Theology

[Whiskeyjack]

Right. And I believe God took great care when He made dogs and animals and plants and minerals as well. Not to sound all corny, but I think the relationship between man and a good dog is truly something that demonstrates God's desire for all of His nature. We like the companionship we each provide, and we both choose to remain loyal companions with one another. It truly is fascinating.

All that being said, man is the only being God chose to enter into a covenant with. Sure, God likes cats and maple trees too, but He chose man for that covenant. Could there be other "men" out there in some far off place? Sure, it's possible. Does that lessen the love He has for us though? No. I don't have any children of my own (obviously that I know of!), but I can't imagine loving one less simply because I have multiple children. I don't know why that would be different with God. I think He loves all of his children. But while we can truly care about our dog, dogs are obviously subservient to man. Our "relationships" can only go so far with an animal. With humans, through God, our relationships can be limitless. I don't think that's coincidental.

This reminds me of the following passage from Mere Christianity:

I have been talking as if it were we who did everything. In reality, of course, it is God who does everything. We, at most, allow it to be done to us. In a sense you might even say it is God who does the pretending. The Three-Personal God, so to speak, sees before Him in fact a self-centred, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human animal. But He says `Let us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but our Son. It is like Christ in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also like Him in Spirit. Let us treat it as if it were what in fact it is not. Let us pretend in order to make the pretence into a reality.' God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one. I daresay this idea of a divine make-believe sounds rather strange at first. But, is it so strange really? Is not that how the higher thing always raises the lower? A mother teaches her baby to talk by talking to it as if it understood long before it really does. We treat our dogs as if they were 'almost human': that is why they really become `almost human' in the end.

 

[ND NYC]

i can't even remember to say "and with your spirit" during mass instead of "and also with you"....sure hope you guys dont expect me to remember or comprehend all the info you have in this thread.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I don't think that's a fair characterization of wizards' post. The Christian view is that Jesus is the only path to salvation. Full stop. The Fall separated humanity from God, and by taking on human form and sacrificing Himself for us, Jesus cleared a path back to communion with God. Anyone can walk that path by emulating Jesus' example, regardless of whether they're aware of his existence. Keeping the Sabbath, following the 10 commandments, etc. may help Christians to follow Jesus' example, but they're not sufficient on their own to obtain salvation. Jesus scolded plenty of law-abiding Pharisees.

The Church's position is that moral truth is objective, but sin hinges on intent, and thus must be subjective. So yes, a well catechized Catholic whose conscience was competently formed is held to a higher standard than the proverbial savage. Because the former has a better understanding of that objective moral truth than the latter. Does that strike you as unfair, or illogical?

Yes. Your top paragraph resembles, to me at least, what a laissez-faire capitalist might say when they refuse to accept that income inequality is an issue. "Well look at ____, he made it all on his own! With enough hard work and discipline, anyone can do it!" Yet we both have visited the politics thread and shaken our heads because reality shows us that enough people aren't being given the best chance to succeed.

So it strikes me as both unfair and illogical that the big man would elect to not inform them of the game they are in on. Instead he plops one guy in the middle east, has the Roman Empire institute it as the state religion, spreads his religion to the New World via incorrigible explorers ultimately powered by the slave trade, etc etc etc. (Then we get back to the point that when said explorers got there, up to 90% of the natives died because they were, if you grade on a curve, genetically inferior.) That process for spreading the word of god is something I do not understand, and so I am forced to trust the entity that is asking me to believe, and I am not at this point in time able to do that.

This gets to moral formation, as mentioned above. If you genuinely don't know right from wrong, it would be unjust to hold you to same standard as someone who does. That's how our criminal justice system works (in theory), and that's how sin works as well. "Rejecting Jesus" in this context is not a one-time decision (though most Evangelicals believe that to be case), but a process by which a man learns objective moral truth and decides (through his daily actions) whether to conform his life to that truth or not.

But the difference between culture/criminal justice system/mens rea is that almost everyone knows not to do XYZ, or at least we are actively educating people on these matters, whereas it took the church ~1,500 years to have a presence in the New World to even begin to do so.

The Roman Church believes that its doctrine offers the greatest amount of religious truth available, whereby Catholics enjoy a better chance of obtaining salvation than adherents of other faiths. We're all on the same journey, so to speak, but Catholics have the best equipment, and are therefore more likely to reach their destination than others.

The Roman Church does not claim a monopoly on religious truth, or that all non-Catholics go to hell.

No. Just the best route available.

We're on the same page here.

Not true. The Church explicitly recognizes that such people exist (along with every Gentile who lived and died before Jesus' birth), and that they are saved through Jesus' death and resurrection no less than the most devout Catholic.

I expected that to be the stance. I suspect that that has not always been the case. It's kind of a moot issue because of my first paragraph though.

The Church's position is that moral truth is objective, but sin hinges on intent, and thus must be subjective.

And yet the Bible failed on the question of slavery. I mean the champions of free will couldn't put the idea of not being owned by another person in the ten commandments?

