"Faith," said Friedrich Nietzsche, the last consistent atheist, “is the will to avoid knowing what is true.” Nietzsche certainly understood the mentality of his fellow non-believers. For atheists exhibit a remarkable tendency to avoid accepting as true the logical consequences of their own beliefs.
For example, in an address to the Ethical Culture Society on “Atheism and Children”, Natalie Angier provides a superb example of the faith-based reasoning of atheism. In an otherwise banal speech, Angier ends by concluding:
I don’t know the answer to fear of death, surprise surprise. But I find it interesting that religious people, who talk ceaselessly of finding in their religion a larger sense of purpose, a meaning greater than themselves, at the same time are the ones who insist their personal, copyrighted souls, presumably with their 70-odd years of memory intact, will survive in perpetuity. Maybe that’s the real ethic of atheism. By confronting the inevitability of your personal expiration date, you know there is a meaning much grander than yourself. The river of life will go on, as it has for nearly 4 billion years on our planet, and who knows for how long and how abundantly on others. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, and we, as matter, will always matter, and the universe will forever be our home. [Emphasis added]
In an attempt at profundity, Angier let slip one of the most absurd beliefs of Western-style atheism: that a purely physical world can be imbued with meaning.
How this is possible is a question that is never adequately addressed. If matter is all that exists, then “meaning” must either be identical to or be a property of matter. If meaning is identical to matter then everything in the universe has the same meaning, making the concept rather meaningless. Objects would be more meaningful based on the amount of matter they contain. A 300 lb. man would therefore be full of more meaning than a 120 lb women and a ¾ ton pickup truck would have more meaning that both of them combined. A similar situation arises if meaning is a physical property of matter. The more matter an object possesses the more meaningful would be its existence.
Perhaps that is what Angier meant when she said that “there is a meaning much grander” than the individual. As long as objects of larger mass exists, then there remains meaning in the universe. A dying atheist can take comfort in knowing that, while their own life will soon have no meaning, there will still be a landfill or a sewage plant to carry on after them.
“Matter is neither created nor destroyed,” begins the creed that summarizes the faith of the atheist, “and we, as matter, will always matter.” We matter because we are matter. We stare blankly at the universe only to have it stare blankly back at us. The faith of the atheist allows them to avoid facing the truth that, as Nietzsche said, “If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you.”
[Note: For the record, I found this article via ALDaily but had decided not to comment. I had written quite extensively lately on atheism and didn’t want to appear to be piling it on. DS, however, sent me an email and encouraged me to write about the speech so you can hold him to responsible for the creation of this post.]
Update: I want to make clear taht I'm not just taking a cheap shot at atheism. I really do want to understand this thought process so if anyone is both a physicalist and an atheist then I would be interested in hearing their thoughts on where meaning comes from.
1
If matter is all that exists, then “meaning” must either be identical to or be a property of matter. If meaning is identical to matter then everything in the universe has the same meaning,...
Ouch. Let me help you with this logical train wreck:
If matter is all that exists, then “meaning” must either be identical to or be a property of matter.
OK.
If meaning is identical to matter ...
Not implied by the first sentence. Some matter may have meaning, but some matter may not have meaning.
Hence:
...everything in the universe has the same meaning..
is also not implied by your premise.
Of course, you can argue, I suppose that Angier pleads that when she says:
Matter is neither created nor destroyed, and we, as matter, will always matter
or you can (read the lines above) think she's only thinking about living beings and beings who have lived.
Either way, I'd disagree with both of you.
2
Some matter may have meaning, but some matter may not have meaning.
Are you claiming that there are two types of matter in the universe, that which may have meaning and that which doesnt? If so, then how is this determined?
3
Angier makes an awkward dive towards saying something of substance and fails with gusto.
Says Angier:By confronting the inevitability of your personal expiration date, you know there is a meaning much grander than yourself. The river of life will go on, as it has for nearly 4 billion years on our planet, and who knows for how long and how abundantly on others. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, and we, as matter, will always matter, and the universe will forever be our home.
She really does seem to conflate meaning with size or endurance. Since our atoms are simply part of a large cosmic masquerade, we can know there is meaning much greater than ourselves? How does that even follow? What does meaning mean to her? Would she say that, for example, the Empire State Building has a lot of meaning because it is big and old? That New Yorkers live in the shadow of immense meaning? That's just absurd.
And if we are all made of the same matter, and if our humanity consists solely of matter, then how can she say this adds meaning to our lives? Our essence is no different than that of Venus or Versace purses or pit vipers in India. That which makes us us is - according to her - nothing special, in the grand scheme of things.
She made a case for meaninglessness to try and prove meaningfulness. Does she proofread her work? I think she needs a literary accountability partner.
posted on 02.01.2005 11:56 AM
4
Of course the universe also consists of abstract truths such as 2+2=4. That is not matter but it has meaning yet I don't see any obvious contradiction of athiesm in such a statement.
Hence, meaning can exist as something other than matter. I agree that her statement puts as nice a gloss as possible on an existence devoid of the supernatural but as well all know from our experience with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus there is no law that says the universe is necessarily pleasent.
Anyway, if meaning exists outside of matter then there could be some larger meaning to the universe that we do not comprehend.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:08 PM5
She really does seem to conflate meaning with size or endurance. Since our atoms are simply part of a large cosmic masquerade, we can know there is meaning much greater than ourselves? How does that even follow? What does meaning mean to her? Would she say that, for example, the Empire State Building has a lot of meaning because it is big and old? That New Yorkers live in the shadow of immense meaning? That's just absurd.
is it really? After 9/11 it appeared that many found meaning in the fact that two large office buildings ceased to exist.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:09 PM6
Matter is not all that exists. Meaning is not matter. And there is no evidence that deities which merit worshipping exist which is why I do not worship such imaginary beings.
But feel free to worship all you want. This is the United States. You can worship 24 hours a day and I don't give a crap. Just stay out of my face and don't pretend that there is evidence for your deities.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:10 PM7
Joe Carter :
I'm not making a claim, I'm only trying to make logical sense of the post by you and Angier's quote.
But I guess that "living or previously living" matter might be one way of distinction.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:18 PM8
"After 9/11 it appeared that many found meaning in the fact that two large office buildings ceased to exist."
That would be, "...two large office buildings filled with people ceased to exist."
posted on 02.01.2005 12:18 PM9
Not quite, there was also much anguish over the loss of the buildings themselves, the 'scar on the skyline'. You'll find quite a bit of people who either didn't like the towers or never cared about them before now miss them deeply.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:21 PM10
Jeff,
So if we had managed to evacuate the buildings so that no one was hurt or killed that we would have just brushed it off and gone about our business? Yeah right.
11
"So if we had managed to evacuate the buildings so that no one was hurt or killed that we would have just brushed it off and gone about our business?"
Mr. Moderate,
If you remove other prejudicial factors, such as being under attack, and having our will usurped - then yes.
Suppose it was determined the buildings should come down. They would be evacuated, and a demolition company would remove them. Do you think that 99.9 percent of the people of the country would care?
In any event, this debate is getting a little silly.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:42 PM12
is it really? After 9/11 it appeared that many found meaning in the fact that two large office buildings ceased to exist.
This is true. So then would you say that concrete, iron girders, glass windows, and office furinture have inherent meaning because of their essential matter? Is the meaning in those buildings a property of the atoms that comprise them?
Angier's point is that we somehow get meaning from being a part of a large dance of matter and energy. I don't think atoms and energy can have meaning without a third party. I think she tried to make a case for meaning inherent to matter and I think she fumbled big time.
posted on 02.01.2005 12:43 PM13
Natalie Angier provides less an example of the faith-based reasoning of atheism, and more an example of how atheists reduce one order of the world to another, and consider it legitimate to do so. This reductive knowing is a trend legitimated by all positivistic science, the ultimate goal being the sanctification of matter and energy. The order of human life, of spirit, is reduced to the mere biological. The biological is reduced to the chemical and physical. Because these created orders cross one another and sustain one another and are connected with one another, the reduction seems like it may be legitimate. But the worst reduction is the reduction of God to a thought, and then the disposal and rejection of whatever that thought is that they call "God".
It is only a kind of pretend power that people who know by reduction have. They call one thing another thing, a butterfly a rock, and the world nods at the mental gymnastics they went through to arrive at this equation. They only can know something or someone by calling them or it something that it is not, something more basic, less alive, and therefore more classifiable and open to manipulation. They cannot know by being in relationship with whoever they claim to know, such relationship being the limits of our knowledge of persons in themselves. Because they will not know at this more mature level of knowledge, this knowledge that depends on wonder and letting-be, the knowledge of life, of spirit and of God is not granted to them-- because knowledge of these demands more than reduction, and the reduction of these makes knowledge of them impossible.
