Remember, “Form” is the meaning within things, whereas “Shape” is their material content.

For example, when we look at these two words, though they consist of different material shapes, the information or form we can see in them remains the same:

RED
Red

Science is concerned with shape, and Aristotle’s ontology is concerned with meaning.

When we classify humans as having the ability to reason, and we say that chimps, dogs, birds and flowers don’t have this ability, it is a matter of perspective rather than clashing claims.

Dividing nature into things that can reason, things that are sentient, things that are just alive, and things which are inanimate are called ontological classes. These are simply the ways we know things to be different than one another.

Even though through evolutionary biology we know that there is a continuum between species, from single-celled organisms to mankind, we can still classify things according to what we know about their abilities.

Remember, Aristotle’s “soul” is simply the abilities that make something alive – not anything immortal, god-given, or a “ghost” form.

Three Kinds of Souls:

1) Those that make bodies alive. (plants)
2) Those that make bodies sentient. (animals)
3) Those that make bodies reason conceptually. (humans)

Humans are capable of self-knowledge, which sets us apart from plants and animals. We are in a class of our own because of this ability. The next chapters also address this classification in relation to evolutionary biology.

1) God exists.
2) Morality is found not necessarily from God’s specific commandments but just generally all over the place (such as from a Hindu, Gandhi and arguably atheist Buddha)
3) God judges people eternally based on this morality.

It is no surprise that I would have thought God would lay down some very strict rules, perhaps on some stone tablets, rather than trusting the humble wisdom of humanists. Ah, but I mentioned those.

It is difficult to comprehend how a Christian can alleviate cognitive dissonance by agreeing with Gandhi and Buddha on one or two points while entirely ignoring all the rest of everyone’s convictions about the afterlife, such as the moral righteousness of vicarious redemption through blood sacrifice. This seems to be a most ungodly cherry-picking. While I agree with you completely that morality is undoubtedly sourced from the wealth of human experience rather than religious texts, I find it odd that I could possibly agree with the Lord on that point. From consulting the Good Books, this type of ethical piecemeal is bad, bad form in His eyes.

I am curious why the vast majority of the human race so often want to get rid of their fear of death by soothing it with some kind of supernatural explanation about an afterlife. There are these religious mantras which are chanted over and over again, “I know that it’s true. I know that it’s true,” as if we really need to actually get rid of our fear.

What! Why? Fear is a good thing. If you don’t fear death, there is something severely wrong with you. It is thanks to religious death-celebration that we get people confident enough to plot out bat-shit-crazy things like Jonestown and 9/11.

When we admit that we do not know, and that it is okay and natural to be a little afraid, then it is the only real, authentic peace to be found. I am so often pleasantly surprised by how “spiritually” healthy non-magical-thinking is.

To understand Jewish wisdom (not that I am an expert), one starts with “History matters”. So at the time of Moses, the ten commandments and Moses’s legislative interpretations (5 book of Moses — Torah) were incredible leaps forward in human ethics. The Jewish people live this call to justice with failures and successes. Around 10 BCE, the Jewish sage, Hillel, brings forward an important interpretive rubric for the Torah. Since there are many interpretations of Torah and some are very damaging to the community, one must pursue the best understandings of Torah based on the Golden Rule. An interpretation is good if one learns how to better fulfill “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you.” Hillel specifically said that this phrase captures all of Torah, now go study Torah and live it.

History matters. Hillel’s interpretive screen further enhances the ethical beauty of an ancient book on human ethics. So now the Jew (or atheist) abuses Torah if they don’t go ‘through’ Hillel’s wisdom for the most ethical interpretation.

History matters. Humans learn.

Another important Jewish concept is that ‘Torah is no longer in Heaven’. It is on earth and it requires human community to wrestle with it’s call to justice. The answer to “How should I live ethically?” is found in the human task of wrestling with question. One listens to the wisdom from the past (Torah, Hillel, Buddha, others), but for our situations we have to answer the question anew. The past has a voice in the discussion of the question, but it does not have a veto.

