Hey, Atheists...

[stevevw]

Quite right, if you are not claiming that everything can be explained by material processes then you do not have the burden of proof.

I do not think meant for is good wording, but I assume you are trying to reject the attempt from BCP1928 to oblige you to explain The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

This is however, off topic. We are supposed to be ... here is the OP "How about we talk about a non religious source of morality? Religious people have their scripture that they can claim as foundational (even though they will disagree on how to interpret). But what golden rule do you use? something like categorical imperative? utilitarianism? How do you decide what laws are needed?" and the thread title is "Hey Atheists".

If you want to debate the issue of athiesm per se based on consciousness or elsewhatever, try starting a new thread, maybe here - Philosophy .

Well I thought that was what I was talking about in speculating about all the possible atheist basis for morality in the ideas that I mentioned ie naturalism or materialism come under the heading
"How about we talk about a non religious source of morality"

 

[RamiC]

That part you have highlighted is not just about you. You will notice I later referred to materialists and atheists and not just you.

I am not an atheist. I am not a materialist. None of it was about me.

 

[RamiC]

Well I thought that was what I was talking about in speculating about all the possible atheist basis for morality in the ideas that I mentioned ie naturalism or materialism come under the heading
"How about we talk about a non religious source of morality"

You appear to be getting sidetracked into The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

Am I right in thinking your objection to all possible non-religious basis for morality is that, as far as you are concerned, none of them are objective? Do you regard it as essential to morality itself that it is objective?

 

[stevevw]

I am not an atheist. I am not a materialist. None of it was about me.

Yes but this includes everything in between. Not sure if your saying your a Christain. I asume the OP is asking from a Christain point of view about what atheist use to ground morality. I say atheist and materialist as opposed to theist and immaterialist. But there is also many positions in between these two extremes that need to be included.

But generally its split into atheist and materialist and theist and immaterialist. Immaterialist could mean a person believes in some other metaphysics besides theism that still transcends the material world. Therefore consciousness beyond brain or a soul of some sort.

The point is when it comes to what the basis for morality is I think it falls generally into those two camps. Either you believe that morality is grounded within the material and naturalistic world or it transcends this in some way to be able to ground morality objectively.

If your morality has an objective basis beyond humans and the natural processes then I think logically you have to believe in some metaphysics beyond the material and naturalistic explanations.

 

[RamiC]

Yes but this includes everything in between. Not sure if your saying your a Christain. I asume the OP is asking from a Christain point of view about what atheist use to ground morality.

Okay, I assumed the OP intended to ask athiests themselves, so that they would put their own positions up here.

If I told you I believe the Nicene Creed, well you do what you like with that part, but CF counts me Christian for that.

Either you believe that morality is grounded within the material and naturalistic world or it transcends this in some way to be able to ground morality objectively.

If your morality has an objective basis beyond humans and the natural processes then I think logically you have to believe in some metaphysics beyond the material and naturalistic explanations.

So the one word answer to my first question is "yes", you do believe that all non-religious morality is subjective. That is why your posts read like they have two different things mixed up. To me, is the existence of a god is a different thing to is there an objective basis for morality, they are different issues. In fact, a person could believe that some kind of deity exists without getting anything morally right, or without believing the deity functioned as a source of morality. That would not be Christianity, but it is possible to do it.

 

[stevil]

Yet atheistic materialist will say that there must be some naturalistic explanation, we just have not found it yet. But there is a rational explanation. Based on this they will reject what would be good evidence for at least (no rational or naturalistic explanation).

I thought of something last night.

If you believe that consciousness can make things real, then surely we can do some experiments to test this.
If you are able to do this, then I will believe that you are onto something.

I assume you believe that you are conscious.
What I would like, would be to have a fleet of pink unicorns with wings to fly from another planet and to my house and spend the day with my children frolicking and having fun, joking, playing, and giving my kids rides/flights over and under rainbows. I think that would be a terrific and fun day for my children.
Can your consciousness make that real for me, lets say for next week-end? Make it real.

Or, if you think that's a bit tricky. maybe could your consciousness just flicker the lightbulbs in my house. That doesn't seem too hard. Do some morse code, spell out the word consciousness. Do that and I will believe you that consciousness can make this real.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Why is it not this. Why is there not a philosophy behind why some people don't believe in God or objective morality or anything beyond the material. I would have thought that a persons beliefs about morality are very much based on their philosophy and beliefs about the world.

It seems to me there is a philosophy (worldview) behind secularism when it comes to morality. For one it excludes God and gods. Is that not a completely different philosophy on life.

There is no special philosophy needed to not believe in something. The less plausible something is to personal experience, the less "philosophical commitment" to not believe in it. The mere fact of non-belief is not philosophy itself nor is it anything other than "nope, I don't believe in that". As such there is not world view of "atheism" (nor "secularism" if you insist on using it as a synonym) and no world view derived from it. Not believing in God didn't change my "philosophy of life".

Yes like Sam Harris. But this idea has been shown to have no basis. It turns out that all that objectifying was really just a sophisticated way to subjectively rationalise morality. What is regarded as human wellbeing as a fact is itself subjective. Remember, according to Hume 'we can't get an ought from an is'.

So anything said to be objective in a secular sense is going to be material and fall within the (is). Which we cannot get an ought out of.

Who are these non religious people who believe in objective morality. What is their belief perhaps in witches and warlocks casting spells. The power of mother nature.

An "objective morality" of the kind you want to use is either a property of the universe itself or of humans intrinsically. (You speak of the former below, so I'll wait until then.) "Property of the universe" seems rather unlikely (if not impossible). If these aren't good enough for "objective" then I guess there isn't such a thing after all.

Yes I know.

I make a simple point. That material atheism is inadequate to account for morality. All the rest is to argue that point.

"Material atheism" (not a thing, substitute "non-belief in supernatural beings") is not a philosophy or such. It is not trying to account for anything

That I bring up research that shows we are natural moralists from birth, we live out our beliefs about morality and not what we say.

Not something I am challenging.

That behind a moral belief is a metaphysical belief or worldview and that all humans have this same tendency. This is all relevant to the atheistic and materials and the immaterialist and theist worldview.

How is an instinctual morality a "worldview"?

But the natural state for humans is within the immaterialist worldview based on research. Its all relevant. You are what you eat. You are what metaphysical and worldview you believe in. Material and nature and humans are the gods of their own world. Or immaterial and theistic where humans are subject to some greater poewer and moral law giver.

What twaddle.

Ok I will use secular morality even though I don't think it reflects secular morality.

I'm glad you wil drop the notion of an "atheistic morality" in favor of better terminology.

You just said there can be objective morality within secular morality. This doesn't make sense.

If secular means no God then any morality would have to be limited to humans as the judges. Thats subjective or relative and not objective which is suppose to be something beyond humans.

There are several dimensions of labeling here that are not the same.

Secular/religious is one dimension. Religious morality is morality that comes from a religion. Secular is morality that does not come from a religion. Both are broad categories. (Christian morality is by definition "religious morality" as is Islamic morality.)

Objective/Subjective is another dimension. Objective morality isn't dependent on the opinions of any being. Subjective morality is subject to opinions of beings.

Other labels could be added that don't fall into these dimensions: various philosophies (humanist, objectivist) or geographies (Western, Chinese, etc.).

Suppose someone is in a humanisitic religion with a subjective morality. THen that morality would be Subjective, Religious, and Humanistic.

The science can prove objective morality has been defeated so I don't know what else there is.

I doubt that it could, but this isn't an argument about the existence objective morality.

 

[BCP1928]

Quite right, if you are not claiming that everything can be explained by material processes then you do not have the burden of proof.

I do not think meant for is good wording, but I assume you are trying to reject the attempt from BCP1928 to oblige you to explain The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

This is however, off topic. We are supposed to be ... here is the OP "How about we talk about a non religious source of morality? Religious people have their scripture that they can claim as foundational (even though they will disagree on how to interpret). But what golden rule do you use? something like categorical imperative? utilitarianism? How do you decide what laws are needed?" and the thread title is "Hey Atheists".

If you want to debate the issue of athiesm per se based on consciousness or elsewhatever, try starting a new thread, maybe here - Philosophy .

Steve has a long history if this kind of thing. The basic argument always boils down to this: "Unless morals are decreed by (my personal sectarian concept of) God they have no other possible basis than individual personal preferences."

 

[BCP1928]

Well I thought that was what I was talking about in speculating about all the possible atheist basis for morality in the ideas that I mentioned ie naturalism or materialism come under the heading
"How about we talk about a non religious source of morality"

No, all you have been doing is telling the rest of us what we must believe about the subject, while brushing aside any attempts to tell you what we actually believe.

