How To Make An Atheist Cry

They don’t all weep. Some of them are giddy with gnostic bliss, so happy to be one of the elite that know more than anyone else — the ones with the “secret knowledge” of how the world really works, unlike the masses of stupid, blind people who don’t.
But I’ve noticed also that a lot of them are angry. They are furious with God, who doesn’t exist. I think that’s a bit silly. I don’t believe in Hindu gods, and it has never occurred to me to be angry with them. I once asked someone why he was angry with God, if God didn’t exist, and asked if that showed he DID believe that God existed, because you can’t be angry with someone you don’t believe in. He said, “No.” So then I asked him what he wanted to do that he knew God would say no to, and he ended the conversation.

Yes, without the wise moral council of religion, we wouldn’t know that the right punishment for adultery is stoning to death, would we!

– Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping and gnashing of teeth; there will be hot, bitter tears; there will cries of anguish and hurt feelings. There will be charges of hate. There will be calumny!

I can tell your proposition is wrong because this atheist does not react as you presume. When I hear it, first I laugh. Then I ask: How do you know? And, finally I recommend you a book:

Chimps and Bonobos Prove that Moral Behavior is a Product of Evolution

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/chimps_and_bonobos_prove_that_moral_behavior_is_a_product_of_evolution/

As for a “universal morality”, what do you mean? The universal need of a morality in human society, or some sort of universally accepted morality? The latter doesn’t exist and anyone with open eyes can realize it. The former has a function. But, it doesn’t depend on God but on human (and anthropoid) social dynamics.

Try not to feed yourself on false tears. 😉

“the man who denies God, or says he does, will not rape, murder, and steal, at least, not at rates different (or much different) than other men”

If we are intended to take this as an empirical statement, there is considerable evidence against it. This widely-cited study (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.pdf) shows that the rates of serious crime (as well as drug use, teenage pregnancy, and other moral ills) are significantly lower among people who do not believe in God. Of course, this does not prove that belief in God actually causes crime and immoral behavior. There are also studies that show no significant difference, and those that show that belief is correlated with lower rates of certain crimes. It depends on how you slice and dice the data. But the stark statement that there is no difference in rates would be difficult to support.

Christians sin. Being a christian doesn’t mean that you are perfect and will always make good choices. Being a christian is to realize that you are not perfect.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Physicists are immune to counterfactual propositions, but biologists weep exactly as atheists do, if they don’t run from the room to start with. What does that say about biology and its “facts”?

I see the “hit with an irrelevant quote” responses are going to be out in full today. Why do atheists even quote things from a book they don’t believe in and obviously have no understanding of? They ignore any comments by believers made in the same manner, so it seems very ignorant to think the tactic will work on believers. Really, a few catchy little quotes from atheists taken out of context is going to open the eyes of the theists? Same tactic is claimed to not work on atheists. Oh, wait, Gail touched on it. Atheists are morally superior so they can’t be tricked like the common, superstitious fools out there. (Don’t you love the fact that atheists complain theists believe their God is morally superior while claiming their own science gods and beliefs are morally superior?)

@plazaeme:

“Chimps and Bonobos Prove that Moral Behavior is a Product of Evolution”

In the Darwininan view every type of behavior is the product of evolution, from altruism to gang raping (examples merely for illustrative purposes), so it follows that Evolution explains exactly nothing — or more precisely, it does not and can not explain the moral *difference*.

“As for a “universal morality”, what do you mean? The universal need of a morality in human society, or some sort of universally accepted morality? The latter doesn’t exist and anyone with open eyes can realize it.”

In other words you do not even know what the OP means by morality. But the behavior of chimps and bonobos proves that that which you do not know what is does exist.

Second, by “universal” the OP does not mean “universally accepted”, but, among other things, valid and binding universally whether men acknowledge it or not (although I would go further and argue, that as to the *basic* principles, they are indeed universally known).

Third, this implies that you have just denied that there is a moral difference, in the relevant sense, between altruism and gang raping, since gang raping is not universally condemned since it has been practiced throughout the history of mankind, and at least in some cases, without any moral qualms. Which boils down to reject that morality, as the OP conceives it, exists. The conditional in the OP that you quote is “Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping and gnashing of teeth” which can be put in the equivalent logical form “If there is morality then God exists”, and the contrapositive is “If there is no God there is no morality”. Now as we have seen, you have just denied that morality, in the relevant sense of the OP, exists; and your words indicate that you believe that God does not exist. In other words you agree with the OP.

note(s):
– I should probably add that I myself, while thinking that “If there is morality then God exists” is true, also believe the connection is somewhat indirect and needs considerable argumentation (which is not to say that Mr. Briggs does not think the same, maybe he does).

I only claim to be an atheist so that the theists out there stay the F away. I don’t know. I cannot know. The best I can do when it come to G is feel… So really I am an agnostic. All the evidence out there points to there not being a god. That doesn’t preclude someone from accurately saying that the evidence that there is a god is clear. I am attempting to point out that both views are extraordinarily capable of being true at the same time.

I have three fundamental points I use to get to a happy morality.

1. Survive
2. Survive
3. Survive

Survival of Self, Survival of Genes, Survival of Community. Not stealing candy from babies is a better way of making all three happen at the same time. Morality is a set of policies that tend to increase the survival rate of the group.

If the group is 100 in size. Homosexuality is likely immoral. When the group is 7B in size, it is no longer immoral.

Some might view “Survive, Survive, Survive” as a “looking out for number 1”. They are correct at some level. My first job is to make sure I survive. If I am not around, I cannot make sure my genes survive and I definitely can’t help the community to survive. That doesn’t mean that I come first in all things, it just means that I am in control of my immediate surroundings and my first responsibility to not end up dead by being an idiot.

You won’t get me crying by such statements dear host. I doubt that James Randi or the other atheists I admire will either.

This atheist is able to recognize when circumstances went well though. The wheel dropped off my car two days ago. I was going 65 up a mountain pass. It fell off when there were no cars around, the road was straight, and there was a convenient spot to pull off. The continued to drive straight on its brake rotor. In the same breath I said to the tow truck driver “Someone was looking out for me AND someone was reminding me to remain humble!”

Someone may be no one. I can see it as divine intervention. I can also see it as just the luck of the draw. And good engineering. And bad maintenance on my part. And good defensive driving skills. And …. …. …

You are not going to make me cry. I can see you making the A+Theists cry.

They don’t get it.

Lee,

In that linked study I did a control-f for ‘income’ (and related terms), but didn’t find any reference. Yes, the study picked 1st world countries, but as we all know first world countries still have poverty and various social ills (such as fatherlessness) that correlate with crime and the like.

The other problem with measuring societal immorality is that it tends to only be (or can only be) measured in terms of interpersonal violent immorality. In other words, of violating ideas like ‘do unto others’. Researchers who do not consider abortion or premarital sex immoral will not be counting it in their data.

Then there’s the difference, I think, between actually religious people and culturally religious (where it’s just a thing that the community does, but it doesn’t hold much sway in how a person lives). I wonder if the difference is accounted for in questions that ask how religious someone is? It would be interesting to find out.

Matt undoubtedly expected (so did I) commentary, if not from ‘the usual suspects’, at least, from those espousing the usual range of modern reactions to a post such as this.

To tease out two of the concepts Matt here presents:
a. there could be no right and no wrong, without God
b. the morality that God grounds, is a universal morality, right and wrong applicable to all men of all times and places

It is to b) that I address the following. Three difficulties are that a) obviously, not all men of all times and places follow the precepts of the universal morality; b) obviously, not all men of all times and places agree on the particular precepts of the universal morality (this includes official Catholic Church teaching — see, e.g., lending at interest, slavery, religious liberty, torture); c) less obviously, not all men of all times and places even possess the concept of a universal morality, let alone universally ‘know’ it.

Readers not to-the-death committed to Matt’s placid view of the state of the question regarding universal morality, and who seek more learning than can be had in the usual range of modern reactions to this particular topic, may profit not only from the below-referenced, relatively temperate and un-condescending piece, but also from the extensive comments on it attached to it, both from the author of that piece, and from others (who include committed Thomists):

http://www.unz.com/pfrost/does-natural-law-exist/

To whet interest, here are a few things the author of the above-referenced piece, Peter Frost, wrote in the the Comments section of the piece:

“Most postwar liberals felt that sexual liberalization would produce more stable marriages, i.e., unhappy marriages would be dissolved and replaced by happy marriages. Many are starting to realize that reality isn’t so simple, but it’s not clear to them what the alternative would be. Most of what passes for social conservatism isn’t an alternative. Modern conservatism like modern liberalism has become a sensibility that runs on automatic pilot.”
…
“I wish we could go back to the “ugly” Christianity of Thomas Aquinas. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem possible. As for modern Christianity, it’s terminally stupid. I have my own ideas, but they involve gentle persuasion and not tyranny.”
…
“Neither the Old nor the New Testament says that killing is wrong. (“Thou shalt not kill” is a bad translation. The Hebrew word corresponds more to the idea of unlawful killing). We must be willing to kill to defend ourselves and our loved ones. Anyone who says otherwise is a false Christian.”

G. Rodrigues (@ 10:18 AM)

– In the Darwininan view every type of behavior is the product of evolution, from altruism to gang raping (examples merely for illustrative purposes), , so it follows that Evolution explains exactly nothing — or more precisely, it does not and can not explain the moral *difference*.

So, you think in the Darwinian view every type of dog behavior is the product of Evolution, and Evolution can not explain the dog behaviour *difference*. And why do you think I should care about your view on the “Darwinian view”? I said the atheist wouldn’t cry by WB problem, and the observation confirms they don’t.

Why don’t they cry? I don’t know and I don’t care. The fact is they don’t . I suggested a possibility could be a “Darwinian view”. I didn’t suggest yo should be convinced by it. They may have a wrong believe. You may have a wrong understanding of their believe (you have). But this is not the point. The point is they don’t cry because of the alleged inexistent problem.

– In other words you do not even know what the OP means by morality. But the behavior of chimps and bonobos proves that that which you do not know what is does exist.

Very wrong. I don´t know what “universal (or absolute, etc) morality” is supposed to mean in this context. The chimps may prove that that which I certainly DO know, moral behaviour, is a product of Evolution.

– Second, by “universal” the OP does not mean “universally accepted”, but, among other things, valid and binding universally whether men acknowledge it or not

OK, thank you. Then, the problem should be changed. Something like this:

– Tell an atheist there could be no morality valid and binding universally whether men acknowledge it or not, without G.

You know what? He won’t cry; he will agree: There is not G and there is not a “morality valid and binding universally whether men acknowledge it or not”.

You could probably understand better the atheist by the origin of the idea (morality). Latin mos mores (custom): what it is done. It had nothing to do with God. It had everything to do with tradition and culture. For example, It tells you when you meet someone unknown whether you are going to kill each other or say “good morning”. It is a wonderfull (and necessary) tool to grow complex (big) societies. And you don’t need any God to tell you – although it can help.

I must say that making an atheist cry does seem unlikely. Most are belligerent, in-your-face types that complain about theists being pushy while riveling the most outspoken theist out there. They are morally superior to everyone else. Why would they cry when it’s so much more fun to deride and denounce the superstitious fools on the planet?

Brad T: Your comments are actually pretty close to what I think “rationalists” would believe. That being that survival of the species is what you use as a moral stance without God being involved. Humans should be concentrating on being the biggest and toughest and stop apologizing for what they do, according to Darwin and science. Morality is whatever works for surviving, whether it’s getting along or stabbing your leaders in the back to get a change in the government. Violence served people well throughout all of history. Perhaps that’s who we are in the view of Darwin and in the absence of God. Perhaps that’s who we are no matter what. Maybe the only difference is how we label the action—part of evolution and fine to engage in or morally wrong but people engage in the activities anyway.

“Yet every time a theist makes the obvious true point that if there were no God, there could be no absolute morality, no universal right and no universal wrong, the atheist believes, or pretends to believe, he has been insulted. He therefore cries….”

Au contraire; I submit most of today’s Progressives, the majority of whom are atheist, do not believe in the existence of any absolute morality, rather preferring to traverse the moral equivalence road. There are many examples of this. Thus, many, when confronted with this assertion would gleefully (and incorrectly) cite their case for the absence of an absolute or universal morality as evidence toward their mainstay argument, i.e., that God does not exist. Thus, far from crying (sadly) they would likely chuckle.

They must have had a sale on paper-bag rhetoric at k-mart recently.

@plazaeme:

“So, you think in the Darwinian view every type of dog behavior is the product of Evolution, and Evolution can not explain the dog behaviour *difference*.”

Was that what I wrote? No, what I wrote is that Evolutionary history cannot explain the *moral difference* in altruistic behavior and gang raping (to give two examples) at least, and this is an additional qualification, without some extra premises. I never addressed or uttered anything over wheter or you should or not cry.

“Very wrong. I don´t know what “universal (or absolute, etc) morality” is supposed to mean in this context. The chimps may prove that that which I certainly DO know, moral behaviour, is a product of Evolution.”

“Very wrong” what? You do not know “universal (or absolute, etc) morality” is supposed to mean so quite clearly the behavior of chimps and bonobos is irrelevant to it. It may be relevant to what *you* mean by “moral behavior” but you framed your comment as an objection to the OP, so the relevant conception is the one of the OP, so yes I am perfectly correct.

“And you don’t need any God to tell you – although it can help.”

I never said or suggested that we needed God to tell us, in fact I said something that directly contradicts it (with some qualifications that I will pass over), the parenthetic remark “although I would go further and argue, that as to the *basic* principles, they are indeed universally known”.

