Ok, I'm not sure where to start with the problems here, so let's just pick a place to start and run from there.
1) The law of moses is one of the most horrific things I've ever seen. Check out deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 6-11. It says that if you have a 10 year old daughter who says that she doesn't believe in the same god that you do, you are to take her out in public and brutally murder her by stabbing her to death for the "crime" of not believing in your god so that you can use fear as a weapon against your fellow man to ensure that they will turn away from the "evil" of not believing in a god that would command you to brutally murder your own 10 year old daughter for the "crime" of not believing in your god. Seriously, there will be people on judgement day that will be found guilty because they DIDN'T stab their 10 year old daughter to death for not believing in their god, or maybe first having a conversation before the required gruesome murder? (you're not supposed to listen to her or have a conversation, you're supposed to start the god-approved blood thirsty murder right away).
2) I am going to go to hell because I didn't believe in the bible based on bad evidence? I'm going to hell because I didn't believe in the god of deuteronomy chapter 13? That's the definition of what morality is? Belief in the correct religion even though that religion's holy text is highly questionable?
3) Others will be judged by their own conscience? What if their conscience told them that murdering lots of children was good?
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Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by TrakeM » Tue Jun 27, 2017 9:42 pm
Allow me to start by apologizing for the double post, I had intented to include this in my first message and then forgot.
Consider the worst person to ever live. Pick whoever you want. It could be Stalin, Mao, Hitler, whoever you want. Say you were in charge of judging them and you were a being of pure justice (no leniency/grace or whatever). Let's say you could torture them as a means of upholding justice. Is torture really a means of upholding justice? I'd say no and I'd say that makes my morality not just different, but superior to those that would claim that torture is a part of justice. Let's suppose, however, that you say that torture is a part of justice. Let's suppose you torture them in unimaginable pain for an hour. Would that be enough to satisfy justice? Maybe not, after all the person you're thinking of probably killed a LOT of people. OK, how about a day? A week? A month? A year? Enough now? Let's say it's not. After all, some of those murders were probably of children. They might have raped some people. After all, we're talking about the most evil person of all time. How about if you tortured them for 5,000 years for EACH murder. Then, an additional (on top of the standard 5,000 years) 10,000 years of each murder of a child. Then, an additional 5,000 for each particularly horrific murder and we'll just go ahead and declare all of the murders to be particularly horrific. Then let's put in an additional 10,000 years for each case of rape and an additional 1,000 years of unimaginable torment for each time they said anything even slightly unkind to anyone ever. Enough yet? Even in the case of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Hitler etc. isn't there some point at which you'd have to say it's been enough? How psychotic and masochistic would one have to be to say after 100 billion years of unimaginable torment that it hasn't been enough for them to pay for their crimes against humanity even in the case of the worst person to ever live? How is it fair or just that someone should be subject to that, simply because they don't believe in a god like that based on bad evidence.
Consider the worst person to ever live. Pick whoever you want. It could be Stalin, Mao, Hitler, whoever you want. Say you were in charge of judging them and you were a being of pure justice (no leniency/grace or whatever). Let's say you could torture them as a means of upholding justice. Is torture really a means of upholding justice? I'd say no and I'd say that makes my morality not just different, but superior to those that would claim that torture is a part of justice. Let's suppose, however, that you say that torture is a part of justice. Let's suppose you torture them in unimaginable pain for an hour. Would that be enough to satisfy justice? Maybe not, after all the person you're thinking of probably killed a LOT of people. OK, how about a day? A week? A month? A year? Enough now? Let's say it's not. After all, some of those murders were probably of children. They might have raped some people. After all, we're talking about the most evil person of all time. How about if you tortured them for 5,000 years for EACH murder. Then, an additional (on top of the standard 5,000 years) 10,000 years of each murder of a child. Then, an additional 5,000 for each particularly horrific murder and we'll just go ahead and declare all of the murders to be particularly horrific. Then let's put in an additional 10,000 years for each case of rape and an additional 1,000 years of unimaginable torment for each time they said anything even slightly unkind to anyone ever. Enough yet? Even in the case of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Hitler etc. isn't there some point at which you'd have to say it's been enough? How psychotic and masochistic would one have to be to say after 100 billion years of unimaginable torment that it hasn't been enough for them to pay for their crimes against humanity even in the case of the worst person to ever live? How is it fair or just that someone should be subject to that, simply because they don't believe in a god like that based on bad evidence.
- TrakeM
Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by jimwalton » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:58 am
OK, we have a lot to talk about here.
As far as the Law of Moses being one of the most horrible things in existence, we would have to talk about the specifics. History tells us, however, that Israelite society following that law was an exceptionally moral society with rules far more humane and principled than those of the surrounding cultures. Now, you may think comparing it to those cultures doesn't necessarily raise it to a high level, but the fact remains that Israelite culture is recognized historically as moral, humane, and principled. That's one obstacle you need to get over if you want to claim they were barbarians.
As far as Deuteronomy 13, I spoke to that in your questions in Deuteronomy (link here: http://www.the3rdchoice.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=11177). I'll cut and paste part of it here for those who want to bother to link to the whole thing:
Murder is wrong because God is life, He created life, He values life, and He invested life with value and significance. Societies can only function properly if there is respect for life. Therefore killing is wrong.
Lying is wrong because God is truth, and truth is the foundation of meaningful relationships. Society can't function properly if we can't trust each other. The judicial system won't work if we can't trust the testimonies of the witnesses. Businesses can't function if there is no trust. Families will fall apart where there is no truth. Therefore lying and giving false testimony is wrong.
Adultery is wrong because God is faithful, and faithfulness is the foundation of meaningful relationships. Society can't function properly if we're just animals screwing with whomever we want, or raping each other. People don't have the dignity they deserve that way—they're just sexual victims. Families can't function that way. Society will crumble if sexual abuse is uncontrolled and rampant. Maybe you disagree with me, but we can keep talking about it.
