But claiming that God can define gravity itself is logical nonsense
You’re quite mistaken about that. In the Christian world God not only can define gravity itself—He did define gravity itself. Remember that whole Creator bit..?
If I build a house with a triangular roof, does the fact that I could have built one with a square roof instead mean I can define triangles as squares if I want to?
The fact remains that gravity is a force, not a word or a symbol. “Gravity” can be defined as something; gravity cannot, because defining things is intrinsically a linguistic activity.
“Gravity” can be defined as something; gravity cannot, because defining things is intrinsically a linguistic activity.
Do not attempt to confuse yourself with wordplay.
Let’s replace the word “define” with the word “create”. God created gravity, the force itself. In the process of creating it he defined it to be what it is. This is all before language—the same way by building a house with a triangular roof I defined that roof as triangular regardless of what you’ll call it later.
Again, the major difference between the Christian world and the atheist world is not in what someone calls things—it’s in what things are and are not.
Specific morality is a built-in feature of reality in the Christian world, similar to how gravity is a built-in feature of reality in the physical world. The names that your mind assigns do not change this.
By building a house with any kind of roof you have done nothing more and nothing less than give that house a particular kind of roof. The actual squareness or triangularness of the particular kind of roof is an immutable mathematical fact. Not even God can imbue a three-sided shape with squareness.
Nor can you specify squareness to be a “built in feature of reality” in God’s world, and true of triangles in that world. Squareness is simply that predicate that is true of exactly all equal-length four-sided shapes. Immutably. Mathematically.
What is morality? It is a predicate that is true of all and only those things that help others, avoid harm, promote happiness, etc etc etc.¹ You can no more imbue an evil deed with morality than you can imbue a triangle with squareness.
¹ Source: this is how the term “morality” is generally actually used by people. Nonsensicle self-referential things people tend to suppose morality to be, such as “whatever everyone agrees ‘morality’ means” quickly fall apart on examination. More specifically, this is how I use the term “morality” (ie. how I am using it above), and almost certainly is how ice9 uses the term.
[More linguistic stuff redacted so as not to distract everyone]
Source: this is how the term “morality” is generally actually used by people.
I am sorry, can I see your credentials for confidently making naked assertions about how people actually use the term “morality”? Or at least some evidence?
Um. You’re not really good at geometry, are you? :-D
I assume it goes without saying that I’m talking about shapes in a flat euclidean plane because listing every random corner case is a waste of everyone’s time. (EDIT: yeah… fuckin’ parallelograms. Sneaky bastards.)
...
The evidence for this particular description of morality includes such as the fact that people confidently call some things good and some things bad, “even if $(RANDOM_COUNTERFACTUAL_CONDITION)”, and thought experiments like the Gandhi murder pill and, well, there’s too much subject to describe in one comment.
But that’s not really important, and you’re not going to believe me anyway. More generally, regardless of the specific form of the morality predicate, God can’t make one mathematical object be something else. He can only modify physical circustances. For example, if morality was “murder is good, except at midday” he could make it always be midday by messing with the sun or something, which would affect when murder was good.
I’m talking about shapes in a flat euclidean plane
Yes, you are bad at geometry.
And, of course, God is not constrained by your favorite dimensionality of space or by your preferences for Euclid over, say, Riemann.
God can’t make one mathematical object be something else. He can only modify physical circustances.
Why is that? You seem to be very certain about limitations of God. You also seem to imply that morality is a mathematical object. That doesn’t look obvious to me.
And, of course, God is not constrained by your favorite dimensionality of space or by your preferences for Euclid over, say, Riemann.
No, but my topic of discussion is. God can do whatever he likes, it doesn’t change the facts of Euclidean geometry. Or Riemannian geometry for that matter. Or both of them together. Or any other type of geometry, or number theory or whatever.
You also seem to imply that morality is a mathematical object.
The same is true of every other abstract concept that divides thingspace into things-that-are and things-that-aren’t. Except there are good reasons to think that morality in particular divides thingspace in a way that doesn’t care about little XML tags attached to physical objects and actions (which are the sort of thing that God could mess with, being omnipotent regarding the physical world).
