According to U Nebraska political science prof Carson Holloway, atheism is not only fundamental to the power of the Party in 1984 but is also its central weakness:
Only the Party itself is immortal. Unthinking and unconditioned subservience enables Winston and his fellows to participate, however faintly and briefly, in that immortality.
Submission is made easier by the dogma that there is no objective reality…
In that case, atheism is not only fundamental to the Party’s power but is also its central weakness: If there is evidence for any higher power in the universe, the Party cannot be what it claims. Objective reality, apart from the Party’s version, then certainly exists. There would be a record of what really happened in, say, the Mind of God. Then, the basis of the Party’s authority (total control of reality) collapses…
News, “How Orwell’s 1984 can be seen as an argument for God’s existence” at Mind Matters News
See also: Here’s why an argument for God’s existence is scientific. The form of reasoning and the type of evidence accepted is the same as with Newton’s theories or Darwin’s. (Michael Egnor)
At the end of the day, arguments don’t matter. Experience does.
Gnosis. Yeah, I said gnosis.
Either ya got it, or ya don’t.
“He who has an ear, let him hear.” –Yeshua/YHWH
If “the Party” has a version of objective reality it requires its adherents to live by, it is the idea in the mind of the individual that an objective reality exists that provides the “Party” this opportunity. If one does not believe in an objective reality, then no “Party” can use that concept to brainwash them into their particular “objective reality” propaganda.
The idea that an objective reality exists at all provides the opportunity to convince people of any particular objective reality.
As to:
So apparently, if the party decides to kill you, they not only kill you, but erase all the information concerning you. Hence there is no record of you and therefore it is as if you never existed.
And this is their ultimate fear?
I guess it makes sense, many people live as if their life here on earth is the only life that really matters.
But any meaning and purpose that a man may derive for his life in the written historical records of man, or in the memory of his children, is, practically speaking, a completely false sense of meaning and purpose.
The second law of thermodynamics guarantees that not only are all the written records of man going to be eventually destroyed, but that all your children and all your children’s children, are also going to cease existing.
This universe, left to its own present course of accelerating expansion due to ‘Dark Energy’, will continue to expand forever, thus fulfilling the thermodynamic equilibrium of the second law to its fullest extent (entropic ‘Heat Death’ of the universe).
As the following article understates the dire situation we are in, “Not a happy ending.”
Thus to repeat, any meaning and purpose that a man may derive from simply having a written record of his accomplishments in this life is a completely false sense of meaning and purpose.
It is interesting to note that so much emphasis was placed on the written records of man in order for man to derive any meaning and purpose for his life.
The interesting thing about written information is that in order for written information to have any meaning in the first place, it first takes an immaterial mind to encode meaning onto the abstract symbols that we use for written information.
Which is to say, the ability of an immaterial mind to first assign meaning to a set of abstract symbols is a necessary prerequisite for the abstract symbols to be able to subsequently convey any meaning to us in the form of a written language.
Hopefully ID advocates can now see where I am going with this.
Written information is now found to be ubiquitous within life. Besides DNA molecules conveying information, RNA molecules, protein molecules, glycan molecules, etc.. etc.., are all known to convey symbolic sequential information.
Moreover, when looking at life from the thermodynamic perspective, the information content of the entire human body is found to be much greater that just the 3.2 billion (10^9) base pairs encoded on the DNA. For instance, the 3.2 x 10^9 base pairs of information encoded on human DNA could easily be stored on a single thumb drive. Yet, as the following video notes, the information required to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000.
Thus to sum this part of my post up, finding that the existence of written information itself first requires the ability of an immaterial mind to assign meaning.
And thus, finding written information to be ubiquitous within life is directly equivalent, (or at least ALMOST directly equivalent), to finding that our lives are ubiquitously infused with ‘real’ meaning and purpose. (not the false meaning and purpose that is falsely imagined for man’s life from having one’s life written in man’s written records).
Someone may rightly object, “But why does finding information to be ubiquitous within life really matter, we are all going to die anyway?”
But that objection is to take the short view.
You see, information in immaterial in its foundational essence.
And it is the transcendent nature of ‘immaterial’ information itself, (which is the one thing that, (as every ID advocate intimately knows), unguided material processes cannot possibly explain the origin of), that directly supports the transcendent nature, as well as the physical reality, of the soul:
As Dr. Stephen Meyer explains in this following video, information is immaterial in its fundamental nature and therefore, by its very nature, is beyond the scope of, and is therefore irreducible to, any possible materialistic explanation.
Moreover, on top of the ‘classical sequential immaterial information in DNA and proteins, (the classical sequential information in DNA that has been the source of endless debate among Darwinists and ID advocates), there is also now found to be quantum information that is ubiquitous within life. (within every important bio-molecule). For instance, “practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it”
The interesting thing about quantum information is that it is non-local, i.e. beyond space and time, and that it is also conserved, i.e. it cannot be created nor destroyed.
The obvious implication of finding ‘non-local’, (beyond space and time), and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created nor destroyed), quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every DNA and protein molecule of our material bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious.
That pleasant implication, or course, being the fact that we now have very strong physical evidence directly implying that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies.
As Stuart Hameroff states ‘the quantum information,,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Thus in conclusion, and as far as the scientific evidence itself is concerned, we do not have to live in a fantasy world and ‘pretend’ as if our lives derived their meanings and purposes from some written record of man, but we can rest assured that our lives truly are dripping with meaning and purpose in every molecule of our bodies. Meaningful Information that was written by the eternal and infinite mind of God, not by the hand of finite man.
To further support my contention that not one detail of our lives is without true significance, I offer the following evidence from Near Death Experiences.
Around the 20 minute mark of the following Near Death Experience documentary, the Life Review portion of the Near Death Experience is highlighted, with several testimonies relating how every word, thought, deed, and action, of a person’s life (all the ‘information’ of a person’s life) is gone over in the presence of God:
Thus, the Christian Theist can live his life happily and consistently knowing that his life is not completely meaningless, but that there is real meaning, purpose, and significance for his life, and also for the lives of his loved ones, and he can rest assured that his life, and the lives of his loved ones, does not end at the grave.
Quote and Verses:
Bornagain77/3
Except that, for most Christians, their God never vouchsafes unto them what their meaning, purpose and significance really is. They are left to blunder along hoping that what they do finds favor in His eyes. Still, if it makes them feel good maybe that’s all you can expect from the “opium of the people”
Seversky (4),
If anyone blunders it is their problem. God makes it clear that He wants you to recognize that He is there and then desires that you choose to have a relationship with Him. You turn to God and He will always show you the way. You insist on following your own way and He will allow it.
Pascal said it well. There is always enough evidence that the seeker will find God, there is never so much evidence that the non-seeker will be forced to acknowledge God’s existence.
The Christian obviously has the “inside” knowledge, but also the terrible responsibility to share that knowledge.
You now know the purpose of life – to know and love God in this life so you can share the life of the Holy Trinity after your death. The choice is yours.
Oh, Sev, Sev, Sev. How many times have we been over this?
>Except that, for most Christians, their God never vouchsafes unto them what their meaning, purpose and significance really is.
Can a human dog owner explain to his dog all the purposes the dog has? (That’s just an analogy!)
How is a higher being supposed to explain to his created beings who are very limited compared to him, what their entire purpose(s) are? Again, you’re assuming that we and God are on the same level intellectually speaking. That criticism just doesn’t work.
TV/Hollywood used to be the opiate of the people. Now it’s social media and netflix. Sadly.
Percy Shelley and I both agree with BA77:
“And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The Westminster Catechism is succinct:
Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
I find both joy and meaning in serving the Designer that Paul announces to the Athenians in Acts 17:24.
Sev, Marx’s heirs proved beyond all doubt that it was his materialistic ideology that was the true opiate complete with ruinous consequences of addiction. 100 million ghosts just called, to affirm their agreement with this statement. KF
In response to my evidence based conclusion, from the presence of immaterial information in our bodies, that every molecule in our bodies testifies that our lives are literally dripping with meaning, significance, and purpose, Seversky does not attempt to refute the evidence I presented, (which is just as well since my inference to meaning for our lives from the presence of ‘meaningful’ information in our bodies is fairly clear cut), but instead of presenting any counter evidence, Seversky merely states,
And to clearly define “opium of the people”
Atheist like to pretend as if they are the ones who are bravely facing life on its own terms, and that they are not the ones who are deluding themselves with ‘pleasant illusions’.
