Meaningfulness v meaninglessness; theism vs atheism;

[Ryft]

I'm correcting the spelling in your quotes ... Please let me know if the corrections in any way changed the meaning of the statements.

(blinks)

Correcting his spelling cannot change the meaning of the statements. Grammar and punctuation, sure, but not spelling. Yet I digress. (And incidentally, I have corrected YOURS in this here, my response—including grammar and punctuation—but I am confident your meaning was preserved. You will let me know, I'm sure.)

You can't come into an atheist forum and essentially tell them they live meaningless lives devoid of feeling simply because they do not hold the belief that these things spring from some divine source. You can't imply that we have no wonder at the universe ... Just because we can explain HOW these things work in our brains and bodies doesn't negate the fact that, in our way of thinking, they are there.

It would seem that you misunderstood his point (however badly he argued it). It is not that atheists are devoid of meaning and such in their lives. On the Christian view, to which he purportedly adheres, it not only makes sense that atheists find meaning and value in life but it is even predicted that they should, for on the Christian view mankind is specially created as "imago Dei" (in the image of God). Thus there should be a vast number of things that we all share in common regardless of the beliefs we have. The point is that atheists, on THEIR own view, should not find meaning and value in life. They do, of course, as I think most of us realize and acknowledge, but it is only by stealing intellectual currency from without, in some cases committing the stolen concept fallacy. Nothing within atheism—in whatever form it gets expressed—either predicts or produces things like meaning and value in the sense that most people intend when they speak ethically. It is coming from somewhere other than their atheism, which rational self-examination will show. I was an atheist until I was 25 years old; I went through that process myself. It is a very deep and complex issue to explore, and one that I find fascinating, but that is what he meant; i.e., that atheists are inconsistent because things like objective values and deep meaning (e.g., "Why are we here?") are unintelligible under atheism.

Well there is no evidence for there not being a God.

Erm, what real evidence do you have for there being one? Now you're crossing from faith to science, which is a mistake.

No, not science. Logic and reason. There are many atheists, even here in these forums, who blissfully commit the basic logical mistake of reasoning, "There is no evidence that God exists. Therefore, God does not exist." The point is that there is no evidence that God doesn't exist, either, underscoring the point that it is fallacious to reason this way (argumentum ad ignorantiam). And incidentally, it is not necessarily a mistake to cross from faith into science. I do it all the time, moving from faith to science to logic to prose and so on, depending on the context or circumstances.

Nazis and Communists aren't evil in and of themselves.

That is a moral judgment, which obviously follows from your view. His view may be entirely different. It frustrates you when people like him come here assuming the truth of their view and pontificating to others; try to realize those moments when you are guilty of doing the very same thing, like the morality that your statement above assumes.

Indeed. In fact, Ryft believes the Invisible Pink Unicorn has it in for his 'thing'.

:P

If I'm made in God's image, I wish God had a smaller ass ...

I'm glad he doesn't—because woman, that ass is fine!

Someone please tell me if that truly is the most important question in philosophy. I highly doubt it.

No, it is not. The most important question in philosophy is, "What is truth?" All further philosophical questions and pursuits are predicated on whatever that answer turns out to be. Even questions about fundamental logic are predicated on truth (specifically 'necessary truth'). I am deeply wounded, though, that my name was not one you petitioned your question to, I'll have you know.

Atheists and theists get along quite well here in a civilized manner.

Well... most of them.