Christianity

[popeye1945]

Historically, morality was handed over to our ignorant religions, who were only slightly less ignorant than the general public in the fact that they had a means of controlling the public. It shouldn't take too much thought to realize that the fantasy world of the supernatural is not the source or the proper foundation for human morality; the source and foundation of meaning and morality is the biological nature of humanity itself. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things, the only source of meaning in the world. So, the proper concern for morality is the survival and well-being of its biological subjects, in this case, humans. In the past, I suppose it was thought that only the authority of a supernatural father figure would be powerful enough to embrace the whole population. Still, with the progress of science today, supernatural authority is greatly weakened, and a more reasonable thought is that a science of human well-being is the proper medium to educate the public about its own generated moral system. As old Albert Einstein once said, it is time for humanity to grow up. Suppose we are to survive as a species. In that case, we need to break free of these archaic fantasy systems of religion/mythologies and generate a new mythology embracing the knowledge we have acquired over time since the formation of these primitive mythologies some three thousand years ago, or longer. The proper foundation of morality is biology itself, the source of all meaning in this world. A science of human morality is the only sane foundation uniting humanity by our common biology, overriding the complications of cultures, religions, and time and space that have created the global chaos called moral relativism. One humanity, one morality.

[Belinda]

OK, let's label it Mdivine. I am saying suppose there were an M not divinely sanctioned, call it Msecular. And suppose Mdivine(situation, choice of action) = Msecular(situation, choice of action). In other words, Msecular never gives a different judgement right or wrong. I don't give a damn if you say "but that's only pragmatic sameness". We're not discussing how the come to always give the same result, just whether they do or not.

Well, I’m not following your “algebra” here. I mean, I’m not grasping how the substitution of these vague placeholders for real-world specifics is going to help us know any answers. It seems to me that they just fog the field, and leave us both susceptible to mental mistakes. It’s too high a level of abstraction for us to recognize in it how people actually think and act, in the moral sphere.

I’ll try and make this real-world, if I may. Let us say that a Secular person and a Theist agree on a moral conclusion. Let’s make it simple: let’s say, “Thou shalt not steal.” We shall leave aside the question of what constitutes stealing, and take a clear case, just to keep things simple again. Let’s say that by “Thou shalt not steal,” what both mean is that you can’t take somebody else’s legitimate property without their permission, and treat it as your own disposable asset.

To try to answer your question, then, (assuming I’m grasping your point), you are asking if the Theist and the Secularist are capable of both agreeing that stealing is wrong. And the answer is, yes, they are. (As an aside, if you’re wondering if they can come to different conclusions, yes, that is also possible.)

So I’m denying your suggestion that my allegation is that

...there could be no Msecular such that it always gave the same answer as Mdivine.

Under the same conditions, with the same understanding of what constitutes stealing, it is possible for both to agree that stealing is wrong.

But here’s what I am saying — not the thing you were supposing me to be saying, but the real thing I’m saying. The Theist can say WHY stealing is wrong. The Secularist cannot. He may choose to act just as morally-correctly as the Theist is acting. But he may not, as well. Either way, there is no resource of information in his Secularism that can explain to the Secularist why it would be right to choose one of those options, and to reject the other one. For the Secularist, operating by no more than pure Secularism, there is no explanation of why one action is moral, and its opposite is immoral.

If there is a moral compass to be had, he’s dropped his in the mud and can’t find it. By accident, or by preference, he may end up doing the right thing, anyway, like a man stumbling along without a compass might plausibly end up heading true north by accident, or because the horizon happened to look more appealing to him in that direction. He maybe even will stumble in that direction (and this happens more often than not) because the society in which he was raised did once have a compass, and so socialized him to sense true north was roughly in the right direction. So he feels in his bones he should do the right thing, though he cannot check the compass anymore to confirm he’s on the right track.

And if he goes wrong, there’s nothing in Secularism to tell him he’s gone wrong.

That’s what I’m saying.

But the secularists can indeed say why stealing is wrong. The secularist reasons that stealing is wrong because of nature including human nature, and that God is an additional hypothesis added by men who want to legitimate their superior power.

