Can the Secularists be Trusted?

[Gary Childress]

If you go to New Guinea and you chop someone's arm off, they are not going to mistakenly think you did something nice to them. They're going to have the same reaction as anyone else around the globe and probably retaliate.

Bullshit Gary.

Most of the rest of the world aren't going to put someone's arm into a pot with some onions and maybe some chicken stock.

OK. Fair enough. Point noted. I have no idea why God created cannibals.

[attofishpi]

If you go to New Guinea and you chop someone's arm off, they are not going to mistakenly think you did something nice to them. They're going to have the same reaction as anyone else around the globe and probably retaliate.

Bullshit Gary.

Most of the rest of the world aren't going to put someone's arm into a pot with some onions and maybe some chicken stock.

OK. Fair enough. Point noted. I have no idea why God created cannibals.

GOD didn't do it, the Big Bang did. (lmao)

[Gary Childress]

Bullshit Gary.

Most of the rest of the world aren't going to put someone's arm into a pot with some onions and maybe some chicken stock.

OK. Fair enough. Point noted. I have no idea why God created cannibals.

GOD didn't do it, the Big Bang did. (lmao)

The Big Bang made people cannibals? So are you saying that God is not the creator of all that is?

[attofishpi]

OK. Fair enough. Point noted. I have no idea why God created cannibals.

GOD didn't do it, the Big Bang did. (lmao)

The Big Bang made people cannibals? So are you saying that God is not the creator of all that is?

Just having a bit of a larf Gazza re determinism.

So GOD exists, yes it does...GOD creates humans - some decide to eat humans. Is that an issue, some flaw in GOD?

[Impenitent]

freedom's a bitch ain't it?

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

If you think there's no such thing as morality because Stalin was a monster, then fine. I'm tired of arguing with your nonsense. Bye.

No, I definitely think morality is objective and real. But lots of people say they don't. Secularists theoretically don't, even though practically, many pretend they can still moralize legitimately.

Secularism would imply that NO morality real -- in the sense that morals cannot be binding, obligatory, duty-based, or even stable if they're subjective. So the secularist, if he wants to be a moralist, is going to have to end up imposing his moral preferences by force, and in the absence of any reasoning for them. Stalin was a secularist -- a devout one, as a matter of fact -- and he chose a different path from the goody-two-shoes, irrational type of secularist. Secularism has no opinion about that, either way.

What, in a secular world, would give us the assurance he was wrong to do so?

Harming others is harming others no matter whether there is a God or not. Helping others or being kind to them is also something that can exist with or without a God.

Of course. But what makes helping right, and harming wrong? Nothing at all, allegedly, according to what secularism would give us reason to believe.

And it's very clear, as well, that sometimes, harming others is very helpful to the individual. Stalin wasn't the only one who thought so; so does everybody who steals anything, or lies about another person, or covets what others have, or wants to take what others have and "redistribute" it, as Socialists do. But they all think it's worth harming some people in order to "help" themselves, or to produce their view of "the good society." So it's not at all an alien concept to human beings that harming can be advocated as a positive thing. What do you do with that fact?

John Locke didn't claim to hear the voice of God (as far as I'm aware)...

You need to read him to know why he said what he said, but it was because of what he read in the Bible, actually. He didn't use "abstract reason," as you suppose; and if you know moral philosophy, you'll also know that NOBODY has ever succeeded in using "abstract reason" to justify a moral duty.

[Gary Childress]

No, I definitely think morality is objective and real. But lots of people say they don't. Secularists theoretically don't, even though practically, many pretend they can still moralize legitimately.

Secularism would imply that NO morality real -- in the sense that morals cannot be binding, obligatory, duty-based, or even stable if they're subjective. So the secularist, if he wants to be a moralist, is going to have to end up imposing his moral preferences by force, and in the absence of any reasoning for them. Stalin was a secularist -- a devout one, as a matter of fact -- and he chose a different path from the goody-two-shoes, irrational type of secularist. Secularism has no opinion about that, either way.

What, in a secular world, would give us the assurance he was wrong to do so?

Harming others is harming others no matter whether there is a God or not. Helping others or being kind to them is also something that can exist with or without a God.

Of course. But what makes helping right, and harming wrong? Nothing at all, allegedly, according to what secularism would give us reason to believe.

And it's very clear, as well, that sometimes, harming others is very helpful to the individual. Stalin wasn't the only one who thought so; so does everybody who steals anything, or lies about another person, or covets what others have, or wants to take what others have and "redistribute" it, as Socialists do. But they all think it's worth harming some people in order to "help" themselves, or to produce their view of "the good society." So it's not at all an alien concept to human beings that harming can be advocated as a positive thing. What do you do with that fact?

John Locke didn't claim to hear the voice of God (as far as I'm aware)...

You need to read him to know why he said what he said, but it was because of what he read in the Bible, actually. He didn't use "abstract reason," as you suppose; and if you know moral philosophy, you'll also know that NOBODY has ever succeeded in using "abstract reason" to justify a moral duty.

I've read Locke's 2nd Treatise and knew his argument by heart but have long since forgotten it. To my recollection he used reasoning based on his reading of the Bible. It wasn't written in the Bible that life, liberty and property were essential natural rights, but he reasoned that life liberty and property were important for people from what was written in the Bible. It wasn't the word of God. It was a human being interpreting the Bible to say what was not literally written in the Bible IIRC.

