Hi

[Baruch]

I concidered myself nihilist, until i discovered absurdism, which i think i fit more into.

You Dischordian you ;-)

[Arik]

I've long considered myself to be a nihilist. I don't believe the universe, or anything in it, has any extrinsic, objective meaning. Life itself my have intrinsic meaning, though, and only that meaning that we provide can give the universe meaning.

Many have wondered what is the meaning of life, and what meaning life can have in a universe without God. This is the wrong question. It assumes that meaning can only be passed from God (or the universe) to us. The correct question is: What meaning could God, if it exists, or the universe, possibly have without life? Before God created the universe, he could have had no meaning at all, given that he was the sole existent. Without something other than himself to relate to, God could have had no meaning at all. Even after the universe was created, God would still have lacked all meaning, until mind arose.

And in a universe without God, such as we find ourselves in, the universe also derives its meaning from us, not vice versa. before the advent of life, especially sentient life, the universe could have had no meaning at all. It is we that provide meaning and purpose to the universe, by allowing the universe to observe itself, to understand itself, although imperfectly, as yet. And because we have meaning for ourselves, that meaning is transferred to the universe that engendered us.

Guessing after guessing after guessing in a never ending trying in order to establish a theory that make sense.

All uselessly.

Obviously you start with the wrong foot by thinking that within a material universe you can find any answer.
The same goes for our mate Mike when he says that ...........ideas come from our material brains.......

It would be like saying that it is the vehicle and not the driver that decide where to go.
Absurd.
How can pure matter void of any awareness be able to think and act?

Atheists just don't get it.
Even the science that materialists glorify all the time does not back any of the materialists ideas.
None at all.

Since when science say that the consciousness is a product of the brain or that consciousness life end with the physical death?

Don't you think is time to get real?

[Baruch]

The first mistake is thinking one can never be mistaken.  The second mistake is realizing one is mistaken, and not moving forward from there.  Many people here are over 50 years old, we have a hard time losing our leopard spots.

[trdsf]

"The problem is that we humans not being able to describe this power in simple words have no choice but to say Him."  Try saying "it" and see how that fits.  Logically, it should.  Or try saying "Her" and expand your "consciousness". LOL!  I would object to that just as much, but I would give you credit for TRYING to think.

Or 'Them'.  I used to drive the Campus Crusaders up the metaphorical wall when I'd point out to them that referring to their god only as 'he' was putting a human limitation on that which was by their own definition supposed to be beyond limitation, and that therefore it was equally valid to use 'she', 'it', and 'they'.  Only one of them ever had the logical consistency to agree.  And after a couple encounters like that, they started leaving me alone...

[Baruch]

Or 'Them'.  I used to drive the Campus Crusaders up the metaphorical wall when I'd point out to them that referring to their god only as 'he' was putting a human limitation on that which was by their own definition supposed to be beyond limitation, and that therefore it was equally valid to use 'she', 'it', and 'they'.  Only one of them ever had the logical consistency to agree.  And after a couple encounters like that, they started leaving me alone...

Correct ... mono, binary and plurality are just POV.  They aren't the ultimate ... hence my return to polytheism, as a useful gambit.  Because sometimes monotheism is unintelligible.  We don't all share the same "cognitive ease" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cebFWOlx848

[Arik]

The first mistake is thinking one can never be mistaken.  The second mistake is realizing one is mistaken, and not moving forward from there.  Many people here are over 50 years old, we have a hard time losing our leopard spots.

Yes, but I also suppose that to admit that we are mistaken would show our failure in life and that is hard to digest.









But not all is lost...........in fact.....................

[Arik]

Or 'Them'.  I used to drive the Campus Crusaders up the metaphorical wall when I'd point out to them that referring to their god only as 'he' was putting a human limitation on that which was by their own definition supposed to be beyond limitation, and that therefore it was equally valid to use 'she', 'it', and 'they'.  Only one of them ever had the logical consistency to agree.  And after a couple encounters like that, they started leaving me alone...

Obviously these people that did not know what to answer must have been quite good in their faith but very poor in their understanding of how the system works.

It is because God is beyond limitation that we humans find difficult to describe such an entity and that is not a failure in any way but to admit that we humans still have some way to climb before we will be able to understand everything so to say HIM is quite honest.

