Yep. It's a common Christian response to the Euthyphro.

Why ought we adopt that game? — Banno

Well, if for classical theism this is how God is understood then some of the traditional arguments put forward by atheists fall short.

A theist might say that god as goodness itself functions as a brute fact. You and I might consider this unconvincing. No doubt there is a vast library of scholarship affirming this concept.

all morality comes from our evolution
— Questioner

which passes for popular wisdom in today's culture. — Wayfarer

There’s probably a more charitable way to look at this: if we read it as suggesting that the origins of moral behavior may be found in our evolving together as a social species: strength through cooperation, empathy and love.

Even if we had before us is the undoubted word of god, it does not follow that we ought do as he says.

It remains open for us to do as the book says, or not. — Banno

Can I check something with you?

Whether we ‘ought’ to obey God could be held to depend on the language game we are playing. The original claim assumes a game in which God is just an agent issuing commands, so obedience is an open quesion. But if we adopt the Christian language game in which God is the embodiment of goodness, then ‘obeying God’ is synonymous with acting morally. In this framework, to refuse God’s commands would be to act against goodness itself. The supposed gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ vanishes: the very definitions we use make obedience obligatory by definition.

Thoughts on this?

That we have evolved in a certain way tells us nothing about how we ought behave. Even supposing we are disposed to act in a certain way by evolution, it does not follow that we ought act in that way. It remains open that we ought act in a way contrary to evolution.

The second is the more general point that while we can find out how things are by looking around at the world, we can't use that method to find out how things ought to be. More generally, while science tells us how things are, it cannot tell us how things ought be. — Banno

Interesting this hasn't come up.

Can we say the same about God?

Even if we could demonstrate that God exists, it does not follow that we ought to act in any particular way. Is God moral? If we judge by the Bible, that God often behaves monstrously. If we rely on abstract philosophical reasoning, God can be made into almost anything; a benevolent source of all consciousness, or something more ambiguous.

Unless we assume that God will punish or reward us for following divine instructions; a kind of autocrat there is no clear reason to act according to God’s will. In short, the mere fact that God exists does not tell us what we ought to do.

Thoughts?

:up: :up:

I'm currently writing a book Why Christianity Fails using this epistemic model. Specifically, I analyze the testimonial evidence for the resurrection and demonstrate the weakness of the evidence. — Sam26

A digression, perhaps and forgive my tone which is not intended to be strident. Are there not innumerable contributions on variations of this matter already, from Bart Ehrman to Richard Carrier?

Does Christianity fail if the Jesus story can’t be demonstrated? And what does “fail” mean here?

We already know that there’s no eyewitness testimony from the time of Jesus, let alone for a resurrection. The Gospels were written years later by anonymous authors and survive only as copies of translations of earlier copies. We also know that Jews didn’t think much of the preacher's claims. Do we need more on this? I sometimes wonder if debunking the evidence in detail just makes some people take the story more seriously.

Whence this idea that there is a clear demarcation line between online and real life? — baker

I think this is understood. I have also learned this from some people I know and how different they are on line compared to real life. Anonymity promotes a different way of relating for many people. Some might even try on a persona. And I imagine some people are more reasonable on line than they are in life. I'm not arguing that this is true for everyone.

But my original point didn’t rely on this. The observation is that on line we don’t really know who we are talking to, or where they are coming from. And it's clearly easier to pretend on line than it is in real time face-to-face.

Or do you think that people somehow miraculously totally change the way they talk to people when the conversation is face to face?
That online, they, for example, jump to conclusions, but IRL, they dont?? — baker

Some people, yes, but it is not miraculous. If people are not responsible or identifiable for what they say, they may behave differently; they may be disinhibited. I also believe that online behaviour can promote aggressive discussion and tribalism, which might reduce a person’s capacity to be reasonable and to accept different views.

And part of the problem is that so many members of the public no longer seem to care for truth or accuracy, or only in 'my truth,' while the rest seem to be ideologically driven, self-righteous partisans of the left or right. So what hope do we have?

there is a significant percentage who hold cartoon views of religion and their arguments often fail to understand the positions theists may hold.
— Tom Storm

Understood. — Questioner

:up: :up:

I'm sorry, what criticism was that? — Questioner

The idea that formed the basis of our discussion, that empathy came first and then religion, doesn’t really hold up as a critique or as an accurate depiction of what many Christians actually believe. That is what I was trying to point out, though I suppose it doesn’t matter much.

For me, what matters most is trying to understand the logic and reasoning of people whose views I don’t share. It’s easy to assume we have a winning argument because it seems sound to us. But the problem is that it often rests on assumptions (like scientism) that don’t align with the other person’s worldview.

All your other points aren’t linked to the discussion we were having and are separate lines of reasoning which have been explored on this forum a trillion times. You don’t need to convince me that religion is often wrong and can cause harm.

Yes, there are some good lessons from theistic texts. I think also that you underestimate atheists when you posit that they all blindly follow Dawkins. If anything, atheists are independent thinkers. — Questioner

Where did I say they all blindly follow Dawkins? I’ve been involved in freethinker atheist circles for 40 years; there is a significant percentage who hold cartoon views of religion and their arguments often fail to understand the positions theists may hold.

Where did I say I was an atheist? — Questioner

Where did I say you were an atheist? The criticism you provided was a standard atheist talking point. I've commented on it from this perspective. And it’s not as though atheists don’t share views with other philosophical orientations. A number of Buddhists I know hold similar views.

How arrogant to think that only Christians could come up with the idea of values being imprinted upon the heart! — Questioner

But again, that’s an atheist-style riposte that many Christian thinkers would find amusing. From the position of classical theism the critique that other religions also have moral views misses the point. The point is all morality comes from the same transcendent source.

Now, I wouldn’t think this is necessarily understood as a position of arrogance (although Dawkins and Hitchens would probably characterise it that way); for many Christians it is a straightforward claim about how humans came to be and about the nature of human beings.

There are also more nominal Christians who would hold that all religions are broadly equivalent, while still regarding morality as reflecting God’s nature rather than existing independently of it. From this perspective, the classic Euthyphro dilemma — which asks whether something is good because God commands it or God commands it because it is good — is avoided, because goodness is understood as grounded in God’s very nature rather than being arbitrary or external to God. I don’t find this argument fully convincing, but I respect it.

The bottom line is that atheistic arguments that try to defeat theism by pointing out that non-theists have morality, or that there was morality before Moses’ clay tablets, often miss the mark. But you may think differently.

1) What we call immorality are practices by others which we aren’t able to understand in terms that allow us to justify them according to our own values. As a result, we blame them for our own puzzlement.
2) Cultural history takes the form of a slow development of interpersonal understanding such that we progressively improve our ability to make sense of the motivations of others in ways that don’t require our condemning them, precisely because we see their limitations as having to do with social understanding rather than arbitrary malicious intent. Advances in the social sciences in tandem with philosophy and the arts contribute to this development. — Joshs

I like this formulation a lot.

So, you are saying that goodness comes from God and we know this because the Bible tells us it's so?

I think the more likely explanation is that we evolved something called biological altruism. — Questioner

I am an atheist, I am not saying this as a believer. I am trying to provide a basic sketch of classical theism’s understanding of the good.

It's useful for atheists to understand the range of religious beliefs properly and not go after cartoon theism, which is the kind of problem we face when people like Dawkins seem to think that fundamentalism is all there is.

I am saying that atheist criticisms such as the ones you provided about morality do not affect the narrative tabled by many Christians, for reasons I have described.

The inerrancy of Bible is irrelevant to many atheist talking points. Note also that many Christians consider the Bible to be allegorical, not literal.

It's likely borrowed from Paul writing in Romans where he says even of ignorant gentiles that morality is "written on their hearts".
— Tom Storm

No, as a people of oral traditions, their history and moral codes, ideas of justice, etc. were engraved on their hearts long before the Europeans came along. They did not need to "borrow" the phrase from the Europeans. — Questioner

You can't say "no" the best you can do is say, perhaps it's this... and then provide evidence. The phrase “written on the heart” is classic Christian formulation. I said it was likely to be borrowed, but we cannot say for certain. Neither can you. But perhaps those tribal people you referenced did not use precisely that Christian expression at all and said something similar. We cannot determine the true nature of that quote, or even if it was actually uttered, from this forum.

The fact that religions seem to contain similar ideas leads perennialists to conclude that spiritual truth is the same across all traditions. Many academic Christians study other religions and regard them as also containing truth about the transcendent.

There's not staggeringly different, that’s why I mentioned famous and popular publishers from 100 years ago who printed lies and defamations every single day. And it wasn't by omission, it was blatant phoney narratives. Hearst and Pulitzer famously made up atrocities during the Spanish-American War of 1898, helping to sway the public. And God knows how many individuals were destroyed by fake news. Leo Frank was famously lynched by a mob when newspapers wrongly accused him of murder in 1913, and in the 1980s there was the notorious Central Park Five case where media reported on the guilt and criminal intent of some Latino and Black kids who were later proven innocent. There are endless historical examples of this. Mainstream media often used to print lies and untruths with cavalier disregard for the truth. Which is not the same thing as saying that all journalism has always been bad.

But still depends on an external source for empathy - a god - and empathy is not that but something we developed as we evolved as a social species. — Questioner

I don’t think that’s right by their reasoning because under this view (Calvin, Anslem, Aquinas) all goodness, in whatever form it takes, is grounded in God’s nature rather than existing independently of it. When we care for others, when we have empathy, we are participating in or responding to that nature as it is reflected in us. A developed expression of this idea is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where moral concern or empathy is not confined to one’s own community but is extended even to detestable outsiders.

I recall a quote from an 18th century Indigenous person - who said to a colonizer - "You white folk need a Big Book to tell you what is right, but what is right is engraved upon my heart." — Questioner

Interesting that you wrote it like this. The idea that morality is engraved upon our hearts is a common frame used by Christians, who argue that regardless of the ten commandments, morality is part of God’s nature within us, which is how many of them explain an atheist having capacity for goodness. It's likely borrowed from Paul writing in Romans where he says even of ignorant gentiles that morality is "written on their hearts".

Empathy came first, religion followed.

But religion got itself all tied up with all kinds of hypocrisies. And, humans just got smarter, and reject fairy tales as fact. — Questioner

Yes, although some religious folk will say that since goodness emanates directly from God’s nature, we are good because it reflects God’s nature, with empathy being a part of the divine character. This would predate religion.

I’ve generally held that theists have no objective basis for moral beliefs. A key indicator of this is that even within a single religion all they can do is disagree on most moral issues. No one can demonstrate which god is real, or what that god believes about morality. It's all contested interpretations. So what we have are vehement disagreements between believers about what’s good. God doesn’t solve any problems when it comes to making moral decisions.

There's always been a war on truth in the media, a feature I’ve observed for decades, and it was even worse when we had consistent enemies like godless communists, war protesters, and drug users to hate with impunity. It’s somewhat more expertly organised than before, using tools borrowed from earlier sensationalist, untruthful media barons like Beaverbrook, Hearst, Pulitzer, Harmsworth, and, more recently, Murdoch.

we need to remind those who give us news that their job requires them to investigate the stories, vet them, and then tell us the whole story without bias. — Athena

I guess I’ve never entirely subscribed to the view that there is a truth which mirrors nature, or a position on an event that is without bias. I agree that stories are often slanted in particular directions and that they might suit a particular narrative, but I recognise that my version of a given story or event does the same thing. Because it reflects my values, I tend to think of it as “more truthful”.

What I want from the media are stories that reflect complexity and, as you say, something like a 'whole story', with context and a sense of balance. But one problem with journalism is that the public enjoys outrage and clickbait. I’m not sure there’s much money in balance. While I don’t think we can remove bias, I think we can do better by providing more sophisticated, less sensationalised accounts of events.

Yes this would seem to be right but I suspect cunning arguments are available against this position. They may already have been stated, but I dip in and out and lack focus.

Got ya. :up::up:

Nice. Thanks.

I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson. — Wayfarer

That's a bit pf a tantalising idea. Are there 2 or 3 aspects of this particularly you can dot point?

But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) . — Joshs

As far as I can understand this I would be sympathetic to Hegel, a less essentialist perspective. Was this view a refinement built upon Kant?

My points were from my experience of observing the church members when attending the churches in my teens. — Corvus

So are you saying this is your interpretation of what you saw? Or are you saying that your church members and church leaders also aimed to provide false promises or illusions?

I would agree with you that many of religion’s claims are dubious but its members tend to be sincere. Isn’t this the tragedy? That’s certainly what I found growing up in the Baptist tradition.

I read the opposite stories - Please have a read on the life of A. J. Ayer his final days. — Corvus

I have done more than read, I've seen it. And as I said, there are some who behave as you say but it often goes in reverse.

Building community sounds like recruiting the disciples and converting folks. but in different wordings. — Corvus

No, it isn’t different wording; it’s a fundamentally different lens. Your example is a common secular view of religion that uses pejorative language to describe aims. See below.

If we agree that religions aim to achieve converting the ordinary folks in the streets into their cults and sectors giving false promise and illusion for afterlife — Corvus

I'd say religions aims for truth not false promises or illusions. What you are describing is not the aim of religion but a skeptic's view of religions aims.

We need to think about what religions try to achieve. If we agree that religions aim to achieve converting the ordinary folks in the streets into their cults and sectors giving false promise and illusion for afterlife and reincarnation, then they have been successful, because there are many believers in the teachings. — Corvus

I don't think religion tries to achieve that; that’s a specific description a sceptic might provide. Firstly, there are religions that do not work around conversion. But in essence, most religion works to build community around a shared notion of the transcendent.

And sooner or later, the non-belivers and agnostics tend to turn to religions when they get older. — Corvus

It goes in reverse too. I worked in palliative care and watched people die, many of whom were religious, including priests, nuns, ministers, and monks. Many of them confessed that they no longer believed in God, not because they were dying, but because, as they were dying, they reviewed their beliefs and felt God lacking real traction.

No, that's Steiner in 1979. The black notebooks just put an end to any possibility of apology. — frank

Ah huh! Good line by the way.

Well, it's just that most of us would be filled with horror at the thought of lighting a golden retriever on fire. — frank

These days it seems that some people are more uncomfortable with golden retrievers on fire than people.

One of Heidegger's biographers accused him of sadism due to his easy attitude toward violence and even genocide. — frank

Is that accurate? Is that Black Notebokk stuff?

If someone is happy with the concept of humans being tortured eternally, maybe there's some sadism to it? — frank

Well if God is happy with this who are we not to share the enthusiasm?

There is certainly a power to collective belief. — Janus

Yep, there's a power in shared worldviews, motivated reasoning, and magical thinking. I can think of subcultures here (I’m sure you can too) who claim to have experienced things which are not particularly surprising, but are taken as incontrovertible evidence of magic.

My favourite was a man I knew who had been one of L. Ron Hubbard’s early assistants back in the 1960s. I asked him if L. Ron was special. He said, "Yes, very much." He once witnessed L. Ron’s hair go from grey one day to red the next.

"Hair dye?" I offered. He looked pained, thought for a while, and then said, "No. Will power."

Tribalism

Baptists are a broad church unto themselves. They allow individual churches to set interpretive values. I grew up in that tradition, and my Baptists were liberals and regarded the Bible as a collection of myths and allegories. We took a soft-core perennialist approach, like many modern Christians do. All religions are fragments of the truth, told in different ways. I generally interpreted this to mean that all religions are mistaken; they try to provide consolation and community. The Baptists up the road from my old house believe all other denominations are wrong and destined for hell.

Life as we know it is in the realm of partial truths. — frank

Is that yours? I like it. The interesting thing is that we don’t agree on those partials. Maybe if you put everyone's partials together, you get the whole truth? Sorry, dumb quip.

The US Military isn't there yet. — ssu

Let’s hope so. Would your assessment be that the President and his backers are working on complete military control so that he/they can retain power indefinitely?

So are you saying that Trump does not currently have enough key military personnel aligned with his administration to enforce his authority beyond constitutional or legislative limitations?

I haven't seen a movie in a theater in about 20 years. I really don't think they make them as well as they used to — T Clark

Me too. Not sure if they make them well or not. I think I don't watch them as well as I used to.

Yes, I kinda ran out of steam. You may also be an old coot like me. — T Clark

I think so. I was 45 when I turned 12...

What is encouraging is that the Daily Mail reports this planning is resisted by the joint chiefs of staff as an illegal order. — ssu

How long do you think some parts of the US military elite will hold out against a maverick US president? As far as I can tell, apart from them, there's really nothing to stop him.

What's absent, amongst other things, is the usual, somewhat naive view that truth is about practicality, that the utility of a sentence is what renders it true, or that there are no true sentences, only more useful ones. — Banno

That’s more my speed.

Well... we see things, and talk about them and so on - we interact with them and with each other. What place there is for private mental phenomenon in all this is at the very least questionable. — Banno

To some extent your response here also seems pragmatic.

Reading Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

A fairly easy read, although I can’t claim to remember it all as I go along. It reads like the eccentric lecture notes of a favourite, slightly idiosyncratic philosophy lecturer.

"The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad. A book within a book. Adolf Hitler's putsch fails so he escapes and comes to the US and becomes a science fiction writer. In the inner book--"Lord of the Swastika"--he puts all his crazed racial fantasies into words instead of death. Clever but sort of a one-joke routine. — T Clark

There was a film a few years ago called Max that seemed to argue that Hitler might have remained a harmless artist, but after being rejected by art school, he did not abandon art so much as transform it into performance art through politics, with Nazism, and ultimately the Holocaust, conceived as a perverse aesthetic project enacted on society itself. Disturbing stuff.

But as I wrote, it doesn’t matter if you are part of an intersubjective community.

Perennialism doesn’t avoid this either - the work of finding the One Truth generates a multiplicity of responses, as noted above.

Why do religions fail? I am not sure that they do. Much depends on what “failure” is taken to mean. Does it matter, for example, that within Christianity there are multiple interpretations of any given doctrine or dogma? Not really, because each Christian group sustains its own intersubjective agreement. Consistency across groups is not required.

Religions are inconsistent precisely because they are human artefacts: they manage fear, create meaning, and develop codes of conduct. It would be surprising if they were otherwise.

The idea that there is One Truth is itself part of the reason religions diverge. The attempt to codify doctrine pushes each group or sect to develop what it takes to be the correct path.

This is also how we arrive at perennial philosophy: yet another attempt to identify the truth that supposedly underlies them all. Perennialists themselves are divided into schisms in this same, ultimately vain, search for a single truth.

Perennial philosophy is itself neither unified nor internally consistent. Once one attempts to isolate a supposed “single truth” underlying religious and philosophical traditions, one is forced into acts of selection and curation that vary from thinker to thinker. Huxley’s experiential and psychologised perennialism stands in clear tension with Plotinus’ rigorously metaphysical hierarchy of being, while both diverge sharply from traditionalist accounts that insist on fixed metaphysical and social orders. In some cases, most notable in the work of Julius Evola, appeals to a perennial truth are tied up with explicitly reactionary, hierarchical, and fascist-adjacent politics.

Rather than revealing deep unity, perennial philosophy itself generates a family of competing constructions, unified more by aspiration than by substance. In this they are just like religions.

But at any rate, noumena in the Kantian sense is not a compromise of any kind, but rather an example of understanding coloring outside its own rule-bound lines. — Mww

That's a nice way of framing it.