Are there any atheist's are on here?

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Well, honestly, I am not interested in your definition. It does not match the moral experience. It does not match the traditional understanding of morality either. Not only that, but there is no reason to even hold to it from an evolutionary view, as evolution is non-teleological, and so traits exist in and of themselves. I mean, you can redefine words as you wish, but do not be surprised if I define your name as being the same as some other four letter word.

Let's say our disinterest is mutual.

Our inherent notions of right/wrong, just/unjust may be a side effect of other adaptations that have produced our species. We did not develop prominent noses just to hold eye-glasses in place either. It just so happens that members of our species have a brain-neurological process that (among other things) produces an intuition of right/wrong. This is also seen in somewhat cruder form in other primate species such as chimps.

Look at it this way: philosophy might be a side-effect, an unintended consequence of having an opposing thumb.

ruveyn

As indicated by how we behave as species in different cultures and different situations in the same culture and different individuals in either one it is apparent that right and wrong needs no historical nor evolutional foundation to be an active component of society. Although it might have historical derivations it is an ongoing dynamic reacting to ongoing social forces which can be quite plastic.

In just about every human culture, when humans are sufficiently ticked off they reach behind themselves, grab a piece of fecal material from their butts and heave it at those they dislike. We do it verbally, whereas the chimps do it literally. But it is still throwing doo doo at one's enemy. As I love to observe: homo sap is hominid version 5.0, the smartest, baddest Ape in the House of Primates. If we were made in God's Image I wonder what God is really like? I wold not like to meet him on one of His bad hair days. Could it be that God is the Heavenly Chimp?

ruveyn

It certainly makes me curious about heavenly doo doo and what God eats to produce it.

Have you never heard about creation ex nihilo?

An interesting derivation out of ruyven's suggestion. You seem to be suggesting that God pulled the universe out of His ass which perhaps is indicative that God is closer in construction to a spider than a human. The Indian concept that at least one of it's gods was multi.armed may have merely mistaken God's appendages and He is eight legged. This really does make Mary rather unique in her sex partners.

Upon second thought, this is not all that outlandish. After all, each of us was produced from a female behind.

But the accepted term of the creation of the universe "The Big Bang" may have unconscious implications through slang as the act of coition is often termed a "bang" and since all of basic natural phenomena was viewed in primitive societies from an anthropomorphic point of view it is very appropriate that the universe was produced from the mating of two gods. And thereby hangs a mystery. What or who could that other vanished god have been?

Plunging ahead into Christian mythology in search of that other vanished god it struck me that the counter force to God had to be the equivalent of a god and the concept crystallized that way back when the universe was young and God's favorite companion was Lucifer could only mean that Lucifer was that other god and the bitterness and hatred that is evident in any breakdown of powerful love and final divorce is clear in Lucifer's exile from Heaven. And that could only mean that Lucifer, now Satan, is that other god and is a woman and mankind and the universe itself was born from her loins. That solves a great mystery as to why God tolerates such an evil if He is all powerful. Evidently he is all powerful over non-gods but the woman, Satan, is a god and impervious to God's powers. Suddenly it all makes mythic sense, if one is addicted to myth. Fortunately, I am not.

It seems this idea occurred to others. See http://www.bnaiavraham.net/teaching_art ... part_2.htm

I am not saying your summary of the theist position is wrong. I am asking whether you can explain the theist position. From two different theist sources, I heard the claim that there is an objective morality, defined as moral principles that are true whether anyone believes in them or not, and that this proves the existence of the Christian god. One of these people never tried to justify the claim, the other tried and failed.

I know you have argued before that there are no objective moral values. I am not asking you to defend any position there. I am asking whether you know why theists think only the existence of their particular god, and nothing else, necessarily implies the existence of objective moral values.

Kind of simple, they deny all of the other bases of morality as being valid, but think that God can function as a moral law giver. This is why the moral argument is sometimes expressed as "God can best account for ethics".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcV-SC6ha2I[/youtube]

j/k sorry to interrupt, I took a wee smoke

I am honestly not certain whether hierarchical reductionism or some form of non-mystical emergence most accurately describes my stance.

I believe that all the substrates in this world reduce to physical entities. The interactions between these fundamentally physical entities result in the whole wondrous world we see, filled with consciousness, moral sense, and societal structures. I believe that these later qualities ultimately spring from the interactions of physical entities, but that the interaction between the entities gives these, I suppose, “emergent entities” properties not ascribable to their physical components.

In the same way that interaction between hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms results in a molecule (water) whose properties are more than just the combined properties of hydrogen and oxygen, so too, is consciousness, moral sense, and societal structure (among other entities traditionally investigated by the “social sciences”) more than just the sum of the raw physical components from which they emerge.

Oh?

Almost?

Good, you have *certainly* thought intelligently about your position.

I just wanted to make certain that you weren't just a naive materialist.

These are jokes.