Atheists... Your life is pointless

Run 4 fun wrote:

. . . life in the atheistic worldveiw has no real value, that is, it's meaningless.

Life has no inherent meaning. We, as individuals, and as individuals among other individuals, give life a meaning, or we don't. And as an extension of this, we also give life degrees of value. How do you value your own life? How do you value others' lives? How do you value the life of say, your mother? How do you value the life of Osama Bin Laden?

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InfraBlue wrote:

Life has no inherent meaning. We, as individuals, and as individuals among other individuals, give life a meaning, or we don't.

No so, life has inherent meaning beyond your reference to "individuals" in as much as life is a potential counter to entropy.

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The problem is that both are true; it only depends on the individual whether they wish to live in isolation from humanity or with. Many people who live amongst humanity often wish to be in isolation for short periods to "get away" from whatever that seems to bring us stress - or to seek a period of serenity/respite on our own.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Again, it's something you'll never understand. It's too spatial for you.

Well, let's remember that it was you who compared your thinking process to space, and not I. Laughing

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Chumly wrote:

No so, life has inherent meaning beyond your reference to "individuals" in as much as life is a potential counter to entropy.

So, life is a potential counter to entropy, and the universe may be a never ending cyclical process of expansion from an infinitesimal singularity to a contraction to an infinitesimal singularity. So what?

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InfraBlue wrote:

Chumly wrote:
No so, life has inherent meaning beyond your reference to "individuals" in as much as life is a potential counter to entropy.

So, life is a potential counter to entropy, and the universe may be a never ending cyclical process of expansion from an infinitesimal singularity to a contraction to an infinitesimal singularity. So what?

I did not make the claim that the universe has inherent meaning, only that life potentially does relative to entropy.

Thus showing your claim

InfraBlue wrote:

Life has no inherent meaning.

to be questionable.

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InfraBlue said: "Life has no inherent meaning. We, as individuals, and as individuals among other individuals, give life a meaning, or we don't. And as an extension of this, we also give life degrees of value. How do you value your own life? How do you value others' lives? How do you value the life of say, your mother? How do you value the life of Osama Bin Laden?"

If there is a God who made us and gave us purpose then there is meaning and purpose inherent in life. Besides, as I argued earlier on, if humans are what gives things value, then they don't have real value. We could decide that hate, dishonesty, injustice, and extinction are what is of real value rather than love, honesty, justice, and survival. Then you would say, "But that would mean that all would decsend into chaos because those are bad things. So you truly belive that some things are objectively good and valuable, but what makes them so. We've already shown that it can't be man or nature. Either God gives things goodness and value, or nothing is truly good or valuable. Please don't restate arguments that have already been made on previous pages. Check back before you do. Laughing

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Who gives God his values and meanings? Don't you see the endless regress that inserting God for ultimate meaning causes? I mean, consider what the word "meaning" actually means and it's context/origin.

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The Lord said, "I AM who I AM." That may be far beyond what our human intellect can fully grasp, but it is the only conclusion that we have been left with. We can know that in the human context of the universe that we must be given value and purpose by God in order to have purpose, but you have no way to know that God must be given purpose b/c you don't know the nature of God or the context of his existence. I have not used any premise in my arguing that everything with value must be given value, only that in order for humans to have value, it must be given to us.

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I won't be able to reply for a while, but I'd invite you to re-think the meaning of the word "meaning" itself. You're absolutely right about not knowing the nature of God or the context of his existence...however, this is exactly why the idea that God gives us meaning is itself, a meaningless statement.

Quote:

The Lord said, "I AM who I AM." That may be far beyond what our human intellect can fully grasp, but it is the only conclusion that we have been left with.

So say human beings. This is a million miles away from being the only conclusion that we are left with. I'll try and reply again later.

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Run 4 fun wrote:

I have not used any premise in my arguing that everything with value must be given value, only that in order for humans to have value, it must be given to us.

We could give it to ourselves.

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Well I don't know what else I can add actually except that, by your own admission we don't know the nature of God or the context of his existence and it's for this very reason that claiming God gives our lives meaning is beyond the scope of our reasoning. You claimed in the earlier post to which I originally replied that...

Quote:

If there is a God who made us and gave us purpose then there is meaning and purpose inherent in life. Besides, as I argued earlier on, if humans are what gives things value, then they don't have real value.

...and this just moves the burden of meaning to a new level, a level at which again, by your own admission we are not capable of making claims about. The reason I wanted to draw your attention to the use of the word "meaning" is that it's seems very unreasonable to suggest human lives have no real value if WE give them meaning and at the same time, suggest that the ultimate origin of this meaning is in fact a "being" that we know neither the nature of nor the context of it's existence.

I agree with Rosborne though, I think we both instinctively create meaning between the relationships of things around us to help us navigate between them and we're also fed meaning by those around us (a more forceful approach). We literally do give meaning to ourselves. You think this degrades the value of human lives but why on earth would shifting this burden to some creator change this when we, once again, have no knowledge of the nature of God or it's existence? What would you make of this special "meaning" if God's actual purpose for us all was to cause pain and wreak havoc on one another? I bet you would feel differently, I wonder if this is because you have in fact given your life meaning by finding meaning in the idea of a God who created you and gave you a good, virtuous, kind purpose?

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fresco wrote:

pswfps,

I note you say you are "not an atheist" yet you are obviously prepared to try to examine "sentience/consciousness" from an "objective" standpoint.
Am I correct in thinking that you tend towards "spirituality" as opposed to "religion" and that any "deity" you might be proposing is not an anthropomorphic father figure ?

You're not far from the mark there. To be honest though, I don't really know how to categorise myself or whether I ascribe to any formulated notion of "spirituality." I can say this though: I certainly cannot align myself with any of the mainstream religions. In particular I find the various occurences of monotheism to be particulary pernicious. The very notion that a creator sentience would reveal itself to just a select few and as is common, condemn the rest to some sort of eternal suffering strikes me as nothing more than tribal politics of a very human nature. Carrot and stick. Basically I believe that if there is a creator, then such a creator would reveal itself to all humanity equally. Furthermore, such a being would not summarise the majority of humanity as trash on the basis "they haven't heard" or they "don't believe" some preposterous story which denies the brains we were given by said creator. I am deeply suspiscious of anybody or group of individuals who claim to have some sort of exclusive divine connection, that they are absolutley right and the rest of the world is wrong. Orthodox Cristianity in particular would condemn the majority of humanity to eternal hell (think about that, it bends my mind) at the hand of an "all loving" God! Bizarre nonsense.

On the other hand, I am equally suspiscious of absolute atheism. How can one be sure that there is no creative sentience behind a universe which exhibits such complexity and order? There's more to the universe than meets the eye, I reckon.

Anyway I've rambled enough for now, I could go on for ages but I'm off for a fag and a glass of red. How's things in Manchester? It's pissing it down in Nuneaton.... again. Sad

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Run 4 fun wrote:

pswfps wrote:
Quote:
What makes survival and reproduction have real value?

I suppose it is made valuable by our natural drive to survive. Without a desire to live, living is worthless.

Right. So then by the chance as nature fell together survival is valuable. So if nature is the cause of this value and desire in us then for no reason is it truly valuable because nature cannot know anything as rational mind can know, and therefore can't know what happens if something does not have life and cannot know anything about values at all. It would not be of real value... just chance. So now we're down to figuring the issue: with no God, the greatest true value is survival, which is a desire determined by the chance the nature is the way it is, which means that it is not truly valuable; therefore, life in the atheistic worldveiw has no real value, that is, it's meaningless.

Firstly I am quite willing to accept that the universe may be designed for some purpose by a creator sentience. However, words like "value", "purpose" and "meaning" are very subjective. As a sentient being, the greatest privelege I know is to ascribe purpose and value to everything I encounter, including my self. Paradoxically it is also the greatest burden, so I understand why some shy away from it and defer to a higher authority, assuming one exists, in order to gain purpose.

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pswfps

Keep your eye on J L Nobody and Cyracuz for extrapolation of your ideas.
Note also that Sam Harris (celebrated arch atheist) allows for "spirituality".

