/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11037211]

Can you justify morals as an atheist?

[Anonymous No.11037213]

>this thread again

[Anonymous No.11037216]

No, morals are a spook just like religion

[Anonymous No.11037218]

>>11037211
certainly not as completely as a theist could

[Anonymous No.11037251]

>>11037211
Kant

[Anonymous No.11037267]

>>11037211
That really depends on what you mean by justify. You can willingly abide by morals as an atheist. You can willingly attempt to impose morals on others as an atheist. You can maybe make a system where the previous action is considered, itself, morally acceptable or even compulsory.

[Anonymous No.11037664]

>>11037211
morality is completely determined by biological impulses.

[Anonymous No.11037672]

>>11037251
/thread and sage

[Anonymous No.11037683]

>>11037251
>le atheist Kant meme
Only worse one is the Kierkegaard one.

[Anonymous No.11037725]

>>11037251
>Falling for the Kant secularized morality meme
Ew

[Anonymous No.11037733]

>>11037251
*can't

[Anonymous No.11037734]

>>11037211
>morals
lel no need for that

[Anonymous No.11037771]

>>11037211
Morality doesn't require religion in the slightest, so yes. Moral codes are determined by the good of the tribe and what tends to keep the peace and allow a society to prosper. Religion is a lame excuse sometimes used to help enforce those morals.

[Anonymous No.11037774]

>>11037211
*blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.11037925]

>>11037664
a meaningless assertion

[Anonymous No.11037996]

>>11037771
So no.

[Anonymous No.11038011]

>>11037771
All you've said is that morality is determined "by the good of the tribe" so therefore morality is a social invention, a lie.
Therefore morality cannot be justified in any "real" sense.

[Anonymous No.11038020]

>>11038011
There's literally nothing wrong with social inventions.

[Anonymous No.11038031]

>"if you can't say that moral right and wrong has an objective, real existence a la Plato then what the fuck is the point of life?"
>"this makes me feel sad, therefore atheism is wrong."

I'm getting really fuckinng sick of this line of rreasoning, and I'm a theist. Why the fuck is this considered a viable angle of attack?

[Anonymous No.11038054]

>>11038031
>"this makes me feel sad, therefore atheism is wrong."
^This. It reveals the person making that argument is deliberately deciding what to force themselves to believe in based on how good it makes them feel instead of just naturally believing in what seems correct. When you do this you're literally proving Freud right and indulging in infantile wish fulfillment.

[Anonymous No.11038066]

>>11037211
Can you justify morals as a theist? No, seriously. I’m a theist as well, but when theists say “can’t have grounding for morality without muh god!!!” you are simply making a mockery of yourself, and, what’s more important, of God. Seriously, why does God justify morality? “Just because”. What’s any deeper in this “God is good and what he dictates is good just because he is good” than an atheist’s “being is moral is good because it leads to the best for humanity which is good just because it is” or “being moral is good just because”. God is beyond petty human definitions of and justifications for morality, you pleb.

Think of Kant’s idea of heteronomy, and of how those who are moral just because God commands them to be so are simply giving up their autonomy and obeying another without rationality. Think of Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of the ethical and the example of Abraham being ordered by God to kill his son Isaac. Think of Plato’s Euthyphro, and the question of whether the good/pious is good because God/the gods love it, or whether the good is loved by God because it is good. No matter which side you choose, you still fall into “just because”. There is NO JUSTIFICATION for God, the good, morality. It just fucking is. Read the fucking book of Job.

I hate you “moral theists”, you’re even more fedora than the atheists you criticize. Your social conditioning and idiotic ideas of temporary good make you bring in something greater than your puny minds can comprehend, greater than perhaps anyone’s puny mind can comprehend, to prop up your own vanity. Can a true Christian justify morals when the book of Job is part of their canon? God is beyond your stupid ideas of morality, God is non-moral or super-moral. That’s real faith, when you love God and try to follow him without caring about what society calls “moral” or “immoral”.

[Anonymous No.11038070]

>>11038011
>social invention, a lie
Demonstrate that social inventions are lies. Are languages lies too?

[Anonymous No.11038079]

Daily reminder that even theism can't save you from the is-ought gap

[Anonymous No.11038083]

>>11037683
>>11037725
>>11037733
> asks for secular view of morals
> gets a clear example of secular morals
> “lol no fuck that guy”

[Anonymous No.11038116]

>>11037251
This.

[Anonymous No.11038148]

>>11037774
I mean i wouldn't define the buddhist conception of good and evil "moral", it's more like a mechanicistic perspective: you do shit, your spirit reacts to it and you gain negative karma (kinda like drinking bleach). On the other hand, in the Christian conception you act in relation to the moral laws God utteref

[Anonymous No.11038157]

>>11037251
How do I into Kant? I'm pretty up with the greeks, and I've just finished Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, and I've gathered Kant is the next step after Hume. So what Kant should I go to?

