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Bad Horse


Beneath the microscope, you contain galaxies.

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Jun
20th
2014

Writing: Philip Roth on the importance of knowing what people fantasize about, and of hating things · 6:17pm Jun 20th, 2014

From his Paris Review interview. Emphasis is mine.

INTERVIEWER: What about England, where you spend part of each year? Is that a possible source of fiction?

ROTH: Ask me twenty years from now. That’s about how long it took Isaac Singer to get enough of Poland out of his system—and to let enough of America in—to begin, little by little, as a writer, to see and depict his upper-Broadway cafeterias. If you don’t know the fantasy life of a country, it’s hard to write fiction about it that isn’t just description of the decor, human and otherwise. Little things trickle through when I see the country dreaming out loud—in the theater, at an election, during the Falklands crisis, but I know nothing really about what means what to people here. It’s very hard for me to understand who people are, even when they tell me, and I don’t even know if that’s because of who they are or because of me. I don’t know who is impersonating what, if I’m necessarily seeing the real thing or just a fabrication, nor can I easily see where the two overlap. My perceptions are clouded by the fact that I speak the language. I believe I know what’s being said, you see, even if I don’t. Worst of all, I don’t hate anything here. What a relief it is to have no culture-grievances, not to have to hear the sound of one’s voice taking positions and having opinions and recounting all that’s wrong! What bliss—but for the writing that’s no asset. Nothing drives me crazy here, and a writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons. The antidote to his poisons is often a book.

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Comments ( 72 )

I'm an earthling. I live on earth. Thus why I can pump out well over a million words just on Fimfiction alone.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

So after season twenty, we'll all be primed and ready for writing the purest of Equestrian-based fiction.

2221649
Hmm, that would explain why so many fics read more like The Wheel of Time than My Little Pony.

2221610

I'm afraid that you're extremely atypical. Not may people share your perspective, especially not one that points to being on this planet being the root cause of their woes. Earth does contain a plethora of very strange and different worlds.

He speaks the language, so he doesn't need to learn about the culture while fumbling for verbage.
He doesn't hate anything about the country, so there's no deep well of emotion to draw from.
Sounds a little like Kansas⁽*⁾. I don't see anything wrong with that.


(*) Disclaimer: I live a few blocks away from the Wizard of Oz museum. No, it is not black and white here, we have colors. We also have an annoying little dog.

Interesting. The sentiment of cultural alienation resonates with me. I spend a lot of my time communicating with various Anglophones and it's easy, since I speak English[1], to fool myself that I understand them completely.

[1] To an extent, anyway.

2221649
Well, yes, but fiction about Equestria isn't fiction about Equestria.

Very ceci n'est pas une pipe[1], I know, but there's a point to it. Writing in created worlds is different and allows for a more tight focus on something Earth-bound you wish to explore.

Also, dragons, of course. It allows for dragons. The so-called 'real world' is woefully deficient in the dragon department. Poor worldbuilding, I'd say.

[1] It isn't a pipe. It's a FimFiction post. Well. The image of one, on your screen. Or in your mind? But what is your mind but the concerted effort of fifteen billion neurons bathed in a chemical stew produced by... agh nothing is real help help help :pinkiecrazy:

2221713
I've never claimed to be normal. Or ordinary. I've spent fifty years in this nightmare cosmos, and not once, not ever, have I felt like I belonged, or that anything about Earth was in any way what I would call genuinely good, right, nice, or appropriate.

I live, because the alternative is apparently worse.

I am happy you seem to like this place; I, however, never have. I can imagine better without any effort whatsoever, and my imagination is the dominant part of me. This produces art, but also heartbreak.

A wise man, Philip. Though I wouldn't quite agree with him that you need to hate things, but more so that it helps to have opinions. Views. Ideas about things. The best stories, I believe, are those that communicate something, and so there must be something the author has in order to communicate it.

2221884
I agree, to live is to suffer. Do you believe in God?

2221816
I think you've got a problem with your footnote numbering. The second and third brackets should read [2]. :trollestia:

2222499
I try to reset footnote numbering for each reply in a comment to cut down on the time Bad Horse has to scroll down. The longer he has to scroll, the longer he has to think of mean things to say about me/footnotes/both.

Not that he needs a lot of time, of course.

2222530
Let's try that joke again!

Well, in that case, the text after the second and fourth brackets should be switched. :ajsmug:

… okay, well, *I* was amused. Apparently, far too much.

2222614
Tired. Can't brain.

Sorry.

Well, how novel. An author who believes in the value of others' opinions over their own when it comes to character and setting and believability.

How amusing for the top commenter to simultaneously demonstrate how to have an opinion valuable to a writer and how to have an opinion that devalues all others when it comes to their own writing.

2221690
Well if you have to have a substitute, you might as well have the best one.

2221816
Very true, we could always use more dragons.

2222349

I agree, to live is to suffer. Do you believe in God?

No. I can't. Believing in a god is just too horrible. It's bad enough that this is a universe of entropy, radiation, and cosmic terror, and an earth with pain, suffering, cancer, disease, and all the human evils of conquest, genocide, fanaticism and war...

But to believe that a being, a mind, an entity deliberately did it?

Sorry, that is too terrible to even consider.

2223414
Chatoyance, I understand exactly where you're coming from. And no suffering or evil is more painful than what we personally experience, or what our friends and loved ones go through (for example, my disease ridden father).

But you know, it's very interesting that you say because of evil (among other things) you can't believe in God--because the two seem absolutely contradictory, of course. But...are they? You believe in evil (as do I), and so of course you must believe in good too...but in that case, there must be a moral law with which to distinguish between good and evil. And if there is a moral law, then there must be a moral lawmaker, but that's who you're disproving, yes? If there's no moral lawmaker then there's no moral law, if there's no moral law, there's no good, no evil...then what becomes of the problem? You see, the question of evil actually self destructs if there is no God.

Perhaps try looking at it this way. If there's no such thing as morality, then there's no such thing as evil, right? No problem there. If morality is decided by the individual, then there's still no such thing as evil, other than what each individual prefers (I don't like rape, but morality belongs to the individual so someone else may very well like it, and I can't argue with it). If morality belongs to society then it's the same thing, only on a larger scale. I can't take my country's moral law and hold it over the heads of other nations, because each nation decides what is right or wrong. So the Nazi's had every justification to do what they did to their citizens, according to this view. I can't say they're wrong, because so far morality is still relative--it's not absolute, it's not something I can hold over the heads of every individual on earth. I can only do that if morality is somehow outside of humanity, if it's decided by someone who can hold it over the heads of every human being...and that person can only be God.

But if there is no God, then there's no absolute moral code to apply to everyone, even God himself. See, when we say something like "A good or loving God wouldn't allow evil", what we really mean is that a good or loving god shouldn't. We're applying a moral code to him in order to judge him...but you can't do that if morality is relative, right? But without God morality can only be relative. By saying God doesn't exist because of evil or suffering you destroy the very grounds you stand on, because without God there is no real, objective evil and ultimately nothing is wrong with suffering.

One last way to look at it...If we weren't created, or if there's no sort of higher spiritual authority, then we're by accident, yes? We're the result of a coincidental chain of physical and chemical interactions and reactions...which means there's no inherent value to life. So what does evil really matter? There's no life after death, and anything we do is ultimately meaningless, since we'll all be dead and gone someday. Only if there is a God (and everything that comes with it) is there an inherent value to life, and then evil matters. It matters a hell of a lot.

As I said Chatoyance, I understand what you're saying and where you're coming from. For all that my father suffers and we along with him, so many don't even have a father, or a mother. To live is to be hurt, physically, psychologically, emotionally. We get angry at God--or at least, I do. Life is suffering...but only with God can that suffering be something we take issue with. Evil doesn't disprove God, but quite the opposite: it necessitates God. The real question then is, why does a good or loving god allow suffering and evil? Not "how can he?"

And, at least from what I've learned from my own experience and that of my family...only with God can we overcome the suffering and evil in this world.

It’s very hard for me to understand who people are, even when they tell me, and I don’t even know if that’s because of who they are or because of me. I don’t know who is impersonating what, if I’m necessarily seeing the real thing or just a fabrication, nor can I easily see where the two overlap. My perceptions are clouded by the fact that I speak the language. I believe I know what’s being said, you see, even if I don’t.

I've lived in one place my entire life and I still feel like this. Maybe I need twenty years as an adult.

2223414
2223979 Since you've gone and made my blog theological...

Axis, I've heard that argument many times, and I think it was one of the things that persuaded me to stop being a Christian, though it's hard to remember now. Because I have a problem with that argument, and when I explain it to non-Christians, they can sometimes understand, but Christians never do. This was one of a number of cases that made me believe that the act of believing in Christianity distorts people's perspective in a way that prevents them from seeing certain truths.

Saying "If there is a law, there must be a law-giver" presupposes that there is no such thing as ethics or morality, there are only arbitrary codes of behavior given by authority figures. If a law derives its authority from the authority of the law-giver, it isn't what I mean by moral at all.

The question of morality is complicated and depressing, so I'll start with the simpler but similar case of evolution. Christians have the idea that God and evolution are alternate hypotheses to explain the origin of life, and the development of intelligent life. They are not. Evolution explains the development of intelligent life from very simple life, but not the origin of life (although it gives us much better ideas of where to look for clues to the origin of life). Positing a God explains neither, because that hypothesis uses the development of intelligent life (God) as an assumption, not as a result. It assumes both life and complex life were present from the beginning. Saying "God created life" answers nothing, because one must then ask, "What created God?", and creating God is even harder task than creating humans. The "hypothesis" assumes more that it purports to explain.

Similarly, saying that God explains morality explains nothing, because it presupposes the existence of a moral God. One must still explain where God's morality came from, and why we imagine it is good.

Suppose Hitler ruled the Earth, and his word was law. That wouldn't make it moral. Morality means, by definition, something other than a code imposed by force. If God were all-powerful, and told us one thing was moral, that wouldn't make it moral. The "oughtness" that is a requisite part of the definition of morality can't be imposed by fiat. It's a property of human nature, animal nature, how life interacts with life, and how the world works. Morality is a way of behaving that gives good overall results.

So we can observe the rules given by God, and the behavior of God, in the Old Testament, and see the sorts of outcomes they lead to. And He isn't very moral. At all. We know better than he did. And it's also clear that the morality of God in the Old Testament is drastically different from the morality of Jesus in the New Testament.

If it's all true, we'd face a tough decision: Whether to bow down to this egotistical and merciless tyrant, or to act morally and endure perhaps eternal punishment for it. Bowing down might be the right thing, the reasonable thing. But it's not the moral thing. It's the relinquishing of your status as a moral agent, passing off moral responsibility to someone else.

You might argue that God is wise, benevolent, etc. (qualities which, I point out, I don't recall God claiming for Himself in the Bible; He was much more keen on talking about his power, pride, and jealousy), and that therefore He would choose good morals. But that means that God was very very good at figuring out what right ethics are. Ethics themselves are still outside God, then, regardless of whether he exists or not.

That's one of the basic problems with Christianity, and with all religions having divine commandments: They don't provide morality; they take it away. Following the religion means believing that there is no such thing as morality; there is only an arbitrary code of behavior made by the biggest chief. At best it's a radical belief in the rights of property, in which God has the right to define what is good for us because we are his property. Religious folk call this "morality", but it isn't ethical. People can do remarkable things following that belief, either good or evil, but they can't believe in good or evil. They can only believe in things God says yes to and things God says no to, and that's not the same at all.

Christians take the three very different moralities of O.T. God, Jesus, Paul, and perhaps the fake Paul who may have written the minor epistles, and pick and choose what they like from them. That's not a moral law, it's a moral buffet.

There's a lot more to say on the topic of morality, but they are questions that people can't conceive of while still operating in pre-20th-century epistemologies.

2224169

That's not a moral law, it's a moral buffet.

I just want to say... that is an awesome little sentence. Golden.

2224169
Guilty as charged xD
I couldn't be happier that you joined in on the discussion, BH. I appreciate you sharing some of your own story, and as a christian, I respect your choice to discard it. And neither do I snub my nose at you or condemn you for it--and neither does God. Yes yes, his existence is up in the air, as it were, but if he does exist, then he doesn't condemn you for where you stand. In fact he understands perfectly. I just wanted to make sure you understood that.

Now then! You raise a lot of really good points. However, I ask that you don't take the lack of an immediate acceptance as "simply not getting it because I'm a christian". I mean, it's your choice ultimately, but I hope you don't. I think that since most of my response hinges on what I tried to communicate earlier, I'm going to begin by trying to clarify it, and then move from there.

Saying "If there is a law, there must be a law-giver" presupposes that there is no such thing as ethics or morality, there are only arbitrary codes of behavior given by authority figures. If a law derives its authority from the authority of the law-giver, it isn't what I mean by moral at all.

To be honest, I expected someone to take issue with the jump from "moral law" to "moral lawgiver" in my argument, because it's precisely what used to give me a problem, though for different reasons I think than what you've explained. The reason an (objective) moral law requires a lawgiver is thus: notice this--that whenever the question of morality is raised, it is always raised by a person, or about a person. You don't raise morality regarding rocks, or wild animals, yes? It's always by a person, about a person (or people). This means that the question of morality assumes an essential worth or importance to personhood (otherwise we wouldn't keep it bound by personhood--we could ask it about rocks). Now, the only worldview in which personhood has an essential, innate worth, is one in which life is not an accident, but created or given with a purpose, i.e. in a universe where's there's a god, or some form of higher moral, purposeful authority.

If you take God out of the picture, unless you replace him with something similar, what you're left with is a physical-only universe where everything is random cause and effect, including life itself, in which case it does not have an innate, objective worth.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding you here, but it seems like you assume that a moral reality exists apart from humanity or any act of creation (by an authority figure), perhaps like the laws of nature, of physics or biology or chemistry (as other laws we can observe are man-made). But we can't point to those as having "no lawmaker" because that's the crux of the entire debate: is there a god? You must answer this first before answering whether the laws of nature have a lawmaker or not.

See, I don't think you can say that morality is apart from God for certain, because we simply don't know. And this is why: if God says something is right or wrong, then it is, truthfully, right or wrong, no matter what, because of the peculiar and special definition of God I am using. (Note I am not at all saying that God decides morality here). This is because the Christian God (and he alone) isn't simply all powerful. He also never lies, is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly understanding ("as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts, and my ways higher than your ways"--Isaiah 55:9 denoting higher reasoning and wisdom), he is perfectly loving, and so on. So even if he doesn't "make the rules", if the perfectly truthful and intelligent god says it's moral, then it's moral--otherwise he's lying or wrong, and we're no longer discussing the same god. God, as a concept, is someone you can completely trust. The question is, is that concept true or not?

So morality might exist outside of God, in that he doesn't make the rules, he just knows them perfectly. But take away God and morality as an objective measurement goes too, because morality assumes worth. It has to, right? There must be worth, for if there isn't, then there's no real reason for the "ought" in morality. Now, if something doesn't have an innate worth, then its worth is relative, yes? It's decided by either people or systems or what have you. An objective, absolute morality must assume an innate worth, not a relative worth, so that it's outside the ability of people to decide and overrule. The idea that all of life and the universe is an accident doesn't supply you with the necessary innate worth to logically and justifiably ground an objective morality.

That's my point, really. That without God--without the creation of life for a purpose--you lose your ground on which to stake objective right and wrong, which means you lose the ability to morally judge anybody, including God. Because only if something is objective can you hold it over the heads of others and judge them by it. So yes, God does not explain morality, as you said, but instead he justifies it.

Switching gears a teensy bit, the Biblical answer to the origin of life isn't that God created biological life out of thin air--he pulled it from himself, because he is the source of all life. He has always had it. John 1:1, "In the beginning the Word already existed [emphasis mine]. The Word was with God, and the word was God." The Bible explains that God was never created; he simply always was. Which isn't as weird as you might think, because if there isn't an un-caused cause (god), then what you are left with is: what caused God?...And then what caused that? And what then caused that? And that? And that? And so forth into infinity. So there are only two options: either there has always been something for eternity (though that something is always different)--and this includes laws to govern this something, like how it creates or a set of physical laws if we're talking about particles--or there has always been a singular something, such as God. The Bible goes with the latter.

OT God and Jesus are very much the same--even though, yes, I totally feel you, it sure as hell doesn't seem that way on the surface. What's different are the terms of the covenant--or sacred agreement--between God and humanity. And Jesus is the one who changed it. Really, the whole Bible is about him, from the very first time Adam and Eve sinned, to its very last line.

I understand that in the OT God can seem prideful, or egotistical, or immoral, and if you would like to bring up specific cases, Bad Horse, I'd be more than happy to discuss them. I'm no theologian by a long shot, but I'd give it my best. But my overall point still stands, which is if there is no God, then there's no objective morality to apply to him or the bible, and the whole things self destructs (I know you think differently, but that's why we're here, right? :3 ) And if there really is an objective morality without the existence of God, where does it come from? How do you define good, or what's "better" for humanity? By pleasure, survival, convenience, happiness? Why would "good" even matter if someday we're all going to die and vanish--if humanity is going to utterly disappear one day, with no after life, and nothing to remember us by, do our actions really have any meaning to them at all? No.

2223979
Suppose you're right and that morality is dictated by or understood by God. How is it that you personally came to know the morals from God? I'm asking because of this:

Axis of Rotation I can't say they're wrong, because so far morality is still relative--it's not absolute, it's not something I can hold over the heads of every individual on earth. I can only do that if morality is somehow outside of humanity, if it's decided by someone who can hold it over the heads of every human being...and that person can only be God.

You're using God as a reason to hold your personal morality over "every individual on earth". I think it's worth understanding why you believe your personal moral set is the correct one, especially if there are others that share your belief.

I had trouble following this:

Axis of Rotation Only if there is a God (and everything that comes with it) is there an inherent value to life, and then evil matters.

Matters to whom? Or to what end? This is probably one of those things that's so simple that you forget that some people might not get it.

I also had some trouble understanding your idea of "essential worth / importance". Was Rarity in Sweet and Elite wrong to lie to her friends? If it's possible for Rarity to be morally wrong, does that mean she has some essential worth or importance? Is her essential worth derived from her creators, her viewers, or the pixels and sound bytes that comprise her? If Rarity is wrong, does that mean her creators are wrong, that her viewers are wrong, or that the pixels are wrong? Or can Rarity just not be wrong in the same way that a real person can be wrong (meaning morality simply doesn't apply to Rarity since morality only applies to people)?

Axis of Rotation Why would "good" even matter if someday we're all going to die and vanish--if humanity is going to utterly disappear one day, with no after life, and nothing to remember us by, do our actions really have any meaning to them at all?

I assume that whether or not a certain author finishes a fanfic doesn't matter at all under your idea of morality, but it does matter to me. Maybe value and morality aren't as tightly bound as you believe, or maybe "value" really is variable.

This is getting silly, but I do want answers to the first two questions. I feel like your posts are incomplete otherwise.

2224846

On the futility of simply repeating your argument... Well, I'm not good enough at writing to go into that, but I don't think it's very effective here. When Bad Horse said:

There's a lot more to say on the topic of morality, but they are questions that people can't conceive of while still operating in pre-20th-century epistemologies.

I don't think the problem is that you haven't clarified yourself enough.

Now, the only worldview in which personhood has an essential, innate worth, is one in which life is not an accident, but created or given with a purpose, i.e. in a universe where's there's a god, or some form of higher moral, purposeful authority.

We live on a tiny blue dot. Really very extremely tiny. :pinkiehappy: People have been judging themselves and each other for thousands of years with the moral codes their societies had, without any input from the objective Christian God that you're talking about. The morality you're talking about would make everything easy. Is a human life worth anything? Easy, God says so. Is it right or wrong to imprison this person for his crimes? Whatever the circumstances, God says it's a crime that puts you in jail. Is there anything wrong with the treatment of your dark-colored slaves? And so on. Moral problems are things that people have suffered for, fight and live and die for and against for our entire history and in all the stories we've ever written. People have fought and struggled and oftentimes failed trying to find truth, to create peace, and to ensure justice. We debate and protest to create a better and better morality, so that the future world of tomorrow will be a better place for people to live in.

The idea that there is an objective morality, and the only reason for all the sins and mistakes and hurt over thousands of years is that we're just too flawed, too stupid to forever not see some obvious answer, makes all of our history and art meaningless.

I choose to value other people, and they choose to value me, because our bonds together are worth more than all the countless stars in the sky and the vast empty ocean between them.

To be honest, I expected someone to take issue with the jump from "moral law" to "moral lawgiver" in my argument, because it's precisely what used to give me a problem, though for different reasons I think than what you've explained.

I do take issue with it, for numerous reasons. The simplest of these I can illustrate by analogy. Suppose you want to climb Mt. Everest. Thousands of people have tried to climb Mount Everest, and over the years have tried at least 18 routes. 2 of these have proven to be good routes. They've developed guidelines and techniques for climbing every section of these two routes, which are handed on from climber to climber in Everest-climbing society.

This set of guides for behavior on how to climb Mount Everest is much like a society's moral laws. But who is the lawgiver? Thousands of people cooperated to make the rules, but their authority doesn't derive from the people. The objective correctness of the rules derives from the facts about Mount Everest, the world of the Mount Everest-climbing society.

The reason an (objective) moral law requires a lawgiver is thus: notice this--that whenever the question of morality is raised, it is always raised by a person, or about a person. You don't raise morality regarding rocks, or wild animals, yes? It's always by a person, about a person (or people). This means that the question of morality assumes an essential worth or importance to personhood (otherwise we wouldn't keep it bound by personhood--we could ask it about rocks).

No; it means rocks don't make choices. It has nothing to do with essential worth or importance.

Now, the only worldview in which personhood has an essential, innate worth, is one in which life is not an accident, but created or given with a purpose, i.e. in a universe where's there's a god, or some form of higher moral, purposeful authority.

No.

If you take God out of the picture, unless you replace him with something similar, what you're left with is a physical-only universe where everything is random cause and effect, including life itself, in which case it does not have an innate, objective worth.

No. These last two assertions of yours have zero support, and they are specific, far-from-default claims, so the burden is on you to explain why you believe them, not on me to explain why I don't.

See, I don't think you can say that morality is apart from God for certain, because we simply don't know. And this is why: if God says something is right or wrong, then it is, truthfully, right or wrong, no matter what, because of the peculiar and special definition of God I am using. (Note I am not at all saying that God decides morality here). This is because the Christian God (and he alone) isn't simply all powerful.

