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I’m pretty agnostic, but what are you answers to seemingly untraceable questions of life, meaning, and existence? I’m starting to come around to the view that

I’m pretty agnostic, but what are you answers to seemingly untraceable questions of life, meaning, and existence? I’m starting to come around to the view that ridicule of religiosity is quite often more vacuous than spirituality.

hhjinks 3y ago
I'm a flesh automaton created to house a polymer that is capable of propagating itself through time. For what end? Maybe it's emergent behavior from a structured universe, maybe life is meant to converge towards some higher end. Who knows.
- codr7 3y ago
  Yeah, that's the thing, who knows? So who has any right to ridicule anyone else for having a different perspective? Just choose whatever narrative that floats your boat and live and let live.
  - psiops 3y ago
    Ridiculing is one thing. Waging holy war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among religious folk.
    - bmelton 3y ago
      religious folk and every other kind
    - explaininjs 3y ago
      Yes, but also: Waging war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among folk.
      - 2devnull 3y ago
        And I would add, the world is more peaceful and loving and moral under Christian morals (the morals we all currently share) than under the ethics of the Roman Empire. Christians ended the slave trade for specifically, uniquely Christian reasons. It was a religious issue. Modern progressives grew out of the Protestant culture of puritan founders. It’s why we embraced immigration. It’s one thing to be ignorant of the creator (and deny creations miraculous nature), but to be ignorant of world history; please read about Rome.
  - kaibee 3y ago
    > Yeah, that's the thing, who knows? > So who has any right to ridicule anyone else for having a different perspective?> > Just choose whatever narrative that floats your boat and live and let live. Sometimes the right answer is that there isn't enough information to choose, therefore making it 'objectively' correct.
johnnyworker 3y ago
That God kinda-became human to "sacrifice" himself (with no loss, got up 3 days later to live forever, nothing was sacrificed) in order to forgive the sins of people, but only if they believe it, isn't spiritual, it's silly. You owe someone something, and someone else or that person pays it for you -- but if you don't believe that happened, it never happened. Great stuff. I don't need to have an answer for life, the universe and everything to reject that kind of answer. It smells way too much of humans. The Bible even has a bit where it says a pot should not criticize his potter for making it crooked -- while the potter blaming and condemning the pot he made is perfectly fine and sane. If you have a problem and try to fix it with such things, you now have two problems. "Jesus can save you, if you let him" -- nope, he can just do it if he exists and gives a fuck about anything other than playing abusive games. The Quran is no better, with God bragging how he could have made everyone rightly guided but didn't because he promised to fill hell with people and djinn and always keeps his promises. It all boils down to "might is right". That stuff isn't insane, by definition, at least to those who actually lap it up, because God threatens the people who reject it. If a God exists, and made clouds and sparrows and sunshine and love, I would basically be spitting in his face for even considering any that sordid stuff. You might say I know my shepherd's voice, and differentiate it from humans in a trench coat pretending to be a giant, which sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. I can dig Meister Eckhart, anything below that is just brown shirt antics in my sight, and my reaction to it was and is "come at me, bro". Don't tell me my knee will bend, bend it. Shit or get off the pot. And people who are fine with being saved from eternal torture through essentially random chance ("being pulled"), while others who are every bit as bad as them get tortured forever, who are crying tears of gratitude while looking the other way, are not the ones I would want to spend eternity with.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  Yes, some of those things do sound silly... but they are not at all what most Christians believe.
  - psiops 3y ago
    [flagged]
kbelder 3y ago
Yeah, I'm 100% atheist, but often feel horrified by the shallow understanding of religion and theology that many other atheists exhibit. I want shake them and say "do you really think you're smarter than Thomas Aquinas?" Sure, he was wrong... but not worthy of ridicule. It's just so easy and satisfying to assume that disagreement indicates stupidity.

hhjinks 3y ago

I'm a flesh automaton created to house a polymer that is capable of propagating itself through time. For what end? Maybe it's emergent behavior from a structured universe, maybe life is meant to converge towards some higher end. Who knows.

codr7 3y ago
Yeah, that's the thing, who knows? So who has any right to ridicule anyone else for having a different perspective? Just choose whatever narrative that floats your boat and live and let live.
- psiops 3y ago
  Ridiculing is one thing. Waging holy war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among religious folk.
  - bmelton 3y ago
    religious folk and every other kind
  - explaininjs 3y ago
    Yes, but also: Waging war, murdering, burning and dehumanizing is unfortunately a common reaction to differing viewpoints among folk.
    - 2devnull 3y ago
      And I would add, the world is more peaceful and loving and moral under Christian morals (the morals we all currently share) than under the ethics of the Roman Empire. Christians ended the slave trade for specifically, uniquely Christian reasons. It was a religious issue. Modern progressives grew out of the Protestant culture of puritan founders. It’s why we embraced immigration. It’s one thing to be ignorant of the creator (and deny creations miraculous nature), but to be ignorant of world history; please read about Rome.
- kaibee 3y ago
  > Yeah, that's the thing, who knows? > So who has any right to ridicule anyone else for having a different perspective?> > Just choose whatever narrative that floats your boat and live and let live. Sometimes the right answer is that there isn't enough information to choose, therefore making it 'objectively' correct.

johnnyworker 3y ago

That God kinda-became human to "sacrifice" himself (with no loss, got up 3 days later to live forever, nothing was sacrificed) in order to forgive the sins of people, but only if they believe it, isn't spiritual, it's silly. You owe someone something, and someone else or that person pays it for you -- but if you don't believe that happened, it never happened. Great stuff. I don't need to have an answer for life, the universe and everything to reject that kind of answer. It smells way too much of humans. The Bible even has a bit where it says a pot should not criticize his potter for making it crooked -- while the potter blaming and condemning the pot he made is perfectly fine and sane. If you have a problem and try to fix it with such things, you now have two problems. "Jesus can save you, if you let him" -- nope, he can just do it if he exists and gives a fuck about anything other than playing abusive games. The Quran is no better, with God bragging how he could have made everyone rightly guided but didn't because he promised to fill hell with people and djinn and always keeps his promises. It all boils down to "might is right". That stuff isn't insane, by definition, at least to those who actually lap it up, because God threatens the people who reject it. If a God exists, and made clouds and sparrows and sunshine and love, I would basically be spitting in his face for even considering any that sordid stuff. You might say I know my shepherd's voice, and differentiate it from humans in a trench coat pretending to be a giant, which sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. I can dig Meister Eckhart, anything below that is just brown shirt antics in my sight, and my reaction to it was and is "come at me, bro". Don't tell me my knee will bend, bend it. Shit or get off the pot. And people who are fine with being saved from eternal torture through essentially random chance ("being pulled"), while others who are every bit as bad as them get tortured forever, who are crying tears of gratitude while looking the other way, are not the ones I would want to spend eternity with.

ensignavenger 3y ago
Yes, some of those things do sound silly... but they are not at all what most Christians believe.
- psiops 3y ago
  [flagged]

kbelder 3y ago

Yeah, I'm 100% atheist, but often feel horrified by the shallow understanding of religion and theology that many other atheists exhibit. I want shake them and say "do you really think you're smarter than Thomas Aquinas?" Sure, he was wrong... but not worthy of ridicule. It's just so easy and satisfying to assume that disagreement indicates stupidity.