Theism and Moral Realism are separate concepts

[Astro Cat]

Do you want an answer? As a Theist, I can tell you what I think it is.

The description of Euthyphro's Dilemma has a missing piece: and it's very key. Socrates thinks its so important that he makes darn sure he has it in place before he launches the dilemma. Because the truth is, absolutely everything depends on it...and he knows it.

Here's the relevant section, reproduced for your consideration:

So: What about the gods, Euthyphro? If they indeed disagree over
something, don't they disagree over these very things?
Euth: It's undoubtedly necessary.
So: Then some of the gods think different things to be just,
according to you, worthy Euthyphro, and noble and shameful and good
and bad, since they surely wouldn't be at odds with one another unless
they were disagreeing about these things. Right?
Euth: You're right.
So: And so what each group thinks is noble and good and just, they
also love these thing, and they hate the things that are the opposites of
these?
Euth: Certainly.
So: Then according to you some of them think that these things are
just, while others think they are unjust, the things that, because there's a
dispute, they are at odds about and are at war over. Isn't this so?
Euth: It is.
So: The same things, it seems, are both hated by the gods and loved,
and so would be both despised and beloved by them?
Euth: It seems so.
So: And the same things would be both pious and impious,
Euthyphro, according to this argument?
Euth: I'm afraid so.
So: So you haven't answered what I was asking, you marvelous
man. Because I didn't ask you for what is both pious and impious at once,
and as it appears, both beloved and despised by the gods. As a result,
Euthyphro, it wouldn't be surprising if in doing what you're doing now—
punishing your father—you were doing something beloved by Zeus but
despised by Kronos and Ouranos, and while it is dear to Hephaestos, it is
despised by Hera, and if any other god disagrees with another on the
subject, your action will appear the same way to them, too.
(Woods-Pack, 2007)

So what you see is that the dispute over what is "the Good" is premised this way: that the gods disagree about what it is; therefore, it cannot be identical with what the gods regard as pious, or what they love. "The Good" must stand separate from the divine opinions.

In other words, Socrates premise is Polytheism, not Monotheism. Socrates was, after all, a Polytheist who only occasionally talked about "the God," and mostly referred to "the gods," just like everybody in his day did.

What difference does it make? Well, the Dilemma requires us to accept a dichotomy between "Good" and "[will of/beloved of the] gods." If there were a way in which these things were identical, then the Dilemma itself would be premised on a false dichotomy, and would fail.

It isn't true that the dilemma requires us to accept a dichotomy between good and the will of God (to frame it in monotheism here): that would miss the point. Rather, that good and the will of God are ontologically separate is one of the possible forks of the dilemma (not the dilemma itself, and not a requirement of the dilemma by definition of its structure).

The dilemma, as posed (even when accounting for monotheism), doesn't require or assume that goodness is ontologically separate from God. It only posits that either it is separate from God (and God adheres to it, or follows it), or it is dependent on God's will (and God therefore defines it).

It should be pointed out that in a scenario where good is ontologically separate from God (where God wants to be good, so He wills and commands things that are good) that God's desires and opinions can perfectly match up with what is "good" while still being ontologically separate.

This is the same way (let me just concoct an analogy here) as if we had a perfect computer that always calculates correctly, is immune to quantum efficiency problems and so on, that the computer's output will always be correct and in line with a mathematical truth -- but it wouldn't mean that the the mathematical truths are dependent on the computer, they would be ontologically distinct.

Let us use the word dependency: either good is dependent on God (e.g., God's will defines what is good) or God is dependent on good (e.g., what makes something good is external to God and God just follows it like everyone else tries to, albeit perfectly). That is what the dilemma really is.

Do you see it yet? Under Monotheism, there are no alternate gods. There is but one God, who is the Grounds of all Being. To say that something is "good" then, is to say it is consonant with the will, character and purposes of God...the only God that exists (or to use Socratic terms, it is "pious" and "what God loves"). So it is not a case that we can propose that either God commands X to be moral OR it is moral, so God commands it. We would have to say that X is moral because it is consonant with the nature of God AND God also commands it because of this.

