Me!!!!!!

Teralek
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Me!!!!!!

Hello!!!! 

My name is Alex and I live in Portugal... a supposedly socialist country 

I'm not an atheist... but I'm not a theist either. I just cant define "God"... whatever that is... I'm just a... utopian socialist?!? kinda hippie, with a doomer touch... and a rational believer on a transcendent reality. My favorite philosopher is Bertrand Russell and my modern time hero is Jon Stewart from daily show 

My conservative friends call me an atheist, my atheist friends call me a theist... my real friends just call me crazy

I believe in the transcendental reality of Near Death Experiences. I believe in the after life. I don't believe in the Bible.

My moral guru is Mahatma Gandhi. My favorite scientist is Einstein (God does not, he famously said, play dice). The person I would like to met was Jesus. 

My favorite fictional argument is Jesus vs. Socrates... not the one on the internet... the real one... (I would give years of my life to see this one!)

The most unexplainable thing is the Ouija game 


 


Atheistextremist
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Hi Tera

Teralek wrote:

 

LOL 

Yeah and loyalty is not very atheistic... and definitely not logical 

 

 

 

From our soft moment in time perhaps such things are harder to comprehend. To illustrate the point, let's turn the power off, smash the buildings down, burn our comfortable beds. Let's empty the barns and fill the forests with wolves and armed, hungry men. Put yourself in this place, Alex, alone with a wife and 2 young and vulnerable children, with 5 months of winter coming.

Is group loyalty logical yet?

 

 

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


Teralek
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Atheistextremist wrote:From

Atheistextremist wrote:

From our soft moment in time perhaps such things are harder to comprehend. To illustrate the point, let's turn the power off, smash the buildings down, burn our comfortable beds. Let's empty the barns and fill the forests with wolves and armed, hungry men. Put yourself in this place, Alex, alone with a wife and 2 young and vulnerable children, with 5 months of winter coming.

Is group loyalty logical yet?

That looks like "the Road" movie. Yup Loyalty is logical in that sense. Except you are not married to the Sharks and their players are not your sons. The world is not yet about to end rugby is just sports, sports is about passion, passions are about obsessions, obsessions are loyalties with a logic of their own. 

Fine by me, I'm a football fan myself!


Atheistextremist
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I think what's important to remember here

 

Is that the human psyche is not a few hundred or a few thousand years old. It's millions of years old. We are primed for existence at the most basic level. If you look around the world there are still societies that live hand to mouth in the year 2010. Civilisation and written laws are recent arrivals on the scene. Humans and their instinctive and cultural survival imperatives are older, far older than religion. It's this ancient human morality that shapes religious norms, not the other way around.

As for the football thing - I was talking about the logic of loyalty in a broader sense, as I thought you were. In any case, the fundamentals of group loyalty remain the same and I would contest a suggestion that sporting loyalties are the product of sporting passions. Instead it's our group loyalties that give such team sports their passion. Support for teams reflects human craving to belong to and identify with our own group and to support that group through thick and thin. Even if the Sharks are the worst football team the world has ever seen. 

 

 

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


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On Mithra

 Would all of you really smart Naturalists stop referring to Mithra, please.  It's a credibility suck and I leave for weeks.  If you feel the need to incorporate your Jesus copy theories and include 1992 grad seminars, at least be identify if you are talking about the Persian Mithra (much older than 600BCE and born adult, out of a rock and no disciples, no virgin birth etc.) versus the Mithra Christos (a much later version, Roman copy blend of Christianity and about three other greek religions).  Notice the "Christos", and note that Christos is NOT a Persian identifier.

 

"So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem." River


Atheistextremist
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Mithra, mithra, mithraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

Mithra, miiiithraaaaa, mithra, mithra, mithraaaaa, miiiiiiiiiiiiiithraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith!

 

 

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


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Atheistextremist wrote:Is

Atheistextremist wrote:

Is that the human psyche is not a few hundred or a few thousand years old. It's millions of years old. We are primed for existence at the most basic level. If you look around the world there are still societies that live hand to mouth in the year 2010.

Civilisation and written laws are recent arrivals on the scene. Humans and their instinctive and cultural survival imperatives are older, far older than religion. It's this ancient human morality that shapes religious norms, not the other way around.

As for the football thing - I was talking about the logic of loyalty in a broader sense, as I thought you were. In any case, the fundamentals of group loyalty remain the same and I would contest a suggestion that sporting loyalties are the product of sporting passions. Instead it's our group loyalties that give such team sports their passion. Support for teams reflects human craving to belong to and identify with our own group and to support that group through thick and thin. Even if the Sharks are the worst football team the world has ever seen. 

 

I'll talk about morals again at a later time... it's an interesting subject. I' beginning to see why you can't stand moral realism.

No matter what you say it's not logical to support a loosing team when you could have many joys supporting a great team. But I really do understand you, I am human like you, I have feelings and I have a conscience. Thus I'm glad you support them!


