Is morality objective or subjective?

[Dontaskme]

Pity you have to lie when it comes to most of the other subjects you interact with.

It's interesting that you feel the need to frame me as a "liar," rather than as "sincerely misguided," or something like that. Since you have no way of knowing the realities of my beliefs and life at all, really, it's perhaps a little uncharitable. But I'm not offended...merely bemused to consider why you would choose that framing. It would seem you're at some pains to make sure my character is darkened, so that you can dismiss whatever I might say.

It's an ad hominem, of course. But one cannot help but notice that it's a predominantly female trait to be unable to detach speaker from message. It's a failure in logic, of course...and perhaps in morality, as well, if the person is conscious of doing it. And I'm wondering why you do.

You’re a liar.

Anyone who claims to know God is a liar and a conman.

Knowing what you can never know is lying … it’s not personal because I have no idea who you are. There’s just lying and no one lying.

End of.

[Immanuel Can]

Pity you have to lie when it comes to most of the other subjects you interact with.

It's interesting that you feel the need to frame me as a "liar," rather than as "sincerely misguided," or something like that. Since you have no way of knowing the realities of my beliefs and life at all, really, it's perhaps a little uncharitable. But I'm not offended...merely bemused to consider why you would choose that framing. It would seem you're at some pains to make sure my character is darkened, so that you can dismiss whatever I might say.

It's an ad hominem, of course. But one cannot help but notice that it's a predominantly female trait to be unable to detach speaker from message. It's a failure in logic, of course...and perhaps in morality, as well, if the person is conscious of doing it. And I'm wondering why you do.

You’re a liar.

Anyone who claims to know God is a liar and a conman.

Whether that's true or not (and it's not), HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?

I'm not saying you're not worthy to know, and I'm not insulting you as a person: I'm asking for the mechanics. HOW would you already know, without even knowing either me or God, whether or not I know God?

So who is "lying" now? Or, at the very least, making things up out of thin air? And not terribly nice things, either...but that's beside the point. The point is that you have absolutely no way of knowing what you claim you know.

[Dontaskme]

It's interesting that you feel the need to frame me as a "liar," rather than as "sincerely misguided," or something like that. Since you have no way of knowing the realities of my beliefs and life at all, really, it's perhaps a little uncharitable. But I'm not offended...merely bemused to consider why you would choose that framing. It would seem you're at some pains to make sure my character is darkened, so that you can dismiss whatever I might say.

It's an ad hominem, of course. But one cannot help but notice that it's a predominantly female trait to be unable to detach speaker from message. It's a failure in logic, of course...and perhaps in morality, as well, if the person is conscious of doing it. And I'm wondering why you do.

You’re a liar.

Anyone who claims to know God is a liar and a conman.

Whether that's true or not (and it's not), HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?

I'm not saying you're not worthy to know, and I'm not insulting you as a person: I'm asking for the mechanics. HOW would you already know, without even knowing either me or God, whether or not I know God?

So who is "lying" now? Or, at the very least, making things up out of thin air? And not terribly nice things, either...but that's beside the point. The point is that you have absolutely no way of knowing what you claim you know.

God is imaginary, and looks like however you imagine it to be.

What is imagination? What is an imagined “you” but an idea?
What is an idea? I’ve no idea. Nothing apparently knows itself.

So I agree with you, the “you” which is an imagined idea, has absolutely no way of knowing anything claimed to be known.

Think of this conundrum of imaginary things without using language … eliminate language to see the perfection of life functionally automatically without any story or language.

Human language is nothing more than sound heard as words superimposed as a fiction upon what is ultimately this immediate unknowing reality.
I understand you have difficulty grasping this idea, but if you really understood the Bible like you claim to do, then you would see that even the Bible explains the imaginary nondual truth of reality.

If you insist on taking the imaginary literally then so be it, there is nothing I can do about that, or have anything further to add. You’ve made-up your own mind…literally…pardon the contradiction.

[Harbal]

Objectively speaking, I don't think we have a duty towards other human beings in general,

Right. Well, that's certainly the logical conclusion of Evolutionism: one cannot have a duty to such creatures as we are told we are.

Well it isn't really anything to do with whether we think evolution is how we got here. Duty is something we either impose on ourselves, or have it imposed on us by some human authority, in which case we may or may not accept it. Both morality and duty are purely human concepts.

it's just that Christians do seem to think they have a duty,

Yes, we do.

But that also makes sense, given our worldview. For Christians, man is a creation of God, dignified by having been given by Him life, volitional liberty and stewardship of the world, and accountable to God for his use of all that. So we have duties to God, but also duties toward each other, since each is seen to be not some accidental byproduct of a universe run on nothing but time, chance and accidental happenings, but deliberate creations of a God who is their benefactor, and to whom they are answerable.

In other words, people are not property of their societies or of themselves, or answerable to either; if they have an "owner," so to speak, or anybody to whom they are responsible, it's God.

That is fair enough, and I don't have a problem with their attitude towards God, but neither am I interested in it. If their behaviour in respect of others is admirable, I will credit them for that, but I don't recognise any virtue in their loyalty or obedience to God.

and my point was that that duty would be more admirable if directed towards the rest of humanity, rather than to God.

The problem with that, of course, is that if one believes the Evolutionary narrative, one has no duty at all to do so. And so any "admirability" is an illusion, because there really isn't anything objectively good about doing so.

But it isn't a problem, unless what we admire gets us into some sort of trouble, of course. If I admire somebody for putting time and effort into doing work for charity, the fact that I don't believe in God, but do believe the theory of evolution, causes me nor anyone else a problem. You might tell me I have no right to admire them on subjective grounds, but I would recognise no authority behind your objection.

