So you're an atheist. Ok, what next?

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

I'll have to Google that.

There is a God for all of that at once?

Daniel: Hathor was the Egyptian goddess for fertility, inebrity and music.
Jack: Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll?
Daniel: In a manner of speaking.
http://www.tv.com/stargate-sg-1/hathor/episode/7332/summary.html

 

[thaiboxerken]

Anyway chaps, I'm taking a break from this thread.
Don't forget that God loves you

Which one?

Jesus doesn't love you, he's dead.

 

[X]

Unfortunately for Safe-Keeper I'm also an adhomophobe.
I also find you copying someone else's post who was so freely spouting insults, and italicizing it for me,...well, not an inspiring point of departure for a discussion. Good luck talking to someone else.

I didn't see any insults being spouted. Merely an illustration of why your question as to whether one would prefer living in a communist country of a religious country was a poor analogy.

Shall I take your response to mean that you are not going to answer my question?
Pity. Perhaps someone else will post it and you can answer them. I think it would do you well to consider that question, and how it relates to your premise of "objective morality".

For anyone who wants too hear PJ's answer, the question follows:

If there were an objective morality, then it seems reasonable to expect people everywhere to hold extremely similar set of morals.

Yet this does not happen.

Why?

And please don't argue "they just haven't looked for the right morals", unless you are going to provide a clear, unambiguous explanation of what the "right" morals are (hint: just because you disagree with them, doesn't make them "right", indeed, the people whose morals you disagree with likely have the same opinion of you).

 

[devnull]

Not sure I could kill a lamb though - tasty though they are.

You only believe that because you have never been hungry.

 

[zooterkin]

So why is plumjam avoiding my question?

I don't know; possibly the same reason he's started avoiding mine.

 

[joobz]

I don't understand why subjective meaning in one's life is so much less appealing to people like Plumjam than an imaginary objective meaning. Just because meaning and morality can be shown to have evolved like anything else in the universe does not make it any less real or satisfactory.

I understand Plumjam's point of view. From an my american perspective, it was the ultimate appeal to authority that, in somes ways, was nessessary to create the government we have now.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ..."

Monarchies were empowered by the thought that a ruling class was given domain over others. It seems somewhat logical, and from a debate standpoint needed, that the same evocation would be used against such ruling bodies. At the time, it is unlikely that people would have accepted human rights for humanity's sake.

I think to some extent, Plumjam's view that we need this higher power for rights and morality is simply a social or logical anacrohonism. One that's difficult to shed because of the power it has demonstrated so often. Yet, we do not need such appeals to authority to demand morality and human rights. This appeal to moral authority has resulted in as much injustice as good. We can simply hold humanity to it's own social self improvement. We should be focusing on the social good that is kept in balance with the will of the indvidual. Nowhere in this balancing act is there a requirement for external approval. That desire for such an approval typically results in hindered social development for people fear the wrath of their never seen father figure.

In fact, "I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, but they often endow their Creator with certain alienating Rights that among these are infidels, gentiles and pagans." No, there is no need for such an authority.

One final, and I think unsaid point, is that there are very real conflicting goals that exist which make moral decisions extremely difficult. But such difficulties were only ever superficially easier because of a diety. By using secular moral arguments, we must face the real dilemmas head on and take full responsibility for the actions we finally decide. This final point may be the one that makes theists like DOC, Plumjam, etc, most afraid of accepting the non-god moral position. Responsibility is terrifying.

 

[Mobyseven]

By your logic all subjective assessments are literally of equal value. So Hannibal Lecter is literally just as moral as Superman.

No, by his logic all subjective assessments are subjective. You can't assign definite objective values to subjective morals, because to do so would require an objective standard to measure against - which, as has been pointed out, we don't have.

But that would be nonsense.

Indeed. But I suspect for different reasons than you realise...

 

[Safe-Keeper]

By using secular moral arguments, we must face the real dilemmas head on and take full responsibility for the actions we finally decide.

