The definition of sin

[Hawkins]

Is it a good thing to own a slave and have the right to beat them as long as they don't die?

That depends on how well the Jews were treated at the same period of time. Their children are kill at will for the only reason of population control.

God didn't demand the Jew be saints back then simply because they can be as bad as any human groups around. God however regulates the situation such that their dispute over the non-Hebrew slaves can be settled in a reasonable way back then.

 

[RaymondG]

No. As I said, the demonstration would follow automatically, IF your model is accurate.
You wouldn't have to do anything... You wouldn't even need to actually understand the model.

These are powerful words. As the same apply to spiritual matters. When you get the real thing....You have actual results and demonstrations follow. After the holy ghost has come, you shall receive power...
You should speak this in churches..... It is not enough to just believe and go move along. Something has to be done and something received......evidence.

I wouldn't be able to explain atomic theory if my life depended on it.

Again, spoken like a true man of God. The wisdom of man if foolishness to God. Likewise, the flesh cannot understand the things of God...and it is best not to try. The true is revealed, not learned. The more you try to learn, the further the truth flees from you.

I don't consider gullibility to be a "blessing".

Myself likewise. One should have a personal relationship, and not go by what someone else has to say about a book they read. If it is truth....when I honestly try it...something should happen. And likewise, if I try nothing, only nothing can happen.....

 

[RaymondG]

You made a claim, I challenged your claim based on the wording you yourself used.
You could also just retract your statement and reformulate, instead of trying to bath the point in a labyrinth of obfuscation, just so you can avoid to admitting you were incorrect or over the top.

Love the word choice. Makes me want to go study a dictionary so I can speak like you.

I spoke the truth. Because I've seen the bomb explode. But you have to make the bomb and see it explode yourself before you can say it is true... The only thing you would be able to say is that you believe what I said.....And we have enough believers already....i dont wish to add you to the list of those. You should know. Maybe you want to know.... Maybe you want to make the bomb and see it explode. The problem is, you refuse to go get the ingredients to produce the bomb. You would rather just say that you dont believe it will explode and leave it at that. So there is only one option.....to just believe or disbelieve what i said.... But, as you know, experience is superior.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Do you equate primitive desire with subconscious mind?

No.

I'm sorry I should have asked earlier, I assumed I knew what you meant, but what do you mean by primitive desire?

It's the thing that would compel you to choose a bowl of cereal over a bowl of salt.

If you do equate these, then how do you respond to the time when first learning to play a musical instrument where the subconscious mind cannot know ahead of time what to do? Is not the learning of an instrument freely willed?

I don't understand what you're even asking, but it seems to not apply because I don't equate the subconscious mind with primitive desires.

Good point. I'll have to think about that...

OK.

Why did you reject the answer, Jesus did?

Jesus was not just a man. At least most Christians don't think so.

I'm arguing that because no man has ever refused sin, your idea of free will is dead in the water. And your retort is that Jesus never sinned. Kind of silly.

But nevertheless, Paul says he kept it perfectly as I showed in the last post (Philippians 3:6).

I don't know why you would say Paul kept the law when he specifically said it was dead.

And my broader point is that no man has ever refused sin. Therefore the discussion on free will is moot.

We are talking about the ability to keep the law and God not expecting too much of the Israelites. You are changing the topic rather than addressing it.

False. I've been hammering on this point for a while. You just don't want to be the nail.

God said it was OK to beat your slave as long as you don't kill him. Isn't it then not a sin to own a slave and beat him? Isn't it then good, or at least neutral, to own a slave?

Why do you think that?

Nihilism has won, and it's utterly obvious. Philolsophy just doesn't get it.

A proof of free will showing that determinism is self-refuting.

A proof?

The surrender of hard determinism is the first step towards accepting the credibility of free will.

True. But that does nothing to show that free will exists.

Ok, so you accept that free will is a viable option.

No. Free will is incoherent. You're not following the conversation.

I suppose I'll have to be a bit clearer rather than assuming you will follow the conversation.

LOL.

First, you said God creates humans with inclination to do evil, so how can humans be judged? I responded that Adam and Eve were not created with an inclination to do evil. Then you agreed with this.

I was never talking about Adam and Eve but rather all of the other 100 billion people that have ever lived.

Now the reason I brought this up was because I don't believe we are born with the inclination to do evil. I believe we are born like Adam and Eve and get to choose for ourselves if we want to do evil or not (for more on this view see, Precious in His Sight by Harold Eberle). So my argument was against you blaming God for judging us even though we have a bent to do evil.

That's a stupid belief, I'm sorry to say, given that people choose to sin at a rate of 100%.

Can you explain further?

The Planck length.

Why?

Consider also that infinite divisibility of space would imply that there exists an infinite amount of information. Can you tell me why this is impossible?

The point remains either way, even if there are not infinitely many points (though it is still possible there are, in the same way there are infinitely many unique real numbers between 0 and 1) on a wall, there are enough to make choosing a point something that is out of the control of our past. And just so you know, this.

In mathematics, we can describe a lot of things that are not real and can never be real.

