Posted on 09/09/2001 8:17:06 AM PDT by Anamensis
This is a third thread, continuing the "The Real Murderers, Atheists or Christianity."
Now, the problem as I see it so far, in our attempts to designate a starting ground which we can both agree on, is this:
What I think you are saying still comes back to "we should believe because we are better off if we believe." You maintain that logic cannot work if it is not founded on a given, and you maintain that the only given it can be founded on is God. You say that without the Christian God, everything becomes relative and as an example, you offer Hitler, and point out that if everything is relative, we cannot say that what Hitler did was "wrong."
I would answer that if your definition of "good" or "right" is based on God, then you apparently must hold that either God can be judged on these absolutes, or everything he does is good, therefore the absolute criterion for "good" is not "good" but "anything God does or anything done at God's behest."
Therefore, in your world, God killing all the first born children of Egypt was "good." The Jews killing everyone in every city they crossed on their way through Canaan was "good." The flood wiping out all of humanity but Noah's family was "good." People being doomed to hell is "good." The projected body count upon the second coming, even if it represents 75% of humanity, will be "good."
If this is your absolute, allow me to say that
1) It's every bit as disgusting and violent as the Holocaust. In fact, if one can make a case that Hitler was doing God's will, then you'd have to call it "good."
2) It seems to bear no relation to what humans call "good" as in "what most benefits the majority of humanity while harming few or none of the rest of humanity."
3) Any act or event perceived to be "God's will" or "at the behest of God" must be considered "good" even though no one has yet proven there is a God at all.
This is the problem with the "benefits" argument. It comes back to this: unless it's true that
A) There is a god, and
B) it is the Christian God, and
C) you accept that what he does and wants done is "good" and
D) you can prove that any action done at his behest is really done at his behest,
then you have neither the "truth" or the "benefit" on your side. I know I haven't addressed everything in your last two posts to me, I couldn't select just your posts, my computer would either select the WHOLE thread or nothing. And it loads slowly, so I'm working from memory. I figure we'll get it together eventually.
Oh, and my definition of atheism is "anyone who does not believe in supernatural dietites." (This does mean that if someone thinks they believe in "god" but considers "god" and "nature" to be the same, they're just scared to say they are atheists... but they are. You have to believe in something supernatural to be a theist.)
If athiests insist that the universe occured "naturally" (i.e. no guiding intelligence), then they are essentially saying that it has no meaning. It's existence is meaningless. And if it's meaningless, we could never have discovered the concept of meaningfullness. If it had truly been "natural" then there would be no basis of comparision...in other words, the concept of a divinely created universe would be impossible to comprehend, much less argue about.
He uses the analogy of a universe totally without light and totally inhabited by creatures without eyes. In that universe, "dark" would be a concept that one could never explore. The concept of "dark" is meaningless and there could never be a debate about it's "darkness" because that's the way the universe is.
In the same way, if the universe is meaningless, we would have never had the capacity to understand that it is meaningless. That's just the way it would be.
It's naive to think you can reach a concenses....
There is an old story about a preacher who was trying to make a point about hell. He stood behind the pulpit and held up a worm. He lit a match under it and it of course began wriggling in pain. The congregation couldn't stand it and begged him to stop. He went on to say that God would never do such a thing forever to those he has created. So many believers are all too eager to leave common sense to conform to their church doctrine because to not conform can have terrible results. Most will not question their techers as Paul taught us to do.
Isaiah 45:7 Isaiah 45 Isaiah 45:6-8 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Judges 9:23 Judges 9 Judges 9:22-24 Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech:
Amos 3:6 Amos 3 Amos 3:5-7 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
C.S. Lewis was the king of the false dichotomies and the excluded middle.
His interpretation presumes that only a supernatural big brother can give "meaning"
to life. I determine my own purpose and the meaning of my own life, much as the theist
gives meaning to his life by his choice of religions.
To be fair, this is true. The universe has no meaning aside
from that which we bring to it. An asteroid doesn't
mean anything. Neither does a gamma ray.
Meaning comes from contemplation, which only
arises from intelligence. We are the universe
contemplating itself. That is what it means.
Unfortunately it doesn't address the more fundamental question of who or what created God to give meaning. Religionists keep making the same iteration error.
Of course, the Christian response to this scenario is that God isn't punishing at all, but is offering a chance of rescue from this punishment, which we are doomed to if we don't take his offer of salvation.
I suppose you can say that God could stop this if he really wanted to, but then that defeats the whole purpose of free will. Without free will, we are nothing more than slaves.
Unfortunately it doesn't address the more fundamental question of who or what created God to give meaning. Religionists keep making the same iteration error.
Naturally nobody knows the answer to that one. But the answer itself is meaningless for our universe. The fact that God created the universe with certain rules and principles (meaning) is all we'll be able to comprehend anyways.
It's kind of like insisting on knowing the lineage of the designer of an automobile before you'll ride in the car they designed. It might be nice information to have, but it's not going to make one bit of difference in the operation of the automobile.
2. "Unfortunately it doesn't address the more fundamental question of who or what created God to give meaning. Religionists keep making the same iteration error."
Naturally nobody knows the answer to that one. But the answer itself is meaningless for our universe.
If you are going to build some logical construct that requires a creator to produce meaning, then you have to produce a logical construct that causes a creator to come into being with the power to produce meaning. Aka first causes, or "first meaning."
That's the problem with religionists -- they fail to see the recursion in the logical constructs they try to foist upon us.
No doubt you arrive at your purpose and meaning by consideration of all information available to you.
So does this mean that your life is meaningless if you can't formulate thought to arrive at this?
Can't be done. The creator lies outside the physcial universe, so it's impossible to construct a logical answer to the question. That's where faith by experience comes in. That's the problem with religionists -- they fail to see the recursion in the logical constructs they try to foist upon us.
It is a problem, but only for those who refuse to accept anything that they can't prove scientifically exists. That doesn't mean that one day science won't "catch up", only that science hasn't yet come up with the proper methodology to prove it.
Meaning comes from contemplation, which only arises from intelligence. We are the universe contemplating itself. That is what it means At what level of intelligence does the universe acquire meaning? For example, to a lion, the meaning of an antelope is food (as far as we know). To us, it might mean something entirely different.
Interesting question. But the universe actually never
acquires meaning at all, except to the mind contemplating it.
For example, to a lion, the meaning of an antelope is food (as
far as we know). To us, it might mean something entirely different.
The meanings we put on things need not
be the same. The object has no inherent meaning, no
more than asteroids and gamma rays. Meanings
arise from the contemplation, not physics.
The lion may very well contemplate. My dog
surely does.
Moot point. I have already done so.
Only I can determine the meaning for me. And you for you. And Bob for Bob.
A child? He's forumlating it. A mentally handicapped? He formulates his own meaning as well as he can, too. (But others stand as stewards for his rights.)
Asked and answered threads ago. Remember?
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