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<p>Because morality requires assumptions. Someone who rejects all spirituality based on the fact they make assumption cannot proscribe to any moral system without introducing a major inconsistency. I suppose one could be agnostic.</p>
<p>Specifically, morality requires the assumption that a particular state of affairs can be assigned a value of “good” or “bad”.</p>
<p>Morality is as arbitrary as spirituality–in that both require assumptions. This does not mean that to reject one is to reject both. </p>
<p>Morality **does not **require spirituality, even though rejecting the fundamental *premise<a href=“i.e.%20baseless%20assumptions”>/I</a> of spirituality requires rejecting the premise of morality. You can reject the baseless assumptions of religion and still accept the baseless assumptions of morality.</p>
<p>Atheistic morality is legitimate. </p>
<p>The reason you didn’t reach this conclusion is because you make this claim (to presumably validate your initial statement: “Morality requires spirituality”):
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<p>Your claim isn’t wrong, but it’s pointless. I do not reject spirituality because it makes assumptions. I reject its assumptions.</p>
<p>Here’s what mifune had to say about morality. He certainly doesn’t believe it requires spirituality.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065075512-post715.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065075512-post715.html</a></p>
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<p>What obligation do atheistic moral codes follow from?</p>
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<p>I didn’t get that impression from the dissertation you posted.</p>
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<p>In other words, morality is an illusion used to justify behavior that is generally beneficial.</p>
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<p>Yes, that’s exactly what it is.</p>
<p>^ But the idea of “beneficial” implies morality to begin with. How can something be “beneficial” in the absence of morality?</p>
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<p>As in it makes you happy. Mifune’s post argues that the “moral instinct” (his words) encourages actions that will lead to other people helping you.</p>
<p>But that’s not an argument that morality and spirituality are independent, it’s an argument that morality doesn’t exist.</p>
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<p>Why is it “good” to be happy?</p>
<p>I believe that morality (the idea that some states of existence are inherently “better” than others) is common to all humans. I also believe that this concept is inconsistent with an Atheistic worldview, since if matter is all that exists then a happy person is really no more different from a sad person than a line of blocks is from a circle of blocks. They are both just arrangements of matter.</p>
<p>Since the alternative to Athesim is some form of spiritualism, I believe belief in spiritualism (at least subconciously) is required for morality.</p>
<p>[URL=<a href=“ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs”>ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs]See:[/URL</a>]</p>
<p>Maybe “naturalism” is a better term. I’m here not considering people who believe in a “great cosmic force” or whatever to be Atheists. Only people who really believe that nothing supernatural exists.</p>
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<p>Oh sorry, stroboscope.</p>
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<p>Well, they didn’t have the means to confirm whether light was a wave or particle (let alone both). We do have the experimental means, fossil record, molecular testing, etc. to call evolution fact.</p>
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<p>Sure, there’s other factors but one example: stem cell research was given quite a blow, which was mostly driven by conservative religious beliefs. When a ban was placed on research, it shut down the entire field of progress and caused many American scientists to take their talents elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Its more about misstating evidence than anything.</p>
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<p>I really worth the time to discuss whether facts and objective evidence are superior to subjective biases and unevidenced statements? If you’re dangerously ill, would you rather go see the doctor or some fraud who sees things in a crystal ball?</p>
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<p>I think every legitimate evo biologist takes life evolves to be fact not just conjecture or even highly likely. Most scientists are also absolutists about the earth revolving the sun, the existence of the atom, conservation of energy, that fluorine attracts electrons the most easily, etc.</p>
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<p>If you want to get more technical with things then evolution is better explained as the process of life developing and branching out from earlier forms of life.</p>
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<p>Sarcasm is almost always easier to pick up face-to-face because of expression and inflection. Theres none of that on the computer.</p>
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<p>It had to do with just blindly submitting to something. It may seem ok to just give creationists respect and let them have a say in science classes (without scientific evidence) but that policy isn’t exactly effective in other scenarios.</p>
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<p>Good. :)</p>
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<p>Why? So you can get destroyed again?</p>
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<p>If you’re talking about methods of obtaining truth they are mutually exclusive. (Objectively finding evidence vs. assuming it/making it up/using intuition etc.)</p>
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<p>Yikes… that’s a heavy post.</p>
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<p>Its a lot more complex than this if you want to get into the neuroscience of social behavior. </p>
<p>That morality comes from a god or gods is baseless. David Hume debunked that claim 270 years ago. Humans and other animals have varying degrees of morality -some are completely altruistic/cooperative- others not at all.</p>
