You have defeated your own argument. It is subjective or objective?

It shows that your argument suffers from the same "dilema." You have not shown that the existence of god provides an objective moral system.

You're saying that you "don't have a problem" with following a subjective set of morals. As an atheist, I'm not sure that I would, but I guess believing in god naturally allows you to follow subjective morality. To each his own I suppose.

Thankyou for putting so beautifully an error of Kelly's reasons for her conclusion.

Let us say that there is a definite correlation between wealth and ignorance and distaste of the sufferings of the less wealthy. I am reminded powerfully of Louis the XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette. They had wealth and happiness while France starved. We may ask, did their ignorance and distaste for the starving man arise because of their wealth, or did their wealth arise from their ignorance and distaste for the starving man? Either way, it's high time we all became ignorance and have a distaste for the starving man.

See the error? I'll make it clearer, just in case you don't, by another quotation from the article Kelly mistakenly thinks vindicates her:
"Of course, it is essential to clearly state that I am in no way arguing that high levels of organic atheism cause societal health or that low levels of organic atheism cause societal ills such as poverty or illiteracy. If anything, the opposite argument should be made: societal health causes widespread atheism, and societal insecurity causes widespread belief in God, as discussed by Norris and Inglehart (2004) above."
http://anxiousmofo.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/gregory-paul-and-phil-zuckerman-why-the-gods-are-not-winning/

Why does it matter that it's this way around? Because if atheism is the *product* of a healthy society, it says nothing about the merits of atheism itself. As a point of fact above, someone can be very wealthy and as a result become a jerk. This doesn't prove the point you're trying to establish. We should not suppose that because a thing flows from something desirable, that that thing is good. As my example above, wealth is desirable, makes for a better society and life, but it does not mean that its fruit are all good. Atheism may be an instance of something horrible that flows from something desirable.

And this is perfectly compatible with Christianity. Leading a happy life, where your neighbours are good to you, you have enough food and shelter and extras to make you happy, can lead you to forget about what is more important in life.



You sound as if you think that Todangst is in his element when having his philosophical blunders pointed out. I'd like to inform you that he has had them corrected before, and it resulted in him banning a user. I've pointed out his errors to him also, and he's hardly the logical titan you think he is.

Actually, moral codes, including those borrowed for religion, are an expression of the innate morality that goes with being a social animal. You say there's no basis in subjectivity for right or wrong; calling biologically-based morals "subjective" again makes the assumption that each person is a blank slate, has no desire to be part of a functioning society, protect members of his or her tribe, has no empathy, etc. It imagines a state of nihilism that simply does not exist in a normal human being.
Either morality evolved because cooperation in humans was more effective for survival (and thus developed concern for tribe members, which became a broader sense of empathy), or it came from a magical space monster. I'm not going to respond to your other reply, because all you did was repeat yourself. This whole conversation is mundane for me, and I've moved beyond it. I have a blog entry about it if you want to educate yourself.

I think morals are ultimately subjective and I don't have any problem with that.

 

Oh and I'm glad I live in Norway.. was a little surprised we ended up that high on the list. 

 

 

 

This looks of the 'if we don't need religion, why keep it?' argument.

If that's what you're arguing, I counter with we don't need music, literature, art, etc.... so why keep that?

 

 

I have my own reasons to be a Theist. 

Not really a perfect analogy, though. Music, art and literature aren't generally designed to promote claims about the world in a way that subverts sense and logic. A fairer question would be whether we should keep cults around for their own sake. Would you object to religion shifting, voluntarily of course, from practice to myth?
You're very adamant about marginalizing religion's role in negative decisions. Do you think religion has no influence on the decision-making of the devout? I'll tell you where I'm going with this right off. There are natural and rational reasons to obey many common moral edicts; it's the uncommon ones that concern me. Those fall under religious prescription -- or, to be fair, another irrational doctrine. Like I said before, why should a normal adult care whether two dudes or two chicks get married? Why would an otherwise compassionate person choose an unconscious mass of cells, bound for disposal anyway, over finding a cure for an awful disease? There are competing ways of looking at things here, and only one of them actually involves looking. 

