Science, Religion, God – Let’s just be honest

Well he did but he placed the tree from witch no one should eat in the middle of the garden, then turned his all knowingness off, went away, and left the 10 day old full grown Adam and the somewhat younger eve in the garden alone, forgetting he also let in an evil lying walking snake in the garden that tricked eve to eat the apple then eve pussy whipped Adam in to eating the apple too. And the good world wasn't so good any more. Makes perfect sense. Dunno why you dont get it.But my question is this if no one ever ate from the apple and no one would ever die as a result. How long till there are so many people in the world that the next new one has no place to stand.

I'm sorry, you left off the bit where you explain why. How can there be no final purpose? Given the time scales involved, we're likely to have gone extinct long before the death of the sun. Well no, that wasn't quite what I was saying. I understand why people have an urge to have children, but why does god? What is the purpose of god itself? Or is there no ultimate purpose?

If all life ceases then where is there purpose? That's a given. I simply picked one way in which all life on the planet ends. I am drawing a simple analogy between our desire to have children and God's desire for a society of his image bearing creatures. Of course that is just an anthropomorphic guess as there is no way I can know with any certainty.

IMHO that is a great question which I actually have spent time considering, as I have wondered the same thing myself.The only answer that I have come up with is that this renewed heaven and earth will be populated by those who have chosen to love unselfishly and have rejected selfish love. That combined with an eternal existence that would be non-entropic could allow for an existence where evil is no more. The point of evil being necessary for good to exist allows for an existence where we can freely choose to love unselfishly in order to choose life with God in this renewed or resurrected existence.That probably isn't a satisfactory answer for you but as I've said in other posts by quoting Paul, "we are looking through a glass darkly". If the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event then it makes sense, If I am wrong and the resurrection is not an historical event then like Paul writes, "we are to be pitied" and we are wasting our time. Maybe for the reason above the only option is to select those who truly love goodness and/or unselfishness as opposed to those who select evil and/or selfishness. Lewis' book "The Great Divorce" does a good job of dealing with that.

You didn't answer my question which I will rephrase in light of this question: Why do you think there can be no purpose if all life ceases?The ultimate purpose will be whatever the final purpose-havers decide it is. You like to push back the final purpose-haver to a god, but you don't describe his purpose. That's potentially god's desire taken car of. So what is god's purpose?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Plastic.The universe wanted plastic for itself but dint know how to make it so it set in motion the evolutionary chain of events that would lead to us making plastic. Now that that has been done its time for us to go back in to oblivion.

Sounds like it fits, for you.Unfortunately, this ultimate purpose, even if it did exist... would be worthless to someone like me.
I find no peace from a purpose that comes from somewhere other than my own decisions.
It's a bit too close to giving up my sense of free will.
And I'm unable to understand why any "good" force or being would want such a thing to happen.An ultimate purpose for the universe would be an interesting idea. I would like to know what it was, specifically, and then decide if I would like to partake with it or not.I would see it as the same thing as an ultimate purpose for any tool. Something to learn about what such a tool was made for, and then see if it's something beneficial, or maybe just something "for those who think that's a cool thing to do."It could never be an ultimate purpose for me, though.
My brain just doesn't work that way, if I'm being honest with myself. To me, it sounds like letting someone else decide what it is I'm supposed to do. That, to me, sounds like a waste of the intelligence I've been granted in this life.I have no issues with letting go and trusting a higher power... I release many of my decisions onto experts I know understand certain things better than myself.
But... I do my research and due diligence, first. Otherwise, there's too much to risk (lives and health of those who depend on me).Something external may very well have a plan and purpose for me... but unless I understand it and decide to agree with it... it's not an ultimate purpose for me. I would have to make sure it doesn't conflict with the other priorities I've already built for my life... loving my wife, spending time with friends and family... that sort of thing.If it happens to agree with all of that, well, I have no issue with someone else's purpose for me just randomly aligning with the purpose I already sorted out for myself.

