God is not intelligent, or, why I am a pantheist

Hume said:
Clearly you prefer agreeing with yourself.
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So clue me in here. What is the debate point you are pursuing? I am genuinely intrigued now. This is an interesting debate strategy.

I mean it's absurd on the face of it for a human to claim they have never had a choice between doing what they know is right vs doing what they want to do instead. I mean we pretty much lived that as toddlers and as adults it's how the world works.

Have you ever eaten more dessert than you know is good for you? Have you ever gone over the speed limit just a little bit? Have you ever shaded the truth or outright lied about something? Have you ever hurt someone's feelings when you didn't need to? Have you ever spoken harshly to someone when you could have been kinder? Have you ever crossed against the light?

The role of the moral teacher or moral philosopher is to shore up why you might want to default to the good, even though we know we are all prone to occasionally doing bad things.

Humans are imperfect. That's a fact.
 
Daylight63 said:
Have you ever eaten more dessert than you know is good for you? Have you ever gone over the speed limit just a little bit? Have you ever shaded the truth or outright lied about something? Have you ever hurt someone's feelings when you didn't need to? Have you ever spoken harshly to someone when you could have been kinder? Have you ever crossed against the light?
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No. Sorry, you're just a Christian moralist.
 
Hume said:
No. Sorry, you're just a Christian moralist.
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This has nothing to do with Christianity. Nothing whatsoever. Besides, I'm not really a Christian.

What moral code do YOU adhere to? What guiding principles do you follow?

Do you follow them without error? Do you adhere to every moral edict in your ethical system perfectly and without fail?
 
Daylight63 said:
This has nothing to do with Christianity. Nothing whatsoever. Besides, I'm not really a Christian.

What moral code do YOU adhere to? What guiding principles do you follow?

Do you follow them without error? Do you adhere to every moral edict in your ethical system perfectly and without fail?
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I don't live with moral edicts. That is a Christian concept.
 
Hume said:
I don't live with moral edicts. That is a Christian concept.
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Now we're getting somewhere. Thanks! (Like I said, it's always fun to see what the local brains on the forum say....)

So in your "no-moral rules" universe is there a right or wrong action given a particular scenario? OR is the thinking that all actions you take are by definition "right"?

Is it possible for someone to do "wrong" in your no-moral-edicts ethics system?
 
Hume said:
I don't live with moral edicts. That is a Christian concept.
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That makes sense for an atheist to say

The great atheist thinkers from Freud to Satre to Nietchze believed in a kind of moral relativism, or that Christian ethics were a slave morality.
 
Cypress said:
That makes sense for an atheist to say

The great atheist thinkers from Freud to Satre to Nietchze believed in a kind of moral relativism, or that Christian ethics were a slave morality.
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But even in an "atheist" morality there are "rules", they are just relative to the holder...but they are still there. I am curious what @Hume means when they say they have no moral edicts.

In their moral system is there a proper and improper choice to make in any given circumstance?

Hume has made several statements to the effect that they never have to make a choice between acting in accordance with their moral system or acting against it, so that would indicate that the view is that whatever action they take is by definition the "correct" action regardless.

I find this view fascinating as I don't think I've ever heard of a "rules-free" form of morality or ethics.
 
Daylight63 said:
But even in an "atheist" morality there are "rules", they are just relative to the holder...but they are still there. I am curious what @Hume means when they say they have no moral edicts.

In their moral system is there a proper and improper choice to make in any given circumstance?

Hume has made several statements to the effect that they never have to make a choice between acting in accordance with their moral system or acting against it, so that would indicate that the view is that whatever action they take is by definition the "correct" action regardless.

I find this view fascinating as I don't think I've ever heard of a "rules-free" form of morality or ethics.
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If you take Nietchze, Sartre, or Freud at their word, there is no absolute right and wrong.

In that sense, what Hume wrote as a diehard atheist made some sense to me.
 
Cypress said:
If you take Nietchze, Sartre, or Freud at their word, there is no absolute right and wrong.

In that sense, what Hume wrote as a diehard atheist made some sense to me.
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I understand that according to the relativist there is no absolute but even within their own relativist bubble they personally have right and wrong actions.

It’s relative at the population level. But presumably even Neitzsche thought he should take one action over another in a given situation.
 
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