Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

I think 'moral' describes the Xtian God accurately. 'Just' I think also, together with loving. Those form the core attributes.

God couldn't be just if God didn't enforce justice. 'Vengeful' suggests more that just desert to me. I assume this is your meaning too, and I see no reason to ascribe that attribute to God. I see no justification to make that leap from what you've said.

So 'hurt' has to exist for justice (/morality) to be true. /Hurt isn't morally wrong.
The attraction of God is towards morality. Morality is fully realised in God.

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@apoplexia

You seem to be consistently missing the point that God -is- the moral agent in what Inigo is saying

Yes, you're right that a degree of vengefulness can be called 'justice' and is a virtue, not a vice. However, the degree of vengefulness that she needs to possess in order for her instructions to possess inescapable rational authority goes beyond, it seems to me, what is called for by the virtue of justice.(which is not to say that there is anything 'unjust' in the harm coming to a person, just that a 'just' person wouldn't have meted it out)

For instance, it seems to me - and here I am simply appealing to my moral sense - that if someone does wrong, then they 'deserve' to come to harm (which I interpret as my sensing that she - morality - wishes this person to come to harm). However, it does not seem to follow that it is automatically right for me to harm that person. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
For instance, take someone like a leading Nazi, Himmler or someone. Such a person plausibly deserves to come to so much harm no virtuous person would deal that harm out.

Or let's say I'm walking down the street and I just punch someone in the face for a laugh. As it happens that person had just done something horrible and deserved to come to harm. So, this person actually got their 'just deserts'. However, I did not act justly. It was wrong of me to punch him in the face.

So it seems to me that deserving a harm, and it being just or right to mete that harm out are different.

This mismatch and the fact that deserving to come to a harm does not automatically make it right to mete the harm out suggests that her degree of vengefulness exceeds that which constitutes justice.

[fr0d0]

hmm, I think the meaning was lost in the crossed actors there. Justice and morality are the same thing I think. The problem that posthumous judgement resolves is justice IMO. In my view, God is completely forgiving. It is in his nature to attract morality, and see that completed posthumously. IMO, the human journey is towards morality, facilitated by God.

[Angrboda]

Stop telling me to use theism in a particular way when the way I am using it is historically accurate and perfectly acceptable.

Appealing to historical usage is an example of the genetic fallacy.

A 'theistic' god is taken by those who have been properly educated to mean a god who possesses the 3 attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and perfect moral goodness. And a 'theist' to those of us who know this, is someone who believes in the existence of such a god.

You might want to go correct the good folk at Oxford then, seeing as you are properly educated and they, obviously, are not.





While appealing to the notion that you were using the word 'theist' in a narrower sense is clever, it was max-greece's usage which you were disputing, as seen below, and, his usage was correct. As long as you qualify under one of the above definitions, disputing his claim that you are a theist is an error.

You are as delusional as any theist I have ever met.

Well, I'm not a theist.

I really don't care one tiny weeny bit how you use the word. I'm telling you how I use it so that you understand what I mean. If you don't like it, deal with it.

Yes, that much is obvious. It is also obvious that someone who will engage in this amount of pettifoggery and bullshit to avoid the admission that they have made a slight mistake in English usage cannot be trusted to render a fair assessment of the merits of his arguments or those of his adversary.

[downbeatplumb]

You're fired.

So far this thread consists of many pages of you stating, without evidence, that morality requires a god.

We disagree and give our reasons.

You re-state your case, again without evidence.

We again disagree and presenting relevant information

You re-state your case ad nauseum.

You come across as a typical blinkered theist who has "found god" and will not give up on their vapid baseless "proofs" no matter what we say.

Suffice it to say you are wrong at a fundamental level and can't even see it. You never will because you are happy in your delusion.

You even started a thread where you called atheists meanies for telling someone the truth and destroying their happy lie. I think that spoke volumes.

And I didn't know you were employing me. I don't remember getting any payment should I look in the post.

[genkaus]

No, it is nonsense so of course I can't understand it. I understand it to be nonsense. You know it is nonsense as well, at least I hope you do.

If you consider everything beyond your comprehension as nonsensical, then the whole world must seem that way to you.

YOu need to challenge one of the premises of my argument. One of those was that morality instructs. I take it that the above is your attempt to challenge it. But you can't challenge a premisethat morality instructs by saying 'no it doesn't....it instructs'.

Challenge it? I've denied it. I'm denying it right now. Giving instructions is a job for conscious entities and morality - by definition - is not a conscious entity.

And since you've failed so spectacularly to comprehend the given argument - it is not a challenge to your premise of "morality instructs", it is a denial of your premise that "morality is an being". Morality is a concept - therefore not a being.

that way to you.

