That's the thing, though. The conclusions here aren't based on the truths of atheism and theism. They are based on the observations of what would be the case if said views were true.
They are conditionals: if P, then Q. What you seemed to be saying there was: if P is true then it would be true that "if P, then Q" which I take to be clearly false. The truth or falsehood of the belief are in no way related to the implications that belief has.
I don't know why your opinion differs on this and am yet to hear an account of that.
My only opinion is exactly that it's conditional. It's worth what it's worth.
I took your previous post in which you described Craig as winning the prize as you agreeing with the basic premise that on atheism we have no ultimate significance.
"All it seems to me that he's said is that if there is no God who can imbue ultimate significance to us then we won't have ultimate significance. If that's all there is, then he wins the prize and the conversation is over. "
Then you went on to question if there really is such a being as God which is what I am trying to show an independent question. Post #41.
Yeah, but you said "absurd" there. "Not significant" does not necessarily equal "absurd".
I'm not sure if that's what you're saying here, but I'm not arguing that we get significance from mere association with God in just any sense. After all, being created by him would be an association but clearly this doesn't grant us ultimate significance if our existence here is of no ultimate consequence (again the story of being erased by the universe etc).
Regardless, I've yet to see a demonstration of how it follows that because God doesn't enjoy ultimate significance, the concept of ultimate significance somehow becomes incoherent given how it is not a fundamentally theistic notion but is merely refered to as something that theism allegedly provides.
I'm trying to wrap my head around it. If the things we think grant us "ultimate" significance are based on something which itself lacks "ultimate significance", then do they really have it? I know you've said we can use different terms, and I've said it is some kind of significance. The question is really from whence the significance derives. If we have an eternal afterlife, for example, sure that bears some significance. But what does it mean in the end if God himself is not significant? Isn't it just based on our own perception of its importance to us?
Yes and those are the problems I'm trying to address. You framed your second objection in such a way that it focused on the description of ultimate significance I provided being somehow unfitting of the term "ultimate", thereby appealing to a standard which the description doesn't meet but is supposed to if it is to be labeled with that term. (At least I took you as saying that and you didn't object to me doing so.)
By presenting the problem as such, you've pointed at an alleged semantic error which I aimed to fix by applying a term that doesn't imply a sense of supremacy but retains the sense of scale such as "cosmic".
In doing so, your second objection no longer seems to apply as the significance as I've described it would clearly transcend the cosmos and therefore be worhy of the name. Likewise, God is significant in this sense as His existence has consequences on a cosmic scale.
My objection is really the same. Is it important just because it's cosmic? If you think so, that's fine. I still wonder what the ultimate importance of it is, in all seriousness. I don't think it was an accident that Craig used that term. What is it tied to, in the end?
The only other way I can see you run this objection would be if you were to question the value of being significant in this sense, but this would bring us to what I said in my first post and that is: you are free to dismiss it as unimportant as it seems to boil down to personal taste. This, however, is a matter of not being concerned with the implications of atheism rather than showing that atheism doesn't have these implications.
Anyone could have their own opinions about it, certainly. That's really it. I think it's ultimately subjective. Certainly we can say it's significance beyond our physical world, it involves an eternal afterlife, we'll be judged and such things. What does it all mean in the end though?
Well if he is to provide a reason it will result in an article like that.
Well, I don't think it's a good reason, as I've said. I know you won't like this but I'll even say it's circular as the argument is conditional on a belief. Is that then to be a reason for that very belief? Not in my book.
It may not be relevant to you, but it is relevant to the field which Craig is working in. My point was to show that Craig didn't do anything unheard of that isn't a norm, that there is no reason to find it off-putting beyond merely not liking the conclusions he reaches.
You know what's really ironic? A religious person objecting to an atheist making such statements. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard people say such things about the (blood dripping letters) "new athiests", I'd be rich! It's non-stop.
I'm not sure what knowledge you take him to be lacking aside from the fact that his conclusions will not pressure everyone who understands them. (In which case, as I said myself, I agree.)
I believe there are things which are beyond the scope of our knowledge, certainly currently. I'm comfortable saying I don't know about those things and find it silly to try to force certainty out of them. I guess you won't like this either, but it seems to me that that is what Craig tries to do.
