Is Christianity Good for the World? Hitchens debate... [Archive]

NotReady

06-03-2007, 12:43 PM

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In 6 parts just completed.

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This is an excellent debate. Wilson totally demolished Hitchens. Those who think otherwise are just wrong. I thought I was reading my own posts. Outstanding.

The main, almost only, issue that devloped, was the moral issue. Hitchens did his best impression of a boxer trying to duck the question and deflect the blows that kept landing, but in the end, he just stood there bleeding.

Some quotes on the issue:

Wilson:
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Now we really need to address the point you continue to miss. I am not talking about whether atheists must do evil, or if they can do evil. I have denied the former, and you have now granted the latter. But that is not the point. We are not talking about whether your atheism compels you to run downtown this evening to shoot out the street lights. I grant that it does not. And we are not talking about whether atheists can do vile things. You grant that they can. We are talking about (or, more accurately, I am trying to talk about) whether or not atheism provides any rational basis for rational condemnation when others decide to misbehave this way. You keep saying, "I have come to my ethical position." I keep asking, "Yes, quite. But why did you do so?"

If Christianity is bad for the world, atheists can't consistently point this out, having no fixed way of defining "bad." If Christianity is good for the world, atheists should not be asked about it either because they have no way of defining "good."

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Hitchens proves a point I've often repeated here, that all atheistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism:

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But I answer your question by making the pragmatic observation that, if we surrendered to our lower instincts all the time, there would be no language in which to write this argument between us and no society in which we could find an audience.

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Wilson finally shows a little understandable impatience with the evasive Hitchens:

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After this many installments, I now feel comfortable in asserting that I have posed this question to you from every point of the compass and have not yet received anything that approaches the semblance of an answer.

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Great debate, thanks for the link.

Woolygimp

06-03-2007, 02:02 PM

Yeah, I think Wilson won this one.

LooseCaller

06-03-2007, 03:38 PM

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Yeah, I think Wilson won this one.

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how? he just constantly tries to redefine the terms of the discussion away from whether or not christianity is beneficial to society to some inane discussion of the authority of atheist morality. this is, of course, an impossible question to explain to someone who insists on there being absolutes in morality derived from an absolute moral authority. atheists are pragmatists on this issue, so we simply create a morality out of what is generally beneficial to people and it most often is a simple use of the golden rule as a basic measure of the laws of human interaction. because we dont believe in god, we dont need an absolute morality. proving someone like stalin or kim jong-il is a bad person is completely besides the point.

Ben K

06-03-2007, 04:51 PM

I see your point NR, and from it I see how you (and wollygmp) can come to the conclusion that Hitchens lost but I don't buy it.

Two points (which I'll leave with you till the morrow)

1. To address the point that atheists have no fixed definition of bad or good - Christians have no fixed definition of bad or good either. The interpretations of the bible which provide the Christians wth their fixing points have changed over the centuries. The change is not what I would associate with the term 'fixed'

Even if you make some sort of claim that earlier interpretations were wrong and that you're improving them over time, then I would simply point out that you have no way of knowing these changes are improvements because you've had no further prophets to get any new information from god to create new interpretations of the original information.

2. Atheists and theists do, in fact, have the same ways of deciding good and bad and for both groups these are not fixed. Reality has shown that fixed standards of morality fails to maximise moral behaviour. Fixing moral standards is a flaw of any dogma. The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is a flawed moral statement. There are plenty of situations where it is more moral to kill than to do, or permit, some other action.

Wilson's question in your quote of "Yes quite, but why did you do so?" is a rubbish statement. How did you arrive at your ethical position is a much better question to ask because it opens up the process by which decisions are made. To ask the why question is to beg the question because it assume there is some entity that we may have to justify ouselves to at some later point in time.

At this point I confess to not having read past the third installment. If any of the above is answered there then fine but I got from your post that it wasn't (or you found it unsatsfactory)

I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad. I don't think there is an argument that does so without referring to something supernatural. But to use that as an argument for the existence of the supernatural is circular. We can only ever do what best at the time we do something.

David Sklansky

06-03-2007, 04:58 PM

"I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad"

Huh? I've explained that literally a hundred times. Pragmatic for who? You, me, the little old lady down the street? Hitler? Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.

Not Ready

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 05:14 PM

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"I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad"

Huh? I've explained that literally a hundred times. Pragmatic for who? You, me, the little old lady down the street? Hitler? Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.
Not Ready

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

NotReady

06-03-2007, 05:17 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

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The whole time reading Hitchens I was thinking of the zig zagging of chez.

Subfallen

06-03-2007, 05:27 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

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The whole time reading Hitchens I was thinking of the zig zagging of chez.

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No, see, it's not zig-zagging, you're just delusional. I mean---you're literally incapable of understanding anything that you do not currently believe. You're a lost cause, and you'll never move from where you are, clinging like grim death to the one pinhead's worth of insight that constitutes your confused Calvinism.

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 05:33 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

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The whole time reading Hitchens I was thinking of the zig zagging of chez.

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No you weren't, you were busy thinking that someone was right because they agreed with you.

but pray tell, when pragmatism reduces to might makes right, is that ultimate right, objective right, subjective right, ultimate objective right ...

chez

wtfsvi

06-03-2007, 05:34 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

[/ QUOTE ] So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

NotReady

06-03-2007, 05:39 PM

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No you weren't, you were busy thinking that someone was right because they agreed with you.

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Yeah, me and Wilson against the world of reason.

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ultimate right,

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Zig

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objective right,

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Zag

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subjective right,

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Zig

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ultimate objective right

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Zag

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 05:39 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

[/ QUOTE ] So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

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'it works' or 'I prefer the way this works to the way that works' and the might to enforce your preference doesn't confer rightness or wrongness.

chez

Sephus

06-03-2007, 05:40 PM

let's create a model that allows us to compare the relative goodness of worlds first.

NotReady

06-03-2007, 05:41 PM

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So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

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Couldn't have said it better myself. That makes me, Wilson and wtfsvi. And oh yeah, DS.

Sephus

06-03-2007, 05:44 PM

Subfallen

06-03-2007, 05:49 PM

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No it doesn't. Pragmatism doesn't reduce to anything.

chez

[/ QUOTE ] So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

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Most people, pragmatists and otherwise, say an ethics "works" if it satisfies the ethical intuitions of average human beings. (Yes, I realize I'm basing my metric for "right" human behavior on, gasp, the human nature we've actually evolved. WTF, not basing it on a non-human, purportedly supernatural consideration? THE HORROR.)

wtfsvi

06-03-2007, 05:55 PM

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(Yes, I realize I'm basing my metric for "right" human behavior on, gasp, the human nature we've actually evolved. WTF, not basing it on a non-human, purportedly supernatural consideration? THE HORROR.)

[/ QUOTE ] So which one is it? It's right because it works or it's right because it's human nature? I'm only attacking pragmatism. Not all moral systems based on something other than religion.

Subfallen

06-03-2007, 06:00 PM

Human nature is what works, courtesy of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. I don't understand your question.

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 06:01 PM

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So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

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Couldn't have said it better myself. That makes me, Wilson and wtfsvi. And oh yeah, DS.

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so not pragmatism makes right but democracy makes right.

Also, good to see you adopting the Stalinesque approach to democracy. He really knew what makes right.

chez

NotReady

06-03-2007, 06:07 PM

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He really knew what makes right.

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By your method he did for hundreds of millions.

Arhiippa

06-03-2007, 06:09 PM

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So what is pragmatism? "It's right because it works", right? Well, what is "it works"? For who?

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Couldn't have said it better myself. That makes me, Wilson and wtfsvi. And oh yeah, DS.

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My morals are based on pragmatism, but since I'm not a complete sociopath and am capable of thinking ahead, my actions quite often seem altruistic.

The point is to think about the consequences of one's actions in the long run and ,in my case at least, to include things such as self respect, expectation of regrets, possibility of unintended consequences and so on in the decision making. If one is honest to oneself and cares about people around him and thinks on a larger scale than the immediate, the results are mostly indistinguishable from any other morals. Except perhaps more rational than most.

NotReady

06-03-2007, 06:18 PM

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1. To address the point that atheists have no fixed definition of bad or good - Christians have no fixed definition of bad or good either.

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I've never tried to debate the content of morality. That isn't the issue. The issue is whether there is content. On any atheistic worldview there can be no ultimate standard. Therefore there is no content, which Wilson explains in several places. The theistic position is that God is the ultimate standard.

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Reality has shown that fixed standards of morality fails to maximise moral behaviour.

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The message Christianity brings to mankind is exactly this - no one keeps the law, not even their own. Read the first 3 chapters of Romans. Christianity isn't about keeping the law (though that has a place) but about the fact we can't keep it (the bad news) and that Christ did keep it and through His sacrifice provides forgiveness for those who can't (the good news, or Gospel).

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Wilson's question in your quote of "Yes quite, but why did you do so?" is a rubbish statement.

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The question goes to the heart of the issue. Hitchens constantly talks about the good and the bad but never explains why what he thinks is good should matter to anyone else. How do you warrant your moral code, how do you justify it, why is it right or reasonable?

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I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad.

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It isn't that it's bad but that it isn't a moral code at all. It's pure relativism and therefore is not a standard and involves no "oughtness".

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 06:22 PM

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He really knew what makes right.

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By your method he did for hundreds of millions.

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Nothing to do with me or my methods.

I notice no answer to what you mean by 'right' in your claim that might makes right under pragmatism. In what way is 'might makes X the case' different from 'might makes X right'

chez

NotReady

06-03-2007, 06:29 PM

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Nothing to do with me or my methods.

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But it is. He was just following his moral sense.