We actually talked about a study similar to this for a day in my US Literature class, the US is actually the only First world country has a higher than half the population that claims to be very religious while generally the countries with the problems that Kelly described had the most religious and those with the virtures that she described were the least religious.

I have pointed out several times. I will do so again.

You say that god's moral views are subjective. This is because they are based on his opinions. They are not based on facts.

Then you say that you follow god's objective moral standards. The standards haven't changed. They are the same standards. So you have said they are subjective and objective at the same time.

I will illustrate.

If god says "I like when people kill each other," that is subjective. It is based only on his preference for murder.

When you say "god likes when people kill each other," that is objective because you are stating a fact.

However, the standard itself is subjective. An opinion does not become a fact when someone other than the original speaker says it.

To use the defintion you provide, god's morals stem from his own prejudice. What reasons does he give to say that stealing, murder, homosexuality, women, etc., are bad things?

God certianly bases his morality on his own preference. The fact that he doens't have any preference other than his own is hardly surprising, considering the contradictory nature of such an idea.

Other preferences do exist. This is clear from that fact that many people have preferences that are not the same as god. Your statement doesn't really make much sense. If god's morals come from nowhere but his own notions, that's essentially the very definiton of subjective. They arise from his own perceptions, ideas, and feelings, and not some other source.

The fact that god likes something because that's the way he is doesn't mean that it's an objective standard. If you like ice cream because you were born that way, that doens't make it objective. It just means that you had no choice over your own preferences.
As long as god is basing his morality on his own preferences, it doesn't matter what those preferences are. They are subjective. For god's morals to be objective, they would have to be based on some other fact.


You didn't really answer the question. If that were the case, would you consider murder, stealing, etc. good things?

It comes down to this:

If god's standard is subjective, then you follow a subjective standard of morality, regardless of what sort of authority you claim god has.

If god's standard is objective, you should be able to show where he draws this objective standard from. Saying "because god is objective" isn't really a sufficient argument.

@Pineapple
You quotes got formatted weirdly, so I'm going to reply this way. (Drupal!!!)
My take is that we diverge on the significance of that "some influence." Is the typical avowed theist a raving maniac? No, because they've embraced the benefits of secularism. However, that influence has been enough to hinder social, scientific, academic, and medical progress here in the US. It doesn't take the execution of intellectuals for religion to impact society in a negative way. It takes as little as voting against embryonic stem cell research, or voting for a politician that panders on that issue.
(Speaking about the modern US, not religion throughout history.)

Just curious, but how did it come to "atheism causes social goods"? It seems to me that social goods cause atheism is an equally viable explanation. When there is contentment within the populace, there is no desire for a higher power, no need for God's justice. Instead, as Westerners, we are genally able to live in luxury while 2 billion on earth live on a dollar a day. Besides, the capitalist system of desire and the nation state are fairly dogmatic and religious in people's general devotion to them. Admittedly not excplicitely deistic, but I think it's simply that the "deity" has been internalized or nationalized.

Let's put it this way: in my experience, if it actually smells like fish, there's something very, very wrong. 

Okay, now I read the entire paper about "TAG" that Todangst wrote and I found that there were quite a few errors that undermine his own position (as well as destroy the very premises he has sought to prove). I will point out a few of them here.

My apologies to everyone for taking so long. I've been rather busy:

I don't even know what Todangst is trying to say here, other than he thinks that the TAG doesn't really say anything or doesn't have any sort of method by which to prove itself. I guess Tod is just saying that he believes that the TAG is merely an assertion rather than an argument.

I can think of one particular argument that dualists use (and theists) that tells us something. The argument from reason goes as such:

1. No believe is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

2. If materialism (most Atheism, though I would argue all[i]) is true, then all beliefs can be explained in terms of nonrational causes.

