Is science a religion?

[rusmeister]

Damn. I had hoped to ignore you, rus. Your refusal to attempt to understand views other than your own, much less to consider that they may be as able to get someone through life as your own, is extremely arrogant, and often leads you to insult everybody else.

Alas, it's not easy to read anything in the Close without reading you, whether directly, or quoted in other people's posts. So, futile though it is, I'm responding yet again.

So which definition of materialism are you going by? The one whose credo is "the one who dies with the most toys wins," or those that believe the material world is all there is, and the spiritual doesn't exist? These are two different groups, and I'm getting a bit confused by this part of the discussion. I've met several materialists who did not believing having the most stuff would make them happy, and I know some Christians that must have the latest and greatest stuff.

Hi Cagliostro,
I'm really talking about both. The former senses the failure of their philosophy when their house of cards is torn down. The latter simply avoid the implications of meaninglessness by attempting to transfer the meaning to something else (eg, "it means something to me" (or my children or our ancestors 500 years down the road, ignoring that "me" - and everyone else - will also become dust and ashes.) When you get to the logical conclusion of meaninglessness, you're back to despair - the senselessness of going on as if life meant anything. It is a contradiction (not paradox) between their theoretical philosophy and their practice, which always acts as if there is, in fact, meaning, in an actual and permanent sense.

I am in the latter group. You are wrong. You do not understand. What's a good analogy? A deaf person writing about how musicians are fooling themselves? Or a musician who says deaf people cannot live lives as good as his?

-"It means something to me" is as valid as the method you use to find meaning. The fact that it is not as valid in the system that you embrace does not make it invalid in any objective or logical sense.

-Some people don't bother with even that, because meaning is not necessary. Zen - living in the moment - is a good example of a view that works as well as yours, even though you refuse to believe that.

-Meaninglessness (in the sense that you use the word) does not necessarily lead to despair any more than Christianity necessarily leads to beating homosexuals to death.


I'll give you the compliment of saying your beliefs are the musician, and the rest of us are deaf. The musician can spend his entire life repeating the same old insults about how the deaf don't have a valid life without music. About how they are fooling themselves with painting, literature, and, most foolish of all, silence. And that they should choose to hear.

Or, the musician can stop pretending he is remotely qualified to comment on the quality of life of those who do not hear music. He can stop putting earplugs in, and pretending that he now understands deafness. He can accept that he will never feel what is in the hearts and minds of the deaf, and simply try to understand as well as he can. Even if that understanding is never more than the understanding that the deaf will ever have of music. Perhaps he'll even learn unexpected lessons during his honest attempt to understand those not like him.

Or maybe he'll find that there is nothing to be learned from them. But maybe he'll have learned enough to stop telling them that their lives are not as good or valid as his.

Hi, Fist,
What you call "refusal to understand views other than my own" I call a refusal to accept falsehood. It is true that a person can "get through life" with a whole mass of contradictions between their stated philosophy and the actions (which reflect their actual philosophy).

The words "arrogant" and "insult" are trotted out when argument fails - because there is certainly nothing of any personal superiority in my philosophy, nor any attempt to insult others. There is an infinitely important difference between saying that someone's ideas are wrong and insulting them or insinuating that one is intrinsically better than others. It is wrong of you to take my attack on your beliefs for an attack on your essence, which is what insult and arrogance are all about. If I say your beliefs are wrong - and I do - there is nothing at all arrogant or insulting about it.

However, some things are worth responding to, so to cop your own words, perhaps a small step is possible.

-Meaninglessness (in the sense that you use the word) does not necessarily lead to despair any more than Christianity necessarily leads to beating homosexuals to death.

I agree that it does not necessarily lead to despair - but only if you do not think it through to the end. (Ref what I said above about getting through life with a self-contradiction between philosophy and action). Once one grasps that it really does mean meaninglessness, then that immediately extends to everything, making nonsense of everything. Even the Zen thought you reference (which reminds me of Elfquest's "the 'now' of wolf thought") is precisely about not thinking about it - about not extending thought beyond the present moment. You can say that it "works", but I can only concur insofar as it works for a wolf - and at an even lower level of rational value.

If life has no objective meaning (purpose), then all of our actions have no meaning. This applies to anything you may post here, why you get up and go to work (or look for work) in the morning, or anything else that requires reason and choice. I would agree that most people do not think far enough to be able to see that, and so they in fact go on structuring their lives around the assumption of meaning despite their assertions of meaninglessness (or a philosophy that leads to that conclusion).

Since your analogy of the musician is casuistry (and would have to be if my view were correct) there is no point in responding to it. I get what you are trying to say by it, but it happens to be inapplicable. The parallelism doesn't work here. It assumes that your view is correct from the get-go, something that I deny from the get-go. That's the futile part.

to stop telling them that their lives are not as good or valid as his.

This may be the source of perception of arrogance and insult. If this is what you are reading into what I am saying, then a catastrophic misunderstanding is in effect. My life is almost certainly worse than your own. From my standpoint, I am certainly a greater sinner than you are - if for no other reason than that I know so much, yet still I sin*.
As to "valid" (I can only take this to mean "belief system - otherwise it is nonsense), then it is nonsense to say that contradictory belief systems are valid. One may or may not correspond with the true ultimate state of affairs - the other certainly does not.

*The word "sin" generally needs translation for the modern mind, which often perceives it as "violation of arbitrary law of imaginary god" when it actually means something more like "action that is damaging to self and others in nature (regardless of whether that damage is perceived or not)".

[Cagliostro]

I love RAW! That's one of the sources of my previous name (Malik23).

But he certainly wasn't the first thinker I admire who criticized materialism. Nietzsche did a pretty good job, too. Materialism (or reductionism of any kind) does a disservice to the paradox of existence.

