Atheism and nihilism

Eight Foot Manchild · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
So you didn't understand how in God just being naturally good and nothing else that he does not choose morality nor command it.

It's not a matter of not understanding the assertion. It's a matter of not granting that it's a way around the dilemma. Any reason you appeal to will always collapse down to the same question.

stevevw said:
Instead, God wills something because "He is good".

If Yahweh is strictly identical to the concept of "good", then that would indeed be a way avoid the dilemma.

It would also render him completely superfluous as a concept, since we already have a word for "good". It's called "good".

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

Eight Foot Manchild said:
It's not a matter of not understanding the assertion. It's a matter of not granting that it's a way around the dilemma. Any reason you appeal to will always collapse down to the same question.

It will only collapse down to the same question if God had to make a choice or will what is morally best. But due to His moral nature, He doesn't need to choose what is right when it comes to good. He just is good and that radiates from him. Like the sun radiates warmth and doesn't need to choose to be warm. It just is by nature. You're making a false dilemma and trying to apply the Eurphoro problem to a being who doesn't need to choose morality arbitrarily.

If Yahweh is strictly identical to the concept of "good", then that would indeed be a way avoid the dilemma.

He is not identical to good. He is good. This avoids the dilemma as explained above. He hasn't decided to be good, chosen good as opposed to something else, He is the logos of good.

It would also render him completely superfluous as a concept, since we already have a word for "good". It's called "good".

Yes that is the word we use. For God, it is not a word but a state of being that has always been. There is no evil, and as part of His nature, He is also all-knowing so that His nature is worthy of upholding what is good and being the judge of good.

Moral Orel · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
It isn't that God wills something because it is good. Nor is it that something is good because God wills it. Instead, God wills something because "He is good".

The question isn't "Why does God will something?" The question is "Why is something good?"

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

Moral Orel said:
The question isn't "Why does God will something?" The question is "Why is something good?"

Yes and something is good not because God wills it but because God is good by nature. He does not need to will any good or command any good as God is good and goodness flows and radiates from him to us.

KCfromNC · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
OK feelings such as pain and pleasure cannot equate to right and wrong morally because well their feelings and feelings are not a matter of morals. The same with likes and dislikes. They are about tastes and preferences rather than moral behavior. No one can be held morally accountable for disliking something or feeling pleasure or pain. What can be determined as pain or pleasure could be a number of things including what many people would think was immoral?

Huh?

So if subjective morality is only about an individual "likes and dislikes' or feelings which is not really equated to morality as explained above then where is the morality. How can it be grounded for there to be morality?

By having the morality grounded in subjective opinions of people, obviously.

What claim do you say I am making without any basis.

The one I quoted.

Then where are morals grounded beyond the person themselves.

Why would they have to be?

So if there is no source for morality beyond humans then how can people make truth claims about morality beyond themselves.

Do they?

KCfromNC · Jun 28, 2020

Strathos said:
We have a job here on earth.

Sounds finite and therefore worthless. Plus not sure why it would matter - if you have a job then you'll be able to earn more finite, worthless money after you send what money you do have to me.

Kylie · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
It will only collapse down to the same question if God had to make a choice or will what is morally best. But due to His moral nature, He doesn't need to choose what is right when it comes to good. He just is good and that radiates from him. Like the sun radiates warmth and doesn't need to choose to be warm. It just is by nature. You're making a false dilemma and trying to apply the Eurphoro problem to a being who doesn't need to choose morality arbitrarily.

He is not identical to good. He is good. This avoids the dilemma as explained above. He hasn't decided to be good, chosen good as opposed to something else, He is the logos of good.

Yes that is the word we use. For God, it is not a word but a state of being that has always been. There is no evil, and as part of His nature, He is also all-knowing so that His nature is worthy of upholding what is good and being the judge of good.

So if God does X, then X is automatically good, no matter what it is?

Or does God only do things from the set of things that are "good"?

2PhiloVoid · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
Yes and something is good not because God wills it but because God is good by nature. He does not need to will any good or command any good as God is good and goodness flows and radiates from him to us.

There is a problem in all of this, Steve, but I'm not sure that that average atheist here has the imagination or the motivation to understand the essential problem with and in the Euthyphro Dilemma.

So, it's probably best just to bow out of this because they have their hearts set upon what they have their hearts set upon and reason doesn't really come into the picture for them on this ontological and axiological issue.

Just a word to the wise, Steve.

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

2PhiloVoid said:
There is a problem here in all of this, Steve, but I'm not sure that that average atheist here has the imagination or the motivation to understand the essential problem with and in the Euthyphro Dilemma.

So, it's probably best just to bow out of this because they have their hearts set upon what they have their hearts set upon and reason doesn't really come into the picture for them on this ontological and axiological issue.

