Life has no meaning without God

[davidv]

This has got to be a first, anyone, anyone?

Do you mean someone who is smarter than you would actually disagree with you?

 

[Wowbagger]

Without getting into the evolutionary debate–it is not the teaching of the Catholic Church that life is/was meaningless for those who did/do not believe in God or (more especially) for those who lived in times prior to the fullness of revelation. Such a life is deprived of fullness of meaning, for true meaning can only be found in a true and realistic understanding of the world, but the thesis you’re attacking (“Life for those without God is meaningless.”) is not a Catholic thesis.

I’m at work, so I can’t go Catechism diving just now, but that’s how it is. You’re tilting at windmills here, dude, and, from a pure internet-forum-etiquette perspective, it’s rather pathetic. Carry on.
kesa:

Yep, life isn’t fair – that’s exactly why we needed to invent christianity , assuming it was invented, which I do not think.
The genuis imbedded in the idea is evidence of its divine origin.

It seems to me that that’s an argument against Christianity. The fact that it’s a comfort to the miserable is a sign of human origin, not divine origin, the idea being that we made it up to make sense of a miserable and chaotic world.

So I don’t think that’s a useful tack here.

 

[ready]

Homo-erectus and the other less intellectually developed species of man are not the same species as we are. So I would have to say that they would not have the same relationship to God as we, homo-sapiens do, gifted as we are with the memory, intellect and will that we have be given by God.

 

[phantasm]

homo-sapiens do, gifted as we are with the memory, intellect and will that we have be given by God.

Homo Sapiens, the human mammal, have existed anywhere from 100,000 years to the deepest estimate, 250,000 years.

I see there are no takers, too difficult a question to ponder.

The only answer thus far, a divine type spirit support system to keep humans going until Christ came.

 

[LilyM]

What do you mean ‘God didn’t reveal Himself for nearly 200,000 years’? God revealed Himself to the very first humans - read Genesis, He walked and talked with them - they and all their descendants certainly knew Him, some in more direct, some in less direct ways.

Those who existed pre-Judaism or pre-Christianity certainly knew God - or at least as much of God as He revealed of Himself to them from time to time and place to place. What they knew of Him certainly gave their life meaning.

Would you say you didn’t know your parents right from your very earliest days? Of course you knew THEM - a two-hour-old baby knows its mother. Even though you didn’t know ALL about them. Even though some of your knowledge of them came later, when you were older and better able to understand some things.

 

[MarysGirls]

What do you mean ‘God didn’t reveal Himself for nearly 200,000 years’? God revealed Himself to the very first humans - read Genesis, He walked and talked with them - they and all their descendants certainly knew Him, some in more direct, some in less direct ways.

Those who existed pre-Judaism or pre-Christianity certainly knew God - or at least as much of God as He revealed of Himself to them from time to time and place to place. What they knew of Him certainly gave their life meaning.

Would you say you didn’t know your parents right from your very earliest days? Of course you knew THEM - a two-hour-old baby knows its mother. Even though you didn’t know ALL about them. Even though some of your knowledge of them came later, when you were older and better able to understand some things.

Thank you, LilyM! I was just about to say that but you took the words right out of my mouth. Though like Ready, I don’t believe we’ve been around that long.

 

[phantasm]

What do you mean ‘God didn’t reveal Himself for nearly 200,000 years’? God revealed Himself to the very first humans - read Genesis,

I think most people accept that Genesis is just a quaint little story from primitive man on how the earth was created.

You don’t litterally believe all that, talking snakes, forbidden apple tree’s, wondrous gardens, God walking around looking for a hiding Adam ( even though God is supposed to be omniscient, but he’s just not using his omniscience for some reason )

Do you?

 

[phantasm]

Those who existed pre-Judaism or pre-Christianity certainly knew God - or at least as much of God as He revealed of Himself to them from time to time and place to place.

What a puzzle, the creator of the universe was so fixated on showing up in the middle east, that he ignored all of Asia, North America, Antarctica, South America, Australia…

 

[phantasm]

I don’t believe we’ve been around that long.

I don’t even know how to begin to express how dissapointed I am to hear anyone state that they do not believe the scientific, geological or archeological evidence which states as fact that the homo sapien has, without question, existed for at least, 100,000 years.

There is no, ’ I don’t believe it’, unless of course you do not believe in germ theory, or the theory of gravity, or nuclear theory…

 

[MarysGirls]

I don’t even know how to begin to express how dissapointed I am to hear anyone state that they do not believe the scientific, geological or archeological evidence which states as fact that the homo sapien has, without question, existed for at least, 100,000 years.

