The Atlas Asylum of absurd/ignorant posts IX

[Gizmodian]

I'm glad to see you haven't chosen option #1. Sadly though, you've gone with option #2 instead of the far more mature #3. This is the ultimate pitfall of religion-- if you believe that your faith is the ultimate truth, then accepting #3 is impossible. After all, why would you need any alternative moral frameworks outside of The Revealed Word Of God? Say what you will about the pitfalls of atheism, but I know of no atheists who say that atheism is all it takes for someone to understand moral truth. You, on the other hand, have asserted many times on this site that your moral analysis begins and ends with the edicts of your faith. That is a stunted and ultimately unsustainable moral framework. You can continue with denial (#2), or your moral framework will inevitably collapse into either #1 or #3.

An immature person chooses denial. A mature person looks at the world and says "Perhaps given the fact that this ideology in practice sanctions (or at the very least tolerates) the subjugation of women, brutal killings of apostates, heinous acts of violence, wife-beating, the murder of homosexuals, abhorrent forms of criminal punishment, and laws prohibiting free speech, it is not the only moral framework necessary for one to live a decent life." I will leave it to you to decide.

Most of what you've said here is definitely incorrect. First, let's start with gaining morality from a God.

Here's how a God will grant objective morality:
P1) God is omniscient.
P2) If God is oniscient, then if God believes that p, then p.
P3) If God believes that murder is wrong/we ought not murder, then murder is wrong.
P4) God believes that murder is wrong.
C) Therefore, murder is wrong/we ought not murder.

The most decent life you can live is one in accordance with the granted morals of a God.

You can properly derive objective morality from a God. However, on your worldview, you cannot.

You can talk of all those murders and atrocities, but none of them are wrong on your view.

Here's a quote from a secular moral philospher:

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it's necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. "

The core of moral reasoning, obligations/oughts/shoulds, is unattainable by reason. You have not demonstrated how you would derive the idea that something is moral or immoral from describing a state of the world.

If you believe that morality can be objective on a secular view, this is your burden:

"According to the principles of those who maintain an abstract rational difference betwixt moral good and evil, and a natural fitness and unfitness of things, it is not only supposed, that these relations, being eternal and immutable, are the same, when considered by every rational creature, but their effects are also supposed to be necessarily the same; and it is concluded they have no less, or rather a greater, influence in directing the will of the deity, than in governing the rational and virtuous of our own species. These two particulars are evidently distinct. It is one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it. In order, therefore, to prove, that the measures of right and wrong are eternal laws, obligatory on every rational mind, it is not sufficient to shew the relations upon which they are founded: We must also point out the connexion betwixt the relation and the will; and must prove that this connexion is so necessary, that in every well-disposed mind, it must take place and have its influence; though the difference betwixt these minds be in other respects immense and infinite. Now besides what I have already proved, that even in human nature no relation can ever alone produce any action: besides this, I say, it has been shewn, in treating of the understanding, that there is no connexion of cause and effect, such as this is supposed to be, which is discoverable otherwise than by experience, and of which we can pretend to have any security by the simple consideration of the objects. All beings in the universe, considered in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other. It is only by experience we learn their influence and connexion; and this influence we ought never to extend beyond experience."

First, a perfectly rational entity just refers to an entity whose beliefs about what is the case matches up to what is the case. Such an entity would be omniscient (like God); that is, no deductive, inductive, empricial, or any other epistemic error would be made by such an entity.

To demonstrate that moral good and evil are stance-independence/objective & understood by reason rather than by sentiment, you must demonstrate that any perfectly rational being will be causally compelled to act in a particular manner. The connection between a particular line of reasoning (knowing what is the case) and its causal influence on the will of an agent (what ought to be the case) must then be demonstrated as universal to all rational beings to confirm moral realism, no matter how much their preferences differ. David Hume above argued that simply knowing what is the case could not compel a person to act, so he recognized the is-ought gap.

Under your view, which is secularism, there is no way to derive moral claims. There is no way to prove that murder is wrong. At most, you can say "I dislike murder". Stop pretending that your preferences are objectively correct without needing a proof, and demonstrate to me that you can hold any moral positions under your worldview.

[Gizmodian]

words words words

I see you haven't been on this site long, but I never claimed to have any kind of "objective" morality, and I don't think morality is even real (at least in the sense of a universal moral system that exists independently from human thought). Therefore I'm afraid you wasted your time on this (very eloquent) response, as you're not addressing anything I actually believe.

If you're interested in my views on subjective morality, you can look at my posting history on the Religion & Philosophy board.

