Do you actually enjoy life?

[Purple Tentacle]

I haven't read any of this thread yet as it might make me regret saying this, so if I offend anyone then sorry, it's not personal.


Anybody who describes themselves as "alternative", be it wearing sk8er clothes (without being able to sk8), or defining "alternative" as moping around complaining about how life is so shit because of The Government or Ricky Gervaise needs a railing through the throat, so they can see how perfectly ordinary their lives are as it flashed before their eyes.

The few people I know who have had genuinely shitty lives don't dress in black and sigh heavily at the end of EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE, or sit in the corner of pubs when you go out desperately wanting someone to ask them what's wrong so they can cry, ostentatiously.


One of my big bugbears is that clinical depression has become so fashionable. Doctors are so fucking eager to dispense Prozac like tic-tacs that any wankblind teenager can get hold of the stuff and call themselves a "depressive".  There is a world of difference between being depressed and being a depressive, one is the inability to raise your head from the pillow, and the sight of pretty much everything pulling your gut and heart into a deep stone well of despair, and the other one is the result of too much internet, Limp Bizkit and not enough excersise.


What's my point after that rant.?  Erm....

"Worse things happen at sea, you know!"

[Blue Jam]

Can I just say as someone who books these "idiots" to go away that 18-30 customers are not cunts (yeah, ok, you get a few, but you get a few everywhere), 18-30, 2wenty's, Freestyle and the like actually make their holidays cheaper than everyone else, in fairly basic acommodation to attract younger people that want to just be out, with friends having a laugh..

As someone who has actually been on a 2wenty's holiday, I'd like to say that Tracey is right here. I went on holiday with a big group of mates to celebrate the end of our A level exams, and as most of us were paying with the money we'd managed to save from working in shops and waiting tables at weekends, we couldn't really afford anywhere more expensive. Through 2wenty's we were able to book cheap, basic accommodation and flights, and at the resort we could go to good restaurants every night and do cheap watersports- things we couldn't afford to do at home. Okay, so the nightlife was horrible and the clubs were all playing the same cheesy records, but during the day it was lovely, and even at night I still managed to find intelligent, interesting people. In bars in London, I've met more twats in one night than I met in a week in Kavos.

Remember when Blur got criticised for the lyrics of Girls and Boys ("following the herd/down to Greece" etc)? This is because they were being snobbish and condescending. You may think 18-30s holidays are for pikeys, but you find twats everywhere, in similar ratios; I have a friend whose posh, cultured drama student friend asked him for holiday suggestions. When he suggested Jamaica, she said "Oooh, I don't know- Jamaica's a bit.... black, isn't it?". Although I wouldn't choose a 2wenty's-type holiday now (I have more money, and besides, 2wenty's holidays really only need to be done once), they're fun to do just once when you're young; I enjoyed mine and have no shame in admitting this.

[Gamma Ray]

This thread could go all over the place, couldn't it?

I think that what The Unicorn is trying to say is that religion gives your life meaning, i.e. is a context  within which you can understand and interpret the world.

I would agree 100%, that is clearly why it was 'invented', and that's why I think religious people are so ridiculous in their beliefs. It's like being mentally ill, not being able to deal with the world how it actually is and so believing in things which don't exist to deal with that. Well, mentally ill people believe in things which don't exist, religious people worship them.

Well I think 'believeing in democracy', for example, is realising that a society must have some type of structure to avoid descending into chaos, "Lord Of The Flies-style", and that democracy is the best viable solution that anyone knows of for now. That's being logical and wanting to avoid living in madness, surely? I can't see how you can compare that to centering your life around fictitional beings.

It's all in how you argue it, I guess. Religion and our western secular capitalist democracy are both ways of structuring society. One centres around a belief in God, the other centres around a belief in money. At least I think that it does – economic and ultimately monetary gain appear to be the motivation behind most human activity in that kind of model. What bothers me about that is that money is at best a bunch of paper and base metal, and at worst a string of figures stored in a database somewhere. It isn't any more real to me than God, and people who live their lives governed by it aren't any more sane than devout Christians. Maybe I done thunk about it too much, but I think that the comparison stands. That Cree Indian proverb "Only when the last tree is cut ..." has become a cliche, but that doesn't make it any less true. It takes someone standing outside of our way of life to look at it 'objectively', I guess.

