/lit/ - Literature

Egoism.

kant closed the book on this

>>14737572
>lie and cheat
>get caught and endure judicial punishment

Is this what it means to be a God?

>>14737590
If you have enough money you can lie and cheat and never get caught, and even get rewarded.

>>14737597
Epstein was a billionaire. How'd that work out for him? Money buys a lot but money doesn't make you a god.

>>14737597
Worked for Trump

>>14738086
All the patrons to his pedo island got off scot free though.

>>14738086

Yeah it's not like he spent the majority of his life doing high grade drugs, fucking high grade hookers/slaves and influencing the state of world affairs. Yep, dying at 66 really made it not worth it.

>>14738086
>Epstein was a billionaire
no he wasn't, and larping as one is why he got made a scapegoat by the actual billionaires.

The worst part is that there are really people this dumb out there, who (possibly due to being indoctrinated or dropped on their head at a tender age) can't see that social morals have fuck-all to do with deities. Even as a flimsy excuse for convincing people to keep the peace and pay taxes it's hardly useful now except for fanatics and morons. We learn crude morals by parental indoctrination, societal pressure, fear of the law, and basic logic, not just "God said so." All ethics are secular ethics if they're actually applied: the content of holy books is ignored/rewritten/interpreted as per the needs of whoever is currently in power. Look at the supposed beliefs of current fundamentalist Christians in the U.S., for instance: are they following the Bible's clear instructions or ignoring most of them? You can't blame their faith for their ethics: it's an excuse.

>>14737572
Humanism, but even that is trash.

>>14738234
Nobody is saying anything about whether it's "worth it" because that's a heavily subjective thing that will vary person to person. The fact is that being wealthy didn't prevent him from not only getting killed by the state apparatus but also having them deny that they did that denying him even the slightest dignity in even being killed for his crimes/knowledge.

>>14738274
He was killed by the elites because of his connection to literal Mossad blackmail operations and his involvement with many people the state/corporate/zioblob structure wishes to protect.

>>14738230
Most of his patrons had something else besides being rich connecting them. There's tons of nobody academics that had plenty of connection to Epstein without having any larger amount of money than is typical for a regional manager of a fast food chain.

>>14737572
Morality is impossible under theism.

>>14738539
High quality totally preposterous statement. Morality is only possible under theism, the question just is what kind of religious leadership is dominant within society. Even "atheistic" societies use religious piety as their mechanism of moral enforcement.

>>14737582
fpbp

>>14738560
You're not acting on moral grounds if you are acting to please a god. In fact, you are acting selfishly.

>>14738342
No, i thought this argument was stupid for years until i really read up on history, our morals are derived from christianity and we're currently just running on inertia.

There are certain morals which are evolutionarily engrained into us. Evolution is not the great destroyer of morals, but the instiller of them. Look at the work of Frans de Waal as a starting point

>>14738664
Fantastic non-argument. Does any one person need to be perfectly moral for the concept of morality to be consistent? That's basically what you're arguing. Because there is some amount of people who would be cynical when it comes to adherence of morality, that morality as a whole cannot be a coherent concept.

>>14738676
you didnt refute him, retard. on the contrary. those christian morals are still aplied with people not being christian ie by adoctrination only. and btw a lot of the values have changed too. examples of adoctrination you hear as a child
>racism bad!
>gay ok!
>le all equal

>>14738699
Morality means doing good for its own sake, not out of self-interest. Sucking up to some imagined deity in order to get into heaven is just standard self-interested behavior.

>>14738727
Are you 17? Do you think you're some pioneer who has come up with some unique criticism of religious morality? Literally the only religion on Earth that believes you can con their God into goodness are Jews. Everyone else from Christians to Muslims to atheist liberal humanists recognizes that a moral act done cynically is not a pure one and has some way of both testing the piety of their members and punishing those who feign morality while merely acting in self interest.

>>14738711
The word is indoctrination. I get the point you're making but not knowing the word that is the focal point of your argument is a bad look.

Morals are defined by humans.

>>14737572
Between the atheists and the theists on this board... holy FUCK you guys are both retards. I have no doubts that nobody on this board reads.

>>14738775
I never made a claim to uniqueness. The rest of your post is just nonsense.

>>14738786
>OH LOOOOOOOOKKKKK YOU COMPLETELLY REFUTED ME BUT YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED???????????? YOU MADE A WRONG TRASLATION AND WROTE 2 LETTERS WRONG ALTHOUGH YOUR POINT IS EQUALLY INTELLIGIBLE. HAHAHAHA THOUGH LUCK NOW YOU ARGUMENT IS NOW INVALID
kys retard dishonest tranny

>>14738830
Take your meds, nutbar.

>>14738727
Altruism only exists in the grave, people engage in moral ends ultimately to please themselves or to please something higher outside of themselves, the former seems way more selfish to me

>>14737572
>she
The mother is being played by a Christian cartoonist who for some reason doesn’t know mothers, even atheist mothers put down the rules for “right and wrong”

Kind of funny how only gods are above morality and this is good in christcucks minds

>>14738515
>connections to Epstein
Who among them is on the flight logs? Wikileaks has that up

>>14738560
>presents all of christian history
How’d that work out for ya?

>>14738841
couldnt you just have said "sorry i was a fag for not admiting you were right and instead to feel better about myself decing to point out a fucking typo"?

There can be no morality without God because eventually you reach unfalsifiable axioms that are required to be accepted wholesale.

