You probably referring to the the new crop of spiritualists who think there is something there, but can't put their finger on it. they usually call themselves agnostics. I can understand this. But then, it is dismissive of substantive thinking, like atheism. I kind of dream about the day when principled dialectic thinking is taught in public schools, and kids grow up wondering and engaging, knowing about the arguments, rather than religious dogmatism.To be fair, most folks who claim atheism, have a much bigger (and well thought out) problem with religion than they do with gods
So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
This post is not even a philosophical argument. It consists of one unfounded assertion after another, and is really more of a sign of bigotry and irrational hatred against atheists than it is of any willingness to have an intellectual discussion regarding the unfounded assumption that a god somehow makes morality objective. It's not true, and there has been no demonstration for this claim on here worthy of any merit.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
Hereandnow wrote:Atheists enjoy their, what shall i call it, pride in being able to look unflinchingly at the hard truths of the world. But really, atheism is at least just as indefensible as theism. I mean, if you're thinking that theism is just a joke about an old man ina cloud, then you don't understand theism, or any defensible form of it. If your atheism is just the justified denial of a medieval anthropomorphism, then so what. Try arguing a against a more respectable thesis: that of ethical objectivism. Anti-objectivists here deny that ethical values need for their theoretical underpinning something absolute, like god or Plato's FOG (Form of the Good). Objectivists, like myself, think they do need this. In order to make sense of this world there must be something that, and I will use a fragile word, redeems it. We do not live in a stand-alone world, meaning that the ideas that constitute all that we can bring to bear on the problem of being here qua being here, just plain being here and all that it possesses, are wholly incommensurate with what they purport to explain. In other words, atheism explains nothing. It simply walks away on a cloud of value nihilism, you know, like Jesus walking on water (both absurd).
If you can't argue well an anti-objectivist view, then you are a lot closer to theism then you think, for you have to admit that the world needs redemption.
You can make a case that for values to exist which are independent of humans (and in that sense 'objective' from our pov) there has to some superior arbiter of what is right and wrong. This doesn't necessarily get you around Euthyphro's dilemma, your God of choice requires certain properties to side-step it. But it's possible imo with certain conceptions of god.
The real problem for your argument, is that science is beginning to explain how human values evolved, making an appeal to a supernatural source unnecessary.
Where that leaves us, is the real issue.
But sometimes reality is difficult and complex, and we have to make the best of it. Myself, I think in the absence of independently existing moral values, we should be able to develop consensus around an axiom like what matters is ''the welfare of conscious creatures'', as Harris puts it, as a grounding for values. It will be messy in practice, not having specific god-given rules, but as Fanman mentioned, flexibility can be better than 'religiously' adhering to eternal laws made up by people living in a very different world.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
What has not been addressed is that even if “something absolute” exists we are not able to actually check moral claims against it or use it as a universal moral guide. Even if everyone was convinced that there must be an absolute unless we actually have access to it we have not moved beyond the problem of moral relativism because we still cannot agree on what that something is or what it says.Anti-objectivists here deny that ethical values need for their theoretical underpinning something absolute, like god or Plato's FOG (Form of the Good). Objectivists, like myself, think they do need this.
Moral objectivism or moral realism does not require belief in anything other than the existence of moral absolutes. Anti-objectivists need not argue against moral objectivism, all that is necessary is to request of objectivists that they provide access to the moral laws and to ask for a demonstration of how we can consult them and how they can be used to resolve intractable moral problems. This will not show that moral absolutes do not exist but it will show that they play no role in actual moral deliberation. All we have are conflicting claims of moral authority.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
Call it an error theory: Antiobjectivists hold that the trouble with requiring an underpinning for the joys and evils of the world is that it would be too strange a thing to take seriously. What would it be? And the answer would have to be something of a completely alien ontology. Thus, objectivists are in error, affirming something too odd to imagine. Mine is an error theory , too, and it thereby doesn't need any odd descriptive entities to defend it. It is a minimalist theory, if you will, but it is sufficient to counter antiobjectivism: These latter hold that the world as it is, tha t is, the body ideas we have that would apply that are put forth by the scientific community, the prevailing paradigms, these are adequate to explain the world's moral dimension. On the other side, I say these paradigms are radically underfunded with meaning to do this, that they are absurdly incongruous with the world. Examples are far too forthcoming.Anti-objectivists need not argue against moral objectivism, all that is necessary is to request of objectivists that they provide access to the moral laws and to ask for a demonstration of how we can consult them and how they can be used to resolve intractable moral problems.
