Not time travel, "only" time viewing?

[TarkanAttila]

But ultimately, I’m guessing your wondering what would happen if I had no religion - no God - to rest on. The way you have none to rest upon. Well, if there were no God, there would be no reason for me to believe I had any meaning in my life, as ultimately I would die and cease to be. That would leave only a few options: I would either start fornicating until I died, I would peacefully commit suicide and end the world for myself, or I would live my life like it were Half-Life 2 Deathmatch - I would go postal - and start ending the world for everyone else. Then end it for myself.

The reasons are simple: if I’m going to die, anyway, and never be accountable to anyone after death, why should I hold myself to any moral standard? Hm? Shouldn’t I just do what I want to do? Then I would come to the realisation that, frankly, death is a rather depressing end. May as well get it over with rather than have it hanging over my shoulder. But wait… what about all those other pathetic morons who think life has meaning and value? I should end it for them, as inevitably they’ll be wasting their time. May as well save them the trouble. Besides, if death is meaningless, if life is meaningless, death is preferable to life. Nonexistence is preferable to existence if existence has no meaning. May as well try to make this happen.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I’m smart, wealthy, or gutsy enough to do half the things I’d claim to do up there. Except, possibly the first one. Just kill time until time kills you. But I wrote it with a point. What does it matter what I do? Why do I need to satiate your understanding of morals? If the highest rational being is man, then you are at as much liberty to criticise my morals as I am to criticise yours. And I am at as much liberty to ignore your opinion as you are mine. So I might as well shoot your face off. What difference would it make, ultimately? You will die, anyway. Does it matter whether it be sooner, or later, if there is nothing else to look forward to?

Don’t think I hold this view solely about atheism. I also hold it about anyone who believes Hell does not exist (there are more people who think that than you think). Or reincarnation. (Hey, I’m just helping you reach nirvana. Or moksha. You’ll get there eventually.) If there’s no objective right or wrong - if our actions ultimately have no effect on what ultimately happens to us, the universe, or anything - then who the Hell are you to say that I shouldn’t kill you, or anyone I like? I’m just expediting a process that will happen with time, anyway. May as well, if it will make me happy.

 

[meltzerboy]

But ultimately, I’m guessing your wondering what would happen if I had no religion - no God - to rest on. The way you have none to rest upon. Well, if there were no God, there would be no reason for me to believe I had any meaning in my life, as ultimately I would die and cease to be. That would leave only a few options: I would either start fornicating until I died, I would peacefully commit suicide and end the world for myself, or I would live my life like it were Half-Life 2 Deathmatch - I would go postal - and start ending the world for everyone else. Then end it for myself.

The reasons are simple: if I’m going to die, anyway, and never be accountable to anyone after death, why should I hold myself to any moral standard? Hm? Shouldn’t I just do what I want to do? Then I would come to the realisation that, frankly, death is a rather depressing end. May as well get it over with rather than have it hanging over my shoulder. But wait… what about all those other pathetic morons who think life has meaning and value? I should end it for them, as inevitably they’ll be wasting their time. May as well save them the trouble. Besides, if death is meaningless, if life is meaningless, death is preferable to life. Nonexistence is preferable to existence if existence has no meaning. May as well try to make this happen.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I’m smart, wealthy, or gutsy enough to do half the things I’d claim to do up there. Except, possibly the first one. Just kill time until time kills you. But I wrote it with a point. What does it matter what I do? Why do I need to satiate your understanding of morals? If the highest rational being is man, then you are at as much liberty to criticise my morals as I am to criticise yours. And I am at as much liberty to ignore your opinion as you are mine. So I might as well shoot your face off. What difference would it make, ultimately? You will die, anyway. Does it matter whether it be sooner, or later, if there is nothing else to look forward to?

Don’t think I hold this view solely about atheism. I also hold it about anyone who believes Hell does not exist (there are more people who think that than you think). Or reincarnation. (Hey, I’m just helping you reach nirvana. Or moksha. You’ll get there eventually.) If there’s no objective right or wrong - if our actions ultimately have no effect on what ultimately happens to us, the universe, or anything - then who the Hell are you to say that I shouldn’t kill you, or anyone I like? I’m just expediting a process that will happen with time, anyway. May as well, if it will make me happy.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of non-believers who behave according to humanistic moral values in the way they conduct their lives. Why do you suppose that is? Are they really being motivated by G-d unbeknownst to them?

 

[Kathrin]

But ultimately, I’m guessing your wondering what would happen if I had no religion - no God - to rest on. The way you have none to rest upon. Well, if there were no God, there would be no reason for me to believe I had any meaning in my life, as ultimately I would die and cease to be. That would leave only a few options: I would either start fornicating until I died, I would peacefully commit suicide and end the world for myself, or I would live my life like it were Half-Life 2 Deathmatch - I would go postal - and start ending the world for everyone else. Then end it for myself.

The reasons are simple: if I’m going to die, anyway, and never be accountable to anyone after death, why should I hold myself to any moral standard? Hm? Shouldn’t I just do what I want to do? Then I would come to the realisation that, frankly, death is a rather depressing end. May as well get it over with rather than have it hanging over my shoulder. But wait… what about all those other pathetic morons who think life has meaning and value? I should end it for them, as inevitably they’ll be wasting their time. May as well save them the trouble. Besides, if death is meaningless, if life is meaningless, death is preferable to life. Nonexistence is preferable to existence if existence has no meaning. May as well try to make this happen.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I’m smart, wealthy, or gutsy enough to do half the things I’d claim to do up there. Except, possibly the first one. Just kill time until time kills you. But I wrote it with a point. What does it matter what I do? Why do I need to satiate your understanding of morals? If the highest rational being is man, then you are at as much liberty to criticise my morals as I am to criticise yours. And I am at as much liberty to ignore your opinion as you are mine. So I might as well shoot your face off. What difference would it make, ultimately? You will die, anyway. Does it matter whether it be sooner, or later, if there is nothing else to look forward to?

Don’t think I hold this view solely about atheism. I also hold it about anyone who believes Hell does not exist (there are more people who think that than you think). Or reincarnation. (Hey, I’m just helping you reach nirvana. Or moksha. You’ll get there eventually.) If there’s no objective right or wrong - if our actions ultimately have no effect on what ultimately happens to us, the universe, or anything - then who the Hell are you to say that I shouldn’t kill you, or anyone I like? I’m just expediting a process that will happen with time, anyway. May as well, if it will make me happy.

To have God to rest on is so wonderful, yes. And yes, what would be the meaning of life if it wasn’t held in place by… wow, not only that He is God but also that He is pure Love and Goodness and loves us so much!!! With this faith, not one little bit of lifetime can be in vain, and everytime we give somebody just a little smile or do another act of love we spread His love further, build His kingdom… in the littlest of little things even

Your post, TarkanAttila, made me wonder though: Would I really have NO moral standards if I didn’t have a religion? Or if I believed Hell did not exist? Isn’t there also something like compassion for others… feeling their pain, not wanting anybody to suffer, feeling oneself into the others?
Of course these things, being able to feel compassion, are also gifts of God!

 

[Farien]

The “legend” seems rather unlikely. It’s one thing to claim some vague man in some vague time did some vague thing to represent some vague emotion. It’s one thing to write a lengthy parable, as Jesus was accustomed to.

First of all, Jesus did not write anything. Second, none of writers of the gospels were eye-witnesses to anything. The earliest writings happened at least 40 years after the alleged occurrences. The canonical gospels were collected from the writings of several, unknown authors, again according biblical scholars. So the bible is just a collection of writs of unknown origin, selected by and voted upon the catholic church, several hundred years after the events (supposedly) took place. I repeat, voted upon! So much for the autheticity of the bible.

There is the well-known experiment sometimes called the “Chinese tea-room” game or the “telegraph-game”. You start it by telling a story to your neighbor, who will re-tell it to his neighbor, and the whispering goes around the room. The final result will be totally different from the original. No one is intentionally distorting the story, there are no liars in the room. Everyone tries to pass on the story as precisely as they can. And yet, the story gets distorted - unintentionally - within the scope of a few minutes. That is how “reliable” the word of mouth is.

No wonder that the second-hand testimonies are all excluded in the court of law - precisely because they are unreliable.

There’s no way anyone could pull that **** off 20 years after He supposedly lived, died, and rose from the dead. It would have been an amazing fraud, unprecedented in history.

There is no outside evidence of any of that. The Romans were very meticulous record keepers, and there is no record of any of those “miracles”, nor any of the other events.

I really suggest you give this link a good once over, particularly the refutation of the myth theory.

I looked, and it is lacking. He a-priori states: “They are also the only possibilities”… which is not true. That the whole thing is just a bunch of legends, like all the other creation myths, of which dime a dozen.

 

[Farien]

But ultimately, I’m guessing your wondering what would happen if I had no religion - no God - to rest on.

Well, I did not have this in mind, but since you volunteered, I was most happy to read it. I am not sure if you are aware, but this question has beed posted and discussed on these forums several times. There were two kinds of responses: one was, that the poster would not change his or her behavior, because they consider a decent, loving approach sufficient onto itself. They usally said that they do not look for reward or are afraid of punishment. The other ones were most surprising. They said - to a certain extent - pretty much what you said (though some was further than you did); namely that they would indulge in all the “forbidden” fruits, and / or they would simply commit suicide. Some (a few) stated that they would go around raping, killing, maiming and pillaging… that they only refrain from from doing these because they are afraid of the punishment.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know these people were a small minority. Yet I felt nauseous when I saw their “confession”.

The way you have none to rest upon. Well, if there were no God, there would be no reason for me to believe I had any meaning in my life, as ultimately I would die and cease to be.

You could make your own life meaningful. There is a very good sign in the national parks: “take nothing but pictures and leave nothing nothing but footprints”. Be kind and good without any special reason, because it is its own reward. Leave good memories behind, and you will have a miniscule “immortality”.

That would leave only a few options: I would either start fornicating until I died, I would peacefully commit suicide and end the world for myself, or I would live my life like it were Half-Life 2 Deathmatch - I would go postal - and start ending the world for everyone else. Then end it for myself.

Just what those other people said.

The reasons are simple: if I’m going to die, anyway, and never be accountable to anyone after death, why should I hold myself to any moral standard? Hm?

There is a very good reason, the “selfish reason”, because you would have a much more enjoyable life if you behaved decently.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I’m smart, wealthy, or gutsy enough to do half the things I’d claim to do up there. Except, possibly the first one.

I hope you did exaggarate.

Just kill time until time kills you. But I wrote it with a point. What does it matter what I do? Why do I need to satiate your understanding of morals? If the highest rational being is man, then you are at as much liberty to criticise my morals as I am to criticise yours. And I am at as much liberty to ignore your opinion as you are mine. So I might as well shoot your face off. What difference would it make, ultimately? You will die, anyway. Does it matter whether it be sooner, or later, if there is nothing else to look forward to?

Except there is biology. We are hard-wired to seek pleasure, and avoid pain. Therefore the best strategy is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. And that can ONLY be achiveved by being nice to others, and enjoying the nice things the do to us. Yes, there are a few people whose greatest pleasure is causing pain to others. But their behavior is self-defeating, because the potential victims will “gang-up” on him and defeat the aggressor.

So there is a very good, secular and “selfish” reason to lead a good life without any after-life.

It is funny to see that you actually view the so-called “immoral” sexual life as better and more rewarding than the prescribed behavior and you would love to indulge in it. Of course, you are right. There are lots of things we “heathens” can do which you are forbidden to perform and they are highly pleasurable.

 

[TarkanAttila]

Well, I did not have this in mind, but since you volunteered, I was most happy to read it. I am not sure if you are aware, but this question has beed posted and discussed on these forums several times. There were two kinds of responses… The other ones were most surprising. They said - to a certain extent - pretty much what you said (though some was further than you did);… that they only refrain from from doing these because they are afraid of the punishment.-

My reasons go further than that. I would not only not be afraid of punishment. Literally, there would be no meaning to life anymore. Our best and brightest predict the entire universe will collapse in on itself eventually, and all our hard work will be wiped like marker scribbles from a dry erase board. So what real meaning is there, then, if everything dies? If nothing lasts forever?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know these people were a small minority. Yet I felt nauseous when I saw their “confession”.

You and me both.

You could make your own life meaningful. There is a very good sign in the national parks: “take nothing but pictures and leave nothing nothing but footprints”. Be kind and good without any special reason, because it is its own reward. Leave good memories behind, and you will have a miniscule “immortality”.

See, that’s the problem. You don’t look far enough ahead of your conclusions. Not only will I die. Not only will my children or their children die. Humanity will die. And as a result, memory will die. In fact, all of life will die. Ultimately, the universe will die. (It will be reborn in a second Big Bang, if scientists are to be believed - no thanks to us.)

