Another Christian Being Offered On The PC Alter?

[seer]

No he isn't. He's demanding that people address the lack of source for their ethical or moral frameworks.

Yes, thank you.

[Sam]

See you define the terms, they cry foul when I don't meet then. Ontology has to do with, by definition, what something is by nature. Men by nature are God's children, created in His image. What more do we need?

A definition of "ontological quality" would be a start, to show that you're at least striving towards competence in the philosophical arena you're entering. What you were doing in the other thread was saying that "ontological qualities" exist such that fetuses can be defined a certain way (i.e., as persons). But you failed to define what an "ontological quality" is, instead merely asserting that all human beings (including fetuses) have the ontological property of "being God's children" ... which is not a strong ontological claim, even for theists. It's just a basic raw assertion, dressed up with philosophical language.

No I am not! It is what logically follows. If no God then, if God, then. I'm not speaking at all about how we know what it good or not.

Yes, you are, since the argument is about a moral code based on knowledge/truth claims. If you weren't then you're in an even bigger mess as there's no meaning ascribed to a divine moral code that cannot be at least partially known. So you either get right back to the same place or you're arguing a content-less argument.

And in all this you have dodged my question - remember you brought up the self-evident thing, and have yet to explain how the truths in question are self-evident. Apart from bare assertion.

That's what "self-evident" means, seer! If a self-evident truth has to be externally justified then it is no longer self-evident.

This is why I'm insisting that you don't ape the language if you don't have a basic understanding of the underlying philosophy. Ergo cogito sum is a self-evident, basic belief. Now basic beliefs may not be true

[JonathanL]

No, you didn't define "ontological quality". You claimed that an ontological property of humans was being the "offspring of God" but you didn't define what an "ontological quality" is. And here in the above post, you're drifting even further from an ontological argument: you're arguing for the certainty of a set of truth claims which is as far into epistemology as you can get.

That you "never claimed that morality can not exist apart from God" is exactly what I wrote and it's exactly why you're making an epistemological argument rather than a metaphysical one. You are demanding (again and again) that people address the lack of certainty in their ethical or moral frameworks, while claiming that your own moral framework is immutable and certain because it's grounded in God.

Of course, anyone looking at the diversity of religious morality today and large changes in moral rules even within small religious subgroups would have to acknowledge that this talk about immutability and certainty in religious morality is off-base. God's morality may not change but the moral precepts of His followers certainly have, certainly do, and certainly will in the future. Lambasting others' moral framework as being prone to change is ironic at best and hypocritical at worst and myopic all the way through.

So back to my original point: if you're going to use the language of the philosophy, do the philosophy. If you're going to make a deal out of a perfect rule-giver, actually address the problem of that morality being filtered through (highly) imperfect vessels. That would be interesting, as opposed to yet another post chain about having hypothetical access to an immutable moral code.

Sam, Seer has consistently been arguing for the objective and immutable character of a moral framework grounded in God (MFG), as opposed to a moral framework that is grounded in anything else(MFAE). Not even once has he tried to argue that we can have certain knowledge about MFG, but not about MFAE. Your claim that his argument is an epistemological argument rather than an ontological argument is wrong.

And your point about the moral precepts of religious people changing is immaterial to that argument. The moral precepts of, for example, Christians could change once every half hour and it still wouldn't have the slightest bearing on seer's argument.

[Sam]

No he isn't. He's demanding that people address the lack of source for their ethical or moral frameworks.

No, he's not. He's not asking for a source; he's asking for an objective and immutable source. That is, he's demanding that either one's moral framework is grounded in an "objective" source or one's moral framework is necessarily arbitrary and uncertain. He's been quite explicit saying that, without God, one cannot know that her morality is applicable outside of herself.

That's epistemology, through and through. And it's not solved by simply attaching one's pendulum* to God and calling it a day.


*Eco reference

[Sam]

Sam, Seer has consistently been arguing for the objective and immutable character of a moral framework grounded in God (MFG), as opposed to a moral framework that is grounded in anything else(MFAE). Not even once has he tried to argue that we can have certain knowledge about MFG, but not about MFAE. Your claim that his argument is an epistemological argument rather than an ontological argument is wrong.

And your point about the moral precepts of religious people changing is immaterial to that argument. The moral precepts of, for example, Christians could change once every half hour and it still wouldn't have the slightest bearing on seer's argument.

It is necessarily an epistemological argument; suppose we grant the assumption "Morality is grounded in the existence and person of God." That is meaningless without having access to God's morality so one has to argue not only that God exists and that morality is based on God but that one has knowledge of God's morality:

P1: God exists.
P2: Moral truth exists.
P3: Moral truth is based on God.
C1: We can know moral truths.

C1 doesn't follow from P1-P3; we would need P4: "It is possible for humans to discern moral truth." So far, so good. However, an atheist can just as easily argue:

P1: Moral truth exists.
P2: It is possible for humans to discern moral truth.
C1: We can know moral truths.


