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Since we just got through an election and most are still somewhat in a political mindset, I’ve wanted to write a little something clarifying just what the Conservative position is. Of course, immediately we have to acknowledge that there are many different people with many different political philosophies who all try to take the mantle of “Conservative” upon themselves. That is because, as polls during the latest election bear out, “Conservativism” is a “winning” label whereas “Liberalism” is a “losing” label. Indeed, more people claimed to be Conservative than claimed to be Republican in this election; however, far more people claimed to be Democrat than claimed to be Liberal. In other words, in terms of self-identification, Conservative and Democrat are both viewed favorably but Republican and Liberal are both viewed unfavorably.

While anyone can claim to be anything they want to be, I am not interested in those who claim to be something just because it is a winning label. So this post will examine the foundation of Conservative thought. It should be noted that it is certainly possible for someone to inconsistently hold to the major tenets of Conservative philosophy without agreeing to the foundational presuppositions that support it (e.g. many Libertarians on fiscal issues).

What is that foundation then? At first glance, we might be tempted to say it is human rights. That is, Conservativism is born out of a desire to be consistent with our Founding Father’s concepts of the rights of man. Why do Conservatives believe that lower taxes are better? It is not a pragmatic reason, such as how beneficial it is to our economy—even though it is indeed true that lower taxes are beneficial to the economy! It is because Conservatives believe that all human beings have the right to their own property. What I own is fully under my control to do with as I see fit, and no one—no government, no other individual—has the right to force me to do something with my property that I do not wish to do.

Furthermore, we can look at the Second Amendment. Why is it that Conservatives argue that the right to bear arms is something that cannot be taken away by the government? It is not simply because that’s what the Constitution says (although that is indeed what the Constitution says). It is because we have the right to life and liberty, and that means we have the right to protect our life and liberty.

But human rights need to be justified too. We cannot simply assert that they exist; we must argue for why they exist. And that means that, at its root, Conservativism is based not in human rights but upon theistic principals. And lest someone quibble, this is the actual reason given by the Fathers themselves. Before the Constitution was formed, the Colonists had to provide justification for why they threw off the yolk of England. If their rebellion was illegitimate, their Constitution was illegitimate too. That’s why they took such care to write the Declaration of Independence, to provide their reasoned argument as to why they were justified in breaking from England. The Declaration begins:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.

The Declaration begins, in other words, by asserting that there are “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” that entitle us to certain rights. Without Natural Law given by Nature’s God, there are no rights. And what are those rights?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principals and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

So we see that our rights come, not from the whim of any man, but because we are endowed with them by our Creator. Furthermore, we see that Government is established “to secure these rights.” That is its primary purpose.

It should be noted that thus far we are not concerning ourselves with what aspect of theism fits. After all, while most of the Founding Fathers were Christians and the culture was definitely shaped by Christianity, there were also many Fathers who were only deists, and there were even some atheists who signed on. It is beyond the scope of this post for me to go into the reasons why Christianity provides the strongest rationale for these rights in comparison to other religions. Instead, I will focus briefly on why atheism cannot give us these same human rights.

If we take away rights endowed by our Creator, how do we establish those rights as actual rights? We cannot do so in any manner that escapes arbitrary decrees. For example, it might be argued that our intellect is what gives us those rights; that because man is the rational animal, he has human rights. But if we say that, then those who are more intelligent must have more human rights than those who are less intelligent. If the foundation of our rights is based on intellect, then this is inescapable: the geniuses have more rights than the imbeciles.

Yet we instinctively know that it is not the case that smarter people have more rights. We know that intellect is not a philosophically meaningful distinction when determining rights. We cannot keep someone enslaved, away from education, and claim that we have not violated his rights because we are smarter than he is.

If we instead argue that just as the Fathers said that Government derives its power “from the consent of the governed” our rights come from the consent of humanity as a whole then we still have not escaped the problem. After all, not all humans give the same consent. To cite the overly-used, yet crystal clear analogy: Nazis did not consider Jews to have human rights. We did not consider the Nazis to have the right to act consistently with those principals. Which view is right?

Under the position that the consent of the people determines human rights, neither position is right or wrong. We have two groups of people who disagree; there is no consent as to whether Jews have rights. Therefore, what prevails is nothing but might makes right. Nazis were wrong not because they were philosophically wrong but only because they lost World War II. If the Allies had been weaker, the consent of the world would have been that Jews are not human.

Once again, that concept is alien to us. Philosophically, our rights do not change simply because the whims of a group of individuals have changed. This is not a meaningful reason for our rights to change. Or rather, if it is a meaningful reason then our rights are worthless.

Human rights require a transcendent truth. They require objective truth that all men are, as part of their very being, deserving of specific rights. These rights cannot arise from nature alone. Evolution cannot explain how these rights got there, for man is but one evolutionary branch of billions. There is nothing that distinguishes man amongst the animals other than intellect, and as we’ve seen that would result in the smarter people having more human rights than the unintelligent. The only possible way we can have unalienable rights is if something higher than ourselves has given them to us.

Human rights come about because of the ontology of the human. We recognize them because of our being, not because of anything granted by any government or any group of people. It is precisely because these things do not depend on our size, location, level of development, sex, race, or beliefs that “all men are created equal” is true. That equality is found in our human ontology, and that comes about because man is created in the image of God.

With this in mind, we can sum up the basic Conservative ideology. Man has been endowed with the rights of Life, Liberty, and property (understood as the pursuit of happiness). These rights are God-given rights, not Government-granted rights. As such, any Government that would deprive anyone of those rights without proper justification is an unjust Government. The role of Government is to secure those rights for those who are governed. This means that the Government does have the right to tax its citizens consistent with securing those rights; but any taxes that are not consistent with securing those rights are unjustly depriving citizens of property. This means that Government has the right to defend our country from enemies, both domestic and foreign, by creating a police force and army; but it also means that Government cannot interfere with our own actions to secure our freedoms too (such as our right to bear arms).

Unfortunately, life is never as cut and dried as bare-bones philosophy will make it. To use an easy example, was the War in Iraq based on Conservative principals? It depends to a large extent on whether you believe the War is an attempt to secure our right to Life that terrorists seek to deprive of us. Insofar as we have not had another terrorist attack on America since 9/11, it is quite possibly due to the fact that we are engaging the enemy overseas. This would be consistent with the Government defending us from attack. On the other hand, it is also possible that the terrorists would not have been capable of another attack even had we left Iraq alone. That would make the War in Iraq unnecessary to secure out freedoms in America.

