This is reality in a universe without God: there is no hope; there is no purpose. It reminds me of T.S. Eliot’s haunting lines:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.What is true of mankind as a whole is true of each of us individually: we are here to no purpose. If there is no God, then our life is not fundamentally different from that of a dog.
— William Lane Craig
I heard this quote recently, and I immediately thought, it’s also not fundamentally different from that of a god. If God is the “uncaused first cause,” then his life has no higher purpose. There is no “reason” for him to exist. In fact, when you really get down to it, the best reason for God to exist is to explain our own existence. Doesn’t that minimize his importance when you look at it that way? So many of the arguments for God really come down to saying:
We’re so magnificent and complex, we simply can’t be an accident! There must be some reason for our being here! So if we exist, God must exist.
Talk about arrogance! We think so highly of ourselves that we insist the Universe was created for us. But this insistence creates an interesting problem. It claims that we’re so amazing, we deserve to have a higher power interested in us. But this higher power doesn’t deserve the same thing?
If our lives are empty and meaningless without God, what does it say about God’s existence? Wouldn’t his be just as meaningless and empty?
On the other hand, if we say his existence isn’t meaningless because he infuses it with his own meaning and purpose, why couldn’t that same thing be true of us? Instead of having a purpose given to us, we make our own.
Matt Dillahunty of The Atheist Experience answered the issue this way:
You know, to put it simply, I guess this whole line of argument really just seems like wishful thinking to me. Am I missing something? Do you think the “higher purpose” argument is convincing to many people?
Finding Truth 
Hi Dave,
I hear what your saying, and I do think that other animals express their own forms of language.
I mean, communication also extends to vibrations, colours and smells (grasshoppers, birds, snakes, bears ect).
But has any of these animals on this planet, despite their diverse abilities, managed to have mapped out the DNA of other animals?
Why do we as humans seem so alien?
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Only humans catagorise animals and chemically preserve for years, not to eat, but to study….
That’s really weird,
If that’s animal behaviour…then it’s exclusively human, and shares no commonality with any other animal on earth.
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Some social psychologists consider one measure of self-awareness, the ability to recognize oneself in the mirror. Apes have been found to be able to do that. Some birds, for example have been found to attempt to court the image they see, while others peck aggressively at it.
Regardless of our ability to explain it, or any of the other items on your list, there’s no reason to cram a god into that gap.
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Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Why do we go to such great lengths to try and figure things out? Good question Ryan.
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“Why is it that we are the only creatures on this planet that document other lifeforms?”
Until we are able to interpret whalesongs, I can’t say that we are. For all we know, they are reciting word-of-mouth history/fables, much as ancient Hebrews did for thousands of years before some Bronze Age priests got the idea of writing it down. And there was certainly a time, slightly more than three thousand year ago, out of a possible 3 million, when we couldn’t do that either.
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“And may I add, what animals out there reword their responses –”
Until we can understand their languages, we will never know. And they do have languages – for example, I grew up around cardinals, because of their beauty, they quickly became my favorite bird. As a child, I learned to imitate their call. I am surrounded by them where I live now, but the call of these birds is entirely different from that of the ones I grew up with – clearly, though the exact same species but separated by distance, they have evolved a different language, just as Mak’s native tongue is Luo, and mine, English.
I have a question for you Portal – for how long have we NOT been able to do all of these magnificent things, versus how long we have? If you had visited this planet from another world only a hundred thousand years ago – a mere drop in the bucket of Time – what would you have reported back to your multi-tentacled friends, to have been Earth’s dominant species? And upon what basis would you have arrived at that conclusion?
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portal,
As much as the things you mention are astounding, the human person believes she is special because of the things they have done. Many are the times I wish I could explain why we do these things.
Have you sat by a muddy riverbed to listen to the singsong of frogs when the water is disturbed.
Every time I read about this exceptionalism, I wonder if the person asking this question has asked themselves how many times we try to copy the method of construction as used by the ant in constructing an anthill or a beehive.
And am tempted also to enumerate the many things that humans do that would make other animals blush. We are animals, the difference is only in degree not in kind.
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Anthropologists tell us that there was a time, little more than a hundred thousand years ago, when the entire human population on earth was divided between two small groups, of roughly a thousand persons each, huddled on the Southern and Eastern coasts of Africa, living on fish and crustaceans – how successful would we have seemed then as a species, as seen by outside observers? What odds would they have given, that one day we would dominate the planet and fly to the moon?
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“And am tempted also to enumerate the many things that humans do that would make other animals blush.”
Mark Twain once wrote, “Man is the only animal that blushes – or has any need to.“
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And I think he was right. I like that guy
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I hope that one day our descendants will be way more advanced and think that flying to the moon was a very minor feat.
Ryan, I am reading through some of the theories on what causes curiosity. You may find some of this interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity
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It’s all about uncommitted cerebral cortex. So far in this discussion, the porpoise and the octopus have been ignored. They set a pretty high standard for intelligence and as for communication, we haven’t even begun to understand the porpoise.
If you really want to understand consciousness, then it might be useful for you all to read “A User’s Guide to the Brain” by Dr. John Ratey. If you want to understand the brain tools humans use, then you should get your own copy of “Your Natural Gifts” by Margaret Broadley, describing the 19 inherited talents. If you want to understand morality, it will be quite useful to acquire “Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Revels about Morality” by Dr. Laurence Tancredi.
