Atheism one year with no reason to believe

MartinM · Aug 21, 2005

A. believer said:
As our nation has moved away from the presumption that morality is based upon a fixed and transcendent standard and increasingly embraced the idea that man is the measure of all things, morality has, as a whole, declined dramatically.

By what standard?

Morrowind360 · Aug 21, 2005

Im makeing another thread in the non christin forum about the stuff in the bible.I will still awnser in this thread too though.

Morrowind360 · Aug 22, 2005

This thread seems to be dead or does anybody want to talk about something else.

mamabear4 · Aug 23, 2005

Morrowind360 said:
This thread seems to be dead or does anybody want to talk about something else.

I'm still waiting on your answer to MartinM.

A. believer · Aug 23, 2005

Morrowind360 said:
A believer you make many presumptions on something that you do not know.

People make out in themselves of what good and evil is dont give me that bs about without god there is no good and evil (same tactics my grandmother uses).Here is my version of good and evil evil=something i dont want to do good=something i want to.Some things dont apply to the rule like killing and stealing. Stealing is okay if you only do it out of nessity of survival.Killing is okay if someone is trying to kill you and youu have no other choice.Rapeing as i see it has no good side to it no matter what someones believes. Remember that even if you see something as good it could turn out to become a evil.Ex:You saved someones life and they were a serial killer you thought it as good but you have just then let the killer kill more victims.Just my opinion.

You've refuted yourself again. You first reject the notion that, without God, there's no good or evil, and then you go on to admit that your own notions of good and evil are entirely subjective. To you, rape is bad, killing can be bad or good, etc. But if there's no standard beyond your own mind, then the standard is meaningless. It has no more binding force than your preferences in regard to ice cream flavors.

I told my grandmoter if she cant accept my atheism then thats her choice and i can accept her christianity it up to her to decide.

That's a given.

When have i called myself a materialistic naturalist?

You made no reference to adopting any other worldview, and you argue from materialistic premises.

I got the Bertred Russel book its called religon and science.

And you're now imitating Bertrand Russell's philosophical blunders.

Oh and dont make a lot of small posts just make one long one.

Despite that this is your thread, I don't believe that's your decision to make. The reason I made a succession of posts was because I was responding to a succession of posters, and I'm about to make another post on this thread in response to another poster right now.

A. believer · Aug 23, 2005

I said,

We don't just observe reality, we experience it. And we must interpret reality not only in accordance with our observations but with our experience in order for our interpretation to render all of reality intelligible.

And you responded,

MartinM said:
...and?

If we were merely neutral "observers of reality"--some kind of amoral automatons viewing a whole range of human behavior through some omnipresent camera lens, rather than human beings, created in the image of the triune God with the moral law reflecting the very attributes of God "written on our hearts," then we could, perhaps, see human behavior as merely functional and the rules that govern us as purely utilitarian. But as things are, we don't view morality that way. Rather, we make judgments about things. Rape is wrong. Killing can be justifiable (i.e., defending innocent human life) or unjustifiable (murder), depending on the circumstances. These kinds of judgments necessarily imply a transcendent standard, and they inherently recognize culpability in transgressing this standard.

Well, if you insist on reserving the word 'morality' to describe only systems of absolute morality, then no, morality doesn't exist. But that's word games, nothing more.

As I said, as long as people make judgments about right and wrong, they're implicitly recognizing a transcendent standard.

By what standard?

By the standard revealed in Scripture and by a standard that has been fairly uniformly recognized throughout societies throughout history, and, in many cases, by a standard that is recognized even by so-called moral relativists. For example, even the most liberal among us decry the increasingly widespread practice of corporate greed and shady business practices that the power-mongers of large corporations so frequently employ.

Morrowind360 · Aug 23, 2005

We all have our own personal idea of what is good and evil.But most of us can have a basic beliefe in some of the things.

A. believer · Aug 25, 2005

Morrowind360 said:
We all have our own personal idea of what is good and evil.But most of us can have a basic beliefe in some of the things.

You still don't get it. Let's rephrase your assertion this way. We all have our own personal idea of what is tasty and what tastes foul, but most of us can have a basic belief that some foods taste good.

Do you not see what happens when we relegate the idea of good and evil to the level of personal opinion? It renders the idea of making moral judgments on others incoherent.

Morrowind360 · Aug 25, 2005

I stand by what i have said because good and evils are different to every person no one has the exact view of anothers.

Mailman Dan · Aug 25, 2005

We all have our own personal idea of what is good and evil

I would suspect that is not entirely correct. There are some obvious good and evil things that are written on the conscience. Things like lying, stealing, murder, adultry are not bound by a religious preference. Scripture says God gave light to every man, so on the day of judgement they would have no excuse. There's not a single person on the planet that can say "I didn't know it was wrong to steal, rape, lie, and murder." There isn't an excuse that can be used before God as far as moral ignorance goes...

Dan~~~>believes some things are obvious

Morrowind360 · Aug 25, 2005

There are circumstances in which stealing and killing arent wrong.I thing rapeing is wrong though.

A. believer · Aug 25, 2005

Morrowind360 said:
I stand by what i have said because good and evils are different to every person no one has the exact view of anothers.

This may or may not be so--that no two people would make absolutely identical moral judgments in every single situation. Certainly it's so, though, that there would be a wide range of agreement and disagreement among various people to various situations as to what is moral and what isn't. But my point is that this fact doesn't prove what you think it does; it doesn't prove that morality is a matter of personal opinion. Now the Christian answer for this reality is human sin--that people's disagreement is based upon their failure to always rightly recognize the standard due to the varied effects of the fall. This answer accounts for both realities a) that people universally make moral judgments and hold not only themselves, but others as well, morally culpable for transgressing them and b) that there is a range of disagreement over what constitutes the moral course of action in any given situation. Your answer may account for b, but it doesn't account for a.

If you really believed that morality was merely a matter of personal opinion and preference and not a transcendent standard that all are bound to, then you would not make moral judgments about others. Just as you don't consider people culpable for choosing vanilla over chocolate, you would not consider it morally inferior to participate in a rape rather than rescuing someone from a rapist.

mamabear4 · Aug 25, 2005

If everyone believed like I do we wouldn't have any problems. (Joke joke.)

MartinM · Aug 26, 2005

A. believer said:
Rather, we make judgments about things. Rape is wrong. Killing can be justifiable (i.e., defending innocent human life) or unjustifiable (murder), depending on the circumstances. These kinds of judgments necessarily imply a transcendent standard, and they inherently recognize culpability in transgressing this standard.

I'm afraid I don't see much evidence of any consistent transcendent standard of morality. Under what circumstances is the taking of human life acceptable? At what point, if any, should an embryo be accorded human rights? What degree of suffering may we inflict on animals for our own benefit? Just for fun? Which sexual practices are acceptable? At what age?

There are countless questions one could add to the list, and the answers show such a range of diversity from society to society, or even from individual to individual. If there's a transcendent standard, why such diversity? Why don't we mostly agree on the answers to these questions?

A. believer · Aug 26, 2005

MartinM said:
I'm afraid I don't see much evidence of any consistent transcendent standard of morality. Under what circumstances is the taking of human life acceptable? At what point, if any, should an embryo be accorded human rights? What degree of suffering may we inflict on animals for our own benefit? Just for fun? Which sexual practices are acceptable? At what age?

There are countless questions one could add to the list, and the answers show such a range of diversity from society to society, or even from individual to individual. If there's a transcendent standard, why such diversity? Why don't we mostly agree on the answers to these questions?

I already addressed this objection in my last post to Morrowwind.

Atheism one year with no reason to believe

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