If it wasn't for religion

[GrandizerII]

Yeah, let's be vague so as to promote a proper discussion here ...  

No we can have a proper discussion without mentioning God or the supernatural, since whatever you mean by these terms, is something that can be separated from the question of reality possessing moral stuff.

Are you sure you want to do that? Seems to me like a concession that God isn't needed for objective morality after all.

But even if you believed reality does possess "the stuff of morality", this has nothing to do with any supernatural god. Unless you consider reality itself God, in which case you're being misleading. You are certainly free to view this reality as God (that's your intuition after all), but if so, you can't then make disingenuous arguments for theism based on equivocating and such.

Whether or not you understand the relationship between theism and a reality that posses “the stuff of morality”, between God and any teleological view of reality, is of no concern to me. It’s built on an ignorance of theism, that I have no interest in resolving for you.

Nice dodge. You'll charge me with being ignorant regarding the relationship between X and Y, but you won't elaborate on how exactly. A baseless empty charge then.

As far as you ought to be concerned, I’m just a person who believes reality posses “the stuff of morality”. And you and other atheists here don’t.

Ok ... and this is not reasonable given atheism why? What does this have to do with theism vs. atheism?

Morality does not exist in the Platonic sense, methinks.

No it’s posses it in the platonic sense, so you thinks wrongly.

According to whom? You?

The wrongness of the holocaust is as objectively true, as 1+1=2. Someone who claims it’s not wrong, would be akin to someone claiming the earth is flat.

What does this have to do with whether or not objective morality exists in the Platonic sense? Or do you mistakenly equate "objective" to "Platonic"?

The goodness and wrongness of things exists just as real as the color of my wife’s dress, or the cup on my table. Not just in our minds, but in reality itself. In fact it perhaps even more real than I can say of you.

That's your view, which does not necessarily reflect what reality is about.

When we recognize the wrongness of torturing babies just for fun, we’re not recognizing some subjective biological sensation, or something constructed by our societies and culture, but something that is true independent of these things.

Sure, but many atheists have no problem agreeing with this. So why are you trying to make this an atheism vs. theism thing when it's really not?

You may deny such a reality, but I’m inclined to see you as a solipsists, or a person who believes truth is subjective. In fact any argument you have against it, can easily to be use to make the case for the latter as well.

I don't deny a reality in which objective morality may be true. I do question the idea of reality possessing moral truths in the Platonic sense (note Platonic is not the same as objective), but I'm open to elaborations here and am willing to adjust my tentative views on moral platonism in light of proper logic.

And not sure how denying/questioning moral platonism makes me a solipsist and thereby a moral subjectivist? This feels to me like you're not properly thinking through what you're saying, and you're just saying stuff just to give the misleading impression you're undermining my position.

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I think what Aegon's friend meant is that if one were to go by logic and reasoning alone, then one would have to conclude that God's existence is unlikely. Nevertheless, his friend intuits that God exists and therefore continues to believe.

I see nothing confusing about that. And in fact, I find this to be rather honest, compared to all the theists who say there is evidence for God and/or that faith is somehow logical. Wish more and more theists were like the former instead of the latter.

I'm not sure I agree that "intuit's" is the equivalent of "makes a conscious choice".

My point is that it was poor wording on her part. But that's just the way I interpret it, since I used to be such a theist for a while (after leaving the Christian faith) and I would use such poor wording to describe my position. As in, I used to admit there was no evidence for God but that I chose to believe regardless (when what I really meant is that God's existence still made sense to me regardless).