[ExI] No gods, no meaning? (was: Re: Existing as stored data)

[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 7:56 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> That's my answer if anyone ever asks me what the meaning of life is. You
> Decide.*


I agree good answer. You and I are the ones in the meaning conferring
business not the external universe. A cloud of hydrogen gas ten billion
light years away can't give us meaning but we can give meaning to it. I
don't need God or anything else to pat me on the head and give me His seal
of approval.

* > I would take issue with the idea that atheism can be right or wrong. *
>

God either exists or He does not.

* > It's not asserting anything, it's just a lack of belief.*
>

And one can be absolutely positively 100% certain about something and still
be dead wrong; for example the 88 virgins (or was it 77?) the 911 hijackers
were supposed to get in the afterlife.


> > I thoroughly recommend actually reading the bible (and the koran, etc.),
>

I also think people should actually read the bible because it's a great
advertisement for atheism, as Richard Dawkins said:

*“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in
all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving
control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic,
homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential,
megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”*

*> Even if gods exist, they are just another kind of being. What makes our
> actions meaningful if they exist, but not if they don't?*
>

Beats me. And even if God does exist He must be asking Himself "what is my
purpose?" and "why have I always existed, why haven't I always not
existed?".

>
> *It sounds kind of stupid when you think about it.*
>

Yep.

John K Clark
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