This is really just the case where good is dependent on God, basically Divine Command Theory (a misnomer, I think, because the "commanding" aspect has little to do with the relevant metaphysics: it's the dependency that matters).

But as my original post indicates, there is a problem with this, a microcosm: is goodness defined by God's nature or God's personality?

1) If it's defined by God's nature, then the problem is that God has no control over God's nature (as stated in the OP), which makes goodness logically prior (not temporally prior, logically prior) to God: God had no part in it existing, had no sovereignty over its qualities, God is dependent on it. It would be a standard which God fulfills but does not found, create, or cause.

2) If it's defined by God's personality, then the problem is that, as the OP states, goodness is then up to God's whim. God could command smashing babies for the sake of watching and enjoying their pain and it would be "good." Not only do our moral compasses disagree with this, but there is no reason here why we ought to agree with God's whims (so there is no moral impetus). If one objects by saying, "God wouldn't command smashing babies because that isn't in his nature," then we have really bait and switched to option 1.

[Immanuel Can]

It isn't true that the dilemma requires us to accept a dichotomy between good and the will of God (to frame it in monotheism here): that would miss the point.

Well, you'll have to argue with Socrates about that: he clearly thought is was essential. But I think so, too. And I'll say why by pointing to the ways in which the supposition of a disjuncture between "the Good" and "God" is presupposed by your reframing of the dilemma, rather than provided warrant by anything in it.

The dilemma, as posed (even when accounting for monotheism), doesn't require or assume that goodness is ontologically separate from God. It only posits that either it is separate from God (and God adheres to it, or follows it), or it is dependent on God's will (and God therefore defines it).

This wording smuggles in the disjuncture. It treats "The Good" and "God" as separate entities, and essentially asks which comes first in a sort of causal chain. To say, for example, that "God follows the Good," would already be to say they're two different things: one can't "follow" oneself. The second, that it is "dependent on God's will" makes the same assumption: that now "God" is the primary entity, and "the Good" is that which is compelled to follow after God.

Again, the two are not treated, in your very premises, as Theists insist they are: two descriptions of exactly the same thing. But that premise is not simply to be assumed; if the skeptic is to have it, he must prove the disjuncture between the two. And as I ask at the end, how is he/she going to go about doing that?

It should be pointed out that in a scenario where good is ontologically separate from God (where God wants to be good, so He wills and commands things that are good) that God's desires and opinions can perfectly match up with what is "good" while still being ontologically separate.

But it is this very scenario, the one in which "Good" and "God's will" are ontologically separate, that stands in need of proving. For according to Theism, God is the grounds of all Being. This means that the human conception of "the Good," even at its most accute, is merely a derivative and fallible attempt to describe some aspect of the nature of God. "The Good," as it truly is, exists only perfectly in the character of God Himself; and God provides the only prototype by means of which any conception of "The Good" is possible at all.

One may take a shortcut, and just say, "Well, there is no God." That, too, is purely assumptive and in need of sufficient evidence. But even if one assumes it, one can no longer indict the Theistic account as insufficient or irrational: IF, as a hypothesis, God were to exist, then the Theist explanation that Good and God are one would certainly render the Euthyphro Dilemma absurd. Under the Theistic worldview, it's not a dilemma that can be rationally proposed.

And IF there were no God, then the concept of "The Good" or even just "good" are up for grabs. For what can they mean, since no objective grounds for their attribution any longer exists? Certainly the indifferent Materialist universe has no particular view of the moral value of any particular items or acts that happen within it's indifferent bosom. So the disjuncture between "The Good" and "God" vapourizes by another means -- by the vacating of any specific referent of either term.

This is why it's only in a Polytheistic universe that the Dilemma can even be proposed. In a Theistic one, the "dilemma" part is removed, while retaining the objective meaning of both "Good" and "God"; in an Atheistic or Materialistic or Physicalist universe, or any similar such, it's the key terms themselves that lose their objective meaning, and again, the dilemma is gone.

