The Most Reliable Basis For Determining Morality Is Via Secular Means

So at long last, we conclude. I have to say, this has been a debate I've enjoyed having, and I'm grateful to the one who accepted the role of Con for having this debate with me. I shall now begin with an introductory statement that summarises for the most part the nature of my disagreements with Con's position. Why Is Secularism Superior? Let's look at the moral systems we have explored throughout this debate. We have found that holding yourself to a view of morality only by an external force (in other words, God), implies that should that force be taken away, the individual would resort to immorality almost immediately. A "random" basis for morality is woefully unreliable and is based purely on "What If" questions that have no more evidence or basis in reality for the outcomes they propose than a gambler's confidence they'll keep hitting the same number and colour on a roulette wheel. We (and our ancestors, and a whole bunch of other species) have considered it very much a "Pro" position to live in communities governed by reciprocation, pretty much simplified by the Golden Rule ("do to others what you would have them do to you"). We do this not, as some people claim, because we obey God's moral guidance, or because we thought "Heads for Empathy, Tails for Screw Them", but because it observably works to treat each other with kindness, dignity, and courtesy, as opposed to loathing, spite and murder. Our lives have meaning because we are sentient, and so we can evolve our ideas of morality. Our morals come from society, and the values we share provide the basis and derivation (an those values in turn come from the values necessary for society to exist) and are developed through a continuing process of conversation, debate, enactment, and revision. It's ultimately a democratic system, where authority comes from within, rather than from outside, or from "pick one at random" decisions. In the last round, I labelled Con's stance as the "Harvey Dent Method". And isn't that exactly what it is? We see how irrational this is in the Dark Knight where, thanks to deciding to take a case via a coin flip, he almost gets shot in the face, and then later he gets massively chewed out by Batman for trying to use that method to interrogate someone who didn't know jack about the Joker. And then at the climax of the movie, his coin flip method makes him spare the Joker's life and target Jim Gordon's family, as well as shooting Batman, even though those two were genuinely trying to save Rachel's life. In fact, the only sane decision Harvey makes with a coin is when he decides to help lure Joker into a trap for Batman to catch him by pretending to be the arrested real Batman, when we see that his coin is a double headed one. Con agreed to assume the BOP in this debate, and yet what he has provided is little more than a Family Guy episode (which was purely played for laughs and otherwise extremely unlikely considering just how strong an argument the nuclear deterrent is and even the 2008/12 Reps haven't done this when losing to a black man) and a study that actually supported my conclusions when the group that did better than the monkey were the group that realised they didn't know everything there is used a variety of different methods and sources for help, which is exactly consistent with how secular thinking operates, contrary to what Con says. Science is an applied philosophy, and Morality is a social science, which means it's perfectly fit to make predictions, but it can indeed also adapt. Again, Con seems to think that the purpose of SM is to provide perfect answers. I will concede there may be circumstances in the future that may make us do a complete 180 on our viewpoints, but just like all things in science, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If Con wants to prove that it's irrational to have 99% trust in the values we hold today when they are reasoned by a method that used secular, humanistic, rationally based reasoning, then he needs to demonstrate so, otherwise his claims are without merit. Again, Con relies heavily on words like "could" and "maybe" when it comes to when we talk about the "What If? " points of roads or murders or 9/11-style events happening or not happening without presenting any evidence that his conclusions WOULD end that way (by Con's very own logic, we should subject every human being to the Harvey Dent method on a daily basis because one or some of them may become a dictator, even without evidence to prove as such). Con further asserts that we can't know what will happen, but that still doesn't justify the random morality argument. All it does is show that secular humanist morality is not perfect, but rational secularists have never said this in the first place. Con ignores what I pointed out before about "absolute answers", about how secularists views about killing a guy for his wallet contrast greatly with their stance on killing someone because they're threatening your family at gunpoint. Con tries to claim we can't rely on our morals now because we don't believe most of the stuff that we used to believe 2000 years back. Sure, but we ended up vastly altering our viewpoints that were out of date via using the kinds of thinking that are consistent with the secular rationalist philosophies, especially spearheaded by the Renaissance where the secularists started thinking outside the religious box and came up with discoveries and philosophies about our world that replaced all that junk super naturalism as well as for the most part replacing the apathetic "Let's just see what happens" mentality that Con promotes. And now we see the results: the Pitzer link I gave above showed just reliable secular morality, where the more secular nations and US States had demonstrably better results. It's more than just a "crystal ball", it's actual empirical evidence with real data we can work off, which is more than can be said for Con's premise. Morality is a science, and like in all science if a moral view is clearly irrational, it WILL get found out. So when we look at something like 9/11, we can empirically demonstrate, beyond relying on reason from on a faith-based deity or a "Meh, whatever" attitude is that ultimately those who look to hurt/kill people are sociopaths, and it's better for society when we lock those people up. The desire to hurt and take advantage of others does not reflect empathy but a lack of it. That's why terrorist desires that involve taking executing one person or a mass amount of people are wrong. So how do we derive moral goodness? It's staggeringly simple. We understand that actions have consequences, and we have no wish to hurt others needlessly, because we'd hate to have that done to us. I've really never gotten why Christians or non-secularists just can't get how simple this is. Con appeals to the nuclear debate, but fails to realise that disagreement and debate within secularists on topics is not only perfectly normal but HEALTHY, as we can come together to figure this sort of stuff, and eventually the most rational and moral viewpoint will prevail. To Con's 9/11 argument, I said before that when we're absent of an irrational belief/ideology and any problems with mental health (this applies also to suicides) or sociopaths, then absent those the ideal result is that people would wish not to die. Con may contend he'd toss the coin on 9/11, but would Con still consider his non-evidence based coin toss rational if we yet again saw more bad than good from another 9/11? I think not. We may not know the future, but we can get a clearer picture of what it may entail from SM. To conclude, when we look at love, hate, morality, compassion, empathy, violence " they make more sense and are proved to do so where natural, imperfect mere mortals with short life-spans using secular thinking to try to get by with one another. The coin toss method cannot say the same thing.