And although atheists may talk a mean game, the way they actually live their lives proves the exact opposite, The way they actually live their lives proves that they are the ones who are actually deluding themselves with ‘pleasant illusions’.
It is simply impossible for anyone to live their life as if it was truly devoid of any true meaning and purpose. As Victor Frankl, (who had seen more than his fair share of despair), noted,
Atheists themselves prove that it is impossible to live life as if it was truly devoid of any true meaning and purpose when they themselves invent ‘pleasant illusions’ that their lives have meaning and purpose.
The point being, nobody lives their life as if atheism were actually true and as if their life was truly devoid of and real meaning and purpose.
Dawkins himself stated that it would be quote-unquote ‘intolerable’ for him to live his life as if his atheistic worldview were actually true,
To point out the glaringly obvious implication in all of this, if it is impossible for you to live as if your atheistic worldview were actually true, and that your life truly had no real meaning and purpose, then your atheistic worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your atheistic worldview must instead be based on a delusion.
Thus in conclusion, although the atheist often claims that it is the Christian who is making up illusory meaning and purposes for his life in order to falsely comfort himself, the fact of the matter is that it is the atheist himself, (since it is impossible to live life as if it was truly devoid of any real meaning and purpose), who is the one making up illusory meaning and purposes for his life in order to falsely comfort himself. i.e. The atheist himself is the one who is addicted to the opium of ‘pleasant illusions’!
To further drive the point home that our own lives are literally dripping with meaning and purpose, I can appeal to the words that Darwinian biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research.
Teleological, (goal directed purpose), language of any sort is simply forbidden under the Atheistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution.
Yet Darwinian biologists can’t do their research without illegitimately using words that directly imply teleology i.e. purpose.
As Haldane himself explained, “Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.”
It is simply impossible for Darwinian biologist to conduct their research which illegitimately using teleological language
In the following article, Stephen Talbott challenges Darwinists to “pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness.”
And as Denis Noble notes “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.
This working biologist agrees with Talbott and Noble’s’s assessment, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”
Thus, the very words that Darwinian biologists are forced to use when they are doing their research, i.e. teleological language, proves that life is literally dripping with meaning and purpose.
Moreover, when we strip the false ‘narrative gloss’ of Darwinian language from research papers, the science in the paper becomes clearer and easier to understand.
Of supplemental note. It would be a shame, in a post about teleology, to not include Dr. Egnor’s excellent article on the intimate link between teleology and the immaterial mind.
BA77, this is a question of projection from evolutionary materialistic scientism (within which, disbelief in God is an implicit proposition tied to the ideological a prioris and monopolisation of knowledge and prestige by Big-S Science). Projection is familiar, as a mark of cognitive dissonance. KF
Sev
We do seek to do what will find favor in the eyes of God – you’re right. Do good, avoid evil. Love God and neighbor. How do love God?
“If ye love me, keep my commandments”. So, we strive to grow in virtue, continue to honor God with love for Him and for others. Try to correct ourselves and repent and change when we go wrong. We pray, and God helps us find deep meaning and purpose.
But the mistake here is that religion brings obligations and responsibilities. If we follow Christ, we think about His life. He came into the world, born in a cave. He was harassed and insulted, ridiculed as ignorant and a nobody. And we know how His life ended. But it’s “through the Cross to happiness”.
I wouldn’t call that “opium” which is just a pleasure-ride. No, it’s sacrificial love – rising up to give one’s best. A very great reward comes from that, even in this life – but it’s not a matter of escape. On the contrary, it’s a matter of facing one’s weaknesses and sins, and turning to God with repentance and prayer. It’s not an escape from suffering but having the strength of love and understanding of the truth to be able to endure it and offer it.