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Thank you! It may be a shadow on the cave wall . . . one of those pictures our media friends like to show us.

Yes. I was appreciating your OP all the way until you got to the part about not tolerating cancel culture etc. What, exactly, would we want to make il...

. You've alluded to something like this before, but I really don't follow. I believe I've said quite a bit about the ethical good and the moral ought,...

I guess what I don't understand about all this is: What would then allow you to interpret the "Southern preacher" as speaking in simple literalisms? A...

Yes, that was the distinction Frege drew between psychologism and logic. OK, but mind-independent only in the sense of "not confined to my mind." It d...

Certainly. But I'm asking for your answer, in the context of saying that "simple literalisms" should be avoided when trying to understand religious do...

Now that I've seen @"Count Timothy von Icarus"'s reply, I can say a little more. (I hope to hear more from him as well, though he hasn't yet replied t...

Is "God is love" or "God loves you" simple literalism?

But read the Gospels. Do you really imagine this is what Jesus meant? He called God Daddy, and begged him not to make him suffer! And when Christians ...

Sorry for the second post, but I just saw this. I can reinforce the point I was making above by changing this to: "If the existence of suffering is su...

I don't know if it's metaphysically confused or not, but it is the picture given us by the Abrahamic tradition. "God is love" - "God loves us like a p...

You do know I was kidding, right? I just meant that it doesn't seem like such a big ask, no earthquakes. (My own conception of God is not really as a ...

I hope not. But the point about egregious suffering may well extend to non-human creation too. I was trying to give the Abrahamic God a break by only ...

I agree that some suffering might be unavoidable, of the "my child's necessary operation" variety. What counts against God as a loving parent, I think...

I've had occasion to say this before, but it bears repeating: I really appreciate your willingness to consider these questions with the care and thoro...

This way of thinking, meaning no disrespect to @"Wayfarer" and others who've given it a lot of attention, seems like a litmus test of one's overall co...

I agree, but I don't see how this gets God off the hook, so to speak. Why not have us all, God and Christ included, in a lot less pain? Jeez, I dunno....

I realize it would do, from your point of view, but I'm saying that even if one accepted the idea of a genuine, non-subjective sense of "wrong," it do...

Let's see what the Count has to say. I'm not sure I've understood him correctly. Then I'll respond to you more fully. But for now . . . I don't think ...

Can I steal that line? :grin:

If I may pluck this statement out of its somewhat cantankerous conversational context :wink: . . . You seem to be saying that, if something is sought ...

I like this! A good phrase that captures a major tenet of traditional theocidies. But here's the problem. There is a promise, in the Abrahamic religio...

Oh, yikes, I didn't mean the "fading fast" was a good thing! I'm with you -- public accountability is vital.

I thoroughly agree with everything you say here (until the last paragraph). To go from "each individual must make their own judgments, illuminated by ...

The descriptions you give seem pretty accurate to me, as a kind of sociology of moral behavior. As a philosopher, I'm not really entitled to an opinio...

Oh, I see. No, when I said that an obviously irrational ethical system would have been "dismissed" long ago, I meant, and perhaps should have said, "d...

I didn't know that. I think better of him for it. But are you saying that the basis of virtue ethics is not "fulfilling the human good"? I thought tha...

No. Rather, I don't see a way to use "good for human beings" to generate "I ought to do X." That's because I see "good for human beings" as only one d...

I actually don't know what that is. Could you explain the context? Thanks.

Yes, agreed, but we were discussing whether it's fair to say that Hume settled for a "hodgepodge stew" when it came to the passions and their relation...

Let's make it a little clearer. Deep questions of value and meaning are matters for individual judgment; how could they be otherwise? You can't look t...

Now hold on here! :smile: This is Hume on perception, not the moral ordering of the rational and lower appetites. Read the quote in context.

No, I don't take you to be doing that at all. Your approach is fair-minded, and I share your view of the importance of spirituality, if not religion p...

Interestingly, I think this is right -- finding a basis for ethical values does indeed do these things -- but at the same time it can't settle the que...

Not for me. If subjectivism or emotivism about ethics were obviously irrational, it would have been dismissed centuries ago. Again, I wish it were tha...

Well, that might be so. Are you meaning to say that this is characteristic of all 1st-personal judgments? That is, if I say, "My statement was incorre...

I most certainly don't want to start a controversy about Israel, but notice what can happen when a "friendly legal system" extends its friendship not ...

Yes. Minor quibble: "inadmissible" shouldn't be taken to mean "unmentionable" or "intellectually disreputable." The point is that they can't play a de...

I'm not sure that's right, though I agree with you about spirituality. Rawlsian liberalism doesn't have to say -- and indeed it usually does not -- th...

I'll make a point of reading it. I've followed his career with interest. He was quite a bit older than me -- I think he'd just left seminary -- but a ...

(Is this quote from Gallagher? I went to grad school with him!) I think the criticisms in the passage are apt, particularly about Rawls and goods dist...

That's fair enough to Nagel. The important thing is that this motivation is 1) also impersonal, in the sense that it provides reasons for anyone to ac...

Yes, so all the more reason not to saddle Rawlsians with a version of "neutrality" they never claimed to exemplify. Their neutrality is associated wit...

This is true. I think your very broad definition would make absolutely any rationalist, no matter how committed their atheism might be, an "offshoot o...

I think you're selling the Rawlsian tradition short here. I recognize very well the juxtaposition you point out, and so does the tradition -- I simply...

Not at all. This is a very thoughtful and responsive post. I'll try to reply in stages. No, not on my understanding (which I should say is very influe...

I haven't followed most of this thread, so perhaps I need to go back and look more closely. It was the mention of Habermas that hooked me! I'm seeing ...

Religious teleology. The secular versions aren't really hot issues at the moment, politically. Remember, this conversation Habermas is taking part in ...

Do you mean, within a particular religion's description of, say, eschatology? Not sure I understand your thought here. But if that's what you mean, th...

Yes, that's how it looks to me. This is interesting. True, we wouldn't call it "semi-involuntary," but we might very well offer an explanation that de...