@plazaeme:

Forgot to add this, relatively unimportant closing point:

“You know what? He won’t cry; he will agree: There is not G and there is not a “morality valid and binding universally whether men acknowledge it or not”.”

Ok, so as I said in my third point you agree with the OP — except the part of the profuse crying and teeth cringing. Whoever said that there can be no agreement in an internet discussion?

Sheri (@12_44 PM:

– I must say that making an atheist cry does seem unlikely. Most are belligerent, in-your-face types that complain about theists being pushy while riveling the most outspoken theist out there. They are morally superior to everyone else. Why would they cry when it’s so much more fun to deride and denounce the superstitious fools on the planet?

I don’t know whether you know many atheists or not. I do. I can confirm you have a false perspective produced by the media. You get too much exposure to those like Dawkins, but these are not the mean atheist. There are quite a lot of “relaxed atheists” who don’t hate christians and respect their believes as far as they don’t interefere too much with their lives. Our mothers are christians usually and we don’t hate them, you know what I mean. 😉

“Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping and gnashing of teeth; there will be hot, bitter tears; there will cries of anguish and hurt feelings. There will be charges of hate. There will be calumny!”

Well, I hope this isn’t calumny, but I’m pretty sure morality, right and wrong, were around long before anyone ever thought of God. I think God is a way of conveying civilization, of consecrating it, but God as we think of Him is a relatively recent invention.

JMJ

G. Rodrigues (@12:53 PM)

– I never addressed or uttered anything over wheter or you should or not cry.

You may be addressing something I never talked about. Which I cared to quote:

–Not so with the atheist. Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping and gnashing of teeth; there will be hot, bitter tears; there will cries of anguish and hurt feelings. There will be charges of hate. There will be calumny!

You want a different discussion? Be my guest. What is your point? You don’t understand how Evolution explains different moral behaviours? So what? Get some reading. I suggest you begin with culture and cognition. Evolution may explain culture and cognition without explaining what you particularly happen to believe and learn.

And, no, you can not be “perfectly correct”.

If … G explains “absolute morality” (Briggs)
and
If … absolute morality is independent of what humans believe (Rodrigues)
Then … atheists can not have any problem with that (anti Briggs)
Because … they don’t believe either in G neither in “absolute morality” (independent on what humans believe).

It is really simple. What is your problem?

– I never said or suggested that we needed God to tell us

And I didn’t said you said it. It is just some context.

To the point. I am adressing Briggs idea of atheists, and an imaginary problem he thinks atheists have. What was your problem?

– Ok, so as I said in my third point you agree with the OP

Sure. As far as “morality” is “absolute morality” I agree. But, it isn’t.

Biblical marriage, the well-known chart:

http://www.upworthy.com/the-top-8-ways-to-be-traditionally-married-according-to-the-bible

Genesis 2:24 says a bride not a virgin is to be stoned. Here’s a narrative explaining the “virgin test” of the bride’s morality as, presumably, handed down by God (after all, its in the Bible):

http://coatofmanycolors.net/2011/10/29/marriage-in-the-bible-virgin-test/

Somehow I suspect that everybody who might believe stoning in such a situation is right & proper would likely, in this day and age, reject the Biblical “virgin test” for something more “science-based.”

Then there’s the bit about rape — that sure looks like, in some cases, it was a nifty shortcut for someone that really wants to marry a particular girl…rape her and then he’s required to purchase her…

Broad philosophical generalities (like “only morality can come from God”) sure seem prudent…until one digs, even just a bit, into the details to find where that takes us….

The exact same “moral” prohibitions show up in numerous cultures separated by geography & religion, or lack thereof (where “lack thereof” for false, and thus pagan, religions) — murder, incest, theft and so on & so forth are consistently prohibited. Surely it must be obvious that such consistent prohibitions are mandatory for maintaining a functioning society dependent on the mutual interdependence of all its members, and as such, the need to invoke a deity to have decreed these from on-high is hardly necessary. Such morals amount to “common sense.”

RE: “Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping and gnashing of teeth; there will be hot, bitter tears; there will cries of anguish and hurt feelings. There will be charges of hate. There will be calumny!”

YEP. The atheist will disagree and, if they don’t brush it off, will point out examples where morals clearly arose without God (because they arose with a false, and thus nonexistent, God) … in response to which the cult-minded believer (as opposed to other types) will respond like Briggs.

RE: “…this man [who denies God] will reason that if nothing matters, whatever he does is without moral consequence. He might do anything.”

UNFORTUNATELY, there is a very large group of Christian believers who conclude that, because they believe, they are saved — and many of them do many immoral things expressly because they believe and thus conclude they are saved. Belief, in other words, is the enabling factor for exercising immorality in too many.

One of those TV cops shows portrayed this with a murderous drug trafficker caught in Florida — in his home was a shrine to the Madonna replete with the usual icons & candles & so forth, and, a gun & handcuffs — the latter to help solicit divine intervention to avoid being caught by the police for the murders & such this guy was committing. The officer pointing this out for the TV audience mentioned this is not at all uncommon, especially with the S. American traffickers & their particular version of Catholicism. There’s religious morality for ya.

Every behaviour *observed in evolved creatures* being the result of Evolution is a very reasonable hypothesis. Nobody is claiming that creatures will have every behaviour that can be imagined. For evolution, one expects that the behaviours are such that the majority of the creatures have more change of reproducing than the behaviours that result in early deaths.

And secondly, this is a bold prediction, so we learn more about the limits of Evolution theory by saying that is responsible for everything, and then investigating whether this is true of not in as many cases as can be funded.

G. Rodrigues (@12:53 PM)

I’ll add some explaining, because this is the point.

– As far as “morality” is “absolute morality” I agree. But, it isn’t.

Atheist: “morality” is a human (but not only human) social tool and “absolute morality” is a religious fantasy. So, it depends on what Briggs means — he has used both terms.

If … he means “morality” -> we don’t agree. It doesn’t need God.

If … he means “absolute morality” (a fantasy) -> we agree. It needs God (another fantasy). No problem.

That’s why I asked what he was meaning with “absolute (universal, etc) morality.

@plazaeme:

“What is your problem?”

This is what was going to ask you. So on to your complaints.

First complaint: “You may be addressing something I never talked about. Which I cared to quote:”

And this in response to “I never addressed or uttered anything over wheter or you should or not cry.” But the whole paragraph is

“No, what I wrote is that Evolutionary history cannot explain the *moral difference* in altruistic behavior and gang raping (to give two examples) at least, and this is an additional qualification, without some extra premises. I never addressed or uttered anything over wheter or you should or not cry.”

And in the first post, this came up in response to:

“Chimps and Bonobos Prove that Moral Behavior is a Product of Evolution”

Nothing about atheists crying or whatever, which as I said I never addressed. What I did address was a logical point about what does or what does not follow from Evolutionary theory.

Second complaint (full quote):

“And, no, you can not be “perfectly correct”.

If … G explains “absolute morality” (Briggs)
and
If … absolute morality is independent of what humans believe (Rodrigues)
Then … atheists can not have any problem with that (anti Briggs)
Because … they don’t believe either in G neither in “absolute morality” (independent on what humans believe).

It is really simple. What is your problem?”

That you cannot read. Because this has nothing to do with what I said in the “so I am perfectly correct” paragraph.

“I am adressing Briggs idea of atheists, and an imaginary problem he thinks atheists have. What was your problem?”

About this specific point? None. My “problem” was with other points that you either said, implied or suggested, as is clear from what I wrote, well except to you. This is done all the time in the public discussions, addressing points other than what you intended to be your main one, and if you do not like the flak don’t comment. Although the “atheists” that the OP mentions are anything but imaginary, since they do exist. You may not fit the profile (and many more may not for all I know) but then so what?

G. Rodrigues (@ 1:50 PM)

As far as I can see the only “other points” you adressed is this one

– “Evolutionary history cannot explain the *moral difference* in altruistic behavior and gang raping”

Yes, it can — and I suggested some threads to follow. But it is immaterial. If the atheist believes it can, then follows he doesn’t need God to explain it.

I am -for now- only interested in the recurrent problems Briggs have with atheists. And with morality. I am trying to help. We could have an infinite discussion on Evolution but, I certainly don’t see the point of it.

@plazaeme:

“Yes, it can — and I suggested some threads to follow.”

No it cannot as I have shown, your unargued claims notwithstanding.

“If the atheist believes it can, then follows he doesn’t need God to explain it.”

What kind of an idiotic statement is this? I am not interested in the delusional beliefs of atheists, just as I presume you are not interested in the delusional beliefs of theists, but in *arguments*, and what they can or cannot establish.

And since you have already agreed with the OP that if God does not exist then there is no morality as the OP conceives, not the shriveled carcass, good-for-nothing that you call morality, what else is there to discuss (besides your having your feathers ruffled with Mr. Briggs’ apparent stereotyping of atheists)?

G. Rodrigues (@2:23 PM)

Are you trying to be cute or something?

– No it cannot as I have shown, your unargued claims notwithstanding.

There was not something to argue about. You just have to look.

Moral: behaviour you expect from others and others expect from you.

1) Two dogs meet in the street for the first time. They need a full and long protocol to decide how to behave. It may result in death.

2) Two humans meet in the street for the first time. Morality tells them in what to do, with cero waste of time and no harm.

Etc. You get better oiled and bigger societies. Evolution explains the *moral difference* in altruistic behavior and gang raping.

– “If the atheist believes it can, then follows he doesn’t need God to explain it.”

What kind of an idiotic statement is this? I am not interested in the delusional beliefs of atheists, just as I presume you are not interested in the delusional beliefs of theists, but in *arguments*, and what they can or cannot establish

You presume too much, with not too much intelligence. Of course I am interested in any believe (delusional or not), because it is the believe what will make the atheist to cry or not to cry. I am not addressing the problem of who is right, atheist or theist. I am not trying to explain theists they are wrong. I am trying to explain to a particular theist (Briggs) he is wrong about the worldview of theists, and their non existent problems with morality. This point doesn’t interest you? Not my problem, it is my point.

– And since you have already agreed with the OP that if God does not exist then there is no morality as the OP conceives, not the shriveled carcass, good-for-nothing that you call morality, what else is there to discuss (besides your having your feathers ruffled with Mr. Briggs’ apparent stereotyping of atheists)?

Morality “as the OP conceives” is your interpretation. I’ve not heard it from Briggs. We can discuss whether it is a fantasy. Or wheter the real morality which exists in the world (that what humans believe to be moral) is a “shriveled carcass, good-for-nothing”, or is what permits society to be as it is (big, complex, effective, etc).

Because, yes, my cute friend, this is precisely the question. What is morality; where does it come from; what function it implements; what would the lack of morality change? And this is what Evolutionary history -but not God- can explain.

Of course you can define morality with a non-existent fantasy. It may explain God, but it won’t explain what morality does. And that’s the whole point.

Sorry, error:

– he is wrong about the worldview of theists

Should be:

– he is wrong about the worldview of atheists

@plazaeme:

“Evolution explains the *moral difference* in altruistic behavior and gang raping.”

Yes you keep asserting but you have not responded to my argument, because there is no response: pick two examples of behavior, one moral and another immoral. There are evolutionary explanations for the arisal of these two behaviors (which I did not dispute), but quite obviously, and of logiocal necessity, Evolution theory cannot explain or ground why one behavior is moral and the other is not. Additonal premises are needed. I am really embarassed to have to explain this in so much pedantic detail as if you were an idiot.

“Of course I am interested in any believe (delusional or not), because it is the believe what will make the atheist to cry or not to cry. I am not addressing the problem of who is right, atheist or theist. I am not trying to explain theists they are wrong. I am trying to explain to a particular theist (Briggs) he is wrong about the worldview of theists, and their non existent problems with morality.”

And once again this has nothing to do with what I specifically objected to. Why are you even *quoting* me, if you are not responding to *anything* in the quote? To engage in the pretense that we having a dialogue? Because you are not talking to me. What you said was and I quote:

“If the atheist believes it can, then follows he doesn’t need God to explain it.”

Which implies that the mere fact that the atheist “believes”, he therefore has a good explanation, which of course a very idiotic thing to say. This is what I objected to.

“Because, yes, my cute friend, this is precisely the question.”

I am not cute and certainly not your friend.

Since talking to you is like talking to a brick wall (and alas, I am pretty sure that I am also partly to blame and for that my apologies) I give up.

G Rodrigues.

– but quite obviously, and of logiocal necessity, Evolution theory cannot explain or ground why one behavior is moral and the other is not. Additonal premises are needed.

I thought you would understand it with the comparison between dogs and humans. Moral is whatever behaviour some society defines as moral. By definition of moral.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/moral

Some moralities produce functions which produce different societies. You may prefer a hunter-gatherer gang and you may find better a moral well suited for such a society. You may prefer a liberal democracy; whatever. In each society, some behavior is more moral than other. That is what a moral does; classifying behaviors. And, yes, it is perfectly explained by cultural evolution. When you change from “gang rape is cool” to “gang rape is sin”, you change the society. A lot. It may be better fitted to its circumstances, or worse.

– Why are you even *quoting* me, if you are not responding to *anything* in the quote?

Quote:

– What kind of an idiotic statement is this? I am not interested in the delusional beliefs of atheists, just as I presume you are not interested in the delusional beliefs of theists, but in *arguments*, and what they can or cannot establish.

Argument.

1. An atheist will cry or not cry depending in his believes (delusional or not).

2. A morality IS a believe. Idiotic will be not being interested in believes (delusional or not) when you try to understand morality.

3. *Arguments* is not the way moralities are established. In history I mean; it may change.

