There's a limit to how far we can "see". The universe wasn't always transparent to radiation, you know...
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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
Atheism and Self-Esteem
- Thread starter Jedi
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Stay with yourself, if you're going to argue this point. Because according to #2, then people cannot find meaning or purpose at all. What they can do is create for themselves an illusion of meaning and purpose in their lives. It's only an illusion outside their own head because, as you say, there are no morals or purpose that exist outside human thought. And since one human is not required to obey the thoughts of another, their morals and purpose are entirely individual.
One cannot even argue that your individual rights stop where another's begins, because outside of each person no moral law exists. Therefore if your neighbor thinks the right thing to do is to go around shooting anyone he pleases at random (say, isn't something like that going on right now?) then nobody has the "right" to stop him. Laws are only arbitrary constructs from social institutions created by individuals with their personal morals.
And if someone, for whatever reasons (genetic, environment, etc.), doesn't follow this program and would rather be a homicidal maniac, then there's certainly nothing "wrong" with that. After all, no morals exist outside of human thought. And the human thought of a maniac is no more or less "right" or "wrong" than the human thought you think is genetically more likely to occur.
One could argue that if homicidal maniacs became dominant, they would wipe out the species. And since evolution depends upon survival, that would be "bad". But it's not "bad" at all according to your #2. If morals exist only in terms of human thought, then wiping out humans only wipes out billions of individual morals. There is no objective standard against which one can measure the moral value of survival or extinction. Therefore extinction is no better or worse than survival.
In other words, it doesn't matter what YOUR values are. Your values have no value outside your own head.
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Bad for humans, yes. Bad for rain forests or animals being pushed to extinction by human expansion? No, it would be good for them. So, you see, "good" and "bad" are completely relative and subjective concepts.
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Wait - given your philosophy, who are you to judge that it's bad for any human except yourself? Perhaps YOU don't want to see humans go extinct, but that's only your personal moral thought at work.
There's nothing bad in general about blowing away the human race if morals exist only in human thought. Get rid of humans and you get rid of morals. No bad left. Problem solved.
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No, because homocidal maniacs presumably only go after homos.
It's the homicidal maniacs I worry about.
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By the way, your response makes me think you misunderstood what I was saying. When I said, And since evolution depends upon survival, that would be "bad". that was still part of the flawed argument. I'm saying it isn't bad, because there's no value in evolution. There's no moral value in extinction or survival because when the human species goes extinct, its morals disappear.
That's also why I said that, according to your philosophy, nobody has any personal rights. You don't want people to steal your stuff? So what? Someone takes it and it's theirs. Now it is under the domain of their moral system. You don't want to die? So what? If a murderer kills you, your personal morals disappear and his remains. His has meaning to him, yours are gone.
That's a fascinating philosophy you have there.
That's also why I said that, according to your philosophy, nobody has any personal rights. You don't want people to steal your stuff? So what? Someone takes it and it's theirs. Now it is under the domain of their moral system. You don't want to die? So what? If a murderer kills you, your personal morals disappear and his remains. His has meaning to him, yours are gone.
That's a fascinating philosophy you have there.
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Correct. Personally, I don't want to be blown away. Odds are most other humans like myself don't want their life snuffed out either. We are all programmed with the instinct to survive. So we perceive murder as "bad". However, if somehow there was some genetic mutation where everyone happily went around murdering each other and the human race went extinct...well, I'm sure the grizzly bears and humpback whales wouldn't mind.
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Just like Christianity then, I guess. Except humanists don't think those with different illusions are doomed to hell.
What if two or more humans get together and agree, for the good of all, to follow the same moral code?
Sure they do! A society that values the "right" of the killer to kill over the basic right to life doesn't last long, does it?
And what's wrong with that?
Unless a group of humans have agreed, for their own best interest, which behaviors are "right" and which are "wrong".
It's certainly "bad" from the perspective of those who were killed!
Who cares about objective standards? It is in my best interest to adopt a moral code that maximizes my ability to get along with the other humans I share the planet with.
Except when you want to live amongst other humans who share different moral values.
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Humanista
Empirically Speaking
npetreleysaid:
Stay with yourself, if you're going to argue this point. Because according to #2, then people cannot find meaning or purpose at all. What they can do is create for themselves an illusion of meaning and purpose in their lives. It's only an illusion outside their own head because, as you say, there are no morals or purpose that exist outside human thought. And since one human is not required to obey the thoughts of another, their morals and purpose are entirely individual.
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Ideas exist inside the brains of humans.
Morals, evils, goodness, are not physical things that can be locked up and then released via Pandora's box. They are DESCRIPTIONS of behaviours or ideas.
