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God doesn't want mechanical lemmings and slaves. He gives us freedom of choice. He doesn't want us forced to come to him. He wants to see that we're interested in him, and want him. Jesus knocks on the door, and hopes that we'll answer, but he isn't going to bust down the door and make demands. God is loving and wants a relationship with us. He's not a tyrant.
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Originally Posted by Rafius
Well...so you believe.
...but if we are not interested in him he throws us into a lake of fire. Such logic! Free will means being able to choose something WITHOUT being punished for the choice made. Your god's 'free will' is rather like the abusive husband saying to his suffering wife... 'You have the free choice to leave me but if you do I'll shoot you.'
I can't add to that.
The free will thing in reality just doesn't cut it.
What is so illogical that it is actually inane..is that some, that don't even believe in the existence of some Omnimax God, would then question why this nonexistent God doesn't act in some way!
That doesn't make any sense. Why question or get all worked up over the inaction of something that isn't real?!
There is no Deity that demonstrates its cruel insouciance by allowing suffering that could all be solved with a *SNAP*, but simply chooses not to.
So, what's with the all the fervent angst?
Well, I actually know why some are so upset about it...and I've posted it many times: WE ARE MAD AT OURSELVES!!
WE are the "selfish and cruel" that just watch the suffering we COULD do something about, but don't.
How many pairs of shoes do we own, but still buy more? What about something as worthless and frivolously expensive as jewelry...who has some of that? Vacations...for nothing more than our "enjoyment". Two, three, or more, flatscreens. How much money do we spend on sports in this country, both playing and observing? All while people starve...and there is a shortage of research dollars to find the cures for diseases.
You act as if "enjoyment" is bad. "How DARE you take that vacation when people are starving!"
Fact is that the First World has its own share of very real problems -- most notably stress. Stress is a HUGE problem, especially in America where we are taught to be workaholics. Italy, for instance, has laws providing for 7 weeks of vacation time no matter where you work -- or for how long. In this country, you'll be lucky to get a single week and will have to wait a decade before you get two.
America is probably one of the greediest nations on the planet -- which is why we have such a strong conservative political element whereas most other Western nations do not. Work, work, work, and you better not be "enjoying" yourself because that's idle time when you COULD be doing something productive.
Stress can lead to mental illness, and that, in turn, leads to snipers in Las Vegas and a guy, angry at his mother in law, blowing away an entire church congregation. Vacations aren't merely for unnecessary "enjoyment," they are very necessary. I mean, is that what you want your life to be like? Just work, sleep, crap, eat, work, sleep, crap, eat --- rinse and repeat?
The problem isn't that we don't donate our money. The problem is our economic model. It doesn't work. It may have worked in earlier times, but it no longer does. As the population increases by a billion people every 11 years, the number of jobs worldwide continues to decline -- and with fewer and fewer people working for more than subsistance wages, the less tax money any government can generate to pay for programs that keep the citizenry from being quite literally homeless and starving. Of course, here in America, the GOP maintains a slavish devotion to "trickle down economics" which is a proven failure -- but because it creates big tax cuts for themselves and their wealthy buddies, these politicians continue to lower the government's revenue even further so that the very wealthy can have ... what? After all, what can't they buy right now? What do they need more money for?
Yet we have a big, disastrous tax bill in congress right now that will add $1.5 trillion to the national debt so the top 0.01% can have a massive tax cut -- all of which will go into their personal bank accounts, into the pockets of their loyal cronies, and into offshore tax havens. If even 200,000 jobs are created thanks to this bill, I'll be utterly amazed (and most of them will pay under $30,000 per year).
Well, it's pretty hard to donate money when your value as a human being would be diminished in the eyes of everyone else -- and you'll literally be treated differently because people will see you as "less than" for not having a bigger house, a nicer car, and more bling and trinkets. It's also difficult to donate money when it now costs an entire annual salary to insure a family of four. It's quite literally creeping up to the $30,000 per year mark for health insurance.
Our economic model -- that provides nothing for the bottom half of the IQ pool -- coupled with our culture of greed, avarice, and materialism is a big problem. Throw in a huge dose of overpopulation, automation, and a decreasing amount of consumers propping up a consumer driven economy and you can see the problem.
I don't think people should be required to bust their balls earning degrees and climbing the corporate ladder just so they can hand over most of their money to charity and live more or less like a pauper. If people wanted to live like that, they could forgo all the work and education and just get a job at Wal-Mart.
You NEED the incentive of a higher standard of living for jobs that are more difficult to do, jobs that might keep a person away from his family, jobs that are high stress and high responsibility, jobs that require a lot of work just to obtain much less actually perform. This is yet another reason why relying on charitable donations to help the starving is just a bad idea all around. And, once again, there are fewer and fewer people each year who can afford to donate money -- and not because they have half a dozen 4K HD 60" televisions or a treasure chest full of jewelry (I'm with you on the jewelry bit -- what a colossal waste of money).
At any rate, the bottom line is pretty simple for those who see the bigger picture -- the economic model that has people "singing for their supper," so to speak, is obsolete. Things will only continue to deteriorate as long as this fact is ignored. The economy must change on a fundamental level for things to improve globally -- donations won't solve the problem, and, as I said, who wants to work their tails off to obtain a well-paying job just to give it all away? Humans are humans and without incentive ... well, at any rate, the issue is much more complex than "we're mad at ourselves" because we're not doing more.
There are issues we CAN fix right here at home, but we don't -- because the right of the wealthy to have plenty of diamonds and jewelry is far greater than the right of a poor person to have access to health care. That about sums it up.
As for the God issue -- well, some of us just find it annoying that anyone can be so full of cognitive dissonance as to believe their Biblegod is so gosh-darn wonderful and full of love for his creation yet designing a world that is only marginally habitable. An entire continent is going to waste because it's perpetually frozen and a massive band around the equatorial regions are unfit for almost all types of crops. Subtract mountainous regions, deserts, vast areas of Canada and Russia that are covered in tundra and permafrost, etc. and you can plainly see that our little planet is not necessarily ideal.
If God truly did exist, then it's a valid question: Why DOES God allow so many innocent people, most of whom are children, quite literally starve to death? Naturally, the believers have invented a complex web of rationalizations to explain it -- from nonsense like "original sin" to "sometimes God says no" (to our prayers) to "who are you to question the mighty mind of God."
None of those answers actually answers the question though -- because what they don't want to admit is that our world is playing out in precisely the way it should play out if there were no gods at all. People are starving while others are fat precisely *because* there is no God, no "white knight" to ride to our rescue.
Because I am pretty well convinced that if a God like the Christians described truly existed, he would have done something about the horrific suffering this world so often visits upon people -- especially the innocent and the powerless. You would see far more "poetic justice" and good things *would* happen to good people while bad things would happen to bad people. It wouldn't be so random and so blatantly unfair if someone were actually behind the wheel of the universe.
