If Life is Meaningless Anyway, then What's Wrong with Religion?

[robvalue]

Yeah, we've wiped out untold numbers of species. We are devastating to the ecosystem in that regard.

[Mister Agenda]

Do you somehow think that humans are excluded from the ecosystem?

Acutually our survival is dependent upon the health of the ecosystem. The real question... Is the survival of the ecosystem dependent on us?

IMO it isn't.

Do you think we're unique in that the ecosystem would go on without us?

[Huggy Bear]

Do you think we're unique in that the ecosystem would go on without us?

No.

I think we're unique in the way that without us, the ecosystem would improve.

For example, as you may know I do a little bit of fishing once in a while up in Alaska. The department of fish and game has resorted to constructing platforms along certain rivers to keep people from walking directly on the banks because it's detrimental to the habitat of baby salmon, which use the vegetation along the banks as a food source and shelter from predators.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you think we're unique in that the ecosystem would go on without us?

No.

I think we're unique in the way that without us, the ecosystem would improve.

That's a common belief.  The ecosystem would change, whether or not that change is an improvement would be an issue of perspective.  It wouldn't be an improvement for our pets, our livestock, or the species which flourish in our wastes or directly because of our many and varied activities.  

For example, as you may know I do a little bit of fishing once in a while up in Alaska. The department of fish and game has resorted to constructing platforms along certain rivers to keep people from walking directly on the banks because it's detrimental to the habitat of baby salmon, which use the vegetation along the banks as a food source and shelter from predators.

I'm not sure why you think this would be an example of the above.  We manage our wildlife resources.  Why do you not see -this- as a role that human beings play in the ecosystem? Human beings are, in your example...improving the ecosystem, by the metrics you seem to be using for improvement. We do this intentionally and unintentionally for a variety of species. Animal husbandry and livestock production started out this way. It was wild herd management before we built the fences. We would improve the ecosystem for them (and they would in turn improve it for us). Your example, notably, regards a commercially fished species. You don't see much ecosystem improvement for the benefit of non-marketables. In this regard, we're doing pretty much the same thing we've always done..but why it's improvement in this case and not improvement in the case of cattle, in your estimation, is beyond me.

I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it boils down to a perception of artificial ecosystems as artificial in the sense of being fake, "not really the ecosystem"...and that in turn reduces to a misunderstanding of the term artificial. We use it to mean fake, but in context it merely refers to artifice. Things we make. Those things are, themselves, ecosystems by definition.

[Huggy Bear]

For example, as you may know I do a little bit of fishing once in a while up in Alaska. The department of fish and game has resorted to constructing platforms along certain rivers to keep people from walking directly on the banks because it's detrimental to the habitat of baby salmon, which use the vegetation along the banks as a food source and shelter from predators.

I'm not sure why you think this would be an example of the above.  We manage our wildlife resources.  Why do you not see -this- as a role that human beings play in the ecosystem? Human beings are, in your example...improving the ecosystem, by the metrics you seem to be using for improvement. We do this intentionally and unintentionally for a variety of species.

Seriously?

There would be no need for management if humans were out of the picture, they certainly are not building the platforms for the bears. Also which species is doing all the over fishing?

[The Grand Nudger]

Seriously?

There would be no need for management if humans were out of the picture, they certainly are not building the platforms for the bears. Also which species is doing all the over fishing?

Well ofc not...if there were no humans to eat the fish we wouldn't have to manage the fish and there wouldn't be any "us" to manage them...but what does that have to do with anything? We aren't the only or first predators to overtax our prey. We're significantly better at responding to that than other predators though...to wit, we improve the ecosystem, so that it can support more of whatever it is we intend to eat.

[Excited Penguin]

I'll go through an example of finding meaning in a secular accomplishment as a religious person.  

I've got a couple of publications out there from my research.  What is the meaning of those publications?  As a Mormon, I would have said that they were meaningful because the prepared the way for God's kingdom to return to Earth, and because they were resume bullet points that would help me in my life, which meant finding a job and attracting a woman.  The selfish meaning for those publications, which I just mentioned, were important because I was going to live forever and I needed to get started on it, so I needed a job, and if I was going to have an eternal wife I'd better be with someone I wanted to be with, so it was important to make myself appealing.  That would have been the meaning.  

Now I'm not sure what the meaning of those publications is.  So some people are enlightened by them, but so what?  If we're all doomed anyway, then what is the meaning of my publications?

Why read a book or watch a movie when you know they're going to end?

A book or movie that never ends, is never complete. I can't think of anything more pointless than my earthly existence being a mere prelude to eternal existence, the part of my life where I was born, grew up, did things on this earth and finally died becoming a smaller and smaller part of who I am, century after millennia after eon. I wouldn't mind a longer, healthier life; but it has to end sometime.

Sometime being when? Do you really think, that given the option of immortality, there will ever come a point for you when you'll just think this is it, it's my time to go, I've lived for too long now?

[Excited Penguin]

Do you think we're unique in that the ecosystem would go on without us?

No.

I think we're unique in the way that without us, the ecosystem would improve.

For example, as you may know I do a little bit of fishing once in a while up in Alaska. The department of fish and game has resorted to constructing platforms along certain rivers to keep people from walking directly on the banks because it's detrimental to the habitat of baby salmon, which use the vegetation along the banks as a food source and shelter from predators.

I sense an eschatological turn in there, somewhere. Are you suggesting I should care more about other species than my own?

[Huggy Bear]

Seriously?

There would be no need for management if humans were out of the picture, they certainly are not building the platforms for the bears. Also which species is doing all the over fishing?

Well ofc not...if there were no humans to eat the fish we wouldn't have to manage the fish and there wouldn't be any "us" to manage them...but what does that have to do with anything?

Am I speaking to a goldfish? How did you forget My original point so quickly?

What it has to do with is "us" not being Important to the overall health of an ecosystem, there would be no need to save an ecosystem from human destruction if humans didn't exist.

We aren't the only or first predators to overtax our prey.

Please provide an example of this.

We're significantly better at responding to that than other predators though...to wit, we improve the ecosystem, so that it can support more of whatever it is we intend to eat.

Tell me something, how did the native Americans manage the hunting of the buffalo? Or is it that they had a spiritual connection with nature and treated it with respect?

[Huggy Bear]

I sense an eschatological turn in there, somewhere.

Ofcourse I have an overarching point, but before I can't get to it I must run the gauntlet of the usual riff raff whose whole purpose is obfuscation over having any real debate.