Is morality objective or subjective?

[Iwannaplato]

Thanks. Lots to pick up here. Just to start - are you advocating a kind of phenomenology - with 'experience of phenomena' as a foundation? I may be wrong, but some of what you say seems to point in that direction.

I suppose in some way I am advocating for phenomenology, not as hey this is the ontology we should believe in and bracket out anything else, but rather as tool to find out what's going on. As one way to get information. And I suppose...especially with language. I think whatever one's ontology or epistemology, it can be useful to look at what is going on in the experiences of listeners/readers/believers. And I suppose my exploration of the phenomenology of language - I focused on metaphors, both novel and dead - affected the way I 'see' language. I'm not sure language is what many people think it is. In any case, I was stunned by what I found was going on in myself.

[Harbal]

Well, you haven't really given an answer that suits the situation. That's the problem. I'm just wanting to know where you get your morals from. They're not all from a particular society, if you can criticize society. And there's nothing obviously moral or even obviously right about feelings like empathy.

A moral issue that often splits public opinion is abortion.

Yes, a good example. Continue...

Some people think it morally unacceptable to terminate a living human foetus, while others think it unacceptable to force a woman to go through with a pregnancy she does not want.

No quite right. The woman has already made a choice: to have unprotected sex. She's used her choice to create a child, and now intends to kill her. (Statistically, 99% of abortions are these "birth control" abortions, not medical or rape-related.)

In either case there is a regrettable consequence: The death of a developing baby, or the deprivation of a person's freedom to make their own life changing decisions.

That second one isn't actually happening. She did have the choice: she didn't use it wisely. And now she wants to make second, even more evil choice, in order to "fix" the thing she chose to do.

I think the woman's freedom to make the choice should have priority,

So do I: but not the choice to murder. She should have practiced her autonomy in the matter of responsible sexual practices, instead.

...although I can't say why I think that is more important than the life of the foetus, but I can say that empathy plays a part in it.

But there's not much empathy for the child. She is dismissed as "not yet human" or even "a cluster of cells," and dispatched without mercy.

I raised the example of abortion to demonstrate -to some extent- how I would approach a moral issue, not to discuss the issue itself. But, seeing as you have used it as an opportunity to voice your view on abortion, I have to say that your attitude seems very black and white, whereas the majority of moral issues are far more nuanced than that. Needless to say, I strongly disagree with your comments about abortion.

Well, why don't we get over it? After all, if there's no reason we owe it, and if it seems inconvenient to me, can't I just drop it?

Yes, you can drop it if you want to, but I don't want to drop it; behaving in a way I consider to be morally right is important to me. You might not be able to see any rational reason why I should be motivated to behave morally, but I am motivated nonetheless.

...except that he doesn't believe morality is real.

My moral values and feelings exist within me, so they are real in that sense; they are real to me.

That's a different question. Nobody is wondering whether or not you objectively have a (delusory) feeling about morality. We're debating whether that feeling has any objective substance. And you're saying you objectively feel morally, but that that feeling itself is merely subjective, in that it refers to no objective fact.

I have a sense of morality, consisting of values and moral opinions, which I can reference. That's a fact.

But what my morality has that yours lacks is this: the appeal to objective truth.

You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth, so it has no more persuasive power than my morality.

Your claim, from the start, is that your morality is nothing but your own feeling. Mine is that my moral judgment conforms to the truth that ought to govern the relations between the woman and the baby

A woman's relationship with her baby is her business, not yours. And all this objective truth deception is about controlling people's behaviour, not morality.

Your point is that I have no right to appeal to objective truth

My point is that there is no objective moral truth to appeal to. I may think you are misguided, but I have no interest in talking you out of your opinion, and I certainly would not deny you the right to look to wherever you like for moral guidance. Your determination to demolish any and all alternative views to yours does make me wonder, though, just how secure you feel with your "objective" morality.

[Lacewing]

But what my morality has that yours lacks is this: the appeal to objective truth.

You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth, so it has no more persuasive power than my morality.

