(January 29, 2019 at 11:17 am)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 29, 2019 at 11:00 am)Grandizer Wrote: Well, how about we solve the issue I'm pointing out first before we address further contentions. Because I haven't seen any theist to date provide a satisfactory answer to my point.

Suppose your beloved god (whoever it may be) exists. God declares to you (somehow) that killing is wrong. How does this answer the question of what makes killing wrong? Is it really just because God says so? In such case, it would be subjective to what God is about and therefore not really a morality worth having. Even if I'm expected to just go with what God says because he is God, my moral intuition tells me that something is off about believing killing is wrong just because God says so. It has to be more than that. God may be able to assert that killing is wrong, and demand people accept that, but positing his existence does not logically adequately explain why killing is wrong in the first place.

This is a problem that you need to solve first before we can move on to other objections to secular morality. If you can't solve this one, then it seems like theists and atheists are pretty much generally in the same boat when it comes to morality. God does not explain morality, so no need for God to exist for objective morality to be possible. At best, a god can assert or submit that something is morally right or wrong, but that's about it.

No we don’t need to resolve that, because  what you and I mean by God, or whatever relationship your conception of God has to do with morality, is irrelevant or unecceary to any point I’ve made.

The only thing you should concern yourself with is the things I told you I believe in, whether or not you understand the relationship between that and Christianity etc, or the Christian God is irrelevant.

You believe in some [supernatural] God, no? Otherwise, what the hell have you been arguing for all this time?

Yes, we do need to resolve the issue I'm pointing out here, because I'm still not seeing the logical advantage theism has over atheism when it comes to objective morality.

How about you answer this question for me:

Why ought we not kill?

If you don't need to invoke a god to answer this question, then no need for any god.

-as a side note, the sheer number of lying assholes who want to bitch and moan about the proper foundation for moral deontology is hilarious to me in the way that only deep irony can be.

(January 29, 2019 at 11:27 am)Grandizer Wrote: You believe in some [supernatural] God, no? Otherwise, what the hell have you been arguing for all this time?

Whatever you might mean by supernatural or God, is likely very different than what I mean. As result i hardly ever feel the need or necessity to argue for either.

Quote:Yes, we do need to resolve the issue I'm pointing out here, because I'm still not seeing the logical advantage theism has over atheism when it comes to objective morality.

The advantage is between those who believe that reality posses moral aims and intrinsic moral purpose, like MLK, and those that don’t.

Nearly all theist hold to such a view of reality, while most atheists deny it, regardless if they understand the relationship between this aspect they’re denying and their atheism.

Quote:How about you answer this question for me:

Why ought we not kill?

If you don't need to invoke a god to answer this question, then no need for any god.

I don’t need to evoke the name God at all. Reality tells us we ought not kill.

I’m merely disagreeing with those that suggests it tells us no such thing, that reality possess no moral properties, no intrinsic moral values, etc...

No, you're not merely doing any such thing, lol....you are vehemently disagreeing with realists who do not conform to your superstitions.

You're simply unwilling to discuss or justify or even acknowledge your superstitions aside from slips of the tongue you readily pedal away from. Hell, you abandoned the previous thread and cranked up the crank engine in this one by repeating your facetious assertions there, here.

Moral realism is a position which asserts that there are moral facts of a matter - it does not assert that the universe or reality speaks to us, provides us with aims or goals, or sets our deontological obligations. It acknowledges that we seek out whatever inferences we can make by reference to whatever facts we possess, and that we set our deontological obligations in reference to our goals as they pertain to those facts.

In short, moral realism is the position which describes morality as the thing you call impossible, the thing you think that no one can do. You posit that if the superstitions which you hold are false..then all is permissible, whereas moral realists posit that your superstitions are irrelevant, they can be false to no moral effect..because all that is required is for some moral fact of a matter to be true.

You have convinced yourself or been convinced that you are the realist in this exchange, when, in point of fact..you simply aren't. The notion likely arises from a conflation of the perceptual truth of superstitions to the conceptual truth of a moral proposition. You think your superstitions are true, so they must describe the true morality, and be required of it.

