*Sigh* I can't believe I'm taking the bait. Here goes.
deepseadiver said:
Hmm. Interesting talk guys. Let me point out a few things (based on my very humble, yet educated (and before you call me an 'internet expert', just know that I have had more official debates then you have ever been to in your life. I am working on a degree in math and logic, with a heavy emphasis in computer science. Until you show me more about yourselves than the kind of stuff I see on most of your profiles like: "I'm a level 30 in WOW" or "I am a dread assasin" and all that junk... give me one good reason to believe you apart from your opinions... lets see some credentials.) opinion)
This is useless filler and senseless bragging. Computer science and math do not equate to credentials in debate, and you should know this, if you're as seasoned of a debater as you claim.
@Mortai: Your taste in arguments (vs Grichnoch) were rather poor. Attacking a person directly in a debate of ideas is never a good idea. Any self-respecting 'debater' knows this. In future try to restrict your 'jabs' to the realm of theory, and avoid directing your opinions towards a specific person (as a person... talking to someone is perfectly fine, just don't attack them as a person). And Grichnoch was mostly right. While it is not a rule that that kind of (bording on insulting possibly?) speech is a sign of a weak argument, people who start down that road do tend to unravel their own points. Just a quick warning.
No problems here.
@Kaulan: "Oh look, and internet expert... how quaint." What does that make you? I haven't seen anything to show you know more than Grichnoch or that he knows less than he is saying.
Replying to this makes you look childish, but doesn't affect your argument. Neither does it support it, but whatever.
@Logiclul: What MonkeyGH and Grichnoch were saying is that, while a person's experience will differ when it comes to morals, the morals themselves will not differ. And you said that if a moral code was undefined to us, it would be useless. Well, that's where things like the Bible, the Koran (or Qu'ran), the Book of Mormon etc come in. All of those define a moral law, that is absolute as much as it is objective (to use the words you all have been throwing around). Now I know that many of you are probably athiestic or some other variety of that, and you might say that you don't have a religion, but in reality, you do. A religion is defined as a system of beliefs, and athiests believe that there is no God, and that evolution is true, and that nature is all there is. Sounds like a system of beliefs to me. That would therefore make athiests (and naturalists) religious.
Ah, here we go. Let's pick this apart piece-by-piece. For one, even if we accept that there is a "universal moral law," there are millions of religions, each with their own moral codes, making the assertion "universal morality exists" completely useless as a claim. Secondly, the Bible (and the Koran), just to name a random holy book, contradicts itself on claims of morality at several points, with a god that clearly is not unchanging in any sense of the word.
Regarding your definition of atheism, you are sorely mistaken. Atheism includes both the lack of a belief in higher powers AND the belief that there are no higher powers. Even if we used only strong atheists or hard atheists, you're warping the definition of a "system" of beliefs. The possession of several beliefs does not constitute a system of beliefs, and it especially does not constitute religious belief, which is defined anyway to be a system of beliefs related to a deity or deities.
Beyond this, religion is rooted in, as you said, belief, while science is rooted in testability, and is itself unconcerned with supernatural beings that cannot be tested. Atheists (any intelligent people, really) only believe in evolution (and gravity, atoms, etc) because that is what testable, falsifiable evidence leads the most credit too.
Beyond THIS, atheists do not "believe that nature is all there is," inherently. Skeptics (and I hate to generalize like you seem to be doing) only reject the idea of strongly believing in something which has no evidence (like gods, unicorns, etc).
Even if what you're suggesting is correct, this is only semantics, and changes nothing about the topic at hand. You're manipulating the English language to define things the way that YOU would like to define things, and while this is fitting with a politician, this is not the tactics used by a person with dignity, honor, etc. "Universal morals," indeed.
Now none of what I have said has solved any of the problems about 'subjective' 'objective' morality here. That is because I don't believe that we can in this place and time. The great thinkers of the world have been struggling with this concept for centuries, I don't see why everyone in this forum thinks they need to solve it once and for all.
Irrelevant.
That said, let me make my case, then you all can slam on my opinions all you like. But be warned, I do agree with Grichnoch on this. In his 'farewell post' he said that you all seem to be suspending logic in order to make your points. I half agree/disagree. You have all been pretty quick to make comments that make absolutely no sense from either a logical, mathematical, or rational standpoint. (like Logiclul's set T etc... what was that all about?) But at the same time you have all made some good points, and I respect you for that.
Luckily, I haven't been involved until just now, so I have nothing to say on the arguments of others.
Most of what I have to say are quotes, because I can't adaquately express what I want to say in my own words.
Joshua Greene (respected neural surgeon and brain expert, and supporter of relative morality) once said: ?If everyone believed [relative morality], the whole world would fall apart. If right and wrong are nothing more than the instinctive firing of neurons, why bother being good?? I agree. What is the point of anything good?