But in that "perfect world" there would be no scope for unselfish love. What can you do for somebody who needs nothing?Why put people through the suffering of an imperfect world just to select the ones who are qualified for a job that doesn't exist?

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I find no peace from a purpose that comes from somewhere other than my own decisions.
It's a bit too close to giving up my sense of free will.

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Now im beginning to understand you. Since you have remained open-minded to the whole "meeting Jesus" idea, I don't have anything to add. Hypothetically, would it concern you if the contingency on meeting Jesus would be to surrender your free will to Him? Is there any other way the relationship could proceed?

As I said in that same post:

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I have no issues with letting go and trusting a higher power... I release many of my decisions onto experts I know understand certain things better than myself.

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I have no issue surrendering my free will (even forever) if Jesus actually wanted it and could help me understand that He knows better. Um... yes. Lots and lots of ways.
For starters, Jesus and I could have a conversation.

Well, I did answer your question, but I guess the answer wasn't acceptable to you. I'm not sure what I can add to what I have already said.If all life ceases then all that has gone before no longer has meaning or purpose in an empty universe. Sure, a life can have purpose in that it can impact existence up to the point that all life ends. The Christian message is that mankind is involved by God in the recreation of this world. Well, it is obviously speculation as I don't have the direct line that some people on this forum seem to have, but my best guess that those that who find joy in seeing and bringing joy to others will be used by God in ways that are beyond my imagination in our renewed, eternal existence.I'll have a better answer for you when all of that transpires.

That's the same question Stile raised earlier and it's a great point that I have wondered about myself many times for which I don't have a conclusive answer.I guess the simplest answer is to look at our own world and consider the possibility that all mankind was made up of people who unselfishly do unto others as they would like to be done by. I think that we would still always be able to find ways to serve one another. We all have different gifts and abilities to offer one another.For that matter there is still all the other life on the planet as well as the planet itself to be taken care of, so I think that we can imagine an existence where all people having already freely chosen to love unselfishly could live with purpose.In the end I don't know and I can only anthropomorphically speculate as to what a life where sorrow and evil no longer exist would look like, but I take it on faith that the resurrection of Jesus is a pre-cursor to the resurrection of all creation, that it will be a good thing and, that there is an ultimate purpose.

I think that a lot of the problem lies with the idea that accepting the Christian faith is what it is all about. I see it more this way. I think that the Biblical message shows it to be much more than that. IMHO it isn't about one day just giving your life to Christ, going to church and donating to charity. I think that if you become a Christian on that basis alone that you have missed the point.Read my signature. I don't believe that we can make a conscious decision to love kindness or to love others as much as, or more than, we love ourselves. What we can do though is to start out by acting lovingly even when we don't feel it. I suggest that over time if we continue to act lovingly our heart will gradually be changed so that the loving thing starts to come naturally and not only that, but we will start to find that our own life becomes more joyful as a result. I suggest that in no way compromises our free will as we have freely chosen our actions.Do you have to be a Christian to accomplish that? I'd say no and I think that is pretty obvious anyway. However, I do believe that by becoming a Christian, (not because of accepting certain doctrines, but because we have a belief in the love of God for His creation as embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and truly ask that our own hearts reflect that love), that God's spirit, (or if you like God's still small voice), will be more acutely with us in having our hearts changed. (How is that for a run on sentence? ) However, I believe that God's still small voice speaks to all of us. Call it our conscience if you like, and we are all free to respond to it or reject it.Again, it is all about the heart and we can all freely choose where and how we find joy. I suggest that when we freely have hearts that find joy by seeing and bringing joy to others then we have true freedom, but as long as we continue to base our lives on our own happiness we become trapped in a downward spiral of dissatisfaction and misery. In that sense we can create our own hell right here on Earth.

