Sure you can think that. You just can’t demonstrate that it is any more valid than its opposite.
Sure it does - faith that empathy is something that one ought to pay attention to.
That’s sort of like arguing that religion is not faith-based, because God is self-evident. IYSWIM.
But the standard, or the assumption that it is valid in some sense that any other standard is not, has to be faith-based, because it cannot be demonstrated. Your moral standard is axiomatic.
Right, that’s what I meant. But Jefferson’s Gospel denied all miracles, so many of the same points would come up.
As now, in fact. I noticed that a good bit of Romney’s speech was about the Mormon understanding of Jesus, so that must be what he thinks is a sticking point for non-Mormons who are Christian.
Almost certainly not. Didn’t Bush get some crap because he named Jesus as his favorite philosopher?
[spoiler]And, IIRC, Kerry was asked what his favorite book of the New Testament was.
You claimed that thinking happiness is electrical signal in the brain is equivalent to thinking happiness is not preferred to life. That’s incorrect because I think happiness is caused by electrical signals, but that happiness is preferred to death. In order to disprove your statement I only had to come up with an example that’s the opposite, see?
Quite right, and that was why he was accused of atheism in 1800. The great revival was just beginning, and it was Jefferson, so it wasn’t the major issue. But I wasn’t asking about then, I was asking about today. Would a candidate who produced a version of the NT without miracles have a chance?
At least that’s what he hopes the major sticking point is. That is an area of agreement, so he stressed it. Getting your own planet to be god over, not so much.
I think that was playing off his supposed ignorance. It reminds me of some lines from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
A reporter is interviewing an Aggie cheerleader during half time. She is blonde and stereotypically bubble headed.
Reporter: Who was the greatest American?
Cheerleader: <clearly flustered by this tough question> oh, oh, … oh Jesus!
Reporter: Thank you!
Just shows those darn Catholics don’t know anything about the Christian Bible.
Except in the case that your moral standard is based on something you have experienced, like pain and pleasure, and things that you have observed, such as the fact that people in general seem to have a discernable (though not reliable) tendency to respond in kind to things to things. (Be nice, get a nice response. Be hostile, get a hostile response.) These sorts of things are what my standards are based off of. They are only axiomatic in the sense that I accept them; the reason that I accept them is that they are supported by evidence.
My moral standard is NOT based on faith. Do you still insist that I have no morality?
If so, why? What personal problem do you have to people having morality without accepting somebody elses’s orders or making shit up?
That is moronic. How does it follow that if consciousness is mechanical, death is better than happiness? That’s pure nonsense. Did you even think before you wrote that? Explain how that is in any way an intelligent statement.
If you only have basic empathy and can work with a group because you think god wants you to, you’re a defective human. In other words, your parents faled to raise you as a decent human being. Someone who is kind and decent only because of fear of punishment is a sociopath.
A theist believes that being dead is better than being happy. Because the invisible guy in space will give them special gifts if they live wretched joyless lives. How much happiness has been averted in the christian god’s name? How many loveless marriages have been kept to because divorce isn’t an option, how many babies starved to death because birth control isn’t an option?
An Atheist believes that you only get the one shot at existence. So you must find as much meaning and joy as you can for the tiny little bit of consciousness you have during the universe’s run. A pleasant experience is of course better than a painful one.
Of course it’s better to be happy than dead, because death is oblivion and an end. I want others to be happy because I know they only have that same small window of life and their lives should be as fun and joyous as possible.
You misread what he wrote, although he could have written it more clearly. If consciousness is nothing more than a chemical process, then neither is better than the other. He isn’t saying one is better than the other. IOW, if “happiness” = chemical reaction A and “death” = chemical reaction B, how can you say that chemical reaction A is better than chemical reaction B, or vice versa? Chemical reactions don’t have innate value.
This is true to the precise extent that you deny that you yourself exist. If you do happen to exist, then certain “chemical reactions” might have inherent differences in how they effect you, which reactions might have inherent values to you.
Of course you can say one chemical reaction is better than another. Which is better the chemical reaction that cooks a delicious hot dog, or the one that ignites the propellant that fills a gun’s barrel with high velocity gas that pushes a bullet through your spleen?
You have consciousness. It’s better than oblivion. You don’t need faith to understand that, you have evidence of it right now. God is a fantasy, and to suggest that you need to believe in that rubbish to not know whether existence is better than non existence is both wrong and offensive.
If you think you need god to tell you that existing is a good thing you must not value your intellect very much.
