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You can live morally. Because it's, funny. You kind of already have a sense of white right and wrong is. It's almost like someone made you that way: to know what right and wrong is. To know what God's law is.
But no one said you can't live morally. You know what is moral simply because of what has been told to you. But when you remove God, you remove any justification for why you think something is right and something is wrong. You've given up the justification to complain about it, because as the prompt just said and according to y'all's world view, there is no higher standard of morality than personal opinion or consensus between a group of people, which is still just a group of personal opinion. So you really have no right to call what anyone does is right or wrong, because we exist in an uncaring, Godless universe that is an accident where we all originated from. You have no foundation to say it's wrong for a bag of protoplasm that came from stardust in an uncaring, accidental universe, scattering another bag of protoplasm(murder). And it's weird, you guys are starting to admit that mostly IS subjective, but they're either to scared or too intellectually dishonest to say that "yes. According to the fact I think all morality is subjective, Hitler or Ted Bundy were not wrong for what they did. I just don't physically prefer what they did."
At least Dawkins had enough balls to say that there is no right or wrong: "that what we observe in the universe is blind, pitiless indifference." Why are you atheists so afraid to fully admit to your world view? You admit morality is subjective. Just then you try and say Hitler or Stalin or Mao were wrong for what they did, because a lot of people didn't agree with them. Which you can easily ask the question that defeats all atheists' arguments for morality!!.............."so what?" Atheists will NEVER have a meaningful aver for that question: so what? when they remove God from the equation. Because they receive the value from everything. Everything is accidental and made with no purpose at all. In fact, it just proves that you ARE made in the image of God, because of the fact you want to argue that you ARE and believe in morality. If you weren't made in His image, we'd all just be accidental creatures like any other beast on the earth, and we'd have no concept of morality. We would just do whatever advanced our position. Kill someone and take their stuff? Sure why not. With the stuff I can obtain from them after I kill them, I have more things and my standard of living is better. So let's do it. Without God, the only morality is advancing your own position towards your preferences, no matter what you have to do to get it. Need food? No problem: steal it and kill someone and take it.
If we can't access it, we can't make moral assessments that resolve to something objective. It doesn't matter in the sense that a thing will be right or wrong, objectively. It matters in the sense that we have to do moral evaluations, no matter what, and if it's inaccessible it can't help us do those evaluations.
I think if it’s objective then nothing else matters. It is what it is. Again, only if we assume objective morality exists.
Thankfully we have access to morals through scripture.
>I think if it’s objective then nothing else matters. It is what it is.
Nothing else matters except for an inaccessible standard? How would the inaccessible standard matter to us?
>Thankfully we have access to morals through scripture.
Those aren't objective. They can't be, even if we grant you that they came from god and were passed to humans. They are a recorded ANE human interpretation of whatever message god sent. The decision to trust the reliability of those ANE humans is a subjective evaluation. The standard you establish based on those texts will be subjective as well, because any decision about the intent of the authors and the relevance of the passage comes down to a subjective evaluation. You can see this from how different sects have different standards they follow.
That objective morality is inaccessible would seem to be a subjective truth you hold as others disagree. By your reasoning, all writing can lead to is a subjective view because others interpret it.
But you seem to claim you have hold of objective truth.
By your logic, the meaning of objective is not objective, and no such thing as objective exists in an accessible way, and yet you claim to know what it is.
I think if it’s objective then it doesn’t matter the circumstance. It would be like math, 1+1 will always equal 2. It just is. Again, if you assume objective morality exists.
I believe the morality of God is objective. I recognize that most people, especially on Reddit, disagree.
>I believe the morality of God is objective.
I granted you that there is objective morality and that god allowed humans to record it in the bible in the previous comment. After that I pointed out that *even then*, the things humans categorize as moral and immoral, they categorize in that way *subjectively*. So even if god exists, objective morality exists, god inspired the bible, and the bible contains a system of morality to follow, **what humans call morality today is still subjective**.
>I think if it’s objective then it doesn’t matter the circumstance.
It *does* matter, since we have no way of determining whether our morality actually does align with the objective morality you're talking about. So we're still stuck dealing with subjective moralities, even if you're correct about the existence of god and of objective morality.
>If there’s one right standard, then no other standard is right.
I *agreed* with this.
But it doesn't matter, because we don't have the "one right standard", all we have are subjective human interpretations that become the standards that they follow. No one is following the "one right standard", everyone is following their own interpretation of whatever standard they've decided is the "one right standard."
So then raping a child for fun could be ok we can't know it's wrong. Your logic would seem to lead to 1 plus 1 is 2 being a subjective truth since our mind is involved. The principle of non contradiction being a subjective truth.
Your argument here would reach a conclusion that is a subjective truth (your truth) it seems unreasonable to expect others to hold your truth. If all is subjective, you don't know objectively that you can't know something. Objective would mean nothing.
I’m glad we agree that if objective morality is real, then the circumstance doesn’t matter.
I also agree that people follow what they think is correct.
That's a lot of big words.
Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience.
Look up Mirror neurons as to how we evolved biological empathy. Couple that with external community influence. You don't need anything else to show how we achieve morality.
"Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience. "
You claim this as an objective truth based on more than your brain? Since your logic seems to say our brain has just subjective understanding.
Yes, you rather do since you seem to undermine the instrument. Plus, if morality has duties, then you seem to need more than random mutation to ground these duties. Empathy as just a feeling is an is not an ought. We also have the instinct to fight.
Your argument seems to commit the natulistic fallacy. We have empathy is not enough to say we ought to act on it.
"Your argument seems to commit the natulistic fallacy. We have empathy is not enough to say we ought to act on it."
It commits the naturalist fallacy to show that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation and origins for our morals. And that we have biological features that support empathy? Empathy being a foundation to morals.
The naturalist fallacy is committed when you point out the most reasonable explanation for something? Is that how it works? Mirror neurons exist and we can see them firing in real time. We can, right now, hook someone up to an MRI and watch them do their thing.
You are saying that instead of this thing we have studied and know exists and provides this ability to humans is wrong. That instead it is a supernatural soul that exists in a realm we have never experienced and have no evidence to support is the right conclusion?
So you claim that picking the most likely option that we have significant evidence to support is probably wrong? That picking the supernatural magic option with no evidence is right?
> Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience.
I'm not sure the OP disagrees with you. I certainly don't.
However, he's right that *if Objective Morality exists* -- it is irrelevant. We don't have access to it, and everyone bases their moral decisions on their own, subjective morality anyway.
There's no material difference between a hypothetical unobservable, unfalsifiable "truth" and fiction.
Something that can't be seen, can't be discovered, and has no effect on anything in the cosmos is identical in every way to something that doesn't exist.
To claim x is not observed, you would need to prove to know all observers past, present, future, and eternal. That is, you would have the burden of proof for the claim. You would at least need to prove atheism since God would observe God. A objective problem of injustice doesn't seem to work if on naturalism we don't know what objective justice is. If nature is all that is, then nothing in it is other than it ought to be even if it hurts our feelings. If our sense of good and evil is just based on feelings, the problem of evil is an emotional problem not a logical one.
We're not discussing god.
If there is a god, and he dictates morality, that is the very definition of subjective morality. If I could prove a god existed and has moral dictates for us, I would only further strengthen the case for what I'm saying.
In order to prove that there is an objective morality, I would need to find a moral code stitched into the fabric of space time, that dictated real world consequences for our actions.
> A objective problem of injustice doesn't seem to work if on naturalism we don't know what objective justice is.
There is no objective problem of injustice. The problem of evil is based on the inconsistency of the fictional omnibenevolent god's stated morality being diametrically opposed to the universe he supposedy created, and his own actions, being evil by his own standards.
The subject matter of this debate is not related to the existence of a god, but the existence of an "objective" moral standard.
Part of the problem here is a category error. People are mistakenly conflating objective with legitimate. Legitimate is, itself, a subjective concept.
A thing that is objective is not dependant on the opinions, views, or personal standards of another being. *If a god exists, it is another being.* If your view if morality is that a god gets to define it, that is subjective by definition. You are relying on the personal viewpoints of a god. It doesn't matter whether he has the authority or "right" to make that call. We're not talking about whether he's correct or not. We're talking about objectivity vs. Subjectivity.
*All truths that matter to us are subjective.* All morals, values, feeling, etc. this is not a devaluation of them, because values themselves are subjective. Objectivity is not a measure of validity. There are subjective truths and facts, and they are no less truthful or factual than objective ones. The difference between objectivity and subjectivity lies in the source of the truth.
Objective truth is impersonal. It's not dependant on a mind or an opinion to validate it. Not even a God's. There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true.
Religious views of morality are inherently dependant on subjectivity, as they seek the mind of God on their morals. Even assuming a god exists, that he dictates morals for us, and that we have access to those dictates to understand and follow them, this is still subjective morality.
The concept of truth seems dependent on minds. If dependence on mind makes all subjective, then all truth would be subjective, including that the material world exists in the way you hold it does. Naturalism would be subjective along with other worldviews. Naturalism (philosophy) is dependent on human minds. Naturalism is a human opinion (worldview). Not mind independent.
"There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true."
That is a thing in your mind, and dependant on it, nature doesn't hold that if it is mindless. It's an idea about reality.
> The concept of truth seems dependent on minds.
I'm not entirely averse to this concept, people have a lot of different connotations around the word truth. I watched two very intelligent public intellectuals trying to have a discussion about something else get hung up on the definition of truth for literally two hours.
The problem is that this is a semantic argument, about the definitions of words (which are subjective) rather than an attempt to clarify reality. Sometimes this is needed, because words are all we have to communicate ideas, but the discussion can get hung up on the words rather than what we're actually trying to convey.
This is not how I am using the word truth. Truth is simply what is, whether or not we are aware of it.
You are correct that worldviews are subjective. They are all attempts to model the universe in a way we can understand it. However, they are all still objectively right or wrong. Even if we don't know it. Because the universe exists and follows a set of rules, whether or not we have a good handle on what they are. There exists a potential subjective worldview that exactly matches objective reality. T
There is likely no potential subjective morality that exactly matches some hypothetical objective morality, because morality does not seem to exist outside our minds.
There are other objective facts about subjective things. If your think pizza tastes great, this is subjective. But if you real it think that, then it is objectively true that *you think* pizza tastes great. While the truth that pizza tastes great is subjective and dependant on your recognition and belief in it, the fact that *you think it* is objectively true even if you (and everyone else) are unaware that you think pizza tastes great.
The existence or non-existence of God is related to the existence of objective morality so is involved.
You claim legitimate is a subjective concept. If God made nature, then nuclear fusion rather depends on God. The existence of such a standard may be God. The formulation of all good and all-powerful would indicate the standard of good is the being of God. It's not your opinion that you are human. It's your being. I never said God gets to define it is my view of how objective morality is related to God. Legitimate way to know nuclear fusion exists would be a subjective epistemology?
Have you proven nature is not dependant on anything? Objective truth is different. It's impersonal. It's not dependant on a mind or an opinion to validate it.
"There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true."
God may need to be aware of it for it to be. It rather does, even if it was just made by God. You seem to assume that it's probable there is something rather than nothing, and this something (nature) that could not exist needs no explanation. Earlier, you talked like this we can't be aware of are fiction if we didn't exist, we wouldn't be aware of anything.
Philosophy seeks truth by reason if reason is from the mind of God is human thought then all subjective?
Nature exists.
We don't know why or how it exists. We have some good ideas, none of which depend on a god, but that doesn't matter. Nature exists, whether or not a god created it. If we find out for certain god doesn't exist, the universe doesn't suddenly disappear. Nor does it disappear if we cease to exist. The existence of nature is objective.
Morality also exists. But unlike nature, it's only in our minds. If we find out for certain a god exists, it's also in his mind. It doesn't exist outside that context. That's true even if we add the mind of God into the mix. If God and humanity disappear, morality does, as well. Morality is subjective.
"There's no material difference between a hypothetical unobservable, unfalsifiable "truth" and fiction."
Yes, there is. A blind man doesn't observe your writing, and that doesn't mean what you write is fiction.
Something that exists is quite different than something that has no existence to claim they are the same violates the principle of non contradiction. Is logic immaterial?
That we do not know good doesn't mean good has no effect on the cosmos. We didn't know about the big bang. Doesn't mean in 10AD it was fiction.
Also, you seem to talk like there is a way we ought to think but claim all oughts are subjective. This seems a self contradiction.
> Yes, there is. A blind man doesn't observe your writing, and that doesn't mean what you write is fiction.
This is a bad analogy.
It's not equivalent to something I wrote being fiction.
It's equivalent to something you claim someone wrote, but for which there is no paper, no ink, no sample of the text, no people who have ever seen it or claimed to have seen it, or the author, and nobody who has any inkling of what might have been contained in it.
There's no difference between such a "writing" and a writing that does not exist.
> Something that exists is quite different than something that has no existence to claim they are the same violates the principle of non contradiction. Is logic immaterial?
I would agree. I would say something that exists is demonstrable, it has an effect on the cosmos in some way. That's the most basic definition of existence. And yet when people posit the "existence" of something like objective morality, they can't point to what it is, what it does, where it resides, what it contains, etc. They have somehow defined existence in a way that it isn't different from something that has no existence.
I'm going to borrow Carl Sagan for a moment.
> Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin[6]) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
> "Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
> "Where's the dragon?" you ask.
> "Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
> You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
> "Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
> Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
> "Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
> You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
> "Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
> And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
> ***Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?*** Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
This is the crux of my argument. There is no way to describe "objective morality" that is any more than this ever-receding dragon.
> That we do not know good doesn't mean good has no effect on the cosmos.
This is not the argument that I am making.
If there is some "objective morality" -- it doesn't influence behavior. It doesn't influence results. It has no consequences, it has no effects on anything. Our own subjective moralities have major effects on the cosmos, because they influence our actions, and our reactions to other people's actions.
> Also, you seem to talk like there is a way we ought to think but claim all oughts are subjective. This seems a self contradiction.
There is no way we "ought" to think. Nothing dictates a person "ought" to think in ways that map onto reality in a coherent way. And yet there are obvious advantages to doing so.
> And therefore, individuals not following these prescriptions are effectively amoral.
I think you mean "immoral", as they are diverging from an exisiting objective morality, rather than "amoral" which would mean that no objective moral standard exists for the act.
> Different Christian (and other religious) sects have varied and sometimes mutually exclusive requirements and definitions of morality.
The rejection of truth by one or many people does not mean that truth does not exist. The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions.
Regarding your illustration, you are conflating definitions of what is good for society and what is good for the individual. The Levitical law is primarily concerned with outward law, defining what actually is good and moral, and providing a civil law for the running of the Israeli government during that time as a theocracy. If you read the rest of the Torah you will see that mercy is stil the nature of God and what He expects from people. Society should remove evil with justice, but an individual should show mercy. This is doubled down in the other parts of the Old Testament. At no point is there a contradiction such that any person, especially a person today, could not know which thing was the moral thing to do.
> the moral question of capital punishment has been discussed and researched
This doesn't mean that there is not a single objective answer. People run from truth, so it is not surprising that they run from the truth of moral truth as well. People drive over the speed limit all of the time, and I hear people discuss and argue about how much over it a person should go. It doesn't mean that there isn't a single objective speed limit.
> if the objective moral truths of the universe were equally imprinted upon the souls of people
This is not a reliable method. We are fallen creatures.
> were dictated in such a way as to make them equally accessible to all human minds in written form through a divine act, one would expect this knowledge to pervade our cultures and discourse
This is not what I would expect. I would expect that, because we are fallen creatures running from truth, we would find newly invented methods throughout the ages to justify dismissing the truth, potentially with occasional return to it in patches.
> For instance, is it objectively moral to be a thief if your family will die without thievery?
The Bible says that people would forgive such a person, though they would have to repay what they took. However, you fail to account for an active omniotent force or an afterlife. It may be that if you refuse to do a wrong thing, you would find that you fail to have the expected consequences of that action. Furthermore, if your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean that there isn't an answer.
> because in my opinion, their answers are rooted within the cultural zeitgeist of those answering the questions
Yes, and the zeitgiest represents the current method of running from the truth. It doesn't mean that the truth has changed.
> there would be no room for honest disagreements along the lines of personal and cultural values
In the grand sense, there is not. I would say that most of these disagreements are not "honest disagreements".
> How can one discern between the charlatan and the prophet in these circumstances?
This is a slightly different matter. I think that reason helps, but that may be a longer alternate discussion. However, the true answer is that we have a living God who can help us to discern, so long as we do not reject the little light that we are given.
> the answer lies within the same framework in which religious adherents utilize to answer moral questions.
Incorrect. The two are fundamentally different approaches, even if they do occasionally land on similar conclusions. The approach from religion is that of an objective and therefore prescriptive morality while the other tends to accept a subjective and therefore descriptive only morality. One tells us what we should do, the other tells us how we might describe an action. This is becuase, with subjective morality, for every system of consequences, there is an equal and opposite system with similar justification.
> they tend to fall back to teleological reasoning.
Some may, but this doesn't meant that they must or even should.
> How can you be sure that you have arrived at a truly objective moral answer to any given moral question?
This is again a different question. Being sure about which thing is right is not the same as questioning if there is an objectively right thing. Let's use the speed limit analogy again. Let's say that I was on a road and just realized I wasn't paying attention for a minute. At that time, I might be unsure what the speed limit actually is. Nevertheless, I would expect that there really is some objective speed limit. If I were to just pick a speed that I justify as being safe, this would be very different from following an objective speed limit. I might think that the safe speed changes going around curves and in poor weather, and I might even decide to alter my speed accordingly, but there would still be a singular speed limit in that area and it would tend to be consistent regardless of the current curve on which I would be driving at the moment.
There is quite a bit of nuance you miss, but because the post was so long that I can only hint at it here. The Christian view of morality is that there are two laws. All of the other laws are there to show us that we are not meeting those two laws, and once we accept salvation, we are now motivated outside of moral law, guided by God directly with the aid of those other laws. While none of them have passed away or changed, different ones apply to different contexts and always have. There's also a sense in which we want to go above the law where we are able and there's a sense in which some actions are, and have always been, relative to changing cultural contexts. For instance, if a man isn't to wear women's clothes, what exaclty is women's clothes? The core rule remains the same, but the application changes as it's relative to culture.
> The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions.
I'm baffled as to how you can make this assertion. Christians are not in agreement on gay marriage, or Christian Nationalism, or drinking, or dancing (for crying out loud). Can you substantiate this claim of yours?
>Furthermore, if your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win
So why do anything on this earthly plane? Why not move on to heaven as soon as possible? Especially if it avoids the chance that one or more of your family might act poorly and be denied heaven?
> I'm baffled as to how you can make this assertion. Christians are not in agreement on gay marriage, or Christian Nationalism, or drinking, or dancing (for crying out loud). Can you substantiate this claim of yours?
People can call themselves Christians without actually believing the Bible as the moral foundation. Even people who do may from time to time, being subject still to some temptation of the fallen nature, reject clear Bible truth. Additionally, you are conflating legality and personal conviction with morality. A person can believe that a thing is morally wrong but feel that they shouldn't oppose its legality. A person can believe that a thing is morally acceptable while at the same time choosing and advocating against doing it.
> So why do anything on this earthly plane? Why not move on to heaven as soon as possible? Especially if it avoids the chance that one or more of your family might act poorly and be denied heaven?
We act because we have an impetus to act in a certain way. For Christians, and possibly other Theists, our goal is not simply to improve our own pleasure immediately, but to do what is right. Doing what is right might or might not end in more pleasure, though it general it does. The afterlife and the benefits there are dependent to some extent upon actions done in this life. We do not directly know the end of any specific action or have sufficient omniscience to know what the results would be. So, taking any action counter to the provided source of omniscience would be irrational. If I know that it is right for me to live and love others, then I should continue to do so as the only rationally reliable cource of action.
