How do we know that the cesium atom's radiation is regular - that one instance of 9,192,631,770 periods (let's call this a cycle) is the same as the next 9,192,631,770 periods?

If one cycle of cesium atom A differs from its next cycle we have no way of detecting the error that'll creep into cesium atom A's clock. We'll need another more accurate clock to detect the error and what if that clock is also irregular?

There is absolutely nothing mysterious here. It isn't philosophy, it's well established engineering and mathematics. — fdrake

How do you check the accuracy of your watch? You must compare it to some standard clock, say A. The same question applies to A too and so on...ad infinitum. We can never be sure of the accuracy of a clock.

My counter example works fine with nanoseconds. — noAxioms

Imagine a clock, A, that's supposed to mark off seconds (1 tick = 1 second) but it actually marks off 0.9 seconds (1 tick = 0.9 seconds). How long would it take for clock A's error to be noticed if our discerning power is 1 second? Consider ticks as x. We have the following inequality:

x - 0.9x > 1...it'll be only 10 true seconds later that we will be able to notice the error.

Imagine now that for A 1 tick = 0.9999999999 seconds. Plug that in and:

x - 0.9999999999x > 1

Doing the math we need at least 317 years before we can find the error in clock A's time.

So smaller the difference between true time and the time of a clock the longer it'll take for you to detect the error.

For me, it's the paradigm of the 'right view' itself that deserves looking in to. — 0rff

Isn't that taking it to the extreme? Perhaps not in philosophy but what about most people who simply want a useful guide to navigate the world?

Can they function as more than the barest introduction? — 0rff

I think you're right. I have a very superficial understanding of the issue I'm raising. But how deep must we dive before we say this is enough? To me philosophy seems a botomless pit - there's no final destination. There are many levels of analysis and I suspect each level, instead of providing answers, raises more questions.

But that's what's wrong with these oversimplifying terms. They are just title pages, indeterminate until the book is read. We have to really talk with others to get a sense of what they deeply value. — 0rff

This is good advice. Thanks.

That which exists has an effect/affect — creativesoul

I once tried to prove god's existence with that. My argument is that god seems to have palpable effects on human lives. Therefore, I said, god exists. Of course the main error in my argument is I have to distinguish between existence of god and belief in god's existence.

Anyway...the cause/effect notion you're suggesting seems to fail because we can only perceive physical effects.

There are other ways to qualify the term "existence". — creativesoul

What are they? I guess when one steps outside the boundaries of the rational - which seems to be based on the observable and physical - things stop making sense in the rational sense of the word.

The relationship between our minds and the world, according to modern standards of thinking, seems to be: real IFF physical (observable, measurable). But, how do we know the world is only physical? Shouldn't the right attitude be to keep options open for all sorts of things, including a non-physical realm, by which I don't mean just abstractions of mind but things out there - beyond the reach of our senses and instruments?

SIlence. — Banno

He who speaks does not know and he who knows does not speak. I don't know about my relationship with materialism. Is it just too dry a worldview (it doesn't appeal to my mindset) or is it true that it's incomplete (there's more to this world than just matter)?

What I'm hinting at as an 'atheistic' position who finds the same kind of dullness in both assembly atheism and theism that unwittingly understands itself scientistically. — 0rff

What is the right view then? Agnosticism?

So this idea of outside the mind I'm finding a little tricky to get hold of. But outside reason makes sense. A theist would agree that although they have belief, it's a belief based on faith and not on reason. — fishfry

We're always advised to keep an open mind. We're also advised against daydreaming. Somewhere between these two lies the truth.

Faith isn't exclusively religious. All of science suffers from the problem of induction.

Don't atheists do math? Believe in justice? Follow the law? All abstractions. Non-physical.

Atheists believe in and use abstractions. — fishfry

Not exactly what I meant. The abstract is mental but by non-physical existence, theists mean something outside of the mind, don't they? God isn't simply an abstraction.

So ignorant happiness may not be so good for the long-haul of investigating the human condition itself or the intra-worldly affairs that we must face within the daily grind of life. — schopenhauer1

I understand you but if I've been observant wisdom relates better with gloom, like the donkey in the book 1984. I mean the wise tend to be unhappy, to say nothing of the fact that we still don't know what wisdom means.

