Shooting blanks

The Rational Skepticism Forum has been commenting on a post of mine:

http://triablogue.blogspot.fr/2012/07/funeral-for-atheism.html

These are rank-and-file atheists. The lay atheist, compared to the high priesthood (e.g. Harris, Hitchens, Stenger, Dennett, Dawkins). Let's evaluate some of their responses:

ScholasticSpastic » Sep 15, 2014 3:21 amA good eye-roll is sufficient for drivel of this caliber.
hackenslash » Sep 15, 2014 6:09 amThe proper response to this idiotic drivel is: You're a f***wit.
No more needs to be said. It's bollocks from start to finish, aside from the opening question, which he should turn on himself, because the credulous have been hanging on for decades, despite having no argument, let alone having lost it.
Rumraket » Sep 15, 2014 8:07 amThe person is subnormally mentally endowed. No reason to engage with him.

It's revealing when unbelievers who pride themselves on their superior rationality are at a loss to reason for their position. 

Rumraket » Sep 15, 2014 9:07 amI have yet to see a valid theistic argument for an objective morality. 

I appreciate his candid admission of ignorance. 

Their god existing would not make morality any more objective.

An assertion in search of an argument. 

It doesn't matter how much you know, or how powerful you are, or how many magical spells you know, your opinion on what is right and what is wrong is just that, an opinion.

Thanks for corroborating my claim that atheism leads to nihilism. 

You still can't derive any moral "Oughts" from the "is" of whatever property you give your pet deity.

Actually, you can derive an "ought" from an "is" if the "is" has a meaningful purpose. If it was designed by a wise, benevolent Creator, with a particular nature and telos.

Arcanyn » Sep 15, 2014 3:21 pmSo someone's finally found some evidence for gods, have they? Funny, try as I might I couldn't find any provided in that post…

The purpose of the post wasn't to prove God's existence. Pay attention.

…just a few assertions that there would be some bad consequences if that guy's specific god doesn't exist. So on what basis has he shown that atheism is somehow 'dead'?

I showed that in the post. Follow the bounding ball.

I'm With Stupid » Sep 15, 2014 5:34 amWhy stop at funerals? By his/her flawed logic, atheists shouldn't show any emotion at any life situation, because all emotions are a product of evolution and understanding evolution apparently means we should only ever be passive observers to its effects.

Poor thing can't follow the argument. The argument concerns the significance of death, given naturalistic evolution. 

But specifically in the area of funerals, it would seem far more problematic for me that people who claim to believe that their family members are going "to a better place" would be so distraught about the fact. I think the fact that someone no longer exists and you'll never see them again is worth crying about far more than someone being granted entry into the greatest place ever, and you not seeing them for a while. And yet very few Christians at funerals act in a way that suggests they have faith that the latter is what's going to happen. Far more seem to act in a way remarkably similar to atheists who know they'll never see their dead friend/family member again.

That's a shallow objection. People cry at airports as they see their loved ones off to college or boot camp or whatever. The fact that they will be separated for a few months is sufficient reason to be sad. 

VazScep » Sep 15, 2014 9:03 am
Anyone who thinks that you can argue your body into behaving differently by reflecting on the objective point or value of such behaviour is, most likely, as we speak, massively failing with their current exercise regime/relationship/promotion prospects/alcoholics anonymous meetings/whatever.

So we've been carjacked by our bodies. 

So there's no objective grounds not to go around murdering people. So what? I really, really have no inclination whatsoever to murder anyone. 

So the only reason an atheist doesn't commit murder is if he happens to have no inclination to commit murder. Pity the Khmer Rouge never shared his disinclination. 

I also have no inclination whatsoever to eat my own s***. I make that comparison because I find that both disinclinations are controlled quite heavily by a visceral sense of disgust, and that's probably enough for me.

Given the fact that many homosexuals engage in rimming and scat, I find it shocking that an enlightened atheist would resort to such a homophobic illustration. Clearly he needs to attend a mandatory sensitivity seminar on LGBT rights. His comparison is nothing short of hate-speech. 

What gives me the creeps about theists who bang on about objective morality is the prospect that, if it weren't for their stupid religious texts, they would happily go out and do some horrible crime or fulfill some other sick fantasies like those their good Old Testament God enjoyed. I mean, is their belief in objective morality the only thing standing in the way of their wish to act like complete s***-heads? In that case, let's just point out that these people are s***-heads, plain and simple, and that if their Bibles are just a leash that stops them hurting anyone, you don't want to have any association with them.

