There is one thing that doesn't matter, and that is Jesus Christ

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > There is one thing that doesn't matter, and that is Jesus Christ

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Agag posted:

You said your morality was socially derived. Our society is largely based on Christian morality, so your morality is a second-hand Christian morality.

Perhaps I misunderstood your claim for the basis of your morality. If so, please re-state it.

Christian morality is itself a social and historical construct based on what came before - and this provides nothing to the argument for the existence of deities

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 17:45

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 07:33

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Mornacale posted:

Presuming that humans exist in our current state, transmitting perfect knowledge of objective consequentialist morality would necessarily negate free will. This is because perfect morality would require every action, even down to the most instantaneous, to be perfectly optimal. Given the limits of human cognition, passing this information along to our conscious mind would be insufficient, so it would have to be essentially an instinctual understanding of exactly what we should be doing in every millisecond. I would consider this a negation of free will: you could, I suppose (taking as given that contra-causal free will existed), freely will yourself to ignore your constant bodily instincts, but everyone would break down eventually. Now, an omnipotent God could surely solve this by improving human cognition in some way that I can't really imagine well, but the question "why doesn't God give us the perfect morality?" assumes that we exist and not some other species.

The god of the Old Testament showed very little compunction about directly interfering in human life - why would some small impact to free will matter given that a supposedly perfect god could design this from the ground up in such a way that no one would know the difference?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2015 02:11

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Infinite Karma posted:

THAT begs a lot of questions about God's nature. If he's omnipotent, and omniscient, how can we have free will? If he created the world we live in, and he's benevolent, why do bad things happen? If he created us with our individual natures, why does he punish us for following those natures? If he had to choose between different options in order to realize his creation, how is he omnipotent?

sure, I'm not arguing in Gods favor or even trying to be particularly rigorous here - I think there are plenty of contradictions in the Christian conception of god - just pointing out that jumping on to the sanctity of free-will with respect to this version of god is not a great idea if you lend any credence at all to stories of his interference.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2015 04:25

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Mornacale posted:

I am fiating such a God for the sake of argument

Alright

quote:

...there is apparently some reason for us to be as we are.

I take issue with this. What is the reason?

quote:

Making us able to process a perfect morality would fundamentally change our nature, either by removing our hypothetical free will or making us work differently on a cognitive level. So, as long as God doesn't want to do that, there are necessarily limitations to the ability to communicate.

I don't buy this. Even if you reject the concept a perfect god, you would still have to reject the christian interpretation of god based on it's direct communication. Also, sure changing us would result in a change in our 'nature' (whatever that means). But given the creator myths associated with deities in the christian faith this shouldn't be a problem either - why is our nature important? Why not a nature that doesn't gravitate to doing what is 'right'?

quote:

I guess ultimately my argument is that the issue isn't " if God's real then why is Mosaic law imperfect?" but rather "if God's real then why do we need a written law at all?"

I think the obvious response is 'god is not, thus we need written law'

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 05:00

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Infinite Karma posted:

The loving ape argument is not a modus tollens proof.

If you are sentient and sapient [R], then you're a person [P].
If you are a person [P], then you're biologically (related to) an ape. [Q]
God is not biologically (related to) an ape [not Q].
Therefore, God is not a person. [not P]
Therefore God is not sentient and sapient [not R]

That is structurally a correct modus tollens proof. But it is not semantically correct, or at least not obviously semantically correct. If you want to prove the controversial assertion that the above P implies the above Q, you actually need to provide supporting evidence and an argument, not just state "it's a fundamental physical fact." Since nobody has yet elucidated how our mind arises from our biology, you're going to have a hard time finding that evidence. And even if there was evidence for THAT, you would also have to prove (not just assert) that ONLY an ape's biology can produce a person-like mind.

On top of that proof, you would find disagreements over the subjective nature of what a mind is in the first place. The idea of free will is incompatible with physical determinism, and there are compelling arguments that the mind itself is an illusion, or conversely, that supernaturalism is a fundamental requirement for free will.

It's fair to hold those opinions and make those arguments, but the further you get into those minutiae, the more likely you're going to present a premise that you can't support. Lo and behold, the ape-biological-mind argument has an unsupported premise.

The bigger problem is the first premise, not the second. Is P defined solely by sentience and sapience? Can no other being have sentience and sapience? Does god need to have these characteristics?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 05:04

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

OwlFancier posted:

He can be as needlessly complicated as he needs to be.

does a perfect god have needs?

also this thread comes back from the dead more often than Christ!

# ¿ Feb 28, 2015 16:39

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

yes, attacking the internal logic of religious belief is somewhat of a waste of time because so much of it depends on articles of faith.

A better tack is to attack concepts that god is used in support of - generally explaining the universe from a micro to a macro level. In short, try to lead others to the conclusion that god isn't necessary to explain the universe; this leaves personal faith and belief alone but allows a person to get away from the necessity of that belief, should they choose to do so.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 18:00

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 07:33

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Irony Be My Shield posted:

This explains why communities find the scriptures important, sure, but I put it to you that it's not useful as a source of teaching if it's vague enough that any interpretation is possible. Communities will simply arrive at an interpretation that suits them through whatever means they choose.

careful, that's dangerously close to sounding a lot like :siren:

MORAL RELATIVISM :siren:

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 04:27

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