Absurd Escapism

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Since you don't believe in a 'universally correct justice system', from your point of view all justice systems are relative. So any claims you may have about justice are no closer to the truth than anyone else's. So why even waste your time with this discussion? This discussion would only make sense if there were a universally correct justice system in t ...[text shortened]... ch would mean one person's take on justice can be closer to the truth than someone else's take.)

I don't have any reason to think there is "a universally correct justice system". It's a figment of your imagination and superstition that there is one. And it's a red herring. You can't even say what it is or give any examples. What I have said about justice - its nature and its purpose, its variations - around the world is demonstrably true. You have offered absolutely nothing. If any part of this discussion seems to be a waste of time, it is your contribution to it. I am happy that i have, by contrast, contributed something concrete about the nature of justice.

Lemonjello, To catch up to your lengthy post will require time and installments.

Fair enough, this is your view on the matter. Instances of injustice clearly exist but will eventually all be rectified by God, the great cosmic moral balancer, in some mysterious fashion down the road.

However, it is not as if we don't see some foretaste or preview of this even in this epoch of history.

But personally, and as i read through Scripture samples[/b] of this balancing are encountered. From Genesis on examples of His power and wisdom to judged (mine you as [i]well as show mercy) are seen. The last judgement is just the last judgment.

That's fine, albeit hand-wavy and evidentially challenged.

Because the long time the Bible covers, and the wisdom of God is revealed, it is not totally a matter of hand-waving. It is largly a matter of recollection that as God did previously dealt with man He surely will do again.

This is what careful consideration of seeing God in the flow of history in the 66 books of the Bible does. It gives me confidence that fully righteous judgement cannot fail.

If i stayed away from reading the Bible I might be filled with doubts.

But why, then, did you previously advance the idea that if such rectification does not happen then injustice does not exist?

Where I think we left this is that injustice IS recognized to exist. This is a given. This we cannot deny. We all know and feel injustice DOES EXIST. There is no use in claiming it doesn't. There is no use for me to deny it or for you to deny it.

This is where I am - It is known that injustice does exist.

The problem I have which I think you point out, is "How does that prove that perfect justice exists ? I think you made the point that - yes injustice exists. But we have no assurance because of this that Perfect justice exists. It could be, according to your view, that ONLY imperfect justice exists.

I would have to take this in one of two ways:

1.) Somehow God the absolute moral perfect doesn't exist.
2.) Somehow if God does exist He is as imperfect and apparently flawed as His creatures.

I won't be opting for #1 for many reasons. Maybe the only one I'll mention right now is that if anything exists Someone must have existed eternally. If anything is created Someone must have been uncreated from eternity and have a Will.

But I won't belabor that now. Option #1 is unacceptable to me.

Opting for #2 is weird. This is making God in our image to possess our known flaws.
Now gods are made to be like faulty humans. Many religions demonstrate that.
But I would consider over generalization or "throwing the baby out with the bath water" if I said any human concept of God necessarily HAS to view God as imperfect as faulty human beings.

The demonstration of the life of Jesus of Nazareth dissuades me of the concept of a error prone, faulty, incompetent Son of God. His Father must like Him be Perfect.

While syllogistic proof is hard for me. But since #1 and #2 are unnacceptable I would propose:

1.) Without doubt we all recognize injustice.
2.) With the God Who is there cannot remain moral imbalance forever.

This is clearly more schizophrenia on your part. You're acknowledging here that instances of injustice obviously exist, to the point that it is simply a "self evident matter".

I assume you mean I am saying God is a self evident matter.
Yes.

The reasoning could be accused of being circular. But if God is the origin of all reality and also the final reality to whom we are all accountable, this circle is just real. He says 'I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End".

Maybe linear argument when it comes to ultimate matters is not possible.

I told you that I need installments to answer this. You could give me the rest of the day to catch up. Obviously i can't force this.

That's all the time I have right now.

Well, if it's such a self-evident matter that injustice exists,

It would be an unlivable society if we claimed it is not self evident.

then it cannot also be that the existence of injustice is mysteriously and non-obviously contingent on some dubious Christian eschatological commitments.

I don't follow completely, as I am rushed here. But the three and one half years of the testimony of Jesus of Nazareth do not leave me with a feeling of a dubious or ambiguous contrast between sin and righteousness / between iniquity and moral perfection.

The New Testament does not leave me with a "dubious" sense of what happened in history to explain, reveal and manifest moral perfection.

