Where is the hope in atheism?

[TLK Valentine]

It's the loving or hateful interaction between two or more objectively existing beings.

From a Christian perspective, God is referred to as the first being to act in a purely loving way towards other objectively existing beings.

Great -- my ex-girlfriend objectively exists. As do I. She said eating meat was wrong. I said it was not.

Objectively speaking, is eating meat wrong or right?

 

[essentialsaltes]

From a certain perspective, everything is subjective. I absolutely want to go there ... There is only one thing that I hold as an absolute truth: that something exists instead of nothing.

Well, so much for moral realism then.

 

[Chriliman]

Great -- my ex-girlfriend objectively exists. As do I. She said eating meat was wrong. I said it was not.

Objectively speaking, is eating meat wrong or right?

From a Biblical perspective, if you're causing someone to sin because of what you eat then you should stop eating it for their sake. Paul wrote about that issue.

1 Corinthians 8:13
"Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall."

Now I don't know if your girlfriend is sinning because of what you eat, maybe if she's lashing out in anger at you and threatening you then yes, but I doubt that's the case.

 

[TLK Valentine]

From a Biblical perspective, if you're causing someone to sin because of what you eat then you should stop eating it for their sake. Paul wrote about that issue.

1 Corinthians 8:13
"Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall."

Now I don't know if your girlfriend is sinning because of what you eat, maybe if she's lashing out in anger at you and threatening you then yes, but I doubt that's the case.

Eating meat -- right or wrong?

I'm asking for some objective morality here -- you claimed it existed.

 

[Chriliman]

Eating meat -- right or wrong?

I'm asking for some objective morality here -- you claimed it existed.

It depends on the objectively existing being that you’re interacting with, in this case your girlfriend. If she’s sinning because of what you eat then it’s wrong for you to eat that. There is an objectively correct answer here, but I don’t know it because I don’t know your girlfriend.

 

[essentialsaltes]

What do you mean by substantive? My sympathies are for Neo-Aristotelianism, where form is at least as crucial as matter. Rationality can be seen as transforming the human experience of life--we develop elaborate rituals for something as simple as eating food. A new dimension of existence has emerged, so to speak, where artistically designed French dessert plates are now possible, which can be judged on any number of intersubjective criteria. The term "aesthetic" refers to this rather than to the taste of brussels sprouts.

What is all this bafflegab? Your statement was "I don't consider aesthetics to be subjective either."

Aesthetics relates to beauty. If aesthetics is objective, then statements like "This painting is beautiful" would be a fact claim about reality. Or "This painting is more beautiful than that painting." If people differed, one would be really factually wrong, and the other factually right. Is this your position? There is, objectively, a most beautiful person in the world?

None at all? Is it not an objective fact that brussels sprouts taste bitter

Sure. We can look at tastebuds and see how they react. But tasting bitter is not the same as tasting bad. Some people, with straight faces, have said that Brussels sprouts taste good. Conversely, I enjoy a good pint of bitter, but others do not.

I am unaware of any theory of moral realism that would actually attribute moral agency to a tsunami. If your stance is that only a subjective actor can be a moral agent, I would agree. A tsunami cannot be a moral evil, but a nation that sits back and does nothing in the wake of a natural disaster most certainly can.

If you think that outside of a moral context, good/bad can be objective values, I would certainly like to hear more. I do not see how you can hold that a tsunami is objectively bad without opening the door to moral facts.

The door to moral facts cannot be opened, because you yourself have declared that no theory of moral realism would allow tsunamis to be morally anything.

 

[Silmarien]

Well, so much for moral realism then.

How so? Reality is what it is independently of our ability to grasp it. I don't need to believe that absolute knowledge concerning metaethics (or anything else) is possible in order to think that there is good reason to hold that moral intuitions have an objective foundation.

What is all this bafflegab? Your statement was "I don't consider aesthetics to be subjective either."

Aesthetics relates to beauty. If aesthetics is objective, then statements like "This painting is beautiful" would be a fact claim about reality. Or "This painting is more beautiful than that painting." If people differed, one would be really factually wrong, and the other factually right. Is this your position? There is, objectively, a most beautiful person in the world?

I said that aesthetics was intersubjective, not subjective. I don't think that what qualifies as good music, art, or literature is a matter of personal taste. There are actual criteria. The artistic merit of a Shakespeare or a Mozart is independent of whether any individual person likes or dislikes their work. There's nothing problematic about not liking Shakespeare, but if you declare that he was a terrible playwright, you are factually wrong.

Sure. We can look at tastebuds and see how they react. But tasting bitter is not the same as tasting bad. Some people, with straight faces, have said that Brussels sprouts taste good. Conversely, I enjoy a good pint of bitter, but others do not.

People can develop a taste for bitter food, but we do have an instinctive distaste for it. If bitterness wasn't associated with bad, our sense of taste would be pretty useless for helping us to avoid poisons. We have evolved to crave sugar and avoid bitter tastes. If you're going to insist that all of this merely a matter of subjective preferences with no grounding in reality, you have an uphill battle to fight against evolution.

The door to moral facts cannot be opened, because you yourself have declared that no theory of moral realism would allow tsunamis to be morally anything.

