welcome, one and all, to tonight’s presentation of: The Meaning of Life. i’d like to start by asking all atheists to remain civil, as tonight’s discussion is fairly religious.
i believe that much of life is meant to be lived in honor of god, but that is not the whole meaning, as some churches would have you believe (and some christians, for that matter.) god is a rational being, and as such, he has a reason for everything he says and/or does. so there i was, (today), trying to think of why god sets out to create the rules he has laid out for us. the only concievable thing i could think of as being bad about sin is that other living things and all sentient creatures could be hurt by it. after all, to quote “Is God A Taoist?”, what else could possibly be bad about sin? thus, we uncover another part of the meaning of life: trying to see that other people are happy. but this can’t be all, as life would be entirely pointless (i think we can all agree) if the whole purpose was to see that others are happy. so in addition to that, i believe a large part of life is to see that others reach salvation along with us. which is not to say that we should wait for others to get there before us, as the best way to help someone reach salvation is to do it yourself first.
thoughts are appreciated (as long as they’re not blatant insults)
Have you considered the possibility that meaning is relative? Possibly in order to understand sin, it would first be necessary to appreciate meaning from a different perspective, a perspective beyond the ordinary earthly concerns that normally supply meaning.
Well, sin is disobeying God's will. Why isn't that enough? If that seems naive, consider that you seem ready to take for granted that 'hurting people' is bad without reflection. I would say that disobeying God is just as obviously a bad thing as hurting people, taking for granted that there is a God in the first place. It seems that you are saying that sin being disobedience towards God isn't [i]enough[/i], we need some other reason why sin is bad. Well, why is "because it hurts people" enough?
hi ucciscore. i certainly understand where you are coming from, and i appreciate your thoughts on the subject. i see what you’re saying about “why isn’t disobeying god enough to make it bad?” and it certainly is. but i found it extremely diffucult (and i think many christians do) to follow a certain set of rules simply because someone we cannot physically see or hear supposedly said it 5000 years ago. it’s simply human nature that makes that diffucult to accept and follow. i find it much, much easier to be nice to people, happy in everyday life, and feel like i understand life itself more when i can split all of it into two factions, if you will: loving and living in adoration of god, and the completely separate part of being nice to people, not killing, lying, cheating, envying, etc etc, because people can be hurt by such things and god does not want to see people hurt.
now this will spark the debate “if god doesn’t wish to see people hurt, why does he allow war?” the answer as many people will tell you is that god loves us enough to allow us the free will to choose to obey him or disobey him. i personally am not sure as to whether this is really the explanation, because i am convinced that there cannot possibly be a such thing as a sentient creature WITHOUT free will in the first place. i think that by creating us at all, we were required to have free will as part of being sentient. so i’m still trying to work those two things together to come up with a reasonable explanation. but again, thank you for your comments.
I think we are caught up in terminology that continually requires definition and one definition leads to another. That is because we try to explain things that are only demonstratable. What is the “honour of God“? Really what we are saying is that there is a way to live well and a way to live badly. The “good“ way is “godly“ and the “bad“ way is the way of an “adversary“ (being adverse). Sin, missing the mark or falling short of potential, is a result of failing to reach the supposed intention of God and essentially, creating a distance between us. The Eden Mythos describes this well.
In many descriptions of punishment of sin, it seems to me that an accepted form of punishment amongst human beings is presented and the question asked, if this is acceptable amongst yourselves, would God not have the right to resort to the same measures? The answer is not “Yes!“ but “No!“ - because God is God. That is, you could agree but it would show that you haven’t yet perceived the mercy of God. God shouldn’t resort to our cruelty and lack of mercy, but we should rise to his mercy – because we are made in his image!
This is demonstrated in the story of Elijah on the mountain. God was not in the storm, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire – then there was a soft whisper … We are continually challenged by God to see the difference between righteousness and mercy, and the relationship they have to each other. We are challenged to see our own injustice and lack of mercy as the chasm between us and him, and the Cross of Christ is the paradoxical hand that reaches out across the chasm and encourages us to have faith and make the first step towards him.
that’ll be slightly diffucult, as the only real way we have of understanding another’s intentions completely is for them to tell us about it, and since many animals do not speak english (or any human language), we don’t really have a clue as to whether their actions are meant to honor god or if they have some other purpose.
you raise an interesting point, that i’ve heard from many nonbelievers, which is how do we know there’s a god without being told? and i simply don’t have an answer for you yet. don’t think you’ve found a hole in my theory and beaten me down yet though, it’s just 900 in the morning and i cant really think too deeply right now.
i really like that. it’s such an obvious conclusion, but one that so many people overlook.
Pincho Paxton - If the belief in God is not a part of human nature, then where did this belief ultimately come from? You are basically stating here that we all must’ve heard about God from somebody else, since we can’t ‘intuitively’ find God. So that means that at some point, God himself must’ve come down from his heaven, only to whisper about his existence in the ears of some, who would then pass it down generations.
The belief in God does not come from nowhere. I believe it actually is human nature to believe in a surpreme being, be this God, or just the universe in general. I many times catch myself thinking the universe is sentient, and therefore I shouldnt do/think certain things. I even did this during my days as an atheist.
So I’d like to hear why you think the belief in God isnt human nature.
Yes, I agree with this. It is a great thing for us that God's rules can be independantly be seen as good things to do in their own right- though bare in mind, not to all people in all cultures. Throughout history, cultures have always have 'blind spots', where to them, one of God's laws seemed absurd or out of place, and they had to rely on nothing but the 5,000 year old text. Today, people have a hard time understanding what's wrong with overindulgence, or why we ought to have sexual ethics. In a previous century, these things would be obvious- and yet they would see nothing wrong with chattel slavery.
Pincho Pax
Well, passing on what we know is certainly a part of human nature. There is a great deal of learning we would lose if culture was started over again by ignorant people. However, in the case of God, there is such a thing as Natural theology that would allow him to be re-discovered in short order: through the beauty of nature, the conviction of moral law, the order of the universe. Now, the specific message of Christianity would be lost in the situation you describe, but belief in God would resurface I think.