(March 28, 2013 at 12:58 am)jstrodel Wrote: But you have not argued for that, you have only shown that you have faith that it is so. What is your argument for it?


If you read something on wikipedia that seems like it could be true, and you accept some but not all of it, that doesn't actually mean it is acceptable to hold those views. What is the evidence for believing your belief is one type of moral relativism but not another?

But...we're the same in that respect, right? I mean, some people in other cultures think morals might be different from the ones you have (regardless of who is right), but do not think that this automatically means that no morals can be correct. That is the idea of the first degree of moral relativism (descriptive moral relativism). Would you disagree with the above? And if not, why are you probing me for my justification behind something you yourself believe?

Why do you think degree one is correct but not degree two? You have so far explained why you like degree one, but not degree two. How do you know degree one is correct but not degree two?


I am probing you because you are advocating a nihilistic belief system that undermines all morality and is much more destructive than you think it is.

If atheism doesn't entail moral relativism (in a strong form) and moral relativism doesn't entail nihilism, PROVE IT!

You can state the difference between one form of moral relativism and another one hundred times, but that will not show why your belief entails the first but not the second.

- but this is serious, the most serious question you will ever answer.


I believe that God is holy, and God establishes existence and morality together, giving them both meaning and value, directing them both towards the glory/pride/praise/excellence/intention of God, defining them and constricting them and causing them to exist in a tension between their nature and response to their enviroment with morality being created situationally through the interaction of these parts as they represent the will and intention of God in each as well as God's personal supernatural direction which overrules them all because God is God.

(March 28, 2013 at 1:05 am)jstrodel Wrote: Why do you think degree one is correct but not degree two? You have so far explained why you like degree one, but not degree two. How do you know degree one is correct but not degree two?

But you don't think degree two is correct either...

Okay, so you play the god card. Then I say "but if that;s true, we could figure out the correct morals on our own without god telling us".

Uh...empathy? Compassion? (with exceptions for justice)

That doesn't explain how condition one is ok, but condition two is not. What makes that the case? How does empathy establish objective morality for all people in all circumstances and provide an interpretative framework that is able to give people the ability to make absolute moral judgements that are universal, in all cultures?

If you can't prove that, you can't prove that you don't fall into condition two, which entails you are not only a moral relativist, but a nihilist, whatever you may call yourself.


Do you demand the same level of rigor from atheist ethics that you do from Christianity?

(March 28, 2013 at 1:14 am)jstrodel Wrote: That doesn't explain how condition one is ok, but condition two is not.

Well, condition one is "okay" in the fact that it is simply true. People do disagree. This doesn't say anything about who is right or wrong (or if being either is possible).

(March 28, 2013 at 1:14 am)jstrodel Wrote: What makes that the case? How does empathy establish objective morality for all people in all circumstances and provide an interpretative framework that is able to give people the ability to make absolute moral judgements that are universal, in all cultures?

It doesn't. Empathy is, in part, one of the things that contributes to the general feeling of inherent goodness from moral actions, and inherent wrongness from immoral ones. Many morals can be figured out simply from the "conscience", though more formal arguments could be made for them. However, visceral responses are not always right, and in that case using reason could also help in developing morals.

On the most basic level, if an action does not hurt anyone or infringe upon their rights, it is most likely not immoral. If an action does hurt others (and I mean physically or emotionally or even monetarily) without their consent (assuming they aren't masochistic) then you would need to determine if the possible benefit would be worth the action. (Take a "kill one to save one thousand" scenario, for example).

Empathy in and of itself isn't a justification, per se, but more of a tool to help understand the justification that, yes, other people are people to, just like you, and they can suffer just like you can. And just like you wouldn't want to suffer unnecessary, so don't they (except masochists). And if everyone is nice to everyone else, it would just make life so much easier. Empathy is a sort of tool by which the golden rule can function (without empathy, the golden rule would seem strange).

(March 28, 2013 at 1:14 am)jstrodel Wrote: If you can't prove that, you can't prove that you don't fall into condition two, which entails you are not only a moral relativist, but a nihilist, whatever you may call yourself.


