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JamesATyler
Guest
I’m not just saying its bad. I feel that pain is bad. Isn’t that enough?
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JamesATyler
Guest
Don’t we project ourselves into their situation through our natural ability to empathize? We know it feels awful so we assume its no pleasure cruise for them either. We wish to avoid it so we assume they do as well. More than assume, we observe that animals will avoid pain and death as we do. So we see that their motivations are not dissimilar to our own.
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Heliotropium
Guest
No, since pain isn’t a “bad” thing.
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D_Martin
Guest
Morality or immorality is a virtue based on, or proved, (made manifest) in an agreement. He who keeps his part of any agreement that he has agreed to is moral and or ethical (though ethical seems more of a “in the spirit of the agreement”)
One agrees to pay for something to another and keeps the agreement of payment (Moral) refuses to pay or tries to get out of to paying though he is able and the other party fulfilled his part of the agreement (immoral). No big agreement with God necessary here, is there?
So there is such a thing as morals amongst the godless. Even a thing like shop lifting, nether party (store own or shop lifter) need to know God, know of God, seek God to keep the agreement that the person will pay for the product before leaving the store with said product. This happens every day with every person who trades one thing for another, no matter what their beliefs may be. Its only a matter of what is valued by the participants in the agreement.
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Iron_Donkey
Guest
No. Well, yes in reality (with appropriate complications involving necessary things) where we assume without mentioning as kind of background philosophy that we are actually persons with dignity etc, but we’re not talking about that (correct) world view.
But from a purely materialistic perspective, what you feel to be bad matters not at all. Because in order for it to matter, there must be a reason for it to matter. And if there is only material stuff, there is no reason for anything.
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JamesATyler
Guest
Maybe I am missing the point then. Explain to me why animals, who don’t have rational minds and need no explanation, avoid pain? If lesser animals needs no explanation why would a human need an explanation to remove his hand from the fire? From what I’ve observed humans need no explanation either so why are people saying we need one? I’m not saying that pain is “evil”, that might need an explanation.
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Iron_Donkey
Guest
Because “should” and morality is more than motivation. For example: a roomba is a robot that vacuums your floor. If set accordingly and left to its devices that’s what it will do.
Now, without mentioning the intention of the designers or the owners, can we really say that your roomba has a moral duty to vacuum your floors just because that’s what it’s programmed to do? How could a roomba have a moral duty anyway?
Likewise, the fact that animals (including us) are programmed to avoid pain does not in any way make it necessary to avoid pain or especially avoid causing pain in others (with appropriate complications). No more than the sun has a moral duty to rise. It may do it. But that doesn’t mean that it should do it, at least not without more to our worldview then we are allowing.
Of course, you mention rational souls - by the time we get that far in our reasoning, we have discarded materialism: if we are actually people as we believe people to be, then yeah. But the fact that we think we are doesn’t mean that we actually are, and in order for us to be people, or to be subject to any sort of morality, there has to be something outside of us making it so.
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tonyrey
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Bradski
Guest
I personally don’t want to live in pain. I personally want to live with a certain degree of freedom. I personally want to exercise my right to free speech. And a lot more beside (check out the Declaration of Human Rights, a secular document, for a more comprehensive list). Without those things my life wouldn’t be as satisfying as it would with them.
Wanting these things myself, I have, as a reasonable person, decided that if I should be granted these rights, then I should grant these rights to others in turn. That is, I should avoid causing others pain, I should not prevent others from living with a certain degree of freedom etc.
I have extended those rights in some cases to non-human but sentient creatures, such as cats. I know that a cat would prefer to live its life free from pain (it avoids pain as I do) so I wouldn’t therefore torture it.
Isn’t that all stating the bleedin’ obvious?
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Bradski
**Wanting these things myself, I have, as a reasonable person, decided that if I should be granted these rights, then I should grant these rights to others in turn. That is, I should avoid causing others pain, I should not prevent others from living with a certain degree of freedom etc. **
Then we agree. These sentiments you say are from the Declaration of Human rights. They are also from the Bible, which was around much longer ago than the Declaration, and I don’t see why you would insist that this Declaration was arrived at independent of the inluence of the Bible on Western Civilization.
