h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, let's say evidence against acts of special creation (namely the variance of species over distance and through time and the mechanism to explain how this occurs)

Take for example what you said: "[the] privileges in the world that He's bestowed on us"

Well gosh darn it - that sounds like creationism to me.


>>believers do not reach a conclusion that mankind has evolved from a spiritual and physical void.<<
because they supposes that a spiritual cause , without evidence, must precede it.

>>Fine, enjoy your life and look forward to returning to your void<<

As in "God probably does not exist. Now stop worry and enjoy your life"?

Thanks I will.

>>a higher purpose<<
Higher than a good, fair existence without harm or injury enriched by the scientific knowledge and understanding of maths, history, literature and art?

What could you possibly mean?

To what extent is our freedom of action constrained by the way our meat is programmed?<<

I´d love to know it

Well the obvious place to start would be Sartre and Camus.

Camus and the human "fate"
http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

>>Higher than a good, fair existence without harm or injury enriched by the scientific knowledge and understanding of maths, history, literature and art?<<
Yes, you're part of the anarchy. Everbody else has their own version!
But they might not tell you they intend to rob a bank ...
Peace

>>you're part of the anarchy. Everbody else has their own version! But they might not tell you they intend to rob a bank ...<<

Ah! I see. This is that strange argument you deploy about hedonism and Epicureanism and the abrogation of morals and laws, in it's place you claim a moral relativism that condemns nothing and insist on absolute tyrannical laws of the totalitarian divine regime.

You must live on a different

I suppose in one sense you are right. This is anarchy: I don't respect or recognise authority of gods (or those who claim them). but then we both know gods are fictions invented by people. So it's not an actual authority I'm rejecting, hence not really anarchy.

I was thinking more of the story (was it Camus or Sartre) who talked about demonstrating free will by a random act, such as throwing a stranger off a train. (I think it must have been Camus. It's basically the same as the murder in 'L'Etranger').

"Anything to be rid of the glare, the sight of women in tears, the strain and effort—and to retrieve the pool of shadow by the rock and its cool silence!"

Mostly, though, we exercise our free will by *not* killing strangers. Or do we? Surely our moral instincts come from our biological and social circumstances?

Behaving well with others is a way of survival. We are social animals and need each other.
So, there is a kind of biological ethics in us. Then come consensus among groups of people to keep justice and peace.

Indeed. So in doing so, are we surrendering our Free Will?

Does it matter?

Is the concept of Free Will utterly meaningless, only important if you have to explain how an omnipotent, benifent god can allow an adult to torture a child?

What I'm getting at is that we are meat robots, biologically programmed to behave in certain ways. A lot of good follows from this: love, civilisation, art. All the things we're programmed to find good and meaningful.

Atheists can see the meat robot idea as positive. The religious can't make sense of it without adding the soul and/or god.

>>Atheists can see the meat robot idea as positive.<<
Some might. Some women might be happy to have casual sex with another meat-robot.
Others, not so happy with the idea ...

My! What an odd conflation of ideas.

This strange and bizarre aversion of the religious to sex (with the exception to the catholic church, and apologies to kariblake) mystifies me greatly

warner < Some women might be happy to have casual sex with another meat-robot.>

Have you got their names?

I suppose what warner must be alluding to is the assumption that Atheists, unfettered by religious morality, will be compelled to shag everything in sight.

I'm tempted to say 'Chance would be a fine thing'...but, of course, it doesn't work like that. Atheists can be as aware as anyone of the social role of human sex, its function in couple-bonding, its place in partnership contracts*, etc. etc. I'll concede that Atheists may not denegrate non-matrimonial, recreational sex to the same extent as the religious - but they can still recognise that it is best practiced with awareness of its physical and emotional consequences.

And what is it with the religious and masturbation? If god didn't want us to fiddle with ourselves, why did he put our hands near our genitals?




* Marital vow:
'I promise not to shag anyone else, unless it's handed to me on a plate...'

Some women might be happy to have casual sex with another meat-robot<<

Here is one of those women
http://www.todocoleccion.net/necron-magnus-lote-7-tomos-editorial-cupula-nuevos~x7189840#descrip

>>why did he put our hands near our genitals?<<

or invent the zip?

pr0n and old fashioned morality:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

"States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed."
(subscriptions to online pr0n sites that is)

Utah is the biggest consumer.