[themodelplumber]

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics.

For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really?

Subjective stuff like this isn't bad, but it does really lead directly into the deeper questions.

Also, how does one determine whether they've taken more than they've given? A lot of people are going to bring subjective past impressions into this determination, which, like good & bad above, are complex enough that you can make that take-or-give-o-meter read just about anything--and again, justify--just about anything.

So on the one hand, it's nice that it's framed as a generous blessing, and good lord does it cut right through all that stupid legal bull! And on the other hand, people who place boring, obtuse, business law terminology where this project has placed a blessing have really good reasons for doing so, as such efforts, which get at objective use cases and expectations, have helped to remediate a lot of damage done by a bit too much subjectivity and projection of expectations in our communications.

(Bless me father, for I have clause'd)

[Georgelemental]

> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics"

I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics (https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.

[aloisdg]

> 16. Visit the sick.

Worst rule ever during a pandemic.

[throwaway984393]

What's funny is the principals of what modern progresive intellectuals find right or wrong were introduced by Abrahamic (specifically Christian) teachings. Before that, the whole framework of the poor or meek being something everyone should protect wasn't a common idea. Even devout Atheists are basically Christian philosophers with scientific faith replacing theistic faith.

[marcan_42]

faith /feɪθ/

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Science is not something you have faith in. The entire point of science is allowing your beliefs to change when presented with evidence. That's the exact opposite of "complete trust". If anything, the only thing you need to have faith in is in the validity of your own experience - and that's a philosophical dilemma, not a scientific one.

Doing science means knowing we're probably wrong and will learn something new tomorrow - but we're probably at least a little bit right and that will have made our lives better until now.

[gottebp]

The axioms at the foundation of modern science are also accepted by faith. How do you prove an axiom?

Follow the philosophical tree a little deeper and see if you can prove the foundation.

[marcan_42]

I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in a useful end result. That's good enough. It's like a protocol standard we all use because it makes our life easier. You don't need faith in HTTP to use it.

If you mean the foundations of the scientific method, e.g. things like trusting your perception of the world (to some extent), that indeed crosses over from science into philosophy. But that does not invalidate the scientific method, not does it mean all of science is faith-based; it just means we had to make some assumptions to be able to accomplish anything at all. Those assumptions are still something we can and should question, we just don't have any good way of testing them.

[gottebp]

More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as: "The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible." It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability.

Take those away and the whole edifice collapses.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48844/axioms-...

[FredPret]

Nietzsche wrote a fascinating book about this - The Genealogy of Morals.

If I remember correctly, he uses the ancient city of Rome as a symbol of the pre-Abrahamic, natural han ethic. Power is good, sex is good, wealth is good, strength is good, competence is good.

This contrasts with the Jerusalem ethic where an almighty god is worshipped, not perched on a mountain or a cloud, but while nailed to a cross. So now self-sacrifice is good, and the whole story revolves around the weak, the poor, the downtrodden.

We’re still in the Jerusalem phase, despite having replaced the church with the state. Perhaps one day, in a few millennia, the wheel will turn back around.

It’s a good book!

[rvense]

It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun...

Christianity, including its ethics, obviously also had sources and influences. Both in its inception and as it has changed, fractured and adapted to its surroundings over time. And if you truly think that Jesus invented helping the poor and acting righteous, I can only recommend you read about religions. Both those that influenced Christianity and those that never came into contact with it.

[mnw21cam]

> It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun...

Ah yes, that's most of Ecclesiastes. Everything is meaningless. King Solomon sometimes comes across as a bit of whinger, but then what do you expect if you're ultra-rich and bored and questioning the meaning of it all.

I agree that many aspects of Christianity have precedent. The one rather novel thing that it introduced was the concept of a God who would voluntarily suffer excruciating punishment so that we wouldn't have to.

[fartcannon]

Is it necessary for all Atheists to have faith in science? Science is a process to figure out the universe, not a thing/person/god. It's not the only way to know stuff, its just a good way. If the argument is that some people say Science as if it was some god, well, not much I can argue against there. Certainly not all atheists though. Otherwise, I agree that modern people took some of the good stuff old religions. It's so hard to know the truth, even about ourselves.

[themodelplumber]

There's no reference to any Code of Ethics in the linked space above, though. Contextually the blessing text is completely subjective.

(PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?)

