Loss of memory of an act doesn't mean loss of personality or habits. Case in point: There are probably thousands of acts you have forgotten doing, but the vast majority of them you'd probably be likely to commit again. The most basic principle of psychology: Behavior repeats itself. In fact memory loss is not too uncommon in murders, since it is often is a traumatic event for the murderer. Psychosis isn't uncommon either, and that often goes side by side with memory loss or altered memories.

Even patients of dementia retain portions of their personality or will have clear moments. It is also not uncommon for dementia patients to gain less inhibitions. A violent murderer with dementia isn't necessarily a safer person than he was before dementia. So I'd say say the verdict is still a go. Still, having dementia could of course mean that the process of being in jail could be construed as a different punishment than intended or having no effect. That's a good argument for forced admission to a psychiatric facility as opposed to jail.

Now, my answer might not be rooted in some formal moral theory. But personally I don't think that is something to fret about. Moral acts and considerations should also follow evidence.

Can you remember a time before you experienced/lived, where the 'lights were out'?

If your life happened once, what's to stop it from happening again? Apart from our very rudimentary understanding of the universe and assumptions around whether it's infinite.

I don't think so but I am not sure what you mean. At this point I don't have a good reason to believe in the afterlife or prefer one religious explanation over another. In other words why is Jesus' Heaven more likely than Hinduism's reincarnation? Ultimately, we don't know what happens on the other side. Considering though that there is a rotting corpse in the grave I think it is a fair assumption that nothing happens. Consciousness ceases permanently

I don't quite follow you here. Do you mean my exact life to happen again or are you referring to reincarnation?

I assume if my life happened again I would have no recollection of my current life. Therefore it wouldn't really be me would it?

I don't know if this is true or not.


So morality devolves into something about power? Might makes right? What if the Nazis were right and we did a horrible evil by beating them? I'm not suggesting this, but you can't really give me a good reason why, it seems. Not only that, there are a growing minority of idiots on earth who actually believe this.



So morality is consensus then? That can't be so, because the Nazis agreed what they were doing was right. I agree with you that moral enforcement is partially social, but it's not sufficient for me to the requirement of moral accountability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector

Kind of a similar story that Hitchens talks about in one of his books. I watched a Youtube video the other day where Hitchens talked about this situation with Rector. He shot himself prior to being apprehended and then was later sentenced to the death penalty. I think this only became news because president Clinton went back to Arkansas to witness the execution as part of his campaign in '92.

Hey! Glad to hear from you again.

I used to listen to the athiest experience semi-regularly. One of the good aspects of the show was a forum for which previously religious people would talk about their conversion experiences, and some of the emotions and challenges that came with it. From what I can tell, experiences varied wildly. Some people experienced a sense of tremendous loss and anxiety, that the shedding of the superstition might be logically demanded but that they didn't wish for it. Others found far more beauty and calm in the transition. It was really all over the map. I personally was always glad aesthetically the universe seems to be one in which humans made god and not the other way around.

Hey Man.

Yeah I transitioned to not believing slowly over a long period of time so it was not really emotional or traumatic. There is a sense of relief that comes with it. I don't need to worry about heaven and hell and a final reckoning. I don't need to worry about what God wants me to do with my life etc.

It is hard to explain but there is a void. There was a certain depth available to me as a Christian. Being able to pray or sing worship songs and connect to the maker of the Universe was deeply personal. There was more deep meaning to my life and the world made sense.

However, I think once you start asking questions and go down the road of skepticism there is no turning back. I don't regret anything it is maybe similar to looking back at the innocence of childhood with fondness.

PS. even as a Christian I had a lot of cognitive dissonance which is what ultimately drove me away from believing.

Good answer. Lots to unpack here.
Consciousness cannot cease in any meaningful way. You can't know nothingness. You can't experience non-experience. There is only experience.

Yea I am not saying one can know nothingness. I mean you are dead. No one is home. The lights are off. Nothing.

EDIT: I guess you could call it going from experience to an eternal state of non experience.

That is the cause of the existential angst. All of your life: memories, dreams, fears, love is all over. It would be the same as if you never existed. Of course save for whatever mark you left behind.

Of all the horrors in the world the worst, according to me, is the Venezuelan government's refusal to accept foreign aid. They'd rather let their people starve than submit to a conspiracy. Bombs falling out of the sky onto people huddled in basements? Standard. A minority kicked out of Burma bec the Nobel winner can't control the military? Standard.

