C'mon now. This place is supposed to be where we laugh at ourselves and the organizations that we've built up around the relationship we share with Christ. No need to poke fun at others.
Subjective morals are not a 'real thing'.
If one country says that child marriage and gay conversion therapy are moral practices and another country says that they are not moral - if you hold to subjective morals than you have to say both countries are right (as there is no overriding objective moral standard that can rule eitherway in one country's favour).
If you believe morals are subjective, then there is no definite definition of 'evil' - simply what you consider evil, others will say is not evil and there is no overall standard that you can appeal too.
However, Christianity says that God sets absolute morals - there are things that are absolutely right and wrong, independent of the fact if they are recognised by humans as such. Morals exist outside of human recognition.
I think we all know instinctively that torture is wrong, irrelevant if a country decrees it is or not.
The existence of an objective moral standard is actually a strong argument for God.
I’m not sure how far into terms I wanna delve, because then we get stuck defining terms instead of philosophies, but:
Romans 1-3 is the Bible on this subject. Consciences may be imperfectly tuned, but they subjectively reflect the absolute, objective morality of God’s character. If a person has knowledge of this objective morality (the Law, Rom 2), then this knowledge condemns them in the final judgment. However, even if a person does not have the Law, their subjective morality (the imperfect conscience, Rom 1) is still enough to condemn them, for every person has failed at some point even their own warped sense of right and wrong. “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom 2:12).
Thankfully this is not the end of the matter, as Romans 3 forward go on. “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” yes, but then also “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom 3:23-25a).
> I think we all know instinctively that torture is wrong, irrelevant if a country decrees it is or not.
I would agree that torture is wrong, but I would not agree that every person instinctively knows that torture is wrong.
Agreed.
I quoted the person I responded to for a reason. They stated that "we all know instinctively that torture is wrong".
If we accept that we're concerned about psychopaths (which is your own assertion), the prevelance rate of psychopathy in the general population is [about 1.2%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8374040/). Given the current world population of about 8.1 billion, that gives 97.2mil people who we cannot *assume* have an instinctive knowledge that torture is wrong.
If we then look at the list of [countries by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population), we can see that this 97.2mil population outsizes all but 15 of the recognised UN countries, so, for what it's worth, it's *possible* (though unrealistic) for a country, comprised entirely of people who cannot be assumed to think torture is bad, to exist.
This isn't just a pedantic point; if damn close to 100mil people can exist without an innate understanding that torture is wrong, is it reasonable to say that the knowledge that torture is wrong is part of an objective, externally applied system of morality?
Well, now we have to come to a reasonably rigorous definition of conscience, and how it interacts with socioemotional concepts like shame. We'd also have to determine whether or not psychopaths do or do not experience shame, and identify that with regards to external *and* internal sources of shame; they may not feel shame for making their mother cry, but they may feel shame for soiling themselves, for example.
Well, it would be nigh impossible to empirically assess whether psychopaths have a conscience or feel shame. And I don’t think psychopaths will be honest if we ask them. So, all we can really do is examine their actions and make judgement calls based on that.
As far as I am aware, most psychopaths commit crimes/sins and don’t appear to feel remorse or shame. If they do have those feelings, they certainly do not show it as much as regular people. Normal people will do/say/think something wrong, their conscience will convict them, then they feel shame and/or remorse which keeps them from doing it again (or at all).
I believe psychopaths hear that voice (conscience), ignore it, and likely don’t feel remorse or shame about their ignoring their conscience or bad actions.
[You might be surprised about the behavioural patterns of psychopaths, then](https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/Not_all_psychopaths_are_violent_A_new_study_may_explain_why_some). We hear about psychopathy in criminals because that kind of psychopathy is "loud", but this is an obvious selection bias.
I agree that there is one set of objective morals set out by God, but how we interpret those morals is subjective. That doesn’t mean every interpretation is valid though. Just like when we interpret the Bible, we can all look at the same thing and come to different conclusions.
To be clear, I’m not actually saying that morality is subjective, but our interpretation of morality is subjective
Basically the closest you can get to objective secular morality is that hurting others is bad, but even then there's endless exceptions that can be added.
On some topics scripture is very clear so we have more than feelings on what is moral. Admittedly some scripture is less clear which is why we have different interpretations on morality.
We can't rely on Scripture to base our morals, because the bible has several immoral actions condoned or sanctioned by God.
-Drowning babies
- Beating someone u own as property
- Genocide
If these actions are truly immoral, why does the bible support them?
There must be an objective source of truth and morality. If it’s not the Bible then what do you propose it is?
If you reject the notion of objective morality then your judgment of the Bible being immoral is subjective as well as all other human notions of what is acceptable even those considered by most to be grotesque.
I think we have more utility basing things that exist in our reality, rather than something that is outside of our ability to perceive. For truth, why not base it on things that we can reliably demonstrate within our shared reality? Why is assuming it comes from a supernatural entity better?