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The return of Ethics


 

butterbattle wrote:
I do enjoy debate, but you also just think that because I disagreed with you on a billion different things. Seriously, have you noticed that you're the only person in this thread that I've disagreed with? It's not that "agreeing is not (my) thing." If you stay longer on this forum, you will discover that my views on philosophy and religion are essentially the same as most of the top posters and moderators here, including AtheistExtremist and most of the people that have posted in this thread. AE's username and avatar are more a satire of religious people who speak of atheist "extremists" than a statement of fact, and you played right into it with your confirmation bias.

I played into nothing. I’m enjoying being here. I’m playing along. I like AE because he is from Australia and a Shark’s fan!
------
Definition:
Supreme Objective Moral – An individual choice based on a rational, emotional and consciencious response. The objective of this individual choices is to maintain the link of Love between him and humanity, all other priorities are rescinded.
Teralek wrote:
(as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X).

butterbattle wrote:
Strawman! Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily opts for raping people for reproduction? Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily cares about the survival of his species?

Teralek wrote:
This is not a question of option, it IS a question of lack of "qualia" you can't qualify universally any moral act under nihilism.

butterbattle wrote:
Okay. So, are you simply saying that the syllogism above is a preference that the nihilist can hold?

Yes he can. Because in nihilism there are no intrinsic values.
BUT! There ARE intrinsic values, such as love, justice, compassion, etc.


Teralek wrote:
For example: "When I say chocolate is delicious I said something that is definitely true" "Saying chocolate is delicious it reflects the subject rather than the object - the chocolate"

butterbattle wrote:
Actually, the literal meaning of the sentence does not explicitly reveal that it is the subject who finds the chocolate delicious. That is merely assumed because no one who said that would be trying to start a philosophical debate by claiming that chocolate is absolutely delicious. On the other hand, if you claim that murder is wrong, most people assume that you mean murder is absolutely wrong in addition to you holding the preference that murder is wrong because most people hold to objective morality and assume that you do.

Most people hold to objective morality because it’s a fact, its common sense, as is a scientific fact, or arguably; they access this Universal truth almost unconsciously. On ideal conditions there would be very few moral disagreements. What people lack is a true moral objectivism using common tools, not men made religious nonsense nor moral nihilism.

butterbattle wrote:
If you assume objective morality, then they, in principle, permit immoralities. In practice, unless you know, for certain, what these objective morals are or they have real influence on our world, our preferences are all that matter.

You couldn’t be more right about that! However you don’t need to know for certain what are the absolutes, you can make an educated guess and there’s a good chance your right. Remember, if I assume objective morality, it is always context dependable.


butterbattle wrote:
If I assume moral subjectivism, then neither objectivism nor subjectivism would be immoral. However, subjectivism would a better system for clarifying and carrying out our preferences. Objectivism would confuse the situation and take up time by speaking of and debating moral absolutes.

Of course it wouldn’t be immoral, because there is no such thing as “immoral” in moral subjectivism! You’d be wrong though because things have intrinsic values, the key here is how to find them. Objectivism is only confusing if you don’t have any way to know how to reach a rational response to a moral issue. Subjectivism is empty because it treats moral as preferences without intrinsic values
 

Let me put it this way: If I say "I like fish" that is subjective. But if I add that I like fish because it has healthy nutrients and unsaturated fat that benefices health. You might still say you don’t like fish but that doesn’t mean it’s not good for you. Here LIES the intrinsic value. Then again you are stating a preference not an objective value. This is the same as moral realism vs. moral relativism.
It’s true that in ethics the question is more tricky. How can we know our moral values are correct? We simply have to be the most impartial, empathic, rational and conscientious as possible. From here sprouts the “ideal observer theory”. Even if you can’t be an ideal observer, (and you really can’t) you can make a guess that has a good chance to be right.
 

If we are well informed, impartial, compassionate, rational and conscientious there’s a better chance to make a better decision on moral issues. Moreover with moral objectivism, moral codes, which in practice are the result of moral realism, like the Human rights or the rights of the children make more sense worldwide.
You see I’m not putting religion here to defend moral realism because I think it’s not needed. I can see why you reject it so vehemently, is because it implies the existence of abstract objects outside the spectrum of materialism… But don’t you agree that there are moral facts that are fundamentally wrong?! If so moral is objective. If not then again you can’t classify an action as being wrong or right and you can’t convict me on moral grounds, you can only convict me on might or on the “preferences of the many outweigh the preferences of the few”, and for me that’s just tyranny, not ethics. Seen from the outside the ideologies which endorsed moral objectivism were better societies.
Sure evolution played a role on our “moral evolution”…

Eloise wrote:
if morals are absolute then absoluteness of morals bears an intrinsic value such as evolutionary/genetic advantage.