[Will Bouwman]

...you must (try TRY!) to grasp my point: we deal with life, life is filtered to us, by the lenses of perception that are constructed for us, that we co-construct and employ. If there is some sort of divine power or consciousness, it can only communicate with us through our subjective construct, our subjective hook-up as it were.

Wassat, Gus? You mean that every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden? And there might be a god? Whodda thunk?

[MikeNovack]

Theist can say WHY stealing is wrong. The Secularist cannot. He may choose to act just as morally-correctly as the Theist is acting. But he may not, as well.

The Theist is saying "stealing is wrong because it is one of the moral commands of god" AND "it is right to obey the commands of god". That latter is the BASIS of your divinely authorized system. Otherwise you just have "X is commanded or forbidden by god" --- so? But notice that "it is right to obey god" is not itself a divine command. Where did you get it from?. How do you decide which of god's commands are moral commands (have to do with moral issues*)

The secularist is giving a similar answer, stealing is wrong because a rule derivable from the basis he or she is using, results in judgements right/wrong supported by that basis. You ARE doing the same thing except your basis is "to obey god is right". THAT is what makes the divine commands moral statements.

I'll repeat, where did this necessary "it is right to obey god" come from? If you think too obvious to be necessary, please refer to the book of Jonah and account for the behavior of the captain and sailors. They are not Jews, but Phoenicians, nearby so know all about the Jewish god. Look how they go from unconcern to serious when they learn WHICH god they are in trouble with. You are to assume that they accept Jonah is a prophet, his words the word of god. They accept that this god has given them an order "throw this man overboard". Do they immediately obey? Why not? And when they give in and accept they MUST throw Jonah overboard, how do they address god?. Understand, they DON'T KNOW if under these circumstances they are supposed to obey or disobey (for moral reasons). Rightly or wrongly, their understanding of what THIS god is like is "tricky -- likes to put people through moral testing -- rewarding if you get it right but if you get it wrong ............."

* note -- not all god's commands are moral statements. They are simply things to do or not do irrespective of situation. Thus of no use as a guide, "in situation X, it is right to do Y". Thus "wear at least one garment with a fringe, knotted tassels on the corners, 613 knots so you remember the 613 commands, containing a single thread dyed "blue" (a specific dye made from a shellfish). Not a command referring to choices of action in a particular circumstance. That shellfish is extinct, that blue dye no longer exists. Use some other blue shade or leave out that thread, do you strongly "feel" one solution more right or wrong than the other?.

[Gary Childress]

Name one moral axiom Secularism requires of you.

I've already stated that Secularism in and of itself doesn't say anything about morality.

Then you recognize the truth of what I’ve said.

Secularism doesn't need to say something about morality. Morality can exist whether there is a God or not. The statement "there is a God" doesn't tell us what is moral any more than the statement "there is no God" does. Why do you think secularism needs to tell us what is moral if theism doesn't?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

...you must (try TRY!) to grasp my point: we deal with life, life is filtered to us, by the lenses of perception that are constructed for us, that we co-construct and employ. If there is some sort of divine power or consciousness, it can only communicate with us through our subjective construct, our subjective hook-up as it were.

Wassat, Gus? You mean that every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden? And there might be a god? Whodda thunk?

There certainly isn't as it would easily have communicated with us with a supernatural fossil, like the monoliths of 2001, but a billion, trillion times more so, something impossible that precedes us geologically and that shrugs off an H-bomb. Didn't someone suggest a floating mountain, in PN? That's what Love would have done.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I've already stated that Secularism in and of itself doesn't say anything about morality.

Then you recognize the truth of what I’ve said.

Secularism doesn't need to say something about morality. Morality can exist whether there is a God or not. The statement "there is a God" doesn't tell us what is moral any more than the statement "there is no God" does. Why do you think secularism needs to tell us what is moral if theism doesn't?

Morality is entirely natural, especially Christian, shown by its absolute carnal inadequacy in its founder, let alone his interpreters.

[Alexis Jacobi]

...you must (try TRY!) to grasp my point: we deal with life, life is filtered to us, by the lenses of perception that are constructed for us, that we co-construct and employ. If there is some sort of divine power or consciousness, it can only communicate with us through our subjective construct, our subjective hook-up as it were.

Wassat, Gus? You mean that every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden? And there might be a god? Whodda thunk?

You are careening off on the wrong track, my dearest child. Come, sit humbly on your knees and (for once) listen:

Unquestionably, we live in a realm of manifest intelligence. The manifestation of existence, even though what we see is an external manifestation, implies necessarily an originating consciousness. This has been known since immemorial times. And arriving at this understanding is not outside of your capacities, though in so many areas you are not much more intuitively intelligent than a box of nails.

Generally, your ‘knowledge’ does not clarify your understanding of your own being and manifestation here, in existence, but seems more to shroud it.

:::unhappy face:::

The Realization that I strongly believe you capable of, will not unfortunately arrive in you through those means you define as “philosophical thought”. It has not worked in the past and won’t work in the future.

Thus your utterance “Every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden” will not move you to the awareness I suggest is possible. To sail the sea you need a bona fide vessel, not that sputtering jalopy running on three cylinders named Wilbur Boneman!

I feel almost guilty when I point out that certainly there is “a god” but as such it is not intellectually attainable through those means you have spent over 20 years honing.

Consider signing up for The Course! It is money well spent.

Meditate on “Being” and “Existence” just a wee bit! I am certain that a wee glimmer and spark will shine out of the sediments like a diamond eye.

Meantime, go in relative peace.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

...you must (try TRY!) to grasp my point: we deal with life, life is filtered to us, by the lenses of perception that are constructed for us, that we co-construct and employ. If there is some sort of divine power or consciousness, it can only communicate with us through our subjective construct, our subjective hook-up as it were.

Wassat, Gus? You mean that every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden? And there might be a god? Whodda thunk?

You are careening off on the wrong track, my dearest child. Come, sit humbly on your knees and (for once) listen:

Unquestionably, we live in a realm of manifest intelligence. The manifestation of existence, even though what we see is an external manifestation, implies necessarily an originating consciousness. This has been known since immemorial times. And arriving at this understanding is not outside of your capacities, though in so many areas you are not much more intuitively intelligent than a box of nails.

Generally, your ‘knowledge’ does not clarify your understanding of your own being and manifestation here, in existence, but seems more to shroud it.

:::unhappy face:::

The Realization that I strongly believe you capable of, will not unfortunately arrive in you through those means you define as “philosophical thought”. It has not worked in the past and won’t work in the future.

Thus your utterance “Every hypothesis we entertain is theory laden” will not move you to the awareness I suggest is possible. To sail the sea you need a bona fide vessel, not that sputtering jalopy running on three cylinders named Wilbur Boneman!

I feel almost guilty when I point out that certainly there is “a god” but as such it is not intellectually attainable through those means you have spent over 20 years honing.

Consider signing up for The Course! It is money well spent.

Meditate on “Being” and “Existence” just a wee bit! I am certain that a wee glimmer and spark will shine out of the sediments like a diamond eye.

Meantime, go in relative peace.

What is your certain god?

[Immanuel Can]

Historically, morality was handed over to our ignorant religions,...

That would assume that morality existed prior to any religions, so it could be, as you put it “handed over"; whereas, history reveals that even the earliest civilizations were already deeply religious…so that’s just not historical. Sorry.

The truth is that morality always had a worldview-dependence. Ontology always preceded morality, and ontology logically and necessarily determined it. In other words, it was only because a person had a particular set of suppositions about what’s real in the world — historically, all religious ones — that certain moral codes were derived from thence. And Secularism is a very late arrival on the scene, historically. Morality had been going for millennia before there was any such thing as popular Secularism. (We could even point out that Secularism itself was religion-derived, but that’s a different case we won’t make here.)

The point is that when Secularism appeared, it appeared in the role of denouncing or rejecting all the religions and ideologies that had been the basis of morality up to that point. And there was no guarantee at all that when Secularism had “cleared the ground” of all these, that Secularism was going to be able to do their job at all. In fact, being a purely negative belief — a rejection of religiosity of all kinds — Secularism had no positive things to say about morality at all.

However, people tended to retain their religious assumptions, long after many of them professed Secularism; so the situation was not yet terminal. People could still live like a Hindu, or a Christian, or an Islamist or whatever, while professing to be secular. The problem is when Secularism starts to be fully believed — not superficially professed, but worked down to the bone in people’s assumptions. After that, can the fading residue of traditional moralities long remain compelling to Secularists?

