Do Athiests have morals?

[1robin]

The hold up is that you are asserting that your system is not only just, but the only system that can produce any kind of justice when in actuality it is unjust.

1. Justice is an objective concept. It also depends on all kinds of value judgments that are not objectively true without God. If you can imagine a moral argument as an equation instead of a variable then it makes sense. If you claim to have justice on one side of the equality then you must have an objective criteria on the other for the equation to be true. Without God the best your ever going to get on one side of the equality is opinion and preference and that does not equal justice.
2. Lets say that you and Stalin disagreed as to what equals justice. What can you point to that is independent of opinion that can potentially settle the matter?

Nature does have properties. Measurable ones. You already know this.

Of course it does, I doubt I said nature lacked properties. I think I said it lacked moral properties. Which molecule is the moral molecule. Without God there is no moral property in nature to detect. Morality if it objectively exists transcends nature.


Why in the world can you guys not just agree with proposition number two of my primary claims and move one. What is the star wars saying, no it was the matrix? It is inevitable, Neo. I do not even know which claim your refuting.

 

[1robin]

Well first of all, he's got the timeline wrong. It was 40 years later, not 60 or 70. Secondly he refers to people as "Darwinists" so I'm now getting the sense that he's some sort of creationist whose got a bone to pick with evolution. Thirdly, he trivializes the amount of work Walcott put into excavating and documenting the Burgess Shale by referring to it as, "a few photographs he had taken and a set of notes" when in actuality it was a great deal more than that. Fourthly, he ignores the fact (as you did) that Walcott published his findings a great many times in a great many places. So the assertion that he didn't "announce" or share his findings appears to be a completely baseless claim. And lastly, where does he come up with the assertion that Walcott hid anything? Who's going to do all that work only to hide it all? Sounds like pure speculation to me. And poor speculation at that.

I am pressed for time so I am going to grant anything that I can.

1. So there was a large delay but it was in the Skeptical region of arbitrary excusable delay for reasons not given.
2. He uses terms you do not like. As a footnote Walcott I believe was a Christian but was a zealous defender of the slow gradual model.
3. I have seen the same argument in countless contexts. I think the one I ran across just now was Islamic. I already said to ignore the denial of evolution as whole so I am repeating myself yet again.
4. You sweep away the same argument made by a whole host of people including the multiple PhD source I first read it in and stated without any evidence. You did not even say why nor did you even hint at what level was enough. or why.
5. The last thing I don't know the truth of so I await your evidence.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

The Quran nor the bible says to obey our opinion about what is right or wrong. They both constantly demand we defy our own opinions of what is right and wrong and instead obey what God has put forth as right and wrong. Since you will ignore the simplistic statement from your own "Holy text" I cannot grant that you understand the more complex Christian doctrines in our text. God had already told them to do what was right and not what was wrong before they ate of the tree, they did not suddenly become aware what they could and could not do. They suddenly became aware of why they were or were not suppose to do things. God told them not to eat of the tree. They as you are doing said the heck with what they were told so their eyes were opened to the full ramifications and inherent shame and separation that wrong actions result in. The original sin was to prefer their opinions about what is right over God's and that is what your repeating now.

BTW what did you do with the few (of the hundreds) of your own verses that I provided. Ignore them? They emphatically and point blank contradict exactly what your saying. You ignore the thousands of perfectly clear verses in the bible and Quran that emphatically state for us to do what is right as God has given it, and avoid what is wrong in his eyes, yet defy them all and suggest we do what got us in this mess to begin with and use what we prefer and you justify all this by a single verse you apparently do not understand from one of the oldest and most obscure stories in the bible? I do not agree with Muslims most of the time and find the Baha'i to desperately distort scripture more than anyone else but you are rapidly outstripping them all. Can you even find a single Islamic scholar that agrees with you, even a bad one?

And now try explaining it again, but instead of referring to the tree, refer to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The reason it is forbidden to make it a fact what is good and evil, is because then peoplle become coldhearted and calculating. It says they ate from the tree, and they felt as gods. It means they felt high on drugs. And one can just try it, asserting as fact what is good and evil makes you feel high. The glazy eyed smugness of people who assert to know good and evil as fact is easy to see.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I am pressed for time so I am going to grant anything that I can.


1. So there was a large delay but it was in the Skeptical region of arbitrary excusable delay for reasons not given.

2. He uses terms you do not like. As a footnote Walcott I believe was a Christian but was a zealous defender of the slow gradual model.

3. I have seen the same argument in countless contexts. I think the one I ran across just now was Islamic. I already said to ignore the denial of evolution as whole so I am repeating myself yet again.

4. You sweep away the same argument made by a whole host of people including the multiple PhD source I first read it in and stated without any evidence. You did not even say why nor did you even hint at what level was enough. or why.

5. The last thing I don't know the truth of so I await your evidence.

1. What I pointed out before, and what I’m failing to understand here is why you consider it Walcott’s fault that after he died, nobody looked at the fossils he had collected for a number of years. During the last 25 or so years of his life, he spent a great deal of time labelling, categorizing and alphabetizing all the fossils he had found during his excavations and neatly placed them in drawers at the Smithsonian Institution. He also handed in his very detailed journal and a great deal of panoramic photos he had taken of the site. He also published a great number of papers on his fossil finds in a variety of different publications – dozens upon dozens of those were published in Smithsonian publications. How this amounts to hiding anything is what I want to know.
   
   
2. He uses suspicious terms that lead me to believe he has a bone to pick with evolution, and in doing so, is reading much more into Walcott’s findings then can be warranted. Funny how the only place you can find any kind of accusation that Walcott hid his findings from the world is on creationist and apologetics websites. You claim Walcott was acting out of bias, but these people are not?
   
   
3. I provided you with links that include his photos of his diary, photos of him and his family at the excavation site, illustrations and photos of the fossils he had found there, photos of himself working at the Smithsonian Institution, his various published works and a large amount of panoramic photos. So I don’t care that you’ve seen the claims on Islamic websites or creationist websites or whatever, as it is irrelevant. Anybody can claim anything they want. I’m presenting you with a great deal of evidence which contradicts the claim and asking you to look at it and consider it to show you that the claim is obviously an erroneous one. “I saw it claimed somewhere” isn’t an argument.
   
