Jaw Dropping Stupidity

Barry, as a lawyer, does it ever seem to you that they're all : 'he says, she says', 'would, coulda, shoulda' is the way to understand morality, i.e. as a kind of Modern Art project ? Maybe we should ask Judge Judy to chime in. Axel

Your post #23, Mung Strangely enough, I misread your ironical construction of Pindi's precept : 'Yup. Whichever way the wind happens to be blowing at the moment ', as : 'Whichever way the mind happens to be blowing at the moment' - perhaps a less ironical, more direct construction of his words. Axel

Pindi asks:

WJM, I don’t know. But do you disagree with what I saying? If Jews were being rounded up, beaten to death in your street, and slaughtered in the millions do you think we would be having a conversation like this on the internet?

Unless it was against the law or dangerous to do so, why wouldn't we be debating it on the internet? We might also be protesting it or picketing, being active politically to try to change the law, and working behind the scenes to save what Jews we can (all of which can be said to have analogous correspondence to action taken by pro-lifers).

If your country enacted laws saying Jews were non-persons and providing for their total extermination you don’t think you would change anything about how you would act?

I would be politically active in trying to change the law, argue when and where I could against the law, and I would do everything I could within the law to overturn it and save what Jews I could. What would you do?

Those limits are based on my belief that killing Jews and paedophilia are abhorrent.

What does it mean to say that you have a "belief" that those things "are abhorrent"? You either find those things personally, subjectively abhorrent or you do not.

Its based on my belief in the rule of law.

What is based on your belief in the rule of law? Your abhorrence to those things? Surely not that. Perhaps you mean your unwillingness to defend the client by arguing that such things should be made legal? How does your respect for the rule of law prevent you from arguing that a law should be changed? You're not breaking the law; you're not advocating that anyone else should break the law; you're just arguing about what a law should be for the best interests of your client. Earlier you said:

When I am arguing with another lawyer or a judge I am arguing (passionately) my opinion about what the law should be in the given situation. It’s entirely subjective.

So, do you not represent any clients you find personally abhorrent? Isn't it an attorney's job to set their personal feelings aside and vigorously represent the best interests of their client? Isn't your abhorrence nothing but a personal feeling? What justifies you refusing to do your job based on personal feelings, when it is actually your job to set aside those personal feelings? The point I'm trying to draw you to realizing, Pindi, is that there are some moral wrongs that neither you, I, and indeed nobody on earth (outside of sociopaths) react to as if they are nothing more than personal, subjective feelings. There are certain laws that we do not react to as if they are just subjective rules made up by men. We react to them as if they are objectively true and are binding on all people regardless of their social or legal system. Note your view on a hypothetical modern holocaust; you are implying that you yourself would do more than what was legally permissible if the law because one of exterminating Jews, and you seem to expect that others would also do more than was legal in opposition to such a law, contradicting the notion that such a law would be just another subjective rule invented by men that you would just subjectively disagree with but obey because of your "respect for the rule of law," as you put it. I'm trying to get you to see that you are intellectually and semantically using terms and phrases to defend the notion of "subective morality and law", but you (and all sane people) do not actually, and cannot actually, act as if your intellectual views are true. Thus, your refusal to obey certain laws (even if hypothetical) and your refusal to make certain legal arguments on behalf of your clients contradicts how you have characterized morality and law (as entirely subjective) and contradicts how you have characterized yourself (motivated by rule of law and by the job requirement to passionately work towards your client's best interest). If you are saying that you will defy the (hypothetical) law and not represent your client (in the hypothetical case) because of your own personal, subjective abhorrence, then it is not the rule of law or your professional obligation that ultimately motivates you. You are simply doing whatever you feel like doing and you are attempting to characterize this motivation as something that sounds more noble (respect for rule of law, professionalism) than it actually is. That's the problem with moral and legal subjectivism; it all boils down to "because I feel like it, because I can", and that maxim justifies anything and everything. William J Murray

WJM, I don't know. But do you disagree with what I saying? If Jews were being rounded up, beaten to death in your street, and slaughtered in the millions do you think we would be having a conversation like this on the internet? If your country enacted laws saying Jews were non-persons and providing for their total extermination you don't think you would change anything about how you would act? Those limits are based on my belief that killing Jews and paedophilia are abhorrent. Its based on my belief in the rule of law. Pindi

Pindi, what exactly do you think Christians or anyone else who considers abortion a modern-day holocaust should be doing, and why? Pindi said:

As to your questions, no I wouldn’t participate in the formation of a new law that permitted minor sex and Jew killing. A lawyers obligations to his or her client does have limits.

What are those limits based on? Why do you draw the line there when it comes to representing the best interests of your clients? You wouldn't be doing anything illegal, and it's all subjective, and it's your job, so why not? William J Murray

Scientific Materialists Crave Morality But Can’t Evolve It August 21, 2016 Mercy, kindness, and generosity should be unknown in a Darwinian world, as Holmes knows: In biological and evolutionary terms, it makes no sense to give and get nothing in return. Altruism is rare in other animals, yet humans can be inexplicably kind. Are we generous by nature? How did we get to be this way? What role does culture play in kindness? If Darwinians had an answer after 157 years since the Origin, they wouldn’t be embarking on a campaign just now. These are the big questions now being addressed by researchers in the Human Generosity Project, who are using fieldwork, experiments and modelling to explore osotua [an African custom among the Maasai] and other examples of human cooperation. Their aim: to find how best to make the milk of human kindness flow. Holmes just hit on another Darwinian conundrum. Why would members of the Human Generosity Project want human kindness to flow? The project assumes that kindness is a good thing—a moral thing. It should be promoted. It should be facilitated. Whenever you see “should”, there’s a moral subtext driving it. The milk of human kindness seems innate; how did that evolve? http://crev.info/2016/08/scientific-materialists-crave-morality-but-cant-evolve-it/

bornagain77

I do believe that abortion is the holocaust of unborn human beings, but the Christian response to it is not to overthrow the secular democratic state by force of arms, but to try to correct the rot in society by our words and deeds. Though we can indeed pray that the secular democratic state self-destructs speedily. Autodidaktos

PPS: I draw attention to Cicero on the nature of law in his De Legibus:

http://www.nlnrac.org/classical/cicero/documents/de-legibus . . . M: And indeed correctly. For recognize that in no subject of argument are more honorable things brought into the open: what nature has granted to a human being, how many of the best things the human mind encompasses, what service we have been born for and brought into light to perform and accomplish, what is the connection among human beings, and what natural fellowship there is among them. When these things have been explained, the source of laws and right can be discovered. [17] A: So you don’t think that the discipline of law should be drawn from the praetor’s edict, as many do now, or from the Twelve Tables [archaic set of basic Roman laws], as earlier men did, but from within the profoundest philosophy? M: In fact, Pomponius, in this conversation we are not seeking how to safeguard interests in law [ius], or how to respond to each consultation. That thing may be a great matter, and it is, which formerly was undertaken by many famous men and is now undertaken by one man of the highest authority and knowledge [Servius Sulpicius]. But in this debate we must embrace the entire cause of universal right and laws, so that what we call civil law [ius] may be confined to a certain small, narrow place. We must explain the nature of law [ius], and this must be traced from human nature. We must consider laws by which cities ought to be ruled. Then we must treat the laws [ius] and orders of peoples that have been composed and written, in which what are called the civil laws [ius] of our people will not be hidden. [18] Q: Truly, brother, you trace deeply and, as is proper, from the fountain head of what we are asking about. Those who hand down the civil law [ius] differently are handing down not so much ways of justice as ways of litigating. M: That is not so, Quintus: ignorance of the law [ius] is conducive to more lawsuits than knowledge of it. But this later; now let us see the beginnings of law [ius]. Therefore, it has pleased highly educated men to commence with law—probably correctly, provided that, as the same men define it, law is highest reason, implanted in nature, which orders those things that ought to be done and prohibits the opposite. The same reason is law when it has been strengthened and fully developed in the human mind. [19] And so they think that law is prudence, the effect of which is to order persons to act correctly and to forbid them to transgress. They also think that this thing has been called [from] the Greek name for “granting to each his own,” whereas I think it comes from our word for “choosing.” As they put the effect of fairness into law, we put the effect of choice into it. Nevertheless, each one is appropriate to law. But if it is thus correctly said, as indeed it mostly and usually seems to me, the beginning of right should be drawn from law. For this is a force of nature; this is the mind and reason of the prudent man; this is the rule of right and wrong. But since our entire speech is for the people’s business, sometimes it will be necessary to speak popularly and to call that a law which, when written, consecrates what it wants by either ordering [or forbidding], as the crowd calls it. In fact let us take the beginning of establishing right from the highest law, which was born before any law was written for generations in common [corrupt text here] or before a city was established at all [--> in other words, foundational, the law of our nature as responsibly free, rational, morally governed individuals with duties of care to truth, right, genuine rights and justice, etc. Where, a right is inherently a moral claim implying a duty on the part of others, so one must be first manifestly in the right before claiming a right. In respect of various fashionable sexual insanities of our day, note this current research.] . . .

--> Yes, the pagans knew better, 2060+ years ago. kairosfocus

JAD, why am I not surprised, and why am I not surprised to see the ACLU cynically involved in lawsuits that it must know will if successful close Christian hospitals -- and onwards, lock Christians out of the profession of medicine. As in, to be a doctor, you must be a participant in blood guilt at sword-point of the usurped sword of justice, under the false colour of law. This is where we have reached as a civilisation, and it traces directly to the undermining of the responsibly free, rational, morally governed en-conscienced self [ . . the candle of the Lord within, enlightening our inner lives] triggered by irretrievably self-falsifying and necessarily amoral evolutionary materialistic scientism. Notice, perverted law and legal reasoning in the hands of those sworn as officers of the courts of justice to uphold justice thus the right -- the legal profession, lies at the heart of the breakdown . . . whereby in particular, power to interpret law becomes power to legislate from the bench and to over-rule the principles of sound law and democratic, accountable governance. Those are terrible matches to be playing with, and the conflagration likely to result would do huge damage to our civilisation. But then a folk saying in my native land is "fire deh pon mus-mus tail [ = the mouse's tail], but him think seh a cool breeze deh dere." KF PS: Notice how there is a studious avoidance of this underlying worldviews failure and moral bankruptcy on the part of evolutionary materialistic scientism. kairosfocus

Pindi, with all respects, you are wrong. You and RVB8 tried to divert the matter, which was duly answered by several persons (including me by way of a lifelong commitment learned at mother's knee and literally written into the anthems of my childhood, backed up by generations of family life which I experienced at first hand . . . ) and redirected to the clear and present horror and danger of the worst, ongoing holocaust in history -- 800+ millions of innocents slaughtered in the womb and mounting at 50+ millions per year -- and what it speaks to by way of how we have collectively corrupted law, government, justice, rights talk, media, education, worldviews, society and culture, family, sexuality [as in, what we need is sexual sanity and soundness]. It turns out that evolutionary materialistic scientism still exhibits the same failures that Plato identified 2350 years ago, and also it undermines the responsible, rational, free, morally governed individual, leading to destabilisation of society in all its aspects. Your onward response simply reveals the bankruptcy of current jurisprudence in our civilisation, tainted as it is with a self-falsifying worldview that undermines justice, and corrupted as it is with enabling of mass blood guilt in the worst -- and ongoing -- holocaust in history. KF kairosfocus

Lest anyone think I was being alarmist (@ #104) in linking abortion with euthanasia consider what has been going on in the Belgium and now the Netherlands.

[The] Netherlands is following Belgium by conjoining euthanasia with organ harvesting, raising the prospect that the mentally ill will come to see their deaths as having greater value than their lives.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439446/killing-mentally-ill-netherlands Most people in the U.S. still probably don’t know that the so-called “right to die” or assisted suicide is no longer just about people who are terminally ill. And in the United States…

With assisted suicide on the march and the pro-choice movement becoming more openly pro-abortion, Catholic hospitals and Hippocratic physicians are under pressure to buckle to secular sensibilities on issues such as euthanasia, abortion, sterilization and contraception. As I have discussed, the ACLU is suing Catholic hospitals in California and elsewhere to force them to violate Catholic moral teaching. If those suits win, it could result in hospitals closing.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439438/would-secularists-rather-see-hospitals-closed-catholic?target=author&tid=73549 I would say that western society is sliding down the slippery slope pretty quickly. That’s how the Nazi holocaust began. The scary thing is that this time it is happening without the Nazi’s. It’s now the trendy and enlightened way to think and act and it’s all being done in the name of human rights. From where do our rights originate? According to the U.S. Declaration of Independence they come from God. When men start creating rights then they are assuming a role only God can fulfill. That’s a very dangerous path for civilization to start walking down, because down is really a very steep downward slope. This time there may be no way back. john_a_designer

KS, is that chirp, chirp, chirp for all the people who have failed to answer my hypothetical about the holocaust. WJM is the only one who gave it a go. Come, on, they are rounding up Jews in your street. Pulling them out of their houses. Beating some of them to death right in the street. Loading the rest into cattle trucks to go to the death camps. There is talk they are going for homosexuals next, and then Latinos. Your response to this would be to debate the enablers on the internet about Plato and the meaning of objective morality? Maybe go and protest outside the gates of a death camp every now and again? In your workplace, have debates with your friends who are pro killing the Jews? Try and convince them of the moral problems with their position over lunch? Because this is your response to the alleged holocaust going on right now. But somehow I very much doubt that would be your response to the hypothetical I have described. Therefore be honest. Is abortion really comparable tot he holocaust? Pindi

chirp, chirp, chirp . . . kairosfocus

john_a_designer @104

PS I have actually known a number of Christian couples who wanted to adopt a child but had a difficult time finding a child to adopt. In a high rate abortion country like the U.S. it appears the demand far surpasses the supply. Some of the couple I knew spent a small fortune to adopt a child from overseas. (Anyone else have that experience?) Maybe rvb8 needs to become a little bit better acquainted with the facts.

