True, he may have perceived it as his duty.
True, duty doesn't exist in and of itself, just like beauty or ugliness for example.
If that's the case I wonder why his intentions aren't abundantly clear to us.
It's not about having "faith" in moral faculties. Morality seems to be intuitive or even instinctive. I act upon it like I act upon physical danger - I don't decide to have "faith" that I'm about to get a football to the face, I'll duck no matter what. Even if I know intellectually that it's happen in a virtual reality game.
As a very young child I believed the Earth was flat. The same faculties that made me believe that, also made me stop believing that. I don't see why the fact that morality and thought come the same place I must conclude neither to be trustworthy.
I'd love to discuss free will, but hopefully in a designated thread, since this one is getting long enough as it is. OK?
But how do we determine the value of something? It's whatever people are willing to sacrifice for it, right? So no one thing I can think of has a fixed value.
I don't see how it follows that if God exists we have an obligation to him. He may have created the universe and then drawn back, for all I know.
Sure, Khan was unusually successful in spreading his genes, but that of course doesn't prove raping will necessarily be the best strategy on the whole. Like I said, his genes wouldn't have gotten too far had he lived in the stone age. Genetically, we're still "designed" for stone age life, not the modern lifestyle, which is a fraction of a second in the history of evolution.
I don't mean every single action we (or animals) take, but our traits and behaviour generally speaking, and in large numbers through very long periods of time. You can live in an environment where you'll never need to have goosebumps, but you still have the ability because during some period in evolution, those who had that ability were more likely to survive than those who didn't.
I don't agree God is a good explanation at all. It seems extremely unlikely to me that we're created by a God who is good (what I mean by good here is that he wants us to be happy and healthy) and/or wants us to know who he is.
It is of course rather peculiar that anything exists at all, but the best I can get to would be some form of deism (that God probably exists but doesn't care particularly about us).
Yes. Since I'm not convinced God exists, I have no reason to claim that there is some "higher" purpose.
Sure, but I wouldn't use that word since for most people it's tied to faith in some deity.
Caught doing what exactly?
OK, I'll try one last time. If I have said that you believe God ordered genocide, I was obviously making a faulty and foolish assumption about what you believe, and I'm sorry.
If you can let that go, here is a point I'm trying to make, which I think you still haven't replied to: IF someone (anyone, you, the pope, a crazy cat lady, they, one, whoever) says that genocide is wrong and that God orders genocide, then I don't see how they can say that God is good.
Well I don't see how I could point to some truly objective form of righteousness. Can you?
Poor me, finding purpose and joy and fulfillment even though the universe is pointless.
Just like for you. I don't believe I can sense anything at all apart from through my brain.
No, it entails that "light" doesn't exist in and of itself.
Yeah, poor me. My money is worthless and useless because it has no objective value.
Should I be depressed instead? Would that be more in line with reality?
The thing I still don't get is why we should assume God is good.
I can't. I may be a brain in a vat. We may be living in a simulation.
Yes of course. We have a history of applying the wrong kind of thinking to a lot of problems. Physics would be the most obvious example, I think.
What is a probable reason God wouldn't want us to know the truth? I assume that if he exists (and is somewhat like in the Christian conception(s) of him), that he would be able to.
Because Christianity is one religion among thousands. Why is it more likely to be true than the others?
So if evolution is true, I must obey its directions so to speak, perfectly and in every situation? That's not what evolution is about, it doesn't "demand" that every individual lives perfectly in alignment with it, it only means that one the whole, certain traits outcompete others.
It's also advantageous to increase the size of your group by including ever more people in it. A person may be more valuable as a babysitter, a co-parent, teacher, soldier or tax-payer than a slave.
I think what has happened/is happening is that we see that we're all better off if we cooperate instead of fighting, and that the more we learn about other people, the more we identify with them. Our instinct is to protect our own kind.
In practice, we're all following both.
They're not predictable in the sense that if we try to see it from the outside, it would necessarily strike us as a natural thing to happen, but it does fit with the theory.
I see you don't understand what I was trying to say. Had my parents been Muslim, I would almost certainly also have been a Muslim in childhood and youth. That's why I say "I believed because my parents did."
Theistic expectations.
You yourself say that you are persuaded by your moral intuitions over your intellectual intentions. Seems those duties are abundantly clear whether or not you believe in God. That makes sense under my world view, it doesn't make sense on your world view why you should perceive a duty when there is no duty giver.
