Same Sex Marriages and Sexual Orientation

[carpedm9587]

Carp, I never said you couldn't invent your own meaning or make believe that you are significant.

This one actually made me laugh out loud. Read your sentence, Seer. In light of my previous posts, it's actually quite ironically funny.

Just that in the big picture atheism preaches death, like I said it is a cult of death, everlasting death. Say what you want about religion at least it speaks to, and for, a fundamental human aspiration - survival, life. Atheism, at bottom, is nihilistic, a more hopeless, psychologically bankrupt philosophy has never been known to man.

Wow. You have a pretty obvious need to tear down what others believe to bolster your own, Seer. Read that paragraph. Everlasting death. Hopelessness. Bankrupt philosophy. Does all of that make you feel better about your own beliefs?

I am atheist. Have been for over 30 years. I'm not in despair. I'm not mired in "everlasting death." Yeah, I'll die. When I do, it will be "everlasting." So will yours. So will everyone's. That is life. That's how it works. I don't need to wail and gnash my teeth about it. I will live as long as I live...do as much as I can with the life I have, and then it will end. The world went on without me for millions of years. It will go one without me after I am gone...for millions+ of years. Meaning, purpose, value are all part of my life. Will they exist forever? No. But then I don't need them to for them to have meaning, purpose, value for the duration of my life. When I am no more, it will not be my concern.

Meanwhile, I do pretty much the same things you do. Wake to love my wife. Hug my children. Help my neighbors. Do my job. Clean my house. Take the odd vacation and see the world a bit. Hang with my dog. Drink a beer and watch a movie. Celebrate my children's successes (my son just graduated high school).

I can assure you the bleak, dark picture you paint is not an accurate reflection of either my life or my philosophy.

[carpedm9587]

"I should always do what I think is morally right to do." That looks pretty objective to me.

Since "moral reasoning" is about sorting "ought" actions from "ought not" actions, the sentence above is simply part of the definition of "morality."

One could always argue (fairly reasonably, I think) something like this:

1: I make mistakes or am ill-informed about all sorts of factual matters.
2: I sometimes make incorrect judgments based on those facts.
3: Therefore, I should exercise caution in acting on my moral values, since (from 1 and 2) I may well be wrong about those values.

IOW, one is not always obliged to follow what one thinks is morally right

If one wants to live a life of essentially pure skepticism, sure. I also believe it is not possible to know pretty much anything to the level of 100% certainty. Knowledge is essentially about probabilities. There is always a possibility of error. But some things are so close to 100% that, for practical purposes, we accept them as such and move on. The same applies to morality. Why bother categorizing actions as moral/immoral if the purpose is not to act on the "ought" actions and not act on the "ought not" actions. After all, the sorting is driven by our desire to identify actions that protect/enhance things we value and actions that threaten/diminish those things.

I can't see how a moral relativist can consistently with MR argue that people are morally obligated to follow their moral values; or to base their moral values on the best of their reason and knowledge; or to act consistently or rationally.

I don't see the problem. So perhaps we are using the term "moral relativism" (and subjectivism) differently.

Here's the problem with moral relativisism:

There is no teleology in your morality (there is no ultimate moral good that moral relativists are endeavouring to approach in their values and actions). What they find morally good now may be something that they previously found morally bad.

Yes - that can happen.

Gay marriage is an example of this. Not so many years ago most people (Obama and Hillary Clinton included, IIRC) were against gay marriage (it was morally bad). Now many of those people are in favour of it (It's morally good). In both cases they were morally correct in their values.

At the time of that assessment, to that person.

So now those in favour of gay marriage are enlisting the power of the state to impose their moral values on everyone, including those who are convinced it is morally wrong. Using state power they are attempting to coerce people into doing what they think is morally wrong (e.g. bake a cake celebrating gay marriage (And on moral relativism, it is morally wrong for them)), or to change their moral values under duress.

No.

But the moral relativist has no objective moral goal to point to as a justification of that coercion. And the moral relativist can't even say that objectively his moral values are better or more correct than the ones of the people being coerced. They're just different. The moral relativist can't even necessarily say (in all cases) that their moral values are more rationally justified than those of the people they want to coerce.

Your complaint, Max, boils down to "but it isn't objective/absolute." We know that. Moral relativism/subjectivism is not moral absolutism/objectivism. This is the perpetual argument put forward, but it's not an argument. As I have said to Seer multiple time - all it does is remind us that moral relativism/subjectivism is not moral absolutism/objectivism. It's a definition - not an argument. I have come to call it "Technique #1"

Surely the moral relativist should adopt a more libertarian approach to public morality, rather than the coercive one you are advocating.

