Christianity

[Belinda]

God is love . What does that mean to you?

Many things. Among them, that God is too loving to allow sinners to die in darkness. But also that He is too loving to force them to obedience. He’s also too loving to wink at evil. And He’s too loving to allow injustice to prevail.

Is your conception of love as specific as that in the Bible? Or does it begin and end with the sort of mushy emotion that allows evil to flourish, and will accept anything, just so it has to sacrifice nothing?

Love is described in The Bible and not exclusively in The Bible. Love does what it can to stop evil and prevent evil.

God is love not power. God/love can't prevent evil. Prevention of evil is a dusty road where many perish, but some people follow the road anyway.

[Gary Childress]

But without reason. And erroneously. For it is not the case at all that there’s some connection between “flourishing” and moral goodness that you bothered to identify. We don’t even know what “flourishing” refers to, since there are so many different views of what one needs in order to “flourish,” and what a “flourishing” person is like.

So you don’t get that second premise handed to you just because you claimed or “affirmed” it. You need to justify it, if you expect anybody to believe it. Otherwise, it’s just gratuitous.

As for ChatGPT, I find it’s for people who have outsourced their brains to AI, and don’t even know the fallacies they’re spilling out as a result. If you can’t explain it yourself, and need ChatGPT to make up something for you, it’s already an admission of failure. But I think you can think for yourself.

As I stated, you can't deny it's valid,

I did. Because it is. It didn’t have the correct form. But I supplied you with it, and if you looked it up in a reputable source, you know I’m right.

however, your complaint is that it's not sound, which I acknowledge you can do.

Well, that too.

If you say so, it must be so, right? I'm not interested in arguing anymore over it. The jury is still out for me.

[Immanuel Can]

As I stated, you can't deny it's valid,

I did. Because it is. It didn’t have the correct form. But I supplied you with it, and if you looked it up in a reputable source, you know I’m right.

however, your complaint is that it's not sound, which I acknowledge you can do.

Well, that too.

If you say so, it must be so, right? I'm not interested in arguing anymore over it. The jury is still out for me.

It’s about logic, Gary. It has nothing whatsoever to do with you or me as people. Logic is logic, and fallacies are fallacies, regardless of who stands behind them.

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that? Maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’d rather pretend it was about personal animus than face the reality that it’s just about facts. Maybe pretending it’s personal is the only way they can keep believing the illogical things they long to believe, and not confront the facts.

[Immanuel Can]

God is love . What does that mean to you?

Many things. Among them, that God is too loving to allow sinners to die in darkness. But also that He is too loving to force them to obedience. He’s also too loving to wink at evil. And He’s too loving to allow injustice to prevail.

Is your conception of love as specific as that in the Bible? Or does it begin and end with the sort of mushy emotion that allows evil to flourish, and will accept anything, just so it has to sacrifice nothing?

Love is described in The Bible and not exclusively in The Bible. Love does what it can to stop evil and prevent evil.

Does it rob people of their personhood, their individuality, their volition and their wills? To dehumanize them by disregarding their choices and forcing them to obedience? Is that how love behaves?

If it is, then by “love” you mean “slavery” or even “rape."

God is love not power. God/love can't prevent evil.

Well, not and allow freedom to us, of course. That’s impossible, because it’s a contradiction. The one eradicates the other: if I have to be forced not to do evil, then I have no choice about doing good, either. But evil also requires to be judged, and to be stopped: and we all know it. This is why people cry out, “How could a loving God allow evil?” Because a God who does not judge cannot be loving either. And if he allows evil to continue indefinitely, how is that loving?

In your fascination with the word “love,” do not forget that love is measured by what it will do. And it must do something about mercy, and something about justice. And it must satisfy both.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that? Maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’d rather pretend it was about personal animus than face the reality that it’s just about facts.

Maybe pretending it’s personal is the only way they can keep believing the illogical things they long to believe, and not confront the facts.

I feel your pain, brother!

“Facts” like The Original Mating Pair, Noah’s Ark, The Parting of the Red Sea …

Why WHY are people incapable of grasping simple facts? It forever baffles me.

(Der mentch iz meshuggener …)

[seeds]

Test it. Ask yourself for one precept or axiom that Secularism requires of us. If you can’t find one, then the conclusion is obvious, regardless of anything any other system of thought can or cannot do.

Well, here is sort of one. This seems to me to be one major Axiom, stated or not, of dreaded Secularism:

That “we” disassociate ourselves from unprovable and dictatorial Commands made by a supposed God-Authority that does not ever, at any point, intervene and show himself and express his will,...

Speak for yourself, Kemosabe.

In addition to the problematic issue of assigning a gender to God, you cannot simply assume that God has never intervened and shown "himself"...

(or at least shown that "he" [she/it] truly exists)

...to some of us humans.

Or was your suggested "Major Axiom" only meant to apply to the heathen secular rabble?
_______

[Immanuel Can]

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that? Maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’d rather pretend it was about personal animus than face the reality that it’s just about facts.

Maybe pretending it’s personal is the only way they can keep believing the illogical things they long to believe, and not confront the facts.

I feel your pain, brother!

I don’t think you do. You’re the first person here to stop dealing in facts or logic, and to claim to have deep psychological insights about why the speaker is unfit to be heard, instead of actually addressing the claim.

You’re the king of the cheap ad hom. Why would you feel any pain? You love that stuff.

[MikeNovack]

Immanuel, am I correct, instead of or in addition to stating a secular moral code impossible, you are issuing a challenge. I don't even have to be a secular person to attempt that.

Here goes my example, first in what I consider unacceptable form, then revised to meet objections.

BASIS ---- in any given situation, a choice of action is judged "right" if the eventual outcome is good and judged "wrong" if the outcome bad <<strict consequentialist >> Note Immanuel, that I would NOT have to demonstrate to you the "moral rightness" of any of the individual rules. They are justified by whether or not they correctly help implement the basis by being part of the rule set<< only ONE statement needs both an "is" and an "ought"

What are your objections BESIDES the ones I am about to raise? Objection 1: Not useful as a guide for choices of action because undefined at the time that choice must be made. I'd like a moral system to be USEFUL, not just give answers retrospectively. Objection 2: The judgement subject to chance in the sense that the eventual outcome might be little influenced by the choice.

SO --- Let's get s bit fancy and propose a "weighted probablistic consequentialist" basis --- in any given situation, a choice of action is judged right if the (weighted) probable outcome is good and wrong if the (weighted) probable outcome is bad. I argue this satisfies both objections. The judgement is available at the time the choice must be made AND chance events altering te eventual outcome do not change that judgement. BTW, I threw the complication of weighting in there to deal with great difference in the amount of good or bad. It's why we choose to by fire insurance for our house.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel, am I correct, instead of or in addition to stating a secular moral code impossible, you are issuing a challenge. I don't even have to be a secular person to attempt that.

Right. Just be somebody who a) knows what Secularism is, and b) can do logic.

Here goes my example, first in what I consider unacceptable form, then revised to meet objections.

BASIS ---- in any given situation, a choice of action is judged "right" if the eventual outcome is good and judged "wrong" if the outcome bad <<strict consequentialist >> Note Immanuel, that I would NOT have to demonstrate to you the "moral rightness" of any of the individual rules. They are justified by whether or not they correctly help implement the basis by being part of the rule set<< only ONE statement needs both an "is" and an "ought"

What are your objections BESIDES the ones I am about to raise? Objection 1: Not useful as a guide for choices of action because undefined at the time that choice must be made. I'd like a moral system to be USEFUL, not just give answers retrospectively. Objection 2: The judgement subject to chance in the sense that the eventual outcome might be little influenced by the choice.

