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http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/06/24/intv-atheist-catholic.cnn

From another link
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/19/12299214-atheist-blogger-leah-libresco-converts-to-christianity?lite (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/19/12299214-atheist-blogger-leah-libresco-converts-to-christianity?lite)

Quote
She said she struggled with moral law, exploring where it comes from and what's behind it. As an atheist, she states that friends told her that her philosophy was unsustainable.
"I was ready to admit that there were parts of Christianity and Catholicism that seemed like a pretty good match for the bits of my moral system that I was most sure of, while meanwhile my own philosophy was pretty kludged together and not particularly satisfactory," she wrote.

She goes back to the night before Palm Sunday, where after a debate on religion she then had a discussion with a friend about morality.

After a back-and-forth where her friend asked her to make an argument about where moral law comes from, she couldn't think of any. She then realized that it had to come from something like a person or being.

I can certainly see the problem from a "morality" perspective. I also think most Atheists are philosophically inconsistent.
I overcome the problem by realising that morality doesn't exist.

But regardless, if one decides there must be an author of morality, how do they then decide Catholicism is it? Did she spin a roulette wheel?

Eh, we lose one here, pick another one up there.  I just hope she doesn't end up ping-ponging around like Anne Rice -- deconvert, reconvert, deconvert.  After a while, you lose all credibility.

Personally, I don't see where there's any atheist inconsistency with morality.  Morality does exist, we created it.  Where's the problem?

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 25, 2012, 02:16:09 AM
Eh, we lose one here, pick another one up there.  I just hope she doesn't end up ping-ponging around like Anne Rice -- deconvert, reconvert, deconvert.  After a while, you lose all credibility.

Personally, I don't see where there's any atheist inconsistency with morality.  Morality does exist, we created it.  Where's the problem?

If we created it then it is just a bunch of arbitrary rules, there is no absolute right and wrong associated with it. One person's opinion is no more valid than the next. So maybe what you call morality, I would call the governing law. Problem with that is, how do you disagree with the government, based on a moral standpoint? They define the rules of society (morality???).

What exactly do "we" lose that "we" shouldn't be glad to see the back of?

Frankly, I consider adult atheists who "find" some form of "god" so far beneath me intellectually that I lose all interest in them if I had any to begin with.

Being raised to believe in fairy tales and holding on to it is one thing, giving up the magic and then re-integrating it into one's life is quite another (As for never-theists, I do not know of any converts from that group who stayed converted for any prolonged period of time)

I think we created morality and projected into onto society, thus objectivising it in away. Other than that, it's purely subjective and mentally-based, still human though.

"One of the most prominent atheist bloggers on the internet" ??? By whose estimation, I wonder? I don't consider this to be a case of "You Lost One," because I've never considered atheism to be a cohesive entity to which I or anyone else "belongs." This young woman has apparently been convinced for some time that objective morality exists, now she has a god-shaped peg to hang it from. Good for her. I did a search and found her "I'm now a convert" blog post. (I honestly had never heard of her, and had never read one of her blog entries before her conversion.) "This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2012/06/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html) Meh

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 25, 2012, 03:38:35 AM
I think we created morality and projected into onto society, thus objectivising it in away. Other than that, it's purely subjective and mentally-based, still human though.

Its why I am keen to distinguish the difference between personal values, governing laws, social norms and the concept of morality. Morality is so confusing, people don't even agree on what it is. I can see it driving people towards religion, looking for an author.

Quote from: Stevil on June 25, 2012, 02:27:48 AM

If we created it then it is just a bunch of arbitrary rules, there is no absolute right and wrong associated with it.

That's what I see when I look around at the way things run.

QuoteOne person's opinion is no more valid than the next. So maybe what you call morality, I would call the governing law.

Maybe, maybe not.  Determining that is part of the on-going struggle of any society in constantly making itself.

QuoteProblem with that is, how do you disagree with the government, based on a moral standpoint? They define the rules of society (morality???).

It's called voting, when we get a chance.  It's called civil disobedience when we don't.  But then we're lucky in that regard.  At least we are for now.

Maybe I should have clicked the link before I posted this, but I don't care about anyone converting to anything enough to press a button...

I understand people do convert, but I wonder how often people are just claiming to convert in order to manipulate or take advantage via web traffic/book sales. It seems people care intensely about atheist converts and I can see how some might try to take advantage.

Quote from: Stevil on June 25, 2012, 04:20:29 AM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 25, 2012, 03:38:35 AM
I think we created morality and projected into onto society, thus objectivising it in away. Other than that, it's purely subjective and mentally-based, still human though.

Its why I am keen to distinguish the difference between personal values, governing laws, social norms and the concept of morality. Morality is so confusing, people don't even agree on what it is. I can see it driving people towards religion, looking for an author.

I'm not really sure you can distinguish between personal values, governing laws, social norms and morality -- I think there's a lot of bleed-thru in all of those and in any case, they all have the same problem of people not agreeing on what they are or should be. 

Frankly, I sometimes wonder if the distaste for the word "morality" is due to its being tainted with religious zealotry?  I can understand that, but I'd hate to let a group of nut jobs co-opt a perfectly good word.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 25, 2012, 07:14:38 PM
I'm not really sure you can distinguish between personal values, governing laws, social norms and morality -- I think there's a lot of bleed-thru in all of those and in any case, they all have the same problem of people not agreeing on what they are or should be.  

Frankly, I sometimes wonder if the distaste for the word "morality" is due to its being tainted with religious zealotry?  I can understand that, but I'd hate to let a group of nut jobs co-opt a perfectly good word.

Personal Values
A set of personal opinions, accepted by the owner as being personal, used for guiding the self, cannot be used to judge others. Cannot make public claims (judgements) such as "that is immoral!". Owner of personal opinion knows they are voting based on personal preference. e.g. A person may choose to not eat meat because they value animal life.

Governing Laws
A set of enforceable rules based on supporting a functional society. The laws can be limited to functioning society and exclude the concept of "morality", they need to be inclusive of people within society, e.g. cultures, races, beliefs, religions etc. e.g. Laws are required to prevent vigilante justice.

Social norms
Unwritten social rules, not enforced by government. May or may not be related to a perception of morality. People get to choose to adhere or not, but their might be some social backlash, simply because that is the way people behave. e.g. Going shopping in your pajamas is seen as socially unacceptable. People can vote based on social norms, but do they want government having that level of authority, do they want a Nanny State?

Morality
A set of objective rights and wrongs, applies to the self as well as to all others. Actions are moral, immoral or neutral, there doesn't have to be a reason. People are simply expected to know the difference between right and wrong. With morality a person can make a public claim (judgement) to something being immoral. They don't need to qualify this judgement as to why something is immoral. It is just immoral. People can vote based on moral understanding as long as they agree that the governing law does not define morality. Hence there must be some authority of morality above government. Be it a god, or written in DNA or something else

Quote from: Asmodean on June 25, 2012, 02:35:06 AM
What exactly do "we" lose that "we" shouldn't be glad to see the back of?

Frankly, I consider adult atheists who "find" some form of "god" so far beneath me intellectually that I lose all interest in them if I had any to begin with.

Being raised to believe in fairy tales and holding on to it is one thing, giving up the magic and then re-integrating it into one's life is quite another (As for never-theists, I do not know of any converts from that group who stayed converted for any prolonged period of time)

At one time they were intellectual equals...but now they are "so far beneath me intellectually..."

Most interesting.

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 26, 2012, 08:37:23 PM
At one time they were intellectual equals...but now they are "so far beneath me intellectually..."

No.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 08:59:27 PM

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 26, 2012, 08:37:23 PM
At one time they were intellectual equals...but now they are "so far beneath me intellectually..."

No.

Oh.  It's clear now.   ::)

I am disinclined to correct people who attempt to put words in my mouth and/or thoughts in my central nervous system beyond a "no" today.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 09:15:50 PM
I am disinclined to correct people who attempt to put words in my mouth and/or thoughts in my central nervous system beyond a "no" today.

No words were put in your mouth.  But this is a great excuse to not to clarify your words.

Isn't it? Have you asked to clarify, rather than re-write what I wrote to suit whatever meaning you wanted to impose on it, I would have.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 09:54:55 PM
Isn't it? Have you asked to clarify, rather than re-write what I wrote to suit whatever meaning you wanted to impose on it, I would have.

I said it's a great excuse not to clarify...now who's putting words in who's mouth?

I am not.

I said "Isn't it?" in reply to your comment and expanded with "Have you asked to clarify (Which you did not), rather than re-write what I wrote to suit whatever meaning you wanted to impose on it (Which you did), I would have (Which I would)"

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 10:14:34 PM
I am not.

I said "Isn't it?" in reply to your comment and expanded with "Have you asked to clarify (Which you did not), rather than re-write what I wrote to suit whatever meaning you wanted to impose on it (Which you did), I would have (Which I would)"

It isn't what?  I never actually asked for clarification as I thought you put your thoughts exactly as intended in your words.

Are you saying that your words need further enlightenment and do not really mean exactly as they state?

If so, then please clarify as I'd hate to misinterpret your original words.

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 26, 2012, 10:29:01 PM
It isn't what?

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 26, 2012, 09:30:28 PM
But this is a great excuse to not to clarify your words.

QuoteAre you saying that your words need further enlightenment and do not really mean exactly as they state?

No. I did not mean anything I did not write, and I wrote:

Quote from: Asmodean on June 25, 2012, 02:35:06 AM
What exactly do "we" lose that "we" shouldn't be glad to see the back of?

Frankly, I consider adult atheists who "find" some form of "god" so far beneath me intellectually that I lose all interest in them if I had any to begin with.

Being raised to believe in fairy tales and holding on to it is one thing, giving up the magic and then re-integrating it into one's life is quite another (As for never-theists, I do not know of any converts from that group who stayed converted for any prolonged period of time)

QuoteIf so, then please clarify as I'd hate to misinterpret your original words.

...Meaning that if I had any interest in the person to begin with, that interest would go out of the window due to previously un-known or un-assessed levels of personal stupidity, therein self-delusion.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 11:12:40 PM
...Meaning that if I had any interest in the person to begin with, that interest would go out of the window due to previously un-known or un-assessed levels of personal stupidity, therein self-delusion.

Not to mention they're so far beneath you intellectually...

