PGA2.0

Why does a mindless process build into itself instinct, and instinct to live? It just happens. No reason. Those who survive have instinct and those who do not survive lack the instinct. So what? How does that make anything good? Is it good to survive in a meaningless universe that does not care about you and won't when you serve your pointless, meaningless existence? 

You see it clearly enough - "It just happens. No reason. Those who survive have instinct and those who do not survive lack the instinct." 

There is no need to invent the superfluous notion of 'good'   If a species or a society thrives then is it because it has effective instincts,  not because they ''possess goodness' or 'nearer to God'!

I puzzle how you build morality on biology (what is) and get objective values (what ought to be). Are you aware of Hume's is to ought problem?

I am familiar with it, but I'm not convinced it is a problem.  If it is, then I'm not convinced any view has a legitimate answer.

The law of non-contradiction applies to all logical categories. You can pluck ice cream out of the example and insert moral view X and the analogy is still applicable. I'm not sure I understand what you are even objecting to. We should easily agree on this.

You are making something that is, the like of ice-cream, something that should or ought to be if you bring morality into the equation because morality deals with right and wrong, not what you like. The two are separate categories. One is a description - I like ice-cream, the other is a prescription - you must not eat Joe's foot because Joe is a person and we don't eat people. Ice-cream is good is a subjective preference. It is subject to your likes. Eating your neighbor is wrong because it is a moral ought, not a preference. It applies to all people, not just you. One is a personal taste - I like, the other is a moral right or wrong - eating Joe's foot is wrong because Joe is a person. 

In that case, you are allowing your understanding of a particular subject to interfere with your understanding of logic. The laws of logic work the same regardless of the subject (provided it is not self-contradictory).   - in response to this post.

Thus we, as humans, can understand God and know Him in as much as He has revealed Himself, and we can experience His reality in our life through prayer and faith/trust. Providentially He guides the believer. He confirms who He is via His word and via His creation. Because you don't want to accept this is not my problem. It is an issue between you and the God you deny and pretend is make-believe. There is nothing I could ever do to convince you because WHATEVER I say you will find a way to oppose it. Thus, it is futile in dialoguing with you. Your mind is made up and may heaven help you. If God is willing this will happen. Otherwise, enjoy your life and stop worrying until the big day. For you, it is all meaningless in the end yet you constantly seek meaning while denying it really matters. Thus, you are inconsistent to what you ultimately believe. So be it!

Everything you believe is based entirely on the ideas, imagination and superstitions of ignorant, primitive, superstitious savages.(IPSS) Those same people claim that the Jewish nation was enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years and yet the Egyptians, who recorded almost everything failed to even mention that 400yrs of their alleged history, why would you believe those IPSS? They claim that a worldwide flood deeper than Mt Everest is high devastated the world and wiped out nearly all living things, why would you believe those IPSS? They claim that 4million people and livestock wandered around a small desert for forty years and there is no history of that ever occurring and there is not a skeric of evidence to be found of any human occupation of that desert, why would you believe those IPSS? All gods are the creations of man. It's you who is obsessed and worried by a big day that has zero chance of happening, I know that when I die there will be nothing and I will be totally oblivious to that fact because I'll be dead just like every living thing that ever evolved on this planet is eventually dead. Your abject fear of death is just so pitiable and it dominates what can be a beautiful life. But breaking free of your indoctrination in stupid fear takes quite some courage, courage that you are indoctrinated to suppress. Good luck with your fear, it has ruined your life, why don't you let others find the joy that exists in a real life and keep your indoctrinated nonsense to yourself.

I think people have a right to control their own bodies to an extent,

There are no part-time rights.

So can I use my body as a deadly weapon to kill another person, or should I control the use of it?

I answered that question in our debate.

For there to be a logical contradiction, these views would need to exist in the same person at the same time. It makes no difference if the subject is ice cream or moral views.

Not necessarily so. For there to be a logical contradiction the moral view on the same subjectwould have to contradict. Liking ice-cream and liking to torture innocent human beings for fun are different categories. 

