Without Jesus Christ life is ultimately futile.

Responses: >> "I cannot believe that you personally nor anyone else actually derives meaning through their descendants." So you get no meaning in your life from having children?? That is what really sounds unbelievable... >> "I believe they may derive temporary meaning through their children's (and to a MUCH lesser extent grandchildrens) achievements such as academic or buisness sucess etc." Again - so you would get no meaning in your life if you had a completely unsuccessful child?? I don't think you grasp the concept that PROCREATION ITSELF gives a life meaning. >> "Ones immediate offspring are mentioned often.. one's far off progeny, never." .... That would be because one's far off progeny don't EXIST YET. One's ancestors, on the other hand come up fairly often. I know several people who mention things about people they're related to. For example, I've probably heard the story of how my friend Culver can trace his heritage back to Charlemagne a dozen times. If he didn't get any meaning in his life from that, why would he mention it? >> "what is life? Is life really just born/grow/breed/die? " Throw some interaction in the middle between grow and breed and you've got life in a nutshell. >> "in actuality death is the real focal point of our lives." How can that be? Birth is a prerequisite for death. Thus, birth is more important. >> "Does someone on death row have the same quality of life as you and I?" No - but that is by virtue of his misdeeds.... >> "Real Life, as God intended it, is eternal." Then why do we spend a bunch of time suffering for a finite time if we could just live eternally with God? Is that somehow beyond his power? >> "As much as animals 'believe' in anything at all they believe in Jesus Christ" You have GOT to be kidding me. The jellyfish recognizes Jesus as its creator..... This is for sure going on my website. >> "They chose the devils and they did indeed 'surely die' both spritually and, eventually, physically." Then are they living eternally or not? >> "Christ is our 'spotless Lamb' . His blood alone has the divine worth to pay the debt." What debt? If I don't recognize God, I surely will not recognize any sort of debt... >> "Rom 5:14 This passage shows the purpose of the Law! to expose sin! " You don't seem to understand that Rom 5:14 and 1 John 3:9 are in direct contradiction to Rom 3:23.... >> "Compared to his generation Lot was righteous." Compared to Alexander and Cortes, Hitler was righteous... In fact, in terms of pure body count, Hitler was probably more righteous than God himself, considering God has killed some probable 30+ million people (counting the great flood - http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com...). *********************************************** My opponent's conclusion: >> "life that is not eternal is meaningless and eternal Life can only be gained by the acceptance of Jesus Christ's attoning sacrificial death." Eternal life may have more meaning to some than finite life, but that does not make finite life meaningless. Furthermore, My opponent's argument completely ignores the fact that Jesus himself was the savior of the Jews, and the Jews don't even accept him as the son of God. The Bible, which has been around a lot longer than Jesus, states that the Jews can be saved. The entire Old Testament is about this. Take for example, Elijah, who supposedly ascended to heaven (for eternal life) on a chariot of fire. Elijah did not accept Jesus Christ, yet was granted a place in heaven for eternal life. Thus, even from a Biblical point of view, the resolution is negated. Let us re-examine the definition of futile: 1) incapable of producing any result; ineffective; useless; not successful 2) trifling; frivolous; unimportant. Does any voter out there who does not have Jesus consider his life to be any of these things? Even a reader who knows Christ would consider this notion to be fairly silly, as it is obvious that atheist and Jews' lives are not meaningless, useless, unsuccessful, trivial, frivolous, or unimportant. One does not need Christ to have a meaningful life. As I pointed out in Round 1: "Measures of success are up to an individual. My opponent has no grounds for asserting that his definition of successful, useful, or effective is correct. I may consider my life to have been effective if I serve others in any capacity. I may consider my life to be useful if I accomplish anything that benefits others. Belief in Christ is completely immaterial to both of these points." Datcmoto has not responded to this contention, other than to assert that there is somehow an objective standard of futility that he failed to elucidate. He also failed to respond to the notion that there is no purpose in being alive on Earth that cannot be more effectively served by intervention by God - for example, if the purpose of life is to glorify God, we can simply go straight to heaven and spend more time glorifying God in a much more effective way. I have shown three different ways this resolution fails: 1) Biblically (example of Elijah). 2) Personally (meaning/futility is subjective) 3) Spiritually (Spiritual purposes do not require living on Earth) My opponent has not responded to any of these in a satisfactory manner. Much of his argumentation is regarding how one should accept Jesus because that is the only way to have meaning, NOT whether or not this will actually GIVE your life meaning, OR whether it is NECESSARY to have meaning in one's life. NEGATED.