The net result is that it is quite possible for Conservatives to support or not support the War in Iraq and still remain Conservative.

On the other hand, consider abortion on demand (as opposed to abortion to save the life of the mother). Since human rights are based on our humanity, not any concept of “personhood” or the location of the human being or the developmental status, then the Conservative position must always be against abortion on demand. The unborn is a human being; that is the only thing that human beings can create via reproduction. The unborn therefore has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

On the other hand, abortion to save the life of the mother is not against Conservative principals because in that case the objective is not to deprive the life of the unborn, but to save the life of the mother. The unintended consequence is the unborn child also dies. We ought to do whatever we can to minimize the possibility of the death of the unborn, but when it is inevitable it is not against Conservative ideals to support abortion in those cases.

One final word should be noted. It is certainly possible for someone to be Conservative on some issues and not on others. People are, by and large, inconsistent. They tend to have a hodge-podge of beliefs, many of them contradictory, that they subscribe to. So it is possible that someone can be a fiscal Conservative while not being a social Conservative. But the logic of Conservative thought does boil down to our God-given rights, and therefore one is justified in weighing whether any particular issue coheres to those presuppositions. Since people can be (and often are) inconsistent, it should be no surprise at all that there is a wide range of belief amongst those who would call themselves Conservative; but that is no grounds to say that we should accept all those positions as being equally Conservative. Nor is the existence of those contradictory people evidence that Conservativism itself is incoherent or lacks a real presupposition.

Zilch recently attempted to link the atheistic subjectivity of the concept of meaning to the proposed subjectivity of perception by stating (emphasis his):

I think you would agree that perception is “subjective” by your definition: my seeing a red hat, for instance, does not mean that you see a red hat: it is solely my perception. Of course, given the same or similar conditions, we might have similar perceptions, just as we might assign similar meanings to, say, the sight of a car veering off toward a group of deaf students. But my perception is in my mind, and does not affect your perception in your mind, unless I communicate it to you in some way.

The problem with that is perception is not solely in your mind at all (unless you do believe in the brain-in-a-vat theory). Indeed, if you perceived something that was only in your mind, that would be the definition of a delusion, wouldn’t it?

The only way you can link perception and meaning is if you agree that objects have something that makes them meaningful in and of themselves. That is, meaning has to be objective in some way.

Consider it. We see a red hat. Even if the concept of “redness” is different for you than for me (that is, suppose that you see as the color “red” as what I see as the color “green”) the fact remains that the object that we see exists and it exists in such a way that it absorbs all light except for that which we both perceive. That our perceptions are different is irrelevant here. After all, the object emits color X. The fact that your “red” is different from my “red” is irrelevant, because X itself is always labeled “red.” The objective nature of X remains the same regardless of what we perceive.

But your idea of “meaning” is in no way similar at all. In atheism, objects do not exist with “meaning” attached to them in any way. There is no property “X” that conforms to “meaning” which we both perceive. Meaning is completely manufactured by you, and by you alone. Meaning totally exists within your subjective sphere and never shall depart it.

So your illustration is disanalogous.

I also find it interesting that you add: “unless I communicate it to you in some way.” How can you communicate something that is completely subjective? Communication can only occur if you have ideas that transcend individuals, but that requires an objective sense for them. In the color example, the fact that X is objective allows us to communicate X to one another. We give X a specific label: “red.” It doesn’t matter how we perceive that, each of us labels our perception of X as “red” and therefore communication results.

In order to talk about meaning, you have to have an objective concept of meaning in place; but in your atheism, you’ve already said that meaning is itself completely subjective. It doesn’t exist in the object, but in the “meaner.” It is therefore impossible to communicate it.

Consider this: we can communicate colors because we link them to an objective fact. But suppose again that what I see as “red” you see as “green.” This is a literal fact for the purposes of argument. But how do we communicate this to one another?

We cannot. I don’t have access to your perception, so I can never compare it to what I perceive. All I have access to is what the object emits, and we both conventionally use the same label for that. So if our perceptions are different here, it is impossible for us to say they are different. I can never know that when you see color X that is labeled “red” you actually see what I call “green”, because I don’t have your perception.

In fact, the only way to determine that another’s perceptions are actually different from ours is if they are unable to distinguish between the objective qualities of the object. For instance, my father is color-blind. He cannot see the color red at all. The problem for him arises not in the perceptual area, but instead in the objective area. That is, one object emits a color B and we call it “blue” and another emits the color P and we call it “purple.” My father, who does not see the red in purple, says that B = P because to him both are “blue.” We can tell this is wrong because we can see that B is NOT the same as P; there is a difference that he cannot see.

We know the problem not because we have access to his perceptions, but because we have access to the objects themselves. Thus, perception has an objective quality to it.

Meaning, however (according to your own stated views) does not have this objective quality at all. It is therefore impossible for atheists to talk about meaning at all, because meaning can never escape the subjective in atheism.

Since I’ve not been able to sit down and write much the end of this week, I haven’t had a chance to interact as much with Zilch (and Paul C. as well) on the Nihilism post I previously wrote. I have some time to further flesh out my argument now.

First, however, I must point out that Roger has actually done a great job elucidating some of the points I originally tried to make. Indeed, his summary is spot on when he says:

I notice that neither you nor Paul are really disagreeing with Peter or myself on this subject. Pretty much every point has been ceded about the worldview’s content and necessary implications - the only real response has been, ‘Yes, but, we like it enough not to kill ourselves yet.’

Now remember, my original thesis was: Within atheism, life is meaningless because the only thing that can give it meaning is the individuals who live their lives, and when they die all their meaning vanishes with them. Inherent in this claim is the fact that the only type of meaning an atheist can claim is subjective meaning.

The Subjectivity of Atheism

Zilch’s main tactic has been to claim that I’ve been smuggling in theistic concepts when determining how an atheist ought to act. I pointed out the irony of this since Zilch also stated that what I had said about nihilism fit with Sartre (is this a tacit admission that Sartre was a closet theist?).

I had originally said:

So our evolution causes us to long to survive, which requires us to ignore the objective reality of our universe. There is no meaning, but in order for us to survive we have to pretend there is meaning.

To which Zilch responded (italics his):

Nope. What “objective reality” must we ignore? As I said, there is meaning in the universe, or rather many meanings. Once more, you are assuming your position to be true- I don’t have to pretend. If you can prove to me that there is a God, that would be a different story.

