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Post by thedoktor on Nov 20, 2012 6:10:58 GMT
Nothing scares me about Death actually. I have accepted my mortality a long time ago, to the point where I do not ultimately value it, or life in general. If everything is finite, then what is the point of it ?
"A mayfly only lives one day, and sometimes it rains" Makes me think of the cruelty regarding people born with horrible defects, or stillborns, or just a multitude of people having long agonising lives, or ones cut short by outside circumstances, like babies dying in a housefire.
I don't know what happens when people die, what has a soul and what doesn't, or where they come from, if they even exist, etc. Ultimately, that's the drive I have, personally, The Unknown. There's just too much humanity doesn't know, for such things to be set in stone. Subscribing to the Dogma of whatever the current trend in science is no different than holding onto a religious one. You have questions and the current level of human knowledge can't answer it, so you shut everything out. I don't understand Atheist-Gnostics. The current level of human knowledge will never answer everything, given enough time, there will be definite answers. But it will be long after our lifetimes.
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Post by Matt on Nov 20, 2012 7:31:57 GMT
fondling about it anything eternal would be hell
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 20, 2012 7:50:29 GMT
Right?
I don't subscribe to any dogma, that's the thing. Subscribing means believing everything your faction says implicitly. I don't say that God or gods are impossible. I believe they are [impossible], but I can't prove that and so I don't claim that my opinion is fact-- if some kind of proof came along, I'd change my tune, obviously.
Saying science shuts out the questions it can't answer is... Well.
The whole point of science is answering questions. That's literally all it does. Like I said before, neuroscience is looking for answers to those questions you pose right now. Proper scientists don't shut anything out. They gather data and look for the most logical conclusions.
And that's what I did.
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 20, 2012 8:06:03 GMT
Also.
This question really annoys me. Everyone always poses it. Conversely, if everything is infinite then what's the point? If you just get to reset at the end? All you'd be doing is going from one arbitrary life to the next.
Imagine you have two hamsters. One runs in a straight line for about a foot and then dies. The other one runs around and around inside a hamsterwheel, for eternity. Which life is more profound, more worthwhile?
Possibly neither. But I'd say the first hamster. Shit, I'd rather be the first hamster.
As for the point of living a finite life... What's wrong with being the best person you can be? Living to bring about as much positive change (or lack thereof) for everything else that lives? If you need the thought of a reward to consider being a good person worthwhile, then you lack empathy on a profound level.
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 20, 2012 16:54:12 GMT
You're greatly short-selling the worth in eternity. If someone has a horrible life, at least there's Hope they can make up for it in the next life, or find peace elsewhere in some plane or another. What is the point of a single, finite, life if it is absolute shit? Like a stillborn, I'd like to believe it will get a second chance sometime. But to think, that's all it will ever be, didn't even live a day? That's...sick. Really.
but at least you're Gnostic. I"m not without my own questions and skepticism, I'm incredulous about many things, but I like posing things to a broader spectrum than simple cold hard facts, part of being an evolved sapient creature is the ability to Wonder, and that's what I'm all about. I like exploring those avenues. I'm not one of those who believes that with knowledge of something, it ruins the faith in it. I would much rather have it be confirmed with absolution. I just don't understand how a higher being seems "impossible" Humans are hardly the pinnacle of life in the omniverse.
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Post by Matt on Nov 20, 2012 20:39:09 GMT
life isnt fair, is the thing no want for justice will change that
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 21, 2012 4:27:58 GMT
Absolutely. Fairness isn't even a quantity, it's something we as humans made up. The universe (or as Dok insists on calling it, the omniverse) doesn't understand the concept of justice, only blind chance-- and that's the beauty of it.
With the whole stillborn thing... Well, there are a lot of things I could say here.
Firstly, yes, it's totally unfair-- but only if you subscribe to the idea of a higher power with a concept of justice. Otherwise, it's just chance, and chance is fair by dint of being perfectly unfair (and, yes, that makes sense).
Furthermore. Why would it be better for it to get another chance? It's easier to not exist than it is to exist. Once the stillborn dies, it no longer cares about living, because it no longer exists. It doesn't want a second chance, it doesn't want anything. Once again, you're talking about death like it's the enemy. The baby doesn't regret its short life after it is dead.
It isn't sick-- it's immensely tragic [for the people left behind], but it's just part of the strange complexity of the universe.
Like I said, it's only sick if it's a conscious action by some divine entity.
I [mostly] agree. I believe the emotion of wonder is possibly the only thing worth worshipping-- in fact, I believe that worship of wonder is what leads to most religions; looking at those amazing, incomrehensible things that exist in nature and ascribing them a worth based on just how incredible they are. Fate and chance are the most incredible things of all, so it only makes sense to worship them as conscious entities [Gods].
