#StrawGodFallacy - Rebuttal to #ProblemOfEvil criticism

[MikeNovack]

But now, why haven't you answered my question? Why not provide a moral axiom every Atheist is morally obligated by Atheism to accept?

I know why. So do you. It's because there are none. Zero. Atheism has no moral perspective at all. It just treats good and evil as unreal.

There would be no moral precept to be derived from atheism. Why should there be? You don't get oughts from just an is. ALL that is common to atheists is the statement "there is no god". That is not a MORAL statement.

Why should this surprise you? As a deist, you are no better off in this regard. You aren't deriving any moral precepts from JUST "there is a god". It is from additional details of your deism that you get moral precepts, yes? And you do need at least one prior moral precept << If there is God, then I should obey, worship, thank this god and obey his/her precepts >>

I want you to carefully consider from what you got that prior precept (or the similar one you must be using)

[henry quirk]

As a deist, you are no better off in this regard. You aren't deriving any moral precepts from JUST "there is a god". It is from additional details of your deism that you get moral precepts, yes? And you do need at least one prior moral precept << If there is God, then I should obey, worship, thank this god and obey his/her precepts >>

Mannie is a Christian. I'm the deist. And, yes, it is from additional details (reasoning and intuitions) that I get to natural rights.

But, all that's neither here or there.

[Immanuel Can]

But now, why haven't you answered my question? Why not provide a moral axiom every Atheist is morally obligated by Atheism to accept?

I know why. So do you. It's because there are none. Zero. Atheism has no moral perspective at all. It just treats good and evil as unreal.

There would be no moral precept to be derived from atheism. Why should there be?

Well, if you're prepared to believe that all morality is merely delusory, then there's no reason at all. You're a consistent Atheist, then.

But what if morality does exist? What then becomes of the Atheist?

You see, the Atheist is in the same pickle he's in about God; namely, that he cannot rationally claim to know that God does not exist, nor can he claim to know rationally that morality cannot exist either. And since he finds himself unable to live as a consistent amoralist, unable to ground a society, unable to establish what justice is, and unable to direct his own life without presupposing a "good" he has to believe is an illusion, he's swimming upstream against the whole current of contrary human experience...including his own.

You don't get oughts from just an is. ALL that is common to atheists is the statement "there is no god". That is not a MORAL statement.

Well, if morality exists, it's an immoral statement: it's a denial of the whole reality of human moral obligation, then. But it won't give the Atheist any grounds for morality, so the Atheist's position reduces to this: "I can't help you with truth, or morality, or meaning, or anything else that is so critical to all human life, and I have no proof adequate to my basic ontological claim of the non-existence of God, or of His moral axioms; but believe me anyway, because I'm adamant and cynical."

And that's a truly terrible argument, I think you'd have to agree.

[MikeNovack]

LOL --- I agree, the atheist does NOT have a good rational basis for denying the existence of a God. Any more than a theist has a rational reason for believing that God exists. My objection to your argument is your assumed superiority of the deist position.

And I am NOT saying that the atheist does not believe in morality. I am saying he would not be deriving that FROM atheism. Believing that no god exists does not imply morality does not exist

And I will repeat, you can't (rationally) be deriving morality from the deist position. Morality CAN'T come simply from the dictates of God. You need at least one PRIOR moral decision "if God exists, then I should obey the moral dictates of God".

[Impenitent]

thou shalt not kill

because it offends the morals of god?

no, because the police will bust you

-Imp

[henry quirk]

thou shalt not kill

because it offends the morals of god?

no, because the police will bust you

-Imp

Only if they catch you.

More importantly: don't kill without just cause cuz that life your eyein' ain't yours to take.

[Immanuel Can]

LOL --- I agree, the atheist does NOT have a good rational basis for denying the existence of a God.

Or morality.

Any more than a theist has a rational reason for believing that God exists.

