Atheism and Ethics

[Lucian]

If I understand the rest of your argument correctly you are arguing that the difficulty in knowing something is not the same as that thing not being the case?

Sure, about sums it up, yeah.  Tying it in with Angrboda's comments I think it's true that objective realisms difficulty is epistemological rather than metaethical- but I obviously believe that we can overcome that difficulty in at least some cases - why would I not include moral ones when those moral cases are identical to any other assertion of qualified fact?  IE, when (not if...) moral facts are non-novel facts.  

My issue here is still trying to understand how you think you are overcoming the difficulty in knowledge without begging the question regarding the existence of the thing you believe in. 
Can you clarify how moral claims are identical to any other assertion of qualified facts? With such qualified facts we can normally investigate and demonstrate in some way, but I am not sure what that would look like with moral facts. It still seems that the same arguments are used for the existence of gods

I am genuinely not trying to argue that you are wrong - just not sure what the positive case for their truth is (more reading to be done so that is on me not you).

That is a useful analogy for how things would be if you are correct about moral values, but doesn’t seem (and might not be intended as ?) like an argument for the blackness of the cat itself, just that not knowing something doesn’t disprove it.  Do you see a principled distinction between your acceptance of mind-independent moral values and claims of deistic gods?

Sure.  One is a field paper on the production of catawba grapes in semi-arid climates, and the other is a listicle about which cheese to pair with what wine.

Ok, I am genuinely puzzled by that!