You're making up new words, 'God', 'right', and 'wrong', assigning "meanings" to them that define the problem of morality away, and then pretending that these highly-artificial meanings have anything to do with what people usually mean when they say 'God', 'right', or 'wrong', which they don't.

That's why Christians can't believe in morality. They define it away. The view you've just described implies morality is not a thing that exists. 'Morality' has a causal relationship with, say, helping people rather than causing them pain. A rule that says to burn your children alive if they eat food with their left hand rather than their right is immoral, and God can't make it moral. What matters isn't God's opinion, but the properties of children and of fire. When you deny that, and say morality is just whatever God says it is, you are denying that morality is a real concept, with, say, necessary and sufficient properties that determine, independent of God, whether something is moral, in the same way that the category 'chair' has properties that allow us to determine whether something is a chair without consulting God.

He also never lies, is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly understanding ("as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my tho ughts higher than your thoughts, and my ways higher than your ways"--Isaiah 55:9 denoting higher reasoning and wisdom), he is perfectly loving, and so on.

That's not the God of the Bible. That's the God of medieval philosophers. There's no point in talking about a God that is so obviously an artificial construct of religious Platonists.

That's my point, really. That without God--without the creation of life for a purpose--you lose your ground on which to stake objective right and wrong,

No. That's exactly like saying that without God, I lose the ability to declare things mathematically true or false.
The world exists, and while it exists, we can make objective statements about it.

which means you lose the ability to morally judge anybody, including God. Because only if something is objective can you hold it over the heads of others and judge them by it.

No. The objective/subjective dichotomy is not so simple. We have information, not truth.

Switching gears a teensy bit, the Biblical answer to the origin of life isn't that God created biological life out of thin air--he pulled it from himself, because he is the source of all life. He has al ways had it. John 1:1, "In the beginning the Word already existed [emphasis mine]. The Word was with God, and the word was God." The Bible explains that God was never created; he simply always was.

That doesn't explain anything, which is why I said it doesn't explain anything.

OT God and Jesus are very much the same--even though, yes, I totally feel you, it sure as hell doesn't seem that way on the surface. What's different are the terms of the covenant--or sacred agreement--between God and humanity. And Jesus is the one who changed it. Really, the whole Bible is about him, from the very first time Adam and Eve sinned, to its very last line.

I don't think you're being honest with yourself here. The distinction between killing and not killing people for infractions of an arbitrary code is not "surface".

And if there really is an objective morality without the existence of God, where does it come from? How do you define good, or what's "better" for humanity? By pleasure, survival, convenience, happiness?

That's the problem, isn't it? But it's a problem we can take on, if we have the courage. It turns out it isn't very hard to do better than Christianity did at it.

Why would "good" even matter if someday we're all going to die and vanish--if humanity is going to utterly disappear one day, with no after life, and nothing to remember us by, do our actions really have any meaning to them at all? No.

This question of meaning is similar to the points about the origin of life and of morality. You've taken all these questions, thrown up your hands and said, "I give up; it is impossible to answer these questions" , but instead of admitting that you just don't believe in the true, independent existence of morality, meaning, or life, you imagine a big black box called God, and say, "It's His problem, not mine."

2224846 The basic question of art is, "Is some art good, and other art bad?" This question is shockingly similar to the question, "Are some actions moral, and others immoral?"

Saying that we require God to say what is moral, because there is no morality otherwise, is exactly like saying that we require literary theorists to say what is good writing and what is bad writing, because there is really no such thing as good or bad writing.

2226096
What is the point of arguing with Christians about god? The vast majority of Christians don't even follow their own faith, often disregarding the teachings of Jesus in favor of the revoked laws of the old testament and the ramblings of a confused asexual for the sake of trading love for hate. What is the relevance of a diety when the faith itself is so horrifically corrupted and twisted?

2226081

This set of guides for behavior on how to climb Mount Everest is much like a society's moral laws. But who is the lawgiver?

That would be Everest.

I've summited ten 14,000+ ft. peaks, including Pico de Orizaba/Citlatapetl, Ranier and Whitney, that last in one day. So I think your analogy is a good one, not least because it says things you may not have intended. To me it says that if God exists, He is:

a) completely unlike anything we expect, and
b) so big and obvious that we completely miss Him.

I'm not saying this metaphor makes me more likely to believe. It doesn't. I am saying that I find it more emotionally and intellectually engaging than a lot of the other arguments on the matter that I've seen on internet forums (which is not terribly high praise, I suppose, but still. :twilightsmile:)

2227108

What is the point of arguing with Christians about god?

If the only ones you know are wet-brained college sophomores--none.

You are measured by the enemies you choose. If you picked a fight with a Jesuit you'd be cut to ribbons in short order, but no one would accuse you of aiming low. And besides, you might learn something.

2227415

That is a bit out of context. I was referring to the tenets and teachings of Christianity, regardless of the sect, being mislaid for the sake of various agendas and bigotries. How debating god with the faithful of a religion that tends not to heed the message of their own messiah is rather moot.

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Haha, man, with three people to respond to, this is going to be difficult to keep short. I appreciate everyone's responses here, I really do. In fact, Derpimind and Equestrian.sen, I think I'm just going to pm you with my answers.
2227497
What's the point of arguing with anyone about their belief system? Remember, you never judge a belief system by its abuse. All religions and philosophies and worldviews have their abusers and lazy, nonchalant followers. I'm a fool if I look at radical islam, and not the Qur'an, in order to judge whether it's true or not.

Bad Horse:

Saying that we require God to say what is moral, because there is no morality otherwise, is exactly like saying that we require literary theorists to say what is good writing and what is bad writing, because there is really no such thing as good or bad writing.

Actually, I believe it's more like saying good and bad writing doesn't really exist unless it can exist apart from the realm of human perception. In other words, that we "discover" good writing, as opposed to deciding what it is.
And actually, I haven't once meant that we require God to say what is moral--that hasn't been my point at all. Rather, it is that if you want to control people's actions (i.e. say what they should and shouldn't do)--other people being key here, it has to be outside of yourself since I've only been talking about objective morality--then yes, you need a higher, transcendent moral authority, or purposer.
Say human life was completely worthless, and that this was a fact. Life had no value, whatsoever. What would it matter if one person killed another? Or stole, or raped? It wouldn't. Sure, there might be those who didn't want to be killed, or who thought you shouldn't, but since the worthlessness of life was a fact, their feelings on the matter are just feelings. "I want to live" has no more weight or justification than "I don't want you to live".
This is my point here: that morality assumes a worth to persons and their lives and actions/choices. Because if they didn't matter than what would be the point? The only problem is, if you want to say that life is a complete accident--a happy coincidence, if you will--then what you end up with is life that is objectively worthless. It would simply be a logical result (ask yourself, what would keep life from being objectively worthless if it was an accident?). Sure, we could choose to value life and all that comes with it, but then, so could someone else choose not to value it. And because there is nothing outside you or me defining the value of life or choices, neither of us is more justified. The only problem is, however, that the idea behind an objective morality is that one of us is more justified, because we're aligning with something that exists outside our personal definitions. And since an objective morality states that our actions do matter, that must mean we matter, too. But we know we can't have value which exists whether we say it does or doesn't if we are simply an accident. Therefore, if we want to have an objective morality, which assumes that we have inherent value, then life can't be an accident. If it isn't an accident, then it's purposeful. God is simply one of the ways in which is life is purposeful.
You toss out purposeful life (this includes tossing out God), you toss out objective morality. And if you think you can justifiably judge others with a subjective morality, then I'd be interested to see why.

