Toaster strudel alliance takes on drugs, atheists and liberalism

[Autumnlicious]

How many different mountains of turd can be built in one damn thread? Really?

How are people even entertaining this asshat.

Why do you think I cast this off of your original thread?

It was a disservice to an educational discussion but clearly was strong enough to survive on its own.

[fr0d0]

Uhh, someone should probably tell this guy that catfish is a Christian.

Well I lol'd

[Darkstar]

I am arguing that atheist political philosophy is self defeating.

There's where you went wrong. There is no such thing as a definitive atheist political philosophy.

The crux of the argument is that atheist ethics are highly subjective and individual, that atheist approaches to ethics become incommensurable, meaning they cannot be compared, that when the condition of incommensurable is reached, there is no way to know whether atheist ethical beliefs are true or not and if there is no way to know if they are true, people do not have to obey them. There can be no culture that people are bound ethically to accept from atheism, and no law that can proceed, other than the law of the force of one will, as in the Soviet Union.

What makes religious ethics any different? They aren't individual, but they are still subjective. Only if one presupposes the existence of god do religious ethics have any authority in that matter. It isn't that atheists don't have a moral rulebook, but that no such book exists. This does not mean anything goes, though, and there are many logically defensible moral rules. There are just too many exceptions to those rules on a situation by situation basis that it ultimately comes down to using your best judgment.

4. The ground of atheism varies person to person with no common non-coincidental agreement

What was that atheist political philosophy you were talking about again? You just refuted it.

5. If the ground of ethics varies person to person with no common non-coincidental agreement, ethical statements are incommensurable

Non-sequiter. Isn't it possible that some people can simply be wrong? I bet Hitler wouldn't agree with you on ethics, does this makes ethics in and of itself null and void? It does not.

6. Ethical statements are incommensurable for atheists (MP 6,7)
7. If ethical statements are incommensurable, they cannot have a ground higher than them-self
8. Ethical statements between atheists cannot have a higher ground than them-self (MP 6,7)

Six is false because five is false. point eight also applies to theists, but you don't see it that way because you believe in god. So...would it apply to god then? He just gets morals from himself? Having morals from yourself does not instantly invalidate them and reduce them to mere opinions as you seem to think (unless they are logically indefensible, of course).

9. There must be a ground for the will to rule and ethical statements between atheists cannot have a higher ground then themselves
10. If ethical statements are incommensurable, there is no way to know whether they are true or not
11. There is no way to know whether atheist ethical statements are true or not (MP 5 entails 10a, 10)
12. If there is no way to know whether a statement is true or not and the statement cannot have a higher ground than itself, it lacks authority
13. Atheist ethical statements lack authority (MP (10 & 7,12)

Atheist ethical statements are not incommensurable. I can use reason to defend them. Also, what is this "authority" you speak of? I thought appeal to authority was a logical fallacy...

14. [Where governments are organized by atheists or politics is conducted by atheists ], if ethical statements do not have authority, people do not have to obey them
15. Where governments are organized by atheists or politics is conducted by atheists, people do not have to obey it (MP 14,13)

Same as previous response.

You are arguing that desire is a suitable ground for morality? Do you have any evidence for that? That is an extremely huge claim that goes contrary to what virtually every society in history has taught, that people are selfish, that they need to be governed, that power is necessary to restrain evil. Even the Communists had a Puritanical side.

Do you really think that is what it means? That he really would kill people if he felt like it? Thing is, if you actually want to literally kill people, you will probably toss aside an moral rules anyway. Humans are naturally averse to those inclinations, but obviously not immune. And...why do I care what comminists think? Do you still think we're all MArxists or something?

Please respond in a syllogism or some other form of logic, that will be much more interesting.

(* Basically, if you are nice to other people and respect their rights, society will flow a lot more smoothly. Kind of like the golden rule; you wouldn't want people to harm you or those you care about, so logic and empathy dictate that you don't harm others either)
1. In order for moral decisions to be legitimate, they must be logically defensible.
2.The concept of human rights is logically defensible.*
3. Therefore the concept of human rights is legitimate. (2, 3)
4. Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.
5. Logical fallacies are by definition not logically defensible.
6. Any moral rule appealing to authority is not logically defensible (unless deemed legitimate in the abscence of such authority) (4, 5)
7. All Christian moral rules appeal to the authority of god in place of a logical argument
8. All Christian moral rules that are not independantly confimed to be logically defensible are illegitimate. (6,7)
9. Given the complexity of life and situational factors, developing moral rules that apply in all situations without exception is impossible
10. Christian moral rules are claimed to be absolute.
11. Absolute rules apply in all situations withot exception.
12. Christian moral rules are illegitimate on two counts unless independently logically defensible (8-11)

[Cinjin]

I don't know many adults that when you talk about something serious, they just mock you. You are, everyday, showing the world the fruit of atheism. This is what it looks like, everyone, it looks like this thread. Not very glorious.