Yup. I know a few couples in Canada who have had to adopt a child from overseas after having difficulty adopting one here. HeKS

rvb8 @ #100:

Kairos, to change the focus a little I would like to ask you a ‘moral’ question which you, and your side never address. That is, once these babies are born; “What shall we do with them?” Now under socialised medicine, high taxes would place them as wards of the state, and they would ‘hopefully’ grow to become functioning members of our society. I suppose in your fantasy world ideally, all families that have less than three children would take in a fourth, or fifth and ‘love’ and ‘nurture’ these waifs as their ‘own’ children. How many of these possibly ‘murdered’ potentiates would you take into your home? Oh, and how many potential abortees do you have living under your wing at present? You must realise that when you bandy about figures such as ‘800,000,000 murdered’, that if they weren’t aborted, they would be ‘living”?

That is the same kind of thinking that led to the Nazi holocaust, which began with sterilization and then euthanization of the unfit, infirm and other “undesirables.” Ironically the Nazi’s modeled their eugenics program after one that was already being aggressively implemented in the U.S.A. It appears that the same path the so-called secular progressives want to take us down again. What is that quote about those who fail to remember or learn from history? Make no mistake, abortion is a full-fledged euthanasia program. By any objective scientific, philosophical or theological definition an unborn baby is a human being. You can now understand why people so eagerly reject any kind of objective moral or ethical standard. They do it so they can assuage their guilt feelings and live a lie. PS I have actually known a number of Christian couples who wanted to adopt a child but had a difficult time finding a child to adopt. In a high rate abortion country like the U.S. it appears the demand far surpasses the supply. Some of the couple I knew spent a small fortune to adopt a child from overseas. (Anyone else have that experience?) Maybe rvb8 needs to become a little bit better acquainted with the facts. john_a_designer

PPS: 5 min vid: http://kairosfocus.blogspot.com/2016/08/video-jakubowski-open-source.html kairosfocus

PS: And BTW, what we need is deeper ethics, life skills, sound thought skills and civics education, which feeds self-governance, self discipline, virtue-seeking, sound family life and sound community informed by a broad and deep insight on world history and history of our civilisation; that last bit being critical -- it gives a fund of common good sense resting on sound knowledge of our experience across thousands of years that stops PC rubbish and media marches of folly cold. Handling our sexuality with sanity is an aspect -- think of a UNIT: "Sexual Sanity," just like handling money through financial sanity, sound and robust study and career planning -- if a man does not teach his son a trade it is as though he taught him to be a thief updated to C21 -- and the like. Where inter alia it is time to lay to rest genetic determinism of sexual and other behaviour (cf a current paper here), the rotten, irresponsible and utterly self-falsifying fruit of self-refuting -- and inescapably morally groundless and amoral -- evolutionary materialistic scientism. kairosfocus

RVB8, with all due respect, that is simply more of the same lack of respect for life and for the potential, creativity and productivity of the individual. Having slaughtered half a generation in the womb, we have so misunderstood and warped our minds and consciences through self-refuting ideologies -- which issue then speaks to a root of reality that transcends the physical -- we now wonder what would we do with so many new people. The answer is, we need to return to our understanding of the quasi-infinite worth and eternal, morally governed character of the individual, and shift focus away from piling up things to nurturing people regarded as the ultimate resource. The resource that transforms all other things into value by the impact of insight and creative ideas. For example sand was once mere building material of little worth. Now Silicon, a key ingredient, suitably purified and processed, is driving the world economy as the main substrate for computation and signal processing. We consequently have a tablet revolution in progress that potentially utterly transforms education, training and the world of work, just mix in wireless access and powerful digital libraries as well as instrumentation apps ranging from calculators to oscilloscopes and more. If, we will only put away the rubbish that so distracts and dominates us. Education, training, transformation of how we do things. I suggest, next, we need Open Source Industrial Civilisation 2.0, and that Marcin Jakubowski and others associated with the global village construction set movement -- http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Global_Village_Construction_Set -- are unto something transformational. Multiply by say getting a breakthrough with polywell fusion or the like, leading to say a Bussard drive capable of reaching gas giant moons in 100 days or less. And in the interim, water becomes the key to energy sources on the large scale. Along with molten salt fission tech, esp using thorium (and able to burn up wastes). Toss in pebble bed modular reactors. Wind, Hydro, solar, geothermal as appropriate and not force fitted where they do not work well, in a panic. Try algae oil and hydrogen, bacterial biofuel technologies, fuel cells and more. Modular fusion and fission, other energy sources, desalination, open source modular industries out of the planned obsolescence box, ultimately fabbers that implement something close to a von Neumann self replicating capability at least on a small community scale. Bring in the universities as part of the programme. First, we create an economy on a disk, that empowers communities to move to a sustainable potentially self-contained industrial culture. Likely, using one man one vote co-ops as model rather than one dollar one vote corporations. What we see is the ability to colonise desert areas and to move beyond unsustainable industrial civ. And, to colonise the solar system, with the moon, Mars, Asteroid belt and maybe some gas giant moons as key targets. The cosmos beyond will need a transformation of physics, if there are things out there that allow bridging light years. Worth exploring as part of the global investment in the future. We do not know what is out there. The notion that sexuality is out of control inherently so it's use a condom etc speaks to the self-reinforcing cycle of unsustainable self-indulgence. And your mocked fantasy family structure sounds a lot like that which my family has sustained for generations, except that 100 years ago folks had more kids. Just last night, a cousin called, and we chatted about growing up together -- my parents had two natural children, but ever so many more were part of our family. Cousins, church people, school mates, neighbours and more. FYI, there is a natural population boom followed by a demographic transition as public health breaks the child death by diseases cycle. People then have fewer children. But we have gone way too far due to a warped mentality and our civilisation is ruining itself. I see you impassioned about alleged nonsensical ideas of "criminalising" abortion. FYI, the natural law speaks, with Cicero's ghost leading the charge: life is the first right and treating our posterity as vermin in the womb to be eradicated at whim is inherently unjust, the warping of law to foster the mass taking of innocent life. I leave you to explain to us what the proper name is for the willful shedding of innocent blood. Your reaction above, in short, exemplifies the warping imposed by mass blood guilt. No, we cannot "criminalise" mass abortion on demand sustained by the warping of institutins starting with law. That is the rhetoric of turnabout and projection. No, such is NATURALLY criminal for a race that is morally governed and responsibly, rationally free. No, we cannot "de-criminalise" what robs half a generation of its right to life. We must stop our mad folly, and return to sane law. I call you to re-think and join the reformation and transformation that are long overdue. Yes, we will have to face some awful facts together, as the White Rose movement once called Germany to, at the cost of their lives. We can only repent and seek forgiveness from the God who is so manifestly there, then reform our civilisation in light of sound principles of justice. Starting with protecting innocent life. Shooting rhetorically at the messenger who bears unwelcome news is simply a way of avoiding facing reality. That, is the real fantasy. Rom 1 describes an accursed world under Nero as pervert in chief, not a utopia. And Ac 27 describes the consequences of democracy declining into a manipulated, Plato's cave shadow show driven march of folly, not a scheme to build a sound future. (Resemblance to the current US election cycle is NOT coincidental. Cf here.) The point is, we need to stop the march of folly, go back to bedrock reality and world foundations, and then move on to reform. In that process, facing the ugly reality that in this past generation we have become complicit in the worst holocaust in history, the slaughter of posterity, is the central evil of our time protected by the warping of government, law, education, media, policy thought and more. Utterly corrupting us through blood guilt and the hardening of our hearts leading to a mass march of ruinous, endarkened folly. Paul's rebuke to our civilisation is well deserved, and his remedy still obtains:

Eph 4:17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding [--> professing to be wise and enlightened we become fools, endarkened in conscience, mind and life], alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[f] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Words we again need to hear, ponder and heed, if we are to recover to sound health as a civilisation. KF kairosfocus

Kairos, to change the focus a little I would like to ask you a 'moral' question which you, and your side never address. That is, once these babies are born; "What shall we do with them?" Now under socialised medicine, high taxes would place them as wards of the state, and they would 'hopefully' grow to become functioning members of our society. I suppose in your fantasy world ideally, all families that have less than three children would take in a fourth, or fifth and 'love' and 'nurture' these waifs as their 'own' children. How many of these possibly 'murdered' potentiates would you take into your home? Oh, and how many potential abortees do you have living under your wing at present? You must realise that when you bandy about figures such as '800,000,000 murdered', that if they weren't aborted, they would be 'living''? Where would they be living? I would assume that you don't want this riff-raff any where near you? Russia perhaps, living under a bridge? India, where everyone is happy? Or maybe just on the streets of Spokane, as long as they weren't too noisy? Perhaps send them back to Africa, as an apology for past transgressions? Please understand, the system we have is imperfect, it is after all human, but your 'shag and be born', religious nonsense, is religious nonsense. You are not more moral than I, indeed, with your reckless disregard of the outcomes of birth, I would say you are an unfeeling beast. You see, even if your nonsensical ideas, about criminalising abortion were realised in a modern state you are still left with the insurmountable problem of what to do with this extra humanity. What do I suggest? Well, obviously more, deeper, constant, and thorough sex education. Children must, from their earliest chidhood be made to understand their physicality. Then, from the age of puberty onward, they will fully, and with no fear, understand their bodies and use, if they are so inclined, the correct measures to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I am fully aware that this rapes your notion of 'morality'. However the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions of shame, sham, and cover up, (which you so obviously embrace under the euphimism of 'morality') leads to the abortion holocaust you are so impassioned about. Oh dear, education, understanding, compassion, and empathy once again win the day. Hell, Jesus might approve! WJM! I do apologise. However, if you are not a Christian, do you have any flavour at all? rvb8

Pindi, reality not hypothetical. Every day, up to 1,500 to 3,000 unborn babies are slaughtered in the USA alone under false colour of law. Globally, per Guttmacher's numbers, it is 150 - 200,000. PER DAY, on average. With the US as leading nation, setting the pace for the world in this evil. What are you doing about the cynical twisting of law to slaughter the innocents, as by your own declaration, an officer of the courts of justice? Until we can see your judgement as sound on the clear and present holocaust, your judgement cannot be trusted on more complex or remote matters. Life is the first right. And the defence of innocent life is the first test of the law, which is being massively failed in the US and across the earth. Wilberforce tells us the first crucial move is to focus attention on the unspeakable evil, the central evil of an age. Surely, that is the in progress worst holocaust in history. We are starting by facing the truth about our civilisation together in the face of this supreme test. It's pass/fail. So far, fail, with rivers of innocent blood crying up to The Just Judge for vindication. KF PS: On current track, it is far more likely that people being hounded, marginalised, forced out of jobs and busineses, bankrupted to lose their homes, stripped of their children and scapegoated and rounded up will be serious Christians. The deflections away from what is beginning to happen -- and in many countries is already happening to the point of genocide -- speaks volumes. Especially given the lack of responsible focus on dangerous trends in a press that has long since led the charge on creating a false impression that the abortion holocaust is mere choice and reproductive rights threatened by Bible thumping would be theocratic Christo-fascists. kairosfocus

@Pindi #45

You seem to think that you have the one correct answer to very complex philosophical problems that are actually unresolved. The views that you dismiss as naive, illogical, and anti-intellectual, are in fact held by many people who have thought about them as long and as deeply as you, and are no doubt as intelligent as you, but have not come to the same conclusions as you.

I'm not entirely sure what you think I'm saying is "correct". If you reread my comment you will likely notice that it was not framed in terms of which worldview is correct, but referred to the failure of many atheists to hold a robust worldview that is logically consistent with their atheism and materialism. In other words, they accept the foundational premises of atheism and materialism but not the down-stream logical entailments of those foundational principles. And why do they deny the entailments? Often it seems to be because they are simply unaware of them and so have not considered them, and they seem to be largely unaware of how widely these entailments are accepted by academic atheists. Others just seem resolutely determined to reject and deny them without any ability to offer sound counter-arguments. And, of course, some just don't seem to understand the logic of the entailments, but most members of this last group seem to be quickly converted to the second group once they begin to grasp the logic. Of course, if you meant to say that I think I'm correct about the entailments, then yes, I think I'm correct. I think they are logically necessary entailments, and academic atheists widely agree with me.

I personally haven’t sprung up in the wake of Dawkins. I have never read him and am not the least bit interested in what he has to say. I have formulated my views over my 51 years of life so far. I have thought long and hard about these things, and yet I don’t see absurdities. I see strangeness and incomprehensibility, yes but nothing that sames absurd.

Well, I did say that the type of atheists I'm referring to have sprung up in larger numbers since Dawkins and friends. I didn't say that such atheists didn't exist prior to Dawkins.

You are frustrated that people like me don’t get it. Despite the fact that you have exposed me to the truth. But maybe what seems so obvious and true to you, is not in fact. Maybe you are wrong. Or is that not possible?

It's not a question of whether or not it could merely be possible that I might be wrong. It's a question of whether or not there are any good arguments to suggest that I'm wrong, along with all the atheist academics who agree with me. I've yet to see any plausible argument for the reality of intentionality or the dependability of supposedly rational thought under an atheistic / materialist paradigm that holds up to scrutiny ... even from other atheists. Things like intentionality, free-will and objective moral values and duties are not simply thought to be wrong under an atheistic / materialist / evolutionary paradigm, but obviously wrong. And they are thought to be obviously and necessarily wrong by informed atheists as well as by theists. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that there is any meaningful similarity between objective morality and subjective morality is simply delusional with respect to the subject matter. One can deny the existence of objective morality if one wishes, but it is utterly delusional to think that subjective morality is essentially equivalent to objective morality and can offer a similar basis or grounding or justification for our moral actions, just without having to worry about God.

