A question for all Atheists

The claim that religious people shouldn't follow a code they can't verify. And the claim that it's fine for skeptics to do the same.

Countless others, too; we've been going at this awhile, and I'm pretty sure you haven't been saying "Holy books are folklore" over and over the whole time. You've made statements in support of that position, as well as statements about lots of other things as the discussion has branched off. I know you know this because you've given occasional, glancing replies to some of it. So it's inexplicable that you'd repeatedly ask me what I'm talking about. If I didn't already regard you as an honest person, I would literally believe you were trolling me.

I think I made it fairly clear here:

But the point was that a process can be rational even if a goal is not.

It is rational to adopt moral principles that reduce things we do not like once we take those things as givens. But that's different than saying the things we do not like are rational, or philosophically justifiable.

A lot of people get tripped up on this because the things we dislike are so visceral, and feel so obviously bad, that it's easy to forget they require rational justification just like anything else. But they do. Especially if you're a materialist in a debate talking about how we shouldn't believe in anything we can't empirically verify.

As for the rest of the post: it's still swinging at straw men. I've stated over and over that I'm not disputing the idea that morality could have a natural basis. All my questions to you are, in fact, based on assuming this is true, and tracing out the logical implications of the idea.

I will, however, engage on a couple of specific things you touch on:

And why should someone care about the welfare of the group beyond which the point at which it happens to benefit them?

Those things aren't "explained" by psychology, culture, and contemplation, because those things first need an impulse to contemplate about. It is rationality applied to preconceptions about what is desirable, not rationality about what is desirable in the first place. I'll grant this is an easy distinction to miss, but it's an important one.

Let's try another analogy: if you don't have the right destination in mind, no amount of reasoning about the best way to get there will take you to the right place. You can exhibit all sorts of contemplation about how to achieve a goal, but that's distinct from contemplating what your goals should be. Or:



I can't possibly see why this would pose any problem. The fact that moral impulses have survival benefits makes sense regardless of whether or not we're sophisticated animals, or God's own creations. The former because of selection (we wouldn't survive if we didn't have this) and the latter because it would be pointless for God to endow creatures with instincts that would immediately eradicate them.

You literally said the exact opposite of this earlier in the discussion:

Regarding your view concerning objective reality, the idea can certainly be entertained by secular thought and it may even exist although it would be termed a universal morality. For instance, has there ever been a culture that's condoned murder among their own? Theft? Is it coincidence that all cultures appear to share some basic codes of conduct? We do have objective or universal physical laws so perhaps we do have something similar with morality, which doesn't mean it's always followed

Wait wait, don't tell me: this is another one of those positions that isn't really a position, right?

It wouldn't be a problem anyway, however: the fact that people don't always live up to moral standards doesn't mean they do no exist, any more than breaking the rules of a game means it has no rules.

If you examine any of these in detail you will invariably find that they are not examples of different morality, but differences about either a) facts or b) priorities. For example, differing views on sexual conduct can be explained by placing varying levels of emphasis on discretion or honor relative to autonomy or pleasure. All four of those things are good, in and of themselves, and culture mores about sexual conduct reflect how we reconcile it when they appear to conflict. They reflect differences in priority, not in core morality.

Slavery, on the other hand, has often been based on a difference in fact. Slaveholders throughout history often make the excuse that the people they enslaved were inferior. This is wrong, but it is wrong on a factual level. And the fact that such excuses have been made implicitly acknowledges that you can't just enslave whoever for any reason. If you could, no excuse would be necessary.

The most telling thing about this is that you clearly regard psychopathy and brain malformation as wrong, rather than just different. You regard these things as defects. But why? Brain malformation, sure, but psychopathy? I can't think of any purely rational, secular reason to think of psychopathy as a defect. The studies I've seen suggest such people are disproportionately successful.

What in a secular worldview would stop you from regarding them as the next stage in human evolution? Questions like this begin cropping up the moment you reduce morality to survival benefit, rather than an immutable standard of its own.

