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Author | Topic: Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Your talent for obscuring a point
Sometimes, rarely these days, you're funny though. This one made me laugh. So much for the debate. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The word you are groping for is not "obscuring" but "refuting".
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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If naturalistic evolution is a fact, one can draw the implication that human life is meaningless. One could, but they would be wrong. Naturalistic evolution can be a fact while my thinking mind produces all kinds of meaning in my life.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2
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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie? |
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Dr. Adequate: "How?"
Naturalistic evoultion says that all life is the result of a series of mindless accidents. So the series of mindless accidents that resulted in human life has no more significance or meaning than a rock falling down a cliff. Do mindless accidents have meaning?
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Dr. Adequate: "That would depend on what his are."
I can't see how that's relevant; but anyhow, for argument's sake, pleaseconsider the following scenario: Mr. Hindu (who lives in India) thinks it grossly immoral to kill a cow and eat it. His neighbour, Mr. Muslim, doesn't think it at all immoral to kill a cow and eat it. How does Mr. Hindu or Mr. Muslim prove that their respective morality is the correct one? if you ask me, neither A nor B can prove that their morality is the correct one. So it boils down to one man's opinion verses another man's opinion - which I suspect is what all arguments re morality boil down to (which is why I said the particular nature of the morality in question is irrelevant.) What Mr. Hindu might regard as a rational argument for his morality may seem irrational to Mr. Muslim. and vice versa.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Naturalistic evoultion says that all life is the result of a series of mindless accidents. So the series of mindless accidents that resulted in human life has no more significance or meaning than a rock falling down a cliff. But the question is whether human life has meaning and significance, not whether the sequence of events that produced it does. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I can't see how that's relevant ... You asked me how to show that someone's opinions are incorrect. That would in fact depend on what they are, since there is not one single flaw common to every incorrect opinion.
I can't see how that's relevant; but anyhow, for argument's sake, please consider the following scenario: Mr. Hindu (who lives in India) thinks it grossly immoral to kill a cow and eat it. His neighbour, Mr. Muslim, doesn't think it at all immoral to kill a cow and eat it. How does Mr. Hindu or Mr. Muslim prove that their respective morality is the correct one? Well, the Muslim could start off by asking "why do you think it's immoral to kill a cow?"
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Dredge writes: if you ask me, neither A nor B can prove that their morality is the correct one. So it boils down to one man's opinion verses another man's opinion - which I suspect is what all arguments re morality boil down to (which is why I said the particular nature of the morality in question is irrelevant.) What Mr. Hindu might regard as a rational argument for his morality may seem irrational to Mr. Muslim. and vice versa. That's a religious, not a moral argument. Religious arguments are rarely rational. Why not a sacred sheep? Jews think it wrong to eat pork - immoral?. Nah.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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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Dredge writes:
If that mindless falling rock lands on your house, doesn't that have significance or meaning to you? Do you really need an alien overlord to tell you whether it does or not?
So the series of mindless accidents that resulted in human life has no more significance or meaning than a rock falling down a cliff. Do mindless accidents have meaning?
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
New Cat's Eye: "They could, but they'd be wrong."
If human beings are the result of naturalistic evolution - a series of random accidents - how can they have meaning? ----------------------------------------------------------- New Cat's Eye: "my thinking mind produces all sorts of meaning in my life." This is an emotional response, not a scientific one.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Dr. Adequate: "I can make a cake without being a cake."
Er ... yeah ... right. You can make a cake because you have intelligence (but don't let this go to your head - even the village idiot can make a cake). But a cake can't make a cake because a cake has no intelligence. Evolution is as dumb as a cake; it has no intelligence; it is a blind, mindless, unconscious, aimless series of random accidents - yet it supposedly produced creatures who have incredible minds capable of love, imagination, ethics, art, planning, designing, constructing, dreaming, problem solving, inventing, etc, etc. ... and atheists like to claim the higher ground over theists when it comes to reason. Bizarre.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
If human beings are the result of naturalistic evolution - a series of random accidents - how can they have meaning? By, y'know, having meaning. "If zebras are the result of naturalistic evolution - a series of random accidents - how can they have stripes?"
This is an emotional response, not a scientific one. Do you mean anything by this or is it just the sort of thing you like to say from time to time?
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Tangle: "We have an evolved brain that can work this stuff out."
Hitler and the Khmer Rouge had "evolved brains" too, but they worked stuff out a bit differently to you and I. My point is, there is no way of proving that one man's opinion on morality is more valid or better than any other man's. Some folks think same-sex marriage is immoral, some don't - there is no way to prove that one opinion is right and the other is wrong. ---------------------- Tangle: "How so?" If humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA, you would expect them to much closer in appearance, behaviour, intelligence, etc. So I can only conclude that there is something misleading about the use of this "sharing 98.8% of DNA" argument. If we share 50% (?) of our DNA with bananas, why aren't we a little bit like bananas? Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Er ... yeah ... right. You can make a cake because you have intelligence (but don't let this go to your head - even the village idiot can make a cake). But a cake can't make a cake because a cake has no intelligence. And a bacterium can make a bacterium without intelligence.
Evolution is as dumb as a cake; it has no intelligence; it is a blind, mindless, unconscious, aimless series of random accidents - yet it supposedly produced creatures who have incredible minds capable of love, imagination, ethics, art, planning, designing, constructing, dreaming, problem solving, inventing, etc, etc. Yes indeed. Can you think of any objection to this that does not rest on the ludicrously false tacit assumption that a process must have every property in common with its products?
... and atheists like to claim the higher ground over theists when it comes to reason. And the exhibition you make of yourself on these forums confirms this on a daily basis.
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