Subject:
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Re: Atheism (was: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Aug 2004 15:52:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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2642 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> hello!
>
>
> > By all means, feel free to chime in. That's what the forum is for!
>
> Great! In this case I come up with another provocative thesis:
>
> If there was no God that gave Life™ this life wouldn't have any value at all.
You've set up your claim as a one-premiss argument:
P1: God did not create Life
---therefore----------------
C1: Life has no value
However, this statement is true only if and only if life's value must be
injected by an outside agency, be it God or otherwise. Reformulate the argument
this way:
P1: Life has value if and only if God created Life
P2: God did not create life
---therefore----------------
C1: Life has no value
I still don't agree with the argument, but at least now it's logically valid.
And what about this formulation:
P1: In order to determine logically that Life has value, we
must first demonstrate definitively that God created Life
P2: In order to demonstrate definitively that God created Life,
we must first definitively demonstrate God's existence
P3: We cannot definitively demonstrate God's existence
---therefore----------------
C1: We cannot determine that life has value
So now what? Does that mean that Life has no value? No, but we can't logically
determine that God's involvement gave value to Life. We may choose or wish to
*believe* that God's creation of Life gave value to Life, but we cannot
demonstrate it.
And here's another one:
P1: We cannot demonstrate logically that God exists
P2: If God exists, then God is capable of instilling
value in Life
P3: Humans exist
P4: Humans are capable of instilling value in Life
P5: Life has value (ie, value-of-Life) (and I submit
that this is a big assumption)
P6: We cannot distinguish between God-instilled and
human-instilled value-of-Life
---therefore----------------
C1: We cannot determine whether value-of-Life results
from God's actions or from human action.
See the problem? Assuming that Life has value, we can't logically determine
whether God or humans should get the credit for that value. Since I have pretty
good evidence for the existence of humans, and since I have no evidence for the
the existence of God, it makes logical sense for me to conclude that Life's
value, such as it is, is instilled by humans.
> In that case life was just matter that accidentally interachts in a way
> predetermined by laws of nature.
I might offer that if life interacts in a way pretermined by the laws of nature,
then that interactoin is not really accidental! Or are you suggesting that the
laws of nature themselves formed by accident? If so, then I don't see why this
is an objectionable condition.
> The value that we, Humans, accredit to all living creatures is not inherent
> in the molecules and atoms that perform "life". We, Humans, save life
> because _we_ want to survive, not because nature wants to.
This is a tricky statement. Humans are *part* of nature, so if humans are
capable of "wanting" something, then so is nature.
I'm not even sure that humans save life, or at any rate we're certainly very
selective about which life we choose to save.
> Nature doesn't "want" anything, nature didn't even "create" anything. It just
> happened. And tomorrow there may happen something that turns everything that
> lives to an end. If there is no divine plan behind all that.
Actually, this is my assessment of how the universe functions. To date, I have
seen no evidence to the contrary that would cause me to reformulate my position.
> So why do we bother at all to protect life? It's only matter, nothing special.
> Whether something lives or not lives doesn't change anything. So let's have a
> great time as long as we live and don't bother if we destroy this planet.....
Pragmatically, we as a species have determined that it is better in the longterm
to be mindful of the way we interact with others, and therefore many cultures
have established elaborate traditions governing the proper methods of
interaction. I have seen no evidence that any one of these systems is inherent
in humans or is somehow "absolute" or "divine." However, certain systems appeal
to me moreso than do others, and so I adhere more closely to the systems with
greater appeal. In fact, I would suggest people who are free to make the
decision for themselves will generally choose to adhere to the system that
appeals more strongly to them, whether that system is strict religious
fundamentalism or carefree hedonism.
An album of family photos has little or no inherent value but can be of
immeasurable sentimental value. I have seen no evidence that life has any value
beyond the value we impart to it; why should this be objectionable?
For that matter, why would it be "better" for life's value to have been
instilled by an outside force? This speaks of an oddly filial need to which I
simply cannot relate.
I once knew a Christian who asked "If God doesn’t exist, then life is
meaningless, so why wouldn’t an atheist just commit suicide? What’s the
difference?" Clearly the question is pre-spun to yield a pro-God answer.
However, in return I asked him "If you’re going to Heaven anyway, why don’t you
let me beat on your shins with a crowbar for a few hours each day?"
He declined my offer because, presumably, he would find the shin-beating
objectionable. So the larger answer is that, even if life has no inherent
meaning or value, *I* attach value and meaning to my own life (and comfort, in
the crowbar example) and to that of other people regardless of God’s existence
or nonexistence.
Dave!
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