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Author | Topic: Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dawn Bertot Member Posts: 3571 Joined: |
But it is not what the story actually said. That is the problem Dawn, you do not believe the Bible says what the Bible actually says but rather believe what you wish the Bible actually said. Jar where you able to meet my challenge in bringing up any reputable scholars, that can, will and do support your explanation of biblical texts Jar I don't know how we would proceed without your wisdomy wisdom. Your just such a special gift that none of us appreciate Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given. Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.
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jar Member (Idle past 395 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Dawn writes: jar writes: But it is not what the story actually said. That is the problem Dawn, you do not believe the Bible says what the Bible actually says but rather believe what you wish the Bible actually said. Jar where you able to meet my challenge in bringing up any reputable scholars, that can, will and do support your explanation of biblical texts Jar I don't know how we would proceed without your wisdomy wisdom I don't need no stinkin scholars, I can actually read what is written. The apologists exist to make up excuses to pretend the Bible does not actually say what it does. I can point to the actual text. It is a practice called honesty Dawn. Try it sometime. Abe: Your very words convict you Dawn. You look to have someone explain what the Bible stories mean, instead of believing that they mean what they actually say. When I was a child I had to have someone point to an object and tell me it was called red or round or smooth or a ball or the moon, but pretty soon I could look at a new object and say with authority that it was a round red ball and not the moon or totally smooth. I can even learn that if I call it Aka instead of red or Kikyo instead of blue or Midori instead of green it is still what it is. You do not like what the Bible actually says. You do not like the fact that the Bible is filled with inconsistencies and falsehoods and factual errors and contradictions. So you and all the apologists out there add to the stories like Ilya the prostitute who told the Greek Tragedies but always made them end with everyone happy and going to the beach. It would do you good to watch Never on Sunday. It was one of the films they took us to see when I was a student at St. Paul's. Edited by jar, : see AbE
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Your "last extensive post" did not present any new argument, just recycled old argument already refuted ad nauseum, so no, I will continue to ignore those old falsified arguments. Then it is obvious you are not willing to debate. Atleast Modulous is giving it a try, he is actually debating. Follow along there, then jump in as you see fit Debate is not just repeating old arguments that have already been covered. In this case extensively. You would be debating if you actually dealt with the arguments I have put forward showing that ...
Morals are subjective, they are a type of memes that have evolved over time as a consensus control on social behavior, to reduce conflicts between individual members of a social group, and thus benefit the survival and continuous revitalization of the social group from generation to generation. If this true, then it would follow that the ability to reason would be apart of those memes, correct. So from a logical standpoint, it would follow that subjective morality, existing in a strictly Naturalistic enviornment, is a logical impossibility. ... So I'll take that as a NO, I'm going to waffle again Curiously you also claim
... So from a logical standpoint, it would follow that subjective morality, existing in a strictly Naturalistic enviornment, is a logical impossibility. Subjective realites, whatever they maybe, have no hope of existence, without objective realities. ... and
Outside of your imagination, there is no such thing as a square root, muchless the square root of....... That you don't see your second statement here contradicting your first statement is amusing. That's the kind of tangle you get into when you waffle.
Do you now AGREE that moral concepts as described here are subjective? YES or NO, I'm going to waffle again That's like asking me if I agree that a tree is a tree. ... So a subjective moral concept IS a subjective moral concept. Fascinating: you're going to both agree AND continue to waffle while pretending to disagree.
... You should have asked, do I agree that subjective moral concepts are a logical possibilty from an Atheistic standpoint. No Except that I didn't ask that question because it is self-evidently true, as has been explained already. In detail.
Sure but only if they are actually predicated by an objective morality, otherwise they are a logical impossibilty. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise. And there you go waffling again. You said
... For reasoning ability to exist, there needs to be outside your and myself objective realites, for reasoning to be capable. ... If we take this as true for the sake of argument, then we have the observed documented objective reality that there are as many subjective morality variations as there are people. You can't change "objective reality" in one premise to "objective morality" in the next and come to a valid conclusion: they are not equivalent or synonymous.
But I do like waffels. M mmmmmmm, waffels Of course you do, it's a basic characteristic of all your arguments.
