Again, I'm not sure how, on your view, a person who accepts that there are transcendent values or who believes life has meaning and purpose acts/anticipates differently to one who does not. Remember that the question is how atheists' actions/anticipations give the lie to their words.
Assuming there are differences in anticipation, I think to accept that these differences show that atheists are inconsistent, I'd have to accept both that atheism entails that there are no transcendent values or that our lives are meaningless and purposeless and that theism (or some theism, at least) entails the opposite (if the latter isn't true, then the question of values or meaning is orthogonal to the theism/atheism axis).
I think for the "transcendent values" one, I'm not sure what the "transcendent" part means. I don't think atheism entails that all values are subjective, for example (at least in some senses of the word, see Maitzen vs the Atheist Missionary, in the comments) since there are ways for their truth conditions to depend on facts about humans.
The meaning and purpose one is trickier as I'm even less sure what that means. As John D says, people like Craig tend to abandon their carefully numbered formal arguments in favour of free-form rhetoric here, so I'm just not sure what the argument that atheism entails no meaning/purpose actually is (John D has a go at reconstructing one). I think I'd go with Maitzen (On God and Our Ultimate Purpose) in saying that theism doesn't do better here: if you learn that the purpose (the transcendant purpose, even) for your life is to provide CO2 for God's plants, is your life then meaningful? How about if you learn that your purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever? It seems like it's always open to someone to say "why should I care about that?"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-05-16 09:51 am (UTC)Assuming there are differences in anticipation, I think to accept that these differences show that atheists are inconsistent, I'd have to accept both that atheism entails that there are no transcendent values or that our lives are meaningless and purposeless and that theism (or some theism, at least) entails the opposite (if the latter isn't true, then the question of values or meaning is orthogonal to the theism/atheism axis).
I think for the "transcendent values" one, I'm not sure what the "transcendent" part means. I don't think atheism entails that all values are subjective, for example (at least in some senses of the word, see Maitzen vs the Atheist Missionary, in the comments) since there are ways for their truth conditions to depend on facts about humans.
The meaning and purpose one is trickier as I'm even less sure what that means. As John D says, people like Craig tend to abandon their carefully numbered formal arguments in favour of free-form rhetoric here, so I'm just not sure what the argument that atheism entails no meaning/purpose actually is (John D has a go at reconstructing one). I think I'd go with Maitzen (On God and Our Ultimate Purpose) in saying that theism doesn't do better here: if you learn that the purpose (the transcendant purpose, even) for your life is to provide CO2 for God's plants, is your life then meaningful? How about if you learn that your purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever? It seems like it's always open to someone to say "why should I care about that?"