Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

_And_ I was too hard on the Scotch-Irish in my retraction. I like them, at least in Appalachia as it was not too long ago; Appalachia is the only Old World society in the United States, with the possible exception of the Mormons. (What do I mean by Old World? It would take a long while to explain...)

Thanks for taking the time to reply and speaking civilly! I've really come to enjoy discussions on Hacker News more than anywhere else.

> I am speaking of observation, not revelation.

Me too. There were lot of observations about people and events in first-century Palestine that were then recorded and preserved over time.

I was just in a meeting today. Let's say I write a blog post about it and that post is read 2000 years later. While it can't be the sole basis for answering the question of whether or not that meeting happened, I think it should be given a lot of respect and precedence when considering the question.

But don't discount revelation outright! If I want someone to understand me better, I'd rather tell them myself rather than having them resort to observations and experiments, and I'd probably give them more information in an hour of talking than they ever could figure out on their own.

> "it's faith" is the fallback when they don't have any other reason

If you can explain it completely, it's not faith. So that makes sense.

The concept of a triune God is one that kinda ends up this way. I can pontificate all I want about how I'm a father, a son, and a brother all while being a single entity, but at the end of the day it's like explaining depth to Flatlanders - it's tough to truly understand something that doesn't exist on your level. So, what goes beyond my comprehension requires faith. Can it be used as a cop-out or an intellectually lazy answer? Sure! The Bible even suggests that faith is hard - a man once said to Jesus "I believe; help my unbelief!" But that doesn't mean it's not a valid state of mind.

I like the chair metaphor for this sort of talk. Sitting in a chair requires a measure of faith that it'll hold my weight. If I'm sitting in the chair, the question is already answered so no more faith is required (unless I wanted to question the idea that the chair would continue to hold my weight!). If I couldn't sit in the chair because it's behind a glass wall in a museum, then I can choose to believe it will/won't hold me or I can choose to not make a decision because, who cares? And for a chair that's okay, because it's not being prescriptive or dealing with anything existential.

But ultimately, the chair can either hold you or it can't. One of those outcomes is true. Just because you can't sit on the chair doesn't mean that there isn't an absolute answer. I think you understand that after parsing your response a bit more, just wanted to call the point out specifically.

> However, it is important to note that science does not proclaim that if you can't observe something, it therefore isn't.

Yes! I understand this. But I do think that because science is so great at explaining so many things, people will tend to mentally fall into assumptions like 'science is the only way to prove something' or 'if science cannot prove something, I won't believe it'. This could be strawmanning though.

If I understand you correctly you're saying that, from a purely scientific standpoint, a belief in the Abrahamic God is no different than believing that we're a little simulation run by the Q Continuum. And that's a fair point. But I would contend again that science is not the only way to prove something. Historical record, internal logic and narrative, testimony of others, personal experience, revelation...these can be less easy to parse and trust than a clear-cut scientific method, but that doesn't invalidate them as methods of persuasion.

And perhaps that is our greatest difference. You (if I am understanding correctly; feel free to correct me) believe that belief should be withheld on things that cannot be quantified with scientific methodology. I do not ascribe to this, and this divergence puts us in pretty different places.

>>> what is moral is a scientific question >> I can see how you could start with that assumption and find ways to justify it, but I don't see how you can conclusively prove the initial premise. > I think the more interesting question is: Do you disagree and if so, why?

If I understand the intent of this exchange, then I think I do disagree. Take something like eugenics; if we observed two societies doing it and one refraining, we might find benefits in both society. An individualistic society might be glad they refrained because they see the intrinsic value of each human life, regardless of their shortcomings, while a collectivistic, Spartan-like society might be glad they kept their stock strong and didn't have to do stuff like buy glasses or spend money on sick/disabled people. Point being, observation and the conclusions that are drawn from it could end up being inconclusive or relativistic depending on the underlying values of the society.

One of the things I believe about God is that he knows everything about us, and as such would be the most qualified to prescribe the best courses of action for my life and for society. Or, since we're on HN, the guy who programmed the app knows the codebase better than anyone, and if he wants others to understand it he writes documentation for others to follow, or maybe goes to a conference to talk about it. And who knows, maybe God has reasoning that would fit within the realm of scientific methodology. I don't know, but..."it's faith!"

You make a compelling argument based on your presuppositions.

If one doesn't hold a Christian theology based around total depravity, then yes, sin does seem like an arbitrary construct. In fact, even among Christians who hold to essentially similar theological views, there is disagreement about what actions are disobedient to God's instructions, and that's not an easy task to sort through.

As for if I would be willing to substitute any definition of God, no, I wouldn't. But my argument still holds up due to my personal presupposition that the Christian Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, and other religions that deny part or all of them are not correct.

Again, this is heading way off topic for the article, so if you are interested in continuing, feel free to email.

I do think it's evident that he was incensed, therefore pointing it out for 3rd party readers is not beneficial.

It's the same as if you had said, "I see you're feeling emotional about this." It's technically true, but carries an implication that he's favoring emotion over rationality, when he could simply be rationally deciding that the status quo of how the West uses its military is something that one should be incensed about.

I have a gay friend activist who held such beliefs when we were both in college. At the time, groups of gay men were going around and yelling at bisexuals and calling them "fence sitters." I even received a bit of attention like this. Angry young 20-somethings, projecting half-baked ideas onto you and yelling at you about extremely significant and intimate details of your inner emotional life -- always So Very Helpful!