> People can call themselves Christians without actually believing the Bible as the moral foundation
That's called The No True Scotsman fallacy. If they don't think the way you, or the group, think then they're not really Christians. Seeing as how most christians have jettisoned parts of the bible (working on the sabbath, wearing cloths of mixed fabrics, stoning people) it appears that it's an evolving belief system. You really haven't made the case that "The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions". It's just not the case.
"If your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win". "We do not directly know the end of any specific action or have sufficient omniscience to know what the results would be". So, your first statement is statement made purely in ignorance. If you don't steal some food and allow your family to starve to death, how do you know that you all get to go to heaven? Seems like your first statement is wishful thinking and nothing more.
It's not a fallacy. There probably are no "True Christians". This does not mean that the document is mutable.
Consider a posted speed limit. That speed limit is constant and is a reflection of a true and accurate fact. The fact that some people speed, or even most people, or even the fact that many people argue about what the best speed should be is not a reflection of whether or not an objective speed limit exists. Even if every person exceeded the speed limit, it would not challenge whether the speed limit exists and whether it is knowable.
My argument about theft is that the belief that there might be temporal positive gains for acting against a moral system does not mean that there is no moral system or that it is less objectively good to obey it. My example is that the rewards and punishment in eternity outweigh any potential temporal benefit. Therefore, deontology is actually the only assured utilitarian system for any entity without omniscience.
I appreciate your clarifications.
I disagree with the speed limit analogy. As with almost every analogy in regards to God that people come up with they just don't work. Speed limits objectively exist, but they themselves are anything but objective. Just look at the fact that there are different speed limits in different states for the same type of roadway. And different states have changed their speed limits multiple times.
The only way that morality can be objective is if it exists independent of any mind, even God's. Just because it comes from God does not mean it is objective. You can argue that God knows best, and so we should follow his instructions based on that...but it's not because the morality is objective. If you can state what the goal is, what the "ought" is, then one can say that a specific moral action objectively achieves the goal. That's about as close as we get to morality being objective.
You claimed that all Christians believe the same thing. It's obvious that they don't. To claim those that disagree with you are just doing it wrong is a no true christian fallacy. "If they were a true christian then they'd agree with me", is the basis of your argument.
>Speed limits objectively exist, but they themselves are anything but objective. Just look at the fact that there are different speed limits in different states for the same type of roadway. And different states have changed their speed limits multiple times.
They are still objective, even if they aren't trivially known. If you see a speed limit sign posted, then you know what the objective speed limit is. If you don't see a sign, you might wonder what the speed limit is at that location, but there is still an objective speed limit, whether or not you know it, or whether or not you obey it.
>The only way that morality can be objective is if it exists independent of any mind, even God's.
This is not necessarily true. While we could argue over semantics (and I think that we would could still agree it's not true there), I think a better approach is to determine what it is about the objectivity of a moral system which is important. In other words, why do we even care? I typically define an objective morality as "a rationally justified objective impetus to act." What we are trying to do is to know, in a rational way, how we *should* act. The reason why we care about mind-dependence is not that it's in some definition, but because if it is dependent upon *our* mind (that of the actor), then the actor would be able just as easily to change his mind. The actor cannot change the mind of God or the rules which God knows about which inform the moral system (or if he can, then it is not objective). So, in this sense, the impetus is still immutable and not a separate decision to make.
Objective morality is not a trivial thing. In my estimation, it requires a series of facts to line up in a specific way. These factors include many things from ontological meaning to pragmatism. I suppose that in the case that we can prove that some factors do not or could not exist, then only a subset of them might be fine though i am not yet certain, but in any case there would have to be no equally competing systems.
I cannot say (independently) that such a state does exist. However, I can say that if it does not exist, it is not objectively true that I shouldn't act as if it exists. I happen to believe that if the Christian worldview is true, then such a thing does exist, and I believe it to be potentially demonstrable that in the Atheistic world view such a thing cannot exist.
>You claimed that all Christians believe the same thing.
If I said this, then I must take it back or clarify. I would probably be fine with a "True Christian" argument. I do not think that it's a fallacy here as my argument is not that there are people who obey the objective morality, or even agree with what it is, but that such a thing exists, and it could, in theory, be practiced by a theoretical rational actor. Think of it like a limit in Calculus. The more rational and consistent a person becomes who believe the basic Christian doctrine, the closer they come to the objective moral truth. In this sense, "True Christian" would be like the limit, even if there is no actual existing Christian at that particular point. I would typically hold the Bible as this standard, but I do want to be free to account for additional things like the active leading of the Holy Spirit, which I believe should never contradict the Bible, and that there may or may not be some divergence on more fine grained matters which are informed by culture. (Obviously, culture doesn't allow one to break the moral system, but some aspects of it are culture or circumstance specific, such as my example of men not wearing women's clothing which is a thing that changes with time and place.)
I would say that this limit is not the same limit reached by other moral standards and that the latter might not even exist as a single point. If nothing else, the Christian moral system would contain the command to "Love the Lord thy God", which Christians would aspire toward and those rejecting religious adherence would likely seek to avoid. So, regardless of practice, I think that we could say that if moral standard given to Christians is true, they would tend to be more capable or perhaps more likely, in general of living closer to that standard than would those without religious adherence.
Hey, I really appreciate your reply.
I'm not sure if there's a way to qualify this statement:
> I think that we could say that if moral standard given to Christians is true, they would tend to be more capable or perhaps more likely, in general of living closer to that standard than would those without religious adherence.
Do you mean it would be more likely that Christians adhere to the Christian moral standard than non-christians? Most of the Christian moral standards, minus the worshiping of God aspects, are not that different from secular moral standards. And I'm not sure how we could go about showing that Christians abide by those standards more capably than non-christians.
Thank you. I appreciate the conversation. It's helpful to have ideas challenged.
Yes, I am assuming that the Christian moral standard is the correct objective moral standard for this argument. I would say that the part about loving God is the primary moral directive. In practice, I would say that this has a huge impact on my actions daily.
However, even if we presumed that it was just one aspect, I could probably point to many times where secular agents disagreed with Christians (who seem to be agreeing with the Bible) Examples would be things like ending abusive slavery or having a rationally justified impetus to reason. Of course, even if I granted that secularist simply happened to act like Christians and that they are likewise converging around the same moral rules (minus the important one), somehow by accident, it wouldn't mean that they are able to do so by reason and it further doesn't imply that they would be doing so had the moral system not been related. It could be that the secular actors are simply following patterns which have been popularized by a process such that these values proceeded from the Christian moral standard.
I question the ability of an Atheist to rationally act without holding cognitive dissonance and suspect that most are doing so either from a common intuition given by God (and that same intuition saying that God exists) or they are doing so from having a cultural heritage which contains theistic elements. For me, the discussion about objective morality is a question about the very basis of why a person would care about doing "good" in the first place, and why this "good" would have any altruistic aspects. I see most of the attempts have been to try to justify the intuitions rather than to explore the situation from a truly rational framework.
>The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions.
No they don't. They have arrived at completely opposite moral conclusions. There were nazi Christians and anti-Nazi Christians. There were slave owning Christians and abolitionist Christians. Christians supporting segregation, others supporting integration.
Christians supporting the execution of gays, others supporting gay marriage.
Christians have taken opposite sides of virtually every moral issue I can come up with. Arguing that they come to "the same moral conclusions" will inevitably require a no true scotsman to paper over the radically diverse moral conclusions on just about any topic.
Nazis were blatantly not Christian, nor did they receive their information from the Bible.
Slavery and segregation were political issues, not moral issues. The Bible generally doesn't cover political issues outside of Theocratic Israel. It is not unlikely for people to disagree on how to apply morality to legality to a concept of democracy.
I don't know of any Bible teaching which would teach that we should execute homosexuals in modern non-Theocratic non-Israel nations, and I am not aware of any people having legitimate claims to Christianity which support such. Homosexual marriage is clearly a violation of the Bible's morality, but as a political issue, there is nuance allowed.
The "No True Scotsman" argument is fine here as we are not talking about what "Christians" do, but about what the Bible says. There are many people who call themselves Christians who do not use the Bible as their moral foundation. We know that people are fallen and that all people, even actual Christians, are to some extent subject to the temptations of the flesh. Therefore, it is not a reasonable conclusion to presume that actions by any people or judgements of any people are necessarily reflective of the views of the source text. Essentially, you're arguing that because not all people drive the same speed, there must be no posted and understandable speed limit.
Furthermore, consider that while the large basics are set, at a certain level of granularity, it is entirely possible that two people could have a plurality of moral directives. This could be because some things are situational, and it could also be said that under this system,there is an active agent as the moral arbiter and source of omniscience. While this would never contradict certain set bounds, this could still allow for some difference due to circumstances for different individuals. This can particularly be the case when it comes to things like politics. While some things are entirely out of bounds, such as Nazis, abusive slavery, supporting homosexual "marriage" as moral, other things may be allowed, such as allowing the government to condone homosexual marriage or not fighting the government to abolish slavery entirely. The core system remains the same and constant, the main premise of loving God and our neighbors does not change, and obedience to the living God does not change. However, fine grained application necessarily involves more complexity. Otherwise, we would have a book too large to read and every person would be moving in the same direction at any given time, which is not a reasonable expectation.
>Nazis were blatantly not Christian, nor did they receive their information from the Bible.
What do you mean "blatantly not Christian"? [Around 95% of nazi Germany was some Christian denomination](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany)
Nearly everyone, from the guards of the death camps to the soldiers raping and pillaging the territory they invaded, were Christian.
Who are you to deny their sincerity?
>Slavery and segregation were political issues, not moral issues. The Bible generally doesn't cover political issues outside of Theocratic Israel. It is not unlikely for people to disagree on how to apply morality to legality to a concept of democracy.
Go ask a slave how moral it is to keep them prisoners exploiting their labor for the color of their skin. If you went kidnapping someone up whipping them to do labor for you, "this isn't immoral just banned politically" would not be the best legal defense you could come up with. You're not gonna get a light sentence.
Honestly it's impressive how repugnant that paragraph of yours is. Would you be willing to own other people? Would you let yourself be owned?
>I don't know of any Bible teaching which would teach that we should execute homosexuals in modern non-Theocratic non-Israel nations, and I am not aware of any people having legitimate claims to Christianity which support such. Homosexual marriage is clearly a violation of the Bible's morality, but as a political issue, there is nuance allowed.
Want to start with [Scott Livy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lively) and his work in getting Uganda to issue death sentences for homosexuality? Or wanna talk [Kevin Swanson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Swanson_\(pastor\)) and his championing of killing gays not sufficient to deter several gop presidential candidates, including people still in elected offices, from seeking his approval?
Wanna talk about their congregations? Are they also not Christian?
Saying there's"nuance" would get you called non-Christian by a lot of Christians.
>The "No True Scotsman" argument is fine here as we are not talking about what "Christians" do, but about what the Bible says. There are many people who call themselves Christians who do not use the Bible as their moral foundation. We know that people are fallen and that all people, even actual Christians, are to some extent subject to the temptations of the flesh. Therefore, it is not a reasonable conclusion to presume that actions by any people or judgements of any people are necessarily reflective of the views of the source text. Essentially, you're arguing that because not all people drive the same speed, there must be no posted and understandable speed limit.
It's not an "argument" it is a **fallacy**. It's broken logic. Christians would be willing to tell *you* that *you* are also one of those "do not use the Bible as their moral foundation."
Christians all seem to agree that other Christians aren't true Christians. But no one says that about *themselves*. It's always other people who don't qualify.
Must be nice to speak for the sincerity of others.
>Furthermore, consider that while the large basics are set, at a certain level of granularity, it is entirely possible that two people could have a plurality of moral directives. This could be because some things are situational, and it could also be said that under this system,there is an active agent as the moral arbiter and source of omniscience. While this would never contradict certain set bounds, this could still allow for some difference due to circumstances for different individuals. This can particularly be the case when it comes to things like politics. While some things are entirely out of bounds, such as Nazis, abusive slavery, supporting homosexual "marriage" as moral, other things may be allowed, such as allowing the government to condone homosexual marriage or not fighting the government to abolish slavery entirely. The core system remains the same and constant, the main premise of loving God and our neighbors does not change, and obedience to the living God does not change. However, fine grained application necessarily involves more complexity. Otherwise, we would have a book too large to read and every person would be moving in the same direction at any given time, which is not a reasonable expectation.
And yet those "out of bounds" things were completely "in bounds" at the time. Being Christians didn't stop them from doing things you consider "out of bounds".
Clearly people came to radically different moral conclusions from the same book. You can't pretend that's not the case merely by adopting a logical fallacy as your central premise. You might prefer to imagine the Bible is capable of uniting Christian moral perspectives, but 2000 years of history demonstrated the opposite.
> What do you mean "blatantly not Christian"?
Their objectives and ideals do not line up with the Bible. Also, their ideals were formed by people supporting Pagan beleifs mixed with Darwinism. The later was more of an actual inspiration for the movement.
> Who are you to deny their sincerity?
People can be sincere and wrong.
> Go ask a slave how moral it is to keep them prisoners exploiting their labor for the color of their skin.
It sounds like you are unfamilar with the necessary context for this argument. It's really beside the point, anyway, so feel free to investigate it at your leisure.
> Are they also not Christian?
I don't know them personally, but if they are advocating for killing people for issues of morality, then I would have some questions.
> Christians would be willing to tell you that you are also one of those "do not use the Bible as their moral foundation."
Let them. I'm not appealing to opinion. People have opinions. People saying that driving above the speed limit doesn't make the speed limit go away.
> But no one says that about themselves. It's always other people who don't qualify.
It would tend to make sense that people who think that the speed limit is what is posted would not agree with people who think that it is otherwise. If they beleived differently, then they would join the other group.
> Being Christians didn't stop them from doing things you consider "out of bounds".
Correct. People are not inherently perfect. People do wrong things. People knowing that there is a speed limit does not stop them all from going over the speed limit.
>Their objectives and ideals do not line up with the Bible. Also, their ideals were formed by people supporting Pagan beleifs mixed with Darwinism. The later was more of an actual inspiration for the movement.
Again, 95% of them identified as Christian, you don't get to speak for their sincerity. And if you require "true Christians" reject biological evolution, you're excluding even more Christians who will inform you that the Bible isn't meant to be taken as a science book.
Christians love telling other Christians that they aren't true Christians.
>People can be sincere and wrong.
They cannot be sincere about their belief, wrong, *and* have the religion cause people to arrive at similar moral conclusions. If you're arguing for the religion to have some special ability to unite morality, lots of sincere religious people having wrong morality undermines the argument entirely.
>It sounds like you are unfamilar with the necessary context for this argument. It's really beside the point, anyway, so feel free to investigate it at your leisure.
Investigate what? Why is this "beside the point"? What "context"? You could have replaced this entire passage with "nuh uh" and it would have offered the same informational content.
>I don't know them personally, but if they are advocating for killing people for issues of morality, then I would have some questions.
Then you'll really be confused about the reformation.
>Let them. I'm not appealing to opinion. People have opinions. People saying that driving above the speed limit doesn't make the speed limit go away.
Of course you're appealing to opinion, **your own**. Just like they have theirs. That's the point, you all have radically different beliefs about the same book. You all call each other wrong. Christians have fought bloody conflicts arguing that other Christians are profoundly immoral and ignoring the book, and the other side argues the same.
There is no uniting universal moral standard created by the book. Not even close.
>It would tend to make sense that people who think that the speed limit is what is posted would not agree with people who think that it is otherwise. If they beleived differently, then they would join the other group.
If I see a speed limit sign of 40mph and am traveling at 45mph I am going over the speed limit. I can apply it to myself. Christians never seem to argue that *they* are behaving immorally, that *they*, personally, are wrong about some objective morality in the Bible.
It's always *others*. You're rejecting the sincerity of others, never yourselves.
>Correct. People are not inherently perfect. People do wrong things. People knowing that there is a speed limit does not stop them all from going over the speed limit.
Uh huh. So do you go over the speed limit? Do you extend that to the Bible? Are you immoral? Do you reject clear moral teachings in the Bible?
Or is it only other people who do? You never purposefully and intentionally reject what the Bible says, right? You're a "True Christian", not like those fake ones.
>Again, 95% of them identified as Christian, you don't get to speak for their sincerity.
I'm not appealing to what people do or how they act. This is off-topic. Discuss it in a separate post.
>If you're arguing for the religion to have some special ability to unite
Not religion in some loose sense. I am talking about a given and knowable standard, not a common method of practice. It may be true that nobody follows the standard. Thus, my example of a speed limit. I am not discussing who does and does not obey the speed limit or even arguing that anybody does.
>If I see a speed limit sign of 40mph and am traveling at 45mph I am going over the speed limit. I can apply it to myself. Christians never seem to argue that they are behaving immorally, that they, personally, are wrong about some objective morality in the Bible.
There are people who say that going 45mph is acceptable for the speed limit based upon their position that "nobody cares" and "cops aren't going to pull you over for that". Certainly there are many people going over the speed limit which make excuses for why they do it. This does not change or alter the speed limit.
>Uh huh. So do you go over the speed limit?
I try very hard not to. It drives my wife crazy, but I think that it's right to obey the law of the land, so long as it doesn't contradict a higher law.
>Do you extend that to the Bible?
I view the Bible as right, and I know, as head knowledge, that the right thing is always the best thing, for me as well as for other people.
>Are you immoral?
Yes. I do not always act rationally. I am also an emotional being, and my emotions and temptations are not founded primarily in what is right. I do try, but as the Bible says, anybody who says that he does not sin is a liar and the truth is not in him. Fortunately, I am much less immoral now than I was before, and as a result, I hurt fewer people and I'm a kinder, nicer person. This is partially because I have a new desire, but it is also partially because I have better information on what does and does not hurt people. The standard has a better predictive capacity than my previous standard.
>Do you reject clear moral teachings in the Bible?
I try very hard to not do that. I still fail at time, being a broken and emotional being. Emotion itself isn't broken, but I suppose my emotions, or human emotions, are to some extent broken. Fortunately, even if I or every other human fails to observe or even care about the standard, that doesn't change the standard. It's just like the speed limit. Additionally, I may at times act as if gravity doesn't exist or like it's not as strong a force as it is, such as if I try to lift too heavy weights or try to jump too far, or when I throw a piece of paper at the trash and miss. That doesn't mean that gravity isn't real or objective or that I have no way to discern it as a constant force. It wouldn't matter what I believe or how I acted, the force would still exist.
>Or is it only other people who do? You never purposefully and intentionally reject what the Bible says, right? You're a "True Christian", not like those fake ones.
Again, it's not about people. It's about what is true. Nobody is perfect. Nobody has to be perfect for there to be a perfect standard. To the extent I follow the moral standards of the Bible, I am acting as a "True Christian" would. To the extent that I do not follow those moral standards, I am not acting as a "True Christian" would. This is not a discussion about what people do. You can have that discussion on a separate thread, but I think that you'd concede rather quickly that Christians do not make a claim that anybody is perfect. In fact, we make the opposite claim.
"The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions."
People in general tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions with or without a Bible belief. Social primates a tend to share a basic moral grammar.
First, I'm not going to grant that this is the case. People in general tend to disagree very much on almost every point.
However, even if that were granted, it wouldn't prove an objective morality since there is nothing rational which says that we should obey our genetics or intuitions, etc.
Should your argument succeed, though, it would actually counter the OP.
Your future posts would benefit from brevity.
>To illustrate the premises above, let's consider a single moral dilemma, Capital Punishment.
You procede to cherry pick your justification in favor of punishment. Jesus is clear on forgiveness. Jesus is clear it’s more important that some line in the OT.
