Exactly! We can’t show anything to Phelps or Hitler that would suggest their view is right or wrong. Their views depend on an inherent nature of people that isn’t tangible. However, you could show things to me which suggest my view is right or wrong. I believe happiness is a good thing, and that we should promote it. Certainly there is nothing you can show to me that’ll prove or disprove my code. But what you can do is measure whether my actions actually do have the effect I want; if i’m after happiness, and I give a cake to a friend, I can easily tell whether my actions have had the desired effect. The same is not true for the religious; their effect cannot be told. Thus, they require faith that their moral code is right, and faith that their actions actually do work with that code. Atheists don’t.
Again, I think both Phelps and even the Holocaust are extreme examples that STILL don’t hold up. Both of these groups of people believe/d certain things not just because they started out with radically different values from most people, but because they believe all sorts of things (often on faith or faulty logic) that lead them to certain conclusions.
Shodan presents these conclusions as if they were the values themselves, which is just BS. It’ simply NOT the case that we have can nothing to say to these groups. We can and do have lots of appeals that we can make and did make to them basic on either rejecting or disproving their factual beliefs (There is a God who hates gay people/Jews are destroying our society) or by appealing to common values like empathy (Jews suffer just like you and me, and doing violence against them will not save Germany, but rather destroy it), or both at once. While it may be hard, Shodan’s argument that there is simply NO BASIS, and your agreeing with him, seem patently unfounded and uncorrupted by plain reality that we can have these sorts of discussions. Not only have we been able to have sensible debates with people that hold these views, but we’ve even been successful in convincing say, fundamentalists that they are doing wrong by hurting gay people, or former Nazis that what they were doing, or what they did, was evil, even by their own standards.
Routinely? A Google search for abortion related murders turned up ten incidents over five years, the last in 1998. And in those, there were six perpetrators. Bad enough, and never should have happened, but hardly amounts to routine killings.
Now if you want to argue that stopping women as they approach a clinic to ask if they really know what they’re doing constitutes harassment, I can see that, but again I don’t see it happening routinely. In some places at some times, yes. But let’s not get carried away with the rhetoric here.
And as has been said, in spite of the way pro-choice people like to paint it, not every pro-lifer is religious. Wanting to protect the unborn or the severely handicapped doesn’t require a belief in a god.
“Routine” was probably not the best word to use, but I guess it depends on how you define it. I took DtC’s statement to essentially mean, “A lot more often than one might expect.”
Much in the same way that not all pro-choicers like to “paint it” that way.
You’re right, it doesn’t. But there is certainly a strong correlation between the two.
LilShieste
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Is it any more of a reach to assume that objective morality could exist inherently in the universe on it’s own than it is to assume an omnipotent, omniscient deity exists? I’d argue that the former is actually MORE likely (although still not statistically likely) than your position of the latter.
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If we accept your assumption, for the moment, that God exists AND creates morality, we’re still left with a singular entity pulling “morality” out of nothing. From the perspective of an outsider looking at God, his determination in making something moral versus immoral versus amoral is still subjective. It may be made from an infinitely greater basis of rationality (assuming omniscience), but it ultimately is STILL subjective at its foundation.
If we assume some objective morality inherently exists independently of God, obviously, it follows that God is not necessary (for morality at any rate). The morality is there whether or not God is, meaning in such a case that Atheists could have an objective basis for morality.
Of course, I tend to agree with some of the previous posters that no truely universal objective morality exists (else we should be able to observe it outside of humanity)–but that does not necessarily mean that I therefore believe in absolute moral relativism.
Sneaking? I suppose you might think that estimations of value are somehow irrational. I know they are not.
For example, from an economic standpoint which would you rationally estimate is more valuable:
A. a quarter
B. a dollar coin
Yes, sneaking. Trying to smuggle in unspoken premises while pretending that the edifice is without them.
They aren’t themselves rational or irrational without any further information or context (oh noes, here comes the ridiculous dictionary diversion again!). They’re just values.
You already gave the game away by starting out with “from an economic standpoint.” That’s a premise that then helps DEFINE what is rational or irrational to consider valuable. But these judgments don’t just exist objectively floating around somewhere. They belong to particular people with particular values. You can’t declare that just because someone picks a quarter over the dollar coin that they are irrational without first having some idea of what they value in the first place.
Well now, smuggling. That’s a serious accusation. Surely you have a cite and are not just making something up, right?
No. I have not defined what is “rational” in my example. I have defined the context in which a rational choice can be made. Within the context of my question someone choosing the quarter is behaving irrationally.
