If one is a vocal atheist then very soon one is going to encounter the religious canard that without God life is meaningless. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard that if God exists then he made us for a purpose and if he doesn’t exist then we have no purpose.
This is bullshit of course. I have had no problem finding meaning and purpose without God. And when I ask the religious fundamentalists making these claims what the purpose is that God gives us, I get either silence or a pathetic answer like, “to praise God”. If God made us to praise him, he is one pathetic sky-gremlin suffering from a case of severe low self-esteem.
In this blog I will present an exercise that ANYONE, theist or atheist, can use to find their own purpose and meaning in life. I would like to be able to claim that I developed the technique on my own, but that would be a lie. It was developed by Steven R. Covey in his excellent book, THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. And to give credit where credit is due, Dr. Covey is NOT an atheist. He is a Mormon (which is in my opinion one of the more ridiculous religions out there), but even so his book is excellent.
I want you to imagine that over the next 10 year time period you live the most amazing life you can imagine. You get everything you want; you accomplish everything you set out to accomplish; your school life is perfect; your home life is perfect; your work life is perfect.
Next, imagine you suddenly die. You have been beloved by all. Finally imagine that everyone who is important to you will speak at your funeral.
Here is the exercise:
Make a list of everyone that will speak at your funeral. This will be a list of everyone who is important to you. Perhaps, you do not know who that specific person will be. For instance, you may single at the moment but in your imagination of the perfect life you imagine yourself finding a spouse. In cases like this you can just list the person by the role they play in your life … spouse, child, friend, neighbor, boss, employee, etc.
After you have made a list of the important people in your life who are to speak at your funeral, write down what you think they would say about you. Remember that for the previous 10 years you have led the perfect life. These people love you. What would you have them say?
Why are you doing this? Humans are social creatures. The most important things in our life are not our possessions. The most important things are our interpersonal relationships. The most important things are the people we love and the people who love us. That’s just the way it is.
What you are doing is writing down your deepest wishes for how you hope those very people will see you given you have been the best you can possibly imagine yourself to have been. It will give you insight into what it is that is truly important to you.
OK, so now what? Suppose you have written down that you spouse describes you as “loving” and “supportive”, “a person the family could count on”. You have just said what you would like for you spouse to think of you. How are you going to get that?
Here is the hard part. There are no short-cuts. These are the people who are the most important in your life. They are the ones that truly know you. You can’t fake it. The only way to get your spouse to think of you as loving is to BE loving! You need to look for opportunities to BE loving. If you want your spouse to believe you are supportive, you must BE supportive. You need to look for opportunities to be supportive. If you want your family to think of you as a person they can count on, then you need to BE a person they can count on. Look for opportunities to become that person.
Look at how all the people that are important to you have described you at your imaginary funeral. This is how you want them to see you. The only way they will see you that way is for you to BE that way. You need to look for opportunities to BECOME that way.
I have enjoyed blogging here. It has become a relatively important part of my life. In my imaginary funeral I would like for reader of my blog to say that I wrote interesting thoughtful blogs. That is what I try to do. I write about what interests me and I put a lot of thought into the blogs.
This seems like a lot of work, and it is. But IF you keep doing it … trying to become the person you want people to think you are … it will soon become a habit - - A GOOD HABIT. Things that become a habit become easier with time. What you will find is that while you are unlikely to achieve the perfect life, you are likely to achieve having those people view you the way you want to be viewed. And since interpersonal relationships are the most important things, you will have achieved a VERY GOOD and meaningful life.
Note also, this success of this method in finding and achieving meaning in life has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not God exists.
Cheers,
Darwin’s Beagle
Might I present a new idea to you? Every atheist is arguing the existence of God with Logic. Now, look, there is no part of the The Holy Bible or religion itself that says it's based on logic. How do I know God exists? He told me so, proved it to me. Consider that, were it to happen to you. But that's okay, your psychiatrist can cure you, right? Bet you would go running for a different answer.
I just thought it might be interesting for you to try that on for size. Consider the scale you'd be talking about-this spirit would be bigger than the skyline 10 miles in any direction. You'd be an idiot not to be afraid.
Another thought that isn't just frivolous-The Muslim fundalmentist wants to kill any non-believer(that would be you,right?) Therefore, either convert or die. Think it over, there's no one to protect you except the soldier that happens to be Christian. Why do you want to tear his morale down?
