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@Old Man Re: "David wins the internet today for his last two paragraphs."
Yep, he pretty much summed it up quite nicely, I would say.
@ Barrel Rider
Do you know what an apologist is? An apologist is someone who spins the truth to fit their narrative. In essence, a liar. If you believe that your god is real there is no need to alter the facts to make him real. There is no need for an apologist. An apologist uses propaganda to promote an agenda.
1. Your question is a logical fallacy. You are "Begging The Question." You can not assert "Created" without evidence. When it comes to "Origins" the simple fact of the matter is that no one actually knows. There are; however, theories. (Theories are based on FACTS) Not like the God hypothesis which is based on "FAITH" and "HOPE." There is nothing at all that can not be asserted based on faith. For any of the scientific theories of genesis, there are FACTS supporting them. Volcanic Vents, Primordial Soup, Clay, Spark of lightening and others, all have FACTS supporting them. None has yet proved to be "The One/" Scientists are still experimenting. What we do know is that you can not explain a mystery with a greater mystery. You do not get to insert your god at the end of science. That is called "The God of the Gaps." It is another logical fallacy called, "An Argument From Ignorance. You can not think of any other way life began so it must be God. " This is just moronic thinking.
2. The purpose of life is obvious. Just look around you, Life feeds on life. Life exists for life. Without life there would be no life. If you die today you serve life. If you live you serve life. There is no escaping this. You consume and are consumed by life. Life does not care if you live or die. Whatever you do, you are food for life. That is just a fact.
What you are asking is, "Now that you have life, what meaning do you bring to it." I strive to enjoy my life in all things. I am lucky to be here. I enjoy each breath I take. Now that I have live, my meaning is to live it how I see best.
3. There is no good or evil. This is Christian black and white logic. Things are good or bad. This is just ignorance. "Well being" is a good measure of asserting things are good or bad. I will refer you to an article by Matt Dillahaunty on the Superiority of secular Morality. Actually explaining it here would take too long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjbdWGre370&t=3s
Here is a thought for you. Christians can not be moral. You are following dictates from your god. You are trying to get into heaven or avoid hell. Nothing you do is coming from an internal sense of morality, a sense of self. Your morality comes from a magical being who is magically controlling your heart. You do nice things so you can get ice cream. This is not moral. You avoid doing bad things so you will not get punished. This is not moral. Atheists have an internal sense of morality that comes from actually interacting with other human beings so that we can all get along. Not Christians! Join us or burn in hell! You really think this is a moral position?
4. The simple answer. Everything dies. So what. Pretending you will live forever and eat cake and ice cream in a place called heaven, is just trying to pretend you are special. It's as silly as the Buddhists and Hindus pretending you will die and be born again. It's as silly as the Mormons asserting that you will get your own planet and wives to populate it. It's just one more silly religious idea among millions of silly religious ideas.
1. As far as our evidence tells us, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and started with the Big Bang. Our evidence for this includes the expansion of the universe, and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, to name a couple. We're not sure how life originated, but the theory of Evolution via natural selection is our best explanation, and its evidence includes the fossil record, vestigial structures, observation of the system in action, and the study of biology.
2. Life has no inherent purpose; we make it ourselves.
3. Morality is determined by empathy. If it is good, do it. If it is harmful, don't do it. Simple as that. Essentially it's the golden rule.
4. After we die, we cease to exist. Our consciousness ceases and our bodies decompose.
@Barrel Rider: Let's suppose I decide slavery or even just plain old discrimination is a good idea and I act on it. With subjective morality, does that mean I'm right and my actions are justified?
I'm glad you mentioned slavery. I think slavery is morally and economically wrong for several reasons. But what does the Bible say about it? Did Jesus ever condemn slavery? Look at the story of the centurion's servant, for example. Do you know what the curse of Ham was and why it was important to the Atlantic slave trade?
Christian apologetics, says it all really.
@Barrel Rider: 1. Origins: Where do we come from? How was man created? What does that mean for our place in the world?
We were created by the forces and processes of nature, including evolution. Life began through chemical reactions over millions of years in the chemical soup of Earth's early oceans. If this seems unlikely, multiply the number of locations where chemical reactions could happen in the early oceans by the number of hours in several hundred million years. If you bought a trillion lottery tickets a day for hundreds of millions years, do you think you might win at least once?
Life evolved through natural selection. That means survival of the fittest, not the biggest, strongest, fastest, or smartest, but the one best fitted to the environment at a given time in a given place. Man is not the end product of evolution, but one of many branches on the tree of life. We are a very young species, and we may not survive.
The fact that all life on Earth has the same DNA means that we all evolved from a common ancestor, and that life arose and survived only once. This means two things for our place in the world. First, we are immortal in the sense that we are part of an unbroken chain of cell division going back to the first cell. Second, we are related to every living thing on the planet.
