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Objective morality


Seanc

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3 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Yes, that question has been answered. The biblical worldview enshrined in the 10 commandments is what all objective morality is based on.

How does the 10 commandments tell us that child abuse is wrong?  Or what classify's as child abuse?

 

3 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

The problem is that morality has nothing to do with maximizing human flourishing.

I know, in the theistic view morality is all about what a "God" wants.  That's why it can be ok to throw stones at someone's skull because they worked on the wrong day.

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15 minutes ago, Bonky said:

How does the 10 commandments tell us that child abuse is wrong?  Or what classify's as child abuse?

That's the thing.  The Bible doesn't address every sin that a person could possibly commit.  So what it does is provide us with a behavioral paradigm and through that, we can ascertain right from wrong based on those things that the Bible condemns as sin. 

Quote

I know, in the theistic view morality is all about what a "God" wants.  That's why it can be ok to throw stones at someone's skull because they worked on the wrong day.

I assume you are referring to the man in Numb. 15 that was stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath.  He was not stoned for doing work like picking up sticks on the Sabbath.   He was stoned for putting faith in his own self and self-sufficiency and rejecting God's command.  He knew the penalty for working on the Sabbath and he did it anyway.  It was his purposeful indifference to the command of God that warranted that punishment.

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Just now, shiloh357 said:

That's the thing.  The Bible doesn't address every sin that a person could possibly commit.  So what it does is provide us with a behavioral paradigm and through that, we can ascertain right from wrong based on those things that the Bible condemns as sin. 

That's an awful slippery slope.  I mean what you just said here could essentially be "We figure it out as we go" masked through "we follow a behavioral paradigm".  You also state on one hand the Bible doesn't address every sin yet you're supposed to define morality based on sins.    Again I'm face with how ultimately useful this "standard" is.  What if two christians disagree over whether a parent is being too harsh and possibly abusing their kid?  The Bible isn't going to sort  that out for you so at some point human judgment comes into play. 

4 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

I assume you are referring to the man in Numb. 15 that was stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath.  He was not stoned for doing work like picking up sticks on the Sabbath.   He was stoned for putting faith in his own self and self-sufficiency and rejecting God's command.  He knew the penalty for working on the Sabbath and he did it anyway.  It was his purposeful indifference to the command of God that warranted that punishment.

That's fine, but this doesn't change my point.  If this is ok then it can also be ok to behead someone at the behest of a God.  You are providing justification for why something that might normally be viewed as "barbaric" today, was totally acceptable in the past.  I hear Christians routinely criticizing Islamists and their violent deeds but they're only getting their orders from the source of their "objective standard".

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On 8/21/2017 at 0:51 PM, Bonky said:

Sounds like a good phrase to give someone when they're asking questions that make you nervous ;)

The rest of the story

When I first encountered the quote, it struck home. I had been guilty in the past  of having given too much weight to the person and preconceived possible/probable slant attributed with the information given in the argument, and not the facts. And not only in theological discussions.  I believe most people do this, to some degree. I have had occasion to regret not listening and learning, sometimes a hard lesson. It was not meant derogatorily, and if you took it that way, I apologize.

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43 minutes ago, Gary Lee said:

The rest of the story

When I first encountered the quote, it struck home. I had been guilty in the past  of having given too much weight to the person and preconceived possible/probable slant attributed with the information given in the argument, and not the facts. And not only in theological discussions.  I believe most people do this, to some degree. I have had occasion to regret not listening and learning, sometimes a hard lesson. It was not meant derogatorily, and if you took it that way, I apologize.

I appreciate where you are coming from.  I don't view things the same way I did just a couple/few years ago.  I feel that I'm pretty good about changing my view or mind on something if I evaluate something else and discover that it's superior.  I have no unmovable bent against theistic claims.  My mind gets blown every time I consider a Universe with a God and a Universe w/o one.   I didn't take offense to your comment it was more the idea that I got the feeling that you were accusing me of not seriously considering another viewpoint.  I've changed my views politically and philosophically over the years.  I'm not trying to waste anyone's time by asking questions I have already set my mind on, I'm really asking honest questions to try to understand better.

