Speak for Yourself: Secularism and the meaningless life
My chronic beef with religious writers from Judaic and Christian perspectives is with their thinking. They use bad ideas badly. Worse yet, they have closed, bolted, riveted, and welded-shut their minds to any other considerations. Sadly that seems to happen to most people of most perspectives in their latter 20s, when they become the old adage: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Dennis Prager, whom I do not know, for months has been writing an open-ended series of articles dealing with Judeo-Christian ideas. He says he is Jewish; in my view, his ideas span both religions quite evenly--not that I agree with many of them. I am grateful to him for articulating positions as clearly as the jumble of contradictory ideas permits and for his publishing these for people to read and think about.
Most of the time, I read and ignore his articles even though Mr. Prager always takes the position that there are only two sides to the story: the good and the bad. I just have to pick my battles, as the expression goes. He hails the Judeo-Christian side as universally good while anyone else, such as me, goes into the "bad" wastebasket with Muslims, Communists, "secular humanists," and the like--i.e., , anybody that does not fit the Judeo-Christian "good" side. So, with this article, I feel stimulated to address some of its contents.
Here is a sample from one of his recent articles:
The second quoted paragraph, which I italicized, demonstrates how he views those with not-like-his views as members of the Dark Side of the Force. Nevertheless, when you tease out the issues, you can indeed find elements of truth among all of the babies and their bath waters he throws out. Most notable is "moral confusion," but I do not want to try to address these issues here because there is something more fundamental that must be addressed.
That fundamental finds expression in sentences like this one: "...[W]hile secular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning, secularism by definition denies that life has meaning."
When Mr. Prager uses "meaning," he clearly refers to valuing. A value is really something someone acts to gain or keep, and the action to gain or keep it is virtue. But, values are not floating abstractions, but expressions like "life has meaning" are indeed floating abstractions. And the very question which exposes the problem is, "Value to whom, for what"? Without an object, value has no meaning whatsoever.
Thus, "the meaning of life," however phrased, has no meaning.
The clause "...[S]ecular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning" really does mean something. However, just what it means cannot be known without asking secular individuals to tell you. Since secular individuals make up vast numbers of people on earth, finding out what their lives mean to them becomes a prodigious, if not impossible, task.
Thus, his phrase which says "...[S]ecularism by definition denies that life has meaning" is meaningless. Mr. Prager implies that "meaning" means God and all the trappings, i.e., religious faith. Since all the elements of faith belong not to this world but to some unknowable world, we have to ask how anyone knows an unknowable world. And, how would such have any meaning?
We are really treading on nonsense here.
I want to take a brief aside here to address "secular." My Encarta dictionary gives the denotative meaning of "secular": adjective, 1. not concerned with religion: not controlled by a religious body or concerned with religious or spiritual matters; 2. not religious: not religious or spiritual in nature (as in secular music)." If you look at the two meanings, neither conveys either a positive or a negative meaning or inference. Yet, when "secular" comes from someone on the Right who is religious, as in "secular humanist," it conveys undiluted negativity--its connotative meaning. Given the verbal emphasis, the term conveys the whole range of evil.
I do not use "secular" because it is too imprecise and because it lumps together all manner of entities which do not belong together. And, I do not use it because it is only an epithet from the religious Right.
But, I digress--back to "meaning" and "life."
Both the Left and the Right have the hardest time dealing with the fundamental social unit: the individual. To the Left, only the group or groups have meaning, and individuals are simply cells in the large group collective organ. To the Right, the fundamental social unit is the family, which is a group, just like those the Left admire. The Left and the Right have much more in common than either is comfortable admitting.
To reality, groups are individuals coming together for some reason. Society is not some big, anonymous, all powerful collective. It is all of the individuals who live together geographically, and perhaps politically.
Hold on to your seat, Mr. Prager for this next section.
The individual is all there should be, and once that individual dies, he or she ceases to exist--forever, anywhere. No spirit hangs around to re-enter babies or haunt locales. Nothing goes to an afterlife because there isn't one. This life IS IT for every individual born. And ONLY it.
Because this life is it, each individual must properly take the responsibility to make his or her life meaningful to him or her. As has been said, we are beings of self-made soul. Mother Nature hands us a genetic load, with potentials. Turning those potentials into actuals is our responsbility and ours alone. It makes sense then that we must make the most of our lives while we have them, and it is just as obvious that very many people never accept that responsibility. Whether they accept responsbility for making their lives meaningful or not, that is their choice. Reality serves the consequences of their pro-action or lack of action.
I suppose that Mr. Prager says that life has meaning only with religion, and those who are "secular" endure a living hell. Speak for yourself, Mr. Prager.
It is a glorious responsibility, this building a meaningful life. It builds that life on this earth, in this world, because there is no other, and time and life are too short to squander.
Dennis Prager, whom I do not know, for months has been writing an open-ended series of articles dealing with Judeo-Christian ideas. He says he is Jewish; in my view, his ideas span both religions quite evenly--not that I agree with many of them. I am grateful to him for articulating positions as clearly as the jumble of contradictory ideas permits and for his publishing these for people to read and think about.