It's been explained multiple times in this thread (ex. lower success rates in life, lower level of pre-frontal cortex activity - chemical deficiencies which cause unhappyness and result in psychopathic behavior being a "drug" of sorts, etc) - that fact that you're ignoring this even when explained to you outright in strong detail is disappointing.

I'm not sure if those studies are from PrisonPlanet.com or not - but it's been explained to you that you're incorrect on this, you're just repeating debunked claims.

If you're talking about fringe cases such as dictators like Hitler or Stalin who acquired great power, that's more of a 'pop culture' trope' than anything else - statistically the average psychopath is more likely to wind up in prison. Sure a psychopath is going to be more "successful" as a gang leader, a terrorist, a con-artist, etc than a "normal person" - but the idea that those 'professions' are success in themselves is false.

The only psychopaths who are successful in 'normal' situtations or jobs are ones either with great privileged (ex. inherited the company from daddy) or great talent (ex. Hitler's strong intellect and charistmatic speaking style helped convince Germans to give him power) - the average psychopath is statistically much less successful than the average person.

It's also been explained that psychopaths are less able to meet the evolutionary function of perpetuating a positive legacy (therefore they're dependent on short-term, material acquisition or stimulation to fill the void).

If they were successful then it wouldn't be psychopathy. The definition of the term is defined by psychology as what the behavior it results in (ex. social harm and dysfunction), not that "it's bad... just because someone says so... and claims God told them this".

Lack of evolutionary success at adaption - which sociopaths aren't able to do due to having inferior such as pre-frontal cortex activity, statistically they're more likely to wind up in prison. They're also deficient in pleasure chemicals (ex. oxytocin) which humans create in normal social situations, meaning they're less happy in spite - just like a drug addict isn't a 'happy person' even if they have all the cocaine/heroin/etc they could ever want.

From a neurological perspective psychopaths are also "less evolved", and demonstrate less complex human emotions (the main emotions they exhibit are simpler, more animalistic urges). So this suggestion sounds like it comes from watching too much Sci-Fi and not reading enough actual psychology/science.

That's not a question that'd 'crop up' to anyone unless they're hugely ignorant on sociopathy, and survivability/adaption. Or just intentionally dishonest.

"If children go to heaven, then why not kill them and guarantee they go to heaven - rather than let them reach adulthood where they have the potential to turn away from God and go to Hell."

"If believing in Jesus guarantees salvation, than why not rob, rape and murder all you want? - just be sure to give your soul to Jesus on your deathbed and it's A-OK, like the murderer on the cross did."

"Since Jesus never condemned the Old Law, then why would it be immoral to create a totalitarian, theocratic state like in the Old Testament which stones rape victims, executes children who disrespect their parents, people who pick up sticks on the Sabbath? Etc. Just because "the Old Law isn't required" doesn't mean it'd be wrong to follow what God himself ordained, right?"

All far more valid questions. Which reveal the far stronger moral 'relativism' of religion - since it's all 'relative' to the whim of people claiming (but being unable to prove) to speak for God, rather than observable facts. Because a Jihadist who believes bombing infidels guarantees salvation has just as much "evidence" for his belief as any mainstream Christian, Muslim, or Jew - so removing actual facts and evidence from the equation, on can't say that his belief is any less valid than any other.

...based on observable facts and cost/benefit... rather than something that was just 'pulled out of someone's ass' and claimed to be true "just because". Even the founders agreed with this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident"

In other words, the founders believed the rights defined in the Constitution were conclusions based on facts observable in nature which showed they were the most beneficial way for people to live - the founders didn't invision themselves as Joseph Smith or Muhammed who had all of this just "told to them in a dream by Angels" or something absurd like that.