So, the logical conclusion is that ignorant happiness is the only option. The donkey knows that if it's not the lion then it'll be the tiger that'll eat him - there's no escape from the law of the jungle.

(Y)

My example used whole numbers and the error reveals itself quite easily but what if the time irregularity is in the nanoseconds or femtoseconds? Errors at such scales can be detected only over millions of years, right?

Look at the history of time measurement. Started with the sun, moon and earth - wasn't accurate enough. Then we moved to pendulums - wasn't accurate enough. Now we have atomic clocks - aren't perfect. Isn't this the infinite regress I'm suggesting here?

Laughing in the face of this is a coping mechanism for the masses. It is post-modern advice given to those in hopes you do not investigate too much into the existential problems of life — schopenhauer1

If I'm correct you don't have too high an opinion of life. If I am then you'll agree that life doesn't have the required amount of happy moments to make it worthwhile. Yet, even the most saddest person is searching for happiness, right? Even a suicidal person is looking for relief (read happiness) from his suffering. So, if we want something so badly and the world isn't being helpful why not simply be happy? Is it impossible?



In the shadow
Want the rainbow
Isn't the shade dead
All the reason needed
To step into the light?
No better reason right?

I think people could be generally content their entire lives, if they were taught to think properly about themselves and life from an early age, and were able to avoid any sort of extreme emotional trauma. — CasKev

I don't know. Trauma seems to have its benefits if you allow time and space for it to show. I think it rewires the neurons and your psychology - something like slapping someone into his senses. I don't recommend it though. It's painful.

Eh, just wanting to be happy seems like a good enough reason. But really, if you look at the many health benefits of being happy, that seems to provide ample reason to be happy. — Lone Wolf

That's something I overlooked. Happiness has many physical benefits, probably hormonally induced. That gives a very good reason to be happy for its own sake. Thanks.

However, I don't know how others feel, I seem to look for mental reasons to be happy. When I understand something in philosophy or a math problem I feel happy and I'm in the habit of looking for such situations. Am I alone in this? I don't think so. The whole enterprise of knowledge, philosophy to science, seems to be motivated by a desire for happiness. Put otherwise people do x because x gives them happiness.

So, although you're right it doesn't completely explain the state of affairs.

Do we need a reason to feel the opposite, more of a depressive mood? — Nessuno

I think emotion, barring PMS and insanity, needs reasons. Nobody simply laughs or cries without reason. Reasons are required to elicit emotion, at least for me.

If this is true for everybody then the whole situation is odd. The world isn't obliged to make us happy. In fact the world is a dangerous place...to put life in the right perspective all we have to imagine is the vast emptiness of space filled with lethal radiation. So, to seek for reasons to be happy is a futile enterprise. Like astronauts we're forced to take with us a bubble of happiness wherever we go. Why not just be happy, without reason, and discard this heavy space-suit of happiness and enjoy life? As it is life is meaningless.

Have a read below.

You're right. Happiness just happens but we still need a reason to be happy/sad. Try laughing/crying without reason. You can't.

Perhaps because the way it has been talked about is based upon misunderstanding what it is? — creativesoul

I don't know. Moral theories, at least the ones I'm familiar with, all seem to have one interesting objective - to frame a set of rules that are universal (for all situations and all times). This is the aim of all moral theories and as natural as this is it is also the most problematic.

Science had little use for that sort of accuracy back in those days. — noAxioms

I guess we have acceptable limits of accuracy.

They worked out F=MA without need of it. — noAxioms

Really? I thought time was part of A (acceleration)? Were Newton's laws theoretically derived?

The laws we know result in models that give relatively accurate predictions, and are not something that is wrong or right. If you want to posit different laws, you are welcome to do so, but if they make worse predictions, they're less useful laws. — noAxioms

Let me illustrate what I mean.

Imagine a world with a radioactive element x that decays at the rate of 1 atom every true second.

Let's suppose we have a clock that is irregular too: one tick is supposed to be 1 second but actually tick1 = 1 second, tick 2 = 2 seconds, tick 3 = 1 second, tick 4 = 2 second and so on.

