Life has Meaning, Therefore God Exists

[Peter_Plato]

I think it doesn’t work at all:
First, how do you know if there is no God, then the universe lacks meaning?
Second, how do you know the universe has meaning?
The two lines of your argument are only your opinion, not fact.

.

First off, PietroPaulo never presented his “two lines” as facts because ‘facts,’ in themselves have no meaning. They gain meaning when they are given significance by an agent capable of endowing them with meaning. Any “fact” is only meaningful to the extent it is significant with respect to a goal, end or intention.

PietroPaulo was presenting his two statements as “truth” statements because they had been endowed with meaning by his intentional act of formulating them into a “meaningful” argument.

Your “how do you know” simply means you find no meaning in his statements, but how would you even know that YOU find no meaning in them without a capacity to impute meaning? Ergo, you implicitly accept that meaning exists in the same instant you attempt to deny it.

You seem to be operating under a misconception about what meaning actually is. PietroPaulo, as an intelligent agent, has the presumed capacity to impute meaning BECAUSE he has intelligence. That is precisely how HE knows. You, on the other hand, still have to make a case.

As the intelligent Creator of the universe, God has ipso facto imputed meaning into the universe by the very fact that it is an intelligible entity. That the universe is intelligible to the human intellect is evidence that it has been meaningfully constructed - every event has significance with regard to anterior and posterior events, ergo all events are meaningful. That is how we know. This isn’t merely PietroPaulo’s opinion because the entire body of human scientific knowledge is predicated upon the meaningfulness of the physical world. The universe HAS meaning, only a hopelessly befuddled person would deny that.

The question PietroPaulo is addressing is whether the depth and extent of the meaning in the universe is only the projection of human minds onto it or whether the meaning is inherent in it, i.e., was meaningfully constructed. The “fact” (let’s call it Exhibit A) that human minds can apprehend meaning is a huge piece of evidence for the inherent meaningfulness of the universe since where would such a capacity (minds that apprehend meaning) come from absent that “systemic” meaning?

Of course, what you are doing is submitting yourself as Exhibit B, since you apparently claim to be a mind that does not impute meaning onto things and therefore puts into question whether ALL human minds do, in fact, apprehend meaning in the universe.

Obviously, however, that you can deny meaning exists itself means you know WHAT meaning IS in order to deny it. Hence your evidence is self-refuting. You are a mind that can, at least, potentially apprehend meaning, therefore you are properly classified as Exhibit A even in your denial of that fact.

Case dismissed.

 

[Ion]

I think that " the universe has meaning" is the meaning that our conscience asks about everything we see/experience in life, and is behind our own sense of right conduct.
We have the freedom to give value 0, or no meaning/ meaningless to anything and thus the meanings might not look important, but they are always in our mind.

 

[oldcelt]

This is very much a generalization on what and how Atheists think.
The Atheist only wants the same level of proof most of us usually require when we believe something to exist. Something more than anecdotal claims, something solid. It doesn’t have to be nobel-prize-winningly scientific.

.

.

Atheists and many others. The problem with an invisible and mysterious god is that people of negative intent can use that god for their own nefarious purposes. If the only answer to a question is that it is a mystery, then the answer can be anything the speaker wants.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Atheists and many others. The problem with an invisible and mysterious god is that people of negative intent can use that god for their own nefarious purposes. If the only answer to a question is that it is a mystery, then the answer can be anything the speaker wants.

That would seem a bigger problem for a deist than for a theist because the theist must reconcile their “anything the speaker wants” with the purported revelations of the immanent God, whereas the deist has no such compunction. The atheist even less.

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t know what the question has to do with what I said. You need to skip the fortune cookie comments and start making some substantial posts that actually men something.

Failure to answer questions weakens one’s position.

Please cite one post which is meaningless - otherwise your assertion lacks foundation…

 

[oldcelt]

That would seem a bigger problem for a deist than for a theist because the theist must reconcile their “anything the speaker wants” with the purported revelations of the immanent God, whereas the deist has no such compunction. The atheist even less.

I can find nothing to argue.
“We’re just two lost souls swimmin in a fishbowl, year after year.”
A major part of the soundtrack of my youth that I noticed in your signature. Part of the Floydian mentality.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The problem with an invisible and mysterious god is that people of negative intent can use that god for their own nefarious purposes. If the only answer to a question is that it is a mystery, then the answer can be anything the speaker wants.

This is true so far as some religions might be concerned. It can hardly be said to be true of the Chrisian religion, which in both the Old and New Testaments renders a great deal about the “invisible and mysterious” God of our faith. In the person of Jesus Christ we come to know God up close and personal.

The more “invisible and mysterious” God of the Deists pales by comparison.

That God can be anything the Deist wants him to be.

 

[oldcelt]

This is true so far as some religions might be concerned. It can hardly be said to be true of the Chrisian religion, which in both the Old and New Testaments renders a great deal about the “invisible and mysterious” God of our faith. In the person of Jesus Christ we come to know God up close and personal.

The more “invisible and mysterious” God of the Deists pales by comparison.

That God can be anything the Deist wants him to be.

All major religions have been perverted by power-seeking people, including Christianity. Just think of the long list of evils done in the name of Christianity. The attempted genocide of the Native Americans always springs to mind. Manifest Destiny is a distinctly Christian idea.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

All major religions have been perverted by power-seeking people, including Christianity. Just think of the long list of evils done in the name of Christianity. The attempted genocide of the Native Americans always springs to mind. Manifest Destiny is a distinctly Christian idea.

