No, it is only correct to say that the illusion of god is a common human experience, or to say that it is a common human experience in the same sense that we might say that we experience unicorns through pictures and stories, which is trivial because it lacks controversy. Your funny feeling is just a funny feeling, not evidence of the existence of god.

No, they're not poor analogies at all. Drawing the strong atheist conclusion from the analogy is not the fault of the analogy, it's the fault of whoever is drawing that conclusion. The analogy is a good analogy in terms of credible evidence, and the right conclusion from it is that of weak atheism, that it is unreasonable to believe that God or unicorns or flying space teapots actually exist. As Hume said, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence". I agree with the point in the opening post about intellectual honesty. If you're going to be unreasonable, then you should be honest about it and you should basically just shut up about it in philosophical discussions, because philosophical discussions are supposed to be about what we reasonably believe, not whatever takes our fancy.

Then you're in the same category as me in that regard, whatever we name it. I talk about this in terms besides probability, such as in terms of plausibility or evidence or good reason, and I don't make the claim that god exists or that no god exists.

Avoidance, like denial, is one of his coping mechanisms.

With regard to your claim that all women are cats and all men are dogs, I beg to differ. @Noah Te Stroete and I are both men, yet I am a cool cat, and he is a pussy. And his mum is a bitch.

Wubba Lubba dub dub! (Holy Lol, if you google that, it says "Did you mean 'I am in great pain. Please help me'").

That there is some ambiguity does not mean that the meaning is whatever someone wants it to be, nor that there are no proper or improper usages. If I recall correctly, the comedian Stewart Lee, who I've previously mentioned, made fun of his nan on stage by parodying her sipping a cup of tea, complaining that it was cold, and then complaining that this was political correctness gone mad. The obvious joke being that that's not an example of political correctness at all, properly speaking. The joke wouldn't work otherwise. Yet it did, and everyone laughed.

You are having the same problem that Rank Amateur is having as a result of additional unwarranted assumptions which can be cut out with Ockham's razor. If we were to go through the motions in detail, we'd see much in common between us, such as we both feel strongly against murder, we both judge murder to be wrong, we both don't want to be murdered, we'd both complain for these reasons, and so on. The big difference is your additional unwarranted assumption which stands out like a sore thumb, and which I have the good judgement to reject.

You also have persistent problematic misunderstandings about the logical consequences of moral relativism which seem practically irresolvable for you, in spite of valiant efforts. I mean, look, we've reached forty pages now, and you seem none the wiser. As I've said before, and of others, the real problem here seems psychological. You have a psychological problem with moral relativism, such that you simply must defeat it, no matter what.

You can lead a horse to water...

He has denial issues.

Sometimes it is better to set tasks that help one to connect the dots themselves rather than simply spelling something out, don't you agree? Compare the following:

Light is electromagnetic radiation within a certain portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it appears to have wave-like properties. Therefore, luminiferous aether.

The world contains people who live meaningful lives, and who are capable of judging right from wrong. Therefore, God exists.

Lots of people have in common the judgement that murdering children is wrong. Humans are such that they tend to feel a certain way about it which leads to that conclusion. Therefore, objective morality.

Yes, but obviously I have already considered and assessed the argument for why reason is a slave to the passions and judged it to be successful enough, hence my mentioning of the oft-quoted line to begin with. You have yet to put forward a superior alternative in my assessment. You have yet to put forward a greater reason for concluding the contrary, namely that reason is not a slave to the passions, whether semantic or otherwise.

And I steadfastly refuse to address what the Kantian in the background has said if he hasn't the decency to even speak to me. He who has the nerve to suggest that I lack philosophical maturity. I think they call that projection.

Same here, lol. Understanding the position is that key first step that some people here are failing on. They are getting way ahead of themselves. The moral of the story is: don't try to run before you can walk.

It's interesting that it has mostly been the case that those who understand your position agree with it, and those who don't understand it disagree with their own misunderstanding.

You have been a contrarian to almost every critical thing that I have said of political correctness, as though you are trying to protect it.

And much of your complaining isn't on target. It is complaining about how some people are abusing a term, rather than about political correctness proper.

You're trying and failing to argue against Ockham's razor. Your additional requirement - "And also, morality is objective!" - doesn't improve the explanation. It's not like DNA, it's like luminiferous aether.

Two words: Ockham's razor. Moral relativism explains that in the way that a normal person would explain that, minus the additional unwarranted assumption of objective morality. We're human after all, as Terrapin keeps telling you. It is no more of a mystery than why lions tend to group together. Have you ever read about the moral philosophy of Nietzsche? If not, you really should look into it, particularly the term "herd morality". Herd-like behavior is not evidence of objective morality, so back to the drawing board you go.

That post shows that you're a good teacher. The problem is that you're working with bad pupils.

My argument consisted in showing that your premise, even if true, doesn't refute Hume's claim, only at best your misunderstanding of it. Your understanding of "reason is the slave of the passions" is about as good as your understanding of "meaning is use". And no, that isn't praise.

