RE: How is the validity of this?
March 23, 2010 at 12:26 pm
(This post was last modified: March 23, 2010 at 12:29 pm by tavarish.)
(March 23, 2010 at 3:50 am)tackattack Wrote: How is the first response to this OP in anyway tiresome or pretentious.. it's fine no worries. I wasn't really looking for a point counterpoint.. more of a criticism of the logical validity and structure. I'll bat the ball for a little though.
So you're saying the idea of a moral absolute isn't useful to humans anymore? That a definitive and absolute Good is flexible.
I'll add that it isn't useful to humans, as we become more interconnected with different cultures, right and wrong can change meaning depending on region and background. I'll contend that moral absolutes were never known - the vast amount of inconsistencies in God's word and God's actions shows that not only are these not absolute, he doesn't prescribe to his own medicine. Morality is subjective - it has to be as a result of societal evolution. Values change as time progresses and the environment calls for it. There are no morals that are absolute in the sense that they are always wrong or always right.
(March 23, 2010 at 3:50 am)tackattack Wrote: Did you mean reality can be used to demonstrate mathmatical concepts? How would you demonstrate tangibly from something intangible?
By using placeholders to demonstrate a concept. I can demonstrate 2+2=4 by obtaining 2 apples, then another 2 apples, and counting them.
(March 23, 2010 at 3:50 am)tackattack Wrote: We know there are "gray areas" in reality so wouldn't Math be less useful for excluding those? Wouldn't they be variables?
Elaborate on gray areas, please.
(March 23, 2010 at 3:50 am)tackattack Wrote: I bet if I asked arcanus and Fr0d0 to sum up a God definition in a two word phrase we'd all pretty much come to the same conclusion. How is that different interpretations? By rejecting any possibility of Moral absolutes yet accepting mathmatical absolutes, isn't that hypocritical? What is an absolute? Is it having no restriction, exception, or qualification and being the sum of undiluted purity? If that doesn't define what others and I have defined on this forums as God, I don't know what is.
Arcanus, sure. Fr0d0, not so sure. I actually enjoy your topics and posts much more than him, but I digress.
Morality and mathematics are not the same. Morality at its very core is subjective, as it requires a mind for its existence. Moral absolutes presuppose a first mind (possibly a god), but as there are no known moral absolutes, there isn't a very good reason to think the latter is true.
An absolute, when talking about a truth statement, is something that would be true regardless of any factors within our universe. It would also have to be a noumenon, something which is independent of a mind.
(March 23, 2010 at 10:19 am)RedFish Wrote: ''God is like the security blanket of a child, god is no longer usefull to humans, because humans have grown up.''
Yes we have, and do you think God would not recognise this fact? I'd like to ask whether a 'security blanket' is necessary for a child, and whether the 'parent' may not have removed it when the 'parent' thought necessary. Or the child matures beyond needing it. We can destroy our own world if we so choose. All of it. All of us. Is that not proof of our 'maturity'? I think God lets us choose our own destiny these days. We have, as you said, 'grown up'.
So you would define a mature person as someone who refuses to burn his house down, but owns matches?