[MagsJ]

When they forever hide and dodge behind invisible belief systems?

Or worse, they're not even self-aware of their own beliefs??

.
I don’t think a government should be steeped in religious zealotry -as that would render it a cult- but governmental decisions should be made, based around moral and ethical frameworks and guidelines.

The astute know that that hasn’t always been/isn't always the case.. otherwise governmental decisions are being made from a place of selfish greed.
.
I dare say, that secularists don’t have much of a conscience.. if at all.

[FlashDangerpants]

I dare say, that secularists don’t have much of a conscience.. if at all.

WTF?

[MagsJ]

.
Aren’t you Ben J S, over at ILP?

[Immanuel Can]

Harming others is harming others no matter whether there is a God or not. Helping others or being kind to them is also something that can exist with or without a God.

Of course. But what makes helping right, and harming wrong? Nothing at all, allegedly, according to what secularism would give us reason to believe.

And it's very clear, as well, that sometimes, harming others is very helpful to the individual. Stalin wasn't the only one who thought so; so does everybody who steals anything, or lies about another person, or covets what others have, or wants to take what others have and "redistribute" it, as Socialists do. But they all think it's worth harming some people in order to "help" themselves, or to produce their view of "the good society." So it's not at all an alien concept to human beings that harming can be advocated as a positive thing. What do you do with that fact?

John Locke didn't claim to hear the voice of God (as far as I'm aware)...

You need to read him to know why he said what he said, but it was because of what he read in the Bible, actually. He didn't use "abstract reason," as you suppose; and if you know moral philosophy, you'll also know that NOBODY has ever succeeded in using "abstract reason" to justify a moral duty.

I've read Locke's 2nd Treatise and knew his argument by heart but have long since forgotten it. To my recollection he used reasoning based on his reading of the Bible.

Yes, he did.

It wasn't written in the Bible that life, liberty and property were essential natural rights, but he reasoned that life liberty and property were important for people from what was written in the Bible. It wasn't the word of God. It was a human being interpreting the Bible to say what was not literally written in the Bible IIRC.

Yet what you're describing now is considerably different from "abstract reasoning." I know you doubt the veracity of the Bible, but that's not really the issue: the issue is whether anybody can get morality in any other way but by putting your faith in SOME conception of God -- because that's what secularism, by its very definition, requires: that you not rely on any conception at all of God.

And we cannot get a single moral axiom or precept that way. There is no secular basis for a single moral demand. Not even one. And there are no secular criteria for "good" or "evil" either, since a Stalin or a philanthropist could equally be secularists in every sense of the word.

[FlashDangerpants]

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Aren’t you Ben J S, over at ILP?

Me? No, I'm not on any other forums at all.

[Wizard22]

When they forever hide and dodge behind invisible belief systems?

Or worse, they're not even self-aware of their own beliefs??

.
I don’t think a government should be steeped in religious zealotry -as that would render it a cult- but governmental decisions should be made, based around moral and ethical frameworks and guidelines.

The astute know that that hasn’t always been/isn't always the case.. otherwise governmental decisions are being made from a place of selfish greed.
.
I dare say, that secularists don’t have much of a conscience.. if at all.

Separation of Church and State has some benefits. But the length of that separation is important. Too separate and 'Divorced' leads to these current divisions among left-right, conservative-liberal, democrat-republican. It's obvious though, that the State is incapable of laying out proper, true, or good Morality. They don't have the Moral Authority to dictate right and wrong, to individual families or peoples, for example.

Therefore the people need to draw their morality elsewhere. Zealotry for Church can go too far, as can Patriotism for State.

[promethean75]

MagsJ please remind me to tell the FBI and CIA never to use you as a speech analyst. How on earth do you draw any similarity whatsoever between Ben and F.D. Pants?

There were two other posters you once mentioned you thought were other poster names, and i was like wtf i don't see that at all. Like if i had to guess one of these posters was another one, who you guessed would have been my last guess.

Crazy man. You ILP guys got another sock puppet theory over there involving two posters who couldn't be more diametrically opposed to one another. Like neither one if these posters could even pretend to be the other, they are so different.

The only ones runnin long term sock puppets is Biggs and his crew i think. One, he gave the names of his existential nihilist forum board operatives that try to make everyone meaningless (they got Maia if Maia isn't one of them already). Two, he, too, is constantly suggesting other people are running sock puppets... and this is to throw everybody off and make him look like a victim like us.

[BigMike]

When they forever hide and dodge behind invisible belief systems?

Or worse, they're not even self-aware of their own beliefs??

.
I don’t think a government should be steeped in religious zealotry -as that would render it a cult- but governmental decisions should be made, based around moral and ethical frameworks and guidelines.

The astute know that that hasn’t always been/isn't always the case.. otherwise governmental decisions are being made from a place of selfish greed.
.
I dare say, that secularists don’t have much of a conscience.. if at all.

Separation of Church and State has some benefits. But the length of that separation is important. Too separate and 'Divorced' leads to these current divisions among left-right, conservative-liberal, democrat-republican. It's obvious though, that the State is incapable of laying out proper, true, or good Morality. They don't have the Moral Authority to dictate right and wrong, to individual families or peoples, for example.

Therefore the people need to draw their morality elsewhere. Zealotry for Church can go too far, as can Patriotism for State.

Define "proper, true, or good Morality."