If God does not exist, then everything is permissible

[Oreoracle]

Since those arguments rely partially on revelation, you would consider them unconvincing.

That’s the problem. You claim to know things based on revelation, but how is revelation any different than guessing? There’s no evidence for a position using revelation as its justification, and others could easily declare the opposite position and use “revelation” as their justification as well. How do we determine who is right?

Quite simply, you can’t claim knowledge without evidence. No, I’m not saying that “the physical world is all that exists,” I’m just saying that evidence is our only reliable means of establishing knowledge. Otherwise, we would both assume opposing positions while using the same justification, revelation, and neither of us could prove the other wrong. Without requiring evidence, the gathering of knowledge would cease.

Anyway, I think it’s curious that Christians claim to know God through revelation when the whole idea of revelation assumes God. It’s one huge circular argument.

What position am I arguing for, then? Simply this: the Christian viewpoint is a coherent system of ethics that makes statements about right and wrong meaningful. There is no other system that I know of with the same result.

If you want me to be less hostile, then please substantiate that claim. Demonstrate the objectivity of ethics for me. Here, I’ll give you an easy one: A man walks up to you on the street and claims that it’s immoral to eat mashed potatoes and peas on the same plate. How do you prove him wrong, objectively? (Or, if you agree for whatever reason, how would you prove him right?)

If your position has any substance to it at all, this should be an easy task!

If you think that all experiences a person has that might constitute religious revelation are epistemically worthless, please tell me why.

Christian: I know that Yahweh exists through revelation.

Muslim: I know that Allah exists through revelation.

Random Person: I know that unicorns gallop across Mars through revelation.

When evidence is discounted as being the arbiter of justification, how do we determine who is right when there is conflict (as we see between the Muslim and the Christian), and how do we reject ludicrous claims, such as the one we see from the random person?

Also, tell me what the principled distinction between veridical (truth-bearing) experience and non-veridical experience is, so I can learn what revelatory experiences to discount.

Discount all anecdotal experiences and only offer evidence.

Practical ethics asks the question, “How should we live?”

“Practical” ethics or not, I think the central question of ethics is more fundamental than that. The question, from what I gather, is “How should the universe be?” Here, I’m using “universe” to mean “all that exists” and I’m using “exist” to mean “possessng non-contradictory qualities” (things may have conceptual existence). When we begin ethics, like any major branch of philosophy, we are supposed to begin with a blank slate. Nothing is sacred at our starting point. Indeed, some people hold (though often hypocritically) that life shouldn’t exist, and so the question you ask never enters play. “How should we live? We shouldn’t live!”

This is just one reason that your posts often discourage me, though you aren’t the only poster who does this. You assume that philosophy begins with these guidelines, but it doesn’t. Philosophy begins as a blank slate, such that even axioms like the law of the excluded middle can be dismissed (some philosophers have done so). And since the law of the excluded middle is an axiom, possessing no substantiating premises of its own, it can be dismissed without argument, as can anything like it. The philosopher only needs to deal with the logical consequences of doing so. (Personally, I think philosophers who’ve denied it have failed to cope with the consequences.)

Nothing begins as sacred, and so you’re hardly in any position to tell me which question should follow after my consideration of the initial question, “How should the universe be?”

I don’t see how the subjectivity of punishment relates to the conversation – perhaps I forgot.

We were talking about how you could determine whether someone “got away with” an act.

If you torture someone who (unbeknownst to you) is a masochist, you are still guilty of torture.

Ah, but how do you determine what is and isn’t torture, objectively?

…And that is what I am telling you, about the Kingdom of all men. You can call it vague all you like, but the statement just doesn’t make sense to me.

Actually, I was addressing “the reality of life” more than anything. (I believe that was part of your explanation, though I’m unable to check at the moment.) I took the idea of a kingdom to be vague as well, but that’s because most Christians interpret “kingdom of God” symbolically. Personally, since you believe in the Trinity, I trust, I think you ought to regard God as part of a triumvirate instead of a single king. Just sayin’.