I am going to deal w/ all of this by making merry at Saturday's excursion to play poker where I'm going to treat myself to TWO glasses of over priced cabernet.

I think it's that this is all a waste of time if there's nothing more. And it's even worse if we're being made to sit through a lousy 'movie' in which we have nothing to do except watch the awful plot play out.

out of curiosity, would you say this forum played a role?

Oh yes certainly. When I first started posting (as you perhaps remember) I was very active and saw myself as saving the lost

I came here ready to answer questions and debate people into seeing the light. I was met with some staunch criticism and very good counter arguments that I had never thought of.

I was born and raised as a Christian and my family was even missionaries in Asia. I had never really critically looked at my faith. Sure I had some rebellious years as a teen but I never really doubted Christianity...it was as true as gravity.

Anyway talking with people in RGT was the first time I really debated ahteists and hence had to question my own faith. Previous to this I had talked to many street people about Jesus and done evangelism and whatnot. However, I had never been met with some of these really tough arguments as I was faced with on RGT. I still wasn't an atheist but that began my mind working in a more skeptical way. It probably took 5 years or so from then for me to finally get to the point where I would say I am not a Christian.

If you can't experience non-experience it doesn't exist. It's slightly like saying, there is an invisible and undetectable gnome living in my closet but I can't perceive or experience the gnome in any way....but he still exists.

Failing the logical argument, what evidence is there of this eternal state of non-existence? You can't a remember a time in which you experienced this eternal state. Yet, the state exists.

Very cool. I will say (and I remember this pretty vaguely) that I have a pretty positive recollection of your interactions on this forum, particularly in that you were regularly at least trying to internalize your opponents points and much less of the typical talking past each other that can occur too often (ex this thread). Having an open mind is just so crucial for so many things, yet we probably all fail at this far more than we like to let on.

Then any appeal to the rightness or wrongness of an act is begging the question. Remember how this conversation started: an atheist claimed to be a moral person and I called him out for being inconsistent. No one has yet justified an atheistic and especially deterministic/naturalistic view of rightness and wrongness. OrP has come the closest, but just not quite.



Now we're back to pointing out facts about how people live. I wholeheartedly agree that most atheists live as if there is an objective morality. The problem is they cannot explain sufficiently why it is they do.

I agree, but the crux of the question is not how people act or how most people feel. The question is why is it good to increase human flourishing? Because we're human? That is tautology.


Certainly I can. Acting consistently (integrity) follows from thinking consistently. If you are an atheist that believes in right and wrong, you haven't even started down the runway to living consistently yet. I don't even know if it's possible to live like a nihilist. The closest I can come to is a serial killer or Walter White type character, but both have elements of pure hedonism.

It's certainly not totally akin to a physical law, as we are not free to disobey those. Gravity is real and if you attempt to disobey it you will fail. Other laws can supersede those laws though (such as Bernoullis).

I believe it is a feature of the universe in that it exists. I also think that if it exists but we are not bound to it then it exists 'without teeth'

It's like a law against speeding. If there are no consequences for speeding, and no one to hold you accountable, then the prescription is pointless.


It might be, I'll have to think more about this.

That's the question.

Reward and punishment aren't necessary, but an afterlife is.

Not so. You and I appear to mean different things by moral statements. Yours has this ultimate deistic grounding, mine is local and transient. When you or I make an utterance like "it is wrong to murder children", while we are using the same language we mean somewhat different things by it. But that doesn't mean I am begging the question, because I am still referring to the local and transient sense in which I interpret and understand morality. If you wish, you can frustrated that I borrow moral terminology and wish we had different linguistic words, but that is very different.





Consistency is the wrong word. When I make a moral argument, I can be entirely consistent in my understanding of morality. That I agree there isn't some cosmic ultimate justification of why we should care about human flourishing might declaw

I've never met someone who doesn't care about human flourishing, although I'm aware rare cases of this exist. So we can presuppose that, and get to arguing about specific issues where my arguments where if I am clever and empathetic perhaps they will be persuasive and change the mind of my fellow humans. Whether the moral imperative of increasing human flourishing is or is not a fundamental property of the universe doesn't affect this. My arguments are exactly as persuasive or unpersuasive to the fellow human who values human flourishing.