I am comfortable in accepting that I can’t answer many fundamental aspects of life and the universe. I don’t believe anyone can comprehend quantum physics; you just have to accept it for what it is. I don’t believe anyone can comprehend the singularity in the big bang. Or for that matter the inside of an atom. I don’t know whether we have libertarian free will, and if we don’t, how it appears as though we do – what the mechanism is that produces that effect. But could you explain a bit more why you believe that if atheism and materialism are true, the world and us are utterly foreign and incomprehensible absurdities?

Well, Pindi, I'm at a bit of loss for how else I might describe the concept of a world in which I'm currently typing words to you that are ostensibly about a particular subject matter without having any real thoughts that are about the subject matter at hand and producing words that don't actually have any meaning, and no "I" to experience the non-thoughts that I'm not having right now, and no "You" to read these words and either accept or reject them on the basis of rational deliberation. If you have some way to sum up such a world that describes it better than saying it is an incomprehensible absurdity that is utterly foreign to our experience, I'm all ears (but, unfortunately, no mind).

And could you reference some of the academic atheists who recognise these truths?

Umm. Ok. Let's start with comments on the mind, thoughts and free will. I made a note of these last year over the course of just one week because I noticed how often I was stumbling across these kinds of references from various sources. That is not to say that these comments were made during that one week. Only that I kept stumbling across comments of this sort without specifically looking for them and noted the ones I came across during that week. There are VERY many more out there.

[W]ith me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? - Charles Darwin ------------ Thinking about things can’t happen at all. The brain can’t have thoughts about Paris, or about France, or about capitals, or about anything else for that matter. When consciousness convinces you that you, or your mind, or your brain has thoughts about things, it is wrong. - Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality ------------ It is of course obvious that introspection strongly suggests that the brain does store information propositionally, and that therefore it has beliefs and desire with “aboutness” or intentionality. A thoroughgoing naturalism must deny this, I allege. If beliefs are anything they are brain states—physical configurations of matter. But one configuration of matter cannot, in virtue just of its structure, composition, location, or causal relation, be “about” another configuration of matter in the way original intentionality requires .... So, there are no beliefs. - Alex Rosenberg, in a comment on his article The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality (http://onthehuman.org/2009/11/the-disenchanted-naturalists-guide-to-reality/) ------------ [T]he process of natural selection is notoriously unable to deliver true beliefs, only ones that enhance the survival of our genes (and memes, if there are any) in the local environment .... a set of norms’ wining the genetic or memetic fitness-race is no reason for it to be certified to be true, right, or correct. - Alex Rosenberg, in a comment on his article The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality ------------ FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV. . . . The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates. The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. (….) The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak. To see why we make these mistakes and why it’s so hard to avoid them, we need to understand the source of the illusion that thoughts are about stuff. - Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality ------------ It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.] - J B S Haldane, evolutionary theorist ------------ [T]he feeling of being a subject inside your head, a locus of consciousness behind your eyes, a thinker in addition to the flow of thoughts. This form of subjectivity does not survive scrutiny. If you really look for what you are calling “I,” this feeling will disappear. .... The feeling that we call “I”— the sense of being a subject inside the body — is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking. The moment that you truly break the spell of thought, you can notice what consciousness is like between thoughts — that is, prior to the arising of the next one. And consciousness does not feel like a self. It does not feel like “I.” In fact, the feeling of being a self is just another appearance in consciousness .... If you look closely at thoughts themselves, you will notice that they continually arise and pass away. If you look for the thinker of these thoughts, you will not find one. And the sense that you have — “What the hell is Harris talking about? I’m the thinker!”— is just another thought, arising in consciousness. - Sam Harris, Sam Harris Vanishing Self (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/sam-harriss-vanishing-self/) ------------ How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong. The machinery is computing an elaborate story about a magical-seeming property. And there is no way for the brain to determine through introspection that the story is wrong, because introspection always accesses the same incorrect information. You might object that this is a paradox. If awareness is an erroneous impression, isn’t it still an impression? And isn’t an impression a form of awareness? But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device. When we look at a red apple, the brain computes information about color. It also computes information about the self and about a (physically incoherent) property of subjective experience. The brain’s cognitive machinery accesses that interlinked information and derives several conclusions: There is a self, a me; there is a red thing nearby; there is such a thing as subjective experience; and I have an experience of that red thing. Cognition is captive to those internal models. Such a brain would inescapably conclude it has subjective experience. ...the brain [is] computing information about subjective awareness and attributing that property to itself, [even though] the brain doesn’t in fact have this property - Michael Graziano, Princeton Neuroscientist, Are We Really Conscious? (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/opinion/sunday/are-we-really-conscious.html) ------------ [F]ree will is an illusion, brought to us by evolution . . . . [u]nderstanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step toward understanding that ... we’re all puppets - Robert Wright, The Moral Animal ------------ Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly... [including the idea that] human free will is nonexistent... Free will is a disastrous and mean social myth.” - William Provine, Professor of History of Biology, Cornell University, abstract for Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life, talk delivered on Feb. 12, 1998, posted at the Darwin Day Archives, (http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin/Archives/1998ProvineAbstract.htm) ------------ [T]here can be no such thing as free will for the committed scientist... - David Barash, Dennett and the Darwinizing of Free Will, Human Nature Review (March 22, 2003), (http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/dcdennett.html) ------------ [T]he general delusion about free will [is] obvious - Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin's Notebooks [Every action is] determined by heredity, constitutions, example of others or teaching of others - Charles Darwin Thought, however unintelligible it may be, seems as much function of organ, as bile of liver. This view should teach one profound humility; one deserves no credit for anything. Nor ought one to blame others - Charles Darwin [I]t is right punish criminals, but solely to deter others - Charles Darwin

Here are just a few comments about Morality...

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995) ------------------------ God is dead, so why should I be good? The answer is that there are no grounds whatsoever for being good.... Morality is flimflam.... [Morality] works and it has no meaning over and above this.... Morality is just a matter of emotions, like liking ice cream and sex and hating toothache and marking student papers. But it is, and has to be, a funny kind of emotion. It has to pretend that it is not that at all! If we thought that morality was no more than liking or not liking spinach, then pretty quickly it would break down .... very quickly there would be no morality and society would collapse and each and every one of us would suffer. - Michael Ruse (Philosopher of Science), God is dead. Long live morality (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/15/morality-evolution-philosophy) ------------------------ The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says 'Love they neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory - Michael Ruse (Philosopher of Science), Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics ------------------------ First, nihilism can’t condemn Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or those who fomented the Armenian genocide or the Rwandan one. If there is no such thing as “morally forbidden,” then what Mohamed Atta did on September 11, 2001, was not morally forbidden. Of course, it was not permitted either. But still, don’t we want to have grounds to condemn these monsters? Nihilism seems to cut that ground out from under us. Second, if we admit to being nihilists, then people won’t trust us. We won’t be left alone when there is loose change around. We won’t be relied on to be sure small children stay out of trouble. Third, and worst of all, if nihilism gets any traction, society will be destroyed. We will find ourselves back in Thomas Hobbes’s famous state of nature, where “the life of man is solitary, mean, nasty, brutish and short.” Surely, we don’t want to be nihilists if we can possibly avoid it. (Or at least, we don’t want the other people around us to be nihilists.) Scientism can’t avoid nihilism. We need to make the best of it. For our own self-respect, we need to show that nihilism doesn’t have the three problems just mentioned—no grounds to condemn Hitler, lots of reasons for other people to distrust us, and even reasons why no one should trust anyone else. We need to be convinced that these unacceptable outcomes are not ones that atheism and scientism are committed to. Such outcomes would be more than merely a public relations nightmare for scientism. They might prevent us from swallowing nihilism ourselves, and that would start unraveling scientism. To avoid these outcomes, people have been searching for scientifically respectable justification of morality for least a century and a half. The trouble is that over the same 150 years or so, the reasons for nihilism have continued to mount. Both the failure to find an ethics that everyone can agree on and the scientific explanation of the origin and persistence of moral norms have made nihilism more and more plausible while remaining just as unappetizing. - Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist Guide to Reality, ch.5 ------------------------ We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality. - Kai Nielsen (Philosopher, Ethicist), Why Should I Be Moral? ------------------------ AND YET... ------------------------ Whatever sceptical arguments may be brought against our belief that killing the innocent is morally wrong, we are more certain that the killing is morally wrong than that the argument is sound… Torturing an innocent child for the sheer fun of it is morally wrong. Full stop. - Peter Cave (Atheist Philosopher)

Regarding that last quote from Alex Rosenberg above, I made this comment about it in the first article I wrote here:

Rosenberg [makes an] interesting observation. He notes that if people were to recognize the necessary nihilistic implications of scientific materialism and subsequently reject the truth of those implications, materialism, and the scientism it supports, would unravel. I completely agree. People typically like to think that their worldview is in some way logically coherent, but if the premises underlying their worldview lead inevitably to conclusions that they strongly believe are false, contrary to the evidence of their experience, and in conflict with other basic beliefs they hold more strongly and believe are more warranted, then the only reasonable course of action is to accept that one or more of the premises underlying their worldview must be false.

Rosenberg was essentially saying the same thing I did when I said in #44:

Academic atheists widely recognize these truths, but the average internet atheist seems immune to these realities … perhaps because they realize that if they let these truths sink in then they would find it impossible to continue holding to their naive and ultimately anti-intellectual brand of atheism.

If you want to read my thoughts (or those brain states with no inherent meaning that not-me mistakes for thoughts) on objective morality in more depth you can check out the first two articles I wrote here: DOES IT MATTER WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT MORALITY? Reply To An Argument Against Objective Morality: When Words Lose All Meaning Unfortunately, I have precious little time for engagement here lately. Take care, HeKS HeKS

As to your questions, no I wouldn't participate in the formation of a new law that permitted minor sex and Jew killing. A lawyers obligations to his or her client does have limits. Pindi

Sorry, I overcomplicated it. Forget Christians. The new president is simply rounding up all Jews, gays, and homosexuals. They are taken by the millions to death camps in the desert. It's a question about what the average person would do in the event of a real holocaust. Pindi

Pindi @94, I see you're still not answering the questions I've posed to you, and now you expect me to answer the ones you pose to me? I'm not that familiar with Christian beliefs. I imagine it depends on what kind of Christian one is, what their specific tenets are. Some Christians I suppose would do things like hide people from the authorities or help smuggle them out of the country. Others might be compelled by their beliefs to damage property. This follows in the dradition of those who hid Jews from Nazis in Germany and those who ran the underground railroad in the USA, as well as those who work to smuggle women and children out of Islamic areas now. I don't think there are a lot of Christian branches that endorse violence or destruction of property. I don't think you really understand the concept of moral responsibility under some objective systems. I think something Christians and I probably have in common which you might be misunderstanding is that the harm and the evil which we are obligated to attempt to stop is not really the harm that is being visited upon the unborn who get to leave life in a very innocent state (probably avoiding a lot more harm over the course of a life than the few seconds of suffering they endure as a result of the abortion), but rather the much greater harm that the abortion is doing to the living who chose to commit or facilitate the act, and to the society at large that endorses such acts. So, while life is sacred, it's not the innocent who are going to suffer the consequences of the act as much as the living, and that is really what moral action is about in these cases - not to stop evil from operating in the world, but to try to convince others not to choose evil and help prevent them from pursuing their self-destructive course. Christians, I think, resign themselves to the fact that the world is not perfect and is largely a vale of tears. We are all going to suffer from evil here. There is no putting an end to it; there is only doing the best one can to help others to understand the path towards the good. And to that end, debating on sites like this, passing out materials, writing books, offering help and services, etc., is about the best that can be done. Sure, there are some cases where one must physically intervene, but that doesn't mean you have to kill people or blow things up; it may just mean putting yourself between evil and the innocent and sacrificing your own comfort or even your own life. I don't know, really, what you expect Christians to do that they aren't already doing, or why you think they ought to be doing more? William J Murray

Wjm, it was a hypothetical example. Remember what that is? On abortion being compared to the holocaust. Hypothetical for everyone. A right wing racist becomes president. On obtaining office he brings in new laws saying everyone who is not Christian will be deported. Also all non white's and gay people. After this the police start rounding up all these people and putting them in big camps in the desert. Then it is decided deportation is too expensive and the camps are converted to death camps and the killing starts. Let's say you are a Christian white person. Do you spend time debating the rights and wrongs of this on the Internet with the supporters of this president? Do you exchange philosophical arguments about Plato and morality? Or do you perhaps take some other steps? Pindi

subjective : influenced by or based on personal beliefs or feelings, rather than based on facts . Given materialism, beliefs and feelings are the products of particles in motion over which the person has no control. So, in what sense are they "personal"? And if the person — whatever that means under materialism — has no control over his behavior, in what sense is it meaningful to discuss morality; "subjective" or objective? Freedom of choice is a prerequisite to morality. If people don’t have freedom of choice they cannot be accountable for their actions and morality does not exist. A person must be free from physics and chemistry or a “moral” choice is no different than a stream flowing through a gully.

