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OfflinePaleocon
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Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality
    #7735909 - 12/09/07 09:55 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

You need to have faith in a Higher Being to justify morality. Why? Because otherwise why choose to be moral?

Throughout life we can choose to be anything we want. If someone pulls a gun on me, and demands my money or my life-I can choose to comply, to do a dance, to fight back, etc.

Likewise, I can to an extent choose why kind of person I am, and what kind of values I adhere to. I can choose to be a religious person or a hedonistic person. I can choose to be a person who values their family, or a person who only cares about themselves.

Likewise I can choose to be a moral person, or an immoral person. But what exactly decides morality?

Does choice alone decide morality? Now that wouldn't make much sense. For that would be circular. I mean, I could choose to have murder moral or immoral-as pro-choicers tend to do. Or I can choose to have stealing be moral (as socialists/communists believe) or immoral (as capitalists and libertarians believe). But that is definately absurd. How can murder be moral and immoral at the same time? And does anyone intuitively agree with the claim that murder is moral?

The fact is choice is infinite, but morality is definite. So to have morality, there must be something outside of choice. Outside of consciousness, and mere subjectivity, and that means a Higher Power. Some conscious will which makes the ultimate choice which we can all choose to either follow or ignore.

That is why I don't believe in secular morality or government, as neither can explain what makes one set of choices true morality, and another set of choices false morality. The only opinion which allows for any functional morality-that which can allow one to definitely say "murder is immoral"-is one based on some sort of divine commandment. Anything else is nothing more then mere nihilism and subjectivism.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7735954 - 12/09/07 10:13 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Frankly, I don't see how avoiding something for fear of divine retribution is any more moral than avoiding it for fear of legal retribution. Morals are fundamentally a function of us being social animals. In order for society to operate, we have to have a certain agreed upon set of rules. Not murdering would be pretty high on that set of priorities, as would stealing. Note that both murder and theft are typically defined in terms of what the individual can do, not the state. Incidentally, Buddhists don't believe in God, and yet I think you'll find Buddhists countries on average have a much lower murder rate than Christian countries.


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7735995 - 12/09/07 10:26 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
Frankly, I don't see how avoiding something for fear of divine retribution is any more moral than avoiding it for fear of legal retribution. Morals are fundamentally a function of us being social animals. In order for society to operate, we have to have a certain agreed upon set of rules. Not murdering would be pretty high on that set of priorities, as would stealing. Note that both murder and theft are typically defined in terms of what the individual can do, not the state. Incidentally, Buddhists don't believe in God, and yet I think you'll find Buddhists countries on average have a much lower murder rate than Christian countries.




Buddhists still believe in a Higher Power.

In any event, its not up to you to decide what is real morality or not. That is, like I said, just subjectivism and nihilism. Why can't we just have murder be moral under such a system?

As far as defining morality as social utility-give me a break. If we prove that it is more useful for society to murder the diabled should we do so? Again we are stuck with the problem of moral nihilism, we are only moving the problem to the social level instead of the individual. And what you speak of is collectivism.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736007 - 12/09/07 10:29 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Paleocon said:
In any event, its not up to you to decide what is real morality or not.



Decide? No. Use my reasoning skills? Yes, that makes more sense than following a burning bush(or our current Bush).


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InvisibleHuehuecoyotl
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736011 - 12/09/07 10:31 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

What's morality? Sounds like an imaginary game to me.


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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736045 - 12/09/07 10:40 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
Quote:

Paleocon said:
In any event, its not up to you to decide what is real morality or not.



Decide? No. Use my reasoning skills? Yes, that makes more sense than following a burning bush(or our current Bush).




And then maybe you can tell me the axiom which shows that murder is immoral. Because if not, then you have to admit logic is morally neutral.

And if logic is morally neutral, that means morality exists outside of reason. Morality exists in the Mind of God.


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #7736051 - 12/09/07 10:42 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Huehuecoyotl said:
What's morality? Sounds like an imaginary game to me.




You wouldn't say that if someone raped your sister or murdered your family. I see people like you all the time, people who dismiss morality, the police, and the law. But when something bad happens to them it is truly amazing how quickly they change their story.

Perhaps some people can only learn the hard way-that is by their own experience. But those who are truly wise learn from the experience of others.


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Invisibledemiu5
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736078 - 12/09/07 10:47 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Paleocon said:
In any event, its not up to you to decide what is real morality or not. That is, like I said, just subjectivism and nihilism. Why can't we just have murder be moral under such a system?




it is, just look at our and most other militaries


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channel your inner Larry David


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736082 - 12/09/07 10:47 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

And then maybe you can tell me the axiom which shows that murder is immoral.



I already did. See comments re: society and its functions.

Quote:

You wouldn't say that if someone raped your sister or murdered your family.



If that happened, I would have a subjective experience of outrage and unhappiness. The purpose of the rule of law is to prevent such tragedies. That doesn't make it moral or immoral. It's a matter of it being beneficial or harmful.

Your example just goes to show that morality is in the mind of man, not of God(actually, we are God, but that's beyond the grasp religious conservatives like yourself).


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: demiu5]
    #7736115 - 12/09/07 10:57 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

demius said:
Quote:

Paleocon said:
In any event, its not up to you to decide what is real morality or not. That is, like I said, just subjectivism and nihilism. Why can't we just have murder be moral under such a system?




it is, just look at our and most other militaries




No murder happens. That doesn't mean it is moral. Just because something happens does not mean it is right.

If you think otherwise, then you may as well lie down and die the next time you get cancer. Because that is what naturally will happen. If you instead choose to go see a doctor, it is because you don't believe in inevitability, or the idea that something is right just because it is occuring.


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736126 - 12/09/07 11:01 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
I already did. See comments re: society and its functions.




Nonsense. Logic is morally neutral because the epistemic and axiological are two totally different things. Again-show me the logical axiom that says murder is immoral.

Put up or shut up.

Quote:

Silversoul said:If that happened, I would have a subjective experience of outrage and unhappiness.




Because deep down you know its wrong. If it is just pure choice, why not just choose to be happy about your sister being raped, or your family being murdered?

I mean why not just define both acts as moral? You cannot actually justify your position without a higher power, and you deep down believe such justification exists.

That is because you expect the law to save you, even though it would be far more convenient for the politician and yourself to simply declare murder/rape "moral" in your head, and focus on acquiring power and profit.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736144 - 12/09/07 11:06 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Because deep down you know its wrong.



It's because deep down I love my family and those close to me.  You don't seem to mourn the losses of Iraqi families on the other side of the globe.

Quote:

You cannot actually justify your position without a higher power, and you deep down believe such justification exists.



I'm not the one arguing that morality is objective, so of course no higher power is needed for humans to agree to consider certain things moral and certain things immoral.

Quote:

That is because you expect the law to save you, even though it would be far more convenient for the politician and yourself to simply declare murder/rape "moral" in your head, and focus on acquiring power and profit.



Oh please. :rolleyes:

"Moralists" like yourself have been the biggest power-mongers ever.  See: Pat Robertson and Jerry Faldwell.


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736158 - 12/09/07 11:10 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Ok SilverSoul let me ask you a question, why should I pay taxes to enforce a law to protect *your* family? You may love your family, but that doesn't mean I care about your family one bit. And lets pretend I don't care about my family either. Lets say I don't care about murder. Lets say the majority of people don't.

On what grounds can you then argue that we should outlaw murder? You will search in vain for such an answer. Yet you still seem to believe murder is wrong.

So either you acknowledge that there is a higher power, something outside your mere subjecivity, or you are simply a hypocrite with a contradictory point of view.

Or you admit that murder can be moral, in which case we may as well abandon the legal system all together and live in a state where the only laws enforced are to protect those in power. I mean, if I was a politician, and I had the power, and I thought murder can be moral I would just use that power to murder anyone who got in my way. And why shouldn't I?

And you couldn't say I was wrong in any objective sense. Sure you could whine about it, but your whining would have absolutely no legitimacy whatsoever.


Edited by Paleocon (12/09/07 11:13 AM)


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736188 - 12/09/07 11:18 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Paleocon said:
Ok SilverSoul let me ask you a question, why should I pay taxes to enforce a law to protect *your* family?



Because the same law protects your family as well. That's how laws work. They're set up for the benefit of society and the individual. If you don't personally care about your family, that's your problem, but most people in society care about their families, and also don't want to be murder victims themselves. Thus, we outlaw murder and pay a special group of people to "serve and protect."

You seem to have the deluded belief that subjectivity means only the beliefs of one person. You don't seem to understand the concept of inter-subjectivity.


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736201 - 12/09/07 11:23 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
Quote:

Paleocon said:
Ok SilverSoul let me ask you a question, why should I pay taxes to enforce a law to protect *your* family?



Because the same law protects your family as well. That's how laws work.




Did you not read my post? I'm saying IF I don't care about my family. And lets say nobody else cares either. Then what's your point? Ultimately all you would have to argue is that we all randomly decide that families are valuable-which is moral nihilism-which proves my point.

And why care about your family anyways? Why shoulder that burden or incovenience?
Again all you can do is beg the question.


Edited by Paleocon (12/09/07 11:27 AM)


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736230 - 12/09/07 11:32 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Did you not read my post?



Did you not read the rest of my post?


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736251 - 12/09/07 11:39 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
Quote:

Did you not read my post?



Did you not read the rest of my post?




Is copying me all you can do? Try thinking for yourself.

And the fact is I read your post. You never answered my question of how you justify the law. You simply said you'd like it in place, and that if I didn't agree that was "my problem".

That isn't answering my question. How do you ultimately justify your position? I want a straight answer, not an evasion or a personal attack.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Paleocon]
    #7736258 - 12/09/07 11:42 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Is copying me all you can do?



I wasn't copying you.  I was pointing out your lack of comprehension.

Quote:

Try thinking for yourself.



:rofl2:  You're too much, man.

I answered your fucking questions.  Apparently you're just being too dense to comprehend my answers.


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Offlinedshroom
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736259 - 12/09/07 11:42 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

discussiing this in terms of secular law makes the point as far as i can see. the secular law against murder comes from where? ten commandments? the laws of man are the same as the laws of god in terms of defining goodness. the trick is to translate these laws into action. the laws are immutable. conversations about the laws are called religion and politics. but the laws of goodness are universal. all one has to do is put them into action and all of the argumants and contention of religion and politics disappear into bliss. ya think?


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OfflinePaleocon
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Re: Why God (or some Higher Power) is needed for morality [Re: Silversoul]
    #7736275 - 12/09/07 11:46 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
I answered your fucking questions. Apparently you're just being too dense to comprehend my answers.




Umm where? I asked you how you justify a law against murder if you don't choose to care about your family. What was your answer exactly?


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