God and the Meaningful Life

[spetey]

Hi again DC&R debaters, I have another puzzler for you. I think it's an important one to consider.

In my experience, many people say they believe in God because God gives their lives meaning. This reason to believe involves two important claims that should be separated:

1. If God did not exist, life would not have sufficient "meaning".
2. This previous claim, if true, is itself reason to believe that God does exist.

(I should make it clear I mean, here, the traditional God of Abraham--the God of Jews, Christians, and Muslims--the one who gave Moses the 10 Commandments, and sent the flood, and who Christians think sent Jesus to die for our sins, etc.)

I think both of these claims are false. That is:

1. I think that life has plenty of "meaning" even though I think there is no God. For example: I still think the world is beautiful, that there is reason to be good to other people, that there is often reason for awe and humility in the face of nature, that life is a precious thing, and so on. In fact, I often think a life with a God would have less meaning, just as I think an adult life spent living with your parents has less "meaning" than when you strike out on your own.
2. Even if it were true that life would not have sufficient meaning without God, I don't think that would itself be reason to believe that there is a God. Compare this: even if it were true that without $1 million I can never be happy, I still don't think that alone is reason to think I have $1 million. That is, even if I really do need $1m to be happy (something I doubt), maybe the truth is I just don't have enough money to be happy. To believe I have that money just because I need it is to commit the wishful thinking fallacy.

Now I should say, I do think there are lots of good things that belief in God can do for people. For example, off the top of my head:

• It can bring people together in a community, for contemplation, celebration, and grieving.
• It can get people thinking about ethical issues.
• It can get people thinking about spiritual issues.
• It can encourage calm reflection and meditation.

But I think all of these can be had without belief in God. You could go, for example, to a Unitarian Universalist Church, where belief in God is not required, but where people think morally, reflect spiritually, grieve and celebrate, and so on.

Meanwhile I think belief in God encourages some very bad things:

• For many, it encourages faith--which is just belief without reason, and which many seem to agree is irresponsible (as in this thread).
• In particular, such faith appeals lead to impasses and intolerance when encountering cultures that disagree. As we have seen throughout history, this is a common cause for war and terrorism and the like.
• Belief in a non-material intelligence promotes a kind of magical, non-scientific thinking.
• It historically has promoted, and continues to promote, confused ethical values based solely on particular leaders' readings of "what the Sacred Text says".
• It has hindered, and continues to hinder, the progress of science (by resisting the Copernican revolution, or evolutionary theory...).

...and so on.

Well, that's plenty to start discussion. What do you think? Is life meaningless without God? Even if so, would this alone be reason to believe that God does exist?


spetey

[Curious]

England is predominantly atheist in view. I would say that this "small minority" are severely impacting society in advancing all branches of science.

A recent poll by AP/Ipsos found that the U.K. is about 16% atheistic. The U.S. is about 2%. France and South Korea is an amazing 19%. Well, I guess my posts aren't being read there.

England is only one part of the UK. In England the many people who actually put their religion as C of E don't go to church or have any religion. Living in England, I find it impossible to believe that 84% of the population(I admit you did say UK) are theists. Out of the many people I know and have met only a small minority even admit to the possibility of there being a God. While working in my previous employment, when questioned about their religion (for the purpose of form filling), most people simply had a dazed expression and eventually said "Oh..just put C of E". While this is purely anecdotal, it does suggest how such figures can be misleading especially in light of the dismal attendence record of English churches.

[McCulloch]

England is predominantly atheist in view. I would say that this "small minority" are severely impacting society in advancing all branches of science.

A recent poll by AP/Ipsos found that the U.K. is about 16% atheistic. The U.S. is about 2%. France and South Korea is an amazing 19%. Well, I guess my posts aren't being read there.

England is only one part of the UK. In England the many people who actually put their religion as C of E don't go to church or have any religion. Living in England, I find it impossible to believe that 84% of the population(I admit you did say UK) are theists. Out of the many people I know and have met only a small minority even admit to the possibility of there being a God. While working in my previous employment, when questioned about their religion (for the purpose of form filling), most people simply had a dazed expression and eventually said "Oh..just put C of E". While this is purely anecdotal, it does suggest how such figures can be misleading especially in light of the dismal attendence record of English churches.

I would interpet that as most of England is agnostic. Only 16% have enough conviction in their (non)belief to identify as atheist. Atheists are not members of the C of E but many agnostics are.

[Curious]

I would interpet that as most of England is agnostic. Only 16% have enough conviction in their (non)belief to identify as atheist. Atheists are not members of the C of E but many agnostics are.

I would agree with you if not for the fact that stating an atheist view might disqualify you from having a church wedding.

[McCulloch]

I would interpet that as most of England is agnostic. Only 16% have enough conviction in their (non)belief to identify as atheist. Atheists are not members of the C of E but many agnostics are.

I would agree with you if not for the fact that stating an atheist view might disqualify you from having a church wedding.

An atheist who had a church wedding (to please in-laws or something) would still probably answer a poll with the answer of atheist. An agnostic who had a church wedding for similar reasons would probably answer the same poll as C of E.

[spetey]

Goodness, 10 pages in something like six days?! Can that be right?

Well, I'm going to have to go back to some of the older points:

Hello Spetey,
Too bad we don't see you as much as before. It's nice having time to debate others, but it seems like you're not here enough...

Aw shucks! <blush> Thanks Harvey. I've missed having time to spend here.

An atheist cannot offer an explanation for the universe (or meta-universe) since to offer an explanation would be to refer to something that cannot be described by a formal unity which is a key attribute of atheism (which we discussed already).

Huh?! Are you here ruling out a priori the possibility of a naturalistic explanation for the universe? On what (highly obscure) grounds? Many atheists are very interested in finding an explanation for the universe. They just don't think "God did it" stands as an adequate explanation, any more than it did for all the various other mysteries of the past.

There may be brute facts, but an atheist is not committed to saying there are some or where they are. Myself I'd like to find as many explanations as possible. Indeed, the theist usually seems to be the one committed to brute facts, since no explanation for the existence of the theist's god is generally offered. This existence is just proffered as a brute fact.

Randomness is meaningless since the information content of a random brute fact is zero.

Huh? On what measure of "information content"? On the only measure I know (from information theory), the "information content" is much higher for random events--when P(x) is small -logP(x) is large. So presumably "information content" in its formal, literal sense is not what you mean. On the other hand, if you mean just to say that the universe is meaningless if a god didn't create it, then of course this is begging the question.

This is what I mean by ultimately meaningless since there is no relation that connects the behavior/description of the metauniverse with a deeper understanding of that behavior/description. It expresses a formal unity.

Again this "formal unity" stuff is utterly mysterious and certainly very different from ways in which you've used it before (in discussions of pantheism, where you want to contrast a pantheist and equally mysterious "Unity" against the much more everyday "formal unity" that just means the "oneness" of one thing).

But I agree absolutely that an explanation requires deeper understanding--and it sounds a bit like you agree that this means the explanation should increase the probability of the evidence. But on these grounds the God-explanation does not count as an explanation, since it remains mysterious why God made things this-way rather than that-way.

But here you merely state that atheism is like such a false belief about slot machines. I know you (and many others) think that atheism is meaningless--I want to know why... It sure seems like atheism leaves room for the possibility that things happen for a reason....

In our universe, I think atheism would require that things happen for a "reason" in a pragmatic sense, but the logic of these events are just rough approximations of the behavior of the metauniverse as it occurs in our little corner of the metauniverse. The real underlying machinery of the universe is without reason and without meaning.

Again you state this: that "really" life is without meaning according to atheism, even though it at least has meaning in the sense I've pointed out. But you see it's your burden to explain just what meaning is missing over and above the ordinary kind that still exists even if atheists are right.

It seems you really want to say that atheists can't say that events have good or meaningful reasons. But that just begs the question. I think that helping someone recover from injury is a meaningful activity...

Yes, I know that you think this, but this is just being inconsistent with your atheism. Although, I'm certainly glad for society that most atheists are nice and loving people, I am also aware that if they thought consistently with their atheism, they would realize that they could do anything they think benefitted them without consideration to others on how those actions harmed others. In the atheist conception, being consistent means realizing that there is no meaning to the world and that meaning is only what you wish to invent.

Again you merely state your thesis. Why is claiming that there is meaning inconsistent with atheism? This is exactly what you have to establish. It is a natural intuition that doing good things for others, for example, provides meaning to life, and that this same meaning can exist whether or not a deity is watching. I think it's an intuitive claim that helping others is a meaningful activity. Do you deny that helping others is meaningful? Or do you just deny that it's meaningful when no deity watches? If so, why?

An atheist could just as well push the old lady out of their way, and as long as there's not a price to pay for them, they have not brought the world any less meaning or anymore meaninglessness.

Here you seem to assume that the only reason to be moral is to avoid punishment; if a deity exists, I should help the old lady across the street because otherwise I'll pay for it in <spooky voice> hell. Reading your further debate with Corvus merely confirms this suspicion. But it is not at all obvious that the only reason to be moral is to avoid punishment. Indeed, many would say that is hardly morality at all.

I still don't understand why you conclude that a consistent atheist would have to be an evil, selfish monster. You are perhaps conflating "grand", eternal meaning with worldly meaning. An atheist is just as human as a theist, also lives in a society with moral rules, and is perfectly capable of having ethical principles as well. It makes perfect sense to help an old lady across the street for an atheist (or at least to not push her) because that's socially helpful behavior. Nobody that I know wants to live in a society without rules or guidelines. If atheists "consistently" adopted an "anything goes" mentality, they would destabilize the very social fabric that sustains them. To persevere in being, they know they have to contribute to the success of their society. It makes sense for atheists to be virtuous in this life. Whatever happens in the next life, if there is one, is another matter. Even without "eternal meaningfulness", there's meaning in the here-and-now.

Thanks for the suggestion Dilettante. But actually I think there can be reasons to be moral even beyond the Enlightened Self-Interest you describe. You seem to suggest that an atheist has ultimately only selfish reasons to be moral (in order to keep society running smoothly for the atheist and the atheists' kin, or something). But some atheists actually think there's reason to be moral even when it's not in our self-interest! For example, an atheist could be a utilitarian or a Kantian about ethics. Both are plausible objective systems of morality that do not rely on self-interest or a god.

I don't think a society without religion would last very long, at least long enough to completely self-destruct ... soon people would seek order and religion would become necessary again, even atheists would promote religion in any way they could if conditions were bad enough.

A society without order and morality would not last very long. And even we crazy atheists would like the world to be orderly and for society to be as just and ethical as we can make it. But this is very different from needing religion. Conflating religion with ethics is, in my view, the single largest source of threats facing humans today. I would be much happier with religion if it did not purport to define and underwrite ethical behavior. That's what (as I suggest in my opening post on this thread) paves the road to disasterous dogmatism.

If you think that ethics can have no foundation without religion, you need to deal with the Euthyphro dilemma, a difficulty for the view that is two-thousand-plus years old. This is perhaps for a different (but closely related) thread.

Look at this way, evolution didn't produce an atheist culture. Why do you think that is?

Oh Harvey, you and your Evolution of Ideas. Again, suppose I claim that evolution is now producing an atheist culture, or even many. You can't argue that the "Evolution of Ideas" won't tend in that direction without actually arguing for your position (on grounds other than what amounts to "lots of people have believed it so far").

Can you demonstrate that Atheism is necessarily naturally self-destructive?

Sure. See this paper.

Note that this paper points out that believing in heaven and hell are positively coordinated with good economic behavior, plausibly because ethical societies are better economically and, unfortunately, many people are more likely to behave if they think there's a supernatural super-cop watching. But presumably an ethical society without religion would do just as well. Notice also that this paper shows that economic progress is negatively correlated with actual practice of worship. Do you take that to be good reason to stop worshipping, Harvey? If not, then why should we atheists take the first part of the paper to be good reason to believe in heaven and hell?

That's another topic, however I think the founding fathers of the United States were pretty right on the money with regard to the necessary safeguards that were needed to prevent religious intolerances. On the other hand, there are also secular trends that do affect others, and those too must be checked for their influence on those who do not want those influences in their lives either.

It sounds a bit like you're saying that religion should be tolerated but atheism should not. I think all ideas should be tolerated. I also think that on both the religious and secular side, these ideas influence other people (through voting and countless other less obvious ways). The question is which of the numerous ideas out there are good or bad--which ones should be influencing others. (Should the "pro-life" idea influence others who disagree? Or the "pro-choice" idea?) The best solution is to try, as best as possible, to hold beliefs based on reasons that can be shared with others. Which is what we're all up to here, I hope!

Skimming through the rest of the thread, some very good points were made (and if I may say, some very bad ones), but I think the core of what I want to say on these matters is already above.


spetey

[Curious]

An atheist who had a church wedding (to please in-laws or something) would still probably answer a poll with the answer of atheist. An agnostic who had a church wedding for similar reasons would probably answer the same poll as C of E.

Quite possibly. As an ex atheist myself who always used to enter C of E, I realise that when filling in a required form many people just go with the option requiring least thought. I believe that your view that there are more agnostics than atheists, while it may be true, assumes that people will naturally explore the pro and cons and choose either theism, atheism or agnosticism. I have found though that most people seem to either believe or disbelieve depending on their upbringing or gut instinct and spare little thought as to the evidence one way or the other. Agnosticism implies some exploration of the subject while atheism could be due to exploration or may be just the result of plain denial or disbelief in an idea that might be found by some to be ridiculous.

