Can you clarify what you mean by Fi functions or fe ?
No, what I am saying is moral statements don't express truth, to say "X is immoral" is not expressing the truth about anything except what you approve and disapprove of.
You didn't really answer my question. In fact your argument counters the.position it takes it seems.
Cognitive means truth apt.
Non-cogntive means not truth apt.
Are moral statements truth statements? If so, how so?
Read my response to drawfour.... I should described the question of cognition in morality in the description...
You already said it yourself, knowledge and belief are two different things that are strongly connected. Therefore (a)gnosticism and (a)theism are two different spectrums. One can be agnostic and an atheist, one can be Gnostic and a theist, one can be agnostic and a theist, and one can be Gnostic and an atheist.
Agnostic atheist: I don't know and I don't believe.
Gnostic atheist: I do know and I don't believe, (which means they'd have to believe a god doesn't exist).
Agnostic theist: I don't know, and I believe.
Gnostic theist: I do know, I do believe.
There is a subtle difference between cognition, and objective/subjective.
Some will, because they are gnostic atheists, others will because they have an either-or mentality like most people and generally think of gods existence as he either exists or doesn't. You ask me, and other atheists on here if god exists and many of us will simply say we have no reason to think so.
Purpose to me, seems to be another word for function. To ask "what is the purpose of X?" is to ask "what is the function of X?", things seem to have many functions, therefore not everything has one function. "What is the purpose of zephyr20x6? (in real life)" or "What is the function of zephyr20x6?" is whatever output comes about from my existence. If I were to drive humanity towards utopia, a golden age, then my purpose was exactly that, that is the output of me. However all outputs need an input, no matter what effect comes out of my existence will require me to put in whatever is necessary to make that happen (though I doubt I'd bring humanity to a golden age XD).
I have already discovered the meaning to life, I just don't think there is A meaning to life. If I were to drop a ball, (whether by accident or intentionally) the meaning of that ball being dropped would be for that ball to fall, to hit the ground, and bounce back up, and to keep bouncing until it eventually stops. The meaning to dropping a ball is for that ball to drop, the meaning of life is to live. Their is a subtle difference between purpose, meaning, and significance to me.
edit I didn't like how I worded this, so I retyped this.
To live in deception is to live not appreciating what your life really is, if I am not to live life as it is, as honestly as possible, I am not to live really ever appreciating it for what it really is. To live in deception is almost to not live at all to me.
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." [Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1985]
While I do think it is possible to affect religious beliefs in society and deter them through reason, it can't be done by reason alone, only time, and persistence can help. Theists don't base their belief on reason or evidence primarily, they may rationalize a form of reasoning, they may invoke evidence where there is none, but primarily religion and theism is based on wishful thinking, and indoctrination, I think that it is a natural process that possibly every civilized species goes through to resolve it's superstitious nature. I think religion is just human superstition channeled, and a developed outlet, sooner or later, we will leave it behind.
I honestly think it is better to fight for what is right, than to allow others to dictate your actions and standards for you. The phrase "be the change you want to see in the world" strongly resonates with me, if you wish to live in a society that holds the standards that are important to you, you have to lead by example.
I think if anyone were to live forever, life in and of itself would lose meaning. By that I mean, life would lose it's value to us, if we were to just keep on living forever. In my experience it seems as though, all experience perpetuated on a continuum with no breaks anywhere, would become boring. There is only so many days, or weeks in a row I can play one video game until I don't want to play that game anymore, as it would become more redundant over time. Let's say I had infinite video games to choose from, I might be able to play videogames significantly longer due to the significant variables thrown into the experience of playing videogames, but even with those infinite variables of infinite videogames, the experience of playing videogames would still eventually become so redundant, that the experience itself would lose value to me. Sooner or later, I would become bored, and then after boredom comes disgust (in psychology, disgust is actually just a more intense feeling of boredom: http://www.quora.com/
As much as it would suck to only live a day, I'd much rather live a day with significant meaning and value due to it's temporary nature, than a dragging eternal existence that may drive me insane for eternity, perhaps that would be the worst hell...
