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Author Topic:   Atheists must appeal to an absolute moral standard when complaining about wrongs.
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 25 of 71 (865212)
10-21-2019 11:29 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by AZPaul3
10-21-2019 5:01 PM


Re: We Decide - Not You
The difference being one deals with the reality of life and the other deals with a fantasy.
Not at all, the difference is between physicality or materiality and spirituality and according to C S Lewis the spiritiual is the real reality.
It is actually possible to see this for yourself if you pay attention to the sequences of events in your own life. Good deeds get rewarded in unexpected ways, bad deeds are followed by various kinds of thwartings and disappointments. It can be pretty subtle and you will not notice the connection unless you are tuned to it but I notice it pretty frequently in my own life.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 18 by AZPaul3, posted 10-21-2019 5:01 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by AZPaul3, posted 10-22-2019 3:42 AM Faith has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 30 of 71 (865234)
10-22-2019 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by AZPaul3
10-22-2019 3:42 AM


Re: We Decide - Not You
according to C S Lewis the spiritiual is the real reality.
Not even. But we already know religious types have the entire world bass-akwards.
What makes me a "religious type" when I didn't believe until I was about 45? Somehow at that point I became somebody else? That does seem to be how unbelievers treated me. Friends tried hard to dissuade me and then disappeared out of my life. A physicist friend I knew as a regular at my favorite caf gave me a book about Gnosticism as I was approaching fundamentalist belief, which I read but realized was heretical, yep realized it all by my little self because of the spiritual knowledge I was gaining. But enough of that.
If this spirituality were reality then all spirituality, like the moon, would be the same everywhere. We wouldn't have thousands of conflicting often violent cults all springing from the same spiritual base.
It is the different fantasies of spirituality in the human mind that leads directly to the spiritual conflicts of the cults.
First of all there are lots of mostly peaceable religions in the world. If you want to see real violence you have to go to the secular antireligious cults, the Communism and the Fascism and the French Revolution etc. Probably because religions do recognize a fundamental moral dimension in life whereas the secular cults try to dispense with all such irrational foolishness as they see it.
But no you are wrong about the necessary sameness. For the reality of it all you need to accept the Biblical view: our spirituality, like our intellect, is fallen which means distorted. It's going to be distorted in lots of different ways because we lost our connection with God at the Fall and became subject to both our own fleshly misperceptions and the influences of the "gods" who are really demons. God gave us the Bible so we could understand these realities and find the true spirituality. But I see you rolling your eyes and don't want to disturb you too much so enough of that for now.
{To the idea that we get rewarded and punished for good and bad deeds } This is a form of cognitive dissonance. If you feel guilty you will find your punishment *somewhere* whether related or not. All you have to do is wait and something will get you. That is a constant of life in this universe.
You drop your toast butter-side down. That's your punishment for thinking ill of your neighbor. A flower pot falling from a second story window does not hit you, just misses your head. That's your reward for helping that old lady with her heavy boxes.
The fact that both of those instances would have happened to you regardless of any actions you took doesn't even occur to you. You are looking for a connection so you await an instance, any instance that would have happened regardless, to attribute to this spiritual connection.
This is a known human psychological thing. Everyone goes through these things. Even someone as brilliantly un-spiritual and reality-based as myself has to wonder what I did to piss-off the universe that it gave me a flat tire. The damn prick.
That was such a witty and true description of a human foible I had to copy out the whole thing. Very true.
But what about that very fact that we have such a propensity? Why should we impute moral cause and effect to happenings at all? Doesn't that kind of suggest we are moral creatures living in a moral universe as all the religions attest?
But I don't think we usually "look for" such consequenes: being fallen we're spiritually obtuse that way. When they happen THEN is when we may make the connection. King David wasn't expecting all the punishment he got for seducing Bathsheba and getting her husband killed when she got pregnant, but horrible things happened in his family for the rest of his life, starting with the death of the baby he had with her. {But be of good cheer: he knew he would see that son after he died.}
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by AZPaul3, posted 10-22-2019 3:42 AM AZPaul3 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-24-2019 2:55 AM Faith has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 34 of 71 (865253)
10-22-2019 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by GDR
10-22-2019 4:23 PM


Are you talking about actual harm or benefit as the criteria? Isn't it about MOTIVE to do harm or benefit? Tangle seems to be talking about motive, you seem to be talking about what actually happens, but it's only the motive that counts morally.
If you intend to do good to the person you are morally in the right.
BUT in the case of giving money to a street person I've known for years that it probably will go to drugs or alcohol and knowing that it won't benefit them as I intend I won't give it. I may give them a bag with a sandwich and a drink and snacks, but not money.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 33 by GDR, posted 10-22-2019 4:23 PM GDR has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 41 of 71 (865330)
10-23-2019 2:00 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Taq
10-23-2019 1:22 PM


...it is entirely proper to claim that something is morally wrong if it goes against the subjective needs and wants of human society and individuals.
Um, some individuals have a strong need and want to have sex with children. Some individuals have a strong need and want to commit murder: study the cases of serial killers, it's a strong need they have. Same with needs and wants to hurt and humiliate others, some to torture and kill animals. These things subjectively feel to these people as strong needs and wants. You have a very nave idea of what lurks in the human soul.

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 Message 40 by Taq, posted 10-23-2019 1:22 PM Taq has replied

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 Message 42 by Taq, posted 10-23-2019 2:55 PM Faith has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 47 of 71 (865346)
10-23-2019 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Taq
10-23-2019 2:55 PM


'
You have a serious misunderstanding of what human society is. Human society is not the immoral needs of a tiny minority. Human society is the common thread that runs through the vast majority of human society.
You had said that subjective needs and wants was a sufficient criterion for morality, and I was answering that such a definition won't work. Are you now changing your definition or what?
U

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 Message 42 by Taq, posted 10-23-2019 2:55 PM Taq has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1672 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 55 of 71 (865384)
10-24-2019 2:59 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by Hyroglyphx
10-24-2019 2:55 AM


Re: We Decide - Not You
Well, you have the choice of free will which leaves us susceptible to sin and therefore the inexorable dealings of the Moral Law which can be pretty harsh, or absolutely determined moral perfection without any free will to sin. God chose the former, would you have chosen otherwise?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-24-2019 2:55 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

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