Deconversion and some doubts

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The ought is derived from understanding an ideal... a better than/worse than thing... once you understand that there is "a good" the ought naturally follows from that.

That doesn’t follow. It can stem from an obligation to be like that ideal, but not from merely understanding what the ideal is. I may understand what an ideal basketball player is, but that doesn’t mean I ought to be like him.

You could describe in full detail what an ideally good person would look like to you, nothing in those details obligate me to be like such a person.

Now, Christians like myself would define the moral ideal as Christ, in fact a common moral criticism of Christians, even by non-christians, is how un-Christ like they are. Does this mean we all ought to be Christlike? That you as a non Christian have an obligation to be Christlike?

Most are found in Plato's Republic. I don't recall Plato ever arguing that morality has anything to do with any god in that book. In fact, he argues the opposite in Euthyphro. But I'm also aware that many Christian Platonists loved to shove their God into that book. That book had nothing to do with their God, Jesus, or "what was written on men's hearts." To Plato, morality is a matter of letting reason control the appetites.

This is Plato‘s description of the Good, from the Allegory of the Cave:

“ the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.”


Plato unlike what you might say of Spinoza explicitly subscribed to a teleological view of reality, in fact he’s one of the originators of the term. His views of morality, good are entirely built on teleological assumptions about reality.

Do you share Plato’s teleological beliefs, or do you reject them, and believe you can keep his moral views intact absent of it?

I’d say doing so would render his views about morality as incoherent, but I just want to be clear as to where you stand on the question of teleology here? I think you are an outlier among other unbelievers here, and I prefer to be careful not to make too many assumptions as to what you do or don’t believe.

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If I subscribe to some goal such as I ought not harm others. Then if x is harmful to others, it can be said that I ought not do x, as a result.

But if I had no such goal, there’s no ought to derive from x is harmful to others. It’s not based on x being harmful to others, that I ought not to do x,  it’s based on the goal being not to harm others.

And who do you think comes up with these goals, besides humans? Whatever divinely sanctioned "ought" there may be out there, it's not evident at all and isn't necessary. As far as us human beings are concerned, atheists and theists alike, our oughts develop from us, consciously/subconsciously, mainly societally/culturally but also individually. What is so hard to accept about this from a logical perspective? The world/system doesn't need to be perfect for it to be doing ok.

I don’t accept it because it’s not true. I didn’t decide that I ought not steal, nor did society or culture impose such an obligation, because it has no such moral power to do so, anymore than it does in obligating you to tuck your shirt in, or keep your hair short, or avoid tattoos.

Hardly anyone would say that the holocaust is wrong because society/culture says it. They would say it’s wrong even if their society didn’t think it was.

Society is sort of like the Twitter verse, if you were to follow their advice on what it means to be good, you’d be worse off, a cartoon of a man, more a phony than good.