Compare the statement “If determinism is true, then we do not have free will”. What *evidence *is needed to agree or disagree to that statement?

For starters, clarification is needed. What the heck is “free will?” For the life of me, I’ve never heard a definition offered that is incompatible with determinism. After that, we must recognize that the conditional is useless if we can’t demonstrate its truth. In logic, you can form arguments based on dubious premises and still make a valid argument, but you may never be able to test its soundness. Alas, most think that “valid” and “sound” mean the same thing!

More later…

 

[tonyrey]

Sair;6210408:

God chose to sacrifice Himself to liberate us from the vortex of evil and violence with which we have disfigured the world by demonstrating that love is the most powerful force that exists.

Expressed more elegantly:

God chose to sacrifice Himself to liberate us with the most powerful force there is - love - from the vortex of evil and violence with which we have disfigured the world…

That vortex exists precisely because when men reject, misinterpret or ignore the existence of God everything is permissible…

 

[TEPO]

The fact is that economists value growth -** they think economic wealth is the best way to guarantee freedom and health and happiness for all**. Many others dispute that, but there is no doubt that economics is still human-centred. Without any kind of economic growth, we would all still be living at subsistence level, as many people still are in developing nations. Economic growth does have benefits in terms of survival and quality of life - it’s just that some people don’t recognise any upper limits.

But the question still remains… If every plant and animal on earth worked for thousands of years only to produce this “new” human to have complete dominance over them, then why?

Why did the earth want us to own it?

Why did everything build us? Do you think that life = “freedom and health and happiness for all”? No --we were made for a reason besides mere survival until natural death. More than pleasure or selfish desires… More than freedom, health and happiness.

There must be something else about life and intelligence… Humans have capitalized on love… happiness comes from love, freedom comes from love… Love sets the human being apart from mere animals… We were created to love.

God wants us to love… And the Holy Catholic Church has asked for reform of the U.N. pleading for a more God-centered plan… The Catholic Church has a plan to build love. The Catholic Church has a plan to curb hyper-consumerism -which feeds from the addictions of men, whether it be food addictions, or drug, or sex, possessions, etc.
Addictions are the opposite of love… They are selfish.

The human race is spreading the disease of selfishness upon the world rather than the love that it was intended to spread. Because we have lost the morals which revolve around God (love)…

 

[TEPO]

That’s not what the best evidence available to us actually says. Take a little time to study evolutionary biology – after reviewing the evidence, it would be difficult to come up with a more backwards conclusion than “the human being is the end-product of life on earth.”

I will agree that in a “clone” world, similar to earth -the end product might not look exactly like us… There would be color variations etc… But the basic abilities of the human are what make us the “end-product”. We are capable of out-right compassion, charity, truth, justice, etc. These are the qualities that make us the end product… Not our shape or size.

 

[hatsoff]

But the question still remains… If every plant and animal on earth worked for thousands of years only to produce this “new” human to have complete dominance over them, then why?

Why did the earth want us to own it?

Why did everything build us? Do you think that life = “freedom and health and happiness for all”?

In demanding an explanation for the plan you perceive, you have overlooked the key issue, which is whether or not there really is such a plan in operation. For example, you ask why the earth wants us to own it, but since when does the earth want anything?

Establish first the existence of such a plan, and only then ask from whence it came.

 

[AlbertBall]

I will agree that in a “clone” world, similar to earth -the end product might not look exactly like us… There would be color variations etc… But the basic abilities of the human are the end-product. We are capable of out-right compassion, charity, truth, justice, etc. These are the qualities that make us the end product… Not our shape or size.

We are not the end product of anything. The chances are in a clone word the “product” would be NOTHING like us.

 

[AlbertBall]

Why did the earth want us to own it?

We do not own the earth, this is like the fleas arguing over who own the dogs back.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

In demanding an explanation for the plan you perceive, you have overlooked the key issue, which is whether or not there really is such a plan in operation. For example, you ask why the earth wants us to own it, but since when does the earth want anything?

If you pick up a watch and examine its insides, you would see evidence of a plan, and that plan would tell you something about the genius of the watchmaker … that he had found a way to measure time. You would never assume that the watch accidentally composed itself. The earth and all its works are infinitely more complex than any watch. Why would you assume that the earth has not been designed for life, but that it just came into being by accident? And why would you assume that your own intellect, infinitely more complex than any watch, had not been designed to think? Why would you be more inclined to think that your own brain appeared as an evolutionary “accident”?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Napoleon asked him what place God had in his theory. Laplace replied that he had no need for that hypothesis. We also have no need for it, because science has been successful, and science is the best approach to solving the mysteries that remain.

because science has been successful

Science has been successful. It has solved the mystery of how to destroy the human race and many other life forms all in one day … a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Science, together with technology, has successfully solved the mystery of yet another way to accomplish the same end … by producing vast quantities of waste matter that may result in killing the planet.

Religion never had so much success, except perhaps in prophesying precisely what science threatens to be successful at threatening to produce … Armageddon!

 

[Ender]

The notion that all things are permissible in the absence of a god is false …

C’mon people, this is the topic, let’s get back to it. This idea stands on its own and nothing about Christianity in particular or religion in general is relevant. There is no need (here) to defend Christianity; the ball is in the atheists court to defend their position. It is their presumptions that have to be defended, not ours.

… because it assumes that a divine being is the only constraint upon our moral choices.

That assumption is not being made. I think the conclusion being drawn is that without an external source of morality, all restrictions on our behavior are personally imposed and arbitrary (but not random).

If I believe …

You make choices on how to behave based on the belief that your actions will yield the consequences you prefer, and everyone is justified in behaving that way. Is that a fair statement?

Ender

 

[warpspeedpetey]

warpspeedpetey;6213310:

When we are faced with a moral dilemma, we can either act on insufficient information, find more information, or not act at all. Deferring to God, according to your argument, is acting on insufficient information, because we can’t know what God really intends.

you can choose not to act at all. which is what the rational position of someone who knows they have insufficient information should be.

btw. we do know what G-d intends as far as He has told us.

Your arguments really are all over the place. In one post, you deny that your morality comes from the Bible, then in the next post, you say that your morality comes from God, and then in the next post, you say that your evidence for God comes primarily from the Bible - spot the problem here? You’re changing the goalposts in the middle of the game.

let me clarify then. the Bible is a collection of books written over thousands of years by dozens of people. it is not one book. our morality comes from G-d. not a book.

further, the evidence of G-d in the Bible, is that it is a compilation of books, many of whom are witnesses to G-d and his action. the “primary” evidence of G-d is reason.

No matter what I have said, you’ve offered either a thoughtless denial or an expression of ignorance.

We are each of us moral agents. We have no choice but to act - or not act - according to the knowledge we each possess. If we find we have insufficient knowledge, we can either act expediently or take the time to find out more information. According to your conception of the matter, we can never

have sufficient information about God, so we are left with the same process - we act upon what knowledge we have. This looks very like what people do anyway, regardless of whether they believe in a god or not.

acting on inufficient information when it is not necessary, is irrational. thats what i keep trying to point out. none of youre arguments, passionate as they may be, are rational expressions of thought. because you know you lack sufficient information.

i will now post the technical description of the problem. i dont seem to be getting through that this is not a matter of emotions or feelings. its a matter of bare rationality.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Info-gap_decision_theory#Working_assumptions

Quote:
Working assumptions
Info-gap decision theory employs three simple constructs to capture the uncertainty associated with decision problems:

1.A parameter whose true value is subject to severe uncertainty.
2.A region of uncertainty where the true value of lies.
3.An estimate of the true value of .
It should be pointed out, though, that as such these constructs are generic, meaning that they can be employed to model situations where the uncertainty is not severe but mild, indeed very mild. So it is vital to be clear that to give apt expression to the severity of the uncertainty, in the Info-Gap framework these three constructs are given specific meaning.