Short version, take evolution, which may address a complaining plague victim saying all is theoretically well since the pain being endured is backed by a greater promise of survival and reproduction for the species. It is the intense absurdity here that constitutes the strength of objectivism.
But to see the point clearly, one does have step outside of the logic of the propositions and take the time to examine the empirical world first hand. One does not find here facts sitting quietly as they might in a scientists field book. The world, what we with our paradigms are trying to explain, does not reduce to this, at all. I don't want to talk about epistemological issues here, thought there are some. I want value to be duly represented in the witnessing inquirer,especially evil: Being burned alive, e.g. This terrible pain, is a given; we didn't invent this with our politics and social processes. We need to explain this in our theory.
The reason we cannot explain this with empirical theory is that value is not written on the sleeve of things as are, say, the color green or the path of a comet. The pain, yes, this is clear, but the "badness"? No, which is why science can't touch it and why theorists are mostly anyiobjectivists. But for me, this is in error as the "badness" of being here requires an unpinning that is commensurate with the witnessed world.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
That is not my objection. It is not that it is too odd to imagine but rather that it not available to us and so whether it exists or not is irrelevant. When I make judgments about moral values or any values I do not first access a realm of eternal moral truths or consult an independent, absolute, universal standard.Call it an error theory: Antiobjectivists hold that the trouble with requiring an underpinning for the joys and evils of the world is that it would be too strange a thing to take seriously. What would it be? And the answer would have to be something of a completely alien ontology. Thus, objectivists are in error, affirming something too odd to imagine.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
I said the Euthyphro dilemma is a straw man argument: easy to cut down an argument about god if you construe god as something eminently assailable. Stop being so offended. It is straight forward as can be.This post is not even a philosophical argument. It consists of one unfounded assertion after another, and is really more of a sign of bigotry and irrational hatred against atheists than it is of any willingness to have an intellectual discussion regarding the unfounded assumption that a god somehow makes morality objective. It's not true, and there has been no demonstration for this claim on here worthy of any merit.
Now a good response to my thoughts on this might be to go after Kierkegaard, say. He was a Christian but he did not argue using blatantly vulnerable premises. Or Schleiermacher. These philosophers don't put out apriori foolishness. They approach the matter of god from a structure-of consciousness, or a religious sentiment position. you can argue against these, and the argument can be substantive. But Euthyphro? Please. You might as well be arguing that if god exists then he can create a stone that he himself cannot lift. Why bother with these triflings?
-- Updated July 24th, 2017, 6:29 pm to add the following --
Fooloso4:
But then, the issue goes to relevance, doesn't it? Simply put, if you thinkg horrible suffering is duly explained by available standards of understanding, then you woldn't need anything more. There would be no need for *something* to explain the world at all;and as with,say, genetics, you would think there is more to know, but nothing there under the microscope to warrant thinking that something extraordinary is going on. consider quantum physics. A revolutionary departure from the paradigms of the time and, in Kuhnsian fashion, new physics had to rise tothe occasion. It is the same here, only the call for something new is grounded in the overlooked and underappreciated manifest features of value qua value. the sensation of the flesh being licked by flames: What IS that? What IS the ontology of pain?That is not my objection. It is not that it is too odd to imagine but rather that it not available to us and so whether it exists or not is irrelevant. When I make judgments about moral values or any values I do not first access a realm of eternal moral truths or consult an independent, absolute, universal standard.
My position is simply that through the all too casual tendency to let science do the talking, as well as the need to use language to push aside the the uncomfortable truths of the world, we allow scientific paradigms to subsume value. But it can't. It is an error to think it can, as it would be to think it can explain energy or matter. Science cannot tell you what these are. Here, the question is a "what" question, not a "how" question.
