The Moral Argument

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

That includes the right to tell us how we should live and how we should not live. Creation was designed to operate in harmony with Him. Good and evil are not arbitrary, subjective concepts.

Then good and evil are inherit, God is merely a middle man.

Nope. Good is not inherent. "Good" has to be taught. You don't naturally do what is good. Children have to be taught not life, cheat, steal, be violent, and so forth. Children have to be taught that there is an objective moral standard.

Anyone who has kids knows this is true.

What stargazer is trying to do here is introduce Euthyphro's dilemma, which asks "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?"

Essentially the problem becomes that in either case it puts goodness outside of God's nature, and therefore God is subject to the goodness just as much as we are.

The thing is that it's a false dilemma. God is the optimal standard of objective good. Goodness is therefore an inseparable aspect of His nature, and as a result of that, His commandments are inherently good.

[Guest shiloh357]

If the SS managed to rewire the brains and guarantee that all future generation have the re-wiring active (canceling thereby millions of years of social evolution), then we are talking of another island. Within this island, killing Jews is not wrong. I am aware that this will create some emotional reaction from the readers and I also have problem to admit this (being on a different island of values), but this is the only logic conclusion I can reach.

Caveat emptor: read carefully the posts between me and Luft before accusing the naturalists to lead us toward nazism. This is not what I say.

You may not like it but that is ultimately where naturalism leads. It may not lalways ead to nazism per se, but look at governments and ideologies that take a naturalistic approach to life. China, N. Korea, Communism, Fascisim, just to name a few. They all share a devaluing of human life. Countries ruled by atheists have some of the worst human rights records on the planet. Atheistic governments are brutal and intolerant. Nazism was a direct product of a naturalistic worldview.

The entire premise behind nazism is the superiority, the advanced fruit of evolution: The German race. It was the duty of the superior, evolutoinary race to weed out the weaker inferior races and inferior members of the human race. It meant that in keeping with natural selection, the stronger must survive and the weaker must die out to make room for the stronger. The nazi propaganda pumped the German people full of pride that they were the pinnacle of evolution. They were more intelligent, stronger, fitter and more deserving of life than other inferior races and qualities of people. In fact, Hitler tried to use the Olympics in Germany to prove that the German people were more evolved than any other people on the planet.

That naturalistic worldview was the backbone of the holocaust and the final solution. Naturalism/Atheism has never been good for the world in general. It has only hampered freedom, threatened human rights and its fruit throughout history has been hatrd, bigotry, intolerance, poverty, persecution and oppression. Is it any wonder that people all over the world hate living under atheistic regimes and prefer good old "Christian" America to living under the rule of atheists. And yet, what do atheists in America want to do??? They want to strip God from the public square. They cannot tolerate God being mentioned in public, in schools or even on government property. They still actively seek to limit freedom and liberty.

[PGA]

Hi (Hej) Viole,

I'll have a reply for you hopeful by Sunday night, Monday morning, since this is a busy week and weekend. I think that LuftWaffle, Shiloh and Old English Sheep Dog are keeping you well engaged in thought and examining your world-view and testing its consistency, reason and truthfulness as you examine ours on the same merits.

Peter

PS. A quote from Ed Miller from Life's Ultimate Questions by Ronald Nash, p. 363

"What can be more comical than someone who spends the day fanatically and passionately crusading for the eradication of certain evils, while in the evening he delivers cool lectures on the relativity of all ideals."

[LuftWaffle]

Take a very advanced robot with a camera. It can analyze images and spit a bit: 0 = wrong, 1 = right. It is programmed in a certain way that whenever it analyzes brutal images, it spits 0 and whenever it analyzes loving images it spits 1. And this consistently and deterministicly, since it has been programmed according to our intuitions. Would you say that his perception of good and evil is subjective or objective? Consider please that it is itself an object wired in a certain way and it's processing can also be considered a fact.

This robot would reflect the intuitions of the programmer. In this instance "right" would mean, approved by the programmer and "wrong" would mean, not approved by the programmer.

What you've tried to do is reduce a moral "ought" to a naturalistic "is", but the example fails, sometimes the right thing to do is not to be loving and vice versa. If you were raped you wouldn't want the judge to be "loving" toward your assailant. Neither would you want police officers to be loving toward violent criminals. Surgeons can't be loving either, they need to slice a person open and do what needs to be done. An evil and manipulative cult leader may orchestrate a mass suicide in the name of love.

And this is with, as you admitted, an oversimplified example. Morality gets a great deal more complex when you try to reduce other moral oughts.

Ok, but first we have to be sure that the dichotomy fact/imperative has not been set arbitrarily. Moral intuition is exactly what it is, intuitive. I fail to see the necessity of decoupling our intuitions from our forma mentis. We all have this intuition, more or less, but I always need to use the word "we" which implies that al these things cannot be extended metaphysically since we have no evidence of a metaphysical reality. We have evidence of an amoral nature that does not care at all about anything; we are an island of meaning but that is all we can say and feel; these values are extremely important within the island but I do not have any intellectual reason to exten these values outside the island; my emotions maybe want to extend these values or promote them to metaphysics, or my desires maybe, but that is all..

