Christianity

[Harbal]

I would only use the word "evil" as an adjective, and completely interchangeable with the word "malicious". So, whatever the word "malicious" entails, the word "evil" would entail exactly the same.

But that still leaves both word without objective content. Both become just words people arbitrarily apply to situations they don't maybe happen to like, but which fall short of being objectively wrong, bad, malevolent, or even negative...since their only import is relative and subjective.

Yes, that is how I see it.

So there's still no such objective thing as whatever they are attempting to describe. There's just a petulant emotional outburst, entirely devoid of objective correspondence to any truth or reality.

But we can still have a strong, subjective, emotional response to events and situations. Our emotions are real, even if what triggers them isn't.

Yes, not everybody buys Neiman's distinction. But if we don't, then it means that there's nobody to blame for things like earthquakes and plagues, since they aren't really "evils," then.

I wouldn't call them evils, they are unfortunate events, from our point of view, so unfortunate events is what I would call them, or tragedies, disasters, catastrophes, etc. And no, it doesn't make any sense to blame someone for them.

So in the theodicy issue, God/universe is off the hook for all such phenomena, then.

But then, the whole theodicy problem starts to crumble, too: for if "malevolence" or "malice" is behind every "evil," then God is not responsible for evil -- man is.

Once again, the whole theodicy problem is on shaky ground, then.

As you know, I don't believe there is a God, so none of the above is my concern. But, looking at it from a believer's point of view, doesn't whatever religious belief system you subscribe to declare what God is and isn't responsible for?

Most people think "intent" is real. "Intent," however, is neutral. One can intend good or bad things, presumably.

So the real problem is that it's not clear what "malice" would entail, or that it would be objectively bad, given that the same people don't believe there's any objective reality to evil.

If so, then evil intent -being the same thing- is also subjectively real in exactly the same way.

I'm sorry, but I can't follow your reasoning here; I don't understand your point.

I'm just finding out if you're good with the four logical corollaries that follow from your belief. I'm not trying to advance my own view here; just to point out that some objective view is absolutely unavoidable. What that might entail, we can so far leave to the future, since it doesn't become applicable unless we come to realize we're going to need an objective view. There are several on offer, and we can test them all, if we want.

So the first real question is whether or not we're prepared to believe the whole package that comes with relativism on this point. Or do we see that without objective "evil," there's no theodicy problem.

But the "theodicy problem" doesn't concern me, it has no bearing on my opinion.

Justice implies equality of some sort; a balance.

Yes: but a "balance" of what?

Some people think it's a "balance" between people. I don't think that's right. I think the more accurate implication would be that person X gets "just" what he or she deserves, no more and no less. So it's a balance between the individual, on the one side, and his/her deserving, on the other.

Yes, justice is when what is received is of exact equivalence to what is deserved. But how do you work out what exactly is deserved?

So "justice" for you, as a reasonable and decent person, might be a quiet life in peace

Justice is only a feeling, something we have a sense of, but that doesn't mean justice has any existence beyond that. Human beings try to administer justice between themselves; legal systems being the most obvious example, but where is justice to be found outside of human institutions and interactions. Nature doesn't seem to practice any system of justice.

We have the concepts of lying and truthfulness, and of honouring what we agree to. We could never have developed such a complex and sophisticated level of social functioning without them. Our capacity for incorporating honesty and trustworthiness into our conduct is just part of our evolutionary inheritance. Many people, however, are not honest and trustworthy, so there cannot be an objective force or authority that compels such things.

In that case, they are just relations of convenience. Lying, truthfulness, and so forth are justifiable only so long as, and inasmuch as, they serve a person or a group; after that, they are entirely dispensible, because there's no objective reality to their rightness or wrongness...assuming "evil" is relative, of course.

I don't believe there is any objective reality to the rightness or wrongness of truthfulness and lying. The sense that we have of rightness and wrongness is real though, and that is what determines our attitude towards such things as honesty and trustworthyness. My feeling of hunger is just a subjective sensation, with no existence outside of my subjective perception, but its lack of objective reality doesn't make my desire to eat any less compelling.

Rights are what human beings grant to each other, and I do not believe there is any other source of rights. Does that make my view clear?

Yes, however, since all "human beings" are no more morally dignified than any others, being all nothing more than late products of the accidental creatorial powers of the indifferent universe, they can't "give" me anything objective. I only get to keep my rights so long as they continue to surrender them to me; and when they stop, I have no basis of complaint.

It is true that you only have rights for as long as the authority behind them grants them to you.