[harvey1]

There may be brute facts, but an atheist is not committed to saying there are some or where they are. Myself I'd like to find as many explanations as possible. Indeed, the theist usually seems to be the one committed to brute facts, since no explanation for the existence of the theist's god is generally offered. This existence is just proffered as a brute fact.

Theism is committed to a cause for the universe. It seems to me that atheists have always argued against causation for the universe. The causation of God does not make sense to many theists since you need a God to make sense of the question.

Randomness is meaningless since the information content of a random brute fact is zero.

Huh? On what measure of "information content"? On the only measure I know (from information theory), the "information content" is much higher for random events--when P(x) is small -logP(x) is large. So presumably "information content" in its formal, literal sense is not what you mean. On the other hand, if you mean just to say that the universe is meaningless if a god didn't create it, then of course this is begging the question.

Shannon Information is equal to entropy. However, Shannon himself was not happy with that misleading definition, and he should have used the term, entropy. Norbert Wiener, on the other hand, defined information as the opposite of entropy, which is what I mean by "information":

It will be seen that the processes which lose information are, as we should expect, closely analogous to the processes which gain entropy.

This is what I mean by ultimately meaningless since there is no relation that connects the behavior/description of the metauniverse with a deeper understanding of that behavior/description. It expresses a formal unity.

Again this "formal unity" stuff is utterly mysterious and certainly very different from ways in which you've used it before (in discussions of pantheism, where you want to contrast a pantheist and equally mysterious "Unity" against the much more everyday "formal unity" that just means the "oneness" of one thing).

It's not any different than what I used it as before. The article defined formal unity as:

Suppose "formal unity" to be "the sense in which things are one in virtue of the fact that they are members of one and the same class ... the same universal" (Demos 1945-6: 538)

Hence, atheism would be the view where there is no God, that is, there is no unifying description of the universe ("God") where things are unified beyond the "fact that they are members of one and the same class... the same universal." A meaningless universe is one where all there is no such unifying description beyond formal unity for the same reason that random data contains no information. It is at 100% entropy in terms of its informational content. There is no ultimate meaning to the hidden structure of the universe. Or, if you prefer, there's no message for us to interpret which itself is more meaningful than the content of the universe itself.

But I agree absolutely that an explanation requires deeper understanding--and it sounds a bit like you agree that this means the explanation should increase the probability of the evidence. But on these grounds the God-explanation does not count as an explanation, since it remains mysterious why God made things this-way rather than that-way.

Knowing the explanation makes the message even more meaningful, however knowing only that an explanation exists is all that one needs to know that we live in a meaningful world. Many people believe that when someone dies, that they are with God. They don't have a deeper explanation than that, but just believing that gives comfort to people (a comfort that you and other atheists would like to take away from those who have lost someone dear to them and are longing to be joined with them again).

In our universe, I think atheism would require that things happen for a "reason" in a pragmatic sense, but the logic of these events are just rough approximations of the behavior of the metauniverse as it occurs in our little corner of the metauniverse. The real underlying machinery of the universe is without reason and without meaning.

Again you state this: that "really" life is without meaning according to atheism, even though it at least has meaning in the sense I've pointed out. But you see it's your burden to explain just what meaning is missing over and above the ordinary kind that still exists even if atheists are right.

And, I have. I have shown that a universe that is ultimately without information is by definition a meaningless universe (i.e., no information=meaningless). It doesn't really if the information turns out to be trivial (e.g., God is One), or whatever. It is still a meaningful world since it, by the fact it has information in its most reduced state, possesses information about itself. In that sense, pantheism is a meaningful belief.

Now, pantheism does not represent a maximally meaningful universe. For maximal meaning, the message that exists would have to be meaningful for our own particular lives, a message that if we knew it would give us great comfort. That personal meaning is important for maximal meaning since information that is personal is useable, and therefore its meaning is higher. Personal theism provides a very meaningful outlook to life since its meaning to us is personal and comforting, and therefore it is a meaningful view.

Again you merely state your thesis. Why is claiming that there is meaning inconsistent with atheism? This is exactly what you have to establish.

Spetey, if there is no ultimate meaning in the world, then the meaning that an inconsistent atheist would like to say exists is no more than a pattern in the clouds. We can say that we see Reagan's face in the clouds, but it doesn't actually exist. It's an illusion. The consistent atheist knows this, and is happy to have fun with the illusion or even go along with the illusion to make others happy if they want to, but they realize it is their choice. They can just say, "oh, that's not Reagan's face, it's just a cloud, I'm going to pick up that wallet and put the money in my pocket since nobody will know, I'll see you clowns later, have fun with your clouds..."

