Evolution and Specialness of Humanity

I don't know why the concept of evolution in particular would make you feel that way any more than life in general would make you feel that way. Life is an arbitrary, accidental affair. You're not much when you're alive, and when you're dead you're nothing.

There's nothing like a good dose of humanistic piety.

Piety comes in many different forms.ABE: It's the humanistic version of "God's in His heaven, all's well with the world."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-07-2005 07:03 AM

How about the truth? Interested in that?You will live and you will die. Perhaps your friends, if you are lucky, will place a monument on your grave. Someone else will take your place, and in a little while it will not matter that you ever existed.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-07-2005 08:24 PM

Very good point.However,I want you to know that life is a tragedy. The literature has been telling us this for many years--and they are right.But we can gain something out of our lives:"Though nothing can bring back the power
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, but rather find strength
In what remains behind....
In the years that bring the philosophic mind . . ."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-07-2005 08:42 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-07-2005 08:46 PM

Wordsworth."intimations of immortality"Great stuff. All about "trailing clouds of glory," etc.

You are right about the lack of purpose, but you speak as though if we "need" God, then there is one. What we need has nothing to do with the truth. We might need God, but that doesn't mean there is one. But evoluton per se does not create purposelessness, nor does evolution preclude a God.What precludes a God (in my view) is the obvious random nature of life apart from the details about evolution. Life is accidental and arbitrary. Somebody is born with no hands, for example. I saw on TV this little girl(s) with two heads. It was horrifying. It was an accident.

You haven't met too many nihilists, apparently.Well, you met one now.What do you want to know? Is life worth living? Not really.Is there any meaning in life? No.We work out our salvation with trivialities.

I find that the idea has romantic appeal myself. I like meditating on that "dark backward and abysm of time"--the eons and eons of slow development. If you think of it that way, you might like it.Not everything has to be moral. In fact, it could be that the universe is not moral at all.No one ever says, "I hate atomic theory"--except some student who is forced to study it.

Brilliant.

Perhaps a recording of "My Way."

You are correct, but there's lots of things about life that can make you feel the worthlessness of life, not just TOE. One could be completely ignorant of TOE and still think, quite rationally, that life is worthless.But although I agree with you that life is worthless, I do not agree that this is a good reason to believe or not believe any theory.One believes something on the grounds of its truth value, not on the grounds of how it makes you feel. I might as well "believe" that I am rich because I don't like being poor. My believing is not going to make my theory of richness true. I'm still going to be poor.If you really want to believe some theory, such as ID, to be true, then you will find what you want to find because you will be examining it in a biased way.In a sense, it's ok that life is worthless, and anyway there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well accept it.ABE: Remember, Prophex, when two or three come together in the name of Nothing, Nothing will be with them.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-19-2005 04:46 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-19-2005 04:48 PM