Do you demand the same level of rigor from atheist ethics that you do from Christianity?

Yes, exactly the same. It is simply that I have never seen Christian ethics be argued for in any way other than "god said it, so it must be true".

Quote:It doesn't. Empathy is, in part, one of the things that contributes to the general feeling of inherent goodness from moral actions, and inherent wrongness from immoral ones. Many morals can be figured out simply from the "conscience", though more formal arguments could be made for them. However, visceral responses are not always right, and in that case using reason could also help in developing morals.

This is proof that you have no idea how to justify objective moral claims. Why should the conscience provide evidence for objective morality? Christian ethics is not all based on the divine command theory, which is not really a bad theory considering that God made everything and gave it its nature. There are many different approaches to Christian ethics.

How does this yield objective morality? You are going back and forth from one to the other. None of this even remotely supports your claim.

You are a faith-based advocate of atheist ethics. Nothing you have saidd, from your perspective from things you can clearly see is on a higher evidential level, it is completly based on unproven assumptions. Actually, from a Christian standpoint it is on a much lower evidential level. You can enjoy the peace and freedom that comes with recognizing the origin of the golden rule and empathy in God's intentional design of people, or you can ascribe absolute meaning and authority to one tiny mechanism in the vast biochemical machine of Darwinism, which leaves no reason to prefer the biological features of empathy over, for instance, the drive to eat, as a basic unit of moral organization.

Morals are an obvious result of a thinking mind being able to reflect on its surroundings.

As long as we've had the ability to think, the choices we make have been aimed at that which is most beneficial to us (good things). In order to discern that which is beneficial from that which is not, the inevitable opposite becomes inherently necessary (bad things).

In order to recognize UP, there must be a DOWN. But up and down are relative to a medium. Correct? If there is no resting normal state, then the idea of up and down becomes abstract and an irrelevant concept.

It sounds as though we are to define what morals are relative TO in order to establish that they are relative at all. Is that what you are asking Strodel?

Are morals only relevant if they are imposed by a God? If one day when the universe collapses and all life as we know it is gone, are you asking me why it would really matter whether or not I killed my sister if there wasn't an eternal and ultimate source of morality through which all acts are given their moral value? I'm really asking you this question because I would truly like to offer my justification for an alternative. But it would not do me any good without clarifying exactly what you are proposing. So in the interest of avoiding misinterpretations and insulting presuppositions of your claim, please outline very clearly what you are challenging me to dispute. I think you are saying that morals are absolute and so therefore God exists. I reject that morals are absolute, so instead of using absolute morality,which in its own is a hypothesis, to prove God (another hypothesis). Let us address them one at a time, and possibly backwards. Tell me how absolute morality exists and if we can establish that, we will move on to your next theory pertaining to it proving a God.

I would very much like to have this conversation.

(March 24, 2013 at 1:29 pm)jstrodel Wrote: It is not on the same level of the tooth fairy. I am not using hyperbole when I say that someone who considers Christianity and the tooth fairy to be on the same evidential status to be a liar.

I consider christianity and the tooth fairy to have the same evidential status.
I honestly do, they are both myths that are believed earnestly by large swathes of people on insufficient, incrrect and hearsay evidence. my youngest son has just learnt that there is no toothfairy.
He worked it out through reason.
Why would a tooth fairy want teeth?
Where would it get all the money?
Why, when he didn't tell us a tooth had fallen out, did he get left with the tooth and no money?
How does the tooth fairy know of teeth coming out?
In the end the evidence swayed him.

But this does not seem to happen with theists, when confronted with the lack of evidence for their god they manage to wriggle it in somewhere.

The tooth fairy, santa, jack frost all have equal standing with yahweh to me.

People who believe just haven't grown up sufficiently.

Honestly I am not lying.

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(March 28, 2013 at 1:05 am)jstrodel Wrote: If atheism doesn't entail moral relativism (in a strong form) and moral relativism doesn't entail nihilism, PROVE IT!

Atheism is just the rejection of the idea of god it implies nothing else.

