"Begin at the beginning,and go on till you come to the end: then stop." (Lewis Carroll, 1832-1896)
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
"So long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"
I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe. Like Arthur Dent from "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", if you do not have a Babel Fish in your ear this blog will be completely unintelligible to you and will read something like this: "boggle, google, snoggle, slurp, slurp, dingleberry to the power of 10". Fortunately, those who have had the Babel Fish inserted in their ear, will understood this blog perfectly. If you are familiar with this technology, you will know that the Babel Fish lives on brainwave radiation. It excretes energy in the form of exactly the correct brainwaves needed by its host to understand what was just said; or in this case, what was read. The Babel Fish, thanks to scientific research, reverses the problem defined by its namesake in the Tower of Babel, where a deity was supposedly inspired to confuse the human race by making them unable to understand each other.
"DIFFICILE EST SATURAM NON SCRIBERE"
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"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." - Sir Julian Huxley
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes and ships and sealing wax; Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot; And whether pigs have wings." - Lewis Carroll
"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" Alexander Pope
"The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal." Ann Oakley
"Some treat their longing for God as proof of His existence." Mason Cooley"The god of the Christians, as we have seen, is the god who makes promises only to break them; who sends them pestilence and disease in order to heal them; a god who demoralizes mankind in order to improve it. A god who created man 'after his own image', and still the origin of evil in man is not accredited to him." Johann Most
"In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words." Mason Cooley
"My philosophy is such that I am not going to vote against the oppressed. I have been oppressed, and so I am always going to have a vote for the oppressed, regardless of whether that oppressed is black or white or yellow or the people of the Middle East, or what. I have that feeling." Septima Clark
"Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about resisting the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to it." Tom Flynn
"If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." Thomas Henry Huxley
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"Give the right man a solar myth, and he'll confute the sun therewith." James Russell Lowell
"Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone. Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon. Show me slowly what I only know the limits of. Dance me to the end of love." Leonard Cohen
"If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination." Mary Daly
"If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish." Robert Green Ingersoll
"In other words (so to speak): not two and also not not two." Magellan's Log V
"History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology." W.H. Auden
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"To excavate is to open a book written in the language that the centuries have spoken into the earth." Spyridon Marinatos
"Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed." Thomas Henry Huxley
"The place has changed but little since Diana received the homage of her worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough." Sir James George Frazer
"Babylonian king (1792BCE–1750BCE) who made Babylon the chief Mesopotamian kingdom and codified the laws of Mesopotamia and Sumeria." The American Heritage
"We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility." Hermann Hesse
"Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?" Mason Cooley
"Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare." Harriet Martineau
"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun." Thomas Paine
"Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their fullest logical coherence.†- Mary Boyce
"My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it." William Lamb Melbourne
"With reason one can travel the world over; without it it is hard to move an inch." Chinese proverb.
"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. . . . The end of the world is evidently approaching." Sound familiar? It is, in fact, the lament of a scribe in one of the earliest inscriptions to be unearthed in Mesopotamia, where Western civilization was born. C. John Sommerville
""La superstition est à la religion ce que l’astrologie est à l’astronomie, la fille très folle d’une mère très sage. Ces deux filles ont longtemps subjugué toute la terre." Voltaire
"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago ... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands." Havelock Ellis
"It (myth) expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one." Ann Oakley
"Starry, starry night. Flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze, reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue." Don McLean
"NOT from the stars do I my judgment pluck, and yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality..." William Shakespeare
"Moreover, the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and such an edge is defined by something beyond. Since the universe has no edge, it has no limit; and since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded. Moreover, the universe is infinite both in the number of its atoms and in the extent of its void." Epicurus
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"The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?"- Judith Hayes
Comments are Welcomed
bible , noah , ark , christianity , religion , old testament , genesis , flood
posted by beepbeepitsme | 12:36 am
16 Comments:
Perhaps he bought them on ebay before he left.
