Morality

[Neo-Scholastic]

Which leads to the next bad faith argument that these people who do not follow the law of God do so because they are in rebellion against God for loving sin too much.

Sounds harsh, yes? But how could it be otherwise? We've all done things we know we should not have done. When we make bad choices, for a moral point of view, we do so not because of some honest mistake, but because we desire it more...we desire it even if we know it is not the wise choice, like sugar. That is the corruption of the flesh. Repentance is forgoing what is false, evil and ugly and thereby choosing what is good, true and beautiful.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, I know I'm in the minority here but I regret what happened, though not much I can do about it. It was my fault and I let cynicism and paranoia get the better of me and snowball to make mountains out of molehills. At the end of the day he was a nice guy and probably one of the most liberal Christians I've ever met... I wish there were more like that... so, I fucked up and I regret saying what I said.

He used to be a nice guy.  He's changed.  He didn't use to be this shamelessly disingenuous.

One does not become less disingenuous when one becomes more religious.  Religiousness is just disingenuousness armored with a carapace of self righteous indignation

[The Grand Nudger]

Which leads to the next bad faith argument that these people who do not follow the law of God do so because they are in rebellion against God for loving sin too much.

Sounds harsh, yes? But how could it be otherwise? We've all done things we know we should not have done. When we make bad choices, for a moral point of view, we do so not because of some honest mistake, but because we desire it more...we desire it even if we know it is not the wise choice, like sugar. That is the corruption of the flesh. Repentance is forgoing what is false, evil and ugly and thereby choosing what is good, true and beautiful.

You're literally asking how it could possibly be that people make a mistake and then breathlessly asserting that we never do. I think that's an absurd premise even before you break into full christianese about it.

[emjay]

Well, I know I'm in the minority here but I regret what happened, though not much I can do about it. It was my fault and I let cynicism and paranoia get the better of me and snowball to make mountains out of molehills. At the end of the day he was a nice guy and probably one of the most liberal Christians I've ever met... I wish there were more like that... so, I fucked up and I regret saying what I said.

He used to be a nice guy. He's changed. He didn't use to be this shamelessly disingenuous.

Thing is, from my POV it's like I've been in a bit of a Mafia mindset... and it's really easy to blow things out of proportion in that case as well as succumb to confirmation bias etc. But in the cool light of day, reading through again, it doesn't seem as bad; ie that as I said I made mountains out of molehills and the reality is more like a small hill ;-) ie I still have issues but I just think I blew them out of all proportion. Granted though, my perspective was different from yours; I was not in the thick of it like you, just watching generally from the sidelines, so I don't know the intricacies of your debates like you guys do.

[emjay]

Which leads to the next bad faith argument that these people who do not follow the law of God do so because they are in rebellion against God for loving sin too much.

Sounds harsh, yes? But how could it be otherwise? We've all done things we know we should not have done. When we make bad choices, for a moral point of view, we do so not because of some honest mistake, but because we desire it more...we desire it even if we know it is not the wise choice, like sugar. That is the corruption of the flesh. Repentance is forgoing what is false, evil and ugly and thereby choosing what is good, true and beautiful.

So what if you did all that... tried to live a virtuous life according to your conscience, but not in reference to God, because you did not believe in God, what then?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Which leads to the next bad faith argument that these people who do not follow the law of God do so because they are in rebellion against God for loving sin too much.

Sounds harsh, yes? But how could it be otherwise? We've all done things we know we should not have done. When we make bad choices, for a moral point of view, we do so not because of some honest mistake, but because we desire it more...we desire it even if we know it is not the wise choice, like sugar. That is the corruption of the flesh. Repentance is forgoing what is false, evil and ugly and thereby choosing what is good, true and beautiful.

Which doesn't address the fact that there are peoples who have never heard of the 'law of God'. How is it possible to be in rebellion of something you know nothing about?

Boru

[Belacqua]

Sounds harsh, yes? But how could it be otherwise? We've all done things we know we should not have done. When we make bad choices, for a moral point of view, we do so not because of some honest mistake, but because we desire it more...we desire it even if we know it is not the wise choice, like sugar. That is the corruption of the flesh. Repentance is forgoing what is false, evil and ugly and thereby choosing what is good, true and beautiful.

So what if you did all that... tried to live a virtuous life according to your conscience, but not in reference to God, because you did not believe in God, what then?

I can answer this according to what Dante explains in the Divine Comedy. And since Dante is about 99% in accord with Thomist ethics what he says is fairly standard for Christian theology. 

