Evil

[Heir to the Kingdom]

There probably aren't objective moral standards. And if there are, they certainly aren't objectively accessible to us.

Why?

If you were following, I was ASKED to imagine such a world.

I already live in a world where you say the Amalekites 'got what they deserved'. I can look around and see how people today justify genocide when it suits them. I've been watching you do it in this very thread.

That's because you lack imagination, or the self awareness to realize that sometimes the bad guys won in history.
'

Sorry, I didn't see that you were asked to imagine it, but it doesn't change my statement. And again, I don't think that it is genocide, so I'm not justifying that. And I know that bad guys have one here and there, thats part of living in an impefect world. But what I'm saying is that I dont see how today could have been different than exactly what it is. I can imagine all sorts of possiblities, that's not the issue. The issue is that with all of this talk of how the world could have been different, what if it couldn't have been different? I believe in free will, but I also believe that God has already seen the entirety of time, so for Him our decisions have already happened and are already set in stone. That' what I mean when I say that I don't see how it could have been different.

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

We don't agree on right and wrong though, so who is right and who is wrong?

Haha I see what you did there

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

Is that how god feels? That it would depend on the circumstances? Isn't his will written upon your blah blah blah or something like that?

It's a simple question and yet you already stumbled to answer...yet you pretend you have no idea what moral ambiguity is.

Well what is meant by suicide? Do you mean cutting your wrists and bleeding out? Or do you mean jumping off of a building? I suppose if suicide means self murder then no I wouldn't think it was right to talk someone into doing that. I was thinking of myself in that I would kill myself, or give my life, to save the ones I love. I'd take a bullet or endure torture or get burned alive. If those are suicide then yeah, I would do it to save my loved ones. I find it hard to see myself in a situation in which I would have to convince someone to sacrifice themselves though... And I didnt say I have "no idea what moral ambiguity is", I asked what kinds of situations you might imagine in which you wouldn't know how to act. And I didn't get any, just you aswering my question with a question.

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

My having strong ideas about right and wrong doesn't mean I think morality is objective. It means I strive for objective reasons to support my moral positions.

What do you think we are saying here? God is that objective reason that supports our moral positions.

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

Oh, I have the right thread. The whole point of that line of questioning was to show how this statement of yours is terribly terribly wrong...

"Second, the Bible teaches a set of principles that will result in following God's will if we follow them. "

Both you and Heir basically spent the last 6 pages arguing this point. You both believe that by being christian, reading the bible, blah blah blah (I'm paraphrasing here)...you're both morally guided by "god's will". I said this was nonsense, and I could prove it by asking a morally ambiguous question. Here's the funny part...it only took 1 question! Just one! Remarkable right??!?

You both think you're morally guided by god's will... and that will represents some "moral standard" or something like that....yet you disagree on the same moral question. So you see...I don't need to continue that line of questioning to prove my point, you can't both be right.

So you have a couple choices now...you can say...

1. Heir is wrong, and he isn't guided by god's will. Of course, you'll need to explain how you know this and why such a wonderful system somehow failed to work. What happened to god's will on that one?
2. You're wrong and Heir is right. You'll still need to answer the questions to #1 but it will be easier since you're answering for yourself.
3. Oops, you're both wrong and while you think you're following gods will...you're actually just doing whatever you think is right, like everyone else, and there's no (objective) moral standard behind it.
4. Something else I haven't thought of.

We are both right... I responded to your last response to me! I wasn't thinking of suicide in the right way. When I read your question I was thinking suicide/self sacrifice. Upon further thinking about it, I realized my mistake and responded to your last respose. Suicide = evil. Self-sacrifice = good!

 

[PsychoSarah]

What do you think we are saying here? God is that objective reason that supports our moral positions.

Except even amongst people of the exact same faith their moral positions aren't uniform.

 

[variant]

What do you think we are saying here? God is that objective reason that supports our moral positions.

We differ on this point.

I think there may be objective reasons why my morality is appropriate, or there may not be, or they might not be as objective as I feel.

I can imagine being wrong. It doesn't bother my world view.

 

[variant]

Why?

Because of the difficult nature of both defining and evidencing moral positions.

