Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Soft sell, then hard sell.

No "sell." I'm just saying what the Book says. That's why I always try to remember to provide the references. I'm not summarizing some mere opinion I happen to have; I'm saying what I know is in there.

[seeds]

That's my attempt to explain complicated issues, and respond to very good questions, as clearly as I can. I hope it's as forthcoming as you would like.

Thanks for your response, but you didn't answer my question: "so, human to human, tell me if you think it fair that I suffer for eternity for failing to believe that God exists?"

As subsequent posts have shown, as usual, IC uses every trick in the book to avoid any sort of direct and honest answer to your completely reasonable question.

If you don't feel able to answer that specific question, please just say that, and I won't push it.

The truth is, he can't answer it.

And that's because if he does answer with the slightest modicum of human-to-human rationality and common sense, then it might weaken the bonding element that holds his faith together.

It's like how catastrophic it would be to whatever psychological method a reformed alcoholic might use to maintain the mental strength to resist taking another drink. For if he (or she) gives-in to that drink,...

(in this case, if IC gives-in to admitting how cruel and utterly insane it would be for God to punish you for eternity for not being convinced of His existence)

...then, again, the bonding element that holds their belief system together could be destroyed.

In other words, he dares not to set foot on that slippery slope.

On the other hand, what he can't seem to get into his thick skull, is that, yes, he could be completely correct in believing that there truly does exist a living Creator of this universe (for, right or wrong, I too share that belief).

However, for IC to also believe that a living Being who is capable of creating a hundred-billion galaxies of suns and planets,...

(one of which we know of has allegedly been used to awaken Her very own familial offspring into existence)

...would nevertheless be so incredibly EVIL as to torture defenseless creatures (Her own children, no less) for eternity, simply because they could not fathom the extent of Her being,...

...suggests (no, SCREAMS) that IC is sorely in need of an overdue upgrade in his thinking.
_______

[Belinda]

Seeds wrote:

On the other hand, what he can't seem to get into his thick skull, is that, yes, he could be completely correct in believing that there truly does exist a living Creator of this universe (for, right or wrong, I too share that belief).

Have you considered that the living creator of this universe may be man employing his concept -building ability?

[iambiguous]

Ah, so a consensus about moral standards in any particular No God community...let's call that an objective moral judgment?

Right.

That is how it works.

Okay, let's try to pin down the "for all practical purposes" implications of this.

You come to a community of Communists. And they all believe that the Communist Manifesto and the works of Marx and Engels reflect the most rational and virtuous human interactions. So, that makes their own community the embodiment of an objective moral judgment, in your view?

Simply the fact that they believe that it does makes it so? Scrap all of the conflicting moral arguments made by other philosophers down through the ages?

Next up: A black Jew comes to a community of those who walk the talk of Alexis Jacobi. Same thing? Their own community value judgments reflect an objective moral judgment?

I could have mentioned the evolution of morality which produces similar but not identical moral systems in different communities.

But I didn't because I thought it might blow up the forum.

Go ahead, mention them. Then we can discuss the extent to which moral judgments [historically, culturally, individually] are more reflective of dasein or deontolgy? Or your own "when in Rome" approach to it?

The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.

Ah, of course: a general description intellectual contraption!

I wouldn't have expected either 1] more or 2] less from you.

Nor AJ, right?

[iambiguous]

Iambiguous: I’ve run out of energy to correct your constant erroneous rephrasing of what I say into what you imagine that I’m saying or want me to have said.

Absolutely shameless!!

Indeed, if not...

SHAMELESS. AND ABSOLUTELY SO!!!!!!



And to think that, for a while there, I thought you were actually going to be a challenge!!!

[iambiguous]

It's not a lie if he believes it to be true.

Let’s examine that assertion.

I think we will quickly prove it to be insufficient.

Sure. Check the dictionary.

And what "for all practical purposes" are we to make of this?

phyllo believes what he does about God and Christianity and Communists and objective morality and abortion and Jews and blacks. And merely by believing it, this makes it true.

Same with AJ.

Same with everyone. You can't, on the one hand, believe something -- anything -- and then, on the other hand, it be a lie.

Any number of philosophers, however, down through the ages, dare to differ. You can't just equate belief with truth they insist. Only there are any number of them right here who almost never bring this assumption itself down out of the philosophical clouds.

Just as there are Christians here who never go beyond demonstrating that what they believe about the Christian God comes straight out of the Christian Bible.

The perfect moral narrative: "I believe it, and therefore it's true."

[phyllo]

Seriously?

There is no universally accepted definition of lying to others. The dictionary definition of lying is “to make a false statement with the intention to deceive” (OED 1989) but there are numerous problems with this definition. It is both too narrow, since it requires falsity, and too broad, since it allows for lying about something other than what is being stated, and lying to someone who is believed to be listening in but who is not being addressed.

The most widely accepted definition of lying is the following: “A lie is a statement made by one who does not believe it with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it” (Isenberg 1973, 248) (cf. “[lying is] making a statement believed to be false, with the intention of getting another to accept it as true” (Primoratz 1984, 54n2)). This definition does not specify the addressee, however. It may be restated as follows:

(L1) To lie =df to make a believed-false statement to another person with the intention that the other person believe that statement to be true.

L1 is the traditional definition of lying. According to L1, there are at least four necessary conditions for lying. First, lying requires that a person make a statement (statement condition). Second, lying requires that the person believe the statement to be false; that is, lying requires that the statement be untruthful (untruthfulness condition). Third, lying requires that the untruthful statement be made to another person (addressee condition). Fourth, lying requires that the person intend that that other person believe the untruthful statement to be true (intention to deceive the addressee condition).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lying-definition/

[phyllo]

Belief?