I told you that I argue this from an accumulative or holistic stance.

Something has to give here, so I assume you are willing to retract the earlier eliminative claim against injustice, seeing as how you now claim that the existence of injustice is self-evident?

it was a mistake for me to give any impression that there is a QUESTION about whether or not wrong doing exists. If my reasoning along let that slip out, it was my weakness in presenting a rigorous philosophy.

How can I PROVE God exists because we are bothered by immorailty ? Good question.

Maybe I cannot prove this. I think I can show we are on the right track to believe God.
And I think you have to realize that we may have vested incentives to push DOWN this reality. Face it ... for sinners the suppression of the truth of God does carry some attractive aspects. They are wrong. But they are attractive in a deceptive kind of way.

I have to suspend.

Originally posted by sonship
Face it ... for sinners the suppression of the truth of God does carry some attractive aspects. They are wrong. But they are attractive in a deceptive kind of way.

Face it ... for believers the suppression of the truth about the finality of death does carry some attractive aspects. They are wrong. But they are attractive in a deceptive kind of way.

Originally posted by sonship
Lemonjello, To catch up to your lengthy post will require time and installments.

Fair enough, this is your view on the matter. Instances of injustice clearly exist but will eventually all be rectified by God, the great cosmic moral balancer, in some mysterious fashion down the road.

However, it is not as if we don't see some foretast ...[text shortened]... ts. They are wrong. But they are attractive in a deceptive kind of way.

I have to suspend.

Reading this I was left wondering what me mean exactly when we talk about justice. If justice is a state of fairness then any injustice implies that justice is not perfect. If on the other hand justice is retributive, it exists to right injustices, then its existence seems contingent on injustice existing. Since injustices which require righting occur then to exist perfect justice would seem to be restitutional or retributive rather than ensuring of a perpetual state of fairness. This means it seems to depend on injustice, this seems to leave you with a problem-of-evil.

Originally posted by LemonJello

From your writings, one thing is exceedingly clear. God plays a very strong narrative role within your worldview.

As the absence of God plays a very strong role in yours.

Indeed, this narrative function is so entrenched in your worldview that you seem positively incapable of merely conceiving of how these sorts of things could play out without God.

I count that as a fortune.
I count that as a blessing.

You count faith like a poor stepchild or pitiful orphan. On the contrary, I could faith as something the means God has given to allow limited creatures to contact and substantiate the eternal Divine Father. the Ground of Being - God.

I don't think anyone can avoid eventually putting his trust in someone.

I like the candidness of the New Testament which informs us up from that God substantiating faith is the reason for the writing. And God imparting Himself as life to the believers is the goal of faith.

" ... these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name." (John 20:31)

It is frank, honest, totally above board. It is stating the intention and goal of the writing - " ... that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ..."

it is God wanting to put the tool within our hands by which we can contact, substantiate, and experience He who is the eternal Being.

I know you must find this a bit frustrating. But all of us, when it boils down to it, will put our trust in someone. You too will draw your last breath in this world with your belief in the veracity of someone's words.

The important thing is, will that someone be true and faithful to YOU ?

You've already admitted as much, implying that you practically cannot conceive of things like justice and morality in the absence of God.

It is kind of conceivable but unlikely to me.

Look at the material universe. The design of the periodic table, the reproductive system, the laws of atomic forces, the digestive system, the brain. I have to say with the Psalmist

"It is He that has made us and not we ourselves." (Psalm 100:3b)

Is such a Maker sloppy about the moral universe ?
So much attention is given to the design of the sting of a wasp or the design of a lily.
And I should assume there is moral chaos in all of this?
I don't think so.

You've already made this clear, so you can spare us more detailing of this. As I mentioned before, your inability to conceive of such things without God does not justify the claim that God is necessary for such things. That's the point that matters here, and it is the one you keep failing to substantively address.

You want me to substract out the possibility of Supreme Authority.

Now I think asked you to indicate your alternative as something responsible as a source of the moral sense in man. I don't recall any proposals.

While you enjoy the posture of re-examining my belief again and again, along the way you could propose your alternative.

A teacher throws herself in front of a group of students. Her intention - to take the bullets into her instead of those bullets reaching her students to kill them. It doesn't prolong her life or health. It destroys her. Is it a instinct that this is what needs to be done to preserve the species ?