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I get the feeling, you don't understand what I mean be cognitive, and non-cognitive. cognition of morality, has to do with how truth apt morality is. A non-cognitivist essentially believes that moral statements are not truth statements. A non-cognitivist believes morality are simply attitudes of approval and disapproval, and what you approve of or disapprove of is not truth.
The implications of this would essentially be that there is no such thing as "moral knowledge", nor is morality a purely logical process.
Knowledge is "justified, truth conviction" since moral statements don't express truth, you do not literally KNOW right from wrong, expressing what you approve of or disapprove of is not an expression of knowledge but merely what you approve of and disapprove of.
It is not ultimately logical to have any particular attitude of approval or disapproval, it is entirely dependent on your emotions, interests, and nature as a human being. The daring psychopath, feels not for any other sentient life, and the only thing that gives his life any meaning, or gives him enough joy to live is killing other people. So this daring psychopath goes on killing sprees because it is the best way for him to live, there is nothing inconsistent in his logic or reasoning, he is just that... a daring psychopath. Now empathetic people, whom wish to co-exist with other people, the logical conclusion of their nature is to oppose this man.
Now non-cognitivism is different from typical moral nihilists, because typical moral nihilism is generally "error theorist". The difference between error theory, and non-cognitivism is this: Error theorists believe all moral statements are automatically false; non-cognitivists believe all moral statements are neither true nor false. What is the difference? Error theorists reject morality in its entirety, they don't describe anything as right or wrong, where non-cognitivists can still describe things as right or wrong, but acknowledge that when they do so, they are just venting there feelings.
For better understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
As for cognitivism, that is majority of moral philosophy you have heard, beyond moral nihilism. (e.g. moral absolutism, moral relativism, moral realism, etc)
No matter the claim, I need a reason to think something is true, period. I'm not just going to think something is true for no good reason. So a rational line of reasoning to at least suspect a god's existence that logically follows.
No, it was probably some turbo-nerd physicist sortive person ;)
I think what you actually mean is... "did god create the big bang?", in answer to that question I have no reason to think so.
Because moral statements are simply not truth statements, they do not express the truth of something, moral statements are expressions of attitudes of approval and disapproval. If I say murder is immoral, I am expressing an attitude of disapproval towards murder, not the truth about anything.
saying two apples and two apples put together is the same as having four apples is expressing the truth about something, saying murder is immoral is not the truth about anything except your attitude towards murder.
edit
How is it cognitive?
Are we talking about anyone who is not an independent or are we talking about people who blindly follow one party?
If the world started from the Big Bang, how did an explosion that continues for ever even start in the middle of nothingness?
First of all, it was not an explosion, it was an expansion. Secondly, nothing isn't really nothing anymore, in fact, I don't think "nothing", or true "nothing-ness" even exists. The big bang had to come from something, because whatever was before the big bang (coughsingularitycough) was not truly nothing, after all it had to be something, to enough of a degree, to cause something else, especially the big bang.
http://www.livescience.com/
Now what was before the big bang, we can for the most part speculate play with the physics and try to come up with some answers but nobody is really sure.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/
Let's say we have no quality explanation for what was before the big bang, that doesn't automatically make it god, that would be an argument from ignorance fallacy. This god of which (eternal or not) we would still need an explanation to how or why this god exists, no?
If a metor killed all the dinosaurs how come it didn't destroy the world or at least take us out of our perfect orbit?
The meteor did not have to be powerful enough to knock the earth out of orbit or destroy it completely to rid all the dinosaurs, in fact it didn't kill all the dinosaurs. That theory has slowly gone out the window lately. Even if a meteor did kill all the dinosaurs, it could do so without destroying the earth... life is fragile, it is dependent on the right conditions, something catastrophic enough to the environment could wipe-out entire species. It was thought that this meteor cause massive amounts of dust to enter into the atmosphere drastically blocking out the sun, making it difficult for larger species to survive and eventually causing the extinction of dinosaurs because they were to massive to survive in that environment. No destruction of all life necessary for the theory at the time.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
again, even if we had no good explanation for the absence of dinosaurs today, that is not evidence of a god, as such is an argument from ignorance.
Now we are finding evidence that they did not go extinct but rather it drastically effected their evolution in which they became smaller over millions of years. We are finding evidence that birds have evolved from dinosaurs.
http://evolution.berkeley.
How come we lost all our monkey hair in a time when we really needed it for warmth, do genetics just hate us?
Most likely at some point in our ancestry, we had come across an environment that was really hot, where there was little shade, and those with less fur had better chances at surviving.
Again, even if we had no good explanation for this, that is not at all evidence for the existence of a deity.
How come all the monkeys didn't evolve, hell why are we still the same?
First of all we didn't evolve from monkeys, we evolved from a common ancestor shared by all primates today.
Again, even if we had no explanation for any given thing is not evidence of a deity.
I don't determine that "automatically" nor "assume" people are stupid, I determine how intelligent a person is by the evidence they give me. If someone behaves like an idiot I start to think of them as an idiot at least in some way or another... I do some pretty idiotic stuff myself though so, I can't say much...
To a degree... instincts, intuition, heuristics, human biases, etc, I think exist solely for the purpose of functioning on a day to day basis, they allow us to think quickly and go on with out days, its sacrificing flawless logic for adaptability. Flawless logic isn't very adaptable as it requires significant time and effort in analysis. Our instincts, intuition, heuristics, human biases, are shortcuts. Instincts are behavioral tendencies we developed from hunter-gatherer times because they help us, now they aren't perfect, but they helped in the long run. Instincts can fail us because they aren't always rational, for example we might help someone that later ends up screwing us over because our instincts told us to, or we may screw someone over who had no malicious intentions or ulterior motives because our instincts told us they did. Instincts exist for a reason. Instincts are good to rely on a day to day basis, in fact they are necessary to a degree, but there is a time and place for everything, we have to determine that for ourselves.
exactly, or at least that is where agnostic atheists are coming from. Agnosticism/gnosticism is one spectrum, atheism/theism is an entirely different spectrum and they intertwine with each other. Anyone can choose whatever label they want, I will not argue with them over that so much, as long as they can clarify their genuine position further from their label. Someone calls themselves a pure agnostic, and claims to be neither atheist, nor theist, I will not challenge them on that, as labels are for soup cans anyway, as long as they describe their true thoughts on the subject so we can have a genuine discussion on it. In return, I expect people to not throw a hissy fit over whatever label I choose as long as it isn't completely ridiculous (like calling myself a purple bigfootist to mean I believe god doesn't exist would obviously only be done to intentionally confuse people.) I call myself an agnostic atheist, by that what I mean is, I do not believe, nor do I know, I am simply unconvinced.
There are two questions:
1.) "Do you know whether or not a god exists?"
2.) "Do you believe whether or not a god exists?"
These are two entirely different questions that are intertwined.
'
the Answer "I don't know" does not directly answer question two, because not knowing something doesn't necessarily say anything about whether or not you believe.
Person A: Do you believe god exists, or doesn't exist?
Person B: I don't Know
Person A: You didn't answer my question, I asked if you BELIEVED, not if you KNEW.
Not if someone answers that they don't know, that tends to imply that they don't believe either way, in which case they don't believe that a god does exist, technically making them... atheist. All that is required to be an atheist is to not hold a belief that god exists in the first place, to be unconvinced...
If you do not claim to know whether or not a god exists, but you do not believe one to exist, then you are non-believing, or in other words an atheist who claims to not know either way. This person would be an agnostic atheist
A-: "not or without"
Theism: "belief in a gods existence"
-ist: "referring to a person possessing the attribute"
Gnosticism: "knowledge, usually referring to god"
.
theist: "A person possessing the trait of believing in the existence of a god"
Atheist: "A person possessing the trait of non-believing in the existence of a god"
Gnostic (context:god): "A person possessing the trait of knowing whether a god exists"
Agnostic (context: god): "A person possessing the trait of not knowing whether a god exists"
.
Gnostic theist: "A person who possesses the trait of believing a god exists, and knowing whether that god exists; a person who claims to know god does exist"
Agnostic theist: "A person who possesses the trait of believing a god exists, and not knowing whether that god exists; a person who believes despite claiming to not know, possibly by faith, or describing their conviction as more suspicion than knowledge.
