How to easily defeat any argument for God

[Acrobat]

Human beings evolved to be, well, human (prone to be selfish in some contexts and altruistic in others and human in all contexts). They weren't designed specifically to be Good (this is such a bizarre way of using the English language, btw).

Clearly we didn't evolve to be good. Evolution selects for features favorable to survival and reproduction, in conjunction with environmental pressures at the time. Yet we recognize that we ought to be good, even if we fail to do so. We recognize some sort on intrinsic purpose, in which we ought to serve, rather than one we evolved to serve. We recognize a morality, that's distinct from recognition of survival and reproduction, distinct even from a recognition of wellbeing. We don't need to have formed much of conception of any of these things, to recognize good and bad, like the case of babies few months old, recognizing goodness in the helping puppet, and badness of hindering one.

And often times, when a human individual has been referred to as broken, it is because they were considered to be behaving in ways that are not socially acceptable (this is not necessarily the same as moral).

When we recognize something broken, something inhumane, the absence of humanity, humanlessness, of the holocaust, it's not a recognition of the Nazis not behaving in socially acceptable ways, like we could easily say of someone with bad table manners, but in behaving in ways contrary to the essence of how we ought to be, not as defined by society or people, but by some profound truth.

You telling me about the various feels you have, but there's no indicator that any of this has brought you close to the truth on this matter.

I'm not telling you how I feel, no more than I'm telling you what I feel when I point out the sun outside my window. I'm telling you what I see, what we see. The objectiveness of goodness and badness. As out there rather in here. I'm describing the reality of this objective truth, that underlies our moral perceptions. In contrast to your attempts to explain the same thing. I'm compensating for your failures, your blindness, incoherencies, and contradictions when trying to express your recognition here. From the base line of first person experience and observation, to express it simply, rather than in the convoluted language often used by others here when expressing their moral views.

Very young children have clearly wrong conceptions of how the world works. They think rocks were made so we could scratch our backs on them. Do you really want to appeal to young kids as a support for your position?

I'm using young children as support, of how readily we perceive teleology, as a default perception. I'm pointing out that this perception is perfused in our moral perceptions, built into its very language etc.. So much so that none of us, including yourself have shook it off, hence why you can't deny, or shake off the objectiveness of morality, and resort to a variety of mental gymnastics to preserve it, rather than reject it all together, because trying to do so would required a level of dishonesty, than even you refuse to partake of. There is a good book on this subject Alastair Macintyre After Virtue, about the incoherency in secular moral philosophies, of our moral language, as a result of trying to articulate it in absent of its teleological assumptions.

I'm pointing out that the nature of good both the young child and you and I see, hasn't changed. Young children may not be able to articulate it, while adults like yourself fail to properly articulate it, in fact articulate it in ways inconsistent with the perception.

I'm pointing out the failure of your introspection, that if you just looked a little closer within you'd recognize this failure as well. Trying to express more clearly, what you perceive so vaguely, through a glass darkly.

[The Grand Nudger]

Children also believe in Santa and the tooth fairy.

The difference between the pseudo-realism experienced by a child and the realism assumed by an adult is in the unequal distribution of facts possessed between them.

Intuitively experienced pseudo-realism proceeds from a necessarily smaller collection of objective facts, and an inability to reliably distinguish those facts from the sets of subjective facts and emotive states. We may never actually grow out of this as the context of our experience of moral propositions. The position states that it may ultimately be a property of moral propositions, and that even if we understand why they fail to meet the criteria of realism, it’s useful or justifiable to approach them as such. In pursuit of some Noble Goal™, for example.

[Acrobat]

Children also believe in Santa and the tooth fairy.

Santa and the toothy fairy need to be taught or instilled in children before they believe it, teleological perceptions don’t. They’re the default perception, like the sun they see, as out there.

Children, toddlers, just like all of us perceive an objectiveness to good and bad, the underlying nature of that perception is no different for the child than it’s for us.

You’re not dismissing the objectiveness, your just performing mental gymnastics to reformulate into a schema that has little to no resemblance to what’s actually being perceived.

If anything the fairytale believers here seems to be folks like yourself, that attempt to negate our default perceptions, and imagine they created a new objectiveness in its place, rather than a phony and incoherent dress they try to put on top of it.

A 3 month old baby less foolish than you.

[Sal]

Children also believe in Santa and the tooth fairy.

Santa and the toothy fairy need to be taught or instilled in children before they believe it, teleological perception don’t. They’re the default perception, like the sun they see, as out there.

Children, toddlers, just like all of us perceive an objectiveness to good and bad, the underlying nature of that perception is no different for the child than it’s for us.

You’re not dismissing the objectiveness, your just performing mental gymnastics to reformulate into a schema that has little to no resemblance to what’s actually being perceived.

If anything the fairytale believers here seems to be folks like yourself, that attempt to negate our default perceptions, and imagine they created a new objectiveness in its place, rather than a phony and incoherent dress they try to put on top  of it.

A 3 month old baby less foolish than you.

A bullshit assertion. If your claim was true, there would be no need for Sunday "school".

[Acrobat]

Santa and the toothy fairy need to be taught or instilled in children before they believe it, teleological perception don’t. They’re the default perception, like the sun they see, as out there.

Children, toddlers, just like all of us perceive an objectiveness to good and bad, the underlying nature of that perception is no different for the child than it’s for us.

You’re not dismissing the objectiveness, your just performing mental gymnastics to reformulate into a schema that has little to no resemblance to what’s actually being perceived.

If anything the fairytale believers here seems to be folks like yourself, that attempt to negate our default perceptions, and imagine they created a new objectiveness in its place, rather than a phony and incoherent dress they try to put on top  of it.

A 3 month old baby less foolish than you.

A bullshit assertion. If your claim was true, there would be no need for Sunday "school".

Sunday school isn't required for teleological view of reality, in fact teleological perceptions are noted in children even those raised in non-religious homes. And it's pretty evident in our perceptions of the objectiveness of morality, that persists for adults, including atheists as well. That perceptions proceeds any beliefs we later develop about it.

[Simon Moon]

Children also believe in Santa and the tooth fairy.

Santa and the toothy fairy need to be taught or instilled in children before they believe it, teleological perception don’t. They’re the default perception, like the sun they see, as out there.

No, human brains are pattern seeking, agency detecting, processors. This is part of our survival mechanisms. It is better for survival to have false positives (detecting a predator when there isn't one), than false negatives. It is this strong tendency to find patterns and agency where there isn't any, that is being leveraged to acquire, your so called 'teleological perception'.

And here's the thing, there are mountains of studies and evidence to support the above. No such evidence exists to support to support your contention.

Children, toddlers, just like all of us perceive an objectiveness to good and bad, the underlying nature of that perception is no different for the child than it’s for us.

You’re not dismissing the objectiveness, your just performing mental gymnastics to reformulate into a schema that has little to no resemblance to what’s actually being perceived.

If anything the fairytale believers here seems to be folks like yourself, that attempt to negate our default perceptions, and imagine they created a new objectiveness in its place, rather than a phony and incoherent dress they try to put on top  of it.

A 3 month old baby less foolish than you.
[/quote]

So, you are trying to support your assertion that we all teleologically detect a god, with children's undeveloped brains? The same children that have imaginary friends? Believe there are monsters in the closet or under the bed? You might want rethink your examples.

You do understand, that there are and have been cultures and tribes all over the world, with no god beliefs, right? The Pirahã are one example.

[Acrobat]

No, human brains are pattern seeking, agency detecting, processors. This is part of our survival mechanisms. It is better for survival to have false positives (detecting a predator when there isn't one), than false negatives. It is this strong tendency to find patterns and agency where there isn't any, that is being leveraged to acquire, your so called 'teleological perception'.

Detecting predators that aren't there is, is a result of negatively bias. We're no more likely to interpret the rustling of the leaves to neutral non-threatening animals, than we would the wind. But we're more likely to interpret it as a threatening animal, than the wind or a non-threatening animal. This is where the survival benefits arises from, not from some preference for neutral beings, over non-beings. It's not particular to detecting agents, but is particular to detecting threats over non-threats, rather than agents over non-agents, and that's where the survival value comes from.

And detecting the actual wind as the cause of the rustling of the leave, is as much "pattern recognition" as any other detection here.

But regardless of whether you think the teleological perceptions when it comes to morality are false, it is the foundation for why we see morality as objective. Why we don't see right and wrong as matter of social norms, or personal opinions, but as matters of truth. Why not just myself, but you who also cling to the objectiveness of morality, can't shake it off. If the perception is false, you're as much a product of the disease here as anyone else.

So, you are trying to support your assertion that we all teleologically detect a god, with children's undeveloped brains? The same children that have imaginary friends? Believe there are monsters in the closet or under the bed? You might want rethink your examples.

You do understand, that there are and have been cultures and tribes all over the world, with no god beliefs, right? The Pirahã are one example.

I'm not making any argument for God, because no such argument can be made. I'm merely making an argument that, the foundation of morality, that we ought to do good, be good, do whats best for wellbeing etc.... are teleological. It's the basis for why morality is objective, and is recognized as objective by human creatures, rather than as social norms, or individual preferences

I'm merely making a case for the nature of morality, that better explains all the unusual particularities of it, than the barely coherent non-sense often sold here.

[Simon Moon]

I'm merely making a case for the nature of morality, that better explains all the unusual particularities of it, than the barely coherent non-sense often sold here.

That's even easier.

We are a social species, and as social species, attributes like: Cooperation, altruism, reciprocity, kin selection, etc, are evolved traits, as a survival mechanism. We evolved in groups of 50-150 where, being ejected from the group, meant almost certain death.

This perception you mention, is the result of the above evolved behaviors.

All one has to do is look at our closest relatives, Bonobo chimps. They will: protect weaker members of their group even if it endangers their own life, will share food even if it is in short supply, will adopt orphaned babies, will punish violent members of the groups and eject them, will show sadness when a group member dies, and many other behaviors that can only be described as morality.

Do Bonobo chimps also have this 'teleological sense' you speak of?

[downbeatplumb]

Watches are designed with an intrinsic purpose (telos) to tell time. Human beings similarly have an intrinsic purpose to be Good.

No we don't.

If my watch wasn’t telling time, it’s not serving the purpose in which it’s supposed to served, in same way human being not doing good, doing bad are not serving the purpose in which they are suppose to serve.

I don't even know why you would think this was a thing!

In fact we use parallel type of language here, immoral human appears broken, we use expressions as inhumane, absence of humanity, etc.

People who do bad things are bad people. They stray from the norm, but then so do really good people, we call them saints or heroes.

When most of us address immorality, when I tell my daughter she did something wrong, it’s with such implications in mind. That when she does something wrong, that she ought to have done what was right, ought to have done what was good, not as some subjective goal assigned to her by herself, me, or society, but one she’s endowed with, posses regardless of her subjective opinions or preferences, one she can no more deny, than a conscious watch can deny its purpose to tell time.

Well I think that's weird.

I don’t so much as follow a goal, but rather recognize one, one that I recognize as one not of my own creation, yours, or societies. In fact I often don’t follow it, give in to immorality, and find the idea of being good to be a struggle, and hard work, rather than something that comes naturally or something easy. But I can’t deny that the goal/purpose is a matter of some fundamental truth, rather than some subjective preference, as you implied. To actually view it as subjective, would require that I lie to myself, deny the earth is round.

That's just you.

This teleological view, isn’t a position I reasoned my way into, it’s the default assumption, the prevalent view of humanity, of a toddler, or a child, as teleology so entwined into our perceptions of reality, that it’s very difficult to be rid of.

And yet is not one I have ever had.

[Acrobat]

I'm merely making a case for the nature of morality, that better explains all the unusual particularities of it, than the barely coherent non-sense often sold here.

That's even easier.

We are a social species, and as social species, attributes like: Cooperation, altruism, reciprocity, kin selection, etc, are evolved traits, as a survival mechanism. We evolved in groups of 50-150 where, being ejected from the group, meant almost certain death.

This perception you mention, is the result of the above evolved behaviors.

All one has to do is look at our closest relatives, Bonobo chimps. They will: protect weaker members of their group even if it endangers their own life, will share food even if it is in short supply, will adopt orphaned babies, will punish violent members of the groups and eject them, will show sadness when a group member dies, and many other behaviors that can only be described as morality.

Do Bonobo chimps also have this 'teleological sense' you speak of?

Do bonobo chimps also view morality as objective? Maybe more like matters of taste, aversions and attractions, etc...?

By appealing to evolution, the referent is biological states. Something we can say of a cats aversion, flight response when seeing a cucumber. But morality, when we perceive things as good and bad, we're not describing our biological states, in fact we see good and bad, morality as objective, as something true not about our biology, but objectively true, independent of our biological states. 

Good and Bad are not descriptions of some sort of physiological reactions within my biology body, but rather objective truths about reality itself. 

When I speak of the particularities here, I speaking of the particularly around the objectiveness of morality, not particularities of subjective biologist states.

The best you can do with biology when its come to morality, as a counter argument here, is an argument for emotivism, but that would also fail to take into account that this is not how any us actually perceive morality.