I've recently seen enquiries to the effect as to WHY a loving, omnimax god would allow the sufferings of a 7 year old stricken with cancer. To which any Christian remains pitifully woe to adequately reply ..save the trite "God's Plan" reply.
Likewise, I've a "why" to ask of the resident atheists on this forum: WHY do you exist?
The standard reply to this query is that there need not be a 'why' to human existence...though you can't rationally appeal to this form of ignorance whilst condemning the same from the religious. WHY's that?....you may ironically ask.
Well, the question itself is fundamental to human existence itself; the necessary impetus for the sciences; as the quest for every effect's causation; the desire for understanding the processes which governs our universe and the human relation to it. Existentially speaking, to ignore the question is to cloak inellectualism within a shroud of ignorance...a conspicuous burying of the head in proverbial sand.
So once again: Why do you exist in the here and now, rather than in the near or distant past/future, why now as a male or female, specific culture or race...experiencing existence through your particular lens?
Why?
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Ask you dad.
Why?
He may know why you exist in the here and now, and not some other time.
Why would that be of any existential concern to YOU?
quip asked me "Why?" a second time - I should clarify that I am probably not quip's father.
I find the answer fairly straightforward: things are the way they are because of the laws of nature, otherwise they would not be the laws of nature.
You may find this unsatisfactory due to being circular, and not actually resolving why there is something rather than nothing. But it is certainly more satisfactory than nothing existing and being unable to ask the question why there is nothing rather than something.
I have no reason to think that the natural world was created, so I do not feel I have to attempt to explain that. I simply believe that if something is possible, it will happen, otherwise it would not be possible. I don't think that is particularly extraordinary. But you may not be satisfied with my answer as I am essentially treating nature as a brute fact. Even if that is true, it is better than treating something unobservable as a brute fact.
The subject matter is not quite so general..a tad more subjective. Specifically, why are YOU here?
Ultimately, because of the laws of nature being the way they are.
How does nature determine and distinguish my existence from yours....that is, why wasn't I you and you me? (Or, for that matter, any one else throughout the span of human existence?)
Because your mother fucked your father, instead of my father.
(this is going to be fun; you're an idiot!)
LOL Now, now Maggie. Be polite. Care for some popcorn?
For all I know, we could be the same person.
Essentially, every atom has a time and place.
If you are asking me why the laws of nature are the way they are...I do not think there is an agency greater than the laws of nature, so I cannot tell you why.
You just implied otherwise. Do you agree that the laws of nature could incorporate the ethereal?
I believe the laws of nature only explain the phenomenal world i.e. everything that exists.
Sorry, what was it that I implied otherwise?
You implied a possibility outside our current understanding of the laws of nature. Specifically regarding us being the same person and the time/place of atoms.
We exist now in different places. My point there was speculative, but my understanding is that according to some physicists, it is perfectly possible for example that nature is composed of one atom. Such speculations are not really relevant to this thread's topic however. I merely mentioned it as a device to explore how you distinguish one person from another.
On the contrary, it's profoundly relevant. Mayhap, it's not merely the devil which resides in the details.
How does nature determine and distinguish your existence from mine?
Because I'm not an idiot making up idiotic OPs.
Anything else?
quip,
"...that is, why wasn't I you and you me?" - quip
That situation would be indistinguishable from the present situation, so the question is meaningless. There would be one "you" and one "me." Nothing would change! Your identity is tied to your physical form and especially to your experiences and internal information. A circle is not a square and can never be a square. Nor can you be someone else.
Not knowing something carries no burden of proof, unless you make claims or assertions about it.
Atheism makes no claims at all, so has no burden of proof to evidence the origins of life. The fallacy is contained in your question, since it assumes without demonstrating any evidence that there is an ultimate reason for human existence. If you use this argument from ignorance to imply a claim, that atheism is invalidated and therefore theism validated, then it is a fallacious argument from ignorance.
In contrast to this theism has made traditional claims for an omnibenevolent deity that also has limitless power and knowledge. Thus it is perfectly rational to point out that the fact of ubiquitous suffering contradicts these claims. The claims themselves carry a burden of proof. Theism has tried for millennia to explain the contradiction. In theology this is called theodicy.
