Slavery

[Iwannaplato]

Many people define God in many ways. But I don't recognize those without the Authority to speak of God. Most do not have that Authority. Thus I must rely on my own Reason, primarily, to find an Authority or Representation of God.

and, yes, what did you Reason come up with?

Of if you mean IC - well, he believes Jesus was God on Earth, there is a Divine Father God etc.

He can speak for himself, thank you.

Of course, but I can point out the contradictions in commiserating about what you think are my positions.

See, this is where the BS comes in. You said that the Liberal values you hate come from Jesus. This puts you at odd with the NT and pretty much any version of Christianity.

I'm pretty sure Christ wouldn't accept LGBTQMAP+ or most of the other perversions of the Postmodern Liberal Left and Secularists....

As usual, you really don't make clear why you said Left values came out of Jesus in a sentence that sounds like Jesus was causal. You just throw out something specific that doesn't respond directly to what I wrote. Avoidance.

Liberalism means nothing without Repentance, a cost to moral errors, mistakes, and misinterpretations. Somebody must pay for Costs. Liberals try to shift the blame onto their political enemies, rather than bear the brunt of their own mistakes, themselves.

Peachy and not relevant. Avoidance.

Great, tell me what Divine matters you consider important. You, the agnostic. And you don't speak about them. You talk about the importance of Chritianity, but this is always about morals. Not God or the Divine. And you as an agnostic manage to have morals you respect, so you don't need belief in God to have these and I see nowhere that you even believe in the Divine. Perhaps you mean belief in the Divine matters, because other people need that to be moral. Is that what you mean?

I'm not getting into that in this thread. You're already veering too far off-topic and course of conversation.

All I see is avoidance. What the fuck does LGBTQ have to do with this thread. You're happy to go into that. You're not honest.

You deny being a secular person then to justify it you describe beliefs that fit perfectly with secularism.
You wonder where I get ideas, despite my quoting you directly. Maybe you didn't mean what you wrote, but don't blame me and then it would have been rational and mature to explain what you actually meant.

I don't believe Secular morals, or Christian Protestantism in general, is valid. So, no, I'm not a Secularist.

Secular morals can be all over the place. You realize that secular countries, communists ones, have been extremely harsh on LGBTQ. You can be secular and traditionally right wing. You can be liberal. You can be lefty. And you sure as shit don't have to be Protestant to be secular.

So, far over two posts you have managed to explain how you are not secular and not come even close to give a valid reason.
You leave things up in the air. You won't talk about why the Divine is important because it is off topic, but are happy to go off on your rants about Liberals and lGBTQ that have nothing to do with slavery. Your responses are all avoiding actually responding or show an inability.
And you never integrate what you are responding to in your answers. If you did, you would see it makes no sense. I point out that you can be right wing and secular, which you seemed not to understand. Silence.

I understand now why you thought I was 'losing steam' when I conceded that you were right about Plebeian and noted that we did agree about something - I didn't concede something on that second point, but I was willing to note common ground. I think you see doing that as weak. I think your cowardice shows up in the way you assume that doing those things means losing somehow.

I quoted you three times where you clearly stated that modern lefty values come from Jesus. Unless that sentence was poorly written it meant that Jesus was causal in the positions of the people you consider pernicious. I asked you three times about that. Nothing. You can't even manage to say either, well yes there is a problem with Jesus' ideas there or No, what I meant was.......

This kind of basic communication.

I know you hate liberals. You will happily say the same things with different paraphrasing on that again and again, but to actually move the conversation forward. Nah.

I'll ignore you for a while. I have no respect for your avoidance and cowardice. And that is the least insulting interpretation of what is happening here.

[Immanuel Can]

Outsiders often saw them as lazy and contrasted them with the bustling industrious North.

Prove that a secularist is morally obligated to agree with the North on that.

IWP is so lost in his own arguments... he doesn't even understand where his (secular) moral position comes from, and then turns around and denies identifying as 'Secular Humanist'.

Secularists need to play logical obstacle course and hula-hooping to get around the fact that Christianity is the vast brunt of European morality for over 2000 years now. They're ashamed of it, ashamed of the Civilizations they built and participated in. Worse, they have selective-memories. They yearn to escape the 'black and white' morals and traditions of Western Civilization. Their motivations for doing so are countless really.

The historic legacy of Christianity in the formation of the very Western morality that informs their own basic suppositions, suppositions most (I find) have never really investigated, is one interesting topic. But something is not automatically right merely because it is longstanding or impactful. Confucianism has been longstanding and impactful, beyond doubt: but it doesn't make Confucianism the key to morality.

So I've been pointing to the conceptual analysis angle, the moral epistemology. Secularism requires particular foundational, ontological beliefs, such as "all that has come into being has come into being by chance, or by randomness, or by quantum accident," or something similar to those explanations -- something, in any case, devoid of intention, intelligence, purpose, plan or teleological goal. And in such a realm, there is no making sense of morality -- the secular supposition has to be that it comes into play accidentally, weirdly, as a by-product of impersonal, undirected forces. Whether or not anybody has any duty to behave morally, they're utterly unable to explain in secular terms.

This is a fatal flaw of the secular worldview. For human beings simply find morality too intuitively necessary and compelling to dismiss it as an accidental or evolutionary "quirk" or freak happening. It continues to drive us and shape us. Conscience is forever within us, and among us. But why it is, and why we should continue to care about it, no secularist can explain.

But Theism can. It can explain not only the manifest order and teleology of the world, but also why certain moral ideas are so compelling, so indispensible to us and to our societies. Secularists may not like that explanation, but they have no contrary one to offer at all. So the moral-explanatory ineptitude of secularism, is, to me, one of the most important apologetics arguments. It's something we all intuitively sense is important, but which secularism will never help us justify.

And this argument is a conceptual, philosophical, rational and not merely historical one.

This is why secularism also has no way to argue that slavery is "wrong." Nothing, according to secularism, can ever be objectively "wrong." In fact, the word "wrong" can mean no more than "at this moment, I don't like X," or "at this historical phase, the powers in my social group choose to disapprove X." It can't mean slavery is "wrong." In fact, secularism would have to see it as "right," or rather, as "morally neutral," in all days and societies in which people just happen to approve of slavery.

[MikeNovack]

No IC, the secularist cannot provide an explanation acceptable to YOU.

That is not the same thing as being unable to provide an explanation acceptable`to other rational persons, both other secular persons and other persons who believe in deity. Your demand that we provide a reason acceptable to YOU is unreasonable.

[Immanuel Can]

No IC, the secularist cannot provide an explanation acceptable to YOU.

No, Mike: the secularist cannot provide ANY.

Just try. You can't do it.

[MikeNovack]

No IC, the secularist cannot provide an explanation acceptable to YOU.

No, Mike: the secularist cannot provide ANY.

Just try. You can't do it.

I can watch the secularist present a system of morality where I accept what he is doing. I believe his or her fellow secularist would also. I believe other theists whose take on deity is different from yours would also.

What the secularist cannot do is provide an explanation acceptable to YOU. This is NOT just because you will consider his/her starting premises without moral basis, though that is part of it << they don't NEED moral basis >> You seem to believe that would be enough. That you would not have to show:
a) The set of resulting moral conclusions is NECESSARILY different from the set of moral conclusions resulting from your divine moral precepts.
b) That at least one of them is wrong.

Understand? You aren't just claiming the set of moral precepts from God is correct BUT THAT IS ALSO THE ONLY POSSIBLE CORRECT SET.

[Immanuel Can]

No IC, the secularist cannot provide an explanation acceptable to YOU.

No, Mike: the secularist cannot provide ANY.

Just try. You can't do it.

I can watch the secularist present a system of morality where I accept what he is doing.

Then, as a thinker, as a philosopher, I'm afraid you really need to raise your standards. If you're a rational man, you should at least ask him the question that any small child first learns to ask: "Why?"

If he has no "why" to the claim that you should believe in his moral precept, then he's trying to take control of you arbitrarily and without rationality. And if I were you, I'd be extremely suspicious of that ploy.

But you can suit yourself, of course.

Still, I don't see you propose even one single precept any secularist is obligated to believe. And that silence shouts.

[MikeNovack]

Still, I don't see you propose even one single precept any secularist is obligated to believe. And that silence shouts.

You simply don't understand ........ P1, P2, P3 ... (moral postulates) => MC1, MC2, ...... (moral conclusions)

What do you mean by BELIEVE IN? Do you "believe in" the Euclid's parallel postulate? Do you get "no valid geometry" if you instead say no parallel line or more than one? And do you not realize that different but equal in effect could postulate the angles of a triangle sum to two right angles, more than that, or less than that. And whether done in terms of parallel lines of the sum of the aNgles of a triangle WILL NOT RESULT IN A DIFFERENT GEOMETRY (all the conclusions).

I am not obligated to believe ANYTHING in the sense you mean. I can accept ANY S1, S2, S3, .... as conditionally true, derive from them C1, C2, C3 , .... provided I close by (S1, S2, S3,...) => (C1, C2, C3,.....) . THAT STATEMENT I believe to be true independently of the "truth" of S1, S2, S3, ....

Have you considered the possibility that You/I do not mean the same thing by "moral"? How do YOU decide "these supposedly moral precepts coming from God -- on what BASIS am I deciding that they ARE "moral"

[Immanuel Can]

Still, I don't see you propose even one single precept any secularist is obligated to believe. And that silence shouts.

You simply don't understand ...

And yet, I do.

But you simply cannot do it. And you know I'm right, because you can't.

[Iwannaplato]

So you can't do the test? You can't answer even one simple question about Humanist ethics? Really?

Then on what basis do we call what Humanists are doing "ethics" at all? It can't even answer the most simple moral dilemma for us. And surely there's little more obvious, in conventional moralizing anyway, than that slavery is wrong -- most of us in the West will intuitively recognize it, even if it remains dubious in the rest of the world.

If it can't teach us even that, what can Humanist ethics teach us?

doesn't ----> can't
one person in a specific part of a longer dialogue doesn't ----> humanism can't

Great! You think that's unfair. So you must be assuming YOU can. You must believe Humanism has some kind of defense, and he's merely choosing not to offer it, but that he could.

I don't mind if you answer, or if he does. I'll take anybody's answer.

Go ahead.

But if you can't, and he can't...then how do you have any reason to think ANYBODY can defend Humanist ethics logically?

Please do the same thing you are asking Humanists to do, but as a Christian demonstrating to a Christian and a non-Christian that it is wrong to own slaves. Me, I don't think anyone can demonstrate that their ethics are objective. I think you can make excellent arguments against slavery, but it will have premises that cannot be proven as objective. And if you read some of the responses of humanists, you'll see they get this.

But show us here, since it is implicit in your demand and arguments that Christians can. Show us.

[Immanuel Can]

doesn't ----> can't
one person in a specific part of a longer dialogue doesn't ----> humanism can't

Great! You think that's unfair. So you must be assuming YOU can. You must believe Humanism has some kind of defense, and he's merely choosing not to offer it, but that he could.

I don't mind if you answer, or if he does. I'll take anybody's answer.

Go ahead.

But if you can't, and he can't...then how do you have any reason to think ANYBODY can defend Humanist ethics logically?

Please do the same thing you are asking Humanists to do, but as a Christian demonstrating to a Christian and a non-Christian that it is wrong to own slaves. Me, I don't think anyone can demonstrate that their ethics are objective. I think you can make excellent arguments against slavery, but it will have premises that cannot be proven as objective. And if you read some of the responses of humanists, you'll see they get this.

But show us here, since it is implicit in your demand and arguments that Christians can. Show us.

Absolutely. As soon as I get the recognition from you that Humanist ethics is doomed on this.

Because even if Christians, Hindus, Islamists, Buddhists and your uncle Fred can't disprove the morality of slavery, if secularism can't, then realizing it will not save secular ethics.

So what do you say? Can secularism warrant a prohibition against slavery?

[Iwannaplato]

Great! You think that's unfair. So you must be assuming YOU can. You must believe Humanism has some kind of defense, and he's merely choosing not to offer it, but that he could.

I don't mind if you answer, or if he does. I'll take anybody's answer.

Go ahead.

But if you can't, and he can't...then how do you have any reason to think ANYBODY can defend Humanist ethics logically?

Please do the same thing you are asking Humanists to do, but as a Christian demonstrating to a Christian and a non-Christian that it is wrong to own slaves. Me, I don't think anyone can demonstrate that their ethics are objective. I think you can make excellent arguments against slavery, but it will have premises that cannot be proven as objective. And if you read some of the responses of humanists, you'll see they get this.

But show us here, since it is implicit in your demand and arguments that Christians can. Show us.

Absolutely. As soon as I get the recognition from you that Humanist ethics is doomed on this.

Because even if Christians, Hindus, Islamists, Buddhists and your uncle Fred can't disprove the morality of slavery, if secularism can't, then realizing it will not save secular ethics.

So what do you say? Can secularism warrant a prohibition against slavery?

So, let me see if I understand your ethics. You saw a thread which asked a serious question - Henry is not just playing philosophically, he doesn't think you can demonstrate it. Instead of responding and showing people why slavery is wrong, you argue that Humanists can't. You opt not to take on the topic until someone admits Humanism is doomed.

This says to me that you hinge your moral behavior on winning an argument. I already said, in my respond above, that I don't think anyone can prove their premises are objectively true.

Show me I am wrong. Present your moral case against slavery.

[Immanuel Can]

Please do the same thing you are asking Humanists to do, but as a Christian demonstrating to a Christian and a non-Christian that it is wrong to own slaves. Me, I don't think anyone can demonstrate that their ethics are objective. I think you can make excellent arguments against slavery, but it will have premises that cannot be proven as objective. And if you read some of the responses of humanists, you'll see they get this.

But show us here, since it is implicit in your demand and arguments that Christians can. Show us.

Absolutely. As soon as I get the recognition from you that Humanist ethics is doomed on this.

Because even if Christians, Hindus, Islamists, Buddhists and your uncle Fred can't disprove the morality of slavery, if secularism can't, then realizing it will not save secular ethics.

So what do you say? Can secularism warrant a prohibition against slavery?

So, let me see if I understand your ethics.

Sure. As soon as you admit the truth, as above.

[Iwannaplato]

Absolutely. As soon as I get the recognition from you that Humanist ethics is doomed on this.

Because even if Christians, Hindus, Islamists, Buddhists and your uncle Fred can't disprove the morality of slavery, if secularism can't, then realizing it will not save secular ethics.

So what do you say? Can secularism warrant a prohibition against slavery?

So, let me see if I understand your ethics.

Sure. As soon as you admit the truth, as above.

All ethics are doomed in the sense that they cannot prove their basic value/moral judgments are objective, be they humanist, theist, other.

Please include why the Christian and non-Christian alike must be persuaded by your demonstration, since this is a criterion you regularly expected humanist ethics to meet.

[Immanuel Can]

So, let me see if I understand your ethics.

Sure. As soon as you admit the truth, as above.

All ethics are doomed in the sense that they cannot prove their basic value/moral judgments are objective, be they humanist, theist, other.

Okay, you're a Moral Nihilist, then. You may not know it, but you are, since you don't think there are objective moral values. And one thing for sure, then: there's no such thing as "Humanist ethics," or even "secular ethics." Neither worldview warrants any ethics at all.

Now to your question about Christianity. The question has been asked and answered many times, and long ago; so to save time, let's get a common stock of knowledge on the subject before we begin, just so we don't end up doing work others have already done. This guy has it mostly right, though I'd go farther than he does on a couple of points. But he nicely covers most things we could talk about. If you read it, you'll have answers to practically all the questions you could possibly ask about that.

https://www.str.org/w/is-the-bible-pro-slavery

[Iwannaplato]

Sure. As soon as you admit the truth, as above.

All ethics are doomed in the sense that they cannot prove their basic value/moral judgments are objective, be they humanist, theist, other.

Okay, you're a Moral Nihilist, then. You may not know it, but you are, since you don't think there are objective moral values. And one thing for sure, then: there's no such thing as "Humanist ethics," or even "secular ethics." Neither worldview warrants any ethics at all.

Now to your question about Christianity. The question has been asked and answered many times, and long ago; so to save time, let's get a common stock of knowledge on the subject before we begin, just so we don't end up doing work others have already done. This guy has it mostly right, though I'd go farther than he does on a couple of points. But he nicely covers most things we could talk about. If you read it, you'll have answers to practically all the questions you could possibly ask about that.

https://www.str.org/w/is-the-bible-pro-slavery

So, you couldn't make the argument yourself? OK.
The Christian responds: the bible clearly does not condemn slavery, it reforms it. I will meet all the conditions of those reforms.
The Non-Christian responds: Just because there is a book that says that that all humans have value this does not demonstrate that this is objectively true. You just showed me a document written by some guy interpreting another document written by people we don't even know for sure who they are. You haven't demonstrated the objectivity of anything.