Godless morality

[Renegnicat]

It's ok. I love you, kendoll.  

[Tom62]

Welcome, Kendoll. I admire your courage to post your message on a forum, that is obviously run by child molesters, mass murders and devil worshipers. Hopefully they won't give you the "Evil Eye". I wish you all the luck in the world to find someone here, who can refute that excellent article in Conversapedia. Anyway, I've got  to go now. There are still a couple of churches in my town that need to be burned down; some Christian ladies to rape and babies to kill .

[McQ]

Atheists are immoral. We explain clearly here
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism

Anyone who disagrees is free to attempt to rebut the article.

Why don't you simply engage in one on one conversation instead of spamming the forum with links to sites that are less-than-credible?

Read the forum rules and feel free to debate directly with anyone here.

[Whitney]

I see that someone has a lot of idle time....you know what they say about that.

[Squid]

Atheists are immoral. We explain clearly here
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism

Anyone who disagrees is free to attempt to rebut the article.

LOL, as if conservapedia is some bastion of philosophical and scientific knowledge.

[SSY]

Page won't even load for me. Was there not a thread on here a while ago where we had a hearty guffaw at the expense of the uneducated buffoons who inhabit that palce? I suppose that only lends credence to their immorality argument?

[LoneMateria]

Page won't even load for me. Was there not a thread on here a while ago where we had a hearty guffaw at the expense of the uneducated buffoons who inhabit that palce? I suppose that only lends credence to their immorality argument?

Same here.  I guess the word of God is no match for a bad host server.

[Ultima22689]

It worked for me, I have to say, this site is so incredibly ridiculous my sides hurt from laughter. Especially the title on their logo: Conservapedia, the Trustworthy Encyclopedia.

[Kylyssa]

So does kendoll share an IP with skipdogs?

[Whitney]

So does kendoll share an IP with skipdogs?

No IP match on this forum.

[Big Mac]

[Ihateusernames]

I'm starting this because I dont really like the other thread we are using to discuss this's title.  

So, here are my last few posts in that thread:

I think I am trying to get at is that a moral system should be judged on what its effects would be if it was followed widely...how can this be an objectionable principle?

This is kinda the ends justify the means isn't it?  You do realize that "judging on what its effects would be" is basically impossible to do without an objective set of goals that everyone agrees are "good" or "correct" (or if your basing it on theism, that a God says are 'good' or 'holy'). Its like asking me "How tall are you" when everyone has their own opinion on how long one inch is. If you dont have a unified unit to judge something it doesn't work.

Do you really look at the Nazi ethical system and think that although their ethical system was different from ours, it was equally as acceptable as everything is relativistic? And if you dont, doesn't it then boil down to a "my opinion against yours" dispute?  What makes your opinion more "good" than Hitlers? is it that more people support you right now? If that's the case, that's exactly why I moved my before mentioned scenario into the past where slavery was the norm.

No I am saying nothing like this. If the individuals goals are outweighing the larger groups goals, then that is not humanism, it is individualism...it is ethical egoism....the attitudes of whites towards non-whites two hundred years ago fail to the humanist principle not because we should treat all humans the same, but because there is no rational or empirical basis why black people should be treated differently to white people

My apologies I wasn't trying to infer that what I was saying was humanism, I was only attempting to show you the logic you were using to support Humanism works equally as well supporting black inferiority back a couple hundred of years.

Yeah of course...it would be fair to say that the universe has a ethical nihilist view towards us

But if we accept this, why don't we accept ethical nihilistic views of morality, as non-theistic-ly speaking they are absolutely the most logical.  Even superior to ethical egoism.. and here's why!

----------------------------------------------(gotta love transition sentences... ahh the academic system how I despise you!)

I don't think ethical nihilism makes much practical sense as there would be no reason to care about how you treat others.  I think one thing people often forget about philosophy is that even if an argument is logically sound it must still fit reality.  I think something like ethical egoism would be appealing to most who accept ethical nihilism yet doesn't ignore the fact that humans do have a survival need to act morally.

From my understanding of ethical egoism rather than there being prescriptive morals one simply might act in a manner that benefits their neighbor knowing that doing so also benefits the self.  It's kinda like an explanation of what some have described happening with social contract theory without all the duty to society bs.

Ethical egoism can lead to anarchy or a view of do whatever you want, however I don't think going to that extreme is logically necessary or sound and is the result of not fully understanding the repercussions of actions nor the human need to depend on others for survival.