Yeah right. I wish we could be glorious like you christians:

The Colorado Springs-based Missionary Alliance appointed an Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the allegations. The commission documented horrible acts of physical, sexual and emotional abuse against scores of students. Students were forced to eat their own vomit, beaten black and blue and bloody, and sexually molested, the commission reported. The first- and second-grade teacher from 1958 to 1966 was found to have engaged in an "ongoing reign of terror and sadistic behavior."

Filthy fucking hypocrite. You and your religion are about as "glorious" as a turd in a urinal.

Fuck you and your phony self-righteous remarks. This is not an exception to the rule. (Christians are proven to be the most immoral people on the planet when they think no one's looking.)

[Angrboda]

4. Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

Minor point. Not all appeals to authority are fallacious.

---

---

And, there's no shame in mocking what deserves to be mocked.

[jstrodel]

Cinjin you don't have any arguments and you didn't make one. The existence of 1% of Christian ministries or 5% does not serve to identify the basic nature of Christianity with that group.

[jstrodel]

There's where you went wrong. There is no such thing as a definitive atheist political philosophy.

All atheist political philosophy.

The crux of the argument is that atheist ethics are highly subjective and individual, that atheist approaches to ethics become incommensurable, meaning they cannot be compared, that when the condition of incommensurable is reached, there is no way to know whether atheist ethical beliefs are true or not and if there is no way to know if they are true, people do not have to obey them. There can be no culture that people are bound ethically to accept from atheism, and no law that can proceed, other than the law of the force of one will, as in the Soviet Union.

What makes religious ethics any different? They aren't individual, but they are still subjective. Only if one presupposes the existence of god do religious ethics have any authority in that matter. It isn't that atheists don't have a moral rulebook, but that no such book exists. This does not mean anything goes, though, and there are many logically defensible moral rules. There are just too many exceptions to those rules on a situation by situation basis that it ultimately comes down to using your best judgment.

Christian ethics are commensurable within the tradition that they are in, if you presuppose that scripture, tradition, reason, experience and the Holy Spirit lead to an understanding of morality. Whether that is so or not of course you will disagree with, but if that proposition is true then Christian ethics are commensurable in a way that atheist ethics are not.

What was that atheist political philosophy you were talking about again? You just refuted it.

The incidental agreement between atheists that is obviously real and exists. I didn't refute it. It is different to say that atheists happen to have political beliefs versus atheist political beliefs are rational. Of course atheists have political beliefs and there is common agreement between atheists. That is totally different from saying atheist political beliefs are rational.

5. If the ground of ethics varies person to person with no common non-coincidental agreement, ethical statements are incommensurable

Non-sequiter. Isn't it possible that some people can simply be wrong? I bet Hitler wouldn't agree with you on ethics, does this makes ethics in and of itself null and void? It does not.

That is not what I am talking about. It is not the fact that some people are wrong, it is the fact that there is no way that people can be right. There is no way that you can say one person is wrong and another is right without presupposing what you are arguing.

Also, even what you said was true, that would not be a non-sequiter. That statement is argued to be true not from deductive logic but from a self evident definition of incommensurability.

From wikipedia:

Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. All invalid arguments are special cases of non sequitur. The term has special applicability in law, having a formal legal definition. Many types of known non sequitur argument forms have been classified into many different types of logical fallacies.

definition of incommensurable from m-w:

Definition of INCOMMENSURABLE
: not commensurable; broadly : lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison

6. Ethical statements are incommensurable for atheists (MP 6,7)
7. If ethical statements are incommensurable, they cannot have a ground higher than them-self
8. Ethical statements between atheists cannot have a higher ground than them-self (MP 6,7)

[quote]
Six is false because five is false.

You have not shown that it is false. Read Alaisdair MacIntyre's critique of modernity. There is a powerful argument to say that atheist ethics or ethics are incommensurable.

point eight also applies to theists, but you don't see it that way because you believe in god. So...would it apply to god then? He just gets morals from himself?