Don't worry, you won't hear from me again. I prefer ballistics to religion, just stumbled onto this.
(1) This blog does not address the existence of God. It addresses a technique that anyone, theist or atheist, can use equally well to aid in their search for meaning in life. Thus, your comment is inappropriate here. I have many other blogs that do address the existence of God. I would encourage you to repost your reply here.
(2) There is a school of thought that says that you cannot reason a person out of a position that did not arrive at through reason in the first place. Perhaps so. But what else are you going to do?
Why do anything? Because too many religious people are unthinking dogmatists. Perhaps this applies to you. I do not know how dogmatic you are but you seem to take pride in your unthinking acceptance of religious belief. Any form of unthinking dogma can lead to horrific abuse. Communism was a form of unthinking dogma. Today, I suspect Islamic fundamentalism is the most dangerous unthinking dogma threatening the world as a whole. However, in my personal life, Christian fundamentalism is the prevalent form of unthinking dogma.
The only way to combat unthinking dogma is to think.
(3) When God told you he existed did you record his voice saying that? Could you get him schedule a press conference to annouce it to the world? No?? Why not?
God didn't tell you he exists. You mentally asked if God exists and then you mentally determined the answer was "yes". The question then becomes, "Did God send you that mental determination?"
Many people think God sends them mental messages. Unfortunately they cannot all be right. The mental message that one person gets may well be contradictory to the mental message that others get. So at best that way of conveying messages is unreliable. I think the most likely explanation is that the message actually comes not from a supernatural being, but rather from within the person's own brain.
(3) If God came and told me he existed, what would I do? I would hope I would treat it as data. What are the alternative hypotheses for interpreting the data.
(a) God really exists and wants me to know.
or
(b) It is a self-generated delusion.
How would you distinguish between the two? Well, you have God there, ask him. I would be VERY impressed if God would give me the winning lottery numbers for next week's lotto. I wouldn't play them because I would be more inclined to think option b was the correct answer. But I would check to see if they are correct.
Alternatively God could explain things about himself that given my present knowledge makes no sense, in a way that I could see makes his purported actions reasonable. Read a number of my blogs and I feel sure you could come up with a number of candidate things he could explain.
Alternatively he could leave physical evidence of his existence. He COULD call a news conference and announce his existence to the world. There is any number of things that God could do to show that he really exists. The fact that he does none of these things, I find telling. The fact that he seems to choose the most unreliable methods of communicating with us, I also find telling. And what it is telling me is that God doesn't exist.
(4a) What makes you think that soldier protecting me is Christian? Why could he not be an atheist, Jew, non-fundamentalist Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, or whatever?
(4b) If the soldier is a fundamentalist Christian, he is just as likely to want to kill me as the fundamentalist Muslim.
(4c) Why is trying to get a person to think about the rationale behind his beliefs an attempt to tear down a person's morale?
You have a lot of unsupported assumptions there, big guy.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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Evolution says that we share a common ancestor with a jackass. It does not give us license to act like one.
"God didn't tell you he exists."
How do you know and if you don't really know, then why try to act like you do?
I'm pretty sure that this man DID hear from God just like I myself have and many others. The reason you don't hear from Him is bc His sheep hear His voice; He never said His goats hear His voice.
For the record, its not up to anyone here to prove anything to you concerning God. And if you want to go to hell, no one is going to stop you. God is a gentleman and He won't stop you either; He will love you all the way to hell but He wont interfere with your right to go there if that's what you want.
ta ta
For the second and last time, this thread does not deal with the existence of God. It deals with a technique than ANYONE, theist or atheist, can use to find meaning and purpose in life.
I do have many blogs in which such a reply as this one is appropriate. However, this is NOT one of them. Your attempts to derail this thread is not appreciated. If you would be so kind as to repost this on a more appropriate blog such as this one I would be very happy to go into detail as to why I wrote what I wrote. Or alternatively, you could just reread what I wrote above.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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Evolution says that we share a common ancestor with a jackass. It does not give us license to act like one.
*clears throat slightly* Please refrain from name-calling. Your comment has been edited to remove the incident...
~C
Visit my blog: www.progressiveu.org/blog/mvenus929
Read the news: www.progressiveu.org/news
"And if you want to go to hell, no one is going to stop you."
