{"id":67,"date":"2009-05-05T01:11:29","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T01:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html"},"modified":"2009-05-05T01:11:29","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T01:11:29","slug":"a-challenge-to-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html","title":{"rendered":"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something that&#8217;s surprised me about blogging on Beliefnet is how many atheists seem drawn to a website devoted specifically to spiritual expression. One commenter told me to &#8220;Go away!&#8221; A little bit ironic, don&#8217;t you think? Anyway, I have a challenge for atheists and secondarily for agnostics. From where do you derive meaning in life?<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It seems to me that meaning by definition needs to come from outside a given system. For example, consider language. When I use a word in English like &#8220;hat&#8221; or &#8220;cat,&#8221; it only <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">signifies<\/span>\u00a0something because there is a reality outside the linguistic system of our language to which the language refers. A real, live cat is not part of the English language. But an English word refers or points to this creature.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div>In the same way, meaning or value in life needs to refer to something outside our lives, which are physical-, material-based experiences. If there&#8217;s nothing outside nature or physicality, as atheism presupposes or as agnosticism leans toward supposing, then where does meaning in life &#8212; values, ideals, morals &#8212; come from?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If your intellect or your philosophy tells you that a certain action is right or wrong, what makes that moral judgment authoritative? What compels you to obey it? Your conscience? But why obey that, when it&#8217;s merely part of the same physical system that gave rise to you and your body (which of course are the same thing)?<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I&#8217;m not posing the question as a mere provocation. I really am curious how thoughtful people who feel differently than I do about such things actually think about them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something that&#8217;s surprised me about blogging on Beliefnet is how many atheists seem drawn to a website devoted specifically to spiritual expression. One commenter told me to &#8220;Go away!&#8221; A little bit ironic, don&#8217;t you think? Anyway, I have a challenge for atheists and secondarily for agnostics. From where do you derive meaning in life?&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jewish-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics - Kingdom of Priests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics - Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Something that&#8217;s surprised me about blogging on Beliefnet is how many atheists seem drawn to a website devoted specifically to spiritual expression. One commenter told me to &#8220;Go away!&#8221; A little bit ironic, don&#8217;t you think? Anyway, I have a challenge for atheists and secondarily for agnostics. From where do you derive meaning in life?&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-05T01:11:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Klinghoffer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics - Kingdom of Priests","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics - Kingdom of Priests","og_description":"Something that&#8217;s surprised me about blogging on Beliefnet is how many atheists seem drawn to a website devoted specifically to spiritual expression. One commenter told me to &#8220;Go away!&#8221; A little bit ironic, don&#8217;t you think? Anyway, I have a challenge for atheists and secondarily for agnostics. From where do you derive meaning in life?&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html","og_site_name":"Kingdom of Priests","article_published_time":"2009-05-05T01:11:29+00:00","author":"David Klinghoffer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html","name":"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics - Kingdom of Priests","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-05T01:11:29+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-05T01:11:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2009\/05\/a-challenge-to-atheists.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Challenge to Atheists and Agnostics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/","name":"Kingdom of Priests","description":"David Klinghoffer","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/6e6734f7e172e24221264a565e8f4454","name":"David Klinghoffer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/285\/28517f740f5d348f010a20178619ea6cx96.jpg","caption":"David Klinghoffer"},"description":"David Klinghoffer is an author and senior fellow in the Religious, Liberty & Public Life program at the Discovery Institute. 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