It's impossible to believe something and to think it to be untrue at the same time.

Whatever you believe, you believe to be true.

Whether it's true from a god's eye point of view is another matter.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Next up: A black Jew comes to a community of those who walk the talk of Alexis Jacobi. Same thing? Their own community value judgments reflect an objective moral judgment?

That would be Sammy Davis Jr! a bona fide convert to the Tribe! I kid you not. More observant than the studio execs who hired him. He would not work on the Sabbath nor High Holidays and refused shrimp cocktails like a Yiddish mitzvah champion.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And to think that, for a while there, I thought you were actually going to be a challenge!!!

I’m gearing up!

[Alexis Jacobi]

You come to a community of Communists. And they all believe that the Communist Manifesto and the works of Marx and Engels reflect the most rational and virtuous human interactions. So, that makes their own community the embodiment of an objective moral judgment, in your view?

Call me self-centered but my question is: what kind of food do they serve? You can tell a great deal by that.

Sabrett hotdogs? — I’m in! Ideology be damned.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The show must go on….

This I dedicate to Iambiguous the man who (how does that go?) burn in frustration over the World that refuses to change . . .

[Age]

Belief?

It's impossible to believe something and to think it to be untrue at the same time.

Whatever you believe, you believe to be true.

Thank you.

Whether it's true from a god's eye point of view is another matter.

[tillingborn]

There's no longer anything to deny. So Atheism's one central precept, "no God" becomes an incoherent statement.

might be applied to fairies, the same cannot be said of evolution.

No, that analogy doesn't work, either. We're only speaking of how language works, here.

In which case fairies works as well as God.
Now that's sorted, which of these is true:
1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

[iambiguous]

ME:

Ah, so a consensus about moral standards in any particular No God community...let's call that an objective moral judgment?

That is how it works.

Okay, let's try to pin down the "for all practical purposes" implications of this.

You come to a community of Communists. And they all believe that the Communist Manifesto and the works of Marx and Engels reflect the most rational and virtuous human interactions. So, that makes their own community the embodiment of an objective moral judgment, in your view?

Simply the fact that they believe that it does makes it so? Scrap all of the conflicting moral arguments made by other philosophers down through the ages?

Next up: A black Jew comes to a community of those who walk the talk of Alexis Jacobi. Same thing? Their own community value judgments reflect an objective moral judgment?

I could have mentioned the evolution of morality which produces similar but not identical moral systems in different communities.

But I didn't because I thought it might blow up the forum.

Go ahead, mention them. Then we can discuss the extent to which moral judgments [historically, culturally, individually] are more reflective of dasein or deontology? Or your own "when in Rome" approach to it?

The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.

Ah, of course: a general description intellectual contraption!

I wouldn't have expected either 1] more or 2] less from you.

Nor AJ, right?

And...

phyllo believes what he does about God and Christianity and Communists and objective morality and abortion and Jews and blacks. And merely by believing it, this makes it true.

Same with AJ.

Same with everyone. You can't, on the one hand, believe something -- anything -- and then, on the other hand, it be a lie.

Any number of philosophers, however, down through the ages, dare to differ. You can't just equate belief with truth they insist. Only there are any number of them right here who almost never bring this assumption itself down out of the philosophical clouds.

Just as there are Christians here who never go beyond demonstrating that what they believe about the Christian God comes straight out of the Christian Bible.

The perfect moral narrative: "I believe it, and therefore it's true."

HIM:

Seriously?

There is no universally accepted definition of lying to others. The dictionary definition of lying is “to make a false statement with the intention to deceive” (OED 1989) but there are numerous problems with this definition. It is both too narrow, since it requires falsity, and too broad, since it allows for lying about something other than what is being stated, and lying to someone who is believed to be listening in but who is not being addressed.

The most widely accepted definition of lying is the following: “A lie is a statement made by one who does not believe it with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it” (Isenberg 1973, 248) (cf. “[lying is] making a statement believed to be false, with the intention of getting another to accept it as true” (Primoratz 1984, 54n2)). This definition does not specify the addressee, however. It may be restated as follows:

(L1) To lie =df to make a believed-false statement to another person with the intention that the other person believe that statement to be true.

L1 is the traditional definition of lying. According to L1, there are at least four necessary conditions for lying. First, lying requires that a person make a statement (statement condition). Second, lying requires that the person believe the statement to be false; that is, lying requires that the statement be untruthful (untruthfulness condition). Third, lying requires that the untruthful statement be made to another person (addressee condition). Fourth, lying requires that the person intend that that other person believe the untruthful statement to be true (intention to deceive the addressee condition).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lying-definition/

So...

If the Communists genuinely believe that Marxism reflects an objective moral judgment, are they lying? If AJ genuinely believes that, as a member of the white Northern European stock, he is genetically superior in Itelligence to the other races, is he lying?

Should black, brown, red and yellow posters here [Jewish or not] just accept this as the truth because he believes it? They genuinely believe that white Northern European men and women are not necessarily more intelligent than they are. So, are they lying instead? Is that the world phyllo lives in himself? Putin sincerely believes he is justified in invading Ukraine. Is he lying?

Me? Well, again, my own political prejudice "here and now" [rooted existentially in dasein] is that Communism does not reflect an objective moral judgment. And that white Northern European men and women are not inherently more intelligent than the other races. Though, once again, given the gap between what I think I know about these things "here and now" and all that there is to be known about them there's no way that I can actually demonstrate that what I do believe others are obligated to believe in turn.

Same with my current views regarding Christianity. I don't believe in the Christian God. But if others here do, okay, fine, let them demonstrate to me that He does in fact exist.