RE: Best arguments for or against God's existence
May 22, 2019 at 12:56 am
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2019 at 12:56 am by vulcanlogician.)
(May 22, 2019 at 12:51 am)Acrobat Wrote:(May 22, 2019 at 12:34 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: Do you think the argument from morality holds water?
I think so, at least a basic one that’s not specific to any single religion or religious text.
I would argue that suggestions even if made by self identify atheists, that moral rightness and wrongness exists objectively, present a reality akin to something like a novel, I.e a design argument.
I think the moral argument holds water, so much so that it seems pretty difficult even for many atheists to reject objective morality, or beliefs in some sort of transcendent moral reality.
At least that’s my opinion.
You can be a moral realist without God or religion though. Examine this formal argument and tell me how God is necessary to make it true:
Quote:(1) A property P is genuine if it figures ineliminably in a good explanation of observed
phenomena.
(2) Moral properties figure ineliminably in good explanations of observed phenomena.
Therefore
(3) Moral properties are genuine.
Quote:The ability of putative moral properties to feature in good explanations is one perennially attractive argument in favour of the metaphysical claims of realism. The initially attractive thought is that moral properties earn their ontological rights in the same way as the metaphysically unproblematic properties of the natural and social sciences, namely by figuring in good explanatory theories. So just as, for example, a physicist may explain why an oil droplet stays suspended in an electro-magnetic field by citing its charge, or a social scientist may explain high levels of mental illness by citing income inequality, a ‘moral scientist’ may explain the growth of political protest movements or social instability by citing injustice. Likewise, just as an observer of the physicist may explain why he believes that the oil droplet is charged by citing the charge itself, and an observer of the sociologist may explain why she believes that income inequality exists by citing the inequality itself, an observer of the ‘moral scientist’ may explain why they believe that a situation is unjust by citing the injustice itself. In such cases, it appears that the instantiation of a moral property – injustice – is causally relevant in producing an effect – a political protest movement or moral judgement.http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1930/1/T...prints.pdf