# God and Life **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192 "2018-04-26T22:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/161 "2018-04-29T22:25:13Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > That’s not really a scientific question. See, if I was a scientist, I would be fascinated with the Why of things. Perhaps that’s why I’m not a scientist. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/162 "2018-04-29T22:33:30Z")
Well, there’s **always** a why, but sometimes (very often?) the why is a reason and not a purpose. Beginning from “everything must have a purpose” is not an honest way to go about things. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/163 "2018-04-29T23:49:51Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > See, if I was a scientist, I would be fascinated with the Why of things. Perhaps that’s why I’m not a scientist. No, you would probably be interested in the how. Why do the major intelligent species on our planet look like us? We know how we evolved, but the why is probably random. Through a series of random events - like the asteroid hitting - some primates became intelligent. If you demand a why you wind up with theistic evolution. Which explains nothing beyond what secular evolution does. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/164 "2018-04-30T00:10:44Z")
Well… the Gospel of John says Jesus is God, and in John 14:6, Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” so yeah, God=Jesus and Jesus=Life, therefore by the transitive property of equality, God=Life. \ Back when I was on my way to becoming an atheist but hadn’t quite got there yet, I often considered the analogy My Body : My Self :: The World : God. I can plainly see that my body is comprised of lots of tiny pieces, each of which are somewhat alive but have no consciousness, no self, no identity, yet taken as a whole _I_ do have a consciousness. It is reasonable to suspect that Earth (being comprised of lots of tiny pieces, some of which are alive) may have a conscious self as well, but it’s on such a higher level that we humans are no more able to communicate with it than my white blood cells are capable of communicating with me. Or maybe the universe itself has a consciousness. You could call it God, or Life, I suppose. But where does that get us? Not very far, actually. Just because Earth or the universe _might_ have a consciousness doesn’t prove that it _does_. And since my consciousness did not create my body but rather my body created my consciousness, then our analogy suggests that God did not create the universe but rather the universe created God. And if this consciousness does exist, we have very little hope of communicating with it or even trying to figure out what it wants, let alone being able to please it and gain its favor. And there’d be absolutely no reason to believe in life-after-death, let alone have rules spelled out about what you have to do to earn a ticket to heaven. Whatever we have described here bears very little resemblance to the “God” as meant by most people alive today. It certainly isn’t all-powerful, or all-knowing, and it didn’t even create the world. Not much of a “God” there, huh. Maybe it could qualify as a god-with-a-lowercase-g. Maybe. This thought experiment gets us nowhere close to anything described by any mainstream religion. At best, it gets us to Animism. Personally, I have no problem with Animism. I’m just saying, if you wanted to get from “Earth might be alive” to “You must be baptized in the spirit to earn a ticket to heaven”, then I’m sorry but you still have a loonnngggg way to go. I’m an Atheist. I believe there is no God. I mean there is no all-powerful all-seeing creator who judges us and hands out rewards and punishments. Put another way, in order to make it into something I could believe in, you’d have to twist the definition of “God” so far that you’d end up with something that really doesn’t deserve to be called “God” at all. This God=Life stuff is an example of that twisting. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/165 "2018-04-30T00:12:31Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > So what is the reason Life emerged at all, apart from the carbon dioxide thing? I already answered that question–because the laws of physics allow self-replicating molecules to form given the right conditions. The same way that snowflakes can form. And solar systems. And oxbow lakes. And cubical pyrite crystals. Because life is one of the options that every once in a while a planet has the right environment for that complex chemical reaction to happen. I’m sorry that you seem to need to heR something more profound and meaningful and mystical than that, but you aren’t going to hear it from me. Also, I have no idea what “that carbon dioxide thing” means. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/166 "2018-04-30T00:48:36Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Well… the Gospel of John says Jesus is God, and in John 14:6, Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” so yeah, God=Jesus and Jesus=Life, therefore by the transitive property of equality, God=Life. \ > > Back when I was on my way to becoming an atheist but hadn’t quite got there yet, I often considered the analogy My Body : My Self :: The World : God. I can plainly see that my body is comprised of lots of tiny pieces, each of which are somewhat alive but have no consciousness, no self, no identity, yet taken as a whole _I_ do have a consciousness. It is reasonable to suspect that Earth (being comprised of lots of tiny pieces, some of which are alive) may have a conscious self as well, but it’s on such a higher level that we humans are no more able to communicate with it than my white blood cells are capable of communicating with me. Or maybe the universe itself has a consciousness. You could call it God, or Life, I suppose. > > But where does that get us? Not very far, actually. Just because Earth or the universe _might_ have a consciousness doesn’t prove that it _does_. And since my consciousness did not create my body but rather my body created my consciousness, then our analogy suggests that God did not create the universe but rather the universe created God. And if this consciousness does exist, we have very little hope of communicating with it or even trying to figure out what it wants, let alone being able to please it and gain its favor. And there’d be absolutely no reason to believe in life-after-death, let alone have rules spelled out about what you have to do to earn a ticket to heaven. Whatever we have described here bears very little resemblance to the “God” as meant by most people alive today. It certainly isn’t all-powerful, or all-knowing, and it didn’t even create the world. Not much of a “God” there, huh. Maybe it could qualify as a god-with-a-lowercase-g. Maybe. > > This thought experiment gets us nowhere close to anything described by any mainstream religion. At best, it gets us to Animism. Personally, I have no problem with Animism. I’m just saying, if you wanted to get from “Earth might be alive” to “You must be baptized in the spirit to earn a ticket to heaven”, then I’m sorry but you still have a loonnngggg way to go. > > I’m an Atheist. I believe there is no God. I mean there is no all-powerful all-seeing creator who judges us and hands out rewards and punishments. Put another way, in order to make it into something I could believe in, you’d have to twist the definition of “God” so far that you’d end up with something that really doesn’t deserve to be called “God” at all. This God=Life stuff is an example of that twisting. I like the way you explain things. I also like the concept that the universe created God rather than the other way around. Something to explore there. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/167 "2018-04-30T00:51:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I already answered that question–because the laws of physics allow self-replicating molecules to form given the right conditions. The same way that snowflakes can form. And solar systems. And oxbow lakes. And cubical pyrite crystals. Because life is one of the options that every once in a while a planet has the right environment for that complex chemical reaction to happen. I’m sorry that you seem to need to heR something more profound and meaningful and mystical than that, but you aren’t going to hear it from me. > > Also, I have no idea what “that carbon dioxide thing” means. That carbon dioxide thing is me grossly misunderstanding the entropy argument, probably because it’s over my head. You don’t need to offer up anything more mystical on my account, and the ideas you’ve proposed so far give me much to ponder. So thank you for that. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/168 "2018-04-30T00:52:58Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > … And since my consciousness did not create my body but rather my body created my consciousness, then our analogy suggests that God did not create the universe but rather the universe created God.… Every event that happens has one or more preceding causes. So the premise is that the deity is cause prime. Hence, if the universe created the first cause, but the first cause had to precede the creation of the universe, you end up with a paradox that can only end with: they created each other, reflexively. Which, in the realm of mysticism, is not untenable. Or you could surmise that time itself is not that simple, that the universe has always existed and always will, in terms of how we are able to understand it. Beginnings and ends make sense to us, so that is how our theories are structured. We could be misinterpreting the data due to some missing component that would change our point of view. If the universe were not ever created, it would not require a prime cause, and it would not make sense for such an entity to have emerged. Although, I have to admit that the Earth has given rise to some frightfully odd lifeforms with some seriously superfluous features, so it might not be unreasonable to imagine that the universe has formed some sort of vestigial appendage. Maybe they even form and dissolve with regularity. But any deity is still going to be superfluous. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/169 "2018-04-30T07:15:51Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > You mean, he IS actually an atheist who’s posing as a religious writer to get his point across? I’m not familiar with him but it’s the impression I got from what you posted. Not necessarily. He could simply subscribe to a concept of the Divine which supposes that religion is an inappropriate human response to It. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/170 "2018-04-30T14:02:55Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Perhaps your definition of God needs revisiting. Or your definition of Life. Or perhaps I’m merely not interested in attaching labels to things that don’t really fit those labels? > [@Biffster](#): > > So why must “God” be defined in some manner that, for example, makes no sense to me? Who decides what constitutes “God” anyway? Who died and made them boss? If someone comes up to you and says, “Do you believe in God”, what do you think they mean? Is it likely they mean “do you believe in Life”? Or “Do you believe in the universe”? Or do you think they mean “Do you believe in an anthropomorphic supernatural entity that can intercede on the behalf of humans who may or may not have any number of important supernatural qualities, depending on which religion we ascribe to”? Because you wouldn’t ask someone if they believe in life. Or if they believe in the universe. You can define “god” any way you want. Just like I can define “chair” as “a sharp knife propped up vertically”. Or “dog” as “large, aggressive apex predator with stripes who has been starved for three days”. It’s just that when I sit you down in a chair and let my