<playground player: Now all we have to do is find a new Speaker of the House who won't turn into a towering blob of jelly on us.>

I am growing more skeptical each day. I used to think Trey Gowdy would be a great speaker of the house, and perhaps he would be, but it seems like he's always throwing red meat to conservatives but not really accomplishing anything. It's all lip service.

Boehner got in on the backs of tea party voters and look how he turned out.

Conservatism generally stems from a theistic worldview. There are some atheists that find themselves on the conservative side of many issues, but that is quite rare. John Stossel, whom I happen to enjoy watching, is a conservative atheist. Well, he's a libertarian, but he's conservative on many issues. There is a thread of commonsense in conservatism that appeals to all kinds of people I guess.

But still, in general, conservatism is rooted in theism.

<jiffy>, like <refused>, learned that the argument is valid. This was a very bitter pill for them to swallow.

So far no one has successfully argued against either premise:

1. If God does not exist then OMV do not exist.
2. OMV exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

The pattern is for the atheist on the rogoff page (and elsewhere) denies "God exists" but can't seem to take up either premise.

If he denies premise one, he then has to show how moral values can exist objectively sans God. That is, he has to have his own argument for the negation of premise one.

If he denies premise two, he then has to show that, for example, it's not objectively wrong to torture babies for fun. Or, he has to show that objectively there is no difference between love and cruelty.

He would also have to understand that no moral condemnation can ever be issued because all morality would be relative, which in such a case would lead to a right makes might mentality.

He would have to say that his inner moral experience tells him that torturing babies for fun isn't objectively wrong. It's just opinion, like chocolate vs vanilla.

Such a worldview would show that goodness exists only if God exists, and the reality of the atheist worldview is one without goodness. Does he live his life like this?

Or does the atheist only take up these ridiculous, contrary positions during the debate? The answer is obviously the latter.

The form of the argument is valid. He doesn't get that, so he tries to make it look ridiculous by using absurd premises. He doesn't understand that the content of his premises has no bearing on the validity, formally speaking, of the argument.

You need to understand that the moral argument is a deductive argument. Deductive arguments are ones where if the premises are true then the conclusion follows necessarily. The first line of defense against a deductive argument, before even engaging in the actual truth or falsity of the premises, is to claim that it is not in valid form.

This way they can avoid dealing with the premises, which are very difficult for them. They can try to claim that an argument is circular and not even get into it. It's like saying that the argument is set up wrong.

But the moral argument is set up like this:

1. If not A then not B
2. B
3. Therefore, A

This is a valid, deductive argument. You could google that and go to any college website that shows up and read up on it. A half hour ought to do the trick.

Regarding Aphrodite:

Does Aphrodite exist because the argument is valid? Well, that still needs to be shown. Now that we agree that the argument about Aphrodite is correctly expressed in valid, deductive form, we know that we MUST accept the conclusion that Aphrodite exists IF (important here) the two premises are true. Not only that, but for the argument to be strong, the premises should be plausible as well.

Therefore, it's up to <al wazir> to shore up his two premises. He needs to show that they are more plausible than their negations. Keep that in mind!

So his argument is valid, but he now needs to show his premises are true and plausible.

But those liberals on the rogoff page are confused by the term validity. They think when I say validity it implies that the argument is a good one.

Regarding your oft repeated question ... <Is it wrong to torture babies for fun?>

Yes! Obviously wrong!

But may I ask, what about child sacrifice in ancient times?

The ancient Carthaginians and Canaanites sacrificed babies to their "god" believing it was the will of their "god".

Do you think they considered child sacrifice to their "god" an objective moral value which they felt obligated to obey?

Does the fact that we know they were wrong affect the OMV argument

<Regarding your oft repeated question ... <Is it wrong to torture babies for fun?>

Yes! Obviously wrong!>

Well it's nice to talk to a sane person lol. (I do like to use the word "objectively" wrong to show that I mean "wrong for everyone, even if you or your society thinks it's right")

<But may I ask, what about child sacrifice in ancient times?

The ancient Carthaginians and Canaanites sacrificed babies to their "god" believing it was the will of their "god".

Do you think they considered child sacrifice to their "god" an objective moral value which they felt obligated to obey?>

I can only imagine that they considered their child sacrifice to be a moral duty, but how can we tell what those people were thinking? We can only speculate.

But, your question brings up something interesting. Objective moral duties. I might have used the word "duty" or "duties" in your question above.

Your question brings out a topic which never even reached discussion on the rogoff page (because we've been unable to get to the real arguments) and that is the question of objective moral duties. On an atheistic view, since there are no omv, then why would there be any objective moral duties to do what is right?

