it seems like you're consistently trying to support the argument that it's absurd to consider relative meaning significant in the absence of ultimate meaning by repeatedly pointing out that relative meaning isn't ultimate.

Yes, good movie, or RHPS:

And on the planet's face
Crawled an insect called the human race.
Lost in time and lost in space -
And meaning.

I agree with your assessment concerning formal logic and have no doubt Craig would as well. Again, he was addressing what is viewed as a common understanding among philosophers at least since Kierkegaard and so doubt he thought formal proof was required - like I don't think formal proof is required to show appearance of design because most scientists agree. He wasn't trying to appeal to a hidden syllogism, just building on a common philosophical understanding.

There are works that go into detail on this. Francis Shaeffer, though he does have faults, wrote many books on the despair of modernism. Anyway, I'll see if I can find a formal syllogism.

Edit:

This is what I'm going to do. Craig has a website and on it a forum devoted to the book. I'm joining up and will post a request for information on a formal syllogism, or perhaps email Craig himself (which will take a long time, he's very, very busy). So I'll get back to you on this eventually.

NR, it has occurred to me that you may not know anything about relativity theory. If that's true, then my examples about height and time will probably fall on deaf ears. It may sound weird to you, but right here I'm 6 feet tall. Actually, my doctor measured me at 6'1" at my last checkup, but I don't think I grew an inch in the meantime and my doctor wasn't traveling at relativistic speeds, so...

Here on earth, I am 6 feet tall. That's how I measure on a scale.

However, if you are on another planet, then I may only be 3 feet tall. It's not that I will appear to be 3 feet tall, apparently (although I will), I really am only 3 feet tall, if you are standing on another planet. This is what scientists have discovered.

There are all kinds of oddities that the relativity folks have found. The common example is this: If I get into a spaceship and travel around the universe, and then return here, I will still be 26 years old. However, you will be 90 years old, having aged. Time will have passed more slowly for me than it did for you - that is how the universe works. There is no single rate of time, the rate of time is relative to all kinds of things. It's not that going fast slows time down - that's not how it works. Time didn't slow down for me at all, the universe sped up. The rate of time for me never changed. The rate of time on earth never changed. Yet, less time passed for me than for people on earth.

If this seems like a contradiction to you, then you may want to step back and think about your logic, because this is how the universe actually works.

However, most people find this idea very confusing, so I'll use a simpler example.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, the Land of Narnia has a different rate of time passage than earth. Unlike in relativity theory, it's very simple. One second passes on earth, one hour passes in Narnia. (That's arbitrary, I don't remember what it really is).

Now, there is no objective time. Neither earth nor Narnia has the "real" time. Yet, both earthlings and Narnians can measure time just fine.

When an earthling says, "three seconds have passed," they don't need to amend that with "relative to earth." Even though, relative to Narnia, three hours have passed, it is acceptable for an earthling to just say "three seconds have passed." Similarly the Narnians might say, "five hours have passed." They don't need to say "five hours have passed relative to Narnia, but only five seconds have passed relative to earth." They are in Narnia, so they merely say "five hours have passed." Even though time in the Chronicles of Narnia is relative (albeit in a simplistic way), it is still possible for people in both earth and Narnia to measure time.

Now, if I say "three seconds have passed relative to earth," it would be silly of you to say "how many seconds have really passed?" It would be silly of you to say "three seconds have passed to earth, but to Narnia three hours have passed! How much time has really passed? It's impossible, there is no such thing as time!"

Taking the same perspective on morality is equally silly.

Just as a Narnian can say "five hours have passed" without pointing out that, relative to earth, only five seconds have passed, so I can say "Hitler is wrong" without pointing out that, relative to Hitler, Hitler was right.

In Hitler's world, Hitler probably was right. He was probably a good person. But I don't live in Hitler's world any more than I live in Narnia. I don't know which world you live in - my world, Hitler's world, or some other world altogether. It doesn't matter. The fact that Hitler was right in Hitler's world doesn't change the fact that Hitler is wrong in my world. The fact that five hours have passed in Narnia doesn't change the fact that five seconds has passed on earth.

You may view Narnia as fanciful, but it's not illogical. The fact that my reality doesn't match Hitler's reality doesn't make my reality any less logical. Whether my reality matches Hitler's is irrelevant. And the idea of ultimate reality is the idea that Hitler's reality matches my reality matches your reality - that everyone's reality matches. That is certainly not a requirement for logic.

