The "Problem Of Evil" does not exist

[Sair]

Yet you believe that what makes our lives worth living is our subjective appreciation of ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Is that not an objective fact? Don’t we all share that belief? It seems unreasonable to regard our**selves **as products rather than independent agents.

That depends upon what you mean by ‘independent’ - we have the ability to choose from any given number of possible alternatives, but we are not free to do anything that is not physically possible. What we feel is what makes our lives worth living, and it is, as you say, an objective fact that all humans have subjective experience to some extent. Although it’s quite apparent from reading this forum that not everyone believes that our ability to experience wonder, love, fascination, contentment or any other positive emotion that contributes to our overall happiness, is what makes our lives worthwhile. Some people evidently think the meaning of life must be more than the achievement of subjective happiness.

I am referring to the** reality **of subjective experience as well as its value. You obviously subordinate it to physical reality. You deny its primacy yet you cherish it far more than the inanimate objects from which you think it is derived. In other words you believe subjective value has no objective value - even though it matters in an everyday context! And you think subjective experience has no value whatsoever as objective evidence.

This is gonna need some unpacking. Firstly, subjective experience is objective evidence of the fact that humans have subjective experiences. It doesn’t usually provide objective evidence of the properties of that which causes the experience. For example, rationality plays little part in love - how often do we hear about women falling in love with serial murderers? The force of our emotions at times is exactly why they can’t be treated as objective evidence, except, as I said, for the fact that we experience emotions. We have plenty of irrational fears, as well as our rational ones. We have things that make us happy, but the things that make different people happy are going to be different - personally I have found opera to be a joyful experience, whilst there are many others who are bored stiff by it. The things we enjoy give our lives meaning beyond mere survival - we have (at least in the West) taken care of most of our primary survival needs, so we have mental energy to devote to pursuits that have no immediate survival value, but have value because of the way the pleasure centres in our brains respond to our engagement in such activities. Why should it matter for the quality of our experiences if they can be explained by physical processes? We still feel them as subjective experiences, and that, as I said, is what matters in the context of our everyday lives.

In that case you are obliged to reject free will because it does not conform to that law.

Upon what do you base this claim? The fact that our choices are restricted to that which is physically possible in no way diminishes the fact that we have choices. We make our choices on the basis of experiential and empirical data stored in our memories. Furthermore, the fact that we are continually finding new ways of harnessing physical laws does not amount to an admission that physical laws can change - only our levels of knowledge change.

The use of the term “outside” reflects a physicalist interpretation of reality. Supernatural activity is not restricted to time and space - as we very well know from our ability to transcend time and space with our power of hindsight, insight and foresight.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we don’t actually transcend anything. We store sensory (name removed by moderator)ut in our brains in the form of memories - it’s the same kind of cognitive process that allows elephants to remember where they found water during the last dry season. From this information we can look back at a situation and see what other factors might have been at work that we were unaware of at the time - but we can’t go back and change what happened in the past; we can analyse new information in the light of knowledge we’ve already acquired, and thus (hopefully) increase our understanding; we can make predictions about what is likely to happen in the future, based on our past experiences - but none of us can actually step into the future and see exactly what’s going to happen.

 

[Sair]

You must have the patience of a saint to continue to engage Sair. If a person can’t acknowledge objective reality, where do you go from there? Good luck …

Hey, at least it demonstrates that he’s willing to stand up for what he believes, rather than giving up and making snide remarks from the sidelines… :yup:

 

[jkiernan56]

Hey, at least it demonstrates that he’s willing to stand up for what he believes, rather than giving up and making snide remarks from the sidelines… :yup:

At least that is your subjective experience and may not be according to another person’s objective one … LOL

 

[tonyrey]

books.google.co.uk/books?id=J5Tf_-Jt3ZIC&dq=memory+located+in+the+brain%3F&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=Se_cSvmJLMLRjAei-7nlCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CCMQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=memory%20located%20in%20the%20brain%3F&f=true

That depends upon what you mean by ‘independent’ - we have the ability to choose from any given number of possible alternatives, but we are not free to do anything that is not physically possible.

How do we have the ability to choose from possible alternatives if every mental event is the result of a physical event or events? You believe we are biological machines yet machines select specific courses of action because they are programmed to do so. So what enables us to break out of our programme?

Some people evidently think the meaning of life must be more than the achievement of subjective happiness.

It is more than that! We have to consider the happiness of others. The attainment of happiness is a complex matter which entails learning how to live in accordance with our nature: to pursue truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. These goals are not just concepts but objective realities for every rational being, human or otherwise. If we disregard the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity we do so at our own peril. To seek happiness in itself is self-defeating, like the hedonist’s pursuit of pleasure first and foremost. Moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony. The meaning of life cannot be divorced from its value and purpose. Wonder, love, fascination and contentment stem from the correct development of our physical nature, intellect, emotions, moral and spiritual awareness.

Firstly, subjective experience is objective evidence of the fact that humans have subjective experiences. It doesn’t usually provide objective evidence of the properties of that which causes the experience. For example, rationality plays little part in love - how often do we hear about women falling in love with serial murderers?

You are equating love with sexual love. How about the person who chooses to die for others?

We have things that make us happy, but the things that make different people happy are going to be different…

Everyone has** the same basic needs** without which happiness is unattainable.

The things we enjoy give our lives meaning beyond mere survival - we have (at least in the West) taken care of most of our primary survival needs, so we have mental energy to devote to pursuits that have no immediate survival value, but have value because of the way the pleasure centres in our brains respond to our engagement in such activities.

Is all happiness is pleasure-centred? Are our pursuits determined entirely by our physical programme?

Why should it matter for the quality of our experiences if they can be explained by physical processes? We still feel them as subjective experiences, and that, as I said, is what matters in the context of our everyday lives.

It matters because we have no choice in the matter! Our experiences do not cease to be valuable but they would not be truly ours.

The fact that our choices are restricted to that which is physically possible in no way diminishes the fact that we have choices.

Free will implies that we can make decisions which do not have a physical origin. If they have a physical origin they cannot be free! Every physical event has a physical cause. If we “make” a decision it comes from us, not the brain. If the self is just a concept it has no power of self-determination. In fact it has no power at all! If it is not a concept what is it? A collection of mental events? What integrates them?

Furthermore, the fact that we are continually finding new ways of harnessing physical laws does not amount to an admission that physical laws can change - only our levels of knowledge change.

Fair enough. That has no bearing of free will, as far as I can see.

Supernatural activity is not restricted to time and space - as we very well know from our ability to transcend time and space with our power of hindsight, insight and foresight.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we don’t actually transcend anything.

You seem very sure of yourself

We store sensory (name removed by moderator)ut in our brains in the form of memories - it’s the same kind of cognitive process that allows elephants to remember where they found water during the last dry season.

Do you think elephants and other animals have concepts of the past, future, infinity, eternity, existence, nothingness, everything, freedom, equality, purpose…? Can they live in the “third” world of facts, ideas, explanations, numbers, universal principles, relations, causes, effects, goals, values, ideals…? The success of science clearly demonstrates the power of our mind to transcend the particular time and place we are in. When you are discussing philosophical issues are you always aware of your surroundings? Isn’t your attention ever so completely focussed on a subject that you are oblivious of yourself and the fact that you exist? Where are you then? Sometimes when I’m driving I realise - to my consternation - that I was not aware of the traffic and signals. I was “on auto-pilot”. My mind was “on other things”…

There is a fascinating book with extracts online by Sir Karl Popper and Sir John Eccles:
The Self and the Brain
books.google.co.uk/books?id=J5Tf_-Jt3ZIC&dq=memory+located+in+the+brain%3F&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=Se_cSvmJLMLRjAei-7nlCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CCMQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=memory%20located%20in%20the%20brain%3F&f=true

Another book, not online, is How The Self Controls Its Brain by John C. Eccles

 

[Sair]

How do we have the ability to choose from possible alternatives if every mental event is the result of a physical event or events? You believe we are biological machines yet machines select specific courses of action because they are programmed to do so. So what enables us to break out of our programme?

The programme for building a human is the genes we inherit from our parents. Our brains are evolved to absorb and process enormous quantities of information about our environment - and that includes everything, every other person, every process within our environment. There are layers upon layers of this kind of information built up within the brain as we grow and learn. If one thinks of free will in terms of our preferences, any action we take, or refuse to take, can be thought of in terms of satisfying preferences. There will almost always be competing preferences which we can’t generally satisfy all at once. Taking action to satisfy one preference rather than another need not involve breaking out of our programming. I’ll come back to preferences later, but I’m wondering if you have ever read Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. I’ve yet to get my hands on a copy to read, but from reading some reviews and summaries, Dennett’s explanation seems to revolve around the idea that our self-awareness is what results from those cognitive processes we use to interpret other persons and things in our environment, being turned in on ourselves. What we think of as our ‘self’ is an interpretive construct.

The attainment of happiness is a complex matter which entails learning how to live in accordance with our nature: to pursue truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. These goals are not just concepts but objective realities for every rational being, human or otherwise. If we disregard the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity we do so at our own peril. To seek happiness in itself is self-defeating, like the hedonist’s pursuit of pleasure first and foremost. Moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony. The meaning of life cannot be divorced from its value and purpose. Wonder, love, fascination and contentment stem from the correct development of our physical nature, intellect, emotions, moral and spiritual awareness.

I can’t say I actually disagree with the essential content of this, but some of it holds true only for a narrow interpretation of happiness. We keep returning to the fact that humans are complex animals, with many and varied preferences. I suppose it is possible, in rather cold, analytical terms, to speak of happiness as being the maximal satisfaction of preferences, but this is not the same as equating happiness with mere pleasure-seeking. We can’t discount our preferences for things like being a part of a community, and that entails being concerned with the happiness of others within our community. The value we place upon concepts like liberty, equality, social harmony, justice and so forth are directly related to the preference shared by many people to maintain functional communities - which in their turn allow for conditions in which the majority of people may satisfy the majority of their preferences.

The thing about goodness, freedom, beauty, love and other nebulous concepts is that they are subjective realities - in order to be objective (at least as I understand the term) they would need to exist independently of the conscious, sentient minds that experience them. The difficulty in arriving at precise definitions for any of these concepts attests to their existence as subjective, not objective, realities. That doesn’t make them any less real when we experience them, but it must be said that it’s difficult to pin down any objective ‘source’ of these feelings.

The same goes for morality. Most theists affirm their god as the source of objective morality, the rules for ‘right’ behaviour that they believe exist outside the realm of human experience and interaction. I don’t believe that this is the case, and I see morality as a construct originating in the necessity for human societies to function cooperatively and harmoniously. Humans are social animals - not even the most misanthropic amongst us can exist completely independently of others! There are other social animals, such as chimpanzees and even wolves, who have been observed to exercise moral - or perhaps what might be called proto-moral - forms of behaviour, such as keeping to certain rules abiding during play. Those who don’t keep to the agreed rules are likely to be ostracised and not approached for play. Actions have consequences, and it is the understanding of that basic fact that leads to the construction of morality.

 

[jkiernan56]

The thing about goodness, freedom, beauty, love and other nebulous concepts is that they are subjective realities - in order to be objective (at least as I understand the term) they would need to exist independently of the conscious, sentient minds that experience them.

They do. Something can’t come from nothingness.

Either they have always existed as:

a) series of infinite cause-effects

or

b) there is a Primary Mover (the First Cause which is not caused).

Again - this is basic logic Sair. Nothing can only come from Nothing. Something can only come from Something else.

That something is either an infinite series of cause/effects or is the First Cause but not caused. If it always existed independant of you and me, that is objective reality. Something that always existed … Got it? Something cannot come from Nothingness.

 

[MindOverMatter]

It is unfortunate that because you apparently see no value to life in and of itself, you project your own desires and desperation onto others.

Isn’t that what you do, when you say that something is wrong and impose legal penalties on people? Isn’t that “you” desperately grasping for human happiness? That you value life, does not tell me that you value for its own sake. You value it for what you think you can get from it. Or perhaps you are afraid of death?

At no stage have I ever claimed to be entirely objective.

Then at no stage should you degrade Christians for putting there hope in God. We all make choices and have beliefs based on are experiences and desires, as well as what we can achieve through reason. You are no better than anyone else.

I may have a different understanding of objective and subjective experience than other posters on this thread,

You have a false understanding. You assume that which is experienced subjectively has no objective truth.

but I have never, ever claimed that subjective experience has no importance.

You are certainly claiming that our subjective experience of God and morality has no value or importance.

What makes our lives worth living is our ability to subjectively appreciate both ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Objectively as well as subjectively speaking, what makes life worth living, is that which objectively fulfills our subjective experiences as existential personal beings; existentially, personally, and morally. Outside of the reality of that truth, we are all individually just settling for what we can get before we cease to exist; a life in which some people have more than others and everybody is fighting for some kind of power. That’s very much like the life of an animal. That is not the life of an objective existentially fulfilled being.

To imagine that there must be a superhuman cause or being to give human life its worth is a truly depressing fantasy.

Only to someone who wants to be their own God and the cause of their own perfections and value. Who hasn’t desired otherwise when one has been faced with the demand that all glory ought to go to the Father in Heaven? Nobody human being is perfect. That you have a problem with the idea of a supernatural authority does not tell me that it would not be ultimately and objectively fulfilling to believe in such a being. It just tells me that you have a problem with the idea of a supernatural moral authority. However, in the reality of God, it is necessarily, objectively, and subjectively fulfilling to exist in “Heaven”, but this requires us to serve the love of God wherever it takes us. Heaven is not for those who oppose God; those who are opposed to serving the objective will of Love.

And your constant accusation of fantasy outside of evidence to that effect has no basis in knowledge or reason. You say it because it pleases you to say it.

My atheism came about not through desire, but through experience and independent thought.

This is your claim. But there are plenty of ex - atheists and agnostics that have come to believe in God through experience and independent thought. One of them includes Anthony Flew; but you would probably call them liars.

It is, however, my right to defend my view of life against any who would malign it as you have done.

Everything i have said is the truth. My reaction to your belief is the rational reaction of anybody that is a rational person whom values life. Naturalism Is an objectively tragic, depressing, and hopeless belief about reality. It is a belief that we ultimately cease exist; that there is no objective meaning purpose or value outside of human opinion; and if you happen to have a life with a few good moments, then lucky for you. This is not a positive belief. It is an unproven negative belief concerning the ultimate end of our existential being. Nobody in their right mind would choose to “believe” it, or place their “hope” in it, unless it was proven beyond a doubt as being true, or because the belief itself allowed one to indulge in something that cannot be obtained through a belief in God. You choose to believe it, not because its necessarily true, but because you think that you have something to gain from it, i.e. freedom from a belief in God, religion, and objective moral values. This freedom allows you to be your own God, and you value this above any form of salvation that requires you to humble yourself to such an extent as to give up ones desire to define ones own existence and self value. You know that atheism is a negative belief system, but your pride will not let you admit it. And so, you came on to this site to tell people that our faith is an irrational fantasy and that we have no choice but to believe in naturalism; because if we have no choice then you don’t have to feel guilty about you atheistic parade. You tell yourself that you are rational, and you even hope that this is true. But perhaps it is you that it is living in the fantasy.

 

[Sair]

Hey, at least it demonstrates that he’s willing to stand up for what he believes, rather than giving up and making snide remarks from the sidelines…

Well, of course - I expressed an opinion, and opinions are by definition subjective and thus open to disagreement; a case in point being that it appears to be your opinion that your response above constitutes a witty riposte.

And furthermore, until you have some incontrovertible proof that you’ve not withdrawn from the debate and settled for throwing in the odd schoolyard taunt, my opinion remains a valid, if not indisputable, assessment.

 

[Sair]

They do. Something can’t come from nothingness.

Either they have always existed as:

a) series of infinite cause-effects

or

b) there is a Primary Mover (the First Cause which is not caused).

Again - this is basic logic Sair. Nothing can only come from Nothing. Something can only come from Something else.

That something is either an infinite series of cause/effects or is the First Cause but not caused. If it always existed independant of you and me, that is objective reality. Something that always existed … Got it? Something cannot come from Nothingness.

Subjective experience does not come from nothingness - it just doesn’t have a source independent of sentient beings. When we experience something subjectively - say, appreciation of that which we find beautiful, the experience comes from our internal response to external stimuli. It’s a cause-and-effect relationship. This is quite different to saying that that this subjective appreciation draws on some measure of beauty that is external to ourselves.

It’s good to see that you have started contributing constructively to the debate again

 

[Sair]

You have a false understanding. You assume that which is experienced subjectively has no objective truth.

The labels we give to our subjective experiences - like love, beauty, goodness, happiness - are claimed by some to frame concepts or perhaps substances that exist independently of sentient beings. Theists have a tendency to equate the ‘objective’ existence of these things with their god. Subjective experience is the result of an internal response to external stimuli - it’s the product of the interaction of a sentient being with some aspect of their environment. Does this give the experiences an objective truth? Perhaps, according to one particular definition of objectivity, which means ‘existing impartially’ - the existence of a complex set of receptors in our brains is not something brought about by our own preference, so in that sense, subjective experience has an objective basis, and is most certainly a true experience for the individual subject. However, when we experience love, beauty or goodness, we are not drawing upon a source of these things that exists outside of sentient experience. That is the primary point of difference in our understanding.

And your constant accusation of fantasy outside of evidence to that effect has no basis in knowledge or reason. You say it because it pleases you to say it.

Just as it pleases you to impose your misunderstanding upon my worldview - to insist that it’s impossible for me to realise a purposeful and fulfilling life without belief in a god, merely because you can’t see how such a thing could be possible. I can assure you that there are plenty of people who do find it very possible.

Everything i have said is the truth. My reaction to your belief is the rational reaction of anybody that is a rational person whom values life. Naturalism Is an objectively tragic, depressing, and hopeless belief about reality.

For you to claim rationality exclusively for yourself and all others who think like you is yet more evidence of how closely you are wedded to your beliefs. You claim that belief in god is the natural end of rationality, but there are many who would disagree with you. Your use of the words ‘tragic, depressing and hopeless’ reflects nothing objective, but only your subjective opinion.

 

[tonyrey]

How do we have the ability to choose from possible alternatives if every mental event is the result of a physical event or events? What enables us to break out of our programme?

If we don’t break out of our programming we are doing exactly what we are programmed to do. There is no escape from that conclusion. Every choice we make is made for us already and free will must be an illusion. Enormous quantities of information don’t alter that fact in the slightest. In your view the action taken to satisfy a preference is caused by the outcome of a conflict between different physical needs - in which “we” (biological machines!) play no part whatsoever.

I’ll come back to preferences later, but I’m wondering if you have ever read Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. I’ve yet to get my hands on a copy to read, but from reading some reviews and summaries, Dennett’s explanation seems to revolve around the idea that our self-awareness is what results from those cognitive processes we use to interpret other persons and things in our environment, being turned in on ourselves. What we think of as our ‘self’ is an interpretive construct.

If the self is no more than a construct there can be no self-control!

The attainment of happiness is a complex matter which entails learning how to live in accordance with our nature: to pursue truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. These goals are not just concepts but objective realities for every rational being, human or otherwise. Moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony.

.
I can’t say I actually disagree with the essential content of this, but some of it holds true only for a narrow interpretation of happiness.

In other words you agree that moral laws are necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony? They exist whether we recognise them or not.
Egoism incurs its own punishment.

We keep returning to the fact that humans are complex animals, with many and varied preferences. The value we place upon concepts like liberty, equality, social harmony, justice and so forth are directly related to the preference shared by many people to maintain functional communities - which in their turn allow for conditions in which the majority of people may satisfy the majority of their preferences.

Our basic preferences stem from our nature as persons, not gregarious animals.
We are not compelled to live at the physical level of instinct and conditioned responses to stimuli. We have a “mind of our own” and are directly responsible for our decisions, a fact which is the basis for every legal system throughout the world.

The thing about goodness, freedom, beauty, love and other nebulous concepts is that they are subjective realities - in order to be objective (at least as I understand the term) they would need to exist independently of the conscious, sentient minds that experience them. The difficulty in arriving at precise definitions for any of these concepts attests to their existence as subjective, not objective, realities. That doesn’t make them any less real when we experience them, but it must be said that it’s difficult to pin down any objective ‘source’ of these feelings.

There is nothing nebulous about goodness. Have you ever been attacked? When you are confronted with evil you soon realise how precise and real it is - and wish the other person shared your belief! Integrity and corruption are not subjective feelings but objective facts.

Nor is there is anything nebulous about freedom. Have you ever been in prison deprived of your freedom? It is the power to choose what to believe and how to act.

There is nothing nebulous about beauty. Have you come across the golden ratio or studied aesthetics? Harmony, proportion and symmetry are objective facts which determine whether something is beautiful.

There is nothing nebulous about love. It is reflected in the precise details of how a person behaves. It involves identication of oneself with another person or persons.

The same goes for morality. Most theists affirm their god as the source of objective morality, the rules for ‘right’ behaviour that they believe exist outside the realm of human experience and interaction. I don’t believe that this is the case, and I see morality as a construct originating in the necessity for human societies to function cooperatively and harmoniously.

Morality is not restricted to human beings. As I pointed out moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal development.

There are other social animals, such as chimpanzees and even wolves, who have been observed to exercise moral - or perhaps what might be called proto-moral - forms of behaviour, such as keeping to certain rules abiding during play.

Animals are not considered responsible for their behaviour but we are. Why?

Actions have consequences, and it is the understanding of that basic fact that leads to the construction of morality.

Morality is not a construction at all. It is an intellectual recognition and practical implementation of the fact that actions have consequences which are positive or negative for the individual and society. “By their fruits you shall know them…”

 

[Sair]

You know that atheism is a negative belief system, but your pride will not let you admit it. And so, you came on to this site to tell people that our faith is an irrational fantasy and that we have no choice but to believe in naturalism; because if we have no choice then you don’t have to feel guilty about you atheistic parade. You tell yourself that you are rational, and you even hope that this is true. But perhaps it is you that it is living in the fantasy.

Atheism is not a negative belief system - it is not a belief ‘system’ at all. It is a rejection (usually due to the lack of positive evidence) of the idea that there is a personal god who interacts meaningfully with us and is relevant to our lives. That it tends to go along with an appreciation of scientific enquiry and the knowledge and understanding acquired therefrom is largely incidental. There are even some religions which are atheistic, like Buddhism.

That you read such negativity into what I hold to be true, according to my experience and (admittedly very modest, in the grand scheme of things) knowledge of the world, is a reflection of your beliefs, not mine. Yes, I think that the existence of a personal god is a fantasy, but it’s one people have the right to choose to believe in, if it makes sense to them and is conducive to their happiness.

It’s worth pointing out at this stage that whilst I hold belief in a personal god to be subjective, I am content to allow others to believe as they will, and I try very hard not to be derogatory - I don’t always succeed, of course, especially when their argument moves from points of knowledge or understanding to personal criticism of my faculties. However, for your belief in the objective existence of your god to be true - and, apparently, for the sake of your own peace of mind - you cannot allow my lack of belief to be valid, but instead must resort to insisting that you’re right, and that I’m just wrongheaded.