Next: do you AGREE that memes (non-genetic information passed from generation to generation) exist? YES or NO, I'm going to waffle again Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Dawn B writes: Yes. Without the pineapple, there would be NO taste. With nothing to put in your mouth, there would be nothing to have taste or imagine tastiness, correct? So while the potential for your ability to taste at all, or to imagine tasiness, would exist as another objective reality, it would need to be predicated by an objective in reality, outside yourself, correct? So, your position is that there needs to be an object for us to be subjective about. We can't say whether we like the taste of a pineapple if it doesn't exist? This is your position? So, for the fifth time of asking. Please produce an example of your objective morality. Just one will be fine to start with. Then we can tell you whether we like the taste of it or not.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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jar Member (Idle past 395 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Tangle writes: We can't say whether we like the taste of a pineapple if it doesn't exist? We can't say we love unicorns and leprechauns or find rainbows beautiful even though they really don't exist?
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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jar writes: We can't say we love unicorns and leprechauns or find rainbows beautiful even though they really don't exist? That idea doesn't seem to be registering with Dawn.....in fact the very idea of an idea is being rejected by Dawn. Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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...in fact the very idea of an idea is being rejected by Dawn. Indeed, this is the hole he is digging to hide in rather than accept the reality of subjective morals. He seems to work his logic from conclusion backwards:
• subjective morals can't exist
∴ subjective concepts can't exist
∴ ideas can't exist
∴ reality can't exist Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : . Edited by RAZD, : .by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Dawn Bertot writes:
The question isn't whether absolute morality can or does exist. The question is whether theistic morality an be differentiated from atheistic morality. Since you admit that you don't know everything, it doesn't matter whether or not God has absolute standards because you don't know exactly what those standards are. So I don't need to know everything to know that absolute morality can and does exist. You can know that brain surgery exists without knowing how to do brain surgery. Similarly, you can "know" that absolute morality exists without knowing how to do absolute morality. So the question remains, how is your theistic morality different from anybody else's morality? You have to guess at what God wants while the atheist at least gets to rationally decide what is best for society. Your morality is less rational, not more.
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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~1.6 writes:
It's only fairly recently that rape has become a crime against women. It used to be a crime against the husband, much like using his lawnmower without permission. It was about keeping track of whose offspring belonged to whom.
It is my belief that there is such a thing as universal taboos. I used a example of a Neanderthal stalking a female and copulating with her by force.
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
There's individual morality and there's collective morality. Our society can agree that slavery is a bad thing while individuals like Faith can argue that homosexuality is worse than slavery because that's what the Bible sez. At best, an individual can live up to his own standards approximately. And sometimes individual standards conflict with community standards.
Is your best the same as my best? Is Faiths best different from both of us? Can Tangle quantify what his best should be? Phat writes:
That's a nice bowl of cherries. While you're at it, you can conveniently ignore any examples of Jesus' immorality that you don't like.
Even if we can behave better than the God of the Bible, what about Jesus? (Some argue that He personifies the God of the Bible better than the OT stories....)
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1.61803 Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2928 From: Lone Star State USA Joined: |
Hi Stile,
So when I say universal taboo I mean it in a general sense.Of course not every culture or species adheres to "all" rules, laws or morals. Example being cannibalism.
Stile writes: Agreed. There's a very big difference between saying most do this or that vs. saying all do this or that. I suppose my original query relates to whether or not we can impose our modern human morality on prehistoric man? Or even take it one step further and impose it on the animal kingdom in general. It seems that rape is one of those things that does not hold up to being something that is intrinsically wrong. It is, as I found out a common form of reproduction in the animal kingdom that is not called rape per se but "forced copulation". I suppose the same could be said of early hominids as well."You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You have not demonstrated that every subjective reality has a corresponding objective reality. For example, what is the objective reality of the subjective experience of, say, fear? Are you saying there is an objective fear? What it is? Your first thing is not demonstrated. Well that's an odd statement. Since I can't imagine a fear that is not predicated by something outside, You just moved the goalpost. Here is what I was responding to:
quote: Your point was that if there is a subjective thing then there is a corresponding objective thing. That is different than a subjective thing ultimately requiring an objective source, which isn't in disagreement. If a moral being subjective necessitates that there is an objective morality, then fear being subjective would mean that there is an objective fear. But there isn't, so you're wrong.
Since I can't imagine a fear that is not predicated by something outside, maybe you could give an example of fear without that. Anxiety.Fear of the unknown. Fear of an expected future. Fear of djinns, or other imaginary creatures. Where by "actually real in reality" you mean objective. So it's redundant to say that subjective things are not objective. And you contradict yourself when you say that every subjective things has an objective counterpart but then say that a subjective imagination does NOT have an objective counterpart. Your second thing is not demonstrated. You misunderstood, I was simply pointing out that, that those imaginations are not real, the way actual things are real. Then your point is that subjective things are subjective. Congratulations.
