Maximizing Moral Virtue

[Aegon]

No I'm mostly just appealing to what I see, most of the Atheists I've met in person are just kids who were raised in the wrong church who wanted to rebel against their parent's ultra-strict interpretation of how to apply the Bible. The more outspoken ones were more bitter.

I don't know why I'm replying because you don't actually respond to me but:

Sure, that's how a lot of atheists stop believing. I rejected the Catholicism that my parents raised me under. But there's been significant growth since then, my beliefs are no longer just to rebel against my parents? As is the case with most atheists over the age of 18...

 If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness. Anyone can be taken from you, and as anyone who has ever won the lottery can tell you, that age old mantra that, "money can't buy happiness," reigns true.

Yet your notion of value comes from your conception of God, something you quite literally imagine. It does not exist outside of your mind. And once again, you present a false dichotomy - either believe in God or believe in nothing and derive no real value from life. For the second time, I'm telling you it's more nuanced than that.

[h311inac311]

Our creation points to a creator, the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea, and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

Christians make the exclusive truth claim that our world was established by YHWH or the unmoved mover. God is real weather or not your brain imagines him to exist, and there are countless spirits within the world which your imagination also denies so all you are left with is your own cognition.

Our base truth-claims are worlds apart, you are a creation which denies the existence of a creator. You are an intelligent being which denies the existence of an intelligent, or intentionally organized world. Your birth was based on biological rules but my question to you is what is your explanation for as to how those rules were written?

[Mister Agenda]

No I'm mostly just appealing to what I see, most of the Atheists I've met in person are just kids who were raised in the wrong church who wanted to rebel against their parent's ultra-strict interpretation of how to apply the Bible. The more outspoken ones were more bitter. If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness. Anyone can be taken from you, and as anyone who has ever won the lottery can tell you, that age old mantra that, "money can't buy happiness," reigns true.

Most of the atheists you've met in person, you had no idea were atheists.

[Mister Agenda]

Our creation points to a creator, the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea, and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

   Christians make the exclusive truth claim that our world was established by YHWH or the unmoved mover. God is real weather or not your brain imagines him to exist, and there are countless spirits within the world which your imagination also denies so all you are left with is your own cognition.

    Our base truth-claims are worlds apart, you are a creation which denies the existence of a creator. You are an intelligent being which denies the existence of an intelligent, or intentionally organized world. Your birth was based on biological rules but my question to you is what is your explanation for as to how those rules were written?

Prove we were created and you might have a point there. What the vast majority of people have understood is the fallacy known as the argument from popularity. Note that the vast majority of people disagree on the the nature of the Creator(s). They can't all be right, but they CAN all be wrong.

If the Creator you imagine wanted us to accept its existence, it shouldn't have gone to so much effort to leave a trail of natural explanations for everything it supposedly did. Demonstrate that ANY spirit isn't imaginary and you'll have done more to show that supernatural powers are real than anyone in history.

I am an intelligent being who can see that everyting we observe follows naturally from the existence of matter, energy, space, and time and has a huge dollop of chaos that doesn't look at all ike the work of something like us. The rules you refer to are observations about how nature works and aren't analogous to written laws. And if we had no explanation at all, it wouldn't mean yours was correct, that would be the fallacy of argument from ignorance.

[Fake Messiah]

Our creation points to a creator

What you never attended a biology class? Humans came from natural selection.

the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea

They didn't understand it, but just believed it, and there is a big difference. The vast majority of people believe in things that are not true, like throughout the human history majority of people believed that Amber has healing powers, but it doesn't.

and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

If there was one true God then there would be only one religion, but probably not even that because God would be part of science.

God is real weather or not your brain imagines him to exist

Claim without any evidence.

and there are countless spirits within the world 

Like jinns, fairies, gnomes... I am sure you believe in them all.

Anyway, you are going off-topic and meandering into other topics.

[The Grand Nudger]

Our creation points to a creator, the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea, and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

Sure, our parents fucking.  Neither that, nor the fairy world imagined by so many, has any bearing on a hypothetical moral reality, however.  How and by what we were or are made is no more than a biological reality, not a moral reality.