dog into the room, you’re going to end up very, very confused. Because while it’s true that words have usages, not meanings, and while it’s true that you can use words any way you like, if you want to communicate with other people, they’d better understand those usages. And some words contain baggage. For example, if I say “chair”, I usually mean something comfortable to sit on. And if I say “god”, I usually mean some form of supernatural, intelligent deity. Because _that’s how damn near everyone ever has always used the word_! And when I say “god is life”, I’m taking a word that has a _ton_ of baggage and using it in a completely weird way. There’s just no reason for it, unless you’re desperate to believe in something you can call “god”, but extremely uninterested in maintaining a coherent definition of said thing. Case in point: > [@](#): > > For me, God=Life is one way to reconcile my RC upbringing with my more atheistic leanings as an adult. No need to prove whether or not life exists. Okay, but the roman catholic god is _CLEARLY NOT LIFE_. Like, they’re not even close to the same thing. The roman catholic god has a hell of a lot of qualities not shared by life! Like timelessness, omniscience, omnipotence, and a hatred for men boning each other. > [@Biffster](#): > > I agree that words tend to have meanings that we can all pretty much agree to, but I also think “God” is one of those terms that has as many interpretations as there are people. This is, again, a deepity. There is a trivial manner in which it is true - ask two Christians about their god in detail, and sooner or later you’re going to reach a different answer - and the non-trivial implications are just downright false - ask a hundred people what the word “god” immediately implies to them, and you’re going to come up with some consensus implying that they’re talking about a deity, not “life” or “the universe”, unless your sample size is severely skewed in favor of new age hippies. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/171 "2018-04-30T19:34:25Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Or perhaps I’m merely not interested in attaching labels to things that don’t really fit those labels? > > If someone comes up to you and says, “Do you believe in God”, what do you think they mean? Is it likely they mean “do you believe in Life”? Or “Do you believe in the universe”? Or do you think they mean “Do you believe in an anthropomorphic supernatural entity that can intercede on the behalf of humans who may or may not have any number of important supernatural qualities, depending on which religion we ascribe to”? Because you wouldn’t ask someone if they believe in life. Or if they believe in the universe. > > You can define “god” any way you want. Just like I can define “chair” as “a sharp knife propped up vertically”. Or “dog” as “large, aggressive apex predator with stripes who has been starved for three days”. It’s just that when I sit you down in a chair and let my dog into the room, you’re going to end up very, very confused. Because while it’s true that words have usages, not meanings, and while it’s true that you can use words any way you like, if you want to communicate with other people, they’d better understand those usages. > > And some words contain baggage. For example, if I say “chair”, I usually mean something comfortable to sit on. And if I say “god”, I usually mean some form of supernatural, intelligent deity. Because _that’s how damn near everyone ever has always used the word_! And when I say “god is life”, I’m taking a word that has a _ton_ of baggage and using it in a completely weird way. There’s just no reason for it, unless you’re desperate to believe in something you can call “god”, but extremely uninterested in maintaining a coherent definition of said thing. Case in point: > > Okay, but the roman catholic god is _CLEARLY NOT LIFE_. Like, they’re not even close to the same thing. The roman catholic god has a hell of a lot of qualities not shared by life! Like timelessness, omniscience, omnipotence, and a hatred for men boning each other. > > This is, again, a deepity. There is a trivial manner in which it is true - ask two Christians about their god in detail, and sooner or later you’re going to reach a different answer - and the non-trivial implications are just downright false - ask a hundred people what the word “god” immediately implies to them, and you’re going to come up with some consensus implying that they’re talking about a deity, not “life” or “the universe”, unless your sample size is severely skewed in favor of new age hippies. Given that, in all cases, the Christian God is pretty much always the invisible man in the sky, I don’t think it would be at all surprising to find as many different variations of God as there are people. Combine that with the thousands of gods that humans worship, and I think it’s much more than new age hippies who have different versions of god. For many of us, God is simply Life itself. I don’t see why that assertion should be so upsetting. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/172 "2018-04-30T19:53:26Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Given that, in all cases, the Christian God is pretty much always the invisible man in the sky, I don’t think it would be at all surprising to find as many different variations of God as there are people. Combine that with the thousands of gods that humans worship, and I think it’s much more than new age hippies who have different versions of god. For many of us, God is simply Life itself. I don’t see why that assertion should be so upsetting. It’s not so much upsetting in itself as it is nonsensical. It doesn’t mean anything and has no basis in anything resembling observable or even commonly accepted definitions of the two words. May as well go around saying Soap is Radio. Feel free to do so if that makes you happy, but don’t expect everyone to jump on board with your free word association. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/173 "2018-04-30T21:36:05Z")
