DCP’s incoherent babbling about morality

[drumdude]

Noel, I'm genuinely sorry for the spiritual state in which you find yourself, which has pretty obviously not made you happy.
But your catalog of the sins of some religious folk, even taken at face value and even if greatly extended (as it easily could be), fails to demonstrate that right and wrong are merely subjective preferences, like favoring chicken enchiladas over beef enchiladas. Moreover, your very indignation at the things you describe suggests that you yourself don't really believe that good and evil are just expressions of like and dislike. You don't, I assume, feel outraged when you hear that somebody prefers Pepsi over Coke -- even if the person in question actually acts on her preference.

The prosecutors and the judges at Nuremberg weren't operating on the basis of statutory law and certainly not on the basis of what they viewed as subjective tastes or preferences (e.g., you like asparagus but I prefer broccoli), but rather on the basis of indignant revulsion at what they and virtually everybody else regarded as genuine and especially gross offenses against a really-existing moral standard.

CS: "Exactly. For a real-time example, just look at the supporters of Russia and Ukraine who both feel their side is legally right and morally justified."
Do they, really? And, if so, do they do so on the basis of the same evidence and understanding?
And how would that, even if it were true, prove that good and evil are merely arbitrary choices, like preferring the color red instead of the color blue?

It’s starting to become more clear why DCP can’t finish his book. He simply cannot imagine a morality that isn’t tied to his own personal belief in a God. And if you can’t, even for a second, respectfully consider the position of your opponents, how in the world can you write an interesting book on the subject?

All he knows how to do is “own” gemli repeatedly in the comment section of his blog. None of those schoolyard antics even begin to approach the makings of a decent book on morality.

[IHAQ]

The prosecutors and the judges at Nuremberg weren't operating on the basis of statutory law and certainly not on the basis of what they viewed as subjective tastes or preferences (e.g., you like asparagus but I prefer broccoli), but rather on the basis of indignant revulsion at what they and virtually everybody else regarded as genuine and especially gross offenses against a really-existing moral standard.

Within that sentence DCP allows for the fact that the holocaust and other German war crimes were not "immoral" for some people. He's acknowledging that morality really is the same as a choice between asparagus and broccoli - but doesn't realise it because he thinks that if most people choose broccoli, than asparagus eaters are evil as determined by a supernatural power that supersedes what we might think.

Morality is subjective. Morality is a system of what people find acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, regardless of what God thinks. Laws based on morale codes have been put together by lawmakers based on what the majority feel is the best way for a society to operate. DCP will see two people cohabiting out of wedlock as immoral. Society disagrees. What DCP thinks about morality is irrelevant beyond the end of his own nose.

[Rivendale]

Within that sentence DCP allows for the fact that the holocaust and other German war crimes were not "immoral" for some people. He's acknowledging that morality really is the same as a choice between asparagus and broccoli - but doesn't realise it because he thinks that if most people choose broccoli, than asparagus eaters are evil as determined by a supernatural power that supersedes what we might think.

Morality is subjective. Morality is a system of what people find acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, regardless of what God thinks. Laws based on morale codes have been put together by lawmakers based on what the majority feel is the best way for a society to operate. DCP will see two people cohabiting out of wedlock as immoral. Society disagrees. What DCP thinks about morality is irrelevant beyond the end of his own nose.

Well put. Morality does not exist. It is a social contract based on agreed goals. For the most part it seems to centered around the idea of less suffering. DCP seems to think Mormon god is the grounding of all things moral thus sidestepping the asparagus broccoli conundrum. Everything is just opinions until it isn't. That is DCP's world. A world of established eternal truths that they themself have no originations and are just brute facts resulting from an endless supply of Gods. God's that have opinions on broccoli and asparagus. Has DCP forgotten Euthyphro?

[hauslern]

Those comments was in response to the exhausting debate about Fawn Brodie and her Jefferson bio and her Smith bio. If critics attack her Jefferson bio the same ca be said about No Man Knows My History. Midgley has written exhaustively about her critics. I have been reading it as well as Annette Gordon-Reed's book. The only time Sally Hemmings fell pregnant only when Jefferson was home at Monticello. Her son testified his mother was Jefferson's concubine. Why would he lie? People at the time commented how much they looked like Jefferson. Jennifer Wallach wrote The Vindication of Fawn Brodie All Midgley can say it was in a literary magazine not a history journal. I notice they are not so critical of Annette Gordon-Reed's book.

[Physics Guy]

Enjoying torturing people is not like enjoying asparagus. It is not an arbitrary choice that is just as good as trying to help people. If you really think it is, you need help—or an armed guard.

I'm pretty sure that all the atheists whom I personally know agree with that. Morality does not require God—or at least it is not obvious that it does. If you're so keen to score points against religious apologists that you will endorse recreational torture just to rebut their moral arguments for God, then you need to calm down and think about what your words actually mean. Or get that help.

[Moksha]

Those comments was in response to the exhausting debate about Fawn Brodie and her Jefferson bio and her Smith bio. If critics attack her Jefferson bio the same ca be said about No Man Knows My History. Midgley has written exhaustively about her critics. I have been reading it as well as Annette Gordon-Reed's book. The only time Sally Hemmings fell pregnant only when Jefferson was home at Monticello. Her son testified his mother was Jefferson's concubine. Why would he lie? People at the time commented how much they looked like Jefferson. Jennifer Wallach wrote The Vindication of Fawn Brodie All Midgley can say it was in a literary magazine not a history journal. I notice they are not so critical of Annette Gordon-Reed's book.

Midgley and the other Mormon apologists have an ax to grind regarding Fawn Brodie's exposé on Joseph Smith. They are speaking as religious zealots rather than academics.

[dastardly stem]

Some excuse God’s torturing of people due to the hope that some of them endure it so He can feel good about saving a few. They may say in his defense ‘what doesn’t kill them [spiritually] makes them stronger’. But he does, apparently, intend to have people tortured for eternity. His apparent lust for torture embarrasses the most ambitious of psychopaths—I believe that’s a line from Sam Harris. I don’t know that any of us know anything about a desire to torture people. That’d be reserved for psychopaths, god and his created character satan.*. So I wouldn’t know how such a desire relates or doesn’t relate to a preference for asparagus. I don’t know how we would know anything about that. Sounds like guesswork to me.

Luckily the concept of god is so poorly defined, most often resulting in an adequate description of nothing, we really don’t need to reach into our imaginations to conjure up what a god might think is the right thing to do. We can just easily imagine what is good ourselves. After all what are believers doing but imaging god and then telling us what their imagined god thinks? Someone trying to use morality to speak their god into existence is nothing more than that person pretending their own thoughts are god


*if God doesn’t have a body and satan doesn’t have a body does that mean they are one and the same? We have to figure out, I guess, what is a non entity?

[Rivendale]

Some excuse God’s torturing of people due to the hope that some of them endure it so He can feel good about saving a few. They may say in his defense ‘what doesn’t kill them [spiritually] makes them stronger’. But he does, apparently, intend to have people tortured for eternity. His apparent lust for torture embarrasses the most ambitious of psychopaths—I believe that’s a line from Sam Harris. I don’t know that any of us know anything about a desire to torture people. That’d be reserved for psychopaths, god and his created character satan.*. So I wouldn’t know how such a desire relates or doesn’t relate to a preference for asparagus. I don’t know how we would know anything about that. Sounds like guesswork to me.

Luckily the concept of god is so poorly defined, most often resulting in an adequate description of nothing, we really don’t need to reach into our imaginations to conjure up what a god might think is the right thing to do. We can just easily imagine what is good ourselves. After all what are believers doing but imaging god and then telling us what their imagined god thinks? Someone trying to use morality to speak their god into existence is nothing more than that person pretending their own thoughts are god


*if God doesn’t have a body and satan doesn’t have a body does that mean they are one and the same? We have to figure out, I guess, what is a non entity?

I think most people fail to understand the depth of torture. Priesthood blessings are sometimes given for a release on dying people. Imagine that. Praying to stop the suffering. At my age I am seeing fellow classmates die horrific deaths. My best friend through school actually contracted a parasite on his mission about 35 years ago. He raised a family while slowly dying. I mean slowly but painfully. He eventually passed a few years ago after a lifetime of hell. I watched both my parents die horrific deaths. Not the kind of deaths where they just go to sleep. We always hear the faithful tout how it is all worth it in the end and god's plan has a purpose ....really? Gemli is right. People create these fantasies to avoid the repercussions of their own demise.

[drumdude]

On a related note, Interpreter is begging for your money again. Where’s the moral justification for that?

[IHAQ]

Enjoying torturing people is not like enjoying asparagus. It is not an arbitrary choice that is just as good as trying to help people. If you really think it is, you need help—or an armed guard.

You're acknowledging that, for some people, enjoying the torturing of others is like enjoying asparagus. You can probably think of some examples. That it is not the norm, nor the choice for the vast majority of people. But that doesn't make it non arbitrary. It doesn't make it anything beyond a societal choice. Guantanamo Bay detention centre was a choice. The Mormon who designed the water boarding and other torture techniques chose to do so. He clearly enjoyed his job. And I'll wager that a lot of Americans appreciate what he did, with only the same level of consideration as their vegetable menu choices.

I'm pretty sure that all the atheists whom I personally know agree with that. Morality does not require God—or at least it is not obvious that it does. If you're so keen to score points against religious apologists that you will endorse recreational torture just to rebut their moral arguments for God, then you need to calm down and think about what your words actually mean. Or get that help.

I'm unsure as to who your comment is direct towards, as I don't see anyone endorsing recreational torture.