No, in my view, there is no essential or objective or universal “good” or “better” – at least not with respect to conflicting value judgments that revolve around conflicting goods. Judgments that are understood existentially from the perspective of a mere mortal living out in a particular world and viewing it from a particular point of view. And in a world that revolves around [and evolves from] contingency and chance and change.
And yet even here I am willing to acknowledge that, sure, theoretically, there may well be such a truth – but that no one has yet been able to demonstrate it to me. Just as, in this respect, there may well be an existing God that no one has managed to convince me of.
Yes, this seems to be a reasonable manner in which to frame my point of view. Thus if John is raised in a Christian community to believe in the Christian God and Muhammad is raised in a Moslem community to believe in the Islamic God and Javier is raised in a Cuban or Chinese or North Korean community to believe in No God, they may very well come to believe that the others are wrong in what they believe.
Okay, so how would the philosopher go about establishing which point of view here reflects the objective truth? Not even counting all of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of additional ways in which a particular individual [as dasein] might come to think about God and religion.
And, in particular, with respect to immortality and salvation and divine justice – the attaining of which seems to be predicated not only on believing in a God, but on the God.
Which is then, in turn, intimately intertwined in the conviction by almost all religionists that one must behave in a way not deemed “sinful” by the God.
No, my aim here with Zinnat is to discover the extent to which he can nudge me in the direction of a premise that might lead me down the path to considering the existence of a God, the God, his God.
But more to the point I am interested in the extent to which any religionist is able to convince me that his or her own God is the one true path to immortality, salvation, divine justice and an objective moral font.
And you certainly have not.
Which does not make you wrong, of course. But the whole point of our exchanges here must necessarily revolve around the extent to which we are able to convince others that our own narratives are or are not reasonable.
For example, to the best of my knowledge you believe in the Christian God. You also believe that abortion is objectively moral. Well, there are any number of Christians that I have come across over the years who insist that abortion is objectively immoral. And they will use their Christian faith as their own moral font. The same with, say, homosexuality.
So, just out of curiosity, let me ask you: Given the manner in which you construe the relationship between God and these behaviors, what will be the fate of those who practice them come their own day of judgment?