@90sAce: I think you should read up on what psychopathy actually means, because this is the biggest nonsense I have ever read in my entire life:

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

Not at all. The reason said behaviors are defined as psychopathic is because of the negative results. They aren't defined as psychopathic because "some supernatural being spoke to the APA in a dream and told them it was". It's because of results which are measurable in nature.

If in some completely alternative reality said behaviors did have a positive net result, then they wouldn't be defined as psychopathic - which was the hypothetical scenario I was addressing.

For example, "If Allah was real, and killing infidels did guarantee salvation - then killing infidels would be moral."

Or "If God was real, and ordered you in a dream to sacrifice your child to him like he did Abraham" - then it would be moral.

I'm talking about sociopathy/a lack of empathy. Apparently there's some debate about how interchangeable these terms are, so that might account for the confusion, though per usual you could clear a lot up by asking a question, rather than launching into a series of unnecessary analogies and arguments.

Irrelevant, except insofar as it contributes to survival, as explained earlier (response to fourth quote).

Not quite. It's defined by amoral or antisocial behavior. Something being antisocial is malleable--it's a reflection of how many people don't like it. This is an important distinction, because the whole point is that mental illness is based on an assumption about what is "normal," which is based primarily in numbers. If everyone lacked empathy, nobody would be thought to lack anything.

Nope; that just moves the relativism around. Instead of being about how to interpret God's standards, it becomes about which observable facts to factor in making a judgment and which goals are to be prioritized over others in the first place. And you still have interpretation on top of that anyway, because there's no magic Survival Calculator that can show us what we get for which behaviors across society. All data involves interpretation, including the decision about which data to look at, when, and why.

Not only does that not mean what you say, it means the exact opposite: the truths are self-evident. That means they don't need to be demonstrated or explained. That is literally the opposite of saying it's based on "facts observable in nature." So yes, they were literally saying "just because."

How about something absurd about how people have rights because they were "endowed by their Creator" with them? What a bunch of religious wack jobs, huh?

Having too much empathy in do or die situations can be less successful (ex. a soldier having 'empathy' for enemy forces in the middle of a firefight). But overall less empathy means less ability to understand others' feelings and adapt and succeed in society.

Psychopathy doesn't particularly aid in survival - survival and thriving is about adaptability which in the modern world especially requires intellect and emotional intelligence more than anything else.

A psychopath might do better as a soldier than a "good person" who is too scared to kill someone, but the ideal soldier is definitely not a psychopath - it's someone who is good and trustworthy, but also courageous and not afraid to fight or die.

Not actually correct, psychopathy is distinct from "social nonconformity". If it wasn't, then the founders would be "psychopaths" since 'society' at the time considered King George their "God appointed ruler". But psychology doesn't consider nonconformist individuals like George Washington, Richard Loving, etc to be psychopaths - in fact the society's behaviors (ex. imprisoning someone just for marrying outside their race) would be considered more psychopathic.


Nope; that just moves the relativism around. Instead of being about how to interpret God's standards, it becomes about which observable facts to factor in making a judgment and which goals are to be prioritized over others in the first place. And you still have interpretation on top of that anyway, because there's no magic Survival Calculator that can show us what we get for which behaviors across society. All data involves interpretation, including the decision about which data to look at, when, and why.

The word evident derives from 'evidence' - aka, exists in nature.

E.X. A revelation from an angel to to Muhammed would not be 'evident' since it did not occur in nature, Which is why religious people say their beliefs are based on faith, not that they're 'self evident'.

No they weren't. They were asserting that people do have natural instinct, and don't need to 'be taught' these things to understand them - which is true (just like animals "don't need to be taught they should eat, reproduce, etc) - they weren't suggesting however that these things existed "in some magical void" separate from nature - they believed strongly that these rights came from nature itself.

If they had believed what you say they do, then they would be wrong, but they weren't. They believed we understood them "just because" (aka our natural instinct), not that they existed without any reason in nature.

