Is morality objective or subjective?

[Harbal]

You should, at least, be able to say what you'd accept.

If I agreed that I should be able to do that, I would probably say I would accept anything that was too compelling to deny, but I don't agree that I should.

You don't have to. But you'll never see any evidence if you don't even have a scenario in mind in which that mind can be changed.

Well either something will change my mind or it won't, what's it matter?

The evidence appears to need me more than I need the evidence, so why should I compromise?

It's not compromise, of course. It's being open to rational persuasion. That's all.

Okay, for the sake of resolving this issue, I'm prepared to let your suggestion that I am not open to persuasion go unchallenged.

Okay, I'll go along with this. What evidence is he presenting to me?

In the case of a fire, what evidence would you be willing to accept from him?

I suppose written confirmation from the fire brigade would be acceptable.

If you think it's such a good thing, why don't you set an example by learning that God doesn't exist, after all?

Well, when one has gone from not knowing God to knowing Him, one would be insane to go the other direction.

I once heard a comment about gay sex that went along much the same lines as that.

You're against learning?

I love learning, but I have to be interested in the subject.

[Immanuel Can]

If I agreed that I should be able to do that, I would probably say I would accept anything that was too compelling to deny, but I don't agree that I should.

You don't have to. But you'll never see any evidence if you don't even have a scenario in mind in which that mind can be changed.

Well either something will change my mind or it won't, what's it matter?

It seems your mind can't be changed.

I'm prepared to let your suggestion that I am not open to persuasion go unchallenged.

If I'm wrong, tell me how it can be done.

Okay, I'll go along with this. What evidence is he presenting to me?

In the case of a fire, what evidence would you be willing to accept from him?

I suppose written confirmation from the fire brigade would be acceptable.

Not that easy to say, is it?

I think that in most cases, people would just have to trust him enough to check to see if he was telling the truth. But that would be looking for the evidence, and you don't want to do that...

[Harbal]

You don't have to. But you'll never see any evidence if you don't even have a scenario in mind in which that mind can be changed.

Well either something will change my mind or it won't, what's it matter?

It seems your mind can't be changed.

It's beginning to look that way, isn't it?

I'm prepared to let your suggestion that I am not open to persuasion go unchallenged.

If I'm wrong, tell me how it can be done.

You are starting to frighten me now.

[Immanuel Can]

You are starting to frighten me now.

That's pretty hard to do on an anonymous forum. Quite an achievement, really.

I'll consider it a badge of honour.

[Harbal]

You are starting to frighten me now.

That's pretty hard to do on an anonymous forum. Quite an achievement, really.

I'll consider it a badge of honour.

I don't think you would get the satisfaction you anticipate by getting me to believe in God, because I would still be unable to go along with the things you say it entails. The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?

[Immanuel Can]

You are starting to frighten me now.

That's pretty hard to do on an anonymous forum. Quite an achievement, really.

I'll consider it a badge of honour.

I don't think you would get the satisfaction you anticipate by getting me to believe in God, because I would still be unable to go along with the things you say it entails.

A funny thought: "satisfaction" was never on my mind. I would be pleased for your sake, of course, but in no way self-congratulatory on my own behalf. Personally, I have nothing to gain. But okay.

The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?

"I will not serve." That's a quotation. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), spoken by Father Arnall in his sermon:

“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say. Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his ruin.”

It's not a Biblical quotation, of course. The sentiment may not be incorrect, however, nor the anticipated outcome of that declaration. One has to be very careful when one declares one's unwillingness to bow to the supreme Source of goodness, light, truth and morality. The alternatives may be mistaken for freedom, but they generally turn out to be forms of enslavement that dwarf in magnitude any loss of freedom entailed by humbling oneself to serve all that is good and right.

That's because we are tyrants to ourselves, really: our vaunted self-determination generally turns out to be enslavement to our lower impulses, our pride, our lust, our rebellion and our instinctive perversity, which turns out to be far more ensnaring and demanding than anything else. In our ardent self-love and jealousy for our independence, we find our relationships destroyed, our ambitions all wasted, and our bodies decayed...and then we die.

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

[Gary Childress]

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

Maybe nothing. Maybe we are our bodies and what our bodies' neural networks are able to experience and then we just cease to be at all. I mean, once upon a time there was supposedly an Adam and Eve. That's two people, two souls. So once upon a time every soul in existence was on Earth. But then Adam and Eve had children. And their children had children and so there were no longer just two souls in existence, there were three, then four, then 100, then 1000, then a million...and now there are over 7.5 billion souls in the world. Can the number of new souls be created to eternity.

So let's say Adam and Eve were the only 2 souls at one point. If souls are eternal, then would my soul have existed when Adam and Eve were created but my soul had not yet inhabited a body? Or was my soul created after Adam and Eve. And if my soul was created after Adam and Eve, then there was a time when I did not exist at all. So, it would be possible for a human soul to not exist. If it is possible for a human soul to not exist, what is to lead us to believe that a soul will continue to exist after I depart this world?

[Gary Childress]

That's pretty hard to do on an anonymous forum. Quite an achievement, really.

I'll consider it a badge of honour.

I don't think you would get the satisfaction you anticipate by getting me to believe in God, because I would still be unable to go along with the things you say it entails.

A funny thought: "satisfaction" was never on my mind. I would be pleased for your sake, of course, but in no way self-congratulatory on my own behalf. Personally, I have nothing to gain. But okay.

The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?

"I will not serve." That's a quotation. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), spoken by Father Arnall in his sermon:

“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say. Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his ruin.”

It's not a Biblical quotation, of course. The sentiment may not be incorrect, however, nor the anticipated outcome of that declaration. One has to be very careful when one declares one's unwillingness to bow to the supreme Source of goodness, light, truth and morality. The alternatives may be mistaken for freedom, but they generally turn out to be forms of enslavement that dwarf in magnitude any loss of freedom entailed by humbling oneself to serve all that is good and right.

That's because we are tyrants to ourselves, really: our vaunted self-determination generally turns out to be enslavement to our lower impulses, our pride, our lust, our rebellion and our instinctive perversity, which turns out to be far more ensnaring and demanding than anything else. In our ardent self-love and jealousy for our independence, we find our relationships destroyed, our ambitions all wasted, and our bodies decayed...and then we die.

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

As far as the Bible, it seems to me to be plausible that the Bible is a recorded archive from humans of thousands of years ago. So they called God their "King" because when the Hebrews were writing there were kings and pharaohs, etc. So that's what humans called God, perhaps today we ought to look at God as our president and call him President God. And since a President is not a dictator but rather an executive who carries out the law of the land, God is the executive who carries out the commandments of the land. So the Bible is a bit of a story of kings nested within a King.

I mean what you wrote above about Lucifer being cast out of heaven could ultimately be traceable to the motif of a member of society who would not serve his tribal leader or tribal elder and the elder, instead of killing him, exiled him.

In a sense the Bible mimics life and life mimics the Bible, like a new programming language can cause a computer to execute a different sequence or execute the same sequences differently.

Perhaps the Bible is the very first history book. And the very first history book didn't talk about computers or presidents or anything like that. The first history books recorded what were there at the time. Of course, human beings behave much the same. We've had the same instincts and desires and act them out in the same world as we always have, so there are repetitive patterns, such as some not serving and being exiled for it.

But the real question is, does God exist? Was the universe created by what amounts to an uber human, an all knowing, all powerful, all capable God? Or is God, perhaps the first ever mortal king and the Bible a recorded allegory of the first ever mortal king's behaviors.

[Immanuel Can]

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

Maybe nothing.

Pascal was right. It isn't a prudent bet.

[Harbal]

That's pretty hard to do on an anonymous forum. Quite an achievement, really.

I'll consider it a badge of honour.

I don't think you would get the satisfaction you anticipate by getting me to believe in God, because I would still be unable to go along with the things you say it entails.

A funny thought: "satisfaction" was never on my mind. I would be pleased for your sake, of course, but in no way self-congratulatory on my own behalf. Personally, I have nothing to gain. But okay.

The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?

"I will not serve." That's a quotation. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), spoken by Father Arnall in his sermon:

“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say. Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his ruin.”

It's not a Biblical quotation, of course. The sentiment may not be incorrect, however, nor the anticipated outcome of that declaration. One has to be very careful when one declares one's unwillingness to bow to the supreme Source of goodness, light, truth and morality. The alternatives may be mistaken for freedom, but they generally turn out to be forms of enslavement that dwarf in magnitude any loss of freedom entailed by humbling oneself to serve all that is good and right.

That's because we are tyrants to ourselves, really: our vaunted self-determination generally turns out to be enslavement to our lower impulses, our pride, our lust, our rebellion and our instinctive perversity, which turns out to be far more ensnaring and demanding than anything else. In our ardent self-love and jealousy for our independence, we find our relationships destroyed, our ambitions all wasted, and our bodies decayed...and then we die.

The question of God is one thing, and contrary to what you probably think, I don't entirely dismiss the idea, although any concept of God I might consider would be very different to yours, I suspect.

No, the stumbling block as far as you and I are concerned would be the Bible, and that, I will make it clear now, is a completely unsurmountable obstacle as far as I am concerned. I'm sure we both agree that the Bible was written by human hands. You also believe, as I understand it, that the contents were somehow dictated by God, or endorsed by God, or "inspired" by God, whatever that actually means. I, of course, don't think that at all.

