Euthyphro dilemma

[Angrboda]

You believe that because you are unable intellectually to connect meaning and purpose to a godless world, nobody else is either, and therefore a godless world is meaningless and any worldview based upon it is necessarily nihilistic.  I hate to burst your bubble, but your inability to conjure up a naturalistic answer to the question of meaning doesn't settle the matter.  All you're doing is pointing out the limits of your intellect.  That's an argument from ignorance, plain and simple.

Well, since you're not offering up any explanation for how you avoid nihilism, I put you down for the 'ignorant' category.

Sigh.  Oh no!  The bogeyman!  No, you haven't avoided nihilism with your "first principles", you've simply bogged yourself down in a dilemma you can't resolve rationally so you resort to faith based statements, arguments from ignorance, and ad hominems.

Ad hominem? If the shoe fits, wear it, babe. I see you're not trying to defend yourself against the charge of being a nihilist. Maybe because you know that's what you are. Faith-based argument? Like what? Chosing to accept the first principles you deny like, oh say, the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Y'all got nothing. Nada. No positive contribution, just jeering from the sidelines like your old pal Hume or boiling your watch while looking at an egg.

You're ignoring the fact that God's character, whatever it is, is completely arbitrary.  

Riiigghhhttt...keep telling yourself that. The self-delusion is strong in this one. The only thing that's arbitrary is your brute-fact magical universe that somehow works for no reason at all.

So, no answer for the dilemma then, huh? I didn't think so. You're a waste of time, Neo.

[Amarok]

Well, since you're not offering up any explanation for how you avoid nihilism, I put you down for the 'ignorant' category.


Ad hominem? If the shoe fits, wear it, babe. I see you're not trying to defend yourself against the charge of being a nihilist. Maybe because you know that's what you are. Faith-based argument? Like what? Chosing to accept the first principles you deny like, oh say, the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Y'all got nothing. Nada. No positive contribution, just jeering from the sidelines like your old pal Hume or boiling your watch while looking at an egg.


Riiigghhhttt...keep telling yourself that. The self-delusion is strong in this one. The only thing that's arbitrary is your brute-fact magical universe that somehow works for no reason at all.

So, no answer for the dilemma then, huh?  I didn't think so.  You're a waste of time, Neo.

He never offers an answer he just rants  his cultist dogma . And insists your a nihilist or some other false  argument from consequence. No matter how much he's shown wrong .

[Whateverist]

Naw, the circle is bigger than that.  Purplundy, Fr0d0 and Jacob Smooth come to mind and there have been a couple others besides these and the two you mention, but damned if I'm going to remember.  

Yes the circle is perhaps wider than Kingpin and CL when it comes to worthy contributions to AF.... If we're talking OFF-TOPIC STUFF but NO THEIST is capable of rationally challenging atheism. Because there is no rational defense for an imaginary friend. So let's stop humoring them.

We disagree and it isn't because I think the stupid shit that fundies believe is worth discussing.  It is because I'm interested to hear why intelligent people who disagree with me think what they do.  Just because so many fundies are idiots doesn't mean everyone who disagrees with us is an idiot.

[Neo-Scholastic]

So, no answer for the dilemma then, huh?  I didn't think so.

Not having an answer that you would accept is not the same as having no answer.

---

... but NO THEIST is capable of rationally challenging atheism.

How can anyone challenge a belief that doesn't exist? That in itself would be irrational, wouldn't it? (My guess is that just went over your head...)

[The Grand Nudger]

No one has to provide you an answer for how they escape nihilism to establish that you have not evaded a dilemma, Neo.  Even if they couldn't provide an answer..that won't mean that you've somehow escaped the dilemma.

I have to say, that's one of the most blisteringly stupid and common behaviors of shithouse apologists.  Getting caught peddling bullshit, they bitch about someone else as though it would change the fact that they were caught peddling bullshit.  My kids do that all the time, too.  I catch one of them with their hand in the cookie jar..and they use the other to point at their sibling rummaging through the fridge.

