(July 4, 2013 at 2:43 pm)Inigo Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 1:52 pm)max-greece Wrote: Frankly having seen your arguments they carry so much that smacks of religion I have huge doubts you were ever atheist. You are far to ready to allocate good things to God and only evil to man.

The idea that people only behave morally through threat of punishment from God is a nauseating one that permeates Christianity.

No, I was an atheist and no longer qualify. I am someone who follows reason wherever it leads, even if I don't like it and even if it means I can no longer be in the club. I suggest that you entertain these fantasies about me so that you do not have to take seriously my arguments. That, of course, is to engage in the ad hominem fallacy. I am not a Christian and never was, but it wouldn't matter anyway, the validity of my conclusions is unaffected.

You then, once again, attribute to me a view that I have never defended. I have never argued that one needs to believe in god or divine punishments in order to be motivated to behave morally.

You do not refute my arguments by attributing to me an entirely different and implausible view and then attacking that view.

You have clearly stated the afterlife would be required for enforcement of morality.

Further, not more than 10 posts ago you invited me to:

"Engage in the following thought experiment. Imagine there exists an afterlife. When you die that's where you're going for the rest of eternity. No escape. In that afterlife there is a god. She has control over your interests. You want a cake, she can get you a cake. She has control over what you want as well. If the only cakes in the afterlife are fruitcakes, she can make sure the sort of cake you want most, is a fruitcake. Anyway, she has that sort of control. So, your welfare long term is in her hands. Imagine she's vengeful such that if you do not do as she instructs she'll harm your interests (make you want chocolate cake when you have to spend eternity in a place where there is only fruitcake, for instance). Imagine that your moral sense really is a sense of what she wants you to do here, in this realm. Do you have reason to do what she wants?"

That's heaven, hell, punishment - the whole 9 yards - but you never said it - right?

Liar, Liar, pants on fire!

(July 4, 2013 at 3:03 pm)max-greece Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 2:32 pm)Inigo Wrote: All talk and no trouser. Generate one. Generate a contradiction. Let's see what you got.

I did - you ignored it.

You didn't. I didn't. Just present it.

"If you say 'morals improved' you assume an independent moral standard - a moral standard that is independent of one's society and against which one's societies' norms are assessed. In other words, we morally assess our - and past - societies' beliefs and actions.
There is, for instance, nothing remotely incoherent in wondering whether what your society approves of is really right. On your view that thought would be incoherent. It ins't. Your view is false.
Now, that's a headshot. Your view is false. I just shot it dead. I can shoot it through the head some more, if you like. But kindly recognise that it has just been shot dead and stop bringing it to the party."

This is entirely wrong. You haven't shot anything dead I am afraid. You may have fired but you missed by a country mile.

We can assess the morality of any individual, group, country or party throughout history in comparison to a number of factors which might include our own current morality, the morality of others at the time, the morality of that same individual, group, country or party at other periods of time and so on and so forth.

There is nothing incoherent in wondering if what our society approves of is really right for anyone - using entirely relative morality. I have little doubt that future generations will hold radically different moral positions on a whole host of issues and that our morality will be deemed inadequate in comparison.

No problem with this position. Mere statements on your part will not change that.

(July 4, 2013 at 3:07 pm)max-greece Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 2:43 pm)Inigo Wrote: No, I was an atheist and no longer qualify. I am someone who follows reason wherever it leads, even if I don't like it and even if it means I can no longer be in the club. I suggest that you entertain these fantasies about me so that you do not have to take seriously my arguments. That, of course, is to engage in the ad hominem fallacy. I am not a Christian and never was, but it wouldn't matter anyway, the validity of my conclusions is unaffected.

You then, once again, attribute to me a view that I have never defended. I have never argued that one needs to believe in god or divine punishments in order to be motivated to behave morally.

You do not refute my arguments by attributing to me an entirely different and implausible view and then attacking that view.

You have clearly stated the afterlife would be required for enforcement of morality.

