Jamie_L

In that respect, demrald, I agree. Anyone who considers the Christian God to be a moral standard will have some serious issues to resolve (or rather, issues that can't clearly be resolved, as I see it).

Jamie

dk

demrald: Where are you getting this? I've never seen such a description applied to arguments, and it's nonsensical, from the standpoint of logic per se, to talk about "sound premises." Arguments can be sound; premises cannot.
What justifies this conclusion? More importantly, how is it relevant to my argument?
dk: I meant the idea of a “perfectly moral God” is impossible because whatever world we entertain the first cause is God, so whatever rules govern or explain the world are contingent upon God, not visa versa. As the Supreme Being God has sovereignty over creation, not visa versa.

It would be more meaningful to argue the specifics of all worlds where pigs can fly.

demrald

dk
So, you deny premise 1. Why didn't you just say that? However, God being the "first cause" doesn't mean that God create(s/d) morality.
Well, we know that all such worlds are worlds where pigs can fly, at least. But what do possible worlds have to do with my argument?

dk

Good and evil can't possibly exist in a world created by a morally perfect God, because such a creation would be indistinguishable from the creator i.e. it's inconcievable for a morally perfect supreme being to create anything that's not perfect. . You're argument asserts absolute monism, see Spinoza or Parmenides. Theism presumes a pluralistic Reality. I think we just talking past one another.

demrald

You can take this up with people who actually believe that God is morally perfect. I'm rather ambivalent regarding the characteristics of fictional beings.
No, it doesn't, and I'm quite familiar with the viewpoints both these and other philosopohers. Unless you can think of a philosopher from either the Western or Indian tradition who is so obscure that not even professional philosophers of either field have heard of them, name-tossing such as this will do little to impress me. See Aristocles.
Classical western theism, perhaps. But not all theism. See Shankara or Peter van Inwagen.
This could be because you keep bringing up irrelevant issues. See Gottlob Frege or Bertrand Russell.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: demrald ]</p>