(October 13, 2010 at 8:03 pm)R-e-n-n-a-t Wrote: I am not falling into a theist trap; I understand that I am the result of evolved electrical and chemical signals in my brain. That's not the point. The point more or less, in a dumbed-down version for people below this philosophical point (yes, whoever said "theist trap", you annoyed me) is why now? That's a simpler way of putting it. And don't just answer "because now is now", or "why not". That's also not the point. Of all the people who had lived before, now they are all unaware and dead, obviously. But I am not; I am currently aware, as are you all. I'm not asking "why are people aware?"; I'm asking "How is it me who is aware of myself at this time from a 1st person POV." I'm sure most of you have the ability to grasp this question, you probably just never thought to think of it in the imaginary terms that I now see it.That's not true at all. We're all thoughtful people, but what answer do you honestly expect anyone to give?
"Why am I here?" is still as much an open question as it has always been since the first person asked that question.
The answers you were given are as legitimate as any legitimate attempt to answer the question.
(October 13, 2010 at 8:03 pm)R-e-n-n-a-t Wrote: OK, you definitely missed the point. This question flew right over your head; I'm not religious, I know all of what you said and I understand it. I'm asking something else entirely.What answer were you honestly expectig to hear? From anyone?
I give up trying to explain; you just have to be able to conceptualize the question yourself I guess. Most of you seem to have missed the point and think I'm asking why I'm me, or why I'm conscious. That's not the point.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
