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Author | Topic: Moral Argument for God | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Hangdawg13 Member (Idle past 781 days) Posts: 1189 From: Texas Joined: |
Eureeka! I now understand your position alot clearer. Good! So you concede that without God there can be no objective absolutes such as good and evil or right and wrong. Like music there can only be patterns of behavior that lead to harmony or discord; destruction and suffering or life and pleasure; what is good for the survival and triumph of a species or what is bad for it. So we are back to what I said originally. Right and wrong do not exist objectively and absolutely. They are merely terms that have become associated with positive and negative behavior patterns. So this also means that when we feel guilt for an evil or wrong action we have not sinned against or separated ourselves from some abstract undefinable Unity. We have not done anything that can be proven to be an undefinable absolute wrong... rather this is a natural response designed to keep us on a path that ensures the survival of the species. So this also means that any outrage or sense of injustice we have at someone who supposedly did something "wrong" or "evil" is not a logical "righteous" reaction, but rather emotion, empathy, the built in species survival mechanism taking action and possibly a logical response to our own desires and our knowledge of the consequences of such actions. There is nothing inherently virtuous or meritorious in this preprogrammed sense of justice and righteousness. In fact merit and virtue are like right and wrong, just valuable survival mechanisms rather than valuable spiritual qualities that elevate us above the physical and take us deeper into the Unity which is God. Do you agree? BTW, sorry for misrepresenting you as an atheist. I guess I should say agnostic then?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Do capuchin monkeys who seem to know what's fair treatement and what isn't understand right from wrong?
If you agree that they do, then where did that sense come from?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: What kind of morality do dogs have? What's a good example?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Well, dogs are pack animals so therefore expressive and emotional. But following rules and competing for attention doesn't mean they are moral.
quote: I would say that most animal behavior is instinctual. However, we can look to our primate relatives for some tantalizing evidence of a real moral sense of fairness:
link
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Yaro Member (Idle past 6526 days) Posts: 1797 Joined: |
Good! So you concede that without God there can be no objective absolutes such as good and evil or right and wrong. I will say that I now understand what is meant by absolute moral right and wrong, and I cetainly do not agree with that definition. However, I still don't see why the christian god is the ultimate conclusion of absolute morals.
So we are back to what I said originally. Right and wrong do not exist objectively and absolutely. They are merely terms that have become associated with positive and negative behavior patterns. Exactly what I have been trying to say. I agree.
So this also means that when we feel guilt for an evil or wrong action we have not sinned against or separated ourselves from some abstract undefinable Unity. We have not done anything that can be proven to be an undefinable absolute wrong... rather this is a natural response designed to keep us on a path that ensures the survival of the species. Yep.
So this also means that any outrage or sense of injustice we have at someone who supposedly did something "wrong" or "evil" is not a logical "righteous" reaction, but rather emotion, empathy, the built in species survival mechanism taking action and possibly a logical response to our own desires and our knowledge of the consequences of such actions. Yes. But I would also stress, that just because these are logical/instinctual reactions, does not somehow belittle them. The outcome of these reactions have real effects on our lives, and our human experience.
There is nothing inherently virtuous or meritorious in this preprogrammed sense of justice and righteousness. Outside of the huaman experience, society, and the individual will for suvival, no.
In fact merit and virtue are like right and wrong, just valuable survival mechanisms rather than valuable spiritual qualities that elevate us above the physical and take us deeper into the Unity which is God. Yep. But again, just because they have no necessary spiritual significance, does not make them any 'less'. Again, we are prisoners of our experience here on earth and each individual does feel pain and hurt.
Do you agree? For the most part.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Good! So you concede that without God there can be no objective absolutes such as good and evil or right and wrong. The introduction of God doesn't help matters. The only way we can conceive of God is as a sort of super-human with the same sort of mind. If that is the case, then God's values are also subjective. If you try to explain God in other terms, then we come up against an unknown X called the Absolute. What does this mean? Nothing. It's meaningless. So what you are saying is that without the mystery X, there can be no objective absolutes.
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Hangdawg13 Member (Idle past 781 days) Posts: 1189 From: Texas Joined: |
If you agree that they do, then where did that sense come from? It evolved somehow....? What does this have to do with what we are debating?
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General Nazort Inactive Member |
Yaro's definition of morality is:
a) Minimizing harm b) Benifiting the whole If you caused harm to others and compromised social order fullfiling your need, you are being imoral. Here is mine: a) Maximizing harmb) Hurting the whole If you didn't harm others and if you helped the social order, you are being immoral. This is objective. If everyone shot each other we would kill ourselves off. I call this right. Why is it right? Because it's harmful for humans. That simple. My premises are not subjective, they are based on observation. Murder is an objective thing, death is objective. It is an objective fact that lots of murder means lots of dead people. It is an objective fact that lots of dead folks isn't too good for a species. That's what those premesies are based on. That's where my definitions of 'good' and 'bad' come from - 'good' is what harms the species, 'bad' is what helps it.
