Moral Nihilism

[Giff]

Think you wrote great answers in your posts Adam.

Want to say though that aslong as we have empathy will we never think it's okay to hurt och kill another human. Otherwise is moral quite relative and changeble, but since we have empathy will moral values never be too adjustble.

[Tiberius]

I'm gonna assume that by "Adam" you mean me.

[Edwardo Piet]

Haha... u know what's funny? I thought he must have been replying to an earlier post by 'Even Adam' LOL (because he's the only Adam I know on the forums)...

So I went back a few pages looking....

Then I realized lol. Hehe.

EvF

[Sam]

Yes, I hoped I didn’t need to spell out everything. Are there any non-evolutionists on this forum?

Regardless of whether there are any “non-evolutionists” on the forum, your generalising that all atheists accept evolution and using that fallacy in an argument against atheism. So yes you would need to be very specific about that in order for your argument to have any bearing.

Really? Don’t evolutionists pride themselves on the thoroughly naturalistic mechanisms of the evolutionary process? To quote palaeontologist and evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson: “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” I’d say that’s a pretty good foundation. I’m surprised you’re contesting it.

I don’t think it’s correct to say that evolutionists “pride” themselves on any part of theory, they accept that it is correct and base their opinions off it. The fact that the forces behind the process are natural is key. It is correct to say that our existence is the result of a purposeless process and that for all account we are a random occurrence but this objective lack of purpose is not complete, something which came about by ‘accident’ if you will, can still have it own purpose (a subjective purpose) specific to the situation. In essence I contested what you said because I believe it is inaccurate, yes the force is self is purposeless it simply exists, but by bringing about life etc … it has a purpose to us.

I’m not stating what our purpose is, I’m merely stating that on naturalistic evolutionary grounds, and by inference on atheistic grounds, our life has no purpose. We’re random colonies of bacteria, without purpose, meaning, design, or dignity. Some atheists will readily admit this, why won’t you?

“This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”[/color]

- Richard Dawkins, River Out Of Eden

Do you care to correct Prof. Dawkins? He’s sounding pretty nihilistic there . . .

Yes, okay We are an occurrence of chance in the universe, we don’t have design but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have no meaning on a global societal level, On a universal timescale we are a mere flash in the pan probably unnoticed but we are not concerned with that kind of spatial or temporal scale in our day to day lives we exist in a (relatively) small global scale for a number of years and it is therein that we find our purpose not by trying to elevate ourselves to something grander by naming ourselves the favoured children of some intangible deity.

As for that quote, I think Adrian already pointed out that you have taken in slightly out of context but the same points apply the universe has no consciousness so of course it doesn’t care what happens to anything but there is no need to infer that we therefore should not care either.

I think you need to read up on some of the standard literature:

Please don’t patronise me Charles … I’ve been reading books about religion, secularism, atheism and so on for a good number of years but I have the presence of mind to take them all into consideration and come up with my own conclusion.

Earlier you chided me for not making explicit an implicit premise (re evolution), now I’m chided for making explicit and explicit premise. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t . . . oh . . . I probably shouldn’t use that phrase with atheists.

Your right, I should have respected that fact. I apologise.

Your moral values are merely personal or cultural preferences: X is praiseworthy because I like X. Why should I adopt your values? They cannot impose moral obligation on anyone who disagrees.

As an Atheist I argue that the authority for moral rules doesn’t come from God, my opinion is that the authority for moral rules comes from each member of a society. Each of us has a moral authority with respect to each other, of course that is not absolute. So this is a kind of moral claim making between the various members of a society in which we give each other the authority to act as moral adjudicators. This practice of reciprocal claim making allow us to develop sets of moral rules based on the principles of mutual accountability. If people refuse to heed these standards then they are restrained from carrying out their undesirable behaviours by the majority of society and they have no position to question this restraint as that would involve appealing the moral system which they flouted. (I should credit Elizabeth Anderson with some the key ideas here; she wrote a piece called If God is Dead Is everything permitted? Which I read some years ago and found to be very in line with my own thoughts on the matter)

Why? You’re a cosmic accident. A meat machine. A colony of bacteria. The universe didn’t design you to understand. It doesn’t care if you understand everything or understand nothing. And when you’re dead it still won’t care. Your life, Sam, is meaningless, purposeless, and absurd. These are the implications of your own evolutionary/atheistic presuppositions.

Again, of course the universe doesn’t care it’s not alive so how could it. I freely admit that I have no designer and that ultimately my life had no preordained purpose but here … in this life (my only life) the pursuit of understanding is key. The fact is this is the time I have available to me, and I plan to spend it doing something meaningful to me I think regardless of a logical implication about my position in the universe that gives my life purpose & meaning.

The Bible contains my moral standard, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to say my moral standard is skewed by it.

What I was trying to imply is that the Bible and it representation of God are a poor basis of moral authority, if you read its passages it is littered with instances where God commands the breaking of his own commandments, orders his followers to commit the most heinous of crimes over innocuous offences and on occasion fixes a victims fate by “Giving them hearts of stone” to ensure their suffering … if you’d like I can give you a list of such instances for you to have a look at? So in this sense the moral standard you posses as a member of our society is seriously skewed by your religious affiliations.

I’m not saying that at all. Religious people do not assign value, God does.