According to these people, human beings all have an essence, or human nature, which is common to us all. Living a virtuous life is living in the way that is best for this nature, and allows the greatest flourishing for ourselves and others. 

Here Christian theology agrees with Plato, who wrote that we all desire what is best. We have a natural desire to live well and flourish. This is all about love, and living morally is ultimately loving the proper things in the proper amount. 

The clearest analogy is with a healthy diet. Science can tell us what is best for us to eat. This is not something we can choose for ourselves, or that differs according to society. Just because you happen to like potato chips more than anything else, and the TV commercials are telling you to eat potato chips to the exclusion of all else, doesn't mean it's healthy. Your physical nature can't be changed according to your personal taste or cultural differences. People are people. 

Ideally, we would love to eat a balanced healthy diet. I've heard people claim that if we were left alone, without advertising or artificial flavorings or whatever, we would just naturally choose all the best foods. I don't know if this is true or not, but as an analogy to Platonic ethics it's pretty good. If our personalities are not misinformed or deformed, we naturally desire to live well. 

As with a diet, other kinds of behavior have a natural balance which is determined by what human beings just are. Living morally means aiming your behavior toward that natural best outcome. Though there will be variations according to place and time, there is in fact one set of behaviors which suits human flourishing best. We are still in an ongoing debate as to many of the details. 

Immoral behavior is loving an unhealthy thing too much (as in Neo's example of sugar) or in loving healthy things too little (for example as someone who never exercises at all). Christian ethics is about loving passionately the proper things. 

People who live this way are living as "God wants." This last is in scare quotes, because it isn't really true to say that God wants anything. God is fully complete, with no lack, and so wants nothing. "God wants X" is allegorical language which means "X aims you toward what is best." 

From this you can see that people who aimed their lives toward what is best will be living in a Godly way, whether or not they've ever heard of God. Dante says specifically that when we wake up on Judgement Day, a lot of Christians are going to be surprised by who's ahead of them in line. 

As always, this theological view of things is different from the popular view of God as sky-daddy giver of arbitrary law. I've been told on this forum that I'm not supposed to talk about the more intellectual view because supposedly all the evil Christians in America don't know it. But if Dante said it so clearly then I don't think it's wrong to say that it's genuinely Christian.

[Angrboda]

So what if you did all that... tried to live a virtuous life according to your conscience, but not in reference to God, because you did not believe in God, what then?

I can answer this according to what Dante explains in the Divine Comedy. And since Dante is about 99% in accord with Thomist ethics what he says is fairly standard for Christian theology. 

According to these people, human beings all have an essence, or human nature, which is common to us all. Living a virtuous life is living in the way that is best for this nature, and allows the greatest flourishing for ourselves and others. 

Here Christian theology agrees with Plato, who wrote that we all desire what is best. We have a natural desire to live well and flourish. This is all about love, and living morally is ultimately loving the proper things in the proper amount. 

The clearest analogy is with a healthy diet. Science can tell us what is best for us to eat. This is not something we can choose for ourselves, or that differs according to society. Just because you happen to like potato chips more than anything else, and the TV commercials are telling you to eat potato chips to the exclusion of all else, doesn't mean it's healthy. Your physical nature can't be changed according to your personal taste or cultural differences. People are people. 

Ideally, we would love to eat a balanced healthy diet. I've heard people claim that if we were left alone, without advertising or artificial flavorings or whatever, we would just naturally choose all the best foods. I don't know if this is true or not, but as an analogy to Platonic ethics it's pretty good. If our personalities are not misinformed or deformed, we naturally desire to live well. 

As with a diet, other kinds of behavior have a natural balance which is determined by what human beings just are. Living morally means aiming your behavior toward that natural best outcome. Though there will be variations according to place and time, there is in fact one set of behaviors which suits human flourishing best. We are still in an ongoing debate as to many of the details. 

Immoral behavior is loving an unhealthy thing too much (as in Neo's example of sugar) or in loving healthy things too little (for example as someone who never exercises at all). Christian ethics is about loving passionately the proper things. 

People who live this way are living as "God wants." This last is in scare quotes, because it isn't really true to say that God wants anything. God is fully complete, with no lack, and so wants nothing. "God wants X" is allegorical language which means "X aims you toward what is best." 

From this you can see that people who aimed their lives toward what is best will be living in a Godly way, whether or not they've ever heard of God. Dante says specifically that when we wake up on Judgement Day, a lot of Christians are going to be surprised by who's ahead of them in line. 