I knew that about your prior name, which is why I am sad about the name change.
But one thing about RAW that I keep experiencing - he pretty much borrows everything he says, and frequently admits it. I just think he is much more readable than so many, and he compiles a lot of stuff together well. I like his way of thinking, but I don't think he is particularly original, other than that he knows how to talk about what he talks about and make it interesting to me. So I guess he has an original way of framing things. Hell, I even gave James Joyce a try based on how enthusiastic he is about the guy (I ready pretty much all of Joyce's fiction and while the language is a lot of fun, I'm not knowledgable enough to really get what is going on through, say, Finnegans Wake without someone explaining much of it to me). RAW has definitely been a gateway drug for me for lots of different experiences. I just hope I occasionally have a thought that I don't later find RAW talking about in a book I've already read years ago.

[Fist and Faith]

rus,

I am not taking your attack on my beliefs for an attack on my essence. The problem is you telling me what my beliefs are; that I have not "thought things through to the end." In your belief that you are more familiar with my beliefs/feelings/thoughts than I am. If I say I like chocolate ice cream, it is arrogant and insulting to tell me that I do not, or that I have simply not thought about it enough yet to know that I really prefer vanilla. I know what I know, and what I believe, and to what degree I have thought about everything I have thought about. Yet you tell me the fact that I do not despair is proof that I have not thought it through. The fact that your psyche cannot embrace meaninglessness without despair does not mean that nobody else's can. No more than the fact that you do not like ______ (Bach, Alice in Chains, Shania Twain, or whichever music you don't like), despite repeated listenings and attempts to like it does not mean that nobody else can think they are the greatest. Yes, it's perfectly fine for you and/or your belief system to believe it is the best. Even that it is the only right one. It is not okay to state as fact that no other belief systems allow people to lead wonderfully fulfilling lives. That "fact" has been, and continues to be, proven wrong on a daily basis by billions of people. Go ahead and believe I/they are wrong, and that I/they are not going to get the afterlife that you believe you will get, and that you believe all should want to get. But you have no grounds to tell me what I know about myself and my beliefs.

[Fist and Faith]

Xar, what you say is extremely important. Many hotly debated topics might not exist if people didn't cling to one scientific dogma or other. But things catch up, eventually, right? The "men of science" who refused the idea that time was not constant can no longer refuse it, can they? There have been too many tests, as well as things like what I've heard about navigation satellites being inaccurate if we do not take the time difference into account. Eventually, the scientific process forces everyone to accept the new notion, if it is accurate. Or to sit in front of a radio, refusing to believe that pictures can be sent through the air to these new-fangled things called televisions.

[Dromond]

nevermind...

[Damelon]

Putting in my two cents, aspects of science can and has been taken up with the fervor of a religion. What was the underlying history of the Second World War and beyond? Ideologies which used the science of the day to buttress their arguments for how society should be ordered. The racial theories of the Nazis, and indeed pretty much everyone else; the guiding economic theories of the Soviets and Western Powers - all pointed to their foundation in the science for justifying doing what they did. A lot of people got killed over what on the surface were differences of scientific theory. The interpretation or mis-interpretation of science, the last century suggests can be as big a problem of the same for religion.

[Xar]

Xar, what you say is extremely important. Many hotly debated topics might not exist if people didn't cling to one scientific dogma or other. But things catch up, eventually, right? The "men of science" who refused the idea that time was not constant can no longer refuse it, can they? There have been too many tests, as well as things like what I've heard about navigation satellites being inaccurate if we do not take the time difference into account. Eventually, the scientific process forces everyone to accept the new notion, if it is accurate. Or to sit in front of a radio, refusing to believe that pictures can be sent through the air to these new-fangled things called televisions.

Even then, though, the momentum of scientific progress heavily depends on the importance of the new discovery itself. A revolutionary discovery on cancer research might meet a lot of opposition (because there are a lot of researchers, many of whom would probably be working on hypotheses contradicted by this discovery), but because of the size of the scientific field, it would be a matter of a relatively short time for other groups to "follow the lead" and validate the original discovery in spite of opposition. On the other hand, a revolutionary discovery regarding, say, the Organ of Zuckerkandl might have an easier time being published (if only because there are about two laboratories in all the world working on it)... but of course, your paper would need to be evaluated by the OTHER lab for publication, and they might axe it just because it's inconvenient; if that happened, there would be no one else who could run your experiments to show they are reproducible and the results are consistent: you'd be stuck.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, I see what you mean. Things might never go as easily or quickly as they should. Even the scientific community itself is often the problem. Sometimes because of the seemingly religious reverence some have for an old scientific idea. Sometimes because of professional jealousy. Sometimes because of the size of the field.

Still, knowledge advances, eh? Despite all the roadblocks, the facts of the universe trickle in, and our understanding of how the universe works increases. As a whole, humans are not capable of standing still. We're always searching for the next bit of knowledge. And houses, guns, lightbulbs, radios, televisions, automobiles, submarines, airplanes, computers, the internet, lasers, space stations, and a million other things, even atomic bombs, prove that, often enough, we find real facts.

[aliantha]

There's an Organ of Zuckerkandl? Seriously? What does it do?

(Oh leave me alone. I *know* I'm off-topic, okay? )

[Fist and Faith]

Sheesh, ali. Everybody knows the Organ of Zuckerkandl is a chromaffin body derived from neural crest located at the bifurcation of the aorta or at the origin of the inferior mesenteric artery. Try to pay attention, willya?

[Avatar]

--A

[Orlion]

It's facts such as thos mentioned by Xar that I view science as more of a a group of competitive businesses then a religion. Is this ideal? No, but the way things are set up, that's the only way they can operate.

Now, if you start arguing that business is a religion so help me, Darwin...

