Do atheists believe in objective morality?

[Cabal]

You mean it didn't cut it for you, but by the way my friend this comes from God! God has a moral objective!

...no, it came from the head of Ravi Zachariah.

And it is little but one non sequitur after another. There is no reason to presume there is anything called moral law, or a moral law giver.

 

[allhart]

...no, it came from the head of Ravi Zachariah.

And it is little but one non sequitur after another. There is no reason to presume there is anything called moral law, or a moral law giver.

Well how can you say you know about God if you don't know His Book. No one can even say they understand a book without knowing the author or title! The Bible is based on morality and it is God's way of reaching man, not man reaching out to God. The Bible doesn't hold back any of our faults as murders and connivers, showing us are evil ways! So why do you hold to any kind of truth? For as I see it evil is a form of insanity! People that have no orientation to what is good can be seen throughout society. Through the prism of our prisons,hospitals and even in our politics etc! You don't sin, right and if you do what do you do with it? You have the right of travel in Grace and in doing so you have the ability to tear up people you come upon in life! Ideas and actions have consequences! God has given us the moral compass through Him and His Word also to say written on the hearts of men! The moral giver!

 

[Cabal]

Well how can you say you know about God if you don't know His Book. No one can even say they understand a book without knowing the author or title!

I think you might be reading a different post to the one I wrote, as I didn't make any claims regarding the Bible.

The Bible is based on morality and it is God's way of reaching man, not man reaching out to God. The Bible doesn't hold back any of our faults as murders and connivers, showing us are evil ways!

In your opinion.

So why do you hold to any kind of truth? For as I see it evil is a form of insanity! People that have no orientation to what is good can be seen throughout society. Through the prism of our prisons,hospitals and even in our politics etc!

Sure - but that does nothing to indicate why the existence of morality necessarily requires a deity to support it. You're still operating on assumption.

You don't sin, right and if you do what do you do with it? You have the right of travel in Grace and in doing so you have the ability to tear up people you come upon in life! Ideas and actions have consequences! God has given us the moral compass through Him and His Word also to say written on the hearts of men! The moral giver!

Again, this is all (slightly hysterical-sounding) opinion. Can you justify your assumption that moral law exists and that it necessarily requires a deity to support it, or is it going to remain an assumption?

 

[allhart]

I think you might be reading a different post to the one I wrote, as I didn't make any claims regarding the Bible.



In your opinion.



Sure - but that does nothing to indicate why the existence of morality necessarily requires a deity to support it. You're still operating on assumption.



Again, this is all (slightly hysterical-sounding) opinion. Can you justify your assumption that moral law exists and that it necessarily requires a deity to support it, or is it going to remain an assumption?

O.K. can you differentiate between the soul and the spirit? Or between the flesh and the spirit? I am having trouble with your profile and your claims to God with your actions? Do you have a feel good relationship with God or a real honest relationship with God? You seeking or are you being disingenuous? I'm asking an honest question, no pun here! God's way's are not our way's! As I've said before we as humans have to use a spectrum of measurement even in to the likes of morality! God is Holy righteous and just! Jesus walked 33 yrs on earth perfectly without sin. We can't get through one day! God doesn't need us we need Him! We can't even have a good relations with each other how ya going to know how to have it with God? God is my compass of morality.

Romans 3:19:
19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.

 

[driewerf]

Good post. Agree.
As an aside, I wonder whether our brains are too big? Other animals don't seem to have anywhere near our habits of pre-meditated killing. Other animals seem to fight and kill as a means to meet a real-time, immediate need. Like "I and my family need food now and you are it". Even mating ruts don't usually end in death - the fight seems to stop as soon as one side backs off. Homo Sapiens, on the other hand, seem to use their imaginations to motivate killing. I will kill you because I think you are a future threat to me. I will kill you because you look different from me and I imagine that is a future threat. Something bad happened and I imagine you did it so I am going to kill you for revenge/prevention of a repeat. revenge is an interesting one - I am not sure what the psychology of it is but I have never heard of other animals acting out of revenge.

