A question for all Atheists

You really haven't, though. Certainly not ad nauseam. I explained why here:

I don't think you've ever said it, actually. I presented these things as contradictions maybe 5-6 times, and at no point did you say "I didn't mean the first remark." You offered contradictions without explanations ("I don't think it holds") or non-sequiturs about it being an olive branch (which is not mutually exclusive with it being a contradiction), but never that simple response.

In fact, in this post I explicitly ask "Does 'academic position' mean you don't actually believe it?," and you didn't even say so then! I'm not sure you're saying so now, either. Look at the quote above: you say you made the remark "not because I believe it," which isn't the same thing as saying you don't. It's just a statement about how you hoped it would be received.

So please, at long last, make your meaning plain: do you believe it or not?

So here are the problems I'm trying to solve right now:

1. Why repeatedly rephrase the question to be about your intent, rather than your belief? "I didn't say that because I believe it..." is distinct from "I don't believe it."

2. Why be so cagey? I mentioned this contradiction dozens of posts ago, and at one point even asked you flat-out if you didn't actually believe it--and you still didn't say so! Even if this was your position all along, you resisted saying so for an inexplicably long time. Why?

3. You also said, more recently, that you "don't think any conclusions about anything should be based on belief." Doesn't this conflict with what you're saying now? Is it okay to believe in things you can't verify, or not?

I'm kinda fuzzy on how such an obviously rhetorical question could possibly be a peace offering, anyway, but the three issues above should be enough to clear things up, if answered.

Based on biology.

No I mentioned that the beliefs have a much lower risk factor than beliefs based purely on blind faith.

Just like buying a car from a dealer with lots of positive feedback is less risky than buying a car from someone on Craiglist - who can't even show pictures of the car, but expects you to just 'trust him' and hand over all your money.

They exist simply as cause and effects, ingrained into our biology.

Not necessarily - being a 'creator' doesn't automatically grant authority, outside the context of specific religions like Christianity in Islam. In older religions such as Greek mythology, the creator wasn't necessarily the one with 'authority either'.

For example, in an alternate reality an extraterrestrial being might have created the universe - but he might actually answer to a greater being who simply enlists him as the job of 'creation' - therefore he has no moral authority 'himself' over the universe, just the authority to create it.

It's also totally "possible" that a creator might end up creating something which surpasses him - much like in Sci-Fi stories where humans create robots with superior intelligence.

Or that the creator actually has a lifespan and passed away. leaving only humans in domain over the earth - the theories are endless, and if they're only based on faith versus evidence, they're all equally valid.

Not really - even it wouldn't have "meaning" if one theorized that if God has no authority or morals that he has to answer to, then anything he did is therefore 'meaningless' - it would just be meaningless whim of a supernatural dictator who does things with no rhyme or reason - not anymore 'meaningful' than a North Korean blindly doing the work of Kim Jong Il.

It's not something 'provable' one way or another, so believe that there is "some god somewhere" which brought everything into existence is totally valid. It doesn't require 'evidence' unless it's suggesting that you can 'prove' it.

That's incorrect, deism only theorizes that a higher power brought the universe into existence; not that it ever intercedes with existence directly.

So a diestic diety is like Enzo Ferrari, while the universe is the Ferrari - anything which happens in the universe is a direct result of it's mechanics that were pre-designed into it.

While the 'theistic' view would be similar to claiming that "A Ferrari can go over 200mph because Enzo Ferrari performs a magic ritual every time someone steps on the gas pedal".

Based on what evidence? There is no study substantiating the idea that you can equally compare different types of happiness objectively and that it is biologically impossible to obtain more one way than another. All your descriptions of how biology and evolution "work" are speculation.

There is no "risk factor" in this context--you say they're both philosophical dead-ends.

This is gibberish. It's "cost/benefit is a verifiable principle" all over again, in terms of terminological confusion. Something can not "exist as cause and effects." It can exist as a law, and that law can be demonstrated through cause and effect.