Further to that, I think that it's a little insulting to call people who believe in God 'mentally ill'. Now I don't subscribe to any religion, but just because I can't 'see' something, that doesn't mean that it's not there. A subject for a different thread, perhaps.

I take your point about George W Bush using religion for political ends, but the religious lobby in the USA wields a lot of political power. Some of those people are religious fundamentalists, and no matter what flavour they are (except for Mingists) they're bad news.

Of course it's Nazi-like to go around telling people which views to hold, but I would say that ideally, people would evaluate themselves, i.e. try to see why they have the views they do - and if they come to the conclusion that those views simply stem from an ignorant or nonsensical (i.e. the typical teen thing which we all went through) base then... maybe it's time to let those go now, in order to make your life more enjoyable.

Of course you're right there, but any ill-considered views should be re-evaluated and discarded. Indeed, I didn't 'hate' any of the things that I have a problem with today when I was a teenager. I was too busy getting screwed up by girls. Most of my views nowadays are a result of looking at the way I, and we as a society, live, from a completely different angle. I learnt a lot about other ways of living and other ways of seeing the world during my degree. A lot of my conclusions made me very uncomfortable.

So maybe I better answer your question ... yeah, I love life. I love it so much that when I have kids I'd like for them to have a world that hasn't been fucked up too much by previous generations who couldn't give a shit about the future. That's just the way it seems to me – people don't know or care about how decisions they make in their lives impact other people, around the world and in the future.
I guess it boils down to how you see yourself - as an individual, or as a part of something much bigger.

[Benny J. Fish]

Bloody hell, do you really believe that? I see it as almost the complete opposite, I am extremely glad my judgement and actions aren't hindered by being mentally ill, i.e. believing in something which doesn't exist, worshipping it, and possibly devoting my life to it. That is madness, there's no two way around that. It's just got too out of hand to do anything about it now.

See, I find this interesting. I'm not religious myself, but the fact you can make generalisations about religious people (they're mentally ill), but not people who enjoy club 18-30 holidays (they're mentally ill).

Don't take this as a dig, I'm just interested, what makes you think this way about these topics?

[weekender]

Sounds to me like you're make a sweeping generalisation about mental illnesses all being the same there Benny.

[imitationleather]

Through 2wenty's we were able to ... do cheap watersports- things we couldn't afford to do at home.

Oh, too easy!

[gazzyk1ns]

Re: Benny

I don't know much about how one should define mental illness, but I like to say "religious poeple are mentally ill" because it defines my views on the situation nicely, i.e. I am referring to the general vage accepted definition of "mentally ill".

I just find it ridiculous that people will laugh at you for hearing voices in your head and, say... talking to an imaginery friend; but then when religious people pray to god and say that he 'guided them' through whatever, then it's perfectly reasonable and their 'views' must be respected.

Further to that, I think that it's a little insulting to call people who believe in God 'mentally ill'. Now I don't subscribe to any religion, but just because I can't 'see' something, that doesn't mean that it's not there. A subject for a different thread, perhaps.

For me the argument "just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there" means absolutely nothing when talking about this. It shows how much religious people are clutching at straws when that's the most convincing thing they can say. It does sound quite convincing at first too, it makes you think... things like carbon monoxide are there but can't be seen, and they are certainly real. But that's irrelevant, carbon monoxide is easily detectable through other means, etc etc... I feel lilke a prat saying that, maybe it's not needed. The point being that god clearly doesn't exist, jesus never existed - no evidence at all to suggest they did/do, and furthermore it's clear exactly why someone/some people cooked it up. No amount of "ahhhhh, consider the lillies"-style theoretical arguing about perception in general will compensate for that.

I can't see how anyone could reasonably come to the conclusion that my view is "insulting" either, it's a perfectly rational and logical decision - as I (sort of) said up there, people get classed as mentally ill by psychiatrists for exhibiting behaviour identical to religious people, the difference being that they don't label themselves religious or call the fictitional things/voices "god".

