Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:

thedoc wrote: There are things that I can understand, and things that I cannot, give me the wisdom to know the difference.

That sounds like a rough paraphrase. I think the original quotation said "the things I can change," not "the things I can understand," right?

Yes it is, but I think that the sentiment can be applied to many different ideas, do you disagree?

thedoc wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:

thedoc wrote: There are things that I can understand, and things that I cannot, give me the wisdom to know the difference.

That sounds like a rough paraphrase. I think the original quotation said "the things I can change," not "the things I can understand," right?

Yes it is, but I think that the sentiment can be applied to many different ideas, do you disagree?

No, no...not at all.

Immanuel Can wrote: It's funny, though...Atheists feel so utterly safe in slagging off Theists completely gratuitously -- in claiming Theists are all superstitious, fearful, unscientific, illogical, have no point...and so on, without even hearing what they really have to say. But let someone prove their Atheism irrational, and they're all full of self-righteous zeal and wounded pride. Suddenly we're "intolerant" or "imperious," or "too clever," or "just not listening."

The problem here is that you actually believe that following God's order is logical but doing things because they are beneficial to you is not logical to you. Generally you come across as a very intelligent man. So I am at a loss as to how to argue against this completely illogical stand of yours. What is logic behind "because I said so?" So I thought it better to let it go. Maybe someone like Arising_uk can take this up. I cannot argue on logic as a subject. I don't know the strict principles it follows.

And my pride is not wounded. I am simply at a loss as to how to argue this. You could give me a few days, while I learn the principles of logic and then I could give it a try again.

(Some time later)

okay. I worked something out. I am not sure it is right because I haven't studied logic as a subject. so here goes:

God gave us laws to obey which are called objective morals.

God does not exist.

Therefore objective morals do not exist.

To survive on earth morals are needed.

Morals can be derived from the responses of other people.

Good morals are those to which people respond positively.

Bad morals are those to which people respond negatively.

All morals derived by an individal from the responses of people and not given by God are subjective.

I derive morals from the responses of people.

I am subjectively moral.

Now if you could, kindly explain the lack of logic.

Interestingly, I also found that there is validity in your logic too.

God exists.

God gives us laws to obey which are called objective morals.

Therefore objective morals exist.

I follow objective morals.

Therefore I am objectively moral.

Some people do not obey objective morals.

Therefore they are objectively immoral.

I can see that the premise of both our arguments can be claimed as false. However, I see internal consistency in both arguments making them both valid arguments. Correct me if I am wrong.

Any other atheist who has studied logic may please take this up if interested. I am not so good at this.

Immanuel Can wrote:It's funny, though...Atheists feel so utterly safe in slagging off Theists completely gratuitously -- in claiming Theists are all superstitious, fearful, unscientific, illogical, have no point...and so on, without even hearing what they really have to say.

We've heard it. When your argument is challenged you withdraw to whimpering from behind a book. 'Read the bible and ask if god is there' you say; for some superstitious, fearful, unscientific, illogical and pointless reason.

Immanuel Can wrote:But let someone prove their Atheism irrational...

Don't flatter yourself; you have not proven atheism irrational; all you have achieved is to realise that the premise 'There is no god' is unsound for the simple reason that there is no conceivable evidence that could support it. There are many atheists who are perfectly aware of this.

Immanuel Can wrote:...and they're all full of self-righteous zeal and wounded pride. Suddenly we're "intolerant" or "imperious," or "too clever,"

You can be quite certain that I will never accuse you of that.

Immanuel Can wrote:...or "just not listening."

This on the other hand... As you see fit to require us to read the bible for some penitential amount of time, presumably you would not object to a similar challenge, it's in the form of a prayer. For the next forty days, I want you to turn to your lord and ask: Dear god, please teach me the difference between 'I do not believe in god' and 'I believe god does not exist'. Amen. If that works, I might start believing, because clearly, it would take a miracle for you to realise that.

Immanuel Can wrote:Well, you can't dispute the numbers. All these were killed in the last century, all in purely secular wars and Atheist persecutions. And you'll notice that the vast majority of these despots were socialists. Now, Marx said that "the critique of religion is the first of all critiques." And they followed him in that philosophy. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe them: they openly declared their allegiance to Marx. ...

