Does Atheism Lead to Nihilism?

[pocaracas]

Very simply: Because that's how societies have defined good to be.

Like people have defined what a chair is, and what "wet" is and what "blue" is, so they have defined "good" and "bad" and "evil" and "awesome" and "flying" and "love" and "friend" and "hate" and "information" and "knowledge" and "experience" and "look" and all the myriad words in every conceivable dictionary.

G. E. Moore argues that you cannot define good (like you can a chair)...
...we cannot define "good" by explaining it in other words. We can only point to an action or a thing and say "That is good." Similarly, we cannot describe to a blind person exactly what yellow is. We can only show a sighted person a piece of yellow paper or a yellow scrap of cloth and say "That is yellow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

Clearly, I'm not G. E. Moore!

Nor is the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/good?s=t
56 different cases of the application of "good"... damn!!


Yellow is a color. Colors are electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths, in the visible part of the e.m. spectrum.
Sounds are waves of different wavelengths in the audible air-pressure wave spectrum. Higher frequencies equate to what we call higher pitch in sound.... at some point, the frequency becomes so high that our ears can't pick it up. We call that ultra-sound. The same happens for low frequencies. Lower the pitch and there is a frequency below which most humans can't hear... and you get infra-sound.
For light, it's similar. Higher frequencies have been called the blue or purple
part of the spectrum. Lower frequencies have been called the red part of the spectrum. Right after the red, comes yellow, then green, then blue and purple.
Purple is similar to violet... violet is the highest frequency most humans can see.... beyond it, lies ultra-violet.
Red is the lowest frequency humans can see... below it, we have infra-red.


I guess I can explain... but it doesn't do it justice... at least to our eyes.

[robvalue]

I see Steve. Well. I was just having fun after you've ignored almost all of my arguments I've ever put to you. I'm sorry if you take it personally, I am insulting ideas and not people.

[Mudhammam]

I see Steve. Well. I was just having fun after you've ignored almost all of my arguments I've ever put to you. I'm sorry if you take it personally, I am insulting ideas and not people.

Christians generally find insults more acceptable if they are veiled by religious piety and directed towards the fate of one's soul.

[robvalue]

I'll take it as a compliment that my arguments go unaddressed and instead insults are thrown directly at me.

It's a shame you can't enjoy a bit of fun with us atheists.

[The Grand Nudger]

G. E. Moore argues that you cannot define good (like you can a chair)...
...we cannot define "good" by explaining it in other words. We can only point to an action or a thing and say "That is good."

Cool, so if we were to take a short selection of actions or things which god is or has done(at least the claimants take on it), we'll be able to determine whether or not it was -the good-...yes?

[Esquilax]

G. E. Moore argues that you cannot define good (like you can a chair)...
...we cannot define "good" by explaining it in other words. We can only point to an action or a thing and say "That is good." Similarly, we cannot describe to a blind person exactly what yellow is. We can only show a sighted person a piece of yellow paper or a yellow scrap of cloth and say "That is yellow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

G.E Moore was fucking wrong, brother: if you can't have a definition of good then what the hell were you using to determine that the action you're pointing to was good?

Similarly, we actually can define yellow, just not in points of reference that a blind person would be familiar with. You have to have some idea of what yellow is before pointing to it, else how would you know what you're pointing at is yellow?

[Pizza]

Oh the irony of appealing to G. E. Moore and ethical non-naturalism.

According to G. E. Moore, "Goodness is a simple, undefinable, non-natural property." To call goodness "non-natural" does not mean that it is supernatural or divine. It does mean, however, that goodness cannot be reduced to natural properties such as needs, wants or pleasures. Moore also stated that a reduction of ethical properties to a divine command would be the same as stating their naturalness. This would be an example of what he referred to as "the naturalistic fallacy."