[quote]forlife wrote:
but now I value them without fear of hellfire for falling short, or greed for eternal reward for blind obedience. [/quote]
Who cares what your motivation is? The goodness of those values don’t–as with any other value–exist as an objective thing. No motivation is ‘more good’ than the other. You might as well be prideful about having the Good favorite color.[/quote]
You keep acting as if unless Goodness exists as an objective thing (whatever that means), there’s no value to mankind in having morals.
Obviously, if that were the case then civil laws would have no benefits either. These laws are informed by values, but they don’t depend on those values existing in some supernatural form in order to exist or have relevance to men.
You can’t get around it. You need faith to even discuss what ‘mission’ is good or evil in the first place, what values are good and evil, etc.
At times you’ve a mealy-mouthed worldview. Yet, at other times, you can’t help but fall-back to absolutist language–determing what is “good for mankind” (as if it is objectively good to worry over all of mankind). You aren’t even comfortable with powerful language, such as evil. Your utopia is built on abandoning Good and Evil, yet having FAITH that it will be Good. It’s a mess. A swamp.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Show me where our civil laws require a supernatural being in order to be enforced or to have value for society. They don’t. [/quote]
I can’t. You belive value is subjective. So if murdering political opposition is deemed “good” for/by society, then it must be. You don’t believe “value for society” can even be a truth.
As for our own, US, legal-political philosophy, it has yet to abandon it’s faith (entirely).
Yet our civil laws are informed by values, most follow these laws, and they are enforced by society. No need for supernatural beliefs in order to have values and laws derived from those values.
Why are you even arguing this point? It’s obvious that millions of people don’t share your belief in the supernatural, yet we agree upon common laws because we share the values on which those laws are based. We don’t believe those values magically exist in the sky somewhere, but we happen to like the consequences of those values, so we follow them. No supernatural hocus pocus required.
[quote]forlife wrote:
It’s obvious that millions of people don’t share your belief in the supernatural…[/quote]
They either believe (have faith) in supernatural concepts, or they fear crossing the laws derived from the values of those who do. No man believes in inalienable rights and remains a materialist. It is clearly, without question, believing not as they speak.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I value freedom because I like to be free.
I value the pursuit of happiness because I like to be happy.
I value life because I enjoy being alive.
No supernatural concepts there, or in the laws based on those values.[/quote]
I don’t value your freedom, your pursuit of happiness, or even your life. Perhaps I value my own, perhaps I don’t. Perhaps I only value my own when exercising power over others. And, in your world, you make no claim to having inalienable rights. So I don’t even have to refute that argument.
Our laws ARE based on the supernatural thoughts of men, btw.
Enough people value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to keep people like you in check. We don’t need boogy man stories in order to value these things, and we realize that cooperation is more likely to lead to them than conflict.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Enough people value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to keep people like you in check. We don’t need booby man stories in order to value these things, and we realize that cooperation is more likely to lead to them than conflict.[/quote]
Do a survey. Ask if they believe if rape is evil in of itself, despite human opinion. Ask them if they have inalieanable rights. We both know the survey isn’t even needed. It is we who keep people like you in check. You’d tear down the backbone of society, good and evil, belief in the existence of inalienable rights…ideas of faith.