Just a word to the wise, Steve.

Speaking of wisdom.

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

KCfromNC said:
Huh?

?

By having the morality grounded in subjective opinions of people, obviously.

You cannot ground morality in subjectivity as it is always changing. What would be determined as a grounding for what is right one minute would change the next. Therefore there is no grounding.

The one I quoted.

You mean this one
Yet an atheist will claim they are making moral judgments and I don't doubt they are.
Surely you don't think that atheists cannot make moral judgments.

Why would they have to be?

Because if a person is making a "truth" claim about morality then using personal opinion is not very supportive and convincing. If there is no independent grounding then people could claim all sorts of things with a good argument.

Do they?

Of course, they do. When they claim God does horrible acts in the Old Testament for example. Or when they appeal to certain moral values in arguments with others and expect people to abide by that.

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

Kylie said:
So if God does X, then X is automatically good, no matter what it is?
Or does God only do things from the set of things that are "good"?

No God does not choose a good moral and that makes it good or chooses to do a good because it is good. He is good. His nature is good. He is the logos of good and what Plato calls "the good". He doesn't choose anything because He is all good and good flows from Him. It is a well-known argument against the Euthyphro Dilemma made by several philosophers.

Responses to the Euthyphro Dilemma
https://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/#H3

Euthyphro non sequitur
Plato himself saw the solution to this objection: you split the horns of the dilemma by formulating a third alternative, namely, God is the Good. The Good is the moral nature of God himself. That is to say, God is necessarily holy, loving, kind, just, and so on, and these attributes of God comprise the Good. God’s moral character expresses itself towards us in the form of certain commandments, which become for us our moral duties. Hence God’s commandments are not arbitrary, but necessarily flow from his own nature.[56]

This understanding of the relationship between God and Goodness, which side-steps the Euthyphro dilemma, is called ‘essentialism’ (because it sees Goodness as part of God’s ontological essence).
Can Moral Objectivism Do Without God?

Eight Foot Manchild · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
It will only collapse down to the same question if God had to make a choice or will what is morally best.

Not quite. That's only half of it - the horn of arbitrariness.

The other horn - the one you've been impaling yourself on - is the horn of independent standard.

Case in point:

stevevw said:
Like the sun radiates warmth and doesn't need to choose to be warm.

Warmth is a concept that exists independent of the sun. "Warm" is just one of the things the sun is, and other things would still be warm if our sun didn't exist.

So, carrying that analogy through to Yahweh, "good" is just a thing that Yahweh is, existing independent of him.

stevevw said:
He is not identical to good. He is good. This avoids the dilemma as explained above.

No, as explained above, it very much does not.

stevevw said:
Yes that is the word we use.

I'd prefer to just use the word "good" on its own, and not needlessly shoehorn supernatural entities into the equation.

stevevw said:
Why is that so hard to understand, it is a well-known argument against the Euthyphro Dilemma.

It sure is. It also fails.

Eight Foot Manchild · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
You cannot ground morality in subjectivity as it is always changing.

I wouldn't argue that it's grounded in subjectivity. Harm and wellbeing are objectively quantifiable.

As to whether someone values that objective standard, that is necessarily going to be a subjective matter, and appealing to Yahweh will not magically make it objective. "Objective value" is an oxymoron. You cannot bridge the is/ought gap without invoking an "if" clause.

This is why I say Yahweh is irrelevant to my moral philosophy.

In a universe where Yahweh doesn't exist, I would value reducing harm and increasing wellbeing.

In a universe where Yahweh exists, and values reducing harm and increasing wellbeing, I would value reducing harm and increasing wellbeing.

In a universe where Yahweh exists, and values increasing harm and reducing wellbeing, I would value reducing harm and increasing wellbeing.

durangodawood · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
God is by nature all good. God’s moral nature is what Plato called the “Good.” He is the locus and source of moral value. Goodness flows from Him to us and therefore there is no command to do good. It is like a sun that has the right amount of heat to warm us. Warmth naturally flows from it to us so God cannot by nature be nihilistic.

But how are you grounding wisdom? What basis are you using to say that wisdom is of any value. What basis are you using to say that conditions that make life satisfying are morally good? Who said having a satisfying life is morally good. These are all human views about what is good in that they are determining certain values as being right or wrong. Yet those values have no independent grounding.

Even if you use science to objectify satisfaction or wellbeing, there is still no independent reason why satisfaction or wellbeing is right as a moral value. It is only a preference or like that humans have decided as opposed to other preferences. This does not equate to morality and therefore it is still nihilistic as far as moral values are concerned because these qualities that people are appealing to don't really exist morally but rather are preferences.

