Our origins, purpose, and possible afterlife

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DiscipleOfTruth
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Our origins, purpose, and possible afterlife

Post #1

Post by DiscipleOfTruth »

Fellow unbelievers, I strongly believe the potential of great accomplishments lyes in our cooperation. I'm putting this here because I don't want this topic to be distracted by the debate of us and the believers. I welcome you all to share your hope and struggle with our mortality. And most importantly your views on how to seek the answers that religions claim to have.

I don't accept any religion but I do pray to what I call our creator on a daily basis. I do this incase such a being does exist with the hope of some kind of satisfactory responce eventually. I fully accept that my prayers might not be going anywhere because of the vagueness to be sure if we have a living creator or not. I pray to this Idea of a creator as I understand it, because i can't help but believe that something or someone had to bring all of life into existence at some point of history. Where the first ancestors are at on that timeline is one of many truths I seek. I do this because sometimes our theories and beliefs still leave us in mystery to the certainty if we're right and contradict other unbelievers views as well.

How can we best seek the truth to the most difficult questions that stalk us all. Such as:

1.What are the origins of our first human ancestors?
2.What are we exactly?
3.What is the purpose of our existence?
4.Is there any part of us that lives on after we die with the same concious and awareness we have now?
5.Why are we subject to things that we fail to control at this time? Such as the direction, speed, and irreversibilty of time that brings us closer to death.

If these answers can ever be obtained it relies on many people aiming to gain such knowledge.

What is your perspective on our mortality and everything else that's recognized to be a part of our existence?

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Re: Our origins, purpose, and possible afterlife

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

DiscipleOfTruth wrote: I welcome you all to share your hope and struggle with our mortality.
For me there is no struggle with mortality. I have no problem with life being a one-time temporary accident if that is indeed the truth of reality. Like you, I have difficulty actually believing in a purely secular materialistic reality. I intuitively feel that there is more to reality than this life. Perhaps this strong intuitively feeling is why mortality doesn't truly bother me. I just can't truly believe it at my core.

DiscipleOfTruth wrote: And most importantly your views on how to seek the answers that religions claim to have.
I see no reason to even try to seek answers that religions claim to have. Having said that, I think some religions have far more convincing answers than some others. I make no secret that I view some of the foundational beliefs of various Eastern Mystical philosophies to be far more believable than many of the Middle Eastern religions.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: I don't accept any religion but I do pray to what I call our creator on a daily basis. I do this incase such a being does exist with the hope of some kind of satisfactory responce eventually. I fully accept that my prayers might not be going anywhere because of the vagueness to be sure if we have a living creator or not. I pray to this Idea of a creator as I understand it, because i can't help but believe that something or someone had to bring all of life into existence at some point of history.
Throughout my entire life I have prayed to God in many different ways. I have finally come to the conclusion that either this God has reasons for not answering, cannot answer, or doesn't simply doesn't exist. I see no point in praying to a God who doesn't answer. I also think it's kind of redundant. If some omniscient God or Mind does exist it would most likely know our thoughts and needs in any case. Intentionally trying to commune with such a God seems rather silly.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: Where the first ancestors are at on that timeline is one of many truths I seek. I do this because sometimes our theories and beliefs still leave us in mystery to the certainty if we're right and contradict other unbelievers views as well.
This is a meaningless question from my perspective. If the Eastern Mystical views of reality are true, then there are no "first ancestors" unless you want to point to the abiogensis of life on Earth, but I wouldn't even see that as being our true beginning.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: How can we best seek the truth to the most difficult questions that stalk us all. Such as:

1.What are the origins of our first human ancestors?
Again, I'm not sure how "prejudiced" you want to get on this question. What do you mean by our first human ancestors? Do you mean the very first Homo Sapiens? Or do you mean the first Hominids? Or do you mean the first primates that gave rise to the Great Apes?
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: 2.What are we exactly?
Physically we are one of the Great Apes apparently. If you are asking what it is that is actually having an experience, then you may be moving into the mystical realm. But for me, humans are not unique in having an experience. I don't see humans as being significantly special. Other than the obvious fact that we are the most highly evolved of the Great Apes.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: 3.What is the purpose of our existence?
That's impossible to say without knowing are "True Nature".

