Atheist Morality

Fortunate_Son
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Atheist Morality

The conversation usually goes like this:

 

Theist: So who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?

Atheist: The individual does.

T: So if I decide that murder is okay, then it is okay?

A: No, because we have laws against that.

T: So then the government gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?

A: Yes, we have to act in a way that is most beneficial to society.

T: Okay, so then are you saying that murder is okay if a government allows it, such as Nazi Germany?

A: No, because no society would survive if murder was allowed.

T: What if murder of specific groups was allowed?  For example, what if a society said that it is okay to kill disabled individuals since they have no ability to contribute to the proliferation of society in any meaningful way.  Certainly, society could survive and even become more affluent if we allowed that.

A: That would be wrong, because we are biologically wired to have empathy, which precludes us from doing that kind of a thing.

T: Okay, so you just changed your position.  You first stated that a group of individuals get to decide what is right and what is wrong, now you are saying that our morals are given to us by our brain chemistry.

A: I didn't change my position.  I believe all of these factors work in conjunction.

T: But they do not, because we can both agree that murder would not be okay if a group of individuals said it was.  According to you, that line of thinking is based on our neurological wiring.  So let me ask you this: How do you account for individuals like Charles Manson or John Gacy?

A: Those were sociopaths.  They lack empathy due to mental illness.

T: So you are saying that all people have empathy, and if I introduce you to any one human without it, you automatically label him a "sociopath"?
That's known as an "ad hoc maneuver".  Furthermore, you are operating under a presupposition that wiring for empathy gives us a universal "ought" while the morality of the sociopath is flawed.  Why should the empathetic person get to decide what is right?  You are deriving an ought from an is, without any appropriate connection between the two.

A: Then our metric can be evolutionary advantage.  We cannot build a society if certain behavior is allowed.

T: I've just explained that we could.  If we allowed the killing of disabled people, society would more than likely go on and be more prospereous.  We would weed out the weak and maintain the strong.  I would presume that a society would have to be governed by sociopaths in order for this to be allowed.  Imagine that, an affluent society being run by sociopaths.  It is conceivable, isn't it?

A: So you believe that God gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? 

T: Yes and no.  God does not decide.  He has a certain character and morality is a manifestation of that character.  We are created in His image and therefore we have a moral code written in our hearts. 

A: Then how do you account for immorality in the world?  And why are atheists able to be moral?

T: Our nature is fallen, but all people-- including atheists-- are created in His image.  Only an eternal being who is good by his very nature can account for eternal values.  If God doesn't exist, then anything can be permitted at any given time.

A: Whatever.

 

 


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Fortunate_Son

Fortunate_Son wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:

If rape is wrong, why do righteous people in the Bible offer their daughters to strangers?

Give me specific passages.

If the story of Lot isn't good enough for you, what with his daughters having sex with him while he's drunk, there's also Judges 19:10 - 20:48, which chronicles the wonderful story of the Levite's concubine, who is raped to death. Huzzah!

Later, the levite cuts her into twelve pieces and sends the pieces to different leaders, so they can get revenge. But still, the levite threw her out to be gang-raped. To death.

Wonderful morality as preached by your Bible.
 

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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Fortunate_Son wrote:KILLING

Fortunate_Son wrote:

KILLING is not wrong in all circumstances.

I think it is. I accept that there are circumstances where there is no choice (self defence, for example), but it is always wrong. It's a VeryBadThing™.

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Fortunate_Son wrote: KILLING

Fortunate_Son wrote:

KILLING is not wrong in all circumstances.  MURDER is killing which is UNLAWFUL.  There is not ONE single instance in the Bible where God murders someone or commands the murder of someone.  Not ONE.  You will never be able to find one or cite one for me.  You can find instances where God had people killed, but he never had people MURDERED.

Let me repeat:  THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MURDER AND KILLING.  GOD KILLS.  HE DOES NOT MURDER.

In another thread you claimed that everyone deserves to be killed by god. If that is your belief then of course god can't commit murder. You've eliminated that possibility by defining god's actions as such. While no one could cite an instance of god committing murder or god instructing someone to commit murder given that you've ruled out those possibilities by definition, it would also be impossible for you to tell others what an unjustified killing by god would even look like. Since any possible counter-example is assimilated to "justified killing" the claim is trivial. It's true in the trivial sense that you've defined it that way.

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More rape!

Wow! Rape is A-OK with the god of the Old Testament:

Judges 21:10-24

Numbers 31:7-18

Deuteronomy 20:10-14

 

Are you sure you want to continue with this? Your "Exhibit A - The Bible" is certainly not supporting your case of a rational, absolute morality derived from your religion. And that's just on the subject of rape!

 

[EDIT addendum]

Just out of curiosity, have you even read the Bible? I mean, really gone from cover to cover and read it, and thought about what you were reading. Because you really aren't presenting a good argument based on your source material. If you were arguing for an absolute morality, it should be obvious that the Bible is moral; and from what I've read (and I've actually read it), the Bible is not a very moral document. The morality is certainly not obvious, and contradicts much of what I was raised to believe is right and wrong.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


Fortunate_Son
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nigelTheBold wrote:Wow! Rape

nigelTheBold wrote:

Wow! Rape is A-OK with the god of the Old Testament:

Judges 21:10-24

Numbers 31:7-18

Deuteronomy 20:10-14

 

Are you sure you want to continue with this? Your "Exhibit A - The Bible" is certainly not supporting your case of a rational, absolute morality derived from your religion. And that's just on the subject of rape!

 

[EDIT addendum]

Just out of curiosity, have you even read the Bible? I mean, really gone from cover to cover and read it, and thought about what you were reading. Because you really aren't presenting a good argument based on your source material. If you were arguing for an absolute morality, it should be obvious that the Bible is moral; and from what I've read (and I've actually read it), the Bible is not a very moral document. The morality is certainly not obvious, and contradicts much of what I was raised to believe is right and wrong.


 

 

 

The bible isn't just one book.  It is a collection of 66 books written over thousands of years. 

I don't have the whole Bible memorized, so I will have to get back to you on those particular passages. 

 


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Gauche wrote:In another

Gauche wrote:

In another thread you claimed that everyone deserves to be killed by god. If that is your belief then of course god can't commit murder.

It's a fundamental tenet of Christianity.  We are all under original sin and the penalty for sin is death.  If God wasn't merciful, he would have killed every one of us.

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You've eliminated that possibility by defining god's actions as such.

If humankind had kept God's law and God killed them anyway, then God would be killing people unlawfully.  But there are no possible universes where that could happen since God is, by logical necessity, consistent with his own nature.


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Vastet wrote:In other words,

Vastet wrote:
In other words, god can't murder because god isn't human. It has nothing to do with morality, it has to do with his species. Or lack thereof.

That's true to a certain degree.  God cannot murder because his very category of being makes it logically impossible for Him to do so.  If God can commit murder, then 1 + 1 can also equal 5.  Since morality is a manifestation of God's nature in humanity, it therefore has everything to do with morality.