It is a natural intuition that doing good things for others, for example, provides meaning to life, and that this same meaning can exist whether or not a deity is watching. I think it's an intuitive claim that helping others is a meaningful activity. Do you deny that helping others is meaningful? Or do you just deny that it's meaningful when no deity watches? If so, why?

It has nothing to do with whether a diety is watching. The real issue is whether there really is meaning in the universe. If not, then nothing is meaningful regardless which cloud you wish to envision has that shape. If there really is meaning in the world, and you believe that humans are directly or indirectly related to that meaning, then you can claim that it is meaningful to help others. But, the consistent atheist, who does not believe that meaning actually exists, will think that we form many shapes in our minds as we look at the clouds.

An atheist could just as well push the old lady out of their way, and as long as there's not a price to pay for them, they have not brought the world any less meaning or anymore meaninglessness.

Here you seem to assume that the only reason to be moral is to avoid punishment; if a deity exists, I should help the old lady across the street because otherwise I'll pay for it in <spooky voice> hell. Reading your further debate with Corvus merely confirms this suspicion. But it is not at all obvious that the only reason to be moral is to avoid punishment. Indeed, many would say that is hardly morality at all.

No, a theist doesn't have to fear punishment. The theist does it because the world is a meaningful place for them (versus a place where they pretend meaning exists as if they were pretending to see faces in the clouds), and this meaning becomes more meaningful by doing good deeds. It becomes more meaningful because ultimately they know that the value of life is determined by such small matters and that they wish to live in a meaningful world that will come after making this world more meaningful.

A society without order and morality would not last very long. And even we crazy atheists would like the world to be orderly and for society to be as just and ethical as we can make it. But this is very different from needing religion. Conflating religion with ethics is, in my view, the single largest source of threats facing humans today. I would be much happier with religion if it did not purport to define and underwrite ethical behavior. That's what (as I suggest in my opening post on this thread) paves the road to disasterous dogmatism.

Why do you think that atheism has had so much trouble in atheist governments of having a better society than the ones produced by theists? In my view, it is because atheism is a moral backrupt position. The good people who are atheists, would be better people as liberated theists. The bad people who are atheists, wouldn't necessarily be good people, but they would possibly be better people, especially if they fully converted to a theistic set of beliefs that they clung to wholeheartedly.

[quote=" If you think that ethics can have no foundation without religion, you need to deal with the Euthyphro dilemma, a difficulty for the view that is two-thousand-plus years old. This is perhaps for a different (but closely related) thread.[/quote]

In my view, goodness is an issue of a consistency criteria in the Universe(i.e., "commanded by God because it is moral") as well as God's judgement as to how that consistency is best applied (i.e., "it is moral because it's willed by God"). Only God is in position to judge what true goodness is, so only God can say. On the hand, that also happens to be what is most consistent.

Hence, an atheist might be able to know some of the right things to do by following through on the consistency criteria. However, an atheist who does not believe there is meaning to the world would not be acting outside of being consistent with their own particular existence if they did not act for the good of all. They could justify their behavior as being consistent with themselves. A theist, on the other hand, would not be so inclined to act that way since they know that even when something is not consistent for our benefit in the shortrun, it is still consistent for our benefit in the longterm (i.e., upon the Judgement). Thus, the consistent atheist need not be moral, but the theist better be moral.

In fact, the consistent atheist need not give the name "morality" a universal label as if describing one phenomena in the world. The consistent atheist could ask which "morality" are we talking about when asking them if they had morals.

Oh Harvey, you and your Evolution of Ideas. Again, suppose I claim that evolution is now producing an atheist culture, or even many. You can't argue that the "Evolution of Ideas" won't tend in that direction without actually arguing for your position (on grounds other than what amounts to "lots of people have believed it so far").

Sure. But, that still doesn't answer the question. If atheism provides an advantage for society in terms of morality, truth, etc., then why didn't the idea ever take much root? Is there no pragmatic benefit in terms of any historical setting for atheism to flourish?

Can you demonstrate that Atheism is necessarily naturally self-destructive?

Sure. See this paper.

Note that this paper points out that believing in heaven and hell are positively coordinated with good economic behavior, plausibly because ethical societies are better economically and, unfortunately, many people are more likely to behave if they think there's a supernatural super-cop watching. But presumably an ethical society without religion would do just as well. Notice also that this paper shows that economic progress is negatively correlated with actual practice of worship. Do you take that to be good reason to stop worshipping, Harvey? If not, then why should we atheists take the first part of the paper to be good reason to believe in heaven and hell?

You're quoting me out of context, Spetey. I only cited the paper to show that the citizenry of ex-communist nations quickly converted back to church attendance once the communist nations allowed them to do so (i.e., once the atheist regimes no longer went after the so-called superstitious beliefs which they forbade people to practice).

That's another topic, however I think the founding fathers of the United States were pretty right on the money with regard to the necessary safeguards that were needed to prevent religious intolerances. On the other hand, there are also secular trends that do affect others, and those too must be checked for their influence on those who do not want those influences in their lives either.

It sounds a bit like you're saying that religion should be tolerated but atheism should not. I think all ideas should be tolerated. I also think that on both the religious and secular side, these ideas influence other people (through voting and countless other less obvious ways). The question is which of the numerous ideas out there are good or bad--which ones should be influencing others. (Should the "pro-life" idea influence others who disagree? Or the "pro-choice" idea?) The best solution is to try, as best as possible, to hold beliefs based on reasons that can be shared with others. Which is what we're all up to here, I hope!

I believe in the separation of Church and State. I also believe that people have a right to religious worship and the laws should not favor secularist beliefs. So, for example, remember this post?

If possible, can we revert to shorter posts? I really don't think I have much time to take an hour to respond to your posts (or anyone else's for that matter). Out of necessity I may have to skip those posts or only respond to or two points. Sorry about that, but reality calls.

[Dilettante]

spetey wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion Dilettante. But actually I think there can be reasons to be moral even beyond the Enlightened Self-Interest you describe. You seem to suggest that an atheist has ultimately only selfish reasons to be moral (in order to keep society running smoothly for the atheist and the atheists' kin, or something). But some atheists actually think there's reason to be moral even when it's not in our self-interest! For example, an atheist could be a utilitarian or a Kantian about ethics. Both are plausible objective systems of morality that do not rely on self-interest or a god.

I'm aware of that, and I agree. I trying a minimalist approach, establishing the most basic reasons to be moral (you might call it Enlightened Self-Interest, although it's also Enlightened Common Interest).
I personally don't subscribe to utilitarianism, and the Kantian approach is more about ethics than about morality ( if ethics=preservation of persons qua persons and morality=preservation of persons qua members of society), but I totally see what you mean and agree with you. However, I don't think it is entirely fair to say that wanting society to run smoothly amounts to selfishness. You may want society to run smoothly for everybody, not just yourself and your kin, because you recognize others as people like yourself. Even if I give money to a beggar because it makes me depressed to see people in such a situation, that doesn't mean I'm being selfish---at least not in the usual, everyday sense of the word.

But anyway, I agree--just wanted to make my point clearer.

[spetey]

Hi again! Back again briefly to post on my two favorite threads.

There may be brute facts, but an atheist is not committed to saying there are some or where they are. Myself I'd like to find as many explanations as possible. Indeed, the theist usually seems to be the one committed to brute facts, since no explanation for the existence of the theist's god is generally offered. This existence is just proffered as a brute fact.

Theism is committed to a cause for the universe. It seems to me that atheists have always argued against causation for the universe.

This seeming is incorrect. Many if not most atheists are interested in the cause (or at least explanation) of the universe. We just don't think God stands as a good explanation / cause. Sure theists are typically committed to a particular cause for the universe (namely God), but naturalistic cosmologists and such are committed to the possibility of other causes / explanations.

The causation of God does not make sense to many theists since you need a God to make sense of the question.

I don't understand this. Imagine an equivalent: "The causation of the universe does not make sense to many atheists since you need a universe to make sense of the question." It seems like a perfectly meaningful thing to ask both about the causation of the universe and of God.

Shannon Information is equal to entropy. However, Shannon himself was not happy with that misleading definition, and he should have used the term, entropy. Norbert Wiener, on the other hand, defined information as the opposite of entropy, which is what I mean by "information"...

I too meant "information" as that which reduces informational entropy. If it was random which universe was to be created, then entropy was maximal pre-creation, and then that this one was created has maximal informational content. If I could place a piece on any of 64 chessboard squares with equal probability, and I tell you I put it on space 17, then I have given you 6 bits of information; if you knew odds were 50/50 that I would put it on square 17, then to say I did put it there gives only 1 bit of information. So if this universe is a random choice, so to speak, then its existence is maximally informative. If this universe is one we could expect on other grounds, it is less informative that it came about.

I suspect information theory is another one of your attempts at a distraction through technical material. What you seem to want to say is that the universe has "informational content" in your special sense if and only if it has "meaning". But then of course merely rephrasing things this way does not help settle the matter, even if the new words happen to be spelled like words that technical theorists use.