   Christians make the exclusive truth claim that our world was established by YHWH or the unmoved mover. God is real weather or not your brain imagines him to exist, and there are countless spirits within the world which your imagination also denies so all you are left with is your own cognition.

The world could be chock full of things that go bump in the night..but, as above, whether there are one or one billion gods, that has no bearing on a hypothetical moral reality. How many angels dance on the heads of pins would be a supernatural reality, not a moral reality.

    Our base truth-claims are worlds apart, you are a creation which denies the existence of a creator. You are an intelligent being which denies the existence of an intelligent, or intentionally organized world. Your birth was based on biological rules but my question to you is what is your explanation for as to how those rules were written?

Are the rules of nature as expressed in what you believe to be a created world interchangeable with moral rules?  Unless you think that what is natural and/or supernatural is right, you've got a non-starter here.

I get that people who firmly believe in created worlds and intervening spirits think that this somehow effects a moral reality - but..rather than assume this and leave everyone wondering, perhaps you'd care to draw some straight line between them, so that it could matter whether or not those claims are true?

[bennyboy]

Without God, then a sense of goodness must be an instinct-- otherwise we'd have no concept of it at all.

Therefore, moral values are those which lead to circumstances which feel good. 

Doesn't follow with or without a god, but it is nice to get the assist from natural compulsions...when natural compulsions aren't the thing telling you to curstomp the neighbors kid, ofc.  

I feel guilty when I harm others, and good when I help them, so I consider helping people moral, and hurting them immoral.  I feel good when my wife and children are happy and healthy, and bad when they are unhappy or unhealthy-- so things which will lead to their happiness and health are good.

Sounds healthy as shit.  Imagine if you felt bad when your wife and children were happy.  Would that make your wife and child being happy.....bad?  Similarly, if some other parent passed judgement on you for doing some bad thing you were calling good, on account of it making you feel good, is this where the system of classification breaks down?

As an aside, let me remind you that if'n you don't curbstomp the neighbor's kid when he's askin' for it, he ain't never gonna learn nuthin'.  At least YOU care enough about him to do it, unlike his daddy who done run off with the family pickup and that whore Debbie from the next trailer over.

I'm assuming an evolutionary motivational mechanism here-- that instincts tend toward genetic fitness.  A baby's not intrinsically cute, but enough people say "Squeee" when they see a baby that it's relatively hard for baby-spiking hobbyists to get to babies.

This has its problems too, though.  People who don't know how Google works think "Squeee" when they think about an embryo, even though in reality it's really not squee-worthy until about 9 months after conception.

That's why pro-lifers hate pro-choicers.  Nobody wants to imagine a scalpel and a vacuum cleaner when they're halfway through a good "Squee" about an imaginary baby-that-is-not-yet.

[Pat Mustard]

Our creation points to a creator, the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea, and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

You really love the taste of bullshit don't you?

[h4ym4n]

Our creation points to a creator, the vast majority of people whom have ever existed understood this idea, and it is the primary reason why there are so many religions all across our world.

   Christians make the exclusive truth claim that our world was established by YHWH or the unmoved mover. God is real weather or not your brain imagines him to exist, and there are countless spirits within the world which your imagination also denies so all you are left with is your own cognition.

    Our base truth-claims are worlds apart, you are a creation which denies the existence of a creator. You are an intelligent being which denies the existence of an intelligent, or intentionally organized world. Your birth was based on biological rules but my question to you is what is your explanation for as to how those rules were written?

Where did your creator come from?

Self delusion is evolutions tasty little antidepressant

[Belacqua]

I'm assuming an evolutionary motivational mechanism here-- that instincts tend toward genetic fitness.  A baby's not intrinsically cute, but enough people say "Squeee" when they see a baby that it's relatively hard for baby-spiking hobbyists to get to babies.

This has its problems too, though.  People who don't know how Google works think "Squeee" when they think about an embryo, even though in reality it's really not squee-worthy until about 9 months after conception.

That's why pro-lifers hate pro-choicers.  Nobody wants to imagine a scalpel and a vacuum cleaner when they're halfway through a good "Squee" about an imaginary baby-that-is-not-yet.

The arguments against abortion that I've read don't mention cuteness as a factor. 

To have an honest debate, it's important to be able to restate your opponent's argument in terms he would agree with.