Sorry, I didn't see that you were asked to imagine it, but it doesn't change my statement. And again, I don't think that it is genocide, so I'm not justifying that.

Which is exactly the point, you can't see it as a genocide even if this were a good example of one.

You are acting in the manner of a person who sees and fits the evidence to their beliefs rather than the other way around.

You aren't allowed to consider the possibility that the Bible documents something that happened that was evil and yet proclaimed it good, because it bothers all your other beliefs.

And I know that bad guys have one here and there, thats part of living in an impefect world. But what I'm saying is that I dont see how today could have been different than exactly what it is.

You can't imagine being wrong. What the world looks like when you are wrong is very valid when thinking about how objective you feel you are being.

You MUST know what changes your world view enforces if you are to claim objectivity.

I can imagine all sorts of possiblities, that's not the issue. The issue is that with all of this talk of how the world could have been different, what if it couldn't have been different? I believe in free will, but I also believe that God has already seen the entirety of time, so for Him our decisions have already happened and are already set in stone. That' what I mean when I say that I don't see how it could have been different.

If you think there is only one already written course for our decisions to follow then you don't believe you are free, that is simple contradiction.

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

Except even amongst people of the exact same faith their moral positions aren't uniform.

In that sense I can see why you view morality as subjective, because often people misread the Bible or interpret it differently. If we don't allow God to work in us and get His meaning to His words, then one could get whatever they wanted out of the Bible.. Hence Babtists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Catholics, blah blah blah. Sectarianism...

 

[Heir to the Kingdom]

Because of the difficult nature of both defining and evidencing moral positions.

Which is exactly the point, you can't see it as a genocide even this were a good example of one.

You are acting in the manner of a person who sees and fits the evidence to their beliefs rather than the other way around.

You aren't allowed to consider the possibility that the Bible documents something that happened that was evil and yet proclaimed it good, because it bothers all your other beliefs.

I can't see it as genocide because it's not! Genocide means murder, murder means taking innocent life. I don't believe that any innocent life was taken. I'm not seeing and fitting the evidence to my beliefs, my beliefs are what they are because of the evidence. Because of God and the very Book that we are speaking of here. I can't change the evidence to fit my beliefs that came from the evidence! And I am allowed to consider any and all possibilities, and have and do all the time. I haven't always been a Christain you know, I was a Buddist before. I have wrestled with a ton of stuff in the Bible, but I've wrestled with infinitely more outside of the Bible. God and Christianity and the Bible best explain what I see when I look at the world we live in. And of course it would bother some of my beliefs if the Bible were wrong, but I don't believe it is. I believe that here are objective moral values and duties in this life and that God is the source of said values and duties and that what we are talking about isn't genocide. I just don't see it as murder. The people were depraved, steeped in sin of the worst kinds and to the point of no return. They didn't care about God or anyone else, and so God had them removed. I can't argue it any further than that because that's what happened. I really don't know what else to say other than that. Those people were evil and deserving of death.

You can't imagine being wrong. What the world looks like when you are wrong is very valid when thinking about how objective you feel you are being.

You MUST know what changes your world view enforces if you are to claim objectivity.

I can imagine being wrong! Do you know how hard it is to be a Christian sometimes? I can imagine being wrong and have and do from time to time think about what if I'm wrong, but at the end of the day, I just don't believe I am. I know God. He's awesome, and He doesn't lie. Sometimes when reading the Bible I see what seem to be contradictions, but every time thus far God has expained them to me. And I'm sure that He will continue to do so. And I didn't say that I could or am being objective, I said that there are objective moral values and duties. I try to follow them the best I can, but I miss it sometimes just like everyone else.

If you think there is only one already written course for our decisions to follow then you don't believe you are free, that is simple contradiction.

And I didn't say that there is only one already written course, I said that to God, who has already seen all of time, our decisions have been made. He knows what we will decide, because He's already seen it.

 

[variant]

Maybe our definition of objective is differing here.. In objective morals and duties I mean ones that don't change and aren't influenced by people or circumstances.

Objective means factually based, always true, and not Dependant on either circumstances or people, and so, without exception.