I don't understand conversion because i have never converted from anything before.


Also, i have never heard of this person.

My best guess is it's some random near-do-well blogger who some people are attempting to make larger than life for their own reasons. May be wrong, however - didn't recognise the name, dind't read the links

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 11:33:26 PM
My best guess is it's some random near-do-well blogger who some people are attempting to make larger than life for their own reasons. May be wrong, however - didn't recognise the name, dind't read the links

Same.  :-\

If she became religious.. Not my issue. Probably wasn't really an atheist to begin with. Just someone looking for a religion to belong to.

She says that she was swayed by the arguments for objective morality. I don't know why she chose Catholicism in particular though as the best expression for her new found Truth. Comes with the package, I'd like just for curiosity's sake see how she can justify the objective moral truths behind things like intolerance towards homosexuality, abortion or not distributing anti-contraception or condoms in Africa where AIDS runs rampant assuming her views were contrary to the Church's position before she converted.

I think that it's difficult for a person to have come from a more skeptical mindset and just accept whole package like that, when you're been arguing against what you see as ridiculous for so long. She was an atheist blogger (who I also never heard of before now)  so I'd assume that she did.

If I were to guess, this conversion even if sincere won't last very long, especially if she doesn't surround herself with people of the same religious mindset who reinforce her new beliefs.

Might just because a self proclaimed "spiritual" person though, not affiliated with any church.

I guess the Crusades were a stepping stone to her.  :-\

If she starts to accept the dehumanization of others who aren't an "us" (i.e Catholic in her case), then it will be. :-\ That and other atrocities.

Muslims are an inferior race and don't have a soul, they worship the wrong god so they're just as good as animals. They were given a choice but they chose to continue to worship their false god. They deserved it.

Quote from: Sweetdeath on June 27, 2012, 02:16:09 AM
If she became religious.. Not my issue. Probably wasn't really an atheist to begin with.

LOL, I presume she was a true Atheist lacking a belief in gods.
I laugh because I've heard the saying "Probably wasn't a real Christian to begin with"

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 27, 2012, 03:05:36 AM
I don't know why she chose Catholicism in particular though as the best expression for her new found Truth. Comes with the package, I'd like just for curiosity's sake see how she can justify the objective moral truths behind things like intolerance towards homosexuality, abortion or not distributing anti-contraception or condoms in Africa where AIDS runs rampant assuming her views were contrary to the Church's position before she converted.

Absolutely.

I doubt she will last in the Catholic faith, so many things for her to take on board without question.
The immorality of IVF, of sex education, of stemcell research, of homosexuality, of sex without intending to procreate, the guilt trips, the infallibility of the church, the position of women in society and in the church.

Quite frankly, I don't know how anyone can accept Catholicism. Its so strict, so rigid, so oppressive. And you get to imagine you are eating and drinking Jesus.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 27, 2012, 03:20:31 AM
If she starts to accept the dehumanization of others who aren't an "us" (i.e Catholic in her case), then it will be. :-\ That and other atrocities.

Muslims are an inferior race and don't have a soul, they worship the wrong god so they're just as good as animals. They were given a choice but they chose to continue to worship their false god. They deserved it.

Funny, as Muslims feel that way about non Muslims.

Quote from: Stevil on June 27, 2012, 06:39:22 AM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 27, 2012, 03:05:36 AM
I don't know why she chose Catholicism in particular though as the best expression for her new found Truth. Comes with the package, I'd like just for curiosity's sake see how she can justify the objective moral truths behind things like intolerance towards homosexuality, abortion or not distributing anti-contraception or condoms in Africa where AIDS runs rampant assuming her views were contrary to the Church's position before she converted.

Absolutely.

I doubt she will last in the Catholic faith, so many things for her to take on board without question.
The immorality of IVF, of sex education, of stemcell research, of homosexuality, of sex without intending to procreate, the guilt trips, the infallibility of the church, the position of women in society and in the church.

Quite frankly, I don't know how anyone can accept Catholicism. Its so strict, so rigid, so oppressive. And you get to imagine you are eating and drinking Jesus.

I ask myself this constantly, as i live in a mostly Catholic area. It's like "How can you stomach this garbage?"
Oh yeah, they probably never actually read the bible OR actually accept this sexist, racist bullshit as the truth. In which case, i would love for 'horrible ' things to happen to them , like their kids getting knocked up or being homosexual. ::)

Quote from: StevilQuite frankly, I don't know how anyone can accept Catholicism.

I would probably believe it if I had been brainwashed from babyhood.  I am always a bit surprised, as well as glad, when I see escapees sign on here.

The comment Asmodean made about someone being so far beneath the Clay Crusader intellectually must be taken with a coagulated lump of salt.  The Mud Marauder finds most humanoids beneath it intellectually.

Quote from: fester30 on June 27, 2012, 06:59:41 PM
The comment Asmodean made about someone being so far beneath the Clay Crusader intellectually must be taken with a coagulated lump of salt.  The Mud Marauder finds most humanoids beneath it intellectually.

I don't think so.  There is a usual sense of comedic relief when he does so not to mention his trademark (tm) that usually accompanies these.

That...and he didn't try and clarify from that 'The Asmo' perspective as he does clearly, but from a personal perspective.

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 27, 2012, 07:24:00 PM

Quote from: fester30 on June 27, 2012, 06:59:41 PM
The comment Asmodean made about someone being so far beneath the Clay Crusader intellectually must be taken with a coagulated lump of salt.  The Mud Marauder finds most humanoids beneath it intellectually.

I don't think so.  There is a usual sense of comedic relief when he does so not to mention his trademark (tm) that usually accompanies these.

That...and he didn't try and clarify from that 'The Asmo' perspective as he does clearly, but from a personal perspective.

...And if you actually read the post, particularly the second part, you may, and I stress may, find some less-than-comic sense there that does not call for the application of (tm) or other accessories.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2012, 07:31:13 PM

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 27, 2012, 07:24:00 PM

Quote from: fester30 on June 27, 2012, 06:59:41 PM
The comment Asmodean made about someone being so far beneath the Clay Crusader intellectually must be taken with a coagulated lump of salt.  The Mud Marauder finds most humanoids beneath it intellectually.

I don't think so.  There is a usual sense of comedic relief when he does so not to mention his trademark (tm) that usually accompanies these.

That...and he didn't try and clarify from that 'The Asmo' perspective as he does clearly, but from a personal perspective.

...And if you actually read the post, particularly the second part, you may, and I stress may, find some less-than-comic sense there that does not call for the application of (tm) or other accessories.

Now all of a sudden...??

After you initially felt attacked and also felt I was putting words in your mouth?

Ok...

I found all of the quotation marks in Asmo's OP to be slightly humorous.  Because I pictured the gray glob doing all of the quote marks with his fingers in such quick succession that he looked like he was playing Little Bunny FuFu.   ;D

It takes a lot more to make me feel attacked - an actual attack, for instance. You have somewhat of a reputation with me for putting words in people's mouths, however.

What I was saying, was that there is a good and valid point to the italic sentense in my previous comment. I do indeed see most humanoids as beneath me intellectually because they sort of... Are. The degree of it varies though, from insignificant, which has no impact on my personal interactions with the individual to catastrophic, in which case I will usually go out of my way to avoid such interactions.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2012, 07:47:47 PM
It takes a lot more to make me feel attacked - an actual attack, for instance. You have somewhat of a reputation with me for putting words in people's mouths, however.

You can find me any sort you wish to.

Quote from: AsmodeanWhat I was saying, was that there is a good and valid point to the italic sentense in my previous comment. I do indeed see most humanoids as beneath me intellectually because they sort of... Are. The degree of it varies though, from insignificant, which has no impact on my personal interactions with the individual to catastrophic, in which case I will usually go out of my way to avoid such interactions.

I don't see any mention of 'humanoids' but a direct mention of 'adult atheists who "find"... .

Quote from: Asmodean on June 25, 2012, 02:35:06 AM
What exactly do "we" lose that "we" shouldn't be glad to see the back of?

Frankly, I consider adult atheists who "find" some form of "god" so far beneath me intellectually that I lose all interest in them if I had any to begin with.

Being raised to believe in fairy tales and holding on to it is one thing, giving up the magic and then re-integrating it into one's life is quite another (As for never-theists, I do not know of any converts from that group who stayed converted for any prolonged period of time)

But now it was a comedic post directed at humanoids.  Ok.  I'll let you "win" this one.

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on June 27, 2012, 08:22:11 PM
I don't see any mention of 'humanoids' but a direct mention of 'adult atheists who "find"... .

I think we are talking about different posts. I was not refering to the OP, but to the post you quoted before we started this round, which should be relatively obvious through my reference to an italic line of text in a quote within the post where said reference was made.

I hope that S. E. Cupp doesn't feel like Ms. Libresco has stolen her thunder. I'm still optimistic that I'll read sometime soon that she's seen the light, too!

I think this conversion was a good thing. Libresco is comfortably ensconced in the arms of the Catholic god, which she believes is the source of objective morality, and has provided an excellent source of material to all the commenters on both sides of the conversation.

When I first saw this thread, SE Cupp was the first person I thought of. 

I genuinely dislike her (SE Cupp) and that is pretty rare for me.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2012, 07:47:47 PMIt takes a lot more to make me feel attacked - an actual attack, for instance. You have somewhat of a reputation with me for putting words in people's mouths, however.

Put some words in my mouth now, Asmo, but be gentle.  It's my first time.

Quote from: MadBomr101 on June 28, 2012, 12:59:04 AM
Put some words in my mouth now, Asmo, but be gentle.  It's my first time.

Not in a particularly gentle mood, so... Tank and his crew may object.  >:(

I must say,

I am soooooo happy that it is not me arguing with AD this time.

Quote from: Stevil on June 27, 2012, 06:39:22 AM
Quite frankly, I don't know how anyone can accept Catholicism. Its so strict, so rigid, so oppressive. And you get to imagine you are eating and drinking Jesus.

Well there are plenty of self identified Catholics who don't accept the Churches teachings as a whole. More like "spiritual" with cultural connections to Catholicism.  

I don't know if they think Jesus is tasty though :D

Quote from: Sweetdeath on June 27, 2012, 05:10:52 PM
Funny, as Muslims feel that way about non Muslims.