But the fact that humans believe that there are moral values and there is no nihilism morally and try to ground them by using different ideas shows that they intuitively know that moral values are real. Because they cannot account for them independently from themselves and believe they are real points to moral values coming from beyond humans. What people appeal to with morality being subjective may actually be appealing to objective moral values.

A satisfying life is what we naturally value.
The behaviors that enable a satisfying life we call morally good.

Natural values arent good or bad in themselves. They are simply facts of being human in the world. Moral goods are behaviors that move us toward living out those values. Moral bads are what alienate us from fulfilling those values. Thats the basic formula for morality as I see it. There's no appeal to an arbitrary definition of the good, or to an inaccessible realm.

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

Eight Foot Manchild said:
Not quite. That's only half of it - the horn of arbitrariness.

The other horn - the one you've been impaling yourself on - is the horn of independent standard.

Case in point:

Warmth is a concept that exists independent of the sun. "Warm" is just one of the things the sun is, and other things would still be warm if our sun didn't exist.

So, carrying that analogy through to Yahweh, "good" is just a thing that Yahweh is, existing independent of him.

No, as explained above, it very much does not.

Yeah, I was trying to think of an example that could reflect what I was saying but I sort of knew it was not a good one. Even the fact the sun is not warm but it is actually really hot didn't work. But I would refer you to the links I posted earlier to Kylie as they address the arbitrariness of the Euthyphro dilemma. If God is good, good by nature then he is not choosing any specific good over another as He is the good, and goodness radiates from Him to us.

Euthyphro non sequitur
Plato himself saw the solution to this objection: you split the horns of the dilemma by formulating a third alternative, namely, God is the Good. The Good is the moral nature of God himself. That is to say, God is necessarily holy, loving, kind, just, and so on, and these attributes of God comprise the Good. God’s moral character expresses itself towards us in the form of certain commandments, which become for us our moral duties. Hence God’s commandments are not arbitrary but necessarily flow from his own nature.[56]

This understanding of the relationship between God and Goodness, which side-steps the Euthyphro dilemma, is called ‘essentialism’ (because it sees Goodness as part of God’s ontological essence).
Can Moral Objectivism Do Without God?

Divine Command Theory
goodness is rooted not in commands but in the unchanging goodness of God’s nature. This means of course that morality ceases to be arbitrary since God’s nature is always good and would consequently never make commands that were not consistent with His goodness.
Divine Command Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I'd prefer to just use the word "good" on its own, and not needlessly shoehorn supernatural entities into the equation.

The problem is how do you ground good. The other issue as far as the Euthyphro dilemma also mentioned by Alston is

DON’T TREAT GOD LIKE A HUMAN BEING
Others have pointed out that The Euthyphro Dilemma is based on not making important distinctions between human beings and God and that it is inappropriate to talk of God as if he were just another human being in the universe whose behavior can be understood, assessed and judged in the same sort of way. The argument is that God (who is Spirit) is radically different from human beings and that His behavior must be assessed differently.

For example, human beings experience a distinction between what is the case (how we are as human beings) and what ought to be the case (how we ought to be as human beings) and this, in turn, leads (if you are a theist) to an experience of obligation to obey moral commands in order to bridge the gap. Now with God, there is no such distinction between what is the case (what He/She is as God) and what ought to be the case (what He/She ought to be as God) and that’s because God is perfectly good. And so God (unlike human beings) doesn’t experience any sort of obligation to obey commands in order to bridge a gap.
William Alston - sparks in the classroom

It sure is. It also fails.

So the argument to account for the Euthyphro dilemma is made by several ethicists including Phillip Quinn, Quinn, Philip 2001. „„Divine Command Theory, ‟‟ in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 53–73. William Wainwright, Wainwright, William 2005. Religion and Morality. Aldershot: Ashgate and William Alston who is one of America's prominent philosophers. I think it is safe to say that they know what they are talking about than you or I.

stevevw · Jun 28, 2020

durangodawood said:
A satisfying life is what we naturally value.
The behaviors that enable a satisfying life we call morally good.

A pedophile would say abusing kids makes for a satisfying life. The problem is satisfying is arbitrary and different people have a different view as to what makes life satisfying.

Natural values aren't good or bad in themselves. They are simply facts of being human in the world.

But saying something is a fact makes it a fact in itself.

Moral goods are behaviors that move us toward living out those values. Moral bads are what alienate us from fulfilling those values. That's the basic formula for morality as I see it. There's no appeal to an arbitrary definition of the good, or to an inaccessible realm.

That seems a contradiction as you when you said that's the way I see things you are implying that other people see things differently. Therefore that makes things arbitrary.

durangodawood · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
A pedophile would say abusing kids makes for a satisfying life. The problem is satisfying is arbitrary and different people have a different view as to what makes life satisfying.

