Re: I am affronted by the presence of god
@camlorn, I'll bite. You outlined all of the great goodness we can accomplish if we were to just set God, spirituality and religion aside as nonsensical whims of the human brain. My question, I believe, is an intelectually honest one; why? What for? If what you say is true and the only thing that is true is that things are as they are, neither good nor bad, neither right or wrong because they are all subject to interpretation and perception, then what's this life for? It begins and it ends and neither point is any greater than the other. That you left a legacy serves no purpose other than to further other lives that are all equall to yours with a beginning and an end that have no significant value or worth. Nothing is true; nothing is a lie. Everything is simply what it is, neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong, greater or lesser, because it is all governed by this being called man that can dictate the whims of it all by simply saying, "I think, therefore, I am."
As for the implications of that? If I decide that tomorrow I want to pick up trash because it'll help better the world I live in? I've made a choice. It is neither good or bad; it's simply something I've decided to do. If I tire of that pursuit and start dumping my trash out on the street because I burn out, I've made yet another choice in my life. By definition, no one has a right to tell me it is either good or bad; it is simply a decision I've made. That it impacts humanity and the world it lives in negatively... Negatively? Why does that even matter? What is negativity? Is it simpy a mixture of chemicals in our brains that hardwire us to say more or less collectively, "Hey, stop it! You're killing our world!" So? It's all going to come to an end anyway! Screw you! Why should I care! Who is right? Who is wrong? What right have you to tell me that I have no right to destroy the world you live in? Who gave you the right to believe you're better than I am, and who gave him or her that right to give to you anyway?
No, I can't buy that, and I buy it even less when two things happen every single one of us has done to some degree or another. We admire and respect altruism for no good reason, and we all, each and every single one of us, want to hold a higher power responsible for pain and suffering. When the chips are down, you don't blame the cosmos for having somehow manufactured itself into existence and carrying you along with it on its insane journey from oblivion into oblivion. I can't say I've ever heard a single person say"Damned this cosmos! Universe be blowed!" I do here, "Good God, why me? Jesus Christ, why? Oh lord, have mercy!"
So, what exactly is a higher power? Well, if I take those two words literally, I submit that it is an entity that is greater than I am in some sense or another. It either knows more than me, can do something I cannot do or go somewhere I cannot go and or has seen things I have not seen. Perhaps it is all of these things and more. It's not a computer I created; it's not a piece of technological hardware I put together. It's not something fashioned by my brain. For a higher power to be a higher power it has to be outside of my sphere of influence, and at the point that it has to answer to me, it is no longer a higher power; it is an equall power.
And this is where we are going to differ, because nobody I know, myself included, really, truly, honestly, sincerely, by default wishes to be governed by a higher power. WE just want to blame it if it exists for everything that is going wrong. That having been said, some of us will choose, if we are convicted, that said higher power is worth obeying, respecting, worshipping and giving our lives to, because living outside of the will of said higher power, if in fact it is who it claims to be, whatever it claims to be, whatever it is we're convicted of, is the difference between many things, between having value and worth or having none, between true justice and none, between a standard for good and bad or a standard that can change with the mood and the sands of time, between a static and consistent reality of things that are or an opposing force that says nothing is ever what you think it is and you can't even trust yourself to figure it out because someone else has other ideas that differ from yours and they might just think you're stupid crazy!
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