I beleive Shodan’s point is that if there’s an objective right or wrong, we don’t have any evidence as to what that objective right or wrong. You may have evidence that hot dogs cause more happiness than spleen injury, but how do you show that causing happiness lines up with this objective right and wrong? What if the objective right and wrong guidelines don’t like happiness? I would agree that the belief that there is an objective right and wrong has to be faith based.
I think you are conflating faith and religion - though of course American Media does too - the argument isn’t that you need God to have morals, it is that you need to beleive in something without having evidence to have morals, as after all, what kind of evidence could exist for an idea?
While I think Shodan is technically correct that morals can’t have evidence for them, I think it is misleading to call it faith. Faith generally refers to believing something that has a truth value without evidence. If Bob’s system of morals is designed to optimize human happiness, and Fred’s is designed to follow God’s will, is their difference of opinion on whether gay marriage is moral any more faith based than their difference of opinion on whether vanilla is a better flavor than chocolate?
Difference of moralities seems to me to be based on difference of values, i.e. Bob values human happiness and smooth vanillaness, and and Fred values God’s plan and rich, sweet chocolate flavors. My values don’t have any truth value, they don’t assert anything about the world. If I thought that kicking puppies was moral, I don’t think there’s anyway to classify that as true or false. You may find it to be appalling to your moral system and your moral system would probably compel you to stop me, but I do not beleive that there is an objective way to say that I am wrong and you are right, or vice versa.
Ugh - I feel like I just typed out “morals aren’t faith based: <the explanation of why morals are faith based>,” but I feel on some level that there’s a difference between having subjective values and having those subjective values based on faith. I think it is that I do not beleive that there’s an objective source of right and wrong, but that kind of just pushes the faith based desicision back one step to whether there is objective right and wrong.
Incidently, I’ve found that beleivers often beleive that doing what God wants is objectively right, and what he doesn’t want is objectively wrong. Why? Is it out of gratitude for our existance? Is it that he’s omniscient, and objective right and wrong existed independently, and God passed his knowledge of such on? Is it because he judges us after death? I’ve just never really seen the connection between making stuff, and deciding morality.
Actually, ignore this - my post kind of reads “morality can’t be justified to those with different values, incidently, could someone with different values justify their morality to me?”
err, and despite evidence to the contrary, I do know how to spell believe
Oh dear. He must have quoted that line with a wink and a nudge. Adams was referring to white males only. At least black males could become Mormon priests by 1978. Not so for women. The Mormon Church says that the genders are equal, but some genders seem to be more equal than others…
Why not just encourage each family to work out the responsibilities for which each member is best suited? I really don’t want a President who is still thinking in terms of gender roles. That is very unliberating for both sexes.
I thought this was wrong. I called a friend in Salt Lake City who is a bishop there and he sent me this excerpt from The [LDS] Church Handbook of Instructions, the guide to operation and leadership in the LDS church:
I thought it was an absolutely idiotic thing to say.
However, if Mitt wants to tie Christianity to freedom, why in hell would we want to stop him? Now you’ll have something to throw in President Mitt’s face if he tries to start passing laws to please the fundies.
“Hey, you said Jesus loves freedom, man. What would Jesus do?”
I don’t think anyone should read too deeply into Romney’s speech. It wasn’t a philosophical treatise; it was a campaign speech. Its purpose was to get votes. And this is the way modern conservatives get votes; they announce an enemy. Guiliani already took Muslims; Tancredo took Mexicans; Huckabee took homosexuals; McCain took hippies; Paul took pro-choicers. Romney was stuck with a choice between atheists and Canadians.
Yeah, if he is as serious about atheists as Giuliani is about Muslims, you’ll have nothing to worry about. Who knows, maybe he’ll have Richard Dawkins investing next time he wants to work out a deal for the Olympic games. It worked for Giuliani Partners and the Emir of Qatar.
One of the reasons they felt they had to give this speech ,was because Mormonism is a particularly invasive religion in the lives of its followers. He carefully had a speech revealing as little as possible.
Mormons have 13 rules they have to follow
They have the bible and all the restrictions it includes
they tithe
they have to go on missions
they are strong in men having power over women
some sects believe and still practice multiple wives
They wear holy underwear
He answered nothing to my satisfaction.How he defined this as freedom I can not even guess.The argument is not about happiness or neural synapses. it is about whether his religion will determine how he governs. I see nothing that indicates it wont.