Then consider how this planet formed. This solar system evolved from the ashes of earlier stars. This planet and every living thing on it is made from star dust.
I find all of this awe-inspiring. The religious creation stories seem ludicrous and banal compared with the reality that we can see through science. We don't need gods, not even a god of the gaps, to give meaning to the universe. We just need to set our minds free to contemplate the grandeur. Religion is a road block on the path to knowledge. The sign says "Turn back. There's nothing more to know. God did it all." That's an insult to human intelligence.
I would just like to add that some of the posts appear above those posted previous to them. They are out of order because it seems that if you hit the reply button and then type your post, it appears below the one with the reply button, even if there are posts below it.
I concur that religionists like to link religion to morality and to purpose in life. That is the wrong way around. It is the group or society that informs its morality. Religion, laws, treatment of minorities, education and other aspects of culture (note religion being but one aspect) are all informed by the group's morality.
Humans have only existed for three million years and modern society for two to four hundred years so it is early to draw any conclusions. The main thing is to find out about our surroundings and history. Religion is a huge impediment to that. Two things we've learned, I hope, is the value of critical thinking and scientific method. Anyone who claims to believe in a god(s) should define it first and then prove it. At least they should acknowledge that religions are all man-made, as the fact that most people follow the religion in which they were raised amply demonstrates. If it doesn't matter what religion, from Muslim to Buddhist, that proves that a specific god(s) can't be determined as "the correct one". So at least drop organised religion.
So I suggest the researcher has begun in the wrong way, as he has at least partly acknowledged. And I agree with those two paragraphs of David K's (post 29). Children should not be 'raised in the faith' and should not be segregated according to their parent's superstitions, religious, tribal loyalties. Give them critical thinking and scientific method and guidance. Theology is just mythology taken too seriously and as much use as a prayer in a crisis. Teach them to think, understand and comprehend. Teach them secular, inclusive values and how to be happy. Then they might find true meaning in their lives. Religion is valued and often held sacred, as they were taught, but it is valueless, divisive superstition.
Opening Post
I have been here for only a month, and I have to say that this is probably the 20th "I am looking for help for a class assignment..."
My very first impulse thought was, "O! fucking shit. Another damned fucking class assignment?"
However, I also saw mykcob4's post giving the benefit of doubt. Then I left this thread. Let myself cool down. Began to think, maybe, just maybe, it is not another flyover. I mean, think about it. I've only been on these boards for about a month and have already seen about 20 "class assignment" OPs...
Well, let me see if I want to answer any of these questions. Forewarning: I may not give the answers you are looking for.
Read this post to get a partial answer. Edit: Put wrong URL in.
1. Origins: Where do we come from? How was man created? What does that mean for our place in the world?
Where do we come from?: From dad's little squirt.
How was man created?: Evolution.
What does that mean for our place in the world?: None. You occupy space and time and make of it what you can.
2. Meaning: Is there a purpose to life? Is there a common purpose or is it subjective? How do we know what it is?
Is there a purpose to life?: see post at "patial answer" link above.
Is there a common purpose or is it subjective?: Everything is subjective. However, when using the Scientific Method, us scientists try our damnedest to be as objective as we subjectively can be.
How do we know what it is?: What what is? What do you mean by "it."
3. Morality: How do we differentiate between good and evil or, if you prefer, right and wrong? What is the "compass"?
Some excerpt from my book Riding Some Wild Tangents:
There Is No Objective Morality, For All Morality Is Subjective
Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
-H. L. Mencken
If you cannot determine what is right or wrong, then you do not lack religion, you lack empathy. - Paraphrased meme on AR
I have never truly believed in ANY religion, especially the Absolutist religions. There is no philosophical ideology more divisive than the Absolutist religions. And, the worst part of ANY religion, especially Absolutist, is that it is an ideology that is implicitly and explicitly protected from any and all criticism from both within and without. Why should any ideology, especially religion, be so privileged? Can you not see how disastrous this way of thinking can be, and is? I firmly believe, and shall take this belief to my grave, that the human species would have been much better off had there NEVER been ANY form of religion. It is due to Absolutist religions, and their way of thinking, and their theological disagreements, that has created the greatest destruction, injury, death, harm, immorality, wickedness, and abuse to the human species than any other cause. The main problem is not religious fundamentalism, but the fundamentals of religion. Ultimately, it is Religion that is Humankind's worst enemy. - RMF Runyan
In my world view, I can ascertain and evaluate what is truth and morale. "How do I determine truth and morality?" you may ask. Simple, with hard empirical evidence, logic, deductive reasoning, rationality, analytical thought, critical thinking, empathy, simple cogitation, and reasonable arguments. Moral beliefs and truths should be defended and explained by rationality and reasoning, not by reading and quoting an obsolete, immoral, barbaric, and savage Bronze Age religious text.