Ultimately all those rewards of themselves are futile. Death - non-existence - a cessation of being - is all that awaits when you’re done with your self-rewarding experiences. It doesn’t matter whether you die in a gas chamber. Or an electric chair. Or in your bed. You still die. Even if the world preserves your experiences in Yellowstone for millenia upon millenia - even if the last man is found sitting, huddled by a fire, reading of how Farien rested in peace at his lush sylvan campground near the Smokey Mountains, he’s still going to die, and that will be the end of your “good memories”.

There is no meaning to anything, ultimately, in a world where death’s the final word for all life.

There is a very good reason, the “selfish reason”, because you would have a much more enjoyable life if you behaved decently.

But I would have still died, either way. Doesn’t matter if it should be sooner rather than later.

I hope you did exaggarate.

You and me, both.

Except there is biology. We are hard-wired to seek pleasure, and avoid pain.

So? We are also hard-wired for commitment in sexual union. There are many things we’re hard-wired to do. But none of it matters if, ultimately, nothing I do will have an eternal effect on anything. The Taj Mahal. Notre Dame Cathedral. The United Nations. Poetry. Prose. Language. Civilization. Pain. Pleasure. Sense. Reason. Don’t you understand? All of that goes away, and ceases to exist in the Big Crunch. Ultimately, you’re wasting your time here if there is no goal to life but to return to dust. To become maggot food.

Therefore the best strategy is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

You will die whether you do that or not.

And that can ONLY be achiveved by being nice to others, and enjoying the nice things the do to us.

You will die whether you do that or not.

Yes, there are a few people whose greatest pleasure is causing pain to others.

You will die whether you do that or not.

But their behavior is self-defeating, because the potential victims will “gang-up” on him and defeat the aggressor.

You were going to die, anyway.

So there is a very good, secular and “selfish” reason to lead a good life without any after-life.

Not in the long run. In short run, sure. But in the long run: you are going to die anyway. Everything is going to die, anyway. What you do has no impact or significance. That’s the cold hard truth. The only thing awaiting all of life and civilization is the void. The grave. Death.

Your reasoning is, at best, turning a blind eye to that reality. At worst, your happy-go-lucky atheism is as delusional as whatever God or religion you may seek to destroy in the process. It’s a façade. If there is no God, this pedantic atheism so many atheists hold in common is no more honest than Christianity. It’s a thin veil to your everlasting bride - the black hole.

It is funny to see that you actually view the so-called “immoral” sexual life as better and more rewarding than the prescribed behavior and you would love to indulge in it.

If I have nothing better to look forward to than the grave, does it really matter?
I, as a Christian, do believe there is something better. And that’s why I give up good things - like endless sex - for better things - like love, and ultimately life. I don’t just mean life like this. I mean life without doubt. Without disease, or pain, or suffering. Life without death. It’s the polar opposite of the ultimate truth of atheism. Atheism, ultimately, is death without life. If you cannot see that, you are not looking far enough ahead.

Of course, you are right. There are lots of things we “heathens” can do which you are forbidden to perform and they are highly pleasurable.

Yep. But you’re going to die, while I look forward to a pleasure far better than any terminable pleasure here on Earth. It’s eternal, and it’s total.

And, best of all, it makes sense to believe it to be true. Unlike moral atheism.

 

[TarkanAttila]

EDIT: That is to say, at least one could accuse us of being misinformed, if not delusional.

You would have no excuse for your delusion of purposefulness, except for a lack of foresight.

 

[TarkanAttila]

First of all, Jesus did not write anything. Second, none of writers of the gospels were eye-witnesses to anything.

Proof? One does not have to write a book to be real. We can agree Socrates existed although only Plato ever wrote anything about him.

The earliest writings happened at least 40 years after the alleged occurrences.

Twenty to thirty actually, by most estimates. Never mind the fact that Nero was executing Christians in 64 AD, anyway.

Either way, there would have been plenty of people who could have contradicted the existence of a man who never existed, never saw, and never heard of before 20 years after the fact.

We actually have an example of such a thing: the Ras-Tafari movement. Rastafarians claim that Haille Selassie I was the Second Coming. The man himself denied that claim and was a faithful Ethiopian Orthodox Christian until death.

Or how about Simon Bar Kochba? Or Moses of Crete? Or Simon of Peræa? We’ve heard about all their deaths. There has been not one claim that any of these has been resurrected, nor of any other potential Messiah claimants, even in modern times. Seems very odd to me that Jesus of Nazareth should be the odd man out and yet still be dead.

