The Moral Argument

[Exaeus]

Stargaze why don't you respond to this post

Interesting you keep making things about individual morals that you assume Christians have or morals that you disagree with. However you seem to ignore the fact that we are speaking of why as an individual that you are offended when someone does something that hurts you.

Sorry, I thought stargaze had said what Exaeus' said.

So Exaeus, can you read that post and reply, as well as let me know if your a believer or not. as from all appearances you are not.

I re-read your post, I saw how you stated "your god" so I figured that answered my question. I have therefore changed your status to that of "Nonbeliever" This restricts you to posting in the outer court, and does not allow you access to the board Private Messaging system.

Did I violate a forum rule? I apologize if that is the case.

As for your post, CS Lewis is right that there is an "objective" moral rule. It's the Golden Rule, and it arose from evolutionary biology due to our need to band together to form various tribes, societies and civilizations to increase our chances of survival.

[LuftWaffle]

The Golden Rule is grounded in neuroscience and evolutionary biology in order to reject destructive elements of a herd when species learned to band together in groups for increased survival chances, and food and mating opportunities. When combined with altruism under certain situations, it can potentially improve the fitness of the group or species as a whole at the expense of a few individuals. We follow the Golden Rule because it allows us to exist and function as a society. A number of other animal species do the same;

Okay so the statement "X is right" really means "X improves human flourishing"

The problem is that it's possible that the morally right thing to do may not necessarily improve human flourishing and vice versa. It may be argued that killing everybody over age 65 will promote human flourishing. Traffic will be reduced, healthcare will become cheaper, and since humans older than 65 is past breeding age, there's no survival benefit to keep them around. This, however wouldn't be morally right. Eugenics is another example.

Thus ethical naturalism seems to fail as a grounding for morality.

Another problem is the "IS" versus "OUGHT" distinction. Moral values and duties are non-natural prescriptive properties. How do you get to these properties from the brute facts of nature?

"morality" is hardly restricted to the human species.

This depends on how you define morality. You're attempting to define morality using survival as a basis, so what animals do to survive, must then be morality. I don't agree with this definition.

Actually, Adam would technically be a follower of Judaism. The first Christian is the one who first followed Jesus Christ.

Yet you require us to answer your objections to parts of the old testament? You cannot divorce Christianity from its roots and then combine them when it's convenient. Adam worshipped the same God that we do and Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

God's revelation to Moses on Mt Sinai is generally dated to around 1400-1450 BC. On the other hand, the Golden Rule can be found in the Code of Hammurabi dated to ~1780 BC, and presumably in practice quite a while before Hammurabi formalized and inscribed them on stone.

The Code of Hammurai stated "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". That is a far cry from the Golden rule, which is why wikipedia is never a good place to get your info from.

I beg to differ. Since an "objective" moral code had existed long before anyone heard from (or about) God or Jesus, I would propose that premise #1 is called into question.

I disagree with your assertion that objective moral codes existed long before anyone heard from God, but even more questionable is your logic:

You're saying that initial ignorance of God means that God is not necessary for the existence of morality? How does that follow? Are you assuming that causes must be known in order to be necessary?

[LuftWaffle]

LOL

No, I used metaphors because my English is useless and I have big problems to convey a message without resorting to simplified examples. I am aware of the risks of being misunderstood and that I require more work for my readers to fill the dotted lines.

hehe, hey no worries.

Maybe island was a bad metaphor. What I meant is a closed system. What I do not see is how beings living in a closed system can extend their interaction rules and codes to an external reality that they cannot possibly see or measure

I'm surprised you can't see this, being a mathematician. Have you ever seen the number seven? Note, I'm not saying have you seen a representation of the number seven, but the actual number? Mathematical entities are immaterial, just like logic and information, yet they're very much real. You earn a salary based on 'em don't you?

Is it rational to reject immaterial entities because they cannot be seen or measured?

All we have is set of rules which are imprinted in our brains or are the results of a learning process after millions of years of selected trial-and-error attempts to survive as a social species. The ones who have the non functional rules disappear, whereas the other ones prosper. We are the current result of this ever changing process.

This is pure speculation, Viole.

Defectors like Hitler who try to take advantage of the situation will always exist, but they will be, eventually selected away.

I thought prophesy was the domain of the faithful?

Personally, I find it more fascinating than the alternative of an external entity that wired our brains so that we have an intuition of certain values (remember my robot metaphor? ). But this fascination does not play a role in affecting my worldview... Probably.

Fascinating or not, your worldviews needs to explain reality and as I said many times, naturalism can't seem to reach beyond the most superficial.