 

[jkiernan56]

It’s good to see that you have started contributing constructively to the debate again :thumbsup

Sair, you have put my mind at ease because you approved of one of my posts. Thank you for helping me to stop loosing sleep … LOL.

I would like to put into context all your subjective non-sense. It is my understanding that your reasoning has its basis and roots in Eastern religious thought (ie - Hinduism).

Here is an excerpt from CS Lewis in a book titled “Mere Christianity”. On page 43 he states “We human beings call one thing good and another thing bad But according to some people that is merely our human point of view (ie - subjective experience). These people would say that the wiser you become the LESS you would want to call anything good or bad, and the more clearly you would see that everything is good in one way and bad in another and that nothing could have been different. We call a cancer bad because it kills a man; but you might as well call a successful surgeon bad because he kills a cancer. It all depends on the point of view (ie - subjective experience). The other and opposite idea is that God is quite definitely “good” or “righteous”, a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred (ie - evil) and who wants us to behave in one way and not in another.”

On another note - you never responded to an idea I challenged you with earlier about objective reality. It was that “nothing comes from nothing” and “only something can come from something else.” If it is true that either 1) the universe has always existed as a series of infinite cause-effects or 2) there is a Primary Mover that is not caused but causes then -

the only logical conclusion is that “something always existed”. “Something” cannot come from “nothingness”. If you and I are on the same page with this, then whether or not you acknowledge objective reality, implicitly you have acknowledged objective reality because “something always existed”. “IT” always existed and will always exist. You may not want to call it objective reality, but nevertheless “IT” is. Something that has always existed is objective reality. Are you picking up what I am putting down?

 

[Sair]

On another note - you never responded to an idea I challenged you with earlier about objective reality. It was that “nothing comes from nothing” and “only something can come from something else.” If it is true that either 1) the universe has always existed as a series of infinite cause-effects or 2) there is a Primary Mover that is not caused but causes then -

the only logical conclusion is that “something always existed”. “Something” cannot come from “nothingness”. If you and I are on the same page with this, then whether or not you acknowledge objective reality, implicitly you have acknowledged objective reality because “something always existed”. “IT” always existed and will always exist. You may not want to call it objective reality, but nevertheless “IT” is. Something that has always existed is objective reality. Are you picking up what I am putting down?

I have no problem with the notion that ‘something’ has always existed. I tend towards the belief that the ‘something’ was the substance of the universe, in whatever form(s) it existed prior to the Big Bang, since that is less problematic than the idea of an infinitely complex intelligence having always existed.

So what does this have to do with the existence of ‘goodness’ and ‘love’ outside of our subjective perception and experience of them?

 

[MindOverMatter]

Atheism is not a negative belief system - it is not a belief ‘system’ at all. It is a rejection (usually due to the lack of positive evidence) of the idea that there is a personal god who interacts meaningfully with us and is relevant to our lives. That it tends to go along with an appreciation of scientific enquiry and the knowledge and understanding acquired therefrom is largely incidental. There are even some religions which are atheistic, like Buddhism.

That you read such negativity into what I hold to be true, according to my experience and (admittedly very modest, in the grand scheme of things) knowledge of the world, is a reflection of your beliefs, not mine. Yes, I think that the existence of a personal god is a fantasy, but it’s one people have the right to choose to believe in, if it makes sense to them and is conducive to their happiness.

It’s worth pointing out at this stage that whilst I hold belief in a personal god to be subjective, I am content to allow others to believe as they will, and I try very hard not to be derogatory - I don’t always succeed, of course, especially when their argument moves from points of knowledge or understanding to personal criticism of my faculties. However, for your belief in the objective existence of your god to be true - and, apparently, for the sake of your own peace of mind - you cannot allow my lack of belief to be valid, but instead must resort to insisting that you’re right, and that I’m just wrongheaded.

As far as i am concerned, you have not really read one word that i have said to the extent that it deserves. It seems to me that you have merely skip through and ignored the argument that i am making, and then you have placed your subjective opinion under your chosen quotes, claiming that i am expressing my desperation. Perhaps you are reading or projecting something into my argument that is not there, and perhaps you don’t like the objective implications of my argument; which is quite is interesting.

All you have done is insult us and belittle us, and your posts, as far as i am concerned, provide evidence that you intended to do so; in my opinion that is. And now you are moaning because i am showing you the objective implications of naturalism. You have merely resorted to assertions and subjective claims which i cannot personally access in-order to know the truth of them.

