The Three-legged Elephant

Okay, so our elephant is not so normal. I guess he had a birth defect and was only born with three legs, but these are the only legs he has to stand on!

(For new readers, We have often heard the comment "There is an elephant in the room". This is an idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to overlook. The elephant in our room is a metaphor for "worldview". As discussed two blogs ago, many of the problems we have and will continue to encounter in this dialogue are due to the fact that we have two very different worldviews, mine metaphysical Christianity, his metaphysical naturalism.)

As I was saying, I find three basic components to a worldview, three foundational or fundamental concepts basic to every worldview, which the rest of ones worldview stands on, hence the three-legged elephant. These are metaphysics (the study of the ultimate nature of reality), epistemology (the study of the nature and limits of human knowledge), and ethics or morality (the study of right and wrong attitudes, judgements and actions). These three legs determine how we understand and interpret every human experience.

Therefore, I thought it was great for us to be discussing "non-theistic morality" since this is one of the legs of our elephant. The more we address the elephant in the roon the better chance we have of understanding one another and learning from each other.

You said, "It is a common mistake for a christian to assume that if someone doesn't believe in a god that they have no basis for being moral." I think that you are correct in saying this (that Christians assume this), but I am not sure that I make this exact assumption. I think that you are a very moral and upstanding man though you do not believe in God. What I would say is that any non-theistic thought system cannot account for morality. This does not mean that non-theists are not moral, but that there is ultimately no logical foundation for morality in non-theism. It is kind of like math. Unbelievers use math every day, just as they use morality, but the fact that they use math does not mean that they can account for the ability to use math or account for why math works. I am sure I have made this as clear as mud.

Anyway, that being said, I don't actually want you to respond to this, I just wanted you to know where I stood. I do, however, await your first installment of why you believe that non-theists have a basis for being moral. Knowing you it ought to be great!

Have a great day my friend.