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

[Tinker Grey]

I still want to know from those who think morality is objective what the world would look like if morality were subjective.

I submit that people would do whatever they think is moral. We would see people disagreeing on what exactly is moral.

Sounds familiar.

 

[Madsaac]

I trust that because it's Gods Word, God commands us to believe Him so it has nothing to do with trusting my judgement. 1)It's a matter of obedience, God commands us to believe everything He said. He came to the earth in the person of Jesus Christ and told us everything we need to know about the truth.

There is only one Bible and everything God said has been faithfully recorded in the Bible so we are all without excuse. 2)Every single person will be judged according to the relationship they had with Jesus. Jesus saw judgement day and 3) He said He would cast everyone who doesn't know Him as their savior into hell to burn forever.

You cannot reason your way around the fact that you will stand before Christ to be judged, if you hear the words, 3)"depart from me into the everlasting fire prepared for Satan and His Demons and unbelievers" then you will realize how impotent your argument is.

First of all mate, I'm glad you're better from finding Jesus, you know some people need 'outside' help to feel good.

1)You haven't done everything that God has asked, no one has.

2) Just because you don't have a relationship with someone doesn't mean they don't respect you.

3)Really?? You think Jesus to be so petty, if he is, he can go and get stuffed. I don't think he would be though, so I'll see you heaven

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Scientists are humans too, many of them care more about agendas than facts too. They are not some superior totally unselfish beings.

ken: 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.

But over time some theories harden into dogma especially theories that appear to confirm many peoples desires and hopes. And unfortunately evolution has become one of those. Most people want to have sex with anyone they want to and spend their time anyway they want to and not ever have to be accountable for how they spend their time. Evolution allows them to do these things and gives them a rational for doing these things. This does not disprove evolution but it is a red flag for it that it has become unquestioned dogma and that anyone that does question it will have their career destroyed or slandered. Evolution cannot really be disproven given that it is basically unfalsifiable. The history of science has shown that if a theory becomes unfalsifiable then it is no longer scientific.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

No, Christians have admitted they were wrong about many things down thru the years. They admitted that they were interpreting the bible wrong about an earth centric universe, about involuntary slavery, about race relatons and many other issues.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: But at least when they are willing to admit when they get it wrong! Can your religion do that?

They dont always admit they made a mistake, look at Piltdown man among others. See above about Christians admitting mistakes.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: Does energy have dimensions? Is energy physical?

Actually it does have dimensions and it is physical, just prior to the BB or at the singularity, energy did not exist because it requires space to exist and space did not exist at that point.

 

[Ken-1122]

But over time some theories harden into dogma especially theories that appear to confirm many peoples desires and hopes. And unfortunately evolution has become one of those.

Anybody with the ability to prove the Theory of Evolution wrong would be world famous and super rich. You can’t tell me everybody will choose to turn down fame and fortune in order to support someone else's dogma.

Most people want to have sex with anyone they want to and spend their time anyway they want to and not ever have to be accountable for how they spend their time. Evolution allows them to do these things and gives them a rational for doing these things.

Absurd! Freewill allows them to do that.

This does not disprove evolution but it is a red flag for it that it has become unquestioned dogma and that anyone that does question it will have their career destroyed or slandered. Evolution cannot really be disproven given that it is basically unfalsifiable. The history of science has shown that if a theory becomes unfalsifiable then it is no longer scientific.

Evolution unfalsifiable? You jokin’ right? If Evolution says that life changes over time due to it’s environment, to falsify it all you gotta do is prove life does NOT change over time due to it’s environment.

No, Christians have admitted they were wrong about many things down thru the years. They admitted that they were interpreting the bible wrong about an earth centric universe, about involuntary slavery, about race relatons and many other issues.

I’m talking about the Bible being wrong. I’ve never met a Christian who admit the Bible is wrong; even though most Christians I know have not read the Bible from cover to cover. I mean really; how can you claim a book is error free if you haven’t read every page of that Book?