Agreed.

Claims of 'morality based on objective truth' is a big lie if the actual fruits consistently yielded are lacking in both morality and truth.

[Harbal]

But what my morality has that yours lacks is this: the appeal to objective truth.

You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth, so it has no more persuasive power than my morality.

Agreed.

Claims of 'morality based on objective truth' is a big lie if the actual fruits consistently yielded are lacking in both morality and truth.

When the "morality" you are promoting is particularly unpalatable to most reasonable folk, I can see why you would present it as objective truth in order to stand a chance of selling it.

[Immanuel Can]

I raised the example of abortion to demonstrate -to some extent- how I would approach a moral issue, not to discuss the issue itself. But, seeing as you have used it as an opportunity to voice your view on abortion, I have to say that your attitude seems very black and white, whereas the majority of moral issues are far more nuanced than that. Needless to say, I strongly disagree with your comments about abortion.

Deliberate murder is quite a black and white issue, actually. And while "nuance" is a virtue in discussions that are not black and white, in issues that are, it's just compromise with rank evil.

I have no hesitancy at all in saying that creating a baby willfully and then murdering her is wrong...without conditions.

...behaving in a way I consider to be morally right is important to me.

I can believe that. But I can't see any reason why a person who doesn't believe in God would think he had to. And as you say, he doesn't really have to. So there's actually nothing to be celebrated, commended or praised if he does act morally...and no shame if he does not.

But I don't believe any of that, of course. I just can't find a reason in Atheism to think otherwise.

...except that he doesn't believe morality is real.

My moral values and feelings exist within me, so they are real in that sense; they are real to me.

THAT you have moral feelings is real. What the moral feelings are signalling to you, you must believe, is pure delusion...if you go with Atheism. But I don't think you really do. You take conscience too seriously to be a thoroughgoing and consistent Atheist -- they have to believe that conscience is not related to anything objective or real. You seem not to feel that way, even while speaking the opposite.

That's interesting.

That's a different question. Nobody is wondering whether or not you objectively have a (delusory) feeling about morality. We're debating whether that feeling has any objective substance. And you're saying you objectively feel morally, but that that feeling itself is merely subjective, in that it refers to no objective fact.

I have a sense of morality, consisting of values and moral opinions, which I can reference. That's a fact.

That's the first one. It doesn't help at all with the second one. THAT you have the feelings is a fact. That the feelings are WARRANTED or can provide an accurate "reference" to anything, that's not a fact, according to moral subjectivism; that's merely a delusion.

But what my morality has that yours lacks is this: the appeal to objective truth.

You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth,

Actually, they are obliged to make a decision. Either they believe what I say (so long as it also properly represents what God says) or they don't. Either they obey God, or they don't. Either they choose to affirm righteousness, or they don't. And if they don't, they answer for what they choose.: and that's an obligation that nobody gets to dodge. (Heb. 9:27 -- "...it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment...") That's free will.

Your claim, from the start, is that your morality is nothing but your own feeling. Mine is that my moral judgment conforms to the truth that ought to govern the relations between the woman and the baby

A woman's relationship with her baby is her business, not yours.

You know that's not true. The baby is not "hers." It's a new person. And if you don't want to admit it today, then give it nine months, and you'll surely change your mind. It's at least a potential independent, unique creation that rightfully belongs not to the woman at all, but to God.

And all this objective truth deception is about controlling people's behaviour, not morality.

There is no objective morality, you say...and then you say it's "not moral" to "control people's behaviour"? The great secular despots of the 20th Century and today certainly know how to apply your axiom more consistently than you're applying it. They cut to the chase, and simply say, "I can do anything I want to anybody I want." And from an Atheist perspective, they're correct, and you're the one who's trying to have your cake and eat it too.

If subjectivism is true, tyranny is not wrong. Nor is murder, whether of babies or adults. Nor is racism, inequality, torture... Nor is anything.

