Landon Pontius

@P_Odrowaz we'll clearly you don't understand naturalism so maybe there's something here to surprise you, if you're open minded

@LandonPontius I could be interested in learning about your views, but I'm just already establishing the inevitable conclusion of what your views could be if they don't have a truly transcendent element.

There's nothing rare about you. You're a person who doesn't believe in a transcendent God, neither do you believe in life after death, and there's nothing that makes a clump of matter important except you saying so.

@thoughts17181 You’re just attacking a straw man. A naturalist worldview easily accommodates immaterial things, abstract ideas, moral truth, consciousness etc Not believing in god doesn’t make you a strict materialist.

Evil doesn't disprove God's existence, it at best proves God exists Atheists really have a lot of work to do. I'll keep educating you all IG : iamdanielodili

@P_Odrowaz It seems like you're being intentionally obtuse, and (correct me if I'm wrong) but you seem very uninterested in learning about views you don't understand. Again, I'm not here to force you to have a good faith discussion. IF that's not what you want, no sweat. cheers.

@LandonPontius How am I engaging?

@Quasy021 Thank you. p1: agree p2+p3: I'd argue universals are grounded in immutable nature that is not causally inert.

@LandonPontius Just means reality has a rational, knowable structure regardless of any human mind knowing it

P1. To argue, think, know, predicate, classify, count, or do science, one must presuppose objective intelligibility. P2. Objective intelligibility requires real universals: identity, difference, number, truth, logic, essence, relation, and order. P3. Real universals cannot be finally grounded in mutable matter, private mental states, social convention, or arbitrary language. P4. Real universals also cannot be finally grounded in causally inert abstract objects, because such objects cannot explain why reality is ordered by them or why minds can know them. P5. Therefore, universals must be grounded in an eternal, necessary, rational, living intellect. P6. This intellect must be the source of both unity and plurality, because intelligibility requires both sameness and difference. P7. If ultimate reality is pure undifferentiated oneness, plurality becomes illusion. If ultimate reality is sheer plurality, unity becomes illusion. If ultimate reality is impersonal, reason and truth are not personal or normative at the root. P8. The Christian Triune God alone grounds unity and plurality eternally: one essence, three persons, eternal Logos, eternal relation, eternal rational self-knowledge. Conclusion. Therefore, the Christian Triune God is the only adequate ground for intelligibility, universals, logic, truth, and rational knowledge. If reality is not grounded in the eternal Logos of the Triune God, then logic, universals, identity, and truth are either brute accidents, useful fictions, or causally dead abstractions. But the moment you argue, you treat them as objective and binding. Therefore every argument already borrows from the Logos it tries to deny.

@P_Odrowaz Then why not actively engage. I clearly don't fit the stereotypes you keep circling back to, but you won't engage because it doesn't fit your script.

@LandonPontius I have thought about it. You probably haven't thought of it as deeply.

@P_Odrowaz Thankfully, that does not follow. If meaning stops, that obviously means it existed. The fact that you're trying to assert Cosmic Meaning doesn't constrain these categories.

So in other words when all life ends in the universe meaning stops existing and consciousness is no more? That means meaning never really existed.

@P_Odrowaz can you help me understand how your view plays out practically? If you experience something that's important to you, or you have a "significant" other that you love, etc...do you think anything about that would change if God didn't exist? What role is he playing?

Importance, significance, reason for regardance. None of those exist if there is no God.

@P_Odrowaz None of those exist if you remove god from your worldview. They are easily accounted for in other ways though. Unless you're simply defining those as things that have to come from God, in which case you're just taking an idiosyncratic view.

@P_Odrowaz If it helps you to just assume I'm a rare kind of atheist that's fine, but I know many atheists that accept the existence of immaterial things...take platonists as a very famous example. So obviously it's possible to be an atheists but not a strict materialist

Except it is the same thing, unless you one of those spiritual atheists like Buddhist who believe in spirits and matter.

@P_Odrowaz Immaterial like concepts, mathematics etc I think the existence of consciousness is the one thing you cannot be wrong about. Hard to know where the bounds of consciousness are, I tend to think some form of panpsychism might be the case, but it could be emergent too.

Immaterial, like spirits? If you believe in consciousness, is it something that exists for one moment but stops existing and never exists again?

@P_Odrowaz For example, I am a naturalist, and nature is multidimensional: contains the material, immaterial, temporal, conscious, abstract etc

@P_Odrowaz I understand that is your understanding, I’m telling you that is false. Strict materialism and atheism are not the same thing. I have a view, and you have a view, why are you resistant to that framing? We’re comparing views.

Well if you're atheist, matter is all that exists. The existence of consciousness is questionable. "in my view" doesn't matter. I'm open to hearing your view, but remember that it is just your view.

@P_Odrowaz That’s helpful. What is meaning in your view? Beyond apparently needing to cosmic, objective, and eternal

Okay that bit on cosmic and objective after the sun burns out etc is spot on.

@P_Odrowaz Who said “everything is just matter” - you keep doing these stereotype assertions. Ethics are not an illusion in my view…so I’m not sure who you’re talking to. I’m happy to explain if you’re actually open to hearing my view.

But nothing is objective if everything is just matter. Ethics are an illusion in a godless universe. Nothing robust, nothing universal, nothing valuable except yourself.

@P_Odrowaz @FlyingHowitzer The judgments are objective, and do not rely on the “opinions” of others. Ethics are transjective (a combination of objective and subjective elements) - which is MUCH more robust, universal, and valuable than an “objective” theory based on authority

@LandonPontius @FlyingHowitzer Is it objective? Or does it rely on the subjective opinion of others?

If you live in a godless universe, you can't really criticize my morals because morals can't exist in your universe. I acknowledge that you might not like certain things you consider immoral, but immorality doesn't exist if there is no God.

@P_Odrowaz @Seano299 What do you mean by “meaning”? You seem to be equating it with something cosmic and objective, that exists after the sun burns out…and that seems like a category error…or at least a very narrow view

@Seano299 @LandonPontius Or you're diluting yourself into thinking that anything has meaning without a divine arbiter

@erichovind Is the collapse in the room with us right now?

Who's going to tell them?😬

@P_Odrowaz @Seano299 can you explain how you're using "meaning"? I'm not sure it makes sense that meaning is arbitrated by authority. Can your experience not have value without someone determining it for you? Strikes me as a bizarre stance unless you're just asserting an authoritarian system.