https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jixAbBLg5-Q
Who agrees? Ask a Muslim what they think of ISIS and they'll likely be against them. But ask them what they think of Sharia law and get a completely different answer.
Personally, I think atheism, without imposing objective absolutes, allows for more freedom of choice and overall a greater moral code. The video I linked sums it up pretty well.
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It appears to me that your OP Is a fallacy of generalization.
I think no one has any "moral code", theist or atheist.
Morality is a nonconcept.
What one says is good is based on their personal feelers, what one says is bad is based on their personal feelers.
Well atheist just lack believe in a theistic god.
It says nothing about their morality.
A moral code is theistic expression to define a set of rules dictated somewhere.
Atheists don't have a moral code because a moral code does not exist.
What people have is morality, which is a subjective ongoing understanding of reality and one another.
You shoild rephrase your statment and intead of focusing on the people, focus on the concept.
Atheism VS Theism
One is proposing a Totalitarian belief system and the other is not.
Atheism is a much more moral concept simply because it is not theism, it is not proposing a Totalitarian belief system.
Jeff, I disagree that morality is even coherent. I recommend looking up and studying ethical noncognitivism.
Where did I claim that Morality is "even coherent"?
I said it is subjective.
Subjective morality is also an incoherent concept as it requires for "rightness" and "wrongness" to be coherent in some way.
explain yourself.
How does me stating that morality is subjective makes me claim that it is coherent?
Subjective means that it varies depending on the individual and his current knowledge.
Subjective says nothing about "rightness" and "wrongness".
I recommend studying metaethics, specifically cognitivism vs noncognitivism.
Moral realism, moral relativsm, and moral nihilism all fall under Ethical Cognitivism.
I am moreso an emotivist (not exactly, but it is closest to my views), which falls under Ethical Noncognitivism.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
(section 1.3 points out relativism vs noncognitivism)
In Cognitivism, moral statements can be either true or false, meaning they are coherent (even relativism).
In Noncogntivism, moral statements are neither true nor false, they are incoherent.
The argument was not about some moral statements but about the me claiming that morality is coherent just by claiming it is an ongoing subjective understanding of reality.
I said nothing about particular moral statements.
I defined what morality is and some fundamental aspects of it that people need to understand.
Like that it is not objective and that it is constantly changing and updating itself the more knowledge is gained.
eg:
(Hypothetical situation assuming lack of knowledge)
If the moral choice was to feed a child(current knowledge)
If more knowledge is gained:
that the food you are giving may kill him,
Suddenly the moral choice would be to not give that particular food.
If more knowledge is gained:
Food may kill him but if he doesn't get it he will surly die.
A moral person might change his mind and decide to feed the child.
It depends on the individual character and an ongoing understanding of reality.
The more knowledge you gains the best one can HOPE to do the best choice for a truly moral position.
A person can be moral but still do the current accepted immoral action without knowing.
But that presupposes there is such a thing as a moral or immoral action, you just put knowledge into the equation as well to help guide it. This still requires for morality to be, ultimately, a coherent concept.
I am saying that there is no such thing as a moral action or an immoral action, there is no such thing as moral or immoral intent, there is no such thing as a moral or immoral person, there is no such thing as a moral or immoral position, etc.
I do not think there is any coherency with "moral" statements, and I think that ethical noncognitivism is the most defensible position.
I just edited "currently accepted" to my post before seeing this reply because I knew you would go there.
Yes, I never said that we know or we will ever know what is moral or not.
We hope it is based on our current knowledge.
Edit:
"there is no such thing as moral or immoral intent"
There is.
Morality is equated like this.
The best possible outcome for the common benefit between 2 options or more based on current knowledge of those options.
If you opt not for that you are immoral.
If you do you are moral.
Therefore you cannot say that:
Killing a person is moral or not.
Why?
because that is not reality but a hypothetical.
Reality deals with available knowledge and choices based on that knowledge.
So it never is true or false, but a comparison of options available at the time.
There are situations where knowledge will make people choose to kill as the moral thing to do and there are situations where not to kill is the moral thing to do.
