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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You have used the word couldn't several times. This implies that the circumstances are not in fact under your control. Couldn't have my preference (or at least not all my preferences) so I did the second most preferential thing. This does not require freewill only the ability to evaluate your alternatives.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
People make decisions first and foremost based on their preferences and secondarily based on the circumstances in which they find themselves. Since neither if these factors is under our direct control claiming to have control of our actions is logically incoherent. This does not make it impossible, the universe is under no special obligation to make sense to me, but without some sufficient evidence of freewill I have no choice but to remain skeptical.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
This is something that I must consider. I had not really thought about it.While we can dwell on our cues, nothing we think about them will ever change them.
Opinions relate directly to active thought and our ability to make choices.
I do not believe in freewill. I'm not sure you could ever "choose" differently than you do and if so I'm not sure how to demonstrate it.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
The same thing drives us to make and observe morals that drives us to form and express opinions when you get right down to it and that is the chemical and electrical activity in your brain. This activity is not subject to your opinions your opinions are subject to it. So in a way you opinions are not subject to your opinions but that renders the meaning of the words opinion and subjective nonsensical.there's something objective driving us
I do not choose my opinions, my beliefs or my morals they are a product of my environment and biology.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
I can agree with this statement.
That humans would seem to have a biological tendency that compelled them to create morals appears to be an objective fact.
I'm not sure that the morals we invented would necessarily then be objective but there may be no way to be certain given our epistemology. For myself my opinion about morals is in total synchronous agreement with my morals and it is difficult to separate the one from the other but I have occasionally disagreed with that sick feeling in my gut (when my actions would be detrimental to me or my loved ones but reflected the greater common good example telling the truth when I knew it would bring punishment) so I have a frame of reference for them being something separate from my morality. That however is anecdotal and I cannot demonstrate the truth of my "feelings" to you. That is part of the problem with discussing "feelings" they cannot be externally falsified.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
morality based off their biological cues
Well is the biological cue the moral or is the moral just based on the cue? This seems like a pretty important distinction.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
After hitting the send key I decided that I was dissatisfied with the post that you are responding to in post 301. It would be silly to ask you to forget about it but please understand that I wish I had not sent it so hastily and that my other posts are mire in line with my intended communique.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Thank you for engaging me in the Socratic method. If nothing else it helps me to understand my own beliefs.
I know I got impatient earlier
Think nothing of it. We all get frustrated sometimes.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Ants have a similar biological disposition but I do not consider them moral agents. Do you consider ants moral agents?When I say morality, I'm talking about a biological disposition we have towards beneficial group behaviors.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Yes absolutely 100%I think when you say morality. You're talking about moral judgements we make correct?
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@Harikrish
Why, are you a person of colour?
That you don't seem to realize that this is irrelevant is part of the problem.
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@Harikrish
As this is only my opinion I don't feel it really needs any justification but your racism is high on my list of your traits that I consider odious. You know... If you need a reason.
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@Harikrish
No the problem is actually you. I don't like you personally.
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Well, there are so many, but I always come back to three basic arguments - 1) prophecy, 2) morality, 3) existence/origins (and making sense of them).
Prophecy is irrelevant to the question mirals are subjective and also irrelevant since you having a good moral framework is no demonstration that the source of your morals is more than fables and so far as I know it is completely beyond human epistemology at this time to say what if anything existed or happened before the planc time (if gappened or before are even applicable terms. Do you have a fourth best argument?
As to the illustrious van til it is not my claim that the supernatural cannot exist my entire argument front to back is that it has NOT BEEN DEMONSTRATED and that I cannot maintain a belief in an undeminstrated claim of this nature.
Before we can go any further I feel it is important that you understand the difference between rejecting a claim and claiming the opposite. I do not claim to know that no god(s) exist I am observing that no god claim I have to date encountered has met with its burden of proof.
This concept is vital so if you are having difficulty with it please let me know.
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@Harikrish
No offense but I really don't like talking to you. Maybe you would do.me the rather large favor of staying off my threads. I thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Otherwise my opinion that red is my favorite color would be a moral.
I understand that all opinions are not morals I just think all morals are opinions but we may be getting to the real root of the issue.
Murder is wrong!! (Opinion)
A moral opinion
*Feeling you get from seeing a murder* (Objective) (Your opinion doesn't matter here, which is the definition of objective.)
I'm not sure feelings are morals I think maybe feelings are just one standard that we could base our morals on.
Let's take red is my favourite color since it was an example you offered. Now if red is your favorite color it may be an objective fact that red is your favorite color but it is still just your opinion and it is based on your feeling thay red is the best. I am just struggling with the idea that morality works any differently.
Everybody's opinion that murder is wrong (Subjective and Universal) (Looks a lot like flat earth right? That's why people agreeing universally on morals doesn't make them objective, this is my key critique right here.)
I agree that an opinion being universal does not make it objective. I'm just wondering in that case what exactly does makes morality objective.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
And this is the part that I do not understand. How do they differ exactly? Do you disagreed with your own opinion about morals?my opinions are not the same as my morals.
