Religion, Science, Scepticism, Philosophy and things metaphysical

[cynic]

I had posted the following: So you accept that God exhorted and commanded acts that were not in accordance with the morality his son was later going to preach to the world? That’s my very point. The morality of Christianity is not absolute, objective and is far from perfect.

You responded with your drug manufacture analogy, which seemed very much like a justification of those vile acts to me. You responded:

If a manufacturer of a wonder drug, issued its products in bottles of pills, labelled with clear warnings of dangers from overdosing, accompanied by clear instructions that exactly one pill is to be taken every six hours, would one then be justified in blaming that manufacturer, when some people suffered ill health, after mistakenly taking six pills every hour?

Would it now be fair to declare the drug toxic ,irrespective of the potentially beneficial results, that one may derive from correct usage?

Is the manufacturer to be perpetually held to blame for the misunderstandings of its patrons?

Can you see how strongly this analogy relates to the key anti theistic arguments?

Bellenuit, please, please, please, use the immense intelligence that I know you possess, and consider more carefully the implications of the question:
"Is the manufacturer to be perpetually held to blame for the misunderstandings of its patrons?"

 

[SirRumpole]

Also I am not sure why you consider the lives of the “other than civilians” catergory as less important.

So would you consider it moral for Muslim extremists to break into your house and murder your wife and family while you were abseiling down on their comrades in Afghanistan ?

 

[cynic]

Is your definition so long and complex that you couldn't have posted it here again to save us perusing through pages of posts. I certainly do not recall you posting your definition. However, this is a definition from my dictionary: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Although evolution does not have purpose, we can have purpose in our daily existence. For instance, we may wish to create an environment where we can live without fear. We can develop moral principles to help us achieve that goal. That is all within a secular framework.



As I said, I am happy to maintain that our morality is subjective.

And you are perfectly entitled to do so. I have even known of people choosing to believe in the existence of female bulls!

However, you still have failed to explain your views of morality. What is your definition? Where does the morality you espouse come from? How is it objective and how do we determine it is objective?

On the contrary, it is only the very last of your questions that one might be able to reasonably argue wasn't fully answered, as is demonstrated by the following of my earlier posts:

What you are talking about here is not morality!

Morality is defined as "the practice of what is right".

How can anything, that any human does to another, be deemed to be right, or not right, when the secular belief, is that, all life originated from an unintended event, and is therefore devoid of any purpose against which rightness and wrongness of behaviour, may be measured?

Objective morality cannot be defined from within the purely secular viewpoint.

As such "secular morality" cannot truly exist!

One point that I believe needs to be clarified, is that I do not personally believe, survival of our species, to be the true objective morality, but rather one outcome, of the true objective morality.

I believe there is, at least one, important need, that required the creation of life, as part (if not all) of that need's remedy. It is from the existence of that underlying need, that life as (at least part of) the remedy, derives its purpose, thereby acquiring importance and value.

Without the objective morality, to which I allude, survival of our species would be rendered irrelevant, due to the absence of any meaningful purpose. Life would be needless, devoid of any useful meaning, and morality could not exist in any true sense of the word.

I maintain that the existence of morality demands the presence of purpose, intent or design, else morality cannot truly be said to exist!
If an intelligent agent creates a thing, then that thing has inherited purpose from its creator!
Once a thing has purpose, its behaviour, can be deemed to be accordant, or discordant, via reference to its purpose!
Without purpose intent or design, how can anyone objectively lay claim to the accordance, or discordance, of any behaviour?

 

[Value Collector]

So would you consider it moral for Muslim extremists to break into your house and murder your wife and family while you were abseiling down on their comrades in Afghanistan ?

You are a bit backwards in your understanding here.

The moral action is to end the war in the least damaging way possible, do you agree?

Now the Japanese and the Muslim terrorists are the aggressors, they can easily end the war, by just surrendering or giving up.

If they give or surrender, the war ends and we no longer fight them, so for them the moral action is to give up, not continue to fight or kill my family.

