Doing what is right in an out of control world

[2ndRateMind]

2 hours ago, FunkyTown said:

You have heard what the LDS think. We believe that, through the light of the Holy Ghost, moral truths can be known beyond the shadow of a doubt.

OK. Is this an automatic knowledge, that every LDS is privy to, or is it something one has to study to obtain, or does one have to have one's prayer answered, or what? 

And, how do you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when and whether you are completely right?

Best wishes, 2RM. 

Edited June 23, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[2ndRateMind]

18 hours ago, anatess2 said:

That is very naive.  And leads to hedonistic errors. 

I don't think so, necessarily. The examples I gave were ordinary, consumer examples, to be sure. But there is no reason why, in order to improve one's fullness of life, one might not take up yoga, or give more to charity, or serve on an Israeli kibbutz, or decide to go to church on Sundays, or spend one's holiday time on a religious retreat. We can, indeed, must, fit our spiritual lives, domestic lives, and working lives, into the same space.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited June 23, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[FunkyTown]

3 hours ago, 2ndRateMind said:

OK. Is this an automatic knowledge, that every LDS is privy to, or is it something one has to study to obtain, or does one have to have one's prayer answered, or what? 

And, how do you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when and whether you are completely right?

Best wishes, 2RM. 

How interesting. You didn't answer whether or not you thought taking 70 posts to answer the original question I had posed constitutes an appropriate time frame for answering questions.

 

So I will ask for a thirteenth time:

 

Do you want to just argue, or do you want to learn truth?

[2ndRateMind]

14 minutes ago, FunkyTown said:

How interesting. You didn't answer whether or not you thought taking 70 posts to answer the original question I had posed constitutes an appropriate time frame for answering questions.

You're squirming @FunkyTown

Seems you don't like answering questions much, either.

Have you something to hide?

Best wishes, 2RM

Edited June 23, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[FunkyTown]

1 hour ago, 2ndRateMind said:

You're squirming @FunkyTown

Seems you don't like answering questions much, either.

Have you something to hide?

Best wishes, 2RM

And you have, yet again, prevaricated and slithered and verbally avoided.

 

For the fourteenth time, would you rather learn truth or argue?

 

[2ndRateMind]

OK, so it seems to me that ethics is relevant to religion so far as it pertains to salvation. And the central existential question for humanity is 'what must I do to be saved?' So let me take a guess, based on what you have said, and such as I have gleaned from other conversations.

The LDS believe that in a prior life, they were obedient to God's Will. In this life, those who are or become LDS are those that were so obedient. In the next life, the LDS will inherit the highest sphere of Heaven, closest to God.

But my conception of salvation is about the way one is; the people are saved not by belief, not by believing this or that, and not by works, by doing this or that, but by being, by actually embodying, to a greater or lesser extent, the way Christ was. In philosophical terms, I lean towards salvation not as epistemological, or even ethical, but as ontological. The belief, and the ethics, follow on naturally.

Do you have an opinion?

Best wishes, 2RM

 

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[FunkyTown]

7 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

OK, so let me take a guess, based on what you have said, and such as I have gleaned from other conversations.

The LDS believe that in a prior life, they were obedient to God's Will. In this life, those who are or become LDS are those that were so obedient. In the next life, the LDS will inherit the highest sphere of Heaven, closest to God.

But my conception of salvation is about the way one is; the people are saved not by belief, not by believing this or that, and not by works, by doing this or that, but by being, by actually embodying, to a greater or lesser extent, the way Christ was. In philosophical terms, I lean towards salvation not as epistemological, or even ethical, but as ontological.

Do you have an opinion?

Best wishes, 2RM

 

 

I do.

I, and pretty much everyone reading this, can see you simply want an argument. I get that. I understand and so do most others. However, based upon your previous posts, I can easily infer that you intend not to argue in good faith - Shifting positions(Or refusing to hold any real positions) to avoid any chance at learning. And that's fine - It's just who you are. It's what's important to you.

 

So I ask for a fifteenth time: Would you rather learn truth or simply have an argument?

[2ndRateMind]

That's really sad. It seems you are not really interested in enquiring after truth (which is most effectively achieved by discussion amongst parties of differing opinions), just trashing my thinking, without ever even mounting a constructive criticism.

If that's the LDS standard of debate, you will, perhaps, appreciate why I am not (yet) LDS.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[FunkyTown]

1 minute ago, 2ndRateMind said:

That's really sad. It seems you are not really interested in enquiring after truth (which is most effectively achieved by discussion amongst parties of differing opinions), just trashing my thinking, without ever even mounting a constructive criticism.

If that's the LDS standard of debate, you will, perhaps, appreciate why I am not (yet) LDS.

Best wishes, 2RM.

And this is a different tactic to slither, and prevaricate and verbally avoid: You are using emotional blackmail to infer I am a bad member if I do not engage with your bad faith arguments. It doesn't offend me. That's fine.

 

And so I ask for a sixteenth time:

 

Would you rather learn truth or have an argument?

[2ndRateMind]

So, I think we must, at this point, agree to disagree. I do not see how to make this discussion productive. So, I leave the last word to you; but unless someone comes up with a point of substance, that I might help with, I shall not be partaking further.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[FunkyTown]

Just now, 2ndRateMind said:

So, I think we must, at this point, agree to disagree. I do not see how to make this discussion productive. So, I leave the last word to you; but unless someone comes up with a point of substance, that I might help with, I shall not be partaking further.

Best wishes, 2RM.

You haven't participated up until this point, so I don't see how that changes anything. You've simply engaged in bad faith arguments and avoided any attempts to engage with you in the questions you posed.

 

And so I ask for a seventeenth time,

 

Would you rather learn truth or engage in an argument?

[2ndRateMind]

1 hour ago, FunkyTown said:

You haven't participated up until this point, so I don't see how that changes anything. You've simply engaged in bad faith arguments and avoided any attempts to engage with you in the questions you posed.

And so I ask for a seventeenth time,

Would you rather learn truth or engage in an argument?

OK, you have provoked me (but really this is for the last time). I have described to you my philosophical framework. I have described to you how I became a Christian. I have participated. You have not reciprocated, just asked the same boring, irrelevant question 17 times (your count, I can't be bothered to verify) despite the fact I have answered it honestly and completely long ago. Can you understand why I am not particularly interested in discussing with you further? Let me be brutally specific; until you have something interesting and pertinent to say, my inclination is to think you are wasting space.

Have a nice life.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[FunkyTown]

44 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

OK, you have provoked me (but really this is for the last time). I have described to you my philosophical framework. I have described to you how I became a Christian. I have participated. You have not reciprocated, just asked the same boring, irrelevant question 17 times (your count, I can't be bothered to verify) despite the fact I have answered it honestly and completely long ago. Can you understand why I am not particularly interested in discussing with you further? Until you have something interesting and pertinent to say, my inclination is to think you are wasting space.

Have a nice life.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

You did not answer it honestly. Nor did you answer the very first question I asked for 70 posts.  You have been intellectually dishonest - (Saying, for instance, that 'Any schoolchild knows what 'Better' means' when I pressed you to tell me what you meant by better in the context of understanding morality. When  I then asked if you were sure that you meant that any schoolchild knows what 'better' means in relation to morality, you then backtracked and said that wasn't the case despite having insisted it just the post before). You have claimed you have answered my posts and yet, when I decided to go back and go question by question and show how you didn't answer, you then proceeded to refuse to answer -those- questions.

 

You have prevaricated, and slithered, and verbally avoided answering any questions or clarifying any statements.

 

You have refused to answer questions about what standard you use to judge the merits of an argument about finding truth.

 

You have refused to answer even the basic question of whether you would rather learn the truth or have an argument.

 

You attempted to use emotional blackmail when I wouldn't fall for your blatant verbal misdirection and bad faith arguing.

 

I am not angry. I understand why you do it. It's a form of intellectual bullying. You hope to use quotes from famous philosophers as a means of building a framework of you being an intellectual juggernaut. You ask questions not because you want answers, but because you want to set the stage for an argument - An argument where you can engage in verbal chicanery to shift your own standards(If you have to vaguely allude to them at all) so as not to give even an inch to what you consider your verbal opponent. When you are forced to pin down your own beliefs, you find it threatening - Irritating. You first try to avoid answering questions by simply not answering the questions asked and answering questions that weren't asked. If that fails, you give vague answers that you can verbally backtrack if you find yourself on the losing end and can simply insist the other person simply didn't understand your statement. If that fails to work, you feel truly threatened and become so irritated you lash out and use emotional blackmail or ad hominem attacks as a means of controlling the discussion.

 

And if that fails, you leave with a final dramatically adolescent huff saying things like "You can have the last word." when, in point of fact, you don't mean that at all and it rankles you incredibly if you come off a discussion where your verbal magicianry(To coin a phrase) is exposed.

 

This isn't unique to you. It's not even that original. It's simply you not wanting to be vulnerable - And nobody does. I don't. You don't. Certainly not on the internet.

 

The problem is that it's very adolescent. A more mature way would be simply to take a deep breath and think, "You know? Maybe there are things I can learn. But maybe I can't control all aspects of a conversation, and that's okay. I will engage with this discussion because it is important, not because I want to win some verbal sparring match."

 

That takes swallowing pride, though. And that's hard.

 

So I will ask for an eighteenth time:

Would you rather learn the truth, or have an argument?

[askandanswer]

6 hours ago, 2ndRateMind said:

It seems you are not really interested in enquiring after truth (which is most effectively achieved by discussion amongst parties of differing opinions),

I've only been following this discussion in a very general sense, but I really must protest at this statement. This seems like a truly absurd method of arriving at truth. It seems to be saying that truth is whatever we agree it to be. My experience, (note the use of the word experience, not idea, or belief or suggestion or something similar) is that an understanding of truth is best arrived at by inquiring from the source of All Truth and receiving divinely sourced inspiration, in response to a humble, sincere, faithful supplication. To be sure, well-informed, sincere, genuine discussion can play a part in this process, as ideally, one should have a certain degree of understanding before supplicating before our Father but this discussion should only ever be regarded as a preliminary step. Truth is what God says it is, and He is the best source to learn it from, using the methods He has prescribed. There are no short cuts, and what He has prescribed is humble, sincere, faithful prayer, with a real yearning to know, accept and follow the truth once it has been confirmed to you. 

One thing I am sure of, and that is that you are not going to discover divine truth through a discussion of any branch of philosophy, such as morals, ethics, epistemology, logic, or ontology. Quite possibly, such discussions could be a distraction or diversion, or even a form of procrastination, holding you back from finding and following the truth path that will lead to real truth. That path is found through sincere faith and prayer. The path has now been very briefly explained to you. It is now up to you to decide if you will walk it or not, or simply wander in the wilderness of the philosophies of man. One day, I assure you, you will be required to explain your decision. 

Edited June 23, 2018 by askandanswer

[askandanswer]

@2ndRateMind one of the implications of suggesting that we, that is humanity, do not have any reliable means of knowing good from bad is that God has placed us in a situation whereby He has said to us, if you are good, you can come back to live with me and enjoy the good life, and if you’re bad you can go to hell and be miserable for eternity, but I’m not going to tell you how to differentiate between good and bad

. That sounds fundamentally unfair to me, and I don’t think that God plays by unfair rules.

[Guest MormonGator]

1 minute ago, askandanswer said:

@2ndRateMind one of the implications of suggesting that we, that is humanity, do not have any reliable means of knowing good from bad is that God has placed us in a situation whereby He has said to us, if you are good, you can come back to live with me and enjoy the good life, and if you’re bad you can go to hell and be miserable for eternity, but I’m not going to tell you how to differentiate between good and bad

. That sounds fundamentally unfair to me, and I don’t think that God plays by unfair rules.

I think we all know good from bad. That's why we cringe at the thought of eating a baby and not a chicken. 

[askandanswer]

I'm going to have bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning - almost like eating baby chickens, or even worse, unborn chickens

[zil]

8 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I'm going to have bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning - almost like eating baby chickens, or even worse, unborn chickens

More like stealing food from unborn chickens.  You demon!

[Guest MormonGator]

15 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I'm going to have bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning - almost like eating baby chickens, or even worse, unborn chickens

I'm with Kant. Humans have a fundamental knowledge of an innate moral law. 

[askandanswer]

Sounds like more cant to me. (Not really, I lean in the same direction as you but I couldn't resist the pun)

[Guest MormonGator]

Just now, askandanswer said:

I couldn't resist the pun)

Try harder next time. 

[mordorbund]

21 hours ago, FunkyTown said:

1) You believe that man cannot possibly know objective truth as to what is moral.

2) You believe that a man did, indeed, know objective truth about what is moral - Jesus. Or he saved us without knowing objective truth about morality. Or he was just a moral philosopher who improved us without knowing what objective truth in morality was. 

3) You believe we get better morally

4) You have no way of measuring what 'better' means, nor do you have any concept of how we could possibly know that it was better.

5) You believe even a school child knows what 'better' means,.

6) You do not know what 'better' means in the context you were using it in - That is, in the context of improved morality and understanding.

7) You have no reason to believe we get better morally as a species due to the aforementioned lack of any possible measuring stick for what better means, but you like to think of yourself as an optimist and optimists believe things are better.

@2ndRateMind, I know you think you've laid out the framework of your own personal philosophy, but FT has summarized my understanding of your position. If you don't want to clarify, that's fine, but I thought you'd like to know that your position is not as clear as you seem to think it is.

[FunkyTown]

6 hours ago, MormonGator said:

I'm with Kant. Humans have a fundamental knowledge of an innate moral law. 

Which isn't to say there aren't sociopaths with no overarching guide of innate moral law. There are, just like there are people who were born blind, or deaf.

 

Just because one or two people do not have this universal sense doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You would be hard-pressed to find a society where betraying those who had been kindest to you, for instance, were seen as a great good. Even the worst societies in history became so because of an obsession with some universal good at the expense of all others - Honour(Or the appearance of honour), or familial loyalty are examples which have been twisted to become great evils.

Edited June 24, 2018 by FunkyTown

[2ndRateMind]

7 hours ago, mordorbund said:

@2ndRateMind, I know you think you've laid out the framework of your own personal philosophy, but FT has summarized my understanding of your position. If you don't want to clarify, that's fine, but I thought you'd like to know that your position is not as clear as you seem to think it is.

OK, I think another summary is due, for the benefit of the casual visitor/reader of the thread. I shall explain slowly and as carefully as I can, what I think and why I think it. It may be that I have been assuming knowledge you just don't have.

So, the cunning plan is to proceed as follows:

Firstly, I shall explain why discussion amongst parties of differing views is to be encouraged, not feared.

Secondly, I shall put forward the reasons why I think we cannot claim to know the difference between good and evil innately and completely.

Thirdly, I shall lay out the four main academic approaches to ethics.

Fourthly, I shall describe the basics of each of them, and their major strengths and weaknesses.

Fifthly, I shall describe why I think they can all be unified into one ethical scheme.

Sixthly, I shall describe how and why the metric of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) is used in medical scenarios to determine the allocation of scarce resources.

Seventhly, I shall propose how the QALY concept could be extended to help us make our other ethical choices.

I shall take questions and objections along the way, and so this programme might take some time to expound.

But before I embark, I want to know if this effort will be worthwhile, or wasted. In other words, do you want me to proceed along the above lines, and does this nature of discussion interest you at all?

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by 2ndRateMind

[FunkyTown]

2 hours ago, 2ndRateMind said:

OK, I think another summary is due, for the benefit of the casual visitor/reader of the thread. I shall explain slowly and as carefully as I can, what I think and why I think it. It may be that I have been assuming knowledge you just don't have.

So, the cunning plan is to proceed as follows:

Firstly, I shall explain why discussion amongst parties of differing views is to be encouraged, not feared.

Secondly, I shall put forward the reasons why I think we cannot claim to know the difference between good and evil innately and completely.

Thirdly, I shall lay out the four main academic approaches to ethics.

Fourthly, I shall describe the basics of each of them, and their major strengths and weaknesses.

Fifthly, I shall describe why I think they can all be unified into one ethical scheme.

Sixthly, I shall describe how and why the metric of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) is used in medical scenarios to determine the allocation of scarce resources.

Seventhly, I shall propose how the QALY concept could be extended to help us make our other ethical choices.

I shall take questions and objections along the way, and so this programme might take some time to expound.

But before I embark, I want to know if this effort will be worthwhile, or wasted. In other words, do you want me to proceed along the above lines, and does this nature of discussion interest you at all?

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

 

I have a few questions:

 

1) How will this be different from previous attempts to speak with you, where you simply evaded questions or simply answered different questions to what was asked?

2) Why is it that the 4 main academic approaches to ethics are important, but your own approach to ethics are not?

3) Why do you, personally, care about discussing this when you, personally, have no metric by which knowledge of good and evil might be measured objectively?

 

And finally:

 

4) For the 19th time, are you  more interested in discovering truth or in having an argument?

Edited June 24, 2018 by FunkyTown