Atheism’s Universe is Meaningless and Valueless? Ultimately, yes...so what?

This is my reply to an article by J.W. Wartick entitled

Atheism’s Universe is Meaningless and Valueless
Posted by J.W. Wartick ⋅ January 3, 2011    

“‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’

says the Teacher.

‘Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.'” – Ecclesiastes 1:2

My most recent post on the problem of evil granting empirical atheism generated some thoughtful discussion. Most importantly, it lead me to the following argument:

1) On materialistic [I use materialism and physicalism interchangeably, as is common in philosophy today] atheism, all we are is matter in motion.

Correct.  Our sense of evil is no more ultimately significant than the sense of danger experienced by a gazelle being chased by a lion.  But lack of ultimate meaning doesn't imply lack of subjective purpose.

By the way, plenty of you Christians believe that God intended for carnivores to populate the earth before sin.  Read up on Hugh Ross.  Apparently, when your god said all he had created was "very good" before the Fall (Genesis 1:31), he was talking about a world which, before sin, was full of animals ripping each other apart.

2) There is no objective reason to value matter moving in way A over matter moving in way B

 Correct.  That doesn't mean it is unreasonable to identify certain bits of matter as moving in ways contrary to our personal subjective goals, and to fight back or avoid accordingly.  And by the way, your Frank Turek reductionism is unconvincing.  We might be nothing but atoms, but that doesn't mean all atomic structures share equal abilities and limits.  You may as well say that 9 is equal to 4, simply because they ultimately reduce to "numbers" or "signs".  Yes, that's ultimately what they are, but what they ultimately are doesn't tell you whether they have specific individual properties that distinguish them from each other.

3) Therefore, on materialistic atheism, there is no value or meaning

Ultimately?  Correct. You probably don't blink your eyes with the intent of laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven.  Doing things in life for reason not having jack shit to do with god or religion, is perfectly normal everyday reality even for fundamentalist Christians.

Premise 1 seems self-evident. Materialistic atheism, by definition, says that “everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The physical world is matter.

Premise 2 also seems like it should need little defense, yet atheists continually come up with ideas to try to get around it.

I disagree with Dan Barker and other atheists who think some morals can be objective.  I'm a really big problem for apologists like Frank Turek who push the objective morality bit.  I agree that if atheism is true, there would be no objective morality, only subjective opinions.  When such apologists debate me, they are debating somebody who agrees with them on more principles than most atheists agree with them on, making it much more difficult for them to refute my arguments.

For example, one may argue that the subjective suffering of persons should matter. Yet I fail to see how this argument succeeds. Pain and suffering, on materialism, at most supervenes upon neurons firing in the brain (along with chemical reactions and other physical phenomenon). My question for the materialist is: What reason can be provided for favoring matter moving in way A (call it, the way neurons fire when someone is in a state of bliss) over matter moving in way B (neurons firing in the way which causes pain)?

 The reason?  Personal subjective opinion.  And if you can find a bunch of people to agree with you, all the better.  Sorry, but physicalism being true doesn't suddenly make motives and desires irrational or pointless.  As living beings, we automatically like anything that tends to enhance our life without harming those we consider part of our group, and to correspondingly eschew anything that does the opposite.  To be alive is to naturally and automatically prefer anything that keeps you alive, and to naturally and automatically eschew anything that tends to suppress life.  That remains a solidly justified generalization despite the fact that exceptions, such as suicide, exist.  For to be alive is to also be imperfect and to perhaps one day find oneself in a completely hopeless situation.

By the way, your arguments would, if correct, prove that animals, reptiles and bugs have eternal "spirits", since they too find purpose in life and have preferences.  Yet your bible doesn't permit you to say these lower life forms were made in the image of god.  Ok...if the animals can be reasonable to see purpose in life without being made in the image of God, then humans can also possibly be reasonable to find purpose in life without crediting any of it to God.

One answer which may be forthcoming is that creatures and persons tend to try to get away from things which cause B. This argument fails to provide an answer to the question, because all it does is push the question back to a higher level. It would change to: Why should we favor physical observable phenomenon which don’t cause avoidance over those that do?

Because it is axiomatic that to be "alive" is to automatically and naturally favor anything that helps the group survive, and eschew anything that hinders the group from surviving.  You may as well pretend that asking "why should pain hurt" or "why should water require oxygen" are equally legitimate.  They are not.  You need to study up on axioms.  There really is a first rung in the ladder of reasoning, which, by its being FIRST, is exempt from the "why" question.

Again, the avoidance of B would simply be matter moving in a different way. In order to make a judgment between them, one would have to reach beyond the material world and into the world of objective meaning and value; this is, necessarily, a world which is nonexistent on materialism.

 No, once again, being alive automatically requires, at least for mammals, that anything tending to inhibit thriving of the self or group is to be avoided in most situations.  Since we aren't perfect, yes there will be exceptions like suicide and crime and duplicity, inconsistency and hypocrisy.  You do not keep skeptics over a barrel by simply pretending that materialism allows you to ask "but why...." ad infinitum.  When you ask why living things tend to eschew death, it's like asking why water is wet.  Once again, there are things that are axiomatic or foundational to the premise of "being alive". To be "alive" is to therefore be something more than merely "alive", it also implies putting forth some type of effort to STAY alive, even if the effort is de minimus.  If such traits aree axiomatic, then YOU are the one engaging in error by pretending that the "why" question can never be inappropriate in materialism.

Even if one could provide an answer to this second question, say “We tend to not like B. Things we don’t like are bad”, then we would have a purely subjective reality.

So?  Isn't that exactly what humans have proven to be in this world?  The legal world supplies abundant testimony that sometimes there is just no possible way to get two people to agree on what would be the morally good thing to do.

Do your shoelaces not exist because when and whether to tie them or not is an entirely subjective opinion that various shoe-wearers disagree on?

What of the serial killer who delights in torturing himself, causing things to B? What reason do we have for saying what he is doing is wrong, because, after all, he likes B?

Our axiomatic motive to automatically eschew anything that inhibits the survival or thriving of ourselves and those in our group. I already accounted for outliers like criminals and hypocrisy.  Individual people often change their ideas about the degree to which the good of the group should be prioritized in their subjective decision-making.  Should get something to eat on the way home from work because I'm hungry?  Or would it be better to wait so I can eat with the rest of the family at home?  Etc., etc.

Ultimately, on materialism, everything boils down to matter in motion.

Perhaps you've been listening too uncritically too often to Frank Turek's illogically extremist reductionism.

Sure, ultimately everything is just atoms.  But that doesn't mean materialism requires us to find that the collection of atoms we call "pillow" is equally capable of driving nails into wood, as is that collection of atoms we call "hammer". Materialism neither expresses nor implies that everything is equal.  Materialism fully acknowledges that some atomic structures are more efficient than others at achieving certain goals.

Making value judgments about matter in motion is meaningless.

Ultimately, yes, but not subjectively.  Once again, to be alive is to automatically imply that one will put forth some type and degree of effort to stay alive, therefore logically entailing that one will automatically eschew to some degree anything in the environment that does or appears to inhibit life.

But if everything is matter in motion, then there doesn’t seem to be any way to make value judgments.

Well not everything is matter in motion.  Some of that matter exists in specific configurations that give rise to consciousness and therefore the innate tendency to favor anything promoting life and eschew anything tending to hinder life.

And I could throw the same question back in your face:  You probably think that rape is objectively evil, but this contradicts that bible passage that says God "stirred up" the Medes to rape Babylonian women (Isaiah 13:15-17).  Apparently, the only reason you think rape is objectively evil is because God hasn't stirred up you to rape anybody just yet.  You get precisely nowhere by pretending that atheism cannot account for the human preference to make value-judgments.  Even if we admitted this is a mystery, your own alternative (i.e., a god who causes men to rape women) doesn't look much better.  And regardless, you Christians have no trouble saying the vast majority of your expanatory hypothesis (God) remains an inscrutable mystery, yet you don't think it's mysterious nature justifies the non-Christian to dismiss it. 

So, to be fair, since you don't think "we admit this is a mystery" constitutes defeat, then you cannot characterize atheism as false merely because there are realities that you think atheism cannot explain. 

How does one value a rock over a stick?

The rock might prove much more efficient at breaking open shells or other forms of food contained within hardened enclosures.  What are you going to ask now?  Why somebody would find the tool that is more efficient at attaining their goals, to be more desirable?

But then, on materialism, people are just stuff too; albeit more complex. However, if you were to break us down into our ultimately realities, we are no different than the rock. We are matter organized in a different way. Why value us?

You are simply repeating your questions.  Once again, to be alive is to therefore automatically evince some degree and type of preference for anything that promotes life and eschew anything that tends to inhibit life.  It comes with the territory.  You continue mischaracterizing the situation as one that needs a moral answer, when you ask the "why" question, but as I pointed out earlier, that's like asking "why" water is wet.  You are simply ignorant of what axioms are and why they are fully exempt from questioning.

There is no objective reason to do so.

There's no objective moral law that says what time kids must go to bed on a school night.  But the subjective law imposed by their respective parents, a law that differs wildly from house to house, seems to suffice.  Apparently ultimate subjectivity isn't as hopeless as you think.

Therefore, there is no objective meaning or value.

A problem for those who believe in a higher purpose, not a problem for those who accept the logical implications of their own mortality.

Life is purposeless, meaningless, valueless.

Ultimately?  Yes.  Subjectively?  No.  And one form of Christianity, Calvinism, would say that when atheists draw their incorrect conclusions, they do so because God infallibly predestined them to do so.  An atheist knowledgeable of Calvinism could make a reasonable biblical case that we are doing the will of God by denying any ultimate purpose to life. 

And that point you have to do the stupid thing and insist that we are wrong to fulfill the will of God.

Atheistic materialism demands this bleak view of the universe.

 It's only "bleak" to those who have been previously conditioned to believe that life involves something more glorious after physical death, or it is only bleak to those who fear death and are thus naturally inclined to give in to some after-world religious view.

I’m not saying it’s a good reason to abandon that [un]belief. I’m merely saying that those who hold such a view must be consistent.

You are correct that many atheists falsely aspire to objective morality and purpose.  If atheism is true, then no, there would be no ultimate or objective morality and purpose, only a morality and purpose of individuals living on some damp dus-tball lost in space.

“Now all has been heard;

here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear God and keep his commandments,

for this is the duty of all mankind.

For God will bring every deed into judgment,

including every hidden thing,

whether it is good or evil.” -Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

 That was about as productive as quoting something from the Koran.  Let's just say I'm not exactly shivering with fright over the question "what if Christianity is true?"