Is morality objective or subjective?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Again, what does any of that have to do with this:

A good deal as it turns out.

[Immanuel Can]

So you don't think it's important to challenge and assess that which you choose to believe and follow... and you are content to believe that there are 'answers you are not due' and for anything else, you 'must wait to discover'?

I don't think you can show me from the above anywhere I said anything even remotely close to that

You left off the second half of my sentence (I've re-added it above in blue) which provided the context. Why do you do that?

Why did I do it? Well, the first part was where the gross misrepresentation was located. The ensuing attempt to "sell" it on the following clause was much less important.

I don't imagine the secular world, which aborts babies at a rate of millions per year, can much concern themselves with the welfare of babies, though.

Surely you can conceive that women of all belief systems have aborted babies throughout human history.

Proof, please.

Oh, so you cannot conceive of it!

"Conceive"? One can "conceive" of all sorts of untrue things. But you need evidence that you have reason to think it's not just "conceivable," but actually true.

Absent that, your opponent can simply say that she "conceives" that it does not happen at all, obviously.

But I can say that abortion is an anti-Christian action.

Proof, please.

"Thou shalt not murder." That's a good start.

If (as you say) we are not in charge of anybody else, then Christianity has way overstepped... wouldn't you agree?

I wouldn't say so. To agree with God isn't "overstepping

Please provide proof of agreement with God.

About what, in particular?

Shouldn't God and each individual have their own relationship and understandings about what is appropriate for each person and circumstance, all things considered?

Yes. It depends what you mean by that.

Why would that personal relationship be anyone else's business?

Because saying one has a "personal relationship" doesn't justify any behaviour which God disapproves. If you steal from somebody or murder somebody, one can't get off the hook by pleading that one's "personal relationship" feelings allowed one to do it.

Moral values stay as they are.

Do you have a source for your moral values other than the Bible?[/quote]
That's been tried. The history of secular ethics is really a story of a series of conflicting failures.

Conscience is to weak and fallible a guide, reason leads to conflictual possible conclusions, pursuing a particular teleology (such as "pleasure" or "well-being") is gratuitous or undefinable (respectively), power does not lead to morality, developmentalism isn't automatic, and so on. There's been no secular proposal that has been able to stick, to inform a society or a justice system, or even to give a definitive answer to a personal dilemma. So the whole thing, to this point in history, is a cacophony of irreconcilable alternatives, not a source of any moral certitudes.

[Immanuel Can]

If we can all make up our own minds based on varying accounts, who are you to conclude and tell us we're wrong?

I don't have to tell you. You can read it yourself. It's very plain.

If it's so plain, why do Bible scholars still debate it?

Read the passages cited. It's pretty straight-forward stuff.

Reminder:

(John 3:36, for example. Or Mark 1:15, Mark 9:42, Matthew 13:41-43, John 3:16...)

[Immanuel Can]

The Hebrew ideas are likely rip-offs (cultural appropriations) or embellishments of ideas and concepts of this sort.

That sort of explanation pretty much died in the '70s. Resemblance, it turns out, can be explained many better ways than simple causality.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Hebrew ideas are likely rip-offs (cultural appropriations) or embellishments of ideas and concepts of this sort.

That sort of explanation pretty much died in the '70s. Resemblance, it turns out, can be explained many better ways than simple causality.

Your views, naturally and obviously, are informed by your religious zealotry and those of a fundamentalist “true believer”, so I’d say it is not simply doubtful but impossible that you could accept any view that runs against that of your radical religious zealotry.

The Hebrews have shown themselves adept at appropriating cultural stories, and inverting or altering them so to serve different and sometimes contrary cultural purposes.

It means something therefore to understand that Yahweh did not begin as a god of creation but rather that the god-concept of a universal creator and a creator-hod myth were attached later and for purposes that can be identified and thought about.

Obviously such ideas are not possibilities that you could entertain. Because of your zealous position.

A hyper-religious nut-job is by definition not someone who can rationally discuss these matters with.

