Originally posted by: Skoorb
Does that make either one of your viewpoints any less valid? No. Does it make either of you a better or worse person? No.
It's up to you how you live your life; whether you're a happy person or not.
That's what the dictionary refers to as nihilism - nothing is true or false. It's a view that an atheist can subscribe to
You should strive to be a good person regardless of what you believe in.
What's good, and what is not? Why "should" a person do it, if not to answer to a higher power?
You shouldn't need scare tactics condemning you to Hell to cause you to live life "correctly".
I agree, it's scary the idea of burning in hell. It's not fun to think about, but you must realize that followers of a religion believe that this it the very real possibility.
It can be, but to others it's a source of inspiration. You can find any number of people who've used religion to get themselves through hard times. Is this human psychology cheating itself from the truth, to make a situation feel better, or is it a true indication of God?
Any time I post in these religion threads, which is rare because they are almost invariably full of idiocy on ALL sides (and are impossible to get into a discussion about without people pissing on each other) I keep my own beliefs pretty much out of the mix, but I will say that in the past few years I've done a semi-typical approach of a) I believe what my parents told me to believe, b) I rebelled, grew up, went to a liberal university, mocked all non-science, c) took another look at it. As I mentioned above science simply cannot by its very nature/definition explain where we came from. When all else fails I'll go back to it, but it's a tool, it's not a philosophy. You don't use a ratchet to paint a picture, or a paint brush to change spark plugs. Science is merely a tool. A mistake people make is thinking that it's a skeleton key for access to all questions in the universe and I just don't see why we give it such "faith". It hasn't shown that it can be that key, and it doesn't even claim that it can be.
Proponents of science cannot even _theorize_ the beginning of time/universe, let alone prove it. Science simply doesn't allow for the introduction of something (us, universe, etc.) from nothing. What came before it, and what started it? For me this is the question that continues to befuddle, and more than anything else lends to the legitimate idea that there is something else.