RE: I am a Catholic, ask me a question!
August 5, 2009 at 6:11 pm
(This post was last modified: August 5, 2009 at 6:17 pm by Jon Paul.)
(August 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Again, your argument is based on your being convinced that as morality comes from god, anything else is 'merely subjective', and thus carries no weight. This is your error.It certainly does not. My argument is agnostic. It doesn't claim that God exists, or that he doesn't, or even address the question.
(August 5, 2009 at 5:18 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: I am indeed simply asserting and analysing what morality is in one worldview, and what it is in another.
This whole question has already been debated to the point of nausea, much earlier in this thread. I can only suggest you read from page two of the thread.
(August 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: First of all you've still provided no evidence that morality is a) objective, or b) comes from god, so without backing up your premise, your assumed consequences carry no authority.This is a complete misunderstanding of the argument. I am making an analytical, epistemological argument, which doesn't attempt to engage the question of whether God exists or not, but simply engages the epistemological consequences of a worldviews own epistemic structure, regardless of the evidential question. Whereas, you are trying to make an evidential debate. That's fine, but it's another discussion.
It's clear we can't have a very harmonious discussion when you are addressing a question and discussion wholly other and irrelevant to the one I am addressing.
(August 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Morality is consensus based, on the basis that humans are born so alike and share such simliar experiences, that we have evolved sets of codes for living. These codes become 'good ideas', so much so, that we base laws on them. Consensus is the key. If you survey 10,000,000 people and 10,000,000 say that stealing is wrong, than thats a good scientific basis for saying thats its as close to objectively true as we can get.That is simply argumentum ad populum. The popularity of a sentiment makes it no more objectively true. And the popularity of a sentiment makes it no less subjective either, and it no more transcends subjective minds for that reason.
(August 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: For you to say stealing is objectively wrong, because it says "Thou shalt not steal" in a book written thousands of years ago is ludricrous.I haven't said this, I wouldn't myself say this apart from my argument, and my argument certainly doesn't say it. It doesn't make any such affirmative statements.
(August 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Nonsense, atheism elevates morality to set of practical ideals which we can aspire to acheive and live; above the notion that its a divine dictat, which must be followed to the letter for the rest of time, on pain of eternal damnation.. and this, in your own worldview, is simply another abstraction of a subjective mind which I will dismiss as such.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton