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From: za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Shove over and make room for God!
Message-ID: <3578@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>
Date: Fri, 12-Sep-86 00:48:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc3.3578
Posted: Fri Sep 12 00:48:32 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 05:47:33 EDT
References: <5160@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU> <194@BMS-AT.UUCP> <3683@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: za56@sdcc3.UUCP (Brian McNeill)
Followup-To: talk.origins
Distribution: na
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 47
Summary: Yet another point...

In article <3683@hplabsb.UUCP> bl@hplabsb.UUCP (Bruce T. Lowerre) writes:
>In article <194@BMS-AT.UUCP>, stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:
>> In article <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>, za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill) writes:
>> 
>> > This is because many people have always felt insecure without final
>> > meaning to their life.  . . .
>> > . . .           People have invented religion to give their lives
>> > meaning, to assuage their fear of death.
> 
>Also, man created God is his own image.
>

Quite...this seems to point out yet another shortcoming in the Xian
religion....its amazing hubris in assuming that there is a God who
looks after them, and indeed, created man in His own image...

>> a)	God does not exist and everything is meaningless.
>
>Why does the non-existance of God imply everything is meaningless.  I can
>believe everything will seem meaningless to the true believer when s/he
>learns the truth but not all is meaningless to the true atheist.  For him,
>the meaning of life is what he makes of it.

I quite agree...Xians tend to assume that without a God, everything
is meaningless...what we have here, I believe are differing
definitions of meaning.  I hold that while there can be no ABSOLUTE
meaning in the universe (with or without God!), there can be meaning
relative to other things.  (By the way, the reason why I believe
that meaning WITH God is no more absolute than sans God is through
the following chain of reason: If God created values and meaning,
than they are arbitrary, and thus are not ABSOLUTE, as He can change
them, or reset them, or anything...on the other hand, if meaning IS
capable of existing w/o God, ie, he did not create it, then you do 
not have yourself an omnipotent God there, and there must be yet
another layer behind it...either you have an infinite cycle, or
meaning is relative!)
I quite agree with the last statement...to an atheist, meaning is
what you give life, and nothing more.

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