Since you and I are not Polytheists, we can't pose the dilemma at all...perhaps for different reasons, but the end is the same.

Do you see it yet? Under Monotheism, there are no alternate gods. There is but one God, who is the Grounds of all Being. To say that something is "good" then, is to say it is consonant with the will, character and purposes of God...the only God that exists (or to use Socratic terms, it is "pious" and "what God loves"). So it is not a case that we can propose that either God commands X to be moral OR it is moral, so God commands it. We would have to say that X is moral because it is consonant with the nature of God AND God also commands it because of this.

This is really just the case where good is dependent on God,

No, I don't think it is. We can call the Supreme Being "God." We can call Him, "Ultimate Good." There's no inconsistency there. One can call you "Astro Cat," or "that girl in Chicago" (if my memory serves): it will refer to the same reality. The one term might be more descriptive than the other, but the person at the end of the reference is exactly the same one.

But as my original post indicates, there is a problem with this, a microcosm: is goodness defined by God's nature or God's personality?

1) If it's defined by God's nature, then the problem is that God has no control over God's nature (as stated in the OP), which makes goodness logically prior (not temporally prior, logically prior) to God: God had no part in it existing, had no sovereignty over its qualities, God is dependent on it. It would be a standard which God fulfills but does not found, create, or cause.

To make this a problem, you would already have to have reference to a conception of "the Ultimate Good" or "the reference Point for Good" that was not identical with God Himself. You would have to use God as the subject, and "good" as a kind of predication, as if "goodness" were a predicate you already had in your cognitive arsenal before the issue of God arrived in your mind. You would have to have a conception of "goodness" apart from God already. But any such attempt is pure fiction, according to the Theist. So the Theist has every right to ask the skeptic, "From what or where are you deriving this conception of "goodness" over and against which you propose to counterpoise God?

But this is exactly the problem: any such disjuncture needs to be demonstrated or proved in some way, prior to being asserted. Theists deny that disjuncture exists. The burden is on the skeptic to show that his "dilemma" is real, then. But I do not think he/she can do it.

2) If it's defined by God's personality, then the problem is that, as the OP states, goodness is then up to God's whim.

This also does not follow, but I should say why it doesn't.

Firstly, God does not do just anything. This is an unsubtle an unnuanced interpretation of what Theists are supposed to mean when they speak of God's omnipotence. Omnipotence does not mean that God does absurd things, like making square circles. It also does not mean that God does evil things, like lie, betray Himself, break His word, sin, and so on...in fact, the Bible explicitly rules out any conception of God that allows for Him doing any such. But this is not because of the limitation of His power, but because, being the most powerful Being in the universe, genuinely omnipotent, He alone is the One entity who never finds it necessary or expedient to act in any way not consonant with his own nature. Unlike men and women, He never has to betray or act unworthily toward His own character. We do that all the time.

God does only that which is harmonious with His own nature, character and intentions. We humans are not like that, because we lack both the integrity always to want the right thing and the power to enact all the things we decide to want. That, and we're sinful, of course, which means "not oriented to the good instinctively." So we experience a disjuncture between our wishes and "the Good." That makes it natural for us to project that mistake onto our thinking about God; but the fault is with us, not with Him...to extend our experience to Him is simply a case of false analogy. "God is not a man, that He should lie," say the Scriptures. Even there, the falseness of the analogy is made plain.

So again, the missing piece for the skeptic is this: a grounded, objective conception of "the Good" that can be demonstrated to be definitely not consonant with the nature of God. The existence of the dichotomy the skeptic wants to propose must be shown, not merely assumed or gratuitously asserted.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Mine is that of Moral Objectivism and Moral Realism.
There are nuances to it which you have missed.

We need to consider, there is a need to consider,
There are Two Senses of Reality
viewtopic.php?t=40265
1. Human-based Framework and System [FS] sense.
2. Philosophical Realists' sense which is illusory.