...admiring them on subjective grounds.

Which you can do, of course: at the risk of having no actual grounds for doing so, since the deep truth Evolution teaches is that that is all nonsense. It's not just "subjective," but also "merely subjective," being a misunderstanding of how things actually, objectively are.

What am I risking by admiring someone for doing good, but not having "actual" grounds for doing so? Not a great deal, as far as I can see. Besides, evolution doesn't teach us that morality is nonsense; we only have morality because we acquired it as part of our evolution.

We all want to be treated well by others, but we can't expect it if we don't treat them well in return, even if we don't care about them.

That's partly true, of course. But only partly.

The other side is that it's very often to our own advantage not to treat others well. So we become only selectively "moral," in that we do what is socially convenient when it's personally convenient. But when we find it inconvenient, we become treacherous. That's very much how human nature, when ungoverned by objective morality, tends to behave. We do right only until we really don't want to.

Yes, we are quite often conflicted between self-interest and doing the "right thing", but, as you say, that is an aspect of human nature, and which direction we go in has more to do with our character than our religious beliefs, I would say.

The accidental/random aspect of evolution is an essential part of the process, but it isn't what determines the final outcome, and you probably understand how natural selection works better than I do. I suppose that when we first evolved legs, we could have refused to walk on them, but along with the legs we were also provided with the impulse and instinct to use them, and so it seems to be with our sense of morality.

It's not at all obvious that morality is a survival advantage. Very often, being moral merely gets one silenced, cancelled, excluded, abused or even martyred.

I disagree that morality has not given us an advantage in respect of our success as a species. Our current level of social and technological sophistication could never have been achieved by intelligence alone; our ability to cooperate at a very high level has been just as important, and our sense of morality is one of the factors that has made that possible, in my opinion. You have to realise that being silenced, cancelled, excluded, abused or even martyred, weren't very prominent issues in the early stages of our social development. Back then, when we lived in small, tribe like groups, morality only needed to incline us towards giving one another a basic level of consideration and respect. The world of human affairs is a far more complicated place now, so it is no wonder that morality is being stretched far beyond its original remit. We probably need it more now than ever before, but we never evolved it to the level we currently require.

What's more to the point is that it's probably an advantage to me, as a selectively-moral Atheist, that you should behave morally, while I do not. It makes you predictable and useable to me. As Nietzsche said, that you are "enslaved" to a particular conception of morality renders you vulnerable to MY machinations as a moral "superman" who does not need to follow the same rules. If that's so, the true "survival advantage" lies not in total immorality, nor in total morality, but in my power to use and discard morality whenever I like.

Yes, this happens, we see it in people like Donald Trump, who are completely devoid of any ethical scruples, while those they deal with are playing to the rules. And then when he got into politics he went in front of the cameras holding up a Bible, albeit upside down, and feigned serious religious convictions in order to win support from the electorally significant Bible belt people. So, anyway, I think you have scored something of an own goal with that argument, because it demonstrates that religiously motivated actions can sometimes lead to morally catastrophic outcomes.

But whatever the case, since the deep truth is supposed to be that morality is just an accidental "burp" from an indifferent universe, I, as the Nietzschean superman, have zero obligation to care it's there at all.

I don't think most people analyse their moral sense to that extend, and neither do most people know anything about Nietzsche.

Yes, lots of people might think we should just get over it, but evolution has seen to it that that is easier said than done.

You're now speaking of Evolution as if it has a "plan." It's "seen to it," you say: and the implication seems to be that if Evolution has "seen to it" that something is so, then we are supposed to bow what it has "seen to". But I don't see why that would be -- unless we are regarding Evolution as some sort of demi-god that is able to plan, intend, direct, "see" and issue moral necessities to us.

But is not that sort of "magical thinking" exactly what Evolutionism is supposed to free us from?

No, you have misinterpreted me. Evolution has no teleological element to it.

I think the thread title highlights the problem of the muddle and misunderstanding most conversations about morality seem to suffer from, which is one of over simplification. It reduces the question down to one thing or the other. When I say that morality is subjective, I don't mean that morality itself does not have an objective existence, because it clearly does, albeit in an abstract sense, and confined within the bounds of human psychology, rather than having an intrinsic presence in nature or the universe. It is the nature and content of our own, individual, morality that is subjective. Our moral values are the subjective part of morality.

THAT something called "morality" exists is obviously an objective fact. But whether that thing we call "morality" is LEGITIMATE is the problem.

Morality serves an important function, and no less so for being secular, so viewing it as legitimate is not a problem for me.

But one thing is obvious: that if Atheism is true, then an Atheist doesn't have any real obligation to be moral. He can be, or he can not be. It's up to him. And another Atheist, looking on at him, is unable to find firm and objective grounds to say whether that makes the first Atheist "good" or "bad," or nothing in particular at all...at least in reference to his moral condition.

That seems a strange way to describe the situation, or at least how you perceive it, but it doesn't go anywhere towards showing that the alternative to it is actually the truth.

Why do some people climb mountains, which can be extremely dangerous, and also very inconvenient, unless you happen to live at the foot of Mount Everest? Reason and rationality play a surprisingly small role in human behaviour.

Well, that just adds an additional level of problem to the case. For now, not only have we said that people have no duty to behave morally when it becomes inconvenient, but that they are not even rational enough to choose to do so for themselves. I don't see that that will help the case.

I think you must have misinterpreted me again, because my point was that people more often act on emotion and sentiment than on rationality, so the lack of a rational reason is not an impediment to living up to moral standards.

[Immanuel Can]

You’re a liar.