1. If determinism is true, then all our actions and thoughts are consequences of events and laws of nature in the remote past before we were born. 2. We have no control over circumstances that existed in the remote past before we were born, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature. 3. If A causes B, and we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B. Therefore 4. If determinism is true, then we have no control over our own actions and thoughts. Therefore, assuming that responsibility requires control, 5. If determinism is true, then we are not responsible for anything we do or think. Therefore, assuming that freedom entails responsibility, 6. If determinism is true, then we are not free, which is to say that every form of compatibilism is false. [ Bill Vallicella ]

Origenes

Pindi, I thought it might help you to cite Cicero in De Legibus on the nature of law:

http://www.nlnrac.org/classical/cicero/documents/de-legibus . . . M: And indeed correctly. For recognize that in no subject of argument are more honorable things brought into the open: what nature has granted to a human being, how many of the best things the human mind encompasses, what service we have been born for and brought into light to perform and accomplish, what is the connection among human beings, and what natural fellowship there is among them. When these things have been explained, the source of laws and right can be discovered. [17] A: So you don’t think that the discipline of law should be drawn from the praetor’s edict, as many do now, or from the Twelve Tables [archaic set of basic Roman laws], as earlier men did, but from within the profoundest philosophy? M: In fact, Pomponius, in this conversation we are not seeking how to safeguard interests in law [ius], or how to respond to each consultation. That thing may be a great matter, and it is, which formerly was undertaken by many famous men and is now undertaken by one man of the highest authority and knowledge [Servius Sulpicius]. But in this debate we must embrace the entire cause of universal right and laws, so that what we call civil law [ius] may be confined to a certain small, narrow place. We must explain the nature of law [ius], and this must be traced from human nature. We must consider laws by which cities ought to be ruled. Then we must treat the laws [ius] and orders of peoples that have been composed and written, in which what are called the civil laws [ius] of our people will not be hidden. [18] Q: Truly, brother, you trace deeply and, as is proper, from the fountain head of what we are asking about. Those who hand down the civil law [ius] differently are handing down not so much ways of justice as ways of litigating. M: That is not so, Quintus: ignorance of the law [ius] is conducive to more lawsuits than knowledge of it. But this later; now let us see the beginnings of law [ius]. Therefore, it has pleased highly educated men to commence with law—probably correctly, provided that, as the same men define it, law is highest reason, implanted in nature, which orders those things that ought to be done and prohibits the opposite. The same reason is law when it has been strengthened and fully developed in the human mind. [19] And so they think that law is prudence, the effect of which is to order persons to act correctly and to forbid them to transgress. They also think that this thing has been called [from] the Greek name for “granting to each his own,” whereas I think it comes from our word for “choosing.” As they put the effect of fairness into law, we put the effect of choice into it. Nevertheless, each one is appropriate to law. But if it is thus correctly said, as indeed it mostly and usually seems to me, the beginning of right should be drawn from law. For this is a force of nature; this is the mind and reason of the prudent man; this is the rule of right and wrong. But since our entire speech is for the people’s business, sometimes it will be necessary to speak popularly and to call that a law which, when written, consecrates what it wants by either ordering [or forbidding], as the crowd calls it. In fact let us take the beginning of establishing right from the highest law, which was born before any law was written for generations in common [corrupt text here] or before a city was established at all . . .

A point of beginnings. Law as the rule of justice in light of our evident nature, evident to the rational, responsibly free, which properly guides conduct. Which is then more or less well echoed in our understanding and legislation or rulings, precedents etc. Whence, the general respect for the corpus of decisions rendered across time as embodying more or less a working replica. But, open to genuine reform, not the mere push and pull of might and manipulation make ‘right.’ Which Plato warned against so sternly in The Laws Bk X. KF kairosfocus

JAD, some come here for discussion. Others out of intent to achieve message dominance, others, to make sure their views are in every UD thread. Some hope to divert threads and discredit those who stand up for ID. Some see this as entertainment. Some are simply angry. Others are stalking. The first are the ones with whom we can have a serious discussion. KF kairosfocus

Barry began this blog post by writing, “Sometimes a materialist will post a comment, and I will read it and then just sit there with my mouth literally agape, wondering at the sheer stupidity on display.” But are the atheists who are making the inane arguments here really that stupid? Or are they just very dishonest and disingenuous? I would argue that it is the latter. I think they believe they are right simply because of who they are. (And maybe also because they too lazy to really think through a problem and consider alternative viewpoints.) Therefore anyone who disagrees with them is automatically stupid and wrong. So it doesn’t matter one way or the other if they come across being stupid. This is the kind of smug condescending attitude that the ancient Greeks referred to as hubris. Of course that raises the question, why do they bother to show up on site like this at all? Anyone have any thoughts about that? However this brings up the other problem I have run into time and time again on the internet: How can you have a meaningful discussion or debate with someone who describes himself as a moral subjectivist? If you can’t establish a shared common standard of truthfulness, how can you reason with them in good faith? By definition a subjectivist has to reject such standard because it would be an “objective” standard. So in other words, how can you trust them to be truthful since truthfulness, at least for them, doesn’t really exist? john_a_designer

“Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.” --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe We'll repeat the truth to you Pindi. 2+2=4, ending tiny human's life is wrong, the Earth is round, etc Eugen

Pnidi said:

StelhenB, I don’t believe abortion is the slaughter of babies.

Of course it is. What else could it be? It is the killing of unborn human babies. If you can't even accept that scientific fact and say it flat out, you're hiding from something factual because you can't directly face what it is you are supporting. William J Murray

Pindi asks:

Wjm, you agree ice cream preferences are subjective right? So why continue to buy the type you like? Why not just buy a random flavor each time?

I actually never buy my favorite kind of ice cream because I rarely eat ice cream and my wife's favorite is vanilla, so that is what I buy because I like to make her happy. The last ice cream I ate was something non-chocolate that my daughter-in-law used in making a dessert. If the country stopped making chocolate ice cream, I wouldn't move to a country that still offered it.

Just because the law and morals are subjective why should I choose a course that doesn’t accord with my view of what is right?

Because "what is right", under your worldview, is just a matter of personal preference. If you personally prefer blondes, would you choose not to represent brunettes? If you personally prefer tall people, would you choose to not represent short people? If you are willing to leave the country over personal preference differences, and apparently (seeing as you refuse to answer these questions) would not passionately argue that the law should allow sex with minors or should allow the murder of Jews if it served the best interest of your clients, then you are revealing an obvious, functional, factual, categorical difference between your "subjective" moral views and other subjective, personal preferences. Pindi: is it moral to force others to obey personal preferences? Is it moral to intervene in the personal preference affairs of others? If you lived in a society you could not leave and turning in Jews for termination was the law of the land, would you set your personal preference aside and turn in Jews? You see, it one faces these hypotheticals in the spirit not of defending their own views but in the spirit of critically examining them, such questions would be welcome and direct answers would be forthcoming.

You are getting yourself all mixed up about how the law works. That’s Ok, it’s a complex subject.

No, Pindi, you're mistaking a philosophical debate about the assumed basis of law and morals, and about the ramifications of a subjectivist basis for moral and legal views, for some kind of argument about how the law works. I understand the basic principles of legal representation (which includes vigorous representation) and its adversarial nature. The questions I ask are in pursuit of exploring your subjectivist perspective, not exploring the structure of the legal system. William J Murray

rvb8 @81 said:

WJM, would answer it is that we have lost our moral compass. ..... Unless of course you would like to follow the abortion laws of Saudi Arabia, or shouls I say WJM’s and Kairosfocus’s abortion free paradise?

Abortion & Euthanasia: Why I’m All For Both by William J. Murray. You should really try to remember, rvb8, that I'm not a Christian. That might prevent you from saying things that are demonstrably false. William J Murray

PS: National Pledge of my homeland, solemnly recited at school assembly day by day, week by week in my youth . . . a pledge that in key part answers to Wiberforce, in the voice of we who descend from those he fought to set free:

Jamaica's National Pledge Before God and all mankind, I pledge the love and loyalty of my heart, the wisdom and courage of my mind, the strength and vigour of my body, in the service of my fellow citizens; I promise to stand up for Justice, Brotherhood and Peace, to work diligently and creatively, to think generously and honestly, so that Jamaica may, under God, increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare of the whole human race.

Yes, Jamaica is a work in progress (and it is a land where 2/3rds of us are abroad in one form or another so the international character of the pledge is particularly relevant), but -- though small in the scheme of things -- it is a leading nation in a region that even now is rising up to heed the call to stand for our civilisation and its godly heritage in a world gone demonically mad. kairosfocus

Pindi (attn RVB8), With all due respect, it is clear that you are unfamiliar with the work of reformers as opposed to unbalanced radicals and terrorists. I will choose a key case. After his conversion, William Wilberforce pondered leaving Parliament. Instead, he sought counsel and came to the conclusion he should become a voice of conscience and leader of reforms. He spent his life in argument, in working with researchers, in sponsoring and supporting movements of reform and in enduring decades of vicious slander. In the end, he won, and my ancestors were free. This is written on his tombstone in Westminster Abbey, a grave that is next to that of Pitt, and is in that Abbey by order of Parliament:

TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE (BORN IN HULL AUGUST 24th 1759, DIED IN LONDON JULY 29th 1833;) FOR NEARLY HALF A CENTURY A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AND, FOR SIX PARLIAMENTS DURING THAT PERIOD, ONE OF THE TWO REPRESENTATIVES FOR YORKSHIRE. IN AN AGE AND COUNTRY FERTILE IN GREAT AND GOOD MEN, HE WAS AMONG THE FOREMOST OF THOSE WHO FIXED THE CHARACTER OF THEIR TIMES; BECAUSE TO HIGH AND VARIOUS TALENTS, TO WARM BENEVOLENCE, AND TO UNIVERSAL CANDOUR, HE ADDED THE ABIDING ELOQUENCE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. EMINENT AS HE WAS IN EVERY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC LABOUR, AND A LEADER IN EVERY WORK OF CHARITY, WHETHER TO RELIEVE THE TEMPORAL OR THE SPIRITUAL WANTS OF HIS FELLOW-MEN, HIS NAME WILL EVER BE SPECIALLY IDENTIFIED WITH THOSE EXERTIONS WHICH, BY THE BLESSING OF GOD, REMOVED FROM ENGLAND THE GUILT OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE, AND PREPARED THE WAY FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN EVERY COLONY OF THE EMPIRE: IN THE PROSECUTION OF THESE OBJECTS HE RELIED, NOT IN VAIN, ON GOD; BUT IN THE PROGRESS HE WAS CALLED TO ENDURE GREAT OBLOQUY AND GREAT OPPOSITION: HE OUTLIVED, HOWEVER, ALL ENMITY; AND IN THE EVENING OF HIS DAYS, WITHDREW FROM PUBLIC LIFE AND PUBLIC OBSERVATION TO THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY. YET HE DIED NOT UNNOTICED OR FORGOTTEN BY HIS COUNTRY: THE PEERS AND COMMONS OF ENGLAND, WITH THE LORD CHANCELLOR AND THE SPEAKER AT THEIR HEAD, IN SOLEMN PROCESSION FROM THEIR RESPECTIVE HOUSES, CARRIED HIM TO HIS FITTING PLACE AMONG THE MIGHTY DEAD AROUND, HERE TO REPOSE: TILL, THROUGH THE MERITS OF JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY REDEEMER AND SAVIOUR, (WHOM, IN HIS LIFE AND IN HIS WRITINGS HE HAD DESIRED TO GLORIFY,) HE SHALL RISE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.

A lesson. And the lives of our crucified and risen Saviour, his apostles and the martyrs and confessors who followed down to today (as BA77 reminds us just above) are a further lesson. The- witness- of- the- truth- and- call- to- sound- reformation is the fundamental battle. The one at the crux of the battle for the soul of our civilisation, from which all the other issues stem. The central keep of Sauron that must by God's grace fall. That is why so many caught up in the deceptions, agendas and fashionable sins of a day spend so much effort in suppressing the truth and smearing those who stand up for the unwelcome, costly truth. In this case, it is quite clear from what you have passed by in studious silence, that you have no cogent, morally defensible answer to the ongoing abortion holocaust that in 40 years has mounted up to 800+ MILLION innocents destroyed under false colour of law tainted by incoherent and false worldviews and the agendas that flow from them into ruinous marches of folly for our civilisation. A civilisation so endarkened that it is literally destroying its future as we speak. And, no surprise, as blood guilt is even more corrupting than money-lust, perverted passions and deceitful indoctrination. For, it eats out conscience and inflicts such pain on the conscience that those thereby directly tainted or tainted as enablers must spend ever so much psychic energy on benumbing conscience to ease the pain. But conscience is the God-given moral compass and governor within, the flickering candle of the Lord that enlightens and enables us to grow in responsible, rational freedom and to persevere, however stumblingly, in the path of virtue. Virtue, now seems an almost alien word to our ears. So far have we fallen, so far have we come on a conscience benumbed, en-darkened stubborn march of folly leading to ruin. Let us hear the voice of the Apostle to the Nations, writing to a Rome where the demonically deranged Nero was pervert and sinner in chief:

Rom 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking[a] and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality . . . . 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. [ESV]

Yes, the South wind has been blowing, but on the horizon we now see the leaden clouds of a typhoon-force early nor'easter, bearing down on us. It is too late for ship, cargo and hoped for selfish gain, but perhaps God in grace will give us salvation of souls and shipwreck that will allow a fresh start rather than the utter foundering of our civilisation (which, frankly, would be our just dessert). And yes, there is only one cure for cancerous blood guilt: the grace of God occasioned by the willing sacrifice of the Lamb of God, our Substitute, Saviour, risen Lord and the pioneer of a Faith that looks for a City whose builder and maker is God. In the end, it is only the truly heavenly minded who will do us serious earthly good. Which, is precisely why such unwelcome truths and unwelcome witnesses and calls to reform are predictably met with such patently demonic fury and slander. (Or, have we forgotten how mad Nero, to shift suspicion from himself, falsely accused Christians of treasonous arson and put ever so many to death by judicial murder; for, he was chief magistrate of Rome? Have we forgotten the centuries of lying whispers about alleged cannibalism, incest and secret orgies that were used to justify the slaughter of ever so many peaceful witnesses to the truth of the gospel? That the past 100 years have actually seen the bloodiest persecutions of all, energised by false ideologies, false accusations and benumbed consciences that imagine that from such evils good can come? How else, then, can we not see the parallel in the slaughter of 800 millions and more in the womb?) No, we are not shut up to enabling evil in the form of the worst holocaust in history, or becoming evil ourselves in attempts to stop it. The very suggestion that that false choice is the case, is part of the endarkenment that is on us because of our hardness of heart, addiction to evils and benumbed consciences. Let us repent. Then, let us read with understanding and awakened conscience, the short epistle, of Paul to Philemon regarding manumission of Onesimus (a runaway who apparently had stolen a considerable sum) that has in it the source of the motto of the antislavery society: am I not a man, and a brother? And again (as enslaved women faced even worse horrors due to dark passions of wicked men) am I not a woman and a sister? To which, we say on the behalf of the child in the most dangerous, most bloody battlefield in the world today on which war is being waged against our future with weapons of mass deception under false colour of law and dark medicine [a profession supposedly of healing that is betraying its duty] -- the womb: am I not your son or your daughter? Let us pray for the grace to be deeply ashamed and penitent. For through such pain, we have hope of redemption. Let us repent. KF kairosfocus

So our activism against abortion within a legal framework is not realty activist enough? The only form of activism that counts is terrorism or extremism? Really? Jaw dropping stupid things materialists say..... Andre

Pindi

StelhenB, I don’t believe abortion is the slaughter of babies.

Do you mean that dismembering them or scalding them to death is not really slaughtering them, or do you mean that that a fetus is not really a baby? What if I said an abortion is the murder of an innocent fetus who has just as much of a right to live as you? Would that language raise your consciousness? In keeping with that point, are you now prepared to tell us where rights come from? You have been very silent on that subject even though you indicated that you are brimming with ideas. Does everyone have a basic right to live? Or is it the case that only those whom you and the state approve of should rate that privilege?

And nor do you I assume or you would be doing more than sitting around writing about it on a blog.

Does this mean that you have now changed your mind and that you are confident that I have a free will? Or are you suggesting that I should assert the free will that I don't have and start a revolution to prove my pro-life credentials? Are my public protests and financial gifts meaningless gestures? You have assumed, wrongly, that I don't do more than write about abortion, which is very presumptuous on your part. Meanwhile, I have never met an atheist who has actually witnessed the after effects of an abortion or even gazed on a picture of a mutilated fetus. Have you? I seriously doubt it. If you had, you would not write such silly things as "I don't believe that an abortion is the slaughter of babies." The atheist barbarians who rule our culture will not allow us to show a picture of an abortion on television. They know that doing so would immediately bring abortion to an end. I gather that you support this kind of suppression. StephenB

Pindi's observation that the outrage at abortion felt on this site is largely cosmetic is demonstrably true. If it was the crime many of you claim then the only objectively moral response would be to stop it at any expense. The man who murdered Barnard Slepian, and those who bombed the Birmingham Al., abortion clinic, should be objective role models. Why is their objective morality example not followed by those here? Any surviving victim, or resistance worker alive today who was known for killing guards, and officials of the true holocaust are lauded today as heroes. WJM, would answer it is that we have lost our moral compass. That is absurd because we know for a fact that as long as humans have been having sex, they have been finding new, and often dangerous methods to abort the unwanted pregnancy. I believe abortion should be thought about deeply, but that that choice must be free, and up to the mother and her physician alone, and safely available. Unless of course you would like to follow the abortion laws of Saudi Arabia, or shouls I say WJM's and Kairosfocus's abortion free paradise? rvb8

Yeah... abortion is apparently not the slaughter of babies.... http://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/13653568345_9e75f21725_b.jpg http://www.abortioninstruments.com/images/V3/abortion-photos/zoom/D-&--E-027.jpg Jaw dropping stupid things materialists say...... Andre

StelhenB, I don't believe abortion is the slaughter of babies. And nor do you I assume or you would be doing more than sitting around writing about it on a blog. Pindi

Wjm, you agree ice cream preferences are subjective right? So why continue to buy the type you like? Why not just buy a random flavor each time? Just because the law and morals are subjective why should I choose a course that doesn't accord with my view of what is right? You are getting yourself all mixed up about how the law works. That's Ok, it's a complex subject. Just heading out for dinner so don't have time to explain it to you now. Will try and get a chance over the weekend. Pindi

Pindi said:

I’m not actually a criminal lawyer.but the scenario you present doesn’t have any basis in reality.

One of the purposes of presenting hypothetical situations is to explore the logical consequences of one's views. What do you mean "no basis in reality"? In some real places and times in the world Jews were/are legally considered less than human and it was/is legal to have sex with minors.

It would be impossible to interpret the law in my country to allow sex with minors or killing Jews.

Hold on a minute, Pindi. Earlier you said:

When I am arguing with another lawyer or a judge I am arguing (passionately) my opinion about what the law should be in the given situation. It’s entirely subjective.

Advocating for what a law should be is not the same as limiting oneself to merely interpreting current laws.

If those things were legal in my country, I would not be living here.

But that is non-responsive to the hypothetical, which is if your client's interest was best served by arguing that the law concerning minors should be that it is okay to have sex with minors, or that the law with respect to murder should not include Jews, would you passionately argue for those things, regardless of the effect such a legal precedent would have?

As I said, I’m not a criminal lawyer, but people often say things about defence lawyers like – “how could you defend that paedophile scum”. Well, the answer is, every good lawyer believes in and supports the rule of law. It is not our job to judge people accused of crimes, that is the job of the judge. Our job is to ensure the accused person has the best representation we can provide.

Here you have an opportunity, through facing and responding to criticisms of your stated position, to explore how rationally consistent it is, both internally and with your actual behavior. IOW, you have the opportunity for actual rational argument in defending your views. Will you engage? You claim that both law and morality are "entirely subjective"; if this is true, then why not passionately represent your client's interests as I have suggested? If such things are entirely subjective, why would you leave the country? Why not just adopt the new laws and change your views on such things and continue with your job in that country? William J Murray

Pindu to Kairosfocus:

KS, neither you, nor anyone else here, believes abortion is akin to the holocaust. If you did, you would (if you had any backbone) be engaged in overthrowing your government, or at the very least living in self-imposed exile in a country where abortion was not legal.

That's easy for you to say since your dead conscience is easily reconciled with the barbaric slaughter of innocent babies. Yet you dare to criticize those who respond to the their silent screams for not doing what you say you would do if you had a conscience. Truly bizarre. Well, at least you have temporarily abandoned your previous doubts about the existence of free will. Or were you thinking that people who don't have free will can start a revolution? This, ladies and gentlemen, is a good example of how atheism compromises one's ability to reason in the abstract. Without a grounding in objective truth, the individual is left to wallow in intellectual quicksand. StephenB

kf: Kayla Mueller in Captivity: Courage, Selflessness as She Defended Christian Faith to ISIS Executioner 'Jihadi John' http://abcnews.go.com/International/kayla-mueller-captivity-courage-selflessness-defended-christian-faith/story?id=41626763 bornagain77

JAD, credible eyewitness testimony, here of close acquaintances and possibly relatives. (Similar to David, many of the close people were relatives.) That is evidence of highest quality. There was also serious circumstantial evidence, the otherwise inexplicably notoriously empty tomb. Thomas was playing hyperskeptic, and Jesus gently but firmly corrected him. Tradition has it, he died a martyr among the Hindus, a founder of the church that bears his name. KF kairosfocus

KF @ #61,

JAD, if we are to take Thomas Didymus seriously, we are responsible to respond to credible witnesses and circumstantial evidence.

Ironically, I have seen some atheists on other sites try to use the doubting Thomas passage (John 20:24-29) to argue that faith is “belief without evidence.” https://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/doubting-thomas-was-right-apportion-belief-to-the-evidence-no-evidence-no-resurrection-belief/ However, that argument fails logic 101. While Thomas himself was not an initial eye witness of Jesus’ post resurrection appearance, ten of the other twelve apostles were. Eyewitness testimony is evidence. Think what would happen if we applied this kind of naive skeptic's logic in our modern society. It would be impossible to convict anyone of a crime. Jurors themselves don’t need to be eye witnesses of a crime to consider the eye witness testimony of those who were witnesses as evidence. Jesus was not saying that eye witness testimony of his resurrection should be disregarded. “29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” john_a_designer

PPS: The other anthem -- the school song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_GnaIUmok kairosfocus

Pindi, thank you for clarifying your position. Unfortunately, it is that the mass slaughter of 800+ million unquestionably innocent, unquestionably human beings who happen to not yet be born, under false colour of law does not qualify as comparable to the holocaust. In so arguing, you have shown precisely the sort of corrupting influence of blood-guilt and bad worldview start points that we have spoken of, and where they point for our civilisation. In short, inadvertently [but in the end for the good], you have underscored the force of the concerns above. The remaining question is whether enough of us can wake up in good time to turn back the march of ruinous folly before it is too late. I do not know if you are inclined to pray, but you should consider praying for a miracle of rescue for our civilisation. As for me, that I am here 40 years later is already answer to prayer by way of miracles. So, I believe there is hope and that it is time for a godly remnant to arise in the face of where we are headed. I pray that you will wake up and join us before it is too late. KF PS: I am not in the US. And, the US seems to be leading in falling apart, near as I can see. It is no secret on whose side I would fight were Jews or any other groups subject to mass murder or marginalisation, dehumanisation to rob them of protection of law and scapegoating, the very same that I am now fighting on [anti-fascism being literally my first political view, acquired directly from my mother]. Yes, for the sake of posterity subjected to open season, no limits as though our own future were vermin to be eradicated. And SB, WJM, BA, Mrs O'Leary and others from UD would be people I could trust to stand by my side in the face of fearsome odds. As, they have done for years. PPS: Ancestral blood calls out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiyLuv3GSs4 and again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIhvOBQB_M kairosfocus

Pindi "the scenario you present doesn’t have any basis in reality" That is why it was presented to you as a hypothetical rather than as an actual case. And you dodged the hypothetical. Which was entirely predictable. Barry Arrington

KS, neither you, nor anyone else here, believes abortion is akin to the holocaust. If you did, you would (if you had any backbone) be engaged in overthrowing your government, or at the very least living in self-imposed exile in a country where abortion was not legal. Let's say instead Jews were being rounded up in the millions in the US and killed. Would you not react a little stronger than you are about abortion? Pindi

Hi WJM, No I wasn't using the reference to justify my ideological position. I was using it make my point that HeKS could maybe consider the possibility that despite his certainty as to the "truth", he could be wrong. I'm not actually a criminal lawyer.but the scenario you present doesn't have any basis in reality. It would be impossible to interpret the law in my country to allow sex with minors or killing Jews. If those things were legal in my country, I would not be living here. As I said, I'm not a criminal lawyer, but people often say things about defence lawyers like - "how could you defend that paedophile scum". Well, the answer is, every good lawyer believes in and supports the rule of law. It is not our job to judge people accused of crimes, that is the job of the judge. Our job is to ensure the accused person has the best representation we can provide. Pindi

Pindi

You have expressed one theory of the rule of law. There are many others. The common theory is that it was invented to keep the power of kings at bay. In the common law tradition (as it was taught to me) it is traced back to 1066 when the Norman conquest occurred in England.

Again, you do not seem to grasp the rule of law and its relationship to objective morality. The point of the natural law is that humans are to follow it, not to invent one of their own. The moral law informs human behavior; human behavior does not inform the moral law.

I haven’t said that I don’t believe in free will. It is an unanswered question for me.

If you don't believe in the natural moral law, as is clear, then you don't believe in objective morality or the principle of objective justice. If you don't believe in the principles of objective justice, which are the standards of right and wrong behavior, then you don't believe in free will, which is ordered to the standards of right and wrong. In large part, atheists do not know what they believe. They just think they do. In your case, for example, you think that you believe in the rule of law, but you really do not. You are not sure that humans have free will, yet your philosophy rules it out apriori. And, of course, you have not explained how you can live with a judge who enters a verdict of "guilty as charged." I trust that you consider yourself unqualified to prosecute guilty criminals and limit your practice to defending those whose free will is in question.

I do care greatly about where rights come from. I just don’t share your view on where they come from.

You mean you care so much about where rights come from that you didn't disclose your opinion about it before and you don't care to do so now? That doesn't read like a high level of concern to me.

But yes, our side is winning, and the world is a better place for it. I would not like to be a citizen back in the day when the Church controlled everything, including the legal system.

The West is dying. All the cultural indicators confirm the point. If you don't know that, then you have not been paying attention. StephenB

Pindi, start with the now global abortion holocaust under false colour of law. Take Guttmacher's 50 mn a year number, times 40 years, then times a half and slice off 20%. What number do you get? Given that horror, explain to us how today's version of law, rights, and the like answers to the charge that we have forgotten God as ground of the good and of justice (so also of rights and duties), and have become utterly drunk and callous on blood guilt. Then, explain away what the twisting of the state to sustain that slaughter has done to any number of key stabilising institutions. Toss in a dash of ongoing demographic collapse as to be explained. Then, come back to us on grounding the civil peace of justice on evolutionary materialistic scientism that struggles to avoid treating the conscious self as an illusion, much less responsible rational freedom. Tell us why we should not agree with Plato that such schemes end up in might and manipulation driving 'right,' 'truth,' 'law,' 'rights,' 'justice' etc. Further explain why we should not conclude: march of ruinous folly. KF kairosfocus

Does that constitute a “deferment to vague authority” in your book, or does HeKS get a pass?