It's all in how you argue it, I guess. Religion and our western secular capitalist democracy are both ways of structuring society. One centres around a belief in God, the other centres around a belief in money

Well my reasoning from the previous post there, that democracy exists because we have to avoid living in chaos (to sum my paragraph up crudely!)... well, I was thinking more about my personal safety and health, as opposed to money or possessions.

And Re: The Dubya/religion thing - I didn't really address your original point too much because I agree with you 100%, I just wanted to say that another thing which annoyed me was that politicians also use religion for political gain, regardless of their true personal beliefs.

[Brigadier Pompous]

"Call no man happy until he is dead."   Herodotus

The point being, you don't know how happy your life will be until it is over, whereupon you could conceivably perform some sort of integration over the total happiness/sadness of the life and come up with a total.

Or the even simpler point, everyone is happy for some of the time, not happy for some of the time, and somewhere in between for the rest of the time.

[Brigadier Pompous]

jesus never existed - no evidence at all to suggest they did/do

There is plenty of evidence that someone called Jesus was knocking about in the levant about 2000 years ago.

It's the whole son of god, eating fishes, water/wine stuff that is rather less well supported...

[5:09am]

Having read this forum for a few months now, it's become clear that there is a strong streak of atheism in many posts. I personally have no objection to well-argued atheism, having done a little reading around the subject. What I do object to is the labelling of 95% of the world's population as 'mentally ill' because they believe in something you don't.

There seems to be a feeling that belief in God must be an article of blind faith and I accept that many people hold their beliefs on such a basis. However, it is perfectly possible to argue for the existence of God via rational arguments based upon observed facts about the world. Not only are these arguments possible, but many are also perfectly plausible and persuasive.

I'm not on a crusade of conversion here, I just wish people would engage with arguments rather than blithely dismiss religion as a social construct for the comfort of the dull masses.

Oh, and in answer to the original question....yeah, i'm pretty chipper.

[Benny J. Fish]

Re: Benny

I don't know much about how one should define mental illness, but I like to say "religious poeple are mentally ill" because it defines my views on the situation nicely, i.e. I am referring to the general vage accepted definition of "mentally ill".

I just find it ridiculous that people will laugh at you for hearing voices in your head and, say... talking to an imaginery friend; but then when religious people pray to god and say that he 'guided them' through whatever, then it's perfectly reasonable and their 'views' must be respected.
.

There's a good quote on that, "Saying a prayer brings solace to the saps, the ignorant and the lazy, to the informed it's the same as writing a letter to Father Christmas" Can't remember who said it, some good writer or poet I think.

I don't agree personally, I think that a belief, for most people, is a good thing. I'm not religious myself (idle agnostic, no views either way, but it doesn't worry me), but a close friend is an intelligent Catholic, ie he can argue his views well, without sounding bigoted or agressive, and if it brings him peace of mind, I see no reason to complain.

Not that there aren't sick fuckheads around who abuse religion...

[Frinky]

Having read this forum for a few months now, it's become clear that there is a strong streak of atheism in many posts. I personally have no objection to well-argued atheism, having done a little reading around the subject. What I do object to is the labelling of 95% of the world's population as 'mentally ill' because they believe in something you don't.

You'll see a lot more of it too, if my year here is anything to go by. Good luck with grinning and bearing it! I dunno if you're new, having signed up after the exodus, but hullo and welcome. I hope you do more posts on this sort of thing when it arises, becuase you're right, its very one sided around here, and your post pro was a lot better thought out than the pros con on the subject.

Aplogies if that was patronising, maybe "hello" would have sufficed. I'm Matt, by the way.

[gazzyk1ns]

I'm not on a crusade of conversion here, I just wish people would engage with arguments rather than blithely dismiss religion as a social construct for the comfort of the dull masses.

It clearly is, though.

I've alreday explained my "mentally ill" comment, I think it maybe sounds worse than I mean it to because of the connotations of the phrase "mentally ill". Those connotations aren't my fault though, and again, I have explained that I didn't mean to imply them.

Religion is something I am very opinionated about and I'll not mix my words when it comes to discussing it, I think a lot of people do so as not to alienate, or be resented by, those 95% of the world's population but I don't care if they resent me, as I said I think they have a form of mental illness (again, the definition of it as I outlined above).

