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I have no doubt that some people will think certain things constitute justification -- but the purpose of the debate is to persuade the audience of that position. I had hoped to have a debate with someone who was interested in the topic and wanted to have an actual discussion about it, not a...

My grief with that concern is that "justification" is not something that can be defined in the same way that "god" can be defined. I laid out what I mean by "god," and anything that meets that criteria is sufficient for me to call "god." However, justification doesn't work like that. Any...

"Obeying" one's conscience is not like obeying a cult leader. Am I also cultish for obeying my body's desire to eat food or drink water? Because I would still be unhappy due to guilt. If I raped a person, I wouldn't be happy that I had sex. I would feel terrible. We can't control our...

How do we know that these people are believers?

A conscience isn't a construct. It isn't a conscious choice anymore than having dopamine released by your brain when you eat food is a conscious choice. Also, you are making a crucial mistake: You keep confusing the explanation of why people act with ideas about how they should act. As I...

That, folks, is irony! Didn't you just call me ignorant a few posts ago? And aren't you insulting the other poster with this very comment?

This is consistent with the evolutionary morality narrative. The primary commitment produced by evolution is to in-group people, because those are the most essential to our survival. I don't see the rub here. Because that would violate the conscience of too many voters. I've already...

So Christians can do no wrong, so long as they don't feel guilty? This is a bizarre argument.

You aren't making a philosophical argument, though -- that's the problem. You are making a biological argument that isn't actually based on science. It is a neurological fact that humans have portions of their brain that are active during moral deliberations that other mammals do not have...

You listed one culture that practices cannibalism (present tense, which is what your original claim was). That is supposed to be evidence that evolution didn't produce morality? You can't be serious. I also don't appreciate being called ignorant. You have also mischaracterized my claim...

I guess I missed it -- where did he support the adultery? Is going to a party hosted by someone supporting their way of life?

The fact that god created those things seems irrelevant. As an above poster mentioned, if god created everything in the world, and is in all places, then literally any activity by any person could be justified by "Well, god created it and he was there."

I didn't say anything of the sort. I may have implied that, if my brain were wired that way, I would want to. But I never implied that the way my brain is wired gives me a "should." You are again trying to derive an "ought" from an "is." I do enjoy sex, I do enjoy money and I might enjoy...

I disagree -- I do think that those beliefs alone would cause a person to board a plane. If you take those beliefs away, they are certainly not getting on that plane. The relationship between belief and action is complex, and more than one philosopher (Jason Stanley and John Hawthorne are two)...

It is not a necessary fact that animals had to be conscious or that evolution had to go the way it did. It is very easy to imagine a world in which all animals are vegans or only humans are conscious.

There are several problems with your argument. First, you are making the classic mistake of trying to derive an "ought" from an "is." Simply because nature exhibits certain behaviors, and evolution values certain behaviors, does not mean we "ought" to do those behaviors. That is an...

She already knew all of the words. She didn't learn anything new about communication. We can also imagine that she knew she was walking into a red room because she knew the wavelength of light being reflected in the room before she entered, so she knew it was going to be "red."

Yes, possibly. There are probably some definitions for each of those words that would make that phrase analytic. It is like saying "What is good for us is good for us, and is therefore good for us."

She's learned what it is like to see red. She can now meaningfully say "Seeing red is like that."

But she knows the effect of seeing red on the brain, and therefore she would know that seeing an entirely red room was like seeing a room that was 99% red. She would know that it was unlike seeing an entirely black room. So, even from the black and white room, Martha could say "Seeing red is...