This is the Euthyphro problem. There is an easy answer for this: God is holy, because God's existence is ontologically prior to creation and God is completely seperate from creation and morality does not exist until God creates it. Morality comes from the creation that God creates. Morality is teleological, meaning that it is intrinsically connected to the order of the world that exists. God is the creator, so God is prior to morality, and morality, being related to creator and bearing the image of God is related to God, not God to the creation.

Having morals from yourself does not instantly invalidate them and reduce them to mere opinions as you seem to think (unless they are logically indefensible, of course).

This is not self evident and you have not argued it. That is an extremely controversial premise.

9. There must be a ground for the will to rule and ethical statements between atheists cannot have a higher ground then themselves
10. If ethical statements are incommensurable, there is no way to know whether they are true or not
11. There is no way to know whether atheist ethical statements are true or not (MP 5 entails 10a, 10)
12. If there is no way to know whether a statement is true or not and the statement cannot have a higher ground than itself, it lacks authority
13. Atheist ethical statements lack authority (MP (10 & 7,12)

Atheist ethical statements are not incommensurable. I can use reason to defend them.

Of course you can defend them, but that does not show they are incommensurable. How can you defend ethical statements in a way that people should feel obligated to accept your view of ethics?



If you said for instance :
1. Human life is valuable
2. If human life is valuable, all murderers are evil people
3. All murderers are evil people (MP 1,2)
4. Hitler was a murderer
5. Hitler was an evil person (3, 4, syllogism)


This does not seem incommensurable, if you pressupose that people accept 1. But as soon as you have some people that deny 1, you have an incommensurable understanding of ethics. The problem is, human history is a story of people that have repeatedly denied that human life is valuable. Penn Gilletes argument that his desire to not kill is patently fallacious - that has never worked historically, and it will never work.

If you cannot prove 1, that human life is valuable, you have an incommensurable ethical system outside of that. And that proposition is presupposed without any evidence at all, esentially relying on the religious culture to transmit value of human life that cannot be defended from an atheist perspective.

Also, what is this "authority" you speak of? I thought appeal to authority was a logical fallacy...

I did not appeal to authority, I used modus ponens from deductive logic.

13. Atheist ethical statements lack authority (MP (10 & 7,12)

If ethical statements lack authority, that means there is no reason that people need to follow them.

Same as previous response.

There is a difference between appealing to authority illegitimantely, the argument from authority is not necessarily invalid. But the authority of people to rule is not based on epistemology, it is the validity of their beliefs.

(* Basically, if you are nice to other people and respect their rights, society will flow a lot more smoothly. Kind of like the golden rule; you wouldn't want people to harm you or those you care about, so logic and empathy dictate that you don't harm others either)

Why should people see society as the end of their actions and not themselves, or a new society they want to violently create in place of the new one?

1. In order for moral decisions to be legitimate, they must be logically defensible.
2.The concept of human rights is logically defensible.*

See my above argument. I think human rights is a defensible concept from a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, view of the world, which is teleological. I do not think that human rights is a defensible concept from an atheist point of view. How would you defend your beliefs about human rights?

Also, when you reason, you should reason from self evident propositions to good conclusions. 2 is not self evident, or even close to being self evident, that show go in a seperate argument.

3. Therefore the concept of human rights is legitimate. (2, 3)

4. Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

You have already appealed to authority a lot of times in this argument. When you talk about "human rights" you are appealing to authority. When you discuss anything that is not absolutely self evident, you are appealing to authority or anything that is not percievable.

And this is not really true. When people do academic research, they appeal to authority all the time. It is not a logical fallacy, it just does not demonstrate the truth of what you are saying. But many things cannot be demostrated.

Authority is one of the most important concepts in life. People have to deal with following rules in life that are not based on self evident deductive logic. It is not irrational to do so, it is necessary for survival. Philosophy is a specialized subset of life that exists inside of a world based on authority, that has its own perspective on the nature of that world. But it is not necessarily wrong to appeal to authority, especially if you can demostrate that it is reasonable to do so.

5. Logical fallacies are by definition not logically defensible.

When you say 'logical fallacies', you are appealing to authority. To argue that something, by definition is something else, you are appealing to that authority. It may be that you can demonstrate what you are saying somewhere else that is self evident, as in a book of proofs. But the way that you are talking about this, you are appealing to authority.

6. Any moral rule appealing to authority is not logically defensible (unless deemed legitimate in the abscence of such authority) (4, 5)

This is self refuting, since are appealing to an undefined authority of "logically defensible". What does it mean to be "logically defensible"? Do you use the logic of aristotle, the logic of frege, modal logic? What sort of epistemology and metaphysics to translate sense perception and culture into langauge? There are of course a million Christian approaches to these subjects. But you are appealing to authority when you talk about what is "logically defensible".

