Atheism

[createdtoworship]

The only reason this conversation is going in circles, is because I'm addressing your question, then you come back and ask the exact same question. What is it you're not getting?

We are empathic. We know we don't like to be inconvenienced, so we understand others don't want to be inconvenienced either.

We understand inconveniencing others, like cutting in line, will draw their annoyance or anger.

Most people feel some sense of embarrassment or guilt for cutting in line, we know by cutting in line, we are doing to someone else something we would find annoying. That makes us equate ourselves to the annoying jackass who cut in line in front of us last week. That's not a good feeling, so we avoid it.

We therefore understand the fair thing to do, is to go to the back of the line, like everyone else did.

C.S. Lewis on the matter:

Mere Christianity - The Law of Human Nature

EVERY ONE HAS HEARD people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kinds of things they say. They say things like this: "How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?"--‘That’s my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that some thing has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature," they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law--with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.

We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are color-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced! If they had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the color of their hair.

I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different civilizations and different ages have had quite different moralities.

But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Creeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to--whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put Yourself first. selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It’s not fair" before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties do not matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong--in other words, if there is no Law of Nature--what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, 1 apologize to them. They had much better read some other work, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money--the one you have almost forgotten-came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done--well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behavior to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it--and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much--we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so--that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

from

Mere Christianity - The Law of Human Nature

 

[Dave Ellis]

This is a premise Mr. Ellis and as such, the premise needs to be probably true in light of the evidence. Another way of putting this is that a good argument is a sound argument in which the premises are more plausible in light of the evidence than their opposites. You should compare the premise and its negation and believe whichever one is more plausibly true in light of the evidence. A good argument will be a sound argument whose premises are more plausible than their negations.

Ok, I don't necessarily disagree with your point.... but the problem again is that you haven't provided any evidence or reason to back your premise.

You even stated that "The premise needs to be probably true in light of the evidence".... Well, what is your evidence? Without providing any, I can't accept the premise as probably true. Likewise, if you don't possess any evidence, you are not justified in stating that premise in the first place.

Basically, all I'm asking is that you provide backing for your argument.

Let me see if I can make this clearer to you. What if there were a global economic meltdown and social turmoil ensued so that robbing people at gunpoint to get food became common place. Robbery would then be a social norm. Would such a norm be wrong? If it is not wrong, then you affirm situational ethics or as you put it "subjective" morality. Now the only question is: would you have anything to say if you were robbed at gunpoint while taking food home to your family?

That norm would be undesirable compared to what we have now, but put into that situation it's tough to call it wrong. If my survival, or my families survival depended on taking food from someone else by force, I would do it, and I wouldn't feel in the least bit sorry for it.

Likewise, if I was robbed of my food by someone else... I would obviously be angry about it, but on the other hand, I couldn't blame the robber for his actions if his survival depended upon it. Of course, that wouldn't stop me from trying to get my food back in a survival situation.

Luckily, we have progressed past that stage as a civilization and we don't have to deal with making those sorts of decisions.

This is where you misunderstand and therefore are not able to fully appreciate this argument. In logical argumentation, it is not necessary for a premise to be empirically proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt". Any philosopher professor will tell you this. It is a common mistake to think in these terms but it is incorrect. I have briefly given the qualifications of an acceptable premise. Please refer to them.

Right, but we're not debating philosophy, we're debating fact. And if you want to claim without a shadow of a doubt that your god exists.... then you require evidence that is demonstrable without a shadow of a doubt.

If you're merely putting forward the idea of a God that you think has sufficient evidence to back a belief in it.... then you're correct, you don't need evidence without a shadow of a doubt, but you do need strong, compelling, demonstrable evidence

The problem is, so far you haven't provided any evidence at all.... so hopefully in your next post you will be able to.

 

[createdtoworship]

While writing is an important invention, it's not the only way people can communicate.

the point is that they are unknowable by learning, you innately know them by intuition.

 

[createdtoworship]

I still haven´t understood what leads you to the conclusion that feelings common to all or most people point to there being "laws out there". Your line of reasoning strikes me as circular.

