Dealing with existential nihilism

[bennyboy]

It [science?] is a philosophical position, that one will attempt to pursue knowledge through observation.

Apparently you do not think I base my opinions on observation. Seems to me that that's pretty much all I do. You must have noticed that I rarely quote scripture and explicitly draw my conclusions from things about the world that are clearly evident.

To be fair, I'm coming to respect your approach to your ideas, and to communicating about them. That being said, I'm pretty sure that the cart led the horse when it comes to your beliefs-- in other words, you had a religious world view at a younger age, and had the intellectual honesty to abandon some of the more extreme doctrines, and to accept the less controversial non-religious positions.

Unless you can demonstrate that your eternal truths can benefit us here and now, or that our actions here and now really do matter to something which is eternal, your ideas are going to be ignored as irrelevant to the progress of humanity.

Whether my small contributions to humanity as a whole will have much affect, I don't know. All I know is that I have personally benefited, both emotionally and intellectually, from my relationship with Jesus Christ. I am a better man because of Him and better to those around me. YMMV.

I'm perfectly content believing that there is much value in your religious tradition. I've read the Bible many times, and found interesting ideas to think about and inspiring characters to model after. But this doesn't say much about the soul or the extinguishment of consciousness at death.