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

[Huggy Bear]

Funny how when it come to theist's y'all require nothing less than peer reviewed information, but YOU'RE totally fine with quoting a software engineer from what is essentially a different forum.



Fine, if that's your standard, I don't want to hear you complain about a source... EVER!

Your source was balancing a pyramid on a point in the first place. It didn't establish what you claimed. Which is that every species is essential to the ecosystem, which you still haven't established.

If you have no rebuttal to the reply you've dismissed without argument, I'll assume you conceded. Fair's fair.

Not how it works love, my source was an actual ecologist while yours was some random guy from another forum...

There is nothing to rebut since your information is flawed, therefore YOU lose if that's the only source you have.

[Gemini]

Not how it works love, my source was an actual ecologist while yours was some random guy from another forum...

There is nothing to rebut since your information is flawed, therefore YOU lose if that's the only source you have.

So what are parasites like mosquitoes good for?

[InquiringMind]

This is now the longest internet forum thread I've ever started. And I've started quite a few.

[Silver]

I know for a fact that the human race as it is now evolved is not essential to a healthier ecosystem.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

There would still be destruction.  There would simply be one less species that modifies the environment in favor of one species or another.  Destruction, like improvement, is another issue of perspective.  A farm is destructive to the ecosystem it does not favor, and the species unable to capitalize.  It's improvement for the converse.  A managed wildlife park..similarly, more of a giant man-made garden than an actual forest.  Even when we attempt to "mimic the natural environment" we can;t help but make improvements.  Burn schedules, stocking species, protection.   Beavers and their dams....great for beavers - "bad" for the ecosystem (that's why we break them up).

Please provide an example of this.

No end of examples can be provided.  Migratory grazing is nothing but rolling over-exploitation.  We used to do it too...then we found out how to improve the ecosystem. The dearth of birds due to an overabundance of cats is another. These are simply popular and current examples. Over-predation has, ofc, led to much worse with regards to extinct species.

Tell me something, how did the native Americans manage the hunting of the buffalo?

Poorly.

Or is it that they had a spiritual connection with nature and treated it with respect?

I'm not sure what the relevance is...is that how you improve an ecosystem?  Spiritual connections and respect?

Look, I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm trying to understand what you could mean by the statement. I'm more interested in why, in your estimation...these improvements are not improvements? Why the things that depend upon us don't count, again in your estimation. I can't get a feel for what you mean unless I understand the metrics. We matter to all of our domesticates -and each other-, we improve ecosystems with them in mind just like any other animal. What bar is being used to call this a wash? That some things don't benefit from our existence? That we destroy habitat? That's not unique to us as a species either. Deer are a menace.

Help me understand.

[Thumpalumpacus]

My life isn't meaningless.

Just because meaning isn't intrinsic doesn't mean it isn't present.

Not to mention that I don't see much meaning in groveling. Indeed, the Abrahamic faiths, and many others as well, stress the unimportance -- meaninglessness -- of this life, and only promise meaning in the next.

[Cecelia]

Because people use it in incomprehensibly stupid ways.

But life isn't really meaningless. We each make of it what we can. I think that's far more meaningful than anything.

[Arkilogue]

My life isn't meaningless.

Just because meaning isn't intrinsic doesn't mean it isn't present.

Not to mention that I don't see much meaning in groveling. Indeed, the Abrahamic faiths, and many others as well, stress the unimportance -- meaninglessness -- of this life, and only promise meaning in the next.

I was under the impression that in the Abrahamic religions what you did in this life determined your fate in the next....?

[Silver]

I was under the impression that in the Abrahamic religions what you did in this life determined your fate in the next....?

Determining our lives by what one of thousands of religions suggests is rather fucking retarded.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not in the christian tradition, Ark.    You can't get to heaven through works.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3VTngm1F0