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I notice no answer to what you mean by 'right' in your claim that might makes right under pragmatism. In what way is 'might makes X the case' different from 'might makes X right'

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Very nice zigzag here. The phrase doesn't mean it actually makes it right, it's a sarcasm on the attempt to make it right. Obviously pragmatism destroys the concept of right.

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 06:33 PM

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The phrase doesn't mean it actually makes it right, it's a sarcasm on the attempt to make it right. Obviously pragmatism destroys the concept of right.

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I'll ignore the rest of the nonsense as we agree that pragmatism doesn't reduce to might makes right.

My woe at missing the sarcasm is more than made up for with that clarity.

chez

NotReady

06-03-2007, 06:56 PM

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I'll ignore the rest of the nonsense as we agree that pragmatism doesn't reduce to might makes right.

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Why am I tempted to call that another zigzag?

The way you phrase it I don't think we agree at all. I've said all non-theistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism. According to pragmatism there is no right. Somehow I doubt that's your position. Though I now expect you to agree it is while saying something opposite.

chezlaw

06-03-2007, 07:00 PM

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I'll ignore the rest of the nonsense as we agree that pragmatism doesn't reduce to might makes right.

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Why am I tempted to call that another zigzag?

The way you phrase it I don't think we agree at all. I've said all non-theistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism. According to pragmatism there is no right. Somehow I doubt that's your position. Though I now expect you to agree it is while saying something opposite.

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I think we agee about almost nothing, I don't think you even understand what I'm saying (I'll leave open if that's my fault or yours).

but we do both agree that its not true that pragmatism reduces to might means right.

chez

David Sklansky

06-04-2007, 01:32 AM

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"I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad"

Huh? I've explained that literally a hundred times. Pragmatic for who? You, me, the little old lady down the street? Hitler? Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.

Not Ready

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Could it be possible that no one realized that this was NOT written by Not Ready? It was written by me fooling around.

NotReady

06-04-2007, 01:40 AM

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Could it be possible that no one realized that this was NOT written by Not Ready? It was written by me fooling around.

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NH, you fooled me. Glad to know I was never so imprecise as to say

"Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.
"

which bothered me when I thought I had. I can see some truth in the statement though it's not worded very well.

Subfallen

06-04-2007, 01:46 AM

Wow, DS handles your opinions with kid gloves in this forum b/c he obviously values having a figurehead for irrational faith. And then you just go out of your way to be rude to him. Nice.

chezlaw

06-04-2007, 01:50 AM

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Wow, DS handles your opinions with kid gloves in this forum b/c he obviously values having a figurehead for irrational faith. And then you just go out of your way to be rude to him. Nice.

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I thought that was funny not rude.

chez

NotReady

06-04-2007, 02:10 AM

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I thought that was funny not rude.

chez

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Hey, we do agree on something. Ba da bing.

chezlaw

06-04-2007, 02:14 AM

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I thought that was funny not rude.

chez

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Hey, we do agree on something. Ba da bing.

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/images/graemlins/smile.gif

We agree on a lot, we just can't communicate very well.

chez

Taraz

06-04-2007, 03:20 AM

Damn, all this talk about this debate is going to make me go read the entire debate. I was hoping to not have to do that.

David Sklansky

06-04-2007, 03:38 AM

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Could it be possible that no one realized that this was NOT written by Not Ready? It was written by me fooling around.

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NH, you fooled me. Glad to know I was never so imprecise as to say

"Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.
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which bothered me when I thought I had. I can see some truth in the statement though it's not worded very well.

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In any case are you saying that both chez and YOU thought you wrote that and then started arguing about it? I should do that more often.

NotReady

06-04-2007, 03:41 AM

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In any case are you saying that both chez and YOU thought you wrote that and then started arguing about it? I should do that more often.

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Trouble maker! /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Duke

06-04-2007, 04:11 AM

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Could it be possible that no one realized that this was NOT written by Not Ready? It was written by me fooling around.

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NH, you fooled me. Glad to know I was never so imprecise as to say

"Your pragmatism basically reduces to Might Makes Right.
"

which bothered me when I thought I had. I can see some truth in the statement though it's not worded very well.

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In any case are you saying that both chez and YOU thought you wrote that and then started arguing about it? I should do that more often.

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Is there an existing term for this, or do we have to coin one? Reverse plagiarism?

Ben K

06-04-2007, 06:25 AM

Perhaps the content of morality isn't the issue but Wilson claims that Christianity offers a fixed standard of morality, and so do you, and you're both saying that it's god. Well, this is fine right up until the point where you attempt to perform a moral action, or rather, any action that involves another human given the moral implications of that action.

In order to judge whether actions by humans are morally good or bad, you have to relate it back to the fixed standard. But you have no way of doing that and, in fact, you use other markers instead which just happen to be the same ones that atheists use.

As Hitchens points out, the whole humans can't keep the law thing is something created by religions in the first place. If we didn't have religions we wouldn't have the this problem but we would have a need for moral behaviour. Wilson's point here is irrelevant to the discussion.

I warrant my moral code via the society in which I live. I accept that this means I may be performing actions which are immoral as judged by another society but my acknowlegement of this risk and the ability to change give me the opportunity to improve as new information comes in.

After all, it's the society in which I live that will punish me for, say, murder.

In contrast, you have some imaginary fixed morality - which you can't confirm for yourself except by reference to the same society in which I live (assuming we lived locally). So for the purposes of living we use the same methods for moral decisions.

The immorality of religion comes about because of the fixed aspect meaning that some people cannot drop the (now) immoral actions of centuries ago. They're immoral now because we've got new information and are therefore able to change our moral standards.

You can get an oughtness from what I've said above because it derives from knowing what the standards of society are and therefore deriving an ought from it for future situations.

NotReady

06-04-2007, 05:53 PM

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you use other markers instead which just happen to be the same ones that atheists use.

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I don't get this at all.

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As Hitchens points out, the whole humans can't keep the law thing is something created by religions in the first place.

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That begs the question. It's just an assertion by H.

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Wilson's point here is irrelevant to the discussion

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That would only be true if H.'s dogmatism was right.

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give me the opportunity to improve as new information comes in.

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What can you possibly mean by improve?

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You can get an oughtness from what I've said above because it derives from knowing what the standards of society are and therefore deriving an ought from it for future situations.

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Why "ought" I to do what society says? Which society?

hmkpoker

06-05-2007, 04:18 AM

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You can get an oughtness from what I've said above because it derives from knowing what the standards of society are and therefore deriving an ought from it for future situations.

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Why "ought" I to do what society says? Which society?

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NotReady-

If genuinely not believing in God or the afterlife should logically stop someone from being deterred from immoral acts (murder, rape, theft) by temporary, earthly repurcussions (shame, fines, jail, death), then why aren't atheists behaving in the nihilistic fashion that that model would predict?

NotReady

06-05-2007, 05:14 AM

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why aren't atheists behaving in the nihilistic fashion that that model would predict?

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I often see this kind of argument made but it misses the point. I don't say atheists behave worse than Christians - I've said the opposite is all too often the case.

The issue is what is the basis for morality? Wilson kept hammering Hitchens on that point and Hitchens kept evading. When I say atheistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism I mean that they can't justify any absolutes - Nietzsche is especially good about this because he just flatly denies there are absolutes - of course, he then immediately tries to establish his own, but people can't function on that kind of worldview, they have to be inconsistent.

What I'm really trying to point to is that rationality and morality require an absolute person. If the source of morality is located in the relative (person,society, etc.) though there is certainly a practical utility that results, there's no real, binding obligation, no fundamental oughtness. On what basis do you say Hitler was wrong or evil? By Ben K's definition, once Hitler established control (by might), German society could follow his dictates and be in compliance with morality.

This moral question is just one aspect of the whole idea of who we are. I often use it because it's easier to see than issues like meaning, logic, science - but our understanding of all of reality is determined by this, and it really comes down to the question of Absolute Personal or Absolute Impersonal.

I think I should add something here. The purpose of this kind of debate is not to try to get atheists to behave better, to keep the law, etc. I think that's important for our temporal existence, but when we engage in this type of debate, we aren't trying to establish the content of a moral code for people to follow or to impose our own sense of morality on others - that may or may not be appropriate depending on circumstances, government, legal system, etc. What we're really getting at is that God is the Creator and also the judge. Our moral sense is meaningless apart from the existence of ultimate morality and that must be personal. Otherwise, there's really no way to distinguish Hitler from Ghandi.

hmkpoker

06-05-2007, 05:32 AM

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why aren't atheists behaving in the nihilistic fashion that that model would predict?

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I often see this kind of argument made but it misses the point. I don't say atheists behave worse than Christians - I've said the opposite is all too often the case.

The issue is what is the basis for morality? Wilson kept hammering Hitchens on that point and Hitchens kept evading. When I say atheistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism I mean that they can't justify any absolutes - Nietzsche is especially good about this because he just flatly denies there are absolutes - of course, he then immediately tries to establish his own, but people can't function on that kind of worldview, they have to be inconsistent.

What I'm really trying to point to is that rationality and morality require an absolute person. If the source of morality is located in the relative (person,society, etc.) though there is certainly a practical utility that results, there's no real, binding obligation, no fundamental oughtness. On what basis do you say Hitler was wrong or evil? By Ben K's definition, once Hitler established control (by might), German society could follow his dictates and be in compliance with morality.

This moral question is just one aspect of the whole idea of who we are. I often use it because it's easier to see than issues like meaning, logic, science - but our understanding of all of reality is determined by this, and it really comes down to the question of Absolute Personal or Absolute Impersonal.

