God is perfect

[Egor]

Well your feelings don't matter do they. It's what you can show evidence for that matters. Behaviours are evolved, love is an evolved behaviour. It's there because it works in ensuring the survival of offspring until sexual maturity. It's cold, it's harsh but it's still reality.

Yes, from an atheist point of view, that is exactly it. If atheism is true, that is what love is. You and I are in complete agreement on that.

[Egor]

Don't you worry your little head about us, Egor.  One of my dear friend is a minister (UU) with a Masters in Divinity.  She informs me that atheists are "God's thinking children" and are as beloved to god as any other.  According to her if there's a heaven, you'll see us there.    See, now you can spend your life focused on something more productive.

Unfortunately, your sister is wrong on that one. I mean think about it, if even the people who consciously reject God and Christ go to heaven, then what is hell for? And if you say hell simply doesn't exist, then Jesus was completely wrong about a large portion of his ministry, and in fact his life was meaningless since he came to save us from hell.

If there is no hell, there's no need for a Kingdom either. There's also no ultimate justice in the universe. So, the only way your sister can be right is if atheism is true. And if atheism is true, we're all just tapping at our keyboards because we are stimulated to do so.

[Ali]

Don't you worry your little head about us, Egor.  One of my dear friend is a minister (UU) with a Masters in Divinity.  She informs me that atheists are "God's thinking children" and are as beloved to god as any other.  According to her if there's a heaven, you'll see us there.    See, now you can spend your life focused on something more productive.

Unfortunately, your sister is wrong on that one.

I dunno.....she's pretty smart.....

[Guardian85]

Love is chaotic. That doesn't mean that the mechanics of your brain that make you feel love are chaotic or random. Love as we know it is a evolved evolutionary trait.

Like passing gas. Yes?

No. There are differences between physiological traits and evolved instincts. The fact that you try to demean my understanding of love by equating it to the bodies simplest (and to some) disgusting functions is not a victory for you. Rather it is a symptom of the fact that you do not have a valid argument to counter it without referring to the supernatural.

It evolved as a mechanism for keeping family groups together for support or protection.

Just like poverty.

That one flew by a little fast. How is poverty an evolved trait?

[Whitney]

I figure that if god is real then life is a test that you pass by not buying into hateful religions and beliefs and generally being a good person.

[Tank]

No it isn't right. You are equating your feelings and consciousness with the existence of the Jabberwocky. And there is no evidence that the Jabberwocky exists. Your feelings and consciousness are the result of the extremely complex chemical operation of your brain that has been evolving for the last 600 to 700 million years. How can we see this? Your feelings and consciousness can be altered by chemical medication effecting your brain. Simple.

Fine, but in the context of our discussion that doesn't say a lot for love. The commercials used to say, "A diamond is forever." But we know that's not true, because eventually your bride will become a rotting corpse and the ring will just fall off--I mean eventually. What is eternal is the love we give to one another. The fidelity in a marriage, the respect, the loyalty, the confederacy--in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. It's the greatest gift we can give, because it's the one eternal thing God has given us that we can give away.

If it's just a biological function evolved over the years, like the feeling of needing to urinate, I think I'd rather have the diamond.

But you're creating a very nice and personally desirable fantasy to live in. The picture you paint is better than reality, a lot better. But that doesn't make it real. I'd have the diamond each and every time and that's what people always want; the diamond. But that diamond isn't real. At a base level the need to urinate and the feeling of love are both simple chemical reactions in one's brain. But that is where the similarity to our experience of the two cases ends. You can't equate the experience of needing to urinate and loving somebody. That is because different areas of the brain are being effected in different ways by different chemicals running through different autonomic paths with different results.

However much you or I want love to be eternal it simply isn't. Which is totally unsatisfying on an emotional level. We want love to last forever. Nobody wants to stand by the corpse of a loved one; ever.

[Davin]

Don't you worry your little head about us, Egor.  One of my dear friend is a minister (UU) with a Masters in Divinity.  She informs me that atheists are "God's thinking children" and are as beloved to god as any other.  According to her if there's a heaven, you'll see us there.    See, now you can spend your life focused on something more productive.

Unfortunately, your sister is wrong on that one.

I dunno.....she's pretty smart.....

Don't worry, Egor is "not a Christian" either, so he's in trouble too.

Nice book. I'm not a Christian.

[Whitney]

even from a religious perspective there isn't necessarily a reason to expect that you'd continue to love after death...ashes to ashes dust to dust; it ends at the grave either way.  There are also some passages that indicate heaven is only praising god rather than continuing to live with those you were separated from on earth.

[Egor]

No. There are differences between physiological traits and evolved instincts. The fact that you try to demean my understanding of love by equating it to the bodies simplest (and to some) disgusting functions is not a victory for you.

You feel demeaned by my honest challenging of your beliefs? Is that what you feel? You feel attacked if someone counters one of your points.

