3RU7AL

There shouldn't be any rationale as to why we evolved a conscience because evolution is a mindless process without any aims or goals.

Where do you think meaning comes from? It takes a mind to give something meaning otherwise as many here have pointed out it is just "quanta". "Qualia" is the meaning given to "quanta".

Is it reachable through google?

Will you let me enjoy a challenge without turning it into a competition?

If I'm unfamiliar with that term could you provide a link for me?

On that basis there is no reason to suppose psychpaths have less freewill than anybody else  - they only exercise it differenty.  We agree?

I would characterise a psychopath as an individual who's brain circuits prioiritise 'harm/benefit to self' over 'harm/benefit to others' significantly more than the population norm.

Taking this view resolves anyone of moral responsibility or moral accountability before making their decision about whether they should accept your moral standards or the jihadists. One who desires control and pleasure, but initially felt held back by their conscience, can intellectually justify their desire to rape innocent women by considering it good. Does that ring true?

Because our universe would have been created by a transcendent consciousness (not comprised of the physical universe itself) if deism is true.

This implies that consciousness rather than matter is fundamental and is therefore in direct opposition to atheism.

In genetics, scientists have coined the term "junk DNA" for strands of DNA they believed had no functional role in sustaining the organism because it had been left over from evolving.

If a deity created the universe, this is an avenue for life to have been designed.

Rather than mindlessly compiled, DNA can be viewed from a design-first approach. And as it turns out, less and less DNA is discovered to be "junk."

Ok, I'll rephrase. Neither your moral standards nor their moral standards are more rationally warranted. It's wholly dependent upon subjective opinion.

Since the term "rational" is relative to the person using it, yes.

You have free will at the point where you realize you can make alternative decisions. I don't know exactly at what stage of development this happens. Probably very young in humans and maybe not ever in animals. 

I don't have an equation for free will, only the defintion. No, emotional intelligence does not equal free will. Moral culpability is better represented by emotional intelligence than IQ.

axiom: free-will requires intelligence.

axiom: moral culpability requires free-will.(note change of order)(without free-will there is no moral culpability)

hence: moral culpability requires intelligence.

axiom: animals and infants have less, adult humans have more intelligence.

lemma: culpabiity is 'proportional' to intelligence (currently assumed pending formal proof!) 

hence: adults are more morally culpable than infants or animals.

Yes, deism doesn't specify any particular God. Deism wouldn't be inconsequential. It would have implications for consciousness, biology, an afterlife, etc. It's also enough for atheism to be false.

Is any infinite quantity physically realistic?  I suspect that infinity is a mathematical covenience, a useful approximation for a value that is extremely large.  

Free will is the ability to have chosen otherwise. That's not a high threshold.

Once that threshold is reached, any additional intelligence will not increase your free will.

And by intelligence I assume you mean possessing higher cognitive abilities like weighing decisions, introspection, planning ahead, etc. Intelligence of this sort should not be conflated with an IQ score.

Your ability to be aware of how your actions affect others determines your level of moral culpability, not your intelligence.

It's plausible many people have high IQ scores but very low emotional intelligence. 

Haven't we just been asking each other questions and trying to 'answer' questions with questions?

Where else might it have come from?

What if I don't want to play your version of the Question Game?

Is it even possible to use any aesthetic but my own?

An obvious false premise, the Big Bang whether brought on by free will or not can both be argued for infinite regress.

Infinite regress is logically impossible. If time were to travel back infinitely it would logically never be able to reach the present.

If the Big Bang wasn't brought into existence by free will, then there must be an infinite regress of preceding causes that led to up to the Big Bang.

The only way around this is if an action occurred by free will - in that case the event will not have a quantifiable beginning.

You have made this assertion but have not quantified or explained this difference in any way.

An obvious false premise, the Big Bang whether brought on by free will or not can both be argued for infinite regress.

Isn't that subjective?

Is this really that kind of game?

Do you realize how beautiful his posts are?

0 does not relate to an object because an object that doesn't exist will have nothing to relate to it.

Math is useful, we both agree on that, but your theory that math is based on objects is where we disagree. We understand abstract concepts using our brain but this doesn't mean that abstract concepts are only contained within our brain. We understand reality using our brain too, this doesnt mean that reality is only contained within our brain. 

Transcendental argument for God's existence.

