Wouldn't that make you an agnostic, and not an atheist?

It depends on your definitions, but thats fine. It really changes nothing in what i said.

I just like to label people.

No problem i have a similar thing going. I respect Christians calling themselves Christians but in truth i consider all Christians religious Jews and just a sect of Judaism.

Here's your argument:

1) If morality is objectively true, humans must have an purpose.
2) If atheism is true, humans do not have an purpose.
3) Therefore if atheism is true, morality is not objectively true.

While this argument is valid, both (1) and (2) are false. (1) assumes that only teleological theories of morality can ground an objective morality. However, as even a casual knowledge of moral philosophy will show, this is false. For instance, according to Kant, and those who work within the Kantian moral tradition, morality is objectively true and is not based on the purpose of humanity.

(2) is also false. Utilitarianism claims that the end of human actions is utility. However, utilitarianism does not require that there be a God. Similarly, virtue ethics of an Aristotelian variety claim that there are objective facts about what kind of people are better (more virtuous), but does not ground these facts in the existence of a God.

Your response?

Here's a good example of what I mean People can't be bothered to think long and hard and work out their own moral codes based on reason and logic so they use other readily available moral codes as a crutch. This isn't about Islam so much as him being too lazy to think for himself. Preflop hand charts FTW. This applies to atheists as well.

The Kantians and the Utilitarians can claim anything they want. But I believe that moral claims are non-cognitive, and that only a Divine Command theory of morality is viable. I agree with Ayer, who basically said that "Stealing is immoral" essential means "I disapprove of stealing." From a human perspective, I think that ethics basically devolves into a "boo"/"hooray" theory: Stealing - "boo!," Philanthropy - "hooray!."
I think that God issues commands, and that's what constitutes "true" morality.

This response is not adequate. First of all, you claimed that objective morality was impossible in an atheistic worldview. Thus, you are saying that objective morality is incompatible with atheism. But now it is apparent that it is not. As long as someone is a moral cognitivist (as I am), then atheism and objective morality is compatible. It is no use saying that cognitivism is false. The issue is whether it is coherent.

Second, I would challenge your own justification for believing in moral objectivity. How could you? Since you believe that moral statements, even when voiced by God, are meaningless, in what sense are they objectively true? It seems to me that you are the one who doesn't believe in moral objectivity.

As I said in an earlier post, one cannot ascribe value to something unless you know (or assign to it) a purpose. If you didn't know that airplanes flew, then you would be unable to accurately assign a value to airplanes. A $100 bill would be virtually worthless to you if you didn't know that it had monetary value. It would just be a piece of paper with words and drawings on it.

In my worldview, to say that "x is moral" is essentially saying that "x is approved of by God." Morality is non-cognitive (within my worldview) in the sense that we can't "figure it out." It only has meaning because God gives it meaning.

Two comments:

First, you seem confused about the moral non-cognitivism thesis. Here is the summary from SEP:

If moral statements are meaningful (have a truth-value) in your worldview because they are given one by God, then you are not a noncognitivist. I.e. if you believe that it is true that rape is immoral, even if the reason you believe this is because God said, "Don't rape," then you are not a noncognitivist.

Second, your claim is inaptly put. When you say that if atheism is true, then objective morality is impossible, you don't mean that a belief in objective morality is inconsistent with atheism. Rather, you mean that assuming your account of morality being based on God is correct, which no atheist has any reason to assume, then if atheism is true there is no objective morality. In fact, most atheists reject your understanding of morality, since you unnecessarily (in their view) predicate it on the existence of an imaginary being.

Instructive post. Thank you for bringing my misconceptions to my attention.

Atheist = without belief, IMO. I don't believe there is enough compelling evidence to believe that any gods exist, but I certainly can't make the leap to say that I know that there are no gods (this is the same mistake theists make when they say they believe in a god).

I don't know if objective morality can exist and haven't done much studying in morality or philosophy, but that doesn't stop me from adopting a coherent moral framework based on some basic ideas (aggression against others is wrong except in self-defense aka non-aggression principle, people own their own bodies aka self-ownership, people can own property, people have a right to the fruits of their own labor, and interactions and transactions between people should be voluntary).

just wanted to quote this to give you kudos for being able to admit you were wrong about something. not very common!

