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hopefully_wild
Guest
You’re just making those numbers up!
- Status
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Chaldean_Rite
Guest
have you heard of Pascal’s Wager ?
H
hopefully_wild
Guest
Yes and in a way that is what the last person is asking.
C
CHRISTINE77
Guest
To me the biggest problem with being an atheist is claiming credit for everything that happens in one’s life. It’s an egotistical position, because the atheist is unaware that his/her life is a gift, and that all good things are from the mercy of God. Until a person has faith in God, they can’t get away from their egotism. An atheist has no concept of sin and forgiveness, mercy and redemption, praise and thanksgiving. These are the most precious and beautiful things in life The rest is rather meaningless.
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Lance
Guest
Hopefully,
I don’t know if you saw this earlier post of mine so I am giving it a bump. I am sure your local library will have a copy of The Screwtape Letters and you can read it in an evening. I think you would enjoy it.
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hamba2han
Guest
This is NOT about ‘Pascal’s Wager’ which Muslims generally do not pay much heed to anyway but rather, this is about the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence which shows that there is indeed a Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.
Every one of the creations owes it to him or herself to examine all of these irrefutable scientific arguments that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do indeed have a Creator who they must answer to when they eventually return to Him.
Have a look at this documentary that shows how new discoveries and advances in scientific knowledge in recent years has totally destroyed Darwinism which is of course the bedrock of atheist belief.
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Hislittlelady
Guest
Hello Hopefully Wild,
:coffeeread:
My question to you is Why do we even exist? To what purpose? If there is no purpose to our lives, then to hope in anything is a waste of time, since it will produce nothing but a moment of pleasure.
Forming bonds of love with others has no meaning whatsoever because we will all turn to dust and will be wiped out with only a memory of us that will live in the people we leave behind. After they’re gone, our existence will be no longer remembered and forever lost. No purpose, no meaning to our existence.
This is why to believe in creation requires so much study, and deep contemplation. As I do this, I cannot come to any other conclusion but creation. Nothing else makes sense to my mind at all.
For myself I have found the more I study, the more it becomes a part of my senses, and the more it becomes a reality to me.
If there is no God, no Creator, then we can’t be called creatures. So what are we then? Maybe just a big bundle of walking cells that came together all by themselves with no thought and no design. Can this be???
To be quite honest, with all due respect, I actually don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. For to be an atheist, one must be absolutely, one hundred percent certain, without doubt, that there is no creator. I just can’t make this assertion.
If there is no life after this one, there’s just no point in even living for the now, because it’s all going to go away forever. No hope, no wishes and no dreams of anything. I’d say a big waste of time. Might as well just do ourselves in right now since we won’t know anything anyway, and why waste time on a life with so much heartache and pain with a little joy in between.
Thank you so much for your interesting post and for listening to my comments.
I hope I don’t offend you, I don’t mean to, but I will leave you with
May the Lord bless and keep you, may His light shine upon you, and may He be gracious unto you.
One of His Catholic Daughters who loves the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
:curtsey:
:coffeeread:
My question to you is Why do we even exist? To what purpose? If there is no purpose to our lives, then to hope in anything is a waste of time, since it will produce nothing but a moment of pleasure.
Forming bonds of love with others has no meaning whatsoever because we will all turn to dust and will be wiped out with only a memory of us that will live in the people we leave behind. After they’re gone, our existence will be no longer remembered and forever lost. No purpose, no meaning to our existence.
This is why to believe in creation requires so much study, and deep contemplation. As I do this, I cannot come to any other conclusion but creation. Nothing else makes sense to my mind at all.
For myself I have found the more I study, the more it becomes a part of my senses, and the more it becomes a reality to me.
If there is no God, no Creator, then we can’t be called creatures. So what are we then? Maybe just a big bundle of walking cells that came together all by themselves with no thought and no design. Can this be???
To be quite honest, with all due respect, I actually don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. For to be an atheist, one must be absolutely, one hundred percent certain, without doubt, that there is no creator. I just can’t make this assertion.
