Ah well, easy come, easy go.

I notice many theists make morality much more complicated than it needs to be.

I don't quite get the desire to be firmly under some giant thumb, either.

(January 6, 2015 at 4:36 pm)robvalue Wrote: I notice many theists make morality much more complicated than it needs to be.

I don't quite get the desire to be firmly under some giant thumb, either.

It starts from a premise they never seem prepared to justify "X requires special justification," where special justification can be dressed up in any number of inapplicable terms, like objective, or ultimate, or what have you. That premise lets them pretend that morality is some baffling, pseudo-mystical thing that exists beyond conscious experience as some objective quantity in and of itself. It never seems to occur that, outside of their own presupposed perspective this premise isn't as obviously true as they seem to think it is, but it also has some interesting unspoken corollaries that the theist making the argument seems unwilling to stray from their initial premise to entertain.

For example, morality apparently has no benefits or even effects on the real world to the theist, such that one would want to utilize it; you can see that in Steve's arguments, where every rational consequence of adopting a moral system is dismissed as ungrounded because there is no ultimate grounding, as though those effects cease to exist if it doesn't stem from magic. The fact that Steve seems to think of morality as a quantity removed from human experience, that exerts no pull on people beyond that it is funneled to us via god is a position that's interesting in itself, with plenty of implications worth exploring, but he seems uninterested in even acknowledging that it exists.

After all, this starts with an unjustified premise; it isn't about interrogating morality itself, but picking holes in a brand of morality that the theist himself doesn't adhere to.

(January 6, 2015 at 1:52 pm)*steve* Wrote: So, with this decision made, a theology can begin to be fleshed out as follows. An aspect monism says that God is the One and that all things are aspects of the One. This has several consequences. First it means that God has a Life. Our lives and that of all things are aspects of God’s Life. It also says there is a communion of all things within the One.

I think you skipped a step.

(January 5, 2015 at 11:28 pm)*steve* Wrote: Why use what is normative as a defense? Why not just what I want?

Because it's likely to see you into a hole in the ground pretty quickly.

You see, morality was evolved by social animals in order to lubricate their social interactions. If you act in a way that the majority judge immoral, you will lose status, freedom, or even life to the group, as they assess their collective judgement.

The fact that morality is relative and subjective doesn't mean it is fallacious, which seems to be your unqiestioned assumption.

(January 6, 2015 at 3:11 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(January 6, 2015 at 3:05 pm)*steve* Wrote: I'll say goodbye.

I don't think anyone saw this coming.

I did.

Makes no difference to me.

Never responded to my posts anyway and came off as a total pompous ass. I thought people were mostly pretty fair and tolerant given his total inflexibility in wanting to have everything on his terms. I'm glad he found the exit.

Is it rude to say, I don't give a shit one way or the other?