I think I should add something here. The purpose of this kind of debate is not to try to get atheists to behave better, to keep the law, etc. I think that's important for our temporal existence, but when we engage in this type of debate, we aren't trying to establish the content of a moral code for people to follow or to impose our own sense of morality on others - that may or may not be appropriate depending on circumstances, government, legal system, etc. What we're really getting at is that God is the Creator and also the judge. Our moral sense is meaningless apart from the existence of ultimate morality and that must be personal. Otherwise, there's really no way to distinguish Hitler from Ghandi.

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I guess I can't really argue with this because I don't believe that morality has any meaningful existence beyond purposeful action.

Can you explain how an absolutist paradigm, such as Christianity, escapes pragmatism? I understand that they do have a basis for oughtness, but at the same time their actions are extremely pragmatic (salvation-oriented). I can safely say that if I believed in the worldview of Christianity, I would behave quite differently, and I believe that that is why Christians act as they do.

It is extremely difficult to distinguish whether Christians behave morally or pragmatically to me, because all of their moral actions seem pragmatic in nature as well. To understand what the basis of action is, we would have to observe the actions of someone where the moral action is impractical or the practical action is immoral, but that seems impossible.

Ben K

06-05-2007, 07:29 AM

From your response to me:

My point was that you use the society in which you live to decide the morality of your actions, same as me. As a poker player, you feel that playing poker is, at the least, morally neutral. However, there are many christians, and you're one too, who believe poker (as a subset of gambling) is immoral. You've using your gambling society as a marker to sooth your concience over playing poker.

It doesn't beg the question. It is, at it's very minimum, an unresearched question that doesn't have an answer yet. Wilson's point was irrelevant to the discussion because it related to an internal point caused by religion, much like trying to get H to answer a question about limbo. H denies an afterlife so whether or not limbo is a non-question.

I meant improve in relation to the new information I had. Slavery was decidely moral in the eyes of many in the old days. Then some people decided that really, there's nothing different about these humans and it is therefore wrong to keep them in slavery. When the persuasion of this idea reached slave owners, many (over time) began to see their morality in a new light "praise be, I was blind but now I see..." etc.

You ought to do what society says because society has rules and will punish you for breaking them. If you fancy spending the rest of your days in prison, you go kill the next 10 people you see. By which society, I mean the society in which you live. If you go to another country, some of the behaviours you take for granted are illegal there and you'll have to behave by the rules of their society.

From your response to hmkpoker:

I disagree with the idea that we require an absolute person to obtain morality. I would say that we simply require a group of people with some shared interests and nothing more. So once Hitler established control and started his propaganda against the Jews, he changed the moral standards of the German people. The German guards' (from the inside looking in) were acting morally compared against the standards of their society. From the outside looking in (our perspective) we see their behaviour as abhorent because we're comparing to the standards of our society. Once we'd beaten the crap out of them and re-educated the nation, their animosity towards Jews deminished.

And then we get to the really interesting part. I have effectively said that the German guards had an excuse and I think that in their day, this was valid and the reason why most of the German nation was forgiven for their part in the atrocities and we just punished the leaders. Moving forward to today, it is much harder for a similar situation to arise because our societies have grown to have a worldwide influence. Our global communication is so good that we are developing a worldwide morality and until we can communicate with alien species, this will suffice as an absolute morality. So, every nation has murder as immoral. Therefore, murder is absolutely immoral. Easy.

I've a couple of questions:

Given you have the same book as other christians and the same absolute personage in charge, why is your moral sense different to that of, say, the dominionists with regards to homosexuality?
Why do you play poker when that goes against moral dictates contained in the bible? (Ok, ok, I couldn't find the verse but given that christians are often going against gambling on moral grounds, I assume there is a verse)
Islam has the same absolute personage in charge as you do, do you agree with (some of) them that female genital mutilation is morally correct?

I agree with you that the moral question is just one aspect of who we are. We need to label ourselves in some way because we are social animals and unable to live without other humans and the labels help tie us into groups of other humans. However, given we can be members of many more groups than we ever could in the past, the strength of any one label is diminished. This is shown in you, because you only share some morals with other christians, and in the wider world as some groups go to greater extremes to keep their members close. Our moral sense is very meaningful without an ultimate morality because it only gets meaning via it's interpretation from other people. So I agree that the meaning of my moral sense must be personal but I would say it's given by the other members of my society rather than some skyfairy.

It seems you lack a certain empathy (no offence intended, I've really enjoyed this discussion - thank you). Did you know that the German people sometimes prayed to their Furher?? How can you possibly say Hitler was absolutely evil without taking the time to empathise with the people who lived in Germany at the time (as best we can given the time delay). A lot of the Germans were christian with the same absolutes as you and, while they probably didn't pray to him, they were still guards, etc. I'm happy to say Hitler was evil but I'm aware that at the time, in Germany, many would have disagreed with me. Even your god's spokesman (the pope) quite liked Hitler and praised his actions. If ever there was evidence that morality is relative and pragmatic then Hitler is it. He's so extreme.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 09:18 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Our moral sense is very meaningful without an ultimate morality because it only gets meaning via it's interpretation from other people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Further, Absolute morality is impossible in a system including a personal god such as the christian one. God would be nothing to pray to regarding moral actions. There would be no meaning to the concept of 'god will JUDGE our actions'. He could only apply the absolute morality to the situation and could be replaced by a computer to weigh each action against the absolute moral scale.

If every identical moral situation receives the same decision from god ( absolute morality) he has no options and acts like the traffic cop rather than the judge.

Instead, we are left with the concept of a god who has the absolute authority to reward and punish as it pleases him at the time. In that sense it's not the morality that is absolute ( it can be different in the same situations) but the power to make the call. Christians still end up in a relative morality world, they just pass the decision farther up the line, without any reason to believe the decision are good or evil other than the decision makers say so.

luckyme

MidGe

06-05-2007, 09:26 AM

As I have said before, morality is only possible within an atheistic viewpoint. Any theistic viewpoint requires a suspension of judgment, a deference to a belief, the opposite of which to me, is required for an act to be possibly moral or not.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 09:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]
As I have said before, morality is only possible within an atheistic viewpoint. Any theistic viewpoint requires a suspension of judgment, a deference to a belief, the opposite of which to me, is required for an act to be possibly moral or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was merely pointing out that Absolute authority on morality does not mean there is Absolute morality. In the context of the christian god there is only a rather wishy-washy form of relative morality if prayers of entreaty have meaning, for instance. There is no use praying to a rule book.

luckyme

Ben K

06-05-2007, 10:40 AM

this is a very good point....

chezlaw

06-05-2007, 10:50 AM

[ QUOTE ]
this is a very good point....

[/ QUOTE ]
The repeated problem we have with this debate is:

- atheists claim morality exists
- Notready argues that morality cannot exist without god
- Therefore atheists are wrong about morality or god

but

the morality NotReady is talking about is not the same thing as the morality atheists claim exists. Its this wierd absolute morality thing which is a dubious idea whether or not god exists.

repeat endlessly with irrelevent references to Hitler.

chez

luckyme

06-05-2007, 10:59 AM

[ QUOTE ]
the morality NotReady is talking about is not the same thing as the morality atheists claim exists.

[/ QUOTE ]

The morality NotReady talks about is not the morality NotReady talks about.

luckyme

NotReady

06-05-2007, 11:02 AM

[ QUOTE ]

Can you explain how an absolutist paradigm, such as Christianity, escapes pragmatism?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not against doing what works, what is useful or beneficial. The problem is pragmatism sets that idea as the absolute standard. Christianity says God is the absolute standard and if you do His will, that works in an ultimate sense.

[ QUOTE ]

It is extremely difficult to distinguish whether Christians behave morally or pragmatically to me

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, the primary issue isn't about how anyone behaves, but how they ought to behave.

NotReady

06-05-2007, 11:13 AM

[ QUOTE ]

(Ok, ok, I couldn't find the verse but given that christians are often going against gambling on moral grounds, I assume there is a verse)

[/ QUOTE ]

There isn't. Not about gambling. I'm not responding to the rest of your post because all I could do is repeat myself.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 11:18 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Christianity says God is the absolute standard and if you do His will, that works in an ultimate sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Morality requires choice. If you apologize because your mom tells you to, are you really sorry?
The fact that god wants us to do something and we do it hardly can make it a moral act just an act of obedience.

[ QUOTE ]
Again, the primary issue isn't about how anyone behaves, but how they ought to behave.

[/ QUOTE ]

there are no moral acts, there are moral reasons to act. If the reason for an action is obedience, then morality does not enter into it.

One reason christianity is bad for the humanity is it passes off the moral choice and replaces it with rule following ( and because god works in mysterious ways, no one can be certain what the ultimate rules are ... the mega butterfly effect of all his mysterious goals).

luckyme

NotReady

06-05-2007, 11:19 AM

[ QUOTE ]

If every identical moral situation receives the same decision from god ( absolute morality) he has no options and acts like the traffic cop rather than the judge.

[/ QUOTE ]

We haven't gotten into the definition of morality. There's an interesting passage in the NT(Corinthians I think) where Paul talks about whether or not it's ok to eat meat sacrificed to idols. He says that there's nothing wrong with doing so, that eating the meat doesn't constitute idol worship. But some Christians thought eating the meat would be sinful. Paul said that for them it would be sinful.

God doesn't judge by rote, by a computer program. He takes into account all circumstances, including motive. That's why we are told not to judge. We're incompetent.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 11:25 AM

[ QUOTE ]
God doesn't judge by rote, by a computer program. He takes into account all circumstances, including motive.

