Morality Poll

[ManRay]

Here’s one problem I see. This sounds as though you are determining that what is being said is necessarily illogical without being willing to ensure that you are understanding each word the way it is intended. Isn’t it more than likely that theists, (who think so differently from you afterall ) would use words to mean something slightly differently (ok slightly to very differently ) than you do? It would certainly be rash to judge a carefully and systematically worked out system of thought as illogical without ensuring that you are actually understanding what that system of thought really is.

Fair enough - but once again - I argue that it is impossible to understand something - to even attempt to explain something that exists outside of any frame of reference…i.e. time, space, and logic using known quantities that exist inside of this frame of reference. Which is why you invariably end up saying things like - Well - god isn’t a thing, and then using the word “itself”… because it’s so beyond logic that you can’t even logically put it into words…and yet there are tomes of theological texts that expound upon the nature of this thing that isn’t a thing, and so on, and so on. It fits my understanding of what cognitive dissonance is …textbook. That’s all that I’m saying really. I have access to all of the information you have, and If I’m honest with myself it sounds like it’s all awash in a sea of special pleading. Outside of any revelation that you’ve had - I’m not really clear on how you guys are coming to any of these conclusions…I have to lay my head down…I’ll hit it again later.

 

[ManRay]

Regardless of whether I believe gravity exists or whether the insane believes it doesn’t, It can be validated. It can be demonstrated…externally and independent of any opinion to the contrary.

Can you demonstrate god in this way? Can you validate it? If you can, then you have just converted me to Christianity. I’m pretty sure you can’t. This seems to be a simple difference to me I guess. I don’t reason that I am missing anything.

If I don’t understand you, then why is it that you think gravity’s existence is an objective question and God’s existence is not? From what I understand, you’ve told me that gravity objectively exists because 1) no non-insane person thinks it doesn’t (though perhaps this was just supporting evidence) and because 2) we can tell that it’s there (perhaps by specific processes).

But tell how? If being able to tell is sufficient even if not all people agree that we can tell (hence removing the subjectivity you say I am adding), or that nearly all people agree, or that all reasonable people agree, then why does the fact that I say I can tell that God exists not make that question an objective question as well? I mean, obviously you don’t think I can tell that He exists, but then the question is again which one of us is right, and if there is not a rule for determining when a question becomes objective but it rather depends on whether or not we can somehow figure out what the answer is, and if we all disagree on what answers can be found, then objectivity itself is subjective.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Fair enough - but once again -** I argue that it is impossible to understand something - to even attempt to explain something that exists outside of any frame of reference…i.e. time, space, and logic using known quantities that exist inside of this frame of reference.** Which is why you invariably end up saying things like - Well - god isn’t a thing, and then using the word “itself”… because it’s so beyond logic that you can’t even logically put it into words…and yet there are tomes of theological texts that expound upon the nature of this thing that isn’t a thing, and so on, and so on. It fits my understanding of what cognitive dissonance is …textbook. That’s all that I’m saying really. I have access to all of the information you have, and If I’m honest with myself it sounds like it’s all awash in a sea of special pleading. Outside of any revelation that you’ve had - I’m not really clear on how you guys are coming to any of these conclusions…I have to lay my head down…I’ll hit it again later.

We agree (with the bold part, obviously not with some of the rest). It is impossible to understand God, there will always be unknowns. But even though He is outside all our frames of reference, He has interacted with them, and so we can learn some small portion of things about Him from these interactions which are inside our frames of reference. We are also aware that language contorts very badly when trying to talk directly about God (the “God exists” but later “God is not a thing which exists” language especially - the first probably should be thought of as short hand for the “sheer act of being” idea).

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Regardless of whether I believe gravity exists or whether the insane believes it doesn’t, It can be validated. It can be demonstrated…externally and independent of any opinion to the contrary.

Can you demonstrate god in this way? Can you validate it? If you can, then you have just converted me to Christianity. I’m pretty sure you can’t. This seems to be a simple difference to me I guess. I don’t reason that I am missing anything.

Yes I can. Aquinas’ proofs of his existence.

But if you then tell me that you don’t believe these proofs, and it is the fact that the proofs are wrong that means that God’s existence has not and (assuming there was no other way) can not be validated, and hence that the question is not objective, and given that I think the proofs are right… how do I tell if the question is objective?

That is, how can I tell the difference between “it can be validated” and “I think it can be validated”? What if I were convinced that gravity were really a bunch of imps holding our feet to the ground and that all of science was a joke played on us by a rather bored spirit (obviously I don’t think this by the way)? And let us suppose further that I did not think that there was any way to validate this imp theory.

Then I would think that gravity could not be validated and so, if I understand you, that questions surrounding it were not objective. Which would appear to make the objectivity of a question subjective.

 

[sophion]

Because it is true, and all truth is objective. Even things we call subjective are just not stated precisely and could be stated objectively. Me saying “chocolate ice cream is better than strawberry ice cream” would be me making a subjective statement, but the statement “I, at this time, prefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry ice cream” is just true.

But again, Catholicism is just true or it’s not. Which ever answer is correct is objectively correct. And since the answer is that it is true, Catholicism is objectively true

so you cant really say WHY it is true. Its true because you believe it is! or catholicism is true because catholicism says it is.

even your analogy about ice cream preference, IS TRUE ONLY FOR YOU.

you dont really know the difference between objective and subjective. being as subjective as you are, i dont know if i can help you learn anything new.

 

[Lochias]

Uhm - no I’m not. God is a thing. It is purported to externally exist. Happiness is a subjective internal notion of our mind. There is no objective standard for a happiness. You’re not on point.

You need to brush up on your Catholic theology, as others here have pointed out. God isn’t a mere “thing.” And, there must be some objective standard for happiness, at least for some people, or else pursuing it wouldn’t be considered a right (in America at least).

Only a subjectivist would think that…the old tree falling in the woods jive eh? Nonsense. **Reality exists outside of your mind. **Whether a sibling exists or doesn’t has nothing to do with whether you are talking with them or not. Poppycock.

Bolded mine; thank you for making my point.

Say whaaaa?

Not an argument. You’re welcome to address the point, or leave it be if you’re unable or unwilling.

We can demonstrate the world is somewhat round…goodness man…what are you babbling on about? It doesn’t matter if you believe the world is round or not. IT IS. A subjectivist would think otherwise…and think wrong.

Similarly, philosophical and logical proofs can demonstrate that God is real. It doesn’t matter if you believe He’s real or not. HE is. A subjectivist would think otherwise…and think wrong. Remember that you yourself say that reality is more than what exists in our minds.

hahahhahah - It’s completely succinct. Are you serious? Huh? Wha???

Not an argument. You’re welcome to address the point, or leave it be if you’re unable or unwilling.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

so you cant really say WHY it is true. Its true because you believe it is! or catholicism is true because catholicism says it is.

even your analogy about ice cream preference, IS TRUE ONLY FOR YOU.

you dont really know the difference between objective and subjective. being as subjective as you are, i dont know if i can help you learn anything new.

Actually I can, I just didn’t want to turn this into an argument about why Catholicism is true because I was simply (at the beginning) stating a Catholic (and generally Christian, and probably generally monotheistic) view of objective morality. Most of the posts after that have been discussing objectivity.

Rather than repeat everything I’ve just said, I’m just going to point out that I think you missed the point of my ice cream analogy. The superiority of chocolate ice cream is subjective, because it’s a matter of taste and therefore depends on the person doing the tasting, as it were - it is not a feature of an outside reality. But the fact that I, me, the person who is typing right now, considers, at this time (that is 10:15 EST on 10/25/2012), that chocolate ice cream is superior is an objective fact. Fixing the time and the person and the question gets rid of the question’s subjectivity. It does not matter who asks what my preferences were at a given time, they were whatever they were and the answer will always be the same (for a fixed given time).

