Respectfully, I feel obligated to point out that such a thing is impossible, not merely difficult.
I concur. I wish Lib were able to suspend his subjective understanding and realize that his sensations are internally, not externally, based. This recognition is accessible to everyone, if they’re willing to be semantically rigorous.
Again, I concur – but where you feel the method is justified because it’s no worse than other indirect methods, I conclude that they’re not capable of conveying the truth and shouldn’t be used.
[quote]
[li]that all persons have an absolute right to exist[/li][/QUOTE]
What do you do when this universal right conflicts with itself?
I will say again, as I’ve said dozens if not hundreds of times, that my moral journey is private and unique, that our consciousnesses are closed to one another, that your journey through life ought not to be modeled on mine, that all my experience is subjective, and that my own experience is no more valid than yours.
If you do not believe in God, then there is no God in your reference frame. But there is one in mine. Can we be friends?
Surely you don’t believe that all experiences are valid…
And if we can determine whether God exists in our reference frame, then we have the ultimate power over God… which goes against everything I presume you believe.
If God’s existence is only subjective, then it’s not fundamentally real, is it?
As real as I am, at any rate. Nothing is more subjective than I.
You should not be surprised to learn that I believe that my will trumps God’s. That’s what makes me a free moral agent. It’s the reason I’m not an automaton. It is why I may, if I wish, decide either to accept or reject God and His love.
It is if it’s merely personal (it has no existence beyond yourself).
I can have a real imaginary friend, no problem. We just have to take care of the order of operations. Real (imaginary friend), as opposed to (real imaginary) friend. If I have an imaginary (real friend), then I’ve got problems.
If God exists subjectively to you, you have a real (imaginary friend). If you claim that God exists in your subjective experience only, but that God is also objectively real in a way other than your own mind is, then you have an imaginary (real friend). That’s not a good thing at all.
If that’s the case, I also have an imaginary fondness for pimento cheese, an imaginary tendency to avoid heights, and an imaginary appreciation of the C-minor harmonic scale. In fact, my whole life, consisting of my personal experience, is imaginary in the sense you use the term.
I need to step in here, briefly, to acknowledge how wonderful this thread has been, and to thank Lib for starting it (since it was at my behest). I’ve been reviewing it on a regular basis, but have not had any useful contribution to add that has not already said well by someone else.
Vorlon Aide, Would Heinlein’s definition of love as “that state in which the happiness of another is essential to your own” be sufficient to enable further discussion of what “love” means? And perhaps we can work on an objective definition of what people mean by “God” that will be mutually acceptable?
Suppose that one of them created one of the others, which created the third. Now suppose that the third created the first. Now suppose that temporal order is not significant in causality in a spiritual sense.
See?
Of course, the reality is more complex, since creative causality itself in not necessarily unidirectional in a spiritual sense, with each thing creating both other things.
But explaining such things inside of such intellectual constructs as logic, or observation and understanding is not really any more like what you are taking about than a line drawing is like a beautiful concert. The terms are not related to each other sufficiently to allow a real communication of essence.
Don’t learn about love. Love. Don’t look for God. Be as much like God as you ever can. Don’t save your lost brother’s soul. Love your brother’s lost soul.
If love is a “state”, then what is the agency of God’s goodness? To love would mean to become a state and goodness would be a mere aspect. What then would prevent a man from making Peter happy by torturing Paul? If your happiness is essential to my own, then I am merely loving myself when I make you happy.
If love is predicated on happiness, then God has failed to love whenever we are not happy. And yet, God is never closer to me than when I suffer most. If I cannot be happy unless you are happy, then how is goodness — the whole theme of morality — made manifest if you are clinically depressed?
With love, I might console you, but consolation and happiness are not the same. If you are deeply grieving the loss of a loved one, my condolences and encouragement will not make you happy. They will merely reassure you of my love and your own worth. It would in fact be cruel for me to expect you to become happy for your loss merely to facilitate my own happiness.
Goodness is not a mere attribute of God. It is His very nature. Omnipotence is an attribute, and His is a good omnipotence. Omniscience is an attribute, and His is a good omniscience. Mercy, justice, forgiveness — these are attributes of God, and in Him they all are perfectly good.
Were He not good, He would not love. He could not love, because love is not a state, it is a Living Spirit. It is the very Mouth of God by which He breathes His goodness into us. Love makes it possible for God’s goodness to be shared rather than hoarded, to flow rather than fester stagnantly.
God is Love. He is the very Source of Goodness. When you love me, God is there in the flow of goodness from you to me. Love is moral perfection; it is goodness made manifest. The Christian moral imperative — Be Perfect —is an imperative to love.
Love is not something abstract or dead. It is not something that justifies something else. It is not contingent on anything, including happiness. Love is absolute. Love is God.
xenophon: Conflict is (almost) inevitable, but the principle you elucidated doesn’t explain how it can be applied in conflict scenarios. You need another rule that allows different rights to be ranked relative to each other; otherwise, when two rights conflict, no response will be possible.
Polycarp: What do you mean by happiness?
Triskadecamus: Um, no. What have you been smoking? You’re suggesting that the ultimate nature of reality is an infinite-emulation cycle?
Well, of course not. For that you need a moral system and an understanding of ethics. I choose to base my moral system on the principles I outlined on the previous page.
Quite so. (See the tortured thread linked to in the “www” button at the bottom of this post for an example of what I’m talking about. Some of my beliefs have changed since I wrote that, but the moral and ethical system I outlined in that thread still seems internally consistent to me.)
No. I am suggesting that the ultimate extent of reality might exceed the limits of intellect. While it is a powerful tool, intelligence is only a single aspect of what human beings are, or can become.
Lib: “A state” was a noun selected more or less at random to avoid the solecism of “Love is when…” and I grant that “love” is not “a state” – my apologies for imprecise language. Love is a condition, an attribute – in God’s case, a necessary attribute.
Aide: What do I mean by happiness? I can only refer you to Mr. Justice Stewart’s definition of pornography: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”
It might be wise to break out the definitions of agapé, eros, storgë, and philia to broaden our scope here. But I’d submit as a useful adjunct to the mix, as regards agapé, Don Francisco’s thoughtful song title: Love is not a feeling; it’s an act of the will.
Love is universal communication, it’s the energy that created the world and keeps it going. God is Love. To find the source: one must go through the intellect into the depths of self to locate the creative light of God’s love that resides there.
Love is our natural state of being. We are happiest when living within love. We can do no harm to others, only good and loving acts.
Now, can we really do this? Probably not for more than short periods of time, when we are greatly inspired. But it is our task to lengthen those periods into eternity.