Further, not more than 10 posts ago you invited me to:

"Engage in the following thought experiment. Imagine there exists an afterlife. When you die that's where you're going for the rest of eternity. No escape. In that afterlife there is a god. She has control over your interests. You want a cake, she can get you a cake. She has control over what you want as well. If the only cakes in the afterlife are fruitcakes, she can make sure the sort of cake you want most, is a fruitcake. Anyway, she has that sort of control. So, your welfare long term is in her hands. Imagine she's vengeful such that if you do not do as she instructs she'll harm your interests (make you want chocolate cake when you have to spend eternity in a place where there is only fruitcake, for instance). Imagine that your moral sense really is a sense of what she wants you to do here, in this realm. Do you have reason to do what she wants?"

That's heaven, hell, punishment - the whole 9 yards - but you never said it - right?

Liar, Liar, pants on fire!

You seem incapable of properly reading what someone says. I asked you if you have REASON to do as she wants. That is not the ssame as asking you if you are MOTIVATED to do as she wants.

I have REASON to eat less fat. That does not mean I am MOTIVATED to do so.

Crikey. Now, answer the question re the thought experiment or bugger off.

(July 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm)Inigo Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 3:03 pm)max-greece Wrote: I did - you ignored it.

You didn't. I didn't. Just present it.

"If God's morality (enforcement if you prefer) can change with time then you lose all ability to judge another's morality. If it can change with time it can change with each and every individual all the time. The man that goes out and murders prostitutes can argue that is what his morality told him to do - and you can't prove he didn't get that from God."

---

(July 4, 2013 at 3:18 pm)Inigo Wrote: You seem incapable of properly reading what someone says. I asked you if you have REASON to do as she wants. That is not the ssame as asking you if you are MOTIVATED to do as she wants.

I have REASON to eat less fat. That does not mean I am MOTIVATED to do so.

Crikey. Now, answer the question re the thought experiment or bugger off.

Moving the goalposts I see. You have argued for an afterlife as a consequence of your morality:

" First, what I am arguing is that there would need to be an afterlife for moral instructions to exist. That's a conditional. "

Which is the point I was addressing.

Your thought experiment is of no relevance.

(July 4, 2013 at 3:20 pm)max-greece Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm)Inigo Wrote: You didn't. I didn't. Just present it.

"If God's morality (enforcement if you prefer) can change with time then you lose all ability to judge another's morality. If it can change with time it can change with each and every individual all the time. The man that goes out and murders prostitutes can argue that is what his morality told him to do - and you can't prove he didn't get that from God."

---

(July 4, 2013 at 3:18 pm)Inigo Wrote: You seem incapable of properly reading what someone says. I asked you if you have REASON to do as she wants. That is not the ssame as asking you if you are MOTIVATED to do as she wants.

I have REASON to eat less fat. That does not mean I am MOTIVATED to do so.

Crikey. Now, answer the question re the thought experiment or bugger off.

Moving the goalposts I see. You have argued for an afterlife as a consequence of your morality:

" First, what I am arguing is that there would need to be an afterlife for moral instructions to exist. That's a conditional. "

Which is the point I was addressing.

Your thought experiment is of no relevance.

Having a reason to do something is not the same as being motivated to do it. You don't bother addressing my actual position. My position is NOT that a god is needed in order for us to be motivated to behave morally. You would like that to be my position. You seem congenitally incapable of accepting that it isn't. But it is not my position.

Now, as you are not interested in giving an answer to the thought experiment I have to conclude that you are not in the least interested in the viability of my actual position and thus not in the least interested in what morality may actually be.
Have a nice day.

(July 4, 2013 at 12:39 pm)Inigo Wrote: No, that's false. If morality presupposes a god then our moral sense data is defeasible evidence for the god morality presupposes.

IF morality presupposes god - which it doesn't and IF our moral sense data was evidence of such morality - which you say it isn't.

(July 4, 2013 at 12:39 pm)Inigo Wrote: At some level most of you realise this which is why you're keen to show the compatibility of morality and atheism.

No, the reason we are so keen is because we've realized that god is irrelevant to morality and we wish to enlighten others.

(July 4, 2013 at 3:07 pm)pocaracas Wrote: 22 pages later, and nothing new.... typical theist...
I have to commend you on trying to answer everyone.

