I think you take it a bit too far. Without God there can still be moral objectivity. It's a fallacy to say there would be no reference point, or we couldn't make rational moral decisions.

You might counter and say that assuming that secular morality is possible, it would be imperfect if not based on a perfect God. However, even with God in the picture, as imperfect humans we could never understand God, and would only have an imperfect idea of what is considered moral or not moral. The problem of imperfection remains.

I think its a jump to say everything becomes a free for all - that is a fallacy of excluding the middle.

We can have a morality based on humanity flourishing - derived from rational thinking, even with out God. A secular objective ethic is possible and the possibility of such is necessary to allow if there is a dialog between secular and religious.

I understand that you disagree. Of course, I am well aware there are people that believe there is eternal life after death.

My main point is that there are THOSE that DO NOT have this belief and thinks we just cease to exist afterwards. This essentially means that from their perspective, they should live according to that belief.

We can invent morals and say that these rules exist. But who's to say these rules are truly right or wrong since they evolve over time? To me, morals evolving over time clearly indicates that it is never lasting. - logical.

Are morals just rules that were passed down from our cultures? Where did they come from? If this is the case, then eventually we can conclude that morals just came from another human being (an ancestor).

I do understand that we can base it off humanity flourishing. There are problems with this though. One can believe that the sacrifice of X lives can be the benefit of humanity flourishing. One can believe that genocide to a weaker population or "inferior race" will be beneficial to the human race in the long run.

What does "live according to that belief mean"? I am guessing that for you, it means do what you want, **** everyone else, dont care for others, cause pain and suffering if you feel like it. But why does a belief in no afterlife necessarily lead to that?

If no afterlife means that meaning is arbitrary, then you are just as free to choose being nice to people or anywhere in between.

That's the thing. My guess is that most of the time, when one does not believe in the after life yet choose to be nice to people are ones that just haven't really put much thought into what are world really is (living in a bubble). As they experience life and they do realize this, they stray away and become a bit more corrupted - "**** everyone else". Obviously, there are people that don't believe in the afterlife yet they believe in karma for this reason they may avoid screwing people.


Many people that hold the view that we're animals view animals as a way to rationalize their "**** everyone else" mentality. It's because observing animals, they do live by the "**** everyone else" to survive.

FYI, I do not hold this view but have found people that do and I'm trying to understand them along with people who have screwed others to benefit themselves. If one does not believe in the afterlife, what does one have to fear if they konw they can get away with it on Earth?

This is just a theology that i found in some people. To me, logically it does make some sense if i were to put myself in the shoes of a person that doesn't believe in the afterlife.

I dont know, I feel like you still have to show why "no afterlife" always leads to "**** everyone else"

Because if it wasn't creation, then our world was evolved. And this essentially tells us that the real objective in life is to survive and procreate. This leads to the fact that the best way to survive and procreate will inevitably lead to the suffering of someone else.

Sure you can survive and procreate without harming someone else, but you won't be the best at it.

I think of naturalism in epistemology as saying that we should restrict our basic ontology and claims to knowledge to the results of science. People who oppose naturalism usually do so because they think that science can't get us something else that they want in their ontology, whether it be morality, or god, or abstract mathematical objects, immortality, etc. and so we need to have some additional nonscientific way of knowing that will make it so that we can know whatever it is we want to add to our ontology that science isn't giving us.

The point I'm making here is that if we are giving up on naturalism enough to let in god+morality, then we can also let up on our naturalism to allow in one of the varieties of morality with no god attached.

Now, with that being said, I think the reason a lot of naturalists end up being atheists and moral irrealists (although not typically nihilists) is because they accept the basic picture of the universe given to us in physics as correct and also think that there is no moral or god phenomena that needs to be explained. Lots of people have very strongly-held beliefs that morality is somehow objective and that there is some kind of divine being, and those beliefs need an explanation, but there isn't some kind of moral or divine phenomena in need of explanation.

But of course, lots of people who are naturalists do still accept moral realism or mathematical Platonism, or even of some kind of theism. So, for instance, in the PhilPapers survey of professional philosophers, it is true that naturalists are more likely to reject moral realism and theism than non-naturalists. However, of self-described naturalists, 54% accept moral realism compared to 38% who accept moral anti-realism. 39% are Platonists about abstract objects while 50% are nominalists. And 8% are theists compared to 85% who are atheists.