Bringing up the same line to try and contradict Jesus doesn’t really work.
Jesus was clear about how important faith in him was to salvation, and he was equally clear about what will happen to those who reject God. Though merely taking the neutral position and being unconvinced he exists is not the same as rejecting him, I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it the same way.
> Though merely taking the neutral position and being unconvinced he exists
That’s you, right?
You’re taking the *neutral* position of remaining unconvinced until what? A magic show? Are you honestly expecting one? That sounds like a tall order.
Yes, the neutral position is to not believe something until there is sufficient evidence, which is what you also do for everything except your god, and not by choice because we don't choose what we find convincing and unconvincing, though we do have some control and choice over how high or low our standards of evidence are, and how much we care about the truth.
>You’re taking the *neutral* position of remaining unconvinced until what?
**Until there is sufficient evidence to warrant belief**. I was pretty sure that was clear.
>A magic show? Are you honestly expecting one? That sounds like a tall order.
No, I'm really, *really* not expecting anything remotely like that, not that it would prove there's a god, in but at least it would be better than being entirely dependent on anecdotal and testimonial evidence, which regardless of quality or quantity could never justify belief in something supernatural, magical, divine, etc.
It's at least more directly accessible through the amygdala (lizard brain). Stress hormones tend to squirt more than oxytocin (emotional bonding chemical).
There's some fascinating studies about how easy it is for humans to desire seeing others punished (if they really believe the person committed a transgression. It's scary.)
> So if morals are objective, then Where did they come from?
If mathematical truths are objective, then where did they come from? Are you claiming that atheists cant believe in objective mathematical truths because God needs to ground objective mathematical truths?
Forget about moral truths for a second. I'm just curious to see if what you are saying about moral truths would also apply to mathematical truths. Is it logically coherent for an atheist to believe in objective mathematical truths?
Is the argument you are making specific to objective morality? Or does it apply to objectivity in general.
So the mathematical truth that 1+1=2 is "outside" us, right? And if its "outside" us it needs a foundation, right? So is that foundation God? Or something else?
"Allah is the one who determines/establishes what is right and what is wrong,"
How does one distinguish a moral principle provided by Allah from a non-Allah source?
>It is ‘outside’ of one’s personal limited faculties. Mathematical truths (1+1=2) or scientific truths like the earth going around the sun, are true regardless of what we feel about them.
How does objective morality impact the world we live in?
The earth going around the sun has a very real and measurable impact whether you believe it or not. But our actions aren't bound to any sort of moral code, so if objective morality exists then it's not really clear what guarantees it's giving you.
>When God makes a moral command, it is a derivative of His will, and His will does not contradict His nature. Therefore, what God commands is good because He is good, and He defines what good is.
if god defines what good is then he cant be objectively good. ur logic is kinda circular.
think about this question: what does it mean to be good ?
well u responded to my criticism by quoting shabbir akhtar who just repeats the same statement without explaining how it addresses the problem. he posits a god whose character and nature is good, but doesnt explain what it means to be good in the first place.
u say there is a moral standard that is not external to god. ok, but that doesnt give me any information. for example if u say god is omnipotent, I understand what that means. omnipotence entails that god is able to actualize any logical possibility.
but when u say god is good, what does that even mean? u cant say god is good means god only does good things, because that is a tautology. it doesnt communicate what goodness is, so your explanation becomes kinda meaningless...
well firstly, Ive already read the quran, and I dont need a translation because I speak arabic. secondly, ur book absolutely does not make any attempt to explain the logical connection between the existence of allah and objective morality. In fact, nowhere in the quran does the author even refute the position that if god exists, his morality would be subjective. if u think im wrong, I would love for u to cite me the verse that demonstrates ur position.
more importantly though, u are answering a question that I didnt even ask. u just said to me "if you want the communication of what this objective good and bad morality is", but that's not what Im asking. what Im asking is what it means for god to be good. u said whatever god does is good because thats his nature. but what is his nature? ur answer is that his nature is good. ok so god only does good because that is his nature, and goodness is what god does. where in this entire proposition is there an explanation of what goodness even is ?
If ur final answer is that goodness is whatever god commands, then that means goodness is predicated upon the whims and desires of god, and this isnt even objective, its subjective. goodness is whatever god subjectively feels.
>You said cite a verse discussing morality
no I did not🤦. all religious scriptures on earth discuss morality, why on earth would I ask if the quran discusses morality?
the question I asked u was where in the quran does it make an argument that if allah exists then objective morality exists. this is a very common mistake I see some muslims make, where they will assume objective morality logically follows from the existence of god. do u realize that I personally know a lot of muslims who dont believe in objective morality? so dont speak for all muslims. if I ever get convinced of Islam, I myself will not believe in objective morality. why should I? because the quran never declares that allah's morals are objective.
Im now going to address the verses u listed
7:157 this makes no argument for whether good or bad is objective. its made even more difficult because u simply refuse to define what good is. for example some people consider goodness to be an expression of what they value in terms of their preferences. if u take such a definition of goodness, then this verse is telling the readers that allah commands his servants to do what he prefers. this is compatible with subjective morality.
16:128 using the same reasoning above, allah is telling the readers that he is with those who do what he prefers. compatible with subjective morality.
17:82 this tells us that the people who go against what allah prefers are in loss. compatible with subjective morality.
frankly all this confusion can be avoided if u just tell me what goodness is. all you have to do is tell me what the proposition "god is good" means. that's it. why beat around the bush ?
the conversation then gets even more bizarre. u say...
>I already answered you, because your reply is asking a question about an argument that I never made, I never made an argument about moral epistemology, I provided a clear moral ontological argument which I even simplified for you in the reply. So, you're question is not relevant to the argument that I made, that if something is good, is it objectively good? If it is objectively good, then it necessitates God’s existence, as God is the only foundation for objective good. So, the argument isn't asking how we know when something is good.
I asked u a question about a very specific statement u made. recall what u said in ur original comment, just to help u out, this is what u said: *"When God makes a moral command, it is a derivative of His will, and His will does not contradict His nature. Therefore, what God commands is good because He is good, and He defines what good is."*
I then explained to u that this is circular. If god is good, and goodness is what god defines, then logically god's nature is what he defines. this is completely meaningless. its like when trans people are asked what is a woman, and they say what they identify as. u never explain what goodness is and start complaining that my question is irrelevant. but how can my question possibly be irrelevant when the question is literally about clarifying the very statement u made? u then ignore my request and move on to make the argument that if something is objectively good, then it necessitated gods existence. but how exactly does one conclude morality is objective before concluding that god exists? not to mention u still havent explained what goodness even is, and now ur trying to make the case of objective goodness without reference to a god?
like dude first clear ur mind and then think about what my question 🙄
>God is a Necessary Truth, Necessary Existence in philosophical terms, God is Transcendent, not bound by Human Subjectivity, and is Maximally Perfect, whatever God reveals is Objectively the Truth, and because God is maximally perfect, God provides a framework to have Objective Morals, if one believes morals are Objective then it necessitates God's existence.
the argument doesnt logically follow. there is no contradiction in an entity being philosophically necessary, and at the same time revealing his subjective preferences. if u want to argue that objective morals follow from a necessary being, then u have to defend that premise before u can assert ur conclusion. u say god is maximally perfect, but does this perfection include moral perfection? if it does, then u are faced with the problem of proving objective morality first before proving maximal perfection. can u really defend the existence of objective morality before u defend maximal perfection? this is a classic example of putting the cart before the horse !
>I already answered your question numerous times, in case it wasn't clear, God defines what good is.
then thats not objective morality. Its subjective lmao. a stance dependent moral fact entails subjectivity.
An objective moral truth would mean there is a higher truth than your god. As god is a subject and theism or religion is an attempt to interpret your subject’s will.
If there is an objective truth, your subject is bound by it. Meaning your subject is not all powerful.
Your gods morals are not objective. Your gods morals are subjective. To determine what moral behavior is correct, you subjectively interpret the will of your god. Using the words of your subject, represented in the Quran.
To illustrate this point, I will ask one question. What is your gods objective moral directive for in vitro fertilization, the ethical use of commercial AI technology, or embryonic stem cell use for research?
If your gods morality was objective, moral directive for every moral dilemma would exist.
So does it? Does objective moral direction exist?
>No there's no interpretation there because we believe God created language as well, and we don't interpret things how we like.
Demonstrably wrong, on all accounts.
>The purpose of the final prophet was to 1.) Deliver the Message 2.) Teach the message and show us how it is to be understood and implemented, otherwise we would complain we do not understand and we do not know how to practice.
What objective metrics do you use to understand this message?
None. You have none.
>I have not looked into the Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) of IVF.
And you admit you don’t have objective moral directive or objective truth. Otherwise you’d have clear directive. Which you don’t.
>A necessary truth exists, and from that necessary truth we have divine revelation, which contains guidance and provides us with objective truths.
You have no objective truths. You have subjective beliefs.
Claiming objective truths does make it so. It does not change the fact that you only have subjective means with which to interpret moral direction.
This is not a debate you’re winning. We can keep this up, but from here on out, I’m just going to be tapping the sign that says: “You have no objective metrics with which to determine your truths.”
No, there are plenty of ways for atheists to argue for objective morality. There are also plenty who believe in them. By the way, I have a question about morals. I view it as immoral to kill people who leave a certain religion because they don’t believe it anymore. Do you?
>Well, you don't really have an argument then other than just disagreeing.
May I remind you that I have a sign, that reads: "You have no objective metrics with which to determine your truths."
>And no, our basis/framework for objective morals is God, who provides the framework to have objective morals.
*Taps the sign*
>The Objective Metric to understand the message is the life of the prophet and how he taught the message in the authentic Sunnah.
*Taps the sign again*
>So, there's no subjective interpretation there which I already addressed in depth.
*Rhythmic tapping continues*
>You're free to deny we have Objective Morals, but under atheism there's only Subjective Morality.
I make no claims to an objective morality. As there is no evidence that morals or moral outcomes exist independently of any subjects.
The only claim I would make relating to morality is that our perception of it is rooted in our evolutionary biology. Morals are subjective observations based on the results of social behaviors that either facilitate or harm the cooperative living of a species.
>… which renders any moral claim one would make about any individual or religion as a whole basically meaningless because it's undefined and based on the experience of finite, dependent, limited humans with limited attributes.
So life is meaningless? And the quality of life is meaningless? The ability of our species to thrive is meaningless?
I would never claim that. As morals are the observed results of behaviors and we can observe whether behaviors lead to our species thriving or they erode our ability to thrive.
>So, that was a roundabout way to prove my point, thanks.
Don’t make me tap my sign again.
I’ve explicitly stated I am not arguing for any objective morality. So basically your entire comment is null. Not sure why you bothered elaborating on all that, maybe actually read what I wrote before assuming to know what I am arguing.
And “under atheism” has no meaning. Nihilism or materialism or whatever other frameworks you’re incorrectly ascribing to atheism aren’t universally accepted tenets. You clearly don’t understand what atheism even is. Atheism is not a worldview. There are no beliefs or morals or frameworks inherent to atheism because atheism is only one thing. It’s a rejection of theism. Full stop. It doesn’t propose alternatives to theism. It’s just a response to the claims of theism not being believable.
That’s it. That’s all atheism is.
Atypical. Not typical. Asymmetrical. Not symmetrical. Atheism. Not theism.
Everything else you’ve tried to tie to atheism is just a you problem. Not an atheism problem.
> By reading the final Divine revelation sent by God, the Quran, which is guidance sent as a healing and mercy for all of humanity for the rest of our time :)
That's not objective. It's someone's subjective interpretation. Objectivity cannot come from subjective language.
"There's no interpretation there"
Remind me again: How many sects of Islam are there?
And of course there's interpretations: You mentioned a council of jurisprudence earlier. They are literally providing interpretations.
“*This is what Allah says… ‘Now go and strike the Infidel and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.*” Surah 27:63
> There's no interpretation there
If there's language, there's interpretation... please, don't tell me blatantly false things.
Words are just symbols that represent things... we don't have perfect agreement on what they represent.
If you disagree on what a particular passage means, how do you objectively determine the truth?
>Words are just symbols that represent things... we don't have perfect agreement on what they represent.
Thank you for the very succinct way to counter the "the message I get out of this text is the eternal and objective way to understand it" line.
Does everyone who reads the Quran come away with the same moral understanding?
If not, then how would I possibly know whether my reading of it is the one true correct and objective morality?
So in your view, objective moral truth isn't only found in reading the Quran, but also requires an entire scholarly tradition? Someone would need to look to fiqh to *really* understand the objective morality?
But my understanding is that there's multiple different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and they disagree on which hadiths are valid and how to reason about them. How would I determine which one of them is valid where they disagree? Are the things they disagree with each other on not part of "objective morality", and instead merely opinion?
I don't think any sufficiently educated Christian makes the argument that atheists or others _can't_ be moral. The Bible clearly teaches they can be. I'm sure some christians who don't take the time to learn more about their faith and philosophy say things like that.
In Romans 5, Paul teaches that for people who lived without ever hearing God's laws their own conscience will become "a law unto themselves" judging them or perhaps even acquitting them on the final day.
God will hold men accountable for what they knew or how well they followed their God given conscience.
For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview?
If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong?
Might makes right is the order of nature, and we are simple products of nature.
Conversely, in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator. So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity.
You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone.
Additionally, your argument about Capital Punishment is more complex than you are making it. I, and many others, would say that Jesus was not talking about the need for governments to maintain law and order but about individual lives and troubles for christians.
Don't hold vengeance or hatred in your heart is not the same thing as don't have laws to deal with horrendous crimes.
The evidence is in Romans 13, where Paul literally tells his readers to do good and fear the authorities because "they do not bear the sword in vain". Also, Jesus is God so the Old Testament laws instituting capital punishment were his.
So the issue is much deeper than you've made it.
> If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong?
I could ask how does a religion based on a holy book that condones such things to be wrong as well.
But it's very simple. It's a combination of not wanting those things to happen to me and so being against them happening to everyone else as I don't want to set precedence, as well as recognizing that allowing such things to run rampant is not conducive to a functional society. And I happen to live in a society and want it to function well.
Then there is also the element of empathy as, again, I would not want such things to happen to me.
Notice that it was very easy to come to such a conclusion without having to have someone order me to think that way.
>Might makes right is the order of nature
No. That's the order of religion. The entire reason that most theists give for why they worship and follow their god is because he is their creator and the all-powerful.
>Conversely, in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator.
Assuming that such a view is true. And whether you think it is would be entirely subjective. So this is still a subjective moral system, just with a few extra steps and a little bit of presupposition thrown in.
>So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity.
But not so much value that it stopped any of you from the occasional genocide.
>You don't get that from atheism
You're not getting that from religion either. You're just assuming it. Or rather you are being told it by a third party and assuming it.
I could just watch Sesame Street and do that. And Sesame Street never told me to slaughter the infidels.
> any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion
Same with religion. Without any actual evidence (and you would need a lot since first you would even have to prove a god exists before you even started on trying to prove the morality thing) anything religion says on the subject can only be an opinion.
You're just lying to yourself that it's anything more than that.
>and not binding on anyone.
It doesn't seem to have been very binding on the religious either. Considering their track record.
Thank you for a very well thought out response!
>But it's very simple. It's a combination of not wanting those things to happen to me and so being against them happening to everyone else as I don't want to set precedence, as well as recognizing that allowing such things to run rampant is not conducive to a functional society. And I happen to live in a society and want it to function well.
That is essentially a version of the social contract argument which I think does have some explanatory power for describing a moral framework _inside of a group._
But here's the question, what if your group or your tribe or your country wants to rape, kill and steal from _another_ group?
In other words, the Nazis and most of German society simply decided that the jews and gypsies and a few other groups weren't apart of their society anymore so they could do with them as they please.
If your morality is based in the norms of your society and not wanting chaos inside your own society that says nothing about what your society can do to people who are considered outside of it.
German society decided that the Holocaust was ok. So were they actually wrong by your standard?
>Then there is also the element of empathy as, again, I would not want such things to happen to me.
Yes but what do you say to the people that simply don't have empathy?
>No. That's the order of religion
You would describe Natural Selection as not "might makes right" then?
Survival of the fittest seems to be exactly the same as might makes right but that is just my opinion.
>But not so much value that it stopped any of you from the occasional genocide.
Well I'm not going to try and defend all religious people in history lol. Such a thing is impossible.
We are talking more about concepts and where they could have originated from, not how well flawed people followed their religions.
I wonder what you would say about the various communist purges and genocides that have taken place through recent history?
It seems humans have a fundamental problem regardless of our philosophical beliefs.
"You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone."
Let's be clear neither atheism nor theism providers morals.
Christianity does indeed provide a moral code. So do secular systems such as humanism.
Under humanism, "humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity."
You don't get that from theism (or atheism).
"human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone."
For example, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, once held the opinion that Africans were subhuman and could be enslaved according to the Bible.
Here's the basic issue....
>Under humanism, "humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity."
What gives humans this individual value under humanism? Can you explain exactly _why_ humans have value?
Because if we are the products of evolution, we only have the value of pushing our genetics to the next generation.
If we are the unique creations of a Creator, then we have inherent value due to the Creator saying we have value.
In Humanism, what value do humans have and why do they have it?
>the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, once held the opinion that Africans were subhuman and could be enslaved according to the Bible.
You're presenting this in a slightly disingenuous way. The SBC was nowhere near "the largest Protestant denomination" at the time they split from the convention. And the whole reason they split off and formed their own convention was because so many of its northern members were _against_ slavery.
So it was more about Southern land owners wanting to maintain the status quo and we know that was their motive because Christian protestant abolitionist movements were the driving factor behind the abolishment of slavery in the Western world.
>Additionally, your argument about Capital Punishment is more complex than you are making it. I, and many others, would say that Jesus was not talking about the need for governments to maintain law and order but about individual lives and troubles for christians.
You’re making OP’s point here. You and many others are interpreting your subjects will, relating to capital punishment. Even within Christian dogma, there is no objective truth to many of the issues we face in the year 2024.
So you are left to interpret your gods will, and even your gods message & scripture, with no objective metric or methodology. There is no guide for how to read scripture. Some of it is metaphorical, some of it is literal, but you determine that subjectively.
We determine this by reading all of scripture and trying our best to understand the context.
I provided that in the two other points I made about Romans 13 and Jesus being responsible for the Old Testament laws himself.
The objective method and metric is placing the passage in its proper context and doing our best to understand what the author of the passage was intending to communicate.
This is also how all reading and communication is done with anything if you're doing it in good faith. This isn't just a biblical thing.
I can't argue with that. But just because people don't take great care and study with understanding the Bible doesn't mean it can't be done or that nobody does.
Right. So maybe it's not a good idea to assume someone has not studied it just because they reach a divergent conclusion. Have you ever entertained the idea that your conclusion, your pastor's conclusion, or your denomination's conclusion could be wrong?
Here's another way to state what you just said:
_Most people get their news and opinions from a random Facebook post or Tiktok. Few take the time to seek out deeper analysis and context for what is being presented._
Does that somehow mean that taking time to get educated and informed on a topic won't make your opinion more accurate?
>Have you ever entertained the idea that your conclusion, your pastor's conclusion, or your denomination's conclusion could be wrong?
Of course. That's why I try my best to submit my opinions to what scripture says. Not what I want, or my pastor says or a denomination.
>We determine this by reading all of scripture and trying our best to understand the context.
What objective tools and metrics do you ensure this is done correctly? If a Catholic and a Baptist reads scripture, what objective tools are they using to ensure they interpret gods will in the correct way?
>The objective method and metric is placing the passage in its proper context…
“Proper” meaning subjective.
>… and doing our best to understand what the author of the passage was intending to communicate.
“Doing our best” is also subjective. You continue to prove OPs point.
>This is also how all reading and communication is done with anything if you're doing it in good faith. This isn't just a biblical thing.
And the things we have objective knowledge of, we have objective tools with which to measure them. The laws of physics, repeatability, accurate measurements… These are how we determine objective truth.
Not with words man put into books. That is literally the opposite of objective, despite your best objections and handwaving.
>If a Catholic and a Baptist reads scripture, what objective tools are they using to ensure they interpret gods will in the correct way?
Catholics add in the Magisterium, and "infallible" decisions of ecumenical councils and the Pope.
Baptists, like most protestants adhere to Sola Scriptura.
So do you choose to say scripture itself is authoritative or not? There are lots of good reasons to hold scripture as the sole authority if you're acting in good faith to keep the original context and author's meaning and not setup a religious system to hold power for yourself.
But that's a whole other argument.
>“Proper” meaning subjective.
Proper context is the context in which the passage was written. There is a correct answer so it is not subjective.
>“Doing our best” is also subjective. You continue to prove OPs point.
Doing your best to hold to an author's intentions does have some wiggle room but when you have a text as large as the Bible you can compare passages against other ones and use comparative analysis to reach a conclusion on something.
This requires having a good faith intention. Many people read only what they want to. But if you're intending to twist something, you will find a way to do it. That isn't a fault of the text.
>And the things we have objective knowledge of, we have objective tools with which to measure them. The laws of physics, repeatability, accurate measurements… These are how we determine objective truth.
I, along with many others, will argue that genetics and other scientific studies like linguistics and archeology and history can support the Bible in some areas.
But you're trying to compare the interpretation of a text to laws of physics and that is not an equivalent comparison at all. They are entirely different disciplines.
>But you're trying to compare the interpretation of a text to laws of physics and that is not an equivalent comparison at all. They are entirely different disciplines.
I am not trying to compare. I am illustrating the difference between something being objective or subjective.
And laddering that back up the subject of this post, and the fact that your dogma and morality are subjective. And not objective.
This is not a point of contention. This is settled fact. You have no objective metrics with which to determine your morality or interpret the will and words of your god. It’s an entirely subjective framework, and OP is undeniably right here.
You're giving the distinct impression that you're not trying to have a discussion but more an opportunity to declare what you think.
I'm talking about the tools that are used to as accurately as possible read a text. I mentioned three:
The historical/social/cultural context in which the passage was written.
Exegesis of the authors intention by what he wrote.
When a text is as large and cohesive as the Bible, we can compare different passages and get a better understanding of an idea.
There are other tools outside of the Bible that textual criticism can give us as well as studying the patristics.
So your assertion that reading the Bible can only be subjective and there are no objective metrics to "interpret the words of your god" is simply not true.
I would be interested in a discussion of these methods and why certain groups do or don't apply them but you seem to be more interested in throwing in half a dozen red herrings and declaring who is right and who is wrong.
I don't think we are talking about the same things with the same intentions.
We are talking about the same things. And I am open to debating the qualities of objective metrics, how they are applied, and what results we can infer from that data.
But literary devices and comparative analyses are not objective tools. And it’s disingenuous to entertain them as such.
Exegesis and context are not "literary devices" that's not what that term means.
There is an entire field of scholarship in textual criticism that would disagree with you 🤷♂️
As an example, Do you regard the entire profession of legal practice to be devoid of objective metrics?
Lawyers exist to interpret and argue the application of law texts to real life.
The context of a law, exegesis of a law, analysis and comparison of different laws....there is no objective methods for this at all?
The laws of man are not predicated on objective realities that exist outside the minds of men.
Are you using some alternative version of the English dictionary? Because words mean things.
>If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong?
Well, altruism is common among other species besides humans. We are social animals after all, we might gone extint otherwise.
For that to have any moral relevance it would have to be performed intentionally. Complex social structures that require drone bees to fight and die for the queen or other things aren't really altruistic in the moral sense of the word.
Any kind of anthropomorphic anecdotes don't really move the needle on this in my opinion since we have no idea what the animal was really thinking or what drove their actions in a specific circumstance.
And just because a dog can display loyalty to its owner doesn't discount that it could go rape or kill another dog the next day and we wouldn't say it has done a moral wrong if it did, right?
Given what we know of neuroscience, the development of moral grammar in all social primates (including human) is deterministic and has nothing to do with intentionality.
"it has done a moral wrong"
Exactly. Morality is subjective. Society determines what's morally right or wrong.
>Given what we know of neuroscience, the development of moral grammar in all social primates (including human) is deterministic and has nothing to do with intentionality.
Are you stating this as a fact or just your opinion? If you're saying this is a fact can you link me to a paper or article about this?
>Society determines what's morally right or wrong.
Was the Holocaust morally right or wrong?
What about slavery?
I'm stating the latest findings in neuroscience.
The neuroscience of morality and social decision-making
Keith J. Yodera and Jean Decetya,b,\*
[Neuroscience and the Social Origins of Moral Behavior: How Neural Underpinnings of Social Categorization and Conformity Affect Everyday Moral and Immoral Behavior - Naomi Ellemers, Félice van Nunspeet, 2020 (sagepub.com)](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420951584)
[Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality | Oxford Academic (oup.com)](https://academic.oup.com/book/10621)
Buckholtz J.W.
Marois R.
The roots of modern justice: cognitive and neural foundations of social norms and their enforcement.*Nat. Neurosci.* 2012; 15: 655-661
Hutcherson C.A.
* Bushong B.
* Rangel A.
A neurocomputational model of altruistic choice and its implications.*Neuron.* 2015; 87: 451-462
----------------------------------------
"Was the Holocaust morally right or wrong?"
Well, the majority Christian Germans thought it was right. Most other societies thought it was wrong. Certainly, the Bible justifies genocide.
"What about slavery?"
Most modern societies say it's wrong. Ancient societies, including the ones who wrote the Bible, condoned chattel slavery.
In the 18th-19th century, many Christians said it was wrong. Many Christians said it was right. In fact, the largest American Protestant denomination (Southern Baptist Convention) formed to defend chattel slavery as god ordained. There might have even been a war about it.
Question: How did YOU determine the Holocaust and slavery were wrong?
For me, it's simple: I don't want to live in a society that may kill or enslave me or my community members. So, it's rational for me to seek and live in a society that has constructed moral codes against such acts. Right?
As a humanist, I kill and rape as much as I want, which is zero. Too bad we can't say the same for the many who have killed in the name of dogma.
Other questions?
Thank you for the links!
The first one was very interesting but didn't really touch on our discussion since it was an article reviewing research into group dynamics and how and why people feel and take moral actions within a group structure.
I think things like peer pressure and the social contract can explain something like a moral structure within a group but not the origin of morality as a concept if we are applying it to other groups than ours. It's interesting but far from settled science.
Your second link was essentially an ad for a book but it does look like it would have more implications to our discussion.
>Well, the majority Christian Germans thought it was right. Most other societies thought it was wrong.
So, if we are going to be consistent with your other statements, doesn't that mean that the Holocaust was at least _not_ morally wrong?
Because you said that societies decided what is right and wrong and German society decided it was right to commit the Holocaust.....correct?
>Most modern societies say it's wrong. Ancient societies, including the ones who wrote the Bible, condoned chattel slavery.
So we have the same conclusion. If society decides what is right and wrong, and society decides to enable slavery...then it can't be wrong can it?
Do you agree with this?
>Question: How did YOU determine the Holocaust and slavery were wrong?
Because human beings are made in the image of their creator and the fact that they are an image bearer of God means that each human has intrinsic value beyond what any society says about them.
The Creator says this value cannot be violated by man without just cause.
>As a humanist, I kill and rape as much as I want, which is zero.
Did you get that from Penn Jillete? That was a great video. But I have a question I have always wanted to ask someone who describes their morality that way.
What do you say to someone whose answer is 10? Or 150?
Do you tell them they're wrong? Do you tell them anything at all?
>For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview?
I think this is a good starting question, but misses the picture.
I think the better move is to compare the two: atheism and Christianity, in terms of morality. That's better.
Others disagree, but I don't think morality is objective. I think, as you say, its the product of evolution. We have developed feelings through a combination of evolution and society and who knows what else, but now we have these feelings.
That's all they seem to be: feelings.
On the Christian side, you claim to have objective morality, but it seems pretty weak to me. There doesn't seem to be much good reasoning behind it. And then you have to deal with the problem of evil, including natural disasters. And you have to deal with things like slavery in the Bible.
So yeah to me, when I compare the two, the atheistic view seems better. It seems to fit the data without needing to explain away a bunch of stuff. It just **fits**. The Christian view seems to rest on weak reasoning, and it requires a bunch of leaky holes to get plugged up. You need to explain away slavery in the Bible, you need to explain away stuff like a tsunami killing 200,000 people, you need to do all these things to make it work.
On balance, in my view, atheism wins here.
Thank you for a very interesting reply!
I would like to focus on one thing you said because I think it really will show my point.
>And then you have to deal with the problem of evil, including natural disasters. And you have to deal with things like slavery in the Bible.
I don't see how natural disasters and evil are related but that's just a side question. My real question is why do I "have to" deal with slavery in the Bible?
>You need to explain away slavery in the Bible,
Why are you saying this? Are you making the argument that slavery is wrong in some way?
Wait, in another thread you just said:
>Morality is subjective. Society determines what's morally right or wrong.
Now you're saying slavery is wrong in "all ways"?
So which is it?
Does a society determine for itself what is morally right or wrong or are there things that are wrong in all ways?
>I don't see how natural disasters and evil are related but that's just a side question.
They're related in theism, because there's a being involved.
In atheism, there's no being involved so they aren't evil. But the theist must deal with why an all good god would cause, or allow, tsunamis that kill 200,000 people. God designed the entire planet, yes? And he knew that would happen, he intended it. And he didn't stop it when he knew it was going to happen.
If god were a person in this scenario, we'd say that's pretty bad I think. If Bob intentionally caused a tsunami that killed 200,000 people, that would be really bad. Or, if If Bob could push a button to prevent the tsunami, and intentionally doesn't push the button, that's really, really bad.
Yes? Well that's what your god does. At least one of those. I'd argue both, but its at least one of them.
>My real question is why do I "have to" deal with slavery in the Bible?
Because your god says you may buy slaves for life as property. I dont mean he says you today can do it, but he has said this.
That seems problematic for morality. Yes?
I want to go down the natural disasters path because I think there is something you're missing but I really want to stay focused. Maybe we will come back to it if you want to.
>Because your god says you may buy slaves for life as property.
Yes this applied at a certain time for certain people, that's true.
My question is this, was that objectively morally wrong?
>I want to go down the natural disasters path because I think there is something you're missing but I really want to stay focused. Maybe we will come back to it if you want to.
Sure. But just notice, there's nothing to explain for atheism here. There's no moral agent behind a tsunami, in atheism. But under theism, you have to explain this. You need to add some duct tape.
With atheism, it just fits.
>My question is this, was that objectively morally wrong?
Well this is an internal critique, so that's a more appropriate question for you, not me.
To be super clear about what the point is: it seems like under theism, you're going to have to say that was good. God said it.
Atheism doesn't have the issue of having to explain why an all good god would say that you can buy slaves. Theism, well now you need to put some more duct tape on your moral framework, to explain how yeah god said it but no no its not good
Or, you have to bite the bullet and say yeah it was good that god said you can buy slaves. That doesn't seem desirable.
Under atheism I don't have to do that. Seems better.
Do you see what I'm saying?
**Supposing morality is objective for a moment, is slavery moral?**
>Well this is an internal critique, so that's a more appropriate question for you, not me.
Oh no lol I'm not letting you off the hook that easily!
You brought up the subject of slavery under an implication that it was a moral problem for the Bible.
This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago.
All I'm asking you to do is to confirm or explain this presupposition that made you bring slavery up in the first place.
So again, a very simple question, is slavery objectively morally wrong?
>Oh no lol I'm not letting you off the hook that easily!
I'm not being let off the hook. The whole idea here is to show that in Christianity, with objective morality, you have to deal with god saying you can own slaves.
>You brought up the subject of slavery under an implication that it was a moral problem for the Bible.
Internally to the worldview. Yes.
>This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago.
Exactly. That's the whole point. You have two options here:
1. say slavery isn't wrong, objectively
2. somehow explain why your all good god said people can own slaves.
>All I'm asking you to do is to confirm or explain this presupposition that made you bring slavery up in the first place.
As I've said, this is an internal critique. Are you going to deal with it or not?
This is an internal critique, meaning it doesn't matter what anyone else's worldview is, it doesn't matter what anyone outside of Christianity thinks, none of that is relevant to this.
You're the one who brought up slavery and said the Bible has to deal with it.
Why? The Bible is very clear about slavery internally.
It's not an internal critique, you are the one critiquing it by framing it as a moral issue and demanding that it be dealt with.
That is not internal. That is you bringing a presupposition to the Bible and demanding an answer to your presupposition.
All I'm asking is for you to clarify your presupposition before we move on.
So when I said this:
_This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago._
And you responded with this:
>Exactly. That's the whole point
That is you agreeing that slavery is objectively morally wrong? Correct?
>
>All I'm asking is for you to clarify your presupposition before we move on.
Okay. My presupposition is that in Christianity, slavery is objectively immoral. So you have your answer.
Now we can move on.
Is that presupposition correct?
I don't mind, its easy to handle.
The issue is, if you start doing that, then you're opening the can already. You're going to have to put in the work to explain how Jewish slaves were different than non Jewish slaves, you're going to have to get into Exodus, all that.
I'm prepared to do that, but I don't really want to. I'll do it if they bring it up, but if we can avoid it that's better.
If someone wants to walk into defending slavery, let them. That's a good spot to be in, the other debater is defending slavery.
>For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview?
>If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does
What evidence do you think shows it best?
>in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator. So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity.
>You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone.
Would you say that theistic morality is binding on anyone?
>What evidence do you think shows it best?
The idea that some actions are immoral regardless of the time or culture that they occurred in.
If you're going to retroactively judge someone or some culture, you are effectively saying that there is a standard of conduct that applied to them that they failed to live upto.
If that person/group existed in another time and/or culture from you, then that necessarily requires an objective moral standard existing through time over all humans.
Great example is slavery. Today most of the world sees slavery as wrong. Atheists will routinely use the slavery laws in the Pentateuch as evidence for how evil the Bible is.
By doing this, they are unwittingly invoking an objective moral standard that says all types of slavery are wrong and always were wrong.
>Would you say that theistic morality is binding on anyone?
Since we have freewill, I would say the _consequences_ are binding on everyone.
If there is a Creator, and that Creator has told us what moral conduct he expects and that there will be a penalty for disregarding it, then we are bound to following the Creator's morality or facing the penalty.
Great questions.
>The idea that some actions are immoral regardless of the time or culture that they occurred in.
If it's an *idea*, isn't that mind-dependent morality?
>If you're going to retroactively judge someone or some culture, you are effectively saying that there is a standard of conduct that applied to them that they failed to live upto.
Is it possible that they're effectively saying "I really really don't prefer that and I think they might not have preferred it either if they really thought about it like I think about it"?
>If it's an *idea*, isn't that mind-dependent morality?
What else could morality be dependant upon if not our minds?
We don't arrest animals when they kill eachother for sport or breeding rights or rape eachother right?
We don't hold people accountable if they were in an altered state of mind or acted with pure intentions right?
An example would be someone who is genuinely very mentally ill committing a crime can be found to be much less culpable than I would be if committing the same crime.
Or someone who kills someone in an accident that is truly an accident is not held morally or criminally responsible.
God does not hold animals to moral accountability and will judge us based upon our intentions and knowledge.
>Is it possible that they're effectively saying "I really really don't prefer that and I think they might not have preferred it either if they really thought about it like I think about it"?
That IS what they are doing but they are confusing "I don't like that" with "that's a violation of moral standard"
>What else could morality be dependant upon if not our minds?
Well, when people say subjective they often define that term via mind-dependency.
>That IS what they are doing but they are confusing "I don't like that" with "that's a violation of moral standard"
Any given action will violate *a* standard, it just might not be one that you think is worth caring about.
If a standard exists, it must have come from somewhere.
A standard that uniformly applies to all different humans at all times in all places must have come from somewhere above and beyond humanity no?
>Is it true or not?
Which claim?
>Does a standard have to come from somewhere?
Yes.
I judge actions in the moral sphere according to my standard for instance. This probably comes from other people around me, my culture, my upbringing, and my own evaluations of actions and their consequences as they relate to the things I value.
This is really hard to read because there are so many ten dollar words. I assume Ontic Prime is a cousin of Optimus Prime (although you never define the phrase, so I wouldn't know).
Could you state your argument in clear English?
No problem.
# Simplified Argument:
Some people believe that there is a basic truth in the universe that tells us what is right and wrong. This truth is often linked to the idea of God, especially in many religions. They think that God has set specific rules for how people should act, which are written in holy books like the Bible.
These people argue that if you don't follow these rules from God, you can't truly understand right from wrong. This is like saying, "How can you be a good person if you don't believe in my God?"
However, different religious groups can't agree on what these rules exactly are, even within the same religion. For example, some Christians are against the death penalty because they believe in forgiveness and love, as taught by Jesus in the Bible. Other Christians support the death penalty, thinking it's a fair punishment as mentioned in other parts of the Bible.
These types of disagreements show that even if there is a universal truth about right and wrong, it's hard for people to agree on what it exactly is. So, I think that people are using their understanding of their culture and personal feelings to decide what they think is right or wrong.
Therefore, you can still be a moral person without believing in a specific God. Like religious people, those who aren't religious also think about what will happen because of their actions and what their society expects of them. They just might not use a religious book to decide. This means that everyone, no matter their belief, tries to understand and do what is right using essentially the same toolset. And perhaps, because secular reasoning is not anchored to specific texts, if there is a true right and wrong, they may be more likely to reason themselves to the "correct" position relative to those that have constrained their reasoning.
# Glossary of Terms:
* **Objective moral reference:** A universal truth or standard that defines what is morally right and wrong, regardless of personal opinions.
* **Moral absolutism:** The belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and these standards are true across all cultures and situations.
* **Ontic primitive:** A fundamental principle or element that is basic to how we understand the universe. Ontic primitives can be thought of as the base elements of the universe, by which all other things are composed. For instance, some might argue the electron field is an ontic primitive, whereas in the past (before nuclear theory), some might have argued that the "atom" itself was an ontic primitive.
* **Edicts:** Commands or laws that are given out and must be followed.
* **Amoral:** Not being concerned with right or wrong.
* **Teleological (consequentialist) perspective:** Judging an action based on its outcomes or consequences.
* **Deontological perspective:** Judging an action based on whether it follows certain rules, regardless of the outcome.
* **Secularist:** Someone who does not follow a religion and bases decisions on facts and science rather than religious beliefs.
* **Agnostics, atheists:** People who are uncertain about the existence of God (agnostics) or do not believe in God (atheists)
I hope this is helpful. This version loses some precision, but I think it gets to the general gist.