Therefore adultery is a capital offense, like murder. As I mentioned in a previous post, all of the cultures of the ancient Near East saw adultery as a capital crime. They perceived it as destructive to the very core of society and dignity. This is how, then, stoning someone for adultery is in keeping with God's character. God values human life and dignity, he values truth and faithfulness in relationships, because eventually we will cease to be human if crimes like this are allowed to persist. We will turn into animals, abusers, victimizers, and society will become nothing more than kill or be killed, perpetrators and victims, and monsters. Patrick Buchanan said, "A modern society that outlaws the death penalty does not send a message of reverence for life, but a message of moral confusion. When we outlaw the death penalty, we tell the murderer that, no matter what he may do to innocent people in our custody and care, women, children, old people, his most treasured possession—his life—is secure. We guarantee it in advance. Just as a nation that declares that nothing will make it go to war finds itself at the mercy of warlike regimes, so a society that will not put the worst of its criminals to death will find itself at the mercy of criminals who have no qualms about putting innocent people to death."
As far as the 10-yr-old girl, that's a tidbit you have planted over the text. Knowing about ancient Israelite society, they are speaking here of grown children, not of little children.
Now, on to hell. Are you going to hell because you didn't believe in bad evidence? Not at all, but because you didn't believe the good evidence. There are a lot of distortions of the Bible around, and especially on the Internet. The evidence for the Bible is actually quite good, but we'd have to talk about specifics rather than just generalities. We would have to talk about which texts you think are "highly questionable."
> What if their conscience told them that murdering lots of children was good?
According to the Bible, their conscience would tell them no such thing. In the Bible, the conscience is something good given to us by God to keep us on track. If someone is murdering children, it's not their conscience leading them to that, but demented desires and urges.
> How much punishment in hell is fair? "Isn't there some point at which you'd have to say it's been enough? How psychotic and masochistic would one have to be to say after 100 billion years of unimaginable torment that it hasn't been enough for them"
There are many theories from thinking Christians that possibly hell is not eternal for everyone there, but there may be future opportunities for some to be reconciled to God after appropriate punishment and as they continue to make spiritual choices. Hell is a difficult doctrine to sort out. Without a doubt there are verses that talk about eternal punishment, but they don't necessarily include all of those who are separated from God. There are verses that talk about God reconciling all things to himself (Rom. 11.15; 2 Cor. 5.19; Col. 1.20), and so some theologians think that God will continue his work of reconciliation even into eternity, such that those who "serve their time" will at a later date be reconciled with God ("reconciliationism"). There is another position called "semi-restorationism" where, after appropriate punishment, those who desire a relationship with God will be partially restored, and those who do not, even after punishment, will opt to remain separated. So hell is eternal, but not necessarily eternal for everyone. While the Bible speaks about eternity, possibly only those who stay eternally defiant will be eternally punished. Some even believe in annihilation. It's hard to know.
There are also degrees of punishment in hell; it's not "One Fire Fits All." People can be punished worse or less based on their lives and what they deserve.
I happen to be convinced hell is not literally fire, but the agony of true separation from God. I say that because fire doesn't have degrees of punishment, but hell does. Degrees of separation makes more sense to me than degrees of being burned. I believe hell is degrees of punishment, based on the sin (though not levels of hell, as in Dante. Ironically, though, even Dante said hell is an endless, hopeless conversation with oneself). Here's my proof:
- Mt. 11.22-24 – "more tolerable"
- Mt. 23.14 – "greater condemnation"
- Rev. 20.13 – "each in proportion to his works"
- Lk. 10.12 – "it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town"
- Lk. 12.47-48 – beaten with few blows or more blows
That's how it's fair and just. My bottom line is this: Those who turn away from God will be separated from the life of God. Though we can't be sure about the form or duration of that separation, this we can be sure of: it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it. If you reject God, you take your chances.
I guess we need to talk more about this "bad evidence" of which you speak. Let's talk more.
As far as the Law of Moses being one of the most horrible things in existence, we would have to talk about the specifics. History tells us, however, that Israelite society following that law was an exceptionally moral society with rules far more humane and principled than those of the surrounding cultures. Now, you may think comparing it to those cultures doesn't necessarily raise it to a high level, but the fact remains that Israelite culture is recognized historically as moral, humane, and principled. That's one obstacle you need to get over if you want to claim they were barbarians.
As far as Deuteronomy 13, I spoke to that in your questions in Deuteronomy (link here: http://www.the3rdchoice.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=11177). I'll cut and paste part of it here for those who want to bother to link to the whole thing:
Murder is wrong because God is life, He created life, He values life, and He invested life with value and significance. Societies can only function properly if there is respect for life. Therefore killing is wrong.
Lying is wrong because God is truth, and truth is the foundation of meaningful relationships. Society can't function properly if we can't trust each other. The judicial system won't work if we can't trust the testimonies of the witnesses. Businesses can't function if there is no trust. Families will fall apart where there is no truth. Therefore lying and giving false testimony is wrong.
Adultery is wrong because God is faithful, and faithfulness is the foundation of meaningful relationships. Society can't function properly if we're just animals screwing with whomever we want, or raping each other. People don't have the dignity they deserve that way—they're just sexual victims. Families can't function that way. Society will crumble if sexual abuse is uncontrolled and rampant. Maybe you disagree with me, but we can keep talking about it.