Here Zilch is so certain that I’m smuggling “God concepts” into the discussion that he ignores the implications of his very response. I am most certainly NOT smuggling any theism into my statements at all. My argument has NOTHING to do with what I believe about the universe, and I can prove it by using Zilch’s own words here.

Zilch says: “There is meaning in the universe” but immediately backs away from that by saying “or rather many meanings.” But that, precisely, IS my point. There are many “meanings” that an atheist claims, yet none of them are objective. They do not transcend the individuals involved. Indeed, how could they? They remain totally and completely subjective. And if they are totally and completely subjective, then this is exactly what I claimed in my very thesis statement.

Zilch responded to my following comment:

But just because something is doesn’t mean something ought to be that way. That is, just because we’ve come about from creatures with a survivability instinct doesn’t mean that’s what we ought to have.

Since we’ve also evolved intelligence, then we’re able to separate the is/ought and look at the world and see there is no reason to live.

by stating:

That might be true if one presupposes an eternal Ought. But since, in the atheist view, such a thing does not exist, but rather all “oughts” are evolved entities, then this cannot be the position of the naturalist, but only the imagination of someone who already believes. Of course there are reasons to live: they are evolved, not eternal, and peculiar to us humans, but they are the only kinds of reasons we have. From the point of view of an atheist, naturally.

Again, all italics are his. And once again, Zilch is so intent on finding an underlying theistic bent to my argument that he doesn’t realize he’s once again handed me exactly what I claimed before in his own words. When I say that “just because something is doesn’t mean something ought to be” that is not a claim that there is an eternal “Ought” out there. Indeed, my point was that there is no ought at all from the atheist perspective. That’s why you cannot derive one from what is.

In other words, Zilch completely missed my point because of his bias in reading what I’ve written. (He’s unfortunately tunnel blinded by not realizing that I am fully capable of making an argument from someone else’s presuppositions.)

And finally note that Zilch once again agrees that the only reasons to live are “evolved, not eternal, and peculiar to us humans.” Indeed, he emphasizes that these are the “only kinds of reasons we have”. Which again just IS my thesis statement. So at this point I have to wonder just who Zilch is arguing against, because thus far he’s been in total agreement with what I said before while missing the fact that I actually said it.

Now Zilch believes that our concepts of how we view meaning came about via evolution. He states this repeatedly, and I’ve already quoted one such passage above. But despite that he also admits:

Now that we have achieved a degree of freedom from want, we are less constrained to have only beliefs that are accurate or even fitness enhancing, and we can still thrive: if you are rich enough, you can believe just about anything.

So on the one hand, our beliefs come via evolution, but on the other hand they don’t because we can now deviate from the path of evolution. One wonders where these deviations arose from.

In any case, however, it should be noted that evolutionary beliefs merely select for survivability advantage. They do not select for truthfulness. To give a simple example, if someone believes there is a demon in the woods, he will not go in it. As a result, he is not mauled by a bear. This is a survivability advantage even though (according to the atheist) there are no demons at all. Those who would believe in demons would be less likely to go into the woods than those who scoffed at the thought of demons. So evolution doesn’t select for truth, but merely selects for that which allows survival.

And as Zilch said, as long as we are able to survive “you can believe just about anything.”

The Implications Regarding Suicide

So let us plug this concept back into the idea of our lives being meaningful. As I pointed out, according to evolution, belief that our lives are meaningful is a survivability advantage since virtually everyone (atheist or believer alike, but with the exception of true nihilists) says that their lives have meaning. The universality of this belief would require it to be an extremely STRONG survivability trait. That is, if it weren’t important to the survival of our species, we ought to see more people who did not have this trait. Since we don’t see that many, this trait (according to evolution) must be pretty darn important to have for survivability.

But just because we have the inborn desire to belief our lives are meaningful doesn’t make it so. All it means is that evolution selected it. This is why I said that meaning in evolution is nothing more than an opium to drug us into a state where we will not off ourselves. It is pretty obvious (again, due to the universality of the belief) that belief in a meaningful existence is necessary for survival, so not having that leads to death; the most obvious form of which would be suicide (as this is an internal trait—completely subjective—and therefore does not pit man verses the environment, or man verses beast, but simply man verses self).

Just so this point is clear, let me illustrate it with some syllogisms too:

1) Universal traits come about in evolution because that trait has a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

2) The belief in a meaningful life is universal.

Conclusion 1: The belief in a meaningful life provides a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

3) Converse of 1), traits that do not show up in an organism over time do not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

4) The lack of belief in a meaningful life is virtually nonexistent.

Conclusion 2: The lack of belief in a meaningful life does not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

5) Subjective concepts are internal to the organism.

6) Beliefs are subjective concepts.

Conclusion 3: Beliefs are internal to the organism.

7) The environment and predators typically only interact with the external changes to an organism (i.e., speed, strength, visual acuity, etc.)

8) Beliefs are internal to the organism.

Conclusion 4: The environment and predators will typically not interact with the beliefs of an organism.

9) Conclusion 2 restated: The lack of belief in a meaningful life does not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

10) Conclusion 4 restated: The environment and predators typically only interact with the external changes to an organism.

Conclusion 5: The environment and predation are not the likely reason for why the lack of belief in a meaningful life does not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

11) Suicides are typically driven by issues internal to the organism.

12) Suicides decrease the survivability advantage for the organism.

Conclusion 6: Suicides are a possible reason for the decrease of survivability of organisms due to internal issues.

13) Conclusion 2 restated: The lack of belief in a meaningful life does not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

14) Conclusion 6 restated: Suicides are a possible reason for the decrease of the survivability of organisms due to internal issues.

Conclusion 7: It is possible that suicides are the reason that the lack of belief in a meaningful life does not provide a significant survivability advantage for the organism.

Now obviously given the above, suicide is the most likely explanation for why lack of belief in a meaningful existence has significant disadvantages over the belief that there is meaning in life. That is, the other possibilities for this belief being detrimental to the organism do not seem adequate to actually cause a decrease in survivability.

Again it should be pointed out that this does not prove that life is meaningful in reality; it merely says that the belief that life is meaningful grants a survivability advantage due to the fact there will be less likelihood of suicide under that position.

The Meaninglessness of the Subjective Meaning

Finally, I want to address the idea that Zilch has brought up repeatedly, namely that if something is meaningful for him then it really is meaningful. My argument is that subjective meaning is ultimately meaningless. To establish this claim, let me first draw out some further implications.