Indeterminate, yes.

OK.

Nope, I forget, and I give up on this tangent.

What is it that you forget? I wasn't asking you a question. I was just proving you wrong. So I don't see how "I forget" is an appropriate response.

Ok.



If I am married to someone, but decide to divorce and marry someone else, I am not changing the first covenant. I am making it obsolete, ending it, and then starting a new one. This is what occurred when Jesus brought in the New Covenant. It rendered the first obsolete.

If God could have rendered the first covenant obsolete at any time, why wait? Why not do it immediately to save the life of the man who worked on the Sabbath? I guess his life just wasn't worth it because God wanted to stall for his own amusement?

Jesus, as King and High Priest of Israel, made the New Covenant with God, in the same way Moses made the covenant with God.

Jesus was never king or high priest.

Jesus King of the Jews, Christ the King, Jesus the Great High Priest

I'm not even looking at that. Christ was never king or high priest. Moving on.

I've explained this already. If you have a specific question I'll try to answer.

LOL, OK.

I speculate that Noah was a real person who did as God told him and made a boat large enough for family and a few animals and when the flood came he was saved. I'm of the opinion that Noah thought the flood was worldwide and that he had every animal that he thought existed with him. I'm not confident in my view, but it is what it is for now.

Right. And the animals were not magically relocated by God because ____.

Ok.



I've shown that living in the desert was so bad they cried out for slavery in Egypt, and that this says nothing about the slavery laws in the bible.

The Bible allows for a slave to be beaten for no reason. You're saying - based on absolutely nothing - that the slavery conditions in Egypt were worse. Therefore, you are saying that thousands of people overwhelmingly concurred that they would rather be forced to work and be beaten for no reason rather than be fed while being destitute.

Good luck with that.

Thanks!

 

[Nihilist Virus]

All these comments suggest you are a Moral Nihilist:

Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be constructed, a complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense.​

Yes.

But then these comments suggest you are a Moral Universalist:

Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals",[1] regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature.[2] Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism.​

No.

So no, you cant have it both ways, because you are subscribing to two contradictory moral views.

It's not my fault that you make false inferences. I've been very clear.

If morality is subjective you can only say what you find moral, you cannot impose that morality on others.

Correct.

Subjectivity entails a morality that is based on individual value judgements and that moral claims have no truth value.

Also correct.

You are claiming a moral truth.

Incorrect.

I've said that killing is obviously wrong. Let me explain what I mean by that (yet again).

Empathy is subjective, like one's senses. Your vision is a subjective experience for you. But it is an objective fact that you have sight. Having sight, you will not deliberately walk off a building.

Having empathy, you will not deliberately kill a living thing.

Now, vision exists on a spectrum. Worms, for example, can not see as well as us. They see shades of light. So it may not be as clear to a worm if it is teetering on the brink of a building's edge. Similarly, empathy exists on a spectrum. As you put it yourself, you have more empathy for a human, and less for a dog, and even less for a chicken, and even less for a snail.

You do not experience enough empathy for animals to make it obvious to you that killing them is wrong. Presumably you have enough empathy so that it is obvious to you that causing them harm (or perhaps unnecessary harm) is obviously wrong. Another person might experience empathy differently, and to such a person it would be obvious that killing a living creature is wrong.

But ultimately this is all subjective.

Do you understand my position now?

How about we beat this dead horse even more.

The Matrix is widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time. By what standard could I say that The Matrix is obviously better than some lousy B-movie with terrible acting, directing, editing, and writing? Are we not allowed to say that The Matrix is a better movie because we are in the realm of subjectivity?

Ultimately, the criteria by which we say that The Matrix is better is arbitrary. Objectively, it cannot be said that any movie is better than any other. But your semantics antics insist upon shutting down all conversation.

Do you say that as a nihilist or a moral universalist?

a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong.
​

I hope that by now you agree I've established my position.

This thought experiment demonstrates that we take into account peoples character and motives apart from their actions when making moral judgements.

And that was the point I was trying to make.

Your second sentence is irrelevant, it doesn't make them a bad person nor negate any of their other positive qualities.

It's not irrelevant, and I did not say or imply that the hypothetical person is bad. I constructed them so that they would be an unknown, and I forced you to choose between someone who you would be inclined to trust versus an unknown.

Yet again you're making bad inferences.

Actions start as thoughts, evil begins in the mind.

Matthew 15:18-19 18But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.​

This is what I've been saying all along about Jesus shifting the view of what is right and wrong away from the external rules to what is inside us and proceeds from the heart. This is what is meant by Jeremiah 31:33

"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.​

I don't believe the thought in isolation is a crime, but Jesus is teaching that there is an inherent connection between thought and action.

Umm... OK.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Since you have not provided a verse, I will assume you mean Exodus 21:20-21;

And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.​

This passage does NOT give such a person the "right" to beat their "slave". It is telling us whether or not the guilty party should be punished or not based on the circumstances. Do the laws of the USA give us the "right" to kill people because it has laws that say murderers can be put to death? Does USA law give us the "right" to steal from others because it has laws telling us what the punishment is for stealing? The Bible does not give anyone the right to beat slaves. It actually teaches us how to righteously treat our servants. You would do well to stop parroting those who deceive you into thinking all manner of evil against your Creator and seek to know and understand your Creator for yourself.

I can't deal with this level of dishonesty. Goodbye.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That depends on how well the Jews were treated at the same period of time. Their children are kill at will for the only reason of population control.

God didn't demand the Jew be saints back then simply because they can be as bad as any human groups around. God however regulates the situation such that their dispute over the non-Hebrew slaves can be settled in a reasonable way back then.

Please re-phrase. It looks to me like you're saying something despicable, so I'd like to be sure of what you're saying before I comment further.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Incorrect.

You are claiming a moral truth in the sense that you claim that there is some basis upon which everyone could instinctively know an action is wrong (that's not to say that everyone finds it wrong but that a basis exists upon which a moral value can potentially be established).

I've said that killing is obviously wrong. Let me explain what I mean by that (yet again).

Obviously wrong? Moral Nihilism is not a position from which one can claim anything to be right or wrong. My contention is with your use of the word obvious, nothing is obvious about morality from a nihilistic perspective because morality, right and wrong do not exist.

Empathy is subjective, like one's senses. Your vision is a subjective experience for you. But it is an objective fact that you have sight. Having sight, you will not deliberately walk off a building.

Having empathy, you will not deliberately kill a living thing.

Now, vision exists on a spectrum. Worms, for example, can not see as well as us. They see shades of light. So it may not be as clear to a worm if it is teetering on the brink of a building's edge. Similarly, empathy exists on a spectrum. As you put it yourself, you have more empathy for a human, and less for a dog, and even less for a chicken, and even less for a snail.

You do not experience enough empathy for animals to make it obvious to you that killing them is wrong. Presumably you have enough empathy so that it is obvious to you that causing them harm (or perhaps unnecessary harm) is obviously wrong. Another person might experience empathy differently, and to such a person it would be obvious that killing a living creature is wrong.

I have incentive to not walk off a building to preserve my own life, but what is my incentive not to kill an animal? What makes an action wrong? Again as a nihilist you contradict your own position by claiming something is obviously wrong, there simply is no right and wrong. Do you think eating a snail is wrong? Even with all the empathy in the world you cannot claim any action to be wrong as a moral nihilist.

But ultimately this is all subjective.

If it's all subjective you shouldn't have a problem with me claiming killing animals for food is not wrong, nor should it be obvious to me. To claim some moral value should be obvious to all is no longer subjective, it's a moral truth claim.

Do you understand my position now?

I understand moral nihilism but not your position. Are you sure you're a moral nihilist?

How about we beat this dead horse even more.

The Matrix is widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time. By what standard could I say that The Matrix is obviously better than some lousy B-movie with terrible acting, directing, editing, and writing? Are we not allowed to say that The Matrix is a better movie because we are in the realm of subjectivity?

Ultimately, the criteria by which we say that The Matrix is better is arbitrary. Objectively, it cannot be said that any movie is better than any other. But your semantics antics insist upon shutting down all conversation.

To draw the analogy further, you are actually claiming there is some means, like a characteristic or instinct, that when exercised properly would lead all to agree that The Matrix is the greatest movie of all time. You answered my question:

But if we rise above tribalism and no longer negate our empathy would everyone necessarily conclude that eating meat is wrong?

Yes.

That does't sound like a very nihilistic thing to say. That's closer to claiming a universal moral value. And if you're going to give an example of a universal moral value why not choose something more widely accepted such as murder or stealing rather than eating meat.

And that was the point I was trying to make.

No. You were trying to make the opposite point that someone without paedophilic urges is no better than one with them but who controls themselves not to act on them. You said it was perverse to say that they are not morally equivalent.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Love the word choice. Makes me want to go study a dictionary so I can speak like you.

I spoke the truth. Because I've seen the bomb explode. But you have to make the bomb and see it explode yourself before you can say it is true... The only thing you would be able to say is that you believe what I said.....And we have enough believers already....i dont wish to add you to the list of those. You should know. Maybe you want to know.... Maybe you want to make the bomb and see it explode. The problem is, you refuse to go get the ingredients to produce the bomb. You would rather just say that you dont believe it will explode and leave it at that. So there is only one option.....to just believe or disbelieve what i said.... But, as you know, experience is superior.

Or, you could just demonstrate that you can make the bomb explode...
Like I asked you to.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You are claiming a moral truth in the sense that you claim that there is some basis upon which everyone could instinctively know an action is wrong (that's not to say that everyone finds it wrong but that a basis exists upon which a moral value can potentially be established).


Obviously wrong? Moral Nihilism is not a position from which one can claim anything to be right or wrong. My contention is with your use of the word obvious, nothing is obvious about morality from a nihilistic perspective because morality, right and wrong do not exist.