Okay buddy, your sister is in the fridge, and your hand is still in the cookie jar...so?

Or, in Neo-ese  "Oh yeah?  Well, you're a nihilist!"



Tell me, as a person who seems to think that claiming someone else is a nihilist is the end all be all response to any old thing...what intrinsic meaning to life can be claimed by a person who feels that all meaning must be assigned by a god in it's arbitrary? Perhaps, as has been commented on so often, the things we habitually accuse others of has alot to do with the hobgoblins of our own minds. You see no intrinsic value, and so accuse others of the same. You seek to escape your own nihilism by positing a god..but positing your god no more escapes nihilism than it escapes euphyros dilemma.

[Angrboda]

So, no answer for the dilemma then, huh?  I didn't think so.

Not having an answer that you would accept is not the same as having no answer.

Go die in a fire. You had your chance to explain yourself. You chose instead to be a narcissistic cunt, and wave your finger all around. What makes you think we started this thread just so you could derail it to talk about your personal bugbears? We didn't.

If I'm being charitable, the best I can interpret your answer is that you believe in a metaphysics in which things just "are" intrinsically good or bad. That things are motivated to becoming by "essences" and "natures". That God's "goodness" somehow communicates itself to the human intellect by "supernatural means". It's an incoherent mess of medieval ideas that make no sense in light of our modern understanding of cause and effect, and natural law. It's a throwback to a time when we were ignorant of the nature of things. When instead of attributing a nut growing into an oak because of DNA and physics and chemistry, we postulated mysterious "essences of oak" that caused it to develop into an oak tree. Is this the kind of cockamamie bullshit that you're postulating as an answer? Bullshit essences and magical communication? How exactly do you attach a coherent meaning to the phrase, "God is good" without invoking magic? How exactly does the communication between God's nature and the human intellect work? What's the chemical composition of an essence?

[SteveII]

The first horn was whether a thing is good because God says it is good. The entire reason that the dilemma is even discussed is that this horn leaves Christians with the uncomfortable position that God has decreed what is good (which is arbitrary). I am saying that God has not decreed what is good. I am moving one step back and explaining that God is bound by his eternal inviolable nature wrapped up in the definition of God. God decreeing what is good and God being bound by his unchanging good nature are not the same thing therefore it is a third option and the dilemma is broken. 

You're equivocating, Steve.  The original Euthyphro dilemma was presented.  You responded that it was avoided by God's goodness being a part of his nature.  I responded with a reformulation of the dilemma that applied to that case.  That is what we are discussing now.  Do try to keep up.

The version of the dilemma which we are currently discussing is: "Is God's character the way it is because it is good [horn 1] or is God's character good simply because it is God's character? [horn 2]"

That's the point. I don't have any problem with #2. It no longer is the equivalent of "it is right because God commands it". It removes the arbitrary objection. It is good because the nature of God would be the exemplification of goodness, not that his decrees would be good because of other qualities (omniscience for example) or just a desire to do good when it suited him or to achieve some other goal.

You contend that in order to get away from the first horn you need the definition of goodness to be external to God. That's clearly not the case. Since if God is bound by his nature and could not decree anything contrary, then you need to reword the horn to say the good is good because it proceeds from the eternal inviolable nature of God. Such a statement is not remotely uncomfortable for Christians.

Ignoring that you're behind a page in the argument, what you're saying now is directly contrary to the notion that your God has free will.  If your God is "bound by his nature" then he does not have free will; he is an automaton; a robot.  The moral decrees of a being without free will are, according to traditional thought, empty of moral import.  Your God cannot be the source of morals if his behavior is determined by his nature.

That God is bound to his nature is just the definition of nature. If he was not bound to his moral goodness, then it would not be a nature, it would be a preference. Free will does not mean "can do anything". One's nature would always be a limiting factor to available choices. 

Regarding why God's nature has moral significance, it's part of the definition of God to be supreme or perfect in all of his attributes.

