Deconversion and some doubts

[Acrobat]

@Acrobat If God ceased to exist would rape be okay?

That question doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't believe in a concept of God distinct from the Good.

A more accurate rendition of the question, would be to ask whether if Good did not exist would rape be morally okay?

And my answer is yes. Without Good having an objective existence, than nothing could be morally right or wrong, anymore so than your taste in music, or clothes could be right or wrong.

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You're strawmanning me now. We were talking about where ought and ought nots come from, not whether stealing or the Holocaust is bad because society says so.

Ought and ought nots imply rules. Rules, as far as we know, are set by human societies. You don't need rules to believe that stealing or the Holocaust are wrong, and that they are to be avoided because they are wrong. But there are moral societal rules here and there that members of these societies are expected to follow even if you opt not to; it's not some external entity out there formulating these rules.

Also, something to be stated because theists make this mistake quite often: something is not false just because you don't like it to be true.

Oughts implies duties and obligation, all of which implies rules, regardless of whether those rules are explicitly spelled out, or listed in their entirety.

If they didn't imply a rule, than it wouldn't be oughts at all. It wouldn't be I ought not steal, but rather synonymous with wishes, I wish you didn't' steal.

And you need oughts for any sort of coherent moral statement, such as the holocaust is wrong. People ought not do things like the holocaust, rather than I wish people didn't do things like the holocaust.

In fact much of the language we would use when referring to legal laws, is analogous to the way we speak of morality. We treat morality as if its some transcendent law, binding on all human being, regardless of the laws and practices of their society. The holocaust is wrong not just for Americans, but for the Germans partaking in it, even if it was legal in that particularly society.

If you still disagree, than perhaps you can tell me what you think the difference is between saying someone ought not steal, and saying I wish people didn't steal? What is the nature of "ought" as distinct from the nature of a "wish" here?

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A moral goal and a moral structure are not ubiquitously interchangeable.  A person can understand and accept the structure without having or pursuing a stated goal.

We can know something is shitty and have no interest in avoiding it.  VV, as well, of course.  It’s silly to say, in a system that uses harm as the moral metric, that being harmful isn’t what makes something “bad”.  That’s baked into harm based morality by definition.  Objective or subjective.

Without a moral goal, such as we ought not do things that are harmful to others, the structure is just a structure. You'd just be indicating the physical details of that structure. By calling the structure moral, you're sneaking in moral goals. Without goals, subjective or objective, moral statements would be incoherent.