Likewise, it does not matter who asks about the truth of any given religion or philosophy, in the sense that the actual truth of the thing itself doesn’t change. What the person answering thinks the truth of the thing to be does change, but not the actual truth of the the thing, because religion is not a matter of taste. It is a thing about which people are right or wrong, because religion is an assertion about the wider reality and thus, regardless of varying opinions on which is true, holds or fails based entirely on the features of that reality. A few posts ago I addressed what I meant by the word objective when it became apparent that some of us were using the word differently, perhaps I should refer you back to there.

 

[sophion]

But the fact that I, me, the person who is typing right now, considers, at this time (that is 10:15 EST on 10/25/2012), that chocolate ice cream is superior is an objective fact. Fixing the time and the person and the question gets rid of the question’s subjectivity. It does not matter who asks what my preferences were at a given time, they were whatever they were and the answer will always be the same (for a fixed given time).

you are the subject.
the ice cream is the object.
It is “subjective” because its based on the opinion of the subject- you.

Being objective means obtaining information based fact, NOT OPINION, that anyone, regardless of belief, can prove through analysis, measurement, observation and other means of research.

 

[ManRay]

Once again back to how our minds work. Sophion seems to be correct. You don’t really understand the difference between objectivism and subjectivism. Aquinas does not prove god’s existence, Aquinas just proves that he himself believes in god, and objectively tries to validate this…and fails. No offense. It’s no different than me writing a book about a lake that I believe exists in a certain section of forest. I can write all day about the formation of water, the qualities that this water possesses, it’s affect on the land around it, and so on and so on. I can even describe to you in the book where it is. If it is truly objective, and it’s truth can be validated- then you should be able go go and find this lake. If the lake isn’t there, then there isn’t any reason to believe that I’ve proven anything unless I subjectively ascertain that you must just not understand the book, or maybe you can’t find it etc…etc…You would then have to choose to BELIEVE that the lake exists. When someone tells you…no, no, no - You can continue to argue that this lake is there, and why you think it is - but it cannot be validated. You cannot demonstrate it. This is the argument we are having. You are confusing faith and belief with an objective truth. It’s cognitive dissonance. You are an intelligent person obviously so you (I would reason) try and understand reality objectively, but you happen to believe in god. So you transform god in your mind from the subjective to the objective to reinforce your preconceived notion. Otherwise your worldview would shatter. It’s completely natural. It’s no different than having faith that you will make it to work in the morning. We have to have faith in that or we would never leave the house. The problem comes up though - that as an objectivist if someone asked me whether or not I could objectively ascertain whether or not that would I would make it to work. If I were intellectual honest then I would have to declare NO. Any number of things could happen. I’m not calling you dishonest…I’m simply stating that you are in error in regards to you philosophical position. There isn’t anything objective about believing in a god…except that you do in fact believe in it. I can’t really explain it any other way. We can go round and round…I respect you, but we have to agree to disagree it seems.

Yes I can. Aquinas’ proofs of his existence.

But if you then tell me that you don’t believe these proofs, and it is the fact that the proofs are wrong that means that God’s existence has not and (assuming there was no other way) can not be validated, and hence that the question is not objective, and given that I think the proofs are right… how do I tell if the question is objective?

That is, how can I tell the difference between “it can be validated” and “I think it can be validated”? What if I were convinced that gravity were really a bunch of imps holding our feet to the ground and that all of science was a joke played on us by a rather bored spirit (obviously I don’t think this by the way)? And let us suppose further that I did not think that there was any way to validate this imp theory.

Then I would think that gravity could not be validated and so, if I understand you, that questions surrounding it were not objective. Which would appear to make the objectivity of a question subjective.

 

[ManRay]

you are the subject.
the ice cream is the object.
It is “subjective” because its based on the opinion of the subject- you.

Being objective means obtaining information based fact, NOT OPINION, that anyone, regardless of belief, can prove through analysis, measurement, observation and other means of research.