Quote:
I have demonstrated you are wrong. Morality is nothing more than an emotional filter through which people judge the actions, and sometimes beliefs, of other people and themselves.

Morality is the judgement of whether it would be praiseworthy or blameworthy if one's possible actions were enacted by his or her own volition. 

Quote:
If it were absolute, then everyone would share the same morality.

No, that is not an implication of moral absolutism.  Moral absolutism simply means that there are moral laws that are unchanging and therefore transcend space and time.  That does not preclude people from adopting different moral ideas.   

Quote:
They don't, so it cannot be absolute. Maybe you need to learn what absolute means.

I do know what "absolute" means.  And since I am using the term, the onus is on you to ask me what I mean by it if you do not know what I mean when I say it.

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Because the majority don't share that view. The sociopath has brain damage.

By your logic, if the majority decided that murder was okay, then it would be okay and the minority who disagreed would not be right.

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ALL other social species have been observed to have similar traits.

Source?  Link?

Quote:
And for a final blow, now we can detect differences in brain chemistry between average people and those who've been damaged. The science will only get better over time.

And once again, what makes you think that the "average people" are not the ones with damaged brains?  Why should I follow their morality instead of the morality of sociopaths?


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nigelTheBold wrote:I mean,

nigelTheBold wrote:

I mean, if god really wanted a commandment all about him, why not, "Thou shalt not be an asshole in My name"?

Already is -- it's Number 3 in the Big Ten List of Rules.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Vastet wrote:"Actually,

Vastet wrote:
"Actually, that's incorrect.  Abortions, same sex relationships, idolatry and pedophilia was much more commonplace in the Bronze Age than it is now. " I'll ask for evidence before I drop the nuke, because I don't believe this is true, but I have a response either way. I even have a response for if you don't prove anything and ignore this post.

ZOMG!  You're secretly Jewish!

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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nigelTheBold

nigelTheBold wrote:

Fortunate_Son wrote:
Gah, you just don't it. 

KILLING is not wrong in all circumstances.  MURDER is killing which is UNLAWFUL.  There is not ONE single instance in the Bible where God murders someone or commands the murder of someone.  Not ONE.  You will never be able to find one or cite one for me.  You can find instances where God had people killed, but he never had people MURDERED.

Let me repeat:  THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MURDER AND KILLING.  GOD KILLS.  HE DOES NOT MURDER.

How conVEEENient. God cannot murder, by definition. That makes life pretty easy for him, does it not?

Quote:

In EVERY circumstance where God had someone killed, it was because someone violated HIS LAW.  Therefore, he never killed anyone UNLAWFULLY.  His nature would not permit him to do that

Really?

How about the story of Lot? God had Lot's family killed just to win a bet.

How is that ethically justified?

Who said it's a factual account of anyone's life?  In the Hebrew bible it falls into the "literature" section (Kethuvim), not Torah or the Prophets (Nevi'im).

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Quote:In EVERY circumstance

Quote:

In EVERY circumstance where God had someone killed, it was because someone violated HIS LAW.  Therefore, he never killed anyone UNLAWFULLY.  His nature would not permit him to do that

Really?

How about the story of lot? God had lot's family killed just to win a bet.

How is that ethically justified?

Who said it's a factual account of anyone's life?  In the Hebrew bible it falls into the "literature" section (Kethuvim), not Torah or the Prophets (Nevi'im).

I don't think he did, however someone is claiming that god never killed anyone unlawfully per se, yet the story of Job is a prime example of it. God murders his family to win a bet with the devil. Didn't kill Job's children because they broke his laws, but because he needed to prove that Job would still praise him even in the worst of times. God really isn't moral is he.


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nigelTheBold wrote:Here, Lot

nigelTheBold wrote:

Here, Lot is offering his daughters to keep some angels from being sexually assaulted. Lot is presented as the most righteous person around -- that's why god and satan have a little wager about whether Lot is righteous because his life is good, or because he is righteous by nature. God then has satan put Lot through the wringer, including the murder of his family (though they had done nothing wrong).

Lot is presented as the most righteous person in a land of utterly depraved people.

Let's say that the residents of S'dom are all 9's and 10's on the "Completely and Totally Immoral" scale.  All Lot had to do was be an 8.  And based on his behavior, I'm betting he was a 7 and his daughters (the ones who got him drunk and had sex with him a few days later) were the 8's.

And you're confusing Lot and Job.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Seriously

FurryCatHerder wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:

Here, Lot is offering his daughters to keep some angels from being sexually assaulted. Lot is presented as the most righteous person around -- that's why god and satan have a little wager about whether Lot is righteous because his life is good, or because he is righteous by nature. God then has satan put Lot through the wringer, including the murder of his family (though they had done nothing wrong).

Lot is presented as the most righteous person in a land of utterly depraved people.

Let's say that the residents of S'dom are all 9's and 10's on the "Completely and Totally Immoral" scale.  All Lot had to do was be an 8.  And based on his behavior, I'm betting he was a 7 and his daughters (the ones who got him drunk and had sex with him a few days later) were the 8's.

And you're confusing Lot and Job.

 

How bad could the people have been in Sodom and Gomorrah? Their catalogue of crimes sounds pathetic to me. How utterly depraved is utterly depraved? If they did nothing but shag each other's partners and boy mates and and murdered and stole all day long the towns would have been empty of people in a week. No doubt there was an earthquake and a fire at the bakery and later everything got blown out of proportion. Maybe bandits from the towns gave them a bad name. 

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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"That's true to a certain

"That's true to a certain degree~"

No, it's absolutely true, and has nothing to do with morality, due to the definition of the term.

"Morality is the judgement of~"

That looks like what I said, phrased differently.

"No, that is not an implication of moral absolutism."

Yes, it is.

"Moral absolutism simply means that there are moral laws that are unchanging and therefore transcend space and time."

And there aren't any.

"That does not preclude people from adopting different moral ideas."

Yes, it would.

"I do know what "absolute" means.  And since I am using the term, the onus is on you to ask me what I mean by it if you do not know what I mean when I say it."

I and others have already explained to you what absolute morality would entail. You try to argue, but English itself refutes you.

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"By your logic, if the

"By your logic, if the majority decided that murder was okay, then it would be okay and the minority who disagreed would not be right."

And that's the way it is.

"Source?  Link?"

No, I'm not about to do all your work for you. All you have to do is study the habits of other social animals. People have already done the hard work for you, you just have to read it.

"And once again, what makes you think that the "average people" are not the ones with damaged brains?  Why should I follow their morality instead of the morality of sociopaths?"

So when someone takes a hit to the head and becomes a different person, there's nothing wrong with him?

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Atheistextremist

Atheistextremist wrote:

FurryCatHerder wrote:

Lot is presented as the most righteous person in a land of utterly depraved people.

Let's say that the residents of S'dom are all 9's and 10's on the "Completely and Totally Immoral" scale.  All Lot had to do was be an 8.  And based on his behavior, I'm betting he was a 7 and his daughters (the ones who got him drunk and had sex with him a few days later) were the 8's.

And you're confusing Lot and Job.

How bad could the people have been in Sodom and Gomorrah? Their catalogue of crimes sounds pathetic to me. How utterly depraved is utterly depraved? If they did nothing but shag each other's partners and boy mates and and murdered and stole all day long the towns would have been empty of people in a week. No doubt there was an earthquake and a fire at the bakery and later everything got blown out of proportion. Maybe bandits from the towns gave them a bad name.  

One of the traditions is that the ENTIRE TOWN were bandits.  That they were situated on a trade route and laid waste to passing caravans and the like.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Just in relation to the OP

Before I go and eat a bowl of ice cream and watch the Mummy, morality really is a set of social mores that have evolved in human society. Psychopaths have no empathy due to a massive undersupply of oxytocin to the brain. Sniff a bunch of oxytocin and it's like woodstock with the hugs. I should spend my time talking more about this and fleshing out the case but others have done it better elsewhere and you won't listen unfortunate, so why bother?

It's funny that christians push so hard that morality is never to be seen in the world and is untestable in the lab and is impossible without god. I'm an evil masturbating sinner and I bet I am at least as morally upright as unfortunate son in all manner of ways, including avoiding most sins and looking after the less fortunate. I also don't believe in monster gods and will happily go to war with any god who tries to kill you, unFortunate Son, even though it's obviously not mutual. 

Morality is a smokescreen, anyway. Only the jews and eastern faiths climb the ladder of works. With jesus it's all about accepting the dogma right, unfortunate? That's the way to heaven. Just believe! I'd laugh if you weren't so serious about it.

And LatinCanuck. Excellent blowup, man. I think the number of times we're accused of corruption of mind and spirit it's a surprise there's so little heat from most the people around here.

It's odd that fundy theists just think they can call us devil spawn and it's no real problem.

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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 Atheistextremist

 

Atheistextremist wrote:

It's funny that christians push so hard that morality is never to be seen in the world and is untestable in the lab and is impossible without god. I'm an evil masturbating sinner and I bet I am at least as morally upright as unfortunate son in all manner of ways, including avoiding most sins and looking after the less fortunate. I also don't believe in monster gods and will happily go to war with any god who tries to kill you, unFortunate Son, even though it's obviously not mutual. 

It gives me a nice feeling of moral superiority to think that if the salvation-by-grace theists could produce proof tomorrow I would be a dystheist, and go to my eternal damnation satisfied that I hadn't given in and been a party to the many inventive horrors their god likes to perpetrate (not least of which being the whole salvation-by-grace thought police thing). It's kinda like pascal's wager in reverse: If they're right I have nothing to gain whether I'm a dystheist or an atheist, if they're wrong then being an atheist gives me the advantage of actually being right. Of course, if we're both wrong and god exists and is both pleasant and reasonable then I win either way by trying my best to lead a good life.

 

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Theist: So who gets to

Theist: So who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?

Atheist: Lots of people decide what is right and what is wrong.

T: So if I decide that murder is okay, then it is okay?

A: It might be alright in your morality, but many other people disagree with you and will enforce their view through law.

T: So then the government gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?

A: No, lots of groups and individuals decide what is right or wrong.  

T: Okay, so then are you saying that murder is okay if a government allows it, such as Nazi Germany?

A: No, I don't think murder is right except in self defence.  It might be alright in that government's morality, but many other people and/or groups will disagree with them and they may choose to enforce their views through whatever means are available to them.

T:  You seem to be saying that might makes right.  

A:  No, I'm saying that people make right and wrong, and some people are  in a better position to enforce their views then others.  
 
 


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Vastet wrote:"No, that is

Vastet wrote:

"No, that is not an implication of moral absolutism." Yes, it is.

No, it is not.  A subset of moral absolutism is moral universalism, which means that you can still have laws that are unchanging AND take context into account. 

For example; "Given circumstance A, it is wrong to do B."  And if we grant that this is a law that is transcendent and unchanging, then we have a moral absolute.

Moral absolutism—the belief or theory that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged—suggests that morals are not determined by societal or situational influences. According to moral absolutism, morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, or some other fundamental source. Moral absolutism is sometimes contrasted with moral relativism and typified—although thereby also oversimplified—by such phrases as "Right is right and wrong is wrong."

Moral absolutism regards actions as inherently or inarguably moral or immoral. Moral absolutists might, for example, judge slavery or childhood female genital mutilation to be absolutely and inarguably immoral regardless of the beliefs and goals of a culture that engages in these practices.

In a minority of cases, moral absolutism is taken to the more constrained position that actions are moral or immoral regardless of the circumstances in which they occur. Lying, for instance, would always be immoral, even if done to promote some other good (e.g., saving a life). This rare view of moral absolutism might be contrasted with moral consequentialism—the view that the morality of an action depends on the context or consequences of that action.

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Moral_absolutism/

Quote:
"Moral absolutism simply means that there are moral laws that are unchanging and therefore transcend space and time." And there aren't any.

Yes there are.  Just because different people have different ideas does not mean that there isn't a right answer. 

Quote:
"That does not preclude people from adopting different moral ideas." Yes, it would.

Umm, no.  That's like saying that because the Big Bang has been proven, nobody can disagree with the model.

Quote:
 I and others have already explained to you what absolute morality would entail. You try to argue, but English itself refutes you.

:: Tumbleweeds roll by::

LOL, your friends would probably appreciate it if you did not invoke them. 

Do you seriously want to get in a debate with me on philosophical ethics? 

Vastet wrote:
"By your logic, if the majority decided that murder was okay, then it would be okay and the minority who disagreed would not be right." And that's the way it is.

And if the majority decided that the sun revolves around the Earth, the sun would magically start revolving around the Earth. 

Let's take the entire population of the Earth. 

If 51% believe that murder is okay and 49% believe that murder is wrong, murder automatically becomes okay?  But then if in 2 weeks, the polls change and 52% now believe that murder is not okay and 48% believe that murder is okay, murder suddenly becomes not okay?  What if the percentages fluctuate every month?  Does murder become okay one month and not okay the next month?

In other words, does the truth value of "Murder is wrong" change each month?  Remember, there is a fundamental difference between the two statements: "Most people believe murder is wrong" and "Murder is wrong".  Apply it to other statements: "Most people believe that evolution is true", "Evolution is true."  There is a really important difference between the two statements.

Quote:
"Source?  Link?" No, I'm not about to do all your work for you. All you have to do is study the habits of other social animals. People have already done the hard work for you, you just have to read it.

LOL.  All you have to do is give me a URL. 

Quote:
"And once again, what makes you think that the "average people" are not the ones with damaged brains?  Why should I follow their morality instead of the morality of sociopaths?" So when someone takes a hit to the head and becomes a different person, there's nothing wrong with him?

I think there is.  But my opinion doesn't matter.  I'm asking you:  Why should I follow the morality of people with a certain kind of brain as opposed to some other kind of brain?

 


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Vastet wrote:"By your logic,

(Merged into one post)


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Fortunate_Son wrote:Vastet

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Vastet wrote:
"By your logic, if the majority decided that murder was okay, then it would be okay and the minority who disagreed would not be right." And that's the way it is.