It also seems odd to me that very few other Messiah claimants, outside of modern Christian circles, claim to be the Son of God. At very least it separates Jesus from the other claimants.

The canonical gospels were collected from the writings of several, unknown authors, again according biblical scholars.

Like who, for example?

So the bible is just a collection of writs of unknown origin, selected by and voted upon the catholic church, several hundred years after the events (supposedly) took place. I repeat, voted upon! So much for the autheticity of the bible.

This isn’t much of a problem if you realise that, from the beginning, the bishops and especially the Pope, from the beginning, were seen as having the authority to make such a decision. This authority was given by Christ, as many extrabiblical sources can certainly attest to.

There is the well-known experiment sometimes called the “Chinese tea-room” game or the “telegraph-game”. You start it by telling a story to your neighbor, who will re-tell it to his neighbor, and the whispering goes around the room. The final result will be totally different from the original.

Oh. I see. I’ve mainly heard it called “telephone”.

No one is intentionally distorting the story, there are no liars in the room. Everyone tries to pass on the story as precisely as they can. And yet, the story gets distorted - unintentionally - within the scope of a few minutes. That is how “reliable” the word of mouth is.

Ah. But the problem with that is that in that game, no one can correct anyone else. Everyone is limited to listening to and speaking to exactly one person. What if the first person could scrutinise what the fifteenth person was saying? Obviously there would be much less distortion of information. Now, since the Apostles were writing well before a generation could have passed and been misinformed, it seems to me this “telephone game” could easily have ground to a halt if the Sanhedrin had simply arsed themselves to show Jesus’s dead body.

And, of course, there’s nothing like a public stoning to kill a heretical sect that claims a man is God. I don’t think, even in metaphor, the Pharisees would have been OK with the idea that a man called himself God. That’s part of why they crucified Him, you know. So why didn’t they stone the Christians?

There is no outside evidence of any of that. The Romans were very meticulous record keepers, and there is no record of any of those “miracles”, nor any of the other events.

Tacitus spoke of Christ’s crucifixion by Pilate. So, yeah. Nice try.

Even if he had not… 20-30 years. That’s not far enough separated from the past to be making such fantastic claims about the past, whether you’re the only one saying it or not.

It’s one thing to claim that a man is “the Messiah”. This is ambiguous. Or that you “saw a vision”. This is unverifiable. It’s entirely another to claim that a man “rose from the dead”. That is the claim the writers of the Bible, and the Apostles and their successors, make. Providing the corpse of a man is enough to disprove that. And if no one would have heard of Jesus, that also would have been evidence enough against the many, many claims of public action on Jesus’s part, including His very existence.

Your assumption operates under the auspices of what I like to call the “ancient people were stupid” fallacy. It would not have taken much for the people of Jerusalem and Israel to discredit these guys if they’d been lying. You really, really don’t give them enough credit.

I looked, and it is lacking. He a-priori states: “They are also the only possibilities”… which is not true.

Alright. What possibilities were left out? Enlighten me.

That the whole thing is just a bunch of legends, like all the other creation myths, of which dime a dozen.

This is self-affirmation, and not even a complete sentence.

 

[Farien]

So what real meaning is there, then, if everything dies? If nothing lasts forever?

There is no “real” meaning - whatever “real” is. We can make our life meaningful. Our biological nature compels us to lead a pleasurable life, and that is a good enough reason (for me) to lead a decent, ethical life.

If you believe that there is something else which will follow, then it seems to be sensible to “give up” certain good things in this life, to get rewarded in the next. You see the “reward motive” keeps coming back. You hold your own life here and now meaningless. You give your life a “meaning” by stipulating a continuation. To put it differently, your death is meaningful to you, not your life.

The problem here is that you give up something that is certain for something that is based on “faith” as described in Hebrews 11:1 (Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.) It is only “hope”. Since there is no evidence of that “continuation” your faith is blind. If that is good enough for you, that is fine.

Alright. What possibilities were left out? Enlighten me.

I did. The legend. Which is the only sensible option.

 

[meltzerboy]

There is no “real” meaning - whatever “real” is. We can make our life meaningful. Our biological nature compels us to lead a pleasurable life, and that is a good enough reason (for me) to lead a decent, ethical life.

