(February 6, 2018 at 3:26 pm)uspsalm531 Wrote: Great responses - very helpful and well argued! I appreciate it.
All in all, quite interesting and a lot of similarities. I need to do some deeper thinking on a lot of what was said, but a couple questions do jump out -
1) How do you deal with the idea of ceasing to exist after death - or doesn't it bother you?
2) How do you explain what could be considered evidence of intelligent design (such as DNA) - or the statistical improbability we could have happened by random occurrence.
Another is - Can you explain why you became an atheist? But that could easily be a topic for another thread.
1. It used to disturb me a bit until I loosened the grip on my ego a bit, realizing that there wasn't much of a qualitative difference between "my" ideas and the same ideas thought by someone else in another place and time. Since so much of us is comprised of the things we enjoy and the way we see the universe, and since other people can enjoy similar things and have similar insights, I'm already part of a de facto group immortality just by being here and experiencing stuff.
2. I work in medicine. I hear a lot of things that gainsay intelligent design, such as the finickiness of the gastrointestinal system and the batshit-insane way the endocrine system is set up. I also do not see either randomness or improbability in our biochemical origins, as chemistry works on rather consistent principles and the Miller-Urey experiment from the 1950s demonstrated that complex organic molecules can form from simpler inorganic compounds.
Why did I become an atheist? I think I was one all along. I tried to cultivate religious belief at varying times in my life, but for whatever reason the skeptical "Yeah, riiiiight..." part of my brain is locked in the "on" state. I've never at any point in my 60 years been able to experience genuine religious faith.