Someone choosing the quarter is making an irrational choice.
You seem to be asserting that my context is some artificial thing I’ve snuck in. Very well give me an example of a choice without a context. I’ll bet you can’t because there is always a context. Not understanding it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I already explained your tactic in the case I noted. It’s not really my problem that you didn’t respond in any coherent fashion, instead ranted on at length about a bunch of nonsensical straw man fantasies you had about me, took a potshot at someone else, and then gloriously left the thread with no further objections answered.
I’m pleased that you feel my points are so cogent that you feel the need to repeat them for emphasis, though I’m a bit confused why you phrase it as disagreeing with something I didn’t say in the first place. Yes, you DID define the parameters of what is or isn’t going to be considered rational in this case: you did so by specifying that we are going to be considering economic value. That is the context. Without that context, for all we know, we are talking about a person who needs and hence values the tiniest thinnest coin they can get their hands on because they need to open a computer case, and that fatass Sacagewea just won’t do. In THAT case, taking the dollar coin is what’s irrational.
Without that context, it’s not clear how we would know which choice is rational or irrational. In fact, talking about the rationality of that choice in the absence of that sort of contextual information is sort of nonsensical.
Sure, now you’re getting it.
Of course, that’s a little different than your previous assertions that someone who tried to survive in a seemingly irrational situation just WAS flat out irrational, end of story, without any discussion at all about what their values, goals, or desires were. Seems like you’re finally warming up to my point of view.
So do you agree now that when it comes to people’s choices, rationality is something that can really only talk about AFTER you know something about their preferences (i.e.: what you term the “context”)?
Well, let’s look at this discussion on morality as an example, ok? Shodan is here, agreeing vehemently with me that moral values don’t have any absolute or ultimate justification. Of course, like you and your survivor situation, you both want to pretend that there is some special, magical out for your OWN views from this situation, where you just get to be “objectively right” about what’s what without having to admit to taking nice neat unspoken helpings of the very same sorts of arbitrary premises you scoff at elsewhere.
There’s nothing wrong with context: in fact, it’s quite necessary. It’s DENYING that operation of that context/value, and the fact that we have to at some point just get down and select it, that’s the problem.
I’m gratified: both you and Shodan have rushed in here, eager to agree with me: you can’t talk about the rationality of some choice without having the context of some particular person’s values and goals, just like you can’t talk about moral judgments without specifying WHOSE judgments those are.
You seem to think there is a contradiction between my two quoted statements. Could you elucidate it for me? When have I said anything about dicating other people’s behavior?
I’ll say again, moral perception is an aesthetic. It has nothing to do with rules or laws and it can never be objective. It involves no “assumptions,” it is only an emotional response to stimuli. Not even God has the ability to dictate an objective morality because morality
describes feelings, not rules. Rules are not morals.
You’re only focusing on one word. The killing is not as routine as the stalking and the harrassment and the threats but it happens, and the other stuff is commonplace. And I’m not just talking about the harrassment of women at abortion clinics but the systematic stalking and threats against doctors.
The belief that zygotes contain magical spirits is a religious belief no matter how you slice it.
What do handicapped people have to do with the abortion issue? Who the hell wants to kill handicapped people?
The idea is that God can create a morality that is like arithmetic - it would model reality and be internally consistent even if you don’t accept it.
Even if you deny that 2 + 2 = 4, that does not alter the truth of the statement. The statement is objectively true. An objectively true morality would be the same. Suppose God has made it true that abortion is moral in the same sense that 2+2 = 4. You could then deny that abortion was moral, but that wouldn’t change anything.
Actually, this seems to me to be a case where you don’t like an argument, and therefore aren’t attempting to understand it. No doubt you will try it again.
Again, this is an attempt at the “if A, then not-A” line of reasoning. You are accepting and then rejecting a premise and calling it logic.
If God “makes rape right”, then rape is right, and thus the moral value is attached. In the same way, 2+2 = 4, and thus the objective value of the statement holds, even if you say “I don’t accept the authority of God to say that 2+2=4”.
Well, you seem to arguing above that some commonly held values are the trumped-up alleged commander that establishes a basis for a morality. And you are attempting to say we can try to tell Phelps or the Nazis to do or not do something, which is a command in some sense.
What you seem to be ignoring is that Phelps and the Nazis don’t share this value that you claim is universal, and that you can offer no reason that anyone should accept it. “Everyone feels like that”. No, they don’t. What reason can you give that they should?