Therefore adultery is a capital offense, like murder. As I mentioned in a previous post, all of the cultures of the ancient Near East saw adultery as a capital crime. They perceived it as destructive to the very core of society and dignity. This is how, then, stoning someone for adultery is in keeping with God's character. God values human life and dignity, he values truth and faithfulness in relationships, because eventually we will cease to be human if crimes like this are allowed to persist. We will turn into animals, abusers, victimizers, and society will become nothing more than kill or be killed, perpetrators and victims, and monsters. Patrick Buchanan said, "A modern society that outlaws the death penalty does not send a message of reverence for life, but a message of moral confusion. When we outlaw the death penalty, we tell the murderer that, no matter what he may do to innocent people in our custody and care, women, children, old people, his most treasured possession—his life—is secure. We guarantee it in advance. Just as a nation that declares that nothing will make it go to war finds itself at the mercy of warlike regimes, so a society that will not put the worst of its criminals to death will find itself at the mercy of criminals who have no qualms about putting innocent people to death."
As far as the 10-yr-old girl, that's a tidbit you have planted over the text. Knowing about ancient Israelite society, they are speaking here of grown children, not of little children.
Now, on to hell. Are you going to hell because you didn't believe in bad evidence? Not at all, but because you didn't believe the good evidence. There are a lot of distortions of the Bible around, and especially on the Internet. The evidence for the Bible is actually quite good, but we'd have to talk about specifics rather than just generalities. We would have to talk about which texts you think are "highly questionable."
> What if their conscience told them that murdering lots of children was good?
According to the Bible, their conscience would tell them no such thing. In the Bible, the conscience is something good given to us by God to keep us on track. If someone is murdering children, it's not their conscience leading them to that, but demented desires and urges.
> How much punishment in hell is fair? "Isn't there some point at which you'd have to say it's been enough? How psychotic and masochistic would one have to be to say after 100 billion years of unimaginable torment that it hasn't been enough for them"
There are many theories from thinking Christians that possibly hell is not eternal for everyone there, but there may be future opportunities for some to be reconciled to God after appropriate punishment and as they continue to make spiritual choices. Hell is a difficult doctrine to sort out. Without a doubt there are verses that talk about eternal punishment, but they don't necessarily include all of those who are separated from God. There are verses that talk about God reconciling all things to himself (Rom. 11.15; 2 Cor. 5.19; Col. 1.20), and so some theologians think that God will continue his work of reconciliation even into eternity, such that those who "serve their time" will at a later date be reconciled with God ("reconciliationism"). There is another position called "semi-restorationism" where, after appropriate punishment, those who desire a relationship with God will be partially restored, and those who do not, even after punishment, will opt to remain separated. So hell is eternal, but not necessarily eternal for everyone. While the Bible speaks about eternity, possibly only those who stay eternally defiant will be eternally punished. Some even believe in annihilation. It's hard to know.
There are also degrees of punishment in hell; it's not "One Fire Fits All." People can be punished worse or less based on their lives and what they deserve.
I happen to be convinced hell is not literally fire, but the agony of true separation from God. I say that because fire doesn't have degrees of punishment, but hell does. Degrees of separation makes more sense to me than degrees of being burned. I believe hell is degrees of punishment, based on the sin (though not levels of hell, as in Dante. Ironically, though, even Dante said hell is an endless, hopeless conversation with oneself). Here's my proof:
- Mt. 11.22-24 – "more tolerable"
- Mt. 23.14 – "greater condemnation"
- Rev. 20.13 – "each in proportion to his works"
- Lk. 10.12 – "it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town"
- Lk. 12.47-48 – beaten with few blows or more blows
That's how it's fair and just. My bottom line is this: Those who turn away from God will be separated from the life of God. Though we can't be sure about the form or duration of that separation, this we can be sure of: it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it. If you reject God, you take your chances.
I guess we need to talk more about this "bad evidence" of which you speak. Let's talk more.
- jimwalton
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Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by TrakeM » Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:42 am
I don't think it's relevant what kind of morality was common at the time in the surrounding areas. I don't think it's relevant how moral the law of moses was relative to that day and age. It is the claim of christianity and the bible that these laws were the perfect word of a perfect god, not the word of primitive man that was a little better than most of the other primitive people around them. Thus, the standard has be complete and total perfection or the claim must be lowered from word of god to word of primitive man.
Adultery being illegal in the case of someone who is married I can consider being a part of perfect morality. The death penalty for it though, I don't think fits perfect morality at all, especially when applied to someone who isn't married.
Some people are sociopaths that have no conscience. It does happen.
Your response brings up yet another problem. The lack of clarity in the bible is pretty staggering. I wouldn't expect for a perfect book with no errors of any kind to be so unclear, especially about god's judgment and what hell is. It lines up perfectly with what I'd expect to find in a book written by man, but not what I expect from the perfect word of god.
It may not be clear what hell is, but if it matches the most common interpretation of the bible, then it can't be a part of justice.
Adultery being illegal in the case of someone who is married I can consider being a part of perfect morality. The death penalty for it though, I don't think fits perfect morality at all, especially when applied to someone who isn't married.
Some people are sociopaths that have no conscience. It does happen.
Your response brings up yet another problem. The lack of clarity in the bible is pretty staggering. I wouldn't expect for a perfect book with no errors of any kind to be so unclear, especially about god's judgment and what hell is. It lines up perfectly with what I'd expect to find in a book written by man, but not what I expect from the perfect word of god.
It may not be clear what hell is, but if it matches the most common interpretation of the bible, then it can't be a part of justice.
- TrakeM
Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by jimwalton » Wed Jun 28, 2017 2:24 pm
> I don't think it's relevant what kind of morality was common
It's relevant, but it's not the strongest argument. As I admitted, just because they were higher than the cultures around them may make them better than others, but still not moral. I agreed to that. But that ancient Israel is regarded as a moral culture by present-day historians and ethicists carries more weight.
> I don't think it's relevant what kind of morality was common
You're right, again, and so that's where our conversation is better focused.
> Adultery being illegal in the case of someone who is married I can consider being a part of perfect morality.
