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Without the State, the highest moral instance is God or Natural Law.

#christian #catholic #biblestr

Morals are a sum of personal beliefs creating a consensual vision of good and bad by certain group or groups of people. God is just a tool how to make your group's morals superior to other groups. And Natural Law? Is it anything else than law of action and reaction? Yes, the equilibrium has long-term benefits so it is preferred from the evolutionary standpoint, but occasional oportunism can bring high rewards. So as a believe or a concept it is pretty inconsistent and therfore unusable.

I do agree with what you were saying in the previous notes, but this conclusion seems farfetched and maybe even a bit intellectually dull.

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Discussion

Laeserin 1y ago

Not dull because people can appeal to the authority of God or Natural Law and that can have an effect on the behavior of their neighbors or make someone want to not be their neighbor.

Someone can refuse to follow moral laws or occasionally be opportunistic, but that can have a tangible negative effect on their life, even without state enforcement.

Moral laws are also laws.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

also: laws exist whether people acknowledge them or not, and they are enforced whether they like it or not

eg: gravity, gresham's law, boyle's law, conservation of energy, etc etc etc

Laeserin 1y ago

Yes, the idea that getting rid of the State will free everyone from the pressure of being law-abiding is actually backward.

The State exists to reduce the individual consequences of breaking Natural Laws and spread the punishment more evenly across the population.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

or in other words, it is a cloak to hide some percentage of criminal activity that would otherwise meet consequences

Laeserin 1y ago

Yes, but also to limit the power of individual tyrants.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

it's essentially a children's story, to placate the lower 50% of the bell curve

the further up you are on the other side the more you realise it's a deception

Laws of physics are not comparable with morals and therefore irrelevant in the discussion. Laws of physics are not even enforced, they just are. You can't choose to break the Ohm's Law it is imposible... To the other hand you can choose to kill someone and then you will meet the consequences.

Laeserin 1y ago

Christianity means that moral laws are breakable, but never without consequences. That makes them more like physics.

Every moral failing results in an opposite and equal reaction.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

the distinction that would make it clearer to her is the latency of the consequences

some things take a long time to circle back and bite you

Laeserin 1y ago

Yes, Christians believe it might take until the end of the world, but it will then bite you.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

the end of the world is probably only 12000 years in total though, so there's that also

d23b7c1f... 1y ago

yikes! so how much of following of the law should be driven by fear of consequences vs just being a better person? it feels like it's impossible to not fall into a useless obsession with following laws that's completely unhelpful to moral development. so then it's easy to make up excuses for why certain laws just don't apply anymore.

i'm always looking for excuses for why i can be pagan and christian at the same time...

Laeserin 1y ago

Better people fear consequences. That is future-orientation and prudence.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

low time preference

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

also "being a better person" = "lower time preference"

Finrod Felagund 1y ago

And Christianity also just is. It’s not enforce. Just like if you jump off a building you fall due to gravity, if you sin you find yourself in worse and worse situations.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

i would compare this to the latency of effects in physical systems, complex systems are especially good for demonstrating this, and so, yes, actually, these laws of physics even have such late consequences for actions

and frankly, if a person does not consider the possibility that their actions may have a long term effect, they are not competent human beings, they are acting as children

Actions of course have long term consequences. Consequences which can't be predicted or forseen. For example: A single conversation in the hallway of your university can completely change the course of your life.

Laeserin 1y ago

The fall of the sparrow.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

"can't"

no, actually, if you had the full snapshot of the state of the system and you understood the laws that govern its actions, you could

this is a fundamental premise of computer science

Are you suggesting that we are living in a deterministic system? What about all the entropy?

Laeserin 1y ago

Providence

Not true, there objectively were times when Christianity did not existed... And to the rest of your comment. Define sin. Is it something society sees as something bad? Sure it will ruin you, your credit and your reputation. But do something the scripture forbids but society does not condemn and you will be fine... Or did you heard of someone getting into bad situations because of wearing linen and wool? Or someone enjoyed a sausage before Easter?

Laeserin 1y ago

Sin is "to miss the mark".

