Who says that you should?  I'm not a nihilist, but I'm not making the claim that nihilism doesn't make sense....because, frankly, it does make sense even if it's not true.

-but who cares, what is this supposed to have to do with gods?

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Here's a fun rabbit hole for you.  Between people who insist that, absent any god meaning, there is no inherent meaning to life..and people who do not believe in gods but do believe that there is inherent meaning....


....which of the two are drinking from the nihilists cup?

(April 9, 2019 at 11:56 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: Who says that you should?  I'm not a nihilist, but I'm not making the claim that nihilism doesn't make sense....because, frankly, it does make sense even if it's not true.

Judging that you nor I, (or anyone else here so far) can make sense of our desire for meaning in light of nihilism, then I have no basis to agree that "it does makes sense".

Quote:Here's a fun rabbit hole for you.  Between people who insist that, absent any god meaning, there is no inherent meaning to life..and people who do not believe in gods but do believe that there is inherent meaning....
....which of the two are drinking from the nihilists cup?

I have no idea what you mean by "god meaning", particularly expressed as something distinct from inherent meaning, or in addition to it, so I can't make sense of this question to provide any answer for it.

(April 9, 2019 at 10:23 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Right, value requires a valuer. I'm a valuer, and I believe my life has meaning and significance to me and hopefully to those close to me; just as their lives hold meaning to me.

I'd say that it's the apprehension of value that requires a "valuer", not the existence of that value itself.  In this, we as valuers provide all that would be required for the apprehension of value, even if that value did not actually exist where we thought it did, or as we thought it did.  

If there is no inherent value, a valuer can 
a see that.
or
b imagine that there is.

If there is inherent value, a valuer can
a see that.
or
b imagine that there is not.

This..to me at least, suggests while we can very clearly posit that the apprehension of value is demonstrably subjective, the existence of value can be independant of that and may or may not be.  In either case, the actions and value judgements of human beings would look exactly as they do.   The notion that human value schemes can be representative or unrepresentative, can hit or miss, isn't novel or new or insensible.  Ultimately, the difference between subjective value and objective value is whether a given value is a property of the valuer or the valued, and while it's easy enough to establish many cases in which it's a property of the valuer, everytime we overlook some thing that we might later find value in it lends credence to the notion that the valuer can inaccurately apprehend value.  This, in turn, suggests that the missed value very much may be a property of the valued thing.  

We were walking all over iron and silicon for hundreds of thousands of years.  Are those properties of iron or silicon that make them useful, even to us - our subjective apprehension- properties of ourselves, or of iron and silicon?  If we decided that iron and silicon weren't useful - a subjective apprehension, what about those properties would change or be altered? If there were no human beings on earth, would silicon and iron then be reduced to uselessness?

Objectivity doesn;t require that there be no relational value between the two objects in question, or between the object and the subject..if we prefer. Only that the apprehension of that value does accurately refer to some property of the other thing and is not wholly reducible to the properties of just one of the objects in question (or just the subject to the exclusion of the object, again if we prefer).

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(April 9, 2019 at 12:33 pm)Acrobat Wrote: Judging that you nor I, (or anyone else here so far) can make sense of our desire for meaning in light of nihilism, then I have no basis to agree that "it does makes sense".

Probably to do with you not knowing what those terms refer to, just like every other set of terms you've tried to employ or argue against thusfar.

Quote:I have no idea what you mean by "god meaning", particularly expressed as something distinct from inherent meaning, or in addition to it, so I can't make sense of this question to provide any answer for it.

The only sort of meaning unavailable to an atheist is god meaning.  A thing can have inherent meaning in the absence of having a god meaning.  You can't "make sense" of that, but so what...you can't even make sense of the term sense..so that;s hardly illustrative of anything other than your own limititations, your own ignorance and lack of imagination.

If some atheist, as we can and do, posits inherent meaning, but a theist responds that this is incoherent, that absent godmeaning, there is no such thing..which of the two is actually proposing nihilism?  This is a very easy question to answer if you understand what nihilism is and refers to.

(April 9, 2019 at 9:42 am)Acrobat Wrote:

(April 9, 2019 at 9:36 am)Thoreauvian Wrote: Please explain to me how objective morality based on relative human nature (rather than, say, the interests of ants) is "convoluted and contradictory nonsense."

The "ought" problem is only a problem if you don't recognize it as based on if-then statements.  For example: "IF you want a civil society, THEN you ought to police murders."  In other words, relative morality -- relative to human thriving.

You mean relative to those who hold the goal/ought to do what's best for human thriving?

If I don't hold such a goal, then would you say I have no such moral oughts here? That the wrongness of torturing innocent babies just for fun might be true for you, but not for me. 

