Ensign Steve

How cute! I like it. I have a mental image of one of those naked troll dolls like Mimi collects on Drew Carey.

I knew he was a troll when I read the "first coz" thread, but I figured I'd give this lame post a semi-respectable answer just in case any newbie lurkers actually thought atheists were faced with the OP's moral trilemma.

Non-praying Mantis

Hey pudgyfarmer!

Strawmen are only good fer keepin' crows offn the corn!

Seriously, there is no objective morality. We, as humans, decide what is right and wrong, but we generally decide that as a group. One individual only decides what is right and wrong if that individual is the dictator in an absolute dictatorship. Society decides what is right and wrong, and we have to either fit into that society, or have ways to change what is determined to be right and wrong, or leave that society.

NPM

MollyMac

Dear pudgy

You said this:
But did you perhaps mean this?

"I'll write a load of rubbish then disappear"

Ensign Steve

I'm with Molly. Your challenge has been accepted! You weren't bluffing, were you?

Quote:

Please respond. Thank you!

You're welcome. Your turn!

pudgyfarmer

Thank you for all the responses. My reply is only for Ensign Steve, for every body else is using the “ad hominem” logical fallacy. First of all in order to be a moral objectivist you must first believe in God. If you deny God and rely only on your own thought process to create objective morality, then it can not be objective, for it would only apply to you, and how dare you force your views on me. I on the other hand received my objective mortality from God, so it is not just out of my own head.

“Theism and morality actually have very little to do with each other.”

On the issue of theism and morality, they have every thing in the world to do with each other, in fact without God, there is no morality, for God is the one who set the standard for morality, since it didn’t come out of someone’s head.

“With this theory, using your example, murder would become moral if god made it so. The god of the bible encourages a lot of behaviors that are generally considered to be immoral, like slavery.”

Yes, if God chose to make murder right, then it would be right since his will is Sovereign. He can do what he wants. But murder would never become right, because God never changes. Mal 3:6 says, “For I, Jehovah, change not.” This explains why morality is objective. God does not change, neither does morality.

“With this theory, using your example, murder would become moral if god made it so. The god of the bible encourages a lot of behaviors that are generally considered to be immoral, like slavery”

And, on the last issue, we do not choose God, God chooses us. So, it is not a moral choice.

Thank you.

Felstorm

Au contrare mon ami.

Fundamentalists are fond of saying that humanist morality isn't "universal". They argue that we humans cannot distinguish right from wrong without divine guidance, so humanist ethics are essentially a rudderless ship, with each person defining his own version of morality to suit his convenience. The problems with this argument (apart from its bigoted attitude) are easy to see, because they fail to ask the obvious question: to paraphrase Socrates, is something righteous because the gods deem it so, or do the gods deem it so because it is righteous?


I like YHYVH bloodgod. He likes to tell people not to kill, Command #6, and then tells Moses and Joshua to go kill man, woman, child and beast of the Caananites. Rather interesting morality your god has. It seems entirely subjective to mankind. I mean god condones slavery, but Abraham Lincoln ended all that. So who was right? God or "Honest" Abe. I think millions of colored people around the world can thank him for starting the demise of slave labor in the world. And not a single word from this omni-benevolent god.

And you assume that only your god exists. What about the rest? I think Horus and Marduk would be a bit ticked off to learn that you are following the wrong divinely inspired morality. I mean what will happen to you if you got it all wrong and you have to answer to an angry six-armed god wiedling scimitars?

Or is it you saying that god choses us. Its funny how "god" always speaks with the voice of man, and is written with the pen of man, and held in the books of man.

Your welcome.

Nowhere357

I accept your challenge.

Incorrect. At this point, you have no idea what my beliefs are. You do, however, know one of my non-beliefs. Also, You've commited the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. You must demonstrate that in fact there are only these three alternatives.

Wrong again. Here you commit the non-sequitur of inconsistency. You are saying that if there is no objective morality, that is false, because there is objective morality!

Wrong. Non-sequitur. Inconsistent. Because the murderer didn't follow the standard, is not evidence for the non-existence of that standard.

Wrong, due to inconsistency. If morals are defined as "the best interest of the majority", and the majority says murder is fine, then murder is moral - BY DEFINITION. There is no "ad populum" fallacy, for the same reason.

Wrong. You have made at least five critical errors, and have made no supportable statements. Even the idea that there is an "atheist worldview" is debatable.

I don't know what your agenda is. Perhaps a better approach would be to ask freethinkers, how DO they form their moral opinions?

Dr. Retard

(edited by moderator)

An insult is not the same thing as the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. (edited by moderator)

Now, you're neglecting the fact that if a system of behavioral codes has nothing more to it, but that someone endorses it, then it's subjective. If I endorse a system, that endorsement doesn't make it objective. If God endorses a system, that endorsement doesn't make it objective; it's just subjectivism 'writ large'. An objective morality has to be worth endorsing, and the mere fact that someone happens to actually endorse it doesn't do the trick.

So, you're welcome to define "objective morality" as "morality whose standard has been 'set' by God" (whatever it means for a spirit to 'set' a standard), and then claim that atheists cannot have objective morality without God, that theism and morality then have everything to do with each other. But you only get these conclusions with an artificial and tendentious conception of objective morality. Which means your 'arguments' are nothing more than question-begging word-games.

MollyMac

Interesting choice of gratuitous insult.

Pudgy, Ensign Steve wrote this:
And you responded with this:
You have completely by-passed her point. Your argument seems to be this: (1) God exists (2) What He says goes (3) I believe this, therefore I am a moral objectivist and you're not, so there!

Must try harder.

Tabula_rasa

Minor pedantry, Felstorm.
The 1815 Congress of Vienna condemned slavery in Europe. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclomation came in 1862. America is not the leader in everything pure.

Tabula_rasa