 

[Cackalacky]

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[pkt77242]

As a vocational pastor I have been digging into three questions as of late and wanted to present them to interested IE members for mutual growth. I must admit I come to this discussion with preconceived notions of the correct answers to these questions, but I do feel as though I have much more room to grow in my understanding. The questions were stirred in me as I engaged a DVD series called "True U" by Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical para church organization). I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and dialogue about the three. Humor is welcome, but please no abusing one another through hateful, degrading or belittling speech. Thanks!

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

(Since these are each huge questions that do not have simple answers feel free to tackle one at a time).

1. Possibly. Personally I am a Deist, I believe in a higher power/force but I don't believe in the Judeo Christian God.
2. It is reliable as far as it tells the story that the writers wanted to tell (besides that parts that have been changed, see the ending of Mark as a great example of changes). I would say it is more like historical fiction, it has some facts in it but generally fails at being a historical account.
3. Jesus was a real person that lived and was killed be the powers of the time. Preacher: yes. Thorn in the side of the powers of the time: yes. Son of God: not in my opinion.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

The point is that moral truth itself is objective, and the major world religions contain varying degrees of it.



One doesn't need to know how advanced his own conscience is vis a vis others in order to go about his daily life. Your conscience tells you what it tells you. A well-catechized Catholic is undoubtedly morally prohibited from a larger sphere of activity than a secular materialist. Both are judged according to their own consciences.



That's exactly what it is. If you've made a good faith effort to inform your conscience (willful blindness itself would be a sin), then the only fair standard by which to judge you is your own. A man who does evil unknowingly has committed no sin.

Noble Eightfold Path
Right action


The Noble Eightfold Path (Pāli: Ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo; Sanskrit: Ārya 'ṣṭāṅga mārgaḥ; Chinese: 八正道, Bāzhèngdào;
Japanese: 八正道, Hasshōdō, Thai: อริยมรรคแปด, Ariya Mugg Paad, Mongolian qutuɣtan-u naiman gesigün-ü mör) is, in the teachings of the Buddha, declared to be the way that leads to the end of dukkha, or suffering, in Nibbana. Essentially a practical guide of bringing about right perspective, ethical and meditative discipline, the Noble Eightfold Path forms the fourth part of the Four Noble Truths, which have informed and driven much of the Buddhist tradition.
As the name indicates, there are eight elements in the Noble Eightfold Path, and these are divided into three basic categories[1] as follows:
• Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)
1. Right view
2. Right intention
• Ethical conduct (Sanskrit: śīla, Pāli: sīla)
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
• Mental discipline (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
In all of the elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, the word "right" is a translation of the word samyañc (Sanskrit) or sammā (Pāli), which denotes completion, togetherness, and coherence, and which can also carry the sense of "perfect" or "ideal".

As far as the Roman view (distinct from the teachings of Christ). It is functional. It is entirely negative, and punitive. It is about expulsion, elimination, and exclusion, and has been for about 16-1700 years. It is clearly Paulian influence. After all, we have copies of his writings that actually predate any of the Books of the New Testament.

Erhman makes a huge distinction between the Old Testament writers, through the prophetic writings and Exodus, and the apocryphal Jewish writers, into the Second Temple period. And, clearly what sprung out of that, Christianity. A huge distinction was made in the early church.

Many early Christian dualistic sects believed that there was a God of the Jews as in the God that created the world in the Old Testament. His boss is the God of the New Testament, God of a higher spiritual world. That was the division. The devices that won out, were those the apocryphal writers used to explain troubling realities to the infant theology, pain and suffering, and all those things that appeared to be mysterious in God's will.

In other words, Erhman's to be exact, it is clear that the writers invented malicious agents in the world to explain anything bad, as it would be at odds with a kind, loving and all-powerful God. It also handled an issue of the longest losing streak in history. A heavenly reward went a long way to give hope to a people who hadn't actually won a battle since one of theirs (a shepherd boy to be exact) slew a mythological giant.

I mean that they were "ofer" against a bunch of cultures from the Hittites up through the Greeks and Romans. And when the Greek commanders ordered that pigs be slaughtered on the steps of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem . . . people must have started to wonder A) Why some people that appeared to be schmucks had all the money and how that worked if God rewarded the righteous; and B) How God could screw over his own chosen people at the hands of these absolute schmucks.

So, voilà! Heaven is born. Things went off on a tangent to follow the letter of the law in the most anal retentive way possible.

Then Jesus came. He said, I know. You followed the letter. You did the motions. But your hearts never moved. Forgetabout it. LOVE. Make yourself better. LOVE. Love those that are hard to love. LOVE. Make your own heaven here on earth. LOVE. And so on . . .

And then as soon as organized churches became uniform, the simple teachings of the (evolving) Carpenter's Church, became co-opted (held) by the Church of the Kings, (which was the rulers themselves.) And the word was withheld. Yes it was. The word was not of meatless Friday's. Or how many angles could dance on the head of a pin. (The answer is 0, angles are fictitious, and any Biblical mention of them is as a literary device.) The WORD is about making the world and ourselves a better place first. Above is a reference to a dialectic about excising the worldly pain and suffering for a higher spiritual enlightenment, which appears to be completely sympathetic with Jesus' teachings. Just for the heck of it.

