Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals.

Simply put: I disagree. When you say this what do you mean by the term 'a moral'? Why can morals not derive from an instinctual basis? What do you mean 'therefore not an actual moral or ethic'? I don't follow your logic. I think that's because you didn't provide it. So? What have lions or bears to do with this discussion? You skipped all this work from your thesis. This seems to presuppose that ethical reasons and natural reasons are mutually incompatible. Given that is what you are trying to argue, you have a problem. Assuming your conclusion makes it easy to reach your conclusion, but it is meaningless. I reject the notion of an objective morality. None of your points results in this conclusion. What is 'an actual ethic' and why did you include the qualifier 'in Reality'? There is much background conception here, that you failed to include in your post.

But it can form the basis of thought. There is a instinct to eat, that can make us form thoughts about food. An instinct to reproduce that make us think about attractive people and how to attract them. I don't see any reason to accept this definition. It would primarily imply, given nobody has infinite wisdom, that nobody has morals or ethics making the entire discussion moot. My definitions are about reality. Infinite wisdom and perfect thoughts are not demonstrated to be in reality. It is reality that some people think that eating meat is immoral, for instance. Some people disagree entirely, or disagree on when it is immoral to eat meat and what meats it is immoral to eat. That's reality. Those are actual moral positions that exist in reality.I too have rational morals in reality. I don't believe morals exist independently of the people that hold them, other than in some communal sense of the collective wisdom of humanity or some community within that.I can rationally explain morals, but you have failed to prove that there is a reasonable case that proves this is impossible. Your argument relies on definitions of morality and ethics that are peculiar to you.If you wanted to say 'It is impossible for atheists to believe a god is the originator of morality' it would have been tautologically true, but you didn't say this. If this is what you meant, you haven't really said anything interesting at all.Perhaps you should try again.

Yes. Yes. They could. False. Not superior. Different. Objectively right, wrong, good, bad or otherwise - then yes that's a reasonable short summary. If I come across such a creature, I won't attack it's actions. But how would I know if I had? No need, I'm already persuaded. I can find evil and good in my own actions. But I am a subjective entity, so my finding of these things is necessarily subjective. Killing another human being without justification. Slavery is the ownership of humans usually to force them into some kind of service.A zoo is, at its best, a place of conservation and study that funds itself through selling tickets to the public.Since they are different, they are not the same. Since they are not the same a zoo is not slavery. Unless, of course, actual morality is a changeable concept that suits the purposes of an intelligent and social species.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I'll take this a concession that instinct can and often is, the basis of a variety of thoughts and ideas. Exactly. And this is what we see with people. Millions of people with different ideas about morality all over the place. So it seems that the idea that instincts are involved is supported by what we see in actual reality. Well you might be amoral, but I have moral values. My moral system doesn't require a 'fantasy' infinite wisdom to exist and be available for consultation. It relies on real things we know are real in actual reality. Your definition relies on a fantasy being with infinite wisdom that cannot be shown to exist in actual reality and thus your definition has morals not actually existing in actual reality.Sounds perverse to me, I'll stick with my system over yours. Good, yes. That's right. You seem to raise this as if it were a problem, I don't see the problem. I'm not arguing for anything other than different ideas that vary between humans. So why would I say otherwise? You didn't supply an argument that shows this. Since I can explain morality rationally, whatever your argument is must be wrong somewhere. Either
a) You can read my mind
or b) You are wrong.If a) - Please show your evidence. Well exactly - so why did you decide to deny the existence of atheistic thoughts in the first place?Now all you have to do is supply your argument that God is the only rational way to establish an absolute moral standard and your work is done. No Dawn. It being evil to kill humans with no justification does not imply anything about the morality of killing non-humans with some justification. It depends why the hypothetical person didn't want them there. I'd be happy to have a colony of rats in my backyard as long as they weren't causing any problems. I love rats - they're awesome.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I agree. We just disagree over the fact that this creator is divine. I see no reason to suppose the creator is divine, or has infinite wisdom. I see reason to suppose the contrary. What do you think the 'Naturalistic doctrine' is? Which would explain why everybody disagrees all the time. Huh, this theory seems to have legs after all. Or did God put different absolute moralities inside us?