Christians can preach until their vocal chords wither up and die -- and I will never believe that it's all a part of some "divine plan" or that I am unfit to question God; I'll certainly never buy into the concept of original sin, which is almost as silly an idea as a flat earth. If there is a higher power at all, he put the universe on autopilot and then went to take a snooze.
In any debate about God, the issue of suffering is an extremely valid point to make, and yeah, it can make even atheists a bit angry because we *want* God to help people and I'm sure that 99.99% of all atheists would happily admit how wrong we were about God if suddenly *snap* (as you put it) and now no one is going hungry.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
People buy multi-million dollar paintings...just to look at. Ferraris, yachts, a 4th mansion, Rolex watches, and children have 7 or 8 hundred dollar smartphones.
Yes, there is an entire segment of the economy designed exclusively to separate the wealthy from their money. For instance, why would anyone in their right mind, rich or not, pay upwards of $10,000 for a handbag? Or $50,000 for a suit? You know why -- most of the money they pay is for the exclusive label and nothing more. A suit or a purse or a watch can only be *so* good, *so* well-crafted, and even the best of these things aren't intrinsically worth nearly that much.
BUT ... they are priced high to keep Armani suits and Rolex watches out of the hands of the unwashed masses -- so if you own a Ferrari, a Rolex, an Armani suit, a Dior dress, a pair of Gucci shoes, and a big rock on your finger, it says to other rich people, "Hey, I'm one of you so don't treat me like one of ... them!" It says to everyone else, "I'm rich enough to spend $10,000 on a purse that isn't really any better than a $25 purse from K-Mart, but I have the money to waste on bullcrap products!"
It's all about ego and class-consciousness and nothing more. I suppose some of this behavior could be stifled with education from an early age, but the bottom line, in essence, is that none of this will ever change until we genetically engineer better human beings with a better system of values and priorities.
However, as I said before, there *does* need to be an incentive to do the hard jobs, the stressful jobs, the jobs loaded with responsibility. I do not, and never will, advocate that we all live just slightly above subsistence so we can spread all of our hard earned money around the world for the benefit of others.
Again, it really comes down to the obsolescence of our economic model -- it's not that there isn't enough food for everyone. It's just that not everyone can pay for it. A big corporate agricultural firm, for instance, will get far more money and profits selling their food at a huge mark-up to a few thousand fat, indulgent Americans than by selling their food to 10 million impoverished, starving Africans.
As long as profit is the driving force behind the things we do -- whether it's expecting a return favor whenever we do something nice for a friend or whether it's a corporate behemoth expecting a return of billions of dollars on an investment, it's all the same. It seems we only ever do something for someone else if there's something in it for ourselves; if we think we'll get something out of it.
Notice, too, how our acts of kindness are directly proportional to what we'll get out of it in return. For instance, we'll happily donate a few cans of vegetables to a food drive or give up an old winter coat or frayed and aging blanket for the homeless. But how many people would go out and spend a goodly chunk of change on a new winter coat? A *good* winter coat? Or go out and buy a brand new $70 comforter to give some homeless person so he can keep warm? Perhaps some do, but most don't -- because there is almost no return on that act of kindness. You might get a momentary warm and fuzzy feeling, perhaps some bragging rights about how charitable you are when competing with members of your church. Otherwise, though, you get nothing.
But wait! A friend of yours tells you that he has a sweet line on an awesome investment -- and he's willing to bring you into the deal. All he needs is, say, $50,000 and your return over the next 5 years will be three or four times that much. Wow! Next thing you know, you're cutting him a check -- an act of charity -- for $50,000 because you want to earn that $150,000 to $200,000 over the next five years.
So you see what I mean -- the more you stand to gain from your "act of kindness," the more "kindness" you're willing to display. (Of course I mean "you" in a general sense, not you specifically GldnRule). Again, that's partly human nature and partly due to the kinds of values and priorities we've been indoctrinated to have in a capitalist society.
Anyhow, those who can afford Rolexes and millions for a painting already have more than enough to donate to charitable causes -- and many of them actually *do* donate. Yet there are still plenty of starving children. By the time every profiteer -- from the packers to the shippers to the sailors and pilots who transport the goods to the bureaucrats and administrators to the people who run the charity -- takes their cut, perhaps only 40% of the money actually goes toward helping anyone.
Our system is fundamentally broken -- globalism is the death of capitalism because it ensures a race to the bottom for everyone. In fact, the only people who are benefiting from globalization are the super-rich and the super-poor. And the super-poor are only benefiting because they have nowhere else to go but up. Even so, when I say the super-poor are benefiting, I mean they might get to eat twice a week instead of once every 10 days. It's not a *huge* improvement.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
We spend hundreds of millions to explore outer space...for not much more than to satisfy our curiosity...instead of buying basic necessities and medical care for the poor.
Now, see ... it's this kind of extremism where you end up taking a good point and ruining it by going completely off the rails.
We are human beings, after all, and as I tried to say earlier in my post, being human is more than just breathing, eating, crapping, and sleeping. We need things like space exploration to inspire us, to spark our imaginations, and yes, to satisfy our curiosity.
The problem, GldnRule, is that you're only focusing on the physical -- that which our body needs -- and failing utterly to address the things our brain needs. Just like with any muscle, if we stop using our brains, it *will* atrophy and become useless. There is a psychological component to all of this which you're ignoring; mental health is as important as physical health. Without any stimulation for our brains, well, we may as well just revert to dressing in animal skins and living in caves. To hell with advancing the human condition.
I don't subscribe to the paradigm that if everyone can't have Rolex watches, no one should have them. Nor do I subscribe to the idea that we should scrub our civilization and use every cent of excess money to prop up other areas of the world that aren't doing so well.
Why? Well, because simply throwing money at a problem isn't always the solution. For instance, it would take a sea change in some African cultures to stop the horrendous starvation because women are still taught that their only value is as baby-making machines. Hence, they keep having babies even though they know damn well that 9 out of 10 will starve to death before their 5th birthday -- but hey, at least she's not a valueless woman, right?
There's also the cold and harsh reality that a given area of land is only capable of supporting a certain number of people. The tropics, where most of human poverty and suffering exists, is a very poor place for crop cultivation and, thus, these areas can only support a limited number of people. If we artificially stimulate reproduction in these areas by feeding them beyond what the land can support, starvation is the inevitable result. We're not ANY different than any other animal -- if there are more predators than prey, for instance, the predators will begin dying off until an equilibrium is reached.
But when you have the Catholics over there in Africa preaching against contraception, gee, guess what happens. Yep, too many babies are born and they starve. Some nations in Africa even have megacities like Nairobi which the land simply cannot support.
But scrapping space exploration isn't where the money should come from. How about, instead, we stop giving the record-profit-making oil companies $10.5 billion in corporate subsidies -- they're called "subsidies" when given to corporations yet it's called "welfare" when given to people -- and instead put that money into our safety net programs like Social Security, Disability, and Medicaid? I've already said before that you could give 6 million Americans Disability payouts of $15k per year with JUST the oil subsidies -- and while $15k per year isn't much, it's a damn sight better than what the disabled get now.