Have a great weekend :)
First of all [and I'm not directing this argument at you Beepbeep ;)], Thomas Paine was NOT what you'd generally classify as a "Founding Father." He was an inspiring writer who motivated the troops during the Revolutionary War, but he had little or no direct effect on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc.. When he started talking about his philosophy and views on religion [I believe he ended up in the realm of Deism if my memory serves me well], he destroyed his reputation and was no longer popular in the United States.
Secondly, contrary to "chaddyfire's" beliefs, living each day without thought of heaven would NOT be good for the world. If there is no heaven, no afterlife, no God, no Creator, no one who purposed us, and no such thing as evil [as I've seen you state as a belief, Beepbeep], then our purposes are individually what we make them. Peace?
A lot of people would go insane for--what's the point of living?
A lot of people [if not all people] would turn into more selfish, materialistic animals than they already appear to be.
It would be "grab all you can get, while you can get it." Don't think of the other person: there is no right or wrong. They'll die; you'll die; you'll both lose consciousness and your consciences and there's no consequences.
You couldn't condemn any act, for how could you tell someone to "do unto others." First of all, those are Jesus' words. Second of all, where's your place to tell someone the "right" thing to do. There are universally "nice" things to do, but not right or wrong by this thinking.
The horrors of death would
truly be inconceivable. You or I could go out and crash a car, be shot, contract a fatal disease, eat something poisonous [food or otherwise], have a freak heart-attack or stroke,[ad infinitum], and that'd be it. Premature? Yes. Sad? Definitely. Just the thought would almost keep all of us out of cars, etc., and the entire human race as a whole would become paranoid--one purpose would be to survive as long as possible. Oh, "but we'd have peace like never before." Yeah, right. Rather, the Christian is the one who has "peace that passes all understanding." When a loved one is lost, no one would know what to do with themselves in such a society. There'd be no hope. There'd be no purpose to go on. Depression would be come more commonplace then it already is. Suicide rates would rise much farther past where they are at now. Alcoholism and drug use would become more prominent then they already are.
Not to mention the fact that this will never happen. Christians peacefully hold their beliefs. Christians would like you to agree with them [they have a deep burden for the lost's eternal souls to receive salvation], but there's no forcing involved, in general. Try singing John Lennon's song to the Muslims, or to the KKK or other racist groups who are urged on by the implications of the Theory of Evolution.
Thirdly, I find it interesting that this guy is so willing to sacrifice the Theory of Evolution on the "altar" of dis-proving Noah's Ark.
Fourthly, if anyone who reads this blog has an open-mind and wants to know the truth, they should read these three articles just for starters:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/races18.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v3/i3/human_race.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v13/i1/babel.asp
Fifthly, I DO have faith in the Bible, and that faith is verified and confirmed by the Bible's accuracy and dependability. Anything I don't quite presently understand I accept on the basis of faith because of the rest of the Bible, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and my relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ, and how They've proved Themselves to me. I would not immediately abandon such certainty that I possess because of a very questionable argument by a "MySpace" user, especially when there is a vast amount of evidence suggesting a worldwide flood.
Sixthly, in the Bible, we are told that the earth is round. (Go to:
www.answersingenesis.org/AnswersMedia/play.aspx?mediaID=0503 )
Seventhly, the Salem witch trials were not caused by "faith," but were caused by "zeal without knowledge," which DAMAGES the faith. Many involved in the trials apologized for their actions later.
Lastly, by the way, I'm working on a reply on the discussion of heaven, but it won't be posted right away. There will probably be a new post on my blog (unrelated), however, so I suggest you [not directed at you in particular, Beepbeep, ;)] check it out. If it's not there yet, I apologize.
RE KIngdom advancer:
RE: : "First of all [and I'm not directing this argument at you Beepbeep ;)], Thomas Paine was NOT what you'd generally classify as a "Founding Father."
Firstly, I am not sure who the reference to Thomas Paine is directed at, if it is not directed to me. Perhaps you need to state in future to whom you are addressing your arguments. It makes little difference to me if he is, or if he is not considered a founding father, as I don't remember making such a claim.
However, Thomas Paine, did champion the French Revolution in his Rights of Man and for that he should be fondly remembered.