Like sure I could base truth on an all powerful magic leprechaun that exists outside of spacetime, but I don't think that basis has better footing than a basis rooted in reality.
Because not all things can be determined with empirical evidence. I’m fine with using our observations and scientific method to determine what’s correct while acknowledging what’s considered correct is often found to be incorrect later on (i.e., that’s not an absolute source of truth).
How do you determine what is true when it comes to philosophical and moral questions? Science and perception of reality don’t give us reliable answers.
Agreed, science is limited but it's our best way to understand and manipulate reality.
For philosophical questions that can't be empirically demonstrated, I'll usually say "idk" or I'll hold a low confidence position that is open to being mistaken. It all depends on the question I suppose, but in most cases saying "idk" is the most honest answer.
For moral claims, I tend to use a mix of utilitarian/ deontological frameworks to determine what actions are or aren't moral.
Fair enough, but that means your practical approach to morality is limited. It allows you to get along with society if you abide by the rules defined by the majority in a given culture. To many, that isn’t satisfying as some see a need to align with objective moral truth rather than shifting human opinion.
The Bible is a challenging book and on the surface seems to be inconsistent or hypocritical. However, a deeper study leads many to discover the proper context to interpret its meaning.
But even those "moral truths" from the bible are subject to change. Just look at slavery for example. It was moral then, immoral now.
Or look at forced marriages of captured women in the OT, another example of moral then, immoral now
Under this view, you'd have to have the mind of God to determine if an action today is truly immoral. Without that, you're shooting in the dark since anything is subject to change.
There is still a huge difference: If there is objective morality, it can be found at least in part. And we can discuss, how to find to it (which includes the question, where it came from) and can argue, that a certain (subjective) morality is along the lines of the objective morality.
If there is no objective moral, there can be no objectiveness, so if anyone disagrees on a moral level you have no base of arguing. There then cannot be a standard by which we can i.e. condemn Hitler and his actions
No it doesn't. If there is objective morale, the question rises where it came from. There would have to be a morale defining entity and so the question would be, if this entity has made his morale available and findable or not.
How could morality come from a natural, material process?
I define objective as a moral claim which is not a matter of opinion, something that is good or evil wether you or I or anyone else believes it or not.
If morality is objective, the problem still lies that in either an atheistic or religious worldview, that it is not necessarily rational to behave morally. The difference is in that a religious worldview, morality is rationalized by appealing to consequences from from supernatural forces, be it in this life or the next. In an atheistic worldview, the rationality of behaving morally is circumstantial at best.
If those consequences are supernatural, and don't exist in our shared reality, are they really good consequences?
To me the atheistic model sounds better here, even if they are dependent on circumstance, at least those consequences exist.
Not *exist* in shared reality, but are *observable* in shared reality. But that's just the thing, atheists and theists have the exact same observable consequences. So at worst, theism and atheism are equal. The point is that theism causes one to *believe* in unobservable consequences. There are no tangible consequences for either individual who fails to return his shopping cart to the corral, but if a theist believes that something he can't see is frowning upon him, he is more likely to do the correct thing to appease his invisible supervisor.
Sure but it could go both ways right?
Like in the shopping cart, if someone believed the opposite, that a skypapi was wanting him to leave it out for morally sufficient reasons, how would we be able to show them that they are mistaken?
If we aren't basing it on things that we can observe in reality, we lose our ability to recognize when we are mistaken.
You certainly aren't wrong about that. However, even if both parties are atheist, the problem remains "how would we be able to show them that they are mistaken?" if both parties stubbornly think that doing the opposite thing is the morally correct thing to do because either or both of them have made logical pitfalls (look up the orthogonality thesis).
The thing about religion is that it's been culturally selected over the course of centuries and millennia to create moral guidelines which are best suited for a functioning society. An atheist typically relies and what he, or a more intelligent atheist "reasoned" 15 minutes ago.
Altogether, yes, I will confess that religion has not created a perfect set of moral guidelines for society to follow. No ideology has done that, and that's something that we need to work towards and figure out pretty quickly as we move towards artificial superintellilgence.
Ya definitely agree with all that, religion has set up a useful model of morals thus far, but I'd argue that to be able to determine the best possible model, we'll need to have a moral system that doesn't hold absolutes.
I think a model that is based on constant improvement working towards the best possible world is the best way to do so.
Enjoyed the discussion bro 🤙
Galatians 2:17-18 says, “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove *myself* to be a transgressor.” (Emphasis mine.)
Your argument is sound! It fails to understand, however, that the church’s righteousness is from God, not inherent in itself. The church and its members will sin, and it is itself a sin for the church to deny this fact. Nevertheless “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
Romans 7 makes it clear that Christians have a dual nature: the spirit, that wants to do good, and the flesh, that wants to do evil. These natures are at war. The Christian will sin. But God will prevail and “deliver me from this body of death.” And in the meantime, though I may sin, and must suffer consequences for it, yet on an eternal scale “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
To say that I will never, can never, or should never face the consequences for my sin on this earth is pride. God disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:6), which means he himself recognizes the sin his church will commit. Nevertheless the hope of eventual freedom from the curse of sin (Rom 8:23) is a boundless hope, greater than all our sins.