And if the majority decided that the sun revolves around the Earth, the sun would magically start revolving around the Earth. 

Straw man and utterly irrelevant. Don't be silly.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Let's take the entire population of the Earth. 

If 51% believe that murder is okay and 49% believe that murder is wrong, murder automatically becomes okay?  But then if in 2 weeks, the polls change and 52% now believe that murder is not okay and 48% believe that murder is okay, murder suddenly becomes not okay?  What if the percentages fluctuate every month?  Does murder become okay one month and not okay the next month?

Unfortunately that's democracy for you. Fortunately, any species in which the majority believed it was right to casually kill one another wouldn't survive long. Evolution guards rather nicely against it.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Quote:
"And once again, what makes you think that the "average people" are not the ones with damaged brains?  Why should I follow their morality instead of the morality of sociopaths?" So when someone takes a hit to the head and becomes a different person, there's nothing wrong with him?

I think there is.  But my opinion doesn't matter.  I'm asking you:  Why should I follow the morality of people with a certain kind of brain as opposed to some other kind of brain?

I think you're moving towards Loki's wager here. You know perfectly well the meaning of the terms 'typical' and 'healthy' and the criteria on which we judge whether or not a person meets those definitions. Or do you propose that the consensus opinion of healthy minds occupying healthy brains is not a valid basis on which to make moral judgements, in which case this whole line of argument is an irrelevant tangent.

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Fortunate_Son wrote:In other

Fortunate_Son wrote:

In other words, does the truth value of "Murder is wrong" change each month?  Remember, there is a fundamental difference between the two statements: "Most people believe murder is wrong" and "Murder is wrong".  Apply it to other statements: "Most people believe that evolution is true", "Evolution is true."  There is a really important difference between the two statements.

There's a really important difference between those pairs of statements too. Evolution is an observable phenomenon, that it happens can be determined independently of the society that makes that determination. Morality is not an observable phenomenon, it is a social construct, whether an action is moral or not cannot be determined without reference to the society that makes the determination.

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Indeterminate wrote:Straw

Indeterminate wrote:

Straw man and utterly irrelevant. Don't be silly.

No, it isn't a straw man.  It's a perfect analogy to what the other poster was saying.

Quote:
Unfortunately that's democracy for you. Fortunately, any species in which the majority believed it was right to casually kill one another wouldn't survive long. Evolution guards rather nicely against it.

Morality is not a democracy anymore than it takes a democracy to substantiate whether or not the Earth revolves around the sun.  But now you are making a completely different claim.  You are no longer claiming majority rule.  You are claiming that evolution determines what is right or wrong.  So let me go back to an earlier problem:  How does preserving the lives of mentally retarded/elderly people work to our evolutionary advantage?  It has been demonstrated that expenditures towards their assistance far exceed any income generated, and there is a high portion of individuals who consider them burdensome.  Many marriages have been destroyed over the stress for caring for a disabled child.  That was considered a factor in the Benoit murders, in addition to many other things.  My point is, there are things that we do which have no bearing on evolutionary advantage, but we do them anyway.

Quote:
I think you're moving towards Loki's wager here. You know perfectly well the meaning of the terms 'typical' and 'healthy' and the criteria on which we judge whether or not a person meets those definitions. Or do you propose that the consensus opinion of healthy minds occupying healthy brains is not a valid basis on which to make moral judgements, in which case this whole line of argument is an irrelevant tangent.

I don't know who Loki is.

I really don't know what you are defining as "healthy" in this instance.  If sociopaths are disabled, then it means that every mass murderer in history was not responsible for what he did and should not be punished, but rehabilitated.  To arbitrarily categorize people who behave a certain way as being "unhealthy" is simply an ad hoc maneuver invented by people who want to propagate the same secular morality that people endorse here.

Opinions are never a valid basis on which to make moral judgments.  And you can never logically go from, "Someone has a brain that tells him to do X" to "X is necessarily correct."

Anyways, this will actually be my last post here for a while.  I was visiting relatives for the holidays and I don't have computer access at my house.  These discussions have been entertaining and I'll see you guys later.

Trust in Jesus.  Eternity is a long time to be wrong.


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Fortunate_Son

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Indeterminate wrote:

Straw man and utterly irrelevant. Don't be silly.

No, it isn't a straw man.  It's a perfect analogy to what the other poster was saying.

See my most recent reply, before this one. You're conflating things which can be determined without reference to whoever is doing the determining, with things which cannot be determined without reference to whoever is doing the determining.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Quote:
Unfortunately that's democracy for you. Fortunately, any species in which the majority believed it was right to casually kill one another wouldn't survive long. Evolution guards rather nicely against it.

Morality is not a democracy anymore than it takes a democracy to substantiate whether or not the Earth revolves around the sun.  But now you are making a completely different claim.  You are no longer claiming majority rule.  You are claiming that evolution determines what is right or wrong.

False dichotomy. Claiming that we have evolved morality and that the course of evolution has set some basic parameters of morality does not invalidate the claim that as a society we make moral judgements by consensus.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

So let me go back to an earlier problem:  How does preserving the lives of mentally retarded/elderly people work to our evolutionary advantage?  It has been demonstrated that expenditures towards their assistance far exceed any income generated, and there is a high portion of individuals who consider them burdensome.  Many marriages have been destroyed over the stress for caring for a disabled child.  That was considered a factor in the Benoit murders, in addition to many other things.  My point is, there are things that we do which have no bearing on evolutionary advantage, but we do them anyway.

Eusociality, benefits for social integrity, preservation of knowledge (in the case of the elderly), sentimentality, possibility of recovery (maybe even with the addition of new immunities to the gene pool), possibility of useful output through savant syndrome, sexual selection via the Handicap principle. There are plenty of possible justifications that are based in evolutionary principles.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Quote:
I think you're moving towards Loki's wager here. You know perfectly well the meaning of the terms 'typical' and 'healthy' and the criteria on which we judge whether or not a person meets those definitions. Or do you propose that the consensus opinion of healthy minds occupying healthy brains is not a valid basis on which to make moral judgements, in which case this whole line of argument is an irrelevant tangent.

I don't know who Loki is.

No, I imagine you wouldn't.

Loki's wager is the fallacy where people bicker about definitions rather than attempting to resolve the argument.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

I really don't know what you are defining as "healthy" in this instance.  If sociopaths are disabled, then it means that every mass murderer in history was not responsible for what he did and should not be punished, but rehabilitated.  To arbitrarily categorize people who behave a certain way as being "unhealthy" is simply an ad hoc maneuver invented by people who want to propagate the same secular morality that people endorse here.

There is an element of selection bias in mental health, and what is and is not considered to be unhealthy. There is also a lot of work being done to eliminate it.

In the case of sociopaths, the definition isn't subject to selection bias. It's quite simple: a sociopath lacks empathy, which we can measure objectively, and this causes them to behave antisocially, which is a standard we determine by consensus within the society that the sociopath lives.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Opinions are never a valid basis on which to make moral judgments.  And you can never logically go from, "Someone has a brain that tells him to do X" to "X is necessarily correct."