Jane mentioned already the example of chimps, forming gangs.
But there is also the example of lions.
As long that a female lion lactates, she is not fertile.
When a male takes over a pride, he will kill the pups that from the former male, so that the females ovulate again.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Science isn't behind it all it's after the fact.

So? Science is about facts. And I mentioned philosophy as well. Both imply the study of life and reality, so we may include reality in the list.

You are avoiding God all together!

I realize that you take the existence of your God as a given, but to me God is just another human-invented fiction. I don't believe that God exists, any more than I believe that Odin, Zeus, or Shiva exist.

Okay, think of me like Sherlock Holmes. The trail of evidence leads me to view the universe as natural and without gods. I am not "avoiding God"; I simply find that trail unproductive and empty, and am pursuing a much more fruitful one, and with intellectual integrity.

For what unknown reason know one knows!

You could ask, you know. And plenty of other people here do know, since I've been here posting on such subjects off and on over several years.

But I've already answered this. Integrity. Specifically intellectual integrity. Integrity in pursuit of knowledge of reality for what it really is, instead of what I, or you, might want it to be.

DNA is mathematically equated.....It had reasoning behind its beginning start or birth.

No, it doesn't.

O.k. If we walked up to a tree and it had carvings in it. Like people tend to say A love T. Did it just evolve or did someone design it and place it there?

It could be either.

If they are clearly carvings -- if the bark is damaged -- then it is extremely likely that someone did the carving.

However, let's say that they weren't obviously carvings. Let's say instead that the shape of the bark looked like a carving, but research showed that it was the natural shape of the bark. There was no damage to the bark.

Let's say further that taking seeds from the tree and planting them produced trees that grew with the seeming carving "A love T", with no one to carve them. In that case, one would conclude that it was likely some form of selection that selected for the genes to express that phenotype.

By who's or what authority?

By the nature of human well-being, and it's choiceworthiness for human individuals.

what is sin or are you to good for that?

What is karma, or are you too good for that? Karma is inapplicable to your worldview. It doesn't enter your thinking to consider karma when thinking about moral decisions. The correct answer for you is "N/A".

My answer is also "N/A", and for pretty much the same reason.

You say don't push your morality on me

I don't recall saying this.

but then push yours on others...

How? Reread the title of the thread. I was invited to express my views on morality. How is this pushing anything?

I will, of course, defend my views, and I don't see how that is pushing anything.

..no real rules just opinions (moral objectivism)

I wasn't invited to share the specifics of my morality. Are you asking for me to share this?

If you ask, don't go telling me that I'm "pushing" anything on you.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

It always baffles me when people basically confess that they cannot really tell the difference between man-made items and objects that have been shaped by nature - or at least that they project the "somebody must have made this"-approach to both.

Honestly, I find this line of thought just as far-fetched and - last but not least - completely non-sequitur as the proposition that snow flakes must be objects of art created by invisible elves living in the clouds.

Yes, nature operates according to principles that can be expressed by means of mathematics. No, that does not suggest that there's an invisible Superman behind it all. Mathematics is a "language" *we* have created to describe the natural universe around us, NOT the other way around. Our ability to re-align existing structures according to our abstract thoughts is an outgrowth of such natural processes, not the other way around. We only mimic what are, by all accounts, mindless processes arising naturally from the structure of the universe, and use them to our own ends.

I don't discount the possibility that there might be minds greater than ours out there: after all, we are just a bunch of highly cerebral apes on one infinitesimal planet on the outskirts of one small galaxy among billions. Heck, we haven't even outgrown our tribalistic instincts yet, and the power struggles in politics and the economy bear a striking resemblance to the hierarchical conflicts in less intelligent species.
I also do not discount the possibility that there might be other principles at work - principles that we haven't yet discovered, or that transcend our ability to understand as much as algebra transcends the understanding of a gnat.

But looking at most of the stuff that religions have produced over the milliennia, I just see Man projecting himself upon a cosmic canvas, creating gods that are by turns petty and magnanimous - but always very, very human in their outlook, motivation, feelings, thoughts - and sometimes even shape. I acknowledge that there are other perspectives as well, sometimes nestled within an otherwise naive conception of deity. But for the most part, these are hidden beneath thick layers of traditions, rituals and altogether anthropomorphic conceptions, along the lines of "if a watch needs a watchmaker, then a rock needs a rockmaker".