Notice, I did not refer to G-d in this comment. These comments can be for the theist and the atheist.

Such a wonderful quote from Hillel – it almost brings one to tears. Well, as long as we could some how ignore Moses in the background telling devotees to reorganize the genitalia of babies and suck the remains off with their bearded mouths.

Because I do not have enough time in my short life, nor do I have nearly enough caffeine, I don’t dare to mention the brunt of Judaism (and essential Christianity) moral regulations which fall well outside this most prized Golden Rule.

But let’s analyze the most popular ten. From my agnostic-atheist/humanist point of view, while I value your wonderful quote from Hillel as a genuine source of morality, I have to wonder about some things. Particularly, the things that people would like to put in American courtrooms.

“I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods in My presence…
“Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…”
“Do not swear falsely by the name of the LORD…”
“Remember [zachor] the Sabbath day and keep it holy”
“Honor your father and your mother…”
“Do not murder”
“Do not commit adultery.”
“Do not steal.”
“Do not bear false witness against your neighbor”
“Do not covet your neighbor’s wife”

I’ll be back later to wonder, in this trek up the side of Mount Sinai, in what part of the forest we dropped the Golden Rule and picked up stone.

Obviously ‘moral restrictions’ cannot be imposed to require ‘good’, because that destroys freedom. There is a amoral quality to restrictions too. If freedom is a desired quality of life, then it is best to have boundaries to define obvious ‘bad’ actions. ‘Bad’ is probably best defined by the practical version of the golden rule posed by the Jewish sage, Hillel (~10BCE) “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” The negative quality to this statement of the Golden Rule makes it practical. It does not impose good. Rather is permits good. It also permits neutral behavior or even lack of good behavior. However, it discourages bad behavior. Very practical.

Freedom is amoral. Freedom to do good based on a regulation of immoral behavior is good Freedom.

Traffic laws are always my simplest example of well-regulated freedom. Proper regulation can be applied to any public behavior, including economic behavior, etc. Well-regulated traffic behavior permits freedom to travel anywhere by any legal route … in safety. Total freedom in traffic behavior permits the jerk with the biggest truck to drive across your lawn at any speed. Laissez faire traffic freedom permits the powerful to get across the country efficiently, but there will be a few deaths and injuries along the way. Sounds like Ayn Rand’s unregulated capitalism to me.

Be patient. I try to limit my internet commenting time. An answer of sorts — soon.

I try to understand these things, but I must still do so with humility before G-d and men. As far as I am concerned, humility is a prerequisite to wisdom – Biblical or otherwise. I agree with Socrates in this. I believe there is Objective Truth — G-d himself.

I read wise Christians of other ages to understand the Bible, I listen to Church conclusions of bishop councils (Nicean) to understand, I also read wise teachers in other traditions (Buddhist, Jewish, & secular) because I believe all truth is G-d’s truth.

It sounds like you are a great reader, and that you have done lots of theological work to come to your conclusion that God exists. Unfortunately I am no expert on Socrates or the Bible or even theology. So if you could help me to understand where I’ve gone wrong since our definitions of Socratic humility seem to be different.

So where we differ as an agnostic-atheist and a Christian, is that while we both believe there is likely Truth to be had – only one of us is wise enough to already have it.

You believe that our humility is similar, but not the same: as you say you do not fully understand, but you appear to be quite certain of the following two things:

1) God exists.
2) All truth is God’s truth.

Since you have declared that you know God exists, and that all truth is God’s truth, I am a little intimidated, because I myself have had no such experience.

As a rather stupid agnostic-atheist I am someone who doesn’t have good answers for these questions yet, since I am only human, and I don’t know how the Universe was created, nor what happens after death. How I wish I was enlightened about these things as the Christians and Buddhists are.

Since you are superior to me in knowledge of these cosmic things, I would ask that

“I should become your pupil…tell me, too, that I may become wiser, what proof you have…”

– Socrates, Plato’s Euthyphro