The second part of the statement is really confusion. What does it mean for something to be deemed legitimate in the abscence of such authority? If a moral rule appealing to authority is not logically defensible, why do you say "unless" deemed legitimate. Wouldn't it have to not appeal to authority if it isn't logical defensible if it does?

7. All Christian moral rules appeal to the authority of god in place of a logical argument

What do you mean when you say "logic"? This term is unclear. Have you ever read Thomas Aquinas? He uses logic quite a bit in his construction of ethics.

8. All Christian moral rules that are not independantly confimed to be logically defensible are illegitimate. (6,7)

Why do moral rules have to be independently confirmed. I think that Anselem and Aquinas both had philosophical systems in which they proved every element of their morality, from method to final product. You have not defined what is logically defensible.

9. Given the complexity of life and situational factors, developing moral rules that apply in all situations without exception is impossible

This is a false premise. Christianity is not about rules. Study Romans or Galations. Have you ever read through the whole New Testament with a Commentary and a Systematic Theology next to you and actually wrestled with the theology. I don't mean to offend you, you are a nice person, but you are really ignorant of theology and arguments like this one will hurt people.

10. Christian moral rules are claimed to be absolute.

This is a false premise. See above. The Bible does not claim to teach moral absolutes in every single circumstance, only morals that can be widely applied. God's will changes significantly from Old and New, and even if it didn't, there are some things that are absolute in all cultures, murder for instance, is always wrong.

11. Absolute rules apply in all situations withot exception.

I would dispute this premise. It is possible to have rules that are basically absolute that change a little bit over time. This is how the Christian church typically functions. It is wrong to murder, it is wrong to commit adultery, but some things change with culture.

12. Christian moral rules are illegitimate on two counts unless independently logically defensible (8-11)

Christian moral rules are independently logically defensible, as can be seen by the large number of people that have percieved the logical consistency and evidence of the existence of God and the wisdom of the law of God and converted, many of them the greatest intellects of history.

That said, you have not defined logic. What exactly do you mean when you say logic? Logic is a very technical subdivison of philosophy. I do not think that based only in logic, which is really closer to mathmatics than religion you could really accomplish very much.

The success of logic is based on what people know and how they know it. Christianity is defensible, and there are good arguments for God's existence. It takes a very long time to be able to learn about religious beliefs through logic.

Ultimately, logic is based on reasoning from self evident propositions to conclusions using formally valid mathmatical reasoning. What is logically is closely related to what you know about the world.

If you want to understand Christianity, you have to actually study the propositions and attempt to assess their validity yourself, such as "is spiritual experience real". Logic is not really going to give you very many tools to assess whether Christian morality is good or not, it will help you to understand your pressuppositions.

Philosophy is a very poor substitute for theology. You can know very, very little using philosophy alone and the results are disastrous. There is no possible way, not in a million years what you believe is logically defensible. I would say that Christianity is, but in order to be able to see the truth of the propositions that justify it takes work and sacrifice and real spirituality.

[Angrboda]

See my above argument. I think human rights is a defensible concept from a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, view of the world, which is teleological. I do not think that human rights is a defensible concept from an atheist point of view. How would you defend your beliefs about human rights?

Any worldview which depends on an unprovable premise (God exists) is of necessity indefensible.

[Darkstar]

Christian ethics are commensurable within the tradition that they are in, if you presuppose that scripture, tradition, reason, experience and the Holy Spirit lead to an understanding of morality. Whether that is so or not of course you will disagree with, but if that proposition is true then Christian ethics are commensurable in a way that atheist ethics are not.

I think you said that it would be evil, and destroy many lives to give false advice. If you presuppose both that god exists and that he is the ultimate moral authority (neither of which can be supported) then you might be right. But you can't demonstrate them. What you are doing, then, is even worse. You are taking subjective morals and claiming they are objective. Slavery? It's fine, it's in the bible, after all! Genocide? Well if they're filthy non-belivers, sure! Do you really want to use the bible as a moral authority?

The incidental agreement between atheists that is obviously real and exists. I didn't refute it.

Exactly. Now, these incidental agreements do not constitute a comprehensive "atheist philosophy", but rather the fact that they are merely incidental refutes it.

It is different to say that atheists happen to have political beliefs versus atheist political beliefs are rational.

What does that have to do with anything? You could say the exact same thing if you substitute in "Christians". But it doesn't amtter, because as a group, atheists don't have the same political beliefs simply because they are atheists.

