(December 16, 2013 at 5:20 pm)WesOlsen Wrote: And send him here if he doesn't get the picture

Haha! Yeah, Severan! Send your dad here and let us have a go at him!

It will be a while until I see him again, maybe a week, so he won't be able to hear your arguments until then, but I will direct him here.

There are ethical systems which establish objective morality without recourse to a god. See contractarianism and desiring amongst others. I don't claim these are true, but they are to be preferred over a supernatural explanation, just because of parsimony.

Secondly why would morality be objectively true if it came from a god. Surely that makes it gods whim and subjective to that whim. Xtian shave failed to sketch out what it means to say god is intrinsically good, the locus of moral values, so what!

Lastly one could equally construct an argument for good based on other universal truths about human civilisation, even though they are less pleasant. It proves nothing just like the moral argument

1 if objective and universal revulsion of human shit exists, god exists
2 revulsion of human shit exists
3 god exists; conclusion

(December 15, 2013 at 7:11 am)FreeTony Wrote: Morality should work something like this:

I won't murder you, because I don't want you to murder me.
I won't steal from you, because I don't want you to steal from me. etc etc

This is not morality , this is a self created mandatory to keep quiet yourself which is depending selfishness and cowardice .

Morality should work like this ;

I wont murder you , because I dont have a right to end your life , this is unacceptable .
I wont steal from you , because its your right to have it and not belong to me .

^ Coming from the morally correct Nineteen who thinks homosexuality is a choice LOL

(December 20, 2013 at 5:39 pm)Nineteen Wrote: Morality should work like this ;

I wont murder you , because I dont have a right to end your life , this is unacceptable .
I wont steal from you , because its your right to have it and not belong to me .

You basically agreed with the guy as you disagreed with him; our rights are based on the various social contracts we make, which are based on the physical harms we wish to avoid, either personally or in service to a stable society, where we can all live more comfortably.

No doubt you wish to argue for creator-given rights; such a thing must be demonstrated.

I can't see any concrete basis for an objective morality. I can see plenty of reasons why it has come into being which are completely devolved from religion but I see no case for an a priori moral system.

I have a particular moral system which derives from avoiding the infliction of suffering but there is nothing self evident about this beleif.

(December 20, 2013 at 5:39 pm)Nineteen Wrote: Morality should work like this ;

I wont murder you , because I dont have a right to end your life , this is unacceptable .
I wont steal from you , because its your right to have it and not belong to me .

Look, if morality came from a god, it would have to be "injected" into our minds or placed in there by some means undetectable by science. Furthermore the morality would be perfect and consistent due to it's perfect source.

If morality instead were to be a naturally derived innate animal heard mentality that is brought to great complexity by the more developed human brain, we would expect the morals to have similar main goals but vary greatly in the details and also to vary greatly withing the frailties of the mind in which it developed. That means that when there are damaged minds there can also be damaged morals.

Now which do we see in our world of reality?

Okay, he asked why people feel satisfied when they donate to charities, when they get no benefit.

(December 21, 2013 at 1:25 pm)Severan Wrote: Okay, he asked why people feel satisfied when they donate to charities, when they get no benefit.

They do get a benefit, even if not directly. Helping people makes other people feel good, see http://healthland.time.com/2013/10/23/th...y-we-give/

Lots on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Sc...viewpoints

Sounds like an argument from ignorance, "if you can't answer this question that I posed, it must be God doing it". Must better to actually try and find an answer to the question, and if you can't find one with evidence backing it say "I don't know"!