Sure, maybe. But ultimately you're grasping at straws and hoping for some vindication of shitty life on Earth by a paradise afterwards, which I have already stated is the main reason people come around to religion. It comes down to you choosing to believe or hope in something simply because you
want to believe/hope in that thing, rather than having any good reason to believe it is actually so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirty Harry
I care very much about the god question. The metaphysical is fascinating to me.
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Emotionally, I have no doubt that you do. Intellectually, I don't think this statement stands. If it did, you would be endlessly seeking data, evidence, and literature on the matter. This does not seem to be the case, which is, as I said, the real difference between you and people like myself and Repug (who, while he is going a different direction, I still very much respect his desire and drive to find his own personal truth by digesting many books and other perspectives).
What I see to be the "problem" with this kind of professed (but not actual, in my opinion) atheism is that people who hold to the kind of perspective you have shown here end up very much becoming religious later in life. Whether after having children, a traumatic health event, or a family death, many people who still have hope for a deity end up becoming cemented to one at some point in their lives, through emotional processes, which is very unlikely to happen if you have firm, intellectual, and rational reasons for not believing in a deity. In my experience, people who don't come to atheism in this way are much more emotionally vulnerable to the traps of religion.
I'm not trying to change your mind or tell you you're wrong. I just think that, as you get older and more family-oriented, and closer to death, if you aren't firm on your opinion of something, and convinced that it's the right opinion for very good reasons, it may be very easy for others to take advantage of you in the future. Con artists do this all the time.