Do Athiests have morals?

[Rick O'Shez]

I think you have to have a purpose or goal to have a basis for morals.

Sure, like ensuring the stability of societies. Morality is easily explained in terms of evolution and human socialisation, no need to introduce God into the equation at all.
And if we need to believe in God to stop us doing harm, then we really are in trouble as a species.

 

[1robin]

Plagiarists, regardless of how many posts they've made, will not be missed. It's not enough to have nothing to offer, but when you have to steal stuff from others in order to have nothing to offer ... well ... you're right, time to go.

I would hate to walk around that frustrated all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have no idea what your talking about and do not care. How do I turn this thing off?

 

[Muffled]

Quick definitions for the unlearned:

Amoral: lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

Immoral: not conforming to accepted standards of morality.

Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

When someone claims that he/she is irreligious, does it give them justifications to negate teachings of religious communities. For example, thou not steal. Does it give someone who claims to be irreligious the right to steal?

Also, which of the above words excellently describes the life of an Athiest?

I beleive my parents taught me not to steal before I became a Christian. I have no idea who taught them but I suspect God's law was the source at some point.

 

[Muffled]

I'm an atheist, and I believe that morals came before religions and that religious people tried to usurp morals and claim them for themselves. Here's a little test... if you think morals can be found in scripture, by what means do you cherry-pick the scripture? I'd say you have your morals going in, and you find those occasional verses that match what you already knew to be moral.

I believe God's law came in with Moses and before that Abraham tracked down some thieves to recover the stolen goods so he evidently did not approve of having things stolen from him and I don't think he needed God to tell him that.

 

[Muffled]

My parents taught me not to steal before I became a Christian. I have no idea who taught them but I suspect God's law was the source at some point.

Sure, like ensuring the stability of societies. Morality is easily explained in terms of evolution and human socialisation, no need to introduce God into the equation at all.
And if we need to believe in God to stop us doing harm, then we really are in trouble as a species.

I beleive one does not need high intelligence to realize that people don't act right.

I would like to see one try to explain it that way.

I believe God introduces Himself.

 

[Nakosis]

I beleive my parents taught me not to steal before I became a Christian. I have no idea who taught them but I suspect God's law was the source at some point.

Or your parents could have just been trying to protect you from civil enforcement.

I don't steal because I don't see that it serves a purpose. I do well enough I don't need to steal and no sense in being detrimental to someone else's life.

 

[1robin]

But this is now no longer the opinion of a single or even majority of individuals. Nearly every human on the planet are able to follow some basic guidelines and they show up in all cultures. To say it is 'merely opinion" is understanding it. But I agree it is not objective moral truth.

Half of those I debate with condemn any argument from popularity even when used correctly, the other half use them incorrectly. The actual nature of a moral duty is not affected in any way by how many adopt it. Popularity has no effect on ontology. However any morals drawn from evolution are extremely unpopular. Except for Hitler I am not aware of any society even attempting it.

Good. Now abandon the idea that I am arguing for Objective morality. I have in the past and in some philosophical circles I do. But for right now under your definition of Objective morality it is my position it does not exist. God or no god.

But objective morality was the issue from my first post. Let me restate my thesis.

1. With God actual objective moral truths exist. Ex..... Murder is actually wrong.
2. Without him nothing is actually wrong and we are left with 6 billion opinions and no way to know who is right. In fact no one can be right because there is no objective standard.

The reason this is so important is the more subjective opinion is involved the higher the potential for injustice. Just as we had when Hitler used nature to justify his actions. Thank God enough people were around that believed certain things were objectively wrong to stop him, but if atheists (and I do not think it will ever happen) could convince us to abandon objective morality then I am afraid thousands of Hitler like opinion based tyrants would appear and no one would have an objective basis for stopping them.

So you may not be arguing for it, but I was, and it is vitally important.

But my point is that "empathy" is not merely opinion. It is a phenomenon where in we are able to understand the suffering of others as our own suffering. This prompts us to try to avoid this suffering as much as we would our own. Its like saying that "somethings hot is just an opinion so its really your opinion I shouldn't touch the hot stove". Yes hot/cold are opinions but there are functional definitions for both in our society that govern our actions.

But it is an opinion that we should use empathy? Not only that but empathy for what? We live in a world where empathy for one species is malevolent towards another.

I don't recall ever saying we should follow animistic behaviors. But we do have our own instinctive behaviors that are ingrained in us at the genetic level that are not "opinion". And using our "reason" we are able to derive what is "better" and "worse" based upon the axioms of what we ant for ourselves in a reasonable manner and understanding we are but one of many. Such conclusions will be based upon different things and are subjective to a degree. Or rather than "subjective" perhaps I should say isolated rather than universal.

If you claim we should use evolution then what, other than animal behavior, is there to look at?

