Why is there religion???

[Roger Bissell]

6 minutes ago, moralist said:

Not non believers, Roger... belief that something does not exist is no different from belief that something does exist. They're both the same kind of belief, except one is belief in what is true while the other is belief in a lie.

 

 

Atheists and secularists "believe that something does not exist"? Atheists and secularists are "nothing but" cockroaches?

So, there is a species of cockroach that "believes that something does not exist"?? That's even funnier (and scarier) than what you said before! Get a grip, man.  

Also, based on the order in which you listed them, it would appear you think that belief that something (God) does not exist is belief in what is true - while belief that something (God) does exist is belief in a lie. I can certainly agree with that!  

REB

[Roger Bissell]

I do agree that everybody has to believe in something. I believe I'll let you stew in your theistic juices and find something more productive to do - like catch some zzzzz's.

REB

[moralist]

9 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

You must have a ball stuffing people who reject your mythic beliefs into the pigeonholes of leftwing and theocratic statism.

The political spectrum is not a straight line, but is actually a circle where radical left meets extreme right on the backside where they are in complete secular atheistic accord on dope perversion and abortion... the trinity of Holy Sacraments in their common religion. 

 

As to whatever you chose to believe... the objective reality of getting exactly what you deserve in life is the only final judge on the validity of your own beliefs... or mine... or anyone else for that matter.

Greg

[Roger Bissell]

16 minutes ago, moralist said:

complete secular atheistic accord on dope perversion and abortion ... the trinity of Holy Sacraments in their common religion. 

I have a number of "secular atheist" friends who will laugh themselves silly over this. By your way of thinking, I must be a drug addict and an advocate of abortion on demand. But since you've invoked a trinity of Holy Sacraments for us "secular atheists" and only listed two of them, your math skills are as questionable as your metaphysics. 

REB

[Roger Bissell]

21 minutes ago, moralist said:

the objective reality of getting exactly what you deserve in life is the only final judge on the validity of your own beliefs.

Works for me.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

7 hours ago, moralist said:

IF that is ALL you are... you are NOTHING more than a decomposing bloated bloviating government educated cockroach.

 

Greg

I am an autodidact.  I am a member of a primate species and when I die my body will rot, and my consciousness will cease.

All there is are atoms and energy  flitting about in the space-time manifold.  Do not confuse your subjectivities with the facts  of reality.

I am enjoying  my  10^2 years (order of magnitude) of a non-equilibrium thermodynamic state.  That will end soon enough.

[Roger Bissell]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

8 hours ago, moralist said:

IF that is ALL you are... you are NOTHING more than a decomposing bloated bloviating government educated cockroach.

 

Greg

 

I am an autodidact.  I am a member of a primate species and when I die my body will rot, and my consciousness will cease.

All there is are atoms and energy  flitting about in the space-time manifold.  Do not confuse your subjectivities with the facts  of reality.

I am enjoying  my  10^2 years (order of magnitude) of a non-equilibrium thermodynamic state.  That will end soon enough.

 

This is basically what my uncle tells me each time he sees me - right after he gives me a hug and tells me it's really good to see me.

All of that would be meaningless and pointless if life just went on and on. It is only with life and death that existence has meaning and significance.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

17 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

This is basically what my uncle tells me each time he sees me - right after he gives me a hug and tells me it's really good to see me.

All of that would be meaningless and pointless if life just went on and on. It is only with life and death that existence has meaning and significance.

REB

If you had a chance to live to a thousand in a healthy fashion would you take it?

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

If you had a chance to live to a thousand in a healthy fashion would you take it?

With the burdens of memory?

It would only make sense if others also lived that long that way so there wouldn't be a waterfall of deaths defining and/or marking your prolonged existence.

In any case, you'd not be able to keep up with normal, regular humans self evolving through electronic and biological advances. The normal sized human brain can be a lot smarter than most humans are--there's enough room in the skull--so almost everybody could be an IQ genius. An IQ of 180 today could easily be only an IQ of 100 a thousand years from now.--that is, average. Maybe that'd be available to you, maybe not. (Here, take this pill.)

The only reason I'd want to live to a thousand is to be a witness to the next 1000 years of human history, but I'd end up a freak in a zoo, albeit celebrated, but poked and examined by scientists who can hardly wait for the autopsy results. (Maybe they'll speed things up a little.)