There is no, ’ I don’t believe it’, unless of course you do not believe in germ theory, or the theory of gravity, or nuclear theory…

LOL; I don’t even believe the earth existed that long, Phantasm! If it did, the salinity of the ocean would be waaayyy higher! Oh, and by the way evolution is a theory; gravity is not. Gravity is a scientific law. There’s a difference.

 

[MarysGirls]

What a puzzle, the creator of the universe was so fixated on showing up in the middle east, that he ignored all of Asia, North America, Antarctica, South America, Australia…

He didn’t ignore them, he focused more on the middle east. There wasn’t anyone anywhere else until after the Tower of Babel. Besides God had to choose some place. That’s why the Jews were known as the Chosen People.

 

[MarysGirls]

I think most people accept that Genesis is just a quaint little story from primitive man on how the earth was created.

You don’t litterally believe all that, talking snakes, forbidden apple tree’s, wondrous gardens, God walking around looking for a hiding Adam ( even though God is supposed to be omniscient, but he’s just not using his omniscience for some reason )

Do you?

Some Catholics believe the entire story is symbolic. I for one believe some of it is, but most of it isn’t. Oh, and God already knew where Adam was, He looked for him for Adam’s benefit.

 

[MarysGirls]

I think most people accept that Genesis is just a quaint little story from primitive man on how the earth was created.

You don’t litterally believe all that, talking snakes, forbidden apple tree’s, wondrous gardens, God walking around looking for a hiding Adam ( even though God is supposed to be omniscient, but he’s just not using his omniscience for some reason )

Do you?

Oh, I forgot to mention, It was Satan talking through the serpint, not an actual talking serpint. And it wasn’t an apple tree. I don’t know where that came from.

 

[LilyM]

I think most people accept that Genesis is just a quaint little story from primitive man on how the earth was created.

You don’t litterally believe all that, talking snakes, forbidden apple tree’s, wondrous gardens, God walking around looking for a hiding Adam ( even though God is supposed to be omniscient, but he’s just not using his omniscience for some reason )

Do you?

You obviously aren’t a parent. Have you never seen a child with a big chocolate ring around its mouth and the mother just looking at the child and asking ‘Tommy, did you eat chocolate when I told you not to’? Even though she knows the answer perfectly well?

She does this because she’s giving little Tommy a chance to exercise his free will - to be good and fess up - or be bad and lie. And accordingly she will teach little Tommy a lesson - praise his honesty, or else teach him the wrongness of lying through punishment.

 

[MarysGirls]

Have you never seen a child with a big chocolate ring around its mouth and the parent asking ‘Tommy, did you eat chocolate’? Even though the parent knows the answer perfectly well?

They’re giving the child a chance to exercise its free will - to be good and fess up - or be bad and lie.

Hmm, I never thought of it that way . . . But sure, cool.

 

[kesa82]

Ok, for fun I’ll play along.

Play the cards your dealt, life’s not fair, the universe is cold, pitiless and indifferent. Let’s make the best of a bad situation, I can help you.

Help her? How ? She’s fat, ugly, peniless, and drools involuntarily. so you want to marry her? Granted, it’s a hypothetical, but, like doubting Thomas, I’ll believe that one when I see it. She’s incontinent. Do you have a cure for that handy? She’s in a wheelchair. Again, can we expect a cure tommorrow morning ?

What’s the alternative, ’ there’s a God up there somewhere, so powerful, that he could have made you normal or he could heal you, it’s just your horrific disability is part of an unknown divine plan, that’s why God allowed this. God loves you, he’d tell you himself, but you can’t see him until you die.

And why not ? We cannot explain ourselves to cockroaches. cockroaches cannot explain themselves to us. Tell me Mr. scientist, what does a cockroach think? does it think at all ? What does a cockroach see when it looks at the world? does it see at all ? It seems to me there are many possible, plausable, reasonable potential reasons why God would not speak to us regularly, or explain everything to us.
As for the suffering of this life, it seems to me you want it both ways in your arguement. You, yourself, say life isn’t fair , and that that is apparently ok when it serves your argument, but then in the next breathe you turn around and seem to suggest that it is a monsterous injustice that life is not fair if there is a God. Which seems to me singularly curious, for if there is a God, and if life is immortal, then the injustice of this VERY BRIEF life is consequently comparitively insignificant. At the age of 50, do you still cry over the nail you stepped on when you were 4? If you will actually live a thousand years, what sting the injustice of this brief time?