If our "True Nature" is that we are an accident of a purely accidental material world then there is no "purpose" to our existence beyond any purpose we actually give to it ourselves.

If the Eastern Mystical philosophies are true, there can be any number of purposes ranging from life being nothing more than a dream for pure entertainment to the idea that we are spiritual beings growing and evolving to become even more awake, aware, and in control of our own reality over time.

If Hebrew mythology is true then we are clearly the pets of some separate egotistical God and we will remain his pets for eternity.

DiscipleOfTruth wrote: 4.Is there any part of us that lives on after we die with the same concious and awareness we have now?
I believe that's the most likely scenario. But it won't be precisely the same conscious awareness that we have right now. It will most likely be more like having amnesia. We simply die, and then are reborn into a new incarnation. In that incarnation we are totally unaware of the previous one. So ever life we live may be exactly the same as this one in terms of us never knowing the answers to these questions.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: 5.Why are we subject to things that we fail to control at this time? Such as the direction, speed, and irreversibilty of time that brings us closer to death.
Why should we be in control of everything?
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: If these answers can ever be obtained it relies on many people aiming to gain such knowledge.
Some of these questions may simply not be answerable. In fact, many atheists take the very simple stance that if we don't know the answer to an unanswerable question then just accept this truth and live with it. Why beat yourself up over things you cannot know the answer to?

Some atheists simply accept a purely materialistic secular accidental temporary life. They accept this and don't cry about it.

Like you, I find it difficult to "believe", it really not even a matter of acceptance for me. So I do just the opposite and accept that something spiritual is going on that I cannot know the details about.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote: What is your perspective on our mortality and everything else that's recognized to be a part of our existence?
I chose to believe in a mystical reality that is not well-defined. I don't have the ultimate answers to everything and that' s part of our reality. If life is a temporary secular accident then so-be-it. When I die I'll never even know that I had ever lived, much less that I had died. So if pure secular materialism is true, it's nothing to fear.

On the contrary, a life after this one would have far more potential to be a nightmare. We like to believe that a life after this one would be better, but maybe that's nothing more than wishful dreaming on our part?

Finally when it comes to the Abrahamic religions, I just personally don't find them to be realistic. They seem to be a bit oxymoronic to me. They claim that the God is all benevolent, loving, and merciful, etc. Yet at the very same time they act like this very same God is ready to cast anyone into a state of eternal damnation if they merely don't believe certain things, (absolutely outrageous things to boot).

It seems to me that even a purely secular materialistic accident makes more sense than the Abrahamic religions.

So I'm certainly not going to fret over those.

If there is something magical going on, it's most likely more like described by Taoism or Buddhism. And if that's not the case, then reality probably is just some sort materialistic accident.

Bottom line, I don't know the truth of reality.

Extreme Bottom line,... Neither does anyone else.

And that's the truth that we really need to embrace. ;)

Accept that we can't know the truth of reality and all your "struggles" should be over. I certainly have no struggles other than the natural physical problems that come with getting physically old. But I haven't seen any religion that has a cure for that.
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Post #3

Post by DiscipleOfTruth »

So I'm certainly not going to fret over those. If there is something magical going on, it's most likely more like described by Taoism or Buddhism. And if that's not the case, then reality probably is just some sort materialistic accident. Bottom line, I don't know the truth of reality. Extreme Bottom line,... Neither does anyone else. And that's the truth that we really need to embrace.  Accept that we can't know the truth of reality and all your "struggles" should be over. I certainly have no struggles other than the natural physical problems that come with getting physically old. But I haven't seen any religion that has a cure for that.