3. Therefore, if materialism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred.

4. If any thesis entails the conclusion that no belief is rationally inferred, then it should be rejected and its denial accepted.

5. Therefore, materialism should be rejected and its denial accepted.

 

^----- The argument above kills two birds with one stone. First, it debunks the foundations of Atheism (or the conclusion of Atheism; whichever), by asserting that belief cannot be rationally inferred from nonrational causes. By debunking materialism, it opens the way to Dualism (i.e. immaterial mental states), which opens us to the option of God.

So I cannot understand why Todangst believes that TAG (or other pressupositional arguments) don't really [i]say or attempt to say anything. Saying that TAG and other dualists arguments are "naked" simply raises the questions as to what sort of evidence Todangst has for this other than his bias towards materialism.

Now this is just odd. Terms like "immaterial" and "transcendent" are without "ontological status"? What does he mean here? The whole field of Ontology (a subfield of metaphysics) deals with the very question, "What is existence?" Is he saying that these terms are nonexistent because they are incoherent (which would raise a question of epistemological value rather than ontological) or is he saying that something that is "immaterial" or "transcendent" doesn't exist because the terms are incoherent? Ontologists use these words all the time, so in what way are they "incoherent", because they are negative statements? To say that something is 'immaterial' is simply to say that something is not limited to the material realm or made of that realm. This is not "incoherent", rather it is simply vague. Vagueness is not necessarily similar to incoherence. To be incoherent is to not say anything at all (or to be too confusing to say anything), while being vague tells us a little bit about the properties of something.

Negative statements are not inherently incoherent. They do tell us something; they tell us what something isn't, and in some sense this leads us to infer positive conclusions to that something's existence. For instance, to say that something is incorporreal is to say that it cannot be limited by space. This is to say that such a Being can be everywhere and nowhere at once (which is not a contradiction if you think about it for a second). In addition, it makes the obvious statement that to be outside of the material realm, it cannot also be a part of the material realm.

What Todangst appears to be doing is applying his arbitrariness to the equation. It is obvious that his materialists bias has already infected the beginning of this argument.

Perhaps Todangst is the mark of a new era of philosophers who finally stumbled upon the blunders of Ontological thinking and now we must discard these terms because of their "incoherence", but I highly doubt that. While negative statements are vague and safe due to our lack of knowledge and comprehension to what is beyond the material realm (if such a thing exists) it doesn't mean we should just stop trying to figure out if such things exists.

If I may be so bold, Todangst is basically saying that because he finds the terms not clear enough for his liking (or applicable to the material realm), that they aren't worth using or trying to explain what we cannot fully understand.

But it appears that Todangst is playing word games here. He begs the question by assuming that the only type of existence is contingent (already at the beginning of his argument is appears). I'm also confused (due to Todangst incoherence in this part of the argument; just tongue and cheek, my friend ), about what he refers to as a '"tautology" . Which statement or set of attributes is he claiming to be a tautology? He needs to clarify here.

Is he saying that the statement: "An omnipotent being created" is a tautalogy? What is it exactly?

Well, he's basically saying that something 'supernatural' cannot be the fountain of natural laws because it doesn't follow...but let's see if that's true in this argument.

 

Which didn't make any sense.

This doesn't make any sense. First, he says that something cannot point to something that has no ontological status, being that it has ontological status. We already discussed this little incoherence above, so I don't even know where he's going with this. He then goes on to say that something created and sustained by a 'supernatural force' cannot create something that is 'lawful', but that the universe would be 'magical'.

If no one sees the problems in this statement already, allow me to explain: He is assuming that a supernatural force would create something 'magical', which doesn't actually mean anything, because he hasn't defined what 'magical' is. And by saying this he is equally implying statements without any 'ontological status', as he so puts it. So how he can make a positive statement about the nature of a universe created by things that are 'incoherent' by nature of being negative is beyond me. Now, I personally believe positive things can be inferred by negatives, but it seems as though he doesn't so this little statement already undermines the argument.

