William Lane Craig deconstructed. at lengh.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Bump for googlefudge, if inclined.

Sorry I intend to get around to this, but it requires more time than I presently have to provide a decently thought out answer.

Originally posted by googlefudge
This will take several posts and will require some editing to fit so please bare with me.
I would appreciate it if people could wait to post till after I have finished posting.
And yes this is a multi post wall... if you don't like it, don't read it.

This is the unedited complete transcript of WLC’s lecture.

I will follow this up by highlighting ...[text shortened]... ue no purpose and that is why the question of the existence of god is so vital to mankind.[/i]

Edit: “For if there is no god then man’s life becomes ultimately absurd, its without ultimate meaning, without ultimate value, without ultimate purpose.”

A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets😵


Edit: “First: Life is without ultimate meaning meaning.”

Each sentient being attributes a certain “meaning” to everything according to its nature. What is the “meaning” of a rock? What is the “meaning” of the sea?


Edit: “Second; life is without ultimate value.”

Life has a value itself, we don’t have to attribute another value to it. Respecting Life would do. Love and compassion would do. Thus I have heard: to learn what is good a day is not enough; but to learn what is bad an hour is too long😵


Edit: “And thirdly; Life is ultimately without purpose.”

There is nothing to be removed from it and nothing to be added; ones’ concern for the welfare of all creatures should cover every existence by means of conversion of evil to good and of conversion of delusion to understanding; once actual reality is seen as it really is, the one who sees it is released. Nothing Holy😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: “For if there is no god then man’s life becomes ultimately absurd, its without ultimate meaning, without ultimate value, without ultimate purpose.”

A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets😵


Edit: “First: Life is without ultimate meaning meaning.”

Each sentient being attributes a certain “meaning” to ...[text shortened]... ng; once actual reality is seen as it really is, the one who sees it is released. Nothing Holy😵

yeah, that's pretty much craig's entire argument.

paraphrased...
"i'd like to think there is ultimate purpose, meaning and value to life. without these things, man's life (not woman's life, women are perfectly content being subjugated to men) becomes ultimately absurd. therefore god exists."

his entire argument is patently absurd. note the use of the term "ultimate." that's a relatively new addition to this tired old argument. never mind that humans (both men and women) find their own purpose and value in life, which normally revolves around their friends and family...perfectly content that there is no ultimate attached to their lives.

Originally posted by jaywill
Why ?

If the point of Craig's talk was [b]The Absurdity of life without God, one counter argument would be that life could STILL be absurd even WITH God. And for that Ecclesiates as at least sacred poetry would be quite effective and well known to make precisely that point.

"Vainity of vainities .... all is vanity, says the pre ...[text shortened]... le. The Bible is a collection - a library you know ?

So I quite disagree with your post.

So if you don't believe in your god there is no meaning to life and atheists are just as bad as Ted Bundy? Your words:

Googlefudge: And my response to "Why do you exist then ?" is simply that I have no reason for existing,
nor need a reason for existing, other than that which i make myself.


Yea. You and Jack the Ripper.
You and Pol Pot.
You and Ted Bundy

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
yeah, that's pretty much craig's entire argument.

paraphrased...
"i'd like to think there is ultimate purpose, meaning and value to life. without these things, man's life (not woman's life, women are perfectly content being subjugated to men) becomes ultimately absurd. therefore god exists."

his entire argument is patently absurd. ...[text shortened]... d family...perfectly content that there is no ultimate attached to their lives.

And the idea that existential value must derive from some exogenous (e.g., supernatural) source is, implicitly at least, nihilistic about natural existence, including ours. Such nihilism is tragic when confined to a sense of one’s own self—it becomes dangerous when held as an attitude vis-à-vis existence (and existents) as a whole.

Originally posted by black beetle
Edit: “For if there is no god then man’s life becomes ultimately absurd, its without ultimate meaning, without ultimate value, without ultimate purpose.”

A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets😵


Edit: “First: Life is without ultimate meaning meaning.”

