Rocag said:
You can't know your perception of reality is true either. Making the additional assumption that god exists doesn't improve your starting position.
I'm still waiting for an actual explanation....AGC said:Aggrad08 said:
Is there a single coherent argument as to why religion is so dramatically geographically determined if people overwhelmingly aren't products of their environment?
How can you possibly explain what we see? No one is claiming people 100% cannot buck the trends of their environment, every non believer on this thread is proof otherwise, but the trend is undeniable.
Yes. It's a more ancient view that you'll hear on Lord of Spirits before most evangelical churches but if you're a rational materialist I'm not sure you'll give it much credence anyways.
Edit: forgot to add, non-believers aren't bucking the trend, they are the trend. It's a small irony in your post.
Bob Lee said:
WHY do you have an aversion to people harming people? The arguments for moral relativism always break down to stealing from Christian ethics, and never justifying why it's preferable. How do you even know if you're being harmed? Does pain reveal anything to us about what's TRUE? How do you know? Would it be good if it resulted in new life and propagation? Wouldn't that be conducive to human flourishing? How do you know? You're just assuming first principles. That's the part you can't explain and don't even entertain. It's just "nah that's dumb. You can't prove it."
You can't even make sense of your own epistemology.
And I reject your rejection.AGC said:I reject your belief that I can't know things outside of myself. You don't have such a luxury if you're to be internally consistent, that's why we arrive at nihilism (true belief) or contradiction. Nobody wants to live in your world, they just want to pay it lip service to throw off the shackles of othersRocag said:
You can't know your perception of reality is true either. Making the additional assumption that god exists doesn't improve your starting position.
Rocag said:And I reject your rejection.AGC said:I reject your belief that I can't know things outside of myself. You don't have such a luxury if you're to be internally consistent, that's why we arrive at nihilism (true belief) or contradiction. Nobody wants to live in your world, they just want to pay it lip service to throw off the shackles of othersRocag said:
You can't know your perception of reality is true either. Making the additional assumption that god exists doesn't improve your starting position.
You can't come to any knowledge or belief without the assumption the method you used to obtain that knowledge or belief is valid in the first place. Or if you're saying that knowledge has been implanted in your head by an outside force then there has to be the assumption that knowledge is reliable. Assumptions are unavoidable.
Martin Q. Blank said:Reading the Bible, praying, reading historical resources on the subject, discussion, debate.kurt vonnegut said:
Aggrad08 said:Bob Lee said:
WHY do you have an aversion to people harming people? The arguments for moral relativism always break down to stealing from Christian ethics, and never justifying why it's preferable. How do you even know if you're being harmed? Does pain reveal anything to us about what's TRUE? How do you know? Would it be good if it resulted in new life and propagation? Wouldn't that be conducive to human flourishing? How do you know? You're just assuming first principles. That's the part you can't explain and don't even entertain. It's just "nah that's dumb. You can't prove it."
You can't even make sense of your own epistemology.
This is where you are completely backwards. You aren't distinct from a moral relativist; you are a moral relativist wearing an objectivist costume. The costume offers nothing, it's only pretend. You have no moral knowledge I do not, you have no moral epistemology. It's just a half assed divine command theory on paper mixed with mountains of culture influence and ordinary human empathy and gut feelings that are funny enough often in conflict with the literal text you hold as divine command. You then blindly ascribe objectivity to these ancient texts and contradictory gut feelings. You call the greater culture "stealing" from Christian ethics without realizing the reverse happens just as much.
You have no consistent methodology toward moral knowledge. We see this clearly among Christians today, let along ones from different eras or cultures. You can't even agree about something like contraception.
My aversion to harming people is rooted in empathy. If I were a true psychopath I wouldn't have such an aversion. Justifying the preference is all about outcomes. Again, this doesn't change with a pretense at objectivity. Your entire argument boils down to you not liking some imagined outcomes. We aren't really talking about any real truth, because you have no real truth to offer, no real truth to logically demonstrate. Your entire argument is an emotional appeal to the absurd notion that society will suddenly be ruled by psychopaths. You aren't arguing truth, you are arguing preferences.
You keep asking how "I know" something, blind to the fact that you have no knowledge to offer.
What do you mean how do I know? I do the best I can. There's no Archimedean point by which humans can critique varying worldviews if that's what you mean.kurt vonnegut said:Martin Q. Blank said:
Reading the Bible, praying, reading historical resources on the subject, discussion, debate.
How do you know that you are refining your understanding of morality in a direction that is closer to God's true objective?
Rocag said:
I disagree. Everything I experience is filtered through my own perceptions and thoughts, so in that sense the internal is all I have access to. I might not encompass all of reality, but my self is the only method I have to interact with reality.
Again though, I don't have a problem with admitting my worldview is based on some fundamental assumptions that might not be provable. In fact, I don't think we can avoid that. Not me and not you.
Bob Lee said:
Then you have no knowledge to offer either. Everything is unknowable. Everything. I'm not pretending at anything. You're pretending at some nonsensical dialectic.l, and you don't even realize it. Your epistemology completely undermines your convictions.
Rocag said:
How do I decide anything about reality? Easy. I make the assumption that my perceptions do provide a reliable way to observe and interact with a reality separate from myself which really does exist. If you think that's a step too far then I don't think I can help you.
It's amusing that you think this is a convincing line of argument. It really isn't.AGC said:If you jump off the roof of a house, do you perceive falling or do you actually fall?Rocag said:
How do I decide anything about reality? Easy. I make the assumption that my perceptions do provide a reliable way to observe and interact with a reality separate from myself which really does exist. If you think that's a step too far then I don't think I can help you.
Well...you could jump and find out. But something tells me you won't.Quote:
Can I prove that's not the case? Nope.
What makes you think the perception of pain at the end of the fall would prove the fall actually happened?Martin Q. Blank said:Well...you could jump and find out. But something tells me you won't.Quote:
Can I prove that's not the case? Nope.
Martin Q. Blank said:What do you mean how do I know? I do the best I can. There's no Archimedean point by which humans can critique varying worldviews if that's what you mean.kurt vonnegut said:Martin Q. Blank said:
Reading the Bible, praying, reading historical resources on the subject, discussion, debate.
How do you know that you are refining your understanding of morality in a direction that is closer to God's true objective?
Rocag said:It's amusing that you think this is a convincing line of argument. It really isn't.AGC said:If you jump off the roof of a house, do you perceive falling or do you actually fall?Rocag said:
How do I decide anything about reality? Easy. I make the assumption that my perceptions do provide a reliable way to observe and interact with a reality separate from myself which really does exist. If you think that's a step too far then I don't think I can help you.
And, based on my previously stated assumption, I would say that I both perceive it and it happens. If my assumption is false and I'm actually a brain in a jar somewhere perceiving a world that doesn't actually exist then I would perceive it but it would not have actually happened. Can I prove that's not the case? Nope. We're all just doing the best we can with what we have to work with.
Well, I'm not sure what you specifically have been arguing, but I've been arguing that objective morality does exist. Even if we may or may not arrive at it in this life. A supreme good exists, a supreme truth exists, and it is eternal and unchanging. We see glimpses of it in ourselves which the Greeks rightly posited we must be the offspring of it. But ultimately the closest we can get to it is through special revelations of it in holy scriptures. There we see it is not only true and good, but also gracious and merciful. Otherwise we could not approach it given we are prone to error and evil.kurt vonnegut said:Martin Q. Blank said:What do you mean how do I know? I do the best I can. There's no Archimedean point by which humans can critique varying worldviews if that's what you mean.kurt vonnegut said:Martin Q. Blank said:
Reading the Bible, praying, reading historical resources on the subject, discussion, debate.
How do you know that you are refining your understanding of morality in a direction that is closer to God's true objective?
I had never heard the term Archimedean point, thank you!