The logic is pretty simple: we know morality isn't an objective force because people can choose to disobey it. If it's not a force then it must either be a description or a will. If it's a description it has no compulsory power--it's simply saying "if you do this, you get this," but that doesn't make doing things right or wrong. It's a map, not a destination. On the other hand, if it's a will, that implies sentience. And a Sentience that has a Will is God.

It does if the thing you created is an entire standard/concept, and the "authority" is the authority to define it. What you're doing (and I used this analogy earlier) is akin to telling Alexander Graham Bell how his invention is nothing like a telephone, even though you only know what a telephone is because he invented it in the first place.

Your own position undermines this argument, anyway: you argue that morality is moral simply because it provides benefits. Leaving aside the obvious problems with this (link to the last round of unanswered questions available on request), why wouldn't this grant God the same authority? After all, any being powerful and knowledgable enough to create us figures to know far more about what's good for us than we do. And they'd certainly be much better at tracing out the long-term implications of various standards. So what rationale could you have to declare yourself a better arbiter of those positive benefits than the Being that created you and them in the first place?

Except for the part where Kim Jong Il did not create the country or its people, or endow them with any notion of anything.

Whether you agree or not, there's still no comparison. At worst, defining meaning and morality based on the Creator of the concepts is paradoxical. Saying there's meaning "just because," however, doesn't even rise to the level of paradox. It's just straight-up circular, and there's no reason to believe it over the far simpler explanation that meaning, in a secular worldview, does not exist.

That's not what I asked. I asked why you believe it. You have a reason for believing it, y es?

Oy, another round of Mutilate the English Language. "Supernatural" means outside or beyond the natural. A supernatural thing does not have to interfere with anything physical to be supernatural. A deistic God is still supernatural.

A lot of time has been wasted based on these sloppy, idiosyncratic definitions. You say "morality" when you mainly mean "survival." You say "survival" when you really mean "survival plus two other things with three other exceptions." And now you say "supernatural" when you mean "a supernatural entity which directly intercedes into the physical world."

Please choose your words more carefully. It's your responsibility to make yourself clear and say what you mean, not mine to challenge it until you eventually reveal that you're using some made-up definition.

Er, no, lots of theists (the majority, I'm fairly certain) take the first view, as well. Islam is the only major religion I can think of that regards all physical workings as being explicitly enacted by God (hence the repeated use of the addendum In sa Allāh: "God willing").

They're chemical deficiencies - gaining one chemical doesn't "make up" for the lack of another. Just like having plenty of food won't stop you from dying from dehydration.

There is risk if it involves personal investment or choices with verifiable, real world harm - such as participating in Jihad - or donating one's entire life savings to a charismatic cult leader who claims to be Jesus incarnate

Bad behavior leads to harmful effects, which is why it's "bad" to begin with.

The cause and effect are objectively verifiable.

The effects are what make the things right or wrong. It's a map, not a destination.

That wouldn't make it 'right' except from a "might makes right" perspective (ex. if Allah was real and declared killing infidels was 'right', then so be it) - so it would be subjective to the whim of some supernatural dictator, rather than objective - as are actual cause and effects.

If he'd lived under a monarch who had forced him to design the phone under penalty of execution - then it wouldn't be "his", nor would he have any authority over what to do with it - he simply had the authority to design it.

Simply? Again, as opposed to what - because someone who know one can prove exists supposedly "says so"?

You could just replace "God" with "Elvis" and one wouldn't be any more valid than the other, since they're simply based on blind faith.

Not necessarily so, and since there's no actual example in nature to compare this to - the Sci-Fi example of a human creating a robot or AI which became more intelligent than its creator comes to mind.