This is why Nietze is wrong. Faith is the only possible mode of knowing PERSONS, both human persons and the Persons of the Almighty. Faith is in no way a leap in the darkness. Just as the only way we may know microscopic organisms is through a microscope,the only way we know an other living person, including the person of God is in the relationship of faith. Persons are irreducible mysteries, and we have to have the correct means of coming to be sure about them and there is only one means: faith.
14
Great post Joe,
I am constantly amazed at our humorous Atheistic brothers who either just ignore the logical conclusions of their beliefs or (more humorously) create out-of-thin-air some wild, inconsistent explanation for still enjoying the aspects of life (like ultimate purpose, meaning, value...)that can only be drawn from a theistic worldview. When they are made to expose these ideas to the light of day it is so much fun for all to see.
I would like to challenge any atheist out there to please answer the 5 basic questions of life that all men must answer (from your atheistic basis). Please provide the logical conclusions of your atheistic beliefs to each question and how your beliefs allow you to tackle life's struggles and comfort those struggling with problems.
1. Origin of life
2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life
3. Morality
4. What has value
5. Meaning/understanding of death
Life is unliveable from an atheistic worldview...(ie. humans are meaningless cosmic accidents with no ultimate value and when they die it will be as if they never existed).. atheists must continuously 'borrow' from a theistic worldview (or perform some crazy, logically inconsistent mental gymnastics to explain morality or meaning) in order to live a fulfilling life. Any takers you brave atheist???
posted on 02.01.2005 1:08 PM15
Matter is not all that exists
Really, what else is there?
And there is no evidence that deities which merit worshipping exist which is why I do not worship such imaginary beings.
So you do acknowledge evidence for the existance of dieties, just none that merit worship;).
You can worship 24 hours a day and I don't give a crap.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. You certainly spend a lot of time obsessing about something you don't give a crap about.
Just stay out of my face
No offense, but no one is compelling you (or me, or anybody else, except Joe) to stay here and I sincerely doubt that anybody just jumps in your face to show you evidence for the existance of God, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or Ploink-Ploink.
and don't pretend that there is evidence for your deities.
The evidence that Jesus existed and did what is attributed to him is the same as the evidence for the existence and accomplishments of Alexander the Great or Julius Ceasar. For all three, the only direct evidence is accounts by contemporaries. You may not accept the evidence as valid (kind of like the O.J. jury and DNA evidence), but it is there.
16
Assume for a moment that the universe is made of just matter and energy & there is nothing outside the universe. Does 2+2=4? What is that? It's a true statement but it appears to need neither matter or energy. Hence abstract truths can exist apart from matter & energy EVEN if the universe is just matter & energy.
Do they have meaning? Certainly. They have meaning that can be applied to matter (if two couples are dancing how many people will that be?) or can be appreciated as meaning in themselves (Ecludian geometry).
The Greeks certainly thought there was more that existed than just boring old mathematical abstract truths. For example, they had theories of beauty. If beauty is symetrical forms, for example, that isn't a property of matter but of how matter is arranged in space...yet it also is considered meaningful. Pick up any book on architecture and you'll note that even buildings like the Empire State Building are imbued with various meanings without reference to any supernatural property.
Sorry Joe, it seems like even an athiestic universe can have meaning in it after all.
posted on 02.01.2005 1:30 PM17
From HumbleBumble: Please provide the logical conclusions of your atheistic beliefs to each question and how your beliefs allow you to tackle life's struggles and comfort those struggling with problems.
...
Life is unliveable from an atheistic worldview...(ie. humans are meaningless cosmic accidents with no ultimate value and when they die it will be as if they never existed).. atheists must continuously 'borrow' from a theistic worldview (or perform some crazy, logically inconsistent mental gymnastics to explain morality or meaning) in order to live a fulfilling life.
Just to save time, I will tell you what your average atheist might say:
"I don't base my worldview/beliefs on what makes me feel good. I base them on the observations I see and what appears to be the real truth. That's the problem with you christians is that you will deny science just so that you can feel better about your life. That's why I call your little religion a crutch. So what if being a "cosmic accident" hurts my self-esteem? I don't blindly follow something just to feel better. This is why scientists and intellectuals can't take you christians seriously... you have no intellectual honesty. You just have your little pie in the sky religion that makes you feel good. Well, I'm happy for you, but I will go ahead and keep looking for the truth, even if it's unpleasant."
And you what? If they said all that, they'd be absolutely right.
posted on 02.01.2005 1:34 PM18
As a former atheist (I lasted about a week) but I'll take a shot at HB's questions. (A wise friend has long claimed that you can't fully refute an argument that you can't yourself make convincingly.)
1. Origin of life
Doesn't make any difference. You're here, now. Deal with it, or not.
2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life
Couple of possibilities depending on your point of view:
A. There is no purpose. Do what you want.
B. There's an appearance of purpose because our highly-evolved problem-solving, pattern-recognizing brains have excess processing capacity, but in reality it doesn't matter.
C. Do the best you can with what you have to work with.
3. Morality
A social construct that evolved as a result of being relatively weak animals living in semi-communal hunting/foraging groups.
4. What has value
See #2.
5. Meaning/understanding of death
The end of life, no more, no less.
As I look this over, it all seems to derive from 2.B. above - our brains have evolved excess processing capacity, and so invent stuff that doesn't exist. That's the fundamental premise, it seems.
Any real atheists, feel free to correct my errors.
posted on 02.01.2005 1:35 PM19
Boonton:They have meaning that can be applied to matter
I don't want to wax philosopically here, but, the meaning applied to 2+2=4 is merely human - it's an invention of the human mind to explain, symbolically, a relationship. Outside of the human experience, it means nothing.
Just my $.02
posted on 02.01.2005 1:36 PM20
Boonton--Is 2+2=4 an abstract truth or is it a means of communication?
posted on 02.01.2005 1:40 PM21
Phil, funny you should phrase it that way. That's precisely the line of reasoning that led me to become a Christian. Knowing that I'm a sinner surely doesn't do any great things for my self-esteem.
It's easy to be a selfish hedonist (and I was) if I consider myself and everyone else around me as meaningless meatsacks on a speck of dust twirling around a third-rate star in a galactic backwater.
But I wanted to be intellectually honest, and so I investigated the historical claims of Christianity with an open mind, willing to (gulp!) follow the evidence no matter where it led. The evidence as I understood it pointed clearly to the Resurrection as an historical fact.
Oh and by the way, there are LOTS of scientists and intellectuals who are Christians.
22
Hi Joe,
I take issue with your assumption that all atheists are scientific materialists. It\'s clearly bogus, especially when you step out of a Cartesian framework (where everything is either spirit only, reducible to spirit, both spirit and matter, reducible to matter or matter alone) and take more of a pragmatic, Aristotelian or Whiteheadean view of the world. At least at the theoretic level, scientific materialists are rapidly shrinking camp; but so are theists.
Best wishes,
Amy
posted on 02.01.2005 2:04 PM23
Corrie: But I wanted to be intellectually honest, and so I investigated the historical claims of Christianity with an open mind, willing to (gulp!) follow the evidence no matter where it led. The evidence as I understood it pointed clearly to the Resurrection as an historical fact.
Well this is my experience too.
However, my beef with HumbleBumble is that he(she?) seems to be trying to justify theism because it just feels so gee-darn good to be special and loved and part of God's plan. I'm sure it feels just grand but that's certainly not any reason to believe in it.
It feels really good to believe that the Holocaust never happened, but I'm not going to ignore history books just because I'm hooked on a feeling.
If Christianity were definitively and unequivocably proved to be false, I would (*gasp*) stop believing in it. I wonder how many Christians would do the same.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:05 PM24
I take issue with your assumption that all atheists are scientific materialists.
I apologize if I gave that impression. My use of the phrase “Western atheism” may not be entirely inclusive but I did intend it to be a distinction from more idealistic oriented forms of atheism. I do think that most Western atheists (who don’t borrow from Eastern beliefs) tend to be materialists/physicalists.
It\'s clearly bogus, especially when you step out of a Cartesian framework (where everything is either spirit only, reducible to spirit, both spirit and matter, reducible to matter or matter alone) and take more of a pragmatic, Aristotelian or Whiteheadean view of the world.
What a second:
1. Spirit only (Idealism)
2. Reducible to spirit (also Idealism)
3. Both spirit and matter (Dualism)
4. Reducible to matter (Physicalism)
5. Matter alone (also Physicalism)
What am I missing? What’s left that's not some variation of the above?
At least at the theoretic level, scientific materialists are rapidly shrinking camp; but so are theists.
Theists are shrinking? So what are we down to now? 4 billion? ; )
25
Joe:
In an attempt at profundity, Angier let slip one of the most absurd beliefs of Western-style atheism: that a purely physical world can be imbued with meaning.The devil here is, of course, in the details. Before we can even address the question, we must first agree upon what we mean by the word "meaning." From your other writings (and this writing), it's clear that your definition of "meaning" is incompatible with a physicalist philosophy, because for you meaning must be imposed by a higher power by definition. Meaning for you is something that exists "out there," and is completely independent of us.
