Over half way through The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Here's my initial thoughts

You write this like gay people aren’t known to have higher levels of mental illness, hence suffering. Or suicidal and depressive people aren’t in a loop of suffering. Mind you, Dante doesn’t write about their suffering with pleasure.

Yeah, well it is a Catholic poem.

Even if it is, they suffer nonetheless. And no one is going to flip a switch and change public perception.

Nice threat, by the way.

>It shows the extremely arbitrary nature of the Christian idea of punishment
Or, perhaps, it demonstrates that you are estranged from any true sense of morality, and therefore can't comprehend why some immoral acts are considered as such by Dante.

Nice trips, by the way.

>any true sense of morality
Implying Christianity has the true morality, and that it isn't arbitrary swill designed by people taking a shot in the dark at making rules for people to follow.

Please don't get the thread deleted with your buffoonish grandstanding before someone posts pictures of Sorrows thanks.

You want me to suffer because I’m explaining the basic logic of a medieval poem? You sound like you’re in a bad mental state right now, I really hope you’re able to overcome it and I think you will.

>2000 year old religion based on basic moral principles which had existed for even further millennia
>arbitrary swill
Yikes! Please enlighten us with your complete moral theory which doesn't just take arbitrary shots in the dark.

You know what the great thing about me is? I don't act like one can actually create a moral theory which is objectively true. I tend to operate on compassion for others, I would consider myself very left wing. I think that moralities which are constructed by society are often limited in their rigidness and short sightedness. I think that what anyone considers a morality is ultimately a result of their world view, which varies drastically from person to person.

You might say, hey, you don't have any morality whatsoever! Not so. I think equality and limiting suffering is a good moral system, but that doesn't mean you or anyone else will agree with that. That is the crux of morality, is it is entirely subjective. I certainly don't think that the moralities of religions offer any insight into how people should behave. Maybe a few good ideas here and there, but they are only good because the people who came up with them happened to come upon a good idea, and I or anyone else could do better or worse.

You are, quite possibly, one of the biggest brainlets I have ever seen on this board. If I didn't know better, I would think that this was some advanced bait. You should really go and see a doctor before that tumour on the side of your head gets any bigger.

>I tend to operate on compassion for others
You’ve made several direct threats in about four or five posts.

OH NO NON ON ONONO AHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH

>Like I said, Homer didn't have this problem, and looking at explanatory notes throws off the flow of the story.
How much do you think Homer doesn't have this problem because we're already immersed in his milieu? Like, any schlub knows Achilles, but a lot of first-time readers get confused, annoyed or scared off of the Iliad by the Catalogue, for example. Isn't that the same?

Awful post.

Way to respond with ad hominems instead of refuting my points logically. Pro tip, you can't.

are you retarded?

Prove ad hominems are bad. All morality is subjective therefore they are only a bad way of arguing in your opinion.

Your moral theory is just 'do good', without actually considering any of the resultant fallout from that code. If you want to 'limit suffering', why don't I just allow people who are wrongly-imprisoned to be executed for crimes they didn't commit, or else risk the anger of an ignorant mob who will start riots if they don't received their perceived form of 'justice'? Who, exactly, am I limiting the suffering of?

Furthermore, how can morality be 'entirely subjective'? Does that mean that I can go around murdering homosexuals, because for me that action is moral? How does the morality of 'equality and limiting suffering' differ anyway in offering insight into how people should behave than religious doctrine? At least, with religion, there is a moral code that appears tried-and-tested. With yours, there is a vague expectation of adherence to a moral code which is entirely nebulous and weak once extrapolated out to an entire culture.

Your arrogance is incredible.

>That is the crux of morality, is it is entirely subjective. I certainly don't think that the moralities of religions offer any insight into how people should behave.
This is a modern perspective that's only shown up in force in the past 100 years, you know? You're making aesthetic judgements based on your own world view of the world as shifting and difficult to pin down, but they were operating in a world view that allowed and praised objectivity. I don't think you can simultaneously say that you adhere to a subjective morality while also condemning any attempt to exercise objective morality—that's not how subjectivity works. Subjectivity needs to operate in a way that allows for difference.

(In a separate more half-baked phrasing: IMO subjectivity is constructed by subjectivity. That is, as the objective formations that you object to, so is subjectivity also a moral judgement. One that presents itself as the objective fact that objective morality or reality can't exist, while simultaneously making the same judgements of objectivity that it objects to in objective moralities...or something.)

>"yass" moment
Bait was decent but you blew it. You imitate a vapid clueless woman well. You should write something.

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Also, good thread so far other than a few blips, even if I disagree with OP

Countries without religion are generally more peaceful, aka the scandinavian ones. So there is no causal link with religiosity and peace. It is more likely that quality living standards reduce desperation to commit violent acts.

Ah yes I love my worlds rape capital

It's great, right? Muslims coming from third world countries who you'd rather see die are being taken in by people with higher living standards. It's almost as if humanitarian issues aren't black and white.

I agree that living standards are more likely to reduce criminality than religion, but it's not 'countries without religion' that are more peaceful. Homogenous countries are more peaceful. Peace is a product of non difference. Scandinavian commitment to diversity has been largely untested until recently but after welcoming refugees, significant internal political forces have started agitating against that diversity. Likewise Japan is extremely peaceful nowadays while maintaining a significantly religious or ritual-based character, but it's not a bastion of diversity and in fact is extremely xenophobic.

And this is a red harring.

So people with historically lower living standards are all to blame. That is your argument. Next you'll tell me white people have higher IQ.

