Life's "ultimate meaning", and the value of money

[The_Exodus]

Right. “Intrinsic” as theists use it here is a conceptual goof. An artifact of the magical thinking that anchors God as the grounds of the economy of value and meaning.

We’re not talking about theism here, but atheism. Remember that. You are the one saying that atheism can account for meaning in existence. Say all you want about God or Christianity, but you haven’t proven your case one bit more by doing so.

touchstone:

My decisions are subjective (at least partly – some of my decisions appear to be brute imperatives imposed by my phyisology, and not subjective), but the consequences of those decisions are perfectly objective. If a trading partner and I agree that X has some value, and exchange goods accordingly, it is objectively “valued” when the transaction happens. It’s a fact – X was valued as the basis of exchange in transaction Y.

You’re equivocating here. First of all, what do you mean by “decisions”? Do you mean physically doing something, like pulling a trigger? No one is denying you have power to enteract in the world. But if you want to say that you can somehow change the existential meaning of the bald fact of “reality is” by doing anything physical, this doesn’t follow.

Thus, making a decision is objective in the sense that “something occurs,” but the value of that decision, or what it means, is entirely subjective. You’ve not solved anything with this example.

touchstone:

I suspect it’s this linkage that may be being overlooked…

This point is not overlooked, but is irrelevant, so no attention is paid to it.

 

[Touchstone]

We’re not talking about theism here, but atheism. Remember that. You are the one saying that atheism can account for meaning in existence. Say all you want about God or Christianity, but you haven’t proven your case one bit more by doing so.

I think the pedagogy works going that direction, as well; the value of money is not “intrinsic” but conventional, social. And in practice that’s all that’s needed to make it fully effectual. We have an entire, huge, sophisticated economy that has been built around that.

Similarly, secular meaning for life is conventional, personal, social. The meaning obtains from the priorities and goals of the owners of those lives, and their relationships to others they live in community with (my life has meaning, in part, because I’m a father of six and husband, and a son, etc., and those relationships bring all sorts of blessings and demands and reasons for my life to be this way or that, for my choices to be chosen in light of those relationships). And in practice that’s all that’s needed to make that meaning effectual. We have enormous networks of family, friend, acquaintance and community relationships that “place us in context” in society, and we have the resources of our time, energy and any other assets we might acquire to invest as the substance of our goals, the basis for meaning in our lives (my life also has meaning, in part, because of my investment of energy, time and resources in being a software developer, building software systems that do new and (hopefully) innovative things that are useful to the community, useful enough that I can get paid in valuable dollars, just to tie things together).

You’re equivocating here. First of all, what do you mean by “decisions”? Do you mean physically doing something, like pulling a trigger? No one is denying you have power to enteract in the world. But if you want to say that you can somehow change the existential meaning of the bald fact of “reality is” by doing anything physical, this doesn’t follow.

Thus, making a decision is objective in the sense that “something occurs,” but the value of that decision, or what it means, is entirely subjective. You’ve not solved anything with this example.

Rats, this means we’re back at square one. The whole point of this thread was the claim that there is nothing to solve as you see it. That’s what the “‘intrinsic’ doesn’t mean anything” business was for, upthread.

This point is not overlooked, but is irrelevant, so no attention is paid to it.

Well, now I’m confused. That linkage was the reason there’s nothing to solve in the place you complained I had “not solved anything”.

Thanks for the comments.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

This is not manifest at all. Do you not know a whole school of thought (all atheistic) are nihilists? Are you blind to the fact that a great wave in moral philosophy for the past 150 years would flat out disagree with you and find your claim absolutely unjustified and ridiculous?

I think you are confusing the locus of “meaning” here. If a tiger jumps out of the bush and runs snarling at a surprised nihilist, he will run, just like the realist. He manifestly values his life, and finds meaning in survival (even if it’s just his autonomic nervous system kicking in at that point). A nihilist makes the very same mistake that Catholics make – they suppose there “intrinsic meaning of life” is a coherent concept in the first place. Catholics affirm it through the imagination of a supernatural being they suppose can conjure up this magic meaning; a nihilist denies it can be found and laments it.

But they are twins in taking the inquiry as a coherent one int he first place, even if they arrive at different conclusions about the existence of this ‘intrinsicness’ to meaning.

As for 150 years of philosophers complaining (which I dispute for the reasons above, but entertain for the purposes of argument here), I would just offer the same request I’d offer the Catholic priest or the pagan shaman: show your math!

And that pretty much puts an end to that nonsense.

On the other hand, if you follow a philosophical nihilist around (perhaps one of these cats you suppose would be up in arms at what I’ve said), you will see the meaning of that man’s life unfold – who he loves, what he esteems, what he despises, what his goals and priorities are, where he sees himself in the social order, in the extended family community. There, the nihilist like the Catholic can go on and on about “intrinsic meaning”, but the meaning is manifest just by watching how he lives, and what choices he makes.

The most intelligent atheists see that life does not have meaning.

If you take “meaning” to be something “intrinsic”, I’d go along with that – there’s no intrinsic meaning.

This is because on atheism “existence” is a bald term. It has no character, in and of itself.

Right, this is what “intrinsic” means – in and of itself. So this has been my message as well.

Now, certainly you can live as if it did, but this doesn’t change the fact that in the true scheme of things, man’s existence is (in Sartre’s language) a “useless passion.”

To live as if it did is to invest meaning. This is the salience of the analogy. To transact AS IF money had value is to make it valuable. The pedagogy is stronger on this than I thought when I first wrote the post. Behold the parallel:

To live life as if it had meaning IS to give it meaning.

To transact with money as if it had value IS to give it value.

I know you like Wittgenstein and are for some reason impressed with his ideas about language (which preceded him and were put into much more intelligible conception in the 1250s), but the above is simply gibberish, considering the fact that your whole post is written in order to prove that life is, somehow, “really” meaningful.

No. The whole thrust of this thread from me is that “really”, as you are using it, is a conceptual error, an incoherent concept. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s practically and effectually meaningful (or valuable in the case of money), and that’s as “real” as it gets. It’s plenty real in practical terms, but it’s nothing in “cosmic” or “magical” terms. The “cosmic meaning” impulse is a misfire, in other words, a incoherent conceit.

It doesn’t matter how you want to dress this language up, i.e. if you want to call it a “category error” or what have you. Life is either worth something, in and of itself, or its an illusion which you entertain because you want or like to. Those are the only two options.

It’s not even two options, on your terms, because your concept of “worth” is ungrounded. Let’s assume, arguendo, that God does exist and loves you very much. Why would that be “meaningful” (never mind the problem of “intrinsicness”, which this example doesn’t solve) for you? Because it corresponds to something either you, God, or both desire and prize. That is, the choice to make it meaningful is the reification of meaning, insofar as it is meaningful.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

The Exodus:

As I’ve noticed in most of your posts, you continually deconstruct your own points, as well as everyone elses, and therefore end up running in circles. I.e. you “bewitch” yourself.

Language is difficult. It’s better when we have practical referents to work with, which is one reason why science leaves so much of philosophy (and theology) in the dust, twiddling its thumbs, but this idea you have is a really good case in point of “the Emperor has no clothes”; if we press in a deconstructive way on what you mean by “intrinsic”, it because patent handwaving and incoherent, meaningless terms, very quickly (like immediately). It may sound coherent to your ear, but just a little rigor applied to it will show it’s fluff, that you have bewitched yourself with your language, and supposed there was substance and coherence where there is none.

If you dispute this, I’m happy to spin up a thread to demonstrate that for you in your substantiation of “intrinsic meaning”.

This is just an assertion. I find absolutely no reason to think this is so, if humans were not created in the image of God.