In other words, it's just dogma.  There is no reason for your belief, it's simply what you believe.  This is what Christians inevitably retreat to when confronted with the dilemma, nothing but dogmatic assertions.   How you conceive of your God does nothing to get him off the horns of the dilemma.  I'll repeat what I said earlier, it's not a question of whether God is good, but rather why do we consider God to be good?  Retreating to "that's simply our definition of him" does nothing to answer that question.  That question leaves you with the choice repeated above, and neither horn of that dilemma results in God being a meaningful source for morals.  And you've utterly failed to provide any third option.  Instead, I get more assertions that God really, really, really, really, is good.  That doesn't feed the bulldog, Steve.

The definition of God is the greatest conceivable being.  As I have shown, there is no dilemma with such a concept. If you want to redefine God as something other than the traditional definition, go ahead. It does not apply to me. 

I think anchoring morality in an eternal unchanging nature that even God is bound by is as objective as you can get.

Something is objective if it is not influenced by the preferences or opinions of a person or being.  God's morals are definitely the opinion of a being.  That makes them subjective.  And as noted with Neo, regardless of the content of his morals, you would say the same things about him and his morals.  Your words do not refer to a specific state of affairs, but to whatever the case happens to be.  Perhaps what you mean is that God's morals "are as good as" objective.  But they demonstrably aren't "just as good" as objective, as God's morals are arbitrary and not based on anything objective.  You don't redefine the word objective by simply repeating an untrue proposition.  God's morals aren't objective, no matter how many times you say that they are.  That's just abusing the language and telling falsehoods.

I don't agree.  If part of the definition of God means that his moral nature would be the exemplification of moral goodness, that means that moral goodness has reasoning behind it. It can not be there are more than one set of exemplifications of moral goodness. God's moral nature is an objective standard.

[Whateverist]

So, no answer for the dilemma then, huh?  I didn't think so.

Not having an answer that you would accept is not the same as having no answer.

---

... but NO THEIST is capable of rationally challenging atheism.

How can anyone challenge a belief that doesn't exist? That in itself would be irrational, wouldn't it? (My guess is that just went over your head...)

Oops, you want to address that to Hammy, Neo.

Naw, the circle is bigger than that.  Purplundy, Fr0d0 and Jacob Smooth come to mind and there have been a couple others besides these and the two you mention, but damned if I'm going to remember.  

Yes the circle is perhaps wider than Kingpin and CL when it comes to worthy contributions to AF.... If we're talking OFF-TOPIC STUFF but NO THEIST is capable of rationally challenging atheism. Because there is no rational defense for an imaginary friend. So let's stop humoring them.

We disagree and it isn't because I think the stupid shit that fundies believe is worth discussing.  It is because I'm interested to hear why intelligent people who disagree with me think what they do.  Just because so many fundies are idiots doesn't mean everyone who disagrees with us is an idiot.

[Angrboda]

... but NO THEIST is capable of rationally challenging atheism.

How can anyone challenge a belief that doesn't exist? That in itself would be irrational, wouldn't it? (My guess is that just went over your head...)

My guess is that you screwed up the quote tags and fumbled the ball while trying to be clever. That was Hammy that said that, not Whateverist.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't agree.  If part of the definition of God means that his moral nature would be the exemplification of moral goodness, that means that moral goodness has reasoning behind it. It can not be there are more than one set of exemplifications of moral goodness. God's moral nature is an objective standard.

If there's a "moral goodness" which god exemplifies, in the first place, then good isn't defined by gods nature. Gods nature conforms, in that case, to an objective moral standard. That is, ofc, the other half of the dilemma.

It doesn't matter how many other creatures conform to it, if any conform to it, if god conforms to it in the first place (hello rape and genocide all over again). To be good is to conform to that standard, not to conform to god. If god is good, it is because god conforms to that standard, not because it is god.

Personally, Imma go ahead and skip the middleman. I know you're a huge fan, but it's goodness is highly suspect and, frankly, irrelevant.