The Moral Argument

[doubting_tommy]

Show me how a shifting standard that keeps defining and redefining 'good' can be objective.

Suppose we have a label like "Head of the British Empire". This label has got objective and unchanging criteria we can spell out which will tell us who the head of the British Empire is at any point in time (or indeed, whether there is any Head of the British Empire at some point in time).

But the actual person to whom that label refers can change over time. So, today we identify the Head of the British Empire with Queen Elizabeth II, but in the past we would have identified it with, for example, King Henry VIII and in the future we will identify it with someone else.

Why can't the label "good" be like the label "Head of the British Empire"? Good could be defined as "what God wants us to do" and so, at one point in time, God might want us to, for example, stone adulterers to death, but at another point in time, God might want us to refrain from killing them.

[Guest]

Show me how a shifting standard that keeps defining and redefining 'good' can be objective.

Suppose we have a label like "Head of the British Empire". This label has got objective and unchanging criteria we can spell out which will tell us who the head of the British Empire is at any point in time (or indeed, whether there is any Head of the British Empire at some point in time).

But the actual person to whom that label refers can change over time. So, today we identify the Head of the British Empire with Queen Elizabeth II, but in the past we would have identified it with, for example, King Henry VIII and in the future we will identify it with someone else.

Why can't the label "good" be like the label "Head of the British Empire"? Good could be defined as "what God wants us to do" and so, at one point in time, God might want us to, for example, stone adulterers to death, but at another point in time, God might want us to refrain from killing them.

Good

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

[enoob57]

Well the church you described earlier in your homeland certainly sounds like it has diverged from God's standard, His word. The point is that we do have a standard that claims itself objective and is necessary in order for there to be objectivity. There is also a correct way of interpreting Scripture. It is when we misinterpret that we go amok. That is the standard that I would point you to anytime you feel that I am misrepresenting it. The clear teachings of God come through and are logical when we use Scripture to interpret itself and listen to what God is actually saying, in context and related context, rather than reading something into the context that it does not say.

Hi,

the problem is: who defines the correct way to interpret Scriptures? I can only see fallible human intermediaries (the pope, the pastor, the theologian, the expert in hermeneutics, whomever). What evidence can any human provide that he/she is THE correct interpreter of scriptures?

I ask because whenever I ask Christians about difficult subjects concerning our society and the Bible (politics, morality, heaven/hell, homosexuality, death penalty, etc. etc.), I get completely different answers. I think that we should first analyze the objectivity of Bible's interpretation before we could even consider it a candidate of objective moral values.

Ciao

- viole

Viole,

Clearly you have made an error in your thinking... you have designated this interpretive aspect to Bible but is it not found in

all avenues in the world? Multiple interpretations in unsaved: In law , morality, child rearing, political... In fact it seems nearly

everywhere there is a system or structure, where reason is required, also multiple interpretations are arrived at. The reason

this is: God defines the path to right thinking as narrow and hard and few that find, for it lies by itself in truth, designated as

one way, and the highest created angel does not want you to find that way! Thus the purposed evil in lies! Many follow what

they believe to be interpretative truth and give their lives to it's power of influence (muslims, hindus, mormons, jehovah

witnesses, catholics etc.).

Why you cannot sort through these prospectives and determine truth is due to your misconception of what is required to do so!

It is God alone Who can decipher truth, for it is His Word as His Character! We, born in lies, actually submersed into

the machinery of lies, cannot separate lie from truth or truth from lie. Even in our very heart we desire lies rather than truth,

because we innately know to proceed in the path of pursuing truth all of what we are must cease, for we are lies, and - what- ?

Here The Goodness of God is seen as a impenetrable membrane of division from truth and lie. Here on the side of lies we cry

out Lord Save Me from all that I am. I believe there 'IS' truth, pure and undefiled,Jesus 'IS' It! I am willing to die to all that I am,

so all that You Are, can be me for Your Use!!! It is the term God calls being born again into a living hope, it is in fact a new

being by which the lies can never again enter and it is of spirit! The Spirit is The Essence of reality before the corporeal was ever

assigned as evident reality. I think this is A Wonderful Beauty of God, Who, has taken the corporeal avenue from which sin entered

man and made it non-effect, so that, when one is Born of God, God, keeps that New Birth in an impossible place of achievement

due to all that comes against it (called the world)! Only New Birthed beings, made so by belief and faith, can place His Word above

all else even themselves, this death of self, we behold Him as real as the very ground you rely upon and place your faith in every

moment of the day. Is it more clear to you why the ground I seek is still yet to come and yours, you cling desperately to, is passing

away?

2 Peter 3:10-13

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

NKJV

So as what seems so unbelievable or impossible to you 'IS'- until you evaluate yourself and the world you are in... For is it

of any common sense to search among lies to find truth?

1 John 2:16-17

16 For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

NKJV

For to me who desires this death of self HE speaks-

1 Thess 4:3-9

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

NKJV

Here lies the universal morality kept in all The Eternities that is not recognized in the place of lies!

Love, Steven

[PGA]

Well the church you described earlier in your homeland certainly sounds like it has diverged from God's standard, His word. The point is that we do have a standard that claims itself objective and is necessary in order for there to be objectivity. There is also a correct way of interpreting Scripture. It is when we misinterpret that we go amok. That is the standard that I would point you to anytime you feel that I am misrepresenting it. The clear teachings of God come through and are logical when we use Scripture to interpret itself and listen to what God is actually saying, in context and related context, rather than reading something into the context that it does not say.

Hi,

the problem is: who defines the correct way to interpret Scriptures? I can only see fallible human intermediaries (the pope, the pastor, the theologian, the expert in hermeneutics, whomever). What evidence can any human provide that he/she is THE correct interpreter of scriptures?

I ask because whenever I ask Christians about difficult subjects concerning our society and the Bible (politics, morality, heaven/hell, homosexuality, death penalty, etc. etc.), I get completely different answers. I think that we should first analyze the objectivity of Bible's interpretation before we could even consider it a candidate of objective moral values.

Ciao

- viole

There is a big difference between reading your own private interpretations into Scripture and taking the Author's intended meanings out of Scripture. The one imagines all kinds of different scenarios that aren't related to what is actually being said depending on the readers personal taste, opinions and influence and the other seeks to find out exactly what the author means and in the context given. Context carries specific meaning. Context addresses specific people, specific individuals but also through the Spirit reaches across cultures and eons to those outside that culture and time-frame through the timeless message, wisdom and teaching of God. Context depends on whether the language is literal or figurative. It depends on understanding the cultural references and significance of those times. It depends on proper interpretation of time references. There are also other considerations to take into account but basically you use the same method of interpretation that you would in understanding anything.

When you read what I have written you understand my meaning if I have expressed myself coherently and only if you extract my intended meaning from the context. If not then you ask what I meant by such and such.

Scripture is its own interpreter. It is so incredibly interconnected and related.

If you want to consider the objectivity morality of Scripture we could take a look at a specific subject matter as it relates to morality such as murder/death penalty or homosexuality. Or we can look at Scripture as it is related to prophesy as to its historical objectivity/reality and accuracy since I am convinced that it is hard to dispute when properly understood and in its cultural context. In this way I think that many of your objections would be made moot.

Viole, I'm going to consider/ponder your other post for a few days before replying to it.

Peter

[PGA]

Hi Viole,

I agree with your proposal. Since homosexuality is a bit overloaded we might consider death penalty, which is considered immoral by most modern countries.

What is your take on the subject? -Viole

I think I can state my case rather briefly, by my standards anyway.

I think we both would agree that punishment is necessary so there is no argument there, right, or is there? It is just a disagreement over the nature and severity of the punishment, right?

