Originally posted by FetchmyjunkIf you wish to attribute to God not only all deaths but even the circumstances in which we each die, then He has a lot of explaining to do. He has handed out some grotesque deals and must have a sadistic streak beyond imagining, even without turning our attention to the alleged torments of Hell.
People who believe in God view it this way: God is sovereign over all of life and can take it whenever He sees fit. God and God alone can give life, and God alone has the right to take it whenever He so chooses. In fact, He ultimately takes every person's life at death. It is not our life to begin with but God’s. We intuitively recognize this when we acc ...[text shortened]... ation to extend anyone's life for even another day. How and when we die is completely up to Him.
Let's ignore human behaviour. We still see horrible suffering through natural causes. Nature can, indeed, be horrifically cruel. Now if you want to give God responsibility for all of this, then He is an evil and malicious God. The problems arising when we try to reconcile a just God with unjust suffering are severe.
These problems disappear when we eliminate God from our enquiries, and when we appreciate the universe does not exist to serve our needs; not even the conditions on our own planet that support life exist in order to meet our needs. We eat food but food does not exist because of us or for our sake or to meet our needs. We are not the centre of "creation" or even cosmically important - except to ourselves.
God is totally unhelpful in any discussion of evil. If we consider the book of Job to be a meditation on human suffering, then it makes clear that we will never succeed in finding a rational explanation for human suffering while we conceive of God as the source of our experiences and our fortune. Indeed, if you think it through, the reasons given in Job for the suffering inflicted by God (in a game played with Satan of course) are so trivial it is offensive.
22 May 16
Originally posted by finneganSo do you believe in the existence of good and evil? To what do you attribute their existence?
If you wish to attribute to God not only all deaths but even the circumstances in which we each die, then He has a lot of explaining to do. He has handed out some grotesque deals and must have a sadistic streak beyond imagining, even without turning our attention to the alleged torments of Hell.
Let's ignore human behaviour. We still see horrible su ...[text shortened]... ffering inflicted by God (in a game played with Satan of course) are so trivial it is offensive.
Originally posted by twhiteheadNo, not exactly.
Nobody has asked you to take anything they say on their authority. Therefore 'which side their bread is buttered' is irrelevant. The quality of a reference is only important if the references authority is being used. If merely its content is being used then you must argue against its content and not use an ad hominem.
It's never "just the content", is it? It's all about how the reader processes what they read.
Just as Donald Trump's supporters may take his words as presented and believe he means what he says, this doesn't mean everyone does. It's always about more than "just the content". The presentation is also important. Knowing your intended audience also helps to get your message received as you intend.
We can sit back and listen to Adolph Hitler's speeches today without the full effect they had on the German people living at that time and wonder "What were they thinking?"
Similarly, knowing the speaker informs us as to the meaning the speaker wishes us to glean from what he is saying. It is rarely about "just the content".
Originally posted by googlefudgeFrankly, I find it equally sickening that [some] people nowadays even attempt to assume things about the Bible, and they can walk away from their massive misunderstanding with a simple "Well, I don't believe in it". You can read the Bible without believing a word of the testimony of God and the Christ, and yet you fully accept and acknowledge the 'truth' of "atrocities and abominations" in the Bible. Yeah, sickening is the correct word.
Indeed... I find it sickening that people nowadays even attempt to try to justify and
worm their way out of admitting the atrocities and abominations in the bible.
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkGood and evil are value judgements.
So do you believe in the existence of good and evil? To what do you attribute their existence?
Malaria could be defined as evil if we imagine the world is designed around the needs of humanity. Why would a just God devise this torment for so many innocents? Alternatively, why is Satan allowed quite so much autonomy and to what beneficial end (for humanity)? That makes no sense. At best it has to be classified as a mystery. At worst, it is used to support appallingly judgemental claims about the victims with the possibly heretical implication (often argued nevertheless) that God rewards and punishes in this life, so we deserve what happens to us. [That idea works out more logically in Buddhism of course - if you go along with reincarnation. In Christianity we just get smug tossers who think they are superior by God's will because they are just - well, better people. #NotAllChristians remember]
The idea that religion can supply an authoritative, absolute moral code falls on its face when confronted with history. It is not just that the claim is inherently false (religion does not even attempt such a project and has different objectives) but also that religion actually, in practice, throws up a wild diversity of moral codes that are frequently in flat contradiction to each other. Even within one religion, or even one religious sub group - let us choose the Church of England and its associates - absolute confusion reigns on moral topics such as abortion, divorce, or homosexuality. Serious and highly proficient theologians are at each others' throats over the interpretation of Christian moral teaching.
