cueball61 said:
Oogaland said:
This thread is proceeding remarkably civilly -- nice to see. :)
Now if only it could stay
On-Topic...
Seriously, it's discussing of the meaning of life, not a discussion of whether God existed or not...
True... but if you don't mind, I'd still like to give my two cents on the subject, since it's already been discussed recently.
Personally, I think people just took the bible too literally and
converted it into a religion. Creativity did exist back in 4000 B.C., and I'm more than willing to believe the bible really is just a library of free-verse poems stacked into one to describe earlier historical events.
I mean, think about it. In the story where everyone tries to communicate with each other to build a tower that reaches heaven, God... um, strikes a thunderbolt or something and makes everybody speak different languages. It's possible that this could be translated to there being a large civilization that was broken up by some sort of crisis, and as they got split up, the way everyone spoke differed over time, and they could no longer communicate. Another instance is that the term "turning water into wine" is most certainly a metaphor for changing something ordinary and giving it use. Same with walking on water, in which it could just mean doing something no man could think possible. Sure, it's only a theory, but I'm sure there are several similar examples in the Bible, if you flip through it with this point of view....
And to add, what I find wrong with taking the Bible literally, is that it just doesn't add up with prehistorical findings. According to the Bible, the earth was created 4,000 years ago; scientists determine by the process of carbon dating that dinosaur skeletons were buried for millions of years. It also contradicts itself in which God states in the Noah's Ark story that he regrets he ever made humans. If God is supposed to know everything, then shouldn't he have predicted they'd be so sinful in the first place? By the sound of it, he apparently didn't expect it out of ignorance. That doesn't compute.
So, yeah, I'm a bit of an atheist, as you can see. Not that I'm necessarily up for the Big Bang theory. I'd simply consider the beginning of the universe to a random enigma that we should just ignore and get on with our daily lives. My apologies for continuing the off-topic conversation, I simply felt I wanted to express my opinion on it. As for the meaning of life:
I'd rather enjoy it, help other people enjoy it, and make my life as productive as possible.