With regards to ignorance and sweeping statements, the labelling of every vociferous athiest as ignorant, aggressive, or whatever (i.e. "I just wish people would engage with arguments rather than blithely dismiss religion as a social construct for the comfort of the dull masses.").

The above is my belief and for you to imply that my argument is lazy or dismissive is very arrogant of you and offends me.

[fanny splendid]

But Gaz, you've just been dismissive and abusive about the beliefs of others, and now your moaning that you feel someone is doing the same to you?

[gazzyk1ns]

Nah I've justified my view at length and with the use of logical, real-world, actual reasoning. I know the nature of religion makes it impossible to do the same with it but that's the beauty of it for religious people, isn't it... that's why whoever cooked it up realised it was such a fantastic, watertight thing, and set to spread it about. Wouldn't have been hard in those days, anyway. I know the guy 5.09 there was saying he has an intelligent friend who could do the same with religion but considering 5.09's views on the matter I can't imagine it would be hard for a religious person to 'convince' him.

That last bit sounds insulting, it wasn't meant as simply a dig, it was just a comment on the fact that if you're... as I imagine would be the preferred term... "open minded", then for a devout Catholic to convince you his views are logical etc. wouldn't be that hard.

Another double standard which some people (not necessarily implying those here...) hold is that when a (for example) Christian says "I believe in God 100%, you CANNOT convince me of anything else and I categorically DO NOT understand why some people can't believe in him and love him." then the response is "Yes, fine, I respect your views, great.". When an athiest says "I DO NOT believe in god and I CANNOT understand why many people do." he's labelled as ignorant, lazy, and sometimes (verbally) aggressive. That's very wrong.

[king mob]

I haven't read any of this thread yet as it might make me regret saying this, so if I offend anyone then sorry, it's not personal.


Anybody who describes themselves as "alternative", be it wearing sk8er clothes (without being able to sk8), or defining "alternative" as moping around complaining about how life is so shit because of The Government or Ricky Gervaise needs a railing through the throat, so they can see how perfectly ordinary their lives are as it flashed before their eyes.

The few people I know who have had genuinely shitty lives don't dress in black and sigh heavily at the end of EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE, or sit in the corner of pubs when you go out desperately wanting someone to ask them what's wrong so they can cry, ostentatiously.


One of my big bugbears is that clinical depression has become so fashionable. Doctors are so fucking eager to dispense Prozac like tic-tacs that any wankblind teenager can get hold of the stuff and call themselves a "depressive".  There is a world of difference between being depressed and being a depressive, one is the inability to raise your head from the pillow, and the sight of pretty much everything pulling your gut and heart into a deep stone well of despair, and the other one is the result of too much internet, Limp Bizkit and not enough excersise.


What's my point after that rant.?  Erm....

"Worse things happen at sea, you know!"

I like the cut of this mans jib.

[Frinky]

I know I'm going to look a right cunt about this, but hey, I smell like one too.

The one major rule is that the forums are not used to buy and sell stuff, under any circumstance. Other than that, just dont act like a fanny, basically. Try not to quote huge reams of text just so you can add a one-line response underneath. That sort of thing.

[23 Daves]

Cocks are cocks are cocks are cocks doesnt matter where they go.... Dammit, I went to a four star hotel in Crete with a premium operator last year and had a family of cocks next door all week.

Oh fucking hell, not YOU as well.  I went on a farm holiday in Dorset and had a room of cocks next door to me as well.  The constant crowing at sunrise meant I didn't get a wink of sleep, somebody should have told me this would be a common holidaying problem.

In answer to the original question, at the moment I'm pissed off and unhappy, whereas at some times in my life I'm as chipper as can be.  Just about everyone who knows me well will tell you, though, that when I'm miserable it's because something's not going right with my life (my career, my love life, my health, etc) and I tend to get more agitated and hyper about it as a way of trying to resolve things.  If I just lit a spliff and sat watching television to calm myself down, I'd never do anything (and I know this to be true from past experience).  So I tend to use my anger and my grouchiness as a means to an end, and attempt to channel it in the right direction.  

