Hallucination.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.[/Inigo Montoya]

[This message has been edited by flechenbones (edited 10/4/2005 5:52p).]

I'll say this again:

If something does not exist, nor retain any influence over anything that exists, then there is no logical way to say that it has ANY meaning.

As an athiest, I assume you don't believe in eternal spirits. As such, anything you mention will eventually lose ALL meaning. Therefore, you can NOT logically believe that ANYTHING has any lasting meaning - period - no other possible way to view it.

You can say it has meaning for 1,000,000 years. You can say it has menaing to you right now. But you MUST confess that all things eventually go away and lose ALL meaning. THEY DO NOT LAST.

So what?

Why is lasting meaning the only kind of meaning?

Because it is the only kind that lasts.

Everything else is futile and damned to being inconsequential. Inconsequential is the one things most people most fear being; and I submit that we fear it because we know that we were not designed to be inconsequential.


I read where the BTK killer might be buried in Arlignton with Kennedy. All men die and are buried, and eventually every consequence of their life will cease.


For athiests, this futility in only something that you can "learn to be OK" with.

For Christians, it is not at all our reality. Further, I do not think it is at all reality.

Because it is the only kind that lasts.

So let me get this straight. You divide meaning into that which is relatively ephemeral and lasting meaning, and the only important part to you is the latter, so everyone else must see that the same way.

we know that we were not designed to be inconsequential.

No, you believe that. I don't know that. In fact, I've seen nothing that indicates we were even designed at all, but that is another thread.

The fact that you have faith that your life has some lasting meaning is irrelevent in regards to whether it is true or not. Many people have believed in many religions over time and most have whithered away as societies wax and wane through time. No reason to suspect that yours is any different.

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You divide meaning into that which is relatively ephemeral and lasting meaning, and the only important part to you is the latter, so everyone else must see that the same way.

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I don't want to speak for lar, but this critique could have easily been directed at me. Just as is done by the same people on every thread discussing the failures of atheism to assert moral truth, you are confusing an attempt at discussing meaning as a philosophical truth and whatever an individual has chosen to define as meaning in his or her own life. The problem is that it allows meaning to be anything when it is left completely up to each individual to define their own meaning. Then, you have no means of defending the things you do as having any meaning other than fulfill some arbitrary definition of meaning you have selected. You also don't have any means of arguing against anyone who pursues meaning in a destructive or immoral way. In a sense, the philosophical problems that moral relativists face are shared by those who assert existence has no meaning but things within that existence do have meaning.

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No, you believe that. I don't know that. In fact, I've seen nothing that indicates we were even designed at all, but that is another thread.

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Fair enough, but you stand with a very small minority who holds that view. It seems, over thousands of years of documented existence, humans from all cultures and backgrounds have believed something contrary to your view. That doesn't make it true, but definitely makes it worth analysis.

[This message has been edited by Nixter (edited 10/5/2005 10:48a).]

It seems, over thousands of years of documented existence, humans from all cultures and backgrounds have believed something contrary to your view.

True about atheism and most religions. Only 1 in 3 people on the planet is a Christian, and so 2/3 of the planet chooses a belief system different from yours. Does that make it wrong? No. But it does suggest that there are many other religions, like those in the past, which have claimed to be THE one. Many have since faded from prominence, just like Christianity may be based on the more rapid spread of Islam worldwide.

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Because it is the only kind that lasts.

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Circular logic at its best.

You say that lack of meaning is a "problem" for atheists. (Nevermind the fact that if there is no meaning in anything that does not confirm or refute theism or atheism) You then pick your own definition of "meaning."

What precisely is your point in all of this?

We often discuss "the problem of pain" that is difficult for so many people as they attempt to reconcile this world and a good God. I am glad we do.

I think that athiesm has its own set of "problems" (as theism has the "problem of pain" ) and I wanted to discuss those. That's "my point in all this."

But your "problem" isn't a problem at all.

Let's use YOUR definitions and say that life has no meaning if god doesn't exist.

So what? Why is that a "problem for atheism?"