Working Assumptions
1.The region of uncertainty is relatively large.
In fact, Ben-Haim (2006, p. 210) indicates that in the context of info-gap decision theory most of the commonly encountered regions of uncertainty are unbounded.
2.The estimate is a poor approximation of the true value of .
That is, the estimate is a poor indication of the true value of (Ben-Haim, 2006, p. 280) and is likely to be substantially wrong (Ben-Haim, 2006, p. 281).
In the picture represents the true (unknown) value of .

The point to note here is that conditions of severe uncertainty entail that the estimate can – relatively speaking – be very distant from the true value . This is particularly pertinent for methodologies, like info-gap, that seek robustness to uncertainty. Indeed, assuming otherwise would – methodologically speaking – be tantamount to engaging in wishful thinking .

this is just a bare fact.

The notion that all things are permissible in the absence of a god is false, because it assumes that a divine being is the only constraint upon our moral choices. If I believe that it is right to do unto others as I would like them to do to me, I believe that on its own merits, not because I’ve been told to believe it by any gods. If I found that acting in this way caused detrimental consequences, I would cease to act that way - I wouldn’t continue to make harmful choices based on a religious precept, just because it was a religious precept. People make moral choices based on their own knowledge and experience, as I’ve said, regardless of whether or not that experience includes exposure to religious teachings.

G-d is the only constraint on our morality. your personal beliefs just happen to be that, your personal beliefs they only constrain you. other people do not necessarily share them.

there are people whose personal beliefs are diametrically opposed to yours. they like to murder, rape and pillage. they like to do aything they can get away with.

considering all morals are equal in the subjectivist view, then you cant say that what they are doing is wrong. anytime you try, tyhey will just ask “why”

 

[warpspeedpetey]

When we are faced with a moral dilemma, we can either act on insufficient information, find more information, or not act at all. Deferring to God, according to your argument, is acting on insufficient information, because we can’t know what God really intends.

you can choose not to act at all. which is what the rational position of someone who knows they have insufficient information should be.

btw. we do know what G-d intends as far as He has told us.

Your arguments really are all over the place. In one post, you deny that your morality comes from the Bible, then in the next post, you say that your morality comes from God, and then in the next post, you say that your evidence for God comes primarily from the Bible - spot the problem here? You’re changing the goalposts in the middle of the game.

let me clarify then. the Bible is a collection of books written over thousands of years by dozens of people. it is not one book. our morality comes from G-d. not a book.

further, the evidence of G-d in the Bible, is that it is a compilation of books, many of whom are witnesses to G-d and his action. the “primary” evidence of G-d is reason.

No matter what I have said, you’ve offered either a thoughtless denial or an expression of ignorance.

We are each of us moral agents. We have no choice but to act - or not act - according to the knowledge we each possess. If we find we have insufficient knowledge, we can either act expediently or take the time to find out more information. According to your conception of the matter, we can never have sufficient information about God, so we are left with the same process - we act upon what knowledge we have. This looks very like what people do anyway, regardless of whether they believe in a god or not.

acting on inufficient information when it is not necessary, is irrational. thats what i keep trying to point out. none of youre arguments, passionate as they may be, are rational expressions of thought. because you know you lack sufficient information.

i will now post the technical description of the problem. i dont seem to be getting through that this is not a matter of emotions or feelings. its a matter of bare rationality.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Info-gap_decision_theory#Working_assumptions

Quote:
Working assumptions
Info-gap decision theory employs three simple constructs to capture the uncertainty associated with decision problems:

1.A parameter whose true value is subject to severe uncertainty.
2.A region of uncertainty where the true value of lies.
3.An estimate of the true value of .
It should be pointed out, though, that as such these constructs are generic, meaning that they can be employed to model situations where the uncertainty is not severe but mild, indeed very mild. So it is vital to be clear that to give apt expression to the severity of the uncertainty, in the Info-Gap framework these three constructs are given specific meaning.

