(August 8, 2019 at 8:02 pm)Belaqua Wrote: I'm curious about Acrobat's conception of how intrinsic meaning works. From what he says, it seems to be teleological, and that makes sense to me. Unfortunately some atheists think that teleology can be only divine, but I don't think that's right.
"Life's..a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" -Macbeth
Unlike Macbeth, I view life as signifying something regardless of how inadequately I might be able to describe this something.
It's this "something" that I refer to as intrinsic meaning. It's not a meaning that I gave to life, but rather one it's possess itself.
An analogy would be that of a novel, or a story, or a parable. Such works can contain intrinsic meanings, some moral, etc.. woven into them by the author, contained within the work itself, like a watch possessing an intrinsic purpose to tell time. The only distinction between this analogy and my religious belief, are that there is no distinction between the meaning of this story, and it's author. It's all just one thing, and one thing only.
There was an old slave song, that used to go "over my head I hear music in the air, there must be a God somewhere." In my view God isn't a musician playing the song, but is the song itself.
In my view, most of us, whether unbeliever or not, at some level, even if we're not fully aware of it, recognize that life is about something rather than nothing, concealed within our rejections of nihilism, of moral subjectivism, of moral statements as analogous to our likes and dislikes, and there's usually something contradictory about it.
"I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it. I have no difficulty in practical moral judgments, which I find I make on a roughly hedonistic [i.e. utilitarian] basis, but, when it comes to the philosophy of moral judgments, I am impelled in two opposite directions and remain perplexed." - Bertrand Russell
It's this intersection, that drives any sort of curiosity or interest in atheists and unbelievers. Some unbelievers here would indicate that an atheist can believe in "something"/intrinsic meaning, the good, etc.. without believing in God, and that's perfectly fine, because we primarily seem to be working off two different understandings of the word God, one in which God and this "something" are two different things, and one in which it's just one thing. I don't need them to accept my definition, nor do I have to accept there's, but we can drop the word God, divine, etc.. and manage just fine.
