Happy New Years!, and...

[Iconic Shawn]

ChiDem   just like that good ex, you can't help but to come back.

Sooo... Happy New Years!!!!

With GnR bumping up a storm these days you'd think this place would be bustling and rustling with all kinds of stuff but I guess.. well, with wtf ... his name... fuck,.. Ah! jp_ool around and being right all the time about everything it kind of pulls away from the fun of actually debating ideas and such.

(Somewhat jk jp, I'm sure you're not the only reason its a little slow in here...  )

Speaking of ideas, you guys were always a charm to debate or discuss things with because of how different you are and especially (I think) because of how we're all from and in different parts of the world.

We're all seeing the same thing, but from a different angle. Of course we're going to disagree!

However, you guys get hilariously defensive, then offensive at times and I think it might divert the reason we're even typing to whatever else.. Now being a GnR fan I expect no less than a lot of 'fuck you's and "you're an _______" as well as knowing a lot of you are not from the formerly glorious, strongest!, best!, most powerful!, coolest flag!, coolest animal mascot country, in the worrrrrllllldddd, the United States, I expect the booooos but come on..

Anyway..

Here's a gripe I have with you guys and your relative thinking.

In regards to society, you guys usually take the humanitarian side where we should live in a perfect world because we know we are capable. I get it. What I think is that you guys might be letting that side get too heavy. What I mean is that humans are also capable of the worst as well. We're capable of having 1 man in charge of the entire world (and if not now then soon for sure).

I'm looking forward to getting into it here and there from work on a few things with you guys.

Relativism.. you guys were big fans of that from what I remember. I think thats where humans are really starting to go wrong. We've tried to blur reality with relativism.

Man this took longer and was longer than I thought.. 

Here is the BIG question...


For those who don't believe in God or an afterlife, what do you think we came from? I find it amazing, the concept of all from nothing.

What should then be our purpose as beings in life? Self fulfillment? Social fulfillment? Something else?

Hmm..

~S~

Man my avatar is the shit.

[Beanie]

For those who don't believe in God or an afterlife, what do you think we came from? I find it amazing, the concept of all from nothing.

Somewhere along the line something HAD to come from nothing.  If we were 'made' or 'designed' by a God or created from something else, then where did that something else come from?  Nothing? Something else? Where did THAT something else come from?  I can't explain it but as far as I can see, it MUST have happened.  It is pretty amazing.

[mooney]

Happy new year...

Here is the BIG question...


For those who don't believe in God or an afterlife, what do you think we came from? I find it amazing, the concept of all from nothing.

What should then be our purpose as beings in life? Self fulfillment? Social fulfillment? Something else?

Your first question, unless you mean in simple evolutionary terms (i assume you're talking pre-big bang etc...), is impossible to answer. Well, not impossible to answer... My honest answer is i have no clue whatsoever.

As to your second question, that for me is more interesting, i think. My answer would be somewhere close to your own suggestions. I'd say, i guess, emotional fulfillment. ie, happiness, but with one qualification: that when undergoing that quest, you do so without deliberately making someone else's life worse. Obviously 'happiness' would look different to different people, but would probably include sub-categories like, as you say, social fulfillment, work conditions and the like...

[mooney]

For those who don't believe in God or an afterlife, what do you think we came from? I find it amazing, the concept of all from nothing.

Somewhere along the line something HAD to come from nothing.  If we were 'made' or 'designed' by a God or created from something else, then where did that something else come from?  Nothing? Something else? Where did THAT something else come from?  I can't explain it but as far as I can see, it MUST have happened.  It is pretty amazing.

infinite reduction. Who created the creator...

[Beanie]

The way I see it, our purpose is just to be.  We are a bunch of atoms just existing.  But we have evolved in such a way that we have emotions and thoughts and therefore seek a purpose in order to have a 'happy' existence.  So I guess our purpose is now self-fulfilment, which as mooney said, means different things for different people.  But scarily, in the grand scheme of things, I don't believe it really matters what we do. But then again what we do does impact others' lives so on that level it really does matter.  Interesting questions!

[Sean]

we need a fresh face in here......  let me know if jp_ool is available to either steal 10 years worth or work, can lean on the competition, is a SEO master, or can submit a bunch of reunion rumors for us properly. 

Then we can wig out 1988 style 


good year to you Shawn...


Beanie and mooney = right on

[Iconic Shawn]

It amazes me.  This whole thing about.. souls and such.

Its just as hard for me to believe that we don't have souls as it might be for some of you to believe in God.

The whole thing with God, and this coming from a piece of shit of a man, is that whenever I've ever prayed (from the heart) or even thought deeply about Him, my soul (or whatever it is in me) feels something.

Could it be my mind playing tricks?

I used to question God a lot in like, why would he make it so hard to believe and not show himself to put sceptics to rest but if you read the bible it kind of shows you why His relationship with us humans has become what it is now.

Anyway.. not trying to convert anyone here.

I think as humans we all come to this point in our lives where we look up at an empty sky and wonder.

And hell yeah.. that question about "who created the creator" is spot on. Blows a human mind away for sure.

But then again, when he was asked what to tell humans when they asked who he was he simply said "I am".

Also this..  its pretty well documented in Egyptian history as well as Jewish history that the Jews (who were slaves at the time) were let out of Egypt to do their own thing around the biblical time of Moses.

What tyrant ever lets thousands of slaves free? For no reason?

~S~

[mooney]

It amazes me.  This whole thing about.. souls and such.

Its just as hard for me to believe that we don't have souls as it might be for some of you to believe in God.

