Gabriella,
If you're trying to turn this into yet another discussion about verifying objectively whether God exists or not, you're either confused about what was said and responding to a point that was never made or deliberately evading the point I made. Or as you like to assert ad nauseam, you're doing a Vlad. Shaker and I were discussing whether theists can think for themselves about morals.
I’m not. First, I merely said that finding something to be “worth accepting” tells you nothing about whether it’s true.
Second, faith clams aren't just about morality specifically and even then what I was actually doing was explaining that when you think “faith” is a reliable and inerrant guide truth then, unless you have a rationale for that position
a priori, it’s pretty much the enemy of “thinking for yourself". It's what takes up the slack when the thinking
stops.
You seemed to accept my statement in #439 that over the centuries religions have gone through multiple interpretations, different opinions, schools of thought, discussions and add-ons to cover new and evolving situations that weren't covered in the basic scripture. So some theists were thinking and reasoning to come up with changing some stuff and keeping some stuff, much like morals from an atheist perspective changed over time but were based on the ideas of others.
Focus on that “that weren't covered in the basic scripture”. If it’s scriptural (and therefore presumably categorically true, not amenable to re-interpretation etc) then there’s no thinking for yourself. If it isn’t, it’s just an early attempt at moral philosophy – which is fine by me, but not as I understand it consistent with those who think “faith” in scripture is epistemically valid.
You seemed to agree in #430 that there are theists who think for themselves about issues, since you seemed to agree that plenty interpret their scripture in a way that is no less or no more homophobic or misogynistic than atheists. For theists to interpret scripture in different ways, much like atheists interpret laws and moral codes in different ways, there is presumably a thought process going on.
Yes, at least until they run up against the bits they’re told they have to accept as true as articles of faith.
I agree that whether any of these atheist or theist morals and laws are worth accepting tells you nothing about whether they are objectively true.
Would have been helpful if you’d just said that in the first place, but OK.
If you want to say that theists and atheists always bridge the gap between their assertions about morals and fact using faith with no logic to take you there, I disagree - I think both theists and atheists show some reasoning as part of the input to arrive at their moral code or decisions to obey or break the law. When you say assertions about morals are fact or can be validated - are you claiming there is an objective morality?
I don’t, and “no” respectively. What I
do say is that “faith” is the pixie dust that gives some people certainty with no logic to support it – there's no thinking required.
I agree that unqualified assertions are made by both theists and atheists. It also seems that in many cases both their moral codes might be more influenced by loyalty to cultural influences, and that some theists use the short-hand of "it's my religion" and some atheists and theists use the short-hand of "it will cause harm to society" without actually carrying out a cost benefit analysis to support their assertions, and some atheists use the short hand of 'avoiding the point and ridiculing theists belief in God' in order to avoid a lengthy discussion or the efforts of laying out and justifying their thought process or moral position to someone else.
That’s not the issue. What logic tells you is that there is no certainty. “Faith” on the other hand provides unwarranted certainty for those who think it to be reliable. And that in my rarely humble opinion is why it’s so pernicious.