   
4. What? Are you declaring that he did not publish his findings? On what basis? Again, I provided you with a link including a giant list of his publications.
   
   
5. How about answering my question. Where does Schroeder come up with the assertion that Walcott hid anything? Who's going to do all that work only to hide it all? Where is the actual evidence that he hid anything, because I’m not seeing it.

 

[ArtieE]

However we have been wiping each other out since we have existed.

Since you believe in the Bible what else would you expect from children made in the image of a god who wipes out whole planets? It's in our nature. Like father, like son. Right? You can use this as evidence for the existence of your god.

 

[ArtieE]

2. Lets say that you and Stalin disagreed as to what equals justice. What can you point to that is independent of opinion that can potentially settle the matter?

That we have a survival instinct and therefore don't want to die so it would be wrong for him to kill us?

 

[viole]

Nope, just kidding. I have not read it but I predict your question will involve an epistemological view on an ontological point.

That is the epistemology I was expecting but what lets see here. This is a complex issue. The bible is not the primary means by which humanity is to come to know all the specifics of moral values and duties. We are born with a God given conscience, the bible is either specific instructions concerning the Hebrews, the general principles that ground moral foundations, the confirmation of our moral conscience, or the contextual foundation for morality. Also our God given moral consciences are tuned and given power when we are born again. The Holy spirit comes to work with our own conscience and the word to reveal moral truth. The bible was not meant to be a legal codices but to ground in principle our moral duties. IOW the bible shows that man is to dominate nature, that man is created equal before God, that we have inherent rights. However it does not and could not spell out all the resultant rules which those principles justify.

There are about a thousand lines of evidence that provide monumental reasons for crediting the bible with accurately representing the truth. The bible makes tens of thousands of claims that can be tested and as far as I know (beyond scribal error) they never fail. That would mean I am perfectly rational to trust even what cannot be verified. Add to that that mankind's moral compass seems to agree in general with Biblical morality (minus the Levitical specific duties) even if our behavior does not. IOW I can give you reasons why faith in the bible is fully justified to no end but I can't give you proof of it's every claim. That is why I have not made any arguments as to which morals are objective. That is a much more complex issue. As it stands the bible is the best moral roadmap we have available, and that would be true even if there was no God.

First the bible was written by humans but bears every mark of an ultimate divine author. Second the bible does not agree with me, it condemns me. I agree with it, it does not agree with me. If I were to pick a religion to adopt for convenience Christianity would be one of the last on the list. I explained that even what can't be directly verified can be relied upon by what can, second I do find agreement between the truth that is in our collective heads and the bible's moral demands but not what is in our collective desires. I think most would reluctantly agree with the bible if they had to. Chesterton famously said we can almost all agree what is wrong but we disagree on what wrongs are excusable. The collective moral intuition of man and God agree in most part but our moral impulses do not. As Paul said: New American Standard Bible
For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

That is just on of those things that makes me have confidence in the bible. It perfectly explains the otherwise moral incoherence between what we know and what we want.

This is what I do not understand.

You say the Bible is the best roadmap we have, even if God did not exist.

But if we assume the premise that God does not exist, then the authors of the Bible have not been inspired by any divinity. That was just a figment of their imagination. They just wrote what they thought was right under the delusion of being inspired by a non existing divinity who agrees with them.

In this case, what makes the morality in it truely objective? What makes it superior than any other man made morality, e.g. the secular or humanistic morality, or the hindu morality, or whatever else morality, independently from the fact that you happen to find yourself in tune with it?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

And now try explaining it again, but instead of referring to the tree, refer to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The reason it is forbidden to make it a fact what is good and evil, is because then peoplle become coldhearted and calculating. It says they ate from the tree, and they felt as gods. It means they felt high on drugs. And one can just try it, asserting as fact what is good and evil makes you feel high. The glazy eyed smugness of people who assert to know good and evil as fact is easy to see.

I am going to take one last stab at this. I get a few good arguments, many bad arguments, and some that are ridiculous, but with most even when wrong and ridiculous I can see the reasoning (as faulty as it may be) behind them. I can contend with that reasoning and attempt to show it flawed but I cannot find any reasoning behind your argument. It just seems to be your very unique opinion that is not founded upon any reasoning good or bad. They are merely declarations. It is like watching a man scream at the traffic. You do not even seem to acknowledge the point blank arguments from your own Quran specifically stating your wrong.

1. You seem as to be not be bothered enough to even read the hundreds of specific verses in the Quran and bible that state emphatically we are to know right from wrong. You bypass and ignore all of them and instead become obsessed by what you think a single cryptic verse in the OT means. So lets investigate the only point or reasoning you have made. Instead of some random poster in a forum I will give you the most eminent biblical commentator in history and his take on Genesis 2:17.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary2:16,17 Let us never set up our own will against the holy will of God. There was not only liberty allowed to man, in taking the fruits of paradise, but everlasting life made sure to him upon his obedience. There was a trial appointed of his obedience. By transgression he would forfeit his Maker's favor, and deserve his displeasure, with all its awful effects; so that he would become liable to pain, disease, and death. Worse than that, he would lose the holy image of God, and all the comfort of his favor; and feel the torment of sinful passions, and the terror of his Maker's vengeance, which must endure for ever with his never dying soul. The forbidding to eat of the fruit of a particular tree was wisely suited to the state of our first parents. In their state of innocence, and separated from any others, what opportunity or what temptation had they to break any of the ten commandments? The event proves that the whole human race were concerned in the trial and fall of our first parents. To argue against these things is to strive against stubborn facts, as well as Divine revelation; for man is sinful, and shows by his first actions, and his conduct ever afterwards, that he is ready to do evil. He is under the Divine displeasure, exposed to sufferings and death. The Scriptures always speak of man as of this sinful character, and in this miserable state; and these things are true of men in all ages, and of all nations.
Genesis 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

Now if that was inconvenient for you go to the site and select another great commentator as they are all in agreement.

