Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Mon Mar 27, 2017 11:31 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote:
Greta wrote:Well said, Harbs.
Still waiting for just one secularism-premised "ethic." The crickets are chirping.

On the other hand, I'm not surprised if, as you now seem to insist, you don't believe in any morality, religious or secular. That's exactly what one should expect of a consistent secularist. Only inconsistent ones can continue to hold to any morality at all.

Thank God for inconsistent secularists.

This reminds me of a question I saw online that was asked to "atheists" - if there was no one looking, would they steal, kill, etc? The question only applies to about 1% of the population, those afflicted with psychopathy. The claims of theists about atheist morality are illogical and ignore evidence.

Posted: **Mon Mar 27, 2017 11:41 pm**

Dubious wrote:...this seems a quandry; how do you untie it??

Not hard, actually. You just have to be open to the possibility that Materialism isn't true. If it's not, and if God created the universe, then there is no difficulty in saying that whatever the universe is for, He knows what it is. Likewise, when we want to know what's good and bad for people, He would know that too.

Thus, morality would be grounded in the character of the Creator. "Good" would be whatever conforms to HIs nature and produces fellowship with God; "evil," whatever is contrary to that, for that would be both against the will of the Creator and bad for mankind.

But consider the opposite. If our existence is a product of nothing but random chance and time, to where do we go to know what's "good" and "bad" for the process of making us "what we ought to be"? We have no information at all, then.

Posted: **Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:58 am**

Immanuel Can wrote:
Dubious wrote:...this seems a quandry; how do you untie it??
Not hard, actually. You just have to be open to the possibility that Materialism isn't true. If it's not, and if God created the universe, then there is no difficulty in saying that whatever the universe is for, He knows what it is. Likewise, when we want to know what's good and bad for people, He would know that too.

Thus, morality would be grounded in the character of the Creator. "Good" would be whatever conforms to HIs nature and produces fellowship with God; "evil," whatever is contrary to that, for that would be both against the will of the Creator and bad for mankind.

But consider the opposite. If our existence is a product of nothing but random chance and time, to where do we go to know what's "good" and "bad" for the process of making us "what we ought to be"? We have no information at all, then.

Sorry to say this does not answer the question in any way!

What makes any religious injunction moral since they too are mostly behavior constraining rules even more overtly restrictive than secular ones.

Your response is like tying ass hairs to nose hairs in the attempt to make one follow the other!

Why go off on a tandem of materialism and other abstractions? We're not talking metaphysics, only what defines morality be it secular or biblical. You're the one who defined morality as not applicable to atheists to create the dichotomy. People are people however defined who live according to what they acknowledge as valid for them. Instead your response is premised on metaphysical generalities which have nothing to do with the actual question...the very one you made salient as a distinction between atheist and theist.

Your response sounds quite sophisticated but I have no idea what "time & random chance" have to do with it. It seems to be a reply to a question that was never asked meaning I would be forced to ask a question compatible to your reply to make it pertinent.

The question relates purely to what defines morality theistically or otherwise. The question was clear and not in the least abstract...

What makes any religious injunction moral since they too are mostly behavior constraining rules even more overtly restrictive than secular ones...and the example which follows...

Don't the ten commandments begin with You shall, You shall not! By your logic had they been framed by a secular society instead a biblical one they too would have been defined by you as neither moral or ethical.

I can think of an eminently logical response to this question but I'm asking you since you are the source of it!

Posted: **Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:15 am**

Dubious wrote:What makes any religious injunction moral since they too are mostly behavior constraining rules ...

You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding. I'll try to clear it up, and maybe be able to answer your question...if I've understood what you're trying to say.

There's nothing wrong with "behaviour-constraining rules," and indeed, everything right with the right kind of behaviour-constraining rules. All morality is a constraint on behaviour. "Thou shalt not murder" is a constraint on people's desire to murder. "Thou shalt not steal" is a constraint on stealing. Morality constrains behaviour; and that's just fine. It's what we want from morality.