Your point is that I have no right to appeal to objective truth

My point is that there is no objective moral truth to appeal to. I may think you are misguided, but I have no interest in talking you out of your opinion, and I certainly would not deny you the right to look to wherever you like for moral guidance.

Yet you don't believe in "moral guidance," because there is no objective reality to moral anything. You're like a guy who has a compass with no directional north, south, east or west on it...it gives you no information about anything, but might give you an artificial feeling of direction, even when that direction is dead wrong.

Your determination to demolish any and all alternative views to yours does make me wonder, though, just how secure you feel with your "objective" morality.

Quite secure, actually. But then, I never put the 'compass' down in the first place. I just check the needle, and I can find out where I am, for good or ill, in any situation.

Relativism isn't that hard to demolish. It's not much of a threat to moral objectivism. It's more like the protests of the wandering than the clarion pronouncements of those who are onto a truth. (How could it be? They don't believe it's objective.) But I'm not out to get relativists; I'm out to see if I can put the good compass back in the hands of a few people who've maybe dropped it. That's our society today...people with a readingless compass in their hands, trying to tell themselves they're "good," when they actually have no idea where they are.

[Harbal]

I raised the example of abortion to demonstrate -to some extent- how I would approach a moral issue, not to discuss the issue itself. But, seeing as you have used it as an opportunity to voice your view on abortion, I have to say that your attitude seems very black and white, whereas the majority of moral issues are far more nuanced than that. Needless to say, I strongly disagree with your comments about abortion.

Deliberate murder is quite a black and white issue, actually. And while "nuance" is a virtue in discussions that are not black and white, in issues that are, it's just compromise with rank evil.

I have no hesitancy at all in saying that creating a baby willfully and then murdering her is wrong...without conditions.

And I have no hesitancy in dismissing your emotive language as an authoritarian rant. Your attitude towards abortion is nothing to do with morality, it is about control.

..behaving in a way I consider to be morally right is important to me.

I can believe that. But I can't see any reason why a person who doesn't believe in God would think he had to.

I don't require you to see a reason; it is enough that I see a reason.

But I don't believe any of that, of course. I just can't find a reason in Atheism to think otherwise.

That is not a problem to me.

My moral values and feelings exist within me, so they are real in that sense; they are real to me.

THAT you have moral feelings is real. What the moral feelings are signalling to you, you must believe, is pure delusion...

I know my moral feelings are not related to any objective truth, so what is this delusion?

You take conscience too seriously to be a thoroughgoing and consistent Atheist

If I'm not an atheist, then I must be God.

THAT you have the feelings is a fact. That the feelings are WARRANTED or can provide an accurate "reference" to anything, that's not a fact, according to moral subjectivism; that's merely a delusion.

You are just repeating yourself, but I hope you will excuse me from doing the same by not insisting that I keep addressing the same thing over and over.

You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth,

Actually, they are obliged to make a decision.

The decision to ignore you, you mean? Very possibly.

A woman's relationship with her baby is her business, not yours.

You know that's not true. The baby is not "hers." It's a new person. And if you don't want to admit it today, then give it nine months, and you'll surely change your mind. It's at least a potential independent, unique creation that rightfully belongs not to the woman at all, but to God.

You seem to be forgetting you are talking to an atheist.

And all this objective truth deception is about controlling people's behaviour, not morality.

There is no objective morality, you say...and then you say it's "not moral" to "control people's behaviour"?

Yes, that is, indeed, what I say.

If subjectivism is true, tyranny is not wrong. Nor is murder, whether of babies or adults. Nor is racism, inequality, torture... Nor is anything.

These things can be wrong according to the law, and according to a set of moral principles.

My point is that there is no objective moral truth to appeal to. I may think you are misguided, but I have no interest in talking you out of your opinion, and I certainly would not deny you the right to look to wherever you like for moral guidance.

Yet you don't believe in "moral guidance,"

I don't think I said I didn't believe in moral guidance, but even if I didn't, it shouldn't stop you from looking for it.