[aliantha]

Of *course* business is a religion, Orlion. Talk to any capitalist.

Fist: Thanks for the reminder about that Zucker thingum, I'd clean forgot.

[rusmeister]

rus,

I am not taking your attack on my beliefs for an attack on my essence. The problem is you telling me what my beliefs are; that I have not "thought things through to the end." In your belief that you are more familiar with my beliefs/feelings/thoughts than I am. If I say I like chocolate ice cream, it is arrogant and insulting to tell me that I do not, or that I have simply not thought about it enough yet to know that I really prefer vanilla. I know what I know, and what I believe, and to what degree I have thought about everything I have thought about. Yet you tell me the fact that I do not despair is proof that I have not thought it through. The fact that your psyche cannot embrace meaninglessness without despair does not mean that nobody else's can. No more than the fact that you do not like ______ (Bach, Alice in Chains, Shania Twain, or whichever music you don't like), despite repeated listenings and attempts to like it does not mean that nobody else can think they are the greatest. Yes, it's perfectly fine for you and/or your belief system to believe it is the best. Even that it is the only right one. It is not okay to state as fact that no other belief systems allow people to lead wonderfully fulfilling lives. That "fact" has been, and continues to be, proven wrong on a daily basis by billions of people. Go ahead and believe I/they are wrong, and that I/they are not going to get the afterlife that you believe you will get, and that you believe all should want to get. But you have no grounds to tell me what I know about myself and my beliefs.

Hi again, Fist,
(It's hard juggling family and finding time for this...)

Narrowing what the line of dispute is...
I would not think of telling you what your beliefs are; however, I do think I can say what a logical conclusion of an idea is without even pretending to know others' thoughts. Thus, I can see why you would be upset if you really thought I was telling you what your thoughts are. But I'm not. I'm telling you where they ultimately lead to (assuming that you do defend meaninglessness, based on your statement that you are 'part of the latter group').

Your very analogy, one dependent on taste, seems to be a pointer towards what you believe. Truth is not a taste, it is not a preference, and no analogy of music or anything else based on mere preference could work. The truth is not a smorgasbord, where there are many variations of how we appeared on this planet, all equally valid and true. Only one (if that) is actually true – those that contradict it turn out to be, not a “point of view”, but simply false.
If it is true that the logical conclusion of one's views is meaninglessness, and if the logical conclusion of that can be shown to be illogic itself, then a person who says otherwise simply has not thought the matter through. A defense of meaninglessness is no less than an attack on reason itself. (Orthodoxy ch 3, which you probably never read) www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/

Of course, people can live with a dozen contradictory ideas all floating through their brains. I've been saying that myself. If it can be shown, logically, that meaninglessness is contradictory to any conduct of existence, then it is no offence or arrogance to say so. If something is meaningless, then that means, literally, that it has no meaning. If life has no meaning, then there is no meaning in conducting it. It is no paradox to say that life has meaning and at the same time that it doesn't. It is simply self-contradictory nonsense.

The rest I've already said. If you take as insult something that cannot be insult, then I am sorry. But only sorry that you do not understand what I am saying. It would be different if you did understand what I'm saying and could effectively refute it. If there is any weakness in my argument I'll accept correction and improve my argument. But seeing insult where none is intended, and arrogance where none would be claimed… that’s simple misunderstanding.

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, there is weakness in your argument. Two main points.

1) No, you cannot know what the logical conclusion of every idea is for every person. The only logical conclusion of meaninglessness is not, "I may as well die." Some may go that route, but it is not the only one that makes sense. Being hungry hurts; therefore I eat. Being cold hurts; therefore I try to stay warm. Listening to music gives me pleasure; therefore I listen to music. Just because there is no grand, God-given meaning to my pleasure, or my life itself, does not mean I should stop feeling pleasure, or stop living. That is a faulty conclusion. This is not a sign of arrogance on your part, it is just an instance where you don't understand a way of thinking and feeling outside of your own.

2) Your stance is that, if meaninglessness is thought through to the end, it will lead to despair, is wrong. Many people have thought meaninglessness through as far as it can be thought through. Many have believed it to be the truth of existence. Many have embraced that belief. It has happened, and is happening now. Here I am. And I do not despair. Yet you insist that you are the greater authority on it; that you have contemplated it to a deeper level than those of us who do embrace it. This is an instance of arrogance on your part. You insist that what is happening cannot be happening. But it is. I am a greater authority on this - on what I have thought about this topic, and how I feel about it. Yet, you say you know better. You do not. You only know that you would despair if you embraced meaninglessness. Assuming that qualifies you to tell me I have not thought things through is... Well, arrogant is a good start.

Just as the deaf can lead wonderful lives without that which the musician cannot live without, I can live a wonderful life without that which you cannot live without. You have no basis for saying otherwise. You only have your own feelings, which tell you that you could not live without the beliefs and meaning you embrace. The fact that those beliefs insist that I can't have a wonderful life without them is not evidence of any sort. You have every reason to embrace the subjective belief that your beliefs and life are the best there are. But you have no grounds to state what you are stating as objective fact. To do so in the face of proof to the contrary is incomprehensible. (Like insisting that the earth does not revolve around the sun.) To insist that that proof does not exist is arrogant.

[rusmeister]

Yes, there is weakness in your argument. Two main points.

1) No, you cannot know what the logical conclusion of every idea is for every person. The only logical conclusion of meaninglessness is not, "I may as well die." Some may go that route, but it is not the only one that makes sense. Being hungry hurts; therefore I eat. Being cold hurts; therefore I try to stay warm. Listening to music gives me pleasure; therefore I listen to music. Just because there is no grand, God-given meaning to my pleasure, or my life itself, does not mean I should stop feeling pleasure, or stop living. That is a faulty conclusion. This is not a sign of arrogance on your part, it is just an instance where you don't understand a way of thinking and feeling outside of your own.

