Atheism and morality

[genkaus]

YOu say morality 'contains' instructions. So, er, morality is - in part anyway - composed of instructions. (do you see how annoying this is for me - I say 'morality instructs' or 'morality is composed of instructions' and the response is 'no it doesn't.....it instructs'. You can't challenge my premise by affirming it!!)

How is this basic concept of the English language beyond your understanding? 'Morality instructs' and 'morality is composed of instructions' do not mean the same thing. One indicates an action taking place - by using the verb "instructs", while the other simply outlines composition. One phrase says "what morality is" and the second "what morality does". As it is, what morality is is a collection of instructions and what it does is nothing - because it is not an agent with the capacity to do anything. Even a beginner should be able to grasp this much.

Now, instructions require an instructor. If you know of a way in which an instruction can exist - and be a genuine, real instruction and not just an apparent one - without it having to have been originated by an agent of some kind, I'm all ears. But until or unless you can do this, instructions require an instructor: an agent of some kind. (There is, after all, no doubt that this is one way in which an instruction can come into being).

Yes - human agents. Moral philosophers. Priests high on mushrooms. Carpenters with delusions of divine grandeur. These are the agents who issue the instructions contained within different moralities. These are the instructors.

If there is no instructor then all we have is the appearance of instructions.

There are instructors. Many of them. Which is why there are many moralities.

Talk about 'ideas' all you want. Ideas don't instruct.

Neither does morality.

And morality is not an idea.

Yes, it is.

It is something we have an idea 'of'. It is not itself an idea. The only thing that is an idea is an idea. A chair is not an idea. But it is something we have an idea of. A horse is not an idea, but it is something we have an idea of. A god is not an idea, but it is something we have an idea of. And so on and so on.

All you are doing here is showing that you have no idea about how ideas work. Your understanding of concepts is even below that of a first grader's. This is how an infant would see the world - for him every idea must have a physical, tangible reference. He does not have the mental capacity to understand that adults have multiple levels conceptualization and abstraction and that they can have ideas about ideas about other ideas about certain concretes - and clearly, it is beyond your mental capacity as well.

Morality is NOT an idea anymore than a chair is. Only someone who is fundamentally confused would think otherwise.

Ofcourse it is. And only someone fundamentally retarded would think otherwise. Morality is an idea of "how one should act".

We have an idea of morality.

Clearly, you don't.

And that idea is of something that instructs, favours etc, and instructs and favours in a way that is rationally authoritative. That's the idea.

That's the wrong idea. On both levels.

And that idea will only have something answering to it in reality if there really are external instructions that are inescapable rationally authoritative. And that requires the existence of a god and an afterlife.

Wrong again. As indicated time and again, there is nothing inescapable or rational or authoritative about either god or afterlife.

Talk about the idea all you want. Talk about how it has evolved, etc. you're not talking about morality until you talk about what the idea is of. And the idea is of external instructions that have inescapable rational authority.

No, the idea is of a set of instructions which need not be external nor have an inescapable rational authority.

I am going to keep on saying this until someone gives me reason to think otherwise. So far all you've done is continue confusing morality for the idea of morality, which is......stupid.

Ooh, calling me stupid. What a uniquely infantile response. You just love proving me right, don't you?