Theological Opinions , PART II

[Rían]

What's been really striking about this discussion, IMO, is how you pretty much do everything you can to avoid using terms like right and wrong, yet you can't help doing it, over and over again, indirectly. When you are careful about what you say, you won't use right and wrong, but when you answer without trying to be careful, your warm and caring heart makes you say all sorts of things that show a VERY strong belief in right and wrong (and this is why I like you!) And not only a personal opinion of right and wrong, but an objective/global existence of right and wrong. This, to me, shows a serious disconnect between your worldview and reality, which indicates that your worldview is, IMO, most probably inaccurate, because the more accurate a worldview is, the more it should line up with reality.

One of the first things I noticed about you, IRex, is your kind and caring and passionate posts on the venting thread, especially to young ladies (you are very chivalrous and protective of women and the disadvantaged!) That's what first made me like you, despite your sometimes T-Rexy outbursts of temper!

But despite your passionate defences of those that you think have been wronged, you won't call things right or wrong when you're trying to be careful about what you say! This shows me that disconnect that I mentioned.

See, if you would just say, "I think it's wrong to be unjust, but I realize there is no objective right and wrong so you go ahead and do what you think is right", then I wouldn't have a logical problem with what you say. But you don't do this - you actually tell others that they're wrong! But how can you logically do this if not only is there no universal right/wrong? (of course you CAN and DO do this, but it's not LOGICAL for you to do this within the framework of your worldview, which is a serious case against the validity of your worldview.)

One way you've tried to get around this is to say that morals have somehow evolved - that people that acted in certain ways tended to survive to pass on their genes. This is a possible solution, in some ways, if you are willing to ignore a lot of other data. What you're ignoring (or trying to ignore, but it's obvious from your posts that you really don't) is the human heart or soul, or whatever name you want to give it.

You say we act certain ways because our genes are more likely to get passed on that way. If you really want to accept that small view of the world, then I guess you're free to do so, but that means that things like beauty, courage, honor, truth, humor, and even love are meaningless. MEANINGLESS. If you're willing to accept that, then I guess there's nothing I can do to stop you, but I will object to you telling me things like I shouldn't be against gay marriage. How can I be "wrong" if (acc'd to your viewpoint) it's my genes driving my behavior? Words like "should" imply something is right or wrong, but you won't use those terms, so why do you keep telling me what I "should" and "shouldn't" do? Within the framework of your worldview, those words are meaningless. Why is it wrong to be unjust if there are no objective rights and wrongs? Perhaps we'll "evolve" in a few years to where injustice is fine, right? (at least enough so our species will survive - perhaps just torturing a few babies every once in awhile for fun or something.) HOW can you tell me something is wrong - UNLESS you're appealing to a universal right that you think we should BOTH come in line with? Yet you do this over and over.

Doesn't that make you wonder if your worldview is wrong?

One way to divide up the possibility of what is really true in the universe is this question - do god/gods exist, or not? If so, then morality makes sense, because there is an outside authoritative being independent of humans. If not, then morality makes no sense whatsoever, because one person's opinion is as good as another's, and therefore one can't be right and another wrong. Yet EVERY DAY, EVERY ONE OF US appeals to a universal standard! the most basic being that it is WRONG to harm someone else for selfish gain. Our conversations are absolutely FILLED with references to things that are right and wrong! And I can't see how this would make sense to us, and how it would be so universal, if god/gods do not exist. Do you? The only way that I see that you can is to deny a large part of life - the part that says beauty and courage and honor and humor and love are actually GOOD things. As I said before, if God doesn't exist, then Frodo was a fool to do what he did. Yet all of us here admire him ... that should tell us something ... think about it ...