2) Your stance is that, if meaninglessness is thought through to the end, it will lead to despair, is wrong. Many people have throught meaninglessness through as far as it can be thought through. Many have believed it to be the truth of existence. Many have embraced that belief. It has happened, and is happening now. Here I am. And I do not despair. Yet you insist that you are the greater authority on it; that you have contemplated it to a deeper level than those of us who do embrace it. This is an instance of arrogance on your part. You insist that what is happening cannot be happening. But it is. I am a greater authority on this - on what I have thought about this topic, and how I feel about it. Yet, you say you know better. You do not. You only know that you would despair if youembraced meaninglessness. Assuming that qualifies you to tell me I have not thought things through is... Well, arrogant is a good start.

Just as the deaf can lead wonderful lives without that which the musician cannot live without, I can live a wonderful life without that which you cannot live without. You have no basis for saying otherwise. You only have your own feelings, which tell you that you could not live without the beliefs and meaning you embrace. The fact that those beliefs insist that I can't have a wonderful life without them is not evidence of any sort. You have every reason to embrace the subjective belief that your beliefs and life are the best there are. But you have no grounds to state what you are stating as objective fact. To do so in the face of proof to the contrary is incomprehensible. (Like insisting that the earth does not revolve around the sun.) To insist that that proof does not exist is arrogant.

Thanks, Fist.
But this is where we finally part ways. You'll go in your circle, as I'll go in mine. (As neutrally as it can be stated) (note: see edit, below)

On your first point, when you say:

Being hungry hurts; therefore I eat. Being cold hurts; therefore I try to stay warm. Listening to music gives me pleasure; therefore I listen to music.

you are basically suggesting to not think. If I simply react on a level of stimulus without thought, I may be able to have a pleasurable life, but I cannot speak of any meaning whatsoever and I can't defend that life as if it had any meaning and as if I were thinking about it. If there is no meaning, then pleasure means no more than pain does. Any effort even to justify pleasure-seeking is an attempt to smuggle in some kind of value system, and some kind of meaning, even though I do not think about that meaning.

There is no such thing as "logical conclusion for every person". There is no "different logics for different people". There is faulty logic and sound logic. This, at any rate, is how logic works. If non-faulty logic leads to a conclusion, then that conclusion is valid whether a person "believes in it" or not. I am not even speaking about my feelings. If you embrace meaninglessness, then nothing that you say or do ultimately has any meaning. You saw off the very branch that you are sitting on - that your ideas have meaning, and that that meaning is transcendent, and something that applies outside of your own mind. It is self-contradictory at its very root. I actually think it is possible to actually believe in meaning, but deny it with one's surface philosophy - but it is not possible to take the idea of meaninglessness seriously as a philosophy at all, since, if true, it is saying "Nothing has any ultimate meaning - I mean it!"

I quite agree that you can 'have a wonderful life' with a surface belief in meaninglessness. I take it that what you may want to say is that your life has a temporal meaning while you are alive. But this is only the compromise between our demand for ultimate meaning and (in this case) the mind's attempt to deny it.

I'm reminded of the scene from Star Trek 2 (the movie) after Spock's death, when McCoy says, "He's not really dead - as long as we remember him" - which is pitiful in the face of the corollary that he really is dead as soon as he is forgotten. In such cases, the mind seeking to justify this death even of meaning often transfers meaning to descendants. But this is only to evade the final end of any meaning whatsoever. It's like saying that the purpose of hammers is to make more hammers. Not that you necessarily do that, but it just illustrates what many people do resort to in the face of a final end. They say "Life goes on", without thinking seriously about what exactly "life" is, for how long it goes on for.

It IS the suicide of thought - just as Chesterton predicted. If your dogma is that truth is completely individual and subjective; iow, that there is no truth, that is no more reasonable, and is actually less reasonable, than a dogma that says there is objective truth. It is downright illogical. Like I said, a complete parting of ways.

(Edit) Looking over my post, I feel a complete sense of futility. It may be that everything I say is true, but it is likely not what you need. Add to that the fact that if you are unwilling to consider the outside reading that I have offered - which would probably help triangulate and make better sense out of what I am, in a sometimes fumbling way, trying to say. Really - if you won't read Chesterton, who is ten times more intelligent, humorous and humble than I, or anyone here, why on earth should you take anything that I say myself in a spirit of openness - the spirit is closed to reception from the beginning?

I'm back to seeing only futility in posting here.
I apologize for any unintended offence.

[Fist and Faith]

Hmm... I'm fnding it easier to take things out of order. I hope that's ok.

There is no such thing as "logical conclusion for every person". There is no "different logics for different people". There is faulty logic and sound logic. This, at any rate, is how logic works. If non-faulty logic leads to a conclusion, then that conclusion is valid whether a person "believes in it" or not. I am not even speaking about my feelings. If you embrace meaninglessness, then nothing that you say or do ultimately has any meaning. You saw off the very branch that you are sitting on - that your ideas have meaning, and that that meaning is transcendent, and something that applies outside of your own mind. It is self-contradictory at its very root. I actually think it is possible to actually believe in meaning, but deny it with one's surface philosophy - but it is not possible to take the idea of meaninglessness seriously as a philosophy at all, since, if true, it is saying "Nothing has any ultimate meaning - I mean it!"

Your premise is wrong. That's why your conclusion is wrong. Or, if you prefer, we cannot use the word "logic" in these matters.

-You look at the universe, and logic demands that it have a creator.
-I look at the universe, and logic tells me that it can be uncreated just as easily as a creator can be uncreated. And, since I perceive the universe, but I do not perceive a creator, I see no reason to believe there is a creator. The universe is uncreated.

