Irenaeus, Siteadmin, Check users, oversight, Administrators
351,395
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 10:
Line 10: + + + + + + + + +
no edit summary
In a letter to Lowes Dickinson, Bertrand Russell wrote:
In a letter to Lowes Dickinson, Bertrand Russell wrote:
{{cquote|We stand on the shores of an ocean, crying to the night and the emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness. But it is a voice of one drowning; and in a moment the silence returns” (Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, p. 287 as quoted by Leroy Koopman, “Famous Atheists Give Their Testimonies,” Moody Monthly, Nov. 1975, p. 124.) <ref>[http://www.guidelines.org/commentaries/atheism-and-the-despair-of-hope/#sthash.deoxNoqK.dpuf Atheism and the despair of hope]</ref>}}
{{cquote|We stand on the shores of an ocean, crying to the night and the emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness. But it is a voice of one drowning; and in a moment the silence returns” (Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, p. 287 as quoted by Leroy Koopman, “Famous Atheists Give Their Testimonies,” Moody Monthly, Nov. 1975, p. 124.) <ref>[http://www.guidelines.org/commentaries/atheism-and-the-despair-of-hope/#sthash.deoxNoqK.dpuf Atheism and the despair of hope]</ref>}}
The [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] [[William Lane Craig]] wrote:
{{Cquote|For example, the outspoken atheist and [[Nobel Prize]]–winning physicist [[Steven Weinberg]], at the close of his much-acclaimed book ''The First Three Minutes'', writes,
:It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that somehow we were built in from the beginning.… It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
:But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself. Men and women are not content to comfort themselves with tales of gods and giants, or to confine their thoughts to the daily affairs of life; they also build telescopes and satellites and accelerators, and sit at their desks for endless hours working out the meaning of the data they gather. The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
There’s something strange about Weinberg’s moving description of the human predicament: Tragedy is not a neutral term. It expresses an evaluation of a situation. Weinberg evidently sees a life devoted to scientific pursuits as truly meaningful, and therefore it’s tragic that such a noble pursuit should be extinguished. But why, given atheism, should the pursuit of science be any different from slouching about doing nothing? Since there is no objective purpose to human life, none of our pursuits has any objective significance, however important and dear they may seem to us subjectively. They’re no more significant than shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.<ref>[The Practical Impossibility of Atheism] by William Lane Craig</ref>}}
The atheist Derek Beres claimed: "We’re the product of millions of years of [[evolution]]. Most species are extinct, as humans will eventually be."<ref>[http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/the-arrogance-of-atheism The Arrogance of Atheism?] by Derek Beres</ref> See also: [[Atheism and death]] and [[Atheism and meaninglessness]]
The atheist Derek Beres claimed: "We’re the product of millions of years of [[evolution]]. Most species are extinct, as humans will eventually be."<ref>[http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/the-arrogance-of-atheism The Arrogance of Atheism?] by Derek Beres</ref> See also: [[Atheism and death]] and [[Atheism and meaninglessness]]