Whereas I submit that meaning is largely arbitrary -- not in a strict individualistic kind of way, but in the sense that language, for example, is arbitrary.
The "meaning" of my life is defined by two forces: how I define it, and how others define it. In some ways, these two are compatible, and in other ways, they may not be. But those are the only forces dictating the "meaning" of my existence.
But once again, we're working with incompatible definitions of meaning. This isn't unlike our prior debates on morality in that respect. Because you cannot conceive of a morality that isn't imposed by fiat by some higher power, you find it impossible to even discuss morality except in terms of that higher power. The same thing goes for meaning.
To you, meaning and God are inseparable. But not everyone agrees with your view on this.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:23 PM26
Good stuff Joe. A couple of thoughts:
Truth and meaning should not be thought of as the same thing. Though connected, they are not equal.
Value should be in discussion as well. Not just "what does it mean?" but also "what is its value?"
jweaks
posted on 02.01.2005 2:26 PM27
Nietzsche also said:
"After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands."
posted on 02.01.2005 2:31 PM28
"I am constantly amazed at our humorous Atheistic brothers who ... just ignore the logical conclusions of their beliefs"
I believe your God exists only in your imagination and you are a deluded person because you worship an imaginary fairy. Logically, I also choose to ignore your attempts to understand me.
What's so funny about that?
posted on 02.01.2005 2:32 PM29
Whereas I submit that meaning is largely arbitrary -- not in a strict individualistic kind of way, but in the sense that language, for example, is arbitrary.
But for a physicalist, meaning isn’t simply arbitrary, it’s illusory. Meaning doesn’t exist at all; it’s merely a part of our “folk psychology.” It may provide some survival benefit but even that is simply an unintentional quirk of nature.
Are you claiming that meaning can be meaningful in any real sense?
But once again, we're working with incompatible definitions of meaning. This isn't unlike our prior debates on morality in that respect. Because you cannot conceive of a morality that isn't imposed by fiat by some higher power, you find it impossible to even discuss morality except in terms of that higher power. The same thing goes for meaning.
It’s not that I believe that morality is “imposed by fiat.” What I believe is that there is an objective basis for morality. Without an objective standard then all morality is relative and one person’s evil could be another person’s good. Differences between the two would merely be disputes over matters of taste.
30
HumbleBumble:
I am constantly amazed at our humorous Atheistic brothers who either just ignore the logical conclusions of their beliefsI'm afraid our "humorous Atheistic brothers" aren't the only ones who ignore the logical conclusions of their beliefs. They don't have a monopoly on this. Christians are often guilty of exactly the same thing. And the truth is, almost no one looks at a belief structure in that much detail unless they're trying to attack it. But notice what they never do: they never offer up a better belief structure. They never offer an alternative that doesn't suffer from precisely the same logical problems. (e.g. "Your worldview is flawed because the Big Bang would be an uncaused first cause, and that's logically impossible! So God must have done it! What's that? What caused God? Why nothing, of course, because God is infinite, and therefore uncaused! Well, no, that doesn't bother me because it's okay for God to be an uncaused first cause! It's only Godless uncaused first causes that bother me...")
Anyway, on to your five questions:
1. Origin of life: Currently unknown. If it makes you feel better to say "We don't know, therefore God must have done it," knock yourself out, but forgive us if we don't go along.
2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life: No "ultimate" purpose in life. It can have arbitrary meaning, from a relativist perspective, but in the grand scheme of things there is none. That you may find this unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.
3. Morality: Depends how you define "morality." Is morality defined by what's best for humanity? Or is it defined by what's best for our world? Our universe? Or is it simply defined by whatever arbitrary rules this deity or that has imposed? Before you can talk about what morality is, you have to agree upon a definition.
4. What has value: In the grand scheme of things, not much. However, during the short time we are here we can (individually and collectively) impose arbitrary definitions of what has value, and in fact, that's what we do most of the time.
5. Meaning/understanding of death: The End, at least for me. There's no higher "meaning" or "purpose" to it at all. Again, just because you think this is unpleasant doesn't make it untrue.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:38 PM31
"Matter cannot be created or destroyed".
This is a loose statement on two counts. The quote should read "energy cannot be created or destroyed". You see, I can take matter and reduce it into dispersed heat energy. So matter can be destroyed. The energy cannot.
Secondly, enery can come in useful forms and non-useful forms. The log I burn is energy in a useful form. The disipated heat, expanding out into a limitless universe is useless energy.
This is the problem evolutionists face when they talk about an expanding and then contracting universe. They see it as perpetual. That the universe will eventually contract into the itty bitty piece of "whatever" and then the "Big Bang" will start all over again. The problem is, what is the mechanism that takes this useless dispersed heat energy and changes it back into useful energy?
Any of you athiests out there have an answer for me?
32
Joe:
But for a physicalist, meaning isn’t simply arbitrary, it’s illusory.Rather like free will for the Christian (and yes, for the physicalist, too), eh? ;)
Are you claiming that meaning can be meaningful in any real sense?I'm not claiming anything yet, because we haven't agreed upon a definition of "meaning" yet. What do you mean by "real sense?"
What I believe is that there is an objective basis for morality.That question, then, is independent of whether or not there's a deity. The truth is, we establish all sorts of objective standards without invoking a higher power. The dimensions of a football field, for example.
Without an objective standard then all morality is relative and one person’s evil could be another person’s good. Differences between the two would merely be disputes over matters of taste.Which takes us to a dispute about what you mean by "objective standard." Unless I'm misremembering your past arguments, you claim that a standard can't truly be objective unless it has been put in place by a higher power, more specifically a perfect being. Which brings us back to the "imposed by fiat" thing.
If, on the other hand, you can conceive of an objective standard for morality that does not require that a perfect being dictated it, then we're starting to get somewhere. :)
posted on 02.01.2005 2:43 PM33
I don't want to wax philosopically here, but, the meaning applied to 2+2=4 is merely human - it's an invention of the human mind to explain, symbolically, a relationship. Outside of the human experience, it means nothing.
"Boonton--Is 2+2=4 an abstract truth or is it a means of communication?"
I'm leaning towards abstract truth. I don't see how 2+2=5 could apply either to our universe or to the world of 'pure thought' if there is such a thing.
More to the point 2+2=5 is a relationship that is clearly not matter. Likewise I could say that the Earth is closer to the sun than Mars. This is a relationship about matter but its not really a property of matter. There's nothing inside Earth atoms that says 'close to sun'. Does this statement have meaning? I think it does in any sensible use of the term. Hence abstract concepts do exist independent of matter.
Before you start in again with the 'it just exists inside of our brian' silliness I'll pull out the 'yea and The Matrix might actually be reality'.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:44 PM34
RA:
This is a loose statement on two counts. The quote should read "energy cannot be created or destroyed". You see, I can take matter and reduce it into dispersed heat energy. So matter can be destroyed. The energy cannot.This misstates things a great deal. You can convert matter to energy, but that doesn't "destroy" anything, it merely changes its form. Also note that energy can likewise be converted to matter, and that doesn't consitute "creating" anything. It's merely a state change. posted on 02.01.2005 2:45 PM
35
Quality, not quantity, Joe....
At the theoretic level, theist numbers are paltry.
If you presuppose Cartesianism (a term of abuse for over 150 years), there are no other options. I\'ll write more later.
Best wishes,
Amy
posted on 02.01.2005 2:47 PM36
2 + 2 = 4?? That's silly.
Just goes to show that there are only 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary arithmetic and those who don't.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:49 PM37
Rather like free will for the Christian (and yes, for the physicalist, too), eh? ;)
You’ve got the wrong Christian. I don’t think that free will is an illusion (remember Newcomb’s Paradox?).
I'm not claiming anything yet, because we haven't agreed upon a definition of "meaning" yet. What do you mean by "real sense?"
“Real” as in existing in the same sense that matter is real and exists.
That question, then, is independent of whether or not there's a deity. The truth is, we establish all sorts of objective standards without invoking a higher power. The dimensions of a football field, for example.
The dimensions of a football field are not objective, just agreed upon by mutual consensus. Of course I’m assuming you mean an American football field rather than what an Englishman would consider a “football field.” See the subjectivity? ; )
If, on the other hand, you can conceive of an objective standard for morality that does not require that a perfect being dictated it, then we're starting to get somewhere. :)
Next you’ll be asking me to conceive of water that’s not wet.
38
"But for a physicalist, meaning isn’t simply arbitrary, it’s illusory. Meaning doesn’t exist at all; it’s merely a part of our “folk psychology.” It may provide some survival benefit but even that is simply an unintentional quirk of nature."
I don't understand what you "mean" here. Certainly the word "dog" refers to something in the world that we could agree on. For example, Rintintin is a dog, Sylvester is not. There's nothing illusory about it.
