[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[The Grand Nudger]

Checkmate acativists.

[FrustratedFool]

If a person has a subjective preference for the objective..they are..in fact, an objectivist.  Agreed?

What is an objectivist?

[FrustratedFool]

What preference for objective importance of mine are you referring to?
I'm confused.

It is implicit in the words you wrote which I quoted.

I think you've read something that isn't there. 
I'm not sure what something being objectively important would even mean.  What do you think it means?

[FrustratedFool]

Say someone says they think cats are important.  That's them telling you they think that cats exist, too.  Granted, they may be wrong.  Cativism may be false, but they're a cativist all the same.  No?

If someone thinks cats are important they may or may not believe in cats as something that is instantiated into external reality.  Like if someone says dragons are important.  Without further inquiry I wouldn't presume they hold any other position on that than what is explicitly stated.

This gets more complicated when discussing something more complex like 'objective importance' or 'objective beauty' etc.

In short, no idea what you;re on about.

[The Grand Nudger]

A person who believes that there is some set of objective things to be declared important to them in the first place - in the broadest and most topical sense.

As in, if a person subjectively values the set of the objective, they are..objectively, an objectivist, even if there actually is no such set of things. They've just told you they believe the set exists even if they -also- think (or more likely have misspoken) that it is only important to them.

[FrustratedFool]

I think you're conflating holds X to exist and prefers X to exist.

I'd prefer God to exist. I don't think he does. I'm not a theist.

[The Grand Nudger]

Say someone says they think cats are important.  That's them telling you they think that cats exist, too.  Granted, they may be wrong.  Cativism may be false, but they're a cativist all the same.  No?

If someone thinks cats are important they may or may not believe in cats as something that is instantiated into external reality.  Like if someone says dragons are important.  Without further inquiry I wouldn't presume they hold any other position on that than what is explicitly stated.

Which is that there is such a thing as dragons and they are important.......?  Yes.  I can see all manner of ways that this statement is objectively true, too, what's the problem?

This gets more complicated when discussing something more complex like 'objective importance' or 'objective beauty' etc.

In short, no idea what you;re on about.

Sure, objectivity is very complex.  As complex as the facts of a matter - in fact.  In some versions of error theory objectivity is so difficult that while it is or may be possible, it's not humanly attainable. In comparison, subjectivity is dead simple, relativity requires a little more work, and noncognitivism (feeling) is automatic.

That's why people so often attempt to back up their opinions with facts.  "This is my opinion because...."  It's the different types of "because" I'm talking about, the different types of "because" that the thread is about.  A person who ascribes importance to the objective is an objectivist, because their because is a set of alleged facts of the matter that they have explicitly declared as important.

Rightly or wrongly.

[FrustratedFool]

I don't get it.

Is an objectivist someone who believes that at least one thing is objectively important?

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you're conflating holds X to exist and prefers X to exist.

I'd prefer God to exist.  I don't think he does.  I'm not a theist.

-and I think gods are important.... also an atheist... even if I don't think they're important in the way that theists think they're important, or to the things that theists think they're important to.  What's the problem?  

If the problem was the ambiguity of your wording then, objectively, we need to work on that wording, no? Straight up free hanging preference is not subjective. It's non-cognitivist. You, or the person in your hypothetical, non cognitively assigns value to the objective. They're still stuck believing that the objective exists. Rightly or wrongly. Non cognitivism is automatic.

That might actually be what's up. Maybe, even though objectivism is false, we "do objectivism" like we do yuck and yum. It's actually pretty hard to combine the two positions in a valid way, ie any invocation will be internally inconsistent - but that doesn't mean we aren't doing it!

[FrustratedFool]

I don't follow your posts. Sorry.