Agreed. Or at least assumed, in the absence of a statement by real one to the contrary.....Being a moral person requires making decisions about matters of morality. real one does not do this. At most he has made one decision, to always obey a particular source.
Is it just me, or does that sound a bit contradictory? In the first you agree to assume that real one is using an external authority to guide his moral decisionmaking, and in the second you say that he has made one choice at most, to obey a particular source (Scripture). No one is that black/white, even if they try to be.
I'm quite aware of that. This is ultimately the case for everybody. Being aware of this reality allows us to make more informed, better decisions.
Well, I think I can agree with that. Taking into account another person's circumstance in evaluating his/her moral decision is important, not that we should necessarily be judging others anyway.
Well, how do we decide? If the solution is to check the correct answer in a book, then how do we decide which book (or which interpretation where several exist) contains the correct answers? (Appeal to any authority has the same problems.) It seems we're back where we started (or at least where I started.) We need to use our admittedly limited brains to come to the best solution we can find.
I am not too familiar with jurisprudence in your part of the world, but here in the US the Supreme Court is the final judge as to what are "correct answers" regarding legal right and wrong using the Constitution as the "book" "containing the correct answers". It is the ultimate authority that is appealed to in matters of jurisprudence here in my country. On the whole, the system has worked pretty well. However, in applying this authority legal opinion, precedent, tradition, and other factors requiring a heavy dose of reasoning and scholarship are required. Also, the understanding of the meaning of the text requires adaptation to apply to changing times. What I am trying to demonstrate here is pretty obvious, I hope.
Using reason will - as it always does - produce better results than a simple appeal to an arbitrary authority.
Ah, I think here we get to the heart of it. Reason and appeal to authority need not be mutually exclusive, real one notwithstanding. Both can work together in harmony, and have for a very long time.
A universe in which there was a creator who had an interest in human affairs and whose wishes and intentions were known would be very different from the one in which we live....So living in a universe so different from ours would inevitably alter my perspective on the matter.
How can you possibly be certain? You think this would be so, but you cannot know for sure. How do you know this isn't the best possible universe?
It could, for example, be the sadistic god of the Catholics, and while I might modify my behaviour to avoid spending eternity in hellfire, one's behaviour under threat of torture is not necessarily a good indication of true morality.
I think you say this because you do not understand the Catholic understanding on how God judges, how souls go to hell, and you misunderstand what hell itself is. This is not all your own fault, your understanding has obviously been informed by your JW past. The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, and that is its torment. It is in God whom we can possess the life and happiness for which we were created. We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. To die without accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God hell. This is the official Catholic teaching and belief on the matter.
I like to think I would do what I believe to be right regardless of the consequences.
We would all think that, don't we?
Cheers,
Burn (but not in hell)