But if you want to go beyond your blind evolutionary factors on your way to absoluteness of morals you have to use rationality, compassion and consciousness. These two last ones are a consequence of the human soul rather than evolution… but that’s another matter. Evolution only cares about the continuity of the species, nothing else. Look at the other species; they commit rape, infanticide, stealing, etc. That is fundamentally wrong; thanks to our superior intellect and emotions we grew past it (to some extent...)
Moreover if you look to moral only from one perspective (emotional or rational) you will fail to make a “good” moral choice.
For example. It is perfectly rational to defend eugenics for the betterment of the human species. Most of us don’t support it because beyond rationality we use compassion.
If on the other hand we just use emotion to make a moral decision we would fail. An example of this is someone who is unjust to another for the benefit of someone else who the subject is emotionally attached to.
Extreme moral acts, such as, giving life for a stranger, one has to use ALL moral instruments to make this decision – rationality, compassion and consciousness. Consciousness only states that we as a species are intrinsically the same - if I give my life for another I’m really giving it for myself.
Lastly, information is crucial to make a correct moral judgment. In this aspect, the answer to the question of whether or not life continues after death has moral implications on some contexts.
BTW – The cartoon thing was just a joke. Chill butterbattle


Teralek wrote:
If I understand you correctly you say that we should condemn the nazis for the same reason that we like or dislike flavors (we should condemn the nazis only because we don't like killing jews).

butterbattle wrote:
Well, almost, except I wouldn't say "should." If you want to condemn Nazis, you can. Or, if you don't want to, then don't.


First of all, laws are made by people. They don't represent truth, only the opinions of the peple that make the laws. If the legislature wanted to impose a law that chocolate is better than vanilla, then they could. It wouldn't even be close to the first time that people legislated aesthetics. Throughout history, there have been laws on music, art, dance, etc. In some cases, specific kinds of aesthetic expression have even been banned, particularly with corrupt dictators or any kind of government that grew too powerful and became oppressive, fascism, communism, etc.

It almost seems you are asserting a moral absolute here… that oppressive, ideologies are bad.


butterbattle wrote:
Regardless of whether or not there are moral absolutes, we are motivated by our preferences, not absolutes.

But our preferences could be wrong.


Teralek wrote:
In a sense humans already make a difference between preferences and moral codes objectively.

butterbattle wrote:
Argumentum ad populum?

No. Argument from reason, compassion and consciousness.


butterbattle wrote:
Humans want to think that morals are absolute because it was beneficial for the survival of the in-group; our instincts are still with us.

They don’t “want to think” they think because they are… LOL

Magus wrote:
Again to suggest that moral require a "outside" standard is to suggest that moral are useless. If they are useful then they can be derived simply on their use within the human social system.

Teralek wrote:
On the contrary! Precisely because Ethics is an "outside" standard that it gain it's meaning. and it's just not random noise.

Magus wrote:
This is empty of justification. Explain how having it come from some unknown source adds value to it.

It is not unknown. It comes from reason, compassion and consciousness. But it exists as an intrinsic value as relations in mathematics exists prior we think of them. We just discover them.
Today we are a better species than we were, morally, because we evolved in this.
Magus wrote:
Incorrect. We condemn the nazi's because their behavior is/was detrimental and less effective at maintaining and improving social cohesion of the species.


Teralek wrote:
You can't condemn them on that basis. You can only condemn them based on your culture or your preferences. I can argue that Germany social cohesion was fine without the Jews and if Germany had won the war and we were in some sort of 4th Reich utopia, everybody would think that extermination of the Jews had been a good thing... It would still be wrong though according to my philosophical beliefs.

Magus wrote:
I never suggested that Might makes right. I can demonstrate that moral are useful, but I never said it was the only thing that was useful. Might is useful as well. Might and morals can be conflicting methods of survival. However that does not suggest that might is better than morality. It only suggests that for short term gain it could be more beneficial to use might. However over long term situations morals are more useful. The gain for might is usually swift, but the chance of consequences are high. I can even use your example to prove this. Did we or did we not stop and punish Germany for their actions?

Might and right being conflicting methods of survival proves my point. Might doesn’t make it right! I don’t see why the extermination of the jews would have long term implication. I mean we HAVE exterminated cultures before with no consequences (Native American tribes); it served the European people well to conquer more land and resources. That doesn’t make it right though. We merely stop the Germans because our might was stronger than theirs, had nothing to do with moral. The good side won and that’s a relief.
 


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For the sake of making this


For the sake of making this easier to read I have removed the previous comments... Please refer to post #57 if you want a reference as to what this is a reply to.

How is might gained by a group?  The greater numbers you have the better chance of having an individual who can increase your might and thus increase the chance of survival.  In order to maintain a great number of people the social contract must try to keep the social cohesion of the group intact. That is where morals come into play.  We use moral to maintain a group so that the chances of defending our species is greater.  In doing so we increase the chance of survivability of the individual.  This is in line with an morality that is defined simply on survival.

Reason - in line with survival.

Compassion - a feeling that provides for an incentive to stay with the group for survival.  Just as the orgasm provides an incentive for reproduction

Conciousness? Please define.

Sounds made up...
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