Does life have ultimate meaning?

My thanks to those who took the trouble to respond to my latest post. Let me tell you what I am really about. I have a life-long concern about the relationship between ethics and politics. I wonder just how most of what gets written in the R/T forum has anything to do with Democratic politics. I think there is a profound relationship between what we hold as essential ethical principles and how they get acted out in political life. I despair over the number of religious people who have been seduced by right-wing political forces. There have been times when I have been ashamed to admit that I am a Christian. But then I am drawn back to the basic thrust of Christianity--and all religions for that matter. Probably the key religious foundational principle is "compassion." Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading thinkers, has identified compassion as religion's basic principle. If that is true then there can be a positive relationship between religion and public policy. Of course religion is not the only force in that direction. Many non-religious people are just as alive to compassion as are religious people. But in this forum it is difficult to have that conversation because it seems to be dominated by those who want to deny that religion has anything positive to offer. I don't want want to convert anyone. I just want to affirm that historically religion has been that force which has offered the world a more human face. That point is made in the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women's movement, the peace movement, the rights of GLBTers. I know the downside of religion. How well I know it! But I know the downside of every other ism including atheism. But that does not deny the validity of what many non-believers have offered the world. I just don't major in pointing out the ugly side. Under attack I sometimes slip. I apologize. I would like the same treatment.

To the responses. There seemed to be a serious effort to define religion as doctrine not ethics so that it can be shot down. Doctrine is the secondary product of religious thought which is basically concern with the meaning of existence and how we humans can live together in this world. Issues like the creeds, the nature of baptism, transubstantiation etc. have not been on any theologians agenda since the middle ages. Some of you have not caught up to what theologians are really saying today. Slaying dead dragons might be fun but doesn't advance rational dialogue.

Experience, reason, culture are indeed ways to deal with the basic questions. Thank you. Religion that ignores his trilogy is moribund.
What we believe is one of the minds most powerful forces, be that belief from science, history, literature, music art or philosophy. I call this ethical system "the great conversation." We must listen to all these voices.

The Camus quote is solid. One of my favorite literary characters is the Dr. in "The Plague." He knew he couldn't cure anyone but survived by focusing on the person who was before him. Camus is a philosopher who is studied in every modern seminary. There is the core of
poor Sisyphus in all of us.

Now let's get on to trying to define the relationship between what we fundamentally believe and the liberal agenda of the Democratic Party. Isn't that why there is a R/T forum in the DU? Or is this just a dart board to take shots at religion?

new threads. You started a discussion yesterday. People responded. You did not reappear. That's bad manners here on DU. So, you get nothing on this new thread about the very same thing.

I'm done.

Back under the bridge with you.

I confess I looked in the back of the book.

"Now let's get on to trying to define the relationship between what we fundamentally believe and the liberal agenda of the Democratic Party. Isn't that why there is a R/T forum in the DU? Or is this just a dart board to take shots at religion?"

We have two scientific theories... The Law of the Conservation of Energy, which states that the amount of net energy in a closed system remains constant (nothing spontaneously creates or disappears) and the Law of the Conservation of Mass, which states the same but for mass. Essentially, both state that in a closed system, things do not appear or disappear. The amount of mass and energy in the universe is the same as it was at the dawn of man and will be the same at its demise, granted that energy and mass will take on different forms, but the quantity of energy and mass remain constant. I would add that mass can become energy (such as gasoline combustion) and energy can become mass (such as weather). They are interchangeable if the correct conditions are present--in the case of weather that condition would be sunlight; in the case of gasoline combustion that would be fuel, oxygen, and ignition.

When you die your body decomposes and the electrical impulses throughout your body break down into less complex forms of those entities. Your body gives off heat until it is the same temperature as its surroundings; your body decays until it is comparable to its surroundings. The prior process can only take a little while. The latter could take centuries or millenia to complete fully. Eventually even your bones disintegrate. Eventually you become indistinguishable from your surroundings (the earth you were buried in for instance).