First, it is important to note that we need to view the system in its entirety. Zilch does not wish to do so, for he states (italics his):

And I differ with you, for the same reason: yes, the Universe as a whole has no meaning, just as the Universe as a whole is not alive. But there are parts of the Universe that are alive, and have meaning, because they have evolved.

And:

So you are saying that if the universe as a whole has no meaning, then no part of the universe can have meaning? That doesn’t make sense- the universe as a whole is not iron or green or alive, but parts of it are iron or green or alive, no? Again, you are assuming that “meaning” is some sort of primal quality, like the laws of physics, and if the universe as a whole cannot be described as being “meaningful”, then no part of it can be “meaningful” either.

So it is clear that Zilch is trying to compartmentalize the idea that on the whole the universe is meaningless, but in part it is meaningful. This meaning is (as established above) subjective meaning, not derived from the universe itself but rather an artifact of evolution.

The problem with Zilch’s concept is that we must view the universe as whole to determine whether our subjective meanings are actually meaningful or if they are merely delusional. To give a specific example of why this is important, consider the following analogy.

A man is walking down the street when he sees a car veer toward a group of deaf students. The man shouts out: “Get out of the way!” The deaf students do not hear him and are run over. Was the man’s warning in any way a meaningful warning?

No. The warning did not change the outcome at all. It had no effect on the course of events in the slightest. Seen in terms of the system as a whole, the man’s shout was completely irrelevant and therefore meaningless.

In the same way, an atheist decides that he wants to live for as long as he can, and he claims that this gives meaning to his life. But does it really do so? Even if he extends the length of his days, the end result of death is inevitable. It cannot be stopped forever. And furthermore, the end is identical regardless of how many days the person lives. In other words, for all the struggle for life that the atheist goes through, it changes nothing. It is as meaningless as shouting out a warning to deaf students because the end result is the same.

Those who are dead are dead regardless of the lives they lived. Whether one is a murderer or a virtuous saint makes no difference. Whether one lives ten minutes or a hundred thirty years makes no difference. Death is the great equalizer: all become identical in the grave.

Therefore, no matter what meaning you manufacture in your life, it is irrelevant.

One Final Word

Since Zilch is so adamant that I must be forcing theism into my arguments, I encourage all to examine again the basis of my arguments. The basis of subjective meaning is found in Zilch’s own words, not in theism. The basis of the suicide theory is found in the proposed concepts of evolution, not in theism. The basis of the meaninglessness of subjective choices is found in the fact that life does not extend forever, not in theism.

My arguments at no point smuggle in any God concepts at all. They are, in fact, intentionally devoid of them. These are not ideas that I believe in, because I do not hold to the presuppositions required to believe them. However, atheists do; yet despite this they do not wish to believe what their presuppositions would lead them to.

Rather than me inserting God concepts, it is the atheist who, faced with this philosophy, must steal from the Christian worldview in order to avoid the consequences. The atheist must assert that despite all evidence to the contrary, their sheer force of will is sufficient to establish real meaning. They have to ignore the fact that their idea of meaning is impotent. But it is not so much that they must ignore this, it is the very nature of how they must vehemently argue for their meaning that gives away the fact that they are smuggling in concepts.

The theist has reasons for defending meaning in the universe, not the atheist. But the atheist wants that meaning, so they hijack it without establishing it within their own worldview. The result is that atheistic meaning is a house of cards, a stolen concept devoid of a foundation.

Sometimes a series of comments on a blog post diverts far from the original point of the post. I confess that I sometimes (often?) help this because I enjoy philosophical discussions that are usually tangential to the point of a post. One such instance occurred between Zilch and me on this post which was originally about Steve’s response to Avalos on the Legend of Sargon.

I had written a response this weekend to Zilch’s last comment, but decided not to post it since the original post has dropped off into blog purgatory (i.e. no longer on the main page) and because we had moved on to other topics, but because Zilch has been one of the few atheists who doesn’t resort to only bombastic drivel and because he asked me to respond to his last post I will post my response here. I encourage readers who are interested to click the above referenced link and read through our discussion up to this point before responding.

Zilch wrote:

What you seem to be saying- and this seems to be a common position among Christians- is that my life as an atheist is meaningless because it only lasts a certain amount of time, and then I die. Is this a fair appraisal?

That’s incomplete. Instead, more accurately, what I am saying is: Within atheism, life is meaningless because the only thing that can give it meaning is the individuals who live their lives, and when they die all their meaning vanishes with them.

This differs from Christianity because for the Christian meaning in life does not come from our subjective assignment of meaning to it, but from God’s assigning meaning to it. While our lives are short and temporal, God is eternal. As such, our lives (even atheists’ lives) have meaning in God’s plan, and this meaning transcends the lives of human beings. And this is the key difference that I was seeking to make. Under Christianity, meaning in life is objective (for us); under atheism, it is subjective (for us). Under either position, once the subject passes away, there is no longer any meaning left. The difference is that for the Christian God (the subject) will never pass away, and His immutability guarantees He will never change His mind on the value of our lives either.

As a result, holding to meaning and value in our lives is a consistent factor for Christians. It is not so for atheists, however. In other words, saying that our lives are meaningful requires one to adapt a view like the Christian’s view; it is not possible to state this under atheism.

Zilch wrote:

One, you are assuming the truth of your position in positing how my position must be for me. An atheist who somehow believed that an afterlife existed, but that he was missing out because of his atheism, might feel this way; but since most atheists don’t believe in an afterlife, this is not how we look at it. This time on Earth is the time we have, for better or for worse: the fact that believers are looking forward to more doesn’t make us feel that what we have is meaningless in comparison, because we don’t believe there is anything more.

Hopefully you can see that I was not assuming the truth of Christianity and positing from it how atheism must be with my above clarification of the point I was making. Indeed, whether there is an afterlife or not is ultimately irrelevant to my position that Christianity gives life meaning while atheism cannot do so. In Christianity, meaning is based on God, not on our lives or our afterlives.

Furthermore, Zilch phrased his argument in relative terms. That is: “the fact that believers are looking forward to more doesn’t make us feel that what we have is meaningless in comparison” (italics mine). But what is at issue is not the comparison between atheism and Christianity here, but whether atheism can—of itself—hold the grounds to meaning in life. And here we see that Zilch acknowledges: “This time on Earth is the time we have, for better or worse.” More importantly than that, all the meaning that we can possibly have in our lives (as atheists) is just for “the time we have.” That meaning cannot extend beyond our subjective will, our desire to create meaning. When we die, that desire is gone. Our meaning is gone. There is no purpose for our life beyond the purpose we say is there.

