Thought Experiment

[Komodo]

Evidence that the truth of the Golden Rule exists outside of human thought and desire?

All that you've done is declare "God's goodness exists outside of human thought or desire," so if that's good enough to establish that "God's goodness" is an objective truth, then my declaration that "the Golden Rule exists outside of human thought or desire" is good enough to establish that the Golden Rule is an objective truth. It's true that I don't have evidence, supporting my declaration, that would satisfy skeptics, but neither do you.

 

[El Cid]

So are you saying that natural selection doesnt select for reality?

Not always. It's also a selective advantage to believe that your child is the most beautiful and special and perfect of all children; parents who believe that will give better care to those children, which helps their genes to survive. But obviously that can't be true of every child who is so cherished.

I dont know any parents that actually believe that. It is extremely unlikely that natural selection would select for a desire for something that has no survival value.

El Cid said:
I am saying that atheist morality can be subjectively rational but not objectively rational. As a human you are going to identify with and value other humans rather than roaches and that makes sense. But from an objective viewpoint if there is no God then there is no difference in value between roaches and humans.

Yes, I am not denying that humans are different from roaches. You are just stating the obvious. But from the perspective of atheistic evolution, there is no difference in objective value between a roach and a human.

God values humans out of love becasue we are made in His image and how we (as believers) are helping Him destroy evil forever. Since that value exists outside human thought and desire then it objectively exists.

No, He has objective purposes for us because those purposes exist outside human thought and desire.
Click to expand...

See my responses in post #1054 to this claim about objective value.

Just to clarify, though: Does this definition -- "value exists objectively if it exists outside human thought and desire" -- mean:
A) The value of some thing exists objectively if, and only if, some non-human assigns value to it, or
B) The value of some thing exists objectively if, and only if, that value does not depend on human opinion about it, or
C) Something else?

Something exists objectively from the human perspective if it exists outside human thought and desire.

El Cid said:
How do you know that?

In one sense, I know that "that is the right thing to do" does not mean "that is the right thing to do in order to achieve some further goal," because of my experience with hearing and reading this phrase. In another sense, I know it because that's what I have in mind when I use the phrase. What is the point in your asking, though?

I am trying to understand the underpinnings and rationale of your morality.

El Cid said:
Without an objective foundation language is ultimately meaningless. Only if the Christian God exists does language have an objective foundation that exists in ultimate reality.

This is not an answer to my request. I said that so far as I could see, "language is subjective" just meant "there can be different ways of expressing the same meaning, in different languages," but that if you had some other definition for "language is subjective," you should provide it, and show that language is not subjective, in that definition. You didn't do anything like that.

If you asked me what I meant when I said "information is adaptable," and I said "without non-adaptive causation of information, information is entirely useless," you would have no more idea about what I meant by "information is adaptable" than you had before I offered this metaphysical proclamation, would you? Well, that's my situation here.

Since the Christian God uses and has used thru eternity language to communicate with the other members of the Godhead, as our creator it means our language is based on the objective form of language of the Godhead which also provides ultimate meaning, unlike the case if there was no Christian God, in which case language and its meanings are purely subjective and without any ultimate meaning.

El Cid said:
It only happens in extremely rare cases, so that generally no human can make that judgement irrespective if they are a Christian or not. Generally only God can make that judgement.

"Generally" is not a word that inspires confidence here. People can always make exceptions to what's "generally" true.

Using Gods moral principles in the Bible to guide us we can be more likely to make the correct decision.

El Cid said:
No, that is not my claim. My claim is that the more accurate a religion describes human nature, that is a piece of evidence that the religion is more likely to be true.

But that just isn't the point you've been making in this particular exchange. Rather, you've been saying again and again that I should refrain from judging Christian teachings about the afterlife because Christianity claimed that our moral sensibilities were radically corrupt. You've said nothing at all to show or even suggest that Christianity was right about this.

Take a good look at history. You dont see much corruption?

 

[Eightcrackers]

I dont know any parents that actually believe that. It is extremely unlikely that natural selection would select for a desire for something that has no survival value.