Sure. We evolved to be a socially cooperative species. Our instincts are honed towards working with one another against external threats. A murderer is an external threat. Our instincts whisper 'evil' to external threats. Our intellect builds upon this to form morals and responses to those threats.To this end, me and my genes have a greater chance of survival than if it were every man for himself. Well now you've been told how it is possible. Does it impact me, or the chances of my genes reproducing if a lion kills a gazelle? No. So it doesn't speak strongly to my moral instincts. And yet I did. And I'm drawing on work from over 50 years ago. When I speak of evil I speak of 'very bad' or 'highly morally wrong'. In my opinion. I'm not talking about some supernatural abstract entity that you might be thinking of. No - there is no line. It's like the boundary of a fractal. The more you look, the more nuance, fuzziness, comes out. No I'm not. I said 'If I come across such a creature, I won't attack it's actions. But how would I know if I had? ' It depends what his actions are. His intelligence isn't strictly important. But yes, he might have purposes that make his actions justifiable - and thus I would not regard them as immoral, should I be aware of those justifications. I don't make a habit of assuming people more intelligent than me are morally correct merely on the basis of their intelligence. Yes, obviously. I have many systems. If I think Mozart is a good composer, and Schnberg was a bad composer, but another person thought Mozart was bad and Schnberg was good - who is right and who is wrong?If I think pineapple tastes bad and another person thinks it tastes good, who is right?With Mozart I could give examples of why I thought that way, as I can with morals. Consequentialism, deontology, utilitarianism etc etc. There are lots of systems out there, most people meld them into their own personal outlook.This doesn't present me with any problem that doesn't affect every other person in the world - yourself included. Is stealing food when you are starving wrong? If someone disagrees with you how do you know who is right? In that case I can explain things rationally: Evolution. Correct. I don't see the problem, however. They have their basis in biological evolution, built upon by culture, and honed through personal experience. So I'd say you were strictly wrong - but yes evolution played a key role in the formation of morals and they are a recent thing.I don't see the problem, or how this means I cannot explain them. It seems like, in a broad overview sense, I just did - and you were already aware of this explanation. This seems to undermine your thesis in this thread considerably.Allegedly only has one 'd' in it, by the way. Easy mistake to make. According to whom? I wasn't there, so I can't really comment. As a Roman might have thought them good. As a gladiator I may have felt differently. If I was there as I am today, I'd say they were bad - but I can think of reasons why I might change my mind.If they were introduced today, I'd say they were bad. Killing people for entertainment has all manner of negative consequences for me and my society. It achieves little or no good to compensate. Thus, it is immoral. We were created by evolution, which it transpires, evolved us into cooperative primates. This means our baseline brain structure has built in moral instincts. Therefore our creator did indeed put 'intrinsic law' 'inside of' us, but the blind forces of nature are hardly divine. I hope this was interesting and revealing.

