I don't really reject RLK's argument, merely terminology. Here, for example you seem to deny something's existence and then ascribe properties to it:

"Under atheism there is no meaning and that meaning is temporal."

"I don't own a Ferrari and it's red."

My preferred framing is that, irrespective of atheism/theism, there is meaning which we assign, even if you think it is irrelevant and not as valuable as the meaning ascribed by god to events, people, morality, etcetera.

What matters is that Lemon believes that in a universe without the christian god, his life has no meaning. Since you agree that meaning is assigned, it doesn't matter whether or not that meaning is actually assigned by god or just by Lemon himself.

That's a powerful motivator to believe in a deity.

My question would be, how did we get to a point where there are members of our society who have been led to believe that their life has no meaning without there being a god?

mb,

i was apathetic and felt my life had no purpose or direction prior to really taking God seriously at all.
I was raised Christian so I did know about the theology but I didn't really buy into it until I was 19 or 20.

Far be it from me to suggest that religions capitalize on the apathetic, purposeless and confused amongst us. You see it all around you, how can you be sure that you haven't been a victim of it. You've admitted you could be wrong and yet you're certain that you're right, it makes no sense to me and I don't know where you get your certainty.

Its just what I think. I am happy to be challenged on my views ITT

Did I turn to religion out of my own weakness because I needed a crutch?
*shrug" I can't refute this but I don't think this is the case.

ok fair enough.

Can you explain what you're meaning then? Since I think it is incoherent. I think that, despite avowing that an atheistic life has no meaning, you dont really mean that. You mean that an atheistic life has only temporary, ephemeral meaning. Here was your quote I queried:

"Under atheism there is no meaning and "that meaning is temporal."

How can something which doesnt exist be temporal?

I obviously didnt see this before making my last post. Sorry about that.

I think it's more important to understand what the other guy is saying rather than to explicate one's own views. As a theist the various "You believe in God because you're scared of death", "You believe in God because your parents did", "Your theism is intellectually dishonest and violates science and logic",... threads always bugged me. I used to wonder who the atheist thought he was to tell me why I believe something or to "explain" the details of my supposed position to me?

I have a similar irritation when a theist tells me what atheism entails (or suggests I've made up morality to make myself feel better about my pointless existence or somesuch). This thread kind of blurs materialism/atheism anyhow, but I think it's worth getting the terminology right, since that's the best way to find the actual points of disagreement.

To adopt my terminology, I think that given RLK values eternal meaning over temporally limited meaning, his quest to see if he can learn what a possible god wants is very worthwhile and a sensible use of his effort*. The fact he has discovered a belief about those things means he has received a payoff whether God exists or not, in my view (though it's obviously much better for him if God does exist and if RLK is correct in his beliefs about what God wants). I think the value in this approach is that I can conclude RLK is rational even whilst disagreeing with his conclusion and his methodology. I find that less common when people insist that everyone is using words in an indentical way.



*

As you keep saying, which does nothing to detract from the likelihood of them being true and fundamental to understanding the religious mind or how religions prosper despite a dearth of evidence to support their claims, and therefore issues that others might like to explore further.

The first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem, however irritating that might be. Even the arguments and tactics that disprove specifics of religions and cause de-conversions simply lead the believer to doubt what they were told. The problem with them is that also a lot easier for the religions to explain away.

You're suggesting that he decided to believe and then retrospectively justified it to himself? That's probably quite irritating for him to hear.

I'm not interested in disproving the various religions' claims.

Also, you realise I was suggesting the theist was the one who needed to do the understanding, right?
No, I'm not suggesting anything. I was just acknowledging ignorance.

An additional point would be the following:

No afterlife - no meaning
Afterlife - possible meaning

This is highly truncated but it gets to the concept that a mortal consciousness results in meaningless existence while the addition of an afterlife adds the possibility of meaning. Where are you on this comparison as it does feed into things coming later.

It bugs me and is at least partly responsible for the forays into rudeness that unfortunately pepper my communications.

Clearly I have done this from time to time but I do not actually believe it (or at least that it is fair to apply it broadly). I do it more to illustrate that it is quite possible to make statements analogous to the above caricatures of theists for atheists also.

Concerning the bold, even at this point I am not sure I could point to the reasoning path you have outlined and say where it is that you disagree. Can you fill that in for me?


The simple answer to this is "No". My path occurred over several years with continual discussions with some of the other grad students in the physics department where I was a student. Even after I left physics my closest friends throughout grad school were those guys who were first year grad students with me.

The kind of succinct path that I have laid out here is a distillation of a path that had in reality a lot more meandering in it and would be hard to communcate and would result in a lot of "tldr".

But I would say that as a distilled summary it is the best I can do.

I think you understand what I am saying in general. I can clarify what seems to be a contradiction.

I don’t think I am saying, “I don’t own a Ferrari and its red”.

My point is an theistic universe has no meaning. And any supposed or perceived meaning is illusory and irrelevant.
My point remains that an atheistic universe is without meaning (IMO).

