How to easily defeat any argument for God

[LadyForCamus]

Because torturing babies will earn you a hard spanking, Valk. Didn’t you know that?! 😉

Once while babysitting my nieces and nephew, As they were acting up a bit, I turned the TV to the weather channel and made them watch the weekly forecast for the next 30 minutes.

Am I histories greatest monster?

Bend over.

[GrandizerII]

Math is itself considered an objective field of study. Yet what is mathematics really other than a collection of models of reality. Even 2 + 2 = 4 is a model of what we see in nature. There's no 2s or 4s in nature in any concrete sense, but we see various objects, some identical to one another, and we perceive separation between these objects. And we came up with models to simulate what we see; we have decided that after 1 comes 2, and 2 after 2 comes 4, hence things such as 2 + 2 = 4.

If I have apples at home, and you ask me how many apples i have, and I indicated that I have 2. 2 here indicates how many apples i physically possess. You can come and see that I literally have 2 apples.

You have 2 apples. What you don't have is the "2". There's no "2" existing in a way that you physically grasp it. The only 2 that is real is that which is used to describe the quantity of the apples.

Similarly, for "good". There's no "good" in the sense that there is a physical referent. There's "good acts" and "bad acts" but not "good".

Then you really don't seem to grasp what is being said. Descriptors exist as descriptors, they exist abstractly as part of reality, but they don't exist independently of physical objects within reality. They exist, and their existencei s contingent on the physical and on the apprehending mind. But to exist abstractly means there's no location for them in the way there's location for concrete things. So when you ask where is the good located, you might as well ask what is the color of rancid?

I don't think you're grasping. So let's use another analogy.

Let say I find you ugly, not only do I find you ugly, but I claim you're objectively ugly.

Now you ask, "I understand that you find me ugly, but how am I objectively ugly."?

So, then I start listing your physical features, your height, your weight, eye color, the structure of your face, etc...

All of this might indicate why I find you ugly, but it does not establish the "objectiveness" of ugly, even though it's listing a variety of objective facts about your appearance.

You're not only claiming that x is (morally) bad, but that x is objectively bad. When I ask what makes it "objectively" bad, i get a list of physical descriptions of x, like physical descriptions of you.

The answers being provided doesn't establish that "bad" is objective", anymore so than my answers regarding your ugliness, establish "ugly" as objective. Do you get this?

If you have a list of such criteria by which one can determine whether one is ugly or not, and you're measuring ugliness by reference to those criteria, then that would be an objective measure of ugliness. In what way is that not objective? Since when do physical facts not indicate objectiveness?

[Acrobat]

Yes, I agree. Maybe some of the trouble comes from inaccuracy of language. We say "good" to mean both "I like this" and "this is a benefit for the world."  But if something is a benefit for the world, then there must be an objective reality to it. It really does good in the world, regardless of my personal taste. We may disagree over exactly how much good it does, but this is still not a matter of taste. 

But the good is not in the benefit for the world. We can reduce the benefits of the world to a series of statements of facts, but that thing we recognize as objective good, is not contained within them.

What we are seeing, when we acknowledge the objectiveness of good, the reality of good, is something supernatural, something immaterial, something like Plato's form of the Good. Now of course many people here who do believe that good and bad are objective truths, would disagree, and try to place the objectiveness of good, within some material statements of facts, but they're just hiding the elephant in the room.

Let's quote a bit more Wittgenstein again:

"Now what I wish to contend is that, although all judgments of relative value can be shown to be mere statements of facts, no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value.

Let me explain this: Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment.

It would of course contain all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions that can be made.

But all the facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in the same way all propositions stand on the same level.

There are no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime, important, or trivial.

Now perhaps some of you will agree to that and be reminded of Hamlet's words: "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." But this again could lead to a misunderstanding. What Hamlet says seems to imply that good and bad, though not qualities of the world outside us, are attributed to our state of mind. But what I mean is that state of mind, so far as we mean by that a fact which can describe, is no ethical sense good or bad. If for instance in our world book, we read the description of a murder with all its details physical and psychological, the mere description of these facts will contain nothing which we could call an ethical proposition. The murder will be on exactly the same level as any other event, for instance the falling of a stone. Certainly the reading of this description might cause us pain or rage or any other emotion, or we might read about the pain or rage caused by this murder in other people when they heard of it, but there will simply be facts, facts, and facts but no Ethics.

And now I must say that if I were to contemplate what Ethics really would have to be if there were such a science, this result seems to me quite obvious. It seems to be obvious that nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing. That we cannot write a scientific book, the subject matter of which could be intrinsically sublime and above all other subject matters. I can only describe my feeling by the metaphor, that, if a man could write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all other books in the world.