If we talking about moral meaning, of course the argument gets a little more slippery. But, to my mind there is no "merely" about social strictures, as numerous civil rights workers in the south discovered to their woe.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:53 PM39
Amy,
At the theoretic level, theist numbers are paltry.
But in my theory (Joe's Ultimate Theory of Everything) theists are quite abundant.
(Seriously, though, I have no idea what you mean by “at the theoretic level.”)
40
Boonton: Once again, you totally missed the point. Let me reiterate:
the meaning applied to 2+2=4 is merely human - it's an invention of the human mind to explain, symbolically, a relationship
I'm not trying to say here that, mathematically, 2+2=5. What I'm saying is that the number 2, the + symbol, the = symbol, and the number 4 are human inventions to explain a relationship. Mathematics is a human endeavor, and is not "truth" unto itself.
posted on 02.01.2005 2:56 PM41
Joe,
I read up on Newcomb's Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox). It would appear for you to maintain that the paradox implies free will exists from a Christian POV then God must be unable to see the future (or at least see it perfectly). This would seem to contradict a belief in a God with infinite powers?
posted on 02.01.2005 3:12 PM42
Emmaus,
OF course the symbols only have meaning in the human mind but the relationship they express is what I contend has meaning outside the mind yet is not made up of matter.
posted on 02.01.2005 3:17 PM43
Phil wrote:
"However, my beef with HumbleBumble is that he(she?) seems to be trying to justify theism because it just feels so gee-darn good to be special and loved and part of God's plan. I'm sure it feels just grand but that's certainly not any reason to believe in it."
Did I say that I was trying to justify theism by asking atheists to explain to all of us "weakminded and crutch needing" commoners what they believe and how it affects their daily lives?? Please show me where I made that argument. A bit testy there my friend. Why is that?
But I feel so sorry for our atheistic friends. It has to be embarassing to explain to the public all of the implications of your worldview and how ill equipped it must render you to live life (ie. I am a meaningless cosmic accident in a world full of other meaningless cosmic accidents and there are ultimately no consequences for anything I do and i am unhappy... hmmm... why don't I just kill myself!! Please see JP Sartre for reference.
I feel your pain guys, but it is so instructive for readers who may not see the consequences of your brilliant intellectual arguments.
Phil, since you were so outraged by an arguement that might appeal to emotionalism and real-world tests, you may want to scold Bertrand Russell. I think it was either Russell or Dawkins who is quoted as confidently stating, "Stand by the bed of a dying child with his weeping mother and you will never believe in God." Now who is appealing to emotionalism to justify their worldview? And what do our atheistic brothers have to offer in this real life situation??? "It sucks for you honey, but this is the natural order of the universe at work. Your son, afterall, is a meaningless accident, much like yourself, and soon it will be as if he never existed. So suck it up and shake it off. What is all the fuss about?
You should be careful about assuming who is making what arguement before you get too excited. Will you now say that "This is why scientists and intellectuals can't take you atheists seriously... you have no intellectual honesty."??
It is not just the theist who must answer the tough questions of life, but the atheist as well.
posted on 02.01.2005 3:29 PM44
Larry L. states, "I believe your God exists only in your imagination....." Anybody catch the immense irony in his words? And he thinks he's not funny....
Larry...keep the faith, buddy....
posted on 02.01.2005 3:35 PM45
Well anger for example is also, as best we can tell, a property of matter. Give someone the right drugs and anger fades, give them other substances and anger flares. Some stroke victims with specific areas of the brain affected demonstrate similar signs and report similar symptoms. But knowing how anger is produced at some analytical level or another will never imbue someone with what it feels like to be angry. IOW, it wouldn't do any good to be able to explain to some reductionist standard why something might feel meaningful, if your goal is to imbue someone with that feeling. We have feelings because we have brains capable of producing them Joe (Except for some unfortunate individuals who lack key abilities in that regard). No brain, no feelings, no Gods or odesses needed. It's stranage, here are we yet again with the ole' 'you can't explain the scientific basis of a feeling, so I claim it as the sole purview of my mythology'. That's just not going to fly. We all have feelings, from every walk of life, no religion required. We only need brains for that.
posted on 02.01.2005 3:46 PM46
Rob Smith:
The evidence that Jesus existed and did what is attributed to him is the same as the evidence for the existence and accomplishments of Alexander the Great or Julius Ceasar.Bzzt! Wrong answer. The evidence for Jesus and the evidence for Alexander the Great are far from being equal. I question even if they are of the same type, since the earliest accounts of Jesus date to some 35 or 40 years after he supposedly died. So while many accounts of Alexander and Caesar are contemporary accounts -- and are largely consistent -- the accounts of Jesus are post hoc and often inconsistent.
Boonton:
I'm leaning towards abstract truth. I don't see how 2+2=5 could apply either to our universe or to the world of 'pure thought' if there is such a thing.Just to play devil's advocate, 2+2=4 assumes decimal numbers. In trinary, 2+2=11. ;) posted on 02.01.2005 3:50 PM
47
Joe:
You’ve got the wrong Christian. I don’t think that free will is an illusionNo, I have precisely the right Christian. I don't believe free will is an illusion, either, but as you complain, it follows logically from my worldview that it would be. You have the same problem: All strained philosophical acrobatics aside, the idea of an omniscient God is simply logically incompatible with the idea of free will. It leads you to predestination. The fact that you ignore this logical inevitability simply puts us in the same camp: we both believe that free will does indeed exist, but neither of us can explain, in any useful way, how this can be so.
“Real” as in existing in the same sense that matter is real and exists.That's still not terribly helpful. Can an abstract concept be something "real?" Or does it have to be more tanible than that to be "real?"
The dimensions of a football field are not objective, just agreed upon by mutual consensus. Of course I’m assuming you mean an American football field rather than what an Englishman would consider a “football field.” See the subjectivity?Kind of like "thou shalt not kill," which applies in some cases, but not in the cases of war or execution. Or the "judge not" thing, which also is apparently only situationally applicable. See the subjectivity? ;)
Next you’ll be asking me to conceive of water that’s not wet.It's called water vapor. Or ice. Look them up sometime. posted on 02.01.2005 3:58 PM
48
Phil, If Christianity were definitively and unequivocably proved to be false, I would (*gasp*) stop believing in it. I wonder how many Christians would do the same.
Ditto. Show me the body and I'll become a Buddhist or a neopagan. (N.B. - Christianity IS falsifiable.)
tgirsch: The "meaning" of my life is defined by two forces: how *I* define it, and how *others* define it. In some ways, these two are compatible, and in other ways, they may not be. But those are the only forces dictating the "meaning" of my existence.
Joe's post is not incompatible with that idea. Nor does he claim that meaning cannot exist apart from God. It is true that for believers, your "others" who define the meaning of your life includes God, and that the reality of God in our lives is the ultimate source of meaning.
what is the mechanism that takes this useless dispersed heat energy and changes it back into useful energy?
Gravity, of course. Mind you, we also need a lot of dark matter - IIRC about two or three universe-mass worth. Of course, you can't detect dark matter, but we believe it exists....
water that’s not wet umm, really hard ice? ;-p
boonton - so the concept of "number" has 'real' meaning, then? If that's true, then so does 'symmetry' as a concept, correct?
So riddle me this - why should symmetry exist?
posted on 02.01.2005 4:02 PM49
Phil A proclaims
"It feels really good to believe that the Holocaust never happened, but I'm not going to ignore history books just because I'm hooked on a feeling."
Substitute evolution for the holocaust, and science for history. It's fun.
posted on 02.01.2005 4:14 PM50
tgirsch, the earliest accounts of Jesus - Pauls's writings - date to 15-20 years after his death.
The most authoritative sources from an historical point of view are *quite* consistent. They all agree that Jesus was a Galilean, had a Judean ministry of challenging teaching and miraculous healing, and was a thorn in the side of the ruling party. He was set up by one of his inner circle at Passover, illegally tried by Caiaphas in a kangaroo court, condemned by Pilate as an act of political expedience and executed as a common criminal.
Three days later, his tomb was inexplicably empty. Shortly thereafter, his followers reported having seen him alive again, and persisted in this belief to the point of persecution and death. His followers believed him to be the long-promised Messiah, and proclaimed this to others.
The sources are VERY consistent.
posted on 02.01.2005 4:17 PM51
HumbleBumble:
But I feel so sorry for our atheistic friends. It has to be embarassing to explain to the public all of the implications of your worldview and how ill equipped it must render you to live life (ie. I am a meaningless cosmic accident in a world full of other meaningless cosmic accidents and there are ultimately no consequences for anything I do and i am unhappy... hmmm... why don't I just kill myself!! Please see JP Sartre for reference.Umm, I don't have the numbers to back this up, but I'd be willing to bet $1 that atheists do not commit suicide at a disproportionately high rate as compared to their theist counterparts. Personally, the fact that I am a "meaningless" (at least on a cosmic scale) accident of nature doesn't mean that I and those around me cannot arbitrarily impose some relativistic meaning during the brief time I'm here.