Oh, really? That doesn't seem like the "Christianthingtodo," does it? Having gone to church for sixteen years of my life, I'm willing to contradict you and say that - as a Christian - you ARE supposed to try and stop a person from going to Hell.
(I know this wasn't a religious post, but I just had to respond to that. Well done, by the way.)
kat!eOH.
Thanks for such an "interesting and thoughtful blog." I've enjoyed reading all of yours.
Also, I find that the "7 Habits" book's advice is really helpful. It's disappointing when I see so many people letting time, stress, and even religion getting in the way of being who they want to be, and being as open and loving as possible.
I also think that too many people spend too much effort trying to impress / please others. I think that if you are the person that you want to be, you'll surround yourself with people similar to and appreciative of you. That way, your funeral will not only be full of people that have good things to say about you, but you'll live and die being 100% who you always wanted to be.
Just a cheery thought for an early Sunday morning.
Ciao,
Allison
"Be the change you want to see in the world" ~Mahatma Gandhi
Thanks for the reply,
I grew up in mountains of North Carolina. The state motto of North Carolina is "Esse Quam Videri" which means "To Be Rather than to Seem". I agree with your sentiments and that motto. There are no quick-fix solutions. You cannot make it through life faking it. You have to be those qualities that you want to be. The way to be those qualities is to practice those qualities until you become them.
Thanks again,
Darwin's Beagle
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Evolution says that we share a common ancestor with a jackass. It does not give us license to act like one.
" I also think that too many people spend too much effort trying to impress/ please others."
The exercise suggested in the original blog seems to somewhat contradict that sentiment because it is based on people's opinion. I realize that the author was probably not actually suggesting that this be the sole measure of a person's life...its useful as a mental exercise but that takes it too far obviously. However, couldn't it make someone too much of a people pleaser? You can't just base yourself on interpersonal relationships only (though I agree they are immensely important) because people are still people, and they will let you down. They have a lot of power to speak validity in your life and stabilize you, but in the end,it seems to me that you've got to have a firm grasp on your own identity outside of another person.
The exercise is not an exercise in trying to impress others. No others are actually involved. You do the exercise alone. It is an exercise in finding out what is important in YOUR life.
I suppose that theoretically one could say that other people are not important at all. If that is the case then this exercise would not be helpful. But I have never yet seen a person who does not crave fulfilling interpersonal relationships. In fact, I think virtually everybody would rank that as a VERY high priority item, if not the highest priority item.
This exercise allows you to focus on the highest priority interpersonal relationships you can have. Its purpose is to give you an insight, not into others, but into yourself. It tells you what YOU want.
You cannot control the actions of others but you do have some control of your own actions. And your own actions do affect how others see you. If through this exercise you determine that trustworthiness is an important trait for you to have, then you need to become trustworthy. If you become trustworthy then it will be more likely that people will see you as trustworthy.
That is the point of the exercise.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
I'm not sure you understand what I was saying...
I don't think interpersonal relationships are the top priority, though i do think they are a huge vital part of life...
I wasn't talking about impressing people while doing the actual exercise. I said I thought it was a good exercise, though obviously done privately, i get that...
what i mean is that if a person goes on to live their life with this exercise or the premise of it as their main conscious goal, they will become too much of a people pleaser since their main objective is to care what people think about them.
I am not disagreeing that this is a great measure in a lot of ways...I just wouldn't trust it as my main or only measure...it's not objective enough on its own....that's all.
OK, I'll bite
(1) What is more important than interpersonal relationships?
(2) Why would you want an objective measure when what you are trying to find is what is (subjectively) important to you?
(3) Why would you think that this exercise gives one more of a propesity to become a "people pleaser" than to become the person they want to be?
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Once again a very informative well put post DB, sadly you have people who totally missed the point :(
I believe that you should be a good person not out of fear of some diety but because you want to be, and whatnot and so fourth :)
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"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."~MPATHG
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
I must say, the method you presented had me thinking. I think I have a few people to call to remind that I love them now. :) Very interesting.
If I might digress for just a second (since it seems to have already happened a few comments ago), I would just like to say I am troubled that you have experienced so many negative, dogmatic encounters with Christians. I hope that your encounters with me on this site will be anything but that. In light of your blog, I would say that I want you and others to see me as (for lack of a better term) a "thinking Christian", and more importantly, a considerate person.