(January 29, 2019 at 11:43 am)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 29, 2019 at 11:27 am)Grandizer Wrote: You believe in some [supernatural] God, no? Otherwise, what the hell have you been arguing for all this time?

Whatever you might mean by supernatural or God, is likely very different than what I mean. As result i hardly ever feel the need or necessity to argue for either.

Yeah, let's be vague so as to promote a proper discussion here ...

Quote:

Quote:Yes, we do need to resolve the issue I'm pointing out here, because I'm still not seeing the logical advantage theism has over atheism when it comes to objective morality.

The advantage is between those who believe that reality posses moral aims and intrinsic  moral purpose,  like MLK, and those that don’t.

What do you mean exactly by "reality possesses moral aims and intrinsic moral purpose"? And how do you know that's what MLK believed?

I just want to be clear here on what you're really saying because something tells me you're misrepresenting what theists generally believe and what atheists generally believe.

Quote:Nearly all theist hold to such a view of reality, while most atheists deny it, regardless if they understand the relationship between this aspect they’re denying and their atheism.

I'm not convinced that theists generally hold to the view you speak of. At least not when we're referring to a reality that is separate or independent of God.

My understanding is that theists generally believe all things to do with morality is connected to a god in some way. Reality (at least the reality that is independent of God) is not sufficient for objective morality, according to your typical theist.

Quote:

Quote:How about you answer this question for me:

Why ought we not kill?

If you don't need to invoke a god to answer this question, then no need for any god.

I don’t need to evoke the name God at all. Reality tells us we ought not kill.

Then perhaps the logical conclusion here is that God is not needed to explain morality.

Quote:I’m merely disagreeing with those that suggests it tells us no such thing, that reality possess no moral properties, no intrinsic moral values, etc...

It really depends on what you mean by "possess". Morality does not exist in the Platonic sense, methinks. So reality does not possess "the stuff of morality", rather rational beings make inferences on morality based on basic moral intuitions and/or observations made within this reality.

But even if you believed reality does possess "the stuff of morality", this has nothing to do with any supernatural god. Unless you consider reality itself God, in which case you're being misleading. You are certainly free to view this reality as God (that's your intuition after all), but if so, you can't then make disingenuous arguments for theism based on equivocating and such.

(January 29, 2019 at 12:22 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Yeah, let's be vague so as to promote a proper discussion here ...

No we can have a proper discussion without mentioning God or the supernatural, since whatever you mean by these terms, is something that can be separated from the question of reality possessing moral stuff.

Quote:But even if you believed reality does possess "the stuff of morality", this has nothing to do with any supernatural god. Unless you consider reality itself God, in which case you're being misleading. You are certainly free to view this reality as God (that's your intuition after all), but if so, you can't then make disingenuous arguments for theism based on equivocating and such.

Whether or not you understand the relationship between theism and a reality that posses “the stuff of morality”, between God and any teleological view of reality, is of no concern to me. It’s built on an ignorance of theism, that I have no interest in resolving for you.

As far as you ought to be concerned, I’m just a person who believes reality posses “the stuff of morality”. And you and other atheists here don’t.

Quote:Morality does not exist in the Platonic sense, methinks.

No it’s posses it in the platonic sense, so you thinks wrongly.

The wrongness of the holocaust is as objectively true, as 1+1=2. Someone who claims it’s not wrong, would be akin to someone claiming the earth is flat.

The goodness and wrongness of things exists just as real as the color of my wife’s dress, or the cup on my table. Not just in our minds, but in reality itself. In fact it perhaps even more real than I can say of you.

When we recognize the wrongness of torturing babies just for fun, we’re not recognizing some subjective biological sensation, or something constructed by our societies and culture, but something that is true independent of these things.

You may deny such a reality, but I’m inclined to see you as a solipsists, or a person who believes truth is subjective. In fact any argument you have against it, can easily to be use to make the case for the latter as well.

(January 29, 2019 at 1:34 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 29, 2019 at 12:22 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Yeah, let's be vague so as to promote a proper discussion here ...  