Now who is appealing to emotionalism to justify their worldview? And what do our atheistic brothers have to offer in this real life situation??? "It sucks for you honey, but this is the natural order of the universe at work. Your son, afterall, is a meaningless accident, much like yourself, and soon it will be as if he never existed. So suck it up and shake it off. What is all the fuss about?As someone who just went through a death in the family, I can't even begin to explain how insulting this is. Just because we don't take comfort in an imaginary afterlife doesn't mean we can't offer comfort and sympathy in other ways, or that we are incapable of grieving. Best watch the thin ice upon which you tread. Of course, we could always take the Christian approach to comforting the bereaved... posted on 02.01.2005 4:17 PM
52
tgirsch, is the 'meaning' you and your family impute to your recently deceased relative 'real' in an objective sense? Why should it be insulting to see the logical extension of the atheist/materialist worldview extended to that situation? What's to be insulted about? We're all just meatsacks, and we all eventually stop metabolizing. That sensation created by biochemical processes that you call 'grieving' is just an illusion that is ultimately devoid of meaning, isn't it?
Isn't it?
posted on 02.01.2005 4:26 PM53
corrie:
Joe's post is not incompatible with that idea. Nor does he claim that meaning cannot exist apart from God.Not in and of itself, no, but when you push him on it and drill down, he does indeed assume those conclusions.
Of course, you can't detect dark matter, but we believe it exists....This wasn't my comment (I can only assume you're responding to someone else), but I'll bite. It's actually still pretty controversial. And those who think it exists believe so because although it can't be directly detected, its effects can quantifiably be detected (i.e., it can be indirectly detected and measured). Give me ways in which I can quantifiably and verifiably measure the effects of God's influence, and we're starting to get somewhere.
the earliest accounts of Jesus - Pauls's writings - date to 15-20 years after his death.You have sources for that? Most of what I've seen dates the earliest gospels at 70 CE (or AD, if you prefer). Are you saying some of them have been dated to 44 CE to 49 CE?
The sources are VERY consistent.In some cases too consistent. Matthew and Luke are widely held to be derivative of Mark, so what you ultimately have is at best two independent accounts of Jesus (Mark and John), and while the general themes are consistent, they vary widely on the details.
The bottom line is that for some of us, a mere two sources of questionable validity are not nearly enough to serve as irrefutable evidence of Jesus' divinity, and that his miracles truly were performed as advertised.
posted on 02.01.2005 4:33 PM54
This doesn't seem to me a very productive discussion.
I think all such arguments over "meaning" are wrongly conceived. This appears to be a disagreement over a concept that isn't well-defined in this context, such that no two people appear to be discussing the same thing.
Strictly speaking, "meaning" is a characteristic of mental concepts. The meaning of a concept is the thing it refers to (acknowledging the mind-busting problems with that definition, such as the "meaning" of names for imaginary objects and so forth) or evokes when used. "Meaning" cannot be a characteristic of natural features of the world or any non-mental entity.
(Emmaus gets at this usefully by saying: "I'm not trying to say here that, mathematically, 2+2=5. What I'm saying is that the number 2, the + symbol, the = symbol, and the number 4 are human inventions to explain a relationship." I don't agree when Emmaus says that "Mathematics is a human endeavor, and is not 'truth' unto itself." The truths of mathematics do not require that they be expressed in sentences that are "meaningful" in human language - the set of rocks that could be enumerated by "2" does have fewer members than the set enumerated by "5" whether or not anybody puts those labels on them. Those rocks, or the fact of their relative relationship, are also not "meaningfu" - they just are what they are [a larger and a smaller group of rocks]. But the symbols and sentences with which we communicate our understanding of mathematical truths are meaningful, and only meaningful because we see them as being so.)
When used informally, such as in "the meaning of life" or "the meaning of the universe" or "What's the meaning of this?", the word "meaning" has no clear definition. It usually seams to be intended in some sense, variously, of "importance," "significance," "reason to be concerned with," or "explanation" - none of which is truly "meaning." We can use the term in this way if we like, but we should then not try to subject it to rigorous analysis.
Now, if we want to know what the "meaning" of life, or the universe, or the sweet potatoe pie I had at lunch is, we can talk about that informally in subjective terms. ("Life is meaningful because it lets us love each other." "Sweet potatoe pie is meaningful because it reminds me of my mom.") But if we want to discuss those items seriously, we need to use more careful language. And when we do, it turns out to be (somewhat) less complicated.
"What is the importance of life?" Obviously we can answer that question. Obviously our answer will depend upon our values and beliefs, but that certainly doesn't mean we can't answer the question.
"What is the reason we should care about living in the universe?" Again we can answer that question. The reasons may turn out to be arbitrary or subjective, or, conceivably, we can try to come up with some sort of "natural law" or "human goods" objective standard, but however we approach it it's a perfectly reasonable question.
We just need to stop using vague, seemingly-profound terms to talk about truly profound subjects. We need to clarify our language, and especially not use terms outside their sphere of application (like applying mental-content terms to physical objects). We may not end up agreeing on the answers, but the questions will be much more intelligible.
Finally, regarding Angier, it seems obvious to me that she was using "meaning" in the informal sense of "reason to care about". I've said already I don't think that's a good idea, but it's common and there's no reason to get worked up about it.
She says she cares about, or values, her place in the universe because she perceives something grand in its immensity of size and age. OK - nothing really complicated about that. You don't have to agree, but it's not confusing or startling. And she surely didn't mean literally that things get more "meaningful" if they get heavier. It's pointless to go on a rant about that - it's clearly not what she meant.
If, on the other hand, you can conceive of an objective standard for morality that does not require that a perfect being dictated it, then we're starting to get somewhere.
Joe: Next you’ll be asking me to conceive of water that’s not wet.
This may be the most important thing you've said on this blog, Joe.
You say - and I'm confident you really do mean - that divine fiat is a characteristic of objective moral standards in the way that wetness is a characteristic of water. I presume you mean "true moral standards," since it's well-known that there have been many attempts to derive objective standards from non-theistic sources (Kantianism, utilitarianism, non-religious natural law, etc.), so it's impossible that religion is always a part of objective moral theories - though it may be that all non-religious ones are wrong. So, for you, true morality just is religious in the way that water is wet.
You are not just saying that morality is religious, or should be, if rightly conceived. You are saying (and, again, I gather you really mean it) that it is not possible to coherently imagine morality that does not come from God. Psychologically, this seems false (as noted, many people have imagined it). Metaphysically, it seems irrelevant. That claim can only be true if we assume that something about "being from God" ensures truthfulness, moral correctness, and its own morally obligatory nature - that is, that whatever comes from God necessarily is true, right, and obligatory. Now, Christians do assume this, because of the characteristics they assume God has. But the existence of a God with those characteristics must be proven first before any such claims can be credited. And until those assumptions are justified, the claim that it is not even conceivable that morality could have any other source is not just false in fact, it seems completely ungrounded as even a plausible option.
Given that there is no practical likelihood that the assumptions necessary to making claims like the one above will ever be proven, it is unhelpful to make them. It would be much better for all if you would stop asserting that others' approaches to moral thinking are literally incoherent - like dry water - and engage the debate on rational grounds to which others can respond.
posted on 02.01.2005 4:34 PM55
tgirsch wrote:
1. Origin of life: Currently unknown. If it makes you feel better to say "We don't know, therefore God must have done it," knock yourself out, but forgive us if we don't go along.
Hey, don't get so bent out of shape! If you don't know then why are theists wrong. You must have some intellectual basis for arguing, right? Certainly, you wouldn't simply have a philosophical bias.
2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life: No "ultimate" purpose in life. It can have arbitrary meaning, from a relativist perspective, but in the grand scheme of things there is none. That you may find this unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.
Agreed. So what do you live for? Don't be afraid now.... us commoners are just trying to peak-under-the-hood and understand you guys... what makes you tick. Are all purposes/meanings equal or are some better than others and why?
3. Morality: Depends how you define "morality." Is morality defined by what's best for humanity? Or is it defined by what's best for our world? Our universe? Or is it simply defined by whatever arbitrary rules this deity or that has imposed? Before you can talk about what morality is, you have to agree upon a definition.
Don't ask me what morality means... this is "understand an atheist" day. Please tell us what it means to you and how you apply it in your everyday life. If it is a construction of Man, then if two men disagree ...like Adolph Hitler and a jewish man, then whose morality is right and how do you decide?
4. What has value: In the grand scheme of things, not much. However, during the short time we are here we can (individually and collectively) impose arbitrary definitions of what has value, and in fact, that's what we do most of the time.
