God, Morals, and Atheists (page 9)

Caedes

Monty ,

Ahh I see, you were taking the piss out of yourself for being incapable of posting without cutting and pasting! Very subtle! I like it!

Spook

I appreciate the intent of the OP. I'm going to level my usual criticism here and then give a terse reply to some specifics.

1. There is a bounty of literature on this subject, innumerable assumptions about "naturalism" in the OP are not accurate. This literature is easy to obtain so there seems to me little reason to have braod opinions about it without consulting it.

2. When naturalist philosophers talk about these things, in print they are very careful with their language. Even in debate it is regarded as a "cheap shot" to criticize these fairly obvious linguistic concerns. To phrase these things "correctly" is linguistically cumbersome. For example:

"God, were he to exist..." or

"The concept of evil, when understood in theistic terms..."

This is language foreign to common speach which usually gets dropped in conversation. To jump at linguistic loopholes is not charitible.

Now, as a quick overview of these moral arguments (they are generally regarded as poor and not often used). You have both logical and evidential arguments. A logical argument would concluded with either god "does" or "does not" exist. An evidential argument would concluded with "probably" before either of those conclusions.

It seems to me we first have to answer the question "Do we actually have absolute moral values?" There is a great deal of equivocation on terms which goes on here. Here's another question:

If absolute moral values were to exist, how would this state of affairs be distinguished from one in which absolute moral values did not exist?

My personal argument here is lengthy and probably not productive to share. I maintain the following propositions:

1. Based off of any common definition of the phrase "absolute moral values," and were the theistic God to exist, we would not have a state of affairs in which absolute moral values obtained.

2. Given that we do not have absolute moral values under either theism or naturalism, moral values can only be absolute relative to some referance.

3. If the relative reference point is established rationally under naturlism, it could be the case that natural moral values are superior with respect to humans than theistic ones, were God to exist.

So, the naturalists contention is that the common theistic concept of absolute moral values is actual relative moral values with respect to God, were he to exist.

Several other metaphysical arguments are out there which claim that either under theism or naturalism, absolute moral values are actually platonic sort of entities in themselves which "exist" apart from either God or minds. I don't buy these, but they are out there. In short, while these arguments are rhetorically strong, there is no productive result down this path on the question of God's existance.

Spook

FYI, the strongest theistic argument on this subject is an evidential one, The Evidential Argument from Common Moral Values:

1. God, were he to exist, posesses at least the following traits:

A. Being perfectly good.

B. Having a strong desire for humans to approximate his standards of "perfect goodness."

2. Were theism true, then probably most humans would have a high degree of goodness.

3. Were naturalism true, then humans only have those values which evolution has selected for.

4. It is unlikely that given evolution humans should come to have broadly accepted moral values which approximate theistic morals.

5. Humans do have a broad consensus on any number of standards which approximate theistic standards.

Therefore, theism is more likely to be true than naturalism.

Now please, before you run off with this argument, let me be clear that it is false and widely trounced in the philosophical literature. It is at least better than the logical argument from morals, which is patently false. This argument is at least open to debate and investigation - it also illuminates many of these concepts and let's you dig into empirical studies.

Big Tex

"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -- Hamlet

BurnTheShips

I perceive the problem for the atheist/materialists is believing that unguided, evolved, biological intelligence is capable of comprehending the fundamental nature of reality. Can they believe what they perceive? Why would that be the case? The problem is the assumption itself. It is an act of faith. It appears tautological to say that we randomly evolved to be capable of understanding enough of fundamental reality to get by. But a useful illusion has survival value also. Why do atheist/materialists need to believe that biological intelligence is capable of understanding the entire fundamental nature of reality? They have no choice, do they? That is the major problem. It must suck to be mentally stuck in the single eigenstate of a universal wave collapse.

BTS

Spook

BTS,

If you ever want to start a thread on that one, go right ahead. It's off track of the OP. I'm well informed about this argument. It is impossibly vast and hinges more around understanding evolution than it does around Reppert's Argument From Reason. I'll tell you right off the bat the "logical" argument here fails. The evidential one is more complicated, and probably irrelevant. In short:

1. It's not the case that illusions are always as good as beliefs which approximate the outcome. Illusionary beliefs can be quite common. As an unproductive aside, the assertion here could be that theism is one such illusionary belief which obtains because it approximates an advantage of outcome.

2. The difference the theist here assumes between process and outcome does not hold up to scrutiny.

There is also a deeper problem with these arguments: That some event be "more likely" under theism is a line of reasoning with some fairly unproductive consequences, because...

That some state of affairs X should obtain is always more likely given the existance of any teleological being who is willing and able to bring about such a state of affairs than it is without the existence of such a being.

This holds for any god, any alien, any metaphysical concept. These arguments are not taken seriously without an asessment of the background probability for theism.

beksbks

Monty,

You accusing another poster of having to 'resort' to cut and paste - ahh the irony.

Caedes, I believe Burn's sarcasm may have been directed at the socialistic nature of my supposed one and only quote.

Caedes

Caedes, I believe Burn's sarcasm may have been directed at the socialistic nature of my supposed one and only quote.

No doubt you are right. Nevertheless, the opportunity to poke a hole in the hopelessly over-inflated balloon that is Monty's ego was too good to pass up.

beksbks

Nevertheless, the opportunity to poke a hole in the hopelessly over-inflated balloon that is Monty's ego was too good to pass up.

I agree! Please take every opportunity that presents itself!

God, Morals, and Atheists

Share this