In fact, for the cost of one SINGLE "Javelin" anti-tank missile, you could put one person on Disability at $1200 per month for an entire year.
Or how about the nearly $50 million that the Mormon church spent on trying to ban gay marriage in California. Was that *truly* the best way to spend that kind of money? Think of how many medical treatments, life-changing surgeries, and access to medications that that money could have bought for those too poor to afford them -- and *most* of those poor people work, and they work doing jobs that are very much needed but which don't require a lot of skill nor do those jobs carry any prestige so, yeah, who cares if they die. There's plenty more of "those" people to replace those that can't afford health care and die.
We spend more on our military than the next 20 nations combined -- which includes ALL of our potential enemies like North Korea, China, Iran, the entire Middle East. That also includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, India and, well ... you get the point. I'm sure we can stop being the "world's policeman" in some regions and trim the military budget. (I'm in favor of having a powerful military because I do understand why it's important -- but c'mon, ya know?)
But, again, scrapping space exploration? No, that's taking it a step too far. Besides, we need to do this. As we all know, the sun will render life on earth impossible in about 500 million years (the sun is gradually getting hotter as it runs out of hydrogen so we do *not* have 5 billion years like some people think).
Yeah, 500 million years is a long time -- long enough for humanity to mess around thinking there's plenty of time until suddenly there *isn't* plenty of time and we find ourselves on the edge of extinction. We need to start exploring *now* and investing in ways to break the light barrier so we can someday get off this rock. Otherwise, the collective efforts of every one of us really did mean nothing.
Our curiosity -- and inventing ways to satiate our curiosity -- to improve and expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe is part of what makes us human beings. If we stop engaging in endeavors like space exploration then, well, eff it all, I guess. Might as well devolve into animals.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
And how much time, effort, and money does mankind spend on militaries and waging war?
Yeah, this is a bad one, and I do agree with you on this point. The problem again comes down to human nature. Sure, if every nation could disarm -- including all the terrorists -- then we'd have money to fix nearly all the problems we have (that can be fixed with money, that is). But, because we haven't been able to disconnect ourselves from that "reptilian" part of our brain that continues to be frightened and suspicious of those who are different, war will always be with us.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
And as for other "bad things" in the world: It isn't the fault of the nonexistent Deities that a child is a rape victim...it is HUMANS conducting as rapists.
Yeah, we atheists *know* that. Unfortunately, you're missing the point entirely.
Often the reason why we bring up starving kids in Africa or the rape of a child or some other bad thing in relation to God is because the lion's share of Christians give God the credit for all of the good things. The problem is that these "good things" are often so trivial, insignificant, and unimportant that it boggles the mind that anyone would think an all-powerful god had anything to do with it.
It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God would provide these happy, often obese, American Christians with their food while allowing African children to starve to death by the tens of thousands every day. It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God allowed some small town high school football team to win or that God is hooking people up on ChristianMingle.com or God managed to get some well-to-do First Worlder a big raise or a nice promotion -- while simultaneously allowing the starvation, the famines, the natural disasters, the warfare and tribalism, and all the rest of it to continue on day after day without so much as a pause.
*That* is why we say what we do. In addition, it pops the bubble of their perceived "specialness."
For instance, I remember hearing a story once how this person needed a certain amount of money to keep his home -- and lo and behold, someone gave him the money right down to the exact change. It could have been no one else but God who was behind it! Because, yeah, the creator of all the universe thought this person was so damn special that he reached down and intervened on this person's behalf -- while allowing the other 600,000 or so homeless people in America to remain homeless.
This concept of intervention completely invalidates the "free will" argument in any event. Free will doesn't matter much if your pet god simply fixes everything for you whenever you get into a jam. And everyone else must not be as good as you, as special as you, as pious as you, as close to God as I am ... yippee, you suckahs! *sung in the nyah-nyah tune* "I'm close to god and he likes me better than you. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!"
Whether they mean it or not, intentional or not, that IS what they're saying -- and it just gives us yet one more reason why we're not at all fond of the concept of god. It allows people to turn random chance or dumb luck into a personal endorsement of their character by God.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
WE are the "selfish and uncaring Powerful Entities" that COULD do something, but DON'T. There are no EVIL DEITIES doing nothing even though they could..there is only US acting that way.
You're preaching to the choir, GldnRule. We atheists know all of this already -- well, at least we all know the second sentence. No doubt there are many selfish and uncaring atheists as well as there are many selfish and uncaring deity-worshipers -- and they won't admit it.
Truth is, you should be telling this to the Christians on this board who give God credit for all the wonderful things in their lives rather than telling atheists this in the hopes that we won't talk about God anymore.
I don't know why you're giving the Christians a free pass to act all smug and sanctimonious with their little First World miracles while chastizing we atheists for calling them on it -- as if WE are the ones who are claiming God is intervening in this world.
We atheists only say what we do because we're working from within the Christian belief paradigm. If we didn't do that, then every discussion would simply be:
"God doesn't exist."
"Yes he does."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
And so forth.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
Any anger should be with ourselves...and not illogically projected upon some made-up Deity Character that does not exist.
Except we atheists aren't angry with God -- we're angry with the Christians who actually think that God performed a First World miracle for them while ignoring all those who are truly suffering -- many of whom are just as Christian as they are.
We bring up the starvation and the suffering as an undeniable counterpoint to their gloating over how some random event or dumb luck piece of good fortune means God took a personal interest in their plight and saw fit to help them -- but not help the 20,000 or so children who die of starvation every year or so.
By the way, I wondered where you had gone off too and if you'd be back.
You act as if "enjoyment" is bad. "How DARE you take that vacation when people are starving!"
Fact is that the First World has its own share of very real problems -- most notably stress. Stress is a HUGE problem, especially in America where we are taught to be workaholics. Italy, for instance, has laws providing for 7 weeks of vacation time no matter where you work -- or for how long. In this country, you'll be lucky to get a single week and will have to wait a decade before you get two.
America is probably one of the greediest nations on the planet -- which is why we have such a strong conservative political element whereas most other Western nations do not. Work, work, work, and you better not be "enjoying" yourself because that's idle time when you COULD be doing something productive.
Stress can lead to mental illness, and that, in turn, leads to snipers in Las Vegas and a guy, angry at his mother in law, blowing away an entire church congregation. Vacations aren't merely for unnecessary "enjoyment," they are very necessary. I mean, is that what you want your life to be like? Just work, sleep, crap, eat, work, sleep, crap, eat --- rinse and repeat?
The problem isn't that we don't donate our money. The problem is our economic model. It doesn't work. It may have worked in earlier times, but it no longer does. As the population increases by a billion people every 11 years, the number of jobs worldwide continues to decline -- and with fewer and fewer people working for more than subsistance wages, the less tax money any government can generate to pay for programs that keep the citizenry from being quite literally homeless and starving. Of course, here in America, the GOP maintains a slavish devotion to "trickle down economics" which is a proven failure -- but because it creates big tax cuts for themselves and their wealthy buddies, these politicians continue to lower the government's revenue even further so that the very wealthy can have ... what? After all, what can't they buy right now? What do they need more money for?