But the funny thing is that, as you probably know, theists do this just like atheists - it's an illusion that they get their 'absolute' morality from the Bible when they themselves (or their pastors) pick and choose what passages to follow and how to interpret them.

For example, let's say you've got three societies. In Society A, the inhabitants live in a right-wing free marker system and the passages from Jesus about selling everything you have and giving the money you gain to the poor is ignored completely or explained away (for example by saying that the order applied only to the person Jesus was speaking to, or only to Jesus' disciples). In Society B, the passage is not ignored, but rather used as a reason for maintaining a socialist democracy with a high income tax, a significant part of which goes to the citizens of the lower class. And finally, in Society C, the passage, and those similar to it in meaning, are interpreted litterally, and the citizens live in a Communist society with a plan economy and no private property.

Society A, B, and C are vastly different, but adhere to the same book, and all could change gradually over time, just like real-world Christian countries have and continue to do. If the citizens of Society C, for example, figure out that their Communist system doesn't work, they may gradually move to the right towards a mixed economy system, and in the process reinterpret the passages on property and money. In fifty years, Society C may interpret them as metaphors, and live as Society B while still claiming that the Bible is the source of their economic philosophy.

Both theists and atheists determine right and wrong the same way - by having society as a whole slowly shape it into what the majority wants it to be. Morality is ever-changing, even among the most fanatical of religious societies.

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

Well the logical consequence of morality not being objective would be that it's subjective, so I can assume that's your position.

Hurrah, you finally see it!

Yes, plumjam, that's what I've been trying to tell you all along! It's so subjective that it's comparable with an aesthetic. I'm now going to do something that will blow your mind. Two statements:

• There is no absolute moral authority.
• The average nazi was immensely more evil than the average Swedish Social Democrat today. That is, he lived by a decidedly worse set of morals.

See how that works? You needn't be so scared that there isn't and can't be a set of objective morals - in this case you can have your cake and eat it. You can call my condemnation above "no better in any meaningful sense" all you want, but I'll fight tooth and nail anyone who tries to do what the nazis did. That is the level of my conviction, that is meaningful.

The above in response to this:

Therefore you have no real authority to say whether Hitler's Germany was practicing a better or worse moral system than, say, modern Sweden.
Hey, it's all just subjective! No system can therefore be better, in any meaningful sense, than any other.

Alright, the thread has moved far (three pages!) since I replied, so the above has been a response to this without reading ahead.

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

OK, one more and I'm going to bed.

the answer to the question is that for theists their beliefs are in harmony with their morality, but for exclusive materialist atheists their beliefs are out of harmony with their morality

because morality is deeper than beliefs this usually is not much of a problem, because atheists act, morally, as though their beliefs about the make-up of reality were those of theists

What utter nonsense. I'm sick and tired of the subset of theists who go around speaking of the common morality (which is part biological, part cultural and thus belongs to all) like they invented it. They keep stomping their puny feet and demanding respect: "To be a good person, you need to be in my special club and be special friends with my invisible friend, and if you won't submit to this then I'll just go around saying behind your back that you really secretly believe as I do but just won't admit it, 'cause my special belief is in something so special that it must have invented the very idea of a good person in the first place."

No, plumjam, you bloody well know you didn't come up with the concept of being a good person all on your own (and if any "god" of yours did it sure is making a good job of telling everyone something different) so stop trying to pretend that you did. It's rather transparent and annoying.

 

[rocketdodger]

My argument regarding atheism vis-a-vis morality is that when the exclusive materialist world view behind most atheism expresses itself socially in the form of new moral systems the result is disastrous, because it represents a drift away from the objective moral truth.

No, that is not your argument. That is your claim. But you haven't made any argument to support it. Care to begin? Its been 15 pages already, we are waiting...

This may seem paradoxical. Why is atheism more immoral on a social than an individual level?
Well, this is because atheists almost always (except when powerful social pressures are brought to bear upon them, such as under Stalin, Pol Pot etc..) may have atheistic beliefs, but they live (in the moral dimension) as theists.