You're like a guy who has a compass with no directional north, south, east or west on it...it gives you no information about anything, but might give you an artificial feeling of direction, even when that direction is dead wrong.

I do have a moral compass, despite your total investment in denying it to me. And I certainly would not exchange it for yours.

Relativism isn't that hard to demolish. It's not much of a threat to moral objectivism.

But why are you so intent on demolishing it if you don't see it as a threat? I suppose you must fear it because, along with things like the scientific study of evolution, it undermines the fiction you have built your identity around.

But I'm not out to get relativists; I'm out to see if I can put the good compass back in the hands of a few people who've maybe dropped it.

I really don't think the world needs more authoritarian religious fanatics, thanks very much.

[Immanuel Can]

I raised the example of abortion to demonstrate -to some extent- how I would approach a moral issue, not to discuss the issue itself. But, seeing as you have used it as an opportunity to voice your view on abortion, I have to say that your attitude seems very black and white, whereas the majority of moral issues are far more nuanced than that. Needless to say, I strongly disagree with your comments about abortion.

Deliberate murder is quite a black and white issue, actually. And while "nuance" is a virtue in discussions that are not black and white, in issues that are, it's just compromise with rank evil.

I have no hesitancy at all in saying that creating a baby willfully and then murdering her is wrong...without conditions.

And I have no hesitancy in dismissing your emotive language as an authoritarian rant. Your attitude towards abortion is nothing to do with morality, it is about control.

No, I have no "control" of women who murder their babies. They need to control themselves; that's the argument I'm making.

..behaving in a way I consider to be morally right is important to me.

I can believe that. But I can't see any reason why a person who doesn't believe in God would think he had to.

I don't require you to see a reason; it is enough that I see a reason.

If it's a "reason," then you can state what it is. You can give "reasons."

My moral values and feelings exist within me, so they are real in that sense; they are real to me.

THAT you have moral feelings is real. What the moral feelings are signalling to you, you must believe, is pure delusion...

I know my moral feelings are not related to any objective truth, so what is this delusion?

Again, because believing things that are not objectively true is, by definition, delusional. That's what the word means.

You take conscience too seriously to be a thoroughgoing and consistent Atheist

If I'm not an atheist, then I must be God.

I'm sorry...I don't get that. Can you explain?

A woman's relationship with her baby is her business, not yours.

You know that's not true. The baby is not "hers." It's a new person. And if you don't want to admit it today, then give it nine months, and you'll surely change your mind. It's at least a potential independent, unique creation that rightfully belongs not to the woman at all, but to God.

You seem to be forgetting you are talking to an atheist.

I'm speaking about what's true; not about what's Atheistically palatable. We don't require their approval; truth with be truth anyway.

And all this objective truth deception is about controlling people's behaviour, not morality.

There is no objective morality, you say...and then you say it's "not moral" to "control people's behaviour"?

Yes, that is, indeed, what I say.

Then you've denied what you affirm. You've shot your own case down.

If "controlling other people's behaviour" is not moral, then there is an objective moral truth, and you've just stated one. But then, moral subjectivism is not true, since there is an absolute, objective moral wrongness to "controlling other people's behaviour."

If subjectivism is true, tyranny is not wrong. Nor is murder, whether of babies or adults. Nor is racism, inequality, torture... Nor is anything.

These things can be wrong according to the law, and according to a set of moral principles.

Laws can be good or bad, obviously. I assume you're not okay with Judenrein laws, or slavery laws, or Aparteid laws, are you? But there are no moral principles available under Atheism. And "law" is simply a case of force, not of right.

You're like a guy who has a compass with no directional north, south, east or west on it...it gives you no information about anything, but might give you an artificial feeling of direction, even when that direction is dead wrong.

I do have a moral compass, despite your total investment in denying it to me.

I didn't. You did. You said there are no objective moral values. I follows that there's no fixed or reliable north, south, east and west on your moral compass. I just accepted your claim as true...though I noted that you still seem to have a conscience about things. But that's a step in favour of my case, rather than yours, because an Atheist, living in a purely time-plus-chance world, ought not to have any such thing, and ought not to conclude he ought to follow it, if he did.