 

[BCP1928]

Yes but this includes everything in between. Not sure if your saying your a Christain. I asume the OP is asking from a Christain point of view about what atheist use to ground morality. I say atheist and materialist as opposed to theist and immaterialist. But there is also many positions in between these two extremes that need to be included.

But generally its split into atheist and materialist and theist and immaterialist. Immaterialist could mean a person believes in some other metaphysics besides theism that still transcends the material world. Therefore consciousness beyond brain or a soul of some sort.

The point is when it comes to what the basis for morality is I think it falls generally into those two camps. Either you believe that morality is grounded within the material and naturalistic world or it transcends this in some way to be able to ground morality objectively.

If your morality has an objective basis beyond humans and the natural processes then I think logically you have to believe in some metaphysics beyond the material and naturalistic explanations.

But you have failed to show that the basis of morality must transcend the material world in order to be objective.

 

[Hans Blaster]

No I was using all the varied beliefs, metaphysical beliefs that transcend the materist worldview to show belief in metaphysics beyond the material is a natural inclination for humans and not some delusion as atheists say.

No one is talking about "delusions". The volume of people that share a category of belief does not make it true.

Ok thats interesting. I know there are variations on subjective morality. Maybe utalitarianism. Maybe deontology can be argued for objective morality. But they are all still variations on subjective thinking. Even the choice of what counts as utalitarian or object is a subjective human determination.

I'm not particularly interested in trying to explain it to you or myself.

This is what I find paradoxial. The pioneers of science decided to take the observer out of the equation. Even though QM is bring the observer back. But when it comes to morality theres this sudden insistence that it is the subject, the observer who must determine the truth. Yet it aaaalmost seems back the front when it comes to reality.

This isn't about your misunderstandings of QM. QM is not relevant to this thread.

I feel like a naught school kid lol. Thats all you have to say. You want to focus on grammar. I told you, maybe not you but I am dyslexic. I don't even notice its a grammar mistake in the first place. But thanks for pointing it out.

It wasn't a "grammar mistake". I was highlighting your sentence structure to show that you had indeed claimed (incorrectly) that string theory posits a consciousness to the universe.

You don't think so. So do you think atheist have a different worldview to theists. Or say naturalism and supernaturalism. You don't think a persons worldview influences how they see morality.

There is no "atheist" or "theist" worldviews. Those are just categories of people sorted by a single belief question. (Do you believe in a god?)

 

[Bradskii]

the logic is self defeating. There is no objective morality beyond humans according to subjectivists so morality is subjective but then claim subjective morality is all there is. Which is an objective claim beyond humans.

It's not circular reasoning to say 'Morality is subjective' because it's not a moral statement. It's a fact about morality. Facts are objective. Morality isn't.

People like yourself make that mistake quite a lot.

 

[BCP1928]

Humans exist objectively so why can't human-created morality exist objectively as well? Other human creations exist objectively.

 

[Bradskii]

Humans exist objectively so why can't human-created morality exist objectively as well? Other human creations exist objectively.

We shouldn't confuse objective facts about the world with morality. That I think that same sex marriage is morally acceptable is an objective fact. That doesn't mean that same sex marriage is objectively correct.

 

[BCP1928]

We shouldn't confuse objective facts about the world with morality. That I think that same sex marriage is morally acceptable is an objective fact. That doesn't mean that same sex marriage is objectively correct.

I wasn't going that far with it. That you entertain a moral precept about same-sex marriage is an objective fact. That you formed that precept through socialization of an innate propensity to empathy for and avoiding harm to others Is the subject of our discussion. That you possess such a propensity is an objective fact. That you acquired that propensity through evolution is another subject of our discussion. Whether the moral precept you entertain about same sex marriage is "correct" or not is beyond the scope of this discussion at the present time.

 

[Bradskii]

I wasn't going that far with it. That you entertain a moral precept about same-sex marriage is an objective fact. That you formed that precept through socialization of an innate propensity to empathy for and avoiding harm to others Is the subject of our discussion. That you possess such a propensity is an objective fact.

I agree. It's my 'propensity'. If it were an objective fact then that last sentence wouldn't make sense. It would be like saying that I had a propensity to believe that grass is green.

 

[BCP1928]

I agree. It's my 'propensity'. If it were an objective fact then that last sentence wouldn't make sense. It would be like saying that I had a propensity to believe that grass is green.

That you possess the capacity to sustain such propensities is true for you and most other humans as well. It is an objective fact. Perhaps I am naming it wrong. Would you accept as an objective fact that we all have a conscience as an innate part of our make up, whatever it's contents may be?

 

[Bradskii]

That you possess the capacity to sustain such propensities is true for you and most other humans as well. It is an objective fact. Perhaps I am naming it wrong. Would you accept as an objective fact that we all have a conscience as an innate part of our make up, whatever it's contents may be?

Definitely, yes. We all have this little voice inside that tells us now and then 'Hey, I really don't think this is such a good idea'. It's a subtle reminder that we maybe should do what we'd prefer to do if we thought about it enough as opposed to what we simply want to do.

 

[stevevw]

Okay, I assumed the OP intended to ask athiests themselves, so that they would put their own positions up here.

If I told you I believe the Nicene Creed, well you do what you like with that part, but CF counts me Christian for that.

Yes and atheist have posted their beliefs about morality and that is it is based on naturalistic processes like evolution. No God required.

But we also know this debate has been going on for decades and we have a lot of stuff written on it. From this we can derive some truths. That is its impossible for atheists to believe that there are objective morals beyond the naturalistic world and human ideas for morality based on naturalism.

Which is also materialism as naturalism is about the physical and quantifiable processes which cannot involve the supernatural or immaterial in the sense of beyond time and space.

So we can derive some logical truths about what atheists worldview is going to be within a general metaphysics which is naturalism. There will be variations within this but it will still fall within the naturalistic causes.

So the one word answer to my first question is "yes", you do believe that all non-religious morality is subjective. That is why your posts read like they have two different things mixed up. To me, is the existence of a god is a different thing to is there an objective basis for morality, they are different issues. In fact, a person could believe that some kind of deity exists without getting anything morally right, or without believing the deity functioned as a source of morality. That would not be Christianity, but it is possible to do it.

I have never heard of any religion or spiritual beliefs that did not involve morality. Thats the whole idea.

But I think your confusing what I am saying. I not saying the existence of God and morality are the same issue. That is obvious. Rather they are related issues which go hand in hand when it comes to objective morality.

Once you place morality beyond humans you have to envoke a moral law giver as morals are humanlike and not chemical reactions or physics.

But I do think you can be non religious of theistic and believe in a sort of human made god like pagan idols which is nature like the sun and moon. Or consciousness itself as its more detached from a specific god who is humanlike.

In this way the transcedent part of objective morality can be brought in without usings a specific god or God. Its always a bit more ambious like its appealing to a spirit or mysterious force somewhere in the universe.

 

[stevevw]

I thought of something last night.

If you believe that consciousness can make things real, then surely we can do some experiments to test this.
If you are able to do this, then I will believe that you are onto something.

I assume you believe that you are conscious.
What I would like, would be to have a fleet of pink unicorns with wings to fly from another planet and to my house and spend the day with my children frolicking and having fun, joking, playing, and giving my kids rides/flights over and under rainbows. I think that would be a terrific and fun day for my children.
Can your consciousness make that real for me, lets say for next week-end? Make it real.

Or, if you think that's a bit tricky. maybe could your consciousness just flicker the lightbulbs in my house. That doesn't seem too hard. Do some morse code, spell out the word consciousness. Do that and I will believe you that consciousness can make this real.

Lol. Well according to the new realities where your identity can become something real in the world I can get some Furries dressed as pink unicorns. They will be real unicorns as they identify as unicorns and to say they are not is denying reality. So I will arrange them to fly to you on a local plane for the weekend lol.

But on a serious note we already have that level of evidence from NDE. Verifiable accounts of people who were either brain dead or unconscious having conscious experiences and their experiences being verified later by independent people or information they could not have known. There are 1,000s of testimonies.

These experiences are just as weird and amazing as pink unicorns, sometimes able to move through solid walls, instantaneously be transported to a distant place, project thoughts, ect. Usually a life review, the meeting of a some Godlike being, and their lives are completely changed forever. They remember things like it was yesterday.

Heres the strange thing. They claim that what was happening was not a dream but like everyday reality and in fact more real. Test done show the brain areas light up for recall of real events and not in the imagination areas of the brain.