RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 8, 2015 at 8:47 am
(This post was last modified: October 8, 2015 at 8:56 am by robvalue.)
I don't get it, sorry
I don't accept you can measure health objectively, either. Unless you're talking about something as simple as life expectancy or something. And unless you know everything that's going to happen to a person, you can't possibly know how well suited their current state is. So at best you're giving an estimate. If the judgement only applies at that second and is invalid as they walk out the door, then that's not objective either. There's a difference between a sensible estimate or comparable similar situations, and entirely different competing factors. I hear it announced these things "can be done" but I don't see how, and I don't see what use it is.
If I can have just one real world, concrete example of objective morality in action, that would be just dandy! Still don't have one
Of course we want to move away from the worst possible world. But we have essentially infinite different directions to travel away from it, in an infinite number of dimensions; we're not just bobbing about in a couple of dimensions. To reduce it to that, we must assign numerical value to everything. If we don't, we're just waving our hands about and we can't call anything objective. How do you compare pain to lifespan? Something as simple as that. We're talking about the very experiences, and what they mean to the person. How you can take even their opinion about those experiences out of the equation seems ridiculous to me. It's a case of "neutral universe knows best".
I'll leave it at that, we'll probably have to agree to disagree This is a most enlightening discussion though!
PS: I appreciate the input a lot. I'll add more thoughts if they come to me. The thing is, say I discovered that in principle the most objectively moral thing I could do was kill my wife. It's been precisely calculated taking into account every possible outcome, and it's way too complex for me to even begin to understand how that answer was reached. Am I going to care about that? That information is useless to me. Unless I can be persuaded rationally to take such an action, this command is irrelevant. And then it's going to come down to my own subjective assessment and whether I agree; or else someone else enforces this "correct answer" which is some dangerous totalitarian shit.
I don't accept you can measure health objectively, either. Unless you're talking about something as simple as life expectancy or something. And unless you know everything that's going to happen to a person, you can't possibly know how well suited their current state is. So at best you're giving an estimate. If the judgement only applies at that second and is invalid as they walk out the door, then that's not objective either. There's a difference between a sensible estimate or comparable similar situations, and entirely different competing factors. I hear it announced these things "can be done" but I don't see how, and I don't see what use it is.
If I can have just one real world, concrete example of objective morality in action, that would be just dandy! Still don't have one
Of course we want to move away from the worst possible world. But we have essentially infinite different directions to travel away from it, in an infinite number of dimensions; we're not just bobbing about in a couple of dimensions. To reduce it to that, we must assign numerical value to everything. If we don't, we're just waving our hands about and we can't call anything objective. How do you compare pain to lifespan? Something as simple as that. We're talking about the very experiences, and what they mean to the person. How you can take even their opinion about those experiences out of the equation seems ridiculous to me. It's a case of "neutral universe knows best".
I'll leave it at that, we'll probably have to agree to disagree This is a most enlightening discussion though!
PS: I appreciate the input a lot. I'll add more thoughts if they come to me. The thing is, say I discovered that in principle the most objectively moral thing I could do was kill my wife. It's been precisely calculated taking into account every possible outcome, and it's way too complex for me to even begin to understand how that answer was reached. Am I going to care about that? That information is useless to me. Unless I can be persuaded rationally to take such an action, this command is irrelevant. And then it's going to come down to my own subjective assessment and whether I agree; or else someone else enforces this "correct answer" which is some dangerous totalitarian shit.
Feel free to send me a private message.
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Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.
Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum