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Author | Topic: Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Straggler writes: you are now required to prove the following ... I'm not required to prove the points you suggested because I put myself in the same boat as everyone else - ie, I can't prove that my code of morality is any more correct than anyone else's. Never said I could.
I guess we can research the facts on that if you think it relevant. No, I don't think you can - because such facts would be nigh on impossible to get. For starters, how could a significant number of career criminals be surveyed if the total number of career criminals is unknown? And how does one go about finding and identifying career criminals, let alone getting them to talk to about their beliefs? They all don't have criminal records, you know; or records that indicate they are careerists. If you visit a jail, most of the inmates aren't career criminals and those that are, how do you identify them? Are they going to put up their hand and say, "I'm a career criminal'? There will be some career criminals in jail who are easy to identify from their records, but there could be a lot who can't be identified as such. Someone serving a life sentence is not necessarily a career criminal, because their crime might be the only crime they've ever committed in their life. Besides, most career criminals are probably not in jail at any one time, but roaming the streets. Furthermore, such surveys would have to carried out in a significant number of countries from around the world. Good luck with that ...
things which promote the ongoing existence and well-being of humanity are likely to be deemed morally noble whilst those that act counter to that are deemed morally dubious You are equating morality with survival. This is no different to a rat learning that some things enhance survival and some things don't - that isn't morality. And you haven't addressed my point from the previous post: If a decrease in morality results in a decrease in the survival chances of humans, so what? Humans don't need to survive, so there is no need for morality.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Taq writes: blind obedience to a man made religion Prove that it's a man-made religion.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Chiroptera writes: ... moral judgements based on some abstract notion of superiority. It's not "abstract" at all - if it can be established from a exchange of rational ideas that one opinion is right and the other is wrong, then, quiet clearly, the right opinion is superior to the wrong opinion.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes: Hitler was in fact religious Perhaps you are right ... which religion did he follow? Please don't say Catholicism. Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2506 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined:
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Dredge writes: Prove that it's a man-made religion. If he had shown you an acorn and claimed it came from an oak tree, would you have asked for proof? As with acorns, only one source of religions can be shown to exist. Human invention.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 103 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Tangle writes: Can you point to anything anywhere in the ToE that says anything at all about life after death or ... morality or the meaning of life? "Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented" - William Provine (late evolutionary scientist and now a reformed atheist)
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
Dredge writes: Whether your quote about him is true or not true I disagree with it. To me the internet is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented. I mean, I turned atheist after being allowed to read what non-theists wrote on the net. Things that were not allowed to be written or read in the country I grew up in. Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented" - William Provine (late evolutionary scientist and now a reformed atheist) People like Faith and Dredge and Davidjay. Surely not all arguments for Gods can be that stupid? I found that all those people and people like that really have stupid arguments. Then people such as WLC. Special pleading from beginning to end. Fundamentalist religious internet warriors helped in turning me atheist. Not evolutionary theory. It happens all over the world where people get educated. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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I can't; but (assuming that my God exists) I don't have to prove that any of God's judgements are righteous and just ... Then you should probably stop prating about how "God can provide an objective, universal code of morality".
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Darwinism: Science or Naturalistic Philosophy? April 30, 1994 Well that's weird because that's the title of a debate between him and Phillip Johnson, and since Johnson is a crazed creationist loon surely Johnson would be pretending that it's a "naturalistic philosophy" while Provine would be arguing that it was science. So I think you may have made a mistake here. Admittedly Provine was not a scientist, but it is hard to imagine any sane and educated man making such a silly mistake, so it seems more likely that the quote originates with Johnson. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Perhaps you are right ... which religion did he follow? Please don't say Catholicism. Some sort of Christian. At any rate he was a theist and creationist.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Okay, but you've missed my point. But that's probably understandable; I admit not being very clear on the topic.
How does one "prove" one's morality is superior to another person's? One way is to understand what the other person believes, and use those believes to construct contradictions or "moral dilemmas". If the contradictions are severe enough, the other person may have to reevaluate how they approach the issues and perhaps consider your view point as a better framework. Or one takes the other person's beliefs and shows that it leads to outcomes that other person will also find objectionable -- that is, present another "moral dilemma". If the dilemma is severe enough, the other person may be force to rethink the issue and perhaps adopt your viewpoint. Even Christians arguing with me about my moral framework (or what some of them think is a lack of one) use this approach. I can't think of a case where I've witnessed someone trying to convince someone else of the correctness of their moral or ethical position using some kind of first principles. All the discussions I've witnessed involve each person trying to "get into the other person's head" and use their own beliefs to lead them to the desired conclusions. Someone who believes that their must be an objective basis for morality may object to this because it doesn't really "prove" anything. But I have never seen anyone, not even Christians, do anything any different. Maybe Australian Catholics have hit on another method? Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in the post title, of all places!Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all. — Billy Bragg
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Porosity Member (Idle past 2123 days) Posts: 158 From: MT, USA Joined:
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"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented" - William Provine (late evolutionary scientist and now a reformed atheist) Mmm.. Doubt it.Creationist with their blatant dishonest hypocrisy and lies are the prime movers creating atheist daily. keep up the good works!
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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
duplicate
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.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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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Dredge writes: Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented" - William Provine (late evolutionary scientist and now a reformed atheist) This is irrelevant, you don't seem to have understood the question - I try again Can you point to anything anywhere in the ToE that says anything at all about life after death or morality or the meaning of life?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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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
Doc, thanks for pointing out that Provine was a historian and not a scientist. Thanks for pointing out that Dredge was not telling the truth.
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