Sadly, if you were to read up on the treatment of Iberian Jews under the Inquisition, you would be troubled about the degree of undoubted evil perpetrated in the name of religion. Again, we appear to be thrown back on attributing this to Satan in a way that frankly smacks of the Manichaean heresy or even Zoroastrianism ( a root source for many Christian beliefs of course).
Many of the crazy problems of good and evil dissolve at once when we accept that humanity is one of many evolved species on an insignificant little blue speck of a planet in the insanely vast and swirling cosmos. Stuff happens and we are not usually the reason for It. Life on earth is not too bad a deal and we have the ingenuity to make a go of our condition, provided we function as socially balanced humans, and not as maniacs.
Sadly, human evil - the evil we do - is a product of human decision making and one of the downsides to the human condition. For example, when people fail to control their base appetitites they can become atrociously selfish and harmful to others. This is something we have to acknowledge and take action to manage for the collective good.
In other words, codes of morality arise within social groups and serve as rules of thumb to guide the way we treat each other, incorporating systems of social sanctions as well as rewards. Ideally, such codes would be made explicit, rationally debated and democratically adopted or rejected. Ideally, our values could be promoted through education and thus internalised, not through authoritarian rule at any level. That is what we call "socialisation" and is the duty we owe to our children.
What we can achieve democratically rather hangs on the contributions we each make to the debate and the process. People who are too dogmatic to consider other views are sadly unable to make a healthy contribution to producing a decent society. They become a nusiance and a barrier which we are entitled to criticise and even attack in the name of decency. #NotAllChristians remember.
In this respect it is worth repeating my slogan: "Remember the bible is like a mirror. What we see is a reflection of the person looking in." Not everyone looks into the bible and sees the appalling, harsh morality proposed by the religious Right. It is there and it is worth pointing out to those who deny it, but it is not all that is there. Not for nothing that I was the only one so far to give a thumbs up to Suzianne's post above saying much the same thing from her very different perspective.
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Originally posted by SuzianneYou misunderstand me and my position.
Frankly, I find it equally sickening that [some] people nowadays even attempt to assume things about the Bible, and they can walk away from their massive misunderstanding with a simple "Well, I don't believe in it". You can read the Bible without believing a word of the testimony of God and the Christ, and yet you fully accept and acknowledge the 'truth' of "atrocities and abominations" in the Bible. Yeah, sickening is the correct word.
I think almost everything in the bible is made up, it's contemporary fiction for it's day.
And while it may be the case that some real people and events are referenced [just as
they are in Harry Potter] the central narrative and story are complete fictions.
However many people, ourself included, believe that they are true.
So I can go look at those stories, and I see how abominable the actions of the protagonists
are and I make a moral judgement about those protagonists and then compare that judgement
to what you and others like you make about those characters.
And I find you, and others, claiming as moral and correct crimes such a slavery and rape and murder
and genocide.... it doesn't matter that I know they're fictional accounts [although at that time all
those crimes were commonplace, and people really did that kind of thing].
For example. The god of the bible is supposed to have wiped out almost all of humanity in a great
flood. This event is clearly fictional and never happened. But it's said to have happened in the
bible, and we can make judgements about the characters in the bible [including god] based upon
their supposed actions as described therein. So what I see is the god of the bible committing
genocide, plane and simple. I then see people such as yourself arguing that this god is moral.
So genocide is moral if god does it? Or it's done in gods name?
That is sickening.
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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunkfinnegan is doing a good job dealing with this, but here is my pennyworth.
[b]The god in that description is evil. Period.
When you say God is evil you assume there's good. When you assume there's good, you assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that's Who you're trying to disprove and no ...[text shortened]... e's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there's no good. If there's no good, there's no evil.[/b]
First, I would suggest doing some research into secular ethics.
Because people have been working out how to make secular moral systems for centuries and there
are all kinds of ways to do it [almost all of which are better than argument from authority] and none
of them require a 'moral law giver'.
As I have said several times now, what you are arguing for is subjective morality. Morality based upon
the whims and opinions of a being or beings. [in your case your fictional god].
I believe in objective morality, that is morality that is based upon objective measurements of reality
and people and not upon any persons opinions.
Now objective morality does not mean 'absolute' or unchanging morality, because as people change,
as technology changes, the answers to moral questions can also change.
The right choice to make may well change as new options become available as our technology improves.
This is a strength, as we learn more about people and what is good for people and society and as our
technology improves and our options increase objective morality will improve as well.
Absolute morality, that supposedly never changes, [as oft claimed by religions] is stuck in the time it
was invented. And any flaws it had then will only magnify as the world moves on and technology changes.
I recommend watching these two videos for an introduction into what I am talking about. [Noting that my
personal position is not necessarily exactly the same as those here but that these are good starting points.]
Matt Dillahunty: The Superiority of Secular Morality
Who Says Science has Nothing to Say About Morality? [Sam Harris]
Both videos have QA sessions on the end so the talks are not as long as the run-times suggest.
Originally posted by twhiteheadIf what you mean by the word absolute is that there is a rule that is somehow fixed in heaven and applies to everything under heaven by its own force and there are no exemptions or exceptions to the rule, and everything and everyone and everybody must bow to the rule, including God for it to be an absolute, well, then there aren't any absolutes like that. I think that is an abuse of the word. No, I think an absolute isn't the kind of thing that never is exempted, but is an objective moral rule that has to do with a circumstance and is always applicable in those circumstances applied in the same way. But when the morally relevant circumstance is changed, like you go from man to God as the players, then it may not be that that objective principle applies in these other circumstances.
So not only are we talking about a non-absolute rule, but it depends on a specific law? What it if was unlawful by the Laws of Zambia?
Once again: can you name a moral rule that applies to God too.
An absolute is seen by many in an extreme way when, in fact, what we have in the Scripture are objective moral principles that are staggered in their significance, but some are more important that others. This is clear from things that Jesus said and from other teachings in the Scripture. There are greater goods and lesser goods. Sometimes you are stuck in what is called a moral dilemma and you have to do one thing or another, both of which are wrong. You must either protect human life and lie or hand over the innocent life to be killed. It happened to Corrie ten Boom and she chose to lie to protect Jews from the Nazis. In so doing, she did not do something wrong. She didn't do the lesser of two evils in my view. She did the greater of two goods. Therefore, lying in that circumstance was even morally obligatory. There are two instances in the Bible where we see exactly the same thing, the Egyptian mid-wives protecting the Hebrew newborns and Rahab protecting the Jewish spies. These people are even praised for what they did.
If you want to call moral rules absolutes in the sense that they can never be trumped, then that is probably too strong a definition and not a Biblical definition. And if you are not careful, it makes God subject to His own rules in a way that puts the rules above God instead of God above the rules.
Originally posted by googlefudgeSecular morality implies as true the untruth that nature explains itself. It does not. Modern man foolishly believes that empirical science can answer all our most pressing existential questions. This is merely another aspect of the inversion of reality wherein the secular moralists necessarily have to give primacy of place to empirical science as the best way of knowing. To disabuse a secular humanist of his notions of secular morality is a nearly impossible task. There is no language to dissuade him because in order to cling to a notion as absurd as secular morality, the secular humanist has to proclaim that language has no universal meaning.
finnegan is doing a good job dealing with this, but here is my pennyworth.
First, I would suggest doing some research into secular ethics.
Because people have been working out how to make secular moral systems for centuries and there
are all kinds of ways to do it [almost all of which are better than argument from authority] and none
of them requ ...[text shortened]...
Both videos have QA sessions on the end so the talks are not as long as the run-times suggest.