But to justify morality, it needs to show it has authoritative reasons for declaring a constraining rule against the behaviour it interdicts. If it cannot explain in an authoritative and rational way why X or Y is wrong, then it is no longer in a position to declare in a way that anybody needs to take seriously, that X or Y is wrong. Then it's just arbitrary rule-making, which people can ignore.

The problem for secularism is this: there is no justification or legitimacy to any secular rules for constraining behaviour. Secularism does not have an opinion on right and wrong. It's mute on that subject.

In other words, secularism has no potential for legitimizing ethics or morality. It can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do, it can't prescribe or regulate relationships, it cannot orient the justice system, and it cannot organize a society. All of those functions, it has to borrow (illegitimately) from sources it claims no longer to believe in, such as Judaism and Christianity. On its own, it's got nothing to offer in the moral field.

That's the point.

Posted: **Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:37 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: That's the point.

And a very good one, Thankyou.

Posted: **Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:07 am**

thedoc wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote: That's the point.
And a very good one, Thankyou.

I suggest you suck his cock whilst he sucks yours. But there is no doubt that you BOTH suck.

Moral systems pre-date all religions.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:21 am**

Sorry for the delay in responding. Doing my taxes...which takes priority over god for as long as I'm alive!

Dubious wrote:What makes any religious injunction moral since they too are mostly behavior constraining rules...

Immanuel Can wrote:You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding. I'll try to clear it up, and maybe be able to answer your question...if I've understood what you're trying to say.

I appreciate the “ if I've understood what you're trying to say” clause which at least includes a rare moment of doubt on your part! If only you would have extended that into rethinking your position WITHOUT having to abrogate theism...just a few amendments to make more sense of it because I know of no theists who think in the dead-end terms you do.

As for “You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding” clause, I’d say, not in the least! Your position is outstandingly clear in a multitude of posts including this one. It’s just that my understanding is anchored to history and logic and not simply to one text in the entire domain and literature of the world.

Immanuel Can wrote:There's nothing wrong with "behaviour-constraining rules," and indeed, everything right with the right kind of behaviour-constraining rules. All morality is a constraint on behaviour. "Thou shalt not murder" is a constraint on people's desire to murder. "Thou shalt not steal" is a constraint on stealing. Morality constrains behaviour; and that's just fine. It's what we want from morality.

Correct! “ALL morality is a constraint on behavior”, precisely the point others and myself are trying to make which subsumes ALL societies; whether theistically motivated or not they depend upon those constraints being active.

Immanuel Can wrote:But to justify morality, it needs to show it has authoritative reasons for declaring a constraining rule against the behaviour it interdicts. If it cannot explain in an authoritative and rational way why X or Y is wrong, then it is no longer in a position to declare in a way that anybody needs to take seriously, that X or Y is wrong. Then it's just arbitrary rule-making, which people can ignore.

Please give me an example of how theism “explains in an authoritative and rational way” why, for example, killing is wrong! According to your book, the bible, it is stated as nothing more than a command by Jehovah and yet countermanded by the same god - in terms that would make Hitler blush - for any territories the Israelites are commanded by their god to occupy.

Secular morality has no problem and sees no contradiction in condemning the likes of Hitler and yet your theistic morality, based on the bible, sees no problem combining “Thou shalt and Thou shalt Not” into an affirmation of moral equivalence! Within the context of Jewish saga it makes sense but if realized sub specie aeternitatis as you espouse, it remains paradoxical to put it kindly.

Immanuel Can wrote:The problem for secularism is this: there is no justification or legitimacy to any secular rules for constraining behaviour. Secularism does not have an opinion on right and wrong. It's mute on that subject.

...while biblical theism, as accepted by you, remains severely ambiguous and divergent on the subject and absolutely so when measured against the non-biblical standards of other religions. Furthermore how can secular law be mute on the subject and without legitimacy when you have reams of common and statute law underpinning it? Just as theism had it priests and prophets expounding on theistic laws in the name of god of course, secular laws have lawyers, judges and quite famous jurists in its long history who weren't mute in deciding between right and wrong. Again, you make no sense thinking ONLY theism gathers the right to convey authority!