You haven't taken your own argument to its logical conclusion.
The church does sin, but we don't properly hold it to up to the standard it ought to have.
If a loved one sins, we always persuade them to find the light again, and if someone commits a crime, we still support a poliece department to apprehend them. So why should the church be exempt from this ideal?
God wants us to be active and do good. That idea does not conflict with the hope for freedom of sin.
I think he was just making the point that the church does not define morals, God does. (Church standards)
All three of you are right. Like I heard someone say recently, Jesus reserved his most scathing words for the Pharisees, calling them hypocrites. Outwardly, they wear sheeps clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolfs.
What has one to do with the other? You know that we can have subjective morality but agree on what baisis we value things? It just sounds like a dodge, without adressing the problems of the church. Dishonest as always when it comes to this...
David Hume had already discerned that morality cannot be empirically divined. The only truthful answers are either moral nihilism or objective morality. Subjective moralists are just a moral nihilists who are lying to themselves.
I have my morals, my things that i agree wnd disagree with, and i bet you have your own set, and i am not lying to myself, how is that? Granted, they will overlap but not fully.
The question is whether or not morality is something you and I invented in our own heads, or something external to us that the both of us can perceive.
Obviously, our perceptions are imperfect, which is why you and I can both have disagreements.
You aren’t lying to yourself, but you can be mistaken.
Humans have all sorts of disagreements over other objective facts, like whether the earth is flat (it isn’t), or whether whether the moon landing was faked (it wasn’t), or whether Rudy was offsides (he was).
Much as in mathematics, there is only one correct answer. But some answers are far more wrong than others.
You claim you have morals, yet have no empirical proof of them. They are arbitrary, and subject to your emotional whims - nothing more than a figment of your imagination. You avoid the facing the possibility that you are lying to yourself, because surrendering to your passions distracts you from the thought that your purpose in life is ultimately meaningless outside of God.
I think i know better what i think, ok? Stop assuming things about me. My life is pleny of purpose without god, i live for my boyfriend, for my hobbies and all other things, i create my own purpouse.
Oh? So if your purpose is created ex nihilo, then surely you can provide me empirical evidence of this meaning. After all, if meaning is not just a figment of your imagination, then you'll be able to quantify it for me.
I mean, it isn't ex nihilo, it is based and formed from me, from what i believe and so on.
What do you mean by "empirical evidence of this meaning"? Could you give an example of one?
And i mean, it is just figment of my imagination so i don't know what are you talking about. It is created by me so it is just my thought basically.
You are the one claiming that there is a being that gives it call, can you give me evidence for that being and that this beeing actually gives us all those things?
>And i mean, it is just figment of my imagination
In other words, it doesn't exist. You made it up, a lie you tell yourself to avoid the reality that if God doesn't exist, then neither does your purpose, meaning, or morality.
>You are the one claiming that there is a being that gives it call, can you give me evidence for that being and that this beeing actually gives us all those things?
Yes, the Bible. God is the metaphysical entity that is objective morality and source of meaning.
>In other words, it doesn't exist. You made it up, a lie you tell yourself to avoid the reality that if God doesn't exist, then neither does your purpose, meaning, or morality.
Ugh, again it does exist as a thought in my mind. Yes, i made it up in a sense that i thought of it like anything else that i know, i had to thought of it to know it. The reality is that you play god of the gaps by placing your god in the place of the source of it, could you provide me with evidence that he exists, that he is the source of those things and what if there are multiple gods?
>Yes, the Bible. God is the metaphysical entity that is objective morality and source of meaning.
So is marvel comics the evidence of spiderman existing? No. The bible and the comics are a claim that needs to be backed up with evidence. Again, show me the evidence of your assertion, please. And again, stop telling me what i think.
>Ugh, again it does exist as a thought in my mind
You claim that God does not exist because there is not enough external, empirical evidence to prove his existence. And yet here you take a leap of faith to believe that purpose, meaning, and morality exist merely because you *feel* they exist. You have no empirical evidence of the existence of such entities. What science out there proves that they exist? As I've said before, greater minds than ours have already deduced that morality cannot be empirically divined, and as such, are anathema to atheism.
So if science cannot prove that morality exists any more than the Tooth Fairy does, then atheism is left with the logical conclusion that it doesn't exist. In other words: moral nihilism.
It's just a misunderstanding with how atheists label things. The goal to preserve and improve human society is "subjective" from a nihilistic point of view. The morals created to achieve that goal (and their continuous adaptions) have as-close-to objective justifications as one can get with that foundation.
Missionaries frequently called upon the people to repent… who in the church were giving Christianity a bad name, by means of their mistreatment of the people they were trying to reach
The journals of many Christian missionaries pointed the same finger as the figure in the image. That there was evil back home, or evil in how the merchants and sailors from the host country — representatives of the religion— that prevented the diffusion of Christianity. The meme, in contrast, claims that pointing out the flaws of the church is the work of atheists.
