(October 22, 2013 at 8:16 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I don't get this. Isn't this voided by my argument about the fact that that kind of purpose necessitates a value judgement, and thus by definition cannot be imbued from the outside? Take this. Say that the hammers we created were conscious agents. Would the fact that we (or hypothetically God) created them with the intention that they be used to hammer things necessitate that they make the value judgement that such was in fact the value judgement they ought to make?
That would seem to be cut by the fact-value problem, yes?
The term necessity doesn't really apply here.
To take your example - suppose hammers created by us are conscious entities and we have created them them for the purpose of hammering. This "purpose" is the result of our value judgement. Now, it is not necessary for the hammer to accept this purpose - to acknowledge and choose to follow it - but the purpose is there just the same. At the same time, the hammer can make its own value judgement contrary to ours and choose to follow that one. In this case, the hammer has a choice between the externally given subjective purpose and its own subjective purpose.
However, where god is concerned, we have a choice between objectively given external purpose and our own subjective purpose.
(October 22, 2013 at 8:16 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Well, doesn't that make their position entirely circular? God exists therefore objective purpose exists (assumption); Objective purpose exists (and as Bill Craig says, "And deep down we all know it") therefore God exists. That's the same thing as the moral argument. Neither God nor objective purpose have been demonstrated to exist, yet each are being used to argue for the other.
Not circular - tautological. Given that "objective" is being treated as "god-given".
(October 22, 2013 at 8:16 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I don't think that works for reasons listed earlier.
I think you may have missed something here. None of the arguments above actually address the given reason for the error in P1.
To put it simply, your premise is "For a being to have an objective purpose (OP) for its existence, there must be a greater being whom imbues them with that OP." - which supposedly comes from the Christian view. My response is that this should actually read "For a being to have an objective purpose (OP) for its existence, there must be a god who imbues them with that OP".