Relativism isn't that hard to demolish. It's not much of a threat to moral objectivism.

But why are you so intent on demolishing it if you don't see it as a threat?

Because it makes fools of people and harms them. And I don't want them harmed. It's no threat to me, because I simply don't believe it; but some of those poor folks do. And it has very bad consequences for them and for their society.

Thus, if I want to do them some good, I need to tell them that. They seem to be asleep on it.

[Harbal]

I can believe that. But I can't see any reason why a person who doesn't believe in God would think he had to.

I don't require you to see a reason; it is enough that I see a reason.

If it's a "reason," then you can state what it is. You can give "reasons."

You won't accept any reason that doesn't include God, and I don't have a reason to include God.

I know my moral feelings are not related to any objective truth, so what is this delusion?

Again, because believing things that are not objectively true is, by definition, delusional. That's what the word means.

What do you think I believe that isn't objectively true?

If I'm not an atheist, then I must be God.

I'm sorry...I don't get that. Can you explain?

If morality only comes from God, then I must be God because I am the source of my morality.

Then you've denied what you affirm. You've shot your own case down.

If "controlling other people's behaviour" is not moral, then there is an objective moral truth,

It is not moral in my opinion, which is not a claim of objective truth.

These things can be wrong according to the law, and according to a set of moral principles.

Laws can be good or bad, obviously. I assume you're not okay with Judenrein laws, or slavery laws, or Aparteid laws, are you?

Neither am I okay with laws that deny women the right to abortion, or laws that criminalise homosexuality, but there are warped minds that believe such laws are morally justifiable.

But there are no moral principles available under Atheism. And "law" is simply a case of force, not of right.

Atheism neither gives nor denies us moral principles. Atheism only has one thing to say, which is that there is no God.

I do have a moral compass, despite your total investment in denying it to me.

I didn't. You did. You said there are no objective moral values. I follows that there's no fixed or reliable north, south, east and west on your moral compass. I just accepted your claim as true...though I noted that you still seem to have a conscience about things. But that's a step in favour of my case, rather than yours, because an Atheist, living in a purely time-plus-chance world, ought not to have any such thing, and ought not to conclude he ought to follow it, if he did.

An atheist ought not to have a conscience? What an incredibly ridiculous thing to say.

But why are you so intent on demolishing it if you don't see it as a threat?

Because it makes fools of people and harms them. And I don't want them harmed. It's no threat to me, because I simply don't believe it; but some of those poor folks do. And it has very bad consequences for them and for their society.

Thus, if I want to do them some good, I need to tell them that. They seem to be asleep on it.

Well you don't seem to be making much headway in that endeavour, if you don't mind my saying.

[Will Bouwman]

If two (or more) stories say the same thing, it may happen because of two reasons: one, that one is derivative from the other, as you're supposing, it seems; or two, that both are reporting a third thing, a common event that both of them document in different ways. This seems to be the case with the Deluge narrative, because cultures all over the world have it, apparently independently of one another. The simplest explanation of that is not that all cultures had a conspiracy about it, but that all of them report an event they all knew about.

If that is so, then the Biblical account of everyone but Noah and his family being killed is wrong.

There are, in fact, multiple explanations for the similarities and differences, the earlier accounts and the later ones: and not all of them represent any kind of insight to the origins, or challenge to the integrity of the Biblical narrative. So the question doesn't settle that easily.

Well again, the Biblical narrative I read includes this:
So the Lord said, “I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—everything from humankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”
Genesis 6:7

If all cultures "report an event they all knew about", they clearly weren't wiped out.

...the monkey-to-man theory was the one taught in all public schools, museum dioramas, textbooks, and so on back in the 1960s' and 1970s...the one with the progressive pictures of apes actually turning into human beings, through the chain of things like the Java Man, the Piltdown Man, the Peking Man, the Neanderthal man, and so on.

If you weren't alive then, you might not remember how embarassingly confident the teaching of that theory was back then.

I was. Clearly your experience was different to mine. For one thing, I was taught that Piltdown Man was a hoax. I also learnt about the work of Louis Leakey, the fossil discoveries he made in Africa and, being at a C of E school, that this was all compatible with Christianity. What I don't remember is the sort of exuberance that would make a retraction embarrassing, any more than there was from teachers who taught me that there are nine planets in the solar system, or that protons and neutrons are fundamental particles.

There are cases in which not only are the fossils inverted...

Absolutely. It's called Chevron folding.

That's one kind. As I said, there are multiple ways it can happen. Sudden sedimentation is certainly another, as you have also seen.

In which case there are multiple reasons why inverted fossils aren't deleterious to evolutionary theory.

...it's not particularly useful to the present discussion to get bogged down in debates about lower-animal evolution, one way or the other. There is no theological principle at stake, in such cases. In man alone, the stakes are high: because a unique creation for man establishes his importance in the created order...

How do you reconcile that view of man with this?

The Biblical view is that a person needs what's called a "metanoia" (to use the Greek word which cannot be exactly translated into English, but is approximately translated "repentance"). It means a "change of mind," in which one ceases to see oneself as the center of the universe (as we all naturally tend to do, automatically)...

[Harbal]

Morality exists, but only in an abstract sense. I do not know whether philosophy considers abstract things to have objective existence, but I cannot see any reason to deny the objective existence of morality. We all -unless we are psychopaths- experience moral feelings, thoughts and ideas, so it is hard to imagine that any reasonable person would say there is no such thing as morality.

I would describe morality as a system by which we judge actions and ideas in respect of a particular quality, and we sometimes call that quality rightness, and sometimes wrongness, or even something else, but what we mean amounts to the same thing regardless of what we call it.

The quality of rightness, or wrongness, is not a property of the thing we judge, it is a value that we apply to it, and that value is arrived at arbitrarily, according to the nature of our own particular sense of morality. Moral beliefs and opinions can only be right or wrong in relation to a particular set of criteria, and not universally.

That is my account of morality, and I am sure there are better ones, but if we think about morality according to its description, rather than attaching the pointless labels of objective and subjective to it, a much more sensible conversation is possible.

And that is my humble opinion.

[Lacewing]

Although morality can be driven by cultural beliefs, it seems undeniable that certain qualities often associated with morality are innate for most human beings. Specific beliefs or teachings are not required, nor are they an assurance of moral behavior if a person is otherwise inclined.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't require you to see a reason; it is enough that I see a reason.

If it's a "reason," then you can state what it is. You can give "reasons."

You won't accept any reason that doesn't include God, and I don't have a reason to include God.

I'll accept anything at all that amounts to a "reason," meaning anything that rationalizes with the belief that any particular moral posture is true, anything that makes it logical for a secular person to believe something is actually right or wrong. You needn't mention God at all, if you can manage that.

I know my moral feelings are not related to any objective truth, so what is this delusion?

Again, because believing things that are not objectively true is, by definition, delusional. That's what the word means.

What do you think I believe that isn't objectively true?

Any moral precept. Because you say they're all merely the product of subjective feelings. That means there's no objective referent that the feelings are about.

If I'm not an atheist, then I must be God.

I'm sorry...I don't get that. Can you explain?

If morality only comes from God, then I must be God because I am the source of my morality.

Oh.

Well, if you believed in objective morality, and it were so that you could ground an objective morality in yourself, then I suppose you could make that argument. As it is, since there's no objective morality in your world, you can't be the grounds of one, and can't be God.

But in point of fact, you can't assert either premise. You don't believe morality is objective, and you can't believe that objective morality can be grounded in a contingent being. Objective morality cannot change; you do, and will.

Then you've denied what you affirm. You've shot your own case down.
If "controlling other people's behaviour" is not moral, then there is an objective moral truth,

It is not moral in my opinion, which is not a claim of objective truth.