Their conception of the creator and the rights wasn't that he "came to them in a vision and revealed something to them which on one else had ever known before" - their conception is that the rights existed because they were a part of nature itself. Many of them were deists, so any rights in their mind which existed did exist as an extension of nature, rather than as something contradictory with nature as you seem to assert.

Someone like Muhammed or Joseph Smith however believed that their revelations were "solely based" on something God communicated with them, rather than anything which could be corroborated with in nature - this is the key difference between their lines of thought.

I'm amazed at how much wrongness is squeezed into this one sentence.

1) That's the etymological root, not the definition.

2) "Evidence" is not "aka, exists in nature." The word "evidence" is not definitionally limited to the physical.

3) They didn't say "evident," anyway: they said self-evident. The "self" qualifies the word "evident," to say that whatever evidence there is does not actually need to be demonstrated (let alone physically).

Moving the goalposts much? You claimed that "self-evident" meant it was based on "observable facts and cost/benefit." That's straight-up wrong. Now you're saying it just means people don't need to be taught them, which is true, but a completely different claim than you originally made.

No they didn't. You know how I know? Because they didn't say "endowed by nature itself." They also didn't say "endowed by their mere existence." They said "endowed by their Creator." They explicitly say that we have rights because our Creator gave them to us.

Let's quit talking about religions for a moment, 90sAce and let's just look at some facts and interpretations.

Psychopaths (which has absolutely nothing to do with succes or no succes) are more eager to survive than non-psychopaths in a wild "survival of the fittest" scenario. You could even say that immorality gets rewarded and therefore seems the logical way to go under pure individual evolution.

I took a class in moral philosophy last year and this was pointed out as one of the main curiosities when talking about the inner morality of humans and why it exists. Why do most people have "moral instincts" when it doesn't seem interesting on an evolutionary level?

There are several theories about this subject.

The most convincing one for me was that we might have partly "invented" morality because it's a necessary tool if we want to live together in groups. We have to punish the ones that prey on the others or otherwise we just end up in chaos and an environment that noone can or wants to live in. A common sense of rationality (in a certain group) imposes moral rules on a specific society and it gets transferred to other generations through the ways in which children are raised, educated, etc.

There are various kinds of interpretations of morality in different cultures both throughout history and all over the world today, though. In certain cultures it's a necessity to kill someone at times to show your power and to let people know that they shouldn't mess with you, while in other cultures killing someone is (almost) always strongly condemned.

We can rationalize and argue about what system is the most ethical, but the fact is that, when you don't believe in a higher moral force, there can never be an absolute truth. "God is dead". There is no ultimate foundation you can rely on, nothing you can point to.

I'm not saying there needs to be an absolute moral truth (it would make things a lot easier, though), but the least thing you can do is recognize that there isn't one according to your view on life. Don't try to convince yourself with fallacies that there is a certain fairness to your world view, because everything will always lead to indifference in the end.

Be consistent and don't be hypocritical. Know where you stand for and confront yourself with it.

That doesn't mean that it "cannot be demonstrated" - they were simply saying it was evident enough that it "didn't need to" in their opinion.

For example, a person would instinctively know that jumping off the Eiffel Tower is harmful - they wouldn't have to read a bunch of medical journals describing the injuries they'd suffer to know this instinctively.

Nevertheless the reason they perceive it is bad is based on the tangible harm it would result in and can be corroborated in nature, not because "some supernatural being told them jumping off the Eiffel Tower is bad".

Incorrect - both are true as previously explained. Animals have natural instincts which 'lead them in the right direction' - ex. animals know instinctively to find food and reproduce, people know instinctively not to 'jump off clips' without having to read so in a book, etc

However the actual benefits to these actions are also corroborated with nature - so learning about the costs/benefits at an in-depth level helps to maximize potentional

(ex. people have a natural drive to mate and find a love/spouse which they 'aren't taught' - however learning about the dynamics of attraction and relationships at a deeper level helps one to maximize their potential in the dating and relationship scene).