But he didn't ask for such an allegiance? He also declared himself not to be a 'Marxist'.

So if you think they got their Atheism wrong, go ahead and explain what aspect of Atheism should have led them to realize they were doing wrong and stop it. ...

How do you explain the Crusaders? They openly declared their allegiance to 'God' and killed in 'his' name. Can you judge anyone 'bad' if they act with their belief in 'God'?

As you see, there's nothing.

Ditto.

You can't. But probably it's not because you're a bad person or don't know the facts. It's because Atheism's got nothing. It's letting you down. It's just a bad ideology.

It's not an ideology at all, it's just a lack of belief in the theists explanation for believing their 'God' exists.

Immanuel Can wrote: Well, you can't dispute the numbers.

I never dispute numbers. They are meaningless. Large numbers of people are all the time killing large numbers of other people. Much of that time, they are yelling, of carrying, slogans.

All these were killed in the last century,

The last century had more people to spare than the one before, or the twelfth, or the fourth BC. You can only kill as many as there are.

all in purely secular wars and Atheist persecutions.

This is the statement you have not supported. Repeating doesn't count as supporting. Certainly, there have been revolutions, coups, civil wars,international wars, tribal wars, persecutions and genocides aplenty. You have not shown how many deaths are directly related to religion, and how many of those were committed by non-religious against religious.
I asked for each of the leaders' agendas; this has not come forth.

Now, Marx said that "the critique of religion is the first of all critiques."

And yet, Marx killed nobody. He was a quiet, scholarly, decent family man with unusual ideas that despotic governments found intolerable.

And they followed him in that philosophy. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe them: they openly declared their allegiance to Marx.

People have been known to say one thing and do quite another. Oddly enough, when somebody commits an atrocity in the name of god, it is not attributed to Jesus. I don't think Pizarro laid waste the Inca empire for Christ, no matter how a big a cross he carried. He had other motives, other desires, other agendas. As did they all, even the crusading popes.

But what's interesting is this: all these named leaders were all Atheists...avowed, passionate Atheists,

They may have been atheists; they were certainly not Atheists, as there is no such organization.

There's no such thing, really, because Atheism has no moral information.

becauseThere's no such thing, Atheism has no moral information

- - autonomy, dignity, liberty, equality and fraternity - -
And from where do we get the grounding for those?

60 million years of social evolution, 5000 years of civilization; 15-30 years (each) of thought

sthitapragya wrote:I can see that the premise of both our arguments can be claimed as false. However, I see internal consistency in both arguments making them both valid arguments. Correct me if I am wrong.

Well, you have done very well...I'm impressed. Quite right.

We can put it more simply, too, if you'd like.

Theistic Version
Premise 1: If God does not exist, no objective justification for morality exists; but if He does, we have one.
Premise 2: God does exist.
Conclusion: We have an objective basis for morality.

Atheistic Version
Premise 1: If God does not exist, no objective basis for morality exists; but if He does, we have one.
Premise 2: God does not exist.
Conclusion: We have no objective justification for morality.

And you are quite right: both are what logicians call "valid." That means that there is nothing wrong with the rational form in which the arguments proceed. What is actually in dispute is premise 2 -- does God exist or not?

On that, everything depends, of course.

But I congratulate you on how well you worked this out for yourself, since you are astute to see that both can indeed be rendered in rationally valid forms. So all we Theists and Atheists have been arguing from the start is our second premises. Both sides are behaving rationally, but they diverge on the root assumption. That's all.

And that's a useful insight. Because you can see that even if we are taking opposite sides, we don't have to see each other as irrational, wicked, obdurate or stupid. Instead, we can recognize each other as rational, but merely operating on different rational premises; and we can discuss the key premises calmly and politely, like rational people ought to.

I think you and I would agree that's the right way for us to go.

Duplicate post.

Immanuel Can wrote:It's funny, though...Atheists feel so utterly safe in slagging off Theists completely gratuitously -- in claiming Theists are all superstitious, fearful, unscientific, illogical, have no point...and so on, without even hearing what they really have to say.

Hello Immanuel. I agree with you and I think Simone Weil’s observation is one explanation of emotional resistance I call blind denial. Often people attached to the world are more skilled than people who are not. Consider Luke 16:8

"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

In these times intelligence is measured by shrewdness. The more shrewd a person is the more intelligent they are considered to be. Philosophy for example has become dedicated to shrewd rather than meaningful observations.

