Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

Before you became a theist because of moral instructions did you come up with this theory sooner when you were getting instructions to eat food, or when your body was instructing you to breath?

I am not a theist. I use the term 'theist' to refer to someone who believes in the existence of a creator god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly morally good. THe god I believe in is NONE of those things.

That is what I use the term to mean and I do not wish to get derailed into another pointless semantic discussion. If you and others wish it to mean 'a one legged carrot grower' that's up to you.

If I believe I am instructed to eat some food I believe someone must be issuing that instruction. Perhaps you mean to refer to my desire to eat food. That is a favouring of my eating food and it requires a mind to exist, doesn't it? Do you think desires can exist outside of minds?

You don't seem to be getting this. I'm not saying instructions and favourings require a god!!!! YOu and I can instruct and favour things!!! Chairs, trees and oceans can't. Why? Because they're not agents. They're not minds with beliefs and desires. They don't 'want' anything. Someone who thinks they do either believes them to be agents of some kind, or is fundamentally confused and doesn't really know what they mean by 'want'.

Now, morality instructs and favours (or consists of instructions and favourings). For such things to exist the bare minimum that needs to exist is an agent issuing those instructions and having those favourings. That does not yet establish that morality is or requires a god. It just establishes the morality is or requires an agent of some kind. But let's just get clear: it does.

You can tell me about yourself and your parents all you like - they're AGENTS!!!!!!

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No, I disagree with you. Morality may instruct one to do something, but it does not require an invisible agent to do it. Humans and other animals make their own morals that they think up themselves. That doesn't require a god to tell you what is right and what is wrong. Not all Christians have the exact same morals, and the same can be said about other religions, as well as Atheists.

So you accept the conceptual truth that morality is essentially instructional. That entails that morality - or its instrctions and favourings if one prefers - must be an agent. If no-one is issuing those instructions, then they're just not real instructions are they?

You then propose that it is not a god, but 'us' who is issuing these instructions. You then proceed to point out that people have different moral beliefs. I know! That's irrelevant. MOrality is not composed of beliefs. It is composed of instructions and favourings (about which we have beliefs).

Anyway, your proposal that it is 'us' who issues the instructions fails. It fails because in addition to being instructions, moral instructions have inescapable rational authority. Our instructions don't.

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inigo, your morality was brought to you by your parents, your society, your genes...
My morality was brought to me by my parents, my society, my genes.
Both these moralities are similar, mostly because the genes are similar, as well as the society.
But in other parts of the world, the moral thing would be to obliterate any other human from a different tribe, because such human is, most likely, a threat to your tribe. This would go against your morality and mine... nut not against theirs.
Morality is not a thing which is somewhere in the mental realm and instructs people on what is right or wrong absolutely.... which it would be is it was provided by a god.... it is something very down to earth, very subjective, which tells you it's something very human.

And once again you are just talking about my moral beliefs and sensations. Those constitute 'moral phenomena'. Morality is not my beliefs and sensations. It is the 'object' of moral beliefs. It is the thing sensed. It may not exist. but don't keep confusing it with the beliefs and sensations. You won't be addressing anything I've argued until you stop making this silly mistake.