It is quite natural that we humans have limitations otherwise we would be like God.

[Mike Cl]

It is quite natural that we humans have limitations otherwise we would be like God.

Or Bugs Bunny or Pecos Bill or fairies or the Easter Bunny or .........................any other fiction.

[Arik]

Or Bugs Bunny or Pecos Bill or fairies or the Easter Bunny or .........................any other fiction.

Ok. Mike.......let me see your signature.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent,
Is he able but not willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able or willing?
Then why call him god?


It seems that in your statement free will doesn't exist and kids that grow up should be controlled by their father.

Do you really like as an adult to be controlled by your father?
So why you expect God to control his adult creatures?
Don't you know that only low form of life such as plants and animals follow mother nature instinct while men (men and women) are not?
Can you see that you are a total contradiction?

[Mike Cl]

Ok. Mike.......let me see your signature.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent,
Is he able but not willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able or willing?
Then why call him god?


It seems that in your statement free will doesn't exist and kids that grow up should be controlled by their father.

Do you really like as an adult to be controlled by your father?
So why you expect God to control his adult creatures?
Don't you know that only low form of life such as plants and animals follow mother nature instinct while men (men and women) are not?
Can you see that you are a total contradiction?

How you got whatever it is you are rambling on about out of my signature, is beyond me.  What my signature does is simply point out what a contradiction the concept of god really is.  Your comments on my signature makes no sense at all.  I really don't know what your point is nor how free will and being controlled by my father comes in.  Your communication and grammar skills are nonexistent.  But then, as a theist babble is your language.

[Baruch]

How you got whatever it is you are rambling on about out of my signature, is beyond me.  What my signature does is simply point out what a contradiction the concept of god really is.  Your comments on my signature makes no sense at all.  I really don't know what your point is nor how free will and being controlled by my father comes in.  Your communication and grammar skills are nonexistent.  But then, as a theist babble is your language.

Contradiction isn't a problem if you are a nihilist (Unbeliever) or absurdist (Mr Obvious).  Or an irrationalist (Baruch).

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. â€" 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' â€" Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - Emerson

[Baruch]

Or Bugs Bunny or Pecos Bill or fairies or the Easter Bunny or .........................any other fiction.

Being a Democrat or a Republican or an American or a Frenchman ... these are fictions that the many ascribe to, but majority doesn't make it true.

[Mike Cl]

Contradiction isn't a problem if you are a nihilist (Unbeliever) or absurdist (Mr Obvious).  Or an irrationalist (Baruch).

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. â€" 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' â€" Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - Emerson

Yes, "A foolish consistency" would be a problem.  But it is less of a problem than a foolish inconsistency.  Or a foolish fiction.  Or a foolish belief (there is no other kind of belief is there) in a god is a problem.  " With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."  What bullshit.  A truly great person (there are no souls) is nothing but consistent! 

"Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. â€" 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' --You are describing Trump here, for he changes what he has said from day to day, if not hour to hour.  Your hero's are a pretty crappy bunch--truly mean in most aspects of their lives.  Sort of like your fictional god.

"................and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - Emerson"  There are no 'spirits'.  If that quote is accurate, why then did Emerson write to be understood?  Like all the quotes you tried to feed to me, they are actually bullshit designed to allow a 'leader' to do as they please.  To be misunderstood is easy.  To be understood and to be consistent is not easy and something to be striven for.  Your supplied drivel is stuff of theists.  To be a theist is to be be inconsistent and unreal, and so, to claim that god is so profound that he/she/it will be misunderstood is the crap the small minds of theists want  us to buy into.  Your beastly, inconsistent, cruel and fictional god; something your mind made up and you want to fob off on the rest of us is just that.  It is more a reflection of you than anything else.   

[Mike Cl]

Being a Democrat or a Republican or an American or a Frenchman ... these are fictions that the many ascribe to, but majority doesn't make it true.

That is exactly the same for your, or any other, fictional god.  Because the majority of human kind believes in one god or another does not make it so. 

[Baruch]

That is exactly the same for your, or any other, fictional god.  Because the majority of human kind believes in one god or another does not make it so.

I will stop "believing" when you do it first.  You are not American, not Democrat, not male, not human etc.  those are all figments of the human imagination.