The law of non-contradiction applies to all logical categories. You can pluck ice cream out of the example and insert moral view X and the analogy is still applicable. I'm not sure I understand what you are even objecting to. We should easily agree on this.

I think people have a right to control their own bodies to an extent,

There are no part-time rights.

A rhetorical question is a useful tool for provoking thought, but it like all tools can be abused. Ultimately, a question is not an argument, its garnish - and a plate of garnish leaves one unsatiated.

I say this after responding to your round 3 arguments in our debate on abortion. You had ~ 41 questions, if I remember correctly. It's a crutch you rely on too heavily upon, imo.

Is torturing a baby for fun okay for Joe because he likes doing it? Can you say with certainty it is okay for him? Please answer. 

Torturing a baby for fun is wrong, in my opinion.

Claiming to have the right to a woman's body is wrong, in my opinion.

It would seem from your very specific question that you may consider torturing a baby for reasons other than fun is acceptable to you, if not then why do you specify "for fun"?

Do you disagree with torturing a baby for fun because your ultimate authority instructs you so and without that ultimate authority you would find it acceptable?

It would seem that all of these things that atheists find inherently wrong requires you to be ordered not to participate in. It would also seem that the world is fortunate that you have these orders that you are compelled to follow since you obviously have no inherent understand of right and wrong, you can't think for yourself, without your orders you would be a psychopath, it would seem.

So what makes it RIGHT? Your subjective opinion on the subject matter?

That is all you have, why isn't it good enough for others?

You can't prove that my subjectivity does not have an objective standard to look to and when I correctly interpret that standard it is objectively so. All you can do is assert I don't have such a standard to look to while I point out that you don't have what is necessary to know moral goodness if there is no objective standard as the measure. Why would I give two cents for your standard if it is subject to change - pure relativism? You just make it up to suit your purposes. I don't value such a standard unless it complies with the greater standard that you know very little of. 

"when I correctly interpret that standard" Makes it subjective and what you are interpreting is the ideas presented by ignorant, primitive, superstitious savages so subjective. There is no objective standard as you claim, you just don't understand that that is what you are claiming. I certainly wouldn't give 2 cents for the opinions of ignorant, primitive, superstitious savages, you know your unchanging objective standard. LOL.

...does anyone think morality exists independent of conscious beings?

One might generally refer to that as objective morality.

Our biology is an object and morality built on it yields objective values, thus we have an objective morality dependent on conscious beings. So, it very much can be that an objective morality ceases to be without our biology, no?

It seems I always find myself watching the discussion regarding nihilism not really identifying with either side. What is the purpose of labeling yourself a moral nihilist - what do you think this means to your audience?

And he addressed that point. It is illogical to think that a meaningless universe based on chance would come up with moral judgements.

That would be the fallacy of Personal Incredulity. Just because you have no clue doesn't mean others don't, Cleetus.

Then your actions ar inconsistent and irrational.

I fear you do not understand the meanings of 'inconsistent' and 'irrational'.

It is those people who believe what they do has the imprimateur of some cosmic entity or grand destiny that cause the trouble.   The 9-11 

bombers believed they were serving a greater good.

Yes, but you start out with your illogical assumption as true. That is circular.

PGA2.0 said, 

Why does a mindless process build into itself instinct, and instinct to live? It just happens. No reason. Those who survive have instinct and those who do not survive lack the instinct. So what? How does that make anything good? Is it good to survive in a meaningless universe that does not care about you and won't when you serve your pointless, meaningless existence? You have already stated there is no wrong. Does that mean there is no good either?

You are welcome to your beliefs but they don't make sense from a senseless universe, yet you continue to make and find sense in them? Why? It is all futile from a nihilist perspective. Nothing matters yet you continually make it matter. That is inconsistent. 

It is inconsistent. You simply assume this. Against all reason. You are welcome to be irrational, but please don't pretend you aren't.

pga: You said nothing is wrong but you are going to stop Joe from doing it because you don't like it. 

"Why would you stop him from doing it if it was not wrong? Surely it is live and let live???"

