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@MagicAintReal
Guys.Have a debate on it, I will gladly vote on it, so we can put an end to this.Debate it and have the people vote on it.
We've agreed that free will is not real - i'm not quite sure what it is 3RU and I disagree over now, but he's definitely wrong!
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@3RU7AL
You seem to have your cake and eat it! What do mean 'identify your goal'? There's no 'identifying' going on. Whatever I 'identify' as my goal was set before i was even born and 'I' can't change it. I'm just a cog in some clockworks, a link in a fixed causal chain.Determining if we should punish criminals is a remarkably simple equation. You just need to identify your goal. Ostensibly, the goal of the justice system is to make people feel safe (protect society) and to reduce dangerous and anti-social behavior.
Of course i go through the motions of choosing, deciding, 'identifying' and so on, but I have no more independent volition than a string puppet, with raw causality as the puppetteer.
You can't have it both ways.
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@Castin
What if the title was "Think Christianity is a religion of peace? Think again", and all the following posts had been targeted at Christianity.
To do that properly you have to imagine the item linked to is a polemic against Christianity full of half-truths and cherry-picked quotations beret of their context intended to inflame anti-Chrisitian sentiment.
If that was the case there'd be no need for me to say anything - loads of Christian DA members would have got in first! But becase the target is Islam such material goes not merely unchallenged but endorsed, even by many people who are in general terms 'liberal'.
There's plenty not to like about Islam and of course there is a political problem that needs addressing. But I don't think the best way forward is to spread anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim populist propaganda. Scratch that - it's the worse possible way forward.
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@Stephen
I have not apologised for or defended islam, nor would I. I have pointed out that many commentators are extremely biased and i recommend people treat what they read accordingly.apologist for this indefensible barbaric ideology, like you
As to future developents... we shall see.
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@rosends
Why did God make anything?This is actually another fascinating question with an incredible variety of answers.
Such as?
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@Stephen
I honestly hope you are the first in the firing line
Really? I honestly hope to avoid having a firing line.
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@Mopac
I would advise finding a priest. Maybe an older one with a good reputation.
Right now I only want to register some doubt on Grug's claim 'Read this and learn the truth' in the OP.
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@Mopac
I am glad you made a serious effort to study islam. My point is that it's not hard to do a hatchet job if that is what you set out to do, and a brief scan indicates that th document linked in the op is a hatchet job. Islam makes it easier because it is specific,especially in the hahith.
For example, there is a notorious hadith that allows a husband to beat his wife. How babaric! But in the context of a patriachal and misogyistc society it imposed a strict limit on domestic violence over a thousand years ago. In contrast the right of a husband to rape his wife was in British law untll 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#History
It is actually very hard to locate fair and objective material on islam, or indeed any religion. Everything seems to be written by partisans of one side or the other. i suppose that is inevitable - partisans and fanatics are more motivated to write stuff than moderates and neutrals are. All one can do is read as widely as possible and remember most sources are biased.
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@3RU7AL
Well the choice to punish criminals was also predetermined back at the big bang so we only think we have any choice about doing it!
If I had all the measurements needed and enough compting power I could work out if we will punish criminals in 100 years - but not if we should punish them or not.
Imagine the scene in court:
Prisoner: You can't blame me, it was predermined I'd rob that bank!
Judge: Yes, and it was predetermined I'd give you 15 years hard. Next!
If what we do is predetermined, it is hard to know what to do at all! Although I reject free will as an airy-fairy intellectual, I'd be an idiot to take that into 'real life'. It's like the B-theory of time - you can believe in b-theory all you like but you'll still get old and die!
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@Plisken
All Sex outside of marriage is sinful.
It ensures that most babies have two parents looking after them. Monogamy (or near monogamy) ensures that a few dominant males do not monopolise the females which would result in a lot of jealous and frustrated males destabilising society.
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@3RU7AL
I knew about libet's previous work mentioned in the article. I think it goes a long way to telling us what is going on when we make (or seem to make) choices. And what I really like is that it makes it an empirial issue to be decided by experiment not a word game nor reduce it to logical contradiction.
Let me suggest we did not evolve to imagine we have free will for its own sake. We did it to help understand the behaviour of others, such as prey or potential mates. Although their behaviour is ultimately deterministic, there is no way to get the all the information required to predict behaviour that way - critters behave very much as if they had free will, ie as if they can make choices. The deep truth - that the world is deterministic - is not important when all you want to do is eat or mate with something.
That remains true. It is still only of academic interest that choices are in fact pre-determined. 'For practical purposes' the fiction of free will is a very useful one.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
I've long suspected that the anti-gay stuff has something to do with the elite wanting the masses to have lots of babies so they have plenty of labourers for their field and soldiers for their wars.
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Let me suggest a different approach. Instead of talking about 'free will' which bogs down in definitions, can we conisider this question;
"Is it possible to predict what a person's choice will be using only measurements of physical states?"