It is likely that you are not a moral realist based on sense 2, i.e. the philosophical realists' sense of realism and 'what is fact'. Your fact is a linguistic-fact, not the real fact.
I have argued against such fact and reality in;

Why Philosophical Realism [PR] is Illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167

PR's What is Fact is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577

As such, your denial of moral realism is grounded on an illusion, thus not valid.
This is the common view of denying there are no moral facts, so no moral realism or moral objectivity.

Just as your claim there is no moral realism is unsound based on sense 1 [philosophical realism], the theists arguments, there is moral realism based on sense 1 [also based on philosophical realism] is unsound as well.

.............
My version of morality as real, factual and objective is the same as the scientific real, factual and objective as contingent upon a human-based scientific framework and system.
In my case, there is moral realism within a FS which can be justified by science and other fields of knowledge.

According to my FS based morality, there is some elements of morality within theism, but that is pseudo-moral_realism just like the pseudo-science in science-proper.

I have skimmed the linked posts, but I think the format will be difficult if having a discussion across three different posts. Can you summarize here for a discussion in one location on the relevant topic?

For instance, in the first post, you talk about a gap between perception and reality and declare the perception illusory. I don't think any serious realist denies that such a gap exists. This is more of an epistemic objection than an ontological objection, the realist is only saying they have epistemic warrant to believe there is a mind-independent candle; not that their perception of a candle itself is reality.

You missed my point.

Philosophical Realism has both epistemological and ontological elements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

Yes, the realists[P] believe their perception of a candle itself is NOT reality.
They believe there is an ontological candle itself that is represented by the perception.
The ontological candle is an candle-in-itself, i.e. the candle exists regardless whether there are humans or not.
This ontological candle is the fact and reality which is thus objective.

Realists[P] merely confine moral elements to moral rights or wrongs which cannot be ontological like the candle-in-itself.
Therefore according to p-realists, morality cannot be objective.

My counter is,
that the p-realists claimed there is a candle-in-itself, which will exists even if no humans, cannot be absolute.
A claim of a candle-in-itself existing absolutely mind-independent is chasing an illusion and ideological, it is delusional.
Therefore, for a p-realists to reject objective moral facts based on the above illusory-based and ideological claim is false and not valid.
This is a false sense of reality.

On the other hand, the antirealist oppose and reject the p-realists' absolute view of the ontological candle-in-itself.
The antirealist [Kantian] do recognize an external independent world but it is ultimately somehow related the human conditions.
This claim of human-related reality is contingent upon a human-based Framework and System [FS] thus objective [depend on collective-system not on a subject's view] of which the scientific FS is the gold standard.

Leaning on the scientific FS, the moral FS gains its objectivity, thus moral objectivity.

There could be the theistic FS.
Because the theistic FS is grounded on an illusory God, whatever morality therefrom cannot be objective in contrast to the scientific FS.

Theism and moral realism are from independent FS, i.e. the theistic-FS and the moral-FS; this is the reason [OP] why theism [theistic FS] must be separated from moral realism [a subset of the moral FS].
This is like creationism [theistic FS] cannot be cosmology [scientific FS], i.e. they are from independent framework and system [FS].

Thus to deal with the OP effectively we need to take into account;
There are Two Senses of Reality
viewtopic.php?t=40265

Your views are based on the philosophical realists sense of mind-independence which is grounded on an illusion.

The more realistic sense is that which is contingent on the human-based Framework and System sense.

[Astro Cat]

Well, you'll have to argue with Socrates about that: he clearly thought is was essential. But I think so, too. And I'll say why by pointing to the ways in which the supposition of a disjuncture between "the Good" and "God" is presupposed by your reframing of the dilemma, rather than provided warrant by anything in it.

...

This wording smuggles in the disjuncture. It treats "The Good" and "God" as separate entities, and essentially asks which comes first in a sort of causal chain. To say, for example, that "God follows the Good," would already be to say they're two different things: one can't "follow" oneself. The second, that it is "dependent on God's will" makes the same assumption: that now "God" is the primary entity, and "the Good" is that which is compelled to follow after God.