From God. He is the Lawgiver.

So does God command things because they are right? Or does it command them, and so they are right? In the first instance God is surplus to requirement as we already make that judgement for ourselves, the second instance is more worrying because the bible and thus God permits acts which are unspeakable in a law abiding society … in which case how do modern religions decide which of Gods law they are still going with and which to cast aside if as you say “God is the lawgiver”?

International law is arbitrated by compromise and treaty. Its not like the UN or the ICC appeals to innate ideas.

Exactly, the UN is a creation of a society based on reciprocal moral claims, where each of us is accountable to one another. The UN and ICC are able to pass laws which appeal to the moral conscience of our planet because they have our support which is attained by appeasing our innate sense of right and wrong.

God’s law is certainly a cross cultural moral standard. The Ten Commandments, for example, are binding on all people of every culture throughout history. It wasn’t intended merely for the Jews 3500 years ago.

Yes, but you can’t elevate your own commandments beyond your own religion and the people who accept it and your God. To a Wiccan or a Hindu for example your 10 commandments are meaningless – a profession of a faith they do not accept. Just because you believe we will be held accountable by an intangible parent figure at some point doesn’t mean you can deem your commandments to have any cross-cultural authority.

Good discussion, Sam, thanks.

You’re quite welcome; I look forward to continuing it.

Sam

[LukeMC]

Charles, you seem to be mixing up atheism and scientific naturalism. While the two of them commonly occur together, they are not synonymous. You are defining an atheist as somebody who rejects all supernatural claims, as opposed to someone who merely rejects the god claim. An atheist could reject god but at the same time believe in a transcendent set of morals with no author which spontaneously began to exist at the dawn of the universe. However this is probably rare

For those who deny all supernatural claims, all transcendent claims, etc, I will agree with you that moral nihilism follows. There is no set of objective morals, the universe does not care and in the grand scheme of things it does not matter if you kill babies for pleasure. I agree with you entirely. By no standards can this be seen as intrisically wrong.

However, for the sake of passing on our genes, it is vitally important that we do not eat our community. Humans born with a tendency to eat their community would be killed by the people in self-defence, an age-old instinct. As such, killing in general becomes counter-productive on the level of the community. This isn't transcendental or magical, it is just how events unfold. There is no wisdom nor moral championship in this basic level of understanding. If people aren't killing each other, their genes will be more likely to pass on, so it follows that those who do try to kill people won't pass on their genes and this trait (if containing a genetic link) will die out.

As people become more self-aware and realise they won't be able to function if J Stalin across the the street goes around killing them, they decide to make a set of rules prohibiting people from killing one another. Still not trancendental, still merely a cross between instinct and selfish thinking. A desire for preservation is ingrained in us.

As feelings such as empathy develop and we recognise other people have the same feelings as us, we come to understand that subjecting them to things we find unpleasant is not productive. It makes them angry, resentful, less likely to help the community hence jeopardising the genepool. Still not trancendental.

Now we are at a time where we can debate which tribe or civilization has the most useful set of prohibition and ideals. We look at the quality of peoples' lives and the better the quality, the more likely they will reproduce and/or serve the community. However, our sense of empathy has grown so strong that we want people to avoid suffering sheerly because we don't like suffering. We want people to be happy because our sense of empathy tells us that happy is a pleasant feeling, and we want other people to feel this. These are the grounds for which we set up international laws.

The thing is, killing a baby is not useful, and our sense of empathy tells us not to do it. It isn't intrinsically wrong, because no such moral guideline exists. To construct a subjective set of morals doesn't remedy this either, because as you said Charles, things vary across cultures. However, some cultures have a far better standard of living than others. These cultures will thrive and probably have a monopoly over whatever the planet's subjective moral code will ultimately be. This doesn't make anything rhight or wrong, because such concepts still don't exist objectively. But subjectively speaking, the cultures which exhibit the greatest quality of life will tend to be the ones which are empathetic and value other human beings. Due to their empathy, they consider happiness to be a success of the society and by this standard they create their subjective set of morals.

Being a human being myself, I feel empathy towards others. I enjoy feeling happy and therefore would like other people to feel happy too, as I know how pleasant it is. I would prefer the culture with the most empathy- the culture which treats people the most equally, without senseless massacres- to be the culture which dominates the planet. Having a planet unanimously agreed on the subjective moral standards of this culture would not make any action right or wrong, and in the grand scheme of things it would be meaningless and we might aswell stab forks into each other, but on the scale of the society, on the scale of human beings who feel empathy, it means something to us to preserve and protect ourselves. It follows logically that in the rejection of the supernatural, we reject the notion that any moral absolutes exist, but this does not mean to say we don't have an ingrained and progressive drive to be happy for our own sakes. This is why we don't kill.

I apoligise sincerely for the length of this as I'm sure you've heard most of this before and found it all somewhat boring and inconsistent. What I was trying to do was show how you are correct in stating that moral nihilism follows from rejecting the supernatural, and that objectively human life has no value, but that nontheless it is consistent for naturalists to behave in particular ways of behaving sheerly because we value our own lives and have the capacity to empathise and assign value to the lives of others. I might aswell kill people, but I naturally value my happiness and naturally empathise with others. These feelings aren't moral or immoral, they are natural and I cannot escape them. I will call them moral or immoral, but I know deep down I am being subjective and that ultimately they don't matter. This won't override the electrochemical reactions so heavily ingrained in my brain though. It is out of my control. (In the same way I can know that the scent of manure is neither "bad" nor "good" objectively, but this doesn't stop me from finding the experience unpleasant, as it is naturally within me to perceive things in such a way.)

