How does atheism avoid falling into moral relativism? Also,

>>1955976
What does realizing that deities simply don't exist has to do with morality or moral relativism?

I don't know, how does theism?

The Bible has an awful lot of 'metaphors' for a book that's supposed to be infallible and 100% true. There also doesn't really seem to be an objective methodology to establish the difference between metaphor and literal report, it seems to revolve around whatever feels convenient at the time

>>1955985
How do you substantiate an absolute morality without deities?

>>1956019
It's not really an important distinction (most of the time, not all of the time), unless there is an injunction involved. Plenty of things that are literal, can and should be read metaphorically as well.

>>1956026
Why do you need deities? Where does your craving to be told what to do by someone supposedly better than you comes from?

>>1956035
Well, you might read the link if you want an in depth exploration of that.

>>1956038
Don't have time for that now, I'll get back on that when I do read it, but I was curious about why you need those things (supposing you're the anon i replied to).

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>>1956026
>>1955976
>How do you substantiate an absolute morality without deities?
How do you substantiate an absolute morality WITH deities?

I mean, even if you assume the Bible is the literal word of God, it's still fallible subjective humans who have to interpret that shit and apply it.

Until a deity comes down to Earth and magics his will on the people, there's nothing absolute about it.

Absolute morality isn't morality in anycase, times change, situations change, and holding onto any morality that doesn't adapt to that fact, is immoral in and of itself.

Set a goal for your society (be survival and prosperity or what not), find the most effective ethical system for reaching that goal, refine and adapt as needed. Done.

>>1956042
I need them ontologically, not passionately.

>>1956045
Christ is God and said the Spirit of Truth would protect his Church

>>1956048
>I need them ontologically, not passionately.

Why?

>>1955976

Maybe a hundred years ago, but today atheists don't really give it too much thought. The only people I know who talk about religion are the black women at work, and surely I would want to do anything that they do.

>>1956048
>Christ is God and said the Spirit of Truth would protect his Church
Which Church? Which "Truth"? Everyone and their cousin interprets His word differently, as does every age, so where's the absolute in that?

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>>1955976
>How does atheism avoid falling into moral relativism?

Create their own moral absolutes and enforce them with State violence like Christians did.

>We shall see in the next chapter, on the other hand, how a politics that rejects Christian Truth must acknowledge "the people" as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a formally "egalitarian" society.

Laughably Eurocentric and down right embarrassingly lazy for any commentator born after the 19th Century.

>>1955976
Christianity puts moral relativism into practice.

>we don't have to follow these laws in the Old Testament because they only applied to those living at the time

Literally by arguing for objectivity they are arguing for subjectivity instead. The definition of cognitive dissonance.

>>1955976
To my knowledge it does not. Or the people who claim to be atheist simply don't think about it and claim their current set of morals is correct. As for your quote I can't say I've seen true 'existential' atheism and as to whether it's spiritual, I would say yes, though by definition alone.

>>1955976
Is the only thing preventing you from butchering and eating a baby the thought that God might be upset?

>>1956049
Because reality without a linchpin would be a collection of abstracted points.

>>1956052
The Church is the body he founded.

The truth is the truth he imparted. New interpretations obviously don't accord with the Spirit of Truth, because the Spirit of Truth guards the truth continuously. The doesn't evaporate and then re-emerge, at least within the framework we're talking about.

>>1956054
If your morals are created, they're not absolute.

>>1956056
Jews similarly say non-Jews don't have to follow the Jewish covenant, only the Noahide covenant. Christianity is the *new* covenant which is prophecized in the old testament, when the Ark of the old laws will be done away with.

>>1956062
No. There's also the limited supply of accessible babies, the low amount of meat on baby carcasses and prion diseases.

>>1956062
God doesn't get upset, at least in Orthodox, except in the sense that we might experience him that way, similar to saying, "The sea was angry" Sin is defined as being dissonant with his energies.

Anyway, I'm not sure how what you're saying has anything to do with absolute morality. There are countless things you wouldn't do, that doesn't mean you think absolute morality is why you wouldn't do them.

>>1956067
Nothing you said disputes anything I said. The idea of having more than one "covenant" or even covenants at all is moral relativism. If morality is absolute, then they can apply to all peoples for all time, and don't need revisions or cultural contexts.