Mineral enriched soil grows plants or else remains part of the earth (even if only impactful based on the infinitesimally minute gravity your disintegrated remains provide). The universe moves on. We do too. Just as a different type of existence. Nothing leaves or enters the universe ever. Mass and energy are funneled through our bodies throughout life and those things sustain us as we are. We are a vessel for the transference of energy to mass and of mass to energy. These entities impact us, their vessel. Energy and mass grow us in our sex cell form from preexisting systems in our parents' bodies (which were also nourished by energy and mass), at conception energy and mass add more to build a human being. We eat food and gain energy and mass throughout our lives to grow and to change. Even as we age, our cells divide and are replaced periodically using the energy derived from food which were derived from bundles of mass called seeds or embryos, nourished by the sun (energy). We are part of a cycle of transference between energy and mass.

One may ask, when did the mass-energy cycle start. I believe that it is cyclical, as nothing ever enters or leaves the universe, just transfers from mass to energy and back again. The universe has no beginning or end. The Big Bang is just a violent movement from energy to mass. The accelerated growth of the universe is an illusion based on the creation of new "space" from energy along the skeletal structure of the universe. Blue shift is the transfer of "space" from mass into energy en masse. Red shift is the opposite.

If there is no beginning or end, then there is no creator. I have shown a way in which the universe does not need a creator. I have shown a way in which the universe does not need anything "beyond" the universe to exist, continue, or change. It is a self-sustaining unit that has no beginning or end and no heaven or hell. "After we die" is comparable to "before we were born" in experience for us in terms of how we should view it.

What is the purpose of the universe then? There is no point of the universe in terms of what the universe would "think" the point of existence is. There can't be. Why do we exist? To others we exist for companionship, love, as a writer, parent, teacher, employee, etc.; but, we don't exist for any reason for ourselves. Our "purpose" is only in relation to others. We do not have a purpose in relation to ourselves, the same as a computer doesn't have a "purpose" except in relation to humans or the ocean doesn't have a "purpose" except in relation to that which lives in it. The same is true for the universe. The "purpose" of the universe is dependent on the needs of those entities residing within it which have needs that it can fulfill. As the universe is everything and a closed system, the purpose of the universe to us and to everything in the universe is "everything". Everything is the purpose of the universe. Remember that nothing ever enters or leaves the universe. It is self-sustaining and self-providing.

The only question that I have is whether there is a finite or infinite number of possible forms for mass and energy and for interactions between mass and energy. If there are a finite number of forms of mass and energy and a finite number of ways that they can interact, then the universe never changes permanently. This is the theory I am leading to. Like a pencil sketch, what is formed can be erased, no matter how long it is there or how grand or complex it is. This theory suggests that the universe does not have a "net evolution", in that eventually any changes change back to their previous states. This also means that there can be no "greater meaning" or "purpose" for the universe insofar as permanent growth. That which is built will eventually crumble. Judging by examples on the human scale, I tend to believe this is the most likely scenario.

The second scenario states that there are finite number of forms of mass and energy but that there is an infinite number of ways they can react. This scenario is illogical to me as it breaks with my perception that the universe as we know it has constant laws. Science has many such "constants" such as E=mc2 or C2H4 + 3 O2 + Energy -> 2 CO2 + 2 H20 + ENERGY. These constants and a million others are examples of evidence for universal laws-- i.e. that the universe is governed by a set of rules (granted it would be a fairly large list). I do not believe that the force of gravity in Area A would ever be different than in Area B if all conditions are identical. Therefore, this scenario does not seem plausible. If there are a finite number of forms for mass and energy and an infinite number of ways they can react, then there is no method to the madness so to speak--the entire universe and everything in it would be completely random. Observational evidence suggests otherwise-- that there is a set quantity of rules that are constant.

The third scenario states that there are an infinite number of forms of mass and energy and a finite number of ways it can interact with each other. This scenario is interesting in that it cannot be proven or disproven. There is evidence, however, that it is not the scenario that the universe runs by. For this proof, lets look at mass, which is generally visible or at least we can comprehend its existence. Energy is too illusive to us currently; we do not yet know its true nature. Note this, as it is important in that without all the information we cannot prove this scenario right or wrong. So, in regards to mass, we have the periodic table as a good starting point. Of course, the universe is actually made of strings of vibrating energy, but we are sticking only to the levels which we can physically see and will then make generalized educated guesses about that which we cannot yet comprehend.

