WJM on Arguing with Subjectivists

_{Barry Arrington

June 1, 2016

Intelligent Design}

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Zeroseven said: “Hi Vivid, I’m not much of a logician. Just give your practical example and we can explore it.”

If you are not going to explore a practical example logically, what use is exploring it at all? To share your personal feelings?

Here’s the problem in for those that wish to interact with Aleta, Zeroseven and Clown Fish: it is utterly unimportant to them that their worldview, statements and behavior be logically consistent. This is why it simply doesn’t bother them to admit that they are hypocrites – insisting on one thing (that morality is subjective) while behaving the opposite way (like morality is objective), and why they keep raising objections that have already been thoroughly refuted (like morality is subjective because people don’t agree about it).

They do not enter conversations with a critical rationalism that they may be wrong about morality being subjective; they “know” it is subjective. Since they are not “logicians” and don’t care if their logic is in error, what good is rationally demonstrating the logical errors in their views? Their idea that morality is subjective is not based on any logical examination of their worldview premises leading to inferences then to rational explanations for actual behavior; it is based solely on sentiment – an emotional rejection of what objective morality would mean (theism), and personal sentiments about other people and their behaviors.

You cannot prove someone wrong about their subjective sentiments no matter how irrational or hypocritical those sentiments are. You cannot logically argue someone out of a faulty view if they didn’t come to that view via logic and if they do not consider logic a valid arbiter of truth.

While these exchanges are good as object lessons for many viewers, erroneous emotional investments cannot be corrected rationally. One would have to actually be committed to having a rationally coherent perspective before any logical argument might penetrate their commitment to their emotional views.

Without believing there is a truth by which some views can be considered erroneous, there is no valid corrective by which one can think they should correct their view. It’s just their personal, sentimental view of how things are, and they do not have to justify that view because there is – in their mind – no objective truth to such matters, and logic is not an arbiter of any real, objective truths.

I would add that while what WJM says is true, the logical incoherence of their views does not stop them from advocating for the use of the State’s monopoly on violence to force you and me to abide by those views. Does anyone else see the irony of a moral subjectivist forcing a Christian baker to use his artistic skill to celebrate a homosexual wedding?

