• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

The Moral Argument

Status
Not open for further replies.

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Oct 14, 2015
6,133
3,090
✟405,773.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
And how is this "justice" meted out? Now that you have committed this [alledegy] objective "bad" action by slaughtering all of your neighbours, are there any theological implications? Can you still go to "Heaven"?
I cannot answer that question on "if someone will go to hell if he does X". I am not the judge who descides and I think it is wrong for anyone to make any claims to that effect. As far as justice is concerned, objectively "perfect justice" can only come from a god because a god is the only way man can be created with purpose. Since I have already explained that good and bad depends on purpose, and a god is the only explanation for man to be created with purpose, a god is the only being capable of executing ovjectively "perfect justice" because the god who created man is not only just but IS justice. There would be no objective justice without an objective purpose to give an objective definition of what's good or bad to judge.
 
Upvote 0

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Oct 14, 2015
6,133
3,090
✟405,773.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
I've added the main points of my arguments in the OP in light of the debate.

I personally don't like "debate". Especially on a forum. Because "debate" in my opinion is "organized arguement" in which there is a winner and a looser. In a debate, the purpose is to battle over who is right and who is wrong not for the benifit of the two debators, but for the audience who chooses a winner.

It is like a courtroom. You have the defendant and the plaintiff who argue over the evidence to convince an audience (judge or jury) on who is right. In the end there is one winner and one looser. This is impossible to do on a forum where practically anyone can jump in and put in their two cents without understanding the full dscussion.

I prefer discussion over debate because a discussion is where multiple individual contribute to the topic to learn or at least find common ground. In this case, everyone wins.
 
Upvote 0

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Oct 14, 2015
6,133
3,090
✟405,773.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Why do you say they lacked anything? They knew God, they just needed to trust him.
Do you think God created the Tree of Knowledge and placed it in the garden for a purpose? What would that purpose be?
 
Upvote 0

Sapiens

Wisdom is of God
Aug 29, 2015
494
202
Canada
Visit site
✟26,119.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Do you think God created the Tree of Knowledge and placed it in the garden for a purpose? What would that purpose be?

Yes, I believe he created it. Why did he put it in the garden if he knew they would die by eating it? I don't know, I'm not God, but I guess it might be because he did not want to keep anything from them, and therefore give them freedom to choose. Apparently, the choice to disobey Him and break His trust. He probably would've shared this knowledge in due time. Remember there was also the tree of life, but they did not eat of that one even if it wasn't forbidden...
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Oct 14, 2015
6,133
3,090
✟405,773.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Yes, I believe he created it. Why did he put it in the garden if he knew they would die by eating it? I don't know, I'm not God, but I guess it might be because he did not want to keep anything from them, and therefore give them freedom to choose. He probably would've shared this knowledge in due time. Remember there was also the tree of life, but they did not eat of that one even if it wasn't forbidden...
Ok, I smell what you are stepping in. However, if God was going to reveal the knowledge in due time, why would He even put the tree there in the first place and simply provide the knowledge as He saw fit?

Edit: you answered that question already.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
What if that person owed me a lot of money that he couldn't pay. So at the person's own choosing, sold himself for a temporary period of time and was treated kindly the entire time he was owned? That doesn't sound too terrible.

I agree...but to play devils advocate, let's say that the person did not agree. Let's say that I sued the man who owed me money and the judge declared that since the man had no money to pay his debt, he is forced to repay it by giving himself for a temporary period of time as long as I can care for his physical needs?

Nope, still immoral. Let's start by talking about indentured servitude as an institution, and then we'll work our way down to the purely hypothetical and ideal singular situation.

It would be immoral to have a system in place that sentences people to indentured servitude because it opens things up for abuse. People abuse people in their care all the time and get away with it. Children, the elderly, the mentally ill, even criminals are abused and it is highly difficult to prove. So to imagine that people would be treated kindly if they were sentenced to indentured servitude is naive at best.

Aside from this, the rich would be capable of preying on the weak by finding ways to put them into servitude. Part of the reason for the recent market crash was banks coaching high risk debtors in ways to receive loans they would never be able to pay back. So banks would have had a huge supply of slave labor flowing in.

So to even have a law that did such a thing would be immoral.

But there's more to it than that. Morality is based on cooperation which is motivated by fairness. It also has to find a way to balance pleasure and suffering.

