The One True God
Robin Craig, BSc (Hons 1, Univ. Medal), PhD graduated in molecular biology and is now an owner and COO of Australia’s longest surviving private biotechnology company. He has a long-term interest in both science and Objectivist philosophy and has hosted private monthly philosophy salons for over 15 years. His publications are wide ranging and include numerous scientific papers in genetics, philosophically-themed near-future science-fiction novels (the Just Hunter series) and short stories, the chapter “Good Without God” in The Australian Book of Atheism, philosophical essays on Amazon, and twenty years of Philosophical Reflections, a popular and controversial column in TableAus (the magazine of Australian Mensa). His website monorealism.com includes essays and debates on numerous philosophical topics.
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As for your specific questions:
My origins are my parents. My ultimate origins lie in the origin of life on planet earth by chemical processes in an energy-rich environment.
There is no afterlife. The question makes no sense. Life is a process. When the process is ended, there is nothing left of it except its component chemicals.
No I am not a bunch of chemicals randomly arranged. There is nothing random about life or what makes it possible.
Right and wrong are determined by what is right and wrong for the life of a thinking being. If you are truly interested in the question, try this: http://tinyurl.com/6vf9yd7
If the meaning of our lives is determined by some unknowable extra-human being, then nothing has any meaning because it can change at any time dependent only on the whims of that unknowable and reportedly inimical being. The meaning of your life is the meaning you choose for it.
Once these ground wars are over, the Army team will be back. Not too many kids who might be enticed to an academy are going to go to one where they have a good chance of being shot at in just a few years.
Then you have the problem that that which is possible in reality still should not be believed to be actuality without evidence that it is more than merely possible, evidence that it in fact does exist. To believe without this and act as if it does exist, much less that it is the most highly important, is not rational.
The problem is that we know just enough about the universe to get us in trouble. But, we're working on it. Instead of using the word God, what about The Intelligence? Where does consciousness lead us? What happens when consciousness meets quantum physics? On and on. Who knows what answers will come to us in a hundred, two hundred years? It might turn out that everyone is right. The only answer that can be given at present is, "I don't know, and neither do you."
You'll probably find this hard to believe, but I agree with most of what Dr. Craig writes. I just don't believe that it negates the possibility of a deity. See my other post in response to your quip on the Catholic theology. It's not that different. Free will and reason are critical to being moral people.
"Augustine begins to answer the age-old question why man chooses to do evil by clarifying that what makes humans distinct from animals is the fact that humans have the capability of reasoning and animals do not. Then he points out that some things that men possess uniquely as opposed to animals, such as the �power to jest and laugh� and �the love of praise and glory,� are �of a lower order.� Therefore, when reason rules the soul, �the more perfect [reason] is made subject to the less perfect [desire and passion].� In our day, most people do not even realize they should work toward having reason rule their lives. "
We're not so far apart.
Just wanted you to know I did that before either one of us gets subtracted again.
Something can't come out of nothing.
There is no oo-ee mystery about how.
Not to me.
And to hell with any subtractions anyone cares to shove down my throat too.
Ignoring this doesn't put you above it in terms of consequences.
Either there are reasons for life or not.
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