You accept that morality instructs. You talked later about a code of 'shoulds'. Use 'should' if you like - but that's just another way of acknowledging that morality consists, in part anyway, in instructions to do and not do things.
So, once again, you accept that morality instructs.

No, I don't. How many times do I have to repeat it? Let me say it loud and clear.

I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT MORALITY INSTRUCTS. MORALITY DOES NOT INSTRUCT. MORALITY CONTAINS INSTRUCTIONS BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT INSTRUCTS.

Once again, using your own analogy, even if a map were to contain directions to a hidden treasure, that still wouldn't mean that the map guides. The map does not guide and morality does not instruct.

It is no good saying 'but the instructions come from us' or 'we confer the instructions'. For you are still acknowledging the instructing nature of morality, it is just that now you are trying to account for it (rather than deny it) by attributing those instructions to ourselves.

Oh, but I am denying it. Try and get that through your head.

Now, that falls foul of another of my assumptions about morality, namely that its instructions are inescapably rationally authoritative.

Another ridiculous statement which is demonstrably false. All known moralities contain instructions from philosophers who are most certainly not inescapably rationally authoritative.

So, you actually accept my premise that morality instructs.

I don't.

And you accept, it seems, that instructions need to come from an agency of some sort.

Yes, human agents. Always human agents.

So, there is actually only one way you can avoid my conclusion. And that is to challenge my premise that moral instructions are instructions that are inescapably rationally authoritative.

Too easily denied. In fact, it has been denied. Many times over.

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The claim that 'morality is a concept' is nonsense. It is like saying 'time is cheese'. It doesn't make sense.

Morality is something we have a concept of. And we have a concept of a concept. But the only thing that 'is' a concept is a concept.

He doesn't know what he's saying, but he isn't letting that stop him.

Are you drunk or simply uneducated?

A concept is an idea - something formed in the mind. Look up the definition.

Morality is a system of ideas - a code produced by a mind. It is a concept by definition.

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Asking me why morality can't be a concept is like asking me why a triangle can't have four sides. Because it isn't a concept, is my answer. Concepts are concepts. Then there are the things conceived - those are the things we have concepts of. We have a concept of time, of space, of morality, of unicorns, of father Christmas, of a god, and so on and so on.

Jeez, get a dictionary dude.

Things that you conceive of in your mind are concepts. Anything conceived by your mind - that does not have an existence independent of your mind - is, by definition, a concept.

Therefore, space and time are not concepts (though we do have concepts about them) and morality, unicorns, Santa Claus and god are concepts. That you do not recognize this simply means that your concepts regarding these concepts are skewed.

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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.

The failure of comprehension is yours. The object of a belief need not be a physical or tangible object, it can be another belief or a concept.

For example, your belief about morality is that it is an agent. My belief about your belief is that it is bullshit. Similarly, morality is a belief - or, if you will, a concept - about how a person should act. Therefore, morality is a belief and moral beliefs, i.e., beliefs about morality, are beliefs about another belief. It cannot be explained in a simpler manner.

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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.

Try and read this slowly so as to understand where you start making your mistake.

Moral belief is a belief like "this act is wrong" - that's fine.

The wrongness of the act is not the same belief - that's also correct. Its another belief.

You ask what "wrongness" means. Consider the word carefully. The answer is in there. The word "wrong" (in this context) is an adjective used to describe the moral nature of an act. Wrongness is a moral quality. A precise analogy would be how "red" would describe the visual nature of an apple and "redness" would be a visual quality. The key difference here is that unlike color, the moral nature of an act is NOT A PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTE. It cannot be perceived by any of your senses. It exists in your mind. It has no independent existence. Which means it is a CONCEPTUAL ATTRIBUTE. Which means wrongness is a belief, a concept and your moral belief about it is another belief.

Moving on, the only thing the term "wrongness" implies is "this act you were instructed not to perform". That is all. It says nothing about the nature of the instruction or the instructor. It does not imply that the instruction is rational or authoritative or inescapable. The instruction itself does not create a reason to follow it. That has to be justified independently.

And with that, the rest of your argument falls apart.

[genkaus]

No, I am not a college student.

Couldn't get in, huh?

I have not redefined anything. I said that a 'good' character trait on this view refers to the property of being something the god will harm us (us - not her) for failing to possess.

That is redefining it.

Go look up the definition of "good". Nowhere does it say that "good" is a property god wants in you. You are the one defining it that way, which means you are redefining it.

Hence why we have inescapable reason to cultivate such character traits.
If she possesses those character traits then she possesses character traits that 'we' have inescapable reason to cultivate. In other words, she possesses 'good' character traits and is therefore morally good.

Except, that's not an inescapable reason. You can easily escape that reason by allowing the god to harm you.

[LostLocke]

I think you'll find I have responded to virtually everyone.

Actually, you have not.