We don’t know how long it will work. But judging by the moral confusions of the present day, it may well not be long.

[Immanuel Can]

OK, let's label it Mdivine. I am saying suppose there were an M not divinely sanctioned, call it Msecular. And suppose Mdivine(situation, choice of action) = Msecular(situation, choice of action). In other words, Msecular never gives a different judgement right or wrong. I don't give a damn if you say "but that's only pragmatic sameness". We're not discussing how the come to always give the same result, just whether they do or not.

Well, I’m not following your “algebra” here. I mean, I’m not grasping how the substitution of these vague placeholders for real-world specifics is going to help us know any answers. It seems to me that they just fog the field, and leave us both susceptible to mental mistakes. It’s too high a level of abstraction for us to recognize in it how people actually think and act, in the moral sphere.

I’ll try and make this real-world, if I may. Let us say that a Secular person and a Theist agree on a moral conclusion. Let’s make it simple: let’s say, “Thou shalt not steal.” We shall leave aside the question of what constitutes stealing, and take a clear case, just to keep things simple again. Let’s say that by “Thou shalt not steal,” what both mean is that you can’t take somebody else’s legitimate property without their permission, and treat it as your own disposable asset.

To try to answer your question, then, (assuming I’m grasping your point), you are asking if the Theist and the Secularist are capable of both agreeing that stealing is wrong. And the answer is, yes, they are. (As an aside, if you’re wondering if they can come to different conclusions, yes, that is also possible.)

So I’m denying your suggestion that my allegation is that

...there could be no Msecular such that it always gave the same answer as Mdivine.

Under the same conditions, with the same understanding of what constitutes stealing, it is possible for both to agree that stealing is wrong.

But here’s what I am saying — not the thing you were supposing me to be saying, but the real thing I’m saying. The Theist can say WHY stealing is wrong. The Secularist cannot. He may choose to act just as morally-correctly as the Theist is acting. But he may not, as well. Either way, there is no resource of information in his Secularism that can explain to the Secularist why it would be right to choose one of those options, and to reject the other one. For the Secularist, operating by no more than pure Secularism, there is no explanation of why one action is moral, and its opposite is immoral.

If there is a moral compass to be had, he’s dropped his in the mud and can’t find it. By accident, or by preference, he may end up doing the right thing, anyway, like a man stumbling along without a compass might plausibly end up heading true north by accident, or because the horizon happened to look more appealing to him in that direction. He maybe even will stumble in that direction (and this happens more often than not) because the society in which he was raised did once have a compass, and so socialized him to sense true north was roughly in the right direction. So he feels in his bones he should do the right thing, though he cannot check the compass anymore to confirm he’s on the right track.

And if he goes wrong, there’s nothing in Secularism to tell him he’s gone wrong.

That’s what I’m saying.

But the secularists can indeed say why stealing is wrong. The secularist reasons that stealing is wrong because of nature including human nature…

Let’s see if that’s so. Spell it out, logically.

Premise 1: Secularism is true.
Premise 2:______________________________________?
Conclusion: Therefore, stealing is wrong.

Please fill in Premise 2, showing how “nature” or “human nature,” whichever you actually believe is the right glue, connects Premise 1 with the conclusion you claim is true.

[Immanuel Can]

Theist can say WHY stealing is wrong. The Secularist cannot. He may choose to act just as morally-correctly as the Theist is acting. But he may not, as well.

The Theist is saying "stealing is wrong because it is one of the moral commands of god" AND "it is right to obey the commands of god". That latter is the BASIS of your divinely authorized system. Otherwise you just have "X is commanded or forbidden by god" --- so? But notice that "it is right to obey god" is not itself a divine command. Where did you get it from?. How do you decide which of god's commands are moral commands (have to do with moral issues*)

Well, we get it from two connected places, Mike. Firstly, it’s analytically the case that if we have a Creator, it is only that Creator that can say for what purposes we were created: who else can know why God did what God did? And since all Theists, by definition of what it means to be a Theist, believe in a Creator God, the deduction is inevitable.

But this raises a second question: and that is, it may be the case that I believe in a Creator God, and that only that God is a candidate to orient the moral project of the creature. Fair enough. But how do I know what the will of the Creator is?