Well yes. But that would be true in your account as god is the life right? If god ceases then all that has gone before no longer has meaning. If you want to say that atheists believe we don't have infinite/permanent purposes that's fine, I suppose.As you put forward, ultimate means happening or coming at the end of a process. At the end of purpose having life, there will come an ultimate purpose.The problem with ultimate purpose seems to lurk right there, so we build this great new future with god. That was our final and ultimate purpose. So what now? Do we no longer have any purpose? Do we just hang around for the rest of eternity with no more goals? I don't see why this is a point on which the atheists should be derided. Having an ultimate purpose and reaching that in the blink of an eye (in eternity terms) doesn't seem worse than having a finite number of purposes until such a time as there are no more purpose havers.Ultimately, if we're being honest, it sounds like something that has been made up over the years doesn't it? There will be some ultimate reason we struggle and die. It won't all be in vain. We're building a better tomorrow. Ignorance is strength! Nobody can know that such a belief isn't a common, or garden, delusion, there is no way to verify any claims to ultimate purpose.Just because you yearn to understand why the Emperor appears nude, it is probably not wise to rationalize that he is not nude, and his pantaloons have such delicate frills that only incurious buffoons could not see them.Let's just stick with 'atheists make no claims about what, if any thing, 'it' ultimately means. Or indeed what would make a meaning ultimate, and how we could ever recognise that.' I see no virtue in believing unverifiable answers to questions you might yearn for an answer for. I don't yearn for an ultimate answer, by the way.If we don't know of a way to measure the circumference of the earth, would you think the philosophers who more or less just make up numbers for it were in a more respectable position from those that said 'we don't know'?

I think we're reaching that point we tend to reach when we post...
Where you're saying something, and I'm saying the same thing... you're just saying it while including God and I'm just saying it while excluding God. Maybe one day we'll be able to settle that... but not today. An interesting point. Sort of a "we don't get to decide what sort of person we're setup to be..." kind of thing.
I would say it as: Some people are just unlucky and didn't get born with the brain chemical balances required to have a sense of empathy in order to understand "being a good person" and moving forward from there.Of course... many people are born with this balance just fine, and simply decide to not be a good person... but that doesn't eliminate the above group.I think I agree with it. This world (whether it's due to evolution or God) has people that are able to make decisions... some choose to do good, some do not. It also has people that are unable to make the same level of decisions... some of these people are physically prone to evil actions... some are physically prone to good actions.Regardless of where we begin, though... it is possible to create an objective system for being a good person (for simplicity's sake... God's 10 commandments or an atheist's personal manifesto or something like that...). From there, we should all be able to decide (if we're honest with ourselves) if we want to be a good person or not, and then follow the system in the direction of our desired goal. I was more thinking along the lines of a silly scenario like thisGod: I created the universe! And I gave you the ultimate purpose of causing suffering on this planet! That's why there's things like germs and disease and birth defects... so that you could learn from them and create your own chaos!!!
Me: Uh... okay. That sounds stupid. I'm going to decide to do something else for my ultimate purpose...vs:God: I created the universe! And I gave you the ultimate purpose of being a good person! That's why there's things like happiness and love and charity... so that you could learn from them and create your own paradise!!!
Me: Uh... okay. That sounds pretty good. I'm going to decide to go along with it as my ultimate purpose...As shown above, my point is more along the lines of "regardless of God giving us an ultimate purpose... we still personally decide whether or not to agree with it. Therefore... the "ultimate purpose" isn't ever God's... but what we decide to go along with. I agree with your sentiment here.
Basically... you think (believe...) Christianity is the path to being a good person.I don't have an issue with that. As far as I can tell, there's as much absolute evidence for that as anything else.Personally, I think (believe...) that choosing to let other people decide if you're hurting them or helping them is the path to being a good person. (Regardless of whether or not Christianity agrees with this...).I have no absolute evidence for that either. But it feels right to me, as I suspect "following Christianity" feels right to you. I certainly don't see a problem with that idea.