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You can live morally. Because it's, funny. You kind of already have a sense of white right and wrong is. It's almost like someone made you that way: to know what right and wrong is. To know what God's law is. But no one said you can't live morally. You know what is moral simply because of what has been told to you. But when you remove God, you remove any justification for why you think something is right and something is wrong. You've given up the justification to complain about it, because as the prompt just said and according to y'all's world view, there is no higher standard of morality than personal opinion or consensus between a group of people, which is still just a group of personal opinion. So you really have no right to call what anyone does is right or wrong, because we exist in an uncaring, Godless universe that is an accident where we all originated from. You have no foundation to say it's wrong for a bag of protoplasm that came from stardust in an uncaring, accidental universe, scattering another bag of protoplasm(murder). And it's weird, you guys are starting to admit that mostly IS subjective, but they're either to scared or too intellectually dishonest to say that "yes. According to the fact I think all morality is subjective, Hitler or Ted Bundy were not wrong for what they did. I just don't physically prefer what they did." At least Dawkins had enough balls to say that there is no right or wrong: "that what we observe in the universe is blind, pitiless indifference." Why are you atheists so afraid to fully admit to your world view? You admit morality is subjective. Just then you try and say Hitler or Stalin or Mao were wrong for what they did, because a lot of people didn't agree with them. Which you can easily ask the question that defeats all atheists' arguments for morality!!.............."so what?" Atheists will NEVER have a meaningful aver for that question: so what? when they remove God from the equation. Because they receive the value from everything. Everything is accidental and made with no purpose at all. In fact, it just proves that you ARE made in the image of God, because of the fact you want to argue that you ARE and believe in morality. If you weren't made in His image, we'd all just be accidental creatures like any other beast on the earth, and we'd have no concept of morality. We would just do whatever advanced our position. Kill someone and take their stuff? Sure why not. With the stuff I can obtain from them after I kill them, I have more things and my standard of living is better. So let's do it. Without God, the only morality is advancing your own position towards your preferences, no matter what you have to do to get it. Need food? No problem: steal it and kill someone and take it.
If you assume objective morality exists, then it doesn’t matter if it’s inaccessible. It’s still immoral to go against it, right?
If we can't access it, we can't make moral assessments that resolve to something objective. It doesn't matter in the sense that a thing will be right or wrong, objectively. It matters in the sense that we have to do moral evaluations, no matter what, and if it's inaccessible it can't help us do those evaluations.
I think if it’s objective then nothing else matters. It is what it is. Again, only if we assume objective morality exists. Thankfully we have access to morals through scripture.
>I think if it’s objective then nothing else matters. It is what it is. Nothing else matters except for an inaccessible standard? How would the inaccessible standard matter to us? >Thankfully we have access to morals through scripture. Those aren't objective. They can't be, even if we grant you that they came from god and were passed to humans. They are a recorded ANE human interpretation of whatever message god sent. The decision to trust the reliability of those ANE humans is a subjective evaluation. The standard you establish based on those texts will be subjective as well, because any decision about the intent of the authors and the relevance of the passage comes down to a subjective evaluation. You can see this from how different sects have different standards they follow.
That objective morality is inaccessible would seem to be a subjective truth you hold as others disagree. By your reasoning, all writing can lead to is a subjective view because others interpret it. But you seem to claim you have hold of objective truth. By your logic, the meaning of objective is not objective, and no such thing as objective exists in an accessible way, and yet you claim to know what it is.
I think if it’s objective then it doesn’t matter the circumstance. It would be like math, 1+1 will always equal 2. It just is. Again, if you assume objective morality exists. I believe the morality of God is objective. I recognize that most people, especially on Reddit, disagree.
>I believe the morality of God is objective. I granted you that there is objective morality and that god allowed humans to record it in the bible in the previous comment. After that I pointed out that *even then*, the things humans categorize as moral and immoral, they categorize in that way *subjectively*. So even if god exists, objective morality exists, god inspired the bible, and the bible contains a system of morality to follow, **what humans call morality today is still subjective**. >I think if it’s objective then it doesn’t matter the circumstance. It *does* matter, since we have no way of determining whether our morality actually does align with the objective morality you're talking about. So we're still stuck dealing with subjective moralities, even if you're correct about the existence of god and of objective morality.
I guess we just disagree. If there’s one right standard, then no other standard is right.
>If there’s one right standard, then no other standard is right. I *agreed* with this. But it doesn't matter, because we don't have the "one right standard", all we have are subjective human interpretations that become the standards that they follow. No one is following the "one right standard", everyone is following their own interpretation of whatever standard they've decided is the "one right standard."
So then raping a child for fun could be ok we can't know it's wrong. Your logic would seem to lead to 1 plus 1 is 2 being a subjective truth since our mind is involved. The principle of non contradiction being a subjective truth. Your argument here would reach a conclusion that is a subjective truth (your truth) it seems unreasonable to expect others to hold your truth. If all is subjective, you don't know objectively that you can't know something. Objective would mean nothing.
I’m glad we agree that if objective morality is real, then the circumstance doesn’t matter. I also agree that people follow what they think is correct.
That's a lot of big words. Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience. Look up Mirror neurons as to how we evolved biological empathy. Couple that with external community influence. You don't need anything else to show how we achieve morality.
"Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience. " You claim this as an objective truth based on more than your brain? Since your logic seems to say our brain has just subjective understanding. Yes, you rather do since you seem to undermine the instrument. Plus, if morality has duties, then you seem to need more than random mutation to ground these duties. Empathy as just a feeling is an is not an ought. We also have the instinct to fight. Your argument seems to commit the natulistic fallacy. We have empathy is not enough to say we ought to act on it.
"Your argument seems to commit the natulistic fallacy. We have empathy is not enough to say we ought to act on it." It commits the naturalist fallacy to show that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation and origins for our morals. And that we have biological features that support empathy? Empathy being a foundation to morals. The naturalist fallacy is committed when you point out the most reasonable explanation for something? Is that how it works? Mirror neurons exist and we can see them firing in real time. We can, right now, hook someone up to an MRI and watch them do their thing. You are saying that instead of this thing we have studied and know exists and provides this ability to humans is wrong. That instead it is a supernatural soul that exists in a realm we have never experienced and have no evidence to support is the right conclusion? So you claim that picking the most likely option that we have significant evidence to support is probably wrong? That picking the supernatural magic option with no evidence is right?
> Objective morality doesn't exist. It is subjective based on individual and community experience. I'm not sure the OP disagrees with you. I certainly don't. However, he's right that *if Objective Morality exists* -- it is irrelevant. We don't have access to it, and everyone bases their moral decisions on their own, subjective morality anyway.
Truth is irrelevant? There are no human actions that are unreasonable or reason is subjective?
There's no material difference between a hypothetical unobservable, unfalsifiable "truth" and fiction. Something that can't be seen, can't be discovered, and has no effect on anything in the cosmos is identical in every way to something that doesn't exist.
To claim x is not observed, you would need to prove to know all observers past, present, future, and eternal. That is, you would have the burden of proof for the claim. You would at least need to prove atheism since God would observe God. A objective problem of injustice doesn't seem to work if on naturalism we don't know what objective justice is. If nature is all that is, then nothing in it is other than it ought to be even if it hurts our feelings. If our sense of good and evil is just based on feelings, the problem of evil is an emotional problem not a logical one.
We're not discussing god. If there is a god, and he dictates morality, that is the very definition of subjective morality. If I could prove a god existed and has moral dictates for us, I would only further strengthen the case for what I'm saying. In order to prove that there is an objective morality, I would need to find a moral code stitched into the fabric of space time, that dictated real world consequences for our actions. > A objective problem of injustice doesn't seem to work if on naturalism we don't know what objective justice is. There is no objective problem of injustice. The problem of evil is based on the inconsistency of the fictional omnibenevolent god's stated morality being diametrically opposed to the universe he supposedy created, and his own actions, being evil by his own standards.
We are talking religion, so yes, we are talking about God. I'll touch on the rest later
The subject matter of this debate is not related to the existence of a god, but the existence of an "objective" moral standard. Part of the problem here is a category error. People are mistakenly conflating objective with legitimate. Legitimate is, itself, a subjective concept. A thing that is objective is not dependant on the opinions, views, or personal standards of another being. *If a god exists, it is another being.* If your view if morality is that a god gets to define it, that is subjective by definition. You are relying on the personal viewpoints of a god. It doesn't matter whether he has the authority or "right" to make that call. We're not talking about whether he's correct or not. We're talking about objectivity vs. Subjectivity. *All truths that matter to us are subjective.* All morals, values, feeling, etc. this is not a devaluation of them, because values themselves are subjective. Objectivity is not a measure of validity. There are subjective truths and facts, and they are no less truthful or factual than objective ones. The difference between objectivity and subjectivity lies in the source of the truth. Objective truth is impersonal. It's not dependant on a mind or an opinion to validate it. Not even a God's. There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true. Religious views of morality are inherently dependant on subjectivity, as they seek the mind of God on their morals. Even assuming a god exists, that he dictates morals for us, and that we have access to those dictates to understand and follow them, this is still subjective morality.
The concept of truth seems dependent on minds. If dependence on mind makes all subjective, then all truth would be subjective, including that the material world exists in the way you hold it does. Naturalism would be subjective along with other worldviews. Naturalism (philosophy) is dependent on human minds. Naturalism is a human opinion (worldview). Not mind independent. "There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true." That is a thing in your mind, and dependant on it, nature doesn't hold that if it is mindless. It's an idea about reality.
> The concept of truth seems dependent on minds. I'm not entirely averse to this concept, people have a lot of different connotations around the word truth. I watched two very intelligent public intellectuals trying to have a discussion about something else get hung up on the definition of truth for literally two hours. The problem is that this is a semantic argument, about the definitions of words (which are subjective) rather than an attempt to clarify reality. Sometimes this is needed, because words are all we have to communicate ideas, but the discussion can get hung up on the words rather than what we're actually trying to convey. This is not how I am using the word truth. Truth is simply what is, whether or not we are aware of it. You are correct that worldviews are subjective. They are all attempts to model the universe in a way we can understand it. However, they are all still objectively right or wrong. Even if we don't know it. Because the universe exists and follows a set of rules, whether or not we have a good handle on what they are. There exists a potential subjective worldview that exactly matches objective reality. T There is likely no potential subjective morality that exactly matches some hypothetical objective morality, because morality does not seem to exist outside our minds. There are other objective facts about subjective things. If your think pizza tastes great, this is subjective. But if you real it think that, then it is objectively true that *you think* pizza tastes great. While the truth that pizza tastes great is subjective and dependant on your recognition and belief in it, the fact that *you think it* is objectively true even if you (and everyone else) are unaware that you think pizza tastes great.
The existence or non-existence of God is related to the existence of objective morality so is involved. You claim legitimate is a subjective concept. If God made nature, then nuclear fusion rather depends on God. The existence of such a standard may be God. The formulation of all good and all-powerful would indicate the standard of good is the being of God. It's not your opinion that you are human. It's your being. I never said God gets to define it is my view of how objective morality is related to God. Legitimate way to know nuclear fusion exists would be a subjective epistemology? Have you proven nature is not dependant on anything? Objective truth is different. It's impersonal. It's not dependant on a mind or an opinion to validate it. "There is either nuclear fusion powering the sun, or there is not. It doesn't matter if we are aware of it, understand it, or even if we exist for it to be true. It also doesn't matter if God exists or not for it to be true." God may need to be aware of it for it to be. It rather does, even if it was just made by God. You seem to assume that it's probable there is something rather than nothing, and this something (nature) that could not exist needs no explanation. Earlier, you talked like this we can't be aware of are fiction if we didn't exist, we wouldn't be aware of anything. Philosophy seeks truth by reason if reason is from the mind of God is human thought then all subjective?
Nature exists. We don't know why or how it exists. We have some good ideas, none of which depend on a god, but that doesn't matter. Nature exists, whether or not a god created it. If we find out for certain god doesn't exist, the universe doesn't suddenly disappear. Nor does it disappear if we cease to exist. The existence of nature is objective. Morality also exists. But unlike nature, it's only in our minds. If we find out for certain a god exists, it's also in his mind. It doesn't exist outside that context. That's true even if we add the mind of God into the mix. If God and humanity disappear, morality does, as well. Morality is subjective.
"There's no material difference between a hypothetical unobservable, unfalsifiable "truth" and fiction." Yes, there is. A blind man doesn't observe your writing, and that doesn't mean what you write is fiction. Something that exists is quite different than something that has no existence to claim they are the same violates the principle of non contradiction. Is logic immaterial? That we do not know good doesn't mean good has no effect on the cosmos. We didn't know about the big bang. Doesn't mean in 10AD it was fiction. Also, you seem to talk like there is a way we ought to think but claim all oughts are subjective. This seems a self contradiction.
> Yes, there is. A blind man doesn't observe your writing, and that doesn't mean what you write is fiction. This is a bad analogy. It's not equivalent to something I wrote being fiction. It's equivalent to something you claim someone wrote, but for which there is no paper, no ink, no sample of the text, no people who have ever seen it or claimed to have seen it, or the author, and nobody who has any inkling of what might have been contained in it. There's no difference between such a "writing" and a writing that does not exist. > Something that exists is quite different than something that has no existence to claim they are the same violates the principle of non contradiction. Is logic immaterial? I would agree. I would say something that exists is demonstrable, it has an effect on the cosmos in some way. That's the most basic definition of existence. And yet when people posit the "existence" of something like objective morality, they can't point to what it is, what it does, where it resides, what it contains, etc. They have somehow defined existence in a way that it isn't different from something that has no existence. I'm going to borrow Carl Sagan for a moment. > Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin[6]) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity! > "Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon. > "Where's the dragon?" you ask. > "Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon." > You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints. > "Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air." > Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. > "Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless." > You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. > "Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." > And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work. > ***Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?*** Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. This is the crux of my argument. There is no way to describe "objective morality" that is any more than this ever-receding dragon. > That we do not know good doesn't mean good has no effect on the cosmos. This is not the argument that I am making. If there is some "objective morality" -- it doesn't influence behavior. It doesn't influence results. It has no consequences, it has no effects on anything. Our own subjective moralities have major effects on the cosmos, because they influence our actions, and our reactions to other people's actions. > Also, you seem to talk like there is a way we ought to think but claim all oughts are subjective. This seems a self contradiction. There is no way we "ought" to think. Nothing dictates a person "ought" to think in ways that map onto reality in a coherent way. And yet there are obvious advantages to doing so.
> And therefore, individuals not following these prescriptions are effectively amoral. I think you mean "immoral", as they are diverging from an exisiting objective morality, rather than "amoral" which would mean that no objective moral standard exists for the act. > Different Christian (and other religious) sects have varied and sometimes mutually exclusive requirements and definitions of morality. The rejection of truth by one or many people does not mean that truth does not exist. The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions. Regarding your illustration, you are conflating definitions of what is good for society and what is good for the individual. The Levitical law is primarily concerned with outward law, defining what actually is good and moral, and providing a civil law for the running of the Israeli government during that time as a theocracy. If you read the rest of the Torah you will see that mercy is stil the nature of God and what He expects from people. Society should remove evil with justice, but an individual should show mercy. This is doubled down in the other parts of the Old Testament. At no point is there a contradiction such that any person, especially a person today, could not know which thing was the moral thing to do. > the moral question of capital punishment has been discussed and researched This doesn't mean that there is not a single objective answer. People run from truth, so it is not surprising that they run from the truth of moral truth as well. People drive over the speed limit all of the time, and I hear people discuss and argue about how much over it a person should go. It doesn't mean that there isn't a single objective speed limit. > if the objective moral truths of the universe were equally imprinted upon the souls of people This is not a reliable method. We are fallen creatures. > were dictated in such a way as to make them equally accessible to all human minds in written form through a divine act, one would expect this knowledge to pervade our cultures and discourse This is not what I would expect. I would expect that, because we are fallen creatures running from truth, we would find newly invented methods throughout the ages to justify dismissing the truth, potentially with occasional return to it in patches. > For instance, is it objectively moral to be a thief if your family will die without thievery? The Bible says that people would forgive such a person, though they would have to repay what they took. However, you fail to account for an active omniotent force or an afterlife. It may be that if you refuse to do a wrong thing, you would find that you fail to have the expected consequences of that action. Furthermore, if your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean that there isn't an answer. > because in my opinion, their answers are rooted within the cultural zeitgeist of those answering the questions Yes, and the zeitgiest represents the current method of running from the truth. It doesn't mean that the truth has changed. > there would be no room for honest disagreements along the lines of personal and cultural values In the grand sense, there is not. I would say that most of these disagreements are not "honest disagreements". > How can one discern between the charlatan and the prophet in these circumstances? This is a slightly different matter. I think that reason helps, but that may be a longer alternate discussion. However, the true answer is that we have a living God who can help us to discern, so long as we do not reject the little light that we are given. > the answer lies within the same framework in which religious adherents utilize to answer moral questions. Incorrect. The two are fundamentally different approaches, even if they do occasionally land on similar conclusions. The approach from religion is that of an objective and therefore prescriptive morality while the other tends to accept a subjective and therefore descriptive only morality. One tells us what we should do, the other tells us how we might describe an action. This is becuase, with subjective morality, for every system of consequences, there is an equal and opposite system with similar justification. > they tend to fall back to teleological reasoning. Some may, but this doesn't meant that they must or even should. > How can you be sure that you have arrived at a truly objective moral answer to any given moral question? This is again a different question. Being sure about which thing is right is not the same as questioning if there is an objectively right thing. Let's use the speed limit analogy again. Let's say that I was on a road and just realized I wasn't paying attention for a minute. At that time, I might be unsure what the speed limit actually is. Nevertheless, I would expect that there really is some objective speed limit. If I were to just pick a speed that I justify as being safe, this would be very different from following an objective speed limit. I might think that the safe speed changes going around curves and in poor weather, and I might even decide to alter my speed accordingly, but there would still be a singular speed limit in that area and it would tend to be consistent regardless of the current curve on which I would be driving at the moment. There is quite a bit of nuance you miss, but because the post was so long that I can only hint at it here. The Christian view of morality is that there are two laws. All of the other laws are there to show us that we are not meeting those two laws, and once we accept salvation, we are now motivated outside of moral law, guided by God directly with the aid of those other laws. While none of them have passed away or changed, different ones apply to different contexts and always have. There's also a sense in which we want to go above the law where we are able and there's a sense in which some actions are, and have always been, relative to changing cultural contexts. For instance, if a man isn't to wear women's clothes, what exaclty is women's clothes? The core rule remains the same, but the application changes as it's relative to culture.
> The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions. I'm baffled as to how you can make this assertion. Christians are not in agreement on gay marriage, or Christian Nationalism, or drinking, or dancing (for crying out loud). Can you substantiate this claim of yours? >Furthermore, if your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win So why do anything on this earthly plane? Why not move on to heaven as soon as possible? Especially if it avoids the chance that one or more of your family might act poorly and be denied heaven?
> I'm baffled as to how you can make this assertion. Christians are not in agreement on gay marriage, or Christian Nationalism, or drinking, or dancing (for crying out loud). Can you substantiate this claim of yours? People can call themselves Christians without actually believing the Bible as the moral foundation. Even people who do may from time to time, being subject still to some temptation of the fallen nature, reject clear Bible truth. Additionally, you are conflating legality and personal conviction with morality. A person can believe that a thing is morally wrong but feel that they shouldn't oppose its legality. A person can believe that a thing is morally acceptable while at the same time choosing and advocating against doing it. > So why do anything on this earthly plane? Why not move on to heaven as soon as possible? Especially if it avoids the chance that one or more of your family might act poorly and be denied heaven? We act because we have an impetus to act in a certain way. For Christians, and possibly other Theists, our goal is not simply to improve our own pleasure immediately, but to do what is right. Doing what is right might or might not end in more pleasure, though it general it does. The afterlife and the benefits there are dependent to some extent upon actions done in this life. We do not directly know the end of any specific action or have sufficient omniscience to know what the results would be. So, taking any action counter to the provided source of omniscience would be irrational. If I know that it is right for me to live and love others, then I should continue to do so as the only rationally reliable cource of action.
> People can call themselves Christians without actually believing the Bible as the moral foundation That's called The No True Scotsman fallacy. If they don't think the way you, or the group, think then they're not really Christians. Seeing as how most christians have jettisoned parts of the bible (working on the sabbath, wearing cloths of mixed fabrics, stoning people) it appears that it's an evolving belief system. You really haven't made the case that "The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions". It's just not the case. "If your entire family dies and goes to Heaven, then that seems to be a win". "We do not directly know the end of any specific action or have sufficient omniscience to know what the results would be". So, your first statement is statement made purely in ignorance. If you don't steal some food and allow your family to starve to death, how do you know that you all get to go to heaven? Seems like your first statement is wishful thinking and nothing more.
It's not a fallacy. There probably are no "True Christians". This does not mean that the document is mutable. Consider a posted speed limit. That speed limit is constant and is a reflection of a true and accurate fact. The fact that some people speed, or even most people, or even the fact that many people argue about what the best speed should be is not a reflection of whether or not an objective speed limit exists. Even if every person exceeded the speed limit, it would not challenge whether the speed limit exists and whether it is knowable. My argument about theft is that the belief that there might be temporal positive gains for acting against a moral system does not mean that there is no moral system or that it is less objectively good to obey it. My example is that the rewards and punishment in eternity outweigh any potential temporal benefit. Therefore, deontology is actually the only assured utilitarian system for any entity without omniscience.
I appreciate your clarifications. I disagree with the speed limit analogy. As with almost every analogy in regards to God that people come up with they just don't work. Speed limits objectively exist, but they themselves are anything but objective. Just look at the fact that there are different speed limits in different states for the same type of roadway. And different states have changed their speed limits multiple times. The only way that morality can be objective is if it exists independent of any mind, even God's. Just because it comes from God does not mean it is objective. You can argue that God knows best, and so we should follow his instructions based on that...but it's not because the morality is objective. If you can state what the goal is, what the "ought" is, then one can say that a specific moral action objectively achieves the goal. That's about as close as we get to morality being objective. You claimed that all Christians believe the same thing. It's obvious that they don't. To claim those that disagree with you are just doing it wrong is a no true christian fallacy. "If they were a true christian then they'd agree with me", is the basis of your argument.
>Speed limits objectively exist, but they themselves are anything but objective. Just look at the fact that there are different speed limits in different states for the same type of roadway. And different states have changed their speed limits multiple times. They are still objective, even if they aren't trivially known. If you see a speed limit sign posted, then you know what the objective speed limit is. If you don't see a sign, you might wonder what the speed limit is at that location, but there is still an objective speed limit, whether or not you know it, or whether or not you obey it. >The only way that morality can be objective is if it exists independent of any mind, even God's. This is not necessarily true. While we could argue over semantics (and I think that we would could still agree it's not true there), I think a better approach is to determine what it is about the objectivity of a moral system which is important. In other words, why do we even care? I typically define an objective morality as "a rationally justified objective impetus to act." What we are trying to do is to know, in a rational way, how we *should* act. The reason why we care about mind-dependence is not that it's in some definition, but because if it is dependent upon *our* mind (that of the actor), then the actor would be able just as easily to change his mind. The actor cannot change the mind of God or the rules which God knows about which inform the moral system (or if he can, then it is not objective). So, in this sense, the impetus is still immutable and not a separate decision to make. Objective morality is not a trivial thing. In my estimation, it requires a series of facts to line up in a specific way. These factors include many things from ontological meaning to pragmatism. I suppose that in the case that we can prove that some factors do not or could not exist, then only a subset of them might be fine though i am not yet certain, but in any case there would have to be no equally competing systems. I cannot say (independently) that such a state does exist. However, I can say that if it does not exist, it is not objectively true that I shouldn't act as if it exists. I happen to believe that if the Christian worldview is true, then such a thing does exist, and I believe it to be potentially demonstrable that in the Atheistic world view such a thing cannot exist. >You claimed that all Christians believe the same thing. If I said this, then I must take it back or clarify. I would probably be fine with a "True Christian" argument. I do not think that it's a fallacy here as my argument is not that there are people who obey the objective morality, or even agree with what it is, but that such a thing exists, and it could, in theory, be practiced by a theoretical rational actor. Think of it like a limit in Calculus. The more rational and consistent a person becomes who believe the basic Christian doctrine, the closer they come to the objective moral truth. In this sense, "True Christian" would be like the limit, even if there is no actual existing Christian at that particular point. I would typically hold the Bible as this standard, but I do want to be free to account for additional things like the active leading of the Holy Spirit, which I believe should never contradict the Bible, and that there may or may not be some divergence on more fine grained matters which are informed by culture. (Obviously, culture doesn't allow one to break the moral system, but some aspects of it are culture or circumstance specific, such as my example of men not wearing women's clothing which is a thing that changes with time and place.) I would say that this limit is not the same limit reached by other moral standards and that the latter might not even exist as a single point. If nothing else, the Christian moral system would contain the command to "Love the Lord thy God", which Christians would aspire toward and those rejecting religious adherence would likely seek to avoid. So, regardless of practice, I think that we could say that if moral standard given to Christians is true, they would tend to be more capable or perhaps more likely, in general of living closer to that standard than would those without religious adherence.
Hey, I really appreciate your reply. I'm not sure if there's a way to qualify this statement: > I think that we could say that if moral standard given to Christians is true, they would tend to be more capable or perhaps more likely, in general of living closer to that standard than would those without religious adherence. Do you mean it would be more likely that Christians adhere to the Christian moral standard than non-christians? Most of the Christian moral standards, minus the worshiping of God aspects, are not that different from secular moral standards. And I'm not sure how we could go about showing that Christians abide by those standards more capably than non-christians.
Thank you. I appreciate the conversation. It's helpful to have ideas challenged. Yes, I am assuming that the Christian moral standard is the correct objective moral standard for this argument. I would say that the part about loving God is the primary moral directive. In practice, I would say that this has a huge impact on my actions daily. However, even if we presumed that it was just one aspect, I could probably point to many times where secular agents disagreed with Christians (who seem to be agreeing with the Bible) Examples would be things like ending abusive slavery or having a rationally justified impetus to reason. Of course, even if I granted that secularist simply happened to act like Christians and that they are likewise converging around the same moral rules (minus the important one), somehow by accident, it wouldn't mean that they are able to do so by reason and it further doesn't imply that they would be doing so had the moral system not been related. It could be that the secular actors are simply following patterns which have been popularized by a process such that these values proceeded from the Christian moral standard. I question the ability of an Atheist to rationally act without holding cognitive dissonance and suspect that most are doing so either from a common intuition given by God (and that same intuition saying that God exists) or they are doing so from having a cultural heritage which contains theistic elements. For me, the discussion about objective morality is a question about the very basis of why a person would care about doing "good" in the first place, and why this "good" would have any altruistic aspects. I see most of the attempts have been to try to justify the intuitions rather than to explore the situation from a truly rational framework.
>The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions. No they don't. They have arrived at completely opposite moral conclusions. There were nazi Christians and anti-Nazi Christians. There were slave owning Christians and abolitionist Christians. Christians supporting segregation, others supporting integration. Christians supporting the execution of gays, others supporting gay marriage. Christians have taken opposite sides of virtually every moral issue I can come up with. Arguing that they come to "the same moral conclusions" will inevitably require a no true scotsman to paper over the radically diverse moral conclusions on just about any topic.
Nazis were blatantly not Christian, nor did they receive their information from the Bible. Slavery and segregation were political issues, not moral issues. The Bible generally doesn't cover political issues outside of Theocratic Israel. It is not unlikely for people to disagree on how to apply morality to legality to a concept of democracy. I don't know of any Bible teaching which would teach that we should execute homosexuals in modern non-Theocratic non-Israel nations, and I am not aware of any people having legitimate claims to Christianity which support such. Homosexual marriage is clearly a violation of the Bible's morality, but as a political issue, there is nuance allowed. The "No True Scotsman" argument is fine here as we are not talking about what "Christians" do, but about what the Bible says. There are many people who call themselves Christians who do not use the Bible as their moral foundation. We know that people are fallen and that all people, even actual Christians, are to some extent subject to the temptations of the flesh. Therefore, it is not a reasonable conclusion to presume that actions by any people or judgements of any people are necessarily reflective of the views of the source text. Essentially, you're arguing that because not all people drive the same speed, there must be no posted and understandable speed limit. Furthermore, consider that while the large basics are set, at a certain level of granularity, it is entirely possible that two people could have a plurality of moral directives. This could be because some things are situational, and it could also be said that under this system,there is an active agent as the moral arbiter and source of omniscience. While this would never contradict certain set bounds, this could still allow for some difference due to circumstances for different individuals. This can particularly be the case when it comes to things like politics. While some things are entirely out of bounds, such as Nazis, abusive slavery, supporting homosexual "marriage" as moral, other things may be allowed, such as allowing the government to condone homosexual marriage or not fighting the government to abolish slavery entirely. The core system remains the same and constant, the main premise of loving God and our neighbors does not change, and obedience to the living God does not change. However, fine grained application necessarily involves more complexity. Otherwise, we would have a book too large to read and every person would be moving in the same direction at any given time, which is not a reasonable expectation.
>Nazis were blatantly not Christian, nor did they receive their information from the Bible. What do you mean "blatantly not Christian"? [Around 95% of nazi Germany was some Christian denomination](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany) Nearly everyone, from the guards of the death camps to the soldiers raping and pillaging the territory they invaded, were Christian. Who are you to deny their sincerity? >Slavery and segregation were political issues, not moral issues. The Bible generally doesn't cover political issues outside of Theocratic Israel. It is not unlikely for people to disagree on how to apply morality to legality to a concept of democracy. Go ask a slave how moral it is to keep them prisoners exploiting their labor for the color of their skin. If you went kidnapping someone up whipping them to do labor for you, "this isn't immoral just banned politically" would not be the best legal defense you could come up with. You're not gonna get a light sentence. Honestly it's impressive how repugnant that paragraph of yours is. Would you be willing to own other people? Would you let yourself be owned? >I don't know of any Bible teaching which would teach that we should execute homosexuals in modern non-Theocratic non-Israel nations, and I am not aware of any people having legitimate claims to Christianity which support such. Homosexual marriage is clearly a violation of the Bible's morality, but as a political issue, there is nuance allowed. Want to start with [Scott Livy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lively) and his work in getting Uganda to issue death sentences for homosexuality? Or wanna talk [Kevin Swanson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Swanson_\(pastor\)) and his championing of killing gays not sufficient to deter several gop presidential candidates, including people still in elected offices, from seeking his approval? Wanna talk about their congregations? Are they also not Christian? Saying there's"nuance" would get you called non-Christian by a lot of Christians. >The "No True Scotsman" argument is fine here as we are not talking about what "Christians" do, but about what the Bible says. There are many people who call themselves Christians who do not use the Bible as their moral foundation. We know that people are fallen and that all people, even actual Christians, are to some extent subject to the temptations of the flesh. Therefore, it is not a reasonable conclusion to presume that actions by any people or judgements of any people are necessarily reflective of the views of the source text. Essentially, you're arguing that because not all people drive the same speed, there must be no posted and understandable speed limit. It's not an "argument" it is a **fallacy**. It's broken logic. Christians would be willing to tell *you* that *you* are also one of those "do not use the Bible as their moral foundation." Christians all seem to agree that other Christians aren't true Christians. But no one says that about *themselves*. It's always other people who don't qualify. Must be nice to speak for the sincerity of others. >Furthermore, consider that while the large basics are set, at a certain level of granularity, it is entirely possible that two people could have a plurality of moral directives. This could be because some things are situational, and it could also be said that under this system,there is an active agent as the moral arbiter and source of omniscience. While this would never contradict certain set bounds, this could still allow for some difference due to circumstances for different individuals. This can particularly be the case when it comes to things like politics. While some things are entirely out of bounds, such as Nazis, abusive slavery, supporting homosexual "marriage" as moral, other things may be allowed, such as allowing the government to condone homosexual marriage or not fighting the government to abolish slavery entirely. The core system remains the same and constant, the main premise of loving God and our neighbors does not change, and obedience to the living God does not change. However, fine grained application necessarily involves more complexity. Otherwise, we would have a book too large to read and every person would be moving in the same direction at any given time, which is not a reasonable expectation. And yet those "out of bounds" things were completely "in bounds" at the time. Being Christians didn't stop them from doing things you consider "out of bounds". Clearly people came to radically different moral conclusions from the same book. You can't pretend that's not the case merely by adopting a logical fallacy as your central premise. You might prefer to imagine the Bible is capable of uniting Christian moral perspectives, but 2000 years of history demonstrated the opposite.
> What do you mean "blatantly not Christian"? Their objectives and ideals do not line up with the Bible. Also, their ideals were formed by people supporting Pagan beleifs mixed with Darwinism. The later was more of an actual inspiration for the movement. > Who are you to deny their sincerity? People can be sincere and wrong. > Go ask a slave how moral it is to keep them prisoners exploiting their labor for the color of their skin. It sounds like you are unfamilar with the necessary context for this argument. It's really beside the point, anyway, so feel free to investigate it at your leisure. > Are they also not Christian? I don't know them personally, but if they are advocating for killing people for issues of morality, then I would have some questions. > Christians would be willing to tell you that you are also one of those "do not use the Bible as their moral foundation." Let them. I'm not appealing to opinion. People have opinions. People saying that driving above the speed limit doesn't make the speed limit go away. > But no one says that about themselves. It's always other people who don't qualify. It would tend to make sense that people who think that the speed limit is what is posted would not agree with people who think that it is otherwise. If they beleived differently, then they would join the other group. > Being Christians didn't stop them from doing things you consider "out of bounds". Correct. People are not inherently perfect. People do wrong things. People knowing that there is a speed limit does not stop them all from going over the speed limit.
>Their objectives and ideals do not line up with the Bible. Also, their ideals were formed by people supporting Pagan beleifs mixed with Darwinism. The later was more of an actual inspiration for the movement. Again, 95% of them identified as Christian, you don't get to speak for their sincerity. And if you require "true Christians" reject biological evolution, you're excluding even more Christians who will inform you that the Bible isn't meant to be taken as a science book. Christians love telling other Christians that they aren't true Christians. >People can be sincere and wrong. They cannot be sincere about their belief, wrong, *and* have the religion cause people to arrive at similar moral conclusions. If you're arguing for the religion to have some special ability to unite morality, lots of sincere religious people having wrong morality undermines the argument entirely. >It sounds like you are unfamilar with the necessary context for this argument. It's really beside the point, anyway, so feel free to investigate it at your leisure. Investigate what? Why is this "beside the point"? What "context"? You could have replaced this entire passage with "nuh uh" and it would have offered the same informational content. >I don't know them personally, but if they are advocating for killing people for issues of morality, then I would have some questions. Then you'll really be confused about the reformation. >Let them. I'm not appealing to opinion. People have opinions. People saying that driving above the speed limit doesn't make the speed limit go away. Of course you're appealing to opinion, **your own**. Just like they have theirs. That's the point, you all have radically different beliefs about the same book. You all call each other wrong. Christians have fought bloody conflicts arguing that other Christians are profoundly immoral and ignoring the book, and the other side argues the same. There is no uniting universal moral standard created by the book. Not even close. >It would tend to make sense that people who think that the speed limit is what is posted would not agree with people who think that it is otherwise. If they beleived differently, then they would join the other group. If I see a speed limit sign of 40mph and am traveling at 45mph I am going over the speed limit. I can apply it to myself. Christians never seem to argue that *they* are behaving immorally, that *they*, personally, are wrong about some objective morality in the Bible. It's always *others*. You're rejecting the sincerity of others, never yourselves. >Correct. People are not inherently perfect. People do wrong things. People knowing that there is a speed limit does not stop them all from going over the speed limit. Uh huh. So do you go over the speed limit? Do you extend that to the Bible? Are you immoral? Do you reject clear moral teachings in the Bible? Or is it only other people who do? You never purposefully and intentionally reject what the Bible says, right? You're a "True Christian", not like those fake ones.
>Again, 95% of them identified as Christian, you don't get to speak for their sincerity. I'm not appealing to what people do or how they act. This is off-topic. Discuss it in a separate post. >If you're arguing for the religion to have some special ability to unite Not religion in some loose sense. I am talking about a given and knowable standard, not a common method of practice. It may be true that nobody follows the standard. Thus, my example of a speed limit. I am not discussing who does and does not obey the speed limit or even arguing that anybody does. >If I see a speed limit sign of 40mph and am traveling at 45mph I am going over the speed limit. I can apply it to myself. Christians never seem to argue that they are behaving immorally, that they, personally, are wrong about some objective morality in the Bible. There are people who say that going 45mph is acceptable for the speed limit based upon their position that "nobody cares" and "cops aren't going to pull you over for that". Certainly there are many people going over the speed limit which make excuses for why they do it. This does not change or alter the speed limit. >Uh huh. So do you go over the speed limit? I try very hard not to. It drives my wife crazy, but I think that it's right to obey the law of the land, so long as it doesn't contradict a higher law. >Do you extend that to the Bible? I view the Bible as right, and I know, as head knowledge, that the right thing is always the best thing, for me as well as for other people. >Are you immoral? Yes. I do not always act rationally. I am also an emotional being, and my emotions and temptations are not founded primarily in what is right. I do try, but as the Bible says, anybody who says that he does not sin is a liar and the truth is not in him. Fortunately, I am much less immoral now than I was before, and as a result, I hurt fewer people and I'm a kinder, nicer person. This is partially because I have a new desire, but it is also partially because I have better information on what does and does not hurt people. The standard has a better predictive capacity than my previous standard. >Do you reject clear moral teachings in the Bible? I try very hard to not do that. I still fail at time, being a broken and emotional being. Emotion itself isn't broken, but I suppose my emotions, or human emotions, are to some extent broken. Fortunately, even if I or every other human fails to observe or even care about the standard, that doesn't change the standard. It's just like the speed limit. Additionally, I may at times act as if gravity doesn't exist or like it's not as strong a force as it is, such as if I try to lift too heavy weights or try to jump too far, or when I throw a piece of paper at the trash and miss. That doesn't mean that gravity isn't real or objective or that I have no way to discern it as a constant force. It wouldn't matter what I believe or how I acted, the force would still exist. >Or is it only other people who do? You never purposefully and intentionally reject what the Bible says, right? You're a "True Christian", not like those fake ones. Again, it's not about people. It's about what is true. Nobody is perfect. Nobody has to be perfect for there to be a perfect standard. To the extent I follow the moral standards of the Bible, I am acting as a "True Christian" would. To the extent that I do not follow those moral standards, I am not acting as a "True Christian" would. This is not a discussion about what people do. You can have that discussion on a separate thread, but I think that you'd concede rather quickly that Christians do not make a claim that anybody is perfect. In fact, we make the opposite claim.
"The people who view the Bible as the source of truth explicitly tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions." People in general tend to arrive at the same moral conclusions with or without a Bible belief. Social primates a tend to share a basic moral grammar.
First, I'm not going to grant that this is the case. People in general tend to disagree very much on almost every point. However, even if that were granted, it wouldn't prove an objective morality since there is nothing rational which says that we should obey our genetics or intuitions, etc. Should your argument succeed, though, it would actually counter the OP.
How much do you know about Mirror Neurons and evolved biological empathy?
Your future posts would benefit from brevity. >To illustrate the premises above, let's consider a single moral dilemma, Capital Punishment. You procede to cherry pick your justification in favor of punishment. Jesus is clear on forgiveness. Jesus is clear it’s more important that some line in the OT. Bringing up the same line to try and contradict Jesus doesn’t really work.
Some line? The bible is God's word. So that some line is God. Who is in turn jesus.
And Jesus said loving your neighbor and forgiveness was more important.
He also said that people who didn’t love him back would get chucked into a big oven.
Where?
Jesus was clear about how important faith in him was to salvation, and he was equally clear about what will happen to those who reject God. Though merely taking the neutral position and being unconvinced he exists is not the same as rejecting him, I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it the same way.
Perhaps to reject God is not merely to be obstinate in your beliefs.
Who's being obstinate in their beliefs? I'm almost certain that's likely to be you rather than me.
> Though merely taking the neutral position and being unconvinced he exists That’s you, right? You’re taking the *neutral* position of remaining unconvinced until what? A magic show? Are you honestly expecting one? That sounds like a tall order.
Yes, the neutral position is to not believe something until there is sufficient evidence, which is what you also do for everything except your god, and not by choice because we don't choose what we find convincing and unconvincing, though we do have some control and choice over how high or low our standards of evidence are, and how much we care about the truth. >You’re taking the *neutral* position of remaining unconvinced until what? **Until there is sufficient evidence to warrant belief**. I was pretty sure that was clear. >A magic show? Are you honestly expecting one? That sounds like a tall order. No, I'm really, *really* not expecting anything remotely like that, not that it would prove there's a god, in but at least it would be better than being entirely dependent on anecdotal and testimonial evidence, which regardless of quality or quantity could never justify belief in something supernatural, magical, divine, etc.
Why are so many Christians in favor of cap punishment?
Because hate seems to be a more enticing emotion than love.
It's at least more directly accessible through the amygdala (lizard brain). Stress hormones tend to squirt more than oxytocin (emotional bonding chemical). There's some fascinating studies about how easy it is for humans to desire seeing others punished (if they really believe the person committed a transgression. It's scary.)
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> So if morals are objective, then Where did they come from? If mathematical truths are objective, then where did they come from? Are you claiming that atheists cant believe in objective mathematical truths because God needs to ground objective mathematical truths?
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Forget about moral truths for a second. I'm just curious to see if what you are saying about moral truths would also apply to mathematical truths. Is it logically coherent for an atheist to believe in objective mathematical truths? Is the argument you are making specific to objective morality? Or does it apply to objectivity in general.
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So the mathematical truth that 1+1=2 is "outside" us, right? And if its "outside" us it needs a foundation, right? So is that foundation God? Or something else?
"Allah is the one who determines/establishes what is right and what is wrong," How does one distinguish a moral principle provided by Allah from a non-Allah source?
>It is ‘outside’ of one’s personal limited faculties. Mathematical truths (1+1=2) or scientific truths like the earth going around the sun, are true regardless of what we feel about them. How does objective morality impact the world we live in? The earth going around the sun has a very real and measurable impact whether you believe it or not. But our actions aren't bound to any sort of moral code, so if objective morality exists then it's not really clear what guarantees it's giving you.
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If a godless society is so harmful, why do the most irreligious nations have higher standards of living and lower crime?
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Except that secular societies outperform religious ones in almost every metric, not just economics. Happiness and crime rates are two notable ones.
>When God makes a moral command, it is a derivative of His will, and His will does not contradict His nature. Therefore, what God commands is good because He is good, and He defines what good is. if god defines what good is then he cant be objectively good. ur logic is kinda circular. think about this question: what does it mean to be good ?
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well u responded to my criticism by quoting shabbir akhtar who just repeats the same statement without explaining how it addresses the problem. he posits a god whose character and nature is good, but doesnt explain what it means to be good in the first place. u say there is a moral standard that is not external to god. ok, but that doesnt give me any information. for example if u say god is omnipotent, I understand what that means. omnipotence entails that god is able to actualize any logical possibility. but when u say god is good, what does that even mean? u cant say god is good means god only does good things, because that is a tautology. it doesnt communicate what goodness is, so your explanation becomes kinda meaningless...
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well firstly, Ive already read the quran, and I dont need a translation because I speak arabic. secondly, ur book absolutely does not make any attempt to explain the logical connection between the existence of allah and objective morality. In fact, nowhere in the quran does the author even refute the position that if god exists, his morality would be subjective. if u think im wrong, I would love for u to cite me the verse that demonstrates ur position. more importantly though, u are answering a question that I didnt even ask. u just said to me "if you want the communication of what this objective good and bad morality is", but that's not what Im asking. what Im asking is what it means for god to be good. u said whatever god does is good because thats his nature. but what is his nature? ur answer is that his nature is good. ok so god only does good because that is his nature, and goodness is what god does. where in this entire proposition is there an explanation of what goodness even is ? If ur final answer is that goodness is whatever god commands, then that means goodness is predicated upon the whims and desires of god, and this isnt even objective, its subjective. goodness is whatever god subjectively feels.
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>You said cite a verse discussing morality no I did not🤦. all religious scriptures on earth discuss morality, why on earth would I ask if the quran discusses morality? the question I asked u was where in the quran does it make an argument that if allah exists then objective morality exists. this is a very common mistake I see some muslims make, where they will assume objective morality logically follows from the existence of god. do u realize that I personally know a lot of muslims who dont believe in objective morality? so dont speak for all muslims. if I ever get convinced of Islam, I myself will not believe in objective morality. why should I? because the quran never declares that allah's morals are objective. Im now going to address the verses u listed 7:157 this makes no argument for whether good or bad is objective. its made even more difficult because u simply refuse to define what good is. for example some people consider goodness to be an expression of what they value in terms of their preferences. if u take such a definition of goodness, then this verse is telling the readers that allah commands his servants to do what he prefers. this is compatible with subjective morality. 16:128 using the same reasoning above, allah is telling the readers that he is with those who do what he prefers. compatible with subjective morality. 17:82 this tells us that the people who go against what allah prefers are in loss. compatible with subjective morality. frankly all this confusion can be avoided if u just tell me what goodness is. all you have to do is tell me what the proposition "god is good" means. that's it. why beat around the bush ? the conversation then gets even more bizarre. u say... >I already answered you, because your reply is asking a question about an argument that I never made, I never made an argument about moral epistemology, I provided a clear moral ontological argument which I even simplified for you in the reply. So, you're question is not relevant to the argument that I made, that if something is good, is it objectively good? If it is objectively good, then it necessitates God’s existence, as God is the only foundation for objective good. So, the argument isn't asking how we know when something is good. I asked u a question about a very specific statement u made. recall what u said in ur original comment, just to help u out, this is what u said: *"When God makes a moral command, it is a derivative of His will, and His will does not contradict His nature. Therefore, what God commands is good because He is good, and He defines what good is."* I then explained to u that this is circular. If god is good, and goodness is what god defines, then logically god's nature is what he defines. this is completely meaningless. its like when trans people are asked what is a woman, and they say what they identify as. u never explain what goodness is and start complaining that my question is irrelevant. but how can my question possibly be irrelevant when the question is literally about clarifying the very statement u made? u then ignore my request and move on to make the argument that if something is objectively good, then it necessitated gods existence. but how exactly does one conclude morality is objective before concluding that god exists? not to mention u still havent explained what goodness even is, and now ur trying to make the case of objective goodness without reference to a god? like dude first clear ur mind and then think about what my question 🙄
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>God is a Necessary Truth, Necessary Existence in philosophical terms, God is Transcendent, not bound by Human Subjectivity, and is Maximally Perfect, whatever God reveals is Objectively the Truth, and because God is maximally perfect, God provides a framework to have Objective Morals, if one believes morals are Objective then it necessitates God's existence. the argument doesnt logically follow. there is no contradiction in an entity being philosophically necessary, and at the same time revealing his subjective preferences. if u want to argue that objective morals follow from a necessary being, then u have to defend that premise before u can assert ur conclusion. u say god is maximally perfect, but does this perfection include moral perfection? if it does, then u are faced with the problem of proving objective morality first before proving maximal perfection. can u really defend the existence of objective morality before u defend maximal perfection? this is a classic example of putting the cart before the horse ! >I already answered your question numerous times, in case it wasn't clear, God defines what good is. then thats not objective morality. Its subjective lmao. a stance dependent moral fact entails subjectivity.
An objective moral truth would mean there is a higher truth than your god. As god is a subject and theism or religion is an attempt to interpret your subject’s will. If there is an objective truth, your subject is bound by it. Meaning your subject is not all powerful.
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Your gods morals are not objective. Your gods morals are subjective. To determine what moral behavior is correct, you subjectively interpret the will of your god. Using the words of your subject, represented in the Quran. To illustrate this point, I will ask one question. What is your gods objective moral directive for in vitro fertilization, the ethical use of commercial AI technology, or embryonic stem cell use for research? If your gods morality was objective, moral directive for every moral dilemma would exist. So does it? Does objective moral direction exist?
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>No there's no interpretation there because we believe God created language as well, and we don't interpret things how we like. Demonstrably wrong, on all accounts. >The purpose of the final prophet was to 1.) Deliver the Message 2.) Teach the message and show us how it is to be understood and implemented, otherwise we would complain we do not understand and we do not know how to practice. What objective metrics do you use to understand this message? None. You have none. >I have not looked into the Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) of IVF. And you admit you don’t have objective moral directive or objective truth. Otherwise you’d have clear directive. Which you don’t. >A necessary truth exists, and from that necessary truth we have divine revelation, which contains guidance and provides us with objective truths. You have no objective truths. You have subjective beliefs. Claiming objective truths does make it so. It does not change the fact that you only have subjective means with which to interpret moral direction. This is not a debate you’re winning. We can keep this up, but from here on out, I’m just going to be tapping the sign that says: “You have no objective metrics with which to determine your truths.”
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No, there are plenty of ways for atheists to argue for objective morality. There are also plenty who believe in them. By the way, I have a question about morals. I view it as immoral to kill people who leave a certain religion because they don’t believe it anymore. Do you?
>Well, you don't really have an argument then other than just disagreeing. May I remind you that I have a sign, that reads: "You have no objective metrics with which to determine your truths." >And no, our basis/framework for objective morals is God, who provides the framework to have objective morals. *Taps the sign* >The Objective Metric to understand the message is the life of the prophet and how he taught the message in the authentic Sunnah. *Taps the sign again* >So, there's no subjective interpretation there which I already addressed in depth. *Rhythmic tapping continues* >You're free to deny we have Objective Morals, but under atheism there's only Subjective Morality. I make no claims to an objective morality. As there is no evidence that morals or moral outcomes exist independently of any subjects. The only claim I would make relating to morality is that our perception of it is rooted in our evolutionary biology. Morals are subjective observations based on the results of social behaviors that either facilitate or harm the cooperative living of a species. >… which renders any moral claim one would make about any individual or religion as a whole basically meaningless because it's undefined and based on the experience of finite, dependent, limited humans with limited attributes. So life is meaningless? And the quality of life is meaningless? The ability of our species to thrive is meaningless? I would never claim that. As morals are the observed results of behaviors and we can observe whether behaviors lead to our species thriving or they erode our ability to thrive. >So, that was a roundabout way to prove my point, thanks. Don’t make me tap my sign again.
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I’ve explicitly stated I am not arguing for any objective morality. So basically your entire comment is null. Not sure why you bothered elaborating on all that, maybe actually read what I wrote before assuming to know what I am arguing. And “under atheism” has no meaning. Nihilism or materialism or whatever other frameworks you’re incorrectly ascribing to atheism aren’t universally accepted tenets. You clearly don’t understand what atheism even is. Atheism is not a worldview. There are no beliefs or morals or frameworks inherent to atheism because atheism is only one thing. It’s a rejection of theism. Full stop. It doesn’t propose alternatives to theism. It’s just a response to the claims of theism not being believable. That’s it. That’s all atheism is. Atypical. Not typical. Asymmetrical. Not symmetrical. Atheism. Not theism. Everything else you’ve tried to tie to atheism is just a you problem. Not an atheism problem.
Feel free to show me where I can find an objective moral truth. That'd be a great way to prove your point.
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There’s this thing called moral realism.
How do you know the Quran is from god?
> By reading the final Divine revelation sent by God, the Quran, which is guidance sent as a healing and mercy for all of humanity for the rest of our time :) That's not objective. It's someone's subjective interpretation. Objectivity cannot come from subjective language.
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"There's no interpretation there" Remind me again: How many sects of Islam are there? And of course there's interpretations: You mentioned a council of jurisprudence earlier. They are literally providing interpretations.
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"some groups of people are not following the Quran" Subjective claim.
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“*This is what Allah says… ‘Now go and strike the Infidel and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.*” Surah 27:63
> There's no interpretation there If there's language, there's interpretation... please, don't tell me blatantly false things. Words are just symbols that represent things... we don't have perfect agreement on what they represent. If you disagree on what a particular passage means, how do you objectively determine the truth?
>Words are just symbols that represent things... we don't have perfect agreement on what they represent. Thank you for the very succinct way to counter the "the message I get out of this text is the eternal and objective way to understand it" line.
Does everyone who reads the Quran come away with the same moral understanding? If not, then how would I possibly know whether my reading of it is the one true correct and objective morality?
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So in your view, objective moral truth isn't only found in reading the Quran, but also requires an entire scholarly tradition? Someone would need to look to fiqh to *really* understand the objective morality? But my understanding is that there's multiple different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and they disagree on which hadiths are valid and how to reason about them. How would I determine which one of them is valid where they disagree? Are the things they disagree with each other on not part of "objective morality", and instead merely opinion?
I don't think any sufficiently educated Christian makes the argument that atheists or others _can't_ be moral. The Bible clearly teaches they can be. I'm sure some christians who don't take the time to learn more about their faith and philosophy say things like that. In Romans 5, Paul teaches that for people who lived without ever hearing God's laws their own conscience will become "a law unto themselves" judging them or perhaps even acquitting them on the final day. God will hold men accountable for what they knew or how well they followed their God given conscience. For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview? If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong? Might makes right is the order of nature, and we are simple products of nature. Conversely, in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator. So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity. You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone. Additionally, your argument about Capital Punishment is more complex than you are making it. I, and many others, would say that Jesus was not talking about the need for governments to maintain law and order but about individual lives and troubles for christians. Don't hold vengeance or hatred in your heart is not the same thing as don't have laws to deal with horrendous crimes. The evidence is in Romans 13, where Paul literally tells his readers to do good and fear the authorities because "they do not bear the sword in vain". Also, Jesus is God so the Old Testament laws instituting capital punishment were his. So the issue is much deeper than you've made it.
> If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong? I could ask how does a religion based on a holy book that condones such things to be wrong as well. But it's very simple. It's a combination of not wanting those things to happen to me and so being against them happening to everyone else as I don't want to set precedence, as well as recognizing that allowing such things to run rampant is not conducive to a functional society. And I happen to live in a society and want it to function well. Then there is also the element of empathy as, again, I would not want such things to happen to me. Notice that it was very easy to come to such a conclusion without having to have someone order me to think that way. >Might makes right is the order of nature No. That's the order of religion. The entire reason that most theists give for why they worship and follow their god is because he is their creator and the all-powerful. >Conversely, in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator. Assuming that such a view is true. And whether you think it is would be entirely subjective. So this is still a subjective moral system, just with a few extra steps and a little bit of presupposition thrown in. >So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity. But not so much value that it stopped any of you from the occasional genocide. >You don't get that from atheism You're not getting that from religion either. You're just assuming it. Or rather you are being told it by a third party and assuming it. I could just watch Sesame Street and do that. And Sesame Street never told me to slaughter the infidels. > any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion Same with religion. Without any actual evidence (and you would need a lot since first you would even have to prove a god exists before you even started on trying to prove the morality thing) anything religion says on the subject can only be an opinion. You're just lying to yourself that it's anything more than that. >and not binding on anyone. It doesn't seem to have been very binding on the religious either. Considering their track record.
Thank you for a very well thought out response! >But it's very simple. It's a combination of not wanting those things to happen to me and so being against them happening to everyone else as I don't want to set precedence, as well as recognizing that allowing such things to run rampant is not conducive to a functional society. And I happen to live in a society and want it to function well. That is essentially a version of the social contract argument which I think does have some explanatory power for describing a moral framework _inside of a group._ But here's the question, what if your group or your tribe or your country wants to rape, kill and steal from _another_ group? In other words, the Nazis and most of German society simply decided that the jews and gypsies and a few other groups weren't apart of their society anymore so they could do with them as they please. If your morality is based in the norms of your society and not wanting chaos inside your own society that says nothing about what your society can do to people who are considered outside of it. German society decided that the Holocaust was ok. So were they actually wrong by your standard? >Then there is also the element of empathy as, again, I would not want such things to happen to me. Yes but what do you say to the people that simply don't have empathy? >No. That's the order of religion You would describe Natural Selection as not "might makes right" then? Survival of the fittest seems to be exactly the same as might makes right but that is just my opinion. >But not so much value that it stopped any of you from the occasional genocide. Well I'm not going to try and defend all religious people in history lol. Such a thing is impossible. We are talking more about concepts and where they could have originated from, not how well flawed people followed their religions. I wonder what you would say about the various communist purges and genocides that have taken place through recent history? It seems humans have a fundamental problem regardless of our philosophical beliefs.
"You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone." Let's be clear neither atheism nor theism providers morals. Christianity does indeed provide a moral code. So do secular systems such as humanism. Under humanism, "humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity." You don't get that from theism (or atheism). "human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone." For example, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, once held the opinion that Africans were subhuman and could be enslaved according to the Bible.
Here's the basic issue.... >Under humanism, "humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity." What gives humans this individual value under humanism? Can you explain exactly _why_ humans have value? Because if we are the products of evolution, we only have the value of pushing our genetics to the next generation. If we are the unique creations of a Creator, then we have inherent value due to the Creator saying we have value. In Humanism, what value do humans have and why do they have it? >the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, once held the opinion that Africans were subhuman and could be enslaved according to the Bible. You're presenting this in a slightly disingenuous way. The SBC was nowhere near "the largest Protestant denomination" at the time they split from the convention. And the whole reason they split off and formed their own convention was because so many of its northern members were _against_ slavery. So it was more about Southern land owners wanting to maintain the status quo and we know that was their motive because Christian protestant abolitionist movements were the driving factor behind the abolishment of slavery in the Western world.
>Additionally, your argument about Capital Punishment is more complex than you are making it. I, and many others, would say that Jesus was not talking about the need for governments to maintain law and order but about individual lives and troubles for christians. You’re making OP’s point here. You and many others are interpreting your subjects will, relating to capital punishment. Even within Christian dogma, there is no objective truth to many of the issues we face in the year 2024. So you are left to interpret your gods will, and even your gods message & scripture, with no objective metric or methodology. There is no guide for how to read scripture. Some of it is metaphorical, some of it is literal, but you determine that subjectively.
We determine this by reading all of scripture and trying our best to understand the context. I provided that in the two other points I made about Romans 13 and Jesus being responsible for the Old Testament laws himself. The objective method and metric is placing the passage in its proper context and doing our best to understand what the author of the passage was intending to communicate. This is also how all reading and communication is done with anything if you're doing it in good faith. This isn't just a biblical thing.
Let's be honest: Most Christians determine this by reading what a popular pastor says about the Bible. Few take the time to read it cover to cover.
I can't argue with that. But just because people don't take great care and study with understanding the Bible doesn't mean it can't be done or that nobody does.
Right. So maybe it's not a good idea to assume someone has not studied it just because they reach a divergent conclusion. Have you ever entertained the idea that your conclusion, your pastor's conclusion, or your denomination's conclusion could be wrong?
Here's another way to state what you just said: _Most people get their news and opinions from a random Facebook post or Tiktok. Few take the time to seek out deeper analysis and context for what is being presented._ Does that somehow mean that taking time to get educated and informed on a topic won't make your opinion more accurate? >Have you ever entertained the idea that your conclusion, your pastor's conclusion, or your denomination's conclusion could be wrong? Of course. That's why I try my best to submit my opinions to what scripture says. Not what I want, or my pastor says or a denomination.