Now, don't forget to answer questions

I'd like to know:

If genocide is evil and

If brainwashing is evil and

If killing opposition is evil

how come

genocide + brainwashing + killing opposition = good

[Isaiah 6:8]

Did I violate a forum rule? I apologize if that is the case.

Nope not at all. If you are an nonbeliever we just set your status as such. The reason is we have had to many nonbelievers who would interrupt other threads and hijack them to make there own points, and really causing trouble by this. We also have had many use the pm system to harass others in private. It is nothing personal, just protection.

As for your post, CS Lewis is right that there is an "objective" moral rule. It's the Golden Rule, and it arose from evolutionary biology due to our need to band together to form various tribes, societies and civilizations to increase our chances of survival.

You would be referring to what used to be called the heard instinct right? To protect the herd? Well also its not the Golden Rule, that states to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Yet that is not accounted for by a simple heard instinct.

[ncn]

Sorry I tried to use the quote feature but can’t get it to work.

So, Exaeus said, “I'm not sure if it's appropriate to derail the thread by discussing pornography instead.

The fact is that there is far more legitimate pornography companies and actors observed by strict government permits and regulations than there are unlawful ones, assuming we're talking about a democratic and civilized nation.

To provide you with an analogy, just because a rare few companies exploit child labor in Asian countries to produce their goods doesn't mean you give up wearing shoes and shirts entirely. That's just being silly.”.

That is just not true, and as most of the pornography is being made in Europe by Eastern European companies, (Mafia).

You simply do not know what you are talking about. I’m sorry, but since the wall went down many companies jumped on the band wagon and use and still do exploit poverty to use child pornography and adult pornography.

On the Internet there are no strict government restrictions as you presume nor are there legitimate pornographic film makers.

In fact the world is flooded by pornographic films made from these countries. Your statement of,” Legitimate “, is wrong and not true to facts.

I lived on the streets of Italy for many years and was there during the various periods of the past years when the poorer side of Europe broke free from it’s tyrants.

I can tell you that I have met many people, teenagers that have sold themselves for a few Euro in the belief that they would survive another day.

They are devastated by what they did, they have to live everyday with their consciences

You talk of child poverty and the rare companies that exploit them. I assume you refer not only to pornography but also, “Child slave labor”.

If a child is placed at a traffic light to beg is this not stealing their childhood?

Believe me it is not a rare case, nor is it rare to sell a child in Europe.

If an adult sells their body for food is that just a rare occasion? I tell you that it is not a rare occasion, not in Europe and also not in the USA, nor anywhere else in the world.

There is nothing silly as you suggest in your quote about exploiting neither children nor adults, it happens as I type all over the world and is not a small rare case.

There is only desperation for the adult or the child that it happens to.

Every night before I go to bed I pray that the Lord will be close to those that have and suffer from the hands of many.

Edited November 30, 2011 by ncn

[Exaeus]

First of all, thank you to the posters who tried to communicate with me via PM, but as been stated by a moderator I do not have sufficient privileges to use the PM system.

Okay so the statement "X is right" really means "X improves human flourishing"

Well, I can't say for sure if you're feigning ignorance here, but I believe it was quite clear that my original argument was that "we follow the Golden Rule because it allows us to exist and function as a society." There may plenty of actions suggested by the woefully near-sighted that may yield some benefits in the short term, but will ultimately cause the collapse of society.

The problem is that it's possible that the morally right thing to do may not necessarily improve human flourishing and vice versa. It may be argued that killing everybody over age 65 will promote human flourishing. Traffic will be reduced, healthcare will become cheaper, and since humans older than 65 is past breeding age, there's no survival benefit to keep them around. This, however wouldn't be morally right. Eugenics is another example.

Thus ethical naturalism seems to fail as a grounding for morality.

That proposal will also eliminate a considerable number of people who are still economically and socially productive. Politicians and the private sector come to mind. You also fail to take into account that individuals are also geared with survival instincts, and any deliberate attempt to terminate the survival of an individual will be met with resistance and repercussions. This is why we needed the Golden Rule in the first place - in order to prioritize long-term survival via mutual benefit and cooperation over short-term selfish behavior.

Another problem is the "IS" versus "OUGHT" distinction. Moral values and duties are non-natural prescriptive properties. How do you get to these properties from the brute facts of nature?

The distinction is mostly a man-made one. Humans are the only species who have evolved enough intellectual capacity and self-awareness to question and ponder what we do. In the early ages where science was lacking, the easy answer to that question was that we were created as an inherently superior species and endowed with morality by an omnipotent, omniscient being (who also happened to be the convenient explanation for everything else). With the progression of neurobiology, we can now trace morality back down its evolutionary roots and observe how other species exhibit "morality" as well, not just humans.