RE: "Secondly, contrary to "chaddyfire's" beliefs, living each day without thought of heaven would NOT be good for the world."
I think if people realised how precious their life is, that it is all they have, no life after death, that they would recognise how precious everyone's life is in this context.
Therefore there would be less of "the kill now and let god sort them out later mentality." It is easy for believers to believe that they are dying, fighting or killing for a cause which noble and for which they will receive ample reward in some sort of afterlife.
I don't buy it. I am less likely to want to take someone's life from them, because I think that this here and now is all they have. Once you take it from them, it is no more, they are no more, only their memory or legacy lives on.
If more people thought in this way, people would see how precious and extraordinary their life is, and consequently, how precious and extraordinary other people's lives are as well.
RE: " If there is no heaven, no afterlife, no God, no Creator, no one who purposed us, and no such thing as evil [as I've seen you state as a belief, Beepbeep], then our purposes are individually what we make them. Peace? A lot of people would go insane for--what's the point of living?"
Firstly, it depends on whether people prefer a comforting answer rather than the truth. If you are the sort of person who prefers an answer which makes you feel good, then religious belief is for you.
Personally, I would prefer to know the truth, rather than be satisfied with an answer that placated my fears. That is, I would prefer truth over a satisfying story.
I realise that we have a different idea of what constitutes truth, but that is unavoidable. Believing something doesn't make it true, and doesn't alter reality. No one can wish something into existence. Neither, a heaven, nor a hell.
Secondly, not believing something, isn't a belief. Unless you are one of these people who have a belief in the non-existence of fairies, which is just so grammatically incorrect that I don't think I can bother making reference to it.
I don't believe in the existence of evil. Certainly not evil in the way a religious person may believe in the existence of evil spirits, the devil, satan, etc etc. I think that the belief in those sort of things stunts children's and adult's emotional, psychological and cognitive growth.
They work in the way that they keep people afraid of retribution of some mystical kind that may befall them at any time if they do not obey. So, I consider those sort of deliberately perpetuated fears, a kind of abuse.
They work in the same way that fear of the boogieman kept children in their beds at night, because the boogieman lived under the bed, or in the wardrobe, and would get you if you got our of bed.
So as a control mechanism the concept of evil works. But this control comes at a price. This kind of belief creates and breeds unrealistic and irrational fear which may go on to become a fullblown psychosis.
Because, as I said previously, I think this concept of supernatural evil damages the emotional, and cognitive development of the individual.
If the individual potential is damaged, it means a lot of damaged individuals. A lot of damaged individuals means a damaged society and so on. There is inevitably a flow-on effect.
RE: "A lot of people [if not all people] would turn into more selfish, materialistic animals than they already appear to be."
A lot of people are selfish and materialistic. But god belief does not diminish people's selfishness or materialism. Churches are some of the richest institutions in the world and tele-evangelists make millions out of people's fears and insecurities.
RE: "They'll die; you'll die; you'll both lose consciousness and your consciences and there's no consequences."
I don't think that life is fair so I don't expect that every person who does a terrible thing will be caught. Many believers want it to be fair, so the idea of a god or devil who will sort out the naughty or good people after they are dead, is an attractive concept to them.
I think that whatever punishment can be given to someone, will be given while they live.
I don't believe that there is a supreme arbiter who is keeping a list, checking it twice and who is gunna find out who is naughty or nice.
Once again, I think that some people manage to get on with their lives with a certain amount of emotional and psychological comfort, if they believe that the guy who murdered a child and is never caught (for example), is going to be "tried by a higher court" when he is dead.
So, I think this kind of belief provides a comfort for people, but I consider it to be a false comfort, as if he isn't caught when alive and punished, it is too late.
Having said all this, I think it is time to expose my illustrious and complete criminal record, as I am sure that as I am an atheist, you expect it to be long and grisly.
I have incurred in my half a century on this planet 2 speeding tickets. One for going 65kmp in a 60 zone and one for going 105kph in a 100 zone. I have also received 2 parking tickets. There, I feel much better for having confessed my terrible actions.