I assume he is saying that "laws" imply limitations and limitations are only a part of the natural realm, but this also raises the question as to what he means by this. If Todangst is a materialists, then what we have is all we can have and that's that. Nothing is truly limited, but equal. Or perhaps he is just saying that laws and nature are part of the material realm and something that is "supernatural" is above this and therefore cannot create that, which it transcends. The problem with this is that it seems to assume that the meaning of 'transcendence' equates to something being limited to OUTSIDE the material realm and having no qualities of the material realm itself, but this needs to be explained, because simply because something is above something else does not mean that that something does not have the characteristics of the thing that created it.

Take for instance, this analogy: A building plan was created by the mind (or mental images) of an individual and then from that a physical building was created. Would we say that this is impossible? Our thoughts are not affected by the laws of gravity. I cannot throw my thoughts into the air. I cannot test my thoughts. If I may say this...my thoughts are not limited to time and space. They are inside my mind, but they are not 'contained' therein. I can transmit my thoughts through language. They cannot be contained. Thoughts are without any shape or form.

Now, you could say that they are and they are just chemical and electrical reactions in the brain and that's that, but then you run into some issues (as the Argument From Rationality points out rather nicely). I would say that if something has the same status as something else that it cannot adequately say anything about that something because it must pressupose something transcendent of itself (laws of logic) so as not to be arbitrary.

The problem here is that Todangst is assuming that the First Cause must necessarily be part of the causal chain simply because It causes something. I argued this in a recent paper, that simply because a First Cause causes something, does not mean it loses its status of being the "First Cause". This reminds me of the times when I and other Theists present the Cosmological argument, a non-believer ask (in the form of an objection, nonetheless), "Then what created God?". The problem with this question should be obvious to anyone knowing of the First Cause argument. For something to be the First Cause it must have two attributes before anything else: Immutability and it must be Eternal. Cause and Change are interlinked into what we call "Time". To be unchanging it must not become different. It must retain all its attributes. Now, if such a Thing or Being is a non-thinking entity, It has a hard time with being immutable, since, by randomness, It must change Itself (not willingly) to cause something. Now, mental states can equally be immutable, but by causing something from a mental state, such a state does not need to change. If this Being (a thinking entity) were to decide to create a world, that desire could be inherent within the character of that Being, and therefore the act of creation would not be a violation of It's Immutability. Continuing from here, as Dr. William Lane Craig argues, the act of creation itself, then, would be the beginning of time and causation as we know it and would allow the Creator to still be outside of time, while within the realm of the temporary and material.

But, as I pointed out before, you are using terms without any "ontological status" and therefore undermine your own argument.

Wait a second...I thought Einstein was a Deist? God can be limited. Supernatural does not imply "no limitations, it simply implies "above nature" (though some conceptions of the "Ultimate Being" do state that such a Being has no limitations). To be above something means to not have the characteristics of that something (true), but it does not imply that the creation itself does not have the characteristics of its Creator.

Well, sort of...the Euthyphro dilemma is more of an Ethical argument than anything else, though I can see where you're coming from a little bit here. The way this dilemma is dealt with is rather easy, though, since the argument relies more on appealing to the uncomforting reality of the arguments conclusion.

I'm going to tackle your first objection...not surprisingly...first. It is rather shallow in that it is a category error (which I assume is what you attempted to say rather than "stolen concept fallacy&quot. It is a category error in that you assume that 'nature' (as in the physical realm) and to have a nature are the same things. Nature, as not being the physical realm, can be defined as so: the particular combination of qualities belonging to a person, animal, thing, or class by birth, origin, or constitution; native or inherent character. Of course, they could be the same thing if you are assuming materialism is true, which would be begging the question.

Assuming that "supernatural" entails "no limitations" or that God is only defined in negative terms.

Well, that's rather "incoherent", isn't it

Or should I say that the last part of this statement is a tautology?

