Modal Ontological Argument

[FrankSchnabel]

If there are two “atoms”, there is a distance between them. No special explanation is possible, nor it is necessary. It just “is”.

Democritus spoke of only two fundamental categories of reality: atoms, unitary beings that are unchanging, and the space-void between them. And you are right. If there are many atoms, they can’t occupy the same space. Udderwise, they would all be one, which is what Parmenides believed. There has to be separateness between atoms.

So we can conceive of solitary atoms and we can conceive of multiple atoms. Democritus thought that arrangements of multiple atoms were also real, even though the atoms in any given arrangement always remain the same. An atom doesn’t change internally just because it moved into a different position.

Democtritus believed that change was merely the rearrangement of atoms. But how can Democritus say that change has occurred (is real) in any instance? In order for there to be change, it must be possible to make a simultaneous comparison of successive differences of the same thing. But change is not possible given the categories Democritus has given us to work with.

Let’s say we have three atoms in a straight line– A B C. Then let’s say that they “change” into a triangle pattern:
____________B

	A ----------------------------------------------------C

If someone not present to observe the straight line pattern comes into the room and observes the triangle arrangement, he would unable to say that any change occurred. There’s no basis for comparison.

So who or what is making the comparison? It can’t be any one of the atoms in the line, because if they could remember their position from one moment to the next, they would change internally, and Democritus denies internal alteration of a being.

The space-void, which is nothing, also can’t be the retainer of the past arrangements. Nothing can do nothing.

Both Democritus and Lucretius invoke “mind” to explain who or what does the comparing, but in the end, given their atomistic assumptions, they fail because what is needed is a whole or unity trancending the atoms which retains not only differences but also sequential differences.

The answer given by Whitehead et. al. is that we need to conceive of ultimate reality as being and becoming, not just being. Reality is a process.

Democritus is right that being, since it is fully determined and concretized, cannot change. But past entities are included in a becoming whole, a being in process. “Reality is a series of becomings with each coming to be growing around and sustaining previous beings as parts.” (Voskuil). Being survives in that it is included in, or used as the raw material for, new units of becoming. Beings necessarily condition future comings-to-be, not by doing anything new themselves, but simply being the stepping stone for present and future events.

And process is necessarily creative. Each event, being a whole, is more than the sum of its causes. Something novel is added in the process that doesn’t come from the antecedent causes.

To finally get back X and P existence, once an event is fully determined and concrete, it is P existing. But something X existing is necessary to account for the whole of it.

 

[j1s2a3]

Comparing apples to oranges.Mans science and theories always eliminate the things that hinder his mind and explains why many of his greatest “discoveries” were accidents.If your argument can’t explain the mysteries of faith love,life,miracles and where it comes from you can’t say they don’t exist.

 

[ateista]

If your argument can’t explain the mysteries of faith love,life,miracles and where it comes from you can’t say they don’t exist.

What “mysteries”?
Faith: undefined concept, ranging from reasonable expectations all the way to the delusional acceptance of something that is clearly nonsensical.
Love: an emotion, based on chemical materials.
Life: life is complex reactions to complex stimuli.
Miracles? Where are they?

 

[ateista]

Democritus spoke of only two fundamental categories of reality: atoms, unitary beings that are unchanging, and the space-void between them.

I am curious, why do you bring up these ancient Greek philosophers, as if their outdated ideas would be still relevant today?

Materialism does not view “dead” matter and some external forces to “manipulate” these particles. Matter and energy are not separable. Energy is the 4 forces, the strong and weak nucleonic forces, the electromagnetic force and gravity. These are not separate from “matter”. They explain the changes that happen all the time.

Reality is a process.

Yes, it is. But the process needs no special explanation. Of course, it is not simple…

As we view the subatomic world, the “rules” down there are fundamentally different from the macro-world. Atoms combine to form molecules. The chemical reactions are emerging attributes, they need explanations of their own. Complex molecules combine into new organisms, which exhibit complex behaviors and we have biology. Life is an emergent attribute, which cannot be fully reduced to the laws of chemistry. The “mind” we have is also an emergent attribute, when the complexity of the brain reaches a certain level.

As of today, we cannot explain the emergent attributes reduced to the quantum physics equations. But each level of complexity has its own, perfectly materialistic explanation.

To finally get back X and P existence, once an event is fully determined and concrete, it is P existing. But something X existing is necessary to account for the whole of it.

I am still waiting for a reason. The trouble you face is this: you have to show that there is something natural which is in principle impossible to explain in fully naturalistic terms.

 

[OTavern]

I am still waiting for a reason. The trouble you face is this: you have to show that there is something natural which is in principle impossible to explain in fully naturalistic terms.

I can give you several.

1. Ethical behaviour for one. Following a “naturalistic” explanation you can only claim that things “are” or “will be” this way or that. There is no place for claiming things “should be” or “ought to be” a certain way. This only makes sense within the context of a “cosmic” intention or final cause that gives everything a purpose or reason for being. In naturalistic determinism, one string of events cannot be preferred to another, they simply “evolve” that way. For one outcome to be preferred over another only makes sense if there is a goal or objective to be reached – Aristotle’s final cause.

Moral judgements do not have meaning within a merely materialistic universe because things would then only causally connect - one form is not “preferred” to another in naturalistic determinism. They simply come about. A gazelle holding a lion’s behaviour to be morally repugnant for “attempting” to murder it does not make sense because these creatures have no choice. The same “makes no sense” claim would be true of human choice if naturalistic determinism holds.

Accountability or personal responsibility only make sense where some kind of choice is possible. Yet naturalistic determinism seems to imply all events are causally linked. Where then did the idea of ethical judgements come from? These presume that a person can act from choice not determined by chemical processes in their brain. Either ethical choice makes sense or naturalistic determinism holds to be true – you can’t have both.

1. Consciousness might be another. If everything is causally determined by material processes, what need would there be to “be aware” of these? One would only need consciousness if some kind of choice undetermined by chemistry or physics was possible. You would only require consciousness if your behaviour could somehow transcend the physical processes in your brain. Why would you need to “think about” or “reflect” on your behaviour if you couldn’t do anything about it?
2. Desire for God. C.S. Lewis has an interesting argument from desire:
   “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

It is rephrased by Peter Kreeft in the link below. Read the article before dismissing this one tritely.
Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.
Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.
This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”
peterkreeft.com/topics/desire.htm

These are by no means “proofs” for God but they are indicators that naturalistic determinism does not suffice for explaining “higher order” realities like ethics, beauty, consciousness, reason and desires that are not directly connected to mere “survival.”

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi Ateista,

Happy President’s Day! May the Spirit of Washington be with you.

I am curious, why do you bring up these ancient Greek philosophers, as if their outdated ideas would be still relevant today?

Because particle physicists still think in these terms. I read a book by Leon Lederman called The God Particle in which he carries on an imaginative conversation with Democritus about the uncuttable, indivisible and ultimate unit of reality, out of which all space-time-matter-energy cometh. They still use the same categories of the basic unit of reality (atom for Democritus and Higgs boson for Lederman) and the space-void.

I sed: To finally get back X and P existence, once an event is fully determined and concrete, it is P existing. But something X existing is necessary to account for the whole of it.

U replied: I am still waiting for a reason. The trouble you face is this: you have to show that there is something natural which is in principle impossible to explain in fully naturalistic terms.

I think I have, assuming Whiteheadian metaphysics is correct. If reality is a process, which you admit, then in principle any natural event is more than its antecedent causes. In principle you cannot explain any natural event in fully naturalistic terms. There has to be some creative element added as we move from event to event in a series. If nothing new is added, nothing can happen.

 

[ateista]

Happy President’s Day! May the Spirit of Washington be with you.

Thank you. I would rather have him, than Dubya. (Though if only he would be a spirit only… hmm! Has anyone offered him a pretzel recently?)

I think I have, assuming Whiteheadian metaphysics is correct. If reality is a process, which you admit, then in principle any natural event is more than its antecedent causes. In principle you cannot explain any natural event in fully naturalistic terms. There has to be some creative element added as we move from event to event in a series. If nothing new is added, nothing can happen.

Please give me some concrete examples, because I still have no idea what are you talking about.

Arrangements, patterns, relative positions are not physical objects. They are attributes of the physical reality. They are not mysterious X-existent “things”, being just conceptual entities. If and when there is a percieving intellect, then we can speak of them as information.

 

[ateista]

These are by no means “proofs” for God but they are indicators that naturalistic determinism does not suffice for explaining “higher order” realities like ethics, beauty, consciousness, reason and desires that are not directly connected to mere “survival.”

They are easy to explain in natural terms.

1. Ethics. Since humans are both individuals and social beings, it is perfectly natural to incorporate both facets of their nature when explaining their behavior. Most people understand (sociopaths are exempts) that living in a community enhances their well-being and they must sacrifice some of their freedoms for that purpose. Hence ethical behavior.
2. Beauty is a subjective assessment of reality. There are semi-standard norms, which reflect the current “taste”. Generally we find something “pleasing” what we are exposed to. Think about the medieval Madonna pictures with their ugly, protruding eyes - reflecting the lack iodine in the drinking water. Today such eyes are ugly, back then they were the norm, hence pretty.
3. Consciousness greatly enhances our chances of survival. Remembering the past, anticipating the future have serious survival values. Totally natural explanation.
4. Desire for “God”? Not everyone has it. But its existence can easily be explained from most people’s desire for stability. The “father-figure”, which is strong, protective and loving is appealing to those whose self-esteem is low (remember that “pride” is one of the 7 deadly sins!) and Christianity does everything it can to lower people’s self-esteem. The explanation is totally naturalistic.