I believe that God put His laws into effect for the very reason that sin entered the world through the one man, Adam, thus through Adam to all men, so certain deterrents need to be taken against evil/sin for any society to function morally and also for the protection and benefit of its people. No individual is to be justified for cold blooded murder. Even before God initiated the Mosaic laws for the nation of Israel He made it known that when one individual murders another individual the punishment needs to fit the crime, that is "And for each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.'" Genesis 9:5b-6

That means that if you murder someone then your life is required of you because man's life is sacred and valued, since we are made in God's image and likeness. This shows man the seriousness of this crime and the punishment that fits the crime - life for life. And God never wanted man to take revenge upon himself, but for the civil magistrate, the governing authority to extract the punishment. So the death penalty is designed not to rehabilitate the criminal, or help or justify them or sympathize with them for the events in their life/lifestyle that lead to the crime, but to provide equitable recompense and equal justice for the act committed. In this way the victim gets the justice that fits the crime and others come to understand and value how sacred life is to God. The wicked actually get their just dessert, not like this criminal in Norway who gets to spend twenty-five years to life being catered to and at great cost to the Norwegian people, resources that could have been put to much better purposes and causes.

Since God is immutable/unchanging the rightness of the action is morally binding for the charge of (1st degree) murder no matter what age or culture we live in.

IMO, the problems with societies today that have jettisoned the Bible is that they are dulled to what is actually right and wrong in the sense that a criminal does not get the punishment that fits the crime.

On the other hand, if you are just a biological machine or evolved animal that functions differently from another biological machine or other animals then what difference does it make what one machine, one animal does to another as long as it does not effect you or those in your family, your clan, your tribe, your society, your beneficial group, your environment? When you have two opposing clans, groups, cultures, societies that have opposite moral values, say regarding the death penalty, then who is actually right - the one that forces their opinions or physical presence and preference on another? In which case, as I have mentioned earlier, how can you call it 'good' unless there is an objective measure, an ideal standard, an absolute reference in which to compare good to? In order for something to be good there must be a best that good can be compared to. What is that best and how do you know it is the best unless it is an objective standard?

All you have shown from the standpoint of your world-view is your biological feelings on the matter, the way your particular brain functions (and those similar) react to a given situation, not why the standard should be morally binding on all people throughout all time. And if not on all people of all time then why should I choose to follow your belief other than because I am forced to? In a situation where there is just the two of us and if I am the stronger I'm going to make my preference the dominating one as long as I know I can get away with my action, whether that be murder or a lesser crime. But because I am a Christian I live life to a different code of ethics other than dog eat dog and if you do too it is because you borrow from my standard of goodness in such matters. They can't be justified in a universe that sprang into being and is amoral, without mind, guidance, motive or purpose.

Back to you Viole.

Peter

PS. I owe you a response for your previous post that deals with our DNA/genetic make-up. I'll follow up on that when times becomes available.

Edited November 16, 2011 by PGA

[PGA]

Hi Viole,

Sorry to take so long in replying. It has been a busy week and I'm still thinking through a few of your comments.

I believe that God put His laws into effect for the very reason that sin entered the world through the one man, Adam, thus through Adam to all men, so certain deterrents need to be taken against evil/sin for any society to function morally and also for the protection and benefit of its people. No individual is to be justified for cold blooded murder. Even before God initiated the Mosaic laws for the nation of Israel He made it known that when one individual murders another individual the punishment needs to fit the crime, that is "And for each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.'" Genesis 9:5b-6 -Me