Notice that the scholarly consensus concerning the interpretation of that verse does not contain anything you said in yours. No one was getting high, the knowledge of right and wrong Is not the evil their eyes were opened to. It was the devastation and separation from God that not doing what was right results in that they were now exposed to. The commands to be obedient existed before they ate of the tree. They did not feel like God, they felt ashamed and naked. Not even Satan's lie included the promise of feeling like God, he lied and said they would be like God. Yet even that never occurred because it was a lie and now your adding to the lie of Satan by suggesting it came true. They did not become more like God they were instantly spiritually dead. The result was the opposite direct from Satan's promise and your claim.

So not one thing you said that verse means is true of that verse. In fact it was the exact opposite. So Genesis is out. All that is left is your ignoring all the verse that tell us point blank to know right from wrong and chose the right.

I will post a few one last time. If you do not recon with them I am done with this discussion.

1. There are I believe 617 specific Levitic-al laws and ten commandments specifically telling us what is right and wrong and what to chose. Any one of them completely destroys your argument.
2. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

There is a whole list of moral facts we are not to engage in.

3. Ephesians 6:1-4 ESV
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

This one states not only what is right, specifically names it, and then commands us to do it.

4. I think this is a waste of time but I have already given you a few of the many verses in the Quran specifically saying what is right and wrong and that we are to know and do what is right.


BTW I did not say that man can create right and wrong. I have specifically stated the opposite. I said man was created to, and commanded to comprehend right and wrong and obey the right. So please step it up, do not ignore what the Holy texts say, and be more careful about your interpretations, or I cannot justify this conversation.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I posts do not shorten over time.

I've often wondered, is this intentional?

The moral goal of mankind is not agreement, it should be truth. We can all agree that murder is good but it will not make it true.

I don't think you understand my arguments because you are stuck on this idea that it has to be objectively true. Because morality is a substance rather than a quality. I am view it as a quality rather than a substance. Does this make sense in any way shape or form? I can explain it further if need be.

Sad or glad that is the only choice and what almost all our moral duties depend on. I think it far sadder to invent a self interested morality that is not based in objective fact than to do the opposite. How you look at a thing does not determine the nature of a thing. You can value tennis shoes, rocks, or b movies but that is not a moral standard society is in need of. If what we all desired was the foundation then porn, violence, and junk food would be the greatest good.

Its actually based off function more than anything. There is some degree of preference but a society with individuals who feel it is "moral" or "want" to murder each other won't last very long. Only the morality that is successful tends to stay around for long periods of time. And of course this has to be thought of on the macro level when discussing why we have any kind of moral thought. I have been speaking from the individual level and as fascinating as it is you are perplexed by the idea of there not being an objective moral ground and how there is no meaning in it. And if you were the only personal alive or if you weren't in any way dependent on others I could see your point. But we are all part of a system. The society is a system and our morality helps govern our social behaviors so that system can be healthy.

So from this point on I will try to explain the bits from that point.

Empathy is a choice though it is a very common one. We can not only not empathize with others pain we can love to cause it. But even if it was automatic so is gravity and bad breath. If empathy was some kind of universe absolute why was Hitler's and your ideas about what was empathic so dissimilar?

Empathy is not a choice. You can say it isn't all day long but it is not. Hitler had empathy. However he had other notions that allowed him to shied his empathy from Jews. It was his "tribe' so to speak. His "greater good". From his perspective he was the greatest good. He was in the moral high ground. I disagree. I have come to drastically different conclusions based on my own reasoning and understanding. I am also a humanist and to my knowledge he was a social Darwinist. Its like asking a Communist and an Anarchist the best way to run a government. There is no objectively good way to run a government for example but it doesn't mean that there aren't "better" versions of government that can be concluded using objective fact.

I have tried to avoid unnecessarily complicating this by supplying any specific morality that we should adopt. I have only said that if God exists then morality is not subject to our opinions. If he does not then that is all it is. My argument does not assume my God it proposes my God. I can easily justify faith in that one God but have been trying to keep this simple.

I don't think we could ever start by simply assuming any particular god exists and is the correct interpretation. So I think that if we simply assumed it without any assurance that we are actually right then it would mean that it was possible that our whole system is based off of a lie. I think it is far more honest and functional to base it off of our own experiences to the best of our reason and ability.

I did not say what we could verify. If God does not exist there is nothing to verify, at least with God there exists some truth of the matter. Whatever accusation you make against God based morality it is far worse for Godless morality.

It could be based off a lie. It could be wrong. It could inadvertently cause harm in the face of better reason. It doesn't usually change with the times as new things develop. Ect.

A fluid approach to morality that is based off of reason, empathy, certain agreed upon axioms ect will create a better system in every measurable way. What you seem to be suggesting is that we should just shotgun blast in the dark and see what happens with this specific moral code that might be from god. Just because people think it might be right doesn't mean its right. And to ever say that they are objectively right when we actually don't know is a dangerous amount of power I don't feel comfortable giving to people with not so great track records.

I did not ask for your agreement, I pointed out that a counterpoint exists to the one you mentioned. It takes a whole other level of evil to wipe out millions compared to one, or as we have almost done, wipe out all life in existence. I can condemn but understand a man who kills his wife's lover, I can condemn but never understand a man who wants to wipe out China.

People in vast amounts of power often are corrupted. The only reason it hasn't happened before then was because no one had ever had that amount of power and de-personalization with their victims.

King Henry the VIII executed more than 50,000 people in his time as king. That is pretty significant. But either way neither have anything to do with a "moral system".

The goal is not functionality it is truth and the functionality of our morality is extremely deficient anyway.

True. Perhaps its because there is no objective moral truth behind it but rather we muddle through as we can being imperfect as we are. But morality is part of a system and therefore functions. I have already provided the evidence for that.

I am perhaps wrong but at least my moral foundations have the possibility of being objectively true.

Which is actually a pretty terrible place to be in. Either you bet it all on an unverifiable god that might be true OR you do your best to develop morality to best suit people in a functional way.

