Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[Mudhammam]

This one is reeeeeaaaallllllyyyy llllooonnnnggggg!!!!

Indeed. I have to admit, considering the variety of topics that we seem to be running through---little of which really pertains to your OP that belief in a deity is a warranted assumption (for morality)---it's becoming a bit tedious.

We cannot forget that Subjects A and B are independent of one another.  

You misunderstood. By "per his standard" I only meant by the standard of A, which was that lying for personal benefit is always moral.

Thus, according to this standard Subject A may not know anything about Subject B’s standard beyond the assumption that B shall engage only in activity which is considered moral.  To state otherwise is to say that Subject B would embark upon a course of action which they do not consider to be the rightful action, which while possible would seem to contradict the idea of self-interest where what is done in one’s own interest and is considered the rightful action. As stated in an earlier post, we are unjustified in saying that something is subjective and then subsequently stating that the subjectivity of each Subject is so little that the Subject's subjectivities correspond with one another. Furthermore, we must account for the fact that any given Subject shall act according to their whim even in the same situation.  This further constitutes a contradiction of subjective morality as the extent of the rule defined by subjective morality is the Subject shall act rightly in accordance with any whim at any given time to a given moral situation.  Which is to say, as stated above, the Subject always acts rightly even if they act sporadically or horribly.

I'll grant that most will find it easy to dismiss subjective morality when defined as "the Subject shall act rightly in accordance with any whim at any given time to a given moral situation," but that's not my position so I don't really care to defend it. Like I said, I define subjective morality by the simple fact that values are strictly derived from individual experience and in this regard lack any objective quality. To say that something is wrong is only to say that you strongly disagree or dislike the intentions or the consequences involved. I would be more than happy to hear someone establish the existence of Plato's "the Good" in a credible manner but I doubt you'll accomplish much in the way of persuasion if your resources are limited to appeal to imaginary friends.   

I do not quite understand this one as you seem to be all over.  First you are stating that facts about the world have an objective quality even though there is as you put it no objective source of these facts, but only subjective sources.

You seem to be confusing facts and values. Of course there is an objective source for facts about the world... namely, the world, by which we receive impressions via the senses, and these obviously in contradistinction to the objects of pure thought.

So I do not follow how there can be an objective quality that is not merely coincidence to which one might make a claim of objectivity.  (We covered this at length in previous posts regarding the need to appeal to realism to give subjectives universality and validity as a reflection of part, but not all of, an objective reality). Then your infidel assertion seems to state those who torture, kill, rape, etcetera are acting morally (you must be if you are arguing a subjective morality) and has no necessary bearing on how others define value (of the actions I presume).  Which seems counter intuitive to me as the persons who are acted upon by said infidels either directly (victims) or indirectly (bystanders and family) would most assured have their evaluation of the action affected by both the act and morality/reason of actor.  (Think cops kill kid running towards them vs. cops kill kid running towards with knife in hand)

Yeah... persons who value the well-being of their species would find many of the acts committed in the name of divine inspiration utterly disgusting, while those who believe their actions are in accordance with the will of the Supreme Being would feel their actions perfectly justified.

Ah…  I see.  By limiting the Subject to a schema of value you are establishing possible uniformity between Subjects; effectual creating a proxy objective morality.  Interesting, though I would say this would be contrary to the concept of subjective morality.  Since the Subject is not acting according to their own morality but rather according to a schema of morality which is not their own I assume you are contending they will follow the schema even regarding portions they do not like.  If you are not making such an argument than you are wasting time with the introduction of a schema argument and we are back to a subjective morality where each acts according to their whim at any given time in any given situation; a subjective morality that does not allow the Subject to form any rule of moral conduct.