-Logic tells one man that he is more important than any other person. A notion that I also hold about myself. But logic tells him that, that being the case, it is morally acceptable for him to fulfill his wants and needs at the expense of other people. Logic certainly does not tell me that.

-Logic tells you that, if there is no objective, God-given meaning to our lives, we will, if we understand that sufficiently, despair. Logic does not tell me that.

We're not talking about pure logic here. We're talking about how humans feel about logical progressions of thoughts. I do not despair in the face of an existence without God and the meaning his existence would give to my life. An existence in a reality that is entirely unconcerned with whether or not I ever lived, and with the fact that oblivion is my future. Some people's psyches cannot live with that idea. But I'm as sure it's the truth of existence as you are that the path you're on is the truth of existence.

Let's try this in the other direction. You said this:

My life is almost certainly worse than your own. From my standpoint, I am certainly a greater sinner than you are - if for no other reason than that I know so much, yet still I sin.

This is rubbish. You believe you are among the very few people in the world - and the only one at the Watch, for sure - who has found the one-and-only truth of existence! That's a pretty amazing accomplishment! It would be an amazing accomplishment even if you had found the one-and-only truth about something far less important than existence! The human psyche cannot achieve such a thing without feeling extraordinary pride. It is the logical conclusion of such an achievement. And your words often back up this conclusion. So don't go playing all humble, and trying to pretend you're worse than anybody.

That's what you're doing. You're telling me that I cannot but feel one specific thing when I think about X.

The difference between us is that I see evidence that contradicts my "logical conclusion." I've known people whose Christian faith is as strong as anything I've ever known, but who have never demonstrated the slightest behavior to suggest pride. Everybody knows one of the people I'm talking about. Hey, maybe these people are filled with pride. Could be they're simply putting on a better show than you do. But I don't have reason to believe that. I have no reason to believe they are anything other than they appear. So I must consider that my "logical conclusion" is not necessarily so.

And that's what you're not doing. You see me (and others here) saying I do not despair at this. But you ignore it. You go on insisting that your logic is correct, so I must be wrong about what I feel. Unless I'm lying? Or something else?

I quite agree that you can 'have a wonderful life' with a surface belief in meaninglessness. I take it that what you may want to say is that your life has a temporal meaning while you are alive. But this is only the compromise between our demand for ultimate meaning and (in this case) the mind's attempt to deny it.

I do not demand ultimate meaning. Nor do I deny it in any way different than the way I deny that you are sitting in my living room right now.

On your first point, when you say:

Being hungry hurts; therefore I eat. Being cold hurts; therefore I try to stay warm. Listening to music gives me pleasure; therefore I listen to music.

you are basically suggesting to not think. If I simply react on a level of stimulus without thought, I may be able to have a pleasurable life, but I cannot speak of any meaning whatsoever and I can't defend that life as if it had any meaning and as if I were thinking about it. If there is no meaning, then pleasure means no more than pain does. Any effort even to justify pleasure-seeking is an attempt to smuggle in some kind of value system, and some kind of meaning, even though I do not think about that meaning.

Even if pleasure means no more than pain, an ant will react in a way that takes it away from a source of pain, and toward a source of pleasure. Why should I do otherwise?

I'm reminded of the scene from Star Trek 2 (the movie) after Spock's death, when McCoy says, "He's not really dead - as long as we remember him" - which is pitiful in the face of the corollary that he really is dead as soon as he is forgotten.

Personally, I think he's really dead right then. Memories aren't life. But even if I thought of it the way McCoy did, I agree with your corollary.

In such cases, the mind seeking to justify this death even of meaning often transfers meaning to descendants. But this is only to evade the final end of any meaning whatsoever. It's like saying that the purpose of hammers is to make more hammers. Not that you necessarily do that,

Not sure about hammers, but thinking back to the ant... What is the purpose of ants? Tilling the soil; part of the web of life's cycles; whatever else ants do. But mainly, simply to continue their species.

But none of that answers the question. Why bother with any of it? Why till the soil? Why continue this web of life? Why continue their own species? There is no Why. It's simply what they do. If they ceased to exist right now, the ecosystem would be thrown for an amazing loop. But it would recover. Fill in the gaps one way or another. Maybe some other species would die before nature got another web going. But it wouldn't matter to the universe.

And we are exactly the same as the ants. It would not matter to the universe if the whole darned planet ceased to exist right now.

It IS the suicide of thought - just as Chesterton predicted. If your dogma is that truth is completely individual and subjective; iow, that there is no truth, that is no more reasonable, and is actually less reasonable, than a dogma that says there is objective truth. It is downright illogical.

That's your opinion. The facts of existence - the laws of nature - are objective. If I fall off the Empire State Building, I'm darned likely to die. Whether or not it's important that that will make no difference to the universe at large, or to anyone after those who know me are also dead, is opinion. I do not think that's important; you do. I am not less reasonable than you because of this.

(Edit) Looking over my post, I feel a complete sense of futility. It may be that everything I say is true, but it is likely not what you need. Add to that the fact that if you are unwilling to consider the outside reading that I have offered - which would probably help triangulate and make better sense out of what I am, in a sometimes fumbling way, trying to say. Really - if you won't read Chesterton, who is ten times more intelligent, humorous and humble than I, or anyone here, why on earth should you take anything that I say myself in a spirit of openness - the spirit is closed to reception from the beginning?

Honestly, is he the only other person in the world who has ever written anything about this stuff that you agree with?? I found him almost unreadable. Aside from rambling on and on, he made entirely unsupported claims, and was hypocritical now and then. No, I'm not going to get into the details of it with you. We have no need to add disagreement about his words to the list of things we disagree about. Maybe there's someone else who has written about this stuff that you agree with.

I'm back to seeing only futility in posting here.