Actually, he does: have you never met anybody who knew such reasons? I find that difficult to imagine, unless you've deliberately been avoiding the entire fields of apologetics, the theodicy problem, natural philosophy, manuscript studies, archaeology, design arguments and cosmology. That's an awful lot to have never encountered.

And I am NOT saying that the atheist does not believe in morality. I am saying he would not be deriving that FROM atheism. Believing that no god exists does not imply morality does not exist

Actually, it does. It means that no authoritative basis for any morality at all is believed to exist. According to Atheism, there's nobody to say what things were created for, or toward what purposes they are shaped and tend. So nothing in the universe can be said to have a moral condition.

And if you think otherwise, please feel invited to test your hypothesis: just state one moral precept that all Atheists are morally obligated to obey. (I note that so far, from anyone, there's still nothing but the chirp of crickets on that question. And given that, the opportunity is at hand for you to remedy it...or realize you cannot.)

Morality CAN'T come simply from the dictates of God.

On the contrary: let me suggest that it's the only place they CAN come from. If you understand the word "God," referring to the Creator and Supreme Being, then you surely understand that. The Creator is the lone power that can say for what the creation has been designed. Who else could? And if He designed it, He surely could.

Or you could just argue, as a consistent Atheist would have to do, that morality doesn't exist at all, and is just some odd, inexplicable but strangely prevalent quirk of random processes...if you find such a suggestion plausible.

I wouldn't.

[Immanuel Can]

thou shalt not kill

because it offends the morals of god?

no, because the police will bust you

-Imp

Only if they catch you.

More importantly: don't kill without just cause cuz that life your eyein' ain't yours to take.

Imp, have you ever heard of "secret police"? Or "the Gestapo"? Perhaps "KGB"?

It seems that what policemen do is not always what is moral. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So morality is prior to all police forces, and all consequences. It's the thing that makes us able to say whether what a police force or government imposes is right or wrong. It's above all that, if we admit that such authorities CAN go wrong.

[MikeNovack]

Or you could just argue, as a consistent Atheist would have to do, that morality doesn't exist at all, and is just some odd, inexplicable but strangely prevalent quirk of random processes...if you find such a suggestion plausible.

I wouldn't.

But that is NOT how the "consistent" atheist" argues. It is how YOU think the consistent atheist has to argue because you think BOTH that all things come from God AND the "consistent atheist" believes that also. Since the "consistent atheist" doesn't believe God exists ALSO does not believe "all things come from God".

Maybe it would help if you tackled an example of a non-theistic basis for morality. Take for example Rawls Theory of Justice. In other words, explain why you consider that concept irrational or that it could not serve as a basis for morality.

[Immanuel Can]

Or you could just argue, as a consistent Atheist would have to do, that morality doesn't exist at all, and is just some odd, inexplicable but strangely prevalent quirk of random processes...if you find such a suggestion plausible.

I wouldn't.

But that is NOT how the "consistent" atheist" argues.

It would be, if most Atheists were consistent with their own beliefs. But most Atheists are simply not, of course. But as you know, and as you have pointed out, nothing in the Atheists worldview options (Determinism, Materialism, Physicalism, Evolutionism...etc.) supplies any warrant for a belief in the real existence of morality.

Maybe it would help if you tackled an example of a non-theistic basis for morality. Take for example Rawls Theory of Justice.

I have it, right here in my office, along with his follow-up volume, Justice As Fairness, in which he tries to fix its faults.

What is it from Rawls that you find compelling? And then, who would you like to discuss next? Mill? Bentham? Kant? Aristotle? James? Maybe MacIntyre? How about something much more challenging, like Margolis? I'm game if you are.

[MikeNovack]

Maybe it would help if you tackled an example of a non-theistic basis for morality. Take for example Rawls Theory of Justice.

I have it, right here in my office, along with his follow-up volume, Justice As Fairness, in which he tries to fix its faults.

