Normal

In a materialistic worldview, there is no rational judgement of good beyond any particular subjective stance.

And I like how you colorfully refer to science as "atheistic".

Keith Russell

theophilus said:
"I am challenging the ability of a worldview based on materialist presuppositions to give a meaningful account of existence and human experience."

Theo, how are you using 'meaningful' in the above sentence? As an artist active in several on-line discussion forums (and moderator of three such forums), I often encounter discussions of 'meaning'.

Often, artists deny the existence of meaning only in works they don't like, enjoy, or understand. Rarely does an artist actually have a valid, non-contradictory, non-tautalogical definition of 'meaning'.

So, I'm very curious to hear what you would consider to be a 'meaningful account' of our existence, from any metaphysical and/or epistemological viewpoint.

Thanks,

K

Philosoft

Theisms suffer the same - calling the thing doing the judging "God" does not equal objectivity.
Science will be necessarily atheistic as long as theism insists that the supernatural can violate cause-and-effect.

Normal

From what I can tell, scripture is the basis for theists to judge others, and consensus is the basis for atheists to judge others.

If you lump pantheists, deists, etc. into the "atheist" monkier.

NonContradiction

I agree with you that chasing after moral absolutes, linked to an omnimax God (you didn't phrase it that way, but I think it's implied) has been a dog chasing his tail.

I don't agree with your statement here as it reads. It's quite logically possible to have an ultimate ground of morality which the mafia would not adhere to. I don't believe that an ultimate ground of morality can be disproven by the disapproval of someone like Ted Bundy or Charles Manson. Perhaps you mean something else by what you said.

I think that you may be on to something here, but I wouldn't use the word absolute. If a poor, homeless drunk, living on the street, were to espouse what he believes to be the ultimate ground for morality, I doubt very much that his word would carry any weight. Wealth, power and status does play a major role in determining a ground for morality. He who has the most marbles, generally, determines the rules that everybody else will play the game by.

Who has more power and status than God? The belief in God can serve as a great equalizer to the morality of a wealthy and powerful elite. However, unfortunately, this belief in God, all too often, becomes a tool of the elite to subjugate the masses, as has been demonstrated throughout history. It has truly been a remarkably clever manuver- something which can tremendously benefit people has suddenly been turned against them.

Philosoft

Don't you mean "interpretation of scripture is the basis for theists..."? I don't think you can escape a "consensus" this way.
As long as they don't postulate physical effects with immaterial causes.

ComestibleVenom

This kind of simplistic straw man makes a mockery of the morality of every decent human alive or dead. Humans are inevitably faced with the realities that moral thought and action effect.

Irrespective of one's stance on the status of invisible friends, there is a great deal of moral wisdom within human society, and a great deal of folly of which we must beware.

God makes no difference here as with so many areas of life. He is a philosophical flourish to give a cheap illusion of explanatory closure.

The scientific image is utterly barren of gods of arbitrarily large complexity and power. It always will be insofar as it remains scientific.

rainbow walking

Philosoft: Don't you mean "interpretation of scripture is the basis for theists..."? I don't think you can escape a "consensus" this way.


rw: :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Tyler Durden

The "forms of intuition," otherwise known as Kantian presuppositions trumps Van Til's sophistry any day of the week.

How else can a person conceive of a possible experience, such as reading a book, say, the Bible, without already conditioning the experience with certain presuppositions his mind brings to the table?

Otherwise, a person could conceive of late 20th century theology without any sensory input and a mental interpretation of the received data. This has never been the case.

HRG

And in a theistic worldview, there are additional subjective stances about what is good - one per alleged god. That X happens to be a god does not make X's opinion objective (= independent of any particular entity) or automatically rational.

Regards,
HRG.