He’s really just stating that* he believes* that chocolate Ice cream is superior, and he can objectively validate this by always choosing chocolate ice cream. It’s a contextual and categorical confusion. It has nothing to do with whether or not chocolate ice cream is objectively superior…so it’s basically his OPINION that he can objectively show to be true IN AND OF ITSELF (of course) We all have opinions…But it has no bearing on whether the claim is actually true. That would be me arguing that the color of red is better than blue as objectively true because I always pick red. the guy who likes blue is going to laugh in my face, and rightly so.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

you are the subject.
the ice cream is the object.
It is “subjective” because its based on the opinion of the subject- you.

Being objective means obtaining information based fact, NOT OPINION, that anyone, regardless of belief, can prove through analysis, measurement, observation and other means of research.

Yes I know. But it is a fact that my opinion is what it is. I did not say that my opinion is itself fact, that the fact that I think chocolate ice cream is better than strawberry means that chocolate ice cream is objectively better than strawberry. I said that it is a fact that my opinion is what it is.

Furthermore, you assert that objective things must be verifiable by some set of processes. I will redirect you back a page, because this is similar to the what I am discussing with others except a couple posts behind.

 

[sophion]

^ Donkey shall we make a thread wherein someone could give us a couple of evidences that shows Catholicism as objectively true?

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I think you are failing to distinguish between what I think to be true and the question that what I think to be true tries to answer. I am not talking about my belief. I am talking about the subject of my belief. But starting at the beginning:

Once again back to how our minds work. Sophion seems to be correct. You don’t really understand the difference between objectivism and subjectivism. Aquinas does not prove god’s existence, Aquinas just proves that he himself believes in god, and objectively tries to validate this…and fails. …] If it is truly objective, and it’s truth can be validated- then you should be able go go and find this lake.

Problem is you say he fails and I say he succeeds. I say he has directed you to the lake, and if you don’t see it you haven’t followed his directions properly. Obviously, you disagree. But this means that he failed is part of your subjective view of reality. You have not convinced me that your subjective view of reality corresponds to objective reality on this point.

So I repeat: if we take your view that objective questions are those which can be verified, and given that we do not agree on what can be verified, it seems that the objectivity of a question still depends on our subjective view of reality, and that there is no particular reason for me to think that anything you say is objectively true is either true or objective.

If the lake isn’t there, then there isn’t any reason to believe that I’ve proven anything unless I subjectively ascertain that you must just not understand the book, or maybe you can’t find it etc…etc…You would then have to choose to BELIEVE that the lake exists. …You are confusing faith and belief with an objective truth. It’s cognitive dissonance.

No, your are still both refusing to tell me what makes a statement objective and ignoring the definition you linked to me. For now, let’s go with the definition in the wikipedia article you linked me: “A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are “mind-independent”—that is, existing freely or independently from the thoughts of a conscious entity or subject.” Replace “true” with “false” and “are met” with “are not met”, and you get what it means to be objectively false.

I have not tried to prove to you that God exists and thus convince you that the fact that God exists is objectively true. I’ve said that I believe that is possible, but that would be side tracking.

What I’ve been saying is that whether or not the truth conditions of God’s existence are met is mind independent.

Notice I did not say whether or not you think they are met. Notice I did not say whether or not the fact they can be met can be shown to be true. All of that is important, but that is not relevant to the mere question of whether or not His existence is objective.

You are an intelligent person obviously so you (I would reason) try and understand reality objectively, but you happen to believe in god. So you transform god in your mind from the subjective to the objective to reinforce your preconceived notion. Otherwise your worldview would shatter. It’s completely natural. It’s no different than having faith that you will make it to work in the morning. We have to have faith in that or we would never leave the house. The problem comes up though - that as an objectivist if someone asked me whether or not I could objectively ascertain whether or not that would I would make it to work. If I were intellectual honest then I would have to declare NO. Any number of things could happen.

