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Objective morality as a proper basic belief
#99
RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief
(June 25, 2017 at 8:53 pm)Little Henry Wrote:
(June 25, 2017 at 8:27 pm)Whateverist Wrote: And how exactly are you so sure of that?  What means have you used to determine that you have the correct objective morality?  Don't tell me you accepted it on faith?

How does a feeling or desire make something right or wrong?

(June 25, 2017 at 8:31 pm)Astonished Wrote: Well, if we define morality as the consequences of actions in terms of harm to living beings, then he's just flat wrong. But if we define it as what makes a vindictive sky fairy want to drown us or burn us, he's right.

So it is a fact that harming living beings is wrong?

It is a fact that it is harmful and that humans value health and harmony over pain and misery (barring some massive defect). I already said there's no absolute or objective morality, whatever you may want to claim to the contrary, and I don't even have to go outside of your own philosophy to prove it. There's no authority saying what's 'right and wrong' but what's 'good and bad' in terms of health and its synonyms and antonyms. If there's another quantitative metric on which to base morality, I have never heard of it. The aforementioned vindictive invisible sky fairy commanding this and that while wantonly doing the exact same things and not seeing the hypocrisy there need not enter the equation.

Let me break it down to the level of the average person I expect to converse with on this subject. Someone walks up to me and says they want to rip my scrotum off and stuff it into my mouth. I say I would prefer they not do that. They ask me why. I tell them that it would hurt enormously, so much so that I might drop dead from the shock, or from blood loss. They ask me why they should not do that. I tell them that if they attempt to do this, I will violently defend myself. They ask me why I would do that. I tell them that if given the choice I would go to just about any length to prevent the experience of great pain and death for as long as possible. They ask why. I tell them that pain and suffering are the worst experiences a person like myself can go through and something in me, not simply the certain knowledge of how badly I would turn out under the circumstances they had previously threatened, but an instinctive sense of self-preservation would motivate me to act even if I was in a state of depression or something which would make me prefer death or contemplate suicide. They then ask why I did not threaten them with the same mutilation upon first meeting them. I say that because I understand how badly that would hurt me, my sense of empathy makes me opposed to the idea of causing another person such grief. They ask why that is of any significance, or if I would because it would benefit me. I say that again, my empathy will cause me to seriously consider the consequences of my actions and that bringing harm to anyone would need to seriously outweigh the negative effects, and not just personally, because I will experience guilt and that is harmful to me. I offer to agree not to do this to them if they will make the same agreement, in the interest of not having to sleep with one eye open, a knife in each hand, with locks and chains over wherever I decide to lay my head at night.

So there it is. It's based on what you value; living over dying, health and harmony over pain and suffering, the idea of live and let live rather than paranoia and mistrust, security over fear, fulfillment over apathy, intellect over idiocy, rationality and reason over superstition and delusion. It's really sad how frequently the religious will be convinced that they are on one side of each of these and yet they're so far on the other it's amazing to those on the outside looking in just how far down the rabbit hole they are.
Religions were invented to impress and dupe illiterate, superstitious stone-age peasants. So in this modern, enlightened age of information, what's your excuse? Or are you saying with all your advantages, you were still tricked as easily as those early humans?

---

There is no better way to convey the least amount of information in the greatest amount of words than to try explaining your religious views.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief - by Astonished - June 25, 2017 at 9:00 pm

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