Well it's common in segregationist religious or any cultural "us versus them" tribe. The easiest way to justify hurting another person is to make them seem less human first. That way you're bypassing what we evolved to do as social creatures (mostly driven towards empathy with identified members of our species, unless given good reason not to through prior experience). Religion uses our natural programming to create religious tribes and also is an excellent tool for rationalising why "others" should be treated like mere animals. Not exactly the best part of human nature, ironically.

Some of the more intolerant religions do this to atheists for instance when, by claiming that we don't have a soul, it's perfectly ok for people who don't believe to burn and suffer in hell for all of eternity. Makes people less empathetic towards them. It's not restricted to religions, though, just more prevalent because religions are social organizers and each on believes that have found the ultimate truth. ::)

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 01:25:52 AM
I must say,

I am soooooo happy that it is not me arguing with AD this time.

Yes, well, The Gray One has heard your prayers. And, being a generous kind of lump of malicious clay, He decided to oblige.  :D

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 01:25:52 AM
I must say,

I am soooooo happy that it is not me arguing with AD this time.

I am also very surprised at this. xD

Quote from: Stevil on June 26, 2012, 12:25:47 AM

Personal Values
Governing Laws
Social norms
Morality

OK, you can distinguish among them all and for the most part I might agree with your definitions (not about morality tho, which every dictionary I checked defined as both objective and subjective) but these are still your definitions and no more generally valid than my personal morality.  A lot of other people are going to have a lot of other ideas about the above.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 28, 2012, 06:46:11 AM
OK, you can distinguish among them all and for the most part I might agree with your definitions (not about morality tho, which every dictionary I checked defined as both objective and subjective) but these are still your definitions and no more generally valid than my personal morality.  A lot of other people are going to have a lot of other ideas about the above.

If you care to indulge me,

Please tell me what you think the difference is between personal values (personal opinion) and morality?

Also please tell me if (and why) you think you are being philosophically consistent when you make a public claim to something being immoral. How this is more than just a personal statement as to you personally feeling such and such is "wrong".

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 08:13:15 AM
Please tell me what you think the difference is between personal values (personal opinion) and morality?

I think it comes down to something like this: I want someone to suffer a slow and painful death, because overkill vengeance is my personal value. However, I will not attempt to inflict that on that someone due to my morality, that dictates me to treat people as I would like, or at least not mind, to be treated, and the social norm that say killing somebody is a bad thing and is to be avoided.

I had never heard of her... Not that I'm the most knowledgeable person on internet Atheist bloggers, but I'd think that I would have at least have heard of her before this point.

It's quite apparent to me that the media jumped on this because the majority are Christians and will be thrilled to see this. An "prominent" Atheist blogger turning into an Christian is sure to feel like a massive victory for many of the Christians who read this.

Quote from: Sweetdeath on June 27, 2012, 02:16:09 AM

Quote from: Asmodean on June 26, 2012, 11:33:26 PM
My best guess is it's some random near-do-well blogger who some people are attempting to make larger than life for their own reasons. May be wrong, however - didn't recognise the name, dind't read the links

Same.  :-\

If she became religious.. Not my issue. Probably wasn't really an atheist to begin with. Just someone looking for a religion to belong to.

But, you see, that's exactly what Christians say about us (those of us who were formerly Christians, I mean). That we were never 'true' Christians, and then they attack us because we supposedly don't understand Christianity.

No true Scotsman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman) would do such a thing.

Quote from: MadBomr101 on June 28, 2012, 12:59:04 AM

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2012, 07:47:47 PMIt takes a lot more to make me feel attacked - an actual attack, for instance. You have somewhat of a reputation with me for putting words in people's mouths, however.

Put some words in my mouth now, Asmo, but be gentle.  It's my first time.

Bastard! That nearly cost me a keyboard!!!

Good news! The Asmo rolled off the bed on the right side this morning, so he may be less inclined to bite people for the first time in... A long time.  ;D

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 01:25:52 AM
I must say,

I am soooooo happy that it is not me arguing with AD this time.

Do we argue?  In my delusion, I was thinking we discussed...  ;)

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 11:58:01 AM

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 08:13:15 AM
Please tell me what you think the difference is between personal values (personal opinion) and morality?

I think it comes down to something like this: I want someone to suffer a slow and painful death, because overkill vengeance is my personal value. However, I will not attempt to inflict that on that someone due to my morality, that dictates me to treat people as I would like, or at least not mind, to be treated, and the social norm that say killing somebody is a bad thing and is to be avoided.

It is more than a social norm, society will react strongly against you, you will end up in prison if the law gets to you, or dead if now law society members get to you. Selfishly it is in your best interest not to kill people.

So, if your own personal value is to kill people slowly, then where does your morality come from? How come it differs from your personal values?
Are you a man of two minds, one you call your desires (personal values) and one you call your survival instinct(morality)?

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 08:23:55 PM
Are you a man of two minds, one you call your desires (personal values) and one you call your survival instinct(morality)?

My values are centered around number one. My morals are centered around one-of-many.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 09:10:53 PM
My values are centered around number one. My morals are centered around one-of-many.

Do you see that extending your personal wants onto others/society (golden rule), you are expressing a desire for a society which accommodates you?
And also you must see that there is much for you to gain by behaving amicably within society. e.g. society doesn't see you as a threat and treats you accordingly. You are behaving in your best interests irregardless whether you have a unfulfilled desire to kill someone slowly.

I have much desire to eat chocolate but instead I go for a run!

QuoteDo you see that extending your personal wants onto others/society (golden rule), you are expressing a desire for a society which accommodates you?

Depends. The way this question is worded, the answer is yes.

I'm sorry, but if you are trying to make a point, I can not see it.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 09:51:12 PM

QuoteDo you see that extending your personal wants onto others/society (golden rule), you are expressing a desire for a society which accommodates you?

Depends. The way this question is worded, the answer is yes.

I'm sorry, but if you are trying to make a point, I can not see it.

That which you call morality is quite different to that which theists call morality.
I feel both of you like the "Moral" label. Let's face it, most people like the "Moral" label. People want to believe that they are Good as opposed to Evil.
But I feel they dress up other things in the cloak of "Morality"
For theists, it is god's law that is called morality. Us atheists wouldn't call any law a morality. For example the government defined law is law, it isn't morality, so why would god's law be any different?
For atheists it is personal opinion or personal preference. Is this really morality? I prefer Lindt Chilli chocolate to Cadbury milk chocolate, this obviously isn't a moral statement. Kirk Cameron thinks it is wrong for people to have gay sex, is this a moral statement or simply a personal preference? In a way it is both. Kirk is a theist, he believes in objective morality, he believes his god's law is morality and that it applies to all humans. He is philosophically consistent when he makes a bold claim that it is wrong for people to have gay sex.
If an Atheist (whom believes morality is subjective, thus personal opinion) makes this statement then they cannot apply their claim universally. At best they can only say "I think it is wrong for people to have gay sex". If they make the public claim that "gay sex is immoral" then they are being philosophically inconsistent. They are applying their own person opinion universally onto everyone even though they claim that their morality is subjective and hence only applies to themselves.
For the Atheist that believes in subjective morality words such as moral or immoral are misleading, really they simply mean that they personally are of the opinion that something is wrong but they understand that there are no universal truths. So why make the claim? The audience whom hears your claim will assume you are making a universal claim, thus if they disagree with it, you will have an argument on your hands. If you make a personal statement then people are far less likely to argue the point with you. If you realise that your "morality" is only personal, then you won't look to implement it in law and hence force it on others, unless you have an alteria motive, e.g. your own survival.

If we get back to the Good vs Evil argument, assuming that you want to behave morally because you want to be Good.
What does Good even mean? There are no consequences for being Good rather than Evil. The cosmos doesn't care.
Do you think you choose to be Good? Do you believe in freewill? Do you think it is your purpose to be Good, to be an agent of Morality?

Clarifying, that. Thanks

What I was saying was pretty much that my values are, to put it simply, that which makes me happy. My morals, on the other hand (still rather simplified), are that which makes the society happy with me.

Back to my illustrative examples: Do I value a random human life? No. However, do I acknowledge that human's right to have and keep that life? Again, yes.

The first is a personal standpoint. The second is a moral one. In my case, at least, in the event of a conflict of interest, the second will usually - if not nearly always - trump the first.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 11:10:34 PM
Clarifying, that. Thanks

What I was saying was pretty much that my values are, to put it simply, that which makes me happy. My morals, on the other hand (still rather simplified), are that which makes the society happy with me.

Yeah, and having society happy with you, makes you happy. It gets quite circular.

I understand why people think of morality as doing something that is for the benefit of others rather than the self. But I do think that if you dig deep enough, analytically enough, you will see that it benefits the self. That you don't have to believe in Good, Evil or Morality to justify being a fine upstanding citizen.

The reason I am so opposed to the morality concept is that it is used to hide the why or the reasoning behind it. It is used by people to push their values onto others, it is used to oppress (unintentionally).

If we are clear and specific with our words and definitions then we can successfully separate out personal opinion from necessary laws of society from moral beliefs. We can find common ground between theists and atheists. If we agree on necessary laws of society with regards to safe and stable cohabitation and allow people to choose to behave morally, then there is grounds to be tolerant of each other and to live in an unoppressive inclusive society. For the theists they ought to be content believing their god will make the final judgement on morality and that their god's justice will be perfect. There is no need to implement morality into our societies law.
AD is a good example of this. He believes it is a sin to perform gay sex, but he does not think we should put that into law, he thinks people should have the freedom to make that choice. (Please correct me if I am wrong AD)

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 11:10:34 PM
Back to my illustrative examples: Do I value a random human life? No. However, do I acknowledge that human's right to have and keep that life? Again, yes.

The first is a personal standpoint. The second is a moral one. In my case, at least, in the event of a conflict of interest, the second will usually - if not nearly always - trump the first.

If you live in a society that doesn't value human life, then your own life is in danger. For survival, you desire a society that values human life.

