Moral philosophy transplanted from Disney thread

[Guest]

Just now, rkbabang said:

 

 

Yes, I forgot. Theory 3: Out of all the religions any human has ever believed in, yours just happens to be correct.  

Ok.

 

 

I was agnostic and then researched the major ones before committing. I actually liked Islam at first. I think I said this but I believe, to my core, that moral truth exists and there are things we "ought" and "ought not" do beyond personal or social opinion. That is impossible with atheism so theism it was for me. 

[rkbabang]

2 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

I was agnostic and then researched the major ones before committing. I actually liked Islam at first. I think I said this but I believe, to my core, that moral truth exists and there are things we "ought" and "ought not" do beyond personal or social opinion. That is impossible with atheism so theism it was for me. 

 

 

So you yourself are the final arbiter of what religion is true or not?  Had you settled on Islam then that would be true and not the whole Jesus is god nailed to a cross thing?  Interesting.  You have the ability to decide what created the universe and what this being wants, but you have no ability to decide for yourself what's right and wrong?   I just skip the whole god on a stick thing and go right to deciding my own morality.  

 

[Ross812]

11 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

You do realize this is in reference to Jerusalem and not a person, right?

Oh! Equating the Jerusalem to naked with a girl fresh out of puberty who god "mounted and entered a covenant with" was the best way to get the point across. Got it. I'd probably choose a more appropriate analogy, but you do you man.  

[dwy000]

10 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

I was agnostic and then researched the major ones before committing. I actually liked Islam at first. I think I said this but I believe, to my core, that moral truth exists and there are things we "ought" and "ought not" do beyond personal or social opinion. That is impossible with atheism so theism it was for me. 

This completely contradicts your own argument.  If god decides what we "ought" and "ought not" to do how can you just decide to go religion shopping and pick which one you feel like following?  How do you know you picked the right one?  And how do you know the morals of that one are right but the others are wrong?  

 

Sounds like you're picking and choosing your morals more than the atheists here.  

[Blugolds11]

14 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

Theory 3: God is real and, as Jesus predicted, false prophets would come.

 

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits."

 

Matthew 7:15-20

 

 

14 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

Yes, I forgot. Theory 3: Out of all the religions any human has ever believed in, yours just happens to be correct.  

Ok.

 

 

Cliff Notes:

Im the only one telling the truth

The other guy is lying

Their lies are as obvious as a rotten piece of fruit

You're smart enough to recognize a rotten apple arent ya? 

Good then you agree they're liars. 

But just in case you were wondering if you could eat around it, just remember, rotten fruit, and the tree it grew on gets "cut down and burned" hint hint...

 

Isnt that like the ULTIMATE gaslight? 

 

 

 

 

"Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that hinges on creating self-doubt. “I think of gaslighting as trying to associate someone with the label ‘crazy,’” says Paige Sweet, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who studies gaslighting in relationships and in the workplace. “It’s making someone seem or feel unstable, irrational and not credible, making them feel like what they’re seeing or experiencing isn’t real, that they’re making it up, that no one else will believe them.”

Gaslighting involves an imbalance of power between the abuser and the person they’re gaslighting. Abusers often exploit stereotypes or vulnerabilities related to gender, sexuality, race, nationality and/or class.

“The most distinctive feature of gaslighting is that it’s not enough for the gaslighter simply to control his victim or have things go his way: It’s essential to him that the victim herself actually come to agree with him,” writes Andrew D. Spear, an associate professor of philosophy at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, in a 2019 paper on gaslighting in Inquiry.

 

(...)

When gaslighting gets partisan, politicians may use the power of messaging to create false narratives, explains Latif. They may even try to undermine constituents’ sense of reality for supporting an opposing idea or questioning the perpetrator’s narrative in the first place."

 

Gaslighting is defined as an “elaborate and insidious technique of deception and psychological manipulation” used to “undermine the victim’s confidence in his own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from appearance, thereby rendering him psychologically dependent on the gaslighter”

 

 

[DooDiligence]

Gaslight Obstruct Project

[rkbabang]

10 hours ago, dwy000 said:

This completely contradicts your own argument.  If god decides what we "ought" and "ought not" to do how can you just decide to go religion shopping and pick which one you feel like following?  How do you know you picked the right one?  And how do you know the morals of that one are right but the others are wrong?  

 

Sounds like you're picking and choosing your morals more than the atheists here.  

 

Exactly.  Instead of deciding on what is moral and what is not on an issue by issue basis, he looked at all the organized religions and picked a pre-packaged morality from what was available.  But it was still him making the decision, not some external being.  He hasn't given us any indication that he had a discussion with God about any of this, just that he himself made a decision about what is true (Christianity) and what isn't (literally every other religion that has ever existed).  He picks and chooses just like atheists do, only atheists are flexible enough to pick issue by issue, where he picked a package deal.

 

It reminds me of the party system in politics.  You pick a side then you can stop thinking.  I picked blue so I'm for gun control, expressive taxation and regulation, gay rights, and the environment; or I picked red so I'm for lower taxes, no new gun control, no immigration, no trade with China, and bombing the shit out of the third world.

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by rkbabang

[Guest]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:52 PM, rkbabang said:

 

 

Yes, I forgot. Theory 3: Out of all the religions any human has ever believed in, yours just happens to be correct.  

Ok.

 

 

I mean, what's the best explanation for Christianity than Jesus rising from the dead?

[Guest]

On 3/15/2023 at 2:01 PM, rkbabang said:

 

 

So you yourself are the final arbiter of what religion is true or not?  Had you settled on Islam then that would be true and not the whole Jesus is god nailed to a cross thing?  Interesting.  You have the ability to decide what created the universe and what this being wants, but you have no ability to decide for yourself what's right and wrong?   I just skip the whole god on a stick thing and go right to deciding my own morality.  

 

 

Jesus was either crucified or not. I thought it was odd that Allah would send Jesus knowing that Christianity would be created. And then someone was "made to appear" as Jesus during the crucifixion. Then Allah waited 500+ years to reveal the Quran to Mohammed...ultimately allowing Christianity to become the world's biggest religion. That seemed pretty unlikely. 

[Guest]

On 3/16/2023 at 12:49 AM, dwy000 said:

This completely contradicts your own argument.  If god decides what we "ought" and "ought not" to do how can you just decide to go religion shopping and pick which one you feel like following?  How do you know you picked the right one?  And how do you know the morals of that one are right but the others are wrong?  

 

Sounds like you're picking and choosing your morals more than the atheists here.  

 

I don't think so. I looked at the world's biggest ones and selected the one that I thought was most plausible. 

 

Mohammed, the standard of all humanity per Islam, thought it was okay to marry a 6 year old girl at 50. Is that a "good moral"? 

[Guest]

On 3/16/2023 at 10:48 AM, rkbabang said:

 

Exactly.  Instead of deciding on what is moral and what is not on an issue by issue basis, he looked at all the organized religions and picked a pre-packaged morality from what was available.  But it was still him making the decision, not some external being.  He hasn't given us any indication that he had a discussion with God about any of this, just that he himself made a decision about what is true (Christianity) and what isn't (literally every other religion that has ever existed).  He picks and chooses just like atheists do, only atheists are flexible enough to pick issue by issue, where he picked a package deal.

 

It reminds me of the party system in politics.  You pick a side then you can stop thinking.  I picked blue so I'm for gun control, expressive taxation and regulation, gay rights, and the environment; or I picked red so I'm for lower taxes, no new gun control, no immigration, no trade with China, and bombing the shit out of the third world.

 

 

What morals am I "picking and choose"? Christianity is faith, it is not a "moral system" in and of itself. There are a ton (a ton!) of self proclaimed Christians who are horrendous people. Many, many atheists are decent. All I'm saying is that if God doesn't exist, no one is "good" or "bad". We're all, ultimately, just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains that we have no control over. Hitler? Not bad. He just evolved differently to have a different chemical make up. Same with literally any other "bad" person. 

[RichardGibbons]

2 hours ago, stahleyp said:

All I'm saying is that if God doesn't exist, no one is "good" or "bad". We're all, ultimately, just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains that we have no control over. Hitler? Not bad. He just evolved differently to have a different chemical make up. Same with literally any other "bad" person. 

 

This argument was already refuted on this thread. You might want to revisit it.

[DooDiligence]

49 minutes ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

This argument was already refuted on this thread. You might want to revisit it.

 

or not.

[dwy000]

14 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

I don't think so. I looked at the world's biggest ones and selected the one that I thought was most plausible. 

 

Mohammed, the standard of all humanity per Islam, thought it was okay to marry a 6 year old girl at 50. Is that a "good moral"? 

You selected the one you thought the most plausible.  And now for you that one becomes the absolute one and only truth? That's not how it works. 

 

Your selection has no bearing on which, if any, religion is correct. And the plausibility of it also has zero bearing in whether it's true.  They all seem pretty implausible, so you have to suspend all rationality just to believe any of them in the first place.  Picking the most plausible is just laziness because it means you don't have to stretch as far to get behind the crazy stories. 

[DooDiligence]

I took Intro to Philosophy a few semesters ago and used this YouTube channel as an adjunct to the course. Most of you do not need to watch these.

 

 

Incidentally, the Crash Course channel was helpful for a number of courses.

[wolverine890]

I think you might want to move away from sexuality for a moment and consider taking a member of our society's life in order to understand @RichardGibbons' point. Citizens of Greek and Rome who were fathers had total control over their household. If they decided their child no longer deserved to live, they were allowed to do what they saw as necessary, same went for servants. This is because they weren't viewed as a part of society. 

To hit this point home for myself I ask, "what group might we not include as a part of our society today that future generations will judge us for?" The simplest answer to me is a pig. I am a carnivore. I eat meat, I invest in companies that might abuse animals and that for sure kills them for a profit. Do I personally have a problem with that? The abuse, yes. The killing, no. This is because I don't view animals as part of our society. Kill a pig, it is fine. I like bacon. However, my daughter (age 3) might have a huge problem with this one day. Will she be right or wrong? I believe, if everyone agrees with her and mandates that pigs can no longer be killed for food but only had as pets (or whatever), she would be correct. My belief about a pig's inclusion into society doesn't matter. Society has determined that a pig is part of it therefore I shouldn't kill it or eat it. 

Now what is ironic about the pig argument is that this was a moral law from God. Then Christians claimed it to be okay, mostly because they realized how good bacon was, but a little bit because they misinterpreted God when he told Peter to eat the unclean meat. Then Paul got all "moral relativist" by saying that Jews need to keep the law and gentiles don't need to. But that could be a topic for later. 

 Do I personally believe I have the capacity to view a pig as part of our society and thus taking its life is morally wrong? No. However, do I view my daughter as part of my society and would prefer to do things to not upset her if I view them as benign? Without a doubt. To me, that's how society evolves. Enough children convince enough parents that an aspect of society is worth compromising on and society becomes change. Eventually all the bacon lov'en holdouts will die and now the pig is a part of society, killing them is and was always wrong and the whole of humanity will judge us and our forefathers; this will become a proof that Muslims and Jews were correct and everyone else was wrong. 

 

[rkbabang]

20 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

What morals am I "picking and choose"? Christianity is faith, it is not a "moral system" in and of itself. There are a ton (a ton!) of self proclaimed Christians who are horrendous people. Many, many atheists are decent. All I'm saying is that if God doesn't exist, no one is "good" or "bad". We're all, ultimately, just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains that we have no control over. Hitler? Not bad. He just evolved differently to have a different chemical make up. Same with literally any other "bad" person. 

 

 

It seems like you have a good sense of what you think is moral and what you think isn't, but that isn't good enough for you.  You want something in a position of authority to tell you that you are correct.  I'm perfectly fine knowing that there is no greater authority than my mind.  The only thing that enforces any moral code is society itself.  When a large number of people think the same thing is correct than for that society it IS correct.  And when a large number of people think that some action is wrong, then for that society it IS wrong.  That really is it.  We ARE just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains and in the brains of those around us.  That bothers you for some reason.  It doesn't bother me at all.

 

[DooDiligence]

2 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

It seems like you have a good sense of what you think is moral and what you think isn't, but that isn't good enough for you.  You want something in a position of authority to tell you that you are correct.  I'm perfectly fine knowing that there is no greater authority than my mind.  The only thing that enforces any moral code is society itself.  When a large number of people think the same thing is correct than for that society it IS correct.  And when a large number of people think that some action is wrong, then for that society it IS wrong.  That really is it.  We ARE just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains and in the brains of those around us.  That bothers you for some reason.  It doesn't bother me at all.

 

Yep, but he's made progress from,

 

"I believe, to my core, that moral truth exists and there are things we "ought" and "ought not" do beyond personal or social opinion. That is impossible with atheism so theism it was for me."

 

to

 

"What morals am I "picking and choose"? Christianity is faith, it is not a "moral system" in and of itself"

 

He's getting closer.

[Guest]

21 hours ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

This argument was already refuted on this thread. You might want to revisit it.

 

Sorry if I missed it but where?

[Guest]

9 hours ago, dwy000 said:

You selected the one you thought the most plausible.  And now for you that one becomes the absolute one and only truth? That's not how it works. 

 

Your selection has no bearing on which, if any, religion is correct. And the plausibility of it also has zero bearing in whether it's true.  They all seem pretty implausible, so you have to suspend all rationality just to believe any of them in the first place.  Picking the most plausible is just laziness because it means you don't have to stretch as far to get behind the crazy stories. 

 

I'm open minded about that. If Jesus was resurrected, wouldn't it be "the absolute one and only truth"? I'm not a huge stickler on the Bible being 100% literal on everything. Like Job seems allegorical to me. Maybe I'm wrong but who knows.

 

What worldview makes more sense or more plausible than Christanity? If God doesn't exist, moral truth doesn't (or at least there is no reason to think it does). We are ultimately just sacks of skin and bones on a rock flying through space, right?

[Guest]

4 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

It seems like you have a good sense of what you think is moral and what you think isn't, but that isn't good enough for you.  You want something in a position of authority to tell you that you are correct.  I'm perfectly fine knowing that there is no greater authority than my mind.  The only thing that enforces any moral code is society itself.  When a large number of people think the same thing is correct than for that society it IS correct.  And when a large number of people think that some action is wrong, then for that society it IS wrong.  That really is it.  We ARE just tap dancing to the chemicals in our brains and in the brains of those around us.  That bothers you for some reason.  It doesn't bother me at all.

 

 

So slavery is okay as long as a society belives it is so?

 

Murdering Native Americans or Jews was okay?

 

Can a small group within a society ever be correct and the larger group ever be wrong?

[rkbabang]

56 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

 

So slavery is okay as long as a society belives it is so?

 

Murdering Native Americans or Jews was okay?

 

Can a small group within a society ever be correct and the larger group ever be wrong?

 

1) Slavery is not okay with me or you (I think by your comments it is safe to presume).  But in a society who thinks it's ok then slavery will be treated as if it's ok.  The people who think otherwise will be called all the things I am now called when I say taxation isn't ok:  Naive, dreamer, doesn't know how the world works, foolish, doesn't understand history, doesn't understand economics, etc, etc, etc.  I still think that slavery would never be ended if it weren't for the industrial revolution.  Once slavery was largely not needed, it was easy for people to be convinced to get rid of it.  Without mechanization, people would never have admitted that making someone do work for you was wrong.  It was just too convenient.  The same way we all use our phones and ignore the children mining cobalt in the 3rd world.  This will look barbaric in future generations.   So if the industrial revolution hadn't happened you would either support slavery right now or most of the people around you would and you would be thought a fool.

 

2) Same with murdering natives.  In that society you would be a lonely voice in opposition and you wouldn't matter.

