Um. I'd say the truth of oxygen is pretty important. It's falsehood would kind of be bad. I guess I wouldn't care without oxygen but only because I'd be too dead to care.

IMO "either you care about the truth or you don't" just means "either you care about stuff or you don't".

(November 18, 2016 at 11:53 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Um. I'd say the truth of oxygen is pretty important. It's falsehood would kind of be bad. I guess I wouldn't care without oxygen but only because I'd be too dead to care.

The truth of oxygen simply wasn't important at all until it's discovery a few hundred years ago.  People managed to live full and whole human lives.  People managed to be imperfectly happy.  Since it;s discovery (and there are still plenty of people who don't know about it, lol), I doubt that many people have given it two seconds thought and we -continue- to live full and whole human lives and be imperfectly happy.

It doesn't matter -at all- to the focus of what Igno has described as the locus of caring., the reason to care, and so..neither does it's equally pedestrian analog in god as described in this thread, by Igno.

The attempt to distinguish god from oxygen, also in this thread, was to claim that it wasn't just fundamental, but the -most- fundamental. Equally pointless and for the very same reasons. The higgs boson (before it;s discovery, after it;s discovery, if it exists, if it doesn't) lies far below oxygen, in that scheme of things, it;s being more fundamental doesn't make it any more operative in my full and whole human life or my imperfect happiness than oxygen was.

The entire line of reasoning is an attempt to prove something by fiat (and a weak attempt at that, slipping quietly back and forth between senses)...but that doesn't work, because even within the belief set and even from the authorities in that beliefset it is acknowledged that there are other ways o live a full and whole human life, to achieve imperfect happiness, and even, possibly, to achieve perfect happiness in the next life. The rebuttal offered to this was nothing more a less a restatement of the god-as-oxygen "relationship". So lets start there again, I guess.....up at the top.

It's a closed loop of failure peppered with the usual apologist asshattery, though, granted....far less of that than usual and for that at least, I'll commend Igno.

Oxygen has always been the truth, it just hasn't always been a known truth. The falsity of oxygen would be kinda bad, lol.

(November 18, 2016 at 11:48 am)Rhythm Wrote: I care whether or not "oxygen exists" is true as well, but that seems like an awfully diminutive form of caring.  As it turns out, whether or not it is true is about as relevant to whether or not this god business is true.  You can't actually provide a reason to care, in some other less-than-diminutive form, and so you present the funhouse mirror version of 

"Either you care about the truth or you don't"

It's an attempt to leverage some -other- obviously unrelated concepts attachments and transfer the credibility and positive judgement to the thing that you are incapable of articulating.  It's also a subtle form of character assassination.   This is why it fails [1]

Only to help you do your best.  To get passed the stumbling blocks common to amateur internet apologists.  If a diminutive form of caring about a meaningless form of relationship to an evil god is where we find ourselves....and it is [2] ....then I propose you haven't adequately or accurately communicated the message you have in mind, about the god you have in mind. [3]

I'm trying to help you get past the "well, some people don;t care about truth" -bullshit, that's just bog standard apologist trolling.  That's beneath both yourself, and your god, correct? [4]

1) I am afraid you've misunderstood my intention. Everyone cares about what is true. Being rational, humans can't help but care about what is true. HOWEVER, people value some truth things MORE than other true things. Hence, my formula: 

"Either the truth you acknowledge is meaningful to you, or it isn't"

In other words, people assign different amounts of meaning/importance to the things they hold true. They can't assign personal meaning/personal reason-to-care to things they don't hold true. Merely by being false, they do not carry a reason to care. For example:

Knowing the truth of oxygen and the historical lack of importance this knowledge has been to human well-being, you assign a very small amount of meaning to the truth... and you don't care "in any meaningful way" (-You, HERE) about it.

2) This is where YOU find YOURSELF and your own assessment of the proposed reality. Read what you just wrote. It is ripe with your own criteria: "a diminutive form of caring"; "A MEANINGLESS form of relationship"; "an EVIL god". 

If my description has painted an image of an "evil god", that is on me, and I have already taken responsibility for my own failings on this point.

But if you are waiting for my attempt to coerce your own judgments of the relation between god and humanity through argumentation/apologetics, you are waiting in vain.

You clearly already know about the relation between god and humanity as Catholicism presents it. So far, you've given two different assessments of that relation:

Rhythm Wrote: Goodness can't come from the god of vicarious redemption.  Only favors and exceptions to the good flow from that god.  It is only in denying it's offer that I can satisfy the good, and live that sort of imperfect happiness in this imperfect life that St. T was always babbling about. As to the perfect happiness in the next life, that one might gain if one only accepts jesus christ as lord and saviour...well, I'm incapable of doing so for ethical reasons...so I'll never get any of that..even if it does exist.

Rhythm Wrote: If it is a reality it's an irrelevant and ineffectual reality to me, and if it's not a reality, I still live.  See, doesn't matter either way.

On the one hand, if true, it would be relevant and effectual to you because "denying its offer [is the only way] that [you] can satisfy the good". Sounds pretty important.

On the other hand, if true, it would be irrelevant and ineffectual to you.

