CallaFirestormBW
Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
Love...honesty...self-sacrifice…charity…all that is good about us would be for not. See, this makes absolutely no sense. All of the things you mention above are just good, common-sense ways to promote survival of the human race and make one's individual life more pleasant and fulfilling. * An individual with even a -spark- of common sense could figure out that loving someone feels -good-, and makes one's own life happier, with no Heaven, or God, involved. *Any reasonably intelligent, self-respecting individual would be able to figure out, even without some church to tell hir so, that being honest is easier than trying to remember a bunch of lies and eliminates those awkward moments where one is caught in a deceit. *Altruism (including supposed "self-sacrifice" and charity) is like masochism. It's something we do, not because it is easy, but because we get -off- on the pain. We don't care if GOD notices that we recycle and spend Saturdays serving food at the local soup kitchen... we care that we can rub in our neighbor's face that WE recycle more than THEY do, and we care if the hot little volunteer number at the end of the food-service counter notices that we've showed up EVERY Saturday, and wonder if we can catch hir alone for a chat before the end of the shift. I disagree that these things would go away if there wasn't a religion, faith, hope, or all that malarky to try to force-feed us how to think... and doing something worthwhile is -never- "for naught". If nothing else, there is the satisfaction of knowing that one did something worthwhile, exceptional, extraordinary, or beyond expectations. I have no belief in an afterlife, and do not ascribe to the concept of an active, interested, or even -aware- external divinity, and yet I participate in the local foods movement and food banks, provide free pastoral care and counseling, participate in any number of activist activities, and donate to the Human Rights Fund and NORML. The idea that people would stop doing good things if there wasn't a threat hanging over their heads or a promise of some payoff in the afterlife just doesn't hold water for me. DC
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*** Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!" "Your mind is more interested in the challenge of becoming than the challenge of doing." Jon Benson, Bodybuilder/Trainer
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