--Brant

so I was talking with my late father about cryogenics for people and why I was against it for me: say sometime in the future you have this facility trying to bring back to life one of those frozen bodies--"Hey, Frank, that one didn't work--go get another one out of the freezer"

[Peter]

Gee Greg. This is a representative of God. Up to your old blasphemous tricks? You tar good people by stupidly pigeon holing them. You must use your silly religious beliefs as proof. How is your unreason any better than Buddists, or Hinduists or Maoists? They all use the lack of reason and faith as proof. Objectivists and fans of Rand are required to use reason and *contextual-ism* as their means of examining LIFE. We use modern Aristotelian reason and the tools available today. You are stuck in horseshit dogma. That’s all I have to say to you. Grow a brain, or get thee to a nunnery!

Saint Peter

[Roger Bissell]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

2 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

This is basically what my uncle tells me each time he sees me - right after he gives me a hug and tells me it's really good to see me.

All of that would be meaningless and pointless if life just went on and on. It is only with life and death that existence has meaning and significance.

REB

 

If you had a chance to live to a thousand in a healthy fashion would you take it?

 

Well, maybe 200, subject to Brant's additional points about companions, memories, etc. A thousand might be difficult, kind of the crow epistemology applied to mental longevity.

A very touching movie, my absolute favorite by Robin Williams, was Bicentennial Man. He plays an android who eventually becomes fully human, which is all I'll say about it, except that it's very pertinent to the whole subject of the meaning and value of life, especially in the face of mortality.

REB

[moralist]

10 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

Atheists and secularists "believe that something does not exist"? Atheists and secularists are "nothing but" cockroaches?

No. Try to follow.  

If there is nothing transcendent to man... then men are not any more or less important than cockroaches. They are of equal importance.

 

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

1 minute ago, moralist said:

No. Try to follow.  

If there is nothing transcendent to man... then men are not any more or less important than cockroaches. They are of equal importance.

 

Greg

Importance is a judgement call.  

The existence of humanity has no cosmic import.  The stars will shine and go dark  with or without  us.

[Roger Bissell]

Just now, moralist said:

10 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

Atheists and secularists "believe that something does not exist"? Atheists and secularists are "nothing but" cockroaches?

No. Try to follow.  

If there is nothing transcendent to man... then men are not any more or less important than cockroaches. They are of equal importance.

 

I'm not a sheep. I do not follow. If you wish to apply your condescension to someone as dimwitted as you seem to think I am, I suggest speaking to the mirror.

More or less important TO WHOM and FOR WHAT? If you don't consider and answer these questions, then the whole issue of life with or without God is meaningless.

So, don't be projecting YOUR failure to consider the source and meaning of value - which is life - onto other people. You obviously haven't grasped it yourself, except in relation to unseen fairytale entities that you think will give you a skyhook to a non-existent afterlife.

REB

[moralist]

3 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

I'm not a sheep. I do not follow.

Roger, before you can even disagree, it's necessary to at least understand what you're disagreeing with.

Your questions indicated that you didn't understand the difference between "man is a cockroach" and "man is of no more or less importance than a cockroach", so I defined that difference so you can at least have an idea of what you have a disagreement. I have no problem with disagreement as long as people first understand exactly with what they do not agree.

 

Greg

[moralist]

28 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The existence of humanity has no cosmic import.

There ya go, Bob.

You are of no more or less importance than a cockroach... except the cockroach wasn't educated by the government.

 

Greg

[moralist]

48 minutes ago, Peter said:

 You tar good people by stupidly pigeon holing them.

Peter, to the liberal government educated secularist there is no objective right or wrong. There is only opinion. And one opinion of what is good and what is evil is of no greater importance than another. And no one has the right to judge anything to be any better or worse than another.

This is the ultimate conclusion of secular liberal egalitarianism... which is also a religion.

 

Greg

[Roger Bissell]

2 minutes ago, moralist said:

10 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

I'm not a sheep. I do not follow.

Roger, before you can even disagree, it's necessary to at least understand what you're disagreeing with.

