Christmas Toy Drive Cancelled (Athiest Threatens Lawsuit)

#102
#102
therealUT said:
You are presuming the existence of conscience. One can coherently say such an entity does not exist, so one is not ignoring anything other than certain intuitions, and, well, intuitions are often ignored and often ignorable on the vast majority of moral and ethical theories, to include those that appeal to conscience (they just separate common intuitions from dictates of conscience).

Nothing is necessarily Hobbesian about self-interested ethics unless you assert that a population of self-interested individuals will destroy each other (which, not all ethical theories believe).
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There is nothing more Hobbesian that self interest to his state of nature philosophy. It's the foundation of all his work.
 
#103
#103
txbo said:
There is nothing more Hobbesian that self interest to his state of nature philosophy. It's the foundation of all his work.
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I'm not adding that self-interest does not play a necessary role in Hobbes' theory; however, self-interest is not sufficient for his picture. His take on human psychology provides the pernicious conditions he things would be present in the state of nature. Hume starts with self-interest, and his views are not pernicious, same can be said of Aristotle, Bentham, Plato, etc.

Remember, Hobbes is writing after having just lived through a brutish and violent civil war...might have colored his view of human psychology.
 
#104
#104
therealUT said:
I'm not adding that self-interest does not play a necessary role in Hobbes' theory; however, self-interest is not sufficient for his picture. His take on human psychology provides the pernicious conditions he things would be present in the state of nature. Hume starts with self-interest, and his views are not pernicious, same can be said of Aristotle, Bentham, Plato, etc.

Remember, Hobbes is writing after having just lived through a brutish and violent civil war...might have colored his view of human psychology.
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LMAO! You're back tracking and over-rationalizing now but that's ok. The minute you said there is nothing Hobbesian about self interest ethics, I knew you were full of crap. Going to bed. Do some more googling and we'll take this up tomorrow.
 
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#105
#105
Y'all are over-analyzing religion. The newer ones always borrow or steal from the older ones, and in the grand scheme of things Christianity is fairly new.

Faith is the biggest copout.
 
#106
#106
VOLatile said:
Y'all are over-analyzing religion. The newer ones always borrow or steal from the older ones, and in the grand scheme of things Christianity is fairly new.

Faith is the biggest copout.
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Christianity is relatively new compared to many others. The Gospel kinda had to wait for Jesus.
 
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#107
#107
txbo said:
LMAO! You're back tracking and over-rationalizing now but that's ok. The minute you said there is nothing Hobbesian about self interest ethics, I knew you were full of crap. Going to bed. Do some more googling and we'll take this up tomorrow.
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Hobbesian worldviews are not necessary conditions of self-interested ethics. Not even close.
 
#108
#108
pualsline said:
Link



My favorite part of the story starts on the video at 3:18

Reporter: What is your group, now that you have manged to cancel the program to help the needy children. What exactly is your humanist group doing?

Douche: Well, we're an advocacy group not a charitable group. Although, we do engage in charity from time to time

Reporter: so nothing?

Douche: We just sent about $30,000 over to the Philippians to help support...

Report: That's wonderful, but what are you doing for the children that are not going to get the toys from the boxes?

Douche: Yeah, your stuck on that. :chuckles: Our program is designed to help the kids to have a clean neutral free of church state violation.

Reporter: So you have saved them from a constitutional violation, and that will be a warm comfort to them on Christmas morning.
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Good stuff.
 
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#109
#109
txbo said:
I believe ethics and morals are a matter of conscience that date to the creation of man. So certainly predate Christianity.

The question is from where does conscience originate?
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txbo said:
Not incoherent or impossible at all but it does not separate conscience and ethics unless of course you are suggesting that you are ignoring your conscience to satisfy your personal ethics. Which is also both coherent and possible.
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You treat conscience as its own separate (possibly innate) entity. I think this is the wrong way to view conscience. One's ethics/morality develops their own sense of what is right or wrong; not the other way around.

txbo said:
Indeed, it's quite Hobbesian in nature and the need for social contract.
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What exactly is Hobbesian and a need for social contract? I don't see what either of those has to do with conscience.
 
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#115
#115
PKT_VOL said:
I would say it is the other way around. Our conscience is a reflection of our ethics/morals.
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You have that backwards. Conscience is ones innate ability to know right from wrong. Morals are created from conscience.
 
#116
#116
PKT_VOL said:
You treat conscience as its own separate (possibly innate) entity. I think this is the wrong way to view conscience. One's ethics/morality develops their own sense of what is right or wrong; not the other way around.



