Open discussion of the Christian Why We're Here thread

[Neo-Scholastic]

And I believe that when ice cream sales increase, so do accidental drownings.  I'm not, however, inclined to boycott the sale of ice cream therewith.

Do you feel that you fully understand the nature of meaning sufficient to make the claims you are making.  I'm skeptical.  What makes something meaningful, according to you?

(And no, I don't find the answer "God" to be sufficient.)

My 2 cents: This is not an argument, just an observation of the different worldviews. 

Meaning is tied to value and purpose. Value and purpose are relative to a person. There is only one transcendent person: God. Therefore God is the only one that can be the basis of transcendent meaning. Any meaning derived from a godless worldview is necessarily both fleeting and subjective. Fleeting and self-assigned meaning is not enough for a lot people. Some are not equipped to supply it or circumstances in their lives make it difficult to find it and it leads to all kinds of unhappiness.

Personally, I think it is better to love and be loved for all of eternity than to be gone, forgotten, and never be loved again. I will never understand those who consider the later more desirable.

[Catholic_Lady]

OK obviously CL was editing her post when I replied. It happens.

I find it interesting that theists are so sure that good and evil exists outside of us. If you wiped out all of the human race they seem to think that good and evil would still exist. But they cannot explain how this could be. It's basically the whole god question but in a different form and the same questions can be asked.

Like what is good and evil?  / What is a god?

Why do you believe that good & evil / a god exists as a separate entity when it cannot be measured or sensed?

etc.

It's because we believe God Himself is the embodiment of goodness. So goodness exists first and foremost through Him. Evil is simply the opposite of that. 

As to your last question, why we believe God exists... that's a whole other conversation lol.

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I meant the conflict between the 2 things you mentioned we believe in. You phrased it like those 2 things should be mutually exclussive, or contradictory to each other.

OK I see what you mean. I wasn't intending to make it sound like a conflict but a pattern of thinking common to theists.

This thread inspired by my other thread about how perhaps theists are more driven by things external to themselves and are less introspective.

https://atheistforums.org/thread-55073.html

I'll take a look at it. I have many faults and I'll be the first to admit that I royally suck at most things. But self awareness and introspection aren't among those things.

[SteveII]

Go to any graveyard and look at any gravestone over 100 years old. The memories of that person do not exist in anyone anymore. That person has no current value or purpose because IMO, those are perceived qualities about a person. He certainly isn't perceiving that anymore. No one else alive remembers him. Any value he had to his family or society is long forgotten. In fact, it might have been the case that society would have been better if he were never born.  How is that transcendent meaning? 

I don;t have to perceive my own value to -be- valuable..so I don;t know why I;d have to be alive to have been or still be valuable.  Perhaps the people in those graveyards aren;t as forgettable as you're imagining, to say nothing of whatever they accomplished in life? 

That's just on an individual scale, and transcendence already expresses itself.  We're not at the point of entire families or projects or societies or cultures or civilizations or..for that matter..the totality of the human race and experience.  

Even the "bad examples" are transcendent precisely for having been bad examples.  

It;s transcendent in every way that any god has ever been, at least.  I don;t see the problem..perhaps you prefer some other transcendent thing or person, but okay..and so what? 

Sure, you don't have to perceive your own value to be valuable. But you do in order to perceive that your life has meaning. Otherwise it is just hope that something you do has some lasting value (and therefore meaning) in some sort of backward causality way. Say you live in a little insulated mountain town and a mudslide wipes out the whole town and everyone in it--erasing any effect that hundreds of people had on the greater world. They have no transcendent value/purpose and therefore meaning on the world.  Or say a 10 year old child dies. What meaning will survive the memory of loved ones?

If God exists, we were made for a purpose and have value to an eternal and omniscient God. From that comes a meaning to life that transcends all time and avoids the problem of relying on yourself and others to provide subjective meaning. 

Firstly, the one doesn;t follow from the other in the slightest, but if meaning something to someone else qualifies as transcendence to you then I;m not sure why you just poo-pood entire graveyards full of people who just as easily mean something to someone else.  In what way do you avoid relying on others if you rely on god..are you god....and how is gods perception of your value supposed to be anything other than subjective in the same way? 

We are not using 'transcendent meaning' the same way. I am defining it as meaning that is "beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience". You are defining it as whatever meaning you can squeeze out of life that last for some period of time afterwards. You cannot have transcendent meaning without a transcendent entity that values you either for what you are or for what you did. In a godless world, everything you could possible describe as having meaning/value/purpose is subjective and relatively fleeting--lasting as long as your effect does. 

They would fine meaning because God made them, has a purpose for them, loves them and eternally cares what happens to them. They have value.

That;s just a small sliver of all potential or possible meaning and value..and I see nothing there that a human being can;t provide, or that would require a god...or even that you can demonstrate -is- provided by a god. 

Sure humans can provide that. Not everyone has someone to provide it though. Whether you believe in God or not, it is incontrovertible that the belief of a loving God that cares for you because you have intrinsic value has an effect on the one that believes it. So, in that way, there is nothing that could replace that effect in the same way. 

Some of us just don;t have to appeal to heaven to be loved or have value..don;t know what else to tell you, if you didn;t already know that...and ofc what you wrote really doesn;t have anything to do with what you quoted.
: shrugs :

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I will add this, though..that even from the standpoint of belief in some god..like yours..for example..such an unappreciative appraisal of this life you've been given and all the wonder and meaning and value that can be drawn from it seems......odd.  I don;t have any trouble seeing the value in this life, you seem to think it;s some sort of impossibility.  I really don;t know what could explain such a difference between us.  While you contend that meaning is derived from your god..I contend that meaning transcends -all- gods...each one being a tiny speck in the larger pool of how we express that much greater set.