First in regards to the italicized: Of course you cannot ascertain with certainty whether or not you will make it to work in the morning. But it is objectively true that you will either make it to work or you will not, and your ability to determine which is more or less irrelevant to whether or not you will. As for the rest:

I’m impressed that you can read my mind, but I could just as easily say the same about you.

You are an intelligent person obviously so you (I would reason) try and understand reality objectively, but you happen to disbelieve in god. So you transform god in your mind from the objective to the subjective to reinforce your preconceived notion Otherwise your worldview would shatter. It’s completely natural. [It’s no different from projecting your philosophical uncertainty about the future onto reality itself.]

Furthermore I didn’t say that there was anything objective about believing anything at all, whether that thing be in God or in gravity. I said that the existence of things is objective in that a thing is either a feature of reality or it is not. Now, I would not mind trying to come up with a way by which we can say whether a belief, as a belief and not as the object of belief, is objective or not, but that is an entirely different question.

But all of that is about side issues that are nearly unrelated to the matter at hand and you still haven’t said what makes a statement objective. Or rather you have, you’ve said that it must be verifiable, but when I’ve tried to nail down what verifiable means and run into the inherent subjectivity of claiming that a thing is verifiable, you’ve told me I don’t understand you. This to me sounds an awful lot like the cognitive dissonance you accuse me of - your view of objectivity is subjective and since you can’t have that you say we just don’t get what you’re saying - but I’m willing to accept the possibility that I really don’t get what you’re saying and am asking you, again, to tell me exactly what it means for a question (not a belief, not part of what a person thinks, but a pure question) to be objective.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

^ Donkey shall we make a thread wherein someone could give us a couple of evidences that shows Catholicism as objectively true?

If you wish, but I think it is first necessary to define what exactly objectively true means. In any case, unless other people jump in, it will end up starting with a debate on the first cause/contingency arguments, and those debates don’t tend to get far. If we settle that, it will then proceed to a matter of what happened in the past and what didn’t, and those debates get even less far. But we can give it a shot I suppose.

 

[sophion]

lets just get to it and see if there really are objective evidences that shows catholicism as the truth. how about a top 3?

 

[sophion]

If you wish, but I think it is first necessary to define what exactly objectively true means. In any case, unless other people jump in, it will end up starting with a debate on the first cause/contingency arguments, and those debates don’t tend to get far. If we settle that, it will then proceed to a matter of what happened in the past and what didn’t, and those debates get even less far. But we can give it a shot I suppose.

we can define it at the beginning of the thread. also to avoid the ‘first cause’ arguments we will -for the sake of the argument- assume at the beginning that God exists. which god, we dont know. thats where catholicism comes in. prove catholicism and we will know which god is the true god.

 

[Robert_Caritas]

I don’t think that I could disagree with you more on this. I’m not really sure that I do a good job of being humble and charitable and part of the reason I post on forums such as this is to try to find out why.

I know what I feel and I’m confident in what I believe but I never used to spend a lot of time asking why. So I’m looking for the difficult questions to test myself. To see, in fact, if I’m being honest with myself.

If some of my beliefs eventually turn out to be delusional, then I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. If they turn out to be correct then I’ll be that much stronger for it. But I don’t see many Christians taking that chance.

I have to say that re-reading what I wrote, I disagree with myself too. What I was trying to argue against is the atheist attitude of insisting on getting answers for difficult theological questions, without understanding the simple one’s first. In fact, the simple one’s are the basis for the complex one’s.

I appreciate your attitude about asking tough questions, but you’re wrong in saying that Christians don’t do it. I for one do it. You probably don’t realize the extent of it, but there are many typical atheist positions that are actually highly delusional.

Here’s a fun little proof against the rationality of basing one’s world view in science (which is a typical new-atheist position, though I’m not assuming that you hold it): The scientific method is inherently self-correcting. This means that it continually discovers new truths, but it also invalidates many many its old discoveries. Historically, you can see radical changes in what the scientific community believes, and sometimes only a few years apart. This basically proves that if you accept the scientific consensus of your day as fact, inherently you are agreeing to believe many things that you can actually logically know are going to be proved false.