I have managed to act as a responsible citizen in my life without believing in a god who is going to punish me or being naughty. If you, or other people need fear in order to do the right thing, then I consider it your emotional or psychological problem and not mine.
This post is long enough, I may or may not, refer to the rest of your post at a later date.
Ok... Some people scare me...
Anyway, this is more about the clip u posted.
I didn't like it. I think it's very wrong when it says there are different races when, from a genetic point of view, there is no such thing as a race in the Homo sapiens species. We dont have different genes but just different forms of the same gene, different frequence of the same chracters in different areas.
If he wants to use genetics he's welcome but use it peoperly. There is a muche easier argument to use. inbreeding. There is absolutely no way that a nucleus of 8 people can propagate their own species, especially if alreadi inbred.
I also dont like the part about evolution because it makes a pretty common mistake. Evolution is not mutation + survival of the fitness.
This is too semplicistic and gives a lot of ways to fundies to argue it's not true.
Mutation is just a very small part of it, being extremely rare. Evolution is more simply the interaction of environment and genetic pools, it's the simultaneous selection of different characters within a population (increase in frequence) because of their higher fitness or their geographic/social isolation. We dont need mutations to explain evolution but genetic diversity and variability within a species.
BBIM:
Great post. Have you read Ingersoll's 'some mistakes of moses' yet? Available at infidels.org.
Kingdom Advancer:
First of all [and I'm not directing this argument at you Beepbeep ;)], Thomas Paine was NOT what you'd generally classify as a "Founding Father." He was an inspiring writer who motivated the troops during the Revolutionary War, but he had little or no direct effect on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc..
Bullshit. Paine was a Founder. He had a helluva lot more impact on the founding of this nation than just writing pamphlets (which, BTW, stoked the fires of freedom)
When he started talking about his philosophy and views on religion [I believe he ended up in the realm of Deism if my memory serves me well], he destroyed his reputation and was no longer popular in the United States.
Yeah, more proof of the intolerance of your religion.
Secondly, contrary to "chaddyfire's" beliefs, living each day without thought of heaven would NOT be good for the world. If there is no heaven, no afterlife, no God, no Creator, no one who purposed us, and no such thing as evil [as I've seen you state as a belief, Beepbeep], then our purposes are individually what we make them. Peace?
A lot of people would go insane for--what's the point of living?
Those of us who don’t need to be co-dependant on an authority figure, that’s who. If you’re too weak, that’s your problem. Knock yourself out.
A lot of people [if not all people] would turn into more selfish, materialistic animals than they already appear to be.
Snort, chuckle. Yeah, like all the xtians that seem to get more negative press on a DAILY BASIS.
It would be "grab all you can get, while you can get it." Don't think of the other person: there is no right or wrong. They'll die; you'll die; you'll both lose consciousness and your consciences and there's no consequences.
Oh ye of little faith.
You couldn't condemn any act, for how could you tell someone to "do unto others." First of all, those are Jesus' words. Second of all, where's your place to tell someone the "right" thing to do. There are universally "nice" things to do, but not right or wrong by this thinking.
What utter horse manure. First, Hillel said them first. Second, Confucious said them as well.
The horrors of death would truly be inconceivable. You or I could go out and crash a car, be shot, contract a fatal disease, eat something poisonous [food or otherwise], have a freak heart-attack or stroke,[ad infinitum], and that'd be it. Premature? Yes. Sad? Definitely. Just the thought would almost keep all of us out of cars, etc., and the entire human race as a whole would become paranoid--one purpose would be to survive as long as possible. Oh, "but we'd have peace like never before." Yeah, right. Rather, the Christian is the one who has "peace that passes all understanding."
As evidenced by events, past & present. Paranoid? No. More careful? Yes. This afterlife schmalz makes people careless, is all.
When a loved one is lost, no one would know what to do with themselves in such a society. There'd be no hope. There'd be no purpose to go on. Depression would be come more commonplace then it already is. Suicide rates would rise much farther past where they are at now. Alcoholism and drug use would become more prominent then they already are.
Oh, here we go again: this is just such a dead horse. Let’s look at Sweden – only 10% of the populace is religious. Somehow, chaos doesn’t seem to be the norm there.
