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Bradski
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As far as you are concerned, it isn’t. So you have a clear field. Off you go. Tell me why you believe genocide is wrong.
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IWantGod
Guest
Because its against the dignity given to humans by God’s nature. We exist contingently inside God (the ultimate reality), and God’s nature is love (as revealed by scripture and is the faith of the Catholic Church), and that is why our behavior is judged as either good or bad because it conflicts with the ultimate nature of reality.
Which of course would not be the case if God did not exist. There would be no ultimate objective moral standard. We end up with just the relativism of like and dislike.
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Bradski
Guest
So that’s it? Nothing other than a religious belief in dignity? So by implication, anyone who has no belief considers ‘human dignity’ to be a meaningless phrase. That anyone without belief has no reason not to treat people in any way they choose.
That morality is exclusively available to those who think exactly as you.
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IWantGod
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You either have an ontological foundation for Moral truth or you don’t.
Its got nothing to do with exclusivity.or wanting to exclude you from moral dignity.
If you are going around judging people as if there were such a thing as right and wrong while embracing a naturalistic ontology that excludes the possibility of there really being such a thing, then this can only speak to how irrational your worldview is. And it is quite frankly a sign of delusion. This is of course assuming that your goal is to be rationally consistent with objective reality.
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inocente
Guest
Come off it, the bible never makes any of the OP claims about atheists. It’s holy, not some Texas tabloid.
By quoting that verse out of context in your usual way, you’ve made it ad hominem. just bashing people rather than a rational argument.
If instead you read the bible prayerfully, you’d have seen the psalmist says “All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one”. Paul quotes the following verses saying “For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin” (Romans 3).
Paul continues, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin”. When someone says they believe in God but it’s superficial, casual, without any inner change, they remain slaves to sin because whatever they say with their mouths, they still say in their hearts ‘There is no God’.
Does the OP stereotype objectify others? Yup.
Is that declared righteous in God’s sight?
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IWantGod
Guest
I didn’t objectify anyone in the OP. You’re just making a straw-men
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Bradski
Guest
Maybe you forgot that you started this thread claiming that those with no belief cannot say that taking a life is wrong. You started this thread saying that those with no belief do not even believe there is a difference between right and wrong.
But you, being a believer, have access to morality that I, for example, do not have. And now have the temerity to say there is no suggestion of exclusivity.
The whole basis of your OP is that you know right from wrong, that you can differentiate between them and those with no belief cannot. That you have exclusive access.
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IWantGod
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They can’t if they intend to stay consistent with the logical implications of metaphysical naturalism.
No i did not. A lot of people who don’t believe in the Catholic Church’s conception of God think there is such a thing as right and wrong. I never said anything to the contrary. However, a rational atheist (by that i mean an atheist whom comprehends the logical consequences of their commitment to metaphysical naturalism) understands that there is no such thing as right or wrong.
You clearly do not have the capacity to comprehend what i’m talking about.
No, the whole basis of the OP was to show that atheists do not have an ontological foundation for Moral Truth. Clearly we exist in a world were there are some human behaviors that are obviously immoral and they are perceived as such by any well adjusted human being regardless of what they believe; but that does not mean that their acknowledgment of moral truth is rationally consistent with their ontological worldview.
One of the reasons i believe in God is because i can see there is such a thing as Moral truth.
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inocente
Guest
Maybe. I was thinking strawman = “an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument”.
Not sure I agree. We both know ‘God dun it’ is the fallacy that theologians call god-of-the-gaps. Georges Lemaître said if God would show himself anywhere, it should be in big bang but even there God hides himself. Which could mean that if we knew the cause of the big bang (if cause and effect is valid here), God would still hide himself. As you say, He wants faith.
But atheism isn’t materialism, and the two shouldn’t be conflated.
You’ve missed why Jesus makes the Levite a villain, and a Samaritan his hero. He knows His audience respect the Levite tribe and despise the Samaritan tribe. By which Jesus drives home his lesson - look past outward appearances, look past the stereotypes, try to see what God sees.
To get the full impact it had on His original audience, we need to replace those two tribes with whichever stereotypes we respect and despise. Remember says Jesus, they are both our neighbors, and either can show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts or are not.
And yet Jesus has the priest, who presumably knows scripture, do nothing for the victim. Jesus likes to upset our preconceptions.
No doubt your theory means you can predict the lottery numbers each week. But those who claim that freewill is more than the power to act at one’s own discretion, have an obligation to say why their claim is even coherent. I mean either it’s orderly or it isn’t. Without order, the will is determined by a roll of the dice. With order, the will is determined by the order.
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Bradski
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That is not what you said.
There is a world of difference in claiming that someone might not understand that there is a difference between right and wrong (a nonsensical proposal in the first instance) and saying that someone does not believe in right or wrong.
