Atheist ethics, atheist values

[TeddyKGB]

I didn't say the US was founded as a Christian Nation, but by Christian men. My point is that the ethics which guided the creation of the US and its early laws were Christian ethics.

Many of those erstwhile Christian gentlemen had beliefs individually that would make you cry. Have you ever read the Jefferson Bible? Anything by Thomas Paine? Ben Franklin? The Federalist Papers?

That's already been covered. My point remains that up until recently, Creationists (in this use, only to mean those who believe God created the world) formed the main body of thought which created the country, then its government and laws. Only since the advent of Darwinism has secularism laid any hold on the institutions of the US.

What has possessed you to revise history so blatantly? Do you suppose that we have not ever heard of the Age of Enlightenment?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

That is about the least Christian language of the time that the Declaration authors could have used. Enlightenment ring any bells? And this was a document, remember, that was intended to rouse the populace to rebellion.

It's not like "One Nation Under God" was just a catchy slogan, it fit the framework of the nation, and so was adopted.

I assume you mean "In God We Trust." A trivial point, of course, since both motto and pledge-revision were adopted in the midst of fear-mongering that had folks believing that the really bad thing about communism was the "godless" part, and that we civilians could combat atheism abroad by plastering religious language anywhere and everywhere.

That was the 1950s by the by, not quite contemporary with your allegedly Christian-thinking founders.

 

[JediMobius]

Can someone remind me why it matters if this nation was founded by christian or non-christian men?

If we go way way back in the discussion to page 40:

I said:

What is right, fair, and just are implemented (through our rights and courts) as that which is above people, and so must be based on that which is above us.

. . . to which came the reply:

But no human law or court system is based on "that which is above us," if by that you mean God's will.

...and the verbal battle ensued from there.

The fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian shows that our laws and country were founded according to morals which are above men. The declaration of independence used such terms as "divine providence" and "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," so it's not as if their faith was ignored as they formed our nation, nor was it fully exhibited because they wanted to ensure the US would never be a theocracy.

 

[JediMobius]

Many of those erstwhile Christian gentlemen had beliefs individually that would make you cry. Have you ever read the Jefferson Bible? Anything by Thomas Paine? Ben Franklin? The Federalist Papers?

I don't know about Thomas Paine, but Jefferson and Franklin were Deists, though they associated with some denomination of Christianity, Deism is of course not the same. These would be part of the few men who weren't of the majority.

What has possessed you to revise history so blatantly? Do you suppose that we have not ever heard of the Age of Enlightenment?

Did I revise history? Is history limited to those perspectives by which it has been captured? History is more or less pop culture, if the right people thought it noteworthy, then it became history. History is not a vivid picture of what happened, by an observation.
Anyway, I don't see how that contradicts that secularism is a more recent trend. The people who lent their philosophy to the age of enlightenment were not the majority. Yeah, the age of enlightenment is in the 18th century, does that really mean it was the predominant thought of the time?

That is about the least Christian language of the time that the Declaration authors could have used. Enlightenment ring any bells? And this was a document, remember, that was intended to rouse the populace to rebellion.

Well yeah, any more and it would border theocracy territory. To Christians, and this must include the Christian men who signed the document, Creator is a title of God. So what if it was the age of enlightenment, it's not some overbearing rule that everything about the 18th century was part of the age of enlightenment by design or by requisite.

I assume you mean "In God We Trust."

No, I said what I meant. "In God We Trust" being stamped on all our money is just ironic.

A trivial point, of course, since both motto and pledge-revision were adopted in the midst of fear-mongering that had folks believing that the really bad thing about communism was the "godless" part, and that we civilians could combat atheism abroad by plastering religious language anywhere and everywhere.

The motives of the few who began seizing control of the government from the people and their methods are beside the point. That the appeal to faith was there and effective lends to my point.

That was the 1950s by the by, not quite contemporary with your allegedly Christian-thinking founders.

Fine, ignore the Christian foundations of this country then.

