Posts by cofty

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

The topic is Morality not Catholics v science.

You still avoiding all the questions. Why should your evidence-free dogma trump the opportunity to alleviate suffering?

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

You are making a philosophical attempt to differentiate objectiveness and absoluteness. But you're failing to do that.

I have explained the difference very clearly multiple times in this thread. One is top-down rooted in the character of an absolute source of perfect morality. The other is worked out from the bottom-up by reasoning on the effects of our actions on the well being of conscious creatures.
Your claims about stem-cell research being unethical is based on an appeal to absolute standards handed down to us with no thought to the objective facts.

I believe consciousness is produced by a soul and I believe the soul is created at the moment of conception.

Why should those suffering painful diseases care what you believe?

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

John - I am happy to discuss the issues with you but I don't appreciate your efforts to psychoanalyse my feelings and motivations.

You are so blindly attacking faith itself that you are making gross logical contradictions in your position.

My criticism of faith is not blind. It is based on a lot of experience. If I am making "gross logical contradictions" they should be very easy to point out. I am aware of no contradictions in my position but I am listening.

Let's stick to the topic of Morality without Deity.

We agreed that when we talk about morality we are concerned about maximising the well being of CONSCIOUS creatures. How is achieved by prohibiting stem-cell research?

On the one side we have thousands of people suffering from debilitating, painful and often fatal diseases. On the other side we have a little ball of cells already frozen and awaiting disposal following a round of fertility treatment.

What are we missing here?

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

but then why does the policeman then have to hand in his weapon until it is established that he did have reason to shoot and kill the terrorist? - Ruby

Because shooting somebody without cause is bad.

the best thing about morality without deity is that such morality is subject to debate and controversy whereas morality with deity in theology tends to be taken as absolute.

Yes indeed.

Much of the time the moral decrees of theists coincide with those you would reach by objective routes. That's what I mean when I said that "theists cherry-pick ethical statements from the bible and use them to justify their moral positions post hoc".

Thesits judge murder to be wrong for the same reasons as the rest of us. They pretend their reasons have more significance by inventing a supernatural life-giver. Of course they then have to cherry-pick and ignore the moral atrocities committed by this perfect source of goodness.

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

Hello UrbanII welcome to the forum. It's very unusual to dive straight into a point-by-point criticism of a thread without at least introducing yourself.

Let's get acquainted and then you can tell me which of those many objections you would actually like to discuss.

The only one I want to counter in advance is your false accusation of ad hominem. I never do that. I don't need to as I have all the evidence on my side. Saying that "theists cherry-pick ethical statements from the bible and use them to justify their moral positions post hoc" is not ad hominem it is a simple statement of fact.

I think your basic mistake is to treat my OP as a formal argument. It is not. It is a conversational style observation. But you knew that already and you obviously want to impress with your first post. If you want a conversation then tell me where you want to begin. There are so many errors in your post I am not going to invest the time correcting them all.

22

Does the Jehovah's Witnesses religoius cult create people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder ?

by Finkelstein in

the american psychiatry association lists nine symptoms – if someone ticks five of these, they could have narcissistic personality disorder.

the nine points of narcissism.

has a grandiose sense of self-importance.. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.. believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people.. requires excessive admiration.. has a sense of entitlement.. is inter-personally exploitative (takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.. .

cofty

What Steve said ^^^

Our personalities are very much rooted in genetics.

JWs cover the entire spectrum of personality types.

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

No matter how scientific you want to be cofty, you must understand this is not science but faith.

To call something "faith" is to say absolutely nothing useful about it. It is an attempt to avoid the reasonable burden of giving evidence to support your assertions.

Faith is absolutely anti-scientific. My previous post explains why this is so in detail. Your faith-based position does the exact opposite of promoting the well-being of conscious creatures.

Faith is a Divine gift and I don't know why some people does not have it.

I spent most of my life basing my beliefs on faith. Eventually I realised that faith is not a proper basis for knowledge. It is something people resort to when they lack evidence. Faith is a hindrance to morality. Faith is not a Virtue...

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

Imagine we are taking part in a panel of experts advising the government on the ethics of stem-cell research.

A succession of doctors explain the potential benefit in terms of lives saved and alleviation of suffering that cannot be achieved by any other means. An embryologist describes the blastula in detail, explaining how it is hollow ball of cells just a few days after conception. He tells how many of these are eventually discarded following fertility treatment and how millions of precious stem cells can be cultured from just one blastula.

Fertility experts describe how a very high percentage of fertilised eggs at this stage of development fail to implant are spontaneously aborted without the mother even being aware. It is also explained how one of the primary functions of contraceptive pills taken by millions of women is to prevent the implantation of a fertilised ovum. All are satisfied that there is nothing resembling a nervous system or consciousness at this stage.

All of these objective facts are presented along with mountains of laboratory results and images.

It looks like the advice will be unanimous when a theologian asks to be heard. He tells us that at the very instant of conception something called a human soul is implanted in the zygote by an almighty god. For this reason stem-cell research should not be permitted.

Reasonable requests for answers to questions about the nature of this thing called a soul are dismissed as a divine mystery. Objections regarding the soul/s of twins or chimera are similarly brushed aside with dogmatic statements about limbo and divine foreknowledge.

The theologian insists that his objective is the same as the rest of the panel - to maximise the well being of CONSCIOUS creatures, but he is unwilling to join the dots and explain how refusing a cure to tens of thousands of suffering humans will achieve this goal.

Why should the theologian's objections be given serious consideration in the panel's conclusions?

This is just one example of many we could use to illustrate point. We could discuss a prohibition of contraception that has resulted in incalculable suffering and poverty. It has saddled parents with huge families they can ill-afford and condemned women to decades of child-bearing.

We could discuss homosexuality and investigate whether religious objections amount to anything more objective than "god says..."

There is no absolute standard of perfect morality. We work out ethics from the bottom-up and nobody should demand respect for dogmatic assertions that are unsupported with objective evidence.

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

I can think of many situations where taking a life is a moral good. If a crowd of innocent people are being fired on by a terrorist it is heroic for a policeman to shoot him dead.

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

cofty

John. The challenge is how we maximise the well being of conscious creatures.

Harvesting millions of stem cells from blastula offers the hope of curing terrible diseases. The rewards are incalculable.

You want to prohibit that based on a whole series of assertions about souls, limbo, life after death etc.

If we are to take your concerns into consideration when making this decision you need to offer objective evidence. Its a perfectly reasonable request.

This is the perfect illustration of "absolute morality" based on dogma about a theoretical perfect deity versus secular morality based on objective facts.

Ruby please let's stick to the topic. Morality without Deity.