Underlying Philosophy

No, I don't believe they do. At least, not like we humans do.But even if you believe they do, the question still remains, where did it come from?

Modulous, What is your standard for determining that which is true? So is that a presupposition of sorts? So let's have some other reasons then, as to why certain things (such as murder) are wrong. I said: as we become closer and closer to God (or, "sanctified"). As we become more sanctified, we begin to see the universe more on God's terms, and better understand the "big picture", which has God as the ultimate source of everything (Col. 1:16-17), so that we live thereby (Rom. 10:5). This is a sort of "undermining" or "obliteration" of our sin nature (Rom. 6:18). I invoked one entity: God. I don't know about you, but Huntard's reason for morality is a complex web of inter-woven experiences that somehow combine to form arbitrary and ambiguous standards and morals that he follows. And you yourself said that there are multiple reasons for why one should be moral.

What is your standard for determining that which is true?

Within reasonable limitations imposed by fallibility, a variant on rational empiricism.

So is that a presupposition of sorts?

It is one of the primary truths. In order to question its truth, you first have to assume it is true.

So let's have some other reasons then, as to why certain things (such as murder) are wrong.

Because Dave said so. Because, in aggregate, engaging in murder has a negative impact on reproductive fitness. Because we define murder as being wrong.

I said: as we become closer and closer to God (or, "sanctified"). As we become more sanctified, we begin to see the universe more on God's terms, and better understand the "big picture", which has God as the ultimate source of everything (Col. 1:16-17), so that we live thereby (Rom. 10:5). This is a sort of "undermining" or "obliteration" of our sin nature (Rom. 6:18).

And why would we want to do that? Sounds like there is some kind of reward (better understanding and undermining sin nature), but you deny that so it must be something else.

I invoked one entity: God.

You invoked God, his character, the Law and Sin.I didn't need any of those.

I don't know about you, but Huntard's reason for morality is a complex web of inter-woven experiences that somehow combine to form arbitrary and ambiguous standards and morals that he follows.

Sounds like the world we live in: full of grey areas and difficult moral quandaries.

And you yourself said that there are multiple reasons for why one should be moral.

Not why we should be, why we are. We are socially programmed to act certain ways and we are biologically adapted to act in certain ways. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

How could it be any other way? How exactly do you propose to pawn your moral responsibility off on someone else? How can you consider yourself a moral agent if devoid of moral responsibility for your decisions? And God sets up rules about when you can and cannot enslave people. If Huntard was to provide his address and schedule appropriate murder hours... then yes, he would presumably be condoning his own murder.In the case of the Christian god it is much easier considering he doesn't get out of Genesis without directly ordering slavery (Genesis 9:25-27). Oxen are not moral agents. This is an important dividing line so we don't waste time wondering about the ethical impact of our actions on rocks and such. Are you claiming to be omniscient? If not, how can you seriously argue about uncertainty? What do you gain by filling those gaps with gods?

It gradually evolved over a long period of time.

Didn't you read the second part of that sentence? You must have, you quoted it next. So, did you not understand it? No it mustn't, since those are subjective terms, and too strong of a term to put on just everything. Of course there is an in between, I never denied that. Yep. No one has. Not even you. Of course, who else? I take responsibility for my choices, I do not waver them to someone else. Of course there are. Do you know what the word fact means? It is a provable concept. Meaning that when I say "This table is blue" and it turns out to be red, "the table is blue" is still a fact, but one that was proven wrong. Really? Then what is the reason why the sky is blue? I think you can see quite well that the sky is blue without having a reason for it being so. And yes, I know the reason the sky looks blue. Quite rght, as is everybody. At least, everybody I know, religious or not. It is not necessarily the case, but fortunately, most people agree with one another on morals. It might not be, that would depend on the cases. Do I really have to take you through all the steps? Ok, rape disrupts society because it causes pain and suffering and distress and all sorts of nasty things that create an unhealthy environment. I suppose you're now going to ask me why rape causes those things. Must I really explain that to you too? Or are you finally going to think this through yourself? No, in that case, you can drop dead. You don't have to eat human flesh you know. "God is real" is a statement of fact. A statement of fact with no evidence behind it. That's why I said what I did. You haven't answered the question. "God is real" is in no way an answer to anything, because, you know, evidence and all that. And again you ignore the second part of the sentence. If I were to set up rules under which i was to be murdered, and never said that I in fact, did not want to be murdered, and then gave you my address. Then YES, I would be condoning my own murder. Why did you leave out the second part of the sentence? Because it cl;early shows god condones slavery? No. If the Ox was paid and wasn't forced to, then no. Otherwise, yes. I guess it would. But didn't I already say that? Anyway, you can show me that reality doesn't leave any evidence behind? No, I don't know how I would come up with "an orderly universe in which there are certain laws of logic that apply to nature, and in which you have the ability to rely on your memory...etc.". And no, I don't know how all that coul've gotten here from an explosion. It didn't of course, so that doesn't really matter. And neither do you. For you are not omniscient. Irony, I love it. A rapid expansion fo space-time would suffice. I still don't know how all this got here from that though. Wanna know why not? Cause I don't know that much about physics really. Also, of course, no knwing something's origin does not mean you can't know about the thing itself. And he accuses me of having a world view with holes in it.I'm sorry, but "I don't believe they do" is not a very strong argument. Quite. Can you guess why? You could try a realistic worldview, for one. No, I'm not saying all Christians have an unrealistic worldview. It evolved with them. Having an aesthetic sense helps selecting the best genes.Something that looks like this: probably doesn't has genes as healthy as something that looks like this:

And nor, of course, do you. Your unevidenced assumption that there is an invisible man in the sky with an objective knowledge of right and wrong does not in any way imply that we have such knowledge, and in point of fact we do not. This is a strange claim. Could you expand on it? It seems to me that a thing either is or isn't true independent of whether anyone knows of a good reason why it's true.In your opinion, did the sun not shine before the discovery of nuclear fission? If you think about it, he could answer any such question in at least as much detail as you could. Presumably your answer would be "God did it by a miracle"; whereas he could just as easily say "it was produced by the operation of natural forces without any magic being involved in any way".Such an answer is, as I say, as detailed as anything you could come up with. It is also superior to it in a number of respects:* There is abundant evidence that the forces of nature exist.* On the other hand, there is no evidence for the existence of God (I presume even you must be aware of this --- if you thought there was evidence for the existence of God you'd have presented it by now.)* The proposition that things happen because of non-magical causes is borne out by every observation and is therefore the best-evidenced statement there is.* Such an answer is parsimonious, since it doesn't require us to postulate the existence of an unevidenced entity.* Your hypothesis involve perfection creating imperfection, a flaw which you then have to explain away with further ad hoc hypotheses. Holes which you apparently have filled with made-up stuff. Huntard's confession of ignorance makes him rather wiser than you are in pretending to knowledge which you do not in fact have.

Dr. Adequate, Let me modify what I said a little bit, as it was misunderstood, and partially so because of myself.Philosophy is "the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.". So your philosophy with regards to being, knowledge, and conduct etc., does not include God, so that it would be proper for us to say "the starting point of your philosophy is that there is no God". Now this is what I believe to be true from what I know about atheists, and also what atheists on this forum have said. Many on this forum have said that they used to believe in God, and then found that a belief in God was insufficient, and they then attempted to look at everything without God in the picture. So, in a way, the starting point for atheists is "I'm throwing God out, and I'm going to interpret the universe without God in the picture".It would be improper, however, for me to say that atheism was the foundation of your thinking. It would be more proper for me to say that naturalism, or materialism, or atomism is the foundation of your philosophical thought. But they aren't exactly fundamental reasons. My challenge to your anecdote would go something like this: how do you know that eating will satisfy your hunger? And if you say "because of past experience", then I would ask "how do you know that your memory is reliable?". But we won't go there now, so there is no need in answering those questions, as similar ones have already been asked. I didn't claim that atheists can't use logic, just that atheists have no good reason for believing that the laws of logic are reliable. How about a simple example, such as an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, you have numerous species of animals and plants that, if they are not tampered with, will typically function in such a way that no particular species overruns the others. Every animal has a predator, and every plant has an eater.Or how about the cell; even an Amoeba, the simplest of cells. This cell, even as "simple" as it is, is an amazingly complex system in which numerous entities work together to create a functioning cell that can actually prey on other bacteria. In a cell, you have a cell wall and a membrane that work together to keep certain liquids and gases out, and that allow certain liquids and gases to come into the cell. Then you have factories in the cell, such as ribosomes, that convert mRNA strands into proteins that will carry out a certain function. And I won't even detail the reproduction process, which is absolutely amazing.Or what about the human eye and ear, and the human body, and plants?All these things function in such a way that we would refer to them as orderly, and since I believe that God has created them, then obviously God must be an orderly God to have created all these things. I've never had the problem of arguing with someone who told me that I had no arguments. Admittedly, it is rather difficult to argue with someone if you didn't have any arguments (if you didn't have any arguments, then, by definition, you would not be arguing). But despite this, I will show you some of the arguments I have already presented on numerous occasions.Which worldview makes sense of the laws of logic?Which worldview makes sense of the uniformity of nature?Which worldview makes sense of morals/morality?Which worldview makes sense of the reliability of our memory?And my favorite; which worldview makes sense of universals?Obviously, these aren't very detailed arguments, but once you attempt to answer the questions, I can then make them detailed.