Of course, you are not trying to understand anything. You have a truth, and you are only trying to find arguments to support your truth — and avoid looking anything else.

Be happy with your strategy. You are more than intelligent enough to fool yourself quite succesfully.

That’s weird. I think I just posted a comment into the wrong post. Now I can’t find it.

Everybody knows objects appear to be attracted to each other because the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) pushes them towards each other with His noodly appendages. Without the FSM, there is no gravity. The proposition begs the question, and thus the counterfactual proposition proves the proposition. Bam! The FSM exists!

Putting that silliness aside, you have opened up a can of worms. Since you assert there is a God, morality exists because of God, and without God there is no morality, then why is there immorality? Why does the occurrence of gang rape prove the existence of God? Why are Buddhists kind to each other? Why do people blow themselves up in crowded markets? If God is such a reliable constant to explain and predict morality, then why is moral behavior so hard to predict and immoral behavior so hard to explain?

I love you all!

“Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include tooth decay in His divine system of creation? Why in the world did He ever create pain?’
‘Pain?’ Lieutenant Shiesskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. ‘Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers.’
‘And who created the dangers?’ Yossarian demanded. ‘Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead?’
‘People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes right in the middle of their foreheads.’
‘They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony, don’t they?”

“What the hell are you getting so upset about?’ he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrive amusement. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in God.’
I don’t,’ she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. ‘But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him to be.’
Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. ‘Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,’ he proposed obligingly. ‘You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to . Is that a deal?”
? Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Look at ISIS morality, look at medieval morality. All carried out in the name of God. Look at slavery, look at torturing. All considered fully morally acceptable until a few centuries ago. God himself ordered in the bible the killing of babies and rape of conquered women. Absolute morality does not exist. Morality evolved, together with humans.

Woo-hoo! This post has provoked a whole lot of God-haters out into the streets brandishing their superstition like a badge of honour.

As usual (although mostly only slyly implied) the formal justification for Godlessness is the superstitious presumption of “omnipotent” “Evolution”. The mere fact that Naturalistic Evolution is completely scientifically impossible unless all known relevant Natural Laws do not exist or do not apply is of no concern to an egotistically charged ideologue. As the anti-scientific sales-pitch of Julian Huxley about 100 years ago has it: evolution must be true because the alternative is unthinkable. Nothing has changed much except that the proponents of the ideology have become even more confidently dogmatic.

I suppose that, because a scientific method of hypothesis testing would immediately scuttle the evolution superstition, hypothesis testing is an evil that must be abandoned in favour of untestable “models” and “credible theories”.

Then, of course, the rationalists and relativists will duck into the smokescreen of agnosticism: “The only thing that you can know is that you can’t know”.

The science of philosophy has degenerated into a mere rationalisation of ideological prejudice.

I see two main problems, Briggs (or Rodrigues, who knows?).

1) You decide what an atheist should think, but it is not what atheists actually think.

2) You decide what morality should be, but it is not what moralities actually are in the world.

How do you do it? With a fantasy. Morality is absolute (universal, etc). Thus, atheists have to think so and so, and have such and such problems, and you have very “clever” arguments to make atheists look as idiots. But there is not such a thing in the world as a absolute or universal morality. Not even within a culture — they change all the time, given enough time.

Cognitive dissonance? Not at all! You have a very nice trick (© climate science). Morality is independent of whatever humans think. Of course, cultural evolution is incapable of explaining such miracle – you presume.

Well … you are wrong. If some society comes to think their morality (and God) is absolute and universal, and totally independent of whatever Briggs thinks, and even Briggs has to surrender to sharia, it probably will cause quite notable effects in such society. (And possibly in Briggs). And the effects may be very well fitted to such society’s circumstances, or not.

So, here you have a very delusional believe you better care about which establishes a morality — in your meaning of absolute, independent, etc. And it is perfectly explainable by cultural evolucion.

Oh, it is not the same absolute morality you where talking about? Then you have to change your post. You are no explaining the problems atheists have with the universal morality, but those with Briggs Universal Morality. Who cares?

Just saying.

Elostirion: Could be. I haven’t been to Kmart in over a year, have no intention of going there again, so I guess I missed the sale.

My perspective on atheists comes from personal contacts, members of my family, the media and the internet. You are probably correct that there are those who are not militant. I just haven’t run across one. Your point about mothers is taken. I did not consider that prospect. One of my relatives is a minister and her father was an atheist. It was kind of tense sometimes, but they managed. Thank you for letting me know there are those who simply go about their lives, be they atheists or theist. 🙂

Similarly, the man who denies God, or says he does, will not rape, murder, and steal, at least, not at rates different (or much different) than other men, unless his disbelief is so strong that he sincerely acts on the conclusion that, without God, there is no universal morality. … Anyway, this man will reason that if nothing matters, whatever he does is without moral consequence. He might do anything.

A strong disbelief of God doesn’t logically imply a belief of no universal morality. Accepting that killing is universally wrong requires no belief of God (although people may argue that some killings can be justified). Think of atheists in China.

What does it mean to sincerely act on the conclusion that there is no universal morality? Does it mean to accept other’s culture moral code? A die heart atheist man who believe there is no universal morality doesn’t mean he has no moral values and will reason that nothing matters.

Well, I guess if nothing matters to a man, the man probably does not care what moral consequences there might be (which is different from saying whatever he does is without moral consequence), and he might just do anything. This claim could be true for both atheists and theists. I don’t know what drives a person to actually believe nothing matters or whether such a person exists, but suicide bombers, who are probably believers, spring to my mind.

What a strange, fantastical theory of how an Atheist man is or thinks or might think. Not graceful. What motives this post? In-equality!

Look at ISIS morality, look at medieval morality.

Okay. Which one?

Look at slavery, look at torturing. All considered fully morally acceptable until a few centuries ago.

You do realize that both were with us since time immemorial, long before any extant religion existed, and the primary effect of at least one religion was to ameliorate their effects and eventually to eliminate them?

But if as plazeame insists there “there is not such a thing in the world as a absolute or universal morality,” then on what grounds can you claim that slavery and torture are “wrong”? Suppose you can make yourself feel more empowered (die Steigerung des Machtgefühls, as Nietzsche put it in Will to Power #534) by dominating and enslaving lesser humans (assuming you are an Übermensch and so beyond good and evil).

Or suppose you only want efficiency?
“And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with . . . those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. . . . And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favor the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity — beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds. . . . And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness . . . is death. . . . The men of the New Republic . . . will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.”
— H.G. Wells The New Republic

You decide what an atheist should think, but it is not what atheists actually think.

More often than not, it is a matter of following the logical entailment of the premises. Nietzsche nailed it. It’s not as JH wonders, that an atheist will necessarily abandon rectitude. Quite the contrary. (See St. Paul, Romans 2, cited above.) But that he no longer has a rational basis for that rectitude. As Rorty plaintively asked, Why not be cruel?

You decide what morality should be, but it is not what moralities actually are in the world.

And the QA department decides what the measurements and test results should be to achieve product functionality, but it is not what the results actually are in the manufactured parts, which may vary considerably. There is a difference between setting standards to be achieved and actually achieving them.

there is not such a thing in the world as a absolute or universal morality.

More precisely, there is no such thing as absolute and universal agreement. You can jigger your micrometer if you wish, but that doesn’t make a meter not a meter.

“Morality is independent of whatever humans think.” Of course, cultural evolution is incapable of explaining such miracle – you presume.

By giving an example of conquest, you appear to endorse the Nietzschean dictum that might makes right. Or heck, what the Athenians told the Melians prior to their unprovoked attack on that small polis: “The strong take what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.”

Plaza wme
“Moral is whatever behaviour some society defines as moral. By definition of moral.”

Evolution may explain whatever a society doesn’t like, but what’s this have to do with theistic morality? Your atheist morality is identical to an expression of opinion. Ho hum. The great atheist rejoinder is “No, God isn’t necessary for expressions of opinion to exist”. Notice that this “rejoinder” has NOTHING to do with the theistic view of morality. Zip. Zero.

When someone says “Hey, you need soap to clean that” it’s silly to think that “No, soap isn’t necessary for expressions of opinions to exit” is an argument that does anything to undermine that.

Am I wrong?

“When someone says “Hey, you need soap to clean that” it’s silly to think that “No, soap isn’t necessary for expressions of opinions to exit” is an argument that does anything to undermine that.”

SteveK, though I’m new to the Briggs blog and have a reasonably good educational background I’m trying to sort stuff I find very obtuse, since I’m used to straight-forward thinking & rhetoric. WTF do you mean by the above? No offense & thanks.

Rich
If you understand the first paragraph then that’s enough. The last paragraph was my feeble attempt to make analogous parallel statements to further the point that the two sides are talking about very different things.

If it helps, just stick with the first paragraph.

I apologize for entering this discussion late. I try to avoid traveling now but it could not be avoided yesterday and I just now returned to my real computer (not that ridiculous laptop.)

There is a slightly deeper way to view the analogy between gravity and morality. Briggs points to the quantity G and rightly claims that it is involved in the phenomenon of gravity, but there is a deeper meaning for G (or whatever letter one might choose to use). The quantity G appears in a statement about gravity as a statement of the proportionality between two quantities: the inertial mass of an object and the mass that generates gravitational interaction. What this says is that two ways mass behaves, or two properties mass has, are connected intimately and in fact they are equivalent. First, it (mass) is the proportionality constant that relates acceleration of an object to the force on it. This means that mass is the property of an object that allows us to describe the position, velocity, acceleration, etc. of an object with mass in response to ANY force, be it electrical, mechanical (as in a collisions or fluid mechanics), or gravitational as in, well, gravity. Second, the equivalence statement (or proportionality statement) says that the acceleration on a mass due to interaction with another mass is ALSO proportional to the same mass that quantifies the dynamic response of mass to any force. So the gravity statement m*a = M*m*G/r^2 says that the same mass is responsible for both the dynamic response of objects to forces and the gravitational force exerted on another mass. So the statement of gravity is a statement about the fundamental relation of the local, inertial nature of objects to the more global gravitational force they exert on one another.

Now this has a charming interpretation in the context of morality. What the gravity relation says is the property that controls the local movements of an object in response to any impetus is intimately related to the fundamental nature of the mass of the object as a source of gravitational force. An analogy to morality would be that whatever it is about humans that controls behavior is in some sense (we consider morality here, whatever that means) directly related to the fundamental nature of the object, i.e. the human nature. This analogy would say that whatever it is that is common among humans is directly related somehow to the dynamics of interaction with humans on a higher plane.

There is even a more charming application of another approach to gravity that falls in an out of fashion, namely the application of Mach’s principle. In the field theory context, Mach’s principle states that the inertial property of mass, namely its reaction to local forces, even in equations such as the gravity equation, is actually the sum of its interaction with all the rest of the mass of the universe. This would mean that G in the equation would actually be some kind of integral over the universe of the interaction of the local mass with the totality of the universe. Various proposals for incorporating this principle into cosmology have been made over the years. One prediction of such theories is that the values of fundamental constants, such as G, should change over cosmological time. So far most have been proven wrong by experiments, but the question is still open.

However, the analogy between a Mach’s principle interpretation of gravity would give an even more charming analogy to man and morality. The analogy would be that human actions (i.e. our responses to moral challenges) would be directly related to our direct interaction with the totality of the universe (which some might call God). This would be a pleasant way to view the relation between our personal choices and something larger than ourselves.

How to apply these different perspectives to arguments for or against atheism or

Sorry, several words were chopped off my last post. The last sentence should read:
How to apply these different perspectives to arguments for or against atheism or theism I leave to others, but there are several possible analogies from the notion of gravity.

“Evolution may explain whatever a society doesn’t like, but what’s this have to do with theistic morality? Your atheist morality is identical to an expression of opinion. Ho hum. The great atheist rejoinder is “No, God isn’t necessary for expressions of opinion to exist”. Notice that this “rejoinder” has NOTHING to do with the theistic view of morality. Zip. Zero.”

Hi Steve,
Please forgive me, but this paragraph (which I believe you were referring me to) is as confusing as the final. In particular, how are you defining the difference between theist and atheist (i.e., pretensions of) morality? Can the latter co-exist, INYOP? There’s nothing like straight-talk. Full disclosure, I am a theist, yet your views seem tangential to the convictions I have, or am i missing something?

Rich
Christian morality requires God as the foundation. The claim by atheists is that evolution can explain morality without God. Since they are not explaining the same thing (obviously) they cannot be explaining the same thing with evolution.

They are explaining human cultures opinions and preferences whereas Christians are not.

SteveK (@9:32 PM)

– Your atheist morality is identical to an expression of opinion. Ho hum. The great atheist rejoinder is “No, God isn’t necessary for expressions of opinion to exist”. Notice that this “rejoinder” has NOTHING to do with the theistic view of morality. Zip. Zero.

No, sorry SteveK. ANY working morality in the world is quite the contrary to the expression of an opinion. If morality (mos mores) is the custom, what has to be done, this is the exact opposite to an opinion; it’s an order, a command.

Yes, I know we Christians have some mixing up between two very different things we call “morality”. Lets be fast and call them “external” and “internal” morality. You can certainly compare an “internal” morality to an opinion. But neither God, nor Briggs, nor me are using morality in an “internal” sense. Is somtheing you inherit (from God or from society), and individual opinions are completely irrelevant.

– When someone says “Hey, you need soap to clean that” it’s silly to think that “No, soap isn’t necessary for expressions of opinions to exit” is an argument that does anything to undermine that.

Am I wrong?

I would say so. Same problem. Change individual opinion to societal opinion. You need a society to have societal opinions; you don’t need gods (although they are a fantasy which may help to impose societal opinions).

