God doesn't seem to exist!

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So what the group known as I.S.I.S. now does to its opponents (you know, like chop their heads off), rape, murder, theft and arson are only subjectively wrong, are they? Are you here making the claim that such actions are only wrong due to a consensus view of what "wrong" actually is at the present moment in our history and cultural development?
Well, you can believe this if you want to, but I know that the examples given above can never be justified, and you have just proven my own point that the atheistic worldview cannot account for morality and ethics, for if it could I am quite sure that by now someone would have written more than just a book about it (Sam Harris gave it a shot, but he failed miserably).

You should really study sociology, since the answers to all of your questions about how morals came about without God can be answered by studying that field. Seriously, refusing to educate yourself doesn't mean that your ignorance-based religious beliefs are true.

"...ignorance-based religious beliefs"? Quiet Dove, I'm not at all religious. I hate religion, and all it stands for. I may not be an expert on the subject, but I as I understand it sociology has not been able thus far to account for why some things are inherently wrong (or conversely, right). If you think there is some book out there that does accomplish this, then name it.

If you hate religion, then how come you're trying to present it as a possible explanation for morality?

As for a book recommendation, I recommend The Handbook of the Sociology of Morality. (I know it's pretty pricey on Amazon, so I recommend looking for it at any of the college libraries near you first.)

I'm an atheist/agnostic. However, I do believe religions have their place in the world. It creates some sort of sense out of perceived chaos for some people. There is a history of atrocities committed in the name of religion; however, there is also a history of atrocities committed under the auspices of a purely atheistic society.

Belief in an afterlife also eases what may be termed "existential dread." I've had a fear of death since the age 11; it makes me want to embrace an afterlife--and other panaceas which are part and parcel of religion. I have not done so because I have embraced, in general, the Scientific Method. I have no belief in the existence of a deity, despite my desire for my essence to live on forever, and not curtailed by death.

Humans created morality--but there is at least a portion of morality which arose from religious belief.

I'm not. I presented God as a possible explanation, not religion. There is a difference.



Ok, thanks.

'Normal' human beings are born with emotional contagion as small children; enjoying sharing laughter and smiles with other babies at a very young age; sharing and reciprocating emotions, yes, from wee ages of babyhood.

There is no religion that makes love happen, alone; love is part of social cooperation in altruistic ways of human evolving behavior for social cooperation, and the potential for greater chances at overall survival.

Sociology assesses the most peaceful societies around the world; as those that are ones that share instead of collect materialistic goods for profit; and these cultures are all relatively small; humans are not evolved for more than about 150 to 200 sets of eyes, per current study, of human social capacity for interaction.

A set of carrots and sticks are necessary to rule an unruly large population of human being through religion and or culture; but put human beings back in normal primitive circumstances, AND all natural innate instinct and intuition of kindness of love with courage rules the way of social cooperation and survival.

No BIBLE REQUIRED; NO SPECIFIC ABSTRACT CONCEPT OF GOD REQUIRED; HOWEVER, THE ALL NATURAL EVOLVING FORCE OF GOD, AS EVOLVED IN HUMAN IS THE WAY OF KINDNESS OF LOVE AND COURAGE FOR SOCIAL COOPERATION AND SURVIVAL, in 'normal' human primate environmental circumstances, where social-stress does not rule environments.

We live in a world in the United States, in particular, where studies show that empirical measures of human empathy among college age young adults, has dropped off almost a third in the last several decades. The reason for this is obvious; use it or lose it, applies, as in all stuff of human behavior; play with machines all day and become machine-like, robot-like, zombie-like; the cultural metaphors for this now growing sadder human reality, are myriad in force, as the Zombie Apocalypse; the real one, gains force, in empty human hearts with spirit expressed as emotional heart; no longer working with humans who lose their soul; and yes, all real emotional hearts, expressed emotions as spirit, and human soul, in mind and body balance with emotions properly regulated, and senses properly integrated; for greater focus and short term working memory
to enhance the potential
for human kindness
and
courage..

For a person who neither lives with these all innate instinctual intuitive properties of cognitive and affective
empathy as real experience; the world is both a cold and chaotic place that makes little sense; empathy
and the emotional life of human beings is not only responsible for gluing memories; it is
also the house of existential intelligence, connection with, and trust in other humans,
AND the rest of Nature AKA GOD.

THE WORLD makes sense; NOT BECAUSE OF LOGIC, alone; but because of
evolving human empathy and emotions in all innate instinctual
intuitive ways; for those who do not share in this all
natural evolving human nature gifted by the
overall GOD of Nature;
the world
is neither
kind
or fearless
for those folks.