So I remain unconvinced that there is some close derivation from naturalism to nihilism.

I don't think the bolded is correct at all. Why would you think it is? Most of the atheists I know think their lives have purpose and meaning. Sure, they don't think this purpose or meaning comes from a supernatural being, but that also don't think a supernatural being is required for their lives to be meaningful. So at least in practice I don't think arguments against theism lead to nihilism.

As for your last statement, I continue to think that the basic error made by Christians who claim that without God life is meaningless is to suppose that the only kind of meaning or significance that can matter is "ultimate" meaning or "ultimate" significance. They'll generally acknowledge that things can be subjectively meaningful to me--a good family, success in a career, etc. They'll just say that the only kind of meaning that matters is "ultimate meaning" which usually means what matters to God, or what will matter forever. I've never seen a good argument for this claim, (although this was a good try).

This is based on a misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution doesn't imply that the real objective in life is to survive and procreate.

thanks for the response OrP.

I've read my Joseph Campbell and I agree our western lifestyle has lost touch with the spiritual world. It still doesn't convince me that the human race knows what comes next. It convinces me that there were some cultures that were more comfortable with what they thought might come next.

Humans aren't equal. All morality is subjective. The fact that you say a certain morality--say, the morality of Christianity, or the morality of Islam--is higher, doesn't make it so. What makes it so are our faculties of logic and reason.

Your paragraph above that begins with "I can't think . . . " is, for me, gobbledegook. Nobody understands why the universe is here or why it came into being. To me, it doesn't make any difference. It's here, that's all that matters.

"For morality to exist there must be something higher, more authoritative that humans."

How do you determine who or what that authority is?

Do they? There are plenty of animals that live as social groups and benefit by doing so.

Because we know that living in a world like that where everyone would be doing that would suck. It's ultimately in our best interest to not steal or kill each other at the drop of a hat because we don't want the same thing to happen to us.

And how does one's belief in an afterlife help prevent people from doing bad things to each other? According to Christianity at least, all one has to do is confess ones sins and the slate is magically wiped clean.

Nonsense, the fact that we evolved to be the social animals we are says otherwise. That we get along and work together by-and-large shows that that is a more effective way to benefit our species rather than living as solitary individuals trying to undermine one another any chance we can get. Besides, don't you ever feel good just by doing good? Even to random strangers, if it's so much as holding the door for the person behind you?

Living in a world like that sucks? I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm saying what SUCKS is the people that HOLD these views deep down inside. And that is mainly what I'm trying to get at. I really believe that this particular view is what makes certain people harm others for brief moments of pleasure. Especially when it's premediated.

You don't teach that view to the world and "live in that world". That's crazy. I personally DO NOT hold this view but I think it's a bit dangerous if other people hold that view and believe that that is the reality of life.

It's the mentality "i do what I want, but I won't cross the redline to harm others because of fear incarceration"

Why is it when fear of incarceration is gone and the world goes nuts looting,killing, raping etc...? I feel like it's because deep down inside, they'll do it because they feel they know they can get away with it.

Sure, you can be a very good atheist all your life and have morals, I obviously feel much safer to be around you. But fyi, not everyone thinks the same way. Believe it or not, there are people that believe we're just a speck of dust and everything that happens on this planet is meaningless because of entropy.

Lets say it's the end of humanity and everything on this planet. Our radio waves gets distorted the further it gets further out to space. If no species is out there to witness our existence and decipher our radio waves, did we ever exist?

If all morality is subjective then no one's morality has any relevance or connection to anyone else's and there can be no sense to any idea of one morality being higher than another. This bypasses the fact that the idea of subjective morality is itself incoherent.

I think it's unusual to consider that a spark plug (or any inanimate non-conscious thing) has meaning. You're describing an object's function as its meaning? Are you saying that your own meaning is something that is as yet unknown, but eventually, perhaps at the end of your life, you will look back on what you did (your function in life) as being your meaning or purpose?

The more I think about the meaning of meaning, the less sense it makes. And I'm afraid you haven't added anything so far that has helped, either! "One's purpose is whatever one did" is not very satisfactory.

Can you shed any more light on this mysterious meaning of life?