Feel free to try again, but philosophy is like shaving, and if you keep ending up with cuts all over your face, then that suggests that you're not good at shaving. You are no match for Hume. Not even remotely close.

Tell me about it. It's bad enough that this discussion is teacher-pupil, but it is far worse when the pupils are bad pupils. Bad pupils repeat the same mistakes without learning from the teacher, and bad pupils are not intellectually honest. I have already effectively expelled one bad pupil for the latter, though he most definitely was a bad pupil for the first reason also.

I didn't say that Kant is a joke, I said that his categorical imperative is a joke, because it is.

And yes, obviously murder is wrong in some sense, and that sense is the sense of wrong that is explained by moral relativism, not the sense of wrong which moral absolutism fails to properly explain and thus resorts to dogmatism and bad logic. Bad logic like your fallacious appeal to absurdity: "But murder is (absolutely) wrong! Superficially, and by my narrow judgement, the contrary seems absurd. Therefore the contrary is false". That seems to be your implicit logic.

You claim to have read the encyclopaedia article about Hume's moral philosophy, and particularly with regards to his famous quote that reason is the slave of the passions, which you even quoted in the very comment that I'm replying to, yet your comment suggests that you don't get it.

"If you deny reason..."

I don't. It has a role. A subservient role.

This discussion is not a discussion of equals. This discussion is a teacher-pupil sort of discussion, where Tim (nice, but...) is very much the pupil and myself and others are very much the teachers.

No, your reply is what's not reasonable. It is not at all reasonable to assume that absent objective morality, no one should complain about any attempts made by anyone to murder them. That's not just wrong, it's daft. If you genuinely want to understand why that is bad logic, then I suggest going over the responses in this discussion to the aptly named Rank Amateur.

Jesus H. Christ. No, that's certainly not about right. That's the same gross misunderstanding of moral relativism that I've been repeatedly correcting and demonstrating to be a result of bad logic. Unfortunately, you appear to be very far behind and stuck on the same basic error.

Haven't you ever taken an action that you thought/believed and/or strongly felt was good, right. and/or moral... — creativesoul

Haven't you ever typed up a sentence which doesn't so abuse the English language?

What on earth is "that which existed prior to our awareness and/or naming of it"? — Isaac

It's his crazy pet tangent.

You should adopt a view akin to emotivism because it's factually correct, it's what the world is like. — Terrapin Station

At least you're thinking about it properly, contrary to @Janus. Meta-ethics is about what the world is like with regards to morality. It is not about how the world ought to be. His point that our moral philosophy should aim towards a harmonious society completely misses the point, and he doesn't seem to realise that that is merely an expression of his own personal moral feelings on the matter, nothing more. It is but a projection.

The encyclopaedia entry you linked to explains much of it. "His view is not, of course, that reason plays no role in the generation of action. His thesis is that reason alone cannot move us to action; the impulse to act itself must come from passion. The doctrine that reason alone is merely the 'slave of the passions', i.e., that reason pursues knowledge of abstract and causal relations solely in order to achieve passions' goals and provides no impulse of its own, is defended in the Treatise".

This, by the way, shows that @creativesoul didn't understand the claim that he was attempting to refute.

Now, what is your argument against this, assuming you have one?

Yeah, yeah. Tu quoque! You're very predictable, and not very politically correct either.

An exception negates the claim. — creativesoul

And there is no exception to Hume's claim that reason is the slave of the passions, as opposed to your own claim, which only thinks it is attacking Hume's claim.

If the passion changes, then reason follows like a slave. If you could somehow succeed in changing my passionate belief that murder is wrong, even though that is practically impossible, reason would then do the bidding of my newfound passion like an obedient slave.

His point was not that passions can never change under any circumstances, including being reasoned with, although it is certainly true of innumerable cases that reason is weak or powerless. Reason is, and remains, a slave to the passions. It is our passions which are primary, as you tacitly acknowledge with your own failed attempt to attack Hume, since you tacitly acknowledge that it is the passions which we must get through to in order to have any hope of altering a moral judgement.

Desires, wants, needs, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. Reason is not distinct from any of these things. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Thought/belief is chock full of emotional meaning, wants, needs, and desires... — creativesoul

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason

'Higher standards'? You make it sound like their belief is lesser, or that it isn't as meaningful as your own. Do you believe that they have 'lower standards' by believing in something that may or may not have less stability than your own? — OpinionsMatter

Yes, higher standards. I don't appeal to authority or to emotion, for example. That is not uncommon for religious people. It is lesser. Less reasonable, for example. I didn't mention or suggest anything about meaningfulness or stability.

And what convinces you of things? — OpinionsMatter

That's not a simple question. Reason, logic, experience, common sense, science, intuition, explanatory power...

Sure, you would have to be convinced first, but you believe that other people have religion, do you not? — OpinionsMatter

Yes. But I am not other people. I have higher standards.

Are you convinced that people believe in something that could be either true or false? — OpinionsMatter

Yes, that's the law of bivalence.

What convinces you that red is red and green is green... — OpinionsMatter

That's the law of identity. It is extremely intuitive and to reject it leads to absurdity.