You seem to want to speak for others and have them say exactly what you need to butress your already preconceived ideas. I’m going to leave you to it. There is nothing worthwhile here.
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inocente
Guest
Your OP makes explicit claims that atheists must believe one of your two options about physical existence, they must believe there is no ontological foundation for “Moral Truth”, and they must believe there is no possibility of freewill.
They don’t need to do any of those things. They are people too. Get used to it.
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IWantGod
Guest
Thats like saying…
"*
You made the claim 2 + 2 = 4 and they must believe that’s true
They don’t need to do any of those things. They are people too. Get use to it!l*."
…And you know what inocente your right. Human beings don’t have to be rational!
Fine, Believe in metaphysical naturalism and hold views that are rationally inconsistent with it, its your life.
But this is the philosophy section. Get use to it.
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IWantGod
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What did i say then exactly? Can you quote it for me?
I said right and wrong does not exist if metaphysical naturalism is true. Atheists (or metaphysical Naturalists to be specific) who understand that fact, don’t believe in right and wrong. That’s a world of difference compared to the constant straw-men you keep erecting in the hope of evading the logical problems i have raised
All i have done is point out the problem of believing in metaphysical naturalism. I’m sorry if i embarrassed you.
Goodbye
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Vonsalza
Guest
And in another display of Vera-esque qualities, you feel that you have the right to frame the issue for other people and that those who see it differently are inherently wrong.
Double-down the irony in that we’re discussing moral relativism.
Quite humorous.
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Vonsalza
Guest
I think the difference there is that many theists don’t think it requisite to faith to stop at “God dun it”. The tree makes energy because “God dun it”, but also because of photosynthesis.
The critical difference, again, is that when the process or whatever is discovered, God didn’t “lose territory” to science. He remains the God of that as well. He’s the God of the gaps as well as the God of the non-gaps.
Prima facie, you’re right. But most atheists are materialist and (as Agnosticboy pointed out) naturalists. Those philosophies are usually what drives their atheism. Thus I find those critiques relevant. I suppose we’ll just have to disagree here.
I thought that’s what was going on; you’re valuable because God made you so.
I think Christ was just using the fact that all men are sinners; including priests.
It’s similar to predicting the weather. There are so many variables in the R-squared analysis that it effectively looks random. But that doesn’t make it genuinely random. It’s just a satisfactory proxy for the purpose it’s needed to serve. As time and technology move forward, the apparent randomness gets incrementally stripped away - like predicting the weather.
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IWantGod
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In the OP i state there is no ontological foundation for moral truth. and from there i went on to say that because of this an atheist can’t say such and such is wrong. I then when on to say that a rational atheist would not say that something is right or wrong. I said this because such an atheist would know that there is no ontological foundation for moral truth if God does not exist.
When i speak of Atheists i meant naturalists. My apologies if there was any confusion.
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inocente
Guest
You appear to be trying to make out that your invented stereotype is a logical truth.
Thats like saying…
"*
You made the claim 2 + 2 = 4 and they must believe that’s true
They don’t need to do any of those things. They are people too. Get use to it!l*."
As if.
Making up a cartoon cut-out stereotype to throw rocks at isn’t philosophy.But this is the philosophy section. Get use to it.
Agreed. So hopefully you see my point that reducing persons to stereotypes is against the dignity given to humans by God.
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IWantGod
Guest
That’s what you are accusing me of.
But the fact remains that if God does not exist, and metaphysical naturalism is true, then there is no such thing as moral truth.
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inocente
Guest
Yes and I think that’s at the core of god-of-the-gaps. The religious guy who thinks science is encroaching on his religion has less and less space in which the find God. But God is light, God is not to be found in ignorance, God is to be found in knowledge. And if new knowledge challenges a cherished belief, as Galileo did for Aristotle’s cosmology, then the belief was wrong, truth cannot contradict truth.
I think the small number of headline acts give that impression but there’s a sampling bias. I know a top rank anesthetist who’s an atheist and believes in angels. I know another atheist who believes in heaven, two more who believe in ghosts.
Yes, in spades.
Is the priest sinning? Jesus says the victim is ‘half-dead’. The priest would be concerned that Leviticus 21 makes it a sin for him to touch the dead, while Numbers 19 says he would then be unclean for a week. The original audience would have been aware of these rules, and so Jesus, re his ongoing battle with legalist Pharisees, could be telling them that such legalism conflicts with being a neighbor.
Paint me skeptical.
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inocente
Guest
Don’t see how.
I mean there are various secular systems of ethics which don’t depend on theism. Utilitarianism says the right thing to do is maximize well-being, and I’ve bumped into various Catholics on CAF who are fans of it, yet it has nothing at all to do with theism, it’s purely about material consequences.
Then there’s virtue ethics, which says virtue is the end in itself. Deontological systems not based on rules provided by God. And so on.
Like it or not, most modern ethics seem driven purely by secular concerns.
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