This set of guides for behavior on how to climb Mount Everest is much like a society's moral laws. But who is the lawgiver? Thousands of people cooperated to make the rules, but their authority doesn't derive from the people. The objective correctness of the rules derives from the facts about Mount Everest, the world of the Mount Everest-climbing society.

Ah...but how did the mountain get there? By accident, or because someone purposefully designed it that way, and put the two routes there? Or, if you like, someone designed it the way it had to be--so that they didn't arbitrarily choose it--in which case the mountain still wouldn't exist without them?
Now this probably makes it seem like I'm saying (to quote you on what I'm apparently claiming) that "morality is just whatever God says it is," but believe me, I am not. What I am saying is that without God or any transcendent moral authority or something to give life purpose and meaning and value, then you have no justification for a morality that all people ought to follow.

A rule that says to burn your children alive if they eat food with their left hand rather than their right is immoral

Well, why? Try explaining to me why that's wrong. And just in case you think I'm nuts, I agree with you, it is wrong. But, I claim, I'm more logically supported than you are, depending on what you believe the origin of life to be, which is why I asked you to explain. :3 I think it's clear what I believe, but I'm not as clear on what you do.

No. That's not the God of the Bible.

Alright then, prove it. You used to know and serve and love and worship God (that is what being a christian means), but don't anymore. I do worship and know and love and serve him. If you wish to get into a discussion about who the god of the bible is, I heartily welcome it. :twilightsmile:

No. That's exactly like saying that without God, I lose the ability to declare things mathematically true or false.The world exists, and while it exists, we can make objective statements about it.

Actually, there are many who would disagree with you about those two things. Here's a video explaining why many don't think math objectively exists, and here's another about why many doubt the world itself exists.
And besides, morality is nothing like math, because it places boundaries on our actions, and says we must follow them, no matter what. You tell the truth even if you lose your job. You defend someone else's life even if it costs you your own. Math, physics, chemistry--they don't make those kinds of commands about how you live.

That doesn't explain anything, which is why I said it doesn't explain anything.

Sure it does. It explains why asking, "what created God?" is the wrong question to ask--or rather, that the Bible answers with: nothing created him. I said all of this because you brought it up, remember?

I don't think you're being honest with yourself here.

I'm being very honest with myself, BH. Like I said, bring up specific cases from the Old or New Testament, and we'll talk about them. Then we can find out which one of us is really deceived (it's gotta be one of us). Sound good? :3

That's the problem, isn't it? But it's a problem we can take on, if we have the courage. It turns out it isn't very hard to do better than Christianity did at it.

It's a very BIG problem. When I say, "where does objective morality come from then?" I don't mean the details of it (what's specifically right or wrong), I mean objective morality as a category. For instance, what's the most basic philosophical assertion? I think, therefore I am. You establish your existence before getting into the particulars about it. Likewise, you must establish that objective morality exists within your own belief system first before getting into what exactly is right and wrong.
And my argument is, that objective morality (emphasis on the objective bit here) does not exist unless you have something that gives that which is effected by morality (people's actions and choices) an inherent, objective worth, apart from human ability to redefine it. And actions and choices can't have value if their agents don't have value. If you're valueless, then so is the fact you can make choices. If your choices are valueless or meaningless, then it doesn't matter what you do, correct? If you want your choices to matter, there must be something that supplies them with value that humans can't change. Accidental life doesn't give that, but purposeful life does. Gos is one of the things that posits purposeful life.

I see what you are saying about religion and God defining morality preventing it from existing objectively, but you have yet to show why it does exist objectively. Because it's always seemed to be there? The Bible explains that away by saying God placed in all of us a conscience, which we could follow or not. What in your belief system logically allows for an objective morality to exist?
All I've done is take the idea of a purposeless existence of life and drawn it to it's logical conclusions. If life is purposeless, it has no real meaning, other than what you and I choose to give it. This is all well and good until someone chooses opposite of us. Since meaning for life is only decided by us, neither of us is "right" or "wrong", because we could only be right or wrong if there was an actual meaning (or value) to life. But objective morality says that one of us is right or wrong, or closer to the truth, which means there would have to be an actual meaning or value to life. Since you do not get that from purposelessness and accidental life, you have to get it from purposeful life. The logical result of saying life is purposeful means there has to be some kind purposer behind it. That's all. So if you chuck out purposed life, then you chuck out objective morality, and we're down to deciding between you and me, which means neither is inherently right or wrong in anything we do, it's just whatever we choose.

You've taken all these questions, thrown up your hands and said, "I give up; it is impossible to answer these questions"

HA. Not even close. Besides, like I said, I'm not commenting on the particulars of morality here, but rather why I can even say it exists at all. You seem to think there's a real moral truth out there that humans work to discover--what in your belief system gives you the ability to say human actions matter--that it matters what you do with yourself and other people, whether others disagree with you or not?

You can't have an objective opinion. Something has 'value' because someone decided that it was valuable to them. Opinions are not concrete, they are not facts. A starving man will value food and water over mountains of gold. Even god's opinions are, by definition, opinions, not fact. I don't want an objective morality, and I don't think most people want one either. There are situations where people believe that they have the moral (and legal) right to kill someone. Truth is, it doesn't matter if you use a god as justification for your morality. We judge people with a subjective morality because that's all we have. From an objective point of view, without the influence of opinions and working only with facts, absolutely nothing (not even nothing) has any objective value whatsoever.

The opposite, of course, is that God's opinion is the only one that matters, and that choice either doesn't exist or has no consequences that matter. I do not want, nor do I believe in, a God that would be so inconsiderate of Humanity as to not allow us to choose who we want to be.

So if you chuck out purposed life, then you chuck out objective morality, and we're down to deciding between you and me, which means neither is inherently right or wrong in anything we do, it's just whatever we choose.

Yes, that's a good place to start. Now take a long look at history and we can see how often that does and doesn't work out. If you think you live in a world where people and groups and societies aren't still struggling over this problem, then you're fooling yourself. If you have a morality system that will actually be agreed upon universally, (and not one that simply says it will,) please share it with us. (I can't get myself to phrase that non-sarcastically. Sorry.)

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we can see how often that does and doesn't work out.

Hmm, define what you mean by "doesn't work out". Are you saying that some consequences are better than others?

And please don't think I'm ignoring the rest of you comment, I'm not. But to help get to the answers your asking for, I'd like to narrow things down here. Hence, my singular question above. :3

2227415 I went to a Jesuit college, and picked fights with Jesuits in theology class (we had 5 required classes in theology & philosophy). The ordinary professors were better at thinking logically than the Jesuits. I would characterize the Jesuits as being good at sophistry, not reasoning.

2229078

Really? "Our world is not so steady as it was." Still I'd bet on a Jesuit over an Internet atheist.

It's a funny thing: my dad went to Loyola back in the Fifties ("See, it's a Jesuit college ring--wanna see how the poison needle works?...").

2228517

You are overthinking and overcomplicating things. I am not talking about belief systems, abuse, or radical factions. I am talking about the widespread, commonplace disregard by the majority of Christians of the basis of their own faith, the teachings of Jesus, as presented in the bible, in favor of Jewish laws which were denounced by Jesus himself and the opinions of an asexual man on sexuality.

Unfortunatley I must resort to a stupid image to illustrate my point literally:

midnightquills.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Stutter.jpeg

Saying that we require God to say what is moral, because there is no morality otherwise, is exactly like saying that we require literary theorists to say what is good writing and what is bad writing, because there is really no such thing as good or bad writing.

Actually, I believe it's more like saying good and bad writing doesn't really exist unless it can exist apart from the realm of human perception. In other words, that we "discover" good writing, as opposed to deciding what it is.