To put it another way, the universe has no meaning, no purpose, no value in and of itself. It is therefore left for us to arbitrarily decree that it is really there (but if we are decreeing something there that really isn’t there, then we are deluded). Our decree is only as good as we are. We come from nothing and we will pass into nothing. Our decrees do not last beyond our own scope. Therefore, our decrees are dust in the wind. No matter how much we wish that the universe was meaningful, it will never conform to our wishes. It will remain as it is. Our job (as proper atheists, mind you) ought to be to embrace reality and avoid superstition. And that requires us to reject meaning as a psychological prop.

Zilch said:

Two: while it’s true that some atheists find the shortness of our lives grounds for declaring that everything is meaningless (J.P. Sartre comes to mind), most of us don’t.

Actually, it is not the shortness of our lives that creates the meaninglessness (per se), but rather it is the fact that that which gives our lives meaning (our subjective will) is not eternal. The shortness of life is only relevant because when we die, so too dies what gives our life meaning. Our lives could be increased tenfold, or a hundredfold, or any finite number and you will not escape the meaninglessness of it all. When you die, there is nothing left to make your life meaningful. Nor is there anything left to have made your past life meaningful either (example: is Caesar’s life meaningful today? How much less so the life of a commoner in the slums of Rome!)

Zilch said:

In fact, for me and many others, it is the awareness that we are only here briefly that makes every day precious and full of meaning.

Except that, once again, it is only precious and meaningful in a subjective sense; and once you die, it is no longer precious or meaningful. Furthermore, since you no longer exist, it never was meaningful or precious. Indeed, from the cosmic time scale, you’re just a blip on the screen. You came from nothing and you’ll continue into nothing. In the meantime, what you accomplish boils down to nothing.

Zilch said:

Since we don’t believe in a God who is the absolute source of meaning, we must find our own meanings.

The problem is not that you must “find” your own meaning, but rather that the atheist must manufacture meaning out of meaninglessness. He must manufacture purpose out of that which has no purpose. He must manufacture value out of that which has no value. It is not like these things exist in the universe waiting to be discovered. Not at all. In atheism, they do not exist at all. Not until someone wills them into existence. And even then, they can only be subjectively held.

And it is at this point that the atheist, under the presuppositions of atheism, is no longer viewing the universe objectively at all. He has subjectively decided to infuse into the universe that which is not there. He has deluded himself. And at this point, his contention with theists becomes bitterly ironic. “Theists are deluded into thinking God exists so they can have some meaning in their life” the atheist will claim, all the while ignoring the fact that he has deluded himself into thinking his life has meaning based on his sheer will alone. At best, the atheist can be on no better rational ground than the theist when it comes to delusional behavior regarding meaning!

Zilch said:

In fact, the idea held by many fundamentalists of several religions, that our earthly sojourn is meaningless in comparison to the afterlife, or only meaningful insofar as it is a test that must be passed, is a great source of danger to the planet.

Unfortunately, atheism does not allow an atheist to make this claim. There is no “danger” to the planet because the only way for there to be danger would be if there was something of value to be lost. But the universe came from nothing and will return to nothing–no matter what you do. There is no value in the universe except that which we pretend is there. So the danger is not to the planet, but rather to what Zilch wishes the planet to be like. And it is all good and well for Zilch to have desires about what the planet should be like, but his atheism gives him no grounds for stating that his views are better or worse than those of the fundamentalist; and indeed, if the fundamentalist views atheism as a danger to the planet, then whose word do we take? We’ve already seen that under atheism, both religious meaning and non-religious meaning are devoid of objective correlation to the universe. This extends to values as well. There is no inherent value in anything in the universe. What do we have left?

This brings me back to something Zilch said at the beginning of his response:

I am interested in peaceful coexistence on our planet; and since it looks like neither religion nor atheism is going away any time in the near future, I do what I can to find common ground. This includes bringing my satanic, er, I mean secular humanistic viewpoint to the table, as a small contribution towards making the world a better place for my children. After all, people of all beliefs are capable of doing great good or great evil.

Unfortunately, there is no way that Zilch can make “the world a better place” for his, or anyone else’s, children. In order to use the term “better” he would have to be able to substantiate how the universe ought to be, which he cannot do (there is no “oughtness” apart from purpose). Likewise, he cannot label any actions of people as “good” or “evil” either. Not unless all these terms are simply subjective declarations. And if that’s all they are, they lose any bit of force they had, for why should Zilch’s subjective whims be the rule we go by? But more importantly, the demise of the Earth is inevitable; how we get there is ultimately unimportant. After all, the final score is the same regardless of how the game is played. There is no point in keeping track of it.

JOHN: Welcome back to Televised Competitive Chess here on PBS. I’m John Loftus, alongside my partner Lee Randolph. Now Lee, when we went to the commercial break, Black had just made a move you described at the time as brilliant. Can you further elaborate?

LEE: Thank you, John. You can see the position now.

Black’s last move was: 36 … Qb4 and, as you can see, he is now threatening White with a back-rank mate from both his Queen and his Rook at c8.

JOHN: Can you explain a back-rank mate for both our viewers?

LEE: Certainly. You can see White’s King is contained in the corner of the board with his own Pawns holding him in place. The bottom row is completely empty and the only piece that White can use to block the attack is his Queen.

JOHN: Well, it’s White’s move now. How does he stack up?

LEE: White is severely disadvantaged in this position. In fact, it’s difficult to think of a worse position other than outright checkmate. White has played incredibly poorly this game, and it’s obvious in this position. Right now, Black has a certain checkmate in two moves unless White plays perfectly. White might be able to pull out a draw here.

JOHN: What would you recommend White do then?

LEE: It is tempting to bring his own Queen down, but he can’t plant the Queen on the first rank or it’ll just be taken by Black’s Queen, which guards the e1 square. However, White needs to do something. He could move Queen to a1, which would guard against an immediate back-rank mate, but I can’t imagine Black wouldn’t move Queen to c4 to create a battery which would win. White’s only hope is to move one of his Pawns to give himself an escape. But objectively, White is completely losing. This is one of the worst games I’ve ever seen televised.

JOHN: Okay, and White looks like he’s getting ready to move. And…it’s going to be a Queen move after all!

LEE: He’s obviously not listening to me.

JOHN: And…oh my goodness. Queen to b8, with check. What is he thinking?

LEE: Oh, this is terrible! Just terrible. Of all the moves that he could have done, White is simply giving away his Queen now! I thought he couldn’t possibly play any worse than he had, but he proved me wrong.