Working Assumptions
1.The region of uncertainty is relatively large.
In fact, Ben-Haim (2006, p. 210) indicates that in the context of info-gap decision theory most of the commonly encountered regions of uncertainty are unbounded.
2.The estimate is a poor approximation of the true value of .
That is, the estimate is a poor indication of the true value of (Ben-Haim, 2006, p. 280) and is likely to be substantially wrong (Ben-Haim, 2006, p. 281).
In the picture represents the true (unknown) value of .

The point to note here is that conditions of severe uncertainty entail that the estimate can – relatively speaking – be very distant from the true value . This is particularly pertinent for methodologies, like info-gap, that seek robustness to uncertainty. Indeed, assuming otherwise would – methodologically speaking – be tantamount to engaging in wishful thinking .

this is just a bare fact.

The notion that all things are permissible in the absence of a god is false, because it assumes that a divine being is the only constraint upon our moral choices. If I believe that it is right to do unto others as I would like them to do to me, I believe that on its own merits, not because I’ve been told to believe it by any gods. If I found that acting in this way caused detrimental consequences, I would cease to act that way - I wouldn’t continue to make harmful choices based on a religious precept, just because it was a religious precept. People make moral choices based on their own knowledge and experience, as I’ve said, regardless of whether or not that experience includes exposure to religious teachings.

G-d is the only constraint on our morality. your personal beliefs just happen to be that, your personal beliefs they only constrain you. other people do not necessarily share them.

there are people whose personal beliefs are diametrically opposed to yours. they like to murder, rape and pillage. they like to do aything they can get away with.

considering all morals are equal in the subjectivist view, then you cant say that what they are doing is wrong. anytime you try, tyhey will just ask “why”

that aside. i keep offering evidence to counter some of your assertions that you are not adressing. do you intend to adress it?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Napoleon asked him what place God had in his theory. Laplace replied that he had no need for that hypothesis. We also have no need for it, because science has been successful, and science is the best approach to solving the mysteries that remain.

because science has been successful

science cannot answer any of the interesting questions. like free will, why we are here, how we got here, why the universe exists, what is moral, etc. often people only educated in “science” forget its is merely the mechanistic branch of metaphysics.

it is a glorified trade school subject. when science knows all there is to know about the observable physical universe. it iwill be no different than courses like “advanced welding” or “basic automotive maintenance”, down at the local junior college.

a fat guy with a cigar behind the admissions counter will say "hey, you wanna be a mechanic, a welder, a nurse, a scientist, or a hotel/restaurant manager?

long after science is a completely known body of information, we will still be arguing metaphysics and mathematics.

 

[AntiTheist]

since it doesn’t matter, as you agree, if reality were to be as you describe, there’s no reason for anyone to care about them [values, I assume you mean], other than personal inclination, regardless of the sources of that

Yes, absolutely right. I wouldn’t care one bit about values if I wasn’t inclined to do so. Of course, I define values as a personal inclination towards placing importance on something.

Again, I’m not arguing that people should do X, Y, or Z because there’s a good reason to do them. I’m arguing that people actually do X, Y, or Z because they are inclined towards those things.

[And again, there can be “good reasons” for doing something if we are first given a context. Assuming that one values staying out of prison – that one has a natural inclination not to be locked up, which we can safely assume is the majority of people – then we can make the argument that you have a good reason not to break laws that could send you to prison. Of course, if you value stealing more than you value staying out of prison – which we can safely assume is not the majority of people – then what I’ve just written wouldn’t apply.]

so in such a world, I can’t see how you could define anything as being impermissable - except by the mechanical processes of force and restriction, rather than by moral considerations

Again, correct. The problem here is that the theists and the atheists are using different definitions of “permissible.”

