Lord Larehip

While I am a hardcore atheist, I grapple with the idea that this one life is all there is going to be. I can live to be 200 years old and what will I have learned about existence? Really nothing. This life we are living is just not long enough for us to really learn anything about that life.

If life was really whatever you wanted to make of it and it didn't matter what you did because when you're gone, you're gone, then why don't I just go and kill everybody I hate and just rape all the women I've always wanted to have sex with? Gee I have never burned down a house full of people or sexually molested a child so why don't I just go do these things for the hell of it? There's no payback so what does it matter?

And yet, it DOES matter, doesn't it? Many religious people think that if you don't believe in their god, their religion, that you WILL do those things. Of course, they must be brain-dead because most of the people that currently exist or have ever existed were not members of their religion and they did not go around killing and hurting people just because they wanted to. The truth is, they didn't want to. But the question is WHY? The answer doesn't really suffice: "Because it's wrong!" But why would someone with no religious convictions at all believe it is wrong? "Because society frowns on it!" But that's not the reason you don't do that stuff. You don't do it because YOU don't believe it's right--period. F-uck society. YOU don't believe in behaving that way. But the truth is, you really don't know why.

Serial killers, war criminals who murdered and tortured innocent people, rapists, thieves--they feel no remorse. They're not bothered by what they did. Why would you be bothered by doing the same thing if there is no real payback if you can get away with it?

We can talk about conscience, ethics, increasing the chances of survival by reinforcing certain beliefs and behaviors but all of these are empty if you really analyze them. To say I don't murder people because I have a conscience is saying what? What is a conscience? From Meriam-Webster:

Main Entry:con£science
Pronunciation:*k*n(t)-sh*n(t)s
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin conscientia, from conscient-, consciens, present participle of conscire to be conscious, be conscious of guilt, from com- + scire to know — more at SCIENCE
Date:13th century

1 a : the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good b : a faculty, power, or principle enjoining good acts c : the part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonitions to the ego
2 archaic : CONSCIOUSNESS
3 : conformity to the dictates of conscience : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : sensitive regard for fairness or justice : SCRUPLE
–con£science£less \-l*s\ adjective
–in all conscience or in conscience : in all fairness

(As an aside--ALWAYS keep a dictionary loaded into your computer, it's so very, very handy.)

Our definitions are tautologic--they go around in circles. To truly understand this definition, you'd have to define every word in it and then each of those definitions must also be defined until you finally end up back where you started none the wiser. The definition fails simply because it doesn't tell us WHY we have a conscience or why others don't.

I posit that the reason some of us have a conscience and some don't MAY be because those who do not have a conscience feel deep down that there is anything to regret after death. Those who do have a conscience, on the other hand, cannot escape the belief that SOMEHOW there WILL be a payback. Maybe it's not some bearded, wizened old man in a robe up in the clouds surrounded by angels that passes judgment. But somehow, some way, we must pay for what we do. Even if you're an atheist.

By examining the various philosophies and religions of the world, I found that the doctrines of karma and reincarnation to be the most palatable explanations. So began a long search for a philosophical argument to support it. After many years, I think I have one that is air-tight. It doesn't explain everything or even much of anything but it does lay out a case for reincarnation and that's enough for right now.

If you're interested, I'll lay it out for you (it's fairly complex).