Objective Morality and God

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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:15 am
LuckyR wrote:
Steve3007 wrote:I think the answer to this is that those 4300 (or however many there are) religions are all different ways of looking at the same underlying thing. Metaphors about blind people feeling elephants are sometimes invoked.
Congratulations on a classic retrospective rationalization.
I was just telling you how, in my experience, a lot of religious people answer the point that there are many different religions in the world. They propose that those religions are all different ways of looking at the same thing. They look for common features of the religions as evidence, including common features of their various moral codes.

Yes, Hindus assert that all the beings that humans refer to as God are aspects of the one God, and they accept all of these names, because all of the Gods they label address the one God. That's their view, with which I wholeheartedly agree. So although I choose to honour God using the name of Gaia, I believe in Mithras, Ishtar, Quetzlcoatl, and the other 4296 too. For me, it's not "God is great", but only "God is God". I don't think Steve is presenting "a classic retrospective rationalization", but only an opinion, one that is not uncommon.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Pattern-chaser wrote: March 10th, 2021, 10:03 am
Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:15 am
LuckyR wrote:
Steve3007 wrote:I think the answer to this is that those 4300 (or however many there are) religions are all different ways of looking at the same underlying thing. Metaphors about blind people feeling elephants are sometimes invoked.
Congratulations on a classic retrospective rationalization.
I was just telling you how, in my experience, a lot of religious people answer the point that there are many different religions in the world. They propose that those religions are all different ways of looking at the same thing. They look for common features of the religions as evidence, including common features of their various moral codes.

Yes, Hindus assert that all the beings that humans refer to as God are aspects of the one God, and they accept all of these names, because all of the Gods they label address the one God. That's their view, with which I wholeheartedly agree. So although I choose to honour God using the name of Gaia, I believe in Mithras, Ishtar, Quetzlcoatl, and the other 4296 too. For me, it's not "God is great", but only "God is God". I don't think Steve is presenting "a classic retrospective rationalization", but only an opinion, one that is not uncommon.
I don't disagree that "any and all gods work for me" (including devil worship, btw) is a valid opinion, but I do disagree with you that it is not uncommon, it is quite uncommon.

And for the vast majority who don't subscribe to any and all gods, including Satan, the concept of god based objective morality is, in fact illogical, and attempts to gloss over the illogic is typically a rationalization.

Now this may not apply to you, but if so, you are the exception.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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LuckyR wrote: March 10th, 2021, 2:24 pm ...the concept of god based objective morality is, in fact illogical...

Agreed.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:24 am
Sy Borg wrote:When times are desperate enough, morals are increasingly treated as baggage, or even frippery. Perhaps the most durable moral code is that of reciprocity - that if I do right by you then you will not exploit that goodwill. Yet even that morality could reasonably fall away if it meant saving the life of your children.

What of the moral of protecting one's children? But what if that child grows up to be a sadistic criminal?
This is where the conversation often turns towards looking at the underlying evolutionary reasons why various moral codes emerged. And that's where I think people start to have a genuine point in saying that there is a sense in which morality can be seen as existing objectively.

So, for example, the near-universality of that principle of reciprocity that you mentioned reflects a basic objective fact about the way that societies of people function most efficiently. It's arguably simply a reflection of the efficiency of the concepts of division of labour and being a social animal.
Yep, that cooperative groups tend to out-compete less cooperative groups so, in hindsight, it was inevitable in more cooperative groups prevail. Technology amplified the effect, ie. you need much cooperation to achieve technology breakthroughs that help to empower for a group.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Belindi wrote: March 10th, 2021, 7:10 am Sy Borg wrote:
When times are desperate enough, morals are increasingly treated as baggage, or even frippery. Perhaps the most durable moral code is that of reciprocity - that if I do right by you then you will not exploit that goodwill. Yet even that morality could reasonably fall away if it meant saving the life of your children.

What of the moral of protecting one's children? But what if that child grows up to be a sadistic criminal?
When times are desperate enough there is ample evidence morality becomes more tribal , less universal. If desperate enough tribal means one's immediate family or even oneself. Social class /racism is more evident when people are more competitive and less cooperative. The evidence is increasing that right wing politics and popular political- moral feeling correlate with climate change and pandemic.

The universal edict of all modern religions (i.e. not superstition or magic)correlates with increasing civilisation and subsequent need for men to co-exist without killing each other.

Reciprocity is necessary but not sufficient for universalistic religious social control. Reciprocity is after the event, whereas intention before the event is important in all modern civilised religions.

There will always be tension between the individual and the society, as in your example of the delinquent child. Sometimes the pull is towards the good of the society and sometimes towards the individual.
Yes, the harder the times, the smaller the circle of concern.

Religions seemed to make sense in the past. People were more wild and violent, and trying to keep them from overt selfish behaviours would have been devilishly hard - so much so that they evoked the idea of God's omniscience and Hell*. If the masses believe that God is watching them all the time and that failure to follow the rules results in eternal torment in the fires of Hell, then they are less likely to behave like hoods. That would save a lot of trouble and expense. No, of course, hell has been rationalised to the point where it's now seen as only being for one's ideological enemies.

* The idea of Hell is interesting - the idea that there is a realm in the Earth's lower crust that is essentially burning pit. The ancients seem to have a general horror of both non-human life and of geology, the latter being seen as an antagonist to life, life's antithesis. Interesting that people back then seemed to know that deep down in the Earth is burning hot. The Russians, of course, knew all about this after drilling the deepest hole ever - 12 kms down - at which depth the drill bit melted due to the intense heat. Not sure how the ancients would have known it, perhaps stories of very deep and hot caves?
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Sy Borg wrote:
Religions seemed to make sense in the past. People were more wild and violent, and trying to keep them from overt selfish behaviours would have been devilishly hard - so much so that they evoked the idea of God's omniscience and Hell*.
True, supernatural authority wedded to political power is diminished and, one hopes, diminishing. Supernatural authority too often went hand in hand with an arrogant , entitled, and dynastic ruling class.

The US is a special case where money not dynastic status gives entitlement to authority. However the US too lodges arrogance and entitlement with supernatural authority and political power if not with dynastic inheritance of authority. A glaring example of this is Trump's clever cynicism in staging the scene where Bible in hand he posed in front of a church building.

In these days of information for all, the British royal family has found it increasingly difficult to maintain its mystique of spiritual authority and is revealed as merely part of the wealthy ruling class. Individuals among the wealthy ruling class, such as Queen Elizabeth, are well -meaning and dutiful, or Diana who was sympathique, but generally the wealthy ruling class of all nations has lacked education that teaches empathy with the lower orders.

There are a few rare signs that supernatural authority is being reclaimed by churches in the name of, not power, but peace and justice: the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has supported the basic living wage, and Pope Francis has gone to Iraq where he and Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani of Shia Islam have forged bonds of sympathy and understanding .
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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LuckyR wrote: March 10th, 2021, 2:24 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: March 10th, 2021, 10:03 am
Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:15 am
LuckyR wrote:Congratulations on a classic retrospective rationalization.
I was just telling you how, in my experience, a lot of religious people answer the point that there are many different religions in the world. They propose that those religions are all different ways of looking at the same thing. They look for common features of the religions as evidence, including common features of their various moral codes.

Yes, Hindus assert that all the beings that humans refer to as God are aspects of the one God, and they accept all of these names, because all of the Gods they label address the one God. That's their view, with which I wholeheartedly agree. So although I choose to honour God using the name of Gaia, I believe in Mithras, Ishtar, Quetzlcoatl, and the other 4296 too. For me, it's not "God is great", but only "God is God". I don't think Steve is presenting "a classic retrospective rationalization", but only an opinion, one that is not uncommon.
I don't disagree that "any and all gods work for me" (including devil worship, btw) is a valid opinion, but I do disagree with you that it is not uncommon, it is quite uncommon.

15% of the world's population (1.2 billion) are Hindus, so even if no other non-Hindu but me shares their view on God and Her various names, I think it's still fair to observe that such opinions are "not uncommon". And yes, this certainly includes "devil worship". God embraces and includes good and bad (or any other pair of opposites we care to name), and the various 'Gods' that humans venerate reflect this diversity, I think.

But I do not accept objective morality in any guise, so I don't see that including God into the argument makes a difference. Morality is not universal, so it can't be objective. I can't see how any theory can get around that particular difficulty. Only by insisting that "objective" does not imply universality could such a position be justified, and if "objective" does not carry with it the message of universality, it's difficult for me to see what the word might be intended to mean...?
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:24 am
Sy Borg wrote:When times are desperate enough, morals are increasingly treated as baggage, or even frippery. Perhaps the most durable moral code is that of reciprocity - that if I do right by you then you will not exploit that goodwill. Yet even that morality could reasonably fall away if it meant saving the life of your children.

What of the moral of protecting one's children? But what if that child grows up to be a sadistic criminal?
This is where the conversation often turns towards looking at the underlying evolutionary reasons why various moral codes emerged. And that's where I think people start to have a genuine point in saying that there is a sense in which morality can be seen as existing objectively.

I'm sorry, I don't think this argument stands up. You argue that "evolutionary reasons why various moral codes emerged" may suggest a common theme in our moral codes, and I agree. But what reason is there to believe that this commonality is universal? For "objective", in this context, carries with it "universal" as one aspect of its meaning, doesn't it? To equate commonality with objectivity is no different to asserting that consensus = objectivity, as far as I can see. And that latter is easily refuted by remembering that there was a time, not too long ago, when the consensus was that the Earth is flat, but objectivity said otherwise (even if we didn't know that at the time).


Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:24 am So, for example, the near-universality of that principle of reciprocity that you mentioned reflects a basic objective fact about the way that societies of people function most efficiently. It's arguably simply a reflection of the efficiency of the concepts of division of labour and being a social animal.

Here you seem to say what I am saying, referring to "near-universality" when you (presumably?) meant "widespread". But then, farther on in the sentence, you describe that widespread thing as "a basic objective fact", which seems to say "universal" and not "near-universal". It's just one word - maybe the one word that causes more disagreement among philosophers than any other single word - but "objective" in this context surely carries with it "universal" as part of its meaning? Your position is a bit like saying that "whole" and "most of it" are synonymous.

So no, I don't think your argument in any way justifies the view that morality could be seen as objective (universal).
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Pattern-chaser wrote:Only by insisting that "objective" does not imply universality could such a position be justified, and if "objective" does not carry with it the message of universality, it's difficult for me to see what the word might be intended to mean...?
I don't agree that objective means necessarily universal. I think it means being part of the real world, or relationships between things in the real world, as opposed to being abstract. By "real" here I mean extra-mental and by "abstract" here I mean concepts in minds with no necessary mapping to anything extra-mental - thoughts.

But obviously, as has been discovered in a lot of discussion in other topics, the words "objective" and "subjective" are used with various different shades of meaning in different contexts.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Pattern-chaser wrote:I'm sorry, I don't think this argument stands up. You argue that "evolutionary reasons why various moral codes emerged" may suggest a common theme in our moral codes, and I agree. But what reason is there to believe that this commonality is universal?
There isn't a reason to believe that it is universal. In my view that doesn't stop it from existing objectively (see previous post). I think that human bodies and brains exist objectively, in the sense that they are real and not abstract (using those words in the sense described in the previous post). I think that various facts about the ways that humans tend to behave, as a result of our evolution, exist objectively in the same sense. Note: I said "tend to behave" and not "always necessarily behave". But just because those behaviours are not universal that doesn't mean they don't exist objectively.

