The Human Predicament

Thank you Con for your response.God exists, maybe not, does it matter?Objective happiness Con states, is unattainable for several reasons. Reasons like how happiness cannot be measured except by measuring certain chemicals in a person, but even then it is still just measuring a subjective response. Another reason being objective realities like meaning, value, and purpose are all completely subjective concepts making happiness based on them also subjective. The question here is if all this is true…If all Con’s assertions here are absolutely true does it change the outcome of the human predicament. I say no it doesn’t. The reason a Theistic God is used is because it is the only God that can hypothetically attribute objective meaning, value, and purpose to this world / universe. The reason the Theist’s God can do this is like I said before; he is external from space-time (all of our physical existence), and he was the creator of everything. This might be totally false, God could possibly not exist at all, and in fact, let’s assume for a minute that God is absolutely false, proven to not exist, and universally accepted to be non-existent. We now have nothing that can possibly, hypothetically, potentially, or even remotely give us objective realities. God has to exist, or at least POSSIBLY exist for someone to latch onto an idea of objective meaning, value, and purpose. God might be totally non-existent making a persons grasp onto these objective realities actually subjective, which is fine, but has made them inconsistent with a worldview of Atheism. No GodSo like I said before, let us assume God is for sure false in his existence, but someone still holds onto him because he desires to have objective meaning, value, and purpose. This person now states he has objective happiness because he is basing it off of objective realities given by God. Now the problem is God doesn’t exist, so everybody knows that his happiness is actually subjective. However, he is the only person that can say he has objective happiness, even though it is subjective, because he is basing it on a logically sound explanation of why there could be objective realities. Even though it is false in this story, he is basing his happiness off of the only reason ever given by man kind to logically justify objective meaning, value, and happiness. Without God, like in this story, everybody has subjective happiness and there is no escape from it. There is absolutely no ultimate worth to anyone’s life and if someone contrives happiness in it, it is purely subjective in nature due to it being based on subjective ideas of worth. Now to step away from the story and move back to reality. God doesn’t have to exist to put your faith in him. Your happiness might still be subjective, but because you are basing your happiness on something that possibly exists you have the only logical explanation to have objective happiness. You have the only reason, false or not, that someone could use to escape the subjective nature of ones life, even if it is purely only in their mind. This is the Human Predicament, this is the lie that one must give to one self in order to escape the subjective worth, or the objective pointlessness of their life if an Atheist. The AbsurdistCon gives us 3 options here to deal with “the apparent lack of meaning in the world.”1. To escape reality (suicide)I’d have to say this would be better stated to escape the known reality and plunge into the next.2. To make the leap of faith necessary to follow religion (regarded as being "philosophical suicide").This is purely religion bashing here and uncalled for. “Philosophical suicide?” This is just an ad hominem (emotionally based) argument and holds absolutely no intellectual ground. I could equally say that religion, or more personally Christianity, is philosophical enlightenment. Whether Con or Pro is false here would require an entirely new debate so I ask the debater to throw option 2 out the window.3. To accept and embrace the absurd, and live on despite of it.This is a valid option for the Atheist. To acknowledge the ultimately worthlessness of existence, but live on anyway as though it didn’t matter. This however doesn’t take away from the human predicament. Here one is admitting that their happiness is subjective, and can take comfort in that. But again, their comfort is subjective, their happiness is subjective, their peace, and their freedom is subjective, and everything that they think they are or are worth is completely subjective. If they ever choose to have something more they have to lie to their worldview and believe in God. I hope everybody understands that I’m not saying an Atheist can’t be happy. However, if they personally can’t handle the subjective nature of it anymore, if they have to believe in something at some level that they don’t even think really exists, and if it does in actuality exist or not, to attain an objective relevance to their existence, then they have like I said before, personified the Human Predicament.