But, anyway, it sure seems to me like, in the absence of said Archimedean point, we are all left to just do our best. Objective morality exists and we all just do our own bests to try to understand it and sometimes arrive at different conclusions with no way to critique varying worldviews. . . . how is this not objective morality undertstood subjectively. . . . which is what I've been arguing for over the past 4 pages?
Rocag said:
It's hard talking to you when you so very clearly don't understand or just don't read what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with "encompassing all of reality". The question is whether our perception of reality is accurate or not. If it isn't, how would we prove that?
Rocag said:
I have repeatedly stated that one of the fundamental assumptions I make is that I believe my perception of the world around me is valid and legitimate way of experiencing a world that really exists. You seem to act like I am saying I reject that assumption. I don't. But I do recognize it is an assumption I ultimately can't prove is true. Like others have mentioned, if we were in a "brain in a jar" scenario how would we know? Could we know at all?
I reject the idea that having to make any assumptions at all regarding the world we live in means we might as well give up because nothing is knowable. Everybody's belief has some assumptions baked into it, that's just unavoidable. I further argue that even Christians have to make many of the same fundamental assumptions as previously discussed. So all of that derision you're casting my way applies equally back to you.
Belief in god doesn't negate these fundamental assumptions, it just adds a new one to the mix.
Martin Q. Blank said:
Well, I'm not sure what you specifically have been arguing, but I've been arguing that objective morality does exist. Even if we may or may not arrive at it in this life. A supreme good exists, a supreme truth exists, and it is eternal and unchanging. We see glimpses of it in ourselves which the Greeks rightly posited we must be the offspring of it. But ultimately the closest we can get to it is through special revelations of it in holy scriptures. There we see it is not only true and good, but also gracious and merciful. Otherwise we could not approach it given we are prone to error and evil.
Martin Q. Blank said:
There's more to it than that, but if you believe objective morality exists, you have a leg up on these other atheists and my beef is not with you.
Rocag said:
If it's a problem, then it's one everyone has to deal with including theists.
But I do agree with Kurt here, we're pretty far from the original topic of the growing population of non-religious people in this country.
kurt vonnegut said:Martin Q. Blank said:
Well, I'm not sure what you specifically have been arguing, but I've been arguing that objective morality does exist. Even if we may or may not arrive at it in this life. A supreme good exists, a supreme truth exists, and it is eternal and unchanging. We see glimpses of it in ourselves which the Greeks rightly posited we must be the offspring of it. But ultimately the closest we can get to it is through special revelations of it in holy scriptures. There we see it is not only true and good, but also gracious and merciful. Otherwise we could not approach it given we are prone to error and evil.
Ah! I can help provide a recap of the origins of the objective / subjective morality debate. Bob and I may be most at fault for propagating this debate on the nature of morality. I reacted to a post of his that described the rise in numbers of atheists to a degradation of society. And then we went back and forth and I spent a few pages trying to make the exact point that you have in bold above for the purposes of suggesting that maybe he should be less judgey toward people that have different values. Ultimately, I don't think he agrees. Either because he feels that he has arrived at perfect understanding of objective morality or that he is close enough to it to claim moral superiority. Either way, the discussion has probably run its course and has now morphed into a metaphysical debate about whether we can know anything or ever trust any of our sense.
Rocag said:
You're trying to argue that asserting something is true is somehow superior to simply assuming it's true even when you lack the ability to objectively prove that thing is true. It's not. At some point we have to admit that our experience of reality comes with limits. Doing so isn't a flaw.
Time and time again you consistently either misstate or completely misunderstand the point I'm making. Every time you say "You think this..." you are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's endlessly frustrating.
Welcome to religion. But I'm sure yours is rational unlike mine.Quote:
And just because a belief includes some assumptions baked into it doesn't make it any less impactful.
Martin Q. Blank said:
You can believe in God despite the fact that he is unknowable. That's the whole idea behind apophatic theology. Paul says regarding our knowledge of God we speak and think and reason like children. That doesn't mean we stop trying. And yes, it's a leg up on atheists who live their life as if there were no God.