I think there is a commitment to something so absolute. You object - " You just cannot stop thinking about God." Propose something else as a source in man for this kind of act.

Step aside from your roll of grand examiner of theism for a moment. Where did this behavior come from such that NOTHING is more important except the EVIL be stopped, even if it cost the stopper her life.

What put that in her ? Did she pluck such a tendency out of the air?
Did evolution cause a species to arrive at such a self sacrificing point, in spite of the fact that the carrier of such genes is being destroyed in the act?
Is this an eternal absolute truth out there that evolution was just waiting to arrive AT?

Is is just a matter of social consensus ? But it is an exemplary act beyond the typical self preserving behavior in the face of danger.

Sure, you want to scoff at "God did it."
So what did do it then ?
You replace my "God made man in His own image" with your alternative of __________?

Originally posted by LemonJello

If you are failing to understand how such moral sensibilities could register in creatures like us humans without needing to posit their implantation by God, then I would strongly urge you to check out material like the Joyce book that I already recommended to KJ.

What book ?

How come there is nothing else on the planet quite like a human being ?
How come, though we are connected to all other living things, we still occupy a unique - "one of a kind" status ?

Originally posted by LemonJello

Injustice does exists - temperarily. I think it is a self evident matter. Human beings know "unfair" when they encounter "unfair" or "unjust". We do not dismiss it as an illusion. We recognize it.

This state of injustice is not forever or from now on. My faith is that it is a temporary imbalance which is going inevitably be rectified.

...[text shortened]... s one thing that cannot confer any non-ersatz authoritativeness, it would be arbitrarity.

me: Is the sense of moral oughtness just a chemical matter in the body ?

No. That would be a rather large notional mistake, to confuse the content of some mental state with the explanation or etiological particulars of the mental state. I see this sort of confusion a lot. Persons will often try to advance the claim that to give a naturalistic (or materialistic or evolutionary) explanation to how things like love or moral sensibilities, etc, arise is also to effectively hollow out their content, robbing them of any authenticity (and it does not escape attention that you worded it as “…just a chemical matter...”, implying exactly this sort of hollowing out, thieving process). But that is surely false. Again, it is predicated on a simple notional error regarding content and etiology.

Okay. You appear not to want to throw your lot in with consummate materialists.

Regarding the "moral oughtness" and the transcendent nature of morality that you refer to in this post, at some point you and Fetchmyjunk, et al, are going to have to substantively address why we should think it ultimately necessitates God or your God-narratives. It seems to me that what is really at issue is the authoritative backing, or lack thereof, of moral judgments.

I am following you reasonably well concerning what I, sonship, wrote to you.
Fetch will have to make his arguments.
I will have to submit mine.

Overlap, or dis congruity I will go back and possibly examine latter.

We like to think that at least some first-order public moral judgments carry a lot of clout in both of two ways.

The do. We cannot live without men of conscience having to judge men who will not listen to their conscience. It will be imperfect. But we are better with it in the long run.

I take it that the primary concern you and Fetchmyjunk have is that these sorts of imperativeness and authoritativeness cannot exist without God. Okay, but what is your actual argument for that? As I have already tried to express (revisit again Thread 157928), your concerns here are essentially childish. Just as a child cannot conceive outside of the directives and orders of her parents, so too your bewildering incapability to conceive outside of the directives of God.

Interesting. "Childish" huh ?

As limited and finite living beings we would be "children" compared to an uncreated and eternal God. (A heavenly Father)

Let's say we opt for evolution instead of a Creator God. You still have a progression towards higher and higher level of life (supposedly). In comparison you have levels of maturity. And correspondingly you could say one level of evolutionary development is "childish" compared to some other level.

So if we opt for Evolution in place of God a designing Creator, does the whole "childish" complaint somehow go away?

Compared to Neanderthal days are we less "childish" then they ?
Compared to what this marvelous Blind Watchmaker Evolution is taking us in another 20 millions years, are we "childish" today ?

"I don't have God. So I am not childish! You have God. So you are childish."


Really?

Look again at the natural world. Compared to what is in nature, we could conceivably say what man can invent is "childish" in comparison. I mean we do come up with some neat things. But even Bill Gates said all the Microsoft code for its sophisticated operating system is nothing compared to the coding of DNA.

And will it kill us to be a little childish sometimes ?
Simplicity should not always be mistaken for naivete.

Have you ever had any children of your own?
Kids can actually say some very profound things in their simplicity sometimes.

