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#162
10-06-2007, 03:29 PM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
Point proven, we are not inherently special/moral as decisions are ultimately selfish.
So if u r atheist u must accept this, u dnt have to but ud be wrong not to. I have the (ignorant?) luxury of being able to say a God made the rules so we can still be special. 
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#163
10-06-2007, 07:35 PM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
[ QUOTE ]
Ok, well given that we are advanced evolving animals and not divine creations we can assume we share many of the same properties as our distant relatives. We believe apes and other animals live a relatively meaningless selfish (altruism is a myth) and amoral life. [/ QUOTE ] It seems you may be begging the question here. In trying to establish that there is no absolute morality, you are assuming as your first step that altruism is a myth. [ QUOTE ] Now the only thing seperating us from them is a substantially more well developed brain. It is possible that we evolved into 'special' people who also created, in their evolution, an inherent goodness and moral code, but quite frankly if u believe that i think Jesus would be pretty pissed. [/ QUOTE ] This isnt the line I would take as an atheist who believed in absolute morality. I would suggest that the morality was always there - we have evolved to the point where we can understand it, the evolution didnt create the moral code. In a similar vein, I dont think we "invented" pi, modus ponens or the inverse square law of gravitation - they were always there and we eventually evolved to the point where we could understand them. [ QUOTE ] We did evolve advanced social networking skills but our makeup is grounded in exactly the same one as apes and giraffes. We live by the same laws of physics and the only way we could accept that we are: Special/ Inherently good/ inherently moral Is if we evolved into being that which is just unrealistic. What is inherently good anyway but a subjective view? [/ QUOTE ] Again this is begging the question. Someone who believes in absolute morality denies this - I would claim there is a "right" answer, irrespective of what our subjective opinions are. You can subjectively believe it's moral to murder, I subjectively believe it's immoral. My view is one of us is correct - the fact that we both have opinions doesnt have any bearing on whether an absolute answer exists. We can both have opinions on whether any perfect, odd numbers exist too - there's still an answer. [ QUOTE ] In conclusion we are either inherently special because we evolved into that (though we cant prove we are) or we are inherently special because of God (which does make sense in a fantasy way). If u r an atheist living by the laws of science then to believe u r inherently special moral etc is as ridiculous as believing in Jesus, u cant prove it and it doesnt really make scientific sense anyway. [/ QUOTE ] A side issue, but as an atheist I didnt think "we are special" and "we can make moral choices" were synonymous. I was of the view that all animals are different, including us, and one of the things we could do that animals perhaps couldnt was to make moral choices. Though the question of why animals behave the way they do isnt exactly settled yet anyhow.
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#164
10-06-2007, 09:11 PM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
[ QUOTE ]
Point proven, we are not inherently special/moral as decisions are ultimately selfish. So if u r atheist u must accept this, u dnt have to but ud be wrong not to. I have the (ignorant?) luxury of being able to say a God made the rules so we can still be special. [/ QUOTE ] As bunny pointed out, "special" and "moral" are two different things. I'm not arguing that we're "special," so this is beside the point. I'm asking how an evolutionary explanation makes us any less moral - kind, responsible, compassionate, etc...
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#165
10-07-2007, 07:21 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] 1. im not christian. 2. Altruism is no different to any other kind of favour, the difference being the payoff is harder to spot. [/ QUOTE ] childless man jumps on grenade (equivalent of) to save strangers. Please lay out the payoff for him. luckyme [/ QUOTE ] The positive payoff is not always the whole issue. In this case if the guy failed to jump on the grenade and the strangers died, he'd feel regret the rest of his life. Sometimes the payoff can be an avoidance of a negative situation by choosing the neutral EV situation.
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#166
10-07-2007, 11:07 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] 1. im not christian. 2. Altruism is no different to any other kind of favour, the difference being the payoff is harder to spot. [/ QUOTE ] childless man jumps on grenade (equivalent of) to save strangers. Please lay out the payoff for him. luckyme [/ QUOTE ] The positive payoff is not always the whole issue. In this case if the guy failed to jump on the grenade and the strangers died, he'd feel regret the rest of his life. Sometimes the payoff can be an avoidance of a negative situation by choosing the neutral EV situation. [/ QUOTE ] or, he could be concerned that the butterfly effect of standing still would result in a tsunami in Java killing thousands. People make crappy long-term decisions when they have time to ponder, killing yourself because you MAY feel bad later for not Killing Yourself would take most people longer than 0.5 seconds?? ( because if he's going to consider that, there must be another 1,000 things he'd have to weigh). Could be that such things as ducking baseball bats and saving others from immediate harm ( the firefighter effect) are 'hardwired' in. The longer we have to ponder the less likely we are to make a rash move , the non-good-samaritan effect we see in 'watchers' on the News. luckyme
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#167
10-09-2007, 07:32 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
We dont have absolute morality either because that implicates us being special.
It doesnt exist just as Pi doesnt. We can invent them systems to help society function but they are meaningless and non existent if not required. The Depression And Religion thread encapsulates atheistic flaws well.
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#168
10-09-2007, 07:54 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
[ QUOTE ]
Point proven, we are not inherently special/moral as decisions are ultimately selfish. So if u r atheist u must accept this, u dnt have to but ud be wrong not to. I have the (ignorant?) luxury of being able to say a God made the rules so we can still be special. [/ QUOTE ] I find this distinction very strange. The word in bold should be "human", not "atheist". Its like you think that your choice to be a theist makes the universe you live in objectively different from the one atheists' live in. But actually nothing changes, so if your first statement is true, its true for everyone. In acutal fact the choice is living with ot without intellectual honesty. And as you point out, you have the (luxurious?) option of not doing.
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#169
10-10-2007, 09:16 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
But i live in a world i (ignorantly?) deem to have been created by God.
I therefore believe u 2 live in that world. However u believe in a different (Godless) world and so must accept its insignificant implications.
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#170
10-10-2007, 09:40 AM
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Re: Evil Atheism.
You can't cherry pick beliefs based on their implications.
I believe crime exists, and have to accept that sometimes people get robbed. If you say you don't believe in criminals, it won't change the number of robberies. Lets accept "insignificance" as valid for a moment, are you promoting religion as a positive delusion? Your position is only equal to FSMers saying FSM gives their life a meaning that noone else has. I never understood the problem with a "meaningless" life anyway.
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