If there is no life after this one, there’s just no point in even living for the now, because it’s all going to go away forever. No hope, no wishes and no dreams of anything. I’d say a big waste of time. Might as well just do ourselves in right now since we won’t know anything anyway, and why waste time on a life with so much heartache and pain with a little joy in between.
Thank you so much for your interesting post and for listening to my comments.
I hope I don’t offend you, I don’t mean to, but I will leave you with
May the Lord bless and keep you, may His light shine upon you, and may He be gracious unto you.
One of His Catholic Daughters who loves the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
:curtsey:
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hopefully_wild
Guest
I resent your comment and I disagree with you. I, like the other atheists I know and have met, DO NOT claim credit for everything that happens in our lives. How could I, say, claim credit for my birth? That’s ludicrous. I would give that credit to my mother and her doctor. Of course I wouldn’t give God credit, as is does not fit with my beliefs, however it also does not “fit” with my beliefs to credit myself either. I don’t know what sort of atheists you have met, but it’s my experience that an atheist would no more claim credit for everything that has happened in his life than a Christian would.
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hopefully_wild
Guest
I did not forget you, and I won’t the next time I visit Barnes and Noble either. Promise!
C
CHRISTINE77
Guest
When you sin, who do you turn to for forgiveness? When you gaze out into the heavens at night, who do you thank for creation? When you are alone in your darkest hours, who do you turn to for comfort and mercy? When good things happen to you in your life, who do you thank and praise?
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hopefully_wild
Guest
I am sorry, but I don’t know what you are referring to when you say that there is scientific evidence.
According to Wikipedia: Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis. Such evidence is expected to be **empirical **and properly documented in accordance with scientific method such as is applicable to the particular field of inquiry
According to Wikipedia: To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
So in other words, in order for it to be scientific evidence one must be able to gather it empirically, by observing, and it must be measurable.
I admit I have not yet watched the video. Though if you tell me that what is presented in the video meets these criteria for scientific evidence, then you have my word that I will. I will say it again as I have said before, if there are good enough reasons to believe, I won’t be able to help but to believe. I appreciate your passion.
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hopefully_wild
Guest
Ok. First off, I have a question for you. Are you a person or a bunch of cats and dogs? Lol. As you can see, out ID names are not so much who we are, but something that strikes us as something we like in life. For me, my name is just two words from a song by my favorite band. I like the way it sounds, that’s it. As cats and dogs have very little to do with religion, so does hopefully wild. One aspect of myself is my atheism, another aspect is my love of music. But the two are independent and not overlapping.Yes, by why did you choose it as your ID as it pertains to “who you are”, where one aspect of “you” is your atheism?
(( This is a religious oriented site. You are here to speak with religious oriented people. Your religion is pertinent to EVERYTHING you do here. ))
Since you asked for questions, I’d appreciate answers to my questions, which DO in fact have something to do with your being, supposedly, an atheist.
So, please answer my questions in a way related to your atheism. Thanks bunches!
(the questions are repeated above)
I’d like to ask you another question. Why is my atheism “supposed”? I am an atheist. I do not believe in God. How is this “supposed atheism”?
H
hopefully_wild
Guest
This is another good question. You’ve brought up a really good point. This is a subject I myself have had some trouble with. Unfortunately I don’t have all the answers, or proof that what I think is correct, but I’ll try. I did some free writing while pondering this very thing not too long ago, I’ll add it in a subsequent post.Hello Hopefully Wild,
:coffeeread:
My question to you is Why do we even exist? To what purpose? If there is no purpose to our lives, then to hope in anything is a waste of time, since it will produce nothing but a moment of pleasure.
Forming bonds of love with others has no meaning whatsoever because we will all turn to dust and will be wiped out with only a memory of us that will live in the people we leave behind. After they’re gone, our existence will be no longer remembered and forever lost. No purpose, no meaning to our existence.
This is why to believe in creation requires so much study, and deep contemplation. As I do this, I cannot come to any other conclusion but creation. Nothing else makes sense to my mind at all.
