This post is long overdue.
One doesn’t have to look far to find examples of moral outrage aimed towards theists in general and Christians in particular here at The Skeptical Zone.
Judgmentalism, oddly enough, is prevalent. A pungent odor of opprobrium frequently wafts its way forth from the atheist trenches, and it stinks.
Are we all moral realists after all? Do we all now agree on the existence of objective moral values? If so, what are they and what makes them objective?
As for you moral relativists, are there any of you left? Why ought anyone (including especially Erik, Gregory, myself, fifth, William) be subject to the vagaries of what you moral relativists think others ought to be doing or ought not be doing?
Such opprobrium. Based on what, exactly?
If you are going to claim that we have some moral obligation towards you, you really ought to support that claim or retract it.
After all, that’s the intellectually honest thing to do.
Apparently referring to someone who wasn’t even posting here at TSZ. So much for appealing to the site rules as the basis for opprobrium. Maybe there’s a set of moral meta-rules that cover blogging or the internet as a whole.
Not meta rules, but as I said earlier, “the objections have to do both with the rules and with the more general, implicit penumbra of expectations that attend most conversations, even debates, all of human devising. The opprobrium is perfectly understandable in that context, and needs not resort to ‘objective’ or absolute moral values for intelligibility or validity.”
No, Bill, you never explained what made one expectation moral and another expectation not moral. Am I expected to respond to every post here at TSZ? Are you? Obviously not.
You’ve also not explained why a failure to respond to an expectation is moral and another failure to respond to an expectation is not moral. Am I expected to respond to every expectation here at TSZ? Are you? Obviously not.
Your “penumbra” sounds nice. What is it’s actual moral content?
Your defense, as near as I can tell, consists of the claim that people are justified in their moral outrage when someone else does not live up to the expectations of the outraged party.
Can you differentiate your claim from Patrick’s claim?
Humans don’t decide what is objective and what is subjective?
Nah, then the asshat who posts under your name at UD wouldn’t be allowed to get away with such blatant hypocrisy.
keiths:
fifth:
We aren’t talking about an atemporal being. We’re talking about Jesus in the world and within time – a temporal being. Remember, you are the one insisting that God had to enter time in order to interact with the physical world.
Fifth, I can’t do all your thinking for you. Please, please try to keep your argument straight from one comment to the next.
keiths:
fifth:
The Incredible Shrinking Jesus is a direct consequence of your beliefs. You claim that Jesus already had a human body at the time of Moses — the same body that died on the cross. The only way a full-grown human body could get into Mary’s uterus without killing her was by shrinking first. Hence the Incredible Shrinking Jesus.
keiths:
fifth:
You didn’t even read the article, did you? Owen directly contradicts what you’ve been claiming:
You claim the Incarnation preceded the Christophanies; Owen states the exact opposite.
Good grief, fifth.
Are you aware of any prominent Christian thinker who shares your belief that Jesus mooned Moses with a physical, human butt — a butt that was part of the body that died later on the cross?
fifthmonarchyman,
The point is a portion of your morality is subjective. You make a ‘choice’ not informed by objective morality.
The point is a portion of your morality is subjective, and you don’t know which. On any given behaviour, you are no more ‘justified’ in getting annoyed than the atheist. The fact that you may be ‘objectively right’ on Y does not justify your outrage on X, where you happen to be ‘objectively wrong’.
Perhaps I will adopt your discussive style.
fmm: “yadda yadda yadda”
Me: Ok, your point is?
Sounds like it could be scads of fun. Fancy playing?
Try and be outraged? Outrage is subject to the will? It can be mastered by will, but I’d suggest it cannot be started under will. Indeed, you imply elsewhere that you have no will in establishing the sensation, under the ‘religious automaton’ view that your anger is God’s. But only sometimes.
And in no case does that justify your outrage. It simply provides a causal explanation of it. My contention is that emotions cannot be justified using ‘pure logic’ (or what passes for it hereabouts).
You are asking atheists to justify their moral sensations, but failing to do the same.
Mung,
Contrast this with the theist case that, as near as I can tell, people are justified in their moral outrage when someone else does not live up to the expectations of the outraged party’s extremely powerful pal.
If you want to pay, I’ll move you up the list. In the meanwhile you could have learnt sufficient skills to do it yourself, you lazy sod.
Speaking of which, you should make an OP laying out your hypothesis.
fmm,
Where did you say that code could be pasted and have it run?
Sometimes you get what you ask for and don’t like it.
EDIT: NVM, found it. Processing.org
I’ll need an example of the input also (fake.txt).
fmm,
Could you also write the instructions for usage. How to set up the files, what the required format is, what the buttons do, how the user is supposed to use it. etc.
fifthmonarchyman,
In other words, you want to keep making that claim but don’t want to support it. Hitchens had something to say about that:
As I’ve already explained, first real life work got in the way then I came to the conclusion that you were unlikely to change your beliefs regardless of what evidence I presented. I’ll probably still get back to it purely because I find it interesting. If and when I do, I’ll post the results here.
Since Hitchens did not provide any evidence for his claim we can dismiss it out of hand without evidence correct?
It’s like you don’t even read what you write
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
The bot is back.
It seems that you consider any response better than supporting your claim with a detailed argument. This is why I stopped responding to you before. I should have remembered that.
It’s not a claim, it’s a rule.
OMagain,
It’s not a gang, it’s a club?
I will when I have the tool in a sufficiently user friendly shareable format on the web
Take a real string from here
https://oeis.org/
randomize it and put it in (fake.txt) .
step one ———use the tool compare the random to the real
next put the randomized string through an EA till it is “close” to the original
step two ———use the tool to compare the “close” string to the original
it’s simple if you can tell the original from the randomized and close strings it is designed
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
That’s not exactly an objective metric.
You mean “create a random string with the same length as the chosen string”?
I don’t know what that means. Does your code do that?
But your tool only compares two strings at a time.
Make a new pastebin, and put in the three examples (original, randomised, close) and they will be the starting dataset.
The tool is just a tool, your hypothesis should not depend on a specific implementation.
Mung:
Why would I explain that? It is exactly my point that none of these expectations are “objectively moral” in the sense that their “rightness” or “wrongness” derives from objective, absolute morality outside of human devising.
Rather, they originate both in the broad language community in which we participate and with the author of this site. A few were explicitly stated by Lizzie as the site was inaugurated, while others are expectations/assumptions about one another’s behavior that make conversation possible generally.
Specifically, per Paul Grice, the comprehension of ordinary utterances assumes that speakers are being appropriately brief, perspicuous, relevant, and truthful. Listeners utilize those assumptions to recover otherwise underdetermined meanings and intentions. Even highly contentious exchanges can be successful (ie. not break down, solve problems, result in negotiated agreements etc.) if these expectations are respected, and cooperative conversations break down when they are not. None of these are “objective moral values”; they are pragmatic prerequisites for functional conversation. If what is wanted is functional conversation, then they need to be honored. When they are badly violated, particularly deliberately, opprobrium is appropriate in a context (like this site) where the stated aspiration is to have functional conversations about difficult issues.
Perhaps that is why things have broken down so badly here – those expectations aren’t all that different than the site rules, and they are so often neglected.
Same answer.
Ordinary courtesy would suggest that if, for example, one poses questions in an OP and another participant offers a good faith response comporting with the site rules, one should respond. While there is no explicit obligation to do so, others may observe the discourtesy and will often speculate vis motives (e.g., the OP has been refuted and the author doesn’t wish to acknowledge that).
How do you differentiate between rules and claims? What criteria do you use?
peace
It is if you define a designed object as one that is not the result of random or algorithmic processes
peace
The whole point of making the Tool shareable is so that we can compare strings together. We need a way to input strings ourselves
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You snipped out the important part of what I was replying to. You said “it’s simple if you can tell the original from the randomized and close strings it is designed”. You are relying on human assessment. That’s inherently subjective. Can you define an objective metric for your test?
When did I make that claim?
Not all all. Do you even know what præludium means?
peace
All observation depends on the observer and in that sense is subjective. We could be a brain in a vat after all.
If design is defined as not produced by random or algorithmic process. Then an object not produced by random or algorithmic process is designed.
It’s a objective binary metric designed verses not designed. By definition.
Just like circular verses not circular
peace
peace
peace
Prove it.
A definition made by human beings.
Yeah, according to a human definition.
Prove it.
In what way do I do that?
I understand that you think this, but please demonstrate how I act as if I an objective morality exists.
Prove it.
fifthmonarchyman,
I have no idea what you’re on about.
Let me try it this way: Can you modify your game in such a way that the analysis of the final two (three?) strings, no matter how you got them, is done algorithmically by a separate program rather than by a human eyeballing them?
It’s one thing to say that there’s no perception without a perceiver; it’s quite another to say that perception is subjective in the sense that it takes place entirely within the perceiver and doesn’t also depend on perceptible real things.
I find myself puzzled by claims like “we could be brains in a vat”. Does that mean it is logically possible that we are brains in a vat?
Here’s a quick argument against that logical possibility. For it to be logically possible that one is a brain in a vat, it would have to be conceivable that one is a brain in a vat. But for it to be conceivable that one is a brain in a vat, one would first have to know that we can conceive of what it would be like to be a brain in a vat. Only on that basis could one then think that what one is experiencing as an embodied, coping being in the world is phenomenologically indistinguishable from what would be experienced by a brain in a vat. That’s what would make it conceivable that one is a brain in a vat, and therefore that it is logically possible that one is a brain in a vat.
My doubt therefore comes down to this: can we actually conceive of what it would be like to be a brain in a vat? Can we actually imagine what the phenomenology of a brain in a vat would be like? I don’t see how. Maybe my imagination is deficient, but I don’t see how it is possible for us to conceive of what it is that a brain in a vat would be experiencing. And therefore the entire conjecture can’t get off the ground.
for one thing you seem to think that I am obligated to prove things to you
peace
That’s OK. sometimes I assume we share more common ground than we actually do.
I expect that there will have to be lots of clarification and give and take before we can be sure we are on the same page on this one.
I think this will be easier when we can both look at the tool and experience the feeling of “getting” the form of a string from a designed process
no, if you could do it with an algorithm then my hypothesis is falsified. That is why that simple one week hack of yours is so important.
Peace
How do you know this? I don’t mean to be flippant but this seems to to a unwarranted assumption on your part.
Perhaps you can’t conceive of anything at all and at the same time are a brain in a vat. I see no logical law prohibiting this possibility.
How do you know that your imagination is not deficient?
Given your worldview how could you possibly know that your imagination is not deficient?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
So you don’t have an objective metric to identify design.
Does objective equal algorithmic in your view?
Is there an objective metric to identify circles?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
It means that different people will get the same result from the same observations. It sounds like the results of your game depend on the biases of the observers. I’ll wait and see.
I think different people will get the same result from the same observations. I am very curious as to whether this will be the case.
I don’t expect unanimous agreement but rather a consensus. We could then weigh the strength of that consensus with different strings.
Some designs are super obvious to get others take a little more effort.
it’s all great fun and a stimulating exercise IMO
On top of that Atheists can relax because there is no way to rule out the possibility that at some point in the future some enterprising critic will be able to put together a hack to crack the tool and falsify it all.
how cool is that ?
I hope you will. That is my plan right now as well
peace
I suppose some folks are more apt than others to say a particular object is circular but that does not mean that we can’t come to a consensus that the earth is an oblate spheroid
peace
keiths:
fifth:
On August 30th, among other times:
keiths:
fifth:
Yes, but apparently you don’t.
You’re not going to bluff your way out of this one, fifth. Owen makes it quite clear:
Owen thinks the Christophanies preceded the Incarnation. You claim the opposite.
As I asked earlier:
keiths,
Hey Keiths
check it out
quote:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them,…………………and the Rock was Christ.
(1Co 10:1-4)
end quote:
Get it now?
peace
no Owen thinks the Christophanies were præludium and I agree. Owen is silent about how it all works out and so am I. We are in perfect agreement.
Funny how you always get tripped up by orthodox christian beliefs. An x-christian should know better
peace
fifth,
Owen thinks the Christophanies were a prelude to the Incarnation, and no, you don’t agree, unless you’ve changed your mind within the last day. You claimed the Incarnation came first.
Owen couldn’t be clearer in stating his view:
For Owen, the Christophanies came before the Incarnation, in direct opposition to your view.
Fifth, you’ve cited Owen when he doesn’t even agree with your position. That’s pure apologetic incompetence. Why not leave the apologetics to someone with the appropriate skillset and knowledge? There are other ways you can serve God, like cleaning the church restrooms.
fifthmonarchyman,
And we can measure the deviation from a perfect sphere with a great deal of precision. It doesn’t sound like the same is true of your purported metric. Let’s see.
Is it possible that you have misunderstood my position?
There is no before or after from the perspective of an atemporal being
You are still hung up on the temporal.
The Word was present and active in the universe from the beginning. In order for God to act he must enter into time
If you want a good modern summery of what I’ve been telling you check this out
peace
fair enough
peace
fifth,
You claim the Incarnation came first. Owen claims the Christophanies came first. You can tap dance all day, but the fact remains: Owen disagrees with you.
You quoted an authority who actually undermines your case.
The funny part is that if an omniscient God were actually revealing this stuff to you, you wouldn’t be making these dumb mistakes.
Again:
Are you aware of any prominent Christian thinker who shares your belief that Jesus mooned Moses with a physical, human butt — a butt that was part of the body that died later on the cross?