Coggins7 wrote:You're stalling Runtu. You give me the syllogism, as I've given you reams of critical argument, and let's see if it holds water.
Let's see. You make an argument by cutting and pasting from Beckwith, and yet you want me to explain his reasoning. That's simply bizarre. I'll simply take that as your concession that you can't explain the syllogism.
Not only that, I'll cut and paste again from my post immediately above, which you also apparently missed:
If the universe and all phenomena within it have no purpose (being great cosmic accidents of nature), and hence, no meaning, then human existence has no meaning, irregardless of whether intelligent self aware beings are capable of thinking and reflecting upon such questions.
Strictly subjective meanings created by humans and ascribed to their surroundings or lives are not, in a strict sense, meaning, because mind, being nothing more than a function of, or epiphenomena of, the brain, itself, has no meaning. Its function is to carry on the DNA of the organism in a struggle for survival, not to reflect upon philosophical and religious questions. Such reflection is itself a natural consequence of the size and complexity of our CNS, and has no intrinsic meaning outside of the degree to which it helps insure the passing on of DNA to future members of the species.
This, in another vein, is again, the crux of Beckwith's fundamental conception.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
If God created you to burn in hell for ever and ever as one of his non-elect, would you life have more meaning, or less meaning, then it would in Dawkins world? And which kind of meaning then, is more, er, "meaningful"?
In such a Calvinistic view, it would probably be an even tie, as both worlds deny the possibility of free will in any substantive way (and the Calvinistic world involves God as an arbitrary denier of such free will).
Fortunately, LDS theology presents no such problems.
Coggins, you understood the point of my question right? As you now admit, "objective" meaning doesn't sound any more meaningful than "subjective" meaning.
1. There are two types of meaning: inherent meaning and subjective meaning.
2. Subjective meaning by definition requires human beings.
3. Human beings exist.
4. Therefore, subjective meaning can exist.
5. Inherent meaning by definition requires a creator.
6. According to atheists, there is no creator.
7. Therefore, according to atheists inherent meaning cannot exist.
Is this an accurate statement of your argument?
If so, my response is that you are correct. But I have to ask, so what?
I think your argument implies some additional reasoning:
8. Inherent meaning exists.
9. Therefore, there is a creator.
10. Therefore, atheists are wrong.
This is where your reasoning breaks down. You have to provide a reason to accept premise #8 as factual. Without premise #8, you cannot arrive at premises #9 and #10. Premise #8, however, is highly problematic. In fact, it is probably impossible to prove logically. One possible route might be,
a. In order to be worth living in, the universe must have inherent meaning.
b. The universe is worth living in.
c. Therefore, the universe has inherent meaning.
However, this breaks down if either a or b is untrue. I submit to you that either a or b might be untrue. Therefore, c (premise #8) might also be untrue. If premise 8 is untrue, we cannot arrive at premises 9 and 10. So until you prove premise #8, your argument fails.
I think it was Tarski on MAD who said this in one of the best ways I've ever seen. I'll try to restate what he said in my own words.
What exactly is more "meaningful" about procreating spirit babies forever than accomplishing whatever it is we set out as our goals while here in this mortal life?
Is it more meaningful because it lasts forever? Does meaning accrue merely from the duration of the activity?
Believers say that life without God has no meaning. But what exactly is the meaning of life with God? Seriously, so you imagine you'll live in the Celestial Kingdom forever. How is that meaningful? Because God said so? Is that sufficient to give meaning, that God says so? Why?
I really think that this argument turns the tables on the believers, and makes them put up or shut up. They go around talking about meaning as if only a life in a universe with a God in it can have meaning, but they cannot articulate just what it is about there being a God in the universe that actually makes life meaningful. If a human being, on earth, with a relatively short (cosmically speaking) life span of 75 years, decides that his life has meaning on some terms of his own choice, how is that less meaningful than the hypothetical life of someone who goes to the Celestial Kingdom?
