A World without Religion?

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AnimalSpirits said:
Because it does, in fact, go beyond that. I disapprove of rape no matter who is doing it no matter where they are doing it. Not only do I not like raping myself, I dislike the fact that it happens at all. My subjective morality influences my actions- not just the decision “rape/not rape” but “do nothing/seek to prevent rape.”
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I get that. The problem is you have no warrant for “seek to prevent rape” except that you dislike the fact that it happens at all. There is no moral difference on your grounds between seeking to prevent rape because you don’t like it and someone else raping because they do. If liking or not liking is all there is you haven’t provided a warrant for seeking to prevent rape, at least no moral warrant that is qualitatively different than the person has for raping to begin with.

To have THAT warrant you need to provide moral grounds for why rape is objectively wrong besides the fact that you, personally, find it distasteful. Minimally, you have to provide justification for why your dislike outweighs another person’s like.

You might argue that there are two that “dislike” rape - you and the victim. Then you are faced with the issue of gang rape where likes outnumber dislikes. It cannot be merely numbers, then can it? Nor mere like/dislike. There must be some objective means or standard for determining the moral legitimacy and priority of likes and dislikes beyond the mere fact they exist or by numerical count.
 
AnimalSpirits said:
Because it does, in fact, go beyond that. I disapprove of rape no matter who is doing it no matter where they are doing it. Not only do I not like raping myself, I dislike the fact that it happens at all. My subjective morality influences my actions- not just the decision “rape/not rape” but “do nothing/seek to prevent rape.”
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Your subjective morality is insignificant as far as others are concerned unless you can give a reason for your dislike. Why should some one else respect it if it is simply a matter of taste?
 
AnimalSpirits said:
No… I think that rape is always wrong. Someone else might disagree and think rape is okay on Tuesdays. Neither of us is objectively right.
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LOL!

That-- I simply cannot address. “Someone may think rape is okay on Tuesdays” may be a possibility that you embrace.

Wow. Just wow.
 
AnimalSpirits said:
No… I think that rape is always wrong. Someone else might disagree and think rape is okay on Tuesdays. Neither of us is objectively right.
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Are you objectively right that neither of you is objectively right? 😉

Seriously, we have a duty to uphold the morally right thing to do.

We cannot say that parents have a right to abandon their children in a dark forest. Parents have a duty to protect their children. If it is your view that someone else might disagree and believe it’s O.K. to abandon his children in a dark forest, on what principle of rightness or wrongness would that decision be made? On the principle that the parent feels like abandoning his children in a dark forest and that this is not objectively wrong because **it feels **like the right thing to do?

And by the way, abandoning children is why the Catholic Church has always built orphanages. These orphanages are paid for by voluntary donations from Christians.
 
In the chaotic world of moral relativism in which there is no objective moral law giver , a man killing off half 4 billion people is no more objectively good or evil then a man helping an old lady cross the street.

But atheists almost always don’t believe or live consistently with this worldview when pressed hard on some of the more extreme examples (such as the one I just posted above ).

The problem is most if them don’t admit this because it is evidence of an objective oral law giver. Richard Dawkins was one of the few atheists that admitted that he would be hard pressed to call what hitler did to the Jews as objectively wrong , simply because in atheism it doesn’t allow for a logical and reasonable framework for objective moral values .
 
humble_catholic said:
In the chaotic world of moral relativism in which there is no objective moral law giver , a man killing off half 4 billion people is no more objectively good or evil then a man helping an old lady cross the street.
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Especially if he does it, apparently, on a Tuesday. 😉
 
Peter_Plato said:
I get that. The problem is you have no warrant for “seek to prevent rape” except that you dislike the fact that it happens at all.
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Correct. I’d say I’m acting on a personal imperative that derives from my personal morals, rather than some authoritative warrant.
There is no moral difference on your grounds between seeking to prevent rape because you don’t like it and someone else raping because they do.
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There’s no objective moral difference because there is no objective morality, yes.
To have THAT warrant you need to provide moral grounds for why rape is objectively wrong besides the fact that you, personally, find it distasteful. Minimally, you have to provide justification for why your dislike outweighs another person’s like.
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A justification to myself, I guess? You seem to think that, with subjective morality, the default should be that I do my thing and let everyone else do theirs. But that itself a moral principle that not everyone is obliged to hold. I could go that route and be a complete pacifist, forgoing even self defense. But I haven’t, and am comfortable trying to enforce my standards on others in some circumstances.
 
humble_catholic said:
The problem is most if them don’t admit this because it is evidence of an objective oral law giver. Richard Dawkins was one of the few atheists that admitted that he would be hard pressed to call what hitler did to the Jews as objectively wrong , simply because in atheism it doesn’t allow for a logical and reasonable framework for objective moral values .
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And I admit it too- I’d go farther and say that not a single objectively wrong this has ever been done. There may be things that everybody agrees is wrong, there are certainly things that I very strongly believe is wrong, but that doesn’t mean that there’s some objective moral rule book out there.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Are you objectively right that neither of you is objectively right? 😉
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I think so- although I can’t know for certain that I’m right, I contend that it’s an objective question and I have the right answer.
Seriously, we have a duty to uphold the morally right thing to do.
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I disagree.
We cannot say that parents have a right to abandon their children in a dark forest. Parents have a duty to protect their children. If it is your view that someone else might disagree and believe it’s O.K. to abandon his children in a dark forest, on what principle of rightness or wrongness would that decision be made? On the principle that the parent feels like abandoning his children in a dark forest and that this is not objectively wrong because **it feels **like the right thing to do?
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Again I’m not sure why we keep needing specific examples. In my view, it’s entirely nonsensical to proclaim that anything is objectively right or wrong- subjective rightness/wrongness is all there is.
And by the way, abandoning children is why the Catholic Church has always built orphanages. These orphanages are paid for by voluntary donations from Christians.
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Aloysium said:
love, every sexual encounter would be a rape. Murder would be a natural solution for most problems. It would all be about power. Welcome to hell.
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How so? Let’s say there’s no god and humans are just extra smart primates with no divine providence. Other animals- wolves, beavers, ants, bees, and of course our fellow primes- manage to build primitive societies that aren’t as dominated by murder as you think godless humans would be. Why? Because cooperating leads to better results (in evolutionary terms), so the ones with cooperative instincts come to be dominant. Picking a fight can at worse get you wounded/killed and at best deprive you of a potential ally.
 