There are of course atheists who think that it's possible to show a naturalistic basis for an objective morality. Sam Harris is one, and Daniel Fincke, a blogger I came across recently, is another. Interestingly, it was in looking at responses to Libresco's conversion that I found Fincke; in "How Foolish Atheists Convinced The Atheist Blogger Leah Libresco That Catholic Philosophy Was Rationally Superior To Atheism" (http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/06/25/how-foolish-atheists-convinced-the-atheist-blogger-leah-libresco-that-catholic-philosophy-was-rationally-superior-to-atheism/), he's practically jumping up and down in his pique over the assumption that atheists inevitably posit a subjective basis for morality. You may find some of his articles worthwhile, Stevil. Though I haven't read it yet, I'm thinking that "In Which I Answer Leah Libresco's Moral Philosophy Concerns So You Don't Become A Catholic Too" (http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/06/28/in-which-i-answer-leah-librescos-moral-philosophy-concerns-so-you-dont-become-a-catholic-too/) should be interesting.  ;)

It is amazing how much exposure this one person's conversion is getting.

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 11:25:49 PM
If you live in a society that doesn't value human life, then your own life is in danger. For survival, you desire a society that values human life.

...Assuming of course that my own survival is a high priority. A safe enough assumption in most cases, but still.

I do not desire a society that values human life. I live in one, and am not nearly discontent enough to work to change it. It is a crucial point of difference that I have been half-heartedly attempting to illustrate, but you could not or would not pick up on.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 29, 2012, 12:16:02 AM
...Assuming of course that my own survival is a high priority. A safe enough assumption in most cases, but still.

LOL

Quote from: Asmodean on June 29, 2012, 12:16:02 AM
I do not desire a society that values human life. I live in one, and am not nearly discontent enough to work to change it. It is a crucial point of difference that I have been half-heartedly attempting to illustrate, but you could not or would not pick up on.

I understand that you are making a claim to have a desire to kill people, albeit slowly.

But I think you are disregarding the consequences of such a society. What if other people want to kill you, slowly?

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 12:30:12 AM
I understand that you are making a claim to have a desire to kill people, albeit slowly.

And I do. Not the point, however.

QuoteBut I think you are disregarding the consequences of such a society. What if other people want to kill you, slowly?

Then their morals apparently trump their personal wishes, like they do in my case, because I'm sort of... Alive.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 29, 2012, 01:46:34 AM

QuoteBut I think you are disregarding the consequences of such a society. What if other people want to kill you, slowly?

Then their morals apparently trump their personal wishes, like they do in my case, because I'm sort of... Alive.

Their morals or their desire to survive?

There are real consequences to trying to kill someone, that person may fight back, their loved ones might fight back, society might fight back, government might put them in prison or give them the death sentence.

As a society we have deemed that it is unsafe (and hence undesired) to let people go around killing each other. We have mutually given up our right to kill in favour of our right not to be killed. This doesn't have to be considered a moral decision, it could be considered a mutual survival preference supported by law.

I think it is fascinating to consider shows like Survivor or what happens in war time. Normal rules don't apply, because society is different, people behave differently because the game is different. It is not that morality has changed, I presume the concept of morality doesn't change.
In survivor people make alliances, they lie, deceive, betray, in order to be the last person standing. At the end of the game half the people hate them, but they end up with the money anyways (as long as they are less hated than the other survivor). They know the goal and their purpose during the game, they know the society is only temporary, they know it doesn't matter in the end that they have lost everyone's trust.
These are the consequences, if you behaved that way in your own long term society. If people dislike and distrust you then your life will be limited, no friends, no business partners, no loans, no customers.

You might think you do the "right" thing because you are a "good" person, but I think there is much more to it than that. That, sounds like a fairytale. This mentality is very much inbred into us via movies, books, comic books. Good triumphing over Evil. I think this black and white mentality is a major source of conflict and wars.

Quote from: Tank on June 28, 2012, 12:39:10 PM

Quote from: MadBomr101 on June 28, 2012, 12:59:04 AM

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2012, 07:47:47 PMIt takes a lot more to make me feel attacked - an actual attack, for instance. You have somewhat of a reputation with me for putting words in people's mouths, however.

Put some words in my mouth now, Asmo, but be gentle.  It's my first time.

Bastard! That nearly cost me a keyboard!!!

Oh, you know you loved it.  ;)

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 08:13:15 AM
If you care to indulge me,

Please tell me what you think the difference is between personal values (personal opinion) and morality?

Depends on what kind of morality we're discussing.  None if it's my personal morality. 

QuoteAlso please tell me if (and why) you think you are being philosophically consistent when you make a public claim to something being immoral. How this is more than just a personal statement as to you personally feeling such and such is "wrong".

It isn't any more than a personal statement.  Why would it be?

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 29, 2012, 05:47:24 AM
Depends on what kind of morality we're discussing.  None if it's my personal morality. 

OK, so you have dressed up your own personal opinion as "morality". You could easily interchange between "That isn't aligned with my personal values" or "That is immoral".
Do you think the second option could be ambiguous to your audience?, Asmodean has clearly stated he thinks there is a difference between one's personal values and morality, I would assume theists think that there is a difference although I presume they try hard to align them.
Do you think with the second option that your audience might think that you are telling them what they ought to believe as right and wrong?
e.g. if you say such and such is immoral, would your audience sometimes think that you are asserting a "universal truth" onto them as if your perception of morality ought to apply to them?

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 29, 2012, 05:47:24 AM
It isn't any more than a personal statement.  Why would it be?

So, if a government makes laws based on morality or ethics, stating that prostitution is illegal because it is immoral. Or if they state that homosexual marriage is illegal because it is immoral. Or if they make stem cell research illegal because it is immoral.
What would your response be?
a) Whose morality are we referring to?
b) No, these activities are not immoral.
c) I don't want laws based on the law maker's moral beliefs, I want laws based on specific disclosed goals e.g. safe and stable society.

Can you see how (if morality is just another name for personal opinion) morality is not a very good basis for a leader making decisions on behalf of others, or for a community of people to discuss an issue and try to come to a collective compromise. For the community you would end up with a numbers game where the majority always rule, thus in a Christian community, homosexuality would be outlawed because it is collectively deemed as immoral.

Quote from: Stevil on June 28, 2012, 11:25:49 PM

Quote from: Asmodean on June 28, 2012, 11:10:34 PM
Back to my illustrative examples: Do I value a random human life? No. However, do I acknowledge that human's right to have and keep that life? Again, yes.

The first is a personal standpoint. The second is a moral one. In my case, at least, in the event of a conflict of interest, the second will usually - if not nearly always - trump the first.

If you live in a society that doesn't value human life, then your own life is in danger. For survival, you desire a society that values human life.

Social contract basically? Some animals which live in groups have forms of social contracts.

Help feed others and you will be fed, etc. Evolutionary, it gives a major advantage over solitary animals.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 02:05:44 AM. . .

As a society we have deemed that it is unsafe (and hence undesired) to let people go around killing each other. We have mutually given up our right to kill in favour of our right not to be killed. This doesn't have to be considered a moral decision, it could be considered a mutual survival preference supported by law.

Yet there is no reason not to call it a moral decision or judgment, unless one is defining morality as only objective for some reason.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 02:05:44 AMI think it is fascinating to consider shows like Survivor or what happens in war time. Normal rules don't apply, because society is different, people behave differently because the game is different. It is not that morality has changed, I presume the concept of morality doesn't change.

What justification is there for that presumption? There is a well defined concept of moral relativism which is "an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons." (Source) (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/) It seems that you have chosen to only recognize a concept of objective morality as "true morality" and any subjective or mutable morality does not actually qualify as morality according to you. I think that by doing so you are accepting the position of the moral absolutists (who are generally, but not always theist). I personally do not accept that position.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 02:05:44 AMYou might think you do the "right" thing because you are a "good" person, but I think there is much more to it than that. That, sounds like a fairytale. This mentality is very much inbred into us via movies, books, comic books. Good triumphing over Evil. I think this black and white mentality is a major source of conflict and wars.

I think that you are right that morality is largely cultural, but I also think that there is an underpinning of instinctive proto-morality which arises from our evolutionary heritage. Part of that heritage includes the tendency to look at the world from a tribal perspective, with in-groups and out-groups. This tendency is nurtured and emphasized for cultural reasons: people are easier to manipulate when they subscribe to some form of nationalism (with a subtext of "us=good, them=bad").

Quote from: Recusant on June 29, 2012, 06:42:07 PM
I think that you are right that morality is largely cultural, but I also think that there is an underpinning of instinctive proto-morality which arises from our evolutionary heritage.

This. And just because it can be called subjective, doesn't mean it's totally arbitrary.

I think I get the gist of what you're saying Stevil, but I the way I'm reading your posts still makes me think you're arguing semantics. Thing is, you're trying to disprove the theistic position of absolute objective morality handed down by a law-giver but not other forms of non-arbitrary morality. I think that ultimately moral philosophy and the science surrounding our behavior in groups is way more complicated than theists think it is. If they take the word 'morality' as their own to describe their type, then I'd be the first to disagree with them. I still don't think I would call myself amoral, though. ???

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 29, 2012, 07:41:07 PM
I think I get the gist of what you're saying Stevil, but I the way I'm reading your posts still makes me think you're arguing semantics. Thing is, you're trying to disprove the theistic position of absolute objective morality handed down by a law-giver but not other forms of non-arbitrary morality. I think that ultimately moral philosophy and the science surrounding our behavior in groups is way more complicated than theists think it is. If they take the word 'morality' as their own to describe their type, then I'd be the first to disagree with them. I still don't think I would call myself amoral, though. ???

What I am trying to do, is to be clear and specific. I think morality, hides a lot of detail, hides reasoning, hides agendas. When two people talk about morality, they can quite easily be talking about different things. It is too confusing.

But we have other terms that can be used, ones that don't hide the detail, reasoning or agendas.
A theist can refer to god's law instead of morality. Theists are happy with the term god's law. Some atheists can refer to the term "personal opinion" or "personal values" instead of subjective morality. If speaking in such terms then these two groups can communicate with each other with less confusion.
If a government comes out with a law against homosexuality and states that it the reasoning is that it is against the Christian god's law, then this is much better than saying it is because homosexuality is immoral. I say it is better, because at least the society members know why the government made the decision. The reasoning is not hidden behind the morality word. When a theist argues about god's law, then it is hard to argue against them, an atheist's reasoning will fall on deaf ears because it doesn't address or overrule god's law (in the mind of the theist).

To overcome this stalemate we need to reassess the purpose for government's law. If we simply state that we want a moral society enforced by government defined law, then we lose (depending if we are outnumbered by the coordinated theists).