In a world of such mystery resulting in an abundant amount of possibilities it is better to maintain our flexibility to increase the chance of discovering greater truths. Our increase in knowledge and willingness to help others can help us as well. It would prevent/counter the problems we could encounter.

We can't be entirely sure if the religions we oppose are false beyond reasonable doubt. The reasonable doubt is stemmed from the claim of a god with ways and thoughts higher than us. It would be our inferiority to such a god preventing us from truly understanding and knowing of this god. We disagree with the believers on the ways they conclude the validity of their beliefs, which is faith. But that in and of itself doesn't disprove that their religion isn't what it claims to be. And untill we have complete knowledge we can't be sure. The believer may of luckily chose the right life to live leaving us wrong all along, and vice versa. This is the main confusion that must be eliminated to enable greater harmony among individuals willing to strive in a massive effort to better humanity in every way. Otherwise, we are born, remain ignorant, and die just like everyone else before us.



Some of these questions may simply not be answerable. In fact, many atheists take the very simple stance that if we don't know the answer to an unanswerable question then just accept this truth and live with it. Why beat yourself up over things you cannot know the answer to? Some atheists simply accept a purely materialistic secular accidental temporary life. They accept this and don't cry about it. Like you, I find it difficult to "believe", it really not even a matter of acceptance for me. So I do just the opposite and accept that something spiritual is going on that I cannot know the details about.




We can't know if a question is truly unanswerable despite how much it may seem so without actually trying and failing to succeed. It is better to try and fail than to not try and not be sure if we would of succeeded, eventually.



Why should we be in control of everything?
 

Why shouldn't we be in control of anything?

I believe that's the most likely scenario. But it won't be precisely the same conscious awareness that we have right now. It will most likely be more like having amnesia. We simply die, and then are reborn into a new incarnation. In that incarnation we are totally unaware of the previous one. So ever life we live may be exactly the same as this one in terms of us never knowing the answers to these questions. 


How do you know If reincarnation is something that happens?

But for me, humans are not unique in having an experience. I don't see humans as being significantly special


This is one of many reasons to increase our knowledge as fast as possible so that we may discover if there is anything significantly special about us. Some of us have people we value just as much as ourselves or more. They are special enough to us that it is worth the persuit of knowledge to our exact value in the bigger picture.
If our "True Nature" is that we are an accident of a purely accidental material world then there is no "purpose" to our existence beyond any purpose we actually give to it ourselves. 


But in an accidental world we could of been given a purpose accidentally.



Again, I'm not sure how "prejudiced" you want to get on this question. What do you mean by our first human ancestors? Do you mean the very first Homo Sapiens? Or do you mean the first Hominids? Or do you mean the first primates that gave rise to the Great Apes?


I'm reffering to the first human ancestors that have the same appearance of you and I and many others around us.

 
This is a meaningless question from my perspective. If the Eastern Mystical views of reality are true, then there are no "first ancestors" unless you want to point to the abiogensis of life on Earth, but I wouldn't even see that as being our true beginning.


How can any question be meaningless if it's refutation is being based on what if scenarios?
Troughout my entire life I have prayed to God in many different ways. I have finally come to the conclusion that either this God has reasons for not answering, cannot answer, or doesn't simply doesn't exist. I see no point in praying to a God who doesn't answer. I also think it's kind of redundant. If some omniscient God or Mind does exist it would most likely know our thoughts and needs in any case. Intentionally trying to commune with such a God seems rather silly. 

As long as we are unable to be entirely sure which of this conclusion it may be it would only serve humanity to be flexible and continue attempting to sway God to answer incase it does exist. There is too much at stake to neglect such hope.

I see no reason to even try to seek answers that religions claim to have.


Countless lives have been taken throughout history over the controversy of it's validity in it's claims. It is a concrete divide in the human race that hinders us from living peacfully in harmony. If this isn't a good enough reason to attempt to clear the confusion of facts and fiction I don't know what is.



There is something called life extention science with the goal of extending the average lifespan as close to infinite as possible. We don't have to accept our mortality, we can aim to reverse it.