And the answer is that I would not…unless God had revealed it to us. And this is where the real bone of contention will appear: is the Bible the Word of God, or is it not? If it is, there’s no problem in deriving the basic axioms of morality or law; but if it’s not, then we’re all in an unsolvable situation of not being able to know what is moral and what is not —ironically, the very situation into which Secularism would precipitate us all.

The secularist is giving a similar answer, stealing is wrong because a rule derivable from the basis he or she is using, results in judgements right/wrong supported by that basis.

I’m sorry…I’m not seeing what this “basis” is. Secularism, so far as I can tell, is a pure negation, containing no positive claims at all. How is “I live as if there’s no God” (i.e. Secularism) a “basis” for any positive moral claim? Even Gary’s seen that that is impossible. But if you have such a “basis” you get from Secularism, feel free to specify it, showing how it logically issues in a moral injunction of some kind.

I'll repeat, where did this necessary "it is right to obey god" come from?

Yes, I understood the question. I hope the answer above helps.

* note -- not all god's commands are moral statements. They are simply things to do or not do irrespective of situation. Thus of no use as a guide, "in situation X, it is right to do Y". Thus "wear at least one garment with a fringe, knotted tassels on the corners, 613 knots so you remember the 613 commands, containing a single thread dyed "blue" (a specific dye made from a shellfish). Not a command referring to choices of action in a particular circumstance. That shellfish is extinct, that blue dye no longer exists. Use some other blue shade or leave out that thread, do you strongly "feel" one solution more right or wrong than the other?.

Yes, that’s true. Traditionally, both Judaism and Christianity recognize the difference between moral (example: Thou shalt not bear false witness) and ceremonial instructions (tassels on the priest’s garments, for example). There’s no problem there. It’s not hard to sort out which is which.

[Immanuel Can]

I've already stated that Secularism in and of itself doesn't say anything about morality.

Then you recognize the truth of what I’ve said.

Secularism doesn't need to say something about morality.

No, it doesn’t actually “need” to do anything at all. Secularism has nothing to offer, and doesn’t even pretend to offer anything. All it amounts to is the denial of what other beliefs offer. But it doesn’t pretend to be more.

The problem is that WE need morality. And Secularism doesn’t let us have any. If we believed Secularism, and then lived like we believed it, there would not be one single moral axiom we could believe anymore. And then we’d have no laws, no ability to set boundaries for our society, no justice systems, no personal moral orientation-points…nothing to give us any traction at all in regard to moral issues.

Fortunately, I’ve never met a Secularist who lived with the complete anomie (lawlessness) that Secularism would actually entail. Thank heavens for the human propensity to hypocrisy, then, for without it Secularists would have no morality at all.

Why do you think secularism needs to tell us what is moral if theism doesn't?

Well, because of the above: we would lose everything we have in society, and our personal moral way, if we had no morality. And Secularism would lead us to think there is no objective reality to any of it.

But Theism does provide grounds. See my last message to Mike.

[Immanuel Can]

Morality is entirely natural...

Show how that can be. What in “nature” compels even one moral axiom?

[Alexis Jacobi]

What is your certain god?

In my view the only way to talk about inscrutable things is through intimation or perhaps indirect reference.

I regard the “doctrines” of Christianity as vessels whose symbolic meaning can be, let’s say, extracted and put to use. I suggest that there is a “decoder ring” (excuse the playful reference) which can be used to extract what is meant.

This thread has been going on for years now. And I have always been clear, and I state periodically that “I am here for my own purposes”. So I set my sights on extracting what I need from a peculiar, difficult and challenging historical juncture that, for various reasons, attracts those who participate here like moths to a flame.

The question “What is your certain god?” is I think in your case fairly put as a statement “There is no certain god”. In fact, even if I did send up some poetic formula as an “answer” (it is possible to communicate through such poetry) you know as well as I that you do not believe there is any such thing. You seem to have come down from such “drugged awareness” and I gather that you were once a sort of believer (with fanatical tendencies)(?) (If I have read you correctly).

The Essence of what Immanuel is on about is what interests me. This junkyard dog does not really under what he guards but his ferociousness defines him as it also imprisons him. To get to the Essence this dog must be tranquillized. Then the ‘guarded realm’ can be explored.