 

[allhart]

So? Science is about facts. And I mentioned philosophy as well. Both imply the study of life and reality, so we may include reality in the list.



I realize that you take the existence of your God as a given, but to me God is just another human-invented fiction. I don't believe that God exists, any more than I believe that Odin, Zeus, or Shiva exist.

Okay, think of me like Sherlock Holmes. The trail of evidence leads me to view the universe as natural and without gods. I am not "avoiding God"; I simply find that trail unproductive and empty, and am pursuing a much more fruitful one, and with intellectual integrity.



You could ask, you know. And plenty of other people here do know, since I've been here posting on such subjects off and on over several years.

But I've already answered this. Integrity. Specifically intellectual integrity. Integrity in pursuit of knowledge of reality for what it really is, instead of what I, or you, might want it to be.



No, it doesn't.



It could be either.

If they are clearly carvings -- if the bark is damaged -- then it is extremely likely that someone did the carving.

However, let's say that they weren't obviously carvings. Let's say instead that the shape of the bark looked like a carving, but research showed that it was the natural shape of the bark. There was no damage to the bark.

Let's say further that taking seeds from the tree and planting them produced trees that grew with the seeming carving "A love T", with no one to carve them. In that case, one would conclude that it was likely some form of selection that selected for the genes to express that phenotype.



By the nature of human well-being, and it's choiceworthiness for human individuals.



What is karma, or are you too good for that? Karma is inapplicable to your worldview. It doesn't enter your thinking to consider karma when thinking about moral decisions. The correct answer for you is "N/A".

My answer is also "N/A", and for pretty much the same reason.



I don't recall saying this.



How? Reread the title of the thread. I was invited to express my views on morality. How is this pushing anything?

I will, of course, defend my views, and I don't see how that is pushing anything.



I wasn't invited to share the specifics of my morality. Are you asking for me to share this?

If you ask, don't go telling me that I'm "pushing" anything on you.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Our evidence is in the basic terms you are discounting or leap frogging past "cause" and ya'll have nothing to backup sustainability! Energy can't be made constant especially by accident, even the best complex mind can't find the equations to make it work! Nothing comes from nothing......Not even us human being can create the basic building blocks from nothing. Lets even say volumes of Air ! Even our chemist sets have a basic chemical or substance. which doesn't start from nothing! If you will not recognize the complexity of space, time and matter in cause. Plainly I'm perplexed in which your looking at after effect not the cause before the effect! Like they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink! Lator Gator!

Start looking or theorizing on the complexity of our cause! Ya'll have the effects down pretty good! Or are ya'll stuck with a destination fixation in disproving God that you can't see the like of Him right in front of your face! Step back and look at what I'm telling before you try to counter.....pause a minute....take notice!

 

[dewaddict84]

Do atheists believe in objective morality?

No, not as part of being atheists.

Or does being atheist tend to make their beliefs more subjective since there is no God to say what is right and wrong?

Ah, there we go. Yes. I think there is a trend in that direction.

But yeah, I'd say that morality is subjective and relative. It really don't change much though, as all statements about morality are simply append with "to me" at the end.

 

[allhart]

No, not as part of being atheists.
Ah, there we go. Yes. I think there is a trend in that direction.

But yeah, I'd say that morality is subjective and relative. It really don't change much though, as all statements about morality are simply append with "to me" at the end.

By you differentiating Bad and Good you measure morality as moral giver! For who predetermine the ultimate good (TRUTH)? What disqualifies good , but who's good we talking about here, surly not yours? The "cause" in good isn't in humanity! We measure up good to the standard of God's Holiness, righteousness....the author of the Bible on Morality! If we had nothing to compare good to we could say or do anything and that's they way you like it! Making room for evil by the grace and freedoms God gives you!

 

[Cabal]

O.K. can you differentiate between the soul and the spirit? Or between the flesh and the spirit? I am having trouble with your profile and your claims to God with your actions?