I would stop him for the same reason you would - we judge baby torture as wrong.   I am trying to explain that you are mistaken as to how and why you judge baby torture as wrong.   Its not because baby torture 'is evil' - it's because your brain is wired-up by evolution to abhor pointless suffering because having that emotion that helped our our species survive.

Put another way there is no such thing as morality - there are only moral judgements.

  

Is torturing a baby for fun okay for Joe because he likes doing it? Can you say with certainty it is okay for him? Please answer. 

I don't think either of us like the idea of babies being tortured for fun and I am sure that if either of us were to discover someone doing it we would strive to stop it happening.   I think you don't grasp the distinction between 'ethics' and 'meta-ethics'.  That is to say we probably have broad agreement on what is and what is not acceptable, or desirable (ie ethics).   We differ widely about 'meta ethics', i.e. what lies behind our ethical judgements.

I contend that our moral judgements are driven by an evolved instinct.  We are born it with because it has proved useful (in a Darwinian sense)over thousands and millions years to have such a thing.   Your contention is that judgements are due to the presnce of some non-physical property or stuff (good or evil) in certain acts.   Those are different meta-ethical theories.   Both explain why you and I find baby totrure unacceptable but it is unlikely they are both correct and naturally I think it is my meta-ethical theory is correct and yours is superstitious nonsense!  

 

Where we probably differ most in our ethical judgements is where your judgement is too closely tied to your erroneous meta-ethics, such as if you were to oppose gay marriage on religious grounds.

So what makes it RIGHT? Your subjective opinion on the subject matter?

That is all you have, why isn't it good enough for others?

What makes you think you have a right to any woman's body?

If I think people have a right to control their own body and you think people do not have a right to control their own body (at the same time) there is no logical contradiction. 

For there to be a logical contradiction, these views would need to exist in the same person at the same time. It makes no difference if the subject is ice cream or moral views.

I've given you plenty of time to think about it and you never have gotten back to me on this point.

Your premises are as follows. 

number one that god is omniscient 

number two that god is omnipotent 

number three that god is omnipresent 

number four that god does not allow evil to exist in his presence 

number five that evil most definitely exists

According to premise number one evil cannot exist in god's presence without his knowledge.

According to premise number two evil cannot exist in god's presence without god allowing it to exist.

If we accept the first three premises then either god allows evil to exist in his presence or no evil exists therefore premise four and premise five. are directly contradictory. 

At the minimum one of your premises must be untrue which do you believe is most likely false?

I can hate chocolate and you can love it (at the same time) and there is no logical contradiction.  

What is a dishonest question?

This is an honest question. You are looking for my answer and not trying to build your own into the question. 

If something is bad then it must be bad. It can't be bad and not bad depending on who believes it (at the same time and in regards to the same thing). That is ILLOGICAL. 

Not that I agree with Keith's views, but there is no logical contradiction with something being viewed as good and bad by different people at the same time. 

So long as you ask honest questions and attempt to understand my answers before you respond (I will do the same), we are in agreement. 

...and just so you know, our debate on abortion has priority, so this will take a back burner as needed.

If there is no absolute, objective, unchanging source then you can't say your opinion is objective or even good. All you can say is you like it. 

May be that's how it is.   Just because something sucks doesn't mean its not so, unfortunately.

If I can't persuade you with logic and reason then either my system of thought is not reasonable and logical, I can't express it as such, or you are not a reasonable and logical person. 

I agree one of those options is likely.

Your relative system of ethics is what wars are fought over because people do not recognize the ultimate best.  

I would not call what I posted relativism - it is 'moral nihilism'.    Moral nihilism is the stance that there is no such thing as 'morality'.   (Nihil is latin for 'nothing').   A moral nihilist says that if slavery seems bad to you then it because slavery seems bad to you - it is how your brain is wired up (by birth and experience) to judge slavery.   It is an error to ascribe that judgement to anything other than your own intrinsic nature -in reality you either have a pro-slavery or an anti-slavery brain.

