If you’re trying to establish some transcendent ontology of morality, then you may not win many supporters from atheists, no. We’re with you insofar as we all find torturing children disgusting. But that’s an emotional response to social stimuli, and not a supernatural reaction to some divine law.
But what justifiable response is there to a person who wants to torture a child, then? “Boo!” “I’m going to put you in jail because I like different things than you!” If you can’t point out that something is wrong, then what can you point out to them?
We point out the consequences, and indeed they are quite effective in curbing crime.
Your interests are your own, and mine are my own. But if we happen to share interests, then we can work together and accomplish much of mutual benefit. For those who do not share interests, a social arrangement will be difficult.
And you might reasonably infer that you’re the kind of person who feels bad when you hit others for no good reason. With some investigation, you might discover evidence that points to the fact that a majority of people feel bad when they hit someone else for no good reason.
Well, it depends on the atheist, obviously.
I doubt many people would want to do it or allow it in society, but that’s not the issue. The issue is whether or not it’s “objectively wrong,” which is a nonsense phrase with no meaning.
You mean aside from, “We have a desire to have a functional society, and instances of torturing babies produces social unrest and interferes with a functional society”?
#1 is wrong. If God does not exist, then nothing exists. God is the creator. Without the creator, there is nothing created.
I agree, but what I’m using is called a “counterfactual” premise. In standard logic, an if/then statement is true if the first part of the statement (the conditional) is false. Thus, “If God does not exist, then nothing exists” would be true, given God’s existence.
Funny you should say that. I’ve always wondered why some “atheists” have moral ideas.
If by permissable, you mean that there can never be any moral grounds to say that this conglomerate of atoms should not harm that conglomerate of atoms, you’re right.
)Including nonstandard spelling, apparently.
I doubt these “witch doctors” are atheists.
You’ll forgive my typos; my fingers work faster than my brain sometimesIncluding nonstandard spelling, apparently.
Reductionist or not, it doesn’t matter. Just because we have very difficult and subjective means by which we choose our moral precepts doesn’t necessitate a higher power. You want to talk about epistemology; it’s a huge epistemic leap between “moral designations are made arbitrarily” and “Therefore, there’s a God!” It’s what we humble skeptics call “jumping the gun,” my son.
Well it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the condition. Luckily, there seems to be at least some semblance of inner dialogue, built into us, that dubs things (for the most part) socially non-permissible, even if they are relatively permissable.
No matter how many times theists repeat this argument, it doesn’t make any more sense. “Truth” is our word for thoughts being in accord with reality. Clearly, some minds are more in accord with reality than others, and it’s non-trivially easy to distinguish them.
Maybe in some cases, though I’m less interested in how useful things are than I am in how true they are.
The realization that “everything is permissible” doesn’t “instruct” anyone or necessitate any particular actions.
Some people with antisocial urges repress them, some sublimate them into actions more productive for society, some find outlets for them, hidden or otherwise, and some actually openly rebel against society.
Do you really think “That doesn’t mean that we can’t…” is a sound basis for morality?Don’t be afraid, anyone, to say that, in a real rigid sense, everything is permissible. That doesn’t mean that we can’t understand morality and permissibility as a system of reciprocal claim making in which everyone is accountable to everyone else (and by which we call some things right and other things wrong). It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t imagine any entities (that’s what I like about it
How do you distinguish them? How do you know you are one of the privileged few?
It doesn’t instruct anyone or necessitate but it permits people to do anything they choose and are capable of…
If there is no objective morality everything is permissible…
The God of the Old Testament…
Depends at which point your satisfied with it. Some people are satisfied in saying morality is objective because an invisable man in the sky laid down the law (is that sound?). I’m saying that just because there are no imagined entities in my proposition doesn’t mean that there isn’t a propensity for humans to be accountable to each other (forming the basis of morality). It’s subjective - I know the difficulty you have with it. But it doesn’t demand an answer that’s not available (and perhaps never could be). Asking about morality in a material world is like asking whether 'tis right for a star to collapse. Just because we prescribe ‘ought’ from an arbitrary position neither implies that we must imagine an objective source for that position, nor does it imply that we can’t still be accountable to one another.
You may be temped to ask what art is good and what art is bad, but it’s still an arbitrary position. Most people can agree on at least some core features that make art aesthetically pleaseing, while still, there are stragglers (or outliers) that fail to conform to such standards. You can liken art to morality, and outliers to criminals if it makes things easier. But don’t sit here telling me that “it simply isn’t a sound explanation for why there’s good artistic expression and bad;” because you’re really just asking a question that doesn’t have the answer you’re looking for.
An emotional response is a very weak foundation for morality…
In other words everything is permissible!
Can we clear up the differences in the use of the word permissible? Things can be relatively permissible (everything is in fact! - we can no more prescribe morality to human matter than plants, dirt, or rocks). That’s not to say that things are socially-permissible (people that kill or rape or steal are pretty much punished in every culture). So what’s the point of appeal for the believer? There is none.
No one promised life would be perfect.
That’s a strange way to characterize the situation, but okay.
A propensity is a very weak foundation for morality.
Try telling that to a criminal!
If there is no answer everything is permissible!
Is it begging the question to ask where human beings came from?