For myself I have found the more I study, the more it becomes a part of my senses, and the more it becomes a reality to me.
If there is no God, no Creator, then we can’t be called creatures. So what are we then? Maybe just a big bundle of walking cells that came together all by themselves with no thought and no design. Can this be???
To be quite honest, with all due respect, I actually don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. For to be an atheist, one must be absolutely, one hundred percent certain, without doubt, that there is no creator. I just can’t make this assertion.
If there is no life after this one, there’s just no point in even living for the now, because it’s all going to go away forever. No hope, no wishes and no dreams of anything. I’d say a big waste of time. Might as well just do ourselves in right now since we won’t know anything anyway, and why waste time on a life with so much heartache and pain with a little joy in between.
Thank you so much for your interesting post and for listening to my comments.
I hope I don’t offend you, I don’t mean to, but I will leave you with
May the Lord bless and keep you, may His light shine upon you, and may He be gracious unto you.
One of His Catholic Daughters who loves the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
:curtsey:
*I THINK *that on the most fundamental level, our purpose in life is to reproduce. That was our goal as amoebas, that was our goal as fish and that was our goal as apes. But as human beings our brains have evolved to such an unmanageable size that this purpose no longer suits us. We don’t want to think of ourselves as living with the sole purpose of procreation. Who would want to? So we attempt to come up with better reasons for why we should give a hoot, right? And there’s NOTHING wrong with this. Now a days, it’s more commonly accepted to believe that our the purpose of life is the purpose we give it. We are extraordinary creatures. We’ve got that survival thing down pretty good. And we definitely have no problem whatsoever with populating the world with our species. So in a way, we’ve already fulfilled our purpose, and now we use our lives to strive to better the lives of ourselves, others and future generations, and in our downtime we can all just sit back and enjoy ourselves.
So, in short, normally when I’m asked this question I simply respond that the purpose of life is to live it. The atheists have a better time with this because the way we see it, this life is the only one we have. There is no garden of Eden at the end of the rainbow, but we do live in a rainbow so we might as well enjoy it.
H
hopefully_wild
Guest
**(This next bit is the free writing I did very late one night about three weeks back. I am posting it to accompany the question I have answered in the previous post. Please DO NOT read it if you cannot be open, if you can’t read it without taking it literally, or if you’re not in opposition to censorship. You have been warned. (Oh, and I also don’t need to hear how sad or depressing or whatever it is. It’s just a bit of creative writing, just a stream of consciousness)) **
*What does it mean to be human? What importance is there in being blobs of insignificant combinations of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen? The truth is it doesn’t mean a damn thing.
Our lives consist of an endless cycle, beginning with the agonizing experience of entering this world of inevitable suffering. And then to continue on to endure the monotony of existence, to be an infinitesimal speck in something so unfathomable that we might as well not exist at all. It is only the wise who recognize that in death, none of it made any damn difference at all.
But we find ways to deceive ourselves into thinking that we’re something of importance, something noteworthy and distinctive. We keep ourselves in the dark with such tricks as the mind game we play called happiness. We lie to ourselves about our own undeniable mortality. We spin our pirouettes of delusion in believing that we are a part of something bigger. We think ourselves to be special, when in reality we are no different from the elements that make up the stars in the sky.
We live in a world of constant destruction, destruction that is caused by our own existence, while we try to fool ourselves using the guise of being good natured, morally driven protectors of our livelihood. While we’ve managed to con ourselves into thinking that humanity will save us all, it is painfully obvious that it is humanity itself that will be our downfall.
But to refuse to surrender to the drug of our own lies that keeps our thinking minds permanently comatose, to find solace in the truth that there is no meaning to our pathetic existence, to embrace your first cigarette of the morning as a long lost friend, to have the desire and the willpower to permit ourselves to let go and experience the mind f*ck that challenges everything that it means to be alive, to no longer be controlled by our assumptions that we are more than physical beings in a physical world, to be unafraid of death and destruction, to realize that true beauty and peace will only be achievable with the extinction of our own race, and to embrace the truth that the only purpose of life is to eventually die.