Or in other words for your objective morality to work, it relies on people to subscribe to a subjective goal like doing what's best for human thriving?

You didn't explain how objective morality based on relative human interests (rather than, say, the interests of ants) is "convoluted and contradictory nonsense." You just restated that you don't see the difference between subjective and objective but relative morality.

In other words, killing babies has nothing at all to do with human thriving (objective but relative morality), no matter how much some warped individual may enjoy it (subjective morality). Remember the "if-then" statement? If you want human thriving, then you ought to do such-and-such. That is relative morality.

I expect you will really address the question next time, instead of just side-stepping it.

That would be a subjective appeal to compulsion.  A relative appeal would be "if you agree with your society that". Relative appeals are appeals to conformity, subjective appeals are appeals to personal interest which may not conform.

(April 9, 2019 at 9:12 am)Acrobat Wrote:

(April 9, 2019 at 9:05 am)robvalue Wrote: Okay, well I tried. We're not communicating well.

Try harder. In my view you haven’t really thought through your belief in morality as subjective, and that you’re going to stumble your way into inconsistencies and contradictions. Trying to work through those, would probably help you get a better grasp on what’s true here. 

You clearly take issues with suggesting your moral beliefs, are akin to taste, like your likes and dislikes. In my view thats because like me you recognize it as objective, even if some other part of you wants to deny this, or finds it problematic for your other beliefs, like your atheism.

No, you resorted to trying to tell me what I think, what I mean and to reduce the conversation to ridiculous earth-scorching because you didn’t like my answers to your script.

(April 9, 2019 at 12:45 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote:

(April 9, 2019 at 9:42 am)Acrobat Wrote: You mean relative to those who hold the goal/ought to do what's best for human thriving?

If I don't hold such a goal, then would you say I have no such moral oughts here? That the wrongness of torturing innocent babies just for fun might be true for you, but not for me. 

Or in other words for your objective morality to work, it relies on people to subscribe to a subjective goal like doing what's best for human thriving?

You didn't explain how objective morality based on relative human interests (rather than, say, the interests of ants) is "convoluted and contradictory nonsense."  You just restated that you don't see the difference between subjective and objective but relative morality.

In other words, killing babies has nothing at all to do with human thriving (objective but relative morality), no matter how much some warped individual may enjoy it (subjective morality).  Remember the "if-then" statement?  If you want human thriving, then you ought to do such-and-such.  That is relative morality.

I expect you will really address the question next time, instead of just side-stepping it.

If you were patient, and actually answered the questions I would show you that. 

I'm trying to show you exactly how your beliefs in objective morality are contradictory and inconsistent, through a serious of questions that demonstrate that. 

So if you want to give me the opportunity to demonstrate this, then please answer the fairly straightforward questions I asked, rather than criticize the method in which I use to do this.

If you could do that, you would have, by now. You can't. You don't possess that ability even if someone else does, and even if his ideas were inconsistent.

You will, eventually, abandon this thread in failure..and then spool up the same tired shit in some other thread - just as you've done here.

All that could matter, in this thread and with respect to what you have pretended to offer, and pretended to base your own beliefs on...is to show how realism is incoherent with atheism. Shit or get off the pot.

(April 9, 2019 at 1:12 pm)robvalue Wrote:

(April 9, 2019 at 9:12 am)Acrobat Wrote: Try harder. In my view you haven’t really thought through your belief in morality as subjective, and that you’re going to stumble your way into inconsistencies and contradictions. Trying to work through those, would probably help you get a better grasp on what’s true here. 

You clearly take issues with suggesting your moral beliefs, are akin to taste, like your likes and dislikes. In my view thats because like me you recognize it as objective, even if some other part of you wants to deny this, or finds it problematic for your other beliefs, like your atheism.

No, you resorted to trying to tell me what I think, what I mean and to reduce the conversation to ridiculous earth-scorching because you didn’t like my answers to your script.

You said you view morality as subjective. I went with what subjective means, no different then I would when applied to other things we commonly refer to as subjective, such as our taste in food, or fashion. 

Perhaps I should treat your views a bit more delicately, and not so harshly to chase you away to early?

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(April 9, 2019 at 1:16 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: If you could do that, you would have, by now.  You can't.  You don't possess that ability even if someone else does, and even if his ideas were inconsistent.

You will, eventually, abandon this thread in failure..and then spool up the same tired shit in some other thread - just as you've done here.

Judging that in a previous debate with you, I got you to confirm Pizza Taste Realism, that thin, crispy, cheesy pizza is objectively good, applying the same logic you use in defense of moral realism, i don't take that as a failure.

Shit...or get off the pot.