I think this is the problem theists have. They are too used to societal opinions imposed by gods, and they have forgotten all the cases where there is no God involved (or they try not to look at it). But looking at the dynamics of morality on societies the perspective changes.

Well, since Briggs has so clarified his position, let me remind you all that Morality is also made-up complete $ull$hit for dummies. Now, we can parse the word, morality, all night, but in this context, it is just more of your silly backwards sloppy barroom fascism. 6 million Jews, murdered by people some of whom still alive today, are evidence of the great Morality of Christianity.

What a joke.

JMJ

Ye Olde Statistician (@8:42 PM)

– But if as plazeame insists there “there is not such a thing in the world as a absolute or universal morality,” then on what grounds can you claim that slavery and torture are “wrong”?

On the grounds of the society you actually live in. Whith slavery it would be a different society — lets say less “evolutioned”. (Less complex, whatever). The same thing works for torture. A society which sees torture as sin is different than the society where torture is an accepted tool. And it is different even if there actually is some torture being used. If people think torture is evil, you may not get no torture, but you will get less torture. That’s a different society.

Ye Olde Statistician (@8:42 PM)

– Or suppose you only want efficiency?

I do not “want” anything. I try to observe and undesrtand how things work.

– More often than not, it is a matter of following the logical entailment of the premises. Nietzsche nailed it. It’s not as JH wonders, that an atheist will necessarily abandon rectitude. Quite the contrary. (See St. Paul, Romans 2, cited above.) But that he no longer has a rational basis for that rectitude. As Rorty plaintively asked, Why not be cruel?

The logical entailment of the premises con only get you so far with a complex reality. But it can get you very far in the world of fantasy. The fact is we know a huge amount of “basis for rectitude”, all different, and none rational.

Look at the most basic *moral* command. You shall drive in the right hand side of the road. It’s irrelevant the right or the left hand side, but you need everybody believing in the same hand side.

Is “rational” the command not to be cruel? You can rationalise it. Or you can observe how it works, what different societies you get with and without such a command, and you choose. But, if you choose a morality which weakens your society compared with other competing society, your society will probably disappear. And your society will be very “rational” (if you want to to think so), but will be non-existent in the near future.

This may not be “rational”. It is “factual”.

Lets try to clean the discussion.

I am not claiming atheists are right. I am not claiming God doesn’t exist (I just don’t have any reason to think so). I am claiming atheists don’t have any problem with morality whatsoever. And, I am claiming the idea of an absolute morality has a load of problems with reality. It’s a very nice fantasy (I do really like it), but it is a fantasy nonetheless.

A good way to see the dynamics of morality is looking at the moment of a “moralization”. When something which was not moral becomes moral. In such cases you always observe a huge amount of “violence”. It is “the violence of morality”. That is because morality, by its very function, aspires to be for everybody.

So, be very careful with morality. It is a necessary tool for ANY society — it wouldn’t exist without a morality. But it is also a tool which may became very dangerous. Because of its unavoidable violence, and because it may change the performance of a society.

And a possible ending.

The atheist is not different to the physicist.

– He’ll say … “True. But there is society, therefore there is morality. Now let’s watch the Tigers on TV.”

The (inexistent) problem is solved.

“6 million Jews, murdered by people some of whom still alive today, are evidence of the great Morality of Christianity.”

Meanwhile the Commies have gotten a death toll well within the ballpark of the Nazis while being card-carrying atheists.

– Meanwhile the Commies have gotten a death toll well within the ballpark of the Nazis while being card-carrying atheists.

Very true. However nobody is claiming atheists have a better morality. In fact, I think in many (but not all) cases is worse. The proposition is that the in-existent Absolute and Universal Briggs Morality of theists would not necessarily be better than the actually existent morality, which is explained by cultural evolution.

on what grounds can you claim that slavery and torture are “wrong”?
On the grounds of the society you actually live in.

So if you lived in a society like the Soviet Union or Ancient Athens you would be okay with those things?

Look at the most basic *moral* command. You shall drive in the right hand side of the road.

That’s not a moral command.

I am claiming the idea of an absolute morality has a load of problems with reality.

Do you not believe in an absolute and universal human nature? Or do you think it depends on things like skin color, ethnicity, sex, etc.?

I agree ,

‘ Not so with the atheist. Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is—and there will weeping’,

I laughed till I cried.

Ye Olde Statistician (@ 8:48 AM)

– So if you lived in a society like the Soviet Union or Ancient Athens you would be okay with those things?

I cannot know. Nor do you. Looking from other space and other morality (programming), and not knowing what knowledge you had to compare, and not knowing whether you were a privileged or an oppressed, etc, it is impossible to know how would you feel.

But it is a wrong question. We said we were talking about “external morality”, and that individual opinions are irrelevant. I didn’t say everybody agrees all the time with his society’s morality. In such case moralities wouldn’t change, and they do.

Personal note: I am not okay with “the things” of my society’s morality, but it doesn’t follow God told me otherwise. I do have non-God inputs. And if you tell me your inputs are God, I will think you are fooling yourself.

Ye Olde Statistician (@8:55 AM)

– That’s not a moral command.

It depends on your definition of moral. I defined: what you expect from others and others expect from you. But it doesn’t matter. It is supposed to help your understanding. Just look for a functionally similar case in your definition.

– Do you not believe in an absolute and universal human nature? Or do you think it depends on things like skin color, ethnicity, sex, etc.?

I do think there is a human nature, a chimp nature, etc. Saying a universal chimp nature doesn’t add a bit to the meaning, so you can save it. And, I do think a huge variability is a characteristic or human nature. It depends on quite many more things than those you listed. Morality is one of them.

Mind you, I do realize there are some “moral commands” which are nearly universal. That marriage is something between two sexes is one of them. It doesn’t need to come from human nature, but it probably comes from human society nature. As we are doing an experiment, we will probably know.

Plazaeme
“If morality (mos mores) is the custom, what has to be done, this is the exact opposite to an opinion; it’s an order, a command.”

Evolution produces obligations? You’ll need to explain this.

SteveK (@10:42 AM)

– Evolution produces obligations? You’ll need to explain this.

Easy. Evolution does not produce obligations. Society produces obligations. Different obligations (solutions) produce different societies. Some are more apt, some are weaker. The obligations (solutions) of the weaker tend to disappear with their societies.

At the same time, bigger societies (more obligations) are possibly selecting more “domesticated” people, but this is a different question. Think of wolves and dogs.

Possible reading:

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691166854

Morality is also made-up complete $ull$hit for dummies.

Sure, dummies like Plato or Aristotle (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html).
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis
exponebantur ad necem.

it is just more of your silly backwards sloppy barroom fascism.

But fascism was simply that variety of socialism that resolved the Darwinian class struggle through the emergence of a Leader who would embody the aspirations of the people in his own person and unite the classes for the good of the nation. Unruly and irrational capitalism would be regulated by boards or syndicates that would allocate market shares, regions, and rules. This has little to do with morality per se.

6 million Jews, murdered by people some of whom still alive today, are evidence of the great Morality of Christianity.

Don’t see how. There was a reason why the program was concealed from the German people. It was National Socialism that drove the program, and the NatSocs were virulently anti-Christian, if not always openly so. (We have their records.) They were informed by race and a crypto-Darwinism rather than by religion. The Leader ridiculed the suggestion of von Schoenerer and others that the Jewish Problem was religious because if it were, a sprinkle of holy water would solve it. In their view, it was racial/genetic.

Since then, the Milgram Obedience Study and the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that perfectly ordinary people could behave wretchedly under an authority figure or in a dehumanizing situation. (Thus does modern science confirm Christian doctrine regarding fallen human nature: “There but for the grace of God go I.”)

Ye Olde Statistician (@11:26 AM)

– Since then, the Milgram Obedience Study and the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that perfectly ordinary people could behave wretchedly under an authority figure or in a dehumanizing situation. (Thus does modern science confirm Christian doctrine regarding fallen human nature: “There but for the grace of God go I.”)

Nope. These experiments only confirm the plasticity of humans. If you define “fallen human nature” as something contrary to what you believe Absolute Universal Briggs Morality says, then it is a circular argument if you state only God (or Briggs) can inform you about the true morality.

Plazaeme
WHAT is society obligating people to specifically?

I do have non-God inputs. And if you tell me your inputs are God, I will think you are fooling yourself.

Jawohl, mein Herr. (“Inputs”, forsooth.)

[Driving on the right-hand side of the road] not a moral command.

It depends on your definition of moral.

And that depends on whether you are allowed to jigger with definitions to suit yourself. But when discussing morality it might be well to use the definition of those to whom you are objecting.

I defined: what you expect from others and others expect from you.

That’s absurd. We expect and are expected a great many things that have little or no moral dimension. There are even bad things that carry no moral weight. One may be a bad scientist without being a bad person; chocolate may be bad for you without its eating being sinful. It may be you are confusing custom with morality. But as Augustine once pointed out, while at one time no well-bred man would be seen in public in a dalmatic rather than a toga, by his time the dalmatic had become the common dress of the gentleman (On Christian doctrine, III.12.20)

Do you not believe in an absolute and universal human nature?
I do think there is a human nature

Then if morality consists of those habits of mind that complete and perfect human nature, there must be one morality.

And, I do think a huge variability is a characteristic or human nature. It depends on quite many more things than those you listed. Morality is one of them.

Human nature does not depend on morality; morality depends on human nature. And if it is “variable,” it is not human nature. In fact, while ethics may vary, morality does not. Men everywhere say it is right for a man “to reverence his parents; to care and provide for his children; to be master of his lower appetites; to be honest and just in his dealings, even to his own damage; to show benevolence to his fellows in time of distress; to bear pain and misfortune with fortitude.” How these moral dictates are employed in particular situations will be variable. The Eskimos reverenced their parents by setting them adrift when the infirmities of old age appeared.

But as men are prone to estimate sins, not by reference to their inherent sinfulness, but rather by reference to their own customs, it frequently happens that a man will think nothing blameable except what the men of his own country and time are accustomed to condemn, and nothing worthy of praise or approval except what is sanctioned by the custom of his companions…
Augustine, On Chrisitian doctrine, III.10.15

But when men unacquainted with other modes of life than their own meet with the record of such actions, unless they are restrained by authority, they look upon them as sins, and do not consider that their own customs either in regard to marriage, or feasts, or dress, or the other necessities and adornments of human life, appear sinful to the people of other nations and other times. And, distracted by this endless variety of customs, some who were half asleep (as I may say)— that is, who were neither sunk in the deep sleep of folly, nor were able to awake into the light of wisdom— have thought that there was no such thing as absolute right, but that every nation took its own custom for right; and that, since every nation has a different custom, and right must remain unchangeable, it becomes manifest that there is no such thing as right at all. Such men did not perceive, to take only one example, that the precept, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” cannot be altered by any diversity of national customs. And this precept, when it is referred to the love of God, destroys all vices when to the love of one’s neighbor, puts an end to all crimes.
ibid. III.14.22

If you define “fallen human nature” as something contrary to what you believe Absolute Universal Briggs Morality says…

Good thing I don’t, then.

SteveK (@12:15 PM)

Sorry, Steve, I thought I was being clear. Let’s try again.

– WHAT is society obligating people to specifically?

A lone individual is free by definition. Nobody is telling him to do this, to do that … because there is nobody around!

If you have two individuals some obligations appear. For one of them or for both. As in:

– don’t wake me up at night, or I’ll get angry.

A loose and small society produces more obligations. The bigger and more complex (think of protocols) a society is, the more obligations you will see. Why? Because it wouldn’t be a society otherwise; it would be a number of lone and independent individuals in the same place. It is not; you never observe such a case. Human nature.

So, if you have society you have obligations. What obligations? Or, as you say …-

– WHAT is society obligating people to specifically?

It depends pretty much on what society. They are different, and the difference depends greatly on different obligations. But, there are some more or less universal obligations. You can think in many examples. For instance:

– Don’t eat your neighbor’s baby.

An obligation. Very universal. Chimps have it too.

– Believe our morality is the Absolute Universal Briggs Morality.

An obligation. Nearly universal – until recently. Chimps don’t have it.

– Burn the old female widows.

An obligation. Not universal at all.

Etc.

Like I said at the start, you are not explaining the same thing, but without God.

Ye Olde Statistician (@12:41 PM)

Thank you. I think you demonstrate my point. The circularity of your argument is overwhelming. You didn’t provide any definition of morality – as far as I remember. I don’t deny you can fabricate a definition to suit your needs. But if you bring a definition by which it follows God is involved, then God is involved. Sure, I agree. This is circularity.

But you cannot expect it to be a problem whatsoever for atheists. They will just laugh at your definition, and will carry on with their understanding of morality. With no practical or functional difference you can show. I repeat: With no practical or functional difference you can show. Can you show it?

My definition is purely an observation. And it is not heterodox at all.

Oxford dictionary, moral:

– Concerned with or derived from the code of behaviour that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society.

The “code of behavior” (of a particular society) is exactly “what you expect from others and others expect from you”.

You want to fool yourself with an extravagant definition of morality which rounds your circle? Be my guest. I will not even dare to say you are wrong. I don’t care unless you tell me what to do. But you cannot expect others to be concerned by your gymnastics. Much less worrying or crying.

Simplifying. What does a morality do – what is its function? Show me your AUBM has a different function than the moralities which actually exist in the world. Or show me it does it better. With examples, not with fantasies. Unless you are able to show it, you cannot know atheists have a problem (or any difference) with morality.

SteveK (@ 1:02 PM)

– Like I said at the start, you are not explaining the same thing, but without God.

I am not sure I get what you mean. I don’t know what is “the same thing”. I am explaining the most common meaning of morality, and its dynamics and origin.

Oxford Dictionary, morality:

– A particular system of values and principles of conduct

If you mean I am not explining AUBM, you are right. I cannot be expected to explain other’s fantasies. I am explaining, though, atheists do not have any problem with morality.

Prediction: You can observe from the outside the behavior of humans in some different human societies, without being able to tell which ones have a God, or many, or none. Does this explain the same thing?

“Yet every time a theist makes the obvious true point that if there were no God, there could be no absolute morality, no universal right and no universal wrong, the atheist believes, or pretends to believe, he has been insulted. He therefore cries: genuine waterworks if he could not follow the counterfactual, crocodile tears if he could. He takes it personally, or claims to.”
No ‘he’ doesn’t, no they don’t!!!

Briggs, knows, if he gives the matter a little thought, that everybody hates to be insulted. (Since he’s not here we can talk about him.)

What bugs me most is that the followers in the playground who don’t have a thought of their own copy the language and the rest of us have to mop up. Those with the bat and ball should be more responsible, they know who they are!

Lucia once said (after Luis and myself spent too long rowing about God and after which I learned much from what Luis said and even though he did make me cry, not an easy thing for a stranger to do.)

” I don’t know why people spend their time arguing about this. It’s a waste of time..” or words to that effect, I paraphrased) She has a point but it is a very interesting thing to discuss as long as the debate is honest and well intended. I don’t believe that it always is . From the Theist side. It’s sad to read people arguing for your own side and feeling ashamed of their conduct. Like having a jinx on board. Throw the phoneys over the side I say and show them no mercy. I have patience with people who don’t believe in God. but find it impossible to muster the same time for people who claim faith and carry on like their actions and words don’t matter.

JH,
With regards to your questioning the idea that nobody lives as though nothing matters; whether anything really matters if there is no God. Obviously most people liv as though life matters but if you think about it a little deeper, there can be no argument that things really matter without God because the universe is a cold mechanical empty place without right or wrong. Like Dawkins describes. Even he says that he tries to do the best he can and behave for the good of others. His argument falls flat though. Without God nothing does matter and our lives, families, villages, cities, art, scientific discovery, beauty; all a waste of time, nothing worth even a note. In the grand scheme of things, which is not a scheme at all, it amounts to nothing. It is this reality or logical truth given the atheist premise with which many people grapple and cannot simply set aside and for some is haunting.
It is a potentially dangerous way to think and depending upon the individual will inevitably result in behaviour that is informed by the thought. The behaviour is likely to be destructive to others or individuals.

Furthermore there is the effect of future generations who grow up believing there are no consequences. As long as you don’t get caught, that is. We can’t catch everybody doing wrong and there’s less and less inclination, it seems, to even bother as less and less actions become considered wrong.

So there is an effect on the individual and the effect of living with others who have been influenced by this belief in no consequences, i.e. a lack of conscience. Selfishness is primitive, selfless acts require deeper thought.

I’ve said this before but if you listen to Dawkins talking to reasonable people, you hear very reasonable responses. He has tailored and tempered some of his speech and my guess is he deep down despite what he says, is a little envious of people who do truly believe. I am no mind reader, nor is anyone but I’m willing to bet he’s like the rest of us.

Just to be repetitive since that’s the trend at the mo,
One of the greatest poets Thomas Hardy, an architect interested in all the kinds of things often discussed here,
longed to keep his faith but had an intellectual inability to do so. I believe that’s good enough.

The Darkling Thrush really captures the thoughts and feelings of somebody questioning what it’s all about. All deep thinkers have feelings when they think. Only robots or the dryest or faking intellectuals think emotion is dirty. Everything in it’s place! and if the meaning of the universe allows no space for emotion about the facts then in circular fashion thought leads back to the cold dark mechanical place.

Are people who set out to make atheists cry really looking for a reason to cry? I am going to call it crying vicariously, or lacrimosa by proxy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-TrAvp_xs

The Darkling Thrush:
I leaned upon a coppice gate when frost was spectre grey,
and winters dregs made desolate the weakening eye of day.
The tangled binestems scored the sky like strings of broken lyres
and all mankind that haunted nigh had sought their household fires.

The Land’s sharp features seemed to be
the century’s corpse outleant.
TheCrypt it’s cloudy canopy , the wind it’s death lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth had shrunken hard and dry
and every spirit upon earth seemed ferverless, as I.

At once a voice arose among the bleak twigs overhead,
In a full hearted evensong of joy ilimited,,
an aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small in blast-beruffled plume,
had chosen thus to fling his soul upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolling of such ecstatic sound
were written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around,
that I should think there trembled through his happy goodnight air,
some blessed hope, whereof he knew,
and I was unaware.

Keats wrote “ode to a Nightingale” which has similar theme, dealing with death eternity and uncertainty.
Interesting that they both were inspired to write by observing birds, tiny little ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHIUo00VihM

and for souls that need soothing . Watching this conductor is positively therapeutic too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzUMfVpugq4

“With no practical or functional difference you can show. I repeat: With no practical or functional difference you can show. Can you show it?”

I can show that a society admits it has obligating itself to immoral ends/means. That’s an admission that a society thinks it does not ground morality. So what does?

@plazaeme:

“With no practical or functional difference you can show. I repeat: With no practical or functional difference you can show. Can you show it?”

Since YOS is a Catholic and as you say, there is no practical or functional difference, therefore it means that as far as moral and ethics, yours are the same as that of Catholics. So you are against abortion and divorce, view homossexual acts as sinful, etc. Great, just goes to show you do have some sense in that head, in spite of all the sillyness you write.

“You want to fool yourself with an extravagant definition of morality which rounds your circle? Be my guest. I will not even dare to say you are wrong. I don’t care unless you tell me what to do. But you cannot expect others to be concerned by your gymnastics. Much less worrying or crying.”

It is neither extravagant by any measure whatsoever, since it has been the classical normative concept of a large part of western philosophical history. Neither it is circular; you simply claim this, but there is not a single argument from you actually *showing* it.

SteveK (@ 2:35 PM)

– I can show that a society admits it has obligating itself to immoral ends/means. That’s an admission that a society thinks it does not ground morality. So what does?

Do show me. It is a very strange situation. But I don’t think it matters. It doesn’t matter what a society thinks are the grounds of its morality. Usually they think in God or some very cool miracle. Briggs seems to think that too – at least for AUBM. But it doesn’t make it true.

But show me please. You may have found something interesting.

G. Rodrigues (@ 2:47 PM)

Dear Rodrigues. Glad to see you again.

You are confusing the function of morality with particular precepts of moralities. I did not ask YOS to show the same moral commands in a society with and without God. Would be rather peculiar:

– Thou shalt not believe in false gods

There you have. Different moral commands. But not a different function. You will never understand because you don’t care about morality’s function. You don’t understand morality.

Of course, being a catholic atheist, my “internal moral believes” (my preferences) are closer to catholic theists than that of -for example- islamic theists. God has nothing to do with it; I have being programmed as anyone else. No, I am not against abortion and divorce, nor do I view homossexual acts as sinful. I have had a “catholic programming”, but it wasn’t my only programming. My society is not “only catholic programmed”.

Again, you are confusing morality’s function. To tell you what behavior to expect from others, and what behaviour others expect from you. It is irrelevant what behaviour I find (internally) more moral — as far as I comply or accept the consequences. The function of moral is to know what happens with A or B behaviour.

The function of morality is not someone believing in God (that’s irrelevant by itself), but the society getting the effects of its members believing in God. And that was my prediction about. You cannot tell today which society believes in god by observing only the behavior of its members. Can you? If you can’t, you have a believe in something not observable. And your believe cannot be a problem for any atheist. At all.

Of course, believing in fantasies is a great social tool. Societies bloom with fantasies. But fantasies change.

Definitions:
– It is neither extravagant by any measure whatsoever, since it has been the classical normative concept of a large part of western philosophical history.

1. What is your definition?

2. During that “large part of western philosophical history” they didn’t have a clue on the function of morality. They couldn’t. The knowledge needed wasn’t available. Logic is not knowledge, is a tool. You need some reality to use the tool to some benefit.

– Neither it is circular; you simply claim this, but there is not a single argument from you actually *showing* it.

Show me your definition so we can see whether it is circular or not. What is AUBM’s definition?

So, two points.

1. How can you tell the difference between a God okay society and a God not-okay society by only looking at the behavior of its members? (Behaviours, not believes).

2. What is the definition of your universal moral?

But if you bring a definition by which it follows God is involved…

Good thing I have not done so. Aristotle actually had several gods, although he did seem to recognize a God that underlay them. But morality stemmed from the completion and perfection of human nature, not from the dictates of any gods.

atheists. They will just laugh at your definition, and will carry on with their understanding of morality.

Which, as Nietzsche pointed out, was to follow Christian morality without the Christ. The answers were, in a manner of speaking, already in the back of the book and, having these answers to hand, felt no need to ask the questions. Stanley Fish gives a good account of this in his NYT column, “Are There Secular Reasons?”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/are-there-secular-reasons/?_r=0

Of course without a calibration department, standards have been slipping. See road rage, mass shootings, etc. We seem to be resorting to ancient methods of conflict resolution, but with post-modern weaponry.

believing in fantasies is a great social tool.

Such as the belief that one has been programmed.

Put us in touch with your programmer, why don’t you.

YOS.

– Good thing I have not done so.

No you haven’t. I can only speculate about your definition of a universal morality. Will you be so kind to provide one?

YOS.

– Such as the belief that one has been programmed.

Put us in touch with your programmer, why don’t you.

Yea, I can introduce you to my parents, teachers, buddies in my childhood and teenage, books, films, songs, etc. You pay the plane, and you can stay at home. OK?

You really think you came out as you are from only genes and God?

Programmed by society to believe that matter in motion has the ability to program matter in motion.

“It doesn’t matter what a society thinks are the grounds of its morality.”

True. It only matters what actually does ground it. I mentioned this only because you said that “My definition is purely an observation”.

Observation shows most people disagree with your definition so what exactly are YOU observing? Show me.

“Do show me.”

See my above statement about observations.

The way I understand your view is society can do evil if it fails to fulfill the obligations of society, or good if it succeeds. History records both but the following example present a twist that you’ll have to explain to me.

Society has obligated slaves to be slaves, and society succeeded. Would this be an example of a society being morality good according to what society obligates?

– Programmed by society to believe that matter in motion has the ability to program matter in motion.

You don’t believe in genes? But you apparently think I *have to* believe in AUBM. Seriously? It is very surprising, thank you. Atheists are worring and crying more and more as the thread advances.

Well, you are not quite right. I have been programmed in many believes. Sometimes the programming was succesfull, sometimes not. And it wasn’t unusual to receive a programming and an anti-programming for the same believe (society is a very complex beast). But Evolution was not one of the items on my programming. I decided by myself being relatively “clean”. Well, “by myself” … as far as it goes.

Is this absolute moral code you refer to the Catholic absolute moral code or the Protestant absolute moral code or the Islamic absolute moral code or … (You get the idea.)

SteveK (@5:05 PM)

No, sorry, Steve. You said:

– I can show that a society admits it has obligating itself to immoral ends/means.

Either you show us, or (we will think) you can’t show it.

– Observation shows most people disagree with your definition so what exactly are YOU observing? Show me.

I told you. My observation is: moral is concerned with or derived from the code of behaviour that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society.

Being Oxford’s Dictionary definition I doubt your observation that most people desagree with it. But it doesn´t really matter. Most people don’t observe morality as a passtime. I do.

– The way I understand your view is society can do evil if it fails to fulfill the obligations of society, or good if it succeeds.

No, this is not at all my view. I don’t know how could anyone have an idea of wrong and good without a society. Say … as a Robinson Crusoe raised by a chimp in an island. A society can do wrong by the point of view of other society. But, which of both societal points of views is “wrong”? Dunno. It may have the effect of the disapearence of a society, but, is this “wrong”? Couldn’t tell you why from outside both societies. Societies dissapear all the time; is part of the game. Imagine ISIS dissapears. Is it bad?

– Society has obligated slaves to be slaves, and society succeeded. Would this be an example of a society being morality good according to what society obligates?

This has nothing to do with your previous proposition.

– I can show that a society admits it has obligating itself to immoral ends/means.

– Is this absolute moral code …

We have name it the Absolute Universal Briggs Morality (AUBM). Now we only lack a definition, but we expect it tonight. Be patient.

I’m bowing out

JMJ: Still living in that fantasy world and trying to convince everyone you’re the one in reality, I see. It’s easy when you make things up in your head and ignore all evidence that you’re wrong. It’s so simple when you never learn and never evolve.

You really think you came out as you are from only genes

No, but it’s interesting that you think of child-rearing and education as “programming.”

Or for that matter, that you think of the Good as being what you were educated into rather than a standard toward which your educated behaviors might achieve or fall short. Do you really think that if everyone in society was taught and firmly believed that it was right to swindle old widows of their money that it would be right?

Most people who hold that there is no absolute morality usually mean that they want to lay many women and not feel guilty. They don’t seem to realize that the same slack applies to strictures they do agree with.

You don’t believe in genes?

Genes are not programming. cf. phenotype plasticity.
++++

The nature of man is to be a rational animal. Moral behavior is therefore what completes and perfects this nature. This is two-fold: the animal and the rational. Hence, mens sana in corpore sano. (Notice that sane and healthy are the same word in Latin.) Perfecting both requires exercise to build up strengths. Both require the priority of the intellect over the will (let alone over the sensory appetites!) There’s that “rational” thingie again: It’s impossible to want what you do not know. But in the age of the Triumph of the Will, this point needs to be reiterated. Many of the shortcomings of today are due to giving the will priority over the intellect.

