Socrates generates a formal dilemma from a (deceptively) simple question: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (Euthyphro 10 a) . . . If right actions are pious only because the god(s) love them, then moral rightness is entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims of the god(s). If, on the other hand, the god(s) love right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of values, which we might come to know independently of their love. from http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/2d.htm

The Forms

We are all merely reflections of the Forms

Sorry you lost me.

The Form answers the question "What is that?" Was it Socrates or Plato that started that?

The pious are loved by the gods of ego. They feed each other.

ok i'm lost...i'll just sit here and read

in the history books they do write, seeing and feeling of gods in mind sight, always forgetting all the records did reflect, anything that ever talked with god only met another human speck...

and the ego's the tunic's man wore fell from the evil grinning self worshipping lil devils called human's, who loved to protect only self feelings over the love of other's, and the gods hidden in the hearts walked out of the vessels, that only false pride had kept contained and trapped in misery, and the ole bastard children clothed in skin were connected to the perpetual, and the magnificent thing called mortals was revealed, and the streets glistened with bliss as angels moved to and fro, protecting all that knew itself was blind, and rooting out all the evil that thought nothing it could find, and what thought is was tuff turn to limp, when infinite power pierce it with red glowing eyes, and futility reduce man power to it's humble knee's...

That's a really good paradox.

Another paradox along similar lines is the claim by some people that this life only has meaning if there exists a God.

Well if that were true in any kind of absolute sense for beings in general, then God's existence would have no meaning unless God had a God, and so on.

but indeed, finite cannot even begin to surmize what hath no beginning and no end, what was before itself and is itself, infinite but hidden in finite for a time, a perception thru eye's that hath only but seen, all things around itself ending and beginning, as infinite hath no mother nor father to exist, and only what be past and thru the mind, this indeed do find, pulling if from the very auro that surround itself each day, when it finally find it within to say, i am but a lump of clay whose mind is but decay...

This is true David, but ultimately this philosophy only makes sense in a pantheistic view. In that case, we are God.

It makes no sense to speak about an 'infinite' God and simultaneously hold that we are 'seperate' from that God.

If God is infinite, then we are part of God. That's pantheism.

However, in that view it would make no sense to say that our lives are only meaningful if there exists "a god" because in that view we are a direct manifestation of "god".

Once the pantheisic view is accepted there is no longer a need for an infinite regression of gods over gods becasue all is God. God is all that exists. Period.

God doesn't 'give' meaning to anything. God IS everything. And there is nothing other than God.

Once the pantheistic view of God has been accepted all problems disolve into nothingness because there is no 'external' reference frame that needs to be justified.

We are not 'external to God' and God is not 'external to us'.

Therefore Plato's entire concept of the God's passing judgements on the pious nature of external beings is a moot point.

Plato was thinking non-pantheistically in this particular instance. He was clearly asking the question based on a concept that spirit and flesh are distinctly different entities. (i.e. The Gods are judging 'others' to be pious or non-pious).

So my original answer was a take-off from Plato's point of view.

Yes, I agree with you David. Once pantheisism is considered the concept becomes moot.

Great to read your posts!

You're always spot on.

It was late when I read this and I haven't studied philosophy for many years. I have spent the last few hours wrapping my head around the idea of forms. I still don't quite know what to think of the idea though. I can see where Plato was coming from, but I'm not sure I believe it.

Infinity-ism!

God is us!

it has been but far too long, that religion and belief has been used to shelter the human weakness, the impure motive which be deciet, that wish to hide itself from the view of it's own fellow man.

a belief in itself, taken by anything, to decribe what itself is or believe, show a human condition that need a validation of itself, a description found, to tell self what itself is, which show no real knowing of itself.

how can one thing understand other's, if it allow a religion, and a belief, to keep itself from understanding the whole sum of but one thing first, itself.

a belief absolutely to the infinite impossible, totally restrict access of self to itself, so likewise seperate from the access of understanding fellow humankind from self.

a belief taken and declared as truth, hide with illusions that which be common sense and reason, which only show self neither have such, nor will recognize it, as long as belief is in place, that serve as a defense against all self wish not to be.

the only deception as a paradox, that beset human understanding of itself, is accepting any god and satan ever described believed in, simply lie within the human capacity and potential of all things.

satan is but ignorance and god is but wisdom, that lie within humanity itself, so each second ignorance within is corrected by wisdom within, and only running from self correction of self, create a motive within, that detest and despise that which is spoken from the outside, against self, which created in time all terror that run loose thru the streets, as ear's were taught to fear to hear, what save itself, the telling by other's how self is effecting, so what self is creating.

evil is but perpetuated by partial belief of truth, being the belief that total truth, as total reality, could ever be just the positive side of all things of life.

what is more evil, or devil, or not god, than that which does not stand up, and beg for the consequences of it's own actions.

to not see what actually beset the human nature to failure, with the confusious tellings of dogma and doctrine, cripple a soverign people's, and a thing called whole humanity is felled to the ground, a once magnificent tree, hewn and whittled down by human weakness, downed and drowned by it's own desire to hide itself, from it's own true motives.

to even consider what be god and satan belief, hide what destroy good reality for all, the motive's that lie within human things.

motive CREATED all things built by human hands, so to build ANYTHING better with human hands, such as love, and untiy, and humanhood, one only need look and inspect MOTIVE, and make as if nothing else exist to itself.

true reality of seeing what one and all is creating, of course is most difficult, as each is doing this itself, while walking and talking each second, so to not peer at only motive, will only proivde for creating blindly walking and talking terror.

what more is needed to guide, to more understanding of the human spieces, that what MOTIVE a human spieces has.

the question of all wisdom, is WHY does anything want to know, and WHAT doth it wish to create with it's greater knowing???

if it but to create good for self alone, than what wisdom would ALLOW any wisdom to be had by any living thing???

peace