Bob
Yes I can, I can imagine Christ. I agree that the Jewish prohibitions were there for a reason, but Christians didn’t do away with them thoughtlessly- there’s a very good reason why the Jews ought not have created images of God prior to the Incarnation, and Christians can by rights now.
Question: If there is societal evolution towards a goal, what does it mean to say any point of evolution is either perfect or imperfect? Maybe it’s the best it can be at that time. (Not that society’s always at it’s best.)
In fact, in Christianity there is belief in an original state of perfection from which man fell. Could society not be evolving back to that point?
“God’s plan made a hopeful beginning,
but man spoiled his chances by sinning.
We trust that the story will end in God’s glory
(but at present, the other side’s winning.)”
– anon
[b]I think Tabula is still addressing the cultural problem of God as an absolute which someone else has already identified.
This kind of theism is the monotheism from the Isrealite and the Muslim.
If we were going to address the Hindu-ish concept of God, instead, we would see a very relativistic perspective, within the paradigm of pantheism. Many gods, AND many mortals have been connected with some part of the infiniteness of the Ultimate Reality.
The reason why we need a personal “god”, is the same as the reason for which we each need a personal home and a personal diet. Each of us is unqiue, and that means one of us will do well with one kind of friend, whilst the other cannot relate to that kind of friend. Now, when man wishes to syncronize his soul with higher beings, he must find a god that he can get along with. Part of his existence was meant to unify with higher powers, in the same way as the fish need the ocean waters. So, the higher consciousness of nature is obtained through connectedness with beings, first. Beings that themselves have a connectedness with higher powers, and man learns through mimetics. So, man should try to immitate his patron god and become somewhat equal, so that they can each unify under an ever-greater force of nature until their ineffible purpose has finally been completed in some incredibly long time from now.
Only in a fascist theocracy will a dictatorship of “God” be preached.
The truth is that an infinite being is not any single command, it is one with nature and all realities.[/b]
^^
“Perfection” is a very plastic and polysemous concept.
Anything, small or large, can be considered perfect, after it meets the expectation-projection of what the architype “perfection” is…
But if a perfect thing need not change, and absolutely does not change, it might actually be dead. I mean, all energy is moving and changing. As I wrote earlier, the problem is when “God” is made into a static absolute, instead of being seen as the infiniteness of all realities.
Why?
I though lawful was more an expression of the character’s personality in D&D. Like, chaotic good would be a fairy, lawful evil an evil knight. Didn’t make much sense anyway…
Sure it’s provable! And I’m finding myself a little put off by how good the world is going. I mean, if everything was a mess, I could be a hero and clean it up, but as it is I’m going to have to find another route to fame and fortune.
Dan tildae, that is the closest I have ever come to agreeing with you. 
Put another way one might ask, by “perfection” do you (Tabula) mean “that than which nothing greater can be thought”. Or maybe “that in a species than which nothing better in that species can be thought.” Only God is claimed to be perfect in the first way. The rest of us are just limited beings who might aspire to the perfection like in the second way.
I agree with the general sentiment that ‘perfection’ is too lose, and too problematic a term to use in any rigorous logical argument- I think it’s applied to God in a mostly worshipful sense, not an analytical one.
I don’t remember his argument, but it would make sense if the Good Itself were itself the good, and if society were only instrumental to achieving these other goods-in-themselves. I think of the example of Sartre’s No Exit: lots of people together but with no common goods. But then, that would hardly be a society, which word’s concept might imply common goods. The republic, or res publica: the “public thing”.
Could you prove it here? I’d like to see that.
(I think maybe even Plato took that one on faith.)
We reach a weird impasse here. Are we going to say that truly moral actions are always beneficial to the one performing them, just to turn it around and say that there are no truly moral actions, because they are always for the benefit of the one performing them?
Can’t some good acts just benefit the doer as a side-effect, and yet be for the other?
Let us wonder, if God is like the universe and like nature, having no one moral code in which all are made to stand by?
Gravity – gravity is an example of a sort of universal law. But there is no universal law of love and peace… So the universe, reality, and it’s origin – have not made it in any way other than what it is.
Isn’t love, peace, and moral perfection, more of a human desire? An Idol?
“Perfection” requires “Imperfection” to exist in comparison to the especially selected “perfect”. It’s basically a dualization, and a destinction. That’s a mental tool, isn’t it? So that people can try to be more perfect, and avoid getting more imperfect? Isn’t that what it’s about? Desire? Preferance? Ideal?
myrealname
It’s pretty obvious to me that that’s precisely the case, yes. But I wonder, if we agree that some acts only get their self-benefit as a side-effect, by what principle do we say that it must always be there? Are we talking about riches in Heaven here?
