tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post506561517328012164..comments2023-11-02T04:21:10.340-04:00Comments on The way the Ball bounces: The Mathematics of Morality, or, Are Morals Like Ice-Cream?BallBounceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08776039024486455199noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post-19879406431484047222010-08-12T11:06:32.549-04:002010-08-12T11:06:32.549-04:00The topic of this thread, "Are Morals Like Ic...The topic of this thread, "Are Morals Like Ice-Cream?", appears to be a mere <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop" rel="nofollow">Gish Gallop</a> past the (unrebutted) point I made when this issue was raised in a previous thread:<br /><br /><b>Subjective opinions take the full range from the superficial to the profound, without any obvious demarcation line between what could spontaneously arise or emerge from a person and what is a "conundrum". (Your faulty line of thought is very similar to Creationists' invalid microevolution versus macroevolution argument.)</b><br /><br />"When we say that killing the innocent is wrong, we are saying something closer to, or similar to, saying, 'two plus two does not equal five'."<br /><br /><b>WRONG!</b><br /><br />See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing" rel="nofollow">Honor killing</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel" rel="nofollow">Duel</a> for just two of the many examples of socially-sanctioned killing (often of the innocent).<br /><br />"It's like moral law is just as real as mathematics or physics. In other words, we are postulating objective morality."<br /><br />This is a very bad analogy, with zero probative merit. <i>All mathematics</i> and <i>all physics</i> is the same regardless of culture (give or take a few YECs who deny the physics of isotope decay and the like), morality shows a considerable range of cultural variation.<br /><br />"There is (or at least appears to be) an "ought" to morality that people assume is actual and real beyond the mere imposition of personal or communal beliefs and values on others. We certainly assume there is."<br /><br />This is simply an <i>argumentum ad populum</i> fallacy -- made even weaker as the "actual and real" morality that they believe in varies according to culture (and often even by subculture).<br /><br />"I see this all the time on this blog. People think there is a right and a wrong way to be treated. If I mistreat them, they don't say, "I don't like it when you do this"; their comment is much closer to, "that was wrong of you -- you ought not to have done that"."<br /><br />Most of the "wrong"s you've been getting recently have been for logically-invalid or unsubstantiated-and-ludicrous claims. But in any case, it is unwise to build a philosophical case based upon colloquial speech (people use "believe" both for "accept as factual or highly probable" and "accept as an article of faith" in every day conversation).<br /><br />"This is a conundrum for the person who posits an uncreated universe devoid of meaning, purpose, and values, and man a mere unintended player who happened to 'show up'."<br /><br /><b>No Rick</b>, "this is" Rick demonstrating his ignorance of how "the person who posits an uncreated universe devoid of meaning, purpose, and values" actually thinks.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_existentialism" rel="nofollow">Atheist existentialists</a> have been finding "meaning, purpose, and values" since <i>before Christianity existed.</i></b> That you don't understand the thought process by which they did so does not make it a "conundrum" to anybody other than yourself.Hræfnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post-37671514320753857882010-08-12T08:39:30.931-04:002010-08-12T08:39:30.931-04:00Pete -- You have just given me another reason to r...Pete -- You have just given me another reason to rejoice in God -- while he has created reality in such a way that some things are non-negotiably objective, e.g., math, gravity, in other areas he has given us freedom to subjectively like/dislike.BallBounceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776039024486455199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post-42367651474614799262010-08-12T08:38:11.476-04:002010-08-12T08:38:11.476-04:00"We can't pick and choose - either BOTH m..."We can't pick and choose - either BOTH morality AND taste in ice cream (for example) require an objective standard to have meaning, or neither of them do."<br /><br />Substitute mathematics for morality and re-run the sentence.BallBounceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776039024486455199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post-365468167578327762010-08-12T08:37:59.906-04:002010-08-12T08:37:59.906-04:00Not meaningless unless measured by God's stand...Not meaningless unless measured by God's standard; only meaningless if God does not exist to provide a sufficient reason for humans to think that looking on life through a moral lens is meaningful. You can be an atheist and be thoroughly moral in your outlook -- the question is -- what is the grounding for you having a moral outlook? Invention of the idea of morality? Darwinian wiring? Both fall short of anything that would result in real, actual right-and-wrong.BallBounceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776039024486455199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20385137.post-68652393927378969772010-08-12T03:29:09.197-04:002010-08-12T03:29:09.197-04:00This is one of the reasons I feel less and less co...This is one of the reasons I feel less and less connected to the Christian idea of God. If we state that morality is meaningless unless measured by God's objective standard, then we should feel the same about taste. We can't pick and choose - either BOTH morality AND taste in ice cream (for example) require an objective standard to have meaning, or neither of them do.Pete Frasernoreply@blogger.com