Each person judges his own desires to be good, even when this contradicts the universal judgement of reason. I would like to eat whatever I want and not get fat; but reason tells me I cannot. Reason tells me that for a healthy body, I should eat this and not that, and this much but not that much. We recognize the moral dimension of this when we say “Eating that will be bad for you.” On the other hand, someone who wants to eat can rationalize pigging out. So intemperance eventually becomes habituated. The irony is that the Triumph of the Will leads to a lack of will power, and “freedom” results in enslavement to the passions.

Now physical virtue (virtus=”strength”) is not usually thought of as morality in the ethical sense, so turn to the “rational” part of human nature. What is involved in its perfections?

Since the rational powers are two — intellect and volition — their perfections fall into two groups: the intellective strengths and the volitional strengths. You must know the Good and you must desire/do the Good.

Plato’s synderesis does not mean that every whim or passing desire is moral. The conscience must be formed by good habits, just as on the physical side an athlete forms good habits of exercise that predispose her toward making her vaults and tumbles. Good habits [virtues] are those which dispose us to perform acts consistent with our nature. Bad habits [vices] dispose us to perform acts not consistent with our nature. When we are clear what acts are consistent with our nature, we will be clear what constitutes good and bad. This is not as easy as just doing what you are told by your Obergruppenfuehrer or your buddies in the dorm. You have to learn to think.

Every voluntary act is two acts.
1. An interior act of the will whose object is the end; and
2. the exterior act whose object is the means.

The first is the formal cause while the second is the material cause of the act. Thus, materially, I might reach out and grab a baseball bat. Formally, I may intend to hit a home run or (more modestly) a base hit. Or I might pick it up with the formal intention of making some of those English flatheads flatter. Picking up the bat is the means to those ends and is good or bad only with respect to the end toward which it is employed. It is in the end that the morality lies.

Now, the nature of man being a rational animal, what is good is what is in accordance with reason, which makes moral virtue inseparable from intellectual virtue. Intellectual and moral virtue are not the same, nor can one be reduced to the other. The intellectual virtues are habits of intellect and the moral virtues are habits of appetite or will.

A. The intellectual virtues.
1. Understanding is the habit of principles;
2. Knowledge is the habit of proximate causes;
3. Wisdom is the habit of ultimate causes.

The root of this triad is understanding, since without a firm grasp of principles, neither science nor wisdom is possible. Wisdom judges both understanding and its principles and also knowledge and its conclusions.

But it is not enough to think well, we must also act well; that is, act according to reason and not blind impulse or passion. The principle here is not the intellect, but the will, more specifically the end the will seeks. There must be a fourth intellectual virtue
4. Prudence, which puts reason into a state to determine the means to that end. After all, if your dog has fleas, throwing the dog into the furnace is an effective means to get rid of the fleas, but prudence cautions us not to choose it.

As prudence is the culmination of the intellectual virtues, so is she the root of the moral ones:
B. The moral virtues.
1. Justice regulates our acts independently of our dispositions as regards what is due or not due to another. These dispositions lead to the other two moral virtues:
2. Temperance is what we call upon if we are drawn by passion toward an act contrary to reason.
3. Courage is what we must call upon if we are impeded by fear or sloth from acting as reason says we ought.

The moral virtues perfect the will just as the intellectual virtues perfect the intellect. No one is blameworthy for being a bad scientist or a bad artist; but very much so for being an extortioner, a drunkard, or a coward. So moral behavior lies primarily in the exercise of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage.

It has become de mode to confuse the appetites with the intellect, to confuse what we want with what is good. This is why so many people today feel that morality is a “personal” matter and that there can be no objective morality. But to indulge the appetites rather than the intellect requires that we reject temperance. And to throw temperance under the bus, we must first discard prudence, and prudence is the coupling between the intellect and the will.

Thus intemperance severs the linkage between what we want and what we know and this makes us less human; i.e., less of a rational animal. Cf.:
https://webapps.pni.princeton.edu/ncc/PDFs/Neural%20Economics/Cohen%20(JEP%2005).pdf

Nothing prevents an atheist from reasoning in this way. This was Paul’s point while dealing with the Greeks. However, certain predispositions of post-modern atheism are subversive of the rationalist approach. That is because in the meantime, we have gone through the Triumph of the Will. This stifles cool, measured reflection on the moral for hot, committed activism. Instead of saying “I think we ought to…,” we now say “I feel we ought to…”

Oh my goodness! YOS.

– Do you really think that if everyone in society was taught and firmly believed that it was right to swindle old widows of their money that it would be right?

We are talking past each other.

– If … moral is the code of behaviour that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society (Oxfrd D)

– And if … everyone in a society believes X is a right behaviour

– Then … X is a moral behaviour in this society

It would NOT be right for me, but I am not a member of this morality.

As you do not provide a definition of AUBM, I cannot know what the hell are you talking about. But there you have an obvious answer fo quite a common definition of morality. I have to imagine your definition and I can only guess whether it makes any sense or what its answer to the question would be.

– Most people who hold that there is no absolute morality usually mean that they want to lay many women and not feel guilty. They don’t seem to realize that the same slack applies to strictures they do agree with.

So, what? AUBM says you can’t lay many women? How would they know if you don’t tell us what the hell is AUBM? Gypsies believe they should not lay many woman. Is AUBM the morality of Gypsies? Great, because they believe in theft.

– Genes are not programming. cf. phenotype plasticity.

Let’s try not to be very hard on you. We’ll pass this one. 😉

– The nature of man is to be a rational animal.

I can’t keep reading. Whatever you think about human nature, men are not rational most of the time. So your proposition is observable bullshit. Perfect nonsense. I stop at this point. I am tired of your mental gymnastics based on smoke.

Make it simple. The two points.

1. How can you tell the difference between a God okay society and a God not-okay society by only looking at the behavior of its members? (Behaviours, not believes).

Note: If you can’t, your AUBM does not have an observable effect. In this case:

1.1 Why do you think atheists should worry about a non observable fantasy? (If it is non observable it is a fantasy – an idea with no basis in reality).

2. What is the definition of your universal moral?

That’s all the problem we have. Very simple.

@plazaeme:

“You are confusing the function of morality with particular precepts of moralities.”

I am not confusing anything. You said and I quote (emphasis mine): “With no *practical* or *functional* difference you can show. I *repeat*: With no *practical* or *functional* difference you can show. Can you show it?” It is quite clear what you meant by “practical or functional difference”.

“Of course, believing in fantasies is a great social tool. Societies bloom with fantasies. But fantasies change.”

Yes, your beliefs are dreary, dull, stupid fantasies. We can agree on that.

“During that “large part of western philosophical history” they didn’t have a clue on the function of morality. They couldn’t. The knowledge needed wasn’t available.”

So first it was the “definition of morality” that was “extravagant”. Now it was not merely “extravagant”, but our forefathers “didn’t have a clue” about the “function of morality”. The “function of morality”, a modern discovery! Along with M&Ms and Pokemons!

“Show me your definition so we can see whether it is circular or not. ”

It seemed to me that you were claiming that the conception of morality as Mr. Briggs and YOS used it, was circular, But since now you are asking me for a definition, I must have misread you.

Somebody tell me what warrants not just avoiding Blacks, non-White Hispanics, and Muslims, but pushing for their depopulation. Considering their violent crime levels, IQ scores, usage of government programs accounting for population, and hordes of Blacks rioting over court cases not going their way.

Absent of God, of course.

– Do you really think that if everyone in society was taught and firmly believed that it was right to swindle old widows of their money that it would be right?

We are talking past each other.
If … moral is the code of behaviour that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society (Oxfrd D)
And if … everyone in a society believes X is a right behaviour
Then … X is a moral behaviour in this society

So you do believe that bilking old ladies would be okay if only society generally agreed that it was. I did not ask what you yourself would do, since you are living in the afterglow of a Christian morality. I asked “if everyone in society was taught and firmly believed that it was right to swindle old widows” would it actually be right?

Whatever you think about human nature, men are not rational most of the time. So your proposition is observable bullshit.

Really? You think men are unable to give reasons for their acts, abstract universals principles from particular experience, use language, etc.? I suppose when they are asleep, but that is not “most of the time.” Who knew that their nature changed when they dozed off. (There are also speech defects, mental defects, etc., but those do not characterize the nature of man.)

Or do you think being “rational” = “being logical” like Houyhnhnms? Or that “rational” = “giving reasons that plazaeme agrees with?”
+++

I can’t keep reading.

And just in time, too. Otherwise you might get a question answered
+++

I am tired of your mental gymnastics based on smoke.

I’m sorry if mental gymnastics are too difficult for you.
+++

How can you tell the difference between a God okay society and a God not-okay society by only looking at the behavior of its members?

I’m not sure what you mean by a God-okay society. I have not mentioned God, nor have I cited him in the development of the moral basics in the part where you declared your inability to read further. It was premised entirely on human nature as an animal possessed of intellect and volition.

Can you determine what the standards and specifications are for a manufactured part based only on the actual measurements of the parts produced? No, you would have to know the standard independently of the behaviors.
+++

So, what? AUBM says you can’t lay many women?

I’m not sure what you mean by AUBM, but that does seem to be what many soi-disant latter-day atheists fear. Ask women who have stumbled into atheist conventions and find they need “safe spaces” for real. But what I said was that folks who deny an objective morality usually have very specific ideas about what they want to get away with and forget that they have given license to others to get away with other stuff — like bilking your grandmother of her savings.

But in fact, all societies have in fact had rules about which women you were allowed to mate with and under what circumstances. It’s one of those things that seem to be morally universal, although the details of application vary. (E.g., dividing clans into moeities and restricting choice of mates to the opposite moeity.)
+++

If it is non observable it is a fantasy

No, if it is non-observable it is simply non-observable. Who has ever observed Mathematics? Forces? Beauty? Taste? Laws of physics? For that matter, Heisenberg denied the objective existence of subatomic particles, comparing them to Aristotelian potentialities.
+++

Is AUBM the morality of Gypsies? Great, because they believe in theft.

And how would you characterize the morality of blacks or Jews?
+++

– Genes are not programming. cf. phenotype plasticity.
Let’s try not to be very hard on you. We’ll pass this one.

You don’t realize that critters with the same genotypes can develop different phenotypes depending on epigenetic factors? Cf. helmeted water fleas, Mediterranean wall lizards, Devil’s Hole pupfish, et al.
+++

Rodrigues, you are getting better and better.

– It is quite clear what you meant by “practical or functional difference”.

Sure it is quite clear for anyone but you, who don’t dare to define. If you lack the culture to understand functional, use a dictionary.

– Yes, your beliefs are dreary, dull, stupid fantasies. We can agree on that.

Sure. But you are quite ridiculous if you think your adjectives avoid fantasies from being societal tools, or relieve you from your moral duty to provide a definition.

– So first it was the “definition of morality” that was “extravagant”. Now it was not merely “extravagant”, but our forefathers “didn’t have a clue” about the “function of morality”. The “function of morality”, a modern discovery! Along with M&Ms and Pokemons!

Very simple my dear genius. To understand the function of something inside a very complex system you need to study many situations and as different as possible. Your forefathers didn’t have enough differences to study, nor the tools to do it. You know: animals, in the wild and laboratory; hunter-gatherers; post-God societies; etc. But we know you think you don’t need reality to achieve knowledge. Thanks for demonstrating my point.

– It seemed to me that you were claiming that the conception of morality as Mr. Briggs and YOS used it, was circular

If I write a hundred times circular argument, of course you can understand whatever you choose to understand. That’s how the world of fantasy works.

– But since now you are asking me for a definition,

And you apparently think arguments can work without defining the terms. So, you are not only outside reality, but outside simple logic.

To get to and ending. I asked you two questions which are necessary to understand why the heck you imagine atheists are going to cry by your “reasoning”. A definition, and how it works. Do you provide them? No, sir. You fish for excuses to avoid it. I would say you demonstrated atheist’s point. You won’t “make an atheist cry”. So sorry. They are all laughing out loud

Ye Olde Statistician (@11:50 PM)

– So you do believe that bilking old ladies would be okay if only society generally agreed that it was.

This is very boring, YOS. Observe the world (not your fantasy). You will notice that “to be OK” has not meaning if you don’t provide a reference frame. Everything you observe is OK and not-OK depending on the reference frame. Yes, you think there is a universal absolute reference frame. But, as you don’t (1) provide a definition, and (2) show how it works, there is no way anyone can know what you are talking about, nor believe it.

Men are quite capable of giving reasons for their acts. This is not “being rational”, but rationalizing.

– Or do you think being “rational” = …

I try to look up what others think, so we are using the same meanings.

Oxford Dictionary, rational:

– Based on or in accordance with reason or logic

Human behaviour is nearly never based on reason. We rationalize it after the decision.

– And just in time, too. Otherwise you might get a question answered

Is it so? You provided a definition of AUBM? Can you be so kind to copy it without the garbage? (You know, a statement of the exact meaning of a word).

– I’m sorry if mental gymnastics are too difficult for you.

They are not difficult at all. They are pointless if they are not reality based.

– I’m not sure what you mean by a God-okay society. … It was premised entirely on human nature as an animal possessed of intellect and volition.

Briggs:

– Tell an atheist there could be no morality, no right and no wrong, without G—without God, that is

So, Briggs is certainly “mentioning God” and using God to explain morality. You don’t? Good for you! But I am not (and cannot) address anyone’s idea of morality. I assumed you had the same as Briggs. Any case, if your idea is based on human nature, and you believe the fantasy that “the nature of man is to be a rational animal”, I am not interested in your fantasy.

