What Is The Meaning Of Life?

[davidm]

Do you feel that your thoughts in any way contradict what Einstein and Simone Weil believed?

Einstein did not believe in a personal god. Has very explicit about this. He was using "spirit" in a metaphorical or an analogical sense. Trying to hijack Einstein for your own worldview is not honest.

You only allow yourself two choices: a personal god or no god. Einstein is referring to pure consciousness that for some reason manifests the laws which comprise our universe. If true, it is logical that humanity has an objective within this creation.

Einstein was not saying or implying that the universe is conscious, and he did not believe in a personal god or in an afterlife, dismissing these notions as childish. Of course I've already linked the relevant Einstein quotes on this matter to you, but you will keep repeating falsehoods as I suppose you imagine they suit your purposes.

[davidm]

Einstein: "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

According to ICan, then, Einstein believes in that which is "completely rationally indefensible."

Einstein and I are in perfect agreement.

[davidm]

God created us so we can have a relationship with him, I just don't get it.

Not only that, but God is nowhere to be found. If he wants a relationship with us, why doesn't he drop by for a spot of tea every now and then?

I invited God to dinner once (via prayer) and made a reservation for two. He didn't show up. What kind of friend is that?

[Immanuel Can]

He is more logical in developing the implications of Atheism for "purpose" and "meaning" than practically anyone since Nietzsche; much more courageous about it than I have found most modern Atheists want to be.

I don't think Mr. Camus is really relevant as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe in God, I've never believed in God, living a life without believing in God, or even thinking about the absence of God, is just normal for me, I am not conscious of any implications arising from this state of affairs.

However, as a spokesman for Atheism,

With all due respect to Camus, I don't really want him speaking on my behalf, not least because I don't think there's really anything to be said. For a theist, I'm sure the subject of God is a big deal, that's understandable, but for someone who doesn't believe in God it isn't an issue of any sort, or at least to me it isn't.

If you think there's not a question here, what made you think I was asking Camus to speak on your behalf, H? I was letting him speak for the reasonably rationally-consistent Atheist, not for people who deny there's any issue to discuss at all.

Still...you're here...so....why are you participating in discussing something that, you say, cannot be a subject worthy of discussion? That is, unless the book is not quite so closed as you would suggest above....

he is a better choice than I am, since he actually believes in Atheism.

Yet even more reason for me not to want him as a spokesman. I don't believe in atheism, just in the same way as the fact that I don't wear a hat doesn't mean I don't believe in wearing hats. I'm fine with other people wearing hats and I'm fine with other people being theists. I just don't wear a hat, it's as simple as that. [/quote]
Then again, I have to wonder why you want to chime in on the subject at all...and yet, I can see you do.

The problem, you see, is that I find many of the modern Atheists live inconsistently and incoherently -- believing in and acting according to values and beliefs that their worldview gives them no reason to suppose are even possible. In short, they inhabit ill-considered premises.

They, presumably, think they have a reason to suppose them possible, whatever they are.[/quote]
You would think so, I agree...but it seems they don't. At least, they're never able to provide the grounds or rationale when you ask for them.

I'm sure many an atheist would say your premises are ill considered ...

I'm certain they would; or they would stop being Atheists. But whether or not they're right to say that is a different question.

Well, as I said, I don't believe in type-1 objective purpose. I do believe in the value of subjective purpose, even though I lack it, I can see how it could enrich ones life and I see no reason to think it feels any less fulfilling than objective purpose, although I can only speculate about that.

Who ever said that the point of having a "purpose" was to make one feel good?

I would think that if it were not a true purpose, one that conformed to reality, then it would amount to no more than a soporific delusion. It might make one feel good, but at the too-great cost of depriving one of a grip on reality.

Is that not the accusation that Atheists sometimes make against Theists, something like, "You're only believing to make you feel good"? But if that's any kind of justifiable critique with which to attack Theism, it's surely just as good a critique against any suggestion of Atheist meaning or purpose in life...they're just believing in it to "feel good." I actually think it's much more true of them than it is of many of the Theists of my acquaintance.

Our ultimate purpose, then, is to know and love God. We are created for relationship with our Creator. And the meaning of our lives is to be actualized as the sorts of creatures who are capable, in potential, of entering into such a relationship.

