/lit/ - Literature

>>11145063
Morals are a spook.

There's a literal thread with a picture of ayn rand on page 2 and you make this?

If anything atheists have greater capabilitiy for morals than godsbelievers who think they need to selfdelude in order to be moral.

>>11145063
Try the redpill faggot.

wehavethisthreadeveryday.jpg

Morals are as real as your god

>>11145063
The nonexistence of a God doesn't make the question of morality (How should one live?) suddenly disappear from philosophy, as responsibility stems from humanity first and foremost. Thinking otherwise is having the mentality of an infant: you do not know what to do unless your parents tell you.

>>11145118
I agree the question doesn't go away, but it makes the question a lot more irrelevant. What makes the responsibility anymore right?

>>11145063
How can you justify moral judgements on the basis of god?
By defining God as the greatest good you are really just assuming the conclusion.

>>11145135
>but it makes the question a lot more irrelevant
No, if anything it makes it more pressuring. If there's no God that tells us what to do we need to think twice as hard. As Zizek once said jokingly "Without God, nothing is permitted".

>>11145063
You can't justify morality even with "God"

>>11145063

>>11145163
>i'm gonna greate a neb morlz zyzten
>i suar id tiffelend fron utilitarianism

>>11145063
all you need is the absolute spirit and a constitution

>>11145063
It's not harder, it's much easier. Instead of trying to twist some ancient book to say shit it never said (and ignore all the stuff you no longer care about), you just deal with practical behaviour that helps keep the peace and helps society advance. God in the Bible breaks damn near every common moral precept and acts like a psychopathic child anyway, and his followers are almost as bad: the book is really unsuited to forming modern morals.

>>11145253
>you just deal with practical behaviour that helps keep the peace and helps society advance
Here's a typical brainlet atheist that perceives the moral he inherited from Christianity as something so self-evident it doesn't warrant any discussion. Why the hell should we keep the peace? Why should the society advance? How do you construct any value in the absence of God? I'm not saying it is absolutely impossible, but these are the questions to be addressed if we want to move from Christianity at all.

>>11145275
>moral he inherited from Christianity
Name one society that wasn't opposed to theft, murder and rape (at least among the members of that society, not the out side groups).

>>11145275
>he thinks secular morals and cristians morals are in any way compatible or comparable at this point
>he thinks morality can be constructed as an a-historical set of principles on a piece of paper
>he doesn't understand that the socially mediated process of historicity is more than enough as a grounding since humans are historical beings because he is on the spectrum

>>11145293
>morality can be constructed as an a-historical set of principles on a piece of paper
I never said that. Historicity is one way to approach this question secularly, but that's by no means a trivial line of reasoning that can be done in a blog post. It requires some fucking philosophical inquiry, and yet I almost never see any atheists admitting it, let alone trying to do such inquiry
>he thinks secular morals and cristians morals are in any way compatible or comparable at this point
Are you implying that they are somehow not comparable or compatible? The morals by which you live are almost completely the same as the morals by which your religious ancestors lived some 200 years ago

>>11145331
>The morals by which you live are almost completely the same as the morals by which your religious ancestors lived some 200 years ago
are you seriously implying that the morals under which we live by nowadays are the same of those of 200 years ago or I'm a huge moron and I'm reading you wrong

>>11145275
No, it's not self-evident. Theists often delude themselves that morals are self-evident and unchanging, not atheists. Morality is like laws: local, contingent, practical, and constantly modified depending on the needs and current views of the society--with a lot of debate and hurt feelings. Look at the changes to the status of homosexuality over the past few decades. But the idea that we should try to create a society where people are safer and happier does not require any faith at all, and most of the morals "inherited" from Christianity were around long before it, and in its absence in other countries. In that sense they are often practical--and if there's money to be made, they say "God likes slavery" or whatever shit they want, and carry on. God is just a bugbear to enforce behaviour that makes the state rulers happy, and they change their mind whenever it suits them. I'm not going to rehash Foucault's pastoral power for you, anon: this shit is simple.

god is contingent upon an "objective" morality.

atheists need to replace god
accept subjective morality
assume role of "god" of your own reality.
all moral judgemets become justified.

QED

>>11145063

"God-given" i.e: church-given morals are just a first-order approximation to morality from a confused point of view.

Morality is a set of generalized rules that result in the best possible Nash Equilibria across as many societal games as possible (If all agents were to follow them). Nothing more.

It is much easier to develop such rules without the guise of appealing to 'God'. Therefore, it is much easier to have morals as an atheist than as a theist.

>>11145349
>almost completely the same
There are a lot of differences, sure, and if you fix your sight on them the overall impression would be that the morals are completely different. Yet that's only because you missed the giant mass of everything that stayed the same, everything that meant to be a human back then and that still means to be a human now.

>>11145275

People who need an explanation to why peace is preferable to chaos should be thrown to the chaos . They would need no explanation after that.

>>11145354
Let's not concern ourselves with the theists, they are just as stupid and deluded as atheists by this point.
>Morality is like laws: local, contingent, practical, and constantly modified depending on the needs and current views of the society
Okay. Then, morality is the number of rules approximating (as >>11145364 says) the solution of some problem. But what's that problem? Maximising the overall sum of human happiness?
>>11145372
That peace is preferable to chaos might look (and looks) self-evident, but I still want an explanation. For many, many times in the human history something that was taken to be self-evident wasn't actually so. I don't want to depart from Christianity only to arrive to a different set of holy scriptures.

>>11145063

>>11145163
>Book by capitalist shill Sam Harris is praised by fellow capitalist shill Steven Pinker, and is shilled by the capitalist shill the New York Times

>>11145288
Name one society that arrived at the idea of "inherent dignity of the person" independently of Christianity

>Letting black move for me
No thanks, I'm bad enough at this game already.

>>11145073
Rand just replaces God with Capitalism. Same thing

>>11145063
Why would you need to justify moral arguments? It's part of you being human, how biology made us.
If we didn't need it, we would have evolved differently.

>>11145354
>create a society where people are safer and happier

No, that's secondary result of morality. Your definition simply fails to account how morality is applied in real life. It does not account for why it is morally right to support your soldiers. Or why fanatics believe it is morally right to conquer land and go on converting the natives. Or why boys have to go through rites in order to reach manhood.

Morality has more to do with propagation of systems where individual component of the system can be run independently. For example the phenomenon of mulitcellullarity, the fact that individual cells work together to create an overall larger organisms. Why do individuals cells do so? Why would individuals cells sacrifice themselves for the overall organism? When cells refuse to do so they become cancer. If a system is immoral it will degenerate overtime. If it is stagnant, then when catastrophe hits, and it will, whether by flood or asteroid or barbarians, it will be eliminated. If it is morally just then it will survive, variate, and thrive. And so we can fit morality within the framework of evolution and account for subjectivity.

>>11145163
Harris is stupid, reducing the suffering of organism is a retarded concept. He does not understand that suffering and pain was evolved. It was put into organism to help it survive. If you are suffering it means you are not in a good place and you have to take action to change it. Pain alerts you to where your body is being damaged and to watch out when interacting to prevent further damage to that part.

>>11145118
>Thinking otherwise is having the mentality of an infant: you do not know what to do unless your parents tell you.

Literally all humanity is, is a series of parentage

>>11145445
>inherent dignity of individuals is good

lel

>>11145479

How do you justify morals in non-Chrisitan societies (or non-Abrahamic)?

>>11145486

>>11145495
This image reflects poorly on yourself

>>11145364
>It is much easier to develop such rules without the guise of appealing to 'God'.
Society is complicated. Without any mathematical models that would represent it with even minimal adequacy, the only way to develop these rules is just how it was always done: trial and error. Systems that work thrive, systems that don't die. Trial and error is okay, the only think I would ask you is not to think that whatever set of rules you can invent would be inherently better working than Christian morals just because you don't believe in God.