 

[Tenka]

Good thing that's not how I define True Christians.

That is precisely what you've been alluding to, without any reference to holy spirit spotting which is just another way divisive Christians to refer to others who agree with them, I see it all the time here.

You have no evidence, but plenty of Christians do. We can't offer the Holy Spirit as evidence if you refuse to accept it, so we're kinda at an impass.

You can't offer the holy spirit to other Christians either, only those who agree with you.
And remember anything you can claim so easily and without evidence I can dismiss just as easily, that's how it goes.

Either you're confusing freedom with ethics, or secular ethics aren't actually ethics. (That would be a confusing term.) Ethics prescribe what behavior is morally acceptable. Freedom means there are no guidelines, no right or wrong - do as you like as long as it doesn't infringe upon someone else's freedom. People should be free to believe as they like, that's not a secular thing, it's a freedom thing.

I have to wonder what you find so distasteful about secular ethics that you would serve this word soup of a response.

 

[brinny]

If we go way way back in the discussion to page 40:

I said:
. . . to which came the reply:

...and the verbal battle ensued from there.

The fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian shows that our laws and country were founded according to morals which are above men. The declaration of independence used such terms as "divine providence" and "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," so it's not as if their faith was ignored as they formed our nation, nor was it fully exhibited because they wanted to ensure the US would never be a theocracy.

well said.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Biblically, a man is not just permitted to protect his family, but charged to do so. Without the right to bear arms, only criminals would have guns, and furthermore, and this was the intent of the 2nd amendment, private gun ownership is a necessary portion of staving off tyranny.

I don't intend to derail this thread by discussing gun politics. This is the thread I spoke of.

Really? Our society (which began with Christianity-based morals) agrees with that, but what about Darfur and Rwanda?

Well, what about them? I said that most people agree with broad moral statements most of the time.

I also disagree that the US was founded on Christian morality, but that's another discussion altogether.

What about killing innocent unborn children as a means of after-the-fact birth control? Spin it however you may like, but deciding when life begins is putting yourself above life, and if it can't be decided, it should be assumed that life begins at conception.

I take it you're opposed to abortion then?

First refer to the living God who is good, just, loving, and sovereign, and God will let you know.

And how does one do that?

The only intermediary between God and man is the Holy Spirit, which reveals all truth and ministers the ways of God to God's children.

Why, then, are there hundreds of denominations of Christianity? If God "reveals all truth", why are there different groups espousing different truths?

There is intrinsic (objective) good, and there is relative (subjective) good. Intrinsic good is the epitome of righteousness and love. Relative good is how most people consider pizza, movies, and the neighbors they like. If subjective good is all that exists, there would be no such thing as compassion which is motivated by objective good.

You assume that compassion is motivated by objective good; why? I, for one, do not help my fellow man just to conform to some Platonic Form.

Separation of church and state only means that a church shouldn't run the state, that we shouldn't allow a theocracy like the Roman Catholic church was at one time. That doesn't mean Christian morals and thoughts are banned from politics.

Indeed. But if they are in politics because they are Christian in origin, that's where we have a problem. You said:

"What is right, fair, and just are implemented (through our rights and courts) as that which is above people, and so must be based on that which is above us."

Putting that in the legal system is a breach of the First Amendment to the US constitution.

 

[jcook922]

Separation of church and state only means that a church shouldn't run the state, that we shouldn't allow a theocracy like the Roman Catholic church was at one time. That doesn't mean Christian morals and thoughts are banned from politics.

It isn't that Christian morals and thoughts even should be banned from politics. What MUST be banned from politics, is JUSTIFYING laws with Christian Theology. If I was a judge and you set foot in my court room telling me that we should keep gay marriage illegal because God says so in the bible, then I would throw you out of my damn court. Now, if you had an actual case with evidence, then I would listen to you.

Do you sort of understand my point here? In a nation of many where we preach religious freedom for ALL and not just Christians, you cannot justify lawmaking and policy in our country with one religions viewpoint.

