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Existentialism and the Meaningful Life [The Common Room]

Woody Allen Says Life is Meaningless

Jul 26, 2014 by Gary DeMar 1 Comment

An atheist post on Facebook got me thinking about the meaning of life. The post was about how beef production is ten times more damaging to the environment than automobiles. Putting aside the factual basis of the study and who funded it, I raised a couple of questions:

“I thought you were an atheist. Woody Allen says life is meaningless. The Sun will one day burn out it will all end. So why should anybody care? Torture? They’re just sacks of meat with electricity keeping them animated. Same with us. The sooner it’s all over the better. Enjoy the beef before it all ends. I like mine medium rare.”

Here’s what Woody Allen said in a recent interview:

• “I firmly believe — and I don’t say this as a criticism — that life is meaningless.”
• “There have been many great minds far, far superior to mine that have come to that conclusion. Both early in life and after years of living and, unless somebody can come up with some proof or some example where it’s not [meaningless,] I think it is. I think it is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. That’s just the way I feel about it.”
• “I’m not saying one should opt to kill oneself, but the truth of the matter is when you think of it, every 100 years … there is a big flush and everybody in the world is gone, then there is a new group of people, then that gets flushed, then there is a new group of people and this goes on interminably for no particular end — I don’t want to upset you — there’s no end and no rhyme or reason.”
• “And the universe — as you know from the best physicists — is coming apart and eventually there will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the great works of Shakespeare and Beethoven and Da Vinci. All that will be gone. Now, not for a long time, but gone. But much shorter than you think, really, because the sun is going to burn out much earlier than the universe vanishes. So, you won’t have to wait for the universe to vanish, it’ll happen earlier than that and there will be nothing.
• “So, all of this achievement — all of these Shakespearean plays and these symphonies and the height of human achievement — will be gone completely. There will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. No time. No space. Nothing at all. Just zero. So, what does it really mean?”

So for the atheist who is concerned about cruelty to cows and the supposed effect on the environment because of the beef industry, why such a big deal? In the end, cows and humans meet the same end: “All we are is dust in the wind.”

The eternal fate of an Adolf Hitler is no different from the fate of people who want to save cows from a culinary destiny.

The claim can be made that there is meaning in life without God, but as I always ask, How do a conglomeration of atoms animated by electricity in a bath of chemicals account for it?

At least Woody Allen is philosophically consistent if not practically inconsistent. Atheists can’t be consistent with pure atheism. But given the operating assumptions of atheism there is no ultimate moral or meaningful reason not to kill oneself. Suicide would be as meaningful or meaningless as life.

A new study is claiming that “‘atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,’ says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. ‘They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.’”

In a word, atheists don’t really exist. They’ve got to hate that, especially when science supports what the Bible has been saying for thousands of years!

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures (Rom. 1:18-23).

The majority of atheists, however, live as if God does exist, and for that we are thankful.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS official trailer in HD!

Woody Allen meets Marshall McLuhan

Top 10 Woody Allen Movies

__________

In my opinion Woody Allen’s best movie is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!!

Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen

Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God

Related posts:

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The article needs to be updated at one point and that is Steve Carell has replaced Bruce Willis.

BY MIKE REYES 1 MONTH AGO 1 COMMENT

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS official trailer in HD!

Woody Allen meets Marshall McLuhan

Top 10 Woody Allen Movies

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 01

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 02

__________

In my opinion Woody Allen’s best movie is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!!

Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen

Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God

Related posts:

______

Top 10 Woody Allen Movies

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 01

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 02

__________

John Piippo makes the case that Bertrand Russell would have loved Woody Allen because they both were two atheists who don’t deny the ramifications of atheism!!!

Monday, August 06, 2012

(More On) Woody Allen’s Atheism

As I wrote in a previous post, I like Woody Allen. I have long admired his films. I’m an Ingmar Bergmann fan, too, and Allen is indebted to Bergmann. (See “Ingmar Bergman Slips Into the Darkness…”)

Allen is (as Bergmann was) an atheist. He brings (as did Bergmann) his atheism into his films, overtly and covertly. Allen is not hiding the fact that: God does not exist (for Allen, not for me); therefore life is absurd, pointless. But of course. Any atheist who thinks otherwise is just another village atheist in denial. I find Allen’s atheism honest and lived-out.

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Woody (“Older, Mellower, but Still Woody”).
Allen is asked:

Some say your view is that life is pointless, and others say you’re a romantic realist who believes in being true to yourself. Which is it?