I have incentive to not walk off a building to preserve my own life, but what is my incentive not to kill an animal? What makes an action wrong? Again as a nihilist you contradict your own position by claiming something is obviously wrong, there simply is no right and wrong. Do you think eating a snail is wrong? Even with all the empathy in the world you cannot claim any action to be wrong as a moral nihilist.


If it's all subjective you shouldn't have a problem with me claiming killing animals for food is not wrong, nor should it be obvious to me. To claim some moral value should be obvious to all is no longer subjective, it's a moral truth claim.


I understand moral nihilism but not your position. Are you sure you're a moral nihilist?


To draw the analogy further, you are actually claiming there is some means, like a characteristic or instinct, that when exercised properly would lead all to agree that The Matrix is the greatest movie of all time. You answered my question:

That does't sound like a very nihilistic thing to say. That's closer to claiming a universal moral value. And if you're going to give an example of a universal moral value why not choose something more widely accepted such as murder or stealing rather than eating meat.


No. You were trying to make the opposite point that someone without paedophilic urges is no better than one with them but who controls themselves not to act on them. You said it was perverse to say that they are not morally equivalent.

It seems your position is that a moral nihilist is "not allowed" to say that it is obviously wrong (in any sense whatsoever) to kill. My position is that a moral nihilist would say that there is no objective way of showing that killing is wrong, but that killing can be obviously wrong to someone (this is subjective because I'm saying it's wrong "to someone") who has enough empathy which is properly directed. You seem to outright reject the idea of something being objectively indeterminate but subjectively wrong.

This means that your position is that all moral nihilists are psychopaths. If there is absolutely nothing that they would find to be obviously immoral, then they have no empathy - they are psychopaths. And this would be an extremely absurd claim to make - even if you're only making the claim indirectly - because all of this philolsophy is just an academic exercise. No one here is making a statement about their personal life or how they live it. Yet you seem to insist that such a statement is being made.

 

[Everybodyknows]

It seems your position is that a moral nihilist is "not allowed" to say that it is obviously wrong (in any sense whatsoever) to kill. My position is that a moral nihilist would say that there is no objective way of showing that killing is wrong, but that killing can be obviously wrong to someone (this is subjective because I'm saying it's wrong "to someone") who has enough empathy which is properly directed. You seem to outright reject the idea of something being objectively indeterminate but subjectively wrong.

This means that your position is that all moral nihilists are psychopaths. If there is absolutely nothing that they would find to be obviously immoral, then they have no empathy - they are psychopaths. And this would be an extremely absurd claim to make - even if you're only making the claim indirectly - because all of this philolsophy is just an academic exercise. No one here is making a statement about their personal life or how they live it. Yet you seem to insist that such a statement is being made.

As I understand Moral Nihilism rejects the notion of right and wrong altogether as there is no feature in reality that can determine right and wrong. So to make any moral claim at all is erroneous as there are no moral truths. Sure you can talk about your feelings and you can still have empathy, you can feel certain things may be wrong. Ultimately these feelings are just your feelings and are meaningless. It is erroneous to make any moral claim at all. Morality is a "complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense." I'm certainly not claiming moral nihilists to be emotionless psychopaths. Killing can be obviously wrong to someone, but not obviously wrong to someone else, so to make the claim "killing is wrong" is incorrect, you can only express moral values as personal value judgements but one must be aware that "we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken."

BTW you do realise that Nihilism is a philosophy? Do you think that Nihilism can be scientifically demonstrated to be true, since the scientific method is the only reliable pathway to truth?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

As I understand Moral Nihilism rejects the notion of right and wrong altogether as there is no feature in reality that can determine right and wrong. So to make any moral claim at all is erroneous as there are no moral truths. Sure you can talk about your feelings and you can still have empathy, you can feel certain things may be wrong. Ultimately these feelings are just your feelings and are meaningless.

One's subjective experiences are not meaningless. Why would you say that?

Although I do agree that there is no feature in reality that can determine right and wrong. In fact this seems quite obvious.

It is erroneous to make any moral claim at all. Morality is a "complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense." I'm certainly not claiming moral nihilists to be emotionless psychopaths. Killing can be obviously wrong to someone, but not obviously wrong to someone else, so to make the claim "killing is wrong" is incorrect, you can only express moral values as personal value judgements but one must be aware that "we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken."

To a reptile, it is not obvious that killing is wrong. Reptiles do not have empathy.

Mammals have varying degrees of empathy. To a mammal who has a very acute sense of empathy, it is obviously wrong to kill.

At no point did I intend to convey that it is obviously wrong to everyone that killing is wrong. I am aware that psychopaths exist, and I am aware that our tribalism allows us to dampen our empathy for animals and even other human beings.

But to anyone with an acute sense of empathy, killing is obviously wrong.

I'm making no objective claim here. This is purely subjective.

BTW you do realise that Nihilism is a philosophy? Do you think that Nihilism can be scientifically demonstrated to be true, since the scientific method is the only reliable pathway to truth?

