(June 24, 2015 at 12:07 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Too often, religious folks will assert that without their god you can have no objective meaning to life, nor absolute morals, that there's no value in anything not god-given. We've seen it more than a few times lately here, and it leads me to a simple pair of questions that I'd like anyone inclined to respecting that argument to answer:
1. Is there somewhere, in your opinion, where objective morals, meaning, what have you, can come from that isn't a god?
If the answer is yes, your argument is dead in the water. If you answer no, then replace "objective meaning" with "meaning from a god," because that's what you're actually talking about, and try the argument again: "You can't have meaning from a god, without god." It's circular.
2. How do you intend to demonstrate that objective meaning is necessary? Because without that, you have no argument for god at all.
I think Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech depicts the nature of reality quite well. "All this" is meaningless long term. Unfortunately god believers of all religions fight over which religion is the patent holder of morality. The truth that they don't want to face is that "all this" including life, is finite. They can't accept that those who don't hold a god belief can value the time we have now.
Evolution unfortunately works with force and cruelty, one example would be pregnancy through rape. But we also evolved with empathy and compassion which is why we react negatively to such things. What religion does to human thought unfortunately can and does lead to justifying harming others.
