[hawkesnest]

It's clear you've not researched ethics thoroughly. I guess all those philosophers just needed to agree to use the same exact interpretation of the same holy books and there would be no need for discussion, right?

The Methodists are hardly a fringe group.

Atheism is "disastrous" only in that it is based on non-belief, not that Atheists themselves are detrimental to society.

The hundreds/thousands of protestant sects counter your statement that "religious texts have a meaning." They are long, often self-contradictory, and open to many interpretations. Not "a" meaning, but many "meanings." Again, the things you are claiming to be strength do not bear out in reality.

I think you to be better than the sociopath you claim to be. Do you only abstain from murder and rape and lying and cheating to avoid punishment in the afterlife? Because while I may have "baseless" moral conjectures, a simply moral code of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is superior in a myriad of ways.

You admit yourself, morals are based off standards. We can agree to those which bear out healthy, happy, productive societies or ones which do not. It's funny how most people consider theocracies to have a negative connotation.

Still waiting to hear what punishment is befitting a person of non-belief.

[antibasilisk]

>It's clear you've not researched ethics thoroughly.

Au contraire, subscribing to hard DCT is an active choice I made.

>I guess all those philosophers just needed to agree to use the same exact interpretation of the same holy books and there would be no need for discussion, right?

Wholly negating meaning on the basis of usually minor differences is sophistry.

>Do you only abstain from murder and rape and lying and cheating to avoid punishment in the afterlife?

Yes. Reading Stirner helped me to realise that there was very little difference between disliking heights and disliking murder aside from God telling me that avoiding the latter leads to unimaginable reward. Absent that I could simply decide to start liking things if it so pleased me, just as I did with heights.

>We can agree to those which bear out healthy, happy, productive societies or ones which do not.

Except that all of these terms are based in belief systems, of which mine and yours are wholly different.

[hawkesnest]

Still waiting to hear what punishment is befitting a person of non-belief.

Really, just say it. Say the quiet part out loud.

[skissane]

> Au contraire, subscribing to hard DCT is an active choice I made.

Catholic teaching (both traditional and contemporary) is that objective morality is inherent in the very nature of created things, and hence knowable in principle by anyone who knows those created things–even a convinced atheist. If by "hard DCT", you mean that good and evil are (in the general case) contained in the contingencies of God's free will as opposed to the necessity of God's own nature (theological voluntarism) – such that God could have chosen to command murder instead of prohibiting it, in which case it would be good rather than evil; and that right and wrong are unknowable except through special divine revelation (e.g. the Bible) – then Catholicism condemns that as heresy

Since you advocate taking away the religious freedom of atheists and non-Abrahamists (Hindus/Buddhists/Sikhs/Jains/Taoists/Shintoists/etc) – would you be okay if a Catholic theocracy persecuted you for your own belief in "hard DCT", given that according to Catholicism it is heretical?

Indeed, from a traditional Catholic perspective, hard DCT is a socially harmful heresy – by reducing right and wrong to God's whims, it encourages aberrant sects which justify all manner of evils as God's prophetic command; by falsely claiming that non-believers are incapable of knowing objective morality, it discourages them from seeking to know and understand and obey that morality, and gives them an excuse with which to evade their own moral responsibility. If any heresy is sufficiently socially harmful to justify its persecution, your own "hard DCT" is arguably among them.

I get the impression you are Muslim, or at least leaning in that direction. "Hard DCT" is the Asharite position, so you might call it the mainstream traditional Sunni view. Catholicism's view on this topic has been influenced by Islam, since Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was a big influence on mediaeval Latin Catholic philosophy (including Aquinas), and through that on Catholic theology too. Something close to the Asharite position occurred among Catholics as well - William of Ockham and the nominalists, most notably – but Catholicism ended up decisively rejecting that approach. It still has some advocates among Protestant philosophers (most notably nowadays, Robert Merrihew Adams)–but the Catholicism of recent centuries has rather decisively ruled it out.

By contrast, in Islam, Ibn Rushd's viewpoint was adopted by the Mu'tazilites, but opposed by the Asharites, and the later generally won out over the former; unlike Ibn Rushd, al-Ash'ari and his followers were ignored by Latin Catholic Europe. The Mu'tazilites largely died out, and their theology was not accepted as orthodox in Sunni Islam. However, Māturīdism, which can be viewed as somewhat of a compromise position between the Mu'tazilites and the Asharite views, is generally accepted as an orthodox Sunni theological school–and it agrees with Ibn Rushd, the Mu'tazilites, and Catholicism, in rejecting hard DCT.

