Those things might help professionals to help me live longer (I no longer wield them since I retired - most people never do). They won’t help me to live better.
I’ve been more fortunate. In my case and in the cases of several family members and colleagues, such things have helped immensely in both living longer and living better.
Hmm - have to say I’m surprised that Christians on this thread, responding to my reply to Patrick’s words:
… seem to agree with his thesis that science has a greater capacity to make the best judgement for our paths forward than the “ancient book” of Jesus’s gospel. But I guess I haven’t yet experienced the redemptive and sanctifying power of science. Maybe it’s too late for me now I’ve retired.
What? Somehow I missed noticing that alleged agreement. I took a second look at this threat and came up with zip. Perhaps the posts I missed somehow got lost when this thread got split. (??)
It is a long thread!
but this (if the link works) is the one I was replying to, and the context of my remarks.
Science jolly good, but not as a basis for human life.
For me it has.
You should try atheism for a day. It can be both exhilarating and frightening at the same time. One day, get up in the morning and say to yourself, that today I am going to live life like God doesn’t exist. Exhilarating: I can do anything I want to do because there is no fear of eternal punishment, no master’s to worship, no soul to keep holy. I am free to live today as I chose. Fear: I am alone, there is no one to watch over me, what if I die today, I am going to hell. I feel lonely like I am missing that voice in my head that guides me, consoles me, inspires me. I feel lonely, I can’t make decisions for myself with a god. I don’t know what to do.
After these initial thoughts of exhilarating and fear, you realize that the world is no different than yesterday and it is time for breakfast and a regular day in your life.
You decide how to live a better life and then just live a better life today. Start with a good diet and exercise. Get off your knees praying and take a walk in the sunshine (with sunscreen of course). Instead of going to church, take the same people who attend to breakfast. Enjoy their company, learn their life story. Stop complaining as nobody is listening.
How do you know I haven’t? Never assume your what you know of other people’s life experience.
But to be honest, my experience is not that of atheism - one only has one life, after all, and I’ve not been a politician, a murderer or a concert pianist either. My atheism tends to be conscious avoidance of what I know, when it would be convenient for reality to be different.
However, having known some thousands of Christians over the last half century, I’ve known plenty who began as atheists. Sy Garte is one, and even shared a blog with me (or shares, when he takes a holiday from his own blog). My life was turned round in 1965, and there’s an end of it.
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I too have had many life experiences that have tested my inner resolve and beliefs. But I always found peace and comfort with human reasoning and human empathy.
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Well, that’s a shared experience then. However, peace and comfort are paradoxical things - often it’s been at times of maximum strife and discomfort that life and faith been most true.
For me, it has been in times of life or death moments where reasoning provided the clarity of purpose and meaning.
Have you seen the below argument below-
http://evoinfo.org/publications/lifes-conservation-law/
They seem to be spending a lot of effort in developing this.