If I have a fault at all, it's that sometimes I think too little can push me over the edge into being a miserable sod.  For instance, my girlfriend rightly pointed out to me the other day that although I was in a bad mood because my boss had been screaming and shouting at me at work, I know I'm planning to leave in two months time anyway, so what's the point in taking it so seriously, especially as there's not  much I can really do about it in the meantime?  But still I do.  I think that's a 'pride' thing, though, because part of me really wanted to tell my boss to fuck off and stop talking to me like a child and I didn't.

So that's me.  Misery guts at the moment, but it'll change soon, hopefully!  I think we all need a bit of angst to push us on in life, though, if you're always satisfied with everything why try to move on or change anything?

[king mob]

I know I'm going to look a right cunt about this, but hey, I smell like one too.

The one major rule is that the forums are not used to buy and sell stuff, under any circumstance. Other than that, just dont act like a fanny, basically. Try not to quote huge reams of text just so you can add a one-line response underneath. That sort of thing.

pah!

[5:09am]

Nah I've justified my view at length and with the use of logical, real-world, actual reasoning. I know the nature of religion makes it impossible to do the same with it but that's the beauty of it for religious people, isn't it... that's why whoever cooked it up realised it was such a fantastic, watertight thing, and set to spread it about.

That was precisely the point I was disputing. I think the basis of religion SHOULD be subject to the same rational scrutiny as any scientific fact, and it with such scientific rigour that I base my religious beliefs. I accept that many religious beliefs eg. Catholic dogma- transubstantiation, that type of thing, is a matter of faith in some very old writings but the sheer existence of God can be well argued from a rational standpoint, without resorting to the self-fulfilling delusions that you think place theists among the mentally ill. I think you'll agree that this minimal theism (God exists, fuck knows what he is or how to worship him) is a perfectly sane standpoint to adopt.

I apologise if I sounded arrogant in questioning your atheism but I failed to see the rational arguments in your post. Your position seemed to be 'Well, it's just obvious that God doesn't exist' and it is this type of attitude that I think does atheism no good at all. Feel free to correct me if I'm in any way caricaturing your argument.

I think that there are gaps in scientific knowledge that CANNOT be filled without reference to a intelligent creator, and so I feel I am justified in believing in God on that basis. These are not gaps that can be filled in the way that evolutionary theory explained the existence of complex organisms, (though even this theory has some profound difficulties), they are gaps which, by their very nature, cannot hope to be filled by scientic discovery.

Also, I don't think atheists get a bad press for presenting their views as long as they are well-founded and well argued. What I think theists resent is the arrogant belief among atheists that they occupy a kind of intellectual elite. I don't mean to bounce the charge of arrogance back at you as a act of name-calling. It just seems to me to be the very height of arrogance for people to dismiss religion as something we've progressed past when theistic writings (old and new) are just so fucking rich.

I know the guy 5.09 there was saying he has an intelligent friend who could do the same with religion but considering 5.09's views on the matter I can't imagine it would be hard for a religious person to 'convince' him.

Oh, and that wasn't me with the intelligent religious mate. I don't need converting. Anyway, I can't imagine some dippy teen persuading me to join the Jesus army. Not when I can sit back and read a bit of Thomas Aquinas instead.

[gazzyk1ns]

Sorry about getting you mixed up with the guy with the mate there.

Your position seemed to be 'Well, it's just obvious that God doesn't exist' and it is this type of attitude that I think does atheism no good at all. Feel free to correct me if I'm in any way caricaturing your argument.

Yeah I've started to say that now to shorten my posts, my basic argument is that I think it's obvious why it was invented - to give people hope back when life for 99% of people was... well, unbearable by our standards; to explain occurrences like thunderstorms and freak accidents in the absence of the correct explaination (and to give people hope that they could do something - pray/worship/etc - to stop them happening again); and also to give people who craved it, a certain sense of power and authority (i.e. the local religious leaders).