Rationing water for example may be a moral thing in the middle east. Based upon our reason and knowing that water is a precious resource that all need for life and we can "feel" the pain of thirst just as we can feel and fear it for ourselves in others so we may be prompted to make sure that others are able to obtain water. This leads us to conclude that wasting water is bad for ourselves and our community.

You can select a goal based on preference and then decide what actions meet that goal. However the goal is an opinion. Lets say I honestly think that not rationing water is best (and in certain situations it very well could be) for mankind in the long run. How are you going to determine whether my opinion or your opinion is right since there is no transcendent standard? Again Hitler literally believed he was helping strengthen mankind in the long run by killing off the weak. How do you know he was wrong? How do you know you are right? If he had won and killed off any opposition then by your popularity argument killing off al Jews would have been right. Once you untether morality from it's objective roots it can be attached to anything.

But in the rainforest where water is plentiful this probably would not be the case.

That is only if you assume maximizing humanity is good. Maybe maximizing camel life would be the right thing to do and killing off the life that needs so much water would allow the camels to flourish. I do not care what you use, how you justify it, what goals you have, they are assumptions piled on opinions, based in preferences. Looking at humanities history I have no reason to allow creatures so inherently faulty to invent morality by preference.

I think you need to re-read my statement. That is literally the opposite of what I have said. I said that a lion's evolutionary behavior has no bearing on human behavior.

How do you know that? Another opinion. Maybe I will be the leader of the earth and say it is relevant. There is no fact of the matter by which to know. It is just one opinion versus another.

Actually its pretty interesting if you ever want to go into human evolution. In terms of evolution it has been my favorite field of study that I have had the pleasure to research. But in essence "slightly higher intelligence" has not really favored survival in the wild. It doesn't matter if a deer is slightly smarter than other deer. They have the evolutionary track of just running and not much else to get away from predators. So how did it become an advantage for humans?

While what we enjoy is unchallengeable I cannot myself imagine studying something so useless. If we destroyed every single piece of information ever gained about evolution. We would suffer no real loss whatever. It may be enjoyable, it may be interesting, it is not useful. I think it far more complex than what you stated but I would agree that intelligence is not always going to be selected to survive. That was not my point. We have astronomically higher intelligence than anything else and we gained it in a time span so short that I think a evolutionary explanation is absurd. The rest of nature contains slight incremental changes in intelligence while we alone display a quantum leap.

We evolved to have highly dexterous hands to allow us easy movement through trees. Then as the climate changed in Africa we were forced onto the grassy fields where standing on our hind legs gave us tremendous advantages. So we became bipedal with incredibly dexterous hands. Now a slightly more intelligent animal with this set of potential could rise above the rest. Tool usage for survival perhaps most importantly.

I am not denying this, maybe it is true. I just find the theories so far beyond what the evidence can demonstrate I just do not take these detailed theories seriously.

The standard we use to determine right and wrong is not and never has been "evolution" but "reason". There is a key difference here. You keep trying to force evolution somehow into our moral theorem but it doesn't work. Evolution may "shape" our morality to a degree over time of what has been successful but we do not pattern our morality after the processes of evolution." If a potter's hand makes a vase then why isn't the vase shaped like a hand?"

I have never nor would I ever force evolution into a moral context. However it is the position of others that is what must be forced into it. I have only been showing how that is a horrific idea, and should not be done. To do that I must hypothetically evaluate it in that context though I think it actually does not fit into it.

Any kind of moral authority based on "god" would still have been created within the human mind and reason. So why not skip god and base it on human reason and philosophy?

That is not true. Our minds are capable of comprehending moral truth, not creating it.

Well that's great for you but it doesn't actually weigh in here. If you can objectively prove god exists rather than he is "likely" (which I still don't buy but I have long since given up pointing out why) then we can base on god. However we still can't agree on which god now can we?

I said I know God exists. I did not say I am assuming he does for this discussion. My main points are what is true of morality if he exists, and what is true of it if he does not.

This is true. We get to choose what our morality is based off of when we are based in reason. We can conclude what is "right" and wrong" based on the information given us. Not everyone will come to the same conclusion. But we have certain themes that can be reasoned to be true within a group.

We can base it in amoral assumptions without God or we can base it on an object fact if God exists.

For example I could debate with you right now why murder and theft is wrong. I wouldn't have to objectively prove it but make a case for the universally subjective.

The word wrong assumes an objective quality. You cannot show it is wrong, at best you can show why you think we should not allow it. But what you think we should not allow does not make anything actually wrong.

More of a molehill that I haven't seen. But again you haven't proven god's existence so I am free to assume he isn't real.

No, it is an objective fact that there is a mountain of evidence for God as the term is commonly used. You may not think it God or persuasive which is usually just a preference, yet that mountain still exists. Calling a mountain a molehill has no effect on the mountain.