Nihilism is consistent with science. A core principle of science is the null hypothesis: the rejection of the claim that X causes Y until sufficient evidence is produced. Nihilism works in the spirit of the null hypothesis: I reject philolsophical claims until they can be proven to be true. There might be some obscure exceptions, but generally philolsophy is a complete waste of time which has produced nothing fruitful. The exception, I suppose, would be mathematics. Nothing in mathematics is intrinsically true, but it is at least useful.

 

[Everybodyknows]

One's subjective experiences are not meaningless. Why would you say that?

Although I do agree that there is no feature in reality that can determine right and wrong. In fact this seems quite obvious.

Your feelings and experiences have meaning to you, and you can make whatever meaning you like of them. They have no meaning in a broader existential sense.

To a reptile, it is not obvious that killing is wrong. Reptiles do not have empathy.

Mammals have varying degrees of empathy. To a mammal who has a very acute sense of empathy, it is obviously wrong to kill.

At no point did I intend to convey that it is obviously wrong to everyone that killing is wrong. I am aware that psychopaths exist, and I am aware that our tribalism allows us to dampen our empathy for animals and even other human beings.

You claim that we all have this inherent universal quality of empathy, except that some dampen it (Perhaps excluding psychopaths). Your claim is that if we all exercised our empathy to its full extent that it would be possible for all to agree on a universal ethic. One of those universal moral values would be not eating animals. Again, this is moral universalism as you are claiming that there is a universal ethic that we can all arrive at regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, etc. Even if we arrive at this universal ethic subjectively it's still moral universalism.

But to anyone with an acute sense of empathy, killing is obviously wrong.

Evidence?

I'm making no objective claim here. This is purely subjective.

Your making a subjective morally universal claim.

Nihilism is consistent with science. A core principle of science is the null hypothesis: the rejection of the claim that X causes Y until sufficient evidence is produced. Nihilism works in the spirit of the null hypothesis: I reject philolsophical claims until they can be proven to be true.

Nihilism is unfalsifiable in regards to the scientific method, which puts you on the same footing as all other philosophical positions. If you were being a real scientist you would reject nihilism also.

There might be some obscure exceptions, but generally philolsophy is a complete waste of time which has produced nothing fruitful. The exception, I suppose, would be mathematics. Nothing in mathematics is intrinsically true, but it is at least usefu

The scientific method is a product of philosophy, mathematics is not.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Your feelings and experiences have meaning to you, and you can make whatever meaning you like of them. They have no meaning in a broader existential sense.

I can agree to that.

You claim that we all have this inherent universal quality of empathy, except that some dampen it (Perhaps excluding psychopaths).

Yes, more or less.

Your claim is that if we all exercised our empathy to its full extent that it would be possible for all to agree on a universal ethic.

False. I never claimed this.

There are a lot of grey areas to morality. If everyone suddenly became omni-benevolent, we would still disagree on some of the finer points of moral issues (although we would not fight about such things).

What I'm saying is that if we exercised our empathy to its full extent, then killing would be obviously wrong. Causing unnecessary harm would be obviously wrong as well. Maybe a couple other things would be obvious, too, but I did not make any further claims.

One of those universal moral values would be not eating animals. Again, this is moral universalism as you are claiming that there is a universal ethic that we can all arrive at regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, etc. Even if we arrive at this universal ethic subjectively it's still moral universalism.

It's a moral idea that everyone in our clique would agree upon. But universal agreement does not make something universally true.

Also, do reptiles not exist in this hypothetical? Because they don't have empathy, so their existence would negate your claim of universalism.

Evidence?

You want evidence for a subjective issue like this?

Your making a subjective morally universal claim.

We all use our eyes to perceive the same world, and we all do so in roughly the same way. That's a subjective universal claim. Do you object to it?

Nihilism is unfalsifiable in regards to the scientific method, which puts you on the same footing as all other philosophical positions.

No. There is a difference between a belief and a lack of a belief. I don't know why that is not obvious.

If you were being a real scientist you would reject nihilism also.

I'm not a scientist.

But if I were to reject nihilism, please tell me what I ought to believe as absolutely true. Then proceed to convince me.

The scientific method is a product of philosophy, mathematics is not.

Mathematics is assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow. Sounds like philolsophy to me.

Science is digging in the mud to discover reality for what it is. Does not sound like philolsophy to me.

 

[Hawkins]

Please re-phrase. It looks to me like you're saying something despicable, so I'd like to be sure of what you're saying before I comment further.

It's simple. Will you consider that there are good men during the period of time when Americans were allowed to own slaves?

In human history, there are several hundred years when all whites in America had the right to own slaves. Will you consider all the slave owners evil?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

It's simple. Will you consider that there are good men during the period of time when Americans were allowed to own slaves?

In human history, there are several hundred years when all whites in America had the right to own slaves. Will you consider all the slave owners evil?

What's next, are you going to ask me if all the Nazis who executed Jews were evil?

 

[Everybodyknows]

I can agree to that.

Yes, more or less.

False. I never claimed this.

There are a lot of grey areas to morality. If everyone suddenly became omni-benevolent, we would still disagree on some of the finer points of moral issues (although we would not fight about such things).