The only reason I include the caveat is to cover where someone may come forward and say, “aha but I have meaning from “x” “. I would respond that upon closer inspection any supposed meaning is illusory and irrelevant.

I would add ephemeral/temporal meaning = no meaning IMO

Any temporal meaning one can assign is so negligible

Edit: I am not suggesting atheists do “x” to help them get through their day or something like that. I share your frustrations bunny re people telling others the reasons WHY they believe and undermining their belief system. If I do this then you can call me on it. I feel I have a sincere willingness to understand another view point.

I feel we might have to go into the definition of "meaning".

for example, you say afterlife - possible meaning. In what way? Is it that an afterlife gives meaning to your mortal existence? Or that an afterlife gives meaning to your immortal existence? Or both? I dont see how existing for ever gives meaning to anything, so how does it add meaning? Is it that existing for ever is "better" than not existing for ever, for example?


Meaning seems very subjective. Any meaning that you give to something is only because you give meaning to it. I dont see that anything has the intrinsic property of "meaning" or "significance". For example, someone who lives in libya and had bombs dropped on them would find that very significant and meaningful, whereas someone living in the amazon rainforest probably wouldnt.

I realise you are saying only possible meaning. Are you saying we cant define what the possible meaning would be?

Lemonzest, could you respond to this:

1) Why do you disagree with this argument?
2) Does sexiness exist in an atheistic universe?

I think getting specific about the possible meaning is not possible. It goes back to the path dependence. In the immortal consciousness scenario you may never reach the path independent state so that actions taken now may be such that they always make a difference. That is what I meant.

Ok , I understand. So what about the actual definition of meaning? It seems to me that its highly subjective, and that we only ascribe meaning to something because we ascribe meaning to it. And that there is no such inherent, intrinsic property.

RLK is using an objective definition of meaning/significance. Significance means something like: altering the outcome of events. So, it is true that our actions alter the outcome of events during our lifetime and even beyond. However, according to the materialistic hypothesis, all these outcomes are just arbitrary intermediaries that themselves eventually all lead to the same result, the heat death of the universe. Thus, nothing we do has any ultimate impact on events and thus it ultimately doesn't matter whether we do one thing or the other.

Would be keen to see if we can get a quick confirmation that this is RLK's definition.

I think that there are two, maybe three different ways of looking at it, but they all give the same result. As OrP said, the materialists view inevitably leads to a state independent of any human action. But one can also look at neeel's comment about "meaning" being a product of thought. So one could argue that once the last thinking creature is gone, then meaning is lost regardless of any previous actions. Finally, one could use one's own point of view and say that if my own consciousness ends then all meaning is lost for me.

But dissecting the definitions does not produce a "correct" definition nor does it have to. All the definitions lead to the same conclusion regarding "meaning" in the mortal consciousness scenario.

So you agree that, on materialism, one's life can have significance NOW though it has no significance LATER?

But thats my point. just because there are thoughts about meaning, does not mean that meaning exists. If you think there is meaning or significance, does that mean there is in fact meaning or significance? That was also my point about no inherent, intrinsic quality of meaningfulness

Just because there may be an immortal consciousness that can have thoughts about meaning and meaningfulness, does not mean such things exist. This is getting back to my discussion with lemonzest, where I was pointing out that "you value it because you value it".

Whether its a mortal who values it, or an immortal, they are still valuing it because they place value in it.

I'm pretty sure I understand too and unless you think it's worth arguing about minutiae, you might not want to bother going further. Nonetheless,...
Well I'm with you up to here (in that I get what you're saying and think its consistent although obviously wrong ). However, then we get to this:
What am I assigning if not meaning?
Are dictionaries proof of god?
I think you overreach when you say "I would respond that upon closer inspection any supposed meaning is illusory and irrelevant." since in justifying that claim, all you've seemed able to do is say that the assigned meaning is temporal. old prunes's question remains: Why does meaning have to be eternal in order to exist? Why does temporary -> illusory?

That makes a lot more sense (I never picked up on that). As a general rule, I try and just treat people's statements at face value but your (intermittent) statements along those lines always caused me something of a disconnect. I'll skip over them now.
By conclusion I meant theism. Methodology was a bad word - terminology would have been better.

I haven't really spelled out any reasoning. I think it's a matter of values rather than logic. In my view, meaning exists in an atheistic world but it is temporary, so I disagree with the phraseology. I don't understand what it is about meaning which requires it to be eternal (so I prefer short-term/long-term or temporal/eternal). If one think eternal meaning is more valuable than temporary then your "wagerish" calculation makes sense. I actually don't share that intuition - but there's no accounting for taste, right?
Cheers. That would have been my guess - our justifications nearly always come after the fact, in my opinion.

One point I'm just ignoring is that I do, in fact, believe in eternal meaning in an atheist universe anyhow. I'm not a materialist, as you know and am also a Platonist. I think my views there are unusual though and i suspect they are likely to be unhelpful in this context. In a similar vein (though quite possibly related) I never believed in an afterlife even as a theist, so some theistic conceptions are vulnerable to the same critique as the one you're directing towards atheistic materialism.