Materialists Know What They Say is False. They Say it Anyway

_{Barry Arrington
January 21, 2022

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Otherwise, they would have to give up their materialism.

Recently I posted about a woman who was charged with attempted murder when she put a newborn baby in a garbage bag and tossed him in a dumpster to die. Here is an exchange I had with Seversky regarding that post:

Barry:

Is it objectively evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster or is it just your subjective preference not to do so?

Seversky:

the overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil

Barry:

Suppose the overwhelming majority regarded dumping newborns in dumpsters as good. Would it then be good?

Seversky:

Presumably, it would be good in the minds of the majority who approved of it. It would not be a good thing from my perspective.

There you have it. Sev’s position is this: They would prefer tossing babies in dumpsters and I would not. There is no basis on which to determine which preference is superior. Therefore, the preferences are objectively equal.

As I have said before, no sane person actually lives their life as if materialism is true. But Sev’s religious commitments compel him to pretend he believes it is true. Which leads him to say that he holds an outrageous position that we can be certain he does not truly hold. Sad that.

Comments

F/N: We come back to the focus. The OP put on the table based on unfortunate facts, the reality that our moral sense can communicate moral truth in cases to certainty beyond dismissive or distractive talking points. We see that would be objectors cannot deny the evil involved, but wish to reframe and change the subject. After a time, it becomes clear that moral realities are knowable but we live in a day where for many that is inconvenient. That marks this as a day of the voyage of folly on the good ship civilisation. Voyages of folly, if prolonged, do not end well. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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SB, your interventions are insightful as usual. I think, fundamentally, we are seeing a cultural breakdown in recognising the value, credibility and power of right reason, tied to resentment of duty to same. That does not speak well of where we are or are heading. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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Origenes, you have shown that you understand the reality of error proneness thus the need for warranting filters that establish reliability and credibility of results. Therefore, you have no sound basis for the prolonged objection to distinguishing subjective and objective, as well as for the use of terms such as independence of error prone subjectivity to mark the difference. The matter is clear. Further to which of course it is by contemplation as first person self aware, self moved creatures that we understand that there is or is not warrant. That subjective experience is the context in which we become aware that something is reliably, credibly true or actual separate from what could have happened due to error proneness as it is warranted. The fact of established warrant so objectivity and knowability then stands on its own feet, whatever we may wish, think, imagine, object to or disbelieve. For example through our fallible senses and knowledge on general reliability under reasonable circumstances even in the face of error proneness we are aware of say a cashew tree with leaves flapping in the wind as opposed to a coconut tree. By contemplation of abstracta, we are aware of the null set and how it can be extended to N.Z,Q,R,C,R* etc, with logical analysis giving higher certainty than empirical observation. In fact, as I showed on public record, we can show that a core of mathematics extends to ANY possible world, answering to Wigner's wonderment. Similarly, properties of geometric figures in the plane are general, e.g. triangles, squares, circles. (I begin to wonder if the marginalising of old fashioned Geometry might be part of the problem as it seems to make us unfamiliar with objective knowledge of abstracta and the power of logic.) KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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Kairosfocus @155, Yes, exactly. Notice that No New Information is provided in the vacuous response:
No, you simply brought in irrelevancies that side-stepped the issue of the unending experience of torture from the victims point of view, which is all that matters. Yawn.
For example, one can take the same sentence and plug in different words: No, you simply __A___ __B___ that __C__ the __D__ of the __E__ of __F__ from __G__ point of view, which is __H__. __I__. A. made another B. unsupported assertion C. obfuscated D. obvious conclusion E. the undeniable scientific possibility F. hell G. God’s H. perfect justice I. eye roll Naturally, other statements can easily be generated for the above sentence that can use football, quilting, medical, or just silly terminology without recourse to any neuronal activity. It's like the MadLibs game children play in school or at parties. -QQuerius_{January 24, 2022
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VL, you were already answered in 96 above and were directed to a 101 discussion regarding Jesus of Nazareth and linked warrant. In addition, in reply to an accusation that I misreported on discussion regarding the hyperreals, I pointed to the earliest part of a three year exchange, where it was the case that the hyperreals and the use of 1/x as a catapult between transfinite and infinitesimal hyperreals was objected to, in the end the more or less settling point was Dr Carol Wood and her use of the very same items. Further to which, I pointed out that a transfinite span cannot be traversed in finite stage steps so that going beyond thermodynamic issues, there cannot have been an actual, infinite past of years for convenience, our world must have had a beginning thus an adequate cause. Onward, it could in principle continue endlessly but at any given time there would only have been finitely many years to date, i.e. the potential infinite. I used the hyperreals to frame the discussion to draw out the point on the infeasible supertask posed by a finite stage stepwise traversal of the transfinite; 1/x catapults across the span where the infinitesimals near 0 integrate with the reals mileposted by integers and allow us to unify the range to include the transfinites; we get Robinson's nonstandard calculus along the way. Were you present for the earliest discussions and are you willing to acknowledge that my remarks were in that context? More broadly, there is need to tone down rhetorical voltage. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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Ram, loaded language of accusation, e.g are all gaol sentences "torture" or are at least some justice and protection of community. Second, you have evaded the nature of the soul and of death, thus inherent immortality and non material nature so that an actual physical combustion is plainly only a metaphorical comparison for largely self inflicted torments we already see in ourselves when we yield ourselves to evils. But, all of this is little more than toxic distraction on the wrong forum where one actually serious about coming to a well warranted view would be on a more appropriate forum and would be asking in a different tone. Too much of the above reeks instead of internet atheist and fellow traveller rhetoric designed to poison and polarise as a way to evade a very relevant but inconvenient topic. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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Querius: I first demonstrated... No, you simply brought in irrelevancies that side-stepped the issue of the unending experience of torture from the victims point of view, which is all that matters. Yawn. --Ramram_{January 24, 2022