 

[Good_Fella]

What “mysteries”?
Faith: undefined concept, ranging from reasonable expectations all the way to the delusional acceptance of something that is clearly nonsensical.
Love: an emotion, based on chemical materials.
Life: life is complex reactions to complex stimuli.
Miracles? Where are they?

If I called you an airhead or a nerd () you would probably take offence - at least for a split second. Right? How would you explain your reaction? The pure result of a complex chemical reaction? Surely, you would take offence because you believed what I said was indecent and wrong. Of course, there are emotional sensations attached to how we react when we take offence at a personal injury. But let us not confuse formal causality with material causality, nor with efficient causality: my calling you an airhead against civilized convention. The formal cause is your spontaneous notion of right and wrong: The Law of Human Nature, or the Moral Law which is inexplicably just there, a reality not part of physical time and space nor a category of the human mind, being a self-imposed binding force on the human conscience, orginating from beyond the physical world. Immanuel Kant was convinced that the Moral Law of reason is the greatest proof of God’s existence, having rejected Anselm’s Ontological Proof. This is one real object that cannot be measured and explained by modern phyics or psychology. The attempts made by the latter science have been shown inadequate by moral theologians and philosophers. A prostitute may engage in her profession without any pang of conscience because of a bad upbringing and by desensitization to social or religious norms. But if a customer decided not to pay her after a session, she would probably sense that what he did was wrong and unjust to her. Your “Singularity” could not possibly be the ultimate source of the Law of Human Nature. The physical world or material existence is simply an arrangement of facts that not necessarily should or should not occur, nothing more. It is not a question of a governing law. But one thing is certain, I should not call you a nerd; nor should I refuse to give food to a beggar if I have food to give. Jesus taught: “If anyone asks you for your tunic, give him your cloak as well.” The Moral Law originates with a Divine source who transcends the physical world. I invite you to read Psalms 1 and 104. It’s all about order, not design.

You are wrong about love. It is not only an emotion or sensation of the sympathetic nervous system. Love is also a free expression and act of the human will. Many Christians have given their lives in order to save the lives even of their enemies apart from any emotional attachment. The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” is an exercise of love that does not originate with physiological and neuro processes. It originates with the spontaneous perception of what is right and wrong, which is a part of the spiritual order of reality.

Do you have faith in what you are saying? Or is it really all nonsensical and should be discarded?

Pax vobiscum
Good Fella

 

[ateista]

If I called you an airhead or a nerd () you would probably take offence - at least for a split second.

No I would not, not even for a split second. The reason is because I know my worth, I know who I am, and nothing that any other human being can say about me will alter that. Yes, it is probably a mortal sin - pride. (Side note: amazing that “pride” is a mortal sin, while rape is not…) I am sure many people would take offense, I suspect that their self-esteem is pretty low.

Immanuel Kant was convinced that the Moral Law of reason is the greatest proof of God’s existence, having rejected Anselm’s Ontological Proof.

Sorry, there is no such “object”. We behave as we are taught (more or less). Our sense of good and bad is firmly established in childhood, when the critical skills are virtually nonexistent and the authority of the parents is unquestioned.

A prostitute may engage in her profession without any pang of conscience because of a bad upbringing and by desensitization to social or religious norms. But if a customer decided not to pay her after a session, she would probably sense that what he did was wrong and unjust to her.

And the reason is very simple: she and her customer had an unwritten contract, she fulfilled her obligation and he broke his. Where is the need for some dubious “moral law”?

Jesus taught: “If anyone asks you for your tunic, give him your cloak as well.”

Which teaching is nonsense. If you are in the position to help someone, and the person asks for help, it may be a good idea to help or it may be not - depending on the circumstances.

You are wrong about love. It is not only an emotion or sensation of the sympathetic nervous system. Love is also a free expression and act of the human will.

If it is not manifested in actions and deeds, then “love” is just an empty word, so far I agree. (Side note again: God’s alleged love certainly does not manifest itself in the form we could recognize. So, it is just an empty phrase.)

Many Christians have given their lives in order to save the lives even of their enemies apart from any emotional attachment.

Yes, they did. Many non-Christians did, too. They may even call it love, I would call it something else.

The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” is an exercise of love that does not originate with physiological and neuro processes.

I do not accept the Golden Rule, I accept the Reverse Golden Rule: “Do NOT do unto others, that you don’t want them do unto you”. In other words, don’t impose yourself on others.

Do you have faith in what you are saying? Or is it really all nonsensical and should be discarded?

If only you would clarify what you mean by the word “faith”, I could answer. But as I said before, the word “faith” covers a whole lot of territory - without further clarifications its use is meaningless.

A humble request: please use more paragraph breaks. It makes the post much easier to follow.

 

[OTavern]

They are easy to explain in natural terms.

Spoken like a true reductionist. Everything is simple – a good way to dismiss all possible issues: merely dumb them down to the simplest explicable form then explain them away. The problem is that your explanations are not very satisfactory.

1. Ethics. If ethics were mere social norms, then questioning the rightness or wrongness of current ethical beliefs would not happen. People would simply conform or rebel. Some ethical questions have little to do with what is good for the “whole” society. When I think of ethical questions these are issues irregardless of what society expects and these often call into question whether social norms are right or not.

Neither are ethical questions issues because they conflict with individual rights. It makes sense to speak of objective standards of ethics. An issue like capital punishment, for example cannot be resolved simply by determining what is good for society or protected by individual rights. There is the additional layer of whether it the action right or wrong in and of itself.

In any case, why should ethical rules apply to human beings and not animals? Why should people be expected to respect moral laws forbidding killing or theft when animals are exempt - if both creatures’ behaviours are simply the result of brain chemistry? We should either exempt humans or begin holding animals accountable. What make us different? That we belong to a different society? Ethical Relativism just doesn’t cut it.
peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism/relativism_transcription.htm

1. Beauty. Questions of aesthetics, like moral questions, may put into doubt current opinions of what beauty is. When analyzed with clarity it is possible to arrive at objective standards which transcend purely historical or cultural considerations and which can be debated on more than purely subjective grounds. Your analysis on this point is simply incorrect.
2. Remembering the past does not require consciousness, just stored memory. Anticipating the future is a bit more problematic, but simple anticipation likely doesn’t need consciousness. A cat may anticipate the movements of a mouse in certain situations. This does not require consciousness, just a brain programmed for possible outcomes. A computer may appear to anticipate your moves, in a chess game, for example, but not be conscious, simply programmed to respond to every possible (name removed by moderator)ut.

Human consciousness is clearly more than that because there is a “creative” originating component - using creativity and imagination to rearrange and create new possibilities. This may not be explainable by brain chemistry.

1. Desire for God. Your explanation seems a little feeble here and raises more questions than it provides answers. You really do not seem to understand what a desire for God is. This God you have painted as being the object of desire seems a silly facsimile - a pacifier.

In reality, God is not typically desired due to a lack of self-esteem, as you claim. Perhaps that might be your reason and precisely why you gave up your quest and became an atheist. A more mature desire for God would include a search for meaning and truth that simply cannot be provided by human or material considerations. This is not lack of self-esteem, but a realization that there is more meaning to life/being than society or goods can provide. A true quest for God is more like outgrowing self, transcending self, than from a lack of self. It may seem like a lack of esteem, but in reality it arises from seeing the limits of self and of the whole society - a transcendence of both.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Please give me some concrete examples, because I still have no idea what are you talking about.

Arrangements, patterns, relative positions are not physical objects. They are attributes of the physical reality. They are not mysterious X-existent “things”, being just conceptual entities. If and when there is a percieving intellect, then we can speak of them as information.

Before I get concrete, I am going to have to get more abstract and attempt a Grand Overview of the various metaphysical systems that have been proposed. Please bear with me as I am a Bear of Very Little Brain and have to begin at the Beginning. Note: I will be borrowing and plagiarizing heavily from Duane Voskuil’s A Process Intro to Philosophy.

In the Beginning there were lots of Greek guys, guys who lived and moved and had their being B.S. (before Socrates). From them all metaphysical systems have borrowed one way or another.

Parmenides was big on Being. For him, that’s all there was to reality. Since being is being is being, propositions that assert differences in reality must be attributing something to reality other than being. Change is seen as meaningless since being can only change into being which is no change. Also, change requires that being be what it is and then after the so-called change be not what it is. IOW, the same being must A and not-A, a logical self-contradiction. Anything but Being is called an “appearance.” Reality is one absolute being which is unchanging and can have no real relationship to anything, including our attempt to know it.

In contrast to Parmenides we have Heraclitus, who was into Flux or Change. Heraclitus thought that reality was Becoming Only. He denied that anything remains or endures for two or more moments of time.

The Milesians like Thales, Anaximander, et al, believed in Being, but they thought beings could alter their internal state and still endure. A thing can have different states or attributes internally and yet remain the same thing.

Democritus was an Atomist who taught that beings can only change position and not their internal state. Each “atom” is like the Parmidean One with no internal distinctions or qualitative attributes. They are in a Void which has no distinctions within it. Atoms can only have quantitative variations of shape and size, and they can do nuttin but move and rearrange. They can never be destroyed and are uncreated.

Then came Plato who was PS (post Socrates). He thought Beings are changeless Ideals. Plato tried to come to grips with Parmenides. Changeless Beings are the fully real, but only ideas are exempt from change. Therefore, they are the only real.