Then nobody needs to share your opinion, and if they do want to "control other people's behaviour," then they're not wrong to do so. So it's not clear what you meant when you offered it as if it were some kind of moral indictment, as in "you want to control other people's behaviour." Not objectively wrong means no indictment possible.

Perhaps now you're starting to see one of the chief problems with subjective moralizing, then. It cannot inform a common moral judgment.

But there are no moral principles available under Atheism. And "law" is simply a case of force, not of right.

Atheism neither gives nor denies us moral principles. Atheism only has one thing to say, which is that there is no God.

Almost right.

If God is the grounds of objective morality, and if Atheism denies the existence of God, then the deduction is both simple and unavoidable: that Atheism must necessarily also refuse any talk of objective morality.

But talk of subjective morality is incoherent, because it denies to morality any authority capable of adjudicating a moral situation, which is inevitably also a relational situation (i.e. one with implications for more than one person). Subjective moralizing is simply moralizing that can't moralize, moralizing by pure talk but without force, moralizing without authority, referent, application or outcome. It's that nutty. It's self-refuting.

So Atheism requires moral nihilism.

I do have a moral compass, despite your total investment in denying it to me.

I didn't. You did. You said there are no objective moral values. I follows that there's no fixed or reliable north, south, east and west on your moral compass. I just accepted your claim as true...though I noted that you still seem to have a conscience about things. But that's a step in favour of my case, rather than yours, because an Atheist, living in a purely time-plus-chance world, ought not to have any such thing, and ought not to conclude he ought to follow it, if he did.

An atheist ought not to have a conscience?

If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

Or you could to it this way: if Atheism were true, morality would have to be a delusion. But morality is real, and we all are conscious of that fact intuitively, by way of conscience. Therefore, our moral intuitions also tell us Atheism is not true.

Atheistically speaking, conscience is both inexplicable as to why it would ever exist, and delusory because it cannot assert anything that governs relations between moral agents.

[Immanuel Can]

If two (or more) stories say the same thing, it may happen because of two reasons: one, that one is derivative from the other, as you're supposing, it seems; or two, that both are reporting a third thing, a common event that both of them document in different ways. This seems to be the case with the Deluge narrative, because cultures all over the world have it, apparently independently of one another. The simplest explanation of that is not that all cultures had a conspiracy about it, but that all of them report an event they all knew about.

If that is so, then the Biblical account of everyone but Noah and his family being killed is wrong.

That doesn't follow, for an obvious reason: we haven't yet identified which aspect of the various narratives are true, and which are false. The Biblical narrative could be the best, most truthful and most complete narrative.

If all cultures "report an event they all knew about", they clearly weren't wiped out.

Actually, what we should expect is that all human beings would be genetically from the same origin...the family that survived. And we do, in fact, find that all human beings are of the same genetic stock...just a considerable time ago...which is exactly what we should expect to be the case.

...the monkey-to-man theory was the one taught in all public schools, museum dioramas, textbooks, and so on back in the 1960s' and 1970s...the one with the progressive pictures of apes actually turning into human beings, through the chain of things like the Java Man, the Piltdown Man, the Peking Man, the Neanderthal man, and so on.

If you weren't alive then, you might not remember how embarassingly confident the teaching of that theory was back then.

I was. Clearly your experience was different to mine. For one thing, I was taught that Piltdown Man was a hoax.

Oh, good...it certainly was. We know that now, and there's no doubt of it. But if you go back to the older textbooks, etc. you'd find it was taught as fact. So Piltdown provides a very clear example of what I'm saying: that what some people declare to be "science" can be nothing more than their wish to fill out a theory that lacks the actual data.

You must have grown up in a classroom that happened sometime considerably after the Piltdown Hoax was acknowledged. But you'll also know, perhaps, that the monkey-to-man theory was slower to die, and many attempts were made to "save" it. Even in 1965, it was still in many textbooks, as even secular sources freely now admit: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... t-ape.html

...being at a C of E school, that this was all compatible with Christianity.