That's social relativism. It has all the same problems as personal relativism, but on a social rather than a personal scale. In both cases, "right" refers to nothing objectively real. And if my "society" takes away or denies my "right," then there's no sense in which I can rationally complain they've done me an injustice. My "right" came only from them; when they took it away, there was nothing left for me to appeal to. I couldn't say to anybody, "Hey, you're violating my rights!" because the rights stopped existing when my society took them from me.

Can we live with that? Would we want to?

We have to live with that, whether we want to or not, because that's the way it is.

And if that is the case, what are we to make of it?

Well, the obvious, I think: that without an objective "evil" existing, there's no way to accuse God or the universe of having treated any of us "unfairly" or "unjustly." The universe, or God, did no "evil" to us when it/He did not give us the happiness or peace we were wanting. And the old argument, "If there were a God, he would not allow evil" simply falls apart by way of its own incoherence. We don't believe in objective evil, so we don't believe there's a theodicy question.

You know I wouldn't blame God for treating me unfairly, but neither would I blame the universe. I might wonder why I couldn't have peace and happiness, and I might well look for someone to blame, but I wouldn't get it into my head that the universe had it in for me.

But as a moral objectivist, I would actually turn around now, and side with those people who pose the question. I don't think their question is idle or wrong-headed. But it is, on the terms they offer, if they don't believe in objective evil. So they'll have to decide whether they want to abandon their commitment to "evil" being purely relative, or whether they want to stop crabbing about God/universe doing them dirt. Because they can't say evil is illusory, and then indict anybody for condoning evil. That simply fails to make a lick of sense.

That's where I was going with that.

I am not one of those people, so none of that is really relevant to me.

[Immanuel Can]

But we can still have a strong, subjective, emotional response to events and situations.

Yes. But so can a toddler, when it doesn't get its way. Anybody who's had a two-year-old knows that, of course.

So we need something that separates the irrational, demanding, solipsistic squalling of an infant from our more reasoned, mature and grounded antipathy to evil. The former isn't the latter. But we need to be able to prove our antipathy to evil has something behind it, other than temper or selfishness.

As you know, I don't believe there is a God, so none of the above is my concern.

Maybe. But then, you have to be willing to give up any appeal to the idea that anything is "evil." And that's not necessarily a reasonable step, especially if there might be something objective behind our identification of some things as "evil."

Most people think "intent" is real. "Intent," however, is neutral. One can intend good or bad things, presumably.

So the real problem is that it's not clear what "malice" would entail, or that it would be objectively bad, given that the same people don't believe there's any objective reality to evil.

If so, then evil intent -being the same thing- is also subjectively real in exactly the same way.

I'm sorry, but I can't follow your reasoning here; I don't understand your point.

Well, you said "malicious intent" is what evil might be. I was just saying that that doesn't help us much. We don't know from that description what constitutes "maliciousness," and we don't know that "maliciousness" (whatever it is) is "evil."

But the "theodicy problem" doesn't concern me, it has no bearing on my opinion.

That makes sense. Given that you don't believe in any objective reality to "evil," there could not possibly even be a theodicy problem, from your worldview. So full points for consistency.

Others are less consistent. That's why the theodicy question exists, even though it's self-contradictory.

Justice implies equality of some sort; a balance.

Yes: but a "balance" of what?

Some people think it's a "balance" between people. I don't think that's right. I think the more accurate implication would be that person X gets "just" what he or she deserves, no more and no less. So it's a balance between the individual, on the one side, and his/her deserving, on the other.

Yes, justice is when what is received is of exact equivalence to what is deserved. But how do you work out what exactly is deserved?

That's a second-level question. Again, the important question at the first level is, how do we know we are owed "justice," whatever that might be?

We have the concepts of lying and truthfulness, and of honouring what we agree to. We could never have developed such a complex and sophisticated level of social functioning without them. Our capacity for incorporating honesty and trustworthiness into our conduct is just part of our evolutionary inheritance. Many people, however, are not honest and trustworthy, so there cannot be an objective force or authority that compels such things.

In that case, they are just relations of convenience. Lying, truthfulness, and so forth are justifiable only so long as, and inasmuch as, they serve a person or a group; after that, they are entirely dispensible, because there's no objective reality to their rightness or wrongness...assuming "evil" is relative, of course.

I don't believe there is any objective reality to the rightness or wrongness of truthfulness and lying. The sense that we have of rightness and wrongness is real though, and that is what determines our attitude towards such things as honesty and trustworthyness. My feeling of hunger is just a subjective sensation, with no existence outside of my subjective perception, but its lack of objective reality doesn't make my desire to eat any less compelling.

Perhaps not.

