Just Addressing Yet Another Absurd, Dishonest Atheistic Argument

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Does a moral value go from being subjective to objective if it begins as the idea of a single person and eventually becomes universally accepted?

If I convince the world I have six fingers on one hand does that change the fact that I have four and a thumb?

If you convinced me, you have six fingers.

I'm a rational skeptic and an empiricist. I may provisionally accept your claim that you have six fingers on one hand, but I won't accept it as a fact - that is, I won't be convinced - without seeing your hand and maybe an X-ray of it as well.

Now that I've answered your question, did you want to address mine? I thought it deserved a little more consideration than the six-fingered comment.

 

[Valjean]

For me, objective morals are those woven into the fabric of the universe, like the inverse square law or mass-energy equivalence. Objective reality obtains weather there are any humans around to observe it or not.
Subjective morals or reality requires a subject to appreciate it. It's a personal reality that may or may not correspond with objective reality.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

And yet you and I were objectively thinking, and after we died those thoughts are nowhere to be found.

If for some reason I perceived you as not drinking lemonade but some foul green liquid that reeked of sewage, yet all other percieved the liquid as yellow and sweet/tart? Who would be right. If I percieved you moving your hand back and forth as though you thought there was a glass of lemonade yet you percieved each drink who would be right? You can talk of when no one is around to observe it all you like.

You're describing subjective experience - yours - a private reality.

The noumenal world may exist, but you and I cannot know it separate from our phenomenal world..

Understood

Just because the existence is contingent on life or humans does not mean that the existence is not real.

I'd say "not objectively real," not "not real."

Ideas really exist, but their referents need not. They might be optical illusions, delusions, or hallucinations.

 

[Curious George]

If you convinced me, you have six fingers.

I'm a rational skeptic and an empiricist. I may provisionally accept your claim that you have six fingers on one hand, but I won't accept it as a fact - that is, I won't be convinced - without seeing your hand and maybe an X-ray of it as well.

Now that I've answered your question, did you want to address mine? I thought it deserved a little more consideration than the six-fingered comment.

I dont know that you answered my question. But, the answer to both of our questions is that nothing ever goes from being subjective to objective. Rather we only have subjectively objective. However, that is as close as an approximation as we will have.

 

[Curious George]

You're describing subjective experience - yours - a private reality.



Understood



I'd say "not objectively real," not "not real."

Ideas really exist, but their referents need not. They might be optical illusions, delusions, or hallucinations.

Perhaps we are getting lost here. I agree that I was describing a subjective experience, but my point was that so too were you. We can have optical illusions, delusions, or hallucinations as you say but we accept them as objective if they are supported by enough evidence. So too should we accept morals that are supported by such evidence. We cannot assert that it is possible that morality in the most abstract is a shared delusion. What one ought to do is informed by our inductive reasoning and influenced by our nature just the same as assumptions of what ought to happen in "objective" reality. We cannot discount morality as objective based on the variations, when there is constants as well.

 

[paarsurrey]

Just Addressing an unreasonable Atheistic Argument

Did one ever see a positive evidence for non-existence of God from the Atheism people? Please

Regards

 

[Thumper]

Just Addressing an unreasonable Atheistic Argument

Did one ever see a positive evidence for non-existence of God from the Atheism people? Please

Regards

which one?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Some acts are beneficial to the survival and well-being of the society and its citizens. We call those acts good/moral/right. Some acts are detrimental to the survival and well-being of the society and its citizens. We call those acts bad/immoral/wrong.

Religion provides rules such as the 10 commandments and the Golden Rule and also provides a God with the authority to reward those who follow these rules and punish those who don't. Religion is just a supernatural version of the justice system. It provides people who can't tell right from wrong with simple rules to follow so they don't ruin it for the rest of us. Religion has an important function in society.

What does your post (or religion?) have to do with whether rape is "societally bad" or WRONG?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Well most ancient people believed in some sort of god, but then they ascribed a lot of what they didn't understand to gods (such as lightning).

And although most modern people might believe in at least 1 god, your particular god has never had a majority of the people, so "most" is far-fetched.

I chose to refer to it as "made up bull" because all I have to go on is that you said such and such is so without any real evidence, just your word. I see no reason to simply take you at your word.

This may be an "aberrant" position from your perspective, but it's becoming more mainstream all the time. As people become more educated and informed they care less and less for shamans.

If you mean more and more atheists are out of the closet in our age of less repression against atheists, fine.

But there is excellent evidence both for God and the Christian religion.

 

[BilliardsBall]

If rape is an objective wrong, then why isn't there a commandment that says "thou shall not rape"?

In the Bible? Two people fornicating are put to death. A woman who cries out while being assaulted is spared and he is put to death! There is capital punishment for rape in the Bible.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Blah ... blah ... blah

Yes, you did claim that atheists cannot have an "objective moral standard."

You still haven't named one ( 1 ) moral precept that can be shown to originate from religion, any religion? Just 1 foundational moral principle which would not exist without religion?

That rape is wrong. Without religion, rape would still be wrong. Do you disagree?

 

[BilliardsBall]

They're all describing a different god. I've already posted this once here. Here it is again:

*********

Here's a good question: How do we decide which is correct when one group of people tells us that they had a sensory experience of some type, and another group of people in similar circumstance say that they have not?

How about if I found myself in a world in which people told me that they could see red and green, but I couldn't. How could I decide whether it was I that could not see something that existed, or if they were seeing things or perpetrating a hoax?

