Critical thought is hard

[urlawyer]

You make it sound romantic. Try stripping away the emotional content of what you just said.

Hahaha, it does sound romantic doesn't it? I guess that rules out the possibility of me not having any human emotions
But if you want, sure: I have absolutely no hope in anything more than what I do now presently and am perfectly content in that fact whether or not it has a lasting impact on society or anything at all for that matter.
Does that statement satisfy your criteria?

[robvalue]

Bam! Say it like it is.

Just because we'll all eventually be gone, it doesn't mean the here and now isn't important. Pretending otherwise about supernatural enhancements changes nothing either.

[Iroscato]

Bam! Say it like it is.

Just because we'll all eventually be gone, it doesn't mean the here and now isn't important. Pretending otherwise about supernatural enhancements changes nothing either.

That is basically one of the cruxes of the atheist mindframe, isn't it? What really opened my eyes was when I started learning about the cosmos, and how truly, mind-penetratingly vast it is. Here we are, on our little blue rock swinging around a stable nuclear reaction, squabbling over religion and politics and the colour of that fucking dress.
We all exist in our own little slice of time and space, and so many people choose to squander that breathtakingly rare gift by trying to killmurder other people.
 

[watchamadoodle]

It might be easier for an atheist to have hope in uncertainty than it is for a theist to have hope in obvious lies.

[robvalue]

Yeah, it's really sad. I honestly do want to save the religious from themselves, I want to free them from wasting this one and only life pissing about after an imaginary creature. I want them to be free of the worry of jesus watching them on the job. I want them to stop hating themselves just for being born, or for what they think.

I want them to live. Sadly, religion has become very good at insulating believers against devil fuckers like me. But really, what do I get out of it? I'm not asking for money, power, anything. Knowing someone has really thought about something is reward enough.

You're right, if you zoom out for just a minute and consider the whole universe, then think that an omni God is concerned with us pieces of crud, it should be pretty clear we've got a superiority complex. Or some serious insecurities. We sugar coat reality, so we don't have to face up to it.

[watchamadoodle]

You're right, if you zoom out for just a minute and consider the whole universe, then think that an omni God is concerned with us pieces of crud, it should be pretty clear we've got a superiority complex. Or some serious insecurities. We sugar coat reality, so we don't have to face up to it.

In a panentheistic religion, everything is part of God. God is like an octopus and we are merely his sock puppets. We forget we are sock puppets and do not have fun?

Anyway, that possibility cheers me up sometimes.

[robvalue]

Are you saying God has his fingers up my...

Well that would explain a few things.

[urlawyer]

This reminds me of the episode of Futurama where the tentacle monster from another universe gets everyone to love it (the beast with a billion backs).

[watchamadoodle]

In answer to the hope issue, I watched the Incredible Shrinking Man movie from 1957 yesterday, and here is the last line:

I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close — the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Incredi...inking_Man

[Angrboda]

At what price hope?