– I’m not sure what you mean by AUBM

I told you: Universal Absolute Briggs Morality. I don’t know what it means. I don’t even believe it exists. That’s what we are trying to find. Some miracle which will “make atheists cry” because “there could be no morality (UABM) without God”. Now you tell us you have a different version of universal morality. Great; it is as much a fantasy as Biriggs morality because it is based on an obviously fantastic “nature of man”.

Yes, I understood you. You think that folks who deny an objective morality are usually bad boys. It may be true. It is also true that folks who state they believe in an “objective morality” behave exactly as the folks who deny an “objective morality”. I asked you to show me te difference. Did you?

You may think nearly nobody believes in an true “objective morality” (say YOS True Objective Morality, or YTOM), and you may think the world would be a paradise if they did. And I may agree it is a very interesting … theory. Go check it. Show me your predictions.

– Who has ever observed Mathematics?

Get two apples. Add two more. Can you observe four apples? Maths (and logic) is a fantasy. Applied to something real is observable. You are not aplying your logic to something real.

– And how would you characterize the morality of blacks or Jews?

I don’t know of any “morality of blacks”. I would characterize any morality by describing its features. ¿So what?

– You don’t realize that critters with the same genotypes can develop different phenotypes depending on epigenetic factors?

Yes I do. It doesn’t follow genes are not a programm. It does follow your end result comes from program + world. So what?

I insist. Can you show me that humans who state they believe in YTOM have a different behaviour compared to humans who don’t state they believe in YTOM? If you can’t, there is no way Briggs can “make an atheist cry”, either with AUBM or with YTOM.

Plazaeme.
“Human behaviour is nearly never based on reason. We rationalize it after the decision.”

Only a rational creature could ever rationalize. Animals do not rationalize.

Mactoul (@4:41 AM)

– Only a rational creature could ever rationalize. Animals do not rationalize.

If you think “being able to reason” is “being rational”, you are right. Chimps are able to reason.

YOS,

[C]ritters with the same genotypes can develop different phenotypes depending on epigenetic factors?

This claim claim is false. There is no sufficient evidence to support it. Science!

Rodrigues, YOS.

Let’s get rid of all the smoke you are so keen to produce. Let’s focus. Correct me if I am wrong.

(1) You both believe there is a special kind of morality that is not society dependant, and it has an absolute (universal, true, etc.) reference frame. It may be the same morality with different names (AUBM, YTOM), or they may be two different moralities. We’ll see.

(2) You both believe such a morality makes a difference compared to the lack of such morality.

This difference can be …

(2a) A difference in believes (as in thou shalt not believe in false gods)

or …

(2b) A difference in behaviour (killings, theft, cannibalism, etc.).

or …

(2c) Both.

(3) Briggs & Rodrigues thinks this special morality (AUBM) needs the fantastic idea of God to be true. YOS thinks it needs a fantastic idea of human nature to be true (the nature of man is to be rational).

(4) Briggs & Rodrigues think this self-evident truth will “make atheists cry”. I don’t have a clue on what YOS thinks in this respect.

Do we agree so far?

@plazaeme:

“To get to and ending. I asked you two questions which are necessary to understand why the heck you imagine atheists are going to cry by your “reasoning”. A definition, and how it works. Do you provide them? No, sir. You fish for excuses to avoid it. I would say you demonstrated atheist’s point. You won’t “make an atheist cry”. So sorry. They are all laughing out loud.”

I have already addressed this, more than once actually. So, repeating myself. First, you speak only for yourself not for all atheists and yes, there are atheists that will object strenuously to the substantive implication in the OP. But more importantly, and since I am discussing with you not with a random atheist, this is moot because *you* *agree* with it. All discussion that can be had can only be about comparatively mere fluff, such as the amount of tears or teeth cringing that atheists do or not do. You yourself do not shed a single tear, think it is all fine and dandy and even “laugh out loud”. Blessed ignorance. You may not be aware, but you have already conceded all that I could ever ask (short of full blown repentance I guess), without even having to break a sweat. As far as I am concerned, check mate, game over.

And as for “fishing for excuses” — I have not given any excuses whatsoever. Am I interested in educating you in what is the standard, normative classical conception of morality? Not really. If our short exchanges are anything to go by, if your responses to YOS are any indication, it would be like pulling teeth. And if you do not know such basic stuff, shouldn’t you educate yourself? Just a thought. It is all the more puzzling when you have already conceded what you have conceded — namely, you agree with the substantive implication in the OP.

You are incredible Rodrigues.

– And as for “fishing for excuses” — I have not given any excuses whatsoever.

OK the last one:

– I have already addressed this, more than once actually. So, repeating myself.

And, yes, you do repeat yourself in not giving a definition. Addressing something, or believing you did, is not a definition. This is, exactly, “fishing for excuses” to avoid providing a definition. Or a difference in behaviour.

– All discussion that can be had can only be about comparatively mere fluff, such as the amount of tears or teeth cringing that atheists do or not do.

No. What you should explain is why anyone, atheist or otherwise, should be concerned or even slightly interested in a fantasy of Briggs, when Briggs refuses to show what a difference it produces in human behaviour. No one is much interested in other’s believes and fantasies — excluding some fanatics.

I am very glad you are so happy with yourself. Is it an internal effect of AUBM? I’ll try to smoke some.

– So you do believe that bilking old ladies would be okay if only society generally agreed that it was.
Everything you observe is OK and not-OK depending on the reference frame.

IOW, you do.
BTW, nice pseudo-scientific use of physics language to give the discourse a patina of Scientificalistic thinking.
+++

They [morality] are pointless if they are not reality based.

That is precisely what Aristotle did; yet you did not want to read it. You deny that it is reality. Humans do not have language. You do not have reasons for what you are writing here. You do not have reasons for your atheism. When you give reasons, you claim they are only rationalizations. Imagine the havoc this belief would wreak if transferred to the natural sciences, where scientists (who are also humans) attempt to give sufficient reasons for observations.

BTW, do you suppose that Aristotle never saw a drunk or a man in the grips of rage? Do you suppose he did not know that men did not always reason in a logical manner? That’s why he wrote that the human nature had a rational and an irrational part. For example, we do not reason ourselves to be hunngry or to desire red. See Nich. Eth, I.13, here http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html
+++

if your idea [of morality] is based on human nature, and you believe the fantasy that “the nature of man is to be a rational animal”…

Atheists always take aim at God and always wind up shooting humanism.
+++

Briggs is certainly “mentioning God” and using God to explain morality.

But in what way? Perhaps you think of God as a sort of Caesar Augustus sitting upon a throne and issuing decrees? But that is not how it works. It leads to the so-called Euthyphro dilemma. (Again, see Plato for details.) That may be good enough for most, who lack the time, skills, or interest for the mental gymnastics. After all, most of us know about physics or chemistry only what we need for practical life and do not delve into the basic reasoning behing, say, Ricci tensors or valence electrons. But that is not the whole thing.
+++

You think that folks who deny an objective morality are usually bad boys.

Nope, but there is nothing but parasitism to prevent them. Notice that you cannot be a bad boy without a standard of morality to go by.

folks who state they believe in an “objective morality” behave exactly as the folks who deny an “objective morality”. I asked you to show me te difference.

Oh, they would know that they’ve been bad.
+++

Get two apples. Add two more. Can you observe four apples?

What do you mean by “two” apples? I observe this apple and that apple. I do not observe a “two.” If I place this apple and that apple on a table are there now three things on the table: viz., this apple and that apple and a “two”? C’mon, no fudging on the “observable” thingie.

Maths (and logic) is a fantasy. Applied to something real is observable.

To what “real or observable thing” is the mathematics of conjoining and splitting topologies of function spaces applied?

Of course, morality is applied to things that are “observable,” too; to wit: old ladies bilked of their life’s savings.
+++

– And how would you characterize the morality of blacks or Jews?
I don’t know of any “morality of blacks”… So what?

You had no problem characterizing gypsies as thieves. I was just wondering how you characterized other groups of humans.
+++

Can you show me that humans who state they believe in YTOM have a different behaviour compared to humans who don’t state they believe in YTOM?

This has already been done. I cited several prominent atheists (Sartre, Nietzsche, Voltaire, Rorty, etc.) who contended that there must be a difference and sed contra St. Paul, who contended there need not be. It was Paul’s contention, riffing off Plato in the Timaeus who gave us this notion of “synderesis” (conscience) that distinguishes Christendom from other civilizations (where they rely on shame rather than guilt, and morality is simply obedience to the father figure). The law is “written in their hearts,” Paul wrote, even if they do not know the law. Thus a virtuous pagan need not act differently than a virtuous Jew. This is less because they “believe” in an objective morality than because the objective morality believes in them. That is, if the law is in fact written in their hearts, it is not necessary that they know who wrote it there; although it may be important that they know how to read. IOW, your question misses the mark.

I get the sense that you feel the moral law is like the positive law: a set of proscriptions handed down by an authority like the Cornelian Law by the Roman Senate or the Corn Law by the British Parliament. But it is really more like the Law of Gravity. The behavior of someone who believes that there is an invisible “force” that reaches out from the Earth (or any ponderable matter) and pulls objects toward it is not demonstrably different from that of people who believe otherwise. They both fall to Earth at 32 ft/sec². Of course, those who don’t believe in gravity may not be as careful while cavorting on the edges of cliffs, but most of them will take their cue from their innate fear of falling that is “written in their hearts.”

@plazaeme:

“What you should explain is why anyone, atheist or otherwise, should be concerned or even slightly interested in a fantasy of Briggs, when Briggs refuses to show what a difference it produces in human behaviour.”

The point of the OP is not to explain “why anyone, atheist or otherwise, should be concerned or even slightly interested in a fantasy of Briggs”, that is just your private little obsession. I have already responded to the “difference it produces in human behaviour”. Briggs himself explicitly addresses this in the OP. Go back and read again if you are interested.

[C]ritters with the same genotypes can develop different phenotypes depending on epigenetic factors
This claim claim is false. There is no sufficient evidence to support it. Science!

Two cloned populations of helmeted water fleas were raised in separate tanks. One tank was tinctured with the chemical marker for a predator fish, the other was not. The fleas in the first tank developed with the characteristic helmet of their species. The other population did not.
Observation!

Wall lizards on a barren island off the Adriatic coast of Croatia were insectivorous. A group of them were transferred to another island lush with vegetation but without wall lizards. Twenty years later, this second population had not only shifted from eating insects (and each other) to eating plant matter, but they had developed an organ for digesting the stuff.
Observation!

The entire species of the Devils Hole pupfish lives in a rocky pool, 20 meters long and three meters wide, in a cave entrance in Death Valley, California. In 1976, conservationists established the fish in other pools elsewhere just in case Devil’s Hole dried up. “But the refuge-bred fish began to look different, with deeper bodies and smaller heads, although all the fish [were] pretty much the same genetically.” Sean Lema, a graduate student at UC Davis, and Gabrielle Nevitt, professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior, … reared a related but unthreatened species, the Amargosa pupfish, in the lab on a restricted diet and with slight changes in water temperature. The Amargosa pupfish began to look more like the wild Devils Hole pupfish.” In other words, one kind of pupfish changed into another kind of pupfish when placed in the particular environment of the other. Significant adaptive variations appeared within two years. Since pupfish reach full maturity within 2 to 3 months and spawn from late February through the summer, that’s about four or five pupfish generations. “No new information had appeared in the guppies’ DNA; instead, the expression of the existing information had altered.”
Observation!

Rodrigues:

– The point of the OP is not to explain “why anyone, atheist or otherwise, should be concerned or even slightly interested in a fantasy of Briggs”, that is just your private little obsession.

Well … no. If Briggs thinks it will “make an atheist cry” (the title of the post), we may forgive him the little details of how much crying, etc. But we cannot forgive at least a clue of why should anyone have the slightest of interests. Unless we think he’s lost his mind, which may probably not be too far from being the case.

– I have already responded to the “difference it produces in human behaviour”. Briggs himself explicitly addresses this in the OP. Go back and read again if you are interested.

Can you quote Briggs, please? We may have a problem with the meaning of “showing”. For te average guy, “to show” something is definitively not to speculate with what will happen … if I your fantasy is true.

So, as you think Briggs has showed a difference in human behaviour when he has not done it at all, then I won’t think you are able to know whether you have or not. But you can quote yourself too, though. I am not going to check (I did for Briggs) because it is a waste of time with someone who can’t distinguish imagination from reality.

This is the closest Briggs comes to showing a difference in behaviour:

– Similarly, the man who denies God, or says he does, will not rape, murder, and steal, at least, not at rates different (or much different) than other men, unless his disbelief is so strong that he sincerely acts on the conclusion that, without God, there is no universal morality. The logic that gives this conclusion would be valid and sound if the premise “God does not exist” is true, which it isn’t. Anyway, this man will reason that if nothing matters, whatever he does is without moral consequence. He might do anything.

And you think this is “showing a difference in behaviour”? You are out of your mind.

Besides, you are completely wrong. But I don’t think explaining (and “showing”) you will make any difference. Tip: Not even chimps “might do anything”. It’s a fact (not that you care about facts).

Great thread. 101 comments where tears were shed, teeth gnashed, and garments rent, just as our host promised. Nice work, Briggs. And thanks also to Rodrigues and YOS for a fine show.

YOS

I am stopping reading you. Not that it is not very interesting (you are). It’s a matter of time. I am not interested in Aristotle, I prefer playing Go.