What exactly is Hobbesian and a need for social contract? I don't see what either of those has to do with conscience.
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I would certainly say conscience is innate. I don't however know what you would consider it a separate entity of.

Your morals developing conscience is opposite of my belief. I believe people are born with an innate ability to know right from wrong.
 
#117
#117
PKT_VOL said:
What exactly is Hobbesian and a need for social contract? I don't see what either of those has to do with conscience.
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Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher probably best know for his work on natural law. In short, his theory was that in a state of nature, natural law would allow man to satisfy his own means at any expense. Social contract is the development of authorities to keep peace where citizen waive certain natural right to a sovereign in order to live peacefully together.
 
#120
#120
txbo said:
You have that backwards. Conscience is ones innate ability to know right from wrong. Morals are created from conscience.
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txbo said:
I would certainly say conscience is innate. I don't however know what you would consider it a separate entity of.

Your morals developing conscience is opposite of my belief. I believe people are born with an innate ability to know right from wrong.
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I don't get the impression that anyone is challenging your beliefs (I cannot fully speak for PKT, though, so he might be). I see the discussion as one in which myself and PKT are pointing to the existence of ethical/moral theories that both predate Christianity and neither appeal to nor need to appeal to any notions of conscience.

Any ethical/moral theories must address two questions:
1. How ought one live their life?
2. Why?

Christian morality answers (2) by referencing God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (conscience). Many ethical theories answer (2) with reference to one's own self-interest and future happiness in this life. The latter can be sufficient without reference to conscience.
 
#121
#121
PKT_VOL said:
I would say it is the other way around. Our conscience is a reflection of our ethics/morals.
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Okay.


When we ask ourselves "is this right"? Are we not looking to our conscience for this?
( young age child asking)

I can see the argument and agree with it that the way we are raised, both ethically and morally, will affect later life decisions. How our parents raise us will determine what we deem ethical? Correct?

To me it seems its a chicken/ egg kind of thing.
 
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#122
#122
therealUT said:
Christian morality answers (2) by referencing God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (conscience). Many ethical theories answer (2) with reference to one's own self-interest and future happiness in this life. The latter can be sufficient without reference to conscience.
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Perhaps my understanding is different, but the Holy Spirit (from a Christian perspective) is not the conscience. The Holy Spirit is only received by someone after they accept Christ as their Savior. However, people do in fact have a conscience, which in the Bible is more closely related to ones soul (mind, emotion, and will).

To that extent I agree with txbo, that the conscience is innate.
 
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#123
#123
therealUT said:
I don't get the impression that anyone is challenging your beliefs (I cannot fully speak for PKT, though, so he might be). I see the discussion as one in which myself and PKT are pointing to the existence of ethical/moral theories that both predate Christianity and neither appeal to nor need to appeal to any notions of conscience.

Any ethical/moral theories must address two questions:
1. How ought one live their life?
2. Why?

Christian morality answers (2) by referencing God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (conscience). Many ethical theories answer (2) with reference to one's own self-interest and future happiness in this life. The latter can be sufficient without reference to conscience.
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TRUT,
Does Christianity not answer (1)?

It does to me and many others. Whether we follow that like we should is another conversation.
 
#124
#124
IBlvNTmWrk said:
Perhaps my understanding is different, but the Holy Spirit (from a Christian perspective) is not the conscience. The Holy Spirit is only received by someone after they accept Christ as their Savior. However, people do in fact have a conscience, which in the Bible is more closely related to ones soul (mind, emotion, and will).

To that extent I agree with txbo, that the conscience is innate.
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Good catch. I missed that.


Folks who have never heard the word of Christ have a conscience.
 
#125
#125
IBlvNTmWrk said:
Perhaps my understanding is different, but the Holy Spirit (from a Christian perspective) is not the conscience. The Holy Spirit is only received by someone after they accept Christ as their Savior. However, people do in fact have a conscience, which in the Bible is more closely related to ones soul (mind, emotion, and will).

To that extent I agree with txbo, that the conscience is innate.
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Right, Protestants separate Holy Spirit and conscience; Catholics, post-Aquinas, do not.

Conscience is not a scientific fact; further, the matter gets even more complicated when delving into reductionism and determinism.

I'm not arguing that the conscience is not innate; I'm arguing that it is coherent to believe it is not and that it is coherent to believe it is non-existent (thus, it is coherent to do ethics without presupposing conscience).
 
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