My objection would be simpler: it uses the terms “right” and “wrong,” or “good” and “bad” without saying what those terms mean. In other words, it really doesn’t say anything at all.

There are also, of course, all the conventional critiques of all the various Consequentialisms, of course, which would instantly also apply to this version. (See sample here: https://hub.educationalwave.com/pros-an ... entialism/). And, as you mention it yourself, Humes Is-Ought problem, of course.

Again, let us go back to the test I proposed: list even one moral axiom that Secularism instructs us we ought (or “owe it”) to do. Can you do it? If not, then Secularism isn’t informing us of anything in the moral sphere.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I don’t think you do. You’re the first person here to stop dealing in facts or logic, and to claim to have deep psychological insights about why the speaker is unfit to be heard, instead of actually addressing the claim.

You’re the king of the cheap ad hom. Why would you feel any pain? You love that stuff

Immanuel, let’s get things straight. Your “logic” and your “facts” are a thorough and embarrassing joke. I sincerely apologize to you for having to say this. I interact with you with a joyous humor because you provide no other option.

However, this is all in my opinion very important stuff. And because of your narcissistic fanaticism you cannot even discern the points where I am on your side.

The fact and the logic are just this: metaphysics is an intellectual realm (intellectus). To discern what is important in human life in metaphysics requires not a fanatic mind, but a discerning mind. You, my beloved, have a confused mind, but you ape reasonability.

This is one very important “fact” about you.

You are not, in my opinion, “unfit to be heard”, but what there is to be heard must be gleaned out of the Pictures to which you have become wedded through bizarre fanaticism. In fact, and in many areas, your ideas have solidity.

Yet with all that said (I have been thinking of this today) you have helped me tremendously. Inadvertently, yes.

I have been trying quite hard to discover a way to salvage both Judaism and Christianity from merciless attack by those (some here but I refer to the surrounding world) who feel compulsion to tear it to shreds and dispose of it. Myself, I did discover how this can be done, and I write about it a lot. But it all goes over your head. Obstinacy makes it impossible to hear for all that one has ears.

Yes, therefore, to psychological insights! Yes, exactly! That is one of the first steps.

The next step involves accessing a “master metaphysician” and using that man’s perspective and experience to salvage tremendous value from being lost.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Gary, Belinda, Alexis. Why feed the troll? For how long of the four years of this thread? What do you get out of it? How does he feed you? Are your positions refined by the fire? Endless rhetoric. Why? Don't worry, that's rhetorical too.

It's so easy to demonstrate the moral failures of Christianity, all the flavours of it, the whole Neapolitan bitter-sweet popsicle. The sheer carnality and humanity of it. The whole damnationist-liberal, misanthropy-philanthropy, hate-love spectrum lolly. But most people, i.e. everyone, aren't in the slightest bit interested in questioning their morality. And if anyone else does they double down. Which you then do back. Double down back. You've surely reached a steady state of that? Do you really need constant reinforcement of your morality in weak hostile opposition?

Even emergent Christianity, transcending the fundamentalist adherence to the text that all the non-emergent are stuck with, fails. Fails the morality test. If Love were the ground of being, every eye couldn't not see.

[Immanuel Can]

I don’t think you do. You’re the first person here to stop dealing in facts or logic, and to claim to have deep psychological insights about why the speaker is unfit to be heard, instead of actually addressing the claim.

You’re the king of the cheap ad hom. Why would you feel any pain? You love that stuff

...because of your narcissistic fanaticism...

There you go. You just proved the case…again.

[MikeNovack]

My objection would be simpler: it uses the terms “right” and “wrong,” or “good” and “bad” without saying what those terms mean. In other words, it really doesn’t say anything at all.

You misunderstand ---- Good/bad are ethical terms. You are correct, here I have not instantiated WHICH of the various secular ethical systems, For example, an Epicurian might say "good is what causes the greatest happiness in the greatest number". I was not aware that in addition to claiming the secular person cannot do morality you were further claiming the same inability to do Ethics".