Similarly, meaning and purpose are concepts originating in the human imagination. Of course everyone's purpose and meaning are arrived at by them thinking their own thoughts. A person with an IQ of 10 who cannot think such thoughts has no concept of any purpose or meaning in his life. You may
decide he has a purpose, but we're talking here about what people think about themselves.
Does this then make purpose and meaning an illusion? Not exactly. Mathmatics are a concept that one must necessarily conceptualize in your head, but that doesn't make it illusionary. Illusion implies it isn't real. Reality doesn't have to mean physical reality. Your purpose and meaning is real to you, just as love or compassion are, even thought you can't hold them in your hand. They exist not only in your thoughts as concepts, but in your actions. You LIVE your purpose and meaning in life, if you believe you have one. Even if you think your purpose is to worship a god, you will in some way DO that.
Morals obviously exist within a society, not *just* in each person's head. You need to see the difference between individual thoughts and the collective morality of the group which you have been taught to conform to, for your own good and the good of the group. Unless you are a psychopath, you have a measure of empathy for others, as well as compassion and a desire to bond with other humans. Purpose may be individual, but morals are agreed upon by your family, your peers, and your larger society. You know what kinds of prices you will pay emotionally, socially and legally for violating them, and if you have been taught properly, you don't WANT to cause pain and suffering to others, due to empathy.
Stay with yourself, if you're going to argue this point. Because according to #2, then people cannot find meaning or purpose at all. What they can do is create for themselves an illusion of meaning and purpose in their lives. It's only an illusion outside their own head because, as you say, there are no morals or purpose that exist outside human thought. And since one human is not required to obey the thoughts of another, their morals and purpose are entirely individual.
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Ideas exist inside the brains of humans.
Morals, evils, goodness, are not physical things that can be locked up and then released via Pandora's box. They are DESCRIPTIONS of behaviours or ideas.
Similarly, meaning and purpose are concepts originating in the human imagination. Of course everyone's purpose and meaning are arrived at by them thinking their own thoughts. A person with an IQ of 10 who cannot think such thoughts has no concept of any purpose or meaning in his life. You may
decide he has a purpose, but we're talking here about what people think about themselves.
Does this then make purpose and meaning an illusion? Not exactly. Mathmatics are a concept that one must necessarily conceptualize in your head, but that doesn't make it illusionary. Illusion implies it isn't real. Reality doesn't have to mean physical reality. Your purpose and meaning is real to you, just as love or compassion are, even thought you can't hold them in your hand. They exist not only in your thoughts as concepts, but in your actions. You LIVE your purpose and meaning in life, if you believe you have one. Even if you think your purpose is to worship a god, you will in some way DO that.
Morals obviously exist within a society, not *just* in each person's head. You need to see the difference between individual thoughts and the collective morality of the group which you have been taught to conform to, for your own good and the good of the group. Unless you are a psychopath, you have a measure of empathy for others, as well as compassion and a desire to bond with other humans. Purpose may be individual, but morals are agreed upon by your family, your peers, and your larger society. You know what kinds of prices you will pay emotionally, socially and legally for violating them, and if you have been taught properly, you don't WANT to cause pain and suffering to others, due to empathy.
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Humanista
Empirically Speaking
NPetreley said:
And if someone, for whatever reasons (genetic, environment, etc.), doesn't follow this program and would rather be a homicidal maniac, then there's certainly nothing "wrong" with that. After all, no morals exist outside of human thought. And the human thought of a maniac is no more or less "right" or "wrong" than the human thought you think is genetically more likely to occur.
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There is no cosmic standard of "wrong", no--because the universe does not have human thoughts. It is not sentient. Homocidal maniacs ARE considered "wrong" by the standards of human cultures--all of them. I can't think of a single society where this is acceptable. Morals exist as a result of COLLECTIVE human thought, what societies have arrived at through hundreds of thousands of years of trial and error. WE are all raised to understand the standards of our society and we are naturally drawn to bond and be empathetic with our fellow humans.
Each individual does not set his own system of morals, he learns as a child and internalizes the moral code of his society. Society's moral code evolved as a survival trait for a group.
This idea that everyone would BE a homocidal maniac if they suddenly lost their belief that a god created them says far more about its proponents than it does about atheism.
And if someone, for whatever reasons (genetic, environment, etc.), doesn't follow this program and would rather be a homicidal maniac, then there's certainly nothing "wrong" with that. After all, no morals exist outside of human thought. And the human thought of a maniac is no more or less "right" or "wrong" than the human thought you think is genetically more likely to occur.