But saying something is a fact makes it a fact in itself. That seems a contradiction as you when you said that's the way I see things you are implying that other people see things differently. Therefore that makes things arbitrary.

Some extreme outliers like the pedophile do not negate the typical fact. There's nothing arbitrary about typical facts of human living. The basis for them can be examined and explained. Also, the pedo introduces so much suffering into society that everyone's access to a satisfying life becomes somewhat threatened. This isnt arbitrary either.

The wise observe and record what behaviors advance or hinder satisfaction for the typical human. The Bible is an excellent example of this....and of how moral good has evolved to suit changing social circumstances.

Ken-1122 · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
So what about the eyewitnesses who were themselves the ones who experienced the events or that there were other witnesses apart from those in the events written. How do we know there could have been another witness in the garden at the time who is not mentioned or that Jesus didn't explain what He was doing himself. How do we know that Nicodemus didn't tell someone else what had happened? You are making assumptions. The person who is writing the events is not concerned about explaining how he knows what he is writing about because they are not thinking they prove things.

Then don’t claim the event was written by an eyewitness.

stevevw said:
So you've answered the reason why yourself. Obviously there was a lot invested on Islam to show that these two crucial events didn't happen. In a court of law that would be known as motives for doing what they did. But let's keep things in perspective here. We are talking about two lots of writing. One from eyewitnesses written around the time of the event and one written 600 years later by someone who claimed these things without any witnesses or witnessing the actual events.

Again; who is this eyewitness who wrote of Jesus?

stevevw said:
And yet we celebrate Christs birth and death and use this for measuring our timeline through history. Actually claims about Halle Selassie's divine status are based on the same Bible that Christ is the promised Messiah. So if you want give Halle Selassie his status then it is only fair to do the same with Christ's status as the son of God and Messiah.

Remember who you’re talking to; I don’t believe the claims of Jesus nor the claims of Selassie, I’m pointing out that just because somebody claims a miracle, doesn’t mean it actually happened; if you can dismiss somebody else's miracle claim, I can dismiss yours.

stevevw said:
Yet these movements died out and are seen for what they are actually mad and deluded people. Funny how they all claimed to be representing God and yet contradicted what Christ said. These are known as false prophets.
If you listened to the people who belonged to these groups you would see that they were unsound in how they saw the world and spoke. There was no rationality and reason for their thoughts. This is important as it lends support against these people being deluded and crazy for what they claimed. Yet the disciples and others in the Bible including Jesus speak rationally and are of sound mind.

How do you know how Jesus and his disciples spoke in everyday conversation?

stevevw said:
Primarily they were the disciples and though not all wrote directly themselves has scribes write down what they saw. There were also many people who witnessed what happened even hostile witnesses whose testimony could also have been used and was used. Also back in those times events were shared orally and so were kept alive.

Ahh so you admit; the Christian account of Jesus was NOT written by eyewitnesses? If so, perhaps time to put that false claim to rest; don't cha think?

stevevw said:
Apart from the Bible, there is non-Biblical support for Christ performing supernatural acts and for Christians believing he did and therefore dying for that belief including support from people who did not believe in Christ.

Josephus writes that Jesus was "a wise man who performed surprising feats". Alluding to Jesus performing miracles. That "He was crucified under Pilate, and His followers continued their discipleship and became known as Christians".
Josephus was not a Christians so this is independent support for Christ.

From the Babylonian Talmud, it says "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald ... cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."

"Yeshu" (or "Yeshua") is how Jesus' name is pronounced in Hebrew. The term "hanged" can function as a synonym for "crucified." For instance, Galatians 3:13 declares that Christ was "hanged", and Luke 23:39 applies this term to the criminals who were crucified with Jesus.

But it is the claim that Jesus is accused of sorcery that is of interest as this implies He performed supernatural feats. It seems Christ's miracles could not be denied even by his enemies so they made out to be evil acts like sorcery. This is similar to how the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons in Mathew 12:24. So here we have support from a hostile source that Jesus performed supernatural feats.
Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources

Apparently his magic tricks were no more than typical sorceress of his day. I doubt sorceress preformed acts outside the laws of nature either; it was much easier to trick people back then.

stevevw said:
I'm not sure about that. Look at King Arthur and Excalibur, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc to name a few.

And which acts outside the laws of nature did they preform that is not met with skepticism today?

Moral Orel · Jun 28, 2020

stevevw said:
Yes and something is good not because God wills it but because God is good by nature. He does not need to will any good or command any good as God is good and goodness flows and radiates from him to us.

So something is good because God is good? That's a non-sequitur.

Strathos · Jun 28, 2020

KCfromNC said:
Sounds finite and therefore worthless. Plus not sure why it would matter - if you have a job then you'll be able to earn more finite, worthless money after you send what money you do have to me.

The job is to preach the Gospel.

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