Most of the time, I read and ignore his articles even though Mr. Prager always takes the position that there are only two sides to the story: the good and the bad. I just have to pick my battles, as the expression goes. He hails the Judeo-Christian side as universally good while anyone else, such as me, goes into the "bad" wastebasket with Muslims, Communists, "secular humanists," and the like--i.e., , anybody that does not fit the Judeo-Christian "good" side. So, with this article, I feel stimulated to address some of its contents.
Here is a sample from one of his recent articles:
Dennis Prager: Secularism and the meaningless life: Judeo-Christian values: Part
XIII,May 24, 2005
...{M}y columns on Judeo-Christian values have concentrated on differences between Judeo-Christian and secular values.
Perhaps the most significant difference between them, though one rarely acknowledged by secularists, is the presence or absence of ultimate meaning in life. Most irreligious individuals, quite understandably, do not like to acknowledge the inevitable and logical consequence of their irreligiosity -- that life is ultimately purposeless...[W]hile secular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning, secularism by definition denies that life has meaning. The consequences have been devastating to mental health and to social order.
Among these have been increased unhappiness and depression, increased reliance on drugs and numbing entertainment to get people through life, moral confusion, belief in nonsense (such as Marxism, fascism, communism, male-female sameness, pacifism, moral equivalence of good and bad societies, and much more), and perhaps most ubiquitous, political meaning as a substitute for religious meaning.
Given that the need for meaning transcends all other human needs, its absence must create havoc individually and societally. In government, secularism is a blessing; but most everywhere else it is not.
The second quoted paragraph, which I italicized, demonstrates how he views those with not-like-his views as members of the Dark Side of the Force. Nevertheless, when you tease out the issues, you can indeed find elements of truth among all of the babies and their bath waters he throws out. Most notable is "moral confusion," but I do not want to try to address these issues here because there is something more fundamental that must be addressed.
That fundamental finds expression in sentences like this one: "...[W]hile secular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning, secularism by definition denies that life has meaning."
When Mr. Prager uses "meaning," he clearly refers to valuing. A value is really something someone acts to gain or keep, and the action to gain or keep it is virtue. But, values are not floating abstractions, but expressions like "life has meaning" are indeed floating abstractions. And the very question which exposes the problem is, "Value to whom, for what"? Without an object, value has no meaning whatsoever.
Thus, "the meaning of life," however phrased, has no meaning.
The clause "...[S]ecular individuals can believe that their own lives have meaning" really does mean something. However, just what it means cannot be known without asking secular individuals to tell you. Since secular individuals make up vast numbers of people on earth, finding out what their lives mean to them becomes a prodigious, if not impossible, task.
Thus, his phrase which says "...[S]ecularism by definition denies that life has meaning" is meaningless. Mr. Prager implies that "meaning" means God and all the trappings, i.e., religious faith. Since all the elements of faith belong not to this world but to some unknowable world, we have to ask how anyone knows an unknowable world. And, how would such have any meaning?
We are really treading on nonsense here.
I want to take a brief aside here to address "secular." My Encarta dictionary gives the denotative meaning of "secular": adjective, 1. not concerned with religion: not controlled by a religious body or concerned with religious or spiritual matters; 2. not religious: not religious or spiritual in nature (as in secular music)." If you look at the two meanings, neither conveys either a positive or a negative meaning or inference. Yet, when "secular" comes from someone on the Right who is religious, as in "secular humanist," it conveys undiluted negativity--its connotative meaning. Given the verbal emphasis, the term conveys the whole range of evil.
I do not use "secular" because it is too imprecise and because it lumps together all manner of entities which do not belong together. And, I do not use it because it is only an epithet from the religious Right.
But, I digress--back to "meaning" and "life."
Both the Left and the Right have the hardest time dealing with the fundamental social unit: the individual. To the Left, only the group or groups have meaning, and individuals are simply cells in the large group collective organ. To the Right, the fundamental social unit is the family, which is a group, just like those the Left admire. The Left and the Right have much more in common than either is comfortable admitting.
To reality, groups are individuals coming together for some reason. Society is not some big, anonymous, all powerful collective. It is all of the individuals who live together geographically, and perhaps politically.
Hold on to your seat, Mr. Prager for this next section.
The individual is all there should be, and once that individual dies, he or she ceases to exist--forever, anywhere. No spirit hangs around to re-enter babies or haunt locales. Nothing goes to an afterlife because there isn't one. This life IS IT for every individual born. And ONLY it.
Because this life is it, each individual must properly take the responsibility to make his or her life meaningful to him or her. As has been said, we are beings of self-made soul. Mother Nature hands us a genetic load, with potentials. Turning those potentials into actuals is our responsbility and ours alone. It makes sense then that we must make the most of our lives while we have them, and it is just as obvious that very many people never accept that responsibility. Whether they accept responsbility for making their lives meaningful or not, that is their choice. Reality serves the consequences of their pro-action or lack of action.
I suppose that Mr. Prager says that life has meaning only with religion, and those who are "secular" endure a living hell. Speak for yourself, Mr. Prager.
It is a glorious responsibility, this building a meaningful life. It builds that life on this earth, in this world, because there is no other, and time and life are too short to squander.
posted by George Mason @ 6/03/2005 08:30:00 AM
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