But that's not really the problem. The problem is that, unlike eating, our sense of justice or our feeling we have rights, or perhaps our intuition that there's something called "evil" cannot be met without our convincing others to agree with us. So we would need reasons why these things require not just subjective approval (which we could be denied, for any reason at all) but objective and universal recognition.

We can get food by ourselves, often: we cannot get rights, or justice or a definition of evil without providing reasons to others to agree with us that these are real and deserved things. But what would such reasons be?

Rights are what human beings grant to each other, and I do not believe there is any other source of rights. Does that make my view clear?

Yes, however, since all "human beings" are no more morally dignified than any others, being all nothing more than late products of the accidental creatorial powers of the indifferent universe, they can't "give" me anything objective. I only get to keep my rights so long as they continue to surrender them to me; and when they stop, I have no basis of complaint.

It is true that you only have rights for as long as the authority behind them grants them to you.

Then in truth, I have no "rights." What I have is temporary advantages given by my society. I have nothing I can claim, though.

And if that is the case, what are we to make of it?

Well, the obvious, I think: that without an objective "evil" existing, there's no way to accuse God or the universe of having treated any of us "unfairly" or "unjustly." The universe, or God, did no "evil" to us when it/He did not give us the happiness or peace we were wanting. And the old argument, "If there were a God, he would not allow evil" simply falls apart by way of its own incoherence. We don't believe in objective evil, so we don't believe there's a theodicy question.

You know I wouldn't blame God for treating me unfairly, but neither would I blame the universe.

Quite right.

After all, in such a world as you are describing, there's no "unfair." And "unfair" things aren't "evil." So there's no blaming to do.

[Harry Baird]

Writes "speak a bit more [...] briefly". Goes on to post a 1,385-word essay.

Umm.

AJ, I understood your position already, but I appreciate you making the effort to elucidate and clarify it.

I'd like though to clear something up in your earlier reply before (contemplating the possibility of) responding to that essay:

AJ asserts (in my pithy paraphrasing): Without a Story, there is no morality.

Yet this paraphrase does not accurately encapsulate my thought.

I think then that there's been a misunderstanding. Earlier, you'd written:

OK, but I am much less interested in the Story of whichever society I happened to be born into, and in whatever principles and morals are embedded in that Story, and much more interested in the actual bleeping truth! The extent to which that Story and its principles and morals are true is the extent to which I embrace those aspects of the social identity that derive from them.

Then you must realize that the visible model, our Earth and its biological/physical ecological system, is the ‘reality’ that you are chained to. There, in that, there are no truths, no right and wrong, and certainly no evil.

"Without a Story, there is no morality" seemed to me to be a fair and accurate paraphrasing of that.

You deny that it is, so I must have misunderstood you.

I think I see how.

I think that I misunderstood you because you had first misunderstood me.

By that I mean that I think that by "the actual bleeping truth" you misunderstood me as referring merely to descriptive truth, whereas I was actually referring to both descriptive and prescriptive (i.e., moral) truth.

You misunderstood me, then, as dismissing interest in prescriptive (moral) truth altogether, hence your admonition that all that remained were descriptive truths about our physical reality.

I then misunderstood this admonition as meaning what I went on to pithily paraphrase it as meaning.

And so it went...

Does that seem plausible and fair?

If so, then there doesn't seem to be any fundamental disagreement between us on any of this after all.

[Harry Baird]

There do seem to be instances of altruism or perhaps “kindness” is the word. But taken on the whole, and majorly, the system is amoral. It also has a terrible and I have said a “cruel” aspect that is constant.

Excluding sentient beings, of course an insentient[1] system is amoral - morality applies only to the choices and behaviour of sentient beings. Perhaps, given the design of this reality, some or even many of the sentient beings within it (both human and non-human) are as you say forced to behave in less than preferred ways just to survive, but "should" implies "could", and so, to the extent that their choices are forced, they aren't in the moral domain anyway. Otherwise, although probably not all or many of the non-human sentient beings in this system engage in explicit (especially abstract) moral reasoning, I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.

[1] I am personally agnostic as to whether or not our physical/biological/natural reality overall is sentient, but I understand that you believe that it is not, so I'm working with that assumption.

However, maybe if you speak a bit more (and dear God more briefly) about what you see and what you mean, I might at least understand.

How was that?

[Harry Baird]

I'm not, when you refer to 'that metaphysical reality/agency the basic nature of which is to commit (especially serious) immoral acts, and only (especially serious) immoral acts', sure who or what you're talkin' about.

I'm basically referring to that which in the vernacular would be "devils, demons, and the Satanic".

I'm gonna, for the expositional opportunity, take it you mean man, himself.

Sure, some humans might be demoniacal too - the sort of humans to whom we refer as "psychopathic".

I'm enough in agreement with the rest of your post as to not raise any objections to it. Your post is refreshingly close to my own sense of things as a dualist (in the manichaean sense).

[Belinda]

But we can still have a strong, subjective, emotional response to events and situations.

Yes. But so can a toddler, when it doesn't get its way. Anybody who's had a two-year-old knows that, of course.

So we need something that separates the irrational, demanding, solipsistic squalling of an infant from our more reasoned, mature and grounded antipathy to evil. The former isn't the latter. But we need to be able to prove our antipathy to evil has something behind it, other than temper or selfishness.

As you know, I don't believe there is a God, so none of the above is my concern.

Maybe. But then, you have to be willing to give up any appeal to the idea that anything is "evil." And that's not necessarily a reasonable step, especially if there might be something objective behind our identification of some things as "evil."

Most people think "intent" is real. "Intent," however, is neutral. One can intend good or bad things, presumably.

So the real problem is that it's not clear what "malice" would entail, or that it would be objectively bad, given that the same people don't believe there's any objective reality to evil.

If so, then evil intent -being the same thing- is also subjectively real in exactly the same way.

I'm sorry, but I can't follow your reasoning here; I don't understand your point.

Well, you said "malicious intent" is what evil might be. I was just saying that that doesn't help us much. We don't know from that description what constitutes "maliciousness," and we don't know that "maliciousness" (whatever it is) is "evil."

But the "theodicy problem" doesn't concern me, it has no bearing on my opinion.

That makes sense. Given that you don't believe in any objective reality to "evil," there could not possibly even be a theodicy problem, from your worldview. So full points for consistency.

Others are less consistent. That's why the theodicy question exists, even though it's self-contradictory.

Justice implies equality of some sort; a balance.

Yes: but a "balance" of what?

Some people think it's a "balance" between people. I don't think that's right. I think the more accurate implication would be that person X gets "just" what he or she deserves, no more and no less. So it's a balance between the individual, on the one side, and his/her deserving, on the other.

Yes, justice is when what is received is of exact equivalence to what is deserved. But how do you work out what exactly is deserved?

That's a second-level question. Again, the important question at the first level is, how do we know we are owed "justice," whatever that might be?

In that case, they are just relations of convenience. Lying, truthfulness, and so forth are justifiable only so long as, and inasmuch as, they serve a person or a group; after that, they are entirely dispensible, because there's no objective reality to their rightness or wrongness...assuming "evil" is relative, of course.

I don't believe there is any objective reality to the rightness or wrongness of truthfulness and lying. The sense that we have of rightness and wrongness is real though, and that is what determines our attitude towards such things as honesty and trustworthyness. My feeling of hunger is just a subjective sensation, with no existence outside of my subjective perception, but its lack of objective reality doesn't make my desire to eat any less compelling.

Perhaps not.

But that's not really the problem. The problem is that, unlike eating, our sense of justice or our feeling we have rights, or perhaps our intuition that there's something called "evil" cannot be met without our convincing others to agree with us. So we would need reasons why these things require not just subjective approval (which we could be denied, for any reason at all) but objective and universal recognition.

We can get food by ourselves, often: we cannot get rights, or justice or a definition of evil without providing reasons to others to agree with us that these are real and deserved things. But what would such reasons be?

Yes, however, since all "human beings" are no more morally dignified than any others, being all nothing more than late products of the accidental creatorial powers of the indifferent universe, they can't "give" me anything objective. I only get to keep my rights so long as they continue to surrender them to me; and when they stop, I have no basis of complaint.

It is true that you only have rights for as long as the authority behind them grants them to you.

Then in truth, I have no "rights." What I have is temporary advantages given by my society. I have nothing I can claim, though.

Well, the obvious, I think: that without an objective "evil" existing, there's no way to accuse God or the universe of having treated any of us "unfairly" or "unjustly." The universe, or God, did no "evil" to us when it/He did not give us the happiness or peace we were wanting. And the old argument, "If there were a God, he would not allow evil" simply falls apart by way of its own incoherence. We don't believe in objective evil, so we don't believe there's a theodicy question.

You know I wouldn't blame God for treating me unfairly, but neither would I blame the universe.

Quite right.

After all, in such a world as you are describing, there's no "unfair." And "unfair" things aren't "evil." So there's no blaming to do.