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2 hours ago, Bonky said:

I appreciate where you are coming from.  I don't view things the same way I did just a couple/few years ago.  I feel that I'm pretty good about changing my view or mind on something if I evaluate something else and discover that it's superior.  I have no unmovable bent against theistic claims.  My mind gets blown every time I consider a Universe with a God and a Universe w/o one.   I didn't take offense to your comment it was more the idea that I got the feeling that you were accusing me of not seriously considering another viewpoint.  I've changed my views politically and philosophically over the years.  I'm not trying to waste anyone's time by asking questions I have already set my mind on, I'm really asking honest questions to try to understand better.

Thank You for your gracious reply. Should you discover that golden nugget (seed)  of truth, and decide to become a Christian, you will have a head start on most.  The problem/benefit  of the gospel, is it is difficult  for the  highly educated to discern, as it is simple for a child (like faith).  I wish you well.

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12 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

If the universe did not have a creator, then were do  you view it coming from? Because if you say "from the Big Bang", then where did that come from? And where did that event come from? And so on and so forth, until you have an infinite regression,  which cannot exist. The Big Bang was a finite event and therefore cannot be eternal; it happened in time. So something would have had to have caused it, and ultimately, it would have to be uncaused or you suffer infinite regression. And at some point, the universe didn't exist, so there cannot be an infinite universe or infinite causes.

So you're talking about what ultimately we can credit for our existence.   Either way, we're here....we came from something.  It's not like our human behaviors and instincts came from a vacuum.  

12 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

The God of the Bible, however, is infinite and not bound by time; because He is infinite, time simply has no bearing on Him.

That's a convenient quality to have I guess.  Not sure how a spaceless/timeless entity exists, sounds like special pleading almost.

12 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

Then where do you get your feelings of right and wrong from? How would you know they were right and not wrong? And please: do feel free to throw the question back.

As for "what does it matter?": it matters to God, who created humans. True morality is not based upon an arbitrary set of standards He pulled out of thin air, nor is it based upon a "higher moral standard" that the Lord adheres to, since nothing is greater than God. The source is that morality is based upon God's own character: whatever He is not is evil, and what he is is good.

The morality I'm advocating doesn't deal with arbitrary values either.  If we have no hope of knowing "good" or "bad" then how did you come to realize that God's nature is "good"?  I mean outside of just saying "ok" and agreeing with the claim.   The principle you're selling here also would mean you can't criticize Islamists who blow people up and cut off their heads.  Until there's a way to determine who's God concept is accurate, you kind of have to accept them all as being potentially valid.   I've raised this point a few times and nobody seems to take this issue on. 

13 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

That is exactly my point: humans are not  the focus, nor can they be. Without a creator, morality simply becomes a set of preferential choices, and there can be no baseline because everyone's "preference" becomes true. The problem with that though is that innately, we sense right and wrong and declare things to be "wrong" whether we think they should be universal or not. The question is: where did this idea come from?  We certainly didn't decide it for ourselves, as morality  did not originate from human beings, and certainly did not "evolve".

Perhaps the way that you view or define morality this might make sense or be the case for you but I don't follow.   By your own principle "humans aren't the focus" you have essentially completely validated the actions of violent Muslim extremists.  If  humans ARE the focus, we can make judgments on the actions of violent Muslims and condemn them.   You say morality hasn't evolved, would you be ok with your Country going to war and the soldiers killing civilians on purpose?

13 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

As for your examples of golf and mother's day: those are not appropriate examples, since they do not require a code of morality to perform. However: murder, rape, theft, lying and the like do have eternal consequences, and those consequences are answerable to God, whose character is the standard by which those choices are measured.

I was responding to  your idea that if we don't have some eternal source for X then X is useless.   What else do we need divine guidance on?  What about how we manage our roadways using traffic lights?  How do we know traffic lights are the right approach?  How are we to manage our large corporations w/o divine insight, who do we tell if a company is doing good or not?  If you throw out any kind of metric, sure you can look at the different scenarios and say "There's no way to tell which one is good or bad".   We have metrics though.  We can see the consequence of our actions and we have control over our actions [generalizing].  

