How to easily defeat any argument for God

[LadyForCamus]

Is guy shitting me right now?

So you can’t be clearer about what it is you're asking?

Your apparent inability and/or unwillingness to answer the question, “why is it bad to torture babies” is in no way related to any perceived problem with the question itself. If you prefer playing endlessly stupid to having an honest discussion, that’s your choice I guess.

[The Grand Nudger]

Lol, shot in the dark.

Guys a natural realist or pseudo realist.....like everyone else...in his everyday moral reasoning, but has a commitment to subjective absolutism in his religious faith, while simultaneously knowing so little about moral theory that he butchers a non natural realist argument trying to weld those two currents together.

I mean, it so totally fits like hand in glove, cuz immaterial and plato and whatnot! You godless heathens can’t account for that! Checkmate.

...jesus fucking christ.........

[GrandizerII]

I’m starting to think you’ve just decided to troll at this point rather than admit you have a problem here. Do you not know of any objective facts about the color yellow that could be referred to when asked for an explanation for the yellow color of your wife’s dress? Is your feigned ignorance about the facts of the color spectrum the same feigned ignorance your employing when asked why torturing babies is wrong, or...lol?

No, I just dont the understand question, though it seems to be a little less vague now that we’ve used an analogy.

Rather than attempting to clarify what it is you’re asking you just keep repeating the same question.

Are you asking what are the objective properties of wrongness here, like you are asking about the properties of yellow?

Why can’t just be a bit more clear about what it is your exactly asking me?

You know exactly what she's asking about. You just don't want to answer it because you're smart enough to know that it's not a good idea for you to do so.

This is why you earlier tried to give an answer someone else might give. You clearly understood.

[Acrobat]

No, I just dont the understand question, though it seems to be a little less vague now that we’ve used an analogy.

Rather than attempting to clarify what it is you’re asking you just keep repeating the same question.

Are you asking what are the objective properties of wrongness here, like you are asking about the properties of yellow?

Why can’t just be a bit more clear about what it is your exactly asking me?

You know exactly what she's asking about. You just don't want to answer it because you're smart enough to know that it's not a good idea for you to do so.

This is why you earlier tried to give an answer someone else might give. You clearly understood.

It’s not the serious. I don’t understand the question, hence the reason I asked that she or you try and ask it more clearly, or try and help understand the question better.

Attaching all the nefarious motivations is silly, I’m not holding some actual answer close to my chest, out of some weird fear that my views collapse as inaccurate.

Is this answer suppose be something where I say it’s because of the harm inflicted?

[GrandizerII]

If X is right/wrong because of something about X, then God would be extraneous when it comes to morality. But at least you can still be logical by arguing for this, as long as you realize that morality then is not contingent on God, even if you adopt an argument earlier stated by Belaqua: that God is the final cause of the goodness of X.

If you say X is right/wrong because of something about God, then this implies divine arbitrariness. Even if you equate God to the Good, then whatever is good is good because of the Good. So there is a possible world in which lying is good because it is in line with the Good.

You can't have it both ways, and there's no logically coherent, effective, completely middle ground that resolves both issues expressed by the two positions.

[LadyForCamus]

lol

Lol, shot in the dark.

Guys a natural realist or pseudo realist.....like everyone else...in his everyday moral reasoning, but has a commitment to subjective absolutism in his religious faith, while simultaneously knowing so little about moral theory that he butchers a non natural realist argument trying to weld those two currents together.

Well, yeah, lol. I think it’s pretty clear that’s exactly what’s going on here, which is why he refuses to answer the question. He knows his reasons for thinking that torturing babies is wrong is in no meaningful way distinct from ours, which neatly excises any need for a god in terms of moral truths. His only other choice then, is to do exactly what he’s doing now; bury those reasons behind some magical, (and thus arbitrary) fairy dust cloud of “god/good” that we can all somehow just know without any reason, justification, supporting evidence, or even explicit instruction from alleged god.

I mean, for the sake of the argument let’s concede that this “good/god” who requires no justification for the label “good” nor gives any instructions to anyone, arbitrary or other wise, actually exists:

If one group of folks “just knows” torturing babies is good, and another group of folks “just knows” torturing babies is bad, how can Acro figure out which group has it objectively morally correct? All he can do is appeal to his own morality, lol. Or, simply assert by fiat that god thinks it’s wrong.

[LadyForCamus]

You know exactly what she's asking about. You just don't want to answer it because you're smart enough to know that it's not a good idea for you to do so.

This is why you earlier tried to give an answer someone else might give. You clearly understood.

It’s  not the serious. I don’t understand the question

Well, you’re never babysitting for me then, lol.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I re-read the question 'Why is it wrong to torture babies?' several times.  I parsed it out pretty carefully.  I tried substituting other words that mean approximately the same things (e.g. 'Wherefore is the evil in causing gratuitous suffering to neonates?').  I asked the question to other people as a test.

I'm not the sharpest tree in the forest, but I'm unable to find any sense in which this question is not understandable, unclear, or confusing.

But I'm pretty sure it deserves a better response than, 'I don't understand the question.'

Boru

[Belacqua]

I re-read the question 'Why is it wrong to torture babies?' several times.  I parsed it out pretty carefully.  I tried substituting other words that mean approximately the same things (e.g. 'Wherefore is the evil in causing gratuitous suffering to neonates?').  I asked the question to other people as a test.

I'm not the sharpest tree in the forest, but I'm unable to find any sense in which this question is not understandable, unclear, or confusing.

But I'm pretty sure it deserves a better response than, 'I don't understand the question.'

Boru

A while back I was arguing that grown up atheists (who aren't in a vegetative state) are atheists for reasons. That we have all heard religious arguments, evaluated them according to standards, and failed to be persuaded by them. 

Often the reasons for rejecting the arguments are very good ones -- e.g. "I have never seen evidence." Other times they are not-so-good reasons -- e.g. "The nuns were mean to me."

At the time someone here was telling me that's all wrong, that he and other atheists hold things to be true about the world for no reasons at all. 

It may be that Acrobat feels the same way. That we perceive good and bad without reasons. That something is just good -- not good because something. 

But I confess that both cases seem strange to me.

[GrandizerII]

I re-read the question 'Why is it wrong to torture babies?' several times.  I parsed it out pretty carefully.  I tried substituting other words that mean approximately the same things (e.g. 'Wherefore is the evil in causing gratuitous suffering to neonates?').  I asked the question to other people as a test.

I'm not the sharpest tree in the forest, but I'm unable to find any sense in which this question is not understandable, unclear, or confusing.

But I'm pretty sure it deserves a better response than, 'I don't understand the question.'

Boru

A while back I was arguing that grown up atheists (who aren't in a vegetative state) are atheists for reasons. That we have all heard religious arguments, evaluated them according to standards, and failed to be persuaded by them. 

Often the reasons for rejecting the arguments are very good ones -- e.g. "I have never seen evidence." Other times they are not-so-good reasons -- e.g. "The nuns were mean to me."

At the time someone here was telling me that's all wrong, that he and other atheists hold things to be true about the world for no reasons at all. 

It may be that Acrobat feels the same way. That we perceive good and bad without reasons. That something is just good -- not good because something. 

But I confess that both cases seem strange to me.

Epistemologically, Acrobat isn't wrong here. Sometimes we don't need to deliberate on whether something is right or wrong in order to intuit it. But that's not what's being asked of him.

If X is just good, then that's still X is good because of something about X