The Destiny of the Human Race and the Meaning of Our Lives

and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,eating steak and drinking wine.

“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Isaiah 22:13


and

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows….

“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves,
….
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire.

Matt 24:7-8; Luke 21:25; Rev 16:8

The Apostle Paul said:

If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
1 Cor 15:32

More and more nutjobs and terrorist states are getting nuclear weapons. Any bets on the likelihood of a nuclear, chemical, biological conflict of large scale? One doesn’t need an ICBM to deliver a bomb, just bring a boat close enough with a device to the shore of some country and set it off….Heck, some boats with the equivalent of dirty bombs, just my spontaneously leak and cause damage:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/russian-nuclear-subs-meltdown-danger

What about global warming and overpopulation? Famines indeed.

Additionally, Michael Lynch, Bryan Sykes, John Sanford and others think the human genome is deteriorating. Sykes gives the human race about 100,000 years. How long will the human race last?

So here is your chance to agree with my grim assessment of the destiny of the human race or provide a more optimistic PollyAnna viewpoint.

Additionally, in light of the grim future of humanity, here is your chance to express where you find meaning in human existence. Maybe all you have is just a search for amusement. Some are amused by science, some by phylogenies, some by mythology, some by sports, some by promoting YEC, some by flying airplanes, some by playing video games, some by running a business, whatever. Minimizing pain, maximizing good times seems a reasonable strategy for a lot things in life.

I suppose it would help if some go to heaven after this miserable world ends, but in the meantime, if you have the chance, you can also have a good time. Nothing wrong with going to casinos and having a good time eating and drinking and then going to church. Casinos have the best cuisine on the planet such as in Las Vegas (provided you don’t get killed by some nutjob):

stratosphere

old vegas cuisine

As far as sermons, here is my favorite by Joel Osteen (net worth 55 million dollars from book sales). Here is a 55 million dollar sermon, my favorite! I’ve listened to it many times. Osteen expresses how I find meaning in life:

So here is your chance to speculate on the destiny of the human race and speak about what gives meaning to your life in view of the grim future facing the human race.

117 thoughts on “The Destiny of the Human Race and the Meaning of Our Lives

  1. A classic TSZ Thread.
    Mindpowers is here telling us about his mission, if only the creator had front loaded that knowledge. Sal holds up Olsteen as a model for Christianity, Mung is down with the Trump.

  2. stcordova:
    Richardthughes,

    HEY!Long time not see old friend.

    Hi Sal, hope you’re well.

    I’m not a Christian, nor a model for others but I think you’ll find happiness in the service of others.

  3. Mung: Isn’t that what Trump is doing?

    He’s serving himself and his family, to some degree rich donors.

  4. Rich:

    Hi Sal, hope you’re well.

    I’m not a Christian, nor a model for others but I think you’ll find happiness in the service of others.

    Hey, I hope you are well too. I think of you every now and then. I remember your fine collection of scotch. I guess we got on the topic of scotch one day because Bill Dembski said he’d give someone a bottle of malt scotch or something if ID lost in court…… 🙂 So that’s when you told me of your fine collection of scotch.

    A relative left a bottle for Rum 3 years ago at our house. I haven’t finished it, but when I take a small teaspoon every now and then, sometimes I use it to flavor a bowl of Bryer’s vanilla ice cream. Sometimes when I see the bottle I think of you and your collection of scotch.

    I did do something good for a change recently. I’ve been helping a homeless couple in our church. I thought I’d mention it since I think it might mean something to you.

    Cheers!

  5. Richardthughes: He’s serving himself and his family, to some degree rich donors.

    So he’s serving others. Like I said.

    I suppose you’re one of those poor souls who believes Democrats and Socialists don’t serve their families or rich donors.

  6. Kantian Naturalist: What’s so great about the Constitution?

    Most of it was a practical solution to a practical problem: how to get political unity between slave states and free states. That’s why we have the 3/5 clause about Congressional representation, the Electoral College that gives more political weight to smaller states, and the authority of the Senate (in which slave slates and free states are equally represented) over the House of Representatives (which would strongly favor free states if not for the 3/5 clause).

    And it failed. The Constitution failed to do one of the most important things it was designed to do: prevent a civil war over slavery.This in itself should hardly be surprising: the Constitution was written by intelligent, educated people of that time and place, but they couldn’t have foreseen how the argument about slavery would intensify as slave states refused, again and again, to accept any constraint on the expansion of slavery.