Why would flesh or spirit necessarily have anything to do with the question of morality?

Do you have a feel good relationship with God or a real honest relationship with God? You seeking or are you being disingenuous? I'm asking an honest question, no pun here!

It is an honest relationship - and I put myself down as "seeker" because there seems to be an awful lot of things that Christians seem to steadfastly refuse to question - this assumption that the existence of morality is dependent on a deity to support it, for one thing.

God's way's are not our way's! As I've said before we as humans have to use a spectrum of measurement even in to the likes of morality! God is Holy righteous and just! Jesus walked 33 yrs on earth perfectly without sin. We can't get through one day! God doesn't need us we need Him! We can't even have a good relations with each other how ya going to know how to have it with God? God is my compass of morality.

Morality is not exclusive to Christians - and this is aside from the question - why does morality necessarily require that a deity be supporting it?

 

[allhart]

Why would flesh or spirit necessarily have anything to do with the question of morality?



It is an honest relationship - and I put myself down as "seeker" because there seems to be an awful lot of things that Christians seem to steadfastly refuse to question - this assumption that the existence of morality is dependent on a deity to support it, for one thing.



Morality is not exclusive to Christians - and this is aside from the question - why does morality necessarily require that a deity be supporting it?

Look to post 70

 

[Cabal]

Look to post 70

I did, and I responded. Your turn.

(If you're referring to the Bible verse - that is explaining the function of the law, and is operating on the same presumption that God is required to support it. It is not a justification for that presumption.)

 

[allhart]

I did, and I responded. Your turn.

(If you're referring to the Bible verse - that is explaining the function of the law, and is operating on the same presumption that God is required to support it. It is not a justification for that presumption.)

If we had nothing to compare good to we could say or do anything and that's they way you like it! Making room for evil by the grace and freedoms God gives you! What else can be said other than God will workout everything for His Good in the end! Love is the greatest of all things and God is in essence is love! You just keep ignoring sin especially when you hurt someone or are in the wrong. You just act like it didn't happen the next day. hoping to ignore the truth.....sin, but never acknowledging the truth about yourself!

The point is no one sees themselves as evil and Evil is a form of insanity....ya'know!

 

[Eudaimonist]

Nothing comes from nothing...

I don't believe that anything came from nothing. I don't believe that the universe popping into existence out of nothing. It has always existed.

Plainly I'm perplexed in which your looking at after effect not the cause before the effect!

I'm not sure what makes you think I don't. I find speculations into abiogenesis and cosmic origins very interesting. I simply don't see what you see.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Cabal]

If we had nothing to compare good to we could say or do anything and that's they way you like it! Making room for evil by the grace and freedoms God gives you!

Do you always start flaming people when they disagree with you?

If you can't justify your assumption, then that's fine - it's not a sin to say "I don't know" - but no need for this kind of petulant behaviour.

What else can be said other than God will workout everything for His Good in the end! Love is the greatest of all things and God is in essence is love!

This is unrelated to justifying your assumption that morality requires a deity to support it.

You just keep ignoring sin especially when you hurt someone or are in the wrong. You just act like it didn't happen the next day. hoping to ignore the truth.....sin, but never acknowledging the truth about yourself!

Uh, nope. That's not how I choose to live my life. Are you going to respond like a normal human being now, or are you going to keep making presumptions about me that you can't back up?

The point is no one sees themselves as evil and Evil is a form of insanity....ya'know!

This is unrelated to justifying your assumption that morality requires a deity to support it.

Now, if you don't mind actually addressing the point under discussion? Try not to flame anyone in the process, will you?

 

[BrianOnEarth]

Jane mentioned already the example of chimps, forming gangs.
But there is also the example of lions.
As long that a female lion lactates, she is not fertile.
When a male takes over a pride, he will kill the pups that from the former male, so that the females ovulate again.

Interesting. This makes sense from a "selfish gene" perspective.

Is the lion acting immorally?

If it were a man that married a widowed mother and then killed her children we would certainly call that immoral.