Again, the two are not treated, in your very premises, as Theists insist they are: two descriptions of exactly the same thing. But that premise is not simply to be assumed; if the skeptic is to have it, he must prove the disjuncture between the two. And as I ask at the end, how is he/she going to go about doing that?

Are you arguing for Divine Simplicity -- that God's properties are identical to His nature? I vaguely recall we might have bonked heads on this in the past now maybe. Divine Simplicity is a whole different beast.

I have snipped the rest (but read all of it) and really, it will all come down to understanding this about your position. Yes, the dilemma does make a distinction between good and God because most of the time, to be good is a property, and properties are distinct things from property-holders.

The way most people talk about "goodness," they are talking about a standard. A good example of a different kind of standard might be "professional" (as in, acceptable to wear at a place of work as opposed to casual clothing. Or it might be an attitude, a professional attitude). Clothes or attitudes might have the property of being "professional" or they might not. In the case of being "professional," we can ask "are business cultures professional because they decide what is professional, or are they professional because they are professional?" The first implies it's a standard that they set (and the obvious answer in this case), the second implies that there are just truths about how one ought to dress in the universe and businesses just follow those truths when deciding their dress codes (a position I'm sure nobody takes). In one case professionalism is dependent on businesses, in the other businesses are dependent on professionalism. (Let us also make this simpler by imagining a universe where there is one business only, so we don't have to consider things like businesses feeling culturally compelled to adopt dress codes other businesses have, etc., we're just making an analogy here.)

It would be an odd position indeed for someone to say, "well, actually, to be professional is identical with being a business." But clearly that's not what we mean when we say "professional." Businesses have properties that the concept of "being professional" doesn't have.

Likewise, when people talk about morality -- when they say "that is good" -- they aren't saying "that is God." They seem to be saying something else such that "good" is not identical with God. What they're saying acts as though "good" is a property that things exemplify (or not). God has properties that our conception of "good" does not have: for instance, God has personhood as a property, and when we talk about "the good" we aren't talking about a person.

So, I think we need to understand what you're saying here about the good being identical with God, because it may be noncognitive or at least different from the way moral language is actually spoken.

[Harbal]

So again, the missing piece for the skeptic is this: a grounded, objective conception of "the Good" that can be demonstrated to be definitely not consonant with the nature of God. The existence of the dichotomy the skeptic wants to propose must be shown, not merely assumed or gratuitously asserted.

Being the only possible source of morality is something you (your religion) have baked into the definition of "God", yet you don't seem to realise how that is merely assumed, and gratuitously asserted.

[FlashDangerpants]

The dilemma, as posed (even when accounting for monotheism), doesn't require or assume that goodness is ontologically separate from God. It only posits that either it is separate from God (and God adheres to it, or follows it), or it is dependent on God's will (and God therefore defines it).

Or you can interpret that Plato's dialogue is written by that guy, in that society with all the attendant polytheistic assumptions intractably baked in as IC does. He's a letter of the law sort of a guy when he needs a loophole so if he can redirect the conversation to be about competing interpretations of Plato, he doesn't have to spend any time considering why we would still discuss this particular bit of Plato thousands of years later when nobody believes in Hera any more.

If Plato was conflating goodness and piety in his day according the customs and understandings of his people at the time... what keeps the idea alive in our current times is the underlying logic he may or may not have noticed about what even makes something "good" at all?

If your instincts tell you that ladies falling in love with other ladies is an entirely ok thing, and if you can find no moral argument that shows that it is not an entirely ok thing, but your book of God thinkings tells you that God thinks it is not ok.... there appears to be a meaningful question about whether God has accessed this information through a process of reasoning or is just expressing an aesthetic preference for acts of reproduction over ones of love or pleasure. Given that he sees everything, and therefore has to watch everybody fuck whether he likes it or not, he might simply have a preference for a specific kind of pornography where one man and one woman do it missionary style for the shortest possible amount of time.

