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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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I'm tired of the ignorant Muslim and Christian apologetics too, Cognostic, really I am.
Bumping this since you seem to have missed it Jo.
Jo You made two claims, I responded,, please have the integrity to address this and don't just fucking roll past it with more appeals to ignorance fallacies.
Show some fucking integrity Jo, you are not in a pulpit, this is a debate forum.
I realise the site can be difficult to navigate Jo, and you're outnumbered so to speak, but I have seen too many theists happy to post endless unevidenced claims and then move quietly on when they are called on them. So if you persist in ignoring this response to your two claims, I shall have to infer mendacious evasion.
This is a great topic to discuss. First off, if morality is subjective, meaning it is based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions; Anything goes as far as human conduct. Rape, murder, theft, etc. could be considered right in a world where morality is subjective. If one only desires to commit some kind of heinous crime against another human, that is fine and good. Do you see how that kind of thinking could end very badly?
@Kennedi Fisher: HUH??? "Do you see how that kind of thinking could end very badly?"
That is exactly the kind of thinking human beings have. Things do go badly. That's why people get together and form groups with rules to protect each other from those who act with their own self interest at heart.
Not even sure what you are getting at here. Morality is a product of evolution that began with small clans, family groups that had to get along. They made rules about who would do which jobs. Who ate first. What to do with the sick. How to deal with the dead. Places the clan could go and could not go. This is the root of morality. Human beings are group animals. We necessarily had to bond and form groups for our own survival. A human being alone in the wild is not much more than a walking hamburger. Humans don't have speed, armor plating. venom, flight, climbing ability, claws, sharp teeth, an enhanced sense of smell, swimming ability to escape crocodiles, or any other of natures normal weapons. We have brains and the ability to bond. Bonding requires rules and morality to develop. The more complex humans became, the more complex their moral systems evolved. It's really that simple.
Thanks for the reply. I don't understand what you don't understand about what I said. The kind of thinking I was referring to was that morality is subjective. If you are going to say that morality is subjective, your going to have to follow that thinking to it's logical conclusion. Nothing is absolutely wrong or right.
So you acknowledge that things do go badly with that kind of thinking. Thing is, if morality is a product of evolution, morality is subjective. What is morally acceptable varies from individual to individual, based on their likes and dislikes. So, in a world where morality is subjective, having my own self interest at heart, and acting upon that self interest is not absolutely right or wrong. A man who desires to brutally murder another man for no justifiable reason, cannot be condemned in a world where morality is subjective. He likes to murder people. It is his opinion that it is morally acceptable to brutally murder people for fun. It is irrelevant how complex the moral system under which he lives has become. If morality is subjective, brutally murdering people is not absolutely right or wrong.
See what I am saying here?
@Kennedi Fisher
"If morality is subjective, brutally murdering people is not absolutely right or wrong.
See what I am saying here?"
I sure do. You are just mouthing the claptrap many theists spout without thinking.
Your proposition is built on the foundation that each individual is completely alone in the wilderness. But we humans are a very social species, and those intelligent enough to actually think understand that to survive, we must work together and we must co-operate. And those same persons understand that the welfare and well being of others and the group is essential for survival.
Each group, by necessity must have rules and acceptable conduct, or else it will disintegrate. And those brutal murderers (my, you have a very violent psyche) are dealt with, prison as one recourse.
Additionally, we humans have a built-in sense of such characteristics as fair play and empathy, which contribute to the overall "morality" we posses.
But based on my assessment of you, I strongly suggest you continue to stick to your religion and follow their guidelines, because you appear incapable of comprehending right from wrong without external guidance.
@Kennedi Fisher: RE: "Morality is subjective." It does not follow that nothing is objectively wrong or right. How do you get to that conclusion? Smashing a baby in the head and burring it in the snow appears OBJECTIVLY wrong to us. Why? Our frame of reference has changed since the time a female baby was seen as a burden on the clan. (This was a practice conducted by early Eskimos.) I put it on par with the Jews in the old testament running about slitting open the stomachs of pregnant women and tossing their unborn babies onto rocks while laughing gleefully under the orders of the very same god you worship. If you are getting any objective morality from anyplace, it is not coming from your holy book or your god. You are choosing it. Plain and simple. It is a subjective choice to follow the positive teachings in your holey book and ignore the shit. Ignore killing witches, homosexuals, non-virgins on their wedding nights, children who talk back, and more. Ignore the owning of slaves, the subjugation of women, and the ripping out of one's own eyes should something offend you.
You assert there is something called, "Objective Morality." Please provide an example. I would love to see it.
RE: Things go badly.
Things go badly with or without "Objective Morality." Having your own self interest at heart can certainly be wrong or right. You live in a social context. In the past, if you violated the social norms you were banished from the tribe or killed. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Violate the laws or social mores of society and you will be banished to an institution, hospital or prison. Continue doing it and you may be killed. NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
RE: "A man who desires to brutally murder another man for no justifiable reason, cannot be condemned in a world where morality is subjective."
You could not be more wrong. Morality is an agreed upon social norm. We agree on moral issues for the survival of our species, for comfort, for safety, for security. There is nothing at all objective about our morality until agreement is reached. You and your theist friends agree that there is something objective. Well - where is it? Why is your version of Objective morality no better at solving moral dilemmas than any other perspective of morality? Morality becomes objective when it is agreed upon and not before. There is nothing absolute about it and I challenge you to produce your version of this absolute morality. "IT DOES NOT EXIST!"
re: "If morality is subjective, brutally murdering people is not absolutely right or wrong." You are just wrong. (Explained above.) No one needs "Absolute Morality" to be moral. There is nothing "Absolute" about anything. This is typical theist "All or Nothing" / "Black and White" logic. It is a false dichotomy. (HINT: We brutally murder people all the time. Ever heard of war? We justify our actions just like you justify the actions of your megalomaniac God. ) Please list some examples of Absolute morality. We would love to see them.
@Kennedi Re: "If one only desires to commit some kind of heinous crime against another human, that is fine and good. Do you see how that kind of thinking could end very badly?"
Hey there, young lady. Welcome to the AR. Nice of you to join us. To answer your question real quick, I absolutely know for a fact EXACTLY how badly that kind of thinking can end. I have seen it up close and personal countless times during a career where I faced such things on a daily basis. I have seen the broken and bloodied bodies. I have heard the cries of sheer terror, and pain, and sorrow. I smelled the fear and putrid stench of death and decay caused by people with exactly that type of mindset who believed they were perfectly justified in doing the horrible things they did. And you want to know a little secret?... Most of those vile and heinous people I encountered would proudly stand up and claim they were "God fearing Christians" or some other faithful believer in a similar religion. So, if you don't mind, please do explain your point in those statements you made. And while you are at it, your profile pick says "Fear God", right? Exactly which god should we be fearing, little miss?
Well firstly must identity what are objective morals, and demonstrate how they are universal and always followed.
If you want to argue that they are god given, you are left with having to demonstrate that a god exists and the mechanics of how he ingrained them within us.
I do you the favor of assuming like most theists on here, that you'll want to avoid the latter.
So back to the first point, what morals are objective and always adhered to?
I would argue, everyone has different morals and interpretations of those morals.
Furthermore, that these morals are simply rules developed by primitive tribes and civilisations in ancient times in order to maintain some level of harmony.
Some have stuck, some have gone, some remain similar to their original standing and others have been carefully developed.
I would finish by asking, what best suits the model in the reality we share.
@ Kennedi Fisher
Rape, is condoned again and again in the bible, as is the sex trafficking of female prisoners from ethnic cleansing wars, and murder.