I will take the second over the first any day. Same with science. Instead of betting it on some unknown I would rather investigate and put time, effort and thought into it.

I am sure we are both equally tired of what we consider vacuous claims the other makes. However note who lost patience first. You did not ask me if I could produce a fundamental change in evolutionary theory. Now that you have I will give you one. It is an example that justifies all the apprehension I have about theoretical science alone.

Possibly the greatest evolutionary find in history was the burgess shale deposits. It is unique in many ways but I won't get into that aspect of it. The issue is that very slow gradual evolution was the preferred model at the time. However the shale deposits were something like 60,000 exceptions to that model. Did theoretical science embrace this new data. No, the president of the Smithsonian buried every single one of the most important evolutionary fossils ever found in basement drawers and only published it in the least circulated publications he was required to. The same false theory was taught for decades in every classroom that taught biology. It was only by accident that the discarded fossils were discovered by an intern and eventually forced scientists to allow for punctuated equilibrium. The fossils showed that every single major body type exploded in a snap shot of geological time. Yet even that is no where as remarkable as our intellectual leap. A famous military saying goes that defend everything is to defend nothing. The equivalent is a theory that accounts for everything accounts for nothing. No matter ho contradictory a find is someone starches evolutionary theory to fit it. It is as bas a global warming, every symptom proves it. That is not to say evolution did not happen. It is to say there is a huge gap between the evidence and the theory.

The theory of evolution is a broad theory that is actually several smaller theories. There are countless ones that tie together seamlessly for the bigger picture. No other theory in science currently has this amount of depth and complexity. It is also one of the strongest. I could make my case as I don't think I"ve actually debated evolution with you but that would take us off course I think. If you'd like to debate it we can do so in another thread.

But I did some research on this Burgess Shale deposit. There was no cover up that I was able to find. If you could link me to where you heard that story I would really like to read it. From what I have read the man found several fossils but was unable to find the time in his current job to be able to work on them in full. No one fully went into them till later. They didn't know immediately what they had saw until afterwards.

Though again there was no fundamental change to the theory. There is now new theories on the speed of evolution and what causes may change the speed but nothing in the theory has changed or been removed.

Now this is very contradictory. I am only going to give two examples. You said if God exists his morality is true but if it conflicted with your desire to allow homosexuality you would deny truth, and you have adopted a worldview which has no ultimate moral truth possible.

I had stated, and you misread, perhaps because of the context of the text, that If god existed then his morality could be true. But at the same time I do not view homosexuality as immoral. And if god does exist then I would disagree with his morality and his "truth" does not hold true to me.

I do not recall what you refer to. I do recall you suggesting I don't know what the word context means which is silly.

I really still believe that.

It is sad to have such dogmatic views about others and worse still for yourself. I cannot be convinced that the God I have met does not exist but I can be convinced that the bible is mistaken. In fact Christians have identified many places where it is and indicted such in all modern bibles along with the history.

Do you believe your god to be the god of the bible? Idle curiosity. Though its not dogmatic my view rather its from experience.

I will let my definition stand as is.

Social darwinism- Based off of survival of the fittest to make morality.
Secular morality being the product of evolution- Exactly what it says.

I think there is a right and wrong in every situation as does almost everyone despite not always knowing what it is. The same way there is a scientific explanation for all natural events despite us not knowing most of them.

You and I know very different people.

 

[1robin]

That we have a survival instinct and therefore don't want to die so it would be wrong for him to kill us?

That is the problem. Your confusing what is contradictory to an instinct as what is actually wrong? It is depressing to see that the highest moral authority you have is taken to be a blind byproduct of unfeeling, unintelligent, and unintentional natural forces. By that bizarre standard straining against gravity is wrong.

 

[1robin]

This is what I do not understand.

You say the Bible is the best roadmap we have, even if God did not exist.

I will give an example to illustrate this (two actually). You do not even have to agree with them for them to be justification.

1. If we obeyed and applied the bible's commands about life, hundreds of millions of lives destroyed in the womb would be alive. We may have cured cancer and diabetes by now if we had only listened. That would be true even if God did not exist.
2. If we obeyed it's sexual commands millions of people would have had to restrain their sexual desires but millions of people would not have died long slow painful deaths. That would be just as true even if God did not exist.

I can probably post thousand of these but these are among the most emphatic.

Bonus: The Bible if obeyed would have prevented approximately 95% of all wars.

But if we assume the premise that God does not exist, then the authors of the Bible have not been inspired by any divinity. That was just a figment of their imagination. They just wrote what they thought was right under the delusion of being inspired by a non existing divinity who agrees with them.

Yes, without God the apostles were left with the same problems inherent to everyone if God does not exist. Why is that such a fault in the apostles case but not in secular moral theorists case? Regardless their guesses if applied would have prevented untold suffering even if they were merely guesses.

In this case, what makes the morality in it truely objective? What makes it superior than any other man made morality, e.g. the secular or humanistic morality, or the hindu morality, or whatever else morality, independently from the fact that you happen to find yourself in tune with it?

Without God I did not say it was objective, I said it was better than everything else we have attempted assuming we have similar goals in mind.

Again, I find myself completely out of tune with it and condemned by it, so please stop suggesting the opposite. I agree it is the best, I do not agree I wish to be subject to it personally. I reluctantly concede to it's superiority even though it conflict with me desire. The same would be true that my parents morals were ultimately the best even if my childhood desires constantly conflicted with it.

 

[viole]

I will give an example to illustrate this (two actually). You do not even have to agree with them for them to be justification.

1. If we obeyed and applied the bible's commands about life, hundreds of millions of lives destroyed in the womb would be alive. We may have cured cancer and diabetes by now if we had only listened. That would be true even if God did not exist.
2. If we obeyed it's sexual commands millions of people would have had to restrain their sexual desires but millions of people would not have died long slow painful deaths. That would be just as true even if God did not exist.

I can probably post thousand of these but these are among the most emphatic.

Bonus: The Bible if obeyed would have prevented approximately 95% of all wars.

Yes, without God the apostles were left with the same problems inherent to everyone if God does not exist. Why is that such a fault in the apostles case but not in secular moral theorists case? Regardless their guesses if applied would have prevented untold suffering even if they were merely guesses.

