Question about meaning and perception of reality from a theist.

[amkerman]

Here I'll set up the argument again and someone can try to knock it down, again.

Incorrect. Our ideas and opinions exist. If you are looking for evidence of their physical existence, they exist as particular arrangement of neurons in the brain. These are not independent of consciousness, yet they are very much real.

You have a very common misunderstanding of the difference between something that exists and something that is real. Something that is real by definition exists apart from our observations of our ideas and opinions about what they are. Neurons and "the brain" are not real. They merely exist in reality. We believe that physical interactions over billions of years eventually formed neurons and brains. before the necessary physical interactions took place neurons and brains did not exist. They could not exist. They arent real. They only exist because of our ideas about how they were created, which is through universal forces, those forces which are responsible for the creation of the universe and everything in it.

Universal constants are conceptual values which we get while interpreting how reality works. They are very much based on observation.

Agreed. And even if we never interpreted how reality works, they would still exist. They are constants. They have always existed and the fact that we have observed them and called them universal constants is mere happenstance. They exist indepently of our ideas about or observations of what they are.

These steps, as I see them, are still valid.