The problem of Objective Morality. and why even biblical speaking it is subjective

[ToddNotTodd]

But most mainstream scientists are not going to admit that it points to God because they could lose their job and be blackballed as a fundie.

Most mainstream scientists are not going to admit that Big Bang cosmology points to any god... because it doesn’t.

 

[Ed1wolf]

But I can provide scientific proof that I exist!

I am all ears! Please provide it.

ken: But Planet Earth is not spinning at the same rotational rate as the Sun; Earth spins 365 times for each rotation around the Sun.

Right now that is true, but it may have been different for a few hours one day around 1200 BC.

ken: The mind is what we call the brain during its thinking function. According to science, the mind and brain are one and cannot be separated.

http://www.differencebetween.net/science/health/difference-between-mind-and-brain/

Your link is dead. If they are one, then why are there people that experience NDEs that obtain knowledge of things that they could not obtain unless the NDE is real. Also, if transgenderism is real and mind and brain cannot be separated then how can someone have a female brain and a male mind?

 

[Ed1wolf]

You are the one who started it by claiming his hatred was due to him being an atheist, I provided proof that showed he was Catholic only to refute your absurd claim.

Ummm... I provided actual historical evidence written by historians and his friends both in his childhood and as an adult who said he hated Christianity, especially biblical Christianity. All you provided was Nazi propaganda photos of him hanging out with priests in churches. Which is the stronger evidence?

 

[devolved]

The main argument for those of the Abrahamic religion is that God is Omnipotent and Omniscience so he decides Morality. which you would think would mean its Objective based on that argument but even then that's, not a good point.

I think it's a primitive way to think about. Abrahamic religion at its inception attempts to communicate the concepts that we have better language for today.

The morality, and especially Christian morality, isn't what you paint it to be here. It's never been static, since it's always fluid. It has its point of reference in its origins that were locked when it comes to "adoptive iterative process" once these were put on paper and maintained as such... but the process never actually stopped there. In Catholic and Jewish tradition you have a parallel Rabinic and Papal process of maintaining certain progression of moral evolution. In protestant Christianity that process is open to everyone.

The "objective" part simply means that the context is broader than any given person or even a group of people. It's a concept that flows naturally out of certain order, and we tend to accept these principles axiomatically.

For example, let's take something as simple as "don't steal". Why is it there? It's not that one day some guy woke up and said... "hear ye hear ye. I've had a dream from God... Don't Steal.", and everyone around thought "wow, how come we've never thought of that before. Brilliant!"

These principles are derived from certain higher order of being when you look at the path of changes that humanity went through in the past several thousand years. Thus, these principles are not arbitrary. They naturally flow out of the "system" that we occupy, which guides our behavior towards certain end. In Christianity such concept is equivalent to "spirit of God moving through you", but what that translates to is certain systematic patterns that we adopt, and these systematic patterns immerse from the "higher order" of complex reality and not from the simplicity we've had in the past.

Hence the term 'objective' doesn't mean "because the God said so'. It would probably better described as 'because it's inherent as a pattern of certain higher-order system'. As humans we recognize and codify these patterns, so it's no surprise that these patterns are recognized and developed in parallel in spite of the historical geographic separation we've had.

For example, the story of Moses is that of an "ascent to the mountain" to bring back certain moral code for people who are in a moral disarray once they are forced by their circumstances to wonder around in a larger group. You can read it literally, and many people do, but the meaning here is that of a necessity of a "higher order" morality once human circumstances drive us share enclosed geographic spaces. And the parallel to the golden calf here is that we generally gravitate towards our personal preferences driven by food/sex/dominance as opposed to looking at the higher-order principles that mitigate our collective being.

Hence, that form of morality is labeled as 'objective', because we don't arbitrary decide these as our preferences. We recognize these as being necessary as a part of certain functional system that we form.

 

[devolved]

Your link is dead. If they are one, then why are there people that experience NDEs that obtain knowledge of things that they could not obtain unless the NDE is real.

Mind is a reification concept of the process of the brain. You have to remember that language and words are representational communication tool. A process is a description of certain mechanism in motion, and that's what a mind is... it is what we label a function of a brain. Words have meaning, and you have to trace as where you got that meaning in the first place, and whether your use of those world-labels as a concept-models actually maps to reality as a proper model.

Just like when you say that you are going for a "run" there isn't a "run" you can point to as some product. It's a label that you put on a brain function.

A very simple demonstration that mind is a brain function is a performance of a lobotomy. You can continually diminish brain function, in which case you diminish the mind.

 

[Ken-1122]

Yes, but not EVERY ASPECT of every theory in science is backed up by science. For example, for years there was no empirical scientific evidence of dark matter but yet it was part of the BB theory. Only recently has it been empirically confirmed.

The big bang theory was around before dark matter was even hypothesized. It eventually became a part of the theory because the theory is constantly upgraded.

I never said that Science (whatever that means) I assume you mean mainstream or Establishment science claims that there was a worldwide flood. The worldwide flood was a one time event deep history, science is not equipped to determine a one time deep history event.

And you know this based on what?

I am just claiming there are some things that have been discovered by science that point in the direction of a possible worldwide flood.

Yeah; and there are things that point in the direction of toys being made in the North Pole; perhaps by Santa and his elves.

As I have stated earlier, the BB theory strongly points to the existence of the Christian God. Even non-Christian scientists have admitted that it does point to the existence of God, Paul Davies, Stanley Jaki, Arno Penzias, the younger Stephen Hawking, and others. But most mainstream scientists are not going to admit that it points to God because they could lose their job and be blackballed as a fundie.

Of course! There is a world wide conspiracy by science to hide the truth of the Christian God. Haven’t heard that one before! If you want to believe that; knock yourself out; but don’t expect anyone else to.

I am all ears! Please provide it.

I can give you my address, and you can travel across the country and meet me.

Right now that is true, but it may have been different for a few hours one day around 1200 BC.

As I mentioned before, if the rotation of the planet came to a screeching halt from 1000 mph to 0 mph, momentum would cause the destruction of the entire planet.

Your link is dead. If they are one, then why are there people that experience NDEs that obtain knowledge of things that they could not obtain unless the NDE is real. Also, if transgenderism is real and mind and brain cannot be separated then how can someone have a female brain and a male mind?

People with agenda’s have been known to lie you know!

Ummm... I provided actual historical evidence written by historians and his friends both in his childhood and as an adult who said he hated Christianity, especially biblical Christianity. All you provided was Nazi propaganda photos of him hanging out with priests in churches. Which is the stronger evidence?

Even in the court of law; actual photos are considered far more reliable than here-say and testimonials. C’mon bro; you know better than that![/quote]

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I would hardly call using laws of logic and the BB theory magic.

efm: No, magic only enters the picture when you start needlessly plugging cosmic wizards, aka 'gods', into the equation. They have no explanatory power, and Big Bang cosmology necessitates no such thing.

No, it is called reasoning, if science and logic leads to a transcendent non-physical personal cause, which it does at present, then you ought to accept it as a logical possibility even if your own feelings are repugnance toward it.

efm: Also, 'causality' is a general governing principle in most schools of philosophy, but I've never seen it defined as a formal law of logic, outside Objectivism. Big Ayn Rand fan, are you?

No, ever hear of Aristotle? He considered it a basic law of logic.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Actually there are many cosmologists and astronomers that ARE theists and deists,

efm: Most of whom, thankfully, don't let that inform their research, even if it does inspire them. No one knows what happened pre-Planck time, and some scientists are inclined to imagine a 'god' character there, without letting it stop them from continuing to work on the answer.

I never said that they should stop looking for other possible causes, but right now it appears that is where logic leads us if use it to go beyond the BB. Maybe someday they will find another possible cause, but it looks unlikely.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
more than any other scientific field.

efm: Uh, no. Try less than any other scientific field. From the Pew Research Center:

Scientists and Belief

Also, even if that were true, scientists in general are much less likely to believe in a personal, intervening god than the general public. So that's rather like bragging about being the fastest sloth at the zoo.

I have seen other respected polls that show biologists as with the least number of theists. Yes, scientists in general are less likely to believe in God but you have to understand they generally have been propagandized (establishment school educated) longer and isolated among like minded thinkers than the general public so it is to be expected.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Do you even read my posts? I never said he was an atheist,

ken: You said:
that is just one of the serious philosophical problems with the Nazis, and other atheistic and humanistic based societies.

