God and morality

[phyllo]

Neither divine nor non-divine.

Then mere mechanics. Just events. Just interactions of material stuff. No reason, no explanation. To arrive at truth involves stripping away any other conceptual notions.

What’s the name of the ship you sail on, brother?

Why "just"? What's wrong with events and interactions?

Science offers reasons and explanations.

You need some super entity to give you reasons?

What do you get from that super entity? Certainty? Security? Comfort?

[phyllo]

But if God is supernatural, what are the 'natural rights' of God or the 'supernatural rights' of God.

What does it even mean if God is above it all?

Again, it completely depends on if one accept, or does not accept, that such God exists or does not exist.

And if God exists and created the world in which we exist, then it follows naturally that such a God has rights. But obvious too is that man can do what he pleases, right?

For “God to be above it all” is a turn of phrase, no?

To say “God is the creator of all” orients the phrasing a bit differently.

I still don't see what a God does with 'rights'. What use are rights to a god?

[Immanuel Can]

That's not my reason for rejecting Naturalism. I reject Naturalism because it's obviously reductional, inadequate to describe the phenomena we experience in life -- including the intelligence, rationality and personhood involved in the present discussion.

And so do you, though you don't seem to realize you do.

I do not so much ‘reject’ naturalism, rather I try to explain and clarify its limitations

Potato, potahto. C'est la meme chose, mon ami. If it doesn't "explain and clarify" enough, then that's exactly what it is -- reductional.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Neither divine nor non-divine.

Then mere mechanics. Just events. Just interactions of material stuff. No reason, no explanation. To arrive at truth involves stripping away any other conceptual notions.

What’s the name of the ship you sail on, brother?

Why "just"? What's wrong with events and interactions?

Science offers reasons and explanations.

You need some super entity to give you reasons?

What do you get from that super entity? Certainty? Security? Comfort?

Well, for you, out of respect to the position you hold, I can only attempt to see and point out how your position is constructed. It can only be an intellectual product of a relatively late scientific-mechanical view. That view is coherent within itself, according to its established predicates.

But if you are interested in understanding the metaphysical picture and description, or at least understand why your view is opposed, and even regarded as both destructive and (if I may be frank) conducive of evil — that is what I attempt. And I do so only to “locate” the belief you hold within its consequential position in our present.

Science does not offer any explanation at all for a man’s service or relationship to principles of the order this conversation turns on.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's not my reason for rejecting Naturalism. I reject Naturalism because it's obviously reductional, inadequate to describe the phenomena we experience in life -- including the intelligence, rationality and personhood involved in the present discussion.

And so do you, though you don't seem to realize you do.

I do not so much ‘reject’ naturalism, rather I try to explain and clarify its limitations

Potato, potahto. C'est la meme chose, mon ami. If it doesn't "explain and clarify" enough, then that's exactly what it is -- reductional.

No, it is similar. Like a Russet Burbank and a Purple Majesty potato.

I was going to say a potato and a yam but in fact they are not related at all.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I still don't see what a God does with 'rights'. What use are rights to a god?

You did not read well enough what I wrote. If a divinity exists which created life and existence, then man ‘owes’ to that entity certainly something, no?

Why would you want a list? What good would it serve? What could you do with it?

In your case you do not believe or sense there is any such divinity. So any description of “God’s rights” cannot make any sense. Your interaction with the question ends there, no?

[phyllo]

If a divinity exists which created life and existence, then man ‘owes’ to that entity certainly something, no?

It's a gift.

Do you owe someone when they give you a gift?

In your case you do not believe or sense there is any such divinity. So any description of “God’s rights” cannot make any sense. Your interaction with the question ends there, no?

I'm quite capable of dealing with hypothetical situations.

'Rights' make sense for humans because they facilitate concepts like fairness and justice.

But if we talk about the rights of a god, then we are projecting our needs onto the god.

