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Author | Topic: Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Do you accept that our minds are capable of both producing and experiencing meaning - regardless of how they came about? I accept that our minds are capable of believing anything that they want to believe, regardless of how irrational, baseless and delusional. Psychological need is the mother of invention. Okay, so the mind can form beliefs and that adds meaning. Now, why does it matter how the mind came about? What is it about evolving, but not being specially created by a god, that makes it impossible for the mind to create meaning in the former, but not in the latter? That is, why do you think that an evolved mind could not create meaning?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dredge writes:
Non sequitur. Weather is blind, purposeless, mindless and unconscious but it's still about movement of air.
Evolution is not about anything; it is blind, purposeless, mindless and unconscious. Dredge writes:
The beginning of a life may be a result of sheer, meaningless luck but the end of a life is the result of selection. It isn't just luck that the slow zebra is the one that the lion catches.
... survival is a result of sheer, meaningless luck.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Faith writes: No, God ordained punishment for the guilty. God ordained the killing of babies simply because of who their parents were. That is immoral.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Dredge writes: Humans can and do form their own codes of morality, but it could be anything. Humans can also write any story about any deity they want, and it could be anything. Your argument
If a human believes that he is created by God, then it makes sense to conclude that the God who made everything and knows everything, will also know what is morally right and wrong, It also makes sense that this God will let humans know what is right and wrong. Humans can also believe in any deity they want, believe in anything they want about that deity, and claim that their deity commands anything they want. Your claims about religion suffer the same problems you are claiming exists with morality based on human reason and logic. However, religion has the added problem of being dogmatic and unquestioned. In the words of Steven Weinberg, with or without religion there will be good and bad people, but to get good people to do bad, that takes religion. When someone really believes a deity has commanded them to kill the infidels they will kill infidels in contradiction to their own sense of morality. That's why religious based moralities are so dangerous.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Davidjay writes: Atheism is a brother of evolution, they BOTH deny a Creator. Why single out evolution? Gravity says that God doesn't push the planets around the Sun. Germ theory says that microorganisms cause infection, not God. You seem to be against science, not just evolution.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Dredge writes: I don't have an issue with that. If you find meaning and happiness in life, good luck to you. If I were an atheist, I would consider life meaningless, morality meaningless and beliefs meaningless and actions meaningless and emotions meaningless. I guess some people are just empty shells incapable of individual thought.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Well done, Dj; you have pointed out the existential absurdity of naturalistic evolution: A mindless process that relies on the rule of the jungle somehow produces human beings - who don't live by the law of the jungle; a mindless process in which equality has no place somehow produces human beings - who value equality. It's much like the existential absurdity of baking, in which a process that isn't a cake somehow produces a cake.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
You are of the opinion that genocide is immoral, but how can you prove that genocide is immoral? If you can't prove that genocide is immoral, then it's just your opinion verses the opinion of this God. If this is the case, it would still be the case if creationists were right about creationism.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 102 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
My comment re how I felt sometimes driving a taxi was tongue-in-cheek. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 102 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
In other words, you can't prove that your opinion on same-sex marriage is more valid than someone else's opinion that opposes it.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 102 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
You are equating laws with morality, but they're not necessarily the same thing.
------------------------------- Can you prove that harming another human being is immoral?
Is genocide ok by you when you god does it? Yes. I accept all my God's judgements as righteous and just. He doesn't do evil.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
And so far you haven't made a serious point.
I mean you say you accept things that God is supposed to have done as moral because you assume that God doesn't do evil. But can you persuade anyone else of that unless they already buy into your belief system or a close cousin ? And if you can't then you're in the same boat as everyone else.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 102 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
How can you "prove" that anything is immoral? I don't think you can - therefore no one can prove that their morality is superior to anyone else's. You can hold that opinion that genocide is immoral, for example, but you can't prove that it's immoral. That why an objective, universal code of morality is needed - but only God can provide an objective, universal code of morality.
In liberal secular societies the rational basis is derived from notions of freedom, harm to others and well being. Regardless of what laws a society comes up with, an atheist can choose to ignore them it do whatever he thinks he can get away with. A Christian who fears God doesn't enjoy this freedom, as he believes that all his deeds will be judged - which may result in eternal damnation. Do you imagine a career criminal is more likely to be an atheist or a devout Christian?
In evolutionary terms, ... If life is a result of some happy accident of nature, survival is meaningless because no life needs to exist. Therefore morality is meaningless. Evolution has nothing to do with it.It doesn't matter if a pack of psychopaths wiped out all other human beings on earth - humans don't need to exist. Do you think humans need to exist?
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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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Dredge writes: In other words, you can't prove that your opinion on same-sex marriage is more valid than someone else's opinion that opposes it. No I can't, and neither can you; morality is not mathematics.But I do believe that harming people is wrong which apparently you do not. So discriminating against homosexulas because of the way your god made them is wrong. Morality is a code of conduct that is developmental - it evolves as our society develops. What Christians thought moral in the middle ages is not what they would think is moral today. There are very few absolutes even amongst same sect believers. Can you point me to a set of non-contradictory absolute morals?
You are equating laws with morality, but they're not necessarily the same thing. Laws develop from society's veiw of right and wrong and deal with codes of behaviour concerned with harm. Immoral laws tend to be made by dictatorships or countries governed by religious zealots who's concern is other than the well-being of the people.
Can you prove that harming another human being is immoral? Yes. When I hurt them they scream and insist I stop. Do you think it moral for me to continue?
quote: Mass murder is ok by you. Pause to let that sink in. This is why religious zealots are extremely dangerous and need to be controlled. You can't be trusted to behave morally if your deluded belief system tells you so.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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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Dredge writes: I don't think you can - therefore no one can prove that their morality is superior to anyone else's. You can hold that opinion that genocide is immoral, for example, but you can't prove that it's immoral. That why an objective, universal code of morality is needed - but only God can provide an objective, universal code of morality. By your own standards of proof you are now required to prove the following such that this "objective universal code of morality" can be accepted as able to tell us anything 1) Prove that God exists2) Prove that God is the source of objective morality 3) Prove that the action in question (e.g. genocide) is moral/immoral according to God's objective morality Good luck with that.....
Dredge writes: Do you imagine a career criminal is more likely to be an atheist or a devout Christian? It is my understanding that statistically the least religious societies are no more prone to crime than religious ones and that, if anything, they are less prone to violent crime. I guess we can research the facts on that if you think it relevant?
Dredge writes: Do you think humans need to exist? My position is that human morality is a collective human decision. Therefore it should come as no surprise that things which promote the ongoing existence and well-being of humanity are likely to be deemed morally noble whilst those which act counter to that are deemed morally dubious. It's not perfect (who we define as fellow humans can be highly subjective and selective) and I make no claim that it is objective. But it's not un-reasoned. And it does form the basis of how morality can be rationally explained, whether you accept that or not.
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