You still don't get it. By your beliefs, the world is meaningless, making you, Sgt. Winters without meaning, making every argument you make meaningless. So you lose by default, because a creature without meaning is unable to make arguments.
To be quite frank, your own beliefs should render you without meaning as well. As stated above, even The King of Jerusalem, a man famed for his wisdom and valor, had ultimately concluded all actions fulfilled by man were vapid and nonsensical. All men, whether wise or stupid, strong or weak, rich or poor, would be rendered mute by the inescapable march of time. He then concludes that one need only be kind and enjoy the earthly pleasures bestowed upon them (Satre?). Of course, the narrator in his epilogue infers a completely different approach, but it is the Bible so this should be expected. You then have to realize that man is fallible, and if man is fallible, then the Bible must be too.
The only perfect man according to this particular Abrahamic would be Christ (though cursing a fig tree for being out of season might disqualify him from that venerable position), as he is essentially a manifestation of God's will. Jesus is our savior; the one who shall not lead us astray, but instead guide man into understanding that the only way to enter God's eternal kingdom is through him. This is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the entire theological quandary that presents itself in Christian Canon. For why would God allow Eve to sin by coveting the forbidden apple, thereby cursing all who would come after her to be damned if absolution had not been received? Furthermore, why would he wash away the sins of man through means of a global flood, if he had enabled the possibility to sin from the beginning? Why is he trying to save mankind through the means of Christ if the origins of sin had been one he himself had constructed from the cosmos? If this is a test, then it is a poorly thought out one. Eternal punishment from a seemingly all-loving God seems to be contradictory. Finally, if there is indeed a purpose to all of this, do we have the free will required to deny it?
The book of Ecclesiastes is considered canonical by all accounts. However, if one were to factor in the possibility of you belonging to one of the many other various denominations (of which there are estimated to be anywhere between 1,400 to 33,000), then your mileage may very. One could draw the conclusion that extracting any sort of information from Biblical sources and labeling it as truthful could be viewed as contradictory in and of itself.
You needn't look any further than the numerous paradoxes, illogical statements, and antithetical verses that are scattered throughout the Old/New Testament.
For more information, see here:
http://bibviz.comThat begs the question: How can something that is created be without meaning? Well...It can't. Everything that is created has a purpose for being created. But I'm not going to stay on this for too long because it seems you like to keep your eggs in many different baskets so lets try another way in your worldview.
By what definition are we defining purpose here? Is the purpose of grass to be eaten by a Zebra, who in turn shall be devoured by a pack of lions? A stillborn is created from the womb of its mother, and yet no purpose can seemingly be derived from it, only grief. If I were to postulate from your previous examples, you must assume that creation inherently necessitates purpose. That is true only from a human perspective. A watch is built by its owner in order to tell the time of day; a car manufactured to drive from point a to b; a rifle produced for the intention to kill. Naturally, it would only make sense to us specifically to ask the question that because we are here, then we must be here for a purpose instilled prior to our arrival. I must ask you then, as to why would God produce such a gigantic cosmos (of which the observable portion isn't even said to resemble that of a whole number), if we were to be the sole inhabitants. Seems like an awful waste of space, no? If their purpose is to serve as celestial decorations that we may gaze upon when night falls, then surely an omnipotent God would have designed it a bit better, considering they keep blowing up, or getting sucked by black holes, take your pick. Mathematically speaking, there would inevitably some sort of life that has formed on some distant planet completely out our reach. If the only path to salvation is through the means of Christianity, then you should pray that God has graced them with his presence, else they suffer eternal hellfire at the hands of Satan.
If you wish to be provided with a more local example, look no further than the appendix present within our own bodies. Evolutionarily speaking, it no longer serves a purpose. It's a vestigial organ, phased out slowly over hundreds of thousands of years, and yet it still remains apart of the man's bodily anatomy. Spartan may be better equipped to answer this, but still I must beg the question; other than possibly bursting open and causing us immense pain, what purpose does this appendix currently serve? Should it not have been eliminated slowly if all things are created with inherent meaning like you claim?
So if we were to believe that we are "going along for the ride" and that the chemicals in our brain are making all the decisions for us, you, Sgt. Winters, are still not making any arguments. You are unable to form your own ideas or even write this entire spiel because everything you do is a chemical determined process therefore you are unable to make ANY FORM of argument.
I struggle to see the connection you are attempting to make here. While there are aspects of neuroscience that indicate that we cannot control certain aspects of the way we respond to things (such as the fight or slight response), it does not purport the assertion that we have no direct jurisdiction over our own actions. The chemicals that control us are still us despite claims to the contrary. Just because a painting is a collection of oils and colors splattered onto a blank canvas, does not take away from the fact that it is still it's own object. The very machines we are using right now are nothing but zeroes and ones displayed on a screen, but they certainly create a far more vivid image than that.
