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Who says that the concept of "good" isn't arbitrary and made-up?

(Other than those who believe it was mandated by a deity, of course.)

"Good" is a subjective concept. What's good to you may be good to somebody else. However, a chair is a chair no matter who looks at it. We may call it different things, but the object itself is the same.

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I disagree with that objective reality, it's not subjectivism at all. Abstract, intangible things like emotions and opinions cannot apply to the same tenets of existence that a physical thing like a chair would anyway, because they do not exist outside one's consciousness. Everything really is a matter of perception. Nothing exists until one can acknowledge it.

I don't believe in good or bad, therefore I don't believe they exist. And they don't... in my perception.

Except that, objectively, things can and do exist outside of our human perceptions. For example, dogs can hear frequencies and smell scents that our human senses cannot detect. I would contend that simple refusal to acknowledge something does not alter its state of existence. The same is true with abstract, intangible things as well; refusal to acknowledge categories of good and evil does not change whether or not good and evil exist as real categories.

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This is where things get problematic. It's rather like asking if the number two exists. To answer that, we have to first decide on the context. In the context of a concrete world, then no, it doesn't exist. It doesn't occupy space, it doesn't move particles around, it's not there. For the number two to exist, we have to give it another context: the context of mathematics. Here we can define some axioms and the number two fits right in. Or we can use a different context, for example, patterns. Things coming in pairs is a pattern, so the number two fits into that as well. Once you have an appropriate context, you can start talking about the number two, but until then, it's meaningless.

I think the same goes for "good" and "evil". Like the number two, it's not something that's just there; we have to find a context for it. But what context? Well, this is exactly the sort of thing that people have been arguing about for thousands of years! You can use religious contexts, like Christianity, or Buddhism, or Hinduism... these religions all have different ideas about what constitutes "good". Likewise, somebody who follows his own code of ethics -- like me -- has his own idea of "good". But "good" can only exist in a context.

If all the contexts are just convenient inventions of mankind, then the ideas of good and evil must themselves be convenient inventions of mankind. If a deity did in fact mandate its own notions of good and evil, then I suppose then one can make a case for these ideas being "real", since we'd have a context that isn't just man's invention.

- Kef

Some guy: Being good means never harming another person
Some other guy: a good thing 2 do meens bombin teh world w/ bombs
Yet another guy: Being a good person means you never eat meat

Some guy: The number two in base ten is a concept of quantity derived from zero and units
Some other guy: 2 is how many things there r
Yet another guy: The number 2 is something to measure with, man.

See what I mean? It's not just because you can't touch "good", but because it's subjective. "Good" is a concept that people can disagree on, in short. The number two is a constant. The number two ten thousand years ago was the same thing as it is now, while "good" was once thought to be feeding your slaves just enough, while now it is thought bad to even have slaves.

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But everyone has their own views on what is good and moral and just and what is not. Everyone has their own flaws and weaknesses as well as their strengths. Can you say that you are better than someone else because your flaws differ from theirs?

Now please don't misunderstand my original statement to mean that no one is more skilled than anyone else. Of course, you will have people who are more intelligent, more crafty, more sociable, more creative, more productive, etc. than others. But just because John Doe can write a better novel than Joe Schmoe, does that make him an all around better human being than Joe? Does it mean he's better at being human? I don't think so.

So how can you justify saying that anyone is better at being human than anyone else? What criteria can you base that on?

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Well, most of us here, atheist, agnostic, and deeply religious alike, would say Mohandas Gandhi was a better man than Adolf Hitler...

- Kef

So what if people do disagree on what good is? That still doesn't mean that there's not an objective good out there, and that those who disagree with that objective good are simply mistaken. So while people's ideas about good may be subjective, that in itself does not change the nature of objective good.


You said his name! THREAD = Very Over! YOU = Very Losed!

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I think we can make some exceptions to Godwin's Law

[quote="Jello B."]
Some guy: Being good means never harming another person
Some other guy: a good thing 2 do meens bombin teh world w/ bombs
Yet another guy: Being a good person means you never eat meat

Some guy: The number two in base ten is a concept of quantity derived from zero and units
Some other guy: 2 is how many things there r
Yet another guy: The number 2 is something to measure with, man.
[/quote

disagreement means nothing. i can tell you that i believe 2+2=5, i can even really believe it, but it doesn't mean that 2+2 really is equal to five, it just means that i'm wrong. everyone uses this argument to show that good and bad are subjective, but differences of opinions on what is right and wrong don't mean that there is no objective right and wrong. that sort of argument is utterly fallacious.

The problem is that "good" and "evil" are meaningless without some context to define them. The words "good" and "evil" are just words. Somebody has to give them meaning.

One might ask if it's evil to kill someone. Not because they were assaulting you or anything, but for some reason like that he stole your cookie. As I said, almost all of us here are going to believe that's evil. But I don't think anything objectively makes it so. As I said, if God says it's evil, then we have a case for an objective definition of evil. But without a deity imposing its views upon us, the only thing that we have that makes it "evil" is the way we feel about it. Of course most of us think murder is evil... our brains are wired to think that way! But that's just what it is: our brains telling us something.

I don't think there's any way to argue that there is an objective "good" or "evil", short of bringing a deity into the picture. So far the only argument I've seen can be reduced to, "Well... they're just there!", and I think if there were such a thing as an objective good or evil, we could do better than that.

- Kef

Actually, it has been argued before that the fact that most human beings can even perceive a distinction between good and evil is evidence of a deity, since such moral distinctions can hardly be accounted for by a process of natural selection.

But you've touched on a key point there, Kef: apart from appeal to a deity, there can be no objective distinction between good and evil (thank you Nietzche).

But by the same token, one cannot argue that such distinctions between good and evil do not exist without certainty that such a deity does not exist. And even then, the objective distinction may still be real, but undefined in our own minds without the benefit of divine revelation.

It always struck me as funny when guys like King Nintendoid and Dr. Zaius used to rant about how evil Christians were, when, without realizing it, they were appealing to the very same moral distinction which their own philosophy ultimately denies. But I digress.

But back to the point: the distinction between good and evil is subjective if and only in the complete absence of a transcendent deity.

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Of course, this is true. I think we agree and have agreed all along (I did mention throughout this discussion that a god's mandate would change things), and I'm rather failing to see the point of this discussion. When one cannot know that God exists (from a logical standpoint at least -- if it were possible to decide the question of his existence logically, we'd have done it already), one cannot know the true definitions of good and evil... so, the idea of an "objective" good and evil isn't terribly useful to us anyway.

Let's get this discussion back on track. The idea of knowledge of good and evil being an argument for a deity is an interesting one, but I don't find it very convincing, myself. Perhaps these ideas are not directly necessary for the survival of the species, but I think they are necessary to civilization to sustain itself. For the civilization to survive, people must not randomly kill each other, people must not steal from the grain storage, and so on. So the idea of morality probably came from something like that, with more rules being added as time went on. And producing a civilization (in a loose sense, meaning any sort of organized community) may well have been necessary for the survival of the species, at least in the region, so that the people can mutually provide safety, food, and so on, which is more efficient than everybody doing his own thing. So, if civilization is necessary for survival, and morals are necessary for sustained civilization, then natural selection would favor individuals who have some sense of morals.

I'm not saying this is actually what happened, but it's possible, and seems more likely to me than any alternative explanation I can think of.

EDIT: Incidentally, I'm aware that I'm committing the sin of inverse reasoning here: finding something I wish to believe, then finding a way for it to be possible. I think when we get into conjecture like this, it's not always avoidable. C'est la vie.

- Kef

What about rapists, kleptomaniacs, child abusers, thieves and murderers? In the society that article endorses, they would be free to rape, steal, maim and kill as they pleased, and nobody would stop them because it would be hypocritical. They're just persuing their dreams, doing what they feel is right. Our society may not be perfect, but it's a heckuva lot better than letting the scum of the earth do as they please.

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Sounds a bit like the question posed to Prot in the movie K-Pax...>>

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I think this argument is silly. I'm pretty sure this is not what the writer of the article had in mind. People would stop such people, because they would want to. They'll feel that their own desire to see the "bad guys" in jail overrides the desires of the bad guys themselves.

I think you misread the article. It's not advocating lawlessness. It's just rejecting conventional notions of morality, specifically, the rigidity and arbitrariness of any universal moral code.

- Kef

But that's just it. They're imposing their own notions of good and bad on those whose ideas are different. According the essay, a hierarchy-free society wouldn't require others to follow beliefs they didn't want to.

Maybe I did misread it, maybe I'm in over my head (which is likely), but I'm getting a headache, which is probably why I'll never be a good debater.

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And they don't have to! The article does not impose the author's opinions on anyone. He is merely explaining and advocating his philosophy. No where does it say that one must follow the stuff he describes. Since when was expression coercion?

And I don't think people don't need rules to act amicable to each other. If the only thing preventing you from killing your neighbor is a law defining murder, what kind of life do you live? Read the last two paragraphs. Regardless of that, murder and rape and kidnap and theft don't become justified under a non-hierarchial viewpoint, anyway. Those are coercive acts, performed by a human or humans against the will of another human with respect to that which is his own.

Anyway, like furrykef said, the essay didn't say that people should not have ethics. It said that they should develop their own based on an personal understanding of consequences, not some universal code.

I see your point, and I also see why I'm a history major and not a philosophy major.

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The problem comes with some people who, without some sort of universal code, won't see any consequences for their actions. Granted, this is a reflection on the individual more than the system, but it's because of those individuals that there needs to be some system of rules in place.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

OK, I said in my initial post that I have more to say about why I believe what I do, but I'd get around to it later. Well, I guess it's about time I get to it. I did explain why I'm agnostic, but not yet why I'm atheistic.

I always say I'm a firm believer in science, and science almost never steers us wrong. We have some debate about this in the creationism thread, but I'd love to see somebody point out somewhere where science has led us seriously astray in the past. I'm serious: go on, do it. Bet you can't!

Now, I will say that science does not know, or really even care, one way or another about the existence of God. If finding the answer were possible, then having that answer would answer a few questions (and doubtless bring up many more), but it would not affect the principles of science itself, nor would it really validate or invalidate the majority of what we have learned.

Still, I think it is more "in line" with scientific thinking to assume that God doesn't exist until proven otherwise. There is the saying, "it is difficult to prove a negative". In other words, it is far easier to prove that something exists than something does not exist.

The problem with proving a negative is the way deductive reasoning is applied. The only way to prove something does not exist is to evaluate all the possibilities for existence and then disprove all of them. On the other hand, proving the existence of something is much simpler: either show it to us, or build a case for its existence by piecing together the evidence. You just have to prove one thing instead of disproving many. In many cases, proving the negative is in fact impossible, for instance if there is an infinite number of possible explanations.

Because of this, the usual way of approaching things in science is to assume something doesn't exist until it's proven it does. That does not necessarily mean asserting that it doesn't exist. For example, take the supernatural phenomenon of clairvoyance, the ability to see the future. Of course, a lot of scientists believe it doesn't exist. That's their own, personal belief, not a scientific belief, because they know that science does not preclude the possibility. But it is impossible to prove that such powers don't exist, only that a certain individual can't produce the desired result in a given test. So the only thing we can do is assume clairvoyance isn't real until somebody shows otherwise. The burden of proof is on those who say it is real.

Likewise, the burden of proof is on the religious believers and not the atheists. Of course, believers can and do point to various evidence, but rarely is it scientific evidence. For example, the seeming improbability of a habitable planet coming together by chance, and life springing up on it also by chance, is not scientific evidence. An easy counterargument to that point is to take into account the vast size of the universe, which has a very incomprehensibly large number of stars and planets. It's hard for our minds just to comprehend the big difference between a million and a billion, and "a billion" doesn't begin scratching the surface here. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies, and the number of stars in just one galaxy is incomprehensible to us. We're talking numbers so huge that virtually anything that is wildly improbable, but possible, will probably happen at least once.

Likewise, anything that comes up in a religious text is not scientific evidence. If somebody successfully predicted something, good for them. How do we know it's not just coincidence? I can predict that the coin will turn up heads, and I'll be right a stunning 50% of the time!

Of course, if somebody can manage to provide me with an example of religious scientific evidence, I would be happy to debate the point. But for now, I have no usable evidence to argue for the existence of God, so I'm inclined to believe he doesn't exist. I would not commit to that belief, but if I had to commit to a belief, I would choose that. Well, this post is getting long like the first one, and I've said most of what I've wanted to say, so I'll wrap this up. Bring forth more debate!