Nonsense. If that’s my offspring, it has changed my life, and given me a whole new role and title. I’m a father (to-be), and that’s as radical a change for a man’s life as I know. Even if it’s not a child of mine, it’s the beginnings of what may be, if it survives, a human person, a sentient being, a being I can relate to as another human being. God doesn’t and can’t invest anything more than that, even if he does exist. All the meaning there is to have is there without God, even if God obtains.

What hasn’t been established on atheism is why I should think “life” is meaningful.

For the same reason you should think money has value. Because we invest meaning in it, we use the time and resources we have to make choices and pursue goals of one kind or another. That’s as meaningful as meaningful gets, and it’s plenty meaningful in practice, if you follow people around and actually watch how they live.

Why give the brute fact of “existence” meaning? Sure, you can offer some practical response, but pragmatism presupposes an end, or a meaning, or a reason for acting.

Well, being human presupposes an end, a meaning, a reason, if only to survive, reproduce, and seek gratification and happiness. These are objective facts of biology, and we are not at liberty to choose or refuse them. They are simply wired into us. At that level, there is objective meaning, by virtue of the telic goals baked into our brain wiring by evolution.

The end or meaning or reason for acting is precisely what is in question, however, and precisely what has no justifcation whatsoever if existence is a bald fact.

I’ll just keep it consistent here; the idea of “justification” as you’ve used it here is a concept error. It’s incoherent, meaningless. A word that sounds meaningful, superficially, but does not attach to anything conceptually.

According to Catholicism ethics and morality are grounded in God’s nature, which is pure being, goodness, truth, power, justice, sovereignty.

Yes, but why is that meaningful if my goals are something quite apart from any of that? If I can’t be bothered with that, that provides no meaning at all for me. You might as well tell me brussel sprouts are the “ground” of value for money, and that all of our money is “really” backed by the “intrinsic value of brussell sprouts”. If I, or some community don’t value brussel sprouts, the value is void.

I’ve transacted as if brussel sprouts have no intrinsic value as the underpinning for money, and therefore brussel sprouts actually have no value as such.

I’ve lived as if God’s nature, being and goodness do not ground meaning in my life, and therefore they actually ground no meaning as such.

On atheism ethics and morality are grounded in human nature, which is simply a bald existential reality: a chunk of matter which happens to wiggle around and undergo this experience we arbitarily call “life.”

Yes, and the really cool thing about that is that that is the recipe for meaning – practical, manifest, lived-out, chosen meaning in a way that “God makes life meaningful” can’t hope to approach.

Sure thing.

But that is not to say that your life is meaningful to me, or in and of itself. Indeed, for all my purposes, you may be simply an obstacle for me to overcome, on my way to my goals of preservation, etc.

Could be. If I’m coming to take your money, which I value, and kill you because you might be a witness that can identify me, I think that purpose would be quite clear. We are social animals, so the naïve “mayhem idea”, that humans are otherwise given to wanton murder, destruction and utterly unempathetic misanthropy just signals ignorance about humans as biological humans. But yes, my life is meaningful to you insofar as you invest priority, and value in it. Your acting as if it is meaningful makes it value, just by adopting such a stance!

Just like the way we value money.

-TS

 

[R_Daneel]

Life is valuable for everyone whether its value is recognised.

An “unrecogized” value is an oxymoron. We make “value judgments”, which are the result of a deliberating process. Someone who does not have a sufficiently advanced brain, cannot have judgment about anything. The fact that newborns respond to actions (they smile or they cry according to the way they are treated) is not the sign of a “value judgment”, it is a sign of built-in automatic and instinctive response.

I guess most atheists regard it as instrumentally valuable even though they think it is not designed to be valuable but some atheists recognise its objective value, i.e. value that is not just in the mind.

The value of anything is always subjective, and it only exists in the mind of the individual.

People can impose value arbitrarily on almost anything even if has no objective purpose but rational values are based on purposes related to physical, intellectual, moral, social, personal and spiritual development.

Apart from the meaningless term of “spiritual”, I agree. But whether someone’s value judgment about something is “rational” or not, it is their value judgment. What is rational to someone may very well be irrational for others.

