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

[Tinker Grey]

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.

Give it a try. You say it's objective. Surely, you can take a stab at what the world would look like otherwise.

 

[Ken-1122]

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.

What does this mean? Are you saying at birth (I’m assuming you were born; not created) you believed morality was objective? Or are you saying when Adam and Eve were created, they believed morality was objective (along with believing the world was flat and countless other things we know better now) so we inherit this ignorance; um I meant belief from them that morality is objective, or do you mean something else.

Also if we assume morality is objective; based on the revelations of Yahweh, if another believer asserted that Yahweh revealed to him that rape is good, what objective grounds do you stand on in claiming your revelation trumps his?

 

[Ed1wolf]

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

Yeah, pretty cool dont you think?

 

[Strathos]

Yeah, pretty cool dont you think?

Well, it's certainly unusual.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

As I said earlier it cant be proven wrong, it is unfalsifiable. Also, because many people think it disproves God, then that gives even more incentive to maintain it because it means you dont have to be accountable for how you spend your time.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: Absurd! Freewill allows them to do that.

No, you are misunderstanding, what I mean is that they think if evolution is true then there is no objective morality or God and they can do anything they want and not be held accountable for how they spend their time.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

Straw man, creation does not deny that life changes over time due to its environment. It is obvious that life changes over time, the question is how much it changes. Gaps in the fossil record showing that there are limits to change, are explained either by the fossil record being incomplete or occurring so fast that nothing in the gap got fossilized.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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?

No that would be like admitting the universe is wrong. Theology is just like other sciences, we have the data, the Bible, and we have the interpretation of that data. Just science we have nature or the universe, which is the data, then we have interpretation of what nature and the universe is and how it operates. I have read the entire bible three times, and I know of biblical scholars that have read it in its original languages multiple times and studied its historical settings for half a century or more and never found any significant errors. Most Christians admit there are some minor copying errors and some minor editing but nothing that changes the basic teachings.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
They dont always admit they made a mistake, look at Piltdown man among others. See above about Christians admitting mistakes.

ken: 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?

See above, the bible is the theologians source of knowledge the way nature is the source of knowledge for the scientist. Christians do not prove the bible we just study, it would be a scientist trying to prove nature wrong, it makes no sense.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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: How are you defining space? And is this something backed up with scientific theory? Or opinion

Energy is a quality of mass and mass is a quality of matter, so in order for energy to exist, matter and mass have to exist and in order for them to exist, space has to exist. Look it up.

 

[Ken-1122]

As I said earlier it cant be proven wrong, it is unfalsifiable.

The fact that it can’t be proven wrong doesn’t make it unfalsifiable!

Also, because many people think it disproves God,

Evolution disproves God? Are you kidding me??? Even the Pope believes in Evolution!
Pope Francis says evolution is real and God is no wizard

No, you are misunderstanding, what I mean is that they think if evolution is true then there is no objective morality or God and they can do anything they want and not be held accountable for how they spend their time.

Does the Pope believe in God? Does the pope believe morality is objective? Bruh; you obviously have no clue how those of us who believe in Evolution think, perhaps you should educate yourself in that area before speaking on our behalf

Straw man, creation does not deny that life changes over time due to its environment. It is obvious that life changes over time, the question is how much it changes.

Evolution and Creation addresses two different claims; Creation is about how things began to exist, evolution is about what happens to things that already exist. Again; the Pope believes in both Creation AND Evolution; lots of people do!

No that would be like admitting the universe is wrong. Theology is just like other sciences, we have the data, the Bible, and we have the interpretation of that data.

You need to quit trying to change the subject and address the point I made. Again; The Bible makes claims, and I’ve never seen a Christian admit any of the claims of the Bible were wrong.

Energy is a quality of mass and mass is a quality of matter, so in order for energy to exist, matter and mass have to exist and in order for them to exist, space has to exist. Look it up.

Are you going to answer the question I asked? Or are you going to keep answering questions I didn’t ask. Again; you made the claim that there was a time when space did not exist; so I asked "how are you defining SPACE"! Not energy, not matter, not mass; Space. Answer that question first, then we can move on to something else.

 

[Strathos]

Anyone who thinks that evolution disproves God doesn't know much about either.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Yes, it does if you want them to be accurate.

ken: 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.

Depending on if they both agree on the premises, and they use logically correctly, they can both reach the same conclusion. Usually they dont agree on the premises as I explained earlier.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

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

No, it has nothing to do with logic, if they agree on the premises and use rules of logic then they will reach the same conclusion. This happens in science fairly often. The reasons they dont come to the same conclusion is the reasons I stated above and using incorrect rules of logic.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Genesis 2 explains how He wanted us to live forever
ken: Which verse?

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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."

ken: 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?

The verse was primarily referring to spiritual death, Adam and Eve died spiritually that day, and began dying physically that day also, it just took longer. Remember the bible says that all people who reject God's moral laws are spiritually dead, this is stated often in the NT especially Paul.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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: Still; if humans don’t die, that will eventually cause problems where humans will eventually have to stop reproducing.