Without God I did not say it was objective, I said it was better than everything else we have attempted assuming we have similar goals in mind.

Again, I find myself completely out of tune with it and condemned by it, so please stop suggesting the opposite. I agree it is the best, I do not agree I wish to be subject to it personally. I reluctantly concede to it's superiority even though it conflict with me desire. The same would be true that my parents morals were ultimately the best even if my childhood desires constantly conflicted with it.

Ok, something to chew on. I admit I saw the abortion objection coming. One of your favorites, lol.

i would avoid the "someone who could have found a cure for cancer" argument. Statistically, it is more likely that one turms into a criminal than into a supreme genius. I can count more criminals in human history than Mozarts or Pasteurs, don't you?

Nevertheless, that does not add an inch to the objectivity of Bibles precepts, under the assumption that God does not exist. Side note: if He existed then all victims of natural events or miscarriages could have been a Mozart as well. I am afraid, He is not pro-life either.

What makes it objectively evil the elimination of an embryo in a woman's body? I could argue that abortion and gay marriages should be promoted so that we do not globally suffer the consequences of resources scarcity because of overpopulation.

It is not really the case that I hold that position. But who can prevent me from thinking that? How can you, objectively, prove to me that you are right and I am wrong?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

4. I think this is a waste of time but I have already given you a few of the many verses in the Quran specifically saying what is right and wrong and that we are to know and do what is right.

As already mentioned, there is no inconsistency, because we can just regard right and wrong as opinion, not fact.

It is ridiculous that now you reference an expert talking about "the tree", instead of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil". God said, you can eat from all the trees, except this one specific tree. You are obviously omitting the "knowledge of good and evil" part, because..... you are yourself deeply engaged with this sin, and advertising it as a virtue.

Again, explain it with "the tree of knowledge of good and evil", not just "the tree".

KJB
"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

ye shall be as gods, and so it is. The people professing to know as fact what is good and evil, regardless if they profess it as a scientific fact like in social darwinism, or as a theological fact like in religion, they are high on the knowledge of good and evil, literally drugged out, their eyes glazed over with their expression of smugness on their face.

As before, one can just try it, experience it. Make it a fact that something is good or evil, just increase the certainty of it, that it becomes an unquestionable fact much as common facts are generally unquestionable. One can feel the true emotion dissipate, feel the emotions become hard, ruthless, and one feels high and mighty, smug, drug overload.

There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. By making it a matter of fact issue, you focus on the letter, and disregard the spirit.

 

[1robin]

I've often wondered, is this intentional?

I actually intend to shorten them but invariably cannot restrain from responding to every point.

I don't think you understand my arguments because you are stuck on this idea that it has to be objectively true. Because morality is a substance rather than a quality. I am view it as a quality rather than a substance. Does this make sense in any way shape or form? I can explain it further if need be.

I do understand your argument. I even understand the reasoning behind it. I simply find glaring faults in it. Human morality was not intended to reply upon agreement, it was intended to correct disagreement. It was because we do not all agree murder is wrong we must make laws in the attempt to force compliance to what we assume is actually true.

Morality is either objective or subjective in it's nature, it's quality is derived if and only if there is a truth that it can be compared to. Without it, it's quality is as invented as the moral rule it's self.

Its actually based off function more than anything. There is some degree of preference but a society with individuals who feel it is "moral" or "want" to murder each other won't last very long. Only the morality that is successful tends to stay around for long periods of time. And of course this has to be thought of on the macro level when discussing why we have any kind of moral thought. I have been speaking from the individual level and as fascinating as it is you are perplexed by the idea of there not being an objective moral ground and how there is no meaning in it. And if you were the only personal alive or if you weren't in any way dependent on others I could see your point. But we are all part of a system. The society is a system and our morality helps govern our social behaviors so that system can be healthy.

But that functionality is determined by how well it's meets a goal. A goal we invent or prefer without God an objective goal if he does. Morality is a relation quantity. It is always between things. With God between a duty and an objective goal, without him between a law and a preferred goal.

Survival is not a naturalistic moral quality. It is the by product of unintentional, cold and blind physics. It is a property and not a duty. I may kill of all human kind but without God I have no duty to not do so.

So from this point on I will try to explain the bits from that point.

I can't figure out why you guys are even arguing. I made two points. You deny the first but affirm the second but it is as if your ashamed at having to do so, and so attempt to sanitize and try and repaint it. I even see this in the majority of atheist scholars. They emphatically deny objective moral duties exist, then seem to regret admitting and scramble together some kind of white wash in order to claim that not only is the lack of moral truth good it is preferable. I am too lazy to be an atheist. I would have replied with " I agree to no two" and that was it.

Empathy is not a choice. You can say it isn't all day long but it is not. Hitler had empathy. However he had other notions that allowed him to shied his empathy from Jews. It was his "tribe' so to speak. His "greater good". From his perspective he was the greatest good. He was in the moral high ground. I disagree. I have come to drastically different conclusions based on my own reasoning and understanding. I am also a humanist and to my knowledge he was a social Darwinist. Its like asking a Communist and an Anarchist the best way to run a government. There is no objectively good way to run a government for example but it doesn't mean that there aren't "better" versions of government that can be concluded using objective fact.

Please re-read the first two sentences of what you stated again and explain them to me.

I don't think we could ever start by simply assuming any particular god exists and is the correct interpretation. So I think that if we simply assumed it without any assurance that we are actually right then it would mean that it was possible that our whole system is based off of a lie. I think it is far more honest and functional to base it off of our own experiences to the best of our reason and ability.

I did not suggest we do. In fact I did not really get into application because it is very complex. Christianity is designed to govern an individual not a hemisphere. However we are not left to merely assume without cause. There are thousand of tests for validating a faith. None equal absolute certainty to a society but Christianity can get close. At least there is some potential fact of the matter we are trying to get at, without God there isn't.

It could be based off a lie. It could be wrong. It could inadvertently cause harm in the face of better reason. It doesn't usually change with the times as new things develop. Ect.

