Is morality objective or subjective?

[nolongerhome]

Not from a Christian perspective, the human body is designed in many ways for many things. For example, the human body was not designed to deteriorate and age. We see this in Genesis.

The Christian perspective here is incorrect. We aren't going to find any agreement here.

Have you opened the Bible lately? It doesn't need to be announced, it's general knowledge.

I don't think that knowledge is the correct word to use in this sentence. It is an assumption. It is an assumption with such limited basis in fact that you have to construct a complex "logical" game to maintain its validity, and even then the paradoxical contradictions are still explicitly stated.

You certainly can have limited power. I have the power to kill people, knowing the martial arts I do, but I don't go around doing that because I follow moral principles that guide me not to. How is that paradoxical?

You can certainly have a limited power. Can you have a limited omnipotence? Omnipotence is an unlimited power. You are arguing that God is omnipotent, not that he is potent. The paradox remains.

The only thing that doesn't add up is what you expect to see in your limited idea of God's character, and what you see in the world. You would expect a perfectly good God to do everything you consider good. Is it good to force people to follow God's will? Is it good to let some people lead other people astray? Is it good to allow people who wish to follow God to lack experience with conflict? Your assumption about God's character fails to take any of those questions and more like them into consideration when you assert the above.

I don't expect God's idea of what is good to match mine completely at all. I do, however, look around the world and see suffering that is without justification, terrible violence and persecution and I struggle to imagine how all of that could fit into anyone's conception of what is good.

This is an assumption on your part: creation is not causation. People still have free will, even if God knows what will happen.

This is just another word game bereft of logical coherence. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want your God to be good, omnipotent and omniscient, but then need to reconcile this with a plethora of experience which contradict at least one, if not all, of these attributes. Not surprisingly, the attempts to do so fail.

That's a question for people with theological backgrounds, not those unfamiliar with it.

Only if you think that theology is the only source of morality in the world. There is very good reason to believe that is not the case.

 

[Zebra1552]

The Christian perspective here is incorrect. We aren't going to find any agreement here.

So we shouldn't discuss it? Why is it incorrect? How do you expect medicine to observe that which happened thousands of years ago, perhaps even hundreds of thousands?

I don't think that knowledge is the correct word to use in this sentence. It is an assumption. It is an assumption with such limited basis in fact that you have to construct a complex "logical" game to maintain its validity, and even then the paradoxical contradictions are still explicitly stated.

It's not an assumption if it's general knowledge, read your Bible. I mean, really, the idea of God being good isn't exactly new.

You can certainly have a limited power. Can you have a limited omnipotence? Omnipotence is an unlimited power. You are arguing that God is omnipotent, not that he is potent. The paradox remains.

If one is still able to do it, but is unwilling to, is that a limitation on God's power? Why?

I don't expect God's idea of what is good to match mine completely at all. I do, however, look around the world and see suffering that is without justification, terrible violence and persecution and I struggle to imagine how all of that could fit into anyone's conception of what is good.

Then your issue is not with God's omnipotence or the problem of evil, but with God's character.

This is just another word game bereft of logical coherence. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want your God to be good, omnipotent and omniscient, but then need to reconcile this with a plethora of experience which contradict at least one, if not all, of these attributes. Not surprisingly, the attempts to do so fail.

Why, because you say so? Because you somehow assume that the future is fixed and cannot possibly change if God knows it?

Only if you think that theology is the only source of morality in the world. There is very good reason to believe that is not the case.

Then state your reason.

 

[nolongerhome]

So we shouldn't discuss it? Why is it incorrect? How do you expect medicine to observe that which happened thousands of years ago, perhaps even hundreds of thousands?

I don't want to derail this thread entirely by making it about evolution. There is plenty of scientific evidence to disprove any literal interpretation of the Christian creation story. Human beings are part of a natural environment that has been evolving for millions of years. There are no such things as "perfect" organisms, humans have never been perfect or immortal. Mutation, be it for useful mutation or the mutation of diseases, is a natural process that has always existed in anything even remotely resembling a human.

It's not an assumption if it's general knowledge, read your Bible. I mean, really, the idea of God being good isn't exactly new.

The idea isn't new. That doesn't mean it is correct. The assumption that God is good is linked to the assumption that everything in the Bible is literally true.

If one is still able to do it, but is unwilling to, is that a limitation on God's power? Why?

If God is unwilling to use his power to stop bad things from happening, I think you have some problems with your "God is good" argument. Is it good to do nothing to stop bad things when it is within your power to stop them?

As I said, with the world as it is, you have trouble maintaining all three of:

1. God is good
2. God is omnipotent
3. God is omniscient

at the same time.

Then your issue is not with God's omnipotence or the problem of evil, but with God's character.

I have plenty of "problems" with the concept of God, I'm just trying to demonstrate that there is no consistency to your understanding of what God is, what is intentions are and what his capabilities are.

Why, because you say so? Because you somehow assume that the future is fixed and cannot possibly change if God knows it?

They fail because none of them are logically coherent. A logically incoherent proof is a failed proof.

If God is omnipotent and omniscient he knows not only exactly how the universe will end if he does nothing more than he has already done (that is, he created the whole universe to begin with and just let it run its course), he also knows how it will change if he makes any changes, and as he is omnipotent and omniscient he can make any change he likes AND he knows what changes he is going to make... so we end up with God having complete control over the destiny of humanity.

If you are omnipotent and omniscient creator of a universe, your actions (and choosing not to act is an action) will determine the future of that universe. Please tell me how it could logically be otherwise?

Then state your reason.

My reason for believing theology is not the sole source of morality?