Despite the deconstructionist claims of the meaninglessness of language, “secular morality” is doomed by its etymology. “Secular” denotes something solely of this world; “morality” implies a transcendent standard oriented to a good–the good discoverable, not created by man. “Secular morality” is an oxymoron because secular and morality are mutually exclusive by their natures: One is grounded in the temporal, and the other is grounded in the timeless. It is an illicit marriage. It denotes the inversion of reality that accompanies the denial of the Creator’s authority. It is the attempt to make wine into water. Because moral good precedes the created man, and created man precedes secular considerations, secular cannot predicate morality any more than man can predicate God.
The idea of a secular morality improperly assumes that it is the creature–mankind–who makes the rules that govern human behavior, and as such, we ascribe to the faulty notion that “man is the measure of all things.” Being fallible creatures, we invariably measure incorrectly because there are limits to human perception and reason. The simple fact that there is not consensus among disparate claims of measures ought to demonstrate this clearly, but even this parade of incongruence is incapable of dissuading modern man. To pull off this self-deceit, it is necessary for the secular humanist to jettison the principle of non-contradiction, to decree that truth is subjective, and to make sitting comfortably with cognitive dissonance a mark of erudition.
As Fyodor Dostoevsky said “If there is no God, everything is permissible.” If everything is permissible, there can be no morality because there is no longer the distinction between good and evil. Secularism excludes God, universals, spirituality, and the transcendent. There is no theology in secularism. What a secularist might call “philosophy” is the handmaiden of empirical science; thus it is no philosophy at all, but sophistry masquerading as philosophy. Let the world deny the Creator, universals, the natural law, the divine law, the objective moral standard, the uncreated virtues, but it cannot claim truthfully that secular morality is moral, for it cannot be.
Edit: http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/secular-morality-oxymoron.html
22 May 16
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkCome on sir, if you cut and paste you need to reference it.
Secular morality implies as true the untruth that nature explains itself. It does not. Modern man foolishly believes that empirical science can answer all our most pressing existential questions. This is merely another aspect of the inversion of reality wherein the secular moralists necessarily have to give primacy of place to empirical science as the be ...[text shortened]... reated virtues, but it cannot claim truthfully that secular morality is moral, for it cannot be.
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/secular-morality-oxymoron.html
Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Secular morality implies as true the untruth that nature explains itself. It does not. Modern man foolishly believes that empirical science can answer all our most pressing existential questions. This is merely another aspect of the inversion of reality wherein the secular moralists necessarily have to give primacy of place to empirical science as the be ...[text shortened]... ot be.
Edit: http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/secular-morality-oxymoron.html
Secular morality implies as true the untruth that nature explains itself. It does not.Where does this implication arise? I would consider it at best a contentious claim. The broad suggestion that "Nature explains itself" would indeed be arguable, but what is not arguable is to reduce morality to Nature. That does not mean it is not attempted at times - ask No1Marauder to explain again the Catholic teaching about Natural Law for example. Last I heard, Catholics were Christians. Howevever, by definition, morality often requires acting against the grain of our nature, notably in curtailing our base appetites. So oddly enough, we have here a secular humanist denying and a Christian claiming that morality can be reduced to Nature. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Modern man foolishly believes that empirical science can answer all our most pressing existential questions. This is merely another aspect of the inversion of reality wherein the secular moralists necessarily have to give primacy of place to empirical science as the best way of knowingI wonder if you have ever read anything serious about Existentialism? If you had, and were familiar let us say with Sartre or Camus, you would be unable to continue this line of argument, which is nonsense on stilts. The inversion of reality is to claim that a secular moralist regards every matter as one for empirical testing. Not so. If you make an empirical statement, one that purports to describe material reality, then it should by all means be consistent with the empirical evidence. If, however, you wish to make an aesthetic statement, or a statement of values, or a judgement of worth, or an emotional expression or the expression of feeling, then empirical testing does not even enter into discussion. For example, you would appear blind to the role of emotion or feeling in all judgements, incuding rational ones, whereas many secular humanists would normally place great importance on feeling. The only category of human that might fit the description given could be the early Positivists in their failed attempt to reduce all human life to its underlying chemistry - a "reductionist" philosophy that has been rejected in most of science, though it still has its adherents.