Being an amoralist, (moral nihilist) is not a claim that rules aren't desired or that collectively we can't decide on some common rules of society. It is a claim that object right and wrong don't exist. This means that objective morality is absurd.

But it also means that subjective morality is absurd, in the instance that an individual claims to know what is right and what is wrong (without the need for a specific goal). Thus this subjective morality can make claims of right and wrong without qualifying the situation, without putting things in context. As if this person has a special connection to a magical definition of right and wrong.

Of course there is a different type of subjective morality, this is where a person defines a goal (because they have a personal preference for that goal) they then assess right and wrong against that. Most atheists use the golden rule as this goal, which works quite well, some people think this is too subjective and have attempted to come up with a more prescriptive rule set such as the philosopher Kant. Follower's of Kant's philosophy might claim that Kant defines objective morality, in that if you follow his rules then you are likely to come objectively to the same conclusion as others also following his rules. What makes his philosophy subjective is that people don't have to and often don't agree with the rule set, therefore acceptance of the rule set is a subjective choice. I find it absurd to put your faith into a rule set and then dedicate your life to following the output of that rule set.

Another aspect of amoralism is that we are opposed to using the terms moral and immoral, I agree with this approach, not because I want to wear the amoral label but because I want to remove ambiguity. We can more clearly express our thoughts and wants without using these horrible words. Goals must be set and actions judged against those goals (do they improve the chances of that goal or reduce the chances?), agendas are laid bare for all to see, it also lays a foundation for open discussion and compromise. Using the morality terms, closes off discussion, it makes thing appear to be irreconcilable differences.

So an amoralist is not a person whom does as they immediately please, is not a person whom does not recognise the importance of a cohesive society, is not a person without empathy or values. If you think these things then your perception is incorrect.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 09:20:52 PM
So an amoralist is not a person whom does as they immediately please, is not a person whom does not recognise the importance of a cohesive society, is not a person without empathy or values. If you think these things then your perception is incorrect.

Ok. Actually what I see as amoral is something which wouldn't have any concept of any morality, such as animals, even though they do adopt strategies such as social contracts, to enhance their chances of survival in groups.

That and stuff such as natural disasters, which even though cause suffering, just aren't either good or evil, or anything in between. Morality as a concept just doesn't apply to them.

I'd like to better reply to the rest of your post soon, just making a brief interlude now.

Quote from: Recusant on June 29, 2012, 06:42:07 PM
Yet there is no reason not to call it a moral decision or judgment, unless one is defining morality as only objective for some reason.

Based on my previous post, I hope you can see my thinking as to the many reasons why I would not call this a moral decision.

Quote from: Recusant on June 29, 2012, 06:42:07 PM

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 02:05:44 AMI think it is fascinating to consider shows like Survivor or what happens in war time. Normal rules don't apply, because society is different, people behave differently because the game is different. It is not that morality has changed, I presume the concept of morality doesn't change.

What justification is there for that presumption?

If a person uses the terms moral or immoral without qualification or justification then I presume they are suggesting that morality is static rather than dynamic, that there is no need for qualification or justification because right is always right and wrong is always wrong.
Basically I want them to qualify their statements, to be consistent with their philosophy rather than to be ambiguous with implied messages that confuse the audience.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 29, 2012, 09:28:08 PM
Ok. Actually what I see as amoral is something which wouldn't have any concept of any morality, such as animals.

Funny you say this.
I do see us just as another species of animal. If your definition of morality does not apply to them, then I would make a claim that your definition of morality does not apply to us either. There is nothing magical about human animals.

It is funny that some philosophers suggest that amorality is philosophically inconsistent. Non human animals are amoralists, how can they possibly be philosophically inconsistent?

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 06:25:18 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 29, 2012, 05:47:24 AM
Depends on what kind of morality we're discussing.  None if it's my personal morality. 

OK, so you have dressed up your own personal opinion as "morality".

I don't know if I'd consider personal opinion and morality the same thing.  It's hard to tell when definitions are up for grabs.

QuoteYou could easily interchange between "That isn't aligned with my personal values" or "That is immoral".  Do you think the second option could be ambiguous to your audience?,

I doubt it, since what I would say is "I think that's immoral".  Doesn't mean it is, at least not for anyone other than me, and I think that's plain enough.  Besides, there is no force on this planet strong enough to make me say the words "isn't aligned with my personal values". 

QuoteDo you think with the second option that your audience might think that you are telling them what they ought to believe as right and wrong?

Again, I doubt it because I have no trouble using qualifying words up front to make it clear I'm talking about my personal morality, or the morality that's common to a particular society or group.  I really don't see why it should be any harder to say "personal morality" or, even easier, "my morality" than "personal values".

QuoteSo, if a government makes laws based on morality or ethics, stating that prostitution is illegal because it is immoral. Or if they state that homosexual marriage is illegal because it is immoral. Or if they make stem cell research illegal because it is immoral.
What would your response be?
a) Whose morality are we referring to?
b) No, these activities are not immoral.
c) I don't want laws based on the law maker's moral beliefs, I want laws based on specific disclosed goals e.g. safe and stable society.

My response would be c, altho I'd amplify that beyond just the law-makers moral beliefs to include the standard morality of the culture as a whole.  Laws that come into being based purely on some system of morality can be removed, and this is where voting and civil disobedience come in. 

Frankly, I think your example of homosexuality being outlawed by a Xtian majority is flawed.  A Xtian majority is exactly what we have now and, altho it took awhile, homosexuality isn't illegal.  Some states, all with a Xtian majority, permit same-sex marriage.  This is, however, a good example of how civil disobedience and voting have changed morality based laws that should have never existed in the first place but do because humans screw up. 

I think you're looking for a way of making things perfect and that just isn't going to happen.  Some people will be just as willing to use the law to impose their personal values on others as their morality.  Semantics don't matter, we'd still have the same legal fight on our hands.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 07:35:12 AM
Frankly, I think your example of homosexuality being outlawed by a Xtian majority is flawed.  A Xtian majority is exactly what we have now and, altho it took awhile, homosexuality isn't illegal.  Some states, all with a Xtian majority, permit same-sex marriage.  This is, however, a good example of how civil disobedience and voting have changed morality based laws that should have never existed in the first place but do because humans screw up. 

I think you're looking for a way of making things perfect and that just isn't going to happen.  Some people will be just as willing to use the law to impose their personal values on others as their morality.  Semantics don't matter, we'd still have the same legal fight on our hands.

Possibly true, I don't know.

I think even hard core theists, can be convinced to leave moral judgement upto their god and hence out of societies rules (laws).
Many theists think this way (I presume) which is possibly why some think there shouldn't be a law against homosexuality.

It funny, in NZ when we made prostitution legal, there were may comments from people being aghast because they stated that prostitution is immoral. Well, even if prostitution is immoral then who cares? What place is it for law to be based on this distinction? So those comments seemed irrelevant to me.

If we get rid of the concept of morality then it would easily be clear for all to see that prostitution, gay marriage, euthanasia, polygamy etc are fine within society. We don't need laws against them. The answer to me is very clear. I just have a huge problem convincing anyone else of it. People (regardless of being theist or atheist) love the moral concept, people want to be good, they want their society to be good.

I don't believe in good, evil, right, wrong, morality.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 09:20:52 PM
What I am trying to do, is to be clear and specific. I think morality, hides a lot of detail, hides reasoning, hides agendas. When two people talk about morality, they can quite easily be talking about different things. It is too confusing.

But we have other terms that can be used, ones that don't hide the detail, reasoning or agendas.
A theist can refer to god's law instead of morality. Theists are happy with the term god's law. Some atheists can refer to the term "personal opinion" or "personal values" instead of subjective morality. If speaking in such terms then these two groups can communicate with each other with less confusion.
If a government comes out with a law against homosexuality and states that it the reasoning is that it is against the Christian god's law, then this is much better than saying it is because homosexuality is immoral. I say it is better, because at least the society members know why the government made the decision. The reasoning is not hidden behind the morality word. When a theist argues about god's law, then it is hard to argue against them, an atheist's reasoning will fall on deaf ears because it doesn't address or overrule god's law (in the mind of the theist).

I wouldn't use "personal opinion" or "personal values" for morality, I'm a product of my culture and its moral zeitgeist. My personal opinion one what is good or bad sometimes stops with me, and is not projected onto society. I also arrive at my own conclusions based on my reasoning, so it's a mix between the two. 

QuoteTo overcome this stalemate we need to reassess the purpose for government's law. If we simply state that we want a moral society enforced by government defined law, then we lose (depending if we are outnumbered by the coordinated theists).

The purpose of the law isn't to be moral, it's to protect interests. Preferably the interests of the weaker parties. Morality in a culture or society predates it's incorporation into laws in most cases, and I doubt even the most hardcore Christians would see what people of the same religion did 2000 years ago as moral.

QuoteBeing an amoralist, (moral nihilist) is not a claim that rules aren't desired or that collectively we can't decide on some common rules of society. It is a claim that object right and wrong don't exist. This means that objective morality is absurd.

I agree with that.

QuoteBut it also means that subjective morality is absurd, in the instance that an individual claims to know what is right and what is wrong (without the need for a specific goal). Thus this subjective morality can make claims of right and wrong without qualifying the situation, without putting things in context. As if this person has a special connection to a magical definition of right and wrong.

Of course there is a different type of subjective morality, this is where a person defines a goal (because they have a personal preference for that goal) they then assess right and wrong against that. Most atheists use the golden rule as this goal, which works quite well, some people think this is too subjective and have attempted to come up with a more prescriptive rule set such as the philosopher Kant. Follower's of Kant's philosophy might claim that Kant defines objective morality, in that if you follow his rules then you are likely to come objectively to the same conclusion as others also following his rules. What makes his philosophy subjective is that people don't have to and often don't agree with the rule set, therefore acceptance of the rule set is a subjective choice. I find it absurd to put your faith into a rule set and then dedicate your life to following the output of that rule set.

The way I see it, some form of morality is emergent when you have a society, with rules that make it more stable, otherwise it would collapse. The whole purpose of living in a group is to have more advantages over disadvantages, otherwise no one would.