The article defined formal unity as:

Suppose "formal unity" to be "the sense in which things are one in virtue of the fact that they are members of one and the same class ... the same universal" (Demos 1945-6: 538)

Hence, atheism would be the view where there is no God, that is, there is no unifying description of the universe ("God") where things are unified beyond the "fact that they are members of one and the same class... the same universal."

Okay, and what kind of "unity" does a god bring other than this trivial kind of unity?

Knowing the explanation makes the message even more meaningful, however knowing only that an explanation exists is all that one needs to know that we live in a meaningful world.

1. Again, why think my actions in this life are only meaningful if the universe itself has an explanation?
2. If there turns out to be a natural explanation for the universe, that also guarantees a meaningful universe according to you? Or do you rule out non-natural explanations for the universe on a priori grounds?

Many people believe that when someone dies, that they are with God. They don't have a deeper explanation than that, but just believing that gives comfort to people (a comfort that you and other atheists would like to take away from those who have lost someone dear to them and are longing to be joined with them again).

It is unclear whether false beliefs provide genuine comfort. Suppose you met someone who thinks their departed are happy because they are with the Invisible Pink Unicorn. When you suggest that perhaps there is no IPU, there is a sense where you are depriving this person of the comfort of a false belief. But there is another sense where you are doing the person a favor--allowing them to mourn and appreciate their dear departed's life in a more genuine way, by appreciating the meaning that person had to them in life, rather than perpetuating a fantasy that they will see the person again in the future (thereby, it seems to me, decreasing the appreciation of their time on earth).

Now, pantheism does not represent a maximally meaningful universe. For maximal meaning, the message that exists would have to be meaningful for our own particular lives, a message that if we knew it would give us great comfort.

Here it is most obvious you are equivocating on "meaning" as "information" and "meaning" as "comforting belief".

Personal theism provides a very meaningful outlook to life since its meaning to us is personal and comforting, and therefore it is a meaningful view.

So you keep saying, and I keep asking why. Does "meaningful" just mean "comforting" to you? "Happiness-producing"? What? I still think that helping my fellow humans, appreciating a good piece of art, thinking about math or something--I think all these are meaningful activities, and I think their meaning is independent of a deity's existence. Why am I wrong? Why must there be a deity for my experience of a piece of art, or love for another, to be meaningful?

Again you merely state your thesis. Why is claiming that there is meaning inconsistent with atheism? This is exactly what you have to establish.

Spetey, if there is no ultimate meaning in the world, then the meaning that an inconsistent atheist would like to say exists is no more than a pattern in the clouds.

Of course if there is no meaning, then there is no meaning. This is an expression of the tautology 'p -> p'. I want to know why you think there is no meaning if there is no God.

The consistent atheist knows this, and is happy to have fun with the illusion or even go along with the illusion to make others happy if they want to, but they realize it is their choice.

I know you think an atheist cannot consistently claim there is meaning. What I want to know is: why?!

It is a natural intuition that doing good things for others, for example, provides meaning to life, and that this same meaning can exist whether or not a deity is watching. I think it's an intuitive claim that helping others is a meaningful activity. Do you deny that helping others is meaningful? Or do you just deny that it's meaningful when no deity watches? If so, why?

It has nothing to do with whether a diety is watching. The real issue is whether there really is meaning in the universe.

Of course. And I'm glad you agree that whether that action is meaningful doesn't have to do with whether a deity is watching. I think my time in this universe is meaningful because it can contain actions like that.

No, a theist doesn't have to fear punishment. The theist does it because the world is a meaningful place for them (versus a place where they pretend meaning exists as if they were pretending to see faces in the clouds), and this meaning becomes more meaningful by doing good deeds.

But why is my helping others only a pretend-meaning if there is no God?! Again and again and again you merely state your position. I already know that you think life has no meaning without a god. I want to hear reasons for this position, since you and I agree that it is only responsible to hold an important and controversial belief to the extent you have such reasons.

The good people who are atheists, would be better people as liberated theists.

On what grounds do you say this? Because you assume that only theists can be truly moral? Or do you have reasons for this position?

If you think that ethics can have no foundation without religion, you need to deal with the Euthyphro dilemma, a difficulty for the view that is two-thousand-plus years old. This is perhaps for a different (but closely related) thread.

In my view, goodness is an issue of a consistency criteria in the Universe(i.e., "commanded by God because it is moral") as well as God's judgement as to how that consistency is best applied (i.e., "it is moral because it's willed by God"). Only God is in position to judge what true goodness is, so only God can say. On the hand, that also happens to be what is most consistent.

