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Yes, yes Wiggins. I am close to understanding the naturalist view because I used to hold it, and really do get it. What you seem oblivious to is how ridiculous they look to those who have moved beyond them. You dogmatically presume them in every post you offer. You seem oblivious to Natural Law, and unwilling to even entertain it in your posts.

And the same act can be either moral, immoral or have no moral implications whatsoever depending on the communities involved. And when different communities overlap the identical act can be both moral and immoral at the same time... depending again on the perspective of that community.

Thus on the naturalist view, there is no sense saying we are better than the nazis, because as far as they are concerned they are better than us. Naturalism insists that neither of us are particularly right. Rather it merely says the moral decisions to despise jews, blame them for all ills, and exterminate them in ovens, is just as valid as mercy and understanding.

Where you had deviated from naturalism, is that you don't recognize that your embrace of empathy as the only component of morality is nonsense...as you have demonstrated yourself now. Alternatively maybe you define a special meaning for empathy that is overtly broad. But I refuse to be blinded by a word association fallacy in your arguments.

Moreover, you spend many characters building a moral case against a Christian view of morality, as if it is some how inferior. But how can one morality be inferior to another? Just as naturalism rejects free will, it rejects this notion as well, as you have demonstrated above!

” What you seem oblivious to is how ridiculous they look to those who have moved beyond them. You dogmatically presume them in every post you offer. You seem oblivious to Natural Law, and unwilling to even entertain it in your posts. “

Well, then our symmetry is perfect because I was a devoted and practicing Christian for the first 37 years of my life, and “you seem oblivious to is how ridiculous they look to those who have moved beyond” them. So perhaps our discussion is best served by not telling each other how ridiculous we all look, and actually spending time on reasoned argument.

Now... I have no problem with natural laws, but if by “Natural Law” you actually mean “Divine Law” why should I consider it? I would first expect you to give me a basis for suspecting that it actually existed , and then we could entertain it.

My own position is that the “Natural Law” of which you speak is inconsistent with objective reality, and so it deserves to be tossed into the trash heap of discredited scientific ideas along with phlogiston, orgone energy and the luminiferous aether. None of them were abandoned because they "looked ridiculous." They were abandoned because they were wrong.

”Thus on the naturalist view, there is no sense saying we are better than the nazis, because as far as they are concerned they are better than us.”

You seem to be willfully missing the point. It does not matter what they think. It matters what the community of concern thinks.

It makes perfect sense to condemn them as immoral because of the very nature and origin of morality. Do you imagine for a second that even Hitler or Goebbels would have welcomed their treatment of the Jews on themselves? Do you imagine that the Jews (members of the community also) believed the Nazis were "better than us?" Do you believe that the rest of the world (members of the community also) believed they were "better than us?" Of course not... so the immorality of their actions (as contradictions of empathy) is unquestionable.

History is filled with egregious examples of immorality gaining periodic if temporary ascendancy. This has happened under both atheistic leadership and under the banner of the cross. This is because people are, in fact, periodically immoral. This is why we have law... to codify and coerce the community as a whole into behaving morally. Remember... morality in meaningful only in a communal context. What is of moral consequence to one community is not of moral consequence to all communities.

The immoral behavior of Nazi Germany was of consequence to the entire world. So the world responded by invading Germany and destroying the Nazi regime.

See how that works?

” Naturalism insists that neither of us are particularly right. Rather it merely says the moral decisions to despise jews, blame them for all ills, and exterminate them in ovens, is just as valid as mercy and understanding. “

Naturalism insist no such thing. And I have to tell you, it is growing tiresome having to knock down one straw man after another. If you want to go start your own “naturalistic religion” with all these preconceptions you hold, have at it. But don’t expect anybody else to show them much deference.

Naturalistic philosophies are (in my opinion) far superior to any “revealed morality” in discerning wrong from right if for no other reason than they actually demand the intellectual effort to sort it out. “Revealed morality” in contrast demands slavish obedience and the purposeful suppression of natural empathy. Hence the explicitly Christian phenomenon of the Nazi Holocaust, or the Islamic genocide of the Jews of Yathrib at Muhammad’s own hand.

And I still am bemused that you want to use Nazi anti-Semitism as your exemplar for “naturalistic morality” when in fact it is a Christian phenomenon, not an atheistic one.

”Moreover, you spend many characters building a moral case against a Christian view of morality, as if it is some how inferior. But how can one morality be inferior to another? Just as naturalism rejects free will, it rejects this notion as well, as you have demonstrated above!”

Actually... this whole naturalism “rejects free will” canard is something that is pointless in this discussion. “Free will” is meaningless outside of the context of a salvation scheme in which the consequences of one’s actions in life are eternal salvation or suffering. Certainly, if God is just, such a consequence must be the ultimate fault of the judged individual, not the Judge. Otherwise, why even worry about it?

Of course, since the Islamo-Christian conception of God is internally contradictory and self refuting, “free will” becomes one of your greatest theological impossibilities. After all... “free will” cannot exist in the same universe as omniscience since they are mutually exclusive. In a universe with an omniscient God, even God Himself does not have “free will.” But perhaps that is a discussion for another thread.

Back on point... in proposing the idea that naturalism rejects the notion that one morality can be inferior to the other, you are again arguing against a figment of your own imagination. In fact naturalism has an objective (if messy) way of evaluating the relative superiority of competing moral frameworks, and it is simply a utilitarian accounting of whether or not the moral system serves its purpose.

Any community of individuals possesses shared communal interests of stability, security, justice and opportunity. And any community of individuals will experience events and instances where individual prerogatives and desires compete, impinging on those interests. Human ethics and morals are codified agreements among the members of a community designed entirely to secure those shared communal interests, at the least possible violence to the individual.

That moral system is better that does the best job of securing those interests.