Then we have the ancient Buddhists, who weren’t Greek at all. They thought reality consists of experiences, a series of changeless beings. They not only denied that reality consists of dead stuff or altering substance, they also denied there is even a living substance that has the experience. A person is just a series of experiences, each one is what it is.

Finally, we get to A.N. Whitehead, an Englishman, and the process guys. Whitehead says ultimate reality is both Being and Becoming, though not on equal footing. He agrees with Parmenides that being cannot contain becoming or change. But becoming can have beings as parts of the moment. A whole must remain self-identical. Wholes are units of process, becomings or flux, and then they are changeless forever. Being survives by being included in, or used as, the raw material for, new units of creative becoming. Beings necessarily condition future comings to be, not by doing anything new, but simply by being the stepping stones for present and future creatings.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Now the point is that, BW (before Whitehead) the various metaphysical systems all had some good insights and serious flaws. The Process Guys claim that Whitehead was the guy who finally got it all together. Reality is Being and Becoming, not just one or the other. It is a process or succession of events (One Dang Thang After Anudder) which necessarily is creative.

Every being is included in a whole, a coming to be, which grows around and sustains it. this BTW, does away with the notion of a void. There is no absolute nothingness bewteen somethings. There is space or extension, but that’s not nuttin.

So each carbon atom can be seen as a being in process. The way to look at them fundamentally is as events, and not as objects. Each event is more than what preceded it. There is always some change or udder. Something creative is added to each whole. If that were not the case, nothing could happen. This creative element is X-existing stuff, by definition. If you are going to buy into a process metaphysics, this must be admitted.

 

[Good_Fella]

No I would not, not even for a split second. The reason is because I know my worth, I know who I am, and nothing that any other human being can say about me will alter that. Yes, it is probably a mortal sin - pride. (Side note: amazing that “pride” is a mortal sin, while rape is not…) I am sure many people would take offense, I suspect that their self-esteem is pretty low.

Sorry, there is no such “object”. We behave as we are taught (more or less). Our sense of good and bad is firmly established in childhood, when the critical skills are virtually nonexistent and the authority of the parents is unquestioned.

And the reason is very simple: she and her customer had an unwritten contract, she fulfilled her obligation and he broke his. Where is the need for some dubious “moral law”?

Which teaching is nonsense. If you are in the position to help someone, and the person asks for help, it may be a good idea to help or it may be not - depending on the circumstances.

If it is not manifested in actions and deeds, then “love” is just an empty word, so far I agree. (Side note again: God’s alleged love certainly does not manifest itself in the form we could recognize. So, it is just an empty phrase.)

I do not accept the Golden Rule, I accept the Reverse Golden Rule: “Do NOT do unto others, that you don’t want them do unto you”. In other words, don’t impose yourself on others.

If only you would clarify what you mean by the word “faith”, I could answer. But as I said before, the word “faith” covers a whole lot of territory - without further clarifications its use is meaningless.

Because you know your worth and know who you are, you would certainly take offense if I called you a nerd, at least for a split second because of your pride, unless you possess an exaggerated sense of pride that amounts to a ‘superiority complex’. To make the claim: “I am worthy,” although contradictory to the principles of materialistic nihilism, one would have to be proud of himself. You would certainly have to admit that I “ought” not call you a nerd regardless of how you take what has been meant as an insult. And even if my unkindly epithet failed to put a dent in your pride, you would have to admit that we ought not attempt to insult people - even if they are nerds and unaffected because of their ego. Jesus commanded us to love our enemies. So for the sake of righteousness, I would not call you a nerd although I don’t “feel” any affection for you. We can love apart from how we feel. Meanwhile, in order to love someone by the power of the will, we must swallow our own human pride, reject our ill feelings, and avoid judging others as less worthy than ourselves. At any rate, I’m amazed that you regard yourself as possessing human “worth”. After all, materialists like yourself believe that ultimate reality is just matter and space, the interplay of electrons and molecules that somehow by a fluke produced the human race. If human beings are just an accident of nature with no thought given to them, then how are they justified in considering themselves as having value? How could you possibly tell me: “I know my worth.” Is it because of pride? And has a chemical reaction caused this pride? If so, you have nothing to be proud of yourself, even to the vain extent of being unaffected by insults. And insults do exist whether they affect you at all. :yup: If we had no intrinsic value divorced from an indifferent universe, then we would have no cause to be proud and consider ourselves as being worthy. But the fact is we are proud and normally hold ourselves in high esteem. Perhaps we consider ourselves worthy because we have been created in God’s image; yet our pride does comes between God and us. But God is not indifferent to his creatures, for God is love. An indiffernet and mindless “Singularity”, “G-Atom”, or whatever you want to call the primordial “stuff” that initially brought about our being, could not possibly create an entity that considers himself worthy, for an indifferent universe is alien to love, of others or ourselves. The G-Atom certainly wouldn’t accidentally create the planet we live on and all life forms out of love, and consider it’s handiwork good, would it? Unless God created the G-Atom! I shall continue in response to your reply. There is much more to say within the space constraint concerning the five remaining quotes.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
{Psalm 14, 1}

Did this verse create a jolt? Pride does come between us and God - not the G-Atom, for you say it is, which means you have no reason to be proud at all. If I were to call you a fool out of resentment and animosity, this act would be tantamount to murder - a breach of the Fifth Commandment - according to the Law of the New Covenant estabilished by Jesus Christ. Sins originate in the heart, not in the act: including the sin of pride, which leads to all other forms of sin.

Pax vobiscum
Good Fella

 

[ateista]

Spoken like a true reductionist. Everything is simple – a good way to dismiss all possible issues: merely dumb them down to the simplest explicable form then explain them away. The problem is that your explanations are not very satisfactory.

They sure are to me. And I see nothing of “explaining away”.

1. Ethics. If ethics were mere social norms, then questioning the rightness or wrongness of current ethical beliefs would not happen. People would simply conform or rebel.

And pray tell, what is “questioning” but a mild form of “rebellion”?

When I think of ethical questions these are issues irregardless of what society expects and these often call into question whether social norms are right or not.

Example?

Neither are ethical questions issues because they conflict with individual rights. It makes sense to speak of objective standards of ethics.

Objective? Of course. Absolute - which you seem to imply - no. That is what I said: “morality and ethics are the current written and unwritten rules of behavior in a specific society at a specific time”. Which rules are subject to change.

An issue like capital punishment, for example cannot be resolved simply by determining what is good for society or protected by individual rights.

As a matter of fact it can, if one takes into consideration the possibility of error. Since we almost never have absolute certainty, we must take into consideration the type-A and type-B errors (Type-A executing an innocent, type-B not executing a criminal.) These errors cannot both be minimized. Each society “chooses” which one is to be avoided, if possible.

There is the additional layer of whether it the action right or wrong in and of itself.

Can you prove this to an atheist? If not, it is just your opinion. Furthermore, I can prove that you will contradict your assertion. I can give you many examples where you will deny exatly what you just said. Interested? Just give me a concrete example.

In any case, why should ethical rules apply to human beings and not animals? Why should people be expected to respect moral laws forbidding killing or theft when animals are exempt - if both creatures’ behaviours are simply the result of brain chemistry? We should either exempt humans or begin holding animals accountable. What make us different? That we belong to a different society? Ethical Relativism just doesn’t cut it.

That is a true example of oversimplification. The brains and the minds of animals and humans are very different (no “soul” is necessary) due to their difference in complexity. It is called an emergent atrribute.

1. Beauty. When analyzed with clarity it is possible to arrive at objective standards which transcend purely historical or cultural considerations and which can be debated on more than purely subjective grounds.

I seriously doubt it. Just because some people like to overcomplicate things (to carve out a living for their totally useless discipline) does not make their effort worthy of consideration.

Human consciousness is clearly more than that because there is a “creative” originating component - using creativity and imagination to rearrange and create new possibilities. This may not be explainable by brain chemistry.

“May” does not cut it.

1. Desire for God. Your explanation seems a little feeble here and raises more questions than it provides answers. You really do not seem to understand what a desire for God is. This God you have painted as being the object of desire seems a silly facsimile - a pacifier.

In reality, God is not typically desired due to a lack of self-esteem, as you claim. Perhaps that might be your reason and precisely why you gave up your quest and became an atheist. A more mature desire for God would include a search for meaning and truth that simply cannot be provided by human or material considerations.

Are there? I never found them. This existence - the only one we are sure about - is so beautiful and complex that our miserably short life does not allow even to scratch the surface of reality.

This is not lack of self-esteem, but a realization that there is more meaning to life/being than society or goods can provide.

Meaning? We create “meaning” to this life as we move along. What you are trying to do is create meaning for death.

A true quest for God is more like outgrowing self, transcending self, than from a lack of self. It may seem like a lack of esteem, but in reality it arises from seeing the limits of self and of the whole society - a transcendence of both.

Sure there are limits. But they must be explored and extended here and now, not in some nebulous continuation. Nevertheless, you say the same thing as I did with different words.

But I will concede that I treated this particular question in somewhat of an oversimplified manner. Religion - in 99% of the cases is established at a very young age, when the child’s critical skills are nonexistent and when the authority of the parents is unquestioned. Moreover, it is a “carrott and stick” type of scenario, mixed with the establishment of guilt for questioning the authority. No wonder that most people never even think about questioning these authorities in their lives.

 

[ateista]

Now the point is that, BW (before Whitehead) the various metaphysical systems all had some good insights and serious flaws. The Process Guys claim that Whitehead was the guy who finally got it all together. Reality is Being and Becoming, not just one or the other. It is a process or succession of events (One Dang Thang After Anudder) which necessarily is creative.

I do not accept that. There is nothing “creative” in the erosion of the soil due to lack of forests.

So each carbon atom can be seen as a being in process. The way to look at them fundamentally is as events, and not as objects. Each event is more than what preceded it.

Not necessarily “more”, though I accept that changes happen all the time.

Something creative is added to each whole.

Again the word “creative” is not not necessary. The changes all can be explained by the laws of nature.

This creative element is X-existing stuff, by definition.

Not my definition. I thought that we defined X-existence as something that is not part of physical reality and not simply conceptual either. The laws of nature - which necessitate (and explain) the changes - are part of the physical reality. They do not qualify as X-existing “stuff”.

This is what I hope to hear from you: a “seemingly” natural event or change, which cannot be explained by the laws of nature - and they cannot be be explained not just now, but ever, in other words, which cannot be explained in principle. That and only that would qualify as X-existence.

 

[ateista]

Still no paragraph breaks, eh? Please consider them. I do not want to sound rude, but I will not try to make sense of such uninterrupted monologues.

Because you know your worth and know who you are, you would certainly take offense if I called you a nerd, at least for a split second because of your pride, unless you possess an exaggerated sense of pride that amounts to a ‘superiority complex’.

No, that is not the reason. The real reason is that I am permissive in the sense that I do not try to interfere with other people’s lives. I respect their rights to have their own particular views of reality (even if those views are nonsensical to me), and I respect their rights to say what they want.

Furthermore, I do not subscribe to the notion of political correctness, which tries to limit the freedom of expression by prescribing or proscribing certain expressions as “hurtful”.

If you or anyone else would call me a “nerd” or something designed to “hurt” my ego, I would simply write them off as an unseemly “noise”, to be filtered out.

To make the claim: “I am worthy,” although contradictory to the principles of materialistic nihilism, one would have to be proud of himself.

Please, investigate materialism a little deeper if you wish to criticize it. What is this “nihilism” you speak of?

Jesus commanded us to love our enemies.

Sorry, that argument carries no weight for me. In Luke 19:27 he also commanded to slaughter everyone who does not wish to accept him to rule over them. Be careful with quoting the Bible.

If human beings are just an accident of nature with no thought given to them, then how are they justified in considering themselves as having value?

Why not? I was born with certain talents (inherited them from my parents) and I tried to utilize them in my life. I am not proud of the accidental composition of my DNA, but I am proud of what I did with it.

And insults do exist whether they affect you at all.

Sure they do. I simply disregard them.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
{Psalm 14, 1}

Yes, the Bible says many things. Among others it says that the value of “pi” is exactly “three”. Should I take that seriously?

If I were to call you a fool out of resentment and animosity, this act would be tantamount to murder - a breach of the Fifth Commandment - according to the Law of the New Covenant estabilished by Jesus Christ.

Well, in the novel of George Orwell “1984” it was a called a “thought-crime”.

 

[Good_Fella]

Sorry, there is no such “object”. We behave as we are taught (more or less). Our sense of good and bad is firmly established in childhood, when the critical skills are virtually nonexistent and the authority of the parents is unquestioned.

And the reason is very simple: she and her customer had an unwritten contract, she fulfilled her obligation and he broke his. Where is the need for some dubious “moral law”?

Which teaching is nonsense. If you are in the position to help someone, and the person asks for help, it may be a good idea to help or it may be not - depending on the circumstances.

If it is not manifested in actions and deeds, then “love” is just an empty word, so far I agree. (Side note again: God’s alleged love certainly does not manifest itself in the form we could recognize. So, it is just an empty phrase.)

I do not accept the Golden Rule, I accept the Reverse Golden Rule: “Do NOT do unto others, that you don’t want them do unto you”. In other words, don’t impose yourself on others.

If only you would clarify what you mean by the word “faith”, I could answer. But as I said before, the word “faith” covers a whole lot of territory - without further clarifications its use is meaningless.

The Moral Law is not a tangible object like a tree or a houseboat. But, nonethelsess, it objectively exists, just like a mathematical proposition. And like a mathematical proposition it exists, notwithstanding whether I have been taught by a teacher. Its existence does not depend on formal schooling. Who is our teacher? Who told every math teacher that ever existed that 3x4=12 or every moral teacher that it is wrong to murder? The Moral Law is no more a human invention than a mathematical propostion. It is an objective force that imposes itself on the human conscience just as a mathematical truth impresses itself on the human understanding. These truths are not the invention of our teachers, they objectively exist and are transmitted by them to aid us in what we can understand by those who already do. The difference between mathematics and morals is that the latter contains more than just facts: things that are. Morality is concerned with what ought to be. We can choose to murder, but we can’t choose to change a product or a sum. The human race as a whole has understood all objective truths without the aid of an individual human teacher. Individuals are helped to better figure out what objectively exists by the aid of tutors. If we as a race depend on a teacher, then who was our first individual teacher? Shouldn’t you be able to tell us? In any event. mathematical truths are not laws in the strict sense, since there is no reason why 3x4 should be twelve. It is simply the product we arrive at, and there is nothing more to say. We cannot oppose it, unlike the Moral Law which transcends physical reality along with the human soul. If we want to, we can rob, rape, and kill. And there is no excuse to justify these acts; they are wrong (3x4=13) regardless of my upbringing or lack of moral training.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts…No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, " declares the Lord. {Jeremiah 31, 33-34}