If you believe that there is something else which will follow, then it seems to be sensible to “give up” certain good things in this life, to get rewarded in the next. You see the “reward motive” keeps coming back. You hold your own life here and now meaningless. You give your life a “meaning” by stipulating a continuation. To put it differently, your death is meaningful to you, not your life.

The problem here is that you give up something that is certain for something that is based on “faith” as described in Hebrews 11:1 (Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.) It is only “hope”. Since there is no evidence of that “continuation” your faith is blind. If that is good enough for you, that is fine.

I did. The legend. Which is the only sensible option.

Which part of our nature do you think compels many of us to lead a “decent, ethical life.” If not our biological nature, which seeks pleasure, is it our higher intellect (reason) or our moral conscience? It seems you believe it is our reason rather than our conscience. Is that correct?

 

[Farien]

Which part of our nature do you think compels many of us to lead a “decent, ethical life.” If not our biological nature, which seeks pleasure, is it our higher intellect (reason) or our moral conscience? It seems you believe it is our reason rather than our conscience. Is that correct?

Yes, it is the intellect - of course if and only if it exists. For many people it does not shine bright…

 

[TarkanAttila]

Ok, first of all, Farien, I’m not trying to convert you with this statement. I am not saying that you should necessarily adopt any religion, not even Catholicism. If it is consistent with reality, you should be an atheist, and the truest one you can be.

But you have to acknowledge that reality. And if atheism is objectively true, the reality is nothing any of us does has anything more than a temporary effect in the long stretch. There is no such thing as even an imperfect immortality in atheism.

There is no “real” meaning - whatever “real” is.

Very good. My work is done here…

We can make our life meaningful.

Or maybe not.
This sentence contradicts the first. If there is no meaning in line with reality, then no one can make their life meaningful in any way that affects reality. That would contradict the first premise logically.

Our biological nature compels us to lead a pleasurable life, and that is a good enough reason (for me) to lead a decent, ethical life.

Pleasure does not necessarily entail leading a decent, ethical life.

Alcoholics. People who eat themselves to morbid obesity. Smokers. People who have died of drug addictions. People who have died of STDs. People who have almost died using sex and drugs. Computer addicts.

Need I say more?

Furthermore, what is the basis of ethics or decency if not personal or societal taste and trend? As there is no objective goal to reality, surely no societal trend - be it chastity or bestiality - is ultimately wrong as long as someone wants it?

If you believe that there is something else which will follow, then it seems to be sensible to “give up” certain good things in this life, to get rewarded in the next. You see the “reward motive” keeps coming back. You hold your own life here and now meaningless. You give your life a “meaning” by stipulating a continuation. To put it differently, your death is meaningful to you, not your life.

Correct. A continuation that goes on forever and has real consequences depending on what you do. The latter is what your idea of reality lacks. It does not matter what you do, ultimately or objectively. The universe is going to continue to expand and contract regardless.

The “reward motive” is not something that’s exclusive to me. It’s what’s holding together your ethics, too. As you say, pleasure drives our biology. Carnal (in the loosest sense of the term) pleasure is your reward for an ethical life. Eternal and complete life is my reward for an ethical life.

The difference between mine and yours, however, is that mine, real or no, perceives that there are ultimate consequences to what I do and think. Either I receive eternal life, or I enter into eternal death. Your reward motives, however satisfy here and now, have ultimately only one consequence: everything dies.

I’m not guaranteed to go to Heaven. What I do here, and what God does with what I’ve done, determines what happens to me. You are guaranteed to become part of the Big Crunch and nothing more or less. It doesn’t matter whether you follow your biological impulses or not.

The problem here is that you give up something that is certain for something that is based on “faith” as described in Hebrews 11:1 (Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.)

There is a difference between blind faith and the faith of Christians.

The faith of Christians that there is a Heaven is based on the reality of Jesus rising from the dead. We have not only the Gospels to attest to this. We have sound, cogent logic backing up the existence thereof that points strongest to the Resurrection actually happening.

Furthermore, there is sound historical evidence to at least show that the early Church existed less than a generation before the Resurrection had apparently taken place, and that Church was Catholic, and not “Bible-only”. That last point is as important as the Resurrection. It means you’re not taking a crapshoot if you would become a Christian. You can be certain that where there is continuous apostolic succession, there is the Church Christ founded.

I did. The legend. Which is the only sensible option.

