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" The observations of human behavior are objective, assuming you have good ways to record them. Claiming one pattern is best is the subjective part."
my comment to the last comment you made in this post addresses this
"We don't just see two things happening together and conclude it's highly likely that one is causing the other." true i didn't word that well "What you do in the scientific method is devise an experiment that isolates one of the variables. Then you run statistical tests. And even then, you would still only have correlation. " so you are pretty much admitting to what i said previously that you are dismissing objective reality... if you are saying that the method we use to evaluate our environment simply reduces down to correlation
"No, because the overwhelming body of evidence suggests that cars work as a method of transportation." yes when they are not broken down, correct... but they do break down and suffer from various issues that have to be maintained, the same way that forms of communication have to be maintained and if that maintainance is neglected like with a car the process breaks down
" If we had an overwhelming body of evidence that religion led to objective moral judgments (for example if we had tons of societies reading the bible and independently reaching the same moral systems"
i'd say that for many core christian values such as the golden rule, abstainance, charity that is actually the case
this doesn't mean that there is no variance between sects, but to try to claim that there is a massive disconnect between what the different denominations are teaching is not true
"Because subjective does not mean that all options are equal... "
your example is conflating personal preference with shared judgements between people which is what i was reffering to the personal choice of an individual for one thing over another is inherently objective (edit: subjective typed objective by mistake)(since the person is making a choice based on some type of individual criteria) that's completely different from individuals giving their opinion on behavior.... the point i was making is if there is no objective standard for behavior then the all opinions provided are pretty much equal since there is no standard for one to be better than another
and as i said just now that idea is rubbish since obviously everyone does believe that some behaviors are better then others |
so you are pretty much admitting to what i said previously that you are dismissing objective reality... if you are saying that the method we use to evaluate our environment simply reduces down to correlation
I still haven't said that. There are things that we can objectively observe. That would be data. That is our objective reality. Our interpreation of this data is subjective.
It is for example an objective fact that objects with mass attract one another at a certain rate that we can calculate. It may be my subjective evaluation that this phenomena is caused by gravitons.
yes when they are not broken down, correct... but they do break down and suffer from various issues that have to be maintained, the same way that forms of communication have to be maintained and if that maintainance is neglected like with a car the process breaks down
We'd expect that human beings with similar minds are going to come to some similar conclusions whether or not a god or religion is involved. If religion actually helped objectively transmit morals, you should wind up with moral systems that are far more similar, if not practically identical. That's what objective means.
As for massive disconnects, christians have literally killed other christians for worshipping god the wrong way. In Islam too people are being killed with regularity because other people think they're not worshipping Mohammed the right way. Then you have sects like Mormonism, Amish, you have people speaking in tounges, faith healers, baptist sects, anabaptist sects, catholicism etc.
Even within one sect, you'll find tons of different views among the people. To quote Matt Dillahunty, "if you want to find out what's wrong with the first Baptist Churh, go ask the second Baptist Church. If you want to find out what's wrong with the first pew, go ask the second pew. The differences are far too great to claim the message is subjective.
your example is conflating personal preference with shared judgements between people which is what i was reffering to
the personal choice of an individual for one thing over another is inherently objective (edit: subjective typed objective by mistake)(since the person is making a choice based on some type of individual criteria)
The example wasn't about personal choice. It's not about buying which game I think is the best, it's about trying to predict an outcome based on a pattern, and looking for a positive outcome.
that's completely different from individuals giving their opinion on behavior.... the point i was making is if there is no objective standard for behavior then the all opinions provided are pretty much equal since there is no standard for one to be better than another
The standards are whatever values we have. Suppose that we both agree that teenage pregnancy is a bad thing.
Suppose you say the best way to do so is to teach about birth control. I say the best way is to force every teenager to put a picture of Rosie O' Donell in a thong up in their bedroom to kill their sex drive.
These are both subjective opinions. We have no way of knowing for certain which will yield a better outcome according to our values. But, you can make a pretty strong case that the course of action I'm suggesting is less likely to be feasible or effective. Your subjective opinion is clearly better supported than mine.
and as i said just now that idea is rubbish since obviously everyone does believe that some behaviors are better then others
Subjective doesn't mean the same thing as arbitrary. I have beliefs about what behaviors are best. These beliefs are subjective. I believe they are well supported, but they may change with more data.
