Why science and religious fatih need not be in conflict: It's as easy as 1-2-3!

[Harry Nevis]

The revulsion people feel towards the holocaust is evidence that there are moral opinions, not that there are moral facts.  This is weak, Chad.  The feelings are evidence that people have feelings.  Nothing more.  Perhaps you'd like to explain how you torture moral facts out of this?

You seem to have a penchant for ignoring intentionality. Feelings are not just feelings - they are feelings about something. Feeling don't just arise for no reason in response to nothing.

You're wrong.  They can and do.

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Just want to say how much I'm enjoying everyone's input here.  Definitely Neo too.  We certainly wouldn't be having this conversation without you.  Not your fault those bastards got you hooked on god crack.  

So you reckon that to get addicted to God is bad?  
What about if He really exist and the sky is no longer the limit?  

I guess you never thought about that Whatever, did you?  

(color mine)

You're a babbling idiot.

I guess you never thought.

[Whateverist]

I'm not against an objective component to morality, but a moral system is ultimately grounded on axioms, and if we disagree on the axioms, we may not agree on the morality. If we accept as an axiom that human lives are valuable...

Of course that depends on whether axioms are actually true or convenient fictions - or to put it another way, can we trust reason. Should everyone accept that other people’s lives are equally valuable as their own? I don’t think that can be rationally justified based on observations from nature (and you have already dismissed conscience as a guide). The book of nature suggests that when resources are scarce the survival of the group will be increased by abandoning its weak and unproductive members.

Facts or convenient fictions, as I read the part bolded. But why choose? I think values possess a factual status in relation to the person to whom they belong. One is forced to concede what matters to them when they try but fail to act against them, or succeed and feel dreadful about it. Why because what matters to them are, from their perspective, facts. Such facts may be mutable with difficulty or over time, but they aren't the kind of fiction one chooses arbitrarily. Perhaps they could have been otherwise given a different upbringing and different life experiences, but at any given moment they are facts with which the person must contend. In deed, they are a large part of what animates ones every effort.

Can we trust reason? We can trust reason to pursue truths relevant to our values. Truth as such is only correspondence between words and the state of the world. It far exceeds our capacity and our need. Selection is necessary. Values direct that selection. Reason, if reason does anything at all, is always motivated.

[Amarok]

Of course that depends on whether axioms are actually true or convenient fictions - or to put it another way, can we trust reason. Should everyone accept that other people’s lives are equally valuable as their own? I don’t think that can be rationally justified based on observations from nature (and you have already dismissed conscience as a guide). The book of nature suggests that when resources are scarce the survival of the group will be increased by abandoning its weak and unproductive members.

Facts or convenient fictions, as I read the part bolded.  But why choose?  I think values possess a factual status in relation to the person to whom they belong.  One is forced to concede what matters to them when they try but fail to act against them, or succeed and feel dreadful about it.  Why because what matters to them are, from their perspective, facts.  Such facts may be mutable with difficulty or over time, but they aren't the kind of fiction one chooses arbitrarily.  Perhaps they could have been otherwise given a different upbringing and different life experiences, but at any given moment they are facts with which the person must contend.  In deed, they are a large part of what animates ones every effort.

Can we trust reason?  We can trust reason to pursue truths relevant to our values.  Truth as such is only correspondence between words and the state of the world.  It far exceeds our capacity and our need.  Selection is necessary.  Values direct that selection.  Reason, if reason does anything at all, is always motivated.

Beautiful

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The book of nature suggests that when resources are scarce the survival of the group will be increased by abandoning its weak and unproductive members

1. Countless human cultures have done just that

2. Naturalist fallacy

3. Define productive

4. Define weak

5. There is no book of nature

6. The drive to tend to the sick and weak has benefited the group through medical science far more then abandoning them

7. Even if this feels bad that doesn't prove it's wrong

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Facts or convenient fictions, as I read the part bolded.  But why choose?  I think values possess a factual status in relation to the person to whom they belong.  One is forced to concede what matters to them when they try but fail to act against them, or succeed and feel dreadful about it.  Why because what matters to them are, from their perspective, facts.  Such facts may be mutable with difficulty or over time, but they aren't the kind of fiction one chooses arbitrarily.  Perhaps they could have been otherwise given a different upbringing and different life experiences, but at any given moment they are facts with which the person must contend.  In deed, they are a large part of what animates ones every effort.

Can we trust reason?  We can trust reason to pursue truths relevant to our values.  Truth as such is only correspondence between words and the state of the world.  It far exceeds our capacity and our need.  Selection is necessary.  Values direct that selection.  Reason, if reason does anything at all, is always motivated.