Equality and freedom are values that oppose each other. Justice is the human attempt to balance equality and freedom. Socialists tend towards equality and Conservatives tend towards freedom; sheep and goats.
In Palestine at the time of Jesus the Roman occupation was an unavoidable unfortunate circumstance; however the Jews were divided among themselves into sheep and goats i.e. those who supported social equality and those who supported self -serving freedom.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Perhaps, given the design of this reality, some or even many of the sentient beings within it (both human and non-human) are as you say forced to behave in less than preferred ways just to survive, but "should" implies "could", and so, to the extent that their choices are forced, they aren't in the moral domain anyway. Otherwise, although probably not all or many of the non-human sentient beings in this system engage in explicit (especially abstract) moral reasoning, I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.

“Less than preferred ways”? It is a curious phrasing. To whose preference? Ecological systems are systems where life-feeds-on life. Within those systems no alternative exists.

I am curious to know if you’ve studied much natural history? Is your view of nature romantic? (I’ve received this impression through other conversations we’ve had, some years back).

they aren't in the moral domain anyway

This is true. And the law within the ecological system would not, could not, allow for private moral choices. To obey the rule of ecological law is what is demanded. This is why a starting point is to *see* what the natural system is and does (demands). Then, one can begin to examine man’s choices: a contrary spirit determined (or strongly influenced) by an imposed value system that is anatural.

I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.

The lion runs down the gazelle but at the last moment has a “change of heart” and decides “I’ll go hungry this week!” “My cubs will have to get by …”

I think that sone animals can recognize when a fellow is in danger and offer help. A dog whose companion has fallen into a swimming pool comes to mind. Animals strictly in the wilds might act similarly. But they cannot act against the “rule” of ecological determinism.

Do you have a (non-romantic) contrary argument?

This is not an unimportant issue, at least in relation to my assertions.

[Immanuel Can]

Equality and freedom are values that oppose each other.

Yes, that's true, B.

But "equality," except in regard to personal worth, isn't even a possibility, so it's really a silly "value." We ought not even to have it.

There are no two "equal" people in the entire world, ever, and never have been or will be. And "freedom" means that outcomes will differ between people, inevitably. There's no having both "values", and no having equality at all. It's not merely utopian, but idiotic and utterly impossible. The hunt for it is the most homicidal undertaking, statistically, in human history.

That's because hierarchy is a product of freedom, because people have different levels of ability, diligence, cleverness, creativity, competence, knowledge, age, resources, sex, culture, values, opportunities, risk-aversion, wisdom, and every other metric. That means uneven outcomes are inevitable. And there's nothing inherently unjust about that: people should get exactly what they deserve. That's "justice."

However, trying to force equality of outcomes to happen by limiting freedom is not "justice," and is certainly not "equality." It is a vicious power game. And that's one of the reasons Socialism inevitably turns into tyranny and murder, as it has in 100% of the real world cases, in every single country in which it's even been tried. One can't make equality of outcomes come closer except by inhibiting freedom...and that means the application of governmental power to bully, bludgeon, impair, pillage, and to destroy personhood and individuality, in the name of imposing a mythical "equality" among diverse persons. That's what always happens, in Socialist experiments. They talk about valuing "diversity" but work viciously to suppress it in the name of creating "equality."

But that's not the point we're working on now, really. Politics are a long way down the pipe from the conceptual problem we're posing here...we might say they're at most a third-level issue. We haven't even settled the first-level problem, so there's no chance we're going to get a justified political position yet.

The point right now is the question, "From a secular perspective, how do we know there are ANY objective values at all?"

[Alexis Jacobi]

Isn't that precisely what you're looking for, specific principles in the metaphysical domain that you can give complete and permanent credence to as something objective and inviolable? All your reading isn't going to discover it.

It is less that I am "looking for it" as I notice that it is part-and-parcel of man's striving. It can be reduced to something rather simple: all that we have created, civilizationally let's say, and also in other civilizations that we admire, have been created because people organized themselves around certain defined principles. The principles defined allow for the creation or construction of a foundation, and on that foundation civilization is constructed. Similarly, the individual is a sort of construction, and requires a foundation. This is pretty basic stuff.

Now, what I am seeking -- to borrow your phrasing -- is some conceptual tools to examine *people like you*. I place you in a similar category as I place Iambiguous. Obviously, to head off your inclination to emoted idiocy, to be similar is not the same so let that be clear. When I read what you write (and when you are not a grumpy fuck) I notice a man who has constructed for himself a platform that is not really a platform. Your analysis, so it seems to me, dissolves the *platform* (foundation) I refer to as necessary for the construction of self and for all manner of different construction in our world. We are in a time of dissolution as you hear me stating time and again. And so the question arises, and it is an important one, about whether it is possible to countermand the general dissolution.

Now, an old geezer like you does not have to care too much, do you? You are likely an incel and it is likely that you have not constructed very much at all. There is a bitter note that comes through your tone but I don't know why (I have suspicions though). I cannot imagine that you have either family or children. But even if I am wrong in this you come across as a man who does not have commitments and who can, thus, be free with a dissolute *philosophy*. I state very clearly that my analysis, and any analysis that we make, cannot should not and must not be taken personally, get it? But in my view we are required to make hard and harsh, and hopefully accurate and astute judgments of our own ideas and attitudes and those around us. In this spirit I talk about you, jerk.

Why do I say these things? I say them because the philosophy that you seem to have dovetails with a larger, operative general attitude that is non-capable of conserving "things of value". If I am only partly right here (in respect to you) then I am right enough to have a valid point. So my question becomes: What happened to you that brought you to this operative, philosophical position?

So I would take this statement: "Isn't that precisely what you're looking for, specific principles in the metaphysical domain that you can give complete and permanent credence to as something objective and inviolable?" and just begin to ask questions about it. Or, put another way, I would *employ* it as a large question an individual must ask of himself. And going further: that individual must answer the question, must make decisions.

Your philosophical platform, though I will not say that it does not have coherent features, cannot lead a man to a solid position in this life. Therefore, what you recommend, the core 'advice' that is offered ("all speech has a sermonic function" to amend Richard Weaver), even when you do not state it directly, is to accept dissolution as something inevitable and necessary. I notice that you seem to have contempt for those who have made decisions, and you seem to act in such a way so to undercut their decisiveness.

Again, my general comments, even if only partially accurate, have relevancy because they elucidate am extremely large problem that we face today.

If you regard my view as the final, ultimate one - a complete misconception on your part - can you explain how you arrive at that conclusion after everything I wrote?

I said that you made definitive statements that appear irreducible. When we define *what is true* we naturally create statements that are meant to be final and encompassing.

In any case please go forward to talk about why my take on what you say is "a complete misrepresentation".

There is nothing in the universe, nothing in nature, which has any relation to your Christianized metaphysics. But just because it's "all made up" doesn't limit its importance as far as the psyche itself is concerned, which, having its own objectives, can never yield to the impersonal processes which created it.

Very good! In some sense you and I are on the same page. I do not see the Creation as expressing 'Christian metaphysics'. Yet they arise within the Creation somehow. As opposing currents. As consequential decisions. When man represses or redirects base energy he (literally) creates a world that could not have come to exist except through those choices.

Is Christianity a *perfect* representation (or model)? I certainly would not say that. But yes, I find that the more that I examine and *see* the most central and operative tenets, the more I see it as sets of extremely intelligent choices. But note that I refer to a pithy philosophical term: intellectus. It is a peculiar one because it implies surrender (if I may use that word) to a higher concept of the intelligent. In essence metaphysical. Is such absolute and ultimate in the sense of cosmically pervasive? I am not in a position to say.

Everything subsequent is a "construction", a commitment of one's psyche or personality if you like, which is always a product of the times. Since when hasn't that been true upon examining history?

Blah blah blah and more blah. You simply elaborate the place in which (if I am correct) you are stuck. I do not blame you for this. My understanding is that it is a common position and one determined by 'causal ideas'.

If you're so desperate for a metaphysical fix, no problem, just adopt one that seems the most reasonable...or is that the wrong word! There are all kinds to choose from!

I always appreciate a good little piece of advice so thank you! And if you will permit it, why don't you fold your cheap, unintelligent advice five ways and stick it where the sun don't shine?

Again, to construct in our world, and on any platform, requires intelligent decisiveness and decisions. But I am not sure that I'd go along with the idea of proper choices as an addict getting his fix. I have a strong feeling that you are projecting. It seems possible that you might be addicted to a sort of aimlessness and as I say dissoluteness.

But be that as it is the most important thing is to be aware of what I call *desperation* to which we are all susceptible.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The point right now is the question, "From a secular perspective, how do we know there are ANY objective values at all?"

From the so-called secular perspective there are certainly no "objective values" but only relative values defined circumstantially. This is, in fact, the central assertion of secularists. It is what they state. And it is as inevitable and necessary statement given their predicates.

In order to define, or to begin to assert even vaguely, what you refer to as "objective values", one has to operate from a position outside, above and beyond the world of mutable values in which a secularist, and a naturalist, operates. They operate there because, according to their own definitions, there is no other place to operate from.