JOHN: Wow. Well, this is a no brainer. Black is going to take White’s Queen with his King—

LEE: Actually, he can’t do that. White’s Bishop at g3 guards that. I can only surmise that White overlooked the fact that Black can take with his Rook anyway! Or maybe he was thinking of trading his Queen for Black’s Rook—a terrible mistake, since Black’s Queen can still mate! And now, with no Queen to block, if White doesn’t move a Pawn next move, it’s an instant back-rank mate!

JOHN: And here goes Black, taking the Queen.

LEE: I cannot believe White is playing so bad. White is going to capture the Rook with his Bishop, which will guarantee a back-rank mate with Queen to e1! I wonder how this man ever got rated in the first place. This is simply dismal playing. He’s been making the absolute worst possible moves ever in the history of chess.

JOHN: And here he goes. And…wait, he’s not going for the Bishop.

LEE: No, he’s doing a Knight move! That’s even worse! He needs to move a Pawn or else…

JOHN: Oh my.

LEE: What?

JOHN: Checkmate? Is that checkmate?

LEE: It can’t be.

JOHN: But look. Black is in check, but he can’t move his King. And nothing can take the Knight. It’s checkmate!

LEE: White got lucky, that’s for sure. He made some of the stupidest moves ever in the history of chess, but managed to hold on.

JOHN: It’s almost like he planned it from the start that way.

LEE: No, he couldn’t have. My game theory analysis says he made the worst possible moves ever up until this point.

JOHN: Hmmm. If it was a normal person, I’d disagree. But since it was God playing…

LEE: Like I said. He got lucky.

1) The experience of pain is morally evil.
2) To go against moral evil is morally good.
3) Therefore, it is morally good to do that which will alleviate the experience of pain.

However…

4) Stubbing one’s toe on a coffee table inflicts pain on the individual.
5) Therefore, it is morally good to do that which will ensure no one can ever stub his or her toe on a table.

Unfortunately….

6) There are more ways to inflict pain than stubbing one’s toe on a table.
7) It is impossible to ensure that all external ways of inflicting pain are incapable of doing so.

However…

8) Dead things experience no pain.
9) It is inevitable that living things will experience pain.
10) Therefore, it is morally better to be dead than to be alive.

Unfortunately…

11) There are those who will not kill themselves.
12) Those who are alive will experience pain.
13) Since it is a moral good to alleviate the experience of pain, it is morally justifiable to kill every other living thing.

And finally…

14) If you do not act to resist evil, you are evil yourself.
15) Therefore, if you do not kill everyone you are evil but
16) If you do kill everyone you are good.

Thank God atheists aren’t consistent.

“I see you’ve come back.”

“Yes, Mike. It happens every day after work. Amazing, isn’t it?” Larry stretched and glanced over at the chessboard that Mike had set up. “Another game? You can’t be serious.”

“Indeed I am,” Mike responded.

“But I beat you six times in a row yesterday, and they were all Scholar’s Mates.”

“No you didn’t. And your use of the term ‘Scholar’ there is pejorative.”

“That’s the name of the move.”

“You’re just blustering and pretending to be an intellectual elite.”

Larry sighed. “Look, Mike, I just got back from work. I’m tired. I don’t want to play a game of chess right now.”

“Because you’re a coward and you know you lost.”

“No, it’s because I don’t feel like trouncing you again.”

“You know, you’ve got a real attitude. You didn’t come anywhere near beating me. I beat you each time.”

“When I checkmate you, I win. Not you.”

“Your claims of checkmate were unverifiable. I could still move.”

“Moving the king six spaces is not a legal move, Mike.”

Mike put his hands on his hips. “Oh really? Says who?”

“It’s the rules of chess.”

“Oh, the mysterious magic rules of chess. How convenient for you that they just happen to benefit you, huh?”

“They’re the rules—”

“I can’t see them.”

“What?”

“I can’t see them. They don’t exist. You believe in this mythical thing you call ‘rules’ that you’ve never seen with your own eyes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You know what, Larry? You have a serious problem here. You have to win at all costs.”

Larry rolled his eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the object of a game of chess to, you know, win?”

“Yes. But not at all costs.”

“I don’t win at all costs. I win by playing a good offense and a good defense. Yours doesn’t measure up.”

“You really ought to check your elitist tendencies.”

“‘Check’ them. That’s a clever pun.”

“Pun?”

“Never mind, Mike. It was obviously an accidental pun. I should have guessed it, as poorly as you play chess.”

“Now listen here, Larry. Just because you declared yourself the winner by invoking some mystery magic ‘rule’ that floats invisibly up in the air somewhere watching over us while we play a game of chess does not mean that you play chess better than me.”

“Of course not. Rather, it’s my continual slaughtering of your defense and capturing your king that shows my chess skill trumps yours.”

“Such violent metaphors! I’ll bet you beat your wife!”

Larry looked at Mike. “Okaaaaaay.”

Mike stood and gestured angrily at Larry. “I’m not going to stand for this anymore!” He stormed out of the room.

Larry sighed and soon forgot it. Tomorrow was Saturday and he planned to sleep in. Unfortunately, he was woken at eight in the morning by a knock at the door.

“Are you Lawrence Adams?” the man at the door asked.

“Yes,” Larry said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Get him!”

Before Larry could react, he was thrown to the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Dr. Graves has informed us you’re a threat to yourself.” Larry’s arms were pushed into the straightjacket.

“What?”

“That’s right,” Mike said, entering behind the men. “It’s in my report.”

“He’s a psychology PhD,” the man restraining Larry provided helpfully.

“And I’ve made my report. Larry, you exhibit all the symptoms of a disease known as Mania. You have a narcissistic flair or ‘grandiosity’ to your personality. You are quite intolerant of others. Indeed, you have an ego-centric paradigm that means you simply lack the ability to consider the thoughts and feelings of those around you. It’s all about your thoughts and feelings. Sadly, no facts, reasoning, or logic will change you. On the contrary, arguing with you simply increases your mania, and for that I apologize. I have been provoking, perhaps envoking (I’m not sure which word to use) your illness by playing chess with you.

“The fact is, Larry, when you say, ‘I and those who play chess like me are better at chess than you’ then that’s the first sign that we’re dealing with some mental illness, and we must react with appropriate humanity. That’s why you will be taken back to my asylum and given shock treatments from now on.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure after just a few months of those shock treatments you’ll be able to play chess just as well as I can, and then you can reintegrate into society.”

