So it has no intrinsic meaning - as is Craig´s concern - (i.e. if murdering another person wouldn´t interfere with spiritual growth, it wouldn´t be wrong), but extrinsic value/meaning?
Not sure what exactly you are getting at here, your actions have both intrinsic and extrinsic meaning. You mention murder... okay... murdering someone interferes with their spiritual growth (obviously), but also causes lots of pain and suffering in everybody who knew the person you killed.
Sin is destructive. There's a reason why God lists sins and tells us not to do them. Setting Levitical Law aside (many people debate whether or not such laws apply to Christians today), let's go straight to what Christ and Paul says in the NT as for what ought not to be done, here are some examples:
Lying (causes various damage depending on what you lied about)
Murder (obviously)
Stealing (obvious)
Fornication (bringing up a child without a stable family to properly teach the child can have serious consequences down the road)
Adultery (causes lots of emotional distress and pain, and breaks up families, can also damage kids' lives)
Idolatry (valuing anything -- not necessarily idols -- more important than God -- this has obvious spiritual consequences)
All these sins have intrinsic meaning (you do damage to peoples' lives and your own life here on Earth) and extrinsic meaning (eternal spiritual consequences).
Exactly my point: What happens here on earth (in your analogy: the pot) is insignificant (not due to lack of a cosmic eternal perspective, but - au contraire - by virtue of it). It does in no way change the fact (as Craig postulates) that the significance we ascribe to it is an illusion. God wants us to act as though it were significant but himself doesn´t consider it significant at all.
I would actually propose the opposite -- God very much
does care what we do on Earth. He considers it
very significant. If He didn't, then He wouldn't have gone through such great lengths to provide a plan of salvation for all of the sins that everybody commits. If these sins (or sinful actions) weren't significant, then why would He care so much about getting us to repent and turn away from them?
Being actually and truly concerned with the well-being of my fellow humans, I find this outlook (including the prospect of spending an eternity with an entity who finds the suffering of his creatures insignificant) way more depressing than the mere prospect that the significance of minimizing it is timely limited.
Who said He finds the suffering of His creatures insignificant? He's our Loving Father, He loves each and every one of us, but yet He refuses to break the one rule He instated from the very beginning: Man shall have his Free Will to do as he pleases. God won't even break this rule, even if it means a soul's eternal separation from Him.
God so loved each and every one of us that He manifested as a man, walked amongst us, and allowed Himself to die in
THE most painful and humiliating way there is to die. He was wrongfully convicted and executed, but yet He broke absolutely no laws.
Those actions do not speak of Someone Who "doesn't care" about His creatures. There's a passage in the Bible somewhere, that there is not a single sparrow that falls to the ground that He doesn't shed a tear over, and Jesus asks us... if He feels that way about the birds of the air, how much more do you think He feels about the creatures He made in His own image?
He cares about our pains and our sufferings... many of them are caused by our own sins, even though we don't realize it most of the time. That's why He tells us to turn away from these things. They have consequences both down here,
and up there.
I understand what you are saying. It doesn´t solve the problem, though. Rather, it confirms that which Craig would like to find a way around: The lack of "intrinsic value/meaning" to our actions here on earth.
There is intrinsic value/meaning to our actions. It's a ripple-effect. Ever seen a Japanese Stone Garden?
Our actions are like the stones in one such garden. Our actions affect ourselves and everybody around us. God has given us a list of things that will always lead to pain, suffering, and eventually death and has asked us not to do these things. Many people want to do them anyways, because in the short-term they are enjoyable, but the long-term, they cause distress and destruction.
How many STDs got passed around because of Fornication?
How many billions of dollars do we spend on Healthcare for smokers who knowingly do damage to their own bodies, which pushes up the price of Healthcare for everybody else?
How many thousands of people die per year to drunk driving accidents?
How many marriages end up in divorce because the marriage was founded upon lust rather than love, and how many kids end up in foster homes, or single-parent homes and go on to be damaged psychologically, who end up making more damaged kids in the future?
How many pimps are there out there selling sex, because people are willing to buy it (if nobody bought it, nobody could sell it)? How many sex slaves are there in the USA alone? Don't think it doesn't happen; it very much does.
How many people gamble away their hard-earned money because of greed and end up in poverty? We have Gambling Addiction hotlines, but yet the lotteries and casinos are set up in such a way to get you hooked thinking that any play might be the big winner...
The list of societal pains goes on and on and on and on and they are always founded in sin.
I'd call that "Intrinsic Significance" to our (society in general) sinful actions.