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RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 11:14 am (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 11:41 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(May 1, 2018 at 10:50 am)henryp Wrote: To apply the argument, you'd need someone to accept premise 1. Otherwise, you'd need to prove there are no other rational reasons to believe in God.
Obviously I need all the premises to be accepted for the conclusions to be true, yes.
Quote:Premise 5 seems to imply there are other rational reasons to believe in objective morality?
It doesn't imply anything it is just an explicit premise. It's one of the premises required to accept the conclusion. I don't need rational reasons to believe in objective moral values. I don't even believe in the existence of objective moral values myself (I don't believe in moral ontology, I mean)... why would I need to give reasons for that when that's literally one of the premises of the argument? The conclusions follow from the premises. If I wanted to give reasons to support the existence of objective moral values (moral ontology) I'd give a separate argument for that. But I don't want to because I don't even believe objective moral values exist. That's why I had to assume it in one of the premises to run the argument. The point is that even if objective moral values do exist... it's irrational to believe in God.
Quote:You never claimed that, and you'd have to for the argument.
No I wouldn't because... I never claimed it. Why would I have to claim something I'm not claiming to reach a conclusion I'm not claiming to conclude? That makes zero sense. The conclusion follows from the premises. That's the point.
Quote: But again, you'd need someone to accept that, otherwise you'd have to prove other rational reasons exist.
This argument was very clearly about if objective moral values exist then the conclusions given follow from the premises.
Ugh, you're like Khem with your rattling on about irrelevant science and not even understanding basic logic. It's repulsive. Both you and Khem have been irritating recently. You failed really really hard on the free will thread and literally ended with an attack on my autism... you're even worse than Khem so you're totally going on block after I've written this post (another thing that's funny is both you and Khem have NEVER answered my question about the distinction between noumena and phenomena. It seems to me that you both don't understand it but are not honest enough to ask about it so you just ignore the question every single time. So there's another similarity between you two douches: You both ignore the exact same question repeatedly. You ignore stuff you don't understand. No wonder you two never learn anything from discussing with me. You're not even open to learning).
Quote:So if someone didn't accept premise 1 and the updated premise 5, you'd have to establish what constitutes rational vs irrational reasons to believe in something, which would be a huge mess.
LOL if someone didn't accept the premises. The whole point of the argument is that the conclusions follow from the premises. Sheesh. What the fuck is with all these atheists who love science but can't even handle basic logical argumentation?
Quote:You also need people to accept the principle of parsimony.
Uh duh... that's why one of the premises given is regarding the rationality of parsimony.
Quote:Obviously, they aren't going to agree with principle 6. So you'd need to prove that.
No... I'd need a separate argument to prove that and only if I wanted to. The whole point of an argument is that the conclusion follows from the premises. I never claimed my argument was sound. The whole point of my argument is for it to be valid: Of course I don't think it's sound when I wouldn't even accept one of the premises myself (that objective moral values exist).
The point is that theists think the existence of objective moral values is reason to believe that God exists. And hence they give objective moral values as an argument for God. But my argument's point is to demonstrate that even if objective moral values exist it's more likely that they exist without a God.
Quote:Also, the way you wrote premise 2 of the theist argument, God could exist without objective morals. But objective morals can't exist without God. If you think that's what they believe, then they definitely aren't buying into premise 1, 5, and 6.
Er, no. The theistic argument uses the existence of objective moral values to explain God's existence. So the point is that objective moral values not only don't mean God exists but if they do exist they're more likely to exist without God. So if the only reason theists are believing in God is because they believe in objective moral values... then that is not only no reason to believe God exists, but they have no other reason to believe in God left, and objective moral values are actually more likely to exist without God.
(May 1, 2018 at 11:01 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Hi Hammy,
I don't believe that your final conclusion follows. Even if the rest of it was correct, at best, you can't come to a general conclusion, apart from this instance. ie... You may be able to say, that in regards to objective moral values, in is more rational to not believe in God for objective morals. However this would be begging the question, as it is one of your principles.
Why do you think the final conclusion doesn't follow? The point is that there is no rational reason left to believe in God besides objective moral values and objective moral values have already been demonstrated to be more rational to believe in without God's existence if you accept that all the premises are true.
Quote:As to the first conclusion, I would agree, that this is a counter-argumtent and not a defeater for the Moral argument. The main contention seems to in the premise 2 from the moral argument "If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist." You are saying (correct me if I'm wrong), that if this is not true, then God is not necessary, and there is no need to postulate God. However with this, you are making a statement, and therefore need to defend that statement. It all comes down to what is necessary for objective moral values. Which I think would be interesting, since you state that you don't believe in objective morality.
Well the point of that argument is that if their premises are true their conclusion follows. The point of my argument is if my premises are true my conclusion follows. And yet you still can't see that they follow.
Quote:Of course as you said, that most atheists don't believe in an objective morality, my experience, is that most atheists don't understand what is meant by objective morality, or the argument from morality. That it quickly turns into a question of epistemology which the argument is not about.
Also I agree, that you seem to have more premises than needed (I think you could make it into a simple syllogism), so perhaps a little parsimony here would be good!
I believe in objective morality in the epistemic sense and I do believe in an objective right and wrong therefore... I just don't believe in moral ontology and that's what I mean by "the existence of objective moral values".
Thank you for being polite, respectful and for actually addressing me better than Khem and henryp did... despite being a theist.
Yes more premises are given than needed but that's mostly because I'm used to theists knee-jerk reacting with responses such as "Parsimony isn't necessarily more rational!" so into the argument I added the fact that parsimony is more rational all other things being equal... and if there is no reason to believe in God besides objective moral values then other things are equal if objective moral values can exist without God.
If you accept that parsimony is rational without me having to explain that part... then I can shorten the argument down to this:
Premise 1: If objective moral values exist they can exist with or without God.
Premise 2: Belief in objective moral values without God is more parsimonious than belief in objective moral values with God.
Premise 3: There are no other rational reasons to believe in God besides objective moral values.
Premise 4: Objective moral values exist
Conclusion: Even if belief in God is rational it's even more rational to not believe in God.
Again, premise 1 is probably redundant but that's just to stop the theistic saying things like "But what if objective moral values can only exist if God does?".
These arguments can be lengthened or shortened depending on how many premises are accepted.
And sometimes it's just better to make a new argument... but this is a way to start things off.
As for your point about begging the question... there is no begging the question when all I'm claiming at this point is that the conclusions are true if the premises are. You can't say my premises beg the question when the only current claim is that the conclusion is true if those premises are already accepted. The premises have to be rejected or accepted because I'm not actually saying they're necessarily right or wrong yet. I'm just saying that if they're right... the conclusions follow.
But anyways: how you reacted is a lot more helpful to me than Khem and henryp getting all mixed up and not seeming to understand the basic distinction between soundness and validity. So, thanks again, for actually making more sense than they did
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 11:41 am (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 11:44 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(May 1, 2018 at 10:50 am)henryp Wrote: Premise 5 seems to imply there are other rational reasons to believe in objective morality? You never claimed that, and you'd have to for the argument. But again, you'd need someone to accept that, otherwise you'd have to prove other rational reasons exist.
That one's pretty easy. The only contingency of moral realism is that there are moral facts of a matter. With respect to each other, there are only four possible states of affairs...Those are further seperated conceptually (and below) based upon their specific relationship to the existence of objective morality - the existent object in question being pointed to as indicative of something.
If there is a god and there are moral facts of a matter, moral realism is true.
If there is no god and there are moral facts of a matter, moral realism is true.
If there is a god and there are no moral facts of a matter, moral realism is false.
If there is no god and there are no moral facts of a matter, moral realism is false.
This demonstrates that the existence of gods and the existence of moral facts can be dissociated conceptually. They may have an incidental relationship...but it's not a necessary relationship. It also demonstrates that the latter is informative as to the existence of an objective morality, not the former. Conversely, it demonstrates that the acceptance of objective morality is indicative of the existence of moral facts, not gods. As a refutation of divine necessity in moral realism the above is complete before the first example is offered.
In the general, any reason x that........y is wrong, doesn't refer to a god, and is true...........satisfies the conditions for both of the first two possible states.
Let's take a specific example. Skullfucking your neighbor is wrong because it will hurt your neighbor. If that's why skullfucking your neighbor is wrong, it would be equally wrong in the first two possible states and one of them is godless.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 11:48 am (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 11:54 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(May 1, 2018 at 10:55 am)Khemikal Wrote:
(May 1, 2018 at 10:17 am)Hammy Wrote: The whole point of an argument is to make things explicit.
I was thinking more along the lines of;
Objective moral values do exist.(3) If all other relevant reasons are equal then it is more rational to be parsimonious.(1) There is simply no reason to believe that the existence of objective moral values require God's existence.(2)
Quote:The whole point was to spell out how even if objective moral values do exist it's much more rational to believe in objective moral values without believing in God.
I think the above stresses that point much better.
That isn't an argument against god..either in existence or the rationality of god belief, however. It's a position freely open to the faithful, who are very much capable of believing in objective moral values not contingent upon some god.
I've took you off block: Change of plan.
I've decided that rather than wasting no time and energy on you.... I'll just waste far less of it. So I'll be much briefer in my responses to you As being thorough with you seems pointless when you miss 90% of what I actually wrote.
Okay so I'll be brief: 1. Your short argument doesn't lead to the conclusion that was supposed to be demonstrated 2. You have failed to demonstrate how my argument does not follow from its premises despite claiming otherwise.
EDIT: Taking henryp off block too. It's not that you guys aren't worth ANY of my time and energy... it's just that you're worth very little of it and if you're not gonna address 90% of what I say 90% of the time then I may as well be brief. Especially when my verbosity seems to confuse the both of you as you clearly miss many of my points and see my posts as missing things they're not missing.
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 11:55 am (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 11:57 am by The Grand Nudger.)
It doesn't concern me, in the least, that a condensed and more accurate counterargument to divine necessity in moral realism fails to lead to your intended conclusion. I rate that as a pro, not a con.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:13 pm
(May 1, 2018 at 11:14 am)Hammy Wrote:
(May 1, 2018 at 10:50 am)henryp Wrote: To apply the argument, you'd need someone to accept premise 1. Otherwise, you'd need to prove there are no other rational reasons to believe in God.
Obviously I need all the premises to be accepted for the conclusions to be true, yes.
Quote:Premise 5 seems to imply there are other rational reasons to believe in objective morality?
It doesn't imply anything it is just an explicit premise. It's one of the premises required to accept the conclusion. I don't need rational reasons to believe in objective moral values. I don't even believe in the existence of objective moral values myself (I don't believe in moral ontology, I mean)... why would I need to give reasons for that when that's literally one of the premises of the argument? The conclusions follow from the premises. If I wanted to give reasons to support the existence of objective moral values (moral ontology) I'd give a separate argument for that. But I don't want to because I don't even believe objective moral values exist. That's why I had to assume it in one of the premises to run the argument. The point is that even if objective moral values do exist... it's irrational to believe in God.
Quote:You never claimed that, and you'd have to for the argument.
No I wouldn't because... I never claimed it. Why would I have to claim something I'm not claiming to reach a conclusion I'm not claiming to conclude? That makes zero sense. The conclusion follows from the premises. That's the point.
Quote: But again, you'd need someone to accept that, otherwise you'd have to prove other rational reasons exist.
This argument was very clearly about if objective moral values exist then the conclusions given follow from the premises.
Ugh, you're like Khem with your rattling on about irrelevant science and not even understanding basic logic. It's repulsive. Both you and Khem have been irritating recently. You failed really really hard on the free will thread and literally ended with an attack on my autism... you're even worse than Khem so you're totally going on block after I've written this post (another thing that's funny is both you and Khem have NEVER answered my question about the distinction between noumena and phenomena. It seems to me that you both don't understand it but are not honest enough to ask about it so you just ignore the question every single time. So there's another similarity between you two douches: You both ignore the exact same question repeatedly. You ignore stuff you don't understand. No wonder you two never learn anything from discussing with me. You're not even open to learning).
Quote:So if someone didn't accept premise 1 and the updated premise 5, you'd have to establish what constitutes rational vs irrational reasons to believe in something, which would be a huge mess.
LOL if someone didn't accept the premises. The whole point of the argument is that the conclusions follow from the premises. Sheesh. What the fuck is with all these atheists who love science but can't even handle basic logical argumentation?
Quote:You also need people to accept the principle of parsimony.
Uh duh... that's why one of the premises given is regarding the rationality of parsimony.
Quote:Obviously, they aren't going to agree with principle 6. So you'd need to prove that.
No... I'd need a separate argument to prove that and only if I wanted to. The whole point of an argument is that the conclusion follows from the premises. I never claimed my argument was sound. The whole point of my argument is for it to be valid: Of course I don't think it's sound when I wouldn't even accept one of the premises myself (that objective moral values exist).
The point is that theists think the existence of objective moral values is reason to believe that God exists. And hence they give objective moral values as an argument for God. But my argument's point is to demonstrate that even if objective moral values exist it's more likely that they exist without a God.
Quote:Also, the way you wrote premise 2 of the theist argument, God could exist without objective morals. But objective morals can't exist without God. If you think that's what they believe, then they definitely aren't buying into premise 1, 5, and 6.
Er, no. The theistic argument uses the existence of objective moral values to explain God's existence. So the point is that objective moral values not only don't mean God exists but if they do exist they're more likely to exist without God. So if the only reason theists are believing in God is because they believe in objective moral values... then that is not only no reason to believe God exists, but they have no other reason to believe in God left, and objective moral values are actually more likely to exist without God.
(May 1, 2018 at 11:01 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Hi Hammy,
I don't believe that your final conclusion follows. Even if the rest of it was correct, at best, you can't come to a general conclusion, apart from this instance. ie... You may be able to say, that in regards to objective moral values, in is more rational to not believe in God for objective morals. However this would be begging the question, as it is one of your principles.
Why do you think the final conclusion doesn't follow? The point is that there is no rational reason left to believe in God besides objective moral values and objective moral values have already been demonstrated to be more rational to believe in without God's existence if you accept that all the premises are true.
Quote:As to the first conclusion, I would agree, that this is a counter-argumtent and not a defeater for the Moral argument. The main contention seems to in the premise 2 from the moral argument "If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist." You are saying (correct me if I'm wrong), that if this is not true, then God is not necessary, and there is no need to postulate God. However with this, you are making a statement, and therefore need to defend that statement. It all comes down to what is necessary for objective moral values. Which I think would be interesting, since you state that you don't believe in objective morality.
Well the point of that argument is that if their premises are true their conclusion follows. The point of my argument is if my premises are true my conclusion follows. And yet you still can't see that they follow.
Quote:Of course as you said, that most atheists don't believe in an objective morality, my experience, is that most atheists don't understand what is meant by objective morality, or the argument from morality. That it quickly turns into a question of epistemology which the argument is not about.
Also I agree, that you seem to have more premises than needed (I think you could make it into a simple syllogism), so perhaps a little parsimony here would be good!
I believe in objective morality in the epistemic sense and I do believe in an objective right and wrong therefore... I just don't believe in moral ontology and that's what I mean by "the existence of objective moral values".
Thank you for being polite, respectful and for actually addressing me better than Khem and henryp did... despite being a theist.
Yes more premises are given than needed but that's mostly because I'm used to theists knee-jerk reacting with responses such as "Parsimony isn't necessarily more rational!" so into the argument I added the fact that parsimony is more rational all other things being equal... and if there is no reason to believe in God besides objective moral values then other things are equal if objective moral values can exist without God.
If you accept that parsimony is rational without me having to explain that part... then I can shorten the argument down to this:
Premise 1: If objective moral values exist they can exist with or without God.
Premise 2: Belief in objective moral values without God is more parsimonious than belief in objective moral values with God.
Premise 3: There are no other rational reasons to believe in God besides objective moral values.
Premise 4: Objective moral values exist
Conclusion: Even if belief in God is rational it's even more rational to not believe in God.
Again, premise 1 is probably redundant but that's just to stop the theistic saying things like "But what if objective moral values can only exist if God does?".
These arguments can be lengthened or shortened depending on how many premises are accepted.
And sometimes it's just better to make a new argument... but this is a way to start things off.
As for your point about begging the question... there is no begging the question when all I'm claiming at this point is that the conclusions are true if the premises are. You can't say my premises beg the question when the only current claim is that the conclusion is true if those premises are already accepted. The premises have to be rejected or accepted because I'm not actually saying they're necessarily right or wrong yet. I'm just saying that if they're right... the conclusions follow.
But anyways: how you reacted is a lot more helpful to me than Khem and henryp getting all mixed up and not seeming to understand the basic distinction between soundness and validity. So, thanks again, for actually making more sense than they did
The problem is that I don't accept any of your premises other than 4. Which means that you still have more work to do. All thought to be fair, rejection of premise 2 is mostly because of premise 1.
The prob
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:21 pm
Premise 1 (the lowest version above) seems fine. What's the issue with accepting that?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:45 pm
I never had a problem with moral values, even when I was Christian.
I saw enough of humanity in them (good and bad) to not believe ever they were objective, at least in the way theists present it.
But most of all I never saw why it was used as an argument for god, as I never understood why morals need to be objective anyway, they simply had to be agreed upon, indoctrinated, or enforced.
'Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid'
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:49 pm (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 12:50 pm by henryp.)
(May 1, 2018 at 11:14 am)Hammy Wrote: Premise 1: If objective moral values exist they can exist with or without God.
Premise 2: Belief in objective moral values without God is more parsimonious than belief in objective moral values with God.
Premise 3: There are no other rational reasons to believe in God besides objective moral values.
Premise 4: Objective moral values exist
Conclusion: Even if belief in God is rational it's even more rational to not believe in God.
Premise 2 of the Theist argument, contradicts your premise 1 above.
They're saying
If Not B then Not A.
(which equals)
If A then B.
If no God then no Objective Morals
If Objective Morals then God.
You're asserting
A (objective morals exist) = True AND B (god exists) = False is possible.
If you can show an example where A is True and B is false (which is what you're claiming with Premise 1), you've shown their argument to be unsound. End of story. But that should be the conclusion you are working towards. Your premises 2, 3, 4 and conclusion are unnecessary. If you show your Premise 1 can be true, you've finished.
--
And nothing personal on not addressing 90% of what you say. But you are not a concise thinker or writer. So unless I want each post to turn into 1000 page manuscripts addressing the entirety of every tangent brought up, I've got to try and steer the conversation towards what I'm trying to talk about.
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:52 pm
(May 1, 2018 at 12:45 pm)possibletarian Wrote: I never had a problem with moral values, even when I was Christian.
I saw enough of humanity in them (good and bad) to not believe ever they were objective, at least in the way theists present it.
But most of all I never saw why it was used as an argument for god, as I never understood why morals need to be objective anyway, they simply had to be agreed upon, indoctrinated, or enforced.
Exactly! Theists who love propping up the moral argument don't seem to realize that a good enough system is by definition good enough when it comes to the matter of morality. But no, they insist it has to be perfect and ultimate for morality to be a thing. Never understood such terrible logic even when I was a Christian myself.
RE: The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God
May 1, 2018 at 12:58 pm (This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 12:58 pm by henryp.)
(May 1, 2018 at 12:45 pm)possibletarian Wrote: I never had a problem with moral values, even when I was Christian.
I saw enough of humanity in them (good and bad) to not believe ever they were objective, at least in the way theists present it.
But most of all I never saw why it was used as an argument for god, as I never understood why morals need to be objective anyway, they simply had to be agreed upon, indoctrinated, or enforced.
It's pretty simple. When society re-institutes slavery, or starts getting their genocide on, people want to be able to say it's immoral (and be right), regardless of what is agreed upon, indoctrinated, or enforced.