The second paragraph covers that. Nothing can have meaning apart from God's plan. In a general sense I can talk about the meaning of the individual - that we are created in his image and designed to have a personal relationship with him, and that we will be blessed with eternal joy forever. But I don't know specific details about how any individual fits into that plan.

NR, may I suggest you read the whole of what OrP posted. You will find some interesting things there RE: moral responsibility:

"Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.....Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole.

In other words, for each moral choice you make, you are saying that this is how man as a whole should behave. Responsibility? fugetaboudit.

It's dissapointing because every time I see you talk about exestentialism, it's as if you've simply cribbed talking points from christian apologists. Personally, I don't know if I'm well versed enough in any one philosophy to say that I live my life by it, but I've read quite a bit of sartrian existentialism, and think it would be a fine way to live one's life.

experiences are important because they are the foundation of any true spirituality. you either experience something yourself or you buy into a system built around the experience of another, or a combination of both. the day-to-day life that we all live has nothing in it that would inspire a sudden spiritual awakening, so we need that "other" experience to set a spark.

i would find it impossible to define spirituality in a way that you (at a guess) would find acceptable. but fwiw i believe in a soul or spirit within that roughly equates with our truest identity, which if connected with, nurtured etc. is capable of bringing about change in an individual toward those goals of "goodness" and "holiness", and can cause a person to have spiritual experiences such as visions etc. a person who has made that initial connection or awakening and is acting on it to any extent i would call spiritual.

imo a lot of old beliefs are based on an introspective study of the human spirit, and were brought about in some cases by elaborate ceremonies and techniques designed to elicit certain responses from deep in the human psyche, from parts of the mind or brain that we no longer access in the life we are today living, because they are not needed to board a train, write a report, sit in a board meeting, bathe our young children, talk on the phone to a friend, type into our internet message board etc. etc.

we live a life that essentially has no practical need to tap into any of the spiritual faculties or resources present in the human condition, and so most of us are of the false but perhaps justified belief that there is no such thing to tap into. why is it a bad thing? obviously that would depend on what you believe.


i wouldn't go so far as to say anybody knows what comes next, but imo there are clues and guidelines if you look in the right places, and we are not totally in the dark to the point where anybody's pure guesswork is as good as it gets.

ok, that makes sense, although I would disagree with some of what you have said here.

If a soul or spirit is our true identity, what is it that is connecting with, or nurturing, the soul or spirit? Our false identity?

in my opinion, although spirituality has become about attaining goals of "goodness" and holiness" ( which is impossible, because attaining goals, and being good, are targets, achievements, of an ego, a mind that thinks in terms of self and other, characteristics( i am good, I am holy) and identity), real ( lol) spirituality, is simply the realisation that the self doesnt exist, and so there is no self to have the label "good" attached, no self which tries to be "holy". No such thing as good, or holy, either.



The point is not that you need to do some special things to be spiritual, that you tap into some special faculty or resource , or have a supernatual experience, and that only "special" people can do it. Its that we are ALWAYS already there, but just dont realise it.

even when we "board a train, write a report, sit in a board meeting, bathe our young children, talk on the phone to a friend, type into our internet message board etc. etc."

the clues and guidlines, as far as I can tell, are just made up nonsense by people who knew nothing, or who misinterpreted clues and guidlines from people who may have had some realisations. Unless you can show me otherwise? What clues and guidelines do you go by? And how do you differentiate them from other equally plausible claims?

That quote itself indicates the problem. It proposes a moral standard without giving the grounds. It seeks to place a heavy burden of moral responsibility on everyone without answering the question why I should care what he says or giving the source of his authority. If all is permitted then I'm permitted to deny all responsibility.

Do you see how you contradict yourself here?

You should observer animals better.

This is sorta what I mean. Why would you assume there are no grounds? I just quoted you an excerpt, it wasnt meant to encompass the whole of existentialist philosophy. The point in my quoting was to show you that existentialists DO believe in moral responsibility.

No. How?

The issue isn’t about how we derive an objective moral code; it’s about what binds one to, or justifies one in, adhering to it. For that, the existentialist needs to go beyond merely saying that each and every one of us is responsible to mankind as a whole, just because it sounds like a fine way to live one’s life. He needs to believe that ‘ontically, mankind is a whole’.