in order to cling to a notion as absurd as secular morality, the secular humanist has to proclaim that language has no universal meaning.I wonder if this is a specific reference to Positivism and the movement that included Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein (in his first philosophy of the Tractatus)? I am sure that there still are secular humanists who hold these views but I am not sure that you will successfully reduce secular humanism to this viewpoint in particular. For example, even Bertrand Russell accepted that Godel had proved him wrong, and Godel's thinking does not conform to your caricature in any way that I know of. Since you are just cutting and pasting, I don't suppose it is worth pursing this question with you. Take my word for it - the claim is false because it treats all secular humanists as if they belonged to a minority viewpoint, which most do not belong to.
Because moral good precedes the created man, and created man precedes secular considerations, secular cannot predicate moralityThere are two senses in which you might argue that moral good (I assume also moral evil?) precedes the created man.
One is if you think it comes from God and want to argue that secular values must by definition be wrong because they ignore God. That is pure dogmatism. Instead of proving that morals come from God, the argument assumes what it wants to prove.
The other is if you adhere to a version of Plato's Theory of Forms. Actually, Christianity owes a massive debt to Plato - or more accurately, to Neoplatonism - but I am not sure that this is your point of view. I stand to be corrected. However, let us take the view that moral good is not priovided by God but is eternally present in terms of Plato's Theory of Forms. That would still not be sufficient to demonstrate why secular thinking cannot derive moral values. It would simply require that secular man, by the use of reason and with reference to experience, has the ability to arrive at sound - even ideally good - moral values without requiring any reference to God in the Christian / monotheistic sense of God. That, indeed, was what Plato argued was the case, and if you adopt a Platonic viewpoint then you accept Plato's propositions.
As an analogy, there are important mathematicians (Godel, Penrose) who seriously argue that mathematical solutions and principles exist as ideal forms independently of man and are discovered by man, not invented. The mathematics is there before we work out how to even look for it. Similarly, a Platonist would argue that morality is out there, even before we look for it.
I am not a Platonists by the way. . But I am pointing out that one can be one without requiring a Christian God.
So you seem to be bereft of an argument, an empty vessel, and I suspect you of cutting and pasting material you could not defend if you tried. I may be mistaken. Good luck.
Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Secular morality implies as true the untruth that nature explains itself. It does not. Modern man foolishly believes t
The idea of a secular morality improperly assumes that it is the creature–mankind–who makes the rules that govern human behavior, and as such, we ascribe to the faulty notion that “man is the measure of all things.” Being fallible creat ...[text shortened]... ot be.
Edit: http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/secular-morality-oxymoron.html
The idea of a secular morality improperly assumes that it is the creature–mankind–who makes the rules that govern human behavior, and as such, we ascribe to the faulty notion that “man is the measure of all things.How do you reconcile this curious claim with my post above, where I wrote:
Many of the crazy problems of good and evil dissolve at once when we accept that humanity is one of many evolved species on an insignificant little blue speck of a planet in the insanely vast and swirling cosmos. Stuff happens and we are not usually the reason for It.It is Christians who want to make man the centre of creation, as though everything was done for our benefit. You really do not need me to go through all the biblical references to this effect do you?
there are limits to human perception and reason. The simple fact that there is not consensus among disparate claims of measures ought to demonstrate this clearly,I have no difficulty agreeing about diversity among secular humanists. Why do you present the false impression that for Christians there is a single, undisputed moral code available to all. Why ignore what I wrote again? Here it is:
The idea that religion can supply an authoritative, absolute moral code falls on its face when confronted with history. It is not just that the claim is inherently false (religion does not even attempt such a project and has different objectives) but also that religion actually, in practice, throws up a wild diversity of moral codes that are frequently in flat contradiction to each other. Even within one religion, or even one religious sub group - let us choose the Church of England and its associates - absolute confusion reigns on moral topics such as abortion, divorce, or homosexuality. Serious and highly proficient theologians are at each others' throats over the interpretation of Christian moral teaching.Then you quote Dostoevsky and write:
If everything is permissible, there can be no morality because there is no longer the distinction between good and evil.This is simply nonsense again and the very selective quote from Dostoevsky misrepresents Existentialism. There is indeed the concept of existential despair to consider but also there are implications and solutions which follow on from this. Only by exploring the questions can we reach any kind of conclusions. The point is that Dostoevsky explored these concerns in agonising depth and was not guilty of relying on trite soundbites with easy answers. He wrote lengthy and deep novels, not coffee mugs with slogans.
