He is risen!

[Kidlicious]

"No, Danny, I don't believe most of us, religious or not, are truly moral, b/c we tend to think of morality as external rules. Orthodox Christian ethics are virtue ethics."

The problem with your claim is that if we aren't moral, then we can't tell which guru to believe. If we aren't good, then we can't choose the correct beliefs. You're suggesting that we accept objective truth that comes from your priest, just not objective truth from some other source. (By objective I mean not subjective.)

[rah]

If something can't be proven then other options are possible you idiot.

Tell that to the people that claim God exists but refuse to even consider that he doesn't.
Or to those that claim he doesn't exist but refuse to even consider that he does.

[kentonio]

Or those that assume that she is a he and refuse to even consider that she is.

[rah]

Yeah, them too.

[Kidlicious]

Tell that to the people that claim God exists but refuse to even consider that he doesn't.
Or to those that claim he doesn't exist but refuse to even consider that he does.

They already considered that God does not exist. Then they chose to believe that He does. It's like you don't know how to think.

[Elok]

Lori: something of a tangent, but is anyone in the TH community (assuming there is such a thing) concerned about our increased understandings of the working of the mind being someday used for something like mind control? Not necessarily in a big-brother way--possibly in much the same way big companies currently use aggressive marketing. What I said in the old farts thread applies here; a kid playing a dumb video game on his phone is really not much different from a rat with a lever. He's endlessly performing a meaningless action to get intermittent rewards, a triumph of applied behaviorism. I can see still more invasive and exploitative tricks being used as technology melds itself more and more to our daily lives. I could see a paternalistic state doing much the same thing. But I know you know people who are much more invested in this kind of thought.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't believe most of us, religious or not, are truly moral, b/c we tend to think of morality as external rules.

Truth.

[rah]

They already considered that God does not exist. Then they chose to believe that He does. It's like you don't know how to think.

Those are not the people I'm talking about, It's obvious you don't know how to understand what you read.

There are quite a few believers out there that won't even/ have never considered that he doesn't. But please feel free to pretend they don't exist.

[Kidlicious]

Those are not the people I'm talking about, It's obvious you don't know how to understand what you read.

There are quite a few believers out there that won't even/ have never considered that he doesn't. But please feel free to pretend they don't exist.

They don't really believe. Or they do just because someone told them to believe that. Those are the kind I'm talking about regarding elok's morality.

[rah]

And they're the ones I was pointing out as being closed-minded. I guess that's as close as we're going to get to agreeing.

[Kidlicious]

And they're the ones I was pointing out as being closed-minded. I guess that's as close as we're going to get to agreeing.

Well they just want to be part of a social group or get respect from men, not God. So yeah, but that's not how the Bible defines a Christian. That's how man defines a Christian. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Lorizael]

Lori: something of a tangent, but is anyone in the TH community (assuming there is such a thing) concerned about our increased understandings of the working of the mind being someday used for something like mind control? Not necessarily in a big-brother way--possibly in much the same way big companies currently use aggressive marketing. What I said in the old farts thread applies here; a kid playing a dumb video game on his phone is really not much different from a rat with a lever. He's endlessly performing a meaningless action to get intermittent rewards, a triumph of applied behaviorism. I can see still more invasive and exploitative tricks being used as technology melds itself more and more to our daily lives. I could see a paternalistic state doing much the same thing. But I know you know people who are much more invested in this kind of thought.

I haven't closely followed the TH community (it does exist) in a couple years. Yeah, there are people who talk about this kind of thing, but I can't really tell you much more than that. One of the things that gets talked about is the idea of yielding more and more of your will to autonomous agents that are only nominally under your control. The dystopian result there is eventually you won't have to make decisions about what you want because what you want will have already been provided for you by your agent before you even realized you wanted it. And this might not even be a sinister thing so much as a, like you say, paternalistic thing. Each step along the way toward this end is all about anticipating the wants of the end user, until the easiest way to do that is to simply create the wants of the end user by not even providing a choice.

[ricketyclik]

I contest essentially everything you've said. A substantial portion of the population makes its living off something blatantly immoral by any reasonable standard, and gets away with it. Tobacco being the obvious example. Con artists. Hard sales of cheap crap. War profiteering. Most, or possibly all, politicians. Use your imagination. Examples range from the ridiculously petty to the outrageously vile. Our moral "system" is built to withstand a substantial amount of freeloading.

A substantial proportion of the population? 5%? 10%? The bulk of humanity make a living from providing a service that someone needs or wants.

[ricketyclik]

All truth IS absolute. If you don't believe in ABSOLUTE truth then you don't believe. You are double-minded.

See? Cult-talk.

[Kidlicious]

See? Cult-talk.

Fine. Don't believe anything.