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Post #4

Post by Divine Insight »

DiscipleOfTruth wrote: In a world of such mystery resulting in an abundant amount of possibilities it is better to maintain our flexibility to increase the chance of discovering greater truths. Our increase in knowledge and willingness to help others can help us as well. It would prevent/counter the problems we could encounter.
I don't see where atheist in general are asking people to be inflexible. I think they are simply suggesting that we be reasonable in our flexibility and not jump to unreasonable conclusions. Especially conclusions based on extremely bad mythologies.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
We can't be entirely sure if the religions we oppose are false beyond reasonable doubt.
I disagree with this entirely. I also wouldn't use the term "oppose", that sounds like we are out to oppose it, when in truth what we have really done is recognize that it has no merit.

Most people will agree that Greek Mythology is an ancient religion that has no merit. Yet for the ancient Greeks this was their serious religion. It wasn't viewed as mythology by them. But today we recognize that it is indeed "unreasonable" beyond rationality.

I personally feel the same way about the Hebrew Bible as do most atheists.

And I feel that your following statement does not acknowledge the truth:
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
The reasonable doubt is stemmed from the claim of a god with ways and thoughts higher than us. It would be our inferiority to such a god preventing us from truly understanding and knowing of this god.
I totally disagree with this argument concerning the Biblical God. The reason being that this argument fails to take into account that the Biblical God supposedly wants to have a relationship with us. Therefore arguments that this God is simply too far greater in it's intelligence or understanding for us to comprehend it makes no sense.

To begin with, this God supposedly created us "In His Image". And secondly, the idea that this God would be unable to communicate with efficiently because of some imagined extreme intelligence is simply nonsense. There is no reason that he should not be fully capable of communicating effective without ambiguity to the objects of his very own creation.

The very idea that we are too "inferior" to be able to understand this God is clearly an underhanded brainwashing tactic used by this religion in the first place. It's an absurd apologetic argument, because it makes no sense that our very own creator would have difficulty in communicating with us. This would ironically place the blame of inept communication on the creator himself.

It's an extremely feeble apologetic argument that tries to argue that just because the Bible makes no sense is no reason to discard it, instead we should just place them blame entirely upon our shoulder for being simply too intelligence to comprehend this God.

It's an absurd apologetic argument. And IMHO, it's actually an insulting argument when made to any intelligent person. I personally don't give much credit for intelligence to anyone who makes this argument sincerely, and for those who make it insincerely to just peddle their religious snake oil I dismiss as being unscrupulous.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
We disagree with the believers on the ways they conclude the validity of their beliefs, which is faith. But that in and of itself doesn't disprove that their religion isn't what it claims to be.
When speaking of something like the Bible or the Qur'an, IMHO, that's totally irrelevant. The reason its irrelevant is because I too have read those Holy Books. I have already concluded (beyond any reasonable doubt in my mind) that those Holy Books are totally false religious scams created by superstitious cultures. They may not have even been purposeful "scams" they may have simply been ignorant superstitions. But in the end they still become scams.

It doesn't matter to me what other "believers" have convinced themselves of. I've read the books, and the books are nonsense, IMHO. Moreover, when I confront the "believers" of these books, and listen to their "reasoning" I see major flaws in their reasoning.

I have never met a "believer" in my entire life who has offered me a sane and rational explanation for the Biblical fables. They are all in extreme denial of what these texts are actually saying. And unfortunately many of them are so extremely deluded by these myths that they even reject modern scientific knowledge of the real world in favor of pretending that these ancient fables should some how trump scientific knowledge.

There is no "doubt" in my mind at all that the Bible, and the Qur'an are totally mythical stories that have no more merit than Greek mythology.

There is not room left for "reasonable doubt" that they might be true. They cannot possibly be true "verbatim". And if they aren't true "verbatim" then what good are they? What kind of an infinitely intelligent God would expect us to believe in ancient tales that cannot possibly be true "verbatim"?