Do back up your egregious nonsense w/some real facts, instead of your puerile pontification, please.
Not to mention the fact that this will never happen. Christians peacefully hold their beliefs. Christians would like you to agree with them [they have a deep burden for the lost's eternal souls to receive salvation], but there's no forcing involved, in general. Try singing John Lennon's song to the Muslims, or to the KKK or other racist groups who are urged on by the implications of the Theory of Evolution.
Oh, you’re just a complete ASSHOLE. Evolution breeds racism? Get your head outta your ass, bucko. RELIGION breeds racism. ‘Pure holy race’, if memory serves. Also, the blood libel.
Thirdly, I find it interesting that this guy is so willing to sacrifice the Theory of Evolution on the "altar" of dis-proving Noah's Ark.
You’re so woefully ignorant. Go look up the word ‘theory’. Oh, & do TRY not to cherry-pick the meaning, please.
Fourthly, if anyone who reads this blog has an open-mind and wants to know the truth, they should read these three articles just for starters:
Advancer, thy name is Ad hominem. It’s an open mind that brought most of us to our conclusions.
Fifthly, I DO have faith in the Bible, and that faith is verified and confirmed by the Bible's accuracy and dependability. Anything I don't quite presently understand I accept on the basis of faith because of the rest of the Bible, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and my relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ, and how They've proved Themselves to me. I would not immediately abandon such certainty that I possess because of a very questionable argument by a "MySpace" user, especially when there is a vast amount of evidence suggesting a worldwide flood.
Fine, keep it to yourself. What's myspace got to do w/anything?
Sixthly, in the Bible, we are told that the earth is round. (Go to:
www.answersingenesis.org/AnswersMedia/play.aspx?mediaID=0503 )
Bad news bucko: a circle is STILL FLAT. Nice try. What’s that acronym? PRATT.
Seventhly, the Salem witch trials were not caused by "faith," but were caused by "zeal without knowledge," which DAMAGES the faith. Many involved in the trials apologized for their actions later.
Oh, the participants didn’t have ‘faith’ that witches existed? Pleeeassseee!!!
Lastly, by the way, I'm working on a reply on the discussion of heaven, but it won't be posted right away. There will probably be a new post on my blog (unrelated), however, so I suggest you [not directed at you in particular, Beepbeep, ;)] check it out. If it's not there yet, I apologize.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, were I you.
Final analysis: no heaven, no hell – castles in the air.
“Neurotics build castles in the air: psychotics go live in them.”
You know beep, for one who believes Xanity is hogwash, you sure spend alot of your time discussing it. If Xians are wrong, it does not matter in the least what we believe, so there is no point to your refuting Xanity, unless that is you just enjoy making people look stupid.
BTW, Whats so special about Xanity as to make it's rebuttal your major focus on this blog?
under_the_mercy:
I can't speak for beep, but here's some thought for mastication:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fQA9mt-Mg
RE: under the mercy:
RE: "You know beep, for one who believes Xanity is hogwash, you sure spend alot of your time discussing it. "
So, your opinion is, if I consider something to be hogwash, I should just shut up about it? If you haven't noticed there are millions of religious people all over the world baying for each other's blood.
This means they have the potential to damage, or destroy the world which I hold very dear. As an atheist, it is my opinion that they are all fighting and wanting to kill each other over who has the best delusion.
So, until they manage to pull their deluded heads out of their collectively deluded orifices; I will continue to suggest that it is high time they joined the age of reason.
RE: "If Xians are wrong, it does not matter in the least what we believe, so there is no point to your refuting Xanity, unless that is you just enjoy making people look stupid."
It matters a great deal if they want their archaric, draconian, barbaric religious laws as part of government.
The laws of any nation should be based on reason, not religious books from 2 thousand years ago written by men who thought that the earth was flat and that bird blood could cure leprosy. We all deserve better than that.
I can't make anyone look stupid, their beliefs can do that on their own.
RE: "BTW, Whats so special about Xanity as to make it's rebuttal your major focus on this blog?"