Yet we have a big, disastrous tax bill in congress right now that will add $1.5 trillion to the national debt so the top 0.01% can have a massive tax cut -- all of which will go into their personal bank accounts, into the pockets of their loyal cronies, and into offshore tax havens. If even 200,000 jobs are created thanks to this bill, I'll be utterly amazed (and most of them will pay under $30,000 per year).
Well, it's pretty hard to donate money when your value as a human being would be diminished in the eyes of everyone else -- and you'll literally be treated differently because people will see you as "less than" for not having a bigger house, a nicer car, and more bling and trinkets. It's also difficult to donate money when it now costs an entire annual salary to insure a family of four. It's quite literally creeping up to the $30,000 per year mark for health insurance.
Our economic model -- that provides nothing for the bottom half of the IQ pool -- coupled with our culture of greed, avarice, and materialism is a big problem. Throw in a huge dose of overpopulation, automation, and a decreasing amount of consumers propping up a consumer driven economy and you can see the problem.
I don't think people should be required to bust their balls earning degrees and climbing the corporate ladder just so they can hand over most of their money to charity and live more or less like a pauper. If people wanted to live like that, they could forgo all the work and education and just get a job at Wal-Mart.
You NEED the incentive of a higher standard of living for jobs that are more difficult to do, jobs that might keep a person away from his family, jobs that are high stress and high responsibility, jobs that require a lot of work just to obtain much less actually perform. This is yet another reason why relying on charitable donations to help the starving is just a bad idea all around. And, once again, there are fewer and fewer people each year who can afford to donate money -- and not because they have half a dozen 4K HD 60" televisions or a treasure chest full of jewelry (I'm with you on the jewelry bit -- what a colossal waste of money).
At any rate, the bottom line is pretty simple for those who see the bigger picture -- the economic model that has people "singing for their supper," so to speak, is obsolete. Things will only continue to deteriorate as long as this fact is ignored. The economy must change on a fundamental level for things to improve globally -- donations won't solve the problem, and, as I said, who wants to work their tails off to obtain a well-paying job just to give it all away? Humans are humans and without incentive ... well, at any rate, the issue is much more complex than "we're mad at ourselves" because we're not doing more.
There are issues we CAN fix right here at home, but we don't -- because the right of the wealthy to have plenty of diamonds and jewelry is far greater than the right of a poor person to have access to health care. That about sums it up.
As for the God issue -- well, some of us just find it annoying that anyone can be so full of cognitive dissonance as to believe their Biblegod is so gosh-darn wonderful and full of love for his creation yet designing a world that is only marginally habitable. An entire continent is going to waste because it's perpetually frozen and a massive band around the equatorial regions are unfit for almost all types of crops. Subtract mountainous regions, deserts, vast areas of Canada and Russia that are covered in tundra and permafrost, etc. and you can plainly see that our little planet is not necessarily ideal.
If God truly did exist, then it's a valid question: Why DOES God allow so many innocent people, most of whom are children, quite literally starve to death? Naturally, the believers have invented a complex web of rationalizations to explain it -- from nonsense like "original sin" to "sometimes God says no" (to our prayers) to "who are you to question the mighty mind of God."
None of those answers actually answers the question though -- because what they don't want to admit is that our world is playing out in precisely the way it should play out if there were no gods at all. People are starving while others are fat precisely *because* there is no God, no "white knight" to ride to our rescue.
Because I am pretty well convinced that if a God like the Christians described truly existed, he would have done something about the horrific suffering this world so often visits upon people -- especially the innocent and the powerless. You would see far more "poetic justice" and good things *would* happen to good people while bad things would happen to bad people. It wouldn't be so random and so blatantly unfair if someone were actually behind the wheel of the universe.
Christians can preach until their vocal chords wither up and die -- and I will never believe that it's all a part of some "divine plan" or that I am unfit to question God; I'll certainly never buy into the concept of original sin, which is almost as silly an idea as a flat earth. If there is a higher power at all, he put the universe on autopilot and then went to take a snooze.
In any debate about God, the issue of suffering is an extremely valid point to make, and yeah, it can make even atheists a bit angry because we *want* God to help people and I'm sure that 99.99% of all atheists would happily admit how wrong we were about God if suddenly *snap* (as you put it) and now no one is going hungry.
Yes, there is an entire segment of the economy designed exclusively to separate the wealthy from their money. For instance, why would anyone in their right mind, rich or not, pay upwards of $10,000 for a handbag? Or $50,000 for a suit? You know why -- most of the money they pay is for the exclusive label and nothing more. A suit or a purse or a watch can only be *so* good, *so* well-crafted, and even the best of these things aren't intrinsically worth nearly that much.
BUT ... they are priced high to keep Armani suits and Rolex watches out of the hands of the unwashed masses -- so if you own a Ferrari, a Rolex, an Armani suit, a Dior dress, a pair of Gucci shoes, and a big rock on your finger, it says to other rich people, "Hey, I'm one of you so don't treat me like one of ... them!" It says to everyone else, "I'm rich enough to spend $10,000 on a purse that isn't really any better than a $25 purse from K-Mart, but I have the money to waste on bullcrap products!"
It's all about ego and class-consciousness and nothing more. I suppose some of this behavior could be stifled with education from an early age, but the bottom line, in essence, is that none of this will ever change until we genetically engineer better human beings with a better system of values and priorities.
However, as I said before, there *does* need to be an incentive to do the hard jobs, the stressful jobs, the jobs loaded with responsibility. I do not, and never will, advocate that we all live just slightly above subsistence so we can spread all of our hard earned money around the world for the benefit of others.
Again, it really comes down to the obsolescence of our economic model -- it's not that there isn't enough food for everyone. It's just that not everyone can pay for it. A big corporate agricultural firm, for instance, will get far more money and profits selling their food at a huge mark-up to a few thousand fat, indulgent Americans than by selling their food to 10 million impoverished, starving Africans.
As long as profit is the driving force behind the things we do -- whether it's expecting a return favor whenever we do something nice for a friend or whether it's a corporate behemoth expecting a return of billions of dollars on an investment, it's all the same. It seems we only ever do something for someone else if there's something in it for ourselves; if we think we'll get something out of it.
Notice, too, how our acts of kindness are directly proportional to what we'll get out of it in return. For instance, we'll happily donate a few cans of vegetables to a food drive or give up an old winter coat or frayed and aging blanket for the homeless. But how many people would go out and spend a goodly chunk of change on a new winter coat? A *good* winter coat? Or go out and buy a brand new $70 comforter to give some homeless person so he can keep warm? Perhaps some do, but most don't -- because there is almost no return on that act of kindness. You might get a momentary warm and fuzzy feeling, perhaps some bragging rights about how charitable you are when competing with members of your church. Otherwise, though, you get nothing.