Then again, maybe logic is different in your world. But I don't think so, I think logic works the same in Narnia and on earth. Just because some things change (time, geography, magic) doesn't mean everything changes (logic).

(And let me point out that here in the real world, time passes at a different rate for every point in space - among other things. The real world is much stranger than Narnia, with its simple division between two time realities. The real world has many time-realities, and many moral realities as well. Plus I don't think the differences are always linear. If Narnia is fanciful, the laws of physics will blow your mind.)

My main point and Craig's is that if God doesn't exist and there's no ultimate meaning there are serious consequences.

Exactly, you can find an emotional appeal to support anything, which is why they aren't so compelling. You can argue that human beings are meaningless if they don't have divine support, I can argue that Roy Batty's life had meaning, even if he went unremembered. In neither case are we likely to be convincing.

There is no such consensus. A number of analytic philosophers disagree with this, and as for the continental philosophers, they have some strong ideas but logic isn't their specialty. Also, they're a bunch of whiners by and large. And plenty of them are more optimistic than Sartre and his crew ever were.

I'll be interested to see what he has to say.

I've read A Brief History of Time and one similar and think I got at least part of it though the twin thing still baffles me.

As to Narnia, pretty sure Lewis would be on my side here - read Abolition of Man, for instance. Lewis was very big on ultimate meaning type things.

Anyway, since you brought it up, I'm now curious myself what a good syllogism would look like and so would like to suspend operations for a while - just posted the question, don't know how active that forum is - if I get nothing, I have other sources I can check. Don't really want to do it myself as I'm sure mine would be faulty.

i don't see how this is a response to the post you're quoting but whatever.

I'm just talking about the logic of a relativistic point of view. Your position is that my position is illogical, and that is my issue.

Certainly Lewis would have suggested that morality is not the same as time, and that Narnia is not the same as reality.

However, would he have said that any other view is internally inconsistent?

We sorted so much out back then but still we crash on the ultimate rock. For ages its just been pointing out that you are often talking absolute with people who are talking relative. last few days you've added the word ultimate (no need for sarcastic capitals) and most of the confusion dissapears.

Your whole argument about atheists being inconsistant is flawed because you inists on interpreting their claims as absolute.

never in the history of human discourse has so much confusion been caused to so many by so little, apart from the meaning of atheist of course. I hope that reason will prevail and we don't have to repeat this endlessly but that may be the ultimate folly on my part.

Well, don't keep me in suspense. What are these consequences?

Because of course, I'd claim this is the exact situation we're in right now. And yeah... I don't deny there aren't some serious consequences. I'll give you Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. (please note this is very different than conceding that these regimes were driven by an atheism dogma). But then you also have what I consider religious war going on right now (basically the entire war on terror, goings on in Israel, and many other parts of the world). So serious consequences if you ask me whether god or no god.

NotReady can comment further if he wants but it looks to me that Sephus' "common sense of morality" and Madnak's "wrong relative to pretty much everyone on earth" are examples of Craig's assertion that lacking recourse to an absolute morality atheists raise up artificial substitutes for an absolute morality which allow them to pretend they actually have one.


PairTheBoard

Except we don't pretend we actually have one and there's no artificial substitution going on. [here that is, amongst those who can't or haven't thought about it there is a tendency to overblow what they care about it - common amonst theists and atheists alike].

At best Craig and notReady (and you maybe, though I suspect not) are compounding a common mistake, but just because its a common mistake does not make Craig or NotReady right.

We do think there's a reason why most humans care about their fellows and that empathy is a very fit attribute for an intelligent species.

Hehehe. That's one way of looking at it, though it assumes that an absolute morality is the default state.

Moral norms are standard among humans and many other species. And nope, not believing in God doesn't make those norms go away.

Nor does any of this mean a God couldn't have created you with a bias towards a natural symbiosis with these norms.

yeah, i'm the one pretending to have an absolute morality.

wtf are you talking about, there was no such suggestion.

Sure, but norms, reciprocity, and empathy imply that belief in God isn't necessary for moral behavior.

It goes way beyond semantics and whether I use the word ultimate enough, but nuff said.

He basically says that about morality in Abolition, though he doesn't use those words. He says that people who advocate a "new" morality are really just trying to adjust the old morality and being inconsistent with their stated objectives.

sure but once we get beyond the semantics its a path well-troden.