Thinking that your children are special makes you more likely to to protect them, and ensure the preservation of your genes.

 

[Komodo]

I don't know any parents that actually believe that.

You're fortunate to have been spared, then.

It is extremely unlikely that natural selection would select for a desire for something that has no survival value.

A belief or habit of mind might not have survival value in itself, but be a side-effect of something which did. A belief that one's life had ultimate meaning could be a side-effect of a general sense that one's life was good or important, and perhaps those who lacked such a sense would be too willing to throw their lives away.

Something exists objectively from the human perspective if it exists outside human thought and desire.

"It exists objectively from the human perspective" sounds oxymoronic: it's not objective in itself, it's just relatively objective, to us? What does that mean? What's the distinction between "exists objectively" and "exists objectively from the human perspective"? Are there some things that "exist objectively," period, and others that only "exist objectively from the human perspective"? Like what?

And "it exists outside human thought and desire" is still ambiguous. So, again, if we're talking about the value of something, does that phrase mean:

A) The value of something exists objectively from the human perspective if, and only if, some non-human assigns value to it, or
B) The value of something exists objectively from the human perspective if, and only if, that value does not depend on human opinion about it, or
C) Something else?

I am trying to understand the underpinnings and rationale of your morality.

I don't think I've made that a particularly knotty problem.

Since the Christian God uses and has used thru eternity language to communicate with the other members of the Godhead...

You think it's an established fact that one person of the Trinity speaks to other persons by saying grammatical sentences out loud, or by projecting such sentences into the others' minds? If that's not what you mean, why call it a "language"? If that is what you mean, what is the basis for saying that?

as our creator it means our language is based on the objective form of language of the Godhead...

It doesn't mean that at all. Even if God created us, it does not follow that everything we do retains the form by which God does it. God might do things in ways which are incomprehensibly foreign to us, not at all imitatable by us.

And I still don't know what an "objective form of language" could mean. If the Father spoke to the Son in Hebrew, that wouldn't mean that Hebrew was "the objective form of language," it would only mean that that was the language spoken between the two of them.

which also provides ultimate meaning, unlike the case if there was no Christian God, in which case language and its meanings are purely subjective and without any ultimate meaning.

What does it mean to say that there's a "form of language" which "provides ultimate meaning"? Something ultimately true can be expressed in one kind of syntax, but not another kind? One set of vocabulary items, but not another kind? That just sounds like nonsense to me, even aside from the idea that the right kind of syntax or vocabulary can be traced back to the conversations among the persons of the trinity, which makes it doubly nonsensical.

Using Gods moral principles in the Bible to guide us we can be more likely to make the correct decision.

I haven't found this to be the case among those who insisted they were "using God's moral principles in the Bible."

Take a good look at history. You dont see much corruption?

Your claim: Christianity tells us, and tells us truly, that moral reasoning is the one area of our humanity that is most distorted and corrupted and the least trustworthy.
Your evidence: a lot of people have done a lot of very bad things.

This is a fact which is of course also recognized by Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. As such it is not obviously evidence at all for the superior truth of Christianity.

 

[Komodo]

Thinking that your children are special makes you more likely to to protect them, and ensure the preservation of your genes.

(He's probably going back here to his previous point, that most people think there is ultimate meaning to their lives, and asking how natural selection would have given us that belief since it isn't in itself something that obviously aids survival. My own suggestion was that this belief could be a side-effect of the broader belief "my life is good and significant," without which people could be more ready to throw their lives away for trivial reasons.)

 

[Eightcrackers]

(He's probably going back here to his previous point, that most people think there is ultimate meaning to their lives, and asking how natural selection would have given us that belief since it isn't in itself something that obviously aids survival. My own suggestion was that this belief could be a side-effect of the broader belief "my life is good and significant," without which people could be more ready to throw their lives away for trivial reasons.)

It could just be the result of a "significance arms race" - the more significant you think you are, the more likely you are to survive.

And, millions of generations later, here we are, with some people thinking they are ultimately significant.

