No, life cannot have meaning in a random universe. Next question?

BA77, I see atheists are still trying to resurrect the dead problem of evils post Plantinga. Actually, the first fatal blow was struck by Boethius, in pondering if God why evil, but if not God whence good. In the above, the atheistical argument clearly fails to ground its recognition and rejection of evil (beyond yucky stuff I currently don't like but wait for the next PC partyline shift). It then needs to ask, whence the moral government of mind that I appeal to, i.e. duties to truth, right reason, fairness etc. Also, these objectors to God need to differentiate between their perception and actuality. KF kairosfocus

daveS

at some point, I suspect one would have to assert that certain of these premises are self-evident and claim that anyone who does not accept that is mentally defective in some way. (Deluded, aggressively stupid, etc.)

Indeed. There is something wrong with anyone who would deny a self-evident truth. Deluded and aggressively stupid are certainly possibilities. Is there a point in there somewhere? Barry Arrington

Barry, One of your premises:

If there is a God, meaning is possible. If there is no God, meaning is not possible.

It might be true, for all I know (hence I'm not trying to demonstrate that my position is correct). But I have doubts about it. It seems to be at odds with my life experience. How can you demonstrate to someone that it is true? You can probably show that it follows from other (equally questionable) premises. But at some point, I suspect one would have to assert that certain of these premises are self-evident and claim that anyone who does not accept that is mentally defective in some way. (Deluded, aggressively stupid, etc.) daveS

daveS

You have the burden to support your own premises.

Which I and others have done repeatedly.

I don’t have to prove to your satisfaction that you are wrong.

But you do have the burden of proving that you are right if you want to demonstrate that you are right. And that you have failed to do. Barry Arrington

Barry,

It is not a matter of doubting premises.

I'm afraid that's exactly what it is. You have the burden to support your own premises. I don't have to prove to your satisfaction that you are wrong. daveS

dave

So you do think I literally I believe (and assert) P and not-P. It could not be because I doubt some of your premises.

It is not a matter of what I think. You have indisputably affirmed p and not p. It is not a matter of doubting my premises. It is a matter of you running from the facts that you yourself have affirmed. Look at what you are doing here. If you think I am wrong, demonstrate it. Don't whine about how I may be wrong and should admit that. Show me. Show me how there can be meaning in meaningless universe dave. BTW, "I feel like there is meaning even when I know that feeling is belied by the facts I postulate" is a non-starter. Barry Arrington

Well dave, under any definition one cares to use, affirming mutually exclusive propositions is not a trivial logic error. Barry Arrington

Barry,

The error is most certainly not trivial. It is about as basic and fundamental as you can get.

By "trivial" I don't mean inconsequential or not worthy of being pointed out. I do mean elementary (or basic or fundamental). So you do conclude I literally believe (and assert) P and not-P. It could not be because I doubt some of your premises. daveS

Barry to daveS

You seem to be managing the cognitive dissonance caused by believing (as Eric aptly put it) something (atheism) that is at odds with your strongest moral intuitions and does not have rational support.

daveS responds:

You claim to understand my own thought processes well enough to psychoanalyze me

Barry:

Nonsense. You affirm mutually exclusive propositions at the same time. Anyone who does that has deluded themselves about one or the other proposition. I merely pointed that out.

daveS

I was referring to the part where you spoke of my “managing cognitive dissonance”.

Well dave, I admit I made some assumptions there: 1. I assumed that you know that you are affirming mutually exclusive propositions. 2. I assumed that trying to believe mutually exclusive things at the same time was causing you some level of dissonance. 3. I assumed based on your comments in this thread, that you are more or less comfortable with trying to believe mutually exclusive things at the same time. And that led me to conclude that you seem to be managing the cognitive dissonance caused by trying to believe mutually exclusive things at the same time. I readily admit that I could be wrong. Maybe your efforts to hold contradictory beliefs causes you great anguish. If that is the case, you certainly hide it well. daveS

Do you really think our differences on this issue are due to trivial logic errors on my part? (And delusion, I guess…)