I hope you never feel you have to defend your beliefs to me, just like I will never feel compelled to defend my faith to you. After all, this is a great country in which we live, where we all have the right to believe as we please and conduct ourselves in the way we best see fit (within the law, of course). Or as Voltaire once said: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” God bless America! Haha, or as my best friend (quite the lovable atheist he is) would say, "Darwin bless America." :)
Thanks for the blog. Made me think!
First of all, if you are atheist, why do you work so hard to disprove the Christian God and not the many other pagan gods and goddesses as well. Or is it your opinion that these other religions and gods need no disproving?
Lots of people swear and say, "Jesus!" when their plane is going down, but you never hear anyone saying, "Oh, Buddah!" Funny. Just something to think about.
Another thing I find highly offensive is spreading lies that have no foundation other than your ignorant biases towards spiritual things, especially God of whom you know nothing about.
Your statement, "This is bullshit of course. I have had no problem finding meaning and purpose without God. And when I ask the religious fundamentalists making these claims what the purpose is that God gives us, I get either silence or a pathetic answer like, “to praise God”. If God made us to praise him, he is one pathetic sky-gremlin suffering from a case of severe low self-esteem."
Funny, I heard that God's purpose for creating us is because He was making a family for Himself. He wanted a family to love just like humans feel a need to have a family to love. Is that so difficult to understand? I guess it would be for someone as full as bitter bile and hatred as you.
Truly, I find you worthy of utter contempt not only for your blasphemies but also bc you are trying to convince others that your lies are truth. In a sense you are acting as satan himself. Even satan has followers but that doesn't mean squat except they will partake of the same hell as he will.
"Put your faith completely in Jesus Christ, not in any man or any movement."
~ Robert L. Sumner
Again, you are incredibly rude. Again your response has absolutely nothing to do with this blog. This blog makes no argument against God's existence at all. You could have posted this on this blog in which I did make an argument against God's existence.
I have left you this link before but you have ignored it. In fact, you seem to be avoiding that particular blog (especially since it addresses nonsense you initiated). Is it because you cannot address that argument that you seem intent on derailing this one?
I tell you what! Since you don't seem to be able to follow the link and I DO want to respond to your lack of substance, I'll copy your entire reply and repost it for you on the more appropriate blog. How's that?
EDIT
OK I've finished the reply. You can find it here:
http://www.progressiveu.org/000335-responding-to-ignorance-very-long-pos...
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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Evolution says that we share a common ancestor with a jackass. It does not give us license to act like one.
God is an evidentialist. Be a skeptic, but when truth is put in front of you, what will you do with it? Put the Bible under question, where did it come from, who is the historical Jesus?
If Jesus is who he claims, then what of your theory?
If you are serious about finding the meaning of life, I hope your creator would enter the picture. Good Luck
I am having a hard time with this advice that should be very helpful but not anyway.
You say in the blog I want you to imagine that over the next 10 year time period you live the most amazing life you can imagine. You get everything you want; you accomplish everything you set out to accomplish; your school life is perfect; your home life is perfect; your work life is perfect. This would be helpful if it was true and that I got everything I wanted. I want a new suv with a camper that stays dry and a bass boat with all the trimmings. Also I want a cabin in the woods instead of being stuck in a noisy and polluted city where traffic races by all the time. All these things would make me happier for sure. But then like you say these things are not important. Having someone to share them with is and having lots of friends and all. What about a hermit or recluse who has nobody? Is there another way that life can be good for us too??? Nobody in my life has time to be my pal and spend time doing things with me. They too busy in other stuff.
"In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool."
Lord Chesterfield
"The doors of wisdom are never shut."
Benjamin Franklin
While it would be nice if we ACTUALLY got everything we wanted that is not the point of this exercise. The point of imagining the perfect life for the next ten years is to imagine yourself at the best that you could possibly be.
You can certainly imagine yourself having an SUV, boat, and cabin in the woods, but you also have to imagine yourself dying. What good are those things then? What lives on after you is your affect on other people. That is what is most lasting and meaningful.
I'm very sorry that no one in your life has time to be a pal with you. But you cannot control other people's time. You can only control yours. What are you going to do about it?
If you want to be a person who has friends to hang around with then you need to be a person that others would like to hang around. If you aren't that now then you need to take stock and see what you can do to become that. But REMEMBER there are NO short cuts. If you are going to try and change yourself then you need to do so by taking small steps. There are times you will fail, but if the goal is a worthy one then it will be worth the effort.