Why is it that Absolutists feel that only they can make an account for what is right or wrong? In their world view, how exactly can they know what is absolutely true? Some text written about 2500 years ago? There are myriad different Absolutist divisions (33,000 to 41,000 in just the Christian branch), and none seem to agree on how to interpret their holy book. Yet they want me to believe that they know the ultimate truth in any given situation? Why should I not be able to form an opinion on what is right and wrong? The Absolutists do it all the time. Even if it goes against their obsolete religious text. What makes them so privileged? As Christopher Hitchens once said (paraphrased), "Since it is preposterous to believe all religions are true, the only final answer is that they are all wrong."
How I come to the conclusion that raping or beating someone is wrong, is because I can sympathize and empathize with the victim, because even I got my ass whooped in the street once, for nothing more than what I did not have in my wallet (they had beaten me senseless to get my cash which at that time I had none). I do not want to live in a society full of rape and violence because I want to be safe. I desire for my friends, my family, and my loved ones to be the safest they can be within human possibility by having laws that help to protect them from rape and assault. I believe that ALL human beings have integrity, dignity, and worth. I do not need a silly sky-faerie to tell me that. I can arrive at that truth with my own cognitive abilities. Should I list them again? Empathy, rationality, logic, reason, deduction, critical thinking, sympathy, analytical thought, and the greatest one of all, LOVE.
And here is a question for anybody:
Would you think it moral, ethical, fair, or even rational if your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson and granddaughter were punished for your sin?
4. Destiny: Simply what happens when we die? How are our lives fulfilled?
Our lives are fulfilled by how we fulfill others in our lives. When we die, we simply get the release from eternity. Another excerpt from my book:
Is Heaven Really Good?
Why would I want the torture of living for eternity? I mean, come on. The first few million years may be fun, but eventually it will get so damned boring after having done everything, said everything, been everywhere, you will start to wish for death, for non-existence. Something that will never come. Something that will become so desirable, you will eventually go wonko. Something that will drive you so wonko, you actually end up being the next Satan, or like the playful imp of John de Lancies's Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation. At least I would. If I were to live literally for eternity, there will come a point where I will go absolutely wonko because there is absolutely NOTHING else to do. I would have already done EVERYTHING. Thus, I would become the next Satan, just so I could have some "fun" again.
I was writing the above when I hit the proverbial "writer's block" and saw this video at Holy Koolaid. Here is the link:
Thomas Westbrook @ Holy Koolaid @ YouTube
Video: "Why Is Heaven Bad?"
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxAMwjQc_ts
Yeah. Heaven is a fate worse than death.
For a really good show about this, watch Star Trek: Voyager: "Death Wish" Season 2, Episode 18. When I first watched this Episode, I did so with my mom. I commented, "I can sympathize with Quinn." My mom then asked, "What do you mean?" I replied, "Done did everything with nothing left to do, hell I'd go wonko." No wonder Q (John de Lancie) was such a shit-head. It is the only thing that broke the monotony of eternity…
rmfr
Barrel Rider,
Thank you for telling us a bit about your assignment. Whole books have been written to address some of your questions, so I can only hope to give you an overview. Feel free to follow up on this material.
We are the product of a long evolutionary line. About 7 million years ago a branch of the apes split. One half soon became the chimpanzees and bonobos. The other branch is classified as the hominids. Within the hominid branch, traveling upward through some combination of branches, many yet to be discovered, we arrive at Homo sapiens. Going back to that ape branch, we could go the other way, tracing our lineage all the way down to the base of the evolutionary bush, to simple cells without a nucleus. Along the way we probably pass through the worms, which are a rather diverse lot.
It may amuse you to know that, as a part of the ape line, we bypassed the monkey branch. Hence we have no common ancestors with monkeys! Today, we are the lone surviving member of the hominid branch, but our ancestors encountered at least one other hominid--the Neanderthals. Some of them must have taken a liking to each other! Many of us, especially those with red hair, carry a number of Neanderthal genes!
Our place in the world is what we make of it, a consequence of our evolved capabilities multiplied greatly by cultural evolution. Different people have different ideas as to the role humans should play.
The "purpose" of life is to procreate and survive. That is to say, after billions of years of evolution those living organisms not marvelously "designed" at a basic level to readily reproduce and survive disappeared. Life today, therefore, has inherited this "purpose." Branches or twigs of the evolutionary bush that don't measure up get "pruned." If, by "purpose," you are referring to a creator god who had some kind of plan in mind, then I don't see any purpose.