So I'm afraid you are basing your OP on fallacious and irrational assumptions.
Do a little basic research, and try to be less pompous and you may look less foolish when you get basic facts so woefully wrong.
I make no such claim thus, the assuptions are all yours. To the point, I'm not theistic...at best, agnostic (though, I loath the attempt at placing me in a box...it was expected) I'm not seeking answers from atheists but rather an honest attempt at introspection ...experientially speaking.
quip "I make no such claim "
>>You did make such a claim, as it is inherent in your question, as I already explained.
quip " I'm not theistic"
>>Then you should not have lied, and said you were in your profile.
MY VIEW
I am a / an Non-Atheist
"I loath the attempt at placing me in a box...it was expected)"
>>I loath the idiotic claim that anyone can both not believe, and not not believe something. No attempt was made to place anyone anywhere, I just read precisely what you have claimed in your profile, that you are not an atheist, by definition you can only be a theist, as they are logical negations of each other. You don't appear to know what agnostic means either, as the definition is about knowledge, not belief, and is not mutually exclusive to either belief or non belief. Though I always laugh at people who make the absurd claim to believe something they acknowledge they can know nothing about.
"I'm not seeking answers from atheists but rather an honest attempt at introspection"
Rubbish, you quite deliberately brought this into an atheist forum, and your smug self congratulatory tone, coupled with your condescension towards atheists is not my imagination, it set the tone of the exchange from the start, and you have revelled in it. Even that claim is insulting towards atheists here, as if they are incapable of introspection unless prompted by you. That aside your question was and is meaningless, it's a fallacious cliche that I have seen theists use again and again, specious nonsense doesn't result in introspection.
YOU GO SHELDON!!
Quip, you have simply been inconsistent. You make wild assertions without factual evidence and you have been called then each and every time. You may be making sense to yourself but to anyone thinking critically you are a step behind.
"Existentially speaking, to ignore the question "
Not knowing the answer, and ignoring the question are not remotely the same thing.
You're talking specious nonsense I'm afraid. I also strongly suspect you have simply repeated arguments from others you clearly do not fully understand.
It's much more than a mere absence of an answer.
You actively (vehemently..in some cases.) ignore the inquiry in lieu of an answer.
As I said you're simply making up specious nonsense. I have made no claims about the origins of life, nor am I qualified to pursue the scientific inquiry into that phenomenon.
Again I ask, what evidence can you demonstrate that there is an ultimate purpose for life? It's clear you can't demonstrate any evidence, or you would not havedodged the question so clumsily and so obviously. Hence your question is specious nonsense.
The fact remains it is intellectually honest to admit we don't at this time have a complete knowledge of how life originated, and this in no way implies that area of enquiry is being ignored. Quite the opposite is true in fact.
As for primate life including humans and all other great apes, it is a scientific fact they evolved from common ancestry. As did all living things.
@ quip
"You actively (vehemently..in some cases.) ignore the inquiry in lieu of an answer."
A question is a question, and triggers a response ... to the question. For the person why reads the question, they do not usually ponder the reasoning for the question, but are forming a response. If someone asks me "what is 2 +2 ?", I am thinking about the answer, 4. I am not pondering why they asked the question.
Maybe we have a breakdown in communications, and you are forming your questions incorrectly.
"Why?"
What evidence can you demonstrate there is any reason for our existence? Until you can asking "why we exist" is rather stupid, and repeating it as if you've said something profound fairly moronic.
My answer is immaterial and would fail to satisfy your critera....while it's not the point as well. Supra.
ME "What evidence can you demonstrate there is any reason for our existence?"
quip "My answer is immaterial and would fail to satisfy your critera"
I've already explained more than once precisely why my question is apposite, so neither an answer nor the inability to answer are immaterial. I also set no criteria, so you are just making precisely the kind stereotypical assumptions you keep falsely accusing atheists of making. The fact you can demonstrate no evidence makes your question specious, as it contains a fallacious assumption that there is a reason behind human existence, beyond the material facts that it, like all other living things, evolved.
Again it is axiomatic that putting a question mark at the end of a sentence doesn't make it rational inquiry.
Why do dragons have scales?
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