Kingt2 wrote:
Again, missing my point.

Keda wrote:
A dogma according to Kant is a synthetic a priori proposition derived from concepts. As such ontological proofs of God could be called dogmas. Now if you have proved something exists, doesn't that put it on the same level as knowledge? It does, and if you get the impression that God's existence is a proven fact, then one would be prudent to act on his commandments to avoid hellfire. The implication is as Kant points out in CPR:

sufficiency is determined on a practical basis.

Jdrw wrote:
Surely they have no sense at all that there are “two” apples. It takes a certain kind of consciousness to construe the concept of “two.” Without that consciousness interacting with things, it doesn’t make any sense to say that two of those things exist, it doesn’t even make any sense to say that there’s a thing there to count.

Dranu wrote:
Hmmm very interesting, so dogma (different than I thought of the term) he is talking about is just a belief that has crossed the line into being called 'knowledge', rather than sets of belief held by a religion. I'm not sure what to think about that, Kant seems to think selfishness is immoral or hinders it. I am not sure that follows. Of course doing something to appease God for a reward is worse than loving God for God, but knowing that it is also the best thing to do does not seem to harm it.

There has to be some criteria to determining it. For example, I understand morality comes down to a practical determination, but there are universal and objective standard on which to apply to a given situation.

Forgive me for being rude and skipping over you in my last post, I was being too hasty thinking that line of questioning had died with another poster, forgetting you took the time to respond.

I am not saying the experience of the meaning of what 'two' or 'apple' designates, but whether or not what the experience designates is actually there. The meaning vs. the experience. I would of course deny there is anyone to experience them or call the meaning of what we call two 'two' or apple 'apple'. Would you deny what we call two and apple are not actually there? Of course to speak beyond the experience is hard if not impossible to justify certainly. My doing so was to see how a certain poster distinguished belief from knowledge more than if he was a solipsist or not. I guess it would be interesting to see if you are one though .

keda wrote:
There is a difference between selfishness and self interest, the former which is prioritizing the latter. While selfishness (per this definition) is immoral, self interest is not necessarily so - but only when it conflicts with moral duty.

keda wrote:
While it is concievable actions can be done out of duty while still serving ones interests, actions motivated out of self interest can have no moral worth. Morality however implies that we have a choice, but if we conflate morality and self interest, there is no choice. Morality as a concept will disappear, and we will like animals only follow our inclinations, and there is no moral worth in that. We will be like donkeys running after the carrot, when moral worth is based on choosing to resist temptation to do evil, i.e. when self interest conflicts with duty.

Jdrw wrote:
My only point is that to say that there are “two apples” or two of any of something out there is meaningful only if there is some kind of consciousness that constructs whatever it is that’s out there that particular way.

That two things both count as apples requires us to count some aspects of the phenomena and to ignore or discount other aspects (such as exact size and weight and coloration and shape and water content, etc.) as irrelevant to our concept.

We have no idea what it would be like without our particular perceptual and conceptual abilities to construct it into some experience for ourselves.

WW III ANGRY wrote:
So whats your evaluation of that certain poster?

Keda wrote:
how do you interpret the ontological proof

While it is concievable actions can be done out of duty while still serving ones interests, actions motivated out of self interest can have no moral worth. Morality however implies that we have a choice, but if we conflate morality and self interest, there is no choice. Morality as a concept will disappear, and we will like animals only follow our inclinations, and there is no moral worth in that. We will be like donkeys running after the carrot, when moral worth is based on choosing to resist temptation to do evil, i.e. when self interest conflicts with duty.

The_Rational_Animal wrote:

So either you are unaware of these two word's true meanings, or you are committing an obvious package-deal fallacy based on the connotations of the word in your culture. You may say "well, self-interest's definition doesn't say 'without regard for others'". So be it, but are you going to say "self-interest means 'a concern for one's own advantage and well-being with regard for others?" No.

You mention the word "duty". What duty is that which I must follow?

“Duty” destroys man's values: it demands that one betray or sacrifice one’s highest values for the sake of an inexplicable command and it transforms values into a threat to one’s moral worth, since the experience of pleasure or desire casts doubt on the moral purity of one’s motives.

Interesting you bring up the word "choice" to defend duty.

A duty-centered theory of ethics confines moral principles to a list of prescribed “duties” and leaves the rest of man’s life without any moral guidance, cutting morality off from any application to the actual problems and concerns of man’s existence. Such matters as work, career, ambition, love, friendship, pleasure, happiness, values (insofar as they are not pursued as duties) are regarded by these theories as amoral, i.e., outside the province of morality. If so, then by what standard is a man to make his daily choices, or direct the course of his life?

You claim being a human being, one must follow duty or behave like a self-interested animal. So what you are claiming is then that human beings are not unique because they are rational, but because they have moral duties.

You say that the only self-interest which is possible is temptation and giving in to temptation.

That theism is devoid of facts is what I hold against it. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Intellectual integrity, as well as a modicum of sanity, recommend as much, otherwise we'd have to entertain all sorts of assinine hokum from "baby-talk" in the nursery to the "bullshit" trumpeted from every rubber-room, rostrum, and altar that props up some howling imbecile. Tell me which is more implausible: (A) earning the priviledge of endlessly deflowering three score and a dozen happily, willing prepubscent girls by committing mass-murder in the name of god or (B) "catastrophes" in nature and "deformities" in living creatures and the human, all-too-human "fear of death" is just what one must reasonably expect in the absence of an unifying, cosmic intelligence (that's usually attributed with both infinite benevolence and infinite power)? Now please explain why the more plausible scenario does not, at least provisionally, prevail, Mr. Agnostic.

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends . . . you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Benkei wrote:
I have no idea what your point is.

loveofsophia wrote:
Let us say one has an experience that at bottom all existence seems inexplicable and rather stupefying (mysterious).

Some sort of explanation for what can never be explained, can't even be assessed, must exist ...

What is interesting about atheists is that they seem to take what is awesome and mysterious about all existence (in some ways I consider the mythopoetic exercise the most fundamental and cherished aspects of my experience, tying into everything I value and find meaningful) and our poetic imaginings (that many imagine are a known and a reality. or at least they believe in what they ahve not seen) and dismiss it as some impractical fluff.

Are atheists imagining their emotions do not warrant the attention?

To paraphrase Shakespeare "fallability me no fallabilities and doubt me no douibts". Any proposition can be approached with doubt, but rational human being regularly, and rightly, dismiss many propositions as lunatic that are theoretically possibly true. It's this argument that keeps us having to constantly bring up Flying Spaghetti Monsters, orbiting teapots, invisible pink unicorns and any number of other possible but ridiculous propositions.

Something else you seem to be confused about. God isn't the word for philoosophical "first mover" or "first cause". If that's all God was. he could just be argued over by nerdy philosophers like "qualia" or "grue". We're talking about a cosmic father figure who is both to be worshiped and obeyed, and who directly effects our lives (even breaking laws of physics) if we talk to him in our brains. That's what people mean when they say "God", right? That's what they think when they hear the word, right?