The huge size of the universe makes a mockery of the idea that God is fixated on us. We are tiny creatures clinging to the surface of a tiny little speck of rock orbiting a sun in the outskirts of our galaxy, one of a trillion known galaxies in the observable universe. And, there's more beyond the observable universe! Moreover, 13 billion years have passed since the Big Bang origin of our universe. Our own home, Earth, is 4.5 billion years old. On any time chart we humans arrived shockingly late, almost as an afterthought--just a tiny space at the very end of that chart. Obviously, we play no central role in this universe, and it is hard to believe that those trillion galaxies were made for our benefit. If we were central to all this planning why didn't we appear soon after the stage was set--as in the Bible? This problem vexed many theologians.
Without a creator there is no inherent purpose to life, and no need to guess what it might be. We find our own "purpose" in life. Some people find a great deal of "purpose" (or meaning) in searching out the mysteries of this universe. Others find meaning in being a champion tennis player or in helping others. Thus, the subjective side of "meaning of life."
There is no absolute standard. Even God (if he exists) cannot be such a standard as that leads to a serious paradox that leaves us with the ultimate in relative morality! (At least some of the early Church Fathers seemed to understand this paradox and they sided with the idea that God merely proscribed what is best for us, something we might discover for ourselves.) On the other hand it's not a case of anything goes. It does make good sense to say that there is a kind of standard, something like Jello which wiggles this way and that way but still has something of a shape.
We are ultimately that compass. Moral rules are merely the codification of being nice to those around us, to which some arbitrary taboos are usually added. We don't need heaven to tell us how to be nice to our neighbors! For 99% of humanity's existence we lived in small clans. It was really important to be liked by the people around you. They might save you from that tiger or feed you if you have a bad hunt. Furthermore, the survival of the clan itself depended on people working together efficiently. Efficient cooperation led to better hunting and better self-defense against attacking tribes, meaning a better chance at survival. Morality was the necessary grease for smooth functioning within the tribe and, hence, survival. Thus, tribes promoted it, codified it, and enforced it according to their needs.
Outsiders were not yet protected by those moral laws. They were routinely plundered or enslaved--sometimes viciously. Often they were not even considered human! Today, when you meet a stranger, he says "Hello!" Back then you became a slave if you were lucky! However, as societies became larger and more complex, trade and other interests soon required you to be nice to more distant societies, and moral rules became more universal. The great moral thinkers of all ages also understood that the other guy, that stranger, was a lot like you. If you could only walk in his shoes, think his thoughts, you would discover that he is really just another version of "you." Hence, the various versions of the Golden Rule of which the negative version seems best.
If we avoid odd or dysfunctional societies, then you will find (especially in larger societies that form alliances and trade with numerous other societies) a general consensus as to what it means to be nice to each other. Some moral rules are pretty much absolute. Do not kill your neighbors (or visitors from your allies or trading partners). Do not steal. Do not lie. Other matters, such as dress codes and sex, are more or less relative.
To conclude, if you look towards the general human consensus about how to be nice to one another, and extend it to everyone as is necessary in a world where millions of people visit foreign lands (and spend money there), you will find the basis for your moral code. It is partly absolute (to a high degree) and partly relative. It began with the need for small societies to function smoothly, and for individuals to survive in a small tribe. It's all about being nice. God can give us some good tips, if he exists, but it's all about human needs. We don't have to search heaven for the answers.
Based on the reasonable assumption that our physical makeup is all of us, then nothing more happens after we die. Where were you when Caesar was crowned? A meaningless question! "You" were not part of the picture. After you die you are no longer part of the picture, except in the minds of your surviving family, friends, or readers of history books and admirers of statues (if you became famous). Our lives are fulfilled (if at all) by the accomplishments we achieve in our lifetimes.
Do not mourn for your own death. Mourn, if you must, for the death of the universe where all life and knowledge, everywhere, dies. Maybe other universes will arise that are suitable for life and the play will begin again.
How's that assignment coming?
Holy crap! I just googled “online apologetics class”...looks like it’s quite the money-making machine.
Religion, the gift that keeps on giving, quite literally it seems.
You know I found this online about how stars form
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec13.html
Strangely no deity and nothing supernatural is mentioned?
And it costs nothing to read it and learn.
In the art of selling a product, a common method is convincing you that you have a problem they can fix. Usually, this applies very well to things like vacuum cleaners and sponge mops but there's no reason why somebody can't say that you are the problem and this deity will fix it if you worship Him.
As soon as you accept the idea that you were created faulty by a faultless deity then they can sell you anything. It's what keeps companies like PowerFit (that claim you can lose weight by standing on a vibrating platform) in business.
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