I'm not sure I understand what that means. Sincerely. Can you please try to rephrase?

Laeserin 1y ago

Every moral order defines a "mark" or "target" of the most virtuous, perfect human and moral people try to get as close as possible to that mark before they die.

To sin is to miss that mark and the gravity of the sin is defined by how far away from the mark it was.

Virtue is the greater and sin is the lesser.

So it is like in Plato's allegory of a cave. The closer you get to the ideal shape from the projection the better person you are? And the ideal in this case is to live eudaimonic life and hitting all the marks.

And any deviation is essentially a sin.

This is super interesting, because that would mean that someone with very strict morals and high sense for meaningful fulfillment can end up far worse than a person who is just trying to be "a decent person."

Laeserin 1y ago

Well, "worse".

Laeserin 1y ago

And part of the Christian "mark" is humility and eschewing self-righteousness and scrupulousity.

So, effective religions have their own internal checks and balances because humans can't hit the mark precisely, by definition, as that would make them into a diety.

Laeserin 1y ago

Do you mean, that they feel worse about themselves?

That would mean that they are too prideful, probably, and expect superhuman results from a mere human. I suffer from this tyranny of high expectations.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

lol idk what to say about a person who doesn't understand that the shadows in the cave are illusions

Laeserin 1y ago

They know that. They're saying our God is an illusion.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

pretty messed up because the light is stolen from the truth, that's how it works

you can't make light without science, aka seeing reality

and these nihilists claim to know reality, they don't even know what "know" means

Thank you for rephrasing. I was really not understanding.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

sin literally means to be without

sin semilla "without seed"

in german it's called "schuld" which is a synonym with "debt"

it literally means that your account is in the red

Laeserin 1y ago

Yes, those are all translations, tho.

>>The word “sin”, as it appears in the Bible, comes from the Greek word Hamartia or the Hebrew word Hata, which both mean “to miss the mark” or “flawed”. The word was used in archery and spear throwing. When a person missed the center of the target, they erred, or “hamartia-ed”. So, as this applies to sin, we should ask, “What is the mark that we are missing?”

And the answer is: The holy righteous perfection of God.<<

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/e2medianetwork/2016/11/wwutt-sin-means-to-miss-the-mark/

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

well, this imprecision is unavoidable but through science can be reduced (ie, knowing the thing)

so, the essence of the meaning of the word sin is: Error

and promoting error is the business of Satan and his followers

whether they are sledging you when you are taking aim

or inserting rubbish into your data

they are agents of satan

Laeserin 1y ago

Christ has always existed.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

materialists are so boring

technically there must have been some period where there was only the Father though, but i'm not gonna get into the finer points

Laeserin 1y ago

Because of the Trinity, they have all three always existed as one. Only God knows how God works, tho. Our minds can't comprehend it.

Laeserin 1y ago

And you can't really say what is first, when They existed before time existed. Outside of time.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

so do we, technically speaking, it's only our story that is time bound

So this is going to be a sophism, but we don't want to make the debate boring. If only God knows God and you can't comprehend God, how can you be sure about anything? How can you be sure that Bible is telling the true? What if it is yet another golden calf? What if it is yet another test if you would follow the book or your heart? How can you use something you don't understand and you can never understand in an argument?

Laeserin 1y ago

You cannot be sure. You take it on Faith, out of Love and that gives you Hope, but the greatest of these three things is Love.

Lew☦️ 1y ago

The Father has always had a spirit (Holy Spirit) and has always had wisdom. The wisdom of God is Christ (the Word, Logos).

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

this is a metaphor though

Laeserin 1y ago

Our brains can't handle the reality of the Trinity. We only have metaphors.

Finrod Felagund 1y ago

It’s not a metaphor. More like a description that the human mind can handle.

We can’t understand God, which why is the incarnation of Christ needed to happen. Otherwise we would never have known God. But now we do, because we saw Christ (the Son, 2nd person of the Trinity)

Laeserin 1y ago

🫂

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

just because the consequences of breaking a law have a time delay doesn't mean that the consequences are not enforced

this is the precise nature of the hubris of evil people

this is why i believe in heaven and hell (and hell is end of the line, not eternal stupid punishment)

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

in physics consequences can have time delays too...

injecting yourself with HIV infected blood won't kill you straight away either

You can't break law of physics. There are no consequences of doing the impossible. I can't decide to break gravity. I can produce more buoyancy to stay afloat, but that is not breaking the law of gravity...