[/ QUOTE ]

If there is an Absolute morality rather than merely an Absolute decider after the fact then any actions by humans, such as praying for mercy for another or themselves is futile. If my actions are weighed by some grand scale of Absolute morality ( which must include motive to have morality involved) then it makes no sense that your desires can sway the outcome. Your desire for mercy for me can't affect Absolute morality or else it isn't absolute, since it's my morality that is being judged against that scale.

luckyme

chezlaw

06-05-2007, 11:27 AM

[ QUOTE ]
God doesn't judge by rote, by a computer program. He takes into account all circumstances, including motive. That's why we are told not to judge. We're incompetent.

[/ QUOTE ]
See we agree on so much.

but what of those who believe in your god and claim that god automatically damns those who don't believe without taking motive and circumstances into account? If only they were as humble as you and I.

chez

NotReady

06-05-2007, 11:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]

If there is an Absolute morality rather than merely an Absolute decider after the fact then any actions by humans, such as praying for mercy for another or themselves is futile.

[/ QUOTE ]

That might have been the case had God left us to fend for ourselves. But forgiveness is possible because He sent His Son to atone for our sins. That's why mercy is possible.

Subfallen

06-05-2007, 09:52 PM

1. Human nature is what works, courtesy of hundreds of millions of years of evolution.
2. A satisfactory morality is one that agrees with the ethical intuitions of average human nature.
3. All satisfactory moralities are therefore pragmatic because they conform to instincts evolved according to maximal utility.

This is so obvious, it's not even funny.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 10:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]
God doesn't judge by rote, by a computer program. He takes into account all circumstances, including motive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying that in identical circumstances he would come up with the same absolute judgment on the morality?
If that is the case, then he can be replaced with a 'expert system' computer program.
If he can come to a different decision in the same circumstances then the morality isn't absolute.

Most theists go for the other option 'absolute decider'and just call it 'absolute morality'. You will also in your reply.

luckyme

flipdeadshot22

06-05-2007, 10:20 PM

[ QUOTE ]
1. Human nature is what works, courtesy of hundreds of millions of years of evolution.
2. A satisfactory morality is one that agrees with the ethical intuitions of average human nature.
3. All satisfactory moralities are therefore pragmatic because they conform to instincts evolved according to maximal utility.

This is so obvious, it's not even funny.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above) when trying to fit it within the confines of a theistic reality (or any reality for that matter.)

Taraz

06-05-2007, 10:22 PM

The main problem with all of this is that even if God is the Absolute Moral Authority, we as humans have no idea of ascertaining what his judgment would be on the vast majority of matters. Since we can never know this absolute code of morality, the best we can do is to struggle with what we see before us and come up with a relative morality.

Even if you believe the Bible contains this absolute code, there is huge disagreement on what the Scriptures prescribe. So again we are grasping at straws. The "official" position on Christian morality has shifted as often as our societal, and perhaps atheistic, sense of morality.

So it doesn't even matter if God is the source of absolute morality, becase we don't have reliable access to this source. This doesn't make us immoral however.

ShakeZula06

06-05-2007, 10:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The abstinence only campaign which is demonstrably and statistically completely ineffective is carried out in majority by the Evangelical Christian organization. The US government funnels money to them every year for a program that produces literally NO results. And yet their lobbyists keep it going.

[/ QUOTE ]
They don't care that there's no results. It's all about the money, not actually good change.

luckyme

06-05-2007, 10:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So it doesn't even matter if God is the source of absolute morality, becase we don't have reliable access to this source. This doesn't make us immoral however.

[/ QUOTE ]

and one reason christianity is not good for the world is that it allows zealots to claim specific knowledge of the morality of an action rather than solve the situation as it is, even though

- god works in mysterious ways ( fitting your reminder).
- absolute morality can't exist within the concept of a christian-type god ( my underlying point).

We can say that if there were an absolute morality it wouldn't help us, which is true, but I'd really prefer to kill such a silly idea at it's root.

luckyme

RJT

06-05-2007, 11:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
this is a very good point....

[/ QUOTE ]
The repeated problem we have with this debate is:

- atheists claim morality exists
- Notready argues that morality cannot exist without god
- Therefore atheists are wrong about morality or god

but

the morality NotReady is talking about is not the same thing as the morality atheists claim exists. Its this wierd absolute morality thing which is a dubious idea whether or not god exists.

repeat endlessly with irrelevent references to Hitler.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Chez,

Are you suggesting if morality exists it might be subjective (not absolute)? That the so called moral sense, which you spoke of so long ago, might differ from person to person?

If we compare what you call one’s “moral sense” to what most of us call “love” we can see that talking about morality in the sense of a subjective feeling has little value.

We each have our own idea of what love means. No one can argue that one’s definition of it is better than another. To have such a discussion might be fun, but it would never have any real value. I think we can agree that nothing can become of trying to find what the best definition of love is. There is no perfect love. (I am speaking outside of religious discussion, of course. There we talk of Agape, for example, and such love matters a lot.) Similarly I think there must not exist a morality to strive for.

Perhaps, if what you are referring to as one’s moral sense does exists, it might have something to do with a survival mechanism. We feel something is wrong because it is will not be good for our survival in the long run. Or it exists in us for some other reason, whatever.

If there is such a thing as what you call one’s moral sense, we should call this feeling something else. The word morality loses any definition when there is no objective standard.

RJT

chezlaw

06-05-2007, 11:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If there is such a thing as what you call one’s moral sense, we should call this feeling something else. The word morality loses any definition when there is no objective standard.

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe that's mistaken and is going in a very common misdirection. Its not about definition at all, we have concepts of right and wrong, morality is a term that encapsulates those concepts, and the study of morality is an attempt to understand those concepts.

Unless you deny the concepts of right and wrong exist then morality exists. Whether it is subjective or objective is an interesting and endless debate (though probably futile) along the lines of whether circles exist.

[ QUOTE ]
That the so called moral sense, which you spoke of so long ago, might differ from person to person?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. all those discussions and that wasn't obvious <sob>

chez

RJT

06-05-2007, 11:57 PM

I don’t deny the concepts of right or wrong nor of the concept of morality. If morality is a concept then how can we each have a moral sense? We don’t each have a love sense. Love is an emotion. Laughter is an emotion. Laughter exists at moments in time. Laughter doesn’t exists on its own. And “love is fleeting”.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That the so called moral sense, which you spoke of so long ago, might differ from person to person?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. all those discussions and that wasn't obvious <sob>

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

For the record, we only talked about your moral sense.

RJT

06-06-2007, 12:05 AM

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 12:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I don’t deny the concepts of right or wrong nor of the concept of morality. If morality is a concept then how can we each have a moral sense? We don’t each have a love sense. Love is an emotion. Laughter is an emotion. Laughter exists at moments in time. Laughter doesn’t exists on its own. And “love is fleeting”.

[/ QUOTE ]
The analogy is with humour not laughter. We have a sense of humour, people have different senses of humour, we have a conception of what it means for something to be humourous.

Is there an objective definition of humour? Does it matter? So what if NotFunny says only things in the book of levitycus (boom boom) are humorous?

chez

NotReady

06-06-2007, 12:35 AM

[ QUOTE ]

I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above)

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine. Who gets to tell us what constitutes average human nature? Ghandi or Hitler?

NotReady

06-06-2007, 12:38 AM

[ QUOTE ]

So it doesn't even matter if God is the source of absolute morality, becase we don't have reliable access to this source.

[/ QUOTE ]

We do have access to the source through His Word and our own conscience. We don't have to agree with each other, just with God. And He is the judge, we can't judge each other. But as I've said in almost every post now, content and behavior aren't the issue. The issue is whether humans are ultimate or God. Stated another way if God doesn't exist neither does the ought.

NotReady

06-06-2007, 12:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]

Are you saying that in identical circumstances he would come up with the same absolute judgment on the morality?

[/ QUOTE ]

What identical circumstances?

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 12:44 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

So it doesn't even matter if God is the source of absolute morality, becase we don't have reliable access to this source.

[/ QUOTE ]

We do have access to the source through His Word and our own conscience. We don't have to agree with each other, just with God. And He is the judge, we can't judge each other. But as I've said in almost every post now, content and behavior aren't the issue. The issue is whether humans are ultimate or God. Stated another way if God doesn't exist neither does the ought.

[/ QUOTE ]
but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

So even if you create your 'ought' it doesn't get you anywhere. You're still going to have to decide for youself which 'oughts' you think are the right ones.

chez

RJT

06-06-2007, 12:52 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don’t deny the concepts of right or wrong nor of the concept of morality. If morality is a concept then how can we each have a moral sense? We don’t each have a love sense. Love is an emotion. Laughter is an emotion. Laughter exists at moments in time. Laughter doesn’t exists on its own. And “love is fleeting”.

[/ QUOTE ]
The analogy is with humour not laughter. We have a sense of humour, people have different senses of humour, we have a conception of what it means for something to be humourous.

Is there an objective definition of humour? Does it matter? So what if NotFunny says only things in the book of levitycus (boom boom) are humorous?

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Without context humor doesn’t exist, does it? At some point we develop a sense of humor through thought. Someone might laugh when another stumbles and falls. If people stumble and fall as a normal routine like walking and falling taking a few steps and falling - if that is how everyone got around - it would never be funny.

Do we say humor exists? Do we talk like that?

NotReady

06-06-2007, 12:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]

but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it does.

[ QUOTE ]

So even if you create your 'ought' it doesn't get you anywhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't create my ought, you create yours.

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 01:06 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don’t deny the concepts of right or wrong nor of the concept of morality. If morality is a concept then how can we each have a moral sense? We don’t each have a love sense. Love is an emotion. Laughter is an emotion. Laughter exists at moments in time. Laughter doesn’t exists on its own. And “love is fleeting”.