Well, the Bible contains several ways to deal with bad behavior. It also orders to stone adulterers and to let the rapists marry their victims. If we apply the reciprocity rule, then the poor raped girl should rape the guy instead of being forced to marry him (the Swedish movie "Män Som Hatar Kvinnor" shows how to do this, technically, and that would have been more effective to prevent further rapes, I tell ya). I am not sure how you can base a justice system on such teachings. I am also not sure whether these commands are still applicable today; and if not, why should then the command of taking a life for a life be still valid? Of course, that does not logically exclude that some commands of the Bible are not still applicable today, but their presence in the Bible is not a sufficient conditions for their applicability today, obviously. You say that these laws were necessary then, but, apart from the intrinsic moral relativism of this assertion, I would like to know what is the necessity and the moral goal of forcing a girl to marry her rapist. -Viole

Are we still discussing the death penalty? Please give me the biblical book and verse you are referring to concerning rape and marriage. What I am saying regarding the death penalty is that it was in effect before God made the covenant with Israel. God holds life as a precious gift, so precious that the only thing that can answer a person taking (murdering) a life is their own life, for we don't have the right to take something that God has given. Forgive me for getting personal but I am trying to emphasis the point about justice in life for life. If someone were to murder someone so very dear to you, do you feel that justice would be met with anything less than the life of the perpetrator? Do you not think that person deserves exactly the same fate that they ruthlessly and mercilessly gave another? Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve, but better than you deserve.

[ScottK]

Hello All:

Just wanted to see what everyone thinks of the moral argument...

Premise 1: Objective moral values and duties cannot exist without God

Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties exist

Logical Conclusion: God exists

Do any atheists out there disagree with the premises? On what grounds?

You are trying to use circular logic to try to prove a God exists

Premise 1: dinosaurs have teeth

Premise 2: I have teeth

Logical Conclusion: I am a dinosaur

Why is it you think atheists have no morals because they do not believe in a God? I know a lot of atheists that are just as moral if not more then the christians that I know

[~candice~]

Scott, are you a believer?

[PGA]

Hi Peter,

Please give me the biblical book and verse you are referring to concerning rape and marriage.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT:

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her

What I am saying regarding the death penalty is that it was in effect before God made the covenant with Israel. God holds life as a precious gift, so precious that the only thing that can answer a person taking (murdering) a life is their own life, for we don't have the right to take something that God has given. Forgive me for getting personal but I am trying to emphasis the point about justice in life for life. If someone were to murder someone so very dear to you, do you feel that justice would be met with anything less than the life of the perpetrator? Do you not think that person deserves exactly the same fate that they ruthlessly and mercilessly gave another? Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve, but better than you deserve.

I don't think that we will ever agree on this. But now I have a question which is more related to the OP.

We clearly disagree on a moral code. If moral codes are objective, at least one of us has a non-objective code.

What criteria would you use to decide who, between us, is following the non-objective code? If such critreria did not exist, then it would make no sense to speak of objectivity, right?

Ciao

- viole

Hi Viole,

Regarding Deuteronomy 22:28-29

http://www.mandm.org.nz/2009/07/sunday-study-does-the-bible-teach-that-a-rape-victim-has-to-marry-her-rapist.html

If no objective standard existed then it would make no sense to speak of right, let alone objectivity. You can’t tell the difference between a straight and a crooked line unless you know what a straight line is, neither what is evil unless you know what is good. The same is true of right. You can’t tell the difference between right and wrong unless your idea of right conforms to what is actually right. You can’t make it up as you go because your relative right is not the same as someone else’s relative right. All you have shown me, over and over again, is what you prefer. On that basis what grounds do you have to criticize Hitler’s Germany and the Holocaust? As Norman Geisler and Frank Turek pointed out in I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which I would recommend you read for the section on morals alone, “If the [objective] moral law doesn’t exist, then there is no moral difference between the behaviour of Mother Teresa and that of Hitler.” (p.178)

They also noted C.S. Lewis’ and the distinction he made the very minute you compare one set of moral ideas with another in that you are measuring them both by a standard. I asked you a loaded personal question concerning a hypothetical situation in which someone very close to you was murdered. Until it gets personal it is very easy to side with the opinions of others. But if someone cold bloodily took the life of someone you loved with all your heart, what kind of justice would correspond equally to the taking of your loved one? Only a life for a life. Anything else would be unequal justice, more like mercy. The perpetrator would be getting better than they deserved in that they could go on living. They would not be getting the same measure that they took.

