Theism and Moral Realism are separate concepts

[Immanuel Can]

You don't bring any reason to the forum, you just point to the Bible.

Heh. You haven't been reading. I bring the Bible to bear only on issues on which the Bible speaks, and only when people like you ask me questions about God or theology. The rest of the time, I talk about other things. Check it out.

But let me ask you this.

Suppose you knew a man who was entirely guided by his impulses. While he felt driven to obey them, nobody else even saw any grounds for them; and his visions had no relation to the real world, were not based on any empirical facts, and followed no line of rationality. There was literally no locatable basis for anything he perceived or believed; and yet he always acted in accordance with whatever these impulses directed him to do.

Would the word that people would rightly apply to such a man be "moral," or "delusional"?

You concocted this strange character, so why are you asking me about him?

Because he's you. According to your own argument, that's exactly what you do. You use the word "moral," but then say you follow your own inner stirrings, your twinges, which, according to you, are not in any way reflective of reality or objective truth and are not informative or compulsory for any other person. That's pretty much the definition of somebody who's following delusions.

[Harbal]

You don't bring any reason to the forum, you just point to the Bible.

Heh. You haven't been reading. I bring the Bible to bear only on issues on which the Bible speaks,

Your entire existence seems to revolve around God and the Bible, and I don't know how you are qualified to talk about morality at all when you care more about some mythical deity than you do about actual human beings.

You concocted this strange character, so why are you asking me about him?

Because he's you.

You appear to have progressed from Scotsmen to strawmen.

[Immanuel Can]

You don't bring any reason to the forum, you just point to the Bible.

Heh. You haven't been reading. I bring the Bible to bear only on issues on which the Bible speaks,

Your entire existence seems to revolve around God and the Bible,

Thank you. That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me. How I wish it were true.

You concocted this strange character, so why are you asking me about him?

Because he's you.

You appear to have progressed from Scotsmen to strawmen.

No. Just read the description, and it's exactly what you've claimed you believe. If you're changing that now, good for you. But how are you going to change it?

[promethean75]

"Your entire existence seems to revolve around God and the Bible"

If IC truly feels, believes, that he'd lose nothing if what he believed was not true and he still lived as if it were, he can totally do that and feel complete and with a sense of direction and purpose.

But we philosophers and men of wisdom and light feet, u and i Harbal, cannot find fulfilment in such becuz our instincts seek the icy heights of truth where the air is clear... where we have much to lose (unlike IC) if we are wrong. We will not, cannot, believe in a god that doesn't dance, Harbal.

[Immanuel Can]

If IC truly feels, believes, that he'd lose nothing if what he believed was not true...

What an absurd hypothetical. Why would somebody believe something that he thought was of no consequence?

[henry quirk]

our instincts seek the icy heights of truth where the air is clear

Your instincts -- a death wish mated expertly to a narcissism -- are for crap. Your truth -- man is just meat, morality is just fiction, reality is just the meaningless interplay of heat and a particle soup -- is for crap.

You and yours: Grade-A Liars. You lie to each other, you lie to us, you lie to yourselves.

You're agents of Oblivion; machines in service to the Null & Void.

I'd pity the lot of you if I didn't despise you all on a *accelafine-grade level.




*hi, veg!

[Veritas Aequitas]

"Theism" and "Moral Realism" are not even on the same page.
On is a claim and the existence of a creator, and the other is a claim that some personal values are true or false.

The only thing where they are similar is that belief in them requires someone with limited congnitive ability to accept either as true.
And that when the former is believed the latter is soon to follow.

In terms of Venn Diagrams, there are overlaps between moral realism and theism.

No.
Whilst you can construct a Venn diagramme to express and overlap with Theists and Moral realists.
THere is no overlap between theism (a belief in a god) with Moral realism (a belief in moral facts). THe idea that a god might exist is a belief in a concrete entity, the latter is a belief in a series of non concrete ideas.
Whilst they might be of concern to one another, you can only overlap them in the fact that some people might hold both beliefs; but they are not coinicident in necessary ideas.

You deliberately make yourself ignorant of what is Philosophical Realism which I linked above. Here again;

Philosophical realism – .. – is the view that a certain kind of thing (ranging widely from abstract objects like numbers to moral statements to the physical world itself) has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

Both PH et. al [atheists] and IC et. al [theists] are philosophical realists as defined above.
Thus they overlap in a Venn Diagram on this mind-independence variable.

Both also agree with definition of "what is moral realism", i.e. moral facts are mind-independent.

The difference is;
PH et. al [atheists] reject that moral facts [mind-independent] exist, therefore for them, morality cannot be objective, i.e. no moral facts, so no moral objectivity.

Theists claims moral facts [mind-independent] exist, i.e. from an independent God, therefore for them, morality is objective. [not subject to any individual's beliefs].

So, there are overlaps between moral realism and theism in terms of the 'mind-independence' variable.

As I had stated, you are incapable to clear and refined thinking.