That moral emergence is then seen by people - theist, atheist and everything in between - as an objective morality, because it comes from the outside (society) in (individual values). It's why people know that at least in principle, morality doesn't depend on what they see as right or wrong, mostly it's what people see as moral that's influenced in most part by society. So it would be wrong to say that it's purely subjective as in what each individual believes is law. It just has a subjective origin.

Of course, people will also cheat the system if they feel they can get away with it, but that's another issue. "Protomoral" animals do that as well.

QuoteAnother aspect of amoralism is that we are opposed to using the terms moral and immoral, I agree with this approach, not because I want to wear the amoral label but because I want to remove ambiguity. We can more clearly express our thoughts and wants without using these horrible words. Goals must be set and actions judged against those goals (do they improve the chances of that goal or reduce the chances?), agendas are laid bare for all to see, it also lays a foundation for open discussion and compromise. Using the morality terms, closes off discussion, it makes thing appear to be irreconcilable differences.

Or we can claim the word to show that theists don't have a monopoly on what they see as a exclusive divine attribute. Saying "ok, we don't want to use the word morality, we'll use something else", will only help feed their perceptions that we're immoral (in their eyes). At least for a while, can't say for sure what would happen if we take this approach in the long term.

QuoteSo an amoralist is not a person whom does as they immediately please, is not a person whom does not recognise the importance of a cohesive society, is not a person without empathy or values. If you think these things then your perception is incorrect.

Quote from: Stevil on June 29, 2012, 09:37:07 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 29, 2012, 09:28:08 PM
Ok. Actually what I see as amoral is something which wouldn't have any concept of any morality, such as animals.

Funny you say this.
I do see us just as another species of animal. If your definition of morality does not apply to them, then I would make a claim that your definition of morality does not apply to us either. There is nothing magical about human animals.

It is funny that some philosophers suggest that amorality is philosophically inconsistent. Non human animals are amoralists, how can they possibly be philosophically inconsistent?

Yes, we're animals, but we have the capacity for language and so can reason through these things, or at least we like to think we can. :::) Morality IMO is the result of discussion about dynamic but non arbitrary "rules" that emerge when a group lives together, based on neurobiological and evolutionary programming. 

Quote from: Stevil on June 30, 2012, 09:55:35 AM
People (regardless of being theist or atheist) love the moral concept, people want to be good, they want their society to be good.

I don't believe in good, evil, right, wrong, morality.

And I believe in all those things -- the fact that they're all subjective (IMO) and vary from person to person, society to society, even circumstance to circumstance doesn't make any difference to me.  They seem to me very effective in defining and communicating concepts essential to our lives, whether it's our private lives or the life of our society.  That the word 'morality' requires a little extra work by adding qualifiers to make it clear what kind of morality we mean is not a problem.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
I wouldn't use "personal opinion" or "personal values" for morality,

Exactly, I wouldn't term these as fitting the moral definition. I don't believe that anything fits the moral definition.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
I'm a product of my culture and its moral zeitgeist. My personal opinion one what is good or bad sometimes stops with me, and is not projected onto society. I also arrive at my own conclusions based on my reasoning, so it's a mix between the two. 

A mix between culture and personal opinion?
I am not sure how cultural norms prescribe morality. In the Indian culture it is normal for a woman to wear a sari, does this make it the moral thing to do?
In some cultures it is normal to be married before you turn 30, does this mean if you turn 30 and are not married you are then immoral?
If we are talking about the mutual rules of a society, e.g. not allowing murder, why do we call this a moral rather than a law?
Are you defining morals as being equal to rules?
If we play a game of chess, are the moves that are against the rules classified as immoral?
I really think we are not clearly defining what morality means.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
The purpose of the law isn't to be moral, it's to protect interests.

This I think is the end game. To get everyone to agree with this.
If Christians didn't think the purpose of law was to enforce morality, then how can they justify making homosexuality or same sex marriage against the law? What argument are they going to make that also aligns with the purpose of law?

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
The way I see it, some form of morality is emergent when you have a society, with rules that make it more stable, otherwise it would collapse. The whole purpose of living in a group is to have more advantages over disadvantages, otherwise no one would.

As an amoralist, I also want to live in a society with rules. I don't want them based on any form of morality though.
Again i think we need to define morality, are you suggesting it is merely a set of rules created by a group of people, thus our law can be considered the morality of our society?

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
Or we can claim the word to show that theists don't have a monopoly on what they see as a exclusive divine attribute.

If we claim the word and have a different definition to them, then we argue points but don't address each other's concerns, we talk cross purposes when in discussions with each other. It becomes a numbers game and they win.
I would prefer to show how moral belief causes oppression and wars. It makes people judgmental and self righteous, it gives them the incentive to control, punish or kill others. Without moral belief, people would be content to minding their own business, being accepting and tolerant of the differences of others.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 30, 2012, 02:00:21 PM
Yes, we're animals, but we have the capacity for language and so can reason through these things, or at least we like to think we can. :::) Morality IMO is the result of discussion about dynamic but non arbitrary "rules" that emerge when a group lives together, based on neurobiological and evolutionary programming. 

Animals talk, especially dolphins and whales. Dogs talk, many animals do, their vocab is probably primitive but they speak to each other. Those that live in groups also have social rules. I'm not sure why you think "morality" applies to us but not them.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:16:33 PM

Quote from: Stevil on June 30, 2012, 09:55:35 AM
People (regardless of being theist or atheist) love the moral concept, people want to be good, they want their society to be good.

I don't believe in good, evil, right, wrong, morality.

And I believe in all those things -- the fact that they're all subjective (IMO) and vary from person to person, society to society, even circumstance to circumstance doesn't make any difference to me.  They seem to me very effective in defining and communicating concepts essential to our lives, whether it's our private lives or the life of our society.  That the word 'morality' requires a little extra work by adding qualifiers to make it clear what kind of morality we mean is not a problem.

I think Stevil is arguing that these concepts have no objective existence, so there is no real disagreement on the issue of subjectivity. I think you can however conduct your life perfectly well  without falling back on these concepts.

Quote from: Stevil on June 30, 2012, 10:27:15 PM
Without moral belief, people would be content to minding their own business, being accepting and tolerant of the differences of others.

If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are, which is not too much.  Being an asshole is pretty much part of human nature and without religious morality we'll just find another justification.

There's a line from the movie "For Your Consideration": In every actor, there lives a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. You never know which one's going to show up.

I think that can easily be applied to the entire human race.

Quote from: En_Route on June 30, 2012, 10:36:47 PM
I think Stevil is arguing that these concepts have no objective existence, so there is no real disagreement on the issue of subjectivity. I think you can however conduct your life perfectly well  without falling back on these concepts.

I'm sure you can, I'd be willing to bet money on it in fact, but I do find the words useful.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:41:44 PM
If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are,

I beg to differ, us atheists are proof otherwise. For the most part we don't worry about "morality", if it doesn't impact us or make society unsafe.
Take homosexuality for example, who cares if it is moral or immoral or neutral, it is not a threat, so we don't care.

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:41:44 PM
If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are,

I beg to differ, us atheists are proof otherwise. For the most part we don't worry about "morality", if it doesn't impact us or make society unsafe.
Take homosexuality for example, who cares if it is moral or immoral or neutral, it is not a threat, so we don't care.

We're not the norm tho, are we?

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 04:03:56 AM

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:41:44 PM
If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are,

I beg to differ, us atheists are proof otherwise. For the most part we don't worry about "morality", if it doesn't impact us or make society unsafe.
Take homosexuality for example, who cares if it is moral or immoral or neutral, it is not a threat, so we don't care.

We're not the norm tho, are we?

Is norm determined by majority? Maybe that's how society sees it.

Sexual positions: what is the 'norm?' XD

Quote from: SDSexual positions: what is the 'norm?' XD

Is that the one where you swing from the chandelier and stick your ....  no, maybe not.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 04:03:56 AM

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:41:44 PM
If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are,

I beg to differ, us atheists are proof otherwise. For the most part we don't worry about "morality", if it doesn't impact us or make society unsafe.
Take homosexuality for example, who cares if it is moral or immoral or neutral, it is not a threat, so we don't care.

We're not the norm tho, are we?

You are in a statistical minority as are people with red hair and Celine Dion fans. Only the latter represent a threat to society.

Quote from: En_Route on July 01, 2012, 10:45:42 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 04:03:56 AM

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on June 30, 2012, 10:41:44 PM
If that's the root of you problem with morality, I think you're living in a dream world.  Toss moral (and I assume here you mean religious) beliefs all you want, people aren't going to mind their own business or be accepting and tolerant any more than they already are,

I beg to differ, us atheists are proof otherwise. For the most part we don't worry about "morality", if it doesn't impact us or make society unsafe.
Take homosexuality for example, who cares if it is moral or immoral or neutral, it is not a threat, so we don't care.

We're not the norm tho, are we?

I've thought more about this (slept on it, actually) and there are places that have tried to do away with religion and religious morality, and the result was very far from accepting, tolerant people minding their own business. 

Also, I think blaming religous morality for all the bad in the world is a little one-sided.  If you're going for consistency, you have to count all the good that can be credited to religious morality as well as the bad.  For instance, German Xtians during WWII risking their own lives hiding or helping Jews to escape because it was the right, the moral, thing to do.  I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, but that's one everybody is familiar with.

You can say, and probably correctly, that those people would have done that anyway without the influence of religious morality and just credited their actions to a different motive.  I certainly hope they would have, but that does tend to support my point about people being the same no matter what they claim inspires or justifies their behavior. 

QuoteYou are in a statistical minority as are people with red hair and Celine Dion fans. Only the latter represent a threat to society.

I wonder what would happen if you bred them with Trekkies?

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 02:09:23 PM
I've thought more about this (slept on it, actually) and there are places that have tried to do away with religion and religious morality, and the result was very far from accepting, tolerant people minding their own business. 

Also, I think blaming religous morality for all the bad in the world is a little one-sided. 

My focus was morality in general, not just religious morality. But it is hard to argue about something when we don't have a common understanding as to what that something means.

With religion, I think it is possible to see that most religious wars or religious based oppression or atrocities were based on morality with the desire to enforce it on others.

So the real issue is not just the believed knowledge of knowing what is right and wrong but it is the belief that this right and wrong applies to others. If your morality only applies to the self (such as a personal opinion or personal values) then I have no problem with it. I personally wouldn't call this morality though. You can use your own personal opinion or personal values to influence law (I have no problem with that), but if you recognise it as personal opinion then you are likely to vote for things that affect you and not worry about things that don't affect you. You will be much less likely to want to needlessly oppress others.