All this talk about meaning, with believers thinking they occupy the high ground, is really dumb unless the believers can articulate, specifically, how there being a God allows meaning to exist where there not being a God does not.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
From the classical LDS paradigm as I understand it, the universe per se wasn’t created. Rather, it just is. Matter is neither created nor destroyed and all that. So from the reasoning you’ve laid out, the universe itself and the material within it as such have no meaning.
What God did was build a world out of matter unorganized. God is a conscious, intelligent, and powerful entity, and he came up with a plan for what to do with some of the stuff in the universe. He then implemented that plan. The meaning that stuff has isn’t intrinsic to the matter itself, but rather comes from the intentional act of being organized by God.
In other words, the universe could be divided into two groups: the organized matter, and the heretofore unorganized matter. The organized matter has meaning in the purpose for which it was organized, but the unorganized matter hasn’t yet been endowed with meaning.
If a Mormon believes this way, would you agree that he has a legitimate basis for finding genuine meaning in the universe?
Last edited by Anonymous on Sun Jun 24, 2007 2:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
Sethbag wrote:Believers say that life without God has no meaning. But what exactly is the meaning of life with God? Seriously, so you imagine you'll live in the Celestial Kingdom forever. How is that meaningful? Because God said so? Is that sufficient to give meaning, that God says so? Why?
My thoughts exactly. That is why I like Coggins post; he is addressing why he believes that the universe has meaning.
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
CaliforniaKid wrote:... I think your argument implies some additional reasoning:
8. Inherent meaning exists. 9. Therefore, there is a creator. 10. Therefore, atheists are wrong.
This is where your reasoning breaks down. You have to provide a reason to accept premise #8 as factual.... -CK
I think what he's really doing is this:
8a. Assume we find meaning in our own lives
8b. Therefore inherent meaning exists *
9. Therefore there is a creator...
Atheists generally find meaning in their own lives, and hence are at least very sympathetic to assuming 8a. Coggins seems to think that if we concede 8a, then he's proven us wrong.
* If the universe and all phenomena within it have no purpose (being great cosmic accidents of nature), and hence, no meaning, then human existence has no meaning. By this, 8a, and Modus Tollens, inherent meaning exists.
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
It is interesting how some things appear meaningful to some and meaningless to others. Even more interesting is that those who find certain things meaningful, automatically assume others will also.
Take for example the LDS concept of families forever.
I remember the scene from "God's Army" where the Elders told a man he could be with his wife forever, and he immediately threw them out.
And the more I think about the concept of families forever, the more I realize how incoherent it really is. A family can only remain together forever if they all pass the celestial kingdom test, and what are the chances of that? The family that introduced me to the Church for example. I later learned that the biological father died in a car accident and the step-father married the mother of five kids. But the wife had been sealed to the bilogical father, so there really couldn't be a "family together forever" concept the way the kids were brought up to believe all their lives.
And what really threw me for a loop was when the wife decided to break the sealing with her first husband and be sealed to the step-father!! So how the heck does that work? Who got to decide that it was OK for the dead husband to break his own temple sealing? Apparently they all got together and prayed about it and the spirit told them that he was OK with the idea, and that he would find his own wife in the hereafter or what not. Even if true, where does that leave the kids and their "family together forever" tradition? And when you consider the idea of theosis, and being together with your wife and ruling over your own planet inhabited by your own spirit children, at what point in this phase is it reasonable to say you'd be spending any time with your previous earthly children or siblings?
Even in the LDS paradigm the family together concept is just a sales pitch that sounds nice; especially for those who have recently lost a loved one. But I don't know anyone in the Church who really expects to be sitting around in eternal family home evening moments with their parents and brothers and sisters.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
The "Families Are Forever" concept is a tough one to wrap one's mind around.
My father used to try to make me feel guilty for leaving the faith, specifically using that idea to shame me.
I told him one day that, according to some former leaders, one may be able to move from kingdom to kingdom, so maybe I could catch up with the rest of them.
He said that was false doctrine.
I suggested then that he could always come down and visit with me any time. I had never heard of that being against the teachings of the church.
Blank stare.....Then, "Why would I want to do that?"
Families Are Forever.
I detest my loose style and my libertine sentiments. I thank God, who has removed from my eyes the veil... Adrian Beverland