Atheism isn't contradictory as you imagine as it makes no absolutist claims about right and wrong, meanings etc (doesn't mean that many atheists, like theists do make contradictory claims).

The consequences are just whatever they are. Believing in stuff because it would be nice if it were true is beyond many of us, as is believing in stuff just because it would be nice if we believed in it.

I've only received a couple replies, one of which recommended the text of the video in my OP.

I've looked all over the web and can't find a syllogism for the statement "God is dead, all is permitted".

Over the next few weeks, perhaps longer, I'm going to work one up. For now a few comments.

In a sense the conclusion of that assertion is the result of the history of Western philosophy since Plato. Even when the question of ultimate meaning (UM) wasn't specifically in view, almost all philosophy is engaged in that question. It's in the background or is part of the enquiry, directly or indirectly. Plato spent much of his work to answer the question "What is the good life" or "What is man's highest good". It's been said that the rest of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato.

The culmination of that search was existentialism, especially Nietzsche. I read one paper that said N. was afraid that the West would adopt the total nihilism of Buddhism, becoming withdrawn from the world, passively accepting the fact that no meaning is possible. N. hated that idea so developed his doctrine of "will to power", a call to mankind to individually carve out his own meaning. Exis. and N. are basically an admission that UM is impossible, even incoherent. Theism is the answer logically, but N. rejected that for various reasons. I don't play the burden of proof game, but I think it's significant that so many great minds have tried and failed to find UM, so for me you have the burden of proof to demonstrate UM without God.

Craig doesn't just accept the GIDAIP assertion, but gives a brief account of it. A simple syllogism could be constructed from his observation that the universe began from nothing (according to naturalism) and will end in lifeless matter which is basically nothing. It seems obvious that something that goes from nothing to nothing has no UM. There are obviously other lines of discussion involving metaphysics that could be pursued, but with the empirical fact of the nothing to nothing scenario, that would form a powerful premise in the syllogism.

At any rate, I have other fish to fry right now and if I try to construct a syllogism I want it to be complete and formally correct, and technical logic isn't my strong suit. I believe GIDAIP is correct and the logical consequences are devastating (which N. also believed and wanted the West to avoid), so take the video and its position as you like. Craig said he was surprised when he met someone who had no concern whatsoever for death and I'm surprised when people are so blase about the apparent meaninglessness of existence. The text from Craig has a cutting remark about this attitude made by Pascal which led him to formulate his wager. So that's it for now, no doubt we'll be back on this again sometime.

You are right about most of what you say. Except there is no Christian God. And the ultimate meaning that leaves us without, is no big deal. It doesn't usually have dire consequences. Because as madnak wrote:

"I live according to the maxim, "all is permitted." I haven't seen hell break loose yet. I suspect you are lying here. We can prove, using game theory, that if every person acts toward their own interest, altruism arises. That's a mathematical proof. Either you deny math, or you acknowledge that altruism is consistent with "all is permitted.""

You didn't reply to his post.

Without God we are not dogs. But we are merely highly developed chimpanzees. So what?

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that NotReady is correct and no ultimate meaning necessarily means dire consequences then so what?

I'd like to see someone prove that even if there were a meddling god what he wants creates "ultimate meaning". What it may create is not meaning directly but a factor in what is. Perhaps one way to see that is to postulate two layers of god with only the first one communicating to us, god2, just as NRs current one has, same message. Where would the ultimate meaning be then? We'd be living under exactly the same conditions but we wouldn't ascribe meaning to gods wishes.
That would leave us with calling what god2 wants, uh, what god2 wants. It would be part of our world view and influence the meaning things have for us but there is no way it would be meaning let alone ultimate meaning. In fact, we wouldn't even call it meaning.
Or, we could visualize there is no god but a incredibly powerful but kinder Lother, he can kill us at any moment, but he has laid down rules and duties and if we follow them he'll keep us living in health until 2000. Again, it jiggles around the meaning we place on things but no way it is ultimate meaning, it is merely an important contributor to what meanings we form.
Taking god exists in the blurry form that theists visualize him, the same applies, his desires are a factor in what meanings we form but they are not meaning in and of themselves and certainly not UM.

Doesn't game theory require equality of situation?

So why not treat humans like chimps?

As I've said before, non-theistic worldviews all reduce logically to pragmatism. What's the best use I can make of humans to promote myself? Nice attitude.