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@PGA2.0
Prophecy is a vehicle that gives reason to believe the Bible because prophecy is supported by history
I have already explained why I remain dubious about prophecy after the fact, prophetic interpretations and also why even a bona fied prophecy is not evidence of your proposition. Do you have a secind best argument?
I never claimed to have such an explanation I simply do not accept yours.Exactly, you can't make sense of it within your worldview.
Which whether true or false does not obligate me to accept your claims without any sufficient demonstration and I'm not sure how you would go about demonstrating any being that exists outside our local space-time universe
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You will forgive me if I'm not sure that is the issue.
Perhaps if I say what I mean as simply as possible, if you would homour me one last time that is which you are in no way obligated to do.
My moral opinions are inseparable from my morality and vise versa. I have a hunch that your's are similarly inseparable.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Perhaps I do not understand or perhaps I did not explain well. Either way I am sorry you feel that way. I hope that you also have a nice day.
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I do not believe that humans can be objective at all. I'm sorry that my language was imprecise. Please allow me to clarify my position. One can make the unilateral descision to follow some subjective standard of morality and once a standard exists (any standard will do for this purpose) we can use it as a metric which would not then hypothetically require any opinion to evaluate but almost any standard, when taken to its extreme (which must be moral if morals are being judged objectively by the stamdard), tends to lead to horrifying consequences. Take my own prefered standard harm versus wellbeing. If we are completely objective with no personal opinion we might decide that killing one man and using his organs to heal five separate patients created the most wellbeing for the least harm (good of the many) but I would personally be horrified at the idea and do not find it moral. That people have morals would seem to be objectively true. That morals are anything but personal opinions (based partly on learned standards like the golden rule and partly on our nature as social organisms) does not seem to be objectively true.
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@PGA2.0
Shifting the burden of proof. I never claimed to have such an explanation I simply do not accept yours.I suggest you try explaining existence without God and see where you get in making sense of anything.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
At one point I think you equated the biological cues to the morals themselves and I did not at the time voice any disagreeance. After examining my own beliefs (with your help, thank you for questioning me) I do not think that this is the case. The biological cues certainly help us form a moral framework but the are just one more thing that morality could use as a subjective standard. That humans have evolved such cues could be an objective fact (again certainty is beyond humans) but I don't think the morals that arise from them are objective. If we are in agreeable about this I think we are as close to agreeing as we can be. What are your thoughts?
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@WisdomofAges
When you act like this it only gives legs to the theistic argument that atheists are angry irrational trolls. Please examine what your actual goal here is and whether or not your current style of post accomplishes the task.
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@PGA2.0
Oddly no matter how many times I point out that prophe y is insufficient to prove your claim you double down and just keep saying the same thing. I've even explained why it is irrelevant (there is no way to establish it's source beyond a reasonable doubt to say nothing of being able to test for said source scientifically) now please let's move on from your irrelevant red herring. Please. No really, please.
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@TheRealNihilist
Doesn't it depend on how you define immoral?
This is certainly true if morality is subjective. If however morality is objective then it is possible to be incorrect in ones moral assessments and this statement becomes far less certain.
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@disgusted
Thank you for your contribution. I am curious however what my original interlocutor has to say.
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If I'm watching it happen right in front of me and I know it's real, yes.
Are both murder and execution immoral?
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Tell me, do you react the same way to an execution as you do to a murder?
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
I did not agree to a contradiction I agreed that you could relabel the concepts now known as 1 and 2 as 4 and 4. The groupings of objects would not change just because you use different words. I'm fairly certain we are talking past each other.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You can if you like use the biological cue as your SUBJECTIVE standard. That is still a post hoc justification for your SUBJECTIVE moral standard. In any case biological cues do not stop people from murdering one another rather alot and often making a post hoc justification for their actions. Indeed people often disagree about the difference between killing and murder because they have differing SUBJECTIVE opinions about what constitutes justified killing and what constitutes murder.
I did not dodge your question I answered yes. You could say 4 and mean one and then say 4 and mean two. Remember meaning is assigned by humans nothing has intrinsic meaning. Of course that would lead to the number statement 4 + 4 = 4 as true and false simultaneously. The real trick with meaning is getting someone else to recognize your meaning.
I did not dodge your question I answered yes. You could say 4 and mean one and then say 4 and mean two. Remember meaning is assigned by humans nothing has intrinsic meaning. Of course that would lead to the number statement 4 + 4 = 4 as true and false simultaneously. The real trick with meaning is getting someone else to recognize your meaning.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
The evolved behavior is not the moral. The moral is the post hoc justification for the evolved behavior. You seem to be falsely conflating the two.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You do realize that I am not arguing that the efficacy of a particular SUBJECTIVE moral standard cannot be objectively measured in relation to a SUBJECTIVE goal?
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You could call them both the same thing but they would then be useless as mathematical concepts. So I guess yes but as I said they would then lose all efficacy.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
If you use the same word for multiple number values they do lose their efficacy. I'm not sure I see the point.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Okay. Let's say I have an Apple and a Pen and I name them both Rocks. Does that make them the same thing?