My impression is that Asharite theology is more popular than Maturidite theology in contemporary Sunni Islam; while there is no necessary correspondence between schools of Islamic law (madhhabs) and schools of Islamic theology (aqidah), in practice Hanafis tend to be Maturidite while the followers of the other schools of fiqh tend to be Asharite or Atharite instead, and Hanafis are only about a third of contemporary Sunni Islam. Twelver Shi'a theology also rejects the "hard DCT" viewpoint of the Asharites; a basic principle of Twelver Shi'a theology is that right and wrong are an inseparable part of the divine essence, not just what God happened to choose to make right and wrong. I'm not entirely sure what the Atharite position is, if they have one; but if we take Ibn Taymiyyah as representative of Athari theology, he condemned the Asharite position that God could have chosen to make evil deeds good – which suggests that "hard DCT" is contrary to the Atharite position.

[antibasilisk]

>would you be okay if a Catholic theocracy persecuted you for your own belief in "hard DCT", given that according to Catholicism it is heretical?

I would not, but I'm not sure what that has to do with my broader argument, since it doesn't hinge on Abrahamic religions seeing eye to eye on all topics. For example, you wouldn't find Ahmed bin Hanbal saying that he would prefer no caliphate to one that believed in the createdness of the Qur'an, despite being persecuted for that belief himself.

>"Hard DCT" is the Asharite position

Yes, but it's also not exclusive to them. For example Ibn Hazm was a prominent theologian who subscribed to it, despite his vehement opposition to asharism.

>I'm not sure what the Atharite position on this question is, if they have one

My understanding is that Ibn Taymiyyah takes the view that goodness is based on the nature of God, rather than command or foreknowledge exclusively, and that individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma, rather than being confined to one or the other.

[skissane]

> I would not, but I'm not sure what that has to do with my broader argument, since it doesn't hinge on Abrahamic religions seeing eye to eye on all topics.

Well, your whole idea of persecuting non-Abrahamists is a good example of something Abrahamists don't see eye-to-eye on. Certainly a lot of Christians are opposed to it – as I pointed out before, it violates the official teaching of the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council – but I don't believe all Muslims have ever agreed on it either. When Muslim rulers first conquered parts of India, and ended up ruling over Hindus and Buddhists, most of those rulers decided against extermination – and there were plenty of ulama willing to provide them with a fiqh justification for that decision.

> For example Ibn Hazm was a prominent theologian who subscribed to it.

Ibn Hazm lived before Sunni theology had settled-down into three established schools, and as such can't really be said to belong to any of them. Who follows Ibn Hazm's aqidah today? I'm guessing, if anyone does, it would be Zahiris? (who are sometimes considered a "minor Sunni maddhab", in addition to the four major ones)

> My understanding is that Ibn Taymiyyah takes the view that goodness is based on the nature of God, rather than command or foreknowledge exclusively, and that individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma, rather than being confined to one or the other.

Okay, but all Jews, Christians and Muslims agree that some divine commands are "positive" – only binding because God willed them, not because the object of the command is inherently good (for an obligation) or evil (for a prohibition). So in saying "individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma", Ibn Taymiyyah is not saying anything different from what Māturīdīs or Twelver Shi'a or Roman Catholics would say. "Hard DCT" always takes "one side" of Euthyphro's dilemma; everyone else takes "both sides" depending on the specific rule, just as Ibn Taymiyyah does. I don't actually see any difference between Ibn Taymiyyah (or Athnaris more broadly) and the Māturīdīs on this particular issue, while he clearly disagrees with the Asharites and Ibn Hazm

[antibasilisk]

>and there were plenty of ulama willing to provide them with a fiqh justification for that decision.

Yes, that's the position of the Hanafi and Maliki schools. The Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Zahiris however opt for extermination.

>Ibn Hazm lived before Sunni theology had settled-down into three established schools, and as such can't really be said to belong to any of them.

For Ibn Hazm, all three schools had been established by then. The 'schools' are broad categories, not everyone falls into them, he wouldn't be the last to express views outside of them (even today you have the New Kalam movement continuing these discussions).

>Who follows Ibn Hazm's aqidah today? I'm guessing, if anyone does, it would be Zahiris? (who are sometimes considered a "minor Sunni maddhab", in addition to the four major ones)

Outside of the three schools nobody really takes aqaid wholesale. There are matters people agree with him on and other matters they disagree on. His most controversial position was on resigning the meaning of God's names.

>I don't actually see any difference between Ibn Taymiyyah

I agree, but I think he would dispute that.

[skissane]

> Yes, that's the position of the Hanafi and Maliki schools. The Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Zahiris however opt for extermination.

So basically you are saying you want everyone to commit genocide against Hindus and Buddhists, because a minority of Sunni ulama believe such a genocide to be obligatory (at least in theory)? Sources disagree on whether Malikis or Shafi'is are larger in number; if you accept the larger estimates for the number of Malikis, the Hanafis and Malikis together would be the numerical majority of contemporary Sunni Islam, which means the majority of Sunni Islam rejects your pro-genocide position.

I don't think you are going to convince many people to accept your pro-genocide viewpoint – which is a very very good thing. In fact, while unlike you I'm no great fan of making beliefs illegal, if we are going to do it, I think your own pro-genocide beliefs should be near the top of the list