Do you really not see or agree with the idea that some invisible god's pronouncements of what is right and wrong, is anything but objective, but is the heighth of subjectivity and authoritarianism (these two, subjectivity and authoritarianism virtual opposites of objectivity)?

Lets say that someone touts injecting disinfectants to treat an illness, and claims that some spirit is informing him of its efficacy. Is this objective, this appealing to the spirit?

Lets say some zealots fly airplanes into buildings and claim some god is inspiring them to do this "right" thing. Does the appeal to a god mean that there action is objective?

Lets say that someone's god demands a sacrifice killing of children or maidens to "right" wrongs. Does it make it rational and objective that an almighty god is claimed to be behind it?

No. In millions of examples like this, the appeal to a supernatural god or spirit is completely anti-objective. That's blatantly obvious. But if one is indoctrinated to believe their particular spirit or god is "the true one," then they can't see that this appeal to god is totally irrational, subjective, authoritarian ... all of which actually flies in the face of objectivity.

I believe in God. Importantly, I think that belief in God is not inconsistent with a life based on logical deduction. However, I do not think that one needs to believe in God, either.

I do not believe in religion. I think one needs to be a moron to take the any religion seriously, and mentally ill to have a fundamentalist belief in a religion.

In sum, belief in God and belief in religion are separate concepts.

So the idea that there is a universal, ultimate right and wrong declared by god that is objective and non-arbitrary ... is inane. It's inane philosophically and logically and in just about every way except, "I'm in a cult where the one true god declares these things, never mind the thousands of other gods man also created, this is the ultimate right and wrong never to be questioned because my god is the really, really, really true god."

This amounts to the subversion of consciousness and a regress to primitive superstition in lieu of reasoned thought about the subject. What was right millennia ago? Why, sacrifice of animals, of course. The god(s) said it. What was right regarding non-virgin potential brides? Why, stoning them of course. God said so.

This standard of appeal to a god is evil in the world. It does evil. It produces evil. It allows evil. Instead of doing the work of producing a system of coherent morality that does not say, "Because god said so," we opt for this authoritarian fiction and call ourselves good for being a non-agent, for surrendering it to our particular chosen god.

All the gods are equivalent and they all come from the same place. If there was a one true god and created man in his image, why would he create him with a profound psychological need of being independent minded, but also lace him with this authoritarianism that amounts to, "Don't use your mind. Just believe and obey?" Man needs a strong ego for mental health. But exactly to the extent that he is employing that ego on matters of morality, he does not need a supernatural declaration about what is right and wrong. And exactly to the extent he doesn't employ that ego, he appeals to a supernatural perfect god that you never have to question. Amen.

The (genetically encoded) willingness to believe in a greater good/greater purpose was likely sharpened about 70,000 years ago. At that time it is estimated there were only 2000 **** sapiens in the world and, due to sustained harsh weather conditions, we were agonizingly close to extinction as a species.

It is postulated that these ancestors, who suffered severe hardships over many generations, were willing to sacrifice for the greater good as a direct consequence of this mental ability. The willingness to serve a greater purpose (and by extension a higher power) is believed to be encoded by the "God gene", and its existence is likely why we survived as a species.

We all do not possess it equally. But it is why so many are willing to believe in religion based on "faith", even to the point of being a cult member. Such individuals are likely as able to escape their addiction to religion as a genetically predisposed alcoholic can escape their fate. It is particularly interesting that drug/alcohol addicts often succeed in kicking their habit by becoming religion addicts (basically exchanging one mental failing for another).

The number of people who identify as Christian globally is in the billions. Christians need to spend more time actually trying to embody the Christian story (all of it, not just part) than trying to convert others.

Your post above is excellent, and I want to spend a day or three writing a succinct argument of why any Naturalistic epistemology is utterly futile.

Until then, could you please produce what you consider to be a persuasive deductive argument that has as its conclusion: "Killing human babies for fun is always morally wrong?" Thanks.

I am not aware of such an argument for anything other than maybe "I exist." Certainly not for something as complex as a specific moral claim about killing. This is true for theists just as much as atheists. I've talked about this in the past, but I reject foundationalism as a failed epistemic model and instead am a holist about justification. Similarly, I view moral systems as models for organizing our most general normative claims about human behavior and purpose in the world for coherence and generative capacity.

So in my own moral model I would say that all humans above a certain cognitive capacity should be treated as having inherent worth and dignity as value-creating entities. Our capacity to love, hate, create great works of art and thought, perform deeds like fly to the moon, and so on is part of what it means to be human and insofar as we value these capacities in ourselves we should value them in others. Killing anyone just for our own pleasure is incompatible with valuing that person's inherent dignity and worth.

But I wouldn't regard this argument as generally persuasive unless the most central claims of this framework were already accepted. Thus, if I was trying to actually persuade someone of this claim, I would first figure out their core moral commitments and then create an argument on that basis.

My life is precious to me. It is the only one I can directly experience. I would like my life to be as long and as enjoyable as possible. Therefore, killing me for no reason would be wrong. That is a cornerstone of my moral code.

Living in a social structure that does not value the life of another, let alone takes joy in wantonly ending the life of another, means the same can happen to me.

Therefore, I need to support a social structure that values the life of others, as such a social structure will also value my life. Such a society would be moral in my eyes. Therefore, no matter how much fun killing human babies may be, in order to protect my own life I will not kill human babies (for fun). As doing so would risk my life it would be amoral.

The more we get lost in the propositional and argumentation.. the further we get from truth.

The solution that Jesus gives to people doing evil is not to try to first convince them to believe in God and then once they believe in God, then they should follow the appropriate moral code. He says, “turn the other cheek” and “resist not evil”.

His solution is to expose themselves to themselves by not giving the evil-doers any justification via victimization. This is the response of someone who truly believes the Christian story, who believes that every individual has a divine connection, no matter if they say they believe in God or not.

"Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." Guess where? The Good Book. The God of Love. The God that would never be for killing of babies.

In this whole religious abortion debate, is not a soul too young for responsibility automatically going to heaven upon death? Or is that only in certain of the thousands of ridiculous sects? Because it seems this 100% chance of going to heaven is a lot better than growing to age, doing evil things like just being born and later all kinds of sin ... why not just go straight to heaven instead of ending up in hell ... via the abortion?

I'm curious to see your analysis of this piece of literature. Do you think God is the one who is saying it? Do you take it as a moral edict that one should execute? Who do you think "you" refers to? And what is the context of this statement?

There are ultimately two worldviews: Theism/Deism and Nihilism.

The essential characteristic of Theism/Deism is that the universe was created purposefully, and humans can understand it to some extent.

"The creation of the universe was an intentional act."

The essential characteristic of Nihilism is that the universe was NOT created purposefully, and there is no reason to think that we can understand it.

"The universe was not intentionally created."

I hope you're not expecting sound exegesis from Fella.

I think we've had this discussion before, you should change your mind here because you are clearly wrong. Yes, if you accept a Cartesian standard of "is it possible to doubt this conclusion?" then you will not be able to justify knowledge or morality as either a theist or an atheist. So you are forced to either (1) use a different standard, (2) accept beliefs about which you are uncertain, or (3) accept skepticism and nihilism.

Theists use either (1) or (2) to justify their beliefs in knowledge and morality. So do atheists. Then atheists accuse theists of using faith (i.e. some version of (2)) to justify their beliefs - because they are. Then theists accuse atheists of using faith (i.e. some version of (2)) to justify their beliefs in knowledge and morality - because they are as well.

Now, some village atheists don't like to admit this because they think faith is bad, but this is usually due to an insufficient grappling with the skeptical arguments of Descartes, Hume, and later philosophers. More thoughtful atheists will admit that there is nearly always a chance they are wrong (this includes New Atheists likes Dawkins and Harris fwiw). And of course some accept skepticism and nihilism.

Now, you want to come along and say, hey if you use the Cartesian standard of knowledge you can't (as an atheist) get past nihilism or skepticism. True! Also true for theists though. Theists get around this by using (1) or (2). Why can't atheists as well? You never say, because they clearly can.

The nice thing is that I don't have to expect anything. Maybe he writes something thoughtful, and everyone is surprised and there is a potential for meaningful conversation. Maybe he continues down his line of nonsense, and he meets the expectation and continues to show a complete absence of intellect. Either way, it's fine.

+1

You are missing, "theism/deism and humans cannot understand it* to any extent." Granted, this would make for an unpopular religion. Theism/deism does not require that humans are more than the detritus of creation or have any capacity for understanding it.

*I am assuming by "it" you mean "the act of creation whether purposeful or not" in the relevant places. Atheists generally seem to believe that we can understand the universe to some extent. For instance, I, to some extent,, understand lots of things, such as the importance of a good breakfast and also the maillard reaction.

In the spirit of debate night, I think I'll double down on that formulation I came up with. Since those before the age of responsibility's soul automatically goes to heaven, abortion is a terrific plan for the eternal life of the aborted. Besides, being kept from being born evil seems a good thing. Does the original sin thing start at birth or at conception? Inquiring minds want to know. I mean if you are going to have a supernatural religion, you need to have some idea how it plays out in non-supernatural circumstances (like the real world). The imaginary papa (if they had any sense at all it would be a mother, except, oh yeah, they were misogynist) source of morality does not hold weight in reality, only in the mind of the indoctrinated. Everybody else sees that it's just more made up religion ... as since nearly the dawn of man.

Prove me wrong.

Jesus never says things like this, never cops snarky when the religion is being challenged. Of course he didn't even believe in the religion that was concocted A.D. He'd never heard of it. What? I was born of a virgin?? Where did you get that? Oh, the same place Ra and Romulus and Caesar and Alexander the Great and Horus and so many others got it? Imagine that. Several even had the same birthday. MYTH.

"You brood of vipers... How can you who are evil say anything good?" -- Jesus.

I think you have to start with desire: is the world accommodating, hostile, or indifferent to our desires?

Nihilism says that the world is hostile to our desires. That is the essential characteristic. I would say that the ideas that the world is purposeless or unintelligible are possible secondary beliefs to the foundational belief that the world is hostile to our desires.

Desire is fundamental. Preferring a worldview that makes desire secondary for rational understanding is still ultimately in service to a hidden desire.

Your instructions are to give an account of why you believe what you believe, not to resort to ad hominem attacks when you have no effective reply. THAT is the context here.

If we are going to have silence on Ra and Romulus and Caesar and Horus and Alexander the Great by the faithful, and instead have nitpicking misdirection, I am going to move to cancel the religious forum.

On grounds of total insincerity. I used to think there were two categories of believers on this score. I don't anymore. If you lock yourself into a position -- say, that First Century medicine was perfectly omniscient too -- then what MUST come out of your mouth is not worth hearing.

Just as you are free to ignore my instructions, I'm free to ignore yours. I'm simply pointing out the fact that Jesus was actually quite snarky.

Pitiful. If anybody asks to give an accounting of what you believe, give it. Says the Good Book. You aren't free to ignore it.