[official] The Absurdity of Life Without God - William Lane Craig at Veritas at Northwestern, 2001
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- www.veritas.org... - Internationally renowned theologian and apologist William Lane Craig invites us to imagine a world without God; "a world in which only human beings exist in their tiny corner of the universe." In such a world can morality exist? Can humans find happiness? After a series of dramatic readings, William Lane Craig discusses the implications of a world without God and responds to questions from the audience. Join the discussion! From The Veritas Forum at Northwestern, 2001.
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God be praised!
This is simply a detailed solution to the Noteic Effect of the Fall...a subject sadly neglected in almost all churches! The book of Ecclesiastes most represents this lecture. Keep in mind, no rational argument relieves one from guilt and shame. It is also noted that all "Christians" still live in a Fallen world...the man who feels inadequate or the woman who hates her body as a Christian can still struggle with anger towards God, self, and others. The church needs to get honest about this life and take this to God. The lack of vulnerability in the church is why people go into the "world" to be heard and understood!
Jeff Porcaro Groove there is some truth to this, however each person in the end must choose who they will follow, themselves and their finite failing selves or God who can redeem, as the Bible teaches, and restore to His original intention of life as eternal and blissful.
Compared to a transcendent, objective, and irrevocable law, given by that which is pure, perfectly righteous and supreme.
I think after you listen to or read the book you'll find that we know a lot more about morality than you think.
I do not think that there are no gods, I merely strongly doubt the existence of such entities. However, if you're refering to Christian conceptions of a god, I think there's evidence that many of them do not exist.
I don't see that a god would necessarily be good, nor that its existence would imply the existence of morality (or purpose) beyond ourselves. It would also leave us with Euthyphro's dilemma.
On what basis for your statement that "God IS the good", and your implication that he exists?
That implies that morality is something outside and beyond ourselves. Can you think of a single indication that morality is not simply perception, or that perception is not simply a product of the material human brain?
You imply that there is some purpose to our existence, granted by or emanating from some external source. Can you think of a single indication that such a purpose to our existence exists?
I think he said at the end that nothing he said has "proof", in a similar way to the scientific method.
Alot of his argument was looking at the consequences of throwing away the idea of objective morality.
This absolutely made sense and anyone with any kind of sense would realise this.
1.1. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd written several comments in one turn. I have not taken this comment into consideration until, so there may been some poor communication between us. UA-cam really isn't the greatest forum for debate :p
I'm more interested in Science than philosophy and I'm aware science has its own jargo. Does philosophy have it's own definition of "absurd" like how a scientific theory is different from a laymen "theory"? Because an "Absurd" life sounds awesome! I wish life was absurd! Alas, it's not. There aren't that many hat makers these days and they don't drink much more tea than anyone else.
"William Lane Craig invites us to imagine a world without God; "a world in which only human beings exist in their tiny corner of the universe." In such a world can morality exist? "
Using the god of the Bible ( I have no doubt that this is the god Craig refers to) for my example,apparently Craig believe that without god we wouldn't know that:
-it is OK to own other people as your property
Leviticus 25:44-46
Exodus 21:20-21
Ephesians 6:5
1 Timothy 6:1-2
Or that these people must be killed:
People Who Don’t Listen to Priests Deuteronomy 17:12
Homosexuals Leviticus 20:13
Children who curse their parents Proverbs 20:20 Leviticus 20:9
Adulterers Leviticus 20:10
Followers of Other Religions Exodus 22:19 & Deuteronomy 13:7-12 & Deuteronomy 17:2-5
The Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God Deuteronomy 13:13-19
Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night Deuteronomy 22:20-21
People for Working on the Sabbath Exodus 31:12-15
If it wasn't for the Bible, we might think it was wrong to own people as your property, or to kill the people listed above!
The finite nature of materialism, as a sole argument, IS inadequate. However, that's not all there is. Additionally, in juxtaposition, all of the arguments given for a purely materialistic meaning fail miserably for myriad reasons. Pragmatism, Subjectivism, Egoistic self-interest, etc. all fail.
nice audio. video fail
If atheism is true, I don’t see how Dr. Craig’s talk is answerable.
Atheism is a non-belief that a god exists, it is a claim about the individual & about what the individual doesn't believe. It is not a claim that no god exists
Whether a god exists or not, if a person has no belief a god exists it means atheism ( a person's non-belief that a god exists) is true.
Atheism is not a positive assertion, it is a denial of the claim god exists. For Atheism to be disproven god must be proven to exist through objective and measurable means which has not occurred.