But wait! A friend of yours tells you that he has a sweet line on an awesome investment -- and he's willing to bring you into the deal. All he needs is, say, $50,000 and your return over the next 5 years will be three or four times that much. Wow! Next thing you know, you're cutting him a check -- an act of charity -- for $50,000 because you want to earn that $150,000 to $200,000 over the next five years.
So you see what I mean -- the more you stand to gain from your "act of kindness," the more "kindness" you're willing to display. (Of course I mean "you" in a general sense, not you specifically GldnRule). Again, that's partly human nature and partly due to the kinds of values and priorities we've been indoctrinated to have in a capitalist society.
Anyhow, those who can afford Rolexes and millions for a painting already have more than enough to donate to charitable causes -- and many of them actually *do* donate. Yet there are still plenty of starving children. By the time every profiteer -- from the packers to the shippers to the sailors and pilots who transport the goods to the bureaucrats and administrators to the people who run the charity -- takes their cut, perhaps only 40% of the money actually goes toward helping anyone.
Our system is fundamentally broken -- globalism is the death of capitalism because it ensures a race to the bottom for everyone. In fact, the only people who are benefiting from globalization are the super-rich and the super-poor. And the super-poor are only benefiting because they have nowhere else to go but up. Even so, when I say the super-poor are benefiting, I mean they might get to eat twice a week instead of once every 10 days. It's not a *huge* improvement.
Now, see ... it's this kind of extremism where you end up taking a good point and ruining it by going completely off the rails.
We are human beings, after all, and as I tried to say earlier in my post, being human is more than just breathing, eating, crapping, and sleeping. We need things like space exploration to inspire us, to spark our imaginations, and yes, to satisfy our curiosity.
The problem, GldnRule, is that you're only focusing on the physical -- that which our body needs -- and failing utterly to address the things our brain needs. Just like with any muscle, if we stop using our brains, it *will* atrophy and become useless. There is a psychological component to all of this which you're ignoring; mental health is as important as physical health. Without any stimulation for our brains, well, we may as well just revert to dressing in animal skins and living in caves. To hell with advancing the human condition.
I don't subscribe to the paradigm that if everyone can't have Rolex watches, no one should have them. Nor do I subscribe to the idea that we should scrub our civilization and use every cent of excess money to prop up other areas of the world that aren't doing so well.
Why? Well, because simply throwing money at a problem isn't always the solution. For instance, it would take a sea change in some African cultures to stop the horrendous starvation because women are still taught that their only value is as baby-making machines. Hence, they keep having babies even though they know damn well that 9 out of 10 will starve to death before their 5th birthday -- but hey, at least she's not a valueless woman, right?
There's also the cold and harsh reality that a given area of land is only capable of supporting a certain number of people. The tropics, where most of human poverty and suffering exists, is a very poor place for crop cultivation and, thus, these areas can only support a limited number of people. If we artificially stimulate reproduction in these areas by feeding them beyond what the land can support, starvation is the inevitable result. We're not ANY different than any other animal -- if there are more predators than prey, for instance, the predators will begin dying off until an equilibrium is reached.
But when you have the Catholics over there in Africa preaching against contraception, gee, guess what happens. Yep, too many babies are born and they starve. Some nations in Africa even have megacities like Nairobi which the land simply cannot support.
But scrapping space exploration isn't where the money should come from. How about, instead, we stop giving the record-profit-making oil companies $10.5 billion in corporate subsidies -- they're called "subsidies" when given to corporations yet it's called "welfare" when given to people -- and instead put that money into our safety net programs like Social Security, Disability, and Medicaid? I've already said before that you could give 6 million Americans Disability payouts of $15k per year with JUST the oil subsidies -- and while $15k per year isn't much, it's a damn sight better than what the disabled get now.
In fact, for the cost of one SINGLE "Javelin" anti-tank missile, you could put one person on Disability at $1200 per month for an entire year.
Or how about the nearly $50 million that the Mormon church spent on trying to ban gay marriage in California. Was that *truly* the best way to spend that kind of money? Think of how many medical treatments, life-changing surgeries, and access to medications that that money could have bought for those too poor to afford them -- and *most* of those poor people work, and they work doing jobs that are very much needed but which don't require a lot of skill nor do those jobs carry any prestige so, yeah, who cares if they die. There's plenty more of "those" people to replace those that can't afford health care and die.
We spend more on our military than the next 20 nations combined -- which includes ALL of our potential enemies like North Korea, China, Iran, the entire Middle East. That also includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, India and, well ... you get the point. I'm sure we can stop being the "world's policeman" in some regions and trim the military budget. (I'm in favor of having a powerful military because I do understand why it's important -- but c'mon, ya know?)
But, again, scrapping space exploration? No, that's taking it a step too far. Besides, we need to do this. As we all know, the sun will render life on earth impossible in about 500 million years (the sun is gradually getting hotter as it runs out of hydrogen so we do *not* have 5 billion years like some people think).
Yeah, 500 million years is a long time -- long enough for humanity to mess around thinking there's plenty of time until suddenly there *isn't* plenty of time and we find ourselves on the edge of extinction. We need to start exploring *now* and investing in ways to break the light barrier so we can someday get off this rock. Otherwise, the collective efforts of every one of us really did mean nothing.
Our curiosity -- and inventing ways to satiate our curiosity -- to improve and expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe is part of what makes us human beings. If we stop engaging in endeavors like space exploration then, well, eff it all, I guess. Might as well devolve into animals.
Yeah, this is a bad one, and I do agree with you on this point. The problem again comes down to human nature. Sure, if every nation could disarm -- including all the terrorists -- then we'd have money to fix nearly all the problems we have (that can be fixed with money, that is). But, because we haven't been able to disconnect ourselves from that "reptilian" part of our brain that continues to be frightened and suspicious of those who are different, war will always be with us.
Yeah, we atheists *know* that. Unfortunately, you're missing the point entirely.
Often the reason why we bring up starving kids in Africa or the rape of a child or some other bad thing in relation to God is because the lion's share of Christians give God the credit for all of the good things. The problem is that these "good things" are often so trivial, insignificant, and unimportant that it boggles the mind that anyone would think an all-powerful god had anything to do with it.
It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God would provide these happy, often obese, American Christians with their food while allowing African children to starve to death by the tens of thousands every day. It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God allowed some small town high school football team to win or that God is hooking people up on ChristianMingle.com or God managed to get some well-to-do First Worlder a big raise or a nice promotion -- while simultaneously allowing the starvation, the famines, the natural disasters, the warfare and tribalism, and all the rest of it to continue on day after day without so much as a pause.
*That* is why we say what we do. In addition, it pops the bubble of their perceived "specialness."
For instance, I remember hearing a story once how this person needed a certain amount of money to keep his home -- and lo and behold, someone gave him the money right down to the exact change. It could have been no one else but God who was behind it! Because, yeah, the creator of all the universe thought this person was so damn special that he reached down and intervened on this person's behalf -- while allowing the other 600,000 or so homeless people in America to remain homeless.