[/ QUOTE ]
The analogy is with humour not laughter. We have a sense of humour, people have different senses of humour, we have a conception of what it means for something to be humourous.

Is there an objective definition of humour? Does it matter? So what if NotFunny says only things in the book of levitycus (boom boom) are humorous?

chez

[/ QUOTE ]
Do we say humor exists? Do we talk like that?

[/ QUOTE ]
Sure, 'i've got double greek humour on wednesday morning'. the only reason it's not common is studying morality is common and studying humour is rare.

[ QUOTE ]
Without context humor doesn’t exist, does it? At some point we develop a sense of humor through thought. Someone might laugh when another stumbles and falls. If people stumble and fall as a normal routine like walking and falling taking a few steps and falling - if that is how everyone got around - it would never be funny.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree and the analogy with morality holds. I'm not sure where the problem is, if people enjoyed suffering then we wouldn't think it was bad.

chez

Justin A

06-06-2007, 06:18 AM

Thanks for the link. Just read through the whole thing and it helped me clear up my thinking on some matters.

LooseCaller

06-06-2007, 06:25 AM

[ QUOTE ]

What I'm really trying to point to is that rationality and morality require an absolute person. If the source of morality is located in the relative (person,society, etc.) though there is certainly a practical utility that results, there's no real, binding obligation, no fundamental oughtness. On what basis do you say Hitler was wrong or evil? By Ben K's definition, once Hitler established control (by might), German society could follow his dictates and be in compliance with morality.
...
Our moral sense is meaningless apart from the existence of ultimate morality and that must be personal. Otherwise, there's really no way to distinguish Hitler from Ghandi.

[/ QUOTE ]

although, this is somewhat similar to banging my head against a wall, i cant help myself.

WHY THE [censored] DOES YOUR POINT [censored] MATTER AT ALL? GOD DAMNIT, YOU ARE SO [censored] NITTY ABOUT EVERY [censored] POINT PEOPLE MAKE.

you cant come into a debate, tell people that you're not going to say what morality is, other than some making some obtuse claims about god, and then accuse every non-believer of not being able to prove hitler was worse than ghandi. why does anyone need to prove that he was under the relativist model that you say we use? we all think hitler was horrible, why do we need to prove to you something all agree on? this argument is completely unnecessary and establishes nothing.

why do we need "fundamental oughtness?" there are an infinite number of scenarios for moral decisions and there is absolutely no way to create (and remember) strict rules for all of them. in many cases, you are forced to use judgment and im certain that you exercise pragmatic decision making in regards to gray areas in christian doctrine. in this sense, you are being a relativist, because you must acknowledge that people think differently. does this mean taht your decisions are not moral?

please directly answer these questions
1) why do we need universal morality? why is it better than the current system?
2) why does it matter if i cant prove to you that 100% prove to you that stalin or hitler were bad people? as a theist, you obviously believe pretty strongly in things you cant prove 100%.

Ben K

06-06-2007, 12:59 PM

Chill, dude.

This thread has finally confirmed to me that one can reject religion on moral grounds as well as the rest of them. Their lack of answers is just as revealing as some suspect argument about how good god is (or might be if he were actually around)

NotReady

06-06-2007, 02:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]

1) why do we need universal morality? why is it better than the current system?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm giving up. People either don't understand or don't want to understand a very simple argument that has been made by philosophy and theology for hundreds if not thousands of years. I got the argument almost instantly the first time I heard it and I'm no genius.

So from now on my moral argument will consist of the following:

Read C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity and Abolition of Man.

luckyme

06-06-2007, 02:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]

This thread has finally confirmed to me that one can reject religion on moral grounds as well as the rest of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

The moral argument against theism is a strong one. How it ends up playing out on the street - you may act in a moral manner as a theist if your actions happen to fit the situation reasonably well ( which they often will), but you can't BE moral because of the flaw in the concept of absolute morality and personal gods.

If the situation isn't too complex, a theist will usually be doing the right things for the wrong reasons. For those that contend they would be psychopathic without their theology, it may work out better than having them loose, but most people would come to better moral decisions if they didn't have the theistic filter to get through.

luckyme

Phil153

06-06-2007, 02:46 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Hitchens proves a point I've often repeated here, that all atheistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism

[/ QUOTE ]
NotReady,

Forget God. Answer me some questions:

- What makes a chocolate milkshake different from a muffin?
- What makes responsibility different from carelessness?
- Could you convince a child that breathing is evil?

I look forward to your response.

NotReady

06-06-2007, 03:30 PM

What makes a chocolate milkshake different from a muffin? yes
- What makes responsibility different from carelessness? yes
- Could you convince a child that breathing is evil? huh?

Ben K

06-06-2007, 05:25 PM

Yeah, well, for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years the idea that there is no god was almost inconcievable. No-one would want to say their god was bad so given his infinitness and your desire not to worship a bad god, it's only natural your god becomes the standard for an ultimate morality. Doesn't get you any closer to reality though does it?

We are, after all, merely trying to discuss the issue and come to some understanding of each others viewpoints. Whilst the real-world application of the moral guidance process I've proposed can be demonstrated, yours cannot. You may even be correct in that (should there be a god) god is the ultimate standard for morality. However, it doesn't help you on a day to day basis. If it does, perhaps you could explain how.....

I guess I'd better put Lewis on my reading list. I hope it's good.

PairTheBoard

06-06-2007, 06:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Chill, dude.

This thread has finally confirmed to me that one can reject religion on moral grounds as well as the rest of them. Their lack of answers is just as revealing as some suspect argument about how good god is (or might be if he were actually around)

[/ QUOTE ]

As most of you are aware, my view of Religion is a bit different than NotReady's. Also my view on the best approach to Christianity is different from his. I've been following this thread and thinking about what everybody has been saying.

I argued on Slansky's Suicide Mission thread that the secular basis on which we have adopted a sense of Morality is the idea of putting ourselves in the place of the other person. I realize this is debatable, although nobody directly addressed it in that thread. It seems to me this is the same basis for Buddhist morality. They express the same idea in terms of Compassion. I think Jesus expressed the same idea in terms of "Love" and the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". For a kind of neutral terminology, lets refer to this as the "Empathy" basis for determining moral issues.

Some may argue that the real basis for our secular determination of what's Moral is utilitarian rather than "Empathy". What code of morality will produce the most benefits or utility for our society? They may argue that it is only coincidental that the Empathy Basis and the Utilitarian Basis coincide, and when they disagree the Utilitarian should dominate. Or they might argue that they always agree but it is only coincidental that they do.

For those who agree with the Empathy Basis for morality they can argue that the source for this Basis is not Religious but the result of evolution. We have come to have an innate sense of the legitimacy of the Empathy Basis because it has proved evolutionarily advantageouw to have such a sense as a species. This is in my opinion the most interesting argument to look at.

Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind. Why has this Basis been so poorly applied through history? It seems to be in conflict with something else in our natures whereby specific codes of morality for past cultures appear contrary to it, at least in some parts. Why has it been so inconsistently applied? Why have we needed leaders like Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Ghandi to remind us and focus our attention on it? It doesn't appear to me to be a strictly Evolutionary process involving natural selection. It looks to me like history shows us it has been more what I would call a Spiritual Evolutionary Process.

PairTheBoard

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 08:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes it does.

[/ QUOTE ]
No it doesn't. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises.

chez

luckyme

06-06-2007, 08:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

NotReady

06-06-2007, 09:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]

No it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

If ought exists and is correctly stated in the Bible then we ought to do it.

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 09:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

No it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

If ought exists and is correctly stated in the Bible then we ought to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]
You've changed the premises. Can I call that a zig-zag /images/graemlins/smile.gif

chez

NotReady

06-06-2007, 09:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]

You've changed the premises. Can I call that a zig-zag

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have the slightest idea what you're taling about but if you think you got me then congratulations.

Taraz

06-06-2007, 09:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

No it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

If ought exists and is correctly stated in the Bible then we ought to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it's a HUGE problem to determine what the interpretation is for those things that are stated in the Bible.

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 09:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

You've changed the premises. Can I call that a zig-zag

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have the slightest idea what you're taling about but if you think you got me then congratulations.

[/ QUOTE ]
from
[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes it does.

[/ QUOTE ]
to
[ QUOTE ]
If ought exists and is correctly stated in the Bible then we ought to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

la-di-da

chez

NotReady

06-06-2007, 09:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]

but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it

[ QUOTE ]

If ought exists and is correctly stated in the Bible then we ought to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. ought exists
2. Bible is correct
3. we ought to do it

ta la di

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 10:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

but even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]
????

That's not what the sentence says or implies. You've made some leaps which i'd guess make use of some idea of morality that you have but its best if you explain how you get there.

chez

NotReady

06-06-2007, 10:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]

You've made some leaps which i'd guess make use of some idea of morality that you have but its best if you explain how you get there.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've left the Land of Zig Zag and entered the Realm Beyond Comprehension.

chezlaw

06-06-2007, 10:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

You've made some leaps which i'd guess make use of some idea of morality that you have but its best if you explain how you get there.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've left the Land of Zig Zag and entered the Realm Beyond Comprehension.

[/ QUOTE ]
?

chez

Taraz

06-06-2007, 10:39 PM

NotReady,

Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality? I don't get that point. Everything isn't black and white. Was Thomas Jefferson good or evil? He owned slaves and slavery is wrong, so he must have been evil?

Almost every "evil" action is morally necessary at times. Isn't that the whole point in ethics? To figure out how to weigh different factors in every scenario.

NotReady

06-06-2007, 10:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]

?