That is not what anyone means by "moral facts." Are you familiar with moral realism? I'm honestly beginning to think that people reject it primarily because they have no idea what it is.

 

[Silmarien]

Eating meat -- right or wrong?

I'm asking for some objective morality here -- you claimed it existed.

Where does the meat come from? If you think there's no problem whatsoever with the food industry and the way it tortures animals, that says something. Primarily that you view animals as objects whose suffering is irrelevant.

Other situations are much more ambiguous, but unless you're the type of person who likes pulling legs off spiders (in which case, you have bigger problems), this one really is not.

 

[TLK Valentine]

It depends on the objectively existing being that you’re interacting with, in this case your girlfriend. If she’s sinning because of what you eat then it’s wrong for you to eat that. There is an objectively correct answer here, but I don’t know it because I don’t know your girlfriend.

is eating meat a sin?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Where does the meat come from? If you think there's no problem whatsoever with the food industry and the way it tortures animals, that says something. Primarily that you view animals as objects whose suffering is irrelevant.

Other situations are much more ambiguous, but unless you're the type of person who likes pulling legs off spiders (in which case, you have bigger problems), this one really is not.

sounds like your answer is "yes, it's objectively wrong."

 

[Silmarien]

is eating meat a sin?

The traditional Christian answer is "no," at least not in and of itself. If an Orthodox Christian is eating hamburgers every day during Great Lent, however, that would almost certainly be sinful.

sounds like your answer is "yes, it's objectively wrong."

I don't necessarily think fishing or hunting are objectively wrong.

I do think torturing cattle and chickens is, though, yeah. Not sure about free range--I'm not entirely comfortable with the morality behind breeding and raising animals to butcher them, no matter how humanely it's carried out, but that's a much more complicated question.

I hope you're not mistaking moral realism for the view that morality is easy to figure out. That really doesn't follow.

 

[Chriliman]

is eating meat a sin?

For me it’s not, but I don’t know anyone who sins because of what I eat. Maybe you do, again I don’t know.

This is an important issue and I hope you find the right answers that you can accept.

 

[TLK Valentine]

For me it’s not, but I don’t know anyone who sins because of what I eat. Maybe you do, again I don’t know.

This is an important issue and I hope you find the right answers that you can accept.

Sounds like there's one objective morality for you, another objective morality for me, and yet another objective morality for my ex-...

I never knew objectivity could sound so subjective.

 

[super animator]

If objectivity moral exist, who/what determine what moral/amoral?

 

[Chriliman]

Sounds like there's one objective morality for you, another objective morality for me, and yet another objective morality for my ex-...

I never knew objectivity could sound so subjective.

The point is two or more subjective beings exist objectively and therefore objective morality exists. It’s objectively good to treat each other with love and kindness.

The only way to deny this is to say that no other subjective beings exist objectively and therefore all that really matters is what benefits the one subjective being that exists(the self), but we know that’s not true or at least reality strongly suggests that’s not true.

Are you a moral relativist?

 

[Silmarien]

If objectivity moral exist, who/what determine what moral/amoral?

Who determines the structure of an atom? On a naturalistic account of morality, cooperation is just an intrinsic part of any organizational system, whether at the cellular level or the societal level. Toss in conscious, rational thought and you would have a hard time justifying not acting accordingly. Corruption isn't bad just because we don't like it--it does have a detrimental effect on a society. Social experiments do fail.

On a traditional theistic account of morality, on the other hand, the good doesn't emerge from the natural order, but is itself the underlying nature of reality from which everything that exists has its origin. But I really don't think atheists should get too worked up over the theistic side of things. Stick to atheistic moral realism.

I usually argue for naturalistic moral realism, but for something different, here's a taste of WLC's favorite enemy, Atheistic Moral Platonism: In Defense of Non-natural, Non-theistic Moral Realism

 

[super animator]

Who determines the structure of an atom?

False equivalence. Also way to dodge my question by going off a tangent.

 

[Silmarien]

False equivalence. Also way to dodge my question by going off a tangent.

Literally the rest of my post was a response to your question.

And no, it isn't a false equivalence. If you don't think you need someone determining the structure of an atom, why would you need someone determining what is and isn't moral? Why can't it simply emerge naturally alongside rationality? I think naturalism has a pretty significant intelligibility issue, but if you're okay with that, I don't see why you suddenly draw the line at morality and insist that it needs a creator. Atheistic metaethicists generally try to challenge the reasoning behind divine command theory, so why do you want to buy into a specifically theistic paradigm instead? It's like you're trying to set yourself up for failure.

 

[super animator]

Literally the rest of my post was a response to your question.

You respond with a tangent. I call that a dodge. Give me a direct answer next time ok?

And no, it isn't a false equivalence.

Yes it is, you compare abstract thinking (that is not measurable) with reality (which it IS measurable).

 

[Silmarien]

You respond with a tangent. I call that a dodge. Give me a direct answer next time ok?

That was a direct answer, not a tangent.

Yes it is, you compare abstract thinking (that is not measurable) with reality (which it IS measurable).

Abstract thinking is part of reality, unless you're going to argue that the words on this site don't exist either. If you're going to redefine reality as what is measurable, you can't take refuge in subjectivity, because that goes out the window as unreal too.