Kristine
Posts: 3061
Joined: Sep. 2006
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Oh is that so, Clive? What would he think of this?
kharley471 | Quote | Levi, neither I nor any atheists I know believe that life is “utterly meaningless and random,” that it “ultimately means nothing.” How everlastingly weary I am of refuting this stereotype, and arguing with people who would tell me my own feelings. It’s unfair and a cop-out to caricature someone else’s experience as something shallow and dehumanized just to impress upon them that they are “wrong.” “Purpose” is not the same thing to everyone, and my sense of purpose is not disturbed by mind arising from matter (which indicates how I view “matter” differently that you do). Please don’t attribute qualities to me that I don’t possess if you do not wish atheists to do the same to believers.
I still await an answer to my original question. |
shaner74 | Quote | | That’s great, but sadly this is a perfect example of an atheist who has not used logic and reason to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that logic and reason are meaningless in the atheist’s world. |
Geez, no insult there.
kharley471 | Quote | tribune7:Why not?
How can life have no meaning, especially for artists/writers/dancers, who participate in life’s meaning (as opposed to just having it handed to us)? Living creature are active members in life, just as humans are active participants in democracy. Maybe there’s an intrinsic sense of purpose in creative people that is divorced from the need for authority (although I would argue that all people are in some way creative).
Life is its own meaning. Unless, of course, your kid is dying of AIDS, and your government tells you that anyone who says it’s because of HIV is a ghastly materialist and is lying. Unless you’re a parent in Libya and your government tells you that five altruistic European nurses and a doctor awaiting execution “deliberately” infected your child in order to cover up the government’s own abysmal health care system. (The victims are called the Tripoli Six and several of us have blogged about them.)
With those nurses and doctor in mind I’m still waiting for an answer to my original question about Dembski’s true attitude toward Wells’ assertions about HIV and AIDS.
sadly this is a perfect example of an atheist who has not used logic and reason to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that logic and reason are meaningless in the atheist’s world
“Sadly?” I’m a dancer but I don’t dance to any dirges. Logic and reason are fine, but life is to be lived, ultimately. If you’re sad that I’m not sad then I think you should try some dance lessons. |
| Quote |
DaveScot
12/09/2006
6:57 am
kharley
Please confine your comments to the topic of the thread. It isn’t HIV or Dembski’s opinion on HIV. If you want a soapbox for that topic find it somewhere else. |
| Quote | tribune7, 12/09/2006, 1:48 pm
kharley471 –Life is its own meaning.
Prove it. |
| Quote | bj, 12/09/2006, 2:29 pm
tribune7,
If there is no objective reference from which one establishes reality, you can believe whatever you wish and you don’t have to prove
anything. |
Gosh, you're wrong, because you can't be right. You can't be a good person, because you cannot. No verbal abuse there! Yes, I most certainly have heard that before!
kharley471 | Quote | 12/09/2006, 2:30 pm
Prove it.
Whoa!
You mean, mathematically? Because that’s the only realm in which one “proves” things. |
tribune7 | Quote | kharley471 –Prove it. . . You mean, mathematically?
Upon what do you base your claim that life is its own meaning? |
Upon what do I base it? I'm really not sure that I understand what that means. You need to base your visceral life on a verbal statement? But I took a stab at it:
kharley471 | Quote | 12/09/2006, 11:30 pm
Upon what do you base your claim that life is its own meaning?
I’ll try to keep it relatively short but let’s face it, I’ve been trying all my life to explain this to people I’ve grown up with. I don’t know that I base my view on anything because it’s always been true for me, even as a child. Life is an adventure and adventures are by definition open-ended.
We learn by doing, and I think that we truly find meaning by doing, too. Purpose is co-emergent with creativity.
Life is to be lived. Naturally this conflicts with the idea of a “fallen” world in which we avoid temptation. I was always more curious about the world than religion. People didn’t like it (especially for a girl), but I don’t know what to do about that.
Who decides that they don’t buy into Christianity at age nine? I did. Was I “designed” that way? I doubt anyone would say that. And yet, my religious relatives ask me for advice all the time, because I’m happy, because I do the things they hesitate to do. Shouldn’t the situation be reversed if my life is meaningless?