 

[Braunwyn]

If we go way way back in the discussion to page 40:

I said:
. . . to which came the reply:

...and the verbal battle ensued from there.

The fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian shows that our laws and country were founded according to morals which are above men.

What morals that are above men? Our laws are pretty basic. I don't see how christanity has a patent on basic morality.

 

[TooCurious]

If we go way way back in the discussion to page 40:

I said:
. . . to which came the reply:

...and the verbal battle ensued from there.

The fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers were Christian shows that our laws and country were founded according to morals which are above men. The declaration of independence used such terms as "divine providence" and "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," so it's not as if their faith was ignored as they formed our nation, nor was it fully exhibited because they wanted to ensure the US would never be a theocracy.

You seem to have misapprehended my statement, so I'll take another swipe at it. While I would dispute your claim that the "vast majority" of America's founding fathers were Christian (many, and certainly the most instrumental, of them were Deists), or that America was founded and constructed around Christian values or principles instead of Enlightenment ones, that is not the main thrust of my point. I'll even give you, for the sake of argument, the notion that they were Christians and wanted to shape this country using their idea of Christianity.

That doesn't mean that they employed anything actually objective or divine. All they (and, indeed, any religious person) had are their own -- or their religion's -- ideas and beliefs about what God wants. It's all very well to go on about Holy-Spirit-infused Bible reading, but you can't conclusively demonstrate which Christian has the Holy Spirit and which doesn't. You can easily end up with two Christians who disagree virulently about a particular (and significant!) Biblical passage, each claiming that his interpretation is inspired by the Holy Spirit and the other's isn't. Unfortunately, to anyone outside of these two people, they both look exactly the same.

And before you get into the "I can't refer you to the Holy Spirit as evidence, because you're a poor ignorant atheist who hasn't been initiated into the mysteries" spiel, please understand that anything that is not verifiable and intersubjective is not evidence. God (and the Holy Spirit, being part of the Trinity, is God) cannot be cited as evidence because God is himself unevidenced. This is, after all, the entire point of faith, is it not? Faith is the belief in something about which there cannot be factual certainty. But because the existence of God is a matter of faith, claims regarding the existence and nature of the divine and its wishes and prescriptions are necessarily individual, unverifiable, and subjective. At the end of the day, the closest anyone can come to objective truth is the subjective belief that the Holy Spirit (or another force of your choice) guides him to an accurate understanding of objective truth. Ultimately, the believer is still in the same boat as the rest of us.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I don't know about Thomas Paine, but Jefferson and Franklin were Deists, though they associated with some denomination of Christianity, Deism is of course not the same. These would be part of the few men who weren't of the majority.

And so peripheral were they to the philosophy of our nascent country that it's difficult to come up with a non-Enlightenment-style thinker of the time without Wikipedia at hand.

You are grasping at invisible straws here.

Did I revise history? Is history limited to those perspectives by which it has been captured? History is more or less pop culture, if the right people thought it noteworthy, then it became history. History is not a vivid picture of what happened, by an observation.
Anyway, I don't see how that contradicts that secularism is a more recent trend. The people who lent their philosophy to the age of enlightenment were not the majority. Yeah, the age of enlightenment is in the 18th century, does that really mean it was the predominant thought of the time?

It's called the Age of Enlightenment for a reason.

In any case, recent secularism is a reflection of the hyper-religiosity of the mid-20th-century. Once again I direct your attention to the fact that nearly all the God references are products of 1950s Red Scare paranoia.

Well yeah, any more and it would border theocracy territory.

Irrelevant. The Declaration of Independence did not establish a government.

To Christians, and this must include the Christian men who signed the document, Creator is a title of God. So what if it was the age of enlightenment, it's not some overbearing rule that everything about the 18th century was part of the age of enlightenment by design or by requisite.

Christians can make whatever they like of nonspecific references. "Creator" is demonstrably deistic language. And lest you forget, the DoI also speaks of "Laws of Nature" and "Nature's God."

