Yes, the term "meaning " has meaning to those who use the term. But it is not a mathematical term. it is an emotional term, an evolved biological property, and is not universal.
I never said it was. You brought that up. I wish you wouldn’t have. It has little to do with this thread.
What if the meaning to us is merely mathematical to the universe?
If we are speaking of philosophy, should we not consider the meaning of a mathematical universe?
IMO, looking at things from that perspective enhances understanding and greater understanding means greater meaning to living things.
Consider that a chameleon uses triangulation to precisely target a morsel that may be more than a body-length away.
That evolved mathematical ability helps it survive!
What do you mean by thst?
Tell me something, if you go to Star Trek conventions are you Vulcan? I’ll admit it, I’m a Betazoid.
It is humans who assign meaning to natural phenomena. God is a perfect example of humans assigning meaning to the universe and our existence . After all, “we are created in his image”.
Of course, this is not true but it gives meaning to our lives.
To the universe what we do is purely mathematical.
This is the type of thing that makes no sense. If I talk about meaning, you say it’s math. If I agree that everything is math, you say, yeah but people believe in God. So I say, yeah, we evolved into beings that have beliefs. Then you say it’s not true.
I’ll ask the musical question that Pilate sang to Jesus,
But what is truth?
Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths.
Are your’s the same as mine?
We agree in the main.
I also think that belief in an Intelligent Designer is a result of observing a Mathematical universe. Mathematics looks intelligent because it is logical, but by its very nature can only ever be an impersonal quasi-Intelligent function.
And that is the only difference. Of course it renders religions and belief in gods moot.
That’s not different from what I’ve said.
I agree… 
But what about humanity? Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the masses of people out there, they need their gods and religions.
Aren’t we stuck with that? Ideas are real. Beliefs are real. Faith can move mountains, because we also have hands.
This is why I think it would be way more constructive to focus on the reality that Gods and religions are born from within ourselves.
That’s another thing that explicitly recognizing the evolutionary processes that created me offers, it clarifies and puts God into a realistic kingdom outside the domain of material biological reality and,
In the Human Mindscape where it belongs.
Which, in turn, opens the door to a much more personal engagement with the reality of Earth’s biosphere and other creatures - this awareness will be needed ever more as the current global economic paradigms finishes destroying as much of Earth’s biosphere as possible, before the inevitable collapse will leave the survivors trying to figure out how to start all over again in natural world turned hostile.
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They only need their gods because they have been brainwashed with that concept for thousands of years.
But Atheists seem to do very well without a god. How’s that? Are atheists smarter than theists?
I don’t think so, but I do think that governments have been at least enabling of
theism i.e. (separation of Church and State) and at worst enforcing the concept of god (Islam).
Think about that. No one alive today has been brainwashed for a thousand years. You’re talking about culture being passed on, what Dawkins calls memes, but you have a need to call it something else and have the belief that a person can take off their cultural upbringing like an old coat. No science supports that. None.
You are the evolutionary advocate. Religion has evolved over time just as everything else and no one has eradicated religion yet. The OT is still 3000+ years old and unchanged, the NT is 2000+ years old and unchanged, Islam is less than 1400 years old and unchanged. Does that not sound like brainwashing?
No. Brainwashing is not a real thing anyway, so define what you mean. Also, the language translations, the rewriting, the forgeries, have changed the texts. Some people say other teaching is brainwashing, so if means different things to different people.
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Not quite sure that is the word you want. The Church forced people to believe by telling them if they did not believe they’d burn in hell, not allowing the Vulgar to read the Bible, but only seeing the Vulgate. People were scared to admit to disbelief because the Church often killed Heretics and unbelievers, even Pagans. Eventually, Xianity was forced upon the slaves in the U.S., telling them if they were good slaves, they’d get freedom in heaven and other like stories. To this day, religious belief is forced on people in a variety of ways- hellfire and damnation, hijabs, honour killings, etc etc Today, in the U.S. we have the Dominionist who want to make Xianity the law of the land, Xian Sharia so to speak, sneaking into our government, even wanting to take over it.
I don’t think “brainwashing” is the word you want.
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AFAIK, brainwashing is a forced way of learning. The brain doesn’t know what is true or false or right or wrong except for what it has learned is normal since childhood.
If what it has learned is OT , then it believes in OT
If what it has learned is NT, then it believes in the NT
If what it has learned Islam, then it believes in Islam.
Note that none of these “disciplines” have science as a foundation. It is all miraculous and mysterious , so that the “novice” is awestruck and “impressed” and “brainwashed”."
Probably more like tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years.
That’s binary thinking. So atheists do well without god. Does that create an edict for everyone else?
It feels like you’ve create a gumbo of ideas and conclusions.
There are different gods for different people, a jihadist isn’t the same as a farmer praying for rain and a good harvest to feed his kids, or that the boss doesn’t fire 'em today.
Yes, but many many people have an internal need for god. Someone to talk to with absolute openness and honesty like one couldn’t do with any living person.
We are born into this world alone and we die alone. It’s lonely out there, but people are communal creatures, we need each other, even if we can’t totally trust each other. But then there’s God, you can talk to him, we can trust him, since he’s created out of one’s own heart and She’ll never abandon you, as your kin die off and always be there to listen until your dying day. Call it imaginary, but it’s real to the person. Here’s Seth’s hallucination.
I can’t relate to that, but that doesn’t allow me to dismiss it outright. My god is a speck of dust that wanted to be more. Evolution has provided me with all those connections and relationships that matter so much to us humans.
For many God is a security blanket of sorts, and after all nothing wrong with security blankets, would you tear your child’s favorite blanket from them? Would you kick the crutches out from under a person?
True, true, and I fear and despise them as much a you do.
But using God & religion to viciously control people is a very different thing from recognizing the fact that the mystery of life, must be confronted, in one way, or another, by every human.
Creating Gods is an easy response, to a basic human need.
Science is a better one, because it explains way more about the world around us, and with an internal consistency that’s well beyond anything religions can offer. But it’s way more difficult to do well.
Besides, that’s the world around us.
When it comes to our interior emotional world, science loses its potency.
That’s binary thinking. So atheists do well without god. Does that create an edict for everyone else?
No, it’s the opposite that worries me. Islam IS an edict for everyone or else you are branded as “apostate”, and in some Islamist cults, punishable with death.
The problem is that religions do not rest on a single known existential truth, or have been so violated as to actually oppose the original single point of origin.
A world caliphate (theocracy, autocracy) is on more than a few influential minds today.
…
Seems to me your mixing fundamental human needs with political misuses.
Sort of like mixed metaphors, or something.
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