and you better not give some weirdo moloch loving-answer after I just gave you a "My man!" in good faith.

He was largely mediocre as a military commander, okay in some areas, but nothing out of the ordinary. He was just so utterly mogged by Caesar that he recklessly attempted conquest of the Parthians for nothing other than glory - it was recognized that this war did not have a legitimate purpose. It made complete sense that great feats of valour and military victory was the absolute highest status symbol in Roman society - as it was the feat with the highest stakes and could not be bought. Pompey was also largely mediocre - we don't remember him as Magnus in any personal way, he was simply bestowed the title because Sulla liked him and it was written as such. He too was totally mogged by Caesar - all of Caesars competitors were largely driven by envy of his glory. The real tragedy of Crassus is that he sacrificed his son, who was a good man himself with a bright future, on the altar of his vain ambition which ended up breaking him, along with throwing away thousands of good Roman men.

Augustus though was never linked with great command of the military - his greatness was something deeper, he embodied the spirit of the nation and earned the love of the people through this. He was the spiritual saviour of the nation, who vanquished a den of vipers who had infested the government and murdered their champion Caesar (from their perspective). For this he was bestowed the title of Augustus.

My main point is that values of Greco-Roman civilization such as truth, beauty, love, and a deep connection to the human condition are/were completed opposed to the values of Jewish/Hebrew civilization and its tangential Phoenician civilization, which were based on mercantilism, consumerism and usury, viewing the people themselves as nothing more than cattle to produce and consume, devoid of such attributes worshipped by the Greco-Romans.

This post was edited by El1te on Dec 28 2025 12:01am

He said, having recently made multiple weirdo Moloch loving answers.

I don't know, like I said. I know that I don't believe in angels or devils or any other sort of lesser deities though if that helps.

I don't believe that we are the result of dull boredom. Existence has a purpose which could not be accomplished without it. There is value here, which we necessarily contribute to either positively or negatively. As I said, I don't believe in revelation, so we have to figure out how to contribute positively with the tools at our disposal. No easy task. A good start is to lean onto the moral structures that have yielded the greatest results. The basis of stoicism is a good kicking off point.



Those aren’t the values of Roman civilization, atleast not prior to Constantine.

But either way this doesn't at all get to the core of the problem between the pre-christian romans and the jews. It was the exact same problem the romans had with the early christians. Jews and Christians(which the romans considered a jewish cult) both had an exclusionary religion. The romans had no problem understanding the egyptians, because they saw the egyptian gods as differently-named versions of their own gods, and the egyptians agreed with this interpretation. The jews and christians were not happy to concede that their god was Jupiter by another name, but instead insisted that all of the roman gods were false.

The romans literally considered both jews and christians to be atheists for this reason, which seems bizarre now, but that’s how they felt and it makes sense from their perspective. They believed in all of the gods, including their deified emperors. A split from this understanding of divinity was considered not only blasphemous, but moronic. They literally did not have the concept of “false gods” and dealt viciously with everyone who brought the charge upon them.

For example, Rome considered the punic god Baal to be just another name for their god Saturn, who was also the Greek titan Cronus. Seems a strange belief system now but it certainly allowed them to absorb(most) other cultures more easily.

This post was edited by Shadowoffury on Dec 28 2025 12:59am

without revelation how can you possibly know what is valuable and what you ought do? if my subjective opinion of what 'contributing positively' is the opposite of yours, what is the normative authority to determine the value or the truth?

basically, what is your epistemic justification for value/purpose/truth/teleology?


to " lean onto the moral structures that have yielded the greatest results" presupposes what the results ought be, whats your epistemic justification without divine revelation for this?

how can we possibly come to the conclusion of 'greatest results' without knowing what that is.

I believe, as Kant, that morality is universal and that it can be discovered through higher reasoning, of which we are capable.

this is just an assertion, there is no epistemic justification for your universal morality without revelation as different people can come to different conclusions and do, how do we arbitrate the universal of morality in your worldview without a normative authority? Why ought we not murder?

"higher reasoning" is vague and saying we are capable is unjustified. how do you know we are capable of 'higher reasoning' to determine 'universal morality'?

and why ought we follow universal morality?

your appeal to 'higher reasoning' is simply removing divine revelation and substituting human intuition without justifying how limited human intuition leads to universal morality or even explaining why we ought follow it.

This is the part where he says because God says so in the 10 commandments.... right

It is an assertion. I believe that morality is universal and that it can be studied as other universal forces are. There is no known physical manifestation to study, so we must use pure logic. What other option did you expect?

It seems to me that you’re asking me to provide a new divine revelation to replace an old one.

Nothing has been revealed to me. I’m not going to pretend it has just because this would be convenient. I’m not trying to live a life of convenience.

“Ought” doesn’t play into it. I want to. I like whatever it is we are doing, I like the universe and the world and humanity. I appreciate the opportunity I have to contribute to it in whatever modest fashion I am capable of.

your entire worldview is arbitrary and unjustified, it is no better than "BOOO MURDER"

you first appealed to an almost deistic god, then stoicism, then to kant, but now you are appealing to arbitrary emotivism and a vague appeal to 'universal morality' while also admitting there is no ought. kant would not appeal to no 'ought' so your worldview is very obviously not well reasoned and changes on a whim.

your entire worldview is just subjective preference while contradictorily appealing a universal morality we can somehow apprehend without justification, the entire thing just collapses.

This post was edited by majorblood on Dec 28 2025 02:06am