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There is no cosmic standard of "wrong", no--because the universe does not have human thoughts. It is not sentient. Homocidal maniacs ARE considered "wrong" by the standards of human cultures--all of them. I can't think of a single society where this is acceptable. Morals exist as a result of COLLECTIVE human thought, what societies have arrived at through hundreds of thousands of years of trial and error. WE are all raised to understand the standards of our society and we are naturally drawn to bond and be empathetic with our fellow humans.
Each individual does not set his own system of morals, he learns as a child and internalizes the moral code of his society. Society's moral code evolved as a survival trait for a group.
This idea that everyone would BE a homocidal maniac if they suddenly lost their belief that a god created them says far more about its proponents than it does about atheism.
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You say that as if there's something wrong with it. But if you subscribe to the philosophy we've been talking about, you have no moral grounds on which to criticize anything, not even the inquisition. The best you can say is that you would not participate, since it doesn't fit your personal illusion of morality.
That's called coincidence. So what?
So what? There's no value in society. The only morality that exists is inside an individual's head. And the head of the killer may think it's morally good to murder people at random. Once the victims are dead, their morality is gone, so there's not even anyone around to complain, not that their complaints would mean anything outside their own heads.
Again, so what? According to the premise that no morals or purpose exist outside of human thought, "their own best interest" is nothing more than people whose self-interest happen to coincide. The fact that some people agree and others don't is meaningless. If someone who disagrees kills all of them, they have nothing upon which to base their conclusion that it was wrong (besides, they'd be dead anyway). If one of those people who agreed decides tomorrow that it is in his best interest to kill all those with whom he used to agree, then there's nothing "wrong" with that either, since it's only a matter of agreement. And that agreement ended when he decided to be different.
Not once their dead. Their morals are gone, so "bad" no longer has meaning to them.
Fine. That's your personal morality, which is meaningless outside your own head.
You're just being redundant. That's what you think is in your best interest, which is meaningless to anyone but you.
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Well, now you've crossed the line between self-righteous and sociopath. If you really mean what you said, then you have some serious issues.
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Again, you say that as if the idea is a "bad" thing. But according to your apparent belief about morality, there's nothing "wrong" with thinking that evolution makes one suicidal or homicidal. All you're saying is that it's "wrong" according to your personal illusion of what's right and wrong. Big deal.
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You know what...
...I like myself too much, and life's too (beep) short to get sucked into this travesty of an argument.
Jedi...
...deeming yourself superior is a great way to belittle yourself.
...I like myself too much, and life's too (beep) short to get sucked into this travesty of an argument.
Jedi...
...deeming yourself superior is a great way to belittle yourself.
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If I may quote Ayn Rand for a moment:
"An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."
"An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."
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When I say society has no value, I mean it has no value according to what is apparently your system. What I find ironic is that, if you truly believe that morality does not exist outside human thought, then it is inconsistent to expect anyone to believe society has value, since you know that morality is only a personal illusion. What right do you have to expect others to share your illusions? You may like it when they share your illusions, but indignance is inconsistent since you know it's all illusory anyway. But heck, since your morality only exists in your head, I guess there's nothing wrong with being inconsistent unless yourpersonal illusion of morality says inconsistency is wrong.
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This isn't even a coherent statement. If one assumes subjective value exists and object value does not, this does not mean that said person believes everything to be objectively valueless any more than it means that five has no blue. By claiming that society has no objective value, you assume the existence of objective value.
Non sequitur--this doesn't make any sense either. Why does assuming subjective morality logically lead to the assumption of no subjective values?
Again, non sequitur. You appear to be completely irrational at this point.
You have shown no inconsistencies, so your complaints have no merit.
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It's perfectly coherent, but perhaps you don't understand it. To use (sort of) your analogy, everyone who believes morality does not exist outside human thought acknowledges that they are assigning personal morality to things where there is none. So they acknowledge that the object has no real color, but they say that either they deliberately created the illusion for themselves that it is blue, or that evolution caused them to think it was blue. So for them, it's blue.
But if they're aware of their position enough to realize this situation, then they also know that the object really has no color -- that society really has no value except for their personal illusion that it has value, whatever the cause.
I'm not complaining, so I don't see your point.
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You are again conflating objective and subjective value. Saying that there is no morality to something is either a statement of subjective or objective value. So, either you're saying that assigning value to something is the same thing as assigning no value to it--which is self-contradictory--or you're saying that the thing has objective value, which contradicts subjectivism. Under subjectivism, the statement "There is no morality to X" is either a statement of personal morality or incoherent.
You've missed the analogy if you think this is extending it. The point is that objective value is meaningless, nonexistent, and incoherent assuming subjectivism. You keep claiming that subjectivists must believe in an objective value, and I'm telling you that it doesn't even make sense.
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