I hope you understood my points and I'd be happy for you input. Thanks.

[Charles]

Adrian wrote:

Yes, in Nazi Germany, at that specific time, in that specific country, it was considered moral to hate and want Jews to be killed. Hitler brainwashed the majority of the people to think this way, and for them, that was the moral truth. If the majority of the people in the UK said it was okay to murder atheists, then to that majority, the murder or atheists would be a moral act.

The Guardian headline: “Atheist says murdering atheists would be a ‘moral act.’”

So with your qualifications - that the morality of the majority defines that which is moral for that particular majority, we are forever left with competing moral claims by various majorities however they’re described. Thus my original claim “Without a transcendent moral standard, anything goes if that’s what the majority of people want.”

To atheists or other people it might not be, but that wouldn't change the majority public view of the murder. Certainly, morality is not determined by a poll, it is determined by what most of the people think. 200 years ago in the UK, most people thought it was immoral to be a homosexual; these days most people think it is not immoral. So we have two options; either morality is absolute and only one of these outlooks on homosexuality is correct, or morality is relative and both of these outlooks are correct within the time that they existed. With the first, we have problems as to what the absolute moral laws are, how we can know what they are, and if we really trust the source. With the second, the source is quite literally the changing nature of society.

And with the second, we have the not insignificant problem that no person (or even majorities of persons) can unequivocally declare that certain behavior is intrinsically evil and is condemned, such as torturing babies for pleasure, or lining up innocent people to be sent to gas chambers. After all, if a majority of the people in culture X think either of those two behaviors are acceptable, then by definition they are moral. We can complain all we want, but they can tell us to shove off and create our own majority somewhere else.

Its this laissez faire attitude towards gratuitous evil where cultural relativism and emotivism come up wanting.

Innocent by whose standard? I agree, killing someone who is innocent by our own standard is wrong, but what about killing the soldiers in Iraq? Some of them might have honestly believed they were doing the right thing by following Saddam, being loyal etc. There is a quote often used to express this problem: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Morality is relative, and we find it morally justifiable to kill a soldier in Iraq if he is fighting for an evil dictator, yet in his own country, in his own house, he may be one of the most moral men (by his country's standard).

By anyone’s standard; any person or culture which has a criterion for determining if an offense is a capital one. So no matter what that criterion is, murdering an innocent (of a capital crime) person would be intrinsically evil. Given this definition, would not such a murder be intrinsically evil, irregardless of the majority opinion on the matter?

Current scientific understanding is rarely wrong on the large scale.

Oh the counterexamples that leap to mind: the Copernican Revolution, Einsteinian relativism, the Chemical Revolution, spontaneous generation, etc. and etc. I think a man named Kuhn might have excogitated on the subject . . .

Oh come on now! So let me see if I've got this right...My argument is circular because I say something a non-nihilist would say, but I cannot have meant that because I am an atheist, and by your presupposition atheists are nihilists. To me that sounds like a circular argument made by you.

You haven’t got it right. The supporting argument "If we all decided murder was ok, we wouldn't have a society anymore" was used to support the main argument that “atheism does not entail moral nihilism.” A nihilist would never use that supporting argument, because the whole notion of a society’s preservation is absurd. Only a non-nihilist would use that supporting argument. But the main argument is what is in question. So your supporting argument assumes that the main argument has been already decided. Its illicit to use supporting arguments which assume the truth of the argument their designed to support. Its like arguing with a creationist who only quotes from creationist authorities.

You have a presupposition that atheists are nihilists,

Not at all. My argument that atheism entails moral nihilism is just that: an argument. I detailed the premises for you earlier. It is not a presupposition.

and when I say something only a non-nihilist would say, it contradicts your premise. You are too stubborn to just accept that maybe you might be wrong about the whole atheism/nihilism thing, so instead you deny I could ever have meant what I said. Honestly, your debate tactics astound me.

I know you meant what you said, I’m just calling foul on your logic.

Dawkins was referring to the good and evil we tend to see in nature; he wasn't talking about morality. I think this point is self explanatory.

Are not human beings part of “nature”? Are not our actions “natural”?

Perhaps you prefer the other quote “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

Was Dawkins out of line in expressing these sentiments, or do you agree with him?

Indeed, I agree with you. People want to do good things by their culture's standards because this is what is rewarding by the culture, and is how our morality has evolved. We needed to work together to survive, because on our own in the wild we are one of the most pathetic creatures out there. We aren't that strong, we don't have claws for killing and stripping prey, and we don't have very good teeth for devouring raw meat. We need to work together (i.e. be "good") or we will die.

Well, at least there is one irreducible moral truth out there. Now that that door is open, could there not be other culturally-transcendent moral truths?

Well the "torture babies for pleasure" thing was a misread on my part, and I apologise. My point about torturing babies and children out of fear they are witches stands though, and you asked for a source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUJSME0TORw (part 1 of 6 I believe). A search on YouTube for "africa child witches" will turn up a large quantity of results though.