This depends on how you define morality. You're attempting to define morality using survival as a basis, so what animals do to survive, must then be morality. I don't agree with this definition.

Note that I encased morality in quotes. I was not attempting to provide a definition. I was merely pointing out that the a partial subset of behaviors typically known to humans as morality is hardly exclusive to humans, and has its roots in evolutionary biology. Animals are not moral in the strictest sense of the world because morality is a man-made concept that has evolved to include not only the foundation of the Golden Rule, but culture, higher emotions, and various other factors as well. But actions that would be considered "moral" if performed by humans are also performed by numerous other species as well, especially highly social ones.

Yet you require us to answer your objections to parts of the old testament? You cannot divorce Christianity from its roots and then combine them when it's convenient. Adam worshipped the same God that we do and Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

And the Jews would disagree with you on that. Having a root and being the root itself are two different things. For an analogy, birds evolved from dinosaurs, but birds are not dinosaurs. Christianity may have its roots in Judaism and advocate the Torah as part of its ideology, but that doesn't mean Adam was a Christian, just like it doesn't mean he was a Muslim either.

The Code of Hammurai stated "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". That is a far cry from the Golden rule, which is why wikipedia is never a good place to get your info from.

How far away is it? The negative expression of the Golden Rule is arguably its earliest form, as the Golden Rule was originally meant to restrain selfish and destructive behavior to a degree so that social living became possible and beneficial.

I disagree with your assertion that objective moral codes existed long before anyone heard from God, but even more questionable is your logic:

Given that God is a relatively new fad in the long timeline of evolotionary biology, while the Golden Rule has existed for extensive periods of time in pre-sapiens species and in regions of the world unknown to Judaism and Christianity, I would like to ask what forms the basis of your disagreement.

You're saying that initial ignorance of God means that God is not necessary for the existence of morality? How does that follow? Are you assuming that causes must be known in order to be necessary?

I proposed the possibility, not stated it as a fact. The thing is, the vast majority of theological arguments are based on premises founded on arguments from ignorance, and the premises for this moral argument are no different; by pleading that there is no other possible source of objective morality other than from God, it establishes the conclusion that God must exist. Now, this premise cannot be falsified because it isn't based on evidence in the first place, but it can be called into question by showing that there is, in fact, another possible source of objective morals, and this source does not require a supernatural explanation. Naturally, theists are next going to try to take the credit for the Golden Rule and attribute it to God, but I hope that this might force theists to come up with new premises that actually have some sort of logic or evidence backing them up this time.

[Guest]

.... The thing is, the vast majority of theological arguments are based on premises founded on arguments from ignorance, and the premises for this moral argument are no different; by pleading that there is no other possible source of objective morality other than from God, it establishes the conclusion that God must exist. Now, this premise cannot be falsified because it isn't based on evidence in the first place, but it can be called into question by showing that there is, in fact, another possible source of objective morals, and this source does not require a supernatural explanation. Naturally, theists are next going to try to take the credit for the Golden Rule and attribute it to God, but I hope that this might force theists to come up with new premises that actually have some sort of logic or evidence backing them up this time.

I Agree

Except For One Thing

Beloved, You Have Gone And Got Your Signs Mixed Up

Your Minus Sign Is In Realty A Plus Sign And Your Plus Sign Is In Realty A Minus Sign

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Isaiah 45:9

And Eternal Knowledge Is The Knowledge Of God

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6

And Serious Arguments From Ignorance

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians 12:3

Start From Refusing To Know God

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20

Seriously

[Guest]

Hell is not a stipulation. It is a consequence. God gave everything He could give so that you could be together with Him. He died so that you would not have to be tortured for all eternity. It is not what He wants for you at all. But if you reject Him, YOU have made the choice for yourself. He is not responsible or immoral because you chose to reject Him, particularly when you rejected Him in full knowledge of what the consequences would be. That is on your head. Your decision to reject God and to suffer the consequences of that does not in any way reflect on His morality. Rather, it reflects your own foolish pride.

So if a man finds a woman by herself and asks her if she'd like to have a relationship with him and she says "no", he can tell her that the consequence of her decision is torture? If she still says "no" he's off the hook because after all he did give her a way out!! It's on her head, she should have done what he said but she didn't.

Wonderful moral standard you have.

What

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23

Kind Of Gratitude Is This?

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Beloved, Accusing God (And His Kids)

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Does Not Excuse One Of His Total Disdain

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20

And Contempt For The Love

And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him.

And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. Mark 15:18-20

Of His Creator

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, ) full of grace and truth. John 1:10-14

You Think

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18

[PGA]

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.

