IntenseDebate - Richard

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 0 replies · +1 points

P.S. Unless you're seriously suggesting that we abandon rational thinking, what's the point of this argument?

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 1 reply · +1 points

On what basis can you exclude _anything_ from being true? Only by using rational thinking. Oh, but rational thinking isn't rationally justified. So you can't exclude _anything_. That seems to be the consequence of accepting your argument.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 0 replies · +1 points

I suppose once we say what rational thinking is (including learning from past experience), "rational thinking works" probably amounts to the same thing as those beliefs.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 2 replies · +1 points

Actually, I don't think we have to accept the beliefs on which rational thinking logically depends. All we have to accept without justification is that rational thinking works.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 0 replies · +1 points

I'm wary of the word "knowledge". We certainly form beliefs without rational justification, based on subconscious processes, and that's often very effective. But we've also learned to verify those beliefs through rational thinking. In the case of the core beliefs of our rational thinking process, we don't have that latter option. But this is a special case. I can't see any possibility of other beliefs having the same status. But who knows?

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said · 2 replies · +1 points

Meaning is subjective, like morality. It exists only in minds, be those our minds or God's. The meaning that your belief in God gives you is still just your own subjective meaning, regardless of whether God exists.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said · 3 replies · +1 points

Logic leads to beliefs, not emotions. Of course, beliefs may cause emotions, but those emotions do not follow logically from the beliefs that caused them.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 12 replies · +1 points

Hello again, Anselm.

Any rational belief system is bound to have a kernel which is not itself rationally justified (unless you can think of a circular system of justification). For example, we depend on the unjustifiable belief that past experiences are a guide to future experiences. We accept this belief because it's worked for us in the past. But that's an explanation, not a justification.

Since we accept certain core beliefs without justification, does that mean we should accept other beliefs without justification? No. Those core beliefs are a sine qua non for rational discourse. The same is not true of the other beliefs which you have (I think) proposed as "basic": belief in God and in objective morality.

15 years ago @ Common Sense Atheism - The Wrong Test for Eth... · 0 replies · +1 points

(Hi, Luke. Thanks for switching to a new comment system. I'll give it a try.)

"For Lisa to not be poisoned, she SHOULD not drink poison."

This is simply a statement of fact, of cause and effect. It means the same as "drinking poison would thwart the desire that Lisa not be poisoned".

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