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<p>Which is why one being true doesn’t make the other false.</p>
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<p>Atheistic moral codes are baseless, in the same sense that spiritual moral codes are baseless. One stems from human-established ethics, the other stems from religion. </p>
<p>In this scenario, morality stems from humans who are obligated to themselves and society. Neural firings in your brain gave you thoughts. These thoughts provided the basis for morality. Others have similar thoughts, and your collective moral code is the foundation of societal rules. This is only one interpretation of atheistic moral codes.</p>
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<p>Atheists don’t believe in gods, so I think we can agree the above is nonsense: souls can exist and science can be false. </p>
<p>Suppose you replace “atheist” with “metaphysical naturalist.” Thoughts are a byproduct of natural reactions in your brain. These thoughts form the basis of ethics–which is a man made. These ethical standards form the basis of morality. Morality is a byproduct of nature, thus it can be real.</p>
<p>You can still have right or wrong, even if it is based on something as meaningless and simple as human perception. Just like you can have right or wrong based on something as meaningless and complex as religion.</p>
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<p>Yes, the first claim was more inflammatory than revelatory – consider my second post instead. And you set up a strawman by equating spirituality with religion, so the actual content of your response is obviously not able to be discussed.</p>
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<p>Please don’t assume everyone shares the same beliefs or approach to philosophy that you do.</p>
<p>It has been made clear by several posters on this thread that their reason for rejecting religion and spirituality is that it makes assumptions and they do not. It is not the assumptions themselves that are problematic, it’s that there are any. So the post is hardly “pointless” until you establish that it applies to absolutely no one on this planet.</p>
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<p>Yet it disproves morality as a concept that exists, unless you accept the underlying assumption that humans are obligated to themselves and to society. In other words, morality is not really morality – actions aren’t “good” or “bad” because those concepts simply do not exist. We just make decisions that can be judged as beneficial or not beneficial. The morality that I’m talking about rejects that notion as the sole concern of humanity.</p>
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<p>When I say “pointless,” I mean that it says nothing about atheism conflicting with morality. It only shows that a subset of atheists who reject religion because it makes assumptions cannot logically abide by an absolute morality. These same people can’t really abide by anything–they’re pretty useless. Sorry for the confusion. I think we can agree on this one.</p>
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<p>Or any other assumption that a human mind can conjure. That’s the point–the assumption is human perception and the thoughts that this perception produces. These obligations are not any different than spiritual obligations. Spiritual morality and atheistic morality are equals–albeit with different baseless assumptions. If you accept one, you can not reasonably scorn the other. </p>
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<p>The morality you’re describing is really just spiritual morality. You’re saying morality exists as a standalone concept, separate from a human, and (thus necessarily) stemming from an outside authority. This is spiritual morality. So, yes, I agree that atheistic morality can not be spiritual morality.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean atheists can’t abide by a moral code. It just can’t be a moral code that stems from a higher authority.</p>
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<p>That’s true.</p>
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<p>Provided that given the assumptions at the very basis of the moral system, it is internally consistent (which the watered-down nihilist to which I alluded would not have).</p>
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<p>But then it hardly counts as morality, because morality involves some sort of “good” versus “bad” instead of dealing with levels of convenience, say. A morality system would peg genocide as bad, whereas its antithesis might claim that it is simply setting back humanity, which isn’t good OR bad. It just is.</p>
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<p>But what’s the justification, or reason I guess, for that obligation? Spiritual morality isn’t baseless; it’s based on spiritual beliefs.</p>
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<p>Spiritual morality is obligated to a spiritual belief. Why do spiritual beliefs have substance? Because you believe they do. You believe in the religion or other authority behind these spiritual beliefs. Morality is real because God created it. </p>
<p>Atheistic morality is obligated to oneself, a society, or any other human perception. Why do human perceptions have substance? Because an atheist believes they do. An atheist believes in the natural human perception and thoughts (caused by natural scientific processes) behind these atheistic beliefs. Morality is real because nature created it (through humans).</p>
<p>IMO, both are equally baseless. You are free to believe both have substance. The only clear conclusion is that both make assumptions. You can say that only one assumption is correct in your opinion. You can’t say that only one assumption is baseless while the other has substance. Either assumptions have substance or assumptions are baseless.</p>
<p>justtotalk, I believe we are in accord on one thing - that this thread is utterly futile not only because nobody will ever change their minds, but because all arguments that science is created on a stronger foundation than religion is baseless. Man created our entire understanding of our world, and therefore nothing has any authority beyond our own opinion. It comes down to an individual choice to ignore intuition, ignore observation, or use both processes in the understanding of our environment</p>