If we study the element x for 4 ticks (4 seconds by the defective clock) of the clock
6 atoms decayed because 6 true seconds have passed (1, 2, 1, 2)
Time passed by the clock = 4 seconds
Rate of decay = 6/4 = 1.5 atoms/second

But...

The actual time passed = 6 seconds ( 1, 2, 1, 2)
True rate of decay = 6/6 = 1 atom/second

If the defective clock is used universally then we will never notice the error.

What do you think? Thank you for your replies. I've learned a lot.

It is reasonably constant, and the Newton's laws of motion (the first two mostly) say this. This is not proof, just a very successful set of laws that make good predictions. Come up with different laws that do as well but make the day length much more variable, and then you can introduce doubt. — noAxioms

Thanks. I was thinking too that there's some physics law that proves some physical durations are fixed and constant. I remember in high school I read something about the pendulum's period depending on g (acceleration due to gravity) and L (the length of the pendulum). However, I don't think this really solves the problem because quantification comes first in physics and time is a quantity. In other words, we need to possess accurate instruments before we can discover the quantiative laws of nature. Anyway, what's amazing is how, even with inaccurate clocks, science has ''discovered'' so many physical laws.

Now, here's something that I just thought of...

If you'll agree with me that time measurement isn't as accurate as we think then could it be that all the laws of nature we've discovered so far are wrong? They're just approximations at best and completely bogus at worst. What if there are no laws of nature and all the patterns we see in nature (at least those dependent on time) are simply illusions created by our failure to measure time accurately?

What it implies is that we can never be absolutely certain about the length of any time period. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. Please read above. Sorry can't reply to you separately.

(Y)

That’s where faith plays a role. And no, ‘faith’ is not ‘clinging to a belief in propositions for which there is no evidence’, as a Dawkins would describe it. It exists within a context of a community of practice and a domain of discourse, which provides some anchors for it. It isn’t simply faith in anything, or wishful thinking. — Wayfarer

What a nice thing to say. I was of the opinion that faith is a bad thing, rationally speaking. I think it does have a place in our belief systems to say nothing of the fact that reason itself must begin somewhere.

And if you read what I said, I didn’t imply anywhere that science is harmful for morality. You can be a good person and a good scientist, but being a good person doesn’t necessarily rely on science. — Wayfarer

Sorry for misreading your thoughts but I'm under the impression that you think science doesn't mingle well with moral philosophy. Sorry.

There is always an aspect of a religious philosophy that is beyond empirical evidence but ‘transcendent’ is not the same as ‘unreasonable’. It might be that it surpasses reason rather than denying it. — Wayfarer

Yes, this is a good point. Reason may be a poor tool to examine the ''transcendent'', as you put it. Somewhere inside me I think that there are aspects of our world that reason can't reveal (may be it's just because of circumstances, I don't know). What bugs me is the notion of the ''transcendent'', no matter how deeply we sense it, is, by definition, beyond our grasp. It's very attractive in a world which, from all angles, seems meaningless. Yet, there's a real danger in missing the truth ''under our noses'' if we entertain beliefs in the transcendent. I mean is it wise to give up the fish on our line for a bigger fish that may be simply your imagination?

But in the absence of a shared domain of values, such that the Christian ethos used to provide, then society is inclined to look to science as a source of truth or reason, in respect of ethical issues; or alternatively to declare that ‘science has proven’ that there is no objective basis for morality. — Wayfarer

I don't think science is that harmful to morality. As I said, it has united, so to speak, the human family and it seems the family is only going to get bigger. Don't you think this is good for morality?

This leads me to believe you haven’t understood what I’ve been saying. — Wayfarer

I don't mean to say that such a view is right. I'm just trying to fit morality with science - may be it didn't work.

Why is morality so difficult? I mean our moral compass, in general, has religious sources and religion is notoriously ''unreasonable''. What is the problem with morality or is it reason (logic as opposed to a specific variety like scientific reasoning)? Perhaps morality isn't objective, lacking incontrovertible truths, and so reason fails to navigate the shifting landscape. Or may be it's a work in progress - we remain confused[/i], unsure of a story's message until the end.

Are you sure?