- Kef

What about the inclusion of historical evidence? For example, historical documentation of actual miracles. Like, for instance, the entire New Testament.

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Could you be a little more specific? Can you point to me a particular miracle that seems to have a strong case for it?

- Kef

I tend to agree that the bible and other texts are insufficient in and of themselves to convince anyone of the existance of God. Really, if God is all powerful, he should be able to show us individually of his existance. The problem I see with many discussions between athiests and Christians is that Christians will try not only to convince them that their is a God, but that Christ is that God. All the while the Athiest is bringing up what they consider inconsistancies in scripture or other flaws(as they see them) to deny the existance of Christ, and thus come refute the existance of God. Really, imho, it would be better to make a case for God independent of any specific belief, then if an agreement or at least a consession that God may exist is made, then a discussion on who that God is can be had. That is how I see it anyway. With out any common ground, there is little likelyhood of anybody comming away with a better understanding.

This is all generally speaking...

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I would Almost agree, Seamuz, except that the God I know is not a generic God, but specifically God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. I do not feel I can or should try to prove the existence of God apart from Jesus Christ, because that is not the God I know. Or, to put it in the words of Blaise Pascal in "The Night of Fire," "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob; not the God of philosophers and scholars."

My point in appealing to the New Testament to begin with is to challenge what Kef said about the burden of proof being on us religious types. According to him, there is no documented "scientific" proof of God's existence. However, it would seem to me that documents of miraculous events would serve as such. But the atheist modus operandi is to begin with the assumption that there are no such things as miracles, and then to discount such historic evidence as invalid. Such reasoning is by nature circular: "The biblical texts are not credible because they contain accounts of miracles, and miracles do not exist because there are no credible documented accounts of them."

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Well, that's not how I'm thinking. I'm thinking "The Bible contains accounts of miracles... what other sources might back up these claims?" I believe this is how a historian would handle such a source, yes?

- Kef

Okay, you have a valid question: can the historical record be verified? For that, I will turn to the written record itself: four different biographical accounts, written by four different men. This is further verified by the writings of at least 3 other men who were first-hand witnesses of the event. That's a total of seven different witnesses who have given written accounts of what they had seen (in other words, the Bible isn't merely a source, but is in fact a collection of sources on the same related topic: the person and work of Jesus Christ).

Furthermore, at least five of these seven men were brutally executed for refusing to renounce the truthfulness of these accounts. Now, this in and of itself does not prove their truthfulness, but considering how important truth is to the Christian faith as a whole, it would be very difficult to believe that these men would be willing to die for anything they did not believe to be absolutely true. After all, what else would they possibly hope to gain from suffering and dying on account of this man, unless they believed he was indeed risen?

Some have argued that these men may have been delusional when writing, but that would be rather difficult to justify. After all, while it might be possible that a small handful of men might have hallucinated seeing a dead man walking, it is unlikely that their hallucinations would correspond the way that they do. Not only that, but what of the other apostles, the ones whose writings have not been preserved in the canon? Or the over 500 other people who have been reported as seeing the risen Christ?

Well, there is that one obscure passage in Josephus, but it's not likely that Josephus believed the resurrection actually occurred. Most likely he's only referring to what the Christians themselves believed, rather than expressing personal faith.

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You know, as an aside, I'd personally like to know what, specifically, Anthony Flew saw that brought him from atheism to deism. I don't think he's published any works about the change of heart, only in interviews and personal letters over the past decade showing his growing skepticism of atheism.

When he was an atheist, he championed the same thing furrykef is saying--that one MUST assume there is no God if no evidence exists. I think he still does--it's just now he believes the evidence of a creator exists, and that the creator is also one of intelligence.

He once said he "had to go where the evidence leads." And if it's enough for one of the most prominent atheist thinkers of the century to change heart, it could give furrykef and others insight.

And by the way--for those atheists who think Anthony Flew is just a senile old man hoping for a comfortable afterlife, he still rejects the notion of such a thing. So this isn't merely his getting older and professing faith from some sort of fear of death.

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