...or that apple is opposite to orange? — OpinionsMatter

It isn't actually, they're just two different fruits. Neither apples nor oranges have opposites.

Questions to ponder. — OpinionsMatter

I didn't ponder them for very long because they weren't very deep.

Religion has many benefits, but believing possibly false information could have adverse effects on one's well being. — OpinionsMatter

This makes it sound like a choice, when it actually isn't. I replied in a similar fashion, "I'll go with...". But it actually isn't a choice. It's not really about whatever benefits there might be. I simply cannot believe if I am unconvinced, even if I would be much better off as a result. I can't just flip a switch.

It is evident that you misunderstood me. Go back and figure it out. — Fooloso4

Nope and nope.

Of course its relevant. — Fooloso4

No, a point about correctness broadly speaking is not relevant to a point about a very specific sort of correctness. It is fallacious to think that a logical consequence of the former must apply to the latter. Correctness is necessarily correct, otherwise it wouldn't be correctness. But political correctness isn't necessarily correct, and that's the obvious and important distinction which you tried and failed to gloss over in your original reply. You failed in that tactic because I spotted it and pointed out the error. There isn't much you can get past me in this regard. I have a talent for spotting logical errors.

It's relevant to the meaning of the term political correctness. Do you think the distinction between correctness and something of that type is what any of this is about? — Fooloso4

No, talking about the meaning of correctness in general is a pointless digression. I made a point about the distinction between political correctness and being right. Why is it so hard for you to admit that you missed the point, when it's so obvious that that's what you did?

There is no political correctness "proper". — Fooloso4

Sure, and there's no horse "proper" either. Those fluffy horses which purr and meow are just as much horses as the horses which are actually horses. I'm sure those fluffy horses which purr and meow would fit right in in a horse race, and no one would bat an eyelid.

Are you done being silly yet?

"We" who? — Fooloso4

You must have a short attention span or something. Myself and others in this discussion.

What are you going on about? Of course you are not incorrect because someone considers what you say incorrect or politically incorrect. — Fooloso4

Do you feel better having bashed that straw man? Yes, just because someone's position has "correct" in its title does not mean that it is correct. This is something you think is only obvious when one thinks philosophically? Is this epiphany a result of your thinking philosophically? — Fooloso4

Why are you blaming me when instead of simply acknowledging my point, you responded with an irrelevant point which didn't even address the more specific point that I was making? It's not my fault that you have difficulty remaining on point.

Is that your expert professional opinion as a genetics PhD? — Michael Ossipoff

Why did you post this on a philosophy forum if you were looking for expert professional opinions from those with a genetics PhD?

Try a less controversial thread.

What is the evidence of inter-ordinal hybridization in nature. Do not mention pig chimp sexual relations. Do not mention McCarthy. — Nils Loc

And whatever you do, don't mention anything about McCarthy engaging in pig chimp sexual relations. That's a private matter between McCarthy and his animal lovers.

:rofl:

Anyway, is this how pimps are born? :chin:

I would like to take this opportunity to complain about Michael Ossipoff's idiosyncratic style of formulating posts. It is not of an acceptable grammatical standard. I would've been inclined to delete a post like his opening post. There are too many paragraphs, multiple incorrect usage of full stops, and an incorrect use of the hyphen. It is an eyesore.

I think religion (using the exact words from the OP title) is "better for us", because it encourages us to behave better. Better for our species. Sometimes even better for the world we live in (although this is rarer). — Pattern-chaser

How naive. Have you ever read Nietzsche? Or any of the New Atheists?

So, the question is something like: fairy tales and submissiveness to a supposed authority, or reality and independence, i.e. you are your own authority? I'll go with the latter. :up:

Why are human emotional responses so frequently characterised as mere preferences? Why can't they be, in the context of morality, profound and heartfelt passionate dispositions?
— ChrisH

Exactly. There's a weird bias against things that are mental phenomena, where the bias has it that something is far less valuable, worthwhile, worth talking about, etc. if that's the case.

Given how important love is to most of humanity, you'd expect this bias to lead to people claiming that love can't be just a mental phenomenon--and maybe some folks do claim that, I don't know. — Terrapin Station

Hear, hear. How many times have we seen this? In how many discussions? And over and over again. Forgive me for being pessimistic, but it is hard not to be when you witness stuff like this.

This loaded language was what my very first objection was about. And "mere" preference is but one example of it in this discussion.

I more or less agree with every point you made there.

But likely you would not consent to murder because murder is not a good thing. And most people would reason it out that way. — tim wood

It is first and foremost a matter of moral feelings. If most people felt differently about it, then they would reason differently about it. Perhaps now you can see why reason is the slave of the passions. But I doubt it. You seem to have made your mind up to argue against it no matter what. For you, reason simply must play a much more vital role, or else all is lost! Really, this has more to do with psychology than philosophy. You're actually not being reasonable at all, except perhaps in a more superficial sense. Underneath the visard, you're being emotional and alarmist. That has been quite clear from the start, actually. Clear to me at least. The first step for yourself and others who match your psychological profile is to come to the realisation that all will not be lost.