That is not to say that is how it feels!   If you are anti-slavery it doesn't feel that you are wired-up to hate slavery; it feels like there is an actual thing - 'evil' - in the world and it feels like we are detecting its presence in slavery.    Evil does not  exist - we invent it to explain why we hate slavery.

Its a bit like 'heat'. Once people thought heat was 'stuff', a fluid that flowed.   it had a name - caloric. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_theory

Evil is 'caloric' - something that seems to exist but turns out to be a myth on deeper examination. 

Your relative system of ethics is what wars are fought over because people do not recognize the ultimate best.  

Wars are fought because the world does not care what moral rules are followed, if any.   Wars determine what rules are followed.  That doen't seem to be how you'd like things to be - its not how i'd like things to be either!   it would be great if there was a force in the world imposing the good, but look around - there is no such force.  If you hate slavery the only way to prevent it is to defeat the slavers.. there is nothing else.

PGA2.0, my hat off to you.

You have taken on 3 atheists and held them to dodges and semantics. Not one of your questions have been answered. (Keith tries but then inadvertantly supports your point. SecMer never answers questions). You though, have address every question they posed, in detail.

All they do is make claims, but can never show why. They reject your claims, but reject them based on preference and not logic. (Especially SecMer)

I've enjoyed the thread, and would vote you the clear winner if this was this a formal debate.

Because prophecy deals with an audience specific text and it is reasonable to believe that what is prophesied comes about. I listed one OT prophetic text (Daniel 9:24-27) and one NT text (the Olivet Discourse as laid out in the gospels and Revelation). These texts are most definitely audience specific and you could not demonstrate otherwise by going to the texts in question. I challenge you to do so if you think otherwise. What usually happens when I make these challenges is that the person moves on to another line of discourse. That is the problem with the atheist worldview. It never addresses the central issues. It always skirts them with much bravado. 

Ok let's assume for a moment that there are accurate prophecies in the bible and that they are "audience specific" (which technically has nothing to do with their accuracy the thing either comes true or it doesn't)

First, it is not my opinion alone and it does not come from me alone. 

But you admit it is an opinion. If we are to play by your rules, opinion has no place at the foundation of morality, and all the rhetoric you spout against relativism might just as easily apply to your view.

Are you suggesting there is not a correct interpretation, or that the correct interpretation cannot be known? 

Theres no suggestion. Your understanding of fulfilled Biblical prophesy is an interpretation, and I see no reason to accept such a dubious method of revelation as the product of an all knowing, all powerful being much less that your interpretation is better or worse than anyone else claiming to have found the truth in it. It's a Biblical Rorshach.

2). An absolute, objective, unchanging source is not a necessary foundation for morality.

In other words, why should I  trust anything you are selling?

My reply was not a sales pitch, but a rejection of yours.

Morality is like chess. There is no absolute, objective, unchanging source for the basis of good chess. Yet, provided winning is the goal, we can objectively evaluate moves as good or bad. 

Why is surviving, passing on traits, reproducing 'good' in a universe oblivious to goodness?

Why?  Because things don't have to be good to exist or happen.  The universe is indeed 'oblivious to goodness' - ebola and smallpox germs thrive not because they are "morally good" but because they reproduce efficiently.   Efficiency is all the universe 'cares about', with 'cares about' very much scare-quotes because caring is what the universe does not do!

The universe doesn't care, but people do.   Not long ago some people thought slavery was ok, other people thought slavery slavery was not ok.    The universe doen't care either way - it just provides the stage for all the action to take place on.  There is no slavery now is not because slavery is bad but because anti-slavers won the american civil war.

If the south had won the war would that make slavery good?  Wrong question!  There is no such thing as good or bad as far as the universe is concerned.   There are only pro-slavers (who think slavery is good) and anti- slavers (who think slavery is bad).  Whose preference prevail is the result of a battle of wills between them.

If there is slavery in your land are you obliged to accept it as good if you personally hate slavery?   Of course not - but your options are limited to accepting the situation or trying to impose your will instead.       

The media promotes secular ideas and mocks conservatives and Christians.

Right after conservatives and Christians say and do the stupidest things while forcing their beliefs on everyone else.

