Mountaineer wrote:
moda0306 wrote:
It's interesting watching a very devout Christian and an atheist anarcho-capitalist debate morality, and completely strattle my opinion on the matter. Normally, I'd be MUCH more inclined to agree with the person using logic than scripture, but Xan is a lot more humble about the simple universal applicability of his faith, which he's willing to admit is subjective to him, than Kshartle is about his "air tight logic" that we have yet to even see. No offense K... and maybe it's just cuz Xan butters me up by agreeing with my statist/commie positions when I know that must be really difficult for him
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I neither think morality can be proven nor does it necessarily stem from a God (even if we do have a creator... I have a belief that morality transcends his "will").
Because in the end, I think it's my hard-to-articulate "faith" in the intrinsic-value of a human-being and their happiness (with some inclusion of animal life, and future human civilizations), and the ability to apply logic to the unprovable "ought" premises that combine Kantian & Utilitarian ethics, that provide me with my moral compass.
Now that doesn't mean my logic is air-tight deduction as much as either an unsound but valid deductive argument, or an inductive case for a certain action or role of government.
But I'm glad to admit when my logic either contains unproven premises, or is inductive in nature.
Have you considered our subjective "built in" moral compass, appreciation of nature, happiness, knowing that humans have intrinsic value, desire to think of future generations, and the gift of logic just might come from ...... drum roll ...... drum roll ..... drum roll ..... God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit? Seems like a more appealing worldview than "faith" those things came from a puddle of slime.
... Mountaineer
Mountaineer,
Of course I've considered that... But some people's moral compass leads them to justify things like murder, slavery, etc. So it seems to me God has equipped us with very differing internal compasses that we can't necessarily rely on without some logic.
Further, if he equipped us with something that measures and values the intrinsic value of not only our happiness, but that of others, then the question is does HIS WILL conflict with that, and if it does, who wins?
It does not logically conclude that because we have that compass, that God created us, or that IF he created us (whether or not he saw fit to give us a moral compass) that HIS WILL is morally correct.
For instance, if God were to create a child, then subject that child to eternal damnation and suffering because it is "his will," I strongly believe that that act is immoral, in spite of his opinion. I think playing games like that with conscious entities that feel pain, fear, and hopelessness is pretty cruel and disgusting. I don't ascribe to the fact that morality logically follows his will as a result of our creation.
Obviously, the mechanism which allows me to feel that way is a creation of God, so in a way, "God created morality." However, saying that he CREATED morality as a concept, and that behaving by HIS WILL (assuming we can even establish what that is) is necessarily moral, are two VERY different things.
Pointedstick wrote:
Mountaineer wrote:
Have you considered our subjective "built in" moral compass, appreciation of nature, happiness, knowing that humans have intrinsic value, desire to think of future generations, and the gift of logic just might come from ...... drum roll ...... drum roll ..... drum roll ..... God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit? Seems like a more appealing worldview than "faith" those things came from a puddle of slime.
Can't speak for moda, but I have thought of those things. But I'm afraid I can come up with a compelling evolutionary argument too, including one that casts religion-enabling faith itself as an evolutionary adaptation to stave off depression among the humans who are, to our knowledge, unique among earth-dwelling animals in that we have brains big enough to ask questions that are unanswerable.
Very well put.
This is why I say that to a non-believer, Faith is just a feeling. My faith that a behavior may be "moral" or "immoral" is just another feeling I have in my gut that I can't fully explain with logic. The best way it can be explained is a "general feeling that conscious life, and the happiness of it, is intrinsically valuable, and our behaviors should try to respect that value in others."
I don't blame people for amending that for a belief in some higher power.
What I DON'T get, is the bridge between a general feeling of faith, and all the details that seem to be cherry-picked arbitrarily regarding evidence of what this "higher power" wants us to do.
Personally, I think when someone combines their own very loose moral compass (which most religious people have/had even before they discovered religion) with the will to have meaningful, positive human interaction, connects those gut feelings to various unprovable events in history, and, more importantly, a group of people that one may like and trust to discuss them with. I think that faith in general morality has a tendency to stir itself up into various different areas of motivation (group-think, liking, consistency... all those subconscious areas of human motivation) to create the illusion of this much grander Faith that goes into so many more details about the existence of God and what he wants from us.
I know that sounds condescending, but just realize that whenever I witness logic not driving decisions, I try to dig into what actually is, and all I have is my own loose "faith" in morality, as well as psychological observations about what motivates people subconsciously. I hope my "analysis" doesn't offend.
In many ways I wish I was able to subscribe to a faith that challenged this conclusion, but I haven't found any that make enough sense to me not to irritate me in other ways.