 

3) Yes, even an individual can be correct with the entire world wrong.  I look at morality as something that can be discovered by reason.  Reason tells me that slavery is wrong and taxation is theft.  Both of those things would have been laughed at a few hundred years ago, now only one of them is.  A few hundred years from now?  Who knows.  Most people don't reason though, they adopt the morality which they are taught and always simply accept the things which are common in their society as good and necessary.   If you want to change the world for the better you need to somehow convince people that you are correct.  There is no other way.  God certainly isn't going to do it for you.  Although it is probably easier to package your opinions up into some religion then go out and proselytize for converts.  People will believe anything if they think their religion requires it.  Which is why Mohammad claimed to talk to god in a cave and Mr Smith claimed to find the golden plates, and some 3rd rate science fiction writer created scientology.   Religion has always been one of the best ways to brainwash people (politics being the other).

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by rkbabang

[DooDiligence]

Statement: Open-faced sandwiches don't really exist. The moment it becomes open-faced, it ceases to be a sandwich.

 

Rebuttal: It is incorrect to say that an open-faced sandwich ceases to be a sandwich. Rather, the problem is that it has yet to become a sandwich. It's an unfulfilled promise, not a regression to a less ideal state.

 

I must confess that the sandwich is not even my minor, but rather just a course I took while working toward my PhD in calzones. That's the extent of my contribution to this worthy field of study, though I'd like to add that the one situation that on open-faced sandwich could still be construed as a sandwich is when it was a sandwich prior to the top piece of bread being removed. Technically, this is a de-faced sandwich, not an open-faced sandwich, but I just wanted to clarify that the lack of the top layer to begin with is like an unplanted seed. It may have the promise of becoming a tree, but it is not a tree - at least not yet.

 

 

I should also add that none of the above is my own idea. These are the thoughts of R. P. Lemongrass, Dean of Sandwich Studies at Flatbread University in Bath, UK. If I'm not mistaken, his seminal work, The Epistemological and Metaphysical Foundations of the Sandwich is to this day THE definitive work in sandwich studies.

[RichardGibbons]

4 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

Sorry if I missed it but where?

 

This one (and others that said variants and expanded on the idea. I just quote myself because....)

 

Quote

Rather I think the most likely explanation is that morality is derived in the same sort of way that Math is. i.e. once you can count items, everything naturally follows, from addition and subtraction to differential equations.  Similarly, once you have groups of people, you need morality or else your society won't be stable. That's why at the core, most of the moral rules are the same between societies (e.g. generally, capriciously murdering other people in your society is discouraged.  And basically the edge-cases of morality seem to revolve around defining whether or not certain people are part of your society.)

 

That said, if your actual argument is, "A morality derived from a God does not exist if a God does not exist"– which seems to be the direction in which you're now heading–then I'll agree with you, and I suspect almost everyone on this thread will be convinced.

[Guest]

On 3/23/2023 at 5:08 PM, rkbabang said:

 

3) Yes, even an individual can be correct with the entire world wrong.  I look at morality as something that can be discovered by reason.  Reason tells me that slavery is wrong and taxation is theft.  Both of those things would have been laughed at a few hundred years ago, now only one of them is.  A few hundred years from now?  Who knows.  Most people don't reason though, they adopt the morality which they are taught and always simply accept the things which are common in their society as good and necessary.   If you want to change the world for the better you need to somehow convince people that you are correct.  There is no other way.  God certainly isn't going to do it for you.  Although it is probably easier to package your opinions up into some religion then go out and proselytize for converts.  People will believe anything if they think their religion requires it.  Which is why Mohammad claimed to talk to god in a cave and Mr Smith claimed to find the golden plates, and some 3rd rate science fiction writer created scientology.   Religion has always been one of the best ways to brainwash people (politics being the other).

 

 

Previously you stated "When a large number of people think the same thing is correct than for that society it IS correct.  And when a large number of people think that some action is wrong, then for that society it IS wrong."

 

"Reason" can mean plenty of things. People believed slavery and eugenics was okay based on that, didn't they?

Why assume that your reason is more "correct" than college professors preaching the benefits of eugenics?