Comments

CF, the context in which evolutionary materialism gives rise to the conclusion that morality is delusion is well known, namely that it has in it no world root level IS that can bear the weight of OUGHT. So, Ruse and Wilson, on these premises, are right. Likewise, it runs into problems with mindedness for many reasons long since well known. Haldane for just one instance observes:
"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.]
Such can be drawn out at length but it is hardly necessary. The problems are inherent to trying to build a world on blindly interacting matter and energy across space and time. They are inherent to the view, as has been known from the days of Plato 2350 years ago. The oh that's just an opinion, in that context, simply fails. Indeed, we are entitled to take it to mean, you have no substantial answer but wish to brush aside the issue. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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Do neo-Nazi’s have a legal constitutional right to their political beliefs? (Whether you like it or not, they do.) Does that mean I am legally and morally obligated to affirm or support their rights? For example, does a baker have a right to refuse to bake a cake with a swastika on it? National Review decided to do a little experiment back in 2014 to see what bakers would do if they were asked.
Keep in mind that the bakeries that got in trouble — Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado and Sweet Cakes in Oregon — did not refuse service because of their customers’ sexual orientation, but because of ethical opposition to participating in a particular act, namely a same-sex wedding. Judges in both cases declared the bakeries had unjustly discriminated and delivered an ultimatum: Bake the cake or else. National Review wanted to find out what happens when you ask a bakery for a sugary tribute to an institution just about nobody likes. Would bakeries be willing to make a cake with a Nazi swastika on it? This was done not in an effort to imply some false moral equivalency between Nazism and same-sex marriage, but rather to show that bakers may have good faith objections even to reproducing a symbol.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/372650/why-bakers-should-be-free-discriminate-alec-torres All the bakeries they approached passed on providing a neo-Nazi cake. Should they be sued? Is there a difference between political and religious freedom of conscience? I don’t see that there is.john_a_designer_{June 2, 2016
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Kairosfocus, all you have demonstrated is that there is a differing of opinions. But we already knew this.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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Andre: "When will supposed pretend moral subjectivists realize if morality is indeed subjective there is no good or evil, just personal opinions..." Since good and bad are subjective, and since evil is a theistic concept, I don't see what your point is. "...on matters and when will they realize that their opinions are not above or better or more moral than those that differ in said opinions?" And how is this different that what we observe on a daily basis?clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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When will supposed pretend moral subjectivists realize if morality is indeed subjective there is no good or evil, just personal opinions on matters and when will they realize that their opinions are not above or better or more moral than those that differ in said opinions? The mind boggles on their utter lack of coherence, intellectual honesty, logic and reason.....Andre_{June 2, 2016
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CF, The oh that's YOUR opinion rhetorical tactic fails. It also reveals that you have not seriously assessed the evidence already in hand, from Ruse, Wilson and Crick et al, not to mention a wide range of very serious discussion that starts with the hard problem of consciousness. Let's roll the tape from 49 above only a little while earlier today, Ruse and Wilson:
The time has come to take seriously the fact [[–> This is a gross error at the outset, as macro-evolution is a theory (an explanation) about the unobserved past of origins and so cannot be a fact on the level of the observed roundness of the earth or the orbiting of planets around the sun etc.] that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day . . . We must think again especially about our so-called ‘ethical principles.’ The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will … In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding… Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological [–> actually, evolutionary materialist] position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place. [Michael Ruse & E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, , ed. J. E. Hutchingson, Orlando, Fl.:Harcourt and Brace, 1991. ] –> Acknowledge the problem, or else repudiate it with proper reasons
And from Crick in 50 above:
Similar on the broader context of delusions rooted in evo mat, Crick in The Astonishing Hypothesis: . . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing. –> Again, acknowledge the problem, whether in this form or any one of ever so many others, or else repudiate it with solid reasons.
No, you cannot dodge the issue so cheaply as that. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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Just to clarify something, at least in all the cases I have looked at, the Christian baker, photographer or florist did not refuse to provide their services to gays because they were gay. Indeed, they knowingly provided such services (flowers, baked goods, photographs) to customers they knew were gay in the past. They were only refusing their services when providing those services conflicted with their religious beliefs or convictions. Marriage and weddings are full of religious significance for religions people. We believe that marriage is God’s idea. So the question is not about selling generic baked goods, flowers etc. That they would have gladly done that. Frankly it is disingenuous, if not blatantly dishonest, to argue that the secular-progressive left is bringing lawsuits in the interest of equality and human rights. Persecuting people because of their religious beliefs and trying to undermine their freedom of conscience is not treating their rights as equal, nor does it do anything to advance the cause of human rights.john_a_designer_{June 2, 2016