I mean, even prior to any educated judgement about adaptive advantages concerning evolution, I've rarely found that it made much sense to be mean, cruel or simply uncaring. There's usually a simple obvious advantage to doing good, which is that people will tend to notice that you are a person who does mostly good. — Akanthinos

It may be that reason isn't at fault. For one, it's yielded many useful results in other fields - maths, science, etc. The problem, it seems, is with finding our initial premises - the foundations for any theory, morality included.

On another view, it appears that we may require a different thinking tool to handle morality. Perhaps we need to rethink our strategy. I don't know.

I don't think we need to keep going to more clocks ad infinitum, because we can synchronize a number of clocks, and make the necessary adjustments. — Metaphysician Undercover

We need to. For example we need to check all rulers/scales to the standard definition of a meter or a foot. In the case of length we don't have to worry because we can ensure regularity (each 1 foot = next 1 foot) satisfactorily.

However, when it comes to time, this can't be done without using another time piece to check the standard being used. In fact I think we do this. All time on a computer is checked against a clock in a server somewhere.

No. No clock is needed to know this.
The average length of the day is the arbitrary standard. There is nothing against which it needs to be verified. — noAxioms

Why? How do we know that the length of the day is going to be constant, as is required? Is there a physical law that proves that the day length is constant? And how do we know that?

Bottomline, there's a struggle between altruism and selfishness. Both have evolved in us. Perhaps there's no contradiction in it. Both altruism and selfishness, opposites as they are, are advantageous to survival. The former benefits the group and the latter benefits the individual. It depends on which car you want to ride in.

Anyway...back to the point.

I don't think science is completely useless in the study of morality. In a very basic sense, morality begins within the family and science has shown that all life is a really BIG family.

Reason provides guidance. It enables us to sort things out, but I don't think reason is good or bad, moral or immoral. It is the way of thinking that can be valid, sound, or mistaken. We have to desire something in order to employ reason, to obtain what we desire. How we fulfill our desires as well as what we desire can be good, bad or indifferent. I think we all have a conscience, a way to judge our own actions and accept responsibility for them. — Cavacava

You're right. Reason per se has no moral color. It's simply a tool, a good(;) ) one at that. I think as @Wayfarer said, the ''good'' in ''good reason'' doesn't mean the moral good and even if it does it probably doesn't match the meaning of ''good'' I have in mind.

Of course the question on why reason is a failure in morality still remains.

This is not true. You have confused deontology and consequentialism with specific versions of deontology and consequentialism - re: Kantianism and classical utilitarianism. — darthbarracuda

Well, these are the most appealing versions of the two theories, right?

haha, well, I have a somewhat idiosyncratic view on morality, but I think ethics is grounded, primordially and first-and-foremost, in the "encounter" with the Other, which is that which cannot be assimilated into the Same. It is different, alien, transcendent, unknowable, resigned, hidden, mysterious. — darthbarracuda

To me, sameness is a universal language which all life, from the microscopic to macroscopic, ''understands'' barring, of course, cannibalism. Reproduction, the wellspring of life itself, requires sameness. Also, isn't that why we have safety in numbers? Lions don't eat lions, deer don't eat deer, Americans don't kill Americans, etc. I'm making a generalization here and exceptions, and they do occur, can be explained in terms of perceived differences e.g. lions kill lions when they establish a pecking order (difference), deer are violent when they fight for mating rights (hierarchy = difference), and so on.

I don't think I'm totally off the mark in thinking sameness/similarity is more conducive to moral behavior than difference.

Also, empathy, a prerequisite of morality seems to be grounded in the notion of sameness - x feels as much as y.

Generally accepted immoral behavior such as slavery and genocide, for example, seem to be based on perceived differences.

On the contrary, I think the introduction of equality based on same-ness is a violence towards the Other. Effectively, you are requiring that something be sufficiently similar to yourself in order to qualify for ethical status. Rather than grounding equality in similarity, a philosophy of difference is going to argue that the Other cannot be fully possessed, and should be left alone, and as a byproduct treated equally. I acknowledge that similarity is going to help things like governments decide how to treat their citizens, but this already is a bastardization of the ethical. — darthbarracuda

What I'd like to do is reel in scientific knowledge into moral theory. Biology has shown that we're all related - sameness. This has, it appears, extended our family, making us behave in better ways towards other races, animals, and now plants.

The day verifies the clock, not the other way around. — noAxioms

Yes but what verifies the day?