And this is even more true when these very dogmas proclaim that if we fail to believe this God will condemn us with his angry jealously for not acknowledging and worshiping him. :roll:

I mean, come on. It's a scam. Clear as the summer sun on a clear day.

There is no God behind it. If there is a higher intelligence associated with reality it has nothing to do with Hebrew Mythology anymore than it had to do with Greek Mythology.

So there's no need to even speak of "reasonable doubt" concerning these religions. They aren't even remotely reasonable, and therefore there is no justification for doubting that they are anything more than ancient superstitious myths.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
And untill we have complete knowledge we can't be sure.
We have more than sufficient knowledge to dismiss the Hebrew myths with no worry that we might have potentially made a mistake.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
The believer may of luckily chose the right life to live leaving us wrong all along, and vice versa. This is the main confusion that must be eliminated to enable greater harmony among individuals willing to strive in a massive effort to better humanity in every way. Otherwise, we are born, remain ignorant, and die just like everyone else before us.
The problem with the Abrahamic religions is that they are based upon the concept of a jealous God who will hatefully condemn anyone who doesn't believe in him via a very specific dogma. Take your choice of dogma. Even the Abrahamic religions disagree on which dogma this God is so jealous about.

So what are you going to do? Take a chance on one of the Big Three? Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. And even after you have made your choice there you'll be condemned by the many sects within those major factions if you don't choose the correct denomination. If you chose Christianity are you going to become a devout Catholic and hang on the Pope's every word as the ordained spokesperson for God. Or are you going to chose to be a rebel Christian and protest against the Catholic church and become a Protestant. And what do you do then? Do you join and follow a particular Protestant denomination or do you become the ultimate Rebel and renounced Churches altogether in favor of having a "Personal Walk with Jesus"?

And then what happens when you die only to discover that Islam was true and Allah is extremely upset with you for having placed Jesus BEFORE Him!

I personally have no problem at all dismissing this whole circus.

I can't personally believe that an infinitely intelligent creator would heave created such a circus of confusion over how he wants people to worship him.

Moreover, I wouldn't think much of a God who actually did that.

God is supposed to be benevolent, loving, righteous, and most of all trustworthy.

How in the world are we supposed to trust a God who created something as insanely self-divisive as the Abrahamic religions? :-k

It makes no sense that a loving trustworthy God would have created such a cesspool of religion to serve to confuse the objects of his creation.

It has to be false. Period. There is no "reasonable doubt" left.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
We can't know if a question is truly unanswerable despite how much it may seem so without actually trying and failing to succeed. It is better to try and fail than to not try and not be sure if we would of succeeded, eventually.
Atheists aren't asking anyone to not ask questions. All they are suggesting is not to answer them if you don't yet know the answer. ;)
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
Why should we be in control of everything?
 

Why shouldn't we be in control of anything?
We are in control of quite a bit, if we allow that we have free will.

The question is, "Why should we be in control of everything?"

In a purely materialistic world were we evolved by pure accident we're lucky to be in control of what we do have control over. But then again, it comes as no surprise that we would indeed have some control. This stems from the very same laws of physics that made our evolution possible in the first place. We wouldn't exist if those laws weren't what they are.

The fact that we are in control of things that the natural laws of physics allows us to be in control of, and nothing more, should be no surprise to anyone.

And that's exactly the situation we find ourselves to be in.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
How do you know If reincarnation is something that happens?
Well, materialistically it's happening all around us in nature. It's the nature of the world to reincarnate itself on a physical level. This is why the Eastern Mystics so easily accepted that "life" is reincarnated. In many Eastern cultures reincarnation is accepted as a "self-evident truth" of the world in which we live.

The question isn't whether or not things reincarnate. They certainly do. The only question is whether or not a conscious experience can be "reincarnated". And that's obviously a very deep question. Many secular atheists believe that the answer is no. Clearly the Buddhist believe the answer is yes.

