/lit/ - Literature

>>6052436
>Not true "per-industiral" forms of social organization were still relevant up until the 1930s and arguably the 1940s.
Yes, the Mafia thrived on them.

>Just like drug dealers and gangsters.
Not really. The Trenchcoat Robbers of the 1990's were not idolized by society, despite being more successful than John Dillinger. Black people idolize gangsters, and, for the same reasons people in the 1600's did, which is terrible economic conditions; criminals are the most powerful people in shitty neighborhoods, so they're idolized/

>>6052327
>How do you think the issues of crime and poverty would change if the state were to suddenly leave?
It would catastrophic for our economy, all of our money is state backed, everyone would become instantly broke until a new currency got up and running. I can't begin to envision what would happen when food distribution and utilities widely shut down.

>*more culturally unified societies were able to function with a VASTLY smaller state without falling into a state of barbarism and anarchy*
Yes, but they were pre-industrial and based on the same families working the land for generations and all knowing each other. There wasn't nearly as much skill specialization, the family worked with the family and all the families knew each other. Unless you have some sort of system where every business is owned by a particular family and staffed almost entirely by that family, I don't see how that could work anymore.

>The societies in the 1600s were still much more urbanized than those that had been seen and extremely importantly people were managing without a welfare state for nearly 200 years after the industrial revolution took place and continued to do so primarily until the depression and post war period.
Things started to get really shitty then. That's why highwaymen and pirates started becoming folk heroes.

>>6052082
>The same can be said for our times as well,
Not nearly to the same degree, no. There aren't whole communities of homeless families anymore.

>Yet what we instead find is that society did in fact manage to function beforehand and not just in a barbaric state but a civilized one.
I don't think they were especially barbaric, but they still employed torture in France up until the Revolution and crime was a very, very serious issue, which was handled with wide use of execution, but even that wasn't verye effective.

>The idea of the welfare state only started to take place in the very late 1800's and only became the norm in the post war period. This is well after the spread of urbanization.
Yes, I'd say urbanization was largely a product of the Industrial Revolution, and it creating plague of problems that were setting poor people all over to a boiling point, which the welfare state was employed to cope with, in order to prevent a socialist revolution.

>>6051967
States always managed morality, it's just that they're secular now. Families might have managed morality, but the morality they taught was heavily influenced by church and state propaganda. Public school just cut out the family as the middle man.

>>6051164
The Church employed their free will to ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

>>6048216
>Yes, but all of the attributes must be taken as definitions and then explanations follow
What exactly is the basis for these definitions?

>What makes one piece beautiful could still be what makes another beautiful even if they depict vastly different subjects.
I think not, what makes violence beautiful are things like struggle and pain.

>No, and it would be an imperfect system that values all things equally
But then how is his love infinite?

>>6048154
>Our scope makes it so we can't see the greater good of His actions. Just look at the response in Job, it's not to explain the actions but to point out that we as humans cannot understand the greater implications of His actions.
Okay, but His omnibenevolence has a lot to do with Him being worthy of worship and trust.
>I'm not sure I've heard of such a thing as beautiful violence. Any examples?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticization_of_violence
>The valuation is not for God, but for us. All of creation is loved, but only humans(and angels) are capable of responding in kind, and the response is what is valued.
So does God love inanimate matter as much as He loves people?

>>6048125
>Recognizing that there will never be a perfect answer for it. Rather than reducing capacities of God(such as Mormon's making an image of God that isn't omnipotent or other groups saying God is not all loving) accepting them as definitions and our limited scope.
That would be reasonable except a crucial aspect of your faith is God as omnibenevolent, that's what makes the Christian God so good, supposedly.

>Such as?
Beautiful violence as opposed to beautiful tranquility.

>Love of God, then love of people. Far too detailed to be reduced into a single post on the matter.
But does He love inanimate objects? And if his love is infinite, how can there be a hierarchy to it?

>>6048062
>No, they're attempts to understand aspects such as omnipotence or other attributes or to explain away(rather than simply accepting) things like the problem of evil.
What would just accepting the problem of evil entail?

>I disagree, but I can see why you would think that way. Ultimately if God exists He is the single standard for both beauty and perfection. There may be multiple aspects, but a single definition
What about contradicting beauties?

>Not explicitly, but it is found throughout. Which is the idea of virtue, especially the virtue of love.
Love of what? Everything? Just people?

>>6047980
Satan is a Jewish character who first appears in the Book of Job: he works for God, his job is to test faith and to play the Prosecutor when God weighs the sins of humanity.

Lucifer is means "bright star". When Isiah is prophesying the fall of Nebuchadnezzar, he sees a "bright star" [Lucifer] being cast out of heaven and crashing to the earth.

