Golden Rule

[BaalChatzaf]

19 hours ago, moralist said:

Sure will, Brant...

...but first can you tell me who "we" is? Are you asking as an appointed spokesperson for a group, or are you asking for yourself as an individual?

 

Greg

Tell me, please,  about your experience

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

I'm curious enough about what you have next in mind to say I'm no representative of any group.

Thank you for your honesty, Brant.

The original statement was:

 

Quote

From my experience, God created and set into motion the physical laws that govern the universe as well as the moral laws that govern the consequences of human behavior. They are absolute, utterly impersonal, and there are no exceptions.

 

There is a way to know (for yourself only, and never for any one else) by your own personal experience that God exists. These are the simple instructions:

"Be still and know that I am God."

Psalms 46:10

There.

That's how I know.

But this is not as easy as it sounds, and it's utterly impossible for secular liberal government university imprinted intellects, because they are already full of their own self aggrandizing verbiage. So if you could ever learn how to sit still and shut the f**k up long enough...

...you could know for yourself, too. 

Now, as far as validating God's physical laws, science does that. But science creates NOTHING. It can only discover physical laws which already exist.

Regarding the validation of God's moral law, I've mentioned how to do that many times... through the simple observation of the consequences of your own actions. All this takes is some honest self reflection to discover the infinite wisdom of God's moral law.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

You validate your knowing by knowing?

Instead of thinking abstractly to any significant extent you default to either on-the-ground living or "God."

--Brant

pragmatic simplicity and consistency

[moralist]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

You validate your knowing by knowing?

 

Close, Brant... I validate my knowing by experience.. And I admit that I do enjoy an advantage, for my intellect hasn't been imprinted by a secular liberal government "education". 

 

Quote

Instead of thinking abstractly to any significant extent you default to either on-the-ground living or "God."

 

Quite literally...

It was a warn sunny breezy 80 degrees today so I started planting the Spring garden with strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peas. The almond trees are already in full bloom and swarmed by bees. Gratitude for the goodness of God's creation can be experienced directly on-the-ground... so it's not "or God"... it's both the ground and God.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

55 minutes ago, moralist said:

Close, Brant... I validate my knowing by experience.. And I admit that I do enjoy an advantage, for my intellect hasn't been imprinted by a secular liberal government "education". 

Quite literally...

It was a warn sunny breezy 80 degrees today so I started planting the Spring garden with strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peas. The almond trees are already in full bloom and swarmed by bees. Gratitude for the goodness of God's creation can be experienced directly on-the-ground... so it's not "or God"... it's both the ground and God.

Greg

Nor marred by Socrates.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, moralist said:

Thank you for your honesty, Brant.

The original statement was:

 

 

There is a way to know (for yourself only, and never for any one else) by your own personal experience that God exists. These are the simple instructions:

"Be still and know that I am God."

Psalms 46:10

There.

That's how I know.

But this is not as easy as it sounds, and it's utterly impossible for secular liberal government university imprinted intellects, because they are already full of their own self aggrandizing verbiage. So if you could ever learn how to sit still and shut the f**k up long enough...

...you could know for yourself, too. 

Now, as far as validating God's physical laws, science does that. But science creates NOTHING. It can only discover physical laws which already exist.

Regarding the validation of God's moral law, I've mentioned how to do that many times... through the simple observation of the consequences of your own actions. All this takes is some honest self reflection to discover the infinite wisdom of God's moral law.

 

Greg

Science or scientists do a lot more.  The corroborate theories and hypothesis by careful observation and experimentation.  They uncover new facts.  They tease out the order underlying the observations and measurements.   Coming up with gravitational wave measuring devices like LIGO was not just passive theorizing.  It was building a new measurement technology.  

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Samson Corwell]

Yeah, well what if you are a masochist? And "low-life mass men"?

[moralist]

12 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Science or scientists do a lot more.  The corroborate theories and hypothesis by careful observation and experimentation.  They uncover new facts.  They tease out the order underlying the observations and measurements.   Coming up with gravitational wave measuring devices like LIGO was not just passive theorizing.  It was building a new measurement technology.  

Ba'al Chatzaf

All you're saying is that scientists find out what's already there.

 

The beauty of science is that it is completely open ended. No matter how much scientists observe and study and measure and they will never fully fathom the infinite wisdom of the laws which God created to govern the universe... not to mention the moral laws which govern the consequences of human behavior. 

Now that's no small feat, because everyone enjoys the blessings of applied technology... but they're not creating anything. They're just observing the operation of God's laws and measuring their effects. And that is because God created the first law of thermodynamics. Scientists only discovered that it already exists.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, moralist said:

All you're saying is that scientists find out what's already there.

