Before I start I just want to let you know that I'm not picking your post apart with any sort of ill-conceived pretenses, I just want to address all of your points.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
Hey hey, it's me again. I wanted to apologize to anyone here who was offended by my initial post.
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Apology accepted.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
I originally intended it as a joke but in retrospect I see it was not funny and was in poor taste.
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That's alright. But, I will say that if you really want to debate and learn different sides of the spectrum that it doesn't help to come out and tell people to kill themselves. Just as a general warning, there are all kinds of people on the internet and some of them could be much less stable than you realize and the mere suggestion of something such as that isn't really funny, in my opinion. Everyone here more or less likes and enjoys the occasional wise crack but there are some things that are a little bit more 'off limits' than others. But, enough about that, I'm not here to lecture you.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
What I meant to get across is that to ME it seems as if life can lack ultimate meaning if there is not the possibility that it extends past this very short mortal existence.
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I think you've touched upon a point that Sartre was very involved with. Although Sartre had a wide range of aspects, I'd first like to point out that
dread is something that he seemed to focus on but that it also goes hand in hand with what you ask later on in your post about free will.
To first explain Sartre you have to sort of understand existentialism of which I am no expert by any means. But, and to do the topic such unfair justice, I have found the best one line description to mean:
"Man defines himself."
In other words, man is defined by his acts and that he is responsible for his actions. If you want to look at it from one perspective, if you act in a horrid, wretched manner than you are essentially a horrid, wretched person (although such a finite definition can hardly be fair.)
Nevertheless, to go back to what I was saying about
dread, in that the freedom of existentialist thinking in the Atheistic case can sometimes lead to dread and/or anxiety as a result of our freedom. There is nothing holding us back, and in a sense, this can be somewhat true.
Yet, to revert back to the initial claim in this case that "Man defines himself" I think that the logical fallacy is to say that you and your actions cannot hold yourself back. Or, in other words, while there may not be some cosmic entity holding you back or keeping you from committing crimes, you are still culpable of setting moral and ethical standards as well as limits and thereby setting your own boundaries and thereby defining "you".
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Originally Posted by RageKing
I do not disrespect anyone who is an atheist, and in many ways I can understand their viewpoints. One thing that always bothers me, though, is that this world just seems too beautifully intricate and complex to not have some kind of intelligent author. You can look at the patterns on a butterfly or the skin of a chameleon and see genius behind it. It just seems hard for me to accept this all occurred, more or less, by chance.
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This is a well known argument from religious circles that is commonly called an
argument of incredulity. While the pretenses seem at first strong, in that this complex universe and world is certainly something to marvel at, it doesn't really posit an effective argument to say "I can't believe it therefore God did it." Essentially, from another perspective, I could just as easily say "I can't believe it therefore garden faeries, or leprechauns, or Bigfoot did it." And aside from that, what would a world we live in look like that wasn't designed?
I would suspect that we'd find a lot of problems in an un-designed world. Things such as the Andromeda Galaxy barreling straight for the Milky Way Galaxy, our rectums being so close to our reproductive organs, narrow passageways in the woman's uterus causing painful childbirth that can and have been notoriously deadly. We might also find humans have the same tube for breathing as well as eating (who designed that?!).
Appearances can often be deceiving and just because we fit in the world and survive in the world does not mean that it's a well designed world. It would seem more to me that we have adapted to the world rather than it was designed for us. And, finally, as I mentioned in another post on this thread, isn't looking at the world as saying "Everything is just right" a lot like saying "The hole is just the right size for the puddle?" After all, a puddle can really form in any hole, but to strictly observe a single puddle and awe and admire the just perfect conformity of the hole the puddle resides in is sort of self-defeating, no?
Yet, of all the things I wanted to point out is that you used the word
chance and that is a word that sort of makes the hair rise on the back of my neck when I hear it in context with evolution (which is where I assume you are going with this). Chance, to me, implies an "all of a suddenness" as if all of a sudden something happened. Yet, even any slight modicum and reading of evolutionary theory will tell you that chance is the wrong word to use as evolution depends on a slow series of gradual change to adapt to an environment. Interestingly enough, part of that theory is explaining that those who are ill-suited for their environment will be less likely to further their genes on into the gene pool and therefore the strongest and most able will make it to reproductive age to multiply and carry their genes forward.
Therefore, while chance may be seen as a lucky coincidence for a specific animal it's hardly apt to use it as a word that describes our origins or our species or, for that matter, any other species. Again, to use chance is a lot like talking about that puddle.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
Also, and this is a complex question, but if there is no God do we have free will?
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Why certainly as I alluded to in the above. In fact, I would think that with God you would have less free will than without God. After all, that's where the
dread part came in. And some people clearly cannot handle thinking outside the realm of being controlled or governed by cosmic laws. To each his own I suppose.
Yet, I continue to be stumped at this notion of free will as if it were some sort of mandatory thing. If you really think about it, we are free to act as we wish whether or not you believe in God but there are also limiting factors that we don't have any control over. Our genetics can often dictate what we'll look like, how we may die, how long we may live, or even what sort of diseases may ail us during our lifetime. Those are all things we don't have free will over and that stands true whether or not you believe in God. Yet, in the primal aspect of "free will" as having the freedom to do something than I would say without a doubt that you have free will to do whatever you like (within the confines of reason and physical laws - after all you're not going to just start flying like
Superman).
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Originally Posted by RageKing
God is supposedly the "unmoved mover", breaking through the barriers of the causal chain and injecting free will into the universe and into our souls. And I know at certain points in my life when I doubted whether I was in control of my own destiny, I would reflect on this and try to believe that I AM in control, and not just a biological robot.
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Well, wait a second here. I think there are two ways to look at this. If there is a God
up there who has made a specific set of bylaws and perniciously set forth a bunch of rules that you
must govern yourself by lest you be tossed into a fiery pit of eternal hell and damnation than how much free will do you
really have? Certainly, if this is what you believe, you can go about your business, you can freely disregard the word of this deity, and that is your free will ability to do so. Yet, ultimately, doesn't that mean you will pay a heavy price? And so how free is that?
Yet, again, to go back to Sartre, I think what is interesting is that a lot of people genuflect their existentialist notions onto their God. In other words, people make up these crazy religious rules such as "no drinking, no dancing, no sex except in the missionary position, and no
Harry Potter books" and I can't help but wonder if the very thing they define themselves by is also what they define their God as? It seems to me that it's all too fitting that people make up not only who they are but what their Gods are as well. Talk about free will!
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Originally Posted by RageKing
Is it possible for us to have control if there is no God?
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I'm not sure what you mean by control? Are you asking whether or not I can live a life of happiness, peace, and mutual moral reciprocity with my fellow human beings? Why certainly! I do every single day of my life. I have a wonderful relationship with my wife (who is also a heathen Atheist), I get along rather well with my family and friends (who are mixed in their beliefs), and I'm no different than any other human being. Unless I'm unaware of something.
But, unless you're defining control as something different than I'm not sure how to answer the question.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
Anyway, hope you will accept my apology.
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Accepted.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
I am still growing spiritually, it is true . But I guess we all are......I have recently felt like I have had a battle going on inside of me, with my logical mind trying to reason that things in this world do not add up to God existing, but my heart quietly reminding me he's there. |
Well, whatever you find I wish you luck.
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Originally Posted by RageKing
Maybe that's the only way to truly discover for ourselves, to listen to our hearts instead of our minds so much.
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Perhaps... But, be careful... Merely wanting something to be true does not necessarily make it true.
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Prove There is NO God
Prove There is NO God