Because morality is a discourse created intersubjectively by individuals within a society. Theological have arguments impacted on that discourse, even dominated that discourse, but they are not the only arguments that have done so. Utilitarian arguments have been proposed, humanist proposals with no reference to transcendental entities have been put forward, our society has incorporated these and other ideas into conceptions of morality, religious morals have been discarded along the way as well... it should be clear that morality, like any other concept, is a human invention.

Ideas about morality have changed. They aren't static. They aren't objective. They will continue to change. The moral demands of the Bible has been discarded many times in western society, by Christians (even "true" Christians), and with good reason - a lot of what is described as moral in the Bible is either trivial or repulsive, and that includes actions attributed to God himself.

 

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[Zebra1552]

I don't want to derail this thread entirely by making it about evolution. There is plenty of scientific evidence to disprove any literal interpretation of the Christian creation story.

Even if taken metaphorically, Genesis 1-3 shows evidence of a fallen human nature.

Human beings are part of a natural environment that has been evolving for millions of years.

So what?

There are no such things as "perfect" organisms, humans have never been perfect or immortal. Mutation, be it for useful mutation or the mutation of diseases, is a natural process that has always existed in anything even remotely resembling a human.

That does not mean that we were not created to be perfect. You are coming with the assumption that the Bible is unreliable. The Bible doesn't contradict evolution, not when you consider that the more essential bit of theology in Genesis is that God is powerful enough to have created it in 1 day, nevermind 6 or whatever.

The idea isn't new. That doesn't mean it is correct. The assumption that God is good is linked to the assumption that everything in the Bible is literally true.

The Bible is literal and metaphorical, and that 'assumption', as you call it, is not linked to God being good. Even if you take the Bible as a story meant to portray something, you end up with God being good for metaphorically sending His Son to die for our sins.

If God is unwilling to use his power to stop bad things from happening, I think you have some problems with your "God is good" argument. Is it good to do nothing to stop bad things when it is within your power to stop them?

Your question is framed and does not consider any circumstances that might warrant bad things happening for good reasons. James 1 in part speaks to good reasons.

As I said, with the world as it is, you have trouble maintaining all three of:

1. God is good
2. God is omnipotent
3. God is omniscient

at the same time.

I have no trouble maintaining all three. It is you that does, because you do not see the Bible's sense of greater purpose: that much is clear when you assume that it is not good to allow suffering, not allowing for any reasons for doing so.

I have plenty of "problems" with the concept of God, I'm just trying to demonstrate that there is no consistency to your understanding of what God is, what is intentions are and what his capabilities are.

Then please, attempt to further your demonstration. I would be very interested to hear what you think you can demonstrate with your assumptions about God and His character.

They fail because none of them are logically coherent. A logically incoherent proof is a failed proof.

Then show them to be incoherent rather than throwing your labels around.

If God is omnipotent and omniscient he knows not only exactly how the universe will end if he does nothing more than he has already done (that is, he created the whole universe to begin with and just let it run its course), he also knows how it will change if he makes any changes, and as he is omnipotent and omniscient he can make any change he likes AND he knows what changes he is going to make... so we end up with God having complete control over the destiny of humanity.

Unless, as I've already asserted to you, God has principles that He follows. Your argument does not allow for this. In fact, it completely ignores that assertion. To attempt to disprove what I have asserted. Tell me, how can you disprove or cast doubt on what I have asserted by failing to consider it in your attempt to disprove it?

If you are omnipotent and omniscient creator of a universe, your actions (and choosing not to act is an action) will determine the future of that universe. Please tell me how it could logically be otherwise?

I have already answered your question.

My reason for believing theology is not the sole source of morality?

Because morality is a discourse created intersubjectively by individuals within a society. Theological have arguments impacted on that discourse, even dominated that discourse, but they are not the only arguments that have done so. Utilitarian arguments have been proposed, humanist proposals with no reference to transcendental entities have been put forward, our society has incorporated these and other ideas into conceptions of morality, religious morals have been discarded along the way as well... it should be clear that morality, like any other concept, is a human invention.

Ideas about morality have changed. They aren't static. They aren't objective. They will continue to change. The moral demands of the Bible has been discarded many times in western society, by Christians (even "true" Christians), and with good reason - a lot of what is described as moral in the Bible is either trivial or repulsive, and that includes actions attributed to God himself.

So, your reasons for not believing that morality is formed from theology is that it changes and that Christians don't follow it. Basically, you are saying it is subjective because it is subjective. That is quite circular. How do you know who is or is not a Christian? How do you know that morality is subjective- because people do not follow what I propose is absolute? That only shows that people refuse to be subjected to morality, not that morality itself is subjective.

Let me ask you again. What are your reasons?

 

[sidhe]

While I think that this is better expressed, I don't think it really solves the issue of creating arbitrary distinctions between moral and immoral changes - as you point out - as you clearly understand yourself it is entirely possible for a cosmetic change to be a tangible benefit (and for a tangible benefit to result is a cosmetic change). You also raise a further question about the relationship of morality and utility - is it possible for something to moral but non-beneficial from a purely utilitarian standpoint? Is utility to measured at the level of the individual or at the level of society?

Exactly my point - the question is one of utility, not of the inherent morality of genetic modification. Is the overall benefit worth the ethical implications of the process? Each case would, ultimately, have to be decided individually.

I also don't really see how there are Biblical principles that would really help us make a non-arbitrary distinction in this matter, because simply put not even the thought of our current capability to manipulate the natural world would have existed at the time of writing - it simply couldn't have been considered.

Neither do I.