If you consider communication that does not lead to me embracing your ways to be futile, then posting here is, indeed, futile.

[rusmeister]

Hmm... I'm fnding it easier to take things out of order. I hope that's ok.

There is no such thing as "logical conclusion for every person". There is no "different logics for different people". There is faulty logic and sound logic. This, at any rate, is how logic works. If non-faulty logic leads to a conclusion, then that conclusion is valid whether a person "believes in it" or not. I am not even speaking about my feelings. If you embrace meaninglessness, then nothing that you say or do ultimately has any meaning. You saw off the very branch that you are sitting on - that your ideas have meaning, and that that meaning is transcendent, and something that applies outside of your own mind. It is self-contradictory at its very root. I actually think it is possible to actually believe in meaning, but deny it with one's surface philosophy - but it is not possible to take the idea of meaninglessness seriously as a philosophy at all, since, if true, it is saying "Nothing has any ultimate meaning - I mean it!"

Your premise is wrong. That's why your conclusion is wrong. Or, if you prefer, we cannot use the word "logic" in these matters.

-You look at the universe, and logic demands that it have a creator.
-I look at the universe, and logic tells me that it can be uncreated just as easily as a creator can be uncreated. And, since I perceive the universe, but I do not perceive a creator, I see no reason to believe there is a creator. The universe is uncreated.

-Logic tells one man that he is more important than any other person. A notion that I also hold about myself. But logic tells him that, that being the case, it is morally acceptable for him to fulfill his wants and needs at the expense of other people. Logic certainly does not tell me that.

-Logic tells you that, if there is no objective, God-given meaning to our lives, we will, if we understand that sufficiently, despair. Logic does not tell me that.

We're not talking about pure logic here. We're talking about how humans feel about logical progressions of thoughts. I do not despair in the face of an existence without God and the meaning his existence would give to my life. An existence in a reality that is entirely unconcerned with whether or not I ever lived, and with the fact that oblivion is my future. Some people's psyches cannot live with that idea. But I'm as sure it's the truth of existence as you are that the path you're on is the truth of existence.

Let's try this in the other direction. You said this:

My life is almost certainly worse than your own. From my standpoint, I am certainly a greater sinner than you are - if for no other reason than that I know so much, yet still I sin.

This is rubbish. You believe you are among the very few people in the world - and the only one at the Watch, for sure - who has found the one-and-only truth of existence! That's a pretty amazing accomplishment! It would be an amazing accomplishment even if you had found the one-and-only truth about something far less important than existence! The human psyche cannot achieve such a thing without feeling extraordinary pride. It is the logical conclusion of such an achievement. And your words often back up this conclusion. So don't go playing all humble, and trying to pretend you're worse than anybody.

That's what you're doing. You're telling me that I cannot but feel one specific thing when I think about X.

The difference between us is that I see evidence that contradicts my "logical conclusion." I've known people whose Christian faith is as strong as anything I've ever known, but who have never demonstrated the slightest behavior to suggest pride. Everybody knows one of the people I'm talking about. Hey, maybe these people are filled with pride. Could be they're simply putting on a better show than you do. But I don't have reason to believe that. I have no reason to believe they are anything other than they appear. So I must consider that my "logical conclusion" is not necessarily so.

And that's what you're not doing. You see me (and others here) saying I do not despair at this. But you ignore it. You go on insisting that your logic is correct, so I must be wrong about what I feel. Unless I'm lying? Or something else?

I quite agree that you can 'have a wonderful life' with a surface belief in meaninglessness. I take it that what you may want to say is that your life has a temporal meaning while you are alive. But this is only the compromise between our demand for ultimate meaning and (in this case) the mind's attempt to deny it.

I do not demand ultimate meaning. Nor do I deny it in any way different than the way I deny that you are sitting in my living room right now.

On your first point, when you say:

Being hungry hurts; therefore I eat. Being cold hurts; therefore I try to stay warm. Listening to music gives me pleasure; therefore I listen to music.

you are basically suggesting to not think. If I simply react on a level of stimulus without thought, I may be able to have a pleasurable life, but I cannot speak of any meaning whatsoever and I can't defend that life as if it had any meaning and as if I were thinking about it. If there is no meaning, then pleasure means no more than pain does. Any effort even to justify pleasure-seeking is an attempt to smuggle in some kind of value system, and some kind of meaning, even though I do not think about that meaning.

Even if pleasure means no more than pain, an ant will react in a way that takes it away from a source of pain, and toward a source of pleasure. Why should I do otherwise?

I'm reminded of the scene from Star Trek 2 (the movie) after Spock's death, when McCoy says, "He's not really dead - as long as we remember him" - which is pitiful in the face of the corollary that he really is dead as soon as he is forgotten.

Personally, I think he's really dead right then. Memories aren't life. But even if I thought of it the way McCoy did, I agree with your corollary.

In such cases, the mind seeking to justify this death even of meaning often transfers meaning to descendants. But this is only to evade the final end of any meaning whatsoever. It's like saying that the purpose of hammers is to make more hammers. Not that you necessarily do that,

Not sure about hammers, but thinking back to the ant... What is the purpose of ants? Tilling the soil; part of the web of life's cycles; whatever else ants do. But mainly, simply to continue their species.

But none of that answers the question. Why bother with any of it? Why till the soil? Why continue this web of life? Why continue their own species? There is no Why. It's simply what they do. If they ceased to exist right now, the ecosystem would be thrown for an amazing loop. But it would recover. Fill in the gaps one way or another. Maybe some other species would die before nature got another web going. But it wouldn't matter to the universe.

And we are exactly the same as the ants. It would not matter to the universe if the whole darned planet ceased to exist right now.