"Consistency with the universe" is a strange moral requirement (mass murder seems "consistent" with the universe, since it's happened without contradiction). But anyway it seems you agree that there is a moral code independent of God's will; God, you say, is just in the best position to judge what that moral code is--just as God would be the best mathematician around too, if God existed. That doesn't mean 2+2=4, or torture is bad, just because God wills it. It just means God would know these things (should God exist), because God is smart.

A theist, on the other hand, would not be so inclined to act that way since they know that even when something is not consistent for our benefit in the shortrun, it is still consistent for our benefit in the longterm (i.e., upon the Judgement). Thus, the consistent atheist need not be moral, but the theist better be moral.

Again here you seem to say the reason a theist had "better be" moral is to avoid punishment (contra your position above).

If possible, can we revert to shorter posts? I really don't think I have much time to take an hour to respond to your posts (or anyone else's for that matter). Out of necessity I may have to skip those posts or only respond to or two points. Sorry about that, but reality calls.

Fair enough; you're of course welcome to respond to the portions you find most important. I have done that many times in the past. It's frustrating to skip past many other things you disagree with, I know; but in that respect, it takes two of us to keep these posts long.


spetey

[harvey1]

Hey Spetey,

Okay, as I said the responses to each other for this thread is getting too long. Let's focus on two issues:

• What role does information and unity play with regard to meaning in the universe
• How does this role favor a view that only a theist view is a meaningful view

I too meant "information" as that which reduces informational entropy. If it was random which universe was to be created, then entropy was maximal pre-creation, and then that this one was created has maximal informational content. If I could place a piece on any of 64 chessboard squares with equal probability, and I tell you I put it on space 17, then I have given you 6 bits of information; if you knew odds were 50/50 that I would put it on square 17, then to say I did put it there gives only 1 bit of information. So if this universe is a random choice, so to speak, then its existence is maximally informative. If this universe is one we could expect on other grounds, it is less informative that it came about.

We have to go back to Wiener information in order to understand what I'm talking about:

Wiener`s "information" presumes an observer with a meaning of his/her own outside the system who determines the goal of the system. The observer may be another machine but in the end (or perhaps beginning) there must be a human being somewhere with an intention or purpose. The observer`s meaning is thus interrelated with the system`s meaning. The signals of the system therefore have a relation to a human meaning, even if it can be very distant.

So, the universe has meaning only if there is some intent or goal for the universe that would satisfy as meaning to a conscious being. Since the atheist does not believe such exists, there is therefore no information content to the universe (according to this interpretation of Wiener information). In other words, without intent the universe is maximally entropic.

I suspect information theory is another one of your attempts at a distraction through technical material.

Oh Spetey, still trying to make the universe simpler than it is? I can't help it that information theory and the like are useful concepts to understand the world at large. You seem to want to always blame me for using concepts that are found useful in other contexts in describing the world.

What you seem to want to say is that the universe has "informational content" in your special sense if and only if it has "meaning". But then of course merely rephrasing things this way does not help settle the matter, even if the new words happen to be spelled like words that technical theorists use.

It does help settle the matter because now we can talk in more definable terms. If someone says atheism is equivalent to agnosticism, and another says atheism is equivalent to pantheism, then we will never get anywhere in our discussion. When I talk about atheism, I am specifically talking about it being a maximally entropic view of the universe. If we get raw data (e.g., the atheist's view of the universe) from some source, and just superimpose our own meaning on this raw data (e.g., as what the atheist might like us to do), then we are just fooling ourselves on what that raw data actually means. There is no meaning in such a system since there was no intent for that raw data to have meaning. If all human systems are ultimately referring to this raw data (i.e., an open system), then whatever that raw data is, is also what human meaning is. Since an atheist, in my view, cannot hold that there exists intent for the world, the atheist is doomed to basing all human meaning on meaningless data, which makes the human meaning also meaningless in any ultimate sense. Hence, atheism is a meaningless belief system.

Okay, and what kind of "unity" does a god bring other than this trivial kind of unity?

By bringing intent to the world, God provides information about the world, hence meaning. The capsule of information is unity for the world since it explains why all the sub-systems of the universe are connected as they are. Of course, we might not know why every sub-system is such as it is (e.g., we might not know why there is evil in the world), but if we believe there is unity behind it all because there is an intent behind it, then we can work toward discovering this unity in many avenues of thought. This, in fact, is what we see in the world. We have billions of people seeking meaning in the world on many various levels and pursuits. Perhaps not one of us is on the right track, but the belief that there is ultimate meaning by itself is enough to make the attempt to find meaning a meaningful pursuit in life.