This concept of intervention completely invalidates the "free will" argument in any event. Free will doesn't matter much if your pet god simply fixes everything for you whenever you get into a jam. And everyone else must not be as good as you, as special as you, as pious as you, as close to God as I am ... yippee, you suckahs! *sung in the nyah-nyah tune* "I'm close to god and he likes me better than you. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!"
Whether they mean it or not, intentional or not, that IS what they're saying -- and it just gives us yet one more reason why we're not at all fond of the concept of god. It allows people to turn random chance or dumb luck into a personal endorsement of their character by God.
You're preaching to the choir, GldnRule. We atheists know all of this already -- well, at least we all know the second sentence. No doubt there are many selfish and uncaring atheists as well as there are many selfish and uncaring deity-worshipers -- and they won't admit it.
Truth is, you should be telling this to the Christians on this board who give God credit for all the wonderful things in their lives rather than telling atheists this in the hopes that we won't talk about God anymore.
I don't know why you're giving the Christians a free pass to act all smug and sanctimonious with their little First World miracles while chastizing we atheists for calling them on it -- as if WE are the ones who are claiming God is intervening in this world.
We atheists only say what we do because we're working from within the Christian belief paradigm. If we didn't do that, then every discussion would simply be:
"God doesn't exist."
"Yes he does."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
And so forth.
Except we atheists aren't angry with God -- we're angry with the Christians who actually think that God performed a First World miracle for them while ignoring all those who are truly suffering -- many of whom are just as Christian as they are.
We bring up the starvation and the suffering as an undeniable counterpoint to their gloating over how some random event or dumb luck piece of good fortune means God took a personal interest in their plight and saw fit to help them -- but not help the 20,000 or so children who die of starvation every year or so.
By the way, I wondered where you had gone off too and if you'd be back.
Wow! Not just a response...but a Super DeLuxe Shirina response!
I feel kinda privileged!
Of course...you make great points, and lay it all out really cool. I love it.
Hundreds of millions of people could be saved from a lot of suffering from just 20% of the wealth of the worlds top 1000 richest people. And those people would still have enough for a jillion lifetimes.
Most in western civilizations could give up a bit...with little burden.
And I think we should share our abundance much more.
Oh, and you are right...stress is terrible. I must learn to chill out more.
You act as if "enjoyment" is bad. "How DARE you take that vacation when people are starving!"
Fact is that the First World has its own share of very real problems -- most notably stress. Stress is a HUGE problem, especially in America where we are taught to be workaholics. Italy, for instance, has laws providing for 7 weeks of vacation time no matter where you work -- or for how long. In this country, you'll be lucky to get a single week and will have to wait a decade before you get two.
America is probably one of the greediest nations on the planet -- which is why we have such a strong conservative political element whereas most other Western nations do not. Work, work, work, and you better not be "enjoying" yourself because that's idle time when you COULD be doing something productive.
Stress can lead to mental illness, and that, in turn, leads to snipers in Las Vegas and a guy, angry at his mother in law, blowing away an entire church congregation. Vacations aren't merely for unnecessary "enjoyment," they are very necessary. I mean, is that what you want your life to be like? Just work, sleep, crap, eat, work, sleep, crap, eat --- rinse and repeat?
The problem isn't that we don't donate our money. The problem is our economic model. It doesn't work. It may have worked in earlier times, but it no longer does. As the population increases by a billion people every 11 years, the number of jobs worldwide continues to decline -- and with fewer and fewer people working for more than subsistance wages, the less tax money any government can generate to pay for programs that keep the citizenry from being quite literally homeless and starving. Of course, here in America, the GOP maintains a slavish devotion to "trickle down economics" which is a proven failure -- but because it creates big tax cuts for themselves and their wealthy buddies, these politicians continue to lower the government's revenue even further so that the very wealthy can have ... what? After all, what can't they buy right now? What do they need more money for?
Yet we have a big, disastrous tax bill in congress right now that will add $1.5 trillion to the national debt so the top 0.01% can have a massive tax cut -- all of which will go into their personal bank accounts, into the pockets of their loyal cronies, and into offshore tax havens. If even 200,000 jobs are created thanks to this bill, I'll be utterly amazed (and most of them will pay under $30,000 per year).
Well, it's pretty hard to donate money when your value as a human being would be diminished in the eyes of everyone else -- and you'll literally be treated differently because people will see you as "less than" for not having a bigger house, a nicer car, and more bling and trinkets. It's also difficult to donate money when it now costs an entire annual salary to insure a family of four. It's quite literally creeping up to the $30,000 per year mark for health insurance.
Our economic model -- that provides nothing for the bottom half of the IQ pool -- coupled with our culture of greed, avarice, and materialism is a big problem. Throw in a huge dose of overpopulation, automation, and a decreasing amount of consumers propping up a consumer driven economy and you can see the problem.
I don't think people should be required to bust their balls earning degrees and climbing the corporate ladder just so they can hand over most of their money to charity and live more or less like a pauper. If people wanted to live like that, they could forgo all the work and education and just get a job at Wal-Mart.
You NEED the incentive of a higher standard of living for jobs that are more difficult to do, jobs that might keep a person away from his family, jobs that are high stress and high responsibility, jobs that require a lot of work just to obtain much less actually perform. This is yet another reason why relying on charitable donations to help the starving is just a bad idea all around. And, once again, there are fewer and fewer people each year who can afford to donate money -- and not because they have half a dozen 4K HD 60" televisions or a treasure chest full of jewelry (I'm with you on the jewelry bit -- what a colossal waste of money).
At any rate, the bottom line is pretty simple for those who see the bigger picture -- the economic model that has people "singing for their supper," so to speak, is obsolete. Things will only continue to deteriorate as long as this fact is ignored. The economy must change on a fundamental level for things to improve globally -- donations won't solve the problem, and, as I said, who wants to work their tails off to obtain a well-paying job just to give it all away? Humans are humans and without incentive ... well, at any rate, the issue is much more complex than "we're mad at ourselves" because we're not doing more.
There are issues we CAN fix right here at home, but we don't -- because the right of the wealthy to have plenty of diamonds and jewelry is far greater than the right of a poor person to have access to health care. That about sums it up.
As for the God issue -- well, some of us just find it annoying that anyone can be so full of cognitive dissonance as to believe their Biblegod is so gosh-darn wonderful and full of love for his creation yet designing a world that is only marginally habitable. An entire continent is going to waste because it's perpetually frozen and a massive band around the equatorial regions are unfit for almost all types of crops. Subtract mountainous regions, deserts, vast areas of Canada and Russia that are covered in tundra and permafrost, etc. and you can plainly see that our little planet is not necessarily ideal.
If God truly did exist, then it's a valid question: Why DOES God allow so many innocent people, most of whom are children, quite literally starve to death? Naturally, the believers have invented a complex web of rationalizations to explain it -- from nonsense like "original sin" to "sometimes God says no" (to our prayers) to "who are you to question the mighty mind of God."
None of those answers actually answers the question though -- because what they don't want to admit is that our world is playing out in precisely the way it should play out if there were no gods at all. People are starving while others are fat precisely *because* there is no God, no "white knight" to ride to our rescue.