We can discover it if and only if it exists within the realm of human perception, by definition of perception and of discovery.

Say human life was completely worthless, and that this was a fact. Life had no value, whatsoever. What would it matter if one person killed another? Or stole, or raped? It wouldn't.

That's trivially true, by definition of "value". This is not a factor in our argument. Morality requires values. The problem is this statement:

if you want to say that life is a complete accident--a happy coincidence, if you will--then what you end up with is life that is objectively worthless.

I think you're using the word "objective" in a way I would call peculiar. Morality requires values, but what do you mean when you ask for them to be "objective"?

There are certain natural values that would emerge in any universe. Life is valuable because organisms that treat their lives as valuable live, and organisms that don't, don't. Morals, which I define as group values minus individual values, are values evolved into organisms by kin selection or group selection rather than by direct selection.

This is an objective definition of values, and you can use it to predict what values a particular society "should" have, or examine values and determine whether they fit the definition. Doing so works very well. You can predict which animals have taboos against incest, for instance, or the level of friendship that they're capable of. So now I have objective values, and objective worth.

You say, "But I want more than that! I want THE values, the perfect Platonic set of values that apply to all possible creatures in all possible worlds!" I don't think that's meaningful. "Value" means a thing that an organism can have as a goal; values exist only for particular organisms. Bacteria can't have human values because they can't conceive of them, they don't have the information storage capacity.

I think you're making three mistakes here. First, you're saying that I can't have values, because the way I define values isn't good enough for you. That's really a nasty rhetorical trick. I have values; I have a morality based on them; I act morally, and you go about saying "no you don't; you can't; you haven't got values at all!" That's insulting and dehumanizing. I have values; please stop saying I don't. I do everything with my values that anybody does with values; they are values in every sense of the word except for this transcendent non-sense one that you want to use, that I don't think has much to do with real life and humans acting in the world.

Second, you're going off looking for something that does not exist, that has no meaning. "Transcendent" means "non-sense", which means "nonsense". Things that transcend our reality might exist, in some other reality, but they have no meaning for us, and I use meaning here in a technical sense, meaning being a category or thing that we can talk about that is defined by some reference to our reality. You are (vaguely, not precisely) like an assembly-language program that wants to process irrational numbers. Well, you can't. You can't represent or reason about them; they are not relevant to you; they would do you no good. But people who look for this kind of value that doesn't exist, will likely fail at implementing real human values. They'll build elaborate hypotheses and rationalizations and chains of logic, and end up saying that it's okay to murder your kids, or rape slaves, or keep women silent. They'll end up like Mother Theresa, who went to India and saw all the misery there, and then said their biggest social problem was contraception.

Third, supposing there IS a God, and He has a list of The Values--what does it mean to say it's "good" to adopt those values? "Good" means "something that satisfies my values". If you don't already /have/ The Values, The Values are not "good" for you. The human mind is not capable of holding an intensional definition of "good" that means "that which satisfies The Values", because The Values, supposing God gave them to you, could exist only extensionally, as a list. That means they don't have any logical structure. They have no properties relevant to our world other than that they are a list. There can be no "oughtness" to an arbitrary list.

Sure, we could choose to value life and all that comes with it, but then, so could someone else choose not to value it. And because there is nothing outside you or me defining the value of life or choices, neither of us is more justified.

In the long run, the values of the people who value life require them to kill off those who don't. Valuing life wins, for certain restricted values of "life". It works for me.

This set of guides for behavior on how to climb Mount Everest is much like a society's moral laws. But who is the lawgiver? Thousands of people cooperated to make the rules, but their authority doesn't derive from the people. The objective correctness of the rules derives from the facts about Mount Everest, the world of the Mount Everest-climbing society.

Ah...but how did the mountain get there? By accident, or because someone purposefully designed it that way, and put the two routes there?

You're now asking about origins, and evolution vs. creationism. That isn't what the analogy is about. The analogy illustrates that, given a world, and people in the world with a value (get to the top), those people can discover their morality, even though no one created the rules in that morality. There are rules for climbing the mountain, and those rules work, not because some authority dictated them, but because following them results in getting to the top of the mountain.

No. That's not the God of the Bible.

Alright then, prove it. You used to know and serve and love and worship God (that is what being a christian means), but don't anymore. I do worship and know and love and serve him. If you wish to get into a discussion about who the god of the bible is, I heartily welcome it. :twilightsmile:

You said, "He also never lies, is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly understanding, perfectly loving." This is the language of the medieval philosophers, who said God was by definition perfection, and so one describes God by listing all of the virtues with the word "perfect" in front of them. If you think the Bible does that, the burden of proof is on you to show that the Bible claims those things about God, not on me to show that it doesn't. The only Biblical support I can think of for this is, "Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect", but the Greek word translated as "perfect" there is "teleios", which means "full-grown", "complete", or "suited to its purpose". The word "perfect" in modern English comes from the medieval tradition, following Plato. Plato didn't use the word "teleios", but talked about "the good". When Jesus said "Be perfect", he didn't mean perfection in the Platonic and medieval sense, and the sense it's used in modern English. It meant something more like "Be mature, adult, and suited to your purpose".

That's my point, really. That without God--without the creation of life for a purpose--you lose your ground on which to stake objective right and wrong,

No. That's exactly like saying that without God, I lose the ability to declare things mathematically true or false.The world exists, and while it exists, we can make objective statements about it.

Actually, there are many who would disagree with you about those two things. Here's a video explaining why many don't think math objectively exists, and here's another about why many doubt the world itself exists.

There are many stupid people. I don't argue with them.

That doesn't explain anything, which is why I said it doesn't explain anything.

Sure it does. It explains why asking, "what created God?" is the wrong question to ask--or rather, that the Bible answers with: nothing created him. I said all of this because you brought it up, remember?

I brought the issue up as an analogy. The question "what created God?" is analogous to the question "from what did God derive his values?" If you say that's the wrong question to ask, you deny that values are things that need to be derived or justified. So you're saying that values are arbitrary, which is, to me, an oxymoron.

I don't think you're being honest with yourself here.

I'm being very honest with myself, BH. Like I said, bring up specific cases from the Old or New Testament, and we'll talk about them. Then we can find out which one of us is really deceived (it's gotta be one of us). Sound good? :3

The Old Testament says that you should kill your children if they change to another religion, or if they curse you, and you should kill adulterers (though it's not specific about what adultery is). Also, genocide is good; you should do it all the time, as standard practice when you conquer a new land. Do you think Jesus would agree?

Sorry if I sound snippy. I don't mean to be unfriendly, and I appreciate your politeness.

2229126 Well, "bet on" implies they're in a contest and one wins. That's sophistry. Sophists (including Jesuits) debate; rationalists pursue truth. Jesuits must always close their minds to certain truths, because they've decided ahead of time what kinds of conclusions are allowable, and that the arguments of certain authorities (eg Aquinas) must be concluded to be logically sound. Also, they don't add up the evidence and weigh it; they throw out all the evidence against them.

You can get a taste for this by reading Aquinas. He's wonderfully Aristotelian when he's not talking about God, but as soon as he starts talking about God, reason goes out the window.

This isn't inherently a bad thing. That's how democracy works. Democracy doesn't work by everybody sitting down and reasoning things out; it works by everybody explaining their totally biased and one-sided view of things, and hoping they all balance out.

But democratic vote is a poor way to do philosophy or theology.

2229414

Well, "bet on" implies they're in a contest and one wins.

*shrug* That's how they'd both look at it, isn't it?