Firstly, this is retarded question because atheism isn't moral position, it is a broad class of believes so it isn't more relative than abscract theism that could mean anything from scientology to fucking aztec cults. If you want an answer, just combine atheism with any absolute ethical system based not around Gods but around anything else like in case of categorical imperative.

>>1956067
>Because reality without a linchpin would be a collection of abstracted points.

No it wouldn't. The world we live in is governed by sets of principles we as a species have a pretty good grasp of. And not one of the explanations requires a deity.

>>1956067
>If your morals are created, they're not absolute.
Oh dont worry every group "discovers them" via reason or revelation.

Does Mr Rose know that countries exist outside of Europe and North America that Arent Australia and NZ?

>>1956026
> How do you substantiate an absolute morality without deities?
By any other absolute. Coca Cola isn't the only drink and deity isn't the only absolute known to human.

>>1956082
>Coca Cola isn't the only drink
Burn the heretic!

>>1956074
>If morality is absolute, then they can apply to all peoples for all time, and don't need revisions or cultural contexts.

Its their way of dodgy relativism like Muslisms, "there is an absolute morality the however despite ours popping centuries later and only in this one place others ours is actually true because the absolute gave us a special update"

>>1956085
>Its their way of dodgy relativism like Muslisms

*dodging

>>1956052
>The Church is the body he founded.
Which multiple Churches lay claim to.

>The truth is the truth he imparted. New interpretations obviously don't accord with the Spirit of Truth, because the Spirit of Truth guards the truth continuously. The doesn't evaporate and then re-emerge, at least within the framework we're talking about.
Every reading is a new interpretation - I'm not talking "translation" or "transcription", I'm talking about what each individual who reads the Bible thinks it means. This changes, not only from individual to individual and from age to age, but even from time to time with the same individual. It's about as un-absolute as you can get.

>>1956074
Revision isn't about cultural context, it's about humans are spiritually capable of prior to Christ, versus after Christ. Just like it's morally wrong to force a child to eat from the floor, but ridiculous to try to feed a dog at the dinner table.

>>1956077
These principles are broad guidelines, not linchpins. Many of them aren't coherent in quantum physics. Just like the naked eye understands reality in a more simplistic way than a microscope. The principles you're talking about are manifestations of reality, not vice versa.

>>1956079
What's your reasoning? And who is doing the revealing?

>>1956082
What other absolute did you have in mind?

>>1956089
>Which multiple Churches lay claim to.
Yes, but most haven't existed for more than a few hundred years, max, let alone 2,000

>Every reading is a new interpretation
Different interpretations aren't really a problem unless they're dissonant.

>>1956067
>The Church is the body he founded
I'm sorry, what? Even if you did think God explicitly created a Christian Church, the Catholic and Orthodox churches have equal claim on being the direct descendants of the one true Church.

>>1956067
> Because reality without a linchpin would be a collection of abstracted points.
Maybe reality is a collection of abstracted points, maybe it isn't even without any linchpins. By any means, this seems like statement that itself isn't really based on reality that much.

>>1956090
>What other absolute did you have in mind?

The ego, self interest, pleasure, herd mentality, patriotism, love for family, tribalism, greater good, globalism, pacifism, plenty of ideas that justify what is moral and what isn't.

Even just being a vegan is enough of a moral compass for 90% of your daily problems.
God and religions are similar such compasses. The atheists simply choose to use another, more fitting and often more modern compass, instead of the old one that doesn't belong in the modern world of science and technology and busy urban life.

>>1956093
Not really, since the Catholic Church admits to having introduced new teachings, such as Papal Supremacy. The Filioque is also something totally foreign to Christianity for the first several hundred years.

>>1956098
If reality were a collection of abstracted points (in other words, each point has no relation or interaction on any level with any other point), what would consciousness be?

>>1956102
None of those are the Absolute.

>>1956090
And who is doing the revealing?

Depends on which group you ask, it ranges from everything from angels, gods, ancestors, spirits, prophets, mystics, philosophers, logic, dialetical interplay


>What's your reasoning?
That Mr Rose's analysis is entirely ignorant of Asia, India and most countries where white people arent or have been in charge.

Unless of course he plays a semantic game and stretches every kind of moral absolute to mean Christian Truth.

>>1956105
Nothing is absolute in the sense that you assume.
You believe that they are (the way you believe in a dead gypsy on a stick) and act as if they were, and thats what we call morals.

>>1955976

>How does atheism avoid falling into moral relativism?

because usually atheism is materialistic in nature, thus atheists generally assume their consciousness is a function of their brain and so dose morals, from evolutionary point of view social mammals have inborn concept of fairness as this is required for cooperation within a group

so, morals have evolutionary origin and later on are build up by society

if moral relativism seems to me to come from the notion each individual morality is vastly different and uncompromisable to others, this as observed is not the case

so, in the name of social cohesion concepts as fairness, justice and truth must be upheld


that's my take on it but I do consider my self more of an agnostic or at most weak atheist

>>1956090
>Revision isn't about cultural context, it's about humans are spiritually capable of prior to Christ, versus after Christ. Just like it's morally wrong to force a child to eat from the floor, but ridiculous to try to feed a dog at the dinner table.

Again, that is still relativism. You are saying that one culture should have one set of moral standards and another culture should have another set of moral standards. In this case, the difference is their "spiritual capacity". Who's to say that the modern world's spiritual capacity isn't significantly different from that of the time of Jesus Christ? Should we be expecting "The NEW New Testament" any day now?

This is why Christianity and absolute morality are incompatible, unless you're willing to accept a ridiculously literal view of the Bible and practice its morals whole cloth (not mixed cloth, that's not allowed). But that itself is incompatible with modern society, which is why theologians came up with the relativistic excuse. It's religion that adapts to the morals of the times, not the other way around.

>>1956107
Seraphim Rose was an Eastern heathen before converting to Christianity. His disciple ended up writing "Christ the Eternal Tao," which expresses Orthodox Christianity in Taoist terms.

>>1956108
>Nothing is absolute in the sense that you assume.
>>1956108
>Nothing is absolute in the sense that you assume.
Thank you for answering the OP

>>1956109
Our idea of "fair" has changed drastically every century for a while now.

>>1956090
> What other absolute did you have in mind?
Truth is the most common choice for the absolute as deities are pretty easy suspected for not being trustworthy. In a sense, Absolute Morality already based on The Truth. Faith just claims, that deities can lead you to The Truth, but Deities themselves aren't really important from logic point of view here as they just act as mediator between us and The Truth here. The last is what is a real basis of any absolute morality, but you can claim existence of The Truth from many other positions like some of pure logical, mathematical or philosophical ones.

>>1956127
Could you define Truth here? For Christianity, Truth means God.

>>1956045
Technically if Islam is correct the Quran is objective.

>>1956123
>Seraphim Rose was an Eastern heathen before converting to Christianity. His disciple ended up writing "Christ the Eternal Tao," which expresses Orthodox Christianity in Taoist terms.

So how was China, India and Japan able to not "acknowledge "the people" as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a formally "egalitarian" society." despite rejecting Christian Truth?

You also forgot the

"Depends on which group you ask, it ranges from everything from angels, gods, ancestors, spirits, prophets, mystics, philosophers, logic, dialetical interplay "

Many, many groups have some way of claiming a stake to the absolute, East Orthodox Christianity is not unique here.

>>1956104
> each point has no relation or interaction on any level with any other point
There exist many options between no connection whatsoever and everything connected by a single linchpin. For example, an each point can interact only with some points, but not with any point. So consciousness can be a local, relative to context thing. I am sure that your consciousness doesn't exist in some places of The Universe. It is barely exist outside of your head, after all.

>>1956123

The basis of it didn't. Experiments were conducted with very young children to distribute candies and even without big amount of social influence they have shown the ability to agree on what is fair and what isn't. The similar experiments were done with apes and the results were remarkably similar.

The bases of our morality is evolutionary, the way it is applied varies as societies change.

All across the world and thought history innumerable societies have shunned murder, theft and unwarranted violence.

Yes it varies when those things are premissable and against whom, this is the social part of it.

In general however humans have innate morals that are for the most part pretty similar, it's their upbringing that sets them apart.