They dont always admit they made a mistake, look at Piltdown man among others. See above about Christians admitting mistakes.

Piltdown man has been shown to be wrong. And there are plenty of scientific theories that has been dispelled and disproven over the years and are no longer accepted as theory. Has Christians disproven anything from the Bible?

Actually it does have dimensions and it is physical, just prior to the BB or at the singularity, energy did not exist because it requires space to exist and space did not exist at that point.

How are you defining space? And is this something backed up with scientific theory? Or opinion.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑ 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.

ken: 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.

Yes, it does if you want them to be accurate. Also, you said BECAUSE he dropped it, that is not the same as saying that dropping it CAUSED it to fall to the ground. And that is what I was referring to, what CAUSED it to fall to the ground.

Ed1wolf said: ↑

1. 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.
   ken: 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.

People DO generally agree with what is logical when it is relatively simple, the more complex the reasoning becomes then the harder it is to agree on the conclusion because not all the premises are either understood or agreed to. And some people are more controlled by emotion than others so they also take that into consideration or they are more committed to some a priori assumptions, such as the supernatural does not exist a priori, ie without proving that the supernatural doesn't exist and other similar assumptions.

1. Ed1wolf said: ↑
   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: 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?

2. 
   
3. Genesis 2 explains how He wanted us to live forever then Romans 5:12 tells us how death for humans entered into the world "for by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death came upon all men for all sinned." It doesn't say anything about how death came upon animals because death was already coming to animals as we can see fossils of carnivorous animals existing long before humans and so we know they were eating and killing other animals before humans. Also, we know as I explained earlier that animals are not moral beings they dont understand justice. Therefore we know that their deaths are not due to sin but rather to teach us what death is and also to run the ecological cycles of the earth. These cycles are seen Psalms 104:29-30 where it explains how God limits animals resources and then they die out and then replaces them with different species in verse 30.

 

[Ken-1122]

Yes, it does if you want them to be accurate.

It doesn’t have to be accurate to be considered logical; it just have to have the appearance of accuracy to the person using the logic. When two people argue, they will both use logic to make their case. They both can’t be right now can they.

People DO generally agree with what is logical when it is relatively simple, the more complex the reasoning becomes then the harder it is to agree on the conclusion because not all the premises are either understood or agreed to. And some people are more controlled by emotion than others so they also take that into consideration or they are more committed to some a priori assumptions, such as the supernatural does not exist a priori, ie without proving that the supernatural doesn't exist and other similar assumptions.

In other words; (as I said before) people often don’t agree when it comes to logic. You’re making my case bruh!

Genesis 2 explains how He wanted us to live forever

Which verse?

then Romans 5:12 tells us how death for humans entered into the world "for by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death came upon all men for all sinned."

Genesis 2:17 also said God told Adam the day he ate of the fruit he shall surly die! Yet when he ate the fruit; he lived nearly a thousand years afterwords. Are you this is meant to be taken literally?

It doesn't say anything about how death came upon animals because death was already coming to animals as we can see fossils of carnivorous animals existing long before humans and so we know they were eating and killing other animals before humans. Also, we know as I explained earlier that animals are not moral beings they dont understand justice. Therefore we know that their deaths are not due to sin but rather to teach us what death is and also to run the ecological cycles of the earth. These cycles are seen Psalms 104:29-30 where it explains how God limits animals resources and then they die out and then replaces them with different species in verse 30.

Still; if humans don’t die, that will eventually cause problems where humans will eventually have to stop reproducing.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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: 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.

No, once we reached our maximum population size we could sterilize everybody. But actually it would be better just to colonize other planets.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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!

No, I am saying if there had never been original sin then our technology would have advanced more rapidly and we would have eventually learned to colonize space in just a few thousand years instead of the more than 2 million years it would take us with original sin.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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

No, they are only refraining because they are afraid of being attacked by the pack leader. I am referring to refraining without any fear or threat of injury, because refraining because of fear of attack is just instinctual programming, not an act of a will.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Evidence?

ken: See above

See above why it is not an act of the will.

