Socrates knows he does not know. — Fooloso4

I think you're growing more and more irrational. If "Socrates doesn't know", how can you use Socrates' statements to prove anything?

Then from whence the just, noble, and good? — frank

Socrates was a zetetic skeptic. Because he knew that he did not know the just, noble, and good he spent his life inquiring about them, trying to determine what is best and avoid doing what is unjust.

I suspect a simple conceptual confusion is at the root of this charade. It may be that the dialogue assumes as obvious what I shall call the transactional piety hypothesis, i.e. that the gods always love those who love them. But this is an hypothesis.

Not every God lover is necessarily beloved of God. You may love god(s) with all you heart and not be sure that god(s) love you back. Worse: it may be presumptuous of the creature to be so sure that God loves her. Maybe He doesn't care that much. Or maybe He doesn't find that your love is enough.

Therefore, I propose that pious means NOT "what or who pleases the gods", but instead: "what or who tries to please the gods". The gods' actual pleasure or displeasure is never to be taken for granted by mere creatures, but given what we think we know of the gods, we believe and hope that such and such actions will please them. That's what to be pious actually means.

Socrates was a zetetic skeptic. Because he knew that he did not know the just, noble, and good he spent his life inquiring about them, trying to determine what is best and avoid doing what is unjust. — Fooloso4

I think you're skirting the issue. :cool:

Since you approved of Jesus' impiety (which was pervasive), think about his solution.

he spent his life inquiring about them, trying to determine what is best and avoid doing what is unjust. — Fooloso4

However, according to Plato, the source of all goodness and all morality is the Good, i.e., a higher, divine source.

So, it looks like you are contradicting yourself and undermining your own theory.

Not every God lover is necessarily beloved of God. You may love god(s) with all you heart and not be sure that god(s) love you back. — Olivier5

Sure. The Gods are under no obligation to love you back.

However, the central issue is not the lover of God but the pious, i.e., piety - literally "the pious", to hosion, in the neutral - meaning "that which is good and just".

I think you're skirting the issue — frank

More like deliberate obfuscation and smoke-and-mirrors tactics. Nothing new there.

I think you're skirting the issue. — frank

I think you still do not understand what is at issue.

Since you approved of Jesus' impiety (which was pervasive), think about his solution. — frank

It has nothing to do with my approval of Jesus' impiety. The issue of the Euthyphro is the question of what piety is and what follows from his claim that piety is what the gods love. Despite his claims, he does not know what the gods love and is unable to say why he thinks the gods love what he thinks they love.

As I said:

If Jesus is correct then piety is not a sufficient guide to doing what is right. — Fooloso4

And since God or the gods, if good, do not love what is wrong, then:

... piety does not equal what is loved by God. — Fooloso4

It has nothing to do with my approval of Jesus' impiety. — Fooloso4

Why are you bringing Jesus and other Abrahamic religions into a discussion of a work by Plato?

And since God or the gods, if good, do not love what is wrong, then:

... piety does not equal what is loved by God.
— Fooloso4 — Fooloso4

You keep repeating yourself to no avail.

The pious (to hosion) is, by definition, what is sanctioned by the Gods.

Even you should be able to see that it is absurd to claim that the Gods do not love what they sanction.

to use Socrates to ridicule religion in general and Abrahamic religion in particular. — Apollodorus

But are they not ridiculous?

It's useful to keep in mind that for you, as stated by you, God=reason. Reasoning is something that reasoning beings do. To follow "divine" commands or impulses, then, is to adhere to/follow reason, human reasoning. There is good evidence that other animals reason, but we humans think we do it best, and no other candidates for reasoner. Of course, as with most human enterprise, we don't do it perfectly.

piety does not equal what is loved by God. — Fooloso4

You can't really assert that without giving an alternate account.

You seemed to want to end it with: 'Socrates didn't know...'

If he didn't know, then he couldn't rule out that it's what the gods love. Just because an argument is circular doesn't mean its premise/conclusion is wrong. Basic logic.

But are they not ridiculous? — tim wood

They may well be, but that is not the point. If he wants to ridicule Abrahamic religions then he can rename the thread "Fooloso4's rant against Abrahamic religions". That would be more honest IMO.

However, as it is, the discussion is of a work by Plato who was a Greek philosopher, not a religious Jew or something. Anyway, he isn't getting anywhere with his theory and it's silly to imagine otherwise. Everyone knows that the issue has been debated for centuries and Fooloso4 isn't bringing anything new to it.

If he didn't know, then he couldn't rule out that it's what the gods love. — frank

Correct. Either Fooloso4 thinks we are stupid or else he's got some psychological or neurological issues that prevent him from realizing the logical implications of his own statements.

In my opinion debate for centuries because no one will permit a propaedeutic discussion of the meaning of the terms, to come to at least some preliminary agreement or consensus on them.

I'm not disputing that. I just think @Fooloso4 is making a terrible job of it and he should let someone else do it or just give up on the project and start some other discussion that he can handle a bit better.

Let us then remember this moment fondly and forever, or until next week, that we agreed and were not in disagreement - I think.

That's fine by me. Until next time.