It could be a lie but your moral duties can't possibly be true. Naturalism has no objective moral truth to find. Being blind in a room on fire is better than being sighted in a room on fire with no door.

A fluid approach to morality that is based off of reason, empathy, certain agreed upon axioms ect will create a better system in every measurable way. What you seem to be suggesting is that we should just shotgun blast in the dark and see what happens with this specific moral code that might be from god. Just because people think it might be right doesn't mean its right. And to ever say that they are objectively right when we actually don't know is a dangerous amount of power I don't feel comfortable giving to people with not so great track records.

You mean a fluid (whatever that means) approach based on opinion. I doe snot matter how much you try to sanitize it your duties come from an equation with everything you may want on one side and opinion on the other side of the equality.

People in vast amounts of power often are corrupted. The only reason it hasn't happened before then was because no one had ever had that amount of power and de-personalization with their victims.

I agree that is why the morality they produce is so horrific and why I would rather not trust moral duties to them. Stalin was the master of depersonalizing them, he literally destroyed the entire bases for humanity having any value or rights. If I was some tyrant bent on wiping out human life the first thing I would do is wipe out the grounds for that life having inherent sanctity.

King Henry the VIII executed more than 50,000 people in his time as king. That is pretty significant. But either way neither have anything to do with a "moral system".

Wiping out 20 million or even 50,000 has nothing to do with moral systems?

True. Perhaps its because there is no objective moral truth behind it but rather we muddle through as we can being imperfect as we are. But morality is part of a system and therefore functions. I have already provided the evidence for that.

Yes you can pick a goal by preference and find rules that maximize it also mostly based on preference. Or rather those corrupted by power do so. I don't want any, thanks.

Which is actually a pretty terrible place to be in. Either you bet it all on an unverifiable god that might be true OR you do your best to develop morality to best suit people in a functional way.

The world would be infinitely better off applying Christian morality even if God did not exist. 95% of wars would not have occurred, sexual disease would be almost unknown, and the industrial wiping out of ourselves (and possible the guy who cured cancer) would not have occurred.

I will take the second over the first any day. Same with science. Instead of betting it on some unknown I would rather investigate and put time, effort and thought into it.

That is the problem. You deciding what is true by what you prefer even if it must be invented.

The theory of evolution is a broad theory that is actually several smaller theories. There are countless ones that tie together seamlessly for the bigger picture. No other theory in science currently has this amount of depth and complexity. It is also one of the strongest. I could make my case as I don't think I"ve actually debated evolution with you but that would take us off course I think. If you'd like to debate it we can do so in another thread.

Agreed it is based on an ounce of evidence and a billions tons of conflicting and contradictory theories. Evolution does occur is about all the evidence justifies.

But I did some research on this Burgess Shale deposit. There was no cover up that I was able to find. If you could link me to where you heard that story I would really like to read it. From what I have read the man found several fossils but was unable to find the time in his current job to be able to work on them in full. No one fully went into them till later. They didn't know immediately what they had saw until afterwards.

I have posted in many times included a small sample in a very recent post. What your probably reading is the ultra modern end result which of course would leave out all unfaltering and secondary details. The fact of the matter is it took many decades for proof to topple cherished but radically mistaken theory.

Though again there was no fundamental change to the theory. There is now new theories on the speed of evolution and what causes may change the speed but nothing in the theory has changed or been removed.

Yes there was. It went from very slow and gradual change and became some kind of half man half beast contradictory slow change with periods of almost instantaneous leaps. It has even changed since then though the last step is fuzzy. It went from a tree model to a bush, and now partially a forest. I do not know how you can have a more radical shift and call it the same theory.

I had stated, and you misread, perhaps because of the context of the text, that If god existed then his morality could be true. But at the same time I do not view homosexuality as immoral. And if god does exist then I would disagree with his morality and his "truth" does not hold true to me.

I am hesitant to mention homosexuality further but it is not even secularly justifiable. It causes massive increases in human suffering without any compensating gain. Some may like it but that does no justify millions of deaths and billions of dollars.

I really still believe that.

I can't counter what you prefer.

Do you believe your god to be the god of the bible? Idle curiosity. Though its not dogmatic my view rather its from experience.

Of course I do.

Social darwinism- Based off of survival of the fittest to make morality.
Secular morality being the product of evolution- Exactly what it says.

Atoms bouncing around cannot produce a single thing we ought to do and no society and almost no ones actual morality reflects evolutionary principles consistently. In general morality is in conflict with evolution.

You and I know very different people.

I think we necessarily know entirely different people.

 

[1robin]

Ok, something to chew on. I admit I saw the abortion objection coming. One of your favorites, lol.

I can beat that. I saw your "you saw abortion coming" coming. That is why I added that I chose the most extreme examples.

i would avoid the "someone who could have found a cure for cancer" argument. Statistically, it is more likely that one turms into a criminal than into a supreme genius. I can count more criminals in human history than Mozarts or Pasteurs, don't you?

Of course we have aborted a whole mess of criminals. However how many thieves and miscreants would we accept to get rid of cancer? I would take thousands of OJ's to get one Pasteur.

Nevertheless, that does not add an inch to the objectivity of Bibles precepts, under the assumption that God does not exist. Side note: if He existed then all victims of natural events or miscarriages could have been a Mozart as well. I am afraid, He is not pro-life either.

I don't get this. If we apply the bibles morality we get the same temporal effect whether God exists or not. If we do not murder then no one is killed without justification whether God exists or not. Your contending with the result by questioning the nature of the source. I have no idea why? If we are talking about a moral system without God why are you blaming him for stuff. Even with God your assuming he killed those children as an act of specific will. I have again no idea why?

What makes it objectively evil the elimination of an embryo in a woman's body? I could argue that abortion and gay marriages should be promoted so that we do not globally suffer the consequences of resources scarcity because of overpopulation.

Again your all mixed up. I am not arguing about objective evil without God, I can't. I am assuming we agree that evolution justifies survival and so the lack of survival is not the goal. The problem is not over population. Everyone on earth can fit in one county in Florida. The problem is the minority is consuming that majority of supplies but even then we are not running out currently. If you mean that we should prevent any potential lack then that justifies killing everyone beyond a necessary breeding population. Your making me miserable with this line of anti-reasoning.

