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

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Ed1wolf

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I am not saying that dogs dont have simple emotional responses to simple human emotions. That is a far cry from a moral system though.

I believe you did, go back and reread what you wrote. Cops are the arm of justice that brings someone to justice under the law. Of course, you can be forgiving and still be moral. Forgiveness is part of morality too. Of course, as humans and our limited knowledge and insight, we may forgive the wrong person and get take advantage of. But God knows who should be forgiven and who should not based on His omniscience.


How do you know He should have stopped them? You dont have an objective moral standard to say they did anything objectively wrong. But He created a free will and primarily natural law universe in order to destroy evil forever. So such people are possible to exist in such a universe. People can freely choose to do evil. 99.9% of the time it is up to us to stop them. This is how we grow spiritually which is another purpose of this universe, we grow by fighting evil ourselves without any supernatural help from God.


They are immoral according to God's objective moral standards. But if atheistic evolution is true, then they did nothing objectively wrong.


Actually I meant to call it a true will. Only fully personal beings have a true will. A true will enables you to refuse food even though you are healthy and hungry, dogs cant do that because they dont have a true will. Dogs are not fully personal beings, they do have a few aspects of personhood such as emotions, but not much beyond that. They definitely dont have a true will.
 
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Ken-1122

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I am not saying that dogs dont have simple emotional responses to simple human emotions. That is a far cry from a moral system though.
You objected when I said my dog can tell when I’m happy mad, worried, or sad. You changing it now?
I believe you did, go back and reread what you wrote. Cops are the arm of justice that brings someone to justice under the law. Of course, you can be forgiving and still be moral.
Before you objected when I said “you could be forgiving and still be moral” . So you agreeing with me now?
How do you know He should have stopped them? You dont have an objective moral standard to say they did anything objectively wrong.
I’ve got the same thing God has; a personal moral standard.
And if we lose the fight, he allows evil to win! And you call that moral? I don’t. I believe when good people sit back and allow bad people to spread chaos and evil unchallenged, those good people become contributors of chaos and evil. I believe if your God has the ability to stop evil but chooses not to, that makes him a contributor to evil.
They are immoral according to God's objective moral standards. But if atheistic evolution is true, then they did nothing objectively wrong.
They are immoral according to my objective moral standards as well! And even though there is no such thing as “atheistic evolution” what they did is still wrong.
When animals are given a reason, they will refrain from eating when hungry; the same for humans. Now of course due to their lack of intelligence, they don’t have the same will as humans, but non the less they do have a will albeit to a much lesser extent than we have.
 
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Ed1wolf

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If life is ultimately meaningless and it is if there is no God, then what does making a difference even mean? Only if your life has real objective meaning and it does if God exists and the afterlife exists, then the things you do in this life can make ETERNAL differences.
 
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Ken-1122

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If life is ultimately meaningless and it is if there is no God,
If your life is meaningless without God, though I feel sorry for you however it is your choice to limit yourself that way; I bring meaning to my life. I bet you would find yourself doing the same were you to ever come to know the truth.
then what does making a difference even mean?
There are countless ways of making a difference; raising your children right and teaching them what you know makes a difference.
Only if your life has real objective meaning and it does if God exists and the afterlife exists, then the things you do in this life can make ETERNAL differences.
If this life isn’t important, why get married? Why read a good book? Why see a movie, have friends, or even eat a good meal, if all these things are meaningless in the context of eternity and your next life?
 
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Ed1wolf

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So you appear to be a fellow Calvinist. I agree with what you say is true from God's perspective. But from a human perspective the person still has to go thru the process of choosing to repent and accepting Christ as his lord and savior. Then when he matures spiritually and becomes more familiar with biblical teaching, he will learn that it was not him but God working thru the HS to change his corrupt will to make this response. And that God had chosen him for this from the foundation of the world.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Ed1wolf said:
When did I move the goalposts?

st: I said ToE is an accurate description of physical reality unless you move the goalposts to redefine your terms.
Umm..you didn't answer my question. I said WHEN did I move the goalposts?

Ed: God could have used evolution but the evidence both biblical and scientific suggest otherwise.

st: I don't believe it does, as I have studied both biology and theology.

As a biologist most of my disbelief in evolution is based on science, but I have also studied the bible a great deal and there are some problems in that area too. But I dont consider the how He created questions as important as whether God created or not.
 
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Strathos

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Umm..you didn't answer my question. I said WHEN did I move the goalposts?

I didn't say that you did. The key word in my post was 'unless'.



I definitely agree with that last part.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Scientists are humans too, many of them care more about agendas than facts too. They are not some superior totally unselfish beings.