None of this means that I'm claiming that the tastes, dispositions and preferences that we sometimes call "morals" exist objectively. I'm simply saying that the underlying evolved mechanisms from which those tastes, dispositions and preferences emerged do exist objectively.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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The usual cause of apparent disagreement around here is linguistic ambiguity, and this is probably no exception. In this case, a possible cause of confusion, and therefore apparent disagreement, is the precise sense in which the word "universal" is being used.

If we were to say "objective means universal", what might we mean? I think we might mean one of at least two distinct things. We could mean that to exist objectively is to exist everywhere. Or we could mean that to exist objectively is to be potentially detectable by an arbitrarily large number of potential observers. We could take that second meaning to be equivalent to saying that to exist objectively is to exist independently of human minds. i.e. we could convert the epistemological language of that meaning into ontological language.

I use "existing objectively" to mean the second one.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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HJCarden wrote: February 16th, 2021, 5:55 pm I am a theist, and I believe in objective morality, but I believe that I have justification for objective morality in God's existence.
You opinion is not valid.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Sculptor1 wrote: March 11th, 2021, 9:14 am
HJCarden wrote: February 16th, 2021, 5:55 pm I am a theist, and I believe in objective morality, but I believe that I have justification for objective morality in God's existence.
You opinion is not valid.
Get off of a website discussing philosophy then. If this is your response to someone who has a justifiable but differing belief system, try twitter or facebook, that is where this type of "discussion" takes place.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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HJCarden wrote: March 11th, 2021, 11:04 am
Sculptor1 wrote: March 11th, 2021, 9:14 am
HJCarden wrote: February 16th, 2021, 5:55 pm I am a theist, and I believe in objective morality, but I believe that I have justification for objective morality in God's existence.
You opinion is not valid.
Get off of a website discussing philosophy then. If this is your response to someone who has a justifiable but differing belief system, try twitter or facebook, that is where this type of "discussion" takes place.
You began this discussion by saying that others' opinion is not valid.
How does that feel for you?
The point is, when it comes to matters of "objectivity" opinions are not valid in any sense.
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Re: Objective Morality and God

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Pattern-chaser wrote: March 11th, 2021, 7:24 am
LuckyR wrote: March 10th, 2021, 2:24 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: March 10th, 2021, 10:03 am
Steve3007 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 6:15 am

I was just telling you how, in my experience, a lot of religious people answer the point that there are many different religions in the world. They propose that those religions are all different ways of looking at the same thing. They look for common features of the religions as evidence, including common features of their various moral codes.

Yes, Hindus assert that all the beings that humans refer to as God are aspects of the one God, and they accept all of these names, because all of the Gods they label address the one God. That's their view, with which I wholeheartedly agree. So although I choose to honour God using the name of Gaia, I believe in Mithras, Ishtar, Quetzlcoatl, and the other 4296 too. For me, it's not "God is great", but only "God is God". I don't think Steve is presenting "a classic retrospective rationalization", but only an opinion, one that is not uncommon.
I don't disagree that "any and all gods work for me" (including devil worship, btw) is a valid opinion, but I do disagree with you that it is not uncommon, it is quite uncommon.

15% of the world's population (1.2 billion) are Hindus, so even if no other non-Hindu but me shares their view on God and Her various names, I think it's still fair to observe that such opinions are "not uncommon". And yes, this certainly includes "devil worship". God embraces and includes good and bad (or any other pair of opposites we care to name), and the various 'Gods' that humans venerate reflect this diversity, I think.

But I do not accept objective morality in any guise, so I don't see that including God into the argument makes a difference. Morality is not universal, so it can't be objective. I can't see how any theory can get around that particular difficulty. Only by insisting that "objective" does not imply universality could such a position be justified, and if "objective" does not carry with it the message of universality, it's difficult for me to see what the word might be intended to mean...?
Uummm... I wouldn't be citing Hindus in India (94% of all Hindus) as an example of religious tolerance, if I was trying to find an example of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence ... s_in_India
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