Original Position, I'd be curious for your take on my approach to setting up something of an atheistic objective morality from a philosophical point of view, which probably starts from a subjective premise, but then can continue from there. I'm perferctly ok with you telling me I'm full of bunk. I've posted it before but can't reall if you responded. Here' s the possibly subjective premises that must be agreed to by the society:


Here's how I put it in another thread:

Just because there is no absolute source granting morality doesn't mean we can't logically deduce moral principles that mean something.

I've said this several times on this site, and I'm open to criticism: human beings are not self sufficient: we need other humans to achieve our goals. What are those goals? If we break it down they are to survive, thrive, and be happy. If someone does not share those goals I suppose the following won't apply, but I would argue that these goals apply to the vast number of human beings on this planet.

Once we accept those goals, we can develop moral principles through logic. In that sense, they become objective. Hitler's policies could never meet the goals of surviving, thriving and being happy: if everyone followed Hitler's methods humans would be stuck on survival, and never get to thriving and being happy. We see this in other places around the world that are mired in perpetual war.

Similarly, we can derive morals relating to suffering. In order to achieve those goals, we must reduce suffering.

We can go on, but I hope my basic hypothesis is clear. Would appreciate comments. I'm not a philosopher.

Apprciate your thoughts!

I know very little about moral philosophy, so I am afraid my question is very basic.
What I have trouble understanding is why it is such a big deal if our moral system is objective or not.
Subjective would not necessarily mean that each person has his radically different moral framework.
Aesthetic and culinary preferences are widely shared among members of homogenous societies, and they are obviously not grounded in anything objective;
why is it not enough to share a subjective moral system based on preference?

I broadly agree that it probably doesnt matter. However, I think it raises questions of our justice system - locking people up to prevent future crime might still be reasonable, but many people feel that part of putting people in jail is to 'punish' them, not as a preventative/protective measure (including requiring punishment beyond persuading others not to commit similar crimes). You're not necessarily committed to 'justice requires punishment' but many people who are subjectivists do believe that. How do you justify punishing someone for making a different subjective judgement from you?

Thank you. I'm wrong a lot, so I get plenty of practice.

Aliens

Agree without Arouet, although I don't think it's even necessary for humans to depend on one another to develop a logical moral system.

what if animals have religion too but they just can't tell us?

I would think the same question could be asked of people who have different objective morality's.

If there is an objective morality it is generally presumed to be unique, so there aren't people with different objective moralities - there are people who are mistaken about what it is. If you believe your moral code is objectively correct and verifiable, there is a distinction between choices made regarding how to act and whether to abide by that objective morality and expressed preferences of food flavors (to use one of skalf's examples).

I don't think it's impossible, but I wonder how subjectivists distinguish between the choice one has made regarding what's right and the choice one has made regarding what food you prefer - since one warrants punishment and the other doesnt. Is it a case of being justified through force - society's code is no more right or wrong than the criminal's code, but the law enforcer has the weight of the state behind them so they can punish him? I doubt that would be the preferred answer.

Maybe in an idealistic world that might be but the reality is no two objective morality's are the same so people still have to justify there differing objective morality's to each other and decide what deserves punishment.
Because ones not a moral question so they are different.

This.

It will get harder and harder to believe in a God as humans become like Gods themselves in the future (provided we don't wipe ourselves out). I could see religion being gone in 100 years, maybe even 50 if there's a singularity by then which is possible (and if our technological society doesn't collapse into another dark age, which I do personally believe overpopulation, ecological destruction, and global warming will cause this to happen).

I think im missing your point but i just wanted to and to this anyway. Even if by some miracle everyone agreed on an objective truth for all moral questions there still has to be justification and subjective reasoning to determine what punishments are dealt out. I mean say everyone agreed adultery is morally wrong. We still all need to subjectively decide if there should be a punishment and subjectively decide what that punishment should be and justify our reasoning based on that subjectivity.

So the question could be asked how do people who believe in objective morality justify their subjective punishments or non punishments to each other sense the punishment given out doesn't have an objective truth.