Philosophy Now Forum

We know what IC means by "justify" ... God is the one and only justification and authority for everything.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:39 pm We know what IC means by "justify" ... God is the one and only justification and authority for everything.

I'll wait for IC's answer to my question. I'm genuinely curious for him to tell me what I should do and he would do under the exact circumstances I gave and how he would justify it.

I think the important point is that an atheist will never have 'justification' if God is the only authority.

So you're always in the losing position unless you start praising Jesus.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 12:08 am I think the important point is that an atheist will never have 'justification' if God is the only authority.

So you're always in the losing position unless you start praising Jesus.

His argument seems to be that an atheist cannot justify an action. I'm curious why he thinks someone who doesn't believe in the existence of God cannot "justify" anything. Seems like an atheist is perfectly capable of justifying an action to me. Everyone uses justification for things they do when they explain what they did to someone else. A person doesn't need to believe in God to be able to give or be in need of justification and there are many ways of justifying an action for anyone. Some will be understood by others you try to justify your action to and some won't. But it seems patently untrue that an atheist can have no concept of what a "justification" is.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:00 pm Now, nobody says they [atheists] can't imagine "better" or "worse". They just can't justify them. There's all the difference in the world between the former and the latter.

What do you mean by "Justify"? What is "justification" for something? Can you explain or give an example of what "justifies" something.

Yep. Something is "justified" if the question "why" can be answered in a rational way, one coherent with reality as the speaker knows it to be. Whether we agree with him or not about his view of reality, we can still say, "Well, you're behaving in a rationally justified way, since you're following what you sincerely believe to be reality." We still may or may not agree with his beliefs, but we see he has rational justification. He's behaving reasonably, even if on information we think isn't solid.

For the Theist, lots of things are justified by reference to the authority of the Supreme Being. There's a justification of life: to know God. There's a justification of righteousness: to be a fit companion for God. There's a justification of human rights: that God has created others in His image and for His purposes, not merely for ours. There is a justification of morality: that is harmonious with the character and revealed will of God. There is a justification of hope: because God is a Saviour. There is a justification of justice: because God is just. There is a justification of environmental responsibility: because the Earth belongs to God, and we only hold it in stewardship to Him. There is a justification of compassion: because God is compassionate. And if God exists, then His authority is more than adequate for a rational justification of all such things. So those who are deducing this way are behaving in a rationally-justified way -- even if, as Atheists, some still disagree.

But what information of that sort is available from the worldview of Atheism? It contains one simple thought: no gods exist. From that, can we deduce anything about positive morality? Can we deduce an injunction against some sort of evil? Can we derive a view of the meaning and purpose of life? Can we extract an objective plan for our lives, or locate ourselves within one? What can we justify?

Atheism's compassless. It points to nothing, forbids nothing and informs of nothing. This is precisely Nietzsche's admission in "The Madman," when he says,

"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?"

His perplexity is of one who has lost all moral bearings, and has no hope of finding any again. It's anomie: terror derived from lawlessness, the absence of compass points, the total loss of means of navigation. And with God gone from the universe, according to Nietzsche, it descends as automatically as the night.

So from that, what can be justified? Nothing.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 1:16 am His perplexity is of one who has lost all moral bearings, and has no hope of finding any again. It's anomie: terror derived from lawlessness, the absence of compass points, the total loss of means of navigation. And with God gone from the universe, according to Nietzsche, it descends as automatically as the night.

So from that, what can be justified? Nothing.

A simple test (I've done this before and have never been disappointed)...

*Is slavery (the treatment and use of one's fellows as property) wrong?

*If so: why?

I know your answer, Mannie (and, of course, I know my own), I wonder what Gary's and phyllo's are.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 2:37 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 1:16 am His perplexity is of one who has lost all moral bearings, and has no hope of finding any again. It's anomie: terror derived from lawlessness, the absence of compass points, the total loss of means of navigation. And with God gone from the universe, according to Nietzsche, it descends as automatically as the night.

So from that, what can be justified? Nothing.

A simple test (I've done this before and have never been disappointed)...