Dan~
I dunno, Dan, to be honest, I think that perfection is pretty much bull if you look at it too closely. I mean, there's no strict way to determine a [i]perfect[/i] chocolate sundae from a [i]wicked awesome[/i] one. There may be a rare few qualities that can become so good, and then no better, but I don't think anything so complex as a being or object could be that way.
Actually many religions in the world have some form of the so-called “Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Which works unless you need others to give you their concept of you, so you’re rude to them.) ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Anyway, this Rule should be based on love, which is not an idol but, with peace, are found in God, who St John tells us, “is love.”
But nature – our nature – does give us a moral code. It boils down to treating everything according to it’s nature, which, toward man, means to love them as one loves oneself.
mrn
Uccisore:
Are you attributing moral goodness to a sundae?
Are some goodnesses not qualities (taste), but substances (persons), or relations (Plato’s justice)? I think these kinds of goods, being in different logical categories, would be said equivocally.
As to your post:
According to Aristotle (What do I know about being good, right?), the more good you are as a person the more you enjoy good actions.
Neither. I’m saying that moral actions usually benefit the doer. Sometimes they don’t.
You lost me.
Fine.
What’s the difference between a moral action and an immoral one?
Moral actions are those that benefit others, and benefit you mainly because they encourage others to act similarly. Moral actions, in short, are ones that you don’t necessarily want to do yourself but definitely want others to do.
Immoral actions are the opposite. They benefit you, not others, but would be detrimental to you if someone else did them. So, you want to do them yourself but don’t want others to. Immoral actions are fundamentally detrimental to you because if they succeed they encourage others to act similarly.
There’s a purse left on a counter in some K-mart. The immoral action is to take it. The moral action is to find its owner. Agreed? The moral action is moral because you would want somebody else to do that if it was yours, and because if you return it to its owner, she will be more inclined to do something similar if she should encounter a similar situation. The immoral action is immoral because it benefits you directly, but is detrimental to the owner.
If an action is weighed in its survival benefit to the doer, is immorality better?
Being moral, that is, doing moral actions, will usually be more beneficial than being immoral. Here’s why:
Negatives of immorality.
Because everybody would like everybody else to act morally, there are punishments for being immoral. If you are immoral and get caught, you are punished, whether socially or through an organized system.
If you do not get caught, it encourages you to be immoral again and to a greater magnitude, and eventually you do get caught, and your punishment is greater because of the greater immorality of your crime.
If you do get caught, yet are not punished, it encourages others to act similarly in similar situations.
Usually requires more effort
Now, even if the eventualities (for example, society’s collapse, or your getting caught) don’t happen in your lifetime, they’ll happen to your kids.
I’ve got more, but I have to go.
thezeus18,
I think those are some good arguments for what you were trying to prove.
Would you go as far as to say that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil?
Mrn is fairly adamant that God is perfect, and yet Ucc. is not so quick to jump. Dan~ has realized that perfection is essentially something static, dead.
So Ucc., what’s it to be…? Are you saying that God is flawed…?
Tab opens with:
There is a personal relationship with “that which is” which any person can experience. It is a connection to the mystery. I call it spirituality. That special awareness of "something"that can only be experienced but never be explained. It is the ineffable. No amount of language, no giant collection of metaphors is adequate, but it doesn’t keep us from trying, does it?
God explained is a man-made idol. Full of actions and attributes, it is a golden statue placed on an alter. This human-made “God” has whatever powers, performs whatever actions, represents whatever is wished by the humans who fashion this idol. As Tab suggests, an idol created may fit the place and time of its creation, but over time, becomes less ‘useful’ and may sow the seeds of its own destruction. These are the Gods of religion. The Gods of religion are pieces of software that can’t be updated. You MUST use DOS! All other OS’s are heresy! The idols constructed may serve many useful ends, but they remain constructs, as does all the dogma and rituals surrounding them. All such idols remain as flawed as their creators. Idols of gold or clay… it makes no difference, they are lifeless “action figures” not connected in any way to “that which is”.
Tabula Rasa
I don’t think I am. To my mind, that would be admitting the dichotomy, and giving credence to the term ‘perfect’. Perfect doesn’t only mean without flaw, it also means ‘so good that nothing could be better’. I think when it comes to something complex like an object or being, that qualification doesn’t make any sense. I guess I’m skeptical that ‘perfect’ and ‘flawed’ are my only two choices, as I understand the terms. Back to the chocolate Sundae, would a supremely good chocolate sundae be considered ‘flawed’ simply because you can conceive of one a little bit bigger, or whatever? If so, then every conceivable chocolate sundae is ‘flawed’. At that point, the usage of ‘flawed’ becomes so out of the norm, that it would be better to say that something can be without flaw, and yet not perfect.
myrealname
I don’t think I’m attributing moral goodness to a sundae. I’m picturing perfection being more about exemplification than goodness- a perfect X is the best at being an X that anything could possibly be. In the case of beings like us, or God, moral goodness is an element of that.