How to easily defeat any argument for God

[GrandizerII]

I dunno

If we wanted to be honest, we'd all start every post this way.

I don’t think it’s ever going change that most beings want to be. It’s kind of that thing unique to us, lol. As long as that fact remains true, “goods” and “bads” with reference to well-being, can be objective. I mean, what are we even talking about if we aren’t talking about well-being? What does “morally good” or “morally bad” even mean outside of the context of living beings? 

Yep, we generally want to stay alive. And we want to be comfortable, and all that. That's easy enough to explain through natural selection, surely. Critters who don't care if they don't stay alive tend not to have as many babies. 

And yes, when we take wellbeing as the goal we have chosen (or had natural selection choose for us), then ethical questions certainly can be objective. I mean, we might differ on exactly what type of life is richest, but he all want to be healthy and happy. 

And yes, moral questions are certainly considered in relation to living beings, for sure. 

So we agree on all that. 

Acro refuses to consider these facts, and as a result he’s left with the only other explanation available to him regarding ‘what is good’: 

“It just is.”

If I'm reading him correctly, he agrees with all of this. He is clear that once we have chosen wellbeing as a goal, questions become objective and science is the way to solve many of them. 

Where he seems to differ (and I hope he'll correct me if I'm reading him wrong) is in the absolute value of wellbeing as a goal. He's agreed that being in accord with the Good leads to wellbeing. But, as we said, wellbeing is a goal we've chosen, or had chosen for us by natural selection. No one is arguing for its opposite, but as a contingent choice it is potentially changeable and far from absolute. I mean, we want wellbeing, but history shows we're willing to give up other people's wellbeing at the drop of a hat. 

If we want to argue that doing good is more than a naturally-selected preference for good baby-making conditions, then we need something else. 

Now I don't know. It may well be that morality is only a naturally-selected preference for good baby-making conditions. But I'm considering the arguments of others. 

One of the problems seems to be that Acrobat is taking a very normal and traditional position, and getting scolded for it. Namely, we usually say that you can't get an ought from an is. You know this, I'm sure. I can say, "you'll die if you do that," and that's a scientific question, for which there's an easy test. But if I say, "you shouldn't do this thing that will cause you to die," there is no test for that. Perhaps it goes against our evolved preferences, but that still doesn't mean it's morally bad. 

Acrobat holds to this usual view that what is true about nature doesn't determine what is good or bad. As do most people. If we had an atheist moral realist who was willing to argue otherwise in a mature fashion, that would be interesting. But alas. 

So far Acrobat is in the majority of moral thinkers, including atheists. His mention of Wittgenstein made this clear. And I think if we look at the terms, you'll be OK with Wittgenstein's position too. 

Wittgenstein says that moral truths are supernatural. And I know people hate that word. But in this case it has a real meaning. 

OK, we say that something has a nature, like a character. Cats do the things they do according to their nature. It is in their nature to play with bottle tops and take naps. It is not in their nature to sing opera. If your cats started singing opera all the sudden, it would be over and above their nature -- supernatural. (Unless we could identify an opera-singing gene in cats that had lain dormant for a thousand years.) 

Wittgenstein accepts the majority position that science doesn't find moral truths in nature. It can look at all the effects of smoking on your body, but it can't find any empirical repeatable test to show that smoking is bad. For that, you need a commitment to living a long time, and that is not something with material empirical properties. 

So if you say that the nature of the world (which we call "nature" for short) is that which science studies, then science can't study morality. Morality is not a part of the nature of the world, therefore it's supernatural. 

Who decides that it “is”? A god? How can we know what a god thinks is good? Does he have to justify his morality with reference to well-being, or do we just do as told; no questions asked? That’s not a superior alternative to moral realism, lol. Further, if we don’t have to justify our morality using any facts about reality, it’s far more susceptible to whim and preference. “I just know”, and “it just is”, can be used by anyone in defense of literally anything. How reliable is a method that can lead to mutually exclusive conclusions?

I certainly agree that "it just is" is a terrible way to justify morality. 

But Acrobat isn't thinking of God as the big Nobodaddy in the sky. He is taking the theological position that God is the Good. Therefore, God doesn't decide what is good. Whatever is good for people, whatever leads to their wellbeing, is God. Then we can use science and regular debate to figure out what God "wants." 

So Acrobat is arguing, I think, that wellbeing is more than a choice we make. It is the result of something over and above contingent choices. It wouldn't change, even if we had evolved to be more selfish. 

Many Christians think that a commitment to this over-and-above non-contingent principle is the best way to get, eventually, to wellbeing. Any honest Christian will admit that he may be wrong in his analysis of how to get to wellbeing. But they see a commitment to this goodness as the best way to get there. As Acrobat says he wants his daughter to be committed to the good that is over and above, not committed to contingent principles about (the current consensus says about) wellbeing and how to get there.

It's not a consensus, it's nature. There's no need for God as a final cause. People aim for good because that's how we've evolved via natural selection. Theists may not like this, but as it is it is logically sound and parsimonious.

Now things don't happen perfectly. We tend to be very tribalistic, and conflicts happen all too often. But at the core, humans (as a species) have enough motivation to do what's good, help their loved ones, be kind to others, we just don't always make the right moral decisions and choices. But the lack of perfection does not logically necessitate a perfect entity or means or whatever. To think so would be a fallacy.