This excludes psychopaths and other damaged individuals as their capability for empathy and thus morality is limited.

>>1956136
Dont waste your time the OP literally only comes here to convert people to Orthodoxy.

Literally no answer is acceptable to that poster unless its "Orthodoxy is the only truth"

>>1956133
You might try reading Christ the Eternal Tao to understand this. Eastern heathen religions have elements of truth in them.

All the things you're saying are *not* the absolute. When you talk of spirits and ancestors, you're talking in plurality terms, not Absolute terms.

>>1956135
If one point connects to another and another and so on, so that all points can be connected to each other by some path, then they are all ultimately connected, taking the broad view.

>>1956136
I'm sure they distributed them according to primitivist conceptions of fairness. It gets a lot trickier with more complex societies, though.

>>1956129
You can't define Absolute. To define absolute truth means to be omnipotent, on top of the omniscient.
> Truth means God.
God himself is undefinable. To define object is to explain it exact nature and there is basically the impossible task in a case of God.

>>1956104
>but most haven't existed for more than a few hundred years, max, let alone 2,000
There only has to be two, and there's at least three, while most of the remainder claim to have formed specifically because their mother churches had abandoned that "Spirit of Truth" you speak of.

>Different interpretations aren't really a problem unless they're dissonant.
They are often incredibly dissonant - we've fought wars over this shit.

>>1956092
>the Catholic Church admits to having introduced new teachings
So does the Orthodox. Jesus didn't lay down a whole lotta specifics when it came to the structure of His church. If anything, he kinda suggested there shouldn't be one, save in the individual believer's heart.

>>1956139
>You might try reading Christ the Eternal Tao to understand this. Eastern heathen religions have elements of truth in them.

Which is what eastern faiths say about western ones, and still fails to tackle the point of why not being Christian doesnt lead to the outcomes described.

>All the things you're saying are *not* the absolute. When you talk of spirits and ancestors, you're talking in plurality terms, not Absolute terms.

They are to those people who follow them as the absolute just as you follow the multitude of people who claimed to hear messages from angels, God and people who heard messages from people who heard messages from God and angels.

Your absolute differs from theirs only in the most superficial of ways. Gods Will, the Dao, "Nature", the divine - people who listed to angles and Gods but aren't sanctioned by your specific creed, a pluarlity of terms but still the one same claim and outcome.

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>>1956139
> all points can be connected to each other by some path
Points can be connected to each other, but path that connects all points doesn't necessary exist. Black Hole is great example here. No path exist from one to another. Who knows how many one way road interactions exist in real world.

>>1956142
Right, unless one is being poetic, in Orthodoxy, the best way to describe God is apophatically

>>1956147
>There only has to be two, and there's at least three,
No, as I've pointed out, Catholic doctrine is innovated, even Catholics say this.

As for the Oriental Orthodox--Copts and the like--they are not dogmatically separated from us, only canonically. Not de facto, in other words, just de jure. In most cases we can take Communion at each other's churches

>They are often incredibly dissonant - we've fought wars over this shit.
My point is that different interpretations are not innately conflicting, they can in fact be entirely harmonious. It's when you're interpretation is dissonant with the Church Fathers that you have an issue

>So does the Orthodox.
No, not at all. For us, dogma is what Christ taught, and just that.

>Jesus didn't lay down a whole lotta specifics when it came to the structure of His church
No, and most of our structure is canonical, not *dogmatic* (like the Papacy is). Christ did establish the office of the bishop/priest though, and their authority to do things like absolve sins.

>>1956131
The Quran doesn't interpret itself anymore than the Bible does. No written word is objective in human hands, even modern law has to be written in such detailed minutia so as to prevent misinterpretation insomuch as possible, and even that momentous effort, so great it makes the law all but indecipherable to the layman, often fails in this endeavor. Meanwhile, religious doctrine is more often written akin to poetry, and has nearly as many interpretations as there are readers of said.

>>1956149
>and still fails to tackle the point of why not being Christian doesnt lead to the outcomes described.
Because they're nearer to Christian in some respect. You can be gradually closer to being Christian, and you can be gradually further. Eastern religions, at least their positive aspects, are about the search for Christ, only they don't realize it.

Tao and "gods" are not really comparable. Tao is a sort of Absolute, but gods are different forces, often antagonist to each other.

>>1956157
>No, and most of our structure is canonical
You're telling me you agree that Jesus didn't say much of anything about his church, and somehow your church structure is canonical?

>>1956155
Of course a path exists from one to another, it's through space, which is a thing that can bend, not just nothingness.

Black holes don't necessarily "go" anywhere, if that is what you're getting at. They are just unfathomably intense concentrations of gravity.

>>1956166
"Canonical", in Orthodoxy, means pertaining to non-dogmatic rules.

Jesus taught plenty about his Church, the job of bishops was to be teachers and authorities who would pass on his teachings into the future like a relay race. Many of his teachings were later written down, but bishops are the heart here of the tradition.

>>1956157
>My point is that different interpretations are not innately conflicting, they can in fact be entirely harmonious. It's when you're interpretation is dissonant with the Church Fathers that you have an issue
They often do conflict, as do even the views of the "Church Fathers", having written different accounts of the same events. True, their differing views weren't so disharmonious as to lead to violence, but those of the rest of history often have been. (And, in cases where interpretation has evolved over time, would have been, had they existed in the same age.)

>>1956173
Did Jesus say if genetically altering embryos is acceptable?
Did Jesus say if using chemical weapons and nuclear weapons is acceptable?
What did Jesus say about artificial intelligence, androids, cloning organs, cloning people?

>>1956175
The earliest exegetic schools in Orthodoxy were the Antiochene and the Alexandrian, and though they had very different approaches, they stayed very consistent in their particular approaches and only ever got into serious conflict about Christology, a lot of which was more semantic dispute than Scriptural exegesis.

>>1956176
Not specifically, but he left teachings that can tell us plainly about these things.

>>1956179
>Not specifically, but he left teachings that can tell us plainly about these things.

What did he say that tells us plainly about these things?

>>1956168
> It's through space, which is a thing that can bend
This is exactly the reason why the path from black hole into another black hole doesn't exist because space bends in such way that you can't leave one. If even light can't reach point A to point B than the path from A to B doesn't exist [if you exclude rare case of merging black holes, you can't jump from one to another]. My point here is that is hard just to rule out all exceptions, that can made the path from any point to another impossible. Even in the case of Christianity, it is pretty hard to move from heaven to hell or other way arond, so it isn't pure physicalism here.

>>1956179

>Not specifically

Then his morality isn't absolute. I also get the impression that you have no idea what the word 'absolute' means. 'Absolute' means applicable to everyone, everywhere, everytime. For this, the people who use it would need to possess absolute omniscience, in order to know every possible moral obstacle to overcome.

The fact that you can't name specifics disproves your proposition entirely

>>1956180
Genetic engineering is not acceptable, because God in the Bible is said to be the one who knits in the womb, and man is a God-made icon of God; man, by tampering on that level, constructs himself as an icon of himself, instead of God; this impairs his fundamental purpose.

Jesus said even using swords is not a good idea, and they should be kept at most as deterrents. The same philosophy could probably be applied to nuclear weapons.

I'm not really worried about artificial intelligence, but cloning separates reproduction from matrimony, which is a form of fornication.

>>1956190
>Then his morality isn't absolute
"Absolute" doesn't mean rigorously codified.

> 'Absolute' means applicable to everyone, everywhere, everytime.
Correct. Cultivating Christ's morality, is more about getting it written on your heart through practice, then about memorizing codes. Even the Old Testament says this is how Christ's covenant will work.

>>1956208
If man is made in the image of the creator, then man himself is a creator, and yearns to create. Is it then not man's purpose to create its own species, in its own image?

At any rate, you are looking at the clouds and saying you see a rabbit, a fish and the Mona Lisa, but in reality the information isn't there, you are rationalizing and making things up.
Christianity evolves all the time, new opinions appear, because new problems appear. The solutions to these didn't exist before the problems, so new solutions are invented, that don't come from your prophet of choice, rather from 21 century bureaucrats.

What is good and what isn't, even just according to christianity, evolves over time. Christianity was okay with stoning women before, it isn't now. It was okay with slavery, it isn't now. It was against banks, its fine with them now.
There is no absolute, and its self evident by a simple examination of all things that can be claimed to be absolute.

>>1956212

>"Absolute" doesn't mean rigorously codified.

Yes it does. In fact, 'absolute' means the most rigorous possible. It means that it can never be ambiguous, and that it can never have any shades of grey, under any circumstances

>Cultivating Christ's morality, is more about getting it written on your heart through practice, then about memorizing codes.

This is just pure bullshit. "Getting it written on your heart"? What in the hell does that even mean? How do you write something onto your heart? Your heart isan organ that pumps blood.

If this is your idea of an absolute morality, then I highly recommend you define your terms in advance, because everything you've claimed so far is an incoherent pile of woo woo and gibberish. It certainly isn't specific enough to be absolute, it might not even be specific enough to be subjective, because most of the terms you use are completely meaningless

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>>1955976

I believe in one god but even I'm not naive enough to buy into bullshit like objective morality. There is just no reason whatsoever to believe any "true" notions of justice exist just because an all-powerful being happens to exist too.

>>1955976
It really can't as Nietzsche said 140 years ago, which is why he prophesied that the century after his death would be one of immense bloodshed between different authoritarian ideologies.

Protip: He was right.

>>1956216
Man's purpose is unite with God's energies, God's flame, and become deified. He's currently in a fallen state, so no, his purpose is not have his own creation beneath him.

The Church said slavery is good for humility, Saint John Chrysostom for instance, are to obey their masters in total love and submission. But he also said owning things is against God's intent, and if everyone were a serious Christian, all property would be common, and that having servants weakens you spiritually. The Church's position is radical, not of any age, but of God.

Orthodox Christianity is still strongly against usury, and by that I mean charging any interests on loans. They even proposed an alternative financial system in Russia that would do away with interest: http://www.globalresearch.ca/interest-free-banking-russia-debates-unorthodox-orthodox-financial-alternative/5495331

>>1956234
>Man's purpose is unite with God's energies, God's flame, and become deified. He's currently in a fallen state, so no, his purpose is not have his own creation beneath him.

Thats your interpretation, not an absolute. The one I suggested seems equally valid based on the objective facts.

Thats the point I am making, Very little is factual about religion, most is interpretation of these facts, treated as if it in turn is factual, when alternative interpretations can exist.
Church doctrine is an interpretation, and subjective, and changes over time. It isn't absolute.

>>1956226
>It means that it can never be ambiguous, and that it can never have any shades of grey, under any circumstances
Correct. But this doesn't require a rigorous codification. In fact, an absolute morality would be impossible to rigorously codify, since it would have to describe every single possible situation, and infinity. Hence why it is approached mystically instead of juridically for us.

> "Getting it written on your heart"? What in the hell does that even mean?
"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."

> Your heart is an organ that pumps blood.
Wow, how enlightened of you. Science is truly cool.

>, then I highly recommend you define your terms in advance
Understanding spiritual truths is a matter of experiencing them. If you want to understand them, you have try living the Orthodox lifestyle.

>>1956239
Well, it is absolute if God says so, isn't it?

>Church doctrine is an interpretation, and subjective, and changes over time
For Catholics, maybe. Not for Orthodox.

>>1956243
>For Catholics, maybe. Not for Orthodox.

Currently Orthadox priest tech that contraception is acceptable in marriage, when a century ago it was considered a great sin.
This is an easy example. I am sure there are others as well, like which rites are used and which are excluded over time.

>>1956253
The kind of contraception mainly in use a century ago (oral consumed) is still forbidden. Condoms are generally okay because they're comparable to coitus interruptus.

>>1956258
Again you are rationalizing. Doctrine said no contraception. When it said some contraception is okay. This is a change.

>>1956253
>I am sure there are others as well, like which rites are used and which are excluded over time.
Rites can change, just like the language, but they still tend to follow a particular common structure. So long as this structure is adhered to, a lot of theoretical rites would be fine.

>>1956260
Coitus interuptus is a form of contraception, and it was generally fine, so Imma have to differ with you on that.