No problem. I write most of these responses late at night when the girls are asleep, so forgive me if my exhaustion occasionally dulls my two-handed vorpal logic sword.

So is torturing babies for pleasure another example of an irreducible, culturally-transcendent moral standard?

I find myself repeating things again and again with you. Try to listen this time. The Nazi society found mass murder of the Jews morally acceptable. We do not. Thus we use our moral judgment on them and say "That is evil". It doesn't deny them their right of moral self-determination, it is an observation, nothing more. Now if we were to invade (as we did) and impose our morality on them, this would be denying them their right of moral self-determination, but as I previously mentioned, this is often the reward for victors in wars. If the whole world thought (don't use the word voted, it distorts the point) that murdering group X was ok, it would be a moral act for those people (not an absolute moral act). It wouldn't be moral for group X or anyone who opposed such thinking. People tend to want to be moral, because this is what their society demands of them. Most of us (with the notable exception of psychopaths) think that murder is in most cases wrong, and we all feel good about being in this state because we are the majority. However if a large number of people woke up one morning and all thought the complete opposite, then one of two things would inevitably happen. Either they would stay silent and keep wanting to be part of the majority, even though their individual morality had been changed, or they would become a vocal group and lobby for change in our ethical outlook. I believe a good example of this might be the BNP party in the UK, which is a notably racist party, and yet has (in this modern age, and in this country) gained a large number of members.

I never said "with the force of obligation", I said we could pass a moral judgement on them. We passed a moral judgement on Mugabe when he cheated in the election and tortured opponents, but he laughed at us. This didn't stop us from passing a moral judgement on him. Later of course we imposed our moral judgement on his country when we stopped trade. This of course is a parallel to the victor in war scenario.

Right, but it is the obligatory nature of moral standards which distinguishes them from mere opinion. Anyone can hold and proclaim an opinion, but they have no moral force behind them. That is, they do not impose a duty on the hearer to adopt the opinion. But when in normal conversation you say to your friend “John, it is wrong for you to cheat on your wife,” what you are conveying to him is that not only do you have an opinion on his behavior, but you are appealing to his sense of moral duty to agree with you.

Likewise to say to a Maoist that it is evil to starve your political opponents to death by the millions, you are offering more than your personal opinion; you are pronouncing that he is under a moral obligation not to starve his political opponents to death by the millions. For a moral realist like myself, affirming that moral values are mind- and culture-independent, this type of condemnation makes sense. For a cultural relativist such as yourself, this type of condemnation is mere wish-expressing with no moral punch. The Maoist could reply “I have my own majority-determined morality, so bugger off.”

Might does not make right, but majority does. The majority of people involved in the Second World War thought that the Nazi's were evil, hence why they invaded and stopped them. The slave trade was a moral action by the culture at the time, I do not think it is a moral action today.

Then you are faced with a moral impasse ad infinitum. Your “moral majority” (pun intended) has the same validity as the slave-trader’s moral majority, with no way to adjudicate between the two other than who has the bigger army.

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me

As I said above, condemnation in no way implies we should go and do something about it. I condemn people who smoke because I think it is an idiotic and disgusting habit, but I'm not going to go around stamping on people's cigarettes.

And it would be immoral for you to do so, because your “condemnation” is just an opinion with no more moral weight than the smoker’s opinion.

This is why I say you cannot condemn the Nazis for genocide. Your moral majority doesn’t trump the National Socialist moral majority.

Any ethical theory that prevents one from unequivocally and intelligently condemning the Final Solution ought to be summarily rejected.

Inconsistency???

Yes!!! (Does the punctuation triple-redundancy make the reply more convincing? )

Atheism as nothing to say about morality, it only deals with gods. How is that inconsistent???

Its inconsistent for the atheist to reject nihilism and instead live in fairyland where we get to make up our own purpose and meaning and pretend that the universe gives a shit.

I don't deny naturalistic evolution (commonly called...evolution),

I make the distinction to exclude theistic evolution.

but I deny that it has anything to do with atheism. Ken Miller is the most prominent textbook author on Evolution and is a devout roman catholic, and the leader of the Human Genome project is a devout Christian too. I still fail to see the link between atheism and evolution.

Evolution made what was once considered far outside of the mainstream (atheism), mainstream. I know several students who went from a nominal Christian faith to agnosticism/atheism after studying evolution at government universities. You can probably say the same. Its not an exclusively causal relationship, but there’s a relationship nonetheless.

I've acknowledged that from the beginning. I don't think there are any absolute moral laws, therefore objective purpose does not exist. However as in my rock analogy, something can easily have no objective purpose yet have a subjective one.

That’s a convenient distinction for you, but you confuse purpose (which is teleological) with function (which is ad hoc). A smooth stone used to function as a hammer is not the purpose for that stone’s existence. There is no purpose for the stone, no matter what you do with it. There is no purpose to your life, no matter what you do with it. Neither example has a reason for its existence, they merely are. Its pointless to try to find in them a “subjective” purpose and thereby infuse meaning into either one.

Subjective! A purposeless universe doesn't come into it!

The universe is not merely the stars and the space in between them, it contains you and me as well. If the universe is purposeless, you and I are purposeless.

Why argue with the obvious? Too scary?

Resistance is futile.