Whichever is the case, the point is that you're making a judgment of meaning about the hypothetical relationship. Either the high importance assigned to your specific response to that relationship as uniquely determining your satisfaction of the good (i.e. denying the offer it provides), or else that the relationship has no relevance for you, and therefore no relevance for your satisfaction of the good.

Given your understanding of the relationship, I'd say the former is a good judgment! If god is evil, and human reality can't but include a relation to this god, then trying to satisfy the good means a lifelong struggle AGAINST this god.<= Read that again. So what can I do? The only thing that remains is presenting a different understanding of the relationship and the god about which you MAY judge differently.

3) As I have already said many times, I agree.

4) That is not my position. My position is that everyone can't help BUT care about the truth. <= It's more of that Thomas babble. Even while caring about the truth, different people will assign different value to the things they hold true. <= Out of my, or anyone's control. 

Even so, your last sentence in your last response to Alasdair is very much appreciated. "far less of that [usual apologist asshattery] than usual and for that at least, I'll commend Igno." <= Thank you very much.

(November 18, 2016 at 11:36 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: So,

A thing has limited participation in God. That limited participation subsists as something distinct from God in which it participates? [1]

So are you saying that good things have limited participation within God, and they are themselves distinct from God, despite participating within him? [2]

What is God's subsistent-being? [3]

How could I come to know God in order to care about God? [4] (As far as I am concerned, I'd care about God if I knew of God because I'd care about knowing the truth of God... but "knowing the truth of God" is just a longer way of saying "knowing God", really. Caring about the truth of something and caring about something is the same thing, as far as I am concerned. To care that something is true is just to care that something is. "It is true that I am happy" is just a long way to say "I am happy". "True" and "false" have no meanings by themselves).

1) Yes.

2) Yes.

3) Great question. Closest things we have are: Being, Goodness, Truth, Act, etc.

4) Like I said before and Rhythm as pointed out, I only know of two ways: a) Through reason - knowledge of god as mediated through the things participating in god; b) Through "Revelation" - knowledge of god directly from god itself.

(November 18, 2016 at 11:43 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: To me "relevant reality" is a tautology. I consider something relevant if it's real. Maybe not relevant to the topic at hand, but relevant to my life. I seek the truth for its own sake and without reality truth is meaningless.

REALITY >< Logic > Passion > Meaning > TRUTH > Values > KNOWLEDGE > Purpose > Wisdom

Great! I am glad to hear it, but would you agree that you judge some aspects of realty are more "important" than others?

The thing is, if you define something in such a way that it must be happening, then it's simply a tautology. It's always true. The extra parts you then add onto this thing are what is in question, and they are not evidently true.

For example, it's true that I am me, and the way I act is the way I act, and so on. This is the law of identity, which we assume to be true for the purposes of logic. It's difficult to care about tautologies, and a thing that is defined off the back of them.

If we do grant you that these other properties you say it has are real, those are the things that would be worth caring about. So far, I'm not understanding them well enough to have an opinion. Your own experiences with this seem easily explainable by the placebo effect, and I don't know how/why you're assigning such meaning to your feelings.

This is why feelings are unreliable when it comes to finding the truth about reality. They are so wildly open to interpretation. They act as guidance to us, but we must approach them with caution if we're trying to come to concrete conclusions. A belief that something is true when it isn't can trigger the same emotions as when it is true.

(November 19, 2016 at 5:51 am)robvalue Wrote: The thing is, if you define something in such a way that it must be happening, then it's simply a tautology. It's always true. [1] The extra parts you then add onto this thing are what is in question, and they are not evidently true.

For example, it's true that I am me, and the way I act is the way I act, and so on. This is the law of identity, which we assume to be true for the purposes of logic. [2] It's difficult to care about tautologies, and a thing that is defined off the back of them. [3]

If we do grant you that these other properties you say it has are real, those are the things that would be worth caring about. So far, I'm not understanding them well enough to have an opinion. Your own experiences with this seem easily explainable by the placebo effect, and I don't know how/why you're assigning such meaning to your feelings.

This is why feelings are unreliable when it comes to finding the truth about reality. They are so wildly open to interpretation. They act as guidance to us, but we must approach them with caution if we're trying to come to concrete conclusions. A belief that something is true when it isn't can trigger the same emotions as when it is true.

1) I'm not defining it in the sense that it MUST be happening. I'm defining it in the sense that it IS happening. That is a definition, after all.

2) Is it an assumption or is it a law?

3) Well, I think you do care about the way in which you-are-you. If you-are-you through a participation in god, that may carry some meaning for you. Maybe not.

The way that I am me? I honestly don't know how I could care about that. I am me, and I know this (assuming logic works how we think it does). So it would be caring about the law of identity. Sure, I care about that. It's very important. It's an axiomatic assumption that is vital to science and philosophy. We assume it is a law that applies.

If "me being me" is manifested in some other way, or goes through some magical process or whatever, I don't care because it makes no practical difference. I'd be curious to know, but it's not important to me, as a pragmatist. If I can't detect or test it in any way, I ignore it. It's the basis of methodological naturalism.