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I never said it was. The discussion of meaning evolved after you accused Christianity of being pessimistic. The "problems" I articulated in the first post.

If some, like DG above, is OK with the futility that athiesm logically brings to life, then it is no problem for athiesm at all.

I think you're putting words in my mouth just a little bit there. My saying that it doesn't bother me that when viewed from a thousand years or a million miles, my life will be of very little to no consequence, does not mean that I consider my life futile. Very much to the contrary, my, and everyone elses life, is extremely important - of paramount importance. Because life is all there is, it's precious beyond valuation. That the value is fleeting (in a cosmic sense) does not make it any less real to me or my loved ones.

And, for what it's worth, the opinion of my value as expressed by people or deity(ies) one thousand years in the future is of absolutley no value to me. So, the loss of a thing which is inherently worthless, is not much of a loss.

I agree with Damngood.

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Because life is all there is, it's precious beyond valuation

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That could lead to an interesting philophical discussion of what "life" is. Is life "all there is?" What makes a life a life? What makes a human life worth more than a viral life? Is a human life any different than a viral life when viewed from a cosmic level?



I appreciated the intelligent, well thought answer, by the way.

I love this exchange

NoAc: "Why is lasting meaning the only kind of meaning"


Letters: "Because it is the only kind that lasts"


Very telling





[This message has been edited by schizmann (edited 10/6/2005 1:43p).]

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Clearly, you should listen to nothing I say and consider youself intellectually superior to all thiests. Thank you for spending your valuable time on a worthless thinker like myself.

My apologies Letters - I can be a snot some times

By the way...I am a thiest (I think)

[This message has been edited by schizmann (edited 10/6/2005 5:00p).]

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The discussion of meaning evolved after you accused Christianity of being pessimistic.

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I like that your response to the accusation is that life has no meaning without an afterlife. Can you not see how that would be viewed as pessimistic?

No big deal, Schizman.

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I like that your response to the accusation is that life has no meaning without an afterlife. Can you not see how that would be viewed as pessimistic?

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Quite honestly, I think the reasons I give for the futility of life from an athiestic viewpoint is not pessimistic, but logical. I think the pessimism that you accuse me of is simply because I am showing the logical ends of your own worldview. That's just my honest opinion. As such, the pessimism extends not from Christianity, but from athiesm.

My worldview leads me to believe that I am an eternal spirit and will reign with God forever. What could be more optimistic than that?!

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My worldview leads me to believe that I am an eternal spirit and will reign with God forever.

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And also that since this life is fleeting it is meaningless.

fleeting = meaningless?

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And also that since this life is fleeting it is meaningless.

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No, no, no.

This life directly effects the eternal one that is coming. As such, it is FULL of meaning. It is in this life that God is changing me, refining me, transforming me into the kind of being that can begin to dwell with him. This life is FULL of meaning, because it is in this life that God makes me able to love him and to be with him.

Eveybody asks the question, "Am I going to heaven?" Why doesn't anybody ask, "Would I like it when I got there?" It is in this life that God works through me in transforming me into learning how to choose to be with him - and being with him IS heaven.

And if your life had only lasted 20 seconds?

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And if your life had only lasted 20 seconds?

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I have no idea how God deals with infants, people who have never heard his truth, or a million other scenarios.

[This message has been edited by letters at random (edited 10/7/2005 8:10a).]

My take on the original post.

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The Problem of Joy...

We live in a world where death reigns. All living things survive, for a wisp of time, by killing other living things. Everyday, our bodies slowly die. We lose loved ones; we kill other creatures; we inch a day closer to our own death - surrounded constantly by the huge, dark, cold, empty void of space. How, in this reality, can the presence of joy ever be explained?

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To me this is quite a pessimistic view of life. We may getting closer to death as soon as we are born, but we are actually growing physically for a considerable time and growing mentally (hopefully) throughout.

Joy can be explained in several ways. To me, my biggest joy is accomplishing my goals. Generally, the harder the goal is to achieve the more joy it brings me.

