Empirical Morality
Posted: 19 January 2011 07:39 AM   [ Ignore ]  
Total Posts:  3
Joined  2011-01-19

Came across this discussion in the forum and would like to introduce my reply as a topic for discussion.
It comes after ‘...clouds of reason.’

Thank you

waltercat - 17 February 2009 04:41 PM

If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist (1a)
Objective moral values do exist
Therefore, God Exists

The above is an argument.  It has two premises and a conclusion.  The first premise is: “If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.”  The second premise is “Objective moral values do exist.” and the conclusion is “God exists.”

The conclusion does validly follow from the premises via the rule of Modus Tollens (more on this later, if needed), not Modus Ponens.

More to the point, though the above argument does have (1a) as a premise, it is crucial to recognize that (1a) is not the same as the argument in which (1a) occurs.  Obvious, right?  The above argument contains much more information than (1a) by itself.

Why is this important? For many reasons. Perhaps the most important is that a person can believe that (1a) is true and yet believe that the second premise and the conclusion are both false.  That is, believing that (1a) is true does not commit one to believing that either the second premise or the conclusion are true.

Here is an analogy:

Premise i:  If there is life on Mars, then we are not alone in the universe.
Premise ii: There is life on Mars.
Conclusion: We are not alone in the universe.

I can believe Premise i and still maintain that Premise ii and the conclusion are both false.  Right?

Another example:

Premise iii: We ARE alone in the universe.
Conclusion:  There is no life on Mars.

Again, I can believe that Premise i is true and still maintain that Premise iii is false and the conclusion is false. 

So, it is crucial to distinguish between a conditional statement and an argument in which the conditional statement occurs as a premise.  You have been confusing the conditional statement (1a) with an argument in which it occurs.

To dispel the ‘clouds of reason’...

God exists in so far as the word ‘God’ came form the mind of mankind in a bid to understand one’s relationship to everything. In that respect God is a concept and exists as such. In respect to the deeper significance of why the concept originated, the closest we can come to that is to conceptualise the highest aspirations of mankind, there it comes down to choice and freewill, and an understanding of evolution, the apparent order in chaos. So the decision has to be made, WHAT is God !? In it’s subtlest form, (and perhaps most chaotic for the mind/ego to accept ) God IS…simple as that ([hypothesis] Ref: Isreal - Hebrew Trans: God-Fighting; the name given to Jacob by ‘God’ upon his wrestling with his conscience ), but in so far as how mankind conducts himself for the best possible outcome for the most individuals (all men being created essentially equal), ‘God’, or the ultimate Go[o]d, is truth and love…and we all know that absolute truth is inconcievable ( beyond concept ) so there’s one thing left to work with, and for that one needs to know oneself, beyond emotions, and intellect…it’s about how people FEEL nad what is the feeling most conducive to achieving the truth ( what is TRUE being that which has the right aim ), and how should that aim be achieved. THAT was what the word ‘Religion’ was first used for, the search for one’s self.

The debate really need to move beyond ‘sides’ and differences to what there is in common witnin all of us and how we are going to utilise that commonality to achieve what we NEED, and we have to WANT that if there is going to be any ‘real’ progress. For that we have to make the right choices using what little freedom we have to choose, based upon experience. It takes courage and the willingness to live by example, REGARDLESS of the opinions of others. Evolution has provided us with all we require in that respect, most notably the ability to make compassionate decisions with respect to our affairs with one another.

Religion as an aspiration became estranged the moment Socrates was condemned by the Athenian elite who saw him as a threat to their paedophilia, cronyism, and unwilingness to extend themselves beyond the concepts of expression of ape-like aggression and debauchery.

In order to evolve in a benign manner we need to make the right choices. For that we have to go beyond what we think to what we feel, and there is empiricism in that, governed by the autonomous nervous system, where our emotions/sympathetic and intellect/parasympathetic meet.

Posted: 31 March 2011 11:09 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
Total Posts:  1
Joined  2011-03-31

Judaism + Christianity + Islam = Axis of Evil Against the Soul of Mankind

While God was busy playing pick up sticks with the Canaanites the Chinese had already developed a high society, writing language, and social structures. Religion is the single greatest obstacle blocking the path of human progress. As we enter the age of Aquarius humanity must shed old non-working institutionalized thought processes.

Posted: 25 January 2013 11:14 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
Total Posts:  114
Joined  2013-01-24

I think morality is an aspect of being in a world-of-value. This is a brain function but perhaps not reducible to individual psychology in the conventional sense (there is a difference between phenomenonology and psychology). So there is possibly a sense morality is objective but still natural (it is as a rule a causal benefit to the genes to live evaluatively embedded - even if we come up with some wild ideas about it every now and again, just like we do the cosmos).

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