My way is at least grounded in reality and is honest.
No comment.

Stay away from me and everyone I know. Get help.

Stay away from everybody …and get help from …who ?
Now THAT is REALLY helpful ! Are you sure you aren’t really a Calvinist?

Oh, I almost forgot. It seems that according to your own logic here, the only person he could reasonably expect to get help from is … the God you say he would be better off not turning to.

Suck it up, the world owes you no favours, play the cards your dealt, make the best of it.

make the best of …the transition to manure, for no reason. "Ok " says the sociopath and smiles.

Yes, reality.

Life is nasty, brutish, and short, then you turn into manure, for no reason. Yep, I guess that story would make a wonderful childrens book.

 

[Mannyfit75]

What a puzzle, the creator of the universe was so fixated on showing up in the middle east, that he ignored all of Asia, North America, Antarctica, South America, Australia…

For someone who been here for while, it is apparent, you do not know God’s ways.

Consider what the Catechism of the Catholic Church have to say:

**847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.**

In other words, those who do not know God but seek to do good actions, can be saved. It is very possible for someone in the Amazon, who does not know God to be saved. For God judges all with fairness. It’s like that Mel Gibson movie Apolalyto, where one of the natives of Americas were put death. You see there were good people there.

I believe that it is very possible for Aztec who were sacrificed before the pagan gods, were justify rewarded by God in the after life because they seek goodness in others.

 

[kesa82]

It seems to me that that’s an argument against Christianity. The fact that it’s a comfort to the miserable is a sign of human origin, not divine origin, the idea being that we made it up to make sense of a miserable and chaotic world.

So I don’t think that’s a useful tack here.

Whether in debate with atheists, agnostics, or christians, I think it is. granted, I’m hardly a first-rate theologian, but it seems to me a great many christians seem to miss the point that christ didn’t get himself nailed to a cross for a tiny minority of pedophiles, satanists, and serial killers. he got himself nailed to a cross because ( conservative estimate ?? ) 80% of the population NEEDED saving. So, at least, I think.
It seems to me a lot of christians imagine that God is just as POINTLESSLY cruel as atheists would make him out to be.
Perhaps we merely differ on a single point of perspective. Since I observed otherwise normal , average, human beings ganging up on and picking on another human being for the fun of it in kindergarten – and I am absolutely convinced they did it for the FUN OF IT – I think humans have to work at kindness, While sadism and cruelty is pleasurable and comes naturally to man.
what is it in man that would provoke him to work at kindness? Gain? Community tranquilty? It seems to me that it is the kinder, gentler, trusting , loving man who most often has the worst luck and gets the dirty end of the stick. As for community tranquilty, this has most often in human history been expressed in flatly, disgustingly ammoral oligarchy and repression as carnival. I suspect many people wind up in church because , whether they admit it or not, whether they percieve it consciously and can articulate it or not, his community and its institutions, the state and its institutions, are rotten to the core. The church is the only refuge – and not even because of the men in the church.
So what is it in man that would provoke him to work at kindness? " The divine spark. "
What is it that is found in the church that is not found in the state or anywhere else in his enviroment? The divine.

 

[phantasm]

LOL; I don’t even believe the earth existed that long, Phantasm! If it did, the salinity of the ocean would be waaayyy higher! Oh, and by the way evolution is a theory; gravity is not. Gravity is a scientific law. There’s a difference.

No it is not called the fact of gravity, it is called the theory of gravity.

You confuse the word theory with how it is used in science. ;

a theory provides a coherent explanation that holds true for a large number of** facts and observations** about the natural world.



In science, theories are not unsupported ideas or wild opinions or gut feelings.

It is the law of gravity that an object will drop to the ground if you let it go. What explains that law?

THE THEORY OF GRAVITY!

Do you also argue against being facts, cell theory, germ theory, atomic theory, decision theory, music theory, circuit theory, acoustic theory, quantam field theory or number theory?

Please, do not say anything even closely resembling that again, it is so wrong.

 

[phantasm]

He didn’t ignore them, he focused more on the middle east. There wasn’t anyone anywhere else until after the Tower of Babel. Besides God had to choose some place. That’s why the Jews were known as the Chosen People.

Are you saying that Agriculture wasn’t invented 10,000 years ago?

Are you saying that recorded history of the Chinese JIAHU culture in the year 7,000 B.C., thousands of years before this tower, didn’t really exist?

Your not saying that, are you?