 

[koonja]

Stumbled upon this thread an hour ago, now must go to bed with a fried brain, lol.

I'll have to read this thread more tomorrow. I grew up believing in God and was raised in a Christian household. As I went through high school, I started to believe that the 'Three Wise Men' were really the 'Three Wise Guys', and could see that preaching of a higher power that sees all is a really good way to ensure (or at least improve) 'good deeds' and minimize 'sins' in a community. Then again, as others have pointed out, if it was simple and obvious that God exists and following him to heaven is a sure way to make sure you have a seat when the music stops, doesn't that eliminate all of faith which is the whole point?

Sad to say, I'm currently torn on the subject. But I follow my Christian values and pray once in a while and try to live by the Golden Rule. If there's not a God and it's all for nothing, what's the worst that happened? A little time spent and some personal sacrifices for people to one day say I was a good person? I can live with that.

Reading this is very interesting. Some of the history knowledge you guys have is absurd (in a good way).

 

[ACamp1900]

The more I learn, the more fancy degrees I earn, the more I realize I have so far to go...

I'm at a well known point:

There is a God, and I'm not him.

 

[Buster Bluth]

But I follow my Christian values

Is there such a thing if moral truth is objective?

 

[koonja]

Is there such a thing if moral truth is objective?

Buster, please take this as a compliment to your knowledge and passion on the subject, because from reading through this thread it's far beyond my understanding, lol. But I'm not getting into this with you.

It would go like this:

1) Starts out with a simple but loaded question like the one above. I take the bait, and go into it with you (I get called a troll whenever I have an opinion on this site that's not status quo so I know you understand).

2) You ask good, historically based questions that some I have knowledge of.

3) I keep up with you for a bit, but eventually you keep on with historical events relating to, well history, the Bible, Christians, other religions, world events, etc, and eventually my understanding slips and you've lost me.

4) I look like a fool, don't have answers to your questions, pack it in and question my faith. And naturally, resort to Greg Bryant jokes.

 

[Cackalacky]

Is there such a thing if moral truth is objective?

I can argue they do not exist. Anything claimed to be moral and objective is a result of our sensory construct through evolutionary pressures over hundreds of thousands of years. Any objectivity comes from our deterministic approach to viewing the world.I have wrestled with eternal moral truths and the fact that Catholicism is somehow the pinnacle of these eternal truths but I just can not agree. Any discussion of such issues should include a biological perspective.

The claim that many cultures have to come to the similar conclusions can be explained through the evolution of cultures through time (convergent evolution).

Altruism can be seen in many species an groups not just humans. It serves an evolutionary purpose and therefore a natural purpose.

Self-sacrifice is another that is able to be explained by population genetics and evolution and therefore can be viewed as a natural process.

The idea that human are special as compared to other animals is intriguing to me. All organisms that currently exist have survived the same conditions we have up to this point in time. Biologically, they have no different of a position on the planet than humans do. One difference is the presence of a spinal cord connected to a central cognitive neural network which allows us to manipulate our environment. Other animals can do this as well to varying degrees however man is one of the very few animals that lives outside of the natural balance suiting the world to his wishes as opposed to living within it. So who truly is special in this regard? And I am not swayed by the "God gave us dominion over the world" claim at all. We are currently choosing to live in a culture that operates in a unsustainable manner and limits our adaptability to change. Biologically speaking, this is terrible.

I do understand that evolution may not be the most convincing argument to some people here though, but I would like to introduce it as a valuable reference point from which to base a case against moral objectivity. Even though it appears that there is some eternal nature to morals, many organisms do not operate under these same truths. Mainly because they lack the cognitive and biological activity to perform such operations.

 

[irishog77]

I can argue they do not exist. Anything claimed to be moral and objective is a result of our sensory construct through evolutionary pressures over hundreds of thousands of years. Any objectivity comes from our deterministic approach to viewing the world.I have wrestled with eternal moral truths and the fact that Catholicism is somehow the pinnacle of these eternal truths but I just can not agree. Any discussion of such issues should include a biological perspective.

The claim that many cultures have to come to the similar conclusions can be explained through the evolution of cultures through time (convergent evolution).

Altruism can be seen in many species an groups not just humans. It serves an evolutionary purpose and therefore a natural purpose.

Self-sacrifice is another that is able to be explained by population genetics and evolution and therefore can be viewed as a natural process.

The idea that human are special as compared to other animals is intriguing to me. All organisms that currently exist have survived the same conditions we have up to this point in time. Biologically, they have no different of a position on the planet than humans do. One difference is the presence of a spinal cord connected to a central cognitive neural network which allows us to manipulate our environment. Other animals can do this as well to varying degrees however man is one of the very few animals that lives outside of the natural balance suiting the world to his wishes as opposed to living within it. So who truly is special in this regard? And I am not swayed by the "God gave us dominion over the world" claim at all. We are currently choosing to live in a culture that operates in a unsustainable manner and limits our adaptability to change. Biologically speaking, this is terrible.