You have a very warped view of evolution. Each individual aspect of an organism evolution has a purpose: to adapt to the environment that it is in. We have adapted legs to love about, arms to use tools, and brains to think. Each of these has a purpose! Morality is no different, and it serves a purpose as well.

Purpose is teleological by definition, naturalistic evolution is non-teleological by definition. As Simpson said “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” Anthropomorphizing natural selection and mutation doesn’t get you from here to there, my friend.

Read it, found it very immoral (by my standards of course). Can't believe people think the god who endorsed slavery is the god who creates our moral law.

Believe it.

Then I shall expect you do discard your presupposition that atheists are nihilists.

Presuppositions are not arguments. Examples of presuppositions are the laws of logic, language conveys meaning, I exist, other minds exist, my senses give me basically accurate information of the world, etc.

Good talk, Adrian.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

The universe is not merely the stars and the space in between them, it contains you and me as well. If the universe is purposeless, you and I are purposeless.

BINGO!

The purpose of life is itself. Period. That's enough for me.That it isn't for you is fine with me.Your feelings needs and beliefs supported by a bit of tired apologist sophistry changes nothing.

You became tedious after a couple posts.Congratulations you've reached stultifying.

[Giff]

Good post padraic, I agree with you.

[Sam]

This is why I say you cannot condemn the Nazis for genocide. Your moral majority doesn’t trump the National Socialist moral majority.

Unfortunately that is wrong on so many levels ... the Nazis leadership where the minority who pushed through these acts (hence the targetted nature of the Nuremberg Trials) it was accepted by the rest of the world (a vast majority) that in commiting these acts the Nazis has stepped outside the bounds of the moral system we genertaed over many years and they where rightly held to account in the system of moral arbitration that they where once part of but flounted.

It would be rich for an avowed Christian to hand out moral judgemnts on genocide, they happened in the bible, God is the 'lawgiver' through his bible ergo genocide is okay? Is that not correct?

Its inconsistent for the atheist to reject nihilism and instead live in fairyland where we get to make up our own purpose and meaning and pretend that the universe gives a shit.

Again Charles, it is not inconsistent for an atheist to reject nihilism ... your argument is based around proponents of evolution. Proponents of evolution have every right to reject nihilism if that is not where their understanding leads them, we don't live in a 'fairyland' or need the 'universe to give a shit' as you put it, the fact is that we exist by an action of chance and we create meaning in our life by our pursuits and actions.

Whereas Christians and religious types in general can't accept their own finite mortality, you are simply too dependant on God to provide you with a free pass to validation of your life. Proponents of evolution and atheist in general accept that this is the life we have and aim to make the best of it, many religious people are happy to accept the teaching of their paticular church and stop their pursuit of truth at it. I personally consider it a great waste.

The universe is not merely the stars and the space in between them, it contains you and me as well. If the universe is purposeless, you and I are purposeless.

Why argue with the obvious? Too scary?

Resistance is futile.

I think we're reaching a stalemate now Charles, you seem unable to accept that we exist (in our minds) without a creator God so regardless of the nature of the universe in that it is a purposeless entity and that the forces controlling it have nothing paticular in mind (how could they? they're no concious) we are here and that allows us to ordain our own purpose.

Sam

(P.s. Sorry to but in Adrian, hope you don't mind)

[Charles]

Sam wrote:

Regardless of whether there are any “non-evolutionists” on the forum, your generalising that all atheists accept evolution and using that fallacy in an argument against atheism. So yes you would need to be very specific about that in order for your argument to have any bearing.

Then we’ll exclude the 5% or 10% or whatever percentage you think is reasonable of those atheists who aren’t also evolutionists. The premise is valid for the vast majority of atheists, and we both know it.

I don’t think it’s correct to say that evolutionists “pride” themselves on any part of theory, they accept that it is correct and base their opinions off it. The fact that the forces behind the process are natural is key. It is correct to say that our existence is the result of a purposeless process and that for all account we are a random occurrence but this objective lack of purpose is not complete, something which came about by ‘accident’ if you will, can still have it own purpose (a subjective purpose) specific to the situation. In essence I contested what you said because I believe it is inaccurate, yes the force is self is purposeless it simply exists, but by bringing about life etc … it has a purpose to us.

Purposeless artifacts of a purposeless universe create their own purpose . . . uh huh.

But your answer doesn’t surprise. The self craves purpose, meaning, worth, dignity, etc. and since naturalistic evolution can’t supply these, then it invents them whole cloth in defiance of the “facts” of naturalistic evolution.

Sounds like an argument I hear sometimes from atheists against theism: ignoring the evidence, blind leap of faith, God of the gaps, and all that.

Yes, okay We are an occurrence of chance in the universe, we don’t have design but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have no meaning on a global societal level,

It doesn’t? Since the universe is purposeless, any purpose would have to come from “outside” the universe (e.g. God), but you deny anything exists outside the universe (let’s not get on a multiverse tangent, or some similar nonsense), therefore it necessarily follows that we (who are a part of the universe) have no purpose.

On a universal timescale we are a mere flash in the pan probably unnoticed but we are not concerned with that kind of spatial or temporal scale in our day to day lives we exist in a (relatively) small global scale for a number of years and it is therein that we find our purpose not by trying to elevate ourselves to something grander by naming ourselves the favoured children of some intangible deity.

