Just to add on to the last part there, it's moral reasoning that separates the Christian from the non-Christian in terms of determining what is morally correct. So I never said the Golden Rule wasn't applicable in some circumstances and applicable in others, but it certainly isn't some universal truth, which is what I was asking you about when you said that you thought that the Golden Rule was a good place to start for all moral conversations. That's nonsense. The good place to start for all moral conversations is God's existence.

Placing God as the summum bonum, or the greatest or highest good, is the best place to start for moral conversations because it allows you to have a variety of different perspectives in regards to how exactly we achieve Christ-likeness or God-likeness, and doesn't limit you to some kind of merely human understanding of ethics that is interested in some kind of merely representative view of some kind of golden rule.

I don't think it's nonsense CJ I really don't and you know if I said if I told you well you're basing what's good and what's right what's good and bad off of the Bible that that's nonsense that religion is nonsense you know if I said that to you that would be rude and you would not like that very much there's plenty of people who think that you know well I mean look I think I'm a pretty good person

I didn't say that your moral view was nonsense. I said that your characterization of my view, saying that I thought the golden rule wasn't applicable in any circumstance because I critiqued your usage of it in every circumstance, is nonsense. It's not the view that I articulated to you. If I misrepresented you, you're more than welcome to call that nonsense. I never said your whole view was nonsense. Your critique doesn't apply.

Okay. Alright, I see what you're saying. I get it. But if basing it on the Golden Rule, and the Golden Rule has foundation in Christianity, and you think deciding what's good and wrong is based on Christianity, then isn't that, don't we have the same view?

The golden rule may originate from Christianity, which it doesn't, by the way. The golden rule, or the sentiment of the golden rule, exists way earlier than Christianity. If that's true, right, even if it was true that it originated in Christianity, the foundation for moral truths or ethical values or to be a valuable person, the sumum bonum, would not become the rule itself. It would remain God. God would be the source and foundation and summit for these moral rules, even if the rules were universal.

I see your reasoning, and I understand. What makes your perspective on deciding what's right and wrong better than mine? I mean, who's to say you're right and I'm wrong, or I'm right and you're wrong, or that either of us are right or wrong? You know? Seriously.

I actually don't mind criticism I think it's good to be to think about why you think certain ways it's I think it's healthy but you know yes last night you're you're you're asking me and you're asking me and nobody else is given a perspective and they're the group is laughing at me as you drill me and listen to my answers and shit it's fucked up man

Well, the way that you frame this question is problematic. I don't think that it's a matter of my perspective versus your perspective. I don't see what is morally true as a matter of perspective. So the right answer to this question is, whoever among us has the closest articulation of what is morally right or what is morally wrong to what is true of God is the person who has the most morally upright position. It's not a matter of whose perspective is better.

I will in the future discourage people from laughing at you while I'm doing a reductio while I'm engaging with questions I'm sorry. I didn't know that hurt your feelings. I didn't I genuinely didn't mean to do that

I agree with you, bro. You don't necessarily have to accept this God or this religion in entirety to be able to say, I can live by these rules. I think I can, this is a guideline, a decent guideline. CJ disagrees. He disagrees for the reasoning of why I chose. I think it's a good idea. I don't know.

We can't answer the question of how to treat people morally by starting with treating people morally. It's just a circle. The reason why you start with God's existence is because God is the, if you will, the greatest good, the sumum bonum, the highest good. I'm not just starting there because I think everyone has an experience of God. I'm starting there because I believe God exists and God is true for everyone regardless of whether or not they personally believe that God exists. God does exist.

I also never disagreed that you don't have to believe in God's existence to still hold that the Golden Rule is practically applicable in all sorts of moral situations. What God's existence is required for is the ontology of moral statements, how they exist, the stuff they're made of or the stuff that they're subsistent of, not the actual moral statements themselves that we all can believe in or not believe in.

The beginning of my message that don't be shy, you can at me was a reference to a TikTok that I watch where it's like, don't be shy, you can at me sis, cause ain't nothing worse than a pick me bitch. That's what I was referencing, I wasn't actually saying that you should or should not at me, it was just a reference to a quote that I like to quote sometimes. But no, it's okay that you didn't at me, I saw it anyway.