The Moral Argument

[Archaeopteryx]

This is why I think the moral argument is powerful. You all can't help but affirm objective moral values and duties.

You defined "objective moral values and duties" as "God-given moral values and duties," remember? Thus rendering P1 a tautology?

 

[Hieronymus]

I can't help but sit back in my chair and roar with laughter when I see this stuff.

Please tell me how...

 

[bhsmte]

Don't fall off your high chair. Long way down.

Sit back and enjoy the show!

 

[Moral Orel]

But objective moral values and duties don't exist...

I never said they don't. I said that clearly they don't come from the Judeao-Christian God.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Yes.

No, genocide is when every member of one group or culture is targeted to be killed.

Going into a town and killing EVERYONE, including toddlers and babies, is indiscriminate killing. If it isn't, then the word "indiscriminate" is meaningless.

You would need to prove that it was random or without careful consideration and selectivity. God gave a reason for selecting them, and why. God is the arbitrator of life and death, He gives the life and can take the life.

Killing babies and toddlers is not an act of "self-defense".

Killing babies and toddlers is an act meant by God to be the best possible action for the greatest good for the future of mankind.

No, there isn't.

I provided a link that says there is.

"all" is "all". The word is pretty straightforward.



Then it is not "all".

I think this will come up again.

The fact that you need to ask, says it all.

I wanted to know what YOU meant by it. Please answer.

No. In this case it means that you derive your morality not from critical thinking and logical reasoning, but from a perceived authority.
It means that instead of a reasonable moral compass, you just have "obedience to a perceived authority".

I believe that all people have morality instilled within them and they can go with it or try to make excuses to get out of it. Regardless, I believe this critical thought out and logical reasoning that you use to determine what is moral and what is not is from the same source that I and everyone else is equipped with. Like I said: No one has the right to take innocent life and we live by that objective moral standard. To take "innocent" life is a objective moral standard that mankind holds. You hold it, I hold it and universally that is the standard. Some twist this and judge some as not innocent or justify their killing in some other way. Man is not God and has no right to take life other than self defense or in the act of saving another from great harm. Yes, the Jews were acting in self defense against an evil people and those evil people were spreading across the nations killing toddlers and babies and pregnant women and the old of others and even killing their own children by sacrifice. They did this to the Jews. Now if the Jews were not commanded by God to kill the young, and they did that would have been wrong and wrong in God's eyes as well. God is the arbitrator of life and death. But lets say that God didn't command them to kill the toddlers and babies...was it genocide? I don't think so even then. They would be acting in self defense and then adding an immoral component to the mix but genocide is the systematic killing of a specific group meaning the type of group is the only one that is killed and killed for that purpose but that was not the case. The Jews would have attacked and killed any group that attacked and killed their toddlers, babies, old, weak and young despite their ethnicity. Do you see that? It just happened to be the Canaanites and Amalekites that attacked them which in turn were attacked in retaliation and self defense.

Now the only difference between my morality and yours is that I hold that God exists and is the arbitrator of life and death. He creates life and has the right to end it when He wishes. I find the killing of human life without justification immoral and against the universal moral standard that murder is wrong. You do too. What you are claiming is confirmation that at least one objective moral standard does exist. I can also with great confidence that you hold that lying is also a universal objective standard. That is two. I would also say with great confidence that stealing is also an objective moral standard, using the same example as before...someone coming into your house and taking your food and sleeping in your bed.

So I believe that all the while you and others are claiming that objective moral standards do not exist, you are basing your arguments on that very moral standard.

Your freedom ends where mine begins.

Right. And to come into someone's home and take their food and use their beds even though they have a right themselves to that, is objectively wrong. It is stealing. Stealing is wrong is an objectively moral standard.

Not unless I allow it.

Then it is not stealing, I agree.

It actually does mean exactly that.

No, it actually doesn't.

You keep claiming this.

Yes, I do. I have shown you that there is scientific evidence that these things happened.

It is true. Knowledge is demonstrable. Mere beliefs aren't.

So your belief that knowledge is demonstrable is just a belief and can't be knowledge. How do you demonstrate that knowledge must be demonstrable? How do you demonstrate it is true? For any knowledge we attain we have to internalize it to learn it. This is internalized learning – in this sense we only know something demonstrated by evidence if we have internalized it- i.e. we “believe it”. I think that you are confusing evidence with knowledge.

Your beliefs are shocking and disturbing.

My beliefs are the same as yours as far as humans taking life. Our differences come in where God comes in. IF God didn't exist and didn't have the necessary information to make long range decisions, I would agree completely 100% with you. If God didn't exist we would be agreeing right now rather than disagreeing. Our moral compasses are the same when we are viewing the act in the same way. If I didn't believe God existed and didn't command the Jews to act on His instructions I would be in complete agreement with you.

Now do you think if God existed that He would hold the necessary information on each and every child in this event and knows that they could be in differing levels just as bad as Hilter or Stalin and be responsible for as many deaths as they and more; would you think God was wrong in having them killed?

Que? My goalposts remain the same. All this time, we have been talking about people massacring others claiming to be commanded by a god to do so.

Ok, I'll keep that in mind when responding.

The morality of vile genocidal acts, that you are trying to defend as "good", only because it is claimed to be done on behalf of a god.

I say that even if a god commanded it, it would still be immoral.

There is no context in which it is okay to go into a town and kill every living thing there. Ever.

Then you have shown that there is an objective moral standard and that you use it and that standard is what determines what is moral. So was it immoral to kill the adults?

