Meaning and Existence

[_barrelomonkeys]

The bottom line folks, to this whole miasma, is that all the atheists and all the secular humanists that can dance on the head of a pin creating their own meaning and their own human ethical and moral systems from the Big Bang to the present moment cannot impose one iota of meaning upon the tiniest particle of the universe if the universe as a whole never had meaning to begin with.

All your vaunted self generated moral and ethical systems, your perceptions of happiness and meaning and purpose, all your illusory constructs are nothing more than the derivative functions of a very complex, highly sophisticated CNS.

You are all fodder for the coming Red Giant. Nothing you have ever done, ever said, ever hoped, ever believed, ever dreamed, or ever loved, has the slightest degree of intrinsic, inherent, transcendent meaning beyond the precincts of your own subjective experience and the struggle to survive. This means that the subjective meaning yor create to motivate and negotiate your life experiences has no meaning. The concept of meaning has no meaning.

One large iron nickel meteorite, and its over. At some point, in the materialist conception, the solar system will be destroyed. At another, the entire universe will cease. It will be as if we had never existed at all.

We are, indeed, in Dawkin's and Sagan's world, not Butterflies dreaming we are men, but simply men dreaming.


No wonder secularists despise religion so. To accept it would be to suddenly impose upon ourselves the inverse of Doestoyevski's dictum. Suddenly, everything would no longer be permitted.

I agree with everything you said until your last paragraph. I see no meaning in much of it. I find it very sad actually. I try to make life as enjoyable for me and mine in the here and now. I sense there is no more other than the here and now. I try to live life to the fullest for that reason.

I do not despise religion. I imagine it is very reassuring and comforting to understand your place and meaning. I wish I had that. I don't despise. I envy that.

Of course I'm a reluctant agnostic and am apparently in the minority here. If I could crawl back down into the rabbit hole I'd leap.

[_amantha]

I agree with everything you said until your last paragraph. I see no meaning in much of it. I find it very sad actually. I try to make life as enjoyable for me and mine in the here and now. I sense there is no more other than the here and now. I try to live life to the fullest for that reason.

I do not despise religion. I imagine it is very reassuring and comforting to understand your place and meaning. I wish I had that. I don't despise. I envy that.

Of course I'm a reluctant agnostic and am apparently in the minority here. If I could crawl back down into the rabbit hole I'd leap.

Hey, don't feel lonely. I'm a reluctant agnostic too. Nice description.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Hey, don't feel lonely. I'm a reluctant agnostic too. Nice description.

Careful, pretty soon someone is going to say I'm your sockpuppet. ;)

[_amantha]

Careful, pretty soon someone is going to say I'm your sockpuppet. ;)

Huh??? How does that work? Sorry...missed the wink :)

[_Analytics]

The bottom line folks, to this whole miasma, is that all the atheists and all the secular humanists that can dance on the head of a pin creating their own meaning and their own human ethical and moral systems from the Big Bang to the present moment cannot impose one iota of meaning upon the tiniest particle of the universe if the universe as a whole never had meaning to begin with.

Yes, that is the bottom line. Here is your entire argument on this point, from the top line all the way down to the bottom line.

Assumption 1: If the universe as a whole never had meaning to begin with, then nothing in it can have meaning.

Conclusion: If the universe as a whole never had meaning to begin with, then nothing in it can have meaning.

[_Some Schmo]

It seems that with the other secular naturalists here, you don't seem to be able to get a handle on this. So here it is again: The reason you have no trouble salvaging personal meaning is easily explained by evolution. You have an incredibly sophisticated cerebral cortex that allows you to do that kind of thing, or paint, sculpt, do mathematics, or create philosophical systems. However, the objective, actually existing universe in which you are embedded as a peripheral phenomena is quite meaningless. Now, if the universe is meaningless, then all its contents are meaningless, including you and me.

It is then the case that meaning is a function of your high intelligence, and your high intelligence is a function of millions of years of fortuitous random mutational alterations. Hence, you have no intrinsic meaning, but this doesn't not prevent you from believing, wishing, or hoping that you do.

LOL

No s***, sherlock. That's exactly what I'm saying. I get it, and have been thinking that all along.

What you don't seem to get is that is exactly what my post meant, but you're so contrarian with all us evil scum of the earth anti-mormons, it would kill you to know we agree on something, and you want to think we're somehow disagreeing.

Take your head out of your ass. I think you could use the fresh air.

[_Coggins7]

So in other words, you are admitting that you don't have a logical proof?

Let's say for the sake of discussion that God was generated by a purely random chance. If that were the case, does that render God incapable of creating a universe (or anything else) with inherent value or meaning? Why or why not?

I gave you the inferential and/or deductive logical problem you need to solve in the form of several questions above which you have not attempted to answer. The problem here is that you yourself have no justifiable rational counter-argument.


If God himself was generated purely by random chance, that at fist glance he wouldn't be God, as God would then be nothing more than an epiphenomena of an already existing universe of principles, laws, and conditions he didn't create. Why would God need to create a universe that already exists?

Further, if God was a random chance phenomena himself, that just happened to be, then I'm not sure how he could impose meaning on another universe without first ascribing some meaning to himself. But as we've already seen, over and over again, that meaning could be nothing but the creation of his own subjective thought world. and therefore, utterly arbitrary and relative.

[_Coggins7]

but you're so contrarian with all us evil scum of the earth anti-mormons,

Now you're catching on Schmo...

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Here were the salient points to your post Homer...

... I disagree with the quoted sentiment, however. I have no trouble with "trying to salvage personal meaning." You were the one who pointed out in your original post that personal meaning and intrinsic meaning (using your terminology) were separate things. Why does foregoing an intrinsic meaning have to lead to giving up personal meaning?

Assigning meaning is a human need. That's it. Most people don't like to think their lives are meaningless, so in the absence of being told what the meaning is, they make one up. So what?

My life is about loving my wife and daughter, making a few people laugh, and hopefully providing others with a few fun memories along the way. That's what it means to me. It's not important that it means that to others, or that anyone else agrees with it. What difference does it make?

But the simple fact that I've come up with a meaning for my life in no way makes an intrinsic meaning a reality or even necessary, any more than deciding to have eggs for breakfast dictates that it was my fate to eat eggs today.

This whole ill fated philosophical mess indicates that, as I pointed out, you just don't, as yet, get it. You haven't locked horns with the primary philosophical problem yet.

[_Some Schmo]

This whole ill fated philosophical mess indicates that, as I pointed out, you just don't, as yet, get it. You haven't locked horns with the primary philosophical problem yet.

No, I get what the thrust of your argument is (if there's no meaning to the universe due to <whatever>, nothing that exists within it can attach meaning to anything within it either). It's just that it's a stupid argument, and not really worth arguing against, just like I wouldn't argue against, for instance, the proposition that because I can't disprove Santa Claus, it must mean he exists. Why would I waste my time?

Where we agree is on the meaninglessness of the universe for an atheist. I guess that's all that we get.

By the way, I'll take evil scum of the earth anti-mormon over idiotic pro-mormon dumbass sheep any day. To each their own, eh?