For the sake of brevity I am first going to cut out all the references to famous people that he quotes or paraphrases
because in NONE of those quotes do those people actually make arguments [and I feel that in some cases he is
not accurately representing their actual positions] and thus these passages do nothing to progress the argument
other than via an Argument from Authority fallacy. The quotes are available in full in the transcript and my previous
post should you wish to verify that this is the case.
This essentially halves the length of the segment... which says something meaningful about the quality of his
argument all on it's own.
First; life is without ultimate meaning.
If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life? Does it really matter, whether he really existed or not?
Reveal Hidden ContentFirst it should be "passes out of existence when THEY die" and "to THEIR life?" and "Whether THEY really existed"... But ignoring the sexist use of language throughout....
Ok what we have here are essentially two questions:
If people have a finite existence do their lives have ULTIMATE MEANING! ?
And
If a person has a finite existence then does it really matter if a person has existed or not?
To which my first response is "Matter to whom?"
For something to matter there must be someone for it to matter to, so to whom is he is asking whether it matters or not?
My second response is to ask "what is ULTIMATE MEANING"? And how is it different from regular meaning?
He has mentioned "ULTIMATE MEANING"
Reveal Hidden Content[OK I'll stop block-cap'sing it, but it feels like it should be said in a booming deep Morgan Freeman voice-of-god way.]
several times at this point but not actually defined it clearly, or
really at all. Which is a problem because precisely what he means by it is going to be important in telling whether he
demonstrates that we cannot have it without a god [or that we can have it with a god]
Having asked the questions, let's see if he answers them...
Now it might be said that his life was important because it influenced others or effected the course of history, but that shows only a relative significance, to his life, Not an ultimate significance.
I still don't know what an Ultimate Meaning is and Now I have a Relative Significance and an Ultimate Significance to
deal with... Is he going to define what he means by any of these at any point so that I could actually determine whether
he is correct in his assertion here that what is being shown is a Relative Significance and not an Ultimate one?... or that
anyone should care? ... Let's carry on and find out....
If all of the events are ultimately meaningless then what significance is there in influencing any of them?
Another question, they are starting to pile up.
Well You [WLC] have not yet demonstrated that "all of the events are ultimately meaningless", nor even defined what
that might actually mean or why anyone should care. But this is a potentially interesting question... Let's see if you
answer it...
Mankind is destined only to perish in the eventual heat death of the universe.
And thus the contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge...
The efforts of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering...
The efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world...
The sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race...
In the end all of these come to nothing.
They don’t make one bit of difference, not one bit.
Ok, we have a list of things that WLC is claiming as meaningless... IF the answer to the last question he asked is "none"...
He has not demonstrated that the answer IS in fact "none", and worse he hasn't yet demonstrated or even defined the premises
upon which that question is based, which he would have to do before we got around to answering this question.
He is also just asserting this list is justified IF we assume the answer to his question is "None" without actually demonstrating
that any of those claims is actually true.
And therefore each person’s life is without ultimate significance.
Whoa... Ok, the "Therefore" means he thinks he's just proven something.
ALL he's done so far is ask ill defined questions and then make unproven assertions about what would be true IF you answer
those ill defined questions a particular way... There is no "Therefore" from that, this is an unproven assertion and nothing more.
One I happen to vehemently disagree with.
And because our lives are ultimately meaningless, the activities that we fill our lives with are also, in the final analysis, meaningless.
The long hours spent in study at the university, our friendships, our interests, our jobs, our relationships, all of these are in the final analysis ultimately meaningless.
We are now building castles in the sky. He is now moving on like he has proven that peoples lives are without ultimate significance
and that because of that there can be no meaning at all. NEITHER of which has he properly defined let alone demonstrated.
This is the horror of modern man, because he ends in nothing, he ultimately is nothing.
ALL he is doing is asserting this, he hasn't demonstrated anything. There has been no logical argument, no presentation
of evidence to justify premises, just questions without answers and bald assertions.
This is where the big block of fancy sounding philosopher quotes used to be. Using their supposed Authority and
kudos to try to bolster his non-existent arguments and justify his position. Just a big old Argument from Authority fallacy.
Skipping to the end...
Thus if there is, no god, then life itself becomes ultimately meaningless man and the universe are without ultimate significance.
And here you have his conclusion from his opening [argument] that he will use as a foundation for the rest of the talk.
And it's completely and utterly unfounded.
He has asked a bunch of questions, about topics he hasn't bothered to properly define, failed to answer any of them,
and then made unjustified assertions about the consequences of answers to those questions giving the impression
that he has answered them when he never did.
Now what he's actually doing here is actually quite clever... If by clever you mean sneaky.
He asks these 'questions' in such a way as to draw you in to supposing that you know the answers, and then
goes on to assume that those questions have been answered and build on those supposed answers without ever
doing the hard work of actually answering those questions in a rigorous way.
The idea is to leave the audience FEELING like he's presented an argument to support his position, but in reality
it's ENTIRELY smoke and mirrors. The copious fancy quotes from famous philosophers added to give the whole thing
a sophisticated and intellectual vibe that is meant to dazzle the audience and trick them into accepting whatever he
is selling.
He's an excellent and well presented glossy seller of snake-oil.
However as a person supposedly presenting a sound logical argument for a particular set of beliefs he fails utterly.