In other words, is there a role for a non-physical 'self' in choice making?
I know that doesn't explicitly reference 'free' or 'will' but I think it is what the question 'Does free will exist' is really about and what we really want to know.
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@Mopac
You know, the most charitable benefit of the doubt type readings of the Koran might give the impression that... sure, uh.. maybe this is a religion of peace...It becomes a lot harder after you read the hadith.
But how well would anyone understand christianity from an unguided reading of the bible?
32When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. 33Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. 34They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” 36The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
I wouldn't blame anyone who concluded it must be a barbarous religion that kills someone merely for gathering firewood on the wrong day. Of course that passage 'is not what Christianity is about' - i'm not saying it is. I'm saying that its not hard to misrepresent a religion without actually misquoting anything or obvious lies.
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@Mopac
I know how they felt - it's the only way to stop you lot parotting on about 'ultimate realities' all day.Orthodox history is full of people killing us for our beliefs. Jews, Romans, Muslims, Latins, Turks, Communists, etc.
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@Mopac
You'd be well advised to re-examine the whole 'god is the ultimate reality' gig.
Absolutely no one doubts the existence of reality or truth. The problem is that you equate it with god. that is you don't merely assert that god has a close relationship with it - such as, say, God being the guarator of truth or the sustainer of reality. You assert that god is identical with truth or reality.
You are, i suggest, confused between figurative and literal meaning.
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If equivalently one-sided and bigoted commentary about jews, blacks or Canadians was posted there'd be a ruckus. Islamophobia has become a socially acceptable form of xenophobia. I can say 'muslims are murderous cretins' without risk of a ban, but if i said it about jews or black stat would be a different matter. Of course I don't mean any criticis of jews or blacks by that... i am pointing out the normalisation of islamophobia.
The problem is that we in the west are woefully ignorant of Islam so the egregious bias of writers such as Richardson and his hero bill warner are not as obvious as it would be if they were misrepresenting more familiar stuff.
So if you do read the linked pdf, remember it is written by a hostile witness who wants to inflame and spread anti-isamic feelngs, not give a sober overview of Islam as it is practiced by a billion non-terrorists in a wide variety of cultures across the world. But if all you want is to have your semi-informed prejudice about Islam confirmed it's probably perfect.
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I never said that atheists were into bestiality or rape, I said, to rephrase that they have no good reason to not live like animals who are simply motivated by their desires.You are not a rapist because you don't want to be. And that is my point. Arbitrariness is the standard of the atheist. It really comes down to personal whim.
So why aren't you a rapist?
I haven't noticed any lack of sexual depravity in believers.
You, mopac, are not a rapist because you don't want to be.
I don't believe you need a bible or a church to tell you that rape or stealing is wrong - even if you think you do need them. If you are normal you will have sexual fantasies but not actually do anything. You have been trained to feel shame for such feelings and to thank god or the church for blocking you from doing anything worse.
I say no, that's superstition. We are humans with conficting urges that mean we are neither angels or devils - we are just people. A few of us are very bad, a few of us are very good. But most of us are us are somewhere in between.
As you point out and i agree with, atheism does not provide any reason to lead a good life. To unphilosophial atheists that matters not -the vast majority go through life not questioning 'it is good to be good'.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
I didn't write
2+2=4 is truth
I wrote
2+2=4 is true
My point was that I don't say any more by asserting '2+2=4 is true' than if I had simply asserted '2+2=4'. Most times people use the short form, but you often see the 'is true' form in posts and elsewhere. Further, because 'is true' is redundant I could say
'2+2=4 is true' is true, and even 'it is true that 2+2=4 is true is true' and so on.
It seems that saying something is true adds nothing - is truth therefore nothing?
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@TwoMan
I'm trying to work accrding to my understanding of Wittgenstein here - the ideas is to identify therules that govern how people use the word 'exist' rather than what it ight say in a dictionary.
So what are you asking when you say 'If concepts exist, do they still exist if nobody is thinking about them?'. What image lies behind it?
The image I get is of an entity 'outside the universe'. If that entity could see X in the universe then X exists, if it can't see X (because threre is no x to see) then X does not exist.
if there cae to be no writing about unicorns in the world and no-one had any thoughts with the content 'unicorn' then the entity could scan the universe thoroughly and not find even one ecample of the concept of a unicorn - ie it (ie 'the concept of unicorns') would not exist. At least it would not exist at that point in time. There is no reason I can see why at a later time someone cannot re-imagine a horned horse and the concept (or a very similar concept) would then exist.
Would it be the same concept resurrected or an entirely new concept merely similar to the previous one? That isn't a matter of fact but of how the words 'same concept' are interpreted. I would say that people who use words carefully would say it was similar not 'the same' because 'the same' has a connotation of continuity. Loosely we might say two things are the same when what we really should have said is they are simillar.