What I have done, on the other hand, is focus on facts that we all experience, and you wish to deny that these experiences are not degrading. You want me to believe that atheism is not negative. But why? I have already shown you, as i will now show you again for the last time, that in so far as we are rational “people” whom naturally desire life, security from suffering, moral fulfillment, perfect happiness, and freedom from death (The fact that we avoid death is evidence of this fact), it is therefore the case that naturalism’s objective connotations necessarily degrade the value of human life, by the fact that it reduces us to mere products of meaningless purposeless and valueless bodily processes. We seek pleasure where ever we might find it, struggling to live for as long as possible before ceasing to exist. That is the real world of naturalism.

You say it doesn’t have to be viewed in this way, but if we want to remain objective and honest about our existence, we have to view it in this way in so far as naturalism is concerned. I assure, i am not asserting anything but merely expressing what your world view necessarily implicates, and that is the fact that our value as existential beings ultimately has no more worth than cows dung, and your subjective expressions are nothing more than the secretions of bodily processes. Any belief that you have freewill does not reflect a purely scientific worldview. The belief that you have more value than cows dung does not reflect a strictly scientific worldview.

I don’t know that i am living in a fantasy by believing in God. But i know that you are most definitely living in a fantasy when you project value on to your self and believe that your apologetic for atheism is anything more than the necessary outcome of past events and blind physical processes. You are living in a self contradictory fantasy without fully understanding what it is that you are rejecting or what it is that you are accepting in its place; either that or you must be in denial. I don’t know that God doesn’t exist, and so you cannot claim the same for me. I have hope and faith. That is not the same as being in denial of what i know to be true. So who is the more rational? It is certainly not you.

My experiences, tell me that i have free will. My experiences tell me that it is wrong to rape a child. My experiences tell me that it is wrong to degrade and oppress people. My experience of guilt tells me that there is an objective application that responds to our knowledge of doing wrong, which is something that physics cannot possibly know; and yet it exists, and strongly implies objective meaning and moral law. The world that you and i experience is far from what you are claiming it to be. You choose to believe, in the face of your experiences to the contrary, that objective moral values don’t exist.

According to all our experiences as human persons It reasonable to believe in objective values. And belief in God has absolute pragmatic and existential value. Your disagreement with this does not reflect the objective fact of our existence as people and our fundamental desires. That you choose not to believe certainly has no bearing on what science has to say about things.

 

[Sair]

There is nothing nebulous about goodness. Have you ever been attacked? When you are confronted with evil you soon realise how precise and real it is - and wish the other person shared your belief! Integrity and corruption are not subjective feelings but objective facts.

Ah, but if the person attacking me believed they were doing the world some kind of objective good by destroying my apostasy - despite the fact that they were doing me objective harm - by what criterion does one judge the good? It’s bad for me, but good for them, right?

Nor is there is anything nebulous about freedom. Have you ever been in prison deprived of your freedom? It is the power to choose what to believe and how to act.

But there are also those who object to the freedom to believe certain things and act in certain ways. There are those who deny freedom, for example, to homosexual people to express their nature; there are those who deny freedom, for example, to those who hold Isalmic fundamentalism in contempt, because of possible retaliation. Freedom is always curtailed, no matter where you look. With complete freedom comes complete chaos. Freedom, although most people don’t realise it, is a compromise between competing preferences.

There is nothing nebulous about beauty. Have you come across the golden ratio or studied aesthetics? Harmony, proportion and symmetry are objective facts which determine whether something is beautiful.

Have you never heard the phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’? Or did you know that the word ‘cute’ originally meant ‘ugly but interesting’? Beauty is a matter of subjective appreciation. Harmony, proportion and symmetry are intriguing to some, and boring to others.

There is nothing nebulous about love. It is reflected in the precise details of how a person behaves. It involves identication of oneself with another person or persons.

But people’s behaviour changes with circumstance - in that regard, love is not the concrete, objective substance you claim it to be. Also, people define and experience love in vastly different ways. Some people experience it as a desire to submit to another; some experience it as a desire to possess another; some experience it somewhere in between. Some even ascribe it to nonhuman animals or even nonliving things. In all cases, their feelings are expressed in their behaviour. Are all of these experiences to be equated with love? If not, why not?

 

[tonyrey]

There is nothing nebulous about goodness. Have you ever been attacked? When you are confronted with evil you soon realise how precise and real it is - and wish the other person shared your belief! Integrity and corruption are not subjective feelings but objective facts

Are you saying good and evil are **entirely **dependent on what person believes? Try using that as a defence in a lawcourt!

Nor is there is anything nebulous about freedom. Have you ever been in prison deprived of your freedom? It is the power to choose what to believe and how to act.

But there are also those who object to the freedom to believe certain things and act in certain ways. There are those who deny freedom, for example, to homosexual people to express their nature; there are those who deny freedom, for example, to those who hold Islamic fundamentalism in contempt, because of possible retaliation. Freedom is always curtailed, no matter where you look. With complete freedom comes complete chaos. Freedom, although most people don’t realise it, is a compromise between competing preferences.