Your theories don’t usually work in real life. You may believe that the little white lies others tell are OK until you find that they have been doing the same to you also. The minute injustice falls on us personally, in that someone lies to us and creates an uncomfortable situation instead of to someone that we do not know, is the minute that we realize that our pragmatism in turning a blind eye does not produce the desired results.

Some may feel that being a suicide bomber is right and justified when they hear about it on the news that some other people and property were destroyed, but if that act were done to them and to their people and property then they for some reason know the act was wrong. They can empathize with the suicide bomber and his cause all they like as long as he doesn’t blow up their own people. Once he does then it becomes a different matter and they find that they can’t live what they once believed.

We discussed the situation in Norway with the gunman. He is going to live a better lifestyle than many in third world countries. The lives he took and the grief and torment he caused are something that those who lost love ones will live with the rest of their lives. He did not get the same repercussions that he caused. He gets to live. Those he murdered do not have the same right/privilege/option/choice. Those people now have no rights on this earth, yet he is still granted some. What he is getting is not justice; that is mercy and we as Christian’s are also very familiar with it in that God has been merciful to us in sending His Son to live the life we could not live righteously before Him, die our death and pay our penalty. But God did this out of love whereas a murderer, such as the one in Norway, does it out of hate.

I was reading part of the blog that Candice set up called ‘Viole.’ What struck me about your theory is that you have no epistemic foundation to rest your speculations on. You have no idea of whether what you believe is actually what is, you just perceive it to be more reasonable to believe so than other explanations. A lot of these highly speculative theories such as the multiverse or string theories are not verifiable by science. You toss your coin and you take your chances.

I chose this segment because it is central to my argumentation. It is a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution to think that ourselves and our families are the main targets of our evolutionary driven behavior. Since our genes are spread in the whole population and we cannot survive without cooperation, it should not be surprising that altruistic behaviour got naturally selected.

Consider this. I have two choices

1) join a group of people and go hunting with them and share the food that any of the hunters finds with the help of the team

2) I defect and try to find food for myself and my family without needing to share but with a proportionally decreased chance of finding any food and without helping the others to find theirs.

What strategy provides the highest chances of survival of the group, including ourselves and the shared genes? Obviously the second, since the chances of finding a sufficient quantity of shareable food is greatly increased. Is it a surprise that contempt for defectors gets naturally selected and imprinted in our brains? Hardly. This feeling is the basis of morality: cooperation is good (e.g. Increases the chances of survival of the genes I and my buddies host), defection is bad (e.g. Decreases the survival of the genes I and the rest of the population host). –Viole

Again you are confusing description to prescription. You are describing two situations, two choices. Because people tend to band together to hunt and find food your conclusion it is more beneficial in everything we do and you try to relate ethics to cooperation of groups. Your example is fine for the type of culture you find yourself in but it is not always pragmatic when your country is without the means to provide for its peoples and rather than die they are prepared to take the very food that you and your country rely on to sustain them. Or your situation does not work when the majority of your countrymen will not provide for you and your family. Then it becomes necessary for you and your family to resort to option # 2. I can find all kinds of examples where your first choice breaks down. Sin is what we call it in the Bible and what you are suggesting in option # 1 is the spiritual law of doing unto your neighbor as you would have them do unto you, and even better than you would have them do unto you.

But the question of descriptive over prescriptive is meaningless without an objective morality because right or wrong just becomes a matter of opinion. “If I need money to feed my family then I’m going to take it from you, regardless of whether that causes your family hardship or starvation.”

It is the mentality of survival at any cost, dog eat dog, might makes right.