Anyone who claims to know God is a liar and a conman.

Whether that's true or not (and it's not), HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?

I'm not saying you're not worthy to know, and I'm not insulting you as a person: I'm asking for the mechanics. HOW would you already know, without even knowing either me or God, whether or not I know God?

So who is "lying" now? Or, at the very least, making things up out of thin air? And not terribly nice things, either...but that's beside the point. The point is that you have absolutely no way of knowing what you claim you know.

God is imaginary, and looks like however you imagine it to be.

I'll ask you again: HOW would you know that? What proves to you that that is the case?

[Immanuel Can]

Objectively speaking, I don't think we have a duty towards other human beings in general,

Right. Well, that's certainly the logical conclusion of Evolutionism: one cannot have a duty to such creatures as we are told we are.

Well it isn't really anything to do with whether we think evolution is how we got here.

Sure it is. What we think we are matters immensely to any justification of duty to each other.

Duty is something we either impose on ourselves, or have it imposed on us by some human authority, in which case we may or may not accept it. Both morality and duty are purely human concepts.

If that's so, then duty is merely an illusion. We don't actually owe it to each other: we just make it up, if we want to, or ignore it, if we don't.

it's just that Christians do seem to think they have a duty,

Yes, we do.

But that also makes sense, given our worldview. For Christians, man is a creation of God, dignified by having been given by Him life, volitional liberty and stewardship of the world, and accountable to God for his use of all that. So we have duties to God, but also duties toward each other, since each is seen to be not some accidental byproduct of a universe run on nothing but time, chance and accidental happenings, but deliberate creations of a God who is their benefactor, and to whom they are answerable.

In other words, people are not property of their societies or of themselves, or answerable to either; if they have an "owner," so to speak, or anybody to whom they are responsible, it's God.

That is fair enough, and I don't have a problem with their attitude towards God, but neither am I interested in it. If their behaviour in respect of others is admirable, I will credit them for that, but I don't recognise any virtue in their loyalty or obedience to God.

That's fine. I understand that perspective.

If I admire somebody for putting time and effort into doing work for charity, the fact that I don't believe in God, but do believe the theory of evolution, causes me nor anyone else a problem.

Well, unless you think it's a problem for people to believe in things that are unreal -- and unless I mistake your critique of Theism, that's exactly what you do think.

...admiring them on subjective grounds.

Which you can do, of course: at the risk of having no actual grounds for doing so, since the deep truth Evolution teaches is that that is all nonsense. It's not just "subjective," but also "merely subjective," being a misunderstanding of how things actually, objectively are.

What am I risking by admiring someone for doing good, but not having "actual" grounds for doing so?

Deluding oneself. If you think that's a "bad" thing.

Evolutionism would instruct you to think that you were merely imagining things.

We all want to be treated well by others, but we can't expect it if we don't treat them well in return, even if we don't care about them.

That's partly true, of course. But only partly.

The other side is that it's very often to our own advantage not to treat others well. So we become only selectively "moral," in that we do what is socially convenient when it's personally convenient. But when we find it inconvenient, we become treacherous. That's very much how human nature, when ungoverned by objective morality, tends to behave. We do right only until we really don't want to.

Yes, we are quite often conflicted between self-interest and doing the "right thing", but, as you say, that is an aspect of human nature, and which direction we go in has more to do with our character than our religious beliefs, I would say.

But think about that claim: that is "has more to do with our character." If we believe the Evolutionists, there's no such thing as "bad character" or "good character." All there is, is the nature of the beast; and beasts do whatever beasts do...it's never good or bad, morally speaking. So there's no such thing as "character," far less "having a good character."

The accidental/random aspect of evolution is an essential part of the process, but it isn't what determines the final outcome, and you probably understand how natural selection works better than I do. I suppose that when we first evolved legs, we could have refused to walk on them, but along with the legs we were also provided with the impulse and instinct to use them, and so it seems to be with our sense of morality.

It's not at all obvious that morality is a survival advantage. Very often, being moral merely gets one silenced, cancelled, excluded, abused or even martyred.

I disagree that morality has not given us an advantage in respect of our success as a species.

Oh, you can argue that it's in the interest of the species to be "moral," in some sense, even though that remains debatable. However, it's often not at all in the interest of the individual: and it's at the level of the individual that our moral determinations all take place.

It's like that "selfish gene" nonsense, that Dawkins is so fond of. "Genes" don't make moral determinations; people do. And survival, as Darwinism tells us, is a primary practical imperative for them. Being "moral," is optional.

What's more to the point is that it's probably an advantage to me, as a selectively-moral Atheist, that you should behave morally, while I do not. It makes you predictable and useable to me. As Nietzsche said, that you are "enslaved" to a particular conception of morality renders you vulnerable to MY machinations as a moral "superman" who does not need to follow the same rules. If that's so, the true "survival advantage" lies not in total immorality, nor in total morality, but in my power to use and discard morality whenever I like.

Yes, this happens...So, anyway, I think you have scored something of an own goal with that argument, because it demonstrates that religiously motivated actions can sometimes lead to morally catastrophic outcomes.

I wouldn't say it's anything like an "own goal." After all, I'm speaking in the voice of an Evolutionist, not a Theist. But you're right that some religious views can advocate very wicked things. So it's not just a question of "religion," but of "which religion," and then as well, of how obedient to that religious morality the individual in question is.

But whatever the case, since the deep truth is supposed to be that morality is just an accidental "burp" from an indifferent universe, I, as the Nietzschean superman, have zero obligation to care it's there at all.

I don't think most people analyse their moral sense to that extend, and neither do most people know anything about Nietzsche.

They really should. Because what Nietzsche did is to analyze their suppositions in a more rigourous and logical way than they, themselves, often find themselves able to do. He showed clearly where secular "moralizing" all ends up, if we follow the logic of Atheism rigorously.

That's useful: because before one starts down a road, it's a good idea to know where it ends.

Yes, lots of people might think we should just get over it, but evolution has seen to it that that is easier said than done.

You're now speaking of Evolution as if it has a "plan." It's "seen to it," you say: and the implication seems to be that if Evolution has "seen to it" that something is so, then we are supposed to bow what it has "seen to". But I don't see why that would be -- unless we are regarding Evolution as some sort of demi-god that is able to plan, intend, direct, "see" and issue moral necessities to us.

But is not that sort of "magical thinking" exactly what Evolutionism is supposed to free us from?

No, you have misinterpreted me. Evolution has no teleological element to it.

Well, I thought you'd resist that suggestion: but then I can't make sense of your claim that Evolution "has seen to it" that anything in particular happens. It's like saying, "The roulette wheel has seen to it Iost my shirt at the casino." Assuming the roulette wheel is not 'fixed' by somebody, there's no malevolence on the part of the roulette wheel, just as there is no benevolence in evolution: both just do whatever it is that randomness produces.

So we needn't take seriously anybody's claim that Evolution "wants" us to do anything, or that it "has arranged that we must/should" do or be anything. Evolutionism's blind, deaf, dumb and morally indifferent to whatever happens.

I think the thread title highlights the problem of the muddle and misunderstanding most conversations about morality seem to suffer from, which is one of over simplification. It reduces the question down to one thing or the other. When I say that morality is subjective, I don't mean that morality itself does not have an objective existence, because it clearly does, albeit in an abstract sense, and confined within the bounds of human psychology, rather than having an intrinsic presence in nature or the universe. It is the nature and content of our own, individual, morality that is subjective. Our moral values are the subjective part of morality.

THAT something called "morality" exists is obviously an objective fact. But whether that thing we call "morality" is LEGITIMATE is the problem.

Morality serves an important function, and no less so for being secular, so viewing it as legitimate is not a problem for me.

It should be. One has to ask whose "function" it's serving. It's not everybody's, clearly: some people end up on the condemned, guilty, sacrificed or punished side of morality. That may "function" for those who put them there; but it certainly doesn't "function" for them. And the people who put them there cannot even themselves explain why the morality that put them there is the "right" morality.

That's pretty cold, if that's how things are.

But one thing is obvious: that if Atheism is true, then an Atheist doesn't have any real obligation to be moral. He can be, or he can not be. It's up to him. And another Atheist, looking on at him, is unable to find firm and objective grounds to say whether that makes the first Atheist "good" or "bad," or nothing in particular at all...at least in reference to his moral condition.

That seems a strange way to describe the situation, or at least how you perceive it, but it doesn't go anywhere towards showing that the alternative to it is actually the truth.

I was merely pointing out the holes in Atheist moralizing; I wasn't trying to make the case for an alternative yet. But realizing that Atheist moralizing makes no sense drives us to a choice, rationally speaking. Namely, we realize that if we are rational persons, we either have to give up moralizing altogether, or give up our Atheism. But we can't really have both, because they contradict each other.

...my point was that people more often act on emotion and sentiment than on rationality, so the lack of a rational reason is not an impediment to living up to moral standards.

Which ones? WHOSE moral standards is anybody supposed to be living up to? You say that such standards simply cannot be objective -- very well, then why would you even be concerned as to whether or not somebody was "living up" to them? Heck, how do you know that what they're "living" to, is even in the direction "up"? Maybe living according to something like Sharia law is "down"? Or maybe it's nothing at all. From an Evolutionary perspective, how is one to tell which "morality" is the one that moves in the right direction?

It looks like you're taking your own moral presuppositions as a given -- as the "living up to" thing. If people "live up to" the sorts of basic moral precepts to which Harbal is accustomed, then they are "living up"; but what if they don't? What does Harbal say then, since he also says morality is not objective?

[Dontaskme]

Whether that's true or not (and it's not), HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?

I'm not saying you're not worthy to know, and I'm not insulting you as a person: I'm asking for the mechanics. HOW would you already know, without even knowing either me or God, whether or not I know God?

So who is "lying" now? Or, at the very least, making things up out of thin air? And not terribly nice things, either...but that's beside the point. The point is that you have absolutely no way of knowing what you claim you know.

God is imaginary, and looks like however you imagine it to be.

I'll ask you again: HOW would you know that? What proves to you that that is the case?

I would know that the same way my cat would not know it’s creator that’s how..before I was given an identity by my parents who were given their identity by their parents….I belonged not to my artificially imposed upon me identity ….but to the unidentified reality of not knowing, just pure not knowing being, like my cat.

Knowing cannot be experienced as an objective fact because identity labels such as concepts things and objects know nothing of their existence.

Let me ask you now…who or what exactly claims to know anything at all?

If you say I or You then all you are saying is that I and You are Known…..as concepts in this conception… now, who or what is the knower and creator of this conception?


See the dilemma?

It’s not a “someone “ who knows…you are the “knowing” that cannot be known. Knowing is a verb. There’s no such knowing that is twice born.

In other words…you can’t know yourself except as a concept that knows nothing.

You can’t know your a concept because you are this conception?

[Harbal]

Right. Well, that's certainly the logical conclusion of Evolutionism: one cannot have a duty to such creatures as we are told we are.

Well it isn't really anything to do with whether we think evolution is how we got here.

Sure it is. What we think we are matters immensely to any justification of duty to each other.