Let me make it more personal. You presumably believe in human flourishing. Do you think it is impossible that I could present an argument on why some specific action should be taken in pursuit of this goal that persuades you? If yes, I have no reason to care about the "grounding" issue.

No one ITT has yet claimed to be a nihilist. You are imposing that we must be - against our objections. Yet, presumably you believe that none of us are serial killers of walter whites. You have a bad imagination. I'd presume I live a life that behaviourally is on par with a standard reasonably moral life in our society.

Please reiterate.



So are you assuming an instructor then? It seems you agree with me about accountability with this analogy.



Ok, so why is rationally willing anything preferable? Animals don't have rational will and they seem to get along just fine. In fact, it seems on the face to be humans messing with the equilibrium with their silly little rational wills. I can think of a lot of ways the universe would be better off without humans altogether.

Does it? You're assuming that there is a good and bad that exists and is not only attainable but preferable to obtain than not via rationality. I can think of a dozen examples right off the top of my head where it would be better had rational will not existed. This also presupposes some form of libertarian free will (as I think compatibilism is nonsense). Whereby can determined beings have a rational will?

This sentence doesn't make sense. The non-existence of morality is compatible with the existence of an objective morality?



This is really in the eye of the beholder though, isn't it?

It might be much better too. "I think I'm dumb, or maybe just happy."

It's really quite interesting you're so devoted to Kant; Kant himself came up with the moral argument I am making.

You strike me as someone who does not believe in objective morality. Do you agree with this definition: moral oughts that exist independent of the subjects they apply to?

You need to get out more.

I'll answer the rest of this once I'm clear on your view about the definition of objective morality.

The use of the word supersede here is not a good choice. This seems to imply that gravity is "overruled" in some sense. It's not. It's still there even if you're in a plane.

Okay.

First, there can be consequences for speeding relative simply to speeding and not due to some external agency. For example, you are more likely to lose control of your vehicle if you are speeding. This is simply a consequence of speeding. Do you view this as a form of "accountability" as well?

Because of this fact, it may not be pointless to have such a prescription. Let's use the prescription of brushing your teeth. There are consequences for failing at dental hygiene. Nobody actually holds you accountable. But is the prescription that one should brush their teeth a pointless one as a result?

This is a bold assertion. How would you support this claim?

There have been no appeals to Christian doctrine or the Christian worldview in any one of my posts. Kant made this exact argument and came to the conclusion that God and an afterlife must exist. It has nothing to do with Christianity.

You seem to believe that even if God does not exist, He was necessary and with his death we are somewhat screwed. This is very Nietzchean, and I wholeheartedly agree if this is what you are saying.



I'm not foisting my worldview on anyone. This conversation came about when an atheist claimed to be a good person and I asked him what is good? My assertion is that there is no good and bad if you are an atheist. There have been a few weak attempts at establishing objective moral oughts in an atheistic worldview. OrP comes the closest by the positing of a moral realm. I am merely pressuring determinists and atheists to be more consistent with their thoughts. It's very similar to athestic moral judgements of religious writings. By what standard are you judging Gods actions wrong?

That is my claim: It's the natural, consistent logical conclusion of atheism. Nietzche thought the murder of God was a horrible thing: 'there is not enough water to wash away the blood,' and came up with his ubermensch in response. Camus concluded life was absurd. Sartre, Russel all agree that morality is not real. It is well known that there is a crisis in moral philosophy, and I believe we are getting to the heart of why that is in this thread.

Fair enough, but in fact Bernouills principle is stronger than gravity in this instance.





I probably do, yes, but it's not sufficient.

Reality does. However brushing your teeth is less a moral ought than not speeding imo.


Because then physical death is an escape from moral obligation and accountability. I can blow up 20 people including myself and I 'get away with it.'

And how are you deciding what's a moral ought and which isn't?

This doesn't seem like a meaningful response to the question. I don't see why your statement supports the claim that an afterlife is necessary.

You've failed to meaningfully engage with the last several of my posts. The line of reasoning I laid out in my last post is not dependent upon my "definition of objective morality". Or if it is, substantially engage with that post and demonstrate where - exactly - you require that definition before you could possibly continue.

We have different notions of morality. I'm sure we will have different notions of objective morality too, and probably what it means for morals to "exist" as per your definition. But that is irrelevant for the point I described and you have yet to respond to.