We might read this as merely symbolism, that the author is pointing to what happens in life, that we do not always get what we deserve. That righteousness is tested against adversity. But the story says more than that. God does not defend the idea that he is just. He has no defense against Job's accusations. — Fooloso4

He does not even register Job's concerns as worthy of His attention, 'cause where was Job when God built the world? That's the whole point. The creature cannot box her Creator into a transaction (I'll be pious, and you favor me). The Creator does not have to answer of His acts to His creature, ever, because they don't sit at the same level at all.

Hence the kind of analytic theology you seem to rely on, is foly. God is not bound by human logic.

The truth of the matter is Job is never fully restored. He endured terrible suffering. His children were killed. No happy ending, which some scholars think was a later addition, can fix that.

I agree the happy ending is proforma, like "they lived happily ever after". It's understood by the reader as such, as a mere decorative fig leaf for the nudity of God's unfathomability.

Brings to mind the book of Ahmadou Kourouma: ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED TO BE FAIR ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE DOES HERE ON EARTH. It's a book about a child soldier caught in the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

A similar thesis is exposed in Candide, e.g. in the Lisbon earthquake when the wicked profit from the calamities hitting the just. God is not obliged to be fair.

I should like to add to the stew the theory, not mine, that for the earlier Greeks, and wrt the good, the pious, justice, etc., that to be good, it had to be a man, and it had to be a man with acknowledged capacity to be good. The good itself being nor more nor less whether he got it, whatever it was, done. If he didn't get it done, he wasn't (any) good (and maybe he and his ended up dead). This the Homeric model, and for a guess, the Spartan ideal. Closer to the time of Socrates, more credit was given for intention, that is,arete, phronesis, eunoia: good character, good judgment, good intention.

And thus it follows the bitter fight against sophists and sophistry (which is still with us).

Hence the kind of analytic theology you seem to rely on, is foly. God is not bound by human logic. — Olivier5

That's just one of the things that @Fooloso4 fails to grasp and yet he is trying to teach us.

I think it is obvious that he is unable to establish his case by keeping within the Euthyphro context and is desperately trying to bring Abrahamic religions into it as if that is somehow going to "save" him. And then he is telling us that we shouldn't believe in miracles or religion....

God is not obliged to be fair. — Olivier5

Correct. God is good, but the way or ways in which he manifests his goodness in relation to humans is subject to his own free will, not to human wishes. It would be absurd to claim otherwise.

Correct. God is good, but the way or ways in which he manifests his goodness in relation to humans is subject to his own free will, not to human wishes. It would be absurd to claim otherwise. — Apollodorus

So which is it? God=reason? Or God=/=reason? And if omnibenevolent, then subject to the constraints of benevolence, thus by reason or benevolence not quite a "free will." Yours good for preaching to the not-thinking choir, but the only way you make it work here is by rant. Don't rant, but rather address your seeming contradictions with reason.

That's just one of the things that Fooloso4 fails to grasp and yet he is trying to teach us. — Apollodorus

But you do exactly the same. You too try to box gods into your own logic. You are forgetting that if god(s) created the world, then the logical rules that make you mind go bye were created by them gods, and put into your head by them gods. These rules are not made FOR them but BY them FOR US.

You can't really assert that without giving an alternate account. — frank

By Socrates' argument and your own example we can say what it is not. That is an important starting point for further inquiry into what it might be. The Socratic dialogues do not give us answers, they help guide us in asking questions.

If he didn't know, then he couldn't rule out that it's what the gods love. — frank

Once again:

If Jesus is correct then piety is not a sufficient guide to doing what is right.
— Fooloso4

And since God or the gods, if good, do not love what is wrong, then:

... piety does not equal what is loved by God.
— Fooloso4 — Fooloso4

Or do you think God or the gods love what is wrong?

And if omnibenevolent, then subject to the constraints of benevolence, thus by reason or benevolence not quite a "free will." — tim wood

Wrong. I said "good", not "omnibenevolent":

Plato refers to “the Maker and Father of the universe (Poietes kai Pateras tou pantos)” and states that “this Cosmos is beautiful and its Constructor good”, etc. (Timaeus 28a – 29a). — Apollodorus

That's why I said it is a fallacy to appeal to Abrahamic religions when discussing a work by Plato.

These rules are not made FOR them but BY them FOR US — Olivier5

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Hence the kind of analytic theology you seem to rely on, is foly. God is not bound by human logic. — Olivier5

If you are suggesting that we cannot provide reasonable answers to what God does or allows to happen, then I agree. But a great deal of theology does just that. In addition, all kinds of wonderful things are attributed to God. It is one thing to believe them as a matter of faith, it is quite another to make them the foundation of logical arguments attempting to defend those beliefs.

the pious", to hosion, in the neutral - meaning "that which is good and just". — Apollodorus

That's only pointing to more conceptual confusion. I think we can confidently conclude from human experience since Plato that not all pious person is just, and that not all just person is pious.

It is one thing to believe them [gods] as a matter of faith, it is quite another to make them the foundation of logical arguments attempting to defend those beliefs. — Fooloso4

Yes, I could not agree more.