Do atheists find meaning in life from inventing fairy tales?

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March 29, 2018

Atheism, Culture, Naturalism

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From Richard Weikart at the Federalist:

The 2018 study in question by David Speed, et al, “What Do You Mean, ‘What Does It All Mean?’ Atheism, Nonreligion, and Life Meaning,” used surveys to try to figure out if atheists find meaning in life or are nihilistic. This survey defined someone as nihilistic if he or she upheld the position: “In my opinion, life does not serve any purpose.”

This study found that atheists and non-religious people are not nihilistic, because they claimed that they did have a purpose in life. This is an interesting finding that seems to refute the oft-repeated charge (levied by religious folks) that atheists are nihilistic.

However, there is a problem with this finding. The survey admitted the meaning that atheists and non-religious people found in their lives is entirely self-invented. According to the survey, they embraced the position: “Life is only meaningful if you provide the meaning yourself.”

Thus, when religious people say non-religious people have no basis for finding meaning in life, and when non-religious people object, saying they do indeed find meaning in life, they are not talking about the same thing. More.

Study. (public access)

Didn’t fairy tales used to be Hollywood’s specialty?

See also: Can science survive long in a post-modern world? It’s not clear.

Comments

jdk @ Why do you link to a post on Taoism when you do not believe in Taoism?Origenes_{March 30, 2018
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jdk:
I neither reject not accept materialism.
That sounds irrational given what materialism entails. And the only thing you put on the table seems to be that you are afraid to commitET_{March 30, 2018
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jdk From another thread “And, there are also many people, myself included, who have examined the claims of Christianity and consider them inconceivable.” Don’t get the sense of strong agnosticism regarding metaphysics here either Inconceivable really? This is what you consider to be a strong agnosticism concerning metaphysics ? Vividvividbleau_{March 30, 2018
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Jdk “I am a strong agnostic about metaphysics,” Hmmm having a hard time reconciling your strong agnosticism about metaphysics with your your post #1 Vividvividbleau_{March 30, 2018
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jdk Love what you wrote at 43, really nicely put.JVL_{March 30, 2018
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Moreover, besides the catastrophic epistemological failure that is inherent to the atheist's worldview which excludes immaterial minds from the outset before any scientific investigation has even begun, as the following video makes clear, advances in quantum mechanics have now shown us that the mental attribute of 'free will' and also the mental attribute of what is termed 'the experience of the now' are both integral parts of Quantum Mechanics. That is to say that key and defining attributes of the immaterial mind are now found to be central to our best scientific understanding of reality in Quantum Mechanics:
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4 The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor - 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: - Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html
In fact, as the following article by Steven Weinberg shows, in quantum mechanics humans are brought into the laws of physics at the most fundamental level instead of humans being the result of the laws of physics as Darwinists falsely imagined us to be.
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics - Steven Weinberg - January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/
And as Anton Zeilinger states at the 7:00 minute mark of the following video, “we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement.,,, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” - Anton Zeilinger - Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video (7:57 minute mark) https://youtu.be/4C5pq7W5yRM?t=500
Thus, contrary to the claim by atheist's that immaterial minds are unscientific and only mechanical causality can be allowed in science, it is now found that Agent causality is very much integral to quantum mechanics itself. Moreover, quantum mechanics itself also directly falsifies materialism and/or physicalism
Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM Minding matter - March 2017 The closer you look, the more the materialist position in physics appears to rest on shaky metaphysical ground Excerpt: There is, however, a significant weakness hiding in the imposing-looking materialist redoubt. It is as simple as it is undeniable: after more than a century of profound explorations into the subatomic world, our best theory for how matter behaves still tells us very little about what matter is. Materialists appeal to physics to explain the mind, but in modern physics the particles that make up a brain remain, in many ways, as mysterious as consciousness itself.,,, A particularly cogent new version of the psi-epistemological position, called Quantum Bayesianism or QBism, raises this perspective to a higher level of specificity by taking the probabilities in quantum mechanics at face value. According to Fuchs, the leading proponent of QBism, the irreducible probabilities in quantum mechanics tell us that it’s really a theory about making bets on the world’s behaviour (via our measurements) and then updating our knowledge after those measurements are done. In this way, QBism points explicitly to our failure to include the observing subject that lies at the root of quantum weirdness. As Mermin wrote in the journal Nature: ‘QBism attributes the muddle at the foundations of quantum mechanics to our unacknowledged removal of the scientist from the science.’ Putting the perceiving subject back into physics would seem to undermine the whole materialist perspective. A theory of mind that depends on matter that depends on mind could not yield the solid ground so many materialists yearn for. https://aeon.co/essays/materialism-alone-cannot-explain-the-riddle-of-consciousness The Incompatibility of Physicalism with Physics: A Conversation with Dr. Bruce Gordon - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk-UO81HmO4 Divine Action and the World of Science: What Cosmology and Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of Providence in Nature - Bruce L. Gordon - 2017 Excerpt page 295: In light of this realization, the rather startling picture that begins to seem plausible is that preserving and explaining the objective structure of appearances in light of quantum theory requires reviving a type of phenomenalism in which our perception of the physical universe is constituted by sense-data conforming to certain structural constraints, but in which there is no substantial material reality causing these sensory perceptions. This leaves us with an ontology of minds (as immaterial substances) experiencing and generating mental events and processes that, when sensory in nature, have a formal character limned by the fundamental symmetries and structures revealed in “physical” theory. That these structured sensory perceptions are not mostly of our own individual or collective human making points to the falsity of any solipsistic or social constructivist conclusion, but it also implies the need for a transcendent source and ground of our experience. As Robert Adams points out, mere formal structure is ontologically incomplete: [A] system of spatiotemporal relationships constituted by sizes, shapes, positions, and changes thereof, is too incomplete, too hollow, as it were, to constitute an ultimately real thing or substance. It is a framework that, by its very nature, needs to be filled in by something less purely formal. It can only be a structure of something of some not merely structural sort. Formally, rich as such a structure may be, it lacks too much of the reality of material thinghood. By itself, it participates in the incompleteness of abstractions. . . . [T]he reality of a substance must include something intrinsic and qualitativeover and above any formal or structural features it may possess.117 When we consider the fact that the structure of reality in fundamental physical theory is merely phenomenological and that this structure itself is hollow and non-qualitative, whereas our experience is not, the metaphysical objectivity and epistemic intersubjectivity of the enstructured qualitative reality of our experience can be seen to be best explained by an occasionalist idealism of the sort advocated by George Berkeley (1685-1753) or Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). In the metaphysical context of this kind of theistic immaterialism, the vera causa that brings coherent closure to the phenomenological reality we inhabit is always and only agent causation. The necessity of causal sufficiency is met by divine action, for as Plantinga emphasizes: [T]he connection between God’s willing that there be light and there being light is necessary in the broadly logical sense: it is necessary in that sense that if God wills that p, p occurs. Insofar as we have a grasp of necessity (and we do have a grasp of necessity), we also have a grasp of causality when it is divine causality that is at issue. I take it this is a point in favor of occasionalism, and in fact it constitutes a very powerful advantage of occasionalism. 118 http://jbtsonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/JBTS-2.2-Article-7.compressed.pdf
Thus jdk, preferring material explanations in science is, #1, epistemologically self defeating, and #2, material explanations have now been falsified in quantum mechanics. jdk If you rightly put the results of repeatable scientific experimentation before your a priori philosophical commitment to materialism, then you should rightly drop your commitment to materialism and/or methodological naturalism:
The Scientific Method - Richard Feynman - video Quote: 'If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
bornagain77_{March 29, 2018
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jdk, the great claim of Christianity is that we can know "about what is beyond the universe we experience" i.e. that we can know God:
Matthew 27:50-54 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” THE EIGHT-FOLD WAY TO KNOWING GOD A Study From The Second Epistle of Peter, Chapter One by Lambert Dolphin Knowing God Personally and Intimately Excerpt: Can a person embark on a journey that leads to knowing God? The overwhelming claim of the Bible is yes! Not only can anyone of us know the Lord and the Creator of everything that exists, we are invited—even urged—each one of us, to know him intimately, personally and deeply.,,, Yet God is the ultimate reality in all the universe, and as the Apostle Paul says "from him and for him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever." Those who genuinely desire to know him (as he really is) are never disappointed. In one sense knowing God is the easiest thing in the world, easier than falling off a log. Indeed the Bible says simply, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you," and again, "Ask and it will be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened to you." Jesus said, "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for you souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light." In another sense knowing and loving God is a lifetime process that follows that initial introduction we call regeneration or the "new birth." http://ldolphin.org/Eightfld.html
jdk as to your claim that,,
"I think the scientific commitment to searching for material explanations for material phenomena is the correct thing for us to be doing"
Why do you champion methodological naturalism? Firstly, science was not born out methodological naturalism, and/or materialism, but was born out of Christianity. Moreover, preferring the 'mechanical causality' of naturalism over the 'agent causality' Christian Theism is epistemologically self defeating: Atheists employ what is termed Methodological Naturalism to try to rule agent causality out of bounds before any scientific investigation has even begun, As Paul Nelson states in the following article, "Epistemology -- how we know -- and ontology -- what exists -- are both affected by methodological naturalism (MN). If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won't include minds.”
Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: "Epistemology -- how we know -- and ontology -- what exists -- are both affected by methodological naturalism (MN). If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won't include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn't write your email to me. Physics did, and informed (the illusion of) you of that event after the fact. "That's crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then -- to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse -- i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss -- we haven't the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world -- such as your email, a real pattern -- we must refer to you as a unique agent.,,, some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we're back to physics versus physics, and there's nothing for SETI to look for.",,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set090071.html
Yet this denial of agent causality, as imposed by the artificial imposition of Methodological Naturalism onto science, is completely unwarranted. If anything, we understand agent causality much better than we understand mechanical causality. As Professor J. Budziszewsk states in the following article,
A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf
It is also important to note the catastrophic failure in epistemology that is inherent in the Atheist's denial of Agent Causality. Specifically, In the atheist's denial of their own free will they forsake any right to the claim they are making a logically coherent argument in the first place. As Martin Cothran states in the following article,
Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
Simply put,
(1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain (determinism). (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) (Yet) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD
Moreover, as the following article highlights, even many leading atheists themselves admit that it is impossible for them to live as if they had no free will
Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get." An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, "The impossibility of free will ... can be proved with complete certainty." Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. "To be honest, I can't really accept it myself," he says. "I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?",,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html
Even Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be 'intolerable' for him to live his life as if determinism were true and that he had no free will.
Who wrote Richard Dawkins’s new book? – October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html
In what should be needless to say, if it is impossible for you to live as if your worldview were actually true then your worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.
Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/
Here is a video that goes over several line of evidences that further establish the reality of free will:
Determinism vs Free Will - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwPER4m2axI
bornagain77_{March 29, 2018
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Thanks, Truth.jdk_{March 29, 2018
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jdk @ 43: Thank you. I was genuinely interested and you gave me a thoughtful and genuine response. Much appreciated.Truth Will Set You Free_{March 29, 2018