 

[Strathos]

I'd just like to note that this thread is now over a year old, and has been constantly active since its creation.

 

[Ken-1122]

No, once we reached our maximum population size we could sterilize everybody. But actually it would be better just to colonize other planets.

If God intended for us to colonize other planets, why did he make the environment outside our atmosphere hostile to human life?

No, I am saying if there had never been original sin then our technology would have advanced more rapidly and we would have eventually learned to colonize space in just a few thousand years instead of the more than 2 million years it would take us with original sin.

Before original sin humans walked around naked like animals. Once they sinned, their eyes were opened and they made clothes; something animals never did even to this day. It sounds like if they never sinned, we would still be walking around naked with our junk hangin' out; craping on the ground like an ape! Sounds like original sin opened our eyes allowing us to use technology not the other way around.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: Ahh So because YOU don’t see it, that means it isn’t there huh?

Not just me, most biologists agree that animals dont have moral systems especially anything like what we call justice.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

Yes, but generally societies that are based on Christian principles DO punish evildoers. That is why America got into WWII among other wars. Even primitive human societies punish those who dont share food and resources or kill members of the tribe.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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?

Well we know that the ancient Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, or even the exalted Greeks did not believe those things. The Greeks believed in equality for men but not women and children and non-Greeks.

 

[Robert65]

I see morality as subjective but let us assume that morality is objective. It would be objective and based upon a higher authority (in this case God) yet it would still be subjective at the group level down to the individual level as how one views and interprets the words of authority is subjective.

 

[Ken-1122]

Yes, but generally societies that are based on Christian principles DO punish evildoers. That is why America got into WWII among other wars.

WWII? We got into WWII because Japan bombed us, and Hitler declared war on us; its not like we fought Japan because of the atrocities they were committing against China, or Hitler because of the atrocities they were committing against Russia!

Well we know that the ancient Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, or even the exalted Greeks did not believe those things. The Greeks believed in equality for men but not women and children and non-Greeks.

Yeah; and the White Christians believed in equality for white men, but not women, children, and non whites. I think you are confusing the ever changing morals of people who just so happen to be Christian, with Christian morals; big difference.

 

[Ed1wolf]

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.

Yes, but if they think that, it may be because they are not actually Christians. But I dont think it is really an effect of capitalism or western society, it is more likely just plain old human greed.

 

[Ed1wolf]

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.

No, in a meaningless universe, it doesn't matter WHEN your actions occur, they are meaningless either way. Little bags of fluid on a tiny rock in a huge universe squeaking at each other and touching each other has no meaning.

 

[Ed1wolf]

I see morality as subjective but let us assume that morality is objective. It would be objective and based upon a higher authority (in this case God) yet it would still be subjective at the group level down to the individual level as how one views and interprets the words of authority is subjective.

No, if the Christian God exists then words have objective meaning.

 

[Ken-1122]

No, in a meaningless universe, it doesn't matter WHEN your actions occur, they are meaningless either way.

There is no such thing as a meaningless Universe. If my actions have meaning to ME, they have meaning; even if they are meaningless to you.

Little bags of water on a tiny rock in a huge universe squeaking at each other and touching each other has no meaning.

I think you are confusing that which has no meaning to YOU with having no meaning at all. Big difference!

 

[Ken-1122]

No, if the Christian God exists then words have objective meaning.

The same goes for if God does not exist.

 

[Robert65]

No, if the Christian God exists then words have objective meaning.

Yes morality would be objective yet not universally interpreted in the same way by all humans thus the subjectivity at the individual and group level. I am sure you see as I do the many different sects of Christianity where more than one Church claims to be the real Church in a crowed field where only one can be correct, if any.

 

[Ed1wolf]

I still want to know from those who think morality is objective what the world would look like if morality were subjective.

I submit that people would do whatever they think is moral. We would see people disagreeing on what exactly is moral.

Sounds familiar.

That is a tough question to answer because since humans by nature were created to believe in objective morality. You would have to imagine humans with a different nature.