In 377 BCE Euthyphro might not have known about porno movies, so he wouldn't be able to make that important analogy, but the thing that keeps the Euthyphro dialogue going is that the underlying reasons that made it possible to have that dialogue back then can be reviewd and repurposeed for modern situations.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, the dilemma does make a distinction between good and God because most of the time, to be good is a property, and properties are distinct things from property-holders.

Careful thought is required here. Forgive me for the "simplicity" of my ensuing explanation, but a touch of linguistics will really help, I think.

The verb "to be" actually has two different implications.

One is called "predication." It appears in a sentence like, "The dog is brown." "Brownness is a predication of something that exists separate from and prior to the dog. Other things are brown. And brownness is not, in any exclusive way, a property of dogs, or of this dog in particular. It just happens to have the quality of brownness, and "brown" and "dog" are distinct concepts, the sentence only indicating that in this particular instance, they are associated with the same referent, the same creature.

The other use of "is" is identity. It appears in a sentence like "Tom is the man." In this sentence, the copula, the joining, is one of putting two of the same things together. "Tom" and "man" are identical. The "man" of mention in this sentence does not exist apart from Tom, and we are not merely positing "manness" of Tom, but saying that "the man" of reference and "Tom" are exactly the same entity in every way. We're just using different words to refer to exactly the same referent.

When we say, "God is good," are we merely predicating? Is "good" a quality that exists prior to and separate from God? We tend to assume that, because that's how human beings experience "goodness." If I say, "Astro Cat is good," I am not saying that she is the totality of what goodness or The Good consists in; I'm only saying that in this circumstance, or in this respect, Cat exhibits a quality I identify as good. And it is this predication supposition that prepares the Euthyphro Dilemma: and I think it's exactly why Socrates is so at pains to make sure we understand "good" as a predication of the gods, not as identical with the one God (though he sometimes spoke of both).

But simpliciter, "God is good" is a copula, a joining of identity. As the poet John Donne wrote, "If ever any beauty I did see,. Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee." This, we might paraphrase in reference to God, as "If ever any good thing I did see, which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of Thee." Humans only even have a grounded, objective conception of "goodness" because God exists. Their apprehension of "The Good" is derivative of the goodness inherent in God Himself...and nothing which is good does not derive its quality from its comparability to the ultimate goodness which is consummate in God's own nature.

The way most people talk about "goodness," they are talking about a standard.

Yes. Because human beings do not possess or experience the totality of Good. They only experience a pallid, somewhat-removed, derivative appreciation of it. So for them, it IS a standard to which they hold things -- including themselves. But this is testimony to the very fact that humanity is not identical with "goodness." We experience it, so to speak, as foreigners stepping into a country we only occasionally visit.

It would be an odd position indeed for someone to say, "well, actually, to be professional is identical with being a business." But clearly that's not what we mean when we say "professional." Businesses have properties that the concept of "being professional" doesn't have.

And this is the great importance of you and I being able to detect the difference between the two linguistic functions of "is." You are right, in that we are not identifying a set of clothes with consummate professionalism, or with the totality of the concept of professional. But we are using the verb in only one sense, and not in the other.

The vexed question is which use of "is" is appropriate to associating "God" and "good." When we say, "God is good," do we only mean that God exhibits some portion of the features we associate with the human experience of "goodness"? Or are we saying more: that God not only exhibits features we find good, but that God Himself is the consummate "Good" of the universe?

Clearly, Theists do not only mean the first. They mean both. But when it comes to analyzing the nature of "The Good" itself, they specifically mean the second -- if they understand their theology aright, of course.

it may be noncognitive or at least different from the way moral language is actually spoken.