Of course atheists have political beliefs and there is common agreement between atheists.

You've refuted yourself...again.

Non-sequiter. Isn't it possible that some people can simply be wrong? I bet Hitler wouldn't agree with you on ethics, does this makes ethics in and of itself null and void? It does not.

That is not what I am talking about. It is not the fact that some people are wrong, it is the fact that there is no way that people can be right. There is no way that you can say one person is wrong and another is right without presupposing what you are arguing.

Really? Are you telling me that you can't logically defend the immorality of murder?

Also, even what you said was true, that would not be a non-sequiter. That statement is argued to be true not from deductive logic but from a self evident definition of incommensurability.

Oh, you're right. My mistake.

You have not shown that it is false. Read Alaisdair MacIntyre's critique of modernity. There is a powerful argument to say that atheist ethics or ethics are incommensurable.

That is pure moral relativism, something I do not subscribe to. There are arguments for and against basically every system of morality ever designed (and there is more than one that does not invoke god). Whether they are powerful or not in your opinion probably only depends on if they are for or against your position. Morality is a lot more complex than you might think.

This is the Euthyphro problem. There is an easy answer for this: God is holy, because God's existence is ontologically prior to creation and God is completely seperate from creation and morality does not exist until God creates it. Morality comes from the creation that God creates. Morality is teleological, meaning that it is intrinsically connected to the order of the world that exists. God is the creator, so God is prior to morality, and morality, being related to creator and bearing the image of God is related to God, not God to the creation.

Let's say that, for the sake of argument god exists and he is the ultimate moral authority. So, now what? Which god? Which morals? (Jesus contradicts some of the OT laws) Is there a need for interpretation? Here's something to think about: god never said "thou shalt not abuse cocaine", therefore it is not immoral to do so. How would you respond to this?

Having morals from yourself does not instantly invalidate them and reduce them to mere opinions as you seem to think (unless they are logically indefensible, of course).

This is not self evident and you have not argued it. That is an extremely controversial premise.

Ending racial segregation was also extremely controvesial. If you can defend a moral "rule" through reason (respecting empathy) it can be demonstrated as good. Killing isn't wrong simply because god says so...or do you think that is the only reason? (I admit that this response is an incomplete argument. This post is so long already, though, so...)

Atheist ethical statements are not incommensurable. I can use reason to defend them.

Of course you can defend them, but that does not show they are incommensurable. How can you defend ethical statements in a way that people should feel obligated to accept your view of ethics?



If you said for instance :
1. Human life is valuable
2. If human life is valuable, all murderers are evil people
3. All murderers are evil people (MP 1,2)
4. Hitler was a murderer
5. Hitler was an evil person (3, 4, syllogism)


This does not seem incommensurable, if you pressupose that people accept 1. But as soon as you have some people that deny 1, you have an incommensurable understanding of ethics. The problem is, human history is a story of people that have repeatedly denied that human life is valuable. Penn Gilletes argument that his desire to not kill is patently fallacious - that has never worked historically, and it will never work.

If you cannot prove 1, that human life is valuable, you have an incommensurable ethical system outside of that. And that proposition is presupposed without any evidence at all, esentially relying on the religious culture to transmit value of human life that cannot be defended from an atheist perspective.

Humans don't value their lives unless thay have religion? The more you know...

I would argue this in the same way I argue for human rights. If someone claims human life has no value, then they must concede that their own life has no value, and is liable to be abruptly taken in the same way they kill others. These dictators devalued human life because it was convenient for them; had they been on the recieving end, I doubt they would have just laid down and died so easily.

Also, what is this "authority" you speak of? I thought appeal to authority was a logical fallacy...

I did not appeal to authority, I used modus ponens from deductive logic.

13. Atheist ethical statements lack authority (MP (10 & 7,12)

If ethical statements lack authority, that means there is no reason that people need to follow them.

Same as previous response.

There is a difference between appealing to authority illegitimantely, the argument from authority is not necessarily invalid. But the authority of people to rule is not based on epistemology, it is the validity of their beliefs.

I made this mistake twice, it seems. I confused validity with soundness. It appears your argument is valid, even if not necessarily sound.

(* Basically, if you are nice to other people and respect their rights, society will flow a lot more smoothly. Kind of like the golden rule; you wouldn't want people to harm you or those you care about, so logic and empathy dictate that you don't harm others either)

Why should people see society as the end of their actions and not themselves, or a new society they want to violently create in place of the new one?