You are citing extreme cases. The fact that our freedom is always curtailed in **some **respects does not imply that we have no freedom at all. Freedom may be a compromise but it is freedom nevertheless…

There is nothing nebulous about beauty. Have you come across the golden ratio or studied aesthetics? Harmony, proportion and symmetry are objective facts which determine whether something is beautiful.

Have you never heard the phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’? Or did you know that the word ‘cute’ originally meant ‘ugly but interesting’? Beauty is a matter of subjective appreciation. Harmony, proportion and symmetry are intriguing to some, and boring to others.

If you had one eye two inches higher than the other you would not write off the objectivity of ugliness (or beauty) so readily…

There is nothing nebulous about love. It is reflected in the precise details of how a person behaves. It involves identification of oneself with another person or persons.

But people’s behaviour changes with circumstance - in that regard, love is not the concrete, objective substance you claim it to be. Also, people define and experience love in vastly different ways. Some people experience it as a desire to submit to another; some experience it as a desire to possess another; some experience it somewhere in between. Some even ascribe it to nonhuman animals or even nonliving things. In all cases, their feelings are expressed in their behaviour. Are all of these experiences to be equated with love? If not, why not?

Do you think the differences in the ways people love means that love is **entirely **subjective and they have nothing whatsoever in common? Doesn’t everyone need to love and be loved by some one else?

BTW You have ignored most of my statements and questions - but no doubt others will recognise their cogency…

 

[jkiernan56]

I have no problem with the notion that ‘something’ has always existed.

So what does this have to do with the existence of ‘goodness’ and ‘love’ outside of our subjective perception and experience of them?

As far as I’m concerned, there can be no meaningful discussion on the topic of this thread unless you and I agree on the existence of objective good. In my mind there is no such thing as the problem of evil unless there is objective good. Evil only has meaning in context of Good (just as Black only has meaning in context of Light and a Lie only has meaning in context of Truth). You and I can’t continue in this discussion unless we both agree we are looking at the same elephant - objective reality that is good. Either objective reality and objective good does exist or it doesn’t. There is no in between.

You earlier responded that “I have no problem with the notion that ‘something’ has always existed.” Does all existence and reality exist only in the mind (subjective experience)? Or do things exist objectively independant of subjective experience? You previously acknowledge “something” has always existed. Is that “something” only subjective experience? Or do you agree that objective reality REALLY does exist independant of subjective experience (ie - gravity)?

Would you then agree that existence itself is an objective good? Existence itself - is it a good thing? And does objective reality exist independant of subjective experience?

That takes us right to Shakespear (Hamlet 3/1) -

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come”

 

[Sair]

As far as I’m concerned, there can be no meaningful discussion on the topic of this thread unless you and I agree on the existence of objective good. In my mind there is no such thing as the problem of evil unless there is objective good. Evil only has meaning in context of Good (just as Black only has meaning in context of Light and a Lie only has meaning in context of Truth). You and I can’t continue in this discussion unless we both agree we are looking at the same elephant - objective reality that is good. Either objective reality and objective good does exist or it doesn’t. There is no in between.

You earlier responded that “I have no problem with the notion that ‘something’ has always existed.” Does all existence and reality exist only in the mind (subjective experience)? Or do things exist objectively independant of subjective experience? You previously acknowledge “something” has always existed. Is that “something” only subjective experience? Or do you agree that objective reality REALLY does exist independant of subjective experience (ie - gravity)?

Would you then agree that existence itself is an objective good? Existence itself - is it a good thing? And does objective reality exist independant of subjective experience?

That takes us right to Shakespear (Hamlet 3/1) -

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come”

Objective reality exists independently of subjective experience. Subjective experience exists on the basis of objective realities. But this is not the same as saying that subjective experiences constitute objective realities, because they don’t exist independently of sentient minds. This has been my contention all along - there is no ‘object’ in the universe that is called goodness; there is no ‘object’ in the universe that is called love. These are names we give to our subjective experiences, which are in turn built upon a physical base.

 

[Sair]

This is your claim. But there are plenty of ex - atheists and agnostics that have come to believe in God through experience and independent thought. One of them includes Anthony Flew; but you would probably call them liars.

As I understand it, Antony Flew’s acceptance of God’s existence is based on the argument from design - his belief appears to be that the only real explanation for the observed complexity of the universe and the ubiquity of the laws of physics is the presence of an intelligent designer. However, Flew doesn’t believe that this designer has interfered or interacted with the universe since setting it all up, nor does he believe in an afterlife, or that disembodied existence is possible.

Ultimately, it comes down to which explanation makes sense to you, and that is based upon personal experience and knowledge. I’m not going to label someone a liar because their experience leads them down a different path than mine.