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

Probably absolutely nothing, but I can conceive of a sort of alternative.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't think you would get the satisfaction you anticipate by getting me to believe in God, because I would still be unable to go along with the things you say it entails.

A funny thought: "satisfaction" was never on my mind. I would be pleased for your sake, of course, but in no way self-congratulatory on my own behalf. Personally, I have nothing to gain. But okay.

The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?

"I will not serve." That's a quotation. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), spoken by Father Arnall in his sermon:

“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say. Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his ruin.”

It's not a Biblical quotation, of course. The sentiment may not be incorrect, however, nor the anticipated outcome of that declaration. One has to be very careful when one declares one's unwillingness to bow to the supreme Source of goodness, light, truth and morality. The alternatives may be mistaken for freedom, but they generally turn out to be forms of enslavement that dwarf in magnitude any loss of freedom entailed by humbling oneself to serve all that is good and right.

That's because we are tyrants to ourselves, really: our vaunted self-determination generally turns out to be enslavement to our lower impulses, our pride, our lust, our rebellion and our instinctive perversity, which turns out to be far more ensnaring and demanding than anything else. In our ardent self-love and jealousy for our independence, we find our relationships destroyed, our ambitions all wasted, and our bodies decayed...and then we die.

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

I mean what you wrote above about Lucifer being cast out of heaven could ultimately be traceable to the motif of a member of society who would not serve his tribal leader or tribal elder and the elder, instead of killing him, exiled him.

Ask James Joyce, I guess. Because you can trace the motif back no father than him.

It was Harbal's quotation, too...not mine. I pointed out that it's not Bible.

[Harbal]

A funny thought: "satisfaction" was never on my mind. I would be pleased for your sake, of course, but in no way self-congratulatory on my own behalf. Personally, I have nothing to gain. But okay.


"I will not serve." That's a quotation. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), spoken by Father Arnall in his sermon:

“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell: he fell and there fell with him a third part of the host of heaven: he fell and was hurled with his rebellious angels into hell. What his sin was we cannot say. Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his ruin.”

It's not a Biblical quotation, of course. The sentiment may not be incorrect, however, nor the anticipated outcome of that declaration. One has to be very careful when one declares one's unwillingness to bow to the supreme Source of goodness, light, truth and morality. The alternatives may be mistaken for freedom, but they generally turn out to be forms of enslavement that dwarf in magnitude any loss of freedom entailed by humbling oneself to serve all that is good and right.

That's because we are tyrants to ourselves, really: our vaunted self-determination generally turns out to be enslavement to our lower impulses, our pride, our lust, our rebellion and our instinctive perversity, which turns out to be far more ensnaring and demanding than anything else. In our ardent self-love and jealousy for our independence, we find our relationships destroyed, our ambitions all wasted, and our bodies decayed...and then we die.

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

I mean what you wrote above about Lucifer being cast out of heaven could ultimately be traceable to the motif of a member of society who would not serve his tribal leader or tribal elder and the elder, instead of killing him, exiled him.

Ask James Joyce, I guess. Because you can trace the motif back no father than him.

It was Harbal's quotation, too...not mine. I pointed out that it's not Bible.

What was my quotation?

[Immanuel Can]

I mean what you wrote above about Lucifer being cast out of heaven could ultimately be traceable to the motif of a member of society who would not serve his tribal leader or tribal elder and the elder, instead of killing him, exiled him.

Ask James Joyce, I guess. Because you can trace the motif back no father than him.

It was Harbal's quotation, too...not mine. I pointed out that it's not Bible.

What was my quotation?

"The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?"

Is that not a refusal to serve? If you intended otherwise, then why choose the word "subservient"?

[promethean75]

"So, it is possible for a human soul to not exist. If it is possible for a human soul to not exist, what is to lead us to believe that a soul will continue to exist after I depart this world?"

That's a question i wanna aks Spinoza to see what he says. He said one time 'the mind does not persish but something of it remains' after death. Not verbatim but close.

Is he considering 'mind' to be a necessary or contingent feature of substance? He calls mind and extension (the) two known modes of substance that are recognized by their attributes. So he's runnin an undisclosed parallelism in his substance monism. He's sayin there will always 'be' mind if there is an existing extended universe in space and time... or is he saying there can be minds but they are not ontologically necessary for substance to exist. Like could u just have a universe of rocks... or would there have to be minds too?

[Harbal]

Ask James Joyce, I guess. Because you can trace the motif back no father than him.

It was Harbal's quotation, too...not mine. I pointed out that it's not Bible.

What was my quotation?

"The approach to morality and the subservient attitude would be completely unacceptable to me, so what would be the point?"

Is that not a refusal to serve? If you intended otherwise, then why choose the word "subservient"?

It doesn't matter, it's getting too confusing.