It is not really the case that I hold that position. But who can prevent me from thinking that? How can you, objectively, prove to me that you are right and I am wrong?

I am not trying to prevent you from thinking anything. I like God give you the evidence and allow you to accept or deny. prove you are right or wrong about what exactly? I covered the statistical mistake, the mixing up with foundations and results, and the over population issue. What is left? I even anticipated your anticipating my abortion claim. I think that pretty impressive.

 

[viole]

I can beat that. I saw your "you saw abortion coming" coming. That is why I added that I chose the most extreme examples.

Of course we have aborted a whole mess of criminals. However how many thieves and miscreants would we accept to get rid of cancer? I would take thousands of OJ's to get one Pasteur.

I don't get this. If we apply the bibles morality we get the same temporal effect whether God exists or not. If we do not murder then no one is killed without justification whether God exists or not. Your contending with the result by questioning the nature of the source. I have no idea why? If we are talking about a moral system without God why are you blaming him for stuff. Even with God your assuming he killed those children as an act of specific will. I have again no idea why?

Again your all mixed up. I am not arguing about objective evil without God, I can't. I am assuming we agree that evolution justifies survival and so the lack of survival is not the goal. The problem is not over population. Everyone on earth can fit in one county in Florida. The problem is the minority is consuming that majority of supplies but even then we are not running out currently. If you mean that we should prevent any potential lack then that justifies killing everyone beyond a necessary breeding population. Your making me miserable with this line of anti-reasoning.

I am not trying to prevent you from thinking anything. I like God give you the evidence and allow you to accept or deny. prove you are right or wrong about what exactly? I covered the statistical mistake, the mixing up with foundations and results, and the over population issue. What is left? I even anticipated your anticipating my abortion claim. I think that pretty impressive.

I can even beat that.

I anticipated that you anticipated my anticipation. Lol. Now, it is is just a question of who has a deeper theory of mind.

Must really go for a couple of days now.

I will be back.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

As already mentioned, there is no inconsistency, because we can just regard right and wrong as opinion, not fact.

It is ridiculous that now you reference an expert talking about "the tree", instead of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil". God said, you can eat from all the trees, except this one specific tree. You are obviously omitting the "knowledge of good and evil" part, because..... you are yourself deeply engaged with this sin, and advertising it as a virtue.

Again, explain it with "the tree of knowledge of good and evil", not just "the tree".

KJB
"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

ye shall be as gods, and so it is. The people professing to know as fact what is good and evil, regardless if they profess it as a scientific fact like in social darwinism, or as a theological fact like in religion, they are high on the knowledge of good and evil, literally drugged out, their eyes glazed over with their expression of smugness on their face.

As before, one can just try it, experience it. Make it a fact that something is good or evil, just increase the certainty of it, that it becomes an unquestionable fact much as common facts are generally unquestionable. One can feel the true emotion dissipate, feel the emotions become hard, ruthless, and one feels high and mighty, smug, drug overload.

There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. By making it a matter of fact issue, you focus on the letter, and disregard the spirit.

Ok, that is enough. I have no idea what your doing or why. You ignore every request I make. The only thing you did quote was my saying I was wasting my time. Your position is not even a minority view in any religion I ever head of especially not Islam nor Christianity. You do not address the emphatic points I make but only obsess on a very cryptic verse you deny anyone but you understands regardless of the scholastic conclusions. You could not even find a single Islamic scholar that agreed with you. I don't have any idea what your doing and so cannot justify responding. Have a good one.

 

[1robin]

I can even beat that.

I anticipated that you anticipated my anticipation. Lol. Now, it is is just a question of who has a deeper theory of mind.

That does not count. I anticipated you contending with my claiming I anticipated and that is why I included the notation of why I chose abortion in the original post, a sort of evidentiary time capsule. You lack any such Easter eggs.

Must really go for a couple of days now.

I will be back.

Ciao

- viole

Ok, have a good trip.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I do understand your argument. I even understand the reasoning behind it. I simply find glaring faults in it. Human morality was not intended to reply upon agreement, it was intended to correct disagreement. It was because we do not all agree murder is wrong we must make laws in the attempt to force compliance to what we assume is actually true.

It is actually based upon agreement. If there was no agreement on what was right and wrong there would be no uniform morality to structure laws. But if people are able to reason with the facts they usually tend to come to similar conclusions. But so far I haven't seen any glaring faults except your unsubstantiated claims.

Morality is either objective or subjective in it's nature, it's quality is derived if and only if there is a truth that it can be compared to. Without it, it's quality is as invented as the moral rule it's self.

Just like math. Oh wait...math works....

But that functionality is determined by how well it's meets a goal. A goal we invent or prefer without God an objective goal if he does. Morality is a relation quantity. It is always between things. With God between a duty and an objective goal, without him between a law and a preferred goal.

What is necessarily wrong with a preferred goal?

Survival is not a naturalistic moral quality. It is the by product of unintentional, cold and blind physics. It is a property and not a duty. I may kill of all human kind but without God I have no duty to not do so.

Survival is purely naturalistic. Without drive to survive you wouldn't and therefor wouldn't spawn offspring.

I can't figure out why you guys are even arguing. I made two points. You deny the first but affirm the second but it is as if your ashamed at having to do so, and so attempt to sanitize and try and repaint it. I even see this in the majority of atheist scholars. They emphatically deny objective moral duties exist, then seem to regret admitting and scramble together some kind of white wash in order to claim that not only is the lack of moral truth good it is preferable. I am too lazy to be an atheist. I would have replied with " I agree to no two" and that was it.

I disagree there is a god. I disagree that there is objective morality.

I did not suggest we do. In fact I did not really get into application because it is very complex. Christianity is designed to govern an individual not a hemisphere. However we are not left to merely assume without cause. There are thousand of tests for validating a faith. None equal absolute certainty to a society but Christianity can get close. At least there is some potential fact of the matter we are trying to get at, without God there isn't.