Note I have not referred to a dictionary but to how words are actually used in ordinary language. It's a proper philosophical thing!
I like the idea - it's not a silver bullet but its a useful tool to avoid getting bogged down in semantic quibbling and definition wars.
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@Mopac
I agree that a lot of people live a life that does no good for them, other people or the planet.
But that is only a good reason to promote God as a useful fiction, not an argument that God exists.
You - like many theists - assume that because atheists reject god as the source of morality they reject morality itself; but that is not so, at least not for the vast majority of atheists (e.g. all the atheists I know!).
I don't know why atheists do not conform to your stereotype of rapacious bestiality. The reason I'm not a rapacious beast is that I don't want to be. I can explain that using biology an evolution, but I can't justify it logically. I want there to be more peace and less suffering in the world, and if I am lazy about it I try not to add to it! And it's not because I am borrow my morality from you theists - if you ask me, the only good parts of theistic religion are those bits that ignore the gods and emphasise charity and empathy towards other people.
James1:27 Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
i.e. Nothing to with god at all.
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@TwoMan
Can a concept be considered to exist?Or can only the thought of a concept be considered to exist?
generally I perfer narrow definition which avoid figurative usage.
Consider 'Unicorns'. We can all agree that unicorns do not exist simpliciter, but they 'kinda exist' as fictional/imaginary things, or as concepts.
But if we allow 'unicorns exist' to be a valid thing to say or write then it's going to be hard to distiguish between the way unicorns 'kinda exist' and horses 'really exist'. It would be easy to make mistakes because the language would be blurring an inportant distinction between the 'existential state' of unicorns and horses in the world.
So I try to avoid saying/writing 'X exists' when its really 'the concept of X exists'. That isn't changing or imposing a definition on 'exists' but using its natural meaning carefully.
You actually go further and ask if concepts even exist. I would say they do, but care is needed to avoid slipping from 'the concept of X exists' to 'X exists'.
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@Mopac
Maybe, but lawyers are the last people I'd consider to be authorities on morality!
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Following the example of Dr Samuel Johnson, one kicks it.
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@3RU7AL
At a fork in the road cars go either to the left or the right, but cars do not manifest free will because their apparent choice to go one way or the other is directed by a biological parasite lodged inside it - ie the branch a car takes depends on the will of its driver, not the car's will.
but if cars don't have free will, do their drivers also have an inner-driver directing them? i would say they don't, at least not one that stands in the same relation to as the one between driver and car because consciousness already resides the cars driver - another level is not needed to bring consciousness int the picture.
i might want to argue that the power a driver has to choose left or right (which is not a power a car has) is what people mean when they say 'free will'.
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@Mopac
Atheists have no good reason to not live a bestial life of enslavement to lust and swine like indulgence.
What you mean is you can't think of a reason. Is your experience of actual atheists that they live a life of bestial enslavement to lust and swine to indulgence? If not then your theory - however logical and reasonable it may seem - must be wrong.
Most atheists - actually most people - are not inclined to much philophising. A typical atheist cannot explain why he or she is not a rapacious beast because to them 'it's good to be nice' is too obvious to even arise. As I said, most people are not into philosophy!
If one does like philosophising, superficial and simplistic thinking makes it look as if being a rapacious beast is 'logical'. As people aren't in general like that it needs explaining why not.
Theists explain it by invoing god - it's their answer to everything. Atheists explain to by invoking evolution - it's our answer to everything!
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If it 'works in mice' it could 'work in chimps' to produce big-brained chimps.
I wonder if that's been tried yet...
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What is the practical observable difference? How would freewill differ from the illusion of freewill?
No difference from the user perspective, but there is a difference how it might work as a physical process.
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@PGA2.0
May I ask who Gus is; is it Stephen or Disgusted?
I'm fairly sure you were in conversation with disgusted at the time. I don't think i would abbreviate stephen as gus.
Gus has a chip on his shoulder, his heart on his sleeve and a bee in his bonnet. He sticks his nose in first, and his foot in straight after. He needs to pull his finger out before his hands get too full for his boots. He certainly has some neck, even if it is up his backside right upto his chin. i'll stop there because i'm running out of body-part metaphors.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
No i don't do rap.
not on purpose, anyway.
I'm a anti-theist on a computer.
Agnostic in real life. ( but rarely admit to it )
A wannabe atheist.
I think a agnostic atheist means your agnostic.
if someone ask me personally, i say Im a atheist.
Oh And i also collect bitches.
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Suppose you are captured by a man who holds a gun to your head. He gives you another gun and tells you to kill a random stranger before he counts to 10 or he will kill you. From his manner you believe him and his gun is right on the back of your head.
So you kill the next guy who comes along, whereupon the gunman says 'thank you' takes his gun back and walks away.