Perhaps you could join a group that shares an interest of yours. If you enjoy reading, perhaps there is an informal book club. You seem to enjoy camping, perhaps the Sierra Club or an Audubon Society. You know you better than I'll ever know you. If you don't like any suggestions I give find something on your own.
Once you join the club, try and get to know a few individuals. You may or may not take a liking to them. It doesn't matter. Your job is to become a person that others want to hang around. What skills does that take?
This isn't brain surgery, people want to hang around others that are fun. What can you do to make a person's time around you fun? That's what you need to ask yourself. You may fail sometimes but sometimes you will succeed. Success and failure lead to learning. Keep on doing it and you will become good at doing it. After a while you will have friends.
Treasure them.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
This is very good advice. If one person believes in God and another doesn't, that does not mean that either individual is wrong. Sadly, some people overlook good advice and insist on judging others because of a difference in religious beliefs. Life is to short to judge others based on their religion. To me, the most helpful part of the exercise was listing what others would say about me. Actions speak a lot louder than words. I would like people to say that I'm a positive person, but that takes a lot of work. After reading about this exercise I constantly remind myself that hard work will be rewarded. It's easy to sit back and complain about how what another person thinks about you, but with a bit of effort, those thoughts can be changed.
Well, who says there is a meaning to life anyways. Who said we are all not just some accident of chemicals mixing. Like cotton candy?
yes, i am atheist.
but-
i do not give a shit what other people are
i have fun
i dont think that much about the consequences
people love me for who i am
Regarding theism; I try not to. It gives me a headache. A headache which only reading or remembering the first amendment can remedy.
However I do enjoy a good example of irony from time to time, which theocratic debate often lends itself to quite handily. I’m just making that statement. No implications that your entry was in any way an invitation to debate the existence of God. Or are there?;-)
While not exactly a full fledged, cause me to question my own existence sort of irony, your blog entry does have an element of irony, in that you attempt to establish a definition of virtue of one’s life as accessed after one’s life.
So I would say that the tree you are barking up is the same tree which religions have all used to try to attract a following; the notion of a definitive reality in an afterlife.
Does it matter if we float down the River Styx face down or face up?
Statements which begin with “humans are..” like your statement “Humans are social creatures.”, almost invariably belie the fact that humans are unique among species in so many aspects. This also is a uniquely human trait known as perceptual transposition behavior, to me at least, it seems like when a dog does something akin to human behavior happenstansualy for which it is rewarded. It will do it repeatedly to please its master not because it is trying to act human.
People are often mistaken in thinking that in the course of human evolution, cognitive function (thinking) replaced acting instinctively. Thinking arose from acting out of habituation through benefiting from increased powers of observation, which arose from and replaced instinct.
Point to ponder- Is there a remnant of instinct which on one hand is something when we distance ourselves from it we increase our mental capability and on the other hand if we assume an abundance of intelligence ie; mental capacity to spare and seek to embrace it, do we increase our physical capability?
You! By the plant stand! Stand still with it!
Fr33 2 b
Restoring Faith In Humanity One Acquaintance At A Time
(1) No this blog is not intended to debate the existence of God. I have posted a number of other blogs that do that.
(2) I have not attempted to "establish virtue" at all. I have only attempted to give an exercise that enables one to determine what he himself sees as meaningful.
(3) I sincerely doubt that I am "barking up the tree of the certainty of an afterlife", especially since I am one of the more vocal atheists on this blog. You REALLY need to read what I wrote with an attempt to understand what I said, not what you have decided beforehand what I must be saying.
(4) Statements like "Humans are social creatures" do not "belie the fact that humans are unque among species" since there are many social species. Non-human social species include ants, bats, chimps, dolfins, elephants, foxes, goats, howler monkeys, iguana, jackels, killdeer, lemurs, marmosets, naked mole rats, quail, opposums, penguins, raccoons, seals, termites, uinta ground squirrels, voles, wildebeast, yellowjackets, and zebras. That pretty much covers the alphabet (except I couldn't think of one for "X").
(5) In ethology (the study of behavior) what is distinguished from "instinctual behavior" is technically called "learned behaviors". Both instinctual and learned behaviors are part of an organism's "cognitive function".
While your idea on the origin of learned behavior is interesting I fail to see how it relates at all to my post.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
I can't wait to have the time to check out your other blog entries. And find an appropriate place to put the response.
