I tried, but I can't parse any of this.
Of course you can't. Your sense of what is good and right is human, inherent, and more than your metaphysical commitments allow for. Admit it. You believe in what is good, true, and of value and you simply have no way to explain it, but you also have no desire to give it up in order to be consistent with your naturalism. Or, perhaps, you are a Platonist of some shade?
And in regards to the 'criteria' for heaven, I'm going to also steal from @Eight Foot Manchild ... 'No one goes to heaven.' Meaning, once you cross that threshold from death to heaven, you no longer are a sinner. You are no longer you. Which means you are transformed anew. And if you are transformed anew, and everyone was a sinner, prior to death, then it makes no sense to reject some recipients into this new 'perfect' kingdom.
It´s really amazing, what all you are able to conclude to be necessary consequences from "no God, no afterlife"!You have tried to gloss over what matters most, if anything matters at all. What does it mean to value? But first, what are you quantifying over when you quantify over harm vs. well being? If you are being consistent with your metaphysical commitments, aren't you simply marking the difference between a collection of matter with a contiguous boundary in time and space that stays intact vs. a collection of matter that doesn't? What is a human other than a collection of matter? Sure, we like to think we matter more than rocks, but according to your commitments, we don't. To argue otherwise would be to make a value judgement, and you don't want to do that, do you?
Maybe you also wanted to include the subjective experience of feeling harm vs. a sense of well-being. But, according to your commitments, these are simply the result of stimuli acting on a body that is sentient (unless you are also concerned about the harm and well-being of rocks). Why should sentience give a body more value? It can't. At least, it can't latch on to some value that transcends its own subjective feeling.
I get it that you don't want to die, and so you feel confident in extending that sentiment categorically. But, show me your quantifiable evidence (since that is your standard of knowing) that says the desire to not die has any value other than mere sentiment. You can find 1,000 people who all say they don't want to die. But, that does not show that life is of more objective value than death, or that existence is somehow better than non-existence, according to your commitments. All it does it show that there exists 1,000 sentient collections of matter that prefer to stay intact. What value is that preference? What standard of "good" can you appeal to that doesn't reduce to some collection of matter?
Your sense of justice and fairness, what is it anchored to? Is it rooted in the evolutionary drive of the species? Why should this species survive? Have you looked around you lately at what this species is doing? Wouldn't it be just as easy to argue that a good bit of what this particular species brings to this celestial ball is so horrific that the advantage of its existence is at least questionable? You put yourself off as a rational person who sticks with the evidence, but I'm not sure you've sufficiently considered the evidence if you're arguing for the well-being of this particular species? We usually try to eradicate viruses.
Is there some inherent good in the human species to which you can point? You and I are simply collections of matter. What matters about us is nothing more than the matter by which we are constituted. The moment you make an appeal to what is fair and what is just and what is good, you belie the truth you say you believe. Either you are being inconsistent, or there is a standard that transends our constituent properties and sentient experience.
Now, you may not believe what I believe. But, unlike you, I am being consistent. Whether I am mistaken or not, I believe there is a God who is Love and created you and I. I believe we have value, not only by virtue of being created, but by virtue of being created in the image of the One who is Good. I get that you don't believe any of that. I get that you question the goodness of God, if such a God exists. I don't. So, when I say I appeal to that Goodness I am being consistent with what I believe.
You, on the other hand, have not followed through with the logical outcome of your own faith. I don't blame you. Absurdity lies at the end. Nonetheless, you still want to think in terms of what is right, or benefical, or good, or just. You believe there is nothing more than the physical properties of which you are aware, and yet, you still want to believe that something matters besides physical matter. Unless you're some kind of Platonist, who believes there is a transcendent good to which one can appeal, then your sentiment is an epiphenomena (or some such ad hoc tomfoolery you naturalists like to imagine) and matters no more than the grief of a rock.
Now, I'm not asking you to give your life to Jesus. But, at least give your commitments the serious reflection they deserve. And why you're reflecting, ask yourself why it matters if you reflect or not. What kind of collection of matter cares to reflect?
If you're in Heaven, with the knowledge that people you knew and loved in your mortal life aren't there, that's going to cause you anguish.
I meant 'I can't parse any of this' as in 'what you wrote is mostly gibberish'.
It´s really amazing, what all you are able to conclude to be necessary consequences from "no God, no afterlife"!
But if you want to, you could maybe start by clarifying what you mean by 'metaphysical commitments', and what you think mine are.
"It's gibberish" and "It's really amazing" is the best you two collections of molecules can come up with? I understand and I'm not surprised.
I cannot see how gibberish or expressed amazement are any more scientific, better evidenced, or more probable and convincing than your post.
Are you a naturalist? Are you a materialist/physicalist?
Are you more than your constituent parts?
If, so what?
