Is morality objective or subjective?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Immanuel Can: the ultra-skilled past-master at philosophical evasion. If there’s an important issue to evade, count on him!

Some of us do get a bit intense sometimes, but I don't agree that any of this is important. But then I'm just a post modern, cultureless yob.

What I take you to mean is that this little pocket of conversation, on a rather obscure website, is not of great consequence. And with that I can agree.

But if you were to say that the topics we talk about, even if little is resolved, is irrelevant as they play out in the larger, outer world, I would adamantly disagree.

We are all postmoderns, that is true, and many of us lack 'traditional cultural literacy', and that is also true. So the question, from where I sit, is how has it come to be that we became comfortable with that?

[Alexis Jacobi]

You do often evade, Immanuel, but it is your prerogative.

But since I have you I wonder if you could tie this one up. It is in relation to a man you referenced:

He doesn't seem to have thought of the theological implications of Evolutionism as it applies to humans.

AJ: For the sake of coherency in the reference to him, and your opinion of his 'faults', would you kindly explain what are the theological implications of evolution. He uses, and therefore I use, the word evolution. Not evolutionism.

He says that evolution is God's tool. Why is this problematic and faulty?

Myself, I think that you do not grasp what he has done. It is by my definitions a *manoeuvre*. He obviously cannot accept the Genesis picture and regard it as real. (Though he might regard it as suggestive and allusive). So he seems only to focus on the figure of the incarnated God, Jesus. He seems, then, to dismiss the *story* that led up to the Advent of Jesus as being, perhaps, the *darkening glass* St Paul speaks of.

So he becomes a sort of Jesusonian. There are so many avenues that open when a man has that perspective. I imagine it to be theologically freeing.

I actually did look for some clarifying statements of how he viewed both Judaism and Christianity in their more orthodox elements, but found nothing.

So, he becomes a Kierkegaardian Christian, and to get there he had ... to leap.

[Immanuel Can]

You do often evade, Immanuel,

I don't, actually. Maybe you are just having trouble following a line of inquiry.

But since I have you I wonder if you could tie this one up. It is in relation to a man you referenced:

He doesn't seem to have thought of the theological implications of Evolutionism as it applies to humans.

AJ: For the sake of coherency in the reference to him, and your opinion of his 'faults', would you kindly explain what are the theological implications of evolution.

Did you post this earlier? I've pretty much stopped reading what you write...I maybe glance at half, because most is pretty clearly nonsense...and sometimes I don't even bother to respond to you at all. And that's a product of two things: one, that you're always ad hom, so not relevant, but secondly, that you write those awful, boring, off-base, long monologues, instead of engaging in concise conversation.

If you ever change your style, I may take you seriously again. Otherwise, life's too short to bother.

But too be exceedingly brief, the Bible is very clear that human beings are not part of some continuum of animals. Mankind is a distinct and deliberate creation by God, from the same substrate as lower animals, but very different in spiritual kind, moral responsibilities, destiny, relation to God, etc. Moreover, the Bible says the Fall was the product of a human choice, made by our primary progenitor first, and then by us subsequently. Absent the Fall, serious theological implications follow.

[nemos]

Who told you he was?

Oh well, you claim that he is not a lord, but you do not deny that he resides there. So you think he is there? And if yes, then in what capacity?

[Harbal]

Immanuel Can: the ultra-skilled past-master at philosophical evasion. If there’s an important issue to evade, count on him!

Some of us do get a bit intense sometimes, but I don't agree that any of this is important. But then I'm just a post modern, cultureless yob.

What I take you to mean is that this little pocket of conversation, on a rather obscure website, is not of great consequence. And with that I can agree.

It all seems very important to IC, but for me, on a personal level and as none religious, it hardly matters at all. I do admit I can sometimes get a bit frustrated with the creationist nonsense, though.

But if you were to say that the topics we talk about, even if little is resolved, is irrelevant as they play out in the larger, outer world, I would adamantly disagree.

Fair enough. I don't have much to do with the larger outer world, and sometimes forget it's there.

[Immanuel Can]

Who told you he was?

Oh well,...etc.

"Oh well"? No, don't move on as if I didn't ask. I meant it as a serious question: who told you he was?

[Alexis Jacobi]

But too be exceedingly brief, the Bible is very clear that human beings are not part of some continuum of animals. Mankind is a distinct and deliberate creation by God, from the same substrate as lower animals, but very different in spiritual kind, moral responsibilities, destiny, relation to God, etc. Moreover, the Bible says the Fall was the product of a human choice, made by our primary progenitor first, and then by us subsequently. Absent the Fall, serious theological implications follow.

All that you are saying is

a) Taken literally, the Bible provides a ‘picture’ (a story, a narrative) about Man.

b) I don’t think or criticize any aspect of the biblical narrative. I have a totally non-critical relationship with it. No thought is needed: the scripture explains all. One must believe it all.

c) My preaching effort, here on a philosophy forum, is to try to influence my readership to take the same non-critical approach that I take.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If you ever change your style, I may take you seriously again. Otherwise, life's too short to bother.

I prefer things as they are. It is a perfect arrangement in so many ways.

Absent the Fall, serious theological implications follow.

So very true!

[iambiguous]

Incest doesn't bother me

Congenital disabilities and genetic disorders don't bother you?!? Well, well! Aren't you thpethial?

It does bother most Christians though.

Congenital disabilities and genetic disorders bother most people.

Also, in a No God world, nature doesn't send you to Hell if incest is a...sin?

It is quite literally what nature does. Repetitive incest reduces genetic diversity which lands you in a very special kind of hell.

The hell of wide-spread congenital disabilities and genetic disorders.

"Incest in the Bible refers to sexual relations between certain close kinship relationships which are prohibited by the Hebrew Bible. These prohibitions are found predominantly in Leviticus 18:7–18 and 20:11–21, but also in Deuteronomy." wiki

Yeah! Because actively avoiding incest promotes genetic diversity and reduces the risk of congenital disabilities and genetic disorders!

Prohibited. Unless of course you're God.

Prohibited. Unless of course you're Nature.

You are special kind of stupid. The kind of stupid who only sees the letter, but not the spirit of the law.

You are the objectively immoral kind of stupid.

Absolutely shameless!

Seriously though, how on Earth do "minds" like this not only persist here...but actually thrive!





Oh, yeah, I almost forgot:

[iambiguous]

Buddy, if Biblical is incest bothers you; wait till you gear about Evolutionary incest.

We all come from a single common ancestor.

Incest doesn't bother me. It does bother most Christians though. Also, in a No God world, nature doesn't send you to Hell if incest is a...sin?

In so-called 'God's world', which is just the One Universe, Itself, then if human beings are living in 'a world' that they do not like, 'a hell', then this is because adult human beings are just 'missing the mark', or 'sinning' in another word.

Obviously no one can get sent anywhere else, (heaven nor hell) after the Wrongly called 'death' of a human body. And, just as obvious is the fact that the way human beings behave, or misbehave, makes 'life' on earth a Heaven, or a Hell.

"Incest in the Bible refers to sexual relations between certain close kinship relationships which are prohibited by the Hebrew Bible. These prohibitions are found predominantly in Leviticus 18:7–18 and 20:11–21, but also in Deuteronomy." wiki

Well the children of "adam" and "eve" would have been fairly close kinship relationships, which as some believe is where all of you human beings came from, right?

Unless, of course, God was sculpting more 'couples' and placing them around the earth, which God never spoke about and thus mentioned before, in the bible.

Prohibited. Unless of course you're God.

Which close kinship relation was God, Itself, meant to be have sex with?

ACTUALLY, I miss NOT READING the old AGE myself.

[iambiguous]

That is the problem with moral relativism where its essence is 'to each their own' and so, 'tolerance of others moral maxims' is primary.

The "essence" of my own "situational ethics" revolves around the assumption that in a No God world, there does not appear to be a way for philosophers to establish a deontological morality. That down through the ages historically and across the globe culturally, good and evil revolve instead around a "human condition" that is bursting at the seams with "contingency, chance and change". This and the points I raise in the OPs here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

Let VA explain why my points are not applicable to him. Or her? Resolved: dasein is rubbish?

Even higher evolved animals has the 'intuition' to avoid 'incest' as an implicit to the groups and the species. This is universal in the species, thus objective.

Well, let's just say that the relationship between genes and memes in the human species is such that we can go far, far beyond biological imperatives. Once recognizing that inbreeding poses any number of problematic consequences, actual copulation can be avoided. Or one can have a vasectomy or a hysterectomy and then even pregnancy itself is out of the question.

So, is sex between, say, two sisters or two brothers inherently/necessarily immoral? Unless, of course, one does posit a God, the God, their God, and it becomes a "mortal sin"?

And then, moving beyond incest, let's explore "objective morality" in regard to abortion, capital punishment, homosexuality, capitalism vs. socialism, immigration policy, conscription, gender roles, animal rights, just war, etc., etc., etc.

[Immanuel Can]

All that you are saying is ...

Your supposition is that I'm going to let you misrepresent me like that, and be fine with it?

Good luck.

[iambiguous]

The entire structure on which mythological story-based religion is built, is as upon “sand”. When the real facts are discovered by the child who was told it was real history and “truer than rain”, the child goes into crisis.

On the other hand, IC is able to sustain the comfort and the consolation of believing "in his head" that the Christian God has provided him with 1] moral commandments on this side of the grave and 2] is there to assure him that immortality and salvation await him for all of eternity on the other side.

And, so far, all the philosophical arguments debunking him here have not persuaded him to abandon that and accept, what, that human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless and that when he's dead and gone, it's oblivion all the way down?

The Fool!

Seriously though, isn't God and religion really just another manifestation of the "psychology of objectivism"? Rooted existentially in dasein and predicated solely on what you manage to "think yourself" into believing is true? Or something that others have accomplished for you?

[Alexis Jacobi]

All that you are saying is ...

Your supposition is that I'm going to let you misrepresent me like that, and be fine with it?

Good luck.

There is no misrepresentation, just concise description. You are exactly that. That is the essence of your belief-system and your personality. It has no moving parts.

Everyone who reads & writes here sees this — or variants of it.

You alone cannot actually see and understand yourself. So you are right: I have no luck getting through to you.

The *invincibility* of your system is remarkable, but core to its function.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And, so far, all the philosophical arguments debunking him here have not persuaded him to abandon that and accept, what, that human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless and that when he's dead and gone, it's oblivion all the way down?

That is not what I ask of him.

I think that even if you tried really hard and sincerely you could not recapitulate what I do ask of him (i.e. Evangelical and other hardcore religious believers).

IC certainly could not do the same, either.

However: I could repeat back to both of you exactly what you ask for and exactly what your positions are.

It’s amazing but I actually read and think about — think through — the positions that people have.