Pot...Kettle Alert!!!

I might be even older than you: I'm 63. (Maturity wise, I'm about 12 )

If atheism was true, then each individual could establish their own moral standard. To put it another way, if atheism was true, moral claims would essentially be subjective to each individual. Some Moral Philosophers have been dubbed this notion the "Boo-Hooray Theory", to wit: "Give money to the poor...YAY!!!... Rape...BOO!!!" In such a system, every man is a law unto himself.

More technically, the above idea is known as the Emotive Theory of Ethics (the theory promoted by A. J. Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic. In other words, moral claims, unlike scientific claims, are about the individual making the claim, not a claim about some reality external to the person.

Sure my morality is about me and so is the colour of my eyes. Morality is more complex and requires more introspection/analysis then simple physical attributes but we still dont get to make it up. It evolved witihin a reality that is external from the person.

So this is false in practice if not in principle.

Yes.

Of course you can "make it up".

Right. But if the evolution process began as an unintended, unguided, accidental process, then everything than comes forth from that process is also unintended, unguided and accidental. Morality is subjective in the sense it is defined by the mind of the individual, as opposed to corresponding to some external reality.

In evolution were true, then we would just be bags of chemicals. The chemistry in my brain determined that I would be a Christian, and the chemistry in d2_e4's brain determined that he'd be an atheist.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY, BABY!

No I really can't. Nor can I grow another leg.

Yes and no. There's no director but not everything is equally fit.

and yet evolved by fitness functions which are properties of the external world. Run it many times and the solution set will not be remotely like {anything}

Sure but as above the chemistry of brains is evolved within an external reality.

MATHS for the good life! chemistry is just stuff.

Do you believe that you have free will?

Well, at least you won't mock me for declaring, "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, BABY! LET THIS COVID THINGY BLOT OUT THE OLD AND THE SICK AND WEAK SO WE CAN GET THIS EVOLUTION THINGY ON THE FAST TRACK!!!"

Ok.

Ok. So, no free will?

That's a different issue. Maybe I can choose what to do but I cant just chose who I am.

I might not mock but that's not how it works. I dont worship evolution, i'm evolved to care about other people - so are you.

Still a different issue. It's still about choosing what to do rather than just choosing who we are.

LOL. No, I've always known that, but I guess I've mostly thought of it more in terms of an easier way to deal with death, misfortune, etc. I don't have a whole lot of devoutly religious people in my circles, so haven't encountered a whole lot of the "Bible is literal (except when it's not)" mentality before, and it made me think more about it governing their entire lives.

I hate to break this to you, but that's sort of the way it already is. There is something of a societal morality that the vast majority share, with of course overlapping areas - for some it is enforced by religion, laws, their family and peers, or a combination of all of those. No god or religion is needed for humans to have a moral code in common, and no god or religion prevents even their followers from not following parts of their own moral code.

In other words, individuals always have, and always will, establish(ed) their own moral standards. But because there are common laws, religions, community standards, those moral standards have a lot in common for most people. Some people need more help in that regard than others, so I'm glad they have religion if it helps them be better people.

Actually the debate topic was :

D2 : The only reasonable position regarding God is atheism.

RF : I don't think that's correct. I think you have to stay agnostic as there is some evidence indicating there may be a God and the concept is much too vague to hand wave away. In my experience people conflate God and religion in such a way that it's almost impossible to debate the issue anyway.

QP: Scientology proves that humans suffer form selection bias. RF sucks !!


That would only be a gotcha if I was arguing that one specific set of beliefs regarding God is true.
I haven't argued that any specific set of beliefs is true. Only that there is evidence of God in the most general sense and that evidence is actually empirical by definition.
It's a pretty small claim. But fanatics won't allow for it. Which is the whole interesting nugget in this God topic. Or any vague ideology for that matter. A man will die for an idea as long as he doesn't actually understand much about it.

Did someone call Monty a feminine version of Miles Crane itt ?

Someone did, but not ITT. Monte brought it here. Clearly wearing it as a badge of honour.

It's runny because...well, it's a funny statement.
But also, I can picture Monty as Niles.

Is this performance art, bro?

OK. Here you go:


https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=2878

Here it is in your own words, from three years ago:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...4&postcount=22


lag, you're not very good at lying. And Jesus doesn't like it --maybe you should stop doing that and apologize to all of us? I know you really, really hate gay people, but it's still not okay to lie.

Life is art.

But no. It's plagiarism.

Hahahahaha. Pwned.

Lagtight - lying is bad, mmmkay? Baby Jesus is very sad with you now.

I meant that you talk about general/vague notions of what you believe, then in the next breath criticise those who would die on the hill of something they don't know much about.

It's not likely that an agnostic is going to die for his beliefs.

In fact we've examined both theistic and atheistic mass slaughters itt.

Shall we but agnosticism to the same test ?

No, we have discussed mass slaughters in the name of theism and mass slaughters by those who happen to be atheists. I'm sure you can find mass slaughters by those who happen to be agnostic, much as you can find mass slaughters by those who happen to have brown hair. Do you see the distinction? Or do you have an example of where atheists committed mass slaughters against others because their victims believed in god?

Nah, it's been pointed out that atheism was an official position in the old USSR when the slaughters took place.

But I'm open for evidence of fanaticism inspired by agnosticism.

Ok, and? Are you now saying is that atheism is what caused or inspired the slaughters? Because I think it's communism. I don't really hear much about other extremist atheist groups going out committing murders, so I don't think atheism is what caused it. Whereas, you know, communist regimes worldwide are known for being partial to a bit of mass murder of political opponents.

If the commies purged the church, it's because it was politically expedient, not because they had some deep-seated hatred of those who believed in god.

Whether that counts as evidence is unclear to me but it a pretty standard position. Even among people who identify as god believing christians or ... it's quite common for them have a very general/vague idea of god rather than anything defined in the way D2 demands or that we commonly see on the interthingy.

Good stuff.

Amazing how something good emerged from our steaming pile of posts