Being good without god

[Esquilax]

Science is an on-going process of inquiry into the natural world. Those who treat its findings like Holy Script, like you seem to do, lack the spirit of critical thinking needed to advance its cause. Try not to forget that paradigm shifts happen all the time.

Are you... are you actually telling us off for believing in facts?

As to paradigm shifts... yes, scientific advances cause us to rethink our beliefs. That's called learning. It's not a weakness, it's not a sign of some underlying falsity in the scientific method. Why are you acting like it's a bad thing to change to fit reality, instead of barreling along a predetermined path regardless of the facts?

As for logic, have you ever considered that rational thought is only possible because the universe conforms to a pre-existing logical order?

Or, in a more realistic scenario, have you ever considered that we construct our concept of logic based upon the demonstrable, repeatable effects of our actions and the physical world around us, and that not once has anyone been able to demonstrate that a designer was behind this physical structure? That's where you were angling, no?

Sure, the effects that lead us to construct a logical process existed before we did, and came with the universe. How does that prove anything you want it to?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Or, in a more realistic scenario, have you ever considered that we construct our concept of logic based upon the demonstrable, repeatable effects of our actions and the physical world around us, ...Sure, the effects that lead us to construct a logical process existed before we did, and came with the universe.

Perhaps the choice of pre-existing implies a temporal concept I did not mean. What I mean is that a rational universe is contingent upon a rational order, not the other way around. Either way your response begs the question. How can a constructed logic be constructed without logic? You could not synthesize empirical experiences without a priori ability to do so.

[Nobody]

“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.” Edmond De Goncourt

Unfortunately, people are led to believe that without holding faith in something never proven to exist, save in the book that adequately proves the god of faith is not good, people are incapable of having a sense of morality and common decency about themselves.

I've read the bible. When the author of that bad fiction is said to be requisite for morality to install itself in the human community, it goes a long way to explain the state of the worlds people today.
Especially when the majority of the human population claim to hold faith in such a deity as that what boasted in scripture that it drowned the whole world because it couldn't suffer the human sinners of his creation living up to omniscience expectations .

I went to McDonalds with my girlfriend for lunch today. As we sat there eating, there was a homeless guy wandering around outside. He looked hungry so I asked him if i could get him something to eat. I ended up getting him a burger and some fries.

Doing this got me to thinking about doing good things without god being involved. I had recently heard about an organization that does charity work and events from a purely humanitarian perspective. I went to look up the organization and I came across this article:

Can we be good without God?

Apparently, it was just stupid of me to buy lunch for that homeless guy...

Life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest. Sacrifice for another person is just stupid. Thus the absence of moral accountability from the philosophy of naturalism makes an ethic of compassion and self-sacrifice a hollow abstraction.

I am so tired of being disappointed by humanity.

BTW, the organization is called Humanists Doing Good

[genkaus]

Perhaps the choice of pre-existing implies a temporal concept I did not mean. What I mean is that a rational universe is contingent upon a rational order, not the other way around. Either way your response begs the question. How can a constructed logic be constructed without logic? You could not synthesize empirical experiences without a priori ability to do so.

Not quite.

The term "rational universe" is redundant. Saying something like "the universe/reality has to or does conform to an order of logic or rationality" would be nonsensical. The universe is what it is and it works in ways inherent to its nature. It was not created - nor is it made to conform - to any standard of logic and rationality identified as separate from itself.

Now, we, who observe the universe, work out how it works and what is its nature and that collections of concepts lead us to logic or rationality. When considering other things - specific aspects of universe - that fit in with what we've worked out - we deem it logical or rational.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The term "rational universe" is redundant. Saying something like "the universe/reality has to or does conform to an order of logic or rationality" would be nonsensical. The universe is what it is and it works in ways inherent to its nature. It was not created - nor is it made to conform - to any standard of logic and rationality identified as separate from itself.