[Alexiev]

I'm just curious: who told you that Paradise Lost was an authoritative treatise on theology, rather than a epic fiction? Since NO theologians refer to Paradise Lost as an authoritative text, why are you attempting to use it as if it were one?

Isn't it a bit like using Shakespeare as a medical text?

Your tactics are juvenile and transparent IC. Maybe you should stick to claiming other posters argue like women --a claim you clearly think insulting (why would it be?) No. "Paradisee Lost" is not "scripture". But some people (not you of course) think one of the seminal works of English literature is worth discussing. Maybe great geniuses (like Milton) have worthwhile ideas, even if they are not writing "scripture". Maybe you - who are clearly implying that someone told me Paradise Lost was scripture despite knowing full well that is not the case --- are a liar, unlike those you accuse of lying when they tell intruths they believe to be true.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm just curious: who told you that Paradise Lost was an authoritative treatise on theology, rather than a epic fiction? Since NO theologians refer to Paradise Lost as an authoritative text, why are you attempting to use it as if it were one?

Isn't it a bit like using Shakespeare as a medical text?

No. "Paradisee Lost" is not "scripture". But some people (not you of course) think one of the seminal works of English literature is worth discussing.

Well, to my knowledge, "Paradisee Lost" isn't a text at all. As I recall, it's Paradise Lost. I certainly know that much.

As for discussing it, sure, you could do that -- in a class on literature, or in a casual conversation about fiction. And that would be most worthwhile...very enriching. But that's not the context in which you brought it into the discussion; you presented it as if you believed it could exposit theology. If you didn't mean to, what is it doing here?

Look at the OP? What can Milton inform us of about that topic?

Hint: the answer is, "Not very much." So let's get back on topic, or start a thread on masterworks of fiction. Blending those things here makes no sense.

[Harbal]

Heh. You haven't been reading. I bring the Bible to bear only on issues on which the Bible speaks,

Your entire existence seems to revolve around God and the Bible,

Thank you. That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me. How I wish it were true.

I daresay there is much about God and the Bible you wish were true.

[Sculptor]

In terms of Venn Diagrams, there are overlaps between moral realism and theism.

No.
Whilst you can construct a Venn diagramme to express and overlap with Theists and Moral realists.
THere is no overlap between theism (a belief in a god) with Moral realism (a belief in moral facts). THe idea that a god might exist is a belief in a concrete entity, the latter is a belief in a series of non concrete ideas.
Whilst they might be of concern to one another, you can only overlap them in the fact that some people might hold both beliefs; but they are not coinicident in necessary ideas.

You deliberately make yourself ignorant of what is Philosophical Realism which I linked above. Here again;

Yawn!!

[Immanuel Can]

Your entire existence seems to revolve around God and the Bible,

Thank you. That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me. How I wish it were true.

I daresay there is much about God and the Bible you wish were true.

If I had tried my hardest, I could not have "wished" the Bible to be true, simply because it's well beyond any powers of my imagination. If one were setting out to "invent" a God, one could never come up with the God the Bible describes, nor manage the complexities of what it reveals about Him. But one can read it, be amazed at it, and find oneself won over by it. And after that, one can "be glad" it's true. So I suppose that now my "wishes," if you choose that word, and God do match up more; but the "wishes" did not produce God. The God revealed in the Bible produced the "wishing."

[Harbal]

Thank you. That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me. How I wish it were true.

I daresay there is much about God and the Bible you wish were true.

If I had tried my hardest, I could not have "wished" the Bible to be true, simply because it's well beyond any powers of my imagination. If one were setting out to "invent" a God, one could never come up with the God the Bible describes, nor manage the complexities of what it reveals about Him. But one can read it, be amazed at it, and find oneself won over by it. And after that, one can "be glad" it's true. So I suppose that now my "wishes," if you choose that word, and God do match up more; but the "wishes" did not produce God. The God revealed in the Bible produced the "wishing."

I suppose I could belittle and trivialise that, and tell you that you may well get over your infatuation by next month, or next year, or whenever the twinge wears off, but I won't, because that would be needlessly insulting.

[Alexiev]

If I had tried my hardest, I could not have "wished" the Bible to be true, simply because it's well beyond any powers of my imagination. If one were setting out to "invent" a God, one could never come up with the God the Bible describes, nor manage the complexities of what it reveals about Him. But one can read it, be amazed at it, and find oneself won over by it. And after that, one can "be glad" it's true. So I suppose that now my "wishes," if you choose that word, and God do match up more; but the "wishes" did not produce God. The God revealed in the Bible produced the "wishing."

That the God of the Bible is beyond your power of imagination is undoubtedly true. Also true: Greek Mythology, Hopi mythology, Paradise Lost, The Iliad, War ans Peace, and Ulysses are beyond your powers of imagination.. So are innumerable lesser works if fiction and mythology.

[Dubious]

Creating a god who behaves like a human is not really so difficult. The Greeks did it to perfection, modeling the various types according to their domains of power. One of the main differences between Zeus and Jehovah - aside from the former being more interesting - Zeus was more horny while Jehovah was always mad!