There is a Cracked sketch the day after the "Myan Apocalypse". 3 characters, all playing themselves (or a version of themselves, using their real office and not bothering to think of new names anyway) and all 3 had different ideas of what the apocalypse was going to be like so they all over-prepared, and were in face disapointed that the world did not end and they still had to come to work the next day. One had acquired a rather large number of cans of beans, one put on war paint and duck taped a chainsaw to his wrist, and one was still wearing a sandwedge board offering free sex to anyone.
That is my counter-point to your arguement that "life ends" = "life is pointless". ETERNITY, i would argue, is pointless. Heaven would get boring eventually. In fact, the reason life can be boring is that people pretend it will continue forever.
Come to think of it, if the Apocalypse did happen but they didn't notice because they're in purgatory, that sketch is a perfect alagory for "short life is pointless" vs "long life is pointless". It's monday, no one's about to die. EVER. Get back to work.
No, it wouldn't be wrong, nor would it be right. It would be a self delusion.
are you saying that it would be wrong for me to say that there is such a thing as right and wrong ;)
Even if we grant Dr. Craig's main thesis is correct for the sake of argument, namely that ultimate meaning is impossible in the absence of god, that hardly shows that life without God is absurd. Unless of course he is using that term idiosyncratically, for there is nothing illogical about the pointlessness of life.
Branden Holmes From wikipedia:
In philosophy, "the Absurd" refers to the conflict between (1) the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and (2) the human inability to find any. In this context absurd does not mean "logically impossible", but rather "humanly impossible". The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously.
standev1 I'm not going to bother watching Dr. Craig's lecture again. It was utterly boring and repetitive, an exercise in emotional argumentation at its finest. So my points may be somewhat off here. But even if we grant that life is absurd on atheism it does not have the slightest effect on the God debate. All it shows, AT MOST, is that we should be careful to make sure that the evidence/arguments supports atheism rather than some other "worldview", if that wasn't already obvious. That's it.
Branden Holmes The topic was "The Absurdity of Life Without God". Dr. Craig successfully demonstrated that. He additionally demonstrated that most atheists live inconsistently with this conclusion, because they live and think as if life wasn't absurd, as if life had inherent value etc. It stroke a chord with me, because when I was an atheist, I was surprised that others don't seem to recognize this predicament that we're in.
Dr. Craig never claimed that "life without God is absurd, therefore God exists". But for me, it destroys a notion that atheism makes perfect sense, and that if we get rid of religion, we will be happy.
standev1 On the definition of "the Absurd" you gave from Wikipedia, the "human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life" is subjective. The title of Dr. Craig's lecture implies an objective problem, so there is a major inconsistency there. The fact that many atheists live inconsistently with their worldview (I don't think most ARE atheists, they merely claim to be, but that is another story...) is neither here nor there.
Whether people would be happier without religion is a moot point. What should concern us here is the truth and nothing else.
Branden Holmes "The title of Dr. Craig's lecture implies an objective problem"
Lack of ultimate meaning in life in atheism is an objective fact. Human tendency to seek it is an objective fact too.
"Whether people would be happier without religion is a moot point."
It isn't for me.
"What should concern us here is the truth and nothing else."
Sorry, you don't get to choose topics of other people's lectures. :) If you are interested in Dr. Craig's arguments for existence of God, you are welcome to see The Cosmological Argument video and his debates on the topic.
And how do you know that? Who gave this law? How do you know he exists? Why not Islam? Better why not read some of the history of Western philosophy especially Aristotle, Epicurus, Hume, Mill, and a number of contemporary philosophers.
Or you can read the latest book by Alex Rosenberg and realize good and bad are illusory, including secular ethics...
He made about 4500 assumptions and had no well formed arguments.
*Awful video quality* for such an incredible Christian apologist.
Then you disagree with Dr. Craig; in his view, 'moral' simply means in accordance with Yahweh's will. Yahweh decides what is objectively good and bad, and communicates those decisions to humans via our innate sense of morality, thinks Craig.
If lying to somebody to make them go to hell is immoral even for God, doesn't that judgement have to be set externally to God, meaning that God is not the law maker of morality? By what standard is lying immoral? By God's standard, or by some other standard?
