Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life

[AV1611VET]

That's why I'm sure he would seek the help of other people, just like most reasonable people would... Just like I hope you would.

There comes a time though, when a person reaches a stage when they're beyond all medical intervention, and are sent home under hospice. What does an Atheist do then?

 

[Bombila]

You just remember these words the next time you have someone dear to you needing some kind of beneficence that no astronomical object can produce.

Astronomical objects are irrelevant in such situations. I prefer being grateful to the human beings who are always the real, visible, approachable benefactors of my loved ones when there is need, and who don't demand craven self-abasement to provide those beneficiences.

 

[thaumaturgy]

You just remember these words the next time you have someone dear to you needing some kind of beneficence that no astronomical object can produce.

Friend,
When I was in my darkest night of the soul, the 6 straight months of such crushing depression that I seriously considered suicide, I prayed night and day for deliverance. I will most assuredly remember my words. Do you know what comfort God sent me? None. Except the belief at that time that I would end up in Hell if I did commit suicide, or I might accidentally harm my roommate by some of the means I was thinking of at that time.

I suffer mightily still with the issues that plagued me back then, and yet no deliverance from the hand of God. The hand of science has come closer to providing me deliverance. I am not suicidal anymore, but I do suffer nonetheless.

We all adapt to our suffering as we must. I sat and watched my dad fade away over 8 agonizing years. I sat by his very bed and watched him literally die.

Don't "threaten" me with FEAR, my friend. I have plenty of it in spades. I dread tomorrow on so many occasions I am almost unable to function. When I was a believer I felt much the same way.

It made no difference to me whether I actively prayed to God on a nearly minute-by-minute basis or whether I simply assume he doesn't exist as I do now as an atheist. Life is still pretty much the same.

Don't wave your "threat-god" around me, bubs. I have little time for it. In fact, if anything, my abandonment of "faith" improved my life. It was one less thing I had to obsess about and worry non-stop about.

One less needle in me.

While I understand you and others may have similar painful stories to relate I also understand you adapt to those pressures differently than I do. I am merely pointing out that "Worship" is for those who love and need the "Threat God" to fulfill the darker corners of their soul.

 

[thaumaturgy]

There comes a time though, when a person reaches a stage when they're beyond all medical intervention, and are sent home under hospice. What does an Atheist do then?

If you are the caregive, you give human compassion, not threats of hellfire and eternal torment for not believing as you do.

If you are the one dying, you realize no one gets out of this life alive.

I am not looking forward to pain or the end of my life. I'm not looking forward to dying the way my dad did. I don't, however, believe that threats to worship something that has always been pretty absentee will ameliorate those issues.

 

[thaumaturgy]

How's your friend doing now --- (just to be nosey)? And if that's how you feel about it personally, don't be shy in asking someone here to pray for your friend(s).

And don't you be shy telling the doctors who can help to use their science to "take a hike".

Oh, and by-the-by, please point me in a direction of the latest study on the efficacy of prayer to heal. I'd be most interested.

 

[AV1611VET]

Friend,
When I was in my darkest night of the soul, the 6 straight months of such crushing depression that I seriously considered suicide, I prayed night and day for deliverance. I will most assuredly remember my words.

Been there --- I think --- only not as long as you. Just recently, in fact; and I thought my prayers were being intercepted by a black hole.

 

[Psudopod]

How's your friend doing now --- (just to be nosey)? And if that's how you feel about it personally, don't be shy in asking someone here to pray for your friend(s).

She's fine now, thanks for asking. My point wasn't that there wasn't someone I could ask ( I even tried myself), it was that no matter how much I wanted it, I couldn't believe like that.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

There comes a time though, when a person reaches a stage when they're beyond all medical intervention, and are sent home under hospice. What does an Atheist do then?

Try to make them as comfortable as possible. But in the end everyone dies...

 

[DaveISBG]

Let the handwaving, post hocing, and goal post moving begin!!!!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

An Interesting observation offered by Szostak

"Szostak says there are still lots of other unanswered questions about the origins of life. He says his experiments represent just one idea, and it's not clear exactly what the original building blocks of life were. Beyond that, he says, "if you have all these building blocks, how do you get them to work together to exhibit biological behaviors like evolution? Then once you've got evolution going on, how does it gradually become more complex?"