It is different from the way that people who speak about God as unknown to them speak about "good." That much is true. But then, such also use the word "God" differently from how Theists use it, too. For when they use it, they use it to refer to an entity they take to be merely imaginary. Theists do not use it that way, obviously, by definition. So when an unbeliever uses the phrase "God is good," it has no meaning the Theist finds adequate: it only means, "The mythical entity has an imputed property I think I understand from analogy with other created things." But a person who said such a thing would manifestly be no Theist. And he would not be expressing a correct understanding of Christian philosophy, either.

So we're back to the basic question: which understanding is correct? And I don't think it can even conceivably be the Atheistic one, even on Atheism's own terms. For on those assumptions, neither God nor good actually exists, and so the predication is meaningless on two ends. "God" is a mythical creature, and "good" is an inexplicable human intution having no basis in reality, and no origin in the indifferent gasses that accidentally generated the universe, or in the unintelligent dynamics that have brought it to its present state. What, then, can the Atheist be predicating, when he says that anything "is good"? Only this ungrounded and unwarranted intuition of approval. Nothing more.

The Theist who says "God is good," however, can also say, "God is The Good," or "God is the sum and total essence of all that is genuinely good." But then, the Theist believes both in objective God and objective God. So the predication or identity, whichever linguistic structure we take his use of "is" to indicate, becomes possible.

[Immanuel Can]

So again, the missing piece for the skeptic is this: a grounded, objective conception of "the Good" that can be demonstrated to be definitely not consonant with the nature of God. The existence of the dichotomy the skeptic wants to propose must be shown, not merely assumed or gratuitously asserted.

Being the only possible source of morality is something you (your religion) have baked into the definition of "God", yet you don't seem to realise how that is merely assumed, and gratuitously asserted.

Odd...I was just pointing out how radically that accusation applies to Atheism. For Atheism has to insist that there is no objective "good" at all. The term "goodness" must only mean "makes me feel positive in some inexplicable way." But one's positive feelings, in an Atheist universe, must only be the accidental effects of an indifferent universe. There is no "good," and one is not owed any particulare "feelings about it."

So you accuse my association of Good and God of being arbitrary. I return the tennis ball by pointing out that yours is utterly incoherent. There is nothing within your own universe that warrants a predication of objective good. It's just a feeling, an accidental, contingent one, and one the universe simply does not care about.

[Harbal]

So again, the missing piece for the skeptic is this: a grounded, objective conception of "the Good" that can be demonstrated to be definitely not consonant with the nature of God. The existence of the dichotomy the skeptic wants to propose must be shown, not merely assumed or gratuitously asserted.

Being the only possible source of morality is something you (your religion) have baked into the definition of "God", yet you don't seem to realise how that is merely assumed, and gratuitously asserted.

Odd...I was just pointing out how radically that accusation applies to Atheism. For Atheism has to insist that there is no objective "good" at all. The term "goodness" must only mean "makes me feel positive in some inexplicable way." But one's positive feelings, in an Atheist universe, must only be the accidental effects of an indifferent universe. There is no "good," and one is not owed any particulare "feelings about it."

So you accuse my association of Good and God of being arbitrary. I return the tennis ball by pointing out that yours is utterly incoherent. There is nothing within your own universe that warrants a predication of objective good. It's just a feeling, an accidental, contingent one, and one the universe simply does not care about.

The only point I was making was that it applies to your view more so. What you attribute to God as his nature, and how that determines morality, is a mere assumption that whatever the Bible says is true, but that is just a gratuitous allowance on your part. It could also be said that whoever originally described God's nature in the Bible bestowed on him his numerous qualities gratuitously. In short, your entire argument is based on the assumption that everything it says in your special book is factual truth, and it isn't just atheists that find that an unacceptable assertion.

[Immanuel Can]

Being the only possible source of morality is something you (your religion) have baked into the definition of "God", yet you don't seem to realise how that is merely assumed, and gratuitously asserted.

Odd...I was just pointing out how radically that accusation applies to Atheism. For Atheism has to insist that there is no objective "good" at all. The term "goodness" must only mean "makes me feel positive in some inexplicable way." But one's positive feelings, in an Atheist universe, must only be the accidental effects of an indifferent universe. There is no "good," and one is not owed any particulare "feelings about it."

