Faith vs blind faith

[ProfessorDavey]

So again, fallen short of what exactly?

To have 'fallen short' there must be an agreed benchmark that has not been reached.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

But who gets to decide which outcomes are “the right thing”? You’re just kicking the can down the road here. 

If it's no one then right or wrong are effectively meaningless and you have to explain your behaviour and it's outcomes another way. You have excluded yourself from any further debate and you have no business using these terms.

If nature decides then that is natural law and you can go onto lawgivers etc.

Explain why absolutism negates meaningful discussion on right and wrong rather than irrealism.

[Shaker]

If it's no one then right or wrong are effectively meaningless

Incorrect.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Incorrect.

Be my guest.


If there is no arbiter of morality and being a theist I am not suggesting a human arbiter then what meaning does right and wrong have then?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

If it's no one then right or wrong are effectively meaningless and you have to explain your behaviour and it's outcomes another way. You have excluded yourself from any further debate and you have no business using these terms.

You have quite the facility for combining the argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy with flat out wrongness.

First, even if any of that was true it would tell you nothing whatever about a supposed objective morality.

Second, of course you can talk about right and wrong, just as you can talk about a painting being beautiful or not beautiful, or language correct or not correct. Provided you don’t overreach into the mistake of thinking that there must be absolute standards for these things for them to be "real" that’s fine. Why you would arbitrarily want to carve out one type of judgment (ie, morality) from this principle is a matter for you, but it’s poor thinking. 

If nature decides then that is natural law and you can go onto lawgivers etc.

And for those of us working in English?

Explain why absolutism negates meaningful discussion on right and wrong rather than irrealism.

It “negates” it inasmuch as you’d need to demonstrate that it exists at all before you could talk about it. Where is this absolute morality of yours? Is it attached to some physical property in some way, or is it just floating about like phlogiston waiting to be discerned? Who decided on it, and how do you know that? Which set of supposedly absolute rules should one pick, and why? What role is there for interpretation for rules that are absolute? Etc etc

Knock yourself out trying though.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

If there is no arbiter of morality and being a theist I am not suggesting a human arbiter then what meaning does right and wrong have then?

What "meaning" does "the late Beethoven quartets are a great work of art" have without an objective set of rules for what is and isn't good music?

[Shaker]

Vlad seems to committing a form of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy (said gunman shooting at the side of a barn and only then drawing a target around the bullet hole to make it look like the perfect shot). In other words, like many a theist he's starting out with a prior assumption of right and wrong (typically supernatural, obvs.) and then casts around looking for it. Like many a theist 'argument' it's arse-backwards.

[ProfessorDavey]

If it's no one then right or wrong are effectively meaningless and you have to explain your behaviour and it's outcomes another way. You have excluded yourself from any further debate and you have no business using these terms.

You were asked who gets to decide.

Answer the question please.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

You have quite the facility for combining the argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy with flat out wrongness.

First, even if any of that was true it would tell you nothing whatever about a supposed objective morality.

Second, of course you can talk about right and wrong, just as you can talk about a painting being beautiful or not beautiful,

Complete nonsense. You have now moved onto aesthetics not morality.
Suggesting there is no moral consequence too.

That right and wrong become more than just aesthetics to you particularly when it comes to the religious just shows this is your weakest suit.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You were asked who gets to decide.

Answer the question please.

Whatever the moral authority is if you say there isn't one then you have absolutely no right to ever arbitrate in what is right or wrong. because you have suggested it is just something pulled out of your arse.

[Shaker]

Whatever the moral authority is if you say there isn't one then you have absolutely no right to ever arbitrate in what is right or wrong. because you have suggested it is just something pulled out of your arse.

I assume this is Vladese for 'morality is subjective'? Nothing new to many of us.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Complete nonsense. You have now moved onto aesthetics not morality.

Because that’s how analogies work. What qualitatively makes the discussion of aesthetics without absolute rules fine, but the discussion of morality without absolute rules not fine? 

Suggesting there is no moral consequence too.

What were you trying to say there?

That right and wrong become more than just aesthetics to you particularly when it comes to the religious just shows this is your weakest suit.

You’ve always struggled with the concept of analogy haven’t you. The point is that aesthetics and morality are analogous – essentially a mix of the instinctive and the reasoned. That the consequences of one may by more serious than the consequences of the other are entirely irrelevant for that purposes – essentially you’re just leaning again here toward the argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Whatever the moral authority is if you say there isn't one then you have absolutely no right to ever arbitrate in what is right or wrong. because you have suggested it is just something pulled out of your arse.

So few words, so many mistakes...

So whose "moral authority" would you suggest we pick in this false argumentum ad consequentiam, and why?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Because that’s how analogies work.   

But it's the Burton and Taylor of bad analogy Hillside because it isn't productive in any sense.

A better analogy is maths where there is also a right and wrong and when we use it in life it has consequences.

[SteveH]

...apparently there's a difference.

Could someone have a go at explaining what it might be please?

Thanks.

Faith is going as far as reason and evidence takes you, and then going a bit further in the same direction.
What you call blind faith and I'd call superstition is believing on no evidence or reason, or even contrary to reason.

[ProfessorDavey]

Whatever the moral authority is if you say there isn't one then you have absolutely no right to ever arbitrate in what is right or wrong. because you have suggested it is just something pulled out of your arse.

The question was for you to answer so stop trying to turn it round to others.

So we seem to be making some progress - you seem to be implying that some 'moral authority' gets to decide on what is right and wrong.

But you are only answering half the question - you have failed to tell us who or what that 'moral authority' is. So please enlighten us.

[Shaker]

Faith is going as far as reason and evidence takes you, and then going a bit further in the same direction.

On what grounds?

[floo]

Faith is going as far as reason and evidence takes you, and then going a bit further in the same direction.
What you call blind faith and I'd call superstition is believing on no evidence or reason, or even contrary to reason.

But there is no evidence to support any religion, imo.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

But it's the Burton and Taylor of bad analogy Hillside because it isn't productive in any sense.

Oh dear. Analogies don't have to be productive to be appropriate. Finding looking for logic in your posts to be like looking for a needle in a haystack for example is still a valid analogy, whether or not you think it to be a productive one.   

A better analogy is maths where there is also a right and wrong and when we use it in life it has consequences.

Wrong again. Maths is investigable in an objective sense. How though would you propose to find the objective truth or otherwise of a moral statement, any more than you would an aesthetic one?

[bluehillside Retd.]

JPG,

Faith is going as far as reason and evidence takes you, and then going a bit further in the same direction.

OK, but a couple of problems there. First, who's to say that where logic and evidence takes you wouldn't be entirely overturned by subsequent logic and evidence if only some was available? Your reasoning here is that of the proud train driver watching the wheels whirring, the pistons pumping, the steam billowing as the whole thing charges along at 100 mph...

...just seconds before it crashes into the buffers at King's Cross station.

Second, what reason and logic could there be in any case that meant that if you continued in the same direction you'd arrive at a god or similar? Rather than a set of drawings in which the architect forgot to specify the chimney pot so you guess at it based on the stylings you do have for the other features*, doesn't the conjecture "God" have to appear logically ex nihilo? There's no evidence or reason for it that gets you 99% of the way there (or even 1% of the way for that matter) so you just have to finish and start the job with "faith".   
     

What you call blind faith and I'd call superstition is believing on no evidence or reason, or even contrary to reason.

See above. Isn't that actually the same thing as "faith" after all?

* Note for Vlad: That's an example of an analogy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The question was for you to answer so stop trying to turn it round to others.

So we seem to be making some progress - you seem to be implying that some 'moral authority' gets to decide on what is right and wrong.

But you are only answering half the question - you have failed to tell us who or what that 'moral authority' is. So please enlighten us.

Given that your approach is the equivalent of putting those colourful plastic magnetic numbers and symbols you can get from the early learning centre. i.e. sticking them in any order you fancy your demand is like asking somebody using maths to show their working out.

We know there is morality we are just crap at it. Where is the authority for maths? The outcomes have something to do with it. wrong morality wrong outcomes. That is of course only analogy.

Your view of morality offers no moral arbitration.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Oh dear. Analogies don't have to be productive to be appropriate. Finding looking for logic in your posts to be like looking for a needle in a haystack for example is still a valid analogy, whether or not you think it to be a productive one.   

Wrong again. Maths is investigable in an objective sense. How though would you propose to find the objective truth or otherwise of a moral statement, any more than you would an aesthetic one?

It's an analogy.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

It's an analogy.

No it isn't, or at least not a cogent one.

See whether you can work out why.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Your view of morality offers no moral arbitration.

And yet strangely "moral arbitration" happens all the time whether the people doing it believe in your god, different gods or no gods at all.

Funny that. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No it isn't, or at least not a cogent one.

See whether you can work out why.

And that from a guy who thinks that aesthetic taste is a better one.