Posts by John

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

We discussed a lot about the problem of evil and here are some interesting links about the problem of consciousness :

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/world-s-smartest-physicist-thinks-science-can-t-crack-consciousness/

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

Some say looter is an old man.

But I think he and Viviane are two spoiled brats fighting like that.

Just kiddin'

:D

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

Then you need to be more Zen about life and stop inventing hellfire/purgatory/angels/demons etc to explain things that don't need an explanation beyond "shit happens".
Good night

Yes Zen says that if you really want to know if you needs something you must throw it away. If you have to pick it up again this thing is needed for you.

I need my " why". :D

Good night

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

This reduces the "why" question to the more rational and mundane question of "how"?

Indeed. But I don't think the " how" is more rational than "why". Is more practical.

I tried to live with this mentality but at some point when you achieve a lot of " how" you finally starts to see the limits of this view and the "why" starts to grow in your mind.

But that's me. I for one cannot live ignoring my mind searching for "why". Is hard for me to accept there's people who doesn't care for "why".

Like a neutrino born in the heart of the Sun and takes millions of years to reach the surface and goes in a crazy angle towards the Earth and hits a DNA strand in the left testicle of a Drone Bee and it gives him a hereditary mutation and so on...

What we call random is a lot of frugal causes that we don't care to think about.

But the theory of information (related to Shannon's law I think) says that a very compressed information is indistinguishable from noise.

Things like this "how" makes me think about "why".

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

Buddhism and Catholicism are very concerned with the experience of suffering specially the suffering next to death. That's why we pray "Nunc et in hora Mortis nostrae".

Objectively speaking I think this view in face of unjustified suffering and death is better than " shit happens".

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

Mercy is achieved by expense of Justice. In Christianity God's Mercy is achieved through justice. Justice is not put aside to achieve Mercy.

That's the point of the Ransom view about the Crucifixion. Crucifixion of Christ payed the expense provoked by Mercy.

Suffering plays a kind of monetary value in Christianity. In Buddhism suffering (dukkha) is a central key too. In Buddhism suffering is partly explained by Karma (in cause and effect sense). Catholicism have a similar view in the doctrine of Temporal Penalties. Temporal Penalties can be paid on Earth or Purgatory. The payment on Earth is more valuable than Purgatory. That's why the Good Thief after his death at the cross went directly to a blissful sphere on Purgatory called Paradise (also called Abraham's Bosom and is the last sphere before Heaven. This Paradise in Purgatory is the JWism interpretation of "millennial earthly paradise" ) because after his Repentance on cross he suffered in same way Christ did.

The problem of evil is not about suffering itself but unjustified suffering or mysterious suffering of innocents.

Suffering can be meaningful as Nietzsche said that you cannot be a hero if you not suffer. Nietzsche viewed suffering (in an atheistic sense) as an opportunity to become stronger.

Suffering is meaningful in the bodybuilding world where the basic premise is "no pain no gain". When they show their muscles (and a lot of smiles) they're literally showing the result of pain.

Christianity gives meaning to suffering because a Christian believes in an immortal soul that gains eternal Glory through suffering (specially unjustified suffering in innocents).

To an Atheist there's no possibility of any metaphysical reason for suffering so it's pointless.

Buddhism says a person in this situation suffers twice. First because it's not possible to avoid suffering itself (with or without a metaphysical explanation) and second this person is doomed to only accept suffering as totally pointless, just "shit happens". Even though its mind will not accept the "shit happens" and will keep trying to make sense out of the situation and this causes an extra huge psychological suffering.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

John Mann life is more meaningful and precious now that I'm almost certain there is no afterlife.

I reached a total different conclusion from yours considering the same point.

Are you catholic? You went from a modern day abusive cult to one of the originals that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of child abuse victims and millions dying too young in Africa due to the condom use ban.
See this is what a theist morality gets you. A human sacrifice cult that thinks it's merciful that a billion people go to purgatory just because they were born on the wrong continent. And you theists wonder why you are derided here and ever more so in the public square.

Well is very easy to accuse an institution when you belongs to a "specific claim that no one can speaks for it" as Cofty well defined Atheism.

If no one can speaks for it no one can be responsible for it too.

At least I take a position that there's people who take responsibility for it.

Tell me how can morality exists without responsibility?

Is true that there's a serious problem about child abuse but the Church are solving this problem.

The Christian morality only accepts sex between married persons. How can the ban of condom kill married people?

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

False dichotomy alert!

True.

There's also the possibility of God is evil and the possibility of Deism. And maybe more.

The evil God possibility is dreadful. What could we do in such scenario? Just deny His existence would not be a solution.

But usually the common positions are the dichotomy I mentioned.

Wait, god didn't know something? You just wrote he was omniscient. Do you actually know what omniscient means?

We speak in a colloquial mode when we say God thinks, decides, etc...

God possess omniscience and omnipotence.

This implies that He can decide what to known.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

When my 5 year old son was in the hospital with complications of chemo treatment for leukemia and as I jolted out of a slumber at 1AM to very young children screaming in pain literally woke me up to the ridiculousness of a god, much less a loving one.
Over 9 million children under the age of 5 die every year.

I'm sorry for your son. I hope everything's s fine by now.

This situation is what we have been discussing here. The problem of natural evil to innocent people.

Usually the very victims of this evil have hope and faith in God and they keep this position throughout the agony.

But to outside observers two positions can take place.

One is the position of faith in God. And the other is the position that God can't exist if such evil exists.

Trying to be out of this equation and become the hypothetical neutral observer I find these two outcomes very intriguing.

I cannot say that one position is dishonest and the other is true. I think both positions are very sincere. So why an event can produce such extreme positions? I don't have an answer for that.

All I know is that I believe life has no end and all suffering we endure will be transformed in eternal bliss. This is the only way I find to give some meaning to suffering.

In JWism there's only one reason for why Jesus was executed. They take the Ransom view and give it a status of dogma.

But to Catholicism the Crucifixion of Christ is a complete mystery. There is only views that try to explain it. The first Christians tried very hard to make sense why the Messiah was executed in a horrendous and humiliating way.

Christ as a mortal man needed to die. But he could died by natural causes and not be executed as an innocent.

One of the views that I accept is the Model view. God thought for sake of Infinite Justice He Itself needed to face human suffering. So he set a model that the problem of evil is so mysterious that even God Itself had to experience it.

IMHO the problem if evil must have something related to Infinite Justice. And the Cross of Christ is the needle that seam the entire history of suffering.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

John_Mann

What do you have to say about the billion plus Hindus that happened to be born into a polytheistic family and culture.

God by definition is an omniscient Judge.

Purgatory solves this problem. Indeed almost every Catholic thinks they will spend a lot of time in Purgatory.

But Purgatory is temporary and all the souls there are already saved. There's only one way out in Purgatory: Heaven.

John_Mann

Posts by John_Mann