So you accuse my association of Good and God of being arbitrary. I return the tennis ball by pointing out that yours is utterly incoherent. There is nothing within your own universe that warrants a predication of objective good. It's just a feeling, an accidental, contingent one, and one the universe simply does not care about.

The only point I was making...

I can well understand that the above is a point you were hoping never to think about. But perhaps you should.

What you attribute to God as his nature, and how that determines morality, is a mere assumption that whatever the Bible says is true, but that is just a gratuitous allowance on your part.

We'll see. I think it's not, you think it is. We'll find out.

[Immanuel Can]

Or you can interpret that Plato's dialogue is written by that guy, in that society with all the attendant polytheistic assumptions intractably baked in as IC does.

As Socrates does, actually. As you can see, he's at great pains to make sure he gets that point before proceeding with Euthyphro. And no wonder: rationally speaking, it's necessary to the premises he needs to make the case, as one can see today, too.

If Plato was conflating goodness and piety in his day according the customs and understandings of his people at the time... what keeps the idea alive in our current times is the underlying logic he may or may not have noticed about what even makes something "good" at all?

In an Atheist world, NOTHING makes anything "good." In that world, "good" can't refer to anything real. It can only be a feeling of "the goodies" in the inmost part of a human being, which is, in itself, merely an accidental byproduct of the impersonal processes that made mankind to exist, and it means nothing, refers to nothing, and has no substantiality behind it.

[Harbal]

What you attribute to God as his nature, and how that determines morality, is a mere assumption that whatever the Bible says is true, but that is just a gratuitous allowance on your part.

We'll see. I think it's not, you think it is. We'll find out.

What we may or may not find out sometime never, is irrelevant. The fact is that your entire position is based on your making assumptions in the here and now that you are not entitled to make. Not only are you attributing God with whatever qualities suit your needs, you are relying on your own specific definitions of the words "good" and "morality".

[FlashDangerpants]

Or you can interpret that Plato's dialogue is written by that guy, in that society with all the attendant polytheistic assumptions intractably baked in as IC does.

As Socrates does, actually. As you can see, he's at great pains to make sure he gets that point before proceeding with Euthyphro. And no wonder: rationally speaking, it's necessary to the premises he needs to make the case, as one can see today, too.

If Plato was conflating goodness and piety in his day according the customs and understandings of his people at the time... what keeps the idea alive in our current times is the underlying logic he may or may not have noticed about what even makes something "good" at all?

In an Atheist world, NOTHING makes anything "good." In that world, "good" can't refer to anything real. It can only be a feeling of "the goodies" in the inmost part of a human being, which is, in itself, merely an accidental byproduct of the impersonal processes that made mankind to exist, and it means nothing, refers to nothing, and has no substantiality behind it.

.... are you saying that the word good gets its meaning from religion?

[FlashDangerpants]

Oh my Geez. This thread has become one hot mess of insanity.

[Harbal]

Or you can interpret that Plato's dialogue is written by that guy, in that society with all the attendant polytheistic assumptions intractably baked in as IC does.

As Socrates does, actually. As you can see, he's at great pains to make sure he gets that point before proceeding with Euthyphro. And no wonder: rationally speaking, it's necessary to the premises he needs to make the case, as one can see today, too.

If Plato was conflating goodness and piety in his day according the customs and understandings of his people at the time... what keeps the idea alive in our current times is the underlying logic he may or may not have noticed about what even makes something "good" at all?

In an Atheist world, NOTHING makes anything "good." In that world, "good" can't refer to anything real. It can only be a feeling of "the goodies" in the inmost part of a human being, which is, in itself, merely an accidental byproduct of the impersonal processes that made mankind to exist, and it means nothing, refers to nothing, and has no substantiality behind it.

.... are you saying that the word good gets its meaning from religion?

IC gets to define all the terms beforehand.