Where do atheists get their morality from?

[Jackalope]

LOL "for some reason or another". You know precisely why I won't engage you seriously. But please, go ahead and be a disingenuous twat and claim you don't.

You're engaging with me now, in open self-contradiction to your own previous statement.

Read the bolded part. Then, kindly fuck off.

Why should I take such an openly self-contradictory person seriously?

I wouldn't give a flying fuck for what you do or do not take seriously.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

What search terms should I put in?

"a serious post by genkaus"?

Somehow your search function suggestion doesn't seem to be well thought out.

But I'll take a look at your posts and see if they carry substance.

edit: I just noticed how far back 116 and 121 were. That's a very low frequency of substantial posts.

ok I found em.

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You're engaging with me now, in open self-contradiction to your own previous statement.

Read the bolded part. Then, kindly fuck off.

Why should I take such an openly self-contradictory person seriously?

I wouldn't give a flying fuck for what you do or do not take seriously.

You sound pretty serious right now, CD. Why don't you take a chill pill and relax?

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Genkaus told me he made two serious posts in this thread and wanted me to respond to them. I'll quote and respond here.

If you are an atheist, your morality undoubtedly IS informed by atheism.

The crux of your mistake.

Yours is not a rational position, it is a semantic one. A rational position is one where one considers the proposition "A God doesn't exist", and accordingly all the rational consequences of the position, be they epistemic, ethical, skeptical, whatever.

Your position is not rational, it's strictly semantic. Or definitional. "Atheism means no belief in God and that's that!" It's a convenient position to hold, burden-of-proof-wise. But flip the situation and consider the theist: "I'm a Christian theist. All I believe is that Jesus is God. Don't tell me about any problems in my worldview. I don't care nor am I interested. I'm a Christian and that's that." If a Christian said that, you wouldn't smile and nod and neither would I.

So when you say something of the sort, I bring my paddle out to give you a right spanking too.

A rational consideration of atheism takes into account not only the propositional truth of atheism, but also the outcomes that such a belief has on other, related beliefs. There is no other way to go about it. We're not debating dictionary definitions, we are debating worldviews. And atheism, being a position on the existence of God, is a worldview. And rational atheism, taking into consideration the worldview that is derived from it, has a serious moral problem.

And if you don't like rape, murder and child abuse, you should be concerned that atheism allows for the legitimization of these crimes. Sam Harris was concerned enough. Dawkins himself now feels the same way. So why are you trying to escape the problem by playing word-games?

The mistake you make is assuming that every part of a person's worldview is derived from his atheism, i.e., the proposition that god doesn't exist. The only rational epistemic or ethical consequences of that would be "god doesn't give any knowledge" and "god doesn't provide any morals". Atheism itself is usually a consequence of some other worldview which would entail its own morality which need not be connected to atheism at all.

Your error is to putting all the atheists in the same categorical worldview and assuming that since their worldview derives from their atheism (and not vice-versa), the same moral problems apply to all of them. I guess this is the result of theistic worldview often being derived in its entirety form the existence of god and you being incapable of imagining anything different for atheists.

The correct answer would be that atheism doesn't say shit about rape, murder or child-abuse being right or wrong. That doesn't mean the world view that atheist subscribes to doesn't have its own rules regarding it.

On your first claim genkaus, I'm afraid you are mistaken. I believe the question of whether you believe a God exists or not dramatically transforms what you RATIONALLY consider to be the moral way to live.

If you believe the God is your source of moral values, given most classical definitions of God you become, necessarily, a moral realist (ie, God exists outside of your mind, in reality, he is the source of morality, therefore morality is outside of your mind, in reality) and objectivist (God is the source of all truth. God exists outside of the mind, therefore truth exists outside of the mind).

Now this would be the case even if you believed that God existed but chose to not worship him or obey him. The mere fact that a God exists makes him the source of morality and truth, regardless of whether you are a follower or not.

So a lot of one's morality hinges on the question of atheism, and the above ought to explain how. But you already acknowledge this in your second point, which seems you are contradicting yourself: You acknowledge that morality and belief in a deity are linked. But perhaps you mean that a belief in God does not then provide specific moral propositions. Is that your claim?

[DeistPaladin]

Would you agree then that a conscious being able to create the universe, must necessarily have greater power and knowledge than that within the universe which would otherwise be or would be the most powerful and/or most knowledgable?

No.

Just as I found Dawkins' argument that God would have to be more complex than the universe to be very weak. Why would it necessarily be so. We as humans create things far more complex than ourselves.

This gives us a being of great power and intelligence; a independent being itself, which humans and all of existence are contingent upon (thus objective). This, to me at least, makes for (literally) a great authority. This was essentially what was meant from:

You keep using the word "objective" in ways I don't think the word was intended. Simply being an outsider doesn't make your opinion "objective". Neither does being a founder of something make your opinion "objective".

"Objective" as I cited the definition earlier, means independent of any opinions, thoughts, feelings or mind of any other being, no matter the authority, wisdom, power or proximity (insider or outsider) to the subject being discussed.

Yes, the Euthyphro Dilemma, though you've added what I would answer in #3- God wills something because he is good. If I were to then be accused of special pleading, or that the concept is incoherent/circular,

...yes, the argument is both circular (God is good because God wills what God wills and since God's will is how we define good, we know God's will is good and so God must be good because God wills what God wills...) and relies upon a contrived definition/assumption (we assume A and then use A to prove B, or in this case, we define God as good and then use that definition to prove that God's will is good and so you can't have morality without God because we've defined good as coming from God...).

I could point to an opponent's own subjective appeals to moral values & duties, i.e.: "it's bad to murder in society because murder would be bad for society."

This is the kind of Tu Quoque fallacy often encountered with presuppositionalists, or "Yes, I know my logic is circular but so's yours". In the first place, more detail of the harm to society can be provided and examined. A host of statistics, from productivity loss to hospital costs, can be provided to objectively measure the cost to society, for just one example. The pain of individuals who have survived attacks or grieving relatives can also be compiled.

Compare this with the bare assertion about the existence of God or the contrived definition of "Good = God's will" that can't be examined or objectively substantiated at all.

The "Social Contract" is indeed a useful tool to discuss this issue- these societies that practice these things you find wrong created these very social contracts!

I didn't say "A" social contract. I said "THE" Social Contract.

Jesus preached something like it when he said "Do unto others..." This was not his original invention. Moral philosophers for a long time have said the same thing and this is a classic case for what morality is.

Would the men of Islamic society be willing to be stoned for adultery? If not, they are committing a clear case of hypocrisy. They are treating others in ways they would not wish to be treated.

"Cruelty," "rights violations," etc., would all be subjective terms- merely your opinion on the matter (and one not apparently shared by the people of that society), and in fact altogther baseless.

...and so we get back to my analogy of business. Subjective opinion =/= baseless nor are all subjective evaluations equal. Subjective opinions can be rationally argued and inspected, supported or derailed by objective data.

Perhaps practicing these alleged 'atrocities' does in fact better the society as a whole beyond our immediate vision- how can we possibly say it doesn't?

Argument from ignorance. The burden of proof would be on the one making such an assertion.

How could it, especially if one says our morality is "evolving?"

Indeed, which is a potent argument for secular morality and against Biblical morality. We have evolved to the point where we now realize the wrongness of slavery or war crimes, behaviors tolerated or even defended before the 20th century. The practices regrettably still persist but human civilization is now working to eradicate them where possible.

Compare this with the Bible's stances on such now no-brainer issues as rape, slavery and war crimes. The Bible seems, to put it kindly, primitive, not the Word of a wise and all good God.

Human morality has evolved to the point where we can better evaluate moral issues. The Bible has remained unchanged and its wrongness can't be corrected.

So, are morals then personally-relative to everyone (subjective), or are some things in fact really wrong, regardless of what people actually think of those things?

Yes.

Our wisdom isn't always perfect. The issues can be complex. We don't always have all the information. But that doesn't justify throwing our hands in the air and saying "anything goes I guess" nor is anything gained by assuming a higher celestial judge.

[downbeatplumb]

What is the process by which this god thing is supposed sets morals?

It is not enough to say it does, tell me how.

[Red Celt]

What. The. Fuck?

What colour is the sky where you are?

What's with the personal attacks?

Really? You read that, and your mind inserted the thought "personal attack"? Wow... just... wow...

You stated a falsehood (that nobody had objected to one of your posts) and I questioned the plane of thought that your mind-train operates on. Because it isn't Planet Earth.

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Can a robot design and build a robot better than itself..an emphatic "yes". There's nothing preventing it from doing so, even if it doesn't have any idea of what it's doing. All you need are a series of pass fail/loops and replication.

How did you get to that, following what I asked? And what would "pass/fail loops" be testing for? We didn't even establish what we meant by "better".

How do you think we got here, lol?

Random mutations resulting in survivable/unsurvivable traits, non-randomly producing surviving traits. That's your answer for how a robot can produce a "better" robot? I said that we come back in a few generations... not a few million years.

[genkaus]

What search terms should I put in?

"a serious post by genkaus"?

Somehow your search function suggestion doesn't seem to be well thought out.

Please read complete sentences before responding. I said "search function or threaded mode".

On your first claim genkaus, I'm afraid you are mistaken. I believe the question of whether you believe a God exists or not dramatically transforms what you RATIONALLY consider to be the moral way to live.

No, it doesn't. Consider DeistPaladin, whose views on morality correspond to that of an atheist while still believing in god.

If you believe the God is your source of moral values, given most classical definitions of God you become, necessarily, a moral realist (ie, God exists outside of your mind, in reality, he is the source of morality, therefore morality is outside of your mind, in reality) and objectivist (God is the source of all truth. God exists outside of the mind, therefore truth exists outside of the mind).

Now this would be the case even if you believed that God existed but chose to not worship him or obey him. The mere fact that a God exists makes him the source of morality and truth, regardless of whether you are a follower or not.

So a lot of one's morality hinges on the question of atheism, and the above ought to explain how. But you already acknowledge this in your second point, which seems you are contradicting yourself: You acknowledge that morality and belief in a deity are linked. But perhaps you mean that a belief in God does not then provide specific moral propositions. Is that your claim?

Wrong. On so many levels. How is that even possible? Allow me to go through your mistakes one by one.

1. "If god doesn't exist, then he is not the source of morality" - this is what I said. What you concluded form that was "If god exists, he is the source of morality". I forget the name of this logical fallacy, but an example would be "If it's not sunny outside, the streets are not dry" does not imply "If it's sunny, the streets are dry".

2. Even if you argue from definition (i.e. defining god as the source of morality), the only thing that would tell you is "the morality of believers is based on their belief". The correct negative of this would be "the morality of non-believers is not based on their non-belief". Which leaves the non-believers open to the plethora of worldviews to base their morality on.

3. Your definition of a moral realist is wrong. A moral realist says nothing about the source of morality, he simply attributes factual nature to moral propositions. Further, just by saying that morality exists outside your mind does not make you a moral realist.

4. An objectivist is someone who subscribes to the philosophy of objectivism - a school of thought which is inherently atheistic. Try not to tell an objectivist that he actually believes in god or you'll get punched in face.

5. The sense in which you are using the word objective is wrong as well. In fact, if one does believe that god exists, then one must necessarily be a subjectivist. Firstly, the correct form of your argument would be "God is the source of all truth. God exists outside of the mind, therefore the source of truth exists outside of the mind" - it says nothing about the truth itself. Further, another argument here is "God is the source of all truth. The truth exists inside god's mind, therefore truth exists inside of a mind, therefore, truth is subjective".

6. The same argument applies to morality as well - "God is the source of all morality. God exists outside your mind, but morality exists inside his mind and not in reality. Therefore, morality is subjective".

7. Even if belief in a deity and morality are linked (which isn't necessarily the case), non-belief in a deity and morality are most definitely not linked. I guess I'm repeating a previous point here, but it bears repeating since you made this mistake atleast four times in this post alone.

[The Grand Nudger]

How did you get to that, following what I asked? And what would "pass/fail loops" be testing for?

That's the amusing bit, nothing in particular and nothing directed, but whatever filtered through any arbitrary set of pass/fail would end up being more suited to whatever those arbitrary pass/fails were. The pass/fails could even be passing circumstances.

We didn't even establish what we meant by "better".

Could be anything, what did you have in mind?

Random mutations resulting in survivable/unsurvivable traits, non-randomly producing surviving traits. That's your answer for how a robot can produce a "better" robot? I said that we come back in a few generations... not a few million years.

I didn't realize that the robots kicked it at the same rate as we did, but okay. The principle remains the same, you can extend or decrease the timeline involved at your leisure.

[Cyberman]

In a similar vein, can a robot design and built a robot that is better than itself? If so, lock one in a room with the raw materials and come back in a few years (enough for successive generations)... and unlock the door and expect to meet a god.

As Rhythm already answered this, quite correctly, I shall simply reiterate his reply and say yes, robots most definitely can do this. In fact you don't even need something as complex as a robot; ever heard of evolutionary electronics?

Evolutionary Electronics
is the use of evolutionary algorithms in the design of electronic systems. Evolutionary algorithms capture the bare essentials of Darwinian evolution - selection acting repeatedly upon heritable variation - but are in other ways very different from evolution in nature.

There are many potential applications for evolutionary algorithms in electronics, such as optimisation of parameter values or component placement & routing, test pattern generation, and even in the design process itself.

The focus of my own work has been to ask "What can evolutionary design do that conventional methods can't?" rather than trying to compete with conventional design or automate it. The papers below share this theme. Evolved circuits can have a richer spatial structure and internal dynamics than normally envisaged, and can extract unusual leverage from the physics of their medium of implementation --- be that microelectronics in simulation, physical silicon reconfigurable chips (FPGAs), or even proposed future technologies for nano-scale systems. Similarly, evolution can tune highly complex optimisation activities within Electronics Design Automation (EDA) tools with similar subtelty.

Terrible spelling but the principle's sound enough. Incidentally I had to spell his name like that because our Imperious Leader has hijacked every instance of that name, spelled properly, to render as - oh, just try it yourself if you ain't familiar with it.

Artificial evolution, such as a Genetic Algorithm, has many promising applications in electronics. These range from using it as an optimisation technique as part of a fairly conventional VLSI synthesis pathway, through to using it to design automatically circuits that could be of a very different nature to the way electronics is normally envisaged. We also apply our philosophy of artificial evolution to other domains of design: we seek to find ways of allowing evolution to explore areas of the "design space" not normally accessible.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

What's with the personal attacks?

Really? You read that, and your mind inserted the thought "personal attack"? Wow... just... wow...

You stated a falsehood (that nobody had objected to one of your posts) and I questioned the plane of thought that your mind-train operates on. Because it isn't Planet Earth.

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Can a robot design and build a robot better than itself..an emphatic "yes". There's nothing preventing it from doing so, even if it doesn't have any idea of what it's doing. All you need are a series of pass fail/loops and replication.

How did you get to that, following what I asked? And what would "pass/fail loops" be testing for? We didn't even establish what we meant by "better".

How do you think we got here, lol?

Random mutations resulting in survivable/unsurvivable traits, non-randomly producing surviving traits. That's your answer for how a robot can produce a "better" robot? I said that we come back in a few generations... not a few million years.

Seeing as your objections aren't real- ie they dont operate on rational foundations, I couldn't take them seriously. Is that the basis of your cosmological delusions?

If you made any serious objections, I'd like to see them. I think you attempted a few, but none succeeded to my knowledge. If they did, please point them out. I'm dying to think of you as rational and not emotional. Your latest posts haven't been helping, with the "Wow just wow's" and other emoting.

I truly want to believe. Convince me.

[stephenmills1000]

DP-

This proposal that through our evolution we can now better evaluate moral issues is highly dubious. The fact is there is no metric in existence that can tell us if we're doing a 'better' job or not, objectively. In fact, thanks to the advent of technology, I'm sure we can marshal such statistical evidence that you have placed such a premium on, and find that if anything we've become more efficient at killing people in the last 2 centuries, citing the enormous body counts of several regimes during this period. Statistics and numbers will only tell you what 'is,' not what 'ought' to be- that requires a consciousness to read something into the presented data, much like your business example. So I am not yet ready to buy into this idea that we are now somehow better off than we used to be, for if morals are personal-relative as you admit, it's merely personal opinion. Even your example where you would obtain data regarding productivity loss and hospital costs, is rife with personal bias based on your presumption these things are altogether "bad" or "evil." So your reasoning there is circular, inescapably so, for the only justification you would be able to present would be that which you have already presumed your opinion about due to values and duties being subjective.

I'm afraid this does lend itself to an "anything goes" system. There has been nothing presented to objectively justify otherwise, only reasons found arbitrary. The "Social Contract" is not necessarily obligating- there's nothing to say people cannot go off on their own and begin their own society with a different set of values- who then are you to say they are "wrong?" What if precisely half the world felt rape and slavery is ok? Who is right?

Your assertions concerning the origin of "Do unto others..." and how Muslims may 'feel' about their law does nothing to undermine the truth of the law, or one's obligation to it. That would commit the genetic fallacy.

Ultimately, this view places a great deal of faith on mankind to "do the right thing." Incidentally, I have faith we will, for I believe God has written the moral code on all our hearts (Romans 2:14-15), but what assurance does the non-believer have?

You say you believe morals are personally-relative, but honestly I think your backpedalling and appeals to authorities of statistics and/or social contracts betrays this feeling, and that you really feel objective moral values do exist!