As always, this theological view of things is different from the popular view of God as sky-daddy giver of arbitrary law. I've been told on this forum that I'm not supposed to talk about the more intellectual view because supposedly all the evil Christians in America don't know it. But if Dante said it so clearly then I don't think it's wrong to say that it's genuinely Christian.

Yes, it's a rationalization. If things aren't going as if there was a god, one needs an explanation for why this inconsistency is occurring, or else the belief in God is wrong, because all things happen according to his plan. But the only actual source for how things should go is revelation, so even with the rationalization, it's not a rational stance. A theist cannot acknowledge that there is evidence that God does not exist, even if he or she has to appeal to unreason to deny it. Unreason can lead to the formation of religious belief, but it is also essential in maintaining it in the face of obvious truths.

[Fake Messiah]

As always, this theological view of things is different from the popular view of God as sky-daddy giver of arbitrary law. I've been told on this forum that I'm not supposed to talk about the more intellectual view because supposedly all the evil Christians in America don't know it. But if Dante said it so clearly then I don't think it's wrong to say that it's genuinely Christian.

How is it different than a sky-daddy giver of arbitrary law when Dante put in Hell people for arbitrary things, like when he put Mohamed in hell just for being Muslim along with all the ancient Greek philosophers just because they were not Christians?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I can answer this according to what Dante explains in the Divine Comedy. And since Dante is about 99% in accord with Thomist ethics what he says is fairly standard for Christian theology. 

According to these people, human beings all have an essence, or human nature, which is common to us all. Living a virtuous life is living in the way that is best for this nature, and allows the greatest flourishing for ourselves and others. 

Here Christian theology agrees with Plato, who wrote that we all desire what is best. We have a natural desire to live well and flourish. This is all about love, and living morally is ultimately loving the proper things in the proper amount. 

The clearest analogy is with a healthy diet. Science can tell us what is best for us to eat. This is not something we can choose for ourselves, or that differs according to society. Just because you happen to like potato chips more than anything else, and the TV commercials are telling you to eat potato chips to the exclusion of all else, doesn't mean it's healthy. Your physical nature can't be changed according to your personal taste or cultural differences. People are people. 

Ideally, we would love to eat a balanced healthy diet. I've heard people claim that if we were left alone, without advertising or artificial flavorings or whatever, we would just naturally choose all the best foods. I don't know if this is true or not, but as an analogy to Platonic ethics it's pretty good. If our personalities are not misinformed or deformed, we naturally desire to live well. 

As with a diet, other kinds of behavior have a natural balance which is determined by what human beings just are. Living morally means aiming your behavior toward that natural best outcome. Though there will be variations according to place and time, there is in fact one set of behaviors which suits human flourishing best. We are still in an ongoing debate as to many of the details. 

Immoral behavior is loving an unhealthy thing too much (as in Neo's example of sugar) or in loving healthy things too little (for example as someone who never exercises at all). Christian ethics is about loving passionately the proper things. 

People who live this way are living as "God wants." This last is in scare quotes, because it isn't really true to say that God wants anything. God is fully complete, with no lack, and so wants nothing. "God wants X" is allegorical language which means "X aims you toward what is best." 

From this you can see that people who aimed their lives toward what is best will be living in a Godly way, whether or not they've ever heard of God. Dante says specifically that when we wake up on Judgement Day, a lot of Christians are going to be surprised by who's ahead of them in line. 

As always, this theological view of things is different from the popular view of God as sky-daddy giver of arbitrary law. I've been told on this forum that I'm not supposed to talk about the more intellectual view because supposedly all the evil Christians in America don't know it. But if Dante said it so clearly then I don't think it's wrong to say that it's genuinely Christian.

Yes, it's a rationalization. If things aren't going as if there was a god, one needs an explanation for why this inconsistency is occurring, or else the belief in God is wrong, because all things happen according to his plan. But the only actual source for how things should go is revelation, so even with the rationalization, it's not a rational stance. A theist cannot acknowledge that there is evidence that God does not exist, even if he or she has to appeal to unreason to deny it. Unreason can lead to the formation of religious belief, but it is also essential in maintaining it in the face of obvious truths.

The only people being unreasonable are those who blame God for human choices. Consider a family vacation. The parents decide where to go, how to get there, and when it will happen, and plan fun activities. Everything happens as planned but the children whine and complain. The kids play on their phones instead of taking advantage of the activities, etc. One way or another the vacation happens but the parents cannot force the kids to have a good time. Similarly, it is illogical blame God because He gives you choices within foreordained events and does not program you to always make specific choices.