "argument" related to his statement and there is no reasoned argument there -- only one man's opinion as I restate.

Jem:
>Because I can very easily support it.

Ok, go ahead. Currently it is just unsupported opinion.

Jem;
>Without an absolute right or a higher authority. What you
>think is right - is not more right that what michael jackson
>thinks etc. There are smart people on elite who argue
>the difference between right and wrong is only cultural.

THAT is your support? The statement was..."Unless you assume the existence of God, then the purpose and meaning of life is irrelevant." Your "support" has something to do with morals and right and wrong, but nothing to do with the meaning of life being irrelevant. I'll be waiting for some on topic support.

Jem:
>So for now I just do not see how Russell is in error.

Well, none of your surrounding supportive assertions even *relate* to the "purpose and meaning" of life and yet apparently you make some kind of connection. With disconnected thinking such as that I can understand how you could fail to see.

Jem:
>It just that your beliefs are no better than
>OBL's without natural law.

I honestly don't know what you mean by "natural law" here. I suspect you mean "god's law", but I can't be certain.

Me:
>First off, treating people the way that you would
>wish to be treated does not require belief in a higher
>power. In fact, that very belief often interferes with
>that principle

Jem:
>I agree but this misses the point. What you believe is
>meaningless as what I believe. It is essentially a
>steaming load, if there is no God.

Well, again that is just an opinion and at this point an unsupported one. I happen to think that what we ALL believe has meaning and matters since it generally effects our actions to a great degree.

jem:
>If you think about it there is only one
>intelligent choice.

Me:
>If believing in god IS the intelligent choice, then there
>are as many intelligent choices as there are gods, not
>the "one" choice that you proclaim.

Jem:
>Again, what I proclaim, which I did not in this
>thread, is irrelevant to the thread.

"Did not"? Isn't that you above, proclaiming that there is only one intelligent choice?

Jem:
>I did not state you must believe what
>I believe. Why do you assume that?

I don't assume that and didn't state such an assumption. I only took YOUR statement (only one intelligent choice...god) and pointed out that if you are right, and that god IS the ONLY intelligent choice, that you are then left with a MYRIAD of choices, not just one.

Jem:
>What I have always said to my scentific friends is that
>you should be able to rule out what respectable thinkers
>believe just in case they are right.

In its current 'post a quote' form (rather than some reason supported form) I can no more argue against it that I can argue against the statement "Unless you assume the existence of Unicorns, then the purpose and meaning of life is irrelevant."

What's to argue with in either case? If I chose to argue with every unsupported opinion in the world I would never get my backtesting done. :-)

JB
 
Jem:
>As an athiest apparently you and turok belive it is
>valid argument to say I disagree and not even
>support your assertions.

I'll repeat, once the statement that you posted is given context, reason and support of it's own I'll be happy to respond. Until then I will only say that it does not match my experience.

JB
 
Quote from Turok:

Beyond the children, if I do my best to treat others fairly ,kindly and sincerely in this life I consider myself to be an "innocent". The christian god will slaughter/punish me and anyone like me out of some twisted form of vengeance for my lack of belief or even skepticism regarding his existence. [/B]
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I understand where you are coming from but I have a different take on how you will be treated.

1. Christ died for the sins of the world. Period, all of them, mine and yours and Hitlers'.

2. If you commit murder here in this life on this earth you will probably be punished here on this earth. The punishment will most likely come from the state, other people or maybe even yourself. The only way God is involved in this is maybe the way he created us or if He influenced our laws, then through that avenue.

3. Now if you or anyone else does as you say and is fair and kind etc. then all should go well for them here which is as I see it is fine with God as He set it up that way. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" " Love thy neighbor as thyself". etc.

4. If you decide not to accept Christ's death for your sins and want to be seperate from God for eternity then that is also your choice. It is totally up to you. There may be consequences for this decision but it is totally up to you to weigh the choices. This is much like the decision to murder. If you don't like the consequences then there are other avenues such as not murdering.

For now you have made the right and noble decision to live here innocently to the best of your ability which is a very good decision. The rest is totally in your hands and is nobodies business except yours. It is kind of like having ones cake and eating it too. It may not be possible to totally reject God and yet share in all the benefits He promises. If you don't want to be near God then He will honor your desire and not force Himself on you. And that seems fair to me.
 
Doubter:
>If you don't want to be near God then He will
>honor your desire and not force Himself on you.
>And that seems fair to me.

It was a nice little post, but it conveniently left out this little thing called hell.

JB
 
Quote from Turok:

Doubter:
>If you don't want to be near God then He will
>honor your desire and not force Himself on you.
>And that seems fair to me.

It was a nice little post, but it conveniently left out this little thing called hell.

JB
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______________________________________________

That little thing is part of the consequences. It could well be that He foresees the end of the universe in a ball of fire and the only safe place is under His protection. Who knows. I normally call it fire insurance and its for free if you are already living as an innocent then there isn't too much to lose. That is basically how I made my decision. What's to lose if I am already trying to live morally.
 
And, guys, if the Seventh Day Adventists are right about hell, then many of the standard objections to hell vaporize. There is VERY little written about hell and the great majority of theology about is speculation imo...

One thing that is clear in the NT is that God will be fair at judgement. One of the themes of the New Testament is "as a man sows, so shall he reap." Whatever hell is - and of course I'm assuming my own position here - we can conclude that it won't be Miltonian...
 
Much has been investigated in fiction at least:

Divine Comedy : Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso - Dante Alighieri

or

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained - John Milton

nitro
Quote from ShoeshineBoy:

And, guys, if the Seventh Day Adventists are right about hell, then many of the standard objections to hell vaporize. There is VERY little written about hell and the great majority of theology about is speculation imo...

One thing that is clear in the NT is that God will be fair at judgement. One of the themes of the New Testament is "as a man sows, so shall he reap." Whatever hell is - and of course I'm assuming my own position here - we can conclude that it won't be Miltonian...
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Quote from nitro:

Much has been investigated in fiction at least:

Divine Comedy : Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso - Dante Alighieri

or

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained - John Milton

nitro
More...

That's my point. The New Testament is clear that there is a hell, but many Christians and non would be shocked at the lack of concrete verses that define hell. The only verses that have any description - and it's "meager" - are basically in parables and apocryphal writings. The fiction is explained by something - in my opinion of course - that God was deliberately silent about...

 
It could be that hell is complete destruction as the SDA's postulate. Or it could be that hell is somewhat like the sometimes - I'd like to say most of the time - nightmarish world of those who practice out-of-body experiences. Or it could be something completely different. But that's just it: we don't know. There is a deliberate silence...
 
Shoe...you just dont get it.
None of this nonsense constitutes evidence.

Benny Hin packs in tens of thousands of morons into
stadiums who think he can HEAL through the power
of christ. Whooopie.... does this mean he is REAL??

Of course not.

How many people believed in Zeus in the past?
Does this make him REAL?? Of course not.


Gee.... he took human form too... wow coincidence?

Same old stories...rewritten for the next religion.
So many of the jesus stories were BORROWED from
other religions....its all an obvious joke.


peace

axeman


Quote from ShoeshineBoy:

What cult has converted w/o violence a huge % of a population of a huge land mass? I can't think of one off hand. The only other comparable example is Communist China which has developed a believing population of at least 60 million new believers in the last half century. But, again, that's Christian...
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