(September 5, 2012 at 2:39 am)Boccaccio Wrote: Your "ought" appears to be power-based alone.Only somewhat correct. If God exists, he is the creator and sustainer of the universe, and I am only a contingent being. As such, it would only make sense to place my duties and obligations in the hands of that which creates and sustains such a place wherein I live, does it not? When independently visiting another country (that is to say not in some sort of 'exchange' program or the like), the laws of my land do not take precedence.
(September 5, 2012 at 2:39 am)Boccaccio Wrote: Saying "only self-identified" and "arbitrary" appears to me...I don't feel I need to point out the irony in this statement.
(September 5, 2012 at 2:39 am)Boccaccio Wrote: No individual entity has to tell me what I ought to do if I have evolved, can perceive, and can learn culturally, what are successful behaviours.What I am not understanding is here, you eschew the need for an independent entity to inform your moral duties, saying what you yourself discover via observation & experience will suffice. That's all well and good, however you then turn around and make appeals to entities independent of yourself [emphases mine]:
Quote:Which of us is wrong is measurable in accord with the moral objectives.
Quote:Demonstrably, this is not a successful strategy for humans.
Quote:Human group morality gradually learns to avoid these problems.
Quote:You select and reinterpret scripture on which to base your ideas of morality, and you assume your perfect god changes his mind, or else you would still be behaving in accord with Leviticus and still promoting slavery.These are misplaced presumptions. Regarding the moral values and duties, I see no evidence God has changed his mind. It is correct to say the law was fulfilled, as in Matthew 5:17, as well as Romans 3:31 and throughout that book.
Quote:Further, you can not offer any means on which you make one reinterpretation or another, other than to say that whatever happens it is your fault and your god remains perfect.I may make the very same appeals you have regarding the 'strategies' and 'measured success' to help make that interpretation. Given I believe the law is written on our hearts/we have been imbued with a conscience, we should hardly find it surprising our moral discoveries often square with scripture. It is the atheist however, that lacks such a governing and immutable authority. There is nothing to say one must interpret 'the numbers' or 'the measurement' one way or another regarding moral duties.
Quote:I recognise that you take the second horn of Euthyphro, that it is good because your god loves it. Incidentally, does your god control his own nature?Again, incorrect. That is a false dilemma – we don’t need to pick either of those two horns, but rather the correct alternative is to say that God wills something because he is good. God’s own nature is what Plato called “The Good,” and his will expresses that toward us in the form of commandments which constitute our moral duties.
Quote:Stephenmills1000 has agreed that the determinant of whether something is objectively morali is that it is dependent on something which is independent of him. He has also agreed that such a morality must not depend on any mind beyond that he has agreed to follow the rules emerging. Very well, on those terms I give you objective moralty, as follows:You are certainly entitled to allow a coin flip to determine choice to moral dilemmas. However, the coin does not issue moral commands. Besides, your premise is flawed: what says that every moral dilemma requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer? For instance, is killing someone always bad? What about the death penalty? Or vegetative state cases? It requires your presuppositions to determine what are moral 'dilemmas' in the first place- it's plausible you would never not be flipping coins! Thus we see this argument is question-begging.
1. All preceding moral decisions are binding and may not be re-asked.
2. All moral questions are framed for a yes or no answer.
3. All of the these questions are answered by the high flip of a fair coin, heads for no and tails for yes.
Anything wrong with that, Stephen? Do you think, perhaps, it might not actually produce moral results? I submit that it will because the fair coin has goodness as its nature. Can you show otherwise?
Quote:Stephen, can you point me to reliable instances of a functional mind without a functioning brain?Though I would point out what the attributes of God, if he exists, would necessarily have to be, as well as near-death experiences, I am loath to head down this rabbit trail as it would significantly stray from the OP...
Quote:If it is, then why is this ok to define objectively:(September 4, 2012 at 2:57 pm)stephenmills1000 Wrote: The fact is there is no metric in existence that can tell us if we're doing a 'better' job or not, objectively.It is trivial to define this objectively.
(September 5, 2012 at 2:39 am)Boccaccio Wrote: Which of us is wrong is measurable in accord with the moral objectives.This is special pleading.
Quote:You object only because you want the angels of the lord to flutter down to tell you instead.And this is ad hominum circumstantial.
Quote:It is interesting that despite our vastly more efficient methods of killing people, we are less likely to die a violent death than ever before in history. This, incidentally, coincides with gradually increasing atheism and is evident in the most secular societies. I do not claim atheism is the reason (see Pinker for reasons) but I note that the result is precisely contrary to the fervid beliefs of religious people.I thank you for the reference.
You may reference this gentleman's site for statistics, adopted from Statistics of Democide: Atrocities done in the name of religion
As slandered as he has been here, I can't disagree with Vinny regarding the atheist moral landscape, when he says:
(August 31, 2012 at 11:20 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: I'm arguing from a purely philosophical position, one where objective moral values don't exist. This is the default position of atheism from which our moral norms are derived. The problem is, our atheistic position cannot RATIONALLY reject the possibility of genocide, rape, murder and the likes being morally good. There is always the possibility. And more importantly, it's a metaphysical possibility, not just a logical one.
This is worrying for the rational atheists among us, and this is an area I am enormously interested in researching. My problem is, I need a better grasp of the fundamentals of ethics and moral studies.