Conversation - part 8

 How can we build understanding with those who profoundly disagree with us?

Be sure to read the previous posts on this topic from January 2022 to get the full story...

This was Derek's 7th and last post in the conversation. I will provide my response later because this is such a long entry and I should add a few notes at the end here. His opening was really nice and I appreciated his friendly tone and recognition of our growing understanding. He never answered my last post and this brings to mind many questions for me. Did he feel that no more could be accomplished by continuing the discussion? Were there events in his life that changed his outlook dramatically or even made him unable to respond? Why did he later delete all his posts? I may never know. 

Derek's last post:

Hey Paul, I have been busy studying for midterms so I have taken a while to get back to you, but I have finally finished my response. I hope that you carefully read through it, and I apologize for the length (I think it's over 1000 words, sorry), but it shouldn’t be too difficult to digest.

Being a father doesn’t teach one very much about the biology and physics behind the creation of life, as you seem to suggest it does, but I do appreciate the distinction you are making with respect to what you meant when you wrote of logic not giving you life.

I have come to the conclusion that we create our own meaning in life -- this statement may sound silly or trivial, and in a way I would agree, but I don’t believe there is any evidence for some convoluted “great cosmic purpose” for humans existing, and I think that this viewpoint is honestly selfish and it presupposes that humans are incredibly important at a cosmic scale, which I think is ridiculous if you even consider something like the scale of the universe, most of which humans will never actually interact with or observe at all. I think this idea of cosmic purpose, as I am calling it, is what you are mostly getting at in the beginning of your response, but again I find it ridiculous to give humans such abstract importance for no reason.

I will say, lacking an understanding of biological evolution, it would be almost impossible to deny that humans were, in terms of importance, leagues above all other creatures, since humans can do so many seemingly magical things which no other animal, no matter how diverse or strange it is, can do. However, from the perspective of evolution, humans are simply animals and our tools really aren’t as impressive as we might think they are, especially at a cosmic scale.

‘Problems in the world’ are caused by complex interplay of many different subtle factors, saying that there is a primary cause for problems in general is ridiculous.

I see there are other questions about my “purpose in life”, and how I’m “valuable as a person”, which are arbitrary and subjective measures, and I have already explained partially why I don’t believe in cosmic importance of humanity’s existence.

I think I could more concisely summarize my previous statements about logical reasoning by stating that logical reasoning as a whole cannot be ‘caused’ by anything, since cause/effect is intrinsically logical, by definition. This may seem trivial, but it ALL has to do with our definitions, which is what logic is all about. In fact, I could argue that the entire reason I’m an atheist is because I am careful with my words. This is why I believe claiming that logic is ‘caused by something’ is utterly contradictory.

Look, I don’t even have to make a historical argument for morality being separate from religion. Just know that you can google the subject and find pretty convincing historical arguments, such as with the history of burying the dead.

Rather, let me make a case from my perspective: I have moral values, and I can tell you, at least partially, where they come from:

1. My understanding that treating others kindly results in other treating others kindly, which in turn results in a better world.
2. My empathy towards other animals/people, which is admittedly not a logical thought process, but rather a product of both my upbringing and my emotional response centers. However, I would make the argument that the importance of empathy is logically obvious from my above point.
3. My desire to help the world have a better future, despite my belief that I am going to disappear forever after I die, which, similarly, comes from my upbringing and from my understanding of empathy.

It isn’t rocket science, and there really isn’t a great mystery. Morals come from life experiences, from what your parents teach you, and from your brain chemistry. It’s a combination of these, and possibly more, factors. Also, I could make an evolutionary argument about the importance of morality in human (conscious) society, being that the evolution of empathetic feelings and sentiments cause people to stick together and form communities, to communicate, form language, work out issues with non-violence, etc… all of which act to prolong survival, and increase odds of reproductive success. My main point is that morality can indeed be understood as a logical mechanism, rather than a greatly mysterious entity (the same is true with consciousness, I would argue).

Now, we get into my beef with the terms “spiritual”, etc… , which I contest are inherently rhetorical. The concepts of spirituality, the paranormal, etc… exist because of man’s inability to fully understand the world around us. Think about it, what EXACTLY is a spirit? It is described by many as , say, “ the part of you that survives after you die, which includes your personality”, right? Well, doesn’t this sound ridiculous when you try to actually contemplate it? How can this be possible? What substance is a spirit made of? Is it your personality from the moment you died, or your personality from another age? What mechanism is responsible for this? Can we mathematically model this phenomena? Why should I even believe this is true? Does anybody have any actual evidence of this happening, or even a sound argument for why such a thing should exist? What about conjoined twins - do they have one or two spirits? The brain is responsible for one’s personality, which is something that is a relatively new discovery for mankind. How does the brain connect to the spirit? What about the fact that your brain is literally comprised of two personalities? So many seemingly fundamental questions go completely unanswered every time I bring this up with someone who endorses these ideas of spirituality, etc… and it seems to me that the spirit is just the precursor to understanding the functions of the brain (which we still don't fully comprehend).

Think about “the paranormal” as well. People describe an event as being paranormal only in the case that they cannot explain the event, or do not understand it. In this way, 'paranormal' is just a superfluous term which communicates “ I don’t understand that”. However, people who endorse the paranormal typically claim “the event cannot be explained” and then do not provide evidence for why this should be believed. They might rightfully dismiss some logical explanations, but then they make the astonishing leap to dismissing all possible logical explanations.

If you remember me talking about how problematic it is to state that logic is caused by some external “thing”, it is similarly problematic to state that something can be caused without logic being involved, since we arrive at an instance of saying “A causes B” but we are not actually using the correct definition of “cause” (since we are saying the causation is illogical - which doesn’t make sense - the whole point I’m trying to make). To summarize, ‘explaining’ something as “paranormal” is actually just evading explanation using rhetoric.

Once you start trying to explain the paranormal, it just becomes scientific theory so that the qualification “paranormal” becomes completely superfluous.

Similarly, once you start trying to study and understand the "spiritual", you realize that there is nothing there.

A few notes and some questions:

So, in some ways we are back to where we began but with a very different tone and hopefully a deeper appreciation for the other person in the conversation. I believe that this is almost all we can expect but certainly we can pray for more, knowing that the Spirit of God is at work in our hearts and is really the only one who can change us. I pray that I was sensitive to His leading in this conversation and that I was truly attentive to the hopes and the fears behind what Derek so graciously shared with me.

As you can see, there are still a few difficult points to deal with from his post. Now he is trying to define the term "spiritual" but it seems to be mixed up with the idea of "paranormal". I address this briefly in my response. The bigger issue, however, is the meaning of life and the value of human life in particular. Thankfully he did spend quite a bit of time on the questions I had provided. His answers are fairly good, considering the perspective he is working from. This is where I spent most of my time in my final response. Meanwhile, how would you respond to his post? How can you provide a real and useful definition of "spiritual", if that is even possible? What can you say about the meaning of life or the value of human life? How can you know that your answers to anything here have real value or meaning?