What rationale is there for a member of the bourgeoisie to criticize the actions of his President? Who is he to think he knows better than Barack Obama or George Bush? They're politicians with a lifetime of experience in the political arena

Then if Kim invented human cloning and was able to create humans in a lab from scratch, then starving them and sentencing them to torture and death and gulags would be A-OK - because apparently might makes right

I'd say of those two options however, the secular one would still be less pessimistic. As even "meaning doesn't exist" is still a better alternative than "'morality' is only defined by the whims of a sociopathic, genocidal tyrant".

I'd say the intricacy of the world makes me believe it.

The God himself would be supernatural, since creation of matter, energy, etc is beyond the realm of our natural world.

However nothing which occurs within the context of the universe itself would be "supernatural". E.x. Lighting is caused by electric currents - not by Zeus throwing a temper tantrum.

The differences are pretty well defined - someone believing that some intelligent being brought the universe into existence is well understood to be different from believing that natural phenomenon within the universe itself are "supernatural".

Islam believes that Satan is real, that Jesus was a Prophet of god who ascended into heaven, etc. Fundamentalists in Islam also believe evolution is false and that the universe was created according to genesis - so no it's theistic indeed. None of those beliefs would be compatible with deism.

You said it was impossible for such a person to be happy. Show me the evidence of that. Because I'm betting that all you've got is some general research about which chemicals are released during which types of activities, which would in no way defend your speculation about how this translates to overall happiness, especially in highly successful sociopaths.

Either you're ignoring the argument, or you don't understand it. Let's try again: if they're both philosophical dead ends, then they're both irrational, and therefore one is not "more rational" than the other.

Read the quote again, because this isn't a response to it. I'll repeat it: cause and effect is not a thing. Laws are things. Cause and effect is how we measure and demonstrate them. You're not positing an actual moral standard, you're just appropriating the word to describe your own.

First, I said objective force. Something is not an objective force just because it has an effect that can be objectively measured.

Second, how are they objectively verifiable? Please, show me your advanced formula for tracing out the long-term implications of various social conventions.

This makes zero sense as a response, for at least three reasons.

First, because under this (bizarre) hypothetical, you still wouldn't have any basis from which to redefine "telephone" more than Bell. Second, because "creator" in this case would simply refer to the being above the designer; all the same issues of authority would still apply. And third, because this isn't your argument. You're not arguing that God has no moral authority because there might be another, stronger God, so this possibility would not actually defend your alternative theory in any way.

Did you seriously just dismiss a hypothetical because it's not observable in nature and then, in the very same sentence, make a hypothetical argument about science fiction?

This is a really bad analogy, easily dismantled in any number of ways. For one, knowing more than someone is different than knowing, say, everything. For another, the experience a politician has is in navigating politics, not necessarily in governing effectively. To the contrary, lots of politics is about cobbling together coalitions that necessary exclude people outside of those coalitions.

Try reading what I said again. Particularly the part where I make reference to endowing people with the concepts themselves. Also, "creating" someone in a birthing/cloning sense is not the same as creating, say, their entire race and the very universe they inhabit. So no, it isn't "might makes right": it's "you can't dispute the meaning of something with the very thing that you got it from in the first place." Not as pithy, and doesn't rhyme, but that's the actual argument.

Okay, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that one of the explanations is a lot easier to defend as self-justifying than the other. Saying God is the source of our standards is more internally consistent than the idea that an abstract, non-sentient idea just is. So unless you pick your beliefs primarily based on how optimistic they make you feel, this isn't a response to that.

Understood.

Er, yes, I know. The point is that this is a distinction not automatically implied by the word "supernatural." And that your objection to "supernatural" thing is not actually an objection at all, since you're objecting to anything supernatural out of hand.

All true, but I said literally nothing to suggest otherwise. What I did say is that you're routinely misusing words in confusing, idiosyncratic ways, and that you should probably stop doing that.

Huh? Nobody said Islam was compatible with deism. Read the post again.

Your responses seem to be less and less about the things they're ostensibly responding to.