    While the Constitution certainly has some grand aspirational principles behind it, we should not fetishize it or treat it as an idol. It’s a badly flawed document that has largely outlived its purpose.

    i’
    m Canadian but your very wrong. in philosophy and practical knowledge of the American constitution.

    The Constitution was made to finalize conclusions in a otherwise government based on the people deciding what to do on their whim. DEMOCRACY.
    In other words it was establishing Gods laws as trumping mans.
    Slavery was a trivial matter in their day. Just another thing on a long list.
    there were more important matters affecting the people and really mankind.
    It was in no way cognizant of preventing a civil war.
    In fact i think all the states were slave states. not many slaves but not illegal yet.
    the american constitution along with the rest of the government was the greatest form of government ever made by mankind.
    Its the origin for British/Canadian etc democratic concepts. the origin for the other nations to get rights for their people, but they skrew it all up,.
    it was messed with my amendments too many.
    its corrupted by the supreme court aplenty.
    yet its a glorious conclusion in its essence.
    It teaches mankind there are God given rights, nature, and it aGREES with these rights from God and this while in the government which is a great contract between the people on how they rule themselves.

    The constituion is just finale conclusions .
    A great gain for mankind. Don’t mess with it .
    Fix the messing thats gone on.

  7. Robert Byers: It teaches mankind there are God given rights, nature, and it aGREES with these rights from God and this while in the government which is a great contract between the people on how they rule themselves.

    Funny how there’s no mention of God in the Constitution.

  8. Mung: I don’t find it funny.

    My point is that the Constitution was written as a wholly secular document. Do you have a problem with that?

  9. Kantian Naturalist: My point is that the Constitution was written as a wholly secular document. Do you have a problem with that?

    “In God we trust” didn’t become the US motto until the 1956. Strangely, it happened when both the house and senate were Democrat.

  10. Kantian Naturalist: My point is that the Constitution was written as a wholly secular document. Do you have a problem with that?

    Do you think that the founders knew they were crafting a “wholly secular document”?

  11. Salvador cites Luke 21:25 but fails to quote the preceding verse:

    They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

    The obvious context is the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in AD 70.

    Salvador’s gloom and doom outlook for our future is based upon taking Scripture out of context and misinterpreting it. Just like the atheists do. Go figure.

  12. Sal,

    If God is going to destroy this universe and recreate a new one, as you have said it many times, why should we all “..eat and drink, for tomorrow we die…” ??? Isaiah 22:13

  13. stcordova: Personally, I didn’t vote for him, but I like him more and more every day. His speech in South Korea was awesome. He compared the left-wing Godless world of North Korea with the right-wing Christian capitalist world of South Korea. God bless Emperor Cyrus.

    Hah. If he’d said, “I’m a totally brilliant person with a very great memory. Extremely rich. And smart too. Went to Wharton. Never been such a smart president. And the North Koreans? They and their little rocket man are nothing but doody-heads. I hate them, and will soon kill them.” You’d still love him. In fact, there’s nothing that he could do or say that would change that. You love him because he’s not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. That’s enough for you and all the other Trump supporters. Y’all don’t give a shit, or really care to find out, what he does.

  14. walto:

    . You love him because he’s not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

    That’s not far from the truth. I hate collectivism being forced on me. I favor the Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ludwig von Missus, Milton Friendman, Friedrich von Hayek school of economics.

    Thomas Sowell expresses my views of Barack Obama quite well:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UpiNiaak18

  15. Sal:

    …Ludwig von Missus, Milton Friendman…

    Founders of the Badd Speling Skool of Econamics.

  16. J-mac,

    If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

    Paul
    1 Cor 15:32

    But if the dead ARE raised, then we should have a different view of the way we live. I was rhetorically posing the question to people here at TSZ who don’t believe the dead are raised.

  17. stcordova: But if the dead ARE raised, then we should have a different view of the way we live. I was rhetorically posing the question to people here at TSZ who don’t believe the dead are raised.

    Maybe those dead that are raised are not necessarily so-called christians? Maybe those dead are atheists who had never had a chance to get to know God? How do you know?

    If I were God, I would never raise from the dead christians like Osteen…
    Would you like to know why?

    Just to make it interesting:

    Mat: 10:8

    ” Freely you received; freely give.”

  18. Since it is supposed to be may farewell tour I’m going to try to put myself in atheists’s shoes; all those neglected homosexuals, lacking faith and so on….
    I’m going to try to understand why they hate religion, God and ID from their prospective…
    I’m going to challenge religion like Christianity, Judaisms and so on…

  19. J-Mac,

    Since it is supposed to be may farewell tour…

    It isn’t supposed to be your “farewell tour”. You’re supposed to be gone already.

  20. Yes! Yes! Mm-hmm…. Cleveland 117 San Antonio 109

    BTW: Does keiths do anything else but pretend that he knows something on this blog? I mean, isn’t this blog supposed to be fun? It’s not for real, is it?
    If someone or something (do not want to offend chimps in transition) have nothing else to do besides this lousy blog, they should see a psychiatrists and not just anyone…

  21. J-Mac:
    Since it is supposed to be may farewell tour I’m going to try to put myself in atheists’s shoes; all those neglected homosexuals, lacking faith and so on….
    I’m going to try to understand why they hate religion, God and ID from their prospective…
    I’m going to challenge religion like Christianity, Judaisms and so on…

    Man, if you think that atheists hate religion, you have a long way to go!

    And what’s with the “neglected homosexuals”, anyway? One of my best friends is a gay (and happily married) Catholic theologian.

  22. walto: Y’all don’t give a shit, or really care to find out, what he does.

    The problem with your argument, as far as I am concerned, is that I took the same attitude to Obama and Clinton. Do you know a politician who isn’t a liar?

  23. Kantian Naturalist: Man, if you think that atheists hate religion, you have a long way to go!

    Perhaps it’s only famous atheists who publish ignorant anti-religion screeds that hate religion. 🙂

    Say we take “the four horsemen” as typically representative of modern atheism.

    They are all clearly anti-religion. Are they not?

  24. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire.

    Could it be possible that this is imagery, not to be taken literally? Not only that, but many interpreters don’t believe this passage indicates something that will befall all of mankind. So it isn’t the destiny of humankind. Sorry Salvador.

  25. Mung: The problem with your argument, as far as I am concerned, is that I took the same attitude to Obama and Clinton. Do you know a politician who isn’t a liar?

    Oh, so you don’t like Trump at all?

  26. walto: Oh, so you don’t like Trump at all?

    I did not vote for Trump. What I do like is what his election exposed. Trump hysteria.

  27. Kantian Naturalist: My point is that the Constitution was written as a wholly secular document. Do you have a problem with that?

    the constitution was written as a part of the whole unique movement of a people making a government and a new, unique, government.
    it was not secular, whatever that means, it was founded on rights from God/creator and based on thinkers who said rights were based on God/nature.
    it was a great presumption the natural rights of man and the right to form a government to enforce those rights/including rejecting the gov’t if it didn’t,
    WERE FROM< THE GOD they believed in.
    it is unique for these reasons.
    There is no other origin for natural rights. if no other origin then only man would be the source and so not natural. not beyond man to agree or disagree.
    You couldn'ty misunderstand the constitution any more then this. SORRY but it seems that way.

  28. walto said:

    You love him because he’s not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. That’s enough for you and all the other Trump supporters. Y’all don’t give a shit, or really care to find out, what he does.

    Pretty much the same thing could be said about those who hate Trump. And no, it’s not “enough” that he’s not Hillary or Barack. He’s also not Romney, Bush, McCain, Rubio, Sanders, Kasich, Christie … etc. There’s a reason corporations completely shunned Trump pre-election, why mainstream corporate media uniformly tried to stop him from getting elected, and why the mainstream elites of both political parties hate him.

    That’s actually the main reason I voted for Trump; I knew that if corporate, media and political elites hated him that much (after decades of loving him until he entered politics), there was a good chance he must represent some kind of threat to them. The universal hysterical elite condemnation of Trump demonstrated, at least to me, that he must have been a true political outsider.

    Do I like.everything he says? Certainly not. But I’m willing to put up with his abrasive style in order to get to the substance, which so far has been pretty much exactly what I wanted to see happen. Economy is booming, Obamacare is being dismantled, politicians are being exposed for what they are, illegal immigration is being addressed, the fake news media is being exposed daily, human trafficking and international crime cartels are being dismantled, ISIS has practically been obliterated, etc.