It is your purely subjective opinion that it is close. I have debated with you for a long time now on several issues and the biggest problem with debating with you and why I usually have to leave the debate is because you set up the situation in your mind that Christianity is correct. Then you find a bunch of biased conclusions based on sometimes solid evidence that is misinterpreted like some sort of axiom. I don't think I have ever seen you reflect on your own beliefs with the idea that they weren't true. I say this because unless you are willing to face evidence without the bias of Christianity being true as an axiom then it is moot and we will have to argue that secular morality could be better than Religious morality even if there is no god. Because we cannot debate assuming that god exists.

It could be a lie but your moral duties can't possibly be true. Naturalism has no objective moral truth to find. Being blind in a room on fire is better than being sighted in a room on fire with no door.

I don't think I used the term "duties". I suppose social responsibility would be an effective compromise in meaning of the term which would drastically alter the subject of your point.
But I disagree again. I think that if we can see, as in we are taking in information and basing our opinions off of the world around us and what we can reason, we stand the best chance of survival. If there is a door. We find it. If there is a way to put out the fire, we do so.

But if you are totally blind you would still be in the same room. You would be in a room where you are blind but BELIEVE there is a door. So if you drastically try to get to that door you might run right through the fire. You might hit the wall. What if there is no door in that room either? You burn all the same but with a vain attempt based on a false belief. And what if there is a door? But its not where you thought it was? What if there is objective morality that can be found with the pure power of reason alone (as Socrates stated which you and someone else debated earlier) but you kept trying to find this other door that doesn't exist.

I think we are stretching the medaphor but I think I've made my point. If Christianity isn't correct and god (at least this god) doesn't exist, then we would be in no means a better position. If everyone in the world actually followed the principals that you wish to pick and choose from Christianity we might be alright. But we also might be in a world where they still stone witches and homosexuals. If we were in a perfect world where everyone followed secular humanism we still wouldn't have wars. We still wouldn't have sexually transmitted diseases. We would have education and a focus on helping others.

You mean a fluid (whatever that means) approach based on opinion. I doe snot matter how much you try to sanitize it your duties come from an equation with everything you may want on one side and opinion on the other side of the equality.

I mean that 100 years ago we thought women couldn't vote or be responsible. We know now that they can. So it was moral at one time to stop women from voting because it was for their own good. We know that isn't correct anymore. So now it is considered moral by the main stream that equality among the sexes is the best thing. This is based off new information. Perhaps we will find more new information in the future that will challenge our beliefs on what is moral now and change them. Homosexuality has changed drastically in this country in just the past 15 years. (especially the last 10)

Wiping out 20 million or even 50,000 has nothing to do with moral systems?

Because a moral system usually can't be defined as one person. A single person can remove or disreguard any moral system simply because they are "evil". However the system itself would be what a society holds. It was not the society but rather single individuals or small groups of individuals with power that did this heinous acts. So no I cannot judge an entire moral system based on a few individuals. If the whole of the country was simply nothing but murderers and thieves then we have something.

Yes you can pick a goal by preference and find rules that maximize it also mostly based on preference. Or rather those corrupted by power do so. I don't want any, thanks.

Those in corrupted power usually cannot create moral preferences. They can create laws. But that in itself is not morality. Its like language. We develop language. A leader cannot simply change the language. (well in certain cases but in reality not really)

The world would be infinitely better off applying Christian morality even if God did not exist. 95% of wars would not have occurred, sexual disease would be almost unknown, and the industrial wiping out of ourselves (and possible the guy who cured cancer) would not have occurred.

Or people would continue what their doing. The world would be infinitely better applying secular humanistic morality. The problem is I could be totally moral as a Christian and stone a woman for cheating on her husband. Or a homosexual. Or a witch. And no one would be able to argue against me.

That is the problem. You deciding what is true by what you prefer even if it must be invented.

I decide how I act based on information. It isn't the same as claiming my way is the "true" way.

Agreed it is based on an ounce of evidence and a billions tons of conflicting and contradictory theories. Evolution does occur is about all the evidence justifies.

Cool story bro.

I have posted in many times included a small sample in a very recent post. What your probably reading is the ultra modern end result which of course would leave out all unfaltering and secondary details. The fact of the matter is it took many decades for proof to topple cherished but radically mistaken theory.

It still is change over time. I simply don't know what it is that it "toppled".

Yes there was. It went from very slow and gradual change and became some kind of half man half beast contradictory slow change with periods of almost instantaneous leaps. It has even changed since then though the last step is fuzzy. It went from a tree model to a bush, and now partially a forest. I do not know how you can have a more radical shift and call it the same theory.

They went from less specific to more specific. They haven't changed anything except where they were mistaken in the taxonomy which happens with as many samples as they have. But we have a fairly specific human evolution line if you want to research into it.

I am hesitant to mention homosexuality further but it is not even secularly justifiable. It causes massive increases in human suffering without any compensating gain. Some may like it but that does no justify millions of deaths and billions of dollars.

Kinda like churches. Except without the personal satisfactions of treating people as equals and with dignity.

Of course I do.

But the bible isn't perfect? But is your view of god perfect? And is it possible that it is the Jewish god? Or Allah? And while I'm on that. Would you suggest moving everyone to Islamic Koran based morality? It solves the same problems that Christianity would solve if everyone followed it.

Atoms bouncing around cannot produce a single thing we ought to do and no society and almost no ones actual morality reflects evolutionary principles consistently. In general morality is in conflict with evolution.

Can't believe your still on about that. So many people have shown you so so wrong. It cannot produce objective morality and that is true. But it can (and may I add has) created the behavioral system and social complexities that we use today that we often call "morality".

 

[ArtieE]

That is the problem. Your confusing what is contradictory to an instinct as what is actually wrong? It is depressing to see that the highest moral authority you have is taken to be a blind byproduct of unfeeling, unintelligent, and unintentional natural forces. By that bizarre standard straining against gravity is wrong.

If you didn't have your objective god telling you that murder is wrong, would anything else stop you from murdering people? If so, what?