Outstanding entry. Yes, the moral argument for God is -- awful. That the people who make it, then assert Divine Command Ethics, which is at best a subjective ethics, and more so, a worship of power RATHER than ethics -- is appalling. One can choose to follow God because of a worship of power, or an admiration of character. As a di-theist -- I know those who chose power are following the OTHER God!!!
I have been called ‘a word obsessed bastard’ by a man who made money talking over the old social media network called Radio.
With affection, I hereby transfer this appendage to you, my friend.
#1. You exist; I exist.
#2. You know the difference between right and wrong; I know the difference between right and wrong.
Isn’t this the reason society seeks to punish or ostracize criminality; to seek healing for the mentally and or emotionally disturbed or impaired.
So this has led me to define what I consider to be mental and or emotional impairment. I have no interest in studying the infinitely complex issues of mental disorders, but an imbalance exists in people who act as if they do not know the difference or lack any capacity to guide their behavior in a meaningful way.
Allen Watts purportedly drank a lot and was a ‘womanizer’ but he was just trying to forget that we are god (At our healthiest.). I think his published statement was more like ‘We are God playing hide and seek with himself’, ( or ourselves, or itself.). Perhaps it’s all the dance of Shiva as the Vedic tradition explains our existence…or as a famous lyricist/ poet once said, “It’s life and life only…it’s all right Ma, I’m only crying.” Or was it “I’m only dying”?
One of my go to comforts comes from Milarepa: When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell others, else to goddesses and mothers you will bring annoyance.
You seem to be into formal metaethics more than I am, so maybe you can help clarify this... I see lots of arguments between moral "realists" and "non-realists", but does anyone ask *in what way* moral truths are real, assuming they are?
We're not in the middle ages anymore when things were either real in some kind of first-principles ontological way, or wholly unreal. We recognize the truths that the Earth orbits the Sun, that 2+2=4, and that human beings have a moral sense, but they are not necessarily true in the same ways; some truths can be more fundamental than others, some axiomatic, some empirical, and others can be derivative or emergent, but still true.
It seems to me like instead of countless arguments about what counts as a non-natural property to possibly found morals upon, it might be a better avenue of research to start at the known source, i.e our undeniable propensity for having moral judgments, and work backwards to shine some light on the multi-level evolutionary dynamics that shape it and under which it operates.
Then, if those things look universal enough, you might start having an argument to call some idealized version of those judgments "real".
Both moral realism and divine command theory, and I suppose any theory, that cannot be clearly shown to people on the internet, to be either popular or supported by direct empirical evidence, could be accused of being a fringe theory, and not worth much attention from the general population.
I suppose Christianity lasted through its early stages of being a fringe theory, but eventually claimed the mainstream, particularly once it gained the favour of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
I think everybody, as they go through adult life, has some kind of moral 'inertia', and will resist an external influence trying to correct them on what is right and what is wrong. Yet we all have to follow 'commands' in order to behave in a socially (and legally) acceptable way. For example, even if you are running late for an appointment, you have to obey the road rules while driving.
God, as a symbol of higher authority in general, can be related to morality, but if our understanding of God is highly subjective, how much help is it to appeal to God to establish, objectively, what moral rules should be followed, when they should be, and what should not?
I don't think your argument, if I understand it correctly, is a knock down argument of divine command theory, but, in my opinion, you have shown that the deductive form of the moral argument is flawed, since there are other plausible arguments for obtaining objective morals. Certainly, many apologists, who have little interest in academic research, will act as though they possess knock down arguments for proving the existence of God, since being very assertive and showing some sign of using reason will persuade, maybe quite often, people who are anxious for answers to difficult questions.
Emerson did not present a case for moral naturalism. However, one can do so. Just postulate that there is a world 3, per Popper's 3 worlds, and morality is a "real" aspect of our world. THEN, it is reasonable to think we have a sense that can detect this feature of our world.
Many senses are very coarse and give only weak or approximate data. And evolutionarily, we adapt functions useful to one purpose, to another very different one. Our moral sense has been repurposed/twisted to maintain our eusociality, and defend the values and norms of our societies.
So to figure out the moral principles of the universe, we need to use cross-cultural moral commonalities to distinguish moral truth. Utilitarianism, rights ethic, Love/Truth virtue ethic, eusociality and Gaia Deep Ecology strike me as the most appealing cross-cultural moral theories, and can collectively approximate moral reality. Use these 5 tools to do moral reasoning, and if they agree, you have your answer. if they disagree, average them, or take the majority, or possibly weight them based on the type of problem it is.
So based!
Outstanding entry. Yes, the moral argument for God is -- awful. That the people who make it, then assert Divine Command Ethics, which is at best a subjective ethics, and more so, a worship of power RATHER than ethics -- is appalling. One can choose to follow God because of a worship of power, or an admiration of character. As a di-theist -- I know those who chose power are following the OTHER God!!!
I have been called ‘a word obsessed bastard’ by a man who made money talking over the old social media network called Radio.
With affection, I hereby transfer this appendage to you, my friend.
#1. You exist; I exist.
#2. You know the difference between right and wrong; I know the difference between right and wrong.
Isn’t this the reason society seeks to punish or ostracize criminality; to seek healing for the mentally and or emotionally disturbed or impaired.
So this has led me to define what I consider to be mental and or emotional impairment. I have no interest in studying the infinitely complex issues of mental disorders, but an imbalance exists in people who act as if they do not know the difference or lack any capacity to guide their behavior in a meaningful way.
Allen Watts purportedly drank a lot and was a ‘womanizer’ but he was just trying to forget that we are god (At our healthiest.). I think his published statement was more like ‘We are God playing hide and seek with himself’, ( or ourselves, or itself.). Perhaps it’s all the dance of Shiva as the Vedic tradition explains our existence…or as a famous lyricist/ poet once said, “It’s life and life only…it’s all right Ma, I’m only crying.” Or was it “I’m only dying”?
One of my go to comforts comes from Milarepa: When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell others, else to goddesses and mothers you will bring annoyance.
You seem to be into formal metaethics more than I am, so maybe you can help clarify this... I see lots of arguments between moral "realists" and "non-realists", but does anyone ask *in what way* moral truths are real, assuming they are?
We're not in the middle ages anymore when things were either real in some kind of first-principles ontological way, or wholly unreal. We recognize the truths that the Earth orbits the Sun, that 2+2=4, and that human beings have a moral sense, but they are not necessarily true in the same ways; some truths can be more fundamental than others, some axiomatic, some empirical, and others can be derivative or emergent, but still true.
It seems to me like instead of countless arguments about what counts as a non-natural property to possibly found morals upon, it might be a better avenue of research to start at the known source, i.e our undeniable propensity for having moral judgments, and work backwards to shine some light on the multi-level evolutionary dynamics that shape it and under which it operates.
Then, if those things look universal enough, you might start having an argument to call some idealized version of those judgments "real".
Both moral realism and divine command theory, and I suppose any theory, that cannot be clearly shown to people on the internet, to be either popular or supported by direct empirical evidence, could be accused of being a fringe theory, and not worth much attention from the general population.
I suppose Christianity lasted through its early stages of being a fringe theory, but eventually claimed the mainstream, particularly once it gained the favour of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
I think everybody, as they go through adult life, has some kind of moral 'inertia', and will resist an external influence trying to correct them on what is right and what is wrong. Yet we all have to follow 'commands' in order to behave in a socially (and legally) acceptable way. For example, even if you are running late for an appointment, you have to obey the road rules while driving.
God, as a symbol of higher authority in general, can be related to morality, but if our understanding of God is highly subjective, how much help is it to appeal to God to establish, objectively, what moral rules should be followed, when they should be, and what should not?
I don't think your argument, if I understand it correctly, is a knock down argument of divine command theory, but, in my opinion, you have shown that the deductive form of the moral argument is flawed, since there are other plausible arguments for obtaining objective morals. Certainly, many apologists, who have little interest in academic research, will act as though they possess knock down arguments for proving the existence of God, since being very assertive and showing some sign of using reason will persuade, maybe quite often, people who are anxious for answers to difficult questions.
Emerson did not present a case for moral naturalism. However, one can do so. Just postulate that there is a world 3, per Popper's 3 worlds, and morality is a "real" aspect of our world. THEN, it is reasonable to think we have a sense that can detect this feature of our world.
Many senses are very coarse and give only weak or approximate data. And evolutionarily, we adapt functions useful to one purpose, to another very different one. Our moral sense has been repurposed/twisted to maintain our eusociality, and defend the values and norms of our societies.
So to figure out the moral principles of the universe, we need to use cross-cultural moral commonalities to distinguish moral truth. Utilitarianism, rights ethic, Love/Truth virtue ethic, eusociality and Gaia Deep Ecology strike me as the most appealing cross-cultural moral theories, and can collectively approximate moral reality. Use these 5 tools to do moral reasoning, and if they agree, you have your answer. if they disagree, average them, or take the majority, or possibly weight them based on the type of problem it is.