Our words used as we use them in science, are vessels capable only of containing and converting meaning and sense, natural meaning and sense. Ethics, if it anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts ; as a teacup will only hold a teacup full of water and if I were to pour out a gallon over it. "

[Nay_Sayer]

Who ordered the word salad?

[Acrobat]

You have 2 apples. What you don't have is the "2". There's no "2" existing in a way that you physically grasp it. The only 2 that is real is that which is used to describe the quantity of the apples.

Similarly, for "good". There's no "good" in the sense that there is a physical referent. There's "good acts" and "bad acts" but not "good".

I have two apples. The two is referent to the physical amount of apples that I posses.

Now when I use good in a subjective sense, such as when I speak of the how good my dinner taste. The referent of good here is my state of mind, my taste, my likes.

Since we acknowledge that moral good, unlike subjective goods is objective, the referent of good is not a state of mind, but something outside of it.

If you have a list of such criteria by which one can determine whether one is ugly or not, and you're measuring ugliness by reference to those criteria, then that would be an objective measure of ugliness. In what way is that not objective? Since when do physical facts not indicate objectiveness?

Because having objective measures for our subjective preferences, doesn't transform them into objective truth. They don't transform a subjective state of mind, to features of an external objective reality, outside our head.

Ugliness isn't reducible to physical facts about you. Your wife could acknowledge all the same physical facts about you, but see you as beautiful. If it were an objective truth, that you are objectively ugly, than your wife who disagrees would be wrong, like someone claiming that 1+1 = 4, or the earth is flat.

[GrandizerII]

Yes, I agree. Maybe some of the trouble comes from inaccuracy of language. We say "good" to mean both "I like this" and "this is a benefit for the world."  But if something is a benefit for the world, then there must be an objective reality to it. It really does good in the world, regardless of my personal taste. We may disagree over exactly how much good it does, but this is still not a matter of taste. 

But the good is not in the benefit for the world. We can reduce the benefits of the world to a series of statements of facts, but that thing we recognize as objective good, is not contained within them.

What we are seeing, when we acknowledge the objectiveness of good, the reality of good, is something supernatural, something immaterial, something like Plato's form of the Good. Now of course many people here who do believe that good and bad are objective truths, would disagree, and try to place the objectiveness of good, within some material statements of facts, but they're just hiding the elephant in the room.

Let's quote a bit more Wittgenstein again:

"Now what I wish to contend is that, although all judgments of relative value can be shown to be mere statements of facts, no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value.

Let me explain this: Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment.

It would of course contain all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions that can be made.

But all the facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in the same way all propositions stand on the same level.

There are no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime, important, or trivial.

Now perhaps some of you will agree to that and be reminded of Hamlet's words: "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." But this again could lead to a misunderstanding. What Hamlet says seems to imply that good and bad, though not qualities of the world outside us, are attributed to our state of mind. But what I mean is that state of mind, so far as we mean by that a fact which can describe, is no ethical sense good or bad. If for instance in our world book, we read the description of a murder with all its details physical and psychological, the mere description of these facts will contain nothing which we could call an ethical proposition. The murder with be on exactly the same level as any other event, for instance the falling of a stone. Certainly the reading of this description might cause us pain or rage or any other emotion, or we might read about the pain or rage caused by this murder in other people when they heard of it, but there will simply be facts, facts, and facts but no Ethics.

And now I must say that if I were to contemplate what Ethics really would have to be if there were such a science, this result seems to me quite obvious. It seems to be obvious that nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing. That we cannot write a scientific book, the subject matter of which could be intrinsically sublime and above all other subject matters. I can only describe my feeling by the metaphor, that, if a man could write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all other books in the world.

Our words used as we use them in science, are vessels capable only of containing and converting meaning and sense, natural meaning and sense. Ethics, if it anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts ; as a teacup will only hold a teacup full of water and if I were to pour out a gallon over it. "

Murder takes away the life of another human being. The falling of a stone involves, well, merely the movement of a stone from a higher altitude to lower. We can look at these statements and see that there is something about murder that's just wrong (based on what it involves), but we don't see that same thing (or anything of the sort) about the second statement.

---

You have 2 apples. What you don't have is the "2". There's no "2" existing in a way that you physically grasp it. The only 2 that is real is that which is used to describe the quantity of the apples.

Similarly, for "good". There's no "good" in the sense that there is a physical referent. There's "good acts" and "bad acts" but not "good".

I have two apples. The two is referent to the physical amount of apples that I posses.