Now, it seems to be the case that when one examines sophisticated culture one can very easily notice that very refined and intelligent ideas were put in operation in order to create the expressions that we notice and admire. The examples are myriad but I was impressed reading a study of the Bushido (Samurai) philosophy. You cannot examine it, nor for example the creations of art that derive from traditional Japanese culture generally, without grasping that a sophisticated outlook and philosophy is therein expressed. And at those 'sophisticated levels', in many different cultures, one can therefore notice intellectus and its derivatives. Serious men devoted themselves to deep considerations and expressions of deep value and meaning, and their expressions impress us dramatically.

It is only when metaphysical perspectives are discovered, noticed or given emphasis, that something *objective* can be asserted. But what is the essence of this objectivity? It seems to be a general objectivity, a general enunciation and valuation of something *higher* and yet not precisely definable.

Thus there are, if you will, objective links between different cultural creations and elaborations of these higher types, yet the expressions (the specifics) will naturally always differ. But there is an underlying connecting principle.

[Immanuel Can]

The point right now is the question, "From a secular perspective, how do we know there are ANY objective values at all?"

From the so-called secular perspective there are certainly no "objective values" but only relative values defined circumstantially. This is, in fact, the central assertion of secularists. It is what they state. And it is as inevitable and necessary statement given their predicates.

Right. Then the corollaries, #1-4, as listed earlier, automatically follow.

There is no "evil." There is nothing objectively "good," either. There are things people value, maybe, but there are no values-in-themselves, no values that are objectively worthy of being valued. And if people value nothing, or drop things they used to value and value new things, there's no perspective from which the choice can be gainsaid.

Marrying a bride and burning her on your funeral pyre are equally "valued," depending on whether you're a Westerner or a traditional Hindu. Raising children kindly and devouring them with gusto are not objectively more or less valuable than each other, depending on whether you're a humanitarian or a cannibal. Rape and sex are the same, morally speaking, since both identify the same physical act, and only subjective attribution differs them.

That's what the secular view tells us to think, if we follow it logically to its inevitable conclusion.

So there is no moral indictment of anything that happens that is possible. And God cannot be indicted for anything that happens, even if secularists were to concede He exists at all; nothing is objectively evil.

That's the end of the theodicy problem...at least, for any secularist who is logical.

[Alexis Jacobi]

There is no "evil." There is nothing objectively "good," either. There are things people value, maybe, but there are no values-in-themselves, no values that are objectively worthy of being valued. And if people value nothing, or drop things they used to value and value new things, there's no perspective from which the choice can be gainsaid.

There is no metaphysical evil (they must say), and that is the important distinction. In order to define evil as, say, a Christian defines it, evil must be located in an entity that wills malice. Which is to say an entity that is aware of what is (metaphysically) good and necessary, but who chooses to do bad and wrong consciously.

For this reason, Satan is said to be unconditionally committed to malice. Satan could not want to do anything but evil. According to this (mythic) view the choice he made (to rebel, etc.) became irrevocable.

How this mythological notion of evil would be interpreted by someone who can only think in terms of metaphysical principles (let's say absent an 'entity' to which absolute negating evil has been assigned) is somewhat up in the air.

Those people who, through lazy choice or mistaken assertion, actually and honestly believe that modern secular philosophy is a sufficient base upon which to construct a platform from which what is 'good' and that which is 'evil' (if they use the term) could be defined, will always it seems to me run into the problem that you are outlining.

It just occurred to me that, generally speaking, a great many modern people and intellectuals cannot refer to 'god' or if they do it is always deprecatingly, or as if they are referring to a concept-picture that doesn't hold together any longer, but curiously avoid making any statement about god's opposite (within the mythological system they reject), which is to say Satan. How could one then define *ontological malevolence* in the absence of an entity in which it is projected?

Curiously, the notion of 'evilness' is alive and well among this class of dedicated secularists, and they can only locate it by reference to specific people -- such as Hitler or "the KKK". They resort to *convenient* designators that enable them to point their fingers at whomever they wish to condemn as *satanic* through association. A strange casting of shade.

However, and also curiously, and I refer to our modern scene and especially that playing out in America, Satan is a principle actor whose deeds are known. Soros is consciously or unconsciously assigned a Satanic role. But then so to is the Deep State with its satanic-pedophile cult, referred to tangibly (Jeffrey Epstein et al) but also as a general, invisible potency with ever-increasing and ever-manifest power.

Marrying a bride and burning her on your funeral pyre are equally "valued," depending on whether you're a Westerner or a traditional Hindu. Raising children kindly and devouring them with gusto are not objectively more or less valuable than each other, depending on whether you're a humanitarian or a cannibal. Rape and sex are the same, morally speaking, since both identify the same physical act, and only subjective attribution differs them.