None of this is relevant. The point is that some theists (not all) keep on asserting that the “value” of life comes from God, and therefore when atheists value their own life, or someone else’s life, they act irrationally, because they deny the so-called “ultimate” value or “ultimate” meaning. They say that to place a value on a “bag of chemicals” is irrational. Yet, they value a lump of money, which is also a just a bag of chemicals. That is the problem at hand. What is your resolution to this question?

 

[R_Daneel]

That still doesn’t make an action any closer to being “right” in and of itself. It is “right” only accidentally (in the philosophical sense), and not essentially; only because so and so thinks it is, etc.

This “philosophical” sense is just a crock of fertilizer. The action of maximizing one’s own well-being and to choose the best strategy to achieve that goal is “right” or correct both in the mathematical sense and to the individual himself, because every other action brings a sub-optimal solution.

Well being meaning what…? You’ve not cleared the waters or made any point whatsoever. You’ve simply pushed the question back. Now, “well being” is the subjective term.

If you don’t understand the term of “well-being”, you are in a sorry state. To bring up a meaningless “retort” just shows that you have no meaningful one. Pitiful, really.

You simply fail to understand the philosophical implications of what you’re saying. Again, read serious atheist literature, and perhaps you’ll understand the ramifications of atheism a bit better. Try Sartre, for example. Or Nietzsche.

Why on Earth would I be interested in some philosophers’ empty musings? Philosophy is empty speculation. Game theory, on the other hand offers practical solutions to real life problems and questions, for example, how to solve the problem of finding an equilibrium between conflicting interests. The motto is: “Don’t speculate. Shut up and calculate”.

 

[tonyrey]

Life is valuable for everyone whether its value is recognised.

An “unrecognized” value is an oxymoron.

Only if you reject objective values…

We make “value judgments”, which are the result of a deliberating process. Someone who does not have a sufficiently advanced brain, cannot have judgment about anything.

The fact that we make value judgments does not mean they are unrelated to reality. They are either true or false - unless you believe they are simply a matter of taste. Do you think a the value of a person’s life depends on what people think?

The fact that newborns respond to actions (they smile or they cry according to the way they are treated) is not the sign of a “value judgment”, it is a sign of built-in automatic and instinctive response.

Do think all human behaviour is a response to something?

The value of anything is always subjective, and it only exists in the mind of the individual.

If value exists only in the mind there was nothing valuable before human beings existed. Therefore we alone confer value on ourselves and others! We must be infallible in our moral judgments…

People can impose value arbitrarily on almost anything even if has no objective purpose but rational values are based on purposes related to physical, intellectual, moral, social, personal and spiritual development.

Apart from the meaningless term of “spiritual”, I agree. But whether someone’s value judgment about something is “rational” or not, it is their value judgment. What is rational to someone may very well be irrational for others.

So you believe being rational is a matter of opinion?

None of this is relevant. The point is that some theists (not all) keep on asserting that the “value” of life comes from God, and therefore when atheists value their own life, or someone else’s life, they act irrationally, because they deny the so-called “ultimate” value or “ultimate” meaning.

They don’t act irrationally because life is valuable - and it is valuable because it is purposeful. Their denial that life is ultimately valuable is irrelevant because it doesn’t alter the facts…

They say that to place a value on a “bag of chemicals” is irrational. Yet, they value a lump of money, which is also a just a bag of chemicals. That is the problem at hand. What is your resolution to this question?

It is irrational to place a value on a purposeless bag of chemicals. A lump of money is valuable because it serves a human purpose. A person is not a bag of chemicals produced by purposeless processes but a being who exists for specific purposes which come from God.

 

[The_Exodus]

If a tiger jumps out of the bush and runs snarling at a surprised nihilist, he will run, just like the realist. He manifestly values his life, and finds meaning in survival (even if it’s just his autonomic nervous system kicking in at that point).

So what? Simply because a person’s nerves act a certain way, therefore “existence” or “life” somehow gains something meaningful? But it can’t be the case it already is meaningful, since existence is just a bald fact on atheism. Our nervous system does not change reality. It just makes it, for the moment, appear as such. I.e. it is still, presently, a manifest illusion.

touchstone:

A nihilist makes the very same mistake that Catholics make – they suppose there “intrinsic meaning of life” is a coherent concept in the first place.

No, nihilists simply understand the ramifications of epistemology. A human’s thought does not change the nature of reality. It doesn’t matter what you think, there is either life in another galaxy, or not. The same goes for God. No matter how practical you think the idea, there either is a being which made the universe, which exists independently of your thought, or there isn’t.

The situation then is: I have certain “feelings” about objects in reality. I have a “feeling” there is life on Mars, or that my wife is telling the truth, or that this food is good for me. Now, experience tells us that our feelings don’t determine any of these things. So when we come up to the question of “I feel I ought to do x,” or some sort of moral problem, it is linked to another assumption, i.e. “x is right/worth doing/meaningful etc.” Thus, if I say I feel I ought to pray for Touchstone, because I think he is headed for Hell, I must ask myself if I find this proposition actually true, because, prima facie, it is obvious that my “feelings” on the matter don’t mean a thing.

touchstone:

On the other hand, if you follow a philosophical nihilist around (perhaps one of these cats you suppose would be up in arms at what I’ve said), you will see the meaning of that man’s life unfold…

You are entirely missing the point.

The nihilist certainly does act as if there was meaning, but what he holds is that the object of his thought - i.e. reality - is not really any different. He knows it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He simply is just willing to live a lie.

Please, read Nietzsche or Sartre. They would both here laugh at you and say "So what? Why not live a lie? Who cares if I’m inconsistent?

touchstone:

If you take “meaning” to be something “intrinsic”, I’d go along with that – there’s no intrinsic meaning.

Thank you for telling me that your life has no meaning whatsoever then, to me, or to you, or anybody else.

I know you think your thinking the opposite somehow changes this, but your thought has no more influence on the meaning of your life than it does on the existence of life in other galaxies, or on the existence of God.

To live life as if it had meaning IS to give it meaning.

By no means whatsoever does this follow. I live life as if Santa Clause is real, therefore he exists, right? Of course not. “But he exists to you!” you’ll say (as well as every pragmatist and existentialist). So what? My thought doesn’t somehow mold the character of Santa into existence proper. He exists simply as a figment of my imagination.

Now, what is funny is that pragmatists, existentialists, materialists, etc. are up in arms against religious people since they believe in a “fairy tale” or an “illusion.” Religious people, on pragmatic etc. grounds can claims all that the pragmatists claim concerning the “meaning of life” (i.e. “it is true because I will to believe it to be true”), without violating the pragmatic philosophy. Where I’m from they call that the pot calling the kettle black.

William James was a great American scholar, but he was simply an extension of Kantian epistemology, which is doomed to absurdity, since it traps us within our own being and is unable to account for objective reality. James tried vainly to place some foundation in the human mind for meaning as “what works” or “what I will to believe”, but he failed to offer any sound basis for meaning.

touchstone:

The whole thrust of this thread from me is that “really”, as you are using it, is a conceptual error, an incoherent concept.

My use of “real” is due to your lack of a fundamental distinction in epistemology: that between the subject and object, or that between the knower and the thing known. You want to say that the subject determines the object, or, at any rate, that the subject can determine itself (which really just takes us back to the subject determining the object). If the former, I will simply say it is ridiculous to hold that you can determine objective reality simply by thinking so, and will provide you examples ad infinitum of how this is false. If the latter, then there is manifestly no objective reason, no ground, for any determination on your part whatsoever. The subject is “spontaneously” free. This is the whole point of existentialism (which, if you follow your pragmatism far enough, you’ll understand.) There is no reason for “meaning”. There is no reason for the term whatsoever, besides your necessarily arbitrary criteria. Necessarily, I say, since there is no objective ground you are referring to in order to validate or substantiate your views, since you claim the subjective determines the object, instead of being determined by it.

