Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

(Excerpted from Sermons 31 and 36 which form the larger part of Book 9 in The 29-Week Email Course).

[Alexis Jacobi]

This is my hand!

[Alexis Jacobi]

Herman Hesse (Narcissus and Goldmund):

I believe . . . that the petal of a flower or a tiny worm on the path says far more, contains far more than all the books in the library. One cannot say very much with mere letters and words. Sometimes I'll be writing a Greek letter, a theta or an omega, and tilt my pen just the slightest bit; suddenly the letter has a tail and becomes a fish; in a second it evokes all the streams and rivers of the world, all that is cool and humid, Homer's sea and the waters on which Saint Peter wandered; or becomes a bird, flaps its tail, shakes out its feathers, puffs itself up, laughs, flies away. You probably don't appreciate letters like that, very much, do you, Narcissus? But I say: with them God wrote the world.

[Gary Childress]

Looks like someone may be having religiously grandiose thoughts.

[Immanuel Can]

De-anchor morality from god who's existence depended only on a temporary belief system and morality becomes thoroughly subjective...

No. The word simply ceases to refer to anything at all. It becomes no more than a temporary delusion itself.

No! Actually to de-anchor morality from any god prerequisite throws light on what morality is and how it came to be across the planet in all its variations; very different from the one and only morality you regard as absolute for everyone.

Yes! It means that none of these is objectively right. They’re all just delusions. There’s no such thing as “morality.” Nobody can rightfully tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, and nobody can rightfully charge or praise you for anything you do. There are no moral standards.

[seeds]

Why do you think there is most certainly no such thing as objective morality?

Gary, are you experiencing reading comprehension issues?

Did you miss the part where I suggested that an "ideal" form of objective morality might exist in the proposed Platonic realm?

If a king who writes the rules for his civilization declares genocide to be moral, does that make it moral?

No.

If God were to instruct his followers to perform genocide, would it be moral because God commanded it,...

No.

I clearly made the point that even if God commanded it, it would be based on God's personal ("subjective") opinion of what he (she/it) deems to be moral.

Do you not recognize and understand the implications of your own words?

In an effort to seemingly refute IC's assertions, you rightfully said...

All you end up with is something is moral for no other reason than God proclaims it moral. God could proclaim genocide "moral" and according to you it would be moral. God could drown all of humanity in a flood and you would have to conclude that it was moral for God to do so because God is the root of all morality.

...of which you unambiguously seemed to be making the point (at least from my take on how you worded your reply to IC) that there is no "objective" morality,...

...of which (except for the potential Platonic contingency) I was agreeing with.

However, you then doubled down on the exact same implication with your "...what if a king..." analogy, quoted at the top of this post.

Were you trying to make the point that morality is objective?

If so, then you botched the effort, and implied the exact opposite.
_______

[Alexis Jacobi]

Tomorrow, God willing, all doubts will be resolved!

Selah …

[Dubious]

No. The word simply ceases to refer to anything at all. It becomes no more than a temporary delusion itself.

No! Actually to de-anchor morality from any god prerequisite throws light on what morality is and how it came to be across the planet in all its variations; very different from the one and only morality you regard as absolute for everyone.

Yes! It means that none of these is objectively right. They’re all just delusions. There’s no such thing as “morality.” Nobody can rightfully tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, and nobody can rightfully charge or praise you for anything you do. There are no moral standards.

You forgot to add, other than the one you have and fully acknowledge. All others, from wherever, whenever, have no claim to be moral as you have consistently argued if it did not come from the bible, the be all and end all of objectivity. All other moralities are nothing more than delusions and duplicity not having derived their mandate from the bible; and yet most of what Jesus said and preached was known long before he was around to repeat it making biblical morality one that was borrowed and in some ways plagiarized as original.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Morality is the story we make up to justify our behaviour, genetically pre-wired for experience. It punches down, not up to 'Forms'. And certainly not even to the best case emergent post-Christian God projection. Let alone the fundamentalist inadequate Christiano-Jewish dark tetrad. Fear is the key that unhinges us.