I do understand that evolution may not be the most convincing argument to some people here though, but I would like to introduce it as a valuable reference point from which to base a case against moral objectivity. Even though it appears that there is some eternal nature to morals, many organisms do not operate under these same truths. Mainly because they lack the cognitive and biological activity to perform such operations.

Ok. So you're supposing there isn't moral truth...but objective truths (mathematics, for example) still exist? Just trying to clarify.

 

[Cackalacky]

I am saying that a truth defined as moral is subjective firstly based upon the condition/ environment in which it exists. Only then does the truth have the ability to be determined to be objectively defined.

A typical "morally objective truth" is that murder is inherently wrong. To the extreme the Holocaust was morally wrong. This position is defined first by a person based on the culture they lived in, which if you are Ahmendijhad sp. or other anti-zionists, it might not have been. So at its base, six million humans were killed by a smaller group of humans. We as humans routinely and collectively kill billions of organisms through our actions but that is an acceptable action and not morally wrong.

Secondly it is next defined on the structure of a societal and legal frame work. We define what murder is versus capital punishment to varying degrees based on a set of varying rules. There are tiers to this as well because one person killing another may or may not be justified with the context of our society. How about if an insane person kills another person? What about a person with Alzheimer's. We may not execute them as a murderer, only separate them from the rest of us. Both are equally acceptable actions even though a person was killed and these person all have varying cognitive capacities or mental states. We also observe this in animals such as primates and other higher order social biological entities but not among lower level or solitary animals. I mean in each of us we have millions of macrophages devouring potentially harmful things in our blood every minute. Yet that is not defined to be murder, or wrong, or inherently even remotely evil, but beneficial. There is a subjective context to this at its base and we define what that is, through our culture.

This has an important social and evolutionary role for us and other social organisms, but for the remainder of the organisms on this planet, it is just survival.

And yes there are objective truths, I am arguing morals may not be and probably are not.

There goes the Trinity Good Spirit award

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Here is an example, though it may stir controversy.

A Catholic Priest puts his efforts into baptizing peasants, instead of helping with their medical needs, and feeding them. Today this seems to fit as morally appropriate behavior, based upon what any of us know.

However tomorrow we find out there is no God, no heaven, nothing; or even today, to someone of another culture who does not know our beliefs, someone who only believes in reincarnation, based upon the way he or she was raised - the off-putting of the satisfaction of basic corporal needs could be considered an immoral act.

Everyone could agree with equanimity that comforting the hungry or sick is universally good.

Not everyone may agree that putting religion ahead of ones basic corporal needs is good.

The argument about whether there is an objective morality, then what it is, is central to any debate between a theist and a non theist, or a deist and a non-deist.

 

[Cackalacky]

Here is an example, though it may stir controversy.

A Catholic Priest puts his efforts into baptizing peasants, instead of helping with their medical needs, and feeding them. Today this seems to fit as morally appropriate behavior, based upon what any of us know.

However tomorrow we find out there is no God, no heaven, nothing; or even today, to someone of another culture who does not know our beliefs, someone who only believes in reincarnation, based upon the way he or she was raised - the off-putting of the satisfaction of basic corporal needs could be considered an immoral act.

Everyone could agree with equanimity that comforting the hungry or sick is universally good.

Not everyone may agree that putting religion ahead of ones basic corporal needs is good.

The argument about whether there is an objective morality, then what it is, is central to any debate between a theist and a non theist, or a deist and a non-deist.

Helping altruistically is good for humans and other social animals so far as the help being received is observed to be beneficial. But this does not extend into the lower taxa of animals or solitary animals. And also I could claim that echinacea, by its ultimate death, helps me by soothing my sore throat after I grind it up and make tea with it. The flower has no idea what happened.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Helping altruistically is good for humans and other social animals so far as the help being received is observed to be beneficial. But this does not extend into the lower taxa of animals or solitary animals. And also I could claim that echinacea, by its ultimate death, helps me by soothing my sore throat after I grind it up and make tea with it. The flower has no idea what happened.

What the fuck are you talking about?

And what does it have to do with any kind of objective morality?






{I am laughing}

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Yes. Your top paragraph resembles, to me at least, what a laissez-faire capitalist might say when they refuse to accept that income inequality is an issue. "Well look at ____, he made it all on his own! With enough hard work and discipline, anyone can do it!" Yet we both have visited the politics thread and shaken our heads because reality shows us that enough people aren't being given the best chance to succeed.

You and I can both see how few winners and how many losers our current economic system is producing, and condemn it on those grounds. Do you know how many non-Christians are finding salvation after death? Without that type of data, this comparison isn't very apt.

So it strikes me as both unfair and illogical that the big man would elect to not inform them of the game they are in on. Instead he plops one guy in the middle east, has the Roman Empire institute it as the state religion, spreads his religion to the New World via incorrigible explorers ultimately powered by the slave trade, etc etc etc. (Then we get back to the point that when said explorers got there, up to 90% of the natives died because they were, if you grade on a curve, genetically inferior.) That process for spreading the word of god is something I do not understand, and so I am forced to trust the entity that is asking me to believe, and I am not at this point in time able to do that.