AnimalSpirits said:
How so? Let’s say there’s no god and humans are just extra smart primates with no divine providence. Other animals- wolves, beavers, ants, bees, and of course our fellow primes- manage to build primitive societies that aren’t as dominated by murder as you think godless humans would be. Why? Because cooperating leads to better results (in evolutionary terms), so the ones with cooperative instincts come to be dominant. Picking a fight can at worse get you wounded/killed and at best deprive you of a potential ally.
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There would be no love.
 
AnimalSpirits said:
How so? Let’s say there’s no god and humans are just extra smart primates with no divine providence. Other animals- wolves, beavers, ants, bees, and of course our fellow primes- manage to build primitive societies that aren’t as dominated by murder as you think godless humans would be. Why? Because cooperating leads to better results (in evolutionary terms), so the ones with cooperative instincts come to be dominant. Picking a fight can at worse get you wounded/killed and at best deprive you of a potential ally.
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The fact is that many civilizations perished because they made bad choices. They chose not to cooperate, but rather to exploit, plunder, and annihilate. The Nazi civilization perished for those reasons. Had they listened to God, they would have made other choices. By your logic they didn’t need God. All they needed was to be animals. But it’s the animal in them that made them ferocious (more likely the devil). 🤷
 
Aloysium said:
The question sounds bizarre to me, like asking, “there were no life, would you . . . ?”
God is love; if there were no love, every sexual encounter would be a rape. Murder would be a natural solution for most problems. It would all be about power. Welcome to hell.
When you appeal to your moral code, you are accessing your conscience, which is the dialogue you have with God, recognized or not.
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youtube.com/watch?v=F7hfeICyyzs

Start at 40:00

Apparently, HE didn’t know how to share.
 
PRmerger said:
I didn’t know they spoke with British accents back then! 😛
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I don’t believe it is a British accent on the video. But, there may be some merit in thinking that after the fall, we did. Before that it was strictly Italian. We’re not meant to take ourselves so seriously. 😉
 
Aloysium said:
I don’t believe it is a British accent on the video. But, there may be some merit in thinking that after the fall, we did.
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Ah. Very good point. After the fall the corrupted language defaulted to a British accent. That seems quite reasonable. 👍
 
Charlemagne_III said:
No, but then I am a Catholic. I can’t speak for anyone who doesn’t believe these things are objective evils.
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Well, not to state the bleedin’ obvious, but you wouldn’t be a Catholic if there were no God (or if you didn’t believe in Him, which amounts to the same thing).

So what would there be to stop you doing whatever you wanted? Anything, as has been repeatedly stated, is permissible. But we seem to be having great difficulty in finding anyone who feels that that would include themselves.

Aloysium, yourself, PR…nobody seems to think it would apply to them personally (no, WE would never do that!).Where are all these people? They can’t be atheists because we don’t believe He exists in any case and we don’t think that anything is permissible. And that only leaves Christians.

It appears that what you are saying is that Christians would be free to do anything at all if they lost their belief.
AnimalSpirits said:
From my perspective, no- I think rape is wrong 100% of the time. A strongly held subjective view does not somehow become objectively true, however.
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I think almost everyone is missing this point. Examples are being thrown up where there would be universal agreement between all rational people. And it is then stated: The truth of that statement must be absolute. Are we having a vote on this? Do we need everyone, literally, to agree before it can be absolute? Who’s making the call, anyway?

Catholics seem to be able to class something as absolute when hardly anyone agrees (contraception), when it’s fifty fifty (gay marriage), or when everyone agrees (rape). I think that that is your problem.

If someone were coming into this debate knowing nothing at all about the concept of relative and absolute truths, then you’d be off to a flying start saying that, for example, everything that is wrong now and would be wrong at all times for everyone, is objectively wrong. The person might think on that for a moment and then say that that sounds entirely reasonable. And you give some examples.

Rape is always wrong.
Yes, I agree with that, your definition of absolute would seem to be holding up.
Murdering people for fun is always wrong.
Yes, I see what you mean, your argument is looking stronger.
Contraception is always wrong, gay relationships are always wrong, extra marital sex is…
Whoa, back the truck up a little. Contraception? Gays? Sex outside marriage…? What the…?

And the person would think that as you are definitely wrong about certain truths, then your whole argument is wrong. That maybe the examples with which you both agreed are simply ones that all reasonable people would agree. But then what if all reasonable people believed that slavery was OK? Or physically beating children was OK? Or everyone carrying a gun was OK? Or ignoring global warming? Or farming animals? Or contraception?

It could be that in a thousand years time (or maybe a lot sooner), eating meat will seem barbaric. So all reasonable people would say that farming animals was morally wrong. And will say it is wrong now and will always be wrong. So does it become an absolute truth? Well, that defies the very definition, so the definition cannot be valid.
 
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