Moral and Intellectual Faith
When you act upon perceived physical danger you are trusting (faith) your intellectual intuition that there is danger. When you act upon perceived moral danger you are trusting (faith) your moral intuition that there is danger. Now you give the counter example of a reflex response but you aren't exactly responding to moral intuitions by reflex are you Holo. So that example really isn't applicable is it?
I don't think your intellectual faculties told you that the world was flat. I think someone told you that. You don't have an intuition that there is an earth, just that there is land that you know. The problem in mutual untrustworthiness our our faculties is that you are condemning one faculty via another faculty from the same source. That is self defeating. By confirming that your moral faculties are mistaken when they perceive objective moral values and duties, you are also casting doubt on your intellectual faculties when they perceive objective truth, such as the belief that our moral faculties are mistaken.
Free Will
We don't need to discuss free will, because you reject it. If you are determined you by definition did not come to your conclusions rationally. A chemical reaction caused your claim, not rational thought. That is a huuuge problem Holo.
Objective value
Determining the value of something is different than an individual setting the value by particular right. The difference is one is agreed upon, the other is set by it's right. In the case of God, the value of moral action is permanently set in eternal consequence.
You have the free will to not do what you are obliged to do, but you will not fulfill the value set by Him if you abandon your duty and you will suffer the consequences that are set forth for that failure.
Genghis Parents.
Khan's success wasn't unusual on evolution, the lack of Khans are unusual on evolution. We still aren't in the stone age, so it still doesn't matter as an example, even if it holds, which is dubious and speculative to begin with. The facts are you are more likely to be related to him than any random person, so he factually is a success. And while you might find logical reason to be a soccer family, it fails to be a superior evolutionary model. You are merely setting the evolutionary goal posts where you find humanity.
Burden of Proof
So we have arrived back here, am I going to find any burden of proof from you, or just counter arguments? My guess is counter arguments, and such from one who is determined and cannot warrant their ability to make truth claims. You object that it does not appear like we are created by God because we aren't happy and healthy. I see no reason, in our present condition, why being happy and healthy would be a universal good. It is the case that many only turn to God when their mortality comes into view, and as the history of Israel shows happiness does not keep one in saving faith.
I don't think there is any reason to believe that there are no interactions from outside in the deist sense. Craig Keener has written a 1248 page book documenting divine intervention. I see absolutely no reason why that claim is true or even supported. You might doubt every claim of intervention, but that still leaves you with no grounds to believe it hasn't.
You asked me how you determine a purpose, that is why I said - "To determine a purpose you have to postulate a mind. Minds are the only things which have purpose." I'm not sure why you are objecting to my answering of your question.
Morality
By caught I mean changing your intentions to suit a present challenge. I don't mean lying if that is what you are thinking.
To philosophically make your claim of contradiction on genocide you must define genocide. It's a very variable definition, in some cases it is simply to destroy a large group of people, which makes every war genocide, and all death penalties genocide. In any case it does not matter what people are saying. Even if you make a contradiction, it does nothing if it's not from scripture.
Righteousness.
I would point to God as an objective standard, as a maximally great being. We are already able to point to humans who seem to represent an objectively perceived standard, if we go one greater, one greater and so one we reach God to which there is none greater.
Light
Is there light in you? You haven't said. On my world view there is light, and my faculties were designed to point toward it, so no it's not "just like for me". Your world view merely entails that you have the sensation that there is light in you, not that there is Holo. Now you know I wasn't speaking of money when I said you may treasure yourself. You are not treasure. As you would say on your world view, you should neither be depressed or happy about the knowledge that your self perceptions are delusion. You seem a bit angry that I'm saying you have no light as if you value the delusion that you do. But that is just a delusion Holo, you abandoned that as a reality for both you and your family when you left the faith. You are their safe guard, they look to you for what is best for them, and yet you play around with this world view to deny Christ for yourself, when they are also in need of the truth. In a thread about what one loses without Christ you have lost the objective value of your children, free will, the actual ability to make rational decisions, the actual ability to live both sanely and morally and you have possibly lost that for your children because, as you say, they will likely believe what their parents believe. This discussion isn't just about you Holo. Those in your care are on the line for how
you respond, whether you are being faithful to truth, or faithful to your world view.
Euthyphro reframed...again.
How many times are you going to reframe this? We aren't assuming God is good as if Good is an external referent that God meets. Good refers to God's nature. At this point it just feels deliberate Holo.
Evolutionary Intellect.
