Id say peoples ideas of right and wrong come form there necessity in order for society to function more then dna. But its probably a bit of both.

No i wouldn't be surprised. Id also call what they are doing to survive as having ideas of right and wrong when it comes to survival. They think its right to do what they need to survive.

Peoples idea of right and wrong isn't a fixed thing and varies form person to person. Just because they are not a fixed things doesn't mean they are not things.

You seem to think because peoples idea of right and wrong aren't objective they arent. Just because i think sex before marriage is the right thing to do and someone else doesn't, doesn't mean we dont have ideas of right and wrong on the subject. As far as who is objective right. Got me.

Who said that? Not me....I never said everyone agrees on their right and wrongs. Or that everyone holds to their own idea of right and wrongs.

Most of the time i dont need police to follow me around 24/7 in order to follow my ideas of right and wrong.

But more generally. Because people arent perfect, have different ideas of right and wrong, and dont always hold to those views. None of that takes away that people have things they think are right and wrong. I addressed most of this in my bike analogy.

Again you seem to be saying thats wrong. Maybe its just a language thing.

i don't know. i think i can honestly say that i care equally about the guy in ethiopia and the guy in my city (assuming i know neither and no one i know knows either). i agree about the sacrifice 1000 people i don't know to save 1 i do too.

I don't use the term right or wrong. Instead i say i prefer not to murder and i prefer to hang around with
others who don't murder.

Like everything it depends on the situation that's why I
don't hold views of right or wrong that are set in stone.

I can change and adapt. If i am in need of food
and can't afford to buy it i would steal it.
But if i hold a view that stealing is wrong i starve to death.

If a guy trys to kill me i defend myself. Maybe i kill him accidental
through the act of self defense. But if i hold view that murder is wrong i best not
do anything in fear i might murder him due to
self defense

I tend to exaggarate a little for effect, I find that it helps uncover flaws and loopholes better than moderation. My main point is merely that proximity matters...heck...proximity is how most humans survive childhood, so one could argue that we're disposed towards it by both heritage and environment.

You use terms like "laughable", "want out" and "you guys"...so it seems quite clear that your decision to not use "wrong" is rooted more in some esthetical hiccup with the word than actual unwillingness to judge what is correct.

TD pretty much covered this. I dont really see the difference accept for the definition of an underling view.

My right an wrongs are not set in stone. They have changed and hopefully will change if im given new information that makes me rethink things.
Thats not how i view it. Stealing can be right or wrong depending on situations. If you are starving and need food to live i would not say its wrong to steal it. If you are picking up food that a starving child dropped and eating it on a full belly. Well that would be wrong to me.

I wouldn't consider self defense murder.

@Blitz - I can't decide if you're someone I would be good friends with or someone I implicitly distrust. One one hand, I know where you stand. On the other, you seem completely devoid of empathy, but I suspect that's just the nature of thread discussions.

Why do you prefer not to murder, nor hang out with those who do? Why do you not steal (or do you steal)? Would you **** your best friends wife?

Is it frowned upon if I admit that I have no idea what or who runs the universe? I don't follow any religion and just live thinking "who the hell knows?" People who think they know have no idea and just learn what they want (imo). Something is going on somewhere but nobody can possibly know what that is. I can read a million books but still I'd have to decide what to believe and based on what? What my parents believe? Ohhhhh that sounds correct! I mean it's a shot in the dark and to me anyone who claims to have the answers is beyond absurd which is why I don't follow anything.

It really is ridiculous to me that someone could possibly think (truly) that what they believe is fact. My stance is that I have no freakin idea whats going on and I just try to be a nice person regardless of any consequences there may or may not be because it makes life more enjoyable.

Sorry for the small rant.

I could imagine we would be good friends, I very easy going in real life.

To answer your other questions, it depends.

I would frown upon it, if it was used as a basis for supporting a view...as a basis for claiming a view is invalid I would think it is okay.

Or to use a traffic analogy...I would find a blindfolded man running a red light because "there is no traffic" to be silly (and dangerous) and I would think anybody who says "well, let him do it...we can't see from here if there is traffic so who knows" to also be silly and dangerous, but a blindfolded man saying "I can't make proper decisions about driving as I am blindfolded" and those who agree with him to be reasonable enough.

Everybody has a different idea on how to drive.