To take a different existentialist example, Sartre famously came to the conclusion, when he was a prisoner of the German army in WW2, that he was in reality a free man, because he could choose how to act within his world, even while his world was temporarily (he escaped to join the resistance) restricted to the POW camp. He therfore used his time to work on his philosophical writing, part of which explored the radical freedom that comes from the death of God. When there is no ultimate authority controlling our destiny, we are left with the responsibility to make our own choices. But that radical freedom is not an easy thing - it is an immense burden and most people lack the courage to exercise their freedom. They delegate decision making to others, living by convention, following leaders, conforming to religion or to political ideology without questioning. This raises the fundamentally important question - how will I choose to live? There have been thinkers who argued that one can live with complete decadence and selfishness, because nothing matters, but they are demonstrably superficial and wrong. In fact, we cannot live as isolated individuals, we cannot tolerate an utterly self centred life - it would be utterly depressing and degrading. Choosing how to live is the most profound and significant thing because it is our own choice that creates value and that is precisely why so many people fear that choice so much. I may have oversimplified Sartre's argument I fear. There are some good YouTube videos explaining it better.
But the essence remains that in the absence of a God not only is morality possible, in fact it becomes essential in a way that would not apply if there was a God. Without God, we become responsible for our choices. There can be no stronger commitment to morality than this.
You do not have to agree with Sartre or accept Existentialism to be a secular humanist and many certainly would not want to be identified with his philosophy, not least because he is a European philosopher and the Anglo Saxons prefer "analytical" philosophy - or fondly imagine they do. However, it was you who cited an existentialist in your argument and in response this account gives one of many illustrations to show how possible and frutiful it can be to approach morality without reliance on God.
The entire post then, to which I have responded, is inept and dishonest. It sets up a straw man opponent, based on a caricature, and in order to argue its case it assumes everything that it ought to be trying to demonstrate. What a waste of an education to be so unhappy with reality that you have to invent a fantasy world to shelter in.
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkABSOLUTE
If what you mean by the word absolute is that there is a rule that is somehow fixed in heaven and applies to everything under heaven by its own force and there are no exemptions or exceptions to the rule, and everything and everyone and everybody must bow to the rule, including God for it to be an absolute, well, then there aren't any absolutes like that ...[text shortened]... subject to His own rules in a way that puts the rules above God instead of God above the rules.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/absolute
1Not qualified or diminished in any way; total: absolute secrecy; absolute silence
1.1Used for emphasis when expressing an opinion: the policy is absolute folly
1.2(Of powers or rights) not subject to any limitation; unconditional: no one dare challenge her absolute authority; the right to life is absolute
1.3(Of a ruler) having unrestricted power: Dom Miguel proclaimed himself absolute monarch
1.4 Law (Of a decree) final: the decree of nullity was made absolute
2. Viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative: absolute moral standards
Now compare the definition you offered:
I think an absolute isn't the kind of thing that never is exempted, but is an objective moral rule that has to do with a circumstance and is always applicable in those circumstances applied in the same way. But when the morally relevant circumstance is changed, like you go from man to God as the players, then it may not be that that objective principle applies in these other circumstances.
....what we have in the Scripture are objective moral principles that are staggered in their significance, but some are more important that others. ... There are greater goods and lesser goods. Sometimes you are stuck in what is called a moral dilemma and you have to do one thing or another, both of which are wrong.
I think you are confused and your use of the term "absolute" is absolutely ridiculous. In a public debate / forum it would be desirable to agree at least on what language we are using. You cannot just redefine critical words to evade an inconvenient argument. It would be like refusing to move your King out of check. That makes the entire debate futile.