Whether or not this question can even be truly answered with certainty is anyone's guess. I would suggest that we don't currently know the answer to this question. Like I say, many atheists are already convinced that the answer is obvious and it's no. I don't personally agree that conclusion at this time. I think the atheists are jumping the gun on that one.

DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
But for me, humans are not unique in having an experience. I don't see humans as being significantly special


This is one of many reasons to increase our knowledge as fast as possible so that we may discover if there is anything significantly special about us. Some of us have people we value just as much as ourselves or more. They are special enough to us that it is worth the persuit of knowledge to our exact value in the bigger picture.
Why the rush to know?

Why not just treat all living things with the same respect until the question is answered.

How exactly is the answer to this question going to change how you feel or behave toward someone else?

I view humans as one of the Great Apes. This doesn't lessen the value of humans, if anything, it makes me respect the other Great Apes all the more.

I even treat my cat with the same respect that I would give to a human.

As far as I'm concerned my cat is a living being that is having an experience, just like I am having an experience. I can't imagine how the cat actually thinks or what goes through its mind. It no doubt has no understanding of death, life, or even that it was born. All it knows is that it exists right now. But that's still an experience. My cat is having an experience. And how I treat my cat will affect the experiences that it has. Why does it need to be a human to be "special"?

All life is special. I even feel sorry for spiders when I stomp them out of existence. But that's the wages they pay for coming into my house. ;)
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
If our "True Nature" is that we are an accident of a purely accidental material world then there is no "purpose" to our existence beyond any purpose we actually give to it ourselves. 


But in an accidental world we could of been given a purpose accidentally.
Well, obviously are accidental purpose is to procreate. That clearly what we evolved to do. ;)
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
Again, I'm not sure how "prejudiced" you want to get on this question. What do you mean by our first human ancestors? Do you mean the very first Homo Sapiens? Or do you mean the first Hominids? Or do you mean the first primates that gave rise to the Great Apes?


I'm reffering to the first human ancestors that have the same appearance of you and I and many others around us.
I'm not sure where you draw that line. Early homo sapiens would most likely be the ancestors you're interested in then. However, if you were tossed back in time into a clan of early homo sapiens you probably wouldn't recognize them to be your modern peers. Instead you would probably feel that you were surrounded by some sort of "ape men".

They also wouldn't have developed extensive language at that time either so they would most likely be pointing at things and grunting sounds that are unintelligible to you.

The Biblical story of and Adam and Eve standing around in a garden having elaborate conversations with God are not very realistic. ;)

DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
This is a meaningless question from my perspective. If the Eastern Mystical views of reality are true, then there are no "first ancestors" unless you want to point to the abiogensis of life on Earth, but I wouldn't even see that as being our true beginning.


How can any question be meaningless if it's refutation is being based on what if scenarios?
It meaningless unless you are willing to draw a very concrete line of what you mean by "first ancestors".

I think one of the problems here has to do with the fact that you are viewing humans as being distinctly different from all other animals. And because of this you are wanting to draw a line where that particular distinction evolved. But that's probably a very unclear line. That distinction may have occurred somewhere prior to homo sapiens and there may have been several species of hominids that had the potential to become as abstractly sentient as we have become. But eventually those species either died off or we, homo sapiens, kill them off.

So precisely who our "first ancestors" were is really hard to say depending on where you want to draw the line. And I'm also quite sure that we don't even have a full and complete picture of precisely how we evolved in that great of detail. You would almost need to have a time machine and go back in time observing pre-human primates until you found an 'ancestor" that you would consider to be our "earliest" ancestor (by your arbitrary definition).

But whatever species you were pointing to at that time would obviously have had previous ancestors as well. So is the one you have chosen really the "earliest" human ancestor?