Highly successful sociopaths are not 'successful' in areas of normal human companionship, 'success' in one area such as money doesn't override the chemical deficiency. You wouldn't ever see millionaires taking their lives other wise.

Not to mention sociopaths are less likely to be successful around the board.

The moral standard is defined by biology. So the cause and effect would determine how moral an action is.

Those are actually closer to legal concepts, such as copyright - but copyright is a human legal invention and didn't originally even exists. So it's not automatically implied that the 'creator' has full authority over the creation - in fact that's not the norm in most modern situations (ex. the creator of films or music, is usually not the one who has complete control over its production).

The hypothetical was "a creation having more intelligence than its creator" - since no one has ever created 'intelligent life' I had no other analogy.

There's not an automatic reason to presume a creator "knows everything" - again that's only a concept in specific religions with 'omnipotent' deities.

I'd say an 'imperfect creator' makes more sense anyway, than a 'perfect creator' who intentionally left flaws in his creation.

Then hypothetically, someone created an android that was to replicate human intelligence and emotions - by that standard then if the creator.wanted to torture and kill them just for pleasure that would be "okay" That is indeed a 'might makes right' argument.

And saying God exists because.... he just does" is any different? Since God exists because... well he just does, then so do our 'moral standards' even if they're derived from God.

Your whole argument is that if someone does not believe in a god then this leads to a less optimistic view anyway, which is why it is a poorer choice right? I say of the two scenarios (ex. a completely nihilistic world with "no meaning") versus (" a despotic god like the one portrayed in the Old Testament being able to just do whatever he wants, because 'might makes right') the latter is the more pessimistic.

None of which is a response to what I asked or substantiates your claim. It appears you're leaping all the way from "sociopaths are less likely to be successful" to "it is biologically impossible for sociopaths to be happy." This kind of leap in logic has shown up all throughout this (and other) discussions, where rampant speculation is backed by a tiny grain of empiricism.

This is literally impossible. Your moral standard can't be "defined by biology" because we can disobey it, and because we often have conflicting biological impulses. The moral standard is the part that judges the impulses, not the impulses themselves. It's a judgment of biology, not biology itself. And cause and effect explains what causes get you what effects, not which effects people ought to prefer.

This doesn't address the point in any way, shape, or form. Positing someone who "hires" Bell in this (increasingly tortured) hypothetical still wouldn't give the person the ability to question what a "telephone" was, because they only have an understanding of the word from him in the first place. It'd be like trying to tell someone a ruler wasn't a foot long, and proving it by using a ruler you made by putting it next to the first ruler.

You have the option of not using an analogy. Specifically, not using an analogy that explicitly contradicts what you said earlier in the same sentence. Before the comma, you dismissed a hypothetical because it hasn't occurred in nature. After the comma, you advanced exactly that kind of hypothetical. It's a plain contradiction.

Another straw man; the reason doesn't have to be "automatic." The idea that a Being can exist outside of time and possesses the power to create the known Universe strongly strongly implies a level of foresight, knowledge, and understanding that dramatically surpasses our own. The fact that this isn't necessarily so doesn't mean it isn't far more probable than the alternative, IE: a God that possesses all these abilities but is somehow dumber than the creatures it can create.

That would be, sure, but that's not an accurate representation of the theistic argument. To make your analogy accurate, you'd have to also specify that whatever the creator did to the andoird was also what they had programmed the android to desire in the first place.

Yes, it's dramatically different, for the reasons already outlined here. It's more internally consistent and the alternative is dramatically easier to question.

No, this is not any part of my argument, let alone my "whole argument." My argument that one of these ideas is true, and the other is not.

Is optimism a factor in how you determine what's true? And if not, then what's supposed to be significant about this?

I also forgot to reiterate this question:

Second, how are they objectively verifiable? Please, show me your advanced formula for tracing out the long-term implications of various social conventions.