Ethical egoism may be more tolerable than nihilism, however it seems rather silly when you really think about it.  One should act morally because one needs to act morally to survive (even though what "morally" means is still about as clear as that pesky "should")?  I do agree that there is a slight possibility that this is what happened in the past, and possibly why morals exist, but in the modern day you can be the most despicably horrible person and survive equally as easily as a saint.  I'm not exactly sure how ethical egoism really applies anymore.  We as a society keep the most unfit of us alive, basically a gigantic F- you to natural selection, so we pretty much have thrown off the "survival of the fittest" idea for a "survival of any human" type mindset.  Throwing away survival of the fittest and ethical egoism doesn't make sense.

Personally ethical egoism seems more of a how morals developed, rather than an explanation of why one should act morally.

-Ihateusernames

[Whitney]

but in the modern day you can be the most despicably horrible person and survive equally as easily as a saint.

I think you are forgetting that survival and the purpose of morality is more than just about food, clothing, shelter....it's about being able to get along with other people so that you can exist comfortably.  I guess I should have spelled out what I meant by survival and said "survive comfortably" or something like that.

I also don't get why things like "should" and "ought" are a problem for you.  If a person wants to survive comfortably then they ought to want to act morally so that they will get the support of society.  What's wrong with "ought"?  If they want to be miserable and have no friends they can be immoral all they want and face the consequences.

[Ihateusernames]

but in the modern day you can be the most despicably horrible person and survive equally as easily as a saint.

I think you are forgetting that survival and the purpose of morality is more than just about food, clothing, shelter....it's about being able to get along with other people so that you can exist comfortably.  I guess I should have spelled out what I meant by survival and said "survive comfortably" or something like that.

I also don't get why things like "should" and "ought" are a problem for you.  If a person wants to survive comfortably then they ought to want to act morally so that they will get the support of society.  What's wrong with "ought"?  If they want to be miserable and have no friends they can be immoral all they want and face the consequences.

I disagree with the assumption that the more moral you are the more comfortable you are.

Lets assume there are two millionaires, being born into money they are both quite used to having money. Neither has held a job in their life, nor gone to anything other than the mandatory couple years of high school.  Now lets assume one gets it into their head to give all their money to shelters for battered women, while the other is selfish and doesn't share the money with anyone. Wouldn't you generally consider the one who gave away all the money more moral than the one who is stingy?  The end result of this is that the stingy person has money, creature comforts, and most probably the more comfortable life and the moral one has nothing, absolutely nothing, and most likely is in a state of extreme discomfort, possibly forever.

Now we could argue that the 'moral' one in this story will result in friends, grateful people... etc.  However that does not necessarily lead from the scenario.  It may be that they are thanked once, then forgotten about and live the rest of their life flipping burgers because they have no education or money, and thus extremely uncomfortable.  

Anyway this is just a long winded way of saying that the assumption that morality lead to comfort is a non-sequitur.  In fact I can think of a lot of ways that immorality would lead to a more enjoyable life. I'll just give one example.  Lets say you are married, but have to spend a good amount of time traveling for work.  Lets say I end up sleeping with your significant other every night you are not at home.  Lets say this goes on for 40 years, then you die, and you never found out, or had an inkling that I was doin' your special someone repeatedly and we both were enjoying it greatly.  I'd say we would generally consider this immoral, but accepting the assumption that you never find out doesn't this immorality end up making my life and your significant other's life much more exciting, enjoyable, and thus 'comfortable'?

Again, you may argue that this scenario can not ever possibly happen in the real world, however even though it may be extremely unlikely I think it is quite possible.

Also, words like "should" and "ought" imply there is a 'good' and 'moral' way that is more than just personal opinion (Ie objective vs subjective), assuming you want to condemn actions like the holocaust as more than a subjective "I think they shouldn't have done it, however they thought they should, so I can't really blame them because its a personal opinion vs personal opinion." Words like 'should' and 'ought' have to be objective--something most difficult to base non-theistic-ly.  

If you can explain what actually makes my opinion that Jews are valuable people better than a Nazi's opinion instead of just different I would be forever indebted to you.

-Ihateusernames

[Whitney]

You are trying to apply prescriptive morals to ethical egoism...it doesn't work that way.    The whole idea is just that you act in you own self interest and through doing so will choose to do things that mutually benefit society.  Donating all of your money to some charity would be silly and not on one's best interest.  Being a complete jerk would lead to a life of no friend..fine if it floats your boat but isn't going to be acceptable for most humans.  SInce you can't know if you will get caught or not, cheating on your spouse is not in your own self interest....it doesn't matter if you are sucessful at cheating or not.  I'm not talking about what is moral based on outcome, I am talking about what is moral based on desired intent.  Determining morals based on outcome is problematic because then someone could trip over their shoe lace fall over and knock out a bad guy and that would be considered a moral action.