So I'd bet on the Jesuit. Because fedora boy would pull out the sophistry first thing, thus defining the limits of combat according to Martian chivalry.

2229401

Sometimes I wonder why I even try to participate in debates like this when I move at a snail's pace at writing anything bigger than a few sentences, and when heavy hitters like you make everything I've written seem like balloons filled with hot air. I was gonna say something about how the objective morality concept seems like a self-proving argument that falls apart in any real world context, but that's a little pointless now. Meh.

@Axis of Rotation: Do try and avoid the trap of "winning the argument". Arguments aren't about what people said and how they said them, it's actually about what people believe and their point of view. When presenting your point of view isn't enough, and you can't subvert the viewpoints and opinions that you disagree with, then you're not going to convince anyone of anything besides your ability with words.

2229350
Oh, don't worry, I agree that many, many "christians" aren't really very good christians. In fact, someone telling me "yeah I'm a christian" doesn't always carry a whole lot of meaning, because people use that phrase in so many ways it doesn't really denote that they actually have a real relationship with Jesus, but perhaps that they merely believe in the existence of the christian god. And speaking of Jesus, if you look through the gospels, Jesus never once denounced any of the laws of the old testament, and he actually states that he came to fulfill them. He obeyed the law perfectly, and for the whole concept of salvation to work, he had to. He taught love because that's what God does--and so to love others is to be like God (though notice he said to love God first, and that's important)--and also not to judge others, because that's not our place, only God's, along with the fact that Jesus didn't come to condemn or judge people, but to save them.
And while many Christians are corrupt or lazy or what have you, I'd be very hesitant to say it was the majority, because you have to consider everyone globally. In Western culture, however, yeah, it probably is a majority, but then again, I don't have any numbers in front of me so I can't say. But I know and have met plenty of real, very loving christians. Besides, this isn't a problem endemic to christians--every day everyone fails to follow their own set of morals perfectly. We make excuses and blame outside influences when we fail, but interestingly, we always credit our good behavior to ourselves.
OH, and who are you referring to when you say "an asexual's opinions on sexuality"?

2229401
Having read your response BH, I do think we are using different definitions for the same words, which is obviously a problem if we want to understand one another. So I'll clarify what I mean for the key terms we're using here, and you can tell me if you accept those or not, and if not then we can work out a definition we do accept--or not, because we might just not be able to agree on how to define something. *shrugs* Anyway, assuming we get this out of the way, we'll move on from there. Sound good? So:

Objective: "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations" (taken from Merriam-Webster). Objective truths are what allow you to say someone else is wrong in a claim they make. We don't get to decide objective truths (hmm, none that I can think of, anyway).

Subjective: the opposite of objective. Opinions, feelings, preferences, on the levels of the individual, society, and humanity (for example, diamonds are something that I would say have subjective worth, even though I doubt you could find a single human who wouldn't value one. This is because diamonds are inanimate objects which are only assigned worth; they don't have it intrinsically. Remove humans, or any life, and they just become matter.)

Value: the worth of something. It's importance in relation to something else.

Values: principles, the particulars of morality, what specifically is right or wrong.

Transcendent: " universally applicable or significant <the antislavery movement…recognized the transcendent importance of liberty — L. H. Tribe>" (Merriam-Webster). But given that the other definitions have to do with that which is beyond perception or experience, for the sake of clarity, I'll just avoid using the word for now on.

Morality: restrictions on human behavior for a purpose, or a reason. (I think this is a neutral definition that serves neither of our arguments inherently).

Have I left anything out? Assuming we eventually agree on all of these, I think the next step can be defining what is meant by objective and subjective morality, and perhaps also what the purpose or reason behind morality is.

Real quick though:

I have values; I have a morality based on them; I act morally, and you go about saying "no you don't; you can't; you haven't got values at all!" That's insulting and dehumanizing. I have values; please stop saying I don't.

I hope by now you can see that you accidentally drew something from my words I wasn't trying to express. I never once said you weren't moral, or that you didn't have your own principles (or values). My whole argument is concerning the moment we want to hold others to some moral rule, and where our justification for doing so comes (or doesn't come) from--not that we can't have a set of morals and follow them ourselves, and be morally upright individuals. If this comes as a surprise, that's precisely why I'm trying to establish secure definitions of key concepts, so that you and I can build from the ground up, and find precisely where we split and why--to find the root of our disagreement, and in the process learn more about each other and ourselves, if only for the sake of curiosity.
Furthermore, I see you edited a portion of your reply, and thank you for that, because I was just about to quote it as an ironic example of a very accusatory statement on your part. I would say you changed it because offense isn't your goal, and neither is it mine, and so I think we can both agree that any offense we perceive is accidental on the part of the offender.
Lastly, I'm sending a pm about God's character according to the Bible later on, when I am able to finish it. I'd like to keep this part of the discussion strictly on morality (to keep it easier on us), though I suppose God may come into play.
There's a lot from your comment that I really want to touch upon, but overall I think this is the best route, because I feel like I'm repeating myself over and over, and I think it's safe to say you feel the same way. It keeps appearing to me like you misunderstand me, and it probably looks like I'm constantly missing your point, too. Hopefully we'll be able to get somewhere. :twilightsmile:

2230852

Many theologists and bible studies have interpreted the bible the same way. That Jesus dying to free us from sin was freeing his followers who were still technically Jweish, from the yoke of sin the Old Testament laws placed on them. He said he was the fulfillment of those laws. That means those who followed him no longer had need of them. He was the fulfillment, the terminus of those laws. They were the old way and his was the new. His way was equal to the old laws in the way one leads their life. His teaching supplanted them. By those laws, it was literally almost impossible to lead a sin-free life because every one of those laws was a sin if broken and carried steep penalties including death. Jesus saw it as an oppression and a blockage of the path to the way he taught. For Christians the Old Testament is merely a history of the Jewish people, not gospel.

And Paul was asexual. He was considered blessed by god to be given a life free of any lust with no desire for carnal things and his insight into sex and lust and marriage was considered god-given.

Today there are thousands like him and we know such a state to be a sexual orientation: asexuality. Uncommon but certainly not miraculous.

The problem is that today, no one would take sexual morality or relationship advice from someone who had no personal insight into those things. And the negative repercussions are apparent with vows of celeibacy and vows of marriage being broken or leaving people in misery.

I am sure Paul was a good person, but we all fall into the trap of believing in our own significance.

I work with an asexual person. They are a very good person but when it comes to matters of sex, marriage... even anatomy, they are not enlightened, they are ignorant. They have as much of an aversion to any sex as a heterosexual male would have to homosexual male sex. Both observed and participated.

Paul's differences made him less qualified to speak on these matters, not more.

2230951
Very interesting, DPV. Before I say anything though, what are some of the sources are that you're drawing that from--the bible scholars or theologists, I mean? Could you provide any scriptures?

2232343

Man, I have read so many articles, seen so many videos, heard so many opinions, and had so many arguments. There's no list of references I can toss at ya to check out yourself. I know one video on youtube used about half those arguments to interpret whether or not the bible itself actually forbade Christians from wedded homosexuality or just lewd behavior and unwedded lust. I do not know if I can find it in my history and unfortunately I do not believe the video cites references.

