Albion

Physically your remains decompose and are used in the carbon cycle. I assume the "self" ceases to exist except in the memories of others and in terms of the tangible contributions you might have made to society. if you have children, part of your genetic makeup is preserved in them.

Well, if you define greater meaning as having to do with God, then you're right by definition. Perhaps some more detail about what you mean would be helpful.

Again, that depends on whether you define meaning as dependent on God. Obviously you do. Atheists don't.


I do wish I knew how you're defining "meaning." You mention Martin Luther King. He's dead, but his life had a lot of influence on people and society during his life and continues to do so now he's dead. What difference does it make if some aspect of him isn't sitting up in heaven? If it were, would it even remember what he'd done during his life? I hear a lot of different opinions on the afterlife from Christians.

What makes you think they do?

What's the point? We're told over and over that being a Christian requires faith. Why bother to have faith when proof is possible? Seems to me that a lot of people have tried to prove the existence of God and it always comes down to something personal.

Because Christians want to convert everybody. Christianity isn't a religion that plays well with others - it has a long reputation of leaving older religions in ruins and persecuting their adherents. Just read about what happened to the pagan religions in Britain and about what happened to the Jews in Europe in the 15th century. Not pretty. And then ther's the little matter of how fast atheists get blamed for all society's ills after events like 11 Sept and the other little matter of presidential candidate George HW Bush announcing that he doesn't consider atheists to be citizens or patriots and his campaign manager saying that atheists should believe in God. To say nothing of the attempts to impose Christian-based laws about abortion and Christian-based science education on the whole of society. If Jews or Muslims were behaving like that to us, we'd be seeing them as a threat. Nut here it's teh Chrsitians who are doing it.

Who knows? Other societies seem to get along very well without a bent toward Christian beliefs, so I don't suppose things would be much different. Human societies do what they need to do in order to survive.

K

BreezeinaTree:

Others here have given answers to your questions that are very similar to mine. I won't bother repeating them. I would like to ask you a couple of questions.

1. Since you are an electrical engineer, I assume that you can appreciate that the brain is a complex electrical system that behaves very much like a state machine. The behavior of the brain can even be altered by injury, disease, or introduction of chemicals or electric currents. Our personalities appear to be directly tied to our physical brains and bodies. What would give you any idea that our personalities can live on after the death of our bodies?

2. What possible purpose can there be to serve an omnipotent being? That is a purpose I would equate with teaching an omniscient being or grasping a vacuum.

lisarea

So, was accepting Christ in 1996 some kind of end-run around your bachelors' degree, then, sort of like the CLEP tests on a grander scale, allowing you to continue straight on to the masters, or is that just a non sequitur?

There are probably just about as many answers to this as there are people--atheist or not.

I believe that your body decomposes and your consciousness, which is a function of your body, ceases to exist.

From a non-selfish perspective, life goes on. If you've been an influence on someone, that continues after you die.

No, you don't get to watch from a big cottony La-Z-Boy.

Your definition of atheist is flawed. There may be overlap between atheists and nihilists, but they're not one and the same.

And what is a higher force? Certainly, the laws of physics are more powerful than I am. I can't, by sheer force of will, float around in the treetops, so I suppose gravity is a higher force than I am.

So I do believe in higher forces, I suppose, for a logical definition thereof, and if you accept that definition, then, in a way, those higher forces give my life meaning, depending on how you define meaning. My meaning is to live happily, to make the world a better place within my sphere of influence, and to have fun. I do this within the constraints of my knowledge that I will be killed or injured by these higher forces if I fail to understand them. I also often get enjoyment from learning about these forces, because certain topics that I enjoy studying cause my brain to release chemicals that enhance my mood.

So, allow me to ask you a question: How can you believe that your life has meaning if you consider yourself a pawn in some kind of spectral strategy game being played by a giant invisible superentity?

What a selfish perspective. But I expect this is exactly the sort of mindset that religion was created to counteract. Why can't you do the right thing without a system of rewards and punishments compelling you?

How sincere, then, are your good acts, if you do them under compulsion of these threats and bribes? Are religious people incapable of understanding the satisfaction of doing the right thing and making the world a better place for everyone?

This might be an interesting question if a god or gods existed. They don't, though.

Personally, I spent a lot of time, as a child, trying to believe in God, if only so I wouldn't get beaten up by the Christians as often. I can't say that I've really had to expend much effort denying gods, and as far as rejecting them, do you spend a lot of time rejecting, say, goblins or leprechauns? Do you find it difficult to reject and deny them?

I certainly wouldn't take this as a given, but I'd suspect you hear more complaints about Christianity for two major reasons:

First, you are American, and as such, you probably associate with Americans more often than you do with other nationalities. Christianity is pretty pervasive in America.

Second, and again, from a US-centric perspective, the US is a constitutional republic founded on such ideals as separation of church and state. Patriotic Americans are frequently bombarded with attempts by Christians to subvert the constitution, the very foundation of our government. To those of us who believe strongly in the principles upon which the US was founded, this is a remarkably hostile thing to do. We take offense, and we perceive it as a threat to our ideals and our nation.

Then, on top of these political assaults, we have Christians come to our doors to call us names and make very violent threats, our children are harassed at school by Christians, and we're expected to keep our opinions to ourselves on the topic of religion in the schools, in the workplace, and in the government, lest we 'offend' some Christian by the simple fact that we do not share their beliefs.

That's hard to say. As I mentioned earlier, I believe there are a lot of people in our society (and in other societies) who suffer from pathological selfishness. I believe this is one of the reasons that, for example, jailhouse conversions are so popular. There are a lot of people out there with no real conscience to speak of, and the only way to get them to behave in any civil way is to threaten them with getting caught by some invisible, all powerful cop who watches their every move.

My own pet theory is that religion serves to fill in the evolutionary gaps for a species that has lost much of the instinctual behaviors that direct us to preserve and protect our families, our communities, and our species; but has yet to consistently adopt an intellectual basis for civilized behaviors.

So, many of the tenets of religion are valuable. However, not all of the people who created and maintain those religions had society's best interests in mind, so there are many counterproductive elements to religion, such as proselytizing, militaristic behavior, self-righteousness, criminal activities in the name of religion, strange exclusionary pack behaviors, etc. In fact, most Christians don't even bother to learn about or follow their own religious tenets unless they serve their selfish ends, so many Christians end up throwing away the wheat and preserving the chaff.

Maybe we would be better off without religion at all. It would be painful at first, though. I can personally think of at least a dozen Christians of my own acquaintance who would immediately run hog-wild, stealing, raping, and generally creating havoc if they lost their perception of God, simply because the closest they get to a sense of morality is fear of being caught.

So, I guess the question is whether religion does more harm than good, or vice versa.

I don't know the answer to that, but I expect it's a pretty close call.

Heathen Dawn

</strong>

This self does not survive; whether it becomes another self is an unanswered question.

</strong>

Theism gives a meaning to life: you were created in order to worship God. All this universe just for kissing God's arse. Delightful.

</strong>

Exclusivist claims, constant preaching, being a pain in the neck - all these are traits of Christianity that make it amenable to attacks.

</strong>

It would make fewer stupid decisions. Recall Bush calling the war on terrorism a "crusade" and you see why.

Theism is neither intellectually satisfying nor emotionally appealing.

Heathen Dawn the Secular Pagan

gilly54

Hi, Breez,

My answers to your questions:

1. After you die, your body decomposes if buried, or becomes ashes if cremated. Due to the conservation or energy/matter I will, at some point in time, nourish the Earth with my remains, as does every living thing, except Gene Roddenberry whose ashes are in outer space.

2.You should have asked why do atheists deny or reject a BELIEF in God. Since theists are the ones claiming gods exist, the burden of proving gods exist is on them. Once you have proved to us that a God exists, then we can deny or reject said God.
Rational reasoning coupled with science and simply taking a look at human history with all its religions and the miseries they have caused trying to convince others that theirs is the "true" religion is enough for me do deny a belief in a god.