One moment he assures us that there's no objective grounds against murder, that we have no control over what our bodies make us do. The next moment he complains about the moral consequences of OT ethics. Nothing like atheist incoherence at full tilt. 

chairman bill » Sep 15, 2014 9:24 am
Moral relativism is the only game in town, and it always has been. 

Thanks for corroborating my claim about the moral vacuity of atheism.

Thou shalt not kill, until some priest says God commands it. 

Actually, the text is a prohibition against murder, not homicide, per se. 

Thou shalt not steal, unless it's the land and virgin women of the neighbouring tribe that God has commanded you kill. 

i) The land belongs to God. The Israelites can't steal land from the Canaanites inasmuch as the Canaanites were squatters on God's land. 

ii) If moral relativism is "the only game in town," what's wrong with marrying a virgin from the neighboring tribe"? In fact, how is that wrong given moral realism? 

Just how much of the Old Testament objective morality do you subscribe to? Stoned any adulterers lately?

i) As a Christian, the new covenant doesn't command me to stone adulterers.

ii) Moreover, it's currently illegal, so I wouldn't be at liberty to stone adulterers even if that OT injunction was still in force. 

 Do you think it civilised to do so?

I think adultery is uncivilized.  

What about wearing mixed fibres? 

The purity codes were never meant to be moral absolutes. Their function was symbolic. 

And don't get me started on disrespectful children.

You mean, juvenile delinquents? 

Now, I'm married. I went about it in a very civilised manner - ask my wife. But then I read that bit in the Old Testament about a rapist having to marry his victim…

i) I've corrected that urban legend:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/09/legal-technicalities.html

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that the OT required the victim to marry her rapist. Notice how atheists keep talking out of both sides of their mouth. His opening sentence is that "moral relativism is the only game in town." So why does he do an about-face as if rape is wrong? 

surreptitious57 » Sep 15, 2014 4:34 pmThe absence of objective morality does not mean that basic moral code enshrined in law regarding personal behaviour is not something that is necessary in order for society to function. The fact that it is less than perfect is no reason to abandon any attempts to establish it. The alternative to that is anarchy where everyone is only restricted by their own moral code and nothing else. 

Given the absence of objective morality, what's so bad about anarchy?

Sure, the ruling class can enact an arbitrary code of conduct. Take the Aztecs. Mass human sacrifice was perfectly legal. 

Furthermore the subjective interpretation of objective morality renders it entirely meaningless. Even within belief systems there is no uniformity of opinion on the specific parameters of this so it is a bit rich to accuse atheists of relative moralism when theists are just as prone to it themselves.

Once again, notice how an atheist can't think straight. On the one hand there's his appeal to a basic code of social conduct. On the other hand there's his appeal to hermeneutical relativism. But the latter nullifies the former. 

It is one thing to say objective morality comes from God but when those who actually believe in him cannot agree on exactly what that is then it is just empty rhetoric. Something that is objective by default cannot have multiple interpretations.

Really? What about conflicting eyewitness accounts of a traffic accident. Was the traffic accident not an objective event? 

Seven of the ten Commandments do not actually require belief for them to be practised anyway. So there is a significant overlap between what atheists and theists believe or can believe in anyway as pertaining to morality. 

They don't require belief on the part of the governed. But they require belief on the part of the narrator. 

And indeed five of the ten are within reason perfectly acceptable and which I have no problem with at all [ the last two are unacceptable as they are thought crimes ] It is not therefore as if all atheists have one moral code and all theists another moral code with zero compatibility between them. Because in actual fact the origin of morality lies in psychology not religion.

If morality lies in psychology, then all crimes are thought-crimes. Yet our atheist just told us that's unacceptable. 

 As we are all psychological beings it is not therefore entirely unreasonable to find common ground on what is and is not fundamentally morally acceptable or unacceptable regardless of anything else

If morality is reducible to psychology, then there's no moral imperative to find common ground. 

Shrunk » Sep 15, 2014 4:38 pmEven if moral absolutism was a good thing in theory, under current circumstances it is completely unworkable because, if God exists and is in possession of absolute and objective rules for moral conduct, for some reason he has not deigned to clearly inform us of what these are.

An assertion in search of an argument. 

So we have to go around as if we are moral relativists and try to come up with rules that work the best of all concerns [sic].

Given the denial of moral absolutism, why should we care about the best for all concerned? For that matter, what is the "best"? 