But getting back to your question, I want to point out that it's a question of moral epistemology. We are talking about what they thought was right or wrong, which is epistemology.

To be clear, I want to point out that to say that moral values exist objectively is not to say that discerning right from wrong is always easy, even though there are some things that we can all agree on.

<Does the fact that we know they were wrong affect the OMV argument>

Not one way or the other. In fact, it almost helps to clarify the word objective.

Objective means, in this argument, that some things are right or wrong no matter what we believe. William Lane Craig gives a classic example when he says that even if the Nazi's had killed all of the opposition and brainwashed everyone else to think that the holocaust was good, it would still be evil.

Rape is wrong on andromeda (to paraphrase a very interesting book https://books.google.com/books?id=E...).

Ontology asks about the origins, the existence, the foundations of a thing.

Epistemology ask about knowledge, how we come to know things.

Semantics asks what words mean.

These three things are often confused.

Moral ontology asks where moral values come from. It is a question of their metaphysical status.

Moral epistemology asks how we come to know that this or that is right or wrong.

Moral semantics asks questions like "what does good mean?" or "what is evil exactly?" - things like that.

The theistic worldview regarding the ontology of moral values is that they emanate from God. It his nature radiating. God is maximally great and that includes things like love, kindness, goodness and so on.

Presumably the ancient Carthaginians and Canaanites thought child sacrifice to be right, something which we today consider abhorrent, so they must have had a very different concept of OMV's than we might have today.

And even amongst theists around the world today, there are some who proclaim hatred and death in the name of their deity as an objective moral duty, emanating from their perceived distorted moral values.

Any normal person would agree that discerning right from wrong isn't always easy, and is sometimes quite difficult, however, specifically in relation to the direct connection between objective moral values and the existence of God, how are human beings able to correctly discern these OMV's which emanate from God?

By that I mean, how can we be sure that things such as love, kindness, goodness and so on, are actually the OMV's which emanate from God, rather than other things like human sacrifice or the genocide of other tribes?

For my own part, I would identify moral values as expressed in the life of Jesus, but if these do not originate in commands given in the bible or anywhere else, but are simply a part of God's very nature, how do we identify these moral values, or for that matter, the nature of God?

Those other tribes God slated for destruction because of their behavior--child sacrifice, idolatry, temple prostitution, and sodomy, among their more notable sins. And He repeatedly warned Israel that they, too, would be "spued out" of the land if they adopted those heathen customs.

So, yes, of course the Canaanites and Carthaginians thought they were doing right when they sacrificed their children to idols--kind of like the way we today sacrifice babies to our idols of "choice" and "women's health."

This is a question regarding moral epistemology. How do we learn what is right and what is wrong falls directly under moral epistemology.

There are lots of plausible answers, and none of them pertain to the ontology of moral values. None the less, we can say that we learn right from wrong in a variety of ways; from our parents, society, reading, inner moral experience, biological adaptation, during the process of natural selection and so on.

I'm not a believer in natural selection by the way, but these are some of the ways that many philosophers and others think that we learn about moral values.

<how can we be sure that things such as love, kindness, goodness and so on, are actually the OMV's which emanate from God, rather than other things like human sacrifice or the genocide of other tribes?>

The classical theist conception of God is that of a maximally great being. As a maximally great being, God has maximally great attributes. Therefore, God cannot have attributes like hate, cruelty, greed and so forth. The key is to understand that the concept of God entails maximal greatness.

<I would identify moral values as expressed in the life of Jesus, but if these do not originate in commands given in the bible or anywhere else, but are simply a part of God's very nature, how do we identify these moral values, or for that matter, the nature of God?>

Moral values can be perceived just like the external world around us. We have our inner moral experience just as we have an inner experience of the external world.

However, you should realize that all questions of moral epistemology are irrelevant to the moral argument. They may be interesting and good questions, but they have absolutely no bearing on the moral argument, because that is talking about ontology.

To explain ontology, we don't need to explain how we come to know things, or how we come to judge things, or how we can be sure that we are right in our judgment.

To illustrate this, let's talk about the ontology of two way radios instead of moral values.

Where do two way radios come from? This is a question of ontology. A possible answer to this question:

Two way radios come from the factory. The answer falls under the correct category of ontology. Now let me try to refute this answer by asking epistemological questions.

"How did you learn that radios come from the factory?"

Answer: Joe told me.
Rebuttal: We then radios don't come from a factory, because everyone knows Joe is a liar.