Because I am pretty well convinced that if a God like the Christians described truly existed, he would have done something about the horrific suffering this world so often visits upon people -- especially the innocent and the powerless. You would see far more "poetic justice" and good things *would* happen to good people while bad things would happen to bad people. It wouldn't be so random and so blatantly unfair if someone were actually behind the wheel of the universe.
Christians can preach until their vocal chords wither up and die -- and I will never believe that it's all a part of some "divine plan" or that I am unfit to question God; I'll certainly never buy into the concept of original sin, which is almost as silly an idea as a flat earth. If there is a higher power at all, he put the universe on autopilot and then went to take a snooze.
In any debate about God, the issue of suffering is an extremely valid point to make, and yeah, it can make even atheists a bit angry because we *want* God to help people and I'm sure that 99.99% of all atheists would happily admit how wrong we were about God if suddenly *snap* (as you put it) and now no one is going hungry.
Yes, there is an entire segment of the economy designed exclusively to separate the wealthy from their money. For instance, why would anyone in their right mind, rich or not, pay upwards of $10,000 for a handbag? Or $50,000 for a suit? You know why -- most of the money they pay is for the exclusive label and nothing more. A suit or a purse or a watch can only be *so* good, *so* well-crafted, and even the best of these things aren't intrinsically worth nearly that much.
BUT ... they are priced high to keep Armani suits and Rolex watches out of the hands of the unwashed masses -- so if you own a Ferrari, a Rolex, an Armani suit, a Dior dress, a pair of Gucci shoes, and a big rock on your finger, it says to other rich people, "Hey, I'm one of you so don't treat me like one of ... them!" It says to everyone else, "I'm rich enough to spend $10,000 on a purse that isn't really any better than a $25 purse from K-Mart, but I have the money to waste on bullcrap products!"
It's all about ego and class-consciousness and nothing more. I suppose some of this behavior could be stifled with education from an early age, but the bottom line, in essence, is that none of this will ever change until we genetically engineer better human beings with a better system of values and priorities.
However, as I said before, there *does* need to be an incentive to do the hard jobs, the stressful jobs, the jobs loaded with responsibility. I do not, and never will, advocate that we all live just slightly above subsistence so we can spread all of our hard earned money around the world for the benefit of others.
Again, it really comes down to the obsolescence of our economic model -- it's not that there isn't enough food for everyone. It's just that not everyone can pay for it. A big corporate agricultural firm, for instance, will get far more money and profits selling their food at a huge mark-up to a few thousand fat, indulgent Americans than by selling their food to 10 million impoverished, starving Africans.
As long as profit is the driving force behind the things we do -- whether it's expecting a return favor whenever we do something nice for a friend or whether it's a corporate behemoth expecting a return of billions of dollars on an investment, it's all the same. It seems we only ever do something for someone else if there's something in it for ourselves; if we think we'll get something out of it.
Notice, too, how our acts of kindness are directly proportional to what we'll get out of it in return. For instance, we'll happily donate a few cans of vegetables to a food drive or give up an old winter coat or frayed and aging blanket for the homeless. But how many people would go out and spend a goodly chunk of change on a new winter coat? A *good* winter coat? Or go out and buy a brand new $70 comforter to give some homeless person so he can keep warm? Perhaps some do, but most don't -- because there is almost no return on that act of kindness. You might get a momentary warm and fuzzy feeling, perhaps some bragging rights about how charitable you are when competing with members of your church. Otherwise, though, you get nothing.
But wait! A friend of yours tells you that he has a sweet line on an awesome investment -- and he's willing to bring you into the deal. All he needs is, say, $50,000 and your return over the next 5 years will be three or four times that much. Wow! Next thing you know, you're cutting him a check -- an act of charity -- for $50,000 because you want to earn that $150,000 to $200,000 over the next five years.
So you see what I mean -- the more you stand to gain from your "act of kindness," the more "kindness" you're willing to display. (Of course I mean "you" in a general sense, not you specifically GldnRule). Again, that's partly human nature and partly due to the kinds of values and priorities we've been indoctrinated to have in a capitalist society.
Anyhow, those who can afford Rolexes and millions for a painting already have more than enough to donate to charitable causes -- and many of them actually *do* donate. Yet there are still plenty of starving children. By the time every profiteer -- from the packers to the shippers to the sailors and pilots who transport the goods to the bureaucrats and administrators to the people who run the charity -- takes their cut, perhaps only 40% of the money actually goes toward helping anyone.
Our system is fundamentally broken -- globalism is the death of capitalism because it ensures a race to the bottom for everyone. In fact, the only people who are benefiting from globalization are the super-rich and the super-poor. And the super-poor are only benefiting because they have nowhere else to go but up. Even so, when I say the super-poor are benefiting, I mean they might get to eat twice a week instead of once every 10 days. It's not a *huge* improvement.
Now, see ... it's this kind of extremism where you end up taking a good point and ruining it by going completely off the rails.
We are human beings, after all, and as I tried to say earlier in my post, being human is more than just breathing, eating, crapping, and sleeping. We need things like space exploration to inspire us, to spark our imaginations, and yes, to satisfy our curiosity.
The problem, GldnRule, is that you're only focusing on the physical -- that which our body needs -- and failing utterly to address the things our brain needs. Just like with any muscle, if we stop using our brains, it *will* atrophy and become useless. There is a psychological component to all of this which you're ignoring; mental health is as important as physical health. Without any stimulation for our brains, well, we may as well just revert to dressing in animal skins and living in caves. To hell with advancing the human condition.
I don't subscribe to the paradigm that if everyone can't have Rolex watches, no one should have them. Nor do I subscribe to the idea that we should scrub our civilization and use every cent of excess money to prop up other areas of the world that aren't doing so well.
Why? Well, because simply throwing money at a problem isn't always the solution. For instance, it would take a sea change in some African cultures to stop the horrendous starvation because women are still taught that their only value is as baby-making machines. Hence, they keep having babies even though they know damn well that 9 out of 10 will starve to death before their 5th birthday -- but hey, at least she's not a valueless woman, right?
There's also the cold and harsh reality that a given area of land is only capable of supporting a certain number of people. The tropics, where most of human poverty and suffering exists, is a very poor place for crop cultivation and, thus, these areas can only support a limited number of people. If we artificially stimulate reproduction in these areas by feeding them beyond what the land can support, starvation is the inevitable result. We're not ANY different than any other animal -- if there are more predators than prey, for instance, the predators will begin dying off until an equilibrium is reached.
But when you have the Catholics over there in Africa preaching against contraception, gee, guess what happens. Yep, too many babies are born and they starve. Some nations in Africa even have megacities like Nairobi which the land simply cannot support.
But scrapping space exploration isn't where the money should come from. How about, instead, we stop giving the record-profit-making oil companies $10.5 billion in corporate subsidies -- they're called "subsidies" when given to corporations yet it's called "welfare" when given to people -- and instead put that money into our safety net programs like Social Security, Disability, and Medicaid? I've already said before that you could give 6 million Americans Disability payouts of $15k per year with JUST the oil subsidies -- and while $15k per year isn't much, it's a damn sight better than what the disabled get now.
