RE: It is a bit frustrating reading through Ecclesiastes
August 20, 2025 at 10:01 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2025 at 10:15 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(August 20, 2025 at 12:33 pm)emjay Wrote:(August 20, 2025 at 12:23 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: I'm sorry, I guess I'm trying to say that atheism isn't something you have to be loyal to.
Yes but it would certainly help if I believed it more, because the Buddhist approach I mentioned is more about how I would think I would have to deal with hell if it existed. But I'd rather not be thinking about hell at all. I'd rather be focusing on buddhism only for life not life and death, but that requires increasing my confidence in atheism.
Perhaps it would help take the pressure off of increasing your confidence in atheism to consider all of the ways that gods and afterlives don't really have anything to do with one another, and those easy to miss ways they might. Maybe there are gods and no afterlives. Maybe there are afterlives and no gods. Maybe gods also have afterlives. Maybe they're the only thing that doesn't.
You've got it more or less right in that both of us, if the christian story were true, would be going to hell. I wonder, though, is it the destination or the desert? Does the idea of ending up some place you've no control over bother you, or has this experience brought your self doubt and shame to the surface in novel and painful ways? If it's the latter, magic book speaks at length on grace, love, and forgiveness - and the ghost story doesn't have to be true for those to be valuable things, especially toward one's self. Ecclesiastes not so much - but it does drone on around the matter, commenting on the human condition.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