Let's say they see themselves as the end of the actions. Same result. If they are living in society, they don't want it to become a free for all (well, most people don't) and so still would want to preserve peace. If they are living outside of society...well...that's kind of hard. As for revolutionaries, they still want a society, just a new one. The US constitution gives the citizens the right to overthrow the government if it becomes seriously oppressive.

1. In order for moral decisions to be legitimate, they must be logically defensible.
2.The concept of human rights is logically defensible.*

See my above argument. I think human rights is a defensible concept from a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, view of the world, which is teleological. I do not think that human rights is a defensible concept from an atheist point of view. How would you defend your beliefs about human rights?

I already did, if you were reading my post. Humans agree on rights as a social contract. It is to everyone's benefit to respect each others' rights and in return have them respect yours.

Also, when you reason, you should reason from self evident propositions to good conclusions. 2 is not self evident, or even close to being self evident, that show go in a seperate argument.

See above. Is now a good time to point out that god and his alleged moral authority are not self evident?

3. Therefore the concept of human rights is legitimate. (2, 3)

4. Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

You have already appealed to authority a lot of times in this argument. When you talk about "human rights" you are appealing to authority. When you discuss anything that is not absolutely self evident, you are appealing to authority or anything that is not percievable.

And this is not really true. When people do academic research, they appeal to authority all the time. It is not a logical fallacy, it just does not demonstrate the truth of what you are saying. But many things cannot be demostrated.

Authority is one of the most important concepts in life. People have to deal with following rules in life that are not based on self evident deductive logic. It is not irrational to do so, it is necessary for survival. Philosophy is a specialized subset of life that exists inside of a world based on authority, that has its own perspective on the nature of that world. But it is not necessarily wrong to appeal to authority, especially if you can demostrate that it is reasonable to do so.

Yeah, you're right (at least about that last part). Just curious, but what authority am I appealing to?

I am going to skip some points because they would all be answered somewhere along the lines of "Oh, that's what you consider an authority.

6. Any moral rule appealing to authority is not logically defensible (unless deemed legitimate in the abscence of such authority) (4, 5)

I would dispute this premise. It is possible to have rules that are basically absolute that change a little bit over time. This is how the Christian church typically functions. It is wrong to murder, it is wrong to commit adultery, but some things change with culture.

These "basically" absolute rules that sometimes change with culture are not as different from atheist moral (not that there is such a code!) than you think.

12. Christian moral rules are illegitimate on two counts unless independently logically defensible (8-11)

Christian moral rules are independently logically defensible, as can be seen by the large number of people that have percieved the logical consistency and evidence of the existence of God and the wisdom of the law of God and converted, many of them the greatest intellects of history.

That said, you have not defined logic. What exactly do you mean when you say logic? Logic is a very technical subdivison of philosophy. I do not think that based only in logic, which is really closer to mathmatics than religion you could really accomplish very much.

The success of logic is based on what people know and how they know it. Christianity is defensible, and there are good arguments for God's existence. It takes a very long time to be able to learn about religious beliefs through logic.

Ultimately, logic is based on reasoning from self evident propositions to conclusions using formally valid mathmatical reasoning. What is logically is closely related to what you know about the world.

If you want to understand Christianity, you have to actually study the propositions and attempt to assess their validity yourself, such as "is spiritual experience real". Logic is not really going to give you very many tools to assess whether Christian morality is good or not, it will help you to understand your pressuppositions.

Raw logic is indeed closer to mathematics than anything else. I should have said "reason" or something else that was a tad more generic. You continue to argue that these rules are good because god knows what he's talking about. However, there are some of gods laws that aren't considered moral anymore. Also, you continue to presuppose god's existance, something I do not do. I ahve heard many arguments for god, but none of them were strong, as you claim that strog arguments exist. (No arguments from ignorance, please) Putting that aside, I still argue that one can defend morality's existence apart from god. You can defend the idea that killing is generally wrong without saying "because god said so"...right?

Philosophy is a very poor substitute for theology. You can know very, very little using philosophy alone and the results are disastrous. There is no possible way, not in a million years what you believe is logically defensible. I would say that Christianity is, but in order to be able to see the truth of the propositions that justify it takes work and sacrifice and real spirituality.

I would argue the exact opposite. And for the same reasons you do. People can take theology and claim they know everything whilst knowing nothing of value. When you say "real spirituality" do you mean self-delusion? This would be a serious question if I didn't already knw the answer. It is just that some memebers here were theists for decades and sought god, but never found him. Drich always argued that they did something wrong, but refused to specify as to what it was. I await your "logical" defense of Christianity...or maybe not, these posts are becoming enormous...

