Chicken pie!! — Bartricks

:up:

Irrelevant quibbling... — creativesoul

I don't think it's irrelevant at all. You yourself said it was relevant:

It's relevant in discussions involving the God of Abraham. — creativesoul

After which you said:

my question informed me that those arguments may not be applicable to Bartricks — creativesoul

1. Questions don't inform, answers do.

2. If "those arguments may not be applicable to Bartricks", this suggests that you are still not informed, despite your question.

Hence, my question informed me that those arguments may not be applicable to Bartricks. It's not mysterious. — creativesoul

It wasn't mysterious before, but I think it is beginning to become mysterious now.

A question can't inform you. An answer can.

It's relevant in discussions involving the God of Abraham. — creativesoul

But you just said that discussion of God does not require belief in God. Indeed, you yourself seem to be discussing God without actually believing in God. Or have I misunderstood you?

It was not relevant to the current contention. — creativesoul

OK. I was just curious. I thought you may have felt it was relevant for some reason. It's good to know that it wasn't.

That was an aside based upon Bartricks' participation here. I was curious to his belief in/of God. — creativesoul

So, what you are saying is that your question was unnecessary.

Sure to both of those claims, [/quote]

Well, if you agree that there is no logical requirement to believe in a "God that is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipresent... the creator of all things" in order to discuss God, indeed, you are doing that yourself, then why do you feel there is a need to ask that question?

You believe in a God that is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipresent... the creator of all things. — creativesoul

1. There is no logical requirement to believe in a "God that is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipresent... the creator of all things" in order to discuss God.

2. The OP is not about God but about the belief that "belief in God is necessary for being good".

As for your thought experiment- I have no idea what it is supposed to illustrate. — Bartricks

It may be a reference to that BLM leader who wants to replace men with women, whites with blacks, and capitalism with communism. In which case our God problem may need some reformulating to keep pace with the times ....

What is forgotten is that the Greek gods were quite capable of disagreement, and that is the problem. That something should be pious because it is beloved of (a single omniscient) God and beloved of God because it is pious presents no contradiction, inconsistency or paradox. — Janus

I think that's a good point which illustrates the fact that it's all a matter of perspective.

That's why on one view God can be omnipotent and omnibenevolent without contradiction and on another he can't.

So, it's a matter of choosing which view to adopt which tends to be more a personal choice than a matter of logic or philosophy.

The fact that words are synonymous does not mean they can't on occasion be used in slightly different senses and vice versa, the fact that words are sometimes used to convey slightly different meanings does not mean that they can't be synonymous in other contexts.

But, I won't trouble myself too much, as life has enough stress and strain without getting too worked up over word definitions. — Jack Cummins

:up:

Are we thinkers or are we thoughts? If we're thinkers then our identity is numerically defined but not qualitatively i.e. your friend wouldn't be able to tell my mind apart from your mind. If we're thoughts then the paradox of the identity of a thing being based on that which that thing is not rears its ugly head. — TheMadFool

The answer is found in Plotinus.

If spirit (nous), mind (psyche) and body (soma) are just different degrees of consciousness, then emanation, manifestation or creation is a process of diversification that may be illustrated by means of a triangle/pyramid or circle.

The apex of the pyramid or center of the circle is the One (to En) which is consciousness in a state of absolute unity.

Then, in descending order (in the case of the pyramid) or centrifugal order (in the case of the circle), there is increasing multiplicity according as the diversification process approaches the base of the former or the periphery of the latter.

At the top we are one single Consciousness (En), at the base or periphery we are many (polla) individual minds and bodies.

But, I do think that it is worth bearing in mind a point arising, early in the thread, how moral was more of a preferred choice of term within religious contexts, and ethics within the secular. — Jack Cummins

"Christian ethics, which is also referred to as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system: it is a virtue ethic which focuses on building moral character...."

Christian ethics - Wikipedia

But we'll keep an open mind and consider all new findings.

If there's any truth to that it's far worse than any religious fanaticism I've ever heard of. — praxis

It wasn't just Christians. Remember that Marxism aimed to wipe out the "bourgeoisie" or middle class.

Marxism believed in class struggle:

“The history of all societies is the history of class struggle”

Preamble, Communist Manifesto

Marxism also believed in revolution as the liberation of one class, representing the whole of society, from another “criminal” class, representing an obstacle or “stumbling-block” to be eliminated:

“For the revolution of a nation, and the emancipation of a particular class of civil society to coincide, for one estate to be acknowledged as the estate of the whole society, all the defects of society must conversely be concentrated in another class, a particular estate must be the estate of the general stumbling-block, the incorporation of the general limitation, a particular social sphere must be recognized as the notorious crime of the whole of society, so that liberation from that sphere appears as general self-liberation. For one estate to be par excellence the estate of liberation, another estate must conversely be the obvious estate of oppression.”

Introduction, Criticism of the Hegelian Theory of Right

In Russia, the middle class were about 10 million.

In 1918, Grigory Zinoviev, who was a leading Central Committee ideologist, wrote in the paper Severnaya Kommuna:

"To dispose of our enemies, we will have to create our own socialist terror. For this we will have to train 90 million out of the 100 million Russians and have them all on our side. We have nothing to say to the other 10 million; we'll have to get rid of them" (G. Legget, The Cheka: Lenin's Secret Police).

The Cheka : Lenin’s Political Police - Internet Archive

I think it was in the first census after the revolution that it was found that 10 million were missing and further millions were discovered with the de-Stalinization program after WWII and after the collapse of the USSR, when archival materials were declassified in 1991.

Between 1825 and 1910 the imperial (Christian) government executed 3,932 people for political crimes.

Stalin executed 681,692 people for "anti-Soviet activities" (that could be absolutely anything) in just one year (1937-1938). Multiply that by a couple of decades and you get the idea. And that's just a moderate estimate. Some historians have much higher figures. And even higher for Maoist China.

Great Purge - Wikipedia

Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin

USSR--Genocide and Mass Murder (hawaii.edu)

I agree with @Bartricks that ethics and morality are the same thing. It's just "ethical" and "moral" that seems a tad unclear.

These are the OED definitions:

ethics a. The branch of knowledge or study dealing with moral principles

ethical a. Of or relating to moral principles, esp. as forming a system, or the branch of knowledge or study dealing with these

moral a. Of or relating to human character or behaviour considered as good or bad; of or relating to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to the actions, desires, or character of responsible human beings; ethical.

So, they are synonymous. It’s just that some authors seem to use one or the other when they wish to emphasize a particular aspect of ethics or morality. Possibly, this is the root of the confusion. I for one particularly dislike phrases like "ethical and moral" when it isn't at all clear from the context what the writer is talking about. It's almost as if they are talking about one thing but they throw in the other one just to make sure they are as inclusive as possible.

I have a feeling that this is about as far as you can get with philosophy.

So, psychologists, sociologists, historians and, well, anyone else who isn't a philosopher seems to think they might be different - cos how is it possible to have two words for the same thing? — Bartricks

It's really funny, actually. But I have this book at home, An Introduction To Philosophical Analysis by Philosophy Prof. J Hospers that I hardly ever even look at, to be honest. I just checked right now and under "Problems in Ethics" (chapter 8) it says "The nature of moral judgments", under "Ethics and Law" it says "moral rules, moral principles, moral theorists", ... then it goes on to talk about "moral rights" vs "legal rights", "morally unjust", etc., etc. I haven't found the phrase "ethical and moral" yet, but you get the idea.

I also have an uncanny ability to find missing things, however, I do not pray to a saint of god for help. I also do not consider myself to be an atheist. I just find the religious writings unbelievable. — Athena

Me too. My usual technique is to mentally trace back all my actions to the very moment where I "lost" the object in question. But once or twice when I just couldn't locate what I was looking for, I saw the object and its whereabouts in a dream and next morning when I looked it was there.

To me, religious writings do have a cultural value. But they can also have a moral value and sometimes you can even find spiritual truths in them. It may be the Platonist influence but when I read, for example, "I am the Light of the World" (John 8:12), it immediately reminds me of Plato and Plotinus' allegory of the sun and its comparison with the intelligence that illumines the world.

Plato and other ancient philosophers used myths to illustrate certain points they were making and I believe that some religious texts are doing the same. Different people draw different teachings from them according to their own level of maturity and understanding. As long as they don't get any crazy ideas or don't turn to fanaticism, I don't have a problem with that.

Academic philosophers do not debate whether ethics and morality have the same meaning. — Bartricks

I tend to agree with that. Ethics and morality in the sense of field of knowledge or study are unquestionably synonymous.

I think the confusion arises from the way some writers use the terms. For example, "ethical and moral" tends to occur quite frequently as if it was two different concepts:

"Humans are ethical and moral regardless of religion and God"

And discussions keep shifting from one term to the other and back again:

"To put it simply, ethics represents the moral code that guides a person’s choices and behaviors throughout their life. The idea of a moral code extends beyond the individual to include what is determined to be right, and wrong, for a community or society at large.

Ethics is concerned with rights, responsibilities, use of language, what it means to live an ethical life, and how people make moral decisions".

Ethics and Morality - Psychology Today

So, I can see why people can find it confusing.

USSR and Napolean come to mind — Merkwurdichliebe

USSR in any case. And Maoist China.

Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia

Ethics, from ethos (habitat, or commons) and ethikos (habits, or character), — 180 Proof

Just one correction:

ἠθικός ēthikós is not "habits, or character" because it isn't a noun.

It's an adjective meaning “of habits/character" or "expressing habits/character”.

ἠθικός - Wiktionary

A drier coin receptor is not working. One of my good neighbors said she will pray for it and tells me that works every time. I am okay with testing that belief. That test is not as bad as ministers telling their flocks to trust in God and not science when Covid is taking people's lives. — Athena

That reminds me of a friend of mine who every time she loses or misplaces something she prays to St Anthony (or whoever) and next day she surely finds it.

But you are perfectly right. I don't believe in blind belief in anything. Religious leaders need to remember that they are just priests not saints or prophets and either (a) stay out of politics or (b) if they do get involved in politics or public life then they have a duty to inform themselves of the facts and not imagine that if they know the scriptures they know everything.

Fanaticism and lack of judgement is as bad in religion as it is in politics and all areas of life. And atheists can be as fanatical as theists even though they may not admit it or even not be aware of it.

I am right anyway. I don't need your approval to know that.

But the way I see it, your problem is this:

1. You insist on winning the argument when it is obvious even to an infant that there is not even half a chance in a million of doing that.

2. You refuse to accept the other side's answers, in which case you might as well talk to yourself or write your own answers.

Incidentally, I never said that I "won". There is nothing to "win" and even if there was, I couldn't care less about "winning".

All I'm saying is that you lost the argument in the sense that you failed to prove your case and you've got no chance of realistically ever winning an argument like that. If you believe otherwise, you are free to do so.

I think that I never felt 'good' because I have inherited a big Catholic guilt complex. — Jack Cummins

Well, I know many Catholics who don't have that problem, not consciously or obviously, in any case.

What you seem to be saying is probably more to do with psychology than with ethics.

But I agree that life can be difficult and some people can have more complex personalities (and lives) than others.

Wow, you are very emotional, aren't you? — Athena

I think "emotional" is the wrong word. More like "psycho" IMO.

And it isn't about religion either. They just hate being contradicted no matter what you say. Above all, they hate losing an argument because it forces them to acknowledge their intellectual limitations. The best you can do is just let them bark at themselves, which they enjoy doing anyway.

I am totally confused by this thread. What is a non-believer? — Athena

I don't think you are the only one who is confused by this thread. However, it all becomes clear if you consider the political agenda behind it.

As for "non-believers", I think they are a kind of people who believe in all sorts of things but deny the right of others to hold their own beliefs.

It seems to be that in many ways, even those who read philosophy, are improvising, and probably struggling. — Jack Cummins

That shouldn't be the case if philosophy, at least as expounded by Plato and other Platonists, is correctly understood and practiced.

The only difficulty would be the dichotomy of private and public life. In private or personal matters you act according to the principle of righteousness. But in public life this may not always be possible. The struggle then does not consists in not knowing what is right and what is wrong (not in my case at least) but in how to reconcile right conduct with socially acceptable conduct. And that is something that everyone has to work out for themselves according to their abilities and circumstances.

For example, if you happen to live in a country where manifesting your religion is not socially accepted, then you act according to the principles of your faith in your private sphere and do the same in the public sphere as far as possible without unnecessarily exposing yourself to personal harm.

In other words, is the mind capable of self-refelction? Can the mind contain itself? — TheMadFool

Is a human being capable of self-reflection? Does one need to contain oneself like a box in order to be aware of oneself? Consciousness can survey itself and its contents, hence it is aware of itself in an act of reflexive awareness.

As explained by Plotinus, when consciousness (nous) is directed toward objects other than itself as such, e.g., thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, it is discursive reason (dianoia). When it is directed toward itself, it is self-awareness (noesis). The mind as discursive reason is not aware of itself except in a rudimentary or latent way. The mind as mind is aware of itself, there being no other object of experience in pure reflexive consciousness.

On the physical level, we are aware of ourselves as the physical body. On the psycho-mental level above the physical one, we are aware of ourselves as sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts. On the spiritual level above the psycho-mental level, we are aware of ourselves as consciousness, i.e. as that which is aware of body, perceptions, emotions, and thoughts, as well as of itself.

Body, mind, and spirit are just different degrees of consciousness. The more consciousness is aware of or dominated by "unconscious" objects, the less it is aware of itself. In everyday states of consciousness, consciousness is aware of material objects, etc. and only residually aware of itself due to identification with "unconscious" objects of experience. In higher states of consciousness, e.g. in meditation or contemplation, consciousness disengages itself from lower forms of awareness and self-identification and becomes aware of itself and identifies itself with itself. At that point, knowing becomes being.

For example, when we sit down in the cinema and watch a movie, we disengage ourselves from everyday awareness, we become absorbed in the scenery and activities taking place on the screen, we emotionally identify with the hero or heroine and experience his or her pains and joys exactly as if we were that person, and completely forget our true identity.

In realty, of course, we are not that person. We have our own identity. When the show is over, we slowly return to our normal sense of identity. Depending on how deep we became absorbed in the movie, it may take several hours to completely recover our normal identity and awareness. Now, imagine what would happen if we were to watch the same movie and go through the same identification process day after day, for many years. It would be extremely difficult to disengage ourselves from our movie self.

This is the only reason why it is hard for our consciousness to experience itself as consciousness and not as body, perceptions, thoughts, etc. However, as explained by Plotinus, part of our consciousness is fortunately always aware of itself, only that it is normally buried under a mass of lower forms of consciousness. And this enables us, through practices such as meditation and contemplation, to recover our self-awareness or true identity of ourselves as self-aware consciousness.

Wisdom is important but, it is possible that when the emphasis is upon righteousness it can lead to self righteousness. — Jack Cummins

It can in theory if misunderstood. However, when correctly understood, knowledge of right and wrong cannot be limited to right and wrong for oneself. It must take into consideration right and wrong for society at large. Otherwise, it is not righteousness but selfishness which is the antithesis of righteousness. The whole point of righteousness and of moral virtues in general was to serve as the basis for civilized conduct resulting in a peaceful, harmonious and just society. Hence to be righteous (dikaios) was to be a civilized citizen of the city-state. This is why Plato coined the phrase "good and wise" (agathos kai sophos) to describe the perfect citizen. This would positively rule out self-righteousness.

I really raised the question because I believe that thinking about the two words or ideas is useful for reflection on the way we go about making moral, or ethical, choices. — Jack Cummins

Correct. Ethics was absolutely central to ancient philosophy which is why for Plato political philosophy and ethics were closely related (Republic, Laws) and Aristotle wrote his Nicomachean Ethics.

Basically, ethics revolves around the concept of "justice" (dike) or "righteousness" (dikaiosyne) which is the highest among virtues. Knowing what is right and what is wrong and acting in conformity with right is a defining feature of wisdom (sophia) or being wise (sophos).

Very good question. I think we tend to use these terms without thinking too much about any distinctions.

As a tentative/provisional answer, I would say that:

As an adjective, moral (from Latin for “custom”) refers to what is right and what is wrong and to the goodness or badness of human character or behavior.

Morality is the degree of conformity to moral principles, e.g., the morality of an action.

Ethics (from Greek for “character”) is the philosophy that deals with moral principles.

The adjectives "moral" and "ethical" are virtually identical to one another.

Similarly, when used in the sense of philosophy, science, or field of knowledge, morality and ethics are often used interchangeably, although in philosophy ethics is possibly more often used in this sense.

Edit. For example, we talk of "Aristotle's Ethics" or ethical system by which we mean his moral philosophy.

They were your claims and your terms that I was asking you about — tim wood

That's exactly what I'm saying. I asked you about your terms and your claims but you claimed not to know, you produced a dodgy definition of something, and you asked some incoherent questions about the English word "is" when you could have just googled it instead. If that isn't a rhetorical question intended to deflect attention from the fact that you've lost the argument, I don't know what is.

Anyways, just for future reference, I think you should try and present your arguments more forcefully, otherwise people might get the impression that you aren't taking your own arguments seriously. And if you don't take your own arguments seriously, why should anyone else, no?

I don't think my common sense is unusual. No I don't agree with you. — Corvus

I don't agree with you either. Your common sense must be exceedingly unusual if you can tell that Stevenson was not a scientist when Scientific American says he was. Maybe you should become a scientist and tell other scientists what science is.

I think I got to page 5 but I don't remember a thing.... — Tom Storm

I think that's the idea. Great book though. Would highly recommend it, honestly.

You've gotta love that violin concerto too, no? — Tom Storm

I concur. Brahms isn't bad at all if you know how to listen with the proper attitude. But I tend to prefer Vivaldi followed by Gregorian chants. After which I like to immerse myself in the book Capital by one Karl Marx. After ten years I'm still at page 2. But it has the singular advantage of putting me to sleep rather fast.

Because your usage causes the question. But by now all you've done is demonstrated your ability to destroy a discussion. — tim wood

lol How can I destroy a "discussion" that never existed? You have provided no definition of terms, no proper arguments, you totally ignored the other side's counter-arguments, you claimed to be more omnibenevolent than God without explaining how you know that, you professed ignorance, and you claimed to be unable to understand the very simple English word "is".

Even a three-year old could have told you from the start that you have no chance in a million of winning this debate. You should have demonstrated some decency and honesty and conceded defeat from the start instead of wasting people's (and your own) time.

I don't know who he is, but you should also bear in mind that there is a big debate, whether psychology can be classed as a science. You should read some Philosophy of Science books. — Corvus

Right. So you don't know who Stevenson is, you don't know that psychiatry and psychology are two different things, you don't know that psychiatry uses scientific and empirical methods, but your "common sense" tells you that Stevenson was a "fortune teller"!

You must have a highly unusual common sense then. A bit too unusual to believe it, to be honest.

Scientists use facts, concrete evidences and proofs for their truths. — Corvus

Stevenson was a respected professor of psychiatry. His work was favorably reviewed in Scientific American. On what basis are you saying he was not a scientist?
Ian Stevenson - Wikipedia

But your common sense told you they were not scientists. So you are claiming that your common sense enables you to tell what is scientific and what is not.

So, having common sense makes you a scientist?