You seem to be very certain about limitations of God.
Perhaps you think that “God can override logic” isn’t logical nonsense, or you prefer not to use logic. Either approach seems rather pointless as far as getting useful results is concerned.
You’re quite mistaken about that. In the Christian world God not only can define gravity itself—He did define gravity itself. Remember that whole Creator bit..?
Do not attempt to confuse yourself with wordplay.
If I build a house with a triangular roof, does the fact that I could have built one with a square roof instead mean I can define triangles as squares if I want to?
The fact remains that gravity is a force, not a word or a symbol. “Gravity” can be defined as something; gravity cannot, because defining things is intrinsically a linguistic activity.
Do not attempt to confuse yourself with wordplay.
Let’s replace the word “define” with the word “create”. God created gravity, the force itself. In the process of creating it he defined it to be what it is. This is all before language—the same way by building a house with a triangular roof I defined that roof as triangular regardless of what you’ll call it later.
Again, the major difference between the Christian world and the atheist world is not in what someone calls things—it’s in what things are and are not.
Specific morality is a built-in feature of reality in the Christian world, similar to how gravity is a built-in feature of reality in the physical world. The names that your mind assigns do not change this.
By building a house with any kind of roof you have done nothing more and nothing less than give that house a particular kind of roof. The actual squareness or triangularness of the particular kind of roof is an immutable mathematical fact. Not even God can imbue a three-sided shape with squareness.
Nor can you specify squareness to be a “built in feature of reality” in God’s world, and true of triangles in that world. Squareness is simply that predicate that is true of exactly all equal-length four-sided shapes. Immutably. Mathematically.
What is morality? It is a predicate that is true of all and only those things that help others, avoid harm, promote happiness, etc etc etc.¹ You can no more imbue an evil deed with morality than you can imbue a triangle with squareness.
¹ Source: this is how the term “morality” is generally actually used by people. Nonsensicle self-referential things people tend to suppose morality to be, such as “whatever everyone agrees ‘morality’ means” quickly fall apart on examination. More specifically, this is how I use the term “morality” (ie. how I am using it above), and almost certainly is how ice9 uses the term.
[More linguistic stuff redacted so as not to distract everyone]
Um. You’re not really good at geometry, are you? :-D
Huh? Not at all. Consult wikipedia for starters.
I am sorry, can I see your credentials for confidently making naked assertions about how people actually use the term “morality”? Or at least some evidence?
I assume it goes without saying that I’m talking about shapes in a flat euclidean plane because listing every random corner case is a waste of everyone’s time. (EDIT: yeah… fuckin’ parallelograms. Sneaky bastards.)
...
The evidence for this particular description of morality includes such as the fact that people confidently call some things good and some things bad, “even if $(RANDOM_COUNTERFACTUAL_CONDITION)”, and thought experiments like the Gandhi murder pill and, well, there’s too much subject to describe in one comment.
But that’s not really important, and you’re not going to believe me anyway. More generally, regardless of the specific form of the
moralitypredicate, God can’t make one mathematical object be something else. He can only modify physical circustances. For example, if morality was “murder is good, except at midday” he could make it always be midday by messing with the sun or something, which would affect when murder was good.Yes, you are bad at geometry.
And, of course, God is not constrained by your favorite dimensionality of space or by your preferences for Euclid over, say, Riemann.
Why is that? You seem to be very certain about limitations of God. You also seem to imply that morality is a mathematical object. That doesn’t look obvious to me.
No, but my topic of discussion is. God can do whatever he likes, it doesn’t change the facts of Euclidean geometry. Or Riemannian geometry for that matter. Or both of them together. Or any other type of geometry, or number theory or whatever.
The same is true of every other abstract concept that divides thingspace into things-that-are and things-that-aren’t. Except there are good reasons to think that morality in particular divides thingspace in a way that doesn’t care about little XML tags attached to physical objects and actions (which are the sort of thing that God could mess with, being omnipotent regarding the physical world).
Perhaps you think that “God can override logic” isn’t logical nonsense, or you prefer not to use logic. Either approach seems rather pointless as far as getting useful results is concerned.