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Author Topic:   Morality without God is impossible
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 6.6


(2)
Message 421 of 472 (914207)
01-03-2024 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 418 by GDR
10-21-2023 2:17 PM


Re: A Universal Morality
GDR writes:
I contend that there is a universal morality.
You don't have to 'contend' that, it's an observable fact - humans have the evolved traits of consciousness and empathy which promote beneficial group behaviours. It's got sod all to do with religion - they exist no matter what you believe or who you pray to.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"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.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 418 by GDR, posted 10-21-2023 2:17 PM GDR has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 422 by ICANT, posted 01-03-2024 2:05 PM Tangle has replied

  
ICANT
Member (Idle past 278 days)
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007


Message 422 of 472 (914209)
01-03-2024 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 421 by Tangle
01-03-2024 10:37 AM


Re: A Universal Morality
Hi Tangle,
Tangle writes:
humans have the evolved traits of consciousness and empathy which promote beneficial group behaviours.
If we have evolved to the point we have a conscious, why doesn't everyone have one?
There are people who will stop at nothing to get their way or what they want.

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 421 by Tangle, posted 01-03-2024 10:37 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 424 by Theodoric, posted 01-03-2024 2:56 PM ICANT has not replied
 Message 425 by Tangle, posted 01-03-2024 3:18 PM ICANT has not replied

  
ICANT
Member (Idle past 278 days)
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007


Message 423 of 472 (914210)
01-03-2024 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 420 by Percy
01-03-2024 9:41 AM


Re: The evolution of morality
Hi Percy,
Percy writes:
How is this statement any different than, "If leprechauns do not exist you will never know because you will just be dead"? The meaninglessness of the statement must be obvious. Determinations of what likely exists can only be made while alive.
Did the leprechauns you talking about create the universe and everything in it. Including humans in his image and likeness and make all the promises God made. If so yes I would meet him and spend eternity with him.
If God exists He created you in His image and since he is an eternal being so are you. And you will meet Him one day when you die. If He does not exist you don't have anything to worry about. But you are entitled to believe whatever you choose to believe.
God Bless,

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 420 by Percy, posted 01-03-2024 9:41 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 426 by Percy, posted 01-04-2024 8:04 AM ICANT has replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9489
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 6.1


Message 424 of 472 (914211)
01-03-2024 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 422 by ICANT
01-03-2024 2:05 PM


Re: A Universal Morality
I don't think you understand what he is saying.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 422 by ICANT, posted 01-03-2024 2:05 PM ICANT has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 6.6


(3)
Message 425 of 472 (914212)
01-03-2024 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 422 by ICANT
01-03-2024 2:05 PM


Re: A Universal Morality
ICANT writes:
If we have evolved to the point we have a conscious, why doesn't everyone have one?

There are people who will stop at nothing to get their way or what they want.
Unless you're a psychopath - which we consider to be a mental disorder - we are all conscious and have empathy and a conscience.
But we also have all the other less lovely characteristics of human behaviours which are also evolved traits that were necessary for survival, mostly based around the need to compete for food and mates and to not become food ourselves. .
Our later evolved ability to reason controls both sets of emotions - one way or another, sometimes for good sometimes not. Our secular laws and punishments for breaking them just about keep our baser instincts in check and allows society to civilise. It's a long-term, developmental process with lots of backward steps, precisely the opposite of something that was designed.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"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.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 422 by ICANT, posted 01-03-2024 2:05 PM ICANT has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22936
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 426 of 472 (914213)
01-04-2024 8:04 AM
Reply to: Message 423 by ICANT
01-03-2024 2:34 PM