Abortion IS the termination of a pregnancy. "killing" isn't part of the definition.
A c-section is also an abortion.

A termination of a pregnancy kills a baby. Whether or not it is in the definition or not. A c-section is used to save a baby, an abortion is to kill a baby. What you are doing here is what I said earlier about how one can "get around" our objective moral standard on murder. You are claiming that abortion is not murder and you have reasons that you have convinced yourself of to make abortion not an act of murder. Please show your rationalization of how killing millions of babies in their mothers womb is not immoral but killing a much smaller group of children is?

Yeah, the terrorists that blew themselves up in Brussels 2 weeks ago said about the same thing.

You are ignoring a very important part here, the Jews had first hand experience of God and His power. The terrorists do not have first hand experience of Allah.

I already told you that. You don't understand it, because your idea of morality is mere obedience to a perceived authority.

That is a straw man. My morality is sourced in the same way your is. Like I said, I would agree 100% with your position if God didn't really exist. In fact, with my morality humans never have the right to kill other humans unless it is self defense or in defense of someone else who faces loss of survival; includes babies in the womb.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Ow man...... the irony!!!!

There is no irony. It is totally consistent with the Christian faith.

I just told you a couple posts ago that if I ask the question "would it be moral if god commands you to rape", then the default reply is "god wouldn't ask me that"...

This is hilarious. And disturbing again.

Right. He wouldn't. Why is it disturbing, even if you didn't understand why He wouldn't and therefore no Christian would believe He would, it doesn't make sense to say it is disturbing.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I can't help but sit back in my chair and roar with laughter when I see this stuff.

I love conversations like this because it does not take long at all to draw out people's true views.

DogmaHunter, bhsmte, Arch, and Nicholas, you guys sure do sound like people who think slavery and the killing of children is wrong, even if the Israelites thought it was right and that it would be wrong even if the Israelites were to succeed in becoming the majority.

But objective moral values and duties don't exist...

This is why I think the moral argument is powerful. You all can't help but affirm objective moral values and duties.

Let's pretend for a moment that you are actually interested in a serious discussion. Pointless, since we all know you aren't, but let's just pretend... Yes, we do think such actions are wrong. That is true regardless of our meta-ethics; that is, regardless of whether we are realists or subjectivists on the question of what moral claims are about. Notice how you conveniently switch between ethics and meta-ethics as it suits you, all while pretending that ethical subjectivism is equivalent to moral nihilism, and all while ignoring the entire discussion so far. This is a familiar pattern, your MO. You aren't interested in sincere discourse, but it's funny when you pretend that you are with trite stories that tend to begin with, "Oh, I was like you once..." and "I have lived that way..." Because you are incapable of engaging in sincere discourse, and because your tactics are so transparent, you've simply shown yourself to be someone not worth taking seriously.

 

[Oncedeceived]

How do you interpret "thou shalt utterly destroy them"? (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

That was only one group within the culture. For it to be genocide every member of the culture would be a target.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

That was only one group within the culture. For it to be genocide every member of the culture would be a target.

This is a lame excuse, Once, and I think you know it.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

@anonymous person

 

[Oncedeceived]

This is a lame excuse, Once, and I think you know it.

I don't believe that God commits Genocide in the way we define it anyway but yes, I do think it is valid when people of the same group or culture were not killed. It demonstrates the entire culture was not a target but that only a specific number of them were involved in attacking the Jews.

 

[bhsmte]

This is a lame excuse, Once, and I think you know it.

Likely knows it, but highly unlikely, the defense mechanisms driven by cognitive dissonance, would allow admitting the same.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I don't believe that God commits Genocide in the way we define it anyway

He ordered them to "live nothing alive that breaths," and to "destroy them utterly." What definition would you prefer to use?

but yes, I do think it is valid when people of the same group or culture were not killed. It demonstrates the entire culture was not a target but that only a specific number of them were involved in attacking the Jews.

Did the infants and children also attack them?

 

[Oncedeceived]

He ordered them to "live nothing alive that breaths," and to "destroy them utterly." What definition would you prefer to use?

Did the infants and children also attack them?

So killing infants and children is what defines genocide?

 

[Moral Orel]

That is simply false. They were only told to wipe out specific groups within the culture.

You may think Arche's verse is what I'm talking about, and although it is plenty impressive, it isn't the verse in mind. So please tell me, if God commands an entire society, or nation, or culture to be destroyed, regardless of motive, does it fit the real definition of "genocide" (not your definition of genocide)?

 

[Oncedeceived]

You may think Arche's verse is what I'm talking about, and although it is plenty impressive, it isn't the verse in mind. So please tell me, if God commands an entire society, or nation, or culture to be destroyed, regardless of motive, does it fit the real definition of "genocide" (not your definition of genocide)?

I am going to respond to these when you have responded to my post to you. Thanks.

 

[bhsmte]

He ordered them to "live nothing alive that breaths," and to "destroy them utterly." What definition would you prefer to use?

Did the infants and children also attack them?

Just collatoral damage.

 

[Moral Orel]

I am going to respond to these when you have responded to my post to you. Thanks.

This is a response to your post, see I quoted that post here:

That is simply false. They were only told to wipe out specific groups within the culture.

 

[Oncedeceived]

This is a response to your post, see I quoted that post here:

I meant the post prior to these.

 

[Moral Orel]

I meant the post prior to these.

Post # please? Sorry, I want to make sure I know which one you're talking about.