MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
So...morality 'doesnt exist'.
Yeah. Whatever.
Yeah. Whatever.
Morality exists without your God.
- Thread starter Askthepizzaguy
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Nice argument for a scientific utilitarianism here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeJrcVhtzYo&feature=related
Lillefix
I'm serious. You can.
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If you compare how God behaves in the new and old testament, then they seem to have changed.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Has nothing to do with his morality changing, but requires an understanding of the nuances of the old covenant vs the new one.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Ideas aren't physical. I can't touch morals. Morality is made up of human interaction and is basically a simplistic slur word for a culture's codified conventions of what's ok to do, based on empathy. They're purely nonphysical and are therefore ideas. And ideas don't exist; they're illusional and made up by people. Like God is an idea that doesn't exist. Get over it.
EDIT That ideas are illusional doesn't make them less valid per se, however.
Mr. Dictator
A Chain-Smoking Fox
Point to it.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
If this is anything like what I've previously heard Harris say on the topic, I'd hesitate to call it an "argument", let alone a "nice" one.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
This conversation desperately lacks an existentialist viewpoint.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Please elaborate why. (I'm curious and it seems like you have an agenda.)
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Also, which existentialism? I don't think that there's any one existentialist viewpoint on ethics and morality, although I suppose for the purposes of this thread you could probably work from the main commonalities.
Well, how do you define if something is more (or less) circular? What you have is an objective description, and then you examine the real world using that definition. A perfect circle cannot exist in nature, but that doesn't stop something from being more circular than another. And the definition certainly isn't bunk.
Saying that definitions of right and wrong are 'subjective' is true, but only if we also say that the definition of a circle is subjective.
You cannot have the practice of morality without the presence of more than one sentient organisms, and at least one of those organisms must be intelligent enough to understand. Once that exists, 'best outcomes in interactive behaviour' exists, and can be pursued with morality.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Because most of the conversation revolves around the idea that there's some sort of knowable moral calculus that can be used to determine whether an action is right or wrong. Even if there's an idea that morality is subjective, there's still the idea that a determination of correct action can positively be identified.
Furthermore, most of the discussion revolves the idea that morality exists outside a person, that it exists either to serve the common good or God or some other thing outside oneself.
Boring. Yawn.
Sartre's The Wall.
I believe in conscience: I think that if you sincerely believe that what you are doing is right, then you cannot be morally condemned for it (which isn't the same as 'you should never be molested by the law for doing it'), and that if you sincerely believe it to be wrong, then you cannot be morally praised for it (which isn't the same as 'society should not encourage you to do it')
Mr. Dictator
A Chain-Smoking Fox
"Do unto others what would look best in sepia"
Dachs said:
if that was how source analysis worked, i wouldn't be able to say anything about classical SEA at all. serjarah melayu? hahaha no, you can't claim megas alexandros as an ancestor. albuquerque? haha no, he talks about divine providence. hell i couldn't even use most inscriptions because regnal names/titles are evidence enough of claims to the miraculous. peeps didn't call themselves Dharmasetu for lusl but because lolavatarofKrishna. indravarman? obvious. that would leave me with... building dedications? lol no, auspicious dates. that leaves me with... archaeology? *snort*
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
If God dictates morality, then why don't theists agree on all moral issues? Because they claim their Gods differ in that department. Which makes divine morality just as subjective as other kinds of morality.
You can claim God's morality is absolute and unchanging, but that doesn't help if we have to accept your say-so on what they are.
You can claim God's morality is absolute and unchanging, but that doesn't help if we have to accept your say-so on what they are.
Save_Ferris
Admiring Myself
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Albuquerque exists without your God.
Save_Ferris
Admiring Myself
Albuquerque is the embodiment of God.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
What do you think you do yourself in most threads where you post towards many who disagree with you?
Mobboss. Showing yet again the word "hypocrisy" doesn't exist in his own personal dictionary since 2005.
What if this "God" doesn't actually exist while we clearly do? And how did it remain "unchanging" from the OT to the NT? What is so "nuanced" about the radical changes between the two so that Christianity really has little in common with Judaism?
Seem to have changed? He went from a vengeful god who frequently committed acts of genocide while commanding people be stoned to death to nearly the exact opposite. It is amazing that some heads don't literally explode trying to rationalize the extreme differences between the OT and the NT.
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