In WW2, the only way to end the war was to force the Japanese to surrender, simply being passive wouldn’t have ended the war, hostilities and deaths would have continued.

Now, in my opinion dropping the nukes may have been the fasted, least over all damage way to bring about a Japanese surrender, but I could be wrong I don’t have all the facts.

 

[bellenuit]

And you are perfectly entitled to do so. I have even known of people choosing to believe in the existence of female bulls!

On the contrary, it is only the very last of your questions that one might be able to reasonably argue wasn't fully answered, as is demonstrated by the following of my earlier posts:

So you hold that an intelligent agent created life and gave us morality? When did that happen? What is your evidence for that assertion? Who is the intelligent agent and what is the purpose in our creation?

Is this objective morality revealed anywhere so that we can act in accordance with it? If yes, where?

 

[cynic]

So you hold that an intelligent agent created life and gave us morality? When did that happen? What is your evidence for that assertion? Who is the intelligent agent and what is the purpose in our creation?

Is this objective morality revealed anywhere so that we can act in accordance with it? If yes, where?

Whilst I do happen to subscribe to theism, the validity (or absence thereof) of my (or anyone else's) theistic beliefs, doesn't have any bearing on the validity and integrity of the argument against the existence of "secular morality". (I respectfully ask, that readers of this post, do me the courtesy, of bearing the aforesaid in mind, when reading my attempts at answering bellenuit's questions about my theistic beliefs.)

In answer to the first question, not quite!
When an intelligent agent, intentionally creates "something", that "something" inherits, from the creator, its purpose for having been created in the first place. Morality for that "something" can then be objectively defined via reference to that purpose.

"When did that happen?"! It happened when "when" was a meaningless concept due to the non existence of time!

The evidencing of my assertion/s is via logical arguments, largely founded upon literary definitions and widely accepted (i.e. seldom, if ever, disputed) factual premises, and may be found throughout those recently requoted posts, along with the following:

I happen to be a theist whom considers the argument, about whether or not the universe had a beginning, to be a redundant and needless premise in the kalam argument (apart from justifying use of the word cosmological in its label) for the following reason:

If the universe is infinite, then the universe itself, would of necessity be the uncaused cause!

So even if I accept the possibility of the universe being infinite (and it just so happens that I do), the premise that anything which begins to exist, needing to have been caused to exist, is still sufficient to support the logical deduction that there must exist an uncaused cause!

So if there is an uncaused cause, one need only ask oneself what the attributes, or qualities, an uncaused cause, would, of necessity, possess, in order to be an uncaused cause. Amongst other things, it would, at the very minimum, have to be eternal, powerful and creative! These three qualities are often attributed to the God concept espoused in a number of belief systems. Have there been any concepts, other than God, throughout history, credited with all three of those qualities (i.e. potency, creativity, and timelessness)?

If you'd prefer to label it as something else, that is your prerogative. But do take care to resist the temptation to apply, any labels, already assigned to completely different concepts, such as purple unicorns, planet orbitting teapots or pure nonsense.

Because to do such a thing, would be tantamount to indulgence in the Dawkins delusion, and I really do want to believe that you are intelligent enough to think for yourself, rather than to parrot the mistakes of that logic bereft moron.

"Who is the intelligent agent"

Who is it! Who am I! Who are you! Who are we! Who is everyone! Who is no one! Who is nothing! Who is everything!!

"and what is the purpose in our creation?"

Crikey bellenuit! Do you truly expect to be handed "nirvana" on a silver platter?!

I do happen to have a strong opinion, on what I believe, to be the more likely answer to this question. However, I see no benefit in sharing this on a public forum, largely on account of the misunderstandings, and arguments founded upon same, that would inevitably ensue.

One book I can confidently recommend, due to having personally studied its contents for a number of years, is "Concentration" by Mouni Sadhu. Those willing to make a concerted, and disciplined effort, to read and follow its instructions (i.e. performance of the prescribed exercises) will discover,for themselves, the truth of many things formerly doubted.