Neither apples nor pens are abstract concepts morals and edicts are. This is a category error.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
This is incorrect. Subjective meaning is still meaning. In fact all meaning is subjective. Meaning is qualified not quantified.Okay so if you're going to say that anybody can just call anything a moral and that's what morals are, then we can't have a discussion about morals because then it has no meaning.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
You're just adding the word moral to biblical morals, you have no standard by which to call them moral.
I did not mention the bible at all but as an atheist I do not personally have such a standard no. This does not prevent those who have such a standard from calling them morals.
morals are descriptive and edicts are prescriptive. i.e. The first tells you what is happening after the fact while the second is telling you how things should be.
Morals do not in fact explain what is happening before or after the fact they are concerned with what we ought to do and I'm pretty sure an ought is a subjective opinion.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
What precisely is the difference between a moral and a moral edict?Biblical morals aren't morals. They're edicts.
The guy who wrote the heresy law wasn't using his harm benefit cue when he made heresy law.
No he was not because he was using a different SUBJECTIVE standard.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
The only difference is that I claim that harm vs benefit is programmed into use and therefore it's objective.
Then why do some moral standards have the potential to harm? (Example: that opossing religions should be punished for heresy.)
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Let me ask you this.
Go ahead
Do you think morality is subjective
Yes
and if so why?
Because what is and is not moral is,subject to opinion although if we can agree on a SUBJECTIVE standard (your cue I believe) then we can make objective statements based in that SUBJECTIVE standard. Personally I like to use harm versus wellbeing but that's just my opinion.
how does this account for the way morality happens in society? (i.e. most morals are held by the majority of society.)
Because like many opinions morals are formed in large part by your upbringing.
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Why does it matter if humans evolved to form opinions? That doesn't change the fact that the cue is not an opinion. That is the only requirement to make it objective.
Because the cue is objective, we can develop a standard of assessment that is universal.
I'm just saying that when people talk about opinions, in some way or another, they're talking about that objective cue that we get.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
That's not how objectivity works. Objective doesn't mean "the same for every person" That's universal.
Objective means "true regardless of one's opinion"
So it doesn't matter how many cues there are or who has them. If the cues function the way they do regardless of our opinions (which if human beings are evolved to firm opinions that contribute to our survival they must), then they're objective.
Now if you want to say our assessment of those cues could be subjective, then I would agree.
But what you're really saying is that the cues aren't universal which has nothing to due with objectivity.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
all of our opinions are initially based of cues we receive from biology.
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In that case human opinions are objective and the term becomes meaningless.Yes, an evolved behavior
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by cue. You mean an evolved behavior or something else?
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If you don't have such an explanation then how do you argue that the Christian God is not the most reasonable explanation?
I do not claim that ANY explanation is more reasonable than any other. You have claimed that one explanation is more reasonable but you have not provided any SUFFICIENT evidence that this is the case.
I claim
I do not care what you claim. Only what you can prove.
Indeed before you can use ANY PART OF THE BIBLE as evidence you must prove that the SPECIFIC PASSAGE being used is not simply a man made claim. The bible is USELESS AS EVIDENCE unless you can demonstrate that it is more than a claim. If you have no evidence to present that both extrabiblical and non-testimonial in nature (PHYSICAL EVIDENCE) then there is no reason to continue this disussion.And how would you do that (underlined)?
I honestly don't think that you can. You've been trying for awhile now and you don't even seem to understand why you need evidence for your claim.
You may have noticed (or not) but I have challenged yours and other worldviews to make sense of the universe
I have noticed. The simple truth however is that even if EVERY OTHER WORLD VIEW PROPOSED BY HUMANS IS WRONG that does not make yours right.
No problem. We all make mistakes! I just wanted to make sure I got your meaning. I think I may be a little dyslexic too. Either that or careless. I use Grammarly to correct my mistakes.
I appreciate your patience in this matter
And I thank you for engaging!
You are welcome.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
I don't care. Unless all humans have these cues then we are talking about something that is subjective to each human
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@PGA2.0
Just to be clear it DOES NOT MATTER if I have an alternative explanation or not. Even if I provide NO ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION you must still prove your position and before you can use any prophecy as evidence of some god(s) you MUST SHOW that said prophecy was from the god(s) in question. Indeed before you can use ANY PART OF THE BIBLE as evidence you must prove that the SPECIFIC PASSAGE being used is not simply a man made claim. The bible is USELESS AS EVIDENCE unless you can demonstrate that it is more than a claim. If you have no evidence to present that both extrabiblical and non-testimonial in nature (PHYSICAL EVIDENCE) then there is no reason to continue this disussion.
On a separate note I apologize for my poor grammar and spelling. I am dyslexic and my disability is far more apparent in this medium than if we were simply conversing.
As always thank you for the conversation.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
That is incorrect. A psychopath does have an opinion about morals even if they are of the opinion that there should be no morals or that morals should not apply to them.That's my objection, you saying it's subjective because It's not universal. That doesn't make it subjective. People's opinions about murder don't change the cue. That's the part where we disagree because I fully believe that you're mixing up objectivity with universality.
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