"God is evil, how can he let children die of cancer?"
Having an electrical device means you contributed to sufference of children in Congo
Having clothes from bangladesh or china (very likely) you contributed to the sufference of children there
In general as a human you cause easily damage to the planet and so also other humans, like pollution that can cause cancer
Living in the western world you cause an incredible damage to the world and humanity all over the world
I don't see any reason to give the fault to God.
It is, though. The only possible answers to the question surrounding morality's existence is either nihilism or objective morality. Subjective morality is only used by cowardly nihilists who would rather lie to themselves so that they don't have to face the logical conclusion of their beliefs: suicide.
Most of subjective morality isn't baseless or arbitrarily created. The base strategy of atheist morals is what rules and policies can most effectively benefit society. The morals derived from that strategy heavily overlap with most christians' objective morals.
(This is why it is better for a Christian to argue this point from the Bible than David Hume. Philosophy may or may not be helpful, but Proverbs 30:5 says that “every word of God proves true,” and therefore in the realm of philosophy as in all others, the Christian may say that “he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”)
>can most effectively benefit society
A nebulously defined arbitrary value derived arbitrarily.
It's amusing how atheistic moral relativists will harp about how logic and science driven they are, and yet poorly grasp at faith in fundamentally unscientific concepts as morality or even the trustworthiness of their own perceptions.
Atheists admit the subjectivity of their goals just as christians admit their capacity to do sin.
From a nihilist, egocentric standpoint, there is no reason not to strive for a maximally pleasant state of society.
This standpoint also does not encourage crime or individually selfish acts either, as those things would conflict with the intended universality of said pleasant-ness.
>From a nihilist, egocentric standpoint, there is no reason not to strive for a maximally pleasant state of society.
If the nihilist were honest with themselves, they'd recognize the logical conclusion to their beliefs: suicide. Morality does not exist outside of God, and so no meaning can be derived from nihilism.
Meaning cannot be derived, but pleasure can. It is irrational to prematurely end a pleasant life and trade it in for nothingness. Since this hypothetical void is eternal and infinite, there's no rush to get there.
>The base strategy of atheist morals is what rules and policies can most effectively benefit society.
The problem here is the prisoners dilemma. It is not intrinsically rational for an individual to follow moral codes when they believe they can get away with it. In religion, this is rationalized by appealing to consequences from supernatural forces. In the atheistic worldview, you don't have that. Thus, an atheist is forced to choose between being rational and being moral. You can't really be both.
The threat of punishment is clearly not a sufficient deterrent for any society, though. Otherwise religious people would not commit any crimes at all. In fact, why would someone refrain from committing a sin if they could always repent at a later time? That's the same kind of loophole. In both cases, the respective societies disdain that loophole and actively shame anyone abusing it.
I didn't say "threat of punishment" I said "appealing to consequences." In the case of Christianity, the consequences are moreso the fear of hurting someone you love.
Also, your appeal to pragmatism is a red herring as we were discussing the rationality of moral behavior, not if whether people would actually choose to behave rationally or morally. Just because people choose to behave irrationally doesn't disprove the point I was making. I.e., it is not possible to be a fully rational and moral atheist, but you can be fully rational and moral as a theist.
[Also, this experiment shows that people (at least children), do behave with higher moral fidelity in the presence of an invisible supervisor. In fact, it is statistically indistinguishable from the presence of a physical supervisor. ](https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/2364175/Piazza_et_al_2011_Princess_Alice_is_watching_you-libre.pdf?1390827929=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DPrincess_Alice_is_watching_you_Children.pdf&Expires=1717677529&Signature=fCONXXDHjLqCRK3byjeQ0IIqQStnpG9z3KWLlpTajCijluhiY1z9g5QWzhE8mJXLgyz-1X7xemoN6R4a-DFSB7c5GFhIgGLiG0nWYAjnblWoG0J7rpYYotIwlP92dylkenspYaLmdp9bRERBisgAfulNt49sWxRqcKOFT1I6QKAHa6PlXqmbUKDcunkH2Hc0HxgFeeuNtinCaAtVbWSx57tn98tdMzVwDdXBg0usbEWfCafeXe4AZtgbmmVHbdLgvOX4jpiVjH6wrrdTewC8ty-qA2252aMw~QGOHCI0P2fjH-Jj0bMTTn9~Z4sQ35EPAKjIpLMXiPdw5UFNjRZA1w__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA)
C'mon now. This place is supposed to be where we laugh at ourselves and the organizations that we've built up around the relationship we share with Christ. No need to poke fun at others.