I can be tolerant of others. Tolerant implies you believe someone else is wrong yet you still act graciously towards them.

Yet just a few posts above you made it clear you would have a problem with Islamic religious views in your government?  You call that tolerant? I wonder what a tolerant government your religious views would make?

I tolerate religious belief but only one can be true, if any, for the reason that they all contradict the others. My claim to you is that Christianity is true. 

Yes I would suspect your claim would be that Christianity is true out of all the other religions and all the other people who followed those religions and said their religion was true and the rest were not.

So, if everyone says the same thing about their religion and everyone else religion and no religion has ever shown evidence of being true, there can be only one logical answer, none of them are true. I think you know that, too.

Yes, I do.

Really? Yet you just said you want to see religious views in government. Of course, you want YOUR religious views in government and not any other religious views.

What I don't object to is applying laws that are common to all three monotheistic religions, such as, "Do not kill," "do not lie," "do not steal,

There are already laws for those that don't require any religious views. Perhaps, you would like see stoning to death or cutting off hands in the streets like they do in other theocracies? 

If you look at that statistics, countries with more religious views are much higher in violent crime, so I can only assume you want to promote more violence and crime based on existing religious views?

Next, the majority of teachers and professors are left-leaning.

The left is that natural leaning for the intelligent human.

Yes, I do.

Really? Yet you just said you want to see religious views in government. Of course, you want YOUR religious views in government and not any other religious views.

What I don't object to is applying laws that are common to all three monotheistic religions, such as, "Do not kill," "do not lie," "do not steal,

There are already laws for those that don't require any religious views. Perhaps, you would like see stoning to death or cutting off hands in the streets like they do in other theocracies? 

If you look at that statistics, countries with more religious views are much higher in violent crime, so I can only assume you want to promote more violence and crime based on existing religious views?

A school or uniVERSITY  (unity in diversity) should be open to diversity, not discourage it. I should be able to pray in open, in recognition of my God.

Once again, schools and universities are places of learning, not places of worship. Go to your church, go to your home, go to a park or public sidewalk if you're compelled to worship. The entire world was not made just for you to worship. Take Hollywood serious on this one.

It does not protect. It undermines in every way possible.

Yes, it protects YOU from religious oppression. If you lived in a Theocracy, there's a good chance that people in that country can be oppressed or even killed to practice their religion. Is that what you want?

Universities are bastions of secularism where religious and conservative views are suppressed and denied.

Stop being such a dummy, universities are places of learning, not places of worship. Go to your church if you want to worship.

These secularists shut down college and university campuses and bar religious or conservative speakers from exercising their First Amendment rights.

Are they speaking about worshiping in universities? Then, they should be shut down and they can go to their church to worship.

Hollywood depicts Christians as stupid, ignorant, intellectually deficient people

Then, Christians should stop behaving that way and grow up. You are behaving that way right now, so all you do is confirm Hollywood.

The Democrat position is a secular position. It squeezes God out of politics and secular ideology

You're being ignorant again. YOUR God is not the only God to be worshiped, which is why religion is left out.

The media promotes secular ideas and mocks conservatives and Christians.

Right after conservatives and Christians say and do the stupidest things while forcing their beliefs on everyone else.

It should be a place of learning, but like in many socialist societies it is used as a form of propaganda and promoting a particular worldview

Schools? You are now showing Hollywood to be dead right about Christians. 

There is no reason why we can't apply our religious views in government.

So, you have no problem with Islamic religious views ruling your government?

The opinion I was referring to is that man is made in the image of god. 

The biblical God described exhibits many of the same traits that human beings do but animals lack, but to a greater degree. We can conceptualize, unlike any animal can. We can communicate like no animal, expressing complex ideas. We can use logic to solve problems that animals cannot. We experience life differently from animals. We can know abstract things to a greater degree, unlike animals. We can know and speculate on the good and evil of what is done.

This answer is out of context and does not address the double standard you've been charged with. If you think morality to be objectively based, then your opinion ('man was made in the image of god') has no place as a foundation of morality. 