The problem comes along when you think your knowledge of morality applies to others, you then become judgmental and possibly driven to control, oppress and even kill.

Sure in wars it might begin by a tyrant wanting to expand his empire. But often they need to win their own people into supporting the war effort. They do this be invoking morality, and getting their people to fight the Good fight against their Evil enemies.

I am certainly not saying that religion hasn't added some value to the world.

Just to clarify amoralism
Moral statements are meaningless. This means you cannot judge if a moral statement is true or false. e.g.
With the statement "Killing someone is immoral", I would say this is neither true nor false. I would need to know more details e.g. why is the person being killed? What state is the person being killed in? What is the goal that this action is being judged against (with regards to it being right and wrong).
If you think that you can answer true or false to the statement or similar statements, then you are being philosophically inconsistent unless of course you believe in objective morality. If you believe in objective morality then you need to assess from where does objective morality come? and how do people know of this objective morality and why do other animals not know of it?

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 06:38:55 PM

With the statement "Killing someone is immoral", I would say this is neither true nor false. I would need to know more details e.g. why is the person being killed? What state is the person being killed in? What is the goal that this action is being judged against (with regards to it being right and wrong).

I would call it generally true, but concede that a lot depends on the circumstances.  I don't find this inconsistent at all, just an example of how morality is subjective, not objective.

My opinion of objective morality is the same as my opinion on the existence of a god -- I'll believe it when I see it.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 08:43:52 PM

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 06:38:55 PM

With the statement "Killing someone is immoral", I would say this is neither true nor false. I would need to know more details e.g. why is the person being killed? What state is the person being killed in? What is the goal that this action is being judged against (with regards to it being right and wrong).

I would call it generally true, but concede that a lot depends on the circumstances.  I don't find this inconsistent at all, just an example of how morality is subjective, not objective.

My opinion of objective morality is the same as my opinion on the existence of a god -- I'll believe it when I see it.

Sorry to get so analytical, (I am like that, too much I know) but trying to understand what is meant by subjective.
Does this mean:
1. each person has knowledge of right and wrong, however this knowledge differs from person to person
2. each person has defined different goals and hence assesses things against those goals and gets a subjective morality

If 1 then it makes sense that you can make a claim on a moral statement as being true or false. It might point to morality being built into an individual's DNA or past on from parents, relatives, friends, society, culture, books, movies, etc as memes.

If 2 then the person is using reasoning and experience, defining goals and assessing the world relative to those goals. There are no objective goals, these are subjective.
If the person using 2 makes a claim to a moral statement as being True or False, they are missing a crucial step. They are assuming the goal and assessing based on that. Thus their audience aren't made aware of the goal relative to their conclusion of True or False. Maybe you don't see it as important to articulate the goal, maybe you think it is obvious for all, so short cuts are fine.

Certainly as parents of children whom lack experience and reasoning skills, we instill "values" into our children through the power of our authority over them and our trusted relationship. This helps them survive in the early years. In the teenage years they then become their own person, reasoning kicks in, and they break the instilled values and them replace these "values" with their own. Maybe for religious people instead of building their own values they defer authority from their parents to their church, and thus are always dependent "children", rather than self sufficient, responsible "adults".

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 11:24:34 PM
Maybe for religious people instead of building their own values they defer authority from their parents to their church, and thus are always dependent "children", rather than self sufficient, responsible "adults".

It sure seems that way, if taking a generalised view. Looks like some at least haven't past through some step and remain children wanting others to solve their problems.

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 06:38:55 PM

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 01, 2012, 02:09:23 PM
I've thought more about this (slept on it, actually) and there are places that have tried to do away with religion and religious morality, and the result was very far from accepting, tolerant people minding their own business. 

Also, I think blaming religous morality for all the bad in the world is a little one-sided. 

My focus was morality in general, not just religious morality. But it is hard to argue about something when we don't have a common understanding as to what that something means.

With religion, I think it is possible to see that most religious wars or religious based oppression or atrocities were based on morality with the desire to enforce it on others.

So the real issue is not just the believed knowledge of knowing what is right and wrong but it is the belief that this right and wrong applies to others. If your morality only applies to the self (such as a personal opinion or personal values) then I have no problem with it. I personally wouldn't call this morality though. You can use your own personal opinion or personal values to influence law (I have no problem with that), but if you recognise it as personal opinion then you are likely to vote for things that affect you and not worry about things that don't affect you. You will be much less likely to want to needlessly oppress others.

The problem comes along when you think your knowledge of morality applies to others, you then become judgmental and possibly driven to control, oppress and even kill.

Sure in wars it might begin by a tyrant wanting to expand his empire. But often they need to win their own people into supporting the war effort. They do this be invoking morality, and getting their people to fight the Good fight against their Evil enemies.

I am certainly not saying that religion hasn't added some value to the world.

Just to clarify amoralism
Moral statements are meaningless. This means you cannot judge if a moral statement is true or false. e.g.
With the statement "Killing someone is immoral", I would say this is neither true nor false. I would need to know more details e.g. why is the person being killed? What state is the person being killed in? What is the goal that this action is being judged against (with regards to it being right and wrong).
If you think that you can answer true or false to the statement or similar statements, then you are being philosophically inconsistent unless of course you believe in objective morality. If you believe in objective morality then you need to assess from where does objective morality come? and how do people know of this objective morality and why do other animals not know of it?

Given that moral statements ate meaningless, why would you want to know any more details about a killing?

Quote from: En_Route on July 02, 2012, 12:58:37 AM
Given that moral statements ate meaningless, why would you want to know any more details about a killing?

I am trying to highlight the difference between morality and being capable of assessing actions with regards to a defined goal.
If I want to get fit, then going for a run is likely to move me towards that goal whereas sitting on the couch and eating a box of sugar donuts doesn't.

With regards to killing someone, if the goal is to maximise the amount of people alive, then if this person is shooting and killing many people, then killing this person may help to move towards that goal.

If I want to live, then engaging in a death match with a member of society may take me away from that goal.

So I am not sure how morality comes into it once we set goals. Unless of course your goal is to be a Good person, and you deem that you achieve this by acting morally, however you define morality.

I think many people think of themselves as good, thus strive to do the right thing. I would call this the illusion of morality :-)
I think if you break it down, people act out of survival, status quo and empathy

Quote from: Stevil on July 01, 2012, 11:24:34 PM
Sorry to get so analytical, (I am like that, too much I know) but trying to understand what is meant by subjective.
Does this mean:
1. each person has develops a knowledge of right and wrong, however this knowledge differs from person to person
2. each person has defined different goals and hence assesses things against those goals and gets a subjective morality

I would say both, more or less, and I'm not just applying it to individuals but to groups and societies and even large geographic areas.  I also mean that what is moral or immoral changes not only according to those things but to circumstances as well. 

It seems to me anything that's this elastic and conditional and subject to change is by definition subjective.  If it were objective, it would be an iron clad set of right and wrong that's absolute and unchanging no matter what the time, place, persons or circumstances.   And I have never seen that, not in the world I look around at, not in any history book I've ever read. 

I know some people, usually religious, imagine that an objective morality exists, but the fact that they have to imagine it -- that it's not obvious on its own -- and different groups have different ideas of what objective morality is, automatically makes it subjective in reality.  Am I defining the words wrong?   

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 02, 2012, 03:39:00 AM
I would say both, more or less, and I'm not just applying it to individuals but to groups and societies and even large geographic areas.  I also mean that what is moral or immoral changes not only according to those things but to circumstances as well.

Would you say that "law" and "morality" are interchangeable as words?
If not, what would be the difference?

Law after all are the enforced rules of the collective society we call our nation, our country.
If the law says that it is illegal for gay people to marry, does this mean gay marriage is immoral? If the law says it is legal to own slaves does this mean slavery is moral?

Quote from: Stevil on July 02, 2012, 01:35:45 AM

Quote from: En_Route on July 02, 2012, 12:58:37 AM
Given that moral statements ate meaningless, why would you want to know any more details about a killing?

I am trying to highlight the difference between morality and being capable of assessing actions with regards to a defined goal.
If I want to get fit, then going for a run is likely to move me towards that goal whereas sitting on the couch and eating a box of sugar donuts doesn't.

With regards to killing someone, if the goal is to maximise the amount of people alive, then if this person is shooting and killing many people, then killing this person may help to move towards that goal.

If I want to live, then engaging in a death match with a member of society may take me away from that goal.

So I am not sure how morality comes into it once we set goals. Unless of course your goal is to be a Good person, and you deem that you achieve this by acting morally, however you define morality.

I think many people think of themselves as good, thus strive to do the right thing. I would call this the illusion of morality :-)
I think if you break it down, people act out of survival, status quo and empathy

I understand now. In your previous posting, it sounded as if you wanted the information in order to be able to judge whether the bare statement that killing is wrong was true or false which was inconsistent with our shared  view that morality is in the eye of the beholder.

Quote from: Stevil on July 02, 2012, 06:23:49 AM
Would you say that "law" and "morality" are interchangeable as words?
If not, what would be the difference?

Law after all are the enforced rules of the collective society we call our nation, our country.
If the law says that it is illegal for gay people to marry, does this mean gay marriage is immoral? If the law says it is legal to own slaves does this mean slavery is moral?

The laws are rules that tell you what you can and cannot do, morality is about what you should or should not do.  What's legal and what's moral in a particular society are often enough going to be the same thing, but that's purely co-incidental unless you're living in a theocracy, and that's a whole other can of worms.

I think this co-incidental inter-mixing is to be expected since it seems to me that most morality is just a way of making decisions about what's  beneficial/detrimental -- both as individuals and as a society -- more personal, but that's just my take on it.

There was a time when far fewer people thought morality should not be legislated, and the examples you gave came from those times, which is how they eventually found themselves on the losing side of history and why it's inevitable (barring a Taliban West coming into being) those laws be overturned despite all the resistence. 

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, and there are always going to be large numbers of people who think the abortion laws are immoral no matter what they are.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 04, 2012, 08:44:23 PM
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.

 

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 04, 2012, 08:44:23 PM
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?