Affirming that you believe mutually exclusive propositions at the same time is certainly a logic error. The error is most certainly not trivial. It is about as basic and fundamental as you can get. Barry Arrington

Charles Birch, Thanks for that, I'll take a look at it. daveS

One day the space bar on a computer was talking to a human atheist: SB: The purpose of my existence is to provide a space between words so that writers can craft comprehensible sentences. What is your purpose? HA: I have no purpose. However, I can create my own purpose and meaning where none exists. SB: But that makes no sense. A thing cannot create its own purpose or its own meaning. Someone on the outside of the thing must do that. My designer, for example, equipped me to help writers express their ideas. Given my features, I am fit for nothing else. If I do not perform those functions, then I am useless and my life has no meaning. I cannot just assert myself and find meaning as a can opener. HA: Humans are different. We evolved in a purposeless, meaningless universe, so life has no inherent meaning for us. Since our existence has no inherent meaning, we must contrive some artificial meaning by setting temporal goals for ourselves, which normally consists of publicizing the idea that life has no meaning. SB: So the purpose of your life is to say that life has no purpose? HA: In part, yes. I know that it sounds like a contradiction, but that is not the whole of it. I am also saying that humans can “find” meaning in the hot pursuit of a goal. It has meaning *for them.* SB: But how can you find meaning in a temporal goal that isn’t informed by some ultimate goal. If it doesn’t serve some higher purpose, then by definition, there is nothing to find and it has no meaning. If you say it has meaning for you, you are simply using words to create an illusion. If I didn’t help writers, for example, then my existence would have no meaning. I could claim that I find meaning in the number of keystrokes involved in my activity, but it would be an illusion. HA: You are right. If meaning isn’t there, you can’t create it. StephenB

daveS You have stated that loving your fellow humans 'seems to come naturally'. I think that's hugely important. I have come to my (provisional, pending further evidence) theistic beliefs without subscribing to any organised religion. My beliefs are based mainly on science, philosophy and the accounts of mystics throughout the ages. It's that third category - mystical experience - which is relevant to 'love coming naturally'. I understand 'mysticism' to be a state of expanded consciousness, where the brain's 'filtering' of reality is bypassed and a far greater awareness supervenes. Mystics achieve this state via different means - fasting, deep meditation and entheogenic drugs are deliberate methods; stress, crisis and trauma - such as that which triggers NDEs - are involuntary. Mystics have been with us throughout the ages, and their accounts are remarkably consistent. Here, for example, is the formerly-atheistic Buddhist academic Dr Martin Ball describing his experience with DMT. The relevant section is from 14.20 - 18.40: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PQctOMSmBuk Yet Ball's experience is nothing new - the awareness of God/All That Is/Ultimate Reality/Vast Active Living Intelligent System (whatever you want to call it) as Infinite Love is universal in mystical experience. Maurice Bucke's account, recorded early last century is of experiencing reality as a "living Presence" and "the foundation principle of all the worlds" as Love. (Bucke's mystical event took place while travelling home in a hansom cab after a night of music and poetry reading with friends.) The same themes recur again and again. 'God' is a Being of infinite love, and we (and the whole of reality) are all emanations of God; part of God; outflowings from God. If mysticism is giving us a true reflection of the ultimate nature of reality, then love for our fellows is part of our divine genetics. Charles Birch

Barry, I was referring to the part where you spoke of my "managing cognitive dissonance". Edit: Do you really think our differences on this issue are due to trivial logic errors on my part? (And delusion, I guess...) daveS

daveS:

You claim to understand my own thought processes well enough to psychoanalyze me

Nonsense. You affirm mutually exclusive propositions at the same time. Anyone who does that has deluded themselves about one or the other proposition. I merely pointed that out. Barry Arrington

asauber,

Love is more than that.

Yes, I agree. daveS

daveS claims:

"I don’t make a conscious choice to love my fellow (hu)man. It seems to come naturally."

Can you, as an atheistic materialist, please explain exactly where love "naturally" comes from?