I'll take subjective secular morals any day. Anyone who needs a deity to tell them things like murder and rape are wrong is a pretty shitty human being in my opinion. Such acts are demonstrably cruel and pernicious, and cause lasting psychological trauma to victims and their families. Subjugating your moral responsibility to a deity, by cherry picking barbaric archaic religious texts like the bible and koran is what has ended badly for centuries. From the inquisition to modern terrorism religious morals are steeped in blood and cruelty. Most religious people are decent in spite of what their religious texts say, not because of them.
If morality is objective and based on the bible, then you must take any unruly children outside of town and stone them to death. Does that make any sense? I expect the response to be "you must take things in context", which only confirms the fact that the bible is the biggest multiple choice book in existence. No wonder there are over 33,000 christian sects.
There are many arguments against objective morality. Just because god decides to murder a certain type of people, that does not make it moral. And biblical moral arguments have been used to rationalize some of the worse horrors in humanity, such as slavery or even Cromwell's murder of thousands of Catholic Irish.
@ Kennedi Fisher
Your avatar picture choice... 'fear god"
You do realize that is exactly what people want you to do? Fear their completely unevidenced god idea? Fear = control for those on top, even more so when people follow it blindly.
--------------------------------------------------------
Both of those statements are ludicrous.
I dunno nothing about philosophy or anything like that, but I feel morality is entirely subjective. To me, objective morality is, it is always wrong to steal. Subjective morality is, stealing is often wrong, but can be more or less wrong or even a non issue depending on the need and who is being stolen from. I personally believe that with the state of society many people are living in, both today and in the last, that morality often comes down to, how can I survive right now while avoiding jail and maybe not losing all my friends. Ngl, I've done some things that many people would consider pretty shitty. Never killed anyone, never forced myself on someone, nothing that qualifies as a crime even, but my record isn't clean but I also don't feel the same way about certain issues that others might. I grew up in an abusive home, I learned to lie like a god damned /pro/, because I needed to to get by and thrive, and you get I use that skill to keep me and my family afloat.
I am reminded of a debate I read years ago on Catholic answers, where objective morality was doctrine. A fair few believed it was objectively immoral to get your scared kids out of a burning building by lying and saying there was ice cream outside.
@Mikhael: RE: A fair few believed it was objectively immoral to get your scared kids out of a burning building by lying and saying there was ice cream outside.
You hit on a primary problem associated with the idea of Objective / Absolute (These are not the same by the way.) Morality. (Subjective morality can be Objective. Absolute morality is not Objective, it is absolute.) Anyway. NO FORM OF MORAL BELIEF DEALS WELL WITH MORAL DILEMMAS. Your ice cream example is a very mild version of a moral dilemma.
You are an EMT on the scene of a car crash that involves your spouse and the lover you didn't know s/he had. They are both gravely injured, your spouse's injuries the worst of them. You can tell it's unlikely s/he will pull through. Meanwhile, his/her lover has a neck wound that will prove fatal if pressure isn't applied soon. Whom do you choose to work on?
There are thousands of these..
A quick passing thought, would it not be more plausible for morality to be subjective,
given that every action we consider to be morally bad is offset by a threat of force.
For example, one could very well want to kill or rape but we have laws that punish those that do so
and furthermore, the general public would take retribution if law did not govern this 'immoral' actions.
Good moral actions on the whole are not punished.
Haven’t read the whole thread. But shit, I’m “rats spit”. I’m always relevant. And you may all take refuge in my return as the one and only theist who has a personal relationship with the OverLord and doesn’t just spit shit up from the mouth of a faith follower.
Ahem. Before there were morals, there were fear, guilt and punishment (usually in the form of painful consequences).
Actual “morality” is a farce. The grounds of any moral system are innate senses of fear, guilt, and the consequences of punishment.
To go any farther and state the “existence” of “real” morals is a state of deception. A total waste of time and thought. Pain and pleasure are the only marks of right and wrong.
You can thank me below.
Your fiend,
rat spit
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