You can actually, it's called abduction, and it's frowned upon in science because it's easy to draw false conclusions. Instead we do what is called induction, which allows us to go logically from, in this case, "An overwhelming majority of people have brains that tell them to do X" to "X has a very high probability of being correct".

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Trust in Jesus.  Eternity is a long time to be wrong.

I take it you didn't see my reverse pascal's wager post earlier.

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Fortunate_Son wrote:I don't

Fortunate_Son wrote:

I don't know who Loki is.

See Wiki - Either a god in Norse mythology (the trickster god) or a jutunn or maybe both.

Loki's wager - See Wiki - a logical fallacy where one argues in an unreasonable manner that a concept can't be defined therefore it can't be discussed.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Opinions are never a valid basis on which to make moral judgments. 

 

Trust in Jesus.  Eternity is a long time to be wrong.

Clearly an opinion you have used to make a moral judgment.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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Fortunate_Son wrote:Gauche

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Gauche wrote:

In another thread you claimed that everyone deserves to be killed by god. If that is your belief then of course god can't commit murder.

It's a fundamental tenet of Christianity.  We are all under original sin and the penalty for sin is death.  If God wasn't merciful, he would have killed every one of us.

Quote:
You've eliminated that possibility by defining god's actions as such.

If humankind had kept God's law and God killed them anyway, then God would be killing people unlawfully.  But there are no possible universes where that could happen since God is, by logical necessity, consistent with his own nature.

Yes, and if water was dry we wouldn't need towels and umbrellas. I know what your beliefs are, what I'm saying is that the circularity and untestable nature of this claim (that god doesn't commit murder) removes any explanatory power it might have had. All possible counter examples have been ruled out by definition.

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
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Fortunate_Son wrote:God is,

Fortunate_Son wrote:

God is, by logical necessity, consistent with his own nature.

If god is consistent with his own nature, explain why the omnipotence paradoxes don't cause it to not exist.

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"No, it is not." Yes, it

"No, it is not."

Yes, it is.

"For example; "Given circumstance A, it is wrong to do B."  And if we grant that this is a law that is transcendent and unchanging, then we have a moral absolute."

But you don't. There are no transcendent laws of morality. Period. If there were, they would override individual morality and they would be evident in all of us. You're effectively trying to argue that a few words in a book are absolute morality, when they aren't even moral in the first place unless or until they are accepted and adopted by others.

"Yes there are."

No, there aren't. Every moral law you give, I will find a practical reason to ignore, proving morality isn't absolute.

"Umm, no.  That's like saying that because the Big Bang has been proven, nobody can disagree with the model."

So you think you can argue that the Earth is flat? Good luck.

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":: Tumbleweeds roll

":: Tumbleweeds roll by::LOL, your friends would probably appreciate it if you did not invoke them. Do you seriously want to get in a debate with me on philosophical ethics?"

No. You'd need a better understanding of simple English to have a chance against me.

"And if the majority decided that the sun revolves around the Earth, the sun would magically start revolving around the Earth."

How, exactly?
Morality is only true subjectively, and it can change.
By the way, morality doesn't even exist without life to make it. The Earth and Sol are there regardless.
The rest of your hypothetical is irrelevant and further demonstrates your lack of understanding. The vast majority, in excess of 75%, believe unjustified murder is wrong. That has been the case throughout human history. Until you show me a civilisation in good health which preys on itself, you're just jumping through hoops.

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"LOL.  All you have to do

"LOL.  All you have to do is give me a URL. "

No. You asked to be educated on the habits of ALL social animals. Get your education in school, or start paying me thousands of dollars to teach you biology and psychology.

"I think there is.  But my opinion doesn't matter.  I'm asking you:  Why should I follow the morality of people with a certain kind of brain as opposed to some other kind of brain?"

Because one kind is damaged. You can't tell when a wall needs repair? You can't tell when a computer doesn't work? You don't know what broken means?

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Hilarious thread, people

You're like a fucken godless blunderbus...


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Indeterminate

Indeterminate wrote:

Fortunate_Son wrote:

God is, by logical necessity, consistent with his own nature.

If god is consistent with his own nature, explain why the omnipotence paradoxes don't cause it to not exist.

Because they don't?

Imagine G-d and Logic are like Rock, Paper and Scissors.

Can G-d create an entire universe?  My answer is "Yes".  Creating an entire Universe beats creating really big rocks.  I win.

The problem is that you've pre-defined what "Omnipotent" means in such a way that it creates a paradox.  This is your problem, not G-d's.  It's also the Logical Fallacy of "Begging The Conclusion".

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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FurryCatHerder wrote:And

FurryCatHerder wrote:

And you're confusing Lot and Job.

God damn it, I'm always getting those two mixed up.

 

*sigh* Epic fail. Nevermind.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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nigelTheBold

nigelTheBold wrote:

FurryCatHerder wrote:

And you're confusing Lot and Job.

God damn it, I'm always getting those two mixed up.

*sigh* Epic fail. Nevermind.

Now that I have you believing in G-d enough to curse your lack of biblical characters, can I interest you in this really nice and shiny religion?  It includes good food, great holidays and an entirely different language you get to read backwards.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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FurryCatHerder

FurryCatHerder wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:

God

damn

it, I'm always getting those two mixed up.

*sigh* Epic fail. Nevermind.

Now that I have you believing in G-d enough to curse your lack of biblical characters, can I interest you in this really nice and shiny religion?  It includes good food, great holidays and an entirely different language you get to read backwards.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm afraid I must decline. While I do enjoy the most-excellent Jewish food, some of the holidays frighten me. I can barely read forward, so that whole backward thing causes my head to ache from the back forwards. Also, there's that whole "not believing in god" thing that would be a stumbling block.

Thanks for the offer to share, though. I do appreciate it.

 

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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FurryCatHerder wrote:Because

FurryCatHerder wrote:

Because they don't?

Wow. Rigorous.

FurryCatHerder wrote:

Imagine G-d and Logic are like Rock, Paper and Scissors.

No idea what you mean here.

FurryCatHerder wrote:

Can G-d create an entire universe?  My answer is "Yes".  Creating an entire Universe beats creating really big rocks.  I win.

The problem is that you've pre-defined what "Omnipotent" means in such a way that it creates a paradox.  This is your problem, not G-d's.  It's also the Logical Fallacy of "Begging The Conclusion".

You have a definition of omnipotence which applies to your god and doesn't create a paradox? I'd love to see it.

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Or... we could of course say

Or... we could of course say that drawing your moral from a religion isn't really morality at all, it is obedience.

"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)

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 i think Dawkins sums it up

 i think Dawkins sums it up best http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCL63d66frs 

Evolutionary reasons for altruism etc...

 


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I don't get it.  Is

I don't get it.  Is Fortunate_Son Christian?  Or just a random, anonymous theist?  (-Well, of course he is right now)

I don't think the conversation he's presented is accurate.  First, he makes the assumption that every theist believes in some form of Christianity.  Secondly, he assumes every atheist is going to make those particular arguments.  Of course, he's wrong on both counts.

Fortunate_Son wrote:
T: Yes and no.  God does not decide.  He has a certain character and morality is a manifestation of that character.  We are created in His image and therefore we have a moral code written in our hearts.

T: Our nature is fallen, but all people-- including atheists-- are created in His image.  Only an eternal being who is good by his very nature can account for eternal values.  If God doesn't exist, then anything can be permitted at any given time.

I somehow doubt very much that a Hindu will agree with these statements.  Or a pantheist.  Or a deist, for the matter of it.

And I don't think the argument of the theist (Christian) in that dialogue accurately addressed the points the atheist makes or even addresses them rationally.

Fortunate_Son wrote:

A: Those were sociopaths.  They lack empathy due to mental illness.

T: So you are saying that all people have empathy, and if I introduce you to any one human without it, you automatically label him a "sociopath"?
That's known as an "ad hoc maneuver".  Furthermore, you are operating under a presupposition that wiring for empathy gives us a universal "ought" while the morality of the sociopath is flawed.  Why should the empathetic person get to decide what is right?  You are deriving an ought from an is, without any appropriate connection between the two.

Those two people were objectively sociopaths.  They suffered from mental illness.  The Christian in the discussion is accusing the atheist of performing a logical fallacy when the first thing the Christian does in response is to create a straw man of what the atheist said.  The atheist did not say that any one human without empathy was automatically labelled a sociopath (although a lack of empathy is the major criteria for sociopathy).  When confronted with the two specific humans the atheist presented the factual information about them.  Clearly, the Christian is taking something the atheist said earlier and conflating it with an inclusive sense of every human:

Fortunate_Son wrote:
A: That would be wrong, because we are biologically wired to have empathy, which precludes us from doing that kind of a thing.
Which is clearly not what the atheist means to say (read above) and is a rather dishonest interpretation of that statement, which should be understood to mean generally, which is true, since an extreme minority of humans are incapable of experiencing empathy due to some or other biological impairment.  That point, however, is not a flaw in the argument that empathy (and thus some sense of morality) is a selectable trait augmented by our particular capacity to think.

There's another thing in there, though; the Christian suggests that empathy is a universal ought.  It isn't.  The atheist never claimed it was and further never claimed that the empathic person gets to decide what is right.  Empathic people, however, can.  The nature of empathy is that if two people can understand and appreciate that what they don't want done to themselves another person may not want either, they can then develop a way to behave toward one another that doesn't violate that contract.  So simply described morality is contract.

Of course, on a larger scale that example ceases to be so useful because of the myriad of situations in which individuals, groups of individuals, societies and greater humanity function.  However morality can be described as a contract (or contracts), even if convoluted, and it is necessarily ever-changing because unique situations demand unique contracts and beliefs about how people want to interact with each other change.  What does not appear to change, however, and this is objectively shown, is what choices individuals make when faced with unique situation demanding an action and how that action is rationalized to be moral.  Experiments that show this consistency link very nicely back to empathy (and thus some sense of morality) being a selectable trait augmented by our particular capacity to think.  I think that very nicely describes our capacity to be moral without invoking some kind of god or some universal sense of 'right' and 'wrong' (whatever those words happen to mean).

Which brings me to another point in that dialogue that is irrational:

Fortunate_Son wrote:
A: Then our metric can be evolutionary advantage.  We cannot build a society if certain behavior is allowed.

T: I've just explained that we could.  If we allowed the killing of disabled people, society would more than likely go on and be more prospereous.  We would weed out the weak and maintain the strong.  I would presume that a society would have to be governed by sociopaths in order for this to be allowed.  Imagine that, an affluent society being run by sociopaths.  It is conceivable, isn't it?

The Christian isn't saying anything that makes sense.  What the overall statement of the Christian here is is a misapplication of something misattributed to evolutionary theory, 'weed out the weak and maintain the strong.'  There are some more subtle things going on, however.  First, what good is it to weed out the weak and maintain the strong and by what measure are we choosing the weak from the strong?  What does a prosperous society (prosperous by what measure?) have to do with one that is moral?  I don't think the two are even linked at all.  And, finally, why would a society that kills particular people need to necessarily be run by sociopaths; why invoke a false dilemma and an irrelevant hypothetical?

Finally, to the entire conversation, why create a false dichotemy by arguing an impossible to prove mechanism for morality as the only alternative (and literally intentionally labelling it the only alternative by labeling the ostensibly Christian theist as only theist?) to a (perhaps incomplete, but falsifiable) naturalistic one?  Certainly if the Christian explanation for morality is valid enough to present as opposition to naturalistic explanations, so are obscure Brazilian tribes', Australian Aboriginals', African tribes', Hindu, Buddist, Toaist, Falun Gong and North American First Nations' explanations (to name a few)?  Or is there a special reason, other than your presumed adherence to Christianity, that you intentionally present it as the only option other than what you consider to be poor naturalistic explanations?

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."


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"See my most recent reply,

"See my most recent reply, before this one. You're

conflating things which can be determined without reference

to whoever is doing the determining, with things which

cannot be determined without reference to whoever is doing

the determining."

What difference does it make?  By that metric, you are

saying that all conceptual judgments are necessarily

subjective simply because we cannot observe. Would you also

conclude that Bayes' Theorem is subjective because we

cannot observe it outside of a thinker?  We do not

extrapolate mathematical truths from the behavior of

physical objects.  They are justified a priori without

reference to anything outside of them, yet they are still

true objectively and not subjectively.  Moral judgments are

the same. 

 

"False dichotomy. Claiming that we have evolved morality

and that the course of evolution has set some basic

parameters of morality does not invalidate the claim that

as a society we make moral judgements by consensus."

You were just given a hypothetical where truth was altered

in accordance with popular opinion and you said that

evolution prevents that from happening.  Now you are going

back to popular opinion.  You are just being inconsistent

now.  Please explain how moral judgments are made by

consensus if, as you say, 'Fortunately, any species in

which the majority believed it was right to casually kill

one another wouldn't survive long. Evolution guards rather

nicely against it.'

"Eusociality"

What's that?

"benefits for social integrity"

This is just an assertion.  What benefits are there for

social integrity?

"preservation of knowledge (in the case of the elderly)"

What on earth does this mean?  In the majority of cases,

mental capacity actually declines with age.  Are you saying

that mentally retarded people have knowledge?

"sentimentality"

What on earth does that have to do with evolutionary

advantage?

"possibility of recovery (maybe even with the addition of

new immunities to the gene pool)"

Recovery from what?  Ageing?  Are we trying to invent a

potion which makes someone younger?  Mentally retarded are

born retarded.  How could they make a 'recovery'?  Your

logic is non-existent here.

"possibility of useful output through savant syndrome"

The poster didn't even mention savant syndrome.  Are you

saying all retarded people are savants?  It doesn't appear

that you are a savant, so I would say no.

"sexual selection via the Handicap principle."

????

"There are plenty of possible justifications that are based

in evolutionary principles."

You haven't given any.

"Loki's wager is the fallacy where people bicker about definitions rather than attempting to resolve the argument."