If I had come across such a creature. How would I know if I was dealing with an creature of 'infinite wisdom'? Seems impossible to know, to me. Assuming God is infinitely wise and we have verified this to be the case. Given it is impossible to verify this, I expect I will make moral judgements of any deity's actions as much as I would of anybody else. Well, not quite. The moral instinct evolved towards influencing behaviour that maximised success and minimised failures of my genes to reproduce. However, culture and personal experience have added on top of that basis in much the same way as language, music, an culinary ideas have built upon some basis over the history of our species. Sure. I don't know what it means for a life to be 'on a par' with mine. My wife has more moral consideration for me than some guy in Africa. It it was a choice between killing my wife and killing a South China tiger - I'd kill the tiger. If it was a choice between the same tiger and some guy in Africa - the guy in Africa probably loses out. Assuming the decision was 'press a button'. If I was looking them in the eyes, I'd probably kill the tiger both times.So I don't think there is a simple metric of parity or equality I can give you in moral terms here. Morality is not as simple as assigning simple yes/no answers to moral questions and including or excluding any given entity that might be of moral concern.Again, this is like trying to compare Mozart to Meatloaf. I can have opinions, but I can't give concrete metrics that universally apply for all time and conditions. Indeed, my rationalizations, when examined, are likely to result in contradictions or paradoxes - just like moral rationalizations often do.Welcome to subjectivity. Yes, which I did, "They have their basis in biological evolution, built upon by culture, and honed through personal experience" It does not follow logically since right and wrong do exist, as judgements. When you say 'acceptable' you are supposing an 'acceptor'. If you killed my wife, I'd likely not find your behaviour 'acceptable'.In much the same way that 'sweet' or 'beauty' exists, it requires a subjective entity to make the judgement, and entities can have different judgements.Goodness is not an objective quantifiable thing like mass or height, that exists whether there is someone around or not.Goodness is a subjective qualitative thing like 'sexy' or 'uplifting'. Like beauty, goodness (and evil) are in the eye of the beholder. No beholders, no goodness. With beholders, there is goodness. And everyone else's, of course. Thanks, I'm quite the fan of a good 'd'.It's a blind process until we get involved. At that point an intelligence is involved, which takes it out of the 'blind' category. I anticipate your response 'but intelligence, according to you, is just blind processes at work too!' well yes, but it would be most peculiar to assert 'My computer was built by blind processes'. 'Blind' has to have some pragmatic meaning, and it usually means 'without intelligence/forethought'. Morality involves intelligence, so while all of this is ultimately built by blind processes, morality itself is not built by blind processes. That's one of those fun linguistic paradoxes that arrive from trying to meld different scopes of examination. I'm sure of plenty of things. How I'd feel if I was born a Roman 2,000 years ago? Not so much. I'm sorry subjective judgements of extreme hypotheticals being ambiguous is unsettling to you - but then, the ambiguity of morality has been with us for a long time. Again, is it right to steal food if you are starving and have no other way to get food? How would you resolve this with absolute certainty if someone were to disagree with you? Show me how you do better. I can have what opinion I like, thank you very much. And I can still think that it's wrong of you to do it. As can others. Indeed, some others may think it is right of you to do it. That's right, and your thoughts about whether the actions are right or wrong are also an addition to biological processes. So what's the problem, exactly? We are a social species, evolved to be sensitive to the rules of our community. These rules are built off a basis the instinctive responses to situations with the added layer of reasoning on top of that couple with our cultural inheritance which represents the instincts+reasoning that came before us and were generally adopted by the community.

Objectively they were none of these.
Subjectively they were immoral.Are you honestly still having difficulty with this? I understand you disagree morals are subjective, but you seem to still be struggling on what subjective morality actually means.We haven't even got the point in the discussion when talking about normative vs descriptive would make sense. I suggest you try your best to understand your opponents rather than trying to leap at every opportunity for victory - it's just causing you to go in circles.

Then stop asking questions you already know the answer to. Yes, your opinion is quite clear. Indeed, that's largely all you've done in this thread, repeat this position. Is there an objective 'sweetness'?
An objective 'entertaining'?
An objective 'pleasant'?
An objective 'comfortable'?
An objective 'painful'?
An objective 'humour'?Or do you concede these are subjective?

So you don't know. Got it. I don't know either. Because I am not infinitely wise, how would I determine this creatures demonstrations aren't deceptive inventions from a more intelligent but not infinitely wise creature?Being imperfect, I can't rely on my own judgements when it comes to determining if something else is infinitely wise. Bigger meaning? Meaning is subjective too. It has meaning to me, and other people. That meaning does not exist external to us though. If I were to show you some 'bigger meaning' it would in fact undermine my entire argument, so it's not really a 'real test' of my ideas at all. It matters to me. Again, something 'mattering' is a subjective perspective.I'm sure you'll get the hang of it, if you really wanted to. I'm not claiming it is. Go for it. In your own time. I reject your criteria of legitimacy as illegitimate. Is it morally right to steal food to feed a starving child? Yourself? A horse thief? A murderer? Please, I've answered plenty of your moral questions - you continue to ignore mine.