I didn't say you invented it. In fact it is unlikely that a single person invented it which is why most religions have some kind of contradiction of morality in them. But at some point in time all religions developed and continue to develop today based on the subjective opinions of morality. Either through their own opinions or through the lens of what they "think" god wants.
And I'm not going to hash it out with you here but no...there are not mountains of evidence against either global warming or evolution.

I was using me as a pace holder for humanity. Read "I" as "Humanity". As the brilliant scholar on testimony said along with countless others. If the apostles were not recording facts there is no alternative motivation possible.

Not it actually isn't. As I said the pot is not shaped like the hand of the potter. The desire for what Christianity offers is a logical and reasonable desire. Thus is the base of a moral system.

Have you not suggesting we look at evolution to evaluate our behavior. Your either backing out or I have you confused with someone else.

No. I am saying that morality based upon human reason is not social Darwinism. If social darwanism is someone's warped opinion then so be it but it doesn't mean that the rest of the secular moral world will allow it or accept it. You simply cannot force evolution, social darwanism and morality together in this cocktail that you try to package them with.

Would not reason be a product of intelligence which is a product of evolution.

No. The concept of Social Darwanism is based about the idea of trying to create a more perfect race of individuals. However Secular humanism is a moral system based upon secular values and an axiom of human rights.

Yes and they try to do that by cherry picking evolutionary behaviors. Here is the definition.

Social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Western Europe in the 1870s, and which sought to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.
Google

This is getting tedious. Jefferson did not say god. He said "creator" which is up for debate on its meaning.

No, he said by nature and natures God.

In the "Declaration of Independence," the founding document of what would become the United States, Thomas Jefferson mentions "nature's God."
Who is Nature's God?

Not that even the word creator did not assume God.

It doesn't matter if it is objectively true so long as we treat it as so.

You may not think so but before I make heavy moral decisions that cost others I want to know I am actually right.

Great thing is here...I Have never once said we should base morality off nature. Not once. Quote me when I said it.

Maybe I got you confused with someone else. So you do not think nature is to be used to ground moral behavior?

 

[viole]

I tell you what, I can give an argument against this of some indeterminate strength but your analogy was so clever compared to the clumsy efforts I have previously seen, I am instead going to temporary grant it. BTW you do realize you just made the same argument from popularity you denied when I had billions in spite of your having a population of 2?

Let me change my question a little bit. Why should I not believe that moral perceptions are valid as to moral nature at least once in the history on men who have almost universally concluded at least some are objective? IOW why should I believe the conclusion all of us are actually wrong in every single instance?

Also what happened to the rest of my post? I type for 30 minutes and you respond to one sentence. I am to lazy for that ratio.

As merely interesting did you know there is no possible way to determine if the color we both agree is purple appears to us both as the same color shade?

Mmh, am not sure where I made an argument from popularity. if we deny something because of general agreements on some objective things like exploding churches then there is not a lot we can discuss about. And that is one reason why I tend to avoid accusing anyone to use it.

You should not believe the conclusion that we are all wrong about all moral predicates for the simple reason that the word wrong is unspecified. It makes sense only if objectivity morality actually existed. So, this is another putting the thesis in the premises. With the evidence I have, I cannot really put morality on a higher ontological pedestal than things like food taste. I wish I could, but I can't.

I am sorry if I recently adopted a guerilla style of debating, but addressing each single point leads to a combinatorial explosion which reflects in the size and dilution of posts. And I do not have a lot of free time currently, unfortunately.

If you want, you can also reduce to the most important point (with the risk of being arbitrary) and I will try to address them separately.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

I beleive one does not need high intelligence to realize that people don't act right.

I would like to see one try to explain it that way.

People don't act "right" because their purpose or goal is different from yours.

I believe God introduces Himself.

Yes, if we can trust that. The brain seems a tricky thing and is capable of subconsciously providing perceptions.

 

[SkepticThinker]

But this is now no longer the opinion of a single or even majority of individuals. Nearly every human on the planet are able to follow some basic guidelines and they show up in all cultures. To say it is 'merely opinion" is understanding it. But I agree it is not objective moral truth.

Good. Now abandon the idea that I am arguing for Objective morality. I have in the past and in some philosophical circles I do. But for right now under your definition of Objective morality it is my position it does not exist. God or no god.

But my point is that "empathy" is not merely opinion. It is a phenomenon where in we are able to understand the suffering of others as our own suffering. This prompts us to try to avoid this suffering as much as we would our own. Its like saying that "somethings hot is just an opinion so its really your opinion I shouldn't touch the hot stove". Yes hot/cold are opinions but there are functional definitions for both in our society that govern our actions.

I don't recall ever saying we should follow animistic behaviors. But we do have our own instinctive behaviors that are ingrained in us at the genetic level that are not "opinion". And using our "reason" we are able to derive what is "better" and "worse" based upon the axioms of what we ant for ourselves in a reasonable manner and understanding we are but one of many. Such conclusions will be based upon different things and are subjective to a degree. Or rather than "subjective" perhaps I should say isolated rather than universal.

