POG Philosophy and Religion thread

[metsandfinsfan]

i love imaginary numbers

[master3004]

Originally Posted by well named

I don't read that forum very often, link a post and I may try to decipher. Although I'm kinda busy (like too busy to have bothered to respond to the last 3 pages of stuff I want to read)

Here is one, she is pretty clearly insane (not represented strictly in this post, but taking into account most of what she has said. Including that "witches" had it coming to them for not conforming to gods law)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=135

[well named]

There's an interesting question in that post actually. Well, it's interesting given a certain set of assumptions within which you have to work. The question is about morality, and whether, given the assumption that there does in fact exist an all-powerful, all-knowing and transcendent God, a thing is morally good because of some intrinsic goodness or because God says it's good.

Splendour seems I think to be approaching it in the latter way, although I guess it's not entirely clear and she definitely rejects the premise of the question a little

[HerbieGRD]

Originally Posted by master3004

Are there any of the Christian folk in here who can tell me what the **** Splendour is saying in any of the RTG threads?

Originally Posted by master3004

Here is one, she is pretty clearly insane (not represented strictly in this post, but taking into account most of what she has said. Including that "witches" had it coming to them for not conforming to gods law)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=135

So after seeing this I went and read some of her stuff - it seems to me like what she's basically doing is attempting to argue something that she believes in deeply and seems super obvious to her. The fact that people do not hear what she says and immediately realize the obvious rightness of her position means that they either misunderstand her arguments or are deliberately missing her points. I would guess that she does not even recognize that the vast majority of her arguments require one to assume the very thing that she is arguing for since her belief in those things appears to define who she is on a very basic level.

I also think most religious people go through different levels of religious thinking - some people stop permanently on the very low levels because they never feel the uncertainty, doubt, and/or curiousity that leads them to think about such things on higher levels (or because they aren't smart enough to think about things on higher levels, but I try to think well of people when I can). She appears to be one of those people (or maybe she just hasn't progressed to those higher levels of thought yet - idk)

[HerbieGRD]

Originally Posted by well named

The question is about morality, and whether, given the assumption that there does in fact exist an all-powerful, all-knowing and transcendent God, a thing is morally good because of some intrinsic goodness or because God says it's good.

Given the assumption you're making I'm not sure there's any difference between "intrinsic goodness" and "God says it's good" - it's just two different ways of describing the same thing.

[TheDean1]

Originally Posted by well named

There's an interesting question in that post actually. Well, it's interesting given a certain set of assumptions within which you have to work. The question is about morality, and whether, given the assumption that there does in fact exist an all-powerful, all-knowing and transcendent God, a thing is morally good because of some intrinsic goodness or because God says it's good.

From a strictly logical standpoint, I would say that given the assumption that their is an omniscient being that discerns something to be good, that means that it necessarily is intrinsically good regardless of whether non-omniscient humans perceive it as such.

Is that wrong? I mean if there is an omniscient god that says something is good, how could it not be intrinsically good?

[HerbieGRD]

Nice crosspost Dean

[well named]

I think that argument makes sense but I seem to recall having conversations with theists who were uncomfortable with the idea of morality being objective apart from revelation, possibly because they thought that opened the door for atheistic morality. (I have no problem with saying atheists can have morals or ethics myself, fwiw) I'm not sure though

[HerbieGRD]

I didn't know that there was a problem with atheistic morality at least in Christianity - nothing about my understanding of common Christian notions of "sin" in any way precludes atheistic morality (though there's often a terribly long winded explanation that I never bothered to learn involved because the intuitively logical conclusion was the one that it supported anyways). Maybe I missed some kind of dispute that either happened or is happening over the issue (because if there wasn't a dispute why would they need the overly long explanation?)

[well named]

I don't think it's a logical thing, I would expect it's more a matter of human psychology and wanting to defend the necessity of the existence of God

[HerbieGRD]

Originally Posted by well named

I don't think it's a logical thing, I would expect it's more a matter of human psychology and wanting to defend the necessity of the existence of God

I thought they covered that with the whole "original sin" thing

[TheDean1]

Originally Posted by well named

I think that argument makes sense but I seem to recall having conversations with theists who were uncomfortable with the idea of morality being objective apart from revelation, possibly because they thought that opened the door for atheistic morality. (I have no problem with saying atheists can have morals or ethics myself, fwiw) I'm not sure though

But if morality can't be objective, how can God say something is unequivocally good?

It seems like the two things should be mutually exclusive since it seems a bit counterintuitive for an all powerful + knowing being to adopt subjective view points.

[well named]

mmm original sin is a doctrine that assumes the existence of God, rather then something to point to in an argument about whether God exists

A lot of (not necessarily theologically trained or well versed) people I've known object to atheism on the grounds that if there is no God then there can't be any right or wrong.

[well named]

You're sort of asking me to argue for the side I didn't agree with

I just always thought the question itself was sort of interesting. I guess maybe the other part of it in terms of how people think is Christians think of God as having created everything. Does that include morality? morality isn't really a thing per se but I think maybe people think about it that way

[well named]

I guess the other problematic thing about saying God can't adopt subjective viewpoints is that it would seem to take away the personal nature of God that is central to Christianity, and I mean personal in the sense of being a person, rather then "It's personal to me"