Jennifer Fulwiler: Scientific Atheism to Christ - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbUvlOcXNA

What caused Jennifer Fulwiler to question her atheism to begin with? It was the birth of her first child. She says that when she looked at her child, the only way her atheist mind could explain the love that she had for him was to assume it was the result of nothing more than chemical reactions in her brain. However, in the video I linked above, she says: "And I looked down at him, and I realized that’s not true." And indeed it is not true. As Jennifer Fulwiler realized when she looked at her child for the first time, love has a far deeper origin than mere physics and chemistry can ever possibly explain.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

So daveS, do you, as a atheist, believe your love for your wife and children is nothing but mere chemistry and physics? i.e. Do you look at your family as if they actually were genetically determined meat robots or do you love them unconditionally as real persons?

Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: This is an amazing case of Orwellian doublethink. Minsky says people are "forced to maintain" the conviction of free will, even when their own worldview tells them that "it's false." When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html

If you lived your life according to the presuppositions inherent within your atheistic materialism, you would, in fact, be a psychopath, not a loving father and husband.

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt: ,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

Your inability to be able live your life, consistently, as if atheism were actually true, is a knock down proof that your atheism cannot possibly be true but is instead a false, delusional, worldview: That is 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/

bornagain77

daveS,

unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another

This definition still fails. It still identifies love as an emotional state. Love is more than that. Andrew asauber

asauber, You can't determine my complete understanding or definition(s) of "love" from a single post here. Perhaps you could lay out a good definition of "love"? Here's one that I'm guessing might be more in line with your usage:

unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another

That's how I'm using the word "love" in my post above. daveS

I don’t make a conscious choice to love my fellow (hu)man.

daveS, Atheism is definitely relevant to a position like yours. I think your definition of love (an emotional state) is erroneous. I suspect that the same voices that taught you Atheism gave you a bad definition of love. Andrew asauber

asauber, I don't think this has anything to do with atheism vs. theism. I care about those close to me, their children, and their descendants. As well as their future well-being. Who doesn't? I don't make a conscious choice to love my fellow (hu)man. It seems to come naturally. How about you? Did you have to decide to love your children, nieces, or nephews, if you have any? daveS

When I waste resources, I feel guilty because I understand that my actions might end up harming future generations.

daveS, Justice is not a scientific concept. Why are you devoted to the idea of it, when your worldview (Atheism) says nothing about justice anyway? Andrew asauber

Barry,

This is a little bit amusing, but also sad.

I'm sorry I have caused you to feel sadness. :P But neither of us has access to the others' life experience. It's difficult to communicate across this divide. Obviously you are not convinced by what I say. I find some of your premises unconvincing as well, as they are at odds with my life experience. You claim to understand my own thought processes well enough to psychoanalyze me. I, on the other hand, will not make corresponding claims about your thoughts. daveS

daveS, This is a little bit amusing, but also sad. OP: Life has no meaning in a random universe. dave: But I FEEL like I have meaning. Barry: No doubt, but that is just a feeling, and if your premises are correct you are fooling yourself. dave: Is it possible you are wrong? Maybe I can have my atheism and meaning too. Barry: No, that is not possible. dave: It causes me distress to see those close to me suffer. Therefore my long-term best interest is connected to the welfare of others. Barry: That's just another way of saying it feels like you have meaning. Eric: An atheist has no long term interest past death. dave: But I FEEL like I do. I’m not saying I can derive my feelings about this matter from an axiomatic system of course. OK dave. No one can argue with your feelings. They are what they are. You seem to be managing the cognitive dissonance caused by believing (as Eric aptly put it) something (atheism) that is at odds with your strongest moral intuitions and does not have rational support. There is none so blind as he who will not see. Barry Arrington

EricMH,

@daveS, like Barry said, while it feels right to want what is best for people beyond our death, it doesn’t make sense if atheism is correct.