Each sentient being attributes a certain “meaning” to ...[text shortened]... ng; once actual reality is seen as it really is, the one who sees it is released. Nothing Holy😵

"A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets "

Pleasing thought, but why? A judgment call on what fills one heart with is
as meaningless without a common standard for all isn't it? If one thought
or value is equal to another why would one be thought of as better without
some "ultimate" value system that all fall under?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
"A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets "

Pleasing thought, but why? A judgment call on what fills one heart with is
as meaningless without a common standard for all isn't it? If one thought
or value is equal to another why would one be thought of as better without
some "ultimate" value system that all fall under?
Kelly

I don’t think that absence of a common “ultimate” standard (or common awareness of one, or agreement on one) makes all values equal, just as absence of some “ultimate” standard of physical health does not make illness is equal to wellness. The discussion here, however, does not seem to be about moral codes per se, but about value of existence itself. I am sure that, if—in the highly unlikely event! 😉—you decided that there really is no god, you would still value your daughter’s life, and not suddenly conclude that whether she lives or dies is not significant to you. You might wonder why you still hold that value, but at the same time it would feel alien to you to not hold it. (To my understanding, this is part of what “virtue ethics” is about.)

Most human behavior (as, likely, most things) can be described by a statistical distribution of some kind. There are people who would not value their children’s lives in any event; but they are, I believe in the minority—on a tail of the distribution. I happen to think that the urge to survive and thrive (which thriving includes valuing the thriving of loved ones) is more the central tendency for humans than urges to unreasoning destruction. Were that not the case, we likely would not have flourished as a species to the extent that we have. Frankly, to value your daughter’s life—and that of yourself and your other loved ones, and even strangers if they are deemed to mean you no harm—seems to me far more coherent than the alternative, even if you just “feel” it. So, I could also use coherency as a “standard”—among others in a cluster of standards (such as, but not limited to, the one I gave above); no one standard may trump all the others, or its negation destroy the others.

I might be wrong. I do not think that we can really escape existential risk, epistemic risk or moral risk. I think that it is delusive to try. After all, you have made a decision as to where you believe the “ultimate standard” is. You can’t escape the fact that it is your decision, or the risk—however slight you believe it to be—that you have made an error. Therefore, your “ultimate standard” is really only the standard that you are convinced is the ultimate (and correct) one. I might appeal to another; other religionists and non-religionists might appeal to another; etc., etc. So the appeal to an “ultimate standard” does not in any way remove the “relativity” of values that you seem to be concerned about—it just moves it to another level. There is, quite obviously, no common standard—even if there is, in fact, an “ultimate” one; most people manage to value their existence, and act mostly ethically toward others, anyway.

__________________________________________

EDIT:

I am reminded of a sci-fi/horror film called The Event Horizon, which examines what happens when all existential value is stripped away, and a chaotic nihilism results. I think it illustrates (horribly graphically) my point about coherence.


Sorry for the somewhat muddled post.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
yeah, that's pretty much craig's entire argument.

paraphrased...
"i'd like to think there is ultimate purpose, meaning and value to life. without these things, man's life (not woman's life, women are perfectly content being subjugated to men) becomes ultimately absurd. therefore god exists."

his entire argument is patently absurd. ...[text shortened]... d family...perfectly content that there is no ultimate attached to their lives.

Craig is thrall to his theological passions😵

Originally posted by KellyJay
"A hate-free mind that respects Life is as good “ultimate purpose” as it gets "

Pleasing thought, but why? A judgment call on what fills one heart with is
as meaningless without a common standard for all isn't it? If one thought
or value is equal to another why would one be thought of as better without
some "ultimate" value system that all fall under?
Kelly

Hi Kelly, I hope you and yours are well!

Methinks “common standards” arise simply thanks to a plexus of specific conditions, modifications of the mind, experiences and evaluations of the individual over specific epistemic objects. The experiences and the evaluations are then deployed on the basis of specific mutual agreements (amongst the individuals that perceived them) as regards the nature of the conditions that triggered these experiences and these evaluations of these specific epistemic objects in first place (always according to a specific system of perception, analysis and communication that must be comprehensible in full: under these circumstances, one does not negate that which is experienced, but instead has to mobilize one’s consciousness; consciousness is how information is assessed when it is perceived.
Then we create our collective subjectivity (the so called objectivity) by means of stitching carefully together the pieces (the conceptualized thoughts) of the reality we perceive;

Therefore, a thought or a value cannot be “as equal to another”. A thought or a value are evaluated as “better than another” or whatever on the basis of a specific perception/ analysis/ evaluation of the thought or the value we observe; it seems to me we perceive whatever we perceive by using eye, ear, nose, taste, body and mind, so we have at our disposal no better “ultimate value system that all fall under” other than the evaluation of the mind
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Hi Kelly, I hope you and yours are well!