The founders were essentially saying that even without formal learning that people have enough natural instinct to understand these things - they were not however saying that it "conflicts with nature" or "exists outside of nature", this was not their belief.

Yes, the creator of... nature. Of which humans are one part of.

Yes, he gave them to us when he created nature - he didn't just "snap his fingers" one day and "give them to us" in some magical alternative reality separate from nature.

The majority of the Founders were deists - they believed in a creator but did not believe that he in anyway conflicted with the nature he created - saying otherwise about them is just dishonest, period.

The came to their conclusion about the 'rights' of man based on reason, not based on 'divine revelation'. They believed they were inalienable because they were a basic part of nature (whether or whether not a God created nature), not because of "some divine degree which the creator revealed only to them)".

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.”
~Founding Father Thomas Jefferson

Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Declarationism states that the founding of the United States is based on Natural law.

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Natural_law

That's actually incorrect and shows a strong lack of understanding of what 'survival of the fittest' actually means.

In evolution survival of the fittest refers to the being the most resourceful and being able to adapt the best to one's surroundings - the "pop culture" rendition of the term portrays it as the "fiercest" or the "most brutal" always surviving, but this is completely false.

If you look at animals for example, humans are not the strongest, or the fiercest (ex. we don't have the killing power of a lion, or the muscular density of a chimpanzee) - we survived and dominated the other species because of our resourcefulness and intelligence, not because of our "ferocity".

Think if it as "brute force" versus "cunning and strategy" - the battle of Thermopolye as an example - the 300 Spartans may not have had the "brute force" as the vast Persian army, but were able to hold them at bay because of their superior strategy and discipline.

Psychopaths are statistically much less likely to thrive in the human world than normal individual, the extremely charismatic ones like Hitler and Stalin who acquire great power are very rare exceptions. The average psychopath is statistically much more likely to wind up in prison or be unemployed. This is fact.

Psychopaths are also less 'eager to survive' in the full sense of the word - they're more eager to acquire raw material 'pleasures' (this is due to the inability to bond with others in normal situation - which results in chemical deficiencies that they attempt to 'compensate for'). Psychopaths also are often lacking in judgment and make impulsive decisions which harm their chance of survival compared to that of a normal person (ex. a temperamental psychopath shoots a person over a simple insult, resulting in him being sentenced to deat in court).

In human terms, as I've explained - actual 'survival' in a social sense involves creation of a positive legacy (while in other animals, this can only be done through reproduction), not simply acquiring material gratification anyway - very few of them achieve any influence in life beyond the memories of their victims.

And you'd be completely wrong to say it. Unless you're talking about "other animals" (ex. carnivorous animals like crocodiles or Lions which have to 'prey' on wild animals to survive) - but using human standards of 'morality' in reference.to completely different species is apples/oranges.

Most evidence shows that positive social behavior is the most evolutionary successful. You need to learn the basics of evolution before discussing 'survival of the fittest' again.

There aren't any actual examples of this - all moral instincts do have an evolutionary benefit - it sounds like you're basing this claim off of a false strawman about what "survival of the fittest means". That's why I'd learn from experts, scientists, etc, rather than some nutty professor in a "moral philosophy" class.

As I mentioned before, there are 4 main pleasure chemicals in the brain - one of these (oxytocin) can only be achieved through positive social interaction - and each of them does serve an evolutionary (as well as a 'moral' purpose'). A psychopath therefore would be deficient in this chemical, and therefore less healthy, and 'addicted' to chemical highs from material pursuits.

So yes, positive and altruistic behavior does have a practical and survival benefit (people who are socially isolated or anti-social are chemically deficient, and live much lower lifespans). Much more so than the short-term 'benefits' a sociopath might achieve (ex. through rape, robbery, etc). There is no 'moral behavior' which conflicts with reality or science, and when it does, it's the culture that decided that behavior is 'moral' which is at at fault, not reality itself

"Morality" itself wasn't 'invented' - it does in a sense exist in animals, as in animals do have an instinctive order and standard of behavior (they don't just 'kill each other or murder offspring right and left') - the behavioral concept comes from evolutionary biology.