-- Updated July 24th, 2017, 6:58 pm to add the following --
Gertie:
Gertie:You can make a case that for values to exist which are independent of humans (and in that sense 'objective' from our pov) there has to some superior arbiter of what is right and wrong. This doesn't necessarily get you around Euthyphro's dilemma, your God of choice requires certain properties to side-step it. But it's possible imo with certain conceptions of god.
The real problem for your argument, is that science is beginning to explain how human values evolved, making an appeal to a supernatural source unnecessary.
Where that leaves us, is the real issue.
But sometimes reality is difficult and complex, and we have to make the best of it. Myself, I think in the absence of independently existing moral values, we should be able to develop consensus around an axiom like what matters is ''the welfare of conscious creatures'', as Harris puts it, as a grounding for values. It will be messy in practice, not having specific god-given rules, but as Fanman mentioned, flexibility can be better than 'religiously' adhering to eternal laws made up by people living in a very different world.
I almost agree with the "superior arbiter" part, but I am certainly not into talking metaphysics, and thus, I don;t give Euthyphro any weight at all. I don't argue about ancient legends.You can make a case that for values to exist which are independent of humans (and in that sense 'objective' from our pov) there has to some superior arbiter of what is right and wrong. This doesn't necessarily get you around Euthyphro's dilemma, your God of choice requires certain properties to side-step it. But it's possible imo with certain conceptions of god.
Science can't touch this, or, perhaps it can if it starts taking value in Being seriously, but there is no sense they are ready for this. Science is interested in observation and speculation that backs it. My argument is that there are things in the world, the same world the physicist looks at, that warrant the call for something else, something that underpins what we see and address it. The things in the world are value (without the plural form), that is, the joys and miseries in the world, but especially the miseries. What IS this? Not what does it do, or how do we form principles around it, or what would a defensible system of value distribution look like; no: just what IS it? Its presence stands among the other presences that are measured, codified, applied in problem solving, and so on, but this is completely different.The real problem for your argument, is that science is beginning to explain how human values evolved, making an appeal to a supernatural source unnecessary.
Where that leaves us, is the real issue.
i think Harris goes further than that. He argues for a criteria of specific value heirarchies, naming some of them as better than others. I actually agree with this, sort of. Eternal laws? No, I'm not a fan of this either, unless that law would be entirely free of the moral fictions in moral thinking. Something like: For every x, if x is painful, than x is morally wrong. That is, its PRESENCE is wrong, well out of range of the way value in their relativity conflict, contradict and so on.But sometimes reality is difficult and complex, and we have to make the best of it. Myself, I think in the absence of independently existing moral values, we should be able to develop consensus around an axiom like what matters is ''the welfare of conscious creatures'', as Harris puts it, as a grounding for values. It will be messy in practice, not having specific god-given rules, but as Fanman mentioned, flexibility can be better than 'religiously' adhering to eternal laws made up by people living in a very different world.
Yes, this is a good way to put it: The world is morally wrong.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
In that case, what is your basis for claiming morals are objective?I almost agree with the "superior arbiter" part, but I am certainly not into talking metaphysics, and thus, I don;t give Euthyphro any weight at all. I don't argue about ancient legends.You can make a case that for values to exist which are independent of humans (and in that sense 'objective' from our pov) there has to some superior arbiter of what is right and wrong. This doesn't necessarily get you around Euthyphro's dilemma, your God of choice requires certain properties to side-step it. But it's possible imo with certain conceptions of god.
And it would be really helpful to know how you're defining 'objective; and defining 'god', to avoid me having to guess where the goalposts lie, only to find they've moved, thanks.
Well we can understand the purpose (and basic evolutionary story) of the human reward system, why some things feel bad and some things feel good, including emotionally. Why we care about the welfare not only of ourselves, but of others too. Why their suffering, as well as our own, feels bad to us. And can see how a notion of right and wrong and 'objective morality' grew out of that, when people didn't have the knowledge we have now.The real problem for your argument, is that science is beginning to explain how human values evolved, making an appeal to a supernatural source unnecessary.
