New Atheist Billboard in San Diego Urges 'Personal Relationship With Reality'

You're switching things around. The question is whether objective morality is possible in a godless universe; not whether objective morality is possible in a godly universe. You can either try that a theistic universe is not necessary for morality or that morality is not necessary for a theistic universe. Which do you want to argue?

The point, once again, is that murder and the color I paint my bedroom are qualitatively equivalent concerns in this universe. In such a universe, a consistent and universal phisophical ethic is logically impossible, beyond a sort of rational self-interest model that could, in theory, justify anything depending on the situation. Killing someone may be bad for us because it puts us at risk of attack or generates chemicals that give us bad feelings, but that is only a circumstantial issue.

 

Your argument fails in that you did not ask for proof... just an objective purpose. The logical response of a Christian would be John 3:16.

 

Again, animals have no concept of god because animals did not invent gods. Yet they know right from wrong. Until you understand this, going around in circles with you is pointless.

 

No. Merely processes, without regard for purpose, which is a bit of something we've added to help us not think about what is real:

Life evolved on this planet and thus we're prisoners within the cycle, or cogs in the wheel of life that came about through random circumstances.

You're here to pass on your genetic material, and for no other purpose. If you do not pass it on, your contribution to the life cycle = exactly zero.

 

I am not making an empirical claim but a rationalistic one. You need no data to see how a morality based on consequences (i.e. one focused on ends) is more likely to lead to ends-justified-the-means thought process than a deontological morality (i.e. one focused on means).

 

You can't prove that is objective. If the bible and Christians didn't exist, would that purpose still exist?

 

The former.

Sure, I agree, a universal anything is impossible in the sense that there is a universal law dealing with ethics, morality, or values.

 

Once again, all that can show is that species may tend to evolve similar preferences because those preferences are better for the propagation of genes. Big whoop. It's simply grasping at straws, as are alleged attempts to discover morality through neuroscience. Notice that both neuroscience and evolutionary psychology are focused on subjective minds as the source of values and subjective minds can not produce objective values.

 

You are correct....Humans do not understand fully how the universe came into being.

But, to say some supernatural being did it, is simply an intellectually lazy answer and detrimental to the human race in today’s society.

 

I understand the logic, but it doesn't mean that you are correct.

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How is that grasping at straws? I don't see any difference between nature or a God ingraining some sort of ethics into us.

 

Well Archie, I'm sure you think that's quite intelligent of you to think of that or to believe it. And while you obviously ARE intelligent, what you're saying there certainly isn't correct.

It would involve violating the most basic principle of any universe to have a construct like you hypothesize. In your own terms, you might say that you are contradicting yourself. How, you're thinking?

This sentence of yours: "You're here to pass on your genetic material, and for no other purpose", clearly says that passing on genetic material IS A PURPOSE. And if that's the only purpose, as you say, then there is no purpose in passing along your genetic material.

The universe would be wasting energy, which for a closed system like the universe, is a clear impossibility.

However, while you don't realize it, an extension of your belief is that matter is not real. That happens to be true.

God exists however. So since your identity is not in matter, it must be in God. You're safe. You'll realize it when you put away the false beliefs.

 

That's informed (something we work for) and not intelligence (something we earn by being born.)

 

It's going in circles because you just keep repeating the same statement that I keep refuting over and over.

1) Neither humans nor animals "know right from wrong" in a godless universe. Saying so assumes (a) some source of objective morality and (b) a mechanism for humans and animals to intuitively sense it. You haven't even attempted to hypothesize the existence of either.

2) All you've shown is that some forms of moral preference are more common than others across species. You don't need objective morality to explain that, just Darwinian mechanisms that make certain traits more beneficial than others.

3) In any case, ideas of right and wrong are not universal across species or even within them. Ducks and humans might rape others. Rape is common across species. So perhaps rape is objectively morally right.

Time to take the next step and address these objections instead of just repeating yourself.

 

It is when your morally obligated.

 

Which is why I pointed out that this is not what you asked. As to your second question, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, it still makes a sound.

 

Purposes don't exist outside of sapient minds. Unless you are arguing that ideas like purposes have animistic spirits that allow them to exist independent of the minds that think them, then nothing from the Bible can be an objective purpose for the world.

 

once again, its not you to determine who is right or wrong on this issue. you are literally nobody when it comes to how the universe was created, literally nothing more than a drop of bird poo in the creation of things.

who are you literally to honestly judge what is a sane or lazy way of thinking??? just because you dont believe that a higher being created all this means the thought is one of laziness and uneducated????

the same goes for the uber religious who damns other peoples theories, nobody can win this argument at this time because nobody has anywhere near enough proof of either side. so what makes you so special to perceive others beliefs as lazy and detrimental to human society???

couldnt have been too *******ned detrimental, during the history of the earth most people believed in some kind of god or higher being and look at what we have created and accomplished. and dont give me this (*)(*)(*)(*) about wars, because frankly even without a religious belief system we as humans would find some other reason to hate each other for and fight over.

 

This is a godless universe, as god is a man made idea. Animals know right from wrong.

You are operating under false assumptions.

Nothing else needs to be addressed until you get rid of these false assumptions.

 

It's not. It's a result of having been born a human and having the material to pass on. No one chooses to be born. We are and either pass on ours or do not pass on ours.

And it's not without certain reassurance. I know I'm going to die at some point, so be it. Doc says, "Archie, you're going to die." I'd respond, "Well, Doc; seems being born is not without certain drawbacks."

So, life? Duplicate and mutate, wherever it goes.

Lifestyle? Benefit of evolving human intelligence. Make the most of it. It's finite as all get out.

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It's believing in a myth or not believing in a myth, both of which really happen and exist (ergo, "real.")

 

There is a direct correlation between eduction and Atheism. The more educated a person is, the more inclined to atheism that person is.

So yes, saying god did it, is an intellectually lazy and uneducated position.

Throwing ad homs llike a child does not change this.

 

If you believe in the big bang, you might as well believe in god.

To claim that the entire universe sprang into existence instantaneously, is no different than claiming God created it.

Furthermore, You denigrate all the good in the world that comes from religion, by focusing on the tiniest of aspects.

PS God didnt write the bible, man did.

 

Well, you haven't said anything that refutes it; you're just shaking your head. I comes here to debate, not to monologue.

Nature obviously hasn't ingrained in us a universal morality or otherwise we'd all have the same moral values. There is not a single moral value that is universally held by all individuals that I've found. Even if it were, it would just be a valueless product of natural selection, not a true objective value.

A truly universal and objective value doesn't rely on its commonality amongst subjective minds. The whole thing about it is that it remains objectively true regards of how many or what proportion of subjective minds believe it.

 

I didn't say reality is insulting to me.. I said that these people were trying to be insulting. That's not "positive".

So you're saying you can't leave people in peace to believe what they want, because a particular religious doctrine prevents you?

Nice tea kettle by the way.. Commenting about Christian doctrine mandating the annoyance of others in a thread about atheists attempting to annoy people.

No.

Cite the quote where I ridiculed someone for their religious beliefs please.

So what's the point of this thread? What's the point of the billboard?

Targets for what exactly?

It's actually quite easy. It only requires a refusal to join in the hate feud.

 

and throwing out opinions, like you are doing, with no facts to back them up does not make your opinion truth. Its sad really, an atheist telling people atheism is the way, but slams religious folks for doing the same damned thing lol.

obviously, atheism also has a lot to do with hypocrisy.