What I'm saying is that if we exercised our empathy to its full extent, then killing would be obviously wrong. Causing unnecessary harm would be obviously wrong as well. Maybe a couple other things would be obvious, too, but I did not make any further claims.



It's a moral idea that everyone in our clique would agree upon. But universal agreement does not make something universally true.

Also, do reptiles not exist in this hypothetical? Because they don't have empathy, so their existence would negate your claim of universalism.

I think you are a moral relativist not a moral nihilist as you claim. You are probably only an existential nihilist, but your moral views aren't compatible with moral nihilism.

You want evidence for a subjective issue like this?

Surely there would be some correlation between empathy and vegetarianism. Empathy is measurable by way of psychological testing. Surely you wouldn't believe something is obvious without evidence to back it up?

We all use our eyes to perceive the same world, and we all do so in roughly the same way. That's a subjective universal claim. Do you object to it?

Morality according to your claims doesn't exist. How do we perceive something that doesn't exist?

No. There is a difference between a belief and a lack of a belief. I don't know why that is not obvious.

Existential Nihilism: Life has no meaning or purpose
Moral Nihilism: Morality, right and wrong do not exist.
Can you demonstrate either of these to be true scientifically? You claimed nihilism as a truth. Questions of meaning or morality are not even admissible in science in the first place. Also every time you use the word obvious I'll take that as an assertion unless you can back it up with evidence. I could say it's obvious that God exists, but it's not really a useful way to argue.

I'm not a scientist.

But if I were to reject nihilism, please tell me what I ought to believe as absolutely true. Then proceed to convince me.

You shouldn't believe in any absolute truth - even nihilism. The scientific method doesn't give any absolute truths, you only can tentatively accept things as true based on current evidence and the accepted consensus on the interpretation of that evidence.

Mathematics is assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow. Sounds like philolsophy to me.

Science is digging in the mud to discover reality for what it is. Does not sound like philolsophy to me.

I think if you bother to research the history of science you will find that the scientific method has its roots in philosophy. Without philosophy we never would have arrived at the scientific method. Mathematics is a seperate field.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I think you are a moral relativist not a moral nihilist as you claim. You are probably only an existential nihilist, but your moral views aren't compatible with moral nihilism.

The platypus does not care how it is classified by biologists. It exists and is well defined. And so am I.

Surely there would be some correlation between empathy and vegetarianism. Empathy is measurable by way of psychological testing. Surely you wouldn't believe something is obvious without evidence to back it up?

I don't know how to demonstrate a subjective experience.

Morality according to your claims doesn't exist. How do we perceive something that doesn't exist?

Vision is not objective; it is subjective. Your vision exists subjectively. Can you perceive it?

Existential Nihilism: Life has no meaning or purpose
Moral Nihilism: Morality, right and wrong do not exist.
Can you demonstrate either of these to be true scientifically?

Again: null hypothesis.

You claimed nihilism as a truth.

Do leprechauns exist?

The colloquial way to answer this is to say that you reject or suspend belief in leprechauns because of insufficient evidence.

The formal way to answer this is to make the negative claim that leprechauns do not exist. Being a negative claim, there is no burden of proof for this position.

When atheists say that there is no God, they are (hopefully) speaking in the formal sense.

As for nihilism, it is nonsensical to evaluate it as true or false. Nihilism is a position that is taken with regards to true/false claims. Let's please not get into "Is 'This sentence is true' true?"

Any logical system, such as mathematics as defined under the Dedekind-Peano axioms, is just a list of claims which follow logically from a list of unsubstantiated assertions (the axioms). *If* we grant the axioms, *then* the whole world of mathematics follows and we can show, among other things, that 2+2=4. But the axioms themselves are not intrinsically true or absolutely true. They're just conditionally true.

To illustrate:

We have the notion of a set which is undefined, and then we assert that the empty set, {}=Ø, actually exists. Then we assert that for every set A there exists A union {A}, which is the successor function. Then we define Ø=0, Ø union {Ø}={Ø}=1, {Ø} union {{Ø}}={Ø,{Ø}}=2, and so on where each natural number n is a set containing n elements. (Incidentally, n is the ordered n-tuple of n empty sets.) Lastly, we define addition as a function +:N×N-->N such that +(a,b)=a+b=(b successor iterations of a).

What, from above, is "true"?

What, in all of existence, is "true"?

What does "true" even mean?

"True" is a label that we arbitrarily put on things. It has no meaning beyond that.

Hence nihilism.

Questions of meaning or morality are not even admissible in science in the first place. Also every time you use the word obvious I'll take that as an assertion unless you can back it up with evidence. I could say it's obvious that God exists, but it's not really a useful way to argue.

Fine. I don't intend to prove subjective claims. That's why I can only assert that it is obviously wrong to kill. If you disagree - if you truly disagree - and if you are motivated to kill me, then there will obviously be a reckoning between the two of us. There's nothing I can show you or explain to you to prove that killing is wrong because, objectively, it isn't.

You shouldn't believe in any absolute truth - even nihilism.