Easily. I test them. I have two socks that appear identical to me numbered 1 and 2. Then I independently interview a number of people who claim to be able to discern red from green, and ask them to tell me which sock appears red and which appears green to them.

When I get the same answer from them all, I know that they can see something I can't. When they're unable to come to a consensus and more or less half tell me that sock 1 is red and the other half tell me it's green, I know that they are not seeing any more than I do.

It's by this same method that I know that the people telling me that they have experienced a god are only experiencing their own minds. They describe multiple gods with multiple personalities, each of which happens to think just like they do.

What you say is true unless God appears to persons or foretells the future with 100% accuracy and etc.

I mean, the Law of Conservation of matter and energy is a pretty good indication that special creation occurred.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Unshared premise. There is no evidence that any authority is derived from any god, but you can get some by claiming that one speaks through you.



That's a problem for a loving god. This says it well:

"You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, 'When you're done, I'm going to punish you' .. If I were in a situation where I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That's the difference between me and your God." - Tracie Harris



Are you going to be theist number umpteen with no plausible answer to the theodicy problem? The question is a good one, the criticism just, and there are no explanations coming from the people telling us that this god knows all, is all-powerful, loves us, and sits idly be as we suffer. We're just told that such matters transcend our puny minds and to believe it however absurd that request is.

Tracie's quote belies the fact that she had the God-given ability to intercede against the rapist. The Bible is clear that we can do God's work. You can do it, too.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Thumper wrote: "Can you name one ( 1 ) moral precept that can be shown to originate from religion, any religion? Just 1 foundational moral principle which would not exist without religion?"



Shall we take that as a "No"?

Here's another one you can evade: Name a single valuable and original moral precept attributable to Jesus.

When someone forces you to give them your cloak, give them your shirt, too.

 

[BilliardsBall]

IANS wrote: "No objective moral standards are possible or needed."



Rape is wrong to me, but not objectively wrong. Even if humankind were unanimous in that judgment, there is no objective moral standard to refer to - nothing to look at with the eye, telescope,or microscope - only opinions, and they are subjective.

We can only go to one another, canvas for opinions, and decide by consensus which activities are moral or not.

If you're going to offer up this god as a moral exemplar, then it is fit for moral judgment. You can't have it both ways: "Mine is a good god, but when he seems cruel, you have to stop judging Him until we have another beautiful day, at which time you may begin judging, thanking, and praising Him again."

The God of the Old Testament, however, didn't disapprove of rape. If His standards are objectively real to you, then I think you have to go with the god.

I know rape is objectively wrong to me and subjectively wrong to you. To be an atheist, your morals must be subjective and there must be few or no absolutes.

Of course God speaks against rape in the OT. It's punished with capital punishment for the man!

 

[BilliardsBall]

You all seem to have a different religion and a different god.

How is being separated from such a god a punishment? I'm separated from it now and quite content.



Atheism is the only rational position possible.

Sorry if you don't like my posting, but I don't think much of your atheophobia. You demean an entire class of mostly loving, intelligent, hard-working people, then claim persecution because they rebuke you.

.

You will be separated from God and all persons in a place of everlasting darkness, sorrow and regret.

 

[BilliardsBall]

And there it is: The puny minds justification for not seeing the good in the Holocaust.

What would Satan have done differently?

Huh? What are you saying?

The Holocaust was awful. So are your posts. In both cases, God is likely preventing something worse. And?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Yes, but is reverse order. However from a Jewish perspective the Christian concept of God seems pretty unsupportable.

I can understand the disdain many Jews have for Christianity.

How open-minded of you. Do you understand the deep devotion I have for the Christ (Mashiach) as a Jew? After all, Messiah comes from the Jews, to the Jews, for the Jews first, the Gentiles second.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Perhaps we are getting lost here. I agree that I was describing a subjective experience, but my point was that so too were you. We can have optical illusions, delusions, or hallucinations as you say but we accept them as objective if they are supported by enough evidence. So too should we accept morals that are supported by such evidence. We cannot assert that it is possible that morality in the most abstract is a shared delusion. What one ought to do is informed by our inductive reasoning and influenced by our nature just the same as assumptions of what ought to happen in "objective" reality. We cannot discount morality as objective based on the variations, when there is constants as well.

OK, but I still say as I did to Artie that my suspicion is that we are in agreement about what is the case, but disagreeing about what to call it. You seem to be using "objective" to mean what I would call universal. If everybody agreed on a moral position, then I would call it a universal value, not an objectively real or true one.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Just Addressing an unreasonable Atheistic Argument

Did one ever see a positive evidence for non-existence of God from the Atheism people? Please

Regards

If by "God" you mean the god of the Christian Bible, the argument against that one is based on pure reason. The evidence is the mutually exclusive descriptions of that god. It's logically impossible as described. There may be a god or gods, but it/they won't be logically impossible. They will have at most one of the two mutually exclusive properties.

But regarding generic gods in general, there is no evidence against them, There is no test, measurement, argument, observation, or algorithm that can rule out gods in general.

Atheism isn't about making positive claims that gods are impossible or don't exist. We simply say that we have no reason to believe that they do, and that we need a reason to believe things. That's what rational skepticism means: We question every claim and critically, dispassionately, and open-mindedly evaluate it based on the available evidence and supporting argument for the claim. We believe only what is justified, only to the extent that the quality and quantity of the available evidence supports, and tentatively, meaning with less than certitude, and with a willingness to revise our beliefs if necessary to make them conform to any new evidence.