 

[bellenuit]

the validity and integrity of the argument against the existence of "secular morality"

Well I think we need not proceed further on this point. Your argument against secular morality doesn't hold up as secular morality is subjective for the reasons I have outlined previously. I think it is something you need to work out with VC, as he has a different opinion on it.

Your designing agent is simply a theistic belief system and has no evidence to support it.

 

[cynic]

Well I think we need not proceed further on this point. Your argument against secular morality doesn't hold up as secular morality is subjective for the reasons I have outlined previously. I think it is something you need to work out with VC, as he has a different opinion on it.

Your designing agent is simply a theistic belief system and has no evidence to support it.

Were you able to find any faults in either, the logic, or the premise, of the presented argument, for the existence of an "uncaused cause"?

If not, then I strongly suggest you seriously reexamine your reasons for respecting secularism, and disrespecting theism.

I would also caution against any "no evidence" assertions against any belief system! I am surprised that someone of your intelligence would make such a careless error!

I am sincerely doubtful about your claims regarding the possible existence of subjective moralities (I am presuming that you have realised that, by merit of the subjective quality, more than one morality, will most assuredly emerge from our diverse human populace). I perceive such "moralities", by reason of word definitions alone, as logically akin to belief in the existence of female bulls.

Anyhow, watch what happens when conflicts arise between these subjective moralities! Secular crusades: coming soon to a society near you!

 

[Value Collector]

I think it is something you need to work out with VC, as he has a different opinion on it.

I take you are talking to cynic, I have put him on ignore so can’t see his posts.

But just wanted to clarify my position for you and others.

My position is that what is moral is not subjective.

Once you decide that morality is about the “well being of thinking creatures” (I guess that part might be subjective), the subjectivity ends and it becomes objective, because he things that affect the well being of thinking creatures in no longer a subjective issue, it’s based on facts of reality.

Eg, if morality is about wellbeing, then whether forcing battery acid down your neck is moral is not subjective, the facts of chemistry are objective and we know that will reduce your well being, our opinions on it don’t change the morality.

————

So the only part of morality that can be claimed to be subjective is what the foundation point of it is, eg I might say wellbeing others might say gods feelings, but I would probably say that even that is not subjective, because either god exists of it doesn’t, so it’s only the opinion that is subjective, not the facts.

 

[SirRumpole]

You are a bit backwards in your understanding here.

The moral action is to end the war in the least damaging way possible, do you agree?

Yes I do agree with the principle but I have big arguments as to whether the deaths of 300,000 civilians is the least damaging way.

But once you start on one course of action like bombing civilians you make it justifiable for everyone, as we have sen with terrorism around the world. The terrorists probably think its moral for them to do that, as they have little other choice as they don't possess the resources of their enemies. So the example has been set and now there are no holds barred.

and the Muslim terrorists are the aggressors, they can easily end the war, by just surrendering or giving up.

Try telling them that, the US and Russia invaded Afghanistan, not the other way around.

 

[Tisme]

Yes I do agree with the principle but I have big arguments as to whether the deaths of 300,000 civilians is the least damaging way.

But once you start on one course of action like bombing civilians you make it justifiable for everyone, as we have sen with terrorism around the world. The terrorists probably think its moral for them to do that, as they have little other choice as they don't possess the resources of their enemies. So the example has been set and now there are no holds barred.



Try telling them that, the US and Russia invaded Afghanistan, not the other way around.

You willingly enroll in the armed forces without knowing that you may well be asked to take another person's life. Morals are swapped for national ethics.

 

[basilio]

You willingly enroll in the armed forces without knowing that you may well be asked to take another person's life. Morals are swapped for national ethics.