Duty is something we either impose on ourselves, or have it imposed on us by some human authority, in which case we may or may not accept it. Both morality and duty are purely human concepts.

If that's so, then duty is merely an illusion. We don't actually owe it to each other: we just make it up, if we want to, or ignore it, if we don't.

Yes, we do.

But that also makes sense, given our worldview. For Christians, man is a creation of God, dignified by having been given by Him life, volitional liberty and stewardship of the world, and accountable to God for his use of all that. So we have duties to God, but also duties toward each other, since each is seen to be not some accidental byproduct of a universe run on nothing but time, chance and accidental happenings, but deliberate creations of a God who is their benefactor, and to whom they are answerable.

In other words, people are not property of their societies or of themselves, or answerable to either; if they have an "owner," so to speak, or anybody to whom they are responsible, it's God.

That is fair enough, and I don't have a problem with their attitude towards God, but neither am I interested in it. If their behaviour in respect of others is admirable, I will credit them for that, but I don't recognise any virtue in their loyalty or obedience to God.

That's fine. I understand that perspective.

If I admire somebody for putting time and effort into doing work for charity, the fact that I don't believe in God, but do believe the theory of evolution, causes me nor anyone else a problem.

Well, unless you think it's a problem for people to believe in things that are unreal -- and unless I mistake your critique of Theism, that's exactly what you do think.

Which you can do, of course: at the risk of having no actual grounds for doing so, since the deep truth Evolution teaches is that that is all nonsense. It's not just "subjective," but also "merely subjective," being a misunderstanding of how things actually, objectively are.

What am I risking by admiring someone for doing good, but not having "actual" grounds for doing so?

Deluding oneself. If you think that's a "bad" thing.

Evolutionism would instruct you to think that you were merely imagining things.

That's partly true, of course. But only partly.

The other side is that it's very often to our own advantage not to treat others well. So we become only selectively "moral," in that we do what is socially convenient when it's personally convenient. But when we find it inconvenient, we become treacherous. That's very much how human nature, when ungoverned by objective morality, tends to behave. We do right only until we really don't want to.

Yes, we are quite often conflicted between self-interest and doing the "right thing", but, as you say, that is an aspect of human nature, and which direction we go in has more to do with our character than our religious beliefs, I would say.

But think about that claim: that is "has more to do with our character." If we believe the Evolutionists, there's no such thing as "bad character" or "good character." All there is, is the nature of the beast; and beasts do whatever beasts do...it's never good or bad, morally speaking. So there's no such thing as "character," far less "having a good character."

It's not at all obvious that morality is a survival advantage. Very often, being moral merely gets one silenced, cancelled, excluded, abused or even martyred.

I disagree that morality has not given us an advantage in respect of our success as a species.

Oh, you can argue that it's in the interest of the species to be "moral," in some sense, even though that remains debatable. However, it's often not at all in the interest of the individual: and it's at the level of the individual that our moral determinations all take place.

It's like that "selfish gene" nonsense, that Dawkins is so fond of. "Genes" don't make moral determinations; people do. And survival, as Darwinism tells us, is a primary practical imperative for them. Being "moral," is optional.

What's more to the point is that it's probably an advantage to me, as a selectively-moral Atheist, that you should behave morally, while I do not. It makes you predictable and useable to me. As Nietzsche said, that you are "enslaved" to a particular conception of morality renders you vulnerable to MY machinations as a moral "superman" who does not need to follow the same rules. If that's so, the true "survival advantage" lies not in total immorality, nor in total morality, but in my power to use and discard morality whenever I like.

Yes, this happens...So, anyway, I think you have scored something of an own goal with that argument, because it demonstrates that religiously motivated actions can sometimes lead to morally catastrophic outcomes.

I wouldn't say it's anything like an "own goal." After all, I'm speaking in the voice of an Evolutionist, not a Theist. But you're right that some religious views can advocate very wicked things. So it's not just a question of "religion," but of "which religion," and then as well, of how obedient to that religious morality the individual in question is.

But whatever the case, since the deep truth is supposed to be that morality is just an accidental "burp" from an indifferent universe, I, as the Nietzschean superman, have zero obligation to care it's there at all.

I don't think most people analyse their moral sense to that extend, and neither do most people know anything about Nietzsche.

They really should. Because what Nietzsche did is to analyze their suppositions in a more rigourous and logical way than they, themselves, often find themselves able to do. He showed clearly where secular "moralizing" all ends up, if we follow the logic of Atheism rigorously.

That's useful: because before one starts down a road, it's a good idea to know where it ends.

You're now speaking of Evolution as if it has a "plan." It's "seen to it," you say: and the implication seems to be that if Evolution has "seen to it" that something is so, then we are supposed to bow what it has "seen to". But I don't see why that would be -- unless we are regarding Evolution as some sort of demi-god that is able to plan, intend, direct, "see" and issue moral necessities to us.

But is not that sort of "magical thinking" exactly what Evolutionism is supposed to free us from?

No, you have misinterpreted me. Evolution has no teleological element to it.

Well, I thought you'd resist that suggestion: but then I can't make sense of your claim that Evolution "has seen to it" that anything in particular happens. It's like saying, "The roulette wheel has seen to it Iost my shirt at the casino." Assuming the roulette wheel is not 'fixed' by somebody, there's no malevolence on the part of the roulette wheel, just as there is no benevolence in evolution: both just do whatever it is that randomness produces.

So we needn't take seriously anybody's claim that Evolution "wants" us to do anything, or that it "has arranged that we must/should" do or be anything. Evolutionism's blind, deaf, dumb and morally indifferent to whatever happens.

