The photograph shows some lions killing a buffalo. Killing is a common occurrence among meat-eating animals known as carnivores. You’ll agree, it is not a pretty sight. Of course, most humans are carnivores.
After the kill is made the lions will gorge themselves on the still-warm, twitching carcase. The vultures and hyenas will follow and clean up any scraps. If you stop to think about it, right across the world: on land, under the oceans, in the air, as you read this there are billions of creatures killing others for food.
It is a non-stop activity, killing, and the scale of it is massive. Usually it’s the larger creatures who prey on the smaller but, in the case of animals that hunt in packs, much larger prey can be brought down. Lions can kill elephants! Sharks can kill whales! Even ants can overcome much larger insects. And humans, with their superior weapons, can kill anything that moves and in large numbers. Sadly, that includes their own kind (although not usually for food).
Most people believe that a god of some kind made the world and every single thing in it. If that’s the case, then this god made killing part of the equation of life. Yet, ironically, religious people continue to think of this creator as a god of love. Look closely at the photograph again: what kind of loving creator would make the ugliness and agony of being killed in this way a part of life?
Then what kind of creator would create kids with retardation or with two faces? What kind of god would create cancer or people killers like Hitler or Sharon or Pol Pot or Bush? What kind of loving creator would allow people to experience the slow torment of growing old or dying or suffering the death or disappearance of one of their children? The questions are many.
Killing, to me, clearly demonstrates that a god of love doesn’t exist. Perhaps, given the never-ending animosity and brutality between humans (who are supposed to be made in god’s image), there’s only a god of hate?
That there’s no god at all is the truth! Get over it.
I agree there is no god. Nothing can contradict itself. A black ball can not be a white cube. A “loving” god could not create a world so full of pain and misery.
Even without a god life is still a great mystery. There are still questions that need answers. How did it all start? Why is there something instead of nothing? Is there an end to the universe? Is there a purpose to the existence of the universe? What exactly is “life?” What are we experiencing when we think about who we are? Is everything in the universe pre-ordained? Is there such a thing as freewill? Do we humans have the capacity to ever comprehend reality? And by the way what “is” reality?
The quest to answer these questions should be humanities’ highest goal. We are distracted from this goal by our religions. Our religions mean to box us in by their dogmas. Any contemplation outside the box of dogma is considered a threat.
For humanity to ever achieve a truly golden age we will need to find answers to these questions. But to do so we will first have to clear our minds of our religious dogmas and open our thoughts to strange and wonderful possibilities. We will need to think out of the box.
My fear is our religions with their various beliefs in the “end of days” will psychologically push us to extinction long before we ever get close to understanding what “it” is all about. Game Over
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David F, surely a hard, honest, rational look at this world clearly suggests that no god of love made it.
Indeed its chaos suggests that it and the predatory creatures that inhabit it are purely an accident of nature.
The irony is that all religions (Buddhism excepted perhaps), which pose as a redeeming force, actually add to the constant cycle of violence and killing.
What is it all about? Nothing, I reckon. Life just is.
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It very well could be that”Life just is.” However, we are not “…an accident of nature.” Nature follows a set of rules that can be discovered. This is what science is all about.
Once the natural process were set in motion life was a given. Since all natural process follows various sets of “rules” the main question becomes, are we preordained?
If we are preordained then nothing that we do or not do has any meaning. There can be no meaningful concept of morals or ethics. Nature would be neither “good” nor “bad”.
However, if there is freewill in the universe then there is a “chance” that we humans could evolve into a moral and ethical species. We at least have the concept of morality and ethics but do we have the freewill to choose such a path. And can we do so before we destroy this planet as we go into nature’s dust bin of history?
If we are preordained then all that we humans do is but a …tempest in a teacup signifying nothing… as an English playwright once observed.
So the big question is, are we preordained or do we have freewill?
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Preordained or is there freewill? Interesting questions, David. I feel that our genetic inheritance leads to a fair degree of preordination. Instincts both good and bad are constantly at work in most humans.
The amount of freewill seems to me to relate to the amount of indoctrination we receive during the nurturing stage of our development. The greater the indoctrination, the smaller the chance for freewill because indoctrination predisposes us to act and think in a predetermined way.
None of us are free from genetic programming or indoctrination therefore we can never see the world clearly! Finding truth therefore is problematic!
Cheers.
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Dave G.
I like your response to my question about preordination and freewill.
The answer is not a one or the other response.
We are products of the physical universe. As such our existence was preordained the moment the universe came into being.
However, once our species experienced the spark of consciousness and a minimum level of intelligence we also acquired a limited level of freewill. Freewill is a product of the chaotic mental processes that lead to the concept of self or consciousness.
You are correct in pointing out the restriction that indoctrination or dogma puts on the amount of freewill a person may have.
The freewill that a person may have is dependent on how free their mind is to entertain a broad spectrum of ideas and possibilities.
The more restricted a person’s beliefs are the less choices that person has.
By restricting your choices through dogmatic beliefs you restrict the amount of freewill you have.
By opening your mind to strange and wonderful possibilities you enhance your spectrum of choices and broaden your pool of freewill.
Religion and other dogmatic belief systems are antagonistic to freewill.
If we humans do not develop our freewill to the fullest we will be just one more species that has come and gone on planet earth,
I am not sure how we can do it or even if it can be done but we must cast off all dogma be it religious, philosophical, political, social, or economic.
If we do not then it is bye-bye humans.
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Ghastly mess of things, this death business. Then again, I suppose people would not need God if not for death and suffering. Part of the plan, perhaps?
As John Lennon said, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”.
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The chaos of the world defies any concept of a ‘plan’, Dave. If there is, it must’ve been designed by a ‘madman’.
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I’m with you, David G, and cheers. Thanks.
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