i spend a lot of time on the internet. i post at a lot of message boards, and i read a lot of stuff, written by a lot of people.

when you take some time to look at the various widespread debates of politics and philosophy that we, in our various civilizations and cultures, have argued amongst ourselves since the human race was born, you start to notice a pattern.

these debates-- is there a God? how should He/She/It be revered and worshipped? what is the best way to run a country? what defines right and wrong, good and evil? --are unending for a reason. this reason is simple:

WE ARE STUPID.

human beings simply do not have the faculties to provide a definitive and logically 'correct' answer to any of these questions. to proclaim that you, of all people, know the ultimate correct answer to any of these questions, the answer that exists to the exclusion of all others, is arrogance of the worst kind. to decry somebody else as ignorant because their stance on any of these immortal issues differs from your own ought to be inexcusable, but instead such behavior flourishes on the internet. every chump who thinks he's got it is welcome to declare himself the greatest thinker of all time, as long as he can get online.

nobody knows the answer-- not you, not me, and not one philospher that has ever lived. everything we believe is an opinion, developed to conform with our experience with and perception of the world. our minds are so muddled with the travails of everyday life that we are totally incapable of percieving genuinely objective Truth as it pertains to the great questions we ask ourselves.

you might have a system of beliefs that works for you, just as i have opinions about the universe that work for me. however, neither one of us has the right to say that we know the one correct answer... and as long as we exist in this state we call life, we never will.

Yeah, but... Come on! People talk about "life after death..."

Obviously (to me) people who believe in an "afterlife" don't understand life OR death. They completely miss the point.

I might not know what's best for people, but I sure as hell think that ignorance of the most fundamental experience of life can and should be put to an end.

Zip