John Hudson posted this video on my timeline a few weeks ago https://youtube/watch?v=1MfPFiqfcxE. Essentially Keller argues that without Jesus there is no meaning in life. I had intended to write a response to it, but honestly I found it very difficult to pick out a coherent argument to respond to. Much of the talk is a series of quotations from various philosophers, intermixed with rhetorical questions and illustrations or applications of questionable relevance. I found very little actual argument to respond to. His one key point seems to be this: In the end, the universe if going to burn up, and what you do and how you life makes not one whit of difference. My question is why something needs to last forever in order for it to have meaning or value? This seems to be presupposed throughout the entire talk, but I do not think he even tries to argue for it; its just asserted as obvious. Its not at all clear to me why we should accept this premise. Near the end he throws out a large number of only tangentially related statements of unclear relevance to his prior point, including there is no such thing as love, there is no such things as absolute morality, and humans are no different than rocks. He then asserts that we know these things are false, and proceeds to use that as an attack on atheism, as if atheism somehow entailed this bizarre hodgepodge collection of propositions which many atheists I know would not agree with. Maybe Im missing something, but I just find little or no actual argument in this talk. I find a lot of unjustified assertions and questionable analogies, but not much philosophically rigorous argument. I think his rhetoric will be compelling to many people who already essentially agree with his position, but really he is not saying anything that will or ought to persuade anyone who is undecided or who disagrees with him. Have I missed some aspect of this talk? What does everyone think? Love to hear your thoughts on this important subject.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 01:56:50 +0000
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