Mallarmé Sonnets

Oui, je sais qu'au lointain de cette nuit, la Terre
Jette d'un grande éclat l'insolite mystère
Sous les siècles hideux qui l'obscurcissent moins.

Yes, I know that far from this night, the Earth
Casts a brilliant mystery of unusual light
Beneath the hideous centuries that obscure it less

Mallarmé

I feel the light

Wildflowers and daydreams
start with a seed
so do the thoughts
spinning round in me

Beauty cycles again
mystery
where do I begin?

I feel the light
calling me
I feel the light
calling me

On Religious Confidence

Because I still rock

Drink tea

Meaning without God

As an atheist I've been asked how life can have ultimate meaning without God. This is quite a common question. For some of my nonfaith affiliated readers this will seem like a truly bizarre question. Does it suggest that people without faith lead meaningless lives, or at the very least, are simply fooling themselves about the things they find meaningful? The obvious answer is no, of course nonbelievers lead meaningful and fulfilling lives. Whether they're fooling themselves or not is really beside the point because you'd have to have a true ground of meaning outside the individual in order to compare.  The question secretly sneaks God back into the equation for that reason. The atheist believes we create and sustain our own meaning (or the cultural/social meaning we take as our own from our context or the contexts of others). This meaning is tested by experience and reason, shared and shaped by the vicissitudes of life and time.

If believers would take a moment to reflect they'd see they're in a similar situation. When they feel that God ultimately guarantees the meaning of life or whatever, they too are dealing with an idea (no less culturally/socially mediated in most cases). So when they say that God guarantees meaning, the hidden supplement (that indeed must remain hidden) is that the idea of God guarantees meaning. It must have this meaning because believers have no more access to this supposed ground than anyone else. Indeed they take it on faith. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is that the believer insists his idea has the status of a real object-person whereas the unbeliever recognises her values for what they are, i.e idea(l)s, and may or may not choose to argue why such idea(l)s are reasonable considering X. The believer can also argue about the reasonableness of his position but he has already made the categorical error of confusing idea with object, potential with actual, when really he's in the same boat as the rest of us.

For this reason the question "How can you have ultimate meaning without God" is illegitimate. It's force is only felt by the one who has already made his idea a god.

Ur-Pharaoh