Cultural Relativism is wrong

[Scott Mayers]

...
... since no Atheist criteria for morality exist?

Of course there is, it's because it makes social society better to live in

The problem is that Atheism has no necessary definition of "better." The Nazis thought Germany was "better" without Jews. The Southern Democrats thought the South was "better" with slave plantations. Pedophiles believe life is "better" with a ready supply of child victims.

Atheism has no singular position on "better." "Better" is whatever you think you want, because Atheism itself doesn't even attempt to answer the question of what "better" might be.

It has only one concern: that there should be no God. Beyond that, it's a total blank, leading to nihil, nothing in particular.

If it were true that there IS no god, then would reality be any different as it is now? That is, do you think that people would not have CREATED religion?

Just because the reality may turn out to be less satisfyingly 'relative', how does it follow that we cannot BE moral? In fact, wouldn't the evidence of different religions with different moral systems suffice to suggest the 'relative' reality?

I've been atheist all my life and am also belief there is truth to 'Nihilism',

Essentially, this means "There is truth to the claim that that objectively nothing has value." Do you really agree with that?

No. I'm guessing you want me to bite on some negative value you interpret 'nothing' to refer to in some moral sense of 'evil'?

Who is the arbiter of the moral commandments of these Gods? Aren't they always dictated THROUGH select authoritarians of some fallible human being claiming to have a direct line to God?

The fact that people hold common morals in groups only proves that we CAN have morals that are not actually founded upon some defaulted FAITH but is in fact a reality. But furthermore, since some people differ on their beliefs, also proves THAT morals are relative. These are etiquette rules we learn from out parents and other authority figures. It makes us deluded into thinking the sense of values we hold inside are somehow universal. They are not. And I can prove it by pointing out even the differences of 'Christians' who are relatively more poor than others. The wealthier ones hold a 'conservative' set of beliefs, like that 'abortion is evil', 'we are born evil', or 'we should have a right to all own a gun.'

as in morality has no universal existence and is a mere animal relative construct.

Apparently you must. For "animal constructs" do not have any moral duty at all attached to them. If the "animal" decides to do differently, it can; and there's no reason at all it shouldn't.

You either don't know animals or default to treating them as mere meat bags. I had a cat who had proven she learned moral rules WITHOUT a need to punish but mimic my example: I found a wounded bird and brought her in the house and was able to leave my cat to watch her without concern of her jumping to some interpretation that the bird is to be killed. I also had a gerbil who wanted to befriend the cat but mistook a gesture of welcoming: the gerbil would nibble without literal biting to get attention but when he did this to my cat who was curious to meet him, she got an opposite reaction and thought the nibble was an attack. She didn't attack him but jumped away in 'fear'. The gerbil from then on begun to mock attack or lunge at her as if to say, "fuck you". Morality is equally learned among animals.

The 'rule of law' through the management systems, like government, act AS what defines morality through negotiating. It makes it relative when there are differences in people's genetic and environmental inheritances. The more 'equal' these are, the more in common we share common morals.

The "rule of law" in various parts of the world's said, or now says the following: that women are worth only half what a man is; that a rape victim deserves stoning; that women can murder their children at will; that children can be enslaved and traded; that we should kill infidels; that we should own slaves; that we should break and bind women's feet; that we should put the elderly on ice floes; that we should eat each other...

Need I go on? There's no way, under Atheism, to know which of these is more "right" or "wrong" than any other. The "rule of law" just says whatever the local prejudices are, because there's no objective truth underwriting any of these particular codes. And when society changes again, and says something hideous, we'll have no grounds for protest, because it will then be "the rule of law."

So are you saying that if we make laws but your religion differs on the 'relative' nature of them, that the religions should ACT upon their own moral system regardless? Should you kill the Atheists too as has and still is being done in many places in the world BY religious moral believers such as yourself?

Is terrorism not then just an 'Atheist' type of interpretation that is against the religions of those who are rightfully attacking at us heathens in the name of their God?

I'm a fan of Michael Shermer, who is one of those atheists most interested in defending that morals exist without gods,

I'm afraid Shermer doesn't even understand the question, let alone the answer.

I differ from most Atheists who DO hold some belief in some universal morality. But I believe they are just mistaken by HOW they misinterpret what this means. It confuses the 'fitness' of virtuous behavior as what evolves and is a slip into the transference of the meaning of "fitness" by evolution to mean that which matches to the environment.

[I accidentally deleted your last quote when highlighting, something that these damn boxes won't highlight without dragging. It accelerates the scroll and if you stop too fast, it erases or mixed up the content. So the following is a response to that and in particular,

"Says Darwin himself, if a feature cannot present a definite survival advantage it cannot be selected-for by evolution itself. "

Darwin would not say this and is counter to his whole argument of "Natural Selection". This is the concept that most living things die or get killed off more often than not. When something is favored by its environment for whatever reasons, good or bad, the pool of traits that get passed on through the species takes on those characteristics for NOT being killed off or ELIMINATED by things like one lacking those qualities. This is what made the Social Darwinist of those like the Nazis (not the only ones by far) opt to eliminate others they deemed less 'fitting' to their new world ideal.

For example, if by chance some song became popular for fans, this 'environmental' accident might entice others to admire the mere look of the person, what they wear, and how they behave. It doesn't matter what 'values' these may hold. Then, if people were to select out of some lineup of people with this personality or of someone who is similar in appearance, etc, the opposite sex attraction favors such a person and selects out all other options. THIS is what evolution means by 'fit' to the environment. It can be any stupid fad that has no real value OTHER than something artificial to some time and place that creates a climate of 'favor' for some while be against others.

HOW or why are you imposing the Social Darwinist view of 'fitness' as representative of Darwin's meanings?

[Arising_uk]

I've been atheist all my life and am also belief there is truth to 'Nihilism', as in morality has no universal existence and is a mere animal relative construct. But I also don't think it is a concern if we pay attention to the critical periods of our development, because this is where I believe we get our values assigned, sensations and complex associations that derive 'morals'. The 'rule of law' through the management systems, like government, act AS what defines morality through negotiating. It makes it relative when there are differences in people's genetic and environmental inheritances. The more 'equal' these are, the more in common we share common morals.

I'm a fan of Michael Shermer, who is one of those atheists most interested in defending that morals exist without gods, but think this interpretation is NOT in sync with the actual point of the religious person's arguments. I don't like THAT nature lacks some essence of 'moral supremacy' but if it is a 'fit' evolutionary adjustment for some, this 'fitness' is only coincidental and dependent upon those "relative" environmental differences.

Personally I think mirror neurons and that some animals are inherently social explains moral behaviour.

[Arising_uk]

The problem is that Atheism has no necessary definition of "better." ...

Did you misquote me as Scott just so you could reply?

...
Atheism has no singular position on "better." "Better" is whatever you think you want, because Atheism itself doesn't even attempt to answer the question of what "better" might be. ...

And why should it? As Atheism is just the position that your 'God' doesn't exist. Better is for each one of us to answer and to gather with those who agree with us and better in the main is to live with others who agree to certain norms that lead to personal safety and prosperity. Of course you can all be Nazi's if you want but expect to run up against those who don't want to be and may the better man win.

It has only one concern: that there should be no God. ...

Atheism has no concern at all with respect to your 'God' let alone a prescriptive one that there should not be a 'God'.

Beyond that, it's a total blank, leading to nihil, nothing in particular. ...

What it leads to is the awareness that it is oneself that is responsible for one's actions and there is no-one else to blame.

Need I go on? There's no way, under Atheism, to know which of these is more "right" or "wrong" than any other. The "rule of law" just says whatever the local prejudices are, because there's no objective truth underwriting any of these particular codes. And when society changes again, and says something hideous, we'll have no grounds for protest, because it will then be "the rule of law." ...

Sure we can protest, upon the grounds that we don't want our daughters, wives, sons, etc, to be treated that way anymore and hence lets change the law. Whereas you have 'God's' word which you cannot ever rewrite and from what I read of in the Bible its a pretty bloody word at that.

Says Darwin himself, if a feature cannot present a definite survival advantage it cannot be selected-for by evolution itself. It's not adaptive at all, and the evolutionary process is then "blind" to it, and it is eliminated. ...

Not true, all Darwin claims is that if the feature presents a survival advantage then reproduction will favour those with it and those without may be selected out in the long run. There is nothing that disallows other features to tag along in this process.

Thus most moral standards should not exist, given the evolutionists view; for in the case of many of them, we can readily imagine an alternative that is clearly more "adaptive."

Which is why there are so many species without apparent 'moral' behavior but there are also many that clearly display 'moral' behaviour towards their fellows as it apparently leads to a higher chance of survivalfor the individual to breed and in the main these would be what we call the social mammals.

[Belinda]

Cultures of belief and practice are very much related to means of subsistence. Means of subsistence vary and so societies that survive are those that can adapt to changes in means of subsistence by changing beliefs and practices as and when necessity demands.

The OP implies that some cultures are inherently immoral. Morality of an individual is most often assessed by reference to his stage of cognitive development. Morality of a society such as Nazi Germany can be compared with the morality of an individual who has regressed to a comparatively primitive stage of moral cognition and who regards authority as the best source of moral belief and behaviour. Other societies' received cultures of belief are comparable to the individual person who believes in contracts, rights of individuals, and democratically accepted laws.

Same as individuals, a society's cultural development can regress ; as is often remarked the country that gave birth to Mozart and Goethe also produced Hitler.

[Immanuel Can]

It has only one concern: that there should be no God. Beyond that, it's a total blank, leading to nihil, nothing in particular.

If it were true that there IS no god, then would reality be any different as it is now? That is, do you think that people would not have CREATED religion?

That is an interesting question.

From an Atheist perspective, you would need an explanation of why man created religion. After all, in Atheist thought, religion is bad and delusional. So why would believing bad, delusional things be evolutionarily adaptive?

But it's quite possible, certain even, that despite the inexplicability of the invention from an evolutionary perspective, that we observe that man created many religions. That would necessarily be the case, even were one of those "religions" actually true.

Man did not, however, create the truth. And it would be easy to explain why there were multiple religions if one were the truth and the others were imitations. That would be very straightforward, just like there could be many wrong answers to the question, "How far is it from here to Mars?" or "How many grains of sand are on the seashore?"

Essentially, this means "There is truth to the claim that that objectively nothing has value." Do you really agree with that?

No. I'm guessing you want me to bite on some negative value you interpret 'nothing' to refer to in some moral sense of 'evil'?

I wasn't thinking that, but I can roll that way.

If you don't believe genocides or pedophelia or wife-beating are "evil," then I guess you'd be a consistent Atheist. For an Atheist, these are only "unwanted at the moment" or "against the majority opinion in my present society," perhaps. But nothing about that makes any of those things evil.

It's not that Atheists ARE evil, from their perspective. It's much worse than that. It's that they can't even justify a category such as evil. They have absolutely no objective frame of reference for any such value judgment. So because nobody can live completely morally bankrupt, they have to borrow a lot of moral precepts from others, particularly Judeo-Christian morality...because Atheism itself will never give them anything in that regard.

And they're proud of saying so. They claim they have no duty to defend any Atheist morality, because Atheism contains no claims about that. Unfortunately for them, they cannot "spend other people's money" or "rely on other people's morality" infinitely. When it comes to grounding any society in Atheism, then very soon it becomes authoritarian and homicidal, because nothing can be prohibited. Why shouldn't as much force be used by the Atheist state as required to get its effects going? And there's no answer to that.

Who is the arbiter of the moral commandments of these Gods?

I'm not a polytheist.

Aren't they always dictated THROUGH select authoritarians of some fallible human being claiming to have a direct line to God?

That depends on whether or not you believe in revelation. If you do, then God can speak directly. If you don't, then God can still speak directly, but Atheists won't be listening, so they'll hear nothing.

The fact that people hold common morals in groups only proves that we CAN have morals that are not actually founded upon some defaulted FAITH but is in fact a reality.

No. All it shows that in secular human affairs, the power of numbers is a source of power. That's all.

But furthermore, since some people differ on their beliefs, also proves THAT morals are relative

.
No again. It just suggests that people disagree about morals. Not that they're all equally right, or that morals are relative. That doesn't follow.

as in morality has no universal existence and is a mere animal relative construct.

Apparently you must. For "animal constructs" do not have any moral duty at all attached to them. If the "animal" decides to do differently, it can; and there's no reason at all it shouldn't.

You either don't know animals or default to treating them as mere meat bags. [/quote]
I love animals. But they don't have moral codes. They just have instincts. You can train them, but you can't make them do ethics. Ethics require consciousness of the concepts "right" and "wrong," not just "gets me liver treats," and "doesn't get me liver treats."

The "rule of law" in various parts of the world's said, or now says the following: that women are worth only half what a man is; that a rape victim deserves stoning; that women can murder their children at will; that children can be enslaved and traded; that we should kill infidels; that we should own slaves; that we should break and bind women's feet; that we should put the elderly on ice floes; that we should eat each other...

Need I go on? There's no way, under Atheism, to know which of these is more "right" or "wrong" than any other. The "rule of law" just says whatever the local prejudices are, because there's no objective truth underwriting any of these particular codes. And when society changes again, and says something hideous, we'll have no grounds for protest, because it will then be "the rule of law."

So are you saying that if we make laws but your religion differs on the 'relative' nature of them, that the religions should ACT upon their own moral system regardless?

No. I'm saying all religions, and Atheists too, should be objectively moral. But, alas, they're not.

Should you kill the Atheists too

Of course not. The only places where Atheists are safe to be Atheists are in countries shaped by the Protestant value of human rights. Maybe some religions are contemptuous of the right of people to free conscience, and in fact some genuinely are, but that ethos is not.

Is terrorism not then just an 'Atheist' type of interpretation that is against the religions of those who are rightfully attacking at us heathens in the name of their God?

I'm not sure I understand the wording in this question: can you restate?

"Says Darwin himself, if a feature cannot present a definite survival advantage it cannot be selected-for by evolution itself. "

Darwin would not say this...

He did. It's the very basis of Natural Selection. Things can only be "naturally selected" when the mutation represents an evolutionary advantage for the organism: otherwise, the organism is "weakened" and dies out. Darwin was quite dogmatic about that.

HOW or why are you imposing the Social Darwinist view of 'fitness' as representative of Darwin's meanings?

I wasn't, actually. I was just pointing out a flaw in Evolutionism.

But now that you bring it up, what is the reason that Darwinism (which is supposed to be the deep truth about what's going on here in regards to progression of the species) cannot be applied to whole societies? Darwin never said it couldn't, and nobody has a reason why it can't. I just wouldn't want to live in any society that did it. But there's no reason in Evolutionism or Atheism that says that isn't a reasonable thing to expect.

[Immanuel Can]

The OP implies that some cultures are inherently immoral. Morality of an individual is most often assessed by reference to his stage of cognitive development.

That's Kohlberg again. Nobody who knows Ethics buys him anymore.

Morality of a society such as Nazi Germany can be compared with the morality of an individual who has regressed to a comparatively primitive stage of moral cognition

Actually, Germany was hailed as one of the great countries of Europe, and a leader in technology, medicine, philosophy and the arts. The great surprise of the Holocaust is that this country turned all the most advanced mechanisms of modern life, from tanks to train schedules, into the business of turning human beings to ash.

You'd have a very hard time making a case to say that Germany was itself "primitive." It wasn't lack of knowledge or lack of culture that was its problem: it was National Socialism, coupled with Aryan mythology, a ban history from WW1, and a deep-rooted lingering anti-Semitism.

[Arising_uk]

... He did. It's the very basis of Natural Selection. Things can only be "naturally selected" when the mutation represents an evolutionary advantage for the organism: otherwise, the organism is "weakened" and dies out. Darwin was quite dogmatic about that.

Again, exactly wrong as this is why we have different species due to mutations conferring an advantage in survival due to increased reproduction but whether the original species dies out can be due to other factors such as availability of resources, if there are enough resources then both species co-exist.

[Arising_uk]

You'd have a very hard time making a case to say that Germany was itself "primitive." It wasn't lack of knowledge or lack of culture that was its problem: it was National Socialism, coupled with Aryan mythology, a ban history from WW1, and a deep-rooted lingering anti-Semitism.

Well that and the swinging reparations imposed for too long by the allies.

[Scott Mayers]

It has only one concern: that there should be no God. Beyond that, it's a total blank, leading to nihil, nothing in particular.

If it were true that there IS no god, then would reality be any different as it is now? That is, do you think that people would not have CREATED religion?

That is an interesting question.

From an Atheist perspective, you would need an explanation of why man created religion.

There are many explanations. I propose many myself. I have a theory of Temples and Sacrifice that explain these origins as secular rational institutes that were necessary to precede civilization from tribalism. The latter progeny who lose connection with the actual explanations when these are no longer needed, AND who interpret incorrectly records and stories being passed down, turn the old ways into RELIGIONS.

After all, in Atheist thought, religion is bad and delusional. So why would believing bad, delusional things be evolutionarily adaptive?

First off, Atheists are varied in opinions of whether religion is bad or good. I think of it as art and so can be potentially 'good' if it is used without presuming the claims of their gods by those believers to suffice for them to FORCE us into your beliefs. The very fact that you think (or rather claim) that your god has specific morals is itself way more risky and totalitarian than any Atheist. An atheist at least is ACCOUNTABLE for their own moral beliefs; Those with religious conviction SCAPEGOAT their faults upon demons and justify why they should command morality for claiming they have the 'right' power to know some magical being. It's a con and nothing else. Why SHOULD I or anyone require having some default 'faith' in YOUR subjective belief. AND furthermore, pretending that you could directly visit with some God who might tell you directly, you ignore that others are NOT privileged to your subjective perspective. And isn't it too convenient to accuse the Atheist of just not being 'worthy' to SEE such magically hidden beings. You are expecting others to be 'gullible'. AND, if you are right about at least some Atheists to be sadistic, YOU and your shared authorities in power are just as likely to FAKE believing. I mean, wouldn't the ultimate IDEAL of one who LACKS beliefs in any morality BE most likely THE LEADERS of religious organs? THAT would be more likely should Atheists actually exist as 'evil'.

And why is lacking a belief of specific morality proof that they adapt the negative by default? Is the ONLY reason that you are 'good' at all because God has LIED TO YOU: "I give you the gift of free will. BUT, I warn you if you dare CHOOSE anything other than my WILL, then I will send you to hell." What kind of being would hypocritically feign free choice only to penalize those for taking him up on his offer? That's absurdly cruel and only suggests more that such religion are more likely designed by covert evil Atheists manipulating people to be submissive to their rule.

But it's quite possible, certain even, that despite the inexplicability of the invention from an evolutionary perspective, that we observe that man created many religions. That would necessarily be the case, even were one of those "religions" actually true.

Man did not, however, create the truth. And it would be easy to explain why there were multiple religions if one were the truth and the others were imitations. That would be very straightforward, just like there could be many wrong answers to the question, "How far is it from here to Mars?" or "How many grains of sand are on the seashore?"

That's mighty kind of you to look at the positive when all but one religion would be required to have the correct truth. How is this thinking of yours rational. If 1% of the population of all religions are 'correct', you are proving that IF you had POWER, you would or could dictate and impose your beliefs upon the 99% majority on this reasoning alone. Why are the terrorists wrong then for the same kind of thinking?

Essentially, this means "There is truth to the claim that that objectively nothing has value." Do you really agree with that?

No. I'm guessing you want me to bite on some negative value you interpret 'nothing' to refer to in some moral sense of 'evil'?

I wasn't thinking that, but I can roll that way.

If you don't believe genocides or pedophelia or wife-beating are "evil," then I guess you'd be a consistent Atheist. For an Atheist, these are only "unwanted at the moment" or "against the majority opinion in my present society," perhaps. But nothing about that makes any of those things evil.

It's not that Atheists ARE evil, from their perspective. It's much worse than that. It's that they can't even justify a category such as evil. They have absolutely no objective frame of reference for any such value judgment. So because nobody can live completely morally bankrupt, they have to borrow a lot of moral precepts from others, particularly Judeo-Christian morality...because Atheism itself will never give them anything in that regard.

And they're proud of saying so. They claim they have no duty to defend any Atheist morality, because Atheism contains no claims about that. Unfortunately for them, they cannot "spend other people's money" or "rely on other people's morality" infinitely. When it comes to grounding any society in Atheism, then very soon it becomes authoritarian and homicidal, because nothing can be prohibited. Why shouldn't as much force be used by the Atheist state as required to get its effects going? And there's no answer to that.

With respect to Nature, there is no such thing as right nor wrong but we still require creating 'taboos' for many effective reasons. For instance, pedophilia effects children negatively regardless of whose kids they are. It also leads to more early births of babies which can contribute to a lot of problems. Why do you think that you require God to tell you that it is wrong,...again, given he gave you free will as the gift to permit you to choose? Why would you require then to have any laws if you think your God suffices to be powerful enough to FIX the evils of others? ...or reward those suffered wrongly in an afterlife? WHY would you require passing on a history of this entity if it you can get 'revelation' straight to your head without a need to read scriptures, go to cult centers to be preached to, etc?