Slavery is the opposite of cooperation. It is control. Control of more than what is really necessary for a business transaction of paying debts. And that is why it is unfair. You would be asking a person to give up all of their freedom for a sum of money. How do you quantify a person's freedom in terms of a dollar amount? Minimum wage for each and every hour that they are a slave? Is it moral to force someone to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because they are never not "on the clock" by being required to work at any given time? This punishment does not balance with the "crime" of being in debt in any way shape or form.

To add to this, there is real harm that comes from being demeaned by being a slave to another person. Being treated as, and being viewed by the public as, not much more than a donkey or tractor, i.e. property causes damage to a person. Can you put a monetary value on this? Such that this harm that a person would suffer for long, long after their servitude was over, can be subtracted from their debt? Are they deserving of this punishment because they were unwise with their money, which isn't immoral in itself to begin with?

Note that I said "owning" a person is immoral, which means slavery, not indentured servitude, which is more like "renting" a person, which is slightly less immoral than owning. But I'll be happy to show that the hypothetical situation of a person being a servant against their will is immoral as well.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
We are capable of discerning that there is right and wrong. The fact that we are unable to perfectly discern them and that we cannot be the judge of them is for two reasons: we are not omniscient and we are now corrupted in nature. That is what we call sin.
First, be careful with citing things like being corrupted by sin. We're still arguing about whether God exists at all, and you shouldn't be interjecting evidence based on you specific theology.

Second, omniscience is an interesting concept to bring up. In the sense that God would know for a fact what a person did, and why they did it, He would be a better judge of course. For instance, I can't be certain that even O.J. did it, to quote Bill Maher. But in discerning whether a concept is moral or immoral, sure, having an omniscient being that can look at all the pleasure and harm that results from an act would be the perfect way of discerning right from wrong. But doesn't this mean that the more we know, the better we can discern right from wrong? I mean, sure, we're no where near omniscient, obviously, but the closer we get, even if only a little bit, the better we can discern.

The advances we've made in psychology and neuroscience can actually show real physical changes, such as electrical activity in our brain, and the release of chemicals and hormones based on our actions, the actions of others towards us, and stimuli we receive. Sure, it isn't practical right now to test these things as people go about their everyday lives to truly measure them exactly to show how much harm is done or pleasure is received by different acts. But who's to say we never will? People used to think it was impossible for humans to fly. In the meantime, we can use the data we do have to make generalities about things that have a lot of predictive power about how people are going to feel and act and help us to find things that are moral or immoral and why we do them.

And just for fun, I'll break my own rule that I started this post by stating that God said about the tower of Babel that nothing is impossible for humans if we all work together. I don't consider that a real argument for anything, just food for thought, you know?

Agreed, I should've perhaps said that they exist "independently of our judgment" instead. Except, so long as we consider God, He would still know. That was what I meant. That is also why morals could not objectively exist without God.
That's fine, it makes more sense now.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
What if "goodness" finds its nature in God?
I'm not sure what this means. Jason stated that God is goodness, to which I asked, "how?". If being compassionate is good, and God exists without humans which are necessary for compassion to exist, then how can compassion be a part of God's goodness without existing in the first place? If that isn't what you meant, I apologize, but your statement was so short, I just have to guess at the meaning.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
It's both. I'm not quite sure why this "dilemma" is a problem. Why is it? i'm not sure I get it.

I stated a problem with it a long while back that you missed. No worries, you've been getting slammed by responses since you started this thread, so it's okay. But I'll state it again.

If something is good only because God wills it, then He can will anything to be good. Rape, murder, theft, what-have-you... The decision to make something good would be arbitrary.

If something God wills something because it is good, then we don't need God prove something is good. We can find the criteria that shows something that is good all on our own.

If it's both, you either mean that some things are from part one and some things are from part two, or you mean that each thing is both in that things are part two, but also "better" because of part one. In the latter case, God is still rendered unnecessary.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Then the person chooses, which makes all the difference. This is called indentured servitude and was quite common in biblical times and today.
Well I certainly wouldn't call it "common today". Sure we didn't eradicate it, and it still exists illegally, but "common"?
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Remember there was also the tree of life, but they did not eat of that one even if it wasn't forbidden...
Way, way, waaaaay off topic, but the Bible doesn't say they never ate from that tree. It says God took it away after the fall, but perhaps you had to keep eating from it to live forever, and not just one fruit granted immortality. That could also attribute to the long lifespans as the fruit they did eat while they still had access was so potent it had lasting effects through the generations.
 
Upvote 0

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Oct 14, 2015
6,133
3,090
✟405,773.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Nope, still immoral. Let's start by talking about indentured servitude as an institution, and then we'll work our way down to the purely hypothetical and ideal singular situation.

It would be immoral to have a system in place that sentences people to indentured servitude because it opens things up for abuse. People abuse people in their care all the time and get away with it. Children, the elderly, the mentally ill, even criminals are abused and it is highly difficult to prove. So to imagine that people would be treated kindly if they were sentenced to indentured servitude is naive at best.

Aside from this, the rich would be capable of preying on the weak by finding ways to put them into servitude. Part of the reason for the recent market crash was banks coaching high risk debtors in ways to receive loans they would never be able to pay back. So banks would have had a huge supply of slave labor flowing in.

So to even have a law that did such a thing would be immoral.

But there's more to it than that. Morality is based on cooperation which is motivated by fairness. It also has to find a way to balance pleasure and suffering.

Slavery is the opposite of cooperation. It is control. Control of more than what is really necessary for a business transaction of paying debts. And that is why it is unfair. You would be asking a person to give up all of their freedom for a sum of money. How do you quantify a person's freedom in terms of a dollar amount? Minimum wage for each and every hour that they are a slave? Is it moral to force someone to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because they are never not "on the clock" by being required to work at any given time? This punishment does not balance with the "crime" of being in debt in any way shape or form.

To add to this, there is real harm that comes from being demeaned by being a slave to another person. Being treated as, and being viewed by the public as, not much more than a donkey or tractor, i.e. property causes damage to a person. Can you put a monetary value on this? Such that this harm that a person would suffer for long, long after their servitude was over, can be subtracted from their debt? Are they deserving of this punishment because they were unwise with their money, which isn't immoral in itself to begin with?

Note that I said "owning" a person is immoral, which means slavery, not indentured servitude, which is more like "renting" a person, which is slightly less immoral than owning. But I'll be happy to show that the hypothetical situation of a person being a servant against their will is immoral as well.
First of all, you did not really say that indentured servatude is morally wrong. All the examples you provided describes the treatment of those while they are paying off their debts and the bible gives specific laws on how to treat these servants. Any violation of those laws would be by definition "objectively wrong" because the law cam from God. Most people don't even know that the Jewish law required all debts to be forgiven on a sabbath year (every seventh year). That means the maximum penalty for indentured servants were only seven years or less. Second, you cannot say that the form of indentured service I explained is "objectively bad" because many cultures use the practice today. One example is the Pashtu people of Afghanistan. They and many other cultures believe is a "restorative" justice system. The punishment for accidentally killing a man was that you would have to support and provide for his family for the rest of your life in order to "restore" what was lost. In the U.S., we have a "punitive" justice system where you would serve jail time for manslaughter.
 
Upvote 0

Davian

fallible
May 30, 2011
14,100
1,181
West Coast of Canada
✟46,103.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Ignostic
Marital Status
Married
Disobeying God mainly, keeping His holy and morally perfect nature in mind. This act has unfortunately already been commited by our first ancestors and now applies to us as well.
How is it "just" to hold one accountable for things beyond one's control?
 
Upvote 0

Sapiens

Wisdom is of God
Aug 29, 2015
494
202
Canada
Visit site
✟26,119.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Way, way, waaaaay off topic, but the Bible doesn't say they never ate from that tree. It says God took it away after the fall, but perhaps you had to keep eating from it to live forever, and not just one fruit granted immortality. That could also attribute to the long lifespans as the fruit they did eat while they still had access was so potent it had lasting effects through the generations.

Yeah, it is off-topic.

Just to close this parenthesis, it is implicit though that they had not yet eaten from it based on what God says. Genesis 3:22
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
First of all, you did not really say that indentured servatude is morally wrong.
How did you not see all the points I made to how it is not cooperation, it is not fair, and it causes harm?

the bible gives specific laws on how to treat these servants
Right. For instance, you can physically abuse them. You can physically abuse them to the point that they die, as long as it takes a few days to die, it isn't murder, it is just an accident of them being corrected, which is moral.

Second, you cannot say that the form of indentured service I explained is "objectively bad" because many cultures use the practice today.
If I cannot say something is "objectively bad" if there is someone that disagrees with me, then premise 2 of the moral argument fails. In order for me to observe something as objectively bad, according to you, it has to be something universally agreed upon. Therefore the argument is stated as such:

If there are no objective morals, then God does not exist.

We cannot observe any objective morals.

Therefore God does not exist.

There is no moral, there is no crime, there is no action that has been done or can be done that someone has not justified.

Edit: I'm sure citation is necessary for my Bible quote. Exodus 21:21 "But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money."
 
Upvote 0

Sapiens

Wisdom is of God
Aug 29, 2015
494
202
Canada
Visit site
✟26,119.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
How is it "just" to hold one accountable for things beyond one's control?

What are you talking about?

If you are refering to us and every human other than Adam and Eve, then it's just the way it works. Why do people with some illnesses pass it on genetically? It's simply the way those illnesses affect people. It seems to have worked the same way spiritually with sin. It's not a choice.
 
Upvote 0

Davian

fallible
May 30, 2011
14,100
1,181
West Coast of Canada
✟46,103.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Ignostic
Marital Status
Married
I cannot answer that question on "if someone will go to hell if he does X". I am not the judge who descides and I think it is wrong for anyone to make any claims to that effect. As far as justice is concerned, objectively "perfect justice" can only come from a god because a god is the only way man can be created with purpose. Since I have already explained that good and bad depends on purpose, and a god is the only explanation for man to be created with purpose, a god is the only being capable of executing ovjectively "perfect justice" because the god who created man is not only just but IS justice. There would be no objective justice without an objective purpose to give an objective definition of what's good or bad to judge.
You are contradicting yourself. You just judged your slaughtering of your neighbours to be "objectively bad". Now you are saying that you could still go to Heaven? How is that justice?
 
Upvote 0

Davian

fallible
May 30, 2011
14,100
1,181
West Coast of Canada
✟46,103.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Ignostic
Marital Status
Married
What are you talking about?
Justice, and how the term is used in your theology.
If you are refering to us and every human other than Adam and Eve, then it's just the way it works. Why do people with some illnesses pass it on genetically? It's simply the way those illnesses affect people. It seems to have worked the same way spiritually with sin. It's not a choice.
Granting for a moment that the Adam and Eve story has any bearing on reality, if it's not a choice, then being held responsible for it is not justice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DogmaHunter
Upvote 0

Sapiens

Wisdom is of God
Aug 29, 2015
494
202
Canada
Visit site
✟26,119.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
First, be careful with citing things like being corrupted by sin. We're still arguing about whether God exists at all, and you shouldn't be interjecting evidence based on you specific theology.

Second, omniscience is an interesting concept to bring up. In the sense that God would know for a fact what a person did, and why they did it, He would be a better judge of course. For instance, I can't be certain that even O.J. did it, to quote Bill Maher. But in discerning whether a concept is moral or immoral, sure, having an omniscient being that can look at all the pleasure and harm that results from an act would be the perfect way of discerning right from wrong. But doesn't this mean that the more we know, the better we can discern right from wrong? I mean, sure, we're no where near omniscient, obviously, but the closer we get, even if only a little bit, the better we can discern.

The advances we've made in psychology and neuroscience can actually show real physical changes, such as electrical activity in our brain, and the release of chemicals and hormones based on our actions, the actions of others towards us, and stimuli we receive. Sure, it isn't practical right now to test these things as people go about their everyday lives to truly measure them exactly to show how much harm is done or pleasure is received by different acts. But who's to say we never will? People used to think it was impossible for humans to fly. In the meantime, we can use the data we do have to make generalities about things that have a lot of predictive power about how people are going to feel and act and help us to find things that are moral or immoral and why we do them.

And just for fun, I'll break my own rule that I started this post by stating that God said about the tower of Babel that nothing is impossible for humans if we all work together. I don't consider that a real argument for anything, just food for thought, you know?


That's fine, it makes more sense now.

About sin, I know you might not officially believe that we are morally corupted by nature; for instance, if you believe that only a naturalistic world exists. But putting that belief/concept aside for a moment, and assuming that right and wrong exist, then can we not say that to do something considered evil you need to be evil, at least a bit? If you are at least a bit evil, that means your nature is at least a bit evil. Whence the sinful nature. In christianity, God is perfectly Holy and morals aren't just a list of do's and don'ts. That's why there's a problem between us and God.

Yeah, sure, the more we learn, the better we know.

Yeah, we are a crafty bunch.
 
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.