Well, the C of E and the other so-called "mainline churches" are getting quite famous for desperate attempts to compromise with secularism, it seems. The same C of E has even alienated itself from half of its own congregations, who likewise point this out. But here's an interesting vid of some highly intelligent and well-informed experts discussing the deeper problems with evolutionary theory as currrently held. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMzqA4XNxtw (12 minutes)

My claim would be simpler: only in the case of human beings does evolutionary theory represent something even remotely relevant to theology. But there, it certainly does conflict with Christianity...and with things like science and ethics, as well. There's much more importance in the human case that in the earth-age discussion, for example.

There are cases in which not only are the fossils inverted...

Absolutely. It's called Chevron folding.

That's one kind. As I said, there are multiple ways it can happen. Sudden sedimentation is certainly another, as you have also seen.

In which case there are multiple reasons why inverted fossils aren't deleterious to evolutionary theory.

They are, because many of the ways the fossils are created are not gradualistic and slow. That means that the fossil record cannot be simply trusted to yield us a proper picture of the ages involved. It's capable of deceiving us.

...it's not particularly useful to the present discussion to get bogged down in debates about lower-animal evolution, one way or the other. There is no theological principle at stake, in such cases. In man alone, the stakes are high: because a unique creation for man establishes his importance in the created order...

How do you reconcile that view of man with this?

With what, in particular? What I said below? Not hard.

The Biblical view is that a person needs what's called a "metanoia" (to use the Greek word which cannot be exactly translated into English, but is approximately translated "repentance"). It means a "change of mind," in which one ceases to see oneself as the center of the universe (as we all naturally tend to do, automatically)...

To see mankind as the pinnacle of Earthly creation is not the same as to see him as the center of the universe. It's only to see him as the highest of created, contingent beings...the uncreated, necessary God being much higher, of course. But the Biblical perspective accords to human beings a much higher dignity and value than the lower created world, for sure, and much higher than Evolutionism can ever imply. And it accords to him volition, identity, personhood, value and moral accountability to God, as well.

Interestingly, while the Bible accords mankind a unique standing among created beings, it also agrees with environmentalists about something it can rationalize, but they can't -- the belief that human beings have responsibility to treat the lower, created world with respect and stewardship. For from a Christian perspective, the world rightly belongs to God, not man; and man answers to God for how he treats it. He cannot exploit it, use it up and burn it for his pleasure; he'll answer for what he does.

But according to secular environmentalism, mankind is just a kind of animal, and thus we can find no good reason why human beings should be expected to be uniquely accountable for what they do with the world, anymore than we ought to expect the foxes, fish and paramecia to do so. A mere animal cannot be asked to be responsible for anything. Like all animals, he's just a victim of his environment, and does whatever animals do; and if that ends up destroying the whole world, say, then that's just nothing other than an animal doing what an animal does. You can't ask an animal not to be an animal; and as a result, species go extinct all the time. Why should man be exempt, or his world be exempt? And why should the indifferent universe cry if mankind perishes, and his planet with him?

[Harbal]

If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

Or you could to it this way: if Atheism were true, morality would have to be a delusion. But morality is real, and we all are conscious of that fact intuitively, by way of conscience. Therefore, our moral intuitions also tell us Atheism is not true.

Atheistically speaking, conscience is both inexplicable as to why it would ever exist, and delusory because it cannot assert anything that governs relations between moral agents.

If you say so.

[FlashDangerpants]

If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

That's deductively invalid. It needed to say "If Atheism were true, there's no POSSIBILTY at all he ever would have a conscience" which of course would be an absurd claim.

If God is the grounds of objective morality, and if Atheism denies the existence of God, then the deduction is both simple and unavoidable: that Atheism must necessarily also refuse any talk of objective morality.

That's deductively valid only if the first clause is upgraded to say "If God is the only possible grounds of objective morality". Otherwise the atheist can look for alternate sources of objective moral propoerties should he be so inclined.


Keep at it champ, you'll nail it one day.