 

[El Cid]

Of course an omnipotent being could irresistibly implant the idea that we were created to be his children, even if that was not the case. So any proof of God's goodness which rests on the feelings you experience when you think about him is intrinsically unreliable.

Actually He obviously didnt do that, because we only learn that from the Bible. As I stated before, it is more than just the feelings we experience, it is also the objective experiences that we experience, just like your experiences with your family members. Do you really consider your experiences with your family members intrinsically unreliable?

 

[Komodo]

Actually He obviously didnt do that, because we only learn that from the Bible.

And an omnipotent being obviously could irresistibly implant in you the idea that you could trust what you learn in the Bible. But I was referring primarily to your claim that it was your personal experience with God -- particularly his "implanting his spirit" in you -- which confirmed that he was entirely good. Again, how can you deny that an omnipotent being could provide that kind of "confirmation" even if he was not entirely good?

As I stated before, it is more than just the feelings we experience, it is also the objective experiences that we experience...

As the old joke says: what do you mean, "we"? I've never experienced anything that I would attribute to God. If I had, I wouldn't be an atheist.

just like your experiences with your family members. Do you really consider your experiences with your family members intrinsically unreliable?

My experiences with my family members can reliably tell me that they are, on the whole, pretty good people. (I hope theirs with me tell them the same.) But if I ever came away from one such experience saying "cousin Martin is perfectly good," I would not be drawing a justified conclusion, it would be some sort of delusion. That could never be a justified conclusion, because no experience or set of experiences can demonstrate perfect goodness. This would be especially true of an experience with an omnipotent being, because such a being could be irresistibly deceiving you into reaching that conclusion.

 

[El Cid]

Many particular families have been destroyed by people abandoning their families after "discovering" they were gay after being married for many years and having children.

This is true, but no more so than when heterosexuals abandon their families. Maybe this would happen less with homosexuals if there wasn't the prejudice against them.

Jews and blacks had strong prejudice against them in the 30's 40's and 50's and they rarely abandoned their families.

El Cid said:
But also gay marriage has destroyed marriage itself, it is now meaningless.

This is an assertion only, you have given no reason to support it. Is your marriage now meaningless?

If marriage can mean two people of the same sex can marry then you can marry anyone or anything. If something can mean anything then it means nothing.

El Cid said:
In addition, when gays want children they are taking them away from the childs biological parents.

What do you mean? Are you claiming that homosexuals kidnap children?

Since gays are unable to have children, if they want to have children then they have to have surrogates, thereby taking the child away from either one or both of their biological parents.

El Cid said:
Studies have shown that even babies are affected by not being raised by their biological parents in negative ways.

What's this to do with homosexuality?

If homosexuals want to have children, then they have to do what I said above.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Actually He obviously didnt do that, because we only learn that from the Bible.

An omnipotent being could have put lies in the Bible.

Including verses saying that it cannot lie.

it is also the objective experiences that we experience

Experiences are not objective.

The things that generate the experiences can be, but that's not the same - we could both be looking at the same (objective) painting, but our respective experiences of that painting would each still be subjective.

More to the point, pretty much everybody on Earth, at one time, "experienced" the Sun going around it, and they were all wrong.

 

[Eightcrackers]

But also gay marriage has destroyed marriage itself, it is now meaningless.

The meaning has changed; it is not meaningless.

How has gay marriage affected any existing straight marriage?
Do the partners love each other less? Fight more? Lose entitlement to government assistence/benefits?

If marriage can mean two people of the same sex can marry then you can marry anyone or anything.

Slippery slope fallacy - one may not marry underrage children, multiple people, or inanimate objects.

"One man, one woman" has been changed to "two adults", that's all.

Since gays are unable to have children, if they want to have children then they have to have surrogates, thereby taking the child away from either one or both of their biological parents.

Adoption and surrogacy are the giving of children, not the taking.

 

[Whatsisface]

Jews and blacks had strong prejudice against them in the 30's 40's and 50's and they rarely abandoned their families.

Yes, so you understand my point then? In England, there is far less prejudice than there was, but it's still there. In some countries you can be put to death for being gay.

If marriage can mean two people of the same sex can marry then you can marry anyone or anything. If something can mean anything then it means nothing.

