Mr Khan said:
RCTjunkie said:
Mr Khan said:
We can value life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness because these things are universally deemed to be good on at least a personal level (e.g. while not all people might think that everyone deserves to be free, every individual will value his or her freedom).
Essentially (i told all y'all in this thread to read some Kant) the Golden Rule can serve as a god substitute, because we have these things that are universally valued on an individual level, such that we can know that violating these things is inherently wrong.
The questions come from the definitions of life (as seen in the questions of abortion and physician assisted suicide) liberty (namely the extent of property rights) and pursuit of happiness (is gratification a prime source of happiness), but we all can agree that none of us would like to be deprived of these things, and therefore understand that it is bad to do these things to others.
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My issue is in regards to why we think that we have moral worth when we are just byproducts of an accidental evolution? In the grand scheme of things, being microspecks in a grand universe with no purpose except to eventually die off, why think our moral intrinsic value as any greater than a flea's? What actual basis of the golden rule ultimately makes that way of living any better than any selfish creature only looking out for his own best interests when looked upon from an atheistic point of view? There's no reasoning to think it would be bad to deprive others because with such a worldview, one cannot have inherently wrong and right morals based on anything. Nature is morally neutral.
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Significance doesn't matter, i would contend. Whatever our significance, or lack thereof, in the grand scheme of things, we as individuals know what we value, and we know the concept of fairness, therefore we can understand that getting what we want while not letting others get what they want is not right.
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The bolded is the problem, here. Not everyone "knows" the concept of fairness and what is right except what is indoctrinated by society and those around the person. Where does such a knowledge of fairness and value come from in a worldview without supernaturally indocterined morality?
WHO IS JESUS REALLY?