Yes, i think it is a deeply flawed analogy, for we don't possess a single form of reasoning but have evolved many different games of reasoning-behaviour that constitute a family of coping strategies for surviving in different sets of circumstances. — sime

That's really interesting. @Wayfarer and you seem to be saying something similar. Wayfarer, if I understood him, thinks scientific reasoning (I assume he means the notion of life being nothing more than chance) is faulty. You seem to be saying classical logic is inadequate for the examination of morality.

Well, to both of you: What kind of reasoning will yield better results?

Anyway, we know that standard is reasonably stable since it would require incredible force to alter that rotation rate. OK, said force does exist, and we have leap-seconds to compensate. — noAxioms

But to know this we would have to rely on another clock, say A, and to check A we need another clock B...ad infinitum.

Now why should it be assumed that reason involves different criteria of normativity to morality? — sime

To me, reason is a tool and morality is the material we use reason on. Isn't that the working analogy for philosophy?

If I understand you correctly, your view is somewhat similar to my OP - that reason is good. This is what I'm questioning here.

(Y)

So, what kind of reason will be productive in the moral domain? As you said, and I agree, scientific reason fails miserably. One thing that I have to say though is that science isn't all that useless in morality. No truth stands in isolation and the world, to me, is a complex pattern of truths.

You misunderstand: it's the difference between periods which must be constant to show that both pendulums swing at a regular interval. — StreetlightX

Why complicate the issue by going a step further than you need to. If I can see the pendulum swinging in sync why calculate the difference?

What are you talking about? — StreetlightX

The assumption is that the pendulum takes the same time for every swing (regularity). How can we confirm this? I can think of two ways of doing this:

1. Depend on some physical law that proves it

2. Using another time piece to confirm it

Both 1 and 2 lead to the chicken and egg problem.

It's not 'morality' that's irrational, but the modern conception of what constitutes 'reason — Wayfarer

I'd be grateful to know how our ''modern conception'' of reason is defective.

That's not 'a fine point', it is behaviourism. — Wayfarer

But there is an ought to logic, presuming of course that the aim/desire is to survive. However, as Hume said, there's no rational ought to morality, at least not in a an airtight, foolproof sense.

Perhaps my question assumes some form of objective morality - a necessity, I think(?), for rationality to produce results.

Yet, looking at the trends of moral history it does seem that we're ALL approaching some form of, to say the least, consensus on moral issues. For instance, pedophilia, slavery, murder, rape, to name a few, are now universally immoral. Does this count as evidence that morality is objective?

And the principle is what matters. — StreetlightX

Well, regularity is absolutely necessary and you agree on that.

I'm still not convinced about this so please be patient.

I'll stick to pendulums for now. Let's take two A and B. We see them ''in sync'' i.e. they move in sync from one side to the other. You're right in that IF they're not in sync they'll move out of phase after ''some time''. This seems quite obvious if the periods (time taken to make one swing) are whole numbers. For instance, if A's is 2 seconds and B's is 3 seconds it becomes quite obvious that they're out of sync.

However, what if A's is 2.000000009 seconds and B's is 2.0000000000000009 seconds? This imperciptible difference will compound over time and after, may be millions of years, A and B will be out of sync.

Another thing is the assumption (is there a physics law for this?) that the pendulum swing will remain constant. We can't be sure of that without using another time piece and we're back to the chicken-egg problem.

I see. So we can simply take two objects that are ''in sync'' and take that as a measure of regularity? How do we check for synchronization? I think it'll be imprecise.

We 'unreasonably' like reasons. — t0m

I don't think we like reason without cause. Reason is key to survival and look at all the scientific truths we've discovered using rationality.

Isn't desire primary? — t0m

Desire was primary. Philosophy, in a way, is the application of reason to find truths; truths that are to be used to guide our desires.

My question, specifically, is the unreasonable association of morality and reason. To me the expression ''good reason'' is proof of the morality-reason connection. Yet, when we apply rationality to morality all we get is confusion.

What's the problem here? Could it be that morality is irrational? Goodness is associated with foolishness e.g. a young person is described as naive or innocent (unaware of the Big Bad World).

Could it be that rationality isn't good? It takes cunning and a sharp mind to concoct devious plans. We need to be aware of strengths and weaknesses of people, manipulate them, escape detection, etc. In short it takes more brain power to be evil.

