RE: Euthyphros dilemma...
January 9, 2014 at 6:22 pm
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2014 at 6:40 pm by Get me Rex Kramer!.)
(December 30, 2013 at 10:25 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote:(December 29, 2013 at 4:20 am)Apple-Boy Wrote: Morality would be arbitrary if it was only dependent on Gods orders, because if we consider the possibility of him not existing, what we consider good isn't intrinsically good. But even with the understanding that bad things are bad without needing Gods orders shows that we can determine what's right and what's wrong ourselves. Why then do we need God to be good?
We don't.
More to the point, perhaps you're wondering why theist make the claim that God is good? In that case, I imagine it's their way of staking claim to everything good so that they can be justified in calling everything that is not their god or their religion bad. It's also a great way to convert people; "Come with us and worship the good god!"
Quote:This dilemma shows that either way, morality is an entity more superior to God, and does not depend on him whatsoever.
Did I understand that concept right?
Except morality isn't an entity.
But, as far as I am understanding you, yes: morality is independent of the dictates of a god.
The Euthyphro Dilemma says, basically, is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it's good? If something is good simply because God commands it than genocide could be a moral good upon nothing more than God's command. Most sane people recognize that genocide is a moral evil whether or not a god commands it, therefore morality is independent of any gods commands, which makes sense because there don't appear to be any gods anywhere...
(December 30, 2013 at 12:31 am)rasetsu Wrote: I didn't say I believed in it. I just said it's a religious morality that can't be duplicated by secular means. I don't believe in Karma.
Would poetic justice count as secular karma?
[/wondering]
The dilemma or paradox is not a proof for atheism: that is a misconception, and a result of forcing a modern mindset onto ancient Greece. The original argument discusses 'what the Gods like' if they were thought by the poets to disagree with each other. Neither Plato nor Socrates renounced Gods. The argument says that, just as it would be unreasonable to assert that a pious life depended upon the fiat of squabbling Gods, it would also be unreasonable to suggest that a pious life is disclosed in its entirety to unguided human reason. The former point makes a mockery of morality, the latter of practical ethics. You have to remember Socrates had a trick in mind for both sides of the dual questions he liked to ask.
tl;dr: it's not about atheism.