*Is slavery (the treatment and use of one's fellows as property) wrong?

*If so: why?

I know your answer, Mannie (and, of course, I know my own), I wonder what Gary's and phyllo's are.

I'm as curious as you are.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 1:16 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:00 pm Now, nobody says they [atheists] can't imagine "better" or "worse". They just can't justify them. There's all the difference in the world between the former and the latter.

What do you mean by "Justify"? What is "justification" for something? Can you explain or give an example of what "justifies" something.

Yep. Something is "justified" if the question "why" can be answered in a rational way, one coherent with reality as the speaker knows it to be. Whether we agree with him or not about his view of reality, we can still say, "Well, you're behaving in a rationally justified way, since you're following what you sincerely believe to be reality." We still may or may not agree with his beliefs, but we see he has rational justification. He's behaving reasonably, even if on information we think isn't solid.

For the Theist, lots of things are justified by reference to the authority of the Supreme Being. There's a justification of life: to know God. There's a justification of righteousness: to be a fit companion for God. There's a justification of human rights: that God has created others in His image and for His purposes, not merely for ours. There is a justification of morality: that is harmonious with the character and revealed will of God. There is a justification of hope: because God is a Saviour. There is a justification of justice: because God is just. There is a justification of environmental responsibility: because the Earth belongs to God, and we only hold it in stewardship to Him. There is a justification of compassion: because God is compassionate. And if God exists, then His authority is more than adequate for a rational justification of all such things. So those who are deducing this way are behaving in a rationally-justified way -- even if, as Atheists, some still disagree.

But what information of that sort is available from the worldview of Atheism? It contains one simple thought: no gods exist. From that, can we deduce anything about positive morality? Can we deduce an injunction against some sort of evil? Can we derive a view of the meaning and purpose of life? Can we extract an objective plan for our lives, or locate ourselves within one? What can we justify?

Atheism's compassless. It points to nothing, forbids nothing and informs of nothing. This is precisely Nietzsche's admission in "The Madman," when he says,

"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?"

His perplexity is of one who has lost all moral bearings, and has no hope of finding any again. It's anomie: terror derived from lawlessness, the absence of compass points, the total loss of means of navigation. And with God gone from the universe, according to Nietzsche, it descends as automatically as the night.

So from that, what can be justified? Nothing.

In the final product of Nietzsche's investigations, Nietzsche didn't say there was no such thing as morality. He said that without God we had to and could arrive at a more life affirming morality than Christianity's. He called Christianity the ascetic ideal and that humanity ought to arrive at life affirming ideals instead of ascetic ones. That's different from saying that an atheist cannot have morality. You seem to be saying that an atheist cannot possibly have morality, that it would never exist nor occur to an atheist to have morality, even if an atheist lived among others. Indeed, atheists can have morality, it comes into play as soon as two or more people come together to live among each other. However, ultimately we need to come to terms with tragedy and fate according to Nietzsche. The Stoics said something similar.

Coming to terms with fate sounds plausible to me. People have done it. But we all have moral inclinations. The physical world we live in does not. We don't have to give up our moral inclinations in order to live. We just have to accept that often morality is not going to be served in the end by fate and the forces of nature. There's no need to give up morality, nor did Nietzsche suggest anything like giving up morality.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 4:25 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 1:16 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Feb 24, 2026 11:31 pm

What do you mean by "Justify"? What is "justification" for something? Can you explain or give an example of what "justifies" something.

Yep. Something is "justified" if the question "why" can be answered in a rational way, one coherent with reality as the speaker knows it to be. Whether we agree with him or not about his view of reality, we can still say, "Well, you're behaving in a rationally justified way, since you're following what you sincerely believe to be reality." We still may or may not agree with his beliefs, but we see he has rational justification. He's behaving reasonably, even if on information we think isn't solid.

