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So you are agreeing that your position is unverifiable? You believe it by faith, and faith is never objective.

by redial 10y ago

keane 10y ago
Ultimately I believe my position is as knowable as many things. But as you notice, the wider point is that anytime we believe that humans have objective value or that it is objectively wrong to, say, murder a human, we have departed from strict Empiricism (and like Sagan and Hitchens said "that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence"). Regardless, humans of all beliefs and backgrounds, including Atheist Secular Humanists, ignore this and make the departure whether they will admit to doing so or not. Believing and declaring that humans have value when we have no scientifically-accepted empirical evidence that humans actually do is part of the beauty of humanity.
- redial 10y ago
  You keep saying, in many different ways, that you can prove your hypothesis that morality is objective by inserting a god into the argument, followed by asserting the relativity of your position. I don't know how you are missing that.
  - keane 10y ago
    The argument isn't to "prove...that morality is objective" or, for that matter, to prove God exists. It is just an observation that "For morality to be Objective, this is the necessary dependency: God". It's not saying much more. Even when we understand and acknowledge Hume's observation, morality may or may not be Objective, God may or may not exist. But if God does not exist, morals are not Objective. Just our inventions, along with God and we used both for our comfort/survival/thriving. And what's fascinating is that in such a world, all those times Theists (and Atheist Humanists) proclaimed that humans had value without scientifically-accepted empirical evidence they would not have been acting Immorally/Wrong.
    - redial 10y ago
      >> The argument isn't to "prove...that morality is objective" or, for that matter, to prove God exists. It is just an observation that "For morality to be Objective, this is the necessary dependency: God". The argument is that for morality to be objective, something external must be the source. You are making a huge jump by calling it god, and then you go even further and claim it's the christian god. >> But if God does not exist, morals are not Objective. Just our inventions, along with God and we used both for our comfort/survival/thriving. If god does not exists is health an invention? Science has liberated us from attributing health to gods, I suspect the same will be true of morality. To me it already is more moral to care for someone just because they are a fellow human being than to do it because some ancient manuscript may have commanded it by fear of ironically, itself immoral and eternal torture. >> And what's fascinating is that in such a world, all those times Theists (and Atheist Humanists) proclaimed that humans had value without scientifically-accepted empirical evidence they would not have been acting Immorally/Wrong. I'm assuming you mean 'humans had no value'?
      - keane 10y ago
        >>The argument is that for morality to be objective, something external must be the source. This is what Hume shows. Can you refute his observation by providing a source of objective morality that is Empirical/not external/not supramundane? (You can't. There is none.) >>If god does not exists is health an invention? No and by volunteering a metaphor that compares the existence of objective moral facts (Values/Ought) with empirical facts like health (Facts/Is) you betray a laughable lack of understanding of the Is-Ought gap. >>Science has liberated us from attributing health to gods, I suspect the same will be true of morality. The question at hand is whether we do so tenably. >>because some ancient manuscript In the case of Christianity the attempt is to follow the instructions of an actual Person and the central feature of Christianity that distinguishes it from perhaps all other religions is that actions must lack self-interest, ruling out actions based on fear as Tim Keller explains http://subspla.sh/8149923 http://subspla.sh/8149923 >>immoral and eternal torture Conditional immortality is an area of exploration, cf. http://jewishnotgreek.com/ http://jewishnotgreek.com/ >>I'm assuming you mean 'humans had no value'? No, that's what I meant. If morality does not truly exist, it was not morally 'wrong' anytime humans proclaimed it truly did. We remember the realization of the Marquis de Sade that if God does not exist then everything that is, is Right; but further, if the unempirical does not exist, then proclaiming it does is not wrong. In the words of philosopher Thomas Nagel: "If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either". Fun.

So you are agreeing that your position is unverifiable? You believe it by faith, and faith is never objective.

by redial 10y ago

So you are agreeing that your position is unverifiable? You believe it by faith, and faith is never objective.

keane 10y ago

Ultimately I believe my position is as knowable as many things. But as you notice, the wider point is that anytime we believe that humans have objective value or that it is objectively wrong to, say, murder a human, we have departed from strict Empiricism (and like Sagan and Hitchens said "that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence"). Regardless, humans of all beliefs and backgrounds, including Atheist Secular Humanists, ignore this and make the departure whether they will admit to doing so or not. Believing and declaring that humans have value when we have no scientifically-accepted empirical evidence that humans actually do is part of the beauty of humanity.

redial 10y ago
You keep saying, in many different ways, that you can prove your hypothesis that morality is objective by inserting a god into the argument, followed by asserting the relativity of your position. I don't know how you are missing that.
- keane 10y ago
  The argument isn't to "prove...that morality is objective" or, for that matter, to prove God exists. It is just an observation that "For morality to be Objective, this is the necessary dependency: God". It's not saying much more. Even when we understand and acknowledge Hume's observation, morality may or may not be Objective, God may or may not exist. But if God does not exist, morals are not Objective. Just our inventions, along with God and we used both for our comfort/survival/thriving. And what's fascinating is that in such a world, all those times Theists (and Atheist Humanists) proclaimed that humans had value without scientifically-accepted empirical evidence they would not have been acting Immorally/Wrong.
  - redial 10y ago
    >> The argument isn't to "prove...that morality is objective" or, for that matter, to prove God exists. It is just an observation that "For morality to be Objective, this is the necessary dependency: God". The argument is that for morality to be objective, something external must be the source. You are making a huge jump by calling it god, and then you go even further and claim it's the christian god. >> But if God does not exist, morals are not Objective. Just our inventions, along with God and we used both for our comfort/survival/thriving. If god does not exists is health an invention? Science has liberated us from attributing health to gods, I suspect the same will be true of morality. To me it already is more moral to care for someone just because they are a fellow human being than to do it because some ancient manuscript may have commanded it by fear of ironically, itself immoral and eternal torture. >> And what's fascinating is that in such a world, all those times Theists (and Atheist Humanists) proclaimed that humans had value without scientifically-accepted empirical evidence they would not have been acting Immorally/Wrong. I'm assuming you mean 'humans had no value'?
    - keane 10y ago
      >>The argument is that for morality to be objective, something external must be the source. This is what Hume shows. Can you refute his observation by providing a source of objective morality that is Empirical/not external/not supramundane? (You can't. There is none.) >>If god does not exists is health an invention? No and by volunteering a metaphor that compares the existence of objective moral facts (Values/Ought) with empirical facts like health (Facts/Is) you betray a laughable lack of understanding of the Is-Ought gap. >>Science has liberated us from attributing health to gods, I suspect the same will be true of morality. The question at hand is whether we do so tenably. >>because some ancient manuscript In the case of Christianity the attempt is to follow the instructions of an actual Person and the central feature of Christianity that distinguishes it from perhaps all other religions is that actions must lack self-interest, ruling out actions based on fear as Tim Keller explains http://subspla.sh/8149923 http://subspla.sh/8149923 >>immoral and eternal torture Conditional immortality is an area of exploration, cf. http://jewishnotgreek.com/ http://jewishnotgreek.com/ >>I'm assuming you mean 'humans had no value'? No, that's what I meant. If morality does not truly exist, it was not morally 'wrong' anytime humans proclaimed it truly did. We remember the realization of the Marquis de Sade that if God does not exist then everything that is, is Right; but further, if the unempirical does not exist, then proclaiming it does is not wrong. In the words of philosopher Thomas Nagel: "If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either". Fun.