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Objective morality as a proper basic belief
RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief
(June 26, 2017 at 10:19 am)Little Henry Wrote:
(June 25, 2017 at 9:00 pm)Astonished Wrote: 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.

If something is harmful to humans, in the absence of OM, how does it make such an act wrong?
If something is undesirable, it doesnt make it wrong if OM does not exist.


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.

All what you have done is explain how undesirable such an act is. If OM does not exist, then it cannot be wrong. Its not hard to understand.

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.

Again, you have just explained a preference. If OM does not exist, and i ripped your scrotum and shoved it in your mouth, i havent done anything wrong. You trying to defend yourself has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.

(June 25, 2017 at 9:36 pm)Cecelia Wrote: There is no such thing as a moral act.  Only what we perceive as moral. 

You cannot objectively define morals, you can only subjectively define them.  For example: Why is being gay wrong? 

"Because God Says so!" is a subjective answer.  Why is what god says so moral?  If God says "Murder your children" is it immoral to not murder your children?
"Because it's against nature!" is also a subjective answer.  Why is going against nature immoral?  If it's one's nature to kill, is it immoral NOT to kill then?
There's only subjective answers to the question.
It is not for me to define, that is why it is called OM. By being OM, it has nothing to do with what i think or how i can define it.

Also, it is not because God says so. It is not his opinion. Rather they derive from his nature.

Henry, Henry, Henry.

You keep saying 'show me OM, show me OM' and I keep fucking saying there IS NO GOD FUCKING DAMN OBJECTIVE MORALITY YOU JACKTARD. We subjectively say that morality is derived from what is good for human well-being (animals and other things by proxy based on our SUBJECTIVE opinion on what else deserves or or how much) because we value not being in constant pain or seeing others in that state. There is no universal consensus on this because of varying levels of intelligence and mental health, or because of people valuing individual well-being more than the collective well-being. There is no universal natural law that says this is what we should value, if we weren't here the universe doesn't give a shit about how we ought to have treated each other. No objectivity can be found anywhere to say what we should value most, it's what we decide on for ourselves.

Plug any axiom you want into the machine and that becomes the 'zero' on your number line to determine net effect of your actions on whatever it is you've put there. You can swap that out with anything you want, you make a SUBJECTIVE call on what goes in there. That changes anything and everything that you do's effect. What works nicely for human well-being works horribly for bringing Yahweh to climax if that deity's ego is the subject of your morality. We decide which of those two is more important because of what we come to opine is of greater benefit to the self and/or others (even if they're made up and could give a fuck about us). Even if you could concretely determine what Have It Yahweh really wants and there was no cause for concern regarding contradictions and inconsistencies, that's an appeal to authority, that's trusting without reference or evidence that this source is in fact the all-knowing ultimate determinant of law and ethics which you have to SUBJECTIVELY decide is the true case, and is by nature unalterable and not subject to change which is just ASKING for trouble because we live in a practical reality and such an idea is preposterous on its face. I mean, I don't want to be the one asshole who pulls out the Hitler card, but for the love of fuck, we have empirical proof that deference to authority figures as a basis for personal morals is a recipe for worldwide catastrophe within a generation that is still somewhat alive today.

You seem to want to claim that a subjective basis for morality is meaningless without OM. I reject this premise outright not only because OM does not exist but because OM is in theory just as meaningless. You cannot say that OM is justified by the mere existence of a supreme authority figure. How then does that supreme authority figure justify anything it does? See how that works? Creating a fictional agent to solve the problem of a lower-ranking tier creates the infinite regress of 'what does this higher thing say'. That it's so common for theists to not see this has long since stopped being amusing. You can't justify getting out of bed in the morning by citing 'god' if the answer to 'What does god use to justify getting out of bed in the morning' is 'he doesn't need a justification'. The only 'justification' (I'm okay with calling it rationalization instead, it's just as good in this case because the opposition's position is ludicrous) for subjective morality is, if a person values personal comfort and is willing to make sacrifices for it, then a social contract can (and does) exist that is for the most part honored because of common goddamn fucking sense. You seeking a deeper meaning into it is not only foolhardy and laughable but it's a waste of time and that way lies madness, case in point. That's asking to get roped into this dictatorial appeal to authority with no sense of personal identity or decision-making or reflection or even intrinsic 'goodness' since that is willingly ignoring what will genuinely lead to human well-being given that it's the only sensible axiom at this time. Only, because you make that one critical choice to abdicate the remainder of your own moral responsibility, that makes you a piece of shit morally. There's no getting around that, you're guilty and can't weasel your way out of it any more than your assumed authority figure.
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 26, 2017 at 10:49 am

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