Sure, and everybody has a similar idea on how to drive...and all humans are different, and all humans are similar.

These are merely linguistical artifacts...what one is pointing out is that "human" and "drive" points to sets of observed phenomena...in my field usually called schema. In simpler terms that we classify information into categories, not merely instances.

I don't think this is particularly relevant to what epicbeast was talking about...he was talking about the ramifications of lack of knowledge, not taxonomy of observation. My analogy was merely that...it can't serve as a "proof" of anything because we can't put values to the unknown.

I am not sure if you believe in god or not from your posts.

How can one have a lack of knowledge about god, if god doesnt exist?

Tame,

The problem is everybody has a different version of God, with so may choices of God it causes paralysis for the layman..........because no one can prove their god either way since there is a no hard evidence.

I think it's fair to say that without a god there can be no universal sense of morality and that, universally speaking, nothing is intrinsically right or wrong.

Nonetheless, this does nothing to suggest that a local morality in a godless society is incapable of emerging.

We are thinking beings. We know what harms us and do not like it. I do not want (among other things) to be killed or have my belongings taken away. Thus self preservation and self interest lead me to perceive that such actions against me are wrong - at least in a personal sense.

We are also empathetic creatures. Perhaps I love and care for a wife, children, parents and a circle of friends. It is not a difficult task to extrapolate that the things that would harm me would also harm them. Thus we have a value system stemming from the individual and expanding to a group.

Further, because we are empathetic creatures it is not a particularly difficult task to suppose that another human who also has a family and circle of friends has these same preservational instincts.

If we were at war, murdering and pillaging each other to the ends of time then each of our lives, and the lives of our families would be blighted and full of great misery. If however, we formed a contract such that I would do no harm to him in return for him doing no harm to me, then our lives would be greatly enhanced.

A contract is thus formed based on such laws and this coalesces into a form of morality that we teach to our children.

I don't think that it is difficult to predict an emerging morality in a social context from an individuals self interest.

Of course, self interest indicates that at certain times certain codes in this morality might be better broken, and in practice we see this happen a lot, which is quite probably why society also has a penal system.

Nevertheless, I think the basis of a social morality, be it from the yardstick of an omnipotent creator or a preservation of the self comes down to what Christ said,

"do unto others as you would have them do unto you" -

unless of course you are a sado-masochist.

We are a lot of other things as well, apathetic at times, we are also capable of hate and violence, can you get a value system from thoses things?

Nihilist: The Intellectually Honest Atheist

I think this is perfectly stated and it speaks for me. I call myself an atheist because I don't believe the God thing (and all its trappings and 2000 year old stories). And none of the "logical" arguments put forth by theists (itt and elsewhere) persuades me differently. As you say, epic, "It really is ridiculous to me that someone could possibly think (truly) that what they believe is fact."

I hesitate to say it, but when I encounter a believer I have much the same visceral reaction that I have when I see someone at the poker table with one of those "balance" bracelets on (and it seems like there's one at every table). My thought is "here's someone incapable of rational thought."

There is a big difference between God and a god. To say a god does not exist is meaningless...to say God does not exist is trivial.

So you can have a lack of knowledge if that something doesnt exists?

Btw what god/ God are you talking about?

rules dood

I don't really understand your question. Is it some kind of protest against weak atheism? The method behind weak atheism (or rather my weak atheism) is dead simple:

Hypothesis: The Biblical God exists.
Falsification: Life on earth can not be readily explained by a 7 day creation event, burning bushes doesn't speak, there is no evidence of a great flood.

Conclusion: The hypothesis is falsified, the Biblical God does not exist.


Hypothesis: A god exists
Falsification: No falsification possible, there is no dependent variable

Conclusion: The hypothesis has no instrumental value

i started a post tonight, should check it out and see what type of people, in fact, have said this

Atheists don't need religion to be humane towards people. Morality is compassion for other humans inside your heart, it has nothing to do with religion. In fact, I think people without religion are often much more compassionate towards other humans. Religious people often have little love or sympathy for "other" kind of people. Some religious people have no problem disrespecting or even killing other humans if they have a different religion. There's little morality in that.

Actually atheists do kill people all of the time. They just define them to not be people and then figure everything is cool.

Atheists kill people all the time,
they just fancy words to avoid the problem.
War, collateral damage, death penalty etc