**Wanting these things myself, I have, as a reasonable person, decided that if I should be granted these rights, then I should grant these rights to others in turn. That is, I should avoid causing others pain, I should not prevent others from living with a certain degree of freedom etc. **
Then we agree. These sentiments you say are from the Declaration of Human rights. They are also from the Bible, which was around much longer ago than the Declaration, and I don’t see why you would insist that this Declaration was arrived at independent of the inluence of the Bible on Western Civilization.
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JamesATyler
Guest
Here is what is obvious to me. Look at the real world. There are people of all sorts of believe systems. Plenty of people don’t believe in any sort of God or any other kind of supernatural beings yet they do exhibit morality. So it can be concluded quite easily that one does not need to believe in supernatural beings to be moral. It appears that a purely naturalistic view of the world is sufficient to inspire moral thinking. It’s clear from observation.
Also, for me, I think the question of whether an atheist is doomed to have an inferior sense of morality, when dealing with the natural world, does not seem to have any basis. In the real world, I think that an atheist can have a splendid sense of morality. Why? I think we humans are emotional creatures, we reason, we feel. An atheist has everything he needs to be a moral person. How that morality is formed and what it is based around is probably highly related to what the person values.
So we are all responsible for our conduct. If it were provable somehow that an atheist must have inferior morality, then how can he be held to the same standards as a religious person. I don’t think that the legal system or even God will treat atheists any differently when it comes to our conduct towards our fellow creatures.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
James
So we are all responsible for our conduct. If it were provable somehow that an atheist must have inferior morality, then how can he be held to the same standards as a religious person.
The atheist can be held by the same standard because, since we are all endowed with knowledge of natural law morality, God judges us all by the same standard. God is not a moral relativist.
I don’t think that the legal system or even God will treat atheists any differently when it comes to our conduct towards our fellow creatures.
This is true. But he will treat those who do not believe in Him differently than he will treat those who do not. The latter, since they have disobeyed the first and greatest commandment, will be judged as they apparently wish to be judged … never to know God up close and personal.
So we are all responsible for our conduct. If it were provable somehow that an atheist must have inferior morality, then how can he be held to the same standards as a religious person.
The atheist can be held by the same standard because, since we are all endowed with knowledge of natural law morality, God judges us all by the same standard. God is not a moral relativist.
I don’t think that the legal system or even God will treat atheists any differently when it comes to our conduct towards our fellow creatures.
This is true. But he will treat those who do not believe in Him differently than he will treat those who do not. The latter, since they have disobeyed the first and greatest commandment, will be judged as they apparently wish to be judged … never to know God up close and personal.
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Iron_Donkey
Guest
That’s great and good, as far as it goes, but the question is how far does it actually goes.
So you’ve come up with a system of behavior that you like and makes sense to you. Why does it apply to me? You say you are a reasonable person. What does that mean and how can you tell? And why does it matter.
See, you can come up with a set of rules, and follow them, and maybe even show that they’d be consistent. But that doesn’t imply that they actually have any force. The fact that you like them and that I like them too doesn’t actually mean anything for anyone else, whether we think we’re reasonable or not.
Put it this way: does your system imply that a psychopath that goes on a murder spree has actually done something that is actually bad, not just something of which you and most of us would disapprove?
If not, then it’s not true morality. There’s no force of “should” behind it. It’s just a mind game that has been taken up by the mob.
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JamesATyler
Guest
The are the different types of governments that mankind uses to settle just that question.
Absolute monarchy, Anarchy, Authoritarian, Commonwealth, Communist, Confederacy (Confederation), Constitutional, Constitutional democracy, Constitutional monarchy, Democracy, Democratic republic, Dictatorship, Ecclesiastical, Emirate, Federal (Federation), Federal republic, Islamic republic, Maoism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Parliamentary democracy, Parliamentary government, Parliamentary monarchy, Presidential, Republic, Socialism, Sultanate, Theocracy, and Totalitarian.
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JamesATyler
Guest
I’m not convinced that an atheist is damned. It just seems to me that the disciple Thomas also doubted that Jesus was the Lord and would not believe that he had risen from the dead. Jesus was patient and did not condemn him for his disbelief but appeared to him.