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panic P417

If the supernatural part has not been awakened there is no reason to assume intelligence to be anything other than shrewdness. But the vertical logic the universe is constructed upon has an additional dimension which shrewdness by its very nature ignores. One way of studying it is through examination of the vertical hierarchy of being built upon holons. But around here it would go over like a lead balloon. I feel bad for the kids in schools surrounded by spirit killers whose supernatural parts have not yet atrophied and would be open to being spiritually fed through the awareness of this vertical direction unnecessary for societal life. I just hope their situation as a whole isn’t hopeless

A holon (Greek: ὅλον, holon neuter form of ὅλος, holos "whole") is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine (1967, p. 48).

Nick_A wrote:Hello Immanuel.

"IC," please...I am not "Immanuel." I am nowhere near that great, as you will understand if you get the pseudonym.

In these times intelligence is measured by shrewdness. The more shrewd a person is the more intelligent they are considered to be. Philosophy for example has become dedicated to shrewd rather than meaningful observations.

Often true, alas. But it's an old complaint, where philosophy is concerned. The ancient Sophists were accused of being...well, sophists, right? And the situation at the Areopagus in Acts shows that people gathering merely to hear shrewd, new ideas is an old taste.

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panic P417

Wow. That's a fascinating quotation. Quite a paradox, that.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Skip wrote:all in purely secular wars and Atheist persecutions.

This is the statement you have not supported. Repeating doesn't count as supporting. Certainly, there have been revolutions, coups, civil wars,international wars, tribal wars, persecutions and genocides aplenty. You have not shown how many deaths are directly related to religion, and how many of those were committed by non-religious against religious.

Check my figures. The Encyclopaedia of Wars is the definitive source...and an entirely secular one, I might add. But I think most people would also agree that an Atheist life is not worth any different from a Theist one. If many of the Atheists leaders killed many of "their own," (and they most certainly did, as it turns out) that would hardly constitute any kind of defense of Atheism.

I asked for each of the leaders' agendas; this has not come forth.

Yes it has. They were primarily Marxists, following the Marxist critique of religion and the Marxist agenda for social utopias. I did tell you that.

Now, Marx said that "the critique of religion is the first of all critiques."

And yet, Marx killed nobody. He was a quiet, scholarly, decent family man with unusual ideas that despotic governments found intolerable.

Oh really? You really need to read a biography of Marx. You're right: directly, he killed nobody...but indirectly.... Anyway, if you do, you'll find many interesting personal facts. One thing you'll know at the end: "quiet, scholarly, decent, family man"...these expressions have no application to Karl Marx.

Skip wrote:

- - autonomy, dignity, liberty, equality and fraternity - -
And from where do we get the grounding for those?

60 million years of social evolution, 5000 years of civilization; 15-30 years (each) of thought

Time is not a grounds for anything. Old things don't become true by being old, and new developments don't become wrong by being new. In fact, even today, only a minority of (largely Western) societies believe in or practice these values. Moreover, you have no basis for thinking that these values are not completely ephemeral, and like a monkey's vestigial tail, doomed to disappear with the next phase of "civilization' or "social evolution."

You'll need to show that these are the "right" values, not just that some minority group of bewildered folks have happened to believe in them at the present moment.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote: He makes morality possible, and without Him, we'd simply have no reference point for morality at all.:

I disagree - what you speak of is YOUR personal failing....{shortened for length of message here: see above for full text]

In fact, I have many personal failings. You are quite correct. No human being by him or herself is very good at being moral. And that's an empirical fact that has been demonstrated as well as any ever has. However, it's completely irrelevant to the present discussion.

Quite simply, you are misunderstanding the argument. The point I would make is not that some Atheists are better or worse people than some Theists, or that Atheists can't arbitrarily choose to be "good" people for private reasons they may have, or choose not to be "good," again for whatever their private reasons are. Their ideological system certainly allows for both.

No, the point is simply this: Atheism offers no moral information. It is an ideology without any morality. And in fact, on that point, the Atheists with whom I have been debating agree, as you can see if you look back. They don't want me to place any moral precepts on Atheism. So I don't. And with good reason: it has none.