No one is lobbying governments to be able to marry rocks, and it's still illegal to marry underage people despite gay marriage becoming legal. Your premise that marriage now means anything goes is simply false.

Since gays are unable to have children, if they want to have children then they have to have surrogates, thereby taking the child away from either one or both of their biological parents.

If they have surrogates or adopt then the whole thing has to be done along the prescribed legal channels, and as Eightcrackers said, that's not taking children.

 

[Komodo]

Many particular families have been destroyed by people abandoning their families after "discovering" they were gay after being married for many years and having children.

I'd guess the reason for this most of the time is that the gay partner was at first in denial about his/her sexual orientation, or desperately wanted to change it and thought entering an opposite-sex marriage could help do that, and ultimately couldn't maintain the deception or self-deception.

Do you have some alternate theory? One in which less tolerance of homosexuality would somehow prevent this kind of scenario?

 

[El Cid]

The book said nothing whatsoever about "tolerance of homosexual behavior." If I'm wrong, you can cite the references that show it did. The book did not even provide any evidence whatsoever about an increase in homosexual behavior. If I'm wrong, you can cite the references that show it did.

On Page 256 he lists his two main hypotheses. Under No. 1 he refers to how decay of the family into an atomistic form brings about the destruction of traditional values such as maintaining the restriction of homosexual behavior. And he implies that once acceptance of homosexuality appears the society is in its final stages.

I asked in post #442 of this thread, "What would be a few good examples of civilizations which rapidly declined upon becoming tolerant of homosexuality (and 'tolerant; defined how?), or which saw a rapid increase in homosexuality in their decline stage?" and you responded in post #473, "He talks about the Late Roman society." (You later said, in post #501, that it was specifically "the Roman Republic," but I saw nothing at all claiming that the Roman Republic was a society in decline.)

I meant to say it was late Roman Empire, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD is when the decline started as well as the acceptance of homosexuality. This can be seen on pages 266-267.

I said you could summarize the case that was made for your claim. I'm not going to go through the trouble of finding, paying for, and reading through the references you mention. That's in part because I have not forgotten that when I just did exactly this, I found that the book you referenced actually had no support for your claims.

See my references above.

 

[Komodo]

On Page 256 he lists his two main hypotheses. Under No. 1 he refers to how decay of the family into an atomistic form brings about the destruction of traditional values such as maintaining the restriction of homosexual behavior. And he implies that once acceptance of homosexuality appears the society is in its final stages.

If these page numbers are the same as those referred to in the Index of my Kindle edition, then page 256 is where, in the course of summarizing the effects of "atomism," he lists eleven symptoms, of which the eleventh is "Common acceptance of all forms of sex perversions." Presumably homosexuality is one of them.

So, in support of the thesis that tolerance of homosexuality is linked with the decline of civilization, Zimmerman presents no ascertainable facts, just a flat assertion. And that assertion is not that tolerance of homosexuality is the cause, only that it is a symptom. And not even that it is a particularly important symptom, only that it is one type of one symptom ("sex perversion") among eleven.

Again, there is simply nothing here to bolster the claim that "tolerance of homosexuality leads to the decline of civilization."

I meant to say it was late Roman Empire, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD is when the decline started as well as the acceptance of homosexuality. This can be seen on pages 266-267.

The pagination on my Kindle is different, but it seems you're referring to a section headed "The Roman Family Crisis." That section says that writers such as Martian, Juvenal and others give us "a well-defined picture of family decay" which "is reflected in their family law." There isn't one word about homosexuality or even "sex perversion" in this section, so obviously there is nothing in this section linking homosexuality to the decline of the Roman Empire.

 

[El Cid]

Teaching by example is just as powerful as teaching with words. And while no one follows Gods law perfectly, there are many Christians that do strive and generally follow His teachings to the point they would not be considered hypocrites.

If your claim is just that a corrupt ruling class or priestly class undermines the rule of law, I'm not challenging that. The claim I'm challenging is that explicitly teaching the philosophical proposition that morality is subjective rather than objective undermines the rule of law, and so far you have not supported the claim that we can see the truth of this by examining the history of the U.S.S.R.

