I am not familiar with the arguments of an atheist arguing for objective morality and I do not ascribe to objective morality myself. However if there is objective moral truth then what could make it so fundamentally different than that of any other "truth" to the universe? Unless you argue that nothing could exist as a truth without a personal god then it doesn't follow.
Hello Midnight rain. Have not heard from you all day. I am about to leave but will answer this before I do.
Watch Sam Harris debate William Craig on utube and you will see why most do not do so. Craig embarrassed Harris so much he basically surrendered.
Objective moral truth is the difference between it being true or merely a contrivance conjured by human opinion which is completely unrelated to any actual fact of the matter. It is the difference between losing a son stopping a Hitler who was actually wrong, instead of losing him to stop a Hitler who was merely acting out of fashion.
This will sound like a tongue twister but here it is.
Any definition of something undefinable, will by definition, be wrong. How fundamentally so may vary.
I agree with this but do not know to what purpose it was given.
Embarrassed? You have been doing well so far (except for the post I ignored) to keep civil. I hope you can continue to do so despite that hiccup.
Unless your overly sensitive I don't intend to offend. There was nothing sarcastic intended by saying embarrassed. I just get sily at times.
Socrates never stated a source nor did he name one. From what we know of him he believed in objective moral truths but that they were simply innate.
So Socrates was a bad choice on my part as an example of someone who represents my point that God grounds objective morality but he is an example of my point that without him no one can site what the source of objective morality could be.
I was not as much in error as I had thought.
I like ancient Greece. The reason why the Socratic method could be useful in this scenario is because there are questions about your assumptions that have not been asked or answered. As you have stated before it is somewhat dogmatic. If you don't want to go through the question and answer then we won't. It was simply an entertaining idea.
You like it so much please question away. I will use it as a learning opportunity.
Then you should be fully aware that the concept of self-creation is one of the leading theories of how the universe was created if it was "created" at all. If it was caused by something else then what caused it? And so on and so forth. The only logical answer as you have pointed out is either infinite regression which would require temporal causality loops or infinities. The second option is that there was an "uncased" first cause. However this is just as ridiculous and impossible as self causation.
This is why kooky theoretical guys get called kooky by the application guys. I am aware that a few of the science fiction guys do claim this, I often use their claims as examples of how we have educated ourselves into imbecility. It is absolutely impossible for nothing to become something. Nothing has no properties of any kind especially creative properties. Let me give you one of the examples I use.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."
Stephen Hawking
"The Universe Exists Because of Spontaneous Creation" -Stephen Hawking
Do you have any idea how many logical, philosophical and scientific fallacies there are in those short sentences? That is not merely wrong, it can't possibly be right, it is not even coherent. This statement by Hawking has become a millstone around his neck and has inspired me and many practical science scholars I know to completely give up on him. Penrose denounced his M-theory as not even a good excuse for not having a real theory for pity sake.
Tell you what for lengths sake I won't go further into it here. You give me your Greek stuff and then I will give you my science stuff. Both would be far too much.
So under what reasoning do you have that something could be an un-caused cause that would be more logical than a self-caused cause?
As I said you go with your Greek stuff then we can get into the science stuff. and science stuff will result in my posting countless lines of reasoning, philosophical necessities, logical fallacies, and lines of evidence.
Philosophically sound does not mean "true". Conjecture is still conjecture.
It can mean that but no it does not always mean that. I think the way I used it is makes it true.
I have a BA in Medical and Laboratory science working on a masters in Chemical engineering. We could compare resumes all day but it is none the less meaningless. 1&2 were more or less the same point. Both are currently issues in the modern physics research and remains an unanswered question. 3 is conjecture at best. We don't know if there was an outside cause or if there was a self-causing cause. They are equally impossible by our known physics and understanding of the universe. And if it was caused by an outside force there is very little known about it.
I thought you said you were in a humanity program. That at least explained why you think nothing can produce something. If you have a scientific background then I am just left baffled. Something from nothing is not scientific it is fantasy.
We don't run out of nature if it is self causing. Either through actual self creation or through causality loops. That is the philosophical loophole. There is also the view that the natural and supernatural are all one in the same. If there is no difference between the created and the creator then we no longer have many of these issues. I'm not saying it is one way or the other but I'm saying it could easily be one way or the other.
I am so tempted to tear into this self causing stuff I can barely restrain myself but I already committed to first the Greek then the science so let's please let this wait.
At this point though you don't quite know what you are looking for with this deduction alone.
This was merely an ordering issue.
We don't see any external creating entities anywhere either. Neither is more or less likely. I haven't actually shown support for either one as of yet as currently I am playing devil's advocate. At the end of the post I can explain to you what my current beliefs on the matter are and you are free to question them.
That is all we see. Wait a minute do you mean bringing into existence creation or causal creation as in new arrangements of preexisting things. They both are identical in methodology but each might require different language. I did not merely mean bringing into existence though that is one of the things I did mean. I meant any effect. No matter how you slice up the universe it does not contain it's own cause or explanation. Whatever segment you are left with must be explained by an external cause.
If there are objective moral facts then it is possible they simply are. It is also possible they were not created intentionally. If they were created intentionally by a personal god then that god would not be bound by the same moral truths. Just as a god would not be material if he created material he would not be "moral" if he created" Morality".
Let me give you another time honored philosophical maxim to use your Greek on.
Everything has either an explanation of it's existence (whether a new entity or a new effect of any kind) either within it's self or external to it's self. Everything but God falls into the latter category. Saying it just exists as a brute fact does not jive with that nor does it actually say anything. It is a way to avoid an explanation not provide one. I admit to using it but I only use to indicate it has no natural dependence not that it has none at all.
Though again can you explain to me how you get "personal" god from creation? Couldn't an impersonal god create it?
Yes, personal means capable of deciding (usually in space time0 but not in God's case. IOW if God was not personal the universe would either have always existed or never have.
Many pagan beliefs have pantheistic philosophies. In fact all that I can think of do. I welcome a challenge to pantheism actually. I don't want to do it here so please make another thread. These posts are getting too long as it is.
Since you seem a little sensitive let me apologize if I said that too emphatically. I was talking specifically about your "all is one and one is all" thing. That is the primary thing that makes pantheism - pantheism and IMO it adds nothing meaningful to anything. It is a semantic redundancy.
Man I can hardly stand not tearing into the self creation stuff, but I will stand by what I said. Give me your best Socratic methodology stuff and then we will get back to science. BTW which post of mine offended you? I want to see what I said.