And your moral opinion would be considered irrational relative to their moral standards. Your moral standards and their moral standards are equally rationally warranted. Correct?

I dont know what you mean when you say deism is functionally equivalent to atheism. You mean the world will continue as is with no supernatural intervention?

Do you know how beautiful your posts are?

In reference to the opinion that cruelty, dishonesty, cowardice and laziness were morally good you said:

"I, personally, would find those things irrational if I wanted to be considered a good person. However, I cannot speak for someone else"

Now, in reference to the same opinion that cruelty, dishonesty, cowardice, are morally good are you saying this:

"Those things are morally good as they pertain to my moral standards. It would not be irrational for a sadist or a compulsive liar to disagree with me."

There just needs to be a fact of the matter in order to resolve moral disagreements. Without moral realism, there's no fact of the matter. There's also no moral progress, no moral highground, no moral correctness or incorrectness, no instrinsic moral value attached to dispositions like compassion and cruelty, in the case of two competing moral views on something, one person can never be more right than the other, and moral discussions themselves would be no different than reaching a consensus on a favorite color. 

Maximizing physical harm to you is good though according to their chosen standard. In any case, there's no moral highground between the both of you.

So the arguments given for atheism so far are:

* lack of evidence for theism

* propensity for people to make up supernatural explanations

My objective is to have the most rational inference.

There may be other logically possible explanations for something but that doesn't mean it's the most rational explanation.

It's logically possible that the Rosetta Stone was written through wind and erosion.

There is no testable physical evidence of logic, meaning, math (& geometry),

...and moral truth propositions. Nor of conscious experiences, free will, etc.

When you think of the number "1" must you imagine it as an object, like an apple or an orange? When you think of "1,000,000" do you hold a million different objects in your mind? We understand the meaning of numbers without having objects associated with them. 

If math required corresponding objects for us to know of it then the works of Pythagoras or Euclid would've been impossible.

The Big Bang was just one example. We need to rely on an inference to the best explanation for many things. Not everything can be reproduced in a controlled environment, even though that might be ideal.

God would have designed nature so there'd be a certain level of intellect exhibited in nature. That said, God is not "intertwined" in nature. A programmer is beyond the program he creates. He is not contained by it but he leaves signatures of his intelligence inside the program. 

The number of versions of something conceived beforehand does not make it more or less likely that the next version is any more or less likely to exist. It 100% depends on the defintion. This also overlooks the commonalities in many different variations of God. One of those commonalities for instance is an eternal consciousness, not Christianity or Islam.

A high or low IQ doesn't necessarily translate into how well you understand how your actions affect others.

This also isn't a legal matter - it's a moral one.

Your motives play a large part in determining whether you acted immorally or not.

Taking something from someone while not knowing it belonged to anyone is not the same as deliberately stealing from someone.

Less moral culpability isn't necessarily a good thing since it also limits your ability to do good things. 

If you don't have the ability to know how your actions affect others beforehand then it's hard to be blameworthy.

It isn't a false dilemma because it is either true that the Big Bang occurred by chance or it is not true that the Big Bang occurred by chance. 

Since natural explanations lead to an infinite chain of events with quantifiable beginnings, the only recourse is to say that we don't understand how it happened. That may be true, but it doesn't address the logic in my argument.

If the Big Bang wasn't brought into existence by free will, then there must be an infinite regress of preceding causes that led to up to the Big Bang.

Given an infinite amount of time, any action that has a greater than 0 chance of occurring will inevitably occur.

One this action inevitably occurs, we can count backwards the number of trials that led up to the action. By doing this, the entire event has a quantifiable beginning.

The problem is that given an unlimited amount of time,

...something that can happen inevitably will. This gives you an infinite chain of events that all have quantifiable beginnings to them which is logically absurd.

The only way around this is if an action occurred by free will...

- in that case the event will not have a quantifiable beginning.

All I know: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bgrw3y

I'll go with a third option, that we don't yet fully understand causality, or time, or how the universe came into being.

+1!

Is there a non-zero chance that, once you reach heaven, you can misbehave enough to be kicked out?

If so, then because heaven is eternal, everyone will eventually be kicked out.

I'd like to hear any strong arguments you might have for atheism.

Didn't you just answer with, 'Do you really want me to answer?'?

"Non-local" means invoking faster-than-light information transfer... i.e. instant action-at-a-distance.

Is that preferable to randomness?  Dunno.  Not my field!