 

[MrGoodBytes]

There comes a time though, when a person reaches a stage when they're beyond all medical intervention, and are sent home under hospice. What does an Atheist do then?

Everything a Christian would do, apart from hoping that the god who didn't care enough to heal someone on earth will arrange an eternity of bliss in heaven for the same person.

 

[AV1611VET]

Everything a Christian would do, apart from hoping that the god who didn't care enough to heal someone on earth will arrange an eternity of bliss in heaven for the same person.

Didn't care? When Jesus refused to heal Himself?

And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

We each have an appointment with death --- when the time comes, why would God cancel out that appointment by healing the person?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Didn't care? When Jesus refused to heal Himself?We each have an appointment with death --- when the time comes, why would God cancel out that appointment by healing the person?

Because death is God's enemy, as you are so quick to point out in discussions about the supposed unbiblicality of evolution? Why should God let people suffer in order to keep an "appointment" (who made that appointment, by the way?) with one of his enemies?

 

[AV1611VET]

Because death is God's enemy, as you are so quick to point out in discussions about the supposed unbiblicality of evolution? Why should God let people suffer in order to keep an "appointment" (who made that appointment, by the way?) with one of his enemies?

Many years ago there was an article in the Reader's Digest written by a doctor who had a friend who got lung cancer and slowly died. The doctor couldn't understand why God let the man "linger" for about 8 months, until he finally realized that God was breaking the man's will to live.

Sometimes when the time comes, death is made to be welcomed.

 

[Bombila]

Many years ago there was an article in the Reader's Digest written by a doctor who had a friend who got lung cancer and slowly died. The doctor couldn't understand why God let the man "linger" for about 8 months, until he finally realized that God was breaking the man's will to live.

Sometimes when the time comes, death is made to be welcomed.

AV, that is arguably the most revolting explanation of an instance of 'God working in mysterious ways' I have ever read.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Many years ago there was an article in the Reader's Digest written by a doctor who had a friend who got lung cancer and slowly died. The doctor couldn't understand why God let the man "linger" for about 8 months, until he finally realized that God was breaking the man's will to live.

Sometimes when the time comes, death is made to be welcomed.

I'll let that post just sit there and speak for itself, in all its metaphysical sadism. Congratulations, AV, you are doing more damage to your religion that any of us atheists would ever dare to dream of.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'll let that post just sit there and speak for itself, in all its metaphysical sadism. Congratulations, AV, you are doing more damage to your religion that any of us atheists would ever dare to dream of.

I'm sure others know exactly what I'm talking about. My mother "suffered" for months with advanced emphazema, and I was in the room looking right at her when she died --- not once did she complain or blame God for being sadistic. That's the difference between being mature and foolish. Even Job refused the advice to "curse God and die".

So go ahead and let that post sit there --- it's an inspiration to some --- foolishness to others.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

I'm sure others know exactly what I'm talking about. My mother "suffered" for months with advanced emphazema, and I was in the room looking right at her when she died --- not once did she complain or blame God for being sadistic. That's the difference between being mature and foolish. Even Job refused the advice to "curse God and die".

So go ahead and let that post sit there --- it's an inspiration to some --- foolishness to others.

It's a pity about your mother and others like her. It's even more sad that you can think and be glad of a sentient being that would allow such a thing to happen in spite of it's power.

 

[AV1611VET]

It's even more sad that you can think and be glad of a sentient being that would allow such a thing to happen in spite of it's power.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

-God Leads Us Along, text and music by G. A. Young

 

[Bombila]

AV, most of us here who are over forty have probably witnessed the deaths of loved ones, and some of those were lingering and unpleasant, or horrifying, painfilled and fast, and many of us were either Christians at the time or surrounded by Christians. Not one Christian I know (and my family are very devout Christians) has ever believed God tortures people on their deathbeds deliberately in such a fashion. That is a thoroughly Mediaeval bit of theology.

 

[AV1611VET]

Not one Christian I know (and my family are very devout Christians) has ever believed God tortures people on their deathbeds deliberately in such a fashion.

Neither do I.

In my opinion --- and I can't prove it --- but I think that when the time comes, God makes a way that we can bear it.