However, that moral emptiness that characterizes Atheism, and which its proponents openly celebrate as an advantage in libertinism and liberty, just as you say, is not a feature of Theism. Theism makes moral predications, and can do so in a grounded way. Atheists know Atheism cannot do that. It has to leave choice, law, rights, morals, justice, social contract and fairness to the tender mercies of chance. Atheism has nothing to say about any of these.

In short, I am making no comment about Atheists. Or about Theists. My comment is about Atheism.

That's the point.

Atheists have a range of moral choices, that theists lack.

Like I've said before Atheist itself is contentless, but there is nothing to stop atheists being moral, developing and promoting moral theory and all unrestricted by age-old ossified theistic moral law from religion and religious traditions that no longer apply.
So, duh, you have completely missed the plot on this one.

Hi, Hobbes:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Atheists have a range of moral choices, that theists lack.

Quite true...they have a range of "choices" we certainly "lack." Nothing makes them particularly "moral," though; for that word has no meaning in Atheism.

So a good Christian is deprived of immoral choices. (S)he cannot, for instance, butcher his/her children in the womb. An Atheist can raise them lovingly or kill them, so he has both options. A Christian cannot steal; meanwhile, an Atheist can also prove honest, but can equally embezzle to his heart's content, provided he is sure he can get away with it. He's got two options to the Christian's one, in every case.

If a Christian does those things, he will be a bad Christian. But there are no bad Atheists. I doubt, however, that having that extended range of choice is to be regarded as a good thing. But then, there are no "good" things -- or "bad" things -- in the world as Atheism sees it.

Like I've said before Atheist itself is contentless

True. Also amoral, and uninformative in social, ethical and practical relations.

there is nothing to stop atheists being moral,

No. Quite so. It is just as I have said: he can do either. But when it comes to...

...developing and promoting moral theory and all unrestricted by age-old ossified theistic moral law from religion and religious traditions that no longer apply.

...he cannot develop any moral "theory" consistent with Atheism. Remember, as you say, Atheism is "contentless." It has nothing to offer morality. It has no opinion on such matters.

So the Atheist who wants to do moral theory has to do so in an ungrounded, irrational, unjustified way. In short, he can propagandize for his preferred system of thought, but cannot show rationally why his particular moral theory is grounded in truth. He cannot do what philosophers call "legitimation." Atheism has none.

Immanuel Can wrote:Hi, Hobbes:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Atheists have a range of moral choices, that theists lack.

Quite true...they have a range of "choices" we certainly "lack." Nothing makes them particularly "moral," though; for that word has no meaning in Atheism..

Duh.
It's not the same as saying we can't obey out own standards. You are just being a moron right now.
It's not as if Theists can agree with what morals to follow.

I am saying that rejecting theism means also rejecting the hoplessness of the Theist project.
Secular morals have improved and revolutised personal freedoms and crime is at all all time low. Respect for women and children at an all time high - and all achieved by evil atheists.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Duh.
It's not the same as saying we can't obey out own standards. You are just being a moron right now.

I understand: when one is an Atheist, it's not rude and silly to call someone else "a moron" instead of responding to their ideas. It's a moral neutral...like everything else in Atheism. You're just being consistent, then. No offence taken.

It's not as if Theists can agree with what morals to follow.

Is your assumption that unless everyone agrees on something there can be no truth about it? You'll find that a difficult way to do science.

I am saying that rejecting theism means also rejecting the hoplessness of the Theist project.

Well, if you've decided in advance of all investigation and knowledge that a thing is "hopeless," then of course. But why one would think that was a good thing to do is another...

Secular morals have improved and revolutised personal freedoms and crime is at all all time low. Respect for women and children at an all time high - and all achieved by evil atheists.

You don't know your history, or your present statistics, I'm afraid. "Secular morals" is an oxymoron..."secularism" has no account of morals at all. If you want to know where human rights come from, you need to read John Locke.

As for women and children, there has, at no time in history, been so many babies being killed and so many women being pressed into slavery as in the present day. But the latter are not in your back yard, for the most part, so perhaps you don't know about them. And the former, well, secularists don't care about them: they don't even count as "people" -- not even potentially -- in the eyes of the secular Left.

Your moral admiration for secularism is grounded neither in facts nor in conceptual consistency, I'm afraid.