To the amount, yes. But remember that "two" is something we as a species have conceptualized. It's not something we pinpointed in nature in a concrete physical sense. 2 + 2 = 4, but only by having defined whole numbers and the operation of addition. 2 comes after 1, 3 comes after 2, 4 comes after 3 => 4 comes 2 after 2 => by definition, 2 + 2 = 4

Now when I use good in a subjective sense, such as when I speak of the how good my dinner taste. The referent of good here is my state of mind, my taste, my likes.

Meaningless last statement. Try again.

Since we acknowledge that moral good, unlike subjective goods is objective, the referent of good is not a state of mind, but something outside of it.

Another meaningless statement. One cannot speak of the color of the sky being "salty".

If you have a list of such criteria by which one can determine whether one is ugly or not, and you're measuring ugliness by reference to those criteria, then that would be an objective measure of ugliness. In what way is that not objective? Since when do physical facts not indicate objectiveness?

Because having objective measures for our subjective preferences, doesn't transform them into objective truth. They don't transform  a subjective state of mind, to features of an external objective reality, outside our head.

Ugliness isn't reducible to physical facts about you. Your wife could acknowledge all the same physical facts about you, but see you as beautiful. If it were an objective truth, that you are objectively ugly, than your wife who disagrees would be wrong, like someone claiming that 1+1 = 4, or the earth is flat.

When you go down to the nitty gritty, even mathematics is subjective at the core (by your argument). Of course, we have to select the axioms or criteria or standards by which we can reasonably measure this or model that, but once you have that set it no longer becomes about my subjective state of mind. 2 + 2 = 4 is true regardless of what I think about it.

Whatever "magical objective thing" you're talking about, it's just not there. And remember, when we do the logic, your position doesn't even imply that "magical objective thing" is a thing.

[Acrobat]

Murder takes away the life of another human being. The falling of a stone involves, well, merely the movement of a stone from a higher altitude to lower. We can look at these statements and see that there is something about murder that's just wrong (based on what it involves), but we don't see that same thing (or anything of the sort) about the second statement.

You’re right about one thing, we are seeing “wrong”, we’re not feeling it, thinking it, it’s not reflection of our state of mind, but something we are seeing.

But the wrongness we’re seeing is not in the facts regarding the taking of life here. You’re confusing something in which the light illuminates, with the light itself.

[GrandizerII]

This is important, but too difficult for me. Plato, Plotinus, a lot of the big guys, associated being with the good. Non-being is bad. 

For them, God is both existence itself, and the Good itself. And these are not just a random combination, but the only way it could be. 

Sad to say, I haven't worked out why they say that yet. 

But it means that for Christians, God is essential to morality, to the existence of the Good, because God is essential for the existence of everything, because you can't have anything without existence, which is God. And you can't have good at all without God, who is the good.

I'm working on all this. Reading a tough book about Plotinus right now. It is all fascinating, and more difficult than people make it out to be. 

Well, I've read philosophy books by theist philosophers. I had a hard time with some of their reasoning as well, but only because they were saying stuff that wasn't very convincing. It does not necessarily mean that they have something right, and I'm just not getting it.

Also, going back to the whole "something that is good is just good", doesn't that violate the PSR anyhow? I seem to recall theologians love their PSR. So do I, FTR.

---

Murder takes away the life of another human being. The falling of a stone involves, well, merely the movement of a stone from a higher altitude to lower. We can look at these statements and see that there is something about murder that's just wrong (based on what it involves), but we don't see that same thing (or anything of the sort) about the second statement.

You’re right about one thing, we are seeing “wrong”, we’re not feeling it, thinking it, it’s not reflection of our state of mind, but something we are seeing.

But the wrongness we’re seeing is not in the facts regarding the taking of life here. You’re confusing something in which the light illuminates, with the light itself.

We're still doing the assigning of "right/wrong" (as a species), but we base the judgement on external acts.

Your light analogy, once again, indicates to me that you believe murder is wrong because of the Good. I can't accept that because it implies divine arbitrariness.

[The Grand Nudger]

Its important to point out that the insistence on conflating god-ness and good-ness is causing that issue.

There’s nothing obviously wrong with intuitionist arguments for realism.

[GrandizerII]

Its important to point out that the insistence on conflating god-ness and good-ness is causing that issue.

There’s nothing obviously wrong with intuitionist arguments for realism.

Wouldn't an intuitionist argument for realism be more an epistemological argument rather than to do with ontology?

Making it an ontological one, it seems like this:

Murder is wrong because it is not in line with "good-ness".

I'm not sure how exactly this is different from:

Murder is wrong because it is not in line with "god-ness".

What would I be missing here?