I am willing to attempt to rebut most religious arguments. I have no favourites. But, as I was baptised and confirmed as a christian, it is the religion with which I am most familiar.
The 2 major religions which are at this moment in history, playing their games of dominionism obviously concern me the most.
And I want to make it quite clear that I accept that people in the western world have a right to a religious belief. But having said that, I do not think they have a right to try and impose any religious belief onto anyone else through law.
I am happy to live in a secular society where people have the right to believe in Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, or whichever deity you can name. I do NOT want any one of these religious groups trying to dictate their beliefs to me or to others through law.
It is not religious freedom if it is only the freedom to agree with one religion.
The problem exists where many religious people, (but mainly some forms of christianity and some sects in islam), demand a world where their religion reigns supreme.
They demand that their government is controlled by their respective religious leaders. The question you have to ask yourself is - "Do I accept the individual's right to choose a religion or to not choose a religion."
If you do not incorporate these rights into your dogma, it is you who is the problem, not me.
Hear, hear, Beep. I've been pushing this position for years with little success. Religion is a powerful force because people are gullible and religious conmen and women prey upon these gullibilities and carve out huge empires for themselves.
The ideal solution would be for atheists to move to another planet and leave the silly god-botherers to fight and argue among themselves and to kill each other.
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
If you really understood aithism then you would realize that the world being destroyed would simply be another meaningless "road".
"The laws of any nation should be based on reason"
In a post on plonka's site you said that the statement "one cannot validly tell someone else that they should or should not do something"
was true, yet here you are telling others (me in this case) that reason SHOULD be used.
RE: Daniel:
Why push a position that cannot be "right" if "right" is relative?
RE : under the mercy:
RE: "Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
In the story "Alice in Wonderland" , Alice meets a cheshire cat. The cat appears and disappears at will, and engages Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation. The cat sometimes points out philosophical points that annoy Alice.
The readers who may stop by my blog are symbolised by Alice. Sometimes "the Alices" who read my blog do not agree with either the content of my blog, or the questions posed by my blog. But the people, (or Alices), who read this blog are here for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes they are just looking for conversation, sometimes they are looking for answers, and sometimes they believe THEY have the answers.
Sometimes the reader is an erratic "blog-hopper", that is they click on blogs in an indiscriminate manner.
So Alice, (the guest to my blog), is asking the cheshire cat, (me), where they should go. This could mean that the guest is asking where they should look on the blog for answers they may want to questions they may have.
But it could also mean in a broader sense, that there are many roads in life, and that one of those roads, or some of those roads, may be found here.
For example, some religious people, but not all religious people, believe emphatically that there is only ONE road, and that is the road they have chosen, and woe betide anyone who doesn't choose the same road as they do. In their worldview, there is only ONE WAY to travel through life. They have all their philosophical eggs in the one basket. And they intend to punish in an autocratic and dictatorial fashion, anyone who does not comply or obey.
In a broader sense, if you don't have preconceived ideas about where you want to go, or what information you want to read, it doesn't matter which information you read, as the information doesn't have to comply with already preconceived beliefs.
All roads of information appear the same, or to have the same potential value, if a destination or conclusion is not already individually preordained or predetermined.
Directly below the first part of the quote, is a dropdown menu. The dropdown menu is one of the "roads" that people can take if they decide to navigate my blog.
Directly under the dropdown menu is the next part of the conversation that the guest, (Alice), has with the cheshire cat, (me).
"So long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
So, if people keep travelling long enough along the information highways which includes this blog, they are bound to find information that they either agree with or they don't. But either way, they make a journey, either emotionally, psychologically, or intellectually.
The cat, (me), having imparted the information that there are potentially many roads, then disappears to reappear at a later date with articles which are sometimes humorous, satirical, confronting, or philosophical.
The grin on the cheshire cat is an added extra, as I amuse myself sometimes on this blog, regardless of whether I amuse anyone else.
"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"
So the quotes from "Alice in Wonderland" are not used to signify that the world is meaningless, simply that "meaning", as in "the meaning of life," or the "purpose of life", is at least partially determined by where the individual looks for it, what the individual is looking for, how the individual looks for it and attributes meaning, and the reasons why the individual requires meaning.