The actual 'moral systems' we have invented are diverse - the trend seems to be that some (particuarily authoritarian systems like in North Korea) benefit only a select few at the top, at the expense of others - while other moral systems benefit people as a whole, and respect the rights of every man - the latter seem to be the most successful (which is why Western nations like the United States are so far ahead of totalitarian nations like Saudi Arabia and North Korea).

You could simply replace "God" with an omnipresent 'force' (which isn't actually a 'sentient being' itself) and get the same conclusion. Likewise you could just as well argue that if the "God" just exists without any reason, and has no higher moral force guiding it, then there is no absolute truth - because it has no create or higher moral force guiding its actions - God's actions are therefore just a meaningless whim.

There are also things such as mathematics - no one believes that 2+2=4 only because a "God says so", for example.

On a similar note, if a belief is based purely on 'faith' rather than on things which are observable in nature - then there is no honest way to say a Jihadist's faith is any less "wrong" than that of a mainstream Christian.

In fact you could argue that the Jihadist has 'more faith' than the Christian since he's willing to kill and die for his "belief" and use this to his benefit.

How is that so? I'm a deist and believe in a designer.

Just not a designer that 'contradicts' its own creation (by unilaterally deciding that the 'moral course' of action conflicts with the actual observable social benefits, and expecting us to believe this based simply on 'blind trust' in one of many religious leaders, all of whom claim to 'speak for God' but being unable to prove so). This puts me in line with the Founders.

Biologically that's simply not correct. "Difference/indifference" is related to the pleasure chemicals in the brain - engaging in pessimistic thought can lead to indifference, but the problem is your presumption that believing "in a God" or not doing so immediately leads to pessimistic thought.

(Again, if God has no creator or higher power guiding it, then how can anything he does be 'good/bad', or 'right/wrong'? Unless someone created God?) If you spent enough time thinking this way you'd probably feel very indifferent.

Indifference is usually caused by a deficiency in one of these chemicals (brought on by a bad lifestyle). If it would lead you to indifference then you're likely investing too much of your sense of 'purpose' on a flaky belief which you can't validate.

As mentioned above - there are many facets of religious beliefs which are far more likely to lead to indifference.

E.X. If 'believing in Jesus' guaranteed salvation - then why not just rob, rape, and murder all you want? Just be sure to 'give your heart' to Jesus on your deathbed and you'll be Scott Free.


Reason and science? As opposed to "Allah/Jesus says so... just because... and I know it's true... but I can't prove it..."? The only people need confrontation are the latter, not the former.

My position has never been that religious people shouldn't follow a code they can't verify. My position is that the books from which those codes come are so demonstrably false as to matters of fact, so obviously a product of their age, such obvious folklore they should be dismissed, something every believer does himself until it comes to the one he's invested in. I've also argued very conventionally that all divine and metaphysical claims are speculation and virtually everything I've written has been in response to your attempts to refute this.

My post was directed at this specifically: Our morality may be hardwired, responsive, empathetic but it's rational in that it ensures the viability of the social unit, thus ourselves, which is why we see it exhibited in other social species.

Through an evolutionary view, as I understand it, selfless acts can lead to the viability of the group which allows for the furtherance of one's genes through kinship. It's also the case that outside the close social unit altruism seems to stop when the price to the donor becomes too costly. On a side note, altruism has been shown to stimulate pleasure centers in the brain; it makes us feel good.

You should read the article, but I think the point is other factors can contribute to actions that seem anomalous even in an evolutionary view such as emotions, guilt, belief systems, ideology, etc, that not every thing we think or do is based directly on adaptation. People kill themselves, for example.