It may be that my post is some amazing gibberish. Whatever. Mere sentiment about one's own existence isn't going to justify the claim that one should exist, or that one has a right to exist, or that one's existence is somehow "good" (whatever that means for a thinking bundle of atoms). Well being becomes nothing more than endurance through time and space that is accompanied by a sense of "I'm glad I'm not suffering." And multiplying that sentiment a billion times won't evidence goodness or value. All it will do is show that there exists a billion bundles of contiguous matter, and they're all in their feelings.
Anyone who is not in Heaven did not want to be.
There may well be domains of existence 'beyond' nature, the material universe, and its emergent properties, but until such time as we have a means of reliably gleaning information of and about it, there is nothing to talk about.
By the definition of ordinary and extraordinary.How do you determine the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary claim?
I have always had a belief. But there are no beliefs that I am 100% certain of. I don't think that is possible for anyone.You seemed to previously be under the impression that you didn't have any beliefs. Instead of saying that you believed that the trick had a natural explanation, you would just say that you didn't believe that it had a supernatural explanation. This is what I meant by a "positive belief," since until now you seemed reluctant to admit to any beliefs at all.
Correct. I have always had this conclusion.In any case, you seem to have now come to the conclusion that it is justified to believe that something does not come from nothing, as long as one does not claim absolute certainty.
Just forget the skittles. You are reading too much into it. The skittle analogy was about epistemology and not about the existence of a god. All I am saying with the analogy is that if I do not believe there are an even amount of skittles that does not mean I believe there are an odd number or skittles. That is it. I am not using it as any argument against theism.The comparison between whether there is an odd or even number of skittles and the existence of God is completely invalid. It is entirely possible that there is an odd number of skittles in a jar, and it's also entirely possible that there's an even number. Both are possible states of affairs.
This is not the case with theism. There can't be possible states of affairs where theism is true, and others where theism is false. Unless you think that there are days when God exists, and other days when God doesn't exist, there's no reason to treat the question as if the answer were the equivalent to a coin toss.
More troubling, the skittles analogy indicates that you think there is a 50/50 chance that theism is true. If you believe it's just as likely that theism is true as that it is false, Pascal's Wager becomes a really serious issue for you, since you cannot write theism off as an unlikely state of affairs not to be taken seriously if you don't believe that there is no God.
You moral philosophy of well being vs. harm is certainly understandable, but it is mere sentiment. I don't say that as a judgment, nor is it meant in some pejorative manner. Unless you are willing to posit some transcendent good or value, your morality is based on what you feel. The desire to endure is natural enough, but it doesn't translate into what should be. The fact that humans want to persist through time and space doesn't mean they should, or that it is even good that they do.
Or, maybe you hold that there is an evolutionary basis for your morality of well-being vs. harm, e.g. it supports the survival of the species. So what? What is so great about our species except it is the species we happen to belong to, by accident or necessity.
I understand the concept of emergence.
I am going to assume you make value judgements all day long. You assess some things as good, better, best, worse, etc. You have plans for good things that you want for yourself and those you love. We all do. But, at the end of the day, those value judgments and those good things and those you love are merely byproducts of an unthinking physical process that, amazingly, has produced you with a sense that these things matter. I don't expect you to give up those value judgements and those desires for good things. All I really want from you is for you to admit that at the end of the day it all means nothing.
Actually, I don't want you to admit that. At least I don't want you to embrace the despair of nothingness that your commitments should reasonably entail. What I would rather hope for you, and those who think as you do, is that you would recognize that the existential loss of your commitments aren't worth the act of faith you are committed to. You may not have empirical evidence that there is some transcendent good, but your everyday experience is screaming that there is. Is it an illusion, or an insight into a better act of faith?
Well, at least these are short and accurate statements - as opposed to your endless ramblings about positions that you assume us to hold."It's gibberish" and "It's really amazing" is the best you two collections of molecules can come up with? I understand and I'm not surprised.
That also tells me that you think appealing to a 'god' gives you a one-up in this regard.
Well, at least these are short and accurate statements - as opposed to your endless ramblings about positions that you assume us to hold.
Your stated unwillingness to transcend the is/ought problem is betrayed by your everyday experiencing of making judgements about what is good, what should be, what should not be. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of these judgments go way beyond what we need to survive. Your love for others, your being appalled by horrendous evils that have no immediate effect on your survival, your apprehension of beauty, your recognition of truth points to more than mere survival. Or, if your ability to make judgments is merely the result of an evolutionary drive to survive, then all of those judgments you make everyday are just superfluous additions to your daily act of survival. They mean nothing.
You don't have to posit the existence of God to recognize that life means more to you than mere survival, and yet you have no way of accounting for that. All you can say is that your many value judgments are superfluous activity you engage in that help give you a sense of meaning and purpose, but deep down you know that all you're doing is surviving until you cease to exist.
Or, you can give up the illusion of certainty
The metaphysical commitments I was assuming about one of you has been verified as correct. What are yours?
"Have been verified"? Where, when, how, by whom?The metaphysical commitments I was assuming about one of you has been verified as correct. What are yours?
Because at this point, your critique of my moral philosophy appears to boil down to 'yeah, but maybe you can get an ought from an is'. OK. And.....?
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