The meaning that the individual may attribute to what they have found is determined by their intellectual, social, cultural, psychological, and emotional states.
Certainly, I am not the first, and probably not the last, to use words from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in a symbolic way.
Sir Julian Huxley used the concept of the cheshire cat to symbolise the possible demise of god belief. "Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." - Sir Julian Huxley.
RE: "If you really understood aithism then you would realize that the world being destroyed would simply be another meaningless "road".
Firstly, there isn't much to understand in atheism. Atheists are simply people who do not believe in the existence of god or gods.
The word "atheist" describes what people do NOT believe in, not what they DO believe in. Nor does it describe if they believe in anything, something or nothing.
I would say, (as the cheshire cat), that no roads are meaningless. There is always something to learn from whichever road you are on, but there is no guarantee that the individual with recognise the lesson.
Another corker as usual Beep...;)
Kingdom Advancer certainly paints a picture of doom and gloom of a biblical scale. It never ceases to amaze me that some just can't grasp the idea that having life is meaning enough to live. Why the need for "life" after death? So I've got something to look forward to? What a rediculous notion. Sorry, i think I'll just enjoy my dotage when it hits and like Simon before me, simply go to sleep, never to awake...:)
The flood fascinates me though. I posted a link to my post about it a while back, so I won't plug it again. I will say however that there probably was a very real flood on a global scale and that various sciences have made leaps and bounds in proving it, so have many stories similar in content to the Noah myth. Gilgamesh, Dardanus, Deucalion and the stories of the survivors of Samothrace being just a few of many, many myths from all over the globe that include a massive flood, a survivor or a family of survivors, a boat and at least one God.
For science, if we examine the evidence contained in the Vostok ice core, we will see that about 11,000 years ago the period of major glaciation that gripped the earth ended quite suddenly. The ice, which extended almost to the tropics (further in the nothern hemisphere than in the southern) melted and caused sea levels to rise about 150 metres. The interesting thing is that the event seems to have taken place in about 50 years or less, leaving us with not much more than we have today, which is still slowly melting.
When you consider that volume of water moving on a planetary scale, the fact that man has always felt the need to settle near the sea (climate, transport, food, etc), the fact that some of the above stories deal with rain while others talk about water coming seemingly from nowhere or a combination of the two, I believe we find the answer to the problem. Of course there'd have been devestating floods and in some areas and considering the amount of moisture released when ice melts, there'd also have been a lot of rain. An event that threatens survival will always find it's way into folklore, simply because it needs to be remembered that sometime's shit happens.
The other problem with this story as I see it, is simply that we equate a time scale to the bible that is horribly, horribly wrong when it comes to the older of the stories contained within it. These were most likely the oldest stories in the aural tradition of the Israelites that eventually, after many, many generations being told and retold, got written down when writing became easy (i.e. papyrus, quill and ink vs. stone and clay) and books became easier to store and carry.
I refer readers of this post to WORMWOOD, the album by the Residents. Subtitled Curious Stories From The Bible, it is a collection of the bible stories that everyone conveniently forgets because the character's behavior is insane or odious. For example, David returns from the war, exposes himself in a public parade and then rapes his own daughter. I don't recall if they cover Noah, but Lot gets a couple of songs just about behavior alone.
If you take my advice, I recommend the CD over the DVD, just because the music is perkier.
RE danielk:
Sounds interesting, I must see if I can get a copy.
8 people could not have taken care of all of the animals on the ark. They would never have time to eat or sleep because they would have to spend their time 24/7 shovelling out all of the animal shit that was constantly piling up, that is if the sheer power of the odor did not make them pass out.
Ark proponents also have to explain the Dodo bird of Mauritius. How did flightless birds get to an isolated island in the Indian Ocean? And what was God's purpose in having them live for several thousands of years in total isolation only to be rendered extinct by visits from Portuguese and Dutch sailors?
RE tommy:
They were "magical people". They sent hovercrafts to Australia too and picked up a couple of kangaroos, emus, wallabies, platypii and echidnas as well.
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