The problem with treating “god” and “life” as synonyms is that various people have certain ideas about what “god” means, and various ideas about what “life” means. If we try to equate them, we’re going to find that lots of people carry over their ideas about “god” and think that those ideas now apply to “life” and vice versa. So let’s list some of those ideas about god: Eternal Uncreated Creator of the Universe Performs miracles Throws thunderbolts at people who annoy him Is a him Was incarnated as a human being at one point Is an uncaused first cause Is a person Thinks thoughts Listens to people’s thoughts Hears prayers Answers prayers (sometimes with “no”, but still) Has a long list of rules for people to follow If you don’t follow the rules as per above you’re in trouble with God Inspired a bunch of people to write stuff We know what stuff is divinely inspired and what isn’t Carries around a big hammer to smite frost giants When he incarnated as a human being he had blue skin Ordered people to cut off some skin on their penises to prove their loyalty to him Castrated his father with a sickle on the orders of his mother Turned into a swan and totally boned some lady Now, not everyone has all these ideas in their heads when they’re talking about god, and some people would stridently deny that these ideas belong on the list. But they’d agree that some people did have those mistaken ideas about god, but those people were wrong. But when we say that God is Life, do we mean that life carries around a big hammer to smash frost giants? I don’t think so. But we do smuggle in some concepts about god. Especially things like “God is a person that thinks thoughts and cares about people”. People who talk about an uncaused first cause are guilty of the same thing. OK, either there was an uncaused first cause, or the universe existed eternally, either way it’s kind of weird. But labeling the uncaused first cause “God” is an attempt to imply that we know a lot about this unknown uncaused first cause about which we actually know nothing. I mean, that uncaused first cause didn’t have a long white beard. He doesn’t sit on an ivory throne. He’s not a he. The universe began existing at some point, but naming the cause of the universe “God” confuses everything and explains nothing. It doesn’t add to our knowledge, it destroys our knowledge. So it’s a bad practice. What’s wrong with, if we believe in an uncaused first cause, or if we speculate about an uncaused first cause, just using the phrase “uncaused first cause”? Then we know precisely what we’re talking about with no hidden assumptions built in. There are assumptions built in to the concept, but there’ not nearly as hidden as if we called it “God” or some other more confusing name. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/174 "2018-04-30T22:37:33Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > It’s not so much upsetting in itself as it is nonsensical. It doesn’t mean anything and has no basis in anything resembling observable or even commonly accepted definitions of the two words. May as well go around saying Soap is Radio. Feel free to do so if that makes you happy, but don’t expect everyone to jump on board with your free word association. You know, in some ways Soap IS Radio… ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/175 "2018-04-30T23:19:38Z")
Of course, you should all accept that Radio is this guy that lives the next town over from me and [had a movie made about him.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_(2003_film)) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/176 "2018-04-30T23:32:55Z")
my friend once had a Radio-on-a-Rope ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/177 "2018-04-30T23:52:50Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > You know, in some ways Soap IS Radio… In some ways, Shit is Shinola… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/178 "2018-05-01T00:54:05Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > In some ways, Shit is Shinola… :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know. – Groucho Marx ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/179 "2018-05-01T14:48:03Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Given that, in all cases, the Christian God is pretty much always the invisible man in the sky, I don’t think it would be at all surprising to find as many different variations of God as there are people. Combine that with the thousands of gods that humans worship, and I think it’s much more than new age hippies who have different versions of god. For many of us, God is simply Life itself. I don’t see why that assertion should be so upsetting. Care to sit in my chair and pet my dog? 🙂 > [@](#): > > For many of us, God is simply Life itself. What qualities does “god” have? Can you define “god” for me? There’s two options here. Option A: “god” is equivalent to “life”. In that case, there’s _no reason to use the word god_. It achieves literally nothing that just saying “life” doesn’t, except attaching a lot of unnecessary baggage to the term. Option B: “god” is _similar_ to “life” but has some notable differences. In this case, there’s _no reason to use the word life_, beyond saying “it’s sorta like life, _but_…”. It’s just confusing to call god “life” when god clearly _isn’t_ life, but rather something that means something that is either somewhat or entirely different. Language is about usages, but I’m asking you, _why are you using language this way_? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/180 "2018-05-01T14:58:58Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Language is about usages, but I’m asking you, _why are you using language this way_? I submit[post #174](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20932742&postcount=174) for your consideration and conclusion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192.md?page=10)