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The reason I said no to the first two questions is exactly the issue. I, like everyone, make moral and other types of judgments, so of course I don't think all positions on anything are equal. But, as I've said, I think there's lots about ultimate reality that we cant know, so I judge religions and other moral views based on how they affect how people act here and now, not on what their religious speculations about what we can't know are.Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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No, no, and the third question presents an hypothetical that loads the question. If I really knew hell existed, then I would have to accommodate that to my views.Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee
Billions of people have found other religious ways to understand the mysteries of life, and while none of them are “true” in the ontological sense (that is my belief) all of them are serious and sacred attempts to address core issues about human existence. It is that towards which we should have humility and compassion. Thinking that everyone else is going to hell fails in that regard.
Given your opinion that no religion reflects the truth about human destiny or the human condition, is it fair to say that, in your judgment, it doesn’t matter what world view, if any, a person embraces as long as it provides some kind of explanation for the “mysteries of life.” Would it follow that all explanations would be of equal value since, according to your account, there could be no explanation that reflects reality as it is. So, for example, if Hell really exists, would it be acceptable to ignore the point on the grounds that you have already cultivated a world view that you find satisfactory?StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee @148, My post was directed to Ram in response to his assertion @143. In a different thread, I first demonstrated a mathematical example where suffering for an infinite amount of time could still be finite and could indeed be much less than Christ's time-limited suffering for all humanity. In the mathematical analogy, I demonstrated that suffering in hell could indeed be precisely equal to the evil any person there would suffer. I'm not advocating this position, but I destroyed the argument that God was necessarily demanding infinite suffering in over-payment for a finite amount of evil. Secondly, I hypothesized that should the Lake of Fire be a black hole, then space-time would be deformed to where an observer would see someone falling into it taking an extremely long amount of time before disappearing, whereas the person falling into the black hole would experience that time in a few seconds. Again, this demolishes the argument of necessarily infinite suffering by means of an example from physics. As you can see, Ram @143 denies that the arguments I presented demolished the objections already noted by simply making an assertion to the contrary without any support. Again, I'm not suggesting that my two examples are what will actually happen--according to the Bible, the Lake of Fire was originally prepared only for Satan and his angels. Jesus refers to it as "the second death." What's exactly meant by "eternal" has long been debated, but it's certainly not temporary. After all, you have no trouble believing that physical death is eternal, right? But, according to the Bible, this terrible thing is something that no one has to experience unless they want to remain separated from God in this life and thus the next. -QQuerius_{January 24, 2022
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Stephen, you ask two things: what do I think about the source of self-awareness and about the source of my existence. I'm not sure whether you mean ultimate or proximate cause. I believe consciousness (or more broadly, mind) is a part of human nature, and our self-awareness is one of the manifestations of consciousness. So our mind is the proximate cause of our self-awareness. The biological world is the proximate cause of my physical existence as a specific physical being. I do not know, and I don't think anyone does, how the mind and the body exist as a complementary whole, and how they interact back-and-forth with each other. I do not know, and don't believe anyone does, the ultimate cause of consciousness and mind, any more than we know how the physical world came to be. I know, of course, that Christians believe both were created by God, but other religions have other ideas, and I personally think this is unknowable. But I take my conscious, willful experience as a given, a core of who "I" am: as an experiential given. And I believe that moral truths (I believe you wanted to call them values to distinguish them from the kind of truths you believe in) are products of my conscious, willful mind: choices I make and experience internally and then manifest outwardly. I also believe that I (everyone) takes multiple things into consideration in forming their moral values, from deep core commonalities with all other human beings to idiosyncratic beliefs from our culture, all tempered by our reason and familiarity with various wisdom traditions to varying degrees.Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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Q writes, "is the area under the positive half of an infinitely long normal curve a finite or an infinite number?" I'm not Ram but the answer is finite. But I'm curious as to what this has to do with this thread?Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee
I do understand the debate.
Do you agree with Origenes, who thinks that he is the source (or the origin) of his self awareness and his existence?StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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To Stephen: I do understand the debate. I am advocating for the other side of the issue being debated. I know what your position is, and don’t agree with it. That is different from “not understanding the debate.”Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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to Stephen: I am not saying at all that Christians lack humility and compassion: such qualities are hallmarks of Christian lives inspired by their religious beliefs. What I am saying is more specific: that the belief that Christianity is the uniquely true religion, and those who don’t believe are condemned to hell when they die, lacks humility and compassion. Billions of people have found other religious ways to understand the mysteries of life, and while none of them are “true” in the ontological sense (that is my belief) all of them are serious and sacred attempts to address core issues about human existence. It is that towards which we should have humility and compassion. Thinking that everyone else is going to hell fails in that regard.Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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Ram @143, So, is the area under the positive half of an infinitely long normal curve a finite or an infinite number? So, how much time elapses from when someone (in the future) falls into a black hole--a very long time or just a second or two? -QQuerius_{January 24, 2022
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Querius: Don’t you remember how I destroyed this “Newtonian” argument in a previous thread? No, you didn't at all. --Ramram_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee
But there is no evidence that these moral truths really do exist in any form outside of human beings.
I am sorry, but you simply do not understand the debate. A self-evident moral truth is a much more reliable form of knowledge than anything that could be inferred from empirical evidence.StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee
(the Christian God to whom you refer) doesn’t exist, and I can’t imagine hating an imaginary being.
The Christian God not only exists, He visited this earth in time/space/history. That is why historians divide history into two sections, BC (or BCE) and AD. If not hate, what is your real motive for making an unsubstantiated claim about the Christian God that can be so easily refuted?
Whatever feelings I have, which are also not hate, are directed at the people who believe in this God and believe in this self-righteous idea that they are going to be saved and everyone else, no matter how devoutly they believe in their God, are going to hell.
You must be confusing me with someone else. I don’t assume that I am saved, but I certainly hope it turns out that way. Or to put it another way, I don’t believe in the infallible insurance of salvation, but I do hope to attain it. The broader point, though, is that I am not qualified to judge my worthiness (or yours). I fear Hell because of the possibility that I might end up there. I would consider my life a great success if I could help even one person to avoid that place (or state of existence),.
I object, and it bothers me, to see that kind of arrogance, lack of humility, and lack of compassion for the broad diversity of humankind all looking to live with the mysteries of life.”
It’s interesting that you would put it that way. To me, it seems arrogant to claim (falsely and without good cause) that the Christian God doesn’t exist or that Christians lack humility and compassion.StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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Viola Lee @139, But there is evidence in that no other animal that's evolved on the planet has the same basic moral truths commonly found in humanity. They might share similar emotions such as fear, rage, and jealousy, but what about "Thou shalt not kill," for example? Any evidence that this basic moral truth evolved in chimpanzees, for example? https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29237276 So, where did this moral truth come from? Or is it just a random hallucination generated uniquely in the human brain? -QQuerius_{January 24, 2022
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But there is no evidence that these moral truths really do exist in any form outside of human beings. They arise from inside the person and then are manifested in our actions (which includes our expressions of them as beliefs.) They are knowledge of ourself. When we contemplate and experience our inner lives, the "object" of our knowledge is an inner state accessible only to ourselves. We are both subject and object in respective to our internal lives.Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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KF to Origines: Is it objectively evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster or is it just your subjective preference not to do so? Origenes:
I, as a subject, hold that it is evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster. This judgment “belongs to, proceeds from and relates to my mind as a thinking subject.”
Strawman. Strawman. Strawman. Everyone knows that the processes of judging or thinking, or feeling, or opining or speculating etc. are all subjective. It is the moral truth that you apprehend through your judgment that is objective. You arrive at objective truths through subjective means. That is how knowledge takes place. The object (objective knowledge) is distinct from but connected to the subject (the knower). If the subject and the object were not connected, or if they were not distinct, no one could ever know anything.StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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The fact that I exist is undeniable to me, and is a subjective experience. The fact that some believe a creator is responsible for my existence is a faith belief that is very definitely not of the same undeniable nature as my awareness of my existence. And I know Stephen will keep referring to people as "god haters", but as I wrote above, "I don’t hate God. God (the Christian God to whom you refer) doesn’t exist, and I can’t imagine hating an imaginary being. Whatever feelings I have, which are also not hate, are directed at the people who believe in this God and believe in this self-righteous idea that they are going to be saved and everyone else, no matter how devoutly they believe in their God, are going to hell. I object, and it bothers me, to see that kind of arrogance, lack of humility, and lack of compassion for the broad diversity of humankind all looking to live with the mysteries of life."Viola Lee_{January 24, 2022
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Origenes:
If something has a subjective origin, such as “I exist” or “I don’t want to be thrown in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster”, then no warrant in the world can change the fact that it has a subjective origin.
. I know that I am wasting my time on this one, but here we go anyway. You are the origin of the awareness of your existence, which is subjective, but you are not the origin of the fact of your existence. which is objective. The origin of your existence (or the fact of your existence) is the one who brought you into being, namely the Creator. Neither you nor your awareness played any role whatsoever in that event. Are you going to hijack yet another thread with this nonsense?StephenB_{January 24, 2022
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KF: 1: Is it true or false that we are error prone?
O: I need a clarification before I can answer. We are error-prone in what exactly? Everything? Am I fallible in “1+1=2” or “I exist” or “I don’t want to be thrown in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster”?

