Didn't someone ask here? Or are you saying heypartner is an atheist who's just trying to spread the religion of atheism?
I never made an argument in favor of materialism, someone else did.... If an either-or world is their view on existence, that's their problem as it is clearly yours... A soul can "exist", please note the use quotations, as a human construct, as symbolism.... without a religious connotation... Art is created, and meaning is applied to enhance the quality of life from a human perspective.... unlike, religion, it has no purpose outside of this physical world.... nor is it meant for anything outside this physical world... Like all things in life... no matter how majestic the universe is, or how much so much of it is difficult to see with the naked eye... it's all here... not a part of some other intangible existence... That's why it's called life... and not "after life"... That's why life is precious... because everything worth having, feeling, seeing, knowing, touching, experiencing, is a part of life.... That's why no one wants to die.... That's why the survival instinct is so damn strong in every living creature... That's why the drive for procreation, food, and water is so intense.... Life wants to continue on as long as possible, because it's so damn inherently and wonderfully valuable as it is, it has no need of a god, or heaven, or paradise-like state of enlightened unearthly state outside of life to give it any meaning... To consider life a "stepping stone" to "a greater glory after life" is absurd... To say, "if there's nothing afterwards, what's the point of living" is beyond idiotic...
How are you defining rationality and irrationality? You seem to be using these terms in a way which doesn't make sense to me. Being rational isn't simply being emotionless and mechanistic. A clock is emotionless and mechanistic -- it isn't rational. We generally refer to choices or actions as rational if they are purposeful and undertaken based on a consideration of the range of potential consequences. Conversely, they are "irrational" if they undertaken without consideration of consequences and without any purpose. The creation of art can absolutely be rational if it has an intended purpose to convey a particular message or emotion to the audience and is constructed in such a manner as to realize that intended result. Your last sentence has it exactly backwards, in my opinion. We create meaning in the universe and in our life through our rationality, not despite it.
This is not *correct. Read about any experiments on proton entanglement and you'll quickly spot the quicksand under local realistic theories. Hell, read any article on the Copenhagen interpretation. *Disclaimer: on this issue, I'm somewhere in between Sufism, CFS Bayesianism, formalized two-state vectors, and general anti-realism.
I would never breach this subject outside of this forum. Actually, I would never breach any subject I post about in this forum outside of this forum. It's just a fairly harmless place to give a voice to my thoughts and weigh them against personalities I know (assumed or actual). I'm always mystified that what seems so clear and logical to me is a 10% minority opinion in society in general.
So were flat earth, gravity affecting light, tsunamis, lightning, higgs boson, and a million other subjects that were unexplained or proven for a long time until somebody came in and provided an explanation that can be tested and verified by anybody. There are still a lot of things that science cannot explain. Stating that logic and reason currently has no explanation for problem X just only vindicates it's strength. If you don't know, you don't know but keep on working until you find the answer. So far, in the history of mankind, using this methodology has been our best source of determining what is true or not and it is not even close.
