What we must accept if we accept materialism

And then there's idealism: everything's mental. That would solve the problem of how the physical could evolve into the mental. The physical is really mental.There's only one problem with idealism: it's unbelievable.

Eastern religions seem to be idealistic in their metaphysics--"maya" and all that.Western religions are dualistic.One can't be a materialist and believe in God, I don't think.

You seem to be confusing 2 different types of "cause"--the logical and the physical. They do not go together.

Well, yes, but what I meant was that one might argue that you can do something as a result of a logical train of thought. Through a series of deductions, you decide to buy a particular car. You have a ground and a consequent.But if the series of logical thoughts are CAUSED in a physical sense, then the resulting belief ("I should buy this car") came about as a result of automatic physical reactions to stimuli and so was not arrived at as a result of a logical thought. Perhaps it is quite logical to buy the car--it's a great deal--but to say the belief was arrived at logically would be incorrect. It's just seemed to be arrived at in that fashion.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-09-2006 03:25 PM

There's nothing to keep him from doing good either. No reason why we should concentrate on evil. Such criteria are hardly objective. They have no ground. Just something we thought up. This is true of all moral systems. It is prudent to adopt some code, however, with the recognition that it's just something we've adopted. We might as well have adopted some other code.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-10-2006 09:44 AM

It wouldn't HAVE to be physical. It just happens to be.

It's prudent in a practical sense to adopt the code of one's culture. It's also a comfort to have some code to live by. I have a moral code, in that, given any situation, I go by what feels like the right thing to do--unless I do the wrong thing (sometimes I act immorally according to my code, but the fault is with me not the code itself). My code consists of "honorable" and "dishonorable" actions. Intellectual dishonesty, for example, according to my code, is "dishonorable." Not much of a code, but better than nothing.

No, that's all I'm basing it on--my feelings. There isn't anything else to base it on. It has no rational basis.

From the standpoint of people's feelings, I agree. Morals do not FEEL subjective.

God might be a ground.

One needs an absolute standard. If you had one you could figure out if any given action was moral or immoral. The concept of God admittedly presents what appears to be a logical problem as regards morals. But still, if there was a God, and we knew His standard, perhaps we could call that an absolute.

It's that old paradox about whether some action is good because God thinks it is or whether some action is good in and of itself and God approves of it. If the latter, then this would indicate that God is adhering to a standard, and so that standard would not have been created by Him. It would be logically anterior to Him. Obviously we can't have that. If the former, then if God had thought that murder was good, then murder would be good.Some respond with the statement, "God IS goodness," but this strikes me as a verbal dodge.

He might call a meeting.

My moral standards would have come from God in the first place. There would be no doubt about the standard. It would be as inescapable as a mathematical formula.

It would apply like 2 plus 2 make 4.But since this is not the state of affiars, then we have no grounds for morality. One system is as good as another, logically speaking. Practically and culturally speaking, of course, we have to follow the dictates of the tribe.