Which theists and which atheists? I still don't see anything resembling an argument...

The reality is that through the history of religion this kind of thing has been the rare exception. However, under systems of morality based on atheistic materialism, this kind of thing was pretty much the rule.

You mean "under systems of morality based on atheistic materialism that were virulent and oppressive enough to compete with organized religion as the dominant meme in a society, this kind of thing was pretty much the rule."

Materialist morality held the seeds of its own destruction due to it being at odds with moral objective truth as discerned via the individual conscience.
This is why they were relatively short lived. Yet Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity..etc..as moral systems, have endured for thousands of years. Because, morally, they are much more in tune with the truth.

More claims... without any valid arguments to support them...

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

<< SNIP >>

Many aspects of the explanation I gave have been confirmed by religious figures. Most notably by Meher Baba, whose explanation mine was based on.

<< SNIP >>

You mean Meher Baba the looney Indian prophet who said he was God?

Do you believe he was correct when he claimed to be God? What objective reason do you have for believing that?

 

[rocketdodger]

Well the logical consequence of morality not being objective would be that it's subjective, so I can assume that's your position.

Therefore you have no real authority to say whether Hitler's Germany was practicing a better or worse moral system than, say, modern Sweden.

I have no authority to say so, unless someone cares for my opinion. And in that case, I have all the authority in the universe to say "I don't think the nazi moral system was very good at all -- I certainly wouldn't want to live under it."

Hey, it's all just subjective! No system can therefore be better, in any meaningful sense, than any other.

Well if you consider the sense of "what an individual capable of rational thought thinks" to be non-meaningful, then yeah. Except, most folks do...

 

[rocketdodger]

the answer to the question is that for theists their beliefs are in harmony with their morality, but for exclusive materialist atheists their beliefs are out of harmony with their morality

This is the 5th time you have said something like this since I asked you to provide an argument for why it is true. You still have not done so.

 

[rocketdodger]

the consequence of what you wrote is that if you knew you could get away with a crime that would benefit you, there's no real reason why you shouldn't do it.

And if it would benefit me, then why shouldn't I do it? Before you answer, you might want to think about what "benefit" means.

 

[rocketdodger]

You also think that modern Sweden is better than Nazism, morally speaking. If someone were to come along and tell you they feel Nazism more moral would you describe this person as more, less, or equally as moral as you?

I would say that this person does not share the same values as me. I would also say that they don't share the same values as most of the civilized world, and I would point out to them what happened to the last bunch of goons who did share their values.

 

[rocketdodger]

Fine. Devise a moral system based on materialist atheism. Start your own nation, and wait for the results.

This is not an argument that humans are incapable of living morally according to materialism.

Rather it is an argument that most leaders in human history are incapable of living morally according to materialism.

Big difference.

 

[rocketdodger]

We have no idea what is the 'mechanism' which makes consciousness possible.

By "we" you must mean "naive theists" because as a materialist who is also a programmer interested in cognitive science, I have a very good idea of these mechanisms. Furthermore, there are a great many people like myself. So I am confused as to who you are grouping yourself with here.

 

[rocketdodger]

So that will mean that people who are good at reasoning should be more moral than those who aren't so clever, shouldn't it?

It would. And that happens to be true. Do you disagree?

It is trivial to decide whether shooting a man in the head is right or wrong. It is non-trivial to decide whether starting a launch sequence on a nuclear warhead is right or wrong.

It is trivial to decide whether poisioning a man's drink is right or wrong. It is non-trivial to decide whether the chemical you want to use in your manufacturing plant will hurt the local population or not.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Well, one man's take on it.
There is also John Polkinghorne who was a quantum physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne

He seems to have arrived at conclusions diametrically opposed to Stenger.

Well Simon Blackburn seems to think that John Polkinghorne has got it wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Blackburn

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-realism

What are we into now? Dueling Arguments from Authority?