So imagining a subjective moral doesn't make it an actuality. My imagination of a tree does not have the same properties of an actual tree, correct? Right, subjective things are not objective. That doesn't mean they don't exist. How many times do we have to go over this?
Hence we see that imaginations are not real the same way real things are real. Yes, again, subjective things are subjective and not objective.
Not a valid conclusion - some of your premises are false. Can you point to an object counciousness? If not, then you're wrong. Well yes. Consciouness is a product of the objective reality of the universe. IOWS "they" say, it was created by evolution. So you have one physicl reality creating another physical reality.. But while that has a simple answer, it does point up the context of the of this whole discussion. So subjective imaginations can come from a objective reality, but just like there is no reality of me ACTUALLY me flying, using only my arms, it's just an imagination. Its not real. The concepts of right, wrong, good bad,, moral and immoral, are just the same. They don't actually exist in the real world, they are imaginations You are saying is that they are not objective - we all agree with that. The part where we disagree is where you conclude that, not being objective, that they are not real. That is incorrect. But every time you try to argue against them being real, you only conclude that they are not objective.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1406 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
(1+√5)/2 writes: I suppose my original query relates to whether or not we can impose our modern human morality on prehistoric man? Or even take it one step further and impose it on the animal kingdom in general. Morals can only be "imposed" if the person\animal\etc can be forced to comply with our subjective moral view. Obviously this will not work retroactively. So we can only say how we feel about those occurrences. Looking at Mallard Ducks, the males will hold the females head underwater until she acquiesces to mating, but if the suitor is not big enough she will fight him off. This creates a feedback to produce males large enough to overpower the females. Is that a moral issue or just evolution? Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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1.61803 Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2928 From: Lone Star State USA Joined:
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I'll see your Drake Mallard and raise you the Angler fish.
The male of the species will bite a hole in the female and encase himself in there ready to mate when the time is right. In the deep depths of the ocean there is not much oppotunity to run across another example of yourself. Dancing with the one wat brung ya is the way to go in this instance. "You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Yes. Without the pineapple, there would be NO taste. With nothing to put in your mouth, there would be nothing to have taste or imagine tastiness, correct? So while the potential for your ability to taste at all, or to imagine tasiness, would exist as another objective reality, it would need to be predicated by an objective in reality, outside yourself, correct? Yes, just like I said.
So while the potential, does exist inside of you to measure or imagine levels of taste or tastiness, this would be called your brain, it would still need to be predicated by something coming into the brain, to measure both taste and tastiness. Your brain cannot produce taste or tastiness, without the outside influence., in this instance another outside objective reality. Exactly. Your brain creates the taste based on stimulus from outside the brain. That's been my entire thesis on morality in this thread.
But for the taste mechanism to work, something needs to shoved or crammed into your mouth correct. Not necessarily, however. It is possible for someone to electrically or magnetically stimulate your brain to produce taste sensations. But that's an aside. Yes, an objective reality is almost certainly required for subjective experiences to form.
Hence your brain has the ability to measure but not create the objective reality outside yourself. So bringing it together. So it seems that no matter how we approach it the brain can only measure or imagine subjective morality, but THIS ONLY WHEN it is already preceeded or predicated by objective morality. And this is where you fall over. There doesn't need to be an objective flavour that I am exposed to, just an objective something that my brain interprets as having a flavour. There is no sweetness itself - which is why you can't point it out in a sugar molecule. The objective things that stimulate my taste sensation are molecules of certain shapes, interacting with my senses - which sends signals of certain types to my brain which results in a subjective experience. An experience nobody else has access to, that is mine alone. Likewise, someone say, committing adultery is information I can see or hear or smell or whatever, is processed in my brain and I have the subjective experience of feeling it is morally wrong (or not morally wrong). The objective reality therefore is my particular brain plus the stimulus of environment, interacting to create a unique and subjective perspective. Morality doesn't have exist objectively, actions exist objectively just as molecules do. But molecules don't have objective flavours, and actions don't have objective morality. There needs to be a taster and the tasted before there is a taste.
So it seems that I can imagine subjective morality, but I cannot even imagine what that would be without an objective standard. You can imagine a tasty pile of dog food, even if you do not find dog food tasty. A dog might, however. Likewise you think stealing is always wrong, I don't. You don't need to imagine subjective morality - that's it right there.
So reason and reality, combined with special revelation which conforms to reality concerning, consciousness and conscience, don't help you at all. I think the 'special revelation' being special is in your imagination.
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