In fact, for the cost of one SINGLE "Javelin" anti-tank missile, you could put one person on Disability at $1200 per month for an entire year.
Or how about the nearly $50 million that the Mormon church spent on trying to ban gay marriage in California. Was that *truly* the best way to spend that kind of money? Think of how many medical treatments, life-changing surgeries, and access to medications that that money could have bought for those too poor to afford them -- and *most* of those poor people work, and they work doing jobs that are very much needed but which don't require a lot of skill nor do those jobs carry any prestige so, yeah, who cares if they die. There's plenty more of "those" people to replace those that can't afford health care and die.
We spend more on our military than the next 20 nations combined -- which includes ALL of our potential enemies like North Korea, China, Iran, the entire Middle East. That also includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, India and, well ... you get the point. I'm sure we can stop being the "world's policeman" in some regions and trim the military budget. (I'm in favor of having a powerful military because I do understand why it's important -- but c'mon, ya know?)
But, again, scrapping space exploration? No, that's taking it a step too far. Besides, we need to do this. As we all know, the sun will render life on earth impossible in about 500 million years (the sun is gradually getting hotter as it runs out of hydrogen so we do *not* have 5 billion years like some people think).
Yeah, 500 million years is a long time -- long enough for humanity to mess around thinking there's plenty of time until suddenly there *isn't* plenty of time and we find ourselves on the edge of extinction. We need to start exploring *now* and investing in ways to break the light barrier so we can someday get off this rock. Otherwise, the collective efforts of every one of us really did mean nothing.
Our curiosity -- and inventing ways to satiate our curiosity -- to improve and expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe is part of what makes us human beings. If we stop engaging in endeavors like space exploration then, well, eff it all, I guess. Might as well devolve into animals.
Yeah, this is a bad one, and I do agree with you on this point. The problem again comes down to human nature. Sure, if every nation could disarm -- including all the terrorists -- then we'd have money to fix nearly all the problems we have (that can be fixed with money, that is). But, because we haven't been able to disconnect ourselves from that "reptilian" part of our brain that continues to be frightened and suspicious of those who are different, war will always be with us.
Yeah, we atheists *know* that. Unfortunately, you're missing the point entirely.
Often the reason why we bring up starving kids in Africa or the rape of a child or some other bad thing in relation to God is because the lion's share of Christians give God the credit for all of the good things. The problem is that these "good things" are often so trivial, insignificant, and unimportant that it boggles the mind that anyone would think an all-powerful god had anything to do with it.
It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God would provide these happy, often obese, American Christians with their food while allowing African children to starve to death by the tens of thousands every day. It's ridiculous, in our eyes, that God allowed some small town high school football team to win or that God is hooking people up on ChristianMingle.com or God managed to get some well-to-do First Worlder a big raise or a nice promotion -- while simultaneously allowing the starvation, the famines, the natural disasters, the warfare and tribalism, and all the rest of it to continue on day after day without so much as a pause.
*That* is why we say what we do. In addition, it pops the bubble of their perceived "specialness."
For instance, I remember hearing a story once how this person needed a certain amount of money to keep his home -- and lo and behold, someone gave him the money right down to the exact change. It could have been no one else but God who was behind it! Because, yeah, the creator of all the universe thought this person was so damn special that he reached down and intervened on this person's behalf -- while allowing the other 600,000 or so homeless people in America to remain homeless.
This concept of intervention completely invalidates the "free will" argument in any event. Free will doesn't matter much if your pet god simply fixes everything for you whenever you get into a jam. And everyone else must not be as good as you, as special as you, as pious as you, as close to God as I am ... yippee, you suckahs! *sung in the nyah-nyah tune* "I'm close to god and he likes me better than you. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!"
Whether they mean it or not, intentional or not, that IS what they're saying -- and it just gives us yet one more reason why we're not at all fond of the concept of god. It allows people to turn random chance or dumb luck into a personal endorsement of their character by God.
You're preaching to the choir, GldnRule. We atheists know all of this already -- well, at least we all know the second sentence. No doubt there are many selfish and uncaring atheists as well as there are many selfish and uncaring deity-worshipers -- and they won't admit it.
Truth is, you should be telling this to the Christians on this board who give God credit for all the wonderful things in their lives rather than telling atheists this in the hopes that we won't talk about God anymore.
I don't know why you're giving the Christians a free pass to act all smug and sanctimonious with their little First World miracles while chastizing we atheists for calling them on it -- as if WE are the ones who are claiming God is intervening in this world.
We atheists only say what we do because we're working from within the Christian belief paradigm. If we didn't do that, then every discussion would simply be:
"God doesn't exist."
"Yes he does."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
"Nuh uh."
"Uh huh."
And so forth.
Except we atheists aren't angry with God -- we're angry with the Christians who actually think that God performed a First World miracle for them while ignoring all those who are truly suffering -- many of whom are just as Christian as they are.
We bring up the starvation and the suffering as an undeniable counterpoint to their gloating over how some random event or dumb luck piece of good fortune means God took a personal interest in their plight and saw fit to help them -- but not help the 20,000 or so children who die of starvation every year or so.
By the way, I wondered where you had gone off too and if you'd be back.
I'm gonna add this wall just so you understand the consequences of overposting. So everyone understands. It's not THAT important to feel right.
It's not even fair. I hate hearing how things on this earth are going to hell, regardless of whether we have "free will" or not. I'm angry because God only wants us to worship him in his own kingdom. I have been driven crazy for years. God doesn't care about our lives on earth, even if we suffer down here with all the anger and sadness. I think God IS cruel and uncaring, and I don't believe what anybody else says about it. I thought God was supposed to be good. His entire creation and his own eternal kingdom is an illusionary concept, some kind of trick. It's like teasing a person.
well, how people describe the god in the bible is how they see they world. And usually people that see only mean and spiteful things don't care.
I'm gonna add this wall just so you understand the consequences of overposting. So everyone understands. It's not THAT important to feel right.
But you notice that Goldie was impressed. It takes a LOT to get though the "I'm not listening to you just to annoy you" pose, and that's what he got. And a ten foot post by Shirina is a better read than most of us could do in just one para.
I think it's extreme arrogance when a human being speaks of God the way you did.
He spoke and created the universe, you, me, and everything in it. He takes human beings that hate him and he regenerates their hearts, paying for their sin himself by stepping into creation and dying on a cross.
He is good. To suggest otherwise is pure arrogance.
All due respect, not anymore arrogant than the way you spoke of God in the post I quoted. Just because you believe it with every fiber in your body doesn't make it a fact.
The fact is, nobody knows for sure, with 100% certainty. If you think you do, thats about as arrogant as it gets.
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Free will means being able to choose something WITHOUT being punished for the choice made. Your god's 'free will' is rather like the abusive husband saying to his suffering wife... 'You have the free choice to leave me but if you do I'll shoot you.'