Okay.

 

No. To define supernatural as you do is to say those things. To also assume that a creation cannot have characteristics of its creator (rather than simply presuming the other way around) is also to say those things. To use such "non-ontological" terms (as you describe them) in your argument is to undermine all that you have written.

And that's just half of the paper. In all honest opinion I don't think he knows what he's talking about. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's how I really think. No means to insult there, but I simply really think that he's outside of his own niche (psychology I presume?). I'm no Doctorate in Philosophy myself, but I find the errors and lack of explanation here on his part to be rather obvious. I know he's written other papers on these 'problems' (inevitably leading up to this one), but the errors don't really give reason to look at those.

 

Sorry guys, I'm just not buying it. My apologies if I offended Tod or anyone for that matter, but I really wasn't trying to. I just don't think these ideas are correct.

Now I'm going to address Fish, once again: 

 

Yes, I said that rather hastily and recanted it in the next response after thinking it over. The problem with calling God "subjective" with his morals, as you have so defined in this little statement, is that by doing so He is not basing them on "fact". The reason this is a problem is that the First Cause is fact. This is to also say that God is immutable, which would mean that God is not basing anything off of anything, but Himself, because there is nothing else to base anything off. And this is to say that God would consider there to be anything else at all to begin with. To say that the First Cause is "subjective" is to commit a category error.

 

 

Actually, no I didn't. I said that by following God I was following an objective standard, not God's objective moral standards. 

 

That's to say that any other such preference exists that is on par with His own, which is to say "none". And that is to say that it is a preference to begin with.

But you are saying that the First Cause is unjustifiable because it  is not caused by something else, which is fallacious in and of itself.  To apply subjectivity to the First Cause is categorically absurd.

God has no "prejudice". If God was all there was before anything else ever existed then there is no "prejudice" there. "Prejudice" assumes that something is "not prejudice". There is no distinction of "preference" in the First Cause to assume preference to begin with.

Pressuming that you find the idea of the First Cause and category erros to be contradictory in nature.  

Because there is no other source. It's impossible for the First Cause to have a source. It is the source. To deny this is to undermine all rationality and thought completely (as noted in my critique of Todangst article). Human preferences may in fact exists, but these are just limited mental contstructs stemming from a greater source; limited constructs who's preferences are not the source itself by which it it can justify things to be "factual" to begin with. 

That might not even make it a preference if you are determined to like something, which raises the question as to how you can believe the First Cause has a preference if it is determined to act the way it acts (immutability).

 

Aside from the preference objection I stated above, if God is the very fact (First Cause) then there is nothing to base anything on other than Himself. He has no choice and must have no choice  in the matter to be the First Cause.

Actually, I did. I just don't think you were satisfied with the answer. Yes, I would consider them "good" because there is nothing else to consider if I am basing my morals off an objective standard (something other than myself).  Whether I feel that way or not is irrelevant, though the Theology I follow shows that some moral absolutes are ingrained within the human pscyhe. 

It comes down to this:

True, assuming that subjectivity can be applied to God, which I argue that it cannot.  

 

But it actually is perfectly reasonable to say that He draws it from Himself because He can be nothing, but Himself as the First Cause. The whole issue of subjectivty cannot seem to be adequately applied to such a Being. To me, it makes absolutely no sense. 

 Sorry, there must have been a SQL error. Can you re-post the part where you explain something? It looks all garbled, like you just posted four statements that are unsubstantiated and don't cohere into an argument. I know you didn't do that.

 So you've been misusing the word. This goes a bit further than equivocation. It doesn't bode well for a discussion.

First off, how was I missusing the word? Irrational and Nonrational are clearly two different things. Further, I don't see why you must assume I purposefully am trying to decieve here. 

Okay, Tilberian, this is going to be my last response towards you for a number of reasons that I will list after I've raised my objections.

Well, if you are just going to be rude about it without any formal explanation then I don't see why I should take your objection any more seriously.