I'm not saying I'm perfect... I miss it sometimes just like everyone else.

Even if morality is objective and you are required to discern what it is, your morality is still subjective (relies upon subjective discernment).

Once you put people into the equation they are in it.

And I have't steeped my morals in my religion. That means that I've taken my morals and covered them with religion, but that's not true. My religion is the source of my morals, you see, so the objective morality that I believe in wouldn't be if I didn't believe what I believe. I only have these morals because of God. So no, religion doesn't add anything, because how can it when it was there all along? It is the foundation of what I believe to be objectively good and evil.

You know nothing of the sort. I don't believe in your religion and yet there are huge amounts of agreement we would have on basic morality.

And it's only genocide by your definition, so I'm not justifying genocide, I am justifying capital punishment. Which was right in those times, before Jesus paid the price with His life so I don't have to with mine.

Don't hide behind semantics, challenge my definition if you like but I am comfortable with it. When you go in and kill a tribe/group of people because your think your god orders you to it is genocide.

If you think that God actually ordered such an event then it is still genocide, just condoned by God, and you never answered my question about how we know (objectively) which actions are God ordained and which not.

The fact that you cower behind your religion instead of discussing this openly and directly is exactly what I am talking about here.

Killing isn't immoral. Murder is. Children are innocent because they don't know right from wrong, although we are all born selfish. And I believe that all of those children are in Heaven now, which is a much better life than they would have had if they had been kept by the Isrealites. It just seems that it would have turned out pretty badly for everyone involved if the children ever found out they were living with the people that killed all of their people.

All of those things are things you believe to make yourself feel better about genocide, any of them are of questionable factual nature.

Even the Bible specifically doesn't say anything about the children slaughtered here being in heaven. Many Christians believe exactly the opposite.

Again, not genocide. We do still live in that world. It is still that way all over the world. Just because it's not often seen in places like the U.S. doesn't mean that it isn't rather common. And now we have more efficient weapons, so why would clubs and the like still be utilized?

Evil being common doesn't make it right. I think it is less common today because we have demonstrated that there are better ways of doing things.

People who use machine guns today to do what the Israelites did are condemned by us.

Boko Haram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah. There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women,"

This guy isn't even killing every single person from among the unbelievers (he is just like the Israelites kidnapping women) and still is met with near universal disdain.

I think that the actions of the Israelites as told by the Bible would be genocide if it happened today, right in front of our eyes, and that is something you can't deal with.

I don't think it took over an eon for Christians to realize it, because that was the message of the people who wrote the Bible under God's direction, the FIRST Christians...

The first Christians were victims of power, thus it was easy for them to be virtuous. The question becomes what happens when they obtained power.

How did they treat people like me who disagree?

I take the radical view that how people act when they have the power to act is what defines their morality.

 

[variant]

I can't see it as genocide because it's not! Genocide means murder, murder means taking innocent life. I don't believe that any innocent life was taken. I'm not seeing and fitting the evidence to my beliefs, my beliefs are what they are because of the evidence.

So the small boys/children mentioned in the passage were not innocents?

I think you are just being obtuse so I am not going to belabor the point further, you have closed your eyes willfully.

Because of God and the very Book that we are speaking of here. I can't change the evidence to fit my beliefs that came from the evidence!

What evidence?!

You've made a subjective decision that spits on basic human decency and you expect me to take it for fact!

And I am allowed to consider any and all possibilities, and have and do all the time. I haven't always been a Christain you know, I was a Buddist before. I have wrestled with a ton of stuff in the Bible, but I've wrestled with infinitely more outside of the Bible. God and Christianity and the Bible best explain what I see when I look at the world we live in. And of course it would bother some of my beliefs if the Bible were wrong, but I don't believe it is. I believe that here are objective moral values and duties in this life and that God is the source of said values and duties and that what we are talking about isn't genocide. I just don't see it as murder. The people were depraved, steeped in sin of the worst kinds and to the point of no return. They didn't care about God or anyone else, and so God had them removed. I can't argue it any further than that because that's what happened. I really don't know what else to say other than that. Those people were evil and deserving of death.

