Philosophy Now Forum

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 4:32 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 3:30 pm
If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

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

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

If you say so.

Never trust an Immanuel Can bearing "deductions", he is usually purveying overripe non-sequiturs in a fake 'Guggi' handbag.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:29 pm Evolution can only account for things by way of survival value. Mercy and pity are not survival virtues. Nietzsche saw that clearly, which is why he ranked them among the "slave moralties." You have no workable argument that evolution cannot have furnished humanity with the faculty of conscience and that's why you keep invoking the N-word.

Nietzsche did. That you can't deal with Nietzsche is not surprising. Atheists usually cannot live up to their own Atheism. That's why some of them moralize, even when they can't believe that morality is anything objectively compelling.

Uhm....

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:47 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:29 pm You have no workable argument that evolution cannot have furnished humanity with the faculty of conscience

Nietzsche did.

Conflicts with this...

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:12 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 6:57 pm
I don't consider Nietzsche much of an authority on evolution,

I'm so entertained by your transparent strategy. It goes, "Reword what they said, make them seem to say something they didn't, then dismiss it as unreasonable, taking an imperious stand on how foolish they've been." I love it.

In one post you are accusing me of putting words in your mouth to say Nietzsche was the source of your argument ... and in the very next you attribute it to Nietzsche.

You are a hopeless clown

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 3:30 pm
If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

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

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

It's inexplicable because the Atheist and the Theist cannot be found to exist objectively. They are nothing but mentally constructed entities in the subject thinking entity, that cannot be found objectively. Objectively they are known as concepts, but can only be observed to exist as and through the subjective self.

Can the self exist, or be manifested, objectively? No. I can observe the manifestations of a self in others, and others in me. From these manifestations, I infer that others have a self, and others make the same inference about me. But I cannot objectively apprehend the self of others. To exist at all the self has to be apprehended subjectively, by itself, from within. We know that the self cannot exist independently of consciousness, and that it has to be apprehended subjectively.

The incontrovertible evidence of the I aware of itself indicates the subjective self must always come before God.
This self-aware, self-evident subjectivity, this thinking he/she subject, this Cartesian entity, even though objectively this he/she can find this entity nowhere in his/her search for this subjective thinking self.

The Buddha had said: One human individual is nothing but a concatenation of thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, a mere mental entity with no entity beyond that, no ontological unity.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:47 pm That's why some of them moralize, even when they can't believe that morality is anything objectively compelling.

Who actually moralizes?

Who or what is conceptualising the who that apparently moralizes? who but a subjective mental process, known objectively as a mental thought, but never actually experienced as an actual object independant of the thought.

So who's mind is it, who thinks, what is thought, where does thought come from?

We must therefore take our own existence on faith (the existence of an I aware of the world and of itself), even though we are not really aware of the fact that it is nothing but faith.

“I thought I had to take God’s existence on faith, and then I realized that I had to take my own existence on faith.” Woody Allen.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:55 pm In one post you are accusing me of putting words in your mouth to say Nietzsche was the source of your argument ...

No, I'm pointing out that you falsely accuse me of suggesting that Nietzsche's expertise was in evolution, rather than in Atheism and ethics. Then you try to dismiss him as an expert in evolution...which nobody said he was.

And that's correct. It's exactly how you played it. Anybody can see it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 9:55 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:55 pm In one post you are accusing me of putting words in your mouth to say Nietzsche was the source of your argument ...

No, I'm pointing out that you falsely accuse me of suggesting that Nietzsche's expertise was in evolution, rather than in Atheism and ethics. Then you try to dismiss him as an expert in evolution...which nobody said he was.

And that's correct. It's exactly how you played it. Anybody can see it.

I argued that evolution can explain a psychological phenomenon. If you weren't arguing the evolutionary case you were missing the point entirely. Niether the N man nor the IC man is an expert in evolution, so your counter was just some nonsense about your irrelevant religion.

Sympathy, empathy, conscience, mercy and pity are entirely plausible survival mechanisms in social animals that thrive only with collective cooperation and have strong motive to punich non cooperative behaviour.












To address the quality of your deduction which is why we are having this conversation, I needed only to show that there could be something other than God to explain conscience and that task is evidently complete. Your "deduction" was invalid.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 10:30 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 9:55 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:55 pm In one post you are accusing me of putting words in your mouth to say Nietzsche was the source of your argument ...

No, I'm pointing out that you falsely accuse me of suggesting that Nietzsche's expertise was in evolution, rather than in Atheism and ethics. Then you try to dismiss him as an expert in evolution...which nobody said he was.

And that's correct. It's exactly how you played it. Anybody can see it.

I argued that evolution can explain a psychological phenomenon.

That begs the whole question. Your claim has to be that morality is just a psychological phenomenon, but that's not obvious and not generally believed...and we have no particular reason to accept it, or at least you've provided none.