Ed1wolf said:
There is no such thing as Science, there is only science and scientists.

ken: You jokin' right? So..... what's the difference between science and science?
You keep mentioning some infallible morally perfect institution called Science where you capitalize it. No such thing exists, there is only science. A manmade systematic study of the universe where man's selfish interests sometimes blind them to the facts and they make mistakes.

In theoretical science just going thru the peer review process does not eliminate opinion in it. Because it deals with mostly past events, they can never be tested by empirical observations and experimental analysis.

The singularity is just a manmade mathematical construct of the universe just before the BB. And when you run the big bang backwards it comes to a point with no dimensions, which means it was nothing physical. Physical things have dimensions, nonphysical things like minds, do not have dimensions.
 
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Ken-1122

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Scientists are humans too, many of them care more about agendas than facts too. They are not some superior totally unselfish beings.
I’m sure many scientists do have agendas. That’s probably why so many scientific theories get disproven via the peer review process. But evolution has not been disproven.
I never implied science was perfect, I just think it is the best system we have. The fact that they are willing to admit when they are wrong tells me they are to be trusted over religious claims that never admit to error even when it is obvious.
In theoretical science just going thru the peer review process does not eliminate opinion in it. Because it deals with mostly past events, they can never be tested by empirical observations and experimental analysis.
But at least when they are willing to admit when they get it wrong! Can your religion do that?
Does energy have dimensions? Is energy physical?
 
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Ed1wolf

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No, that is not logical. That would be like a scientist saying that an apple fell to the ground because you dropped it and not because of gravity. You dropping the apple does not cause the apple to fall. According to the law of causality, the cause of something has to be sufficient and necessary. Someone
moving next door to your house is not a sufficient and necessary cause of you having your house broken into. Logic is objective when used by someone who understands it. I dont think you understand logic, you need to take a class in Logic 101.


The bible talks about how ecosystems work (Psalm 104:27-30) and we also learn about it from His other book nature that animals have to die in order for them to work. Remember nature is God's other book, and we can learn from it. Death did not come to humans until we rebelled against Him, see Romans 5:12.

ken: Also even if the animals did die, without humans dying, do you see the problem with overpopulation that would eventually be caused by constant birth without death?
Yes, that is why He gave us a large brain to learn to manage our populations using birth control (not the abortive kind though) and we have, but we may have gone too far in some developed countries where they are below replacement level.

ken: Also if God wanted us to explore other planets, why did he make the rest of the Universe hostile to human life?

He either wanted us to stay on the earth and manage the resources there to maintain a good sized population but not too big or He may have wanted us to learn with our large brains to cause other planets to become habitable. Our brains probably worked even better before the Fall so we could have learned faster but after the fall it has taken much longer so that we can't do that to other planets yet.

No, see above.

ken: Remember; for as long as Adam and Eve were in the Garden, they never had any children; then as soon as they left the Garden, they started having children like there was no tomorrow.
Because God commanded them to multiply and fill the earth when they were expelled from the Garden and we have basically accomplished that, but we have to maintain a large enough population to maintain a high level of civilization so that all the good things we have like hospitals and schools are kept up.
 
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Ken-1122

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No; it would be like a person saying an apple fell to the ground because he dropped it; and that would be considered a perfectly reasonable and logical deduction because the law of causality does not have to be taken into consideration when forming logical deductions.
Someone moving next door to your house is not a sufficient and necessary cause of you having your house broken into. Logic is objective when used by someone who understands it. I dont think you understand logic, you need to take a class in Logic 101.
If logic were objective, everybody would agree on what is logical and what is not. As you know, people often don’t agree when it comes to logic.
Neither Psalm 104:27-30, nor Romans 5:12 mentions anything about God originally wanting humans to live forever, but for animals to die. Care to try again?
Yes, that is why He gave us a large brain to learn to manage our populations using birth control (not the abortive kind though) and we have, but we may have gone too far in some developed countries where they are below replacement level.
Birth control wouldn’t be good enough; if nobody dies, eventually you get to the point where nobody should be born, then you might wonder what are the sex organs for.
You jokin’ right? You telling me those primitive people who didn’t even know the Earth was round was supposed to space travel to other planets? You read this out of the book? Or are you just makin' stuff up as you go along!
 
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Ed1wolf

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A true free will can go against what your genes, hormones and feelings try to make you do. Such as refusing to eat when you are hungry and healthy. Not engaging in sex when a naked woman wants you to have sex with her standing right in front of you. There are many other examples. When animals are healthy and hungry they will not refuse to eat. When animals are in heat sexually they will not refrain from sex when they have a mate available.

Ed1wolf said:
For example, a healthy but hungry dog will never refuse to eat.

ken: Untrue.
Evidence?

Ed1wolf said:
But a healthy but hungry human person can use his will power and refuse to eat for any number of reasons.

ken: So will many animals.
Evidence?