No, I said what I meant. "In God We Trust" being stamped on all our money is just ironic.

"One nation under God" is not a slogan or motto; it is a 1950s-era addition to the Pledge. "In God We Trust" is an official national motto (along with E Pluribus Unum), also a product of the 1950s.

The motives of the few who began seizing control of the government from the people and their methods are beside the point. That the appeal to faith was there and effective lends to my point.

Effective at what? Do you think religious pandering in 1956 helped overcome Soviet communism in the 1980s?

Fine, ignore the Christian foundations of this country then.

I will give them full attention when you come up with some.

 

[WatersMoon110]

It isn't that Christian morals and thoughts even should be banned from politics. What MUST be banned from politics, is JUSTIFYING laws with Christian Theology. If I was a judge and you set foot in my court room telling me that we should keep gay marriage illegal because God says so in the bible, then I would throw you out of my damn court. Now, if you had an actual case with evidence, then I would listen to you.

Do you sort of understand my point here? In a nation of many where we preach religious freedom for ALL and not just Christians, you cannot justify lawmaking and policy in our country with one religions viewpoint.

I really must say, this is a beautiful post.

Obviously, I agree that laws should not be made without sound ethical theory backing them. The bans on Gay Marriage are made only because of some religious beliefs! And, while I feel that those religious beliefs are completely mistaken, what truly matters is that there is no logical legal reason to ban Same-Sex Couples from legal unions and all of the rights that go with them!

 

[JediMobius]

I don't intend to derail this thread by discussing gun politics. This is the thread I spoke of.

My point is that gun ownership is a matter of freedom, and not of ethics. The use of firearms can be right or wrong, not the freedom of having the option, just like with alcohol and motor vehicles.

Well, what about them? I said that most people agree with broad moral statements most of the time.

The fact that a significant number of people don't agree at many points throughout history (slavery, hitler. . .) shows that secular ethics are extremely flawed.

I also disagree that the US was founded on Christian morality, but that's another discussion altogether.

Most non-Christians like to think so.

I take it you're opposed to abortion then?

It's a horrible injustice.

And how does one do that?

Well, since you can't see God, in order to talk to God you have to know at least one part of who God is first.

Why, then, are there hundreds of denominations of Christianity? If God "reveals all truth", why are there different groups espousing different truths?

Since the majority of churches are led by a pastor or two, there's little accountability for the pastor other than man-made doctrine, and for the church-goer there is little personal responsibility to discover the truth themselves because they rely on the pastor. Modern Christianity as a whole does not follow the way "church" was held in Paul's time, which has caused a whole lot of division, disagreement, and confusion.

You assume that compassion is motivated by objective good; why? I, for one, do not help my fellow man just to conform to some Platonic Form.

Your choice of words implies that you help your 'fellow man' out of a sense of community, which is not compassion but only a perception of decency.

Indeed. But if they are in politics because they are Christian in origin, that's where we have a problem. You said:

"What is right, fair, and just are implemented (through our rights and courts) as that which is above people, and so must be based on that which is above us."

Putting that in the legal system is a breach of the First Amendment to the US constitution.

It says freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Are you saying our rights and laws are not above the individual?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

My point is that gun ownership is a matter of freedom, and not of ethics. The use of firearms can be right or wrong, not the freedom of having the option, just like with alcohol and motor vehicles.

Ah, I see. And I disagree . The use of lampshades is a matter of freedom, not ethics: there is no moral qualm involved (usually...). But with guns, there is a very real ethical dilemma. Does the benefit justify the cost? Are the lives lost due to the proliferation of guns in the US a worthy price for the lives saved?

And we make the same ethical considerations with alcohol, automobiles, drugs (medicinal or otherwise), etc. We place age restrictions, licence requirements, and even outright bans on certain things that, it seems, you could consider "a matter of freedom, not ethics".