I think the point is that holy books seem to reserve moral behavior for humans but this doesn't seem to be the case.

What I said, or at least meant, is that we seem to share a basic morality, not that all morals are held by everyone. As to your other point, I'm not sure how it applies.

Your answer here is both odd and kind of amusing. Why would a god allow priorities or subjective understandings interfere with his implanted and so very important moral dictates so that vicious, painful and deadly immoral practices could be perpetuated for years? If he made himself clear with regard to murder and stealing why not slavery and sexual acts? Of course, if you've read The Bible we all know that in fact he has. That morality is not altogether universal but can be subjective, cultural, flexible, modified is demonstrative of it coming from us not an objective law maker.

My point is not that psychopathy or brain malfunction is wrong, but that if morality is so divinely important why does a god allow it to be absent or disregarded through a perpetuated biology.

I wanted to add that in terms of seeing morality as evolutionary rather than divine there's identical twin studies that show levels of conscientiousness are determined genetically. Why would a divine morality have degrees of variability based on genes?

Not to mention it goes beyond just some individual 'following a personal code they can't verify' - it extents to passing laws and regulations which affect lots of people based on this code which they can't verify, and suggesting that our policies should be based on this based just on blind trust that "these people are right".

For example, the advocates who want creationism to be taught in classrooms alongside evolution despite evolution having the overwhelming physical evidence, and creationism not.

Irrelevant. The point is that the statement does not support your claim that it's based on a weighing of facts or a calculation as to benefit. It is self-evident from mere existence.

How could it be otherwise? There's no secular basis for saying that people are "created equal" in a technical sense. They are born wildly different from one another with varying levels of skill and capacity in all ways. So either the document is referring to some non-empirical standard of quality and morality, or else it's a convenient lie adopted for the sake of governing.

No, they really weren't. If they wanted to say that, the word "evident" by itself would've done the trick. The fact that they specifically added a qualifier proves they meant something else. It would be pointless to add a qualifying word that left the definition exactly the same as if they hadn't used it.

Evident means what you're describing--obviously true. Self-evident means obviously true without any proof or facts. That's what the phrase means, and it's a straightforwarding reading of the text, to boot. Your alternate interpretation, on the other hand, requires that you believe they added "self" for absolutely no reason.

Except you didn't say the "Creator of nature." You said nature itself.

Nope. Some were deists, some were Christians, but most were something between the two. Even the most skeptical of them (Franklin and Jefferson, usually) made mentions of God's "providence" at various occasions, which implies a personal God on at least some level.

That said, this is irrelevant, because what they personally believed and what they chose to put in the text are two different things.

Conflicting with one's desires is the whole point of a moral code. A code that tells us to do exactly the things we want to already is useless.

Straw man, never said it was based in revelation, nor does being based in reason in any way defend your initial (but apparently now abandoned) claim that it was based on "observable facts."

Cob is more than capable of defending himself on all these points, but I'd like to respond to a few of the things directed at him:

So it's only immoral to be a psychopath if you're not good enough at it?

No you couldn't; whatever morality is, it clearly is not a law in the sense of being a mere force, because it can be disobeyed. Therefore, any objective morality (if it exists) has to be a preference or will, which requires sentience. And a Force that has a Will is pretty much exactly what we mean when we use the word "God."

Out of curiosity, why do you believe this, and how long have you believed it?

What does this mean, then?

This is a rhetorical question, isn't it? A rhetorical question suggesting that religious people should not "believe and devote [themselves] to something that may be mistaken." How is this not questioning believers? How is this not saying they shouldn't follow these beliefs?

I'll be happy to respond to the rest, but I'm asking about this first, because I've been trying to get a straight answer on this point for a dozen pages already.

It's not biologically possible - even acquiring an unlimited amount of 'material success' through psychopathic behavior, it's impossible to 'cancel out' the negative affects. The brain needs positive social contribution to be happy, which isn't achievable though anti-social behavior.