Reference to authority neither makes or rebuts an argument. HeKS wasn't using that reference to make or rebut anyone's argument, but rather in a discussion directed at me about the nature of online atheists vs academics. You, however, were using the reference as if it justifies your ideological position.

Exactly, you got it in one. It would be gross breach of my legal and ethical obligations as a lawyer to not make the best case for my client no matter what my personal beliefs. There you go, you learnt something today about the law.

So, if it was possible for you to get your client off in such a manner that sets a legal precedent precedent via passionate representation which would establish sex with minors or killing Jews as legal activities, that is what you would do. Correct? Regardless of how you actually felt about having sex with minors or killing Jews? Because, you know, you might lose your job if you did otherwise. Correct? Let me ask you something: which would be more important to you: your job, or not setting such a legal precedent? William J Murray

StephenB, Sorry, I don't have time to respond in depth right now. A couple of points. You have expressed one theory of the rule of law. There are many others. The common theory is that it was invented to keep the power of kings at bay. In the common law tradition (as it was taught to me) it is traced back to 1066 when the Norman conquest occurred in England. I haven't said that I don't believe in free will. It is an unanswered question for me. And yes, the implications in criminal justice are great. I do care greatly about where rights come from. I just don't share your view on where they come from. "Any atheist lawyer is, by definition, an enemy of justice and, by implication, an enemy of the people. Make no mistake: to say that there is no such thing as the natural moral law is to be an enemy of justice. But be of good cheer. Your side is winning and the barbarians are in control of all the institutions that matter. Alas, having lost our understanding of what really matters, we seem to have gone beyond the tipping point." This is hyperbole. But yes, our side is winning, and the world is a better place for it. I would not like to be a citizen back in the day when the Church controlled everything, including the legal system. Benefit of clergy? Now there is an abandonment of the rule of law. Pindi

WJM, god you can be tedious. And ignorant. Regarding my "deferment to vague authority", this is what I was responding to from HeKS: "Academic atheists widely recognize these truths, but the average internet atheist seems immune to these realities" Does that constitute a "deferment to vague authority" in your book, or does HeKS get a pass? "So, if the law is entirely subjective, one would assume that, representing different different clients in different cases, Pindi would argue for law X in one case if it benefitted his client, and passionately against law X if it benefited the other client". Exactly, you got it in one. It would be gross breach of my legal and ethical obligations as a lawyer to not make the best case for my client no matter what my personal beliefs. There you go, you learnt something today about the law. Pindi

Pindi, It is impossible to build a well-ordered society on your philosophy. Just to give you one example, let’s consider your own field and reflect on how atheism has corrupted the law and rendered you personally incapable of judging human behavior. The first order of business is to recognize that, as a secularist attorney, you have no way of discerning a just law from an unjust law. You claim to have given this subject much thought, but I find no evidence to support that claim. For example, you say that “the rule of law if one of the most effective mechanisms we have even invented at keeping chaos and collapse at bay.” Why, then, do you promote lawlessness by undermining the rule of law and its foundations. Obviously, you are unaware that the rule of law, insofar as a precious sliver of it remains, is based solely on the “Laws of Nature,” and Nature’s God,” as Jefferson put it. The natural law defines (or at least once defined) the principles that inform the civil law, which is your territory and your responsibility. The rule of law works only because the natural law provides an objective standard of truth that can provide moral direction for lawmakers and citizens. It is understood (at least it was originally understood before people like you exerted their influence) that the people are capable of governing themselves because they know the difference between right and wrong and--get this--because their free will allows them to act in accordance with the natural moral law. We are a free people not because we want to be. People have always wanted to be free, usually to no avail. We are free because we can make a case for freedom: We deserve to be free because our faculty of free will qualifies us to govern ourselves and pursue our own self interests--if we can do so in the context of that same moral law. Thus, we don't need the top-down direction of tyrants or kings That is why your entire perspective is both irrational and immoral. On the one hand, you don’t believe in free will; on the other hand, the legal system of which you are a part shouts free will with every utterance. Otherwise, such notions as “guilty as charged” or “not guilty by reason of insanity” would be absurd. On the one hand, you defend rights, but on the other hand, you obviously don’t know and care less about where rights come from or why we even have them. We have rights only because we are entitled to them by virtue of our “inherent dignity” as morally-capable human persons who are made in the image and likeness of God. We have just laws based on the natural law (not arbitrary laws designed by secularists) to protect our God-given rights and because we cannot exercise them in a lawless society. Any atheist lawyer is, by definition, an enemy of justice and, by implication, an enemy of the people. Make no mistake: to say that there is no such thing as the natural moral law is to be an enemy of justice. But be of good cheer. Your side is winning and the barbarians are in control of all the institutions that matter. Alas, having lost our understanding of what really matters, we seem to have gone beyond the tipping point. A good society, after all, is one in which it is easy to be good and hard to be bad; a bad society is one in which it is easy to be bad and hard to be good. Thanks to people like you, we now live in a bad society; a majority our citizens can no longer differentiate between freedom and license. Accordingly, we are beginning to punish moral behavior and reward immoral behavior. We are in chaos because most of our citizens define justice as what is good for themselves and their social group and have no regard for the common good, which was always the standard that our Founding Fathers embraced. Because we are divided, tyranny is on the way and secularists like you have made it happen. Congratulations. StephenB

JAD, if we are to take Thomas Didymus seriously, we are responsible to respond to credible witnesses and circumstantial evidence. KF kairosfocus

I got kicked out of the edit function early. The last part of the 1st paragraph should read: "Why would it or should it? It is not their experience." john_a_designer

A couple years ago I almost lost my life because of cancer. It was then while I was walking “through the valley of the shadow of death” that I made a very deep and renewed connection with my faith. However, my personal experience is only evidence (and it is indeed evidence) for me. However, I doubt my experience is going to sway a skeptic one way or the other. Why would it or should it is not there experience. Nevertheless, I am being honest and sincere when I say “I am willing to change my mind if I am presented with valid arguments backed with real reasons and evidence.” However, at present no one has presented me with that kind of evidence. That alone is sufficient evidence to convince me that my world view is the correct one. john_a_designer

JAD, I am in principle always open to fresh evidence and argument at worldviews level. However, in so thinking I cannot escape a basic fact: I should be in a grave 40+ years ago now, apart from a miracle of guidance in answer to my mom's prayer of surrender -- that was the very day that with doors shut on every hand, a door literally stood open before us with an "angel" announcing the way forward that I have no doubt saved my life. So for me, if your worldview has in it no room for prompt answers to prayer in the name of the risen Christ, that worldview cannot answer to the basic fact that I am here to hold a discussion. And that is before, e.g. we find the self-referential, self-falsifyingly irretrievable incoherence and utter lack of ability to found moral government -- thus, responsible, rational freedom (a prior necessity for actual reasoned discussion rather than a cave of delusions) -- exhibited by evolutionary materialistic scientism and its fellow travellers. KF kairosfocus

WJM @ #52:

Philosophically, the terms refer to two different things; one is that there is no god; the other is that everything that occurs does so because of the happenstance behavioral interactions of matter and that nothing exists outside of that. Is god necessarily a supernatural being? Does “atheistic” only refer to a lack of belief in god? I’ve made it a habit to use the two somewhat redundant terms (or to use “atheistic naturalism”) to ward off some of the terminological hair-splitting atheists and materialists often engage in to avoid meaningful debate.

Indeed, “terminological hair splitting” along with other blatant forms of obfuscation is typically as far as any internet atheist is willing to take a “discussion.” The question is why? I am here to have meaningful discussion and debate. I have said many times before that for me as a Christian truth trumps faith. However, most of the atheist drive-by’s and trolls who show up here have no clue what Christian theists (or other kinds of theists) really believe nor do they have any idea how argue against those beliefs. I am willing to change my mind if I am presented with valid arguments backed with real reasons and evidence. However, just showing up here and declaring yourself an atheist is not a sufficient reason for me to change my mind and accomplishes very little except to demonstrate that internet atheists are either irrational, resentful or scared. The only question is, which is it? Maybe one of them can enlighten us about their true motives. john_a_designer

Andre: "We have hit the abyss..." The abyss was hit since that first lady who doubted what God had said, but things got really bad when her stupid husband ignored God's words too. As Jeremiah said, our hearts are sick beyond natural cure. Only a supernatural remedy can save us. We should know it. Dionisio

WJM,

if the law is entirely subjective, one would assume that, representing different different clients in different cases, Pindi would argue for law X in one case if it benefitted his client, and passionately against law X if it benefited the other client. Would Pindi passionately argue that sex with minors should be legal, if that position would benefit his client? Would he argue that Jews should not be considered fully human, if that would benefit his client? One wonders just how far Pindi is willing to take his concept of subjective justice and law.

One wonders if the law schools really bring out the implications of such might and manipulation make right "ethics" for want of a better term. Our civilisation is currently reaping the consequences of such marches of ruinous folly. (Or should I be echoing BA and speak of "jaw- dropping stupidity" or the like. Folly is ruinously stupid in the end.) KF kairosfocus

I simply can not wait to see what's going to happen with the mother and son who wants to get married, the progressive left aka materialists and the like is in a situation they will not be able to recover from, on what ground will you deny a mother and son who love each other from getting married? They fit the exact criteria and argument that legalized gay marriage....... Two consenting adults that love each other that is not hurting anybody else...... On what possible grounds will they be able to deny these two loving human beings from getting married? We have hit the abyss...... Andre

KF: Pindi doesn't really care what the law is or where it comes from or what justifies it as long as he can make a living using the legal system on behalf of his clients. Pindi said:

When I am arguing with another lawyer or a judge I am arguing (passionately) my opinion about what the law should be in the given situation. It’s entirely subjective.

So, if the law is entirely subjective, one would assume that, representing different different clients in different cases, Pindi would argue for law X in one case if it benefitted his client, and passionately against law X if it benefited the other client. Would Pindi passionately argue that sex with minors should be legal, if that position would benefit his client? Would he argue that Jews should not be considered fully human, if that would benefit his client? One wonders just how far Pindi is willing to take his concept of subjective justice and law. William J Murray

Dionisio, Philosophically, the terms refer to two different things; one is that there is no god; the other is that everything that occurs does so because of the happenstance behavioral interactions of matter and that nothing exists outside of that. Is god necessarily a supernatural being? Does "atheistic" only refer to a lack of belief in god? I've made it a habit to use the two somewhat redundant terms (or to use "atheistic naturalism") to ward off some of the terminological hair-splitting atheists and materialists often engage in to avoid meaningful debate. William J Murray

Pindi, our civilisation is collapsing -- start with, demographically (ponder our geostrategic circumstances also . . . ) -- and manipulation of law is leading the charge (start with 800+ million [by reasonable estimate on Guttmacher institute's 50 million per year] aborted under false colour of law in the past generation, multiplied by the blinding and utterly corrupting effects of such mass blood guilt in a truly en-darkened, we love our Plato's Cave shadow shows age). A legal-political system that sustains the worst holocaust in history under false colour of law is utterly bankrupt and leading in a civilisational march of ruinous folly. The loss of grounding for justice in root reality directly due to the dominance of evolutionary materialistic scientism has fatally destabilised the edifice and handed over the keys of control to amoral nihilists who implicitly base themselves on might and manipulation make 'right,' 'truth,' 'rights' etc. But then there is such a wonderful south wind blowing, let us sail out, never mind weeping Jeremiah (or that silly, useless star-gazer) off in the corner there. KF kairosfocus

HeKS @44: It seems these people think that "logical consequence" = "how one must actually behave", and so if they do not actually behave that way while holding the belief in question, then the logic must be wrong. This is why virtually every atheist on boards like respond to arguments about logical consequences of atheism/materialism as if you've made claims about their actual behavior. Pindi @45: Pindi apparently hopes that offering a vague notion of intellectual academics/philosophers that supposedly agree with him/her and disagree with those presenting detailed arguments here will be accepted in lieu of an actual rebuttal. Pindi seems to think this deferment to vague authority (that supposedly makes argument on behalf of his views) relieves him of the obligation in a debate or discussion to actually present and rationally defend his own views or to present a rational rebuttal of the arguments by others here. He/she then attempts to make excuses for being unable to properly defend his/her views by first insisting he/she is "comfortable" with his/her inability to comprehend certain things about life, and then defending that life of comfortable ignorance by insisting that everyone else is just as ignorant about things as he/she is. This relieves Pindi of the intellectual obligation of actually understanding his views and their logical entailments and arguing them himself because, well, he thinks other really smart people do and surely have presented their arguments somewhere. The result of all this is Pindi immunizing himself against actually having to present an argument or a rebuttal at all by pre-emptively dismissing the whole thing entirely and excusing himself from any obligation to defend or explain his perspective. Yes, Pindi has a right to his/her life of philosophical ignorance comforted by the vague idea that somewhere surely some academics have supported his views, and surely that gives Pindi plausible reason to hold on to atheism and materialism, even though Pindi doesn't really understand nor can argue such philosophical justifications himself. William J Murray

KF, WJM, HeKS, Please, help me to learn and/or understand some terminology: I've seen the expression 'atheistic materialism' used in some comments here. Is there a case of 'theistic materialism'? Another question: Are the blog and books referenced here: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-615822 in the group 'non-materialistic atheism' ? Are these three classification groups: 1. Materialism (which is implicitly atheist) 2. 'non-materialistic atheism' 3. Theism (which is implicitly non-materialistic) valid? Are there others? Thank you. Dionisio

KS as someone who has studied, and now practices law, I can confidently tell you that western jurisprudence is not collapsing. Far from it. The rule of law is still one of the most effective mechanisms we have ever invented at keeping chaos and collapse at bay. In my opinion. And of course we invented law. You think it would exist without human beings? Pindi

PS: Plato's warning from 2350 years ago:

Ath [in The Laws, Bk X]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-

[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]

These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,

[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]

and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].