The point is that classification of "sociopaths" is entirely subjective and arbitrary and does nothing to resolve the issue of objectivity of moral imperatives.

"In the case of sociopaths, the definition isn't subject to selection bias. It's quite simple: a sociopath lacks empathy, which we can measure objectively, and this causes them to behave antisocially, which is a standard we determine by consensus within the society that the sociopath lives."

And what does that have to do with morality?  It has nothing to do with morality.  You can't go from "sociopaths behave differently" to "sociopaths are mentally ill."  That's an unwarranted leap and it has never been proven. 

"You can actually, it's called abduction, and it's frowned upon in science because it's easy to draw false conclusions."

He said that you can't logically make that inference.  So are you in agreement with him or not?

"Instead we do what is called induction, which allows us to go logically from, in this case, 'An overwhelming majority of people have brains that tell them to do X' to 'X has a very high probability of being correct' "

Behaviors are not correct or incorrect.  You are referring to governing principles.  And your inference is still a logical fallacy.  It is fallacious to say, "Most people behave as if it is true that murder is moral.  Therefore, murder is probably moral."  You have no metric.  You are just spouting nonsense.

 


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Vastet wrote:I'm asking

Vastet wrote:
I'm asking you:  Why should I follow the morality of people with a certain kind of brain as opposed to some other kind of brain?" Because one kind is damaged. You can't tell when a wall needs repair? You can't tell when a computer doesn't work? You don't know what broken means?

But how do you know it is damaged?  How do you know the sociopath's brain isn't the healthy one?

Forget about computers or walls for a moment.  Just answer the question.


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Thomathy wrote:I don't get

Thomathy wrote:

I don't get it.  Is Fortunate_Son Christian?  Or just a random, anonymous theist?  (-Well, of course he is right now)

I am a Christian and I would only argue in favor of the Triune God of Christianity.  It is, from my perspective, the only tenable theological worldview that one could argue in favor of.  I could give many reasons for this, but I would rather stick to the topic.

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I don't think the conversation he's presented is accurate.  First, he makes the assumption that every theist believes in some form of Christianity.  Secondly, he assumes every atheist is going to make those particular arguments.  Of course, he's wrong on both counts.

I make no such assumptions.  What I presented was a hypothetical conversation between an atheist and a theist, which was sort of a conglomeration of most of the conversations that I've personally had with atheists on the topic of morality.  I do not assume that every theist believes what I believe nor I do assume that every atheist thinks the same way.

I do hold that all atheistic worldviews are illogical but that some atheists are better at defending illogical viewpoints than others.  Atheists with doctorates, for example, have mastered the art of stumping untrained apologists by way of obfuscation and rhetoric.  I personally do not see myself as accredited.  I've simply studied these issues on my own and have no real degrees to show for it.  But I digress.

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And I don't think the argument of the theist (Christian) in that dialogue accurately addressed the points the atheist makes or even addresses them rationally.

It doesn't matter what you think.  If you are going to make an assertion, you have to back it up.  What points did the atheist make that went unaddressed by the Christian?  What points did the Christian address that were not made by the atheist?

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Those two people were objectively sociopaths.  They suffered from mental illness.  The Christian in the discussion is accusing the atheist of performing a logical fallacy when the first thing the Christian does in response is to create a straw man of what the atheist said.  The atheist did not say that any one human without empathy was automatically labelled a sociopath (although a lack of empathy is the major criteria for sociopathy).  When confronted with the two specific humans the atheist presented the factual information about them.  Clearly, the Christian is taking something the atheist said earlier and conflating it with an inclusive sense of every human:

They were objectively sociopaths insofar that they fit the criteria of an agreed-upon classification invented by people.  But this is somewhat of a bastardization on the term "objective", which would normally refer to reality outside of conventions.  But in the very next sentence, you go from pseudo-objectivity to a blind assertion.  On what basis do you assert that they suffered from mental illness?  What makes you think they were not healthy human beings making bad choices?  Just because certain behavioral patterns are displayed by a minority of individuals does not establish that these patterns are damages that need to be fixed.  It would be like saying that the lack of melanin in African Americans is a disease, rather than a simple difference.  

If you acknowledge that a human can lack empathy without being a sociopath, then you cannot use brain chemistry associated with empathy as a basis for moral imperatives because there would be no basis for justifying the morality of the empathetic person over that of the non-empathetic person.  It would just be your subjectivity.

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Which is clearly not what the atheist means to say (read above) and is a rather dishonest interpretation of that statement, which should be understood to mean generally, which is true, since an extreme minority of humans are incapable of experiencing empathy due to some or other biological impairment.  That point, however, is not a flaw in the argument that empathy (and thus some sense of morality) is a selectable trait augmented by our particular capacity to think.

You are not allowed to determine the intent of a character in my hypothetical.

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There's another thing in there, though; the Christian suggests that empathy is a universal ought.  It isn't.  The atheist never claimed it was and further never claimed that the empathic person gets to decide what is right.  Empathic people, however, can.  The nature of empathy is that if two people can understand and appreciate that what they don't want done to themselves another person may not want either, they can then develop a way to behave toward one another that doesn't violate that contract.  So simply described morality is contract.

The topic is not about explaining how morality comes about.  It is about explaining the why.  If you are going to claim that certain things are right and certain things are wrong, then you have to justify those claims just as you would have to justify any other proposition that you make.  I could claim that I believe abortion is bad because my parents taught me that it was bad.  However, that would have no bearing as to whether or not abortion is truly bad. 

In my hypothetical, the Christian is constantly pressing the atheist to present a worldview which would justify the truth of a particular moral judgment.  The atheist is only able to obfuscate the point with sociological or biological claims about how we come to know morality instead of offering any sort of justification for morality itself.

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The Christian isn't saying anything that makes sense.  What the overall statement of the Christian here is is a misapplication of something misattributed to evolutionary theory, 'weed out the weak and maintain the strong.'  There are some more subtle things going on, however.  First, what good is it to weed out the weak and maintain the strong and by what measure are we choosing the weak from the strong?  What does a prosperous society (prosperous by what measure?) have to do with one that is moral?  I don't think the two are even linked at all.  And, finally, why would a society that kills particular people need to necessarily be run by sociopaths; why invoke a false dilemma and an irrelevant hypothetical?

That is the essence of moral evolution.  The idea is that morality is necessary for the proliferation of the species.  On those grounds, a proponent of this view has to account for the fact that there are things we do which have no evolutionary advantages yet we do them anyway.  Why is this the case?  The metric is clear.  The strong are those who can contribute to the proliferation of society, such as physicists, social scientists, biologists, doctors, lawyers, social workers, soldiers, and the like.  The weak are those who cannot do anything at all, such as individuals with brain damage who do nothing but sit around in group homes and live off of tax dollars. 

I'm actually in agreement with you.  I do not believe there is any link whatsoever between morality and societal affluence. 

