The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

logger said:
What things give you meaning in life?
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There isn't any meaning in the word "meaning" in this context, so there can't be any in the "question" using it. It's worthless pretentious pseudo-philosophical gibberish.
 
Delvo said:
There isn't any meaning in the word "meaning" in this context, so there can't be any in the "question" using it. It's worthless pretentious pseudo-philosophical gibberish.
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Maybe like so many others on here you just have no meaning in life?
 
logger said:
No, you just don't have it. Guess what that means?
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I'm struggling to work out what your sentence means. Guessing is all I've got. How about asking the whole question, without assuming I know what "it" and "that" means.
 
Nay_Sayer said:
No.

No it does not, it likes to pretend it does and lures in the gullible with the promise of said answers that it never actually gives.
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Religion isn't about pretense or false promises. And the meaning comes through the practice of religion, which is far more than just a set of beliefs.
 
Pixel42 said:
Are you seriously suggesting that no-one thought killing was ever wrong until the 10 commandments were thought up? And that no-one other than the Jews thought killing was ever wrong until they heard about the 10 commandments?
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Do you think God would have wasted his time on the Ten Commandments if people had figured it out on their own? Did the Commandments tell us not to poke sticks in our eyes? No! Why? Because we had already figured that one out. No need for God to tell us about that one.

The reality is that humans were a bunch of murdering and thieving adulterers who were coveting stuff left and right (especially on the sabbath) while making graven images, taking the Lord's name in vain and putting other gods in front of the One True God. They just didn't know it was wrong until God took time out of his busy schedule write down the rules.

Ever work in an office? Ever see those notes in the break room that read, "Your mother doesn't work here" and the like? It's amazing how many people have no idea that their mother's don't work for the same company or that they should clean up after themselves. They need those notes so they know what's Right and what's Wrong.

It's the same thing.

Look at how much better the world is now that we have the Ten Commandments. I lived in Oklahoma before they forced them to remove the Ten Commandments monument. Thinking back on my time there I can't recall somebody committing adultery or coveting something. Murder was rare. Theft was virtually non-existent. After they removed the monument things went downhill pretty fast.

How can we expect people to know right from wrong if God doesn't put it on a rock where we all can see it?
 
HTTR said:
Do you think God would have wasted his time on the Ten Commandments if people had figured it out on their own? Did the Commandments tell us not to poke sticks in our eyes? No! Why? Because we had already figured that one out. No need for God to tell us about that one.

The reality is that humans were a bunch of murdering and thieving adulterers who were coveting stuff left and right (especially on the sabbath) while making graven images, taking the Lord's name in vain and putting other gods in front of the One True God. They just didn't know it was wrong until God took time out of his busy schedule write down the rules.

Ever work in an office? Ever see those notes in the break room that read, "Your mother doesn't work here" and the like? It's amazing how many people have no idea that their mother's don't work for the same company or that they should clean up after themselves. They need those notes so they know what's Right and what's Wrong.

It's the same thing.

Look at how much better the world is now that we have the Ten Commandments. I lived in Oklahoma before they forced them to remove the Ten Commandments monument. Thinking back on my time there I can't recall somebody committing adultery or coveting something. Murder was rare. Theft was virtually non-existent. After they removed the monument things went downhill pretty fast.

How can we expect people to know right from wrong if God doesn't put it on a rock where we all can see it?
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Excellent! :D Classic Poe. Well done.
 
MikeG said:
smh means nothing to me. The original question:



The meaning of life, note. Not my meaning, not my meanings, not order of importance.............THE meaning of life. And don't forget, only religion can answer it. In what way has anything you have written in the last couple of pages in any way responded to this?
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SMH means shake my head, and was in response to your strawman.

he told you what he thought the meaning of life was by the way.
 
16.5 said:
SMH means shake my head, and was in response to your strawman.
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There's no strawman involved. You may have been whittering on about something or other for a couple of pages thinking you were answering something, but I have just reposted the original question from Blue Triangle again making it quite clear that you weren't responding to the actual question.

16.5 said:
he told you what he thought the meaning of life was by the way.
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Who is "he"? You do talk in riddles.......
 
MikeG said:
So nothing to do with the original question (the meaning of life) then. Fair enough.
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this was your strawman

MikeG said:
There's no strawman involved. You may have been whittering on about something or other for a couple of pages thinking you were answering something, but I have just reposted the original question from Blue Triangle again making it quite clear that you weren't responding to the actual question.
Who is "he"? You do talk in riddles.......
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which was in response to logger's post...

you see those little arrows in the quoted post, they take you right back to the post you quoted.

pretty nifty
 
logger said:
It's enough for me, why is that something to roll your eyes at.
Why not be happy that I've found what I've been looking for?

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but since he has given me very much I think he deserves praise, most of all being eternal life.
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You have already lived for an eternity?
 
logger said:
Those are the four for me, you may have those or many others.

What things give you meaning in life?

You guys fall apart from the most simple things.
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Meaning in life is a meaningless phrase, what's the meaning of water?
 
HTTR said:
Do you think God would have wasted his time on the Ten Commandments if people had figured it out on their own? Did the Commandments tell us not to poke sticks in our eyes? No! Why? Because we had already figured that one out. No need for God to tell us about that one.

The reality is that humans were a bunch of murdering and thieving adulterers who were coveting stuff left and right (especially on the sabbath) while making graven images, taking the Lord's name in vain and putting other gods in front of the One True God. They just didn't know it was wrong until God took time out of his busy schedule write down the rules.

Ever work in an office? Ever see those notes in the break room that read, "Your mother doesn't work here" and the like? It's amazing how many people have no idea that their mother's don't work for the same company or that they should clean up after themselves. They need those notes so they know what's Right and what's Wrong.

It's the same thing.

Look at how much better the world is now that we have the Ten Commandments. I lived in Oklahoma before they forced them to remove the Ten Commandments monument. Thinking back on my time there I can't recall somebody committing adultery or coveting something. Murder was rare. Theft was virtually non-existent. After they removed the monument things went downhill pretty fast.

How can we expect people to know right from wrong if God doesn't put it on a rock where we all can see it?
Click to expand...

God is the Mater Mother.
 
I think when religious people throw out terms such as the meaning of life or try to explain teh after life, they have not really thought things through or they would have problems with them.
 
logger said:
God
Family
Job
Country

In that order. Can you find meaning in any of those?
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I find meaning. It means danger.

Don't get me wrong. I don't object to people having their imaginary friends. I understand how fir some people, particularly the insecure it can be comforting. However it gets more sinister when imaginary friends become more important than real life.

We see an example of this in the Catholic Church. Paedophiles were, and still are, protected. They are moved around and hidden from secular justice, because they believe the judgement of their created superior is all that matters.
The same misguided thinking allows the deluded to kill a doctor or strap a bomb to thier chest.

Of course, Some religious people will criticise those actions as extreme and ungodly. Their own imaginary friend disapproves. Having different symptoms doesn't mean you are free of cancer. If we normalise the behavior of delusions taking priority over the real world, we are in a fragile state.

Certainly having an sympathetic caring imaginary friend can lead to good deeds. However imagination remains that. It can run wild.

There is no God to reign in the excesses of its followers. We have an unstable ever changing guiding force. That is not good for humanity. It is criminal how much time and resource that has been devoted to these destructive fantasies. The sooner the religious demote their imaginary friends to their proper place, behind thier family, friends, compatriots, fellow nationals and other humans the better it will be.

YMMV.
 
MikeG said:
Not so. But go on, put into your own words how you think 'life' and 'meaning' can be put sensibly together in a sentence.
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The word 'meaning' has a fair number if synonyms, such as value, significance, import and purpose.

So what is the value of life? First of all, we cannot avoid value. Even the statement 'life is without value' is itself a value judgment, and value judgements are a part of intellectual life. So right from the start the argument that life has no value is scuppered, because the statement contains a logical paradox, a value judgement that there is no value.

A life has plenty of value. In fact it is nothing else but value at various levels: physical, biological, social and intellectual. Robert Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality calls these static patterns of value (or quality) and says they all trail in the wake of Dynamic Quality itself (which Pirsig says is undefinable but which might be equated with the Tao). That isn't too far away from what religions, not least Christianity, have to say about value, about what is good and what is evil. That's all I want to say about value at the moment, because it will be contained in other parts of the argument - all in fact.

What is the significance of life? If we are eternal souls then life has great significance, because the way it is lived will determine our future state. In fact it will determine the future state of the entire universe, which changes (perhaps only slightly in most instances but occasionally to a greater degree) with every life lived - with every decision we make in fact. Even naturalists will see this, and so even in their atheistic scenario future generations will at least see the significance of lives previously lived - and so in another way the naturalist argument is illogical. And if we live in a 'top-down' universe, created and sustained by a heavenly Father; if lives are guided, if signs and prophecies are given and a 'grand plan' is being fulfilled, then there is infinite significance in each and every life.

Does life have import? If each and every life is significant, if we are all players in the divine drama, then each life has import too, insofar as how much they contribute to the fulfillment of the divine plan. If each life has infinite significance, each too is infinitely important, in that it has the potential to assist of hinder the grand plan (yet the hindering too can be taken into account).

So what is the purpose of life? Our purpose, given everything I've said above, is to contribute our part to the fulfillment of the divine plan. Each has a contribution to make, and each contribution is vital. So each and every life has infinite purpose, just as each molecule in a snowflake is part of its grand design.

So life has value, significance, import and purpose. In fact it is composed of value, significance, import, purpose, and everything else that meaning contains. So, far from being bereft of meaning, as some here have asserted in defiance of logic, life is nothing else but meaning. That can be turned into the sentence you require me to state.

Life is nothing else but meaning.
 
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