Underlying Philosophy

So my point in discussing metaphysics and epistemology was to show that - contrary to what he thinks - Dr. Adequate's system of belief is not "neutral", nor is it possible for it to be neutral.

Actually, it's my job to tell people what I think. If you want to join in with that, please stick to real quotations from things that I have actually said, rather than putting things that I have not said in quotation marks and attributing them to me.

jar writes: We are charged to look at morality as subjective, and to even correct God when he is wrong.

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Genesis 22:2 "Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.""
Genesis 22:15-18 "The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.""

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Does this story and moral sound like God praising moral consideration and correction, or God praising blind obedience in the face of moral qualms?

And I suppose that you would also say that the lion who sniffs his dead relative and then proceeds to eat him, is doing it as a way of showing his respect for the "dignity" of his fellow species ...

Darius summoned the Hellenes at his court and asked them how much money they would accept for eating the bodies of their dead fathers. They answered that they would not do this for any amount of money. Later, Darius summoned some Indians called Kallatiai, who do eat their dead parents. In the presence of the Hellenes he asked the Indians how much money they would accept to burn the bodies of their dead fathers. They responded with an outcry, ordering him to shut his mouth lest he offend the gods. Well then, that is how people think, and so it seems to me that Pindar was right when he said in his poetry that custom is king of all. --- Herodotus, Histories, Book III, 38

What lions think is beyond me.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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I don't think this actually constitutes a response. And if you do have some assumptions, then the question is this: are those "assumptions" completely arbitrary?

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Pointing out that your question assumes a contradiction is certainly a valid response. Anything that is proven is a conclusion not an assumption.

And no, as I have been saying all along, we do not rely on arbitrary assumptions. We do use criteria, notably parsimony and pragmatic usefulness to choose which to make and which not to make.

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So nature is not absolutely uniform?

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I said no such thing.

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I fail to understand this.

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It is really very simple. The assumption of the uniformity of nature can only be false if nature is not uniform, but in that case your position is also false. However, if nature is uniform for some other reason than the one you assume, your position is incorrect, but my assumption is still true.

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So we can resort to pragmatism with the uniformity of nature, but not with the pink elephant...do I detect some arbitrariness?

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There is no arbitrariness in my position. As I said we use the most reliable methods applicable to each question. Since we cannot prove that the laws of nature will not change in the future it is, to that extent an assumption. But it is a very useful one (as the successes of human technology have demonstrated) and is thus pragmatically justified. Your "pink elephant" can be empirically investigated, which is much more reliable than pragmatic grounds and therefore we use THAT method. (Of course, it also fails on pragmatic grounds, being absolutely useless.)

As I said:

jar writes: One of the really neat things about the various Bibles that exist is that there are so many contradictions that you can take a quote out of context to support just about anything.

The various Bibles are NOT consistent, they are often contradictory and quite often present mutually exclusive tales and morality plays.

That is yet another reason we are charged to think, to use the brains God gave us. If the different authors and editors and people that served on the different committees decided which stories were to be combined into one (like the editor of the Flood Myth sections) even though they held mutually exclusive details, or the two different and contradictory creation myths, or the fable of the Conquest of Canaan in Joshuah or the Exodus fantasy, were truly inspired, then they included those contradictions, fantasies, fables and inconsistencies for a reason. That they did should tell you that you are supposed to read the whole book, not just pieces parts; and that you are supposed to use your brain to determine what is poetry or fable or cultural epic or fantasy or parable or morality play.

Think.

Stop pulling stuff out of context. This is just part of the Abraham myth. This is the same Abraham that just a few chapters before is criticizing God, correcting God, pointing out that God's actions would be immoral.

The story of Abraham is NOT about blind obedience. It is about the founding of a peoples. It is a story the people told themselves about an imagined covenant between their God and them.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

A number of atheists on this forum have said that they believe their moral system to be superior over mine

Everybody thinks everybody else's moral system is inferior to their own - otherwise they'd adopted someone else's. So don't read anything into that.

But it is inherently biased against God because it relies solely upon empiricism.

You are at odds with most other theists that believe that the evidence of God comes from a personal relationship based on their own experience (naive empiricism is the idea that "immediate sense experience is by itself sufficient to provide the foundations for knowledge" - that is 'you "feel" God's presence and you experience a personal relationship with him and the word of the Holy Bible, which is your rock). So no - empiricism isn't at odds with God. It is only at odds with a God that cannot be felt or experienced in any way. Yahweh - it is not at odds with.

Paul, for example, had an empirical episode on the road to Damascus...and then applied reason to that episode and built his theology parts of which he wrote down and survived till today.

The difference between Paul and I is that I draw upon a wider basis of empirical episodes that Paul did.

I believe relying on empiricism alone to be unreasonable

So do I. Naive empiricism could have us believing that illusionists are supernatural.

Is the statement that there are no objective morals purely objective?

No.

If not, then you would most likely say that its truth is proven through rational empiricism.

No I wouldn't. I'd say the only truths we can have confidence in are those verified through multiple independent lines of evidence and reasoning. Then I'd remind you that I do not believe there any objective moral truths and so saying one moral statement is more true than another is nonsense.

The point I will continue to make is that if no standard of proof is purely objective, then how can one ever produce a self-verifying meta-physic, epistemic, or ethic?

One can't - why would one want or need to?

If one walks down this road of denying objectivity, they will either end in arbitrariness, inconsistency, or circularity (which is ultimately arbitrariness).

We end up at arbitrariness whatever the case. You have God as an arbitrator, to whom we are responsible. I have people that are arbitrators to who I am responsible.

Because God created the universe based on His unchanging nature, then any ethical claims that deny His objectivity, and instead promote a view of subjectivity, are in direct opposition to God

A statement that relies on several claims.

1) God exists
2) God created the universe
3) God did so based on his unchanging nature.
4) God created an ultimate morality
5) God intended for us to follow this morality
6) God dictated that doing otherwise is in direct opposition to him.

All of which have yet to be demonstrated in such a fashion as to justify any degree of confidence.

I know what you're system of morality is based upon. Your only argument against mine seems to be "It's different from mine.".

Your sequence of quotes from various authors is meaningless. Why should I accept their word?

A statement that relies on several claims.

It also relies on the claim that this god's moral rules should be normative. That is, we should actually believe that these rules are moral and that we should actually desire them. That is what we usually mean by morality as opposed to doing something just because someone bigger than me tells me to do it.

But then, I find the meta-ethical question why should we feel these rules are right to be interesting as well.

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To count as an atheist, one needn't claim to have proof that there are no gods. One only needs to believe that the evidence on the god question is in a similar state to the evidence on the werewolf question. -- John McCarthy

jar writes: That is yet another reason we are charged to think, to use the brains God gave us.

So the stupider we are, the less morally obligated we will be considered by God? For instance, if we are born too stupid to understand complex ethical situations, God won't fault us for that inability and only judge based on those ethical decisions we *can* understand.

Apparently, being born a sociopath with a complete inability to understand morality is a golden ticket into heaven. Who knew?

I said ...

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The various Bibles are NOT consistent, they are often contradictory and quite often present mutually exclusive tales and morality plays.

That is yet another reason we are charged to think, to use the brains God gave us. If the different authors and editors and people that served on the different committees decided which stories were to be combined into one (like the editor of the Flood Myth sections) even though they held mutually exclusive details, or the two different and contradictory creation myths, or the fable of the Conquest of Canaan in Joshuah or the Exodus fantasy, were truly inspired, then they included those contradictions, fantasies, fables and inconsistencies for a reason. That they did should tell you that you are supposed to read the whole book, not just pieces parts; and that you are supposed to use your brain to determine what is poetry or fable or cultural epic or fantasy or parable or morality play.

Think.

Stop pulling stuff out of context. This is just part of the Abraham myth. This is the same Abraham that just a few chapters before is criticizing God, correcting God, pointing out that God's actions would be immoral.

The story of Abraham is NOT about blind obedience. It is about the founding of a peoples. It is a story the people told themselves about an imagined covenant between their God and them.

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You replied...

Phage0070 writes: So the stupider we are, the less morally obligated we will be considered by God? For instance, if we are born too stupid to understand complex ethical situations, God won't fault us for that inability and only judge based on those ethical decisions we *can* understand. Apparently, being born a sociopath with a complete inability to understand morality is a golden ticket into heaven. Who knew?

First, being a sociopath has nothing to do with being stupid or with understanding morality.

BUT, being stupid or the inability of being able to tell right from wrong is not what makes someone a sociopath.

A Sociopath is someone that shows a pattern of and disregard for the rights of others. They may well know something is wrong, they simply don't care.

Is this just yet another example of you attempting to Palm the Pea, misrepresent what was said, mislead the audience and change the subject?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

jar writes: Is this just yet another example of you attempting to Palm the Pea, misrepresent what was said, mislead the audience and change the subject?

Apparently, considering you attacked the definition of sociopathy and my terminology rather than actually addressing the point of the inability to understand ethics being a free pass to heaven.

Phage0070 writes: jar writes: Is this just yet another example of you attempting to Palm the Pea, misrepresent what was said, mislead the audience and change the subject? Apparently, considering you attacked the definition of sociopathy and my terminology rather than actually addressing the point of the inability to understand ethics being a free pass to heaven.

Again you misrepresent what I said, so again, here is the exchange.

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I said ...

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The various Bibles are NOT consistent, they are often contradictory and quite often present mutually exclusive tales and morality plays.

That is yet another reason we are charged to think, to use the brains God gave us. If the different authors and editors and people that served on the different committees decided which stories were to be combined into one (like the editor of the Flood Myth sections) even though they held mutually exclusive details, or the two different and contradictory creation myths, or the fable of the Conquest of Canaan in Joshuah or the Exodus fantasy, were truly inspired, then they included those contradictions, fantasies, fables and inconsistencies for a reason. That they did should tell you that you are supposed to read the whole book, not just pieces parts; and that you are supposed to use your brain to determine what is poetry or fable or cultural epic or fantasy or parable or morality play.

Think.

Stop pulling stuff out of context. This is just part of the Abraham myth. This is the same Abraham that just a few chapters before is criticizing God, correcting God, pointing out that God's actions would be immoral.

The story of Abraham is NOT about blind obedience. It is about the founding of a peoples. It is a story the people told themselves about an imagined covenant between their God and them.

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You replied...

Phage0070 writes: So the stupider we are, the less morally obligated we will be considered by God? For instance, if we are born too stupid to understand complex ethical situations, God won't fault us for that inability and only judge based on those ethical decisions we *can* understand. Apparently, being born a sociopath with a complete inability to understand morality is a golden ticket into heaven. Who knew?

First, being a sociopath has nothing to do with being stupid or with understanding morality.

BUT, being stupid or the inability of being able to tell right from wrong is not what makes someone a sociopath.

A Sociopath is someone that shows a pattern of and disregard for the rights of others. They may well know something is wrong, they simply don't care.

Is this just yet another example of you attempting to Palm the Pea, misrepresent what was said, mislead the audience and change the subject?

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As you can see I did not attack the definition or terminology, I attacked your assertion that sociopathy and being stupid were the same thing.

You continue to misrepresent what you said. You did not say that "inability to understand ethics being a free pass to heaven" but rather "Apparently, being born a sociopath with a complete inability to understand morality is a golden ticket into heaven.".

Try honesty.

But wait, there's more...

If you want to know my position on salvation (which is NOT the subject of this topic), I already gave you a link to the thread Who can be saved? A Christian perspective.

yet hold on, there is still more.

Do you understand what amorality means?

If someone truly is amoral, unable to understand right from wrong, then how could they be held responsible?

Now that is true in most civilized human societies.We don't hold infants or little children responsible for doing wrong.

Do you think God will be less understanding than most civilized humans?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

jar writes: You continue to misrepresent what you said. You did not say that "inability to understand ethics being a free pass to heaven" but rather "Apparently, being born a sociopath with a complete inability to understand morality is a golden ticket into heaven.".

Notice that I didn't say that being a sociopath necessarily implied a complete inability to understand morality. In fact I outlined the concepts separately.

Try reading comprehension.

jar writes: Do you think God will be less understanding than most civilized humans?

Yes.

But you are correct, this is quite off topic.

And yet they refuse to acknowledge God's divine imprint on nature, and on our consciences. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). What is this passage referring to when it speaks of understanding His Godhead? The Godhead is the Trinity, comprised of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We see the imprint of the trinity throughout the universe.

And yet somehow the triune nature of God apparently escaped the notice of the people who wrote the Old Testament. And the Evangelists. And Jesus. What's their excuse? --- oh, right, "they are without excuse".

Good old Tertullian, eh?

We see the imprint of the trinity throughout the universe. For example, there are three tones in a musical chord, and, interestingly enough, each one of these tones serves a function in music that is similar to the function of each of the members of the Godhead. There are also three different phases of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. The earth is the third planet from the sun. A family is made up of three entities: father, mother, and offspring. And, interestingly enough, the function of each of these entities is quite similar to the function of each member of the Godhead...on and on the list goes.

We see the imprint of the quadrunity throughout the universe. For example, there are four tones in a musical chord which has four tones in it, such as a dominant or a diminished seventh, and, interestingly enough, I can make up bogus analogies between musical theory and theology too. There are also four different phases of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. The earth is the fourth major body in our solar system (counting from the Sun outward). A family is made up of four entities: grandparents, father, mother, and offspring (hey, if you can have "offspring" as a single entity, I can have grandparents. Ever notice, by the way, how everyone has four grandparents?) There are four bases in DNA, there are four cardinal points of the compass, four seasons, four fundamental forces in physics, four dimensions of spacetime, four laws of thermodynamics, four limbs in the human body, four Galilean moons, four chambers of the heart ... on and on the list goes.

Anyone not convinced by this that God is quadrune is "without excuse". Either that or they understand the Strong Law of Small Numbers.

Not convinced? Well, you're right, because in fact God is biune. We know this because there are two sexes; two truth values (true and false); two kinds of fundamental particles (bosons and femions); two poles to a magnet; we have two arms, two legs, two ears, two eyes (etc); there are two major divisions of life (prokaryotes and eukaryotes); there are two equinoxes; two solstices; two kinds of bases in DNA (purines and pyrimidines); two is the only even prime number ...

You're just cherry-picking nature --- the fact that some things come in threes doesn't particularly tell us about the number of persons in the Godhead; if you had a religion telling you that there were two or four you could make just as good (or, as it happens, bad) an argument.

You want an atheist version? There are zero unicorns, dragons, leprechauns, ghosts, griffins, mewlips, pixies, and items of evidence supporting the existence of a deity. I think that should tell us something about how many gods there are, particularly the last one.

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Okay, back to the philosophy.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

What is this passage referring to when it speaks of understanding His Godhead? The Godhead is the Trinity, comprised of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We see the imprint of the trinity throughout the universe. For example, there are three tones in a musical chord, and, interestingly enough, each one of these tones serves a function in music that is similar to the function of each of the members of the Godhead. There are also three different phases of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. The earth is the third planet from the sun. A family is made up of three entities: father, mother, and offspring.

These guys are way ahead of you. Besides the examples you've given they've also listed Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; cold, warm, and hot; knife, fork, and spoon; and Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato.

Yes, they're serious. But then, so are you.

I, on the other hand, am deeply amused.

The solemn, sacred Trinity,
is written, as we plainly see,
in everything that numbers three,
unless I'm much mistaken.
Fork, knife, and spoon reveal this rule
and so do hot and warm and cool
and also (if I'm not a fool)
tomato, lettuce, bacon.

All hail the triune Godhead ...

... wait, the other triune Godhead.

The Godhead is the Trinity, comprised of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We see the imprint of the trinity throughout the universe. For example, there are three tones in a musical chord, and, interestingly enough, each one of these tones serves a function in music that is similar to the function of each of the members of the Godhead. There are also three different phases of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. The earth is the third planet from the sun. A family is made up of three entities: father, mother, and offspring. And, interestingly enough, the function of each of these entities is quite similar to the function of each member of the Godhead...on and on the list goes.

So why is the screwups like 4 seasons, 2 eyes in most species, 5 petals on most dicot flowers, 6 points on a snowflake and 1 moon circling the earth?

as for:

For example, there are three tones in a musical chord

Only the major, Minor and Augmented have 3 tones. All others have 4 or more. ie:

Dominant 7th 1, 3, 5, b7

Minor Major 7th 1, b3, 5, 7

Minor 9th 1, b3, 5, b7, 9

Edited by bluescat48, : added section

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002

Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008