The ontological argument doesn't get anybody anywhere because "God" here is no more "objective" than "The universe" or "Reality". As I initially wrote, one can simply claim that moral truth is self-evident and so universally applicable: the problem of someone not accepting such a truth is no different than the problem of someone not accepting the existence of God.

Therefore, the issue is epistemological; how one can know or at least justify her moral framework as correspondent with reality, as objective, as externally applicable.

[seer]

A definition of "ontological quality" would be a start, to show that you're at least striving towards competence in the philosophical arena you're entering. What you were doing in the other thread was saying that "ontological qualities" exist such that fetuses can be defined a certain way (i.e., as persons). But you failed to define what an "ontological quality" is, instead merely asserting that all human beings (including fetuses) have the ontological property of "being God's children" ... which is not a strong ontological claim, even for theists. It's just a basic raw assertion, dressed up with philosophical language.

But I'm not arguing about qualities per say. You have added that criterion. Human ontology is straight forward. We are beings created in the image of God, His very offspring. And of course that is an assertion - A biblical one. It is when you start speaking of qualities is when people like you start to define things like person hood, which no one, as we saw with the after birth abortion people, agree on, that we get into completely muddy waters.

Yes, you are, since the argument is about a moral code based on knowledge/truth claims. If you weren't then you're in an even bigger mess as there's no meaning ascribed to a divine moral code that cannot be at least partially known. So you either get right back to the same place or you're arguing a content-less argument.

Again, no I'm not. My simple point is what follows from where we ground ethics or morality - and nothing more.

That's what "self-evident" means, seer! If a self-evident truth has to be externally justified then it is no longer self-evident.

Nonsense, 2+2=4 is self evident. How are human rights self-evident? Yes, that has to be explained.

[Joel]

Ergo cogito sum is a self-evident, basic belief. Now basic beliefs may not be true

I don't think Descartes presented "Cogito, ergo sum," as a basic belief. It is the conclusion of deductive reasoning, demonstrated to be necessarily true.
"Cogito" implies an "ego"; therefore "sum." Or looked at another way, it is concluded to be true because assuming its contrary results in a contradiction.

No, he's not. He's not asking for a source; he's asking for an objective and immutable source. That is, he's demanding that either one's moral framework is grounded in an "objective" source or one's moral framework is necessarily arbitrary and uncertain.

Sam, you are mistaken. The people Seer is arguing with in this thread are atheists who claim to have an objective morality. They are insisting on an objective source for their moral framework. So Seer is asking them what is that source: what is the (ontological) ground for their objective morality.

It is necessarily an epistemological argument; suppose we grant the assumption "Morality is grounded in the existence and person of God." That is meaningless without having access to God's morality so one has to argue not only that God exists and that morality is based on God but that one has knowledge of God's morality:

P1: God exists.
P2: Moral truth exists.
P3: Moral truth is based on God.
C1: We can know moral truths.

C1 doesn't follow from P1-P3; we would need P4: "It is possible for humans to discern moral truth." So far, so good. However, an atheist can just as easily argue:

P1: Moral truth exists.
P2: It is possible for humans to discern moral truth.
C1: We can know moral truths.


The ontological argument doesn't get anybody anywhere because "God" here is no more "objective" than "The universe" or "Reality". As I initially wrote, one can simply claim that moral truth is self-evident and so universally applicable: the problem of someone not accepting such a truth is no different than the problem of someone not accepting the existence of God.

Therefore, the issue is epistemological; how one can know or at least justify her moral framework as correspondent with reality, as objective, as externally applicable.

I don't see how any of this is relevant to what's been going on in this thread. I don't think anyone is arguing for or against C1. The discussion is not about whether morality is knowable, but how can it exist.

[JonathanL]

It is necessarily an epistemological argument; suppose we grant the assumption "Morality is grounded in the existence and person of God." That is meaningless without having access to God's morality so one has to argue not only that God exists and that morality is based on God but that one has knowledge of God's morality:

P1: God exists.
P2: Moral truth exists.
P3: Moral truth is based on God.
C1: We can know moral truths.

C1 doesn't follow from P1-P3; we would need P4: "It is possible for humans to discern moral truth." So far, so good. However, an atheist can just as easily argue:

P1: Moral truth exists.
P2: It is possible for humans to discern moral truth.
C1: We can know moral truths.


The ontological argument doesn't get anybody anywhere because "God" here is no more "objective" than "The universe" or "Reality". As I initially wrote, one can simply claim that moral truth is self-evident and so universally applicable: the problem of someone not accepting such a truth is no different than the problem of someone not accepting the existence of God.

Therefore, the issue is epistemological; how one can know or at least justify her moral framework as correspondent with reality, as objective, as externally applicable.

As Joel has already pointed out, this is simply irrelevant to seer's argument. The question of whether we can know moral truth's or not is distinct from the question of what is required for there to be moral truths (as opposed to merely moral opinions) in the first place.

[Sam]

I don't think Descartes presented "Cogito, ergo sum," as a basic belief. It is the conclusion of deductive reasoning, demonstrated to be necessarily true.
"Cogito" implies an "ego"; therefore "sum." Or looked at another way, it is concluded to be true because assuming its contrary results in a contradiction.


Sam, you are mistaken. The people Seer is arguing with in this thread are atheists who claim to have an objective morality. They are insisting on an objective source for their moral framework. So Seer is asking them what is that source: what is the (ontological) ground for their objective morality.



I don't see how any of this is relevant to what's been going on in this thread. I don't think anyone is arguing for or against C1. The discussion is not about whether morality is knowable, but how can it exist.

Seer explicitly stated that he was not arguing against the existence of morality absent God. He wrote "I never claimed that morality can not exist apart from God." And seer has very often argued that a morality without God is uncertain and arbitrary. Those are epistemological points, not ontological or metaphysical points.

Ergo cogito sum was Descartes' basic belief; it was the self-evident truth from which he built his epistemological framework.

[seer]

No, he's not. He's not asking for a source; he's asking for an objective and immutable source. That is, he's demanding that either one's moral framework is grounded in an "objective" source or one's moral framework is necessarily arbitrary and uncertain. He's been quite explicit saying that, without God, one cannot know that her morality is applicable outside of herself.

No, Sam what I'm basically saying is there can't be an objective moral source apart from God. Yes, other things follow from that, but this is my point here.

[Sam]

But I'm not arguing about qualities per say. You have added that criterion. Human ontology is straight forward. We are beings created in the image of God, His very offspring. And of course that is an assertion - A biblical one. It is when you start speaking of qualities is when people like you start to define things like person hood, which no one, as we saw with the after birth abortion people, agree on, that we get into completely muddy waters.

Again, no I'm not. My simple point is what follows from where we ground ethics or morality - and nothing more.

Nonsense, 2+2=4 is self evident. How are human rights self-evident? Yes, that has to be explained.

Read Principica Mathematica and tell me 2+2 = 4 is self evident!

But, as I wrote, this is the problem with using philosophical language without knowing the philosophy. "Human ontology is straight forward" is about the most ridiculous sentence you could write when it comes to ontology. Even a first-year wouldn't imagine this to be true, let alone obvious.

And yes: when you start speaking of properties or qualities then it's "people like me" who will start pointing out that the actual philosophy that deals with those terms you're borrowing is very muddy indeed, with very little agreement -- sometimes even on the basics.

So when you start arguing for "ontological qualities" or epistemological objectivity, it is not crazy for others to expect that you show competence in those areas of philosophies. Because the alternative is the mess we find ourselves in right now.

[Sam]

No, Sam what I'm basically saying is there can't be an objective moral source apart from God. Yes, other things follow from that, but this is my point here.

That's exactly what I just wrote, that you're "asking for an objective and immutable source" for an atheistic moral framework. Whether that's the extent of your point here and now is not particularly relevant, as my point is that you've made this demand on others again and again and have, elsewhere if not right here, explicitly linked that demand to an argument that an atheistic morality is subjective, relativistic, and arbitrary.

[seer]

That's exactly what I just wrote, that you're "asking for an objective and immutable source" for an atheistic moral framework. Whether that's the extent of your point here and now is not particularly relevant, as my point is that you've made this demand on others again and again and have, elsewhere if not right here, explicitly linked that demand to an argument that an atheistic morality is subjective, relativistic, and arbitrary.

Well yes Sam, since there are atheists here who claim that there does exist an objective source for ethics I will ask how that is possible, where exactly does that source exist.

[seer]

Read Principica Mathematica and tell me 2+2 = 4 is self evident!

Oh good, so 2+2=4 is not self evident? I guess then neither are human rights. Thanks for clearing that up.

But, as I wrote, this is the problem with using philosophical language without knowing the philosophy. "Human ontology is straight forward" is about the most ridiculous sentence you could write when it comes to ontology. Even a first-year wouldn't imagine this to be true, let alone obvious.

OK, I won't use that language. How about this, men by nature are created in the Image of God, and are His offspring. And who says this is obvious? It is not - we only know this by Revelation.

[Sam]

Well yes Sam, since there are atheists here who claim that there does exist an objective source for ethics I will ask how that is possible, where exactly does that source exist.

And, as I wrote, it's sufficient to claim that such truths are self-evident or predicated upon self-evident truths.

Boom.

Now you might ask, "Well, how do you know those 'self-evident' truths are actually true?" That would be a fair question.

But it would be an epistemological question, not an ontological one. And it would be vulnerable in exactly the same way that a moral framework based on God is vulnerable.