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Friday, July 21, 2006

The pacifier in the pine box

Daniel Morgan said:

“This is ridiculous and offensive. Simply because I don't believe that my consciousness continues to exist after my body dies doesn't mean that I don't have a legacy via my life's work, children, etc. Just because I don't believe in ‘eternal destiny’ or ‘preordained destiny’ doesn't mean that I will have no good and worthy end, or goals, to my life. I am quite glad that I don't live in a universe in which some other Being gets to decide my fate, that I am not a vessel fitted for destruction (or grace), but a person whose decisions and character, coupled to chance and those of others, determine his fate.”

Ah, yes, I will die and feed the worms, but I will live on in the legacy of my life’s work and in the hearts of my loved ones.

This is the soft, soppy-wet pacifier that many an atheist plants in his silk-lined casket to suck on as he contemplates the prospect of his own impending oblivion.

What does it mean to live on in the memory of one’s posterity? To begin with, that’s a sorry substitute for personal immortality.

For another thing, they, too, will die, and their fond memories of you will die with them.

“Gone, but not forgotten” is a nice epitaph, but the epitaph is quickly overgrown with weeds.

The legacy of your life’s work? Danny, you’re just a replaceable part in the cogwheel of the cosmic treadmill.

As soon as you’re gone, someone will clean out your desk, trade your family photos for his own, and take your place on death row.

Danny, once your gone, the world will continue along its merry way just as if you never existed.

Danny, you don’t make a difference.

Danny, you don’t make a dent.

You’re a bug on the windshield.

As far as secularism is concerned, life is just one vast, collective mortuary. Some cadavers take the dayshift while others take the nightshift, but it’s merely a matter of space management who gets which cubicle when.

I don’t have to be a Christian to render such a bleak value-judgment of secularism. Danny forgets that many Christians used to be where he is now.

I’m not speaking as a middle-aged Christian. No, I’m still speaking as an adolescent unbeliever in junior high.

I’ve held this view of secularism since the time I used to be a secularist.

Oh, yes, there will always doe-eyed humanists like Sagan, Kurtz, Bronowski, and Corliss Lamont to rouge the cheeks and gloss the lips of their secular crowbait, but even as a 14 year old on the cusp of manhood, with the grave a distant and distinctly abstract prospect, I knew better than to mistake embalming fluid for immortality on the cheap.

15 comments:

  1. "Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power." -Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship

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  2. You're so right! It would be just too horrible to contemplate the idea that we are gone when we die. Therefore, Christianity MUST be true.

    See! Proving Christianity isn't hard at all!

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  3. Christian or no, you are pretty much forgotten after a generation. Your children might visit your grave on occasion, even (stretching it), your grandchildren - after that, the only visitor you can expect is the occasional geneologist, or the caretaker.

    Not true for Charles Spurgeon, Charles Darwin or John Lennon. I'm guessing Daniel Morgan or Steve Hays will not quite measure up to such earthy reverence.

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  4. Remove "visit your grave on occasion,"
    substitute with "contemplate your life"

    Except for the geneologist and the caretaker. Well, the geneologist can pull records, so let's make exception for the caretaker only; He/she mows the lawn, so a regular pass-over is pretty much guaranteed.

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  5. I don't think the point is that Christianity is true, Ted. Rather, the point is that your life is pointless and meaningless, except of course for the subjective meaning you give it. But, in reality, the universe looks at you the same as it does a peice of dog poop. So, all we're saying is: be consistent with your worldview.

    So, transfer what Steve said to Danny to you:

    Ted, once your gone, the world will continue along its merry way just as if you never existed.

    Ted, you don’t make a difference.

    Ted, you don’t make a dent.

    You’re a bug on the windshield.

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  6. Ha! Here's Danny talking about what's so meaningful in his life yet at the same time submits an essay to the Freedom from Religion Foundation whose spokesman (Dan Barker) said that we're no better than broccoli!

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  7. This post rather nicely illustrates the way in which atheists deal with issues of meaning. Write a nice, glowing description of emotions, etc.

    The problem is that in the end it is simply rhetoric. But we can deploy just as poignant poetry. I suggest that Daniel Morgan goes and stands in a graveyard at twilight. Or just reads Grey's Elegy.

    'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
    And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
    Awaits alike th'inevitable hour,
    The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

    Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
    If mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
    Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
    The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.


    Can storied urn, or animated bust,
    Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
    Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
    Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?


    Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid,
    Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
    Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
    Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.


    But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
    Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll,
    Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,
    And froze the genial current of the soul.'

    http://www.stoke-poges.com/HTML/elegy.htm

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  8. You are so afraid of blinking out of existence? I feel so sorry for you.

    I am indeed nothing, but my life does have value, those that I give to it. My life is finite. That doesn't mean it is nothing. My influence is finite. That doesn't mean I can't use it for good or for evil.

    Your life has a value that is predetermined for you -- eternal glee or eternal agony.

    I pity all of you.

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  9. Daniel, old man.

    The truth is that no-one (or almost no-one) is afraid of the end of life when they are young. Try asking the same question to a person who's just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

    I recently listened to the final sermon of John E. Marshall, a Congregational Minister from Hemel Hempstead. He was dying from cancer and told them not a kid themselves about not being afraid of death. I was very challenged.

    I know few people in my age group who are afraid of death. This is because, statistically speaking, if we are below fifty, we're not likely to die any time soon. We talk about our deaths half-convinced that we might beat it.