 

[The_Exodus]

Language is difficult. It’s better when we have practical referents to work with…

“Practical referents” presuppose an end. The end itself, however, is what is in question. All your talk about what is practical is irrelevant, since we have no idea what we’re trying to attain.

touchstone:

Nonsense. If that’s my offspring, it has changed my life, and given me a whole new role and title.

Again, this objection misses the point. It’s not about what you think, nor about your psychological “feelings” about your life. The question is about whether, de facto, a baby is valuable, in and of itself.

touchstone:

For the same reason you should think money has value.

Money as such has no value, except in view of a goal. Now, relatively speaking, the goal is the preservation of my life. But, objectively speaking, the goal is going to heaven. There is a hierarchy of what is meaningful, and when certain things conflict, that which is higher up wins out.

But still, this entire point is misplaced and irrelevant, since you’ve still left in the air what you’ve been assuming all along: that your existence, in and of itself and regardless of what you think, has value.

touchstone:

Well, being human presupposes an end, a meaning, a reason, if only to survive, reproduce, and seek gratification and happiness. These are objective facts of biology, and we are not at liberty to choose or refuse them. They are simply wired into us. At that level, there is objective meaning, by virtue of the telic goals baked into our brain wiring by evolution.

First

a) our “telic goals” or instincts are so vague that your claim is more or less a misnomer.
b) our “telic goals” are vastly different from individual to individual
c) our “telic goals” are very often in opposition to our moral law or conscience. Thus a reason or teleology must be had in order to explain the triumph of one over the other, why this is justified, etc.
d) evolution is not even a proven fact. It is a tentative theory.

touchstone:

Yes, but why is that meaningful if my goals are something quite apart from any of that? If I can’t be bothered with that, that provides no meaning at all for me.

Your whole failing to grasp the subject/object distinction may very well be an inflated I or Ego, in the Freudian sense. I say this because you say “x provides no meaning for me,” as if that changes anything. However, what you think as meaninful, or conceive as practical, has no determining effect on the reality of the situation.

 

[The_Exodus]

Why on Earth would I be interested in some philosophers’ empty musings? Philosophy is empty speculation.

…says the one posting in the philosophy forum.

I figured you’d actually be interested in what real atheism meant, though. My suggestion was purely for the building up of your mind, so you could understand your own world view more clearly.

 

[The_Exodus]

Your acting as if it is meaningful makes it value, just by adopting such a stance!

Just like the way we value money.

-TS

Therefore, the ontological argument proves the existence of God, since our own private ontology somehow makes things be what they are.

 

[Touchstone]

Therefore, the ontological argument proves the existence of God, since our own private ontology somehow makes things be what they are.

I’ll take this up a bit more in response to your earlier post(s), but no, you’re confusing meaning with existence or instantiation. Meaning is a value assignment, a contextualization, a graph of subjects and objects standing in relationship to each other, conceptually. That has perfectly no bearing on the ontology of reality. Assigning meaning or value to an object doesn’t make it real, unreal, exist or not-exist. It just assigns meaning, a conceptual relationship between one’s values and the targets of those values.

Value and meaning are conceptual constructs, and as such they have real world secondary effects – people trade little pieces of paper in exchange for finished goods based on these concepts, for example. But as conceptual constructs, they may influence our actions in the real world, but they are just conceptual, and have no magical powers to confer any kind of metaphysic upon reality. The world is what it is, regardless of what we think about it. Value and meaning are terms we use to describe mental commitments and assignments we make, conceptually.

As it happens, though, you’ve touched on the folly of Anselm’s ontological argument.
Anselm is similarly confused about the conceptual basis of “perfection” and “greater” and the reality of the extramental world. Conceptual renderings of “greater” are conceptual. Objective reality can’t be bothered by that, and to think there’s some kind of causal or reifying connection there just signals a basic misunderstand of what a concept is in the mind, and its relationship to the extra-mental world.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

As it happens, though, you’ve touched on the folly of Anselm’s ontological argument…reifying connection there just signals a basic misunderstand of what a concept is in the mind, and its relationship to the extra-mental world.