The case is, Aristotle or not Aristotle, we have a relatively simple problem. At least in theory. You know of a morality (YTOM) that is interesting because of something?

A) Yes.

-> Why is it interesting?

A1) It changes what people believe and how people behave.

-> Great, show me the difference in behavior.

A2) It doesn’t change human behaviour in a way I can show.

-> Sorry, not interested in fantasies.

B) No.

-> If it is not interesting, why waste the time?

I am stopping reading you.

What, too risky?

It changes what people believe and how people behave.

So does gravity, whether one believes it or not.

But those who do not believe (“be-“+”lief”, greatly love; cognate to “belove” and Ger. “geliebt”) are susceptible to the temptation of their lower appetites, their vegetative or sensitive inclinations; much as the man who leaves the highway and cuts through fields and forests may indeed reach his destination, but is more liable to getting lost.

Stipulated, there are those, perhaps most, who simply piggy-back on the accepted morality of their culture without much thought to its source. These are those that Nietzsche called “the English flatheads” in Twilight of the Idols, because they did not follow the logic of their (un)belief beyond good and evil to the superman (or at least, one supposes, into Sartre’s existential angst and despair). Instead, they smuggle in through the back door the very notions they claim to disdain.

When Nietzsche noted that no man of reason should rejoice in the death of God, it was because after the death of God comes the death of reason. And we have already seen plazaeme throw reason under the bus. (Anything, it seems, to dodge that which may lurk on the far side of a syllogism.

@Dean Ericson:

“And thanks also to Rodrigues and YOS for a fine show.”

Glad to oblige.

YOS,

So, the fleas tinctured with the chemical marker developed the characteristic helmet of their species. Yes, it is indeed an observation. Still, no sufficient evidence that it is the work of epigenetic factors; again see the link in my previous comment. To conclude so, you will need much more than those observations, and perhaps, one first needs to know the definition of “epigenetic.”

No responses expected from you, please don’t waste your time here.

I’m still trying to figure out how plazaewe is observing morality, atheistic or otherwise.

Are obligations observable? What do they look like?

YOS:

– “It changes what people believe and how people behave.”

So does gravity, whether one believes it or not.

Perfect. We are coming to an understanding. You cannot tell the difference between “seeing” (gravity) and “believing” (YTOM). I know you don’t think this is a problem, which is quite good for you. Congratulations! Nearly all of of the rest of the Galaxy would tell you otherwise, but I recommend you to keep on not listening.

So, we don’t have a proper answer, but we can assume it (correct me if I am wrong)

– A2) It doesn’t change human behaviour in a way I can show.

– I am stopping reading you.

Don’t overestimate yourself. What part don’t you understand in “not interested in your fantasies”? It was just a moral act — although a low-level one. Letting you understand a probable silence with no offence. Some call it manners.

SteveK

–I’m still trying to figure out how plazaewe is observing morality, atheistic or otherwise.

Morality is meant to affect behaviour. You observe behavior.

– Are obligations observable? What do they look like?

They look like written or spoken phrases (in humans, not in chimps). You observe changes in behaviour. You can’t “see” temperature. Yes, it is an “observation”.

You think you can observe a difference in behaviour between a theistic morality and an atheistic one? Can you show me?

An incredible thread. A brilliant demonstration of the vacuity of popular atheism. A highlight:

Look at ISIS morality, look at medieval morality. All carried out in the name of God. Look at slavery, look at torturing. All considered fully morally acceptable until a few centuries ago. God himself ordered in the bible the killing of babies and rape of conquered women. Absolute morality does not exist. Morality evolved, together with humans.

This whole paragraph undermines itself. To say, morality ‘evolves’, while also asserting there is no ‘absolute’ morality, is simply to say that morality changes. Nothing more, because you are denying that there is some absolute standard by which we could judge any of these preceding or subsequent changes as better or worse. Which is to concede Brigg’s claim, ‘No God, no morality’.

– Are obligations observable? What do they look like?

They look like written or spoken phrases

Every written or spoken phrase is an obligation??

dover_beach:

I think you are wrong.

Yes, you are right when you say “evolves” without an objective is the same as “changes”. But then we do observe an evolution which has a very non random tendency. More complex societies; better technology and knowledge; less violence. You can study if a change in morality may have something to do with it.

I am not trying to convince you. But I guess you have to accept the theoretical possibility.

Note: I am not saying the more “evolved” morality is more “moral”. But … it may have evolved.

SteveK

– Every written or spoken phrase is an obligation??

I am very sorry to say so, but this looks like a too stupid question. And, not being you stupid, I may not be understanding correctly. What do you mean?

You said obligations are observed in the form of written or spoken phrases. I asked if *every* one is an example of an obligation.

If a person doesn’t “see” the obligation can you *show* them that it’s there? How?

SteveK

OK, sorry. I wasn’t getting your question.

– If a person doesn’t “see” the obligation can you *show* them that it’s there? How?

It happens all the time. I don’t need to “show” him anything. I don’t care. What I need to observe is an effect on behavior of an obligation that is usually unsderstood as such. There are always exceptions, bandits, pirates, and so on.

Note: Yes, societies have many means to “show” the retarded the meaning of a moral obligation.

Yes, you are right when you say “evolves” without an objective is the same as “changes”. But then we do observe an evolution which has a very non random tendency. More complex societies; better technology and knowledge; less violence. You can study if a change in morality may have something to do with it.

…

Note: I am not saying the more “evolved” morality is more “moral”. But … it may have evolved.

Again, this is just confused and self-defeating. What you want to observe is improvement in our moral beliefs and understanding. It’s not even clear how increasing complexity, let alone increasing knowledge (knowledge assumes that our moral ideas and understandings can conform to reality which would beg the question), demonstrates an ‘improved’ morality, and if it does not demonstrate that, it cannot demonstrate an ‘evolving’ morality beyond mere changes in our moral ideas and understanding from one culture or epoch to the next.

– dover_beach:

– What you want to observe is improvement in our moral beliefs and understanding

This may be what YOU want to observe, but it is not what is needed to observe something “evolve”.

Oxford Dictionary, evolve:

– Develop gradually

Oxford Dictionary, develop:

– Grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate

Are human societies becoming more advanced or elaborate during the time we know about them? Did moralities (behaviour) evolve with socities in a way you can suspect (and investigate) a cause and an effect?

Your denial does not say anything about the theoretical proposition. It does say a lot about the state of your mind.

@plazaeme

This is a strange argument you’re making. You want to argue that morality ‘evolves’, ie. develops gradually, as indicated by increasingly advanced, complex, elaborate, or mature moral beliefs and advancement, while also arguing that none of this advancement, complexity, elaboration, or maturation, indicates an improvement in our moral beliefs and understanding. This is like saying that increasingly complex and elaborate legs, for example, that don’t improve stability and/ or locomotion could constitute an advancement or improvement. Further, advancement and maturation are also indicative of some direction in development, ie. of telos, and I’m not sure you really want to go there.

“What I need to observe is an effect on behavior of an obligation that is usually unsderstood as such.”

“Usually understood” is vague enough to make most claim seem legit. We’re talking about observed reality here, which is not vague at all. I’m very skeptical that obligations can be observed. Behaviors, yes – obligations, you’re gonna have to show me and you have not done that.

A person can *believe* they have an obligation based on their senses, but an *actual* obligation to one thing and not another requires more than change over time. All of this is to say I’m not convinced that evolution explains a morality with actual obligations – as you claim it does. A morality without obligations, if that is all you are claiming here, is irrelevant to me.

dover_beach

– You want to argue that morality ‘evolves’, ie. develops gradually, as indicated by increasingly advanced, complex, elaborate, or mature moral beliefs

I never said that. I said, “human societies becoming more advanced or elaborate”, and possibly “moralities (behaviour) evolve with societies”. You, only you, jump from more elaborate and complex society to more elaborate and complex morality. It is a possibility, it is not a given.

It is not more complex or elaborate not to rape women as you see fit than to rape women as you fancy. In fact, it is simpler. However, it will permit a more complex society. It is not more complex but more simple a caste less morality than the caste system in India. And so on.
Listen, we can understand each other with terms like complex (you can measure interactions). Not so much with “improvement”. It implies an objective, a purpose. And you end with the circularity of fitting your fantasy as *the* purpose. Even if a society or a moral system “wins” over other society or moral system which disappears, there wasn’t any purpose in the change of morality which could have caused the winning. There wasn’t any “being” knowing the effect beforehand.

You are thinking “backwards”. You are not trying to understand how it works. You have a purpose, a “happy ending”, and you hammer reality to fit in your purpose. It is the best way to fool yourself.

– Further, advancement and maturation are also indicative of some direction in development, ie. of telos, and I’m not sure you really want to go there.

I wouldn’t know what “maturation” means in a society. I don’t have any problem with a “direction” (I mentioned it in the first place). I am not “back-thinking”, as you are. I am not trying to demonstrate God doesn’t exist, nor anything else. God does not offend my sensibility. I am not a God hater. Etc. But, if a more complex (or simply bigger) society has more possibilities to “win” over other societies, then you will have the appearance of a telos … without any purpose, or goal. And, as you need a purpose, you will see a purpose. Fooling yourself, that is.

SteveK

– “Usually understood” is vague enough to make most claim seem legit.

Understood by a clear majority. There you are.

– I’m very skeptical that obligations can be observed.

No, probably you cannot observe them. However, it is your fault because you have them just in front of your nose. I don’t know where you live and how old are you. But the best bet is you have experienced at least one process of “moralization”. One case could be the process (still quite incomplete) of the moralization of homosexuality. Is it working by convincing folks with nice and philosophical chats in the riverside, surrounded by color-full flowers, or it goes by a violent imposition? And you say you don’t see obligations? Don’t make me laugh.

Note. There is nothing in particular with this homo-morality thing. It is how morality works. You (all) just don’t understand morality. Too much fantasy, not enough observations.

You cannot tell the difference between “seeing” (gravity) and “believing” (YTOM)

It seems that you cannot tell the difference between seeing (falling bodies) and believing (an invisible force eminating from ponderable matter).

So, we don’t have a proper answer, but we can assume it doesn’t change human behaviour in a way I can show.

Don’t suppose that because you refuse to believe an answer, or you did not bother to read it, that it was not “proper.”

We’ll try once more to overcome your terror:
1. The moral law subsists in human nature.
2. As such, all human beings have this law “written in their hearts.”
3. Hence, the behaviors of all human beings are in proportion to their response to this law.
4. This is independent of whether or not they believe such a law exists. Except possibly for sociopaths, everyone has a conscience.
5. Thus, the belief does not change human behavior in the sense that people who believe in the Newtonian fantasy do not move around differently in the gravity field from those who do.
6. Hence, your question is absurd. It’s like asking what the world would look like if there were no God.
You are thinking of the moral law as a painstaking set of rules laid down by a socialist government. But elucidating the moral law is more like discovering physical laws, not like promulgating ordinances and legislation.

I never said that. I said, “human societies becoming more advanced or elaborate”, and possibly “moralities (behaviour) evolve with societies”. You, only you, jump from more elaborate and complex society to more elaborate and complex morality. It is a possibility, it is not a given.

Look, you are utterly confused here. If societies are becoming more advanced and elaborate than that is going to be reflected in their moral beliefs and understanding. Or else, what you are simply concerned with arguing is the proposition, societies in some non-moral sense ‘evolve’, which would be to have changed the subject.

It is not more complex or elaborate not to rape women as you see fit than to rape women as you fancy. In fact, it is simpler. However, it will permit a more complex society. It is not more complex but more simple a caste less morality than the caste system in India. And so on.
Listen, we can understand each other with terms like complex (you can measure interactions).

This is just dumb. Why do ‘interactions’ measure increasingly complex moralities? They don’t at all. Reasons are the only relevant measure of simplicity or complexity in relation to morality just as they would be for any non-moral theory or tradition.

Listen, we can understand each other with terms like complex (you can measure interactions). Not so much with “improvement”. It implies an objective, a purpose. And you end with the circularity of fitting your fantasy as *the* purpose. Even if a society or a moral system “wins” over other society or moral system which disappears, there wasn’t any purpose in the change of morality which could have caused the winning. There wasn’t any “being” knowing the effect beforehand.

The problem for you is that even if you drop ‘improvement’, advancement and development are themselves its cognates, and dropping those also means you’re just talking about changes, again. As for this struggle for existence between moralities, I’m not arguing for any such thing.

You are thinking “backwards”. You are not trying to understand how it works. You have a purpose, a “happy ending”, and you hammer reality to fit in your purpose. It is the best way to fool yourself.

Not at all. It is typically the case that evolutionary explanations of this or that behavior in the style of a ‘just-so’ stories are the epitome of ‘thinking ‘backwards’. I’m not arguing that avoiding ‘deliberately killing the innocent’ is an effective survival strategy, or the like. I’m saying that ‘deliberately killing the innocent’ is really, objectively, immoral.

I wouldn’t know what “maturation” means in a society. I don’t have any problem with a “direction”…But, if a more complex (or simply bigger) society has more possibilities to “win” over other societies, then you will have the appearance of a telos … without any purpose, or goal. And, as you need a purpose, you will see a purpose. Fooling yourself, that is.

As I thought, you’re just confused. You are saying that this or that change in morality may have the appearance of a telos where there is no real telos, purpose, goal, direction, or maturation. There are just a succession of changes.

And you say you don’t see obligations?
That’s right. I don’t see them with my eyes. I do experience them in a way that is probably similar to the way a person experiences rationality. However that happens, I cannot deny that I experience both obligations and rationality.

I further cannot deny that I’m skeptical that evolution (biological change over time) can produce an obligation – yet you believe it can. When will you show us?