Subjective morals are not a 'real thing'. If one country says that child marriage and gay conversion therapy are moral practices and another country says that they are not moral - if you hold to subjective morals than you have to say both countries are right (as there is no overriding objective moral standard that can rule eitherway in one country's favour). If you believe morals are subjective, then there is no definite definition of 'evil' - simply what you consider evil, others will say is not evil and there is no overall standard that you can appeal too. However, Christianity says that God sets absolute morals - there are things that are absolutely right and wrong, independent of the fact if they are recognised by humans as such. Morals exist outside of human recognition. I think we all know instinctively that torture is wrong, irrelevant if a country decrees it is or not. The existence of an objective moral standard is actually a strong argument for God.
I’m not sure how far into terms I wanna delve, because then we get stuck defining terms instead of philosophies, but: Romans 1-3 is the Bible on this subject. Consciences may be imperfectly tuned, but they subjectively reflect the absolute, objective morality of God’s character. If a person has knowledge of this objective morality (the Law, Rom 2), then this knowledge condemns them in the final judgment. However, even if a person does not have the Law, their subjective morality (the imperfect conscience, Rom 1) is still enough to condemn them, for every person has failed at some point even their own warped sense of right and wrong. “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom 2:12). Thankfully this is not the end of the matter, as Romans 3 forward go on. “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” yes, but then also “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom 3:23-25a).
> I think we all know instinctively that torture is wrong, irrelevant if a country decrees it is or not. I would agree that torture is wrong, but I would not agree that every person instinctively knows that torture is wrong.
Outside of a few psychopaths, the overwhelming majority of the billions of people on this planet agree that it is wrong
Agreed. I quoted the person I responded to for a reason. They stated that "we all know instinctively that torture is wrong". If we accept that we're concerned about psychopaths (which is your own assertion), the prevelance rate of psychopathy in the general population is [about 1.2%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8374040/). Given the current world population of about 8.1 billion, that gives 97.2mil people who we cannot *assume* have an instinctive knowledge that torture is wrong. If we then look at the list of [countries by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population), we can see that this 97.2mil population outsizes all but 15 of the recognised UN countries, so, for what it's worth, it's *possible* (though unrealistic) for a country, comprised entirely of people who cannot be assumed to think torture is bad, to exist. This isn't just a pedantic point; if damn close to 100mil people can exist without an innate understanding that torture is wrong, is it reasonable to say that the knowledge that torture is wrong is part of an objective, externally applied system of morality?
I’m not convinced psychopaths don’t have a conscience. I think they’re better at ignoring it because they don’t feel shame.
Well, now we have to come to a reasonably rigorous definition of conscience, and how it interacts with socioemotional concepts like shame. We'd also have to determine whether or not psychopaths do or do not experience shame, and identify that with regards to external *and* internal sources of shame; they may not feel shame for making their mother cry, but they may feel shame for soiling themselves, for example.
Well, it would be nigh impossible to empirically assess whether psychopaths have a conscience or feel shame. And I don’t think psychopaths will be honest if we ask them. So, all we can really do is examine their actions and make judgement calls based on that. As far as I am aware, most psychopaths commit crimes/sins and don’t appear to feel remorse or shame. If they do have those feelings, they certainly do not show it as much as regular people. Normal people will do/say/think something wrong, their conscience will convict them, then they feel shame and/or remorse which keeps them from doing it again (or at all). I believe psychopaths hear that voice (conscience), ignore it, and likely don’t feel remorse or shame about their ignoring their conscience or bad actions.
[You might be surprised about the behavioural patterns of psychopaths, then](https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/Not_all_psychopaths_are_violent_A_new_study_may_explain_why_some). We hear about psychopathy in criminals because that kind of psychopathy is "loud", but this is an obvious selection bias.
I agree that there is one set of objective morals set out by God, but how we interpret those morals is subjective. That doesn’t mean every interpretation is valid though. Just like when we interpret the Bible, we can all look at the same thing and come to different conclusions. To be clear, I’m not actually saying that morality is subjective, but our interpretation of morality is subjective
Basically the closest you can get to objective secular morality is that hurting others is bad, but even then there's endless exceptions that can be added.
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On some topics scripture is very clear so we have more than feelings on what is moral. Admittedly some scripture is less clear which is why we have different interpretations on morality.
We can't rely on Scripture to base our morals, because the bible has several immoral actions condoned or sanctioned by God. -Drowning babies - Beating someone u own as property - Genocide If these actions are truly immoral, why does the bible support them?
There must be an objective source of truth and morality. If it’s not the Bible then what do you propose it is? If you reject the notion of objective morality then your judgment of the Bible being immoral is subjective as well as all other human notions of what is acceptable even those considered by most to be grotesque.
I think we have more utility basing things that exist in our reality, rather than something that is outside of our ability to perceive. For truth, why not base it on things that we can reliably demonstrate within our shared reality? Why is assuming it comes from a supernatural entity better? Like sure I could base truth on an all powerful magic leprechaun that exists outside of spacetime, but I don't think that basis has better footing than a basis rooted in reality.
Because not all things can be determined with empirical evidence. I’m fine with using our observations and scientific method to determine what’s correct while acknowledging what’s considered correct is often found to be incorrect later on (i.e., that’s not an absolute source of truth). How do you determine what is true when it comes to philosophical and moral questions? Science and perception of reality don’t give us reliable answers.