Re: The evolution of morality
ICANT in Message 423 writes:
Percy writes:
How is this statement any different than, "If leprechauns do not exist you will never know because you will just be dead"? The meaninglessness of the statement must be obvious. Determinations of what likely exists can only be made while alive.
Did the leprechauns you talking about create the universe and everything in it. Including humans in his image and likeness and make all the promises God made. If so yes I would meet him and spend eternity with him.
The analogy was between God and leprechauns, which are imaginary creatures. I guess you can imagine anything you like about either one, like that leprechauns or God created the universe and everything in it, including humans. You let us know when you meet either one, and especially how eternity is going.
If God exists He created you in His image and since he is an eternal being so are you. And you will meet Him one day when you die.
And you know this how?
If He does not exist you don't have anything to worry about.
I worry about anything that doesn't exist to about the same extent.
But you are entitled to believe whatever you choose to believe.
I choose to believe that which is based upon evidence.
Leprechauns Bless.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 423 by ICANT, posted 01-03-2024 2:34 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 427 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2024 9:38 AM Percy has replied

  
ICANT
Member (Idle past 278 days)
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007


Message 427 of 472 (914217)
01-04-2024 9:38 AM
Reply to: Message 426 by Percy
01-04-2024 8:04 AM


Re: The evolution of morality
Hi Percy,
Percy writes:
And you know this how?
We talk every day.
Percy writes:
I choose to believe that which is based upon evidence.
If you did you would not believe in the BBT as it has no source for the material to build the universe. The theory is based on assumptions according to Stephen Hawking.
It has to be assumed that the universe was contained in a very small ultra-compact, super-dense state at a finite time in the past that began to expand. There is no thing outside of the universe as it is self-contained.
If there is no existence outside of that little speck of a universe where did it come from?
You come up with a way that little super-dense speck could begin to exist in non existence. When you do that you can tell me what you believe is based on evidence and I will believe you.
Same thing goes for evolution. You come up with a way no life form can produce a life form and that would be evidence. Life had to come from somewhere.
You are in the same boat that I am, you think I believe in an imaginary God.
I think you believe in imaginary evidence. Which is based on assumptions.
God Bless,

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 426 by Percy, posted 01-04-2024 8:04 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 428 by Tangle, posted 01-04-2024 10:42 AM ICANT has not replied
 Message 430 by Percy, posted 01-04-2024 1:53 PM ICANT has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 6.6


Message 428 of 472 (914219)
01-04-2024 10:42 AM
Reply to: Message 427 by ICANT
01-04-2024 9:38 AM


Re: The evolution of morality
ICANT writes:
We talk every day.
Please explain this.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"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.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 427 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2024 9:38 AM ICANT has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 429 by Theodoric, posted 01-04-2024 12:43 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9489
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 6.1


(1)
Message 429 of 472 (914221)
01-04-2024 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 428 by Tangle
01-04-2024 10:42 AM


Re: The evolution of morality
Unverifiable bullshit

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 428 by Tangle, posted 01-04-2024 10:42 AM Tangle has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22936
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 6.8


(1)
Message 430 of 472 (914222)
01-04-2024 1:53 PM
Reply to: Message 427 by ICANT
01-04-2024 9:38 AM


Re: The evolution of morality
ICANT in Message 427 writes:
Percy writes:
ICANT in Message 423 writes:
If God exists He created you in His image and since he is an eternal being so are you. And you will meet Him one day when you die.
And you know this how?
We talk every day.
And you know this how?
Leprechauns Bless
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 427 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2024 9:38 AM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 434 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2024 10:03 PM Percy has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 245 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 431 of 472 (914234)
01-04-2024 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tangle
02-28-2020 4:20 AM


Tangle writes:
The difficulty appears to lie in the assertion by believers that we can't know what right and wrong is without there being a god to tell us. The question is why not?

