The Two Kinds of People

Tmeeker,

This will take some time to digest,perhaps one of the most profound statements yet heard in these forums.I shall get back to you on this---------------------LOL!



"Life is like a box of chocolates."

TMeeker,

As you might have imagined, I will not heap the praises that Boagie has. Don't worry, it is not you, it is my disdain for religion in general. It seems that this may stem from some of my comments concerning God and his enslavement of the human race, however, you (like DPMartin) have resorted to preachy and non-backed statements again.

First you draw a dichotomy directly from your beliefs and not from any sort of logic. If it is true that atheists and agnostics are slaves to a "god", then it is certainly the God that they feel created them, nature. At this point, you must prove the dichotomy by showing the nature of God and that we are created by him, otherwise there is no dichotomy since both are slaves to the God which they feel created them. Unfortunately, no theologian or philosopher has ever satisfactorily managed this feat.

Even this seems to be built on a faulty definition of slavery. In this instance you seem to say that we are slaves to our desires and beliefs, which of course would mean that we are slaves to ourselves. To truly demonstrate, I ask you to provide an example of someone who is not a slave as you define it.

When we get to meaningful definitions of slavery, we find that it implies control of one by another. A slave is someone who is forced to follow another's will. In that, how can a man be a slave to his own ideal? It is easily demonstrable how man is a slave to many supreme beings, but if he is at all times in control of the maintenance and expression of his God, how can he be a slave to this God?

Unless you are arguing something similar to determinism or Kuhn's description of scientific advancement, I can hardly agree less with your post.

-Those who never live, never realize it. So why live?

Where by your own explanation it is impossible that I could be considered a slave, a slave at least has a will, and is aware that he is being forced to act against his own intentions, against his will. He does not ignore his own consciousness. To blindly follow the will of another is to be nothing more than a leaf in a stream.

The will for us to believe that I shall not follow.