>>1956267
Was wearing a pig's intestine on my penis while having sex with my wife in the 19th century acceptable and promoted by the orthadox church?

>>1956269
I don't pig intestine was ever specifically addressed, probably because it wasn't common enough to warrant such.

The Orthodox Church never promoted contraception. Having it permissible and promoting it are two different things.

Personally, my atheism has moved on to absurdism, and my morality is based on empathy. I'm a simple man, sorry.

>>1956241

>you have try living the Orthodox lifestyle

If that one is absolute, then why are there different denominations of Christianity? Why are there other religions than Christianity. If your morality applied to everything, everywhere, then disagreeing with it shouldn't even be possible in the first place.

Your absolute version of morality is completely nonsensical. Throughout this whole thread, you didn't define a single term you used, and you never mentioned in which case your version of morality certainly isn't absolute. I'm not going to waste any more time on this pointless sophistry

>>1956281
>If your morality applied to everything, everywhere, then disagreeing with it shouldn't even be possible in the first place.
Non sequitur, unless you define moral good as "whatever is done," and moral bad as, "whatever is not done."

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>>1955976
>Theism, true 'existential' theism burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful existence, is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true lack of God... Christ, in calling himself God, proved thereby his intense hunger for atheism.

How does theism avoid falling into moral relativism?

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>>1955976
He called himself Antichrist because he was a Pagan, not to project your nature-hating icon to him.

>>1956307
God is absolute, and the wellspring of rectitude.

>>1956318
Nietzsche was more passionate about Christianity than anything else, even if that passion was negative.

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>>1956319
God *is* abstraction.

Nothing more and nothing less.

An abstraction, that when taken literally, feminizes all the men of earth since no earthly man can compete with an abstraction.

At least the Earthly king could die and bear responsibility for his failure to perform but an abstraction is free from responsibility and thus is susceptible to the men who "wish" instead of the men who "act".

>>1956333
God can't be positively described, except figuratively. In literal terms, he can only be negatively described.

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>>1956327
Because Christianity was pretending to be Pagan when in reality it was more like her mother Judaism.

This is why he admired the Jews, they were honest with their nihilistic, feminine, tendency unlike Christians and Muslims who hide their feminine nature under "hyper-masculinity" or "rationalism" instead of accepting the Pagan balance of both Masculinity and Femininity.

>>1956336
That is what an abstraction is, that is what language, mathematics, and any other medium that attempts to bring order to flux, but fails to do so because reality is always changing.

>>1956338
Jews were way more into warrior heroes than Christians, desu. We have some soldier saints, but most of our heroes are monastics.

>>1955976
>falling into moral relativism
Why is it bad?

>>1956345
God is changeless.

>>1955976
Atheists are either moral relativist or moral nihilists.

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>>1956319
>God is absolute, and the wellspring of rectitude.

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>>1956348
Abstraction is changeless.

Abstraction is a tool our binary wired brains developed to aid in survival, not as a means in itself.

Abstraction can only be taken literally as the ends, in a society where survival is no longer the highest priority.

God only exists insofar as your belly is full, your sleep is deep, and your dick is wet.

Take the sheltering away and you will see how quickly man denounces his Abstraction as his highest priority.

>>1956319
God told you to rape your kids, your next move?

>>1956346
>Jews were way more into warrior heroes than Christians

If they wrote it, then it must be true right?

A weak, frail, short man really defeated a tall, strong, proud man with a rock and was not just a story to project their "underdog" mentality.

Lord give me a choice and I made my decision. I will killing, robbing and raping, and I will suffer eternity for doing this. I agree to eternal punishment for my sins. If you are true christian you are should respect and accept my decision.

The Moral Absolute just happens to agree with Rose's values, I presume?

>>1956333
God is real you edgelord

In the end it is all about "revelation" or blindly accepting some tradition, or it is all about being enlightened by the "Spirit" by a direct and **personal** revelation. So in the end, your absolute Truth is not absolute at all.

>>1955976
If you mean moral relativism as in political relativism and a belief that we can't change other countries because they are cultural attuned to a certain political system then I would largely agree with you. There's also the interventionist cost of actually marching onto countries like China and trying to turn them democratic with force. I'm sure it'll be easy for the likes of the US but they'd probably take down a few cities before they go down and then we'd have to face the task of fighting the remnants.

