A Request for Christians

[Scoobes]

RubberWhistleHistle said:

kitler53 said:

..as is basically everything you've written about athiests in this thread.

the label "christian" not mean every christian has the exact same beliefs.   their are catholics, lutherans, methodists, baptists, and probably 100 other sects that all have varying views on the same core concept.   well, the same goes for atheists.  you're projecting a very extreemist, skinner-esque viewpoint onto atheists that does not suit all who wear that label.

just because i don't believe a god created this world and watches over us judging whether i'll spend an afterlife in heaven or hell doesn't mean the only alternative thought is we're a bunch of meaningless chemical reactions with predetermined results. 

maybe we should take religious labels (like christian) out of this conversation, because we really dont have to talk about that for this. i havent said anything about those, and its because its possible to have this conversation without distracting people with those kinds of terms. the only thing that needs to be talked about is a world with a creator and a world without a creator and what that means for the creation. we dont need to look at different religions to discuss this. 

anyway, if the universe is all there is, then how can we be governed by anything more than chemical reactions? where is this extra thing that supercedes what  the chemicals are making you do? (i hope i asked that question well enough. i feel like these are two very very important questions.) 

now this isnt to say that it means everything is meaningless. if we are governed by chemical reactions with predetermined results, that doesnt necessarily mean it has to be meaningless. people can find meaning in doing all sorts of things, they can create their own meaning.. but still, when it comes down to it, you really dont have any free will and you are at the mercy of whats going on inside you. the flip side of that is that YOU are eternal and you are actually able to make choices that arent contingent on what the atoms are making you do.

Your posts are a little confusing to me but personally, I'm not sure how being made up of only matter means there can't be free will. We've evolved by a series of chemical reactions to the point where we now have a good enough understanding of our own chemistry that we're free to manipulate ourselves.

The chemicals in your brain may tell you to do task A, but we can just as easily manipulate ourselves and our chemistry (e.g. drugs), forcing ourselves to do task B instead. Our high chemical complexity means we're able to decide how to become more than the sum of our parts. A host of complex chemistry able to manipulate itself.

To me, that complexity is the enabler of free will and consciousness.