As time goes by

[ecolox]

In any case, my purpose is simply my family.

So what happens when your family's interests clash with another person's/group's? Do you rig it so that your family will "win" - do you let the other group win - or do you appeal to some higher standard to settle the situation? In the latter case, where does the higher standard come from - and why should the other group listen to that standard?

But people still die everyday of causes that can be prevented. They ask to be saved but die horrible deaths, so how you can go to church every week, worship and thank some almighty power for what you have in your life, despite all the suffering around is beyond me. I respect your affirmation, I just don't think it makes sense one bit.

People will always die every day in the current system. I will die, you will die. I thought you were ok with death - now you're acting like you want people to live forever. That doesn't make much sense to me.

So you're going to let those hungry Africans starve to death? Me and Jesus disapprove.

I do not understand your response. I said:

My question did not ask about enemies alone - go back and reread if you must. The Africans are included in the question as "strangers" - you said "I don't believe in jesus so why do I care?" and then "what about them?" - I assumed these statements to refer to both strangers and enemies. Sounds like you're going to let those strangers suffer - since you're too busy living for your family.

What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.

Perfection does not require inactivity - and this argument is based upon that specifically. So, in sum, this bizarre argument falls flat rather quickly. You can't claim that a perfect God desires nothing or that He will do nothing. How would you know how perfection works anyway? This sounds like the couch-potatoe's or dead-beat's idea of perfection - just pure, inactive, irresponsible existence.

Your god has yet to prove himself to us. The only prove you have is in your bible which in itself is not infallible proof. Its contents is questionable at best.

Do you agree that a rational cause for this existence is important?

I already told you what I live for. Please read above. All the entities I live for are here, very real, are all around me, and are close to my heart. I am not the one basing my life on an imaginary being. It's as simple as that. Your only retort is to tell me I live for nothing if not for god. Please attempt a better explanation.

If you live for something inside this universe then you live for nothing - because it will all be destroyed according to you (it will be as though it had never existed). I am the one living for something with enduring value.

With no god? There is no god to begin with. You cannot even explain god, can you? I wouldn't say I exist for no reason. But again, you are the one here claiming an imaginary being. The burden of proof falls on you to prove this being of yours as infallible.

Then what is there to begin with - for you? You throw out the only option, but why would you say you exist? By the way, I can't/don't have to explain God (unless it is relevant to us)...the rational mission I can take on is explaining my own existence and discovering what I should be doing with it.

I'll put it to you this way. Personally, if I am shown infallible evidence that there is a god, I will readily accept. Then again, I wouldn't have a choice because he would be real so it would be foolish to accept otherwise. However, as of now, he only exists in the bible which as I said above, is itself fallible. You don't even know who wrote the bible except to say "hundreds of people who were inspired, wrote it".

If you had infallible evidence that God exists - how would that effect your choice? Could God test you in the same way? I tend to think that His experiment is set up properly already - that people don't need infallible evidence to live like they know He exists. Some people want to live differently bad enough to deny His existence.

As you can see, I have nothing to lose and all to gain.

No, I don't see that at all. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. You're coming ever closer to destruction every day - and nothing you do will ever change that - in your belief and in mine.

Now I ask you, for the sake of this debate, if you one day learn that god truly doesn't exist, since you say you live your life for god, what will you do then?

If I learned that then I would die, and that would be the end of it - just like you think will happen to you. I will have loved my family, friends, strangers, and enemies for nothing. Indeed, I will have lived for nothing - just like you.

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Explore life and the universe and arts and culture, music, literature, science, maths, philosophy but more importantly to enjoy yourself, do things that interest you, there is always a possibility of living a great life with your friends and family and bartender and kids and your partner... there are more things in this life to do than there is time to do it, so you have to enjoy our very existence because you're never getting another one.

You aim, most importantly, to enjoy yourself while people are out there starving and living in miserable circumstances? That's a rather limited view of the world, don't you think?

I see no need to believe in an afterlife;

Of course not, because you wouldn't be in charge of the afterlife. And from your first paragraph I can see that you are most concerned with yourself and what you want.

It, along with religion is a concept developed by primitive, uneducated, superstitious men thousands of years ago to try and explain the universe.

The biggest difference is that your worldview is self-centered - whereas theirs wasn't.

compared to the knowledge we have today their assumptions are laughable, there is no evidence to distinguish their assumptions from any other possibly imagined afterlife or reincarnation, only faith in the ideas of primitive men.

What knowledge - you haven't even explained why you exist? You've highlighted that by discussing what you think you should do with your life.

There is no reason to believe all the functions of the mind(there is no soul) are anything but naturalistic and until evidence arises for an alternative theory i refuse to accept something that offers us no advantage or explanatory power, there is no need for any of the empty religious concepts, they are the product of superstition mixed with human curiosity, and they were completely wrong - it's an idiotic belief and an even more idiotic way to evaluate the universe.

You have yet to offer a viable explanation for why you even exist.