Mike watched as Larry was dragged out of the house proclaiming his innocence. It was sad. The insane never realize they’re not crazy.

T-Stone has written in defense of Dawkin’s idea that theists proposing Intelligent Design would need to have a God who was more complex than the universe is. Important to this discussion is the following point T-Stone raises:

A 1,000 x 1,000 pixel grid of random pixels, on the other hand, isn’t as pretty to look at as a rendering of the Mandelbrot set, but it is much more complex — maximally complex, as it turns out (which is part of why it’s not as appealing aesthetically as a fractal image!). It’s counterintuitive to people who don’t work with information theory and algorithmic complexity, but its a fact of the domain: randomness is the theoretical maximum for measured complexity. You can’t get any more complex than purely random. In a random grid of pixels, we cannot guess anything about any pixels at all. In a rendering of Sierpinski triangles, or the Mandelbrot or Julia set, as soon as we see one level of rendering, prior to any recursion, we no everything about the rest of image, and can reproduce the fractal to any depth of detail without the original program.

Unfortunately for T-Stone, if he paid attention to what he has written here he’d see that he’s soundly refuted Dawkins. After all, if maximal randomness is equivalent to maximal complexity, then it is easy for me to write a program that will generate completely random output. In other words, it is easy for me—a person who is not maximally complex—to produce a program with output that is maximally complex. Thus, if we want to play T-Stone’s game and use complexity in this sense, then Dawkin’s argument must be surrendered.

If I can make a program that is more complex than I am, then God can create a universe that is more complex than He is.

FWIW, I disagree with T-Stone’s version of information and complexity. And despite what his post would lead you to believe, the idea that “maximal randomness = maximal complexity” is not true for all information theories. And in fact, if I were to use T-Stone’s definition of complexity then I would ask him to explain not why there is so much complexity in the universe, but rather why there is so little complexity. If complexity = randomness, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there’s a lot of the universe that is not random, and therefore there is a lot of this universe that is not complex. Under his information theory, randomness is the default. We do not need to explain random data. We do need to explain structured and ordered data. Therefore, we do not need to explain complexity; we need to explain non-complexity.

T-Stone is just giving a sleight of hand here. It would be like a mathematician saying “a > b” and having T-Stone say, “The greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, therefore ‘a > b’ means ‘a is less than b’.”

But as soon as he engages in his sleight of hand, we respond: “If the greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, then ‘a > b’ is no longer true, rather ‘a < b’ is.”

Inverting the operator without inverting the operands does not refute the original expression.

On December 6, 2006, I responded to comments Charles had made responding to a particular person who was responding to a post Steve had written. My response included the following:

I have more reason to believe he is an atheist pretending to be a Christian. He spouts atheist arguments on every single issue, and thus far has demonstrated no ability to grasp basic Christian concepts.Sorry if I don’t buy the whole: If it looks like a goat, sounds like a goat, eats trash like a goat, but says it’s a sheep, then we must believe it’s a sheep. So until [this person] can show me evidence that he actually believes the Gospel (a good way to start demonstrating this would be if he stopped attacking it), I’m going to label him as a non-Christian.

Nor was my judgment unique. Indeed, even before I penned the above, Steve had written of this person (November 22, 2006):

You’re a professing Christian on Sundays, but an honorary atheist on Mondays.

Who is this individual? Why, none other than Touchstone.

So imagine my shock when Jason Engwer informed me that the latest contributor to Debunking Christianity was…you guessed it: Touchstone.

Apparently, we at Triablogue knew Touchstone was an atheist almost two years before he did. Assuming we believe everything in Touchstone’s deconversion story. (Given his loose handling of the truth when he was commenting over here, my bias is to not believe anything he says.)

It is ironic that now Touchstone wishes to make it sound like he was a very strong Christian before defecting. Now he states:

In cases like mine, inevitably, there are questions raised and suspicions launched about the actuality or sincerity of my faith in the first place. For what it’s worth, I claim to be an atheist who was a deeply committed, “sold out” believer for decades.

… I was an avid student of theology, a circumstance which had faith-building and faith-destroying ramifications for me over the years. In any case, I was not a “lukewarm Christian”, one of those who slowly drifted out of the faith. My faith did not fade away, it came crashing down, quite unexpectedly, and frankly not of my own choosing (at least at the start). I was a cradle Evangelical fully immersed, well-read and fully on board. As a poster on a forum for (Christian) homeschoolers commented recent in a large “discussion” over my atheism: it’s the “worst case scenario”. Such is the dissonance for many who have known me, a good share of them have decided I’ve just been lying or faking it all these years, or I somehow just was never saved, never a Christian that “took”.

For those interested, in August of 2007 I wrote The Case Against Touchstone which goes into more detail as to why I never believed Touchstone’s profession of faith. Apparently, this “sold out” believer was so transparent that we had no problems spotting exactly who he really was, and we knew it for two years.

Perhaps Touchstone’s psychology is such that he really thought he was a Christian until recently…but I don’t buy it. You simply don’t make the arguments that T-Stone made, you don’t support the atheist argument in every discussion, you don’t actively attack Christians and promote atheist views if you’re a Christian. The signs were there for years. There’s nothing “recent” about his deconversion, except for his admission of it.

Since Paul C. is having difficulty understanding why causality is linked to a logical order, not a temporal order, and since others might be interested in seeing why this is the case, I decided to write another post spelling it out clearly. Before I get into the main point, we already know that temporal order is not sufficient to infer causality because that is the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy. A simple example will suffice: the Oklahoma City bombing happened before 9/11 happened, therefore 9/11 was caused by Timothy McVeigh. This is an obvious example of the post hoc fallacy. Others are not so obvious, and we see this many times in movies about crime. For example: The victim is killed moments before the defendant leaves the premise.

So we know that temporal order is not sufficient to infer causality. In this post, I am going to take it one step further. To do so, I must talk a bit about Einstein’s theory of Relativity. In order to follow what will occur, the most important aspect to grasp is the fact that light moves at a constant velocity regardless of the framework of the observer. This is counter-intuitive, and a simple example should show why.

Suppose you are travelling in a car that is moving at 60 miles per hour. If you throw a baseball at 60 miles an hour in the same direction that you are travelling, the ball will look (from your perspective) like it is travelling 60 miles per hour. From someone on the ground, however, the ball will look like it is travelling at 120 miles per hour. That is because the observer outside your car sees the ball’s velocity as the sum of your throw (60 miles per hour) plus your vehicles velocity (60 miles per hour).