Dr. Adequate, I most certainly have taken note of that, and if you want me to go into detail to explain what the proverbs mean, then I will. What's this about the "nature of reality"? Didn't I ask a question about that maybe, kind of, sort of had something to do with that? And all I was told was "mumbo jumbo". Heh heh.So, please explain what you believe the nature of reality is, and also, what you know about the nature of reality that our good Friar buddy didn't. Oh yes, he was indeed a Unitarian, which I would deem heretical. However, his theological writings are somewhat well known. The principle of parsimony does not only relate to the amount of entities, but also to the complexity, in a certain subject. I invoke one entity (God) to ultimately explain morals, which provides a very simplistic explanation for morals/morality. The atheist also invokes one entity (himself) to make sense of morals/morality. At the same time though, the atheist created a very arbitrary and complex explanation of morals/morality.

Modulous,

And why does the brutal dictator do that? Is it at least partially because he is free from the consequences (ie he can do so with impunity)? This supports my position that consequences are important to whether or not you decide to murder and if you take them away (or take away the 'caring about the consequences') - bad things can often follow.

Why certainly. So if he is completely free from the consequences, is it still inherently wrong for him to commit mass atrocities (such as Stalin did).

And the lesson here? If we want humans to not commit rape - we have to come to a widespread agreement to enact negative consequences on those that rape. I believe there have been some surveys carried out where young men were asked if they could get away with it completely, would they rape someone and a large number of them said 'yes'.

All you are doing is here is explaining morality or "moral living", but not morals themselves. Of course people will live more morally if there are consequences. But the question is this: why do not want people to murder? Why should consequences be put in place for murder? Certainly it will cause people to live more morally, but why would you want them to live more morally? Is it because there is something intrinsic about the nature of murder that makes it wrong? Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

Is he supposed to default to God on account of your saying so? Your explanation of morals might be very simple, like the rest of your answers for why anything is the way it is. "God did it." That doesn't explain anything, nor does it prove God.What we can know by observation is that morals and intelligence seem to coincide.In your opinion, do you feel that only humans have the ability to be ruled by a moral framework?

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

PaulK, Ugh....Okay; Law of Identity: an object is the same as itself: a=a. This is true, correct? Was it true before humans were around? Yes....Can you account for the intrinsic truth in the law of identity?

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Ugh....Okay; Law of Identity: an object is the same as itself: a=a. This is true, correct? Was it true before humans were around? Yes....

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As I explained in formal logic the Law of Identity means that a proposition has the same truth value as itself. Until you understand that you have no comprehension of logic whatsoever.

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Can you account for the intrinsic truth in the law of identity?

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What precisely needs to be accounted for ? Are you asking for a reason why an object is not different from itself ? Why would there need to be a reason for that ?

I meant "the nature of reality" in the sense of scientific knowledge, not your fumbling attempts at ontology.For example, although William of Occam liked parsimony, he didn't realize that a single theory would explain why an apple fell down and the moon stayed up. It wasn't that he didn't understand how his principle would have applied to Newton's parsimonious explanation, it's that Newton hadn't thought of it yet. Most of it hasn't been published yet, and how many people have read any of it?I think it's going too far to call him a "renowned theologian", when then fact is that his theology was secret during his lifetime, that hundreds of years after his death most people don't think of him as a theologian at all, and that of those of us who are aware of how much time he wasted on theology the great majority can't be bothered to read it. This does not answer my actual point, which is that you were claiming the God hypothesis to be parsimonious by invoking him as an explanation for an observation which has not been made. And it is vain to do with more what can be done with less.I might add that your explanation of why we have a moral sense involves our existence, just like mine would. But it also involves the unevidenced entity known as "God". It is therefore less parsimonious.What you mean by "arbitrary and complex" you do not explain; and you also do not explain who "the atheist" is. I am an atheist, and my explanation is very simple and non-arbitrary --- and does not involve invoking the existence of entities for which there is no evidence.

Dr. Adequate, Then what does it mean to be self-aware, and to love?Now as to the brain and the soul...If you are your brain, then why do we refer to your brain as "your brain"? We refer to "your brain" as if there was someone or something {the "your") that owns or controls the brain. If you go to a doctor, and he finds a tumor in your brain (there we go again), he doesn't tell you "you have a tumor in you". He would say "you have a tumor in your brain". Likewise, if I say that I have a tick in me, that doesn't mean that its in my brain (there we go again), it means that it is somewhere in my body (there we go again).So really, I shouldn't even say that "I am my soul". "I" am an abstract entity. Myself, or my being is abstract, because we constantly refer to "your brain", or, "your heart", or "your body". So who is the "your" in those statements? Who is the person that owns the brain, heart, and body? If you come take my brain out of me (or to be proper, we should say "come and take me"), you haven't taken "me" anymore than you would if you took my heart, or my lungs, or my thumb. Even if you destroy my body, you haven't killed "me", because "me" is an abstract concept.This abstract "me" includes my soul, my heart and my mind. So who controls "me"? Ultimately, I believe God controls everything, because He created it all, so how could He not be sovereign over it all?