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Dan Dennett on creating meaning in life



Chris Johnson

Explore the meaning and joy of life with 100 atheists in this book of photos and commentary featuring Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Steven Pinker, Penn & Teller, Julia Sweeney, Alex Honnold, Derren Brown, and more!

A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy and Meaning in a World Without God will be released on January 1st, 2014.

It is now available for pre-order exclusively at: www.theatheistbook.com.

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38 thoughts on “Dan Dennett on creating meaning in life
  1. Your first premise seems to be claiming that for any object, the fact that it exhibits some property entails its exhibiting some other specific property. That's obviously nonsense.

  2. " How so That's obviously nonsense"

    Categorical Syllogism Symbolic predicate logic

    1. All humans are mortals. (∀x)(Hx ⊃ Mx)

    2. Socrates is a human. Hs (Universal Instantiation)

    3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal ∴Ms (1, 2 M.P.) [Modus Ponens]

    Mood and figure: valid and sound.

    Obviously, you don’t have a clue about logic or any thing else.

  3. Irrelevant. I can accept the premise that "All humans are mortals" because it's self-evident. The premise that "God's existence entails God's revelation of his existence to man" is not self-evident. I have no qualms with the validity of your argument but with the truth of your premises.

  4. Spaggety as we know it might not appear in different conditions. But we can not really tell if some other spaghetti, maybe even a nooodlier spaghetti could emerge!!!

  5. To say that other types of universes can generate any type of spaghetti is sheer speculation. As far as we know, spaguetti can only happen in our universe. FSM still rulez!

  6. The absence of evidence of something does not logically infer in any way its non-existence. There is a difference between saying we cannot know if God exists and God does not exist. Your argument is not sound.

  7. It can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.

    Once a certain level of investigation has been met, it is no longer reasonable to believe in God

  8. (G ⋅ ~G)
    We know that G the logical conjunction not G is a contradiction, both cannot be true or false at the same time.

    Is there proof that God does not exist? Yes. All the arguments for God’s existence fail. From the law of non-contradiction, not proving the positive claim of God’s existence proves the negative.

  9. No it doesn't, it just means we must suspend judgement about its existence. Your argument is based on a blatant fallacy. To say that if there is not evidence for God, the negation of the conclusion that evidence would supply is true is to say that an object only exists if it fits a criteria for evidence, which is fallacious.

  10. What is your criteria for the evidence of God? Feelings (religious experience), Natural theology (intelligent design) and Faith (fideism) all fail as proofs. It is foolish to be agnostic.

    We prove the negative all the time. We know that Santa Clause, unicorns, and tooth fairies do not exist. How do we know? Because we cannot prove the positive claim that they do exist.

  11. Your misuse of that axiom has led you into deep water. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence when evidence WOULD NECESSARILY result from presence.
    On a snowy morning, I tell you that there is an elephant wandering the garden. You see nothing but pristine snow as far as the eye? can see. The absence of evidence screams volumes in this case.

  12. There is a difference between 'there is an elephant walking the garden' and 'such a thing as an elephant exists'. In the case of the former, the claim of the existence of the elephant is contingent of evidential conditions, and so we can logically say based on the conditions whether an elephant is in the garden. The question of whether elephants exists in general does not have that criteria, so you cannot assert its non-existence on a lack of evidence which would prove it in certain conditions.

  13. Not only do we not have sufficient evidence to think that God is real, we don't even have a description of such a being that makes sense.

    Evidence is something that contributes to knowledge of what happened.
    Proof is evidence that is sufficient to demonstrate the certainty (or truth) of something.
    Evidence is something that may lead to proof. It may not.

  14. The so called evidence for the existence of God(s) only confirm what someone already believes because of religious feelings and faith. The evidence is only sufficient to convince one that they are not insane.

  15. I agree that we don't have evidence of Gods existence, but to say that because we don't that God does not exist. That is a fallacious argument. Also, theists describe God as outside the empirical world, so empirical evidence isn't a reasonable criteria for finding the truth of God. God is a very abstract concept, and for peoples its more a personal reality than the object of logical analysis, and logic tells us nothing about Gods existence either way.

  16. I disagree. Theist, via natural theology, try to prove God exists. The a posteriori cosmological and teleological arguments are based on observing the universe. The a priori ontological agrument is based on innate concepts. Plantinga’s modal ontological is based on a purely deductive agrument. BTW all of the arguments fail as proof.

    The believer is left with religious experience and fideism.

  17. Your right, and thats the reason why natural theology is a failure. As for religious experience, it may be that some people experience God, but it doesn't enter the domain empirical evidence, which is why it may be that God is true and people experience God, but we cannot know either way. And this is what justifies non-belief, but does not prove non-existence.

  18. A. Flew’s position is that in the absence of verifiable empirical evidence of the existence of God, the claim that “God exists” becomes meaningless.

    Because we do not have a description of God that makes sense or is coherent, the concept of God is meaningless, therefore does not exist.

    Flew’s “Presumption of Atheism” if equally applied to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a Omni-God or Triune God leads to the denial of all such entities.

  19. Applying Bayes Theorem, the hypothesis of God becomes not only improbable but virtually impossible. There is always a non-zero probability, however, the existence of God is highly unlikely and meaningless.

  20. And A.J Ayer recognised that saying 'God exists' and 'God does not exist' are both equally meaningless. Once again you make the same mistake by saying "the concept of God is meaningless, therefore does not exist." Its the same logical fallacy. We dont know either way, according to logic, and thats the end of it.

  21. What nonsense is that! To give meaning to life you have first to start identifying the purpose of life. Yet, if life has no purpose than life can have no true meaning.

  22. So your meaning of life is as much as human construct as you claim religion to be? You can delude yourself but theists can't? That's hypocrisy….

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