Because inconveniences are, well, inconvenient, (and "inconvenience" is defined by its undesirability). Not sure why this requires any further explanation.

In order to make this a worthwhile question, you would first have to establish that these are "unwritten laws". In your posts, your previous premises appear later as your conclusions, and vice versa.

see post 882, I am repeating things from yesterday.

 

[createdtoworship]

Don't let gradyll take a poop all over this thread... He's one of the type you'll never reach so don't try.

I'd like to hear more from Elioenai26.

poops ahoy!

 

[createdtoworship]

Not everybody follows these "natural laws" or these "unwritten rules".

Plus, they don't cover all walks of life.

Now you just assert "objective" and "Holy".

Actually, that was rather subjective

the point is we have empathy for others, but why? Why not treat other people as we WANT to treat them instead of treating others as they treated us.

I mean at a red light isn't it a natural law that someone doesn't just blare through the light and go the wrong way on a one way, then crash into someones living room? No people don't do that unless they are

1) mentally ill
2) under the influence
3) suicidal which could be considered #1

so why not?

Why don't people do that in their full faculties and giggle at the outcome?

because of the natural law.

 

[quatona]

see post 882, I am repeating things from yesterday.

Sorry, but I am writing my posts myself, and I am expecting the same from my conversation partners. I am not willing to address a copy/past wall of text. I hope you will understand this.
Whenever you are willing and ready to answer my questions, I will be all ears.

 

[Elioenai26]

Unfortunately, most of Dr Craig's work, including Kalam has been debunked over and over again. I have no doubt he's highly educated, however, he is also wrong in his beliefs.

This is your opinion, and as such you are entitled to it.

No, it wasn't objectively wrong.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, It was wrong... but it's not wrong because of some mystical universal law, it's wrong because it violates the values commonly held by most people.

On one hand you say that the Holocaust was not wrong. On the other hand you say that it was. I also observe that you are appealing to values. May I ask you where these values that "most" people have come from?

The appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy... Just because many people hold a view, does not make that view correct. Following the same argument, it's possible that a minority of people actually are factually correct versus the majority in their opinions.

I have said this several times. I completely agree.

 

[createdtoworship]

Sorry, but I am writing my posts myself, and I am expecting the same from my conversation partners. I am not willing to address a copy/past wall of text. I hope you will understand this.
Whenever you are willing and ready to answer my questions, I will be all ears.

just to get you up to par

 

[quatona]

the point is we have empathy for others, but why? Why not treat other people as we WANT to treat them instead of treating others as they treated us.

I am confused by this question. I am treating other people as I WANT to treat them. At no point I am driven by the intent to treat them as they treated me.

I mean at a red light isn't it a natural law that someone doesn't just blare through the light and go the wrong way on a one way, then crash into someones living room?

This appears to be a poorly picked example, because not crashing your car into a house is likely to be coming with a lot of inconveniences (to put it mildly) for yourself.

No people don't do that unless they are

1) mentally ill
2) under the influence
3) suicidal which could be considered #1

Sorry, but this prompts me to come back to a previous question of mine:
On the one hand you support your idea of a "moral natural law" by the fact that there are some things that (sane) people don´t do anyway.
On the other hand: If people don´t do it anyway - what´s the significance of the "natural law"?

Why don't people do that in their full faculties and giggle at the outcome?

Well, in other instances you used the very example of people doing exactly this (e.g. torturing children and giggling), and concluded that they were violating "natural law".

 

[Dave Ellis]

C.S. Lewis on the matter:

Mere Christianity - The Law of Human Nature

EVERY ONE HAS HEARD people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kinds of things they say. They say things like this: "How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?"--‘That’s my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that some thing has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature," they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law--with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.

We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are color-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced! If they had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the color of their hair.

I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different civilizations and different ages have had quite different moralities.

But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Creeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to--whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put Yourself first. selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It’s not fair" before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties do not matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong--in other words, if there is no Law of Nature--what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, 1 apologize to them. They had much better read some other work, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money--the one you have almost forgotten-came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done--well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behavior to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it--and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much--we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so--that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

from

Mere Christianity - The Law of Human Nature

His conclusions are hogwash.

There is no "Law of Human Nature" in the same way that a Physical Law works. Physical laws can not be violated, his presumed law of human nature can and is constantly.

Again, he has merely asserted a concept of a law of human nature, but does not demonstrate how he knows it exists... or where it came from. He has no evidence to back his claim.

I stated in a previous post that just because many people across many cultures have fairly similar moral viewpoints, is no evidence to show that there is a universal set of moral values.

The human mind works generally the same for everyone, and therefore our views on morality could be expected to have some major similarities, as we all feel some degree of empathy.

CS Lewis was a great author, but his line of reasoning here is unsound. He did not demonstrate that a law of human nature exists, he merely put it forward as an idea to explain our commonly held morals, then asserted it as truth. That is not compelling at all.

 

[Elioenai26]

Ok, I don't necessarily disagree with your point.... but the problem again is that you haven't provided any evidence or reason to back your premise.

You even stated that "The premise needs to be probably true in light of the evidence".... Well, what is your evidence? Without providing any, I can't accept the premise as probably true. Likewise, if you don't possess any evidence, you are not justified in stating that premise in the first place.

Basically, all I'm asking is that you provide backing for your argument.

The backing is the existence of objective moral values that we all recognize and adhere to and believe in. Moral values that we all live by and expect others to live by. If objective moral values exist that are based outside of ourselves as opposed to subjective morals which depend on us, our situation, our culture, and our preferences, then it logically follows that theism is the more plausible worldview than atheism. The reason for this deduction is that atheism provides no allowance for these values. Subjective morals change, can become contradictory, and might differ from person to person. Objective moral values do not.

Think about it, in atheism, there is no moral right and wrong. There is no moral "should and shouldn't”. Why? Because when you remove God, you remove the standard by which objective moral truth is established. In atheism morality is up for grabs.

The values expressed such as: do not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness, etc are binding upon all and they don’t change depending on your opinion, your situation, or your personal preferences. Therefore it is always wrong to lie, to steal, to commit adultery, to rape, to murder etc. Under the atheistic view, morality is formed in a subjective manner, i.e "whats good for you might not be good for me", or "what is wrong for you might not be wrong for me" etc.

If one were to take this ideology at face value and follow it to its logical conclusion, you would be witness to what Friedrich Nietzsche speaks of when he says:
"When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole. It stands or falls with faith in God."

That norm would be undesirable compared to what we have now, but put into that situation it's tough to call it wrong. If my survival, or my families survival depended on taking food from someone else by force, I would do it, and I wouldn't feel in the least bit sorry for it.

Likewise, if I was robbed of my food by someone else... I would obviously be angry about it, but on the other hand, I couldn't blame the robber for his actions if his survival depended upon it. Of course, that wouldn't stop me from trying to get my food back in a survival situation.

The question remains unanswered: "why would you obviously be angry?"

Right, but we're not debating philosophy, we're debating fact. And if you want to claim without a shadow of a doubt that your god exists.... then you require evidence that is demonstrable without a shadow of a doubt.

Truth is oftentimes arrived at by utilizing several different disciplines that humans have at their disposal. Philosophy is one of them and is indespensible to the discussion at hand.

 

[Gadarene]

The irony is William Lane Craig doesn't think genocide is objectively wrong, given his frequent genocide apologias for the god he believes in.

 

[Elioenai26]

2 is a statement that is (as countless threads here demonstrate) very much in dispute. Personally, I don´t think that objective moral values and duties do exist. "Objective morality" is an oxymoron, in my opinion.

I think you do believe they exist quatona. May I respectfully ask you a question? Is child abuse permissable?

If your premises ignore and/or violate the very positions of those persons you are trying to convince (and, on top, are lacking any substantiation), your argument is likely to be downright rejected. The fact that your conclusion (3) may logically follow from your premises does not affect this problem.

My aim here must be clearly understood. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am simply stating in quite simple terms why I believe that theism is the more plausible explanatory system with regards to the origin of life and the universe as opposed to atheism.

If people would generally believe both premises we wouldn´t have these discussions.

The most prominent atheistic minds of today do generally agree with premises one. There is some divergence and differing views on premise two. I encourage you whenever you are able, to read some of the works written by atheists to understand more clearly what they are claiming.

