God is not a...

[exnihilo]

Words like that are not helpful. If you would say that God is a “Supreme being”, that would carry informational value. “Being itself” is void of meaning.

I’m not sure why you consider that devoid of meaning. The Catholic understanding makes it clear that God is not just one of a something. It is a subtle but important distinction.

Sure. But their referent is either an ontological entity, or another concept. That is the difference.

I’m not sure what you are saying. Are you just saying goodness doesn’t exist?

“Goodness” is a concept. Concepts have no mind-independent existence. “Being itself” is a meaningless hodgepodge of vowels and consonants.

Divine simplicity may be something you disagree with, but it can’t be meaningless otherwise men couldn’t reject it.

I use the one and only concept which seems to be universal across most (maybe all) human societies. The two variants of the “golden rule”. The positive one, which says: “Do unto others that your would like them to do unto you”… and the negative one, which says: “Don’t do unto others that you would not want them to do unto you”.

Translation: do not intrude, but be kind and helpful toward others. Very simple concept indeed.

What is helpful to others? That seems to me a complex issue.

As for the Golden Rule why should I follow it? What obligation do I have to follow it? How is it binding on me?

 

[Lucretius]

As for the Golden Rule why should I follow it? What obligation do I have to follow it? How is it binding on me?

I think you are beginning to reach the heart of the matter

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[e_c]

I’m not sure why you two are having this argument, but I agree with Solmyr: words are human artifacts, which can be used to facilitate communications about the meaning of things, or can confuse it.

So for example, if an person gives a definition of atheism that I don’t like, I don’t debate the semantics, but rather simply work how they are defining themselves. On the other side, the person sould learn that language is a shared dimension, and so going out of the way to redefine words, far from the standard definition, will make others confused about what they mean. Communication is a two man job, at least

If you want to get passed all these semantics, don’t look at the words of the person, look at what they mean! Not the word, but the concept they mean behind the word!

Christi pax,

Lucretius

No problem with this. The problem is an unwillingness to study. I remember when I first started to dig into the Summa. I was lost for weeks, spending sometimes many hours in the evenings trying to figure out the sense of “act” or “form” or whatever you like. Finally it started making sense. Some of these ideas can be simplified and “laicized” so to speak, but some can’t. It’s difficult enough for someone oozing with good will and a predisposition of trust and agreement to get these subtler things. For someone who is trying to bash it all apart before even being well acquainted it’s all the more difficult.

Also, it seems Solmyr has provided YET ANOTHER example of what I am describing in my original post. Looking forward to breaking it open on Monday.

 

[BobCatholic]

God only does things within his will.

God is not a vending machine, nor a loving father who gives anything you need. Only gives things what are in his will, nothing more.

 

[e_c]

God only does things within his will.

God is not a vending machine, nor a loving father who gives anything you need. Only gives things what are in his will, nothing more.

I missed the parable denying that God is a loving father and fails to give us what we need.

Our wills are only good inasmuch as they are in conformity with His. (This starts to get to the root of it.)

 

[Solmyr]

I’m not sure why you consider that devoid of meaning. The Catholic understanding makes it clear that God is not just one of a something. It is a subtle but important distinction.

Every time you say: “Supreme being”, you consider him a being, albeit the on the top of the totem pole. Or the first one in the pecking order, or the strongest bully on the block. So don’t try to argue both sides of the coin. Is God the “supreme being” or not?

I’m not sure what you are saying. Are you just saying goodness doesn’t exist?

That is exactly what I am saying; “goodness” is a description of a certain kind of behavior. It is not an entity, it is a concept. Not all concepts have a referent in the objective reality.

Divine simplicity may be something you disagree with, but it can’t be meaningless otherwise men couldn’t reject it.

Most people do not think it through, they just repeat what they heard. I wish I had a dollar every time I saw the nonsense: “After all, God is love”. Love does not exist as an objective entity… but many people simply don’t think. They hear a nice “sound bite” and they repeat it. As a matter of fact, “divine simplicity” and “omniscience” lead to a logical contradiction.

What is helpful to others? That seems to me a complex issue.

Oh, come on. To feed the hungry, to cure the sick, to comfort the grieving… that is helpful. To torture others is not helpful. Why waste time with such nonsensical questions?

As for the Golden Rule why should I follow it? What obligation do I have to follow it? How is it binding on me?

Who says that there is an obligation? It is in YOUR best interest to follow it. If you spread good will, it will spread on and come back to you. If you are a rational person, you follow it - out of healthy self-interest, because it is beneficial to others and beneficial for you. Have you ever heard the phrase: “What goes around, comes around”?

But your wording is very interesting and very revealing. You think along the lines of “command” and “obedience”. Why should I follow something, which is NOT commanded by an authority? For many people it is insufficient to rationally thinking through the ramifications of certain behavior, and choose the best possible one. They need someone with the carrot and stick to “drive” them onto the “straight and narrow path”. Reason is not enough.

One of the pervasive “arguments” against atheism, that there is no “enforcement” of good behavior. You asked: “Why should I follow the golden rule?” Because it is the smart thing to do - not because someone commanded it. Many believers pride themselves of being rational, but they shy away from relying on the rational solutions… they want an “obligation”.

 

[Solmyr]

God is not a vending machine, nor a loving father who gives anything you need. Only gives things what are in his will, nothing more.

If God is not a vending machine, why do millions of people treat him as such…? Go the sub-forum of “Prayer intentions”, and read the plethora of “supplicatory” prayers… Why do people ASK for things? After all God is immutable, he cannot be influenced. And God is also all-knowing, he knows what you will ask for. Why keep pestering God with your demands?

 

[grotto]

I would like to encourage you to learn about Jesus Christ. There is only one requirement of you - be open in your heart.

You will never know God if you do not have a desire to know. Begin by asking Jesus to help you with a desire. “Knock, and the door will be opened unto you!”

 

[exnihilo]

Most people do not think it through, they just repeat what they heard. I wish I had a dollar every time I saw the nonsense: “After all, God is love”. Love does not exist as an objective entity… but many people simply don’t think. They hear a nice “sound bite” and they repeat it. As a matter of fact, “divine simplicity” and “omniscience” lead to a logical contradiction.

Love exists between the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

Oh, come on. To feed the hungry, to cure the sick, to comfort the grieving… that is helpful. To torture others is not helpful. Why waste time with such nonsensical questions?

That isn’t nonsense at all. Maybe the hungry are useless and the most helpful thing to do would be exterminate them.

Who says that there is an obligation? It is in YOUR best interest to follow it. If you spread good will, it will spread on and come back to you. If you are a rational person, you follow it - out of healthy self-interest, because it is beneficial to others and beneficial for you. Have you ever heard the phrase: “What goes around, comes around”?

Morality is an obligation. That is just what it is. It either exists or it does not. Helpful rules are only helpful for a particular purpose. It may be that it is good to cooperate with people. It may be that it is better to seem to cooperate but really take advantage of. Of course these words good, better, advantage have no meaning in what I think you are proposing, a world without morality. These would just be nonsense words. So if morality doesn’t exist why are you saying ‘best interest’. That has no meaning.

One of the pervasive “arguments” against atheism, that there is no “enforcement” of good behavior. You asked: “Why should I follow the golden rule?” Because it is the smart thing to do - not because someone commanded it. Many believers pride themselves of being rational, but they shy away from relying on the rational solutions… they want an “obligation”.

I don’t think it is smart to follow the Golden Rule at all if God doesn’t exist. I think the smartest thing would be to encourage other people, we’d call them fools, to follow it while I did whatever I wanted to. A smart person might follow it when eyes were on him but whenever he wasn’t being watched do whatever he pleased. The Golden Rule isn’t self evident at all in a world with no morality.

 

[Lucretius]

Love exists between the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

That isn’t nonsense at all. Maybe the hungry are useless and the most helpful thing to do would be exterminate them.

Morality is an obligation. That is just what it is. It either exists or it does not. Helpful rules are only helpful for a particular purpose. It may be that it is good to cooperate with people. It may be that it is better to seem to cooperate but really take advantage of. Of course these words good, better, advantage have no meaning in what I think you are proposing, a world without morality. These would just be nonsense words. So if morality doesn’t exist why are you saying ‘best interest’. That has no meaning.

I don’t think it is smart to follow the Golden Rule at all if God doesn’t exist. I think the smartest thing would be to encourage other people, we’d call them fools, to follow it while I did whatever I wanted to. A smart person might follow it when eyes were on him but whenever he wasn’t being watched do whatever he pleased. The Golden Rule isn’t self evident at all in a world with no morality.

There are only two ways to follow morality: becuase you want to, or because you have to. The world either reduces then to love or power.

The problem with law in all forms, even Divine Law, is that it ends up, at some point, to force itself on us. We might know what we should do through reason and faith, but nothing makes us do so, except from force from without (and I don’t mean just physically, social pressure also forces us to follow law).

But out of the whirlwind, there is one, and only one way to overcome this: grace. Grace changes our hearts so that the law no longer becomes suffering we have to endure, but the foundation to joy and freedom. Humans can only force other externally humans to follow the law, but God can change the heart internally, so that the law, morality, becomes written on our hearts, rather than something based on social pressure and the barrel of a gun. That is, the law is followed because of love, rather than because of fear.

BTW, this is all St. Paul and St. Augustine. Nothing here is new. To both, even Moses’ Law, even though it is Divine, fails without Grace. God doesn’t want to force the law onto us, but wants to write it on our hearts.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[e_c]

It is both “because I have to” and “because I want to.” They are not opposed. Servile fear is not antithetical to filial fear. But the discussion of morals and God, the way it’s headed now, is not the intended topic here. I will, however, point out one more time the consequentialist thinking in the above argument for following the Golden Rule! Hook, line, and sinker… You do it because you get a material good out of it. That is what matters. And if you can get on top, why not be ruthless? You’re just going to rot into oblivion anyway. Get what you can while you can get it. They will call you a psychopath, a tyrant, and a devil, and you will call them useful or useless. When God is dead, so is prescription… You are left with description alone. History shows this.

The project of getting everyone to follow the GR for the nonbeliever reminds me of a prank where everyone in class needs to commit in order for it to work. Not only will you fail to get that one kid to do it, but there is also the chance to brown nose and rat everyone else out… and get ahead in doing so.

But if we will please let the details alone now… It’s a red herring, and it’s been adequately dealt with in an earlier thread.

Would anyone like to take a crack at the central argument following the original post?

Also, regarding the issue of language and God, there is a great deal of shorthand in normal discussion. We’re moving outside of that box now.

 

[Lucretius]

It is both “because I have to” and “because I want to.” They are not opposed. Servile fear is not antithetical to filial fear. But the discussion of morals and God, the way it’s headed now, is not the intended topic here. I will, however, point out one more time the consequentialist thinking in the above argument for following the Golden Rule! Hook, line, and sinker… You do it because you get a material good out of it. That is what matters. And if you can get on top, why not be ruthless? You’re just going to rot into oblivion anyway. Get what you can while you can get it. They will call you a psychopath, a tyrant, and a devil, and you will call them useful or useless. When God is dead, so is prescription… You are left with description alone. History shows this.

But if we will please let the details alone now… It’s a red herring, and it’s been adequately dealt with in an earlier thread.

Would anyone like to take a crack at the central argument following the original post?

Also, regarding the issue of language and God, there is a great deal of shorthand in normal discussion. We’re moving outside of that box now.

I intended my post to complement yours, not contradict it

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[e_c]

I intended my post to complement yours, not contradict it

Christi pax,

Lucretius

As I did yours!

 

[Solmyr]

Love exists between the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

Narcissus did not need “twins” to love himself.

That isn’t nonsense at all. Maybe the hungry are useless and the most helpful thing to do would be exterminate them.

If you were the hungry, you would disagree. I use my imagination and empathy to identify with the hungry people, so I choose share food with them, instead of exterminating them. Looks like your mileage DOES vary. But, then again, you are a Christian, and I am just an immoral heathen.

Morality is an obligation. That is just what it is. It either exists or it does not. Helpful rules are only helpful for a particular purpose. It may be that it is good to cooperate with people. It may be that it is better to seem to cooperate but really take advantage of. Of course these words good, better, advantage have no meaning in what I think you are proposing, a world without morality. These would just be nonsense words. So if morality doesn’t exist why are you saying ‘best interest’. That has no meaning.

Strange, but certain animals, dolphins, elephants, apes and such do recognize that it is “better” to help their brethren, without recognizing God. After all they don’t even have a “rational” soul. They do not have the “words” themselves, but they practice what the words are all about. Some of the higher apes understood the slogans of the sixties, and they practice “make love not war”.

I don’t think it is smart to follow the Golden Rule at all if God doesn’t exist. I think the smartest thing would be to encourage other people, we’d call them fools, to follow it while I did whatever I wanted to. A smart person might follow it when eyes were on him but whenever he wasn’t being watched do whatever he pleased. The Golden Rule isn’t self evident at all in a world with no morality.

Very strange, again. I have never met atheists whose only aim in life was to exploit others, to rob and scrounge as big a slice of the pie as they can. Maybe there are such atheists. But they are a minuscule minority. The different wordings of the golden rules predated Yahweh by a few millennia. No one even contemplated the “Christian God”, and yet they understood the concept and followed it.

If you wish to “emulate” what us, abominable heathens “should” think and “should” do, it would be a great idea to investigate our mindset, instead of making unsubstantiated utterances about us. Let me show you how does it feel, when the shoe is on the other foot. Believers behave “morally”, because God commanded them to do it. They follow the commands, because they want the reward for being good, little scouts, and because they are afraid of the eternal punishment, if they don’t. That is your “morality” in a nutshell. Now, I am pretty sure that you will be upset to see this “caricature”. Don’t be. As long are you dish out your views about what non-believers “think” or “should think”, be prepared to be answered in kind. My characterization is exactly as unfair as yours was.

Oh, and by the way… is God not the “Supreme BEING” any more? When was he demoted?

 

[Bradski]

I don’t think it is smart to follow the Golden Rule at all if God doesn’t exist…

Then lucky for us that you think He does.

 

[Lucretius]

There is a lot of evidence for “indifference”. And I am being very kind. To call the obvious lack of love and caring as being indifferent is a huge concession.

Where you see indifference, I see love. That is the difference between you and me Those with faith see things at a different perspective than those without.

But know this: the facts can fit both interpretations in this world. Evolution can be seen as the certain, inescapable fate of death, or it can be seen as martyrdom for the sake of the kin.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[e_c]

Strange, but certain animals, dolphins, elephants, apes and such do recognize that it is “better” to help their brethren, without recognizing God. After all they don’t even have a “rational” soul. They do not have the “words” themselves, but they practice what the words are all about. Some of the higher apes understood the slogans of the sixties, and they practice “make love not war”.

It seems like you just appealed to something you earlier said didn’t exist… "What the words are all about… " Interesting indeed. Unless you just mean that some animals behave in certain ways that are similar to things we generally call “good.” Well, sometimes animals do things that are “bad.” Some animals are “fast,” some are “heavy,” some are “lazy,” etc. Descriptive, yes, prescriptive, no.

Let me show you how does it feel, when the shoe is on the other foot. Believers behave “morally”, because God commanded them to do it. They follow the commands, because they want the reward for being good, little scouts, and because they are afraid of the eternal punishment, if they don’t. That is your “morality” in a nutshell. Now, I am pretty sure that you will be upset to see this “caricature”. Don’t be.

Yes, that’s correct. It’s also incomplete, as has already been pointed out. Servile fear, filial fear. Attrition, contrition. I will not tire of repeating it, but perhaps you will tire of my repeating it. Simply admit that it is possible to follow rules of another out of love for that person, and you’ve got the other half of the picture. And the two go together. I don’t blaspheme, not only because I don’t want to burn forever, but also because I love the one disrespected by such an action and therefore offending him is rendered repulsive to me.

We are off topic. I will not let this thread go down the same old rabbit hole. Let’s please address the original thesis. Anyone wanting to argue about grounds for moral systems can check out my other thread, and you can see too why I left it.

Happy Easter!

 

[Solmyr]

It seems like you just appealed to something you earlier said didn’t exist… "What the words are all about… " Interesting indeed. Unless you just mean that some animals behave in certain ways that are similar to things we generally call “good.” Well, sometimes animals do things that are “bad.” Some animals are “fast,” some are “heavy,” some are “lazy,” etc. Descriptive, yes, prescriptive, no.

Sure they commit biologically good actions without any belief in the divine. My point was exactly that: “to be cooperative, to be helpful does not require some belief in some divine being”. We have no direct evidence that such behavior is more than instinctive, but instinctively good behavior is preferable to intentionally bad behavior. “Bad” stands for biologically bad.

Yes, that’s correct. It’s also incomplete, as has already been pointed out. Servile fear, filial fear.

To inculcate ANY kind of fear is inferior to employing positive reinforcement. The ancient people did not have enough knowledge of psychology to know that, so their Yahweh used the carrot-and-stick methodology, instead of using positive reinforcement.

Simply admit that it is possible to follow rules of another out of love for that person, and you’ve got the other half of the picture.

“Rules” are only necessary for the irrational people. For rational ones, “advice” is sufficient. There is the phrase: “a word to the wise should be sufficient”. Even though it is a commonplace, it is still true.

We are off topic. I will not let this thread go down the same old rabbit hole. Let’s please address the original thesis. Anyone wanting to argue about grounds for moral systems can check out my other thread, and you can see too why I left it.

The original topic was addressed on the first page. You asserted that the biggest bully must be treated differently. The ancient Romans declared “Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi”. There is no reason to accept it. It is an excuse to declare God “good” when the evidence denies it.

We are “moral agents” because we know good from bad. That is the only criterion. In the Genesis the “original sin” was to eat from the tree of “knowledge of good and evil”, because the people became like God, knowing good and evil". And now you wish to carve out some “radical primacy”… does not work. If God knows good from evil, then he is a “moral agent”. If he does not act on it, he is not “moral”. That is the refutation of your thesis in a nutshell.

 

[e_c]

1. A biological what? Good? That’s just a word we use, it’s not a real thing.
2. You must have never had a crush. You would be able to start understanding how fear can come from love. And Heaven is pretty good positive reinforcement.
3. We will found a city called Rationaltown. Only rational people will live there. They will live life as we do, but with no rules. No stop signs, no taxes, no arbitration or courts of any kind, etc. Let the imagination run wild with ways to do away with rules. The inhabitants will leave, if they are really rational.
4. We are moral agents because our actions can be evaluated as good or bad, while those of God can’t be. I will make the argument tomorrow.

 

[Solmyr]

1. A biological what? Good? That’s just a word we use, it’s not a real thing.

A pleasantly filled stomach is preferable to an empty one… whether there is a God or not.

1. You must have never had a crush. You would be able to start understanding how fear can come from love. And Heaven is pretty good positive reinforcement.

I never had a “crush” on my father. My filial love was based upon the ways and means he treated me. And an alleged heaven would be a good, positive reinforcement if there would be some evidence for it. But having a postulated “hell” as a stick devalues the carrot. The problem is that here and now there is no positive or negative reinforcement we could discern as such. The Sun shines on the righteous and wicked equally. That is not how “reinforcement” works.

1. We will found a city called Rationaltown. Only rational people will live there. They will live life as we do, but with no rules. No stop signs, no taxes, no arbitration or courts of any kind, etc. Let the imagination run wild with ways to do away with rules. The inhabitants will leave, if they are really rational.

Empty claim. I suggest you to read the English translation of a wonderful Hungarian novel, available here: kevius.com/kazohinia/ to see the rendering of the fully rational and fully irrational societies. Not just a great entertainment, but also a deep philosophical treatise.

A short evaluation of the book:This Hungarian novel is about the travels of a modern Gulliver. An English ship’s surgeon finds himself on an unknown island, in a country which, it appears, has reached the apex of technical civilization. Its inhabitants, the Hins, live a perfectly ordered existence, without emotions, desires, arts, politics or the other stimuli of ordinary people. Gulliver is soon unhappy in the bleak perfection of this way of life — as he sees it — and asks to be admitted to the closed settlement of the Behins, beings with souls and atavistic human traits. There, however, even more absurd things happen to him…

1. We are moral agents because our actions can be evaluated as good or bad, while those of God can’t be. I will make the argument tomorrow.

Maybe you will be surprised, but people evaluate God all the time. Especially his “non-actions”.