Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

Labels don't matter. Label any position anything you want. All that matters is what arguments can be mustered for it.

You don't solve complicated philosophical matters by getting a dictionary! None of this matters.

It matters that we're all talking about the same thing. I doubt anyone really gives a toss what you want to call stuff.

I think I'm the only one here who genuinely doesn't give a toss what you want to call stuff. Call yourself whatever you want, all I'm interested in is what evidence you can provide to support your beliefs.

Call yourself a theist. Or a deist. Or an atheist. Or anything. it doesn't matter. What matters is whether there is any evidence supporting your belief. it doesn't matter what you label the belief. That won't alter the credibility of your evidence.

Of course, it matters for the purposes of communication that we are clear how we are using labels. But once someone has told you how they are using a label you know what you need to know on that front.

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If I say that by 'morality' I am referring to instructions and favourings that have inescapable rational authority you know what I mean by the term 'morality' don't you? If you mean something else by the term, great! But I mean what I've just told you I mean. I don't care what YOU mean by it. If you don't have the concept, you don't have the concept.

I also know what morality actually means. So, when I see you using the label wrongly in an attempt to confuse or trick - of course I'm going to point it out. And keep pointing it out. I don't go around asking what you mean by the term or what I mean by the term - I find out what the term actually means and use it that way because that is required for effective communication. And now, as it happens, I do have the concept of gmorality - I just don't confuse it with morality, like you do.

I am then analysing the concept and showing that it presupposes a god.

You mean your concept of gmorality? Sure.

Here is an analogy. I am taking something - say, some strawberry jam - and I am trying to figure out what it is in by analysing it.

If you come along and say 'your analysis is rubbish. Marmalade contains oranges' my reply will be 'so? I am analysing strawberry jam. go away!'.

Except, within this analogy, what you have is actually marmalade and you are calling it strawberry jam. You keep repeating that what you have is strawberry jam, when it is actually marmalade and then keep coming to the conclusion that "strawberry jam contains oranges". Why do you think I won't argue against this and simply go away?

Now, if you have a problem with my concept you can just go away. I'm not interested in debating with people who don't have the relevant concept. What's the point? they're just be talking past me.

The point is to make everyone aware of this shabby attempt at deception so that no one is even mistakenly convinced by it. If after 48 pages you keep repeating that "as we've established, morality is rationally inescapable" and a single member - due to lack of any challenge to the statement - happens to believe it, never realizing that you started by redefining morality - that wouldn't sit well with me at all. That is why I won't go away and keep pointing out your errors over and over again.

Also, because I like it.

So you accept that gmorality presupposes a god? I assume the answer is 'yes' and that you think that by re-labelling you can somehow undermine my case. No, because the label doesn't matter. I've shown that instructions and favourings that possess inescapable rational authority require a god. Now, so long as you really do use the term 'morality' to refer to something other than instructions and favourings that possess inescapable rational authority, then you can safely say that I have not shown you that what YOU label 'morality' presupposes a god. But that doesn't matter because I'm interested in analysing what Kant, Socrates, Plato and others were talking about. And that WAS instructions and favourings that possess inescapable rational authority.