The Moral Argument

[Archaeopteryx]

Right, I believe that you all are demonstrating that objective morality exists.

I'm still waiting for you to address this question:

What if you found yourself living in another time and Yahweh commanded you to do so? Note that I am not asking you whether you would defend yourself against attacks. I am asking whether you would kill men, women, and children solely at Yahweh's behest, and without question.

 

[anonymous person]

Prior to his command that they be slaughtered, respecting their freedom apparently entailed allowing their violence to go on for 500 years. After those 500 years, he no longer allowed their violence to continue.

Right. He ordered them to be destroyed. Not because He stopped respecting their freedom, but because they were judged to be worthy of destruction. Just because men are free, it does not mean God cannot judge them for their wickedness. Their freedom is not some shield that will protect them from God's wrath against sin.

 

[anonymous person]

No, you are. That's the point. You are taking the results of a thought experiment that human beings find challenging, due to their imperfect knowledge and suboptimal resources, and applying it to a being that ostensibly faces no such obstacles.

I think God does face obstacles. I think one such obstacle is human freedom. They are not insurmountable obstacles, but they are obstacles.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Right. He ordered them to be destroyed. Not because He stopped respecting their freedom, but because they were judged to be worthy of destruction. Just because men are free, it does not mean God cannot judge them for their wickedness. Their freedom is not some shield that will protect them from God's wrath against sin.

It was a "shield" justifying his inaction for 500 years!

 

[Archaeopteryx]

God did not have to create this world. We have already covered this.

Stay on topic.

 

[quatona]

Right, I believe that you all are demonstrating that objective morality exists.

You are free to believe what you will. However, if you want to form a valid argument (particularly in support of "objectivity"), affirmations of your beliefs aren´t sufficient.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I think God does face obstacles. I think one such obstacle is human freedom. They are not insurmountable obstacles, but they are obstacles.

Until he decides that they are no longer obstacles after some arbitrary period (e.g., 500 years).

 

[anonymous person]

What´s that supposed to be. A syllogism based on your premises?
Where do the premises end. Where do the conclusions start?
In any case, 4 doens´t follow from anything.

Let's walk through this slow, one line at a time.



Raping children is wrong. <------------ This is called a "proposition".



Below are four different possibilities regarding the above proposition:




1. That proposition is made true because it corresponds to an objective feature of reality independent of human opinion and preference.

OR

2. That proposition is made true because it corresponds to a subjective opinion or preference of human beings.

OR

3. That proposition is neither true nor false.

OR

4. That proposition is meaningless.

 

[anonymous person]

Until he decides that they are no longer obstacles after some arbitrary period (e.g., 500 years).

No I disagree.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

<------------ This is called a "proposition".

Wow. We're back to the arrogance of the Elioenai26 days.

1. That proposition is made true because it corresponds to an objective feature of reality independent of human opinion and preference.

What about the preferences of supernatural entities?

 

[quatona]

Tell quatona why that is. He seems to need help with these things.

I´m sure you mean well, but FYI: I have told OD already several pages ago repeatedly that I am not going to discuss morality with her since we don´t have sufficient common ground for that.
So there´s nothing that Mark would have to explain to me about his decision.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

No I disagree.

That's nice. I'm still waiting to hear your argument though.

 

[anonymous person]

It was a "shield" justifying his inaction for 500 years!

Please stop. One day you're up in arms and indignant about God judging the Amalekites and the next you're raising a fuss about Him taking too long to judge them.

You have just revealed your hand. You're done here. Move on.

 

[anonymous person]

I´m sure you mean well, but FYI: I have told OD already several pages ago repeatedly that I am not going to discuss morality with her since we don´t have sufficient common ground for that.
So there´s nothing that Mark would have to explain to me about his decision.

Sure there is. Maybe he can explain to you why he thinks objective moral values and duties exist. Maybe you will listen to him since he is not a Christian.

 

[anonymous person]

That's nice. I'm still waiting to hear your argument though.

Move along.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Please stop. One day you're up in arms and indignant about God judging the Amalekites and the next you're raising a fuss about Him taking too long to judge them.

You have just revealed your hand. You're done here. Move on.

You're not being consistent, Jeremy. According to you, he was justified in withholding his judgment out of respect for their freedom to be cruel. Yet you also argue that he was justified in executing his wrath against them because he could not allow their cruelty to go on unchecked.

You didn't reveal your hand per se. You fumbled and dropped the cards.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Move along.

Yeah, that's what I thought. You got nothing.

 

[quatona]

Let's walk through this slow, one line at a time.



Raping children is wrong. <------------ This is called a "proposition".



Below are four different possibilities regarding the above proposition:




1. That proposition is made true because it corresponds to an objective feature of reality independent of human opinion and preference.

OR

2. That proposition is made true because it corresponds to a subjective opinion or preference of human beings.

OR

3. That proposition is neither true nor false.

OR

4. That proposition is meaningless.

You forgot 5: "This is expression of an individually held value."
and 6: "This is a statement describing a universally (or very broadly held) human value."

 

[anonymous person]

You forgot 5: "This is expression of an individually held value."
and 6: "This is a statement describing a universally (or very broadly held) human value."

Pay attention.

There are two broad semantic theories which explain ethical sentences like "Raping children is wrong".

1. Cognitivism

OR

2. Non-Cognitivism

We are not here concerned with the substantial theories of ethical sentences which talk about how widely some view is held (i.e. universally or not), but the semantic category into which ethical sentences they fall.




Paying attention still? Good good..

The ethical sentence "Raping children is wrong." is either truth-apt or not. What do I mean by truth-apt? Well truth-apt means capable of being true. That is, ethical sentences are truth bearers, capable of being true or false.

If it is not capable of being true or false, the ethical sentence "Raping children is wrong", is merely a kind of expression rather than an assertion. It is like saying, "Boo on killing!", or "Killing...Ahhh!" It is no different than saying, "Spaghetti....yucky!" "Or porridge...ewww!"




So the question again is, the ethical sentence "Raping children is wrong", is merely just an expression of distaste because there is no ethical fact that the sentence corresponds to, or it is a proposition capable of being true or false. A non-cognitivist affirms the former, while a cognitivist affirms the latter.

Which are you?

 

[Moral Orel]

You are equating doing good with creating

Of course I am, but I'm not confusing "good quality" with "good morality". You said that creating us was an act of grace. Is "grace" not a nice thing to do, therefore a good thing to do? Are you not happy that you were created? Is it not better to you that you were created than you were not created? Craig's basis for his argument is based on our limited capability to work with the number infinity. That doesn't mean that it isn't actually possible to work with such a number.

Let's look at infinity from a different perspective. Imagine that being in Heaven produces 100 units of happiness per day. Creating a person that goes to Heaven creates an infinite amount of happiness because that is how much happiness will result. But creating two people that go to Heaven produces 200 units of happiness a day as opposed to 100. Now my limited brain can come up with a crude way to work with something infinite, wouldn't you think God could do better?

To say that God is good is to say that there is no evil in Him. It is to say the same thing using different words to say it.

It isn't enough to just say "there is not evil in Him". There is no evil whatsoever in my toaster. Does that make my toaster just as "good" as God? Of course not. Things can be morally neutral. Or they can even be just a tiny bit good. I would say that if someone is capable of choosing to not do something good, then they are not 100% good.