The roots of the current chaos and collapse of Western jurisprudence are not hard to find. kairosfocus

Pindi, that you imagine the law is invented by people, rather than that lawfulness and law depend on underlying principles of justice tied to the nature of the human being and thence rights as binding moral expectations driven by the inherent dignity of the human being, leads to the precise problem that so often comes up, might and manipulation make 'right' etc. Ontology and broader metaphysics with relevant ethics sets the context for sound law as Plato argued long since in The Laws bk x. KF kairosfocus

HeKS, You seem to think that you have the one correct answer to very complex philosophical problems that are actually unresolved. The views that you dismiss as naive, illogical, and anti-intellectual, are in fact held by many people who have thought about them as long and as deeply as you, and are no doubt as intelligent as you, but have not come to the same conclusions as you. I personally haven't sprung up in the wake of Dawkins. I have never read him and am not the least bit interested in what he has to say. I have formulated my views over my 51 years of life so far. I have thought long and hard about these things, and yet I don't see absurdities. I see strangeness and incomprehensibility, yes but nothing that sames absurd. You are frustrated that people like me don't get it. Despite the fact that you have exposed me to the truth. But maybe what seems so obvious and true to you, is not in fact. Maybe you are wrong. Or is that not possible? I am comfortable in accepting that I can't answer many fundamental aspects of life and the universe. I don't believe anyone can comprehend quantum physics; you just have to accept it for what it is. I don't believe anyone can comprehend the singularity in the big bang. Or for that matter the inside of an atom. I don't know whether we have libertarian free will, and if we don't, how it appears as though we do - what the mechanism is that produces that effect. But could you explain a bit more why you believe that if atheism and materialism are true, the world and us are utterly foreign and incomprehensible absurdities? And could you reference some of the academic atheists who recognise these truths? Pindi

WJM, This discussion is a good example of the thing that frustrates me about the "modern" atheists that seem to have sprung up in larger numbers in the wake of Dawkins and friends over the last decade. They seem generally oblivious regarding the logical entailments of an atheistic and materialist worldview. They think that the world is essentially as it seems and as theists hold it to be, just without God and miracles and stuff. And when it comes to morality, they tend to think and speak as though Subjective Morality is essentially the same as Objective Morality, just without the bit about God setting the moral standard and with humans setting the standard instead. They exist in blissful ignorance of the fact that if atheism and materialism are true, the world around us and we ourselves are utterly foreign and incomprehensible absurdities that bear no resemblance to our experience and that we can't even coherently talk about and that we can't even have real thoughts about and that Subjective Morality and Objective Morality share little more than the word "morality" while being conceptually separated by an infinite and unbridgeable gap. And what of those atheists who are exposed to the truth of these matters by those of us here and elsewhere who care to discuss these issues seriously? They assert that these logical entailments are not really entailments of atheism and materialism at all. And why? Well, you see, because they don't personally hold to these views and neither do their atheist friends, apparently unaware that it is perfectly possible for humans to hold logically inconsistent beliefs. Academic atheists widely recognize these truths, but the average internet atheist seems immune to these realities ... perhaps because they realize that if they let these truths sink in then they would find it impossible to continue holding to their naive and ultimately anti-intellectual brand of atheism. HeKS

I guess the roadblock for real discussion for me is the continual pronouncements you make about what the “atheist materialist” worldview means.

If by "pronoucements" you mean "the conclusions I have reached about the logical consequences of the premise of atheistic materialism", okay.

Your opinion on that (and yes, you are arguing an opinion)...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What else would anyone argue, orther than a view or judgement about a proposition? Seems extremely trivial to state that people argue opinions (as if there's something else they could be arguing).

... comes across as arrogant and dismissive,

I'm hardly responsible for what you imagine my character to be like from textual posts.

not to mention completely unlike what my atheist materialist worldview and life are really like.

I make cases about what what an atheistic materialist should act like if the acted in accordance with the logical consequences of their views. A large portion of my arguments rest upon the fact that atheists do not actually act like that - only sociopaths do. So, of course your atheist friends don't act as I (and others, including many famous atheists) logically conclude should be their behavior if they behaved consistently with atheistic materialism. The fact that your friends don't act "that way" supports my argument; it doesn't rebut it.

So given that, its probably best I do desist in discussing things with you.

As you wish. William J Murray

Origines, I am a lawyer. The law is invented by human beings. Some of it is codified in statute books. Some of it is decided on by by judges. In fact, it is all ultimately decided on by judges as statutes are limited by words and novel factual situations and legal arguments arise all the time. When I am arguing with another lawyer or a judge I am arguing (passionately) my opinion about what the law should be in the given situation. It's entirely subjective. The law is not written in stone but made up by human beings. Whether my opinion wins the day or not may have serious consequences for my client and other people. So no, it's not all ice cream flavours. Fyi, maybe you should heed wjm's advice about serious discussion also. Pindi

WJM, I guess that is a fair enough criticism. I apologise for my facetiousness. I guess the roadblock for real discussion for me is the continual pronouncements you make about what the "atheist materialist" worldview means. Your opinion on that (and yes, you are arguing an opinion) comes across as arrogant and dismissive, not to mention completely unlike what my atheist materialist worldview and life are really like. So given that, its probably best I do desist in discussing things with you. Pindi

Off topic:

The Machine that Fuels ATP Synthase - August 24, 2016 Excerpt: Complex I is a huge enzyme, one of the largest in the cell. In mammals, it has 14 core subunits and 31 "supernumerary" (fancy word for "extra") subunits, adding up to a whopping mass of 980 kilodaltons (kDa). (A Dalton is about the mass of a hydrogen atom; technically, 1/12 the mass of a carbon atom.) Such high mass implies over 7,000 properly-sequenced amino acids. That's one huge machine, considering the average size of an enzyme is about 300-400 amino acids. The bacterial Complex I, lacking many of the supernumerary subunits, is still gigantic, weighing in at 550 kDa.,,, The authors point out two other observations of interest for intelligent design. One is that mutations in these machines cause disease and death; they cannot tolerate much change, meaning that the specificity in the amino acid sequence is vital to the function.,,, The other observation is that the machines have to be assembled to work in the first place. It's like Scott Minnich's comment in Unlocking the Mystery of Life that the assembly instructions for the bacterial flagellum are even more complex than the machine itself. A machine needs a plan (encoded in DNA). It needs materials that must be delivered to the right place at the right time, in the right quantities. The parts have to be assembled in a coordinated sequence. Each step requires inspection, so that the cell doesn't waste time building something that won't work. That's true of Complex I and the entire factory of machines in the electron transport chain that make life possible. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/08/the_machine_tha_1103089.html

bornagain77

Pindi

"If you feel out of your depth engaging in serious debate with those who congregate here to hold such discussions, perhaps you should seek a site more suitable to your inclinations. I suggest celebrity, food or music fan sites would be a more appropriate venue for “arguing” about personal preferences."

Ouch, That's Gonna Leave A Mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WDKivqFOgA Pindi, here are a few sites that will take your mind off that throbbing pain that you are now feeling in your head:

Celebrities http://www.people.com/people/ 20 Awesome Food Magazines You Should Be Reading (If You're Not Already) http://firstwefeast.com/eat/20-awesome-food-magazines-you-should-be-reading-if-youre-not-already/ The Best Fan Sites Web Directory http://www.bestfansites.org/ Music Fan Sites http://www.bestfansites.org/music/

bornagain77

Wjm to be honest I think you spend too much time thinking about your “metaphysical ideology” instead of just living it. Do you ever allow yourself to indulge in humour?

Believe it or not, Pindi, it is possible to lead a full, satisfying life brimming with love, joy & humor AND introspectively examine metaphysical beliefs and assumptions AND contribute serious arguments about serious topics on sites dedicated to such endeavors. Is that your purpose here? To be funny and light and ridicule via implied disparagement about the quality of life of those you disagree with and rebut your comments with serious argument? I don't begrudge you your light-hearted superficiality, Pindi, but why come to a serious site for intellectual debate and then avoid it while implying those who partake are somehow otherwise deficient in their lives? My wife of 26 years and I have 6 children, 13 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. We regularly have family get-togethers and watch movies and football together. I'm relatively successful working from home and have decent to great relationships with all offspring and their significant others. My life is more joyful than I could have imagined it would be. Humor is a big part of our lives, but I do understand that there is a time and place for humor and a time and place for serious discussion. It has been my experience that those who attempt to laugh off serious discussion and imply some deficit in others for being serious are only hiding their own insecurity with regard to the topic being discussed. If you feel out of your depth engaging in serious debate with those who congregate here to hold such discussions, perhaps you should seek a site more suitable to your inclinations. I suggest celebrity, food or music fan sites would be a more appropriate venue for "arguing" about personal preferences. William J Murray

Pindi: Fair enough. Autodidaktos

Pindi@

William J Murray: “I can’t for the life of me imagine a life so utterly devoid of substance that one would spend any time nonsensically arguing about personal preferences”.

Pindi: As I said, we are very different. I spend a lot of my time doing this.

Pindi: chocolate icecream is better than strawberry any day! Pindi's friend: No, strawberry icecream is always better. Pindi: I'm being serious here, chocolate icecream is better than strawberry any day! Pindi's friend: No, it is isn't! Pindi: It is! Pindi's friend: Nope! Pindi: I have to go now, but I do hope we can continue this captivating discussion in the near future. Origenes

Wjm to be honest I think you spend too much time thinking about your "metaphysical ideology" instead of just living it. Do you ever allow yourself to indulge in humour? Pindi

Auto @32. Ok, well like wjm, you are different to me. I use the word "better" in a much broader sense. I would never say, to use a common example here "chocolate icecream is better than strawberry any day! And by that I mean better for me!" I would take that as read. Pindi

Pindi said:

Fyi, imho gang-bangers do not belong in the same category as Nazis and jihadists.

They all belong in exactly the same category as everyone else under atheistic materialism, but seeing as you don't really think your metaphysical ideology through, there's no end to the nonsense you feel "perfectly fine" blurting out in support of your superficial perspective. William J Murray

"Every time you say something is better than something else are you asserting that it is objectively better?" Obviously? What else does the word 'better' mean in such a statement other than an objective claim, unless you qualify it by saying "better for me"? Autodidaktos

Classical theist and Christian here, and while I would agree pursuing Virtue pleases God, it is not because it pleases God that knowledge, fortitude, temperance and justice are virtues, it's because these things are self-evidently good in themselves. Not even God could declare pursuing them to be non-virtuous. Autodidaktos

Hi WJM: No, I don't spend any time thinking about the nihilistic ramifications of my world view. I wouldn't say I avoid it though. Wow, I mention returning Olympians and you start talking about Nazis, jihadists, and gang-bangers! You are strange, Fyi, imho gang-bangers do not belong in the same category as Nazis and jihadists. No, cherry pie doesn't inspire me. Where did you get that weird idea? "Perfectly fine" means perfectly fine. You don't have that expression in the US? You said: "I can’t for the life of me imagine a life so utterly devoid of substance that one would spend any time nonsensically arguing about personal preferences". As I said, we are very different. I spend a lot of my time doing this. Pindi

Here is a picture of Pindi in mid-air wondering how he got into such an awkward position with WJM http://djphillipfromgalt.hot1035radio.com/images/2013/02/Olympic-Wrestling.bmp bornagain77

Pindi said:

Well, I guess we are different. I do find personal achievements and earning the approval of my friends, family, and peers, inspiring.

I imagine you do. That's probably because you avoid thinking about the nihilistic ramifications of your worldview and act and think as if morality is objective and act and think as if you and others have free will.

And I think you have a non-conventional view of theism. Those on this board who are Christians (which I know is not you) do, I think, obtain inspiration from pleasing God.

So?

The thing about the Olympic team was not about morality, but just to illustrate my point that we get inspiration from obtaining the approval of our peers. We are community and social based animals.

Same can be said of a Nazi, a jihadist, or a gang-banger, and under moral subjectivism, each is equally right and moral. Under atheistic materialism, you feel inspired whenever a causal chain of physical events dictates that you feel inspired, whether it's because you ate a piece of cherry pie or if you see Jimmy beat his girlfriend and it inspires you to beat yours. Your "inspiration" is just a cheap physical sensation that practically anything can trigger. Yippee.

With regard to your comment @25, no, I don’t agree. It’s perfectly fine to make an argument that something is better than something else based on purely personal preference.

What does "perfectly fine" mean?

Do you never have arguments with your friends over the relative merits of your favourite band?

I can't for the life of me imagine a life so utterly devoid of substance that one would spend any time nonsensically arguing about personal preferences. William J Murray

RB:

Sorry Barry, but I believe that it is my moral responsibility to pay taxes. Not more than I have to, but my fair share.

Fair share? Why are you using the language of objective morality. According to you, there is no such thing as fair or just. You are contradicting yourself.

How would I morally justify (subjectively, of course) accessing universal health care, unemployment insurance, welfare, roads, water, sewer, police protection, etc. Or are you one of these freeloaders who believe that you are entitled to these things without paying?

More contradictions. According to your subjectivism, Barry is entitled to services if his subjective morality allows it and you are entitled to services for the same reason Who are you to impose your subjective standard on Barry. You are, once again, assuming the same standard of objective morality that you disavow. StephenB

WJM Well, I guess we are different. I do find personal achievements and earning the approval of my friends, family, and peers, inspiring. And I think you have a non-conventional view of theism. Those on this board who are Christians (which I know is not you) do, I think, obtain inspiration from pleasing God. The thing about the Olympic team was not about morality, but just to illustrate my point that we get inspiration from obtaining the approval of our peers. We are community and social based animals. With regard to your comment @25, no, I don't agree. It's perfectly fine to make an argument that something is better than something else based on purely personal preference. Do you never have arguments with your friends over the relative merits of your favourite band? Pindi

Pindi said:

That is silly. Every time you say something is better than something else are you asserting that it is objectively better?