As to this one, yes you can assign purpose using the method you described. That is great, but don't you think that is somewhat illogical given your worldview? You are after all just matter, particles, the result of random collisions that created living organisms, that through further collisions became intelligent and evolved to humans but at the end of the day still just matter in motion. Appealing to any purpose is quite illogical. in fact any appeal to logic doesn't make sense in a random, motion in matter universe.
http://logicalworldview.blogspot.com/
No.
You misdescribe the process greatly. But I am matter. I am matter arranged in such a way that I have feelings, wants, desires, and goals that are very dear to me. That is a special quality that makes me different from most other forms of matter. I am that at the beginning and the end of the day. Ultimately, the matter that I am now will be dispersed and I wont be. But that is then and this is now.
One of the goals that I have is to leave a legacy that can be used by my loved ones that outlast me to make their lives easier. I try to do that by imparting what I know of the world, living a life that exemplifies high standards, showing concern for their welfare, and being supportive of their goals. That is ALL adaptive. It is ALL imparted upon us by the process of evolution.
Matter is not random. It has specific properties that makes its behavior not random. Motion is not random. It is controlled by the four forces of matter. We are not random. A major driving force in our genesis is natural selection ... NATURE SELECTED something. ... and the selection process is not random.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Matter arranged in such a way that you have feelings? Wants? Desires? gee inorganic matter becoming organic then becoming intelligent - that must take a lot of faith in science to believe that occurs naturally? And by chance even.
Natural selection? Really, so what principles of matter have we observed that give evidence towards natural selection?
While were on the topic of matter not being random and having specific properties, can you point to where we have been able to observe and re-create matter producing love? What is the chemical reaction for love?
How about morals, if matter is governed by forces and specific properties and that is what created you, can we say the same for a pedophile? Why does the pedophile’s matter organize in a way different to yours? And if it is just there organization of matter with specific properties can we really blame them or punish them.
In fact choices go out the window with your logic that matter is not random, in fact your choices are an illusion as well.
You appeal to a lot of personal forces but impersonal beginnings, plus chance and time do not equal personal characteristics - at best if I was to adopt your worldview it is logical to say any feelings, emotions, and personal attributes are merely illusions and holding to them is delusion to avoid the inevitable consequences of the worldview.
(1) No faith is required to believe a naturalistic origin of life. The evidence clearly points to it. We know the building blocks of macromolecules can be produced abiotically. We know that life preferentially uses just those building blocks that are MOST easily produced abiotically. We know that life got going at a very early stage of earth's history and the earliest thing that we unequivocally call life was like the simplest lifeforms of today. We know that life slowly diversified, remaining unicellular for most of earth's history. We know that life diversified from ancestral forms into the diversity we have today. We know that because the evidence for it is overwhelming. No faith is required for that.
(2) You are trying to argue that impersonal forces cannot lead to personal attributes. This is not true. Life evolves in response to environmental pressures. If personal attributes are adaptive ... and they are ... then there is no reason that personal attributes would not evolve.
(3) In your first post you used the word "random" to mischaracterize the naturalistic model. Now you are using the word "chance". What do you mean by "chance"? It seems to me that you are using it exactly like you used "random", if so it is another mischaracterization of the naturalistic model.
There is contingency in the naturalistic model. We did not HAVE to evolve. Evolution could have taken many different courses. In that sense "chance" is appropriate. But given the conditions that existed on early earth, it was probably an inevitability that life would arise. I say that because life arose quickly, probably only a few hundred million years after water cooled sufficiently to form liquid pools on the surface. So "chance" had little to do with the origin of life.
(4) It sounds as though you are trying to argue free will in your one sentence paragraph about choices. Before you can do that you will have to define for me exactly what you mean by free will. Do you mean that a person is free to chose to believe anything he wants to believe. If so then free will is an illusion. I think it would be neat if cows' rectums were actually interstellar wormholes leading to an alternate universe inhabited by beautiful women wanting nothing more than please us. No matter how much I may want to believe that, I can't convince myself to try to crawl up a cow's ass to check it out.
If on the other hand you believe that out of a field of potential choices we will use our own brain to select the one we perceive best given what we know, then I can buy free will.
(5) Given my worldview there is no LOGICAL reason to believe that personal attributes are illusions. See how easy it is to refute unsubstantiated assertion.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Organic matter produced from inorganic matter in a laboratory - really, let's see the evidence?