As I understand it, you are arguing that the Apostles were making things up and there was no real Jesus at all. That is the “the apostles were myth-makers ------------------------- (3) Myth” option.

If your “legend” option is something different, could you please remind me what your nuance is to it?

No, really. Read this. Don’t just skim over it. Look at the “myth” section. Also see Objection 5 of the “Conclusions: More Objections Answered” section.

Please do not commit a genetic fallacy. Just because I am a Christian arguing for Christianity does not mean it is false. (Who else would you expect to argue that Christianity is true… a Moslem? An atheist? If Christianity is true, that wouldn’t make sense.) Christianity can be proved to be rational. It’s not just a crapshoot. Humanity has tools which can show it is in line with reality. We call them history and logic. Use 'em.

 

[Farien]

This sentence contradicts the first. If there is no meaning in line with reality, then no one can make their life meaningful in any way that affects reality. That would contradict the first premise logically.

There is no contradiction. There is no intrinsic meaning to anything, but we can assign a meaning if we so choose.

Pleasure does not necessarily entail leading a decent, ethical life.

I did not say it does. However if someone uses a good strategy to maximize one’s pleasure - on the long run, even if it does not last until eternity ends - then it does.

Alcoholics. People who eat themselves to morbid obesity. Smokers. People who have died of drug addictions. People who have died of STDs.

Sure. Most people are not consistent, and not rational. What of it?

The “reward motive” is not something that’s exclusive to me. It’s what’s holding together your ethics, too. As you say, pleasure drives our biology.

I did not deny it.

The difference between mine and yours, however, is that mine, real or no, perceives that there are ultimate consequences to what I do and think. Either I receive eternal life, or I enter into eternal death.

Actually, not eternal “death”, rather eternal suffering. A big difference. And you said: “real or no”… which is focus point of the whole question. If it is not real, then you are in the same boat as I am, except you sacrificed your exeistence for a chimera.

There is a difference between blind faith and the faith of Christians.

Only in your opinion.

The faith of Christians that there is a Heaven is based on the reality of Jesus rising from the dead. We have not only the Gospels to attest to this. We have sound, cogent logic backing up the existence thereof that points strongest to the Resurrection actually happening.

Furthermore, there is sound historical evidence to at least show that the early Church existed less than a generation before the Resurrection had apparently taken place, and that Church was Catholic, and not “Bible-only”. That last point is as important as the Resurrection. It means you’re not taking a crapshoot if you would become a Christian. You can be certain that where there is continuous apostolic succession, there is the Church Christ founded.

All that is part of the mythology, unsupported by anything.

As I understand it, you are arguing that the Apostles were making things up and there was no real Jesus at all. That is the “the apostles were myth-makers ------------------------- (3) Myth” option.

Not exactly. There is no external evidence that there were those apostles at all. It is all a bunch of stories.

 

[Pug]

Some people have photographic memory, others do not. But this is not the point. As you say, there are certain things that you recall in detail, others not so clearly. You certainly can recall things which happened an hour ago. As such you can “calibrate” the hypothetical device - and as such there is no need to have “blind faith” that the device works as intended.

And so the question comes: “would you care to use the device if it might show that your whole religion was built on legends?”. Would you be willing to take that risk?

You say “blind”. I did not.

I have no fear of investigating it’s output, if that is what you are asking. But if I do not fully understand the means by which it works, then I must trust someone who tells me that it does (and that it isn’t showing possibilities, images culled from the observer’s own mind, or some such as I mentioned). Like most of physics, I would need to trust someone concerning it. Also, I’d need to trust the poor sap who gave up his own life to spend years and years watching history from the device to see what really happened.

I don’t expect I’d ever look through such a device. I expect it would be more like the Hubble telescope. Directly accessible only to scientists, historians, etc.

I would eagerly watch to see what they found in the output of the device. I expect it would take years and years to locate and analyze the highlights. Such a thing could cause global unrest, I suppose.

The calibration you mention would not be very convincing to me. If it shows me what I know, then it shows me what I know. That is no proof that it can read history. It shows that it can read what I know. That is why I would be more interested in *how *it works. That would be more convincing. It would be something I could grasp with my mind. Still, you face the challenge that I do not trust my mind. That is perhaps unusual, though, but to explain you’d need to know the course of my education. Suffice it to say that I am fully familiar with being convinced I’ve proven something to be true and then it’s turned out that I was wrong. I would be more trusting of many scientists over the course of years being convinced it is true than of me being so convinced. Colleagues are important. Being able to dig something up that the device showed was there might be fairly convincing, too. But not calibration.