If one is going to make an argument that something is actually better than another thing, you generally have to reference something more objective or logical than "personal preference" to make that case. Unless moral subjectivists think that moral subjectivism is actually better, in some objectivs sense, than moral objectivism, why argue the matter at all? William J Murray

Pindi said:

You minimise the complexity of jdk’s expression by your paraphrasing.

No, I reveal jdk's moral outlook for what it is. Complexity is often added to hide what is really there.

But it’s essentially true, except you missed out an important point. “Benefits us all” includes oneself. We all act to try and meet our own needs and desires, some of those needs and desires being the approval of our fellow human beings. What is uninspiring about that?

What is inspiring about it? People doing whatever they do because biochemistry compels them to do so. What should such events "inspire" me to do? Exactly nothing that I'm not already doing - whatever biochemistry compels me to do.

Our Olympic team just got home from Rio. A big crowd there to meet them. Why do they compete? A big part of it is to achieve the approval of their fellow citizens (as well as their own satisfaction).

I don't see how this is ralated to morality. In any event, what's inspiring about bits of matter being push around by chemistry and physics into doing whatever it does?

What is the theist’s version of your statement? “It’s how God expects me to act so to win his approval I try to act accordingly”.

No, it would be "Regardless of social norms or popularity, I do what is right no matter what it costs me personally."

I find the non-theist view vastly more inspiring.

Doing what is popular because you also enjoy it - yes, quite inspiring. William J Murray

Inspiring. Yup. Whichever way the wind happens to be blowing at the moment. Mung

Autodidaktos: That is silly. Every time you say something is better than something else are you asserting that it is objectively better? Pindi

WJM @17 You minimise the complexity of jdk's expression by your paraphrasing. But it's essentially true, except you missed out an important point. "Benefits us all" includes oneself. We all act to try and meet our own needs and desires, some of those needs and desires being the approval of our fellow human beings. What is uninspiring about that? Our Olympic team just got home from Rio. A big crowd there to meet them. Why do they compete? A big part of it is to achieve the approval of their fellow citizens (as well as their own satisfaction). What is the theist's version of your statement? "It's how God expects me to act so to win his approval I try to act accordingly". I find the non-theist view vastly more inspiring. Pindi

Evidently no one has pointed out the obvious -- if one asserts that it is "better" to deny objective morality, then they have unwittingly made a claim which they consider to be objectively true about the nature of the Good. Oh well. Autodidaktos

William J Murray, excellent summary (as usual)! Atheists hoping for a more just society might as well hope for a more just set of laws for chemistry and physics. Complete amorality is the base line of AM and any claims that atheists make towards morality (i.e. You ought) is to be judged by that base line of complete amorality. Anyone who lived his life according to the dictates of the atheistic worldview would be considered a complete psychopath. bornagain77

Logically, under atheistic materialism (A/M), the world is always morally perfect. It would be delusional to think material beings should behave in any way other than the way they actually behave. Under A/M, people would always necessarily act in accordance with their human natures. It would be impossible for them not to. To think that humans can somehow force themselves to do something other than what material forces dictate is to profess a belief in the supernatural. Under A/M, humans are whatever their biochemistry dictates, nothing more or less. Until the atheistic materialist can act as if every human act is perfectly moral (they did what they should have done due to their biochemical nature), they are hypocrites who profess one thing (morality is dictated by biochemistry) but act another way (as if humans can somehow override the biochemistry that dictates their actions) , and are delusional to expect material beings to act, or should act, any way other than the way they factually act. William J Murray

jdk said:

I am a member of human society, and along with all my fellow humans, work towards and strive to live up to norms of behavior that benefit us all so we can be happy, healthy, and productive. (You now, the life and liberty stuff.)

"It's how everyone around me acts and expects me to act, so to win their approval I try to act accordingly." Inspiring. William J Murray

jdk...you are insane. Truth Will Set You Free

barry writes,

You want there to be no standard outside yourself to which you are accountable.

No Barry. It seems like you are not making an effort to understand a different view. (Not agree with, just understand.) I am accountable to the larger bodies of people that make up my circle of communities: my family, my local work and social communities, and, more abstractly, my country and mankind in general. I am not a psychopathic nihilistic island: I am a member of human society, and along with all my fellow humans, work towards and strive to live up to norms of behavior that benefit us all so we can be happy, healthy, and productive. (You now, the life and liberty stuff.) I don't need God to tell me those things are what I should be doing. I can figure that out without him. jdk

Rationalitys bane: Again, there is no such thing as an ethical truth.

Origenes: To be clear, according to you, “it is evil to torture infants for pleasure” is not an ethical truth?

Rationalitys bane: I don’t believe that “evil” as you probably see it exists as an objective measure.

To be clear, according to you, it is not objectively evil to torture infants for pleasure? In reality “evil” does not exist, and torturing infants for pleasure is simply a matter of personal preference? Origenes

Barry:

In the context of the comment explored in the OP, you had moral accountability in view. The stupidity of your statement having been exposed, you switch to legal accountability.

Sorry Barry, but I believe that it is my moral responsibility to pay taxes. Not more than I have to, but my fair share. How would I morally justify (subjectively, of course) accessing universal health care, unemployment insurance, welfare, roads, water, sewer, police protection, etc. Or are you one of these freeloaders who believe that you are entitled to these things without paying?

In the context of the comment explored in the OP, you had moral accountability in view."

Again, as a tax lawyer, are you stating for the record that people don't have a moral obligation to pay taxes. Does the IRS know this? Hopefully they don't monitor websites run by tax lawyers.

So, RB, are you going to say that when you said we should “lives knowing that we all bear responsibility for everything that we do,” all you had in view was “if you break the law you go to jail.

*Palm forehead* Rationalitys bane

RB:

do I have an objective moral requirement to pay taxes? No. Am I held accountable if I don’t?

How predictable. An equivocation on the word accountable. You are really quite hopeless. In the context of the comment explored in the OP, you had moral accountability in view. The stupidity of your statement having been exposed, you switch to legal accountability. So, RB, are you going to say that when you said we should "lives knowing that we all bear responsibility for everything that we do," all you had in view was "if you break the law you go to jail." There is another word for equivocation RB: Lie. Barry Arrington

Standards exist to which we accountable, Barry, but they come from our nature as social human beings, and from the society around us, not from some outside objective source.

Why does that make the standards to which we are accountable subjective and not objective? Oh, and how can one be accountable to a standard? Mung

O, "Nope, Barry Arrington commented on you talking about subjective morality." Nope, he was talking about my objection to objective morality. But given the way he twists others' words, I can see where you would be confused. "That’s a very accurate summary. Indeed … jaw dropping stupidity." I agree that Barry's summary is jaw-dropping stupid. But since it is a complete misrepresentation of what I actually said, I don't take offence. Rationalitys bane

Barry@6, do I have an objective moral requirement to pay taxes? No. Am I held accountable if I don't? Yes. Do I have an objective moral requirement not to speed. No. Can I be held accountable if I do? Yes. Do I have an objective moral requirement to be faithful to my wife? No. Are there consequences if I am not? Yes. If I am a county clerk in Kentucky, do I have an objective moral requirement to issue a marriage licence to a same sex couple? No. Will I be held accountable if I don't? Yes. So, please explain to me again how not having objective moral truths means that you are not accountable? Rationalitys bane

Rationalitys bane: Actually I was talking about objective morality ...

Nope, Barry Arrington commented on you talking about subjective morality.

Barry Arrington: RB’s statement boils down to this. “We are better off not pretending we are accountable and live our lives knowing we are accountable.”

That's a very accurate summary. Indeed ... jaw dropping stupidity. Origenes

O, "To be clear, according to you, “it is evil to torture infants for pleasure” is not an ethical truth?" Remember, I include "evil" in scare quotes to qualify my answers. I don't believe that "evil" as you probably see it exists as an objective measure. To my subjective morality I believe that torturing infants is morally wrong and I would do everything in my power to prevent it. As I am sure that you would. But there have been cultures that used it as a religious ritual (ie, morally acceptable). I have heard the argument that these cultures simply misinterpreted the objective value. But my question is, how do you know that they were wrong in their interpretation of objective morality and we are right. The same applies to the holocaust, or slavery. Majority opinion? I have been repeatedly told here that majority opinion is not necessarily a measure of objective truth. Rationalitys bane

RB: Let's look at what the word "accountable" means RB: My dictionary says it means:

subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.

Accountability, by definition, involves an obligation to report, explain, or justify. But if there is no external standard to appeal to, how does one even begin to do this? I can just imagine it now. RB to himself: Time for my accountability report. RB answers himself: How did I do? RB answers himself again: Well, I certainly agree with me. RB answers himself again: Well, all up to snuff then? RB answers himself again: Yep, tip top. RB answers himself again. Well OK then. Until next time. Barry Arrington

Barry, "If this means anything, it means that we are not accountable to any standard of objective moral truth, Correct. "...because no such standard exists. " I think you are finally getting this. "According to my dictionary “responsibility” means “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable.” But wait a minute. You just said we are not accountable to a standard of moral truth, because no such standard exists." Actually I was talking about objective morality, but I think that you are really understanding this. I have high hopes for you. "RB’s statement boils down to this. "We are better off not pretending we are accountable and live our lives knowing we are accountable.”" So much for the high hopes I had for you. Remember when I apologized for saying that one of your comments was stupid? I am afraid that I must take that apology back. Are you suggesting that it is only possible to be accountable to an objective moral truth? think about your own precession before you answer. As a "wise" man once said *PALM FOREHEAD* Rationalitys bane

Rationalitys bane: Again, there is no such thing as an ethical truth.

To be clear, according to you, "it is evil to torture infants for pleasure" is not an ethical truth? Origenes

Jack, I understand that you want to have it both ways. You want there to be no standard outside yourself to which you are accountable. But you shrink back from the nihilism that entails, as any reasonable person would. So when it suits you, you say there is no standard. But no sane person lives their life as if that were true. So when pressed you spew some idiocy about being accountable to our "nature as social human beings," as if that were a standard at all. I am sad for you. Barry Arrington

How narrow is your understanding of non-European, non-Christian cultures? Or are you so deeply sold on whichever culture you happen to like that any and all deviations from that culture, even within that culture over the centuries, are, in your personal, VERY subjective opinion "wrong"? Slavery was WIDELY accepted for millennia, and even Paul orders Christian slaves of Christian masters to be GOOD slaves. Then SUDDENLY in the 19th century some Europeans decided it wasn't nice and should be stopped. Except in those cases (like India and the Congo) where it was useful and profitable to continue either open slavery or go through the charade of declaring slavery to be "courvee labor". So was Slavery ALWAYS wrong? Or is Slavery ALWAYS morally acceptable, but now SOCIALLY unacceptable? And what about "lifeboat" morality? When the Russian Communists were sending thousands of arguably "innocent" prisoners to prison camps inside the Arctic Circle by train, there was a shortage of any "moral" passenger cars, so prisoners were ordered to simply LIE DOWN on flatcars before they were covered with a canvas tarp. Experienced prisoners knew that they could survive the trip ONLY by fighting their way to the center of the car and using the bodies of their doomed fellow prisoner as insulation. Is that "moral"? Or is NOT fighting for the center "suicide" and therefore "immoral"? And how many people does one have to kill before it counts as "genocide", genocide having been declared to be immoral by a small group of Europeans with Christian roots? The Anglo-American terror bombing of Europe during WW2 killed MILLIONS of civilians and was colloquially called "baby-killing" in discussions amongst the targeting folks. So who exactly was acting immorally? The targeting guys who knew which targets got picked? The bombing force commanders who knew EXACTLY what their thousands of airplanes were used for? The flight crews who should have understood enough about happened to people on the receiving end of their bombs? Or perhaps the politicians who approved the entire "strategic bombing" farce? The fear amongst the "anti-baby-killing" targeting staff was that if word leaked out to American VOTERS about what "strategic bombing" meant in practice, the Army Air Corps would NEVER become the independent US Air Force... Etc., etc. And on strictly religious questions, is Divorce immoral? Didn't JC himself SPECIFICALLY reject it? Biologists, and especially Embryologists, KNOW that Life begins at Conception. So isn't abortion Murder? (Murder being "the taking of innocent life", and pre-born babies are about as innocent as you can get.) How about executing people for Heresy or Blasphemy? Since I'm not a Moslem, is it moral or immoral for a conforming Moslem to kill me? There simply ISN'T any standard for Morality, and never has been. Each person chooses a set of moral principles (Jewish, Christian, Druidic, Hindu, Moslem, homicidal maniac thieves, etc.) and then feels varying levels of person uneasiness when he or she violates one of those principles. Societies choose one of the more popular sets of morals and declares them to be "laws". The Druids, and living practitioners of Shamanism, believe that life is merely an adventure we have before we die. And when we die, we ALL, every single human who ever lives, goes to the same "heaven" where they can experience the Creator directly. But of course as thinking humans, we should try to play nice with others while we're waiting for death. mahuna

Standards exist to which we accountable, Barry, but they come from our nature as social human beings, and from the society around us, not from some outside objective source. Since to you standards are nothing if they don't come from an outside source, you dismiss any other view as stupid. Given that I know we (the many people who believe somewhat as I and RB do) are not stupid, and in fact are well-educated in a variety of fields, I think, perhaps, you are stupid for dismissing so blatantly anyone who doesn't agree with you. But that is your problem, not mine. So I'll just agree to disagree with you, and let it go at that. jdk