-TS

Smacks self in the head It seems you are completely missing the point.

That was the whole point of my post, to point out his error, and show how your proposed “I will life to have meaning, therefore it does” theory is guilty of the very same fallacy.

 

[Touchstone]

Smacks self in the head It seems you are completely missing the point.

That was the whole point of my post, to point out his error, and show how your proposed “I will life to have meaning, therefore it does” theory is guilty of the very same fallacy.

The realities of meaning and value are conceptual. This is why the idea of “intrinsic meaning” is incoherent (and for the same reason as Anselm made his error). If you are on the intrinsic side, you are hand in hand with Anselm in confusing conceptual realities with extramental realities.

It’s only because I understand and heed Anselm’s error that affirm the conceptual nature of “meaning” and “value”, and recognize “intrinsic meaning” and “intrinsic value” as incoherent terms.

Odd, I see on the other thread that you’ve identified Anselm’s error, but you suppose yet, that your concepts of value and meaning, as opposed to Anselm’s concepts of “maximall greatness” somehow necessarily obtain extra-mentally, intrinsically. You are at odds with yourself on these two threads!

-TS

 

[R_Daneel]

Only if you reject objective values…

Right on the money. I reject them.

The fact that we make value judgments does not mean they are unrelated to reality. They are either true or false - unless you believe they are simply a matter of taste. Do you think a the value of a person’s life depends on what people think?

It depends on what the person in question thinks. Not what other people think.

Do think all human behaviour is a response to something?

This is much too broad to answer in one short post. Newborns definitely do.

If value exists only in the mind there was nothing valuable before human beings existed. Therefore we alone confer value on ourselves and others! We must be infallible in our moral judgments…

The last sentence is a non-sequitur. The first two are correct.

So you believe being rational is a matter of opinion?

Another question which is very far-reaching. But for the person involved it certainly is. I believe that theism is irrational, because it rests on speculation, it is internally inconsistent and it is contradicted by what we all experience. You obviously disagree. You think that theism is rational.

They don’t act irrationally because life is valuable - and it is valuable because it is purposeful. Their denial that life is ultimately valuable is irrelevant because it doesn’t alter the facts…

Opinions do not alter the facts, for sure. The question is: “what are the facts”? And who says that life is “puposeful”?

It is irrational to place a value on a purposeless bag of chemicals. A lump of money is valuable because it serves a human purpose. A person is not a bag of chemicals produced by purposeless processes but a being who exists for specific purposes which come from God.

All that remains is for you to prove this. But that does not belong to this thread.

 

[R_Daneel]

…says the one posting in the philosophy forum.

I figured you’d actually be interested in what real atheism meant, though. My suggestion was purely for the building up of your mind, so you could understand your own world view more clearly.

How nice of you. But I am aware what atheism is. It is simply a lack of belief in some god or gods. Nothing else. Atheism is compatible with everything, except one: a belief in some “god”. Just like theism is compatible with everything, except the lack of belief in god. Neither of them “implies” anything else. And that is the lesson for you today.

 

[AntiTheist]

You need to read serious atheists like Sartre, Heidegger, Nietzsche, etc.

Well, in the first place, I have (in fact I’ve read nearly every work of Sartre and Nietzsche).

In the second place, their views aren’t representative of those of all atheists. An atheist is simply someone who doesn’t accept the claim that gods exist.

There’s nothing sillier than someone trying to tell another person what the other person’s position should be.

There’s a fundamental miscommunication that happens on all of these threads about “meaning” and “value,” because theists define these words in weird, idiosyncratic ways. They seem to think that something is “meaningful” only if it has some “objectve meaning” outside of all human consciousness.

“Meaning” and “value” are words that express personal meaning and value that individuals attach to things. There is no value outside of those attachments that our mind creates. The money example illustrates this admirably.

 

[tonyrey]

Only if you reject objective values…
Right on the money. I reject them.

