Is morality objective or subjective?

[Gary Childress]

Because everybody dies.

And what then?

Maybe nothing.

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

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

[Gary Childress]

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.

So the Bibles doesn't say anything about Lucifer being cast out of heaven?

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe nothing.

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

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

[Gary Childress]

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

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

Gee, I'll just walk into a church then and tell the priest whatever and sit there every Sunday and stare at the candles or something. Maybe I'll go to heaven!

[Immanuel Can]

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

Gee, I'll just walk into a church then and tell the priest whatever and sit there every Sunday and stare at the candles or something. Maybe I'll go to heaven!

Who told you that was the way to get to Heaven?

[Gary Childress]

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

Gee, I'll just walk into a church then and tell the priest whatever and sit there every Sunday and stare at the candles or something. Maybe I'll go to heaven!

Who told you that was the way to get to Heaven?

Well if I don't believe in the Christian God, what else am I to do in Church? OK, OK, I'll sing along with the choir too. Will that suffice?

[Immanuel Can]

Gee, I'll just walk into a church then and tell the priest whatever and sit there every Sunday and stare at the candles or something. Maybe I'll go to heaven!

Who told you that was the way to get to Heaven?

Well if I don't believe in the Christian God, what else am I to do in Church? OK, OK, I'll sing along with the choir too. Will that suffice?

If you refuse to believe in God, and you're refusing the salvation He offers, it won't matter what you do, will it? You're hastening toward an inevitable eternity without God, singing as you go. So you can pretty much do anything...anything religious, anything secular, or anything downright wicked, and you'll get essentially the same outcome: no relationship with God.

[Harbal]

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

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

The fact that you see no ethical problem in trying to frighten people into believing in God tells us all we need to know about the Bible.

[Gary Childress]

Who told you that was the way to get to Heaven?

Well if I don't believe in the Christian God, what else am I to do in Church? OK, OK, I'll sing along with the choir too. Will that suffice?

If you refuse to believe in God, and you're refusing the salvation He offers, it won't matter what you do, will it? You're hastening toward an inevitable eternity without God, singing as you go. So you can pretty much do anything...anything religious, anything secular, or anything downright wicked, and you'll get essentially the same outcome: no relationship with God.

Oh, OK. So I guess I might as well go out and start robbing banks then? Right? I mean, I've stayed out of trouble up to now and been pretty dilligent about following the rules, but since I'm just going to hell anyway just for not believing something I don't believe, maybe I should just go out and take a few people with me, maybe they'll go to heaven, I would be doing them a favor.

[Gary Childress]

Gambling doesn't seem like a very honest way of approaching religion anyway.

We are all "gambling," if that's what you want to call it, every day. We wager that we will get up, walk around, surivive it, and get back to bed. But one day, we'll be wrong. And that's not a gamble, but a certainty: because the mortality rate is 100% -- everybody dies.

Then, there is an answer to our "gamble." It pays off, or it does not. But the answer will come.

No wonder, then, that Jesus asked the question, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If all we have is this world, then we are 100% certain to lose everything. Put those odds into your calculation, then, and see what wager you wish to make.

The fact that you see no ethical problem in trying to frighten people into believing in God tells us all we need to know about the Bible.

That and the apparent fact that according to the Bible God occasionally commands his followers to go into ramped genocide mode when it's necessary, like when someone is living on the land you want and they refuse to move.

[Gary Childress]

God commands people to commit genocide.

The devil temps us not to follow God's orders.

And the above is called "religion".

[Immanuel Can]

The fact that you see no ethical problem in trying to frighten people into believing in God tells us all we need to know about the Bible.

I'm not "trying to frighten people." I'm trying to tell people the truth. If some realities are frightening, then so be it. That's the reality. Better that I tell them than that I don't. What sort of hateful person would I be if I didn't point out the obvious, while there was still time? Should I leave them in a burning building, and say nothing? Surely not.

The good news is that nobody needs to remain frightened. God is not hostile -- as the Bible says, "...now is the day of salvation." He is very gracious and willing to save anybody from their own bad choices and bad actions. But if they will not come, then what shall become of them? Their decision will still be respected, for God will not force men to salvation, as John Locke so rightly said.

So choose. And when one does, I have no more to say. Even God will not deprive a man of the right of disposal of his own soul.

[popeye1945]

life is that which is conscious, life is to be that which experiences and attributes meanings to its experiences and relates those meanings to its outside world, an outside world that by itself is utterly meaningless. This is the process of the creation of apparent reality relative to the experiencing organism. Life/biology is the measure and the meaning of all things, thus, all meanings are the property of the conscious organism and belong solely to that organism until it decides to bestow its meaning onto the outside world. This bestowing is the objectification of the organism's experiences and meanings, thus objectification is a subjective process that then reflects to the organism as its reality/apparent. Truly, life/biology is the measure and the meaning of all things in a world of subjective creation. Apparent reality is a biological readout of the energies that surround us, our interface with ultimate reality is our biology, the state of which determines our apparent reality.

[Immanuel Can]

Well if I don't believe in the Christian God, what else am I to do in Church? OK, OK, I'll sing along with the choir too. Will that suffice?

If you refuse to believe in God, and you're refusing the salvation He offers, it won't matter what you do, will it? You're hastening toward an inevitable eternity without God, singing as you go. So you can pretty much do anything...anything religious, anything secular, or anything downright wicked, and you'll get essentially the same outcome: no relationship with God.

Oh, OK. So I guess I might as well go out and start robbing banks then? Right? I mean, I've stayed out of trouble up to now and been pretty dilligent about following the rules, but since I'm just going to hell anyway just for not believing something I don't believe, maybe I should just go out and take a few people with me, maybe they'll go to heaven, I would be doing them a favor.

Flippancy will never change the facts: the issue is not how wicked we are, but the fact that we are wicked at all. So in a sense, you're right: you might as well go and rob banks, because one sin or another will keep you from God. That's why the way of salvation is forgiveness, not works; because we've all done enough to earn judgment already, and more works are not going to change that situation. If you made yourself perfect, what would that be to God now? Your works, for good or ill, are your own. And "the wages of sin is death."

Relationship. That's the key. It's what God wants from us. But not as we are, because what we are is not fit for that company. First, our sin must be dealt with; and He has already dealt with it. But we must accept the forgiveness and the relationship. Then lasting life, not death, is what God promises: "...but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 6:23)

All I'm saying is this: in this life, death is a certainty. What man is not wise enough to see that preparations must be made?

[Gary Childress]

All I'm saying is this: in this life, death is a certainty. What man is not wise enough to see that preparations must be made?

I've spent most of my life keeping my nose clean in preparation for death. And if I come to God it won't be under threat of damnation from another human being.