What I'd like to see from your standpoint is to advocate your system of morality w/o also, in principle, supporting violent terrorists.

 

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On 8/23/2017 at 10:04 AM, Bonky said:

That's an awful slippery slope.  I mean what you just said here could essentially be "We figure it out as we go" masked through "we follow a behavioral paradigm".  

No, it's not like that all.   When God said not to make any graven images to worship, does that mean making the image out paper is okay?  Does that mean that shaping the image from clay as opposed to carving it from stone is permissible?   Or put in a modern context, if someone started worshiping their car or their computer as a god, would that be okay, biblically?    No, the point is not to worship anyone or anything other than God.   The medium of creating the image isn't finally the point.  The point is that we should not have anything in our lives that we worship or place ahead of God.

The Bible condemns adultery, homosexuality, rape, incest and bestiality.  But the Bible never mentions child molestation. Does that mean that child molestation gets a pass, or is there enough light given already about the Bible's view of sexual morality  that we can surely assess the evil of child molestation given what we already know about the Bible's condemnation of sexual immorality?

Quote

You also state on one hand the Bible doesn't address every sin yet you're supposed to define morality based on sins.    Again I'm face with how ultimately useful this "standard" is.  What if two christians disagree over whether a parent is being too harsh and possibly abusing their kid?  The Bible isn't going to sort  that out for you so at some point human judgment comes into play. 

  The Bible teaches against child abuse and is quite clear that anyone who harms a child invokes the judgment of God.   The Bible provides us with a behavioral paradigm in how we deal with excessive anger.  The Bible teaches against losing our temper because we tend to abuse others when we do so, both adults and children can be the victims of someone's out of control, violent temper.  The Bible provides a rationale for not punishing children in anger.   So most Christians parents, from a biblical perspective, know the difference between discipline and abuse. They may disagree on methods of discipline, but that's often because children are different and some methods work better on one child than the do on another child.   And they may disagree over how age-appropriate some methods are.  But none of that has anything to do with abuse.

 

Quote

That's fine, but this doesn't change my point.  If this is ok then it can also be ok to behead someone at the behest of a God. You are providing justification for why something that might normally be viewed as "barbaric" today, was totally acceptable in the past.  I hear Christians routinely criticizing Islamists and their violent deeds but they're only getting their orders from the source of their "objective standard".

No, because there is no objective standard of morality in Islam.   Allah is very capricious. Morality in Islam is very arbitrary and fickle.  You really don't understand the difference between Islam and Christianity.  Atheists tend to lump all religions together as if they all say and teach the same things, and they don't. 

The punishment of stoning was not arbitrary and needs to be understood in the context of the time period instead of trying to compare it to Islam, ISIS and other terrorist cults.

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Quote

Until there's a way to determine who's God concept is accurate, you kind of have to accept them all as being potentially valid.   I've raised this point a few times and nobody seems to take this issue on.

I'll take a stab at it.  As I understand the issue, the single "God concept" that fits the bill as the potentially valid path to a unified, objective morality is truth.  Jesus seems to have dropped a hint (He was good at dropping hints) for us to look there when He claimed to be the way, life and truth (Jn 14:6).

If this doesn't fit the bill please tell me why. Bonk-man.

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On 8/25/2017 at 5:15 PM, Sojourner414 said:

I've learned in my time that the claim of "special pleading" comes about when a point comes that someone feels they cannot adequately refute. As for being a "convenient quality", that would by necessity also have to apply to the universe and everything in it if there is no creator. "What caused it?" ultimately is going to have infinite regression issues unless there is a cause that itself is eternal and timeless. In other words:" the buck has to stop somewhere", as the universe has a finite date on it.

I haven't had a lot of time the past couple of weeks as I've been on call for my work and my hours have been a bit crazy.  I don't have a lot of time for a lengthy response but I wanted to respond nonetheless.     If your position is that there can be other things that are timeless and spaceless that aren't God then you wouldn't be guilty of special pleading.   