1.) I wouldn't consider myself a "fundementalists" in the same way you are referring (I suppose you mean Southern Evangelist).

2.) I do believe religious concepts and certain claims can be backed by empirical evidence , though I am not an Intelligent Design "Theory" advocate or a Creation Scientist.

3.) You didn't answer my questions.

Subjectivism rules out distinctions because there are really no distinctions to be made. Your opinion is no better or worse than anothers because there are no objective distinctions for determining if your subjective view of 'wrong' is better than person B's subjective view of "right". Distinctions are ultimately an illusion.

 

What I want or don't want is irrelevant. What is required to make moral judgements or moral statements is the crux of the matter here. Further, I would object that we have never seen or had a tangible "mind" either, but I don't see you objecting to that. I could even go on to say that no one has ever seen a "law".

So you confess to a circular argument (begging the question)? And also an appeal to something...saying that it is "pathetically obvious", which doesn't prove anything at all.

A group ethic is not a "transcendent" thing. It's just a group of agreeing individuals that make up one entity. And you were correct in scare quoting the "objective" because it isn't objective at all. It's an ad popullum.

Sorry, don't follow. It must be because I'm a deluded Theists, though, right? Oh wait, "Theist" and "deluded" are the same thing! Sorry for being redundant.

Explain.

I think you're a little misguided about what rationality entails if you believe that simply being rational will lead to the same conclusions.

Which is ultimately a human invention (rationality) by your own concession, therefore it is circular.

Your basis for claiming rationality and morality don't withstand your claim to rationality.

Explain why that is irrational to begin with and by what standard do you imply something is "irrational".

Insulting people (and a number of other things) when they have not done the same to you usually prompts an apology.

Actually, no. Either you forget what you say easily or you are lying. This is what you inferred from what I said earlier, which is why I objected to begin with:

You asserted that I said that religion makes people poorer, which was never the case at all and you have yet to recant from that statement, still assuming that is what I said.

Actually, that would be "raising the question". Begging the Question is the formal way of saying "circular argument". It has become confused with the objection of "raising the question". Look it up if you don't believe me.

They should reinforce nothing as your entire notion is dependant on assuming that religion is "bad" and "non-religion" is good. Whether certain religions were "outsted" does not prove your point, because other religions were the ones doing the ousting, which simply shows that religion is still the influence for these advancements.

Also, your assumption about Catholic doctrines placing Europe in "intellectual stasis" is an unsupported opinion among scholars today. The Catholic Church was responsible for the modern paradigm we now know as the "University". Catholic monastaries were responsible for teaching science and other fields of learning long before the Reformation and the Enlightenment. There was no "stasis". This is simply a Reformer bias that leaked into the secular minds of the Enlightenment in hopes to undermine the Catholic Church further and uplifting a more Protestant ideology.

Further, another example that undermines your entire point, being that religion is the true influence behind these changes and not some overthrow of religion.

Whatever "true measure of human spirit" even means to you. You're not a dualist, remember? And you're also a subjectivists, so I don't even know why you're stating this sort of social progress as an undisputed fact.

Yes, because we've certainly seen progress coming from non-religious (or anti-religious) countries in the past century, right?

And it led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. And Russia is not "modernized". The only thing giving those people hope, security, and a life over there still are the religious institutions, not the secular, religious undermining government.

Religiosity went into decline? Really? I could have sworn that statistics show that the religiousity of the United States hasn't changed much in the past century or so.

So are you assuming that the Protestants weren't Theists? It was a battle ultimately waged on Theological foundations. I don't understand how you're missing this.

Actually, that's false. The Church at the time followed an Augustinian ethic towards knowledge outside of the Bible and would often mold doctrines (as it does today) around truths found by Science etc. Galilleo was not persecuted because he was going against Catholic dogma. He was persecuted because Catholic dogma had allied with the popular scientific consensus of the time.