Sure, there is tremendous value in this life. That's not the point. A godless worldview has a gap in it the shape of enduring/transcendent value/purpose and therefore meaning.  This is important to a lot of people. Glad you have come to accept your gap. But it is a gap nonetheless.

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Go to any graveyard and look at any gravestone over 100 years old. The memories of that person do not exist in anyone anymore. That person has no current value or purpose because IMO, those are perceived qualities about a person. He certainly isn't perceiving that anymore. No one else alive remembers him. Any value he had to his family or society is long forgotten. In fact, it might have been the case that society would have been better if he were never born.  How is that transcendent meaning? 

My husband showed me round a graveyard here in Edinburgh and told me about all the famous names and what they had done.

We then went off to the economist Adam Smith's grave and showed me all the coins that American tourists chuck through the gates to land on it. Some of them come to Scotland specifically to see the grave.

Of course, none of these people would have been able to make all the contributions that they had without all the other people no one remembers. No one remembers everyone that allowed Einstein the chance to do the work that he did but without them we wouldn't have any of his research.

Your example is to confuse subjective utility and value with existential meaning. Your method of showing value can never apply to all people, so therefore under your system all people do not have meaning. Example, a tribe of people where the last generation never interacted with the outside world. The tribe get's wiped out by disease. Under your theory, those people had no value past their deaths and therefore no meaning that survived them. Any meaning (derived from value and purpose) they thought they had before they died was illusory. This is the logical conclusion of a godless worldview.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, you don't have to perceive your own value to be valuable. But you do in order to perceive that your life has meaning. Otherwise it is just hope that something you do has some lasting value (and therefore meaning) in some sort of backward causality way. Say you live in a little insulated mountain town and a mudslide wipes out the whole town and everyone in it--erasing any effect that hundreds of people had on the greater world. They have no transcendent value/purpose and therefore meaning on the world.  Or say a 10 year old child dies. What meaning will survive the memory of loved ones?

Your objections just keep boiling down to "what if you die and no one remembers you"...well, try to make that something that doesn;t happen?  If you don;t end up being remembered, though....that doesn;t mean that your life didn;t have transcendent value..it just means that no one remembers you today.  

We are not using 'transcendent meaning' the same way. I am defining it as meaning that is "beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience". You are defining it as whatever meaning you can squeeze out of life that last for some period of time afterwards. You cannot have transcendent meaning without a transcendent entity that values you either for what you are or for what you did. In a godless world, everything you could possible describe as having meaning/value/purpose is subjective and relatively fleeting--lasting as long as your effect does. 

I know we're not using it the same way.  You;re using it as a synonym for god-meaning, I have no such requirements, nor is there any such requirement.  That;s all I;m stressing to you.

Sure humans can provide that. Not everyone has someone to provide it though. Whether you believe in God or not, it is incontrovertible that the belief of a loving God that cares for you because you have intrinsic value has an effect on the one that believes it. So, in that way, there is nothing that could replace that effect in the same way. 

IDK, I;m not having any trouble on that count..am I?  Seems like your god was easily replaced....and the effect of what I find meaning in is more expansive than your god -in- the first place.   Might not work for you...but that sounds like a you problem, not a meaning problem. At least I can own as much in my own case when I mention that god-meaning doesn;t work for me. Can you do the same?

Sure, there is tremendous value in this life. That's not the point. A godless worldview has a gap in it the shape of enduring/transcendent value/purpose and therefore meaning.  This is important to a lot of people. Glad you have come to accept your gap. But it is a gap nonetheless.

I don;t see the gap.  You;d think I;d have fallen into it by now, but I haven;t.  : shrugs :

[Neo-Scholastic]

Atheists! Just stop already. While there are intellectual issues about how to define meaning or assign value, the real issue is deeply personal and visceral. Either you accept with pensive resignation the oblivion of everything you've ever known, valued, and loved OR you hold in your heart the hope that something bigger than yourself truly matters.

[The Grand Nudger]

Boy, it;s a good thing you've come along to tell us what;s what.  

I don;t see why I;d need to hold some point of hope in my heart when I know that many things bigger than myself truly matter? I don;t even see what that;s supposed to have to do with atheism. It;s a secular position yay or nay.

Equally open to you, I;d add, lol.

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Lemme ask you this, Neo...since there;s no room in your house for me...but plenty of room in my house for you..which one of us is in possession of the transcendent x?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Lemme ask you this, Neo...since there;s no room in your house for me...but plenty of room in my house for you..which one of us is in possession of the transcendent x?

Well, if you ever come to Chicago, I'd be happy to share a meal with you or make some recommendations of the best places to dine.

[The Grand Nudger]

What a trite and irrelevant response after such a strong worded and damning claim.

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Which brings me round to one of my own "hey, christians explain this" musings.

What is it about christianity that compels some of it;s adherents to react so violently and incoherently when confronted with competition for meaning and value?  Is it anything about christianity itself..or is that more a quirk of the individual..that can be separated from their beliefs? Even deeper..are those christians who see no issues with transcendent value or meaning apart from the christian god doing or believing something wrong..and if so, who should correct them in that misapprehension, and how?

[Whateverist]

Wow, I did not realize we had on these boards an actual god whisperer.  Gods who show the guy who goes by GC here are genuine.  Those who fail to make themselves known to GC are fakes.  Yep, GC is just that important.  A regular celebrity.

 I'm important enough that the God of creation revealed Himself to me and brought salvation to me.

GC

Makes perfect sense. I can’t believe in anything alleged to be supernatural, but on your revelation regarding your special status .. sure. Why not?

[The Grand Nudger]

The lord of creation spends his time doing really strange and ineffectual things, it would seem.