Atheists who believe in moral truth must be nihilists.

[_Mister Scratch]

I'm pretty certain I know who you were talking about, and unless you are juliann or Pahoran, then you derived your information via rank gossip.

You're wrong, and I'd rather not play around in innuendo when I was just making an abstract point about having experience with mental illness explaining some posters' ...ahem... difficulties.

If you were uninterested in innuendo, then why raise the issue in the first place?

In any case, cut to the chase, ALitD: Your MAD screenname, pretty please? Or are you hiding something? Come now, it will be much easier to trust you and deal seriously with the issues you raise if we feel you are being straightforward with us.

[_Blixa]

I lost interest with "he's the head of Philo, for goodness sake."

The philosophy of religion, like all religious studies holds zero interest for me.

Others may find it interesting, but I doubt anyone would want to pursue a discussion which begins with such calculated provocation.

Thanks for the laughs GIMR...

[_A Light in the Darkness]

I lost interest with "he's the head of Philo, for goodness sake."

The philosophy of religion, like all religious studies holds zero interest for me.

Lol.

Me: Quentin Smith is one of the most important atheist philosophers alive.

You: That's debateable. I haven't heard of 'em.

Me. Qua atheist philosopher, sure he is. He's the head of Philo (a prominent atheist journal on phil of religion).

You: I have no interest in the phil of religion.

[_Blixa]

Atheist philosophers vs. philosophy of atheism, honey.

[_Analytics]

I don't mean to be off topic but I would like to ask a question....

If a woman lives a good life, loves her family, cares for those in need, tries to live with decency, civility, respect, kindness, compassion, love toward others, etc. etc. etc.

What difference does it make in terms of actual meaning if she does or does not believe her life has meaning outside this earthly life?

In other words, belief is not the determining factor as to ultimate meaning, (life is either meaningful or it is not meaningful) so who cares what one believes regarding how meaningful is her/his life? What difference does the belief in one's ultimate meaning, make?

Does that make sense?

~dancer~

Hi ~dancer~,

What you say makes more sense than what Smith says.

Here is his argument. Every unit of time has a certain “value” attached to it. When you fill your units of time living a good life, loving your family, caring for those in need etc., you are filling your units of time with more units of value than they would otherwise have.

A key assumption to this sophistry is that every unit of time has at least one unit of value.

Another key assumption is that an action is defined as being “moral” if it increases the total amount of value in the universe.

Here is the logic part. Since every unit of time has at least one unit of value, and there is an infinite amount of time, the total amount of value in the universe is infinite. Regardless of how you live your life, there will still be an infinite amount of value in the universe. Therefore, your actions can’t change the total amount of value in the universe. Therefore what you do is irrelevant. Therefore moral nihilism.

This seems exceedingly stupid to me (maybe I just haven’t seen the light with regards to moral realism and aggregative value theory?).

I claim:

1- Morality should be defined as something that increases value over the time and space that are within our influence: not over all time and all space.

2- Units of time outside of our influence should be assigned zero units of value.

3- The value associated with a choice should be assigned to the time when the choice is made. The overall “morality score” of the universe should be expressed as a function of time. If you make a choice that increases value, then the finite score of the universe increases at that moment and at every subsequent moment.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

Atheist philosophers vs. philosophy of atheism, honey.

First of all, it's clear from the context of conversation that I was talking about atheist philosophers as in philosophers where defending atheism is the subject of their work. Second, I mentioned this explicitly in reply, and you didn't back down from your position until it became obvious that Quentin Smith is a major figure in atheist philosophy. I'm not sure which is worse: to wonder about your honesty or competence.

[_Runtu]

I'm not sure which is worse: to wonder about your honesty or competence.

That was totally uncalled for. I don't care if you're Mormon or Zoroastrian or agnostic or what. Leave the nastiness out of the forum, please.

[_Blixa]

While you're wondering, you can also wonder why nobody's playing with you.

If you indeed meant to establish a narrow niche for your discussion, one which only addressed questions within the context of a particular disciplinary paradigm and using only the conceptual categories specific to it, you would have posted on a relgious studies/philosophy of religion bulletin board and not a general interest board devoted to Mormon discussions.

Instead you came here, began your thread with a self-perpetuating/fulfilling rhetoric of insult and persecution, and when a few posters gamely addressed questions of nihilism and atheism, you got mad that they weren't defining "meaning" in the correct way.


Honesty and competence, indeed.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

That was totally uncalled for.

Oddly, when people hurl an endless string of insults at me, you stand silent. Curious that.

I stand by what I said. The problem is either he is engaging in dishonest arguments or he is not a very good reader/reasoner. At some point, that's what it comes down to. Like with, I don't know, creationists it is difficult to tell sometimes who is which, but that's that. I have no problem saying it outloud because he has consistently been a jerk to me.

[_Runtu]

That was totally uncalled for.

Oddly, when people hurl an endless string of insults at me, you stand silent. Curious that.

I stand by what I said. The problem is either he is engaging in dishonest arguments or he is not a very good reader/reasoner. At some point, that's what it comes down to. Like with, I don't know, creationists it is difficult to tell sometimes who is which, but that's that. I have no problem saying it outloud because he has consistently been a jerk to me.

You came in here spoiling for a fight, and I have no idea why, and then you got upset that you got what you wanted. So, no, I'm not sticking up for you. But as far as I can tell, no one has questioned your integrity. That's the big difference between what's been said to you and what you just did.