Well, I don't remember it being that intentional or obvious for me to take your term and the implicit meaning you have behind it and change it by using a different definition. I'll keep a watch on this, though.
Thanks!
I still say that's a difference in perspective (mine is broader, yours narrower), related directly to your use of authority here. So technically there's an impasse, but I think my definition, by going to the broader perspective, is more useful and representative of how it's typically used. But again this doesn't really matter. Is it really a reason for annoyance, or irrelevant to an argument, if we appeal to the language we're using to argue and make judgments here?
Yes, for me it is. Because when I made a statement using the word "authority" (initially I didn´t even use it, but used something like "external entity, deity") I didn´t make it to explore the semantics of "authority" - I meant to say something specific. Even if had used the word in an entirely wrong way, and your use of it would be the correct one, applying the correct definition to my statement would result in an assertion that I didn´t mean to make.
Now, of course, it´s up to you to either try to understand what I meant to say, or rather explore the semantics potential of the word. However, in the latter case I feel disrespected.
My use of the game example kind of brings this point together about how you use authority. If you were to say "no, the creators aren't authorities, even indirectly," then that would be a point of contention related to language: c'mon, of course they'd be authorities, because that's how "authority" is typically used. "Nope," you reply, "because I didn't define authority in this way."
Well, firstly that wasn´t my point. At all.
My assertion doesn´t even require the use of the term "authority" (and initially, I didn´t even use it). I was talking about an allegedly powerful conscious entity that allegedly had dictated certain rules. I was talking about that which is commonly called an "appeal to authority" (which is not the same as an appeal to reality, to common sense, to intuition, to universally held convictions, to reason, to empathy, to that which everybody believes or feels anyway, or whatever else).
But, of course, if you are determined to think of our existence as a recreative competitive game with
arbitrary rules, indeed it doesn´t make much difference whether you appeal to the documented authoritative rules or to the authority of the rule inventors.
However, nothing about a throw-in in soccer is immediately convincing, and needn´t be - because it is a game that consists of nothing but
arbitrary rules.
Thus, the analogy completely ignores that which was at the core of my statement, namely that an appeal to either an authoritative rule-maker or to the rule that the rule-maker is necessary only if the rules are somewhat arbitrary, unintelligible, unreasonable, counter-intuitive, impossible to derive from within the reality of our existence (because if "what´s good to do" can be discerned by those faculties to our disposal - reason, intellect, empathy, intuition etc. - there either wouldn´t even be a controversy, or the discussion would employ those faculties, rather than resorting to "Well, that´s just the rules as decreed by the entity in power".)
Here´s my statement again (note: no use of the term "authority"):
Isn´t that exactly when it becomes convenient to appeal to a deity that allegedly sides with you: if you want to establish a "morality" that otherwise nobody would accept?