The Devil is the Beast, an Antichrist that is prophesied in the New Testament, which will rule over people characteristically and stand for the opposite values Christ does.

>>6047963
>Which can usually be sifted through. Most of the contradictions tend to be humanization of the divine or attempts to resolve logical issues.
Most of the contradictions are a result of attempting to resolve contradictions?

>epends on if you see God as a singular being or multiples. If God is singular and perfect, then He has a perfect value system. Man's multiple value systems come from multiple personalities and desires.
No, even God as singular. Because the idea of a single perfect value system is as bizarre as a single perfect canon of beauty. There are multiple kinds of perfection.

>I'll give you that, though we also need sources to base these checks on. Scripture serves as such a check.
Does scripture ever really explain God's basis for His value system?

>>6047877
No. Mysteries were the most ancient practices of Greece, they involved involved elaborate initiated, prehistorical rituals and and hymns in pre-Homeric Greek. The most well documented Mysteries are the Orphic Mysteries, and they have their own mythology and theology, not to mention a different poetic tradition (the Orphic Argonautica, for instance, is written in first-person from Opheus's viewpoint). Orphic Mysteries placed holy value on proportion in art and music, and considered learning the mathematical ordering of the universe to be part of the mortal quest for God.

>>6047813
Feels bad, man.

>>6047824
Well Christ said don't praise me, praise God.

But it doesn't really matter, even the official Church would have cracked down the Mysteries sooner or later. Really too bad,, they might have survived in practically the same form to this day otherwise.

>>6047772
>rather than interacting with what others have written about God to help temper our own faults
What others have written about God has frequently been contradictory. Even if you can find numerous correlations for one perspective, you can find numerous for another. There's also an issue with your premise, which is that God can only have one value system, which is not necessarily true anymore than Man has one value system.

> We're as likely to create a god to our own ideals as we are to discover the God(s) that exist.
That is quite possible, which is why it is important to look at the source of our ideals, their wellspring. To discover God's values, it is first necessary to inquire as to what their wellspring would be, and proceed from there.

>>6047716
What do values have to do with truth? Certainly, it's reasonable to think some values can be more Godly than others, but that's not the same thing.

>>6047488
I agree that it's not the highest quality to find God, but it is only through reason that the other faculties become available. Reason is important for determining *some* aspects of theology, although ultimately one cannot move past agnosticism on reason alone. To understand the nature of God fully, it is important to imagine what Godly perception is, and from there what sorts of God that would entail. I think instead of obsessing over God's values, it is to start with determining what God's values *could be*, what would be the basis of these values. That basis would be something higher than reason, and trying to apprehend it (actual apprehension being impossible) is what allows to discover and value things with something higher than reason.

I explain myself in more depth here
>>/lit/thread/S5966608

>>6047354
According to Aristotle, to be virtuous is to be Godlike, and reason is the most Godlike quality.

I don't entirely agree that reason is closest quality mortals have to Gods, but I do think reason is what makes humans distinct from other animals, and if we were not distinct from other animals, God would not be important to us. Therefore since reason is required for God to be important,reason would be a special divine gift, supposing the existence of God(s)...reason is holy.

>>6047256
>implying
Plato thought women should participate equally with men in education and government.

>>6047245
Belief in the Gods is not an important factor in honoring them, Butters, so you're covered.
>>6044152

>>6047119
>How can you establish that without using past evidence of belief in God?
You don't need past evidence of belief in God to reason what would be the case if God were true. To examine which religion(s) most coincide with God, of course, would require examination, but that comes later. There's also technically no reason why one cannot synthesize a singular religion best adapted to the case.

>And why have you moved on to worship discussion without establishing the existence of God, if you're not using religion?
Ah, but despite being a theist, the premise of my argument here is agnostic: I'm saying *if* God(s) exist, then such and such, not "God exists, therefore such and such".

>>6046889
I'm interested in establishing God(s) as actual, rather than working from a religion first. You work from a religion first, well, that's how people become atheist when what makes sense as God(s) doesn't coincide with the religious premise they started with.

After working out God(s) as existing, then work out which religion(s) coincide with the proper worship of him.

>>6046754
Only under compulsion or for financial benefits.

>>6046506
This is an artificial distinction. Consider trying to distinguish duty from love in relation to one's country.

>>6046381
I mean that I am concerned with God(s) as actually existing, regardless of whether or not that coincides with the Bible.

>>6046415
They're the same thing. Would I honor my mother as such if she weren't my mother? No. Would I honor my mother as such if she were an awful mother? No. She is both my mother and a noble mother, I therefore honor her.