There must be a referent of the word (even if it is a fictional referent). — Mariner

Or multiple referents?
It's not like there's anything in particular to show.

[...] they can say nothing at all definitively about anyone's salvation because you can not know the heart of another or the mind of God — Rank Amateur

That's what adherents of the elaborate religions do. And act on.
You can't have missed the trees in the forests.

[...] the Catholic teaching on salvation. — Rank Amateur

Some old scribbleries for your target practice, toasts and other fun.

Just FYI, your theology is bad, that is not a Catholic belief. — Rank Amateur

Right, I seem to recall the current Pope has declared a less stringent admission to heaven. :)
That said, there are people on this forum that has declared the above, thoughtful people if you will.

I'm wondering, though, why wouldn't Catholics (and Hindus) make such declarations...?
There's no arbiter around to set the record straight, they can only go by some scripture reading.
Surely it's not a matter of some personal moral sentiments or preferences?

Why should Catholics declaring that Muslims go to hell be taken more seriously than Hindus saying you'll be reincarnated? They shouldn't.
This stuff isn't epistemic, it's highly elaborate superstitious faith. Fabulation and creative story-telling upheld as if literal truth, which is why others keep pointing out the lack of justification.
Holding such faith is fine, declaring it the be-all-end-all truth applicable to all less so. It's too bad that the doctrinators aren't listening.



Might be worth mentioning that a majority of non-theists out there are ex-theists.

If I genuinely and honestly thought that some population group were bound for hell due to their (non/dis)belief, then I'd be rather busy trying to tell them that and how I'd arrived at that.
Analogous to how I'd try talking someone out of jumping off a tall building.

Right, , we could probably come up with a couple *isms just for this thread. :D
Yep, babies are implicit atheists by this colorful diagram:



They never heard of Amun-Ra Vishnu Yahweh Allah etc.
I suppose that's the unpolluted default.

, you know, theism is the name of this game.
If theists didn't promote and obsess about Amun-Ra Zeus Vishnu Yahweh Asherah Allah Vedas Bible Quran etc, then there wouldn't be much to talk about here.
Leave it to theists to come up with all kinds of diversions (occasionally to avoid the onus probandi). :)

But, if we're talking belief disbelief doubt absence thereof etc, then we could perhaps come up with more general classifications.
This need not be about theism, but more about whatever attitudes (and absence thereof) towards propositions claims statements postulates etc.

, right, yes, the Euthyphro has been used to question the existence Gs as defined.
Going by definitions only is already suspect in itself, and the Euthyphro is applicable to some such definitions.
If a definition along with the Euthyphro leads to something incoherent, then G does not exist as defined.
No problem if G isn't real. Hm maybe there should have been an explicit voting option for that, no matter, just use the 3^rd.

Here's one angle in brief:

"Torquemada" — moral agency and in/consistency
"Nuremberg" — responsibility and in/action

Referral to "Sin" (as per some Biblical reading) does not make homosexuality moral immoral amoral.
Persecuting and stoning a homosexual, referring to "Sin" (as per some Biblical reading), remain their acts.

Obeisance to Biblical readings alone does not exemplify moral agency.
Acting on them does not circumvent liability.

Elsewhere, @Marcus de Brun asked: Should Religious Posts be banned from the forum?

There are way too many full-time professional religious apologists making lots of $s trying to talk their respective deities into existence, catering to adherents' confirmation biases.
Heck, they've been at it for centuries on end.
What better place to show them the door than the Philosophy of Religion sub-forum? ;)

We can easily jugde the nazis at Nuremberg or the Spanish Inquisition as their World, their World view and their moral views differ so much from ours. It's an easy thing for us to do. Far more difficult is to judge things from our time and challenge the views the majority or the intellectual elite view as our moral responsibility today. — ssu

Right.
And history is a great teacher, has real life examples and everything. :)
Some things we'd like to repeat should the occasion arise, others not so much.

started out claiming that referring to the sayings of Jesus or Moses was illegitimate — unenlightened

Nah.
Rather that such textual passages do not define (or install) moral agency, but of course may (or may not) exemplify morals like other stories.
Nothing specific to the Bible or Jesus or Moses, though.

the OP focus on religion — ssu

That wasn't quite the intention, not exclusively anyway, though admittedly the example conversation I had elsewhere was about religion.

@unenlightened, in our two stories, the judge and the father act inconsistently if their actions at work go against morals and they're aware of that, cf this snippet above:

are likely inconsistent (or, less likely, pathological) — jorndoe

Justice system are supposed to be moral. Morals aren't derived from justice systems.
(Which can sometimes lead to a conflict between the letter and spirit of the law.)

Admittedly, in general, morals aren't all trivial, or even necessarily decidable.


Related:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. — often attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. — John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. — Elie Wiesel (1928-2016)

Adolf Eichmann's Final Plea: "In His Own Words" (Remember.org article)

Ambrose Bierce satirically wrote:


Elsewhere written:

@unenlightened, well, not exactly. :)

So, the judge comes home after a tedious day of case laws, paperwork, etc, only to find disarray.
Their law-studying daughter and her girlfriend had bullied their uncle due to his baldness, whom, in turn, had called two ruffians to threaten his nieces.

The judge easily judges both the bullying and threats bad, who wouldn't?
And, by the way, nothing wrong with homosexuality regardless of statutes, constitutions, appeal to models of biological evolution, etc, yes?

The judge has made moral evaluations, like moral agents/actors do, not by referral, not by reciting a book, not by giving up moral agency.
If the judge had done no such thing due to a decision that statutes, conventions, laws, etc were the definition of morals, or some similar referral, then they'd apparently become less human, or, more likely, inconsistent.

Anyway, busy day at the judge's house.

Here's an excerpt of an actual conversation I had a little while back elsewhere (names replaced):

• Opening: How can you be against homosexuality and say Jesus loves you?
  ... Sub-dialogue:
• Someone: Because homosexuality is a sin.
• jorndoe: Someone, if you've surrendered morals to scriptures (and an invisible arbiter you can't ask), then you've surrendered moral agency, which does not bestow a whole lot of confidence in you. Should we be concerned...? Scared...? :o
• Someone: jorndoe we don't follow morals
• Someone: jorndoe morals are weak. As demonstrated above
• jorndoe: What church are you in, Someone?
• Someone: jorndoe that doesn't matter, my beliefs are my own
• jorndoe: Okie, Someone. It's just that you wrote "we", so I thought knowing what church might be interesting/informative.
• Someone: jorndoe we as Christians. Sounds like a demonizing tactic to me

To me, this is a kind of moral bankruptcy.

But the opening post wasn't really intended to be about religions only.

@khaled, the three bullets were actually intended to be different expressions of the same thing.
An example for one is likely to cover the others, at least somewhat, though my wording could suggest otherwise.
I can try to come up with some more examples; apologies for the silence on my part until then.

I didn't know this had a name — StreetlightX

Sorry, I concocted that. Seemed an appropriate name for the topic.

The is/ought gap of old also came to mind while I typed this stuff up (plus the illustration) a month or so back. Maybe I should just have posted the whole thing, though it's still being reworded.

, I just meant that reason, "the just and good" still refer back to moral agency/actors, so I find it hard to separate them. But, yep, gave a good analytic response.

we rarely hear God people say "God made me do it" — Πετροκότσυφας

Indeed, although the most common argument from morality more or less does.
Furthermore, most such religious folk are already moral agents, regardless of their religious faith, which renders references to extra-self objective (or mind-independent) morals incoherent (inconsistent).

Is referral to Reason, the Just, The Good or whatever still referral? — Πετροκότσυφας

Superior orders, a book, things snatched out of thin air, ...

• Refusal to take responsibility for one's own actions is a kind of moral cowardice (shirking).
• Someone not owning their morals shouldn't expect to be regarded an autonomous, morally authentic human being, which could justify distrust in their actions (or even constraining their actions somewhat).

Presumably adults (including moral actors) can reason or we're faced with troubles. :) (But this may be a side-avenue.) "The just" and "the good" are typically abstractions that are parts of moral agency and decency for people to be so, surely not discoveries made with telescopes or microscopes. Referral is giving up moral evaluation.

You have your framework, I have mine. — Ram

Yours is susceptible to The Torquemada problem, which is not a good thing. :sad:

Thanks, , point taken.
(And, as usual with these elaborate religions, there are disagreements.)

Right.
If knowledge acquisition is to be deductive, then we run into the diallelus (links below).
Knowledge acquisition in general isn't purely deductive, however, which means we'll need good standards of justification, perhaps something like evidence and reason together (starting out in that order).

Regress argument (Wikipedia)
The Problem of the Criterion (IEP)

It hinges on the meaning of 'to exist'. As I said, it sounds a pedantic quibble, but it is a philosophy forum, and this is a basic question of ontology and metaphysics. — Wayfarer

Or it hinges on what this "God" you folk talk about is supposed to be?

It's not just about half a dozen or so quotes about obscure abstracts, but also about what people actually believe, and their actions.
Championing such obscure abstracts, and hijacking the terminology for the occasion, isn't particularly representative.
Also ask ministers, pundits, imams and pagans what their "God" is supposed to be, and their ($fulltime) apologists how they justify.

Seems the word "God" is up for grabs, maybe we all ought come up with something of our own. :)

: "God does not exist."
Some atheist: "God does not exist."

Hm.

Some theist: "God exists."

Possible worlds is just a way of talking and reasoning about modal logic.

necessarily p (holds for all consistent worlds): □p ⇔ ∀w∈W p
possibly p (holds for some consistent world): ◊p ⇔ ∃w∈W p

where W = consistent or non-contradictory worlds, or some subset thereof under consideration

If you don't like it or don't like modal logic, well, then you're free to throw it out or ignore it. :)
I guess we sometimes think of (alternate) possibilities in terms of "free will", "could have done differently".

Modal realism is the hypothesis that all possible worlds are real (not just hypothetical).

salvation
natural life [...] unsatisfactory
missing [...] Higher Life of true happiness — Wayfarer on Royce

Emotive appeals aside, @Wayfarer, it then seems a bit ironic that these enterprises have led to people surrendering moral agency to (man-made) scriptures and invisible "someone"s that can't be asked.
Is that "salvation"? As far as I can tell, at most rendering a false sense of "salvation" (and hit-or-miss self-improvement).

Philosophy is as much concerned with finding errors as whatever else.

By the way, the copy/paste'd arguments above are mostly concerned with the highly elaborate religions, real life denominations/sects/cults.
Not much is being said about unassuming deism or panpsychism for example.

It is a peculiar habit of God's that when he wishes to reveal himself to mankind, he will communicate only with a single person. The rest of mankind must learn the truth from that person and thus purchase their knowledge of the divine at the cost of subordination to another human being, who is eventually replaced by a human institution, so that the divine remains under other people's control. — Patricia Crone

Let the gods speak for themselves.

Silence — Banno

There are many inconsistent revelations and messiah avatar Buddha Jesus Mahdi claimants.
∴ Hence there are personal experiences that are wrong in what's purported. — jorndoe

Nothing sensible can be said here. — Banno

You're not helping. — Baden

Banno So you're basically a positivist, then? — Wayfarer

I'll toss some arguments in. Copied from elsewhere:

Is your deity real?

Everyone knows that not all gods can be real.
∴ Hence some or all gods are imaginary/fictional.

Some adherents are convinced through faith. Diverse faiths work.
∴ Hence faith works for imaginary/fictional gods.

Many adherents are convinced through directed indoctrination.
∴ Hence indoctrination works for imaginary/fictional gods.

Different adherents are convinced by their love of different gods.
∴ Hence imaginary/fictional gods can be loved.

Everyone knows that not all holy scriptures are true.
∴ Hence scriptures contain fictions.

Different adherents are inspired by different gods and holy scriptures.
∴ Hence fictions can inspire.

There are many inconsistent revelations and messiah avatar Buddha Jesus Mahdi claimants.
∴ Hence there are personal experiences that are wrong in what's purported.

Deities are neither evident nor necessary when religions spread.
∴ Hence nothing but humans are needed to spread religions.

We differentiate real and imaginary/fictional by evidence and reason together.
Many gods cannot be differentiated real or imaginary/fictional.
∴ Hence it stands to reason that many or all adherents are wrong.

Seriously, what should you believe...?

Meanwhile, religions build empires, proselytize, indoctrinate children, has waged wars and conquest (which fortunately has waned), ... We're not just talking the 5-day weather report for Manhattan, we're talking fantastic claims that supposedly apply to everyone, everything even.

Sorry @Pattern-chaser, the point was just that there can sometimes be other reasons (like morals) involved.
There are all kinds of thought experiments and ideas, p, where all evidence is compatible with both p and ¬p, some of which were mentioned above.
What Bateson called differences that makes no difference (non-information).
I'd say other reasons can occasionally make a difference, though.

Brush off or brush on?
Surely there are sufficient reasons to brush off?

1. morality is social
2. solipsism is not
3. therefore there are morals impertinent to solipsism
4. solipsism is side-lined by anyone with moral awareness

Brushing on looks like a performative contradiction to me.
Either way, I'd find it a bit rude if you thought me a mere figment of your mind.
Brush off. (y)

(Englitch is my 2^nd language, please let me know if "impertinent" is the wrong word above.)

The Newton's theory is still a theory - but is it objective? — Damir Ibrisimovic

It's a model.
Models are not the modeled.
Unless you're thinking about thoughts, the thoughts are not that which you're thinking of.
...

Shameless plug.

Why would anyone take the following samples as more than archaic, barbaric customs and stories, that we've since outgrown?

When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.
And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.
But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword,
but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.
Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. — Deuteronomy 20:10-15

And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live?
Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.” — Numbers 31:14-20

(Quarrels about translations, context, what have you, are irrelevant if this cruft can be used to justify immoral actions, and is installed in impressionable children.)

As to war strategies and tactics there are other ancient writings that are much better, e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

All people have a right to state their mind here, after all, this is a philosophy forum.

Those who refuse Christ are under the law, and the law brings death. — Waya

Yeah, but it's not a Christian fundamentalist preaching forum.
You've been called out.
Echo'ing @Banno's comments above:
Deferral to someone else (that cannot be asked in particular) is to forfeit being considered a moral agent.
Refusal to take responsibility for one's actions is moral cowardice.
Anyone doing this stuff ↑ are likely inconsistent or pathological.
Does that describe you?

You may consider it a working presumption, if you like, which enables all kinds of things, including our talk. — jorndoe

How so? That some objects may not be self-identical doesn't seem to have anything to do with me talking. — MindForged

Perhaps. Yet, that ↑ is what you meant, right? Not something else (non-identity), or the contrary (contradiction)? Otherwise, this chat will lose traction rather quickly. :confused:

The way we can truly know what God wants is by reading the Scripture, not by interpreting things any which way we please. — Waya

Scriptures...? :o Good luck with that, here's a list of maybe 50 of them.

And [for] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. — Quran 4:157

The Bible alone has tediously long lists of problems. But, hey, ambiguities and inconsistencies do have a sort of strength to them. When one verse is inconvenient, just find another, or interpret in whatever presently convenient way. Which has happened.

Adam, Eve, and Jesus don't figure in the Vedas. Can't have been that important I guess.

Certifiably non-authoritative.

Past theocracies has indeed been run by clergy. Deities neither evident nor necessary in the first place, just humans. If some such deity wants something in particular, then it should be a walk in the park to let everyone in on that. Meanwhile I'll do the talking on the one really true deity's behalf. Good with you?

Likewise, there are instances where Stephen Hawking indicated his distaste for any cosmological theories that implied the idea of an absolute beginning (see Why Physicists can't Avoid a Creation Event). Here again is an attempt to avoid a disliked metaphysical inference by steering research and consideration away from that direction. — Wayfarer

That may have been Hawking's sentiment, but the "edge free" model didn't originate with him.
See XXXI. The Possibility of a “Finite” and Yet “Unbounded” Universe by Einstein for an earlier discussion.
That's the first here:

• the universe is not infinite and did not have a definite earliest time (< 14 billion years)
• the universe is finite in duration and had a definite earliest time (= 14 billion years)
• the universe is infinite in past duration (∞)

The model wasn't concocted in order to defy religious apologists.

But ...

never let the truth stand in the way of a good story — attributed to Mark Twain

@SophistiCat, @andrewk, yeah, the fine-tuning arguments seem kind of fine-tuned (to an end) themselves.
An assessment would perhaps have to include something like modal realism, which isn't really feasible.
In a very large probability space, the probability of any observed particulars (in our universe) becomes very small, whether involving us, or life, or the rocky moons in our Solar system, or whatever.
Also, how would we assess the chances of a hypothetical über-designer intentionally coming up with our universe (without begging the question)?
And maybe we're just a side-effect of an über-designer studying micro-chaos versus macro-constraints or whatever?
How would we differentiate?
Looks to me like the Texas sharpshooter fallacy applies.

How would we go about making such an assessment?

These two seems partially at odds:

• observation: life as we know it seems somewhat rare, not a hospitable universe
• proposal: the universe was designed for (conscious) life, perhaps us specifically

The constants found in physics (and similar sciences) are but part of such an assessment. We'd have to take entirely different ontologies/structures into account as well, or we'd still just be looking at ours. (For that matter, we don't change π, and expect to find circles.) Not a simple assessment to make; how would we come up with such alternate universes...? This would converge on considering modal realism.

Following evidence + current models thereof, life, as we know it, has a window somewhere between formation of solar systems and the beginning of the degenerate era, ever marching towards heat death (cf expansion of the universe). Heat death involves an unfathomable amount of time (even compared to 14 billion years), ruled by the lonely photon in deep cold.

In the meantime, life seems rare, at least from what we currently know. Our present universe is largely indifferent/hostile to life. It's vast, open spaces and lots of radiation, with rocks here and there, gases and stars, and the occasional black hole and supernova blast. Life on Earth requires free energy from the Sun to stay around; energy that temporarily partakes in food chains before dispersing ever on (entropy + expansion).

Isn't it somewhat self-elevating to think of life as a pre-determined purpose of the universe...? Or more specifically, like some seem to think, us? :o Anthropocentric self-importance (even narcissism)? Douglas Adams' puddle comes to mind.

What are the chances of a hypothetical über-designer coming up with our universe?

If we're getting into probability calculations, then let's calculate (or at least assess) the probability on the 2^nd of January in the year 601, that we'd be chatting here, at this moment, under these circumstances, with these words. In order to get an impression of how this works, and to compare, let's also make the calculation for the year -816. We might invoke quantum mechanics and general relativity, just for the heck of it. :)

Texas sharpshooter fallacy (Wikipedia)

I think it was Gassendi that brought the same objection up way back in the 1600s, @Marcus de Brun. (y)
When it comes to pure deduction, you don't get much for free (non-ampliative), rather "cogito therefore thinking exists".
Compare: something exists, since otherwise this wouldn't be.
But of course, I don't really need Descartes or anyone else to tell me that thoughts (and I) exist, whatever it all may be. :)

An observer of what is obvious. No physical thing exists if it is not perceived. — raza

A subjective idealist (and solipsist), then. :meh:
Presumably you regularly experience other folks' bodies and gesturing and such?
Not their self-awarenesses, though.

Red marks conundrum:

That's conflating epistemology with ontology. — numberjohnny5

Yep (y)

The Right To Freedom is the Right To Oppress Others — Agustino

Not really.
Those others also have right to freedom.
The constraint is to ensure others' same right.