[jstrodel]

I think you said that it would be evil, and destroy many lives to give false advice. If you presuppose both that god exists and that he is the ultimate moral authority (neither of which can be supported) then you might be right. But you can't demonstrate them. What you are doing, then, is even worse. You are taking subjective morals and claiming they are objective. Slavery? It's fine, it's in the bible, after all! Genocide? Well if they're filthy non-belivers, sure! Do you really want to use the bible as a moral authority?

These are widely covered issues that have been written about and covered over and over again by Christians. For the sake of brevity, I would not engage you here.

Really? Are you telling me that you can't logically defend the immorality of murder?

You must pressuposed that human life is universally valuable, which you cannot defend with logic. Logic is just a tool to test if certain propositions are true. You cannot prove that human life is valuable, you can only presuppose it.

That is pure moral relativism, something I do not subscribe to. There are arguments for and against basically every system of morality ever designed (and there is more than one that does not invoke god). Whether they are powerful or not in your opinion probably only depends on if they are for or against your position. Morality is a lot more complex than you might think.

You said that you do not subscribe to it, but you havn't shown why it doesn't follow from your worldview.

Let's say that, for the sake of argument god exists and he is the ultimate moral authority. So, now what? Which god? Which morals? (Jesus contradicts some of the OT laws) Is there a need for interpretation? Here's something to think about: god never said "thou shalt not abuse cocaine", therefore it is not immoral to do so. How would you respond to this?

Jesus says - seek and you will find. There is no absolute way to know the will of God or be a Christian. God's will changes over time. But if you seek God, you will find him. The New Testament of the Bible is a good place to law, but it is not intended to be a moral absolute that replaces God. God is the ground of being and the ground of morality. The two are related. God can be the ground of morality because God is the ground of being. When God created the universe, morality was created at the same time.

The bible forbids drunkenness (1 Cor 6) which has been interpreted through church tradition to include drug abuse and reason says that cocaine is more dangerous than other drugs so it is reasonable to believe that cocaine use is sinful. Perhaps you had a tooth operation and you were going to be given cocaine (it is legal for some purposes), if you were concerned about it, you could pray and ask God to show you in the scriptures whether it is acceptable, and God would. Ultimately, God has the final authority to direct people, but God will agree with the New Testament and use that, at least in this particular period of the grace of God.

Ending racial segregation was also extremely controvesial. If you can defend a moral "rule" through reason (respecting empathy) it can be demonstrated as good. Killing isn't wrong simply because god says so...or do you think that is the only reason? (I admit that this response is an incomplete argument. This post is so long already, though, so...)

But you aren't defending this through logic.Killing is wrong because we live in a teleological universe in which everything bears the stamp of God and cries out to us through empathy, society, law and culture that it is wrong to take a human life, not just because someone happens to reason about it but because the human spirit demands it.

Humans don't value their lives unless thay have religion? The more you know...

I would argue this in the same way I argue for human rights. If someone claims human life has no value, then they must concede that their own life has no value, and is liable to be abruptly taken in the same way they kill others. These dictators devalued human life because it was convenient for them; had they been on the recieving end, I doubt they would have just laid down and died so easily.

But many people believe just that. That does not make the argument self refuting, it may not help the people to survive. For someone that has much to say about logic, you rely on conversational reasoning much more than you rely on philosophy. I don't say that to insult you, but what you consider logic is really not much different from theology, it does not presuppose less. To pressupose that human life is valuable because of an unknown cause does not pressupose less than pressuposing that it is valuable because God created it.

I made this mistake twice, it seems. I confused validity with soundness. It appears your argument is valid, even if not necessarily sound.

I appreciate your humble spirit. I always like debating with you because you seem like a throughly decent person, unafraid to admit when he is wrong.

Let's say they see themselves as the end of the actions. Same result. If they are living in society, they don't want it to become a free for all (well, most people don't) and so still would want to preserve peace. If they are living outside of society...well...that's kind of hard. As for revolutionaries, they still want a society, just a new one. The US constitution gives the citizens the right to overthrow the government if it becomes seriously oppressive.

You are acknowledging the crux of my actions, that atheist ethics are basically pressupositions. That is fine if there are some things that they don't know through reason, I would say that that is a mark of wisdom to realize that reason and logic can't accomplish all things. But it is fallacious to claim that a pressuposition like "Let's say they see themselves as then end of their actions" is more logical because it has a much smaller and more subjective aim.