But the difference between culture/criminal justice system/mens rea is that almost everyone knows not to do XYZ, or at least we are actively educating people on these matters, whereas it took the church ~1,500 years to have a presence in the New World to even begin to do so.

It's not as if humanity was utterly in the dark regarding religion and moral truths prior to the Church's founding and spread.

And yet the Bible failed on the question of slavery. I mean the champions of free will couldn't put the idea of not being owned by another person in the ten commandments?

You seem to be judging the early Church based on modern prejudices in favor of liberal democracy, capitalism, etc. You happen to be living during a period of liberal ideological hegemony, so you assume that history has ended, and we can safely condemn anyone and anything that hindered our ascent to this final peak of human development. I'd suggest that's naive and ahistorical.

As mentioned previously, Jesus did not come to re-establish Eden, and the Church does not believe that such a thing is possible. One of Christianity's great strengths is that it's essentially apolitical (see Islam for the dangers of an expressly politicized religion). The Bible's "failure" to condemn a common human political arrangement during the first few centuries AD is no more damning than it's failure to endorse feminism, capitalism, or any other pillar of liberalism.

Is there such a thing if moral truth is objective?

You seem to think so. If there's not, then arguments about the superiority of liberal democracy to other forms of government, or capitalism to other forms of economic distribution, etc. are utterly incomprehensible.

Secondly it is next defined on the structure of a societal and legal frame work.We also define what murder is versus capital punishment etc. to varying degrees based on a set of varying rules. There are tiers to this as well because one person killing another may or may not be justified with the context of our society. How about if an insane person kills another person? What about a person with Alzheimer's. We may not execute them as a murder only seprate them from the rest of us. both are equally acceptpable actions even though a person was killed and these person all have varying cognitive capacities or mental states.

This is no different than the objective truth v. subjective sin dichotomy. An actor's ignorance may prevent an immoral action from being sinful, but it is no less immoral. Similarly, an unjustified killing may be criminally excusable due to a lack of the necessary mens rea by the killer, but it is no less illegal.

And yes there are objective truths, I am arguing morals may not be and probably are not.

The most effective argument against the evolutionary origin of morals comes from its own necessary conclusions. Evolution is an arbitrary process. If that's the true source of morality, then morality has no real force. This gets back to nihilism being the only coherent philosophy to follow from materialism.

But you, Buster and hammer are clearly not nihilists, because you have argued repeatedly that certain political and economic arrangements are preferable to others based on justice and human rights. Those ideals are not defensible within the framework of materialism and nihilism. The New Athiests do this all the time-- they build a case for materialism (and therefore nihilism), but then they express a strong preference for liberal values, which came from and only make sense within the framework of Judeo-Christianity.

 

[Cackalacky]

What the fuck are you talking about?

And what does it have to do with any kind of objective morality?






{I am laughing}

The act of helping someone is not objective in itself. It is subjective initially. Whatever the help is must be done in a manner perceived not only by the helper but the helpee as a good thing. Otherwise it may not be moral, so it could remain subjective. If this act is deemed as a good thing and persists over time, then it can be viewed by the larger group as "objective."

In your example, the priest was helping in a manner he considered to be correct and moral, however the helpee did not. Subjective. Now if the priest continued in this manner, say like in the expansion of the New World, the "civilization" of Old World peoples has been objectively determined to have been a good thing, even though we now have significantly less indigenous peoples that were replaced by a culture that believes the effort was a good and moral thing to do.

The echinacea is a unlucky by-stander due to its lack of a nerve cord and self-awareness.

 

[Cackalacky]

Y
This is no different than the objective truth v. subjective sin dichotomy. An actor's ignorance may prevent an immoral action from being sinful, but it is no less immoral. Similarly, an unjustified killing may be criminally excusable due to a lack of the necessary mens rea by the killer, but it is no less illegal.

This assumes there is actually a thing that exists as sin. Outside of a handful of religions, sin is a vague term at best.

The most effective argument against the evolutionary origin of morals comes from its own necessary conclusions. Evolution is an arbitrary process. If that's the true source of morality, then morality has no real force. This gets back to nihilism being the only coherent philosophy to follow from materialism.

But you, Buster and hammer are clearly not nihilists, because you have argued repeatedly that certain political and economic arrangements are preferable to others based on justice and human rights. Those ideals are not defensible within the framework of materialism and nihilism. The New Athiests do this all the time-- they build a case for materialism (and therefore nihilism), but then they express a strong preference for liberal values, which came from and only make sense within the framework of Judeo-Christianity.

Its not arbitrary if it develops out of necessity of survival. I don't do a lot of things because it is beneficial for me and others in society not to (I am working with what I have to to survive. I likewise have experienced things from other people and with other people that have molded who I am I will not reject or deny that). Likewise, I do things I don't want to do because society says I must. I am adapting. This gets passed through cultures and is evolutionary in nature. I do not deny I was raised Catholic and in a Christian society. That in itself is a testament to what I posted above. I make no nihlist claims. I only say there is a case that can be made without injecting a higher power into the equation. Looking purely at the nature of our planet and or place in it, and without injecting sin or such, morals are highly subjective.