Can you feel the quicksand around you?? If value is manmade and arbitrary, then which men get to decide what or who has value? If Hitler or the jewish man disagree, then how do they decide who is right in your worldview??
5. Meaning/understanding of death: The End, at least for me. There's no higher "meaning" or "purpose" to it at all. Again, just because you think this is unpleasant doesn't make it untrue.
Hey, knock yourself out. Just cause you believe it doesn't make it true. Just curious, if when you die it will be as if you never existed, is there any activity that your heart desires that you should not try like stealing or rape or taking drugs or hitting your wife/husband if it will make you feel good here on earth? If not, what is your intellectual argument for not doing what you want to do for tomorrow we die!!
Hey, how come none of you brave atheists will answer my question about how your beliefs in the 5 basic questions helps you live your life? Where are you? Life has struggles, how does this great, factual worldview help you in your relationships, moral decision making and when times get hard?? Step up to the plate!
posted on 02.01.2005 4:40 PM56
Keep going, Corrie. You're on the right track. Not that it'll make much difference to the usual suspects here given to evasion and diversion!
posted on 02.01.2005 4:43 PM57
"quantifiably and verifiably measure the effects of God's influence"
Exhibit A: My own life and beliefs pre and post. I didn't WANT to become a Christian. It would (and did) seriously damp my style. But I was committed to intellectual honesty.
Paul's missionary journeys began around 45-50. His writings clearly show that hte disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection as historical fact was well-established by that time.
Mark was the first Gospel written, around 70 as you note. But it clearly draws on still earlier material which may have been either written or rabbinic. The key point is that the earliest records are eyewitness, first-person accounts.
Matthew closely parallels Mark. Luke adds new material, quite possibly from interviews with Mary and other individuals. Archaeological finds that closely corroborate Acts demonstrate that Luke was a careful historian.
John's Gospel was written very late, though still within living memory. It is by design more reflective than biographical.
The killer for me was the empty tomb. The very earliest copies of Mark end with it. The Roman and Jewish authorities never came up with the body. Scores of disciples suffered persecution and death rather than say that no, they themselves did not after all see the risen Jesus.
That's hard evidence, and it begs the question - what the heck happened?!?!
Gotta go...
58
Keith -
It seems your inductive thinking on Joe's comments about morality should be deductive. If we have morality (and we do - as have all civilizations) and "real" (i.e., non-relativistic, non-subjective) morality only exists as a characteristic of some innate moral characteristic of the universe that is not defined by physicalism or natural law (i.e., evolutionary psychology), then we deduce that there must be something that caused this innate morality to exist. Some people call that "god".
You've got your argument backwards.
posted on 02.01.2005 4:48 PM60
Keith writes,
It would be much better for all if you would stop asserting that others' approaches to moral thinking are literally incoherent - like dry water - and engage the debate on rational grounds to which others can respond.
But, Keith, this is exactly what's happening. You have the burden to demonstrate how morality has any meaning whatsoever beyond your personal preference, apart from some innate characteristic of the universe (whether or not that derives from "god"). Show rationally why Hitler's actions can be defined as "wrong" in any absolute way apart from some claim beyond your personal opinion/preference. Then you will have begun to engage in a rational discussion of the matter.
61
"Hey, how come none of you brave atheists will answer my question about how your beliefs in the 5 basic questions helps you live your life?"
Because if we answer those questions we'll reveal ourselves to be hypocritical frauds, duh!
posted on 02.01.2005 4:56 PM62
"Because if we answer those questions we'll reveal ourselves to be hypocritical frauds, duh!"
Great Post Larry!! I love you man. Good timing and good sense of humor. Keep smiling!!
posted on 02.01.2005 5:04 PM63
"In an attempt at profundity, Angier let slip one of the most absurd beliefs of Western-style atheism: that a purely physical world can be imbued with meaning.
How this is possible is a question that is never adequately addressed. If matter is all that exists, then “meaning” must either be identical to or be a property of matter."
What is it you think atheist should be able to do exactly? Explain the neurochemistry of feelings?
Joe some time when I'm visiting my folks in Austin, maybe I can come to Houston and make you my specialty signature barbecue. DarkSyde's five alarm Tex-Mex fajitas, beef or chicken, your choice. As any reputable Texan of course I assume you have full service backyard cooking facilities?
After making the fajitas and waiting for you to say Grace, we'd dig in. You might think the fajitas taste 'good', or you might not be that impressed. You might even think they taste 'bad', although I doubt it. Either way, we'll eat them, feel a sense of fullness, and our digestive tracks will start working away, hopefully without any gastric distress being produced. I do make them spicy hot. You'll be able to do all this, without being able to explain to me or anyone else how is you can do it. You won't know the precise steps by which taste is transmitted from your palate to your brain. You wouldn't be able to outline the series of events those fajitas will undergo as some portion of them becomes part of Joe Carter, and some portions are left behind by Joe Carter the next morning. It's a good thing you don't have to be able to do that, or you and I would starve to death with a steaming plate full of delightful fajitas El Carbono, sitting right before us while you recited data for days on end! But you can still do all that, without being able to explain it. A single cell of blue green algae can turn water, sunlight, and CO2, into sweet, sweet sugar. I doubt anyone thinks it's a strike against the cyano bacteria that it can't 'explain it'.
Neurologists can't explain the step-by-step process in every one of the millions of neurons involved in human perception, both internal and external (although they have come a long way in that regard since the days of mythological suggestions of being inhabited by demonic spirits). But even though neurologists can't do it, and you can't do it, and I can't do it, and in fact no one earth can do it, for some reason you think it's a shortcoming against atheists because they can't do it? Or that atheists should not be allowed to have feelings of meaning? Or that it's hypocritical for them to have those feelings if they can't whip out 1000 exo-gigs of data detailing the steps?
It's a little frustrating to for atheists sometimes. We are the object of ridicule, politicians of every stripe flee from us at high speed and often call us unpleasant names in the process. It's something we're used to and it's not like we're living under the kind of police state religion wise that some folks have to deal with in their nations.
But something I see more and more of is actually, well, kind of hurtful. It's the implicit assumption among some theists that atheists do not deserve to have feelings, or cannot act under a code of ethics, simply because we don't accept what we feel are extravagant claims about deities, or because we can't explain at some kind of abstract reductionist level why we have those feelings or act under that ethical paradigm. I get several e-mails a day, from both Muslims and Christians, basically calling me out as an immoral person who advocates killing and rape, or who should advocate killing and rape. Simply because I don't accept their personal choice of faith; or because I can't explain the atom-by-atom events that go on in my brain which I perceive as feeling of right or wrong. I'm not going to go girly on you guys or anything, but it is a bit hurtful at times that so many think I, and those like me, don't deserve the human legacy of feelings, ethics, morals, etc, simply because we don't share a given religion with whoever happens to be doing the complaining on a given day. It's sort of like calling us sub-human. At least, that's what it feels like.
posted on 02.01.2005 5:13 PM64
DS
"I get several e-mails a day, from both Muslims and Christians, basically calling me out as an immoral person who advocates killing and rape, or who should advocate killing and rape. "
Ouch. It's like those classic conservative Christian wingnut posts where they say "You oughta be glad that I believe in God because if I didn't I'd have no reason not to rip your head off."
posted on 02.01.2005 5:21 PM65
It's arguments going round and round like these that made me embrace Soto Zen, in which the "BIG" questions are never asked, because it's pointless to ask them - you just end up chasing your own tail.
BTW, I am a scientist and I do know very religious scientists. The honest ones view their inquiry as a way to uncover God's hidden order, which veers a little close to Gnostism, but I don't have a problem with.
posted on 02.01.2005 5:23 PM66
good grief...
"meaning" is the product of a consciousness reacting to the reception of a message transmitted over a physical media. "meaning" is not a property of matter any more than "Desperate Housewives" is a property of cathode rays.
the question you want to pose to atheists: where does consciousness come from? don't be surprised if the answer you get is a variation on "i really have no idea," however.
if you get a really bright one, you may get an answer more along the lines of "it's probably an emergent behavior of some kinds of complex neural networks, but there's an awful lot of research yet to be done before we can say much for sure."
posted on 02.01.2005 5:54 PM67
Zen_less - "It's arguments going round and round like these that made me embrace Soto Zen, in which the "BIG" questions are never asked, because it's pointless to ask them - you just end up chasing your own tail."
HUH??? You won't win many intellectual converts with admissions like that. But this is what is so instructive about making atheists say what they really think.
DS wrote - "I get several e-mails a day, from both Muslims and Christians, basically calling me out as an immoral person who advocates killing and rape, or who should advocate killing and rape. Simply because I don't accept their personal choice of faith; or because I can't explain the atom-by-atom events that go on in my brain which I perceive as feeling of right or wrong. I'm not going to go girly on you guys or anything, but it is a bit hurtful at times that so many think I, and those like me, don't deserve the human legacy of feelings, ethics, morals, etc, simply because we don't share a given religion with whoever happens to be doing the complaining on a given day. It's sort of like calling us sub-human. At least, that's what it feels like."