I don't follow this. I am married, and according to the statistics, there's a good chance I will die before my wife. Of course I would want her to have a comfortable and enjoyable life when I am gone, so I take specific actions now in order to help ensure that would be the case. I don't have children, but I have close relatives and friends who do. I watch them grow up and I care that they have comfortable and enjoyable lives, god or not. For many people, having children and seeing them thrive is an important and fulfilling part of life, so I would want my relatives' and friends' children to be able to have their own families if they choose. Therefore, I wish that all the people in this chain of generations experience a comfortable and enjoyable life. I'm not saying I can derive my feelings about this matter from an axiomatic system of course. But I'm human, and humans tend to care about these things. I don't think that believing in a god or not has much or anything to do with it. (I think Barry's point was a little different, so I addressed it in a separate post). daveS

Barry, PS to my #51, After some more thought, you are correct in that since I believe I will not exist after my death, I'm not concerned about my own welfare after that point. My own best interests also cease to exist after that point. What I meant is that simply that, like most of us, I am concerned about future generations, so I adjust my own behavior depending on how I anticipate it will affect them. But yes, after I am gone, my interests will no longer exist. daveS

As well, Contexuality and/or the Kochen-Speckter Theorem, now confirm the reality of free will within quantum mechanics. With contextuality we find, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation” and “Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. ”

Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html

And with the Kochen-Speckter Theorem we find, as leading experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, 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 (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

And since free will is a entirely Theistic presupposition,,,

Free will: a source totally detached from matter (detached from nature) which is the origin (cause) of options, thoughts, feelings,... That is, the absence of (natural) laws, the existence of an "autonomous mind", i.e. a principium individuationis.

,,, And since free will is a entirely Theistic presupposition, then, of course, verifying the reality of free will at such a fundamental level of reality empirically verifies the Christians' contention that the Mind of God created, and sustains, this universe. Moreover, allowing the Agent causality of God 'back' into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands, provides a very plausible resolution for the much sought after 'theory of everything' in that Christ's resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into that quote unquote 'Theory of Everything"

Copernican Principle, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ as the “Theory of Everything” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NziDraiPiOw Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Hologram https://youtu.be/F-TL4QOCiis The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete (quantum) values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. https://www.ewtn.co.uk/news/latest/astonishing-discovery-at-christ-s-tomb-supports-turin-shroud Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. http://www.academicjournals.org/sre/PDF/pdf2012/30JulSpeIss/Antonacci.pdf

Besides the empirical verification of ‘free will’ and/or Agent causality within quantum theory bringing that rather startling solution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’, there is also a fairly drastic implication for individual people being “brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” as well. Although free will is often thought of as allowing someone to choose between a veritable infinity of options, in a theistic view of reality that veritable infinity of options all boils down to just two options. Eternal life, (infinity if you will), with God, or Eternal life, (infinity again if you will), without God. C.S. Lewis states the situation as such:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” – C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

And exactly as would be a priori expected on the Christian view of reality, we find two very different eternities in reality. An ‘infinitely destructive’ eternity associated with General Relativity and a extremely orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo

Again, the implications for individual humans are fairly drastic, i.e. you are literally choosing between eternal life life with God or eternal death separated from God: Verse:

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Because of such dire consequences for our eternal souls, I can only plead for atheists to seriously reconsider their choice to reject God, and to now choose life, even eternal life with God, instead of eternal death.

Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words “The Lamb” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

bornagain77

One of the main, if not the main, supposed intellectual atheist’s arguments that we live in a ‘seemingly meaningless world’ is the argument from evil. The problem with the argument from evil for atheists is the fact that the argument from evil presupposes the existence of objective morality and thus presupposes the existence of God. Specifically, in the argument from evil atheists hold that “There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good.”

The Problem of Evil: Still A Strong Argument for Atheism – 2015 Excerpt:,,, the problem of evil, one of the main arguments against the existence of an all-good and all-knowing God.,,, P1. There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good. P2. If an all-powerful, all-good God existed, then such horrific, apparently purposeless evils would not exist. C. Therefore, an all-powerful, all-good God does not exist. https://thegodlesstheist.com/2015/10/13/the-problem-of-evil-still-a-strong-argument-for-atheism/

And yet this is, once again, a self defeating position for the atheist to be in. Specifically on the one hand, Atheistic materialists hold that morality is subjective and illusory.

