This post is long overdue.
One doesn’t have to look far to find examples of moral outrage aimed towards theists in general and Christians in particular here at The Skeptical Zone.
Judgmentalism, oddly enough, is prevalent. A pungent odor of opprobrium frequently wafts its way forth from the atheist trenches, and it stinks.
Are we all moral realists after all? Do we all now agree on the existence of objective moral values? If so, what are they and what makes them objective?
As for you moral relativists, are there any of you left? Why ought anyone (including especially Erik, Gregory, myself, fifth, William) be subject to the vagaries of what you moral relativists think others ought to be doing or ought not be doing?
Such opprobrium. Based on what, exactly?
If you are going to claim that we have some moral obligation towards you, you really ought to support that claim or retract it.
After all, that’s the intellectually honest thing to do.
Rats, I’ll have to think of another metaphor for fifthmonarchyman’s invisible stamp of believability on his supposed god’s “revelations”.
I liked the first dream sequences in Inception. And the technical art started out so well, I think, with showing Ariadne how the dream architecture should be Escher-like to keep the dreaming mind in bounds. But that whole snow-army-castle sequence was tedious, and although it was over-the-top unrealistic, it certainly didn’t feel “dreamy”. The best part of it was Eames “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Maybe not quite good enough for 5 stars. 🙂
Hmm, still think there’s a valid metaphor there somewhere for fifthmonarchyman in Mal’s character. Not important, just a thought
Maybe Memento is more apt – going round and round as though previous conversations never occurred.
Oh boy, that was a tough movie.
I hear there’s gonna be a remake. What a dumb idea!
What!?
Why?
Wait, you’re kidding, right?
I actually wrote out brief descriptions of each scene of the “backward” thread so I could read them in reverse order (e.g. in chronological order) to figure out what had happened.
1) how do you know this?
2) It depends on the perspective. Before I was looking from my perspective as a fallible knower now I’m looking from God’s perspective as an infallible revealer I had not thought about it like that before.
Since knowledge is possible In my worldview I can learn new things and modify my previous positions as new information presents itself.
How can you know stuff in your worldview?
peace
Cool thanks Alan
that was not so bad was it.
there are lots of ways I can verify that something I believe is true.
When talking about presuppositions one of the best is to ask myself what would be necessarily implied if I am mistaken,
For example I know I exist because if I did not exist I could know nothing at all. Therefore I know I exist.
This knowledge like all knowledge is revelation from God.
Now that I’ve gave you a little something let me ask you this.
Is it possible that an omnipotent God can reveal stuff to me even though I don’t understand how he does it?
If you give me an answer I will describe to you another way I verify the truth of belief.
Give and take and all that
peace
Memento remake: chance to improve the original or instantly forgettable gaffe?
FMM:
Uh, you told me? Or your bot? I loose track.
LOL! The initial revelation, and/or your interpretation of same, was wrong. Now it’s right? How do you know that? Be specific.
No matter, that doesn’t help you at all. You live life and form beliefs as a fallible knower (just like me). As such, you have no more claim to knowledge than anyone else, “revelation” notwithstanding.
Even were it possible for god to reveal something to you in in such a way that you can’t be mistaken, you, by your own admission, may also harbor beliefs you take as revealed to you by god in in such a way that you can’t be mistaken, yet are mistaken about that, due to your fallibility. Because you can’t tell one from the other, the possibility of revelation of the kind that god ensures you can’t be mistaken provides no assurance that a given belief you take to reflect such revelation is in fact true – you have no way to distinguish the “real” revelations from the products of your fallibility. Perhaps god has never revealed anything to you.
Welcome to the human predicament.
In this case the new information was, “My argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.”
fifth, to RB:
That doesn’t help you. It’s obvious, fifth.
Suppose that God exists, that he’s omnipotent, and that his omnipotence includes the ability to reveal things to you in such a way that you not only know them but know that God has revealed them to you. (I don’t think that’s possible, but let’s set that aside for now.)
Now suppose that on some particular occasion — say, Christmas Day — God reveals nothing to you. There is absolutely no revelation, because God isn’t interested in revealing anything to you on that occasion.
Nevertheless, you believe on Christmas Day that God has revealed something to you. Not only do you believe it, you feel certain of it.
Could you be mistaken? Sure. You’re fallible.
Does this undermine God’s status as an “infallible revealer”? No, because he wasn’t even trying to reveal anything to you.
Conclusion: Not only could you be wrong about any particular claim of revelation that you make; you could be wrong about all of them.
From Jesus revealing it to them? How would that work, since they had no knowledge of Jesus?
You believe that you know a lot of things. But you haven’t demonstrated that you really know them. You’ve only claimed to know them. As others have pointed out, you the Fallible Human are not exempt from being dead wrong about anything that you think you know.
It depends upon the process of “revelation.” If you’ve explained how things are revealed to you, I’ve missed that explanation.
Certainly. An imaginary Omnipotent Being can piss wooden quarters.
The question is whether such a Being exists in any location other than your imagination.
I never once claimed it was revelation that I could be mistaken about revelation. and you never asked that question
know what? If you are asking how I know that God can reveal in such a way that I can know for sure, the answer is revelation.
I make no claim to private revelation. Most of the stuff that God reveals to me he reveals to you as well.
The only exception is that special revelation that all Christians have that comes with regeneration
You keep claiming this but you have provided no support for your assertion.
An omnipotent God can easily overcome my fallibility, I’m not sure why that is even in dispute
That is the point of revelation.
If there is nothing that can overcome my fallibility then knowledge is impossible.
…….I know this…….
Therefore there is something that can overcome my fallibility IOW God exists
Your own argument succeeds in proving the existence of God
peace
do you agree that it is possible for an omnipotent God to reveal stuff to you with out disclosing his identity?
1) demonstration is not necessary for knowledge
2) you are not the judge
Is it possible for God to reveal stuff with out you knowing how he did it?
No the question is
how do you know stuff?
peace
How do you know that the fifthmonarchy manbot is human?
Would God’s omnipotence include His infallibility? IOW, what sense does it make to speak of a God who is omnipotent yet cannot know whether or not what He believes is true?
Infallibility is a term with a variety of meanings related to knowing truth with certainty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infallibility
LOL! You’re a riot Mung!
However, like Fifth, you don’t get the phrase reference. Again, it’s contrast state model that invalidates the concept of and need for deities. Feel free to demonstrate problem with the model.
Well I guess if that applies to those eminent Greeks, it applies to everybody who ever lived. Everything any of us know has been revealed to us by Jesus Incognito. So we don’t have to believe in Jesus to know stuff!
FMM, your work is done here.
FMM:
You’ve stated countless times that everything is known by revelation [ETA: “all knowledge is revelation from God,” just above]. It would follow that you took both your former and now your revised beliefs as originating from revelation.
How do you know that your initial revelation, and/or your interpretation of same, was wrong, and your more recent is right?
See: laughably circular reasoning. But no, I wasn’t asking that.
About which, by your own admission, you may be mistaken due to your fallibility.
RB:
FMM:
It follows directly from this exchange:
RB:
FMM:
No the question is: How does God reveal stuff to you?
Through the senses? Through a voice in the ceiling? Through dreams? Through…anything?
You are correct. I do not. 🙂
I’ve never encountered anyone before who claimed they had no presuppositions yet still managed to declare that they are hungry as a response to something another person wrote on a blog.
When you declare that you are hungry, you must understand that your utterance has no meaning. It’s probably a good thing that our efforts to feed the hungry aren’t based on the meaningless utterances of people who are not in fact hungry.
FMM:
Can someone tell the difference without a revelation from Jesus?
Posted without comment.
Hey Mung:
Why would I explain that? It is exactly my point that none of these expectations are “objectively moral” in the sense that their “rightness” or “wrongness” derives from objective, absolute morality outside of human devising.
Rather, they originate both in the broad language community in which we participate and with the author of this site. A few were explicitly stated by Lizzie as the site was inaugurated, while others are expectations/assumptions about one another’s behavior that make conversation possible generally.
Specifically, per Paul Grice, the comprehension of ordinary utterances assumes that speakers are being appropriately brief, perspicuous, relevant, and truthful. Listeners utilize those assumptions to recover otherwise underdetermined meanings and intentions. Even highly contentious exchanges can be successful (ie. not break down, solve problems, result in negotiated agreements etc.) if these expectations are respected, and cooperative conversations break down when they are not. None of these are “objective moral values”; they are pragmatic prerequisites for functional conversation. If what is wanted is functional conversation, then they need to be honored. When they are badly violated, particularly deliberately, opprobrium is appropriate in a context (like this site) where the stated aspiration is to have functional conversations about difficult issues.
Perhaps that is why things have broken down so badly here – those expectations aren’t all that different than the site rules, and they are so often neglected.
Same answer.
Ordinary courtesy would suggest that if, for example, one poses a question directly to a participant, and that participant offers a good faith response comporting with the site rules, one should respond. While there is no explicit obligation to do so, others may observe the discourtesy and will often speculate vis motives. With each failure to respond, the inference that one is unable to respond becomes more tenable.
FMM:
Agreed. Donald Trump and FMM know a hell of a lot of stuff like that.
FMM:
FMM would not have known that he exists if Jesus hadn’t revealed it to him.
never once said you did. You are attacking a strawman
Peace
nope.