Sorry if some dunderheads are bothering you by email... but honestly, if theists ask you guys to explain how you can intellectually arrive at meaning, value, purpose etc. and when you get backed into a corner you start whining that everyone misunderstands you... then you guys are really being wimpy!! When we identify a logical inconsistency between your stated beliefs and the way you live your live, you can't just start crying and say it hurts your feelings. By your worldview, what do you care what I think?? Come on.
But O how instructive this all is to the readers of this great blog! Keep blogging atheist!
posted on 02.01.2005 6:07 PM68
Narrator:[A dusty curtain slowly rises, revealing a dimly lit, average (but I repeat myself), armchair philosopher named Josh]
Josh: Self, does life have purpose?
Self: Well, it depends on whether we were created or not. An act of creation is inherently purposeful, so if we were created, and if our purpose was not fulfilled by our very coming into existance, then it seems reasonable to conclude our life has purpose.
On the other hand, if we were not created, it would seem our life does not have purpose.
Josh: But couldn't we create our own purpose?
Self: You must remember that we are not very smart, nor likely very wise, but it seems that a meaningful purpose is something that can only be imparted from outside one's self. Why do we crave a purpose in the first place? Because we seek to be a part of something larger than ourself. But no matter what purpose we try to create for ourselves, we are still working within ourselves. Ulitmately, it seems this sort of purpose is illusory and does not satisfy.
Josh: You know, self, I have a visceral aversion to nihilism, but it does seem to be the logical conclusion to a non-created existence. My visceral dislike of nihilism no doubt stems from my desire to have purpose. But I don't think I can honestly convince myself that a self-made purpose is really a purpose at all. Hmmmm. Well, I think I will believe in creation.
Now to figure out what this purpose I was created for might actually be..........
Narrator:[Curtain slowly lowers leaving Josh and Self to think about things a little bit more]
Orchestra[intense dramatic interlude]: DA DA DA DUMMMM
posted on 02.01.2005 6:09 PM69
HumbleBumble> [A challenge to atheists to define:] 1. Origin of life; 2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life; 3. Morality; 4. What has value; 5. Meaning/understanding of death
I'm not technically an atheist, but most neo-evangelicals are uninterested in the fine distinctions there anyway.
I'll take your quiz, and I've give it the bumper-sticker sized responses it deserves.
1. Origin of life: synergism of disparate properties of self-replicating systems.
2. Ultimate meaning/purpose in life: places to go, things to see and people to do.
3. Morality: an individual approach to the development of ethics.
4. What has value: useful things.
5. Meaning/understanding of death: temporal limit of consciousness.
> Please provide the logical conclusions of your atheistic beliefs to each question and how your beliefs allow you to tackle life's struggles and comfort those struggling with problems.
p1. The phrase "logical conclusions of your atheistic beliefs to each question" is ambiguous in meaning.
p2. Atheism does not restrain you in any significant way from tackling life's struggles or comforting others who are struggling with problems.
posted on 02.01.2005 6:16 PM70
>b>Humble ranted incoherently: "Sorry if some dunderheads are bothering you by email... but honestly, if theists ask you guys to explain how you can intellectually arrive at meaning, value, purpose etc. and when you get backed into a corner you start whining that everyone misunderstands you... then you guys are really being wimpy!! When we identify a logical inconsistency between your stated beliefs and the way you live your live, you can't just start crying and say it hurts your feelings. By your worldview, what do you care what I think?? Come on.
I don't care what you think, I care what others on the Blog I respect think. You're not among them pal. I do enjoy exposing foolish arrogance such as you just shamed yourself with. It's really quite delightful!
You can't explain feelings to a reductionist level anymore than a neurologist can using extant living subjects as research material, why on earth would you expect atheists to be able to so something you cannot do? And no son, claims of magic are not an explanation.
Do you have a testable explanation of how consciouness and feelings arise from matter? No whining now ... just either admit you do not, as I did, or state it?
posted on 02.01.2005 6:26 PM71
DS:
something I see more and more of is actually, well, kind of hurtful. It's the implicit assumption among some theists that atheists do not deserve to have feelings, or cannot act under a code of ethics, simply because we don't accept what we feel are extravagant claims about deities, or because we can't explain at some kind of abstract reductionist level why we have those feelings or act under that ethical paradigm.
Theists are frustrated by what appears to be a life live inconsistently. One lived by faith masquerading as one lived soley by reason or some variation on that theme.
Here are a few items that throw exceptions for the theist with regards to the atheist's beliefs:
a.The presupposition that deity does not exist is often (always?) based on previous persuasive relationships with people, not necessarily entailing valid arguments, yet they claim that empirical evidence is the only way to know whether God exists.
b. Saying that we don't know why or how feelings exist implies the presupposition that god doesn't exist, and theists are sometimes led wonder why the atheist doesn't take Pascal's wager more seriously, especially regarding the way in which such their presupposition of the existence of god is formed.
c. All atheist's ethics/morals are grounded with the atheist himself. So atheists, if true, may be treated by anyone in any way. Might makes right. It doesn't matter what Sarte said about society agreeing about this or that. He says so (okay, maybe not in so many words).
I don't know who says what to you, but if it is similar to my experience, these jabs, within an understood intellectual relationship, are intended (conciously or not) to stimulate atheists to give reasons for their faith.
posted on 02.01.2005 7:10 PM72
Humble, you're going a bit over the top here. While I agree with most of your points, doing it in a Christian and humble manner is important. Heaven knows I don't always do well with it either.
The point isn't that you can't live a moral life. The point is what your morals are based on as Brandon stated.
posted on 02.01.2005 7:23 PM73
DS wrote - "Do you have a testable explanation of how consciouness and feelings arise from matter? No whining now ... just either admit you do not, as I did, or state it?"
DS - you need to smile a bit more my friend. I am not trying to upset anyone so lets be civil.
Am I missing something or is the above quote something atheists claim but cannot prove ...or what theists claim and cannot prove??
I love this blog!
posted on 02.01.2005 7:32 PM74
Chris wrote:
"Humble, you're going a bit over the top here. While I agree with most of your points, doing it in a Christian and humble manner is important. Heaven knows I don't always do well with it either.
The point isn't that you can't live a moral life. The point is what your morals are based on as Brandon stated. "
Point taken Chris but did I say that you can't be moral or you just don't have an intellectual basis for why you should be moral? I apologize if I wasn't clear but I can't see where I said that in previous posts. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I just think it is instructive for all readers to see the daily logical inconsistencies of what atheists say and do. I am not trying to change anyone's mind or make anyone mad, but this disconnect is very important. Sure atheists live wonderfully moral lives ... but why and how do they arrive at those inventions. It's marvelous to hear them talk. Is that not being humble?
posted on 02.01.2005 7:41 PM75
HB, that last sentence was directed towards DS, not you. Sorry, the mind-machine interface must not be working tonight. :-)
posted on 02.01.2005 7:49 PM76
Boonton This would seem to contradict a belief in a God with infinite powers?
Here is the post where we discussed Newcomb’s Paradox.
DS Well anger for example is also, as best we can tell, a property of matter.
I’m not sure that cognitive scientists would consider that a “property.” I think it is more that the drug has an effect on the brain state which may or may not produce a mental state of anger.
We have feelings because we have brains capable of producing them Joe (Except for some unfortunate individuals who lack key abilities in that regard). No brain, no feelings, no Gods or odesses needed.
I think a more accurate statement is that we have an awareness of sense functions because we have a brain. If mental states can be produced by pure matter then we really can’t know if it can be combined in other ways (besides the brain) to produce feelings. For example, how do we know that mountains don’t have feelings?
Tgirsch Bzzt! Wrong answer. The evidence for Jesus and the evidence for Alexander the Great are far from being equal.
Whatever the degree of evidence, it is rather incontrovertible from a historical perspective to say that the person Jesus existed in Palestine during the time of the Roman Empire.
You have the same problem: All strained philosophical acrobatics aside, the idea of an omniscient God is simply logically incompatible with the idea of free will.
Not at all. Just because you may not be convinced yourself, it is hardly a point that many find necessary to debate. There is certainly no reason that omniscience and free will can not be logically compatible. Free will has a finite range of possibilities for action. Omniscience, however, can be infinite. Since any choice of action could be known and every action is based on a limited number of variables, it is logically possible for an omniscient being to know exactly which will be chosen. Also, you assume that both God and man are working within the same time dimension. Allow God to peer in from another dimension and the apparent paradox is completely resolved.
That's still not terribly helpful. Can an abstract concept be something "real?" Or does it have to be more tanible than that to be "real?"
The dimensions of a football field are not objective, just
That’s kind of what I’m asking. If the physical is all there is then where do abstract concepts come from?