Liberal morals are not the wholly owned property of Judeo Christians either. They also are not immutable. They have changed considerably up to this point and will continue to do so (ie slavery). Things can arise independently and converge to a specific point (convergent evolution). Take, for example Japan. They are probably the most athiestic country in the world besides Norway. Their altrusitic behavior during the natural disaster should be exemplified. Their religious history is one of ancestor and nature worship. We can argue the influence of western culture but they exemplified morals in the absence of sin or Judeo-Christian values prior to the 1800s.

 

[wizards8507]

Whiskey, I think I agree with most of what you say theologically but then you use those beliefs to condemn free market capitalism on the teleological argument that it produces few winners and many losers. What alternative do you propose? I'm a pretty firm libertarian and I can't reconcile any political system OTHER than libertarianism with my understanding of Christianity. There is so much evil that exists in the free market but how can one be virtuous without the freedom to sin? Feel free to address this in a PM if you think it takes the thread off topic.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III using Tapatalk 4

 

[greyhammer90]

You seem to be judging the early Church based on modern prejudices in favor of liberal democracy, capitalism, etc. You happen to be living during a period of liberal ideological hegemony, so you assume that history has ended, and we can safely condemn anyone and anything that hindered our ascent to this final peak of human development. I'd suggest that's naive and ahistorical.

No we're judging God. If God was against slavery, why didn't he say so? Why not explicitly condemn rape in the 10 commandments? Because he doesn't care? Or is it this great "experiment" you keep alluding to? (Which, different talk entirely- to me seems cruel and sociopathic for someone who supposedly loves us.)

One of Christianity's great strengths is that it's essentially apolitical (see Islam for the dangers of an expressly politicized religion).

I assume you're talking about the dogma and doctrine of Christianity, because the Church has been hilariously not apolitical throughout its history.

The most effective argument against the evolutionary origin of morals comes from its own necessary conclusions. Evolution is an arbitrary process. If that's the true source of morality, then morality has no real force. This gets back to nihilism being the only coherent philosophy to follow from materialism.

But you, Buster and hammer are clearly not nihilists, because you have argued repeatedly that certain political and economic arrangements are preferable to others based on justice and human rights. Those ideals are not defensible within the framework of materialism and nihilism. The New Athiests do this all the time-- they build a case for materialism (and therefore nihilism), but then they express a strong preference for liberal values, which came from and only make sense within the framework of Judeo-Christianity.

Why is nihlism a bad word? Certain political and economic arrangements are preferable because our society and perspective within it have taught us that humans deserve to be treated with respect. Because otherwise would likely hurt us or people we care about in the long run.

Therefore, it is morally bad to kill someone not because morality is a real thing, but because the system we rely on and believe in through our own experiences say it is bad and we can see why that would harm our system. This is one of the things I can never understand about what people seem to say/think about nihilism. It is in its own way a morality. You just assume that morality is a man made construct rather than a force of nature. It is certainly not this:

 

[Irish Houstonian]

Ok. So you're supposing there isn't moral truth...but objective truths (mathematics, for example) still exist? Just trying to clarify.

I'd say that's about right. What's "moral" is just a matter of preferences and perspective -- there's nothing objectively correct or incorrect about any moral position. Preferable? Yes. "Correct"? No.

Math, on the other hand, has been constructed in such a manner that it is true by definition.

 

[Cackalacky]

Whiskey, I think I agree with most of what you say theologically but then you use those beliefs to condemn free market capitalism on the teleological argument that it produces few winners and many losers. What alternative do you propose? I'm a pretty firm libertarian and I can't reconcile any political system OTHER than libertarianism with my understanding of Christianity. There is so much evil that exists in the free market but how can one be virtuous without the freedom to sin? Feel free to address this in a PM if you think it takes the thread off topic.

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Interesting and I have been kind of holding on to something that this question hits. Why is it we as a society expect and almost request responsible behavior with respect to others in all aspects of society, except corporations or capitalism? Its like for all of the people:

Capitalism is amoral by its nature and when a corporation does harmful things to people or the environment its like:

Why is it not reasonable to expect corporations to behave responsibly when interacting with society and the environment?

 

[Cackalacky]

I'd say that's about right. What's "moral" is just a matter of preferences and perspective -- there's nothing objectively correct or incorrect about any moral position. Preferable? Yes. "Correct"? No.

Math, on the other hand, has been constructed in such a manner that it is true by definition.

I would only add that math is true within a set of given axioms just as a logical argument is. Even arithmetic is only applicable with in a clearly defined set of rules and is generally held to be true.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

I would only add that math is true within a set of given axioms just as a logical argument is. Even arithmetic is only applicable with in a clearly defined set of rules and is generally held to be true.

Right, but the 'axioms' in a moral argument are really just preferences. It's like "World Peace is Something We Should Get" rather than "Let a single unit of something be represented by the digit 1".

