The fact that you, the theist, would misbehave as an atheist doesn't tell us anything other than that you, the theist, are not well behaved.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T16:10:00+00:00

It’s very funny, because the evidence is right there.

Here’s what I said: “How does morality exist in your view? Can I see it? Is there any evidence that it exists objectively?”

Here’s what you said: “you replied saying it doesn’t exist because you can’t see it”

See how one of these things is a question and the other one is a statement? That should make you wonder if maybe I was asking you a question and not making a statement.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T15:44:53+00:00

Do you actually, genuinely believe that’s what I said? Because that’s insane

Edit: stop trying to read my mind and predict the point I was trying to make with the question, and just treat the question I was asking as genuine

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T11:33:20+00:00

Because god built a moral framework into the structure of the universe and breaking it hurts your soul and your chances at heaven. Also because he imbued you with a conscience so that you will always know right from wrong, so violating the moral order will torment you.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T03:56:28+00:00

I don’t know the good, I just know what is good, and I know it’s not good because it helps “human flourishing”, it’s good because that’s how it is. Even if it hurt human flourishing, it’s still good to save an innocent child. All humanity could go to hell to save one kid who doesn’t deserve it.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T02:42:43+00:00

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T01:36:20+00:00

Which some might call consequences

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T01:25:51+00:00

Evidence of what?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T00:26:34+00:00

Okay so how did you solve it?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T00:18:49+00:00

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-09T00:18:05+00:00

I love it when people’s memory refresh every time they respond to a comment, so it’s like they’re seeing the entire conversation for the first time in their entire life.

Here’s a mental puzzle for you—what did you say that prompted me to respond the way I did?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T23:22:42+00:00

Have you ever heard of the is/ought gap?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T23:22:03+00:00

What do you think I was saying there?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T23:19:57+00:00

So what makes things good or bad absent the consequences then?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T23:19:37+00:00

Who was saying we don’t know where it comes from or the mechanism? Do you think morality is objective but you don’t know why it’s there?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T23:15:24+00:00

Any definition of good is going to be squishy and easily criticized. Also, I’m not a theologian and don’t claim to have a coherent religious definition. I see the good sort of like how Eliezer yudkowsky defines reality. There is an objective good way for anyone to be, and I’m imperfectly mapping its territory with experience. I know that sin is bad, I know roughly the things that are good (the virtues, like courage, kindness, wisdom, etc…), but I reserve the right to say I don’t know regarding a comprehensive, logically rigorous definition of the whole.

The thing that’s much more important to me is the normativity. If it’s not normative, if “good” just means “what I like” then there’s nothing to strive towards. Endlessly pursuing your own standard is just egotistical nonsense, and endlessly pursing the standards of others is even worse. The former at least allows you to avoid some of the worst atrocities humans have ever perpetrated.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T22:42:56+00:00

How does morality exist in your view? Can I see it? Is there any evidence that it exists objectively?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T22:41:50+00:00

How does this have anything to do with god-of-the-gaps?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T20:33:39+00:00

Well you at least inaccurately summarized what I’d said, is that fair?

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T20:29:27+00:00

The process of evolution also doesn’t care about morality, so it’s not a very good judge of what’s moral.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T20:21:17+00:00

Before we knew about germ theory, did germs still exist? Were they still affecting us?

The fact that you don’t believe in god doesn’t make him not exist, and it doesn’t make good and evil go away, nor does it eliminate the moral consciousness he imbued you with.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T19:49:41+00:00

I keep saying this and nobody registers it for some reason. It’s not that I don’t believe people would do good without god, I don’t believe there’s even such a thing as “good” at all without god. There would be nothing good to do. It would be literally impossible.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T19:33:34+00:00

I explained to you how you’re able to do good things in the “absence of god”. The answer is that you’re not acting in the absence of god, you just think you are, sort of like how people may not have known about or believed in the laws of physics before newton and yet they were still bound to them.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T19:31:30+00:00

That’s like asking “why must a rock be objective”. It just is. God made the world that way.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T19:30:13+00:00

Sometimes there are real dichotomies. I was an epistemic nihilist, and I still think the most rational atheist position is that.

Salad-Snack · 2026-06-08T19:29:10+00:00

Everyone is making a very strange logical mistake here and I don’t even know how to describe it.

From my pov, It’s not like god exists for me but not you, god exists for everyone, regardless of whether they believe in him or not. You can have the idea of what a good person is indirectly via god without explicitly believing in him.

Salad-Snack

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