to me finding meaning is a way to alleviate suffering,

“I don’t see a way disadvantage, in the sense, you outline can be removed from this issue.”

nor I, but I like your point about turning towards others.

I also agree that there is much that can be difficult to our coming to God, but this is not excluded. I suppose in this sense we are all disadvantaged and my role is to remove as much disadvantage as possible. so i can agree, but it is not a trong enough argument to show that this is wrong. It merely compels me to turn toward others. I don’t see a way disadvantage, in the sense, you outline can be removed from this issue.

There are some who would not have the opportunity in this life to negotiate with God, some do not know of God, others have not developed the relationship with God to negotiate sufficiently and sadly a few are so badly treated at such a young age as to destroy all confidence in even turning to a God who stood by and allowed such atrocities to happen.

I believe Christ when he said “ask and ye shall receive” however there are issues with this, that I can’t resolve.

I agree that meaning can’t be found in all suffering and perhaps all we can do is turn to God, but to be honest opinions and teachings like blake’s #2 only cause greater suffering for those who seek to find meaning to their pain.

I don’t think that suffering can always make you stronger, better more faithful, if that was the case you would find GA’s to be the most unfortunates souls on the planet.

regarding RANDOMNESS:

I’m not sure what I believe on this point; I believe that we chose some portion of this life, inc opportunity’s & trials, however there is also some part of me that feels much comes down to fortune & misfortune, Rico spoke of a negotiation in this life, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.

If the requirement is for us to negotiate with God it simply does not provide an opportunity to those who have received a disadvantaged life, either mollycoddled church involvement or atheistic upbringing.

Blake, sorry to be a pain but you did not respond to my question in #30 & #34. I completely agree with your argument in #39.

E.g, I can choose to move my arm, but if I am paralyzed I cannot translate my choice into action. I am still free with respect to that choice. However, if what I do is the result of events outside my control, say random neural events in my brain, then it seems rather clear to me that I am neither responsible nor free. After all, I don’t even know about the neural activity and it isn’t directly within my control.

BTW I agree with Rico in # 38.

You know, so often, we think of prayers as 1) we ask God questions, then 2) He gives us answers, or stuff, or blessings. We never see it the other way around.

I should therefore also add that when I made the comment about randomness I had the first definition in mind, in part. If we accept that we ‘find’ meaning we must also leave the possibility that sometimes we cannot ‘find’ meaning in a specific action, even though there was a reason for the actor. I may not understand why someone rapes for example. What resists meaning therefore becomes random, to an extent. I acknowledge that this is placed at the subjective level, but this is where we seem to live out our experience here. I assume that Blake’s view of randomness excludes the first definition because God is aware and understands these processes.

But for me then this still leaves the question I asked above, If Blake accepts quantum unpredictability what, if any, impact does this have upon the lives that we live, or is it something that God alone deals with?

In fact, even stuff like quantum indeterminism COULD be absolutely deterministic, and the factors making the determination are beyond our capacity to understand, test, detect, or keep track of, therefore they just appear indeterministic to us.

So when I say “predictable” I mean in a real or objective sense. Not necessarily predictable for humans.

I’m having a hard time understanding the difference in quantum unpredictability and randomness. Randomness can mean multiple things and I wonder if they aren’t being confused. Randomness can mean “having no definite aim or purpose,” but in a statistical sense can mean “governed by equal chance according to some distribution.”

@Arthur #31
I think I get your point, but it’s oversimplified especially when talking about randomness. Every process has error and/or noise in it. While it might take x amount of hydrogen to get a yellow dwarf in one system, it will take a slightly different amount in another. Physics makes generalizations based on averages, but the equations will most definitely be different in a real system. Or rather, any equation modeling something in real life will include a noise term that represents a probabilistic distribution. Matter is as unpredictable as anything can be, it’s just that we like to make nice tidy generalizations that tend to work most of the time and package them up as equations that make it feel predictable.

@Blake
If randomness is defined in the second way, then I don’t see how assigning our acts as “random” takes away free choice?
Also

I would add that having alternatives among which to choose and free will is a far cry from randomness.

I’m not following here either. Since the number of alternatives is infinite (for all intents and purposes) and if we assign these to any sort of probability distribution, this is the very definition of randomness. Economists have been modelling human decision making for years using probability distributions. However, I suppose if by “random” you mean “without purpose” then I can see your point.

I certainly agree with your position that we can choose to find good in these experiences and turn them for our good, and my previous post on this issue tried to argue for this. Also arguing that we cannot ‘find’ that meaning for someone else, which where me and Andrew S seemed to talk past each other a little bit.

I find that when talking about philosophical concepts on blogs, especially concepts as ambiguous as the term meaning, it’s better to reference someone else’s ideas that have been fleshed out in several volumes and neatly summarized rather than try to muddle through in bite-sized colloquies, each time guessing as to your interlocutor’s background and scope of knowledge.

It is also crucial to note that I don’t believe in a naturalistic universe. I believe in a universe shot through with mind and teleology — and purposeful action. Humans act for end-driven reasons. Such end-driven reasoning cannot be explained by mere reference to prior events as naturalism seeks to do. In fact, the human mind seems to be an intrusion into the natural order to come up with all kinds of things that cannot be explained without reference to purpose and order that are not merely random. E.g. landing the Apollo 11 on the moon was not a random act that occurred as a result of natural laws merely causing it to fly there.