Furthermore, upon introduction of a schema you would not be justified in holding any given schema as being better than another in regards to subjective morality (you could make that distinction in regards to objective morality) where the Subject in question is not even willing to act according to their inherent determination of morality.  Whether they are following the schema outlined by Aristotle, whom lacks sufficient proof or evidence to exist (where is your picture of Aristotle in accordance with our picture proofs/evidence?), or are, “appeasing the tribal deity” they are acting according to a schema which is not their own and is not proven or evidenced

I don't see how what you consider a "proxy objective morality" is contrary to my conception of subjective morality at all. Ethical theories as diverse as Moses', Aristotle's, Bentham's, and Kant's, for example, all claim a modus operandi that each would proclaim as providing objectivity... and what are you left with? Many competing "objective moralities" that are ultimately determined by each philosopher's (subjective) evaluation of "the Good."

With regards to your question about Aristotle, are you asking in reference to Nicomachean Ethics or his broader contribution to philosophy? I find his conception of the good life and his arguments about the "golden mean" compelling... but then again, I also believe that nothing could really be more important than for a human being to live their one short life with as much happiness and peace as possibly attainable, so I value things conducive to that end, such as health, friendship, freedom, security... whereas the religious ascetic who believes that all fortunes in earthly life amount to nothingness in comparison to the bliss that awaits in eternity, for those who appease the notion of deity as contained in their holy scriptures, is obviously going to have quite a different standard of morality than mine.

Under a subjective morality you would.  You would not under an objective morality or objective morality by proxy which you endeavor to establish by means of a schema or the adoption of values and meanings beyond subjective whims or preferences.  In so doing you are moving the determinate of what is moral beyond the Subject to some rule the Subject must obey even if they subjectively do not think it is right or what they want. At which time they would no longer be following subjective morality.

They would be compelled to comply with such a rule to the extent that they value X (well-being, rational principles, etc.)... which again, that one ought to do so I believe is a subjective determination that has no basis outside of what said individual defines as most important to them.

Umm.  God may be inferred both by synthetic apriori (done epistemologically by Plato in regards to the Forms) and synthetic aposteriori (done ontologically by Aristotle in regards to causality).  Kant even discusses both of these inferences of god in the Critique of Pure Reason.  

Ha! I would agree with Schopenhauer that the term God defined honestly implies personality... which is to say, neither Plato's Forms nor Aristotle's notions of causality gets you quite so far... and while you may be able to infer the objective existence of almost anything you like so long as you can imagine it existing as such, I don't concede that you would always be rational in doing so. 

 
YES SIR!!  The reactionary meat between your ears constitutes physical consciousness (which I would not call it consciousness but you want to) and may be shown to react without teleological purpose to stimuli; where consciousness is held to be of greater metaphysical and teleological quality than simply reactionary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness) (By the way, Darwin did not demonstrate this evolved over millions of years...No one has.)

I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. It sounds to me that you're trying to divorce consciousness from the brain, which I would say is not only radically unfounded in any logic or evidence (but then, what do you even mean by "consciousness" in such a sense?), but also, the brain is with every possible sound reason held responsible for generating the phenomena we understand to be consciousness, which is why I call it physical. That you think Darwin did not demonstrate consciousness to have evolved (as a production of physicals brains, which are an integral part of numerous organisms that he did demonstrate to have evolved) makes me wonder if you believe that your consciousness developed with the brain from infancy... or perhaps you think, like Socrates, that your "metaphysical consciousness" is eternal and transmigrated from one living creature to the next? Maybe your deus ex machina specially implants it in the shape of a small "metaphysical seed" late in fetal development? Perhaps consciousness floated along in a vacuum prior to finding a channel that could sustain it? Maybe you drank from the River of Forgetfulness in Hades which is why you don't recall your earlier forms of consciousness? And when you go to sleep, perhaps your metaphysical consciousness "decides" to cooperate with your body? 

Ha ha.  You cannot reject my imaginary friend without making one of your own.  I like it.  You cannot reject god without accepting the existence of your person who shall reject god (both of which lack sufficient proof/evidence).  This argument seems familiar…  

It must be convenient to have this notion on hand that is so ill-defined and elastic that it can literally fit into every possible gap of ignorance that human brilliance has yet to fill. Thunderstorms? God. Orbit of the planets? God. Morality? God. Consciousness? God.

Needless to say, I find that pretty boring and undifferentiated from saying "I don't know," which is to my mind far less arrogant, far more honest, and actually useful in stimulating both curiosity and conversation.