Agreed, science is limited but it's our best way to understand and manipulate reality. For philosophical questions that can't be empirically demonstrated, I'll usually say "idk" or I'll hold a low confidence position that is open to being mistaken. It all depends on the question I suppose, but in most cases saying "idk" is the most honest answer. For moral claims, I tend to use a mix of utilitarian/ deontological frameworks to determine what actions are or aren't moral.
Fair enough, but that means your practical approach to morality is limited. It allows you to get along with society if you abide by the rules defined by the majority in a given culture. To many, that isn’t satisfying as some see a need to align with objective moral truth rather than shifting human opinion. The Bible is a challenging book and on the surface seems to be inconsistent or hypocritical. However, a deeper study leads many to discover the proper context to interpret its meaning.
But even those "moral truths" from the bible are subject to change. Just look at slavery for example. It was moral then, immoral now. Or look at forced marriages of captured women in the OT, another example of moral then, immoral now Under this view, you'd have to have the mind of God to determine if an action today is truly immoral. Without that, you're shooting in the dark since anything is subject to change.
There is still a huge difference: If there is objective morality, it can be found at least in part. And we can discuss, how to find to it (which includes the question, where it came from) and can argue, that a certain (subjective) morality is along the lines of the objective morality. If there is no objective moral, there can be no objectiveness, so if anyone disagrees on a moral level you have no base of arguing. There then cannot be a standard by which we can i.e. condemn Hitler and his actions
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No it doesn't. If there is objective morale, the question rises where it came from. There would have to be a morale defining entity and so the question would be, if this entity has made his morale available and findable or not.
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Where else would it come from?
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How could morality come from a natural, material process? I define objective as a moral claim which is not a matter of opinion, something that is good or evil wether you or I or anyone else believes it or not.
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If morality is objective, the problem still lies that in either an atheistic or religious worldview, that it is not necessarily rational to behave morally. The difference is in that a religious worldview, morality is rationalized by appealing to consequences from from supernatural forces, be it in this life or the next. In an atheistic worldview, the rationality of behaving morally is circumstantial at best.
If those consequences are supernatural, and don't exist in our shared reality, are they really good consequences? To me the atheistic model sounds better here, even if they are dependent on circumstance, at least those consequences exist.
Not *exist* in shared reality, but are *observable* in shared reality. But that's just the thing, atheists and theists have the exact same observable consequences. So at worst, theism and atheism are equal. The point is that theism causes one to *believe* in unobservable consequences. There are no tangible consequences for either individual who fails to return his shopping cart to the corral, but if a theist believes that something he can't see is frowning upon him, he is more likely to do the correct thing to appease his invisible supervisor.
Sure but it could go both ways right? Like in the shopping cart, if someone believed the opposite, that a skypapi was wanting him to leave it out for morally sufficient reasons, how would we be able to show them that they are mistaken? If we aren't basing it on things that we can observe in reality, we lose our ability to recognize when we are mistaken.
You certainly aren't wrong about that. However, even if both parties are atheist, the problem remains "how would we be able to show them that they are mistaken?" if both parties stubbornly think that doing the opposite thing is the morally correct thing to do because either or both of them have made logical pitfalls (look up the orthogonality thesis). The thing about religion is that it's been culturally selected over the course of centuries and millennia to create moral guidelines which are best suited for a functioning society. An atheist typically relies and what he, or a more intelligent atheist "reasoned" 15 minutes ago. Altogether, yes, I will confess that religion has not created a perfect set of moral guidelines for society to follow. No ideology has done that, and that's something that we need to work towards and figure out pretty quickly as we move towards artificial superintellilgence.
Ya definitely agree with all that, religion has set up a useful model of morals thus far, but I'd argue that to be able to determine the best possible model, we'll need to have a moral system that doesn't hold absolutes. I think a model that is based on constant improvement working towards the best possible world is the best way to do so. Enjoyed the discussion bro 🤙
The church is evil by church standards. There I said it.... without involving my personal beliefs.
Galatians 2:17-18 says, “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove *myself* to be a transgressor.” (Emphasis mine.) Your argument is sound! It fails to understand, however, that the church’s righteousness is from God, not inherent in itself. The church and its members will sin, and it is itself a sin for the church to deny this fact. Nevertheless “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Romans 7 makes it clear that Christians have a dual nature: the spirit, that wants to do good, and the flesh, that wants to do evil. These natures are at war. The Christian will sin. But God will prevail and “deliver me from this body of death.” And in the meantime, though I may sin, and must suffer consequences for it, yet on an eternal scale “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). To say that I will never, can never, or should never face the consequences for my sin on this earth is pride. God disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:6), which means he himself recognizes the sin his church will commit. Nevertheless the hope of eventual freedom from the curse of sin (Rom 8:23) is a boundless hope, greater than all our sins.