Who is the arbiter of the moral commandments of these Gods?

I'm not a polytheist.

Your religion is not the only one to which Atheists lack belief in. AND, are you not a RELATIVE ATHEIST of all the other wrong religions?

Aren't they always dictated THROUGH select authoritarians of some fallible human being claiming to have a direct line to God?

That depends on whether or not you believe in revelation. If you do, then God can speak directly. If you don't, then God can still speak directly, but Atheists won't be listening, so they'll hear nothing.

HOW convenient of a rationale! So the Al Qaeda 'terrorists' on those planes in 9/11 were also believers in 'revelation' and what convinced them to act!

[I have to break this post up or risk losing it. My eyes and back need it too.]

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

-----Germany was itself "primitive.

Certainly Germany was or is not 'primitive' . Indeed 'primitive' is subjective and is never used by respectable historians. Germany's regression to Nazism endured until Germany developed beyond totalitarianism to liberal democracy. Similarly an individual might regress to an earlier stage of morality especially that of obedience to authority. Nazism was not caused only by Hitler and his fascist friends but by historical and economic circumstances.

[Immanuel Can]

From an Atheist perspective, you would need an explanation of why man created religion.

There are many explanations. I propose many myself. I have a theory of Temples and Sacrifice...

No. I don't mean "how." I mean, the BIG "why." Why would evolution have dictated that at some point in human development it was 'adaptive' for human beings to believe things that were (as Atheists assure us) absolutely contrary to reality, and hence not 'adaptive' at all?

After all, in Atheist thought, religion is bad and delusional. So why would believing bad, delusional things be evolutionarily adaptive?

First off, Atheists are varied in opinions of whether religion is bad or good.

But there is, in Atheist thought, no God. So religion could not be "good." It must only be, as Dawkins says, a "delusion." It cannot be otherwise.

But it's quite possible, certain even, that despite the inexplicability of the invention from an evolutionary perspective, that we observe that man created many religions. That would necessarily be the case, even were one of those "religions" actually true.

Man did not, however, create the truth. And it would be easy to explain why there were multiple religions if one were the truth and the others were imitations. That would be very straightforward, just like there could be many wrong answers to the question, "How far is it from here to Mars?" or "How many grains of sand are on the seashore?"

That's mighty kind of you to look at the positive when all but one religion would be required to have the correct truth.

Facts don't care about feelings. When "2+2 = 4," that is very exclusive and intolerant of the answer 5, 6, 7...etc. But so what? All that means is that 2+2 = 4 is true, and the rest aren't.

That can't be helped, and it's not "kind" to pretend otherwise; it's just factually wrong and practically dysfunctional. It would ruin engineering, for example.

ld dictate and impose your beliefs upon the 99% majority on this reasoning alone.

"Impose"? But then you'd be an autocrat. Nobody's advocating that, right?

Wouldn't it be much better, and "kinder," if you just stuck to the truth and told people that 2+2 does, in fact, = 4, despite their love of the wrong answers?

Why are the terrorists wrong then for the same kind of thinking?

Because they don't have "the same kind of thinking."

Why is it that Atheists are so very bad at discerning that there is a profound difference among "religions"?

With respect to Nature, there is no such thing as right nor wrong but we still require creating 'taboos' for many effective reasons.

Well, then, that's just a power move. The Atheist doesn't know his "taboo" is more or less right than anybody else's: but if he can force it on someone, not by way of truth but by way of power, he will. That's all that says.

Why do you think that you require God to tell you that it is wrong,...again, given he gave you free will as the gift to permit you to choose? Why would you require then to have any laws if you think your God suffices to be powerful enough to FIX the evils of others? ...or reward those suffered wrongly in an afterlife?

Well, even Atheists like Arthur Leff, in his famous Atheist essay, "Unspeakable Ethics," says they do. Without an authority, ethics are just arbitrary, he says. Nietzsche actually said the very same thing, and the Atheists seem to worship that guy.

Free will doesn't fix it, because the will of man is not always "good." Again, even an Atheist is forced to admit this -- or else to pretend that there simply is not evil in the world. See, the Atheist has to believe "evil" came from somewhere, if it exists at all: and from where else would it come, if there's no God, but from man himself? So the Atheist must believe evil (if it exists) is intrinsic to humanity.

As to the last question, God is not Deterministic. Allowing people to have free will means they have the choice to do good, or to do not-good (if you don't like the term "evil").

WHY would you require passing on a history of this entity if it you can get 'revelation' straight to your head without a need to read scriptures, go to cult centers to be preached to, etc?

Some "religions" think you need a guru or priest to lead you. Others do not, and think you can have a personal relationship with God. But if God spoke to us at all, He'd have to speak in some propositional form...whether it was audibly or in writing. Otherwise, there'd be no sense in which God had spoken at all.

are you not a RELATIVE ATHEIST of all the other wrong religions?

Not an "Atheist." A different-Theist. But of course I disbelieve in other "religions," just as a mathematician refuses to believe 2+2 = 6.

So the Al Qaeda 'terrorists' on those planes in 9/11 were also believers in 'revelation' and what convinced them to act!

They were believers in Islam. Islam says that an angel spoke to an illiterate peasant in a cave (I'm not insulting that: it's literally what they say.) I believe they are wrong about that.

Now their imams say, "Go and kill the infidels." My God says, "Love your enemies, and do good to them that hate you." Can you detect a difference?

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

-----Germany was itself "primitive.

Certainly Germany was or is not 'primitive' . Indeed 'primitive' is subjective and is never used by respectable historians.

It's evolutionist talk. "Primitive" means, "belonging to the primates," the less-developed life forms. Peter Singer speaks of "primate ethics" in reference to present day human ethics, even. But today, it's associated with the view that some cultures are "less evolutionarily developed" than others.

I'm not arguing that what Germany did wasn't bad. I'm arguing that it wasn't simply a case that a whole country suddenly slipped back into a Kohlbergian stage for some reason. Kohlberg was just wrong: he thought that morality could be produced by practice, without reference to specific, substantive content, and would be universal therefore. He was just wrong.

It's that straightforward.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Kohlberg was just wrong: he thought that morality could be produced by practice, without reference to specific, substantive content, and would be universal therefore.

Not wrong just incomplete . Moral cognition is affected also by more than mother and father. Other formative influences and regressive influences are distant relatives, locality, religion, political ambience, unemployment, divorce, famine, and so on.

Aristotle a main influence into Christianity claims that living things have potential and live to actualise that potential. This is the founding developmental theory from which the later developmental theories are side notes.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Kohlberg was just wrong: he thought that morality could be produced by practice, without reference to specific, substantive content, and would be universal therefore.

Not wrong just incomplete . Moral cognition is affected also by more than mother and father. Other formative influences and regressive influences are distant relatives, locality, religion, political ambience, unemployment, divorce, famine, and so on.

That won't change Kohlberg's fundamental flaw. Because in order to identify any influence as "progressive" or "regressive" you'd already have to buy into his scale, just to find out which thing it was. So he's just begged the whole question there.

Aristotle a main influence into Christianity claims that living things have potential and live to actualise that potential.

That's not wrong, so far as you state it. (Aristotle's influence, however, is pretty much on the Catholic front, via Aquinas. Many Christians, myself included, find him useful in some ways, but also very flawed.)

This is the founding developmental theory from which the later developmental theories are side notes.

But there's a fundamental flaw again: "development" isn't a universal or positive. One has to know what one's "actual potential" is, in order to say which is going on. But who is the person who can tell us what our "actual potential" ought to be?

As Gilligan also pointed out, there's no reason to think that "progress" that insists on forgoing particular relations in favour of universal concepts is anything other than a Kohlbergian prejudice. It might well be the case that "Love your neighbour" is more moral than "Love the globe" or "Get all your conceptual ducks in a row." And if it's not, how does Kohlberg go about proving it's not?

Answer: he doesn't. He doesn't even try.

[uwot]

If you don't believe genocides or pedophelia or wife-beating are "evil," then I guess you'd be a consistent Atheist.

Mr Can, atheists do not have a handbook that condones these things. If you ever pull your head out of your arse and actually read your Bible, you will discover rules that mandate each of those things and tell you exactly how to perform them.