[Belinda]

You are not wrong, as I have been indicating.

Yes, we know. I’m right. I’ve demonstrated it by the absence of any moral axioms associated with subjectivism.

Where you are wrong is in asserting that you have, or have access to, and can produce, the absolute, objective moral rules backed up by that Supernatural Entity.

I haven’t tried to show that yet. You’re too impatient.

But if you go back and read my last message in response to Mike, you’ll get a better understanding of why some authority is always necessary, and also be reminded of why “it’s subjective” is no answer at all.

Immanuel, why not admit that if no God existed it would be necessary to invent Him

[Alexis Jacobi]

Where you are wrong is in asserting that you have, or have access to, and can produce, the absolute, objective moral rules backed up by that Supernatural Entity.

I haven’t tried to show that yet. You’re too impatient.

You have written on that theme extensively over years. I know your arguments.

Personally, I regard the Hebrew revelation with high respect. But all revelations (Hebrew, Vedic, Buddhist etc) are (in my view) windows or apertures. It is best if those capable of seeing in that way, do see in that way. It has many advantages but too some disadvantages.

[Gary Childress]

Why do you think there is most certainly no such thing as objective morality?

Gary, are you experiencing reading comprehension issues?

Did you miss the part where I suggested that an "ideal" form of objective morality might exist in the proposed Platonic realm?

If a king who writes the rules for his civilization declares genocide to be moral, does that make it moral?

No.

If God were to instruct his followers to perform genocide, would it be moral because God commanded it,...

No.

I clearly made the point that even if God commanded it, it would be based on God's personal ("subjective") opinion of what he (she/it) deems to be moral.

Do you not recognize and understand the implications of your own words?

In an effort to seemingly refute IC's assertions, you rightfully said...

All you end up with is something is moral for no other reason than God proclaims it moral. God could proclaim genocide "moral" and according to you it would be moral. God could drown all of humanity in a flood and you would have to conclude that it was moral for God to do so because God is the root of all morality.

...of which you unambiguously seemed to be making the point (at least from my take on how you worded your reply to IC) that there is no "objective" morality,...

...of which (except for the potential Platonic contingency) I was agreeing with.

However, you then doubled down on the exact same implication with your "...what if a king..." analogy, quoted at the top of this post.

Were you trying to make the point that morality is objective?

If so, then you botched the effort, and implied the exact opposite.
_______

If morality were "subjective" then it would depend upon the subject what is moral. The fact that a God can't come along and say to us that genocide is moral (without us scratching our heads) points to me that morality is in some way objective or not subject-dependent. Some things just aren't moral, no matter who proclaims them to be.

[Immanuel Can]

No! Actually to de-anchor morality from any god prerequisite throws light on what morality is and how it came to be across the planet in all its variations; very different from the one and only morality you regard as absolute for everyone.

Yes! It means that none of these is objectively right. They’re all just delusions. There’s no such thing as “morality.” Nobody can rightfully tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, and nobody can rightfully charge or praise you for anything you do. There are no moral standards.

You forgot to add, other than the one you have and fully acknowledge.

No, I didn’t. I was hypothesizing based purely on starting from your worldview, plus simple logic. Nothing more.

[Immanuel Can]

IC. There is no reason to think that morality is a delusion. You are upset...

Not even a bit. And that mistake on your part is completely irrelevant to the point: it would change nothing, either way.

Secularism has no morality because it’s not capable of having any. It would be incapable of any whether or not there was any. It would be incapable of any regardless of what any other ideology was capable of, or not capable of.

[Immanuel Can]

If morality were "subjective" then it would depend upon the subject what is moral.

Non-sequitur: it does not logically follow.

What follows is that there is no such thing as morality. It means that to say “I want” is the same thing as “is moral.” But people can want opposite and even horrendous and repugnant things. Subjectivism leaves nobody with any basis for saying anything is actually better or worse than anything else. It means infant sacrifice and infant baptism are the same thing — moral equivalents.