There is not "should", only what is, and this is easily explained by natural selection. Fairness contributes to the individual (and the population) being more fit for a broader range of environments and more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on successful traits including fairness (or a proto-fairness).

Exactly, so you don't get an ought from an is. 

You do get an is from an is though!  It's not a matter of mankind ought to be concerned for itself, rather mankind is concerned for itself.

Fairness in whose mind? The Nazi mind? Kim Jong-un's mind? Your mind? Why is surviving, passing on traits, reproducing 'good' in a universe oblivious to goodness?

This is not a fair representation of what I've been advocating.  We are either going to have an honest conversation, Peter, or we are not going to have one.

I don't consider this a valid point. We're not talking about extremes, but your average persons. Even still, I think you can find such people have a concern for other persons, but that that concern is stunted or the in-group is very limited.

Extremes? They're not extremes to large portions of the world's population. They are the norms. 

You're switching from individuals to populations.  The individuals you referenced ARE extremes as they are not typical.

Two things: 

1) the prophecy fulfillments you reference are built on interpretation. Ie. The prophecies themselves are vague and the specifics you read into them come strictly from the reader(s). 

2). An absolute, objective, unchanging source is not a necessary foundation for morality.

(as an aside) if it were, the god of the bible does not meet this standard anyway. 

Feel free to respond to my last reply - its feeling fairly neglected!

"So, Humanism is the absolute certain result, if we choose this other final reality and say that is what it is. You must realize that when we speak of man being the measure of all things under the Humanist label, the first thing is that man has only knowledge from himself. That he, being finite, limited, very faulty in his observation of many things, yet nevertheless, has no possible source of knowledge except what man, beginning from himself, can find out from his own observation. Specifically, in this view, there is no place for any knowledge from God.

But it is not only that man must start from himself in the area of knowledge and learning, but any value system must come arbitrarily from man himself by arbitrary choice. More frightening still, in our country, at our own moment of history, is the fact that any basis of law then becomes arbitrary -- merely certain people making decisions as to what is for the good of society at the given moment.
Now this is the real reason for the breakdown in morals in our country. It's the real reason for the breakdown in values in our country, and it is the reason that our Supreme Court now functions so thoroughly upon the fact of arbitrary law. They have no basis for law that is fixed, therefore, like the young person who decides to live hedonistically upon their own chosen arbitrary values, society is now doing the same thing legally. Certain few people come together and decide what they arbitrarily believe is for the good of society at the given moment, and that becomes law."

"We must understand what we are talking about when we use the word Humanism. Humanism means that the man is the measure of all things. Man is the measure of all things. If this other final reality of material or energy shaped by pure chance is the final reality, it gives no meaning to life. It gives no value system. It gives no basis for law, and therefore, in this case, man must be the measure of all things. So, Humanism properly defined, in contrast, let us say, to the humanities or humanitarianism, (which is something entirely different and which Christians should be in favor of) being the measure of all things, comes naturally, mathematically, inevitably, certainly. If indeed the final reality is silent about these values, then man must generate them from himself." [1]

If you accept that prophecy is audience specific and accurate to that audience

I don't know what that means.  What is descibed in a prophesy comes to pass (or its not exactly a prophesy, is it!).   How does 'audience specific accuracy' come into it?

How is that? How do you accept the reality of magic by accepting prophecy or God? I do not accept 'gods.' I accept God. 

I try to give avoid the impression that it is only 'God' I don't accept.   I do hope you aren't going to get boringly nit-picky over that!

It is reasonable and logical to believe prophecy and therefore God

Is it really "reasonable and logical" to throw the laws of physics in the bin to accomodate a shaky claim that a piece of text is prophetic?  

I don't suppose for a moment that PGA is a fraudster nor a propagandist but if he believes prophesies foretell future events he is the victim of fraudsters and propagandists!

I'm not into debunking the bible per se.   I am interested in how the early church used tales of miracles and prophesies to grow - i'd say the 'memetics' of Christianity if I didn't dislike the word 'memetics'!

I think fraud and propaganda are more probable than the laws of physics being violated!