If you mean moral relativism as in personal ethics then no I do not believe I'll easily compromise my ethics as it's what I've grown up with and become attune to. In fact, the real reason I reckon as to why Christians are so moral is because people of authority like people of authority in my life have been drilling the same lessons into me since day 1. I imagine if I had been a Catholic, I would grow up believing in the same crap about abortion.

Now were I to be transplanted into a more authoritarian government I probably would compromise my ethics and as would most people due to the need for self-preservation.

ITT: if you don't believe in my particular brand of sky daddy, social consequences that I find personally negative may (or may not) follow.

>>1957201
Therefore said sky daddy exists and you should also believe in him.

The only argument which was ever truly convincing, is that one that you can't make, namely: or else...

>>1956229
Wut? How is a single God more plausible than objective morality?

>>1956359
>God only exists insofar as your belly is full, your sleep is deep, and your dick is wet.
You do realize that the most zealous Orthodox Christians are the radical ascetics? Who will fast for many days, sleep for only a couple of hours a night on the ground, and live in celibacy?

>>1955976
>Seraphim Rose

Does nothing but stupidity come from this man's mouth or pen?

>>1956359
God can literally be seen in Orthodoxy, that's a major mystical pursuit. He's often described as fire or light.

You can also eat him and drink him.

>>1957825
Well, if you consider Orthodox Christianity to be stupid, then not much else comes from his mouth or pen, yeah.

Atheist here: it doesn't. I believe moral relativism, and eventual moral nihilism are the eventual conclusions of atheism. I also don't think is a bad thing. Morals should be a matter of good versus bad for yourself, taken beyond the immediate concern.

>>1957829
I don't consider it especially stupid, but his interpretations of basically anything that isn't Orthodoxy as far as I've seen have been completely idiot. Nietzsche didn't year for Christ; he absolutely detested the fundamental precepts of Christianity. What he yearned for was meaning. I suspect Rose here is just such an ideologue that he automatically assumes that meaning must mean Jeebus.

>>1957829
I dont think being Orthodox has anything to do with misinterpreting Nietzsche. Unless your being intellectually dishonest or your simply not able to separate your world view from the thoughts of someone else (the mark of an intelligent mind)

>>1957847
Nietzsche said Christians just yearned to be powerful and rich.

But you're right, Seraphim Rose does believe absolute meaning only exists in Christ.

>>1957859
>Nietzsche said Christians just yearned to be powerful and rich.

Most people do, and he said early Christianity caught on by appealing to this yearning in people, turning their current status from a failing into a sign of moral superiority. Moral systems by and large are designed to exalt the holders of said systems; to legitimize their own existences as some sort of moral good. It's not unique to Christianity, and in fact Nietzsche acknowledges that by pointing out that Master Morality typically focused on exalting the status of the masters.

>>1957867
Except Christianity doesn't turn failings into moral superiorities. That's what Nietzsche missed. As Saint John Chrysostom said, poverty in itself is no honor unless you choose it: it's about parting with what you hold dear; if you don't have it in the first place, you aren't parting with anything; but even the poor have something to part with, generally; if absolutely no property or money at all (somewhat rare), then they have other things they treasure, places, emotions, and so on, and these they are called to part with. Christ also made it clear that it is better to be corrupt, powerful and wealthy, but contrite, than poor and proud of your poverty: this was illustrated in the story of the Publican and the Pharisee: the publican worked for a private tax agency that bought the right to collect taxes from the Romans, and you can imagine that was very corrupt, but he was contrite; the Pharisee gave away all his wealth, but he was proud of it and contrasted himself favorable against the publican.

You'll notice that a great many, perhaps most, of the Orthodox saints, were in fact born into nobility or wealth, but chose to forfeit it.

>>1957893

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted. (5:4)
Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. (5:5)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled. (5:6)
Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy. (5:7)
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God. (5:8)
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God. (5:9)
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)

>>1957898
Being poor, of itself, doesn't make you necessarily any of these, especially since the mourning in question is *spiritual* mourning (that is, mourning over sins); worldly mourning is considered detrimental (2 Corinthians 7:10)