Moral Nihilism

[Tiberius]

The study of morality exists in the world, sure, but I am arguing that it is a futile study given atheist presuppositions. Without culturally-transcendant moral laws, the atheist has no ground to condemn the butchery of a Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.

We can condemn the actions of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all other mass murderers / murderers for that matter. These are things that are deemed by our modern society to be very wrong. At the time, if you were a Nazi in Germany, you may have thought that Hitler was doing the work of God (in fact many did). The morality in Germany had been shifted due to Hitler's propaganda. If you are honestly saying that you cannot see why Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot are wrong in their actions, apart from "violating God's law", then I honestly feel for you. Why don't you try some freethinking for once? Put down your holy book and think things through. I'm not asking you to consider atheism, I'm asking you to try and think why people like atheists can condemn these things as wrong. We understand why murder in wrong without referencing "God's law", and so can you.

Yes, Hitler thought they were a good thing. I do not since murder is a violation of God's law. You do not because your cultural values tell you so? Change your culture, change your values, eh?

I do not murder because I understand the negative impacts it has on society, and the punishments society places on it. I do not murder because in my society, we are rewarded for doing what is considered "good" things, and murder is the complete opposite. I do not murder because we have evolved in a tight social group, and causing pain to members of the social group results in social ostracism. It's not a simple matter of changing culture, it is a matter of adapting to that culture. I am sure that if I took a holiday to Zimbabwe, I wouldn't suddenly want to vote for Mugabe. However, given years of living there, perhaps raising a family there, my values may change. What I am saying on the cultural question is that if you went to every single culture on Earth and asked different ethical questions, you would get a wide range of answers. In some parts of Africa, they still burn people as "witches", when in most of the modern world, we see this as a vile act, since witchcraft is superstitious nonsense.

You're committing the is/ought falacy, if morality is simply a function of human nature. But beyond that, atheism entails not only moral nihilism, but ontological nihilism. So what if we all decided murder was okay? Life is meaningless, devoid of purpose, significance, or dignity. The universe doesn't care if all the homo sapiens kill each other, why should you or I?

No, the is/ought fallacy is concerned with saying "action X is natural therefore action X is morally right". I'm saying that morality itself is a natural thing, part of how our species developed. This is being studied by numerous biologists all over the world; it is not a fallacy. A fallacy takes place when someone makes a bad logical step in their argument. Atheism does not entail moral nihilism. If you keep on saying things like "atheism = nihilism" without showing your reasoning then we aren't going to have a good discussion here. Many people have already shown how atheism does not equate nihilism, so you have been challenged on your viewpoint; your job is to answer them rather than repeat points already countered. If we all decided murder was ok, we wouldn't have a society anymore. Such a position has detrimental effects on the society itself, and we can see how this is the case. More importantly, it goes against our species instincts, which is to work together in a social group, as we are social animals. The universe doesn't care, but I fail to see why it should. As long as the species requires morality to survive, it will be there. We need to work together to survive since we are an extremely weak species individually (human without tools vs lion / bear etc).

Society is an absurd concept for the nihilist.

Indeed, which is why I am not a nihilist. Did you forget you were in a discussion here? If you come in with presuppositions and then use those presuppositions to create an argument, only to have them countered, perhaps you presuppositions are wrong? It's childish to respond to a point by saying "Well my presuppositions say X is an absurd concept for someone Y, therefore you are wrong". It's probably a type of fallacy too. Now respond to my point, but do it properly next time.

Its only absurd for the nihilist, which atheism entails.

We've shown how atheism does not entail nihilism, so again: Respond to my point, but do it properly next time.

So there are no irreducible moral truths for you, since they're all culturally-dependant? Then you cannot honestly condemn the mass-murders of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

There are no irreducible moral truths. Moral "truths" are all culturally dependent. I live in a culture, therefore I have certain moral truths, ergo I can honestly condemn the mass-murders. If I lived in a different culture, maybe I couldn't, but that isn't the point. Since I live in a culture that condemns the actions, I condemn the actions. I can also work it out why these actions are to be condemned by reasoning; it's just a shame you cannot.

And since all of our moral "standards" are culturally-dependant, cross-cultural moral criticism is verbotten. So again, the atheist cannot condemn the mass-murders of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

See above.