OK, so we can agree on that. But I guess I have to ask, "On what basis is it moral?" I don't know you, or from where you consider morality to have come. Most people who are atheists or agnostics don't believe in objective morality, but in a sense of morality that has evolved for the sake of survival in that we have to behave with some kind of moral sensibility for the wellbeing of humanity, if we're all going to survive. If that's your take, though (and I don't really know), then what is it that makes adultery immoral? If we're just trying to survive, aren't more children by multiple partners a more sure path to the abundance that might be able to outlive catastrophes?
> The death penalty for it though, I don't think fits perfect morality at all, especially when applied to someone who isn't married.
My follow-up question to the last one is: Who gets to decide appropriate judgment for immorality? If it's you, by what standard are you making the decision, and what convinces you it's the best standard?
> Some people are sociopaths that have no conscience. It does happen.
I agree 100%. But I'm not convinced they were born sociopaths. Instead, they had life experiences that knocked the conscience right out of them.
> The lack of clarity in the bible is pretty staggering.
Sometimes, yes. The Bible can't possibly tell us everything we want to know, or it would be 1,000 volumes, and then we would gripe about it being too much to digest...and we would still find problems with it—places we thought it show discrepancies. Instead, the Bible is to reveal God to us, not to answer all our questions about every subject. It tells us enough about hell to warn us of the dire consequences of rebellion against God. Its teachings leave a lot of rocks unturned and a lot of loose threads. It's frustrating for us, but I get it. The Bible isn't a text about hell, it's a text about God, so there are lots of loose threads about hell, heaven, and the afterlife. But I believe we're told enough to "get it." That doesn't mean it wasn't written by God. What it means is that the Bible has a purpose: to reveal God to us. The other subjects are icing on the cake; we may wish we had more, but we might also regret having more.
Secondly, any communication is subject to interpretation. All communication has to be interpreted. There's no way around that one. Even the most clear and simple word can be subject to interpretation. Suppose a girl you are in love with walked past you and said hi. You'd wonder (1) was she just being friendly? (2) was she flirting? (3) was she inviting me to stop and converse? (4) is that signal that she wants me to call? You know, all she said was "hi." Every communication is subject to interpretation. Even God's inspired word. It's inevitable; that doesn't mean it's a flawed communication.
It's relevant, but it's not the strongest argument. As I admitted, just because they were higher than the cultures around them may make them better than others, but still not moral. I agreed to that. But that ancient Israel is regarded as a moral culture by present-day historians and ethicists carries more weight.
> I don't think it's relevant what kind of morality was common
You're right, again, and so that's where our conversation is better focused.
> Adultery being illegal in the case of someone who is married I can consider being a part of perfect morality.
OK, so we can agree on that. But I guess I have to ask, "On what basis is it moral?" I don't know you, or from where you consider morality to have come. Most people who are atheists or agnostics don't believe in objective morality, but in a sense of morality that has evolved for the sake of survival in that we have to behave with some kind of moral sensibility for the wellbeing of humanity, if we're all going to survive. If that's your take, though (and I don't really know), then what is it that makes adultery immoral? If we're just trying to survive, aren't more children by multiple partners a more sure path to the abundance that might be able to outlive catastrophes?
> The death penalty for it though, I don't think fits perfect morality at all, especially when applied to someone who isn't married.
My follow-up question to the last one is: Who gets to decide appropriate judgment for immorality? If it's you, by what standard are you making the decision, and what convinces you it's the best standard?
> Some people are sociopaths that have no conscience. It does happen.
I agree 100%. But I'm not convinced they were born sociopaths. Instead, they had life experiences that knocked the conscience right out of them.
> The lack of clarity in the bible is pretty staggering.
Sometimes, yes. The Bible can't possibly tell us everything we want to know, or it would be 1,000 volumes, and then we would gripe about it being too much to digest...and we would still find problems with it—places we thought it show discrepancies. Instead, the Bible is to reveal God to us, not to answer all our questions about every subject. It tells us enough about hell to warn us of the dire consequences of rebellion against God. Its teachings leave a lot of rocks unturned and a lot of loose threads. It's frustrating for us, but I get it. The Bible isn't a text about hell, it's a text about God, so there are lots of loose threads about hell, heaven, and the afterlife. But I believe we're told enough to "get it." That doesn't mean it wasn't written by God. What it means is that the Bible has a purpose: to reveal God to us. The other subjects are icing on the cake; we may wish we had more, but we might also regret having more.
Secondly, any communication is subject to interpretation. All communication has to be interpreted. There's no way around that one. Even the most clear and simple word can be subject to interpretation. Suppose a girl you are in love with walked past you and said hi. You'd wonder (1) was she just being friendly? (2) was she flirting? (3) was she inviting me to stop and converse? (4) is that signal that she wants me to call? You know, all she said was "hi." Every communication is subject to interpretation. Even God's inspired word. It's inevitable; that doesn't mean it's a flawed communication.
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Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by TrakeM » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:13 pm
How many ethicists are saying that the death penalty for adultery (particularly if you aren't married) is moral? I honestly can't believe that many ethicists are claiming that in this day and age. They may claim that the laws of the old testament such as this one was moral relative to what most people believed in at the time, but this isn't moral in some absolute sense. Our sense of morality is great enough today that we understand that it would be wrong to murder someone for adultery. Are you actually saying that ehicists say that the death penalty should be administered or were what was morally right at that time for committing adultery, or are you just saying that ethicists say that it was better than what most people at that time were doing?
To be honest, I'm not even sure what the definition of objective morality would be. Let me ask some questions just to get an idea as to what your definition is.
1) Let's say someone named Jane says that eating tomatos is morally wrong and has always been morally wrong. Does Jane have objective morality?
2) Let's say Jane writes that eating tomatos is morally wrong in a book. Bob then finds this book and says "Ah, I have found the sacred book of the one true god as delivered through Jane. Though shalt not eat tomatos!". Does Bob have objective morality?
3) Is objective morality whatever god (assuming a god exists) says it is? If so, how does that not just make it god's opinion? Even if it is an opinion held by an entity which can harm people, doesn't make it objective.
You seem to want to define moral as whatever god does. The problem is, that means that the statement "god is moral" a completely meaningless statement. If you instead say that god upholds a standard of morality separate of god perfectly, then god isn't really the author of morality and thus isn't really god.
As for what I think, I thin morality is incredibly important and a cornerstone of any society and something that we made up. Not all important things are something that we discovered. Some of it is stuff we made up. Morality is generally informed by ones values. People generally value happiness and well being. It is possible that evolution played a role in the development morality, though I'm not certain if it did. Certainly we do know that dogs have the capacity to be upset about how another dog is being treated. Dogs do have a concept of fairness. Experiments have been done that show this.
Adultery could very well be discouraged by evolution (though it may well have been through social pressure. It's difficult to separate nature from nurture.) The formation of societies has done a great deal of good for our survival. People working together has obvious benefits to the survival not just of the individual but the special as a whole as well. It's difficult to make a society work in which people have no idea of the child that they are taking care of is actually theirs or not. It has been done before in some cultures, but is not generally workable.
To be honest, I'm not even sure what the definition of objective morality would be. Let me ask some questions just to get an idea as to what your definition is.
1) Let's say someone named Jane says that eating tomatos is morally wrong and has always been morally wrong. Does Jane have objective morality?
2) Let's say Jane writes that eating tomatos is morally wrong in a book. Bob then finds this book and says "Ah, I have found the sacred book of the one true god as delivered through Jane. Though shalt not eat tomatos!". Does Bob have objective morality?
3) Is objective morality whatever god (assuming a god exists) says it is? If so, how does that not just make it god's opinion? Even if it is an opinion held by an entity which can harm people, doesn't make it objective.
You seem to want to define moral as whatever god does. The problem is, that means that the statement "god is moral" a completely meaningless statement. If you instead say that god upholds a standard of morality separate of god perfectly, then god isn't really the author of morality and thus isn't really god.
As for what I think, I thin morality is incredibly important and a cornerstone of any society and something that we made up. Not all important things are something that we discovered. Some of it is stuff we made up. Morality is generally informed by ones values. People generally value happiness and well being. It is possible that evolution played a role in the development morality, though I'm not certain if it did. Certainly we do know that dogs have the capacity to be upset about how another dog is being treated. Dogs do have a concept of fairness. Experiments have been done that show this.
Adultery could very well be discouraged by evolution (though it may well have been through social pressure. It's difficult to separate nature from nurture.) The formation of societies has done a great deal of good for our survival. People working together has obvious benefits to the survival not just of the individual but the special as a whole as well. It's difficult to make a society work in which people have no idea of the child that they are taking care of is actually theirs or not. It has been done before in some cultures, but is not generally workable.
- TrakeM
Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by jimwalton » Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:58 am
As I mentioned in my response to your question in Deuteronomy 13, so it goes with executing people for adultery. No ethicist now is saying that adulterers should be killed, nor am I advocating that. These laws were given in the context of theocracy. Civil law (the capital crimes) was intended for Israel as a theocratic state. When Israel/Judah fell (586 BC), the civil law became defunct with it. The civil law was not intended to be carried out by every government in history. It is no longer something secular governments are responsible to carry out. It is no longer something the Church is supposed to carry out. It is not a law or rule for us as Christians.
As far as objective morality, your examples are so contrived (and potentially absurd) they are difficult to comment on. I would contend that without a standardized plumb line, both "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong" are ultimately undefinable. Without an objective measure, "good" has no fundamental meaning. It means whatever one deems it to mean, and therefore no definition holds (whether pertaining to tomatoes or rape). If there is a right way to live, it must transcend you, or all is relative and the only definition of "right way to live" is my opinion; morals are mere opinions and evil is as valuable as virtue. If that’s true (and every culture has their standards of virtue), in the end, who has a right to judge?
For real, consider evolutionary forces. We're talking about blind and random mutations (the instruction manual keeps getting changed, but at random, not with purpose) along with blind natural selection (which end products continue, and which are deleted (also a nonintelligent process, complete blind, no "conversation" with the manual writers (mutation). Every stage is blind and random. No watchful eye to maintain a line of progression, no intelligence overseeing, no information system contributing. Natural selection (a misnomer because "selection" implies both intelligence and purpose) doesn't select for good instructions, but only for good products. Oops, I can't use "good," because "good" has nothing to do with it. Selection is based on relative performance, presumably.
At what point does "reason" and "good" enter this chain? They don't, and can't. Progress is always haphazard and random. Judgment is always blind. Purpose has no place and is not gainable because it is not in the system. All that's in the system is matter, time, and chance. It's impossible for reason to arise, because one can never necessarily trust the process, information is never necessarily reliable, and "good" never has anything to do with anything. All that ever matters is survival: fight, flight, food, and reproduction. You may argue that survival causes one to evaluate what would be good for survival or worse for survival, except that one's thoughts can be trusted. They are randomly generated, purely mechanical biological systems, and not attuned to truth. Atheist spokesmen agree:
J.L. Mackie: “If…there are…objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them. Thus we have…a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a god.”
Paul Draper: “A moral world is…very probable on theism.”
James Rachels: “Man is a moral (altruistic) being, not because he intuits the rightness of loving his neighbor, or because he responds to some noble ideal, but because his behavior is comprised of tendencies which natural selection has favoured.”
Richard Dawkins: “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
Kai Nielsen: “We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by myth or ideology, not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. … Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.”
I would never contend, however, that God was necessary for morality. People can act in moral ways on other grounds than God and for other motives than God. My contention is that morality can really only truly be defined if there is an objective component. And if that's the case, then all "morality" and "goodness" outside of an objective standard grounded in God's character are defined as other things that are different from morality ("what works well for me," the wellbeing of society, or even "what I have always been taught was right" or "what I believe is right"). While I agree that there are values swimming around in those phrases, they are not morality, and though they may contribute to the survival of the species, they can only be called "good" in the sense of opinion, but not in the sense of true goodness.
Let me try again from an evolutionary vantage point. Scientific naturalists (and atheists) generally claim that moral values are just the result of human evolutionary development, as I think you are asserting. Moral values "just emerged" once the human brain and nervous system reached a certain level of complexity. (There is a serious unlikelihood the values emerging from valuelessness, in my opinion.) Others claim that moral values are simply subjective, because they have biological worth, as you seem to be claiming as well. We are just hardwired to believe what contributes to our fitness and survival. The fabrication of moral values helps us to survive.
The problem is that we cannot trust our minds if we are nothing more than the products of naturalistic evolution. The evolutionary process is interested in fitness and survival, not in truth or goodness. In addition, we believe lots of things in turn that have nothing to do with survival. The fact that we seek to know the truth about many things apart from their survival value indicates that we are living according to a theistic worldview rather than a naturalistic one.
The evolutionary ethics argument to explain away objective moral values is inadequate. Our basic moral intuitions—along with our faculties of reason and science perception—are generally reliable; there is no good reason to deny them. But if they exist, we have already admitted that reason is reliable above what time plus chance will yield, so you are living either a contradiction or on borrowed logical capital. And if we claim that such basic beliefs should be questioned in the name of our impulse to survive and reproduce, then the skeptical conclusion is itself the result of those same impulses.
Naturalism does not inspire confidence in our belief-forming mechanisms. Instead, naturalism has the potential to undermine our conviction that rationality and objective moral values exist. If our beliefs—moral or epistemic—are survival-enhancing byproducts of Darwinistic evolution, why should we think that we actually have dignity, rights and obligations—or that we are thinking rationally? We cannot. A theistic worldview, by contrast, does assure us that we can know moral and rational truth—even if they may not contribute one whit to our survival.
As soon as you make a value judgment (eating tomatoes is morally wrong), you have already stepped outside of the evolutionary process saying the reason is good because it's good, but on what basis? If the basis is because this is the result of the random processes of evolution, then your ground is a mist, not a rock. The belief that allowing a child to get hit by a car is just as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers per hand rather than six. If moral objectives are not grounded in anything but "what works well for me" or contributes to the survival of the species, they are nothing but fog. Who is to say the old man or the little girl will contribute more to the perpetuation of the species? Any value is nothing more than opinion, and not a true value. As Richard Dawkins said, without God we have "no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" and that pure scientific naturalism will not and cannot take you to morality.
If we are nothing but the agglomeration of chemicals, assembled by random mutations and blind forces over the course of time, "guided" only by chance, there is ultimately no justification for opposing Nazism, for favoring saving a girl over raping her, for behaving altruistically to one's neighbor, or for eating tomatoes or not. Morality is subject to majority vote (or the declaration of the power block). Atheist philosopher Iris Murdoch argued that a transcendent notion of goodness was essential if defensible human notions of right and justice were to be maintained. If she's right, morality via atheism is essentially indefensible and theism is the only reasonable conclusion.
As far as objective morality, your examples are so contrived (and potentially absurd) they are difficult to comment on. I would contend that without a standardized plumb line, both "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong" are ultimately undefinable. Without an objective measure, "good" has no fundamental meaning. It means whatever one deems it to mean, and therefore no definition holds (whether pertaining to tomatoes or rape). If there is a right way to live, it must transcend you, or all is relative and the only definition of "right way to live" is my opinion; morals are mere opinions and evil is as valuable as virtue. If that’s true (and every culture has their standards of virtue), in the end, who has a right to judge?
For real, consider evolutionary forces. We're talking about blind and random mutations (the instruction manual keeps getting changed, but at random, not with purpose) along with blind natural selection (which end products continue, and which are deleted (also a nonintelligent process, complete blind, no "conversation" with the manual writers (mutation). Every stage is blind and random. No watchful eye to maintain a line of progression, no intelligence overseeing, no information system contributing. Natural selection (a misnomer because "selection" implies both intelligence and purpose) doesn't select for good instructions, but only for good products. Oops, I can't use "good," because "good" has nothing to do with it. Selection is based on relative performance, presumably.
At what point does "reason" and "good" enter this chain? They don't, and can't. Progress is always haphazard and random. Judgment is always blind. Purpose has no place and is not gainable because it is not in the system. All that's in the system is matter, time, and chance. It's impossible for reason to arise, because one can never necessarily trust the process, information is never necessarily reliable, and "good" never has anything to do with anything. All that ever matters is survival: fight, flight, food, and reproduction. You may argue that survival causes one to evaluate what would be good for survival or worse for survival, except that one's thoughts can be trusted. They are randomly generated, purely mechanical biological systems, and not attuned to truth. Atheist spokesmen agree:
J.L. Mackie: “If…there are…objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them. Thus we have…a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a god.”
Paul Draper: “A moral world is…very probable on theism.”
James Rachels: “Man is a moral (altruistic) being, not because he intuits the rightness of loving his neighbor, or because he responds to some noble ideal, but because his behavior is comprised of tendencies which natural selection has favoured.”
Richard Dawkins: “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
Kai Nielsen: “We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by myth or ideology, not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. … Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.”
I would never contend, however, that God was necessary for morality. People can act in moral ways on other grounds than God and for other motives than God. My contention is that morality can really only truly be defined if there is an objective component. And if that's the case, then all "morality" and "goodness" outside of an objective standard grounded in God's character are defined as other things that are different from morality ("what works well for me," the wellbeing of society, or even "what I have always been taught was right" or "what I believe is right"). While I agree that there are values swimming around in those phrases, they are not morality, and though they may contribute to the survival of the species, they can only be called "good" in the sense of opinion, but not in the sense of true goodness.