Rationing water for example may be a moral thing in the middle east. Based upon our reason and knowing that water is a precious resource that all need for life and we can "feel" the pain of thirst just as we can feel and fear it for ourselves in others so we may be prompted to make sure that others are able to obtain water. This leads us to conclude that wasting water is bad for ourselves and our community.

But in the rainforest where water is plentiful this probably would not be the case.

I think you need to re-read my statement. That is literally the opposite of what I have said. I said that a lion's evolutionary behavior has no bearing on human behavior.

Actually its pretty interesting if you ever want to go into human evolution. In terms of evolution it has been my favorite field of study that I have had the pleasure to research. But in essence "slightly higher intelligence" has not really favored survival in the wild. It doesn't matter if a deer is slightly smarter than other deer. They have the evolutionary track of just running and not much else to get away from predators. So how did it become an advantage for humans?

We evolved to have highly dexterous hands to allow us easy movement through trees. Then as the climate changed in Africa we were forced onto the grassy fields where standing on our hind legs gave us tremendous advantages. So we became bipedal with incredibly dexterous hands. Now a slightly more intelligent animal with this set of potential could rise above the rest. Tool usage for survival perhaps most importantly.

The standard we use to determine right and wrong is not and never has been "evolution" but "reason". There is a key difference here. You keep trying to force evolution somehow into our moral theorem but it doesn't work. Evolution may "shape" our morality to a degree over time of what has been successful but we do not pattern our morality after the processes of evolution." If a potter's hand makes a vase then why isn't the vase shaped like a hand?"

Any kind of moral authority based on "god" would still have been created within the human mind and reason. So why not skip god and base it on human reason and philosophy?

Well that's great for you but it doesn't actually weigh in here. If you can objectively prove god exists rather than he is "likely" (which I still don't buy but I have long since given up pointing out why) then we can base on god. However we still can't agree on which god now can we?

This is true. We get to choose what our morality is based off of when we are based in reason. We can conclude what is "right" and wrong" based on the information given us. Not everyone will come to the same conclusion. But we have certain themes that can be reasoned to be true within a group.

For example I could debate with you right now why murder and theft is wrong. I wouldn't have to objectively prove it but make a case for the universally subjective.

More of a molehill that I haven't seen. But again you haven't proven god's existence so I am free to assume he isn't real.

I didn't say you invented it. In fact it is unlikely that a single person invented it which is why most religions have some kind of contradiction of morality in them. But at some point in time all religions developed and continue to develop today based on the subjective opinions of morality. Either through their own opinions or through the lens of what they "think" god wants.
And I'm not going to hash it out with you here but no...there are not mountains of evidence against either global warming or evolution.

Not it actually isn't. As I said the pot is not shaped like the hand of the potter. The desire for what Christianity offers is a logical and reasonable desire. Thus is the base of a moral system.


No. I am saying that morality based upon human reason is not social Darwinism. If social darwanism is someone's warped opinion then so be it but it doesn't mean that the rest of the secular moral world will allow it or accept it. You simply cannot force evolution, social darwanism and morality together in this cocktail that you try to package them with.

No. The concept of Social Darwanism is based about the idea of trying to create a more perfect race of individuals. However Secular humanism is a moral system based upon secular values and an axiom of human rights.

This is getting tedious. Jefferson did not say god. He said "creator" which is up for debate on its meaning.

It doesn't matter if it is objectively true so long as we treat it as so.

Great thing is here...I Have never once said we should base morality off nature. Not once. Quote me when I said it.

I feel like you and I are pretty much on the same page here. Maybe you can get through with this post, I don't know. I don't know how many more times I can say that I'm not suggesting we imitate nature, only to have someone argue against why we shouldn't imitate nature.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The estimates usually run in the few hundred thousand range. However if you going to show that he murdered them instead of just killing them then you must demonstrate how you can know he lacked moral justification for killing them all. I think our going to make several mistakes in a row here so let me try and save you some time.

1. Killing can be justifiable, murder is taken to inherently lack justification.
2. The bible says that every thought of every person (this is apocalyptic language meant to indicate the extent of something not describe it is hyper literal terms) was continuously evil. That is a pretty good start into a justification but I can tack on many others.
3. I cannot determine if that story was an allegory or literal.
4. God being perfect can without fault annihilate all imperfect life forms at any time. The fact you do not like this does not make it unjust. In fact I really don't know how to go about Judging any God. As divine command theory demonstrates whatever an Omni-God would do would necessarily be right. I do not like that view because it means I can hate Allah but I cannot show he was unjust. It is just so inescapable I had to accept it. The closest you can get is if God promised to do X then does not do it or violates it somehow. What you prefer just is not applicable in judging God.
5. God has perfect and all sufficient knowledge of the past, present, and future outcomes for all his decisions. We do not. He may have perfectly justifiable reasons to kill us al but we having extremely finite knowledge simply cannot see it.
6. God has sovereignty over all of creation and there for has the right to do as he choses.
7. I have no reason to even hint that God's moral demands of us bind him in anyway. He is infinitely more capable than us in every way. I can easily imagine that just as our moral demands for each other vary by circumstance but perhaps not in principle, that God is capable of morally correct determinations that we are not qualified to make what so ever, and would allow him to obey the same principle but allow for far more actions that we can morally justify.

