kettle and black my arse. I'm in the only factual place on this - in that we have no answers and science doesn't either. You're pinning your hopes on one day there being some. Good luck with that.
You don't think your absolutist statements—like the one above—don’t make you sound closed-minded? I do. But I don’t really care if you are closed-minded, to be honest. I only care if your beliefs are irrational and thus harm others. You don’t seem to be in a position where this might be the case—at least not on a global scale. However, I would argue that if you are transmitting these beliefs onto children that this is destructive. But that is another topic all together.
Back to the original theme… This is just a thread that started with a discussion about atheism, which as I argued, doesn't say much in itself. Now we have moved onto discussing rational thinking and a natural worldview as opposed to belief in the supernatural and god.
It is interesting how the people who claim that we will never know the answers are the same ones that believe in god and the supernatural. You want us to be OPEN to the notion that these things that you believe in might exist. But you are not open to the idea that they can't. Being open isn't just a position which allows for something to enter, it is a position which allows something to exit. This can be a thought or belief. You want us to honor your faith in God. If faith is permissible, then why can't you simply call what we have faith in science. I don't consider the belief that science can solve problems to be an article of faith, however, because science has shown it can do this time and time again. Whereas God has not followed through on any promises—just ask the mother who's dying child is not saved by her god after countless days of prayer, or all the suffering animals in shelters and in factory farms. Where is their god as they cry out from between the metal bars? Where is this merciful, all-powerful god when we need him to halt global warming, mass extinction, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, and all the other horrible natural disasters that destroy Earth and her peoples? This is not a god I want to believe in.
Thank goodness we have science to come along and cure illness, build dams, and develop technologies to predict disasters before they occur—thus saving countless lives. Science seems to be more worthy of being worshiped than a god. And science can be magical and mysterious and transcending as well. Just ask a cosmologist to talk about the cosmos. Look at the passion and illumination in his eyes as he relays the latest discoveries, new mathematical models being used, and theories on the developing block. He is no less elevated to a higher state than the person chanting and prostrating in a monastery.
Do I believe in science? Yes, I do. Does science exist? Yes, it does. Can I prove it? Yes, I can. Do I worship science? No. Do I think it is omniscient? No. Do I think it has all the answers? I don’t know. But it has possibility. God has no possibility because it can’t be known. It can’t be understood. I have a much better chance at having a real meaningful relationship with science than God.
You'll find out when you die one way or the other same as the rest of us, you might as well sit back, enjoy and forget about it until then instead of thinking that you've got it all figured out, none of us have it all figured out no matter how much we think we do.
What I expect to find out after death is
nothing.
Nothingness is what I will be.
I'm not prepared to rule a whole swathe of possibilities out though just because I'm relying on somebody else to figure out the meaning of life and they haven't got around to it yet.
The meaning of life is another topic all together. Have you seen the thread that MORRIZEY started? Perhaps you wrote something over there. I will have a look.
Nobody, according to my position on the subject, is deciding what the
meaning of life
is for you. You have the freedom and responsibility to decide that for yourself.