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Atheists and believers surprisingly share moral values, except for these 2 key differences

PureX

Veteran Member
You make this claim, but fail to provide evidence that it is actually 'purposeful':" in other words, that there is intention behind it.
Design is a process of enforced order intended to achieve a specific result. The function of DNA is to impose a design process that intends to achieve specific results. That you refuse to acknowledge this is not my responsibility to overcome for you.
You are assuming there *is* a goal. And you do that without any reason for assuming such.
There is a specific result that has been predetermined by a specific design process. This is not an assumption. It is an observed fact. That you refuse to connect the process and the result of the process to infer intent is not my problem to deal with.
So it is action because of hope? That seems an unusual way to define it, but sure. In that case, how is it relevant to our discussion? What does it have to do with moral values or justifying such because of consequences?
The hope is that our embodying those gifts of the spirit as we live our lives will fulfill an existential purpose that remains hidden from us.
In that case, I would simply say that you are very lucky. I have found intuition to be *much* worse that evidence based decision making.
I suspect that your 'intuiter' is broken.
And, contrast to what you claim, the fact that intuition is immediate and 'inclusive' is *precisely* why it is overwhelmed with bias. It is the biases making the decision in that case, not rational consideration of the alternatives.

And I would simply say that if you have to explain this to most people, then it is *you* that is using the word incorrectly.

Which simply means there is no actual justification, only our own biases and feelings.
Intuition is like any other metaphysical tool available to we humans. The more we engage with it, the better we get at it.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Design is a process of enforced order intended to achieve a specific result.
Good. I like that definition.
The function of DNA is to impose a design process that intends to achieve specific results. That you refuse to acknowledge this is not my responsibility to overcome for you.
And what you fail to show is *intent*. DNA is a chemical molecule. It interacts chemically with other things in its environment. There is no 'goal' to achieve a specific result, merely chemicals doing what they do. There is no 'imposition' of order. There is simply order.

If you disagree, please give a good criterion for determining when there is intent and apply it to DNA.
There is a specific result that has been predetermined by a specific design process.
There is no evidence of 'design' outside of the evolutionary process that has no 'goal'. This is NOT order being imposed, but rather order simply existing because of the properties of chemicals.
This is not an assumption. It is an observed fact. That you refuse to connect the process and the result of the process to infer intent is not my problem to deal with.
No, the *intent* is not observed. In fact, there is no evidence of intent and every evidence otherwise (including the randomness of mutations and the way evolution works in practice).
The hope is that our embodying those gifts of the spirit as we live our lives will fulfill an existential purpose that remains hidden from us.
Do you see that this is a very different type of 'hope' than hoping our plans will work out on a day to day basis? For the day to day hopes, we have the observed order of things to base our intuitions and knowledge.
I suspect that your 'intuiter' is broken.
Intuition needs training by evidence.
Intuition is like any other metaphysical tool available to we humans. The more we engage with it, the better we get at it.
Yes, we learn by looking at the evidence and then modifying our intuition to fit reality.
 

Banach-Tarski Paradox

Active Member
I am suggesting that before intelligent beings conceptualized 'morals', there was a need for rules that governed the conduct of the members in any group or even a family. I see these basic rules as the seeds for 'morality'

I agree slavery is immoral. However, the conclusion that slavery is immoral is relatively new.

Here in America, some 500 years ago, slaves started running away and creating their own communities.

The evolution of the sexual division of labor and the the configuration of the family was specifically designed to protect the freedom of the family and the community in a slave regime.

It’s complicated. Matrilineal social culture. Avuncular. Stuff like that.

As for slavery, it was against their religion.

Many of the slave masters in Cauca were Idolaters who mistreated their slaves.
 
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Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
What if I am a Theist but also lean libertarian? Or at the very least, Independent. I definitely lean Libertarian however. For instance, sex acts - I choose not to participate in some but I don't think they should be against the law or anything like that. I mean, I think that any sexual act that is CONSENSUAL between adults should be fine even if personally I find it distasteful or worse. To me, there is a huge difference between what I personally want and what I see around me, and I'm actually fine with that. I can and do create my own world. I don't expect everyone else to agree with or go along with my idea of what my world is, but I also want the freedom to create my own world. (And others do join me there, which I enjoy!)
 
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Banach-Tarski Paradox

Active Member
What if I am a Theist but also lean libertarian? Or at the very least, Independent. I definitely lean Libertarian however. For instance, sex acts - I choose not to participate in some but I don't think they should be against the law or anything like that. I mean, I think that any sexual act that is CONSENSUAL between adults should be fine even if personally I find it distasteful or worse. To me, there is a huge difference between what I personally want and what I see around me, and I'm actually fine with that. I can and do create my own world. I don't expect everyone else to agree with or go along with my idea of what my world is, but I also want the freedom to create my own world. (And others do join me there, which I enjoy!)
I didn’t know that makes somebody a libertarian.

This sort of stuff caused all sorts of problems when my wife’s culture sent emissaries reaching out to the colonial church back in the 1720s asking for a priest to perform baptisms, who in turn informed the colonial state as well.

It’s a long story, but the House of Bourbon had to come up with this novel political notion of a Separation of Powers within the monarchy since the colonial state considered their existence as illegal, since they had run away from their masters.
 

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Oh, it's not just sex acts - it's a whole plethora of beliefs. That's just one example. Plus, I am not a libertarian, I just lean in that direction. I do consider myself to be an Independent though.
 
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Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I didn’t know that makes somebody a libertarian.

This sort of stuff caused all sorts of problems when my wife’s culture sent emissaries reaching out to the colonial church back in the 1720s asking for a priest to perform baptisms, who in turn informed the colonial state as well.

It’s a long story, but the House of Bourbon had to come up with this novel political notion of a Separation of Powers within the monarchy since the colonial state considered their existence as illegal, since they had run away from their masters.
Oh, it's not just sex acts - it's a whole plethora of beliefs. That's just one example. Plus, I am not a libertarian, I just lean in that direction. I do consider myself to be an Independent though.
 

Banach-Tarski Paradox

Active Member
Oh, it's not just sex acts - it's a whole plethora of beliefs. That's just one example. Plus, I am not a libertarian, I just lean in that direction. I do consider myself to be an Independent though.

The problem was the configuration of the family, which was itself related to the sexual division of labor.

It was a matrilinear social culture in a larger patrilinear political culture of the Spanish empire.
 
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Banach-Tarski Paradox

Active Member
OK but I am not talking about any of that. I am talking about me, a woman in the 21st century in the USA.

I realized that afterwards. I initially thought that the word “Plus” demarked a transition between the two, so I thought I was replying to the first two sentences. Sorry.
 
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