Knowledge is impossible with out truth.
Christ is the truth
If you disagree tell me how you know.
peace
fifth,
You’re still not getting it.
In my hypothetical scenario, God is capable of revealing things to you, but on Christmas Day he chooses not to, and he chooses not to overcome your fallibility.
Being fallible, you could mistakenly think that God has revealed something to you on Christmas Day when in fact he has not.
Again: Not only could you be wrong about any particular claim of revelation that you make; you could be wrong about all of them.
That is correct it’s possible to not know you exist.
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion
Given that you believe that it’s possible you are mistaken about everything you think you know How would you convince these folks that you are correct and they are mistaken?
peace
The Christian God is not only omnipotent he is Good. So there are some things that he would want to reveal to us by definition.
if my fallibility means that I could be wrong about everything and I know this it means that God has chosen to overcome my fallibility in at least one case.
Your argument itself is proof that the Christian God exists
peace
In your hypothetical scenario God, even though He is omnipotent and infallible, could reveal something that is false that God thought it to be true.
In your hypothetical scenario God could not be certain that what He thinks is true is not in fact true, because there is something apart from God that determines what is true and what is false.
Revelation, in your view, is no less fallible than humans.
Perhaps things have broken down because people are by nature selfish and rebellious and things always break down eventually unless there is a sufficient authority to act as a throttle on our passions.
What I find to be funny is the continuing optimism that this time things will finally be different
peace
I’m sure that all we need is a minor tweak to the rules. 🙂
I first read that as, “I’m sure all we need is a mirror to tweak the rules.”
Alas, I was wrong.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Funniest! Absurdity! Ever!
LOL! Being certain about something IS EXACTLY THE SAME as knowing something for certain! What a canard…
And really…that’s all academic anyway. People KNEW FOR CERTAIN that the world was flat. You and they are both WRONG, even in your silly certainty.
Nope…I never agreed to that claim. I certainly don’t believe it.
Maybe I didn’t if I responded to it previously. As I said, I do not hold such a belief at all.
fifthmonarchyman,
Yeah, ‘cos you need to put a throttle on people when you’ve gone and made them with a rebellious streak. Sounds to me like the design teams did not communicate very well.
The throttle is part of the design. Problems happen when you disable it,
Ever hear of voiding the warranty?
On the other hand the break down itself is part of the design it serves as is a constant vivid reminder of the value of that throttle you so foolishly abandoned because you thought it was not needed.
peace
are you certain about that?
OK then you believe that you could be wrong about everything you think you know,
How do you know you are not wrong right now about this very question?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Well, yeah. That’s kind of my point. Design creatures with ‘free will’. Design a limiter to that self-same free will. Then if they disable their limiter (exercising free will), boil them in hell fire for eternity. What a marvellous piece of ‘design’ work. Melted-down religious automata, going cheap.
It’s like the observation of how predators are ‘designed’ for catching & killing their prey, while meantime prey are ‘designed’ for evading their predators …
maybe the “boiling” part is simply a way to describe the breakdown and the “eternity” part is simply a gracious decision not to destroy them because of their poor choices.
I think it is.
If the purpose of the design is to demonstrate the value of the throttle. I could not think of a better way to do it. can you?
peace
and the whole system is designed to show the manifold ever changing beauty and complexity of the dance.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Maybe shmaybe. You’re guessing again. Eternal consciousness of torture seems like a shitty way for a ‘good’ entity to go. I’m not that cruel. Maybe I have overridden my programming to be better (in my NSH opinion) than that God. Or maybe that’s what he wants me to think, mwahahahaha.
What, by offering the unproven possibility of eternal torture for misuse? Yes, I could do a better job – if my purpose in making the design were to make the designed entity see how good the feature was … Although why I would design creatures in order to demonstrate to them the value of some part of them, is beyond me. I suspect we have one of those ineffable things again.
fifthmonarchyman,
To what purpose?
ultimately to demonstrate the glory of the designer
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
To whom?
1) you are not the judge
2) I can assure you that if it is not a “good” thing it will not happen.
We do see how good the feature is but we reject it anyway because we are not good
There is that selfishness again
Everything is not about you. There are other observers who would appreciate a demonstration
peace
God is a Trinity so ultimately to himself.
In a subordinate way to his creation
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Yes I am. I will, for the thousandth time, quote with approval John Stuart Mill: “I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go .”
You are not the judge. Nor are you in any position to offer me assurances.
Not the point. It’s a fool’s errand (and a vanity project) to make something merely in order that the thing made will see how ‘good’ it is. Especially if they don’t.
Yes it is.
I didn’t know that was Mill, but yep, exactly.