What's on your mind today?

[Cecilie]

Na na na na na na na na Batman, Batman.

[Extropian]

I wish extrapolianator or whatever would take the 30 seconds it takes to learn how to use the quote button. Perhaps his/her posts would then be readable.

But that's not really what's on my mind. What's really on my mind is, if you live in the U.S. And haven't done your taxes, PLEASE do not even consider H&R block. They are a dishonest bunch of lowlife crooks who will find a way to fuck you out of your tax return.

How does the above help you to understand what I am writing here?
I push the QUOTE button when it's necessary to understand who and what I am replying to.

Sometimes all members surely have posted messages that reply to no one in particular but are still on topic. Quoting for the sake of quoting may confuse matters.

That's why I don't use the QUOTE button with every message.

My personal page in this group lists me as a 73-year old male from Sydney. I hereby confirm these facts as true.

Extropian

[Whitney]

That's why I don't use the QUOTE button with every message.

Perhaps you need to be a bit less defensive; if other people can't follow who you are responding to that means it's not as clear as you think.

[Feanor Thunder]

Whats on my mind? Guns, Knives, and AOWs.
--FT

[Jumala]

I am thinking about Apocalyptic worldviews in Near Eastern religions

[Tank]

I am thinking about Apocalyptic worldviews in Near Eastern religions

[Thinkbigger]

It occurred to me that if all the atheists in the world were to commit suicide all at once, it would make no difference. Life is pointless anyway, right?

[Thinkbigger]

My personal page in this group lists me as a 73-year old male from Sydney. I hereby confirm these facts as true.

73!!!  How did that happen?

[Jumala]

It occurred to me that if all the atheists in the world were to commit suicide all at once, it would make no difference. Life is pointless anyway, right?

Make a difference to whom and to what end? it would certainly matter to someone. Do you mean it wouldn't matter from some cosmological point of view? What would that even mean?
Everything is 'pointless' from a Universe-eye-view; but eyes and ideas don't exist at the level of the Universe in the abstract; they exist for specific individuals. They are facts of our existential reality, and exist only in the sense that they are related to evaluation and intentionality of some specific individual.

One of the apocryphal gospels of so-called 'Gnostic' Christianity makes the following observation:

The Savior said There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin.

- Gospel of Mary Magdalene 4:26
What the point of this is is that the ritual transgressions or impurity (which is not the same as a moral offense; doctors were ritually impure but still considered to be doing good work) are just artifacts of 'the law' which are no longer useful to the enlightened, but that the enlightened shall discover the root of the error in their actions and correct their behavior; not based on the law but on a knowledge of the working out of real processes and an understanding deeper than appearances. This all had some sort of mystical background, but there's certainly something to a sort of early 'existentialism' in Christianity and other religions that applies with or without doctrines of legions of Sphinxes fighting the incarnation of Death.

[Thinkbigger]

It occurred to me that if all the atheists in the world were to commit suicide all at once, it would make no difference. Life is pointless anyway, right?

Make a difference to whom and to what end? it would certainly matter to someone. Do you mean it wouldn't matter from some cosmological point of view? What would that even mean?
Everything is 'pointless' from a Universe-eye-view; etc...

Exactly.

Since we are an accident of chemistry which has coincidentally emerged from a mixture of time, energy and matter, nothing really matters. Including and especially the things that we imagine to matter as thoughts themselves are less substantial in nature than the grey matter that produces them. Humanity itself is an illusion. We are merely a pile of stacked up atoms that are going through a complex DNA driven chemical reaction which produce the illusion of a meaningful life.

For clarification on this point please consult Animated Dirt.

There is no purpose to life and therefore no actual loss in death. Our atoms do not cease to exist when we die. Even murder is only the premature interruption of a natural chemical process. So what? What does it matter if a person is alive or dead? It's all just imaginary. Relationships between humans are imaginary and our feelings are useless artifacts. There is no greater relationship between humans than there is between big clods of dirt.

There is no grand scheme and there is no moral baseline for dirt, therefore, it does not matter if you kill yourself or even if you were to kill me. Any takers?

[The Magic Pudding]

therefore, it does not matter if you kill yourself or even if you were to kill me. Any takers?

Such a convincing argument but do you mind if I leave it until tomorrow, it's lamb for dinner tonight and I want to see how Dexter gets on.

[Thinkbigger]

therefore, it does not matter if you kill yourself or even if you were to kill me. Any takers?

Such a convincing argument but do you mind if I leave it until tomorrow, it's lamb for dinner tonight and I want to see how Dexter gets on.

I've found that people will take the time to do the things they really want to do, but I'm not judging you. So, but by all means.. have your Mutton. I don't mind. Not really. However, if you find I'm already dead by the time you get around, feel free to disorganize my remains, or not. You see, nothing really matters then.. does it?

[Ihateyoumike]

I wonder why people continue to feed the obvious trolls who aren't interesting in any way?

[Jumala]

We are merely a pile of stacked up atoms that are going through a complex DNA driven chemical reaction which produce the illusion of a meaningful life.

This is really a mistake you've made here, something that Wittgenstein would appreciate. You are talking about 'illusion of a meaningful life', as though 'meaning' had ANY meaning outside of their subjective perceptions; as though there was life, experience or purpose which could even conceptually be separated from the the various substantive laws of force coordinating in a certain purposive expression. You're really not saying much, 'value is subjective...' really doesn't have any therefor except that 'idealism is false'; but if then it doesn't imply any objective 'failure' or 'problem'. There is an absence of deontic purpose, but an absence is not a lack; it is like a bachelor who lacks a wife - naturally so, that's a component of what it means.
It is true that people have no 'objective' purpose, but they never did and never could and they seem to get on without it. All behaviour may be ultimately 'arbitrary', but it is no less real and no less behavior than if it were. In fact, I would say nothing would quite count as real if it didn't have some implication about physical reality; or as an entailment of logical consistency.

[Asmodean]

I wonder why people continue to feed the obvious trolls who aren't interesting in any way?

Due to the lack of interesting trolls, mayhaps..?  :hmm: