What Do People Here Believe?

[honorentheos]

Good and evil are value judgements that do not exist objectively outside human experience.

You lost me right there. That’s a presumptuous statement for a human to make.

Regards,
MG

Ok, let's start with the definition of good. The Book of Mormon describes a man as being innately evil who cannot do good even if the thing they do is called good in the same verse:

Moroni 7:8
8 For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.

According to this verse, the thing itself can't be objectively good. Giving the gift can't be objectively good. The verse says that the person, being evil, gives the gift grudgingly therefore they may as well have not given the gift in the first place. But the verse doesn't say that a neutral person who gives a gift fails to have done good. The verse says this person is evil. Why? They are counted as evil before God.

So good and evil according to the Book of Mormon are value judgements. That's not in question.

So you then may argue that good and evil may be value judgements, but they are the judgement of God and that makes them good.

But the Book of Mormon tells us that's not true, either. Alma 42 says as that the fall left humankind on the same ground as God when it came to judging good from evil -

Alma 42:3
3 Now, we see that the man had become as God, knowing good and evil; and lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, the Lord God placed cherubim and the flaming sword, that he should not partake of the fruit

What was it about this situation that upset God? Why was it a concern to God that Adam might eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever which, like a mythological story, god had to stop by magic? His concern was that Adam would, "...would have lived forever, according to the word of God, having no space for repentance; yea, and also the word of God would have been void, and the great plan of salvation would have been frustrated."

Read that again. Adam couldn't live forever after having disobeyed god because that would have negated god's word. And....so? So what? Why did that matter? The chapter never says besides god had said it would mean they can't come to visit anymore. It just assumes the reader catches the winks and nods that this a "BAD" thing and so no questions asked. Then it uses this set up to explain why god then had a plan to make is so people who did things he said they shouldn't do could still come to visit and not void his word. Clever, that. God is a DM I see.

That chapter tells us that Adam and Eve were subject to their own will which was bad. Bad according to whom? God. But why? Because they were cut off from him. So? Well, uh.

Alma 42 is a mess. It says things are the way they are because God said so and that's how things should be. If they didn't go that way? That's bad for god. And you know what that means? Good and evil are constructs, even in Mormon theology.

Saying something is "good" is making a value judgement. That's just a fact. And that requires someone to assign value and make a judgement based on the relational qualities of the thing.

[honorentheos]

To add to the above, the point some Mormons and religious types like to make here is it shows that, to someone who doesn't believe in god, anything is permissible. But that's not what it means to say that good and bad are value judgements. Rather, the opposite. Its asserting that the Mormon version of the story of Adam and Eve is one of authority asserting individuals who can judge good from evil independently of god are a threat to a system. The Book of Mormon paints the picture of a god and a church whose entire purpose is to reinfantalize Adam and Eve, binding them back into rejecting their own ability to judge good from evil. It's an interesting myth when you realize that is what its saying and why it plays such an important role in LDS ritual and theology.

[MG 2.0]

Saying something is "good" is making a value judgement. That's just a fact. And that requires someone to assign value and make a judgement based on the relational qualities of the thing.

This is what is being taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith:

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said, "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted--by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire....

So yes, objective truth in the sense of ‘black and white’ and ‘either or’ is not something we can depend on to consistently ‘choose the right’. We are independent moral agents. God has, in my opinion, given standardized revelations and commandments in regards to moral law/practice. We then harken to those words. Conditions may change, however, and what was right and/or necessary under a certain set of parameters no longer is. So what we refer to as objective truth is also, when found in subsets of the application of that truth, malleable/changeable.

But to say there aren’t overlying objective truths which act as a template for application of ‘truths’ as they pertain to the here and now is not unreasonable in my opinion. “The water is hot!” That’s a relational truth. The water is cold! Same thing. But they are also objective truths under certain conditions and according to the way the water is being perceived/registered by an individual human.

It all gets rather messy. Non binary in a sense.

That being the case, when it comes to those things that are ‘eternal truths’ I am under no illusion that I can be the final arbiter of just HOW true that doctrine/teaching is on a spectrum/gradient between and/or including ‘real hot’ and ‘real cold’. My viewfinder doesn’t capture all of the light necessary to see things in great detail. There is no moral relativism in accepting God’s truth as being simply subjective in nature. It’s objectively true until God commands/says otherwise. He, in my opinion, has the viewfinder and the associated ‘truths’ that can be observed through HIS lens in sharper focus than I could ever hope to have.

Trust in the maker of all things comes to bear. And those that speak in the name of that creator. And that can also get rather messy at times. Granted.

I suppose that’s where faith in the words of the prophets rings true rather than hollow with Latter-Day Saints. We take what they have to say as objective truth knowing at the same time that it IS relational to the times and conditions under which it is received. Objective and subjective are at times only separated by time and space.

Core doctrines however? They remain wholly objective and unchanging.

Thanks for your thoughts honor. You have your own twist on objective truth vs. relational truth. You seem to come down on truth being more or less strictly relational if I’m reading you right.

I sort of agree and sort of disagree.

Also, I’m a bit hesitant in relying on scriptural interpretation as the ‘absolute’ in determining what is objectively true all of the time.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said, "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted--by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire....

Ummm, thanks for the assist?

It isn't the purpose of mortality in Mormonism to learn good from evil. It's just to obey. That's abdicating moral judgement and making good, the value judgement, simply a Japanese game show where you as a member jump and try to contort into the shape coming at you without regard for why you are even doing so. One time it's this shape, the next another. Today, blacks are cursed from decisions they made in the preexistence. So prejudice is godly. The next, prejudice is bad and everyone should be seen as equal in the sight of God. You don't know what tomorrow will require of you. God could require you to kill and that makes it good according to the valuation of good as being what the church says is good.

That's not exercising moral judgement. And it's certainly not objective. That's the opposite.

However you want to twist it, MG, you make the call to either decide if something is "good" or not, or abdicate that judgement to other men claiming to speak for god. Without people, though, there's no judgement about the morality of some event or thing. What is, is.

Good, evil describe relationships involving human beings.

[honorentheos]

Consider your example about "hot" and "cold". Both are always describing relative properties. Something may be objectively hotter or colder than something else in comparison. But not objectively hot or cold. The assumed baseline you inject is relative to human experience. By definition that makes it subjective. This is no different than your approach to trying to assert an objective good or evil. It's always relative to Mormon teachings and those relative to a given period in time.

Mormonism interferes with your taking the necessary steps to develop an ethical framework based on relationships with other humans and the effects of your actions on them. It's morally anemic and without personal responsibility to learn and become a true individual moral agent.

I'd argue that means you can never truly be good. That is also a value judgement. Call it Honorentheos 12:8.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said, "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted--by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire....

Ummm, thanks for the assist?

It isn't the purpose of mortality in Mormonism to learn good from evil. It's just to obey. That's abdicating moral judgement and making good, the value judgement, simply a Japanese game show where you as a member jump and try to contort into the shape coming at you without regard for why you are even doing so. One time it's this shape, the next another. Today, blacks are cursed from decisions they made in the preexistence. So prejudice is godly. The next, prejudice is bad and everyone should be seen as equal in the sight of God. You don't know what tomorrow will require of you. God could require you to kill and that makes it good according to the valuation of good as being what the church says is good.

That's not exercising moral judgement. And it's certainly not objective. That's the opposite.

However you want to twist it, MG, you make the call to either decide if something is "good" or not, or abdicate that judgement to other men claiming to speak for god. Without people, though, there's no judgement about the morality of some event or thing. What is, is.

Good, evil describe relationships involving human beings.