Free-will and Atheism

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I don't follow a magical book, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

And exactly what IS reality anyway? Is reality ONLY what is scientifically definable? How does science establish reality? Or...perhaps a better way to ask the question is how does science recognize what reality is?


What exactly is meant by "falsifiable"? Biblical morality can be tested. But is the measure of objectivity dependent on taking all factors into account, or is "objective" defined by imposing anti-religious bias or sentiment? If the latter, then there is no true objectivity in a quasi-scientific appraisal of it and we have little to talk about. If the former, you can observe individual human interactions and societal behaviors and objectively conclude that Biblical morality conforms with reality.


Why not? Incidentally, I saw this kind of response coming, and "Fail" seems hastily judgmental.

Also, why or why not is ultimately going to depend on whether or not you are God. If we suppose for the sake of argument that you are God, then absolutely. If you are not God, then you yourself are subject to a higher power as is your own creation. But that's a different discussion, I think.

I also take no issue with thinking of morality as a set of commands. But, as I said, I think the nature of morality is such that each individual is responsible for choosing to obey the commands or not. To clarify another point, I think it is possible to make the argument that morality could be a product of evolution if you wanted to argue that God is unnecessary for morality. But that would also mean that moral values that are necessary for survival would be objective morals--murder might be seen as a threat to the survival of the species, the golden rule ensures the survival of all, etc. If you can observe historical consistency of, say, four or five moral values or mandates, then you have an empirical case for objective morality. But I will also say that my particular faith doesn't lead me in that direction and if you really want to argue about it, it will have to be with someone else.

It's a start, but it has the big problem in that it gets conflated with the Christian one. I think we should use a different name for the cause of the universe; perhaps "Baggnib" is a suitable name. Then we can attempt to relate Baggnib to the qualities of God and see if they match.

Is Baggnib sentient? Unknown.
Is Baggnib still around? Unknown (the creation of a second universe would be a good indicator, but nothing yet).
Is Baggnib remotely aware of or interested in us? Unknown.

Hmm, not much to go on there.
The problem is the human tendency to anthropomorphise. If you want to call the first cause "god", then fine; but that doesn't make it sentient or even a specific event. We have a name for the process by which living creatures become corpses. It's called "death". And this is personified by a skeleton in a black robe with a scythe. But we know that Death isn't a real being - he's a metaphor. He even shares many of God's characteristics - everywhere at once, immortal, knows everything, has a mysterious plan we don't understand, takes our souls for unknown purpose, cannot be stopped or harmed... but, most importantly, Death does not exist. Death the process does - Death the person does not.

At some point one has to make a stand. I exist and God exists. That is my starting point. Better than sitting around mulling over if there is a starting point or not...

I don't think that many of the people who have been raised as atheists mull over whether the universe has a starting point or not. It has absolutely no significance to people's everyday lives, unless they are taught that they have to hold a certain belief about the origin of the universe in order to receive some divine reward after death.

Besides, if you add a hypothetical god to the equation, you have to concern yourself with the question where that god came from. It just replaces one question with another. Of course you can say that god has always existed, but why not assume the same for the universe? For all we know, it might be cyclical. If the expansion speed of the universe does not exceed escape velocity, it will eventually contract and collapse into a singularity (known as the big crunch scenario). This singularity could then cause another big bang, so there is no reason to assume a starting point.

As long as we are talking here, some reality exists. This 'reality' is the unknown object. Saying something exists or not is just a statement about some properties of 'reality'.

Science, in the broadest term, is the rational study of reality. In particular, science must be relevant and unambiguous. For example 'tomorrow may or may not rain' is not relevant to the weather, while 'it will rain tomorrow' is because its truth depends on an event happening in reality. At the end, these requirements essentially results in the scientific method - that a hypothesis must be falsifiable and they are accepted based on observations.

So science essentially defines what can be reasonable said about 'reality'.


I am asking under what condition you would conclude that biblical morality does NOT exist? I think this has been done to death in the last thread.


We all know about the Euthyphro dilemma. Your naive divine command theory does not serve well as the basis of any 'universal morality'.

Does science have a monopoly on what is reasonable?


Perhaps. Well, that condition would be a comparison between what actual Biblical morality IS and what is observed in the real world. Western justice is built on the lex talionis model, which also happens to be the same justice model of the OT. It would be pretty much impossible to conclude biblical morality does NOT exist since it is such a common practice.


It's hardly naive. And please explain why it does not serve well as such a basis.

Did you notice the part about me? Kind of funny that the smaller part of the statement got the response...

I think he meant biblical morality as a concept. A way to falsify it as if it where a scientific hypothesis.

But your point about "lex talionis" is to suggest that because laws use an "if - then" punishment format then the bible is influential? I don't think so. Babylonian legal codes are much older than any known OT codes and they use the same structure of a life for a life. Do you really imagine that it's difficult for a civilization with writing, masonry and the wheel to construct an if-then statement to regulate society?

Your post seemed to imply that the alternative to believing in god as a starting point, perhaps the only alternative, is to sit around and break one's head about whether there is a starting point or not. I wanted to point out that this doesn't necessarily follow for people who don't believe in god. But perhaps I misread your post.

I mean I have decided that I exist. I have decided that God exists. Yet even though I believe that God existed before me, my decision about my personal existence came before my decision about God's existence. The first step is acknowledging that you exist, although I never had much trouble with that one...

It's a good approach. It actually doesn't matter whether God exists or not (or even if you really do, in a physical sense!) - having that as your starting point is important for building a worldview. The original rationalist movement, attempting to build a sense of truth from those things we know to be true, never worked out. We need to start with *something*. It doesn't need to be right, just right enough to work.

A good example of this working in the real world is money. Those notes in your wallet are worthless, really. They work because we all buy into a reality that says "this piece of paper is worth something". It's not true, but we build a world around the lie that holds together and works.

When do we acknowledge we exist? Maybe we come to that realization as a toddler. We see our hands in front of us and realize they are actually attached to our bodies, that we are more than just the pieces we can see.

Gotta love religious nutjobs who criticize those that exercise their free will. Why any parent would or could say that to their child when biological love is so prevalant surprises me.

God is merely a creation to give meaning to our lives. When we find meaning god disappears. A death can cause loss of faith as well, ironically. Shows how much we are sure of god's existence.

I imagine we are fairly biased though being primarily logical beings. Most are fine with being told lies about a better life after death and the hocus pocus of an afterlife. I personally find it beautiful our death allows the creation of new life.

We understand your opinion. Not many share it though.

I think it might work the other way around. We realise the universe exists, and come to realise that some bits of it we can control and some bits we can't. The bits we can operate are us. It's a little fuzzy around the edges, though. Especially when you start asking awkward questions like when our food becomes part of us, or whether our toenail and hair clippings are still us.

And though this has absolutely nothing to do with your points, SanityTheorist, I'd just like to mention that I don't believe in sanity. We're all mad in some capacity; most of us, however, are socially acceptable. At least until you start looking too closely. This is why a psychiatrist can always find something wrong with you.

Pretty much yes.


1) You seem to think morality as fact. But facts are not commands or opinions. Even the opinion of god. According to Wiki, DCT is a subjectivist absolutist position, which is incompatible with the objectivist position.

Read the Wiki articles on moral realism and divine command theory and pick your position.

2) It is too arbitrary. If god commands you to take a machine gun to any mosque and shoot everybody praying inside, does it make the action moral?