Is there meaning to life - William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson and Rebecca Goldstein Review

In this video I review a debate between @drcraigvideos , @JordanBPeterson and Rebecca Goldstein on whether or not there is meaning to life.

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General about:
I am creating videos sort of documenting my journey as I explore the big questions of life. This includes me sharing things I've learnt, interviewing experts and having conversations with others.

My interests span from religion and philosophy through mathematics and computing. I aim to produce some more formal content teaching and elucidating concepts and other more informal videos discussing ideas with guests.
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[theoutsiderhumanist]

Jordan Peterson: If you don't take responsibility for being, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't take responsibility for being?!

[somethingfishy]

Isn´t it ironic, how WLC has a more nihilistic perspective than most atheists? For him meaning cannot exist unless it is everlasting, carved in stone and given by an ultimate authority from up high. If he is wrong, about the existence of God, he is committed to nihilism. If an atheist is wrong about the existence of God, they would still think that there is meaning to their lives either way.

[braincloud]

2:40:00 if anyone didn't catch this: Rebecca Goldstein is married to Steve Pinker, probs part of why the audience got such a kick out of Craig's use of that quote

[goldenalt]

I find "ultimate meaning" is another argument that theists have exactly backwards. If your sole purpose is to please god for eternity and god cannot be pleased because he's unchangeable and already perfect, then you have no meaning. Whereas atheists have no reason to believe that individual actions couldn't have continued impact across all time.

[joshhoward]

Nathan please get Jordan Peterson on your show. It would be a good talk.

[mylesflaig]

One of the sponsors of the talk is RZIM - Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was a world famous apologist for a particular interpretation of the Bible. He and his colleagues were pulling in $40 MILLION per year to RZIM. Preaching truth, love, meaning of life, and the ONLY WAY is their way. Turns out he was an abuser of people. A system that promotes flawed narcissistic people to top positions, must have a serious systemic flaw. Kudos to those who question & dig! ✨😺💫

[tonybanks]

Rebecca Goldstein's arguments: feelings, feelings, neurosis, feelings and methaphysics makes me nervous. Thanks Rebecca.

[leerass]

I never really understood why life would be meaningless or has no value just because it is temporal. To me, it makes it more valuable. Just like how inflation happens when you limitlessly increase the money supply I think that life becomes meaningless if it would last forever. Just like we value rare objects over common ones and cherish rare special moments and not the mundane, I think the temporal nature of life gives it more meaning, not less. Look at a film like Groundhog Day and you will quickly see that eternity would be the real absurdity. If life was only a dry run, a proofing ground, or an entry test for heaven, that would make it even more absurd to me. Things increase in value when there is less of it and diminishes when there is a lot. If the meaning of life is to found outside of it, that would make it more absurd, not less. It is almost the definition of absurdity when the meaning of an action lies outside of it. Knowing your loved ones will die someday makes every moment with them more special, not less. Just like how the passion runs dry in marriage the longer it lasts, will eternity probably make you jaded towards all and everything. I think the tension between wanting a moment to last forever and knowing it won't last is what gives it its meaning. If the moment goes on and on and on, it loses its meaning. And the same goes for life. If there was no end to it, it would literally lose all its purpose, like a race without a finish.

[rickelmonoggin]

Both Peterson and Craig are intellectual lightweights. Both of them rely on rhetoric and emotional manipulation rather than on coherent arguments.

[gerededasein]

Regarding the heat death of the universe and the supposed meaninglessness resulting from it, William Lane Craig really needs to read about the Epicureans. They believed that we and our world will die, but didn't jump to the conclusion that everything is meaningless.

[mylesflaig]

Hi Nathan! I really enjoyed your dialogue with Paul VanderKlay. Not sure if you saw my comment, so I will fetch it and post it here. It seems most in Christianity (other regions too) are each trying to sell us who don’t have a vehicle, or think we need a new one, their vehicle 🚗 of their brand. The question is, will that vehicle get you to an ineffable “there”?

[DiamondrawReal]

Nice thumbnail Nathan. Wow really enjoyed the interview. I went over to see the original livestream too. I gotta laugh when Rob says, well xtianity is true bc it's just everwhere and there's so much proof for it, whatever. And then praising Bhudda but dissing Islam 😡 Otherwise a cool interview 💕

[kazuya]

One can easily ask how life can have a purpose if it goes on forever. There is no goal, you just exist pointlessly for eternity. If the rebuttal to this is simply that the purpose is to live forever then one could easily say that the purpose under naturalism is to live until you die. Both are purposes and it is on the subject which one is preferred.

[goldenalt]

1:02:24 I find the "just a" argument is easily shut down with this: "No more than the bible is just a collection of letters on a page".

[EatHoneyBeeHappy]

I share Goldstein's opposition to Craig and Peterson's view that people have some transcendent quality, or spark of the divine, because when people believe that about themselves they have an excuse to abandon reason and do things atheists would consider immoral. For example the Texas mother Deanna Laney who stoned two of her children to death and grievously wounded a third had a spark of the divine, god told her she had no choice but to do it, which according to Craig makes her deed not just acceptable, but morally good for enacting God's will. Also it always baffles me why christians love bringing up Nazis and the final solution as though they can use it as a tool for their arguments, when most Nazis were christian and the horrors they committed came about as a result of centuries of festering anti-Semitism among christians not just in Germany but around the world.

[natebee]

1:50:45 well it bloody well depends on what you mean by "truth" 🙃

[StephenMeansMe]

@33:00 Seems like meaning depends on contingency: if a I cause some effect, but there's a possible world where it didn't happen, that seems more meaningful than the case where an effect was inevitable.

[veracruz]

Love the intro music, whats it called???

[Oskar]

When Luke Barnes and Alex Malpass argued over the fine tuning argument Luke mentioned that what makes God likely to create our universe is that he is good. So good is not just whatever gods nature happens to be if Luke stipulates it in addition to God to explain why a God would make our universe more expected. Does WLC use the same argument for the Fine tuning, if so there seems to be a inconsistency lurking.

[StephenMeansMe]

JBP seems like the public-intellecual equivalent of the Flagellants - he's compelling because he looks like he's trying *so fucking hard* to force thoughts out of his brain (no matter whether or not they cohere or enlighten).