For instance, suppose we are setting the road system of a new country and are deciding whether vehicles can drive on the left or right hand side. As moral relativists we can simply take the position that neither side is the "right" side, and the important thing is that we are all driving on the same side. However, the moral absolutists would say that there is only one correct side on which to drive, the one that God wants us to drive on. And, inevitably, there will be groups on both side who insist that their side is the one that should be driven on. In such a situation, there would be no way to resolve such an impasse short of one side defeating and subjugating the other, usually thru the warfare of other violent means. I fail to see the advantage in that, myself.

That fails to draw an elementary distinction between laws of morality and laws of utility. 

Ven. Kwan Tam Woo » Sep 16, 2014 2:10 amGoodness gracious, I’ve never seen such a prodigious misuse of straw! Old MacDonald would be furious!

I doubt Woo has a promising future in stand-up comedy. 

[Hays] This is a problem with atheists. For instance, some atheists get very irate when Christians point out that atheism leads to moral relativism or nihilism.

...like it did when those nihilistic atheists hijacked commercial airplanes and flew them into skyscrapers because they thought it would guarantee them a place in an eternal paradise. Oh, wait….

i) To begin with, I'm not Muslim, much less a Muslim terrorist. So how's that the least bit relevant to my own position?

ii) How does that irrelevant comparison disprove my contention that "some atheists get very irate when Christians point out that atheism leads to moral relativism or nihilism"? It's a decoy rather than a refutation.

[Hays] Yet other atheists candidly admit that atheism leads to moral relativism or even moral nihilism. But having made that admission, they think the debate should proceed as if that didn’t mark a turning point in the debate.

And some Christians candidly admit that believing in Jesus means that you should bomb abortion clinics and murder homosexuals. What’s his point here? 

i) If he doesn't believe in objective morality, what do these counterexamples prove? 

ii) He offers no argument to show how Christian theology obligates Christians to bomb abortion clinics or murder homosexuals.

iii) Incidentally, what goes on inside an abortion clinic during office hours is far worse than bombing an empty abortion clinic after hours. So let's keep our moral priorities in check. 

[Hays] If there is no objective morality, then why are they arguing for anything?

Oh gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we live in a world of cause-and-effect along with other people and living creatures?

Why should I care about other people apart from using them to service my own needs and desires? 

[Hays] Likewise, atheists not only admit, but insist on the fact that evolution is blind. It has no prevision or purpose. Brains weren’t made to think. Yet they still act as if their brains were made to think.

He fundamentally misunderstands the concept of “purpose”; it is something which derives from mechanism, rather than preceding it. Brains weren’t made to do anything, they evolved to fulfil various survival functions in response to dynamic circumstances.

To say brains evolved to "fulfill" various survival "functions" is a goal-oriented description. But methodological naturalism bans teleological explanations in science.  

[Hays] Likewise, they admit that what we value has no intrinsic value. Evolution has programmed us to project value on certain things. But that’s an illusion.

Define “intrinsic”. Not having “intrinsic” value is not the same as having no value at all. We value things for practical reasons, i.e. because they are conducive towards survival, reproduction, social harmony, a sense of security, and/or pleasurable feeling.

Is homosexual behavior conducive to survival and reproduction? And what about serial killers who get a "pleasurable feeling" from wanton murder? 

[Hays] We value love. We value our parents, kids, spouse, and friends. Yet there’s nothing objectively right or good about loving friends and family. That’s just brain chemistry. The indifferent effect of a thoughtless process conditioning us to feel that way.

See above. Again the author is putting the purpose cart before the mechanism horse. Similarly he is accusing rationalists of believing in a “thoughtless process” when in fact this process gives rise to thought as an emergent phenomenon. 

i) To assert that thought is an emergent phenomenon begs the question. There are eminent secular philosophers of mind who deny that consciousness is reducible to brain chemistry. Indeed, there are secular philosophers of mind who dismiss consciousness as folk psychology.

ii) Oh, and he's the one who's got his own analogy backwards. A thoughtless process is the blind horse pulling the lost cart of brain chemistry. 

The author is effectively admitting that he is scared of deconstructing his own thinking process because he is under the misapprehension that it will necessarily invalidate his thoughts and emotions. 

Suppose I am "scared" of doing that. Isn't my fear merely the effect of physical determinism? Why blame brain chemistry? Can I help what my brain is telling me to feel? 

Even if this process weren’t “thoughtless” (as he misinterprets it)...

According to naturalistic evolution, the process is a blind, undirected process. That's not a "misrepresentation." That's textbook Darwinism. 

…how does he propose that we explain the essential underlying “thoughtfulness” of that process…

Because it was planned and implemented by a mind (i.e. God). 

