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So the Ten Commandments are the objective standard by which morality is to be measured? Interesting.very simply.
How does society regard and seek to follow the ten commandments?
In virtually every measure, the world has become a better place to live IN THE AGGREGATE for the last 200 years at least. Fundamentalists of all stripes (Christian, Jew, Muslim) seem to be entrenched in the notion that the world is going to hell fast.
So, how do you measure morality? What statistics prove that the world is less moral today than even 50 years ago?
Number living in poverty? Starvation? Abortion? Murder? Or is church attendance your only measure?
How would you feel if you believed your god had communicated with you instructing you to sacrifice your child? I don't know if you actually are a parent, but let's say that you are. What would your reaction be?
Yes
No. That's not obedience, that's assent.
That is the question and difficulty, but that's a matter of communication, not ethics.
If there is no God, what is morality? We must have a definition of what morality actually is before we can possibly discuss it's measure.In virtually every measure, the world has become a better place to live IN THE AGGREGATE for the last 200 years at least. Fundamentalists of all stripes (Christian, Jew, Muslim) seem to be entrenched in the notion that the world is going to hell fast.
So, how do you measure morality? What statistics prove that the world is less moral today than even 50 years ago?
Number living in poverty? Starvation? Abortion? Murder? Or is church attendance your only measure?
It’s a pretty big question - do you mean within Western society, or within all societies? Do people claim that the world as a whole is less moral than it was at some other point?
Western society. The fundamentalist meme seems to be that the world is more immoral today than at any time in the past. So, how do they measure morality?
How would you feel if you believed your god had communicated with you instructing you to sacrifice your child? I don't know if you actually are a parent, but let's say that you are. What would your reaction be?
So the Ten Commandments are the objective standard by which morality is to be measured? Interesting.
The ten commandments say nothing of love.A society will not show love for others if that society does not love God.
Explained very easily.
A society will not show love for others if that society does not love God.
If there is no God, what is morality? We must have a definition of what morality actually is before we can possibly discuss it's measure.
Explained very easily.
A society will not show love for others if that society does not love God.
Morality is not some transcendent universal word or concept independent of human thought or language. Nor, was such a term invented by the authors of the Bible. The term 'morality' is no more or less a human conceptual term, derived by human beings in the past at some point, and is also associated with 'well being.'
From my estimation, the words 'morality' and 'well being' appear directly synonymous with one another. If one of the main objectives is the 'golden rule', (whether you adhere to Jesus or Confucius), then one could make a sound case for such.
To answer your question, one could instead argue that without a supreme moral judge or arbiter, there exists no bases or standard, as we are instead comparing one human opinion to the next. Yes, most might agree. However, what if the dictator of a nation disagrees? By what standard might one appeal to in 'proving' this dictator is mistaken (rhetorical)?
However, if such a scenario does exist, it is also plausible that we instead have no morality, but instead 'moral dictates', as humans are to follow the commands passed by the 'moral arbiter.' or 'authority'. Which basically means we are following orders with no evaluation of our own.
In conclusion, to answer the OPer's question, let's start by directly comparing the term 'morality' to 'well being', as it becomes difficult to call something 'good' or 'bad' without recognizing that the two terms are synonymous with one another.
This is part of the reason I asked the question in the OP. How do we measure morality? If a nation is moral, I would expect murder rates to be declining; I would expect a decrease in extreme poverty and so forth.
But those are your expectations.
What if the murder rate stayed the same but nobody was starving and everyone was housed?
What if almost everywhere in the world could enjoy peace and material sufficiency as long as one continent was ravaged viciously for the resources the others were using?
What if Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" was something that actually worked?
This is part of the reason I asked the question in the OP. How do we measure morality? If a nation is moral, I would expect murder rates to be declining; I would expect a decrease in extreme poverty and so forth.
So how do YOU measure the morality of a nation, or even the world for that matter?
They are in and of them selves a statement of love.The ten commandments say nothing of love.
Do all those involved in international relief love those they are helping.So EVERYONE involved in international relief believes in God? Atheists don't love people?
Can it be any God, or just the one in which you specifically subscribe? Because it has been demonstrated that people can be in love with someone or something in which they've never met or seen.
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