Let me try again from an evolutionary vantage point. Scientific naturalists (and atheists) generally claim that moral values are just the result of human evolutionary development, as I think you are asserting. Moral values "just emerged" once the human brain and nervous system reached a certain level of complexity. (There is a serious unlikelihood the values emerging from valuelessness, in my opinion.) Others claim that moral values are simply subjective, because they have biological worth, as you seem to be claiming as well. We are just hardwired to believe what contributes to our fitness and survival. The fabrication of moral values helps us to survive.
The problem is that we cannot trust our minds if we are nothing more than the products of naturalistic evolution. The evolutionary process is interested in fitness and survival, not in truth or goodness. In addition, we believe lots of things in turn that have nothing to do with survival. The fact that we seek to know the truth about many things apart from their survival value indicates that we are living according to a theistic worldview rather than a naturalistic one.
The evolutionary ethics argument to explain away objective moral values is inadequate. Our basic moral intuitions—along with our faculties of reason and science perception—are generally reliable; there is no good reason to deny them. But if they exist, we have already admitted that reason is reliable above what time plus chance will yield, so you are living either a contradiction or on borrowed logical capital. And if we claim that such basic beliefs should be questioned in the name of our impulse to survive and reproduce, then the skeptical conclusion is itself the result of those same impulses.
Naturalism does not inspire confidence in our belief-forming mechanisms. Instead, naturalism has the potential to undermine our conviction that rationality and objective moral values exist. If our beliefs—moral or epistemic—are survival-enhancing byproducts of Darwinistic evolution, why should we think that we actually have dignity, rights and obligations—or that we are thinking rationally? We cannot. A theistic worldview, by contrast, does assure us that we can know moral and rational truth—even if they may not contribute one whit to our survival.
As soon as you make a value judgment (eating tomatoes is morally wrong), you have already stepped outside of the evolutionary process saying the reason is good because it's good, but on what basis? If the basis is because this is the result of the random processes of evolution, then your ground is a mist, not a rock. The belief that allowing a child to get hit by a car is just as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers per hand rather than six. If moral objectives are not grounded in anything but "what works well for me" or contributes to the survival of the species, they are nothing but fog. Who is to say the old man or the little girl will contribute more to the perpetuation of the species? Any value is nothing more than opinion, and not a true value. As Richard Dawkins said, without God we have "no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" and that pure scientific naturalism will not and cannot take you to morality.
If we are nothing but the agglomeration of chemicals, assembled by random mutations and blind forces over the course of time, "guided" only by chance, there is ultimately no justification for opposing Nazism, for favoring saving a girl over raping her, for behaving altruistically to one's neighbor, or for eating tomatoes or not. Morality is subject to majority vote (or the declaration of the power block). Atheist philosopher Iris Murdoch argued that a transcendent notion of goodness was essential if defensible human notions of right and justice were to be maintained. If she's right, morality via atheism is essentially indefensible and theism is the only reasonable conclusion.
- jimwalton
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Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by TrakeM » Sat Jul 01, 2017 12:58 am
There are millions of people starving in the world. They would VERY VERY much like for there to be food. There are at the same time many incredibly immoral people with tons of money and power. History is filled with people who had everything and treated others like crap and still got wealthier. It's also filled to the brim with people who really tried to do good in this world but never got anything but pain and suffering. The universe DOES NOT CARE how much the starving children in 3rd world countries want food. If it did, then food would appear for them to eat. Yet, it does not. I'm sorry, but there exists no evidence that the universe cares about you or me or anyone else. If we are to have a greater day tomorrow than today it will not be because the universe cared, it will be because WE care. If we are to create a world tomorrow where everyone eats, it will be because WE work to make it so. It won't happen due to any "will" inherent within the universe.
Reason has two different meanings. I think now would be a good time to specify which one we mean. One definition is purpose. The other is cause. For example, you could say for what reason did you get up today? This isn't asking HOW you got up today. The answer isn't some explanation of how muscles work from a chemical perspective. The answer is for what purpose you got up. Alternatively, one could ask for the reason why the tides go in and out. This is not asking for a purpose for the tides going in and out. This is asking for the physical causes of the tides (mostly the moon if you were curious). There are causes for why things went one way and not another. There isn't a purpose that anyone has been able to discern with any actual evidence for.
Certainly a moral universe is very probable given theism. However, as already stated earlier (see first paragraph) we don't live in a very moral universe. There is no concept of morality that the universe seems to care about. At all. A christian view makes many assertions, but it's rather light on actual evidence. Sorry, I'm not interested in what you can assert. I'm interested in what you can provide real evidence for. Declaring that objective morality must exist isn't evidence of anything. It's a demand of the universe and from what I've been able to objectively observe, it doesn't care about your demands.
In order for you sense of morality to be objectively, your god would have to objectively exist. Your god doesn't objectively exist. You may believe that he exists. You may not believe he exists. You can not show objectively that he does. You cannot point to him and shake his hand. You cannot audibly asking him how his day has been and audibly get an answer back. You could claim that you can prey and you'll hear an answer if you truly believe, but the other religions say the same. Clearly, this isn't real evidence. If it was evidence, then you'd have to conclude that all religions are based on solid evidence since they can all make this same claim with the same evidence.
Reason has two different meanings. I think now would be a good time to specify which one we mean. One definition is purpose. The other is cause. For example, you could say for what reason did you get up today? This isn't asking HOW you got up today. The answer isn't some explanation of how muscles work from a chemical perspective. The answer is for what purpose you got up. Alternatively, one could ask for the reason why the tides go in and out. This is not asking for a purpose for the tides going in and out. This is asking for the physical causes of the tides (mostly the moon if you were curious). There are causes for why things went one way and not another. There isn't a purpose that anyone has been able to discern with any actual evidence for.
