RE: Meaning in a World Without God
A life of joy that entails as little suffering as possible is the simplest goal in the world.
A life with as little suffering as possible while ignoring any temporal joy would seem to be an even more simple goal.
I end my life early. I miss out on what was going to be the “best” life any human being had ever experienced. I immediately cease to exist, and therefore have no knowledge of this missed opportunity and thus suffer zero loss. My choice to end my life was not immoral.
More realistically, I end my life early. I miss out on at best a 50/50 split of boredom, unconsciousness, sickness, tragedy, and unbidden death vs happiness. This is if I am lucky enough to be born in the right place at the right time. The end result is the same only I did not even have to deal with the “unjoy” parts.
These scenarios could go on for quite some time. The bottom line is that the best logical choice in the face of a predetermined apathetic universe for which you can guarantee no positive outcomes, regardless of your “choice” to eat spinach and exercise, would seem to be to immediately enter non existence at which point all one’s instincts to survive cease along with consciousness and thus nothing is lost. Indeed, if all humanity would simultaneously choose to drink the Kool-Aid conscious suffering would cease to exist which would surely better than for it to continuing to exist?
Perhaps consciousness is simply a character trait that will be selected out sooner rather than later when the apathetic universe “realizes” that conscious beings not only self destruct more productively, but also destroy their environment more productively as well?
You sound like an anti-natalist. :) This was another interesting Sam Harris podcast, where David Benatar made a number of similar arguments: https://samharris.org/podcasts/107-life-actually-worth-living/
I think the potential for positive is always more valuable than zero. But for those who don't, I won't blame them for their suicides. I would say that ending one's life early to avoid the suffering of an incurable, painful disease is unquestionably moral.
Still, none of what you said changes anything about the subjectivity of meaning and value. The absence of God is beside the point.
What you are describing is subjective meaning and values which is the same thing as relativism which is the same thing as no objective values which means no right and wrong.
You cannot have it both ways. Either there is an outside Value Giver, which means objective values, which leads to objectively right and wrong actions, or you make up a game with whatever rules you personally think are best and pretend it is important for you to follow them (value and meaning with neither value nor meaning). Everyone else is free to do the same, and they need not agree with you.
According to you, “you are the meaning and purpose”, according to you, “you and your values are its purpose”. There is nothing objective to base that on EXCEPT that you chose to make living for joy your meaning. Your argument appears to be circular.
This is where we disagree, and I spent the majority of the post explaining why and how. The main thing is that you are confusing the concept of "right/wrong" with "value". (And it's totally understandable that you do, since the majority of people do likewise.)
Right/wrong is an answer to a question: does X achieve my intention? If yes, then it's right; if no, then it's wrong. The answer is objective. Value - the thing that the right/wrong question is asking about - is subjective, in that value requires a subject, or conscious agent, to exist.
I think the main reason for this substitution between "moral" and "value" is the god concept. Those who believe in a god take it as a given that god's commands are right. Therefore there's no need to consider them or test them. The command becomes a value. But that substitution is only an accident, a misunderstanding. The command is not the value. The command is how you achieve the value.
Why?
How?
According to who?
You answer these question in your post...by circling back and starting your argument again.
You have simply replaced “God” with yourself. Everyone else is free to do the same. If they are not free to do the same, why?
I will say, though, that from my perspective, God is a non-concept. I'm not replacing God with myself; it's just that the majority of folks replace themselves with God. :) However, for the sake of the debate, I'm granting that God would count as a conscious agent or subject.
"Everyone else is free to do the same. If they are not free to do the same, why?"
Not only is everyone free to do the same - they have no choice about it. Just as value is dependent on a subject - a conscious agent doing the valuing - so conscious agents are forced to value. There's no way around it.
I'm not really sure how or why, but you still seem to be missing my argument. We've done this dance before. :) The only way to move forward with a fruitful discussion is to first recognize one thing:
Means and ends are different. (Though I grant you that some things can be both means AND ends.)
If you agree with that, then we can move forward.