This is what I mean by it being a "meaningless" question. No matter what species of primate you point to as being our "first ancestors" those primates would have also had "ancestors" so what does it mean to call them our "first ancestors"?
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
Troughout my entire life I have prayed to God in many different ways. I have finally come to the conclusion that either this God has reasons for not answering, cannot answer, or doesn't simply doesn't exist. I see no point in praying to a God who doesn't answer. I also think it's kind of redundant. If some omniscient God or Mind does exist it would most likely know our thoughts and needs in any case. Intentionally trying to commune with such a God seems rather silly. 

As long as we are unable to be entirely sure which of this conclusion it may be it would only serve humanity to be flexible and continue attempting to sway God to answer incase it does exist. There is too much at stake to neglect such hope.
What do you mean by "There's too much at stake"?

If there exists a God it should be crystal clear by now that he loves to play hide and seek. If this God wanted to make himself known to us he could easily do so. Therefore it must not be very important to God that we communicate with him.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:

I see no reason to even try to seek answers that religions claim to have.


Countless lives have been taken throughout history over the controversy of it's validity in it's claims. It is a concrete divide in the human race that hinders us from living peacfully in harmony. If this isn't a good enough reason to attempt to clear the confusion of facts and fiction I don't know what is.
Well, the atheists are trying their best to put an end to this nonsense. It's the religious fanatics who keep insisting on believing in foolishness that has been proven to be false.

I don't know how more blunt I can be about this. But just look around. Look at ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. These are all driving by the jealous God religion of Islam (basically the Biblical God)

We don't need this religious nonsense. It's clearly dangerous and highly unproductive. Everyone would become an atheist until further notice. ;)

These Abrahamic religions most certainly aren't brings us peace and harmony.
DiscipleOfTruth wrote:
There is something called life extention science with the goal of extending the average lifespan as close to infinite as possible. We don't have to accept our mortality, we can aim to reverse it.
And I'm sure that medical science will indeed pursue that. I kind of doubt that you would need to worry about it. Most likely it won't be available in time to save you from your natural biological death. ;)

But then again, you never know, if you are quite young yet maybe that technology will exist before you die.

This does bring up other concerns however. If we are going to keep everyone alive forever we're going to have to STOP making babies!

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Post #5

Post by OnceConvinced »

I don't accept any religion but I do pray to what I call our creator on a daily basis. I do this incase such a being does exist with the hope of some kind of satisfactory responce eventually. I fully accept that my prayers might not be going anywhere because of the vagueness to be sure if we have a living creator or not. I pray to this Idea of a creator as I understand it, because i can't help but believe that something or someone had to bring all of life into existence at some point of history.
I used to pray daily. In fact I used to pray as I went through the day, thinking thoughts to God as I went. Then I began to lose my faith. I prayed and I prayed, desperately seeking God, attempting to keep a hold of my faith. No amount of prayer and crying out to God worked for me.

There was a saying I came across and I realized the truth of it: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

So I stopped praying.
1.What are the origins of our first human ancestors?
To me it doesn't really matter. I can live my life without knowing. Definitely no need to conjure up magical beings to explain things though.

The fact is we are here. My thoughts are that there has always been some kind of life or life giving elements and that we have evolved from those.
2.What are we exactly?
Not really sure how to answer that question.
3.What is the purpose of our existence?
There is no overall purpose for mankind. We create our own purposes. Those who follow specific religions also create their own purpose, they just attribute that purpose to a God of some kind.
4.Is there any part of us that lives on after we die with the same concious and awareness we have now?
I think this is wishful thinking. An idea conjured up due to us humans having a struggle with accepting our own mortality. I don't believe there is anything after death.
5.Why are we subject to things that we fail to control at this time? Such as the direction, speed, and irreversibilty of time that brings us closer to death.
Because we are. That's just the reality of things. We may not like it, but we just have to accept it. Making up stories of Gods and supernatural are only there to make us feel better and allow us to live in a comfortable delusion.

Spending time worrying about all this stuff, just makes life miserable. Best not to dwell on it and enjoy what little time you have on this planet.

Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.

Prayer is like rubbing an old bottle and hoping that a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes.

There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.


Check out my website: Recker's World

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