We don't allow people to drive cars until they've demonstrated that they can use them without being a menace to society. The same should be done with guns: unless US citizens can, like the Swiss, curb their homicidal trend (as this graph demonstrates), their government shouldn't allow them such free access to weaponry. Despite any pro-gun defence, the statistics are undeniable.

The fact that a significant number of people don't agree at many points throughout history (slavery, hitler. . .) shows that secular ethics are extremely flawed.

Ah, but that's throughout history. The moral Zeitgeist (to borrow from Dawkins and others) has moved on: at one time, inhospitality was an unthinkable atrocity, but now it's just a minor (and common) inconvenience.

And this isn't a flaw of secular ethics; it isn't even secular ethics at all. It's a fact, and one that seems to contradict the notion of an objective morality.

Most non-Christians like to think so.

And most Christians like to think the contrary. We could start throwing around quotations of the founding fathers, I guess. Would you care to start?

It's a horrible injustice.

To whom?

Well, since you can't see God, in order to talk to God you have to know at least one part of who God is first.

I don't see how that follows. Surely you can just talk out loud (or quietly in your head), and wait for a response?

Since the majority of churches are led by a pastor or two, there's little accountability for the pastor other than man-made doctrine, and for the church-goer there is little personal responsibility to discover the truth themselves because they rely on the pastor. Modern Christianity as a whole does not follow the way "church" was held in Paul's time, which has caused a whole lot of division, disagreement, and confusion.

Nevertheless, you claimed that God "reveals all truth and ministers the ways of God to God's children". Instead, we see fracture after fracture, divergence after divergence. Which Christianity is the one God's maintaining, and which are the deviations from this divine centre?

Your choice of words implies that you help your 'fellow man' out of a sense of community, which is not compassion but only a perception of decency.

I said nothing about why I help my fellow man, I was just pointing out that I don't do it because of some objective morality. Insofar as I understand the word 'compassion' (and I daresay I do), I am 'compassionate' to my fellow man. I help them because I do not wish to see them come to harm.

It says freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Are you saying our rights and laws are not above the individual?

Indeed. Our societies are just conglomerations of human individuals. The laws, rights, freedoms, liberties, etc, are all just pieces of paper written by human hands in human tongues. They are as mutable as anything else on this Earth, as the various amendments to the various constitutions attest.

 

[SiderealExalt]

Who's stretching? It fits.

Attributing person to what you designate as an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient non physical thing is in fact stretching.

That's your opinion.

Ah so it is the opinion of a person that a book about say football, is about football. Nope, a book of opinions is in fact a book of opinions.

I should've expected this much tenacity from you, I really should have.

Try addressing points instead of inane, non replies.

Must you strip everything down to a shell of its full meaning? If you could see the complexity of the subjects you argue against me instead of nit-picking one small aspect in ignorance of the rest, we could have an actual discussion

Try addressing points instead of inane, non replies. And if you use subjective words in trying to describe what you call objective, the fault is your own.

Whatever, you don't ask questions, you lay traps. Nothing I could say on the topic would gain any ground with you, so what's the point? You've already once asserted that I failed to answer the OP, yet now you encourage large digression from the original topic.

Ah the all ecompassing Whatever reply. Try addressing points instead of inane, non replies, and obvious evading.

 

[eMesreveR]

Fine, ignore the Christian foundations of this country then.

Let me assume our country is founded on Christianity. Does this make this foundation right? Or does it make it coincidental? No one can deny that Christianity had a huge influence on the society that started the U.S. But no one can deny that Slavery also had a huge influence on the society that started the U.S. Our country probably could not have survived in the beginning without slavery. (Can't say for sure.)

Does that make slavery right? Just because it was part of the foundation of our country? No. The benefits of a particular practice are independent from whether or not the practice was there when the system first began.

So even IF our country was founded on Christianity, what difference does that make? You may say "Oh, it's worked for us till now," but what the Romans had worked for them until they collapsed. And when will we collapse? And what will we collapse from?

*shrug*

 

[WatersMoon110]

And we make the same ethical considerations with alcohol, automobiles, drugs (medicinal or otherwise), etc. We place age restrictions, licence requirements, and even outright bans on certain things that, it seems, you could consider "a matter of freedom, not ethics".

We don't allow people to drive cars until they've demonstrated that they can use them without being a menace to society. The same should be done with guns: unless US citizens can, like the Swiss, curb their homicidal trend (as this graph demonstrates), their government shouldn't allow them such free access to weaponry. Despite any pro-gun defence, the statistics are undeniable.

I thought most States required tests to purchase a gun, turns out it differs wildly in different States. Turns out:
In Alaska, one: "May carry concealed without permit, though permits can be issued for those who wish to have them."
Florida allows: "Concealed carry only; no open carry allowed, even with permit."
Kentucky specifically: "prohibits the state from seizing firearms from private citizens in the event of a disaster or emergency."
Maryland: "...requires all gun purchasers to watch a safety video before purchasing a "regulated firearm". Once complete, the purchaser is issued a certification card. Every time you purchase a regulated firearm in Maryland thereafter, you must present this card to prove you have watched the safety video and understand."
Ohio, my State, "allows persons 21 and older to receive a concealed handgun license provided that they receive a minimum of 12 hours of handgun training (10 hours of classroom instruction and 2 hours of range time) from a certified instructor, demonstrate competency with a handgun through written and shooting tests, pass a criminal background check, and meet certain residency requirements." And I thought that was pretty reasonable. Anyone can buy a gun, though...

I think that people should have to pass a written test about gun laws and gun safety, and a general gun use test (prove that they can maturely handle a loaded gun to a trained professional) before they can buy a gun. Just like, as you said, people have to prove they can safely operate a motor vehicle to legally drive a car on the road.

Actually, I wonder if gun safety should be something covered more extensively in schools. Not to the point of allowing young kids loaded weapons, but if there are still kids "playing" with loaded guns and causing lethal (or just painful, really) accidental shootings; I feel it might help lower that number if we better educate younger kids. Maybe.

 

[JediMobius]

And so peripheral were they to the philosophy of our nascent country that it's difficult to come up with a non-Enlightenment-style thinker of the time without Wikipedia at hand.

It's called the Age of Enlightenment for a reason.

Obviously, in the style of the age of enlightenment, only those who fit the profile make it into that section of history. For all its accuracy, secular history is biased.

In any case, recent secularism is a reflection of the hyper-religiosity of the mid-20th-century. Once again I direct your attention to the fact that nearly all the God references are products of 1950s Red Scare paranoia.

Be that as it may, that wouldn't have happened in the first place if not for the majority of americans being christian, which in turn wouldn't have been a 1950's phenomenon, but an established aspect of american society.

Irrelevant. The Declaration of Independence did not establish a government.

Not so is it irrelevant, it's part of the foundations of our nation.

Christians can make whatever they like of nonspecific references. "Creator" is demonstrably deistic language. And lest you forget, the DoI also speaks of "Laws of Nature" and "Nature's God."

So can atheists, agnostics, buddhists, and whoever all else.

"One nation under God" is not a slogan or motto; it is a 1950s-era addition to the Pledge. "In God We Trust" is an official national motto (along with E Pluribus Unum), also a product of the 1950s.

I didn't say "One nation under God" is a slogan or motto, I said that it wasn't.

Effective at what? Do you think religious pandering in 1956 helped overcome Soviet communism in the 1980s?

Effective at controlling sheep. That's more or less what the government started doing as early as the turn of the 20th century.

I will give them full attention when you come up with some.

I worded that poorly, I meant the Christian influence of the foundations of the US. I'm sure you still disagree, even though only a handful of all the men involved were deists.

 

[Braunwyn]

It says freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

What does it mean when people say this? What's the application?

 

[Axioma]

It means that freedom of religion is getting to pick which church you go to.