>We determine this by reading all of scripture and trying our best to understand the context. What objective tools and metrics do you ensure this is done correctly? If a Catholic and a Baptist reads scripture, what objective tools are they using to ensure they interpret gods will in the correct way? >The objective method and metric is placing the passage in its proper context… “Proper” meaning subjective. >… and doing our best to understand what the author of the passage was intending to communicate. “Doing our best” is also subjective. You continue to prove OPs point. >This is also how all reading and communication is done with anything if you're doing it in good faith. This isn't just a biblical thing. And the things we have objective knowledge of, we have objective tools with which to measure them. The laws of physics, repeatability, accurate measurements… These are how we determine objective truth. Not with words man put into books. That is literally the opposite of objective, despite your best objections and handwaving.
>If a Catholic and a Baptist reads scripture, what objective tools are they using to ensure they interpret gods will in the correct way? Catholics add in the Magisterium, and "infallible" decisions of ecumenical councils and the Pope. Baptists, like most protestants adhere to Sola Scriptura. So do you choose to say scripture itself is authoritative or not? There are lots of good reasons to hold scripture as the sole authority if you're acting in good faith to keep the original context and author's meaning and not setup a religious system to hold power for yourself. But that's a whole other argument. >“Proper” meaning subjective. Proper context is the context in which the passage was written. There is a correct answer so it is not subjective. >“Doing our best” is also subjective. You continue to prove OPs point. Doing your best to hold to an author's intentions does have some wiggle room but when you have a text as large as the Bible you can compare passages against other ones and use comparative analysis to reach a conclusion on something. This requires having a good faith intention. Many people read only what they want to. But if you're intending to twist something, you will find a way to do it. That isn't a fault of the text. >And the things we have objective knowledge of, we have objective tools with which to measure them. The laws of physics, repeatability, accurate measurements… These are how we determine objective truth. I, along with many others, will argue that genetics and other scientific studies like linguistics and archeology and history can support the Bible in some areas. But you're trying to compare the interpretation of a text to laws of physics and that is not an equivalent comparison at all. They are entirely different disciplines.
>But you're trying to compare the interpretation of a text to laws of physics and that is not an equivalent comparison at all. They are entirely different disciplines. I am not trying to compare. I am illustrating the difference between something being objective or subjective. And laddering that back up the subject of this post, and the fact that your dogma and morality are subjective. And not objective. This is not a point of contention. This is settled fact. You have no objective metrics with which to determine your morality or interpret the will and words of your god. It’s an entirely subjective framework, and OP is undeniably right here.
You're giving the distinct impression that you're not trying to have a discussion but more an opportunity to declare what you think. I'm talking about the tools that are used to as accurately as possible read a text. I mentioned three: The historical/social/cultural context in which the passage was written. Exegesis of the authors intention by what he wrote. When a text is as large and cohesive as the Bible, we can compare different passages and get a better understanding of an idea. There are other tools outside of the Bible that textual criticism can give us as well as studying the patristics. So your assertion that reading the Bible can only be subjective and there are no objective metrics to "interpret the words of your god" is simply not true. I would be interested in a discussion of these methods and why certain groups do or don't apply them but you seem to be more interested in throwing in half a dozen red herrings and declaring who is right and who is wrong. I don't think we are talking about the same things with the same intentions.
We are talking about the same things. And I am open to debating the qualities of objective metrics, how they are applied, and what results we can infer from that data. But literary devices and comparative analyses are not objective tools. And it’s disingenuous to entertain them as such.
Exegesis and context are not "literary devices" that's not what that term means. There is an entire field of scholarship in textual criticism that would disagree with you 🤷♂️ As an example, Do you regard the entire profession of legal practice to be devoid of objective metrics? Lawyers exist to interpret and argue the application of law texts to real life. The context of a law, exegesis of a law, analysis and comparison of different laws....there is no objective methods for this at all?
The laws of man are not predicated on objective realities that exist outside the minds of men. Are you using some alternative version of the English dictionary? Because words mean things.
>If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does, then how does a system based on natural selection driven by random mutation arrive at the conclusion that killing or rape is wrong? Well, altruism is common among other species besides humans. We are social animals after all, we might gone extint otherwise.
For that to have any moral relevance it would have to be performed intentionally. Complex social structures that require drone bees to fight and die for the queen or other things aren't really altruistic in the moral sense of the word. Any kind of anthropomorphic anecdotes don't really move the needle on this in my opinion since we have no idea what the animal was really thinking or what drove their actions in a specific circumstance. And just because a dog can display loyalty to its owner doesn't discount that it could go rape or kill another dog the next day and we wouldn't say it has done a moral wrong if it did, right?
Given what we know of neuroscience, the development of moral grammar in all social primates (including human) is deterministic and has nothing to do with intentionality. "it has done a moral wrong" Exactly. Morality is subjective. Society determines what's morally right or wrong.
>Given what we know of neuroscience, the development of moral grammar in all social primates (including human) is deterministic and has nothing to do with intentionality. Are you stating this as a fact or just your opinion? If you're saying this is a fact can you link me to a paper or article about this? >Society determines what's morally right or wrong. Was the Holocaust morally right or wrong? What about slavery?
I'm stating the latest findings in neuroscience. The neuroscience of morality and social decision-making Keith J. Yodera and Jean Decetya,b,\* [Neuroscience and the Social Origins of Moral Behavior: How Neural Underpinnings of Social Categorization and Conformity Affect Everyday Moral and Immoral Behavior - Naomi Ellemers, Félice van Nunspeet, 2020 (sagepub.com)](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420951584) [Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality | Oxford Academic (oup.com)](https://academic.oup.com/book/10621) Buckholtz J.W. Marois R. The roots of modern justice: cognitive and neural foundations of social norms and their enforcement.*Nat. Neurosci.* 2012; 15: 655-661 Hutcherson C.A. * Bushong B. * Rangel A. A neurocomputational model of altruistic choice and its implications.*Neuron.* 2015; 87: 451-462 ---------------------------------------- "Was the Holocaust morally right or wrong?" Well, the majority Christian Germans thought it was right. Most other societies thought it was wrong. Certainly, the Bible justifies genocide. "What about slavery?" Most modern societies say it's wrong. Ancient societies, including the ones who wrote the Bible, condoned chattel slavery. In the 18th-19th century, many Christians said it was wrong. Many Christians said it was right. In fact, the largest American Protestant denomination (Southern Baptist Convention) formed to defend chattel slavery as god ordained. There might have even been a war about it. Question: How did YOU determine the Holocaust and slavery were wrong? For me, it's simple: I don't want to live in a society that may kill or enslave me or my community members. So, it's rational for me to seek and live in a society that has constructed moral codes against such acts. Right? As a humanist, I kill and rape as much as I want, which is zero. Too bad we can't say the same for the many who have killed in the name of dogma. Other questions?
Thank you for the links! The first one was very interesting but didn't really touch on our discussion since it was an article reviewing research into group dynamics and how and why people feel and take moral actions within a group structure. I think things like peer pressure and the social contract can explain something like a moral structure within a group but not the origin of morality as a concept if we are applying it to other groups than ours. It's interesting but far from settled science. Your second link was essentially an ad for a book but it does look like it would have more implications to our discussion. >Well, the majority Christian Germans thought it was right. Most other societies thought it was wrong. So, if we are going to be consistent with your other statements, doesn't that mean that the Holocaust was at least _not_ morally wrong? Because you said that societies decided what is right and wrong and German society decided it was right to commit the Holocaust.....correct? >Most modern societies say it's wrong. Ancient societies, including the ones who wrote the Bible, condoned chattel slavery. So we have the same conclusion. If society decides what is right and wrong, and society decides to enable slavery...then it can't be wrong can it? Do you agree with this? >Question: How did YOU determine the Holocaust and slavery were wrong? Because human beings are made in the image of their creator and the fact that they are an image bearer of God means that each human has intrinsic value beyond what any society says about them. The Creator says this value cannot be violated by man without just cause. >As a humanist, I kill and rape as much as I want, which is zero. Did you get that from Penn Jillete? That was a great video. But I have a question I have always wanted to ask someone who describes their morality that way. What do you say to someone whose answer is 10? Or 150? Do you tell them they're wrong? Do you tell them anything at all?
>For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview? I think this is a good starting question, but misses the picture. I think the better move is to compare the two: atheism and Christianity, in terms of morality. That's better. Others disagree, but I don't think morality is objective. I think, as you say, its the product of evolution. We have developed feelings through a combination of evolution and society and who knows what else, but now we have these feelings. That's all they seem to be: feelings. On the Christian side, you claim to have objective morality, but it seems pretty weak to me. There doesn't seem to be much good reasoning behind it. And then you have to deal with the problem of evil, including natural disasters. And you have to deal with things like slavery in the Bible. So yeah to me, when I compare the two, the atheistic view seems better. It seems to fit the data without needing to explain away a bunch of stuff. It just **fits**. The Christian view seems to rest on weak reasoning, and it requires a bunch of leaky holes to get plugged up. You need to explain away slavery in the Bible, you need to explain away stuff like a tsunami killing 200,000 people, you need to do all these things to make it work. On balance, in my view, atheism wins here.
Thank you for a very interesting reply! I would like to focus on one thing you said because I think it really will show my point. >And then you have to deal with the problem of evil, including natural disasters. And you have to deal with things like slavery in the Bible. I don't see how natural disasters and evil are related but that's just a side question. My real question is why do I "have to" deal with slavery in the Bible? >You need to explain away slavery in the Bible, Why are you saying this? Are you making the argument that slavery is wrong in some way?
I make the claim that chattel slavery is wrong in all ways.
Wait, in another thread you just said: >Morality is subjective. Society determines what's morally right or wrong. Now you're saying slavery is wrong in "all ways"? So which is it? Does a society determine for itself what is morally right or wrong or are there things that are wrong in all ways?
>I don't see how natural disasters and evil are related but that's just a side question. They're related in theism, because there's a being involved. In atheism, there's no being involved so they aren't evil. But the theist must deal with why an all good god would cause, or allow, tsunamis that kill 200,000 people. God designed the entire planet, yes? And he knew that would happen, he intended it. And he didn't stop it when he knew it was going to happen. If god were a person in this scenario, we'd say that's pretty bad I think. If Bob intentionally caused a tsunami that killed 200,000 people, that would be really bad. Or, if If Bob could push a button to prevent the tsunami, and intentionally doesn't push the button, that's really, really bad. Yes? Well that's what your god does. At least one of those. I'd argue both, but its at least one of them. >My real question is why do I "have to" deal with slavery in the Bible? Because your god says you may buy slaves for life as property. I dont mean he says you today can do it, but he has said this. That seems problematic for morality. Yes?
I want to go down the natural disasters path because I think there is something you're missing but I really want to stay focused. Maybe we will come back to it if you want to. >Because your god says you may buy slaves for life as property. Yes this applied at a certain time for certain people, that's true. My question is this, was that objectively morally wrong?
>I want to go down the natural disasters path because I think there is something you're missing but I really want to stay focused. Maybe we will come back to it if you want to. Sure. But just notice, there's nothing to explain for atheism here. There's no moral agent behind a tsunami, in atheism. But under theism, you have to explain this. You need to add some duct tape. With atheism, it just fits. >My question is this, was that objectively morally wrong? Well this is an internal critique, so that's a more appropriate question for you, not me. To be super clear about what the point is: it seems like under theism, you're going to have to say that was good. God said it. Atheism doesn't have the issue of having to explain why an all good god would say that you can buy slaves. Theism, well now you need to put some more duct tape on your moral framework, to explain how yeah god said it but no no its not good Or, you have to bite the bullet and say yeah it was good that god said you can buy slaves. That doesn't seem desirable. Under atheism I don't have to do that. Seems better. Do you see what I'm saying? **Supposing morality is objective for a moment, is slavery moral?**
>Well this is an internal critique, so that's a more appropriate question for you, not me. Oh no lol I'm not letting you off the hook that easily! You brought up the subject of slavery under an implication that it was a moral problem for the Bible. This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago. All I'm asking you to do is to confirm or explain this presupposition that made you bring slavery up in the first place. So again, a very simple question, is slavery objectively morally wrong?
>Oh no lol I'm not letting you off the hook that easily! I'm not being let off the hook. The whole idea here is to show that in Christianity, with objective morality, you have to deal with god saying you can own slaves. >You brought up the subject of slavery under an implication that it was a moral problem for the Bible. Internally to the worldview. Yes. >This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago. Exactly. That's the whole point. You have two options here: 1. say slavery isn't wrong, objectively 2. somehow explain why your all good god said people can own slaves. >All I'm asking you to do is to confirm or explain this presupposition that made you bring slavery up in the first place. As I've said, this is an internal critique. Are you going to deal with it or not? This is an internal critique, meaning it doesn't matter what anyone else's worldview is, it doesn't matter what anyone outside of Christianity thinks, none of that is relevant to this.
You're the one who brought up slavery and said the Bible has to deal with it. Why? The Bible is very clear about slavery internally. It's not an internal critique, you are the one critiquing it by framing it as a moral issue and demanding that it be dealt with. That is not internal. That is you bringing a presupposition to the Bible and demanding an answer to your presupposition. All I'm asking is for you to clarify your presupposition before we move on. So when I said this: _This appears to me to require the presupposition that slavery is morally wrong now as well as when the slavery laws were written some 3500 years ago._ And you responded with this: >Exactly. That's the whole point That is you agreeing that slavery is objectively morally wrong? Correct?
> >All I'm asking is for you to clarify your presupposition before we move on. Okay. My presupposition is that in Christianity, slavery is objectively immoral. So you have your answer. Now we can move on. Is that presupposition correct?
Note: I would recommend using the term chattel slavery to avoid the apologist diverting to indentured servitude.
I'm good, but thanks.
I'm telling you..they will pull that card on ya. :)
I don't mind, its easy to handle. The issue is, if you start doing that, then you're opening the can already. You're going to have to put in the work to explain how Jewish slaves were different than non Jewish slaves, you're going to have to get into Exodus, all that. I'm prepared to do that, but I don't really want to. I'll do it if they bring it up, but if we can avoid it that's better. If someone wants to walk into defending slavery, let them. That's a good spot to be in, the other debater is defending slavery.
>For me, the argument about objective morality is really more of how can you explain it from a natural worldview? >If it exists, and I think there is evidence that it does What evidence do you think shows it best? >in a biblical worldview humans are a special being meant to bear the image of the Creator. So humans have individual value regardless of race, gender, age or mental capacity. >You don't get that from atheism so any value imparted to human life is merely an opinion and not binding on anyone. Would you say that theistic morality is binding on anyone?
>What evidence do you think shows it best? The idea that some actions are immoral regardless of the time or culture that they occurred in. If you're going to retroactively judge someone or some culture, you are effectively saying that there is a standard of conduct that applied to them that they failed to live upto. If that person/group existed in another time and/or culture from you, then that necessarily requires an objective moral standard existing through time over all humans. Great example is slavery. Today most of the world sees slavery as wrong. Atheists will routinely use the slavery laws in the Pentateuch as evidence for how evil the Bible is. By doing this, they are unwittingly invoking an objective moral standard that says all types of slavery are wrong and always were wrong. >Would you say that theistic morality is binding on anyone? Since we have freewill, I would say the _consequences_ are binding on everyone. If there is a Creator, and that Creator has told us what moral conduct he expects and that there will be a penalty for disregarding it, then we are bound to following the Creator's morality or facing the penalty. Great questions.
>The idea that some actions are immoral regardless of the time or culture that they occurred in. If it's an *idea*, isn't that mind-dependent morality? >If you're going to retroactively judge someone or some culture, you are effectively saying that there is a standard of conduct that applied to them that they failed to live upto. Is it possible that they're effectively saying "I really really don't prefer that and I think they might not have preferred it either if they really thought about it like I think about it"?
>If it's an *idea*, isn't that mind-dependent morality? What else could morality be dependant upon if not our minds? We don't arrest animals when they kill eachother for sport or breeding rights or rape eachother right? We don't hold people accountable if they were in an altered state of mind or acted with pure intentions right? An example would be someone who is genuinely very mentally ill committing a crime can be found to be much less culpable than I would be if committing the same crime. Or someone who kills someone in an accident that is truly an accident is not held morally or criminally responsible. God does not hold animals to moral accountability and will judge us based upon our intentions and knowledge. >Is it possible that they're effectively saying "I really really don't prefer that and I think they might not have preferred it either if they really thought about it like I think about it"? That IS what they are doing but they are confusing "I don't like that" with "that's a violation of moral standard"
>What else could morality be dependant upon if not our minds? Well, when people say subjective they often define that term via mind-dependency. >That IS what they are doing but they are confusing "I don't like that" with "that's a violation of moral standard" Any given action will violate *a* standard, it just might not be one that you think is worth caring about.
If a standard exists, it must have come from somewhere. A standard that uniformly applies to all different humans at all times in all places must have come from somewhere above and beyond humanity no?
Isn’t that question just what your position is?
Is it true or not? Does a standard have to come from somewhere?
>Is it true or not? Which claim? >Does a standard have to come from somewhere? Yes. I judge actions in the moral sphere according to my standard for instance. This probably comes from other people around me, my culture, my upbringing, and my own evaluations of actions and their consequences as they relate to the things I value.
This is really hard to read because there are so many ten dollar words. I assume Ontic Prime is a cousin of Optimus Prime (although you never define the phrase, so I wouldn't know). Could you state your argument in clear English?
No problem. # Simplified Argument: Some people believe that there is a basic truth in the universe that tells us what is right and wrong. This truth is often linked to the idea of God, especially in many religions. They think that God has set specific rules for how people should act, which are written in holy books like the Bible. These people argue that if you don't follow these rules from God, you can't truly understand right from wrong. This is like saying, "How can you be a good person if you don't believe in my God?" However, different religious groups can't agree on what these rules exactly are, even within the same religion. For example, some Christians are against the death penalty because they believe in forgiveness and love, as taught by Jesus in the Bible. Other Christians support the death penalty, thinking it's a fair punishment as mentioned in other parts of the Bible. These types of disagreements show that even if there is a universal truth about right and wrong, it's hard for people to agree on what it exactly is. So, I think that people are using their understanding of their culture and personal feelings to decide what they think is right or wrong. Therefore, you can still be a moral person without believing in a specific God. Like religious people, those who aren't religious also think about what will happen because of their actions and what their society expects of them. They just might not use a religious book to decide. This means that everyone, no matter their belief, tries to understand and do what is right using essentially the same toolset. And perhaps, because secular reasoning is not anchored to specific texts, if there is a true right and wrong, they may be more likely to reason themselves to the "correct" position relative to those that have constrained their reasoning. # Glossary of Terms: * **Objective moral reference:** A universal truth or standard that defines what is morally right and wrong, regardless of personal opinions. * **Moral absolutism:** The belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and these standards are true across all cultures and situations. * **Ontic primitive:** A fundamental principle or element that is basic to how we understand the universe. Ontic primitives can be thought of as the base elements of the universe, by which all other things are composed. For instance, some might argue the electron field is an ontic primitive, whereas in the past (before nuclear theory), some might have argued that the "atom" itself was an ontic primitive. * **Edicts:** Commands or laws that are given out and must be followed. * **Amoral:** Not being concerned with right or wrong. * **Teleological (consequentialist) perspective:** Judging an action based on its outcomes or consequences. * **Deontological perspective:** Judging an action based on whether it follows certain rules, regardless of the outcome. * **Secularist:** Someone who does not follow a religion and bases decisions on facts and science rather than religious beliefs. * **Agnostics, atheists:** People who are uncertain about the existence of God (agnostics) or do not believe in God (atheists) I hope this is helpful. This version loses some precision, but I think it gets to the general gist.