I have seen the argument so many times and know of it's many faults that I have tried to anticipate them. It never works but I gave it a try. So taking those into consideration, proceed.

I'm not sure what all this is about.

The reason I ask is because you seem to believe that life cannot be considered precious without the existence of your god. A god who supposedly kills entire populations of people at a time. Indeed, he supposedly killed almost every single living creature on earth at one point. I mean, the same thing you said about nature could be said about this god: " Life is not precious to it, it does not care about life at all. It does not intentionally preserve it, and more often than not is hostile to it."

 

[SkepticThinker]

1Robin, I fail to see how your moral system (if you can even call it that, since basically it's just moral pronouncement from above), results in justice being done at all, as you seem to claim. Anybody can carry out any terrible action you can think of and obtain forgiveness and salvation from your god and spend eternity in some afterlife somewhere. Meanwhile, somebody else can spend their life doing wonderful things for humanity and end up in hell simply because they didn't believe in your god's existence. How is that just?

 

[1robin]

Mmh, am not sure where I made an argument from popularity. if we deny something because of general agreements on some objective things like exploding churches then there is not a lot we can discuss about.

Is this:

If we stand in front of a church, in Sweden, and a big explosion destroys it, then we will agree that that was very loud.

Not an appeal to popularity?

You should not believe the conclusion that we are all wrong about all moral predicates for the simple reason that the word wrong is unspecified. It makes sense only if objectivity morality actually existed. So, this is another putting the thesis in the premises. With the evidence I have, I cannot really put morality on a higher ontological pedestal than things like food taste. I wish I could, but I can't.

If I remember correctly the subject was opinion based moral conclusion. The reason I said they were all wrong (actually you asked why would I say that) is because there is no truth of the matter that can be accessed to see if the yare right. It might be better to say none of them are right, than al of them are wrong. They are not right or wrong (and if anything moral conclusions should be one or the other). They are simply contrived preferences unrelated in anyway to any transcendent fact of the matter. You must invent a goal and then form opinions about what behaviors meet that goal best. It is not factual that the goal is the correct one, nor even probably factual your selected behavior is the best way to achieve the goal. It is contrivance upon contrivance and unrelated to any actual truth of the matter as to what should be done.

I am sorry if I recently adopted a guerilla style of debating, but addressing each single point leads to a combinatorial explosion which reflects in the size and dilution of posts. And I do not have a lot of free time currently, unfortunately.

Never of guerilla debating. I have no compliant but I am too lazy to type these long posts if the person does not wish to read them.

If you want, you can also reduce to the most important point (with the risk of being arbitrary) and I will try to address them separately.

Ciao

- viole

Well I can go back to my original claims:

1. With God morality has a potential basis in actual objective truth. It is not merely an opinion or preference.
2. Without God the best we can do is opinion piled on assertion backed up by preference.

I don't really think you disagree in general though you may prefer other words be used to those to points. But I do not think you understand why these are so important. In mundane events it probably is not crucial. However in things like writing out the foundations for rights, legal codes for a society, being a jurist on capital cases, declaring war, etc........ the differences could not be more drastic. One is good justification and foundation for decisions that important. The other is not. As long as we do not know that no.1 is false we would be better off to assume it is true, in fact most of us do so (even if they deny the premise that makes what they believe true) because the need is so intuitive.

 

[1robin]

I'm not sure what all this is about.

The reason I ask is because you seem to believe that life cannot be considered precious without the existence of your god. A god who supposedly kills entire populations of people at a time. Indeed, he supposedly killed almost every single living creature on earth at one point. I mean, the same thing you said about nature could be said about this god: " Life is not precious to it, it does not care about life at all. It does not intentionally preserve it, and more often than not is hostile to it."

It was about the argument that always follows what you asked about. The argument is always founded on incorrect assumptions and evaluations. It is also a long argument, so I figured to get things straightened out before hand. If no argument follows what you asked then ignore it.

I have not said life cannot be claimed to be precious without God. I said life has no inherent value without God. I may say I value my shoes, my car, my whatever but I cannot give it actual value. It is a dependent value that changes on circumstance and is not inherent to the thing it's self. For example most legal codes and human rights assume an inherent value for human life that not only does not have any foundation without God and is also assumed to apply more for humanity than any other species without cause. We cannot use what you, Hitler, Billy Graham, or I think is valuable as a basis for law. Law applies to societies as a whole. Law assumes justice, human value (in a generic sense), the sanctity of human life, the dignity of human life, and all kinds of rights which have no actual foundation without God. What you value is not binding on me and vice versa. Only what is intrinsically true of humanity can law be based upon.

