Who do people say I am?

@kellyjay said
True, but it remains we are making choices and if we are ultimately the only one that matters in this, who cares what is liked or disliked? Where it would matter is if, in the end, we give an account to someone else. We are alone or not.

We're obviously not alone. What I do affects other people, and vice versa. We're all connected.

If I do a poor job of walking a Spiritual path, I will live less skillfully, causing both myself and those around me to suffer more. Everything I do "gives an account" of who I am to people. There is no avoiding it.

The only difference between us here is that you think you need God for this accounting process to work properly.

@bigdoggproblem said
We're obviously not alone. What I do affects other people, and vice versa. We're all connected.

If I do a poor job of walking a Spiritual path, I will live less skillfully, causing both myself and those around me to suffer more. Everything I do "gives an account" of who I am to people. There is no avoiding it.

The only difference between us here is that you think you need God for this accounting process to work properly.

If each of us makes up our own minds selfishly, that means only our own personal notions ground us, but into what? Community standards may be herd-like, but they are still not rooted anywhere solid, you may as well say they are grounded in thin air because they are in a constant state of change. Right and wrong turn and twist as time goes by, heck today compared to yesterday people in higher education are finding it difficult to even tell a boy from a girl. If meaning and purpose come from nothing substantial or binding outside of ourselves, we are left with what we want, when they want it.

God changes everything; reason and purpose don't come from our own desires, and how we treat each other then first starts with Him, not our personal desires and how we think others measure up to our own standards.

@bigdoggproblem said
We're obviously not alone. What I do affects other people, and vice versa. We're all connected.

If I do a poor job of walking a Spiritual path, I will live less skillfully, causing both myself and those around me to suffer more. Everything I do "gives an account" of who I am to people. There is no avoiding it.

The only difference between us here is that you think you need God for this accounting process to work properly.

"The only difference between us here is that you think you need God for this accounting process to work properly."

Unless there is a way to measure good from bad, how do you know we are doing it right or if there is a right way to do it? How would you know there is a proper accounting? An adequate accounting requires a common framework, precise scales of truth and error, right and wrong. If no one agrees on the foundational properties, how is the score rendered honestly?

@kellyjay said
If each of us makes up our own minds selfishly, that means only our own personal notions ground us, but into what? Community standards may be herd-like, but they are still not rooted anywhere solid, you may as well say they are grounded in thin air because they are in a constant state of change. Right and wrong turn and twist as time goes by, heck today compared to yesterday ...[text shortened]... t starts with Him, not our personal desires and how we think others measure up to our own standards.

I don't think you have thought this through.

Community standards are solid enough. Just try violating one and see what happens. Let's say I decided to violate the standard against public nudity for one hour. I daresay I'd find that, far from being "grounded in thin air", they are as solid as the concrete floor of my new jail cell. Wanna try again?

Then you make the false statement that higher ed. folk can't tell a boy from a girl. I guess you mean that higher ed. is exploring more alternate gender roles, and you don't care for that.

Still not seeing any need to invoke a god to shore up moral consequences here.

@kellyjay said
"The only difference between us here is that you think you need God for this accounting process to work properly."

Unless there is a way to measure good from bad, how do you know we are doing it right or if there is a right way to do it? How would you know there ia proper accounting? An adequate accounting requires a common framework, precise scales of truth and error, right and wrong. If no one agrees on the foundational properties, how is the score rendered honestly?

I use my moral judgment. [BTW, you don't have anything better, EVEN IF you God exists.]

"Life isn't fair" - there is no guarantee of a full moral accounting for all bad deeds. But, in general, bad behavior meets with negative consequences. [This is actually a far more just outcome than the typical Christian idea of judgment, IMO. In that system, it is nearly a lock that the "score" will not be rendered honestly.]

@kellyjay said
Community standards may be herd-like, but they are still not rooted anywhere solid, you may as well say they are grounded in thin air because they are in a constant state of change.

"Thin air"? I don't think this is true at all.

@kellyjay said
Unless there is a way to measure good from bad, how do you know we are doing it right or if there is a right way to do it? How would you know there is a proper accounting?

You use your moral compass.

The way you define "right" and "proper" - or "a proper accounting" - and the way you "measure good from bad" is through you using your moral compass.

@kellyjay said
If meaning and purpose come from nothing substantial or binding outside of ourselves, we are left with what we want, when they want it.

If you believe your subjective opinions about supernatural matters and your speculation about the wishes of a "creator being" are "substantial" and "binding" then you should go with that.

In fact, you already are: it's all in there being synthesized and combined and applied by your moral compass.

If your moral compass tells you that people around you, who have different beliefs from you ~ or perhaps BECAUSE have different beliefs from you ~ have morality based on "nothing", so be it.

I suggest you take it up with law enforcement and the courts if they do something really bad to you.

@kellyjay said
An adequate accounting requires a common framework, precise scales of truth and error, right and wrong. If no one agrees on the foundational properties, how is the score rendered honestly?

This sounds like it is a matter for the legal system in your country.

When and if it does not provide you with what you believe is "an adequate accounting", take up activism to bring about change or vote with your feet.

If, on a level of interaction that doesn't involve recourse to the courts etc., I suggest that you disassociate from friends and neighbours whose "precise scales of truth and error, right and wrong" are too incompatible with yours.

@kellyjay said
God changes everything; reason and purpose don't come from our own desires, and how we treat each other then first starts with Him, not our personal desires and how we think others measure up to our own standards.

Your "own standards" appear to amount to not knowing how to treat others without reference to your God figure's "desires". If you have no "reason or purpose" without that reference, and if it's the only way you can prevent yourself from being a morally unsound or anti-social person, then I suppose people around you should be thankful.

@bigdoggproblem said
I use my moral judgment. [BTW, you don't have anything better, EVEN IF you God exists.]

"Life isn't fair" - there is no guarantee of a full moral accounting for all bad deeds. But, in general, bad behavior meets with negative consequences. [This is actually a far more just outcome than the typical Christian idea of judgment, IMO. In that system, it is nearly a lock that the "score" will not be rendered honestly.]

Odd that you are still going on about fairness if the only measure is us, by us, and for us. If we are left to police ourselves without anything but our own desires, ideas, morals, all based upon our own sense of right and wrong, what is fair? Fair requires a standard, and if there isn't one but billions of standards due to there are billions of people whose measure do you think matters?

An honest scale is one that doesn't change but measures things as they are. Fairness requires something that goes beyond selfishness.

Even your choice of words "bad behavior" assume good and a scale that can measure both righteously. Typical Christians, or any other kind, are no different than anyone else, it isn't them that we are going to stand before and give an account too. That would be the one this OP is about because of He both our judge and Savior! I prefer to stand before Him as Savior and Judge instead of just Judge because fairness, righteousness, and goodness will be applied to everyone for justice.

@kellyjay said
Fair requires a standard, and if there isn't one but billions of standards due to there are billions of people whose measure do you think matters?

There aren't 'billions of standards.' Human beings create societies where standards are shared. Yes, these standards may vary with some within that society and indeed with other societies, but they tend to converge on the important stuff. (Murder is wrong etc). Or do you claim there are billions of standards when it comes to murder?

@kellyjay said
Odd that you are still going on about fairness if the only measure is us, by us, and for us. If we are left to police ourselves without anything but our own desires, ideas, morals, all based upon our own sense of right and wrong, what is fair?

You are free to base your sense of "fairness" on your personal speculation about a supernatural being and desires or demands that you attribute to it. Nothing is stopping you.

@kellyjay said
An honest scale is one that doesn't change but measures things as they are. Fairness requires something that goes beyond selfishness.

If "an honest scale is one that doesn't change", do you think we should still be putting homosexuals to death. What about having slaves? What about adultery? No longer putting homosexuals to death is a "change". No longer putting adulterers to death is a "change". How do these changes measure up when filtered through your sense of "fairness"?

@kellyjay said
I prefer to stand before Him as Savior and Judge instead of just Judge because fairness, righteousness, and goodness will be applied to everyone for justice.

There's nothing wrong with you stating what it is you prefer.