This is a pretty important point. Your entire position is based on the idea that you can create an objective, verifiable moral code. But if you don't have any way trace out the long-term implications of various moral customs, empirically demonstrating that they result in desirable outcomes, then it's just speculation. Which puts you in the same boat as all those allegedly gullible God-fearin' rubes.

I haven't read the whole exchange between you and Ace, but by that last post I am wondering if you're saying that we need religion in order to have morality. (maybe I'm wrong)

__________________
I do not speak english perfectly so expect some mistakes here and there in my messages

Again it really doesn't - a person making an investment in stocks might be 'making a judgment call' and facing a possiblity of being wrong, but it's a far cry from handing over your life savings to someone claiming to be a "Nigerian prince" through a spam email.

I don't think he's saying that... I haven't read the previous posts either and I might be wrong but I think the idea is that you can have morality without a formal moral code, religious or not. I actually agree... I think that morality and altruism stems from intelligence and the need to be social and cooperate in order to survive and have a thriving society. Of course, that's quite a simplistic way to put it. I like the way Richard Dawkins answers the question 'If there is no God, why be good?'

Two big problems with this:

1) Admitting your entire moral code is a "judgment call" undermines everything you've said about it being objective and verifiable, even if you find it more objective than some other alternative. Most of your arguments have been based around pretending these conclusions are immutable and undeniable, but here you admit they are neither.

2) Your judgment call isn't actually any more verifiable than the believers, it's just at a different point in the process. Your "judgment call" comes in speculating about which impulses lead to which results. A believer's "judgment call" is about whether or not a given belief is likely to be true, which in turn leads them to adopt its moral code. The moral code is not accepted blindly (contra the latest of your downright risible attempts at analogy), but as a consequence of accepting the related belief.

Let's fix that analogy up a bit, since as it is it bears zero resemblance to reality: the believer is doing something more like lending money to someone they trust. And the skeptic day trader is someone who has lots of convoluted formulas to create the illusion of objectivity, even though all those numbers ultimately rest on a guess.

Indeed, this is what I'm saying. The Bible says it, too. The question is not whether people can behave well without religious belief (they obviously can and do, at least in the short-term), but whether that behavior has any rational basis.

Two things to note about this Dawkins quote;

First, he doesn't actually answer the question! He redirects it to be about believers.

Second, he's begging the question. Someone asks him why we should be good, and he responds by talking about how it's "ignoble" not to be. He's trying to defend his morality by merely invoking it. When a Christian tries to cite The Bible as proof of God, he rightly tears into them for their circular reasoning. But we can see here that he's all too willing to trade in the same kind of reasoning when it makes for a good sound bite.

The Bible is no more a valid guide for morality and reason than the works of any of the later moral philosophers - Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche etc. What does belief have to do with a persons behavior? By that standard all atheists and nihilists must be sociopaths.

I'm not sure what you're arguing with. I was explicitly saying religious belief is not a prerequisite for moral behavior.

Yeah you're right it's not technically an answer but I find it quite funny... Anyway Dawkins is sometimes quite preachy, which can get annoying, but 'The God Delusion' was an interesting and entertaining read

This is one of the those instances when I should have read your post more thoroughly, and deleted mine more quickly.

New member of the forums here. Interesting read so far in this topic. I have to say, I'm generally quite outspoken about anything religion, I'm no fan of it. I already notice many people here are more literate than what I found in most other parts of the internet though,

Regarding the original topic, we didn't invent the laws of the cosmos, we did invent ways to measure them. Math is one of those ways, so I would say it is a man-made tool to learn more of the laws of the universe. I'm sure I don't really have to suggest Sagan's cosmos, or Neil deGrasse Tyson's rework of it, but I'll do it anyway, because it's a very interesting series. A must watch for the curious of mind.

Stay away from Facebook in the future.

Hey, guys. Close this thread. Earlier I said to myself that if something happened (not gonna say what it is), there's a God.

It happened, so there's a God. Case closed.