KF: Origenes, your remark just above shows that you know we are error-prone.
It does?
Therefore, the matter is over as you know therefore why we need filters to provide reliable warrant and that therefore objectivity is that reliable state.
Nope, as you know perfectly well, warrant does not change origin. You desperately want warrant to perform that magic, but it simple does not do that. If something has a subjective origin, such as “I exist” or “I don’t want to be thrown in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster”, then no warrant in the world can change the fact that it has a subjective origin. It makes no sense at all to label it ‘objective’.
The distractions, side tracking and needless arguing over months is shown to have been irresponsible behaviour on your part. KF
Keep telling yourself that. But deep down you know that you have got nothing.Origenes_{January 24, 2022
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Q, see the just above. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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Origenes, your remark just above shows that you know we are error-prone. Therefore, the matter is over as you know therefore why we need filters to provide reliable warrant and that therefore objectivity is that reliable state. The distractions, side tracking and needless arguing over months is shown to have been irresponsible behaviour on your part. KFkairosfocus_{January 24, 2022
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KF @
1: Is it true or false that we are error prone?
I need a clarification before I can answer. We are error-prone in what exactly? Everything? Am I fallible in "1+1=2" or "I exist" or "I don't want to be thrown in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster"?Origenes_{January 24, 2022
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Kairosfocus @130,
6: So, on any case, the substantial matter is over and your months of argument collapse.
Well, yes it is for this thread. But the identical argument will then reappear unscathed in a subsequent thread. 7. Rinse and repeat. -QQuerius_{January 24, 2022
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