For the Theist, lots of things are justified by reference to the authority of the Supreme Being. There's a justification of life: to know God. There's a justification of righteousness: to be a fit companion for God. There's a justification of human rights: that God has created others in His image and for His purposes, not merely for ours. There is a justification of morality: that is harmonious with the character and revealed will of God. There is a justification of hope: because God is a Saviour. There is a justification of justice: because God is just. There is a justification of environmental responsibility: because the Earth belongs to God, and we only hold it in stewardship to Him. There is a justification of compassion: because God is compassionate. And if God exists, then His authority is more than adequate for a rational justification of all such things. So those who are deducing this way are behaving in a rationally-justified way -- even if, as Atheists, some still disagree.

But what information of that sort is available from the worldview of Atheism? It contains one simple thought: no gods exist. From that, can we deduce anything about positive morality? Can we deduce an injunction against some sort of evil? Can we derive a view of the meaning and purpose of life? Can we extract an objective plan for our lives, or locate ourselves within one? What can we justify?

Atheism's compassless. It points to nothing, forbids nothing and informs of nothing. This is precisely Nietzsche's admission in "The Madman," when he says,

"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?"

His perplexity is of one who has lost all moral bearings, and has no hope of finding any again. It's anomie: terror derived from lawlessness, the absence of compass points, the total loss of means of navigation. And with God gone from the universe, according to Nietzsche, it descends as automatically as the night.

So from that, what can be justified? Nothing.

In the final product of Nietzsche's investigations, Nietzsche didn't say there was no such thing as morality. He said that without God we had to and could arrive at a more life affirming morality than Christianity's.

Here's the problem with that: on what could Nietzsche ground his confidence that human life was deserving of "affirming"? And how could Nietzsche know what "affirming life" meant, unless he was relying on a preconception about what was "good" in life? But he'd already cut away anything he could ground such value judgments in. So he was just making stuff up. He couldn't give us -- and we still cannot fabricate -- any reason to believe him, or any duty to honour "life affirming."

But worse than that: Nietzsche interpreted "the life force" as being expressed as "the will to power," not morality. So to "affirm" your own "life force" by going "beyond good and evil" and becoming an "overman," seizing and exercising power over others, was the only point of life Nietzsche could imagine. In other words, his philosophy affirms the totalitarian impulse and amorality.

You seem to be saying that an atheist cannot possibly have morality,

No, I'm saying a rationally-consistent Atheist cannot possibly have morality. But most Atheists, including Nietzsche, turn out to be somewhat short of rationally-consistent in what they advocate. And that's because living "beyond good and evil" literallly would mean one would be, at best, totally narcissistic and solipsistic, and a complete sociopath, as well. It's a really good thing, then, that we don't have rationally-consistent Atheists around. I imagine if any do exist, they're in jail. Dostoevsky saw that so clearly.

Coming to terms with fate sounds plausible to me.

All that means, in practice, is resignation. Fatalism. Surrender to the inevitable. It's actually not heroic. It's defeatist, and leads to nothing but death. It's not by accident that Stoicism was championed by warrior cultures; such cultures need to give young men reasons to forgo all of life's comforts, obey without questioning, and be willing to die on the orders of another. It's really just a death-cult.

we all have moral inclinations.

Yes, we do. But if the worldview of Atheism were correct, we should not. And that's interesting, too: why would the indifferent, uncaring universe program into all people a moral awareness, when that "awareness" is supposed to refer to nothing real? And why, then, wouldn't it be the most sensible thing to ignore that "awareness," since it would simply be deceiving us?

The physical world we live in does not.

That's the problem. Atheism says we're just pieces of this physical world. But if we were, why would we have this odd compulsion to believe things that don't exist, like morality?

We don't have to give up our moral inclinations in order to live.

If we did, we'd die...you're right about that. But that's yet another way we are induced to wonder if Atheism isn't lying to us. Atheism's unliveable. It can't be rationally-consistently be put into a workable lifestyle.

But now, are you going to answer Henry's question? I've answered yours. I think you owe us an answer...or at least an honest admission that you cannot.

All that means, in practice, is resignation. Fatalism. Surrender to the inevitable. It's actually not heroic. It's defeatist, and leads to nothing but death. It's not by accident that Stoicism was championed by warrior cultures; such cultures need to give young men reasons to forgo all of life's comforts, obey without questioning, and be willing to die on the orders of another. It's really just a death-cult.