Does a plea of self-defence get you off for murdering an innocent stranger?
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@Mopac
And that is what atheism is to the core. An embrace of arbitrariness. If there is no truth, truth is whatever I make it out to be. Whatever is convenient. Whatever works for me.
Your not even close.
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@3RU7AL
Dualists can just gift soul-stuff with any property, as required.
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@Fallaneze
i don't care what it doesn't mean! What does it mean??Randomly determined does not mean non-causually determined.
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@3RU7AL
If your body is a "ghost puppet", the ghost is still either part of a causal chain that stretches back to wherever ghosts come from, or it acts randomly.
The dualist says that istrue only for regular matter, not for soul-stuff.
Dont worry - i've finished defending dualism for now!
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@Castin
Not much in the actual bible. You need to look in the book of Enoch which didn't make the final cut.
It was that nutter on DDO's favourite source
You WILL watch this.
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@Castin
Quite right, sadly.
Never mind. Cheer your self up - get someone banned.
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@TwoMan
A rational choice is not 'free'! If you insist that a choice be rational it is constrained to be the logical consequence of its inputs.
If I have a choice etween tea and coffee there is usually no rationl reson to choose one nd not the other - it is the whim of the moment.
But if the tea is £1 and the coffee is £2 and i only have £1 in my pocket my rational choice is forced, not free.
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@3RU7AL
i' a devils advocate here, ok?
The materialist picture is thebrain is firstly caused into a physical state that means 'I want tea not coffee'. In turn that causes the next physical brain state, which means 'I choose coffee'.
The dualist does not deny the succession of physical brain states is entirely causal. However dualism holds that physical brain states do not have mental meanings such as desires or choices. The mental resides in the dualistic element, ie in the 'dualium', or as it usually called the 'soul' or 'self'.
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@secularmerlin
A reason may be concrete (A boulder is falling so I have reason to move) or abstract/nonmaterial (I am of the subjective opinion that a story is sad so I have reason to cry) in both cases cause and effect is demonstrably taking place. My point in my last post to you is that it doesn't matter if a reason is concrete or abstract.
What happened is reading the story upped your seratonin levels etc so you felt sad and produced tears.
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@Castin
GrimMER, you mean.Otherwise things start looking pretty grim.
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@3RU7AL
Your actions/motives/thoughts are either caused (and determined) or uncaused (and random).You can mix these options together any way you want and you end up with the same result.FREE-WILL IS FALSE.
Unless brains are infused with special stuff that follows different rules to regular matter and energy. maybe 'Dualium' is what allows brains to manifest consciousness and real free will :(
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@secularmerlin
i'dsay 'one size doesn't fit all'. I just made myself a coffee, but I feel I could have made a tea instead. But for any things I don't have a choice at all. i can't fly around the room so i am sitting in my chair. i am so aware i can't fly aroundteroom Idon't consider it an even an option - perhaps that is the extreme of 'unfree will'.
oh dear,,,, now i wonder if 'unfree will' is a thing.
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@3RU7AL
The OP title is "Can Morality Be Objective Without God?"
I think the possibly surprising answer must be no, because morality is not objective in the first place.
but i don't think we have pinned down what morality is at all!
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@Castin
You have to believe that something beyond your own life, your own experiences, and your own cognition matters.
What do you believe in, Cas?
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@3RU7AL
Prettiness is not a purely physical property and is not rigorously defined and is therefore not scientifically quantifiable.Weight is rigorously defined and is therefore scientifically quantifiable.You are making a category error.You are conflating Quanta (quantitative, scientific) and Qualia (qualitative, experiential).1 + 1 = 2, therefore I love you.
I think MAR gets that really... he was just being awkward.
So do you, 3R, think morality is in the 'prettiness-' or the 'weight-' class of properties?
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@MagicAintReal
Very well. Huff over.
Well ,I think morality is like prettiness - or more like prettiness. We know rape is bad the same way we know aj is pretty, ie without engaging much 9if any) higher thought.
Do you see why I doubt that morality can be objective?
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@rosends
Beats getting a real job tho', eh?It's an occupational hazard.
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@MagicAintReal
Yes we can.Weight fluctuates and so while you would have been wrong at one moment about her weight (you say it's higher than it really is) during your argument claiming her weight, she could easily eat a heavy meal and by the time you finished your argument declaring her weight, you could then be right, and while I was arguing about her weight with you, during my argument I'd be wrong, she could take a massive dump at the end of my sentence declaring her weight, and then I could be right.
I thought we were having a constructive discussion about morality. Silly, siliy me.
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@rosends
To a disbeliever like me it is obvious that what has happened is the writers made a small slip and didn't harmonise the name of ipporah's father when they combined the old tales into the grand saga of the pentateuch.
Believers invoke deaths, sons, levirite marriages and all sorts of complications!
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