All major religions have sought to find God, which is never a perverse goal. Just think of the long list of good deeds done by Christians through the centuries. Think of how the Native Americans have ceased to engage in warpath against each other. Final Manifest Nothingness is, of course, a Deist ideal.

 

[oldcelt]

All major religions have sought to find God, which is never a perverse goal. Just think of the long list of good deeds done by Christians through the centuries. Think of how the Native Americans have ceased to engage in warpath against each other. Final Manifest Nothingness is, of course, a Deist ideal.

Not necessarily, but we do not believe in a traditional heaven. Some, myself included, hold out the possibility of continued consciousness. perhaps a dream-like state. This is based on the First Law of Thermodynamics. Thought is energy and so on.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Not necessarily, but we do not believe in a traditional heaven. Some, myself included, hold out the possibility of continued consciousness. perhaps a dream-like state. This is based on the First Law of Thermodynamics. Thought is energy and so on.

But if all that is true, God is still manipulating your afterlife since nothing can exist without God.

 

[oldcelt]

But if all that is true, God is still manipulating your afterlife since nothing can exist without God.

That is something I do no believe. I am the product of my parents interaction no different than any other mammal. God has no plan for my life and may not even be aware I exist. My afterlife will be my thoughts and dreams or nothing at all.

 

[smichhertz]

Valid argument, but redundant. “The universe has meaning” is extremely vague for a consequent. There are many ways that can be taken apart and argued.

This is a clever logical trick to change the argument from “Does God exist?” to “Does the universe have meaning?”. But it ends up being the same thing.

Allow me to demonstrate it in a different way to illustrate my point:

p → q
~q
∴ ~p

p - married men are bachelors
q - married men are single

If married men are bachelors, then married men are single. But married men are not bachelors, therefore married men are not single.

Valid, but redundant.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

That is something I do no believe. I am the product of my parents interaction no different than any other mammal. God has no plan for my life and may not even be aware I exist. My afterlife will be my thoughts and dreams or nothing at all.

I don’t see any logical foundation for this philosophy of life.

Do you believe you are just another animal? This is very close to atheism.

 

[oldcelt]

I don’t see any logical foundation for this philosophy of life.

Do you believe you are just another animal? This is very close to atheism.

Well, is there anything I’ve said about my origin that isn’t fact? It is clearly observable and verifiable. God does not have to be involved at that level…it is completely logical and factual.
So far as an afterlife, we are all hopeful, but it is not verifiable in any way.

 

[Counterpoint]

If there is no God, then the universe lacks meaning.
But the universe has meaning.
Therefore, there must be a God.

The problem is that the world does appear to be meaningless. This is made evident by the fact that most people suffer from existential angst and/or despair in one form or another. Who amongst us has never had the feeling that we are just characters acting in a “theatre of the absurd?” And if we are willing to be honest, then we would acknowledge that.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The problem is that the world does appear to be meaningless. This is made evident by the fact that most people suffer from existential angst and/or despair in one form or another. Who amongst us has never had the feeling that we are just characters acting in a “theatre of the absurd?” And if we are willing to be honest, then we would acknowledge that.

You, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus, maybe. Not me!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Well, is there anything I’ve said about my origin that isn’t fact? It is clearly observable and verifiable. God does not have to be involved at that level…it is completely logical and factual.
So far as an afterlife, we are all hopeful, but it is not verifiable in any way.

If one is only going to live on facts, and not on hopes, then life is hopeless.

That is why we call the three cardinal virtues faith, hope, and charity.

Without any one of these, life is wasted.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The problem is that the world does appear to be meaningless. This is made evident by the fact that most people suffer from existential angst and/or despair in one form or another. Who amongst us has never had the feeling that we are just characters acting in a “theatre of the absurd?” And if we are willing to be honest, then we would acknowledge that.

This isn’t, in any sense, “evidence” that the world is meaningless. At most it shows that “most people” suffer from existential angst because their sense of meaning does not correspond with the meaning inherent in “the world.”

Honesty is, for the most part, irrelevant. Someone suffering from extreme paranoia may honestly believe themselves to exist in an extremely foreign world where everyone is “out to get them” but that belief, in itself, is not sufficient to demonstrate that the world is indeed so inclined.

In fact, the design and intentions of the Supreme Being may be fully in accord with the long term and ultimate well-being of each individual, but because the individuals themselves do not have full access to the details they may not feel “secure” merely because all circumstances are not within their immediate control. Logically speaking, it would seem impossible to reconcile the subjective wishes of billions of humans with the wishes of all other existent humans, to say nothing of reconciling those wishes with the nature of physical reality itself.

On the other hand, the existence of the 3 omni God of theism means that our subjective desires are not the final say in how things ought to be BECAUSE none of us do have the intellectual resources to “produce reality” and it, therefore, makes more sense to play our part rather than engage in the delusion that we ought to be running the show.

It seems to me that faith in the 3omni Producer is a much more reasonable approach and reality becomes more a “theatre of the absurd” when bit players believe themselves fit to orchestrate all of reality when we haven’t a clue as to what that responsibility even involves.

 

[tonyrey]

Atheists and many others. The problem with an invisible and mysterious god is that people of negative intent can use that god for their own nefarious purposes. If the only answer to a question is that it is a mystery, then the answer can be anything the speaker wants.

That argument can be applied to any ideology whatsoever - including atheism. It certainly doesn’t justify deism.