That last bolded sentence was about evolution or more accurately the dynamics which produce it. Natural selection and like mechanisms does not care about anything, it has no intent, it does not think, it is a brutally cold process so unsuitable for morality no one but Hitler thought it should be used for that purpose.

I see you smuggled in the argument though in a mutant form. You said God kills entire populations. First that has nothing to do with anything I said, second this has to be evaluated within the context of all those concepts I mentioned, third there is no automatic wrong doing in wiping out a population (it could be the greatest moral act possible), fourth what populations? The flood, the Canaanites, a family, a household, a person? You left out every single necessary detail to make that statement mean anything.

 

[1robin]

1Robin, I fail to see how your moral system (if you can even call it that, since basically it's just moral pronouncement from above), results in justice being done at all, as you seem to claim. Anybody can carry out any terrible action you can think of and obtain forgiveness and salvation from your god and spend eternity in some afterlife somewhere. Meanwhile, somebody else can spend their life doing wonderful things for humanity and end up in hell simply because they didn't believe in your god's existence. How is that just?

When you post in that format I do not get an alert. I just happen to see my name.

You cannot call it anything because I have no given any moral system. I have been discussion the ontological nature of moral depending on circumstances, have been evaluating the basis for morality depending on circumstances, but I have not given a single moral duty that anyone must obey. You cannot label a thing I have not provided as anything. You can't evaluate it, you can't critique it, and you did not even ask for it. No moral system of codes is on trial here because I have not given one. I try and avoid telling anyone what they should do.

I would hope we can receive salvation for our actions since we are all in need of it. However receiving forgiveness is to first be condemned for doing it. We all do what is wrong. My religion and your world view both include that belief. My worldview also contains a solution for that problem while yours cannot. yet this is something your complaining about?

 

[Sapiens]

I thought you said you were going away. Yet here you are.

Half of those I debate with condemn any argument from popularity even when used correctly, the other half use them incorrectly. The actual nature of a moral duty is not affected in any way by how many adopt it. Popularity has no effect on ontology. However any morals drawn from evolution are extremely unpopular. Except for Hitler I am not aware of any society even attempting it.

We already established that Nazi Germany, in favoring Social Darwinism was NOT using anything relating to actual Darwinian Evolution, yet you continue to spew that lie.

But objective morality was the issue from my first post. Let me restate my thesis.

1. With God actual objective moral truths exist. Ex..... Murder is actually wrong.

While I agree that murder is wrong, basing that conclusion on the assumed existence of a deity is not particularly reassuring, particularly in a world where there are multiple beliefs in multiple deities, many of whose followers are locked in deadly combat that sees the killing of those who have allegiance to an alternative deity as a duty (or a defense) rather than as murder. That's your "objective moral truth."

2. Without him nothing is actually wrong and we are left with 6 billion opinions and no way to know who is right. In fact no one can be right because there is no objective standard.

I suppose that might be a workable model in a closed system with a single deity, but that is not reality. Reality demands an objective moral system that does not depend upon the vagarities, economics, and xenophobia or competing religious systems.
Far easier, safier and more effectively, the desired result can be secured using Sam Harris' suggested construct of "morally good" things pertaining to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures."

The reason this is so important is the more subjective opinion is involved the higher the potential for injustice. Just as we had when Hitler used nature to justify his actions. Thank God enough people were around that believed certain things were objectively wrong to stop him, but if atheists (and I do not think it will ever happen) could convince us to abandon objective morality then I am afraid thousands of Hitler like opinion based tyrants would appear and no one would have an objective basis for stopping them.

Are you really so naive as to believe that WWII was fought because the governments of the world gave a tinkers dam about the fate of the Jews?
What Christian leaders of the time stood up and publicly condemned the holocaust, or even tried to help the Jews? Stalin? Roosevelt? Churchill? The French? The Pope? Sure, there were individuals of conscience, of special note are the Danes, including many of their politicians, even if the story of the King of Denmark and the Yellow Star is a myth.

In any case, that is just YOUR fear and it remains still, an unsupported claim. Are we to be governed by your personal fears and preferences? Are we to be subjective to your idiosyncratic and subjective view of what constitutes objectivity? I think not.

So you may not be arguing for it, but I was, and it is vitally important.

But it is an opinion that we should use empathy? Not only that but empathy for what? We live in a world where empathy for one species is malevolent towards another.

The yardstick is: increases in the well-being of conscious creatures. If you want a PETA friendly system that would keep a Jain happy ... that's a different thread.

If you claim we should use evolution then what, other than animal behavior, is there to look at?

