tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post1047098619264789581..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Tim Keller on Social Justice - Part IAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-3033706894173173952021-03-24T18:17:52.637-04:002021-03-24T18:17:52.637-04:00@ James - I laughed at that. That's a better a...@ James - I laughed at that. That's a better analogy than where I was going, and I may modify my thoughts in that direction. To be fair, however, a junk drawer is often quite useful. No one designs their house around the junk drawer, but over time it becomes a strong expression of one's home and family.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-46129066308014875182021-03-24T17:30:40.196-04:002021-03-24T17:30:40.196-04:00I agree--it's not a spectrum. It's a junk...I agree--it's not a spectrum. It's a junk drawer--unrelated things piled in together.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-72433463979184557732021-03-24T15:37:19.322-04:002021-03-24T15:37:19.322-04:00@ Korora - I recommend CS Lewis's The Abolitio...@ Korora - I recommend CS Lewis's <i>The Abolition of Man.</i> Short, and on one level easy, because it is clear, yet on another level difficult as there are serious philosophical issues at play. I think it will give you words for your expression.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-68835406891985861192021-03-24T15:27:18.103-04:002021-03-24T15:27:18.103-04:00It seems to me that any sort of truncated ethos is...It seems to me that any sort of truncated ethos is doomed in the long run to thwart itself. I just don't know how to explain how.Kororahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06208444799799287420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-47116235683239069372021-03-23T22:26:19.737-04:002021-03-23T22:26:19.737-04:00That makes it easy to prove to people who already ...That makes it easy to prove to people who already agree with me.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-9601832400606923262021-03-23T12:09:53.622-04:002021-03-23T12:09:53.622-04:00Does that mean I'm right when I say God has to...<i>Does that mean I'm right when I say God has to be the source of durable ethical convictions? That's not something I can prove.</i><br /><br />That proof is relatively straightforward if you accept that God exists and created reality; whatever ethical systems inhere in it, whether drawn from revelation or from things like observing the positive outcomes associated with certain strategies in game theory, are features of reality. The atheist who learns from reality to adopt Tit-for-Tat-with-forgiveness is learning a durable ethical conviction from experience, but what he's experiencing is God's work. The moral structure he's learning, he's learning from experiencing the structure God set up to be discovered. <br /><br />It's that first proof, the proof of God, where people tend to raise objections. If you get them past that one, the moral proof is easy.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-43558364545990311182021-03-23T11:36:29.998-04:002021-03-23T11:36:29.998-04:00Game theory wrestles with this: on the one hand, ...Game theory wrestles with this: on the one hand, it's obvious to many people that the world would be a lot more like Paradise if we all felt internally compelled to stick pretty close to the Golden Rule. (Tit-for-tat, or tit-for-tat with forgiveness, something along those lines.) And in fact many people do stick pretty close to the Golden Rule, at least until times get desperate. It's what makes ordinary life consistently bearable.<br /><br />At the same time, there is always a solid fraction of one's society who are in it for whatever they can get away with. You've got to arrange things to take them realistically into account, no matter how rosy you feel about the ability of most people, in most circumstances, to do something that looks like roughly the right thing to everyone. Or at least, the ability of most people to find enough people they can trust for most purposes.<br /><br />C.S. Lewis used to talk about how he'd rather play cards with an ethical atheist than with a Christian who couldn't overcome the temptation to cheat. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, it doesn't help that much to know that a man's convictions about ethical behavior stem from the right supernatural assumptions: he either has dependable convictions or he doesn't. Nevertheless, we also have to take into account that hard times do come round, and atheistic or vaguely deist assumptions about standards of behavior mostly turn out to wilt awfully fast in a gulag. Codes of conduct that people aren't willing to die for just don't hold up when the clinch hits.<br /><br />Does that mean I'm right when I say God has to be the source of durable ethical convictions? That's not something I can prove. I do know that assuming the contrary doesn't work all that great, which is the utilitarian approach, for those who will listen only to the utilitarian approach.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.com