This is what freedom is.
*
*What does it mean to be human? What importance is there in being blobs of insignificant combinations of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen? The truth is it doesn’t mean a damn thing.
Our lives consist of an endless cycle, beginning with the agonizing experience of entering this world of inevitable suffering. And then to continue on to endure the monotony of existence, to be an infinitesimal speck in something so unfathomable that we might as well not exist at all. It is only the wise who recognize that in death, none of it made any damn difference at all.
But we find ways to deceive ourselves into thinking that we’re something of importance, something noteworthy and distinctive. We keep ourselves in the dark with such tricks as the mind game we play called happiness. We lie to ourselves about our own undeniable mortality. We spin our pirouettes of delusion in believing that we are a part of something bigger. We think ourselves to be special, when in reality we are no different from the elements that make up the stars in the sky.
We live in a world of constant destruction, destruction that is caused by our own existence, while we try to fool ourselves using the guise of being good natured, morally driven protectors of our livelihood. While we’ve managed to con ourselves into thinking that humanity will save us all, it is painfully obvious that it is humanity itself that will be our downfall.
But to refuse to surrender to the drug of our own lies that keeps our thinking minds permanently comatose, to find solace in the truth that there is no meaning to our pathetic existence, to embrace your first cigarette of the morning as a long lost friend, to have the desire and the willpower to permit ourselves to let go and experience the mind f*ck that challenges everything that it means to be alive, to no longer be controlled by our assumptions that we are more than physical beings in a physical world, to be unafraid of death and destruction, to realize that true beauty and peace will only be achievable with the extinction of our own race, and to embrace the truth that the only purpose of life is to eventually die.
This is what freedom is.
*
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
I chose my ID here from a (mangled by me) line in Ghost Busters. You remember the “Dogs and cats, living together!”, line spoken by Dr. Peter Venkman.It seemed apropos to the “arguing” that happens here.
And you actually BELIEVE that?
It is “supposed” because I don’t believe in atheists, very much as you don’t believe in God.
If you operate according to your “ethics and morals”, your ethics must be from somewhere, and that “somewhere” is either congruency with the Church or contrarily to the Church, but in any case directly FROM the Church.
(( If you can provide me with some “atheistic ethic or moral” which didn’t come from, either positively or negative, from the Church, I’d like to hear about it. ))
My questions about your ID had to do with what it is that you hope for, as an atheist, and why you value “wildness”, as an atheist?
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
So, your writing isn’t to be taken seriously, even by yourself?
Why did you write it?
Why do you share it?
You did say you wanted questions, correct?
H
hopefully_wild
Guest
I like to place credit on the people who deserve it. If I “sinned” I would ask for forgiveness from the person I’ve “sinned” against, however I do try to be a good person. I thank no one for creation, as I don’t believe in creation. I turn to friends, family and sometimes even strangers for comfort and mercy. When good things happen in my life, I think the people who have helped make these good things happen.
Consider hurricane Katrina. Who stayed behind to pull bodies from the water? Or 9/11. Who was it that risked their lives to save countless strangers from burning buildings? Consider doctors, police, firefighters and rescue workers. These are all people. And when people do good, and not just good for me but good for anyone, it is to them that I would feel the most proud to give my thanks.
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
Isn’t it true that you’re not an atheist so much as a nihilist?
H
hamba2han
Guest
What is being presented in the 34-minute documentary does indeed meet the criteria of scientific evidence which is collaborated and explained by renowned scientists themselves and it certainly supports what I had contended in a prior post:
If you consider the incredible complexity of the DNA molecule… and then consider further the virtually unimaginable structural and functional intricacies of just a single living cell… you will then begin to understand why I say that there is a 99.99% chance (at the very least!) that a Creator does indeed exist for all of the creations that we see in this world and beyond.
Suppose that there are just 2 possibilities to choose from i.e. either that there is a Creator OR there is not → why on earth then should anyone in his right mind reject the former but would choose instead to believe the latter possibility that has merely a 0.01% chance (at the very most!) of being true?
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