Just as a child cannot conceive outside of the directives and orders of her parents, so too your bewildering incapability to conceive outside of the directives of God.

Fascinating.

So "You shall not commit adultery". Hmmm. Kind of childish there.

Well in spite of the "childish" command of God, we simply cannot get away from falling into this sin of adultery, TOO MANY of us.

So we have NO divine commandment "You shall not commit adultery" . Strange, many of these un-"childish" people feel intuitively that adultery is wrong.
The "childish" with the commandment are not too unlike the "grown ups" without the commandment. Both have a sense that your wife is yours, i should not take her. Her husband is hers. Someone else should not take him.

The "childish" and the "grownups" seem to share much in common.

So God directs "You shall not commit adultery" but many are guilty. If we are not guilty of that we are guilty of one or more of the other commandments.
The "childish" ones have been told of a plan of redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation to God, and transforming righteousness.

How the "childish" ones came up with all this on their "childish" own is mysterious.

Anyway, we "childish" ones have a model, an example in history. Jesus Christ. So I guess Jesus is kind of "childish" too. He spoke much about obeying His Father. So I guess the lead "childish" one is Christ.

That's interesting.
History divided BC and AD based on the life of this chief "childish" one - Jesus. Someone more mature needs to come along and grow us up a bit.

The Law of God functions to expose man's distance from right morality.
It does a very good job.

If you have cancer, and don't believe you're sick, some doctors will have you take a liquid that under X-Ray reveals to malignant cancer growth in your body.

The "directives" of God's law function the same way. They help to expose the destroying sin eating away at out inward moral being. Fortunately, we are not just left with an X-Ray of the disease. We are informed of a cure.

Rather than childishness at work, I see a wise heavenly Father at work behind all of this.

Originally posted by sonship

Just as a child cannot conceive outside of the directives and orders of her parents, so too your bewildering incapability to conceive outside of the directives of God.

Fascinating.

So [b]"You shall not commit adultery". Hmmm. Kind of childish there.

Well in spite of the "childish" command of God, we simply cannot get ...[text shortened]...

Rather than childishness at work, I see a wise heavenly Father at work behind all of this.[/b]

I prefer to respond to your salient points in one post.

The problem I have which I think you point out, is "How does that prove that perfect justice exists ? I think you made the point that - yes injustice exists. But we have no assurance because of this that Perfect justice exists. It could be, according to your view, that ONLY imperfect justice exists.
…I would propose:

1.) Without doubt we all recognize injustice.
2.) With the God Who is there cannot remain moral imbalance forever.

But (2) is obviously just question-begging.

The reasoning could be accused of being circular. But if God is the origin of all reality and also the final reality to whom we are all accountable, this circle is just real. He says 'I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End".

Maybe linear argument when it comes to ultimate matters is not possible.

The reasoning is circular, period. And that's a major problem for you, despite your mental gymnastics here. We've already been over this point regarding fallacies. The problem with a circular argument is not that it is necessarily invalid or necessarily yields a false conclusion; it is one of those that can, after all, be perfectly sound. Regardless, it does not provide a good reason to accept the conclusion because you are basically just presupposing that which you are supposed to non-trivially show. Basing the existence of God on a circular argument is no better than just baldly asserting that God exists on the basis of nothing.

"Linear" arguments (by which I guess you mean non-circular arguments) for the existence or necessity of God are possible and have been presented for centuries and centuries. Some of them are even worthy of serious study. It is just defeatist of you to suggest perhaps you could do no better than a circular argument.

How can I PROVE God exists because we are bothered by immorailty ? Good question.

Maybe I cannot prove this.

Again, you cannot justify your belief in God's existence or necessity because you are bothered by stuff. That's just not an appropriate inferential pattern. How many times does it need to pointed out here that the following type of argument has no merit:

(i) The thought of X is bothersome.
(ii) Supposing God exists, He could rectify (i).
(iii) So, God exists.

You count faith like a poor stepchild or pitiful orphan. On the contrary, I could faith as something the means God has given to allow limited creatures to contact and substantiate the eternal Divine Father. the Ground of Being - God.

I don't think anyone can avoid eventually putting his trust in someone.

I give 'faith' the counting it merits, and it depends contextually on what one means by the term. I put trust in many people on a routine basis. They are people I have good independent reasons to think exist in the first place, of course. There's really no other way that can work: surely you're not suggesting I should presume to place trust in someone that I have no good reason to think exists in the first place?