 

The beauty of science is that it is completely open ended. No matter how much scientists observe and study and measure and they will never fully fathom the infinite wisdom of the laws which God created to govern the universe... not to mention the moral laws which govern the consequences of human behavior. 

Now that's no small feat, because everyone enjoys the blessings of applied technology... but they're not creating anything. They're just observing the operation of God's laws and measuring their effects. And that is because God created the first law of thermodynamics. Scientists only discovered that it already exists.

Greg

Something is known to be already there only after it is found to be already there.  Science does not make up things out of nothing.  Scientists have to look, see, measure what is there,  Especially the events, processes and objects that are beyond the grasp or ordinary organic senses.   We cannot -see- electrons.  We have to infer their existence from their effects. Scientists through hard labor and thinking tease out what is -behind- and -beyond- the appearances.   Maxwell figured out what light was when he repaired a defect in Ampere's law of magnetism by postulating that changing electric fields produced magnetic fields.  His motive was mathematical  but it  revealed that undulating electric fields produces undulating magnetic fields which produced undulating electric fields  and so on ad infinitum.   This gave him the clue to the wave nature of light (light also has a particulate nature as Einstein discovered).  

Think of what would have happened if Maxwell had not thought of this.  Electromagnetic waves which are already there would still be there, but we would not know about them.  Hence we would not have invented radio,  t.v.   and all the electronic gizmos we take for granted.  Even this conversation we are  having would not have taken place...

If Maxwell had not thought what he thought t hen Hertz would not have built the first radio receiver the the ancestor of wireless telegraphy.  The only electric signals there would have been are the kind that are carried by wires.  The electromagnetic radiation which has been there since God invented dirt would not have done us much good or use. 

[KorbenDallas]

13 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

Yeah, well what if you are a masochist? And "low-life mass men"?

Exactly.  The Golden Rule depends on what the person values--the person might think it is "good" to treat people badly, as he expects people to do this unto himself.  This type of person enjoys conflict, uses the Golden Rule as a maxim.  How about a Heraclitian mentality, of strife and change--meaning he creates the strife and you change?  He would expect this kind of treatment from others, of the fight, the predator/prey.  The masochist, the person who enjoys seeing people suffer, that attempts to make other people suffer as he expects this unto himself.

The Golden Rule is too bromidic, and needs to be cast out.  It's unprincipled, says nothing to the nature of man, of why we need values, and an Objective value system, in the first place.

[Jonathan]

Apey not understand what "validate" mean. Apey have intellect and maturity of second-grader.

 

 

[anthony]

2 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Exactly.  The Golden Rule depends on what the person values--the person might think it is "good" to treat people badly, as he expects people to do this unto himself.  This type of person enjoys conflict, uses the Golden Rule as a maxim.  How about a Heraclitian mentality, of strife and change--meaning he creates the strife and you change?  He would expect this kind of treatment from others, of the fight, the predator/prey.  The masochist, the person who enjoys seeing people suffer, that attempts to make other people suffer as he expects this unto himself.

The Golden Rule is too bromidic, and needs to be cast out.  It's unprincipled, says nothing to the nature of man, of why we need values, and an Objective value system, in the first place.

Yeah, only good people need apply. Who says who's "good" and what is "good"?

I say so!

You are not also meaning to question the Cat Imp are you, Korben?

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become universal law".

I should think not!

(Imagine the chaos of "universal laws" that would ensue)

 

[merjet]

3 hours ago, moralist said:

but they're not creating anything. 

He is channeling Obama now. 

[KorbenDallas]

45 minutes ago, anthony said:

You are not also meaning to question the Cat Imp are you, Korben?

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become universal law".

I should think not!

(Imagine the chaos of "universal laws" that would ensue)

Nope, used maxim as defined by the 2nd edition OED, 3rd sense, "A rule or principle of conduct..."

Kants categorical imperative is bogus

[anthony]

Seems my point was lost, it's not about a coincidental use of "maxim". The similarity/comparison of the C Imperative to the GR is what interests me, and what I wanted to connect your opinions to. It appears from what I've read, Kant was unhappy with the moral subjectivity that such as the Golden Rule represented (rightly), but I think then made matters far worse by merely expanding the GR to x number of people - 'universalizing' it.  A universalized moral law is of higher degree of subjectivity, imo.

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

The Golden Rule is too bromidic, and needs to be cast out.  It's unprincipled, says nothing to the nature of man, of why we need values, and an Objective value system, in the first place.

The GR is the most practical of  ethical principles.  It is so practical it has popped up in just about every human society  going way back to ancient days.  One should  hesitate to caste out a principle that is so well grounded in common sense and has been shown to work, time after time.  On pragmatic grounds the GR is the all time champion.

[moralist]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Something is known to be already there only after it is found to be already there.  Science does not make up things out of nothing.

Yes. That's what I said, Bob.

Science discovers... but can't create.

 

Greg

[merjet]

5 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The GR is the most practical of  ethical principles.  It is so practical it has popped up in just about every human society  going way back to ancient days.  One should  hesitate to caste out a principle that is so well grounded in common sense and has been shown to work, time after time.  On pragmatic grounds the GR is the all time champion.

Which form?

- One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive or directive form).
- One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form).
- What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself (empathic or responsive form).  Link.

The second form far outranks the others in my opinion.

 

 

[moralist]

4 hours ago, merjet said:

He is channeling Obama now. 

Not me... Obama actually said:

 

Greg

[Samson Corwell]

6 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Exactly.  The Golden Rule depends on what the person values--the person might think it is "good" to treat people badly, as he expects people to do this unto himself.  This type of person enjoys conflict, uses the Golden Rule as a maxim.  How about a Heraclitian mentality, of strife and change--meaning he creates the strife and you change?  He would expect this kind of treatment from others, of the fight, the predator/prey.  The masochist, the person who enjoys seeing people suffer, that attempts to make other people suffer as he expects this unto himself.

The Golden Rule is too bromidic, and needs to be cast out.  It's unprincipled, says nothing to the nature of man, of why we need values, and an Objective value system, in the first place.

Wait, so other people do not believe in objective morality?

[merjet]

"Build" is a synonym of "create" (link).

 

[KorbenDallas]

8 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Exactly.  The Golden Rule depends on what the person values--the person might think it is "good" to treat people badly, as he expects people to do this unto himself.  This type of person enjoys conflict, uses the Golden Rule as a maxim.  How about a Heraclitian mentality, of strife and change--meaning he creates the strife and you change?  He would expect this kind of treatment from others, of the fight, the predator/prey.  The masochist, the person who enjoys seeing people suffer, that attempts to make other people suffer as he expects this unto himself.

The Golden Rule is too bromidic, and needs to be cast out.  It's unprincipled, says nothing to the nature of man, of why we need values, and an Objective value system, in the first place.

 

4 hours ago, anthony said:

The similarity/comparison of the C Imperative to the GR is what interests me, and what I wanted to connect your opinions to. It appears from what I've read, Kant was unhappy with the moral subjectivity that such as the Golden Rule represented (rightly), but I think then made matters far worse by merely expanding the GR to x number of people - 'universalizing' it.  A universalized moral law is of higher degree of subjectivity, imo.

Got brushed up on Kant, but it really does.  The examples in my first post applied to a group setting would get chaotic, as you said.  Social voting could occur, whether explicit or implicit, to determine what's "good" in establishing the Kantian universal moral.  It would then be amoral in this setting to go against the universal, as it is deemed undutiful to do so--because the collective reigns over the individual, duty over identity.

Rand's The Age of Envy, and The Comprachicos talk about the pack mentality, and after doing a web search I found a new-to-me Rand article entitled Causality vs. Duty that is somewhat related as well:  http://pweb.netcom.com/~cbell58/article/ayn_rand_causality_versus_duty.htm

 

[moralist]

3 hours ago, merjet said:

"Build" is a synonym of "create" (link).

 

If you're a secularist it is.

But if you're not, the word creation is reserved for God...

...because it's impossible for you or me or anyone else to make something from nothing.

 

Greg

 

[BaalChatzaf]

8 minutes ago, moralist said:

If you're a secularist it is.

But if you're not, the word creation is reserved for God...

...because it's impossible for you or me or anyone else to make something from nothing.

 

Greg

 

While one cannot create something from nothing,  one can create utility by arranging the material in a new and useful way.  In that sense,  something new can created from a state where the new thing did not previously exist.  The Wright Brothers  created from  wood  and cloth and from steel  things that flew under power.  In a way that is something from nothing.  To change what does not fly into something that does fly.

 

Ba'al Chatzaf 

[moralist]

43 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

While one cannot create something from nothing,  one can create utility by arranging the material in a new and useful way.  In that sense,  something new can created from a state where the new thing did not previously exist.  The Wright Brothers  created from  wood  and cloth and from steel  things that flew under power.  In a way that is something from nothing.  To change what does not fly into something that does fly.

 

Ba'al Chatzaf 

I totally agree, Bob... from within the government educated secularist point of view, that's totally proper usage for the word "create".

Many technological advances have been made, and I thoroughly enjoy all of them. But only God created everything from nothing... not man... no matter how bloated by pride he gets. Quantifying how a physical law operates and applying it cannot create that law... nor can it create matter or energy. By Divine law is this so.

 

Greg