[Immanuel Can]

I do not so much ‘reject’ naturalism, rather I try to explain and clarify its limitations

Potato, potahto. C'est la meme chose, mon ami. If it doesn't "explain and clarify" enough, then that's exactly what it is -- reductional.

No, it is similar. Like a Russet Burbank and a Purple Majesty potato.

I was going to say a potato and a yam but in fact they are not related at all.

I yam what I yam.

[MikeNovack]

If a divinity exists which created life and existence, then man ‘owes’ to that entity certainly something, no?

It's a gift.

Do you owe someone when they give you a gift?

To jump in here, the LH folks would say yes, an expression of gratitude.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If a divinity exists which created life and existence, then man ‘owes’ to that entity certainly something, no?

It's a gift.

Do you owe someone when they give you a gift?

To jump in here, the LH folks would say yes, an expression of gratitude.

What is “LH”?

[Alexis Jacobi]

In your case you do not believe or sense there is any such divinity. So any description of “God’s rights” cannot make any sense. Your interaction with the question ends there, no?

I'm quite capable of dealing with hypothetical situations.

In this hypothetical God has established that men will serve a range of principles defined as moral. Men either realize (intuit) that obligation, or they rebel against it.

Your move …

[Alexis Jacobi]

Christ liberates man from “the here-below” (the fallen world) for life in a world beyond, constructed one might say of imperishable, divine substance. Or do I have it wrong?

Is this how you see it, Mr. Yam?

[Immanuel Can]

Christ liberates man from “the here-below” (the fallen world) for life in a world beyond, constructed one might say of imperishable, divine substance. Or do I have it wrong?

Is this how you see it, Mr. Yam?

No, it's not the Biblical account. In the Biblical account, salvation happens to living human beings, here, in this world. And then, this world itself becomes the locale of the eternal kingdom...not some "world beyond" made of "imperishable, divine substance." Christianity is not Gnostic.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)

[Gary Childress]

Christ liberates man from “the here-below” (the fallen world) for life in a world beyond, constructed one might say of imperishable, divine substance. Or do I have it wrong?

Is this how you see it, Mr. Yam?

No, it's not the Biblical account. In the Biblical account, salvation happens to living human beings, here, in this world. And then, this world itself becomes the locale of the eternal kingdom...not some "world beyond" made of "imperishable, divine substance." Christianity is not Gnostic.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)

How does this world become "the locale of the eternal kingdom"? Are you referring to Christ's alleged return to Earth whereby he raises the dead?

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, it's not the Biblical account. In the Biblical account, salvation happens to living human beings, here, in this world. And then, this world itself becomes the locale of the eternal kingdom...not some "world beyond" made of "imperishable, divine substance." Christianity is not Gnostic.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)

It is true, as it pertains to Catholic doctrines regarding the fate of our physical Earth and the end of Existence, that the Advent of Christ into the world is, as it were, the heralding of the transformation of not only the Earth but the entire Cosmos.

The way that it is conceived is quite outrageous and, frankly, even impossible to believe for Moderns. One must literally deny in a real sense one’s evidentiary eyes in order to ‘believe’ that the world, the one we are in now, will eventually be ‘fixed’ and ‘cured’ as it were of the calamity that occurred in the Fall.

That is why, many months ago, I did point out that the world of biology and ecology, which is a ‘terrible’ world where creatures feed on creatures, will necessarily (according to Christian doctrines) have to be transforned into a new world, a deathless and eternal world.

Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more" — Revelation 21:4

It is also expressed in Romans: “… that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”.

As stated in the Catechism:

"The visible universe, then, is itself destined to be transformed, 'so that the world itself, restored to its original state, facing no further obstacles, should be at the service of the just,' sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ."

And here is where the essence of this Vision of absolute optimism takes shape: If everything that exists came to exist “ex nihilo”, and if this is understood itself to be, say, quite outrageously impossible or inconceivable, then why not see it as possible that the Creator of All could well completely arrange things anew?