Now I think asked you to indicate your alternative as something responsible as a source of the moral sense in man. I don't recall any proposals.

While you enjoy the posture of re-examining my belief again and again, along the way you could propose your alternative.

The plausible alternative is obvious: our moral faculty evolved, just the same as any of our other faculties. If you don't want to just take its plausibility on my word, read the Joyce book I already recommended in this thread.

How come there is nothing else on the planet quite like a human being ?
How come, though we are connected to all other living things, we still occupy a unique - "one of a kind" status ?

Nothing more than special pleading.

Okay. You appear not to want to throw your lot in with consummate materialists.

Why exactly? Because I recognize that it is a very simple error to confuse the content of a mental state with the explanation for that mental state? Earth to sonship: materialism is not committed to making basic notional errors such as this. That you would commit such an error is your problem, not the materialist’s problem.

Well in spite of the "childish" command of God, we simply cannot get away from falling into this sin of adultery, TOO MANY of us.

So we have NO divine commandment "You shall not commit adultery" . Strange, many of these un-"childish" people feel intuitively that adultery is wrong.
The "childish" with the commandment are not too unlike the "grown ups" without the commandment. Both have a sense that your wife is yours, i should not take her. Her husband is hers. Someone else should not take him.

Clearly, throughout the remainder of your posts you are having some major problems processing what I wrote. I did not say that the commands you attribute to God are childish themselves, nor did I suggest that it is childish to think a moral directive could be reasonable or appropriately placed against the backdrop of our moral intuitions. A moral directive could represent a reasonable or reliable generalization, and nothing I have said suggests otherwise. Perhaps a prohibition against adultery is of this sort, perhaps not. That's simply not the point. The point is, if it is a worthy directive to be followed it is because of the reasons that support it, not merely because of who utters it.

You just don't seem to be getting it. I'm not claiming that the childishness is a feature of the moral directives to which you subscribe. I'm claiming, rather, that the childishness is a feature of your own thinking and deliberations. A directive given from a father to a child, for example, may be a good one worthy of being followed. There's nothing childish about that. But the child does not comprehend the nature of this worthiness, chalking it up to merely the fact that daddy says so. That is a hallmark of childish thinking. And unfortunately, it also appears to be a hallmark of your theologically conditioned moralized thinking as an adult. And while there is nothing wrong with a child deliberating like a child, there often is a problem with an adult deliberating like a child. One is supposed to mature out of that sort of thing.

Originally posted by FMF
You asked me for my definition of justice and i gave it. I offered my view on why it exists, how it changes, how it varies, and how it can't be characterized as manifesting itself in "exactly" one way, and the reasons for this. I gave examples.

You, on the other hand, haven't responded to or addressed any of this. You have simply insisted that there is some ...[text shortened]... sed the concept of justice 'out loud' before and the topic arising like this has blindsided you.

If you believe in God (as revealed in the Bible) you automatically believe in a universally perfect justice system since a just God who is omniscient can see every intent of the heart and he is the only one that will judge people. There are many examples of this in the Bible and I am surprised that as an ex-Christian you don't already know of all the examples in the Bible and continually persist on me giving you my own examples (as if I am the omniscient God who can see all the motives and intents of the heart).

You on the other hand choose to believe in your own version of variable human justice where only the 'caught' are prosecuted, where judges and juries can be bribed, where the guilty can walk free and the innocent can receive the death sentence. How exactly is your idea of 'justice' even remotely close to 'fair'?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So are you the only one who can decide upon what exactly warrants the idea that God exists or is necessary? Or are other people allowed to decide for themselves?

More questions from you in lieu of arguments. How shocking.

Gee, I hope I am not the only one who can figure this stuff out. It shouldn't be hard to see that appeal to consequences does not provide adequate justification.

Originally posted by LemonJello
More questions from you in lieu of arguments. How shocking.

Gee, I hope I am not the only one who can figure this stuff out. It shouldn't be hard to see that appeal to consequences does not provide adequate justification.

So if someone threatened to murder your family if you didn't leave them alone, that 'consequence' would not provide adequate justification for you to leave them alone?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So if someone threatened to murder your family if you didn't leave them alone, that 'consequence' would not provide adequate justification for you to leave them alone?

I see you have progressed on from torturing babies for fun to someone threatening to murder a person's family.

Why don't your analogies ever involve puppies or chocolate?