Copyright help needed for refutation of "silver bullet" argument againt Atheistic morality

Like I said, even among the people here, there's recognition that talking with you is a waste of time, and I've seen for myself their evidence, all of which was provided to them by none other than yourself. But then, I've already addressed that, and I've already given the reason for which I'm addressing your points anyway. I will continue by addressing the arguments in your post on the basis of the arguments themselves, as opposed to the order or text. If anyone doubts the legitimacy of what I say here in addressing what you've said, they can look back at the thread so far, and see for themselves what I am talking about (And who knows? Maybe they'll finally try to understand what I'm saying by actually looking at it, and then they won't have to use ad lapidem arguments!):

-On ad hominem arguments: The attacks I've made against those here are their own argument, able to impact the main discussion yet ultimately separate as arguments in and of themselves. To elaborate, I'll refer (and link) to defenses of legitimate uses of ad hominem arguments from two sources, Scientific American and The Non Sequitur. I can only hope that you're at least familiar with the former, but the latter is a site dedicated to the thorough exploration of informal logical fallacies (it's not exhaustive, of course, but that's how they can continue to update and add to it) and presenting its content in a manner that treats the fallacies, and those who use them, in a manner that is entirely warranted (and, as such, the site can get NSFW at times). Here are the links:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/character-attack/
http://thenonsequitur.com/?tag=non-fallacious-ad-hominem

As these pages will say, an ad hominem argument is only fallacious if the arguer points to perceived character flaws in an opponent, and draws from that the conclusion that either the person's claims are false, or otherwise that the person's own account can't be trusted. If, on the other hand, the arguer points to flaws that the opponent has already demonstrated, and which actually undermine the validity of their claims, character inferences may be legitimately drawn from this, and those inferences can and should be taken into consideration for future reference. After all, if someone supposedly represents objectivity and reason, their demonstrated failure to use objectivity and reason in their claims shows that they aren't so objective or reasonable. The best use of such realizations on a local level would be for the judged party to realize that they have problems, and then they may get to work on fixing those problems, improving both themselves and their ability to represent their causes. Even if such a thing never happens, if you expand beyond the local level, other people can see the problematic tendencies of the judged party, and with that in mind, said other people can better recognize the flaws of the judged party's claims, because appealing to any authority the judged party may claim is no longer an option.

Also of note is the fact that the others in this discussion have made decidedly illegitimate ad hominem arguments against me; no one has bothered to examine my claims, because they're too busy attacking my character (along with the aforementioned ad lapidem arguments) and dismissing my claims based on the rationale they establish from doing so.

-On your "weak straw man": Your analysis of my words isn't just a straw man fallacy, it's also a "weak man" fallacy, and the distinction between the two is explained, again, by The Non Sequitur, which I will link to:

http://thenonsequitur.com/?p=552

Your argument combines the two, because in your reading of the text in question, as well as my previous statements that the text refers to, you have addressed only a tiny selection of cherry-picked statements, which you had to take out-of context in order to misrepresent their meaning.

When I defined "my own form of respect," I went on and gave examples for the purpose of demonstrating how one can respect someone while still being aggressive and hostile. Basically, to have my form of respect means you can show a person exactly what you think of them. Basically, it's the opposite of having to try to hide what you think because you'd rather have a sense of security in your cringing. I can respect this guy, and simultaneously not be aggressive or hostile to him, because he hasn't warranted any aggression or hostility.

Either way, he's polite, but he's not submissive. He's willing to face any challenges against him or his ideas, and he will address them with honesty. By comparison, the people here can't be bothered to do either. That's why, in comparing and contrasting between my friend and the people here, I have concluded that my friend, the Christian Apologist from Texas, is better at honest and reasoned discussion than the people here, on a forum that supposedly exists for the purpose of honest and reasoned discussion.

I made the distinction because I'm challenging the people here to cut the BS and start acting like they have any business on a website called "Sciforums."

 

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Well, now that you are sparring with Brian Harwarespecialist, one of the forum's foremost thinkers, you are in capable hands and I look forward to following the discussion with great interest.

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LOL. It is like an unstoppable force going against an immovable object.

 

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I'm not going to dismiss what you've just said, but you've said similar things about rpenner and he has yet to confirm these things himself.
(It seems I've missed something that rpenner had posted while I was typing one of my posts on the last page. I'll have to take a look at that when I can, and see what he has said.)

If "Brian Harwarespecialist" lives up to your description, it will be a refreshing change. I've already considered the possibility that his "laziness" and "indifference to the topic being discussed" were character flaws in an adopted persona, a mere ruse acted out as part of a gambit. It's happened before, after all; such things are useful in figuring out who you're dealing with, all while revealing nothing of yourself. However, in such cases, I've found that the ruse can be "tested," effectively allowing me a similar ability to figure out who I'm dealing with, by using my own ruse of unawareness; after all, if I treat the other person according to their display of ignorance, someone who is truly ignorant will get frustrated and leave, whereas someone who is adopting a ruse actually has a purpose in the discussion, and this gives them a reason to stay and keep at it.

If Brian was, in fact, acting through such an adopted persona, the above paragraph should tell him that it's not going to be necessary for him to keep up the ruse.

For now, though, the class I'm in is about to start, and it's possible that it may be a few hours before I can respond.

 

If you want to defend positions which are hated by many people, you cannot expect to be loved. This is, of course, not your problem - atheism is sufficiently mainstream. But this is what I find interesting (defending mainstream is not really interesting enough for me, with some exceptions, actually I defend the mainstream position in http://www.sciphysicsforums.com/spfbb1/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=75 but this is an outsider forum so I'm even there in a minority position). Here, I defend ether theories - an extreme outsider position in physics, even if I was able to publish my papers in mainstream journals - and libertarianism, a political minority position which the etatists hate. So, from the start it is obvious that I will not find friends here. (And I prefer anyway to find friends in the real life.)

But, of course, if I want an interesting discussion, this is not easy at all. Because there are a lot of people who have no arguments at all but think that expressing their emotions counts as an argument. To argue with them is a loss of time, and you have to get rid of them. My technique is quite simple but usually successful, at least after some time: 1.) not reacting emotionally on emotional attacks 2.) repeat to point out that emotions are not arguments 3.) answer every argument, which, by accident, may appear, in sufficient detail. In this case, they understand after a short time that they have no chance, that they will look like stupid emotional attackers if they continue, without even getting what one expects from an emotional attack, namely an emotional response so that one is on equal foot.

What one hopes for is, of course, not that such guys become reasonable and start to use real arguments instead of their attacks. This is utopian nonsense. Or that they acknowledge that the have lost. That's even more illusional. No, they will continue to hate your position, they will continue to think it is wrong. (Changing opinions works differently - outside of the forum, thinking at home about something related with this alone, one can much more easily accept that that argument was a good one and decisive. And one will, of course, never admit such things openly.) So, what can you expect, as the optimal result? Clearly that those without arguments decide for themself and tell everybody that talking with me is a waste of time.

So, a quite long preparation for thanking you for telling me that my strategy to get rid of those guys was successful.

First of all, of course, all the "logical fallacies" have, it itself, a value as reasonable plausibilty arguments - if applied appropriately. People underestimate the value of plausible reasoning, thus, if A only makes B more plausible, instead of proving it without exception, they like to cry "logical fallacy".

Your accusation of straw man or weak man fallacy is unjustified, because I do not even argue about the content of your thesis. These proofs of existence of God are simply too uninteresting for me to argue about them. It is purely about the form you use. And, then, it was not even an attack on your thesis that sometimes attacks may be justified or now that sometimes ad hominem is justified. In these question I agree with you - in principle.

So, my argument was to show you how you look like, given these quotes. How you present yourself. This is something quite different from giving a fair decription of all your content. If you believe that readers in a forum will evaluate all your content, think about the correct meaning, and the come to some conclusion, you are wrong. They will pick the worst claim of you out of context and will not even care about your explanations that the meaning of this was completely different. And you fare better if you recognize these simple facts of live and modify your style.

So, this is only a recommendation. You seem uninterested in such recommendation, your choice. I couldn't care less.

 

Or a parakeet fighting with his reflection in the mirror.

 

I had already typed up most of my previously-intended response, but for now, I'll just say that I might have to stop engaging in this discussion, and for an unexpected reason. Just... despite all of my disagreements with the people here, I will extend to you the courtesy of warning you all to avoid the "Science 2.0" website, which theistic trolls have linked to (instead of posting their own arguments) on at least one of the Facebook pages I debate on. The first article I read gave me the idea that the site might not be a legitimate source of information, based on the dubious claims in the article itself; the second article I read confirmed my suspicions of the site's illegitimacy and then some, based on the spontaneous appearance of almost 70 high-severity viruses which may have done enough damage to require a formatting of the hard drive I primarily use on my other computer. So... yeah.

Given the frustrations of dealing with the fallacies that are frequently used here, I probably won't return to this particular thread. If any of you want to find me in a place where people care about legitimate debate tactics, well... Given the things I talk about, it shouldn't be too hard to find me, even if you don't know my name.

 

Yes, I'm back; no I'm not here to continue the debate, because a debate can't really happen when only one side thinks it's necessary to critically examine the arguments presented to them (hint: none of you are on that side), so what's there to continue?

If you don't think it's important or necessary to critically examine the arguments of your opponents, I've come up with a list of some of the things we could have been discussing if any of you had bothered to examine the argument you so stubbornly insisted on ignoring. I've even tried bringing some of these things up, but none of you could ever dare to consider the possibility of such things, because you could never refute Hastings Rashdall's Moral Argument. It's not even that much trouble for me, really; I'm just copying and pasting something I came up with off the top of my head, to present to and discuss with someone who is willing to exchange ideas. If you want a better formatting structure for a list, or if you somehow object to the inclusion of things that aren't enough like the other things on the list, or - dare I say it - you think it's too long, then that's just too bad, because you need to get used to reading, anyway.

The premises required to construct a successful refutation have been understood for a while now, but as far as I can tell, I'm the first person to actually put them together in a way that refutes Rashdall's argument by allowing for alternative premises that can serve as the basis of an objective moral system, one that doesn't depend on God *or* subjective thinking at all. Without Rashdall's argument in the way, these premises can actually be used. Off the top of my head, these premises include the epistemology established by formal science (especially considering the four properties of a logical system: Consistency, Validity, Completeness, and Soundness); the fact that formal science covers existential consistency instead of the physically-defined contents of our universe (and thus, our exploration of formal science, and the verifiability of its truths, isn't limited by the scope of our senses); the fact that Gödel's incompleteness theorems don't apply to (and thus do not disallow the completeness of) any order of logic that only contains a single axiom, which includes both the common first-order logical systems AND those much more elusive systems that can unite every variable under a single axiom with which to cover the entirety of the topic which it deals with (for lack of a better term, "highest-order logic"); the fact that such an axiom can be made by cutting out all arbitrary variables (in other words, variables that have no causal relation to the topic covered by the axiom); the fact that using trinary logic to indicate the value of a variable enables you to avoid any of the arbitrary prioritization that would come with numeric values; etc.

When you next hear of these things, it'll be spoken of by someone else on another site, someone who was willing to listen to a point not previously considered, because clearly, this isn't the sort of place for rational discourse. Then again... the exceptionally low standards you have displayed makes me wonder if this is the only refuge for those like yourselves.

Any moderators who see this, close the thread. Any promise it ever held died on the first page.

 

On what moral basis do you assert the right do you have to order the moderators to do anything? Nothing in the terms of service gives you control of threads you start, at best you retain copyright in the material you irrevocably licensed to the site owners. Nothing in the vaunted academic freedom and the concept of freedom of speech implies you have a freedom from speech, even critical speech.

Your relationship with moderators might get off on the wrong foot if you don't know when a request, invitation or suggestion is more appropriate than an order or demand.

 

As per usual, you assume too much of things you haven't bothered to actually learn.

As for critical speech, I had an idea for an "experiment" earlier, where I would challenge someone (Schmelzer was the one I wanted to go for, but it could have been anyone, even you) to actually prove that my accusations of fallacy against the lot of you were incorrect, demanding that they find and provide an instance in which anyone could actually address any of the things that they were judging (Schmelzer would pretend, and address the wrong thing, but that's about as close as anyone got); it never happened, because of unrelated circumstances. You can still go looking for such things when the thread is closed. You won't, though. People like you can never admit when you are wrong, and you're too afraid too see for yourselves.

 

No, I would ignore the challenge. First of all, because the content is not interesting for me at all, and, second, I do not see any reasons to hope that the person which would be my opponent would behave adequately.

I have learned to live with inadequate opponents if the content is interesting enough, and would be ready to help a nice person even if this would require to consider some uninteresting questions, but above problems in combination - no.

 

I disagree with the Rashdall argument, and I disagree with your refutation of it.

 

This surprises me, to say the least... Most of my memories of encountering you in the past, if such distant recollections could be trusted, would point to you being someone who could at least be trusted to not get involved in a particular discussion if you had nothing of substance to contribute. Yet here, in this post, you have involved yourself so that you could effectively say nothing about what you're addressing. At least the others could pretend to post something of substance....

Nevertheless, there is an opportunity here... In the following sentence, I will both describe the source of this opportunity, and I will also prove that what you've stated, if you really mean it, gives this exact opportunity (thus preventing any evasion based on dishonest semantics). By stating for both claims that you disagree, you have declared for both that your own position includes the positive claim that the negation of my claim is true, and therefore, with both statements that you disagree, the positive claim that the claims that you disagree with is false becomes logically inevitable.

Now, I will ask you the following questions once, thus giving you a single chance to justify your position and the claims you have made from your position. I will give you additional details below each question, showing you what you will have to address in your answer, based on what what those who have argued against me here have failed to address. If you respond to them with an answer that is simultaneously honest, valid, and without any reliance on fallacies, then I will be willing to continue to discuss these things with you as needed, though you and I will have to continue the discussion elsewhere, somewhere that is better suited for intelligent discourse than this monument to the stifling power of hypocrisy. On the other hand, if you are incapable of responding to the question with an answer that is simultaneously honest, valid, and without any reliance on fallacies, or if you are unwilling to respond as such (a lack of an answer is no excuse to not support the positive claim you've made, after all), then you will prove yourself to be no better than the rest of the hypocritical, loathsome, narcissistic, obnoxious, pretentious trolls that have dominated this website and stifled everything it stands for (I had a note in a spoiler box for the moderators, but apparently, there's a character limit; I was going to post it elsewhere, anyway).

If you succeed here, you will have shown more dignity than anyone else who has posted here, and you will be the second person on this whole forum who has earned any appreciation from me since this thread began.

 

There is no evidence for a God, but due to our common ancestry, human beings can share a more or less objective moral perspective on most main points, but with many grey areas. Moral choices should benefit the most number of people while endeavoring not to harm anyone, not an easy calculation to make in some cases. Thus there is no perfect moral ideal. Perfect moral law would require a simple universe, with simple choices, like making calculations using only integers, no rounding errors, no estimates. Perfect mathematical structures can be postulated, but does that mean perfect spheres and crystals must exist somewhere? No. So how do we judge things, if objectivity will only get us so far? We do use our own private reason, even people who are under the illusion that they refer to an absolutely objective morality. They have used their private reason to judge the reasonableness of one moral code over another. So Rashdall's argument is merely an elaborate justification for the reasonableness and objectivity of his subjective private reason.

And you are wrong because logic isn't morality. There is no logical system conceivable that can calculate a correct moral choice. How do you quantify benefit and harm? Especially to something as complex as a society? I agree logic is absolute, but reality resists model making. There are no perfect models of the universe. A perfect model of the universe as it exists now would inevitably take a different course than our universe. Even if our logic is impeccable, we are screwed by the Uncertainty Principle. If you can't predict the future, (because the universe doesn't run like clockwork) you can't know the full outcome of your choices. What you think is right today may turn out to be wrong tomorrow. Scientific models are broad abstractions. We can't know with any certainty exactly when a radioactive particle will decay, we can only say that based on prior behavior, there is a statistical likelihood within a range. So even the simplest particle eludes perfect description.