"There is."
No, there isn't.
Morality is a nonconcept, people simply pretend it is based on their own desires and emotions.
If person A does not desire death or has negative emotional responses to death, they will say that murder is immoral, whether or not they were taught that it was.
If person B is indifferent about death and doesn't have a negative emotional response to death, they will never understand why murder is "immoral" and maybe not even view it as such.
When someone says, X is bad/immoral, what they mean is they don't desire X or have a negative emotional response to X.
When someone says, Y is good/moral, what they mean is they desire Y or have positive emotional response to Y.
The only difference between a normal desire/like and undesire/dislike is that when you claim it is part of "morality" you are also wanting to push the same views onto others as being the correct views.
Combine your desires and feelers with knowledge, and you come up with different ideas of what is "good" or "bad", but it isn't actually good or bad as those are meaningless words.
Killing in self defense is not moral, it is not immoral.
Killing for pleasure is not moral, it is not immoral.
The words "moral" and "immoral" are meaningless statements with hidden meanings and agendas behind them.
Again, I recommend studying metaethics, including ethical noncognitivism.
"Morality is a nonconcept, people simply pretend it is based on their own desires and emotions."
Morality is a choice between 2 or more options.
It IS a concept, maybe you are in denial of this point.
"If person A does not desire death or has negative emotional responses to death, they will say that murder is immoral, whether or not they were taught that it was."
Completely wrong and this is a fact.
I can prove it myself.
I hate death, I wish that death never existed and we live forever.
But if I had the chance to stop a mass murderer who will rape and kill his victims, before he actually does the crimes by murdering him, I would do it.
And best of all it would be the moral thing to do.(based on current knowledge)
All those people who kill in self defense are basically in the same situation.
(in the future we might learn more knowledge and understand that we did the immoral thing, thus our morality is decided on our current knowledge)
"Killing in self defense is not moral, it is not immoral."
It is moral because there was a limited choice.
Kill or be killed and since you just wish to survive and your killer might want to kill even more people after he kills you, it would be immoral to not stop him when you have the chance.
"When someone says, X is bad/immoral"
I already explained to you that you cannot say X is moral/immoral since that is not the reality we live in.
Morality is a comparison between 2 or more options.
You cannot say X is moral but only X is better then Y as the most moral action.
Why are you insisting on something I already explained clearly?
"The words "moral" and "immoral" are meaningless statements"
Since you don't understand them they are for you.
Morality is a choice based on an ongoing understanding of reality that is subjective to the person and current knowledge.
You keep ignoring this fundamental point and thus you keep making the same mistake.
Since you love questions let me ask you some questions that should help you understand the concept:
If given no other information but asked to choose between 2 options, what is the moral choice?
1) Save 50 people from country A or save 30 people from country B?
Why you made such a choice?
Since you keep deciding NOT to actually study the topic I am saying to study in order to understand what I am saying, this conversation is over.
Honestly, if you won't even do the required background research to understand a topic, don't act like you know it.
You obviously don't understand metaethics, and so you shouldn't talk like you know about ethics.
Presupposing moral cognitivism doesn't prove moral cognitivism.
inb4officiallyreportedfortrolling
In what way is there any trolling going on?
Well if i study every single thing everybody asks me to do I would need a 100 life times.
You did not convince me that such a study is needed for understanding morality.
Mainly because with all your claimed study you claimed proved false things.
I asked you a very basic question, you refused to answer and try to end the discussion by blaming me for it.
Fine for me, but don't expect anybody to ask you questions when I asked you just 2 questions in total and you answered none of them.
Also you changed subject.
The subject was why do you disagree with me when I said morality is subjective?
The only answer you gave was that morality doesn't exist"nonconcept".
We disagree.
I think it exists and it is subjective and you don't even think it exists it seems.
Did I misunderstand?
ISIS are Atheist basically
What?
@ Kash
This has to go to the books as one of the most ignorant statements on the forum. Or are you just in complete denial?
Daesh (ISIS), the Taliban, etc, are following the brutal scriptures more correctly than all other Muslims.