[Georgelemental]

I'm saying that Abrahamic faiths generally don't leave any room for "my truth" being different from "your truth." There is only one Truth with a capital T, because there is only one God with a capital G. So if two people differ on some point of doctrine or ethics, one of them must be Right and the other must be Wrong. Mere mortals might not be able to determine which is which with perfect accuracy, but the One True God certainly can.

[chrismorgan]

Notwithstanding that, because of the fallibility of humans, subjective matters of conduct arise. For example: because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed divorce, but from the beginning it was not so; David was an adulterer which was punishable by death, but repented and was forgiven; mercy triumphs over judgement. As Jesus said: be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. Unfortunately, we’ve all already failed.

No scripture is a matter of one’s own private interpretation, but many matters beyond that are, because we complicate matters for ourselves by our imperfection. A lot of the stuff in Paul’s letters he wrote to help resolve such matters.

[Dylan16807]

That still leaves the human realm mired in subjectivity. I think "there is no true ethics system" and "there is a true ethics system but we can only access hints toward it" go together quite well.

[wolverine876]

That's not how almost everyone I know interprets and practices them, and the scriptures themselves are frequently vague and inconsistent.

[sokoloff]

If two people differ, they could both be Wrong, of course. (Imagine a case with three people, all mutually differing on a point. Now take two of them whom you conclude are not Right and...)

[themodelplumber]

Gotcha, in fact I used to preach that style of position from my neo-Abrahamic pulpit. Slightly different in that I was preaching that God OR his special representatives like me could tell you what the right truth was. Funny memories.

[baryphonic]

I can't speak to Judaism or Islam (the latter in particular seems quite legalistic), but Christianity has the concept of "Christian freedom." TL;DR: A Christian is allowed to partake in any activity that is not outlawed by Christ as long as doing so does not cause the Christian to stumble or cause others to stumble. So whereas Islam or Judaism forbid consumption of pork, Christianity allows it insofar as it does not cause someone to stumble. Or take alcohol: it's not explicitly outlawed (though debauchery is), yet the Christian should probably have more self-control than to drink to the brink of debauchery. It's just a matter of personal governance.

So IMO, Christianity does indeed have quite a bit of subjectivity, but it's all calibrated around creating good and forging a tight knit relationship with Christ so we can better emulate Him to the world.

[collegeburner]

There may be one perfect truth but humans can only try to achieve it and being imperfect, none of us will. So we may come to different approximations of one truth.

[HWR_14]

I mean, if that's your standard you have to provide the same capital T truth standard to science and, well, pretty much everything else.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?

There's only one objective reality/truth, regardless of human ability to measure it. It's like arguing that the stars' existence is subjective because you can't count them.

[astrange]

> There's only one objective reality/truth, regardless of human ability to measure it.

This way of thinking doesn't respect relativity enough to be settled. Sure if you go meta enough you could say there's only one universe, but maybe that's an imaginary descriptive construct and two particles whose light cones don't intersect aren't actually in the same "reality".

[hprotagonist]

>Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together

christian existentialism is alive and well and has a loooong history.

(and john 3:16 is a lot more universalist than the people who wield it like a club seem to believe)

[bee_rider]

Has it ever been shown in court that there's any real point to putting a license at the top of every file? I'd think that the whole project is licensed under some terms, rather than having to do each file individually....

Anyway, I think structuring it as a blessing means that it doesn't tell us much about the author's view of ethics. Which is to say, it is so clearly just a reminder to the reader that they should be their best self, that it couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as the actual, objective legal requirements. So, those must be somewhere else, right?

[themodelplumber]

Subjectively you may personally think that it _must_ have a license somewhere, sure. But the file itself says right there--no copyright, no legal notice.

The rest is also your interpretation, and the reason I say that is that you're also kind of putting yourself in the objective audience's seat in creating the interpretation. So there's still a subjective hand-wave effect.

Get into the position of somebody who has no idea what the expectations are for "never taking more than you give"--where exactly is that line supposed to be, speaking in terms of details that matter...? ...and see if you can understand what it's like to be spoken to from someone else's set of simply-expressed, vague expectations connected to exactly which ethical framework we do not really know.

If you're "average joe"ing this, that's more of a subjective demonstration of where this kind of language may feel awesome for the author or even average-yourself-speaking-about-you-personally, but for others--what about them?

[plorkyeran]

The per-file license notice is for clarity, particularly when a single file is taken from a project and used separately. It's not a legal requirement.

[ars]

> For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really?

IBM had the same problem, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 for the solution :)