I’m not saying that science does not hold truth, but I am saying that for every true scientific fact that you believe there are probably several false one’s. I’m also making the point that given its inherent flaw, science should not be used as the basis for a worldview. It should just be used to learn about the material world, that’s all. Though surprisingly enough, people rarely have a problem with this kind of blind faith! There have been anthropoligical studies done that show that people lower their critical thinking a lot when information comes from something labelled “science.”

We should examine everything with the same critical mind.

you should have read the post right above yours:

so what do you think? did this story happen or not? did the israelites massacre entire peoples including their infants believing it was ordered by god?

God did not condone murder as being good. He his much higher than men, and thus follows his own rules. He ordered people to death. God is the only person who can do this entirely righteously.

In this next sentence you are making an assumption that is not in the text:
“did the israelites massacre entire peoples including their infants believing it was ordered by god?”

The text does not tell us that people believed that God was telling them to do that, but actually that God did tell them to do that. If you want to discuss the text you should respect it. If you disagree that the text is solid, and so that God really didn’t tell these people to kill – how can you then say that other things that texts says are not true? If you assume that that part isn’t true, then why do you assume that the parts about killing are?

See the text as it is: It was on God’s order that people to be killed. There is nothing about giving one’s self the right to kill – this command comes from God. That is what the text says, so if you want to you criticize beliefs – criticize actual ones.

 

[thewanderer]

Fair enough - but once again - I argue that it is impossible to understand something - to even attempt to explain something that exists outside of any frame of reference…i.e. time, space, and logic using known quantities that exist inside of this frame of reference. Which is why you invariably end up saying things like - Well - god isn’t a thing, and then using the word “itself”… because it’s so beyond logic that you can’t even logically put it into words…and yet there are tomes of theological texts that expound upon the nature of this thing that isn’t a thing, and so on, and so on. It fits my understanding of what cognitive dissonance is …textbook. That’s all that I’m saying really. I have access to all of the information you have, and If I’m honest with myself it sounds like it’s all awash in a sea of special pleading. Outside of any revelation that you’ve had - I’m not really clear on how you guys are coming to any of these conclusions…I have to lay my head down…I’ll hit it again later.

Yes I understand that, and I agree that we cannot know such a thing if what you mean by “know” is understand the essence of. That really isn’t something theists claim. What they do claim is that because of the cause-effect relationship we can know somethings about the cause through looking at the effect. But at this point we are simply repeating ourselves.

Can I ask you this?
If we were to define a thought process as being objective based on whether or not a person makes every effort to remove subjectivity from his though process (I realize that this is not how you are using the term) would you still claim that no theist uses an objective thought process?

 

[ManRay]

Yes I understand that, and I agree that we cannot know such a thing if what you mean by “know” is understand the essence of. That really isn’t something theists claim. What they do claim is that because of the cause-effect relationship we can know somethings about the cause through looking at the effect. But at this point we are simply repeating ourselves.

Can I ask you this?
If we were to define a thought process as being objective based on whether or not a person makes every effort to remove subjectivity from his though process (I realize that this is not how you are using the term) would you still claim that no theist uses an objective thought process?

You do claim to objectively use a thought process, but as it can’t be validated then it is essentially meaningless. The only meaning it contains is that meaning which you give to it…subjectively. I can argue all day with someone that bigfoot exists, and I can 'objectively show you why, but unless these proofs can be validated they are really just words, and then one should realize that the objectiveness of the process was probably flawed. Everything has to be validated. That was one of the major points of the philosophy that everyone constantly overlooks - it has to be validated. Ayn Rand was fond of saying that there is nothing wrong with being wrong…Meaning that we think we may have objectively come to a conclusion…and then it has to be a validated standard…if it can’t be done then back to the drawing board you go.

 

[ManRay]

Problem is you say he fails and I say he succeeds. I say he has directed you to the lake, and if you don’t see it you haven’t followed his directions properly. Obviously, you disagree. But this means that he failed is part of your subjective