You cannot find that which does not exist. Stop kidding yourself, Sam, there is no purpose (operating on evolutionary/atheistic presuppositions) in your life or in the universe.

As for that quote, I think Adrian already pointed out that you have taken in slightly out of context but the same points apply the universe has no consciousness so of course it doesn’t care what happens to anything but there is no need to infer that we therefore should not care either.

It doesn’t matter one wit if you care about your life or if you don’t. You may feel that it does matter or it should, but all of your caring amounts to nothing in a meaningless universe.

Please don’t patronise me Charles … I’ve been reading books about religion, secularism, atheism and so on for a good number of years but I have the presence of mind to take them all into consideration and come up with my own conclusion.

Sorry about that, I must have been getting a little cranky so late at night.

As an Atheist I argue that the authority for moral rules doesn’t come from God, my opinion is that the authority for moral rules comes from each member of a society. Each of us has a moral authority with respect to each other, of course that is not absolute. So this is a kind of moral claim making between the various members of a society in which we give each other the authority to act as moral adjudicators. This practice of reciprocal claim making allow us to develop sets of moral rules based on the principles of mutual accountability. If people refuse to heed these standards then they are restrained from carrying out their undesirable behaviours by the majority of society and they have no position to question this restraint as that would involve appealing the moral system which they flouted. (I should credit Elizabeth Anderson with some the key ideas here; she wrote a piece called If God is Dead Is everything permitted? Which I read some years ago and found to be very in line with my own thoughts on the matter)

So you’re advocating an individual or cultural relativist ethic, which by definition has no more moral gravitas than anyone else’s individual or cultural relativist ethic. So if another culture develops a set of moral rules that includes gassing the undesirable elements of society, that would be perfectly moral for them, correct?

Again, of course the universe doesn’t care it’s not alive so how could it. I freely admit that I have no designer and that ultimately my life had no preordained purpose but here … in this life (my only life) the pursuit of understanding is key. The fact is this is the time I have available to me, and I plan to spend it doing something meaningful to me I think regardless of a logical implication about my position in the universe that gives my life purpose & meaning.

“Regardless of a logical implication about my position in the universe.” How is that any different from a theist saying he will live his life as if God existed regardless of all the evidence (you claim) to the contrary? The theist believes God exists, is accountable to him, and lives his life accordingly. You, an atheist, believe that you have no designer and thus no purpose, but live your life in discord to that belief. Where the rubber meets the road of living your life, who is consistent with his beliefs, and who is not? And what does that livable consistency/inconsistency say about the underlying belief system?

What I was trying to imply is that the Bible and it representation of God are a poor basis of moral authority, if you read its passages it is littered with instances where God commands the breaking of his own commandments, orders his followers to commit the most heinous of crimes over innocuous offences and on occasion fixes a victims fate by “Giving them hearts of stone” to ensure their suffering … if you’d like I can give you a list of such instances for you to have a look at? So in this sense the moral standard you posses as a member of our society is seriously skewed by your religious affiliations.

I’m fully aware of the Bible’s teachings; its something required of seminarians. By what standard is my morality skewed? Yours? Your standard, by definition, is no more superior or inferior than mine.

So does God command things because they are right? Or does it command them, and so they are right?

Because they reflect his own nature. The Law is a transcription of God’s nature as adapted to finite, sinful agents.

In the first instance God is surplus to requirement as we already make that judgement for ourselves,

No, he is the source of determining what is moral and what is immoral. His nature is the ground for morality.

the second instance is more worrying because the bible and thus God permits acts which are unspeakable in a law abiding society … in which case how do modern religions decide which of Gods law they are still going with and which to cast aside if as you say “God is the lawgiver”?

All of God’s law applies, since they are a reflection of his nature. Some were temporary in nature, and some were situation-bound, but this is a theological discussion.

Exactly, the UN is a creation of a society based on reciprocal moral claims, where each of us is accountable to one another. The UN and ICC are able to pass laws which appeal to the moral conscience of our planet because they have our support which is attained by appeasing our innate sense of right and wrong.

Humans do have an innate sense of right and wrong, but how that works out is a matter of great debate in institutions like the UN and ICC, since different nations and cultures draw different and sometimes contradictory inferences from it. Should women be allowed to vote? Should they be veiled? Is capital punishment acceptable? What tariffs are permissible? Should Iran be allowed to develop nuclear weapons? Is Abkhazia an independent nation-state? Etc. The UN bureaucrats don’t appeal to innate moral intuitions to resolve these disputes.

Yes, but you can’t elevate your own commandments beyond your own religion and the people who accept it and your God. To a Wiccan or a Hindu for example your 10 commandments are meaningless – a profession of a faith they do not accept. Just because you believe we will be held accountable by an intangible parent figure at some point doesn’t mean you can deem your commandments to have any cross-cultural authority.

My response was in answer to your statement that “theism certainly doesn't affirm any cross cultural moral standards.” Christianity certainly does affirm cross-cultural moral standards. Whether or not you or anyone else agrees with them is another matter, but we do affirm cross-cultural moral standards since our moral standards are culture-independent, unlike yours.

Unfortunately that is wrong on so many levels ... the Nazis leadership where the minority who pushed through these acts (hence the targetted nature of the Nuremberg Trials) it was accepted by the rest of the world (a vast majority) that in commiting these acts the Nazis has stepped outside the bounds of the moral system we genertaed over many years and they where rightly held to account in the system of moral arbitration that they where once part of but flounted.

