Living With Purpose

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Faith
R e a s o n a b l e
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Living With Purpose

• What does one gain from a life without God?

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The Choices of Worldview

• Christian Worldview based on the notion that
  fundamental truthsright and wrongare inherent
  in God, and, thus, inherent in Gods ordered
  universe.
• Secular Worldview humanity makes arbitrary
  decisions due to no truth system outside of
  ourselves

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How to Discover Secular Worldview

• Humanist Manifesto I II
• Assumptions Conclusions of those who describe
  life without God
• The logical conclusion deduced from Gods
  non-existence

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1 Humans are Autonomous

• Are some more equal than others?
• Slave to myself?
• Focus on rights. Do we have any
  responsibilities?
• No man is so alone as the man who lives for
  himself.

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2 No Final Moral Order

• Dostoevsky If God is dead, then all things are
  permissible.
• At the foundation of law, at the center of
  order, within the very fabric of civility and
  acting humanely is a declaration of a standard
  higher than (and outside of) ourselves.

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3 Human Life is Not Sacred

• No difference between sacred and secular
• Nothing inherently valuable about human life
• Ask yourself Why do I oppose murder? What makes
  your life more valuable than my tolerance of your
  life?
• From Hitler to Maobased on their own value
  system that went no higher than their own,
  personal ideologies!

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4 No Ultimate Consolation

• Bertrand Russell speaks of the firm foundation
  of unyielding despair.
• But death does not destroy our longing.
• Carl Jung hole in the soul.
• Pascal Augustine God-shaped hole.
• Solomon no consolation under the sun.

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5 No Root Reason for Ethics

• Athiests can (and often are) moral sometimes
  more so than Christians!
• But Atheism offers no fundamental reason or
  motivation for ethics.
• Bertrand Russell 3 passions longing for love,
  pursuit of knowledge, unbearable pity for
  mankind
• All based on standard of moral ought!

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6 Life is Irrational

• Logic-based reason assumes order independent of
  myself.
• Atheists assume all things have been produced
  arbitrarily including our brains.
• Thus, how can they use logic to deduce the
  non-existence of God?!
• There is no meaning of life or purpose.
• Victor Frankl we cannot survive like this!
• Philosophythe quest for meaning!

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The Secular Worldview

• Humans are Autonomous
• No Final Moral Order
• Nothing Sacred (intrinsic higher value)
• No Ultimate Consolation
• No Root Reason for Ethics
• Life is Irrational