So, to sum up, an absolutely objective moral system isn't possible because the universe is neither simple nor fundamentally predictable, and if Rashdall accepted this, which is an idea that comes from modern physics, his vision of God's perfection might be shattered.

 

Your comments are about 80 % correct in my opinion Spider, this is mostly what I mentioned about objectivity earlier "probability" will always scue the objective position. As to your last comment there is one thing you over look God is not a bieng that experiences time or space so Gods perception can beat and or transcend true uncertainty principal. This is because uncertainty requires multiplicity variations, I like to think of it as multidimensionality, but God is one dimensional singular and all events that take place from the perspective of God are singular and unchanging. God experiences no probability and lives in a truly absolute 100% determined universe "the prime reality". Spider God does not exist in the same universe as you do, you live in a probably universe probable realty of space time God exist beyond this point this is why interactions with God is mostly indirect until all probability has been removed, this is the only point God has truly interacted with our probable universe.

One point I was trying to communicate to the op was once you make any or all assessments in a probable universe it can never truly be objective because like Danshawen always like to point out there are no absolutes, yes this is true but only when that statement is asserted inside time and space because outside of those boundaries there is no space left for probable change.

 

So Jade brain prime even math is not truly objective because math is also asserted in a probable universe used to describe a probable universe. And math is as objective as you can get inside time and space so although it can be considered objective like the formal sciences it is still not perfected and complete, that is not true objectivity but the best we can create in a probably universe.

 

As long as you are postulating about a point of view your points will always be subjective, when you gain enough insight to see things from a position of an atemporal standpoint only then can you see the absolute object truth.

 

Okay, it looks like you still aren't willing to actually look at what I've already given as a means of accounting for those things. You're referring to the inevitable failures that would result from implementing things which I've already stated to be ineffective solutions, and ignoring the alternative solutions I've already given that better serve the purposes at hand. If you can't be bothered to read what I had already written (Did you even read my details of why everyone else has failed, listed right below the questions themselves?), then my words are wasted on you. I'll still type up a few of the things you did in your hypothetical "best possible" moral system, which I've already stated that you shouldn't do, because there are better things to do, and I've already used these things to make a working moral system (it's been there for a while, now). Why? Because others might still learn from the downfall that your ignorance, arrogance, and objective laziness has led you to.

I mean, seriously, your own hypothetical idea starts with two conflicting ideals of good, neither of which are given any clear definition (let alone a definition that can construct any axioms in and of themselves), and there are plenty of situations I could propose which would show their variables' own lack of any causal relation to even an undefined "good" (example: If it's good to help and bad to harm, does that mean it's good to help Hitler, or bad to harm Hitler?), meaning both are arbitrary. The fact that you're still insisting on using arbitrary variables is because you haven't tried to figure out why anything is good - you could use inductive reasoning to figure out what part of something makes anything good, and if you're doing that properly, you should be able to get a single axiom from which to measure "good" at the highest order.

There's more, of course- - there's a lot more - but the fact that the best you can do for a moral system in your argument doesn't even try any of the things I'm actually saying, or give any reason for why the things I'm actually saying don't work, before just declaring outright that it won't, just goes to show that what you're doing is an abortion of intelligence and reason. None of you belong in any place of rational discourse, period.

Oh, and Brian? Try reading the document for my argument before you assume that any limitation or flaw in a scenario governed by an entirely different system is somehow inherent to the moral system one is using. It's already addressed.

Good night, you blind fanatics to your dogma of cringing.

 

So unless you can explain how the formal sciences are perfect and absolute and that they are not based on "agreements" temporal beings created inside a probably universe of uncertainty and error then I don't see much use...

 

Please provide a clear thesis statement then I can engage you from that point onwards.