Allen: “I think that’s the best you can do, but the true situation is a hopeless one because nothing does last. If we reduce it absurdly for a moment, you know the sun will burn out. You know the universe is falling apart at a fantastically accelerating rate and that at some point there won’t be anything at all. So whether you are Shakespeare or Beethoven or Michelangelo, your stuff’s not going to last. So, given that, even if you were immortal, that time is going to come. Of course, you have to deal with a much more critical problem, which is that you’re not going to last microscopically close to that. So, nothing does last. You do your things. One day some guy wakes up and gets the Times and says, “Hey, Woody Allen died. He keeled over in the shower singing. So, where do you want to have lunch today?””

Allen is correct on the following points:

• With no God, our true situation is hopeless. Why? Because “nothing does last.” “The sunn will burn out.” “The universe is falling apart.” “At some point there won’t be anything at all.”
• Your stuff, your little creations, are not going to last.
• When you die, not only will there be no “you,” but no one or nothing is going to care (relatively speaking, in a massive sense).

Philosopher-atheist Bertrand Russell, in his famous “A Free Man’s Worship,” concluded the same things. (See “Bertrand Russell – A Free Man’s Worship & the Logic of Atheism”)
Russell wrote:

“Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

Posted by John Piippo at 7:21 AM

In my opinion Woody Allen’s best movie is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!!

Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen

Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God

Related posts:

______

Woody Allen Says Life is Meaningless

Jul 26, 2014 by Gary DeMar 1 Comment

An atheist post on Facebook got me thinking about the meaning of life. The post was about how beef production is ten times more damaging to the environment than automobiles. Putting aside the factual basis of the study and who funded it, I raised a couple of questions:

“I thought you were an atheist. Woody Allen says life is meaningless. The Sun will one day burn out it will all end. So why should anybody care? Torture? They’re just sacks of meat with electricity keeping them animated. Same with us. The sooner it’s all over the better. Enjoy the beef before it all ends. I like mine medium rare.”

Here’s what Woody Allen said in a recent interview:

• “I firmly believe — and I don’t say this as a criticism — that life is meaningless.”
• “There have been many great minds far, far superior to mine that have come to that conclusion. Both early in life and after years of living and, unless somebody can come up with some proof or some example where it’s not [meaningless,] I think it is. I think it is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. That’s just the way I feel about it.”
• “I’m not saying one should opt to kill oneself, but the truth of the matter is when you think of it, every 100 years … there is a big flush and everybody in the world is gone, then there is a new group of people, then that gets flushed, then there is a new group of people and this goes on interminably for no particular end — I don’t want to upset you — there’s no end and no rhyme or reason.”
• “And the universe — as you know from the best physicists — is coming apart and eventually there will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the great works of Shakespeare and Beethoven and Da Vinci. All that will be gone. Now, not for a long time, but gone. But much shorter than you think, really, because the sun is going to burn out much earlier than the universe vanishes. So, you won’t have to wait for the universe to vanish, it’ll happen earlier than that and there will be nothing.
• “So, all of this achievement — all of these Shakespearean plays and these symphonies and the height of human achievement — will be gone completely. There will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. No time. No space. Nothing at all. Just zero. So, what does it really mean?”

So for the atheist who is concerned about cruelty to cows and the supposed effect on the environment because of the beef industry, why such a big deal? In the end, cows and humans meet the same end: “All we are is dust in the wind.”

The eternal fate of an Adolf Hitler is no different from the fate of people who want to save cows from a culinary destiny.

The claim can be made that there is meaning in life without God, but as I always ask, How do a conglomeration of atoms animated by electricity in a bath of chemicals account for it?

At least Woody Allen is philosophically consistent if not practically inconsistent. Atheists can’t be consistent with pure atheism. But given the operating assumptions of atheism there is no ultimate moral or meaningful reason not to kill oneself. Suicide would be as meaningful or meaningless as life.

A new study is claiming that “‘atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,’ says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. ‘They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.’”

In a word, atheists don’t really exist. They’ve got to hate that, especially when science supports what the Bible has been saying for thousands of years!

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures (Rom. 1:18-23).

The majority of atheists, however, live as if God does exist, and for that we are thankful.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS official trailer in HD!

Woody Allen meets Marshall McLuhan

Top 10 Woody Allen Movies

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 01

PBS American Masters – Woody Allen A Documentary 02

__________

In my opinion Woody Allen’s best movie is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!!

Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen

Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God

Related posts: