Demigawd

Here's a fine example of the latest logical fallacy: Appeal to Hallmark.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Soul,
You ask: Yes, the problem (not for theist, just for naturalistic atheists) is that the alleged evidence for God is not empirical. They don’t seem to realize that basing their judgments only upon empirical criterion, is a judgment in and of itself, a pre-judgment, or, if you will, a prejudice.

The non-empirical evidence for God can be summed up in one word, awe. Not that we need a God to explain awe, but that awe is necessarily a byproduct of God, that is, the product of non-natural means.

If we were religiously naturalistic and totally logical, those aspects of nature and ourselves that awe us would only evoke fear and loathing. On what grounds dare we feel awed by people and events more powerful than ourselves, such as tornadoes and ballerinas?

Our climb out of the evolutionary slime of also-rans did not come about because of our awed responses to our competition, but out of our brutal domination of our competition. Ergo, awe ought to be able to be accounted for by other means than natural means. Ditto for altruism and empathy, the basis for morality made transcendent by revelation. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Albert Cipriani :

Okay. I have immediate epistemic access to my subjective phenomenal states. I don't introspect myself to be fooling myself or pretending to be looking for God. Therefore, I can conclude that I'm actually looking for God.

I just wanted to say that this quote has always bothered me. A case can be made that it's just another Bible error, because numerous studies suggest that intelligence and religiosity are inversely correlated.

Catholic apologists have always suggested we look at empirical evidence.

How? Tell me how. Why should a desire for meaning be taken as reason to believe in God?

Albert Cipriani

Dear Thomas,
We are not capable of desires that Nature is not capable of fulfilling. Nature has provided the means whereby even such outlandish desires as flying or recording our voices or walking on the moon have been fulfilled. One of our last desires, immortality and the morphing our bodies seems genetically imminent. But what about our desire for meaning?

Just as motion requires a first cause, meaning requires a final justification. God, a non-naturalistic entity, supplies both.

Let me try to break this down into finger food:
1) The answer to any question must reside outside the realm of the questioner.
2) Man is the questioner.
3) Man’s realm grows inversely to the realm of Nature as her inscrutability shrinks with her flow of answers.
4) But Nature is finite.
5) Ergo, Nature’s answers are finite.
6) Ergo, man is destined to get all his questions answered.
7) But neither all answers nor some answers are meaningful.
8) Answers are to itches what meaning is to orgasms.
9) Answers are to our brain what meaning is to our soul.
10) Answers satisfy problems; meaning satisfies us.
11) Answers explain existence; meaning justifies existence.
12) Ergo, no amount of Nature’s answers translates as meaning, just as no amount of itching translates as sex.
13) Ergo, our desire for meaning cannot be fulfilled by Nature, but only by a supernatural source.

Since Nature is so good at satisfying our questions with answers, we may, by analogy, hope that our inferred supernatural reality likewise satisfies our existential condition with meaning. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Albert Cipriani :

How do we know that?

So does this: objective foundations for meaning exist as a brute fact, as a result of nature. The mere fact that nature's answers are finite doesn't entail that any particular answer won't be supplied.

Totalitarianist

Is this not the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy?

diana

Hi, Albert.

Why does meaning require any justification outside itself? Upon what do you base your assumption that our lives must have meaning?

It strikes me as egocentric, at the very least, to assume that my life has any more meaning than that of Maxx, my dog. He's flesh, fangs and fur. He is capable of happiness and sadness, fear, hunger and weariness. He feels pain, just like I do. He will die, just like I will, and the matter that makes up his body will decay, just as mine will. Isn't it possible that the meaning of his life is simply to be? Why, then, must I assume that my life must mean anything more?

I take this to be another way of saying "A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what are dreams for?" We wouldn't ask questions if the answer was within our immediate "realm." Assuming I understand your point here, let me move on to the next tidbit.

Ok. How do you know Nature is finite?

I disagree with this conclusion. Have you considered the possibility that some questions don't have answers? Or the possibility that something will happen that will wipe us off the planet long before we reach this mythical end of our quest?

Do you mean no answers are meaningful? What makes you say that?

That's all very poetic, Albert. You haven't been studying for the GMAT or SAT by any chance, have you? BTW, what's this "soul" you speak of?

Hm. That would give meaning an evolutionary purpose, wouldn't it? What happens if you determine that your existence is meaningless?

What, precisely, do you mean by "meaning"?

d

Albert Cipriani

Dear D,
Being egocentric is thinking you are more important than another, not thinking that your life is more meaningful than another’s. If you are not more important than your dog but think that you are, then, that thought makes you egocentric. How do we know who is more important?

The relative number of entities contingent upon a thing determines the importance of that thing. So if more entities depend upon you than your dog, you are more important than your dog.

The temptation to be egocentric, to think we are more important than we are, is spawned by confusing importance with meaning as you have above. My contention (and here’s where we disagree) is that we have an innate supernatural need (You can call it a "soul.") for meaning in place of importance. Those whose spiritual need for meaning is most unfulfilled are those who are most tempted to sublimate for it a life filled with self importance. In other words, feeling egotistically good about being an important person is the counterfeit for feeling spiritually good about living a meaningful life.

Meaning is the inversion of importance. If the number of entities contingent upon us is the measure of our importance, the number of entities upon which we are contingent is the measure of how meaningful our life is.

For example, to the degree Maxx’s life is contingent upon you, you make Maxx’s life meaningful. Conversely, to the degree your emotional stability or serenity is contingent upon your relationship to Maxx, he makes your life meaningful. And extrapolating: to the degree theists emotional stability or serenity is contingent upon their relationship to God, God makes their lives meaningful. Extrapolating further, theists, having a source for meaning that atheists deny themselves, are more inclined towards humility and away from self importance than atheists (with the minor exception of yours truly who has sometimes been an insulting, insufferable, blowhard on this board).

Let’s drop the finger-food. It represent my failure to stuff too much meat into egg rolls that are too tiny. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

diana

Quibbling aside, why do you think your life is more meaningful than my dog's?

It seems to me that our egocentric tendency to feel important leads us to assume that our lives have meaning--or at least, more meaning than, say, Maxx's. Seems rational to me--and free of the need for positing a god.

Interesting notion, even though it says nothing of self-importance, which is relevant here.

I didn't mean to confuse them. I think our presumed self-importance (combined with our self-awareness) leads us to the conclusion that our lives must have meaning. I'm arguing that "our lives have meaning" is not adequately supported by the premises. Our lives may have no more meaning than simply living and dying.

Interesting theory, Albert. How do you support it?

d

hinduwoman

albert, you are telling me to reason my way out to meaning in God's arms. The problem is that this does not gurantee whether there is really a meaning to be found objectively -- it assumes the result from the begining.

Stormy, once again, your expereince is subjective. I was reading the testimony of some Westerners who became Hindu and they use this same epiphany to explain why they became convinced that Hinduism is their true religion. The Roman Catholics swore that they felt the presence of Shiva in their heart and knew this is the path to salvation. So what makes your experience more valid than theirs?