It depends on what the person in question thinks. Not what other people think.
So your life is valuable only if **you **think it is? It is impossible for you to be mistaken about its value?

Do think all human behaviour is a response to something?

This is much too broad to answer in one short post.
The answer is either yes or no.

If value exists only in the mind there was nothing valuable before human beings existed. Therefore we alone confer value on ourselves and others!We must be infallible in our moral judgments…

The first two are correct.
So nothing in the entire universe is valuable unless we think it is? Our power of reason is valueless if we think it is valueless?

We must be infallible in our moral judgments…

The last sentence is a non-sequitur.
Please explain why.

So you believe being rational is a matter of opinion?

Another question which is very far-reaching. But for the person involved it certainly is.
So rationality depends entirely on what you believe?

I believe that theism is irrational, because it rests on speculation, it is internally inconsistent and it is contradicted by what we all experience. You obviously disagree. You think that theism is rational.

It is more rational than the belief that rationality is produced by irrational processes.

They don’t act irrationally because life is valuable - and it is valuable because it is purposeful. Their denial that life is ultimately valuable is irrelevant because it doesn’t alter the facts…

Opinions do not alter the facts, for sure. The question is: “what are the facts”? And who says that life is “purposeful”?

Don’t you think and behave as if life is purposeful?

It is irrational to place a value on a purposeless bag of chemicals. A lump of money is valuable because it serves a human purpose. A person is not a bag of chemicals produced by purposeless processes but a being who exists for specific purposes which come from God.

All that remains is for you to prove this.
Isn’t a lump of money valuable because it serves a purpose? Is it reasonable to reject the value of a lump of money? It remains for you to explain why and how a purposeless bag of chemicals can be valuable - even if you think it is!

[/QUOTE]

 

[tonyrey]

“Meaning” and “value” are words that express personal meaning and value that individuals attach to things. There is no value outside of those attachments that our mind creates. The money example illustrates this admirably.

So your thoughts have no value unless you attach value to them?!

 

[R_Daneel]

So **all **values are merely a matter of taste and opinion?

Of course. Think about being stranded in a desert. You can have either a bottle of water, or a ton of gold, but not both. Which one is more valuable under those circumstances? I choose the water, even if it is tepic, and maybe murky. Which one would you choose?

So your life is valuable only if **you **think it is? It is impossible for you to be mistaken about its value?

Yes and yes.

The answer is either yes or no.

True, but to choose needs time to contemplate. I don’t have it right now.

So nothing in the entire universe is valuable unless we think it is? Our power of reason is valueless if we think it is valueless?

To be more precise your question should read: “So nothing in the entire universe is valuable for us unless we think it is?”. And then the answer is: “yes”. If there are other intelligent beings, then they must decide it for themselves. I cannot answer such a question “for you”, because I have no access to your personal value system. Not that my value system is “superior” to yours, they are simply different. The value system each of us has is purely subjective.

Please explain why.

Simple. Our judgments do not have to be infallible. We may make mistakes.

So rationality depends entirely on what you believe?

That is not what I said. We all believe that our thought process is rational. If you want to discuss what is rational, that would be again a topic for another thread.

It is more rational than the belief that rationality is produced by irrational processes.

The adjective “rational” and “irrational” cannot be applied to natural processes.

Don’t you think and behave as if life is purposeful?

Yes, but only in the sense that I create my own purposes.

(1) Isn’t a lump of money valuable because it serves a purpose? (2) Is it reasonable to reject the value of a lump of money? (3) It remains for you to explain why and how a purposeless bag of chemicals can be valuable - even if you think it is!

(1) Yes, the money serves a purpose, and so it becomes valuable, if you care about money. (2) It depends on your value system. A fakir in India would not value money, because his value system is different. Regardless if we consider his attitude rational or not, it is his value system. (3) A simple, biological reason: we are both individuals and social beings. We value the company of others, we are dependent on others, just as they are dependent on us. This natural fact is a good foundation to value other human beings - even if they just a bag of chemicals.