Is there an absolute morality?

[Sabertooth]

How would you define sexual assault?

Sexual ethics are broader than just sexual assault, but I would define it as

1. Forced sex against another person's consent, or
2. (In the case of pedophilia) deceiving somebody into sexual participation.

#2 is defined by local laws governing majority, not particularly those of my country.

Its all in the eye of the beholder.

It is all in the Eye of the Ultimate Judge.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Edit:

Submission to local law is submission to God's authority.

So you think Donald Trump was a spiritual leader, with authority over your conscience.

 

[Ken-1122]

Is it wrong to rape and murder a child?
It is a universally accepted truth that doing such an act is wrong.

Rape and murder are legal terms. The same act called murder in one place might be called justified killing in another. The same act that might be called rape in one place might be called consensual in another. Acts are wrong, not labels.

 

[SkyWriting]

If I was to take your answer as your only answer to my question, then I would have to say, that, yes, you think I should load myself (and my family) onto the boxcar at the kind demand of tyrants. Strange that Paul appealed to Caesar.

Yes you should follow all local laws to the letter. I'm sure God will forgive you either way though. I cannot judge your actions.

 

[SkyWriting]

Edit: So you think Donald Trump was a spiritual leader, with authority over your conscience.

He played a bit part. But yes, if told to shoot immigrants, I am obligated to do so.
But God will forgive whichever decision I make.

 

[d taylor]

Are acts wrong in themselves? Or does it depend on the context?

Man (humanity) can not establish this, as one group may see it as ok as another group may not. This will only be established when the earth and its people will be ruled by The Creator.

But if a person is not around for that time where the earth and people will be ruled by its Creator.

A persons works will be judged, believers and unbeliever. Believers at the judgment seat of the Messiah, unbelievers at the great white throne. So people will find out which acts were wrong and which acts were good, but we can have a general idea now.

But that guide now, is not accepted as the sole and single established truth, to judge morality. It will be eventually used but not in this age.

Irrelevant. My wife and I provided my son with life. I don’t get kill him and claim an objective moral right by doing so.

No you did not provide your child with life. Your child could have been born a stillborn or have died at birth.

 

[VirOptimus]

-snip-
It is all in the Eye of the Ultimate Judge.

Thats faith, not philosophy.

 

[disciple Clint]

Of course. I built up the various molecules in my testicles to provide the sperm that delivered my genetic material to the ova my wife built up in her ovaries.

Did you not know that?

planting a seed is far short of creating life.

 

[disciple Clint]

Parents don't get to kill their children, in many cases.

parents do not create life but some do in fact kill their children even before they are born.

 

[SkyWriting]

parents do not create life but some do in fact kill their children even before they are born.

Most are confident they do create life.

 

[disciple Clint]

Most are confident they do create life.

Do they think they have the power that belongs to God alone?

 

[SkyWriting]

Do they think they have the power that belongs to God alone?

Naturally.

 

[Larniavc]

God is not us. Wrong is crime against God. He doesn't operate against himself.

Therefor morality is subjective to who the actor is.

 

[Larniavc]

I can specifically define 'taking another life', too. Shooting a gun, or making a stabbing motion into with a knife is only wrong under certain conditions, too. Picking up a gun or knife is only wrong under certain conditions.

Murder is always wrong. Killing is not always wrong.

And the label of 'murder' is contingent on what, exactly?

 

[Larniavc]

This probably isn't a perfect answer, but I'll try: If somehow you were able to know the future would it have been right to kill Hitler when he was a child--to save the lives of millions of innocent people?

I believe someday it will be made clear to all: There is a God, and He always does what is right and best.

It would not have been right to kill Hitler as a child. The correct choice would have been to prevent him from being conceived by preventing Mr and Mrs Hitler from having sex on the night Hitler was conceived. He would never have been born. Problem of Hitler over.

I thought that up in a few seconds. Are you telling me God could not come up with an equally non violent way to stop a future? He controls every thing (as is my understanding). If he has to tinker with the future (and my understanding to God the future and past are all one to him- given his 'timeless' quality) he's not omnipotent.

So you see, his actions as described in the Bible so him either be constrained in his power (therefor his has to engage is 'tinkering with causality' to get his desired results or he simply chooses for people to be killed when he could have opted for another way.

Does that make sense?

 

[Larniavc]

Larnievc,

Something just hit me (I imagine it's not new to you): since an atheist doesn't believe in the existence of God, don't you believe that all of that stuff in the Bible, including God supposedly killing little children, isn't at all real or true, but instead is just the product of someone's imagination?

I do believe it is the product of someone's imagination. But that does not mean I cannot engage in debate as to whether what is described in the Bible is coherent.

In the same way I would argue vociferously that Spider-Man is in no way as strong as the Hulk- know full well neither are real.

 

[o_mlly]

If that's the case--"the Hebrew women give birth before the midwife arrives"--why does the passage end by saying, "THEREFORE God dealt well with the midwives."

And don't forget, we're also told: "the midwives did not as the king commanded them."

You're understanding doesn't harmonize with the scenario we're given

Two points.

We are never obligated to obey an immoral order or law. God "dealt well with" the midwives because they followed His law and not the immoral law of the king.

The king who would do evil with the truth lost his right to know the truth. Still, the midwives did not lie to him just as Jesus, when pressed to affirm He is the Son of God, referred to Himself enigmatically but truthfully as the Son of man.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Are acts wrong in themselves? Or does it depend on the context?

Within a context. That context is the life of a living organism. Right and wrong are value judgements and they don't exist outside the relationship of some object in relation to life. Value judgements don't exist in reality apart from the mind and they don't exist in the mind apart from reality. They exist in the relationship between some mind and some object as judged by that mind against a standard. That standard is life and its requirements.

 

[Larniavc]

Your child could have been born a stillborn or have died at birth.

Our first child was. Our second child survived. We gave our son life. Nothing else.

 

[Larniavc]

planting a seed is far short of creating life.

We created the seed from non living molecules and created a human being with no divine intervention needed.