Immanuel Can wrote:In other words, secularism has no potential for legitimizing ethics or morality. It can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do, it can't prescribe or regulate relationships, it cannot orient the justice system, and it cannot organize a society. All of those functions, it has to borrow (illegitimately) from sources it claims no longer to believe in, such as Judaism and Christianity. On its own, it's got nothing to offer in the moral field.

Societies at whatever level of sophistication, had to precede the conditions which later created the tenets and codifications of theism. How else could the latter have come about? It required prior codified rules of behavior to accomplish the project. The impulse to theistic morality was secular to begin with. Exclude secular morality and your theistic version would never have come into being.

The question of secular morality being the genesis of the theistic variety is a separate subject though the gist may be contained within these words: The Will to Power, this being the leitmotiv which combines all of history into a single goal, theism being one of it’s primary agents.

I’m reasonably certain you wouldn’t want to discuss the hows and wherefores of this happening for that would show theism in a completely different light from the absolute terms you unremittingly endorse.

Why not simply admit that your entire modality of thought is managed by the strictures of the bible not unlike a Muslim’s veneration of the Koran or a Jehovah’s Witness complete acceptance of the bible - even parts barely understood - as the literal word of god.

This is not meant to be insulting but you come across as excessively single minded exploring only between the covers of a single book excluding everything else which is not directly affirmed by it. Most here, with the exception of one, can't follow that.

This is longer than I expected. Back to the secular duties of doing tax returns. The Government as a secular institution wouldn't be impressed with my claim that they have no justification, legitimacy or authority in making me do it.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:34 am**

thedoc wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote: That's the point.
And a very good one, Thankyou.

Gurus like gods also appreciate a bit of adulation and you, as usual, have been most obliging! I can't seem to forgo the image of you as Renfield in the novel Dracula.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:12 pm**

Dubious wrote: Correct! “ALL morality is a constraint on behavior”, precisely the point others and myself are trying to make which subsumes ALL societies; whether theistically motivated or not they depend upon those constraints being active.

However, there are two different types of constraint: legitimized and unlegitimzed. Theism has the former, and secularism only the latter.

Please give me an example of how theism “explains in an authoritative and rational way” why, for example, killing is wrong!

The word is "murder," and it's very easy to show, actually.

Your only objection so far to Theistic morality is merely presumptive: that is, because you presume there is no God, you (in a way that would then be quite right) presume that there is no more warrant for Theistic morality than for secular. However, to presume in this way is to presume the very conclusion you would need in order to make your own case. You haven't proved it, you've just presumed it and then said, "Because it's so, therefore I'm right."

If, however, we leave open the possibility that God exists, and take that possibility seriously, then it is not hard to legitimize anything He commands or intends as the information we need on morality. If a Supreme Being said "Do X," or if "X" conforms to His character, then "X" is moral. QED.

If, as you wish to assume, there IS no God, however, then neither is any morality legitimizable. In fact, there is not even a way to say that whatever "morality" might be taken to be, it needs to be shown "legitimate" at all. For example, why should we not rape, pillage and loot whenever we wish? Only our post-Christian squeamishness or the fear of punishment by powerful others stands between us and that. But what if, like Nietzsche, we're courageous enough to be "bad" anyway? Who then shall say us nay, and on what basis shall we feel obliged to hear them on that?

Secular morality has no problem and sees no contradiction in condemning the likes of Hitler...

Indeed. BUT at the same time, it denies there can be any real moral basis for preferring to do that, and in fact, makes it impossible to say why one cannot wholeheartedly approve of Hitler and help him pile up the corpses. Secularism has no view on what you MUST do about Hitler.

It has no moral information at all.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 4:05 pm**

Dubious wrote:
thedoc wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote: That's the point.
And a very good one, Thankyou.
Gurus like gods also appreciate a bit of adulation and you, as usual, have been most obliging! I can't seem to forgo the image of you as Renfield in the novel Dracula.

If I do seem obliging, it is because I often have thoughts and ideas that I can't quite express properly, and when I read something that states just what I was thinking, I feel compelled to acknowledge it. Sometimes other people say things much better than I can.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:35 pm**

thedoc wrote: If I do seem obliging, it is because I often have thoughts and ideas that I can't quite express properly, and when I read something that states just what I was thinking, I feel compelled to acknowledge it. Sometimes other people say things much better than I can.