It IS the suicide of thought - just as Chesterton predicted. If your dogma is that truth is completely individual and subjective; iow, that there is no truth, that is no more reasonable, and is actually less reasonable, than a dogma that says there is objective truth. It is downright illogical.

That's your opinion. The facts of existence - the laws of nature - are objective. If I fall off the Empire State Building, I'm darned likely to die. Whether or not it's important that that will make no difference to the universe at large, or to anyone after those who know me are also dead, is opinion. I do not think that's important; you do. I am not less reasonable than you because of this.

(Edit) Looking over my post, I feel a complete sense of futility. It may be that everything I say is true, but it is likely not what you need. Add to that the fact that if you are unwilling to consider the outside reading that I have offered - which would probably help triangulate and make better sense out of what I am, in a sometimes fumbling way, trying to say. Really - if you won't read Chesterton, who is ten times more intelligent, humorous and humble than I, or anyone here, why on earth should you take anything that I say myself in a spirit of openness - the spirit is closed to reception from the beginning?

Honestly, is he the only other person in the world who has ever written anything about this stuff that you agree with?? I found him almost unreadable. Aside from rambling on and on, he made entirely unsupported claims, and was hypocritical now and then. No, I'm not going to get into the details of it with you. We have no need to add disagreement about his words to the list of things we disagree about. Maybe there's someone else who has written about this stuff that you agree with.

I'm back to seeing only futility in posting here.

If you consider communication that does not lead to me embracing your ways to be futile, then posting here is, indeed, futile.

I only see two things that can be responded to:
One, on humility: You are evidently confusing certainty based on faith - which for me is an amalgam of experience and reason - with personal pride; thinking that I am 'better' somehow. Perhaps you categorically interpret all certainty that way; maybe you believe that skepticism is essential.
I meant what I said, but I was speaking about how God sees me, not how you see me. I am, in a very real sense, a greater sinner than you. the paradox would be that if you ever came to faith, you would realize the same about yourself, and not find it inconsistent with my perspective. That is no attempt at false humility.

and this:

Why should I do otherwise?

Because you are not an ant. Because you are a human being that is capable of reason, a gift that you should use to ask 'why should I care about the continuation of the species if it will all finally end?' and other questions that thinking people generally ask. You would be joining ranks with the ancient Greek philosophers, the theologians of the middle ages, and even a great many modern thinkers who at least try to think. Saying "there is no why" is just a refusal to think about it.

Also, if Chesterton is really hard to grasp (and it is difficult to embrace a 300-lb man ) I recommend CS Lewis for beginners - and no, "Mere Christianity" is not enough - as Lord Mhoram will tell you - although it is not a bad place to begin to really understand Christians. I would recommend "Miracles" for the more serious skeptic, and "Christian Reflections" - a series of essays - for a better general sense of the man. But almost anything will do.

[Fist and Faith]

One, on humility: You are evidently confusing certainty based on faith - which for me is an amalgam of experience and reason - with personal pride; thinking that I am 'better' somehow. Perhaps you categorically interpret all certainty that way; maybe you believe that skepticism is essential.

No, it's just that pride is the logical endpoint of someone who thinks s/he found the one, true answer of existence. If one thinks long and hard on the fact that they are standing with a small group on a mountaintop, safe from floods, while the rest of humanity is drowning below, they cannot help but feel proud of how they were among the few who could even find the mountain, then had what it takes to climb it. Yes, even as they weep for those drowning below. You can't have done that without feeling pride. It is not how humans work.

And if you think that is wrong; that I don't understand humans as well as I think I do; that it's arrogant of me to tell you how you must feel, even though you are telling me you don't - then you know how I feel when you tell me I must despair at meaninglessness.

Why should I do otherwise?

Because you are not an ant. Because you are a human being that is capable of reason, a gift that you should use to ask 'why should I care about the continuation of the species if it will all finally end?' and other questions that thinking people generally ask. You would be joining ranks with the ancient Greek philosophers, the theologians of the middle ages, and even a great many modern thinkers who at least try to think. Saying "there is no why" is just a refusal to think about it.

I meant why should I do less than an ant does? There is no reason to accept and endure pain if it can be avoided. What reason do I have to fight the natural instincts and reflexes that would move me away from the source of pain? Why should the ability to think make me do that? There's no logic in that at all. Give me the logical progression of thoughts that leads from where I am to where you think I should be. Jumping to "If there's no meaning, you should act against all your instincts and reflexes, and just lie there until you die of starvation" is not logical.

Also, if Chesterton is really hard to grasp (and it is difficult to embrace a 300-lb man ) I recommend CS Lewis for beginners - and no, "Mere Christianity" is not enough - as Lord Mhoram will tell you - although it is not a bad place to begin to really understand Christians. I would recommend "Miracles" for the more serious skeptic, and "Christian Reflections" - a series of essays - for a better general sense of the man. But almost anything will do.

If it's for a skeptic, Miracles might be along the lines of what we're talking about. After all, I'm not looking to get a sense of anybody, or of Christianity in general. I asked if anybody else wrote about the points you're trying to make, because you say you are fumbling. Three things, though.
1) You probably aren't fumbling. I suspect you're just championing concepts that I think are invalid. We simply disagree on things. It happens. You can repeat forever that not believing there is meaning - for me personally and for the species itself - should "logically" lead me to despair. That I should no longer act in ways that prolong my own life or help continue the species. But that is not logic. No matter how many times you, or Chesterton or Lewis, say it, it is not the logical endpoint of meaninglessness. It is only what the endpoint would be if you thought meaninglessness was the truth.

2) Although I've only read Mere Christianity, I do, indeed, disagree with his starting points. I've discussed this before, and even started a whole thread on it when Lord Mhoram asked me about my specific objections.