THAT something called "morality" exists is obviously an objective fact. But whether that thing we call "morality" is LEGITIMATE is the problem.

Morality serves an important function, and no less so for being secular, so viewing it as legitimate is not a problem for me.

It should be. One has to ask whose "function" it's serving. It's not everybody's, clearly: some people end up on the condemned, guilty, sacrificed or punished side of morality. That may "function" for those who put them there; but it certainly doesn't "function" for them. And the people who put them there cannot even themselves explain why the morality that put them there is the "right" morality.

That's pretty cold, if that's how things are.

But one thing is obvious: that if Atheism is true, then an Atheist doesn't have any real obligation to be moral. He can be, or he can not be. It's up to him. And another Atheist, looking on at him, is unable to find firm and objective grounds to say whether that makes the first Atheist "good" or "bad," or nothing in particular at all...at least in reference to his moral condition.

That seems a strange way to describe the situation, or at least how you perceive it, but it doesn't go anywhere towards showing that the alternative to it is actually the truth.

I was merely pointing out the holes in Atheist moralizing; I wasn't trying to make the case for an alternative yet. But realizing that Atheist moralizing makes no sense drives us to a choice, rationally speaking. Namely, we realize that if we are rational persons, we either have to give up moralizing altogether, or give up our Atheism. But we can't really have both, because they contradict each other.

...my point was that people more often act on emotion and sentiment than on rationality, so the lack of a rational reason is not an impediment to living up to moral standards.

Which ones? WHOSE moral standards is anybody supposed to be living up to? You say that such standards simply cannot be objective -- very well, then why would you even be concerned as to whether or not somebody was "living up" to them? Heck, how do you know that what they're "living" to, is even in the direction "up"? Maybe living according to something like Sharia law is "down"? Or maybe it's nothing at all. From an Evolutionary perspective, how is one to tell which "morality" is the one that moves in the right direction?

It looks like you're taking your own moral presuppositions as a given -- as the "living up to" thing. If people "live up to" the sorts of basic moral precepts to which Harbal is accustomed, then they are "living up"; but what if they don't? What does Harbal say then, since he also says morality is not objective?

I suspect you are merely using your conversation with me as a means of drilling the word, "Evolutionism", along with the negative connotations you attach to it, into everyone's brain. Actually, I don't suspect, I know.

I'll be back tomorrow to give you further opportunity, I'm too drained just now.

[Immanuel Can]

God is imaginary, and looks like however you imagine it to be.

I'll ask you again: HOW would you know that? What proves to you that that is the case?

I would know that the same way my cat would not know

You are not a cat. Cats clearly don't "know" in the way human beings can. You haven't the foggiest idea how, or what, your cat "knows." It is as Thomas Nagel has argued: that nobody knows what it's like to echolocate like a bat. Just so, you have no idea about your cat, or about any other creature but yourself.

So how do you know there's no God, and how do you know that when I claim to know God, I'm "lying," as you claim?

The answer's obvious: you need not even say it. You do not know. You have no means to do so.

So now, where is the "lie"? Is it in my claim to know God, or your claim to know, with no information, what I can or cannot know about God?

[Immanuel Can]

I suspect you are merely using your conversation with me as a means of drilling the word, "Evolutionism", along with the negative connotations you attach to it, into everyone's brain. Actually, I don't suspect, I know.

If that's the effect...well, I suppose that's good. It's not my purpose, though. I call it "Evolutionism" because I totally believe that it's an ideology. It deserves capitalization the way "Buddhism" or "Socialism" would. That seems fair.

If I referred to it as if it were some ideologically neutral thing, like "rock" or "tree" or "carpentry" or "mathematics" I would fail to identify it for what it is. And I would be deceiving. How should I speak, other than what I believe to be truthfully?

I'll be back tomorrow to give you further opportunity, I'm too drained just now.

Absolutely. Take a break as needed.

[Dubious]

"Father"? You're a Catholic?

One is usually born into a certain denomination; mine is Catholic. That doesn't mean, as time goes on, one must persist in any of its belief requirements.

You seem somewhat surprised!

Well, you called me "Father," which certainly leans Catholic.

I had the impression you didn't have particular religious convictions at all. But I'm interested now. Do you want to speak about the kind of Catholicism you have, or do you view that as a private matter?

I don't see why inherently there should be anything private about it, so I'll confess to once, very long ago, having been a Roman Catholic. My grandmother on my mother's side was Protestant while my grandfather was Catholic. There was never the slightest tension between them based on that distinction. She went to church on Sundays; he stayed home telling her instead to throw in a few extra for him.

I have for the greater part of life been devoid of any god interactions. The god of the bible is not something I could believe in had the length of living been a hundred times what it is...in spite of all the catechisms which had to be memorized from an early age. There is furthermore no signature of its existence throughout the entire cosmic realm, all the manufactured complexities of Christianity pedestaled on Jewish events to incorporate Gentiles.

It became clear on many fronts that belief for most is what one chooses to host and maintain in one's psyche as a religious conviction of an ultimate reality, most often inculcated from an early age, which may be difficult to divest from if rooted too deeply.

Admittedly, all the mystical ways a person literally surrenders himself to the old religious artifacts called scripture is not something I'm capable of expounding. All I know is that it refutes the reality in favor of a twisted kind of human exceptionalism of which god is the preeminent symbol.

[Dontaskme]

You are not a cat. Cats clearly don't "know" in the way human beings can.

Humans and cats are concepts known, by the only knowing there is which is consciousness. You cannot know consciousness, because you are it. In not-knowing, everything is known, since there is only everything, self-evidently here now in this conscious conception.
Who and what conceived this conception? Everything did, there is only everything here now.