So here, when Hume says that moral principles are ‘not perceived by reason’, then he’s saying something very close to your OP. But it does, I think, depend on a very narrowly-conceived notion of what constitutes ‘reason’. — Wayfarer

That means morality is irrational. Is this an absolute truth or just situation-dependent? I mean, are we blind to moral truths or is morality, itself, just an illusion? I pray it's the former.

Like our principles of morality, we learn what rational thinking is through reward and punishment. — sime

A fine point. But the normative nature of reason is quite different from that of morality. We ought to be logical because being so reveals truths that are necessary for our survival. However, logic, as yet, hasn't revealed any reason why we ought to be good.

What 'phenomenon'? All you want after is regularity. If two measures are in sync, they're regular. — StreetlightX

Can you flesh this idea of ''two measures are in sync''. Can you give me a concrete instance of this ''solution''?

I'll give it a try...

Take two pendulums swinging. By ''in sync'' you mean they move to-and-fro at regular intervals. But that's exactly the issue here. How do you know they move, as you say, ''in sync''?

Because you get the exact same result from countless repeatings of the experiment. — noAxioms

How do you know you get the exact same result? By applying a specific standard to both to confirm repeatability of measurement. The next question, of course, is how do you know the standard you chose is regular? Chicken and egg?

Er, all you need are two measures you think are regular in relation to each other. — StreetlightX

Well, that doesn't solve the problem does it? The phenomenon itself must be regular. Taking two faulty rulers to countercheck each other doesn't solve the problem of whether we have the right measurement.

I see your point. Makes sense.

(Y)

However, the so-called "constants" are not absolutely constant, so this produces the need to make slight adjustments now and then. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do we know that? By using, a supposedly accurate, time piece. And how do we know that that's accurate?

Without further measurements and observations, there is a 50% chance that any of the two possibilities is true. — Henri

You're not wrong in assigning a 50% chance for God's existence. Nobody knows the exact probability and we're ''free'' to bet as we see fit. I say ''free'' because we're actually not free. :P . We need some data to start off from, don't you think?

We can observe design and that's a point for God. We see evil and that's against God and so on... How does one juggle all the data...I don't know. Bayes' theorem provides a basic tool to handle such issues.

To fight without the slimmest chance of victory is foolish, don't you think?

Again, are you talking about The Christian concept of The Devil, or no? — Noble Dust

Yes. The fallen angel Satan. Why do you ask? The Devil as the prime evil must be generic among all cultures just as God is.

Why the hell not? Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. — Bitter Crank

It doesn't make sense to fight an omnipotent being like God...you'll lose

I don't want to try to describe a complete set of ethics. I am open to examples of what is good and what is right. The question I would put to anyone is what basis do we have on atheism for believing that goodness and rightness have any meaning at all? On atheism, it seems me, we are just animals, and anything goes. You don't try to read morality into the animal world. For example, lions kill each other, mate with their relatives, and kill cubs when they take over a pride. However, no one is making a moral judgment that lions are bad, incestuous, child murderers, are they? Or take the example of child torture. Forgive the extreme example, but did you know that certain cultures practice ritual genital mutilation of children? On atheism, it seems to me, that these people are merely being taboo, but why believe that there is anything inherently wrong with that? Animals do all kinds of things that are taboo to us, so why believe that our morality is superior to theirs? To do so is to succumb to an unjustified bias about our own species. What makes us the seat of objective moral reality? On atheism, we are just an advanced species of primate that evolved relatively recently on a speck of dust called Earth, lost the vast ocean of a dying universe, and yet somehow, we are beset with delusions of moral grandeur. So that is premise (1) in a nutshell. — cincPhil

At first glance, it may look like atheism loses a very strong pillar of morality - divine authority. However, examine God and you'll see it's not really as strong as initially thought out to be (Euthyphro's dilemma). It seems that both theists and atheists are in the same boat.