[/ QUOTE ]
!

NotReady

06-06-2007, 10:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality?

[/ QUOTE ]

Somewhere in this country there is a bar of metal that weighs 1 kilogram and is considered the official standard for what constitutes 1 kg. If kg was relative my kg would not be your kg. See any problems with that? The analogy breaks down because WE could make a kg anything. I hope I don't have to type any more to illustrate why relative morality isn't morality. Some of you will now fight the hypothet, others will draw inferences that weren't part of the point the hypothet was meant to illustrate, someone in Timbucktoo may get it and not respond, who knows.

One final point - if you press the analogy and say since we can make a kg anything we want we can make morality anything we want then back to Hitler - he wasn't wrong, he was just setting the kg for his country.

Hopey

06-06-2007, 11:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]

1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it

[/ QUOTE ]

Since 1,2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 does not logically follow.

Taraz

06-06-2007, 11:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality?

[/ QUOTE ]

Somewhere in this country there is a bar of metal that weighs 1 kilogram and is considered the official standard for what constitutes 1 kg. If kg was relative my kg would not be your kg. See any problems with that? The analogy breaks down because WE could make a kg anything. I hope I don't have to type any more to illustrate why relative morality isn't morality. Some of you will now fight the hypothet, others will draw inferences that weren't part of the point the hypothet was meant to illustrate, someone in Timbucktoo may get it and not respond, who knows.

One final point - if you press the analogy and say since we can make a kg anything we want we can make morality anything we want then back to Hitler - he wasn't wrong, he was just setting the kg for his country.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you don't see any qualitative difference between a kg of metal and telling a lie? Is lying evil or not?

Is it moral for a someone to lie to a Nazi officer asking whether or not there are any Jews hiding in the basement? This is a completely honest question.

Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules that can be applied to every conceivable scenario in human experience. That legalistic approach to religion and morality was rejected by Jesus himself. What about when Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath and he replied, "the Sabbath was made for man, man was not made for the Sabbath"?

NotReady

06-06-2007, 11:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, I tried. See C.S. Lewis.

Sephus

06-06-2007, 11:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it

[/ QUOTE ]

Since 1,2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 does not logically follow.

[/ QUOTE ]

actually, that doesn't follow.

Subfallen

06-06-2007, 11:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above)

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine. Who gets to tell us what constitutes average human nature? Ghandi or Hitler?

[/ QUOTE ]

Observation, genius, OBSERVATION. Look the [censored] around you and do a goddamn survey.

PairTheBoard

06-07-2007, 12:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

luckyme

06-07-2007, 01:12 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Travel broadens our horizons.
Since Gutenberg there has been a escalating exchange of ideas and a mix or exposure of cultures. Books, periodicals, letters, travel, radio, TV, movies, immigration, this mixing Blurs the we-they boundary.
We've witnessed the same in political structure. Tribal, city-states, nations, unions of nations. We've arrived at "european - north american" groupings, from Athenians and Romans. Empathy follows.

luckyme

flipdeadshot22

06-07-2007, 01:15 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above)

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine. Who gets to tell us what constitutes average human nature? Ghandi or Hitler?

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, why do you use the term "average" and then go on to invoke two of the most polarized examples of morality possible, and ask me to base an -average- off of either one? You want an average?

(Hitler + Gandhi) / 2

Taraz

06-07-2007, 03:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, I tried. See C.S. Lewis.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/morality.html

Does this website portray a valid representation of Lewis's argument? I would prefer to not read an entire book of his in order to have meaningful debate on the issue.

Edit: Or perhaps this one is more accurate http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/formalmoral.html ??

Archon_Wing

06-07-2007, 03:44 AM

I like C.S. Lewis very much; he has a great imagination. Narnia was cool.

NotReady

06-07-2007, 04:18 AM

[ QUOTE ]

Does this website portray a valid representation of Lewis's argument?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think both have some merit. I believe the part in the first link that follows

The Argument from Metaethics

isn't from Lewis, at least not the books of his I've read. The material is worth reading but not strictly Lewis' argument.

If you're going to go forward with this I should make something clear. Lewis presents a popularized form of the the moral "proof" of God's existence. My own position on all the proofs is that none prove God's existence with certainty - they all require premises that can't be established or are otherwise subject to weakness due to our own finite knowledge and ability. What Lewis does very well is show the simple form of the argument and underline the problem of non-theistic morality. If you want to show that there are flaws in the argument so that it doesn't achieve certainty, don't bother.

My approach is to contrast the problem of morality as dealt with by theism vs. how it's dealt with by atheism. I think it's obvious that if God doesn't exist what we call morality, whatever content we give it, is relative and thus can't be binding, can't have a true "ought", and is changeable from person to person, society to society, age to age.

If you recall what Wilson said in the Hitchens debate, his main concern was to get H. to justify morality, not to prove God's existence from the moral argument. That's what I thought was where Wilson pinned H. down and what H. evaded. That idea is present in Lewis - the idea that if there is no absolute standard for morality the whole concept of morality is bogus.

I once posted something about Michael Martin, who, if you don't know him, is a well-recognized atheist, a philosophy professor at Boston Univerity and the author of several books on atheism, one of which deals specifically with atheistic morality. I haven't read his books but have read excerpts. I also read a review of his book by another atheist. That reviewer was upset that Martin hadn't dealt with the justification problem. In response to the review he and Martin had an exchange, a kind of mini-debate. After much hemming and hawing Martin finally admitted that he could not justify altruism, the idea that someone should act completely against his own self-interest. Without going into a lot of detail about the definiton of altruism and discussing movtives, etc., I think this is the fundamental problem for atheistic morality - why shouldn't I do whatever I please to do?

One other point I should mention. I think Lewis held too strongly to what he called the Tao, the universal moral law as it's called in your link, and emphasized too much that everyone agrees there is such a law. I don't think this is the case and one of the problems, especially in the modern relativistic world, is the denial of universal morality. I think the best approach is to show the logical consequences of that denial and the logical consequences of relativism rather than insisting that morality proves God. Lewis does that but not as a main emphasis.

Well, I'm starting to ramble but I need to point out something else. The syllogism at the top of the link begins with a premise "There is a universal moral law". On further reflection I think that is the real problem on this forum. Lewis took it for granted that if you asked someone "Was Hitler wrong" they would say yes, and he could go from there. But Lewis had no experience with this forum so he may have been far too optimistic. Maybe, if you want to continue, we could deal with that. If you can't affirm that Hitler was wrong there's probably nothing left to discuss.

PairTheBoard

06-07-2007, 04:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Travel broadens our horizons.
Since Gutenberg there has been a escalating exchange of ideas and a mix or exposure of cultures. Books, periodicals, letters, travel, radio, TV, movies, immigration, this mixing Blurs the we-they boundary.
We've witnessed the same in political structure. Tribal, city-states, nations, unions of nations. We've arrived at "european - north american" groupings, from Athenians and Romans. Empathy follows.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

Except our actual empathy doesn't strictly follow does it? We remain most empathetic to ourself. Selfishness. We remain most empathetic to our families. I will hunt you down if you harm my child. Yet we've come to accept a code of morality that involves what is to us only a theoretical universal empathy. For those of us who have accepted that, why have we accepted that? Also, this universal application was proposed long before there was such a broad exposure to other cultures. Buddha proposed it with his "compasion". Jesus proposed it with his "Love". I suspect Mohamed proposed some version of it and I think Judaism also has some version of it. Isn't the reason many people accept it today because Religion has made it part of our cultural ethos?

The fact is that Religions have impacted our cultural ethos. You can theorize what our modern ethos would be had Religions never existed. But you really don't know.

PairTheBoard

Sephus

06-07-2007, 05:15 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I think this is the fundamental problem for atheistic morality - why shouldn't I do whatever I please to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

you should do whatever brings you pleasure. that's redundant.

if you're asking "why shouldn't i be a dick to everyone?" the only reasonable answer is "because it will not lead to your own pleasure."

Sephus

06-07-2007, 05:32 AM

forgive me if i'm wrong, but i'm anticipating a

"what if raping and torturing bring me pleasure?"

response.

the answer should be obvious. you should rape and torture. i'm still going to try to prevent you from doing it. i'm still going to try to convince you that it will not bring you pleasure. i'm still going to tell you that "it's wrong," because i want to convince you that if you do it, you will experience all sorts of negative consequences including guilt/shame, punishment, exile, etc.

people seem to think that once you can no longer say "you shouldn't do that because it's wrong" the entire concept of morality becomes irrelevant.

an atheist associates positive feelings with actions he deems "moral," and negative feelings with actions he deems "immoral." these feelings don't just disappear the moment he becomes aware of them.

Archon_Wing

06-07-2007, 06:04 AM

There's also the fact that there's no real universal "athiest" morality, not to mention the bunch of religious people who do not believe in a Judeo/Christian God. Can't just lump all the heathens together.

luckyme

06-07-2007, 10:37 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't the reason many people accept it today because Religion has made it part of our cultural ethos?

The fact is that Religions have impacted our cultural ethos. You can theorize what our modern ethos would be had Religions never existed. But you really don't know.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think you can pull out the 'it never happened that way' as defense of everything, perhaps just bent stuff.
"You could have worn the blue shirt and still won."
"You can theorize that, but you don't really know, and I WAS wearing the red shirt."
Iow, your last sentence above needs to apply to your first sentence if you want to try and end probing discussions with the one-event red shirt claim.

The fact that other species and non-theistic societies exhibit empathy, and neuroscience shows we experience the 'that could be happening to me' in the same brain area as 'it is happening to me' should deter one from looking to theism for an explanation when it's obviously not needed.