Kind of like "thou shalt not kill," which applies in some cases, but not in the cases of war or execution.
The Hebrews is properly translated as “thou shalt not commit murder.” Solely relying on the KJV can lead to misunderstandings.
Or the "judge not" thing, which also is apparently only situationally applicable. See the subjectivity? ;)
Take another look at the rest of the “judge not” passage in context. There is no period after the not.
Kevin Strictly speaking, "meaning" is a characteristic of mental concepts.
But if everything that exists is made of matter, what is a mental concept made of? Is it simply an illusion? If it is coequal with the brain state then our mental states care completely at the whim of the laws of chemistry and physics.
You say - and I'm confident you really do mean - that divine fiat is a characteristic of objective moral standards in the way that wetness is a characteristic of water.
Not exactly. I’m saying that God is the objective standard. The Good and the True is not an abstract concept but a Person.
Morality is therefore measured against that person just as my height is measured against a set standard of inches and feet.
So, for you, true morality just is religious in the way that water is wet.
In a sense, yes. People can no more be truly free of religion any more than they can be completely free of reality (though many people might try).
Now, Christians do assume this, because of the characteristics they assume God has. But the existence of a God with those characteristics must be proven first before any such claims can be credited. And until those assumptions are justified, the claim that it is not even conceivable that morality could have any other source is not just false in fact, it seems completely ungrounded as even a plausible option.
I’d have to disagree with that claim. We don’t have to prove the existence of a thing first before claims can be credited to it. For example, you can’t prove that your mind exists yet you still credit claims to it.
What is it you think atheist should be able to do exactly? Explain the neurochemistry of feelings?
No, not if they think that meaning is nothing more than the “neurochemistry of feelings.” If any atheist wants to claim that their beliefs, ideas, and feelings are nothing more than chemical processes in the brain that are completely subject to the laws of chemistry then I can accept that even though I doubt they could.
But something I see more and more of is actually, well, kind of hurtful. It's the implicit assumption among some theists that atheists do not deserve to have feelings, or cannot act under a code of ethics, simply because we don't accept what we feel are extravagant claims about deities, or because we can't explain at some kind of abstract reductionist level why we have those feelings or act under that ethical paradigm.
It’s not that we think that atheists don’t “deserve” their feelings. In fact, if resorting to feelings rather than logic is the best that they can do then I won’t even bother trying to debate the subject with them. My post is only directed at atheists who can’t shake the idea that their beliefs should have some form of internal self-consistency.
For example, if matter is all there is then mental states don’t exist. Some people (eliminativists) would nod their heads in agreement and say, “That’s true.” But other people would realize that there is something incomplete about that idea and decide that they need to change one of the variables in the equation.
77
I will adopt tgirsch answers to the five questions, which are:
1. Origin of life: Currently unknown.
2. Ultimate purpose/meaning in life: No "ultimate" purpose in life.
3. Morality: Depends how you define "morality."
4. What has value: In the grand scheme of things, not much. However, during the short time we are here we can (individually and collectively) impose arbitrary definitions of what has value, and in fact, that's what we do most of the time.
5. Meaning/understanding of death: The End, there's no higher "meaning" or "purpose" to it at all.
Now, the interesting question: Please provide the logical conclusions of your atheistic beliefs to each question and how your beliefs allow you to tackle life's struggles and comfort those struggling with problems.
What the answers above show you is that there are no outside answers to "meaningfulness". "morality" or "value." If one wants to find the above, one must rely on oneself to find them. The fact is, as an atheist, I found myself tackling life's problems in a totally different manner than that when I was a believer. First, when I was a believer, I found myself crediting God for all my accomplishments and myself for all my failures. I diminished myself for no reason. As I gradually became am atheist (a process that occurred over many years after coming into close contact with people from about 40 different countries, with many, many different religious beliefs, ALL absolutely sure that their religion was THE ONE TRUE RELIGION) I found that after I stopped praying for things and instead worked for them, I felt a sence of accomplishment and responsibility. I became, in a word, an adult. I also find that I value the relationships I have with the people close to me even more because there are NO second chances in the "afterlife." After my father had a very serious stroke that left him paralyzed, my lack of faith helped me cope because I knew that his condition was not a result of God's lack of attention or care, but was simply an impersonal effect being a creature of matter. I also spent more time with him because I knew when his time was up, it was up for good. It was funny dealing with believers because they always said "Well, you should be glad because God saved his life." I always think "If I believed in God, I would be pissed that he allowed my father to be paralyzed in the first place." In conclusion, atheism in NOT for people who cannot face life without someone to blame for their failures or are too immature to face reality as it is.
posted on 02.01.2005 8:24 PM78
Jeff:
IF
We have morality
AND
"Real" (i.e., non-relativistic, non-subjective) morality only exists as a characteristic of some innate moral characteristic of the universe that is not defined by physicalism or natural law (i.e., evolutionary psychology)
THEN
There must be something that caused this innate morality to exist. ["god".]
You've got your argument backwards.
No.
As your own argument (minimally recast from your exact words) shows, your conclusion depends upon a hypothetical premise: "IF 'real' . . . morality only exists as a characteristic of some innate moral characteristic of the universe", THEN there must be some non-natural source of that morality. (The use of the word "moral" to define what makes up "morality" is problematic, but never mind.) What you can get from this is only a hypothetical conclusion: "There is a transcendental source of morality IF it is really true that only a transcendental source of morality can give rise to the moral beliefs we have." But you can't go farther than that with this argument.
To make it come out to a firm statement that there really is such a thing as the transcendental source of morality ("god"), you must assume the hypothetical premise is actually true: i.e., assume that it is true that "morality only exists as a characteristic of some non-natural feature of the universe." That is what Joe does assume (it's what is meant by his "dry water" remark), but my point is that Joe cannot assume that. You are now assuming it in order to disprove my assertion that you can't assume it. No go.
Try this:
IF
We have Easter eggs
AND
"Real" Easter eggs can only exist as a product of magical rabbits,
THEN
There must be some magical rabbit who left the Easter eggs.
Uh . . . no. Maybe the Easter eggs were created and distributed by human beings for their own purposes. The argument above doesn't prove there is an Easter bunny, it only proves there would be an Easter bunny IF an Easter bunny were the only way to get Easter eggs. But as it isn't, it ain't, nohow. That's logic.
Keith . . . You have the burden to demonstrate how morality has any meaning whatsoever beyond your personal preference, apart from some innate characteristic of the universe
Well, thanks for handing me the mantle of moral theorist for all of humanity. I have to admit I don't know if I'm quite ready to do that. But I will point out that it's been attempted many times. Take it up with Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Bentham, and maybe a few others. As with science, it can be hard to agree on a theory that is finally complete and correct, but that doesn't mean we can't make progress or that there is nothing to be studied at all.
As for "preferences," any theory of morality has to be grounded on some sense of human nature or human goods. Morality only exists, or only makes sense, between humans (or, "persons" of whatever kind). Morality exists to govern human behavior, most especially interactions between persons. It must take into account what people actually do and why, and what the significance is of various events or circumstances in their lives. So it is certainly going to reflect how human beings appreciate and perceive their own lives. That it is contingent on human nature and circumstances in no way implies that it is arbitrary. No one argues that moral principles or moral decisions should be arbitrary. Likewise, no one argues that they should be independent of human reality.
posted on 02.01.2005 8:35 PM79
HumbleBumble writes
"When we identify a logical inconsistency between your stated beliefs and the way you live your live, you can't just start crying and say it hurts your feelings."
HB is right. I think evangelicals have patented that behavior. I don't want to get sued.
HB is probably so deluded that he believes that his "worldview" is very different from that of atheists when in fact HB is just as much of a "materialist" as every other human being on the planet.
Please educate yourself, HB, so your arrogance may be tempered. Assuming you're not an amputee or a cheerleader, you put your pants on one leg at a time just like I do. Do you express astonishment when your feet appear at the end of your pants leg? How about when your socks fail to jump out of the drawer, screaming, and place themselves on your feet? Does that surprise you? If not, why not?
No group of humans is more logically inconsistent than the loud-mouthed eternally-persecuted conservative evangelicals who would eagerly deny the noses on their faces before they'd admit that any passage in their holy book is an out-of-date bogus myth.
posted on 02.01.2005 8:46 PM80
Joe writes
"If [a mental concept] is coequal with the brain state then our mental states are completely at the whim of the laws of chemistry and physics."
But if I use energy (which I do), then I can change my mental state (which I do) and create new concepts in my brain (which I do).
So freaking what.
If you think that a schizophrenic or a person on LSD is living in the same reality that you are, you are seriously mistaken!
Take a few hundred milligrams of lysergic acid and you'll understand how stupid evangelicals sound when they start talking about the "different worldviews" of theists and atheists.
posted on 02.01.2005 8:57 PM