Another thing which rarely gets picked up on, much to my frustration, is the blatant bullying tactics in the Bible which for me, exposes  it for... what I think it is. The story of doubting Thomas - who questioned whether Jesus had risn from the dead (so basically he questioned whether Jesus was "holy" or not...). He was shown a few scars and then ridiculed in front of everyone he knew, and had to beg for forgiveness in order to be... well, forgiven, for his "sin" of being a bit dubious that a human could survive crucifixion. Silly him, when will he learn that he must have complete blind faith or be punished. Then there's the story of the old woman who gave everything she had, and even though it was very little indeed, she gave "more" than all the rich people who only donated what amounted to a certain percentage of their actual wealth. The moral? 99.9% of your wealth is not good enough for the church, regardless of whether you're a pauper or a king, you must give everything.

Now of course many religious people these days don't take any opf that too literally - they have very open attitudes to the beliefs of others, and many don't give anything to the church at all. But that's another thing which makes the whole thing ridiculous for me. How selective and... nonsensical, is that - "Oh yes I'm religious, definitely... but I'm ignoring parts of the bible, the "instruction book" for my religion, because I want to... it's not really practical for me." A mate has a very religious girlfriend, she hates blasphemy and goes to church about four times a week, apparently her faith and devotion is unquestionable. But she is another one of those selective people - she gambles, has pre-marital sex, etc etc

What would we think of a vegan who said "Yeah I'm unquestionably vegan, although I do enjoy slurping on a pint of cow's milk and scoffing bacon quite regularly, because that suits my lifestyle these days.". Undoubtably the comeback will be that religion was maybe never meant to have stringent regulations, or that you can adapt it to modern times without deserving to have your faith questioned... but I just don't agree, that's akin to saying "just do more or less whatever you want, as long as you do a few of the basics like praying then you're on board." It's just a big vague shambles.

I think that there are gaps in scientific knowledge that CANNOT be filled without reference to a intelligent creator, and so I feel I am justified in believing in God on that basis. These are not gaps that can be filled in the way that evolutionary theory explained the existence of complex organisms, (though even this theory has some profound difficulties), they are gaps which, by their very nature, cannot hope to be filled by scientic discovery.

What gaps are there which cannot hope to be filled by scientific discovery? Separately, I don't think it should be considered a logical view to see a small gap in scientific knowledge and then decide that because there is no answer at present, it must be the work of a greater being. That's the sort of thing which I was trying to argue sparked religion off, i.e. there was a thunderstorm - there is no explanation - wel...er... it's a supernatural being, who must be angry.

When we've been around in the universe for such a minuscule amount of time, and when the universe is so incredibly massive, there are going to be gaps in our scientific knowledge for a massive amount of time. I think just attributing those gaps to a supernatural power is rather backward. I don't think religious people are "backward" in that sense, attributing gaps in science doesn't come from an ignorance on their part at all; for me it's clear that they're just using whatever they can to strengthen their (weak) argument.

[Gamma Ray]

Well I couldn't help it ...

Yeah I've started to say that now to shorten my posts, my basic argument is that I think it's obvious why it was invented - to give people hope back when life for 99% of people was... well, unbearable by our standards; to explain occurrences like thunderstorms and freak accidents in the absence of the correct explaination (and to give people hope that they could do something - pray/worship/etc - to stop them happening again); and also to give people who craved it, a certain sense of power and authority (i.e. the local religious leaders).

Yeah? You know they say that the average hunter gatherer spent about 20 hours or so a week hunting and gathering, and the rest of the time was their own. I wonder what they did without TV? Sure, life has been harder for people in the past, but they weren't any stupider than us. Well not all of them. The holy books were among the first texts written when humankind figured out how to write. As such, they replaced the oral tradition that had previously been used to pass knowledge on from generation to generation. To dismiss them is to dismiss thousands of years worth of human experience and learning. Oh but we have science, and that answers everything, doesn't it? I'm not saying that religion is fuckin' A1 the shit etc. but I think that dismissing it as a bunch of superstition is as silly as embracing it wholeheartedly.

But that's another thing which makes the whole thing ridiculous for me. How selective and... nonsensical, is that - "Oh yes I'm religious, definitely... but I'm ignoring parts of the bible, the "instruction book" for my religion, because I want to... it's not really practical for me."

Well I wouldn't unquestioningly accept any doctrine. Just because the Bible is flawed doesn't mean you should rip all the pages out. Having said that, I understand how double standards when it comes to that kind of thing can annoy you. Still, do you really think that everyone who believes aspects of the Bible should believe all of it, literally?