Something can have an inherent quality that is also contingent. Inherent describes how a quality persists as an essential part of something in space and time. Contingent means that without that quality the thing could not exist at all. From my pespective, rationality can be identified as something separate from material being, just as mathematics can deal with formal properties not physically manifest, or just as we can discuss the form of a thing apart from its substance. But this debate is centuries old going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, is it not?

[catfish]

Is disagreeing with everyone who won't walk in lockstep with your views really that important to you that you'll give up any sense of credibility to keep it up?

Some would say he pissed that up the wall a long time ago. Others would no doubt agree.

Says the deceptive hypocrite...

[Cyberman]

You rang?

[genkaus]

Something can have an inherent quality that is also contingent.

Contingent upon?

Inherent describes how a quality persists as an essential part of something in space and time.

Not an accurate definition. Not everything is spatio-temporally bound.

Contingent means that without that quality the thing could not exist at all.

Tautologically true, but essentially meaningless. Saying that a thing wouldn't be what it is without a particular quality does not make it contingent upon that property.

From my pespective, rationality can be identified as something separate from material being, just as mathematics can deal with formal properties not physically manifest, or just as we can discuss the form of a thing apart from its substance. But this debate is centuries old going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, is it not?

That is the core of our every debate, isn't it? You see that concepts like rationality, mathematics, form etc. can be considered and discussed as apart from their physical counterparts and assume that they are in a distinct category of their own. Then you take it to mean that this category would also exist independently from the material and then go on to argue that thus it would be basic to the material and it is the physical that derives its existence from it.

The mistake is that you do not try to understand how these categories came about. How they are developed slowly and painstakingly through conscious observation of the material and therefore are dependent upon it.

[Neo-Scholastic]

That is the core of our every debate, isn't it? You see that concepts like rationality, mathematics, form etc. can be considered and discussed as apart from their physical counterparts and assume that they are in a distinct category of their own.

Pretty much.

The mistake is that you do not try to understand how these categories came about. How they are developed slowly and painstakingly through conscious observation of the material and therefore are dependent upon it.

Whereas I think that is your mistake. The best example which I can think of is the distinction between things required for the universe to exist, like mathematical certainties, and universal constants, like the speed of light. One can conceive of a universe in which one or all of the known physical constants have different values, however, you cannot conceive of a universe in which 1+1=3. Knowledge of constants (inherencies) can come from empirical observation alone, but to acquire empirical knowledge of mathematical certainties (contingencies), say by setting apples in a row, there must be an a priori knowledge, knowledge that could be obtained by pure reason alone. Many mathematical concepts, like higher dimensions, are developed before they find real world application.

I'll let you have the last word. I don't want to divert the thread too much away from OP.

[The Grand Nudger]

One can conceive of a universe in which one or all of the known physical constants have different values, however, you cannot conceive of a universe in which 1+1=3.

One cannot conceive of it because one has either intentionally or unintentionally not conceived of a universe that is actually "different" in a meaningful way from one's own.

If one were to invoke a meaningful difference along these lines then there's nothing stopping 1+1=3. Sure, that doesn't happen here, in our universe..but we're talking about a universe with different "rules" altogether, or no rules...as a possibility, aren't we? Perhaps if you were transported to such a place nothing would "make sense", you would be incapable of "properly" thinking about anything - but the inhabitants of said place would suffer from no such problem. While you could never understand how 1+1=3 - no matter how well it was explained to you by said inhabitants- in that universe, with it's alien rules, it could. It may not conform to our rules, but why do our rules apply in a universe so meaningfully different that our rules are not in operation?

In any case, whether or not Genk can conceive of that I don't know, but I can, obviously, and so can you - you're the one who invoked it. Both of us are probably at a loss as to explain how that could be, but that's to be expected, isn't it, coming from our universe with it's rules? Simply put, 1+1=2 is an observation of how our universe (or a universe with "rules" like our own) works - not some sort of indictment on -all- universes that might be dreamt up.

The statement is summarized as-
"Assume our rules apply - now conceive of a universe in which our rules don't apply."