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Materialists-atheists accept nature as all that is, no exceptions. At the same time they reject nature and use exceptions for basis of their moral values.Eugen_{June 2, 2016
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BA: Seversky asserts that the Holocaust was evil only “in my opinion.” Then he asks “Isn’t that enough?” If he really cannot see the Holocaust was truly and absolutely evil, then he is blind, and we cannot fault him nor help him. If he does see that it was evil, and denies it, he is a liar. When the sun is shining in your face and you deny it, you're either blind or a liar. Not much left to say about such a person.mike1962_{June 2, 2016
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Clownfish I could have easily said hutu`s or tutsi`s re atrocities,instead of nazi`s but that`s hardly the point. Are you saying that governments decide what is and is not acceptable from a moral standpoint , because if incest becomes legal, or if the Canadian government say its is or is not ok then thats our benchmark for morality. Please tell me your are just acting the goat and this is not a serious answer.Please tell me that you don`t believe that if your government says its ok it must be ok. If you believe in evolution there can be no morality for if evolution is the creative force for everything, then it created the man who gives to the poor and is kind to his elderly neighbour, and offerers his life in the service of others , but it also created rapists, paedophiles, racists,bigots,murderers, for evolution does not discriminated by anything but survival so if these traits on both sides are here today evolution created them without partiality or prejudice.Marfin_{June 2, 2016
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KairosFocus: "The fundamental issue is on ev mat morality is delusion,..." That is your opinion. Subjective morality is every bit as real as objective morality. It may be "wrong" or not sustainable in a society, but it is certainly no delusion. Or, at least, no more so that our subjective interpretation of objective morality has been (assuming that objective morality exists). "... conscience is delusion,..." Again, this is just your opinion. Conscience, whether it is the result of objective morality or subjective reality, is real. We all experience it. And it is not inconsistent with ev/mat. "... mind is delusion,..." This does not follow from ev/mat either. The mind is still poorly understood, but there is no evidence yet found to suggest that it involves any type of extra corporeal action. "...responsible rational freedom is delusion,.." Well, the jury is still out on whether our freedom (free will) is responsible and rational. :) But free will is not incompatible with ev/mat. The problem with free will is that it is virtually impossible to test for. Every thought and action is preceded by chemical reactions in the brain. What this means, I don't know. "...man is delusion." Man may be deluded, but he certainly isn't a delusion. "But such absurdities are not being seriously addressed because of the current balance of might and manipulation games and the lab coat." They are not being seriously addressed because they are not seriously considered as the necessary outcome of ev/mat. Besides, what is this obsession you have with lab coats. I wore one for thirty years and it did a great job at keeping sulphuric acid and other nasties off my arms and cloths.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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Forcing a private bakery to make a cake for homosexuals is an outrageous attack on individual liberty, and an ominous sign of things to come. Things are going to get much worse...for everyone. BTW, excellent points Kairosfocus.Truth Will Set You Free_{June 2, 2016
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All of this, is feel-good with the implicit YET. The fundamental issue is on ev mat morality is delusion, conscience is delusion, mind is delusion, responsible rational freedom is delusion, man is delusion. Man is dead. But such absurdities are not being seriously addressed because of the current balance of might and manipulation games and the lab coat.kairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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JAD: "Is the agenda of the secular progressive left really to advance the cause of equal rights or is it undermine religious liberty and freedom of conscience? I would argue that it’s the latter." It is the former. Religious rights (and rites) are still protected. Selling cakes, flowers and photographs are not religious rights (or rites), they are services that are provided to the general population. Doctors fall in the gray zone. No doctor is required by law to perform an abortion or prescribe birth control (in Canada). They may refuse to do so under religious protection. Although I support this position for abortion, in which the doctor is actively performing the abortion, I disagree with it for contraceptives. The doctor is only prescribing them. He/she is not directly involved in the patient's decision to use them. My belief is that the doctors role here is to ensure that the patient is informed of any risks associated with using contraceptives. However, even for doctors, freedom of conscience is not absolute. If an emergency room physician is a Jehova's Witness, he/she cannot refuse to provide a blood transfusion. Church officials are not being required to preside over SSM (although some do). Churches are not required to rent out church halls for SSM, although this might be on shaky ground if they rent out their halls for any other function without restriction.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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CF, you are simply denying. Notice, Ruse and Wilson. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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A few things to keep in mind:
Traditionally and historically marriage has deeply religious significance for Christians, Jews as well as people of other faiths. Weddings are religious rites—r-i-t-e-s. The state has no interest in compelling or restricting (except perhaps in genuinely extreme cases like infant sacrifice*) a religious rite. To do so is to run afoul of the establishment clause.
A question to keep in mind: Is the agenda of the secular progressive left really to advance the cause of equal rights or is it undermine religious liberty and freedom of conscience? I would argue that it’s the latter. *An exception that John Locke noted.john_a_designer_{June 2, 2016
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Kairosfocus: "CF, you are applying nominalism, are emptying ought of its proper meaning and are substituting a very different meaning. One that boils down to the conscience-attested sense that we are under binding obligation to the right, the true etc is delusion. KF" No, the meaning of OUGHT has not changed. Whether the moral values are objective or subjective, OUGHT remains the same.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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Marfin: "So what are the limits to the message a baker can refuse put on his cake , if during ww2 a German asks a baker to put congratulation on your 10,000 jew exterminated ,..." I was wondering when Nazis would be brought into the argument. I suspect if a baker in Germany during WWII refused to write "Congratulations on your 10,000 Jew Exterminated" on a cake requested by a Nazi, the next baker would write "Congratulations for your 10,000 Jew and first Baker Exterminated." "...or what if now a guy wants to have a polygamous marriage arrangement with his son and his daughter would that be ok to write congratulations on such a close family relationship." Ask me again when polygamous incest is legalized. "Can any atheist please tell me where the boundaries start and finish and on what basis do they come to these conclusions." I am not familiar with the wording of the US State laws on this, but in Canada, anyone in the service industry may not refuse to provide services to someone based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. That seems fairly clear to me.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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Seversky asserts that the Holocaust was evil only “in my opinion.” Then he asks “Isn’t that enough?” No, Sev, it is not enough. You might as well have said “Holocausts are not to my taste, but I acknowledge that someone else might have a different taste.” Something is very wrong when your moral nihilism reduces you to thinking about the “Holocaust-Peace on Earth” choice in the same terms as the “Chocolate-Vanilla” choice. You know for an absolute certainty that the choices are not in the same category. Yet you are forced by your premises to pretend that they are. Here’s a clue Sev. When your premises force you to affirm a position that no sane person would affirm, perhaps you should reject those premises.Barry Arrington_{June 2, 2016
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PPS: Similar on the broader context of delusions rooted in evo mat, Crick in The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
--> Again, acknowledge the problem, whether in this form or any one of ever so many others, or else repudiate it with solid reasons.kairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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PS: Ruse and Wilson:
If you doubt this conclusion, let us hear it from Michael Ruse & E. O. Wilson in their 1991 essay, “The Evolution of Ethics”: The time has come to take seriously the fact [[--> This is a gross error at the outset, as macro-evolution is a theory (an explanation) about the unobserved past of origins and so cannot be a fact on the level of the observed roundness of the earth or the orbiting of planets around the sun etc.] that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day . . . We must think again especially about our so-called ‘ethical principles.’ The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will … In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding… Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological [--> actually, evolutionary materialist] position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place. [Michael Ruse & E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, , ed. J. E. Hutchingson, Orlando, Fl.:Harcourt and Brace, 1991. ]
--> Acknowledge the problem, or else repudiate it with proper reasonskairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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CF, you are applying nominalism, are emptying ought of its proper meaning and are substituting a very different meaning. One that boils down to the conscience-attested sense that we are under binding obligation to the right, the true etc is delusion. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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KairosFocus: "Do you not see that you are arguing AS IF truth was something we OUGHT to pursue and OUGHT to respect?" Do you have a serious reading comprehension problem? I have repeatedly said that we are governed by OUGHT. That we act as if our morals are objective. Yet you continue to counter my arguments with this silly IS/OUGHT nonsense. My moral values are very strongly held. They govern many of the things I do. I believe that others OUGHT to comply with my moral values. And I will argue and lobby to try to achieve this. However, others will have different moral values that are just as deeply held. The best explanation for all of this, as observation and history suggest, is that our moral values are subjective. The fact that we think others should agree with our moral values is not evidence for objective values, it is just evidence that humans can be very pig-headed and stubborn, and self-centred. "Do you not realise that manifest hardness against oughtness regarding truth and right is a very bad sign?" You really have to work on your reading comprehension. Your continuing insistence on disagreeing with me about our government by OUGHTness when I have repeatedly stated that I agree with you on our government by OUGHTness suggests that some unhealthy pathology is at work. "Do you not see why it is evident that this will not end well?" That is not evident at all. By almost all measures available, the human condition has improved over the last few centuries. "For individuals and communities alike, then our civilisation as a whole?" Yes, our civilization is changing, as it has been doing since we climbed down from the trees. Change is inevitable. You either try to fight it, and lose, or you make an effort to play a part in the change. I chose the latter.clown fish_{June 2, 2016
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Barry Arrington@ 30
There you go using that word “terrible” as if it means that the Nazis were objectively terrible. But if morality is in the eye of the beholder, then when the Nazis beheld their death camps they beheld a moral enterprise.
That's right. If I wanted to be more precise I should have said "in my opinion" And, yes, there were no doubt Nazis who beheld their camps and deemed it a moral enterprise. Just as all the inmates looked out at their captors and took the opposite view, as did most of the rest of the world. As, I'm sure, do you and me and everyone else here. Isn't that enough?Seversky_{June 2, 2016
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WJM (& attn Seversky), when the denial of a premise P directly ends in absurdity, one would be well advised to reject ~P and accept P. In this case, that P accurately describes a real state of affairs. Where as this is accessible to all in principle it is objective. Well warranted and credibly so, but of course in principle open to correction i/l/o further reasoning. However in these cases, the sort of warrant on pain of absurdity makes such unlikely. In the case of moral government under OUGHT attested by conscience, the attempted denial leads straight to radical undermining of the life of the mind, as conscience is guide and guard to reasoning, choosing and rights/duties etc. If conscience on the whole be a delusion, all our inner life is instantly tainted and rendered delusional. That is what subjectivists refuse to face. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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Seversky @ 29 said:
So your strongest argument against the subjectivity of morality is that subjectivists behave as if its objective and you resent what you assume to be hypocrisy?
I don't resent the hypocrisy of self-identified moral subjectivists at all; I'm just pointing it out. I'm not assuming their hypocrisy, they have admitted here that they believe morality is subjective while they act as if it is objective. That's pretty much the definition of hypocrisy; saying you believe that X is true while acting as if X is not true.
That’s pretty feeble for a master logician.
It would be if that was indeed my "strongest argument", but like others here you do not address the strongest arguments presented. No, you avoid addressing the hard questions and implications and instead find things you think you can score sentimental points with. Also, I appreciate that you consider me a "master logician", but it doesn't take a master logician to see the gaping holes, self-contradictions, hand-waving and hypocrisy of the subjectivist position and defense.
Football players during a game behave as if they are bound by the rules of the sport, for all intents and purposes as if they are objective. Yet is anyone here arguing that the rules of football are anything other than an entirely arbitrary cultural construct? Or are you that far gone that you think American football was divinely ordained?
This is how I can tell that you and others haven't really given these concepts much thought. You throw things out in defense of subjectivism that not only do not make your case, but actually reveal the strength of the opposing case. Nobody behaves as if morality is an "entirely arbitrary social construct". Nobody, other than sociopaths, behave as if morality is analogous to the rules of a "game".
Whatever you might believe, you don’t have a monopoly of logic or morality.
What a strange thing to say. Anyone can use logic to examine propositions and inferences derived from them, so you're right, I don't have a monopoly on logic. I don't know what it would even mean to claim a monopoly on morality. Since I consider it and objective commodity, I believe that everyone with a conscience has access to it, even if they believe what they are experiencing is entrely subjective.
Your insistence on the objectivity of morality, like everyone else who takes your part, is not about any old morality but your specific version or morality.
I think you're just venting something here that has to do with some stereotype you imagine my argument to be about. There really are not that many categorical forms of "objective morality" in the world to argue for or against. I rationally reject any command authority form of objective morality because it has as many fundamental problems as subjective morality. I instead argue for natural law based, logically consistent morality that provides everyone with a conscience and good reasoning skills good access to objective moral information. So, I am arguing for that "specific" form of moral objectivism - the natural law, conscience as sensory capacity, rationally coherent moral objectivism - which is what the USA was founded on - but beyond that, I don't have any specific "moral system" I am arguing for.
It’s an attempt to establish that your morality – and yours alone – is the one true morality a position which could warrant imposing it on others. In other words, it’s a blatant bid for political power.
To be fair natural law objective morality was what the country and our laws were established on in the first place, and it is through better reasoning about what that natural law necessarily implies that many social reforms have come about, such as the abolishment of slavery and equal rights for women and minorities. As far as imposing my particular moral views on others and it being a "blatant bid for political power", that is indeed what we all do because, in our hearts, we all consider our moral views that important and objectively valid. That is why people argue and attempt to get laws changed or attempt to change the behavior of others. We certainly do not behave as if we are playing a game. And make no mistake, passing anti-discrimination laws or civil rights laws is every bit as much a case of imposing morality via political power as were the discriminatory or religion-based laws that preceded them.
The reality is that you cannot demonstrate the objectivity of morality any more than you can demonstrate the reality of beauty.
I've never said I could, and I've never made the argument that morality is in fact objective in nature. My argument is not and has never been that morality is factually objective in nature, only that there is no alternative to that premise which can provide a rational, sustainable, sound moral framework that accurately describes our moral behavior and allows for rationally coherent and meaningful moral arguments. Natural law moral objectivism is the only sound premise that can support the notion of universal, inviolable human rights, metaphysical equality and the inner capacity of all sane humans to perceive and reason through objective moral information on their own. It provides the only sound basis for moral interventions and a just system of law.
They’re both in the eye of the beholder, in other words, us.
When you are capable of acting as if morality is categorically the same as beauty, then you'll have a valid analogy here. Until then, you're just being a hypocrite and deceiving yourself with that absurd comparison.William J Murray_{June 2, 2016
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Hi Clown Fish # 35: ------------ "A very wise man once told me that it’s not name calling if it is true." ------------ Truth, Darwin implied, is his theory; saying, the Judaeo-Christian God is erroneous" p 6 “Origin.” Today, his cake is dished out everywhere in education and no dissent is allowed, is that moral education? Surely, in light of other evidence, Darwin’s cake a flat cake, unleavened, devoid of a transitional fossil, dismayed ‘baker of origins' Darwin. His ingredients complete with a total lobotomy on artificial selection, yet being imagined as a glorious bake by the natural selector in a work pond, which grew into every life form on the Earth. Jack and the beanstalk could have not done better. Darwin implied the recipe of life given by the Judaeo-Christian God was immoral because Darwin could not understand suffering. So he sacked Him, saying: “By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported—that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses—by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” (Barlow, Nora ed. 1958. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins) http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1497&pageseq=1 How in the world any Christian can follow the main pillars of ‘Lord Charlies’ decrees, is beyond me. Indeed, a very wise man said he was the truth (Jn 14:6), one in essence with his Father, the truth (Jn 17:17) and one with the Holy Spirit, also the truth (Jn 14:17). Another ‘wise’ man; proclaiming ‘Darwin for Christ,’ said; science has proved original sin is not true. (Lamoreux, D.O., Beyond Original Sin: Is a theological paradigm shift inevitable? Perspectives on Science and Christian Belief 67(1):35-49, March 2015; asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2015/PSCF3-15Lamoureux.pdf. http://creation.com/beyond-original-sin) It appears, therefore, Jesus got himself crucified for two mythical creatures, doing a mythical wrong, and Jesus, therefore, makes scripture basically insane, and redundant. However, Pilate said to Jesus, “what is truth.” Surely, truth equals morality, and some believe it was stirring Pilate in the face. The God of truth, who once and for all; having the mind that does not err, set down once and for all, what is right and wrong. A belief of course, but with some startling eye witnessed and documented evidence of something beyond material science: enough ‘unbelievable’ evidence to convince some people. Therefore, Clown Fish, considering the entire objective eye witnessed documented evidence for a supernatural origin of morality, which Darwin dismissed out of hand; whose teaching do you think a Judaeo-Christian should courteously and morally uphold; one baked with animals through Darwinism, or one raised through Sinai and the Divinity of Jesus?mw_{June 2, 2016
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F/N: From the OP:
Here’s the problem in for those that wish to interact with Aleta, Zeroseven and Clown Fish: it is utterly unimportant to them that their worldview, statements and behavior be logically consistent. This is why it simply doesn’t bother them to admit that they are hypocrites – insisting on one thing (that morality is subjective) while behaving the opposite way (like morality is objective), and why they keep raising objections that have already been thoroughly refuted (like morality is subjective because people don’t agree about it). They do not enter conversations with a critical rationalism that they may be wrong about morality being subjective; they “know” it is subjective. Since they are not “logicians” and don’t care if their logic is in error, what good is rationally demonstrating the logical errors in their views? Their idea that morality is subjective is not based on any logical examination of their worldview premises leading to inferences then to rational explanations for actual behavior; it is based solely on sentiment – an emotional rejection of what objective morality would mean (theism), and personal sentiments about other people and their behaviors. You cannot prove someone wrong about their subjective sentiments no matter how irrational or hypocritical those sentiments are. You cannot logically argue someone out of a faulty view if they didn’t come to that view via logic and if they do not consider logic a valid arbiter of truth.
Sobering thoughts. I suggest, the surrender of principles of factual accuracy and adequacy and coherence is a shifting to irrationality and manipulation. Nihilism, in one word. Those who discard reason and set out on a ruthless agenda are engaging in a march of folly that if unchecked will not end well. Let us hope that there are enough out there who will wake up to the danger in time that those trying to push such agendas will first find themselves sufficiently exposed and discredited that they will realise they cannot get away with such things. Then, maybe enough will wake up to the fallacies and damaging consequences that the agenda can be decisively stopped then utterly discredited. Failing such, we are headed for an awful crash. I confess, I am not optimistic. KF PS: WJM, I would use rationality rather than rationalism.kairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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Headlined: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/fyi-ftr-but-arent-marriage-race-and-rights-just-words/kairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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CF, wrenching a term like marriage out of its natural context and imposing a distortion under false colour of law has not created a new form of marriage. It only reveals that those who do it are in the grips of a nominalism that cannot recognise the manifestly evident core principles of the moral laws of our nature. That extreme nominalism then leads to an attempt to impose the notion that might and manipulation make 'right,' 'truth,' 'value,' 'meaning,' 'sex,' etc under false colour of law. This is nihilistic lawfare. The only limit for the moment to such a process in the minds of those caught up in this, is what they think they can get away with for the moment. The watershed-wedge is at work, the divide, polarise and ruin dynamic is underway, and the end of this is a shatteringly hard impact with rock-bottom reality. In the meanwhile, it is manifest that marriage does not mean what is being imposed at the point of the usurped sword of justice, but the corruption of society, media, education, courts and parliaments to achieve this points to the ruin of our civilisation. As the very simple fact that only yesterday, such was only whispered in the corners of radical advocacy itself indicates: this is nothing connected to the nature of persons [utterly unlike racial characteristics such as skin colour and hair texture or facial features], it is a matter of institutionalising corrupt behaviour under false colour of law. This is the hijacking of a genuine reform based on manifest principles of the natural moral law, so that what cannot stand on its own two feet can domineer and ride in a bizarre piggyback that gives it a false colour of legitimacy. Shameless, cynical and utterly disgraceful. Heedless wrecking of our civilisation. But then in the minds of those caught up in the red, double green de facto alliance, Western Civilisation is the problem. What is wrong with the world. They do not realise the matches they are playing with, or the geostrategic consequences, nor do they care. Reason is dead, rage running amok through lawfare is the engine, agit-prop manipulation is the driver. The juggernaut is rolling. Let us again hear cultural marxist strategic thinker and Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet on where the agenda is going:
The culture wars are over; they lost, we won. Remember, they [= conservatives] were the ones who characterized constitutional disputes as culture wars [–> lawfare, the usurpation of the sword of justice to impose a ruthless agenda, is an outright act of war] . . . For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who – remember – defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) [–> notice, the revealing and sadly familiar pattern of invidious, tainting comparatives on offer: slavery, racism, nazism, aggressive imperialism . . . telling us a LOT about the hostility and slanderous projection we are dealing with, this professor needs to publicly apologise and retract with a serious mea culpa based explanation, starting with this point] I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won.
Ruthless, nihilistic, abusive factionalism that does not hesitate before usurping the sword of justice. Heedless, that such is headed for an awful crash. Behind, lies the growing legacy of the manipulation of the same institutions and the same deadening of conscience -- the guide and guard of reason -- in order to effect a situation where under false colour of law upwards of 50 million unborn children are slaughtered every year, in the worst holocaust in history. To see, just multiply that number by 40 years, and then by 1/2 to account for growth. Of this some 60 millions are the American "contribution," half a generation killed in the womb. Ask yourself, why is it that such matters are almost totally absent from the headlines. Think, about what that tells us on how our major media -- eyes and ears of the community -- are utterly riddled with corrupt, cynical agit prop agendas and tactics. Then, ponder how bloodguilt is on massive evidence of history the most corrupting influence of all. Ponder, how such bloodguilt is now widely pervasive across our whole civilisation. Look, at how language is corrupted to carry it forward: 'reproductive rights,' 'choice' and more. Ponder, how law has been corrupted and how lawfare has been let loose in defence of a gross evil against the first right of all, life. Ponder, how corrupt our governments have necessarily become as a consequence. Then, it is no wonder at all to see that other things are being subjected to the same conscience-benumbed cynical nihilistic nominalism under false colour of law. Other points follow in the same vein. This will not end well. KFkairosfocus_{June 2, 2016
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