Originally posted by thormas
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You miss the point: I actually don't know of any serious Christian thinker who talks of supernatural beings or deities. Actually I think many of us, being secularists (also), would be in agreement with you in a good number of ways. However, you always fall back on an old time view of what many 'religious' people believe and it is this that you argue against. Some things - like deities and supernatural beings - are not even part of the vocabulary.
So we agree on science, good. However, Dawkins still cannot fully commit.
And, of course, science cannot answer the 'Why?"
So........God. To get into it would take some time (so not now) but I go back to earlier statements and I agree with Heidegger's concept of Being, Macquarrie/Whitehead's idea of Being as 'Letting Be.' So I begin with philosophers and a mathematician.
Actually I have never heard of that description of God: passions and the need for applause?? Actually most religious thinkers would say the exact opposite.
Actually I have never heard of that description of God: passions and the need for applause?? Actually most religious thinkers would say the exact opposite.
Sadly, my assertion reflects history and also speaks to the utter/ultimate meaninglessness of man, of all ......if one accepts the atheist position. Thankfully many of us don't .......thus man, life, creation are meaningful:+}
Simply, you attack a caricature of 'old time religion' from your 21st C scientific perch but it is a religion that most of us no longer buy into, either it's worldview or its philosophical system. You speak of a religion in which there are deities and supernatural beings and in which the God is full of passions and in need of applause. I know of no serious thinker who believes any of this. Only you:+}
Yet when you speak of the meaningfulness of man you focus on the 21st C while ignoring the whole of human history (including those much less fortunate in our century) where it is evident that there is not a lot of care for one's fellows or society. Thus you try to have it both ways and it is not the reality in either case.
Don't take Sisyphus literally - that's seems to be your mistake with religious stories also. Simply reflect on the meaninglessness of his effort (symbolic of all human effort): in the end the rock is where it began, at the bottom. Man made no difference.
It is not me who is saying man as a cooperative intelligent social animal is not true or that man in himself is not meaningful or that life is without meaning - I am saying that in the atheist position, any such action if for naught and creation is meaningless.
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