>Who you'd rather see die?
I'm literally Muslim though. Why do you jump from me hating rape to hating Muslims?

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If you're not for humanitarian refugee aid you're for them dying.

What? My dude, my man, my gender-agnostic anonymous compatriot, you're reading things that aren't there. You yourself said that
>It is more likely that quality living standards reduce desperation to commit violent acts.
and I was just responding to that (in agreement!). The part of your post that I disagreed with is your designation of 'countries without religion' as more peaceful. I have a bevy of complaints about that statement (some of which I did not mention) and offered an alternative—in the case of the Scandinavian countries, IMO they aren't a magical place where everyone isn't racist. They just haven't had other races until recently, so the people with racist beliefs have simmered invisibly. The introduction of refugees has caused the racists to surface and become visible.
I'm not blaming the refugees for criminality. I'm saying that their presence has provoked a xenophobic response.

Christ theirs a lot in your post that makes you sound like a brainlet and i shudder when you say you study philosophy.
First of The Divine comedy is about Dante, Its about his depression and hardship in life and how he finds consolidation in the literature of old, represented by Virgil and finally redemption through love. Of course its not impartial like Homer because its about himself, you dickuss.
>Dante ultimately follows his religion like an orthodox imbecile
Dante regularly comments on the horrors of hell he even faints several times because he cant take it, Virgil makes numerous ironic comments on the way people are tortured making one believe that Dante isnt always in agreement with whats being presented. For crying out loud he puts 2 Popes in hell, how the hell is that following his religion like an idiot.
The constant references are apart of an Epic poem you even say youself that you found it fun meeting Socratice, Plato and Aristotle. Well guess what its fun to read about the other characters that you didnt know. Homer does this throughout his peoms, Gods, Heros wars that are from a time long gone by.
I could write more but i think you get my point.

>First of The Divine comedy is about Dante, Its about his depression and hardship in life and how he finds consolidation in the literature of old, represented by Virgil and finally redemption through love. Of course its not impartial like Homer because its about himself, you dickuss.
You don't think it's heavy handed to imply that certain people will go to hell? If I'm not mistaken, Catholics think that hell is real, and there's actual rules which one must follow to go there. The entire first third of the book is about why people should go to hell. That's definitely moralism.
>Dante regularly comments on the horrors of hell he even faints several times because he cant take it, Virgil makes numerous ironic comments on the way people are tortured making one believe that Dante isnt always in agreement with whats being presented. For crying out loud he puts 2 Popes in hell, how the hell is that following his religion like an idiot.
Okay, that's an interesting take. Maybe he doesn't agree with the reasons people are sent to hell. But if he doesn't agree with the idea of hell, then he doesn't think Christianity is 100% moral, and therefore he doesn't think it's the unquestionable word of god. Therefor he has no reason to believe in Christianity, but he does.
>The constant references are apart of an Epic poem you even say youself that you found it fun meeting Socratice, Plato and Aristotle. Well guess what its fun to read about the other characters that you didnt know. Homer does this throughout his peoms, Gods, Heros wars that are from a time long gone by.
I said I like the greek references, not the ones made about people he knows in his own city and his country, which throw off the flow of the novel and often leave me scratching my head and turning to the notes.

In Dante's conception suicide is murder, destruction of God's holy creation, sodomy is perversion, an aberration of God's holy creation, the Christian fundamentalism regards these behaviors with contempt as they represent submission to temptation, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,' the Lord's Prayer, another man's anus can accommodate your penis and provide a pleasurable sexual intercourse for the both of you, yet the biological functionality demonstrates that there is no purpose to do so beyond carnal satisfaction. Obviously this raises questions regarding the nature of God.
The Creator endowed humanity with their bodies and free will, why would God look upon consensual sex between two members of the same gender with condemnation? Are the pleasures of the world not for humanity to partake of for their own satisfaction? These theological arguments have their time and place, using Dante as a springboard towards investigating them is adequate, one has to bear in mind Dante the poet is quite sensationalizing. It's best to regard the Divine Comedy as a work of scholarly imagination, a visionary literary achievement and leave the theology to the theologians.

>Okay, that's an interesting take. Maybe he doesn't agree with the reasons people are sent to hell. But if he doesn't agree with the idea of hell, then he doesn't think Christianity is 100% moral, and therefore he doesn't think it's the unquestionable word of god. Therefor he has no reason to believe in Christianity, but he does.
Virgil constantly reprimands Dante whenever he voices his pity for the damned. His journey through hell is for the correction of his will, because his moral compass is skewed. Dante isn't writing a poem about God being unjust. Also, you're looking at religious belief completely wrong. People aren't Christian because they look at the morals and think it's good, they believe Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God who died and was resurrected, they believe God acts in the world, among other things. The morals follow from that, not the other way around. Again, Dante is recognizing his errors in the Inferno, he's humbling himself.

Dante's interest in the morality of damnation don't seem to stop at "they went to hell therefore they were immoral sinners don't ya know." He references Greek philosophy often in order to explore the morality of damnation, and he seems to value what the greeks had to say despite their independence of his God's morality. The fact that he sympathizes with sinners in hell also tips us off to the idea that God's will isn't a one stop shop for morality in Dante's eyes.
Just my thoughts on it. It seems difficult to decipher Dante's sense of morality using the Divine comedy. Plus he pretty explicitly stated his moral beliefs in letters throughout his life, sort of diluting the value of literary analysis when if you're concerned with Dante's beliefs and intentions as an author.

You don't have to insult the OP so much, even if you strongly disagree with his views. It just makes you look like a meanie.