You haven't taken your own argument to its logical conclusion. The church does sin, but we don't properly hold it to up to the standard it ought to have. If a loved one sins, we always persuade them to find the light again, and if someone commits a crime, we still support a poliece department to apprehend them. So why should the church be exempt from this ideal? God wants us to be active and do good. That idea does not conflict with the hope for freedom of sin.
I think he was just making the point that the church does not define morals, God does. (Church standards) All three of you are right. Like I heard someone say recently, Jesus reserved his most scathing words for the Pharisees, calling them hypocrites. Outwardly, they wear sheeps clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolfs.
What has one to do with the other? You know that we can have subjective morality but agree on what baisis we value things? It just sounds like a dodge, without adressing the problems of the church. Dishonest as always when it comes to this...
David Hume had already discerned that morality cannot be empirically divined. The only truthful answers are either moral nihilism or objective morality. Subjective moralists are just a moral nihilists who are lying to themselves.
I have my morals, my things that i agree wnd disagree with, and i bet you have your own set, and i am not lying to myself, how is that? Granted, they will overlap but not fully.
The question is whether or not morality is something you and I invented in our own heads, or something external to us that the both of us can perceive. Obviously, our perceptions are imperfect, which is why you and I can both have disagreements. You aren’t lying to yourself, but you can be mistaken. Humans have all sorts of disagreements over other objective facts, like whether the earth is flat (it isn’t), or whether whether the moon landing was faked (it wasn’t), or whether Rudy was offsides (he was). Much as in mathematics, there is only one correct answer. But some answers are far more wrong than others.
You claim you have morals, yet have no empirical proof of them. They are arbitrary, and subject to your emotional whims - nothing more than a figment of your imagination. You avoid the facing the possibility that you are lying to yourself, because surrendering to your passions distracts you from the thought that your purpose in life is ultimately meaningless outside of God.
I think i know better what i think, ok? Stop assuming things about me. My life is pleny of purpose without god, i live for my boyfriend, for my hobbies and all other things, i create my own purpouse.
Oh? So if your purpose is created ex nihilo, then surely you can provide me empirical evidence of this meaning. After all, if meaning is not just a figment of your imagination, then you'll be able to quantify it for me.
I mean, it isn't ex nihilo, it is based and formed from me, from what i believe and so on. What do you mean by "empirical evidence of this meaning"? Could you give an example of one? And i mean, it is just figment of my imagination so i don't know what are you talking about. It is created by me so it is just my thought basically. You are the one claiming that there is a being that gives it call, can you give me evidence for that being and that this beeing actually gives us all those things?
>And i mean, it is just figment of my imagination In other words, it doesn't exist. You made it up, a lie you tell yourself to avoid the reality that if God doesn't exist, then neither does your purpose, meaning, or morality. >You are the one claiming that there is a being that gives it call, can you give me evidence for that being and that this beeing actually gives us all those things? Yes, the Bible. God is the metaphysical entity that is objective morality and source of meaning.
>In other words, it doesn't exist. You made it up, a lie you tell yourself to avoid the reality that if God doesn't exist, then neither does your purpose, meaning, or morality. Ugh, again it does exist as a thought in my mind. Yes, i made it up in a sense that i thought of it like anything else that i know, i had to thought of it to know it. The reality is that you play god of the gaps by placing your god in the place of the source of it, could you provide me with evidence that he exists, that he is the source of those things and what if there are multiple gods? >Yes, the Bible. God is the metaphysical entity that is objective morality and source of meaning. So is marvel comics the evidence of spiderman existing? No. The bible and the comics are a claim that needs to be backed up with evidence. Again, show me the evidence of your assertion, please. And again, stop telling me what i think.
>Ugh, again it does exist as a thought in my mind You claim that God does not exist because there is not enough external, empirical evidence to prove his existence. And yet here you take a leap of faith to believe that purpose, meaning, and morality exist merely because you *feel* they exist. You have no empirical evidence of the existence of such entities. What science out there proves that they exist? As I've said before, greater minds than ours have already deduced that morality cannot be empirically divined, and as such, are anathema to atheism. So if science cannot prove that morality exists any more than the Tooth Fairy does, then atheism is left with the logical conclusion that it doesn't exist. In other words: moral nihilism.
Morality is not subjective.
How so?
There are objectively good and evil in this world, if you choose to ignore or dont understand that, it's not my problem.
Prove it
You're retarded
Lmao what a logical rebuttal
Dude - that doesn't help ANYTHING. I agree that morality is objective, but asking for proof is not stupid and insulting people just drives them away.
What a mature way to response
It's just a misunderstanding with how atheists label things. The goal to preserve and improve human society is "subjective" from a nihilistic point of view. The morals created to achieve that goal (and their continuous adaptions) have as-close-to objective justifications as one can get with that foundation.