Have you ever noticed that the majority of wars are fought by theistic societies?

Christians have killed other Christians in the millions. Christians have killed other theists. Not just once but again and again.

Really, let's just call Christianity a death-cult.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 5:12 am
But worse than that: Nietzsche interpreted "the life force" as being expressed as "the will to power," not morality. So to "affirm" your own "life force" by going "beyond good and evil" and becoming an "overman," seizing and exercising power over others, was the only point of life Nietzsche could imagine. In other words, his philosophy affirms the totalitarian impulse and amorality.

no, no, no

Nietzsche never suggested seizing and exercising power over others

Freddy was about overcoming oneself

-Imp

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 2:21 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 5:12 am
But worse than that: Nietzsche interpreted "the life force" as being expressed as "the will to power," not morality. So to "affirm" your own "life force" by going "beyond good and evil" and becoming an "overman," seizing and exercising power over others, was the only point of life Nietzsche could imagine. In other words, his philosophy affirms the totalitarian impulse and amorality.

no, no, no

Nietzsche never suggested seizing and exercising power over others

Freddy was about overcoming oneself

-Imp

Oh? I don't believe so. As I read Nietzsche, I see his claim as very broad, ubiquitous, and pertaining to several realms: the psychological, the natural world, the social and the political. In fact, I'm unaware of any such restricted meaning as you suggest here. Nietzsche, I think, really thought he'd invented a sort of universal key to the struggle inherent in "life" itself, construed in the broadest possible terms.

This is, in fact, the way readers of Nietzsche have taken it. For example, all sources I've been able to find explain "will to power" as an assumed universal explanation for human motivation, and associate it with the imposition of the will of the individual on the external world, whether natural, social or political. He saw it as irrational, rather than rational and cognitive, and characteristic of all biological life, not of human beings alone. For example, he has Zarathustra say: “Wherever I found a living thing, I found there the will to power.” And Lawrence Hatab, a Nietzsche scholar, insists that the concept is by no means "apolitical" and is rather "an agonistic structure of social life." (words his, emphasis mine) There are many more such sources, you'll find.

In later practice of Nietzsche's theories, we also find this broader biological, social and political reading. We need not refer merely to, say, Hitler, who definitely saw the Nietzschean proposal as quite literal and political; we could consider people like Foucault, who took it as a universal explantion of human social motivation, and thus sought both to indict society as sexually oppressive and to de-moralize sexuality completely. Whatever we guess that Nietzsche might have intended, he failed to put any suitable safeguards on his theorizing. He opened a pandora's box of resentment, conflict and hostility that has never since been restricted to "overcoming oneself" in some merely personal or psychological struggle.

I suggest that with Nietzsche, you have a situation like that with the Islamists and their "jihad." For public approval, they'll tell you that "jihad" means "struggle within the self," or something similarly benign, not "shooting people at the Bataclan," or "flying planes into buildings," or "marching children into minefields." But the reality is that they know "jihad" encompasses all these things, being a much larger concept. And likewise with Nietzsche's "will to power." That's not restricted to some inner, purely-personal struggle. That's a larger concept, not narrowed to the self, and thus too easy to take in a larger and more external way.

However, the countercase is surely yours to make. If you know of some safeguards that limit Nietzsche's claims to the merely psychological, then I'd be interested in seeing them. I haven't found them in my readings of him. It would certainly be helpful for us to have such things, as it would perhaps give us a rationale for resisting the some of the worst implications of Nietzsche's theorizing, as they have been subsequently practiced.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 1:05 pm

All that means, in practice, is resignation. Fatalism. Surrender to the inevitable. It's actually not heroic. It's defeatist, and leads to nothing but death. It's not by accident that Stoicism was championed by warrior cultures; such cultures need to give young men reasons to forgo all of life's comforts, obey without questioning, and be willing to die on the orders of another. It's really just a death-cult.

Have you ever noticed that the majority of wars are fought by theistic societies?

Well, it would do us good to dispel this myth, actually. So thanks for the opportunity.