We do kill other creatures for food and sometimes sport, but we also plant new crops, raise farm animals, and otherwise bring life into existence.

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The Problem of belief...

Given the above dark, cold facts about our reality, how is it that belief in a good God ever came about? And how is it that not only does such a counter-intuitive (given the above facts) belief come into being, but that it dominates?

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The "Cold facts about our reality" is a subjective determination. As I have explained above, it all depends on your perception. Looking at the history of religion, it should be apparent how "belief in a good god" developed. Projection of (ultimate) authority, explaining the unexplainables, and controlling the general population through threats of damnation or the reward of eternal bliss in an "afterlife" or some of the components of religion. Man created all kinds of religions in just about every culture. Most of the original religions had multiple gods and I think it whas the Egyptians who first came up with the unified god theory. Christians took the idea and ran with it.

What also helps to keep the god "good" is the concept of the devil which all the bad stuff can be blamed on. Never mind the idea that an omnipotent allknowing god would control the devil and all its actions.

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The Problem of causality...

How does the natural world, governed in every observable (ie, scientific) way by time, explain itself? What was the "first thing?" How can you naturally explain how someting happened when there was previously nothing?

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That is one of the issues that religion will always have a say in, the unexplainables. Science can only hypothecise at this point about "what came before", but as science pushes our realm of knowledge more and more of the fallacies of religions will be exposed. But I do believe that the "what came before" question will always be there and we should also keep looking and not take the easy road and say "a god did it".

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The Problem of the Human Spirit...

And what does the athiest do with the human spirit? Deny it? Deny that they are more than their bodies? Does not everything within them scream out against such an assertion, as it screams out in the rest of us? And if they do not deny the spirit, what is it to them? Is it real? Eternal? From where did it come, and to where is it going?

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By human spirit, I assume you mean "soul". A soul is the concept religions have to imbed before the ideas of any afterlife can be sold ( I always wondered what the beforelife soul was like and where it goes).

I agree that more than our bodies defines us. Our actions, interactions with others, how we are perceived, etc. all shape us into who we are. As another poster has mentioned, our legacy may live on after we die, but for most, that will only last for a generation or two. If you are lucky enough (good or bad) to be famous, your legacy may be a millennium or more.

As far as this "screaming out" of your "spirit", I am not under the impression that is a universal human condition. Some of us do have a vibrant drive to be successful in life and we have an inate desire to have other people believe the same things we do (both of which are good survival characterisitics). I have heard it said that "people who believe the same way you do are less likely to kill you". A large part of religion (especially christianity) is recruiting and once people become indoctrinated, they usually want to go out and convert/recruit people to believe the same way they do. Some of this may explain your "screaming out" of your "spirit".

Any comments?

muster - My only comment is that you have no future...Your hero, Madeleine Murray O'Hair, wound up chopped up in a drum and thrown in a ditch in Real County...Not to mention where she may be now...Don't wait until it's too late...Jesus loves you...

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Here's another question along the same lines: why do football players from Texas go to Oklahoma U?

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POTD!!!

I think my future looks pretty good. Through hard work and setting and achieving good goals. I am happy with where I am going. As far as some dead person loving me, my grandmother did too. So what is your point?

I never really knew much about OHare, but I think someone on her staff got greedy and killed her to cover their tracks. She did a lot on bringing the awareness of not relying on myths and fantacies to the forefront though.

Butch O'Hare shot down five G4M3 Betty's singlehandedly, saving the USS Lexington from serious trouble, and winning the Congressional Medal of Honor. They named the airport in Chicago after him. His dad worked for Al Capone.

Butch is dead and his life still has meaning to the hundreds of sailors he saved and the thousands of offspring they produced.

any substantitive comments to my take on the original post?

So what's your point?

- Heaven or Hell, my friend...Eternity is a long time...

You should live a full, moral, ethical life before you die. Deferring to a non existent afterlife wastes some of the time you have.

call me a simpleton but it is my "opinion" that it takes just as much if not more faith to believe that this all came from nothing than it does to believe it was created by a higher power.