Christians take on the more nihilistic atheists

[Neo-Scholastic]

Holding a belief in god is a irrational leap of faith. There is no evidence to support a god and the chances of one existing is very low. 
It's more rational to hold no religious belief than to hold one. At least with skepticism and atheism you have science and it's always changing.
Then you have theism which only changes due to the society  and laws but the texts still stay the same but it 
gets interpreted differently to suit the time.

Are there bots that follow Chad around and post this stuff?  Do you guys take shifts?  Hey Chad, people think you believing in God is irrational.  Just in case nobody's mentioned it on here yet.

I made no mention of God in my post. Why then do you compare the rationality of two unrelated issues? Nihilism is the issue.

[henryp]

There is morality, and there is pragmatism. Often they overlap, which makes total sense, since we have evolved to generally be a cooperative species. Morality, I feel, ultimately comes down to emotion.

You could argue that even pragmatism is rooted in emotion. After all, the desire to do anything at all has to come from somewhere.

When it comes to morality, there are only so many questions you can answer before you are forced to admit that emotion is behind it. I'm not at all saying that is a bad thing, by the way.

Why do I morally object to people being killed for no reason? Because I want them to have an opportunity to live.

Why do I want that? Because it's the only chance they will have, and I value their experiences as well as my own.

Why do I value them? Because to me, ultimately life is all that is important in this reality.

Why is other life important? Because I feel that it is. I have a lot of empathy, and hurting someone else ultimately feels like hurting myself. So I don't want to do that. I don't want other people to do it. It's my nature.

Once I've established what is important to me, I use logic and reason to see how I can best achieve it. But I think it's pointless to deny that at the bottom of it all is emotion. That's why morality will always be subjective.

So what is the difference between objecting morally, and objecting pragmatically?  

I would say, pragmatically, I'd say "I'd rather you not do that, as it is against my personal interests."
Whereas you would say, morally, "I'd rather you not do that, as it is against my personal interests, which makes it evil."?

Seems to me, it's the same thing until you tack on the made up part at the end.  I don't really understand what woo is, but based on context, that seems like you're adding some woo for no reason.

[henryp]

Rational, I'd say, would be coming to logical conclusions based on the knowledge or beliefs you have about our existence.

Holding the idea that existence is actually rational is an irrational leap of faith.

Existence just is.  The desire to be rational part is just an evolutionary/societal proclivity I got stuck with.  Interestingly, I through rational thinking, I've concluded being rational is unimportant and sometimes less desirable, but I don't know how to shake that impulse.

[robvalue]

Nileism: the worship of rivers.

Made up part? It's not made up. I really don't want people to do horrible stuff to each other. That is honestly how I feel. It's a subjective judgement. It's my opinion. I don't understand how you are telling me morality "doesn't exist", when it's simply an opinion; that is how I define it, anyway.

If I was merely being pragmatic, I might not care what people do to each other as long as they don't hurt me. I wouldn't just punch someone for no reason, because I'd be bringing trouble on myself. But if others were punching it out, it wouldn't matter to me.

The emotion of pragmatism I would say is just the actual motivation to want to do anything at all rather than nothing.

[abaris]

Frankly, as I always say, I am not atheism. I simply don't believe. My values and what makes me as a person haven't got anything to do with atheism. Maybe apart from seeing good and bad in every group or person without looking if their label suits me.

So, I'm not really interested in atheism. Only when someone tries to rub into my face that theism is more rational or the better choice, or if someone tries to present atheism as some kind of ideology, I do react at all.

[henryp]

Nileism: the worship of rivers.

Made up part? It's not made up. I really don't want people to do horrible stuff to each other. That is honestly how I feel. It's a subjective judgement. It's my opinion. I don't understand how you are telling me morality "doesn't exist", when it's simply an opinion; that is how I define it, anyway.

If I was merely being pragmatic, I might not care what people do to each other as long as they don't hurt me. I wouldn't just punch someone for no reason, because I'd be bringing trouble on myself. But if others were punching it out, it wouldn't matter to me.

The emotion of pragmatism I would say is just the actual motivation to want to do anything at all rather than nothing.

Your emotions are a real part of you.  Acting accordingly is pragmatic.  If you feel a connection to all humans, that's, as far as I know, a tangible thing in your brain.  

Maybe if we try to narrow down what we're talking about.

I don't want a meteor to hit Carl because I like Carl.  I will try to stop the meteor from hitting Carl because I like Carl.  It is evil for the Meteor to hit Carl because I like Carl.

I don't want Bob to hit Carl because I like Carl.  I will try to stop Bob from hitting Carl because I like Carl.  It is evil for Bob to hit Carl because I like Carl.

--
I assume that you don't find a Meteor's actions to be moral or immoral.  Which would leave the bolded part as the "Morality."  Do we agree on that, or for the sake of the discussion, can we agree on that?  My gut says no

[The Grand Nudger]

Rob likely feels that morality requires a moral agent or actor.  A meteor does not qualify. Similarly, I doubt that Rob hinges morality on who he likes. Whether or not Rob finds morality in the meteor, does not leave your bolded bit as all that's left of morality...frankly, the bolded bit probably does';t even approach what he's discussing with you.

[Brakeman]

Morality is a set of principals that effects a decision. Without a decision, morality does not come into play. A meteor does not make decisions.

[henryp]

Rob likely feels that morality requires a moral agent or actor.  A meteor does not qualify.  Similarly, I doubt that Rob hinges morality on who he likes.  Whether or not Rob finds morality in the meteor, does not leave your bolded bit as all that's left of morality...frankly, the bolded bit probably does';t even approach what he's discussing with you.

I'm not trying to represent Rob's morality specifically.  Just trying to draw the line where pragmatism ends, and morality begins in general. 

Liking Carl can be replaced by a 100,000 word essay characterizing Rob's relationship with Carl, and why he doesn't want to see him hurt.  But this seemed more efficient.

As for the Meteor not being a moral agent, that was the point. The motivations for protecting Carl from the agent and non-agent overlap until we assign the moral designation, and we move beyond the reaches of pragmatism.

The point being that morality is not the desire to prevent Carl from harm, it is about dictating how other moral agents should behave. I thought Rob was mixing those two ideas up quite a bit in his earlier posts, and I was trying to separate the two so we could talk more clearly.

[The Grand Nudger]

Some feel that there is no line between them, or that if there is it is an outlier scenario.  Not that this matters, because your comments won;t be capable of expressing that line in any case, it is a parody, two ludicrous statements set up as boundary conditions.  Good luck measuring anything that way.  

The meteor is incapable of evil, it is not a moral actor.  We can choose to either help Carl, or not...and because we are moral actors, this would be an issue of morality.  Ask yourself this, would it be right or wrong to help Carl, if you could prevent him from being hit by the meteor?  However you answer -that- is an example of your morality. Morality is not simply dictating how other moral agents should behave,this is an absurd summary of morality. We both have a morality regarding Carls situation regardless of whether either of us ever dictate that morality to another person or not.