...let alone conclude that said thoughtfulness has “intrinsic” value? 

My argument wasn't that "thoughtfulness" has intrinsic value, but things like love. 

[Hays] Atheists cry when a loved one dies. Yet they can retrace the process. They can see the pull-string. They can see evolution tugging their string. They don’t cry because the death of their loved one actually means anything. They cry because blind evolution pulled their string. A doll’s prerecorded cry at the demise of another doll.

I wonder if the author gets any satisfaction out of films. I mean after all, he can rationally retrace the process by which the films are constructed and the characters developed… 

Watching a film involves the willing suspension of belief. Whether or not you think Godzilla is real makes a different in disaster preparedness. 

[Hays] They can see evolution take the doll apart. They can see evolution operating on themselves. They dissect themselves. Peel back the layers. Cloth. Metal. Plastic. A pile of parts. The more you look the less you find.

Yep, he’s scared of looking too closely. He’s effectively arguing that ignorance is bliss.

Actually, that's how all the atheists are reacting. 

josephchoi » Sep 16, 2014 6:27 amwhat's more relativistic than the moral lawgiver who can bend the very laws on whim?

He gives no examples of what he means. 

quas » Sep 16, 2014 3:41 pmHis arguments are true, but the implications are actually more devastating for his side.
The atheist's life is indeed like this: 

"It’s like a doctor telling a man he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He has 2 weeks to live. Having got that out of the way, let’s get back to what he plans to do with the rest of his life." 

The theist's/christian's life is indeed like this: 

It’s like a doctor telling a man he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He will die, but not really, cause he's actually going to life forever after his death*. So let’s start planning with what he plans to do with the rest of his (eternal) life.

How is the prospect of blissful eternal life for a terminal cancer patient a "devastating implication" of Christianity? 

Spinozasgalt » Sep 17, 2014 10:49 amI think he's confused practical reasons generally with moral reasons particulary…

Where's the argument?

...that he has the explanatory priority of epistemic and moral norms backwards…

Where's the argument?

…and that even in characterising the atheistic worldview as somehow shorn of all independent requirements of practical reason he doesn't manage to keep the commitments consistent over the course of his post.

Where's the argument?

As a moral argument for God, I think it needs a lot of work.

My post wasn't attempting to mount a moral argument for God. Mind you, showing the morally and intellectually destructive implications of atheism can be preliminary step in that direction. 

Ihavenofingerprints » Sep 17, 2014 12:28 pm
I'm an atheist and I completely agree with him.Just because reality is pointless and unfair, does that mean we should believe in Christianity? 

Not by itself. But it can function as cumulative case argument by eliminating a major competitor. 

I'm interested in looking at the world for what it is, if I'm lead to that conclusion, so what? If he doesn't trust me not to kill people because I'm a moral relativist, so what? That's his problem.

Well, if moral relativists go on a killing spree, I'd say that becomes a social problem. If a moral relativist shoots a mother of two at a bus stop, is that simply "her problem"? In a sense, murder is clearly more of a problem for the victim than the murderer. But how is that an adequate comeback?  

When the religious have the guts to put their money where their supposed "objective truth" is, I'll listen. 

What does that even mean?

Until then they should just accept that we live in a pluralistic world and they need to share the planet with everyone else.

Why should we share the planet with everyone else? Why not take the best for myself–if I can? 

pelfdaddy » Sep 17, 2014 1:13 pm
I care because I care. It's a feeling I'm stuck with. I can learn of its source anthropologically, but I need no "reason" to care that reaches beyond myself, and it does not have to be "grounded" at all, in anything, especially something that flawed primitives invented for my inconvenience. This is my starting point.

And Jeffrey Dahmer doesn't care because he doesn't care. It's a feeling he's stuck with. He can learn of its source sociopathologically, but he needs no "reason" not to care that reaches beyond himself, and it does not have to be "grounded" at all, in anything. That's his starting point. And we know how the story ends. 

laklak » Sep 17, 2014 7:57 pmOnce when Mick (remember Mick?) was going on about same sex marriage inevitably leading to bestiality I asked him if he really need some mouldering old book to keep him from f*** dogs. 

Actually, secular ethicist Peter Singer considers homosexuality and bestiality to be morally equivalent:

http://www.utilitarianism.net/singer/by/2001----.htm

The same idea applies here. I don't really want to be around people whose only reason for not raping and murdering people (or dogs) is their belief in some SkyDaddyish retribution. Absolute moralists give me the heebie-jeebies.

Having just rejected moral absolutes, what is the reason for not raping or murdering people?