[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[The Grand Nudger]

Thats the crux of it, and at least this time our court jester manages to joke his way into something useful. If water is only important because water is yummy, then the importance of water is non cognitive. It's not based on any fact or truth apt statement - it's just...well...yum (when it is...).

Now.....I think that many of us would agree that water is yum, but that's not all it is, so we have to search for a term that refers to the set of justifications for the rest of that content beyond just yum. Blamo, we're into the subjective. Where our ideas about the importance of water are not simply that we think water=yum - but that water really is, for reasons specific to a given agent alone, important. Here again I think that none of us here would have a problem accepting that. I know I don't. Water is yum+..at least. Now we get to the relative, or to the intersubjective. Honestly I don't know whether it's more accurate to handle these separately or lump these two together as different terms for the same thing - I could go either way..as we'll soon see. Where water is yum, but not just yum, yum plus whatever it is to me..and..further, yum+ whatever it is to me+ whatever it is to any other subject or group of subjects. I think...at least up to this point...there's not going to be a single person here - believer or otherwise, that isn't onboard with all of that.

So, already, we have an aswer to the question that created this thread. If there is no god, how is anything important? Well, at least three ways so far...the god proposition being a subset of one of the three sets, actually.

[The Grand Nudger]

All that handled (I Hope). Things can be important to god (me, the housecat) because yum. Things can be important to god (me, the housecat) because god (me, the housecat). Things can be important to god (me, the housecat) because of gods society (or the housecats pride, or my troop). But can things be important outside of or in addition to all of that?

If I can sensibly say that water is important to rivers, say..to rivers very existence....and we do not believe that a river is or has subjective agency or content at all......then can we say that water is important to all of these subjective agents, for different explanations and reasons..yes, but also to things which have no such agency to be categorized as such...in the first place?

What word would we prefer to use for that +? I use the word objective, I'm open to substitutions.

Water, at least as I use these terms; is objectively important, in addition to being (possibly) relatively important, in addition to being (possibly) subjectively important...in addition to being (automatically or undeniably or irrefutably - straight up not truth apt at all in any form) non cognitively important.

[SimpleCaveman]

Hey Grand Nudger,

Well, it could be..but man, I'm telling you, you've got to reach a little harder here.  … there'd be no reason you could think of not to eat their kids....what do you think would happen?

Are you talking to me? No Travis Bickle here. Just checking since you didn’t quote anyone. You’ve been talking to various people and I don’t want to jump in on someone else’s conversation. It's probably me, but it seems far afield to previous comments.

SimpleCaveman

[The Grand Nudger]

Good god, it's a wave of specific incompetence! Probably random chance or completely noncognitive.

Yes, ofc I was speaking to you - and I can loop you right in. What if..like Boru, I played along with this notion that my values come from christianity, as a post christian pagan-leaning anti-theist..and say that they're just christianity+? Like, yeah, all of these supersititions and gods are garbage and you shouldn't worship them or miseducated children into thinking that the reason not to stab little johhny from the next row is that those silly non-gods are watching...and I say, "...plus the christian one". Who has more of whatever in this instance, and what word would you like to use to refer to whatever that more is?

[FrustratedFool]

Do you purport to report that the alleged fact of your ignorance is true?

Congratulations!  You're an objectivist making an objective claim.

Lol.  I still have no real idea what you're on about.  You don't make any sense to me.
Also, have I missed you defining the term objective?

I dont like such messing about. It seems rude to talk round about in ways others don't understand rather than just answer direct questions as simply as possible. Oh well. I don't think we ever get anywhere when we talk. We seem to be on utterly different planets.

[SimpleCaveman]

You might find my definitions even less apt than my elaborative descriptions.

--- helpful definitions deleted ---

Let me say, and with sincere respect, you all are weird. Water and cats. (Yes, good pairing) Shiva pizza. (May be a thing) Objective confusion with subjective enlightenment. (If I have the subject and object confused, please enlighten me)

Not as weird as Eraserhead, but much more than Asteroid City. (Just saw it. Weird. Loved it.) There are all kinds of weird and I’m not saying these forums are one or the other. Just saying you all are great.

I came back to the conversation without realizing so much had been going on, since my notifications stopped. (Dang it! I have to figure that out.) I won’t wade into this river, other than to make one comment.

Grand Nudger, I am wondering how much of the confusion following you before was due to not understanding your worldview. Not saying I do now, but now I realize a bit of the direction.

It is not your job to teach me moral objectivism, so I won’t bore you with a bunch of questions. If you have the link of a good resource you can point me to, I would be obliged.

I’ll go back to the other posts later.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you purport to report that the alleged fact of your ignorance is true?

Congratulations!  You're an objectivist making an objective claim.

Lol.  I still have no real idea what you're on about.  You don't make any sense to me.

The question was whether you understood yourself, not me.  You either do or don't believe that you're ignorant in-fact.  

In one (logical) possibility, you actually think you're dumb because you are dumb.  In another, you just said it because you thought it was clever at the time.  In one, you're an objectivist.  In the other (equally logical and far more plausible), you're a shitposter...but probably still an objectivist that thinks that I am ignorant in-fact. Which...as I keep saying, is very possibly true...but still..an objective claim. There really is something to know and one or the other or both of us don't know it.

See what I mean about rational discussions inherently privileging objective propositions?

[The Grand Nudger]

It is not your job to teach me moral objectivism, so I won’t bore you with a bunch of questions. If you have the link of a good resource you can point me to, I would be obliged.

I’ll go back to the other posts later.

Apparently, it is.... because your god failed to do so?

Taken at face value, the claim that Nigel has a moral obligation to keep his promise, like the claim that Nyx is a black cat, purports to report a fact and is true if things are as the claim purports. Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

Notice, if you will, that there is no caveat in that statement "nigel has a moral obligation" or "nyx is a black cat"....if and only if there is at least one god. If and only if..christianity ever happened.

[FrustratedFool]

Lol.  I still have no real idea what you're on about.  You don't make any sense to me.

The question was whether you understood yourself, not me.  You either do or don't believe that you're ignorant in-fact.  

In one possibility, you actually think you're dumb because you are dumb.  In another, you just said it because you thought it was clever at the time.  In one, you're an objectivist.  In the other, you're a shitposter...but probably still an objectivist that thinks that I am ignorant in-fact. Which...as I keep saying, is very possibly true...but still..an objective claim.

See what I mean about rational discussions inherently privileging objective propositions?

No, I don't get you.  And neither or your two possible reasons as to why I said what I said are correct.  I don't consider myself dumb, nor am I a shitposter.  I meant first what I actually said, I don't think I'm Smart enough to understand you.  And second, I think it could be that you actually dont make sense (in that your posts are badly constructed, misuse words, don't correctly understand others etc) but I was being polite so not saying that part.  And, of course, none of these things are mutually exclusive.  Maybe I am dumb, and your posts are bad, and I'm a shitposter all together.

I think I'll go back to leaving your posts on ignore.  Not because of rudeness this time, but simply because we cannot have a profitable conversation it seems.  We simply don't understand each other.

[The Grand Nudger]

Correct in-fact, or correct in-yourfeels?