Those were your exact words. The fact that Hitler had pictures of himself praying to the Christian God is proof that Germany at that time was not an atheistic based society

I know what my exact words were, you just misinterpreted them. I never said that Germany was a atheistic based society, but rather Nazism is a materialistic based political system similar to most forms of atheism. Such as based on materialism and relativistic and pragmatic morality. Germany itself was a post-orthodox Christian society, ie liberal "Christian" society. So if I showed you pictures of me smiling and shaking hands with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens you would think I was an atheist? If you saw a picture of me in a Buddhist temple, you would think I was a Buddhist?

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I said that his view of morality was very similar to atheists, that was my point. He did not believe in an objective standard of morality just like many atheists,

ken: First of all; Atheism is not defined as not believing morality is objective. There are atheists who accept objective morality in case you didn't know.
The Case for Objective Morality

I know that there are some atheists that claim they believe in objective morality but most dont, most are either pragmatists or relativists.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
isn't that what this thread was originally about?

ken: Perhaps your ignorance of what it means to be atheist is where our disagreement lies.

Believe me I know what an atheist is, I used to be an agnostic which is similar and I have been debating them for over 30 years.

 

[Ken-1122]

I know what my exact words were, you just misinterpreted them. I never said that Germany was a atheistic based society, but rather Nazism is a materialistic based political system similar to most forms of atheism. Such as based on materialism and relativistic and pragmatic morality. Germany itself was a post-orthodox Christian society, ie liberal "Christian" society. So if I showed you pictures of me smiling and shaking hands with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens you would think I was an atheist? If you saw a picture of me in a Buddhist temple, you would think I was a Buddhist?

If I saw a picture of you in a Buddhist Temple engaging in Buddhist religious rituals, I would assume that you were not against buddhism.

I know that there are some atheists that claim they believe in objective morality but most dont, most are either pragmatists or relativists.

It really doesn't matter. My problem was when it seemed you were vilifying Atheists by comparing them to Hitler and his Nazi party. I have noticed many Christians seem to like to dehumanize atheists this way. Bill Gates a known Atheist; uses his Gates Foundation to help the sick, hungry, and needy world wide, and there have been many other atheists who have helped people this way also. I have never heard a Christian suggest that this type of altruism is the result of Atheism, they always try to point to Hitler, and imply he is the result of atheism. When I see this, I call them out on it. If you wouldn’t want people to speak evil of you that way, you shouldn’t do it to others.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Everything you mentioned has nothing to do with morality, but reality; a big difference. Care to try again? Explain why morality (not reality) is needed on a desert island.

You can have evil and immoral thoughts.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
No, Christian moral teaching has been the same for 2000 years. Interpretations of and obedience to them have changed over the years. But Christ's moral teachings NEVER have changed and never will change.


ken: Was Jesus a Christian? No! I never said anything about Jesus’s moral teachings changing, I said what Christians teach as moral has changed over the years.

No, but He is the Christian moral lawgiver.

ken: Christianity is made up of billions of people, and what these people believe is moral today is different than what those people believed yesterday. This is due to secular teachings.

Yes, secularists have caused some Christians to disobey Christ's teachings and in some rare cases secularists have helped them obey Christ's teachings. But mostly the Holy spirit has caused Christians to follow His teachings more and more as time has gone by especially since the Reformation when we returned back to accepting the Bible as our true authority for the teachings of Christ and stopped following a corrupt leadership during the middle ages.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
How do you know? Just saying that you know doesn't mean that you actually know this. Prove it.

ken: Yeah; I’ll prove it the second you prove Santa and those elves don’t make toys.

We can look on the toys and see who manufactured it, and we have never found a toy that said "manufactured by Santa". If there is no label on it, then we can do historical research and see who made certain toys and so far no one has ever discovered that Santa made a toy.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

We can look on the toys and see who manufactured it, and we have never found a toy that said "manufactured by Santa". If there is no label on it, then we can do historical research and see who made certain toys and so far no one has ever discovered that Santa made a toy.

Absence of evidence isn’t always, as in this case, evidence of absence...