 

[JediMobius]

Ah, I see. And I disagree . The use of lampshades is a matter of freedom, not ethics: there is no moral qualm involved (usually...). But with guns, there is a very real ethical dilemma. Does the benefit justify the cost? Are the lives lost due to the proliferation of guns in the US a worthy price for the lives saved?

And we make the same ethical considerations with alcohol, automobiles, drugs (medicinal or otherwise), etc. We place age restrictions, licence requirements, and even outright bans on certain things that, it seems, you could consider "a matter of freedom, not ethics".

We don't allow people to drive cars until they've demonstrated that they can use them without being a menace to society. The same should be done with guns: unless US citizens can, like the Swiss, curb their homicidal trend (as this graph demonstrates), their government shouldn't allow them such free access to weaponry. Despite any pro-gun defence, the statistics are undeniable.

It doesn't matter what the minority of people do with a freedom, it's still a freedom. Guns are not the issue, take away guns and you still have killers, most of whom will still have access to guns even if they're banned, just like people still had access to alcohol even while it was banned. Guns can be made illegally, and killers can resort to other methods of murder. If the issue is teen suicides, very many of those kids would still find a way to try to kill themselves. Accidental shootings by kids who don't know better? The parents should have made sure the kid knew better if they were going to keep a gun in the house.

Take away freedoms, and we take away personal responsibility. However, take away freedom, and we won't take away the problem because the freedom is not the cause of the problem.

Ah, but that's throughout history. The moral Zeitgeist (to borrow from Dawkins and others) has moved on: at one time, inhospitality was an unthinkable atrocity, but now it's just a minor (and common) inconvenience.

And this isn't a flaw of secular ethics; it isn't even secular ethics at all. It's a fact, and one that seems to contradict the notion of an objective morality.

When I say secular ethics, I mean what is right or wrong based on worldly perspective. This is in general decided by people who think they know what's best, whether they represent the people or not, or are the people. Secular ethics are vastly subjective, this doesn't contradict the notion of objective morality any more than hot contradicts the notion of cold.

And most Christians like to think the contrary. We could start throwing around quotations of the founding fathers, I guess. Would you care to start?

Might as well leave this issue in the hands of TeddyKGB

To whom?

The unborn child, who else? The objective moral is the sake of the child. The subjective moral is the idea that the woman has the freedom to choose, which isn't ethical at all, but a lack of ethics.

I don't see how that follows. Surely you can just talk out loud (or quietly in your head), and wait for a response?

Oh, you'll get a response, maybe even a few, but how do you know if that response is from God?

Nevertheless, you claimed that God "reveals all truth and ministers the ways of God to God's children". Instead, we see fracture after fracture, divergence after divergence. Which Christianity is the one God's maintaining, and which are the deviations from this divine centre?

I like to call it the underground Christianity. God's children can be found in every denomination. The division in the church is due to man-made doctrine, people who thought they understood the truth, but didn't let God reveal the truth to them. There's no visible group I can point to, no all-inclusive defining qualities other than the Holy Spirit and the fruits thereof.

I said nothing about why I help my fellow man, I was just pointing out that I don't do it because of some objective morality. Insofar as I understand the word 'compassion' (and I daresay I do), I am 'compassionate' to my fellow man. I help them because I do not wish to see them come to harm.

Compassion: 1.a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

I apologize for assuming your motives. What you're talking about is community, like an extended family of everyone you interact with. Being helpful is not the same as compassion.

Indeed. Our societies are just conglomerations of human individuals. The laws, rights, freedoms, liberties, etc, are all just pieces of paper written by human hands in human tongues. They are as mutable as anything else on this Earth, as the various amendments to the various constitutions attest.

If that's really all our laws and freedoms really are, then they must be worthless! But then, law and freedom would be equal to, or lesser than the individual. If laws and freedoms are not above us (as individuals), then we have personal authority over those laws and freedoms and can interpret, follow, or reject them at whim. The various amendments to various constitutions attest more to the subjectivity of secular ethics than to the non-existence of objective morals.