re: Jesus was from Nazareth

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Pretend we're talking about the game of chess. And most people I interact with accept the rules of chess and agree that the point of the game is to win and not to lose.

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Oh joy, you just refused to define terminology with me, then after your love fest with the Jehovah's Witness you pretend that it's all about agreeing on the rules.

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All that's required is enough people who agree with the subjective rules and goal of chess.

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Do you feel that you have to convince yourself that you are "smart" or cultured?

Because all that shows is a lack of self esteem. It's like LARPing as a philosopher while ignoring all rules of logic.

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All that's required is enough people who agree with the subjective rules and goal of chess.

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This explains why you get angry and upset when others don't agree with you.
When others hold your nonsense accountable.

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It looks exactly like you'd expect it to look if a group of ape-like creatures

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Yea that's the most pompous statement that could be made.
It shows an epic lack of self awareness thinking one could capture so many complexities into a phrase such as exact...

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So long as people generally have similar expectations of society, they are meaningful.

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No, they are not meaningful because they are merely opinions.

Again, if a majority of the people in a society voted vanilla the best ice cream flavor, that wouldn't make it so. It just means a lot of people share a preference. Over time, that preference may change.

Likewise, there is no meaningful way to discuss good and evil if those definitions are merely preferential. When a majority says that a particular action is good or it is evil, it doesn't mean that the action is good or evil, just that the majority thinks it is at that time.

Why does that matter? It matters because even if you were to agree that something is evil in your own cultural context, it doesn't mean that it is evil in any other cultural context. It means you can't make a meaningful judgement against another society that accepts a different moral standard, because their social agreement is different than your own. If Islamic countries think it's good to marry off their children before they even hit puberty, then that's good for them. Likewise, if they think it's evil for anyone to teach against Islam, then no one can say otherwise. Sex slavery is good to them? We can't say otherwise.

It also means that we can't condemn different cultural morals from our own country that existed in the past. We can't say that the slave trade in this country was bad, because it existed during a cultural context that, at least at the time, decided that it was good. We can't reasonably condemn what was accepted.

What your subjectivism also does is make dissent against the majority immoral by definition. If what is moral is what is accepted by a particular society, then fighting against it is immoral. It would be immoral to fight for abolition of slavery in a society that accepts slavery. It would be immoral to fight for the right of women to vote in a society that doesn't agree. To go against the majority would be immoral.

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Pretend we're talking about the game of chess. And most people I interact with accept the rules of chess and agree that the point of the game is to win and not to lose.

Now I can talk strategy with them.

Sure, maybe there's no reason to think the point of chess is to win. Maybe it's to lose. Maybe it's to draw the game out so long you frustrate your opponent into just quitting. Maybe it's to bait your opponent into setting up all the pieces just so you can flip it over and laugh at their wasted effort.

Maybe, but the people I'm speaking with agree think the point is to win. They agree to play by the rules. Even in a completely subjective world these phenomenons can occur. No objective game rules/concepts required.

All that's required is enough people who agree with the subjective rules and goal of chess.

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Morality is not like this, though. We don't say, "hey, you're playing the chess game of life by a different set of rules, and that's cool". No, we act as if the "rules" of morality are fixed, and that others must play them the way we want.

I keep telling you that you SHOULD act as if we all an play by different rules if we want to, but you know we don't act that way, and even you don't act that way. If someone else thought that stealing your stuff was the right way to play the game, I know that you wouldn't be OK with that, but would expect them to conform to your own subjective rules. And if a majority of society decided to go along with the thief's rules over and against yours, I'm sure you wouldn't just say, "oh well, stealing must be OK because my society said it is".

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Morality is the same way. Sure there's no objective reason why a prosperous, peaceful, society is more better than a poor, violent one. But we are all biological creatures. We feel pain, fear, etc. We are going to find a lot of common ground with respect for the end goals we're looking for our society to fulfill.

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The goals are, themselves, subjective and arbitrary in the end. There is no objective reason why we should seek prosperity for others in society, or even for ourselves. There are many who buck the trend and want to kill themselves and leave destruction in their wake as they exit this life. Who is to say they are "wrong"? You seem to be admitting that they aren't necessarily wrong due to subjectivism, however, as I keep pointing out, you don't live that way.

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Honestly, looking back at history, societies, morality changing... It looks exactly like you'd expect it to look if a group of ape-like creatures got very intelligent and tried to build societies in a morally subjective world. It looks nothing like what you'd expect to see if humans had the cheat codes to what's moral from the start.

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The basics of morality are written on the hearts of mankind, and we see that play out in society and cultures across time and space. What we also see is sin that gets in the way of even good intentions when it comes to morality. This is what we expect from a biblical worldview. But not only that, the biblical model also provides a reason why evil is actually evil, rather than just an opinion. Evil exists in contrast to the perfect and holy God, whereas in a subjectivistic worldview, as you are expressing, there is no rational way to make objective moral judgements like we do. We don't merely say that we think child sex trafficking is icky according to our own preferences, but we say that it is objectively evil and must be ended. We speak in absolute terms because we know deep down that morality isn't subjective, but good and evil actually exist.

Again, I've addressed your false claims plenty of times, and yet you keep coming back with the same lies. I don't understand how you can continue to portray yourself as an intellectual when you when you keep repeating lies over and over again. It's very sad.

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It’s because you aren’t one.

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Its because you are a Jehovah's Witnesses.

You beleive that all is permitted because you are right, that you are a Columbus who just knows where India is, and if you keep sailing you will reach it.

Its the same with those with religion and atheism.

Its fundamentally human to simplify complexity down to "I understand this".

To be an intellectually rigorous person is to constantly question ones self, ones own beliefs, to realize their own elements of faith that bridge the gap in facts futher than Spinoza.

Zealots are never intellectuals, you lurch from mutually incompatible line of attack to another.

There is always inherent cowardness to those who refuse to admit their own illogical beleifs but attack others, its a Freudian slip of an admission that Christian beliefs are indeed more rigorous and firm than the weak waffling of those continually attacking.

You are always free to prove us wrong by firmly stating your entire belief system, which as you know will get demolished.

So how weak is what you believe in?

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Christian beliefs are indeed more rigorous and firm than the weak waffling of those continually attacking.

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Enjoy your Dies Natalis Sol Invicti tomorrow!

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Narax

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You’re the bastard offspring of Foo (after losing 50-60 IQ points due to traumatic brain injury) and Roger.

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No, they are not meaningful because they are merely opinions.

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Opinions, however silly or subjective, drive behavior. That makes it meaningful.

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Again, if a majority of the people in a society voted vanilla the best ice cream flavor, that wouldn't make it so.

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Correct, but beliefs don't need to be true to be meaningful, to impact the world around us. Look at Muslim suicide bombers. You'll say objectively that Allah and the Quran "aren't so", yet people's belief that they are so still influences the world.

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Likewise, there is no meaningful way to discuss good and evil if those definitions are merely preferential.

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Then there is no meaningful way to discuss Chess.

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Why does that matter? It matters because even if you were to agree that something is evil in your own cultural context, it doesn't mean that it is evil in any other cultural context. It means you can't make a meaningful judgement against another society that accepts a different moral standard, because their social agreement is different than your own. If Islamic countries think it's good to marry off their children before they even hit puberty, then that's good for them. Likewise, if they think it's evil for anyone to teach against Islam, then no one can say otherwise. Sex slavery is good to them? We can't say otherwise.

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We can show that the outcomes of such behaviors lead to generally undesirable outcomes down the line.

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It also means that we can't condemn different cultural morals from our own country that existed in the past. We can't say that the slave trade in this country was bad, because it existed during a cultural context that, at least at the time, decided that it was good. We can't reasonably condemn what was accepted.

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Since we are social and empathetic creatures, it's not hard to see how society could come to see slavery as undesirable either.

Actually, our slow rolling views on slavery make more sense if we were forming them as we went. It took Christianity as a majority nearly 2000 years to stop supporting slavery why? Isn't morality written on our hearts? Shouldn't it be as obviously wrong as murder? Yet it took nearly 2000 years, more if you count pre-Christianity.

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What your subjectivism also does is make dissent against the majority immoral by definition.

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Isn't that how things work regardless?

Whether Islam is objectively true or not, in Islamic countries, the majority opinions are established as correct.

You think a society where only 10% dislike slavery won't partake in slavery?

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Morality is not like this, though. We don't say, "hey, you're playing the chess game of life by a different set of rules, and that's cool". No, we act as if the "rules" of morality are fixed, and that others must play them the way we want.

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You're missing the point. That line of conversation dealt with how people could have meaningful conversations about morality if it were subjective. Chess is my counter example.

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The goals are, themselves, subjective and arbitrary in the end.

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It doesn't matter when getting raped and murdered still hurts a whole fricking lot.

Can you show me someone who accepted their death or rape because, in the end, experiences are arbitrary?

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The basics of morality are written on the hearts of mankind, and we see that play out in society and cultures across time and space.

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And that's why it took thousands of years to stop slavery even though it was just as obviously wrong as murder (we had the cheat codes in our hearts the whole time!)?

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I'm honestly finding it entertaining

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Don't care.

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Opinions, however silly or subjective, drive behavior. That makes it meaningful.

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I'm not talking about meaningful to an individual who has the opinions. Of course they are meaningful to that individual, or else they wouldn't care. I'm referring to meaning outside of that individual. Someone's opinion about ice cream has no correspondence to the reality of ice cream. A person's belief that one flavor is better than another has no impact on the reality of whether one flavor is better than another. Likewise with morality.

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Correct, but beliefs don't need to be true to be meaningful, to impact the world around us. Look at Muslim suicide bombers. You'll say objectively that Allah and the Quran "aren't so", yet people's belief that they are so still influences the world.

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And people's preference for ice cream influences buying decisions, supports ice cream and other businesses, and keeps people employed.

I'm speaking of logical correspondence to reality, not mere pragmatism or impact to the world.

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Then there is no meaningful way to discuss Chess.

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Not if there are no set rules that all players must conform to. Chess has a set of rules that do not change. If a person had their own set of rules and they sat down with someone else who plays by the standard rules, then the game can't take place without one or the other changing how they are playing.

This confirms my point: in order to play chess with others, you have to believe that you MUST play by the same rules in order to have a meaningful game.

To play Chess, you have to submit yourself to a set of rules that exist beyond yourself, as an objective reality and definitional to the game of Chess. If you say that the rules of Chess are subjective, then you open it up for people to create their own rules, and you can't say they are wrong. Likewise for morality.

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We can show that the outcomes of such behaviors lead to generally undesirable outcomes down the line.

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Undesirable according to who? And why should another society care what you think? Muslims have been doing the same things for over 1,000 years. Do you think they care about your opinion of "undesirable outcomes"?

Those outcomes may very well be desirable to the society in question, so why should our opinions of what is desirable have any meaning to them if they've agreed on their own moral standard?

You keep falling back into utilitarianism or pragmatism, but who is to say that is even the "right" standard to use? You use it, because you prefer it, but others may not. A religious belief that suffering for your faith is to be preferred to prosperity apart from your faith may be valued in a society, but that isn't very useful to someone who thinks that material prosperity or long life is the preferred outcome.

And even if most people in the world agree with you about utility and what constitutes "undesirable outcomes", why should that matter to a society that disagrees? Why should anyone force their views on another society, especially when talking about morality as subjective preference with no objective correspondence to reality?

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Since we are social and empathetic creatures, it's not hard to see how society could come to see slavery as undesirable either.

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Being social and empathetic doesn't automatically result in seeing slavery as undesirable. Empathy may actually result in a desire for slavery, as empathy for your own clan, class, race, etc. may make you more willing to enslave others who aren't like you, or who you see as a threat to your preferred groups. Feeling empathy may make you hate murder, but love capital punishment for murder.

Empathy does not determine what we should do or what others should do. Even the standard of empathy as a basis for morality is arbitrary and subjective, as we could base morality on something else (lack of empathy, even).

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Actually, our slow rolling views on slavery make more sense if we were forming them as we went. It took Christianity as a majority nearly 2000 years to stop supporting slavery why? Isn't morality written on our hearts? Shouldn't it be as obviously wrong as murder? Yet it took nearly 2000 years, more if you count pre-Christianity.

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I disagree that it took nearly 2000 years for Christianity as a majority to stop supporting slavery. Slavery was rejected in different forms from the beginning, with other forms being allowed with certain rights entailed. For instance, indentured servitude as a form of slavery that has generally been allowed, but the servant had rights as human beings. It has always been immoral according to the Scriptures to kidnap (man-stealing) free men and make them slaves, which was the foundation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Support for the slave trade in America was due to sin and a rejection of what the Scriptures plainly teach, not because Christians hadn't figured out it was wrong yet. There were many Christians who fought against the TA slave trade for a long time before it was ended, and even longer until all slavery was ended in America.

But again, this misses the point. If morality is subjective, then it isn't a matter of learning and growing towards a better form of morality over time, because that assumes there is a better morality that we can pursue, when there isn't in moral subjectivism.

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Isn't that how things work regardless?

Whether Islam is objectively true or not, in Islamic countries, the majority opinions are established as correct.

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No, it isn't how it works in a lot of societies. We allow protests and efforts to change people's minds. We don't consider it immoral to disagree, yet that's how we should consider dissent if we were consistent. I'm not speaking to just whether or not the majority is "correct", but that it would be immoral to even dissent or protest. We don't act that way in our society, necessarily.

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You're missing the point. That line of conversation dealt with how people could have meaningful conversations about morality if it were subjective. Chess is my counter example.

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The reason why we are able to have meaningful conversations about morality is that we believe or act as if there is a true or objective moral standard that we can work towards, or convince others of. Just like the rules of Chess. You can disagree on the rules and make arguments for why a rule should be this or that, but it doesn't make sense to convince someone of a "better" rule set if you don't believe one can logically exist.

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It doesn't matter when getting raped and murdered still hurts a whole fricking lot.

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Of course it does, but something unpleasant or undesired doesn't make it immoral. It's unpleasant to be locked up in jail for murder, but that doesn't mean imprisonment is necessarily immoral.

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Can you show me someone who accepted their death or rape because, in the end, experiences are arbitrary?

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I can't, and that's EXACTLY my point! We don't act as if morality is arbitrary. We act as if rape and murder are objectively immoral, and yet, logically, they cannot be objectively immoral if morality is subjective.

This is why I keep saying atheists have to borrow from a Christian moral paradigm in order to make sense of reality. You have no basis to call your own rape and murder "evil" in a meaningful way outside of your own preferences not to be raped and murdered, but individual preferences do not dictate objective moral realities.

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And that's why it took thousands of years to stop slavery even though it was just as obviously wrong as murder (we had the cheat codes in our hearts the whole time!)?

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I already answered this. Sin is the problem, not the standard.