If not, then we have no way of knowing what behaviour will be judged positively by god. Unless you can explain how you are getting from "God exists" to "god wants us to behave a certain way"?

What? I am using this line of reasoning to try to show you that your assumptions are unreasonable.






So rather than clear up the misunderstanding ( I am happy to admit that I may have misunderstood what you said), you are just going to take a huff and ignore me?

I realise that I may misinterpret what you are saying, and am happy for you to correct me.


Ok, so how does the above tell you ANYTHING about how you are to live your life? You dont know what the possible meaning is, you dont know what the possible differentiation is.

Tell you what RLK, I will ship you or a charity of your choice $10 if you can rebut my counter-argument to such a degree as montecarlo (a fellow Christian) changes his tune. This is an exceptionally low bar given that your point is "obviously" true and the only reason for not accepting it is an "atheistic defense-mechanism".

This is a freeroll. If you can't or won't meet the challenge you owe me nothing. I will simply accept the small joy of being vindicated in my belief that your condescension and bluster is hollow and empty.

I do not know montecarlo. Let me try an atheist who is a bright bulb.

BUNNY!! Are you there?

Do you think this cat fur argument is compelling?

Weak sauce. The challenge is not whether the cat fur analogy is compelling (and I offered an alternative hammer-purpose analogy ON TOP OF the generic for-every-q-with-property-p form, just in case you were transparent enough to take this line of defense) but whether you can show that my life can have no signifance now/shortterm given that it will have no significance later/after death.

Or you can say that you aren't arguing that point, and a person's life can have significance even if materialism is true.

No need to worry. Bunny is sharp and will know that I was using "cat fur" as a euphemism for your generic argument. If you had used the hammer first I would probably have called it your "hammer argument". If you had used P and Q first I may have said "QP argument".

This is why you are boring and wearying. I have to explain routine stuff just to try to get you to the point where the debate could get interesting.

Unless Bunny chooses to breathe life into this conversation, I am done with you. You simply do not play the game at an interesting level while also holding the opinion that you are somehow winning. Declare yourself the winner again for all I care. That exists in your mind, just like everything else.

Ok chap. I'll wait for bunny to confirm or deny whether my asking you to explain contentious assertions is beneath contempt.
And for the record, everyone can read my posts and see that I gave you a bunch of possible ways you could show that my analogy doesn't hold...it was presented like a reductio for heaven's sake.

Many theists beleive if there is no afterlife then our current life has no meaning (including me). Orp made a good point regarding atheism being depressive in that Christians think athiesm is depressing because Christians are using Christian theology as a baseline. I think the same principle applies here. WLC and other Christians see a purely naturalistic life with no afterlife depressing and meaningless.

The naturalist will no doubt argue, "Well this is all we have so it matters all the more..". I disagree. I think RLK's point about the afterlife and ceasing to exist is profound (at the risk of stroking his ego). If we die then all our senses stop sensing and all our memories are gone. It would be the same as if we never existed (of course there is some degree that our life will have a ripple effect).

If I knew there was no afterlife and God didn't exist I would hold the same view I do now. I would think this life is meaningless and I am devoid of purpose without God.

I find that depressing. Seriously.

Hey LZ, I know you're never shy about putting forth your views and defending them, so maybe you'll be able to help me understand better.

No disagreements here.

This is not what I'm arguing ITT.

Again, no disagreement here. But notice that RLK is seemingly not arguing that an eternal life is just MORE significant than a temporary mortal life, but that the concept of significance cannot, even in principle, apply to a mortal life. (See my long post where I quoted bunny's interpretation of RLK's point followed by my interpretation, followed by RLK endorsing my interpretation as correct)

Again, the argument RLK presents, pending correction, is not about whether he (or you) would find life insignificant if materialism was true, but that significance, even temporary significance (e.g. only lasting the duration of one's life) is impossible on materialism.

As an intuition pump, take the Mormons who believe that they will become God's when they die. Could they argue that if Evangelical or Catholic Christianity were true then eternal life would be insignificant, as the only acceptable definition of "significant" would be to spend eternity as a God, rather than just a mere subject of God?

It isn't a perfect analogy (nothing ever is!), but maybe this will give you a bit of insight into my problem RLK's argument as I understand it. Essentially, unless one adds something to the dictionary definition of "significance" then the significance of one's life can only be a matter of one's one subjective values, and not objectively dependent on the duration of one's life or other such considerations.

tl:dr

1) "if materialism is true, there will be no significance to your life after you die" = fine
2) "if materialism is true, my life would seem insignificant to me during my life" = fine
3) "if materialism is true, your life is not significant to you during your life" = why don't I get any say in what I find significant?