Andrew: “You question whether someone can coherently be an atheist and find that joy is meaningful, but to me, it seems you haven’t shown anything to the contrary.”

I have no desire to show anything to the contrary since I am a theist and believe that the atheist finds joy meaningful by failing to pay attention to the logical implications of naturalistic atheism — that on such a view the joy is a mere biological event that ultimately has no meaning and is, when seen in light of the implications of the position, a tragedy because all joy will be snuffed out and end in the heat death or wimper of the universe — and presently has no more meaning than that death. Now I sound like Heidegger.

Further, you’re missing the point of the entire post. The question isn’t whether we can find meaning in joy, but in the seeming surd evils that confront us and seem to be, for all that we can see on the surface of it, simple random acts of tragedy and victimization. It is this reality of unspeakable evil that remains without meaning in the atheist world view because it resists redemption and ultimate justice or resolution.

Nate: You are right that Andrew sounds very Sartrean — but he hasn’t grasped the tragedy of “throwness” and meaninglessness that Sartre did. I am neither continental nor analytic — I’ve studied them both and tend to use whichever best gets at the issues I address.

#1 – I am glad there was something useful in it. But it is Levinas really and not me.

#3 – I would never congratulate myself on losing anyone.

“No, meaning cannot be found. The personal meanings that people find are illegitimate because they did not come from God, but I won’t tell someone that they are deceived in case they have come up with a meaning.” (Andrew S) I think you have the wrong end of the stick, what I was arguing was that there was no objective (god-did-it) meaning. Rather the meaning is something we discover, although what I have written here for me suggests something a little different, even though I don’t think what I wrote previously was incorrect, just poorly phrased.

#20 – Blake, when you wrote that ‘the order of the universe is the result of a mind-driven and end-driven purpose that is explained by teleological purposes’ is suggests that you leave no scope for randomness in the universe, whereas I got the impression that this was something that you were willing to accept. Am I wrong (perhaps I inferred this from the idea of contingent omniscience)? If you do accept this randomness, then this would suggest to me at least that an ontologically naturalistic paradigm would have to be used to interpret such events. The problem we face, of couse, is that we can never know what is random and what is intended, and therefore we try to develop a framework that deals with everything. This would suggest that at times Andrew S approach could be combined with your approach. But on the other hand, if you don’t accept randomness then I will have to go and re-read.

But thanks again for all the comments.

Just curious–I know you are very knowledgeable about philosophy. Do you tend to fall on the analytic or continental side of the divide? I only ask this because Andrew S.’s formulation and usage of terms seems to follow a very Sartrean formulation (see, e.g., <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm"this essay). I am just wondering if the two of you are using the same words to mean different things because of differences in your respective backgrounds.

Arthur,

no, I have to admit I’m totally outclassed here. Blake here probably suspects strongly that I am an idiot and is taking mercy on me (…better than I can say about some people I converse with v_v). I am just really intrigued that Blake and I, on the surface, seem to have similar views, but they are also so starkly different. I will have to think about it.

I do think we all are speaking past each other. The thing that you talk about, this idea of your “soul” being filled with darkness when you consider the idea that God doesn’t exist…you’re right, I don’t understand it. It’s all Arabic to me, haha. Instead, what I see is this: trying to make God fit into this universe seems like a tremendous lie to myself. It feels like I’m trying to be untrue to everything I’ve seen, felt, experienced, and am. That is what makes me miserable. That is what is bleak to me. I tried doing that for years in the church. The trouble with Santa is that, for as long as people are serious about Santa, it is miserable trying to figure him out. It doesn’t seem right; it doesn’t seem plausible; it doesn’t seem believable. Trying to force myself to believe in it is torture. And yet, I have to grapple with the fact that everyone else around seems to believe in him deeply. The only break is *when* people start admitting that they didn’t believe Santa was real. When people finally admitted, “Oh, Santa doesn’t exist,” it was a great relief. “Oh, so things make sense after all!”

The thing that bothers me is that obviously, theism is not quite like Santa. People aren’t just “pretending” to believe for some social function (well, some are, but these aren’t the true believers). People who have these experiences genuinely believe in them and genuinely believe that their interpretation of them as being spiritual makes sense.

So honestly, I don’t want to do anyone to those people with genuine experiences. But I want to reach out to people who are miserable…who are living an internal lie, whichever way it may be…and say they don’t have to do that.

If that must be “incoherent” or whatever, then I have to side with incoherence. And if I have to face some god at some point and account, I will take whatever comes with it.

Blake,

You have been speaking of naturalism…then of atheism…then of naturalism…then of something else. You want to lump all of these together (as if one necessitates the other), and I’m simply saying that that is not necessarily the case. However, in each case, I have gone along with the connotations in definitions that you’ve made. But what I’m thinking is that you have another connotation which you haven’t quite stated outright and which isn’t inherent in either naturalism or atheism.

You question whether someone can coherently be an atheist and find that joy is meaningful, but to me, it seems you haven’t shown anything to the contrary.

With relationship to D&C 88 and God’s organization, the question then becomes what is God’s level of knowledge and expertise versus ours? I can grant that the LDS God has such an astoundingly greater level of knowledge and expertise so that he can do things that “no mere human” can currently do. However, this doesn’t quite reach the level of supernaturality, whatever the case is. It seems to me to suggest a very educated, very progressed natural being…but if you want to interpret it as supernatural, I guess there’s nothing stopping you. The church actually seems surprisingly naturalistic and perhaps even materialistic to me though.