Quote from: Stevil on July 04, 2012, 11:33:54 PM
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.

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on July 05, 2012, 01:12:30 AM

Quote from: Stevil on July 04, 2012, 11:33:54 PM
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.

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! ;D

Quote from: BCeI'm just not interested constantly stating the obvious or in re-inventing philosophical wheels.

Hear, hear!

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

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 29, 2012, 11:10:33 PM
It is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

:D

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 29, 2012, 11:10:33 PM
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.

Quote from: NorfolkIt is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

No true Scotsman .... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

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.

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 10:15:14 AM
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.

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 10:15:14 AM
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.

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

Quote from: OldGit on July 30, 2012, 09:39:03 AM

Quote from: NorfolkIt is impossible for any true atheist to convert to theism.

No true Scotsman .... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

Exactly!

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 11:40:29 AM
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.

Though I think that if an atheist converts, it's way more likely that it would be something more similar to deism rather than theism, of course it's possible for a staunch atheist to become a theist. A person can change their paradigm through many different pathways which don't depend on rational thought.

Not everybody spends a good amount of time immunising themselves against weak theistic arguments on atheist forums or in social support groups. Weak arguments that even intelligent people fall for. You underestimate biases and human emotions.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM
Though I think that if an atheist converts, it's way more likely that it would be something more similar to deism rather than theism, of course it's possible for a staunch atheist to become a theist. A person can change their paradigm through many different pathways which don't depend on rational thought.

Not everybody spends a good amount of time immunising themselves against weak theistic arguments on atheist forums or in social support groups. Weak arguments that even intelligent people fall for. You underestimate biases and human emotions.

Yes, give 'em a couple of weeks on HAF and that'll knock all the superstitious edges off 'em. Then again.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM
Though I think that if an atheist converts, it's way more likely that it would be something more similar to deism rather than theism.

I think it would depend on how the person was raised and also how much effort/thought they have put into their lack of belief. Childhood indoctrination can be incredibly powerful. In my case, it was a very long, slow, and gradual de-conversion process that lasted over 15 years. I cant help but think if a person was raised belonging to a specific religion, that the conversion would most likely be to that previous religion.

Quote from: En_Route on July 30, 2012, 12:32:57 PM

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 11:40:29 AM
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;

Yup.

Quoteergo 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.

Circular, of course. The god squad taught me well.

QuoteThe 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.

All examples are of people that weren't really atheists.

It is impossible for a real atheist to become a theist  ;)

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 08:47:49 PM

Quote from: En_Route on July 30, 2012, 12:32:57 PM

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 11:40:29 AM
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;

Yup.

Quoteergo 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.

Circular, of course. The god squad taught me well.

QuoteThe 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.

All examples are of people that weren't really atheists.

It is impossible for a real atheist to become a theist  ;)

Unless they are not a true Scotsman.

Quote from: Genericguy on July 30, 2012, 07:58:16 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM
Though I think that if an atheist converts, it's way more likely that it would be something more similar to deism rather than theism.

I think it would depend on how the person was raised and also how much effort/thought they have put into their lack of belief. Childhood indoctrination can be incredibly powerful. In my case, it was a very long, slow, and gradual de-conversion process that lasted over 15 years. I cant help but think if a person was raised belonging to a specific religion, that the conversion would most likely be to that previous religion.

I think not just the fact that child indoctrination can be powerful, but theistic and especially monotheistic religions are set up in such ways that make it easy for people to slip back into them. The way they play on fears, existential insecurities and incentives Not to mention especially the promised social support of a whole community of believers...IMO turning back to theism is easier for the more emotionally driven.

I was assuming that the more rationally based people might be more likely to accept a sort of deism over theism, especially if they've been seeing the kinds of arguments theists make for a long time and debunking them.

Sort of analogous to people who were creationists, then better educate themselves are less likely to become creationists, but rather theistic 'evolutionists' if they ever convert back to some religion.

Quote from: En_Route on July 30, 2012, 05:14:04 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM
Though I think that if an atheist converts, it's way more likely that it would be something more similar to deism rather than theism, of course it's possible for a staunch atheist to become a theist. A person can change their paradigm through many different pathways which don't depend on rational thought.

Not everybody spends a good amount of time immunising themselves against weak theistic arguments on atheist forums or in social support groups. Weak arguments that even intelligent people fall for. You underestimate biases and human emotions.

Yes, give 'em a couple of weeks on HAF and that'll knock all the superstitious edges off 'em. Then again.

A couple of weeks? That would be faster than anything I've ever seen before, and quite a feat if it ever happened...

Probably for someone who has already been through a prolonged period of questioning their beliefs and are looking for reasons why people don't believe to see if they are sound.

But anyways skepticism is more demanding intellectually and energetically. People who already rely on faith are not looking for evidence that will make them question their beliefs. It simply doesn't matter to them, being on HAF or a similar site. Would take a lot more than 2 weeks...and that's if the person's defense mechanisms don't kick in.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM


Yes, give 'em a couple of weeks on HAF and that'll knock all the superstitious edges off 'em. Then again.

Quote
A couple of weeks? That would be faster than anything I've ever seen before, and quite a feat if it ever happened...

Probably for someone who has already been through a prolonged period of questioning their beliefs and are looking for reasons why people don't believe to see if they are sound.

But anyways skepticism is more demanding intellectually and energetically. People who already rely on faith are not looking for evidence that will make them question their beliefs. It simply doesn't matter to them, being on HAF or a similar site. Would take a lot more than 2 weeks...and that's if the person's defense mechanisms don't kick in.

I was talking ,and even then with a degree of flippancy, of people who might be fortified in their atheism by entering within these portals. Very few people look for disconfirming evidence for their beliefs, being far more likely to reinterpret or  cherrypick the evidence to fit their beliefs in True Scotsman fashion.

Quote from: En_Route on July 30, 2012, 10:33:52 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM


Yes, give 'em a couple of weeks on HAF and that'll knock all the superstitious edges off 'em. Then again.

Quote
A couple of weeks? That would be faster than anything I've ever seen before, and quite a feat if it ever happened...

Probably for someone who has already been through a prolonged period of questioning their beliefs and are looking for reasons why people don't believe to see if they are sound.

But anyways skepticism is more demanding intellectually and energetically. People who already rely on faith are not looking for evidence that will make them question their beliefs. It simply doesn't matter to them, being on HAF or a similar site. Would take a lot more than 2 weeks...and that's if the person's defense mechanisms don't kick in.

I was talking ,and even then with a degree of flippancy, of people who might be fortified in their atheism by entering within these portals. Very few people look for disconfirming evidence for their beliefs, being far more likely to reinterpret or  cherrypick the evidence to fit their beliefs in True Scotsman fashion.

Ok, I thought you were talking about theists and not people who already didn't believe in gods.

I see it a bit differently, people go for the like-minded and, especially with the long time and frequent posters here, online social interactions rather than having endless discussions on atheism and religions.

I didn't know there was actually a True Scotsatheist standard in the first place. ???  Where's the kirk at?

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 10:51:32 PM

Quote from: En_Route on July 30, 2012, 10:33:52 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 30, 2012, 04:46:07 PM


Yes, give 'em a couple of weeks on HAF and that'll knock all the superstitious edges off 'em. Then again.

Quote
A couple of weeks? That would be faster than anything I've ever seen before, and quite a feat if it ever happened...

Probably for someone who has already been through a prolonged period of questioning their beliefs and are looking for reasons why people don't believe to see if they are sound.

But anyways skepticism is more demanding intellectually and energetically. People who already rely on faith are not looking for evidence that will make them question their beliefs. It simply doesn't matter to them, being on HAF or a similar site. Would take a lot more than 2 weeks...and that's if the person's defense mechanisms don't kick in.

I was talking ,and even then with a degree of flippancy, of people who might be fortified in their atheism by entering within these portals. Very few people look for disconfirming evidence for their beliefs, being far more likely to reinterpret or  cherrypick the evidence to fit their beliefs in True Scotsman fashion.

Ok, I thought you were talking about theists and not people who already didn't believe in gods.

I see it a bit differently, people go for the like-minded and, especially with the long time and frequent posters here, online social interactions rather than having endless discussions on atheism and religions.

I didn't know there was actually a True Scotsatheist standard in the first place. ???  Where's the kirk at?

I have enjoyed quite a few of the more serious exchanges here and naturally there are plenty of lighthearted interludes, the highlight for me still being Ali's polychromatic unmentionables.

It's entirely possible to go from atheism to theism. :) It happens all the time. People have emotions. Things happen. Life changing events occur. We can't ever discount what great emotion, loneliness, need for community and stress can do to an otherwise skeptical, rational person. I think it's far more likely that someone would go back to the religion they were raised in, or some variation of it, if they're an atheist. It's probably less likely that someone who is an atheist and has been so for their entire lives would convert to theism, but such conversions do happen. I have a few friends who were atheists for years, but they converted to more 'liberal' religions, like Wicca, Unitarian Universalism, etc and now consider themselves theists.

I suppose it depends what priority you place on rationality, critical thought, evidence, etc. Maybe those things aren't as important to some atheists as their emotional lives are*. In that case, when something jars them emotionally, I can see some of them turning to spirituality, simply because they're looking for comfort and peace in their lives. Let's face it, secular emotional support groups don't exist in large numbers. Some atheists might feel alone. I can see people like that 'giving in' and seeking some kind of faith.

*This wasn't a dig at people who are emotional. I tend to be, myself. Some people just give this a higher preference in their lives. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that.

Quote from: Norfolk And Chance on July 30, 2012, 10:15:14 AM
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.

Not all atheists have skeptical minds and value evidence. My wife, for example is an atheist, but does not think logically, "value evidence", or have a "sceptical mind". I'm not suggesting that she is not smart, but that she is more emotionally driven (as amicale suggested some atheists might be). Growing up, her family simply did not talk about religion or atheism. I think she doesn't believe in god simply because she was raised not even knowing about god.

I wonder how important having a skeptical mind and valuing evidence really is. I think life experiences and chance might play a bigger role than logical thinking. Imagine cloning a logical thinking atheist and placing thousands of them, as babies, in random locations, with random families, throughout the world. How many of them would find their way back to atheism? According to Wikipedia, only 11% of the people in the world are atheists. I wonder, what percent of our clones would become atheists?