Thanks for the clarification Betterave,
Firstly I think it’s important to say that this was written from my perspective. You may have a different perspective, especially on issues such as objective value. So I realise that this is subjective, but that’s the point really. It was intended as an example of how I (and others) can value something without the need for a God concept to give it “objective value”.*
Of course we have different perspectives. It doesn’t follow that whatever we are looking at isn’t ‘objective.’
Regarding the premise - I assume you are not saying that his death may not occur since death is inevitable one way or the other (for all of us for that matter). As for nobody caring, to the best of my knowledge, nobody else knows… (although that is no longer strictly true since I’ve used this example on this forum, so perhaps knew would be more appropriate…). Hence nobody can (could) care. Perhaps you will say that God knows and cares, *but I don’t believe God exists so it has no effect on the example (as it is outside of how I determine value).
Your beliefs obviously determine your perspective, but they don’t determine reality, since they might be wrong. And since you acknowledge that they might be wrong, this awareness of your own fallibility must, objectively speaking, form part of
your perspective. I will quote julia’s recent post from another thread (“Is religion a scam?”) as food for thought on this point:
In Rahner’s book, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, Rahner says in Chapter 2, Man in the Presence of Absolute Mystery, that we can only know words and language to describe things which we have experienced. Therefore, “we can say that what is most simple and most inescapable for man with regard to the question of God is the fact that the word “God” exists in his intellectual and spiritual existence” (p. 45).
He goes on to say that the Atheist who says that there is no God, prolongs the existence of the word God. If he truly wanted the word ‘God’ to be dead, he would have to keep “dead silent” and not declare himself to be an atheist.
Then he comments, on page 47, what a world would be like if the word God did not exist, “Man would no longer be brought face to face with the single whole of reality, nor with the single whole of his own existence.” Without the word ‘God,’ man would no longer be able to question the existence of God, he would no longer be able to question himself or his own questions. “He would have ceased being a man. He would have regressed to the level of a clever animal” (p. 48).
“Man really exists as a man only when he uses the word ‘God,’” now Rahner does acknowledge that in using this word, we use it as a question to which we either accept or reject. However, if the word ‘God’ ceased to exist, it would indicate that “man himself has died” (p. 49).
But an important distinction Rahner makes is that the word ‘God’ is not based on the phonetic sound of the word or the language in which you speak it. The way that we pronouce and speak the word is a human creation, however the concept of ‘God’ is not. “Rather it creates us because it makes us men” (p. 50).
Finally, Rahner tells us that we cannot fully comprehend the transcendental meaning of this word. If we did, we would be hearing it as a word “obvious and comprehensible” as the other words we use and, therefore, “we would have heard something that has nothing in common with the true word ‘God’ except for its phonetic sound” (p. 51).
With regards to the conclusion. I guess you’re not aiming at the ‘it has value to him’. That wasn’t really a conclusion from the previous sentence (I know, poor written structure), but the objective value part. My reasoning is as follows - If nobody else knows or cares about the situation it is effectively a closed loop. As far as I can see something cannot have objective value if it is isolated from everything else, after all it is “objectively” undetectable. Perhaps to you the system is not closed as God is in on it, or perhaps you consider objective value to be something different, but remember I was looking at this from my perspective and showing how I can value something without God (or objective value).
Personally, I doubt if “objectively valuable” is a meaningful term since it implies something being valuable outside any mind. But as far as I can see you need to have a mind to do the valuing, so it must be subjective. In any case i fear i am drifting a rather long way from the topic at hand. So perhaps this could form another thread if anyone is interested?
Again I would say that your belief that your actions are “isolated from everything else” is, as you admit, a fallible one. And from my perspective, I don’t see how it could be. If you’d like, I’d be happy to discuss the “objective value” issue in another thread (or here).