I honestly don't mean this in a disrespectful or dismissive way, IC, but that doesn't seem like much of a purpose to me. God created us so we can have a relationship with him, I just don't get it.
[/quote]
I understand: that simple explanation raises a whole lot of questions, to be sure. Fair enough. But I can't anticipate precisely which one of them is creating the first hesitation for you. So if I may ask, what is it you "don't get" about it?

[Immanuel Can]

Morality is tied up with meaning and purpose.

In a sense, it is: but questions of meaning and purpose come first. You cannot judge what makes for a "good" or "bad" human being until you have established what one IS -- what he is put here for, what he is supposed to be achieving, and what ultimate meaning a human life is supposed to have.

So you've reversed the order, and thus skipped the first level. Fortunately, the OP is asking us to go behind the morality question to the question of meaning, so that's been fixed.

However, I can well understand why you don't want to touch this argument with a ten-foot pole. You're probably well aware that as an equal alternative to "objective meaning," "subjective meaning" is completely rationally indefensible. So I wouldn't want to try to defend it either.

I've touched on it in this very thread, without even using a pole of any length. Meaning and purpose are subjective. They come from within. My purpose at this board, for example, seems to have become to defend rational thinking against superstition (I would have preferred to do more than that, but the necessary interlocutors seem to be lacking). You purpose is to promote superstition. See? We have different purposes. Ergo, purpose is subjective. I hardly can understand why this should even be controversial, much less "completely rationally indefensible." [/quote]

You've missed the earlier discussion. We already established that "to purpose" (i.e. to decide to want something) is not the same as "to have a purpose" (i.e. to have an ultimate direction and meaning to your existence). Many people "purpose" things; I suppose everyone does, if they're conscious. But that does not mean their existence itself has an objective purpose.

I think that the existential angst of people like Camus stems from the fact that they really would have liked for there to be an objective ground to existence, and finding that ground absent, it causes then distress.

Camus didn't think he wanted an objective ground for meaning; but he was realistic to see that without such a thing, life was rendered essentially "absurd." (His term) He just thought "the absurd hero" (a he called it) was someone who knew that and embraced it anyway. The coward, he thought, the "intellectually suicidal" person, was the one who had no idea about this, or else who knew in the back of his mind that there was no objective purpose to life, but when he felt the sting of absurdity, fell to pretending there was.

[Nick_A]

Einstein: "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

According to ICan, then, Einstein believes in that which is "completely rationally indefensible."

Einstein and I are in perfect agreement.

No. You would obey the state natural for the idolatry of the Great Beast. Einstein would obey "conscience" which has been crushed out of the majority who are conditioned to obey the ethics of the state.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. Albert Einstein

You deny objective conscience so must obey the ethics of the state. Most agree with you which is why the horrors of the world continue as they do.

[Harbal]

Still...you're here...so....why are you participating in discussing something that, you say, cannot be a subject worthy of discussion?

Yes, that did occur to me while I was writing, but I was hoping it wouldn't occur to you.

That is, unless the book is not quite so closed as you would suggest above....

Don't get me started on miracles.

So if I may ask, what is it you "don't get" about it?

I just don't see any point in bringing about all creation just so we can have a relationship with the creator. I mean, why?

[Immanuel Can]

Einstein: "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

According to ICan, then, Einstein believes in that which is "completely rationally indefensible."

Einstein and I are in perfect agreement.

Looking at his words, Einstein was clearly speaking of "what he considered," not what he could prove. I would be more inclined to believe him literally, and say that he knew better than to claim he knew for certain that his wish was reality. So I'm not sure you're in the same ballpark at all.

It's simply evident that if ethics is "an exclusively human concern with not superhuman authority," then there is no objectivity to ethics. It is then, as Nietzsche said, just a tawdry power grab. There are no real ethics: nothing guarantees right and wrong. It's not even wrong, then, to lie about ethics.

Einstein, for all his mathematical genius, is not exactly celebrated for his acumen in metaethics, just as Rembrandt is not celebrated for his culinary skills. Outside of his area, he was no less mortal and fallible than all of us.