Rather it is a symptom of the fact that you do not have a valid argument to counter it without referring to the supernatural.

That one went by a little fast. How is poverty an evolved trait?

Correct. I misspoke. Poverty would be an environmental condition that favors a mutation that causes an organism evolve love, that is according to an evolutionary and atheistic view of love.

[Buddy]

Sure it does. If you stop the inhumane factory farming of turkeys and chickens, and industry I hate, I have nothing against the buildings, the grounds, and the grain storage bins of the previously, badly run factory farm. In fact, you can use that same factory to humanely raise chickens and turkeys.

Bit of a derail, but have you even seen what goes on in a poultry farm. There is nothing inhumane about it.

[Egor]

I figure that if god is real then life is a test that you pass by not buying into hateful religions and beliefs and generally being a good person.

I agree: Life is a test. Well, actually there are tests within life, life being the whole undergraduate program. But let me ask you this: Why would God care if you were generally a good person? If there is a God, why would he be watching over us like Santa Claus to see if we've been naughty or nice? We can be naughty or nice for all kinds of reasons. It's hardly even a criteria for judging someone.

Rather, if Jesus is right, it seems to be whether or not there is a fundamental spiritual change that takes place. He would say that once you've examined him and his life you have to choose, like the theif on the cross to recognize that you are not right and need to be with Him.

Much like a death row prisoner: If one is on death row for the worst of crimes, do we not almost see a different person should that person come to admit that they are bad, incapable of change, that they don't want to be that way anymore, that they are sorry, and that they have come to accept that their death is the only way to make things right for the victim, the victim's family, and for their own wretched human existence? If a death row inmate were like that, became like that, wouldn't they almost seem Christ-like, even though they may have been a horrible murderer? With that kind of fundamental change, we would literally be looking at a different person.

I think that's what judgement day is all about. I think that's what accepting Jesus Christ is all about.

Just as a side note: I'm actually going to write a book (I think it's third on my list) called Simple Christianity, and it takes an entirely different look at what real Christianity is based on the story of the theif on the cross. Unfortunately, that's probably a year from now. I'm half done with "Believing in God" and then I'm going to do "Our Immortal Soul."

[Egor]

Sure it does. If you stop the inhumane factory farming of turkeys and chickens, and industry I hate, I have nothing against the buildings, the grounds, and the grain storage bins of the previously, badly run factory farm. In fact, you can use that same factory to humanely raise chickens and turkeys.

Bit of a derail, but have you even seen what goes on in a poultry farm. There is nothing inhumane about it.

Granted, it does depend on the farm. We buy (supposedly) humanely raised beef and chicken. My wife is more in tune with that than I am. I'm more like my three dogs (Tortured, huh? Yeah, that's a damn shame. Well, you better just let me take care of that then. Just go ahead and put that in my bowel--I mean bowl.).

I have a dog that looks like budhorse's avatar up there. I think she actually prefers her chicken and beef tortured.

[MadBomr101]

Do you just walk around all day making it a point to be intentionally thick?  No, what I really think you do is feed on contention and anger.  You're like a parasite of negativity.  You need help.  Get some fucking therapy you douchebag.  Even Jesus can't stand you.

I know, Tank!  I know!  But this guy is seriously messed up.  He's a trainwreck.

I don't get the feeling your Raving Atheist stuff is going to go over well in here. You know, you can identify a person by how they write. That's why I don't bother hiding my identity. Every group I go in knows who I am from five years ago, it seems.

Well, of course they do.  One remembers a trainwreck when they see it.   

[Ali]

Egor, I think it's interesting that you think that if there is a god, he cares nothing for whether you are good or bad, but only if you believe in Jesus.  That seems to be such a...I don't know....childlike view of life.  Like, you can be as rotten as you feel like, but it's okay because someone else has already taken the fall for you.  As long as you let him, of course.  Fundamentally, it makes no sense to me that if there was a god, he would prefer that to what to me is a more adult approach.  This is my life.  My faults and my mistakes are my own.  No one else needs to take the blame or punishment for me - I own what my actions and my consequences, and therefore try to live my life in as moral a way as possible.

[Buddy]

Sure it does. If you stop the inhumane factory farming of turkeys and chickens, and industry I hate, I have nothing against the buildings, the grounds, and the grain storage bins of the previously, badly run factory farm. In fact, you can use that same factory to humanely raise chickens and turkeys.

Bit of a derail, but have you even seen what goes on in a poultry farm. There is nothing inhumane about it.

Granted, it does depend on the farm. We buy (supposedly) humanely raised beef and chicken. My wife is more in tune with that than I am. I'm more like my three dogs (Tortured, huh? Yeah, that's a damn shame. Well, you better just let me take care of that then. Just go ahead and put that in my bowel--I mean bowl.).

Yea, my animal science class just got done with our poultry processing unit. So I got a little defensive when people spout PETA BS that meat farms are cruel. ^^