Re: Harris and Craig Debate
Reply #3 - April 10, 2011, 07:28 PM
These are good points Sam touched upon:
1) You cannot define something into existence. Defining your God as a singular and ultimately Good God does not make it real, does not rule out the possibility that there is instead an Evil God, and goes no way to proving that God or gods exist.
2) We can speak objectively about subjective facts. It’s possible to favourably value something, from a subjective point of view, that is objectively wrong - it is possible to subjectively value the objectively wrong thing. It’s possible to understand both objectively and subjectively about a single thing. It’s possible to clearly realise that what you are doing is wrong, while doing it regardless, and merely saying it‘s right because we like it does not make it right. That we can sometimes enjoy or want a thing does not necessarily make the wrong/right value of a thing a matter of subjectivity. It can still be objectively bad, as long as we can establish an objective goal - such as the objective of well-being for the community of humanity, while discussing practical ethics or the philosophical taboo of objective morality.
3) “It is often thought that non-believers like myself are closed to some remarkable experiences that religious people have. That’s not true. There is nothing that prevents an atheist experiencing self-transcending love and ecstasy, and rapture, and awe […] What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustifiable and unjustified claims about the nature of the cosmos or the divine origin of certain books on the basis of those experiences.”
We can fruitfully explore this higher terrain of human experience without taking a further step and declaring our allegiance to this religion or that religion.
Too fucking busy, and vice versa.