4. Justice;

[Strong Atheist]

or vengeance, if you prefer. This is the fourth reason for religion to be invented. It fills the need to get back at all the nasty people (and their actions) in the world. No justice in this life? Bad guys getting away with it, good people having bad things happen to them? Well don't worry, it is not the random, unfair, uncaring process that it seems (life, that is). All will be made well in a conveniently unverifiable "next life".

At least, that is the way that many religions fill the need for justice (vengeance, whatever). As atheists, we know that life appears unfair and random BECAUSE IT IS. If you want justice/vengeance, you better get it now in this life, 'cause there ain't no afterlife.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I think in the past I probably has looked to an afterlife for

justice.

But I also believe in kharma and I know personally that if I do something nasty (and I can) something bad happens to me shortly thereafter.

Like if I tattle at work on a colleague (don't do this very often) you better believe the next day I will get in trouble for something.

Go figure.

[Strong Atheist]

3. But we can all give many

examples of where "bad" people "get away with it" their whole lives, or "good" people have horrible things happen to them FOR NO REASON. Life appears random because it is.

[papau]

4. The mind of God - the reasons for anything are not known. We know science

and reproducible experiments and the rules or "laws" or "theory" that predict those results.

And we "know" not much else.

So we give an event a "good" or a "bad" and say events are randomly good or bad.

But life experience suggests Karma.

How do we reconcile the life experience with our word game that got use to "random"?

[trotsky]

5. "Life experience suggests karma"?

How?

There are plenty of examples of bad people getting away with it, and good people suffering horribly. Unless you can directly trace these lives to bad actions in a previous one, or retribution in the next, there is no life experience whatsoever that suggests or even hints at karma being a real phenomenon.

[Strong Atheist]

6. I do not see

a God or gods in anything in my experience of the universe. Just random occurrences ...

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Isn't it interesting, though, that those who are most set on vengeance

in this life are those who claim to believe in the next?

[manic expression]

7. Not really

is gravity "random"? No.Every action has a reaction. Every wrong is righted. Always.

Some people may "get away" with bad things, but there is much more to the story. A person who fights for justice their life and dies because of it will be much better off than someone who lives a long and luxurious life from wrong.

Don't believe me? I refer you to every scientific law, ever. Even evolution is not "random".

[trotsky]

8. "Wrong" and "right" have no meaning in scientific laws.

You are applying them to areas where they are utterly not applicable.

Poppy Bush is responsible for some pretty horrible things. But he's enjoying a nice life way into his elderly years. When will his wrongs be righted?

Ronnie Ray-gun? Sure, he died of Alzheimer's, but from a sufferer's standpoint, that's not a horrible way to go. Never felt much pain. His family, however, including his quite liberal son, suffered a lot.

Face it, you cannot say that "Every wrong is righted. Always." That is completely false.

[manic expression]

9. Of course

but the same exact ideas manifest in other ways in other situations. What is force and friction in physics becomes something completely different when (correctly) applied to other things. The truth is still the same.

Poppy Bush could live until he is 120, and comfortably at that, but that is insignificant. To think that temporary comfort is the end of the story is ridiculous and short-sighted. It will come around for him, don't worry about that.

Same with Reagan. If you look at death as the complete end of something, that is mistaken.

Every wrong is always righted. Go to Central America and look at the kids who are growing up in a country that Ronnie tore apart with injustice and wrongdoing. They are the future, they will overcome what has been wrongly placed upon them. You can already go to public hospitals in El Salvador (that are pretty good, no less), where before the revolution that would have been unheard of. Every empire that has ever risen has fallen in the same way it was forged. The Romans, Persians, Spanish, Byzantines every dynasty in China to ever rule, Mughals and others. They all felt the return of their deeds in a great way.

Hey, just don't take my word for it.

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King Jr., Accepting Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 10, 1964

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."
Ghandi

[trotsky]

10. We obviously have different ideas of what it means

for a wrong to be righted. I'll leave it at that.

[manic expression]

11. If you would like to

But I would like to know, what do you think a righted wrong constitutes?

Perhaps "overcoming wrong" would be my short definition, along with the inevitable reaction against the wrongdoer.

[trotsky]

12. The entire point is,

right vs. wrong in the human justice sense is not a function of Newtonian laws of mechanics. You may find it poetic and inspirational to think so, but there is no such relationship.

You speak in absolutes, that wrongs are always righted, but that is the language of poetry. That's all I'm saying.

As to what rights a wrong, what makes a rape "righted"? The woman who was raped can never be un-raped. Punishing the rapist doesn't un-rape his victim. Executing or even jailing a killer doesn't un-murder their victim(s). Without that one-to-one relationship, you have to back off into nebulous concepts like the next generation of Salvadorans working for a better future. More of a "good can come of evil" argument. Sure, but what if the evil had never taken place? Wouldn't those kids be in a better situation NOW?

I can completely buy into the idea that progress eventually always wins over regress, I mean that's supported by history. But that is not a physical law nor does it arise from physical laws other than the sense that physical laws govern the minds that reason.

[manic expression]

13. Not so

There is right and there is wrong. If you say it is up for subjective judgement, I would argue that there is an objective worth to everything (especially the actions of an individual or group). I also believe that the same truths are constant in everything, including science.

I may say things in a more "artistic" way, but there is great truth in poetry, is there not?

If a crime is done, the victim can heal those wounds. The criminal will also face retribution in some form later on, and that is ignoring arguments you would term "mystical". Perhaps the rapist will take a path of drug abuse and destroy themself in the process, or perhaps s/he will be haunted by their own conscience for their lifetime (and then some), or perhaps they will end up in prison.
...by the way, I think that these sorts of things constitute real wrongs. That is generally what I am talking about, you can see that there are right things and wrong things (and, of course, a lot in between).

Those kids would be in a much better situation if those things didn't take place, but then again, there wouldn't be a wrong to right if it didn't.

I do think that there is definitely a connection between scientific laws and the way things work in the world (with governments, people, groups, etc...). However, we do agree on the point you specified.