First, we have to consult common sense. Does it actually seem plausible to believe that there would be more wars caused by Theism than caused by, say, border disputes, or the struggle for resources, or the desire for power, or linguistic and cultural competition, or racial and tribal hatreds, or water, or treasure, or claiming new territory, or political ideology? Does it even, on the surface, make sense to suppose so? Is our intuition not that all these things must have been much more compelling to the majority of warring factions than any "religious" motives?

And we find our intution confirmed by the facts. According the the best sources, and secular sources, at that, it was avowedly Atheistic societies that have killed, by far, the most people: we know, for sure, of at least 120 million killed in the last century alone, predominantly by Socialists. Mao alone killed at least 42 million of his own people, and Stalin at least 22 million...and then there's Pol Pot, and the Kim Jongs, and the Mugabe's and Castros...there is no creed in history so homicidal. And this isn't really a matter of debate, but of the historical record. Bodies are often available for counting, after all...though there were probably many more we cannot count.

Now, according to these same secular sources, by contrast, all religious wars -- all that can even be plausibly attributed to any religious motive -- have not killed more than 8% of that number. Half of that 8% (so let's say 4% of the total) is due to one religion alone -- Islam. The other 4% is attributable to ALL OTHER RELIGIONS COMBINED. That includes the Sikhs, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Catholics, the animists...all of them. Meanwhile, there are many religious communities that are responsible for NO WARS AT ALL. You might think of the Mennonites, the Quakers or the Evangelicals, perhaps: how many wars can you attribute to the Pentecostals or the Baptists?

So this is simply a myth. It is not the case that Theism is a major cause of wars, or even a significant cause of wars. At most, we might say it was sometimes used as an excuse for wars conducted for other reasons. Bu there's no chance of the above claim being true, no matter how often cited by the skeptics of religion.

But I can't help but note you've made no attempt to address Henry's question.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 3:55 pm Now, according to these same secular sources, by contrast, all religious wars -- all that can even be plausibly attributed to any religious motive -- have not killed more than 8% of that number. Half of that 8% (so let's say 4% of the total) is due to one religion alone -- Islam.

Ah, you are ignoring the huge changes in human population.

Take just the "Thirty Years War" (between Catholics and Protestants). Killed between 4 and 8 million. But the human population of the planet more than an order of magnitude less back then. So today's equivalent would be something like 40-80 million. Similarly the "French Wars of Religion"a little earlier killed 2-4 million, today's equivalent being 20-40 million.

Need I go on?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 4:57 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 3:55 pm Now, according to these same secular sources, by contrast, all religious wars -- all that can even be plausibly attributed to any religious motive -- have not killed more than 8% of that number. Half of that 8% (so let's say 4% of the total) is due to one religion alone -- Islam.

Ah, you are ignoring the huge changes in human population.

Take just the "Thirty Years War" (between Catholics and Protestants). Killed between 4 and 8 million. But the human population of the planet more than an order of magnitude less back then. So today's equivalent would be something like 40-80 million. Similarly the "French Wars of Religion"a little earlier killed 2-4 million, today's equivalent being 20-40 million.

Need I go on?

Yes, actually. Firstly, because if, for example, in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 5,000 Huguenot Protestants were killed by the Catholics, are you going to pass blame to the Protestants? Why? Because they were the ones who died? It's hard to see how that makes sense.

But the entire basis of your proposed statistical refutation simply doesn't add up. Wars don't kill by "percentage of the human population" on the globe. It's not a percentage game, of course. Wars kill individuals and particular groups, not percentages of global population. This is a kind of combinational fallacy you've made here, obviously.

But let's go with your error, even though it's bad argument. I'll hand it to you anyway, just to show what a poor argument it would be. If you were at all right, it would still be less than a third of those killed by ideological Atheists, in the same century, and by the absurd metric of population of the globe.

So there's no way your objection sticks. It's statistically a fallacy, as well as devoid of the essential identification of who was doing the killing and who was doing the dying.

Oh, and lest you forget: the question of the moment is what Atheism can warrant in the moral realm, regarding slavery. Any thought on that?