Certainly a moral universe is very probable given theism. However, as already stated earlier (see first paragraph) we don't live in a very moral universe. There is no concept of morality that the universe seems to care about. At all. A christian view makes many assertions, but it's rather light on actual evidence. Sorry, I'm not interested in what you can assert. I'm interested in what you can provide real evidence for. Declaring that objective morality must exist isn't evidence of anything. It's a demand of the universe and from what I've been able to objectively observe, it doesn't care about your demands.
In order for you sense of morality to be objectively, your god would have to objectively exist. Your god doesn't objectively exist. You may believe that he exists. You may not believe he exists. You can not show objectively that he does. You cannot point to him and shake his hand. You cannot audibly asking him how his day has been and audibly get an answer back. You could claim that you can prey and you'll hear an answer if you truly believe, but the other religions say the same. Clearly, this isn't real evidence. If it was evidence, then you'd have to conclude that all religions are based on solid evidence since they can all make this same claim with the same evidence.
- TrakeM
Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by jimwalton » Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:23 pm
We seem to be speaking in skew lines. Let's keep trying. I don't claim, and never claimed, that the universe is moral. What I claim is that the God of the universe is moral, and that's from where our moral sense derives. I'm not claiming planets are moral, light is moral, gravity, etc., but that people are because they have been endowed by their Creator with a moral sense. Everyone has one, and if everyone has one, since morality is not necessary for survival, this moral law had to have had a source. My contention was that if we are inferring the most reasonable conclusion, it makes more sense that morality derived from a moral source than from an amoral one.
I was using "reason" in the sense of our capacity for logical, sequential, purposeful, discriminating thinking that leads one to truth and wisdom. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is little to no reason to assume that such capacity came from a naturalistic sequence of events based on natural selection (a misnomer because it implies teleology) and genetic mutation (almost always deleterious). If we are inferring the most reasonable conclusion, it makes more sense that reason came from an intelligent source. As a matter of fact, there are no examples from science where informational data comes from anything but previous informational data.
> History is filled with people who had everything and treated others like crap and still got wealthier. It's also filled to the brim with people who really tried to do good in this world but never got anything but pain and suffering.
The Bible never teaches that the world either does or is supposed to conform to the retribution principle: good people get rewarded and bad people get punished. That's not how the world works, and the Bible is very clear about that. Yes, history is filled with jerks who had it good and good people who got nothing but pain and suffering. Agreed. The Bible agrees, too.
> Your god doesn't objectively exist.
I'm curious. Just supposed, hypothetically speaking, that you were alone in your room and God appeared to you. I mean, yeah, the real person. God. Let's suppose you could tell you weren't dreaming or hallucinating, but it was real, and you KNEW it. He talked to you; you touched him (somehow). You felt his presence. Just assuming. Then he leaves you. You go out to meet your friends. You are still a bit stunned. Your friends want to know what's up, and you tell them frankly that God just visited you. They, of course, want objective proof. What would you offer them in response?
I was using "reason" in the sense of our capacity for logical, sequential, purposeful, discriminating thinking that leads one to truth and wisdom. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is little to no reason to assume that such capacity came from a naturalistic sequence of events based on natural selection (a misnomer because it implies teleology) and genetic mutation (almost always deleterious). If we are inferring the most reasonable conclusion, it makes more sense that reason came from an intelligent source. As a matter of fact, there are no examples from science where informational data comes from anything but previous informational data.
> History is filled with people who had everything and treated others like crap and still got wealthier. It's also filled to the brim with people who really tried to do good in this world but never got anything but pain and suffering.
The Bible never teaches that the world either does or is supposed to conform to the retribution principle: good people get rewarded and bad people get punished. That's not how the world works, and the Bible is very clear about that. Yes, history is filled with jerks who had it good and good people who got nothing but pain and suffering. Agreed. The Bible agrees, too.
> Your god doesn't objectively exist.
I'm curious. Just supposed, hypothetically speaking, that you were alone in your room and God appeared to you. I mean, yeah, the real person. God. Let's suppose you could tell you weren't dreaming or hallucinating, but it was real, and you KNEW it. He talked to you; you touched him (somehow). You felt his presence. Just assuming. Then he leaves you. You go out to meet your friends. You are still a bit stunned. Your friends want to know what's up, and you tell them frankly that God just visited you. They, of course, want objective proof. What would you offer them in response?
- jimwalton
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Re: God is not fair by any definition of the word
by TrakeM » Sat Jul 01, 2017 11:35 pm
1) Ok, you are claiming that our sense of morality comes from god. Now please present your valid peer reviewed scientific evidence to support your claim.
2) You haven't presented any evidence here that your god objectively exists. My claim still stands.
3) If god appeared and somehow I was able to determine that it wasn't a hallucination or whatever and then god left (without me being able to ask him a question that only god would know like how the universe came to be that god got completely wrong in your book) then I'd probably start looking around for evidence that god ever been there. Perhaps some finger prints that would be distinctly different from any that a human or other animal could leave. Failing at that, well, my friends likely wouldn't believe my claim and how could you expect them to? You expect people to believe someone simply because they say they saw it? If you have no evidence, then you have no evidence.
2) You haven't presented any evidence here that your god objectively exists. My claim still stands.
3) If god appeared and somehow I was able to determine that it wasn't a hallucination or whatever and then god left (without me being able to ask him a question that only god would know like how the universe came to be that god got completely wrong in your book) then I'd probably start looking around for evidence that god ever been there. Perhaps some finger prints that would be distinctly different from any that a human or other animal could leave. Failing at that, well, my friends likely wouldn't believe my claim and how could you expect them to? You expect people to believe someone simply because they say they saw it? If you have no evidence, then you have no evidence.
- TrakeM
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