Armed forces have their own rules of engagement. A soldier fights other soldiers. Civilians are (theoritically) not supposed to be targeted. The armed forces are there for defense of the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_engagement

 

[Tisme]

Armed forces have their own rules of engagement. A soldier fights other soldiers. Civilians are (theoritically) not supposed to be targeted. The armed forces are there for defense of the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_engagement

Yeah right, soldiers aren't people they are some kind of exotic sacrificial animal. Thanks for the link ... here's another that is equally relavent to my commentary:

 

[basilio]

"Tisme, post: 971268, member: 60573"]Yeah right, soldiers aren't people they are some kind of exotic sacrificial animal. Thanks for the link ... here's another that is equally relavent to my commentary


Are you awake Tisme ? Where did you get that weird xhit from ? The conversation (I thought) is about the morality of soldiers killing people. There is nothing unusual about armed foces having their own rules on how to behave even in war situations.

How well are they kept ? Obviously debatable. The discussion was around the decision by the US to drop two atomic bonbs on Japanese cities to hasten the end of WW2. Effectively how morally justified was the death of 300,000 civilians.

It becomes particularly relevent in 2018 when we have the current President openly talking about destroying North Korea if they don't give up their nuclear weapons.

 

[SirRumpole]

My position is that what is moral is not subjective.

Really ? If morality was not subjective then you and I would agree about nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fact that we don't indicates that we have our own ideas about what is moral and what is not.

 

[Value Collector]

Yes I do agree with the principle but I have big arguments as to whether the deaths of 300,000 civilians is the least damaging way.

But once you start on one course of action like bombing civilians you make it justifiable for everyone, as we have sen with terrorism around the world. The terrorists probably think its moral for them to do that, as they have little other choice as they don't possess the resources of their enemies. So the example has been set and now there are no holds barred.



Try telling them that, the US and Russia invaded Afghanistan, not the other way around.

300,000 civilians weren't killed in the nuclear attacks, but even if it were, that number is dwarfed by the 50,000,000 that had been killed during the war,

The USA entered Afghanistan after the world trade centres were attacked, and have attempted to leave multiple times, the war is in Afghanistan, but it's not against Afghanistan, we are not "at war with Afghanistan"

taliban groups can lay down their weapons any time, and re enter society and work with local governments, however if US forces surrenders to taliban, they would be beheaded.

As I said the taliban can end the violence when ever they want, and just go about their other business.

 

[Value Collector]

Really ? If morality was not subjective then you and I would agree about nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fact that we don't indicates that we have our own ideas about what is moral and what is not.

Nope, you are wrong, people having different opinions doesn't make something subjective.

Take the god question, a god either does or doesn't exist, it's not subjective, whether the god exists or not is an objective fact about the universe right.

But you may say it exists and I might say it doesn't, that doesn't mean the correct answer is subjective, it just means one of us is wrong, the objective fact exists even though you might not believe it.

We can have our own ideas and opinions about what is moral, but that doesn't make it subjective, one of us can just be wrong.

 

[basilio]

The USA entered Afghanistan after the world trade centres were attacked, and have attempted to leave multiple times, the war is in Afghanistan, but it's not against Afghanistan, we are not "at war with Afghanistan"

taliban groups can lay down their weapons any time, and re enter society and work with local governments, however if US forces surrenders to taliban, they would be beheaded.

VC I suggest the history of US involvement in Afganisation is a bit more complex than your suggesting. For what its worth the article I attached on the Narco State gives a more meat to teh topic.

Cheers

 

[SirRumpole]

taliban groups can lay down their weapons any time, and re enter society and work with local governments, however if US forces surrenders to taliban, they would be beheaded.

As I said the taliban can end the violence when ever they want, and just go about their other business.

And the US can simply walk away and end the violence. it's not their country.

 

[SirRumpole]

The USA entered Afghanistan after the world trade centres were attacked, and have attempted to leave multiple times, the war is in Afghanistan, but it's not against Afghanistan, we are not "at war with Afghanistan"

Most of the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Centre were Saudis. Why isn't the US at war with Saudi Arabia ?