More justification. I doubt this passage read the same to you when you were a Buddhist, I doubt it is what converted you. It is just an inconvenient something that you have to justify to maintain your beliefs.

I justify no obvious works of men on God. That is one of the differences between us.

They killed small children, that is all I need to hear to know it is wrong.

I can imagine being wrong! Do you know how hard it is to be a Christian sometimes?

I ceased to be one so yes obviously.

I think the difficulty/complexity of a persons justifications when defending a position is often indicative of it's lack of correctness.

I can imagine being wrong and have and do from time to time think about what if I'm wrong, but at the end of the day, I just don't believe I am. I know God. He's awesome, and He doesn't lie. Sometimes when reading the Bible I see what seem to be contradictions, but every time thus far God has expained them to me. And I'm sure that He will continue to do so. And I didn't say that I could or am being objective, I said that there are objective moral values and duties. I try to follow them the best I can, but I miss it sometimes just like everyone else.

Deep down I think you are a good person who is justifying a bad act because you feel like you need to.

If I didn't think you are basically a good person I wouldn't appeal to your humanity so much.

I don't think you should do a disservice to yourself to excuse the things in the Bible that obviously come from men.

And, I think you should take some time to consider how you tell the difference between truth and fiction.

And I didn't say that there is only one already written course, I said that to God, who has already seen all of time, our decisions have been made. He knows what we will decide, because He's already seen it.

If the decisions have already been objectively made there is no alternative.

If they were objectively made and known before you were born then you were never free.

 

[Ana the Ist]

We are both right... I responded to your last response to me! I wasn't thinking of suicide in the right way. When I read your question I was thinking suicide/self sacrifice. Upon further thinking about it, I realized my mistake and responded to your last respose. Suicide = evil. Self-sacrifice = good!

So basically, you're changing your position from your previous answer?

(Not that there's anything wrong with that...I just want to be sure before I respond)

 

[Kylie]

Another way of saying this is that evil would be impossible without a standard of justice. If this is true, then all evil has an element of goodness in it, and in a real sense goodness is a main ingredient in motivating evil. This goodness (justice) is twisted or misapplied, but still, without a sense of justice there could be no evil.

I don't get this. How do you conclude that there must be some good in evilness simply from the fact that there is a standard of justice? Could you apply this to a real world example?

 

[Received]

Because justice is a good thing. You could also say that evil is parasitic on goodness, in that you can't be evil without a sense of injustice (and injustice implies a standard of justice, which is good).

 

[nadroj1985]

Another way of saying this is that evil would be impossible without a standard of justice. If this is true, then all evil has an element of goodness in it, and in a real sense goodness is a main ingredient in motivating evil.

Interesting, but why not draw the opposite conclusion? That is, why not think that your analysis points to the fact that there's something wrong with our notion of justice, since it so often leads us down the path to evil?

 

[quatona]

What I am understanding is:

There´s something good about people intending to do bad: In order to do that they must have an idea what it means to them to do good - and that is a good thing to have.

Likewise, of course, there´s something bad about people intentionally trying to do good: In order to do that they must have an idea what it means to them to do evil - and that´s a bad thing to have.

Amazing what words can do.

 

[PsychoSarah]

In that sense I can see why you view morality as subjective, because often people misread the Bible or interpret it differently. If we don't allow God to work in us and get His meaning to His words, then one could get whatever they wanted out of the Bible.. Hence Babtists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Catholics, blah blah blah. Sectarianism...

Morality in practice would be subjective even if some god literally made its presence known and told us what was moral in person every day. Because people would still interpret the words without uniformity. Which is why ultimately it wouldn't matter if there was an absolute objective morality, because it would never be applied in an objective way.

 

[variant]

Because justice is a good thing. You could also say that evil is parasitic on goodness, in that you can't be evil without a sense of injustice (and injustice implies a standard of justice, which is good).

Justice only implies judgment.

 

[OrdinaryClay]

Another way of saying this is that evil would be impossible without a standard of justice. If this is true, then all evil has an element of goodness in it, ...

This makes no logical sense.

The existence of evil simply requires the existence of good. Even if your first statement were true the second statement does not logically follow from the first.