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Finally, to the entire conversation, why create a false dichotemy by arguing an impossible to prove mechanism for morality as the only alternative (and literally intentionally labelling it the only alternative by labeling the ostensibly Christian theist as only theist?) to a (perhaps incomplete, but falsifiable) naturalistic one?  Certainly if the Christian explanation for morality is valid enough to present as opposition to naturalistic explanations, so are obscure Brazilian tribes', Australian Aboriginals', African tribes', Hindu, Buddist, Toaist, Falun Gong and North American First Nations' explanations (to name a few)?  Or is there a special reason, other than your presumed adherence to Christianity, that you intentionally present it as the only option other than what you consider to be poor naturalistic explanations?

All you are offering is subjectivity.  Simply because you are not convinced by something does not mean that it is unproven.  Proof is not persuasion.  The unregenerate will adhere to their illogical worldviews so long as they are unregenerate, which is why apologetics is not about converting the hearts of unbelievers.  We cannot do that.  Only God can.  We are only here to defend the faith.  Furthermore, if you believe that other religions are on equal logical ground with Christianity, then feel free to debate the issue with me on a different thread.  But it has nothing to do with what we are discussing right now, which is the impossibility for atheism to account for morality.


Marquis
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Fortunate_Son wrote:the

Fortunate_Son wrote:
the impossibility for atheism to account for morality

You indoctrinated son of a bitch. What are you saying? That nobody but those who accept the dickcheese of your pallidly incompetent creator human sacrifice ghostly cannibal apparitional speaking-in-tongues prophetic bible author cryptic motherfucker are going to go to heaven? Well fuck you. And take all your kind with you as you go. And STAY away, okay?

Morality is about what you do, how you behave. How you conduct and carry yourself.

YOUR morality is non-existent. It is but a bitch's competition about who's the best nigger for massa.

There are no words for how sickened to the core your kind makes me. Ewwww.

May you live in interesting times.

"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)

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Fortunate_Son
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Marquis wrote:Fortunate_Son

Marquis wrote:

Fortunate_Son wrote:
the impossibility for atheism to account for morality

You indoctrinated son of a bitch. What are you saying? That nobody but those who accept the dickcheese of your pallidly incompetent creator human sacrifice ghostly cannibal apparitional speaking-in-tongues prophetic bible author cryptic motherfucker are going to go to heaven? Well fuck you. And take all your kind with you as you go. And STAY away, okay?

Only Christians go to Heaven, yes.

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Morality is about what you do, how you behave. How you conduct and carry yourself.

So how you behave, conduct and carry yourself does not fall under the category of what you do?  LOL.  You are illogical.

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YOUR morality is non-existent. It is but a bitch's competition about who's the best nigger for massa.

There are no words for how sickened to the core your kind makes me. Ewwww.

May you live in interesting times.

You need serious help.  Go see a psychiatrist. 


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Fortunate_Son wrote:Marquis

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Marquis wrote:

Fortunate_Son wrote:
the impossibility for atheism to account for morality

You indoctrinated son of a bitch. What are you saying? That nobody but those who accept the dickcheese of your pallidly incompetent creator human sacrifice ghostly cannibal apparitional speaking-in-tongues prophetic bible author cryptic motherfucker are going to go to heaven? Well fuck you. And take all your kind with you as you go. And STAY away, okay?

Only Christians go to Heaven, yes.

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Morality is about what you do, how you behave. How you conduct and carry yourself.

So how you behave, conduct and carry yourself does not fall under the category of what you do?  LOL.  You are illogical.

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YOUR morality is non-existent. It is but a bitch's competition about who's the best nigger for massa.

There are no words for how sickened to the core your kind makes me. Ewwww.

May you live in interesting times.

You need serious help.  Go see a psychiatrist. 

No, he was quite correct if not particularly polite. You arbitrarily reject non-theistic moral systems and then, having chosen to ignore all presented evidence claim that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Fallacy upon fallacy.

To those of us who do have a secular morality the tenets of your religion and actions of your god are morally unacceptable, redeemed only by their falsehood. It's the stuff of nightmares.

God: "Thou Must Go from This Place Lest I Visit Thee with Boils!"
Man: "Really? Most people would bring a bottle of wine"


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Indeterminate wrote:No, he

Indeterminate wrote:

No, he was quite correct if not particularly polite. You arbitrarily reject non-theistic moral systems and then, having chosen to ignore all presented evidence claim that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Fallacy upon fallacy.

You are conflating "moral systems" which "moral bases".  I do not reject all of the moral systems that atheists use.  I simply reject their way of justifying the usage of such systems.  For example, I can agree with an atheist who employs the categorical imperative or even utilitarianism to determine that lying is not a good idea.  These principles provide us with reasonable models in deriving moral principles.  But they do nothing to justify them. 

I do not reject non-theistic bases arbitrarily.  I've studied the issues and I've found that none of these justifications are adequate. 

Please cite exact quotes to me and tell me what fallacy I've committed.

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To those of us who do have a secular morality the tenets of your religion and actions of your god are morally unacceptable, redeemed only by their falsehood. It's the stuff of nightmares.

But you have no objective standard by which you can judge something to be good or bad.  You only have your personal opinion.

 

 


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Indeterminate wrote:No, he

Indeterminate wrote:

No, he was quite correct if not particularly polite.

 

What??? I forgot to say "Sir" at the end of a sentence or something??? Oh dear. Goodness gracious me.

OH.... and....

That other dude,

Hello! I am following something you will never understand. A morality that simply arises in me, as a natural embodiment of the beauty of existence, like something I think you people aspire to, really, but you cannnot quite grasp how it is possible to get there without anyone holding your hand and comforting you on every step of the way. You people are evil. But maybe you have no choice? Maybe you are the real Neanderthals of our age? I don't know. All I know is that y'all are retards by choice - and that will not be forgiven. You will perish and go away. Your kind is not welcome here on earth anymore.

Oh ye marshmallow hearts...

 

 

"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)

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Fortunate_Son

Fortunate_Son wrote:

Indeterminate wrote:

No, he was quite correct if not particularly polite. You arbitrarily reject non-theistic moral systems and then, having chosen to ignore all presented evidence claim that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Fallacy upon fallacy.

You are conflating "moral systems" which "moral bases".  I do not reject all of the moral systems that atheists use.  I simply reject their way of justifying the usage of such systems.  For example, I can agree with an atheist who employs the categorical imperative or even utilitarianism to determine that lying is not a good idea.  These principles provide us with reasonable models in deriving moral principles.  But they do nothing to justify them. 

I do not reject non-theistic bases arbitrarily.  I've studied the issues and I've found that none of these justifications are adequate. 

Please cite exact quotes to me and tell me what fallacy I've committed.

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To those of us who do have a secular morality the tenets of your religion and actions of your god are morally unacceptable, redeemed only by their falsehood. It's the stuff of nightmares.

But you have no objective standard by which you can judge something to be good or bad.  You only have your personal opinion.

 

 

I'm going to point you to the first post I made on this thread:  How do you know that you shouldn't stone sinners these days?

"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne

Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!


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I've quite clearly shown

I've quite clearly shown that Fortunate has no leg to stand on. He's confirmed it by being unable to respond to the simple logic. If anyone needs a psychiatrist, it's him.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.