Hi Exaeus,

We are standard bearers of the light of God in the face of Christ. We are human just like you, but our guidance comes from outside ourselves. The Bible claims to be a revelation of/from God. You either take God at His word, acknowledge Him as' such and our highest authority, or you displace that authority with the likes of relative human minds. Even though 2 Timothy 2:15 was written to a specific person, it also applies to all Christians in as much as "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16)

The point is that there is a correct way of handling the word of truth.

I'm hoping you will stick around for a while so that we can get to the bottom of this, however now is not a good time for me since it is an extremely busy week. I laid down some criteria for objectivity when I replied to I can't. I discussed the problem of coming up with an objective morality when all we have is our little old subjective selves. Who decides? Now you have come along with the wisdom that we are all missing and are claiming that The Golden Rule predates the Christian God of whom you class as hypothetical.

Now I would claim that man is inherently religious because since the Fall he has lost his way and is trying to reconstruct the true image of God he has lost to conform to his own likeness. If you will notice in the book of Genesis the phrase "This is the account..." (Genesis 2:4; 6:9;10:1;11:10, 27) or "This is the written account..." (Genesis 5:1) and so on, so God's dealing with man was written down and spread both by writings and verbal accounts. As man drifted further and further apart from God it is not hard to reason how these accounts would become more and more fictional, but the funny thing is that so many ancient writings carry with them not only the teachings of the Golden Rule, but also the Flood accounts. The counterfeits come after the McCoy. God appointed Moses to compile and gather these true account once again.

And along the lines of religiosity, even if you are an atheist you are religious. The only difference is an atheist worships the god of self. Man is the measure of all things from the atheist world-view structure. He is his own greatest self authority and authority of everything else. But how does he know? He only presumes to know. He is gambling that his own mind is sufficiently rational and sufficiently wise to be able to discern the real McCoy - the truth.

We as Christians do not point to ourselves as the measure of all things, but to One infinitely greater than ourselves in which we come to know truth by. You may mock and call our God hypothetical, but the point is you do not know Him in a relational way. It is the difference between me knowing about President Obama and you actually relating with him on a daily and personal level. The one has a head knowledge, and not a very good one at that, and the other gets to know him on a personal and deeper level, not just things about him, but who he is as a person.

"Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." John 17:3

It means very little to you because you do not know Him.

I proposed the possibility, not stated it as a fact. The thing is, the vast majority of theological arguments are based on premises founded on arguments from ignorance, and the premises for this moral argument are no different; by pleading that there is no other possible source of objective morality other than from God, it establishes the conclusion that God must exist. -Exaeus

On the contrary, I would contend that you are the one who is arguing from ignorance if you don't know Jesus Christ. My argument was based on one of necessity.

Now, this premise cannot be falsified because it isn't based on evidence in the first place, but it can be called into question by showing that there is, in fact, another possible source of objective morals, and this source does not require a supernatural explanation. Naturally, theists are next going to try to take the credit for the Golden Rule and attribute it to God, but I hope that this might force theists to come up with new premises that actually have some sort of logic or evidence backing them up this time. -Exaeus

Again you are speaking from somewhere that you know very little or nothing of so I contend that it is you, not the Christian, who is arguing from ignorance concerning the existence of God. The evidence for God is cumulative. There are so many different avenues to explore that we could get lost in the grid. What I would suggest you do is start from the basic core beliefs of your world-view and see how you can justify anything. Are you an atheist? If so then lets see just how much you can actually know before you start borrowing from the Christian's core beliefs. Have you tried answering those ultimate philosophical questions?

If all we are determined to be are physical bags of atoms banging and reacting to forces (laws) that we don't even know how they got here how did we jump from inorganic, non-living matter to rational logical creatures? In the atheist world-view you start out with unguided, random, chaotic, unintentional happenstance and arrive at moral minds. The thing is that you can't have morality without MIND.You have a huge gap of information to fill in before your world-view can make any sense of itself or anything else.

I was interested to see how you developed your criticism as the posts continued. One thing that struck me was that you asked for proof against you view on the pornography battleground. I was thinking the same thing about your point of view, for it is a two-way street, but then statistics can be used in many different ways. I have more to comment on when time permits.

Thanks for engaging in the debate!

Peter

Why is there something rather than nothing?

[PGA]

Exaeus,

Well, I can't say for sure if you're feigning ignorance here, but I believe it was quite clear that my original argument was that "we follow the Golden Rule because it allows us to exist and function as a society." There may plenty of actions suggested by the woefully near-sighted that may yield some benefits in the short term, but will ultimately cause the collapse of society. -Exaeus

PS. This is a weak statement in my opinion. More later.