The whole thing with God, and this coming from a piece of shit of a man, is that whenever I've ever prayed (from the heart) or even thought deeply about Him, my soul (or whatever it is in me) feels something.

Could it be my mind playing tricks?

~S~

You're gonna have to define your terms better... What exactly is it you mean by 'soul'? Given that there is no such physical thing as a soul (or 'the mind') for that matter, but that it is certain that we do actually think ("I think therefore i am", one of only two Absolute Truths - the other being Maths) it's worth understanding that our consciousness is a secondary manifestation of our brain. Secondary because the primary function of the brain is keep you alive via various complex processes. You might want to look up this chap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet (in simple terms, he conducted experiments yonks ago, whereby, a subject will be asked to make a simple decision, of their apparent own 'free will', such as, press the button on the left or right whenever you want. They are hooked up to a brain scanner that monitors activity, which correctly predicts, with 100% accuracy, which button they will press, several seconds before they actually do it! The extent to which we apply this to complex decisions is difficult to say, but the implications of this of quite significant indeed)

Neuroscience and Free Will - Libet's Experiment

As to why you might 'feel' something when praying, well that seems pretty obvious. If you learn (wrongly or rightly) that praying to a superbeing is good, then naturally it follows that you might 'feel' good when you do it. Self deception, placebo effect... those sorts of things. The 'mind' is very easily tricked.

Also, why is it you believe in the god that it is you do? why not other gods or belief systems? Say, Buddhism?

[2NaFish]

Also this..  its pretty well documented in Egyptian history as well as Jewish history that the Jews (who were slaves at the time) were let out of Egypt to do their own thing around the biblical time of Moses.

What tyrant ever lets thousands of slaves free? For no reason?

there's lots of stuff elsewhere in your post which is interesting but is speculative and your free to reach your own conclusions and find redemption or whatever it is you wish to find in your own way. However, its simply not true that there is any evidence of a sudden exodus from egypt by the jews. Without getting in to it, the main way of assessing how the jews moved around egypt and the middle east in biblical times is done through excavations of rubbish dumps (we can assess their remains and due to their diet we can cross reference who did it and when). There is no evidence that the jews left egypt en masse or even in large numbers. Quite the opposite.

Furthermore, and i include this only because its a point that most people never question, mary and jospeh almost certainly never went to nazareth around the time of jesus' birth to complete a census. There is no record of any census being taken around that time and, most importantly, it was not the done thing to go to your 14 times ancestor's city to register. There was a prophecy, it needed to be fulfilled and so it was written.

That doesnt mean that because there are factual innacuracies in the bible that there is no god, but its another example where people dont use the brain god may (or may not) have given them when it comes to his word.

[ripper1]

Couldnt you just say HNY?

[Iconic Shawn]

Hell yeah.  This is where good conversation could be had with a few beers.

I've often wondered that too.. if I had been raised under any other religion would I just feel the same when 'speaking' to that deity. Its amazing how that works. I can also put music on that category of making you feel a certain way after you hear it.

I guess "spiritual" is very personal and we each have to find it, if anything, ourselves.

I don't understand the value of life to those who feel we're just cells, like grass and gnats.

Why should anyone blink anymore when we step on a roach as to when someone is killed. (to those who say we're just physical of course)

~S~

[2NaFish]

Hell yeah.  This is where good conversation could be had with a few beers.

I've often wondered that too.. if I had been raised under any other religion would I just feel the same when 'speaking' to that deity. Its amazing how that works. I can also put music on that category of making you feel a certain way after you hear it.

I guess "spiritual" is very personal and we each have to find it, if anything, ourselves.

I don't understand the value of life to those who feel we're just cells, like grass and gnats.

Why should anyone blink anymore when we step on a roach as to when someone is killed. (to those who say we're just physical of course)

~S~

if you can get that feeling from music, i'd say it's less than likely that the feeling you get after a good pray comes from a higher power. Unless there really is a music god. And i've no problem with that; i'd say there's as much chance as there being Apollo as there is Yahweh.

Believe what you will, like i said earlier 'every man is free to find is own path to heaven' (it was a dead philosopher who said that i'm afraid), but question your world. If you can get the same feeling from a song as you can from conversing with the almighty it either means that the particular song is somehow sacred or that it's just an induced chemical state.

[Beanie]

Why should anyone blink anymore when we step on a roach as to when someone is killed. (to those who say we're just physical of course)

A tsunami wiping out a whole city, a cat killing a mouse, a human stepping on a cockroach.  Is there a difference? I don't believe so, not in the grand scheme of things.  We are all just made up of particles of the universe moving from a more ordered state to a less ordered state. Everything else is just... accidental.  And we find ourselves conscious, thinking, feeling, with morals and rules and laws. And it is what it is. And I'm very glad that morally, most of us find it unacceptable to kill other humans, because it increases my chances of living for longer But yes, it is hypocritical and no, I can't explain why I don't feel bad for killing the spider in my bathtub.  Maybe because I know it will never know any different?  I doubt it has the capacity to fear death.  That might be one of the reasons.

But we all have preditors and we all have prey and maybe, just maybe, it all happens this way for a reason...

I don't understand the value of life to those who feel we're just cells, like grass and gnats.

Well seeing as I believe it's just accidental that we have ended up with these emotions and morals and whatnot, the value of life for me is feeling happiness, love, excitment, fun, pride, accomplishment, knowledge, etc.  Because I think we are damn lucky to have it all!!! That's all the value I need from life.

[2NaFish]

We are all just made up of particles of the universe moving from a less ordered state to a more ordered state.

nuh-huh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics