Great atheists on the meaning & purpose of life

PostmodernProphet said:
you mean the second half, right......the whole thing is love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself.......Confucius was more like Confused when it came to the first half.......

and what is attributed as his "golden rule" if he actually wrote it is far more self centered than the Biblical version......it is translated as "if you don't want someone to do something to you, don't do it to them"........
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Frantically Googling for three minutes does not mean your homework on Confucius is done. Confucius most certainly thought his program of virtue and social harmony was consistent with the way of heaven.

I am on record on this board stating that the Judeo-Christian scripture is unique in the literature of antiquity for it's abiding focus on social justice and concern for the poor, the widows, the sick, the oppressed. Each of the religious and philosophical traditions of the world have their own strengths and insights.
 
Hume said:
The Golden Rule is superficial and often wrong.
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That's a pretty fucked up hypothesis.

But it stands to reason. You spew hate at everyone even when they agree with you on points. Then you get pissed when someone pushes back.

You treat others in ways you don't want to be treated.

Funny how all of that comes back around, isn't it?
 
Cypress said:
Frantically Googling for three minutes does not mean your homework on Confucius is done. Confucius most certainly thought his program of virtue and social harmony was consistent with the way of heaven.

I am on record on this board stating that the Judeo-Christian scripture is unique in the literature of antiquity for it's abiding focus on social justice and concern for the poor, the widows, the sick, the oppressed. Each of the religious and philosophical traditions of the world have their own strengths and insights.
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it took less than three minutes to find you were wrong.......was there anything else you want us to know?........
 
IBDaMann said:
:orang:
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Nowhere did I state, suggest, insinuate that Karl Marx, Frederich Nietzsche, Arnold Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud, Marin Heidegger, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins are moral leaders or inspiring examples of righteousness.

The starting point here is how prominent atheists define finding meaning in life in the absence of any higher transcendent purpose or truth.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
it took less than three minutes to find you were wrong.......was there anything else you want us to know?........
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:lolup: :lolup:
Claims to have achieved an adequate working knowledge of the thoughts, beliefs, and teachings of Confucious in three minutes of frantic googling.

You're like one of those atheists who cherry pick a quote from the bible, and parade it around without having the knowledge or background to place it within the broader context of the religious movement.
 
Cypress said:
Nowhere did I state, suggest, insinuate that Karl Marx, Frederich Nietzsche, Arnold Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud, Marin Heidegger, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins are moral leaders or inspiring examples of righteousness.
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You stated that they were great. You are in error. They were not great. In fact, they were shitty.

Cypress said:
The starting point here is how prominent atheists
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Nope. You used the adjective "great."

Cypress said:
... define finding meaning in life in the absence of any higher transcendent purpose or truth.
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Nope. Your logic totally sucks. None espoused anything that required atheism. Religious people can achieve satisfaction from their labor. Religious people can find beauty in aesthetics. A religious person can stern and impersonal.

Instead of saying that they were great atheists, you should have written that they were shitty atheists.
 
Judaism emphasizes action over belief. Discussions are essential to the goal of deciding what those actions should be.
Judaism begins with the 613 mitzvot (rules to live by), but does not end there. It says, “OK, we understand that we shouldn't work on Shabbat (the sabbath), but what qualifies as ‘work’?” One of the traditional answers is that lighting a fire is a form of work.
(That said, it would be a mistake to consider all this to be critical thinking in any logical or scientific sense. Living a life in accord with the mitzvot is the goal here; understanding the universe is not. Yet the habit of questioning can prepare the mind for more rigorous thought, and a Jew may become less religiously observant and more secular as a result.


  1. Because of our theology, or more accurately our lack of it. In Christian thought, belief is all important. Merely by having an errant thought that God might not actually exist, or that Christ might not be his son, or any other thought that contradicted Church doctrine (like thinking that the earth revolved around the sun), you were committing a grave sin. Since we do not and cannot control what goes through our minds, Christians (until the modern era, and for fundamentalist sects until today) are constantly in danger of sinning every time they indulge in critical thought. We have no such problems, since for us we only sin by actually doing something, not merely thinking about it. Judaism is an action based religion, not a faith based one. We have no original sin, and no state of grace. We have life, and a set of rules, beliefs and values as how best to live it. These have evolved over time, as life and circumstances changed. but however we interpret those values and beliefs, its what we do that matters, not what we think or believe. The only belief required from us is not to believe in the existence of more than one God. In Christianity being an atheist is, in itself a mortal sin. In Judaism it would only be a sin if your reason for not believing in God is because you believe in two or more gods. Bottom line, for centuries Christians avoided critical thought, which easily led to sinning, which leads to guilt feelings, and if you were unlucky, to being burned at the stake. We have never had that problem.
  2. Our history. Since Queen Salome Alexandra aka Shlomtzion (147–61 BCE) introduced compulsory education in Judea, Jews have had a high literacy rate. Whether in a Jewish state, or in the diaspora, literacy among Jewish males was always over 80%. No other Western society reached such levels until the modern age. Literacy promotes learning, which promotes critical thinking.
  3. Our history. Since the final defeat and dissolution of Judea (135 CE), when the center of Jewish life moved to the diaspora, we lived by our skills. Any population that is highly skilled (relative to its time) is going to have a greater propensity for critical thought.
 
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IBDaMann said:
You stated that they were great. You are in error. They were not great. In fact, they were shitty.


Nope. You used the adjective "great."


Nope. Your logic totally sucks. None espoused anything that required atheism. Religious people can achieve satisfaction from their labor. Religious people can find beauty in aesthetics. A religious person can stern and impersonal.

Instead of saying that they were great atheists, you should have written that they were shitty atheists.
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English your second or third language?

"Great" used here as in important or distinguished. Not used as wonderful and marvelous .

I am not responsible for the premminent atheists of the last 200 years. Nor am I required to assuage your dissatisfaction with what percieve as the lack of character and morality of history's most important atheist intellectuals.
 
Cypress said:
:lolup: :lolup:
Claims to have achieved an adequate working knowledge of the thoughts, beliefs, and teachings of Confucious in three minutes of frantic googling.

You're like one of those atheists who cherry pick a quote from the bible, and parade it around without having the knowledge or background to place it within the broader context of the religious movement.
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dude......it took three minutes to prove you're an idiot.......that does not equal obtaining a working knowledge of all his teachings......it just equals finding proof you're an idiot......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
dude......it took three minutes to prove you're an idiot.......that does not equal obtaining a working knowledge of all his teachings......it just equals finding proof you're an idiot......
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QED on being nothing but a shit-dribbling liar. Sad.

The good news is that Pmp is probably locked up on a shitty retirement home and will die soon.
 
Cypress said:
English your second or third language?
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Outstanding! You want to bring it on. Let's do this.

Cypress said:
"Great" used here as in important or distinguished.
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You should have written '"Great," as used here, means "important" or "distinguished."' What you wrote is gibberish. Bring on some more of your ESL.

Cypress said:
Not used as wonderful and marvelous .
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This is not a complete sentence, which is considered poor form. You also need to put the words "wonderful" and "marvelous" in quotation marks. Your conjunction "and" needs to be an "or." You have a 2:1 word-to-error rate.

The atheists you cited were not great. Neither infamy nor notoriety equates to greatness. You should have focused on the likes of Albert Einstein.

Cypress said:
I am not responsible for the premminent atheists of the last 200 years.
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It's a good thing the premminent atheists of the last 200 years were all harmless Serbian stand-up comics.

Cypress said:
Nor am I required ...
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Did you just start a sentence with a conjunction? Too funny! Do you have anymore ESL for us?

Cypress said:
... to assuage your dissatisfaction with what percieve as
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... with what you perceive as ...

Cypress said:
the lack of character and morality of history's most important atheist intellectuals.
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You didn't list history's most important atheist intellectuals.
 
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