Please tell me what truth of nihilism it is that you think I believe.

The scientific method doesn't give any absolute truths, you only can tentatively accept things as true based on current evidence and the accepted consensus on the interpretation of that evidence.

I would prefer to say that I have degrees of certainty. I'm more convinced of the existence of black holes than I am of cosmic strings, for example. We don't have a theory of quantum gravity yet, so our understanding of black holes is fundamentally incomplete, but there are good reasons to believe that black holes exist and there is indirect evidence to substantiate their existence. Cosmic strings, on the other hand, are entirely theoretical and are suggested as an ad hoc explanation for unexplained gravitational behavior.

I think if you bother to research the history of science you will find that the scientific method has its roots in philosophy. Without philosophy we never would have arrived at the scientific method. Mathematics is a seperate field.

If that's so, then congratulations to philolsophy. Science, along with mathematics, would be two successes out of many failures.

 

[Everybodyknows]

The platypus does not care how it is classified by biologists. It exists and is well defined. And so am I.

If I said a platypus is a bird you would probably call me an idiot. You have defined yourself as a moral nihilist but then you approach morality in a way that is not consistent with that position.

I don't know how to demonstrate a subjective experience.

anyone with an acute sense of empathy, killing is obviously wrong.

You don't need to demonstrate the subjective experience of feeling empathy. You just need to demonstrate a correlation between empathy and a moral value judgement. Since we can measure empathy by psychological testing, it should not be too difficult to measure a correlation. We don't need to demonstrate any truth of the moral value. Our hypothesis would be "a stronger sense of empathy results in a a stronger agreement that x is wrong".

Vision is not objective; it is subjective. Your vision exists subjectively. Can you perceive it?

I don't understand. Vision is perception. None of our perceptions are objective because they all involve the mind. Morality is an abstract concept. How do we perceive abstract concepts?

Again: null hypothesis.

Do leprechauns exist?

The colloquial way to answer this is to say that you reject or suspend belief in leprechauns because of insufficient evidence.

The formal way to answer this is to make the negative claim that leprechauns do not exist. Being a negative claim, there is no burden of proof for this position.

When atheists say that there is no God, they are (hopefully) speaking in the formal sense.

As for nihilism, it is nonsensical to evaluate it as true or false. Nihilism is a position that is taken with regards to true/false claims. Let's please not get into "Is 'This sentence is true' true?"

This is skepticism not nihilism. Skepticism is a position taken with regards to truth claims. Skepticism doesn't accept truth without sufficient supporting evidence. Nihilism is the denial that truth even exists.

Any logical system, such as mathematics as defined under the Dedekind-Peano axioms, is just a list of claims which follow logically from a list of unsubstantiated assertions (the axioms). *If* we grant the axioms, *then* the whole world of mathematics follows and we can show, among other things, that 2+2=4. But the axioms themselves are not intrinsically true or absolutely true. They're just conditionally true.

To illustrate:

We have the notion of a set which is undefined, and then we assert that the empty set, {}=Ø, actually exists. Then we assert that for every set A there exists A union {A}, which is the successor function. Then we define Ø=0, Ø union {Ø}={Ø}=1, {Ø} union {{Ø}}={Ø,{Ø}}=2, and so on where each natural number n is a set containing n elements. (Incidentally, n is the ordered n-tuple of n empty sets.) Lastly, we define addition as a function +:N×N-->N such that +(a,b)=a+b=(b successor iterations of a).

What, from above, is "true"?

What, in all of existence, is "true"?

What does "true" even mean?

"True" is a label that we arbitrarily put on things. It has no meaning beyond that.

Hence nihilism.

Like I said Nihilism is the denial that truth even exists, so you are consistent here with that view. How do you reason then that the scientific method is the only reliable method to discover truth if truth ultimately is arbitrarily defined? Whatever way we reason about truth we have to accept some axiomatic assumptions to begin with weather it be science, philosophy, mathematics or spirituality/religion. It just comes down to a matter of which assumptions we feel are more realistic but none can ultimately be proven/disproven.

Fine. I don't intend to prove subjective claims. That's why I can only assert that it is obviously wrong to kill. If you disagree - if you truly disagree - and if you are motivated to kill me, then there will obviously be a reckoning between the two of us. There's nothing I can show you or explain to you to prove that killing is wrong because, objectively, it isn't.

If you can't prove killing is wrong, and agree that there is no such thing as wrong, then how can you assert that it is obviously wrong. All you can say is it is obvious to you, there is no reason to think it should be obvious to anyone else. Nor can you judge anyones act of killing as immoral because morality does not exist.

Please tell me what truth of nihilism it is that you think I believe.

I don't know, I find your version of nihilism confusing.

I would prefer to say that I have degrees of certainty. I'm more convinced of the existence of black holes than I am of cosmic strings, for example. We don't have a theory of quantum gravity yet, so our understanding of black holes is fundamentally incomplete, but there are good reasons to believe that black holes exist and there is indirect evidence to substantiate their existence. Cosmic strings, on the other hand, are entirely theoretical and are suggested as an ad hoc explanation for unexplained gravitational behavior.

