250 word pulpit

I realized that a portion of an e-mail interchange I had the other day with a friend, set out a pretty accurate concise expression of my core philosophy/belief system. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to post it here, and encourage others to do the same. The 250 word limit is admittedly arbitrary - if you wish to start a thread for 10 or 10,000 word statements, please do so.

Tho your posts may be as many and as long as you wish, I encourage you to set off a discrete portion that expresses your belief system. Nor do you need your statement to be wholly original. I am certain that portions of my following statement may have subconsciously been lifted whole from other sources.

I also encourage folks to comment - including debating - each others’ statements. Personally, I will give priority to comments/criticisms from folk who have similarly attempted to express their personal views.

BTW - I probably spent maybe 10 minutes on my statement, so please don’t think I am expecting anyone to present a flawless philosophy worthy of carving in stone. It is possible that we might be able to offer constructive criticism, as well as competitive thoughts and beliefs, to help up edit and amend our personal statements, as well as our understanding of our inner processes. Or perhaps we will simply end up with a lot of hurt feelings and unnecessary carnage. :wink:

Here goes.

**Life, and the natural world, are wonderful and sufficient for me. And the universe of which we are a part is all the more fabulous the more we expend effort to understand it. I do not see the allure of assuming a posture of being weak, threatened, and “mystified” living in an “unknowable” and often threatening world.

It is possible that there are certain things the human brain is incapable of understanding. But this is not reason for despair - or special celebration. The universe evolved simply in accordance with certain physical rules, not with any particular goal in mind, most certainly not the goal of being understandable by humans. Similarly, the human brain evolved in accordance with natural selection. I see no reason to believe that a capacity for understanding the universe’s every secret would have conferred our species with a competitive advantage.

I suggest there are fantastic opportunities for stretching one’s familiarity with what IS known and knowable about ourselves and our universe. The more I learn, the more I find to celebrate. I do not understand why a person would choose, instead, to define themselves in reference to the relatively smaller portion that could arguably be described as unknowable. Nor do I understand how or why they develop detailed mythologies to “explain” what they do not understand. I would also prefer hearing mystified persons identify exactly what they consider so mysterious, instead of repeating vague poetic allusions.** (240)

Okay. I’ll play.

**My life is a moral journey whose purpose is to learn to love as God does. He is the Objective Reality, the Moral Absolute, and the Love Everlasting. The universe and its atoms are illusions. They serve as a mis-en-scene for man’s moral play. What is real is what is absolute.

The fulfillment of a man’s self-interest is his noblest ethical goal. Reason is his surest footing. Freedom is his natural context. And freedom is the absence of coercion.

I believe that peaceful honest people, whether rich or poor, whether powerful or weak, whether wise or stupid, whether gay or straight, whether atheist or theist — no matter any consideration whatsoever save peace and honesty — should be free to pursue their own happiness in their own way.

I believe that a man’s consent is sacred, that his rights accrue from his ownership of property, that to abridge his rights is tyranny, and that he is born with certain rights and property including his body, his mind, and his spirit.

I believe that Jesus Christ is God, that He gave His life — both physical and spiritual — and took upon His shoulders the sins of the world. I believe that He rose from the dead, leaving sin in Hell, and has prepared a place for any who wish to be with Him.

I believe that good and evil are born in the heart, and that Heaven and Hell are within us. I believe that God and we are one. We are all eternal.**

(250)

Thank you, Lib.
Just wanted to note that I may not get to a computer much over the weekend - so don’t think I’m abandoning this thread.
250 on the dot - you da man!
I very much like the term “peaceful honest people”.

This is my take. You get one shot here to determine whether or not life has a purpose. A contradiction always disproves purpose. If a human acts upon a contradiction; they are sentenced to solitary confinement until death or consistency rehabilitation programs. All beings will be resurrected in spite of themselves when this problem is solved. The goal is to create an omniscient artificial intelligence access route to collapse opinion on life necessity conditions.
It is then determined whether life can be lived indefinitely in terms of informed consent. If so, everyone is brought back in this indefinite state with the option to return to finiteness if they so choose.
All judgments need to be reserved only for systems with absolute transparency. If these systems do not exist, ones purpose is to establish them. Any other action is seen as inconsistent with the logic claimed by beings that are observed communicating, eating food, drinking water and hording commodity.
They are arrested for ‘life-crime’ facing the option to be trained in rationality or solitary confinement until death. (176)

-Justhink

addition; may double post_
This is my take. You get one shot here to determine whether or not life has a purpose. A contradiction always disproves purpose. If a human acts upon a contradiction; they are sentenced to solitary confinement until death or consistency rehabilitation programs. All beings will be resurrected in spite of themselves when this problem is solved. The goal is to create an omniscient artificial intelligence access route to collapse opinion on life necessity conditions.
It is then determined whether life can be lived indefinitely in terms of informed consent. If so, everyone is brought back in this indefinite state with the option to return to finiteness if they so choose.
All judgments need to be reserved only for systems with absolute transparency. If these systems do not exist, ones purpose is to establish them. Any other action is seen as inconsistent with the logic claimed by beings that are observed communicating, eating food, drinking water and hording commodity.
They are arrested for ‘life-crime’ facing the option to be trained in rationality or solitary confinement until death.

Suicide machines are placed in every community to resolve non-consent contradictions; within the context of natural law. Evolution itself will determine who is right and who is wrong.

(205)

-Justhink