Atheism and morality

[Whateverist]

To be honest, aren't you just pulling all this crap out of your ass and then weaving a story around it. You challenge us to respond to your 'argument' but since your argument revolves around something whose existence is fundamentally in question, of course there is no way to challenge your shit. Here it is better to just note how full of shit you are, and move on. No one can win an argument over the nature of a thing which likely does not exist but which you seem to make up as you go.

You don't refute a position by calling its proponent a shit. And that's all you're doing.

No, I'm not calling you a shit. I'm calling your argument shit. Sure you put a suit on it and give it airs but that doesn't stop it being total crap.

[pocaracas]

Yes, the failure is on everyone else JUST NOT UNDERSTANDING YOU *SOB and not the piss-poor way you have been explaining yourself.

Well, he understands - or seems to - that beliefs always have objects (things they are 'about'). And he understands that a belief cannot have itself as an object. So, what a belief is about, and the belief itself, are different. This much he seems - seems - to grasp. So he gets one star. But, inexplicably, he can't then grasp that this means moral beliefs must be about something- they must have an object. And that their object is, well, morality. And that this means that morality and the belief are different. This he does not seem capable of grasping. I can only conclude that he is either some kind of cretin or he does not like where grasping it would lead.

I think he just can't comprehend what this "moral belief" thing that you bring to the table is.
You present "moral beliefs" as something self-evident.... it isn't.

[Inigo]

A moral belief is a belief such as that 'Xing is wrong' or 'Xing is right'. To believe an act is wrong is one and the same as believing it to be immoral. That's a moral belief.

If one believes an act to be wrong, the 'wrongness' can't be the belief, for reasons just given. One has a belief that the act has wrongness. The wrongness and the belief are different. What is the wrongness? What is one believing about an act when one believes it to be wrong? No good saying that one believes the act to be harmful or some such, for then all one is saying is that one believes 'harmful acts' to be wrong. And we are non the wiser about what this 'wrongness' is, only a bit wiser about the kind of things that give rise to its presence.

So what is the wrongness? Well, first the wrongness is an instruction not to do the act in question. In other words, part of what we mean when we say 'that act is wrong' is 'that act is one you are instructed not to perform'. Second, the instruction is one that is inescapably rationally authoritative. So another thing we mean is 'and so you have reason not to perform it'.

So, and I really don't know why I bother doing this as it is just going to be ignored, part of what we believe when we believe an act to be wrong is that the act is a) instructed not to be done and b) the instruction creates a reason not to perform it.

I have then reasoned that there would need to exist a god and an afterlife for there to exist instructions of that kind. And thus for any moral belief to be 'true' there would need to exist a god and an afterlife.

---

You don't refute a position by calling its proponent a shit. And that's all you're doing.

No, I'm not calling you a shit. I'm calling your argument shit. Sure you put a suit on it and give it airs but that doesn't stop it being total crap.

I understand your frustration. I have presented an argument that has as its conclusion that atheism is incompatible with morality - an argument that thereby damages the plausibility of atheism (at least to some degree). You cannot refute this argument. It has very compelling premises and it is deductively valid. That must be incredibly frustrating. And you can vent this frustration by swearing at the argument like a little baby. I understand that. I was a baby once. it must be like discovering your father's stash of pornography. It is horrible. Distressing. You can't tell your father yo found it. But you now know he has one and it is upsetting you. I'm showing you your father's porno stash. Nasty me.

[simplexity]

Morality is a concept of what is inside our own 'minds'. It is only a part of what is inside the mind, not the entirety. The idea of not wanting to suffer is hardwired into everyone's mind and so flowing from that idea is the idea that what is 'right', which is another of these words we made up to describe non-suffering, flows from the same hard-wiring. That is where the concept of morals stems from, and it needs nothing else. If you want to call the hard-wiring of not wanting to suffer, morality, fine by me. Please just stop spilling nonsense all over this board.

PS, not to mention all the other things which cause suffering outside of ourselves, but which also are attached to our own suffering.

[pocaracas]

A moral belief is a belief such as that 'Xing is wrong' or 'Xing is right'. To believe an act is wrong is one and the same as believing it to be immoral. That's a moral belief.

Why do you put the word belief where I bolded?
Why not "consider"? or "define"?

To define an act as wrong is... what morals are...?
To consider an act as wrong is... what morals are... ?

To establish that the consequences of an act are detrimental to society, or just the other person, is what it means to be wrong.

So... I keep spinning my marbles, but belief is a word that still doesn't make sense in this context.

Why do you start everything with it?

[Inigo]

A moral belief is a belief such as that 'Xing is wrong' or 'Xing is right'. To believe an act is wrong is one and the same as believing it to be immoral. That's a moral belief.

Why do you put the word belief where I bolded?
Why not "consider"? or "define"?

To define an act as wrong is... what morals are...?
To consider an act as wrong is... what morals are... ?

To establish that the consequences of an act are detrimental to society, or just the other person, is what it means to be wrong.

So... I keep spinning my marbles, but belief is a word that still doesn't make sense in this context.

Why do you start everything with it?

I was clarifying that 'wrong' and 'immoral' are synonyms as are 'right' (in its moral sense) and 'moral'. This was to clarify that a 'moral belief' - which you, or someone, was professing difficulty understanding - would include things such as a belief that an act is wrong, or a belief that an act is right.

Now, moral beliefs - that is to say, beliefs about what is right or wrong - are distinct from the rightness or wrongness.
Anyone who thinks they are analysing 'morality' when they start giving an account of how it has come to pass that we have moral beliefs, is doing no such thing. They are guilty of having mistaken moral beliefs, for the thing believed. They are making a mistake of exactly the same kind as when someone mistakes a belief about an apple for an apple.
Now, if someone persists in mistaking beliefs about apples for actual apples we would - at a certain point - conclude that the person is so hopelessly conceptually confused that further debate with that person was pointless. We are close to getting to this point where moral beliefs are concerned. If someone really can't grasp - or just plain doesn't want to grasp - that morality and moral beliefs are distinct, then there is no point continuing discussion with that person. And that person is certainly not entitled to believe that they have in any way 'refuted' or 'blown a hole in' my argument. They have not even grasped the meaning of the premises. Failing to understand an argument - failing to grasp the meaning of its premises - is not the same as refuting an argument. You can't refute an argument by being stupid enough not to understand it.

[pocaracas]

You're still not explaining what this "moral belief" thing is....

[Inigo]

You're still not explaining what this "moral belief" thing is....

you now qualify as someone with whom further debate is pointless.

[pocaracas]

so are you...

[simplexity]

Thank you Inigo, for proving that you are picking and choosing which explanations/proofs to respond to based on your own preconceptions. And if you do respond it is usually out of context and/or based on definitions which you continue to use incorrectly. Maybe you have the best intentions, who knows?