It is a common debate trick to simply make the most modest claim possible and then claim that whatever you are arguing against is irrational because it involves more assumptions or pressupositions than your arguement. The reality is that making an extremely small claim that is easier to believe does not make an argument more valid or the propositions invovled more true, although they may appear more true.

I already did, if you were reading my post. Humans agree on rights as a social contract. It is to everyone's benefit to respect each others' rights and in return have them respect yours.

Do human rights come from the people that write the contract? What if someone wants to make a new contract? How is this more logically defensible, I do not see anywhere were it is self evident that "Humans agree on rights as a social contract". It is almost like you are making human governments take the place of God as the origin of morality, typical for liberals, and you are saying that it is more reasonable to pressupose that human governments should take the place of God instead of God because you can see governments. It may be that it is easier to believe in the reality of the government laws but that does not make the more "logically defensible". I saw another poster on this board quote Blacks Law Dictionary as if it gave an ethical defense.

Liberals have their faith, it is in the government, that is their God and they aren't going to budge. Their faith is very strong.

Yeah, you're right (at least about that last part). Just curious, but what authority am I appealing to?

You are appealing to the authority of liberal philosophical thinkers. The way that you use the word logic actually means exactly the opposite of the word: when you say logic, you mean "an argument from authority from a liberal thinker". Actually, what logic is is a flow of self evident propositions using deductive logic that garentee the certainty of a conclusion (I suppose there could be other kinds of logic like inductive logic too). Logic does not mean the same thing as liberalism.

Raw logic is indeed closer to mathematics than anything else. I should have said "reason" or something else that was a tad more generic. You continue to argue that these rules are good because god knows what he's talking about. However, there are some of gods laws that aren't considered moral anymore. Also, you continue to presuppose god's existance, something I do not do. I ahve heard many arguments for god, but none of them were strong, as you claim that strog arguments exist. (No arguments from ignorance, please) Putting that aside, I still argue that one can defend morality's existence apart from god. You can defend the idea that killing is generally wrong without saying "because god said so"...right?

Reason is not incompatible with theology. Some forms of logic and epistemology are basically imcompatible with theology.

I would say the arguments for God's existence are more things that point toward a God or show how a concept of God solves many problems versus proving in the same way that you measure layers of rock in the grand canyon that God exists. The proof comes when you seek God on his own terms.

I am not an expert in natural theology, the branch of theology concern with showing how God exists from nature. I could not say whether God's existence can be "proven" or not, for someone that has not prior experience.

Faith is not really the same as logic and it isn't really the same as reason, it isn't blind faith. The way that faith works is that you see how something could be true, and you start to follow it on its own terms. And then, when you are serious, God reveals himself to you. It is not irrational, I would argue some parts of faith are based on rational considerations (such as the many good arguments for God's existence) and some are based on non-rational considerations (such as wanting a world in which there is morality and love and wanting to be close to God).

A lot of learning about theology comes down to wanting to learn about God from God, and H'Shem will teach you if you are willing to listen to H'Shem and submit to H'Shem's holiness.

I would argue the exact opposite. And for the same reasons you do. People can take theology and claim they know everything whilst knowing nothing of value. When you say "real spirituality" do you mean self-delusion? This would be a serious question if I didn't already knw the answer. It is just that some memebers here were theists for decades and sought god, but never found him. Drich always argued that they did something wrong, but refused to specify as to what it was. I await your "logical" defense of Christianity...or maybe not, these posts are becoming enormous...

Spirituality is not a delusion. You will see miracles. You will see powerful displays of the glory of God. I have seen so many revelations.

I await a logical defense of a rationalistic approach to learning that today, in the world of string theory, quantumn mechanics, post-modern approaches to seeing the world and Kantian critiques of reason, seems a little bit like it is stuck in the 17th century.

Daniel Dennet said about the relationship of philosophy to other subjects "philosophy is a tool for generating hypothesis that can be checked with other sciences." Obviously Dennett is an atheist, but I would tend to agree with him. Reason alone is a good tool for self deception, pride and authoritarianism.

A logical defense of Christianity would be hundreds of pages. You could consult someone like Thomas Aquinas, Alaisdair MacGraph, Alvin Plantiga, the neo-Thomist thinkers, William Lane Craig (who is a good apologist despite the character assasinsation attempts of atheists).

I posted a long list of theistic arguments in another thread, there are so many of them. Many of the most brilliant people in history have believed that Christianity was a reasonable belief system.