The Germans who took part in the Final Solution were a minority within the state of Germany, yes, but so what? It was the National Socialists' culture and moral standard which dictated it was their duty to exterminate the Jews and anyone else they deemed Untermenschen. They had their culturally-derived morality, other cultures have theirs. It’s a curious (not to mention counterintuitive) ethic which determines The Good by counting noses, which is what you’re advocating.

It would be rich for an avowed Christian to hand out moral judgemnts on genocide, they happened in the bible, God is the 'lawgiver' through his bible ergo genocide is okay? Is that not correct?

Only when God directly commanded it in that specific moment in redemptive history. All other cases are unlawful. I know this response will not satisfy you, and there is much more that could be said, but even if I could answer all of your objections to your complete satisfaction I’d wager that you would still remain an atheist, meaning that this issue is a tangential attempt to cast aspersion on biblical ethics and distracts from our current discussion.

Again Charles, it is not inconsistent for an atheist to reject nihilism ... your argument is based around proponents of evolution.

Are you not an evolutionist? If so, premise 1. of my argument is valid in this discussion.

Proponents of evolution have every right to reject nihilism if that is not where their understanding leads them,

“Rights” are a construct of a non-nihilistic worldview, so to appeal to “rights” assumes that nihilism is false to begin with. A fine example of circular reasoning.

Moreover, by appealing to a subjective “understanding” instead of logical inferences, you open the door to me (or anyone else) having a “right” to reject anything whatsoever if my personal understanding so leads me. What postmodern nonsense.

we don't live in a 'fairyland' or need the 'universe to give a shit' as you put it, the fact is that we exist by an action of chance and we create meaning in our life by our pursuits and actions.

A quick trip over to dictionary.com gives us the following definition of “meaning”:

1. what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import: the three meanings of a word.

2. the end, purpose, or significance of something: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of this intrusion?

Note “intended” in def. 1. That is a mental act, which the universe is incapable of. Note the “end” and “purpose” in def. 2. Those are teleological terms, which are inapplicable to the universe. Since there is no intentionality, end, or purpose to life in general and yours in particular, it is childish to pretend that we can make these up ex nihilo. You may claim your life has meaning, but it is an empty claim, no matter how much you may wish it to be so. You may even claim you have a “right” to this claim because your “understanding leads” you there, but those too are meaningless.

Nihilism is a black hole from which no meaning can escape.

Whereas Christians and religious types in general can't accept their own finite mortality,

How do you know this? Have you interviewed all Christians and “religious types” on Earth, or are you extrapolating from the tiny portion you know to all people in those categories?

Not only do I accept my own finite mortality, I take comfort in it.

you are simply too dependant on God to provide you with a free pass to validation of your life.

Me personally, or all Christians and “religious types?” Since there is no meaning in an evolutionary/atheistic worldview (I hesitate to use that word in this instance, but I think you take my meaning), there is no validation of life to be had. But since there is meaning in a Christian worldview, it is entirely appropriate to find that validation in the one who supplies meaning to the universe: God.

Proponents of evolution and atheist in general accept that this is the life we have and aim to make the best of it,

A meaningless concept in a meaningless universe, but live your life to its hedonistic full if you think that will provide the meaning and purpose you don’t have but earnestly desire. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die . . .”

many religious people are happy to accept the teaching of their paticular church and stop their pursuit of truth at it. I personally consider it a great waste.

And many atheists are happy to accept the opinions of their peer-groups and stop their pursuit of truth with them. Do all atheists and “non-religious types” in general habitually resort to such fallacious generalizations?

I think we're reaching a stalemate now Charles, you seem unable to accept that we exist (in our minds) without a creator God

I’m able to accept it (I once did), I just reject it.

so regardless of the nature of the universe in that it is a purposeless entity and that the forces controlling it have nothing paticular in mind (how could they? they're no concious) we are here and that allows us to ordain our own purpose.

Let me see if I follow your argument:

1. The universe is a purposeless entity.
2. You are part of the universe.
3. Therefore you have no purpose.
4. But you are part of the universe (“we are here”).
5. Therefore you have purpose (as you so “ordain”).

Is this a reflection on the current English university system?

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LukeMC wrote:

Charles, you seem to be mixing up atheism and scientific naturalism. While the two of them commonly occur together, they are not synonymous. You

Hi LukeMC. I am compressing the two, since they’re on friendly terms, and are somewhat symbiotic, but I realize that they are distinct.

You are defining an atheist as somebody who rejects all supernatural claims, as opposed to someone who merely rejects the god claim. An atheist could reject god but at the same time believe in a transcendent set of morals with no author which spontaneously began to exist at the dawn of the universe. However this is probably rare

Indeed. My focus is on the mainstream evolutionary atheist, while understanding there are outliers.

For those who deny all supernatural claims, all transcendent claims, etc, I will agree with you that moral nihilism follows. There is no set of objective morals, the universe does not care and in the grand scheme of things it does not matter if you kill babies for pleasure. I agree with you entirely. By no standards can this be seen as intrisically wrong.

Refreshingly consistent. I appreciate your honesty, as absurd as that is.

