Existence: What is the point?

I'm not whipping anyone.

I'm fine with you believing there is a supernatural. I'm not interested in "changing" you or arguing whether there is a god, or whatever.

I'm just here to point out how totally wrong you are about me - and other atheists, I strongly suspect.

I don't see the existence of a supernatural as even being an important question. I'm sure it is for you, but it's just not a thing in my own life.


You are one seriously bitter individual to think I'm worried about your religion. I'm not.

I DO get concerned when people start seeing religion as justification for attacking science. When I see that happen, I point out how it doesn't make sense and can be avoided.

 

Surely no irony will follow this remark.

Good example of an unevidenced religious belief.

You merely believe this. It is not empirical fact.

 

Seriously.. enough with the fallacies, false accusations, and phony caricatures.

This is an existential thread, about the finality of death, and the meaninglessness of life, in a godless universe.

Empty moral platitudes, ad hom deflections, and moral indignation have no place in such a grim exercise.

Phony caricatures:

• Attacking Science!
• Attacking Atheism!
• Attacking Me!

..pathetic

 

Whatever. But origins, morality, the soul, and the nature of the universe are all religio/philosophical beliefs/opinions.

There is no fundamental philosophical reason, in differentiating a theistic worldview from an atheistic one. The both presume to answer the Big Questions, and are religio/philosophical opinions, only.

 

I'd like to propose a simple experiment for those still falsely claiming that, in the natural world, each animal is solely driven by preserving its own individual existence and in pursing its own narrow self-interests: poke a bee hive.

Don't actually do this, because I don't want to be in any way responsible for your injury or death. But that's all it takes to disprove your fantasy vision of animal motivations. Just poke a bee hive and your hypothesis goes out the window.

 

No, you actually DO attack me. That's obvious.

As for science, I'm just saying that I will object when science is attacked.

 

However, there is a difference in practice. You are on a mission. You see those who don't share your religion as being seriously deprecated, needing your fixing, for example. You are (or should be) directed by not just a philosophy, but by actions directed by the Bible as expressed through your particular denomination. You can see evidence as being irrelevant, because you hold your religion higher than anything mankind could possibly discover.

I'm not here to change all of that, but I do comment when that last sentence comes to bear, or when there are attempts to use government to enforce behavior for the sole reason of religious prescription.

 

Clear as mud.
I 'attack!' flawed reasoning, bigotry, phony narratives, and revisionism. If you have taken personal offense, that some of your cherished beliefs have been scrutinized, you are too invested in your philosophical opinions to debate them.

Your, 'attack science!', is just another phony narrative. Nobody on thus forum follows the scientific method, or respects it, more than i do. I am the one dogpiled on by common descent zealots, for daring to question the sacred tenets of evolution. I can't even post in science threads, so triggered are these jihadist bullies. They are the ones 'attacking science!' by making it a religious belief, and hijacking the term for their philosophical opinions.

Ad hom noted, but they are false accusations. I debate and discuss, with intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence. I am very logical, follow sound reasoning, and spot assumptions and fallacies when they are thrown at me.

IMO, this is an ad hominem based deflection, to try to put me on the defensive, or bully me into silence. You have no evidence that your accusations are true, just fling them out for a disruptive purpose, since you cannot deal with the reasoning.

I don't know why I continue to engage you. I skip over such posts from the resident hecklers, here, and should probably do the same with you.

Wouldn't you rather have an intelligent, spirited discussion about the topic, than be obsessed with 'gotcha!' statements, and ad hom deflections?

 

I'll repost this to guide us back on topic.

How can there be a priori 'purpose' or 'meaning', in a godless universe? Is that not just wishful thinking? A delusion to pretend significance in an insignificant cosmos?

I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100. ~Woody Allen

 

Energy from the big bang produced matter. Matter produces worlds. Worlds produce beings. Beings manipulate energy, matter and worlds (e.g. as in M.K.'s type III civilization). Many of us lesser beings have a fetish, a delusional projection of an extremely advanced manipulator, supposedly worthy of the title "God."

Complexity and life tend to keep things winding up, thwarting the ultimate heat death, defeating the law of entropy. If this is how it is, I see no absence of purpose and meaning in a godless universe, even though I fancy the trace evidence of a Creator.

 

This is fine as a belief, but there are no facts, or even reasoning to compel the conclusions..

Big bang produced matter?
Matter produced worlds?
Worlds produce beings?
Beings manipulate energy, matter and worlds?

I see NO logical or scientific progression for any of these assertions.. and then to glean 'purpose!' from all of this makes no sense, at all.

Matter would already have to be there, for a big bang to occur. What went 'bang!', if it was not matter? 'Nothing' went bang, and made matter?

Worlds are made of matter, but 'matter', by itself, can do nothing, unless acted upon by an outside force. How did 'matter!' make a world? Why would it do that? Why would it want to, if it could?

What worlds 'produced!' beings? Earth? How? This is speculation. How does any world produce beings? No other planet, star, or heavenly body has produced ANY beings, so how does that correlate?

Then somehow, from these unrelated, random, godless, meaningless events, with no explanation as to how or why, 'purpose!' suddenly imbeds itself in these lone planetary beings. Alone in a universe of meaningless entropy, dying stars, expanding into the nothingness of eternity, somebody declares 'meaning!' for his life.. in a meaningless universe, on a dying, temporary planet, with only random accidents of physics for origins.. somehow there is 'meaning and purpose!' for this poor, deluded creature, pretending he is more significant than an amoeba or a rock.

The whole concept of 'meaning!', in a godless, meaningless, random universe is absurd. It is a delusion equal to believing in 'magic sky pixies!', or any imagination of man.. worse, because they don't even follow the logical conclusions of their beliefs. The believer in unicorns can at least assume the unicorn has some purpose for him. The godless accident of a random universe has no basis for 'purpose!', for himself, or anyone.

 

Another unsupported statement of faith: a bare premise without a logical progression or any kind of empirical observations offered to support it. You pose this thread as a question, but have ruled out possible answers beforehand without justifying the exclusion.

 

No problem.

Show me.

Show me how you can get 'a priori meaning', in a meaningless, godless universe. I'll wait...

 

Believing in 'meaning!', in a meaningless universe is just wishful thinking..

 

Argument from ignorance and moving the goalposts.

 

Ah. I see. No point in engaging with you then.. I'll go back to ignoring your posts. Good luck.

 

No point in engaging because the logical fallacies of your argument have been exposed? Thanks for demonstrating that there was never an earnest desire to engage in discussion or debate with this OP. As with some of your previous threads, it only exists to make assertions that you refuse to debate.

 

Existentialism is a very gloomy worldview, even if it is honest and follows the logical conclusions of the beliefs.

So to lighten it up a bit, i offer a few bits of existentialist humor, if that is not an oxymoron..

The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They're both wrong.

I passed my ethics exam. Of course I cheated..

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as to seem not worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

"Rene Descartes walks into a bar and proceeds to order many drinks. The bartender says to him a while later, 'I think you've had enough.' Descartes slurs, 'I think not!' ..and disappears."

 

All of them are self-evident and conform to standard science, so I don't see why you question them. If they are too cryptic, then a bit more of the elaborations are: the origin of the big bang was a singularity from which energy expanded. Energy cooled and condensed into matter (hydrogen). Gravity crunched hot matter until it produced helium. Mass aggregation produced stars that made most of the elements in the periodic table. Stars collapsed and exploded, scattering heavy elements about. Worlds and solar systems are formed from aggregates of such matter.

Scientific theory explains how planets and solar systems develop. It's often a violent process (the moon formed from what was smacked out of one side of our planet).

You're starting to sound like someone who has been living under a rock, as if you're unfamiliar with the pattern of single microbes, multicellular colonies, and multi-organ creatures.

Science is still trying to figure out how the first living cells might have been produced in a primordial "soup" agitated by sparks of lightning or at undersea volcanic vents. Panspermia is an alternative. Metaphysics says that consciousness and the life principle are inherent in the primordial matter of a newly formed planet.

We're not the only planet witnessing the goldilox zone. E.T. is probably out there somewhere.

Supposedly, energy can do nothing constructive without consciousness, and consciousness can do nothing without energy. A step beyond that is to invoke an intelligent source, a Creator. One atheistic author assessed what is inherent in the cosmos: an infinite organizing power and a creative master intelligence.
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The trick is to get your scope out of the isolation closet (this one life on this lone planet). I have no problem seeing meaning and purpose in the big picture, regardless of who or what is running the show.

 

Because they are not true? They are philosophical opinions, about the Big Questions?

1. The 'big bang!' is not a fact. It is a speculative opinion about origins and the universe.
2. The 'origin!' of matter is not 'known!' It is conjectured based on plausibility.
3. Universal common descent is not 'settled science!' It is a belief, based on plausibility. It has never been observed, and the evidence against it is overwhelming.
4. 'Meaning and Purpose!' are irrational delusions, in a meaningless, purposeless, godless universe. It is a pathetic delusion for those unable to face the emptiness and purposelessness of their own existence.
5. People can pretend their lives have 'meaning!', if they wish. But it cannot have any 'a priori' meaning, in a random, meaningless universe.
6. Reason is dying, along with science and freedom, in Progresso World.

 

Your leaning towards selling science short is obvious. Nobel Prizes aren't handed out for the best performances in speculation and conjecture.

It's the best that science can do, and it has done a tremendous job up to a point that does not leave too much unanswered, but certainly enough for wiggle room including phenomena that can never be addressed by science.

I don't see where evidence against it is sufficiently overwhelming to justify total commitment to religious belief in the supernatural. However, if such conviction is supported intuitively and it gives an individual the desired comfort, confidence and peace of mind, I'm not on a crusade to trash it.

Your assessment conveniently justifies your belief. However, it relies heavily on the disparity between the living world and the apparent inhospitable vastness of much of the cosmos. I argue that the disparity is probably not as absolute as it seems. Kindergarten consciousness is in no position to judge cosmic limitations based on relatively infantile levels of perception.

What world is that? Radical Leftist Chaos?[/QUOTE]

 

There is a large body of evidence from different sources indicating the big bang - far more than evidence pointing to any other theory. However, little is known about the "environment" in which the big bang took place, because it's seriously difficult (though perhaps possible) to gather evidence concerning that topic.

A fact in science is an individual observation - a temperature recorded at a specific time and place using a specific technique, for example. Science has NO WAY of creating fact. However, it DOES create theories that are defended to the point of no rational opposition.

There is NO theory in all of science that is so totally defended as is the theory of evolution. It is so universally accepted as to be a foundation of all modern biology.

 

I would say, 'defended and believed with such passionate intensity!'

But it does violence to the scientific method, demanding acceptance for a postulated theory, with no empirical evidence, and extensive problems that are ignored, to promote the belief.

 

but you know this is a silly claim for you to make. You've been a party to numerous threads regarding evolution. You've been given dozens of peer reviewed scientific references supporting evolution. You have offered exactly zero empirical evidence in rebuttal. You simply hand waive away the evidence, say "nuh uh" and then claim nobody has provided you with any evidence.

Nobody is fooled by this.

 

What I object to is the frivolous derision of science as seen on this board all too often.

The violence to scientific method occurs when one ignores the steps between having some idea and concluding that decades of serious testing by experts throughout the world has been no more than a conspiracy.

The violence to scientific method starts on this board with individuals failing to even to bother to look to see if their questions have been asked and answered.