Theism follows the secular crowd. It promotes the status quo or prior quo until the sell gets too difficult then it moves into it, usually with a 'reinterpretation' of the WORD that the generation before was THE word.

That's easy to see in recent social changes such as homosexuality and women's rights, etc. Social animals don't need any theism to have a broad sense of empathy, the good samaritan module seems innate and a sufficient base.

luckyme

Ben K

06-07-2007, 12:40 PM

Can I chip in a bit with the neuroscience? I read that a recent study showed the same area of the brain reacting when performing altruistic actions as when dealing with speech. Is appears altrusitic acts have been evolved in us for a very long time, much longer than we've been concious (and religious I guess) - this did surprise the researchers. I'll provide the link if I can remember where I saw it.

I think we only accept a theoretical universal empathy because we simply don't have the capacity to care about billions of other humans.

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 12:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think the concept of locality can be the important one as there's no way we can be wired to know whose local. Its far more likely to be familiarity, and mostly at a young age i.e. we empathise with the sort of people we interact with when we are growing up.

Increasingly that's a larger and more diverse group.

chez

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 12:54 PM

No, the problem is we started with:

[ QUOTE ]
even if god exists and someonehow that means ought exists and the bible is as god wishes it to be, it doesn't follow that we ought to do what it says in the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]
from which we can get

1. god exists
2. oughts exist
3. the bible is as god wishes

from which its a mistake to conclude

4. we ought to do it
or more explicitly
4a. we ought to do what is says we ought to do in the bible

NotReady just pulled that out of his hat. I'd rather he tried to justify it then guess why he thinks it was in his hat.

chez

luckyme

06-07-2007, 01:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Can I chip in a bit with the neuroscience? I read that a recent study showed the same area of the brain reacting when performing altruistic actions as when dealing with speech. Is appears altrusitic acts have been evolved in us for a very long time, much longer than we've been concious (and religious I guess) - this did surprise the researchers. I'll provide the link if I can remember where I saw it.

I think we only accept a theoretical universal empathy because we simply don't have the capacity to care about billions of other humans.

[/ QUOTE ]

when we reach the stage of intelligence to 'put ourselves in others shoes' could be the start of empathy. A octopus watches another octopus solve a puzzle and can then apply the technique itself. That seems to be an early part of this evolving me-they melding that occurs to a greater and greater degree in social animals such as mammal groups.

The neuroscience report I read on empathy in animals was along the lines of 'feeling their pain'. I won't look for the link since the effect of that is available from observation of their actions, the neuro was just a mechanical confirmation.

luckyme

Archon_Wing

06-07-2007, 02:43 PM

[using quick reply]

I don't know how one can refer to an absolute moral standard when referring to Christianity. There are so many sects of it, each with differing viewpoints on different issues. And some of the issues are quite important. If there is an absolute standard they can't all be right, can they? Which would I listen to?

Taraz

06-07-2007, 03:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[using quick reply]

I don't know how one can refer to an absolute moral standard when referring to Christianity. There are so many sects of it, each with differing viewpoints on different issues. And some of the issues are quite important. If there is an absolute standard they can't all be right, can they? Which would I listen to?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I was asking this question too. I think it's an important question, but it took me a while to realize that isn't the claim that NotReady was making in this thread. He was simply saying that if God doesn't exist, then morality doesn't exist. Even if everyone gets most questions of morality wrong, it's being argued that there would be no right or wrong without a God.

Archon_Wing

06-07-2007, 03:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[using quick reply]

I don't know how one can refer to an absolute moral standard when referring to Christianity. There are so many sects of it, each with differing viewpoints on different issues. And some of the issues are quite important. If there is an absolute standard they can't all be right, can they? Which would I listen to?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I was asking this question too. I think it's an important question, but it took me a while to realize that isn't the claim that NotReady was making in this thread. He was simply saying that if God doesn't exist, then morality doesn't exist. Even if everyone gets most questions of morality wrong, it's being argued that there would be no right or wrong without a God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, must have missed it, although I wasn't really replying to NotReady, more my reaction to skimming the article in the beginning. Although, I think that even if there was absolute right and wrong via God, it's all meaningless if we don't know it is, and nothing we do would matter. It's like saying that there's an optimal way of playing poker if you saw your opponents hole cards, but you can't we just have to make use of reason and logic. Although to complete this analogy we'd have a bunch of people screaming behind you that they know what the hole cards are and they are all screaming different things.

Taraz

06-07-2007, 04:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Ah, must have missed it, although I wasn't really replying to NotReady, more my reaction to skimming the article in the beginning. Although, I think that even if there was absolute right and wrong via God, it's all meaningless if we don't know it is, and nothing we do would matter. It's like saying that there's an optimal way of playing poker if you saw your opponents hole cards, but you can't we just have to make use of reason and logic. Although to complete this analogy we'd have a bunch of people screaming behind you that they know what the hole cards are and they are all screaming different things.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Having a universal moral law is practically irrelevant if there is no way of verifying it.

Silent A

06-07-2007, 06:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If you recall what Wilson said in the Hitchens debate, his main concern was to get H. to justify morality, not to prove God's existence from the moral argument. That's what I thought was where Wilson pinned H. down and what H. evaded. That idea is present in Lewis - the idea that if there is no absolute standard for morality the whole concept of morality is bogus.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny, this is the exact reason why I though Wilson "lost", because he kept harping on about this, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Hitchens didn't think his morality needed to be "justified" at all, it's just a brute fact of nature.

NotReady

06-07-2007, 06:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]

NotReady just pulled that out of his hat. I'd rather he tried to justify it then guess why he thinks it was in his hat.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say that we ought to because the Bible says it. One of the premises is that the Bible is as God wants it to be. Get it?

luckyme

06-07-2007, 06:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Exactly. Having a universal moral law is practically irrelevant if there is no way of verifying it.

[/ QUOTE ]

From the other side, a universal moral law that correctly identifies all the butterfly effects in every conceivable situation would take up more concept space than the universe could contain. By time you typed in all the settings of the conditions in the situation you want to check on, the heat death of the universe would be here.

If we just ask the god-voice in our head, "should I give him the $100 or not" or "should I strap on the bomb" or "fire the gay bastrd" and we allow that god knows all the variables involved instantly. Where does he get the answer?
If morality were absolute, he'd just look them up in his superlist and we could imagine bypassing god and just look at the list for answers. If he could chose different answers then obviously we're not talking about absolute morality but about an 'absolute decider' like the president on war.

That last part seems to overlap what you're saying.

No matter if there were a non-christian librarian god with an infinite look-up list of absolute moral rulings, or a christian god that decides what is moral on the fly, we are still left with using a relative morality approach locally here and certainly christians are.

luckyme

Silent A

06-07-2007, 09:02 PM

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 10:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

NotReady just pulled that out of his hat. I'd rather he tried to justify it then guess why he thinks it was in his hat.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say that we ought to because the Bible says it. One of the premises is that the Bible is as God wants it to be. Get it?

[/ QUOTE ]
Premise 3 is that the bible is as god wants it. Your conclusion 4 or 4a doesn't follow:

[ QUOTE ]
1. god exists
2. oughts exist
3. the bible is as god wishes

from which its a mistake to conclude

4. we ought to do it
or more explicitly
4a. we ought to do what is says we ought to do in the bible

NotReady just pulled that out of his hat. I'd rather he tried to justify it then guess why he thinks it was in his hat.

[/ QUOTE ]

So which do you want to do, change the premises, or abandon the conclusion, or ...

chez

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 10:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

NotReady just pulled that out of his hat. I'd rather he tried to justify it then guess why he thinks it was in his hat.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say that we ought to because the Bible says it. One of the premises is that the Bible is as God wants it to be. Get it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why should we do what god wants?

[/ QUOTE ]
That's not the problem. We're creating a model in which we should do what god wants (that's accepting NotReadies oughts) and we're allowing that the bible is as god wishes it to be.

So its true that if the bible does say what we ought to do then we should do it. The trouble for NotReady is that even allowing all this, the bible could be exactly as god wishes and not tell us what we ought to do even if it claims to.

At some point his going to have to reach into his hat and pull out some moral rabbit to square his circle.

chez

NotReady

06-07-2007, 10:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]

The trouble for NotReady is that even allowing all this, the bible could be exactly as god wishes and not tell us what we ought to do even if it claims to.

[/ QUOTE ]

The serpent told Eve "You shall not surely die". My rabbit is that the Bible is clear what God wants.

Sephus

06-07-2007, 10:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The trouble for NotReady is that even allowing all this, the bible could be exactly as god wishes and not tell us what we ought to do even if it claims to.

[/ QUOTE ]

The serpent told Eve "You shall not surely die". My rabbit is that the Bible is clear what God wants.

[/ QUOTE ]

because if it weren't, you would be able to tell the difference, because god is not powerful enough to fool you.

or maybe if it weren't, such a god wouldn't "make sense," because it's not like god's mind should be inscrutable to us.

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 10:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The trouble for NotReady is that even allowing all this, the bible could be exactly as god wishes and not tell us what we ought to do even if it claims to.

[/ QUOTE ]

The serpent told Eve "You shall not surely die". My rabbit is that the Bible is clear what God wants.

[/ QUOTE ]
nope that rabbit can't help you. Even if we have as or premises:

1. god exists
2. oughts exist
3. the bible is as god wishes
4. The bible states clearly: god wants us to do X

Then it still doesn't follow that:

5. we ought to do X

You need to reach further into the murkier depths of your hat.

chez

Silent A

06-07-2007, 10:52 PM

so you're looking for these missing premises ...