Your questions indicated that you didn't understand the difference between "man is a cockroach" and "man is of no more or less importance than a cockroach", so I defined that difference so you can at least have an idea of what you have a disagreement. I have no problem with disagreement as long as people first understand exactly with what they do not agree.

 

 

Do you have amnesia, or are you deliberately pulling our legs here? I'm replying to YOUR words. I never said "man is a cockroach," and I never said that YOU said that. Here is what you said:

11 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

Very intelligent, very honorable people have believed that this life is all there is long before there was government education. 

Then, you said

IF that is ALL they truly are... then they are just two legged talking cockroaches.

If there is no transcendence:

HUMAN = COCKROACH

You believe that without "transcendence," humans are "just two legged talking cockroaches." We don't see ourselves that way, and we reject your seeing us that way. If you are serious in this opinion, then you are delusional, and you need therapy. I suggest talking to a psychiatrist or even a non-fanatical minister.

Also, before we can continue discussion, you need to admit to what you've already said and stop the disinformation. If it's deliberate, you are immoral and not worthy of further conversation. If it's not deliberate, you are cognitively impaired and need to retrain yourself into remembering what you have said in the past 12 hours, so that you don't blurt out things that blatantly deny what you said.

REB

[moralist]

10 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

 But since you've invoked a trinity of Holy Sacraments for us "secular atheists" and only listed two of them...

You missed the middle one, so I'll be more specific.

To secularists the Holy Trinity of their political religion is dope, sexual perversion, and abortion. So as social activists, they promote the acceptance of those three values in society. And because America is fast becoming just another European leftist secular big government welfare state, they are enjoying great success promoting their "ideals".

(and dope just isn't illegal drugs, it can also be psychotropic prescriptions)

Secular America is awash in dope.

It has become a narcoculture.

Greg

[Peter]

Gregorian chanted: To secularists the Holy Trinity of their political religion is dope, sexual perversion, and abortion. end quack

No it isn't. Do you mean hippies? How can you say such rubbish, when not one, IN FACT ZERO OF THEM, would describe themselves that way? How have you divined truthiness from their IDEALS and mentality when every one of them would be astonished at your stupidity and ignorance? God is watching you Greg. He gave you a thinking brain. Facts are required to support the truth. Don't disappoint Him.

Peter 

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

No. Try to follow.  

If there is nothing transcendent to man... then men are not any more or less important than cockroaches. They are of equal importance.

 

Greg

Important to whom? Men are not important to cockroaches and vice versa.

--Brant

except when they get in each other's way

but I do agree you've attained personal and unearned moral religious bloviation

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

You missed the middle one, so I'll be more specific.

To secularists the Holy Trinity of their political religion is dope, sexual perversion, and abortion. So as social activists, they promote the acceptance of those three values in society. And because America is fast becoming just another European leftist secular big government welfare state, they are enjoying great success promoting their "ideals".

(and dope just isn't illegal drugs, it can also be psychotropic prescriptions)

Secular America is awash in dope.

It has become a narcoculture.

Greg

In the early 19th century it was awash in whiskey.

--Brant

hick!

[moralist]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Important to whom? Men are not important to cockroaches and vice versa.

That's my point. See? To secularists there's no difference between men and cockroaches even in their regard for each other.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

3 minutes ago, moralist said:

That's my point. See? To secularists there's no difference between men and cockroaches even in their regard for each other.

Greg

Nope, they hardly regard each other. Valuing here is species confined--usually. Now, if a man wants to marry a cockroach we might wonder about it.

If you want to get scientific, however, all complex life is reducible to the Double Helix of DNA. Science cannot so far explain that seemingly basic but incredibly complex thingy. From bacteria to the Blue Whale is comparatively simple. By saying "cockroach" you simply want to use a gross image to stigmatize someone who disagrees with you. What's more apt is the disparagement of someone you tries to use reason mixed up with if not based on faith. For a true secularist--not those lefties you get on about--the only faith comparable might be described as axiomatic reasoning because you cannot adduce evidence for an axiom from without the axiom.

--Brant

[moralist]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

No it isn't.

Yes it is. America is steeped in drugs. Both prescription and illegal including marijuana and alcohol.

 

 

 

America is a narcoculture.

You'd have to be on dope not to see it.

 

Greg