Sure, I'll go read those documents (when I find them), but I still see a great deal of bias in your statements that I feel will not be easily supported by History. Your perceptions of dogma are rather off as well; assuming that religion is the only thing that can be dogmatic, when certainly scientists have had their share of dogma in the past (denial of Continental Drift, anyone? Denial of Big Bang cosmology? etc.)

Which is exactly why the poor were never empowered to rebel against higher authorities, right? The big bad ole Church always kept them quiet and never did anything good for them.

Such a fairytale you've created. I'm rather impressed.

Similarly, I am still waiting for you to admit that your one sided view is rather dogmatic and unreasonable, based on biased assumptions stemming from your hatred.

Russia is still a waste and China is only finally coming into its Industrial Revolution. You pointed these two out as an example of "progression". Sure, we can go through who had the most death counts in history and see who's the "better" (whatever that even means to a subjectivist), but in the end, to say that Russia and China were in any way "progressive" for the mass slaughtering of their citizens that were primarily religious, is rather sickening and disturbing. To even say it wa "worth it" in some way exposes the sort of thinking you are inclined to. Though I would not wish to judge any further I will give a small generalization of how I feel at the end of this response.

The article simply undermined what you tried to prove and further did not address the entirety of what I was saying (which I explained afterwards). Also, once again, note your complete and utter distaste for religion so much that you are not even willing to afford any sort of "good" to it, by any means.

I wasn't trying to spin anything; just showing how the article undermines your previous point. And even if I were trying to spin it, how would that be any different than your petty assumption that religion only does evil and the anti/non-religious do good? At least I can admit that religion has done bad and the non-religious have done bad, but you can't seem to do that. You simply seem to believe that religion is "evil" and non-religion is "good".

 

I never said "secular countries are bad". I simply read the article and determined that it undermined your point and didn't prove anything.

What makes something "objective"? Someone who isn't religious? Isn't this a subjective opinion that souly rest on prejudice? The article points out rather well that despite the promotion and sales of condom use by non-Catholic authorities, it has not stemmed the virus from spreading further.

Actually, I posted it in this topic. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

Now, to explain why this will be my last response to you. I will list them in order:

1. You insult me by calling me "stupid" and you have a tone of bigotry eminating from your responses; similar to how a racist would talk to another race. You seem to believe I am below you or something or not even worth a thought, which seems odd in light fo the fact that you are debating me to begin with.

2. You don't take me seriously and it appears you have made up your mind to the point that anything that comes from the mind of a Theist is not worthy of attention.

3. You won't pay me the same respect as I have paid you in this discourse, such as reading the material that is provided.

4. Debate is about learning and opening ones mind to possibilities. I have argued my points and I expect rebuttals (which I have recieved), but not only do you make light of my views, you openly reject any research into them (such as your dissmissal of my article) and you seem to believe that anything religious or associated with Theists is inherently immoral.

 

So, besides me being personally insulted, I feel that this discussion is ultimately meaningless now, not simply because of your attitude, but because you aren't debating and you are not even bothering to take me seriously. So really, it simply comes down to the fact that you are not interested in sharing ideas or debating them. You are only interested in degrading me, which is not the reason why I am here.

 

Though I wish you luck in the days to come and I hope that God touches your soul someday. Good evening my friend.

 You said atoms aren't "rational." You meant something simpler, like conscious, of course, since something can be alive and conscious (which atoms are not), and still wildly irrational, as you've demonstrated. That extra "ir" in front mean "not," BTW.

Now what could the lack of sentience in atoms possibly mean to human consciousness? To me, not a thing; but you brought it up after decrying the inadequacy of "materialism" as an explanation for, guessing from your last post, human sentience. If the consciousness, or lack thereof, of atoms is meant to bear on the question of materialism as an explanation for human consciousness, that's a composition fallacy. If that's not your argument, I have no idea why the lack of awareness in atoms is meant to be important.