Ah, if it's the case that you believe that morality is subjective, then I'm not sure what arguments you could provide against the user Abdullah. Besides, all he has to say is "I disagree" and he's no more incorrect than someone claiming to prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla. This would apply even if his religious morals really did conclude that he should work towards eliminating & murdering certain groups (which I don't think they do anyways).

On top of that, given the argument I provided at the beginning of my response, Abdullah has the best bet of objective morality anyways.

[Gizmodian]

When you're confronted by someone who subscribes to your ideology but takes it to radical new levels that you find morally odious, there are three ways of reconciling your resulting cognitive dissonance:

1) Adopt their views as your own, because you adhere to your shared ideology without question and their views are just the logical extension of that ideology.
2) Pathetically attempt to explain that they aren't "really" a member of your ideology and that they're just lying when they say they believe in everything you believe.
3) Accept the fact that your ideology alone cannot provide all the answers.

Well, I'd like to respond to this section of your argument against Abdullah. I do not believe that these are the only options that Abdullah has, especially pertaining to the way you described #2. Why would it be considered "pathetic" for him to argue that they don't believe in the same things that he does? This happens with multiple different ideologies, corruption can occur and the people in power use the name of a particular social group to hide their true intentions. If Abdullah chooses to not associate with those people, why should he agree with you that they are part of his ideology? I do not see why that would be necessarily entailed.

[Gizmodian]

Abdullah is committing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy when he says terrorists are by definition "not real Muslims." True, we shouldn't take at face value what someone claims to be (North Korea is definitely not a "Democratic People's Republic," despite what they call themselves). However, Abdullah is constructing an artificial standard that excuses all the excesses and extremes of Islam. He is trying to define away the bad aspects of his faith.

Here are the reasons why his attempts fail:

1) Most obviously, there are no adherents to any religion who manage to follow every single command of that religion to the letter. According to Abdullah, those who do violence in the name of Islam are cherrypicking particular aspects of the Koran to follow and not follow-- but this is true for how all people of faith end up approaching their religious texts, no matter how dogmatic they are. Has any Christian lived a 100% truly Biblical life? No. The mere fact that self-professed "Islamic terrorists" do not obey every single element of their holy text does not automatically render them non-Muslims. If this were true, no Muslim would be a "true Muslim." Thus, even if the Jihadis are not following the Koran to the letter, that doesn't suddenly mean that their actions are completely independent from the doctrine of Islam. The opposite is true: They are inseparable.

2) His logic cuts multiple ways. Christianity has an explicit commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Kill." But the Crusaders certainly broke this commandment frequently-- does this mean that the Crusades were carried out by non-Christians? It would be ahistorical in the extreme to make that argument. Doing so would ignore all the nuances of how religious people engage with their faith, and I highly doubt that Abdullah-- as a Muslim-- would be willing to excuse the atrocities committed by Christians due to the perpetrators being "fake Christians."

3) In other threads (and I don't expect you to know this, being a newcomer), Abdullah has suggested that the philosophy of liberalism will ultimately lead to the legalization of infant murder and cannibalism. Ignoring whether or not that's the case, it is intellectually dishonest of him to claim that liberalism leads to hypothetical and speculative future conclusions while ignoring the reality of where Islam is today. I only raised the counterexample of Islam to illustrate that all ideologies, when taken to their most extreme points, end in disturbing places.

I would not agree with you that this is an instance of the no true scotsman fallacy. From what I recall, Islam scholars make references to particular rules. It's stated in the Quran that if a person chooses to not follow some of these rules, then they are to not be considered a Muslim. His claims are coming from scholars who have studied this material for their entire lives; its not a matter of a fallacy, its explicitly known in his faith.

You can certainly pick and choose your definitions in a way to make it so that Abdullah shares the same ideology as these terrorists, but then you would simply be making a trivial claim. In my eyes, to call someone apart of the same or differing ideology, in this case, seems to be a matter of semantics. Do as you wish, but there would be no significance to your claim. Abdullah is claiming that he does not share an ideology with these terrorists, given that some live a life filled with murder while he does not. I would trust him more pertaining to this claim, because he has referenced many scholars who make the same claims, and he has a decent understanding of the Quran.

You can claim that he shares the same ideology as these terrorists because they use the same book and worship similar Gods, but I genuinely do not understand the significance of that claim either. It'd be like saying that because you and Stalin had a similar ideas pertaining to the origins of the universe, you are like him, and hence your ideas must be dangerous.