Was Hitler as bad as some make him out to be?

[Age]

Actually, he did. He was created innocent but free. He used his freedom to fall. So now he has a fallen nature. That's the Genesis picture.

Well, let's look at this. God created an innocent being. That is his or her nature. Innocent. But then this innocent being has an urge to do the wrong thing.

There is no mention of "urges." It calls it "an act of disobedience."

Not that you will answer and clarify, because of your Truly weak and afraid personality here, but what is the first 'it' word here referring to, exactly?

It wasn't a magical fruit that caused the problem; it was the decision of a free person to do the wrong thing, when he/she was perfectly capable of doing the right thing.

So, do you know 'why' you decide to keep doing the Wrong things "immanuel can"?

'We' shall now wait to see if 'this one' answers and clarifies or not.

Milton put it this way: that mankind was created "sufficient to have stood, but free to fall." Man was "sufficient to have stood," in that he could have refused; but he was "free to fall," because having "freedom" automatically entails that one has the potential to make an alternate choice.

So what, and, who cares?

And, why do you "males" here keep ignoring "females", and 'children', in these 'extremely old' views and beliefs?

It is. But you've already said that you don't believe in objective right and wrong, so for you, there's no such thing as "sin."

Although I do think "sin" is a stupid word, along with "evil", I do believe in right and wrong,..

Well, you've already said elsewhere that they have no objective reality, so it's hard to see how you manage that. But if you think you can explain, I'll listen.

There's a flip side to this.

So you can't explain? You can only change the topic?

I was hoping you'd have some cogent explanation of how you can deny objective moral facts can exist, but then still believe in "right and wrong." But you're not going to tell me how you do that?

LOL you have never once provided an example of just one of these so-called 'objective moral facts' "immanuel can".

'We' are also waiting for you to have some cogent explanation of how, and why, you believe that 'objective moral facts' can exist. But, then still believe there are no 'subjective moral facts'. you can deny 'subjective moral facts', but without providing any cogent explanation/s is not helping you here.

[Age]

Here you are saying that we must have an endless torture option or we aren't free.

Not at all. I've never said those words.

What I have said is that you have to have the option of doing or declining to do something, or of choosing or rejecting between no less than two options. Otherwise you have no freedom. And that's analytically true: a person who is only given one 'option' really has no "option" at all; she has to do whatever she has to do.

As for "endless torture," all that is is the natural consequence of a very bad choice. When one rejects the Source of all that is good, what one gets is all that is bad. That, too, is analytically obvious.

you are obviously so deluded and blind here "Immanuel can". But, because you believe that you are absolutely are not in absolutely any way at all, then you will remain, exactly, as closed, blind, and deaf as you are here.

There is no reason to treat a choice as permanent.

Well, then, his choice is not being honoured. He's not being taken seriously, and given the actual power to determine his own disposition.

A deity could allow people to change their minds or hearts.

That's exactly what God does...now. But He won't do it forever, because at some point, that choice of where we wish to dispose ourselves must be honoured, or we aren't really having that freedom.

This also goes for number two. Even earthly fathers, not all but many, manage to allow their sons and daughters to reject them and then come back later.

As God does: remember the parable of The Prodigal Son? But not forever.

Unfortunately, God is also, as the Bible says, "the Giver of all good gifts." (James) With the expulsion of God from the rebel's universe, so go all good gifts...life, light, love, joy, peace, meaning, rightness, purity, health, liberty...for one who has rejected God, nothing good is left -- for all goods are derived from our relationship with the Great Source of Good, God Himself.

...you think God chose, restricting his own freedom...

It's not a "restriction." God is the only Entity in the universe who has the ultimate expression of freedom; which is that He, alone, of all beings, is able always to do that which is harmonious with His own nature, and never anything that is not. That God chooses to give man freedom and self-determination as to his ultimate relationship is harmonious with exactly who God is, a God who is about genuine relationship with free beings.

Certainly separation from God is a large facet of hell,

It's really the whole thing. The physical descriptors, such as flames, darkness, etc. are, I think the only ways God can describe in language that ordinary people can understand the kind and degree of undesirablility of the state of those who reject God. And He does so in order to make it very clear to ordinary people that it is something they should not want to choose.

But if they do, He still honours their choice and affirms their ultimate freedom to have what they choose.

So God would prefer that that should not be, either. But free will entails it, and that result is nothing other than God giving full respect to the free will of a free individual, without which, relationship would be logically impossible anyway.

Nah, free will could lead to other options,

It's analytically impossible. One cannot have genuine relationship with an entity that has no choice, freedom, volition or identity.

Those who wish to be forever without God get their desire, just as Lewis said. And we can't cry about getting exactly what we bargained to get. That's the price of being a free individual.

So, you think Harbal knows that he will be tortured for all eternity and that God actually does exist.

You'll have to ask him. I suspect he'll say he believes none of this.

Finally, as for the things I may not address here, not all comments are sufficiently relevant, interesting or challenging to deserve comment. Some are just throw-away snark by this person or that person, and others only concern questions too shallow and obvious to be deserving of any serious treatment. When the answer to something is so obvious that multiple books have already dealt with it, for example, I may not bother to deal with it at all. My time here has value to me, but is limited.

If there is something that I have passed over that you really consider a serious challenge, feel free to repeat it; and if you're right, I'll address it. It's possible I sometimes overlook a good point. But it's not common, I would say. Usually, when I don't react to something it's only because it wasn't up the level of being worth my reaction.

[Age]

I'm not going through it all again, and I stand by everything I've said so far.

Well, that's unfortunate. You've never been able to explain why your subjective "moral feeling" should be taken seriously by anybody at all.

And, conversely, you have never been able to explain why your objective 'moral feeling' should be taken seriously by any one, at all, as well.

Both of you are not presenting absolutely any thing that is irrefutable, and thus both of you, as some of you here would say, 'should not be taken seriously'.

And you continue to waffle between morally-laden demands that others agree with you, while simultaneously insisting they're only your personal feeling-of-the-moment, and no more.

Nobody can make sense of that contradiction. So I'm not surprised you've given up.

As soon as you become consistent with your own view, I'll be happy to do that.

So, again, for the umpteenth time, you have me accounting for my views on the subjectivity of morality,

Of course I do.

We're in a philosophy forum here, and what you've been claiming makes no rational sense to anybody. So all anybody can do is ask questions, and trust that the speaker has some deeper understanding nobody else has yet thought of. It's maybe an unduly charitable thing to do -- maybe the right thing is simply to call it "rubbish" without further hesitation -- nevertheless, I think you're owed a chance to explain.

So you've had your chance. And it seems you don't have some secret gnosis about how moral subjectivism can be rendered rational. That's not terribly surprising, I suppose. It's probably impossible.

...you are insisting on a declaration that you must be right before you will even start...

Not at all. I'm just insisting that you should probably believe things that can be defended on some rational basis. I'm perfectly happy to stand for my own view of what morality is: but the competition has folded so badly I don't think I'm really going to have to, really. They're already so desperate they're trying to "play my objectivist game," even while pretending to believe subjectivism. You can't resist using all kind of objective-value-assuming terms, because if you don't, you can't even reasonably object to anything your critics might say or do.

And here, you've provided yet another good example. Your closing "indictment" of my alleged behaviour, even were it completely right (and, of course, it's not: we had a long conversation about this on another thread), simply can't be taken seriously without some explanation of why my "dismissing" (if that's what I were to do) was wrong, or why it was wrong to be "irrelevant," or to "deliberately misrepresent," or to lack "courage," or why I should have "embarassment"...All these things require me to share your moral assessment.

But you then insist I don't have to share your moral assessment -- and, in fact, that nobody owes it to you -- because it's purely subjective.

Does it not even bother you that you can't live consistently with your own subjectivism?

Well considering the irrefutable Fact that you live contradictory to your own, supposed, 'objectivism', you 'judging' another here is Truly hypocritical.

Which, by the way, is 'judging' others part of 'God's plan, or God's wishes, for you human beings to do?

If yes, then are you absolutely sure?

But, if no, then, once again, you do the very opposite of what you say and claim are the Right things to do. And, 'objectively' so I will add.

[Harbal]

Your closing "indictment" of my alleged behaviour,

I would hardly call it alleged when you've demonstrated it to the entire forum.

[Iwannaplato]

"If you think you have an argument in support of objective moral truth, then present it"

Nooooo.... please, not again! I beg u!

I do remember the beginnings of one, but I was required to completely renounce my own views on subjective morality before IC was prepared to proceed with it, which I, of course, refused to do, so things never went any further. He has so much confidence in the strength of his argument that all alternatives must be removed from the arena before he dare let it into the ring.

I'm surprised. He's very good at logic. He demonstrated to me that if God wanted us to have free will, the only way to have a reality with free choice was to allow us to choose to be tortured for all eternity. And this is the informed choice we make. To have choice, that eternal suffering has to be on the menu, logically. An omniscient, omnipotent deity could not possibly make a better universe. Like it couldn't torture us for a while and then let us understand this will go on forever and then people say, ok, I choose to stop this and God is happy. IC somehow KNOWS that can't work. Once someone has made that choice you just have to leave them there. This is the only possible logical behavior for a loving father. And if you happen to get run over by a bus at 19 before you realized you should have chosen Jesus, while the 89 years realized this a few hours before his death of natural causes and they each get their eternal rewards.

So, I think you must be nuts, Harbal. Someone with the combination of an innate sense of logic and a strong sense of what an omniscient, omnipotent god couldn't possibly have improved, man he ain't afraid. He's like being pedagogical with you and you're not necessarily his target audience, like....

He's also a real good Bible reader. Naive readers seeing the Bible refer to Hell as being throw into burning sulphur and being endlessly destroyed and suffering endless torment as torture, they like believe that.

That's the naive reader.

For IC it is only separation from God, which isn't torture, it's just kinda depressing and sad.

You gots to have the intuition to ignore some parts of the Bible.

And people really would choose eternal torture, even you actually believe in God and then choose eternal torture.

Like for a minute there I thought, like threatenig people with eternal torture and they believe you, like how is that a deity who likes people to make free decisions. I'll give you eternal joy if you do what I want and torture you forever if you don't. Like people actually understanding those options would be making free choice. But that's me being naive. You can only freely choose when the punishment is worse than anything Mao and Stalin even dreamed of giving someone.

He gots that 'bility to see the truth, man.

Don't be dissing him, Harbal, you jealous.

[phyllo]

This is addressed to anyone who wants to tackle it :

What's the difference between subjective morality and everyone just doing whatever they want?

What's the difference between subjective morality and nihilism?

[Harbal]

This is addressed to anyone who wants to tackle it :

What's the difference between subjective morality and everyone just doing whatever they want?

What do you envisage people doing when they are doing what they want?

What's the difference between subjective morality and nihilism?

That would be easier to answer if you were to first say what you think they have in common.

[FlashDangerpants]

What's the difference between subjective morality and everyone just doing whatever they want?

Society.

What's the difference between subjective morality and nihilism?

That depends on what you think nihilism actually recommends

[Harbal]

What's the difference between subjective morality and nihilism?

That depends on what you think nihilism actually recommends

That was my thought, too, so I looked it up:

Nihilism is a philosophical doctrine that suggests that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. The core elements of nihilism include:

Meaninglessness: Nihilism posits that life and the universe lack inherent meaning or purpose. According to this view, any meaning or purpose we perceive is constructed by individuals or societies and not an inherent part of existence.

Moral Relativism: Nihilism often entails moral relativism, the belief that moral values and judgments are not absolute but are instead relative to the perspectives or cultures that hold them. There are no universal moral truths in nihilism.

Skepticism: Nihilism is characterized by a deep skepticism about knowledge, truth, and reality. It questions the possibility of certain or absolute knowledge and often leads to the conclusion that we cannot truly know anything.

Rejection of Metaphysical Claims: Nihilists generally reject metaphysical claims about the existence of higher powers, spirits, or deities. This includes skepticism about religious beliefs and the existence of an afterlife.

So it turns out that I pretty much am a nihilist. Who'd have thought that?

[FlashDangerpants]

So it turns out that I pretty much am a nihilist. Who'd have thought that?

Indeed, but the thing is, you probably didn't start from a position such as IC holds (not really sure about phyllo) where the universe is just taken to only make any sense because it was created with a purpose, and morality only makes any sense because it has a purpose, and truths are True by virtue of a special single ultra Truth which little truths all conform to.

For somebody imprisoned in that mindset, the notion of a universe that has no "meaning", whatever a meaning would even be for a thing of that sort, is incomprehensible mayhem. They tend to think of nihilists as people who are all about that mayhem. The idea of a nihilistic existence being the same as theirs but just without the ineffable bit that does nothing is difficult for most of them. Obviously for IC it's all heresy and delusion beyond comprehension, but perhaps for phyllo the postion can be explained.

Sometimes when they talk about nihilism, they are actually describing moral abolitionism, a moral theory apparently so fringe that it has no wikipedia page? So here's a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudHhqbVE0c&t=154s

[Immanuel Can]

Your closing "indictment" of my alleged behaviour,

I would hardly call it alleged when you've demonstrated it to the entire forum.

You forget: the forum can read the other thread, so they know I've made my case regarding objective morality. Maybe you've forgotten.

[Harbal]

Your closing "indictment" of my alleged behaviour,

I would hardly call it alleged when you've demonstrated it to the entire forum.

You forget: the forum can read the other thread, so they know I've made my case regarding objective morality. Maybe you've forgotten.

Who knows; I've forgotten loads of stuff in my time. Anyway, circumstances have changed. I've just discovered that I'm probably a nihilist, and I seem to remember your saying that nihilism was an alternative to your objective morality that you thought acceptable. That doesn't alter my opinion on the impossibility of objective moral truth, but it doesn't stop you pretending there is such a thing, either. I like a happy ending, don't you?

[Immanuel Can]

I would hardly call it alleged when you've demonstrated it to the entire forum.

You forget: the forum can read the other thread, so they know I've made my case regarding objective morality. Maybe you've forgotten.

Who knows; I've forgotten loads of stuff in my time. Anyway, circumstances have changed. I've just discovered that I'm probably a nihilist, and I seem to remember your saying that nihilism was an alternative to your objective morality that you thought acceptable.

Ah! So suddenly, the memory returns.

I forgive your lapse.

I like a happy ending, don't you?

I feel very happy.

[phyllo]

Society.

I take that to mean that 'society' will stomp on you if you try to do something that you want but that 'society' does not want.

What could we call that? Morality?

That is to say that morality is a set of social standards. You can agree or disagree with them and you can call that your own personal morality if you want.

But morality isn't just everyone having their own ideas of right and wrong. That would be completely unworkable.

Morality has to be "shared".

[FlashDangerpants]

Society.

I take that to mean that 'society' will stomp on you if you try to do something that you want but that 'society' does not want.

What could we call that? Morality?

That is to say that morality is a set of social standards. You can agree or disagree with them and you can call that your own personal morality if you want.

But morality isn't just everyone having their own ideas of right and wrong. That would be completely unworkable.

Morality has to be "shared".

Yes, your morality is shared with your society.