I have just told you what right and wrong mean ---- that's what a definition is doing. What you claim the secularist cannot do.

Did you imagine you were doing more if you say "In any situation, choosing to do what god orders for this situation is right and doing otherwise is wrong".

Right and wrong refer only to possible choices of action. The realm of Morality. Good and bad are judgements we attach to other things, even the situations themselves. The realm of Ethics. You can think of Morality as being within Ethics.

[Immanuel Can]

My objection would be simpler: it uses the terms “right” and “wrong,” or “good” and “bad” without saying what those terms mean. In other words, it really doesn’t say anything at all.

You misunderstand ---- Good/bad are ethical terms.

I understand perfectly. Good and bad are value-laden terms, not nouns. They are adjectival terms of approval and disapproval, if you will. As such, we must be able to say that what we are honouring is actually worthy of the status we are bestowing upon it, or our usage of the terms is gratuitous and ungrounded.

I was not aware that in addition to claiming the secular person cannot do morality you were further claiming the same inability to do Ethics".

Well, a lot of people mix the two in their thinking. They talk about “moral philosophy,” for example, and mean “ethics.” Personally, I recognize a difference between the two, one that not all philosophers acknowledge. I’d be very interested in knowing how you distinguish those two terms, if for no other reason, than to see if you have the same insight about the difference that I have.

I have just told you what right and wrong mean

Actually, you haven’t. You’ve employed them, but not said exactly what sort of thing they refer to. And then you’ve yet to attach whatever you’re attaching to them to Secularism.

Did you imagine you were doing more if you say "In any situation, choosing to do what god orders for this situation is right and doing otherwise is wrong".

If you check, you’ll find out I have not said this. I fear that’s merely your assumption about “what Christians are supposed to believe,” according to Mike. They’re not at all what I said.

I understand the mistake: Christianity’s detractors and critics often make a “straw man” argument, even just by accident, often because they are burdened with outsider prejudices or false deductions about what they think Christians believe — so I don’t take it personally when somebody makes such a mistake. It’s all too common. But neither do I feel inclined to offer any explanation of a statement about what an outsider supposes Christians believe, when actually, they don’t believe that at all.

You can think of Morality as being within Ethics.

I don’t. So your distinction between the two must be somewhat different from mine. What is yours?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Gary, Belinda, Alexis. Why feed the troll? For how long of the four years of this thread? What do you get out of it? How does he feed you? Are your positions refined by the fire? Endless rhetoric. Why? Don't worry, that's rhetorical too.

In my case I explained myself at least in part just recently to you. I have specific purposes that evolved out of my own spiritual and intellectual life. I could point to a deep reading of Nietzsche and also — this is a contrast — Richard Weaver that set things in motion. I felt I was ‘deeply concerned’ about Occidental categories and, in a Spenglerian sense (Weaver also deals on this) a general decline. Frankly, examining my family, my cultural context, my upbringing, I lived through processes of decadence. It became necessary to reconstruct my own self. And if one is, as I am, one fundamentally tuned into spiritual life and the realness of metaphysics, the long engagement with this thread, and lots of side reading, and my own marriage and cultural context — it is all very relevant.

No regrets.

It was Basil Willey who brought to my attention that we need, that I need, the sighting skill of that “master metaphysician” he speaks about in his (interesting and worthwhile) books. The processes of disintegration (our era is one of levels of disintegration) and reconstruction take a great deal of time and energy.

Reading people like Weaver, Nietzsche, Spengler, Julius Evola and René Guénon will have the effect of establishing self-examination through critical analysis and demand of a person that they make changes (to the degree possible).

On these forums one can decide: no matter what I will benefit here. That is a decision I made.

Gary’s position is entirely unique. As an observer I have formed opinions.

Belinda also has unique (and I think valid) intentions. She comes from a far more integrated period in English, Liberal, European culture.