Actually it is the bride who, by her choice, would jump on the pyre of her dead husband. But in service, or in obedience, to a deeply-believed metaphysical idea: she would join her husband in some other plane of existence, in one time or another. (It was never a widespread practice, but in some way you'd have to admire the adamancy of a person who would sacrifice their life for an ideal).

And we must therefore face the fact that a Christian who *really & truly* believes in a Heaven-world, and who faces death without concern, does so because he holds to a similar metaphysical trust.

To say though that the act of suttee (meaning 'good wife' or 'obedient wife') is an expression of 'evil' is simply not quite right. It requires another metaphysical perspective (it is a sin to kill oneself) to see the act as a negative and to oppose the action with another moral choice (to remain alive).

That's the end of the theodicy problem...at least, for any secularist who is logical.

Not quite!

Secularists and atheists refer to the notable contradiction within the belief-system of Christians that an entirely good god could or would allow the World as it is to have come into existence. A tried-and-true atheist reject this picture, and any other metaphysical picture, and resolves simply not to think about it any longer or, as well, to get deeply involved in opposing what they understand to be a ridiculously flawed religious system with as many contradictions as a dog has fleas.

They taunt the Christian with a picture of the World that, in their view, cannot be squared with the notion of a Good God. (The example of children in Africa infected with a worm that eats their eyes and blinds them is an example of the 'absurdity' of the Christian picture).

[promethean75]

this whole thing about atheists not being able to call god 'evil' becuz they are relativists and don't believe in objective good and evil thing going back and forth is silly, man.

forget the word evil. pain is what we're talking about. suffering. this stuff is objective af and what u describe it as (morally good or bad) changes nothing about the experience of it sucking.

now the argument goes that if there is an intelligent and competent god that could have created a world without all that pain but chose not to, he has to be either limited in power (in the case that he'd rather have a world without pain but wasn't able to make it) or a sadistic asshole.

It seems that in every thread this issue turns up, everyone involved understands all this but u, IC. The 'well god can't be evil if there is no objective evil, as u relativist atheists say' is shenanigans. Just replace the word 'evil' with 'pain-that-sucks' and u guys can get beyond this nonproblem that has occupied u for dayz.

"The example of children in Africa infected with a worm that eats their eyes and blinds them"

Well that's what they get for watching Fox news.

[Immanuel Can]

There is no "evil." There is nothing objectively "good," either. There are things people value, maybe, but there are no values-in-themselves, no values that are objectively worthy of being valued. And if people value nothing, or drop things they used to value and value new things, there's no perspective from which the choice can be gainsaid.

There is no metaphysical evil (they must say), and that is the important distinction.

"Unimportant," you mean.

"There is no" simply means, "there is no."

In order to define evil as, say, a Christian defines it...

This is a question well beyond partisanship. What any particular ideology says is second-level. This is a first-level problem. It's one that exists for every worldview: that is, if that worldview is going to speak of "evil" at all, on what basis can it do so?

That's the end of the theodicy problem...at least, for any secularist who is logical.

Not quite!

Secularists and atheists refer to the notable contradiction...

No, that's dead too.

For in the secularist world, "contradiction" isn't an "evil" either. There are no brownie-points for consistency, unless for some reason consistency or truthfulness or integrity or logic are objectively better than their alternatives -- which the secularist cannot say, because he's banished the categories of good and evil, and with them better and worse, and all the other value dichotomies.

[Dubious]

Isn't that precisely what you're looking for, specific principles in the metaphysical domain that you can give complete and permanent credence to as something objective and inviolable? All your reading isn't going to discover it.

It is less that I am "looking for it" as I notice that it is part-and-parcel of man's striving. It can be reduced to something rather simple: all that we have created, civilizationally let's say, and also in other civilizations that we admire, have been created because people organized themselves around certain defined principles. The principles defined allow for the creation or construction of a foundation, and on that foundation civilization is constructed. Similarly, the individual is a sort of construction, and requires a foundation. This is pretty basic stuff.

Yes, it is pretty basic stuff you long-winded dumb-fuck. Why do you think I keep saying that the metaphysical in respect to meaning and purpose is indispensable to our existence, to civilization. Very little of it comes from the 'outside'; it is born and reveals itself through the psyche based on its constructs determined by its contents which are never fixed.

Learn how to read and think properly before posting your tedious, mentally constipated crap...Jerk.

Also, your redundant personal judgements of me which has nothing to do with what I think and which you couldn't possibly know about, only show what a loathsome disgusting little smut speculator you turned out to be.