[Immanuel Can]

Obviously such ideas are not possibilities that you could entertain.

I could "entertain" them, and have, in fact: but I find them weak. So should you. And so do many modern scholars.

The reason is very simple. You've forgotten that resemblances between two things can be explained by reference to a third thing. The reason you look like your brother is not because your brother "caused" you, or that you "copied" your brother. It's because you came from the same parents. Just so, Biblical revelation having some similarities with other ancient documents simply means that those documents were not totally devoid of truth. It doesn't tell you that the Biblical documents came from those other documents, or that those other documents came from the Biblical ones.

Resemblance is not identity, you see. And it's not causality. It's only resemblance.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Your tricky shit doesn’t work with me — nor with most others, Immanuel.

You have no ground for a rational position because your ground is irration by definition.

But you wish to play as if you are rational and as if the reasonable is your object.

It is an elaborate posture and a costume. You are incapable of rational thought in relation to your orientation within radical religious zealotry.

Is that any clearer now?!?

Let’s try this: Are you, or are you not, a religious zealot?

Do you have a straight answer?

[Immanuel Can]

Your tricky shit doesn’t work with me

The "tricky shit" is called "basic logic." That it "doesn't work" on you, I accept by way of your own testimony.

[Alexis Jacobi]

More “game” on your part, Immanuel. Your zealous religiosity has no ground in logical premises or methods because it originates in a very different center. Ultimately, the faith position cannot be supported logically or through logical presentation (like a Euclidian proof). You pretend that this is the case however.

I return to the basic assertion: Yahweh did not begin as a universal and transcendental god-concept, but as a tribal god of a specific people. Later, the myth of a universal creator-god was grafted on. But all the original traces of that former god-concept are still there.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Let’s try this: Are you, or are you not, a religious zealot?

The question still hangs in the air, Immanuel. Can you answer it?

[Immanuel Can]

Let’s try this: Are you, or are you not, a religious zealot?

The question still hangs in the air, Immanuel. Can you answer it?

It hangs in the air like the whiff of gas. We shall wait for it to dissipate.

[Alexis Jacobi]

See, this points up a difference between us: I’d answer the question. There really is an answer.

Religious faith is, in fact, more aligned with zealotry and irrationalism than it is with logically defensible truth-claims.

It’s odd to me that that step — one that is honest and realistic — is outside of your grasp.

It seems it would crush you to make that admission. In fact you roundly avoid any discussion about this delicate issue.

[Immanuel Can]

See, this points up a difference between us: I’d answer the question.

Because you can't see a loaded question coming?

If you say so...

[iambiguous]

Again, what does any of that have to do with this:

A good deal as it turns out.

Okay, one last try...

To have lived nobly, to have chosen noble actions when it would have been easier perhaps not to; it seems to me that that man had done more and better than the typical Christian whose reward was promised.

Right. And if you are not sure what actually constitutes "noble actions"?

Uh, start here?

https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

You may not attain immortality and salvation, but you can take comfort in knowing that on this side of the grave, you are a member of the right race and the right gender. And that you embody the right sexual orientation and espouse the right haplessly dogmatic assessment of biological imperatives.

Anyway, it’s not that it is a no-god world, it is that the former picture (of god, of ourselves, of this situation) became inadequate.

Right. And if you are not sure what actually constitutes an adequate picture?

Uh, start here?

https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora



Only -- click -- we can all "exit" ourselves from here. But given the ultimate exit -- death -- IC nails it.

But...

But it is nailed down only to the extent he can, in fact, demonstrate the existence of the Christian God.

The part I keep pestering him about while you and others here sustain these didactic philosophical/theoretical assessments of human morality up in the spiritual clouds.

Thump me with one of those dreaded "walls of words" if you must.


Note to Satyr:

Help him out, okay?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Your response should have been: “My faith in Jesus Christ and the Hebrew revelation is thoroughly rational. Because that is so it cannot be described as irrational. If you do not follow logic to the same conclusion it is because you have a faulty reasoning faculty.”

Etc., etc.