>>11145492
You don't, thats why paganism failed world over

>>11145516
So billions of people the world over don't (or can't) have morals? Yet Christian Mexicans cut off people's heads etc...

>>11145509
I thought I was supposed to reply to a shitty meme with another shitty meme.

>>11145523
Successful non-Abrahamic societies are what, India and the Chinese cultural sphere? They have their own religious beliefs that justify their morals.

>>11145536
So non-successful societies don't have or need morals? Regardless of their religion or lack of one

>>11145516
>paganism failed
>made better societies than christianity

>>11145063
>god
I don't think god has much to do with it - but the value of a human soul is another thing

>>11145523
>So billions of people the world over don't (or can't) have morals?

Clearly. Have you seen China?

>>11145073
>doesn't use catalog
hah!

>>11145523
>Yet Christian Mexicans

*Repressed pagan Aztecs. Fucking retard

>>11145550
Have you seen Europe in the middle ages when christianity dictated life?

>>11145565
Yeah it led to the greatest civilization on Earth producing practically all art and science for millenia

>>11145550
Why should their morals be the same as Christian ones if they have a different belief system? Why is Christianity the only "correct" moral system?

>>11145574
>it lead to the greatest civilization
lmao. It caused the downfall of the greatest civilization on Earth, which sorta revived when European society secularized itself

>>11145593
Jesus Christ was the son of God

>>11145574
actually it was a load of garbage up until italians discovered a fuckton of old texts again leading to humanism first and then to the renaissance

>>11145596
>. It caused the downfall of the greatest civilization on Earth,

Fake news. The Romans played themselves

>>11145617
Humanism is Christiantiy. Christiantiy is the only humanist religion
The Islamic world had access to classical texts too but it got them fucking nowhere because they had a despotic anti-human warcult

>>11145445
>inherent dignity of the person
besides that fact that no society has ever applied such an idea
what are the practical consequences of such an assumption?
why and how is that usefull for society?
other societies seem to work well without it, does japan has this concept?

>>11145633
>besides that fact that no society has ever applied such an idea

>>11145452
If you would replace Capitalism with Ego you would sound more plausible.

>>11145618
>The Romans played themselves

Yeah, they did when christianity shook the foundations of their social order.

>>11145640
Wrong

>>11145625
humanism is grecoroman civilization mediated by christianity, humans at the center of the universe is a grecoroman idea. christianity on its own is just garbage

How can someone kill 6 million jews if objective morality is real?

>>11145653
>Christianity on its own is just Judaism
ftfy
still garbage though

>>11145625
>Humanism is christianity, therefore christianity needed pagan texts for humanism to thrive.

>>11145650
great argument

>>11145654
It was the right thing to do.

>>11145653
>humans at the center of the universe is a grecoroman idea

It objectively is not. To the Greeks humans were just the useless sex toys of the Gods. The centralization of humanity was an inherently Abrahamic concept

>>11145666
Platonism was proto-Christianity. This has even been admitted by Nietzsche

>>11145636
>the intellectual level of christcucks
No argument besides:
basedboys and tips fedora

Answer my question or kys and go have fun with your dead granpa.

>>11145640
>Yeah, they did when christianity shook the foundations of their social order.

Ah yes, Nero, Caligula and Commodus. Noble upholders of social order

>>11145735
>Answer my question or kys

>>11145736
even if they had been christians I can guarantee they would have succumbed to lead poisoning and insanity all the same

>>11145721
>It objectively is not.
Ok, let me revive Petrarch and Boccaccio so I can tell him real quick.

>>11145771
Practice your reading comprehension

>>11145730
>Nietzsche said something that actual historians disagree with therefore it must be correct
wut

>>11145736
Actually the roman empire was more stable under their rule than after Constantine. Read a book.

>>11145790
Oh woah historians? Shit you should have told me. Historians know more about philosophy than Nietzsche, damn

>>11145063
>You really can't justify moral judgements if you don't believe in god.
Yes you can't they just aren't objective. Understand your own regurgitated arguments before demanding such from others.