The periodic table has grown over time to include an increasing number of elements, however the higher we get on the table the more unstable these elements are. Indeed as we get to the 100's we see elements which cannot exist except for brief moments and in high-pressure situations. The universe tends towards low-pressure--entropy--when existing as mass. It is safe to say that there are far fewer areas of high pressure than low pressure in the universe with even a cursory glance of the night sky. The centers of stars and laboratories can create high pressures, but for the most part they don't exist. Therefore, the higher end periodic atoms also cannot exist except for in increasingly less likely higher pressure situations. (The higher the pressure you need to maintain the atom, the less likely it exists.) Therefore we can say that in all likelihood, the interactions which mass and energy can take must tend towards finite even if it cannot be proven to make it to that point. There comes a point where the likelihood of additional kinds of interactions becomes nearly infinitesimally unlikely. Therefore, I believe this scenario is wrong.

The final scenario is one in which there are an infinite number of forms of mass and energy and an infinite number of ways in which they can interact. I believe this scenario to be impossible based on the reasons why scenarios 2 and 3 are impossible. There cannot be an infinite forms of mass and energy because there are laws which govern the universe and there cannot be an infinite number of interactions between mass and energy because there comes a point when the quantity of types of interactions tends towards the finite and the likelihood of there not being any new kinds of interactions nears infinity.

With a finite number of forms mass and energy can take and a finite number of ways they can interact, eventually every possible combination will happen. This is a reincarnation of a sense isn't it? Perhaps I should think more on this next time.






http://unwilling-dystopia.blogspot.com/2011/05/life-universe-and-everything.html

How much velvet have you accumulated?

:D

:fistbump:

You want to pontificate and then have people react so that you can go start another thread where you pontificate more. It is old. And in each thread that you start, you take pot shots at the atheists in the forum. Have you paid attention at all as to how DU works (and R/T specifically)?

The relationship between ethics and politics is sort of one of those "fish and a bird" things - where will they build their nest? I do believe that there are ethical politicians, although they are difficult to find. I almost always vote for Democrats but there are a few Republicans I support like my state Senator and one of the school board members who also happens to be my veterinarian. I trust them.

My wife was elected to a school board just over 20 years ago - "the liberal". Two years later, a far-right "slash and burn" Republican who ran on "I'm going to lower your taxes" won a spot by 13 votes over a man who didn't even bother to run. His first motion was to increase the stipend for school board members. My wife, "the liberal", was the only of the five members to vote against the increase. I'd call her ethical.

I honestly don't believe religion factors into the political realm at all, other than as a rhetorical tool. The Republicans spew a lot of crap about Jesus and the Bible, but they seldom do anything that is in congruence with what the Bible is about or what Jesus taught for that matter. They'd call him a liberal hippie freak and railroad him if he actually did return.

Now I can see where the assertion that religion doesn't factor into the political realm introduces a paradox. Those who actually DO follow the teachings of a peaceful doctrine and apply it toward their policies as politicians are indeed influencing the process with religion, but it doesn't have to be "religion" that's behind those teachings. I'm an agnostic but my belief system is very much in line with what Jesus actually taught. My youngest daughter, 16, is (as she prefers to call it) an "Eclectic Pagan". She won't use "Wiccan" because she isn't part of a coven and has no intention of joining one at this point, but she does wear a pentagram all of the time. She's a life-long vegetarian with a strict no-kill rule for all creatures.

Those of us with earth-friendly and creature-friendly views are generally lumped into the "wacko liberal" category by the so-called "Christians", but in practice, who is more "Christian"?

Ethics isn't about any particular religion and certainly not the province of any. It isn't about worrying if you're going to Heaven or Hell, one of the more bizarre threats from the fundamentalists. It is about how we treat each other, society, the well being of our species, other species, and the planet in general. It is a matter of considering how your actions propagate and how they impact the general state of life as a whole. That seems to be lost to most in the federal arena of politics, but there are rays of hope.

As for your last sentence, I think the Democratic party as a whole is based on a strong sense of ethics, religious or not, but unfortunately not represented all that well. The dart board is often true, but the darts often fall outside of the target.

..no.

Life is a chemical process that began on Earth about 4 billion years ago. Just when a self replicating molecule crosses the line between nonliving and living is a matter of semantics since the same chemical processes control both. Ultimately, "alive" means that a localized set of chemical reactions do what living things--as we define them--do. With time, evolution has made this chemical process increasingly complex to a degree that is barely conceivable to the most advanced minds created by this process. Still, the chemistry is no different in nature than any other chemical reactions. Life is a chemical process that is characteristic of at least one reasonably warm, stable planet.

Any meaning life has is for us to determine. I find meaning in life all the time. I love my wife, appreciate my friends, and look forward to learning new things every day. To say that my life has no meaning because I am convinced there is no god pulling the strings would be a gross misstatement of fact. It's just that the meaning is purely subjective. Everything based on human perception necessarily is. I find it solipsistic to insist that he have some significance greater than that. Isn't it enough that we are alive and aware and, however slowly, are making progress? Why do we have to pretend to live forever? We do we have to insist on servility to a divine figment while at the same time insisting it is all about us?

It's the same with ethics. There are no absolutes. I don't rape and pillage and murder because it's wrong (and I have no desire to do so). There does not need to be a divine command to spell-out what we already know. That's actually a good thing because as many of those divine commands are pretty screwed up as are not. And we can have that great conversation without leaving an empty chair for an imaginary participant. Anyway, even if the gods had something to say about it, they should butt out. The affairs of humanity are the business of humanity. It's none of god's business. The ethics we agree on based on reason and compassion are far better than anything invented by any priest presuming to talk for the gods.

If we can look beyond the next 100 years or so, we will see a practically limitless future for humanity. To get there we first have to survive our turbulent adolescence. Part of that is discarding the tribal thinking of our hunter-gatherer days including the intentionality our brains naturally but erroneously ascribe to the world to keep us from being afraid of the dark.

**chirp**chirp**chirp**

Yours is one of the most thoughtful answers I have received. Certainly life is a chemical process. It is the very process which has theological roots. In fact, the most compelling of all theological inquiries these days revolves around "process thought." There are now 30 universities in China whose philosophy/theology departments are immersed in this discipline. We have Chinese scholars at lunch in our community at least once a week. Now let me quote you and respond.

"Why do we have to pretend to live forever? We do we have to insist on servility to a divine figment while at the same time insisting it is all about us?"

Living forever is not an issue. That notion is long past even discussion among us. The concern is with this life--here and now and what we make of it. Nor is servility to a divine figment a lively topic. I really wish the participants in this forum would at least have some idea about what is really going on in theology. Telling religious horror stories is boring.

So thank you for your response.

...the average practitioner sees religion as being about divinely commanded rules, the afterlife and a kind of holy safety net that can help them with their lives by paying for assistance. So while you may not discuss these things, the average person praying in whatever his or her religion calls their temple very much has these things on his or her mind.

I cannot comment on what bores you, but what you call religious horror stories are cogent rebuttals of the idea that morality comes from religion and that religion is not maintained (if not created) by ambitious men rather than being something from god.

Of COURSE theologians don't discuss the concepts of eternal life, the existence of a deity, or the need for servility to that deity. These are all topics you must process and move beyond before you even get to your theology. You've already accepted the premise.

Most of us have seen no reason to do that.

"Hit and Run" threads are considered bad form most places, including here. If you post something provocative, stick around to defend what you say, or your credibility pretty much tanks.

It's nice that you can quote Camus. Your parents must be proud. I'm sure there are people here who would love to get into an existentialism smack-down...IF you stuck around to get into a serious debate.

And to answer your core question, ethics and religion are related, but not inter-dependent. Now, back to PHIL 102 with you.

if you stick around and respond to it.

Your words are pretty, but your tactics are ugly.

What tactics? I really want to understand. Don't just brush me off or repeat the sarcasm I find here by those who want me out of this forum and think they can accomplish it if they are nasty enough.

to follow the established practices by returning to threads you start and discussing the remarks made. You do not do that. Instead, you start another thread. That makes discussion impossible, and discussion is the reason this forum exists.