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Truth writes, "Please also explain why you reject materialism." I neither reject not accept materialism. I am a strong agnostic about metaphysics, and don't believe we can know much (maybe nothing) about what is beyond, in any way, the universe we experience. I accept as a given that a universe such as ours exists, with all the properties it has to make things happens as they do, but I don't know why that is so. (I am conversant with lots of speculations about this, but realize that that's all they are.) I accept that consciousness is, to use Chalmers' phrase, the "hard problem", so I am agnostic about how it relates to the material world and any possible non-material reality. I am open to their being some ineffable and unknowable ground from which the world we experience arises (the Tao in the link above), but I can't claim at all to say that such a thing exists or not. I do accept that we can, and have learned, a lot about the material world, and I think the scientific committment to searching for material explanations for material phenomena is the correct thing for us to be doing, but I think science is limited and can't address a great many important things in our lives. I'm not sure why I felt like laying all this on the table, given the likely reception and my lack of desire to actually argue about any of it. But Truth asked, so I answered.jdk_{March 29, 2018
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Hmmm, Truth, I wonder how genuinely interested you might be in my metaphysics, such as they are. I've described them here at length one or two times (although I don't mean to imply that you should know that), and I'm not interested in getting involved in defending them again. But, here are some links: Taoism https://uncommondescent.com/atheism/fft-seversky-and-the-is-ought-gap/#comment-631072 My philosophy https://uncommondescent.com/ethics/science-worldview-issues-and-society/fft-the-worldviews-level-challenge-what-the-objectors-to-design-thought-are-running-away-from/#comment-631652jdk_{March 29, 2018
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jdk @ 11: Let's try this again. If you are not a materialist, what are you? Please also explain why you reject materialism. Also, why are atheist myths better than religious myths? Atheist myths such as abiogenesis, multiverse theory and objective moral standards have no empirical evidence to support them. They are completely faith-based ideas and beliefs.Truth Will Set You Free_{March 29, 2018
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BA77 @ 15: "The problem with atheists claiming that consciousness is an illusion is that it takes consciousness to determine whether something is real or imaginary in the first place." Bingo! A/mats simply cannot comprehend this basic fact.Truth Will Set You Free_{March 29, 2018
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jdk: All religions are descriptions of reality???
In the sense that they describe a real higher power, yes.
jdk: They can’t all be accurate descriptions of reality ...
True jdk. But I did not say "accurate", now did I? - - - - Bornagain @ ;)Origenes_{March 29, 2018
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snark on,,, NO NO NO Origenes,,, they are descriptions of illusions. You see Origenes, the "appearance" (illusion) of design in life was designed by the illusory, and impotent, designer of natural selection. Along the way, this illusory, and impotent, designer of natural selection, as an added benefit, also designed the illusion of consciousness and meaning so as to give the body the illusory meaning and purpose it needed to bother getting out of bed each morning:
"There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again. (…) So, the fiction of the enduring self is almost certainly a side effect of a highly effective way of keeping the human body out of harm’s way. It is a by-product of whatever selected for bodies—human and nonhuman—to take pains now that make things better for themselves later. For a long time now, Mother Nature has been filtering for bodies to postpone consumption in the present as investment for the body’s future. It looks a lot like planning. Even squirrels do it, storing nuts for the winter. Does this require each squirrel to have a single real enduring self through time? No. If not, then why take introspection’s word for it when it has a track record of being wrong about things like this, when the self just looks like part of the same illusions and is supposed to have features that physics tells us nothing real can have." - A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10
Geeze, it is all so easy to understand!,,, Sometimes I think you Christian Theists just don't want to accept the illusion of reality actually being reality.,,, :) ,,, snark off!bornagain77_{March 29, 2018
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All religions are descriptions of reality??? They can't all be accurate descriptions of reality, because they are so various and not consistent with each other. Also, many aspects of religion are about how to act–they are prescriptive, not descriptive–and are very inconsistent with each other in this way also. So I don't know what you mean.jdk_{March 29, 2018
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jdk: They are not “whimsical fantasies” ...
Indeed, they are descriptions of reality.Origenes_{March 29, 2018