I completely agree that anything and everything is permissible in the sense that you mean it. Given a context, however – say, a group of people who want to make rules that will further ends that they all share due to common values – we can say that certain things are impermissible within a specific, artificially-created system of restrictions. And yes, nothing would enforce it except “force and restriction.”

TEPO:

If every plant and animal on earth worked for thousands of years only to produce this “new” human to have complete dominance over them, then why?

You are deeply confused about the origin of the human species, and your assertion that the earth “wants” something leads me to conclude that you have not thought very seriously about this subject. Please read a few books on biological evolution.

Charlemagne II:

If you pick up a watch and examine its insides, you would see evidence of a plan, and that plan would tell you something about the genius of the watchmaker … that he had found a way to measure time.

Oh fun, the watch on the beach silliness. Look, the reason we know that a watch was made and has a “plan” has nothing to do with its complexity; it has everything to do with the fact that we have examples of people making watches and no examples of watches occurring naturally.

On the other hand, plenty of complex things do occur naturally, like snowflakes or living creatures or other complicated things that form through completely blind laws of nature.

Ender:

the ball is in the atheists court to defend their position. It is their presumptions that have to be defended, not ours.

Well, what presumptions have I made, exactly? “Right” and “wrong” are literally meaningless outside of a context. If you assert that they are not, that they have objective meanings for everyone outside of individual, subjective values, then you are making the claim that there is a supernatural context that applies to all people. Now the ball is suddenly in your court to support the claim that you’re making.

Of course, you can’t support that claim because it’s fundamentally a magical claim that is based on faith and warm feelings in the pit of your stomach.

 

[TEPO]

We do not own the earth, this is like the fleas arguing over who own the dogs back.

Fine… I’ll retract my “biological” arguments for the sake of the O.P… But answer me this…

Earlier in this thread, the atheists claimed that: the “values” that humans possess, are created through: society, biology, tradition, and reason… Also fear of punishment (the one with the biggest stick)…

Now my question is this: If there was a human child raised in a solitary setting by an English speaking “mentor” who taught the child terrible, foul values like cannibalism and hatred…

The mentor leaves for some time but returns…

Now the mentor teaches the child opposing values such as those found in the bible. He baptizes the child and everything…

Then the mentor leaves again…

When the mentor finally returns, which set of morals or “values” would the child keep?

 

[AlbertBall]

Now my question is this: If there was a human child raised in a solitary setting by an English speaking “mentor” who taught the child terrible, foul values like cannibalism and hatred…

The mentor leaves for some time but returns…

Now the mentor teaches the child opposing values such as those found in the bible. He baptizes the child and everything…

Then the mentor leaves again…

When the mentor finally returns, which set of morals or “values” would the child keep?

Dunno? Not sure what point your trying to make, besides “child opposing values such as those found in the bible”, i think you might want to have another look at that bible .

 

[AntiTheist]

Earlier in this thread, the atheists claimed that: the “values” that humans possess, are created through: society, biology, tradition, and reason… Also fear of punishment (the one with the biggest stick)…

I’m the atheist who has most vocally been trumpeting this approach. Not all atheists agree with my position, so you can can address me. Hi, I’m AntiTheist. Pleased to meet you.

Now my question is this: If there was a human child raised in a solitary setting by an English speaking “mentor” who taught the child terrible, foul values like cannibalism and hatred…

What relevance does “English speaking” have?

The mentor leaves for some time but returns…

Now the mentor teaches the child opposing values such as those found in the bible. He baptizes the child and everything…

Then the mentor leaves again…

When the mentor finally returns, which set of morals or “values” would the child keep?

Well, in the first place, you’re proposing a hypothetical situation that would probably never even happen, unless of course someone had the weird idea of performing a particularly silly psychological experiment and had a lot of time to spend on it (I mean…he would also want to perform this experiment several times and have a control group, so he would need a lot of kids, and this raises all kinds of logistical problems, but I digress…).

