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  Topic: This is Nutty, More From the Ministry of Truth< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
Mr_Christopher



Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,12:44   

I have the terms "intelligent design" set up as a Google News alert so I get notified of any new online article on the subject via email.  This one came from the Discovery Institute.  I wish people and organizations on our side of the debate would get hip to how the internet works...Obviously the Disco figured it out...Anyhow...

Have you guys read this "5 part series" by someone called "Viewpoint"? I got two Google News alerts for this, the first one the Disco credited John G West as the author, the second one credits "Viewpoint" yet the article appears to be signed with the initials RLC.  What gives?

The Disco links to it   here

And you find the whole enchilada Here

Be sure and click up a level when you get there, whoever this "RLC" person is he has some hard core fundamentalist beliefs you can read on the same web site.

Here is a tidbit from another article there called Christian Belief

If the atheistic materialist is right and death really is the end for each of us, then this life has precious little meaning. Death obliterates everything, nothing we do ultimately means a thing. Our lives are like the flash of a firefly's light in the dark night. It appears and then it's gone, forever. If death is the end then there's no reason at all why anyone should live one way rather than another. Nothing really matters, so whether one lives like Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa it's all the same. When Hitler and Mother Teresa died they both ceased to exist, their fate, their destinies were the same so what difference did their decisions about how they would conduct their lives ultimately make?


Now get this, I personally believe once I am dead I am done.  Finished.  Worm food.  In spite of this my life has much meaning, lots of things matter, and I have never advocated killing Jews, or anyone for that matter.  I have never injured another person or advocated it.  What gives?  Am I abnormal?

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Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson

  
Julie Stahlhut



Posts: 46
Joined: July 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,14:03   

Quote
Am I abnormal?


Nope, you're just another one of us who doesn't buy the idea that the only motivation in life is what might happen after death.

  
keiths



Posts: 2195
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,14:15   

Mr Christopher wrote:
Quote
Now get this, I personally believe once I am dead I am done.  Finished.  Worm food.  In spite of this my life has much meaning, lots of things matter, and I have never advocated killing Jews, or anyone for that matter.  I have never injured another person or advocated it.  What gives?  Am I abnormal?

On behalf of Josh Bozeman, allow me to inform you that you are abnormal, but not for a Darwinist.  You are like all of the other cowardly Darwinists who are afraid to face up to the implications of their godless ideology.  Under your philosophy, love and morality are illusory.  It is hypocritical of you to be nice to children and pets.  Please commence raping, pillaging, and stealing candy from babies immediately, so that we can blame Darwinism for your crimes.  This is crucial, as the scientific arguments against Darwinism seem to be going nowhere.

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And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

Please stop putting words into my mouth that don't belong there and thoughts into my mind that don't belong there. -- KF

  
Ved



Posts: 398
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,14:56   

Quote
so what difference did their decisions about how they would conduct their lives ultimately make?

hmmm...

I would say, the difference they made was in other peoples' lives, in this world, the only one we can be reasonably sure exists.

Sometimes I really wonder just what it is that people expect to find in heaven that isn't here.

  
ericmurphy



Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,15:35   

So, I guess if we follow RLC's reasoning, the reason we should be more like Mother Theresa, and less like Adolph Hitler, is so we can enjoy the putative rewards of heaven, right? (One of my favorite cartoons shows some guy perched on a cloud in a toga with a harp, saying, "I wish I'd brought a magazine.") And possibly to avoid the punishments of ####, um, I mean, Hades?

So, somehow, sucking up to God, behaving yourself so you can get a reward and avoid a spanking, in some way imbues life with some sort of capital-M "Meaning"?

That seems like kind of a self-centered reason for trying to live a moral life. Certainly no better than my own motivation, which is to be able to feel good about myself and sleep soundly at night.

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2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

  
Mr_Christopher



Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,17:27   

Well that brings up yet another moral issue: which heaven should we be shooting for?  The one with toga clad angels playing harps, or the one with the elaborate bedrooms, fantastic wines, and 73..uh...female assistants.

Which is the right heaven? A mistake on which one you pick could send you straight to ####.  That's like someone putting a gun to your head and saying "pick the right answer or I'll pull the trigger"

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Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson

  
keiths



Posts: 2195
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 24 2006,18:21   

Borges said "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

I could go for that, along with a private room for occasional, uh, conversations with the young, attractive assistant librarians.

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And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

Please stop putting words into my mouth that don't belong there and thoughts into my mind that don't belong there. -- KF

  
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