Sorry, I didn’t realize you were playing with yourselves for amusement. I’m glad you told me.
The Ryan:
Yep, I sure do. Guess it’s only right that you point it out.
Well, I don’t exactly fit that criterion, but I’ll give it a shot.
First, the short answer. “We can’t”. Obviously if we are defining “good” as “What God wants”, it is nonsensical to say “But what if what God wants is ‘evil’?” It isn’t. Why? Because we’ve already defined it as good. Yeah it is tautological, but it seems that most GD type things eventually reach that state. (sorry, no cite 
).
A metaphor. When I took geometry oh so long ago, we had to do proofs (Because of A, B. Because of B, C, etc. etc.) to prove or disprove a particular statement. They all went back to Axioms (IIRC) which could not be proven, but were just assumed to be true. Upon reading done later in life, I think it has to do with the Incompleteness Theory (Godel?) where a system cannot be entirely self proving, but has to have a larger system to enclose it.
Human morality is considered suspect because humans, being limited and trapped within their system cannot entirely prove anything to do with their behavior. God, being outside that system, can and has done so.
The axioms for this are:
- God exists
- We have accurately received God’s commandments.
Neither axiom is likely to be shown false anytime soon.
Actually, I don’t see how a simple statement of fact – “Your problems are not mine” – is at all incongruous with being inspired to honor and respect others. Respecting others does not require taking their problems on as one’s own. I respect my boss, but I don’t want his income tax bill.
I don’t happen to think the distinction is in any way mental masturbation. It’s a serious issue that has been debated for millenia.
—eris: The OP critiqued a “knowing God’s morality” by saying, “we know God is moral because he says so” and saying that severely begged the question. But my point was, if we as humans decide what is moral it also begs the question… so what’s the problem?—
There’s a little equivocation going on here. There’s a difference between deciding (figuring out as best as one can) and deciding (determining).
Point 1 isn’t about deciding what is and is not moral, it’s about figuring out what is, via reference to the world around us.
Point 2 is unclear. It could mean this: that we supposedly know for sure that God is good, so we can use God’s example as a handy guide to figure out what is good (though we could hypothetically figure it out without any reference to god). Or, it could mean that God actually DECIDES what is good and what is bad.
The latter option of point 2 is seriously screwed up, for all the reasons that Plato outlined more than two millenia ago (makes the idea of “good” meaningless, and either irrelevant or arbitrary, makes it nonsense to call god “good”, etc.). The former option of point 2 has the serious defect that it begs the very questions we’re asking: we CANNOT “know” that god is actually good until we first know what is and is not good (and can thus compare god to this standard)
As to absimia’s case:
—Obviously if we are defining “good” as “What God wants”, it is nonsensical to say “But what if what God wants is ‘evil’?” It isn’t. Why? Because we’ve already defined it as good. Yeah it is tautological—
Which is exactly the problem Plato pointed out. It’s not just that this is tautological, but that it also makes the concept of “good” into complete nonsense. For instance, it is pointless to call god “good” when god would be “good” by definition alone no matter what. All “good” then means is “in line with god’s will.” So while you could say that not killing unruly children is against god’s will, I could just say “so what?” If you respond with “because that’s wrong” then you would simply be being deceptive, because by calling it “wrong” you are not making any new points (all you are doing is repeating “it’s against god’s will” in another form).
—God, being outside that system, can and has done so.—
You’re confusing one question with the other. Yes, there is not necessarily anything illogical about hypothesizing a god who has a special position from which to KNOW what is moral and what is not. But nothing about this ensures that god is good, that god is telling us truthfully what is good.
–The axioms for this are:
- God exists
- We have accurately received God’s commandments.—
Ok… where’s the part of this that in any way explains how we can tell that something is good or not, least of all god?
—Neither axiom is likely to be shown false anytime soon.—
Unlike geometery, however, not everyone sees any reason to accept these axioms anymore than they would accept an axiom like: 1. I am right about everything.
Well what did you think we were doing, did you think that the outcome of this debate would change the world? Flattering to the participants, but somehow I doubt it.
pld: Of course I agree with your assessment. His particular problems are not mine, but I decided to let that slide and just acknowledge that my attitude was not what it should have been behind those words.
Princhester: Well, I didn’t think you were doing that. :eek: Seriously though, the three things I am passionate about is my husband & family, my faith, and libertarianism. I never treat them lightly.
It’s more the case that axioms aren’t proven than that they cannot be proven. A statement can be an axiom in one formal system and a theorem in another (look how many statements are equivalent to the Axiom of Choice, e.g.). Completeness has to do with the provability of statements. “Pure” logic with the only predicate being equality (i.e. x=x, if x=y then y=x, if x=y and y=z then x=z) is complete, as Gödel proved. The incompleteness theorem, also due to Gödel states that in any formal system sufficiently powerful to define the arithmetic of natural numbers, there are unprovable propositions. The proof of this theorem was constructive, i.e. a particular unprovable was shown to exist. Enlarging the system doesn’t help; making a new axiom in which the unprovable is defined to be true or false leads to a new formal system with new unprovables.
Well, no; after all, they’re axioms. At best they can be shown to be inconsistent, e.g. if the accurate reception of commandments were shown to somehow imply nonexistence.
Precisely. All deductive reasoning boils down to saying the same things over again in different ways. No matter how convoluted one’s reasoning appears, no more information is contained in the conclusions than was already present in the assumptions. Ain’t it cool?
Erislover
How so?
absimia
I think you’re confusing “tautoligical” with “circular reasoning”.
pldennison
The implication was that she did not care that I was inuslted. Furthemore, there’s a difference between being concerned about other people’s problems and taking ont their responsibilities.
Everyone keeps using the quote
Would someone tell me where he said it, when and under what conditions. What I mean is cite.