But is the lion being immoral if it is acting on instinct? Is the lion able to empathize with the cubs or not? Is the lion able to look at them and say to itself "I was like you once and you deserve a chance to live like I had"? I think not. I suggest the lion doesn't "know" what it is doing in the way that a human would. After all, a lion cannot even recognize itself in a mirror let alone project it's own self-image onto a baby lion. I'm sure Christians do not think the lion has morals given to it by God. So does the lion know it is doing wrong and is the lion doing wrong at all?

Is the lion acting immorally?

Can we better frame what morality is from trying to answer this question?

 

[allhart]

Do you always start flaming people when they disagree with you?

If you can't justify your assumption, then that's fine - it's not a sin to say "I don't know" - but no need for this kind of petulant behaviour.



This is unrelated to justifying your assumption that morality requires a deity to support it.



Uh, nope. That's not how I choose to live my life. Are you going to respond like a normal human being now, or are you going to keep making presumptions about me that you can't back up?



This is unrelated to justifying your assumption that morality requires a deity to support it.

Now, if you don't mind actually addressing the point under discussion? Try not to flame anyone in the process, will you?

I have a justification for where my morality comes from and extends from! You don't! I haven't flamed you that's your perception, but i do presume reality of all humanity's traits! God is my moral guide, therefore; I know where to to take my sin to....to the cross, but i still haven't seen where your justification or comparison of Good comes from other than what you declare by your authority as Good or evil!! There lies the problem and isn't even consistent from one yr to the next , but ever evolving.......Just like the Muslims that justify Jihad.....ya'know! People can justify anything or rationalize it away...it happens all the time! I will stick with God's Grace, Mercy and Justice....we humans can't balance those principles!

 

[Cabal]

I have a justification for where my morality comes from and extends from!

But you justify it using assumptions, like the one's in Ravi Z's spiel about how moral law exists and it needs to be given by someONE. I'm still waiting for you to justify why there is such a thing as moral law, and why it has to be given by someONE.

You don't! I haven't flamed you that's your perception

You claimed that I liked being able to do what I want and that I ignore my sin. I don't, as it happens - and you have no justification for those claims as you don't know me or anything about me.

Don't make any such claims like that again, or I'm reporting you.

but i do presume reality of all humanity's traits!

Right, and an individual is not all humanity, so deal with people on an individual basis and don't resort to generalisations, hmm?

God is my moral guide, therefore; I know where to to take my sin to....to the cross, but i still haven't seen where your justification and comparaon of Good comes from other than what you declare by your authority as Good or evil!!

I think, as many do here, that they are inherent. There will be some variation between different groups of people, yes, but it is essentially a uniform morality.

That isn't constant, but ever evolving.......Just like the Muslims that justify Jihad.....ya'know!

How delightfully unimaginative.

Or just like the morality in the Bible, perhaps - dispensations, covenants, what have you.

 

[allhart]

But you justify it using assumptions, like the one's in Ravi Z's spiel about how moral law exists and it needs to be given by someONE. I'm still waiting for you to justify why there is such a thing as moral law, and why it has to be given by someONE.



You claimed that I liked being able to do what I want and that I ignore my sin. I don't, as it happens - and you have no justification for those claims as you don't know me or anything about me.

Don't make any such claims like that again, or I'm reporting you.



Right, and an individual is not all humanity, so deal with people on an individual basis and don't resort to generalisations, hmm?



I think, as many do here, that they are inherent. There will be some variation between different groups of people, yes, but it is essentially a uniform morality.



How delightfully unimaginative.

Or just like the morality in the Bible, perhaps - dispensations, covenants, what have you.

Inherent to who's standard? You are comparing morality in a litmus test of life? For humans are intrinsically evil! God's moral law shows our inherent wrong doing other wise we wouldn't know of wrong doing that we are guilty under and by the likes of God! Each person or generation isn't the moral giver of their time, so some society's eat their young and have human sacrifice. How do you say tell them they are morally wrong when they feel justified? How can you justify any life....even to justify abortion? Was life given for you to take? As some parents my say I gave you life and i can take out of this life! Oh the insanity of it all! Round and round we go only God knows where we stop!