No we can have a proper discussion without mentioning God or the supernatural, since whatever you mean by these terms, is something that can be separated from the question of reality possessing moral stuff.

-and since we can do so, there's nothing particularly incoherent about secular moral realism.

Quote:You may deny such a reality, but I’m inclined to see you as a solipsists, or a person who believes truth is subjective. In fact any argument you have against it, can easily to be use to make the case for the latter as well.

No one needs to accept or deny whatever superstitions or precepts you have about reality in order to discuss moral realism.  To non natural realists morality does exist in a platonic sense as some x directly apprehended by the observation of it's form in the object of x, and in a natural realists system it does not exist as such and instead exists as an empirical claim on the object x.  

What you are inclined to see is divorced from what people are telling you and, instead, conforms to your superstitious beliefs and general compulsion to shitpost about atheism on an atheist board. Further, no comment in this vein is informative as to whether or not theres any difference between religion and no religion in that regard. It may be that some objection has no valid response from either a religious or non religious pov. In that case, a realist would simply discard that moral statement as not being what they thought it was at first glance...though, to the realist, the failure of the religious pov itself is completely irrelevant. We expect them to broadly conform to secular rationalizations - but note their spectacular implosion with regards to the taboo of some particular society or culture or point in time expressed in the religious schema.

This is due to the fact that religious morality is relative, regardless of the status of moral ontology at large.

(January 22, 2019 at 6:10 pm)Grandizer Wrote:

(January 22, 2019 at 6:02 pm)Dr H Wrote: Yeah?  How does that work?

Because I can't consciously force myself to believe something that I don't believe.
Either I believe it, or I don't.

I could choose to act as if  I believed, for any of a variety of good or bad reasons.
Not quite the same thing.

I think what Aegon's friend meant is that if one were to go by logic and reasoning alone, then one would have to conclude that God's existence is unlikely. Nevertheless, his friend intuits that God exists and therefore continues to believe.

I see nothing confusing about that. And in fact, I find this to be rather honest, compared to all the theists who say there is evidence for God and/or that faith is somehow logical. Wish more and more theists were like the former instead of the latter.

I'm not sure I agree that "intuit's" is the equivalent of "makes a conscious choice".

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(January 25, 2019 at 10:18 am)Acrobat Wrote: Without religion you wouldn't haven't Dostoevky, or Tolstoy, or Comac Mccarthy, or Flannery O'Connor, or Marilyn Robinson, who have offered us greater insights into ourselves, then others. In fact you wouldn't have an MLK, or a Gandhi.

Perhaps.  
Or we would have had them and they would have produced rather different works, but works of genius, nonetheless.

I mean, really, the same sort of claim can be made about any cataclysmic or traumatic event.  Without World War II we might not have had Ernest Hemingway, or George Orwell, or Albert Camus, or Kurt Vonnegut, or nuclear power, or the space program.  That doesn't mean that World War II was a good thing.

(January 29, 2019 at 1:34 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 29, 2019 at 12:22 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Yeah, let's be vague so as to promote a proper discussion here ...  

No we can have a proper discussion without mentioning God or the supernatural, since whatever you mean by these terms, is something that can be separated from the question of reality possessing moral stuff.

Are you sure you want to do that? Seems to me like a concession that God isn't needed for objective morality after all.

Quote:

Quote:But even if you believed reality does possess "the stuff of morality", this has nothing to do with any supernatural god. Unless you consider reality itself God, in which case you're being misleading. You are certainly free to view this reality as God (that's your intuition after all), but if so, you can't then make disingenuous arguments for theism based on equivocating and such.

Whether or not you understand the relationship between theism and a reality that posses “the stuff of morality”, between God and any teleological view of reality, is of no concern to me. It’s built on an ignorance of theism, that I have no interest in resolving for you.

Nice dodge. You'll charge me with being ignorant regarding the relationship between X and Y, but you won't elaborate on how exactly. A baseless empty charge then.

Quote:As far as you ought to be concerned, I’m just a person who believes reality posses “the stuff of morality”. And you and other atheists here don’t.

