Re: Deconversion

Ken Down wrote:

[me:]
Why should I care more about what people think in a thousand years
than I do about things now? (After all, it's now that I'm actually
living my life.) And what is any more "real" about the world
a thousand years from now than about the world now?

[Ken:]
There is, perhaps, no reason why you should care,

Excuse me, but there's a little misrepresentation snuck in
there. The question I asked was why I should care *more*
about things a thousand years from now than I should about
things now. I entirely agree that I should care *somewhat*
about things later on. What I hoped you might explain is
why you apparently think that the meaning and purpose of
things done now depend on whether they'll matter in a
thousand years rather than on what effect they have now.

but that does not alter
the fact that life is meaningless if there is no God - or, if you find it
easier to grasp, everyday actions have meaning and significance if there is
a God.

I understand *that* you believe, or at least profess to
believe, that life is meaningless if there is no God. I
was hoping for some explanation of why.

Let me give another illustration: if you see someone suddenly smile and wave
their hand you will justifiably conclude that they are mad unless you
observe that there is another person smiling and waving back. Actions
meaningless in themselves acquire meaning because of the presence of another
person.

I most certainly will not conclude that they are mad, and
I most certainly would not be justified in so concluding.
They might be practicing for some upcoming encounter where
it will be tremendously important for them to appear
nonchalant and happy, and terribly difficult for them
to do so. They might be doing some sort of impromptu
scientific experiment. They might have mistaken some
trick of the light for someone they know. They might
even be having an encounter with some incorporeal being
visible to them alone.

If there is a God, then Albert Schweitzer was a saint because he helped to
alleviate the sufferings of God's creatures; if there is not a God then
Schweitzer was a dangerous fool: a fool because he gave up a glittering
career to bury himself in the jungle, dangerous because he contributed to
the world's over-population.

Twaddle. He was a saint, or something of the sort, whether or not
there is a God, because he put other people's well-being before
his own and did an enormous amount to help those other people.
It might turn out that he unwittingly did more harm than good
on account of overpopulation, of course, but that applies equally
whether there's a God or not.

If I help someone with their problems, or treat my wife well,
then that has value because those people matter.

Do they? In what way are *you* worse off because the Mongols massacred the
entire population of Samarkhand? In what way are *you* the better because
Carey went as a missionary to India? Feel free to substitute "the universe"
for "you".

Yes, they do. I have no idea what relevance your questions
about the Mongols and Carey have to the matter under discussion,
and I have no desire to change places with the universe.

If you think
otherwise, the only conclusion I can draw is that to you
people don't really matter.

They don't.

I consider that sentence sufficient refutation of your claim
to be (on account of being Christian) a better person than those
who are not Christians.

I'm sure the friends and relatives of that zebra killed
yesterday by lions in the Serengeti grieved in their zebra fashion for the
death, but does it really matter? People, according to the world view you
have embraced, are nothing more than another animal, of no more account than
ants or amoeba.

People are considerably more than ants or amoebae, because we
are capable of much more in the way of joy and sorrow and pleasure
and pain; and (I think, though perhaps it's controversial) also
because we are capable of other valuable things such as knowledge
and understanding and artistic creation and compassion. (But I'd
say that even ants and amoebae have *some* value.)

That's your affair; but it isn't a position I wish to adopt.
It seems to me intolerably nihilistic.

It is intolerably nihilistic - but then, you are the stern logician. I trust
you are not going to turn into a soppy atheist who evades the rigorous
conclusions of atheism in order to conform with the goody-goody attitudes
engendered by an outworn and false religion.

Nope. But I shall insist, um, sternly on my right not to have *you*
tell me what the rigorous conclusions of atheism are, since it
appears that what you like to call the rigorous conclusions of
atheism are in fact a set of straw men erected with the sole
purpose of making atheists and atheism look bad.

And I have my doubts
as to whether you really believe it; if you were suddenly
convinced somehow that Christianity is bunk, would you really
decide that other people don't matter? Or would you go on
valuing them roughly as you now do, and find other reasons?

Certain people matter to me - my wife, my children, for example. Other
people are eminently disposable: there's far too many of them, for one
thing.

I consider that sentence sufficient refutation of your claim
to be (on account of being Christian) a better person than those
who are not Christians.

--
Gareth McCaughan
..sig under construc
.

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