However, for the sake of passing on our genes, it is vitally important that we do not eat our community. Humans born with a tendency to eat their community would be killed by the people in self-defence, an age-old instinct. As such, killing in general becomes counter-productive on the level of the community. This isn't transcendental or magical, it is just how events unfold. There is no wisdom nor moral championship in this basic level of understanding. If people aren't killing each other, their genes will be more likely to pass on, so it follows that those who do try to kill people won't pass on their genes and this trait (if containing a genetic link) will die out.

As people become more self-aware and realise they won't be able to function if J Stalin across the the street goes around killing them, they decide to make a set of rules prohibiting people from killing one another. Still not trancendental, still merely a cross between instinct and selfish thinking. A desire for preservation is ingrained in us.

As feelings such as empathy develop and we recognise other people have the same feelings as us, we come to understand that subjecting them to things we find unpleasant is not productive. It makes them angry, resentful, less likely to help the community hence jeopardising the genepool. Still not trancendental.

Now we are at a time where we can debate which tribe or civilization has the most useful set of prohibition and ideals. We look at the quality of peoples' lives and the better the quality, the more likely they will reproduce and/or serve the community. However, our sense of empathy has grown so strong that we want people to avoid suffering sheerly because we don't like suffering. We want people to be happy because our sense of empathy tells us that happy is a pleasant feeling, and we want other people to feel this. These are the grounds for which we set up international laws.

I understand and agree that this narrative is plausible given evolutionary/atheistic premises. It’s all still completely meaningless and absurd.

The thing is, killing a baby is not useful, and our sense of empathy tells us not to do it. It isn't intrinsically wrong, because no such moral guideline exists. To construct a subjective set of morals doesn't remedy this either, because as you said Charles, things vary across cultures. However, some cultures have a far better standard of living than others. These cultures will thrive and probably have a monopoly over whatever the planet's subjective moral code will ultimately be. This doesn't make anything rhight or wrong, because such concepts still don't exist objectively. But subjectively speaking, the cultures which exhibit the greatest quality of life will tend to be the ones which are empathetic and value other human beings. Due to their empathy, they consider happiness to be a success of the society and by this standard they create their subjective set of morals.

Being a human being myself, I feel empathy towards others. I enjoy feeling happy and therefore would like other people to feel happy too, as I know how pleasant it is. I would prefer the culture with the most empathy- the culture which treats people the most equally, without senseless massacres- to be the culture which dominates the planet. Having a planet unanimously agreed on the subjective moral standards of this culture would not make any action right or wrong, and in the grand scheme of things it would be meaningless and we might aswell stab forks into each other, but on the scale of the society, on the scale of human beings who feel empathy, it means something to us to preserve and protect ourselves.

It doesn’t mean anything at all, whether in reference to us or to any other referent. There is no meaning. What we take to be meaning is simply a biochemical process in our brain. We feel the emotions of having/wanting/needing meaning and purpose, but there is no meaning and purpose to be had.

It follows logically that in the rejection of the supernatural, we reject the notion that any moral absolutes exist, but this does not mean to say we don't have an ingrained and progressive drive to be happy for our own sakes. This is why we don't kill.

Logic is meaningless.

Morality is meaningless.

Happiness is meaningless.

Killing is meaningless.

This forum is meaningless.

Detect the trend?

That too, is meaningless.

I apoligise sincerely for the length of this as I'm sure you've heard most of this before and found it all somewhat boring and inconsistent.

No apologies necessary. This post isn’t boring, its just absurd for you to try to convince me when you have affirmed that “For those who deny all supernatural claims, all transcendent claims, etc, I will agree with you that moral nihilism follows.”

What I was trying to do was show how you are correct in stating that moral nihilism follows from rejecting the supernatural, and that objectively human life has no value, but that nontheless it is consistent for naturalists to behave in particular ways of behaving sheerly because we value our own lives and have the capacity to empathise and assign value to the lives of others.

Value is meaningless.

Life is meaningless.

Valuing your life is meaningless.

Empathy is meaningless.

Sounding like a broken record is meaningless.

Emoticons are meaningless.

I might aswell kill people, but I naturally value my happiness and naturally empathise with others. These feelings aren't moral or immoral, they are natural and I cannot escape them. I will call them moral or immoral, but I know deep down I am being subjective and that ultimately they don't matter. This won't override the electrochemical reactions so heavily ingrained in my brain though. It is out of my control. (In the same way I can know that the scent of manure is neither "bad" nor "good" objectively, but this doesn't stop me from finding the experience unpleasant, as it is naturally within me to perceive things in such a way.)

I hope you understood my points and I'd be happy for you input. Thanks.

You state your position well LukeMC, but if you agree that atheism entails nihilism, you are living your life inconsistently with your own beliefs; which in turn entails that either you don’t take your atheism seriously or you don’t really believe it entails nihilism. A consistent nihilist wouldn’t bother trying to convince anyone that his view is correct, because that would be meaningless.

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Padraic wrote:

BINGO!

The purpose of life is itself. Period. That's enough for me.That it isn't for you is fine with me.Your feelings needs and beliefs supported by a bit of tired apologist sophistry changes nothing.

You became tedious after a couple posts.Congratulations you've reached stultifying.

Yes, the discussion has moved beyond bumper sticker sloganeering. Run along and let the adults talk.