 

[Cackalacky]

Right, but the 'axioms' in a moral argument are really just preferences. It's like "World Peace is Something We Should Get" rather than "Let a single unit of something be represented by the digit 1".

Bingo.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Its not arbitrary if it develops out of necessity of survival.

Why is survival preferable to extinction on evolution's own terms? It's a blind arbitrary process. You need some other basis for preferring life to death, order to chaos, light to dark, etc. The only "morality" evolution has to offer is that of the strong over the weak.

I make no nihlist claims. I only say there is a case that can be made without injecting a higher power into the equation.

Yes, there is a case, though that case necessarily implies nihilism.

Liberal morals are not the wholly owned property of Judeo Christians either. They also are not immutable. They have changed considerably up to this point and will continue to do so (ie slavery).

The entire edifice of Western civilization, including liberal ideology, was founded on Christianity. And of course its not immutable. But it would be inconceivable without Christianity, and I don't believe it will persist long in the absence of widespread Christian values either.

Their religious history is one of ancestor and nature worship. We can argue the influence of western culture but they exemplified morals in the absence of sin or Judeo-Christian values prior to the 1800s.

I have never argued that Christianity has a monopoly on moral truth. The eastern tradition of ancestor worship is very similar to the Communion of the Saints.

Whiskey, I think I agree with most of what you say theologically but then you use those beliefs to condemn free market capitalism on the teleological argument that it produces few winners and many losers. What alternative do you propose? I'm a pretty firm libertarian and I can't reconcile any political system OTHER than libertarianism with my understanding of Christianity. There is so much evil that exists in the free market but how can one be virtuous without the freedom to sin? Feel free to address this in a PM if you think it takes the thread off topic.

I don't believe there's a feasible alternative to it. To paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst economic system, except for all the others. If American rediscovered federalism and the Antitrust Division started doing its f*cking job, we'd be in much better shape.

No we're judging God. If God was against slavery, why didn't he say so?

Why didn't Jesus describe God's favorite economic system? Jesus didn't touch on a whole lot of subjects. His "new" law-- (1) love God with your whole heart; and (2) treat your neighbor as yourself-- neatly covers everything required for an individual to find salvation, which is the entire point of existence anyway.

Even if he had tipped us off about liberal democracy, capitalism, etc. and warned us about fascism, race-based slavery, etc., humanity just would have found other ways to f*ck up instead.

Why not explicitly condemn rape in the 10 commandments?

Rape, as it would have been understood to the ancient Hebrews, is covered under "You shall not commit adultery." Of course this doesn't cover marital rape, but that would have been inconceivable to a people living thousands of years before feminism came in existence.

Or is it this great "experiment" you keep alluding to? (Which, different talk entirely- to me seems cruel and sociopathic for someone who supposedly loves us.)

Evil is an unavoidable byproduct of free will. Perhaps you can conceive of a way God could have made us both free and incapable of evil, but I can't. Regardless, this is a question which no one can answer.

And how it is cruel? If human souls really are eternal, our lives here on our earth are over in the relative blink of an eye. Unless a lot of people aren't finding salvation in the afterlife, I don't see how the cruelty of this system can be assumed.

Why is nihlism a bad word? Certain political and economic arrangements are preferable because our society and perspective within it have taught us that humans deserve to be treated with respect. Because otherwise would lead hurt us or people we care about in the long run.

You really think simply asserting human rights is enough to secure their protection? I don't believe it is.

Therefore, it is morally bad to kill someone not because morality is a real thing, but because the system we rely on and believe in through our own experiences say it is bad and we can see why that would harm our system.

Is that supposed to restrain the strong and protect the weak? This wishy-washy talk about systems and human experience? Hospitals, universities, soup kitchens, etc... all of that originated with Christianity (Nietzche's "Peasant Revolt"). The very concept of human rights, and almost all of the mechanisms by which we care for the sick, the poor, and the weak, etc. are rooted in Judeo-Christian values. Once you kick that away and argue that morality isn't based on anything objective, you've basically stepped into the void. The apparent "usefulness" of morality isn't going to help restrain the self-interest of the strong one bit.

This is one of the things I can never understand about what people seem to say/think about nihilism. It is in it's own way a morality. You just assume that morality is a man made construct rather than a force of nature.

I disagree. Ideas have consequences; and the proposition that morality is little more than an arbitrarily evolved herd instinct instead of something for which every man must eventually account is a dangerous one.

 

[Cackalacky]

Whiskey jack, maybe we mean arbitrary in different ways but the process if natural selection and therefor evolution is non-random. Population dynamics, gene flow and other important evolution concepts tend to be fairly common and arising in different ways leading to a similar solution (again convergence).

Because natural selection can produce amazing adaptations, it's tempting to think of it as an all-powerful force, urging organisms on, constantly pushing them in the direction of progress — but this is not what natural selection is like at all.

First, natural selection is not all-powerful; it does not produce perfection. If your genes are "good enough," you'll get some offspring into the next generation — you don't have to be perfect. This should be pretty clear just by looking at the populations around us: people may have genes for genetic diseases, plants may not have the genes to survive a drought, a predator may not be quite fast enough to catch her prey every time she is hungry. No population or organism is perfectly adapted.