Great. Now 'social rules for how primates believe is the optimum way to order society and interact with one another' is just another in the list. The explanation for morality is the same as the explanation for sweetness and pain, and humour.Atheism, or rather science, provisions us with explanations. Your thesis is defeated. They are happening to me. A subject. Therefore they are subjective. Hrm, could you describe the difference between objective and subjective for me? I think we're using different definitions.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

And you missed the point of mine. So I guess that makes us even on this one. I dispute that, but let's assume it is true. How would I be able to tell between an infinitely wise creature being honest, and a creature that is much smarter than me who is being dishonest? After all, if it can outsmart me, it might be able to convince me it is infinitely wise when in fact it isn't. Agreed? One can explain the subjective. You haven't demonstrated otherwise. I don't see why I need to demonstrate something that is contrary to my opinion.Again you raise the issue of one thing having more meaning than another. Again I respond: according to whom? Neither can you. The difference between our positions is that I don't need to. If you had answered this particular question before, please tell me where.Otherwise your assertion that I lie, is a lie - by the same standards. So allowing children to starve to death is morally right?And if I disagree - how can we tell which of us is right?Let's say the mass of an apple is an objective fact. If we disagree about the mass of apple we can use measurements to ascertain the truth. That's how objective things work.The tastiness of the apple is a subjective fact. I might think it is tasty, you might think it is too sweet. Sounds comprehensive. You however managed to undermine your earlier argument in the process though:

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No none of these are objective, but there not subjective either in your thinking.

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Neither objective nor subjective? That seems clearly impossible. 'anything that is not' objective is subjective, right? I didn't say science gives me morals - you are making that up. I said science can explain morals. Since you agree that it may very well do this, that supports my argument that I can indeed explain morals. Since your argument is that I cannot - I seem to be winning the argument.

It's also my response. You can tell, because that is how I responded. Oh according to you? That's your affair.I can find more meaning between one process and another, there is therefore meaning to me. How? You offered your opinion. How does that resolve our difference of opinion? We can weigh an apple to determine its mass. How do we weigh our opinions to determine who is right? Why? Because neither of us knows the truth at the point of argument. I mean does it really matter about the details? I assume God exists when you create hypotheticals is it really so hard for you to assume we might argue over the mass of an apple for the sake of argument.Yes, objective truths about apples exist. That was the first point of the argument. We can resolve which of us right about the mass of the apple using an objective measure - such as its weight.
The second point is that there are also subjective truths about the apple. Such as how tasty each of us may find it. There is no objective measure of tastiness.Likewise, the state of my brain when faced with a moral question is an objective truth about my morality.
My perspective of the rightness of a moral action is a subjective truth about morality. If you insist, in which case you are just plain wrong. Sweetness is subjective, in my thinking. As I explicitly said. 'Just junk happening' is not a third category. Sweetness is either objective or subjective. I say it is subjective. So do you. My only job here is to show I can, in principle, rationally explain morals - yours is to show that in principle I cannot. I can do show my point with reference to science. I don't need to show morals have objective meaning as I don't believe they do. Just because something does not have objective meaning doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't mean it cannot be explained. Subjective morals have subjective meanings.If your argument is simply: 'Atheists cannot explain objective morality', then we agree. I don't accept there is an objective morality. There are objective facts about morality, but nothing that is 'objectively good' or 'objectively evil'. Nothing that has any meaning external to our minds.

No. Meanings are not moral or immoral. Wrong. As I said in the section you were quoting from. So what? It has a truth, I value it. If you don't - that's your business. What the f...? How does my decision making being inconsistent mean I cannot be faced with a moral decision? Of course it can you strange person. I find it tasty, therefore it is, according to me, tasty. Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.I mean, the tastiness of an apple is very much subjective. How could it be anything else? What are you gibbering madly about? So what? To me and those close to me. The reasons are beyond the scope of this discussion. I have no idea what you are trying to communicate. You seem to be using words in a completely different fashion than English speakers.I may find something to be moral. I can explain how it can be that I find something moral or immoral. You haven't demonstrated I cannot.Value and meaning are irrelevant to whether I can explain morality. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

The Law of ExclamationBut don't forget Cohen's Law:

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Whoever resorts to the argument "whoever resorts to the argument that... has automatically lost the debate" has automatically lost the debate.

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Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.