Which ever way you go, you essentially arrive at the same dead end.

If someone believes life has meaning, they might say it's because God gave it meaning - but if asked why God exists; who created God, what moral authority he answers to, etc, the answer would boil down to "he just does".

"Life has meaning because God created it, God exists because he simply does."

Versus

"Life has meaning because... it simply does."

I believe it as a personal preference - anything which occurred before the known universe is totally up to speculation, so if someone believes there is a God who brought every thing into being then that's a perfectly valid opinion. The problem is when people claim that 'supernatural' phenomenon contradicts what's known in the universe.

How many times must I say that statement was made solely to assuage hurt feelings I thought I'd caused, that it's not what I think. My position is crystal clear and I've stated it ad nauseam.

As to your other responses, I'm not sure they're really necessary. I think there's ample evidence to demonstrate morality is fundamentally evolutionary in origin and I've seen nothing to counter this. At best, the theist can claim a god used the evolutionary process--in which case there's nothing to debate--or nothing has been proven which does nothing to advance his case for a divine morality. In fact, and as I've said before, the divine gaps argument, the argument from incredulity, has a terribly failed history. As to the debate in general, and as I said months ago, I think it's become circular and unproductive. If there's anything that interests me at this point it's what you and other highly intelligent individuals actually believe because it seems to me there's a lot of flexibility, selectivity and proactive interpretation occurring in regard to your holy texts.

I haven't watched threw the multiple pages of this thread, I only watched the initial question asked by Yoda in 2002 which is: Have we discovered or invented mathematics?

I am only asking myself why does that prove or disprove the existence of god?

And for answering the question I'd say that mathematics is the result of logic and is pretty much the more pefect field of knowledge we can find with reason, pure reason. So with a very humble and not so sure opinion I'd say that we have discovered it, but I don't think it's a physical entity that exists, it is just the result of the human mind that is not necessarily created by god. There are several neuroscience theories on the human brain, an interesting one is presented in the 1980 film by Alain Resnais ''Mon Oncle d'Amérique''

As for my position on religion it is infuenced by 2 great philosophers and it is the following: Immanuel Kant (which was religious himself) said that there are question that can't be answered by human knowledge, it is beyong what we can know. Among that is the existence of free will and of te existence of god. So, at least for now with our current technological knowledge, we can't know for sure if god exists or not. That would be my premice, I can't prove or disprove the existence of god. That being said, I can't imagine living my life based on an hypothetical entity that might or might not exist. Bertrand Russell has this wonderful quote that sums it up very well: ''If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time''

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Based on what? A landmark study that managed to enlist Stalin and somehow effectively distill different types of satisfaction into a common unit for comparison?

Three problems with this:

1) You've been arguing that the alternative beliefs you've presented are more objective and more rational, not equally so. We went through this whole routine earlier, with the exact same result (you walking back the claim by saying the secular alternative wasn't worse), and when I pointed out the concession you stopped responding.

2) Neither meaning nor morality are like physical laws; unlike gravity, they can be disobeyed or ignored. Therefore, if they exist, they cannot exist physically. If they exist, they must exist as preferences. And to have a preference, you have to have sentience. Which means we're right back at the idea of God.

3) They're not equally defensible; disputing the latter is much, much easier than disputing the former. If you believe God exists, then you'd be very hard pressed to explain why His concept of meaning or morality should not take priority over your own. You'll end up in a philosophical thicket very quickly. At best, you'll arrive at a definitional paradox.

But on the other hand, it's quite easy to dispute the idea that life has meaning "just because," because you don't need to present an alternative or trump the source of the idea: you can just say it doesn't exist.

What does it mean to believe something as a personal preference? That you don't have sufficient evidence for it, but you're just guessing/like to believe it?

Something would not be supernatural if it did not contradict some universal law in some way. So this quote actually means "the problem with the supernatural is that it's supernatural."