Ok ... and this is not reasonable given atheism why? What does this have to do with theism vs. atheism?

Quote:

Quote:Morality does not exist in the Platonic sense, methinks.

No it’s posses it in the platonic sense, so you thinks wrongly.

According to whom? You?

Quote:The wrongness of the holocaust is as objectively true, as 1+1=2. Someone who claims it’s not wrong, would be akin to someone claiming the earth is flat.

What does this have to do with whether or not objective morality exists in the Platonic sense? Or do you mistakenly equate "objective" to "Platonic"?

Quote:The goodness and wrongness of things exists just as real as the color of my wife’s dress, or the cup on my table. Not just in our minds, but in reality itself. In fact it perhaps even more real than I can say of you.

That's your view, which does not necessarily reflect what reality is about.

Quote:When we recognize the wrongness of torturing babies just for fun, we’re not recognizing some subjective biological sensation, or something constructed by our societies and culture, but something that is true independent of these things.

Sure, but many atheists have no problem agreeing with this. So why are you trying to make this an atheism vs. theism thing when it's really not?

Quote:You may deny such a reality, but I’m inclined to see you as a solipsists, or a person who believes truth is subjective. In fact any argument you have against it, can easily to be use to make the case for the latter as well.

I don't deny a reality in which objective morality may be true. I do question the idea of reality possessing moral truths in the Platonic sense (note Platonic is not the same as objective), but I'm open to elaborations here and am willing to adjust my tentative views on moral platonism in light of proper logic.

And not sure how denying/questioning moral platonism makes me a solipsist and thereby a moral subjectivist? This feels to me like you're not properly thinking through what you're saying, and you're just saying stuff just to give the misleading impression you're undermining my position.

---

(January 29, 2019 at 4:43 pm)Dr H Wrote:

(January 22, 2019 at 6:10 pm)Grandizer Wrote: I think what Aegon's friend meant is that if one were to go by logic and reasoning alone, then one would have to conclude that God's existence is unlikely. Nevertheless, his friend intuits that God exists and therefore continues to believe.

I see nothing confusing about that. And in fact, I find this to be rather honest, compared to all the theists who say there is evidence for God and/or that faith is somehow logical. Wish more and more theists were like the former instead of the latter.

I'm not sure I agree that "intuit's" is the equivalent of "makes a conscious choice".

My point is that it was poor wording on her part. But that's just the way I interpret it, since I used to be such a theist for a while (after leaving the Christian faith) and I would use such poor wording to describe my position. As in, I used to admit there was no evidence for God but that I chose to believe regardless (when what I really meant is that God's existence still made sense to me regardless).

(January 29, 2019 at 6:29 pm)Grandizer Wrote: What does this have to do with whether or not objective morality exists in the Platonic sense? Or do you mistakenly equate "objective" to "Platonic"?

You do realize that moral platonism, is another name for moral realism? Morality existing in a platonic sense would be an objective sense.

Quote:

Quote:The goodness and wrongness of things exists just as real as the color of my wife’s dress, or the cup on my table. Not just in our minds, but in reality itself. In fact it perhaps even more real than I can say of you.

That's your view, which does not necessarily reflect what reality is about.

No it reflects what reality is about. Just like reality reflects the existence of other minds outside of my own, or objective truths, etc.. It's only your deluded version of reality that negates this, you're the solipsist, the reality you sell is akin to what they sell.

Quote:Sure, but many atheists have no problem agreeing with this. So why are you trying to make this an atheism vs. theism thing when it's really not?

Yet, here you are, arguing that goodness and wrongness don't exist in reality, just in our minds alone, etc.. Yet it seems that only atheists tend to ever suggest such a reality, empty of "the stuff of morality". If you're a moral subjectivist, a moral nihilist, you're far more likely to be an atheist than a theist. Maybe you just think this is just a coincidence, or perhaps there is a relationship between atheism and a disbelief in a reality that possess "the stuff of morality".

Quote:I don't deny a reality in which objective morality may be true.

So you don't deny the reality possess "the stuff of morality"?