Whether increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures" comes from evolution or just makes more sense than bronze age injunctions really does not matter. No one is suggesting that because a female pray mantis eats her mate during copulation that your significant other be provided with book of recipes for her bed-side table.

You can select a goal based on preference and then decide what actions meet that goal. However the goal is an opinion. Lets say you honestly think that not rationing water is best (and in certain situations it very well could be) for mankind in the long run. How are you going to determine whether my opinion or your opinion is right since there is no transcendent standard?

The example is a stupid one since the correct answer is obviously relativistic and probabilistic; totally dependent upon any number of independent variables of which thirst is only one.

Again Hitler literally believed he was helping strengthen mankind in the long run by killing off the weak. How do you know he was wrong? How do you know you are right? If he had won and killed off any opposition then by your popularity argument killing off all Jews would have been right. Once you untether morality from it's objective roots it can be attached to anything.

I'd suggest that you (and the Nazis) make the same common mistake, your conclusion is already decided and you cast about for justification to behave in the fashion that you've already decided to. This form of a priori morality will never make sense since a priori justification rests on some nonexperiential source of "evidence" and is totally dependent on the qualify and correctness (or absence) of that "evidence." In your case the evidence is not poor ... it is nonexistent.

That is only if you assume maximizing humanity is good. Maybe maximizing camel life would be the right thing to do and killing off the life that needs so much water would allow the camels to flourish. I do not care what you use, how you justify it, what goals you have, they are assumptions piled on opinions, based in preferences. Looking at humanities history I have no reason to allow creatures so inherently faulty to invent morality by preference.

If you want to "save the camels" knock yourself out. My immediate concern is for conscious creatures, though I would hope that we would all avoid causing unnecessary suffering to all organisms.

How do you know that? Another opinion. Maybe I will be the leader of the earth and say it is relevant. There is no fact of the matter by which to know. It is just one opinion versus another.

While what we enjoy is unchallengeable I cannot myself imagine studying something so useless. If we destroyed every single piece of information ever gained about evolution. We would suffer no real loss whatever.

EvolutionistTheodoysius Dobzhansky’s bears repeating here: “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution.”

The Scientific American Magazine recently noted: "Most important, Darwin’s legacy has a direct bearing on how society makes public policy and even, at times, on how we choose to run our lives. Overfishing of mature adults selects for smaller fish (and higher prices at the supermarket), and excessive use of antibiotics leads, by natural selection, to drug resistance, all considerations for regulators and legislators. Many modern diseases—obesity, diabetes and autoimmune disorders—come about, in part, because of the mismatch between our genes and an environment that changes more quickly than human genomes can evolve. Understanding this disparity may help convince a patient to make a change in diet to better conform to the demands of a genetic heritage that leaves us unable to accommodate excess, refined carbohydrates and saturated fats from a steady intake of linguine alfredo and the like."

So you'd throw away all that we have learned in the last 150 years in biology (which includes both medicine and veterinary science)? You really do prefer the bronze age, don't you?

It may be enjoyable, it may be interesting, it is not useful. I think it far more complex than what you stated but I would agree that intelligence is not always going to be selected to survive. That was not my point. We have astronomically higher intelligence than anything else and we gained it in a time span so short that I think a evolutionary explanation is absurd. The rest of nature contains slight incremental changes in intelligence while we alone display a quantum leap.

What that says to me is that much as you taxocentristic outlook would like it to be, perhaps high intelligence is not, in evolutionary terms, all that you crack it up to be.

I am not denying this, maybe it is true. I just find the theories so far beyond what the evidence can demonstrate I just do not take these detailed theories seriously.

Ah ... you just can't live without the argument from ignorance.

I have never nor would I ever force evolution into a moral context. However it is the position of others that is what must be forced into it. I have only been showing how that is a horrific idea, and should not be done. To do that I must hypothetically evaluate it in that context though I think it actually does not fit into it.

It only seems to be a bad idea when the force is designed and applied by some like Hitler or 1robin or Stalin or Mao who needs to willfully misunderstand evolution in order to serve some other agenda.

That is not true. Our minds are capable of comprehending moral truth, not creating it.

Don't you think it would be a good idea for you demonstrate mastery of obvious, rational, natural truth before you attempt the highwire act of objective moral truth? Master the baby steps first grasshopper.

I said I know God exists.

That is, as has been clearly identified, often, in the past that is at the root of most of you unsupported and unsupportable claims.

I did not say I am assuming he does for this discussion. My main points are what is true of morality if he exists, and what is true of it if he does not.

That is a foolish hypothetical that goes nowhere.

We can base it in amoral assumptions without God or we can base it on an object fact if God exists.

No one has granted that without god morality is just amoral assumptions. That is another of your unsupported claims.

The word wrong assumes an objective quality. You cannot show it is wrong, at best you can show why you think we should not allow it. But what you think we should not allow does not make anything actually wrong.

That works both ways.