Actually - coercion (I call it contention) is usually the last thing we turn to when moral disagreement cannot be addressed/resolved another way.

Take climate change as an example: Those who are convinced by the scientific evidence that anthropogenic climate change is a real and serious problem can point to an objective reality as a justification for state coercion of those who disagree. It may be that they are later found to be factually wrong (if, by some incredible circumstance, it was found that the current scientific understanding and theories are incorrect) but to the best of their knowledge they are responding to a real and objectively true problem, and even those who are coerced into altering behaviours to reduce their impact on the global climate will ultimately benefit from the objective good (less climate change) that results.

Compare with the gay marriage issue (as an example) - under MR, there is no objective external moral reality that people should comply with. Yet people are being coerced into changing behaviours and values, including pressure to go against what they believe is morally right. We don't know what effects promoting gay marriage may have on our societies, good or ill.

Again - this is Technique #1 again. It looks compelling, but it doesn't actually any anything. We know moral relativism/subjectivism is not absolute/objective. But we also know it is how morality works in humans and human societies, and always has.

As a moral relativist, you have no reasonable justification for supporting the coercion, pressurisation, or compulsion of people who disagree with your morals into following them. Your moral worldview reduces to: Do as I want, because I have the power to make you. Absent an objective moral reality that you are aiming toward I have no particular reason to have confidence in your moral sincerity, judgment or rationality. Your conscience and moral apparatus is not aiming at any goal or target - why should I trust its judgments? You're not necessarily more knowledgeable, or more rational, or better informed that I, you just are more willing to force others to compromise their consciences to follow yours.

No. "Power" does not make for morality. "Might" doesn't make right. It just makes enforcement. It will be exerted by the strong individual/group as a last ditch effort to ensure their moral stance is how their world functions, because it is what their moral framework tells them is "right." People with like moral frameworks will band together to gain that type of power.

The gay issue is a marvelous example of exactly this dynamic. For decades now, those of us advocating for "gay rights" were in the minority. Advocate as we would, those who held that homosexual marriages and intimacy were/are immoral dominated the society, and used their power to ensure our laws reflected that belief. No amount of "convincing" could change that mindset. Over time, however, the arguments in favor of gay rights began to convince many. Today, the larger body of people (in the U.S. anyway) accept homosexual unions and intimacy as "perfectly normal." Now those who oppose that view are in the minority. For many of them, convincing will never work. They are set in their views and those views will not alter. Over time, as those numbers shrink, they will be increasingly isolated in their churches and communities (much like neo-nazis and the KKK are today with respect to racist views). And the laws of the land are shifting and (hopefully) will continue to shift to embrace the LGBTQ community as social and legal equals. That is the might of the majority - but it does not "force" the minority to adopt this as moral. Until they are convinced by the arguments - they will see these laws as wrong, resist them in any way they can, and fight to restore what they believe to be right to the laws of the land.

Might makes laws and enforcement - it doesn't make "right."

[carpedm9587]

You know...something just hit me in a way it had not before. The atheist and the theist have something very much in common. Each of us thinks the purpose/meaning embraced by the other is a fabrication, and not "real," in some sense. The theist thinks the atheist's selected purpose/meaning is "made up" and "temporal" and lacking the depth of purpose/meaning a creator-god gives. The atheist thinks the theist's purpose/meaning derived from/by a creator-god is likewise "made up," because such a being simply does not exist. This means they are likewise temporal and actually spring from human minds.

Hey - what do you know! We have something in common!

[seer]

Wow. You have a pretty obvious need to tear down what others believe to bolster your own, Seer. Read that paragraph. Everlasting death. Hopelessness. Bankrupt philosophy. Does all of that make you feel better about your own beliefs?

And you didn't attempt to tear down the Christian faith, 2,000 years old, and the religion that had the most universal effect on mankind, by comparing it to the Moonies? And weren't you thinking yourself rather superior with your atheist meme about autonomy? As if your silly autonomy meant anything... Right and your "fully human" nonsense, as if we are not.

I am atheist. Have been for over 30 years. I'm not in despair. I'm not mired in "everlasting death." Yeah, I'll die. When I do, it will be "everlasting." So will yours. So will everyone's. That is life. That's how it works. I don't need to wail and gnash my teeth about it. I will live as long as I live...do as much as I can with the life I have, and then it will end. The world went on without me for millions of years. It will go one without me after I am gone...for millions+ of years. Meaning, purpose, value are all part of my life. Will they exist forever? No. But then I don't need them to for them to have meaning, purpose, value for the duration of my life. When I am no more, it will not be my concern.