It is transparent, for folks
who have been to
both places
of real life
heaven of feeling
now to the other
place of non-feeling
heart, spirit, and practically
non-existent soul of human
in mind and body balance..

Those members of the group known as I.S.I.S. chop off heads in the belief that what they do is ethically and morally sound, in accordance with their god and their wider society. This makes the "beheading of infidels" very much a matter of subjective perspective.



I didn't make any such claim. There is no global ethical or moral consensus.



I wasn't aware I required your consent to believe in the strawman ethics you've ascribed to me. Do you believe it's morally sound to manufacture another person's opinions before condemning that person on the grounds of your fabrication?

Your righteous indignation towards a moral position of your own imagining is another example of the subjectivity of morality and ethics. In your mind you're a paragon of moral excellence - just like those members of I.S.I.S. whose agency was conveniently ignored when you issued your proclamation on the subject of subjective morality. In my mind, your words indicate dishonest hypocrisy. Who then, in this instance, is subjectively "correct"?



They cannot be justified to you. Subjectively. That's rather the point.



Your strawman proved only that your mind is a closed trap. Not only did you misrepresent my position, by doing so you demonstrated the truth of my original statement.

"You may not like the answers, but that alone cannot render them null."

Your dislike for the answers is so ingrained that you've mischaracterised an atheist (myself) unjustly, thus proving your own moral turpitude.



And indeed they have. There are thousands of articles, papers and video presentations on the subject. Your ignorance of existing knowledge is evidence only of your ignorance, and nothing more.

Oh dear!
I was hoping that this thread might evolve into a reasonable argument with the likes of Alexander the Solitary who seems to have a functional intellect and some knowledge of the subject to boot.

However, the Materialist lobby typically spout vainglorious, simple, assertions based only on the premise that everything that exists is not caused by anything and for no reason and that is assumed to surpass any scientific observations or logic that science and logic say are impossible.

Those who claim science as the total justification for their religious presumptions assume a logical (scientific) absurdity as the absolute premise for their ideological position.

I was almost going to start an argument with Alex about Kantian (etc. etc.) assumptions along those lines but the argument has, once again, been reduced to the illogical and puerile fads anyone can pick up from Primary School picture books.

Heh heh! It seems that I'm even too unpopular for the "Unpopular Member's Club".

Your implication that Lintar would subscribe to your ideology if all he knew was the fashionable opinions relentlessly pushed in the media is, perhaps, correct. However, the presumptions proposed as "the last word" in all knowledge and wisdom by the "zeitgeist" is only tenable to those who don't know anything else. There are "thousands of articles, papers and video presentations" on just about every fantastic fancy known to Man, from green giants living in a hollow Earth to infinite "multiverses" in "worm holes".

Once one gets detached from observation and logic there is no such thing as objective reality... reality is whatever suits convenience.

Don't you pay attention to physics. We are not certain about reality. At best reality goes against common sense and we are still filling in the details we know. For you to suggest that simply because it strains ones mind to wrap it around these ideas make them false or in the zeitgeist. You guys seem to wrap your so called arguments into this confusion and call this confusion to undermine what we know. Those of us who pay attention understand that incomplete understanding doesn't mean that understanding isn't correct as far as it goes subject to new information. It means we haven't filled it out yet...

That's your inference, not my implication. I'm not seeking converts to an ideology, I'm contending statements by someone whose views I disagree with.

As for the "fashionable opinions in the media", you have not provided examples of which specific articles or reports you find fault with, let alone established which ones I agree or disagree with. You're in full unsubstantiated hot air mode, and we're only on the first sentence of your post.



"The last word" in what? Claims of ultimate authority are the domain of theists and the mentally ill.



And this is relevant to the current conversation how?



Once one gets detached from observation and logic, one becomes unobservant and illogical. It rather explains your inability to form a cogent argument.

So far my whole argument is about physics and logic.

I rather enjoy "straining my mind" to "wrap it around" interesting things like quantum mechanics and all that stuff; but there is no way I want to destroy my mind by trying to "wrap it around" subtlety presented absurdities.

Hmm. Which part of logic and observation do you not understand?

1; Observation: things exist.
2; Observation: changeable things are dependent on being caused and sustained by things other than themselves.
3; Logic: a thing that does not exist cannot cause itself to exist.
4; Logic: changeable things are caused by an uncaused First Cause.

So your definition of a "First Cause" is thing that cannot change. A thing that cannot change cannot create or cause. Your First Cause is a logical impossibility.