Wrong. Altruism and cooperation are hard-wired into our DNA. Right/Wrong IS the instinctive firing of neurons, and because working together benefits all members, that is what many animals opt to do. We humans are hardly different.
"Greene is right. Good and evil cannot possibly exist within a world that defines everything by chance. In his evolutionary belief system, only (fallible) human preference can determine ideals of right and wrong, and such preferences may shift from society to society." -- Janine M. Ramsey.
Yes, that is exactly what some of us have been trying to say. Preferences certainly can shift from society to society, but a different definition of what constitutes "rape" doesn't necessarily mean one society will be more unhappy than another.
"Evil and good do objectively exist because they emanate from the fact that there is an unchanging, omniscient (all-knowing), and holy God. These are not subjective opinions invented and written down by man. Rather, ?good? expresses the innate characteristics of God Himself that He has built into every human being, and every human being is responsible to live up to those standards. And the absence of good defines evil.
Non sequitur...You have no evidence that this "unchanging" being exists, and even if one did exist, this does not in any way imply that objective morality exists. An omniscient being could just as easily be completely amoral, or could itself believe in relative morality. There is also the problem of how an "unchanging" being could create something in the first place, and why an "all-knowing" being would create something, knowing its outcome from the outset.
We've still no measure with which to pin-point what constitutes "good," let alone evidence of an omniscient creator.
But, evolutionary ?science? will likely never recognize this simple truth.
Because it's not truth.
While continuing in its quest to overturn the existence of God in the mind of society,
This is not the goal of science. Science is concerned with testing nature to discover patterns and to discover how this universe works. It says absolutely nothing about the existence of deities, which are by definition outside of nature and untestable. Not only that, they are unfalsifiable, and are as useless in a conversation as the suggestion that we are living in the Matrix.
it is inadvertently revealing the truth regarding the ghastly implications of evolutionary philosophy. With the Discover magazine article, we are witnessing the ?leading edge? of evolutionary research drawing towards the inevitable and logical conclusion that in a world without a God there is no objective basis for moral truth. There is only human preference. A frightening, anarchical proposition.
Just because the facts are uncomfortable doesn't mean you can just wish them away. Even with relative morality, this does not lead to "anarchy," because, as I've said, altruism is hard-wired into out brains. Not only that, simple logic tells us that acting only selfishly harms both outsiders and oneself. Simply-speaking, even with relative morality, people will generally act nicely to others because life is, in essence, a prisoner's game, where working together harms everyone the least.
The question is, will society continue to blindly follow this flawed theory of origins and life?"--J. M. Ramsey again
Useless filler. Without naming any flaws with evolution and evolutionary theory, it's looking like this author is just a religious nut trying to undermine actual scientific understanding of the world.
My whole argument is based on the existence of an absolute, sovereign, creative God, who creates the rules, and expects us to live by them. While you may not agree with that, I do have a flawless system of objective morals provided by God, and nothing you can say will ever undermine that argument. Just saying: "Well, I choose not to believe in God" and "Well, you can't say that cause I don't believe in God" just doesn't cut it. WHY doesn't God exist? Give me something solid please. I have yet to see anyone else (including grichnoch and monkeygh) give anything close to the definitive system of morals and beliefs that I have.
If your system is so flawless, how can it be that we're still debating what is "moral" and what isn't after thousands of years?
This second-to-last sentence, though, is how I know that you're not simply a victim of Poe's law, but a troll looking to incite others with idiocy and childish debate tactics.
If you were even beyond grade school, you would know that the burden of proof is not on the non-believers. YOU are the one making the assertion that an untouchable being with no physical (or logical) evidence exists, and YOU are the one that must provide proof without looking like a fool. The same is to be said of unicorns, etc. It is all well and possible that unicorns, ghosts, and gods exist, but without evidence, it is asinine (to say the least) to try and say that it is OUR job to convince you that something which already has no evidence does not, in fact, exist. You're free to believe in fairies or whatever else you'd like, but when you are telling other people that these things exist, it is entirely your job to provide proof, and if none is provided, the logical choice of these other people is to deny your claims as unsupported.
You are not a seasoned debater. You know nothing of logical fallacies. If you do know of them, you are choosing to ignore them to make your claim seem more feasible, or at least to place doubt in the realm of science.
By me even answering you, it gives the impression that your "ideas" are on equal footing as mine. It is akin to a geologist speaking to a flat-earther at a live debate, as if the flat-earther is anything but a closed-minded person with no understanding of simple logic, let alone the arguments for morality or the existence of gods.
10/10 because you got such a long goddamn reply from me.