Not-knowing is identical to knowing, simply because there is no such knowing as a not knowing. Knowing simply is one without a second, without doubt or error.

You haven't the foggiest idea how, or what, your cat "knows." It is as Thomas Nagel has argued: that nobody knows what it's like to echolocate like a bat. Just so, you have no idea about your cat, or about any other creature but yourself.

Stop being silly, I am saying my cat does not know what I know. I have tested it myself, when I ask my cat any question, like what's the capital of England for example, she just doesn't know what to say in answer to the question. Are you now implying that my cat knows the answer to my question, even though she cannot bleat out the word ENGLAND to me? I'm talking about who and what is the QUESTIONER here, who is it that questions their existence and wonders about their creator...those questions can only arise within the artificial sense of separation, the sense there is a knower here, and the known there...albeit the split mind mechanism that separate the whole or reality into two, knower and known...an illusory separation. Knowledge can only point to illusory nature of existence.
You are simply playing your twisting context's game here as usual.

So how do you know there's no God, and how do you know that when I claim to know God, I'm "lying," as you claim?

The same way you claim a God, is the same way I claim there is no God, who actually knows except in this conception known, everything is known when nothing is known.
Do you ever listen...God is a concept known, and concepts know nothing of their existence.

The answer's obvious: you need not even say it. You do not know. You have no means to do so.

Nothing knows, everything is known, which is nothing. How can nothing be known without also knowing it's complimentary opposite? what does everything even mean without knowing nothing as it's contrast.

So now, where is the "lie"? Is it in my claim to know God, or your claim to know, with no information, what I can or cannot know about God?

You know God as a concept, and you know lie as a concept, but you only know lie because lie is not a truth, in knowing truth, you will know lie, the contrast is needed for any claimed knowing to be possible.

You might think you are good at twisting and word play, but I'm good too, in fact, the only difference between our twisting techniques is that I'm better at it than you.

[Dontaskme]

You are not a cat. Cats clearly don't "know" in the way human beings can.

You is you, not a cat, only a cat is a cat never a you. This is obviously true in this conception known.
But cats never claim to know what they know. That's the difference. A claim to know is an illusion, a claim is simply the play of words heard as sound in this unknowing sound and light show of consciousness.

Cat's are not-knowing knowing, they exist as the natural flow of beingness that is self-evident and never claims this knowing. My cat never makes the claim it knows it knows. The claim is unique to human brain, because that brain evolved a language in the form of sound heard as words. This unique phenomena was how evolution as and through the human species operated to ensure it's survival, and that's all, there was nothing mystical or special about talking human primates.

Words known by I, is another concept known by this not-knowing knowing, that never claims to know. But any claim to know is simply born out of the play of words appearing within this unknowing, not-knowing knowing. A play on words is a fiction imposed upon unknowing, it's simply unknowing knowing, an illusory knowing, and not reality as it actually is, which is this unknowing.


Advaita Vedanta Nonduality explains all this nonsense sense in great detail. But since you have already told me previously that you do not believe the nondual nature of reality, then what I am saying to you will be like water off a ducks back to you, it won't make any sense whatsoever, because you do not believe nonduality is true. Whereas I do.
And so when you claim to know God, that will never make any sense to me. All you and I can do is keep showing each other the contexts of which both our word plays, play out for us on a personal human level, which is illusion, for reality in truth, is indifferent and non-personal and never make a claim to know anything at all, that claim is only in the artificial dream of separation, where there is none, except in this conception, the mind-split illusory sense of duality of yin and yang opposites...by association and contrast in consciousness one without a second.

So be it.

[Will Bouwman]

With which of these three propositions do you most agree? A scientific theory must be:
(1) A logically coherent explanation.
(2) Supported by evidence.
(3) Useful.

Those aren't mutually exclusive options.

As I go on to say:

When philosophers of science are doing what they are paid for, one of the key things they consider is what blend of the above elements makes an activity a science. https://philosophynow.org/issues/133/Ph ... _Millennia

In fact, if a theory lacks one of these elements, it becomes suspect.

Not true. There's nothing suspect about Newton's theory of gravitation, which famously he couldn't explain. He went on to insist that explanations have no role in science:
"...hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy."
Not many scientists are so extreme, but plenty are happy to work with things they don't fully understand.

...it's not clear to me that any of what you're saying has anything to do with logic. After all, the right comparison is mathematics.

Well, now you're moving the goalposts.

Mathematics doesn't change physical arrangements in the actual world either: but it is a useful and coherent tool for obtaining purchase on the facts of the world, and is essential to guiding our decisions and choices in the real world.

Right. It is:

(3) Useful.

Just try to make bridge or a skyscraper without using mathematics.

Try doing so by arguing with a pile of bricks.

And logic isn't an ideological thing. It will happily serve any "user," like maths will. It is required by both the Theist and the skeptic in equal measure

The ideology comes with your choice of premise. You have chosen to believe that God is real, an hypothesis for which there is no direct evidence. You have also chosen to believe that an iron age account of creation is accurate, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is not. With those premises in place, it is easy to reach the conclusion that you will live forever as a favourite of the "Supreme Being". You know that's why you chose them, but cannot admit it because fear of a meaningless existence and death are not good reasons to believe anything. So instead you have put a lot of energy in supporting beliefs that have no foundations of their own. The good news for you is that, as most atheists will concede, perhaps there is a God. Where you come off the rails though, is projecting your ideological motivation and hard work onto "Atheists" and "Evolutionists". You believe they work as hard as you to prove that God doesn't exist. No doubt there's a few on the lunatic fringe.

...depending on the available premises; because every argument -- even arguments trying to doubt logic -- depend on logic for their coherence and success.