Mind you, I'm still impressed you compared yourself to Einstein.

[davidm]

Your posts are so chock-full of misdirection, strawmen, red herrings, convoluted distortions of what others say, arguments to incredulity and ignorance, and etc. etc., that it becomes tedious to read what you write, must less respond to it. I mean, what's the point? But just one glaring example is worth noting:

Mind you, I'm still impressed you compared yourself to Einstein.

Of course I did NOT compare myself to Einstein! I merely noted that I agreed with him on the nature of ethics and the lack of an afterlife or supernatural creator. After all, I wasn't the one who dragooned Einstein into these discussions -- it was Nick, and he did so in a cherry-picking and dishonest way. Maybe you ought to reproach your fellow theist for comparing himself to Einstein, not me?

As it happen as a matter of philosophy, I disagree with Einstein on a number of things.

[Immanuel Can]

duplicate post

[Immanuel Can]

As it happen as a matter of philosophy, I disagree with Einstein on a number of things.

And you probably should.

But it makes me wonder why you quoted him (evidently, with admiration) on the subject of metaethics, then. What possible value could it be to you to say "Einstein said..." if you knew already that he was no expert on the subject in hand...

However, if you did not actually mean to draw an approving association between his name and your position, I happily withdraw my concluding observation.

[Immanuel Can]

Still...you're here...so....why are you participating in discussing something that, you say, cannot be a subject worthy of discussion?

Yes, that did occur to me while I was writing, but I was hoping it wouldn't occur to you.

It's alright. I don't mind.

That is, unless the book is not quite so closed as you would suggest above....

Don't get me started on miracles.

Like the miracle of your interesting in an allegedly non-issue?

So if I may ask, what is it you "don't get" about it?

I just don't see any point in bringing about all creation just so we can have a relationship with the creator. I mean, why?

Good question. The short answer goes thusly: in trinitarian thought, God is Himself a relational Being. Or to put it concisely, "God is love." To extend love to others freely is the Divine Nature and purpose. it is, one would say, both the meaning and purpose of our existence to achieve that.

Yet consider also the possibility that creating free-will creatures is a rational prerequisite for genuine relationship. In other words, love cannot be compelled, but must be given by choice. How, but by creating free creatures, can God present conditions on which love can be freely given?

[Harbal]

Yet consider also the possibility that creating free-will creatures is a rational prerequisite for genuine relationship. In other words, love cannot be compelled, but must be given by choice. How, but by creating free creatures, can God present conditions on which love can be freely given?

I love sunshine and blue sky and green leafy trees and nature in general. If God created all these things then I am grateful to him but I'm afraid I don't love him.

[davidm]

As it happen as a matter of philosophy, I disagree with Einstein on a number of things.

And you probably should.

But it makes me wonder why you quoted him (evidently, with admiration) on the subject of metaethics, then. observation.

Because Nick brought up Einstein first and tried to cherry-pick his words to support Nick's own claims. Did you fail to notice that? I then invoked Einstein's actual beliefs to set the record (and Nick) straight.

[Dubious]

Your posts are so chock-full of misdirection, strawmen, red herrings, convoluted distortions of what others say, arguments to incredulity and ignorance, and etc. etc., that it becomes tedious to read what you write, must less respond to it. I mean, what's the point? But just one glaring example is worth noting:

Mind you, I'm still impressed you compared yourself to Einstein.

Of course I did NOT compare myself to Einstein! I merely noted that I agreed with him on the nature of ethics and the lack of an afterlife or supernatural creator. After all, I wasn't the one who dragooned Einstein into these discussions -- it was Nick, and he did so in a cherry-picking and dishonest way. Maybe you ought to reproach your fellow theist for comparing himself to Einstein, not me?

As it happen as a matter of philosophy, I disagree with Einstein on a number of things.

IC has been for many years a first class verbal contortionist. He will completely twist every sentence into something you never said, meant or even thought of. This is his sole means of defending his beliefs when challenged by counter views. He professes to love god and yet manages to insert lies into every argument which doesn't conform to his own. Regardless of my position toward or god or theism in general the apologetics offered by him is replete with subterfuge, lies and distortions. If I were to believe in god, I would also have to consider his means of justification as total anathema.