Perhaps but there is no evidence for this. No one is punished for violating their rules.


All moral systems have some sense of justice, even if the sense of justice is very different from other groups. No animals seem to have any sense of justice.


I am not changing anything. God is part of our group, He is our King and Universal Judge. So if we dont punish evildoers then He will in the next world. Jesus was unjustly punished by evildoers.

Well first of all, since the Christian God created ALL humans in His image and with a moral conscience based on His moral laws, that is why there are similarities like the ones you mention among many other peoples and religions. But there are things are uniquely Christian principles such as human equality, freedom of conscience and speech, and the whole concept of human rights is of Judeo-Christian origin. The concept of the infinite value of all human life of all ages, the concept of objective truth, and many others.
 
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Ken-1122

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As I said before, when animals have a reason to refrain, they have been shown to refrain. An example; animals that hunt in a pack will bring down a big kill, and the pack leader gets to eat of the kill first while all the other hungry pack members sit around waiting till the pack leader has his fill. When the pack leader is done eating the choice areas and walks away, the rest of the pack dives in. For many animals these are the rules of the pack and obeying pack rules is a reason to refrain from eating when hungry
Evidence?
See above
Perhaps but there is no evidence for this. No one is punished for violating their rules.
I disagree! I’ve seen documentaries about what happens when an animal new to the pack violates pack rules; and the pack leader attacks him.
All moral systems have some sense of justice, even if the sense of justice is very different from other groups. No animals seem to have any sense of justice.
Ahh So because YOU don’t see it, that means it isn’t there huh?
I am not changing anything. God is part of our group, He is our King and Universal Judge. So if we dont punish evildoers then He will in the next world. Jesus was unjustly punished by evildoers.
Leave God out of this; you specifically said “punished by the group” not God. History is full of examples of evil men who were not punished by the group.
So you are saying the principles of equality, human rights, and all that other stuff you mentioned; none of it existed till the Europeans and their Judeo-Christian values thought of it; right? Sources???
 
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Ed1wolf

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God has created different dimensions, such as the spiritual realm so hell may very well be in that dimension but that doesn't mean that they don't feel pain or emotions.
I am not saying that they wont feel pain and emotions, only that it is not part of this universe nor will it be part of the new heavens and new earth. It will be in a different realm or dimension as you say.

dan: The Bible is very clear, hell is described as a lake of fire that will never be quenched and the smoke of those who are tormented in it will rise forever and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Well that comes from the Book of Revelation which many scholars including Calvinist scholars believe is very symbolic and not to be taken literally. Though hell will definitely not be a very pleasant place. Remember there are also different levels of hell according to Jesus.


In some parts of hell, there may even be extreme cold. I dont think the bible has told us a great deal about the details of hell literally. Christ said there will be gnashing of teeth in darkness. This could be because of extreme cold. And see above about different levels of hell.


True.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Ok, that is true.
 
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Madsaac

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I think Christians will hope its subjective because if biblical morality is objective then the large majority of us are in big trouble.

For example, any Christian who doesn't live a very simple life and gives most of their wealth to the needy, is not doing what God asked in the bible.

It's fair to say that most Christians see biblical morality, subjectively, otherwise how can they live with themselves and comment on other moral social issues.
 
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Ed1wolf

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I do know the truth. Your meaning is just your subjective opinion and will mean nothing when the universe ends if there is no God. Only if God exists does your life have real objective meaning and you can actually make a difference in peoples lives, an eternal difference that never dies, long after the universe ends.

Ed1wolf said:
then what does making a difference even mean?

ken: There are countless ways of making a difference; raising your children right and teaching them what you know makes a difference.

No, that will not make any difference when the universe ends if there is no God. But if God exists then doing those things for your children will make an eternal difference that will last long after the universe ends.

No, you are confused, this life is EXTREMELY important since what you do has eternal consequences. If there is no God then life is not important at all, it is meaningless, it has no real significance, so why do those things other than for a few minutes of pleasure in a dying universe and a dying body that will turn into atoms that will eventually disintegrate in to nothingness.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Christian morality IS objective. And no, the bible never says that being wealthy is a sin, one of the greatest believers in history was very wealthy, Abraham. But Christ and the Bible do teach that you should use your wealth for good including helping the poor and it talks about priorities, being wealthy should never be your priority. But if it just happens because you are gifted or work hard, that is not a sin.
 
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Madsaac

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No but like you said, what you do with your wealth is a mentioned a few times.

There are millions and millions of Christians who believe being wealthy is the priority over helping the poor, its an effect of capitalism and western society. I would think they hope biblical morality is subjective.
 
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Ken-1122

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Just because my actions have no meaning a trillion years from now doesn’t mean it has no meaning today! I do what I do because it makes a difference now; not a trillion years from now.
 
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