You Lost One - Atheist Converts

[Stevil]

The laws are rules that tell you what you can and cannot do, morality is about what you should or should not do. 

This is an interesting distinction, but needs more refinement.
If we strictly state law as being what you can and cannot do then the only law that exists is Physical Law which is closely modeled by our defined Laws of Physics.
e.g. Nothing with mass can travel faster than the speed of light.
When it comes to government law we can choose to break the law, the nature of physical existence allows us to break government law.
However our government is expected to impose consequences on us if we are caught breaking the law.
So the difference between your definition of law and government law is the imposed consequences rather than what is possible vs impossible.

Does this then go towards helping us to understand the difference between law and morality?
Does morality mean that you have "free choice" thus there are no imposed consequences based on your choices?

If this is the definition then by creating a law and thus consequences a person can invalidate something from being a moral.
Thus in a society without rules you might consider murder to be a moral issue, but once the society defines law against murder and imposes consequences then murder is no longer a moral issue but instead it becomes a legal issue. Would this be correct?

Going by this definition, if god's law is regarded to have consequences e.g. heaven or hell then this is a legality and not a morality. Religious folk do not have a morality they simply dress their god's law in the cloak of the term "morality". Would you agree with this?

However you might state that morality is always morality regardless of whether it is enforced or not. So something could be both a morality and a legality at the same time.
If this is the case, then government law and god's law do not define morality, they define legality. They may or may not coincide with morality but they don't define it. Thus the dilemma for religious people, their god did not create morality, a perfect all knowing god can create law based on morality, but cannot create morality, morality then must come from a higher authority than god.

If we just focus on what people should or should not do, who knows what people should or should not do? Who am I to say those words to another person? At best I can only make those decisions for myself. I have not walked in another person's shoes, I think each person is best to decide for themselves what they should or should not do.

But how does this tie into what you have previously stated with regards to morality and society "I'm not just applying it to individuals but to groups and societies and even large geographic areas". You are stating that morality is different to law. We know what the law of society is because it is well documented and can be argued and debated in court. But with regards to morality of a society, how can we know what that is?
Is it defined by popular public opinion e.g. the media or the prominent high profile members of society, or is it defined by majority e.g. a numbers game?
I would say that as an outsider you might consider a society to have a morality that society members try to abide by. But I would say that an insider would disagree with the society morality and would only subscribe to their own personal beliefs in morality. Of course people are influenced by their society, but this is influenced and not defined.

But the personal morality is only a personal opinion, maybe including personal values or principles in order to fast track decisions.
With personal opinion, it becomes difficult to make public statements such as "You can't do that, that is immoral!". With this statement you are applying your own opinion, values onto someone else, as if it applies to them. Lets replace the word "immoral" with "my personal values".   "You can't do that, that is against my personal values!". It seems much more watered down doesn't it? The person can now easily respond with, "I don't live my life based on your personal values, I have my own personal values and doing this action is consistent with my own personal values".
So morality really becomes meaningless does it not? We are just a collection of individuals each with our own personal opinions, values and principles, with some people we closely align with others we are vastly different.

 

Another example is the abortion issue.  Sometimes abortion is legal and sometimes it's not, and the only thing that determines is whether or not a woman can do it without punishment.  Whether or not she should be able to do it remains up for grabs no matter what the law says.

Whether she should or shouldn't seems to be the mother's decision, she seems to be the only one capable of knowing the answer. For this decision there is no author of morality other than herself, based on her personal opinion, values and principles.
With regards to law we just need to decide if it is dangerous for society?

[Sandra Craft]

However our government is expected to impose consequences on us if we are caught breaking the law.
So the difference between your definition of law and government law is the imposed consequences rather than what is possible vs impossible.

Oh c'mon, isn't "what you can or cannot do without punishment" too obvious to need saying?  Doesn't everyone over the age of 5 know this?  I can't discuss this any more, I'm just not interested constantly stating the obvious or in re-inventing philosophical wheels.

[Stevil]

However our government is expected to impose consequences on us if we are caught breaking the law.
So the difference between your definition of law and government law is the imposed consequences rather than what is possible vs impossible.

Oh c'mon, isn't "what you can or cannot do without punishment" too obvious to need saying?  Doesn't everyone over the age of 5 know this?  I can't discuss this any more, I'm just not interested constantly stating the obvious or in re-inventing philosophical wheels.