The rejection of a stupid idea is just the rejection of a stupid idea and has no stance other than the rejection of the stupid idea.

You seem to lay lots of different layers onto atheism when all it is is "not Theism"

(March 28, 2013 at 12:03 am)jstrodel Wrote:

(March 26, 2013 at 5:05 pm)Darkstar Wrote: Here's your problem. God =/= morality. I care very much about morals. I don't believe in god. So in your mind I must be lying about one of those two. It is fallacious to claim that people will disregard god's existence because they don't care about morals, and it is fallacious to imply that not caring about morals is a strong factor in the non-belief in god.

Where does this break down?
All atheists are moral relativists
All moral relativists are nihilists
All atheists are nihilists (whether they call themselves nihilists or not it doesnt matter or having any bearing on whether their beliefs imply that or not)

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(March 27, 2013 at 9:33 am)Texas Sailor Wrote: It's a two way exchange and opinions are not welcomed in such an exchange. Its not what you think, its what you can prove.

You have your own methods that you presuppose that determine your conclusions, and you will insist that you win every debate you are in, because you only look at from your own presuppositions. You are brainwashed and your mind is set on a technocratic liberal worldview, and you won't budge. Whatever.

The same could be set of you (if you take out technocratic and insert religious) and I guess I also wouldn't necessarily assume that you couldn't be a liberal in some sense, but i'm not sure I would grant your committment to an unfalsifiable hypothesis the title of a world view. It's more accurately a World-Not-Seen-View. You make arguments constructed from opinions and personal experience to individuals in a default position that require evidence and facts to be swayed. Then you criticize their method of discerning truth because you were unable to convince them.

Our dilemma is very simply this-

Me:1 is 1 unless you show me another, then I would believe its 2...etc.

You: 1 is circle square! because I think it's true and you cannot prove to me that it's not. I can't show you. You have to commit your life to believing it. The terms you use to describe "circle" and "square" limit your ability to comprehend that which I and many others know to be true.

Me: I have no interest in proving to you that it's not. The lack of evidence of such a thing is enough for me to feel confident that such a thing cannot be true otherwise. That's dumb and doesn't make sense. Why in the world would I attempt to show you such an absurd thing is not true if you cannot see it for yourself?

You: You haven't proven that what i've said is false so, its probable.

Me: No, you have to provide evidence to make something probable. Its possible at best, and I'm not interested in entertaining that which is only possible due to my inability to prove it false. What the hell are you talking about anymore?

You: It's really important and if you don't believe me, you're going to suffer.

Me:



You need to find your way out of that cave. What you're looking at is just shadows.

(March 28, 2013 at 2:39 am)jstrodel Wrote: This is proof that you have no idea how to justify objective moral claims. Why should the conscience provide evidence for objective morality?

They're built in morals. Why wouldn't it provide some evidence? Though, as I said, it can't always do this on its own.

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Christian ethics is not all based on the divine command theory, which is not really a bad theory considering that God made everything and gave it its nature.

He gave humans a sinful nature. Nice.

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: There are many different approaches to Christian ethics.

This is news to me.

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: How does this yield objective morality? You are going back and forth from one to the other. None of this even remotely supports your claim.

You are a faith-based advocate of atheist ethics. Nothing you have saidd, from your perspective from things you can clearly see is on a higher evidential level, it is completly based on unproven assumptions.

Like god? Like god being good?

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Actually, from a Christian standpoint it is on a much lower evidential level.

Well, when you have the god card, you always win. But...you haven't justified either of the assumptions I mentioned above.

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You can enjoy the peace and freedom that comes with recognizing the origin of the golden rule and empathy in God's intentional design of people

Or evolution. Is this seriously all we disagree on?

(March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm)jstrodel Wrote: , or you can ascribe absolute meaning and authority to one tiny mechanism in the vast biochemical machine of Darwinism, which leaves no reason to prefer the biological features of empathy over, for instance, the drive to eat, as a basic unit of moral organization.

Well, letting someone starve to death would typically be immoral, but the eating in and of itself isn't moral. That is because eating has nothing to do with morals, whereas a natural tendency toward empathy does.