Also heaven and hell are constructs beyond physics and have nothing to do with it. Check the origin of the word metaphysics.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

you need to go study some chaotic dynamics about the consequences of actions in complex systems and how long the latency of consequences can be

just a simple example... the sun from time to time has explosions on its surface caused by plasma and electromagnetic effects

when one of those blasts happens, it takes 3-4 days before it gets in range of the orbit of earth

"metaphysics" is literally the entire category of things that are in the long to extremely long range of consequences of physical events

your short sighted view of cause and effect is completely ignorant of the fact that the more complex a system gets, the greater its latency, thus, this "can't break the rules" dictum only applies to the timescale of the event in question

gravity reacts in nanoseconds

what makes you so sure that morality doesn't react in a span of your life?

Semantics it is all about semantics. Physical processes and physical laws are not the same thing. If I slip on the top of the Empire State Building I fall and turn into a pancake it will be due to the physical process not because me being punished for breaking the law of gravity. Same as your Sun eruptions they have latency because they are a process.

Morality as a sum of personal beliefs is a fluid thing and it does changes all the time.

Laeserin 1y ago

I think the sum doesn't change, the weighting of the parts shifts.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

and setting arbitrary limits on the arrival of consequences is literally shortsightedness

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

and excluding any possible consequence that isn't obvious is simply stupid

but whatever they want to be allowed to have their homo pervert fucking and get away with their abuse of other people via indirect means like being at the front of the money spigot behind others who pay their cost

Yeah, sum might be a wrong word. Approximation is probably better.

Laeserin 1y ago

Hell is eternity spent separated from God.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

well, it clearly says in several places that death is a sleep until judgement, and that the "wailing and gnashing of teeth" do not persist but "rise from the pit from eternity" which is quite a distinct semantic

As I was saying, I do agree with you in this part:

```

> Someone can refuse to follow moral laws or occasionally be opportunistic, but that can have a tangible negative effect on their life, even without state enforcement.

> Moral laws are also laws.

```

It is true and absolutely right that people are going to form their opinion based on their own morals. Actions do often have consequences. So yes, we don't need state to know what is good and what is bad, but we also don't need God... We can advertise our own morals in many different ways.

In stateless society we don't have the "false feeling of security" the state is giving to people, and that is the reason why terms like "zero trust" are important. We are purposefully creating interactions that are preventing oportunism.

BTW: What statement is better? "I don't kill, because God forbids that." Or "I don't kill, because it is a bad thing to do."

I do follow some predominantly Islamic sub-reddits and the amount of external force created by the religion is huge. They often say "When my mother did find out, she took me to the mosque and the imam told me that what I'm doing is bad. So that is why I don't drink anymore." No self reflection, no place for internal reasoning, no place for individual morals, only do as you are told. It is hardcore manipulation. Manipulation to something good (alcohol is objectively not good for you), but still a manipulation.

Laeserin 1y ago

"It's a bad thing to do because God forbids it and we know He forbids it because it goes against Nature."

Killing doesn't necessarily go against Nature, tho, so long as it isn't murder.

Laeserin 1y ago

Islam is a religion focused on the exersize of good habits, that is why, such as the pillars.

Christianity is more about forming the conscience and the soul, and other religions are more about holding on to established traditions or getting in tune with the universe.

They each try to divine the Natural Laws and teach them to their members. Obviously, I think Christianity's cerebral self-reflection brings everyone closer to Nature, but other people are like,

Ugh, whatever. Just tell me what to do, please.

Laeserin 1y ago

I don't, for instance, think it is right to outright tell people not to use intoxicating substances. Christians debate these things.

Laeserin 1y ago

The difference between religious people and non-religious people is not Natural Law. Those are universal, self-evident laws. Right to property, free speech, etc.

It's the Law Giver.