No, it is an objective fact that there is a mountain of evidence for God as the term is commonly used.

That's utter crap. You've been trying to make that case, in numerous threads in this forum, and all I've ever seen you do is fail massively.

You may not think it God or persuasive which is usually just a preference, yet that mountain still exists. Calling a mountain a molehill has no effect on the mountain.

Wishing a molehill to mountain status has no effect on the molehill now, does it?

I was using me as a pace holder for humanity. Read "I" as "Humanity". As the brilliant scholar on testimony said along with countless others. If the apostles were not recording facts there is no alternative motivation possible.

Are you really that lacking in imagination? They sure weren't.

Have you not suggesting we look at evolution to evaluate our behavior. Your either backing out or I have you confused with someone else.

You are confusticating fragments of natural history with all of evolution.

Would not reason be a product of intelligence which is a product of evolution.

You seem to be an exception to that syllogism, perhaps there are others?

Yes and they try to do that by cherry picking evolutionary behaviors. Here is the definition.

Social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Western Europe in the 1870s, and which sought to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.
Google

I would quibble with that definition.

I'll zip over to wiki and change it, I do edit wiki often.

Done.

Now it reads:

"Social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in the United Kingdom, the United States,[1] and Western Europe in the 1870s, and which misapplied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.[2][3] Social Darwinists generally argue that the strong should see their wealth and power increase while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease. Different social Darwinists have different views about which groups of people are the strong and the weak, and they also hold different opinions about the precise mechanism that should be used to promote strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,[4] fascism, Nazism, and struggle between national or racial groups.[5][6]'

All better.

No, he said by nature and natures God.

In the "Declaration of Independence," the founding document of what would become the United States, Thomas Jefferson mentions "nature's God."
Who is Nature's God?

Not that even the word creator did not assume God.

Although many feel that Jefferson believed in a Creator, he typically addressed a god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.
(with thanks to Thomas Jefferson quotes )

You may not think so but before I make heavy moral decisions that cost others I want to know I am actually right.

So you consult the scribblings that are said to be inspired by your indemonstrable, omnipotent and invisible friend so that you will know that you are actually right. Why don't you just pull the talkie string on an old Barbie doll, that's every bit as defensible and the doll actually talks!

Maybe I got you confused with someone else. So you do not think nature is to be used to ground moral behavior?

I think it can be.

 

[Sunstone]

Quick definitions for the unlearned:

Amoral: lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

Immoral: not conforming to accepted standards of morality.

Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

When someone claims that he/she is irreligious, does it give them justifications to negate teachings of religious communities. For example, thou not steal. Does it give someone who claims to be irreligious the right to steal?

Also, which of the above words excellently describes the life of an Athiest?

In my experience, which is admittedly limited, atheists tend to be less hypocritical about their morals than theists. Theists will more readily profess morals they do not act upon, than atheists. But that's just my own experience.

 

[Sapiens]

Lots more theists in prison that atheists, if that says anything about morality (or maybe just the intelligence to select a good lawyer?).

 

[Nakosis]

Our objective basis is the survival instinct.

Ok, which means my goals maybe different from yours. Depends on whether your survival is a detriment or benefit to me.

The purpose or goal of our actions is to enhance our chances of survival and well being. Religion plays on our survival instinct and tells us that we'll survive happily forever if we behave morally, that is in a way that enhances our chances of survival.

I don't assume this of everybody, otherwise there would be no suicides.

Our common purpose is to survive. No need to agree to support having a survival instinct. We have it regardless. If you believe in God you might follow his commandments and follow Jesus when he says you should live by the Golden Rule. This increases chances of survival for all which is our common goal.

Sure self survival is a common goal "most" have. Your personal survival may not necessarily be a common goal. If you, our lets say some random person 1000 miles away gets hit by a bus and killed. How does that affect my chances for survival?

I may die tomorrow for some random reason, how will my death affect your survival? About 150,000 people die everyday. These deaths no not affect my personal survival.

 

[ArtieE]

Ok, which means my goals maybe different from yours. Depends on whether your survival is a detriment or benefit to me.

We both have survival as the goal.

I don't assume this of everybody, otherwise there would be no suicides.

Suicidal people are objectively ill. That is why we try to stop them and cure them.

Sure self survival is a common goal "most" have. Your personal survival may not necessarily be a common goal. If you, our lets say some random person 1000 miles away gets hit by a bus and killed. How does that affect my chances for survival?

That person might have been a surgeon who would have developed a surgical tool or procedure that might have saved your life in the future. We have no way of knowing which human where might have a beneficial influence on our chances of survival.

I may die tomorrow for some random reason, how will my death affect your survival?

If you had continued to live you might have explained something to me and that knowledge might have increased my chances of survival.

About 150,000 people die everyday. These deaths no not affect my personal survival.

And how do you know that? The person who died today might have had a beneficial influence on your chances of survival in the future directly or indirectly.