[Anonymous No.11038171]

>>11037664
So is are whole being, what are you saying nitwit

[Anonymous No.11038193]

>>11037211
Feels.

[Anonymous No.11038378]

>>11038011
are tables lies? damn....

[Anonymous No.11038445]

>>11038066
lol, then what, sin isn't real too?

[Anonymous No.11038451]

>>11038011
I know it's hard for a theist to grasp, but "social inventions" are the limit for right and wrong. They're not lies, they're just ideas, whether they come with a deity's name stuck on them or not.

[Anonymous No.11038475]

>>11038020
There is nothing wrong with social conventions but you cannot justify it as true in the sense that you can justify 1+1=2, it's a mere social thing, and being disgusted with paedophilia is just you acting disgusted to fit into society.
>>11038070
"Social invention" means something society has defined, unless you demonstrate society is 100% perfect and right all the time then it seems perfectly reasonable to assert that "social conventions" can be bullshit sometimes.

[Anonymous No.11038526]

>>11038451
"Social inventions" being the limit is a pretty flexible term, if the courtyard changes then the limits will too. So how can you justify any of today's morality?

[Anonymous No.11038536]

>>11038445
Sin in the original Greek of the Gospels is “hamartia”, meaning a flaw, error, to miss the mark (as when shooting an arrow at a target). To be properly religious is to transform ourselves so we are capable of being unified with God. To sin is to fail to transform our consciousnesses in such a way. Such things as sexual promiscuousness, lying, murder etc. are prohibited because they make us more focused on worldly things, eventually or immediately lead to remorse, and thus make it harder for us to keep our minds on God.

[Anonymous No.11038540]

>>11038536
So wouldn't what is 'immoral' just be the same as what removes us from God, and what is 'moral' would be what brings us closer?

[Anonymous No.11038627]

>>11038540
Yes, in a sense. Not guilt-based or reward/punishment based, as many denominations of Christianity have it, but simply practical. How can a finite and temporal self begin to relate itself to an eternal, infinite, incomprehensible God? The first step is to begin to remove what attaches it overmuch to the temporal and worldly. A person in the midst of “sin” would simply be in hell if they were to be put in the direct presence of God because of a realization of their own unworthiness, idiocy, and what they’d failed to pay attention to their whole lives and failed to strive towards.

[Anonymous No.11038644]

>>11038627
Yeah, ok, so why do you say morality isn't defined under the God anymore than in atheism if that is the case?

[Anonymous No.11038656]

>>11038644
Because why is God and being closer to him good? It just is. There is no justification. To justify theism by saying it justifies morality, and to criticize atheism by saying it has no transcendent grounding for morality, is to belittle ones faith in God. God is much more than a justification for morality.

[Anonymous No.11038682]

>>11038656
>Can you justify morals as a theist? No, seriously.
>To justify theism by saying it justifies morality (...) God is much more than a justification for morality.
???

[Anonymous No.11038701]

>>11038682
The point is that while God seemingly gives you a “reason” to be “good”, there is no justification behind this “good” being “good”. There is still an infinite well of unexplainability behind it. As a theist, why is morality good? Because it brings you to closer to God. Why is God/being closer to God good? Because it just is. There’s fundamentally no justification for that.

[Anonymous No.11038790]

>>11038475
>and being disgusted with paedophilia is just you acting disgusted to fit into society
Disgust is not even comparable to moral claims, as is evident from moral talk. If you aren't disgusted by something that I am disgusted by, then I'll at most tell you that you're weird. But if you claim that something evidently morally wrong according to me is not wrong according to you, then I'll contest that claim and tell you that you're wrong about a matter of fact.

>but you cannot justify it as true in the sense that you can justify 1+1=2
So what? This is ethics, not mathematics.

[Anonymous No.11038951]

>>11038790
>Disgusted it not even compatible to moral claims.
It is. By virtue of being disgusted by something implies a heavy disagree of disagreeableness, if you are disgusted by rape it's implies that you disagree with it, if you are disgusted by murder that again implies a level of disagreeableness,or moral claims.
>If you claim that something is evidently morally wrong.
Now you are just bringing in another topic, if morality is a "social convention" then that doesn't mean it is "evidently" morally wrong it just means that it is something society has agreed upon for any reason whatsoever.
>This is ethics not mathematics.
Actually the claim that murder is wrong is correct in the same sense that 1+1=2 under an objective moral framework. Both are "true" in the sense that it's not debatable that it's correct.

[Anonymous No.11038959]

>>11037733
Good one

[Anonymous No.11038973]

>>11038148
There is no spirit, Aatma, in Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.11038976]

>>11037211
--->/his/

[Anonymous No.11039075]

>>11038951
>It is.
No it's not. I'm disgusted by people eating insects and I don't even in the slightest think that it's morally wrong.
>if morality is a "social convention" then that doesn't mean it is "evidently" morally wrong it just means that it is something society has agreed upon for any reason whatsoever.
Me and probably also the majority of people in the world see torturing children for pleasure as evidently wrong and it's not because that's what society has agreed upon. Ask anyone and they will tell you that they would still see torturing children for pleasure as wrong even if people around them got mad and agreed that it's not wrong from now on.
>Actually the claim that murder is wrong is correct in the same sense that 1+1=2 under an objective moral framework. Both are "true" in the sense that it's not debatable that it's correct.
Not really. I'd say that most "objective moral frameworks" are not absolutist. For example, it's possible under act-utilitarianism and perhaps virtue ethics for some acts of murder to not be wrong.

[saucy No.11039136]

>>11037211
Morality is a code of conduct delineating right form wrong, it wouldn't be subjugated to the nuances of belief.

[Anonymous No.11039159]

>>11039075
>I'm disgusted by people eating insects and I don't think it's morally wrong.
You're just conflating morality and personal taste.
>Me and majority of people see torturing children as evidently wrong and it's not because of what society has agreed upon.
Then why? You say "evidently" but provide no evidence for the claim that torturing children is wrong.
>Ask anyone and they will tell you that they would still see torturing children for pleasure as wrong even if people around them got mad and agreed that it's not wrong from now on.
You've just proved my point, my point is that morality isn't socially defined and you now say that even if most said it would then people would still disagree with the proposition that torturing children is wrong. The only way they could reach that conclusion is if they concluded outside of the "social order," what is right or wrong.
You also say the word "evidently" around a lot, this implies that there is a "moral truth," outside of popular opinion that can be reached, which again proves my point that morality is not socially defined.
>Not really I'd say most objective moral frameworks are no absolutists.
OK then but what about my Objective framework that is? Then its pretty clear that murder is wrong in the same sense that 1+1=2.

[Anonymous No.11039164]

>>11039075
there are whole groups that think torturing children is ok, and some of them are quite numerous. you have no case

[Anonymous No.11039204]

>>11039159
>You're just conflating morality and personal taste.
Not me, they were first conflated here >>11038475
>Then why?
Well, the obvious explanation would be "because it actually is wrong".

>>11039164
>there are whole groups that think torturing children is ok, and some of them are quite numerous
Sure, there are also people who think that the Earth is flat.
>you have no case
How so?

[Anonymous No.11039223]

>>11039204
>Because it's actually wrong.
Why? You're begging the question.
>You first conflated it here.
Where and why? You didn't directly quote anything.

[Anonymous No.11039254]

>>11038475
>it's a mere social thing, and being disgusted with paedophilia is just you acting disgusted to fit into society.
Nope, it doesn't follow that because something is a social value that means you only follow it to "fit in."
Please think a little more before posting next time.

[Anonymous No.11039281]

>>11039254
>Nope
Yep. IF, and I say IF, morality is a mere social convention then everyone goes along with it to fit in the social group and better survival in a Darwinian sense.
By your argument you assume the social value has an external reason for it to be a social value outside of mere popularity, which is why you would follow it other to fit in, but that proves my point, that morality is not merely socially defined.

[Anonymous No.11039290]

Morality can be explained as treating others the same way you want to be treated. That is all.

[Anonymous No.11039401]

>>11039223
>Why? You're begging the question.
I'm not. When there's such an enormous convergence on a belief between people of many different cultures, then the obvious explanation would be that the belief is true. It could of course be a coincidence or something, but I'll go with the obvious explanation until someone gives me a better one.

>>11039290
I'm a masochist and I like it when people cut my balls with razorblades. Give me your location, I'd like to do some completely ethical stuff on you ;)

[Anonymous No.11039539]

>>11037211
Better question: Do morals justify a religion, or does religion justify morals?

[Anonymous No.11039717]

>>11038526
By the current condition of the courtyard, obviously. Morals are like laws: contingent, practical, and tailored for a specific time, place, and group of people. Just because there are rules that tend to be applicable to most situations (like "don't kill people, because it really upsets and worries others for obvious reasons") doesn't mean morals are absolute. Requiring them to be timeless, noncontingent, or intrinsic is just a refusal to think in nuance.

[Anonymous No.11040803]

>>11038083
>Clear view of secular morals based purely on pseudo Christian morality
Correction

[Anonymous No.11040807]

The enlightenment philosophers basically said the same as the religious men in different words.

Do unto others as you would do unto yourself

[Anonymous No.11040869]

The roots of morality are social behaviors. Religion just rephrases it and took possession of the concept.

>How can you justify your seek for equality if you are not a feminist?

Religion doesn't own the rights over morality.