Gnostic atheist: "A person who possesses the trait of not believing a god exists, and knowing whether that god exists; a person who claims to know whether a god does exist, and does not believe that god exists, therefore logically has to believe that god doesn't exist"
Agnostic Atheist: "A person who possesses the trait of not believing a god exists, and not knowing whether that god exists"
Agnostic atheists do not believe, and they do not claim to know, the angle they are coming from is that of scepticism, they are sceptical of the claim of gods existence. The claim hasn't meet the burden of proof, therefore they remain unconvinced and find the claim unreasonable to hold.
1. We don't have a name for the hobby of not collecting stamps.
Well if 75% to 90% of the world population collected stamps or did anything else, we probably would have a term for non-stamp collectors out of convenience...
"2. Webster:-ism. noun suffix. : the act, practice, or process of doing something.
doctrine : theory : religion"
Yeah, the process of remaining non-believing... :P
-ist refers to a person, and even if you could say rocks are technically atheist... so? how does that at all invalidate one coming from a place of non-believing?
Agnosticism has to do with knowledge where atheism concerns belief, two entirely different things. The questions "do you believe in a god?" is not properly answered by "I don't know" at most that implies you do not believe, and thus would make you an atheist.
Well then you have multiple dictionaries all contradicting each other, allowing to muddy the water of semantics.
I think pain highers our awareness over our own well being, pain lets us know when our health is being deteriorated. When you think about it, every feeling, every sensation, everything we experience from finding our own offspring adorable, to physical and emotional pain, to happiness, to finding the taste of toxins displeasing, was probably all evolved, they all serve an evolutionary purpose. Afterall, when we started out as cells, we didn't exactly have any of that did we... so where did it all come from? It's easy to just think of these things as "just so" but nothing is truly "just so".
Atheism
"1
archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity"
-http://www.merriam-webster.com/
": a feeling that you do not or cannot believe or accept that something is true or real"
"Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/
Theism
": the belief that God exists or that many gods exist"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/
"Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. Compare with deism."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/
prefix: A-
"a-(^)6
1.
variant of an-1.before a consonant, meaning “not,” “without”:
amoral; atonal; achromatic."
Atheism is simply not holding a belief in god, it can include those that possess a belief that god doesn't exist, because obviously that would leave them void of a belief in an existing god as well. To differentiate between the two, you have agnostic atheism (I do not believe in a god) and gnostic atheism (I believe a god does not exist). by default atheism is a lack of belief but can be a belief in the opposite direction as well.
I'm really happy you are questioning your religion, it means you put truth above your prior religion. Nothing should ever go above the truth in your perception of reality, not any belief religious or not.
Nope that will never change. Until I find proof or evidence that there is no creator. I will remain agnostic.
All it requires to be an atheist is to lack belief in a god or simply, to not be a theist. The reason I point this out is to call oneself a pure agnostic is contrast to those that call themselves agnostic atheists, is a different means of using terminologies and going by different definitions. You don't anymore possess a belief in god as you are unsure, and you are not a theist, in the same way an asymmetrical object is not symmetrical, you are by definition an atheist. The only reason I bring this up, is not to convince you to call yourself an atheist, as labels are for soup cans anyways. It is to point out that the stance of pure agnosticism and the stance of agnostic atheism fit each other definitively speaking, and only truly differentiate in typicalities.
In other words just like you, we don't believe in god, nor do we believe a god doesn't exist, we just don't see any reason to think a god does exist in the first place. What the groups associate with themselves, and the commonalities within the groups is another story.
No that would be gnostic atheism...
Theism "I believe there is a god"
Agnostic Atheism (which makes up the majority of atheists) "I don't believe in a god"
Gnostic Atheism "I believe there is no god"
There is a huge difference in the last two.