It seems to me that their only reasoning is because they believe it so.
It is a strawman of, "believers". I have never argued it and don't know any believers that do and I am around a lot of them in terms of the debate so I don't think my comment being anecdotal is as important as usual.
What I have argued is that it seems like there is no precedent to argue anything morally if you are an evolutionist that doesn't believe God exists. All arguments for morals would just represent relative opinions.
In this sense there is nothing quite as absurd as a politically correct Godless liberal like say Stephen Fry, SHOUTING at our God, "How dare you", in regards to the ills of the worlds.
In other words, even though you are very self-righteous, you are basically a hypocrite for not believing in the implications of your own theory that tell us we are an accident.
Under this scenario all moral systems are equal so why do you imply there is one morality that one can know without God?
Why would that one morality follow under accidentalism?
Yet it is also obvious that if God's morality is the only true morality then it follows that "morality without God" is not really morality, but is a whole STEW of desires, self-deception, misplaced sense of pity or emoting.
Also when judging God this can only ever be logically absurd because God is an omniscient being. You can't be more correct than correctness itself. God is correct at all times, about all things, PERIOD. Whereas when we point the finger at God we do so from limited minds and we perform the bodge job mistake of anthropopathism and anthropomorphism.
The bible makes some unequivocal comments about God's understanding compared to ours. It always LINKS the futility of the human mind with a rejection of the obvious creation. Especially in Romans where it says, "their foolish hearts were darkened" because you know God is there but won't give Him the credit of being there in your, "wilful ignorance" of the miraculous creation before you.
CONCLUSION; As an atheist you can be, "moral" in the sense that some of your behaviours will OVERLAP with what is righteous. The problem is you have a sin nature which also will argue that sin is "moral". In other words, your morality can only really represent you as an individual with all of your various tastes and foibles. It can't be true morality in that you have to be a perfectly moral being. I will only follow a perfectly moral being, and that was Jesus Christ. As for you, you clearly in your prejudice towards people like me and all the things you say to me for no apparent reason other than hatred, are not a moral being but a sinner that tells himself he is so as to comfort his conscience. Why then if you are so moral, are you so hostile towards me when I have not been hostile towards you nor even personal. I make my arguments about the arguments and issues themselves, you make them about hating on me personally.
I see no morality in you, atheist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Tangle, posted 02-28-2020 4:20 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 432 by Tangle, posted 01-04-2024 5:00 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 433 by Omnivorous, posted 01-04-2024 9:24 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 6.6


Message 432 of 472 (914243)
01-04-2024 5:00 PM
Reply to: Message 431 by mike the wiz
01-04-2024 4:28 PM


What are you doing here Mike?
You have no interest in sticking around and having an honest discussion. You'll post five or ten times then flutter off claiming victory. You are a repeat offender. You've re-opened a 3 year old thread. Why should I even consider responding to you?
Are you prepared to commit to a real, discussion Mike? One where you don't run away after half a dozen posts?

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"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.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 431 by mike the wiz, posted 01-04-2024 4:28 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member (Idle past 126 days)
Posts: 4001
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005


Message 433 of 472 (914245)
01-04-2024 9:24 PM
Reply to: Message 431 by mike the wiz
01-04-2024 4:28 PM


Mike writes:
What I have argued is that it seems like there is no precedent to argue anything morally if you are an evolutionist that doesn't believe God exists. All arguments for morals would just represent relative opinions.
Yet it is religious beliefs in which we find the greater display of fractured opinions. Human morality, by and large, remains fairly consistent everywhere: it is humane at its core.
In contrast, a thousand prophets each claim only their God is absolute, and their God requires an arcane suite of rules and behaviors, some of them cruel, many mutually contradictory.
We require no absolutes to be moral beings; we need only be seeking the good. We won't formulate perfect moral codes or perfectly follow the ones we devise. Still, our morality will be more grounded than what we get pulling one God out of a thousand hats.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
-Terence


This message is a reply to:
 Message 431 by mike the wiz, posted 01-04-2024 4:28 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
ICANT
Member (Idle past 278 days)
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007


Message 434 of 472 (914246)
01-04-2024 10:03 PM
Reply to: Message 430 by Percy
01-04-2024 1:53 PM


Re: The evolution of morality
Hi Percy,
Percy writes:
And you know this how?
He answers me.
God Bless,

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 430 by Percy, posted 01-04-2024 1:53 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 435 by Tangle, posted 01-05-2024 5:49 AM ICANT has not replied
 Message 436 by Percy, posted 01-05-2024 7:03 AM ICANT has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 6.6


Message 435 of 472 (914251)
01-05-2024 5:49 AM
Reply to: Message 434 by ICANT
01-04-2024 10:03 PM


Re: The evolution of morality
ICANT writes:
He answers me.
Please elaborate.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"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.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2024 10:03 PM ICANT has not replied

  
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