>>14738892
He said “I get the point you’re making”.
Fucking take it. Everyone makes typos

>>14737572
Egoism. As much as Rand is meme'd she sort of gets it. Just because you can lie/steal/cheat doesn't mean those things will make you happy. Take Aristotle's approach and examine yourself and figure out what would lead to your own happiness, then implement strategies to achieve that end.

>>14738842
Demonstrably false.

>>14738676
Most people think of Good and Evil as concrete and predefined and are therefore literally incapable of reasoning beyond socially acceptable ethics. That's why you get the "I don't need God to tell me X is bad". Ok maybe not, but SOMETHING has to tell you that.
The person you're responding to seems to be stating that even if there is a diety that doesn't necessarily mean you have to follow their moral dictums, you still have to decide to follow for your own reasons. Although any Christian worth their salt knows this.

>>14738923
>SOMETHING has to tell you that
Nonsense.

>>14738727
From the Christian perspective we have free will precisely because actions can only be moral if they are selfishly motivated. Good is act in harmony with logos. Religious laws are guides for self-actualization. The entire point of the salvation of the soul is to take actions which transform you into the best version of yourself.

>>14737585
>atemporal agency

>>14738826
Btfo'd

>>14737572
I don’t believe in karma in the sense that there’s some ethereal force doling out cosmic justice, but I do believe that if you go around fucking people over to serve your own material or egotistical ends word will eventually get out that you’re a real son of a bitch and it’ll ruin any prospects you might have. Be it personal or professional.

>>14738859
>only gods are above morality
Wholy shit learn some theology you retard this is embarrassing.
>>14738883
>how'd that work out for ya?
Do you have some superior civilization and tradition to point to? Or are you just mad that the world doesn't match your own imaginary utopia?

>>14738883
You genuinely need to take your medications for the night butterfly.

My point has nothing to do with specifically Christianity. In Meiji Japan Christianity was a relative rarity and yet their morality was still highly religious. In the 21st century American empire all of popular morality is grounded in a religious devotion to a transcendental equality. There is always a God to which the people kneel and submit. Their morality is a testament of their devotion and all goodness is just a relative comparison to their God.

>>14738940
To be clear, I'm not referring to a deity as that something, I mean you have to ground your ethics on some basis, even nihilism, and that basis will have logical consequences.

>>14738921
Remains to be demonstrated

>>14738961
You are a literal retard.

>>14738980
Not everyone is a sociopath like you.

>>14738826
What about my post is nonsense? If you want a modern example of these tests of purity, you see this constantly among the devoted on Twitter. The #cancelled are merely those who were demonstrated to be wearing the morality of equality as a costume for personal gain rather than it permeating every part of their soul like the righteous oppressed. This is absolutely no different than the Calvinists testing the faith of those who they believed to be using the word of God in vain for the pursuit of personal gain.

>>14738830
Calm down. I generally agree with you that the moral indoctrination children experience in the year of our Lord 2020 is harmful. I'm just saying you should make sure you know the words you are trying to use if you want people to take you seriously.

>>14738988
What on earth are you blathering about? Are you drunk?

>>14738968
Christians are embarrassing for saying god is above it. You telling me they don’t believe this now?
>Do you have some superior civilization and tradition to point to?
Yes.
>>14738974
Mmkay. But no. I disagree. There has been a lot of controlling mechanisms, like religion and state laws set up by elitist power-mongers, to indoctrinate large groups of people. There have been people free of it too. They practiced sensible interpersonal ethics.

>>14737572
> what's to keep me from becoming a God?

Physics; the laws of thermal dynamics, entropy, gravity, conservation of mass, etc. All the things that kept trilobites, dinosaurs, mammoths, etc. from becoming Gods, and continue to keep bacterium, lions, and blue whales from achieving Godhood.

>>14737572
>Or can there be no morality without God?
no

>>14737572
Utilitarianism (a mix of general rule & act).

The great thing about it is that if you're rigorous you'll go where the data leads you. Are some people better off with religious guidance? Fine, don't undermine them. Is 'diversity' really our strength? Let's examine. Is liberalism really leading to a healthier society?

In heuristically calculating utilities provided, one frankly considers such questions and as many more variables as they can process. It's the most comprehensive moral system, as it's only limited by available knowledge and our honesty in assessing the data.

Just to preempt the most common misconceptions: It does not logically follow that a utilitarian must consider all people to be equivalent and interchangeable 'units', nor to suppose that there is some universal moral formula that can optimally satisfy all divergent populations. The notion that it's purely about 'maximizing number of lives' or 'minimizing suffering (what kind?)' is also a naive interpretation... The entire manifold of utilities and diminishing returns must be considered.

>>14739006
No, I'm not drunk. Drinking to intoxication would be a sin and God won't like me if I sin :^)

>>14738985
Sociopaths generally don't get positive vibes from doing moral acts nor do they tend to be heavily religious so my point still stands in regards to neurotypical humans, namely that altruism doesn't exist in the human animal

>>14739390

>>14738921

The funny thing is that he's actually right there (and so you're wrong), but the view he just gave is inconsistent with his own professed prison-conversion christianity. Leave it to an ex-con to take stupidly inconsistent views, one of which just happens to be right.

>>14738775
You know, people like you might become more effective at getting people on your side if you did away with the anti-semitism.

Normative ethics is not the same thing as metaethics. The issue of the nature of normativity does not change the way we reason about normativity. Try reading reading Hilary Putnam's Ethics without Ontology . For a really deep take read Derek Parfit's On What Matters. It is a multiple volume work but worth it.

>>14739601
Woah, an actual philosophy post on /lit/. Nice username.

>>14739601
>Derek Parfit's On What Matters
TL;DR: Rule Consequentialism