    Equally, Daniel, please don't go down to stereotypes. The truth is that you or I are able to give to our lives meaning while we live them, whatever our belief system may be. The Christian, like the atheist, seeks to add value to their life while they live it. Christians, like ethical atheists, seek to define themselves in time. Like atheists, Christian statesmen have an eye on the verdict of history. Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, no less than Tom Paine or Churchill, sought to change the world in their lives. Christians study great men and write their lives the same as atheists do. We can all do as you say, we should all try to influence the world for good.

    The problem here Daniel, as it seems to me, is that you believe that you have a different jigsaw from we Christians, while we believe that you are looking simply at the temporal value of life. As a Christian and an historian, I look at both the temporal and the eternal value of life. You do not believe, ulimately, that your life has eternal value. Ultimately, your life will be forgotten, as will mine, on earth, at least, unless we become great men. In the end, we all forget our anscestors. Can you locate the Welsh County your anscetors came from? As a Briton, I probably know more, but they are mere graves to me. I live next to a cemetery, and there are many overgrown tombstones. Yet those people live on, beyond the grave, truncated mansions, perhaps, but nonetheless, mansions. And one day, the mansion will be re-constructed, some to be dwelt in forever as freehold, restored houses, others doomed to an eternity of dereliction. Remember, most Christians are not anihilationists.

    I hope that you will live a long and fulfilling life, but in forty years, will either of us be able to say that the idea of dying does not bother us? Will you, looking into the face of death, looking at that positive biopsy result, be able to start a letter the same way?

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  10. Notice that Danny makes no effort to disprove my argument, even though my argument was predicated on atheistic assumptions.

    Instead, he tries to shame me into agreeing with him. He feels sorry for me. I'm pitiful.

    Danny, you continue to blink in the face of your own worldview.

    Let's assume you're right and I'm wrong. When we're both rotting in the grave 100 years from now, what difference will it make to you or me or anyone else that the corpse alongside you was once host to a pitiful Christian?

    Your emotional threats ring hollow, for your worldview is hollow to the core.

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  11. "I am indeed nothing, but my life does have value, those that I give to it."

    Right, as I said, arbitrary and subjective.

    It has not *real* value.

    Our worldview gives us *real* value.

    I find it funny, though, that Danny plays pretend and lives in a world in which there is no *real* meaning or value but he just pretends that there is (as Russell said). Why funny? Because he spends his time mocking theists for believing in an imaginary God.

    So, for Danny, his life's value is like god, the easter bunny, santa clause, and the tooth fairy, makebelieve

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  12. Daniel Morgan said:

    "Steve,

    What argument?"

    For starters, there was my argument in the original post, where I was responding to your own claims.

    Besides that, I've posted on this general subject on other occasions, viz.

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/death-meaning-of-life.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/02/from-atheism-to-nihilism.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/02/humanist-manifesto.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/04/life-in-face-of-death.html

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  13. Daniel Morgan: "I am indeed nothing, but my life does have value, those that I give to it. My life is finite. That doesn't mean it is nothing."

    But earlier you just said you were nothing. How can you give nothing value? Nothing is nothing.

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  14. Hiraeth,

    The truth is that you or I are able to give to our lives meaning while we live them, whatever our belief system may be. The Christian, like the atheist, seeks to add value to their life while they live it. Christians, like ethical atheists, seek to define themselves in time.
    I agree...and I find it very hard to believe that many Christians really have the faith they profess in an afterlife, because of how desperately they avoid going there, in the way they dig their claws deep into medicine and scrabble madly away from death. We all know only life, and believe what we will about "eternity"...so far, the concept has no real meaning in the real universe -- actual infinities are not known.

    The problem here Daniel, as it seems to me, is that you believe that you have a different jigsaw from we Christians, while we believe that you are looking simply at the temporal value of life.
    We all know that life has temporal value. That is something we all agree on. Simply put, why not make it as valuable as possible, for as many as possible? You weren't given the choice to live, but you have a choice as to what you do with this life.

    As a Christian and an historian, I look at both the temporal and the eternal value of life.
    How can you look at an abstract belief? What "value" does eternity connote, besides what happens to your own skin, which Calvinists believe they have no ultimate control over?

    You do not believe, ulimately, that your life has eternal value.
    I do not believe in "eternity". The universe itself will likely have an end, whether in a Big Crunch or something similar.

    Ultimately, your life will be forgotten, as will mine, on earth, at least, unless we become great men.
    And even then. So? Should we not be great men? Is the point of greatness to be remembered, rather than to be great? This is where all of you seem to keep tripping up: if we all agree that something is good, then we must do it for the sake of goodness. Who cares if this life is eternal or not, insofar as determining to do what is good, and thus making your life as valuable as possible to as many as possible?

    The cold hard fact is that yes, death is the end. The warm, soft fact is that yes, life is ours, and we can do what we can do, or we can piss it away. Bug on the windshield or not, even (some) bugs have a social order to which they contribute, which sustains an ecosystem, which sustains life on earth, which made it possible for us to come along. It is almost beautiful.

    Frank,

    Great job catching me in a contradiction. Wait...I found this same sentiment...in 2 Cor. 12:11. So if Paul is nothing, how could he give his teachings or theology value, and therefore 2/3 of the NT?? WOW, you just made another argument for atheism!

    Therefore, uh, God doesn't exist!?!?!?

    Seriously, go look up "hyperbole". What all of you cannot seem to do is stop equivocating "finite" with "meaningless". If you can't live forever, you people apparently believe, you may as well not live at all. Depressing.

    Manata,

    Right, as I said, arbitrary and subjective.

    No more so than your faith.

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