What gaps are there which cannot hope to be filled by scientific discovery? Separately, I don't think it should be considered a logical view to see a small gap in scientific knowledge and then decide that because there is no answer at present, it must be the work of a greater being. That's the sort of thing which I was trying to argue sparked religion off, i.e. there was a thunderstorm - there is no explanation - wel...er... it's a supernatural being, who must be angry.

True enough, using God to plug holes in our knowledge is lazy. Still, science can answer 'how' to things, but it can't answer 'why' because it wasn't designed  for that. It's just one of a number of paradigms we have for understanding the universe, and it's fantastically useful for some things but very limited for others.
Take life, for example. Science can identify the factors that allowed life to come into being, but it can't answer why it did. 'Because the factors where there'  ... 'Sure, why?' 'They just were' etcadnauseum

If you want my views, for what they're worth, they go like this ... I saw a programme about cosmology on TV a while back.  There was an astrophycisist on it who said that humans are in essence 'semi-concious manifestations of the universe'. What is the universe? What's it made from? There's my God. I think that people need to get away from the concept of God as a Gandalf lookalike sneaking around somewhere behind the clouds. I agree that such a notion is a little silly.

Still, what does any of it matter? In a postmodern world you can pick and mix as you like, because there is no meaning other than that which you give.

And today felt like the first day of Spring.

[Brigadier Pompous]

Take life, for example. Science can identify the factors that allowed life to come into being, but it can't answer why it did. 'Because the factors where there'  ... 'Sure, why?' 'They just were' etcadnauseum

Because if they weren't we wouldn't be here discussing it.

Still, what does any of it matter? In a postmodern world you can pick and mix as you like, because there is no meaning other than that which you give.

You just need to hope that you aren't flying in a plane designed by a post-modern engineer, who decided not to believe in all that Newtonian rubbish...

[terrorist]

I like it.

[Dusty Gozongas]

Yeah I've started to say that now to shorten my posts, my basic argument is that I think it's obvious why it was invented.

There's a "spiritual nature" in many people.  We have it.  That's why the religion  virus [meme] survives.

[Gamma Ray]

Take life, for example. Science can identify the factors that allowed life to come into being, but it can't answer why it did. 'Because the factors where there'  ... 'Sure, why?' 'They just were' etcadnauseum

Because if they weren't we wouldn't be here discussing it.

No shit.

Still, what does any of it matter? In a postmodern world you can pick and mix as you like, because there is no meaning other than that which you give.

You just need to hope that you aren't flying in a plane designed by a post-modern engineer, who decided not to believe in all that Newtonian rubbish...

Man, you cut me right down. I guess my point is that science can describe things, but not give them meaning. But why bother trying to understand what someone is saying when you can get a cheap laugh, eh? This is after all a comedy forum.

[european son]

You just need to hope that you aren't flying in a plane designed by a post-modern engineer, who decided not to believe in all that Newtonian rubbish...

i'm not going to get into a discussion on religion, not my style, but i have to interject here to say that concerning any notion of truth, that Newtonian physics is rubbish.

[Purple Tentacle]

Science can explain everything.

If you want to guess for yourself, choose religion.

[Brigadier Pompous]

i'm not going to get into a discussion on religion, not my style, but i have to interject here to say that concerning any notion of truth, that Newtonian physics is rubbish.

That depends on the length scale you are concerned with.  For most macroscopic systems newtonian physics gives you a sufficiently accurate answer.  Truth doesn't really come into physics, it's just a question of how accurate you want your model of reality to be.

[Brigadier Pompous]

Man, you cut me right down. I guess my point is that science can describe things, but not give them meaning.

It is perfectly possible to find meaning in science, as it is in philosphy and in religion.

For example, the human race could merely be the accidental and irrelevant by-product of an uncaring universe, which came into being spontaneously about 12 billion years ago.
Or it could be the creation of some sort of God type being.
Or innumerable other possibilities.

They are all perfectly valid world-views (albeit some may seem more likely than others), from which meaning can be gained.
Religion doesn't have a divine right (ahem) to bestow meaning on things.