    After basically one meeting with the Saudis, they rounded up several hundred princes and officials on corruption charges. The media is trying to play it up as a authoritarian grab of power there to paint it negatively, but good grief, it was already an authoritarian state!

    Now Trump is having many government files exposed by releasing them to the public. It’s really interesting to see how this guy works, to see how he is greeted around the world. The Europeans basically, for the most part, shun him and treat him badly, but the Russian and Chinese people adore him. The Chinese totally disrespected Obama when he visited; they treat Trump like he’s king of the world – and this after a year or so of media tools saying Trump was going to bring us to war with China with all his tough talk on their trad and IP practices.

    It’s really incredibly interesting.

  29. William J. Murray: The Chinese totally disrespected Obama when he visited; they treat Trump like he’s king of the world – and this after a year or so of media tools saying Trump was going to bring us to war with China with all his tough talk on their trad and IP practices.

    So the Chinese flatter Trump with paid actors and a military parade and he melts and forgets all the tough talk. You hoped Trump would be so easily manipulated?

  30. Mung: Perhaps it’s only famous atheists who publish ignorant anti-religion screeds that hate religion.

    Say we take “the four horsemen” as typically representative of modern atheism.

    They are all clearly anti-religion. Are they not?

    I have no reason to think that Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett are representative of ‘modern atheism’. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. I have no idea.

    I’ve read the four respective books (God is Not Great, The End of Faith, The God Delusion, and Breaking the Spell). The only one I liked was Breaking the Spell, and even that is basically an updating of Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained with better cognitive science. (It’s also not one of Dennett’s better books.)

    If you wanted a book that explains the atheist/agnostic perspective but which is also philosophically good and easily readable, my suggestion would be Life After Faith. It’s far superior to anything that the so-called ‘four horsemen’ have produced, which is why it’s not as popular.

  31. newton: So the Chinese flatter Trump with paid actors and a military parade and he melts and forgets all the tough talk. You hoped Trump would be so easily manipulated?

    Trump gets tough on the Russians too

    He ( Putin) said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew from Da Nang to Hanoi in Vietnam. Trump spoke to Putin three times on the sidelines of summit here, where the Russia meddling issue arose.
    “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,'” Trump said. “And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

    “I think he is very insulted by it,” Trump added.

  32. From the New York Times:

    Mr. Trump heaped disdain on the former leaders of three American intelligence agencies — John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; and James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired this year — appearing to suggest that they were less trustworthy than Mr. Putin.

    “I mean, give me a break — they’re political hacks,” Mr. Trump said. “You have Brennan, you have Clapper, and you have Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar, and he’s proven to be a leaker, so you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that.”

    Putin must be laughing his ass off at Trump’s gullibility.

  33. Kantian Naturalist: If you wanted a book that explains the atheist/agnostic perspective but which is also philosophically good and easily readable, my suggestion would be Life After Faith.

    Thanks for the recommendation.

  34. newton: You hoped Trump would be so easily manipulated?

    That Trump guy. Next thing you know the Chinese will be trying to get nuclear weapons to protect themselves from him.

  35. Mung: That Trump guy. Next thing you know the Chinese will be trying to get nuclear weapons to protect themselves from him.

    Wish I had one

  36. Kantian Naturalist: Man, if you think that atheists hate religion, you have a long way to go!

    If you love religion so much, why aren’t a part of your theologian-friend’s religion?

    Kantian Naturalist: And what’s with the “neglected homosexuals”, anyway? One of my best friends is a gay (and happily married) Catholic theologian.

    Is your gay friend married to a woman???

  37. dazz: Possibly. Breaking news: there are gay women too

    Breaking news: Gay women are called lesbians…just in case you didn’t learn it yet…

  38. William J. Murray:
    I see the Earth as a kind of workshop in a much broader framework of existence.I also think of the Earth in a kind of multiverse multi-timeline perspective, so I’m not concerned about how things play out in this particular iteration in any overall sense.

    What I am concerned about is learning what I came here to learn and developing the skills and attributes I came here to acquire via my experience here, to carry that through to the astral/heavenly dimensional states of existence.

    Oh wow. Have you ever looked at your hand? I mean REALLY LOOKED AT YOUR HAND…

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