Premise (2) says, "But wait! Morality really is objective!" Is it wrong to torture a child? Any sane person knows the answer, and I would agree: "Of course it's wrong to torture a child!" We have an objective moral obligation to love children, and to protect them, not to hurt them. Is it wrong to rape, or may I "forcibly copulate" as the male great white shark does? Again, only an insane person would say "I forcibly copulate as the white shark does". Is it wrong to kill my fellow man? The chimpanzee does it. Why not his primate cousin, homo sapiens? Again, it seems obvious to any sane person that each of us has a binding, objective obligation to respect human life, and to not take it just because one feels like it. That is (2) in a nutshell. — cincPhil

Objective morality is something that appeals to me but your post implies that the universe, without humans, is amoral. So, doesn't this defeat your claim that there's an objective morality?

No further discussion?

To show that he is evil, I think that you should start by defining what evil is.
Morally objectionable behavior
That which causes harm, destruction or misfortune
The quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice
Morally bad or wrong

Based on morality, the devil is only evil to people that use god as a moral guide.
Based on causing harm, exactly what harm has the devil caused? — Sir2u

No further discussion only because we all accept the Devil is evil and this doesn't affect my argument that he is impotent and a fool.

So you think it is stupid to fight for the things you believe in? Most people think that their bosses are omnipotent so the never bother asking for a raise. They are stupid. — Sir2u

Would you bring a knife to a gun fight? Of course extreme circumstances demand unconventional logic but you can clearly see the battle is already lost, yes?

(Y) Thanks. It seems that evil can achieve a level of potency that has significant consequences (Hitler, Stalin, etc.) However, I'm comparing the paragon of evil, Satan, to the ultimate power in the universe - God. It simply doesn't make sense for Satan to rebel against God.

I think analyzing what evil means in order to find "the light" is an interesting prospect, but I haven't really seen you doing that yet in this thread. — Noble Dust

I'm just putting it out there to check people's thoughts. I don't have a clear-cut strategy on the issue. I don't even know where to begin.

Anyway, how would we define the Devil?

I didn't say anything about happiness. Do you really think of love in this way? Do you really think that love hurts? Or is it when we fail to love purely that we hurt each other? Can you imagine a pure, high love that is greater than all our attempts at it? — cincPhil

Well, I'd like to know what your moral theory is based on, if not happiness.

I am not arguing in favor of God or Satan, but it makes for a much more interesting and compelling mythology (story) if God is immensely powerful but not omnipotent, and if the Devil has a bit of ambiguity about his evil, and must labor with great effort to outwit smart people and undo the work of God. — Bitter Crank

Yes I know, right. Where's the fun in a sumo wrestler fighting a bunny rabbit?

By the way, do you know of any philosophical works on evil?

Thanks MadFool. Let me ask your question back to you. Can you give me an example of an objective moral value that changes? For example, can the value of love be sometimes good, and sometimes bad? Or is it always true that it is good for us to love? — cincPhil

I don't know how to answer your question but I'll try...

Love is generally accepted to be good but I'm sure you must've heard of the expression ''love hurts''. If ''love hurts'' is true you lose the leverage of happiness in your moral equation and that, I think, is a fatal blow to moral theories based on happiness (I think they call it Hedonism). If your moral theory isn't based on happiness I'd like to know more.

To say that a moral value or duty is objective is to say that it is true or binding irrespective of human opinion (regardless of what anyone thinks). For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that even if the Nazis had succeeded in winning WWII, and brain-washed or exterminated everyone who disagreed with them, so that everyone in the world believed that Naziism was right, it would still be wrong. — cincPhil

I want to believe that there's objective morality. Your Nazi example makes the point well. Indeed, what the Nazi's did and a lot of our ancestors did were, are and will be bad. But, that's from our present perspective. Do you see no possibility that moral values will change with time? There are precedents - your views on the Holocaust are evidence of that.

As to a definition of the devil, I don't have one. I'm just addressing some issues I have with your argument.

It's a complicated topic for me, actually. But I get the sense you're making your argument purely theoretically and not with any actual real life implications regarding whether "The Devil" actually exists. — Noble Dust

Philosophy and people in general are very "knowledgeable" about the definition of God. They argue about it but everybody circles around omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. The Devil is rarely discussed and I wonder why. If we can't find God directly, perhaps an oblique approach to the issue may help. What I mean is by analyzing what Evil means we may see the light. What do you think?

There could be other gains we can make by studying Evil e.g. in morality or in understanding ourselves and our place in nature.