But ultimately you can't be certain of anything, even existence.

If that's so, then congratulations to philolsophy. Science, along with mathematics, would be two successes out of many failures.

The scientific method is essentially a philosophy, so if you claim that it is the only reliable method for truth then you also must admit that philosophy is ultimately a method that has reliably brought us to truth. Naturalism, deductive and inductive reasoning, analytical thinking - these are all from philosophy and applied in science.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

If I said a platypus is a bird you would probably call me an idiot. You have defined yourself as a moral nihilist but then you approach morality in a way that is not consistent with that position.

And how does a person with that position approach morality? I asked you if you were saying that moral nihilists are psychopaths, and you said no. Would a moral nihilist rescue an infant from a burning building? If so, why? Perhaps... because it's obvious to them that they should?

Intellectually, I understand that morality is a fiction that we invented. There is no right or wrong. But that is not how I'm going to live my life.

You don't need to demonstrate the subjective experience of feeling empathy. You just need to demonstrate a correlation between empathy and a moral value judgement.

Um, no I don't.

Since we can measure empathy by psychological testing, it should not be too difficult to measure a correlation. We don't need to demonstrate any truth of the moral value. Our hypothesis would be "a stronger sense of empathy results in a a stronger agreement that x is wrong".

But empathy would be more like a vector than simply a value. It's not like you either have empathy or you don't. Empathy can be directionalized. You said so yourself with your example of how you have descending levels of empathy for animals that are less and less related to us. I pointed out that one could have no empathy for a Nazi, while having empathy for his friends.

So I'd like you to explain how this psychological test would work. Perhaps you kill a cat in front of me, and I feel some emotional discomfort but not a lot. But then you kill *my* cat in front of me and my reaction is much different. And maybe you can recognize that I have a general feeling of empathy for humans that is higher than what I feel for cats - even my own cat - but then you go and kill a child molester in front of me and you don't sense that I have any emotional reaction. So there is not necessarily a clear hierarchy wherein I favor one species over another. The test that you're proposing is utterly unfeasible.

I don't understand. Vision is perception. None of our perceptions are objective because they all involve the mind. Morality is an abstract concept. How do we perceive abstract concepts?

Morality as an abstract concept is a fiction. We sense morality through our empathy - here, it is not an abstract concept but rather a subjective experience.

This is skepticism not nihilism. Skepticism is a position taken with regards to truth claims. Skepticism doesn't accept truth without sufficient supporting evidence. Nihilism is the denial that truth even exists.

Would a skeptic accept the law of non-contradiction as absolutely true, or would a skeptic only accept it tentatively and to the degree of certainty that is warranted?

Like I said Nihilism is the denial that truth even exists, so you are consistent here with that view. How do you reason then that the scientific method is the only reliable method to discover truth if truth ultimately is arbitrarily defined?

Very good point. I was equivocating terms here.

Truth, in the sense that I think you mean it, does not exist. In the sense that I mean it, truth is something that is arbitrarily defined.

We can make a hypothetical logical system right now. All we need is some rules:

1) All families consist of a father, a mother, and two children.
2) Every boy has a sister.
3) There are more girls than boys.

In our discussion, I tacitly assumed that you would not consider any of these statements to be true. But as far as I see things, this is as far as truth can go. I've created a logical system with some rules which I've declared to be true. So everything I said above is true. We can then derive more truths from our initial set of truths, such as "There is at least one family with two girls and no boys."

Science makes some basic assumptions as well. What we would call truths. We then can derive more truths from these initial assumptions. And the scientific method is the best way to do this.

Whatever way we reason about truth we have to accept some axiomatic assumptions to begin with weather it be science, philosophy, mathematics or spirituality/religion. It just comes down to a matter of which assumptions we feel are more realistic but none can ultimately be proven/disproven.

You've nailed it. You have perfectly described nihilism, and you have explained why its rejection is unreasonable.

If you can't prove killing is wrong, and agree that there is no such thing as wrong, then how can you assert that it is obviously wrong. All you can say is it is obvious to you, there is no reason to think it should be obvious to anyone else. Nor can you judge anyones act of killing as immoral because morality does not exist.

When I say, "It is obviously wrong to kill" that is shorthand for, "It is obvious to anyone with acute empathy that killing would be offensive to one's sense of empathy in much the same way that eating a bowl of salt would be offensive to one's sense of taste."

I don't know, I find your version of nihilism confusing.

You don't realize how much you already agree with it.

But ultimately you can't be certain of anything, even existence.

Correct. Philolsophers have given up trying to solve hard solipsism because they realized that they are unable to answer actual questions.

The scientific method is essentially a philosophy, so if you claim that it is the only reliable method for truth then you also must admit that philosophy is ultimately a method that has reliably brought us to truth. Naturalism, deductive and inductive reasoning, analytical thinking - these are all from philosophy and applied in science.

It just depends on how broad a definition you want to give to philolsophy. Make it too broad and you'll be forced to concede that earthworms are philolsophers.