 

[Ken-1122]

No, but He is the Christian moral lawgiver.

Are you sure about that? Name 1 law that Jesus actually gave. How do you know he actually gave such a law? Did he write it down? No. Everything you believe about Jesus is based on what other people claimed he said. Jesus never wrote anything down. Various men claimed Jesus said this or that, but how do you know they weren’t lying? How do you know they weren’t making up their own laws and claiming they got them from Jesus? Lemme guess…. It’s all based on faith.

Yes, secularists have caused some Christians to disobey Christ's teachings and in some rare cases secularists have helped them obey Christ's teachings. But mostly the Holy spirit has caused Christians to follow His teachings more and more as time has gone by especially since the Reformation when we returned back to accepting the Bible as our true authority for the teachings of Christ and stopped following a corrupt leadership during the middle ages.

And still, what Christians claim is moral today is often different than what they claimed was moral years ago.

We can look on the toys and see who manufactured it, and we have never found a toy that said "manufactured by Santa". If there is no label on it, then we can do historical research and see who made certain toys and so far no one has ever discovered that Santa made a toy.

Santa always puts Lego, Fisher-Price, Mattel, Tyco, and many other names on his toys.

You can have evil and immoral thoughts.

Thoughts are neither good nor evil; they just are. The good and evil is determined by how we react to those thoughts.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Most mainstream scientists are not going to admit that Big Bang cosmology points to any god... because it doesn’t.

Evidence?

 

[Ed1wolf]

Mind is a reification concept of the process of the brain. You have to remember that language and words are representational communication tool. A process is a description of certain mechanism in motion, and that's what a mind is... it is what we label a function of a brain. Words have meaning, and you have to trace as where you got that meaning in the first place, and whether your use of those world-labels as a concept-models actually maps to reality as a proper model.

Actually if there is no God then those world labels do not map to reality. Only if there was a creator then there will be a correlation between the subject and the object called reality. So if there were no God then science would be impossible. But it plainly is possible therefore God exists.

dev: Just like when you say that you are going for a "run" there isn't a "run" you can point to as some product. It's a label that you put on a brain function.

No, if I say I am going to run there IS a product, it is called running and it can be empirically observed.

dev: A very simple demonstration that mind is a brain function is a performance of a lobotomy. You can continually diminish brain function, in which case you diminish the mind.

How do you know? It could be like if you typing on a keyboard that was missing letters, it would cause me to think you were mentally challenged, but in fact it was just because your conduit onto the internet was damaged, not you or your mind. Your mind needs a functioning brain to interact properly with the outside world if it is damaged, ie lobotomized, then the mind comes across as damaged when in fact it is not in any fundamental way, it may be temporarily damaged in the physical world but otherwise it is not in an intrinsic way.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Evidence?

The Big Bang model doesn't make predictions about deities. So any attempt to tie deities to it is an opinion outside the model, not inside the model.

 

[FredVB]

True; science does not have all the answers, and fortunately they admit that. As I said before; a wrong answer does more damage than no answer at all. Many theists should take a cue from that and provide no answers at all rather than makin' stuff up.

If you see theists are making stuff up, others of us don't. I have legitimate points for saying there is the Creator that everything comes from, shown in other threads where those who would disagree, and can post much more frequently than I can, can't answer. This is not contrary to science.

 

[Ken-1122]

If you see theists are making stuff up, others of us don't.

I don't think most theists make stuff up, I just think they get much of their information from someone who made stuff up.

I have legitimate points for saying there is the Creator that everything comes from, shown in other threads where those who would disagree, and can post much more frequently than I can, can't answer.

If you want to believe there is a creator responsible for all that exists, that's fine. I just see no reason to believe it.

This is not contrary to science.

It may not be contrary to science, but it isn't consistent with science either.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Yes, but not EVERY ASPECT of every theory in science is backed up by science. For example, for years there was no empirical scientific evidence of dark matter but yet it was part of the BB theory. Only recently has it been empirically confirmed.

ken: The big bang theory was around before dark matter was even hypothesized. It eventually became a part of the theory because the theory is constantly upgraded.