But at any rate, I imagine that basic values are mostly set at a fairly young age. By this, I don’t mean that someone cannot change his or her values over time – they certainly can and do change, based on experience, reason, and changing circumstances that might influence someone to begin valuing different things – but I mean that a basic values set is more or less complete in an individual at a fairly early age. That child’s values may take a number of turns as they develop, but any changes to the basic set of values are going to be slow, difficult, or maybe even impossible.

That said, I think a child taught in a solitary environment to value murder and cannibalism would almost certainly develop into a monster unfit for company in any civilized society. Any attempts to teach this child a different set of values would be met with hostile resistance. For example, I imagine that such a creature, upon hearing his “mentor” suddenly encouraging kindness or advising a vegetarian diet, would assume that his “mentor” has gone mad and tear him to shreds on the spot.

Of course, I guess you could have a child born with an unusually strong sense of empathy, who is able to shed some of the aspects of his conditioning later in life because they didn’t perfectly correspond to his nature.

Anyway, this sounds like an interesting idea for a short story, but it doesn’t really help your case very much. What is it that you think an example like this demonstrates?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Charlemagne II: Oh fun, the watch on the beach silliness. Look, the reason we know that a watch was made and has a “plan” has nothing to do with its complexity; it has everything to do with the fact that we have examples of people making watches and no examples of watches occurring naturally.

where do we have any examples of a universe evolving naturally?

 

[TEPO]

I’m the atheist who has most vocally been trumpeting this approach. Not all atheists agree with my position, so you can can address me. Hi, I’m AntiTheist. Pleased to meet you.

What relevance does “English speaking” have?

Well, in the first place, you’re proposing a hypothetical situation that would probably never even happen, unless of course someone had the weird idea of performing a particularly silly psychological experiment and had a lot of time to spend on it (I mean…he would also want to perform this experiment several times and have a control group, so he would need a lot of kids, and this raises all kinds of logistical problems, but I digress…).

But at any rate, I imagine that basic values are mostly set at a fairly young age. By this, I don’t mean that someone cannot change his or her values over time – they certainly can and do change, based on experience, reason, and changing circumstances that might influence someone to begin valuing different things – but I mean that a basic values set is more or less complete in an individual at a fairly early age. That child’s values may take a number of turns as they develop, but any changes to the basic set of values are going to be slow, difficult, or maybe even impossible.

That said, I think a child taught in a solitary environment to value murder and cannibalism would almost certainly develop into a monster unfit for company in any civilized society. Any attempts to teach this child a different set of values would be met with hostile resistance. For example, I imagine that such a creature, upon hearing his “mentor” suddenly encouraging kindness or advising a vegetarian diet, would assume that his “mentor” has gone mad and tear him to shreds on the spot.

Of course, I guess you could have a child born with an unusually strong sense of empathy, who is able to shed some of the aspects of his conditioning later in life because they didn’t perfectly correspond to his nature.

Anyway, this sounds like an interesting idea for a short story, but it doesn’t really help your case very much. What is it that you think an example like this demonstrates?

I’m attempting to demonstrate that there are in fact morals of truth… and -also that the knowledge of and the understanding of this truth tend to brand the minds of those who come to know it… This helps to explain why anyone, even those who claim they don’t believe in a God, can actually show Godliness --because once you have learned who God is, the truth has been branded upon your mind and soul.

If the “fear of God” is real, then we could ask ourselves the next questions… Why have humans in general always shown an interest in or even belief in a God or gods? -and- Is this fear of God a natural trait, or rather an ability given to ones mind as a “gift” of God.

In other words…

Is a common belief in God a handed down trait, or is the Holy Spirit real?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

*On the other hand, plenty of complex things do occur naturally, like snowflakes or living creatures or other complicated things that form through completely blind laws of nature. *

How do you know it for a fact that nature’s laws are completely blind? Do you think a watch able to calculate time could assemble itself by accident? How much more infinitely complex is the human brain. You think the brain, following blind laws of nature, could assemble itself by accident?

Please don’t compare the complexity of a human brain with the complexity of a snowflake.