I said nothing about you being in personal despair, but about your philosophy. It is a cult of death, death of all you love and hold dear, your very life - the death of everything...

I can assure you the bleak, dark picture you paint is not an accurate reflection of either my life or my philosophy.

Obviously you have the ability to whistle past the graveyard...

[Yttrium]

It is a cult of death, death of all you love and hold dear, your very life - the death of everything...

You need to put things like this into seer tracts. You know, like Chick Tracts, but with seer. With cartoons. Preferably in color. Get to it, man.

[Starlight]

You need to put things like this into seer tracts. You know, like Chick Tracts, but with seer. With cartoons. Preferably in color. Get to it, man.

How would you draw the death of everything in color though... wouldn't it just be a completely black square?

[Yttrium]

How would you draw the death of everything in color though... wouldn't it just be a completely black square?

No, you can be symbolic about it. Say, have a death personification hovering over a depiction of the Earth. Death looks good in purple.

138272-137108-death_super.jpg

[seer]

You need to put things like this into seer tracts. You know, like Chick Tracts, but with seer. With cartoons. Preferably in color. Get to it, man.

The fact is Yttrium, even the lower animals will fight to survive, the desire to live is ingrained. How much more for those of us who can rationally contemplate and anticipate our end. From the beginning of recorded human history, through a myriad of different views of the after life, men have had hope for life and survival beyond this vale of tears. This hope for a future existence, survival beyond the grave, is inherent in the psychology of the human condition. Which makes atheism, at a fundamental level, deeply inhuman. My question to the atheist is why, why do you come a Christian message board and preach the cult of death and hopelessness? What do you possibly have to offer?

[Sparko]

Carp are your arms tired from all that handwaving away of Maxvel's argument? That was an impressive dodge.

[Starlight]

The fact is Yttrium, even the lower animals will fight to survive, the desire to live is ingrained. How much more for those of us who can rationally contemplate and anticipate our end. From the beginning of recorded human history, through a myriad of different views of the after life, men have had hope for life and survival beyond this vale of tears. This hope for a future existence, survival beyond the grave, is inherent in the psychology of the human condition. Which makes atheism, at a fundamental level, deeply inhuman. My question to the atheist is why, why do you come a Christian message board and preach the cult of death and hopelessness? What do you possibly have to offer?

I think life after death is likely.

As I have said before I think it is statistically probable this world is an immersive massively multiplayer computer game. As such, on 'death' we would either respawn as a new character, or drop back out of the game to our real lives, whatever those might be.

Lacking that, I think that qualia (conscious experience) in and of itself is the defining characteristic of existence, and thus all lives can be viewed as simply various different programs run on one underlying reality which is the qualia itself. i.e. when 'I' die I will subsequently live the lives of every single person to ever live, because they are all 'me'. So serial reincarnation, but as all beings that have ever existed and will exist, not some sort of Buddhist karma thing.

So as an atheist, I would say I view reincarnation of some kind or another as the most likely post-death prospect. Certainly I would view those as orders of magnitude more likely than the absurdities of the Christian teachings.

But your cult of death fantasy is quite entertaining. I do wonder why so many Christians are nihilists though.

[carpedm9587]

And you didn't attempt to tear down the Christian faith, 2,000 years old, and the religion that had the most universal effect on mankind, by comparing it to the Moonies? And weren't you thinking yourself rather superior with your atheist meme about autonomy? As if your silly autonomy meant anything... Right and your "fully human" nonsense, as if we are not.

Seer...anyone who abandons their autonomy of choice to the writings/teachings of another for no other reason than the identify of that other is engaging in cult-like behavior, IMO. There is no difference between the Christian who says "it's in the bible, so it's a fact!" and the Moonie who says "Hak Ja Han Moon said it, so it's a fact." It is abandonment of "self" to the whims of the writings/teachings of another man. Saying, "but that man is god!" doesn't improve things much.

I said nothing about you being in personal despair, but about your philosophy. It is a cult of death, death of all you love and hold dear, your very life - the death of everything...