I shall reply to the four remaining quotes the next day. It’s past my bedtime. But just to stay on topic, I don’t accept Kant’s reasons for rejecting Anselm’s Ontological Proof, but I agree with him that the Moral Law does point to God’s existence. Nothing in physical nature itself tells us that things should be as they are. The categories of human understanding strictly relate how things are in this world. The human conscience, which is concerned with what ought to be, in spite of the observable facts of human behaviour, is a separate human faculty alongside the mind which relates objective truths of a spiritual or metaphysical order of existence. The Law is a pronouncement made by God through His Word in accordance with the Father’s will.

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through Him,
and without Him nothing came to be.
{John 1, 1-3}

Pax vobiscum
Good Fella

 

[Riley259]

Spoken like a true reductionist. Everything is simple – a good way to dismiss all possible issues: merely dumb them down to the simplest explicable form then explain them away. The problem is that your explanations are not very satisfactory.

1. Ethics. If ethics were mere social norms, then questioning the rightness or wrongness of current ethical beliefs would not happen. People would simply conform or rebel. Some ethical questions have little to do with what is good for the “whole” society. When I think of ethical questions these are issues irregardless of what society expects and these often call into question whether social norms are right or not.

Neither are ethical questions issues because they conflict with individual rights. It makes sense to speak of objective standards of ethics. An issue like capital punishment, for example cannot be resolved simply by determining what is good for society or protected by individual rights. There is the additional layer of whether it the action right or wrong in and of itself.

In any case, why should ethical rules apply to human beings and not animals? Why should people be expected to respect moral laws forbidding killing or theft when animals are exempt - if both creatures’ behaviours are simply the result of brain chemistry? We should either exempt humans or begin holding animals accountable. What make us different? That we belong to a different society? Ethical Relativism just doesn’t cut it.
peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism/relativism_transcription.htm

1. Beauty. Questions of aesthetics, like moral questions, may put into doubt current opinions of what beauty is. When analyzed with clarity it is possible to arrive at objective standards which transcend purely historical or cultural considerations and which can be debated on more than purely subjective grounds. Your analysis on this point is simply incorrect.
2. Remembering the past does not require consciousness, just stored memory. Anticipating the future is a bit more problematic, but simple anticipation likely doesn’t need consciousness. A cat may anticipate the movements of a mouse in certain situations. This does not require consciousness, just a brain programmed for possible outcomes. A computer may appear to anticipate your moves, in a chess game, for example, but not be conscious, simply programmed to respond to every possible (name removed by moderator)ut.

Human consciousness is clearly more than that because there is a “creative” originating component - using creativity and imagination to rearrange and create new possibilities. This may not be explainable by brain chemistry.

1. Desire for God. Your explanation seems a little feeble here and raises more questions than it provides answers. You really do not seem to understand what a desire for God is. This God you have painted as being the object of desire seems a silly facsimile - a pacifier.

In reality, God is not typically desired due to a lack of self-esteem, as you claim. Perhaps that might be your reason and precisely why you gave up your quest and became an atheist. A more mature desire for God would include a search for meaning and truth that simply cannot be provided by human or material considerations. This is not lack of self-esteem, but a realization that there is more meaning to life/being than society or goods can provide. A true quest for God is more like outgrowing self, transcending self, than from a lack of self. It may seem like a lack of esteem, but in reality it arises from seeing the limits of self and of the whole society - a transcendence of both.

You hit the nail on the head in this post. A militant atheist will kick and scream their way to denying the truth of God’s existence. Sometimes the best thing we can do with them is to stop trying to out-argue them and start praying for them…I’ll start that now.

 

[ateista]

If we want to, we can rob, rape, and kill. And there is no excuse to justify these acts

You mean - unless!

Unless it is God himself who orders the genocide of the Amelekites, which then becomes a perfectly moral, ethical and good act. Let’s just kill all the men, children and all the women who are not virgins any more. But let’s keep the virgins for our sexual gratification, keeping them as slaves.

Unless these mass-murders are actually carried out by a vengeful, jealous God - like in the flood? Then it is just honkey-dorey… after all how dare we criticize God?

If he does it, no problem - it is loving, moral, ethical. If someone else does it, it is immoral and horrible.

And of course what do we call this glaring discrepancy? Well, let’s just call it - absolute, unchanging - morality, which applies to all, except God! Moral relativism? Naah…