On 8/25/2017 at 5:15 PM, Sojourner414 said:

Sorry, but that doesn't wash: when we are speaking about beings who deal with subjective points of view (such as ourselves), our basis becomes by default arbitrary.  And especially so when in light of the fact that morality has already been defined by the Lord, humans choose to select a morality that does not line up with His. I think it's more than a bit nonsensical when a baseline has been established by the Creator and small humans decide that their version is somehow better. When God created the universe, He did so using His own character as the basis (because there can be no higher standard). Because of that, good is defined then as the nature of the One who created the universe and set that standard, and evil is the aberration. In short: the one who "builds the house" sets the rules for it.

I'm not sure why you are using the word "arbitrary".  Our morality would be arbitrary if we picked our moral actions or guidance from a hat with a bunch of actions written on pieces of paper.  Subjectivity doesn't equate to arbitrary.   It seems to me your only real complaint with secular or godless morality is that it's not approved of by God.   In these statements you essentially failed my test, your principle here "might makes right" also can extend to violent terrorists who believe they serving the one true God.   Your Christian version of morality might disapprove of murder but they aren't Christians and their God has a different take on how to deal with people.  So from your perspective I can see you claiming that they follow the wrong God, but not that they're behaving immorally.  

On 8/25/2017 at 5:15 PM, Sojourner414 said:

As for "Islam beheading people": that doesn't wash either. If you are claiming that with "the principle (I am) selling here also would mean (I) can't criticize Islamists who blow people up and cut off their heads", then by what standard would you be judging that them doing so is bad?  If it is your own morality that you either determined or accepted from another, then how would you know that doing such a thing would be wrong?

I guess it comes down to when we talk about "morality" what are we addressing?   We're addressing how humans should treat each other [I'm simplifying].  I think we can advocate and stand by a view of morality that values human life, human freedom, security, safety etc. by using logic and reason alone.  Look at the places where they're blowing people up and beheading people, sound like a place you want to live?  

On 8/25/2017 at 5:15 PM, Sojourner414 said:

And that is why God is just: He doesn't play those kinds of tricks on people, but instead holds to a consistent standard, unlike the "other gods".

With all of that said: I am okay with my country going to war, as long as that war is just  (WWII comes to mind). Am I okay with my country "killing civilians"? As long as they are and remain civilians,  I do not feel they should be killed. But as soon as they pick up a rifle or other weapon and aim it at you, or strap on a bomb and try to kill people, then they are no longer a "civilian". You join the fight, you're a fighter.

Evidently God decided in some cases that when the Israelites went to war they were to kill everything; man, woman and child.  Well not quite true, the young women were kept alive as part of the "plunder of war".   I agree more with your take on this issue.  

On 8/25/2017 at 5:15 PM, Sojourner414 said:

If you plan on going the path of the ridiculous, that game does nothing but to run a discussion into a billion "briar patches". Morality is the singular "compass" upon which other decisions are based, either in part or in whole. Intellect is a different arena here, and the Lord has given man the kind of mind to make those decisions. But as with any standard or baseline, you do not need to define every single part (As Shiloh357 has stated already). The reason morality cannot be determined by ourselves is that it is the core of our decision making faculties: what may seem "logical" may not be moral and has to be weighed against what has been established. If you want examples of "intellect without morality", Nazi Germany comes predominantly to mind.

And we can use our intellect to examine the claims of the Nazi regime.  What you'll find is that they're fears or claims of the Jews were UNFOUNDED.  They were/are not inferior, they were not the cause of Germany's problems, the Nazi's were hosting Youth Camps to brianwash kids etc.   We can see a complete lack of logic in their actions.   I still see a similar connection to other facets of life.   I work for a company of about 500,000 people.  There is no way you can have a company that size [that continues to grow and achieve] and not invest serious time/effort/money into cultivating a culture that is inclusive, respectful of others, encourages teamwork etc etc.   We go to classes yearly to continue to nurture these company policies and open channels of communication with our peers etc.  You admit that intelligence can help us realize these different values in order to grow and foster a "good working environment" and a successful company etc.  I don't see why when talking about morality we can't include intelligent thought.  

 

 

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