5. the bible clearly states, with no contradiction, what god wants
6. the bible is an accurate account of what god wants
7. the bible is a complete account of what god wants

m_the0ry

06-07-2007, 10:57 PM

Religion in general without a doubt does more damage than good. People of faith are no less (or more) likely to do bad things than people of other religions or atheists. That is to say, a person's tendency to do 'good things' is a random variable that is independent of religion. But faith is unquestioning subservience. That said, Christianity like all religions serves no purpose other than to provide a vehicle for indoctrination. Speaking in specifics, thank Christianity for the literal theft of government funds for the 'abstinence campaign' that is undeniably ineffective. Thank them for the war of ideals (Iraq) and most importantly for putting the current president in office (mass indoctrination of evangelical movement).

chezlaw

06-07-2007, 11:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
so you're looking for these missing premises ...

5. the bible clearly states, with no contradiction, what god wants
6. the bible is an accurate account of what god wants
7. the bible is a complete account of what god wants

[/ QUOTE ]
7) We don't need this unless we also claim that we only ought to do what the bible says we ought to do.

5) would sure be a problem if these oughts were contradictory but then they wouldn't be clear. Lets assume there are no contradictions as its a side issue.

6) is more or less NotReady's conclusion. His problem is it doesn't follow from the other premises and can't come from a book. He needs to find a moral rabbit in his hat.

chez

oe39

06-08-2007, 04:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]

This is an excellent debate. Wilson totally demolished Hitchens. Those who think otherwise are just wrong. I thought I was reading my own posts. Outstanding.

[/ QUOTE ]

you really thought that?

he's saying all kinds of crap like:

[ QUOTE ]
Among many other reasons, Christianity is good for the world because it makes hypocrisy a coherent concept. The Christian faith certainly condemns hypocrisy as such, but because there is a fixed standard, this makes it possible for sinners to fail to meet it or for flaming hypocrites to pretend that they are meeting it when they have no intention of doing so. Now my question for you is this: Is there such a thing as atheist hypocrisy?

[/ QUOTE ]

we need CHRISTIANITY for hypocracy to be meaningful? explain that.

NotReady

06-08-2007, 05:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]

we need CHRISTIANITY for hypocracy to be meaningful? explain that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let Wilson explain it by supplying what you musta forgot to include:

[ QUOTE ]

When another atheist makes different ethical choices than you do (as Stalin and Mao certainly did), is there an overarching common standard for all atheists that you are obeying and which they are not obeying? If so, what is that standard and what book did it come from? Why is it binding on them if they differ with you? And if there is not a common objective standard which binds all atheists, then would it not appear that the supernatural is necessary in order to have a standard of morality that can be reasonably articulated and defended?

So I am not saying you have to believe in the supernatural in order to live as a responsible citizen. I am saying you have to believe in the supernatural in order to be able to give a rational and coherent account of why you believe yourself obligated to live this way. In order to prove me wrong here, you must do more than employ words like "casuistry" or "evasions"—you simply need to provide that rational account. Given atheism, objective morality follows … how?

The Christian faith is good for the world because it provides the fixed standard which atheism cannot provide and because it provides forgiveness for sins, which atheism cannot provide either. We need the direction of the standard because we are confused sinners. We need the forgiveness because we are guilty sinners. Atheism not only keeps the guilt, but it also keeps the confusion.

[/ QUOTE ]

m_the0ry

06-09-2007, 03:28 AM

Wait, you need absolute morality for hypocrisy to exist?

The word has a very clear definition and in fact it has absolutely nothing to do with good or evil. I can say that everyone should kill their neighbor and then I myself harm no one and donate $10 million to charity. That is the definition of Hypocrisy. Wilson's argument makes no sense.

BTW I like the "overarching common standard" reference in the same paragraph as international politics. I laughed out loud.

NotReady

06-09-2007, 03:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]

The word has a very clear definition and in fact it has absolutely nothing to do with good or evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you read the whole thing in context it's clear Wilson was saying there's nothing wrong with hypocrisy on an atheistic basis, because on that basis there is no right and wrong. He should have been more clear, but he wasn't talking about the definition of the word, read in context.

m_the0ry

06-09-2007, 04:05 AM

I am failing to distinguish between this and any other argument for absolute morality. To which I respond, 'Who decides what morality is absolute?' You could replace every instance of "Christianity" with a different religion or even a specific subset of Christianity (Evangelical, protestant, etc) and out comes a different set of "absolute" morals. You can even replace it with an arbitrary practitioner of Christianity and each person will give you a different answer based on their interpretation of the allegories vs. literals of the bible. Absolute morality isn't just ineffective in idealist theory, it doesn't even exist in practice.

NotReady

06-09-2007, 04:10 AM

[ QUOTE ]

To which I respond, 'Who decides what morality is absolute?'

[/ QUOTE ]

God.

m_the0ry

06-09-2007, 04:18 AM

Which one?

oe39

06-09-2007, 11:36 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Wait, you need absolute morality for hypocrisy to exist?

The word has a very clear definition and in fact it has absolutely nothing to do with good or evil. I can say that everyone should kill their neighbor and then I myself harm no one and donate $10 million to charity. That is the definition of Hypocrisy. Wilson's argument makes no sense.

BTW I like the "overarching common standard" reference in the same paragraph as international politics. I laughed out loud.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

it seems like his idea is that, if god hadn't told us, we wouldn't know what was right or wrong. historically, though, it seems like interpretations of what god has said has often left the church on the wrong side of decency. claiming to be the ultimate moral authority coupled with a weak or even despicable record of action in moral crises (ww2, slavery, pedo-coverups, homophobia) sure seems hypocritical to me.

NotReady

06-09-2007, 12:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said in my other response, he wasn't trying to define the word hypocrisy. His whole argument on this with H., which was involved in most if not all of the 6 parts, is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong - that on an atheistic basis there is no "ought". He was assuming atheists are saying it's bad to be a hypocrite, but they can't logically call it bad because the concept of "bad" can't be established in atheism.

luckyme

06-09-2007, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said in my other response, he wasn't trying to define the word hypocrisy. His whole argument on this with H., which was involved in most if not all of the 6 parts, is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong - that on an atheistic basis there is no "ought". He was assuming atheists are saying it's bad to be a hypocrite, but they can't logically call it bad because the concept of "bad" can't be established in atheism.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither can 'friend', 'country' or 'up' by that 'logic'.

luckyme

chezlaw

06-09-2007, 01:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said in my other response, he wasn't trying to define the word hypocrisy. His whole argument on this with H., which was involved in most if not all of the 6 parts, is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong - that on an atheistic basis there is no "ought". He was assuming atheists are saying it's bad to be a hypocrite, but they can't logically call it bad because the concept of "bad" can't be established in atheism.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither can 'friend', 'country' or 'up' by that 'logic'.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]
His talking about the ultimate stuff again as in: without god holding an arrow to point the way there is no ultimate up.

Its like explaing that your parcel need to be kept this way up and some bozzo telling you that unless god exists its a meaningless request.

Something irrelevent about Hitler.

chez

NotReady

06-09-2007, 01:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Neither can 'friend', 'country' or 'up' by that 'logic'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. You're getting there.

luckyme

06-09-2007, 02:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said in my other response, he wasn't trying to define the word hypocrisy. His whole argument on this with H., which was involved in most if not all of the 6 parts, is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong - that on an atheistic basis there is no "ought". He was assuming atheists are saying it's bad to be a hypocrite, but they can't logically call it bad because the concept of "bad" can't be established in atheism.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither can 'friend', 'country' or 'up' by that 'logic'.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]
His talking about the ultimate stuff again as in: without god holding an arrow to point the way there is no ultimate up.

Its like explaing that your parcel need to be kept this way up and some bozzo telling you that unless god exists its a meaningless request.

Something irrelevent about Hitler.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not the argument being made though .

[ QUOTE ]
is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong

[/ QUOTE ]

Does NR and Wilson really find 'up', 'country' and 'friend' unintelligible? or meaningless?
Life must be hell for them.

Even if they were attempting an 'ultimate' argument, gods holding arrows only tell us they want to call that direction up... fine, but that doesn't make it 'up' ( never mind the other problems with 'ultimate' claims).

luckyme

chezlaw

06-09-2007, 02:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

yeah... what are those next three paragraphs supposed to prove? that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said in my other response, he wasn't trying to define the word hypocrisy. His whole argument on this with H., which was involved in most if not all of the 6 parts, is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong - that on an atheistic basis there is no "ought". He was assuming atheists are saying it's bad to be a hypocrite, but they can't logically call it bad because the concept of "bad" can't be established in atheism.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither can 'friend', 'country' or 'up' by that 'logic'.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]
His talking about the ultimate stuff again as in: without god holding an arrow to point the way there is no ultimate up.

Its like explaing that your parcel need to be kept this way up and some bozzo telling you that unless god exists its a meaningless request.

Something irrelevent about Hitler.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not the argument being made though .

[ QUOTE ]
is that unless God exists there is no intelligible concept of right and wrong

[/ QUOTE ]

Does NR and Wilson really find 'up', 'country' and 'friend' unintelligible? or meaningless?
Life must be hell for them.

Even if they were attempting an 'ultimate' argument, gods holding arrows only tell us they want to call that direction up... fine, but that doesn't make it 'up' ( never mind the other problems with 'ultimate' claims).

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]
absolutely. Somone make a sensible point about which way up a parcel goes, some bozzo make an irrelevent (and as you point out, useless) claim that atheism means there is no up (or 'upness' is a menaingless concept) and then NotReady congratulates them on winning the debate and showing up the atheist.

and of course they don't find 'up' meaningless but that's great for them because they can use their bogus argument to 'prove' god exists.

chez