Because almost all humans want to live according to what they think is objective reality, so if they believe that morals do not really exist, they are more likely to consider them just personal preference and just pick and choose their morals.

El Cid said:
But in addition, the schools were taken over by the communists and taught the non-existence of God and His objective moral laws.

The people saw the communists as a way to control the chaos which yes was caused by the communists themselves and also as way to have more consistent food and jobs. But once the communists got control they taught the children that morality was relative because there was no God and anything could be done to help the people including mass murder.

Your claim was that the sequence was 1) the teaching of moral relativism, which led to 2) anarchy which led to 3) tyrannical efforts to curb that anarchy. The sequence you are positing now is that 2) anarchy led to 3) tyrannical efforts to curb that anarchy which led to 1) the teaching of moral relativism. In other words, you are completely abandoning your original claim about how the widespread teaching of moral relativism was a causative factor in communist tyranny.

No, it was more of the acting out of relativism of the church and Czarist regime than the actual teaching of it.

Besides, it is not true that the communists "taught the children that morality was relative because there was no God." That's what Ivan Karamazov taught, not Stalin. What the communists taught was that the Party was right and good and the enemies of the Party were wrong and bad and that good children were brave, patriotic, obedient followers of the Party. That's not at all similar to "moral relativism" in typical usage.

Yes it is because the Party chose what was good and right, it was not determined by God (which by definition means they are not objective) or objective reality.

 

[Komodo]

Because almost all humans want to live according to what they think is objective reality, so if they believe that morals do not really exist, they are more likely to consider them just personal preference and just pick and choose their morals.

No, it was more of the acting out of relativism of the church and Czarist regime than the actual teaching of it.

Nothing you are saying here supports the claim that explicitly teaching the philosophical proposition that morality is subjective rather than objective undermines the rule of law.

Yes it is because the Party chose what was good and right, it was not determined by God (which by definition means they are not objective) or objective reality.

Even if "not determined by God = not objective," which is not a claim I see any reason to accept, you are not showing that moral relativism led to tyranny. What you're saying, rather, is that a regime which was already tyrannical taught a morality which you regard as non-objective. So nothing here supports your claim that we can see the sequence "relativism>anarchy>tyranny" in the history of the U.S.S.R.

 

[Komodo]

If these page numbers are the same as those referred to in the Index of my Kindle edition, then page 256 is where, in the course of summarizing the effects of "atomism," he lists eleven symptoms, of which the eleventh is "Common acceptance of all forms of sex perversions." Presumably homosexuality is one of them.

So, in support of the thesis that tolerance of homosexuality is linked with the decline of civilization, Zimmerman presents no ascertainable facts, just a flat assertion. And that assertion is not that tolerance of homosexuality is the cause, only that it is a symptom. And not even that it is a particularly important symptom, only that it is one type of one symptom ("sex perversion") among eleven.

Again, there is simply nothing here to bolster the claim that "tolerance of homosexuality leads to the decline of civilization."


The pagination on my Kindle is different, but it seems you're referring to a section headed "The Roman Family Crisis." That section says that writers such as Martian, Juvenal and others give us "a well-defined picture of family decay" which "is reflected in their family law." There isn't one word about homosexuality or even "sex perversion" in this section, so obviously there is nothing in this section linking homosexuality to the decline of the Roman Empire.

(Writers such as "Martial," not "Martian." Don't know if the dummy is autocorrect or me.)

 

[El Cid]

And what if this WHOLE TIME he has been deceiving all of you for some as-yet-unknown future reason?

How do you rule that out?

I cant rule it out completely, but a track record of 2 million years and millions (maybe billions) of believers have yet to see Him deceive anyone.

 

[El Cid]

A liar can say that they cannot lie.

See my post above this one.

Every single word attributed to him in the Bible has been individually and independently confirmed?

No.

And this is what is required in order to be able to assert that Yahweh has never, ever lied.

Actually I would say after 2 million years and possibly 1 billion believers, every word HAS been individually and independently confirmed.