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for all those who think the possibility of no afterlife er whatever is bleak and pessimistic, I suggest you read "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus.

OK... but I have other shit to read like my Chem textbook. Why don't you summarize it?
Granted not-existing is certainly better than burning in hell forever... but that doesn't mean that the fact that our consciousness ceases to exist after death isn't fucking grim.
 
Actually I disagree. It's pretty bleak to realize that you and everyone else on this planet is not here for a purpose... in essence we are really no more valuable then an extinct animal or a virus or that once you're dead there is no afterlife just an eternity of nothing... that everything we treasure and strive for will one day crumble into nothing. It's pretty bleak to me.
I disagree with you disagreement :cool: . The "lack" of purpose has never bothered me. I get to choose my own purpose in life. And who is to say what our value is? In the grand scheme of the earth, yes we are rather insignificant, but from my eyes, I value the many accomplishments of the human race. As for the death thing, I'll be dead so I won't have to see everything crumble, unlike if there was an after life :) .
 
Actually I disagree. It's pretty bleak to realize that you and everyone else on this planet is not here for a purpose... in essence we are really no more valuable then an extinct animal or a virus or that once you're dead there is no afterlife just an eternity of nothing... that everything we treasure and strive for will one day crumble into nothing. It's pretty bleak to me.

I can't accept the idea that it is "bleak" to be aware of the reality of life, as opposed to prescribing to some unfounded notion in order to validate the superiority of the human race. I believe there is no afterlife. I do not believe in souls. I do not believe that we have a "purpose" or that life has any greater meaning to it than what we and others give to it. I can only imagine that this would seem bleak to somebody who is too tied up into the myth of the afterlife that they can no longer accept anything less as appropriate. Me, I'm perfectly content to end my existence with my death.
 
Agree with you both. And just because there's no "supreme being" to look after me when I'm dead, doesn't mean that life is pointless. I can still live a rich full happy life and achieve many things and be content in knowing that I'm not going to exist after I die in some mystical fantasy land or be reborn or some shite.
 
The point of art, all art in any form, is to connect with your audience. Drama, music, and even visual art has to do this in order to be good art. If it fails to be accessible, to connect with the audience, it's just intellectual masturbation, to quote a favorite author of mine. So you can have fun with your inaccessible art, but don't go thinking that YOUR opinion of art or even whoever the fuck you quoted's opinion of art is the truth. My definition of good art is communication of a feeling, thought, etc. in an unconventional way, a way other than day to day communication, but a way that anyone can understand and connect with. If you limit your audience you're limiting yourself, you're saying I can only do this form because I want to appeal to the masses, or to the select few, or to this specific person, or to my record company, or whatever. If you don't limit your audience, if you say everyone can come see what I have done, see what I have created through my hard work, and connect with it and me, then you have a whole new realm of creativity to explore. That doesn't mean it has to be poor in quality, or simple, or marketed for the masses, but if you say to yourself that you are making this for yourself and for your audience, whoever it may be, then you understand what is, at least to me, the meaning of art. Of course, these are just my thoughts, my opinion, and is not the be-all-end-all truth. I create art in a different way than you do. You make art that will last for generations, I make art that is written on water, able to be experienced only a few times, and every time at least slightly different. I am also at a different skill level than you are in my particular craft. But my thoughts on the meaning of art can be just as valid as yours. I would advise you not to limit your audience, because as I said earlier, when you limit your audience you limit yourself.





























That was fun.




EDIT: AHA! I read the entire argument and it proved my point! Titanic is a chick flick, it limits it's audience and limits itself. That is why it SUCKS. It's not that I couldn't connect with the characters or anything else, it's just bad. It was marketed to be accessible by women (and men who are limp in the wrist) who love romantic stories, instead of telling the story of the entire Titanic. It was limited to be as cheap as possible and make the most money: it targets the chick flick audience, does enough to please them, and stops. It does just enough to make money. Does this make it art? NO. It is a movie. Not art. There are some films that are artistic, but not Titanic. It's not about communicating to the audience, about telling an interesting story and showing the character's feelings, although that is what it almost did, what it could have done. It was about making money. They focused on the romantic because that makes money. Hollywood, baby.


Oh my god your idiocy actually made my jaw drop.

The 'real art is inaccessible" thing I was arguing AGAINST first off. Secondly, you have no fucking clue about Titanic. Love stories don't make anything a bad movie. Making money doesn't make it a bad movie. You just proved that author's point, you fucking dipshit.

God I still can't believe you totally misinterpreted what I was saying. How could you misinterpret that I was fuckign AGAINST elitist artist bastards (who are usually modern/Post modern abstractionists, etc) who fucking claim that art has to be inaccessible to the general public, that they can't understand it yada yada, so because the general public understood TItanic, because it wasn't an overly complex film, it can't possibly be art.

Titanic was seen at the time as a movie for everyone. It not only had Romance, it had action, it had history, it had female nudity, it had a little sex but not too much so even children could watch it. It's a good film for everyone you moron. Care to actually explain why you think it was catered simply to women?? Oh, i know, because that's what you idiots say around here because you have this weird hatred for it(probably because I like it or something shallow like that) and so it's simply a chick-flick from here on after.

God I just can't believe how stupid you are...

Oh one more thing: "It was limited to be as cheap as possible."

What does that even mean?? Are you talking about the film's budget? What are you talking about?? Titanic was the most expensive movie ever made, ever. They spent so much money making that thing it's almost absurd, except for the fact they spent all that "excess" on getting the original carpets made, the original lifeboats and pulleys made, original china, EVERYTHIGN made from the original manufacturers and the original blueprints that they came from in 1912. Everything is authentic to a T, it's incredible. I haven't seen many other director's put so much time and money into that kind of authenticity...
 
What does that even mean?? Are you talking about ... ... ...that "excess" on getting the original carpets made, the original lifeboats and pulleys made, original china, EVERYTHIGN made from the original manufacturers and the original blueprints that they came from in 1912. Everything is authentic... ...
Whoa really?

The Greys: About an alien visiting planet earth and getting his arse kicked by some black dude..
 
Titanic is actually more akin to that shitty Pearl Harbor movie. Strikingly so. Everyone thinks Pearl Harbor blows, so why people think Titanic is any better escapes me.

Garden State is pretty crappy too.

Terminator 2. Now that's a film.

Um, duh, Pearl Harbor (which came out a few years after Titanic), was trying to do what Titanic did. It fucking failed. Why should you bust on Titanic for that?

Oh yeah.... you're an idiot asshole extraiordinare. Yeah, you heard me.


I am awesome.
 
Whoa really?

The Greys: About an alien visiting planet earth and getting his arse kicked by some black dude..

Yeah, really.

If you don't believe me, look it up...

Not only that but they basically rebuilt the entire Titanic (and seperate bits of it like the stern to be able to move up to a 90 degree angle, etc) only to then flood it and destroy it, of course.

If you don't respect the plot/movie itself, you have to at least respect all the work that went into it. The cast and crew said that walking around on set felt basically like being in a huge, luxiurous ship--- like being on the Titanic.

"Rather than scaling it down entirely, the production simply removed 18 feet between each smokestack and 20 feet from the poop deck. As built, the set was 775 feet long and ten stories high. A giant crane used in the construction of this set was also used as a camera mount for fly-by shots of the ship. The set was only constructed on the starboard side; the port side was all metal work and open scaffolding. In order to film the departure scene from Southampton which, in real life, was appropriately done from the port side, Cameron filmed the starboard side and then "flopped" the film in the lab. This meant that all the signage and lettering seen in this sequence would
have to be lettered backwards. "

=P
 
OK... but I have other shit to read like my Chem textbook. Why don't you summarize it?
Granted not-existing is certainly better than burning in hell forever... but that doesn't mean that the fact that our consciousness ceases to exist after death isn't fucking grim.


Sisyphus is the guy that was punished by the Greek gods to roll the boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down for all eternity. rather than being all pissed off and whathaveyou, Sisyphus chose to embrace the absurdity of his situation and to love (ish) his punishment and maybe to piss off the gods.


so even if there is no afterlife, we have to embrace and truly enjoy every minute spent on earth.
 
linkcatgreenzo4.jpg

Awesome
 
I was not into movies like that until like 1,2 years ago. I ended up coming across Scarface for cheap and buying it because I heard it was classic. After that ended up seeing goodfellas and casino and was like holy shit these movies are awsome.

I still have not seen the godfather.
 
I'm going to end my participation in the atheism discussion simply because it's no use to try to reason with people who only think in absolutes. "THERE IS NO GOD AND THERE IS NO WAY THERE EVER COULD BE WE ARE ALL A COSMIC ACCIDENT SO THERE" is just as absurd to me as "THERE IS A GIANT GUY WITH A WHITE BEARD AND HE HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US AND OF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT THAN YOU GO TO HELL".

There is no proof of "God". But how could one ever, ever think to disprove a being that is all mighty and beyond the scope of out comprehension?

My belief- my opinion- is that the idea that we simply live and die is bleak. Weather or not Tom J. Atheist is happy doesn't enter into it, his views are still depressing to me. Therefore, I choose to believe that there's something more to our existence than our lives here on earth, and yet I see no reason to adhere to a strict religious code (however I do think people should listen to what Jesus said, which was basically to be good to each other). Not adhering to a religion turns religious people into real dick heads because they believe that not doing so is wrong. However, saying that one does believe in something greater than humanity turns Atheists into real dick faces (see: this thread) because they find it so offensive that someone could disagree with them.

Cookicutter and V5 illustrate this point better than I could, since they refer to belief in God as being "decieved" or "fantastical". Pretty arrogant thing to say- right on the level with saying "If you don't go to church, you'll go to hell". Same exact thing but with less burning. How can you profess to "know" the secrets of the universe?


ohiogrinder said:
Christians just want to guilt trip atheists into thinking that everything they do is in vain and will lead to damnation because they don't believe in a higher power.

I'm glad Grinder said this because he is absolutley right. He's also conveniently ignoring (or too dense to realize) that Atheists are just as guilty as religious people in this regard (though Grinder has chosen to forgot that religions other than Christianity exist. Chrisitians may annoy people who don't agree with them, but Muslims kill Jews over disagreements. And you're worried about Christians?). If you mention "God" to an Atheist, you better be fucking prepared to hear how stupid and ignorant you are, how you're a sheep and that you've been duped by religious nuts who just want to control you and that you'd better become an Atheists because only Atheists have the right idea. Same exact thing, except the religious nuts offer you paradise after death and Atheists offer you a hole in the ground. Awesome!

Even though I want this to be the end of my participation in this discussion, I doubt it will be.
 
I was not into movies like that until like 1,2 years ago. I ended up coming across Scarface for cheap and buying it because I heard it was classic. After that ended up seeing goodfellas and casino and was like holy shit these movies are awsome.

I still have not seen the godfather.

You've got taste. See The Godfather and The Godfather Part II as soon as you can, they are considered by many to be among the greatest films ever made. In fact, the first one usually makes the top of those lists, and the second on often being called the greatest sequal ever. The third one isn't so great, though. Good movies, but not compared to the others.
 
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