I love this quote as it is making my very point! As stipulated earlier in this post.  The set of rules one adopts shall be either the objective reality or serve as a proxy for the objective reality to which the Subject must adhere even if not desired.  Then it may be further argued that any proxy of the objective reality shall reach perfection as it approaches the actual objective reality. Otherwise you are contending the creation of nonsensical rules to play a game that goes nowhere.

...Except that you tried to invoke such rules in arguing for the objective existence of abstract goods, which you left undemonstrated, and not---as Einstein did---for the utility of the scientific method as a means of discovering facts about the physical world.

You asking just because or did your internet go out?

A rhetorical question in response to a rhetorical question? (That's rhetorical too).

Actually history does support that idea.  In fact the primary institutions of scientific knowledge, learning, and progress in nearly every society would be the religious ones who were endeavoring to understand their god or god(s) better by understanding their creation.  Any anthropologist or historian can attest to this as religious organizations are one of the primary areas of research to understand societies. I cannot deny the existence of numerous gods under the same threshold of proof that gives rise to a particular god. 

Don't you think that when persons and cultures, as diversely represented by secularists/atheists, polytheists, and monotheists as the pursuit of knowledge and education has been, are all able to contribute to that project, which pertains exclusively to the world around us and to our endeavors to accurately conceive of it, then perhaps it might suggest that any particular theology that is either invoked out of piety or security isn't really very crucial to that project, even though it has often proven an impediment? Or would you be under the illusion that Homer not only must have really believed in the power of the Muses to compose epic poetry, but such a belief is an integral part to doing so? That would be beyond ridiculous.

However, I can amalgamate those gods into a single entity which may thereby be designated as God. 

Of course you can. As I said, you can invoke God for whatever you please because there is no real description of such a being that isn't largely construed ad hoc. I'm sure it's easy to do so when even theologians admit, out of only one side of their mouths unfortunately, that the deity is in principle "incomprehensible."

I believe my argument was that any efforts to argue around the inherent subjective bias of pragmatism were futile.  Which I am confident in reiterating as pragmatism is a subcategory of idealism which contends the object and its practicality are determined by the Subject.  That leads back to my original post above that stated the purpose of the unattainable standard for god, with a different standard for everything else is because one does not want to believe in god rather than adopting a standard to support knowledge and letting determination follow that standard wherever it goes.

Everything in your experience is synthetic aposteriori (inferred from experience) and not both  
I agree with the general statement that truth should agree with itself and where possible synthetic apriori and aposteriori should be in harmony, even with analytic apriori.  Though I admit that is not always possible.

Yet you would also like to add the requirement that magical silver bullets designed by ancient humans to solve really difficult questions also be admitted... and worse, revered! 

I thought we had an agreement  But you went continuum fallacy quick?   From circumstantial implicit empirical proof/evidence one may infer the existence of God such that it may be posited God is possible (which is to say probable even if slightly so) though vaguely defined or apprehended.  If possible; then slightly probable; if slightly probable then probable (though not necessarily likely). To subsequent state that possibility cannot be an actuality simply because there is not a discreet point for determining the exact probability of the possibility to be an actuality is application of the continuum fallacy; akin to saying unless you can tell me exactly how many hairs a person must have on their head to be bald (or no longer bald) than you cannot infer that the removal of hairs from a person’s head who is not bald will make them bald.

(bold mine)
We can apply Hitchen's razor here and move on since you're just repeating assertions that I already repeatedly said I reject.

Ha ha!  Atheist have been riding the “proof” pony since the beginning.  Got something new? Then how about we endeavor to surpass our predecessors and resolve the arguments already posited? I would recommend you not subscribe to argumentum ad numerum

I guess I share something in common with a-astrologists, a-faerieists, and a-unicornists!

And seriously, if you're going to accuse someone of a fallacy, you should at least know when it is and when it is not appropriate to employ. An argumentum ad populum fallacy would require a person to argue that X is true because (at least in part) Y number of people agree... which is clearly not what I said. Please do try to be more attentive to what I write.