Evidence of evolution - are you talking about the fossil record, surely not. No evidence there of gradual change - in fact the fossil record seems to show life forms fully formed.
Stephen Jay Gould "In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and 'fully formed'" (Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, May 1977, pp. 13-14).
Your point 2 is laughable - impersonal matter does not become personal, you have no evidence of that just a presupposition.
Point 3 - you can not avoid the inevitable, that in your worldview life is from nothing and could have been anyone of a myriad of possiblities, yet you cling to a desire to "make the most of it" - very irrational.
Point 4 - no where is the chemical, purely science evidence of free will? Free will, that is the ability to decide whether to do A or B is an illusion in your worldview.
You cling to science for all the answers, yet it is only half the picture. Do you believe that science can one day explain everything?
BTW how about answers to the questions posed? Your worldview has only one place to go, downward to the point that man is a zero, nothing more than matter. No special place in the universe, an abberation.
Er ... take a course in organic chemistry. The first instance was the synthesis of urea and it was done several hundred years ago.
But if you want the evidence that building blocks of macromolecules can be made abiotically, the first place to start is with the Miller, Urey experiments of 1950's showing the abiotic production of amino acids. Those experiments have been repeated under a number of different plausible "early earth" scenarios, Next try Juan Oro for Neucleotides. There has also been demonstrations sugars and lipids.
Not only that there is evidence that amino acids (at least) HAVE been produced abiotically. They were found in the inside of the Murchison Meteorite.
Take the challenge please. Then get back to me and tell me exactly why this isn't a steady transformation.
Also learn somethng about Punctuated Equilibrium before making an ass out of yourself ignorantly quoting Gould.
I'll let others decide who should be laughed at.
Do you have a clue what "irrational" actually means? Please tell us exactly why it is irrational. What law of logic do you think is being violated?
Why would ANYBODY think that it is a single chemical that constitutes free will. "[D]ecid[ing] to do A or B" is a thought process which involves the activity of millions of cells.
I believe that science will always provide us with the best explanation at that moment.
That is a truly pathetic view. Why would man be a zero? I don't know about you by what makes my place special in the universe is that it is where I am. I have a special interest in things like that.
Here is a blog that expounds on my "worldview". I will put its philosophy as the equal or better to yours.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
(1) Punctuated Equilibrium - Now you are getting closer to the Christian position that life forms appeard in sudden bursts.
(2) Who said it was one chemical that provided free will, you don;t have evidence that your worldview demands, yet claim you do not act on faith.
(3) Man is a zero if he is just a sum of the parts. Tell me why he isn't a zero, at the end of the day man can only be reduced to particles of matter, nothing more in your worldview. It makes no difference how you propose this matter comes together, and interacts at the end of the day it is matter. - I have had discussions with other non-theists that at least admit this is true.
Just becuase you call the view pathetic does not make it so. This conversation has no place to go, as you refuse to admit you are nothing more than particles of matter. Nothing more than just an array of matter organized in this way or that way, but at the end of the day it is just matter - that is your irrational, illogical stance - you want me to accept we are matter and matter alone yet you can not admit this really makes everything else mute and worthless - it might as well be a dream.
You argue that having a interpersonal relationship is important, dont you think having an interpersonal relationship with God is important too? Before you leave this world it is good to have a good relationship with him so you know you are welcome to kingdom gate.. You argue that people act the way they do so other can think good of them and that is why Christian act they way they act because they want God to think good of them so when they leave this earth they are welcome to the Kingdom gates
First off DB doesn't believe in God, that is what an atheist is, someone who doesn't believe in the existence of a higher power.
He has the right assumption about Christians for the most part. I mean, I know people of other beliefs who do what they do, because it makes them feel good and it helps people. Humans are pretty selfish creatures. All types of people act good so people will think they are good, but they're not, or because they're trying to live up to their religious beliefs. Others act good because they are good.
(1) I think having an "interpersonal relationship" with something that doesn't exist is one of the least important things imaginable ... not to mention impossible.
(2) My argument is not that you act a certain way in order to have people think good things of you. My argument is that if you think it important to have a certain quality of character in yourself, then you must develop that character in yourself. The idea of imagining what friends and loved ones would say about you is to help you realize what qualities you think are most important for you to possess in your character.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France