Debating you is easy, because you are conscientious about giving examples disproving what you say.
Do you feel that harassment of abortion providers should continue, or should some action be taken to reduce or eliminate it?
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, it is more or less the same thing. Both acts of faith, if you see what I mean.
I am not entirely sure that I follow you here.
Are you saying that the choice of a morality is subjective from God’s point of view? That’s sort of meaningless, like saying (as above) that 2+2=4 only from God’s point of view. There isn’t any other point of view that is objectively true, by definition.
Or are you saying that our perception of what is moral is subjective? That is entirely true - I can think that something is morally right, but be mistaken. I can also think that God created the universe in six literal days, but be mistaken. If God creates an objectively true morality, then refusal to accept this morality is not a difference of opinion but a mistake as to fact.
Or are you saying something else altogether?
True!
All that is needed is a reason to show that this morality is, indeed, objectively true and universal. Which is what I have been asking for since the beginning of the thread.
Regards,
Shodan
That makes no sense. Making something that is internally consistent is trivial. All of the subjective morality you scoff at (because you think there is something superior) is and can be internally consistent: so what? It’s true to the extent you simply stipulate the axioms. If you don’t, no dice. So?
The truth of the statement is a result of its axioms.
Well, actually, yes it would. It wouldn’t mean anything at all when someone says “immoral” except a synonym for “what God says/commands.” There’s no moral content there, because moral content requires VALUE.
I understand the argument you are trying to make pretty well: it’s a pretty common fallback. The problem is that it doesn’t make any sense. Not in the “I don’t get it” kind, but in the “you are failing to actually use some pretty well defined concepts and ideas in a workable way.”
In face of that, I guess your only recourse is to simply insist that I am doing this or that, trying to characterize me because you cannot supply actual counter-arguments.
Not at all: you haven’t even really made an argument. I asked you how something like rape could be “made” wrong, and your answer is essentially “it just can: God can just do it.” That doesn’t explain anything at all: all you did was restate the claim a different way.
So your argument is essentially that your special situation can do it because you just say it can, because I guess, like God is all cool and stuff.
Do you see how transparently empty that is? If you allowed me that sort of grand handwaving then I could establish just about anything.
Ok, well, if I make rape right, then rape is right, and thus the moral value is attached. Right?
Oh, did you want to object and say that I can’t make rape right? Well how do you know, exactly? You haven’t explained what the process is for making something wrong or right, so exactly what grounds are you using to object to me doing so? Maybe I have that power and you just don’t know what it is (just like you don’t seem to be able to explain what it is in God’s case).
Again, you are going to have to get around to explaining how God can “make” even something like 2+2=4 true, much less how God can “make” moral judgments “true.” Just insisting that God can is not any sort of answer at all. Its not even clear that moral judgments can sensibly be described AS true or false without first, as I said, presuming some common value.
But the command is always, if sensible, premised on the idea that there is some moral values that you share with the target: no matter how deranged. If not, then it would make as much sense to tell a volcano that it’s wrong to explode.
You know, I think I already explained this pretty well, and pre-emptively answered some of the questions you are now asking. So maybe you want to go back and address those before, you know, just repeating your original claims over and over as if no further discussion had taken place.
If one member of our society believes in a god, many other people will be constantly tormented by the question of “why does one of my fellow citizens believe in a god?” If everyone would simply stop believing in religion, those who are tormented by that conundrum will be free to spend time finding solutions to greater problems such as global warming and whether to let the cat outside.
True, but you don’t have to believe in souls to think abortion is murder, just ast you don’t have to believe in souls to believe, well, that murder is murder. All you have to believe is that the zygote is essentially the same as someone who has been born. If I stopped believing in souls right now (and believe me, I have had my doubts many times), I still would believe that abortion is wrong, because I believe that it is a human being, not necessarily because I believe it (or any human being) has a soul. If killing you is wrong, then killing that zygote is also wrong.
Wow. That is really insulting.
Or we could go to the other ridiculous extreme and solve all our problems.
If everyone believed exactly the same thing , let’s say Buddhist or Quaker, we’d all live in a peaceful, more simple, agricultural society. Awwwww Thats nice.
And if everyone agreed to elect me dictator for life, we’d have an end to this annoying political bickering.
Cite?
That depends on what you mean by “harassment,” but simply protecting the rights of others to make legal decisions is not an imposition of morality. It’s those who try to interfere with the choices of others who are trying to impose morality. You have it backwards.