Where that leaves us, is the real issue.
Science can't touch this, or, perhaps it can if it starts taking value in Being seriously, but there is no sense they are ready for this. Science is interested in observation and speculation that backs it. My argument is that there are things in the world, the same world the physicist looks at, that warrant the call for something else, something that underpins what we see and address it. The things in the world are value (without the plural form), that is, the joys and miseries in the world, but especially the miseries. What IS this? Not what does it do, or how do we form principles around it, or what would a defensible system of value distribution look like; no: just what IS it? Its presence stands among the other presences that are measured, codified, applied in problem solving, and so on, but this is completely different.
To that extent, science has explained the manmade concept of objective morality, starting from the evidence, rather than 'intuitions'.
The perhaps deeper question of 'what is it?' applies to consciousness generally, the human reward system being just one aspect of consciousness. Science doesn't (currently) have an answer for that. So you could say this is a 'god of the gaps' issue at heart.
Currently philosophy of mind offers some speculations which could equate to some people's concept of god. Panpsychism suggests consciousness is a fundamental part of the fabric of the universe, you could say that all adds up to something you could call 'god' if you wanted to, tho I don't see what the label would add.
But religious people usually want to add more, that God is Good, that's what gives God its god status. God as the source of 'objective morality' is linked to this. But if you're talking about some kind of unified 'mind' as fundamental to universe you have to first explain why consciousness is experienced as a discrete unified field by discrete systems (eg human beings), and if you want to single a particular attributes of the whole, like Good or Moral, you also have to say 'God is a Tomato Sandwich',, 'God is Bad', 'God is Hate', 'God is Toothache', 'God is War' and so on. In other words, if you're ascribing the source of objective Good and Bad to a 'universal mind', you can't pick and choose can you?
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
These notions, panpsychism, god, and others are good for other matters, but not here. Even talk about a transcendental ego is just a diversion from the very simple phenomenon of suffering. Not that suffering isn't analyzable. It has structure: it is in time and we "care" and there is the agency of caring, us: all of this is inherent in the occasion of suffering, and more. But for now, just the bare "invisible badness" is what is at issue. An odd locution, granted, but there seems to be no way around it.Currently philosophy of mind offers some speculations which could equate to some people's concept of god. Panpsychism suggests consciousness is a fundamental part of the fabric of the universe, you could say that all adds up to something you could call 'god' if you wanted to, tho I don't see what the label would add.
But religious people usually want to add more, that God is Good
It means this: take a Bunsen burner and apply it to your forearm and observe. The pain you feel has component parts. There is,well, the pain, which is a rising powerful sensation that seems to exceed some threshold of tolerance. But in this analysis there is *something qualitatively different* from all other things that fall under the rubric of observables. It is what I argue is the absolute moral "badness" of the pain. To get this, it helps to read Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics, which is short, accessible, and I think online available. Wittgenstein thinks judgments like this are impossible with their references to absolutes. But I say he's wrong. If you'r interested i can argue why. In short, pain is not contingently accountable, that is, its meaning does not change with the circumstance. So even if it is pure misery to have to study, but studying will get you a better job, it does not change one whit the nature of the "badness" inherent in t he pain itself.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
Well you raised the issue of atheism/theology, and in the religion forum, so I've been trying to address the concept of 'objective morality' from that angle, to show the problems associated with the claim I understood you to be making, that 'objective morality' relies on the existence of some kind of god. (Tho you still haven't defined what kind of god, or what you mean by 'objective'? Which would be helpful).These notions, panpsychism, god, and others are good for other matters, but not here. Even talk about a transcendental ego is just a diversion from the very simple phenomenon of suffering. Not that suffering isn't analyzable. It has structure: it is in time and we "care" and there is the agency of caring, us: all of this is inherent in the occasion of suffering, and more. But for now, just the bare "invisible badness" is what is at issue. An odd locution, granted, but there seems to be no way around it.
If you simply want to discuss the nature of suffering, then as I say it's an understood part of the human reward system. The mystery lies with conscious experience itself, in all its forms, dramatic and mundane. Conscious experience encompasses suffering, well-being, memory, reason, hunger, colour, sound, every experience you have. The evolved role of the human reward system as a function of consciousness (ouch fire hurts, I won't stick my hand in a bunsen burner again, it feels bad!) isn't a mystery, the mystery is consciousness itself. All of it, from love to hate to the taste of a tomato sandwich.
But you're picking out one aspect of conscious experience as special (and something to do with god it seems), looking at it in an unnecessarily abstracted way when we have much better empirical approaches which I've outlined, and coming to the conclusion, somehow, that morality is objective.
How about if I have no feeling in my arm, owing to a fault in my nervous system, is sticking my arm in fire no longer bad?
Or what about the taste of a tomato sandwich? It is qualiatively different from the taste of a cheese sandwich, or remembering the taste, or feeling hungry, or seeing a tomato and wanting to eat it, etc. Why aren't you equally puzzled about that? How about if I loathe the taste of a tomato sandwich? Is the taste of a tomato sandwich an 'absolute moral bad'?
Evolution explains this stuff, it makes sense that we are the way we are, that pain feels bad.
And maybe it's me, but you seem to have shifted from god-reliant objective morality, and I'm struggling to make out what you're actually claiming.
Perhaps you could just lay out exactly what your claim is, define your terms, and show your argument, as clearly as you can? Then we'll know we're all talking about the same thing.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
The main flaw with your criticism of atheism is your assumption that it rests on a false assumption, namely:The main flaw with atheism is that it rests on a false assumption.
... that the fact that we do not directly experience the existence of more advanced forms of life is strong evidence that there are none.
This has been discussed ad nauseum. Belief in God is not the innate default position requiring strong evidence in order not to believe it.
Empirical evidence and philosophy are not the only options nor are they mutually exclusive. Using your own arguments it should be evident why reason may not be up to the task, unless of course you hold that reason is not subject to human limits, but that’s begging the question. Isn’t it?Therefore, the issue has to be reasoned out, i.e. it is a philosophical question.
One’s belief in God may be based on neither evidence or reason. Whatever compels one person to believe may not compel another. By the same token another person might find nothing that compels them to believe in God. Their atheism is not a denial of God’s existence, it is simply a lack of belief.
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Re: So you're an atheist? Not so fast.
As mentioned, atheism is simply a lack of belief, so no assumptions are involved.Atreyu wrote:The main flaw with atheism is that it rests on a false assumption. Namely, that the fact that we do not directly experience the existence of more advanced forms of life is strong evidence that there are none. In reality, this sheds light on nothing. It's to be expected. A lower psyche cannot recognize the existence of a higher one. An cell in your body cannot be aware of your existence, even though it is in you. Neither could we be aware of the Earth's existence as a sentient being, even if it is and in spite of the fact that we are a part of it and live on it. Empiricism cannot help with this question. Therefore, the issue has to be reasoned out, i.e. it is a philosophical question.
As a not-a-theist I have no problem believing there could be human-like-aliens living in another planet billions of light years away even when I have no way of confirming this hypothesis.
At present is not likely that humans can travel that many light years away to reach other planets to confirm the existence of human-like-aliens elsewhere light years away. But such a hypothesis is a possibility [even 0.00001] because the elements [in bold] of the hypothesis are based on empirical possibility.
With theism and the existence of God, it is impossible [i..e. 0.0 possibility] for such a thing as God [omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent, omni-whatever] to exist as real. God is like a square-circle which is impossible to exist logically and empirically. Even from a rational and philosophical perspective, God is an empirical impossibility, i.e. no matter how one rationalize theoretically, one will not be able to present nor speculate God from the empirical perspective.
God is only a psychological and mental possibility. God [a very useful thought] is based on a leap of faith when the majority of humans are driven by a "zombie meme" that compel humans to believe in an impossible God to soothe their psychological angst. If we can suppress the psychological angst [subliminal] in a person then that person will never be a theist.
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