What is important in order to understand my position is that this concepts of good and evil are not recognized and controlled consciously by us but are part of the imprint of our brain and emotions and, as such, they have been naturally selected because of the advantage they provide, and they are uncontrollable, in the same way you find it uncontrollable to appreciate good food. –Viole

Again I would bring up the question of why what you believe is and should be the standard that I should live by. You keep borrowing from my standard as a Christian that says it really does matter how we treat others. If the imprint on my brain and emotions is wired differently than yours then why should what I do or what Hitler does be considered wrong just because your brain is wired differently, or the environmental and evolutionary factors in your part of the world causes you to view something differently from the way I view it? If I view homosexuality as a wrongful action and you view it as natural and right is the only way to resolve the situation an appeal to might or friendly persuasion with a stick or gun?

Therefore, if I find some egoistic and selfish behaviour repulsive and wrong, this very feeling is part of the wiring of my brain that cannot be controlled. I have no free will to change the wiring of my brain to appreciate thieves and killers; that would be absurd, since free will is also constrained by the wiring. And this wiring is the result of millions of years of evolution that iteratively molded our brain structure to lock into a winning survival strategy.

In this respect, if we were less weak and less in need of cooperation to survive, we would have probably developed other concepts of good and evil. An intelligent T-Rex that does not need help to find food, would probably have a different brain imprint than ours and, therefore, different ideas of good and wrong, even though I believe that intelligence is a by-product of beings needing cooperation and interaction. –Viole

There are numerous problems with your scenario in my mind. First of all who decides whether a brain that is imprinted in the ways of Hitler is good or better than a brain imprinted in the way that you and your society functions? Why is survival ‘good?’ According to evolutionary thinking it is not, it is just what happens. It is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes what is (at least in your eyes) but it does not prescribe what should be. To prescribe what ought be there would have to be an objective measure to say that something is better than something else. And only a Mind can grasp and prescribe ‘good.’ A rock has no concept of anything. I see you as denying the only Being that can make sense of goodness.

You are denying absolute moral values, but on what grounds? Why are you so absolutely sure that all values are subjective and thus relative? Why ‘should’ I value you as a person if the same values don’t apply to all people? Why should I go along with the herd when the herd is starving and my family and I can survive only if we do not feed the herd? I, as a Christian, see the moral obligation to put God first, others second and myself last, but why should that apply to a non-believer? Why not ditch the herd and make a run for it with all the meat and potatoes?

Everything reduces to game theory and finding winning strategies to survive as a whole, since, from a genetic and algorithmic point of view, winning in isolation means extinction: good for the individual, bad for the population but, as I said, evolutionary mechanisms work at population level. –Viole

Is it better for two to survive than for all to perish, so why not take what you and your mate need and let the rest fend for themselves? It is only a game anyway!

Back to you Viole!

[PGA]

Hello All:

Just wanted to see what everyone thinks of the moral argument...

Premise 1: Objective moral values and duties cannot exist without God

Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties exist

Logical Conclusion: God exists

Do any atheists out there disagree with the premises? On what grounds?

You are trying to use circular logic to try to prove a God exists

Premise 1: dinosaurs have teeth

Premise 2: I have teeth

Logical Conclusion: I am a dinosaur

Why is it you think atheists have no morals because they do not believe in a God? I know a lot of atheists that are just as moral if not more then the christians that I know

Hi Scott,

I don't think the argument is about whether or not atheist's have morals.

The question is where do the atheist's morality come from that they can justify it other than by force, or by the strength of their very world-view when it is stripped down to what it really is, as a suitable explanation for anything other than preference..

We are trying to fathom how a standard can be justified and made sense of apart from God - by definition an objective, absolute, omniscient, unchanging, eternal, wise, benevolent and necessary Being.

The premise concerning God is logical too, is it not? If A and B then the conclusion C. Whether or not it is a true conclusion is a different matter. We contend that it is true and that you are not a dinosaur.

Edited November 24, 2011 by PGA