What is it from Rawls that you find compelling? And then, who would you like to discuss next? Mill? Bentham? Kant? Aristotle? James? Maybe MacIntyre? How about something much more challenging, like Margolis? I'm game if you are.

STOP IT!

WHY are you asking me if I find that example compelling? (*)

The ball was being put in YOUR court. NOT that you can produce arguments that it was wrong or not compelling but defend your claim that it is IRRATIONAL (because not based on some god)

* --- But I will give you ONE argument in its favor. Unlike many approaches, basing morality on justice and justice on how you would choose in ignorance which position you are in DOES adjust for lifeboat/triage situations.

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe it would help if you tackled an example of a non-theistic basis for morality. Take for example Rawls Theory of Justice.

I have it, right here in my office, along with his follow-up volume, Justice As Fairness, in which he tries to fix its faults.

What is it from Rawls that you find compelling? And then, who would you like to discuss next? Mill? Bentham? Kant? Aristotle? James? Maybe MacIntyre? How about something much more challenging, like Margolis? I'm game if you are.

The ball was being put in YOUR court.

How do you figure that? Because you wrote the name "Rawls," you think you said something relevant? But you don't even know what Rawls said?

C'mon, dude...this is a philosophy site. The old appeal-to-authority fallacy won't work here. We're not that easily fooled. Some of us have actually read Rawls.

Oy vey.

[MikeNovack]

C'mon, dude...this is a philosophy site. The old appeal-to-authority fallacy won't work here. We're not that easily fooled. Some of us have actually read Rawls.

Oy vey.

You are hopeless. That was NOT an "appeal to authority". YOU asked for an example. YOU are claiming that any secular derivation of morality irrational and so that means you think what Rawls did is irrational (again, Rawls just a placeholder example).

And why couldn't "evolution" be a satisfactory explanation for morality. Evolution has resulting in some obligatory social animals, and so (in this argument) had to evolve a "morality" for them (co-evolution) . This would be claiming that each obligatory social species would have a species morality. How could an obligatory social species possibly work if the individuals had no way to predict the behavior of others?

Is that "irrational"? << again, no point telling me not a good/correct explanation for where morality comes from --- we are just dealing with your claim that since not based on God must be irrational. >>

[Immanuel Can]

C'mon, dude...this is a philosophy site. The old appeal-to-authority fallacy won't work here. We're not that easily fooled. Some of us have actually read Rawls.

Oy vey.

You are hopeless. That was NOT an "appeal to authority". YOU asked for an example.

If you cite the name Rawls, why is it that you have no idea what he said? The logical explanation of that is that you hoped to impress or boggle me with the mere mention of his name, which would be an appeal to him as an authority, with no more than that added.

Rawls just a placeholder example.

How do you know he's an "example" of anything, if you don't know what he said?

And why couldn't "evolution" be a satisfactory explanation for morality.

It's certainly not Rawls's explanation. But there are good reasons for that. Even if we were to take human evolution as a serious postulate, it would merely be an "is" that does not imply an "ought." To prove me wrong, just show how "We evolved" leads to any moral conclusion. You've given another "is," with no "ought" connection.

[MikeNovack]

I guess it is pretty hopeless trying to communicate with you.

For example, WHY do you conclude I have not read Rawls? For some odd reason you keep jumping to conclusions about me. Remember, this is supposedly about your claim the atheist is Irrational`when defining morality, and what I am challenging, But that I am challenging you on that is NOT a reason for you to assume I am an atheist.

And no, the "evolution theory" of "morality" is not "deriving ought from is". Something very different is going on. That argument is saying morality exists (for an obligatory social animal) because you cannot have an obligatory social animal without it (just won't work, so fails to have been evolved). The PARTICULAR rules of behavior that evolved for an obligatory social animal are just the set that did. No claim is made that a different set that also would work could not have evolved instead. Evolution is based on random chance changes from what already exists.

Oh right, you perhaps do not believe in evolution.