You think you can dictate other peoples stances? You are essentially performing a strawman here. If you try to describe our stance, then we say "no, that is not accurate" who do you think decides our stance... we do. just as only YOU choose what stance you take. So to dictate the stance of another group for them gets you and no one else nowhere. Atheism is a lack of belief, the prefix "A-" means "not or without" "theism" means "a belief in god thus" "atheism" means "not or without a belief in god". that's what A- and Theist means, that is how the majority of atheists are describing ourselves... and it's not like you have mind control powers to make us believe explicitly that their is no god and to start using the label in that sense. Utterly to argue someone else's actual position is in and of itself pointless and a waste of time. Now if you see inconsistencies in our self description of us being non-believing and anything else we say or do, that is totally fair game to argue, and I wouldn't be surprised for such a misunderstanding. However you can't just say "No you guys actually think more along the lines of this" it doesn't work that way... So either make an actual argument as to how we have shown our stance to be a belief... or accept that it isn't a belief and as you said Deal with it.
Really quite the intelligent fellow, his reason and articulation are valued here on this site.
You bring up some rather very compelling points J-Roc77, consider me convinced of language's effect on culture.
Indeed, I honestly don't believe that the loss of a language leads to loss of culture, when (and if although it does look like it) English becomes known world wide, we will all slowly most likely start using english primarily in order to better communicate globally. English will start to become more dominant languages in other countries however this would not mean any other culture has to go.
While I do agree that race is irrelevant, and also a construct (but then again everything is) but the fact of the matter is... race is a real thing. There are African-american, Caucasian, asian, etc. To say these are fictional is to say these aren't separate races. While I do strongly agree with Nebling's inslightful point about at what line do you distinguish one race from another in his analogy. The fact of the matter is, as nebling pointed out red and yellow are still colors, and aren't fictional (well sortive, color is ironically here an illusion). I would argue rather than race being a fictional construct, that race is actually a rather irrelevant social construct for classifying types of people.
Surely I have read a logically sound definition for god... I mean first I am curious as to what you mean by a "logically sounds definition"? You mean a definition that makes logical sense? yes. "A supreme being" isn't self contradicting... an omnipotent one maybe...
If all or any religion is the religion of peace, why can't they achieve peace with each other or withing themselves? I don't think any religion is "the religion of peace" specific interpretations surely could be peaceful and pacifistic, but those are interpretations. I will call a religion, a religion of peace when every single interpretation in their is a peaceful one. Otherwise I am in a way performing the "no true scottsman" fallacy.
Keep in mind that might have a lot to do with the fact that we live in the western world, that despises the middle east and that particular religion, and thus we are influenced that way. Another thing to keep in mind is a lot of islamic dominated countries are theocracies, so they are more ruled by their religions than we are. Islam can be interpreted as a very peaceful religion just as Christianity, or Catholicism is. Religion does effect our government to, and typically when it does it is usually hardly ever a good thing, that is why have the separation of church and state. To a country with an arguably more lax religion (maybe buddhism) they might see Christianity as the religion of extremism, or countries that are dominated by non-religious?
Well I would definitely agree, but if advertisements are that much of a concern for parents, then parents can indeed disallow them from watching television, if to them that is too much of a consequence to avoid advertising then that is their choice. Their is also netflix, hulu, etc that can be hooked up to the telly.
You make a very compelling pargument there my friend, I suppose it is relevant, but it wouldn't be automatically immoral if homosexuality was a choice (as you have argued).
I never thought about it like that before, interesting... The reason I made this debate is we often use the argument (not that I am complaining, as I am pro same-sex marriage) that homosexuality isn't a choice (which I agree), but this seems to me to imply, at least at first, that if homosexuality was a choice it would be wrong (which I would disagree with).
Parents should take personal responsibility for their children's well being, and none of that responsibility should be up to anyone but the parents. If parents don't like their children watching television, they can restrict it themselves, or even require them to not watch commercials.
Media can have a psychological effect on children, as shown here by this study (I learned about in my into to psychology class).
http://psychology.about.com/od/
The media has tried to take advantage of people psychologically within their commercials, with a psychologist by the name of Watson (whom proposed the idea of celebrity advertising)
http://psychology.about.com/od/
It would be more fair to say that reading the bible for a lot of people leads you away from religion, rather than towards atheism though. Still, a lot of people have came to the conclusion that whatever religion they believed in tied to the book wasn't for them after reading the bible.
GASP OMG IS IT TRUE HELLNO?!? IS IT TRUUUEEEE!?!?!?!? You have lied to us this entire time, it is time we form an angry mob and run you out of this town!!!
