Philosophy Now Forum

Thesis: The Christianity Moral FSK is the Most Effective at Present
Nb: Most Effective, not most realistic nor objective.

While I have argued,
It is Impossible for God to be Real i.e. it is an illusion.
viewtopic.php?t=40229
Whilst God is an illusion, is a useful illusion.

The idea of God is useful illusion as a balm that will immediate soothe the terrible pains of cognitive dissonances arising from an inherent and unavoidable existential crisis.

In addition, the Christianity model of moral FSK with its overriding pacifist maxis of 'love all, even enemies' is the most effective in terms of meeting the intended utilities of morality per se since it first emerged and even at PRESENT [not necessary in the future].

Morality-proper is essentially the managing [ideally to eliminate ALL] of evil acts to facilitate its corresponding goods.
What is most evil is related to the killing of human beings by human beings.

A Christian is one who have had entered into a CONTRACT [actually divine covenant] with Jesus on behalf of God.
As such, a Christian-proper must comply with all the terms of the Contract within the best of his abilities.
The terms of the divine Contract is confine to the words of Jesus which is only within the Gospels, not Acts, Epistles nor the OT [abrogated].
Any non-compliance to the terms of the Contract will cause the Christian to sin with a threat of going to eternal hell with eternal hell-fire.
To avoid this terrible threat, Christian will make it a point to comply with the terms of the contract.

The critical term re morality is 'love all, even enemies' which implies Christians cannot kill, harm nor commit violence on all humans.
When Christians driven by fear of God comply with the God' maxim 'love all, even enemies' the will fulfil the avoidance of the most evil acts within morality, i.e. killing of humans by humans.

As such in theory, the Christian moral FSK is potentially the most efficient moral FSK at present.
So far, there is no evidence of Christians killing humans in the name or under the command of Jesus/God from the Gospels.

There are Christians who kill humans, [e.g. the Crusades and elsewhere] but they are doing based on the own personal will and discretion, and not because Christianity commands them as Christians to do so and as a divine duty. In this case, we cannot blame the religion. We can only blame the individual Christians for committing evil acts in their personal capacity.

There will be Christians who has to kill to defend their religion or for other just acts.
This has nothing to do with Christianity per se, but rather it is that the Christian had not complied with God's maxim to 'love all, even enemies'.
In this case, they have sinned in the eyes of God and they can only hope for God's forgiveness for their sins for acting justly.

Since there is no evidence of Christians killing humans in the name or under the command of Jesus/God from the Gospels, and many intended killing of humans would have negated by the terrible threat of hellfire.

In contrast, all other models of moral FSKs [theistic and non-theistic] which are ideal and most evil [e.g. Islam] are not effective in meeting the objectives of morality-proper.
The most ideal moral FSK at present is that from Buddhism, but it is not effective because the majority of Buddhists could not tap into the potential of Buddhism-proper based on their present psychological states.

At present [not future] the Christianity Moral FSK is the Most Effective and optimal in relation of the current psychological states of the majority.
However, Christianity has it other negative baggage.

The current reality is humanity is evolving at a fast pace in terms of information, knowledge and technology, plus the individual self-development.
With the trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and Technology [IT and others] the negative baggage [cons] of Christianity is progressively outweighing its pros.

Toward the future, humanity must recognized credible, reliable and objective moral facts so that moral progress can be grounded and progress expeditiously. This is why I am arguing or moral objectivity based on objective moral facts from a human-based moral FSR-FSK.

Any counter to my thesis;
The Christianity Moral FSK is the Most Effective at Present [not future]?

Notes: KIV

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 8:32 am In addition, the Christianity model of moral FSK with its overriding pacifist maxis of 'love all, even enemies' is the most effective in terms of meeting the intended utilities of morality per se since it first emerged and even at PRESENT [not necessary in the future].

A few questions:
1) how do we know it is the most effective? what are the criteria? how is this measured
2) Below you compare it to Islam: but what about all sorts of secular moralities that share some qualities with Chritian morals, but not all? How did you compare these?

Morality-proper is essentially the managing [ideally to eliminate ALL] of evil acts to facilitate its corresponding goods.
What is most evil is related to the killing of human beings by human beings.

As we all know Christians have killed and used the Bible to justify killing in all sorts of situations. I am guessing you will say something like: these people were not really following Christianity. But then the morals that you think are clear in Christianity are not clear, since it led to so many using Christianity to justify all sorts of killing.

A Christian is one who have had entered into a CONTRACT [actually divine covenant] with Jesus on behalf of God.
As such, a Christian-proper must comply with all the terms of the Contract within the best of his abilities.
The terms of the divine Contract is confine to the words of Jesus which is only within the Gospels, not Acts, Epistles nor the OT [abrogated].
Any non-compliance to the terms of the Contract will cause the Christian to sin with a threat of going to eternal hell with eternal hell-fire.
To avoid this terrible threat, Christian will make it a point to comply with the terms of the contract.

From Luke 19: 27

But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’

”

That's Jesus, not the OT. And if your response to is say something that Jesus 'really means' you are placing yourself again as an authority over other Christians. I realize you were once Christian and have much experience through this of the version of Christianity you are raised in, but this does not make you overall authority who can tell us or Christians what Christianity is, what it's moral FSK is. You could argue that the moral system you grew up in is the best, because, for example, it interprets Jesus in Luke as meaning X. You could present an argument based on that, but when talking about Christianity in general on both the practical level - you cannot effectively speak for Christians since many perhaps most will disagree with you on important points - or even in theory, since we do not have some objective system to determine whose interpretation of Christianity is the correct one. We certainly can't take your word for it.

Since there is no evidence of Christians killing humans in the name or under the command of Jesus/God from the Gospels, and many intended killing of humans would have negated by the terrible threat of hellfire.

Again: 27

But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’ ”

Let alone the whole OT.

In contrast, all other models of moral FSKs [theistic and non-theistic] which are ideal and most evil [e.g. Islam] are not effective in meeting the objectives of morality-proper.

Give us some examples of non-theistic moral systems you have compared Christian morals with.
1) With each one, show us how you summarized those morals and
2) How did you compare effectiveness?

The most ideal moral FSK at present is that from Buddhism, but it is not effective because the majority of Buddhists could not tap into the potential of Buddhism-proper based on their present psychological states.

1) How do you know this?
2) Have you compared murder rates?

I mean, this is complicated stuff. For example, according to this metastudy...
Protestantism correlates with higher murder rates, but Hinduism Buddhism Catholacism do not. But even this study points out how complicated this is and does not reach hard and fast conclusions. Secular morals are not correlated with higher murder rates. But then even this gets complicated because secular systems will happily raise up certain kinds of secular belief system to the power level: like Neocons. They in turn can lead, at the national level, foreign policies that directly kill - via war - and indirectly kill, by supporting death squads, forcing countries to implement austerity measures that leads directly then to deaths.

Toward the future, humanity must recognized credible, reliable and objective moral facts so that moral progress can be grounded and progress expeditiously. This is why I am arguing or moral objectivity based on objective moral facts from a human-based moral FSR-FSK.

Any counter to my thesis;
The Christianity Moral FSK is the Most Effective at Present [not future]?

I don't think you've made a case yet. You've claimed it is the best, but not shown anything to support this claim. You talked a bit about Islam, but again did no real comparative study and haven't dealt at all with secular moral systems. If you support the position you've taken, it becomes easier to counter the thesis which so far is primarily an assertion.

Make an argument with justification and the strong and weak points can then be looked at and potentially countered.

All one can do now is point out that justification is missing.

And it's not like I think you're wrong. I would guess you are not correct. But I'm not sure how one demonstrates the counterclaims well either. I don't see evidence that Christianity leads to less murder, for example, than Buddhism, but it's sure hard to demonstrate. How do we separate out factors like social disintegration and severe class differences that are considered well correlated with murder rates? For example.

I thought morality was objective, according to va. Is Christian morality, regardless of its effectiveness, in line with objective morality, or does it make significant detours from it?

Re Luke 19:27 I will address the other point later.

Luke 19:27 is part of a parable told by Jesus, commonly referred to as the Parable of the Ten Minas. In this parable, a nobleman goes away to receive a kingdom and entrusts his servants with money (minas) to invest while he is gone. When he returns, he rewards those who have multiplied their minas but punishes the servant who did nothing with his mina.

Luke 19:27, is the nobleman's response to the servant who did not invest the money: "But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me."

A parable must be taken in its full context and in this case do not constitute a command by Jesus /God to kill enemies.

On the other hand the words of Jesus to 'love all, even enemies' should be OVERRIDING over the nobleman's words in a parable.

INFO: I was never a Christian.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:20 am I thought morality was objective, according to va. Is Christian morality, regardless of its effectiveness, in line with objective morality, or does it make significant detours from it?

What is objective is conditioned upon a human-based FSK; in this case, the Christianity morality is conditioned upon the Christianity-moral FSK, thus objective.
Because the Christianity-moral FSK is grounded on an illusion, its objective is not credible and reliable has a low degree of objectivity.

Despite the its illusory ground, it is nevertheless effective in meeting the significant moral elements re 'the ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans'.
In principle, the Christianity-moral-FSK deter Christians from killing humans based on threat of hellfire.

This point is re CONTRACT" and "terms of the contract" critical to ensure the OT is not brought into the picture re Christianity's Moral FSK.

A Christian is one who have had entered into a CONTRACT [actually divine covenant] with Jesus on behalf of God.

As such, a Christian-proper must comply with all the terms of the Contract within the best of his abilities.

The terms of the divine Contract is confine to the words of Jesus which is only within the Gospels, not Acts, Epistles nor the OT [abrogated].

Any non-compliance to the terms of the Contract will cause the Christian to sin with a threat of going to eternal hell with eternal hell-fire.

To avoid this terrible threat, Christians will make it a point to comply with the terms of the contract.

When Christians entered into a contract with Jesus/God in a new covenant, the terms in the old contract [Jews] in the OT is abrogated [null & void].
The OT, Acts and Epistles are merely appendix to the new contract which has no contractual obligations for the Christians.

All the evil or other elements in the OT has no contractual obligations for Christians.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:31 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:20 am I thought morality was objective, according to va. Is Christian morality, regardless of its effectiveness, in line with objective morality, or does it make significant detours from it?

What is objective is conditioned upon a human-based FSK; in this case, the Christianity morality is conditioned upon the Christianity-moral FSK, thus objective.

This all sounds very circular. It's objective because it is conditioned upon itself. What?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:45 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:31 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:20 am I thought morality was objective, according to va. Is Christian morality, regardless of its effectiveness, in line with objective morality, or does it make significant detours from it?

What is objective is conditioned upon a human-based FSK; in this case, the Christianity morality is conditioned upon the Christianity-moral FSK, thus objective.

This all sounds very circular. It's objective because it is conditioned upon itself. What?

??

What is objective is conditioned upon a human-based FSK,
the Christianity morality is conditioned upon the human-based Christianity-moral FSK, thus objective.

It is the grounding upon a human-based FSK that makes Christianity-Morality objective, i.e. it is not dependent on one or few person's view but a collective of Christians.

You must have a drastically different definition of objective than everyone else. By your definition, EVERYTHING is objective if it's "conditioned upon" itself. There's not a single belief in the world that isn't objective, by that self referential metric.

Just to add: it may seem harsh, or at least I had this reaction myself, to ask for empirical evidence. But then that word 'effective' calls out for something more than speculative deduction - which there isn't much of either in your op.

The problem with deduction, here, I think, is that you end up saying things like 'if everyone loves everyone which they are supposed to in Christianity, then things will be good.' Well, of course.

But that doesn't mean that Christian morals are necessarily even good, by its own criteria even, or yours.

Why?

Well, simply telling people what to do or not to do is not a moral system. A moral system is also about attitudes and effectively teaching them.

You can tell people all sorts of things, but if in the end, as they seem to, they kill anyway, it's not an effective moral system.

And then let's nuance that a bit. Comparing Buddhism and Christianity.

Perhaps suggesting a general goal of compassion is more effective than telling people Thou shalt not kill and love that neighbor was thyself.

How human brains interact with injunctions, suggestions and heuristics can't be measured by imagining if everyone follows the moral system. That's a rigged thought experiment.

Perhaps the focus on compassion is easier for a human mind to integrate that either the deontological rule or the loving others as oneself - and how much self-hatred is there out there?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:45 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:31 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:20 am I thought morality was objective, according to va. Is Christian morality, regardless of its effectiveness, in line with objective morality, or does it make significant detours from it?

What is objective is conditioned upon a human-based FSK; in this case, the Christianity morality is conditioned upon the Christianity-moral FSK, thus objective.

This all sounds very circular. It's objective because it is conditioned upon itself. What?

And then that means that Satanism and Christianity are both objective. In what sense. Does it mean the morals of both are objective? Well, ok, but then opposed morals are objective, whatever that means.

You and I, FJ, have our own FSK's and if we use those to judge an argument VA makes is not objective or correct, are we being objective?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 12:10 pm You must have a drastically different definition of objective than everyone else. By your definition, EVERYTHING is objective if it's "conditioned upon" itself. There's not a single belief in the world that isn't objective, by that self referential metric.

And I am guessing that suddenly it will be objective if many people believe it. Does this mean Christian morality was not objective in the beginning when it was a little Jewish sect, but it now is objective cause there are millions? Objectivity is popularity?

This would make theism objective.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 12:10 pm You must have a drastically different definition of objective than everyone else. By your definition, EVERYTHING is objective if it's "conditioned upon" itself. There's not a single belief in the world that isn't objective, by that self referential metric.

There are various meanings to the term "objectivity".

But basically what is objective must be independent from ONE subject's personal opinions, beliefs and judgments.
For example;
Journalistic objectivity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity

As such, relying on your personal opinions, beliefs and judgments cannot be defined as 'objective'.

Objectivity from a member of a Professional Body;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_association
"The roles of professional associations have been variously defined: "A group, of people in a learned occupation who are entrusted with maintaining control or oversight of the legitimate practice of the occupation;" e.g. Auditors, Architects, Accountants, Medical, etc.

I have explained what I mean by Objectivity;

What is Philosophical Objectivity?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31416

Two Senses of 'Objective'
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39326

Scientific Objectivity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39286

What is critical is the existence of the Framework and System of Realization [FSR] and Knowledge [FSK].
So everything that is conditioned upon a human-based FSK [collective of humans] is assumed to be objective.
BUT I stated there are degrees of objective that is subjected to the credibility and reliability of the specific human-based FSK where the science FSK is the standard [100/100] and the theistic-FSK is at the extreme end [~1/100] of the standard.

Often the above definition of objectivity, while very true as qualified, is very uncomfortable to many.
This validity of defining objectivity is similar to the fact that it is valid in terms of black or white and greyness in degrees, for 99% white to be 1% black. You cannot deny this.

I deny it.