3. See above posts. If the zealots would keep their beliefs to themselves and out of our goverment, as the Constitution says to, we'd all get along fine.

4. Most religions stifle scientific advancement, from which we get our life prolonging medicines and technology. Humanity would be better off without religion.

Gilly

99Percent

Fair, although I hope that you will honestly address the responses here, including mine.

It seems strange that you will point out that you are a Christian and an Electrical Engineer in the the first sentence. You seem to know of hand that they are incompatible. Christ, at least in the bible had absolutely no idea of electrical principles.

Yes, but what the heck does your faith have to do with graduating with the highest honors in EE?

So you are "secure" with your beliefs. Ok, we believe you

We will see that is true with a more than "1" in your post count. If in the future (and that could mean thousands of years since it is recorded in the internet), that your post count remained at "1" then you were full of bullshit.

Nothing.

That is because you see your own life as worthless. But when as an individual you discard a "higher meaning" in your life you learn to appreciate that life is all that you have - much more valuable than any theistic religion!

But you fail to see that life is everything we have precisely because it is limited. See above.

That is doubtful.

Frankly, to think that a god exists is too frightning to consider. To know that some being somewhere can actually manipulate your life beyond your control is downright scary. I am just flabbergasted that you, as a supposedly rational fellow human being would actually wish that! Its beyond my comprehension. Really.

We don't see it as a threat (except for the fact that some world "leaders" like Bush embrace it) but we do see it as one of the most absurd and non-sensical "religions" out there, and to make it worse, one of the most embraced and commonly believed.

It would be much better because we would believe in actual rational and real and objective things, instead of the supernatural and unreal and therefore impractical, subjective things.

Goliath

BreezeinaTree,

My body will probably be cremated, and what is left will be put in an urn and buried. If you are referring to an afterlife, my answer is "I don't know."

What do you mean by "greater?" I am an atheist, and my life has plenty of meaning.

I don't need a "higher force" (whatever that is) to give my life meaning. I do that just fine by myself, thank you.

You understand nothing about atheism at all.

Atheism is not a view.

Atheism is not a belief system.

Atheism is not a broken air conditioner.

Atheism is not a moldy bag of tangerines.

Atheism is absolutely nothing more than the lack of belief that any gods exist.

Simple: I make no claim that a god exists.

Yes, xianity is a major threat in the US, because many American atheists are constantly assaulted with xian beliefs. We are told that we are immoral, disgusting, pathetic excuses for human beings just because we do not believe that any gods exist. We are ceaselessly spat upon and discrimnated against by xian bigots.

Difficult to say for certain, but I can't imagine how things would get worse.

Sincerely,

Goliath

sakrilege

Caveat, the following is my opinion only and is dragged out in direct response to the above OP statements.

Being trained as a scientist (bachelors in physics) with some engineering courses (masters in engineering physics) and working with engineers for 20 years on the space program I find most engineers and their training noncritical thinking. This is NOT a bad thing. When someone is building a bridge, Thinking Outside The Box is not appropriate.

In my experience, engineers are generally taught how to apply existing formulas to situations. Questioning the validity of the formulas is not part of the training. My graduate level engineering courses were nowhere as difficult as my undergraduate physics courses.

Most of the engineers I have known, as opposed to scientists, are religiously oriented and I believe there is a correlation to the type of training received.

Hopefully, I haven't offended too many engineers, but again this is only my opinion.

Susan

K

Susan:

I would agree in general with your assessment of an education in physics vs. one in engineering. Physics always required much more thinking (in fact, one of my professors occasionally discretely threw a research problem he was having on our tests on the outside chance one of us could provide him with a new approach to try).

The difficulty on the engineering side tended to be more in the area of work load - too many damn labs and projects without sufficient time to dedicate to them. I probably brought much of it on myself since I was unwilling to fudge test results.

I work with engineers. The majority of them appear to be theists (one is even a creationist!?!). I haven't had the pleasure of working with many physicists to know how they line up.

Liquidrage

Where did BreezeinaTree go?

Hello?

Aww shucks!