The most horrifying journey, this is what doubting 'everything' does.

[The Grand Nudger]

An axiom...lets just run with the notion for a moment and discard people who reason their way to good or just are good...rather than take it axiomatically..isn't justified.  It's the bottom floor of a rational justification.  There is no justification without axioms..spoken or silent. If you require justification for some axiom, and possess it..you'll find that you have another axiom beneath it, and misclassified the original statement.

Even so, not all axioms are created equal. The axiom of value because god ssaid so..for example, is not an ethical or moral value. It's an expression of obedience. One can be obedient without being moral or ethical, and the status of some thing as a command does not establish it's goodness. Some of the most horrid examples of immorality come to us by way of people following and giving immoral orders.

[Amarok]

So now MK is denying Axioms and calling them prejudices .

Good Grief 

[The Industrial Atheist]

I am an Atheist, but I don't get my morals from Atheism. How can you get morals from a lack of belief in a god or gods? It frees me up to have morals that make sense to me instead of traditions based on the morals of the ancients.

I guess you could say I'm humanisty as I don't like to do things that cause unjust harm, but I haven't done any particular study into the realm of Humanism.

As I'm sure others have said before me, and much more eloquently, humans likely developed morals because humans that had natural tendencies that increased survival rates passed the genes responsible for those traits down. Sometimes it was through the genes of close relatives. So we have morals whether we develop systems or not.

[Mystic]

I am not saying we don't know those things we call axioms to be true, I am stating calling them properly basic, is to avoid justifying them and searching why we know they are true.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, some people take their values to be axiomatic or properly basic.  Others derive those values from a variety of sources, and others don't do either.

None of us need gods to do any of that, not even you.

[vulcanlogician]

Theist or nontheist, one must accept axiomatic truth. Otherwise, you can't make a single rational argument. Not accepting a single axiom means that you deny that any knowledge is possible. If you deny that any knowledge is possible, why argue anything in the first place? "Axioms do not exist" is a self-defeating position.

[Mystic]

Theist or nontheist, one must accept axiomatic truth. Otherwise, you can't make a single rational argument. Not accepting a single axiom means that you deny that any knowledge is possible. If you deny that any knowledge is possible, why argue anything in the first place? "Axioms do not exist" is a self-defeating position.

I don't believe in axioms, but believe knowledge is possible. And I don't believe knowledge is possible by it being an axiom.

It's self-defeating position if the point is to argue. Yeah nothing can be proven, because, anyone can say well how do you know that.

Axioms also open a way to be lazy and just assert what you don't feel like justifying to just be an axiom.

It makes it easy to do away with the journey to knowing true nature of knowledge and certainty and reflection.

What can be evident to someone can be unclear to someone else.

In my Deist years,  I heavily depended on axioms being properly basic.

I don't believe anything is. You have to see what you believe based on living proof.

And that fact is not an axiom, but you realize through life experience.

[chimp3]

Theist or nontheist, one must accept axiomatic truth. Otherwise, you can't make a single rational argument. Not accepting a single axiom means that you deny that any knowledge is possible. If you deny that any knowledge is possible, why argue anything in the first place? "Axioms do not exist" is a self-defeating position.

I don't believe in axioms, but believe knowledge is possible. And I don't believe knowledge is possible by it being an axiom.

It's self-defeating position if the point is to argue. Yeah nothing can be proven, because, anyone can say well how do you know that.

Axioms also open a way to be lazy and just assert what you don't feel like justifying to just be an axiom.

It makes it easy to do away with the journey to knowing true nature of knowledge and certainty and reflection.

Argument is one of the greatest thing we have! Argument is human! What? You don't like human?

[vulcanlogician]

Theist or nontheist, one must accept axiomatic truth. Otherwise, you can't make a single rational argument. Not accepting a single axiom means that you deny that any knowledge is possible. If you deny that any knowledge is possible, why argue anything in the first place? "Axioms do not exist" is a self-defeating position.

I don't believe in axioms, but believe knowledge is possible. And I don't believe knowledge is possible by it being an axiom.

It's self-defeating position if the point is to argue. Yeah nothing can be proven, because, anyone can say well how do you know that.

Axioms also open a way to be lazy and just assert what you don't feel like justifying to just be an axiom.

It makes it easy to do away with the journey to knowing true nature of knowledge and certainty and reflection.

What can be evident to someone can be unclear to someone else.

In my Deist years,  I heavily depended on axioms being properly basic.

I don't believe anything is. You have to see what you believe based on living proof.

And that fact is not an axiom, but you realize through life experience.

You can't see the forest for the trees MK. Nobody (except self-absorbed sycophants) argues just to argue. We argue in order to get closer to the truth.

You seem to have some admiration for Socrates, so let's look at him for a moment. Socrates said, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." Yet he still used and valued argument. Why? Because argument clarifies the case of both sides. By listening to or participating in argument, you get to learn what facts support both sides of an issue. That's why Socrates was wise to say that he knew nothing. What his statement really meant was: "I have no prejudices. I keep an open mind. I look at both sides of the argument."

Don't even think of argument as something that involves two people with differing views. Look at any truth claim: like the claim that clouds are made of water vapor. Ask yourself: What are the reasons that I accept this as the truth? And you might possibly come up with a "list of things"... a list of reasons why you accept that clouds are made of water vapor.

1) It is demonstrable that water can become vapor. (we've all noticed this phenomenon when boiling water on the stove).
2) When clouds are thick and heavy, it usually rains. (this supports the idea that clouds are made of water vapor).
3) When there are no clouds in the sky, it never rains (see above)
4) etc.
5) etc.

Okay, so this is the list of reasons why you believe that clouds are made of water vapor. But what is it a list of? It's a list of arguments. An "argument" is nothing more (or less) than a reason to believe something. If someone ever doubted that clouds are made of water vapor, your list of "reasons why you accept that clouds are made of water vapor" would be good ARGUMENTS to make against their position.

Arguments are how we get to the truth, MK. They are not just there to throw at people when we disagree with them. They are a list of reasons why we hold the position that we do.

[Edwardo Piet]

We hate the Shamans and Prophets of old, but they steered humans to believing in self-worth.

Actually they did the exact opposite. They fed people with feelings of guilt, shame and original sin.

And they gave women the idea that covering themselves up is a good idea...

Religion is absolutely the worst thing to happen to worldwide self-worth.

You couldn't be more wrong about this.

What if you realized there is no justifying value without God but that God was impossible to exist, what you would do?

I'd hopefully realize my previous realization was a silly and false one.

I thought I was at that point in that thread. I wanted to believe so badly that value is possible in the Atheism paradigm, but I couldn't believe it.

Yet I thought God was impossible.

You want to see how emotionally traumatized I was, just read that thread.

Values are better without God. So calm down dude.

---

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.  Lots of great posters there.  All of whom make a great deal more sense than you.

I really miss Kichi and ZB.

For those who don't know, when MK quoted DoubtVsFaith.... that's me

---

I read a lot. I am a people of many books. Get back with me if you have read "The Selfish Gene" .

Bro, what you are stating is quite irrelevant to the conversation in that thread.

Actually it's the whole subject of the thread... no wonder you're feeling crappy about the thread if you haven't even read it correctly!