But when we come to understand how things work, we no longer need those "placeholder" beliefs.
To me, gods are simply phenomena we don't understand yet.
Essentially, it's like showing a caveman a TV. The caveman looks at the television and goes "Zomg magic picture box", and that belief is okay-- that's the limit of his comprehension. However, later and with study, he can come to understand all the mechanisms and workings of the television; there's nothing magic or otherworldly about it, just things he didn't understand when he first saw it. We're no different, and the universe is our television.
But when we do come to understand and explain these wonders, that doesn't make them any less amazing, or less worthy of worship. Perhaps it makes them less sentient (certainly makes them require less praying), but that's no less amazing.
There's no less wonder in a universe-- and a life-bearing world-- that has constructed itself, rather than been constructed by a conscious entity. In fact, it's so much more remarkable-- a machine that can build itself, ever increasing in complexity according to absolutely no concrete plan, and obeying only a tiny set of inflexible laws.
That is so, so much more wondrous than believing that we're the creations of some... Others. And the best part is, it works, rationally. It doesn't require a suspension of disbelief. It's science.
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MERRY CROMBMAS!
Marmadyke
In my special places.
2%
whoever thought of l?estosterone is a genius, its a brilliant name
Posts: 496
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Post by MERRY CROMBMAS! on Nov 22, 2012 9:13:21 GMT
Any discussions on life and its meaning or eternety are useless and irrelevant. To live is to not die. Don't die.
It's all baseless speculation if you go any further than that.
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 22, 2012 9:18:15 GMT
Good philosophy.
*[/Locky]*
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 26, 2012 0:39:07 GMT
then we could move the discussion to something else, something more concrete perhaps?
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 26, 2012 1:04:18 GMT
Absolutely. Fairness isn't even a quantity, it's something we as humans made up. The universe (or as Dok insists on calling it, the omniverse) doesn't understand the concept of justice, only blind chance-- and that's the beauty of it. I use omniverse to encompass everything. Limiting it to just this...probably a multiverse or megaverse. OMniversal travel is impossible, unless fictional universes are the result of a cross-dimensional link to the minds of the creators, which has been used in fiction before to describe certain crossovers. Which I don't, I also do not attribute every action or inaction to the DIvine or some outside force. You're grossly misreading my beliefs and arguing with...absolutely nothing. I can't really defend these things you're arguing over because I'm not part of that. To which I ask, why are you bothering, at this point you're simply talking for the sake of it, without a real opponent. I can easily say, I'm sure the parents care that their child died in birth, whether the baby, as a newborn, cares or not is immaterial. It's the perspective of a good nurturing parent that matters. And like I've said, I don't attribute it as a conscious action of anything. This really depends how much worth you put into a human being's life. One one hand, it becomes a game of chance and numbers whether you can get some crucial birth defect that ends your life pre-maturely, or an agonising long life of anguish. Yeah it's easy to say "that's the complexity of the universe" when you're not a parent, when a human being is a simple, yet complex, random thing brought into being. If anything it just solidifies the cold and uncaring nature of a secular universe. It's easy to have belief in deities if physics can back up their powers. in which case, there is the science for it. And I've said multiple times what I consider a god, but you keep drumming up this classic Judeo-Christian version of what god and the afterlife is, something I never championed, mentioned, nor do I subscribe to. So more un-needed discussion with no point there. Seeing as how we agree on it and it a non-issue.
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 26, 2012 1:13:25 GMT
look, guys. I'm not trying to pick fights here. I just don't want you getting it twisted. And I see a lot of misunderstanding here. So I wanted to clear that up. I don't have traditional religious beliefs, so a lot of these arguments you're throwing my way...just fall apart.
So we can move on to another topic...I think Religion we're done with. What else? Crime? Psychology? Drugs? Sexuality? (Sub)Cultures? Dreams? Art? Music? Zombies?
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DanTastic
Fiesty
Unarmed, unarmored, undaunted.
Posts: 230
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Post by DanTastic on Nov 26, 2012 2:50:04 GMT
Or perhaps a subculture of musically inclined psychologists turned criminals who, after using an experimental drug, pass on a zombie virus via sexual contact, but only to sleeping artists?
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 26, 2012 4:03:29 GMT
... Power Rangers?
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DanTastic
Fiesty
Unarmed, unarmored, undaunted.
Posts: 230
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Post by DanTastic on Nov 26, 2012 6:56:59 GMT
Bulk and Skull are just the best kind of people.
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