boasts of Athiests II

What's weird is that the sentimentality and the sanctimonious motives that are so easily espoused here, the "wonder" and "joy" of life and so on, are like the "false self" or "inauthentic self" that was a popular theme in the fifties, that became part of the rebellsion of sixties, as "authenticity" became the Thing. But the authenticity of the sixties wasn't any more authentic than the inauthenticity they were supposedly transcending. It was just a new kind of facade and pretense that people convinced themselves was reality.Don't mind me. I'm just talking to myself. Return to discussion.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What one "prefers to believe" about the value of individuals is not "inherent value" but simply a value you subjectively assign (in your quest for the sentimental high that makes you feel good about yourself). "Inherent value" on the other hand means the value is objective, something built in. Totally backwards. Stating that human life has no inherent value doesn't keep anyone from assigning subjective value to one's life, as you have done above, and as Robin already said he has no trouble doing.

The point is you can't "assign" an intrinsic or inherent value to anything. You can only recognize it if it exists. Anything you yourself can assign is subjective, not inherent, intrinsic, objective, built in, or absolute.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Actually, he's simply thinking rationally and logically and objectively, and I for one am constantly amazed at how few others do, which is demonstrated here time after time, so that he encounters little but absurd objections instead of serious discussion. He's making objective statements. They could be wrong -- that's what could be discussed if anybody could follow an argument -- but they aren't subjective, they aren't "projections." What's subjective is all the absurd replies.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What a wonderful day, jar. Glad you could enjoy it with such gusto.

Make up your mind, jar. First you dismissed all Robin's answers about your subjective valuing of your own experience, when he said clearly that it has value for YOU. You dismissed that, saying he wasn't answering what you were really asking, which was whether objective value had more value than subjective value.Now he answers that, saying that objective values are of infinitely more value than subjective ones (if such existed), but now you complain that he's not acknowledging the higher value to oneself of one's own subjective values, which he's already addressed. Are you intentionally talking in circles?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So hard to figure out what your problem is.Personal or subjective value/opinion = no truth value.
Personal or subjective value/opinion = matters to the person who holds it
Personal or subjective value/opinion = matters to person and has no truth value.
Objective value or statement = truth value, matters in itself apart from who holds it.Does that help?

Yes. It is what it is apart from who recognizes it.

In the physical world, but not the realm of truth.

Nothing to do with Plato, but in order to say what I'm saying I don't have to be asserting that the Realm of Truth actually exists, merely that if it does it is objective and unchanging.

At the simplest level all we are talking about is objective truth versus subjective opinion, pretty ordinary stuff we all talk about all the time, so I don't know why you are making this into some big Problem. I do understand, of course, that the very idea of objective truth is no longer fashionable, since Postmodernism and Moral Relativism took over, but this kind of argument doesn't go anywhere. Maybe Robin will have more to say about it.

Where did I "state my premise conditionally?"Honestly I have no idea what you are talking about. You seem to be riding some hobbyhorse of your own.

No the "if" is not a "condition" as you are misconstruing it. The objectivity and unchangingness of the Realm of Truth is not dependent on its existing, it's definitional. It doesn't matter whether it exists or not, is the point, the definition of truth is that it is objective and unchanging. I'm simply trying to establish what I MEAN BY truth as opposed to subjective opinion. It ought to be obvious but nothing is obvious around here.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is getting heavily semantically confused.The statements in question have been *defined* as personal and subjective. Personal and subjective statements were further defined as having no truth value or being meaningless in the sense that they have no objective truth. Value statements were the main example and these are clearly subjective and personal -- you can't say that your preference for red is based on an objective absolute value of red so that it should be preferred over all other colors.That doesn't mean that people can't make true statements.