Argument Map for "Morality: Realism, Nihilism, and God"

Morality: Realism, Nihilism, and God

Unfortunately, for some reason I can no longer update this post using the blogger program. Luckily, I can get around this problem by posting any modifications as PDFs. So the PDF containing my post is given here. Enjoy. [And thanks to Rayndeon for advising that I to do this.]

The abridged argument map which summarizes each section's argument is given here.

The abridged map is a bit outdated and the post is incomplete, much of it still in stream-of-consciousness form. It's also long. Very long. Treat as a working draft. I expect to be working on this for at least the rest of the year, and will incorporate further rebuttals to arguments against moral naturalism as time goes on.

Argument Map for "Ontological Arguments: A Critique"

Abridged Map for “Ontological Arguments: A Critique”

Another update and My Contempt for Paulomycin

The meta-ethics paper will be out by Sunday night. All the content is written already and now I'm just formatting the references, proofreading, and thinking things over. I normally like to give myself 2 days between when I think my final draft is done and when I actually post so that I can reflect as needed.

Anyway, I just wanted to post something that reflects my loathing for a certain presuppositional apologist I encountered. If I ever meet him on the web again, I will be sure to heap healthy quantities of disdain upon his smug, contemptuous, ignorant...thing. If you don't want to hear a pointless, angry rant, then please do not read the rest of this post. However, if you want to see what I'm like when I get pissed, continue on. So here's the rant; better I present it here than defile my paper with it.

An Update and Abridged Maps

I’m probably not going to get the meta-ethics paper done this weekend, though I made a lot of progress. For those who are curious: it’s at about 75 pages single-spaced right now; I’d be stunned if it doesn’t end up topping 85 pages. So I seem to be in the habit of making the rare extremely long post as opposed to making numerous smaller posts (at least when it comes to philosophy; I doubt it will be the same for manga, video games, etc. since my discussions there will be more self-contained).  Given the extreme length of these posts, readers may have trouble keeping track of all the arguments. As they say: “you can get lost in the weeds,” or, “you miss the forest because of the trees.”

To remedy this problem, I will include a sort of abridged argument map for any of my long posts on philosophy (no, not that kind of “abridged series”). This should allow to reader to see the core points I am trying to get at in each section. And if the reader is curious about my supporting arguments for a particular claim, they can just read the appropriate section in the full post. I will definitely make maps for both “Ontological Arguments: A Critique” and my two upcoming posts “Morality: Realism, Nihilism, and God” and “Morality: Pluralism, Naturalism, and Nihilism.”

Hope this helps.

Modal Arguments for God: A Guide

If you've been around apologists or philosophically-minded theists long enough, you've run into someone advocating an ontological argument (OA for short) or some modal argument for God's existence (MAG). Maybe it's a modal cosmological argument, an argument relating to the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), a modal epistemic argument, etc. I, along with many other atheists and some theists, tire of these arguments. MAG proponents often engage in special pleading, ad hoc re-definitions of terms, or simply lack a basic understanding of the concepts involved in their own argument. Hovwever, remember that most MAG advocates are genuine, well-meaning people who either: 1) missed out on some crucial philosophical information [happens to the best of us], or 2) were misled by the most deceptive philosopher I've ever seen: William Lane Craig. Yet as most atheists soon realize, you can explain a MAG's fallacies, equivocations, etc. and proponents still support the argument. So I am writing this brief guide to help combat this problem. Most of my advice will come from my experience with the PSR and the OA (see my exchange with Mentat1231 and my post "Ontological Arguments: A Critique"). However, this advice should aid atheists and theists in combating other MAGs as well. Here we go!

Getting things rolling again

Hello everyone.

The meta-ethics paper is beginning to eat my soul! At this point, it's taking more out of me than I expected and thus slows down my post rate. So I'm going to keep working on the paper, but meanwhile I'll be discussing other subjects as well. So I should be posting some stuff on music, manga, and video games soon. And maybe some other mildy interesting stuff as well. And if you have not already, please check out the following Youtube channels: MistyGothis, TrenchantAtheist, ConsciousnessOnline, khanpadawan, MrBtongue, and KnownNoMore, among others.

For death metal fans, or anyone who loves the sort of music I do, Archspire's released a new track off their upcoming album. Among the recently formed death metal bands, Archspire is probably my favorite and they seem to have the most potential. I think they'll be able to carry technical death metal into new directions since unlike most other TDM bands (with a few exceptions such as Atheist, Fallujah, Gorod, Son of Aurelius, and [of course] Spawn of Possession; along with metal bands outside of TDM such as Sigh and Septic Flesh), they aren't afraid to incorporate other musical styles and actually blend them well when they do (so no, Origin's new album does not count, nor does every other bands half-hearted instrumental sections that are never integrated into the rest of the song or album). Don't believe me? Listen to the last two tracks off of their debut All Shall Align, back-to-back: Rapid Elemental Dissolve and All Shall Align. One of the top 3 album closers I've ever heard. That, and they have one of my favorite vocalists; are catchier than virtually any other band, even in pop; Spencer Prewett is God; and their lyrics (especially on Rapid Elemental Dissolve) are ungodly.

Bye, and may Yuno watch you while you sleep.

My Youtube PM exchange with TrenchantAtheist

I've been hard at work on my defense of atheistic moral realism against moral arguments for God. It's simply taking awhile. But here's two pieces of good news. First, my defense of moral realism will be significantly longer then my paper of the OA and will therefore be split into multiple parts. The first part will deal with moral arguments for God + Moore's open-question argument + the is/ought distinction + moral conceptual analysis + tracking of moral properties, while the subsequent posts will defend my pluralistic moral naturalism against the REAL, significant meta-ethical challenges: moral nihilism, alternative versions of moral realism, and moral non-cogntivism (none of which claim that moral realism requires God). So that should provide more content for discussion. Second, I've received permission to post another Youtube Private Message exchange. Feel free to comment and discuss.