If you are a brain a vat you can’t make the truth claim that your faculties can probably lead us to some truth. So you can’t say, with warrant, that your claims are likely true.
Theistic expectations.
You have a burden of proof for you claims, so if you claim that on theism we should have faculties that would allow us to know the truth about reality to an obvious degree then you should give evidence/reason for that claim. Saying why wouldn’t he doesn’t substantiate that claim. But one reason why is because we are very evil people, and the more we know the more evil we can do.
Claims.
Comparing Christianity to others doesn’t explain why it was likely constructed, or explain the conditions I originally stated. After so many exchanges on this it is clear that this was not a thought through assertion. So there is no point in me asking further.
Slavery and Evolutionary Morality.
No no, you aren’t obeying evolution. You have no free will, you are determined. So you must “obey” chemistry, you have no choice not too, in fact you have no choice at all. You are a chemical reaction. Evolution may be responsible for what chemical arrangements you have, but all your actions, including your claims, are mere chemical results.
A person is a slave because they don’t have a choice and they aren’t paid. Saying that an individual might be better off as a paid teacher says nothing about slavery as a whole. Many slaves were babysitters, and took care of children. They can be forced into war. The fact is people enslaved other people because they saw it as a benefit to themselves, and they abandoned slavery because they saw it as immoral. They didn’t abandon slavery because they thought they should make someone a baby sitter ok. It is as clear today as it was then that it is personally beneficial to do so which is why it has been done for thousands of years. So yes, that is what evolutionary optimization looks like, not the absence of slavery.
Progress
Why is being better off and not fighting a
particular point of progress for humanism? You listed it as a particular point of humanism, in contrast to other forms as if it’s truly better. The conditions of humanism and nazism are just points on a chart with no top or bottom. It makes no sense to compare them as if one is ahead, and yet you do. You might say that this is only what you think, but these terms refer to a large group of people vs another large group of people. You wouldn’t tell me Ice cream shops have progressed because it added a new flavor unless you thought it actually progressed. You might try to look for a way to make this a simple individual subjective preference, but that isn’t faithful to how your speaking about a group of people compared to another group of people.
What if?
I think in practice, we can, on my view alone, follow both our moral and our intellectual faculties. On your view you can only follow one at a time, because they fatally contradict each other.
Evolution and self defeat.
When you set the goal posts of evolution wherever you observe something then yeah it occurred naturally according to that hypothesis. But that isn’t science – it’s circular reasoning. If you want to make logical claims those claims should be predictable or expected on their premise. You claim our morality is expected on evolution and yet we are striving not to have kids and giving up on slavery. This is merely cognitive bias, not reason...rather, this chemical reaction now isn't it?
You claim we would have to know so much more about evolution to predict things but you are already predicting them in such a far fetched speculative scope. So if you don’t have enough information to make those claims then what good are they. My claims are a priori expected on evolution.
Prior belief
That your parents were Christians isn’t why you believed. Why you believed would only be what you would have given as a testimony while you were a Christian. Your testimony was never that your parents believed. This genetic fallacy says nothing about whether your belief is true or not either. It is fallacious to think that your prior belief is false because your parents believed and you are statistically likely to also believe.
Unless you went to Westborough Baptist, or a place like it, no one was teaching you that God committed Genocide. It is ridiculous that you would even attempt to state that they did. Did they tell you God committed murder too?
Consciousness.
You’re the one who brought up pantheism, why are you asking me what you meant by it?
It’s not my duty to tell you how to warrant your claims. I have abductively warranted mine, if you can’t do the same, perhaps it is time to reevaluate your world view. If not for yourself, for those under your care.
If consciousness is probably not the thing that dictates your behavior then it is unlikely that your behavior is dictated by consciousness. I don’t know why that needs explaining, it’s tautological.
True belief is not necessary to survive and pass on our genes. All that is required is belief that leads to such behavior. So postulating evolution as the sole cause of your faculties does not give you warrant that your beliefs are true.
Trustworthy behavior.
According to your world view, there are no shoulds to abide by. But when making a claim you can’t evidence, how you act is the only evidence one has that your claim is true. You can’t support this world view, nor can you personally testify to it with how you live your life, so it comes with no positive epistemic value. It is as you agree, a wave. A wave of delusion no greater or no less than than your prior belief, and even more horrifically, no greater or less than the wave Hitler rode. Far be it, but the tide may change, and you find yourself on a new wave happily shooting a crowd and everyone you love and that will be equal to the wave you are on, and it may even come with it's own self perceived light.
