Aurino said:

either God exists and life is good, or God doesn't exist and life is just needless, meaningless suffering.

There is a middle ground where afterlife and perhaps many lives exist, but they happen because of natural causes and not because some intelligent god is making choices about each individual. The original Buddhists, who were quite sophisticated about the spiritual aspects of the universe, were of this mind.

So I think it is a mistake to identify atheism with materialism, which is what I see happening in this thread's discussion. Life can be good and meaningful even if there is no god control of everything.

Regards,

Richard

• Defining 'God' - harvey1 - October 31, 2002 - 18:23 UTC
  • OK- a very broad definition of god - yaniru - November 1, 2002 - 03:10 UTC
    • slowtoburn - paprice1 - July 1, 2003 - 21:38 UTC
• My view - aurino_s - October 31, 2002 - 19:45 UTC
  • I do think of myself as an aspect of god - yaniru - November 1, 2002 - 03:13 UTC
    • So we're quite close - aurino_s - November 1, 2002 - 13:54 UTC
      • You're both Jews? - quiet - November 1, 2002 - 16:54 UTC
        • Jesus was Jewish - yaniru - November 1, 2002 - 20:39 UTC
          • Paul was Jewish too (nt) - harvey1 - November 1, 2002 - 21:23 UTC
      • Dark matter is just a possibility - yaniru - November 1, 2002 - 20:41 UTC
        • In my personal, unqualified opinion... - aurino_s - November 1, 2002 - 21:10 UTC
          • Dark matter comes from astronomical observations - yaniru - November 2, 2002 - 01:48 UTC
            • It's not that I don't care - aurino_s - November 4, 2002 - 14:49 UTC
          • www.astronomy.net has a link to a confirmation - carefuluniverse - November 2, 2002 - 19:39 UTC