To say we have no evidence of a metaphysical/non-natural reality is simply false. Think about the riles of logic. Think about information. Mathematics etc.

You might say that we don't have empirical evidence, but that would begging the question since metaphysical reality by definition isn't physical. Physicalism as a philosophical position cannot pass its own test, since you can't prove it physically.

If the SS managed to rewire the brains and guarantee that all future generation have the re-wiring active (canceling thereby millions of years of social evolution), then we are talking of another island. Within this island, killing Jews is not wrong. I am aware that this will create some emotional reaction from the readers and I also have problem to admit this (being on a different island of values), but this is the only logic conclusion I can reach.

Caveat emptor: read carefully the posts between me and Luft before accusing the naturalists to lead us toward nazism. This is not what I say.

Have you still got your naturalist hat on Viole? Take it off for a second and think honestly whether what you're saying is true. If Hitler brainwashed and or killed off any opposition, then what he did would not be wrong? Surely genocide is a great evil, but then you add to that killing opposition and brainwashing and suddenly compounded evils become morally neutral, or even good?

The "ought" exists but is not transcendent. It is local to our set of values, but it is very important nevertheless on this planet and for these beings. Does a "ought" really need to be transcendent or universal to acquire some importance? The answer comes from another question: important for whom?

If there is no objective grounding for morality then it loses it's imperative. Remeber the scrabble example in my earlier post?

[PGA]

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

This is the problem--this is the statement that cannot be qualified. There are peoples all over the world who have never heard of God and yet they establish and abide a moral code within their societies. Those codes may differ from our own, but they have them, and every society has standards of decency which dictate murder, lying, cheating, stealing, and rape are wrong. Conversely, there are a lot of professed Christians who do things that are considered immoral even by the tenets of their own faith. There are atheists who know about all the religions and Christian denominations, have chosen to not believe, and who still abide a moral code--they're not running around killing people and eating babies.

Statement one, above, cannot be established as fact. -I can't cope

Not by the relativist, but he can't make sense of morals - period. God is all knowing, understands all things, created the universe and all that is in it. His very nature is good. He always does what is right and just. That qualifies as the the necessary means of establishing what is objective. Just because you are repressing and suppressing the knowledge of His revelation does not change the reality that is God and the Reality that is necessary for truth.

It's been my experience that when a person truly wants to feel good about themselves, they do right. - I can't cope

You throw around qualitative terms that really don't exist if there is no God. The problem with subjectivity is that goodness cannot be agreed upon. Even in your own society, your group, your family it is relative outside of God and there are differences of opinion on what good is. The question for you is whose moral claim of good is true? Surely they all can't be. If so then where is my local guns and sandwich shop? I'm going to need one - sandwich that is! If relativism is true then your choice is equally as good as mine. One moral code is as good as any other moral code. Do you see the problem? The very fact that we disagree over what is good is a sure sign that not everything is good. But how do you define it without an objective best? Who gets to decide? Who is wise enough? Look around the world.

When a person wants to do wrong, regardless of their beliefs, they'll fight tooth and nail to justify what they want to do and then they keep doing it. I've never met an immoral person who couldn't justify what they were doing or speaking, backing every bit of it up by yet another interpretation of the Bible. They don't respond to their conscience. If you're running looking things up, that's clue number one you're thinking about doing wrong. When you're doing something you know is right, you don't go looking up laws and Bible verses to see if it's okay. -

How do you know what is wrong in a relative, subjective world? Why 'should' I accept your opinion, because if you cannot produce an objective standard/ideal/best then why do you get to determine what is wrong. How can two competing beliefs both be true, if either is? "I want to determine what wrong is and I'm going to, as long as I'm stronger and smarter and faster than you." That is all you have in a world-view that disclaims God to work with.

Do you see the problem yet?

Your right boils down to "I'll do what I like to do."

The problem of man is that he rebels against God.

Peter

[PGA]

Hi Viole,

Sorry for butting into your conversation with LuftWaffle but I had to comment.

If the SS managed to rewire the brains and guarantee that all future generation have the re-wiring active (canceling thereby millions of years of social evolution), then we are talking of another island. Within this island, killing Jews is not wrong. I am aware that this will create some emotional reaction from the readers and I also have problem to admit this (being on a different island of values), but this is the only logic conclusion I can reach.

Caveat emptor: read carefully the posts between me and Luft before accusing the naturalists to lead us toward nazism. This is not what I say.

Which post am I looking for? Is it way back or something recent, like in the twenties?

Easy enough to say until you are the next victim, regardless of what value island, the next killing group in his killing spree (unless you are blond haired and blue eyed, then you are exempt!), then it is pretty hard to live by the convictions stated above, especially if you are cruelly treated and tortured like some of these Jews were, just for being Jewish. If you are about to be the next victim then is it now wrong?

Ciao, ciao,

Peter

Edited November 30, 2011 by PGA

[LuftWaffle]

Hi Viole,

Sorry for butting into your conversation with LuftWaffle but I had to comment.

If the SS managed to rewire the brains and guarantee that all future generation have the re-wiring active (canceling thereby millions of years of social evolution), then we are talking of another island. Within this island, killing Jews is not wrong. I am aware that this will create some emotional reaction from the readers and I also have problem to admit this (being on a different island of values), but this is the only logic conclusion I can reach.

Caveat emptor: read carefully the posts between me and Luft before accusing the naturalists to lead us toward nazism. This is not what I say.

Which post am I looking for? Is it way back or something recent, like in the twenties?

Easy enough to say until you are the next victim, regardless of what value island, the next killing group in his killing spree (unless you are blond haired and blue eyed, then you are exempt!), then it is pretty hard to live by the convictions stated above, especially if you are cruelly treated and tortured like some of these Jews were, just for being Jewish. If you are about to be the next victim then is it now wrong?

Ciao, ciao,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I posed the question in post #228

Cheers

[LuftWaffle]

Viole,

There's something else I want to mention. It's not an argument, but just an interesting observation: Your choice of metaphor when you answered the Hitler-brainwashing question? You sketched it by using the symbology of islands. Isolated land masses seperated by ocean. I'm no psychologist, but I do sense that perhaps by chosing that analogy you're subconsciously trying to isolate yourself from where your worldview leads. The fact is that these aren't different islands at all, are they? If another Hitler were to rise up and do exactly what we sketched, then you would be standing on that very island that you wish to distance yourself from.

I certainly can't prove what goes on in your heart or your psyche, so you can brush this off as an ad hominem if you like, but I thought I'd share what I see with you, because it is interesting to me. And if this is true, then there's no cause for you to be embarrased, it only shows that you have a heart....and that is good. If I'm wrong, then that's also fine

[Exaeus]

How do you know what is wrong in a relative, subjective world? Why 'should' I accept your opinion, because if you cannot produce an objective standard/ideal/best then why do you get to determine what is wrong. How can two competing beliefs both be true, if either is? "I want to determine what wrong is and I'm going to, as long as I'm stronger and smarter and faster than you." That is all you have in a world-view that disclaims God to work with.

Do you see the problem yet?

Your right boils down to "I'll do what I like to do."

The problem of man is that he rebels against God.

First of all, you've not quite addressed i can's argument. The fallacy of an entirely objective moral standard is destroyed by the fact that Christians, who claim to be the standard bearers of this objective set of morals, cannot even get together and agree on what that set actually is.

Second, you're oversimplifying the problem into the classical logical fallacy of a false dilemma. Just because our morals do not come from a hypothetical supreme being doesn't mean that every aspect of it is relative and subjective. A large subset of morals that are generally agreed upon across the world can be termed as "objective" because they stem from a single source: the Golden Rule. It is the minor aspects of morality that are not covered by the Golden Rule which are subjective and relative. The law of the jungle, as you try to attribute as a result of relative morals, do not apply in the vast majority of cases due to the simple reason that it contradicts the Golden Rule.

Morality has been known and practiced by non-primitive cultures centuries before Christianity even existed. It's not a problem of man rebelling against God when morals were not introduced by God. It's a problem of the church seeking to control man by trying to set itself up as THE authority of morals and castigating people into obeying them.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Exaeus

[Guest shiloh357]

First of all, you've not quite addressed i can's argument. The fallacy of an entirely objective moral standard is destroyed by the fact that Christians, who claim to be the standard bearers of this objective set of morals, cannot even get together and agree on what that set actually is.

What aspect of morality do Christians disagree about?

Second, you're oversimplifying the problem into the classical logical fallacy of a false dilemma. Just because our morals do not come from a hypothetical supreme being doesn't mean that every aspect of it is relative and subjective. A large subset of morals that are generally agreed upon across the world can be termed as "objective" because they stem from a single source: the Golden Rule.

Which is attributed to Jesus. Admittedly, if that is the case, Jesus, who was God in the flesh, authored the rule from from which stems the morality the world generally agrees to.

It is the minor aspects of morality that are not covered by the Golden Rule which are subjective and relative.

Like what?

The law of the jungle, as you try to attribute as a result of relative morals, do not apply in the vast majority of cases due to the simple reason that it contradicts the Golden Rule.

Morality has been known and practiced by non-primitive cultures centuries before Christianity even existed.

The argument is not that morality comes from Christianity. The argument is that God created us, designed us to be moral beings. That cultures that have never heard of God or the Bible or Christianity have an innate knowledge of objective morality only shows demonstrates the fact that man is made in God's image and even those who have not heard of Him still reflect that image in some ways.