Theists - I want to know what you think

[LadyForCamus]

One incoherent belief is that there can be personal meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe. Not in the sense that people cannot have personal goals or things they enjoy about life; but rather, in the sense that a purely physical universe cannot have meaning because physical objects aren’t about anything. They simply are.

I agree with this, though I don’t see how it’s a philosophical problem, or philosophically incoherent?  Maybe there is no objective, personal meaning. You don’t think that’s a justified position?

Other incoherent beliefs, that do not seem so on their faces, include that the universe can be intelligible or that there can be moral facts and natural laws apart from some transcendent reality.

Again, assuming you’re right that the universe is unintelligible and that there are no such things as moral facts without god, why is that a philosophically unjustified position?  

4. Do you think an atheist and/or rational skeptic can reason their way to belief in god?


Do you find that this acknowledgment complicates discussions with atheists who need a reason for belief first?  I feel like this is the root of why theists and atheists end up talking at each other instead of to each other.  Atheist says, ‘why should I believe?’, and theist says, ‘well, you just have to believe.’  Do you think we ever move through such a monumental barrier between us?  Should theists even try to convert atheists?

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5. Do you think an atheist and/or rational skeptic could be convinced by reasons, or do you think God would have to intervene in some way?

As an existentialist (the Neo part of Neo-Scholastic), I say that before anyone, atheist or Christian, can even begin to reason he or she must embrace some basic absolute foundational beliefs in the absence of certainty. These ultimately unverifiable beliefs can be unrelated, mutually exclusive, or reinforcing of each other. One of these is the belief that the “sensus divinitatus”, sense that there is more to reality than what is immediately apparent in the physical world. For me, to accept this feeling a as an indication of the Divine supports, rather that undermines, my other foundational beliefs in the efficacy of human reason and the intelligibility of the universe. I believe it is theoretically possible for an atheist to read the demonstrations of Aquinas and start to believe in God. But as a practical matter I do not think such an atheist would accept them unless those demonstrations confirmed a deep seated intuition.

Personally (and I’m repeating what I just said to Steve), I think human intuition is the wrong tool for the job here.  Human intuition is pragmatic, and it’s utility is related primarily to the survival advantages it provides us.  I don’t think it’s the right tool for determining existential truths about reality.  If you try to use a hack saw to hammer in a nail, you aren’t going to get very far.  😝

So then it comes down to being willing to leap to that belief in spite of the fact that it’s perfectly reasonable to not believe?

Not exactly. We find ourselves alone in an apparently absurd world. It’s ALL a leap of faith.

I think in a sense this is true.