Quote:Well, very cute, but this is some of the bad logic I was referring to. I agree that there is no sound argument leading to the belief that a God doesn't exist. However, the fact that you cannot disprove something is not sufficient reasonable basis to believe that it's true (or false, of course).
Ah, but you're making the assumption that the basis for my belief (or any religious person's belief for that matter) is the fact that you cannot disprove. Assumption
is bad logic.
Indeed, it
would be pretty foolish to base one's entire belief system just on the fact that it cannot actually disproved-- but that's not the basis for, I'm gonna say about 99.9% of religious people. I only mentioned the fact that it cannot be disproved in addition to your statement that it cannot be proved-- indeed, these two facts together make the issue rather void.
Quote:I can't prove that there isn't an alien spacecraft with 14 little purple men orbiting the solar system at a distance of 13.4 astronomical units from the sun and observing us, but that is hardly sufficient logical justification to believe that there is.
But what if I truly believed that there was an alien spacecraft with 14 little purple men orbiting the solar system at a distance of 13.4 astronomical units from the sun and observing us, for my own reasons?
And say someone comes up to me and says "You can't prove there is an alien spacecraft up there like you believe"...would it not be logical for me to respond by saying "And you can't prove there isn't, which is why I have
faith"?
Quote:If you came to my house naked, you WOULD be infringing on my rights.
Okay, maybe you didn't understand my question. I was already assuming that you would think that was infringing upon your rights, but I was clearly asking
how so?[/u]
How so?
How does that infringe upon your rights? I sincerely hope by "rights" you are not referring to those within the Constitution, because we're talking about morality here, not law.
And before you actually answer that question (which I hope you will this time, instead of dodging it again), think of how that instance of infringing on your rights differs from attempting to kill you, and from parading around your neighborhood with my homosexual lover.
All instances affect you in some way, yes? Well then, without a strict moral code to go by, where do we draw the line of what is allowed to affect you and what isn't? Where do we draw the line of where one can presumably "go too far"?
And, perhaps more importantly, who is the "we" that draws the line, if we are all individuals with our own views of morality? Who's to say which view is "right"?
Quote:To live your entire life based on what will happen to you after you die is foolishness...the point is that you can feel NOW, and you have cause-and-effect NOW. That is why.
I respect your opinion that "living life based on what will happen to you after you die is foolishness", but I don't believe in that for one second. And here's a quick rundown why:
I don't live my life
just because of what will happen to me after I die. I also live in the Present, or, as you put it, the "NOW".
Indeed, humans live in time but God destines them for eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants us to attend chiefly to two things-- eternity itself, and that point in time known as the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, of it only, can we have an experience analogous to the experience in which God has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered us. He would therefore have us continually concerned with either eternity (which means being concerned with Him)
or with the Present-- like obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
I also don't live my life based on what will happen to me after I die because that is not what I believe God wants us to do. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. Instead, His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. He does not want a man hag-ridden by the Future-- haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell-- for a number of reasons (of which I could elaborate on if you'd like).
Quote:Because we still live. There are still emotions, still pain, still guilt, still love, still happiness, at this very moment. Just because someone is without a God, doesn't mean they are numb. We feel everything you do. What drives you to do great things? Chances are it's the same reason we do. To feel good, to achieve something.
Hmm, you say that you focus on the Present (or the "Now"), which may be noble, but I ask you...do you really?
Biological passions point to the direction of the Future, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing
least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal time-- for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the fact that schemes of thought such as Evolution, Scientific Humanism, and Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, are on the very core of temporality.
Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. You have already noted that you feel all these emotions that "we" do, so obviously you are also looking at the Future.
So, it is not wrong to look forward to the Future-- it's just that I'm a deep thinkier, and like looking a little farther than just when I die-- which seems to be what is to your particular liking.
But saying "just chemical reactions in the brain" is to belittle both chemical reactions and the brain. The first covers everything from mustard gas to the colours of Jupiter, the second is the most complex thing in the known universe. I also think that athiests have a greater appreciation of beauty generally than theists, for the theists may say, wow God did that because he can do anything, whereas the atheist says WOW the whole history of the universe has led to this thing in this moment and to me witnessing this awe-inspiring beauty. 