The one thing I am asking for is a simple, straight forward, real world example of 'morality instructing'.
That's it. nothing more.

Can you physically answer that question?

[Inigo]

hmm, I think the meaning was lost in the crossed actors there. Justice and morality are the same thing I think. The problem that posthumous judgement resolves is justice IMO. In my view, God is completely forgiving. It is in his nature to attract morality, and see that completed posthumously. IMO, the human journey is towards morality, facilitated by God.

Ah, I see. I would distinguish between justice (the virtue) and justice (the state of affairs) and morality simply because I would see 'justice' as someone getting what they deserve, yet it does not seem automatically to be the case that just because Tom deserves to come to harm that it is right to harm him. Situations can arise where we would want to say that the situation is unjust, but that no-one is doing anything wrong.

So, a just state of affairs is one where everyone gets what they deserve. A person exhibits the virtue of 'justice' when they give someone what they deserve because they deserve it when, and only when, it is right to give them what they deserve. So a just person is responsive to what someone deserves, but their responsiveness is suitably regulated by other virtues.

Re god being forgiving. I agree that a perfectly good god would be like that. Being forgiving is, I think most of us can agree, a virtue. But if the god is forgiving then her instructions do not have inescapable rational authority. She's just too nice: we lack inescapable reason to do as she instructs because, well, she isn't necessarily going to harm our interests if we fail to. So it seems to me that to explain - in the simplest and most straightforward way - why we have inescapable reason to do morality's bidding we should posit a god who is unforgiving. This is consistent with forgiveness being a virtue, as nothing prevents her from approving of forgiveness in us.

You could posit something else that might get rid of the need to make her unforgiving - perhaps rather than being vengeful she is just trying to protect us from harms that she knows it is a law of supernature will befall us if we behave in certain ways, and all she actually wants is whatever is best for us. She is, if you like, a kind of catcher in the rye.

But the problem with doing this is that it complicates the picture for no real reason apart from squaring this account with a prior conviction that a certain sort of god exists. I, of course, lack any such prior conviction and am solely interested what can be supported by evidence. As such I see no good reason to adjust the picture.

The second problem with making her forgiving is that it would become difficult to account for our sensations of moral desert. If someone does wrong it seems to most of us that it would be in some way fitting or appropriate if this person came to harm (which, as indicated above, seems consistent with at thte same time judging it to be wrong to actually mete out the harm). If we posit a vengeful god this makes perfect sense. SHe, morality, now wishes this person to come to harm - and that's what we're sensing.

I do not take what I have just said to in any way preclude that she could be perfectly morally good. I merely take the above considerations to make more reasonable the proposition that she is not. And needless to say, I would like to be mistaken about this!

[Inigo]

Stop telling me to use theism in a particular way when the way I am using it is historically accurate and perfectly acceptable.

Appealing to historical usage is an example of the genetic fallacy.

A 'theistic' god is taken by those who have been properly educated to mean a god who possesses the 3 attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and perfect moral goodness. And a 'theist' to those of us who know this, is someone who believes in the existence of such a god.

You might want to go correct the good folk at Oxford then, seeing as you are properly educated and they, obviously, are not.





While appealing to the notion that you were using the word 'theist' in a narrower sense is clever, it was max-greece's usage which you were disputing, as seen below, and, his usage was correct. As long as you qualify under one of the above definitions, disputing his claim that you are a theist is an error.

Well, I'm not a theist.

I really don't care one tiny weeny bit how you use the word. I'm telling you how I use it so that you understand what I mean. If you don't like it, deal with it.

Yes, that much is obvious. It is also obvious that someone who will engage in this amount of pettifoggery and bullshit to avoid the admission that they have made a slight mistake in English usage cannot be trusted to render a fair assessment of the merits of his arguments or those of his adversary.

I predicted you'd do precisely this. I assume you were previously religious and miss having an authoritative book to appeal to. And so you've decided to replace the bible with a big fat report on how a population of fools use words. You worship that catalogue of idiots' grunts if you want, but I'm not a dictionarian.

Anyway, address my arguments or go boil your head.

[simplexity]

I predicted you'd do precisely this. I assume you were previously religious and miss having an authoritative book to appeal to. And so you've decided to replace the bible with a big fat report on how a population of fools use words. You worship that catalogue of idiots' grunts if you want, but I'm not a dictionarian.

Anyway, address my arguments or go boil your head.

This is just too much. 'Catalog of idiots grunts'. Use of 'dictionarian'. No, it's called using the English language properly so others know what you mean.

Anyway we have addressed your arguments in pretty much every way possible and you still fail to understand how concepts can very easily be of something nonexistent(ideas). Morality being one of them. And this concept of something non-existent is something very useful indeed. It's useful, not an inescapable instruction. Just some subtle hardcoded 'instructions' which are not always reasonable, especially inescapably.