3) I think Conversations With God is an amazing book. It does not fly in the face of logic. It is consistent within itself. It contains great wisdom and beauty. IMO, it is better than the belief system of any other book or person I've heard about. But that still doesn't mean I think it's true. It's just a great way of viewing existence. So even if anything of Lewis turns out to click as well with me, that doesn't mean I'm going to believe it is truth. No matter what happens, he and I, just as you and I, just as Walsch and I, disagree on certain things. I feel the same about your refusal to see my truth as you feel about my refusal to see yours. The thing is, it's not "refusal." It's just that we have different feelings about some basic concepts. Yes, if either of us wants to change the other's mind, it is futile. But it's not stubbornness on either of our parts. It's just fundamentally opposing views.

[rusmeister]

One, on humility: You are evidently confusing certainty based on faith - which for me is an amalgam of experience and reason - with personal pride; thinking that I am 'better' somehow. Perhaps you categorically interpret all certainty that way; maybe you believe that skepticism is essential.

No, it's just that pride is the logical endpoint of someone who thinks s/he found the one, true answer of existence. If one thinks long and hard on the fact that they are standing with a small group on a mountaintop, safe from floods, while the rest of humanity is drowning below, they cannot help but feel proud of how they were among the few who could even find the mountain, then had what it takes to climb it. Yes, even as they weep for those drowning below. You can't have done that without feeling pride. It is not how humans work.

And if you think that is wrong; that I don't understand humans as well as I think I do; that it's arrogant of me to tell you how you must feel, even though you are telling me you don't - then you know how I feel when you tell me I must despair at meaninglessness.

Why should I do otherwise?

Because you are not an ant. Because you are a human being that is capable of reason, a gift that you should use to ask 'why should I care about the continuation of the species if it will all finally end?' and other questions that thinking people generally ask. You would be joining ranks with the ancient Greek philosophers, the theologians of the middle ages, and even a great many modern thinkers who at least try to think. Saying "there is no why" is just a refusal to think about it.

I meant why should I do less than an ant does? There is no reason to accept and endure pain if it can be avoided. What reason do I have to fight the natural instincts and reflexes that would move me away from the source of pain? Why should the ability to think make me do that? There's no logic in that at all. Give me the logical progression of thoughts that leads from where I am to where you think I should be. Jumping to "If there's no meaning, you should act against all your instincts and reflexes, and just lie there until you die of starvation" is not logical.

Also, if Chesterton is really hard to grasp (and it is difficult to embrace a 300-lb man ) I recommend CS Lewis for beginners - and no, "Mere Christianity" is not enough - as Lord Mhoram will tell you - although it is not a bad place to begin to really understand Christians. I would recommend "Miracles" for the more serious skeptic, and "Christian Reflections" - a series of essays - for a better general sense of the man. But almost anything will do.

If it's for a skeptic, Miracles might be along the lines of what we're talking about. After all, I'm not looking to get a sense of anybody, or of Christianity in general. I asked if anybody else wrote about the points you're trying to make, because you say you are fumbling. Three things, though.
1) You probably aren't fumbling. I suspect you're just championing concepts that I think are invalid. We simply disagree on things. It happens. You can repeat forever that not believing there is meaning - for me personally and for the species itself - should "logically" lead me to despair. That I should no longer act in ways that prolong my own life or help continue the species. But that is not logic. No matter how many times you, or Chesterton or Lewis, say it, it is not the logical endpoint of meaninglessness. It is only what the endpoint would be if you thought meaninglessness was the truth.

2) Although I've only read Mere Christianity, I do, indeed, disagree with his starting points. I've discussed this before, and even started a whole thread on it when Lord Mhoram asked me about my specific objections.

3) I think Conversations With God is an amazing book. It does not fly in the face of logic. It is consistent within itself. It contains great wisdom and beauty. IMO, it is better than the belief system of any other book or person I've heard about. But that still doesn't mean I think it's true. It's just a great way of viewing existence. So even if anything of Lewis turns out to click as well with me, that doesn't mean I'm going to believe it is truth. No matter what happens, he and I, just as you and I, just as Walsch and I, disagree on certain things. I feel the same about your refusal to see my truth as you feel about my refusal to see yours. The thing is, it's not "refusal." It's just that we have different feelings about some basic concepts. Yes, if either of us wants to change the other's mind, it is futile. But it's not stubbornness on either of our parts. It's just fundamentally opposing views.

On the ant, there certainly could be reasons to not avoid pain or suffering, and they require the application of thought - to be more than an animal. The Christian martyrs (if you would accept their logic, at least for long enough to be able to understand their actions) are an example of this, or for a non-Christian analogy from literature, the 'gom jabbar' test in Frank Herbert's Dune. There can be reason and logic at places and times to do a very unusual and un-animal action - that of choosing to accept pain for a reason. Thus, mere physical stimuli are not a reliable and consistent guide to what is actually desirable, or for providing any ability to determine whether something is actually desirable. If the Christians are right, or Paul knows that the gom jabbar will kill, then they will choose the un-animal action of accepting extreme suffering to attain what is really desirable. Thus, reason calls on us to be more than the ant, not less (and to not reduce the value of the human being to the value of the ant). Just trying to show that there can be logic - the kind that requires the specifically human ability of reason - that does require thought beyond mere stimuli.

It seems to me that what you call pride may be a feeling of relief or gladness for oneself at having found the truth or having survived. I completely disagree that one must necessarily feel pride (which - speaking of the sinful kind as opposed to a father's pride in his son's accomplishments - is a specifically personal and egotistical thing and seeks the demeaning of others).

But what it seems you really object to is simply the idea that it could be possible to actually discover the true state of affairs, the nature of the universe and man's place in it. What could someone possibly do or say to you if they did? Surely, regardless of how they attempted to present it you would knock them equally, based on a dogma that it is not possible to actually discover that truth.