Is God necessary for morality?

[Immanuel Can]

Go ahead and tell me about something, anything, that's not a real concept in your head.

To say something is a "concept in one's head" does not necessarily mean it's real at all.

But you know that.

[Immanuel Can]

And yet you are telling me about gravity. How are you doing this if you don't know about it?

I never said I don't know about it. I said it would work on you, whether you were prepared to believe it would or not.

If you doubt that, feel free to try it at any height.

[Skepdick]

To say something is a "concept in one's head" does not necessarily mean it's real at all.

That sounds like special pleading to me. Lets stick to a monist metaphysic, shall we?

Everything is real. There is nothing that isn't real.

But you know that.

I know that I am part of reality, therefore everything about me is real. Feelings, thoughts, emotions, imagination. You name it.

[Skepdick]

I never said I don't know about it. I said it would work on you, whether you were prepared to believe it would or not.

If you doubt that, feel free to try it at any height.

What does that have to do with the price of chickens on Mars?

ALL ontological claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said ontology.

This "gravity" thing you are telling me about how are you telling me about it if you don't know it exists?

[Immanuel Can]

ALL ontological claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said ontology.

"Claims"? Yes.

Truths? No.

[Skepdick]

ALL ontological claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said ontology.

"Claims"? Yes.

Truths? No.

Rinse. Repeat.

All truth-claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said truth.

Tell me a truth nobody knows about.

[Belinda]

There is a difference between the concept of deer held by Jon who has never seen one in the flesh and is uninterested in the animals, and the concept of deer held by Sven who is a Sami reindeer herder in Lapland.

Yes, there is SOME qualitative difference.

But it there a DEFINITIVE, substantive difference? No.

When Sven says to Jon, "I herd deer for a living," Jon doesn't think he means goats or armchairs. He thinks he means some sort of deer. And he's right.

Now, God for instance. My younger relatives and their friends are not affected either intellectually/conceptually or sensibly by God.

So what? Honestly, that's the least relevant thing one could say.

If you wrote, "My younger relatives and their friends are not affected by cancer," would you expect me to assume cancer does not exist for them? If you told me, "My younger relatives do not practice hygiene, and therefore hygiene has nothing to do with them," do you suppose they wouldn't stink to other people? If you told me, "My friends don't believe in tigers," do you think one will not eat them if they smear themselves with blood and go wandering in the jungles of India?

It's utterly irrelevant what people choose to believe about these things: all that matters is what's true.

I conclude reality is that which affects subjects of experience

Well, cancer will affect your younger relatives and friends one day. And they will experience it, either in themselves or somebody they know. And it will not be of the most minute consequence whether or not up to that point they believed or disbelieved in cancer.

Nobody knows what a thing or an event really is, apart from sensibly or intellectual experiencing the thing or event.

This is an old mistake. You've confused epistemology (what a person "knows") with ontology (what actually exists).

They are different questions. People can "not know" about all kinds of things that do exist, or think they "know" things that are not real. Human knowledge changes nothing about ontology.

"definitive, substantive difference " is a matter of metaphysics particularly what may be held to exist. If you will, please read again what I wrote about metaphysics versus how individuals experience the world in which we find ourselves. Ontology is fascinating but entirely of academic interest.

When Sven says to Jon, "I herd deer for a living," Jon doesn't think he means goats or armchairs. He thinks he means some sort of deer. And he's right.

That is because we all inhabit the same world and pictorial and communications media are so effective. Did you ever see an old picture of a beast called a cameleopard?

It's utterly irrelevant what people choose to believe about these things: all that matters is what's true.

There is no absolute truth .

When somebody experiences God, or cancer, either for themselves or by hearsay, then God, or cancer, is true for them.

[Immanuel Can]

ALL ontological claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said ontology.

"Claims"? Yes.

Truths? No.

Rinse. Repeat.

All truth-claims are contingent upon somebody somewhere having knowledge about said truth.

"Claims"? Yes.

Truths? No.

[Immanuel Can]

"definitive, substantive difference " is a matter of metaphysics

No. It's simply the idea of "a difference that makes a difference." There is a difference between the two versions of "deer" you described, but no difference that makes any important difference. The men still communicate.

Ontology is fascinating but entirely of academic interest.

Heh. Hogwash. One of the most basic questions all of us have is, "How can I know what is real." Nobody escapes that one, and it doesn't take an academic to ask it.

There is no absolute truth .

That's got to be false.

Even if you say it's "true," then that means that your own claim cannot be absolutely true, without being the one absolute truth there is, which means there is an absolute truth, namely that there is no absolute truth, which insists there is none, which then means the claim was false all along....and 'round and 'round you go, never making any sense.

That's just an inherently absurd claim. It cannot even be sustained if we grant it everything it claims.

[Skepdick]

"Claims"? Yes.

Truths? No.

*yawn*

Tell me a truth nobody knows about.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

One of the most basic questions all of us have is, "How can I know what is real." Nobody escapes that one, and it doesn't take an academic to ask it.

We each know what is real by living it .There is no way dead men know what is real, so that just leaves only living men to know what is real. If 'real' means anything it means what existence is for you until you die then 'real' means nothing for you.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

One of the most basic questions all of us have is, "How can I know what is real." Nobody escapes that one, and it doesn't take an academic to ask it.

We each know what is real by living it .

Not really. It seems that as human beings, we are all subject to delusions, errors and confusions sometimes. So we never get past having to ask that question, "What is real here?"

[Immanuel Can]

Tell me a truth nobody knows about.

The size of the universe. For certain, it has one, since we know it's expanding; but nobody knows exactly what it is. And by the time they decide, it's bigger. So there's a truth only knowable to the Supreme Being.

Or the number of hairs on your head right now. Or the number of stars above, or the sand of the seashore. All these things are finite, and so must have a true number. But you don't know what that number is.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

One of the most basic questions all of us have is, "How can I know what is real." Nobody escapes that one, and it doesn't take an academic to ask it.

We each know what is real by living it .

Not really. It seems that as human beings, we are all subject to delusions, errors and confusions sometimes. So we never get past having to ask that question, "What is real here?"

How do you tell the difference between what is deluded and what is not deluded?

It's true we all ask "what is real?" This is because each of us has to steer a course through his life as he finds it. Only some men believe there is absolute reality that may be discovered and used like a Pole Star. Other men would rather believe reality is what works for them/how the world appears to them.

[Immanuel Can]

How do you tell the difference between what is deluded and what is not deluded?

You do that all the time, don't you?

Or do you think you live in the midst of innumerable delusions you are simply powerless to resist?