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AK at 27,,, you tell him AK, neuronal illusions having illusions of meaning in their illusory lives is just as real for the neuronal illusions as real people having real meaning in their real lives is real for the real people. :)
A Dream Within a Dream BY EDGAR ALLAN POE Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
bornagain77_{March 29, 2018
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Allan Keith:
So, you think that it is a fairy tale to put family and friends above yourself
No, Allan Keith, it is a fairy tale that it alone gives your life meaning. And it could be a fairy tale convincing yourself that is what you do.ET_{March 29, 2018
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That's right. They are, and have been, important cultural inventions intended to provide structure and meaning for a society's answers to all sorts of big questions about the nature of the world, the nature of human beings, and the nature of the society in which they exist. Without such structures, human society could not successfully exist. Religion, and associated beliefs systems, are essential unifying aspects of culture. They are not "whimsical fantasies": they are, to use Santanya's phrase. "sacred literature."jdk_{March 29, 2018
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jdk: Saying that notions of meaning and metaphysics are products of our creative imaginations doesn’t mean that they are just whimsical fantasies ...
Thanks for clearing that up. So, when you say: ...
jdk: Where do you think all the hundreds of human religions have come from, if not the creative imagination of human beings?
... you do not mean to say that these "human religions" are just whimsical fantasies. Good to know.Origenes_{March 29, 2018
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Origenes,
How can there be an hierarchical relationship between “I” and the brain, in which the “I” uses the brain? Put more generally, what is the difference between “I” and the brain?
Wow!Allan Keith_{March 29, 2018
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Origenes asks in 12,
There are also hundreds of human philosophical concepts of reality — atheistic, theistic and everything in between. Is that all purely “creative imagination” or do you hold that reality exists nonetheless?
Yes, reality exists, and we can, and do, know lots about it. However, our metaphysical concepts of reality are also products of our creative imagination. Saying that notions of meaning and metaphysics are products of our creative imaginations doesn't mean that they are just whimsical fantasies: we work hard at integrating our empiriical experiences with our belief and meaning systems: I think it is a central factor about human beings that we try to create an integrated, holistic view of our world. However, I'll also point out that the OP was about meaning in life, not about concepts of reality, which is a related but different subject.jdk_{March 29, 2018
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Allen Keith: I used my brain to reason What does that mean? Is "I" one part of the brain that is using the rest of it? Does "I" have any free choice in the matter? Or are you saying that the "I" is a non-free part of the brain is using the rest of the non-free brain? Just curious. EDIT: I just noticed Origenes's question which is essentially the same as mine. Carry on.mike1962_{March 29, 2018
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Allan Keith: If I say that i do so because I used my brain to reason it out for myself ...
How can there be an hierarchical relationship between "I" and the brain, in which the "I" uses the brain? Put more generally, what is the difference between "I" and the brain?Origenes_{March 29, 2018
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ET,
Non-sequitur. Try again.
Hmm. If I say that I put family and friends above myself because my priest tells me that’s what god wants me to do, it is rationally and logically sound. If I say that i do so because I used my brain to reason it out for myself, it is a no -sequitor. Do you have your cake and eat it too very much? And let’s be honest. Is there anyone who couldn’t reason that out for themselves without instruction from some theistic authority?Allan Keith_{March 29, 2018
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Allan Keith:
So, you think that it is a fairy tale to put family and friends above yourself.
Non-sequitur. Try againET_{March 29, 2018
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ET,
Your very own personal fairy tale.
So, you think that it is a fairy tale to put family and friends above yourself. Again, please tell me that I am not your friend. Origenes@27, when you are willing to have an honest discussion, let me know.Allan Keith_{March 29, 2018
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jdk @ 11:
Where do you think all the hundreds of human religions have come from, if not the creative imagination of human beings?
Sure, all developed as scientific extrapolation and sociopolitical ideologies. Often mixed with hero/ancestor worship. As then as is now: Darwin, Dawkins, Hawking... Nothing new under the sun.LocalMinimum_{March 29, 2018
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Allan Keith:
So, deciding to derive meaning and purpose from family and friends is a fairy tale?
Your very own personal fairy tale.ET_{March 29, 2018
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