Using the god of the Bible,you apparently believe that without god we wouldn't know that:
-it is OK to own other people as your property
Leviticus 25:44-46
Exodus 21:20-21
Ephesians 6:5
1 Timothy 6:1-2
Or that these people must be killed:
People Who Don’t Listen to Priests Deuteronomy 17:12
Homosexuals Leviticus 20:13
Children who curse their parents Proverbs 20:20 Leviticus 20:9
Adulterers Leviticus 20:10
Followers of Other Religions Exodus 22:19 & Deuteronomy 13:7-12 & Deuteronomy 17:2-5
The Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God Deuteronomy 13:13-19
Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night Deuteronomy 22:20-21
People for Working on the Sabbath Exodus 31:12-15
If it wasn't for the Bible, we might think it was wrong to own people as your property, or to kill the people listed above!
a self delusion compared to what?
Did he just twitched Nietzsche's words "God is dead" into that Nietzsche was trying to warn the people that if they didn't believe their lives would have no meaning and that they would be lost asking questions like: "how do we comfort our selves, murderers of all murderers."?
If God is goodness itself, then describing an action of God's as good in a non-semantical context would be a tautology. Incidentally, Dr. Craig believes in divine command theory, which means that anything Yahweh decides to be good, is good. Given how whimsically evil Yahweh appears in the Bible, he must be one of the most arbitrary characters in human literature.
If there is a god who *is* goodness, the lack of a logical necessity for his goodness would ultimately imply arbitrariness.
Using the god of the Bible, apparently Craig believe that without god we wouldn't know that:
-it is OK to own other people as your property
Leviticus 25:44-46
Exodus 21:20-21
Ephesians 6:5
1 Timothy 6:1-2
Or that these people must be killed:
People Who Don’t Listen to Priests Deuteronomy 17:12
Homosexuals Leviticus 20:13
Children who curse their parents Proverbs 20:20 Leviticus 20:9
Adulterers Leviticus 20:10
Followers of Other Religions Exodus 22:19 & Deuteronomy 13:7-12 & Deuteronomy 17:2-5
The Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God Deuteronomy 13:13-19
Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night Deuteronomy 22:20-21
People for Working on the Sabbath Exodus 31:12-15
If it wasn't for the Bible, we might think it was wrong to own people as your property, or to kill the people listed above!
If it helps you to cope with life..
I think in his debate with Shelly Kagan, the notion of absurdity due to the finitude of life is shown to be inadequate.
You oughta download the free audibook Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics by Stefan Molyneux :)
Thou shalt use thy brain to wake up & realize religion hath got thou by thy balls.
One of the things I don't like about Religion is the arrogance to think it's all about you. God looks like you. The universe literally revolves around you, everything on Earth was set up for you. Etc.
To find "in a million years people will forget you existed" depressing, you have to be up-yourself (australian slang, like "cocky" but the litteral translation is even dirtier) enough to think people a million years from now SHOULD remember you. It's like MRA. Not getting laid doesn't make you hate women, self-esteem doesn't make you hate women, but if you are paradoxically Aragon and pathetic enough to think you deserve women regardless of how much of a loser you are, THAT maes you hate women.
Y’all need some Albert Camus
Camus was just a mediocre French writer who used romantic language to seem appealing to the average person.
He has no real substance and doesn't seem to understand that suicide is the only answer to the unsolvable consequences of nihilism. Instead, he lives inconsistently as Dr. Craig says. Not to mention that Camus doesn't even comprehend that atheism leads to moral nihilism.
Ugh... I had to listen to this talk as a favor to someone else, and I have to say I'm completely disappointed. What a debbie downer! Mr. Craig is simply utterly wrong is his proposition, for several reasons. He greatly misrepresents Nietzche (who was not a nihilist), and confuses "No ultimate meaning" or "no objective meaning" with "no meaning at all". He completely dismisses the idea that (gasp!) Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus might have been wrong, and most shockingly, he doesn't even directly connect the existence of a god to the solution of these problems (most issues of meaning and value Craig connects to the concept of an afterlife, or eternal justice, or cosmic consequences, none of which require a god).
But why think that there's anything like eternal justice in a godless world? Who or what would supply eternal justice?
It's very obvious that a God and divine judgement system means there is objective meaning to life.
@@opanpro9772 How? This seems a non sequitur at best, and maybe even flat-out contradictory: if meaning is derived from a subject, then it's subjective (that's what subjective means). If God is a subject (i.e., not an object), then a system of meaning grounded in him is, by definition, subjective.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros Well, no; I think my judgements there are fairly objective. That said, it's worth pointing out that "meaning" is more likely to be subjective than objective (depending on how you use that word). Judging art is usually subjective, but can have deep meaning. Counting numbers is usually objective, but often not very meaningful.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros Judging art, I'd say. Meaning is pretty subjective: what is meaningful to you might not be meaningful to me, and there's not really an empirical way of determining just how meaningful something is.
WRONG