The choice of "available premises" is unlimited; people make them up all the time. The hard of thinking are apt to confuse validity and soundness and believe their conclusions.

...the only evidence for any God is words.

Well, that's decidedly not true. Even a reasonably-informed skeptic knows that. The whole of Creation itself is clear evidence of God...

Creation is evidence for any hypothesis that is consistent with it. There is physical evidence for the big bang and for evolution; for God, there is a book.

as is the rationality of the universe and science itself, and mathematics...

You really are a have your cake and eat it kinda guy, aren't you? On the one hand you claim the miracle of the resurrection is the sort of irrational behaviour that is evidence; on the other the fact that there isn't more irrationality is also evidence. That the universe behaves predictably, that the same conditions produce the same results, is exactly what you would expect if no God were twiddling the knobs.

...and they human psyche...

What about it does God explain that evolution can't?

...and all of that is without taking into account anything that includes any direct or any written revelation at all.

Whatever experience you have had that you attribute to God revealing himself to you, I am quite certain there are alternative explanations.

Your conviction that we are all the same simply isn't true.

I've never said we are "all the same." I've said what Darwin said, which is that we are "of the same species," which miraculously always seems to be at exactly the same stage of alleged "evolving."

The fact that we have different genes is precisely the claim of evolution. There are many genetic mutations that make foetuses unviable, survival to adulthood unlikely and reproductive success difficult or impossible. Some 'humans' are evolution gone wrong, their genetic line ends with them. On the other hand, it might be down to the fall, precipitated by that talking snake, which presumably also had legs, since it's punishment was to crawl on its belly.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Try doing so by arguing with a pile of bricks.

Ouch. OUCH!

The ideology comes with your choice of premise. You have chosen to believe that God is real, an hypothesis for which there is no direct evidence. You have also chosen to believe that an iron age account of creation is accurate, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is not. With those premises in place, it is easy to reach the conclusion that you will live forever as a favourite of the "Supreme Being". You know that's why you chose them, but cannot admit it because fear of a meaningless existence and death are not good reasons to believe anything. So instead you have put a lot of energy in supporting beliefs that have no foundations of their own. The good news for you is that, as most atheists will concede, perhaps there is a God. Where you come off the rails though, is projecting your ideological motivation and hard work onto "Atheists" and "Evolutionists". You believe they work as hard as you to prove that God doesn't exist. No doubt there's a few on the lunatic fringe.

I have questions to ask about the bolded sentence. It seems to me there are varied motives as to why someone allies themselves with a religious belief-system. Richard Weaver, a Platonist philosopher who had been and still is very important to conservatives who react against the loss of *horizon*, as Nietzsche described, it and who seek to reconstruct a mythic relationship to life, based a philosophy of recovery and reconstruction around the notion of *our metaphysical dream of the world*. In his essay (Ideas Have Consequences) he quotes Thomas Carlyle:

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion.

So I would say two things: one is that there is an overt and perhaps explainable (logical, sensible) reason why a person choses to align themselves with a particular metaphysical dream, but there is also an occult reason and one that is submerged and more difficult to become conscious of. One that is harder to recognize and define and as Carlyle says one we hold "often enough without asserting it even to himself" that determine that rigorousness by which we attach ourselves to such metaphysical impositions.

There are a few features of Immanuel's belief system that stand out: one is the absolute adamancy to stick to its tenets despite any (logical or other) proposition or suggestion that contradicts it. This is something I find amazing. But it points to the fact, or what to me seems a fact, that the underlying reason for holding to the belief-system is not rational but rather essentially irrational. However, IC will oppose this assertion with the entirety of his will since he has constructed an edifice of belief, a metaphysical dream, that is realer than anything that we declare is actually real.

What the *atheists* you refer to are not able to understand is that a religionist like IC operates his belief-system. Here on this forum IC's apologetic strategy is extremely narrow and he never, not even once and over all these years, has ever made declarations about the power of love, or the restorative result from a reconstruction of the self in relation to the Supreme Being, nor of God as a *guiding or protective entity* with a conscious and active concern for IC and those around him (other believers). But within traditional Evangelicalism those declarations, those religious conversion stories, are the backbone of a fierce dedication to what Jesus Christ has done for the individual. The story, the metaphysical dream, therefore has an extremely tangible element which, naturally, the *atheist* or the non-convert cannot take into consideration.

While I believe that IC does not talk on these levels, for fear of being ridiculed and the vulnerability it entails, he certainly has a *conversion story*, and so the real reason he holds to his belief-set and with such intense adamancy is mostly obscured in these conversation.

I would also suggest that it is not quite as the atheist says: "You are afraid of death and the senselessness of meaningless existence" but more that the believer is enthused and fired-up with the prospects of energizing and expanding what life means -- what it can mean and all the amazing things that come from an enthusiastic (i.e. filled with god) affirmation of life.

If we focus on that which concerns man's "vital relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty and destiny there" I think we must recognize that, right there, we will have lost the dedicated materialistic believer who cannot understand mysteriousness in any but bio-mechanical terms. The *soul* and the *psyche* of man -- these terms -- are rejected for their religiously-determined sense.

If you think about the myriad religious believers, and include also those who are moved and driven by *metaphysical dreams* of the sort I describe, you will have to take into account many who do not have a religious bone in their body, but are yet driven by ideal/metaphysical motives. My own sense is that it is impossible to exist or to think outside of metaphysical presuppositions.

[I go into this in greater depth in Chapters 66-68 in the Ten Week "Metaphysical Foundations* Email Course which I have discounted to $999.00 through the 31st of December.]