Of course, things go wrong with the human brain. That’s the way it is with extremely complex technology. If you want to understand that, you should take a peek at “Shadow Syndromes” by Dr. John Ratey and Dr. Catherine Johnson. Or you could just buy the DSM5.
For the ultimate understanding of modern corporate culture (along with the religious Cult Corporate), you can’t go wrong in reading “Moral Mazes” by Robert Jackall, supplemented by “Without Conscience” by Dr. Robert Hare and “Snakes in Suits” by Dr. Paul Babiak and Dr. Robert Hare. If you want to guard against the described human aberrations, then you can’t go wrong with “Life Code” by Dr. Phil. If you want to recover from said aberrations, then follow the advice of Janja Lalich and Madelein Tobias in “Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships”.
Until you all have an opportunity to absorb these resources, there is little point for further discussion because we won’t have any common ground to hold meaningful discourses (only opportunities to render factless opinions).
Oh, and by the way, if you want to have religious discussions, you’d better learn the material in “Why Faith Fails: The Christian Delusion” edited by John W. Loftus.
I know, I know. Nobody reads any more. It feels more intelligent to think you’re multitasking over the Internet when in fact too much exposure actually significantly reduces attention span and concentration, but hey! If it feels like you’re making progress and feeling brilliant, then optimizing the dopamine levels is all that counts, right?
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Sorry, what was that again? Afraid I wasn’t paying attention —
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Hey Ryan,
I think you have some great questions. I thought a lot of the responses were similar to the things I’d say. Regarding differences between animals and humans, here is a book I have on my reading list that may give you more good info: “The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals”. I’ve seen it recommended by others online. Also, I’ve heard from online courses that our frontal lobe of our brain is a major distinction from other animals which may be a large source of differences, but I’m no expert. I’ve also read a lot of articles indicating that the many things which we thought long ago were unique to humans have recently been found to exist in some other species, and that is still something that is changing as we continue to learn and investigate. But obviously there seems to be clear differences at least in magnitude, but I wonder sometimes if it is only in magnitude and not in specific categories of function. Our recent addition of a puppy into our home has actually given me more of a respect for similarities rather than differences, but again that’s not saying there are no differences.
All of the questions you’ve listed are active fields within science and philosophy, so as Black Ops suggested you’ve gut a multitude of books to get you at least a start at some answers. Some of the details within these questions that we don’t have definitive answers to yet are just that – i.e. “questions that we don’t have definitive answers to yet”. 🙂
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Every week that goes by, it seems that scientific research finds that our animal friends (especially our domestic companions) have a lot more than we’ve given them credit for.
Just HOW did that cat dial 9-1-1 when its owner was in severe distress? If you think about it, the feline would have to know some how to knock the phone off the hook and then use its little kitty paws to press 9, then 1 and then 1.
Of course we could say that the cat was just practicing self-preservation because if the owner died, who’d take care of the cat?
Just sayin’.
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Great book suggestions, Mikey — thanks!
Ryan,
I agree that you’ve posed some good questions; however, we need to remember that we’ve discovered a number of links between us and the other animals. While our intelligence (and opposable thumbs) have helped us advance technologically, other humans, like Neanderthals and Denisovans, would likely be as advanced if they hadn’t died off. So we may not be as much of an aberration as it would initially seem. If all the links between us and chimps were still around, we might not feel quite so special.
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“Neanderthals and Denisovans, would likely be as advanced if they hadn’t died off”
Watched an interesting BBC documentary last week that offered some interesting theories as to why that happened – one of which, feminists are not going to be too crazy about. According to the documentary, Neanderthals had occupied Europe for centuries before Cro-Magnon arrived and basically had the home court advantage. But socially, they were isolationists, operating in small bands of 20-30 and not being particularly social, even among other groups of their own species, whereas our species was more gregarious. Thus, when new ideas came along, they spread quickly among our species, whereas among Neanderthals, new ideas and/or inventions remained within the tribe.
The second, and equally important reason, was the division of labor – women staying home, raising children, picking berries and digging for edible roots meant that even when our guys came home empty-handed with stories about the one that got away, they at least had SOMEthing to eat, even if it wasn’t meat.
That process led to the idea of barter – services for services – among the various tribes, then to bartering goods for goods, and ultimately to an economic system that the anti-social Neanderthals lacked.
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That’s really interesting.
And since we’re on the subject, I was surprised a couple of years ago when I found out that most of us actually have some Neanderthal DNA.
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Gee, those neanderthals remind me of a certain group of people that are around today.
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Aren’t the Neaderthals a kinder, gentler, peace keeping, family oriented, rational being?
Those with their DNA just don’t fit in to modern society.
They must be killed off to make way for progress.
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“most of us actually have some Neanderthal DNA – Some more than others, my son-in-law, for example —
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“Aren’t the Neaderthals a kinder, gentler, peace keeping, family oriented, rational being?” – Clearly you haven’t met my son-in-law. Think King Kong on steroids, with a toothache —
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AND a hangover –!
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You didn’t say that your son-in-law had Neaderthal DNA.
And even if he did, it’s clear the homo sapiens DNA is winning out.
The anger / warrior genes have an evolutionary advantage in the survival of the fittest and natural selection.
One wonders though, if your daughter’s choice in husbands was natural selection or something else entirely.
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Just remember, once again, that alcoholism is a sex linked inherited trait of a disorder of the liver making it improperly metabolizing alcohol — from DNA inherited through the mother.
On the other hand, insanity is genetic: It’s passed from the children to the parents.
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