RE: Argument Against Divine Purpose
October 22, 2013 at 4:44 pm
(This post was last modified: October 22, 2013 at 4:44 pm by Faith No More.)
(October 22, 2013 at 4:25 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Actually, notice the parts I underline above: they're possible for an atheist if by 'objective purpose' it is meant "purpose imbued by an external source/another being". Under that definition, you could give me OP, or my parents.
So theists cannot use that if they want to say that atheists must be nihilists while they do not, or that God can grant objective purpose since he is greater than us. But likewise, they have to affirm that only a higher being can grant objective purpose to a being, and a being cannot grant itself OP, otherwise we could to ourselves. So the only seeming option is special pleading.
You mean special pleading by allowing god to imbue himself a purpose, or by allowing god to be the only being allowed to imbue purpose onto others? Because I know how they would attempt to wiggle around the latter, and that is with their definition of god. The "go to" argument for the theist when attempting to get around special pleading is to contort the definition of god so he has all of these intrinsic properties that allow him to do as they claim.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell