Does Life Have Meaning?

[Blue]

That which is relative becomes irrelevant.

 

I would advise caution here as most things in the word are relative, but the speed of light in vacuum.

 

Regards

 

Indeed. In a seemingly probabilistic, relativistic world, one would be cautioned against advocating absolute deterministic truth.

 

But a relative opinion is relative even to itself. There must be some objectivity or else nothing could function.

[Vapymid]

Surely, belief is an antithesis to objectivity, by definition. It is subjective, hence relative.

 

Regards

[Blue]

Surely, belief is an antithesis to objectivity, by definition. It is subjective, hence relative.

 

Regards

Reason and Faith are mutually inclusive, and everything is faith at the deepest level.

[Wheatley]

But a relative opinion is relative even to itself. There must be some objectivity or else nothing could function.

 

I think you may have misunderstood, I wasn't referring to opinion but the universe itself. Two objects with two velocities traveling in space will appear to have different velocities depending on which frame of reference you use. There is no fundamentally correct frame, each of them are equally valid. Space and time are fundamentally relativistic. In a universe where one thing is "true" when you're at point A, and another thing is "true" at point B, it's impossible to reach a single, absolute truth.

 

Surely, belief is an antithesis to objectivity, by definition. It is subjective, hence relative.

 

Regards

Reason and Faith are mutually inclusive, and everything is faith at the deepest level.

 

In the terms of whether or not we can trust our basic experiences, it is true that we must assume we can since we have no way of proving we can, but after the initial assumption faith and empiricism diverge. In order to divulge an objective meaning of life, assumptions must be made in lieu of evidence. This is the defining feature of faith. Whether or not you believe this to be a good thing is a different matter.

[Blue]

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In the terms of whether or not we can trust our basic experiences, it is true that we must assume we can since we have no way of proving we can, but after the initial assumption faith and empiricism diverge. In order to divulge an objective meaning of life, assumptions must be made in lieu of evidence. This is the defining feature of faith. Whether or not you believe this to be a good thing is a different matter.

 

I believe it perfectly.

Faith follows facts.

Feelings follow faith.

 

This is why it is so very reassuring that Jesus doesn't say "JUST BELIEVE :D" he says evaluate; see; think. Make the assumption based upon evidence.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into a fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV)

 

It doesn't say "Just hope in the father", no, it says "CONSIDER" the lilies. Think about what God does for [you] and it becomes a reasonable evidence in God's provision. But of course this whole statement presupposes the understanding that God provides.

 

But going from the "Consider", or "Look", Jesus states here that one of the most important aspects of Faith is reason and evidence.

 

Now of course that brings the argument to the matter of evidence. [in context of Christianity] Many take and ignore the substantial evidence that exists that supports intelligent design and the historical evidence of the life of Christ, and simply latch on to the fact that God the Father does not materially evidence his personal self, as if that single faith step was a large enough gap to rend all of the belief in Christianity into delusion and illogical folly.

[Vapymid]

the substantial evidence that exists that supports intelligent design

 

Hmmm, and just what that might be? But most importantly, how is the idea of "intelligent design" relevant to the question of whether God exists or not?

 

Of secondary importance is how a bit of common sense advice like "do what you think is right today and tomorrow will take care of itself, don't be afraid - look, the lily is not afraid and it's doing OK, even though it occasionally finds itself in a fire..." can be seen as proof that faith follows facts?

 

Faith originates from lack of facts. Once you establish the premises of your faith you can use facts to strengthen it by interpreting them to fit your faith.

 

The observation by JC which you quoted might just as easily have been used by Prof. Dawkins to suggest something like "just look at the lily - the natural laws let it grow, reproduce and die without any worry about how it should move from one state to the other. So, live as you think you should today and think about tomorrow tomorrow, the laws of nature will take care of you".

 

Regards

[Wheatley]

Now of course that brings the argument to the matter of evidence. [in context of Christianity] Many take and ignore the substantial evidence that exists that supports intelligent design and the historical evidence of the life of Christ, and simply latch on to the fact that God the Father does not materially evidence his personal self, as if that single faith step was a large enough gap to rend all of the belief in Christianity into delusion and illogical folly.

 

I've heard of two distinct beliefs that have been called intelligent design. The first is essentially a rebranded form of Creationism, i.e. young earth, Noah's flood, no evolution, etc., and the other is some form of universal guidance, i.e. god "designed" the natural world and guided evolution and all other processes. I'm going to assume you're referring to something similar to the latter.

 

When it comes to the bible, thousands of historians, linguists, and theologians have bantered about whether it requires faith for centuries. Without significant archeological, historical, and linguistic citations, a discussion on this probably won't be too productive.

 

In terms of a god having designed everything, which facts have you constructed this hypothesis from? What evidence is there for this?

 

However, a deeper issue here is that even if a designer god or creator god existed, how can we draw not only the conclusion that it matches the description of a religion at all, let alone that it matches a specific variant of Christianity? What is seemingly a single step of faith becomes an array of assumptions that every other religion and variant (not to mention all of the possibilities that aren't a part of organized religions) is wrong and this particular one is right, on top of the assumptions already made.

 

Every group claiming to have an objective meaning of life has presented roughly the same amount of evidence. This is the reason why in science a hypothesis has to have predictive capability; there are a potentially infinite number of hypotheses with no predictive capability. If you have a potentially infinite number of contradictory claims that all have the same level of evidence, the choice between them is basically subjective.

[Blue]

the substantial evidence that exists that supports intelligent design

Faith originates from lack of facts. Once you establish the premises of your faith you can use facts to strengthen it by interpreting them to fit your faith.

 

Is it a faith step to get into an airplane and trust that it can take you somewhere?

[Vapymid]

Is it a faith step to get into an airplane and trust that it can take you somewhere?

 

Oh, no - but you answered it yourself. It's trust.

 

Trust in design, technology, manufacturer's QA processes, fuel quality control procedures, airline safety management systems, pilots' training, air-traffic controllers' competence, hi-jackers' and terrorists' stupidity... Trust supported by knowledge of what is involved and the statistics of past events. No faith involved whatsoever.

 

Regards

 

P.S. I'm an aircraft materials engineer by education - so, maybe this was not a fair example

[BTGBullseye]

I think you may have misunderstood, I wasn't referring to opinion but the universe itself. Two objects with two velocities traveling in space will appear to have different velocities depending on which frame of reference you use. There is no fundamentally correct frame, each of them are equally valid. Space and time are fundamentally relativistic. In a universe where one thing is "true" when you're at point A, and another thing is "true" at point B, it's impossible to reach a single, absolute truth.

Sorry to backtrack so much, but I have to take this part on...

 

If something is true, it won't stop being true simply because you view it from a different angle, and see something else that is also true. Both are true, but you only see one truth from each angle.

 

I could turn this into a long-winded philosophical post, but I'm not going to.

[Wheatley]

Sorry to backtrack so much, but I have to take this part on...

 

If something is true, it won't stop being true simply because you view it from a different angle, and see something else that is also true. Both are true, but you only see one truth from each angle.

 

I could turn this into a long-winded philosophical post, but I'm not going to.

 

Rather than try to explain relativity myself, I would suggest this video. This guy has an entire series on the subject, but the first few minute of this video should explain the basic concept I'm talking about.

Basically, yes, every reference frame is "true", but they are only true to themselves, so to speak, and can contradict each other. This doesn't seem to be one absolute truth viewed from two angles, but several equally true yet possibly contradictory truths created by the same phenomena.

 

Oh, no - but you answered it yourself. It's trust.

 

Trust in design, technology, manufacturer's QA processes, fuel quality control procedures, airline safety management systems, pilots' training, air-traffic controllers' competence, hi-jackers' and terrorists' stupidity... Trust supported by knowledge of what is involved and the statistics of past events. No faith involved whatsoever.

 

Almost exactly my response. If it took faith to get on a plane, I doubt I would have ever boarded one.

[BTGBullseye]

They may look contradictory, but in reality they aren't.

[Wheatley]

What is reality? It sounds like you're trying to hint at a privileged frame of reference, but the entire point of relativity is that each frame is reality, and none are more "real" than the others. Space is essentially a series of relationships between masses, and time is a series of relationships between events. These relationships can be expressed mathematically, and the math gave predictions that accounted for inaccuracies in our models of physics, and also predicted something rather odd; our satellite clocks have to be adjusted for gravitational time dilation because they sit further away from the Earth's gravity.

 

This doesn't mean that reality is subjective, but it does mean that reality is fundamentally not one strict, correct frame that shows how everything "really" happens. The big problem relativity has is compatibility with quantum mechanics, however quantum theory has it's own implications about how accurate our intuitive perception of the universe is.

[BTGBullseye]

You're intentionally missing the point.

[Wheatley]

To be honest I was and still am unsure as to what your point is. It seems like you're trying to out-philosophize a scientific theory, which is rather like trying to outrun the Washington Monument (to put it your way, missing the point). The reason I brought up relativity is because it was suggested that relative things are irrelevant, so I sought to point out that literally everything in the universe is relative (except for c )

 

That being said, perhaps you could clarify?

[BTGBullseye]

It is only what you see that changes, but what IS does not change, no matter what you see... It may appear to be conflicting facts, but if they truely are facts, then they can't truly conflict. Your viewpoint is the only thing relative.

[Humin]

I should answer this one.

Life just happened. So it is up to us to construct meaning out of it, big or small.

[Wheatley]

It is only what you see that changes, but what IS does not change, no matter what you see... It may appear to be conflicting facts, but if they truely are facts, then they can't truly conflict. Your viewpoint is the only thing relative.

 

There is one phenomenon, yes, but the details of the phenomenon actually do change based on your frame of reference. If I'm in space and an object comes soaring past me, from my frame of reference it would be perfectly accurate for me to say that I am at rest and this object has velocity, but from the frame of the object, it is correct to say that I have velocity and this object is at rest. There is no way to physically determine which is actually the case, so we have to conclude both are correct statements, even though taken together, both I and the object simultaneously are at rest and have a velocity. This isn't merely some sort of illusion.

Space are time aren't actual things, all they are is the relationship between events and objects, and the relationship something has with another thing changes with regards to the observational position you take. Since the relationships are actually changing, spacetime changes based on your frame of reference.

 

Again, the video series I linked to has a much more in-depth analysis of the subject, so if you haven't already I'd suggest viewing a couple of them.

[Humin]

And this is where the idea of the nonexistent centrifugal force came from.

[BTGBullseye]

It is only what you see that changes, but what IS does not change, no matter what you see... It may appear to be conflicting facts, but if they truely are facts, then they can't truly conflict. Your viewpoint is the only thing relative.

 

There is one phenomenon, yes, but the details of the phenomenon actually do change based on your frame of reference. If I'm in space and an object comes soaring past me, from my frame of reference it would be perfectly accurate for me to say that I am at rest and this object has velocity, but from the frame of the object, it is correct to say that I have velocity and this object is at rest. There is no way to physically determine which is actually the case, so we have to conclude both are correct statements, even though taken together, both I and the object simultaneously are at rest and have a velocity. This isn't merely some sort of illusion.

Space are time aren't actual things, all they are is the relationship between events and objects, and the relationship something has with another thing changes with regards to the observational position you take. Since the relationships are actually changing, spacetime changes based on your frame of reference.

 

Again, the video series I linked to has a much more in-depth analysis of the subject, so if you haven't already I'd suggest viewing a couple of them.

You either didn't understand what I said, or you just ignored the meaning of the words. That may partly have been my fault.

 

You are assuming that at least one of the objects is not moving just because you are viewing form one of the object's positions, but if each look like they're moving, then logically each could be moving or only one could be moving. There could even bee a gravity well passing by distorting your view of a stationary object making it look like it's moving, even if it isn't.

 

It may appear to be a fact from your current viewpoint, but if you state a false fact instead of what the fact actually is... ("That object is moving, this object is not" VS. "That object appears to be moving in relation to this object")