Here's something I find interesting.

What is the OP about from the point of view of the people who participated in forwarding the discussion, but who claim already to have dismissed Theism?

It's funny that people who don't believe there is a God (and certainly not that God has a Son), or in the Resurrection, or sin, or atonement, or afterlife, or Judgment, or Heaven, or Hell, or anything potentially Theistic at all...want to ask a question about the thing they claim they've already dismissed anyway.

It makes one suspect a massive deficiency of sincerity -- and possibly a deficient instinct of self-preservation.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:50 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote:
thedoc wrote: If I do seem obliging, it is because I often have thoughts and ideas that I can't quite express properly, and when I read something that states just what I was thinking, I feel compelled to acknowledge it. Sometimes other people say things much better than I can.
Here's something I find interesting.

What is the OP about from the point of view of the people who participated in forwarding the discussion, but who claim already to have dismissed Theism?

It's funny that people who don't believe there is a God (and certainly not that God has a Son), or in the Resurrection, or sin, or atonement, or afterlife, or Judgment, or Heaven, or Hell, or anything potentially Theistic at all...want to ask a question about the thing they claim they've already dismissed anyway.

It makes one suspect a massive deficiency of sincerity -- and possibly a deficient instinct of self-preservation.

Sort of points up the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist sees the positive or good in God and the pessimist sees the negative or bad that can be squeezed from the Bible. It really makes one realize that there are 2 sides to the Schwartz, the up side and the down side. It sort of reminds me of the Atheist's practice of first claiming that the Bible is invalid as a source for anything, and then quoting Biblical passages to prove that God is not good.

I once tried to call in to the show "The Atheist's Experience" but my call wasn't taken, I can only guess that I wasn't critical enough, controversial enough, or I was just trying to tell them what a good job they were doing fielding the calls they were taking. It seems they were taking a lot of calls from half baked "Christians" who were trying to prove that God existed and the Atheists were wrong.

Posted: **Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:25 pm**

thedoc wrote:Sort of points up the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist sees the positive or good in God and the pessimist sees the negative or bad that can be squeezed from the Bible.

I rather think that an optimist is someone who believes that if there is a god which created this world, it was so that we might enjoy it, whereas a god fearing pessimist believes that everything pleasurable is only a test of our willingness to resist temptation. Such an optimist might believe we can make this a better world, whereas a pessimist thinks that the best thing that can happen to us is death.

Posted: **Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:49 am**

uwot wrote:
thedoc wrote:Sort of points up the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist sees the positive or good in God and the pessimist sees the negative or bad that can be squeezed from the Bible.
I rather think that an optimist is someone who believes that if there is a god which created this world, it was so that we might enjoy it, whereas a god fearing pessimist believes that everything pleasurable is only a test of our willingness to resist temptation. Such an optimist might believe we can make this a better world, whereas a pessimist thinks that the best thing that can happen to us is death.

That is certainly true but I wasn't thinking of the pessimistic Theists, rather the Atheist as a pessimist, especially the ones who want to denounce religion as mistaken and wrong and find fault with it.

Posted: **Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:02 pm**

thedoc wrote:That is certainly true but I wasn't thinking of the pessimistic Theists, rather the Atheist as a pessimist, especially the ones who want to denounce religion as mistaken and wrong and find fault with it.

Well, it's glass half full/glass half empty. As an atheist myself, far from being miserable that all I get is three score and ten, I am absolutely thrilled to be here. I've no idea whether there actually is a god, but that doesn't mean I believe there isn't one; for all I know there is, I just happen not to believe it. Quite honestly, the "Atheist as pessimist" you describe, should mind their own business. I think challenging acts and arguments that are done in the name of religion are fair game, but the basic belief in a god is harmless in itself. If the theist as pessimist, who insists that anyone who doesn't follow their interpretation is going to burn in hell forever, could mind their own business too, the world would be a much better place.

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