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Bradski
Guest
Who said I insisted as much? I’m appreciate that there is considerable overlap in, for example, the DoHR and what parts of the bible, especially the NT, tells us about morality. But what is found in the document is specifically secular. It is applicable to all people, whatever their religion. It is just as valid to a Muslim as it would be to a Hindu or a Christian. Or to an atheist. When you say ‘we agree’, you are including all those people as well. The clue is in the name, which in full is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
These are rights which can be developed from first principles by any reasonable person irrespective of their religious beliefs. They are rights which can form the basis for a set of morals that will stand you in good staid whatever religion you have. Or indeed, if you have none.
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Bradski
Guest
This is heading off into the realm of the bleedin’ obvious again, but here goes…
You and I have decided that we would personally like to live our lives free from being killed in an arbitrary manner by a third person. You have personally decided that remaining alive is ‘a good thing’. So in the interest of fairness, we also, therefore, grant this freedom to others (if we don’t want to be killed by a psycho then it’s only fair that we don’t want the psycho to kill anyone else either). I sincerely hope that that sounds reasonable to you.
Now, if a psychopath does go on a murder spree and kills you, then he is preventing you from continuing to live your life. And we decided above that continuing to remain alive is ‘a good thing’. He is therefore doing what we could describe as ‘a bad thing’.
Because we granted the freedom from being arbitrarily killed to others, as well as ourselves, if he kills someone apart from you and me, it is also ‘a bad thing’.
I can’t believe I had to write that out.
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PRmerger
Guest
Hiya, Bradski. :curtsey:
So…to continue.
We are agreed that you and I could propose (the same) rationale to the cat-torturer for why it’s wrong to torture cats.
But what are you going to say when he says, “I am an atheist, like you, and I subscribe to no higher morality than what I personally find to be moral. And I think it is 100% moral to torture cats.”
What will your response be?
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Bradski
**
These are rights which can be developed from first principles by any reasonable person irrespective of their religious beliefs. They are rights which can form the basis for a set of morals that will stand you in good staid whatever religion you have. Or indeed, if you have none. **
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights I have not read in its entirety. However, by its title I’m assuming it says nothing or not much about a Universal Declaration of Responsibilities. This is what Christ gives us that the Declaration leaves out, and that atheism also leaves out. Go to Matthew 25 and read the whole chapter. You will see nothing like it in the Universal Declaration of Rights.
**
These are rights which can be developed from first principles by any reasonable person irrespective of their religious beliefs. They are rights which can form the basis for a set of morals that will stand you in good staid whatever religion you have. Or indeed, if you have none. **
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights I have not read in its entirety. However, by its title I’m assuming it says nothing or not much about a Universal Declaration of Responsibilities. This is what Christ gives us that the Declaration leaves out, and that atheism also leaves out. Go to Matthew 25 and read the whole chapter. You will see nothing like it in the Universal Declaration of Rights.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
James
**
I’m not convinced that an atheist is damned. It just seems to me that the disciple Thomas also doubted that Jesus was the Lord and would not believe that he had risen from the dead. Jesus was patient and did not condemn him for his disbelief but appeared to him. **
Thomas was not an atheist when he died.
I am talking about dead atheists. Obviously, any atheist while living can still avoid hell by confessing his sins and seeking forgiveness from God. But certainly no atheist who dies without doing so can gain heaven. If that were the case, Christian or atheist it would not matter how much you sinned or how badly you sinned, if you did not repent, you would still get to heaven.
Really?
**
I’m not convinced that an atheist is damned. It just seems to me that the disciple Thomas also doubted that Jesus was the Lord and would not believe that he had risen from the dead. Jesus was patient and did not condemn him for his disbelief but appeared to him. **
Thomas was not an atheist when he died.
I am talking about dead atheists. Obviously, any atheist while living can still avoid hell by confessing his sins and seeking forgiveness from God. But certainly no atheist who dies without doing so can gain heaven. If that were the case, Christian or atheist it would not matter how much you sinned or how badly you sinned, if you did not repent, you would still get to heaven.
Really?
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