That's fine, we are not really getting anywhere.
I have been trying to be specific and explicit, taking the implied stuff out. It was intended, not to piss you off, but just to be clear and specific.

When you say it is obvious. It is not obvious to me. I don't know if morality has to exclude punishment, therefore I don't know if having punishment excludes something as being a morality. The term morality is so vague, many people have many different views of it.
I think morality belief is a tangled mess. I have untangled it in my mind, thus I am clear about the distinction between personal values, law, social norms and morality. But that's me, my mind. I'm trying to understand how others see it so that i can make a connection with others on this topic, but I understand the process of untangling can be tedious, lengthy and can seem ridiculous when a person (like me) isn't allowing the obvious (implicit stuff).

Anyway, cheers for the conversation.

[Hector Valdez]

The great thing about morality can be seen right here in this thread. Everybody has their own opinion, and nobody agrees. Then somebody whips a gun out. See? It's the people with the knowledge/guns/money/gold that make the rules! HAHA!

[OldGit]

I'm just not interested constantly stating the obvious or in re-inventing philosophical wheels.

Hear, hear!

[Norfolk And Chance]

It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

[Tank]

It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

[En_Route]

It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

Or equally an untrue atheist, since there would be no conversion needed. Ergo, no atheist can ever convert to theism. That's a relief.

[OldGit]

It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

No true Scotsman ....

[Norfolk And Chance]

OK, I'll rephrase it - it is impossible for any real atheist, ie one that is not making it up, to become a theist.

Atheists are atheists because they have skeptical minds and value evidence. The atheism stems from not being presented with credible evidence for god.

Therefore how could an atheist become a theist? No evidence = no theism. Should an "atheist" suddenly decide that the "evidence" for god is suddenly credible, then they were obviously looking for a reason to believe and were not really atheists in the first place IMO.

I take a dim view of conversion stories.

[Crow]

OK, I'll rephrase it - it is impossible for any real atheist, ie one that is not making it up, to become a theist.

Atheists are atheists because they have skeptical minds and value evidence. The atheism stems from not being presented with credible evidence for god.

Therefore how could an atheist become a theist? No evidence = no theism. Should an "atheist" suddenly decide that the "evidence" for god is suddenly credible, then they were obviously looking for a reason to believe and were not really atheists in the first place IMO.

I take a dim view of conversion stories.

It depends on how staunch they were in the first place.

[En_Route]

OK, I'll rephrase it - it is impossible for any real atheist, ie one that is not making it up, to become a theist.

Atheists are atheists because they have skeptical minds and value evidence. The atheism stems from not being presented with credible evidence for god.

Sez you. This is just a blanket assertion for which there is no credible evidence and being the possessor of a sceptical mind,  I don't believe it. People may be atheists for all kinds of reasons, including indoctrination as a child or on emotional grounds, e.g. some tragedy befell them which they cannot reconcile with their prior  concept of God or it's a belief which they lazily contracted from their peers. There is no reason to suppose that every atheist has arrived at their position by a process of rigorous logic or crystalline rationality.

[Norfolk And Chance]

You are mentioning lots of people that are not real atheists there.

A real atheist is one that comes to the athiestic conclusion from rationality and skepticism, not because of peer pressure, indoctrination, rebellion etc

[Tank]

It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

No true Scotsman ....

Exactly!

[En_Route]

You are mentioning lots of people that are not real atheists there.

A real atheist is one that comes to the athiestic conclusion from rationality and skepticism, not because of peer pressure, indoctrination, rebellion etc

That's your personal definition which suits the purposes of your argument, which goes along the lines that anyone who is a "real" atheist is by definition somebody who cannot change their mind on atheism; ergo any atheist  who  does change their mind is not a " real " atheist" . Anyway despite the  fact that the emptiness and  circularity of your argument has been repeatedly pointed out to you, you are obviously still going to persist with it, so good luck to you. The point that could be  legitimately made is that atheists who have independently and rationally arrived at their position are unlikely to abandon their atheism, but there  are still no guarantees. Changes of circumstances, traumatic events,  maybe even decline in mental faculties (!) etc etc could cause somebody to switch to embrace irrational beliefs.