No there is no example of behaviour which exposes an unspoken belief in some objective moral fabric in your OP, that I can see anyway, maybe you can point it out to me?

Not sure if this is actually relevant, but if you want to talk about it I have two comments: psychology and psychiatry are not the same thing, and antidepressants most certainly do work but I don't imagine that's what you think the data show.

I'm very curious as to what his evidence could possibly be.

They behave as if morality is objective, and furthermore immediately accessible to everybody. How else can you explain the language of moral condemnation that is found prevalent here? 'Your belief is reprehensible.' 'That is barbarism.' And so on. As if this moral truth is immediate, and found within a person's own soul.

I'd really like to know what this sense of moral objectivity looks like to an atheist. As an atheist, I used to view it as so much mumbo-jumbo. I felt it, perhaps, but denied it. I don't know. But I know I would have viewed you with suspicion if you claimed to be an atheist and also claimed some kind of supernatural moral presence.

It must exist in this way if you are going to morally condemn others. If morality is relative, then any creed or belief statement is open for questioning and critical examination. Then why the moral outrage when someone does critically examine certain humanist-liberal tenets?

We need a Dogggtionary. 'Critically examine' = 'say mean stuff of dubious accuracy about'.

'Moral outrage', one assumes, means 'laughter'.

Nope, i can subjectively condemn you and the atheist bashing you came into this forum with from day one.

My take on the term 'objective' morality: not in the sense that there exists 'good' and 'evil' that is independent of the minds of people (I used to reject the idea of objective morality because I thought it could only mean this), but that different actions can be examined, reasoned, and explained in terms of how 'good' or 'bad' their impact is on the actors (e.g. their well-being) i.e. a subjective choice of action can be examined objectively. I don't think it matters if there is disagreement on what the metrics are, or even how they are measured, it can still generally be considered 'objective'.

To contrast with what theists call morality, I think the terms are quite different if theistic morality is defined as "what God commands, or does" (whereas atheistic morality is "how people choose to treat each other", or something along those lines). The choice in theistic morality is whether or not to meet God's standard, if the theist can even determine what that would be. Atheistic morality involves much wider choice of action (and could even include WWJD).

Finally, theistic 'morality' is not really 'objective' if it comes from a single mind, even if it happens to be the mind of God.

Any discussion of science without a reference to overlyhonestmethods is basically a conceptual failure right there.

This is funny. And of course largely misses the whole truth.

Splendour WAS treated with kid gloves for a long time. She was here for years before Doggg arrived on the forum. For the first 6 months to year people were so polite and patient... Frustratingly patient. It was only after months of people seeing splendour do her thing, her imperviousness to logic, her inability to maintain a thought from one post to the next, her links that she wouldn't defend (or even have read), her racism and other bigotries.... Eventually she lost the kid gloves as people realized trying to discuss things was an exercise in futility.

Btw- she did something you do, Doggg- you criticize other believers who don't automatically side with you. As if sharing a belief in one thing means everyone who shares said belief should automatically support everything you write. And she too would characterize her treatment by people on the forum as an atheist versus believer issue while ignoring that other believers weremtreatedmwith the mutual respect she had destroyed years ago. She also ignored the fact that other believers also took issue with her posting style and questioned her posts. The one thing she would never do is consider that she might be responsible for how she was treated. As they say, you get what you give.

Yeah this, pretty much. The reason I don't like the term "objective" is because it gets used in two or three different ways: 1) something like "mind-independent" 2) something like "non-arbitrary" and 3) something like "from a higher authority".

I don't think 1 makes any sense (on atheism OR theism), 2 seems fine and 3 seems irrelevant/inadequate.

It also helps your case that you side with them against me (your fellow believer in Christ) openly.

It is not about taking sides. I agree with what I think is correct or true, regardless of who says it. Christians are allowed to disagree, I think it is healthy.

I'm happy that you are able to make such great friends.

Its not even about that.

I basically agree with all of this. I would also say that I think of Morality very much in terms of social evolution. Ideas that perpetuate the thriving of society get passed as socially good while those that are detrimental to society are deemed socially harmful (outlawed, whatever)

It puzzles me that people (doggg) can say things like "oh yea, well I have God" as if that settles the morality, question, but I don't think it does. Aside from the issues fish raised, which I agree with. The inclusion of God does nothing to solve the is-ought problem near as I can tell.

It doesn't though that's not surprising given the problem was stated due to religions tendency to state propositions in terms of ought and ought not.

And this is why I don't think an appeal to theology is sufficient for normative statements. As a theist I think though we have to address how things ought to be, those moral statements need more than appeals to theology. Especially as poorly as some of the appeals have been made in this thread.

I watched a TED Talk on Netflix a few weeks ago that is somewhat relevant. It was in the series "Head Games", titled "Ep 11. Martin Seligman on Positive Psychology" but it is from back in 2004. Dr Seligman used to be president of the American Psych. Ass'n.

It starts with a little anecdote (well, a joke) of his encounter with the media, and when asked how he would respond to "What is the state of psychology today?", with only one word sound-byte:

"Good!"

An insufficient response, he was then allowed two words, "What is the state of psychology today?"

"Not good!"

Again, not a satisfactory response, so he was finally allowed three words to answer the question "What is the state of psychology today?"

"Not good enough!"