If instead you meant, in calling atoms "non-rational," (because they're not alive and not conscious) that their role in physics represents a "non-rational" (as in not logical) explanation, you're simply equivocating two different uses of the word. And it's a stretch at that to even justify the use of "rational" in reference to atoms, since our constituent particles diverge from us as a whole in a number of ways before you get to the dubious question of their "rationality." It's a bit like complaining that the number seven isn't garlicy.

 [edited for clarity] 

 

Look at the boycott of 'gangsta rap'. People think that motivates gang activity/shootings etc....

 

So don't try to apply this appeal to fear garbage. 

 

 We seem to be discussing two different issues here:

 

One is the violence

Two is the political hinderence

 

I was talking about one, you are apperantly talking about two.

 So, for two, we can fix that with better education. Getting science in schools etc.....

 

double post

T4P though I've seen this before......I saw an article online not too long ago saying pretty much that countries would be better off w/o religion or fared better w/o it...I wish I'd saved the article well the link to it....i'm trying to find the exact one.

Scribe,

It appears that your entire argument rests on the fact that god had no choices in the creation of moral standards, or, by that reasoning, anything at all.  Is that true?

 

Let me see if I understand:

Theists follow what they believe god says is morally right, regardless of whatever facts may exist to suggest alternatives, and so are objective.

Atheists, bereft of some divine instructions, are forced to think of reasons to act in ways they consider moral and provide justifications for those actions, and so are subjective.

Is this right? 

 

 

 

 

You honestly think that an athiest does not have a way to think good v. evil? Maybe not in the same sence as you, but we do. Have you not heard of Athiest Volunteers???? We try to be good people too, and just as the rest, not all work out, but most athiests believe in being a good person for them. When you, on the other hand, are looking for a reward (aka. "Heaven&quot for doing good deeds, we do our good deeds with intentions of getting nothing in return after death. (death meaning DEATH, not an afterlife...)

OK, the results are in:

Dogmatic Theist Caution:  Do not use my statements for the purposes of disinformation.  I will call you on it and relentlessly see to it that you are exposed as a dis-informer.  My conclusions and observations do not in ANY WAY support claims that there is ANYTHING wrong with being an atheist.  The following is only a critique of the referenced data and claims made thereof.

That being said, it appears that my original inclination was correct, the referenced chapter actually does not have a quantified correlation claim.  It is only arbitrary, qualitative and based on others' statistics without elaborating on each statistical relevancy.

The chapter started by identifying the issues with the methodologies for ascertaining accurate religious/non-religious demographic numbers.  However, he did not bother to explain how these statistical surveys dealt with the methodological problems.  So, instead of elaborating on the known imperfections of the referenced surveys that he used, he offers up a quote from Robert Putnam saying "We must make do with the imperfect evidence that we can find, not merely lament in its deficiencies."  I guess Zuckerman got some of it right, he showed the imperfect evidence, but did not elaborate on the associated deficiencies.  Nice try.

As if this was not enough, some of these stats (for countries where there were more than one survey done)  deviated almost 40% from the mean of the surveyed numbers.  Interestingly, 6 of the countries with this magnitude of deviation are within the top 12 and the other 4 are scattered from country 13 to 36.  In addition, the prioritization of the list appears to be arbitrarily set to the higher survey results rather than the mean (again this is for the countries that had more than one survey result to utilize).  This clearly creates a bias and there is no explanation for it in the documentation.

While he does arbitrarily, and qualitatively claim that there is a strong (not positive just strong) correlation between "high rates of individual and societal/well being and high rates of nonbelief in God" without any quantitative justification.  He redeems himself somewhat when he ultimately states:

This clearly delineates that this evidence does not support the claim of atheism being good for society.  So...as was pointed out earlier, the title for this article is false and classifiable as a non-sequitur.

While this data is largely inconclusive at best, the evidence does support the claim that atheism does not cause social disharmony or societal ills as the dogmatist claim.  So, again, there is no reason to rejoice for those theists making such claims as they are currently false and unsupported claims!