The moral argument is summed up at the 4:36 minute mark of the video and can be stated as such: Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. The Moral Argument – drcraigvideos – video https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU?t=276

And yet on the other hand, as David Wood puts it in the following article, “By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil.”

Responding to the Argument From Evil: Three Approaches for the Theist – By David Wood Excerpt: Interestingly enough, proponents of AE grant this premise in the course of their argument. By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil. Amazingly, then, even as atheists make their case against the existence of God, they actually help us prove that God exists!,,, https://www.namb.net/apologetics/responding-to-the-argument-from-evil-three-approaches-for-the-theist

Thus the atheist’s main argument that we live in a ‘seemingly meaningless world’, i.e. the argument from evil, actually presupposes the existence of objective morality and therefore presupposes the existence of God and therefore, in the end, actually presupposes that we live in a meaningful world. In fact, as CS Lewis has noted, "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning". ,,, That is to say, ANY argument that tries to argue that the universe is meaningless must necessarily presuppose the existence of meaning, and our ability to discern meaning, in order for the atheist to be able to make his argument in the first place, and therefore ANY argument an atheist may try to use to argue for a meaningless universe is self-refuting in its basic presuppositions.

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

In fact, science itself would be completely impossible if meaning and/or goal directed teleological purpose were not a priorily present within the universe and even within our own immaterial minds, via intentionality, on a deep foundational level. Dr. Egnor articulates the necessity of teleological purpose and intentionality of mind, for science to even be possible in the first place, like this:

Teleology and the Mind - Michael Egnor - August 16, 2016 Excerpt: From the hylemorphic perspective, there is an intimate link between the mind and teleology. The 19th-century philosopher Franz Brentano pointed out that the hallmark of the mind is that it is directed to something other than itself. That is, the mind has intentionality, which is the ability of a mental process to be about something, rather than to just be itself. Physical processes alone (understood without teleology) are not inherently about things. The mind is always about things. Stated another way, physical processes (understood without teleology) have no purpose. Mental processes always have purpose. In fact, purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) is what defines the mind. And we see the same purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) in nature. Intentionality is a form of teleology. Both intentionality and teleology are goal-directedness — intentionality is directedness in thought, and teleology is directedness in nature. Mind and teleology are both manifestations of purpose in nature. The mind is, within nature, the same kind of process that directs nature. In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts. The link between intentionality and teleology, and the undeniability of teleology, is even more clear if we consider our inescapable belief that other people have minds. The inference that other people have minds based on their purposeful (intentional-teleological) behavior, which is obviously correct and is essential to living a sane life, can be applied to our understanding of nature as well. Just as we know that other people have purposes (intentionality), we know just as certainly that nature has purposes (teleology). In a sense, intelligent design is the recognition of the same purpose-teleology-intentionality in nature that we recognize in ourselves and others. Teleology and intentionality are certainly the inferences to be drawn from the obvious purposeful arrangement of parts in nature, but I (as a loyal Thomist!) believe that teleology and intentionality are manifest in an even more fundamental way in nature. Any goal-directed natural change is teleological, even if purpose and arrangement of parts is not clearly manifest. The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/teleology_and_t/

And indeed, the presupposition of teleological, goal directed, purpose, and the intentionality of our own immaterial minds, lay at the founding of modern science. As Dr. Koons states, "Without the (Judeo-Christian) faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible."