Methinks “common standards” arise simply thanks to a plexus of specific conditions, modifications of the mind, experiences and evaluations of the individual over specific epistemic objects. The experiences and the evaluations are then deployed on the basis of specific mutual agreements (amongst the individuals ...[text shortened]... no better “ultimate value system that all fall under” other than the evaluation of the mind
😵

Life is a little crazy at the moment but doing fine.

So unless I misunderstood you which I think is possible, you don't think one
thought can really be any better than another, so those that help verses those
that cause suffering are really equal because one value cannot be as equal to
another?
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
I don’t think that absence of a common “ultimate” standard (or common awareness of one, or agreement on one) makes all values equal, just as absence of some “ultimate” standard of physical health does not make illness is equal to wellness. The discussion here, however, does not seem to be about moral codes per se, but about value of existence itself. I am ...[text shortened]... rates (horribly graphically) my point about coherence.


Sorry for the somewhat muddled post.

"There is, quite obviously, no common standard—even if there is, in fact, an “ultimate” one; most people manage to value their existence, and act mostly ethically toward others, anyway."

I think there is a common standard which is why we argue with one another on
which one of us is right instead of fighting like animals. We appeal to each
other's grasp of it, we can get a stick-in-your-ear for an answer, but
we give justification to each other. Why bother doing that if it didn't have some
meaning we all felt all of us were aware of? Reasoning requires something to
work out, there has be pieces to move on the chess board, numbers to work
out an equation with. Coming up with the right answer to a moral question
means there is something we are trying to reach, otherwise we would be just
forcing ourselves upon each other.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Life is a little crazy at the moment but doing fine.

So unless I misunderstood you which I think is possible, you don't think one
thought can really be any better than another, so those that help verses those
that cause suffering are really equal because one value cannot be as equal to
another?
Kelly

No. Methinks a thought or a value within a specific context can well be evaluated as “better than another” or whatever as regards other thoughts or values that are expressed within that same context;
😵

Originally posted by KellyJay
"There is, quite obviously, no common standard—even if there is, in fact, an “ultimate” one; most people manage to value their existence, and act mostly ethically toward others, anyway."

I think there is a common standard which is why we argue with one another on
which one of us is right instead of fighting like animals. We appeal to each
other's grasp e are trying to reach, otherwise we would be just
forcing ourselves upon each other.
Kelly

"Coming up with the right answer to a moral question
means there is something we are trying to reach, otherwise we would be just
forcing ourselves upon each other. "

The ultimate thing "we are trying to reach" is the perceived and enjoyed benefit of living in groups. There must be something that explains why forcing ourselves on one another is not the sole method of conflict resolution.

That thing is a the successful manifestation of the biological imperative.

It is remarkable that inorganic, non-living atoms, when agitated under high temperature, and allowed to settle down, tend to form into certain specific arrangements that manifest their individual properties -- such as, the observation that the hybrid sp3 electron orbits of carbon atoms tend toward tetrahedral arrangements of the atoms in the molecules they form. Disrupt such a molecule with heat, then let it settle, and that same tetrahedral arrangement tends to return.

The same tendency occurs in living organisms, where it is called homeostasis. Homeostatic behavior can be said to express an organism's "desire" to maintain itself at a healthy temperature (for example). We perspire to lose heat, we shiver to maintain it.

Social animals are those whose condition is optimized by living together in groups.

One-on-one, group-on-one, and other combinations of conflicts occur in social groups. Certain behaviors are naturally found that optimize the condition of the group and its individuals, by providing ways to settle conflicts.

Codification and encouragement of these behaviors occur. In some groups, (humans, notably) they are even enshrined in religion and called absolute, God-given, objective moral truths.

There you have it, from one naturalistic perspective.

Does this have anything to do with ultimate meaning?

Does it disprove that there is, in fact, God as the source of morality?