Your argument is misguided, at best, Andrew. Nihilism is conventional, or common sense, 'god-of-the-gaps theism' and, therefore, a significant reason why (philosophical) atheists reject theism. Irreligion, however is a separate political stance, rather than a philosophical argument, which may or may not be supplemented by atheism.

Are you including the philosophical arguments for God in this?

The cosmological argument.
The moral argument for God.
Aquinas's Five ways
The ontological argument
The argument from beauty
The argument from consciousness
The teleological argument — Andrew4Handel

This goes against the idea of a simple disbelief in gods if you have to write thousands of words in response to arguments for God. — Andrew4Handel

How many thousands of words are there in the arguments for God? Certainly the folks debunking these arguments are allowed to use the same number of words, yes?

I have repeated this here because its relevant.

People don't seem to comprehend the lack of truth value in issue in morality.

Morality may as well be a religion if it is just making up a system of rules and ideas to keep people happy.

But it has no truth value. No one has discovered a truth value to moral claims or moral instructions.

So moral systems are a sham at heart but people don't believe that so keep on making moral claims relentlessly.

......

So my charge is that non religious people are acting indistinguishably from religious people in a lot of their beliefs under the veneer of skepticism.

People don't seem to comprehend the lack of truth value in issue in morality. — Andrew4Handel

That's not a small statement.

There is a large body of ethical theory that insist that moral statements have a truth value, but do not rely on a deity.

And in addition there is the Euthyphro dialogue, which points out that god doesn't actually give us any help in deciding what is good, anyway.

When folk leave the comfort of an authoritarian ethical system, they begin to realise just how difficult deciding what to do is.

There is far more to atheism than moral scepticism. Ethics is a broad field.

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

So my charge is that non religious people are acting indistinguishably from religious people in a lot of their beliefs ... — Andrew4Handel

This fact demonstrates that to do good or bad and learn or not from the consequences most people do not need "divine permission" in order to survive and to thrive. So what are peculiarly "religious values" good for? :chin:

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right. — H.L. Mencken, journalist & critic

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. — Steven Weinberg, Nobel physicist

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right — H.L. Mencken, journalist & critic

:up: :sparkle:

This fact demonstrates that to do good or bad and learn or not from the consequences most people do not need "divine permission" in order to survive and to thrive. So what are peculiarly "religious values" good for? — 180 Proof

What I mean is that they are acting in a quasi religious way with unsubstantiated values.

They have not transcended religious superstition and unfounded premises ,they just apparently don't care about the truth value of their claims as long as the words "God" or "gods". is not attached.

Why don't you need your statements to have truth value? The value of religious values is that they are motivational just like equally made up social values.

Neither is an issue of you are not concerned with the truth value of statements. Then you just have your subjective perception of society working. Which I assume is how you judge the success of your value claims.

I want to know that my actions are good or bad objectively and not speculatively, subjectively or arbitrarily.

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right. — H.L. Mencken, journalist & critic

This would be impressive if there was a right thing to do but no one has proven that anything is right or wrong and nature allows everything to occur whatever value we put on it. Genocide and self sacrifice.

There is a large body of ethical theory that insist that moral statements have a truth value, but do not rely on a deity. — Banno

What are you referring to? When I studied moral; philosophy no theory we were presented with was able to give convincing evidence for moral truths.

I believe moral nihilism should be the default position and then any moral claims ought to be presented with substantial evidence. Otherwise I think it is a faith position to believe you know what is right and wrong.

People say there is no evidence for gods. I say there is no evidence for moral truths and they deserve equal skepticism. Some people accept nihilism as a consequence of atheism. Not accepting a nihilist consequence to atheism may mean you believe in some kind of objective values and these objective values like morals and beauty or just the presence of natural laws have constituted arguments for god.

An analogy might be someone claiming to not believe in atoms. Atoms are still going to contribute to your existence whether or not you believe in them. I think a lack of belief in gods doesn't rule out gods or the notions of gods influence in your life.

I think a nihilist, which I have been, is someone who is committed to true skepticism about the grounds for meaning and doesn't take anything for granted and in my case they may gradually reassert some meaning claims that they feel have some warrant.

Why don't you need your statements to have truth value? — Andrew4Handel

Why do you assume that? I've claimed the opposite with respect to morality more than once (links below) which you have either ignored or given vague meandering responses.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/773861
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/774287
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/774318

↪Andrew4Handel So [you assert] nature itself isn't grounds enough for natural beings to conceive of and practice morality (i.e. eusocial cooperation strategies). Why? — 180 Proof

:chin:

People don't seem to comprehend the lack of truth value in issue in morality.

Morality may as well be a religion if it is just making up a system of rules and ideas to keep people happy.

But it has no truth value. No one has discovered a truth value to moral claims or moral instructions.

So moral systems are a sham at heart but people don't believe that so keep on making moral claims relentlessly. — Andrew4Handel

Remember religious or theistically derived morality is just as much of a sham. The morality of any believer is as subjective and dependant upon interpretation and personal preferences as any kind of moral system. It's something no person can escape, no matter whether they believe in Jesus or jack shit.

The desire for a magic position, a transcendent foundation seems to be concept that is hard to shake.

Morality is an open conversation humans have about what they value and how they should live. In most countries today, legislation seems to do the bulk of the work and sometimes gets changed as behaviors which communities used to consider immoral no longer are - homosexuality, women getting the vote, use of illicit drugs, square dancing in a round room, etc.

As an ethical naturalist and fallibilist, the truth value of moral claims about 'what harms persons, other animals and ecosystems' is discernible, ergo preventable or reducible. 'Supernaturalist criteria' for "justifying the moral norms" of natural persons was a brief, maladaptive interlude of the last several millennia out of an almost two hundred millennia span of eusocial h. sapiens existence. 'Divine command theory', as far as I can tell, is moral nihilism (e.g. Plato's Euthyphro, Nietzsche's The Antichrist), and the last century or so of substantive secularization has been and continues to be a struggle against vestigial priestcraft and normative superstitions. — 180 Proof

This is a lovely paragraph, thanks. It's the closest I think I could get to finding an objective way forward in this space. I suspect many people already understand that what harms conscious creatures and the environment is anathema and from here we can locate a foundational basis for most approaches to moral problems. I need to keep being reminded of this.

I have often thought too that divine command theory is just a variation of moral nihilism - it commits the human to the status of an empty drone and it is utterly disrespectful to our innate capacity for love, empathy and solidarity.

:cool: Thanks.

lack of truth value — Andrew4Handel

Indeed, ought. We're here to create a/the moral dimension. It doesn't exist, we have to make it exist. It's not true, we have to make it true. In short we add one more facet to the diamond (of reality) and make it sparkle even more.

I have become agnostic based on my evaluations of theory, evidence, probability, limitations of knowledge etc. — Andrew4Handel

I want to know that my actions are good or bad objectively and not speculatively, subjectively or arbitrarily. — Andrew4Handel

No one has discovered a truth value to moral claims or moral instructions. — Andrew4Handel

I've been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to understand what you're saying. You're agnostic and you want to know whether your actions are good or bad, but then you say that it can't be done.

So then what?

I have become agnostic based on my evaluations of theory, evidence, probability, limitations of knowledge etc.
— Andrew4Handel — EricH

Not knowing whether or not there is a g/G does not entail believing in g/G or disbelieving in g/G. Being agnostic is irrelevant.

I want to know that my actions are good or bad objectively and not speculatively, subjectively or arbitrarily.
— Andrew4Handel

Observing the foreseeable (e.g. net harmful / unjust) consequences of actions is effectively pragmatic and replicatable aka "objective". I've no idea what @Andrew is talking about either.

No one has discovered a truth value to moral claims or moral instructions.
— Andrew4Handel

Just like no one has discovered a truth value to medical diagnostics or treatments. :roll: What is harmful to our species is knowable and therefore preventable and reducible (i.e. in medical terms, 'therapeutically treatable'). Ergo, no "supernatural value systems" are needed (or are objective in any practical sense). Andrew seems incorrigibly confused.

Just like no one has discovered a truth value to medical diagnostics or treatments. — 180 Proof

No one is obliged to take a medical treatment. But if they cure an illness they do what they say they do.

As an ethical naturalist and fallibilist, the truth value of moral claims about 'what harms persons, other animals and ecosystems' is discernible, ergo preventable or reducible — 180 Proof

I don't see how you get from an assessment of harm to a morality. Our ability to perceive harm does not imply we should take a moral stance on it. My dislike for harm leads me to antinatalism. But there are many other facets to moral judgements other than harm calculations.

Also I do not think people would accept the results of harm calculations if they were actually made comprehensively.
Would people give up a large chunk of their expendable income to help the poor if a utilitarian calculation led to that? Would they spend more time in the week helping others, stop eating meat? Stop taking foreign Holidays? Stop having children? Adopt a child. Visit the lonely elderly? These calculations would be easy to dismiss or ignore and not have the imperative of a law.

Other aspects of morality are moral obligations, moral character/virtues, a conscience, integrity or just the a lack of desire to have a moral system imposed or otherwise.

The claim I questions was

People don't seem to comprehend the lack of truth value in issue in morality. — Andrew4Handel

You reply:

When I studied moral; philosophy no theory we were presented with was able to give convincing evidence for moral truths. — Andrew4Handel

So no ethical theory convinced you. Note that whether or not you were convinced is different to whether or not the theories were true or false. You might be, indeed presumably were, unconvinced because the theories were false. If so then they do indeed have a truth value.

Furthermore, perhaps it's not evidence that is relevant. Evidence tells us what is the case. But what we are after in ethics is not what is the case but what we ought make the case. You'll be familiar with the is/ought distinction from your studies.

It's not, I hope, at all difficult to present ethical statements on which we would agree. So for example i doubt that you would agree with kicking puppies for pleasure. And that is to say, we agree that "One ought not kick puppies for pleasure" is true.

It's worth paying some attention to the alternative. If someone were to claim that "One ought not kick puppies for pleasure" is false, we would not generally just submit, on the grounds that such issues are relative. In this way, moral statements are very different to statements of personal preference, such as "I like vanilla ice cream". Personal choice applies to me alone, while moral choices are applied to others.

We do have expectations for the behaviour of ourselves and of others. So if moral nihilism is the view that moral statements do not have a truth value, then it does not seem to be the default position. Rather we start by thinking some moral statements are true, others are false.

Ethics, then, is the conversation about which of these statements are true, and why. A worthy puzzle.

A second point I'd make is that it is not at all apparent how introducing god makes a difference. This is derived from the Euthyphro mentioned previously, the question of whether the good is just what god wills, or whether god wills what is good. The problem is that, if we include god, we are still left with the fact of our having to make a choice. We can choose to do what god wills, or to go against his will.

There being a god does not automatically tell us what is good and what is bad. The existential fact is that the choice remains ours.

So, two points: it is not so obvious that moral statements lack a truth value, and it is not apparent that there being a god helps us in deciding what to do.

I don't see how you get from an assessment of harm to a morality. — Andrew4Handel

Uh huh. :roll:

For what it's worth ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/554048

I've been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to understand what you're saying. You're agnostic and you want to know whether your actions are good or bad, but then you say that it can't be done. — EricH

I am saying atheism seems to lead to moral nihilism and other forms of nihilism. If someone is consistent about not believing things without evidence or not believing things involving supernatural claims.

I also think the idea you can own something and have property is a metaphysical/supernatural claim because I don't think ownership is a natural property and it can only be enforced by brute force such as the police or army. A lot of social norms and claims are being maintained by brute force not reason.

I don't think one child deserves to go to Eton/a private school and another child deserves to not be educated living in a slum. Communists have forcibly dismantled some previous societal structures based on what they see as their inequality and lack of justification. But communism is also not scientific and a statement of of a preference for an alternative way to structure Society that led to a lot of conflict an death.

I am saying atheism seems to lead to moral nihilism and other forms of nihilism. — Andrew4Handel

Well, one of us is playing with the wrong of the mule:

Nihilism is conventional, or common sense, 'god-of-the-gaps theism' and, therefore, a significant reason why (philosophical) atheists reject theism. — 180 Proof

Uh huh. :roll: — 180 Proof

Are you committed to the notion that all harm is bad? Harm = Bad? Some harm is bad? We should prevent all harm? We should prevent subjective harm as experienced by the individual (I hate going to school)?

In utilitarian thinking this has led to lots of absurdities such asthe idea that we should destroy all life because harm outweighs the good inevitably. Other claims are that we should manufacture suffering out of animals by genetic modification. Or that we should kill one healthy person to save 6 sick people by using this person as an organ donor.

If you wouldn't kill one healthy person to save six dying or suffering people then you are not committed to an ethics based on harm minimisation but have different moral values such as the sanctity of life, consent and so on.
.......
What I would want a morality to do is to convince someone not to shoot me in the head. And if they did to know they would get some kind of karma/judgement that is guaranteed into this life or the next. An afterlife justice scenario means you can never escape your wrong doing which is currently happening with unpunished murders genocide and unsolved crimes in general were someone gets away scot free with harmful behaviour.

I also think the idea you can own something and have property is a metaphysical/supernatural claim because I don't think ownership is a natural property and it can only be enforced by brute force such as the police or army. A lot of social norms and claims are being maintained by brute force not reason. — Andrew4Handel

Not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand, but there's not often a need to resort to force in order to maintain social norms. The meaning of the words you are reading is social, but there is no one threatening the use of violence in order to enforce that meaning.

If one comes from a patriarchal background in which violence and authority are presumed to underpin social norms, it may well be difficult to see that folk will act sociably without that threat.

This is an analogy to how I see the situation.

A friend or relative goes missing and no one currently knows what has happend to them.

You are not justified to say that they are alive and well and you are also not justified to say that they are dead.

You could give false hope or cause false despair so instead you admit you don't know (agnosticism) what has happened to the missing person.

It is emotionally important not to take away peoples hope as well as not to give them exaggerated hope.

I think the atheist is usually making an assessment of evidence to reach a belief about gods based on the current scientific knowledge failings of religion etc but that then is not a simple disbelief.

Are you committed to the notion that all harm is bad? ...  We should prevent all harm? — Andrew4Handel

I've referred many times to 'preventing / reducing NET harm' in my formulations of an ethics. Your strawmanning only leads to non sequiturs, thus your confusions persist.

The important thing to do in your analogy is to go out and look for your missing friend, and muster what support you can for the search.

Your stance on whether she is alive or not is only of relevance in so far as it influences your actions.

And that's the rub with regard to ethical thought: it's what you do that counts, not why you do it.

Not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand, but there's not often a need to resort to force in order to social norms. — Banno

Because they don't enforce themselves like natural laws. I am saying atheists are relying on social structures created through force not reason which is similar to what religious people do.

When I left religion at 17 I became a nihilist because life lost it's meaning and purpose to me and I could see a failure to justify anything (This was before I studied philosophy). Nihilism can be a real problem. Most antinatalists are atheists, atheists have less children and various other stats which suggest a causal link between abandoning religious ideas and losing motivation and meaning.

That's why I don't embrace atheism as neutral, (harmless without ramifications) something needing promoting, superior to religion etc.

The important thing to do in your analogy is to go out and look for your missing friend, and muster what support you can for the search. — Banno

My analogy is about what beliefs you form when someone goes missing. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. The police are searching. The person has made it hard for them to be found but you remain in the situation of the agnostic. Lacking adequate knowledge and proceeding with caution.

But overall if you don't know you really dont know it really is a place of lack of knowledge from which few conclusions can be drawn. In my opinion. You start acting on faith from that basis.

I am saying atheists are relying on social structures created through force not reason which is similar to what religious people do. — Andrew4Handel

And I am pointing out that many social structures are not dependent on enforcement by violence.

I went to an event last night that had eighty folk in one small room enjoying an excellent musical performance. No one hurt anyone else, folk moved so as to allow entry and egress, applauded the performance, ordered and paid for food and drink - all done without the threat of violence from some authority figure.

Overwhelmingly, folk try to get on with those around them without hitting each other.

Unlike in Marvel movies.

Nihilism can be a real problem. — Andrew4Handel

What's the alternative to nihilism you can identify in the world today that does not come with any harms or problems?