As you see this is a personal answer, rather than a philosophical template for others. |
| Quote | tribune7, 12/10/2006, 8:10 am
I don’t know that I base my view on anything because it’s always been true for me, even as a child.
Would you still have that same outlook if you were raised in Somilia or Saudi Arabia or North Korea? |
kharley471 | Quote | 12/10/2006, 10:27 am
Would you still have that same outlook if you were raised in Somilia or Saudi Arabia or North Korea?
I have wondered that! I can’t answer that, because I don’t know.
But considering the stories that my family tells of me when I was minus one it seems that no matter where I would have been raised I would have still been a headstrong little bundle of joy.
Some of the Somali women I know tell me they prefer the U.S., for obvious political reasons, but also that here they can practice Islam the way that they want without warlord micromanaging, so there you are. I also know former Muslims not born in the U.S. who became atheists. Nature v. nurture, beats me. |
DaveScot | Quote | 12/10/2006, 11:02 am
kharley
There are many examples of cultures where the majority were religious and prospered for hundreds or thousands of years.
There are no examples of cultures where the majority were atheist and prospered for hundreds or thousands of years.
We know that belief in a higher authority who sees everything we do, knows everything we think, and will judge us after we depart this plane of existence has an influence on how we choose between what we as individuals know is right and know is wrong. What will happen to a culture that wholly or largely adopts the belief that threat of manmade law & punishment is the only consequence of choosing wrong instead of right?
That is the question we ask. We don’t know the answer to that and I for one don’t care to participate in making my culture a test bed for what happens when humanity is elevated to the highest authority in the universe. The principle that a higher authority exists is a cornerstone of the culture that established the United States of America and we are doing very well by it. Forty-five state constitutions attest to the fact America was founded upon this principle. Yet post-modernists would have us abandon it for some untested principle that a majority will do the right thing absent the belief in a higher authority.
Note this has nothing to with the truth of falsity of religious belief. It is all about the practical consequences of presence or absence of that belief in any given culture. |
DaveScot | Quote | 12/10/2006, 11:16 am
kharley
There are countless churches in the United States ranging from neighborhood congregations with dozens of members to national organizations with millions of members. It is almost a rule that these churches engage in voluntary charitable activities.
Given that 10% of the population are positive atheists and 80% are Judeo-Christian one might reasonably presume that if atheism is as inherently interested in helping those less fortunate then for every eight charity programs run by Judeo-Christian organizations there be one charity program run by atheist organizations.
Where are all the voluntary atheist-run charitable programs? I’m not saying they don’t exist in proportionate number but I sure can’t point to them. Can help me out by listing those you know of? |
Zing! And then they jumped upon my answers. I think somebody said something about not getting onto a soapbox? I've been trying to do work to counteract the HIV-denialism that is decimating South Africa, but I can't get on my soapbox and talk about that kind of charity work, can I?
The thread goes on. Basically it's another hog-pile by them on one woman with the old "Just because you get good grades/ think you're so smart/do good works/are a nice person doesn't make you good enough, you're so arrogant, puffed up, someday you'regonnabesorry, and oh, BTW The Nameless Designer loves you" crap.
But what is this battle really about, anyway? Scientists are making discoveries that benefit people, and it makes some people resentful and mad, because they need to "fix" everyone and they can't "fix" someone who isn't broken, but they don't have the talent to contribute to science themselves. Therefore they must remake science, in their image, and become "more sciency than the Darwinists."
That's all that the whole evo/ID, religious/atheist fight is all about. If you live and let live, these people get livid, and start talking about "meaninglessness" and "purpose," words that really make no sense to me, because it's for themselves that they are seeking these things, because it is they who really see life as random and meaningless. I am very sorry for them.
Incidentally, kharley471 is my real name, right KairosFocus? 
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Which came first: the shimmy, or the hip?
AtBC Poet Laureate
"I happen to think that this prerequisite criterion of empirical evidence is itself not empirical." - Clive
"Damn you. This means a trip to the library. Again." -- fnxtr
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