If you weren't arguing the evolutionary case you were missing the point entirely.

Not at all. Evolutionism is the most common worldview behind Atheism these days. You don't often find one without the other.

But Nietzsche's point is merely that in any materialist worldview -- of which evolutionism is certainly one -- there is no place for morality. His statement "God is dead" and his claim that morality is too are logically consistent with one another...even though both are incorrect, factually.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 11:23 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 10:30 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 9:55 pm
No, I'm pointing out that you falsely accuse me of suggesting that Nietzsche's expertise was in evolution, rather than in Atheism and ethics. Then you try to dismiss him as an expert in evolution...which nobody said he was.

And that's correct. It's exactly how you played it. Anybody can see it.

I argued that evolution can explain a psychological phenomenon.

That begs the whole question. Your claim has to be that morality is just a psychological phenomenon, but that's not obvious and not generally believed...and we have no particular reason to accept it, or at least you've provided none.

To address the quality of your deduction which is why we are having this conversation, I needed only to show that there could be something other than God to explain conscience and that task is evidently complete. Your "deduction" was invalid.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 11:36 pm I needed only to show that there could be something other than God to explain conscience

You haven't.

The countercases show that it is not at all the case that being forced or coerced or even indoctrinated to do what other people want you to do is anything like "moral." If what they're teaching you is evil, then that's evil. And Nietzsche has a good argument that NOT conforming to one's society makes one superior and more worthy of survival than capitulating like a craven sheep to moral manipulations by the weak and foolish.

You just don't have case that's plausible. Sorry.

In any case, you've got to do much more: you don't just need to suggest a just-so story about how morality "could have" come about in some fantasy; you've got to give us reasons to think that actually how it DOES come about. And we're nowhere near seeing any evidence of that kind from you.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 12:27 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 11:36 pm I needed only to show that there could be something other than God to explain conscience

You haven't.

The countercases show that it is not at all the case that being forced or coerced or even indoctrinated to do what other people want you to do is anything like "moral." If what they're teaching you is evil, then that's evil. And Nietzsche has a good argument that NOT conforming to one's society makes one superior and more worthy of survival than capitulating like a craven sheep to moral manipulations by the weak and foolish.

You just don't have case that's plausible. Sorry.

In any case, you've got to do much more: you don't just need to suggest a just-so story about how morality "could have" come about in some fantasy; you've got to give us reasons to think that actually how it DOES come about. And we're nowhere near seeing any evidence of that kind from you.

It's a question of "could" not "must", which is all that was needed to demonstrate the invalidity of your "deduction".
It's the faculty of "conscience" that was in question in your "deduction", not the entirety of morality, let alone the possibility of error.
Your lack of understanding (if honest) is concerning.

Let me help you remember .....

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 5:00 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 3:30 pm If Atheism were true, there's no reason at all he ever would have a conscience. But even Atheists do have a conscience. Therefore, Atheism is not true. Again, a very simple deduction.

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

That's the deductive claim we were discussing, and the limits of the counter required to show it to be deductively invalid.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 4:11 am ...the invalidity of your "deduction".

You know that source you looked up, the one that showed you how wrong your were about universal or categorical premises?

Now you need to look up the same source, and see what "validity" is, and what the associated criteria are. Then you'll know why you're wrong.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 5:25 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 4:11 am ...the invalidity of your "deduction".

You know that source you looked up, the one that showed you how wrong your were about universal or categorical premises?

Now you need to look up the same source, and see what "validity" is, and what the associated criteria are. Then you'll know why you're wrong.

My bad, the original is deductively invalid as written and the principle you reference is something you made up on the fly.
Nonetheless, if your reformulation counts as
P1 If atheism is true then humans cannot have conscience
P2 humans do have conscience
C Therefore Ateism is not true

Then I must concede the validity thing. Obviously soundness went out the window to make way for validity, but I still lose today.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:39 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 5:25 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Sep 14, 2023 4:11 am ...the invalidity of your "deduction".

You know that source you looked up, the one that showed you how wrong your were about universal or categorical premises?

Now you need to look up the same source, and see what "validity" is, and what the associated criteria are. Then you'll know why you're wrong.

My bad, the original is deductively invalid as written and the principle you reference is something you made up on the fly.
Nonetheless, if your reformulation counts as
P1 If atheism is true then humans cannot have conscience
P2 humans do have conscience
C Therefore Ateism is not true

Then I must concede the validity thing. Obviously soundness went out the window to make way for validity, but I still lose today.

I suggest it's clearer to reserve 'true' and 'false' to factual assertions, rather than (elliptically) to belief systems. So here's my go.

P1 If there are no gods, then humans can have no moral conscience.
P2 Humans have moral conscience.
C Therefore, there are gods.

And here I think the unsoundness is even more obvious.