My views on objective morality

[LadyForCamus]

The Euthypro Dilemma is what I've already been describing (though I didn't know it was called that until I looked it up)...

Many scholars believe that Plato’s Euthyphro is one of his first. Its early chronological position may explain why the Socratic dialog ends without resolution to the problem it raises, whether deeds are good because the gods approve or whether the gods approve of some deeds because they are good. This may also explain why so many atheists mistakenly believe the dilemma conclusively shows that divinity cannot be objectively grounded. What it really shows is that such atheists fail to consider the dilemma within the context of subsequent dialogs.

Plato presented the so-called Euthyphro dilemma in order to clear the way for his concept of The Good as the solution to the dilemma. The Good is a clearly monotheistic concept that was later developed and defined by pagan philosophers, like Plotinus, and Christian theologians like Augustine. The concept of The Good informs both the ontological proof of Anslem and Thomas of Aquinas’s Fourth Way. It also serves as the foundation for virtue ethics.

A cursory reading of a Wikipedia entry will give anyone the necessary history to understand the paradoxes’ place in moral theory. While it undermines simplistic notions of morality common in antiquity, it has no place in ethical theories since Plato. Only a very ill-informed atheist would rely on it to satisfy his immediate psychological need to reject in monotheistic moral claims.

So yeah, Mr. Redbeard, you did a fine job of rewriting the Wiki entry in your own words. To bad you lack the ability to understand why it's irrelevant and reveals your own ignorance.

The same goes for all of you that gave Kudos to his self-humiliation.

"Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all wrote about the issues raised by the Euthyphro dilemma, although, like William James and Wittgenstein later, they did not mention it by name. As philosopher and Anselm scholar Katherin A. Rogers observes, many contemporary philosophers of religion suppose that there are true propositions which exist as platonic abstracta independently of God. Among these are propositions constituting a moral order, to which God must conform in order to be good. Classical Judaeo-Christian theism, however, rejects such a view as inconsistent with God's omnipotence, which requires that God and what he has made is all that there is."The classical tradition," Rogers notes, "also steers clear of the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory." From a classical theistic perspective, therefore, the Euthyphro dilemma is false. As Rogers puts it, Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. God neither conforms to nor invents the moral order. Rather His very nature is the standard for value."

Get off your high horse. This is in no way indisputable evidence that the dilemma is false, or doesn't apply to monotheism. This is a rejection by a particular handful of philosophers on the grounds of: 'we think it is inconsistent with god's omnipotence, and also, God is good by nature so therefore, we refuse to accept there is any dilemma at all. Because we don't want to.'

God's supposed omnipotence (not to mention omniscience) is inconsistent throughout the entire paradigm of Christianity itself if we are following the bible as the word of God. And saying that the dilemma fails because god's nature is inherently good still leaves us with the problem of evil. And the problem of the OT.

And please, explain to me the difference between God inventing moral standards and God representing the moral standard? That sounds like a definition semantic. No one has been humiliated, so take it easy.