From the Christian point of view, surely you must realize that the God you espouse states throughout the entirety of the Bible to be the following: omniscient (John 1 3:20), omnipotent (Matthew 19:26), omnipresent (Psalm 139), transcendent (Isaiah 57:15), infinite (1 Kings 8:27), incorporeal (John 4:24), impeccable (Hebrews 6:18), and utterly incomprehensible (Isaiah 40:28). Psalm 139:4 even goes as far to say that God already knows what we shall say before the words are even uttered from our lips. Isaiah 46:9-10 goes EVEN further in stating that God knows how the world shall end, along with every single event preceding it. From this we can assume that God is the past, present, and future. His immutable plan has simultaneously been played and not been played. He already knows what shall occur because he has deemed it so. You could say that this has all been predetermined by an ordinance of heavenly proportions. Hm?
But, for some reason I think you may try to flip-flop or use your rhetoric expertise to try and navigate your way out of the trap you set for yourself because I'm not even sure you know what you believe in.
I don't really believe in anything. Except the word belief implies that I have faith in something that is even completely void of meaning. Oh, the conundrums of ontological knowledge! How deep they stab at my very being!
I think you have a misconstrued view of God and what he does, which is why you're coming to these strange conclusions. You have the stereotypical atheist view that God is supposed to be some superhero who comes in and saves the day every time something wrong is going to happen (Or at least thats what you want God to be). As I said or at least hinted at before: God is trying to teach us LESSONS. If he just came in and saved the day by his own hand every time something went wrong we wouldn't learn anything. It seems to me that you want a God who can be pushed over, or one that gives you anything you want because you want it. The thing is, people don't know what they want or what they need; like you pointed out, look at the state of humanity right now.
The "stereotypical" view that you reference here isn't entirely without merit. If anything, God in this context is a maniacal supervillian. He destroyed Sodom and Gommorah, flooded the world clean save for Noah, his family, and two pairs of every animal species (all 8.7 million of of them somehow), and helped the Israelites murder innumerable amounts of people at Jericho, Bashan, Hesbon, and many others. For lesser known instances, you may pick from any of these: ordering bears to maul children for their mocking of Eliseus (4 Kings 2:23-24), asking Abraham to sacrifice his own son (Genesis 22:1-12), assisting Sampson after losing a bet by helping him kill all 30 of his companions (Judges 14:1-19), wrestling with Jacob for seemingly no other reason than to be a dick (Genesis 32:22-31), and pretty much everything that happens to Job that is he is responsible for (can be found in the Ketuvim section of the Hebrew Bible). If these are lessons, in combination with all sorts of supernatural occurrences that heavily resemble that of magic, then they are doing a piss poor job of teaching anyone anything. Can't he just come down here and tell us to stop killing each other and be kind, rather than communicate through cryptic messages and genocide?
I don't understand why you're puzzled by what I said because of course I'm going to answer your question from the perspective off the Christian belief.
I mean, usually most modern Christians debate using methods originating with Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, or William Craig. Some of your rhetoric came of as something an 18 year old Mormon on his mission would exclaim, which is unconvincing really.
Also I know I'm coming off as condescending, but I just don't understand why you wear this pessimistic, painful, and pointless belief if it causes you so much suffering. I would surmise it's because you believe you're taking the ultra hardcore blackpill, but as you have said if you realize that this is all predetermined why are you still here? Why is anyone still here? We should have no issue killing ourselves because its only a logical conclusion if we realize that we are merely programmed machines and there is no real reason to exist. Then one would say that it's merely an "illusion", but you already stated that you apparently don't subscribe to that thinking.
See above. If our fates our predetermined, then everything that happens will do so as it was meant to. There would be no need to kill myself simply due to the fact that life has no set meaning, though you are correct in assuming that it complicates the clusterfuck we have found ourselves in. Perhaps I wear this mantle of suffering because it is the only thing that makes sense to me. It is true that I am seeing all too negatively, much in the sense as you would think a person that only sees thing in a positive sense (aka the Pollyanna principle) is being dishonest as well. Reading Epitectus might help with this.
I'm more than willing to explain myself further, and I would be interested to hear why you came to be the way you are as well, but I'd prefer Steam PMs since it would be pretty personal.
There will be no need for that. The state of my mental being is mostly the product of the environment once more (seeing children suffer from leukemia in person didn't really help either). American culture encourages these sorts of thoughts. The media needs you to get scared, politicians require outrage, it is a cycle that perpetuates pain. The current position that Humanity has found itself in is also rather exhausting. Much of Western philosophical and political thought could even be narrowed down to this simple formula of constant struggle. Maybe that's why the Eastern thinkers tend to be viewed in the way that seeks peace with existence, or whatever the hell it is that they do.