Yes - all I hold dear will die someday. There is nothing about atheism that even begins to meet the definition of "cult." I find three definitions of that term:

1. a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object
2. a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
3. a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

By the first and third, Christianity is indeed a cult. It started as one, and it is simply much wider-spread than it was when it originated. But I see nothing here that suggests atheism is anything of the kind. My beliefs have nothing to do with veneration or devotion or even excessive admiration for a particular thing or object (eliminates 1 & 3). I suppose, from the Christian perspective, atheism may seem "sinister." Some of us are definitely strange...

But we're definitely not small. Indeed, "nones" is the fastest growing sector in religious studies, worldwide.

Obviously you have the ability to whistle past the graveyard...

What I have, Seer, is the ability to accept the graveyard as the final step in the process of life, without needing to fabricate an eternity for myself so I can live my life without going into a panic attack. When I first left Christianity, that was indeed one of the side effects. Letting go of theism meant I also had to let go of the concept of eternity, and that truly frightened me, so quite a while. I would have panic attacks considering the horribleness of my eventual "nothingness." Eventually, reason won out and those panic attacks stopped. I find myself fascinated, as I get older and approach that inevitable day, my comfort with it grows. Embracing the reality of it has focused me on life in ways I never was as a Christian.

But I have to admit, if I had tried to explain this to my old "Christian" self, he wouldn't have listened either. So part of me understands your response. And I'm reasonably sure I can predict your response to this post.

[carpedm9587]

The fact is Yttrium, even the lower animals will fight to survive, the desire to live is ingrained. How much more for those of us who can rationally contemplate and anticipate our end. From the beginning of recorded human history, through a myriad of different views of the after life, men have had hope for life and survival beyond this vale of tears. This hope for a future existence, survival beyond the grave, is inherent in the psychology of the human condition. Which makes atheism, at a fundamental level, deeply inhuman. My question to the atheist is why, why do you come a Christian message board and preach the cult of death and hopelessness? What do you possibly have to offer?

All beings fight to survive. It is inevitable that a species that is self-aware is going to be faced with a conundrum: the reality of their own death and the genetically driven fight to survive. There is nothing more natural than the human brain resolving that conflict - that dissonance - by creating an entire reality in which it continues on after death. The human brain is powerfully able to warp reality to protect itself. A personal experience of that is one of the things that led me, eventually, to atheism.

It takes a bit of work to peer past that.

[Yttrium]

The fact is Yttrium, even the lower animals will fight to survive, the desire to live is ingrained. How much more for those of us who can rationally contemplate and anticipate our end. From the beginning of recorded human history, through a myriad of different views of the after life, men have had hope for life and survival beyond this vale of tears. This hope for a future existence, survival beyond the grave, is inherent in the psychology of the human condition. Which makes atheism, at a fundamental level, deeply inhuman. My question to the atheist is why, why do you come a Christian message board and preach the cult of death and hopelessness? What do you possibly have to offer?

It's the difference between optimism and pragmatism. You can find plenty of atheists who would like to live forever. There are atheists who believe in reincarnation, and many others who hope for some kind of afterlife. A belief that God does not exist does not require eternal death. There is no general universal philosophy of death for atheists. Yes, there are many atheists who are just fine with death... after living life as long as they can. I think you'll find that the typical atheist would jump at the chance of living hundreds or thousands of years, or indefinitely.

You're demonizing atheists, just as a lot of more vocal atheists demonize Christians.

[seer]

All beings fight to survive. It is inevitable that a species that is self-aware is going to be faced with a conundrum: the reality of their own death and the genetically driven fight to survive. There is nothing more natural than the human brain resolving that conflict - that dissonance - by creating an entire reality in which it continues on after death. The human brain is powerfully able to warp reality to protect itself. A personal experience of that is one of the things that led me, eventually, to atheism.

It takes a bit of work to peer past that.

Nonsense Carp, you don't know that the after life doesn't exist. You don't know that our inner most aspiration for continuing life is not a truth, connected intuitively to reality. In any case it still doesn't justify your preaching the cult of death and hopelessness.

[seer]

It's the difference between optimism and pragmatism. You can find plenty of atheists who would like to live forever. There are atheists who believe in reincarnation, and many others who hope for some kind of afterlife. A belief that God does not exist does not require eternal death. There is no general universal philosophy of death for atheists. Yes, there are many atheists who are just fine with death... after living life as long as they can. I think you'll find that the typical atheist would jump at the chance of living hundreds or thousands of years, or indefinitely.

You're demonizing atheists, just as a lot of more vocal atheists demonize Christians.

So why are you here Yttrium? To preach death and hopelessness? What is your motivation?