Well since our rebellion that is no longer a problem and in the new universe there will be no reproduction so it will not be a problem there either.

 

[Ed1wolf]

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

I tend to rile up atheists and they keep responding. I have had debates like this on atheist websites last 3-4 years!

 

[Ken-1122]

Depending on if they both agree on the premises, and they use logically correctly, they can both reach the same conclusion. Usually they dont agree on the premises as I explained earlier.

Two people can agree on the premises yet still disagree on the answer or solution.

No, it has nothing to do with logic, if they agree on the premises and use rules of logic then they will reach the same conclusion. This happens in science fairly often. The reasons they dont come to the same conclusion is the reasons I stated above and using incorrect rules of logic.

Provide an example where to agree on the premises prevents you from logically disagreeing on the answer or solution

The verse was primarily referring to spiritual death, Adam and Eve died spiritually that day, and began dying physically that day also, it just took longer.

It doesn’t say Spiritual death. However; if you gonna make that leap concerning Genesis 2:17 Then Romans 5:12 was about spiritual death also! IOW your argument fails. Care to try again? Where in the Bible does it say God intended for Adam and Eve to live forever, but not the animals?[/QUOTE]

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
No, once we reached our maximum population size we could sterilize everybody. But actually it would be better just to colonize other planets.

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

The universe had to be the way it is in order to be a primarily natural law universe that could support free will human life.
In addition, it gives us challenges to use the large brains God gave us.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

They did that in the Garden because it was a maintained temperature, but outside the Garden they would have worn clothes because the temperatures were cooler especially in winter.

 

[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, words can be interpreted objectively. Such as "The sky is blue." Or "a bachelor is an unmarried man." Those are objectively true statements. The bible is pretty clear on most moral issues, though not all. So most of those moral laws can be objectively interpreted.

 

[Robert65]

No, words can be interpreted objectively. Such as "The sky is blue." Or "a bachelor is an unmarried man." Those are objectively true statements. The bible is pretty clear on most moral issues, though not all. So most of those moral laws can be objectively interpreted.

So many different sects of Christianity and my observing Christians disagreeing (sometimes contentiously) does not support your claim.

 

[Ken-1122]

The universe had to be the way it is in order to be a primarily natural law universe that could support free will human life.

Where in the Bible does it say this? C'mon you just makin stuff up now aren't cha?

They did that in the Garden because it was a maintained temperature, but outside the Garden they would have worn clothes because the temperatures were cooler especially in winter.

No; the bible says they saw themselves naked and covered themselves. And this was while they were still in the Garden. Care to make something else up?

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Yes, but generally societies that are based on Christian principles DO punish evildoers. That is why America got into WWII among other wars.

ken: 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!

No, we fought Japan for both reasons, and both are actions of evildoers, attacking us is evil too. We attacked Hitler because he was attacking Britain one of our closest allies and then when we found out about the Holocaust we had the Nuremburg trials to punish them as evildoers.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
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.

ken: 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.

Some white Christians did believe in equality for everyone but I am talking about the principles, only Christians had those principles, none of those ancient societies I mention had those principles. And they have never changed irrespective whether some Christians did not live by them but some Christians DID live by them. God's moral principles are unchanging.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
No, in a meaningless universe, it doesn't matter WHEN your actions occur, they are meaningless either way.
ken: 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.

I am referring to real objective meaning not made up subjective meaning based on ever changing feelings.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Little bags of water on a tiny rock in a huge universe squeaking at each other and touching each other has no meaning.

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

What meaning do those little squeaking bags of fluids have?

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
No, if the Christian God exists then words have objective meaning.

ken: The same goes for if God does not exist.

No, if the Christian God exists then our languages are based on an objective language of communication occurring between the members of the Trinity. Therefore the words have objective meanings based on that language. If God doesn't exist then our words are just the subjective reactions to certain stimuli like the non linguistic squeakings of a mouse with no objective foundation or basis.

 

[Ken-1122]

No, we fought Japan for both reasons, and both are actions of evildoers, attacking us is evil too. We attacked Hitler because he was attacking Britain one of our closest allies and then when we found out about the Holocaust we had the Nuremburg trials to punish them as evildoers.

We never fought Hitler till he declared war on us.

Some white Christians did believe in equality for everyone but I am talking about the principles, only Christians had those principles, none of those ancient societies I mention had those principles. And they have never changed irrespective whether some Christians did not live by them but some Christians DID live by them. God's moral principles are unchanging.

No; those principles were not about equality; they even enacted laws making it illegal to treat blacks the same as whites. Christianity has never cornered the market on morality

 

[Ken-1122]

I am referring to real objective meaning not made up subjective meaning based on ever changing feelings.


What meaning do those little squeaking bags of fluids have?

You are not in a position to determine what has meaning to other people.

 

[Ken-1122]

No, if the Christian God exists then our languages are based on an objective language of communication occurring between the members of the Trinity. Therefore the words have objective meanings based on that language. If God doesn't exist then our words are just the subjective reactions to certain stimuli like the non linguistic squeakings of a mouse with no objective foundation or basis.

Whether God exists or not, people will speak the same language and use the same words.