Please try to get along with others an follow the normal procedures here.

to go over the scores of responses and deal with those where I believe there is room for a rational discussion. I have about 50 responses listed in the last two weeks! I have been advised, by those in this forum, not to get myself sidetracked by trying to respond to the nasty, often crude, attacks by those who want to restrict religion to horror stories about it, and who are clear they don't want me here. I'll engage with anyone who really wants to discuss, to listen as well as condemn. It is curious that a left-wing Democratic activist, who is also a theologian, is unwelcome in an R?T forum.

You are the one repeatedly telling us that you are unwelcome. You are the one repeatedly showing bad discussion forum manners and reveling, for lack of a better word, in the replies that attempt to correct you.

You're being really passive aggressive, and doing all you can to paint yourself as some sort of victim of some nasty, hateful bogeyman that you think is made up of posters in this forum.

Say what you want to say, respond to those posters you feel like talking to, and recognize that no one will attempt to stop you from doing so. You can drop the persecution meme at any time and get a lot less flack, unless of course flack is what you're looking for...

There are a half-dozen of YOU I will not respond to--and I think we will all be better off. People with very different point of view than I have and who do something beside attack I find to be good partners in the discussion.

You have to get those barbs in and show everyone how put upon you are. If you were really interested in honest discussion, you wouldn't find that so necessary.

agree with you. That trick never works. Unless you are going to fully participate in your threads, you'll continue to be criticized for not doing so.

I saw many substantial posts in both threads, and they went unanswered. A discussion cannot take place unless the person starting it engages in the discussion.

Until you show some signs of being responsive to your own discussions, I won't be participating. There are many threads on DU in which I can participate. I choose the ones where that participation is part of a real discussion. I have not found it so in your threads. Good luck with whatever your mission may be.

many to people I do not agree with. But there are a handful whose belligerence does not invite discussion, and I will not respond to them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x283820

You've made one response in that thread, and it was meaningless to the discuss that YOU started.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=277387&mesg_id=277387

In this thread, you made no responses for three days, then posted nine quick replies within an hour and nothing since. Also, you started two new threads in between. The first to condescendingly say that you were aware of the discussion you started, the second "to deal with the solid responses" you got in the above thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x280136
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x278840
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x277665

In these three threads, you posted the OP then nothing more.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x278007

In this thread, which you also started in place of responding directly to comments on your earlier threads, you posted two responses to the same comment, and another to one of your own comments.

In some of these, and other threads you've started, your OP contained dismissive remarks and insults toward those who don't agree with you so despite your repeated pleas for "thoughtful discussion" and bafflement at the "hostility" you've received, your own posting history shows no desire to have "thoughtful discussion" and several instances where you bait people and take offense at the response.

Whatever I say, or how many times I respond, you are going to have none of it. Why do I need to drive down dead ends?

Try responding directly to what people say without condescending to them.

It's a requisite part of "thoughtful discussion."

:puke:



You are quite possibly the most disingenuous poster in this forum, and that is a feat unto itself.


:puke:

don't act as if this hasn't been expressed to you over and over. I can't count the number of posts that have pointed out your failure to answer responses to your own OPs in any but the most superficial way, despite your professed desire for in-depth discussions of the issues you raise.

You repeatedly, REPEATEDLY, make posts, then make little or no effort to respond to the posters who have posted on your threads (I would break forum rules were I to link to all of them). There are piles of posts contradicting your OP's, and you don't make any attempt to dispute those posts. It seems you want a soapbox rather than a discussion, and people here see that and have called you on it.

Your claim about "nasty" is laughable. You seem to consider anything that doesn't agree with your narrow worldview to be "nasty". This forum is a two way street, and discussion includes input from both sides and a back and forth debate. You want a pulpit from which to sermonize, and it doesn't play well with most of us.

in the past two weeks, many to people I do not agree with, but who make an honest effort at dialogue. There are a half dozen here who just want to slash and burn, and who do not invite an honest discussion. I have no need to respond to them. Be open to hear and you will hear back. I don't want to convert anyone or even to convince, but to broaden both their and my mindset with some sort of rational dialogue.

I think you need to re-read that atheist you just mentioned... Camus?

Meaning is human-made, life is meaningless and full of absurdities so stop feeling sorry for yourself and live. That is The Myth of Sisiphus in a nutshell. So if you want to make helping the poor your meaning and purpose to live your life then do it. Don't do it to impress others or... deities... unless of course that is what makes your life meaningful. Poor Sisiphus? Sisiphus is happy rolling his rock and he isn't whining about it.

