The Human Question

Back to the accusation that it's infantile to long for eternal happiness... First question: What does an infant enjoy that adults don't? One can imagine that infants enjoy a conflict free unconditional love of the other who takes care of all of their needs. It is worth pointing out, however, that life as an infant is in no way conflict-free or pure bliss. Not at all: not even from day one. But infants typically enjoy least periods of carefree union and bliss. If one grants that humans can remember their infancy, or it least what it felt like during their infancy, then there is room for the objection that the desire to unending bliss is nothing other than the desire to return to one's infancy. But that is not the only possible source of the desire for bliss. For adults have a much better memory of their adulthood than their infancy (in fact, the latter is non-existent). And a good part of the adult population are able to enjoy or at least imagine what it's like to e...

To the proposal of eternal life with the loving Father the Freudian atheist objects with the ad hominem sounding retort that it is to wish to return to infantile bliss. To that objection, one might reply: surely this is a scientifically testable thesis, so how would you test it? I have an idea: look for someone who surely did not experience infantile bliss yet does wish to experience eternal life in union with the loving Father. If the Freudian atheist is correct, then no such person exists, for the only plausible cause of such a wish is the memory of having experienced something like it in the past. Has this experiment been conducted? No? If not, then why does the Freudian atheist pontificate so confidently? What would happen if we found an individual who most definitely did not experience anything like infantile bliss yet desires eternal happiness. Would the Freudian, ala Popper, simply admit that their (as in "her" or "his") claim was false? No, the...

Amazing how Atkins talks dismissively to McGrath about the latter's belief in God as wish fulfillment, and then makes a colossal faith-like act in the ability of science to know all that is. Amazing too how Atkins denies that the universe has a meaning or purpose, and then displays at every point in the discussion, a craving for unbounded knowledge of what is. That atheist is so purpose driven . Then again, Atkins also distinguishes between cosmic purpose (which he denies) and individual desires (which I think he would not deny having), such as the desire to know. But acknowledging the desire to know...(thanking Giussani for help in phrasing this)... reality in all of its factors is not really different from admitting that one has a purpose in life. A purpose that one has not chosen, and in that sense, a natural purpose. Humans see human purposes from the inside. We can suppose that only humans have natural goals, in which case on is engaging in exceptionalism--an ironic...