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf

Moreover, due to advances in modern science, especially due to advances in Quantum Mechanics, the Christian Theist can now empirically prove that the Mind of God lays behind the goal directed teleology of the universe as well as laying behind the origin of our own 'intentional' mind. Specifically, in what is termed the 'instrumentalist approach' to quantum mechanics, the free will of the human mind, i.e. the intentionality of the human mind, is brought into the laws of nature at their most foundational level. As Steven Weinberg states, (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) 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.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,

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 the instrumentalist approach in quantum mechanics, (as opposed to the 'realist approach' in quantum mechanics), has now been empirically confirmed. Specifically, the final ‘free will’ loophole in quantum mechanics has now been closed. Specifically, the “creepy” and “far-fetched” possibility that the “physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting” and that “a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure”,,,

Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014 Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as “setting independence,” or more provocatively, “free will.” This loophole proposes that a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure — a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics. “It sounds creepy, but people realized that’s a logical possibility that hasn’t been closed yet,” says MIT’s David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. “Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?” http://www.sciencedaily.com/re…..112515.htm

,,, that “creepy” and “far-fetched” possibility has now been closed. Anton Zeilinger and company have now pushed the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago using quasars to determine measurement settings.

Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: In this Letter, we present a cosmic Bell experiment with polarization-entangled photons, in which measurement settings were determined based on real-time measurements of the wavelength of photons from high-redshift quasars, whose light was emitted billions of years ago; the experiment simultaneously ensures locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons and that the wavelength of the quasar photons had not been selectively altered or previewed between emission and detection, we observe statistically significant violation of Bell’s inequality by 9.3 standard deviations, corresponding to an estimated p value of ? 7.4 × 10^21. This experiment pushes back to at least ? 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403

Moreover, here is another recent interesting experiment by Anton Zeilinger, (and about 70 other researchers), that insured the complete independence of measurement settings in a Bell test from the free will choices of 100,000 human participants instead of having a physical randomizer determine measurement settings.

Challenging local realism with human choices – A. Zeilinger – 20 May 2018 Abstract: A Bell test, which challenges the philosophical worldview of local realism against experimental observations, is a randomized trial requiring spatially-distributed entanglement, fast and high-efficiency detection, and unpredictable measurement settings. While technology can perfect the first two of these, and while technological randomness sources enable device-independent protocols based on Bell inequality violation, challenging local realism using physical randomizers inevitably makes assumptions about the same physics one aims to test. Bell himself noted this weakness of physical setting choices and argued that human free will could rigorously be used to assure unpredictability in Bell tests. Here we report a suite of local realism tests using human choices, avoiding assumptions about predictability in physics. We recruited ~100,000 human participants to play an online video game that incentivizes fast, sustained input of unpredictable bits while also illustrating Bell test methodology. The participants generated 97,347,490 binary choices, which were directed via a scalable web platform to twelve laboratories on five continents, in which 13 experiments tested local realism using photons, single atoms, atomic ensembles, and superconducting devices. Over a 12-hour period on the 30 Nov. 2016, participants worldwide provided a sustained flow of over 1000 bits/s to the experiments, which used different human-generated bits to choose each measurement setting. The observed correlations strongly contradict local realism and other realist positions in bi-partite and tri-partite scenarios. Project outcomes include closing of the freedom-of-choice loophole, gamification of statistical and quantum non-locality concepts, new methods for quantum-secured communications, a very large dataset of human-generated randomness, and networking techniques for global participation in experimental science. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04431

bornagain77

@daveS, like Barry said, while it feels right to want what is best for people beyond our death, it doesn't make sense if atheism is correct. My general perspective in all this is why believe something (atheism) that is at odds with our strongest moral intuitions and does not have rational support when the alternative (theism) both matches our moral intuitions and is consistent with our best reason? That doesn't make sense to me. There is a modern prejudice that religious ideas are a science blocker and atheism is necessary for science and human progress, but that seems both historically and logically false. EricMH

Barry, When I waste resources, I feel guilty because I understand that my actions might end up harming future generations. I don't like to feel guilty. Therefore I try not to waste resources. I don't think this has anything to do with atheism. Just about all of us are concerned about the welfare of our descendants, whether atheism is true or not. daveS

daveS

I do feel I have interests which extend beyond my death

There you go deluding yourself again. If your atheism is true, then you know for a certain fact that you do not have any interest in anything whatsoever beyond your death. But you allow your FEELING to overpower your knowledge. In other words, you delude yourself. And the delusion is so powerful you cannot overcome it even when you are aware of it. Barry Arrington