Seriously? All this philosophizing just to complaint about persecution in R/T?

Almost certainly not. I suppose it's just just possible we are in a Matrix-like delusion for other purposes, but absent that nope.

Now what has that to do with religiosity and politics? You seem to be trying to have it both ways here - that compassion is not necessarily religiously inspired, but then that religion has been "that" (not an example, or one of, but that singular) force for compassion.

Politically I suspect we both agree the Dem side of the aisle is more concerned with compassion than the Rep side. Do you know the size of the gulf in religious belief between the two? If you do, how can you claim any role for religion in political ethics based on compassion, or at least a positive one? Only ways I can imagine are another tired no true scotsman retread and a barely sane special pleading that non-religious Dems are inspired by religious feelings they do not personally accept. Or I guess, the even more borderline idea that all the push for compassionate causes amongst Dems comes only from the religious members. Even then you'd need to NTS the other side out of the equation.

nor do i believe that religion is the only "singular" force for compassion.

(You seem to be trying to have it both ways here - that compassion is not necessarily religiously inspired, but then that religion has been "that" (not an example, or one of, but that singular force for compassion.)

There are other purely secular totally non-religious humanistic sources. But why not allow religion to be a way some many millions have arrived at compassionate lives? This is what the philosopher Karen Armstrong has suggested.

for compassionate thinking. Not THAT source. But even when religion is the proximal cause (John is charitable and kind because he genuinely believes God wants him to be, and Achmed is the same under Allah's wishes and so on) I don't believe it is the source of empathy/compassion in humanity in general.

Humans evolved as gregarious animals, and developed societies that relied on co-operation and mutual assistance for the basis of universalized benefit. You don't steal from the best hunter if you want to share in his kills, but even he cannot rape the medicine-man's wife because then who will set his next broken bone? Even for less "valuable" members of the group any harm to them means one fewer sentinel in the night, or one fewer person to gather or prepare food or clothing. Harm to one is harm to all in subsistence hunter-gatherer societies.

Over time these codes became entrenched and expanded to less brutal mores, but still for social cohesion and identity. Religion serves the same needs of course - a way to get people to value the group more dearly and hold it distinct from other groups. The conflation then of religion and moral codes was not just natural but inevitable, as it is easier to teach children and even newcomers how the group should think and act towards each other by means of stories (with the imprimatur of gods even) than to rationalize, communicate and enforce basic societal behavior on the basis of universalized utilitarianism.

In your last thread on this subject you responded exactly once. And even then you didn't discuss, you merely approved. What a brilliant display if sectarian arrogance.

There is a question pending in that thread that answers the question in this one. Show some common courtesy and discuss it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=283820&mesg_id=284054

and the question is the problem.

It seems to me that (Christian) theologians are talking about detailed interpretations of the wording of the Christian Bible, the discovery of ancient Christian texts, and debates on doctrine in the medieval church. I can't see much there about "the meaning of existence and how we humans can live together in this world". You might pull the first article about ethnic identity into the modern world, but the abstract gives no indication that it does.

with facts.

One also wonders from where the OP thinks the very recent split in the Anglican/Episcopal church arose, if not differences in church doctrine.

It had to do with politics and who had the power. Henry's marital life was only a vehicle to talk about the growing independence of England. Any doctrinal dispute was just a cover for what were the real dynamics.

I said "very recent". Is the 16th century "very recent"?

Try again, and please make some sense.

Despite declaring himself head of the Church in England and the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry died, in his own estimation, a good Catholic. So did Anne Boleyn, though modern scholars are beginning to recognize a genuine reforming trend in her thought. That may in fact be part of what got her killed. Right to the end of his reign, Henry prosecuted reformers and those of non-orthodox Catholic theology. His sixth wife, Kathryn Parr escaped accustions of heresy by a hair.

At present, RC and Anglican theology run along very similar lines. Their essential differnces are not about doctrine or the nature of God, but about the governance of the church. Pope or no Pope? Whose bishops are in the apostolic succession? Can women be priests? And then there's the fact that there's an extremely broad range of belief and practice within the Anglincan communion, and they may overlap or veer away from Catholic beliefs in rather odd ways.