Suppose that you saw the observer on the side of the road and wanted to throw the ball back at him after you’ve already passed. Your car is still travelling at 60 miles an hour, but you give a little extra effort and throw the ball at the observer at 70 miles per hour. The observer on the side of the road will have the ball come toward him at 10 miles per hour. (The car is moving 60 miles per hour in one direction, and you throw the ball in the opposite direction (indicated by a – sign), so the result is 60 – 70 = -10 miles per hour; or 10 miles per hour in the opposite direction that the car is moving.)

This makes sense to us because we’ve seen it in action. Suppose, however, that instead of a baseball, the person in the car turns on a flashlight. Relativity states that light will appear at approximately 3 x 10⁸ m/sec for both the observer in the vehicle and the observer outside the vehicle. That is, there is no adding on the velocity of the observer to light. It moves at a constant speed through all frames of reference.

So with this in mind, let me give a slightly different version of Einstein’s train. Suppose there are two people on opposite ends of a train and these people are named Adam and Bill. At the midpoint of the train is a bomb. Adam and Bill both have buttons they can press. This will send an electrical signal that travels at the speed of light to the bomb in the middle of the train. Adam wants to blow up the train; Bill wants to keep Adam from blowing up the train. As a result, Adam’s signal will cause the bomb to detonate while Bill’s signal will keep the bomb from detonating. Furthermore, let us stipulate that Bill is at the front of the train (i.e., toward the engine) while Adam is at the back of the train (i.e., the caboose).

For ease of math, let us stipulate that light moves at exactly 3 x 10⁸ m/s. Let us also stipulate that the distance between Bill and the bomb is exactly 1,000 meters. However, due to an error when the experiment was set up, Adam is slightly closer to the bomb: he’s only 900 meters away. Let us stipulate that from the train’s framework, Adam and Bill press their buttons at the exact same time.

Now it is obvious without even doing math that because Adam is closer to the bomb and because light travels at a constant velocity that the bomb will detonate if both press their buttons at the same time. Nevertheless, let us do the math on it.

If light travels at 300,000,000 m/s, how long does it take light to go 1,000 meters? This is a simple physics problem: t = d/v. In this case, t = 1,000 / 300,000,000 or 3.3 x 10^-6 seconds.

How long does it take light to travel 900 meters? In this case, t = 900 / 300,000,000 or 3.0 x 10^-6 seconds. This means that Adam’s signal will reach the bomb 3 x 10^-7 (0.0000003) seconds before Bill’s signal will reach the bomb.

Now suppose that there is an outside observer named Charlie. The train is moving. But because light has a constant velocity irrespective of the observer, he will see both signals travel at 3 x 10⁸ m/s just like those inside the train. Suppose that at the exact instant (from Charlie’s perspective) the bomb is in front of him, both Adam and Bill press their buttons, what does Charlie see? He sees two signals travelling at 3 x 10⁸ m/s. But he also sees the bomb travelling toward Bill’s position (Bill is at the engine) and away from Adam’s (Adam is in the caboose).

This means from Charlie’s perspective, if Adam and Bill were exactly the same distance apart and pressed their buttons at exactly the same instant, the signal from Bill’s button would reach the bomb before the signal from Adam’s button would reach the bomb. But because we know that Adam is 100 meters closer to the bomb than Bill, we ask a question: how fast must the train be moving so that from Charlie’s perspective both signals will reach the bomb at the same time?

As we calculated above, Bill’s signal will reach the bomb 3 x 10^-7 seconds after Adam’s. And we know that the difference in distance is 100 meters. So we need the train to cover 100 meters in 3 x 10^-7 seconds. However, this distance is split between Adam and Bill. That is, because the signal is moving toward Bill and away from Adam, the train needs to actually only cover 50 meters in 3 x 10^-7 seconds. This gives us 50m /0.0000003s = 1.67 x 10⁸ m/s, or just over 50% the speed of light.

So let us suppose that the train is moving at 2 x 10⁸ m/s, or 2/3s the speed of light. What will Charlie see?

He sees Adam press his button. The signal moves out at 3 x 10⁸ m/s and covers 900 meters. However, when it hits the 900 meter mark (from Charlie’s perspective) 3.0 x 10^-6 seconds later, the bomb has moved. The bomb is moving at 2 x 10⁸ m/s, and it does so for the same 3.0 x 10^-6 seconds. That means the bomb has moved 600 meters further down the track after that 3.0 x 10 ^-6 seconds. Ultimately, this means it takes Adam’s signal 9.0 x 10^-6 seconds to actually read the bomb.

At the same instant, Charlie sees Bill press the button. Bill’s signal travels out at 3 x 10⁸ m/s and the bomb has moved toward him at 2 x 10⁸ m/s too. This means that it takes only 2.0 x 10^-6 for Bill’s signal to reach the bomb. From Charlie’s perspective, Bill’s signal reaches the bomb 7.0 x 10^-6 seconds before Adam’s does.

What will the train do? Answer: it will explode. Even from Charlie’s perspective, it will still explode. Why is that? Because on the train, which is where the bomb is located, Adam’s signal reaches the bomb 3 x 10^-7 seconds before Bill’s signal does. Charlie observes Bill’s signal arriving 7.0 x 10^-6 seconds before Adam’s does, however. From Charlie’s perspective, the signal that causes the bomb to explode arrives after the signal to keep the bomb from exploding should have neutralized it.

So what caused the train to explode? Adam’s signal did. But from Charlie’s perspective, it shouldn’t have. But Charlie is still left with an exploding train, one that does not fit in a temporal causative sense. It does, however, fit logically. He knows that logically Adam’s signal must have caused the train to explode, and that Bill’s counter-signal did not neutralize the bomb.

Naturally, the train had to be going extremely fast: 2/3 the speed of light. Since we never reach those speeds on Earth, cause and effect usually follow the temporal scheme. However, it is a fallacy for us to believe that causes are temporal causes for the reasons illustrated above. The only thing that matters is whether logically they are causes. If we know that A and only A logically causes B, then even if we observe B occurring before A we know that A is the cause of B. This must be the case.

This is also why we can have logical precedence (that is, a logical before) without having a temporal before. This is commonly seen in theology when, for instance, we talk about the decrees of God. The difference between Infralapsarians and Supralapsarians boils down to the logical order of the decrees of God, not the temporal order (since all agree that temporally each decree occurred before the foundation of the world, in eternity past; that is, outside of time). There is no temporal before in causality; there is only a logical before.