>>11145790
>Actually the roman empire was more stable under their rule than after Constantine.

Thats the point retard. The Roman Empire converted to Christianity exactly because of a long string of pagan lunatics displayed the meaningless rotten heart of their belief system.

>>11145783
>The first humanistic affirmation in Western philosophy can be referred to the sophist philosopher Protagora (5th century BC) who, on the basis of the fragment 80 B1 DK [4], stated:

>"... of all things man is the measure, of those who are, for what they are, of those that are not for what they are not. »

>This statement shifted philosophical interest from nature to the human being, which, from this moment, became the central character of philosophical speculation. Man, since the dawn of Greek philosophy, has always been at the center of philosophical speculation since the Ionic and Eleatic school, with the difference that before the human being was seen as part of nature [5]; then, with the advent of sophistry first and Platonic socratism then, the focus has definitely moved on man as such and on his reality regardless of relationships with the forces of nature. With Socrates and Protagora, in fact, we moved on to the stage, in the classifications given by Nicola Abbagnano and Giovanni Reale, "humanistic" or "anthropological", for which the investigation on man takes place through speculation focused on its ontological dimension and its relationship with other men [6]. After the end of the classical age and the beginning of the Hellenistic season, reflection on the human being shifted to strictly ethical problems: Zenone di Cizio, founder of Stoicism; Epicurus, founder of Epicureanism; and the skepticism, current evolved from Pirrone and then continue until the full Roman age, try to give man a practical ethic with which to face daily life and the dilemmas of his own existence, including death [7].


>The works of comedians such as Menander, compared to the universal dilemmas proposed by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, give way to the daily interfamiliar relationships, centered especially on the father-son relationship: "fatterelli of everyday life with sentimental background and happy ending, put in scene for pure entertainment purpose "[8]. This ethical acceptance continues within the Roman culture, both literary-theatrical and philosophical, imbued with the ideas professed by the Hellenistic schools. In fact, since the second century, the playwright Publius Terentius Afro, referring to the menandric tradition, further elaborates the ethical function in the drama, reaching, in the Heautontimorumenos, the famous quote: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto »[9], in which:

>"Humanitas, for Terence, means above all the will to understand the other's reasons, to feel his pain as a penalty for all: man is no longer an enemy, an adversary to be deceived with a thousand ingenious tricks, but another man to understand and help »

>>11145834
Francesco Petrarca is one of the founders of humanism [15]. The sharp split that he made with respect to the past in philosophical and literary matter produced the birth of that revolutionary movement that will push the new intellectual elite to affirm the dignity of man according to his own intrinsic capabilities, the identity autonomy of classical culture [16 ] and the use of the latter to construct an ethic in sharp contrast with the Aristotelian scholasticism [17], seen as far from the purpose of investigating the nature of the human soul [N 1]. The study of this identity must lead to a revitalization of the ancient [18], consisting in the study and worship of the word (that is to say the philology), from which the understanding of classical antiquity with all its ethical and moral values [ 19].

>>11145834
Thats cool and all buddy but thats not Greco-Paganism

>>11145846
who the fuck ever talked about paganism? good god

>>11145858
About half the entire thread. Again reading comprehension

>>11145745
ok
basedboys, tips fedora and reddit
how funny

no arguments yet, but what should we expect from a brainlet that believes in JeezUs

>>11145861
i said grecoroman civilization. which civilization do you think Petrach was taking his ideas from? Egypt? fucking retard

>>11145804
Some actually do. Platonism is inherently a pagan doctrine, which christcucks perverted to justify their own garbage. What is even your argument?

>>11145817
>Rome had bad rulers therefore ppl accepted christianity so they could still have bad rulers who now ruined the country.

>>11145869
>one philosopher born in a place represents his entire civilization

Socrates was put to death for a reason. Intellectual elite philosophers do not directly reflect the beliefs of the civilization they arrose from

>>11145870
>Some actually do.
They really don't. Historians are the brainlet rejects of the high humanities. Those just not dumb enough to be relegated to sociology