Yes, but for awhile it was part of the theory but it had not been confirmed empirically, this is true of many theories and with evolution it is a major part of the theory. Macroevolution has never been empirically observed yet it is considered a major part of the theory.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I never said that Science (whatever that means) I assume you mean mainstream or Establishment science claims that there was a worldwide flood. The worldwide flood was a one time event deep history, science is not equipped to determine a one time deep history event.

ken: And you know this based on what?

Name a one time deep history event that has been PROVEN by science (the BB is probably the closest to have been proven by science but only because only in astronomy can we actually see history in real time), not hypothesized by science. Name the scientific evidence that proves the murder of Caesar.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I am just claiming there are some things that have been discovered by science that point in the direction of a possible worldwide flood.

ken: Yeah; and there are things that point in the direction of toys being made in the North Pole; perhaps by Santa and his elves.

What evidence points towards toys being made by Santa and his elves?

Ed1wolf said: ↑
As I have stated earlier, the BB theory strongly points to the existence of the Christian God. Even non-Christian scientists have admitted that it does point to the existence of God, Paul Davies, Stanley Jaki, Arno Penzias, the younger Stephen Hawking, and others. But most mainstream scientists are not going to admit that it points to God because they could lose their job and be blackballed as a fundie.

ken: Of course! There is a world wide conspiracy by science to hide the truth of the Christian God. Haven’t heard that one before! If you want to believe that; knock yourself out; but don’t expect anyone else to.

No, I didn't say that, there are many scientists and universities in non-western countries that believe that there is strong scientific evidence for God. And even in the US there is a larger number than you may realize as I showed above.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I am all ears! Please provide it.

ken: I can give you my address, and you can travel across the country and meet me.

How would I know it was you? It could be somebody you or a bot service paid to pretend to be you.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Right now that is true, but it may have been different for a few hours one day around 1200 BC.

ken: As I mentioned before, if the rotation of the planet came to a screeching halt from 1000 mph to 0 mph, momentum would cause the destruction of the entire planet.

Not if God prevented the destruction.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Your link is dead. If they are one, then why are there people that experience NDEs that obtain knowledge of things that they could not obtain unless the NDE is real. Also, if transgenderism is real and mind and brain cannot be separated then how can someone have a female brain and a male mind?

ken: People with agenda’s have been known to lie you know!

These are events recorded by well respected doctors and not all of them are religious. You are committing the genetic fallacy here.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Ummm... I provided actual historical evidence written by historians and his friends both in his childhood and as an adult who said he hated Christianity, especially biblical Christianity. All you provided was Nazi propaganda photos of him hanging out with priests in churches. Which is the stronger evidence?

ken: Even in the court of law; actual photos are considered far more reliable than here-say and testimonials. C’mon bro; you know better than that!

No, that is true only if the photo is of the actual criminal act. Just a picture of a man standing with a knife over a dead body would prove nothing about the man. He could either be a cop investigating the crime or he could be the murderer, there is no way you could know one way or the other without testimonial evidence.

 

[Ed1wolf]

If I saw a picture of you in a Buddhist Temple engaging in Buddhist religious rituals, I would assume that you were not against buddhism.

You are not answering the question, would that PROVE I was a Buddhist?

ken: It really doesn't matter. My problem was when it seemed you were vilifying Atheists by comparing them to Hitler and his Nazi party. I have noticed many Christians seem to like to dehumanize atheists this way. Bill Gates a known Atheist; uses his Gates Foundation to help the sick, hungry, and needy world wide, and there have been many other atheists who have helped people this way also. I have never heard a Christian suggest that this type of altruism is the result of Atheism, they always try to point to Hitler, and imply he is the result of atheism. When I see this, I call them out on it. If you wouldn’t want people to speak evil of you that way, you shouldn’t do it to others.

No, the problem with atheism, Hitler's form of pantheism, and even Germany's liberal "Christianity" is that there is nothing that is objectively wrong, therefore it can become a slippery slope. That is what happened with Nazi Germany, they went down that slippery slope to the depths that such a view can lead to. Even though there can be very good moral atheist individuals, their philosophy can spin out of control when it is utilized as a nations philosophy because there is no objectively rational basis for morality. And such ideas can affect the way most people think especially when it is incorporated into the educational system.