I still think you're wrong on your notion on "moral belief" vs "morality", but it seems no amount of typing will make you understand it...
Let me try to keep it real simple and short:
- Morality comes both from the evolution of our species as a societal one, and from agreed upon principles within each group.

You say that I am wrong to distinguish between moral beliefs and morality itself (the object of the belief). Can you explain?

Beliefs have objects - things they are about. So there is always a belief, and then what the belief is about. If you accept that there are moral beliefs, what are they about if not morality? They're not beliefs about cheese. They're beliefs about morality. hence 'moral' beliefs. I don't know what you mean by a moral belief unless you mean a belief about morality. That's how I use the term.

So, my belief that Xing is wrong is a moral belief for wrongness is a moral feature and I believe Xing to have it.
The wrongness is not the belief. That's incoherent. For then what is the belief 'about'? itself? How can a belief be about itself?

YOu then proceed to do what everyone else does - you provide a causal story about the development of our moral beliefs. Yes, assume I accept it. That is not a story about how morality has come into being. It is just a story about how we have come to 'believe' that morality exists.

(July 4, 2013 at 12:47 pm)Inigo Wrote: Once again, I 'conclude' that it is. Just telling me what I conclude - even if you do it in a certain tone and really dislike it - does not amount to any kind of challenge to my view or justify rejecting it. Morality is an agent, a kind of god, and I have explained why it must be. What you are doing is mistaking your dislike for this conclusion with a fault in my argument.

As I've pointed out - your conclusions is wrong. Morality is not an agent and that won't be the case no matter how many times you repeat it. Agency is an attribute of a conscious being and morality - being just a concept - does not qualify.

(July 4, 2013 at 3:07 pm)pocaracas Wrote: 22 pages later, and nothing new.... typical theist...

First, I am not a theist as I do not believe in the theistic god (the all powerful, all knowing, perfectly good one). These arguments suggest morality requires the existence of a god, but not that one. (It is logically possible that morality requires the theistic god, but I think the evidence is against it).

Second, I am unclear by what 'nothing new' means or its relevance. If you mean that after 22 pages nobody has said anything to show my original arguments to be faulty, then you are correct. But this is surprising and interesting, is it not? The problem is you atheists get an easy time most of the time - for most of the time your opponents are idiots defending idiotic positions using idiotic arguments. This gives you false confidence in the credibility of your view. But in fact there are very good arguments against it. You won't hear them very often, but they exist. Most of the time all you'll hear are very incompetent versions of those arguments. So, you'll hear terrible versions of the moral argument for god. You won't hear good versions. And then you think 'ah, well the moral argument for god is rubbish'. And yes, there are lots and lots of rubbish moral arguments for god. For there are lots of idiots out there trying to defend religious worldviews, hobbled both by their own idiocy and by their religious commitments into making poor arguments.

But I haven't done that. What I've done is present what seems to me to be a good version of the moral argument. Or at least, a version that standard objections fail to touch.

Obviously that's a pain in the arse if you're heavily invested in atheism being true. Oh well. Deal.

---

(July 4, 2013 at 3:44 pm)genkaus Wrote:

(July 4, 2013 at 12:47 pm)Inigo Wrote: Once again, I 'conclude' that it is. Just telling me what I conclude - even if you do it in a certain tone and really dislike it - does not amount to any kind of challenge to my view or justify rejecting it. Morality is an agent, a kind of god, and I have explained why it must be. What you are doing is mistaking your dislike for this conclusion with a fault in my argument.

As I've pointed out - your conclusions is wrong. Morality is not an agent and that won't be the case no matter how many times you repeat it. Agency is an attribute of a conscious being and morality - being just a concept - does not qualify.

All you have to do is challenge one of my premises. 'Challenge' doesn't mean 'deny'. It means presenting some evidence that one of my premises is false.

Saying 'morality is a concept' is either banal or confused. it is banal if you mean that we have a concept of morality. I know. OUr concept of morality tells us what it would take for morality to exist, just as our concept of a unicorn tells us what it would take for a unicorn to exist, etc. If you do not mean this - if you mean morality just is a concept rather than something we have a conception of, then what you're saying is nonsensical.

anyway, challenge a premise. if your challenge holds up you earn the right to deny my conclusion. Otherwise you don't.