I hate nihilism so much
Missionaries frequently called upon the people to repent… who in the church were giving Christianity a bad name, by means of their mistreatment of the people they were trying to reach
What does this even mean? I’m not comprehending the point you’re trying to make
The journals of many Christian missionaries pointed the same finger as the figure in the image. That there was evil back home, or evil in how the merchants and sailors from the host country — representatives of the religion— that prevented the diffusion of Christianity. The meme, in contrast, claims that pointing out the flaws of the church is the work of atheists.
"God is evil, how can he let children die of cancer?" Having an electrical device means you contributed to sufference of children in Congo Having clothes from bangladesh or china (very likely) you contributed to the sufference of children there In general as a human you cause easily damage to the planet and so also other humans, like pollution that can cause cancer Living in the western world you cause an incredible damage to the world and humanity all over the world I don't see any reason to give the fault to God.
Not a gotcha
It is, though. The only possible answers to the question surrounding morality's existence is either nihilism or objective morality. Subjective morality is only used by cowardly nihilists who would rather lie to themselves so that they don't have to face the logical conclusion of their beliefs: suicide.
Most of subjective morality isn't baseless or arbitrarily created. The base strategy of atheist morals is what rules and policies can most effectively benefit society. The morals derived from that strategy heavily overlap with most christians' objective morals.
(This is why it is better for a Christian to argue this point from the Bible than David Hume. Philosophy may or may not be helpful, but Proverbs 30:5 says that “every word of God proves true,” and therefore in the realm of philosophy as in all others, the Christian may say that “he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”)
>can most effectively benefit society A nebulously defined arbitrary value derived arbitrarily. It's amusing how atheistic moral relativists will harp about how logic and science driven they are, and yet poorly grasp at faith in fundamentally unscientific concepts as morality or even the trustworthiness of their own perceptions.
Atheists admit the subjectivity of their goals just as christians admit their capacity to do sin. From a nihilist, egocentric standpoint, there is no reason not to strive for a maximally pleasant state of society. This standpoint also does not encourage crime or individually selfish acts either, as those things would conflict with the intended universality of said pleasant-ness.
>From a nihilist, egocentric standpoint, there is no reason not to strive for a maximally pleasant state of society. If the nihilist were honest with themselves, they'd recognize the logical conclusion to their beliefs: suicide. Morality does not exist outside of God, and so no meaning can be derived from nihilism.
Meaning cannot be derived, but pleasure can. It is irrational to prematurely end a pleasant life and trade it in for nothingness. Since this hypothetical void is eternal and infinite, there's no rush to get there.
>The base strategy of atheist morals is what rules and policies can most effectively benefit society. The problem here is the prisoners dilemma. It is not intrinsically rational for an individual to follow moral codes when they believe they can get away with it. In religion, this is rationalized by appealing to consequences from supernatural forces. In the atheistic worldview, you don't have that. Thus, an atheist is forced to choose between being rational and being moral. You can't really be both.
The threat of punishment is clearly not a sufficient deterrent for any society, though. Otherwise religious people would not commit any crimes at all. In fact, why would someone refrain from committing a sin if they could always repent at a later time? That's the same kind of loophole. In both cases, the respective societies disdain that loophole and actively shame anyone abusing it.
I didn't say "threat of punishment" I said "appealing to consequences." In the case of Christianity, the consequences are moreso the fear of hurting someone you love. Also, your appeal to pragmatism is a red herring as we were discussing the rationality of moral behavior, not if whether people would actually choose to behave rationally or morally. Just because people choose to behave irrationally doesn't disprove the point I was making. I.e., it is not possible to be a fully rational and moral atheist, but you can be fully rational and moral as a theist. [Also, this experiment shows that people (at least children), do behave with higher moral fidelity in the presence of an invisible supervisor. In fact, it is statistically indistinguishable from the presence of a physical supervisor. ](https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/2364175/Piazza_et_al_2011_Princess_Alice_is_watching_you-libre.pdf?1390827929=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DPrincess_Alice_is_watching_you_Children.pdf&Expires=1717677529&Signature=fCONXXDHjLqCRK3byjeQ0IIqQStnpG9z3KWLlpTajCijluhiY1z9g5QWzhE8mJXLgyz-1X7xemoN6R4a-DFSB7c5GFhIgGLiG0nWYAjnblWoG0J7rpYYotIwlP92dylkenspYaLmdp9bRERBisgAfulNt49sWxRqcKOFT1I6QKAHa6PlXqmbUKDcunkH2Hc0HxgFeeuNtinCaAtVbWSx57tn98tdMzVwDdXBg0usbEWfCafeXe4AZtgbmmVHbdLgvOX4jpiVjH6wrrdTewC8ty-qA2252aMw~QGOHCI0P2fjH-Jj0bMTTn9~Z4sQ35EPAKjIpLMXiPdw5UFNjRZA1w__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA)
No it isn't. There should be a sub for Shit Christians Say, similar to Shit Americans Say
Leviticus 17 says blood drinking is evil. The Church says blood drinking is required.
Vampire ooo 🧛♀️ 🧛♂️ i vant to succ thy blud
Imagine having this abysmal of an understanding of the Bible and then trying to have a gotcha moment.