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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 3:04 am
(This post was last modified: February 22, 2015 at 3:06 am by robvalue.)
If objective morality exists, independent of God even, then it is just arbitrary. It also doesn't care about context, nor a changing society.
It also doesn't care about whether it helps or harms anyone. It can say something is "good", because it's part of this objective moral code, while the action leads only/mainly to suffering.
The only way to discover if these "objective truths" are actually beneficial or harmful to individuals and to society is to compare them to our own standard. Otherwise we are acting under the dictatorship of... nothing! Not even God apparrently. Why should we do that?
And this means God is judging us by a standard he had nothing to do with. Even his opinion of what is moral and immoral is irrelevant. He cannot change the code. That means he may be punishing us for stuff he doesn't even think is wrong.
Can you give us an example of some objective moral truths? And also, what does "moral" actually mean to you?
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 3:15 am
(February 19, 2015 at 5:51 pm)robvalue Wrote: Was it righteous to command the slaughter of entire cities, and have the virgins kept alive for "booty"?
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 5:55 am
We really have to agree on what "morality" means. There seem to be two popular variants, which have nothing to do with each other:
1) An assessment of the effect of actions upon the wellbeing of individuals and society, weighing up positive and negative
2) What god finds acceptable and unacceptable
This new "objective morality" definition doesn't fit into either of those categories, as god is not free to decide what it acceptable and what is not. Instead we have:
3) An arbitrary set of rules
Again, this has nothing to do with definition (1).
To me, the only morality that matters is definition (1). If you wish to argue why we should ignore this definition, and not care about the help/harm assessment of actions, I'd be interested to hear why.
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 11:20 am
(This post was last modified: February 22, 2015 at 11:20 am by The Reality Salesman01.)
Beyond 1, I can't imagine a definition of morality that could have any worthwhile definition, and I'm sick of being challenged to define an alternate form of moral relevance by a bunch of Euthyphros. .
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm
(February 22, 2015 at 2:10 am)Surgenator Wrote: O look, you defined it here. I partially agree with this definition of objective. This definition doesn't work well when describing objective laws since a "strict adherence to the dictates [..] of the law" is circular. How about we define objective-moral-law as the application of a rule for a given situation where the situation and punishment do not depend who, where or when the situation partook?
Quote: "Objective law in terms of administration" is where we are having the disagreement. I do not see how the source of idea will make the idea always subjective. The source doesn't matter to me at all. All that matters is if it is applied equally and consistently, everywhere and every time.
(February 21, 2015 at 11:05 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: Definition of absolute.
Correction: objective law? Eh...I don't like that phrasing.
Objective can have two meanings.
Ontological: What there is to know...
Epistemological: How you know...
You can know something objectively in the epistemological sense, which is to say that the process that guided you to your understanding was free of bias, informed by evidence, and still subject to being proven false.
I'm afraid the disagreement will have to stand. I cannot separate God from the eternal objective law. As I said a couple of times now, the relationship is a mystery to me, but I nevertheless believe there is a bond there that cannot be broken. If I appear irrational to you, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. It appears that is the natural occurrence to difference to being a believer as opposed to an atheist.
You say: "How about we define objective-moral-law as the application of a rule for a given situation where the situation and punishment do not depend who, where or when the situation partook?"
I'm ok with that except that the word "application" implies and applier. To me, in terms of an eternally objective moral law, that means God.
I find what the other responder said to be very interesting. Ontology is "the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such." (from the dictionary) In this case, the existence of God which I believe in and you do not. There's the rub. We will not be able to come to an agreement because of that fact.
From an epistemological perspective, I rely on the coherence theory of knowing as opposed to the foundational theory. I accept the eye witness accounts of God as recorded by prophets in the standard canon of the LDS faith as evidence. It wasn't empirical evidence to me, but it was empirical to the prophets who recorded it. Coherence theory allows a claim as evidence on the grounds, that as the name implies, it is coherent, consistent, cohesive or in other words, the story holds together because its many facets support each other. I see LDS canon as complying with that requirement. Accordingly, I see the evidence for God and an eternally objective moral law to be a conclusion I can draw from that evidence.
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 12:42 pm
(This post was last modified: February 22, 2015 at 1:47 pm by robvalue.)
Ether: Are you consciously ignoring all my posts, just out of interest?
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 1:23 pm
(February 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm)ether-ore Wrote: It appears that is the natural occurrence to difference to being a believer as opposed to an atheist.
Uh, what?
(February 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm)ether-ore Wrote: You say: "How about we define objective-moral-law as the application of a rule for a given situation where the situation and punishment do not depend who, where or when the situation partook?"
I'm ok with that except that the word "application" implies and applier. To me, in terms of an eternally objective moral law, that means God.
No, the moral agent is the person doing the deed. The moral agent applies his or her morality to a situation.
The alternative implied by this comment of yours is that no human action has a moral dimension, and I'm pretty sure you don't believe that.
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 2:03 pm
(February 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm)ether-ore Wrote: I'm afraid the disagreement will have to stand. I cannot separate God from the eternal objective law. As I said a couple of times now, the relationship is a mystery to me, but I nevertheless believe there is a bond there that cannot be broken. If I appear irrational to you, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. It appears that is the natural occurrence to difference to being a believer as opposed to an atheist.
Surely you can see how completely unsatisfying, unconvincing, and hollow that answer is? "I don't know any of the details, but I believe X, and that's the end of it."? Would you find that okay if we answered like that?
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 2:50 pm
I seem to remember Ether posting that he's not here to change minds.
Given the unconvincing nature of what he writes, probably a wise approach.
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RE: Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral
February 22, 2015 at 4:16 pm
(February 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm)ether-ore Wrote: (February 22, 2015 at 2:10 am)Surgenator Wrote: O look, you defined it here. I partially agree with this definition of objective. This definition doesn't work well when describing objective laws since a "strict adherence to the dictates [..] of the law" is circular. How about we define objective-moral-law as the application of a rule for a given situation where the situation and punishment do not depend who, where or when the situation partook?
Quote: "Objective law in terms of administration" is where we are having the disagreement. I do not see how the source of idea will make the idea always subjective. The source doesn't matter to me at all. All that matters is if it is applied equally and consistently, everywhere and every time.
(February 21, 2015 at 11:05 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: Definition of absolute.
Correction: objective law? Eh...I don't like that phrasing.
Objective can have two meanings.
Ontological: What there is to know...
Epistemological: How you know...
You can know something objectively in the epistemological sense, which is to say that the process that guided you to your understanding was free of bias, informed by evidence, and still subject to being proven false.
I'm afraid the disagreement will have to stand. I cannot separate God from the eternal objective law. As I said a couple of times now, the relationship is a mystery to me, but I nevertheless believe there is a bond there that cannot be broken. If I appear irrational to you, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. It appears that is the natural occurrence to difference to being a believer as opposed to an atheist. If God and the rules cannot be separated, you cannot know which came first. Hence, you don't know the moral rules god enforces are actually moral. Faith is your only defense.
Quote:You say: "How about we define objective-moral-law as the application of a rule for a given situation where the situation and punishment do not depend who, where or when the situation partook?"
I'm ok with that except that the word "application" implies and applier. To me, in terms of an eternally objective moral law, that means God.
So that is where your stuck. The applier and what the rule states are two different problems. I'm arguing about how the rule can be objective. Your arguing about how the administrator can be objective (maybe). Lets address one problem at a time please.
Quote:I find what the other responder said to be very interesting. Ontology is "the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such." (from the dictionary) In this case, the existence of God which I believe in and you do not. There's the rub. We will not be able to come to an agreement because of that fact.
It is not like I cannot be convinced a God exist. I just need evidence, not unsupported stories, to convince me. Are you even open to the idea that your wrong?
Quote:From an epistemological perspective, I rely on the coherence theory of knowing as opposed to the foundational theory. I accept the eye witness accounts of God as recorded by prophets in the standard canon of the LDS faith as evidence. It wasn't empirical evidence to me, but it was empirical to the prophets who recorded it. Coherence theory allows a claim as evidence on the grounds, that as the name implies, it is coherent, consistent, cohesive or in other words, the story holds together because its many facets support each other. I see LDS canon as complying with that requirement. Accordingly, I see the evidence for God and an eternally objective moral law to be a conclusion I can draw from that evidence.
Before we get too deep into philosophical distinctions, building upon mutually agreed propositions is valid with both theories of justifications. It is cleared that you want to bypass the justification of your belief in the prophets. However, internal consistency is not enough to justify anything real. If it were, the existence of super heroes are justified because the comic books are internally consistent.
I also know that there are inconsistencies in the Mormonism. I prefer not argue about these but only to point out there consistency is not something mormonism has.
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