 

[Dave Ellis]

the point is we have empathy for others, but why? Why not treat other people as we WANT to treat them instead of treating others as they treated us.

I mean at a red light isn't it a natural law that someone doesn't just blare through the light and go the wrong way on a one way, then crash into someones living room? No people don't do that unless they are

1) mentally ill
2) under the influence
3) suicidal which could be considered #1

so why not?

Why don't people do that in their full faculties and giggle at the outcome?

because of the natural law.

No....

We do treat people as we want to treat them. Most people want to treat others as we would want to be treated, as that's how our minds generally work.

Without that line of thought, we would not be considered social animals. Without that social aspect to our culture, we would have never banded together in tribes, and never founded civilization. We'd still be going it alone in some African jungle... that's assuming we wouldn't have gone extinct in the meantime.

We are stronger working together, than working by ourselves.... That is an major evolutionary advantage. People inclined to work together, are more likely to survive than people who are anti-social in a pre-civilization setting.

It makes full sense why that empathy, and sense of fellowship is bred into us, that's just how we think, because our survival as a race likely depended upon it at one time, and to some extent still depends on it today.

 

[createdtoworship]

I am confused by this question. I am treating other people as I WANT to treat them. At no point I am driven by the intent to treat them as they treated me.

then this conversation is not for you. (possibly an abnormality of selfish behaviour)

 

[Elioenai26]

The irony is William Lane Craig doesn't think genocide is objectively wrong, given his frequent genocide apologias for the god he believes in.

Interesting, but this hardly has any bearing on our discussion about theism and atheism. In fact it will only serve to distract from our main line of argumentation. You are making assertions about what a man believes in with regards to the God he follows. His specific theological views have no bearing here, especially if you do not adhere to the belief in God to begin with. William Lane Craig himself has no bearing on this discussion. This argument from morality has existed way before he was born and will exist long after he dies.

 

[createdtoworship]

Again, he has merely asserted a concept of a law of human nature, but does not demonstrate how he knows it exists... or where it came from. He has no evidence to back his claim.

the natural law is spiritual in nature not a physical law, it's in the mind and understood only by intuition.

I stated in a previous post that just because many people across many cultures have fairly similar moral viewpoints, is no evidence to show that there is a universal set of moral values.

see post 821

The human mind works generally the same for everyone, and therefore our views on morality could be expected to have some major similarities, as we all feel some degree of empathy.

even though the mind works the same, we have empathy for a reason. What is that reason?

 

[Dave Ellis]

This is your opinion, and as such you are entitled to it.

Sure... however I can back my opinion with demonstrable fact... The logical flaws in Dr Craig's work are easy to point out.

You also have the right to believe what you want, however if you believe something that has been demonstrated as logically unsound.... You are by definition holding an irrational belief.

On one hand you say that the Holocaust was not wrong. On the other hand you say that it was. I also observe that you are appealing to values. May I ask you where these values that "most" people have come from?

I never said the holocaust was not wrong. I was saying it was wrong because we subjectively believe it to be wrong based on our own morals and ethics, and not because of an objective universal moral code.

I have said this several times. I completely agree.

Good to know

 

[Gadarene]

Interesting, but this hardly has any bearing on our discussion about theism and atheism. In fact it will only serve to distract from our main line of argumentation. You are making assertions about what a man believes in with regards to the God he follows. His specific theological views have no bearing here, especially if you do not adhere to the belief in God. William Lane Craig himself has no bearing on this discussion. This argument from morality has existed way before he was born and will exist long after he dies.

No, it is absolutely relevant when it comes to his argument about whether a particular genocide is wrong. If it shows he is being profoundly inconsistent when it comes to other genocides, it is very relevant.

I'd wager it's generally held that wiping out a civilisation regardless of which civilisation it is is wrong, but Craig will argue in favour of the genocide of the Amalekites and against the genocide of the Israelites because that's what the belief system he's already emotionally invested in dictates.

But you're right - it doesn't matter per se what Craig believes. You're positing the argument, so hopefully you will not be prone to such inconsistency and will consider both genocides to be equally wrong.