Beautiful

---

The book of nature suggests that when resources are scarce the survival of the group will be increased by abandoning its weak and unproductive members

1. Countless human cultures have done just that

2. Naturalist fallacy

3. Define productive

4. Define weak

5. There is no book of nature

6. The drive to tend to the sick and weak has benefited the group through medical science far more then abandoning them

7. Even if this feels bad that doesn't prove it's wrong

Neo seems obsessed with trying to say without magic fairy dust we get Social Darwinism

[Fake Messiah]

I must give you credit for managing to fit 3 logical fallacies in less than a paragraph. First, you try to invalidate my replies with an ad hominen.

Yeah these words don't contain much weight coming from a guy that thinks Swedenborg was clairvoyant. You should probably look at your own "ad hominen", because, for starters, it's written ad hominem. It doesn't always mean that if something is ad hominem attack that it is wrong, especially when person in question thinks Swedenborg was right and Charles Darwin was wrong.

[Mister Agenda]

Of course that depends on whether axioms are actually true or convenient fictions - or to put it another way, can we trust reason. Should everyone accept that other people’s lives are equally valuable as their own? I don’t think that can be rationally justified based on observations from nature (and you have already dismissed conscience as a guide). The book of nature suggests that when resources are scarce the survival of the group will be increased by abandoning its weak and unproductive members.

It's the nature of axioms that they are unprovable but accepted because they are self-evident or highly useful.

The 'book of nature' is not a source of moral prescription.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The 'book of nature' is not a source of moral prescription.

Of course, that was my point.

[Angrboda]

Your appeal to emotion with the "wouldn't understand [it] anyway" remark is noted and ignored.  You're simply begging off on providing an explanation because you, yourself, are incapable of providing an explanation...

You misunderstood my intention. I’m saying that moral realism is a properly basic belief. It only loses its warrant if there is a valid objection or defeater. A properly functioning conscience operating in an environment amenable to its use prompts us with what appear to be real moral imperatives. It is no different than a properly functioning memory allows someone to recall past events. It’s not perfect; people forget. Or they’re too tired to think. And sometimes people disagree. But it is silly to conclude based on its limitations that there are no facts about the past. Everyone assumes their memories are true until shown otherwise. It is the same with moral imperatives.

I don't accept that reformed epistemology is a valid epistemology, it's nothing but half-baked objections to classical foundationalism with no positive program of its own (aside from sneaking God in through the rear entrance). So you can take your idea that moral realism, as an intuition, is without need of any warrant or rational defense and shove it. Where do we go now with our disagreement? The court of reformed epistemologists? You really have no clue. You just like using the framework like a parking garage for ideas that you want to keep safe from scrutiny. Well bollocks. It's just an overt admission that you can't defend your moral realism against even modest skepticism. For someone who routinely whines about naturalists declaring things as brute facts, you seem remarkably inclined to resort to similar objections when the spirit moves you. Like it or not, there is plenty of rational debate as to whether moral realism is an adequate description of reality and 'defeaters' abound. That you think an incomplete epistemological framework is the ticket to providing security for your idea that "feelings" are evidence only underscores how irrational your original complaint was. Belief that our memory is infallible is shown to be irrational in study after study. And God, too, isn't immune to rational skepticism. That I don't believe in your God or your moral realism doesn't show that my brain is simply not working correctly. That you've come from border disputes in epistemology to what is little more than ad hominem is a fascinating journey, but not an admirable one. I don't accept your conclusion both because your epistemological ideas are bollocks and because we have sound reason to doubt the reality of moral facts. These objections come from ontology, naturalism, physicalism, and the multiplicity of moral intuitions. If you're done begging off on objections with the complaint that they're "mere assertions" then I suggest you get to work, either completing the failed program of reformed epistemology or defeating the defeaters.

[The Valkyrie]

Just want to say how much I'm enjoying everyone's input here.  Definitely Neo too.  We certainly wouldn't be having this conversation without you.  Not your fault those bastards got you hooked on god crack.  

So you reckon that to get addicted to God is bad?  
What about if He really exist and the sky is no longer the limit?  

I guess you never thought about that Whatever, did you?  

(color mine)

[Amarok]

And neo has of course attacked a simplistic version of naturalistic met ethics. And cherry pick his conclusion to try and sneak supernatural implications into morality . In his mindset either nature has a holy book or moral values can't exist . Typical religious projection .

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Yup reformed epistemology is essentially an attempt at escaping having to give real reasons for your beliefs so you can assert anything and shift the burden of skeptics . It truly desperation made manifest .

[Amarok]

As for the idea that people who don't agree with Neo on morality must be deranged that's just stupid . The Nazi's were not just a bunch outliner sociopaths in every other regard they were no different then anyone else . And there act of the holocaust was no different  to them then giving blood or doing charity.

As Mr Ferencz the last Nuremberg persecutor put it

"He said the Nazi soldiers who committed atrocities were not “savages” but “intelligent, patriotic human being[s]”, and that war can make any normal person do horrifying things"