Look forward to your response

I'm slightly hesitant to get involved, since I disagree with both of you about what RLK meant. Let me make some semi-related comments, although I suspect it might make things more confused rather than less...

I am struggling to understand the "no such thing as short term mattering" summary you both endorsed, since it seems so obviously refuted (and I would have thought you'd have conceded as much previously - ie you've said things like "If materialism is true then our lives matter to us, of course, but..."). I suspect this is an issue of equivocation.

It seems to me there are two concepts being referred to - you hold the view that under materialism/atheism, since the universe will (effectively) be as if I've never existed many years after I have died, my life is insignificant. Or alternatively, it wont/doesnt matter if I existed since the world with me is indistinguishable from the world without. This is the kind of significance/mattering I termed "long term".

I intended to contrast that concept with short term mattering which is the significance that I and my friends subjectively ascribe to my life. On this basis, using the same metric you applied (I think) my life can be said to "matter", since the lives of me and those who know me would be different if I had never existed.

I had phrased your position as thinking that 'short term mattering' was really quite unimportant and valueless, whereas 'long term mattering' was much more desirable (as much as it makes sense to desire an ontological state of affairs). However, I have come to suspect that fundamentally, these concepts are very different.

So that's all by way of background. I think I'm coming at all of this from a different point of view than both of you. As such, I'd be hesitant to read too much into my interpretation, but FWIW, to refer to Old Prunes argument:
I think his point is that since you seem to ascribe significance to events/lives which will continue to be having an effect aeons in the future but think that events/lives which are short-term are inherently insignificant - infinite duration must be a necessary condition of significance.

Bearing in mind my caveat of confusion above, I would think that the two most likely answers are either:

a) this is all equivocation, as I suggested above, and that we're not really speaking about significance in the short term vs significance in the long term but rather using the same word for two very different things

b) there is an implicit subjective element to long term mattering/significance. It's not the duration which gives the theist meaning but the eternal nature of the subjective point of view of God.



Take all that with a pinch of salt - the whole 'no short term mattering' thing has left me feeling a bit like I've got my face pressed up to the window looking in. I'd have one query though which would help me:

Would you think our lives would have meaning and significance in an atheistic/materialistic world if we were immortal?

Significant

1: having meaning; especially : suggestive <a significant glance>

2a : having or likely to have influence or effect : important <a significant piece of legislation>; also : of a noticeably or measurably large amount <a significant number of layoffs> <producing significant profits>

b : probably caused by something other than mere chance <statistically significant correlation between vitamin deficiency and disease>

Significance is going to be relative. I think the point RLK is making is that in light of the size of the universe the life of a signle biological life form is not very significant. How is one human life valuable when compared to all the other millions of life forms that lived and died (insects, mammals, amphibians, etc.). One life is relatively meaningless, even if you were Martlin Luther King, or someone who is seemingly important and influential.

(Sans God) One life is just one lifeform that existed for a while and then ceased to exist. The extent that this single life effects the future is going to be neglibile given the size of the universe.

Materialism would seem to exclude God and a Creator. In this case by definition life is insignificant. Significance (definition 2b) requires that something happened apart from chance (unless as a materialist you want to argue life occured for some reason other than chance).

The Mormonism example works. A Mormon would be correct (relatively speaking) to say my life is meanignless. From their Mormon perspective using Mormonism as a baseline my temporal life has no meaning if I don't become a god.

3) "if materialism is true, your life is not significant to you during your life" = why don't I get any say in what I find significant?

You might think/feel significant but I agree with RLK that this conclusion likely only exists in your mind (not a dis, just saying). You might feel significant but really you are like a spec of sand on the seashore on one planet within a vast universe. Millions of lifeforms lived before you and millions will live after you (maybe).

IMO the burden of proof is on you for the claim that your life DOES have significance (feels good to shift the burden of proof for a change ).

To say your life is significant is saying your life has meaning (be definition). My question would then be meaning to what end? Or what is the nature of this meaning?

Getting pretty philisophical here. Anyway hope this answers your queries.

I agree with pretty much everything bunny has said. And I'll re-iterate thaty I am not making an assertion about what RLK means, but that like bunny, I find the simple reading of 'short term mattering/significance does not exist' can be so obviously refuted that some sort of equivocation or definitional problem must be a more likely explanation (though I confess I had not thought of the 'subjective point of view of God angle'... Nice one, bunny

Let me just pick out a couple of parts of your post, LEMONZEST (I did read it all, but this was the bit I wanted to query you on).

Since you begin by making this point:
How is this an objection to "atheistic significance":
If significance is relative, can't I just measure it relative to me? I dont care how many uncountable billions of specks there are in the universe - my wife makes me smile and she's awesome. I never think she's unimportant merely because she's one amongst billions.
I'm not claiming that my life is important to anyone other than me. (The first definition you posted was "Has meaning" - it doesnt say it has to have meaning to all of creation).
As you said - it's relative. We each ascribe our own meaning and my metric might be different than yours - that doesnt mean those subjectively determined meanings dont exist.

Great question and I'd love lemonzest and others to answer it too

Your significance is therefore only existing within your own conscioussness. When you cease to exist your conscioussness (including memories) and perceived significnace will be gone. It would be the same as if you never existed at all.

I don't think we are going to agree on these points. You think the temporal emotions of our life somehow give us value/significance. As I have stated before my point of view is Christian. For that reasons I see a temporal life filled with experiences and relationships not very significant in and of itself. I think a temporal life of emtions and experience is meaningless.

How does the existence of a god give them meaning?

Would you think our lives would have meaning and significance in an atheistic/materialistic world if we were immortal?

This would solve part of the problem.
Our life would not be temporal.
But we still don't know what our significance/meaning/purpose is?

Existing forever but without purpose could be worse than a temporal meaningless existence. It could be a like a hamster on a wheel.

I think the problem for me arises with the origins of man. If we assume our origin came about through time and chance we can never have meaning (we can haggle over phraseology if you dont like "time and chance"). For example, it is like a random number generator. How can we ever ascribe meaning to what the RNG produces?

We can refer back to the definition of "significance". If something happened by chance then we know there is nothing significant about it

I was working off the definition you provided (and specifically the first, principle definition):
In fact, I think you are not using this definition - there's nothing there about having to be an eternal meaning. My life means something (to me) so it has significance.

In terms of "agreeing" I should be clear that I see no point in arguing with theists, so I'm not actually looking to change your mind, nor to get you to accept my point of view. I think I understand what you mean, and I think you mean more than what the dictionary definition of significance/meaning/etcetera contains. I am asking you to provide the defintion of significance you're using, since as I just said, it is more than just "having meaning".

I think the issue here is that atheists and theists are bandying about terms like "meaning", "matters", "significance", etcetera but are not referring to the same concepts. I hesitate to put words in your mouth, but my guess would be that you think "matters to God" or "God-endowed significance" is of more value than "human-endowed significance". As such, it's not correct to say "an atheist life has no meaning" (as per your definition above) but rather "if atheism is true, there is no God-given meaning and it's all just social convention. Social convention is not persistent, it's not necessary and it has no value. It's just an arbitrary designation by an ephemeral, ill-informed speck of a species in a tiny corner of the universe. Therefore an atheist life would be tragically incomplete" (or something like that, anyhow...)

How does the existence of a god give them meaning?

Everything is created for a purpose. (Eg. Lamps, footballs, condoms etc.)

IF we have a creator then we have a purpose, or at least the creator had a purpose in mind.

IF we don't have a creator then we can either make up our own purpose or decide we don't have a purpose. IMO it is more accurate to conclude we don't have a purpose. And any purpose we conjur up is irrelevant in relation to time and space.

ok, but you didnt answer my question.

What is the purpose or meaning that god existing gives everything?

I am referencing mainly 2b.

There were a variety of threads some months (years?) back about what "ultimate meaning" entailed. I think that this is the concept that you actually think is lacking from the atheist worldview.

In my preferred way of thinking, theists and atheists would use the same terms. Significance/Meaning/Importance are all subjective terms. They have no content without a point of view. In a theist worldview, there is one, special, privileged point of view (ie God's).

If my framing of the issue were accepted it wouldnt be correct to characterise an atheist universe as without meaning. Rather, it would be to say that there was no privileged frame of reference. No true "answer" to the big questions - just a whole bunch of ephemeral suppositions and subjective opinions.

This is what i always ask but never get a good answer...i hope you do.

If the answer is yes this would mean God does not give meaning or purpose, infinity does. Which is not really good for the theist God. If the answer is no this says that the finite is not what takes or gives meaning and purpose. Which isn't good for those who say the finite is meaningless and purposeless. Imo neither answer leads to a good place for those making the finite is meaningless argument.

Being purposeless doesnt imply meaningless does it?

The empty set has meaning. Does it have a purpose?

I am not trying to skirt your question. I just don't know how to answer it without explaining a lot of Christian theology that you likely don't agree with or want to hear (I will try if you want).

I think it is sufficient for the scope of this argument to say if God exists and created us then we have a purpose. The purpose God had in mind for us may be complex and difficutl to unfold.

I think God's purpose for man is the following (in an effort to be succinct)

1. Glorify God
2. Love God
3. Love People