The substantial cost of theistic morality

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huckelberry
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by huckelberry »

Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:59 pm
]

You mean they talk at you rather than with you? I get that. Happened on this thread. Weaving and dodging valid criticism as they continue to fan the embers of a mythological belief system.
Rivendale, who has not participated on this thread, what are you looking at? There are only two of us who are guilty of on occasion deviating from local atheist party line. Myself and Physics guy. Neither feel required to followed your required response path or agree with you. We both consider what other people say. We both harbor some Christian faith while supporting a questioning and reflective approach to faith.

Res Ipsa has expressed reservations about some criticisms of religion but I do not think that constitutes fanning the embers of mythological systems. Well a sensitive inquisitor might develop suspicion.

This thread starts with pages of rejection of a DCP claim that atheist have weak foundations for their morality. Nobody here , not even myself, saw reason to complain about the rebuttal supplied here. I think good observations about morality being based upon the kind of world we want to create were made by several people. They have my salute.
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Rivendale
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by Rivendale »

huckelberry wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:19 pm
Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:59 pm
]

You mean they talk at you rather than with you? I get that. Happened on this thread. Weaving and dodging valid criticism as they continue to fan the embers of a mythological belief system.
Rivendale, who has not participated on this thread, what are you looking at? There are only two of us who are guilty of on occasion deviating from local atheist party line. Myself and Physics guy. Neither feel required to followed your required response path or agree with you. We both consider what other people say. We both harbor some Christian faith while supporting a questioning and reflective approach to faith.

Res Ipsa has expressed reservations about some criticisms of religion but I do not think that constitutes fanning the embers of mythological systems. Well a sensitive inquisitor might develop suspicion.

This thread starts with pages of rejection of a DCP claim that atheist have weak foundations for their morality. Nobody here , not even myself, saw reason to complain about the rebuttal supplied here. I think good observations about morality being based upon the kind of world we want to create were made by several people. They have my salute.
You are correct. I actually thought it was a different thread. This one. Peterson the historical skeptic.
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Res Ipsa
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by Res Ipsa »

Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:22 pm
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:08 pm


Very few, if any, will read the abstract and linked article. I took a look at both, but are there excepts in particular you want us to note?

- Doc
Not really. I guess it depends on definitions. One excerpt denies the troll accusation.
One might wonder whether there is an art of trolling and an excellence; and indeed some say that Socrates was a troll, and so that the good man also trolls. And this is in fact what the troll claims: that he is a gadfly and beneficial, and without him to ‘stir up’ the thread it would become dull and unintelligent. But this is incorrect. For Socrates was speaking frankly when he told the Athenians to care for their souls, rather than money and honors, and showed that they lacked knowledge.
While the other supports.
Socrates sets a series of verbal and logical traps to make his opposition incapable of responding in a reasonable fashion. Socrates even goes as far as to set a double standard, telling Gorgias the same time that he is asking the Sophist to engage within a dialogue that if he is to speak with Socrates, he can only respond using the briefest responses (88). Meanwhile, Socrates throughout the dialogue uses lengthy responses- some even last for multiple pages.
Aristotle all appear to exhibit behavior that adheres to the Urban Dictionary definition of trolling, quoted above, “the art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off… using dialogue.”
The second being a post by a guy working on his masters degree. I guess everyone is entitled to an opinion.
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Rivendale
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by Rivendale »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:32 pm
Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:22 pm


Not really. I guess it depends on definitions. One excerpt denies the troll accusation.


While the other supports.



The second being a post by a guy working on his masters degree. I guess everyone is entitled to an opinion.
What threshold of education peels back the veneer of reality for you?
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by huckelberry »

Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:29 pm

You are correct. I actually thought it was a different thread. This one. Peterson the historical skeptic.
Rivendale, ok I see, thank you for the clarification.
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by huckelberry »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:57 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 3:39 am
Russian people may well have had a social concern for an orderly government. People in every country do this.
Not all countries believe their leader is divine. The Russians blindly followed their leader.
huckelberry wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 3:39 am
Another angle to look at the overlap is to notice that the communists who are force that create who Stalin was and put and maintained him in power were incidentally atheists but nobody is just an atheist. They have ideas.
I am not sure. I think most communist in Russia were Christian.
"Most communists in Russia were Christian" a stunningly bizarre proposal. I have not heard this news before. After all they said they were atheists. They attacked churches and church authorities they forbid teaching religion . Atheism was the official position of the party.

On second thought you may not be thinking of the actual party members and government officials or the secret police. Perhaps you are thinking of all those factory workers, farmers and all the rest of the regular folks working to keep things going. Yes I can see that a good many of them may very well have quietly kept their Christianity.

Continuing my urge to try clarification I will note no Russians thought the Tsar was divine. He was viewed as having been given authority by God. Well I share your dislike of the idea either way. I might note that there were a bunch of Russians who shared our dislike of the idea. They fought a couple of revolutions and a civil war. The Tsar and family were killed. Not exactly blindly following the leader.
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by doubtingthomas »

huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am

"Most communists in Russia were Christian" a stunningly bizarre proposal. I have not heard this news before. After all they said they were atheists. They attacked churches and church authorities they forbid teaching religion . Atheism was the official position of the party.
"Nonetheless, a belief in God remained a steadfast conviction for the majority of individuals throughout the Soviet Russia. "
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387772
huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am
On second thought you may not be thinking of the actual party members and government officials or the secret police. Perhaps you are thinking of all those factory workers, farmers and all the rest of the regular folks working to keep things going. Yes I can see that a good many of them may very well have quietly kept their Christianity.
I am not convinced a majority of government officials were atheists. And wasn't there a civil war in the countryside?
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Doctor Steuss
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by Doctor Steuss »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:47 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am

"Most communists in Russia were Christian" a stunningly bizarre proposal. I have not heard this news before. After all they said they were atheists. They attacked churches and church authorities they forbid teaching religion . Atheism was the official position of the party.
"Nonetheless, a belief in God remained a steadfast conviction for the majority of individuals throughout the Soviet Russia. "
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387772
huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am
On second thought you may not be thinking of the actual party members and government officials or the secret police. Perhaps you are thinking of all those factory workers, farmers and all the rest of the regular folks working to keep things going. Yes I can see that a good many of them may very well have quietly kept their Christianity.
I am not convinced a majority of government officials were atheists. And wasn't there a civil war in the countryside?
The paper seems to support that Christian affiliation remained a majority amongst citizens (although it dropped 28% from 1900 to 1970 according to Figure 1 in the paper), but I'm not finding anything in the paper tying communist party affiliation nor government position with Christian affiliation. Could you cite the relevant portion?
Last edited by Doctor Steuss on Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MG 2.0
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by MG 2.0 »

PseudoPaul wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:39 am

In Mormonism, God is a part of the universe. He's one God in an infinite chain of Gods. He's not omnipotent, he didn't even make the rules - if he doesn't follow the rules, he will cease to be God. So in Mormonism God isn't even the author of morality - morality is just a part of the rules of the universe. So Christian apologetics don't work for Mormonism.
God is part of the universe? How does that work?

On the assumption that Big Bang is the theory flavor we’re scooping up.

I guess you’re referring to Kolob? How does Kolob fit with Big Bang?

Seems to me God’s hang out pre BB would have had to been elsewhere/when.

Was He AS omnipotent then as He is now? Is now then? So many questions, so few answers…😉

Interesting thread. Just popping in.

Regards,
MG
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Re: The substantial cost of theistic morality

Post by huckelberry »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:47 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am

"Most communists in Russia were Christian" a stunningly bizarre proposal. I have not heard this news before. After all they said they were atheists. They attacked churches and church authorities they forbid teaching religion . Atheism was the official position of the party.
"Nonetheless, a belief in God remained a steadfast conviction for the majority of individuals throughout the Soviet Russia. "
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387772
huckelberry wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:11 am
On second thought you may not be thinking of the actual party members and government officials or the secret police. Perhaps you are thinking of all those factory workers, farmers and all the rest of the regular folks working to keep things going. Yes I can see that a good many of them may very well have quietly kept their Christianity.
I am not convinced a majority of government officials were atheists. And wasn't there a civil war in the countryside?
doubtingthomas, this post starts out with you and I making the same observation. Perhaps that is uncomfortable so a new matter comes in view.
Majority of government officials? That is a strange proposal. What period of time are you speaking of? 1918? The variety of beliefs became progressively more constricted after that. I mentioned the civil war several times one of a variety of indicators that Russian people were not all lockstep following their leader subservience creating Stalin. Now you are pointing out that all those Russians were rejecting their leaders pressure to become atheists. (that is what your article link talks about, the government pressure to reject Christianity because it is bad for society)
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