 

[jmcrae]

Actual traveling into the past would create a truckload of paradoxes, so let’s consider something else.

Asimov wrote a wonderful short story The Dead Past about a - seemingly - much less problematic subject, namely just “viewing” the past, without being able to interfere with it, and so bypassing all the paradoxes which would emerge from such interference. Of course he presented a very problematic scenario, by asking: “when does the past begin?”, and the answer was very troubling. (The plot is described in the link, but the whole story is worth to read.)

Let’s consider something else. What if we could view the past? What if we could go back and wanted to see Jesus and maybe the crucifixion? The alleged miracles? And what if there would be nothing to see? If it turned out to be all legends? How would that effect your belief?

It would be like going to a foreign country without a map. Thousands of people were crucified during the time of Jesus - how would we recognize Him among so many? Someone could say, “Oh, he was never crucified,” but how would you know? Even if you could spend your whole life hunting through all of the crucifixions that took place around that time, unless we knew with certainty which date we were looking for, and the exact location, there would still be uncertainty. And even if you were sure it was Him, people would say, “Okay, so what - Jesus actually died on the Cross. It doesn’t mean that it was for my sins.” This part would still be a matter of faith.

 

[Kathrin]

also doesn’t it say somewhere that we should not tempt God, like also Jesus said he DID NOT jump from the high mountain so as to tempt the Father into having to catch Him?
AND - this is a question also since I am not sure - doesn’t it also say we shouldn’t ask for signs?

 

[Farien]

It would be like going to a foreign country without a map. Thousands of people were crucified during the time of Jesus - how would we recognize Him among so many? Someone could say, “Oh, he was never crucified,” but how would you know? Even if you could spend your whole life hunting through all of the crucifixions that took place around that time, unless we knew with certainty which date we were looking for, and the exact location, there would still be uncertainty.

Ah, a valid point. Of course you would not be alone. Thousands and millions of people would do the digging. And follow the lifeline of all those found. If, after a long time, there would be no sign of any of those “miracles”, there would be no “resurrection”, then one would conclude that the whole story was just that - a story.

Of course it would be interesting to see how many people would accept the conclusion. After all even today we all know that “walking on water” or “reversing entropy (resurrection)” or violating the conservation laws “creation ex nihilo” are all scientific nonsense (back then people had no idea what is possible and what is not) and knowing all that still cannot shake their “faith”. Amazing.

And even if you were sure it was Him, people would say, “Okay, so what - Jesus actually died on the Cross. It doesn’t mean that it was for my sins.” This part would still be a matter of faith.

Undoubtedly. But actually seeing those alleged miracles would be a pretty good evidence that the other parts of the story are also true.

 

[Farien]

also doesn’t it say somewhere that we should not tempt God, like also Jesus said he DID NOT jump from the high mountain so as to tempt the Father into having to catch Him?
AND - this is a question also since I am not sure - doesn’t it also say we shouldn’t ask for signs?

Oh yes… a usual cop-out. There are miracles, but only if you do not ask for them. If you ask for them, it would be “testing” God, so nothing will happen. And yet, people keep praying for “miraculous” events (just look at the prayer intentions). The level of doublethink is simply amazing.

 

[Kathrin]

we can pray for anything, as long a sit is something good, meaning it wouldn’t be fitting to pray for something bad to happen to somebody. But whatever is along the lines of God’s love, we can of course pray for, why not. I wouldn’t call that testing God. Also we must understand that sometimes our prayers are answered in a way we do not understand.

Maybe sometimes there is a fine line between praying and testing, but that depends on the intention of the individual, don’t you think so?

 

[Pug]

also doesn’t it say somewhere that we should not tempt God, like also Jesus said he DID NOT jump from the high mountain so as to tempt the Father into having to catch Him?
AND - this is a question also since I am not sure - doesn’t it also say we shouldn’t ask for signs?

I am not sure here: are you saying looking at the results of science is asking for signs? I don’t think that is what is meant. The Church is fine with us looking at science. God’s hand created the world. We behold the wonder of his work there. This is a good thing. Fully founded reason and research cannot in the end contradict the faith. God made the world and he gave us revelation. God won’t contradict himself. Here is a CCC quote, if you like:
159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37 "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."38