Second, it's more accurate to think of natural selection as a process rather than as a guiding hand. Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity — it is mindless and mechanistic. It has no goals; it's not striving to produce "progress" or a balanced ecosystem.

Evolution does not work this way.

This is why "need," "try," and "want" are not very accurate words when it comes to explaining evolution. The population or individual does not "want" or "try" to evolve, and natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism "needs." Natural selection just selects among whatever variations exist in the population. The result is evolution.

At the opposite end of the scale, natural selection is sometimes interpreted as a random process. This is also a misconception. The genetic variation that occurs in a population because of mutation is random — but selection acts on that variation in a very non-random way: genetic variants that aid survival and reproduction are much more likely to become common than variants that don't. Natural selection is NOT random!

Also the definition of arbitrary indicates a whim or randomness. As provided above by UC Berkely gene mutations occur randomly but the selection of these are not. I think arbitrary is an unfair characterization.

I would also like to add that I do not agree that moral subjectivism is equivalent to moral nihilism. I acknowledge morals exist.


Survival is massively important. The amount of energy used by organisms for reproduction is quite impressive. That does not imply a moral preference only a natural one and one that has been selected for. Reproductive strategies that are very deterministic vary massively as well.

 

[greyhammer90]

Is that supposed to restrain the strong and protect the weak? This wishy-washy talk about systems and human experience? Hospitals, universities, soup kitchens, etc... all of that originated with Christianity (Nietzche's "Peasant Revolt"). The very concept of human rights, and almost all of the mechanisms by which we care for the sick, the poor, and the weak, etc. are rooted in Judeo-Christian values. Once you kick that away and argue that morality isn't based on anything objective, you've basically stepped into the void. The apparent "usefulness" of morality isn't going to help restrain the self-interest of the strong one bit.



I disagree. Ideas have consequences; and the proposition that morality is little more than an arbitrarily evolved herd instinct instead of something for which every man must eventually account is a dangerous one.

Well religions creating charitable organizations doesn't really matter for me in this conversation unless I missed your point entirely. Because religion is just as much a social evolutionary phenomenon as anything else.

Beyond that though, so if tomorrow the impossible happens, and humans definitively determine that God isn't real and that morality isn't an actual thing except a subjective system of societal principles, you would say that this would be dangerous for you?* Why? I honestly don't think it would change how I acted at all if I realized I never had to "account" for anything. I just want to be a good person and contribute to this life the best way I can and make it a cool ride for everyone. Why is that so dangerous?

*I have to assume that you're talking about yourself because to assume that you could handle it and no one else could would be not match your character.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Whiskey jack, maybe we mean arbitrary in different ways but the process if natural selection and therefor evolution is non-random. Population dynamics, gene flow and other important evolution concepts tend to be fairly common and arising in different ways leading to a similar solution (again convergence).

Also the definition of arbitrary indicates a whim or randomness. As provided above by UC Berkely gene mutations occur randomly but the selection of these are not. I think arbitrary is an unfair characterization.

I would also like to add that I do not agree that moral subjectivism is equivalent to moral nihilism. I acknowledge morals exist.

Survival is massively important. The amount of energy used by organisms for reproduction is quite impressive. That does not imply a moral preference only a natural one and one that has been selected for. Reproductive strategies that are very deterministic vary massively as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but evolution is the result of genetic mutation (completely random) and environmental pressures (not random, but also not a very compelling basis for deciding which humans live and which ones die). Its result is to ensure that only the most fit survive. It assigns no value to those individuals who aren't strong or smart enough to reproduce (or "contribute" to society).

Compare that to the Christian view which asserts that every human life, regardless of his or her luck in the genetic lottery, is equally valuable. Do you not see how those divergent pictures of morality would end up with vastly different conceptions of justice?

Well religions creating charitable organizations doesn't really matter for me in this conversation unless I missed your point entirely. Because religion is just as much a social evolutionary phenomenon as anything else.

Beyond that though, so if tomorrow the impossible happens, and humans definitively determine that God isn't real and that morality isn't an actual thing except a subjective system of societal principles, you would say that this would be dangerous for you?* Why? I honestly don't think it would change how I acted at all if I realized I never had to "account" for anything. I just want to be a good person and contribute to this life the best way I can and make it a cool ride for everyone. Why is that so dangerous?

It wouldn't be dangerous for us as individuals (at least not immediately), but for society in general. If, as you've proposed, everyone ceased believing in objective morality tomorrow, we would probably muddle along just fine for a while. Similarly to how the West has continued to free ride on the accumulated capital of its Christian heritage despite the dechristianization that has been going on for the past 100 years or so. But everything that was built upon that Christian foundation-- liberal democracy, human rights, etc.-- would start to erode. Evil philosophies like eugenics and fascism would begin to take their place, because we'd have traded the idea that "every human being has worth" for "only the strong ought to survive".

We're seeing some of this already, though it's been a more gradual process. I don't see much hope for reversing it.