2232631
Well, that's unfortunate. See, chances are that Paul was actually married at one time, though whether he was divorced, a widower, or just separated, we don't know. Paul is referred to as being a Pharisee three times (Acts 26:5, 23:6, and Philippians 3:5), the third being by his own hand in Philippians, an epistle which is apparently undisputed as his (as opposed to others that are disputed to varying degrees). He makes note of his father as being a Pharisee, and that this was also in his ancestry. Furthermore, Paul was a very traditional Jew, writing in Galatians 1:14 "I was ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors," and he calls himself a "Hebrew of Hebrews" in Philippians 3:5.
Most Pharisee's were married, and I believe it was required for Rabbi's (which he might have been considered). Paul, being such an self-acclaimed traditionalist and a Pharisee, was probably married at one time. We know he was single during his ministry of course, and while he recommends marriage for those who "burn with lust" (Corinthians 7) (where he specifically addresses widows along with "unmarried" people), that is a far, far cry from suggesting he wasn't even attracted to women, or wasn't at all tempted by lust. Especially given the entire passage of Romans 7:14-25, where Paul talks about struggling with sin, and makes such statements as 'I do the things I know I shouldn't, and don't do the things I know I should.' He was always very clear that everyone sins, including himself. In Philippians 9 he says "Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?" when he is talking about privileges he has willingly forgone to better serve the Gospel. Nothing I've ever seen points to him being an asexual.
Besides, even Jesus would have been tempted with lust, as we're told he was tempted in every way in which we are (Hebrews 4:15), but he never sinned, and so he can empathize with us. So to say Paul was never tempted with lust, but yet Jesus would have been is a bold statement.
Anyway, that's certainly interesting about what you said concerning the asexuals you know; I've never known any myself, nor do I know much about what their experience is like, but of course, they're people just like anyone else. My best friend is a homosexual. We talk a lot about the topic in relation to Jesus and the Gospel and Christianity in general. The Bible doesn't support homosexuality, but it doesn't support a lot of things; that doesn't mean I can't be close friends with him. Showing respect, consideration, love, yet being open and honest go a long a way.

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Yes but many of the things the bible does not support are in the Old Testament or in Paul's writings. And those are not the teachings of Jesus. One he superceded, the other came well after him. Yet Christians continue to use those parts to discriminate and judge, both acts against Jesus' teachings. Why do Christians praise Jesus' name every day if they care more about what people who are not Jesus say, even if it is contradictory? So many people argue about stuff in the bible as if it is supposed to matter as more than recorded information, but at the end of the day they are contradicting the word of their own god, not for the sake of bettering themselves but for the sake of naming others as inferior to themselves. Again, something Jesus' teachings are against.

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Objective: "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations" (taken from Merriam-Webster). Objective truths are what allow you to say someone else is wrong in a claim they make. We don't get to decide objective truths (hmm, none that I can think of, anyway).

I think this is the key definition, and that I've been using the definition in quotes, while you've been trying to use the part outside quotes.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as truth. There is information. Truth is a concept applied to statements in human language, and no sentence can ever be precise enough to be true. Information content measures how much a statement reduces (or, sometimes, increases) the unpredictability of something. Most of the "great problems" of philosophy, from Hume, thru Kant, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, to de Saussure and Derrida, dissolve if you take this approach.

A value is not in the same category at all--you mention "objective truths", but we were talking about objective values. A value doesn't have information content.

In an earlier message, I said that values that could be predicted from a species' physiology and circumstances are therefore objective. Yet you don't agree with that, so you're using some other definition.

2235438
Well, DPV, can you provide actual scriptures for what you're arguing, like what I did? I mean, what we're essentially doing here is discussing the interpretation of a text, right? And, just like writing a paper on what a novel means, you have to resort to quotes to back things up. So I'd be very interested in seeing actual scriptures that support your claims about Jesus' stance on the morality of things like homosexuality, not simply how he says to treat them, and all others. :twilightsmile:


2235698
Hmmm, let me try to understand you here.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as truth.

So...is that statement not true then?

Truth is a concept applied to statements in human language, and no sentence can ever be precise enough to be true.

Ah, okay, so that means the first quote isn't true, in which case you're saying truth does exist.

In an earlier message, I said that values that could be predicted from a species' physiology and circumstances are therefore objective. Yet you don't agree with that, so you're using some other definition.

Haha actually, if you recall, I never replied specifically to that claim. If you scroll through the comments, you'll see that in response to it, I gave my definitions, so that we could better discuss said claim. But right now it appears we've landed on the topic of truth. :yay:

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Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as truth.

So...is that statement not true then?

Correct. That statement is not True and Certain. But it's mostly true, in this context, which has to do with objective values and philosophical certainty.

Truth is a concept applied to statements in human language, and no sentence can ever be precise enough to be true.

Ah, okay, so that means the first quote isn't true, in which case you're saying truth does exist.

This is an example of the incorrect reasoning that happens when you think statements are either true or false. Statements provide information. Truth implies certainty. Certainty requires infinite information. (Technically, this is because the limit as x goes to infinity of log(1/x) is negative infinity.)

2236021

Bro. I read the Bible. I don't own one anymore. I do not research this stuff online but I take an interest when I see an article, etc on the subject. This is the sum total of my life's observations and opinions on the religion. I do not find Christianity to be inherently evil any more than any other religion whose members and leaders do terrible things to their fellow humans on a regular basis and justify these things with their scriptures in a selective and wrong-headed fashion. I just know enough about Christianity to recognize that most of the justifications used for the terrible things Christians do in the name of their faith have nothing to do with and often run contrary to the word of their primary religious figure upon whose teachings and actions the entire religion is based. The vast majority of devout Christians I have encountered are very unChristian in their thoughts, words,and actions. Yet the ones who follow Jesus above all else (who actually do, don't just claim to as if the words alone made it true) would be considered less "Christian". When Jesus referred to those he wanted to guide into his light as "lambs" I do not think it was a term of endearment. He showed us a good shepherd and freed us from our paddock, and we just went and built a much bigger paddock and never learned a thing. Those outside and those inside can never truly appreciate each others perspectives.

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That's all well and good of course, but I doubt anyone would accept me saying "I know Christianity is true because that's just what I've come to learn over the years," without asking for any sort of substantive evidence or backing for my statements. You can believe whatever you wish, of course, but if you're going to argue over interpretations of a religious text (as we have been doing here), then there's nothing wrong with me asking for evidence from said text, otherwise I'd just be listening to what you told me, and what kind of reason is that to believe anything? I'm not angry or at all upset you haven't supplied anything, or can't, but you can hardly expect me to consider anything you say then, other than that it's simply your opinion. You say it's backed up, but this is the internet so how can I really trust you? No hard feelings, I hope. :twilightsmile:

2236311
Well, this conversation is either about to be over very quickly, or not, because I do believe we've uncovered one of the core points of disagreement between...possibly. We'll see how it goes. This just might be a place of divergence for us, Bad Horse, and that's okay.

Certainty requires infinite information.

So then how can you be completely certain of that? If you're not, that means you could be wrong, in which case certainty doesn't always (or might not always) require infinite information.

See, you keep saying everything like it's true--and you have to, because if it's less than true, that means it's either partly false, it's uncertain and you shouldn't be positing it as if it was (above), or sometimes it's true and sometimes it isn't. Either way I don't see how the argument holds up.

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I never asked you to trust me. I merely posited that discussing deeper religious philosophies is meaningless with members of a religion who worship a book over their god, who disregard the teachings of their messiah for those of lesser virtue, and those who, in a world full of true villains, arbitrarily designate loving fellow humans as worthy or not of the love their god gives unconditionally.

The average religious person is not an extremist zealot, but extremists do not make up their own scripture, they hold the same opinions as the masses, just to greater extremes, but every psycho who murders another human out of hate and zeal, justifying their actions with scripture excuses... had that seed planted by a good, pious, kind, moral person who spoke with the conviction of the faithful that the attributes of their future victim are wrong, sinful, amoral, and unlovable by their god. Dehumanization based on scripture and faith leads to death and oppression based on scripture and faith.

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