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Hangdawg13 Member (Idle past 781 days) Posts: 1189 From: Texas Joined: |
Good I'm glad you agree. This is what I have been saying from the beginning. I guess the problem was that you never believed in as Robin calls it "the mysterious absolute X" in the first place so you had no frame of reference to understand what believers mean when they appeal to a higher spiritual concept of absolute objective right and wrong. When we do so we are not appealing to a specific written out moral code as you seemed to originally think. We are saying that particular moral actions have absolute abstract qualities with spiritual effects. We are not saying that we have completey discovered or understood which action has which particular quality for every action under the sun. Some are easier to judge than others.
But I would also stress, that just because these are logical/instinctual reactions, does not somehow belittle them. In my mind it does more than belittle them. It destroys them. That is one big reason why I cannot be an atheist. I would no longer be able to feel empathy or a sense of justice or care about right and wrong because logically there is no reason to do so but for my own desires which mean nothing. And in my mind logic usually overules feeling. I would still be forced to feel these things, but this would be extremely painful to me as it would conflict with my worldview constantly. So why should I put myself through this? Why should I logically deny the depth and reality of what I feel? Why not just believe in God so that my mind and feelings and others around me can coexist in harmony? So I believe.
The outcome of these reactions have real effects on our lives, and our human experience. To which I would ask, "so what?" What non-selfish and non-emotional reason is there for me to care?
But again, just because they have no necessary spiritual significance, does not make them any 'less'. It does if you previously believed them to be "more". If there is nothing real in them, then to me they become nothing. They are like our dreams, just some meaningless thing that we make up in our minds that disappears when we are gone.
Again, we are prisoners of our experience here on earth and each individual does feel pain and hurt. To which I would ask, "why should I care?", and to which the only response is, "I feel that I should care, and in the long run I might be hurting myself by not caring."
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Since you are chiming can can I ask if you have a valid version of the argument this thread is supposedly about ? I say supposedly because if there was an argument worth anything we ought to have seen it by now.
Or are you just another Christian against morality, who seeks only to knock down other concepts of morality without having anything better to offer ?
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Hangdawg13 Member (Idle past 781 days) Posts: 1189 From: Texas Joined: |
The introduction of God doesn't help matters. Sure it does.
The only way we can conceive of God is as a sort of super-human with the same sort of mind. What would be the point of that if we know it is fallacious?
If you try to explain God in other terms, then we come up against an unknown X called the Absolute. What does this mean? Nothing. It's meaningless. I would say, "mysterious". You say it is meaningless because we have none to few concepts or vocabulary words to describe It, but we all have this idea. And the idea is what matters. When we try to describe it we lose it. I'm going to borrow something Ifen showed me once:
The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas. So what you are saying is that without the mystery X, there can be no objective absolutes. Yeah, kinda.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 7.6 |
In my mind it does more than belittle them. It destroys them. That is one big reason why I cannot be an atheist. I would no longer be able to feel empathy or a sense of justice or care about right and wrong because logically there is no reason to do so but for my own desires which mean nothing. And in my mind logic usually overules feeling. I would still be forced to feel these things, but this would be extremely painful to me as it would conflict with my worldview constantly. So why should I put myself through this? Why should I logically deny the depth and reality of what I feel? Why not just believe in God so that my mind and feelings and others around me can coexist in harmony? So I believe. By your logic atheists (or at least you, if you were an atheist) would become murderous thieving raping monsters who do whatever benefits them with no regard for the consequences of their actions to others. That hasn't happened to other atheists as far as I know. I really hope that the only reason you live your life in a moral fasion is not because a big man in the sky tells you that if you do bad, He'll freaking spank you. Morality under threat of punishment or becuase "I told you so" is not morality, it's fear and subservience.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
By your logic atheists (or at least you, if you were an atheist) would become murderous thieving raping monsters who do whatever benefits them with no regard for the consequences of their actions to others. I don't think that follows from what hangdawg said. What he said was that he would have an inner conflict between his logic and his feelings. His feelings would say, "my moral system tells me to do such and such" and his logic would say, "actually, my moral system is arbitrary." This doesn't mean that he's going to start killing people. My own response to Hangdawg is in response to this question: So why should I put myself through this? My answer is that this is the nature of life. What matters is the truth, not how we feel about it.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 7.6 |
The selection I quotes seems to specifically say that, if his belief in God were to disappear, he would no longer have any reason to be a moral person.
I apologize if I misunderstood.
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Yaro Member (Idle past 6526 days) Posts: 1797 Joined: |
In my mind it does more than belittle them. It destroys them. That is one big reason why I cannot be an atheist. I would no longer be able to feel empathy or a sense of justice or care about right and wrong because logically there is no reason to do so but for my own desires which mean nothing. And in my mind logic usually overules feeling. I would still be forced to feel these things, but this would be extremely painful to me as it would conflict with my worldview constantly. So why should I put myself through this? Why should I logically deny the depth and reality of what I feel? Why not just believe in God so that my mind and feelings and others around me can coexist in harmony? So I believe. Assuming you conclusion is valid, that there is no reason to be moral, why belive in god? You seem to be saying that the only reason to belive in god is to provide justification for your moral code. This is as arbitrary as all athiests justification for their moral code. "I am moral cuz it makes me feel good.""I am moral for the sake of those I love." "I am moral cuz it allows me to live a better life." "I am moral because I don't want to go to jail" "I am moral because I belive in Zeus" "I am moral because I belive in pink unicorns" OR "I am moral because I belivce in the christian god" See what I mean? In the end you are choosing emotion as well.
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