(Its cold here.....Philosophy group meets first Tuesday of the month at the Town Hall Tavern if you are ever passing).

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Again, in the atheistic worldveiw, if man gives things their value (such as survival), then it has no real value, because what authority does man have to say what is or isn't of value in his lack of understanding what non-survival is like. And when it comes down to it, man would be merely the product of mindless natural process which has been shown previously to fail as an agent to give value to anything. Nature doesn't work, man is part of nature, so it doesn't work for man either. What we value would merely be the bioelectrochemical reactions of our brain to stimuli. Rosborne, you may want to refer back for earlier arguments against man giving value.

I read George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God and he followed that line of reasoning that if unknowable is a quality of God, that God then loses all meaning and reason to be at all considered. However, when I say unknowable or not fully in the grasp of human intellect, I do not mean that we cannot know anything about God's nature, but that we cannot fully know his nature. I know many things about God, though many things are a mystery and not fully known. We have some knowledge, limited knowledge.

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Run 4 fun, a few things. Firstly, how could anyone or anything other than man himself give meaning to man's life, man's pleasures, virtues etc? Again, I think you're grossly misusing words like value, meaning and purpose which, intrinsic in their nature, are representing relationships between man and things. Statements like the following seem incredibly fantastical to me...

Quote:

And when it comes down to it, man would be merely the product of mindless natural process which has been shown previously to fail as an agent to give value to anything.

Secondly, I guessed you would say something about complete vs incomplete knowledge regarding God after I'd made such a big deal about our lack of knowledge. I haven't read the book you mention though I'll be sure to check it out. However, this is key. I don't think you can know that a) god exists, b) God created human beings or c) God gave our lives meaning, you can however, believe all those things. Your use of the word "know" clashes big time with mine, hell you said on the previous page...

Quote:

The Lord said, "I AM who I AM."

...is this from the bible or some other religious text? If so does your knowledge of the lord being who he is because this religious text says so? I just can't argue with that kind of thinking, not in the hopes of an open discussion anyway.

Lastly, following on from this, because I think you can't know any of those things but rather believe them, you did indeed create your own meaning. Even if that meaning was to divert responsiblity for the origins to your "God" figure, you at the very least, made this move of believing etc. On top of that I bet you feel like this gives your life meaning/purpose and since you made the choice to believe, lives without God are far from meaningless and valueless to the individual as I tried to point out when I asked how you'd feel if "God's" purpose for us all was to be evil or something, I bet you'd take issue with this kind of purpose just like I bet you'd take issue with the kind of purpose many religions around the world purporting the same kinds of objective ideas hold. It's pick and choose.

If your knowledge of God comes from religious texts/ideas then, with them unable to be all correct, you are making an arbitrary choice as to which guides you use, based on your own dealings with the world and who you are i.e. your creating your own meaning again. On the flip side, if your knowledge of God comes from personal experiential dealings, it is you who is interpreting those experiences, weighing the good/bad, picking and choosing again, hell you're probably even narrowing your initial scope of investigation based on more arbitrary factors, subconscious inherent meanings you've already fashioned.

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Chumly wrote:

I did not make the claim that the universe has inherent meaning, only that life potentially does relative to entropy.

Thus showing your claim
InfraBlue wrote:
Life has no inherent meaning.
to be questionable.

Of course you didn't make the claim that the universe has inherent meaning. I put up that analogous example.

So, life is a potential counter to entropy. So what?

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The question "So what?" can be placed after virtually any sentence. Are you of the view that I am obliged to respond in a fashion other than that which befits the question?

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Chumly wrote:

The question "So what?" can be placed after virtually any sentence. Are you of the view that I am obliged to respond in a fashion other than that which befits the question?

That's right, "so what?" can be placed after virtually any sentence. It negates any assertion that anything has "inherent meaning." Whatever meaning you may assert in sentences like "life has inherent meaning beyond your reference to 'individuals' in as much as life is a potential counter to entropy" is subjective, no matter how you may wish to respond to the question, because the question still stands.

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Atheists... Your life is pointless

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