Rusting Car Bumper

If that's true then God is evil as well. That is, if the ontological status of things depends on God's existence, then evil "flows from" God as well.

DC

luvluv

jlowder:

Maybe you could help us by making a formal argument in favor of any moral principle, and we'll see if it's sound.

jlowder

Please re-read what I wrote. I wrote "ONTOLOGICALLY prior," not TEMPORALLY prior. In my sentence, "prior" has nothing to do with time. My point was that the standard of moral goodness is not dependent upon God's existence.

To say that "God is the Good" empties the content of the omnibenevolence of God. If "God is the Good," then to say that "God is omnibenevolent" is to say that "God is God," which doesn't really tell us anything new, does it? ;-)

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

jlowder

Luvluv,

I've already done this over on the "<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000328" target="_blank">Can Atheists Have Morals?</a>" thread; search for references to a philosopher named John Post in my posts. Also, you still have not provided me with the courtesy of a reply to 3 of my posts on page 1 of this thread.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

luvluv

Mr. Lowder:

Well, to be an objectivist the atheist does have to create two new entities called "right" and "wrong" and he has to explain how they came to exist independantly of human thought.

Furthermore, the only issue of any consequence is that neither the existence of God nor the existence of moral laws can be supported rationally. One can hold that God exists and that a moral code of some sort exists, but one cannot "prove" their existence rationally.

Well, firstly, there is no need to refer to luvluv in the third person. If luvluv wanted to be refered to in the third person, luvluv could do that for himself.

If you are under the impression that I am arguing that atheism and morality are incompatible you would be incorrect. If I said that that would be a misstatement of my actual position, which is that morality cannot be RATIONALLY JUSTIFIED by atheism. All the arguments for the actual existence of a moral code that anyone should adhere to fall to the same objections that proofs for God's existence fall to, so if an atheist is to be consistent he should disbelieve in all moral claims. That is to say, if an atheist rejects God because there is no rational justification for his existence, he should also reject any system of morality, because they have no rational justification for their existence either.

Yes, a subjective system of morality does seem to flow naturally from atheism, but it cannot be rationally supported by it. Eventually, all moral premises will break down, as Pomp has said, to some ultimate state of value. Such things as "I value my own existence" or "I value my self-interest". But my point is that these naked statements of value cannot themselves be rationally verified. You cannot produce premises in support of someone valuing their existence if they happen not to. The fact that they value their existence or self-interest is just a statement of preference, not a rational justification.

No, as I attempted to explain above, it flows from many things, but primarily from the actual implications of omniscience and omnibenevolence (or all-goodness).

I think I'm being misunderstood. I am not saying that atheism itself is necessarily inconsistent with objective morality. I'm saying the ATHEIST is being inconsistent IF AND ONLY IF he rejects God's existence on empiricists and/or rationalist grounds AND he accepts the existence of a binding, existent moral code BECAUSE the moral code can no more be empirically or rationally justified than can the existence of God.

If the atheist disbelieves in God for reasons other than empircal or rational misgivings, the statement would probably not apply to him.

Well, I think the atheist position leads inevitably to the conclusion that human beings have no intrinsic value besides the value which we decide to give (or not give) to each other. I doubt many people here would dispute that. So, for instance, if Hitler decides to take human beings and turn them into lampshades, there was nothing wrong with what Hitler did. In fact, if Hitler made the decision to value a human life no more than that of a piece of plastic, then there is nothing more natural than making lampshades out of unwanted children. Here's the kicker: his choice to value a piece of plastic over children is as rationally sound as your decision to value children over a piece of plastic. Therefore if rationality (what can be justified formally by argument) is the ultimate arbiter of morality, no one can blame Hitler at all. You can make the arbitrary action of killing him because you disapprove of it, but you couldn't rationally show him why he was wrong for doing what he did. From a purely rational standpoint, Hitler was probably more right, because absent God, the hypothesis that a child has any objective value is patently absurd.

Now, could you be happy living in a world where children were made into lampshades? Because making children into lampshades is, rationally, perfectly consistent with atheism.

Fine, now all Quentin Smith has to do is prove moral realism is true. I wish him luck.

Otherwise, his asking me to simply believe in moral realism without justification is equivalent to me asking you to believe in God. If you can't do one honestly, you can't do the other.

luvluv

Mr. Lowder, that thread is kind of involved. Could you just cut and paste your strongest argument for it over here?

SRB

Luvluv
Maybe you could help us by making a formal argument in favor of any moral principle, and we'll see if it's sound.

SRB
I have noted three objectivist theories of morality that are compatible with atheism, which you have simply given no response to. What exactly do we need to “argue” for? We can simply provide a counterexample to your false contention that no such theories exist. There is no more required to demonstrate the falsity of your view.

Now suppose that instead no atheist here could think of an objective theory of morality that is compatible with atheism. Would it follow that no such theory exists, or that none could possibly exist? Of course not. You need to substantiate your claim that atheists who claim morality is objective are "inconsistent." To support that claim the onus is on YOU to demonstrate a formal inconsistency between the proposition "God does not exist" and the propositon "morality is objective." You have not even attempted to do that.

SRB

luvluv

SRB, you may have mentioned them but I don't remember them being explicitly argued. I am not familiar with them, so if you could make them plain we could debate them.

I probably don't have the background, personally, to construct such an argument, though I'm willing to do some thinking about it and give it a shot. (Though it won't be today).

Even with my meager understanding of philosophy (and spelling!) I'm reasonably sure that there is no moral system that can be rationally justified, because at some point you will have to give a premise to support your preference for your own existence or self-interests, and I don't see how that can be done without begging the question.

Valmorian

Value is subjective, so what is valuable to a being doesn't by definition make it valuable to everyone, just to that being. Whether that being is omniscient or not is irrelevant.

Either that, or of course you beg the question by assuming there is something that would be valued by everyone.

brighid

Perhaps, as has been suggested and by your own admission you should take some appropriate course, or dive deeply into the vast library here before attempting to debate or formulate an opinion based on a "lack of understanding." Understand that just because you are not currently capable of conceptualizing such a thing does not mean it has not already been thought of, argued, etc.

Brighid