Literary scholars are trying to see what the ancient authors, or the supposed authors, had to say. You find the same thing in Homeric scholarship or Shakespearian scholarship. These are linguistic historians are operating on a very defined academic discipline, not the same as contemporary theologians who are trying to see the relationship between ancient wisdom and contemporary life.

Biblical scholars have known for decades and more that the stories of the Bible are not historic. Many of these literary critics are not even religiously motivated.

That is the latest issue of the Journal of Theological Studies.

The crickets are chirping.

what the heck Henry the 8th's codpiece had to do with what I was posting. The reference wasn't that obscure.

'meaning of life' and ethics.

As regards the first: life is all we have. Without life - indeed without some form of awareness - we can experience nothing. Therefore life has meaning, and is the source of all meanings that we can take from our life. However, I think you may be using 'meaning' to mean 'purpose'. I am not sure that life as such has a purpose; it is our actions that have a purpose, and we could not pursue these actions or consider their purpose without conscious life.

As regards the second: I do not think that ethics come fundamentally from religion; rather, they come from a combination of evolution and culture, together with our conscious choices. Culture includes religion, but I think that people's religion, whether in individuals or groups, is *used* to reinforce existing ethical codes. Thus, the same religion may be used to oppress women or minority groups or to protect them; to pursue peace or war; to prevent poverty or to reinforce economic inequalities; to protect the Earth or to neglect environmental issues on the grounds that this world is not our final home; etc. So can non-religious ideological codes.

Kind people and co-operative societies will use whatever beliefs they have to promote kindness. Harsh people and societies will use whatever beliefs they have to promote harshness.

It is *not* the case that people are only good because a religious text tells them to be, or because they're afraid of going to hell if they aren't. Nor is religion the 'root of all evil'. Rather, religion reinforces and often exaggerates whatever are the existing tendencies of an individual or group. As do nonreligious ideologies such as patriotism.

for the solid thoughtful response. We may not see the data alike, but I admire your perception.

I think you've also expressed my understanding of the way we get from there to here and elsewhere.

I don't know what your Jesus post was about, but I do know that gay rights are civil rights, and i am deeply engages in tha dispute.

Could you cite the relevant verses? We should be able to clear this right up with the fundamentalists if you can show us exactly where the bible says they are wrong.

is called Proof Texting. It is a terrible way to discuss anything. You cite a verse and I cite a verse and whoever has the last verse when the opponent has run out wins. Underneath the entire Christian position is the affirmation that people who do what their nature determines are on solid ground. Jesus never said a word about this but everything he did say affirms that nobody is outside. His entire ministry was one of inclusion--lepers, tax-collectors, Samaritans, Romans, women, the poor, the lame, blind and halt--everyone others castigated, he accepted. Those who feel pure when they can put anyone else outside have missed it altogether. I have long been on the front lines in the struggle for Gay rights, with my money, time body and pen, and that is where I will continue to be. I've got a record of action! What is yours? My religious faith requires it.

Yet when someone claims the reason they killed a doctor was because "My religious faith requires it", they are considered mentally ill.



Pot, meet kettle.

"Jesus never said a word about this"

Jesus never said a word about a lot of moral issues. You have expressed that no one would want to live in a society that didn't have a religious basis for its ethics. Well when the religion (and/or its holy text) is not clear, what tools do you use to determine a morally correct position? Bonus question: How do those tools differ from those that a person approaching morality from a purely secular standpoint (which you believe to be inferior) might use?

"Those who feel pure when they can put anyone else outside have missed it altogether."

You mean like you do with the atheists who are offended by your attacks on their morality? Interesting.

"My religious faith requires it."

So you only do these things because your religion requires it, not because they are the right things to do? This is what's supposed to pass for superior morality? Simply doing what you're told?

"This is what's supposed to pass for superior morality? Simply doing what you're told?"

See: Genesis 3, Genesis 22, etc.

I don't really understand why people want life to have meaning. Seems unnecessarily restrictive.

The penultimate meaning of life is that we are to decline to enter nirvana until all sentient creatures have been liberated.

At least that's why my Bodhisattva told me...