Now just stop and think for a moment. Just because Joe is a liar doesn't mean that it's not true that radios come from the factory.

Let's ask another epistemological question:

"How do radios work?"

Answer: I don't know exactly.
Rebuttal: Then you can't say they come from the factory.

This is the wrong line of questioning and it's called the genetic fallacy.

Instead, in order to contest the statement "radios come from the factory", we need to argue the ontology, or where the radios come from.

Proper rebuttal: "It can't be true that radios come from the factory, because all factories have been closed down for 200 years and radios are still being produced".

Have all the factories been closed? Let's do some research and see (this is in the area of ontology and that is where the points and rebuttals are to be made).

I understand the distinction between ontology and epistemology, but my question arises from the idea of being able to "prove" the existence of God through something like "objective moral values" as distinct from divine inspiration and revelation.

I think it was St Anselm who proposed the ontological argument of God entailing maximal greatness, but then later St Thomas Aquinas rejected that argument on the basis that mankind is unable to comprehend the nature of God.

Or am I to understand the concept of OMV's to be something akin to George Fox's "Inner Light"? Simply that love, goodness, etc inherently point to a Supreme Being and could not have originated without a Creator?

I must admit that I've always thought trying to "prove" the existence of God as being beyond the capability of human intellect.

As Paul wrote to the Corinthians...

"Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."

- 1 Cor 1:20-25

Also, as a believer in natural selection, I tend to accept the role evolution has played in the development of human morality, but of course don't consider it to be the only explanation.

The everyday examples you provided are thought-provoking in an abstract manner, but of course radios and lightning are not disputed by anybody.

Anyway, I won't pester you with any more questions.

I'm glad you understand the difference between ontology and epistemology. Actually, after reading the definitions of those two words, I think most people would understand the differences right away, given at least a high school education.

But, people have a tendency to get lost in their thoughts and forget about whether or not they are staying in the ontological category or the epistemological one. This happens even when the person knows the difference, if they are not trained to remain aware of such tendencies. Hence, we see people trying to crack the ontological nut with an epistemological nutcracker over and over.

<prove>

I'm sort of infamous on the rogoff page for saying that only math can be proven. Furthermore, I am very modest in my aim, which is to demonstrate that theism is more rational than atheism.

As I told <abdel> back in April:

<You say that the argument is unprovable but it's a deductive argument and proofs belong only to mathematics.

Instead of provability then you should be talking about rationality; what is rational to believe and what is not.

In the moral argument, as I've shown before, both premises are more rational to believe than their negations. Therefore the conclusion to the moral argument is more rational to believe than its negation. Kenneth Rogoff>

All of the arguments that I put forth have a similar, modest goal; to show that theism is more rational than atheism. Then, when you put all these little arguments together, cumulatively they add up to a strong argument for theism.

<ontological argument - anselm>

Yes, but Alvin Plantinga's work on it (going back I guess to around the sixties) has brought it back to the forefront. The logic is sound, so the only real struggle is over the first premise. If that is accepted, then premises 2 - 7 follow logically.

<Simply that love, goodness, etc inherently point to a Supreme Being and could not have originated without a Creator?>

Sort of. I guess you could look at it like that, but I can be really particular about these things. In one sense we can say that not just OMV's but *everything* couldn't have existed at all without a creator. If I were going that route, I would simply move to the cosmological argument or, perhaps even more appropriate, the argument from contingency.

You asked <am I to understand the concept of OMV's to be something akin to George Fox's "Inner Light"?>

No. It's not that demanding. Since we aren't asking "what are moral values?", we need only look at the modifier "objective" and by implication its negation "relative".

OMV's point to theism if you agree with premise #1 <If God does not exist then OMV's do not exist> and many philosophers agree with that, including many high profile atheists like Nietzsche for example.

<I must admit that I've always thought trying to "prove" the existence of God as being beyond the capability of human intellect.>

You've got to get over that sort of blanket thinking. It's obviously a blinder that keeps you from thinking critically. Forget about that generalization and appeal to your own sense of logic and reason. Put your logic and reason to the test.

Deal with the specific arguments and their specific premises instead of just saying that you doubt God can be proven.

It makes no difference, <optimal play>. You can believe in natural selection and evolution and still believe that moral values exist objectively because God exists.

If you believe in evolution that doesn't rule out God. That's the first point.

Second point is that, on evolution, our evolving brains are simply evolving epistemological antennas, if you will. Natural selection, you could say, has enabled us to be more and more sophisticated in our understanding and perception of the external world AND objective moral values.