The adversary is within

@sonship said
This breaking system

It informs us that there is objective moral truth.

No, I disagree.

@FMF

There are some moral topics about which we can make objective statements, like what the law defines as morally wrong in this country or that country.

But neither your moral compass nor my moral compass points in an "objectively true" moral direction.

It is all in the realm of subjectivity; this is why we need our moral compasses: to navigate our own way through this realm.

IN some cases norms are exressed differently. But underneath the moral truth is the same.

Ie. To show respect in the East you bow before each other.

To show respect in the West instead of bowing a hand shake does the same.

The way respect is SHOWN differs.
But the aim of both methods is to show honor to another person.

Do you agree?

@sonship said
There is objectively a real transcendent moral standard.

There may be values and standards that are so prevalent and widely subscribed to and obeyed that they create a moral context where they can be described as "transcendent" or some such adjective, but it is all still just an aggregation of subjectivities in a given society that, undoubtedly, affects the practical reality of making one's way as a free moral agent in that society ~ but I don't see how the word "objectively" fits.

@sonship said
How did such an "organ" come to be in human beings?

By "organ" do you mean 'the brain' or 'the heart'?

Or by "organ" do you mean capacity and facility?

@sonship said
IN some cases norms are exressed differently. But underneath the moral truth is the same.

Ie. To show respect in the East you bow before each other.

To show respect in the West instead of bowing a hand shake does the same.

The way respect is SHOWN differs.
But the aim of both methods is to show honor to another person.

Do you agree?

If you're asking me 'Are people's behaviour generally different in different cultures?' then, yes, I agree.

If you are asking me 'Are people in "the East" and "the "West" always respectful, even though it may be expressed in different ways across cultures?' then, no, I don't agree.

If you are asking me 'Do people in "the East" always bow instead of shaking hands in order to show respect?' then my answer is no, and if you think they do, then I disagree with you.

I see no "absolutes" here.

Do you think there are some?

@fmf said
Your religious dogma is a "force" that "plays upon you" and nothing more.

Truth plays upon us all, you can say something is nothing but religious dogma, but if true, it's something that will be true for everyone regardless of whether they accept it or not. There are many things some deny that is true. They deny things for several reasons; most typically don't want to believe.

@kellyjay said
Truth plays upon us all, you can say something is nothing but religious dogma, but if true, it's something that will be true for everyone regardless of whether they accept it or not.

As you say: "if true".

IF

If it is "true"; ah yes, you are certain it is.

"IF it is true then X, Y and Z."

Your assertions - starting with provisos like "if true, then..." - are subjective [sorry, your certainty does not render them "objective"] and this is, I think, true for both of us regardless of whether you accept it or not.

@kellyjay said
There are many things some deny that is true. They deny things for several reasons; most typically don't want to believe.

You constantly deny that your opinions about supernatural and moral issues are subjective because you don't want to believe that they are not objective.

@fmf said
Everyone's moral compass is unique and reliable to differing degrees. Indeed, the degree of reliability is a matter that can [and must] be viewed using one's moral compass.

That is because we are broken; we know there is a right way; we disagree on it. It's like the saying about doctors and politicians a group of doctors can tell you what healthy looks like in a body, but politicians cannot agree on what a healthy society looks like; they want what they want.

@kellyjay said
Truth plays upon us all, you can say something is nothing but religious dogma, but if true, it's something that will be true for everyone regardless of whether they accept it or not.

Maybe you will find out whether you were right or not when you pass away.

Of course, I don't think you will find out - and nor will I - because I don't think either of us will know we are dead; it'll be all over.

@kellyjay said
That is because we are broken; we know there is a right way; we disagree on it. It's like the saying about doctors and politicians a group of doctors can tell you what healthy looks like in a body, but politicians cannot agree on what a healthy society looks like; they want what they want.

That's life, KellyJay. People disagree about how to organize their societies.

@kevin-eleven said
Leaving the notion of Satan aside, there is something to this.

I vaguely remember some quotation about something something, but someone who conquers themself something something.

In Islam, jihad is also a struggle against one's worst tendencies, not just waging war against infidels.

In the Tanya of Judaism, the struggle between lower and higher somethings seems ...[text shortened]... ssenes reportedly or at least putatively advised, "Don't let yourself get whirled around by events."

"To tame the mind is more difficult than to restrain the wind."

Gandhi

@sonship said

FMF: My moral compass tells me that Joseph Stalin was an almost peerlessly evil man. Doesn't your moral compass tell you the same thing?

sonship: Yes, in that he recognized no authority over himself. None.

[1] If you need to "recognize [a divine] authority over [you]" in order for you to be able to believe that Joseph Stalin was an almost peerlessly evil man, then so be it. I do not.

[2] The notion that there is a divine authority that you perceive as being "over" you is something you have absorbed and internalized from your environment, i.e. "nurture".

[3] Your moral compass tells you, if I am not mistaken, that Stalin could have been "forgiven" and "saved" if he'd accepted Jesus as his Lord and saviour and repented on his deathbed.

@fmf said
As you say: "if true".

IF

If it is "true"; ah yes, you are certain it is.

"IF it is true then X, Y and Z."

Your assertions - starting with provisos like "if true, then..." - are subjective [sorry, your certainty does not render them "objective"] and this is, I think, true for both of us regardless of whether you accept it or not.

Well, you can say you are just a bag of chemicals with an expiration date, nothing more. You can claim all of your reactions are just a product of outside forces from culture to whatever shapes you into what you are, which has no more meaning than the next person going through the same process but looking a little differently.

If there is truth, goodness, and evil, then your body is more than just a bag of chemicals with an end date. You have choices that you will be held accountable for making every one of them. How you treat yourself and others, you will be judged over.

Mixing ingredients with heat and cold can make food or microprocessors; there is nothing moral about any of that; harming another for pleasure is either a moralless chemical reaction that can be embraced or shunned by people or its wrong period no matter what the culture says.

@fmf said
That's life, KellyJay. People disagree about how to organize their societies.

We are broken