(March 28, 2019 at 1:45 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: This is an amusing part of religious belief in the context of social hegemony.  The faithful can't conceive of the contents of their beliefs as anything other than true and good.  It's baked in.  

"OMG you horrible filthy bad moraled atheists, how could you say or think such a thing, fuck..!  Now let me get back to what I was saying about salvation.  First, you torture a jew......."

Are you confused or just telling lies?

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(March 28, 2019 at 11:47 am)pocaracas Wrote: Wut?!
What does morality have to do with math and the existence of an elephant?

Because like the answer to 1+1, and the existence of an elephant, it’s not a matter of agreement but a recognition of truth. The wrongness of torturing babies just for fun, is as objectively true as 1+1 =2, and the existence of an elephant at my local zoo.

I see.... you're on the objective train...
ok... then I'm going to have to ask you to define "objective" as it pertains to morality.

From my point of view, morality is something that arises of the social group. It seems objective because it is shared by the majority (or all) the elements of the group. However, I don't think that morality is independent of the group. In the absence of the group, morality is meaningless.

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

Quote:Perhaps you're right.... perhaps I'm right. How can we discern which of us is right?

Well I’m of the view that I’m right, and as so when I counter those that are wrong, I tend to ask myself what motivates and sustains their false beliefs. There’s  hardly a remotely convincing argument, or compelling one otherwise. The best I can do is try and understand those arguments, and indicate why they’re not particularly compelling, and perhaps not even for those who make them. That they’re more held for the sake of sustaining disbelief, and not because they’re anymore believable to those who hold them then me.

I don’t know how to convince you that you’re wrong, but I’m willing to explore the questions with you regardless.

Hehe... how curious... I do the same, I think the same: I'm right and you're wrong and I try to understand why you're wrong.

You seem to be consistently operating under the assumption that there is a realm underlying reality and which gives rise and support to reality.
While I'm just using the reality at hand to build my hypothesis of how we got to be here.
I think my position is more intellectually honest than yours, as it relies on less assumptions.

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

Quote:You say it's "a cute counter argument", but we have no real way of finding out how these things happened, so we have to go with our best guesses. And these best guesses are informed by our perception of the world. Yours include the possibility of what I'd describe as magic yielded by a single individual entity, while mine tries to come up with guesses that require only regular physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, etc... While all these are enough to account for all that we see, there's no reason why we should include the magical realm in our arsenal of guesses, is there?

I don’t deny any physics, chemistry, or biology, i also don’t deny my fundamental experiences of reality. I may perceive reality through my mind, but those things i experience as external to myself, i recognize as aspects of reality.

I never said you denied anything...
I left almost explicit that you add an extra layer of what I called magic. A layer that I consider to be unnecessary and unevidenced.

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote: I experience the wrongness of the holocaust, as external to myself, not as articulation of my feelings, or as the opinions of my society, but as part of objective reality, outside of my mind, just as the yellow of my wife’s dress, or the shape of the ball. I recognize it as an objective truth. If there’s a supposed objective reality absent of such moral elements, than that’s not a reality any of us know or can know.

Do you think the group that made the Holocaust thought it was right? It clearly wasn't a single individual with his own subjective set of morals.
Do you think most of the world of antiquity thought it was right to have slaves?

I don't think that morality can ever be equated to physical quantities, like light wavelength (for yellow) or geometric shapes.

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote: Someone trying to convince me that objective morality does not exist, is like someone try to convince me that other minds outside of my own don’t exist, or that objective truth doesn’t exist.

If you read what I've been writing, you'll find that I merely share my point of view and ask a lot of questions with the purpose of making you think about them... I'm not trying to change your mind directly, because I know that is a useless endeavor.
I ask questions.... you do your own thinking, if you want, if you can... if not, I have no problem with it.

(March 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm)Acrobat Wrote: You rely on physics, science, etc.. to make excuses to try and deny your own experiences of reality, not because those excuses actually make sense, or are true, but because they provide you just enough to sustain you disbelief, it’s driven by a desire not to believe, than anything else.

Why do you say this?
Have I said anything that remotely hints at a desire on my part to not believe? Where am I denying my experiences of reality? What excuses am I making?

@Acrobat.

"The wrongness of torturing babies just for fun, is as objectively true as 1+1 =2, and the existence of an elephant at my local zoo."

Can't quite grasp that.Could you please provide your proof of that claim?

You have given a moral imperative as your example. I wasn't aware that moral imperatives were objectively true. Your claim, your burden of proof.

At present, I hold the position of moral relativism. I may indeed change my position if you can prove your claim.

Good luck getting that out of him.  He's going to launch into some god based relativism or subjectivism and call it "moral objectivity".

In mere reality, moral realism is both secular and the predominant position of moral theorists. You are already, likely, a moral realist. Just about everyone is, in practice even if not in thought. Do you think that there are things about an act that make that act bad, and that those things don;t change even when a persons opinion (or a whole mess of people, like a society or a religion) of that thing does? Hey presto. You're a moral realist.

For some odd reason, these nubbins think it takes a ghost, only god knows why, they sure as hell don't.

More like moral opportunism

Trolling, trolling, trolling...

Wow. 11 pages, eh? 

No, I don't see much point in wishing for magical solutions to life's challenges.
It's a waste of time, in my opinion.

(March 28, 2019 at 6:40 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Good luck getting that out of him.  He's going to launch into some god based relativism or subjectivism and call it "moral objectivity".

In mere reality, moral realism is both secular and the predominant position of moral theorists.  You are already, likely, a moral realist. Just about everyone is, in practice even if not in thought.  Do you think that there are things about an act that make that act bad, and that those things don;t change even when a persons opinion (or a whole mess of people, like a society or a religion) of that thing does?  Hey presto.  You're a moral realist.

For some odd reason, these nubbins think it takes a ghost, only god knows why, they sure as hell don't.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((0)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Imo humans, in practice lean more towards amorality.

We are inventive and devious creatures. History has taught me that human beings can find moral justification for any action what so ever 

.Concrete examples of Christian morality in action:

 The Crusades; the church preached that was morality/sacred duty of the highest order to go on crusade and kill non believers.. Such a wonderful thing to do; all of your sins would be remitted. Of course people accepted that without question. Not because they were especially stupid, but because they were very gullible AND because it was to their very great personal advantage.

Same thing with burning heretics and stealing their property.

Same with the Nazis convincing their christian-raised Schutzstaffel (SS) that it was a sacred moral duty to murder all jews, everywhere.
The level of the  culpability of the ordinary Germans is still is still debated. I have no issue with the concept of collective guilt**. I recommend the book linked below..

I used Christianity as a convenient example. The same can be said of just about any religion you care to name. I suspect there are some exceptions

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen argues that eliminationist antisemitism was the cornerstone of German national identity, was unique to Germany, and because of it ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Goldhagen asserts that this mentality grew out of medieval attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized. 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s...ecutioners

(March 28, 2019 at 6:50 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: Trolling, trolling, trolling...

All 134 posts and counting.

---

(March 28, 2019 at 7:55 pm)Thena323 Wrote: Wow. 11 pages, eh? 

No, I don't see much point in wishing for magical solutions to life's challenges.
It's a waste of time, in my opinion.

Oh? What if one of my life challenges is to win Penn&Teller's fool us?! Hmmm?!

CHECKMATE!

(March 28, 2019 at 9:38 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Oh? What if one of my life challenges is to win Penn&Teller's fool us?! Hmmm?!

CHECKMATE!

Ah! Just use your illusion.
Like so...yes, yes?