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Nobody in this conversation is claiming he was not a good man, I’m just saying he was not God.
It is not my opinion but one of scientific reasoning and logic that stands in spite of individual opinions. Logically truth implies there can only be one truth. When someone claims their morals are right and another is wrong are appealing to a truth about morals that can be used to measure things.
Fair enough. He claimed to be the son of God and for this he was put to death. For those who believe Jesus is the son of God they accept Jesus and therefore are guided by him to do good. If there are objective morals then there is a moral lawgiver which is outside human minds and experience. That moral lawgiver for many is said to be God. This will be hard to prove scientifically but it does not change the fact that people believe this and this is what they use as their moral guidence.
That would be a bit hard considering Jesus was about 2 years old with Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt to escape Herods decree to kill all infants in order to kill Jesus and they only stayed in Egypt a few months until Herod died.[/quote][/QUOTE]
It sounds like you are saying Theists have reason to believe morality is objective, because they believe morality is based on the word of their God of choice. In case you haven't noticed; I'm not a theist.
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Yes, many Christians fail to live up to Gods commands and that is why we need forgiveness and when Christians fully realize the great mercy and grace that God shows toward us when we sin, we do great deeds for Him out of love, that is why almost everything good about Western Civilization was produced by Christians and Christianity.
Exactly, they don't want to believe in the true God but make up one of their own who is more like Santa Claus or a doting grandfather who just winks and chuckles at their sins.
Most "Christians" in the Establishment including in the government belong to theologically liberal denominations that don't accept the infallible authority of the bible and just go along with whatever society believes about morality at the time. Their moral standards are basically the same as secular humanists with a little God talk slapped on but not in any serious way. Christianity for them is just a social club. And yeah they might be happy if it confirmed their beliefs especially if did not confirm the orthodox Biblical God so then all they have to do is be as good as the next guy and not be held accountable for their very thoughts.
You have yet to prove this and I notice you did not answer any of my questions. Why is that? Is it because you can't?
Actually most Christian denominations that believe in the infallible authority of the Bible DO agree on most essentials. And see my earlier post that shows that most societies DO agree on a basic morality similar to the Ten Commandments.
There is unity in its objectivity as I have shown above how most societies agree on certain morals.
If it were not subjective/dependent on interpretation, they would agree on more than just the essentials.
Except objective morality needs to be justified so that it is substanciated. In being justified it also will allow or disallow certain justifications ie "do not kill unless justified such as in self defence. This does not deminish the value of the original moral nor mean that the moral becomes subjective. The moral still stands with a rare exception and does not allow all human views to suddenly become allowable.
For subjective morality there is the individuals truth which means that what they view as morally right or wrong is true for them and them only. But for objective morality there is the moral truths that stand outside the individuals view and truths regardless of time, culture and context. These truths can exist at the same time, except objective morality will trump subjective morally as the ultimate truth for that moral. How else does someone measure whether they are right or wrong when they declare that they are right and someone else is wrong without having an ultimate moral truth to measure things.
I think radical is a bit extreme in describing objective morality. Often objective morals are intuitive and we are using them without even realizing it. They come naturally to us and we instictively know that it is the right thing to do despite individual interpretations. If right and wrong came down to individual interpretations then we would never have any clear basis for determining what was right and wrong and things would be constantly undermined.
That is correct because opinion is only true for the individual with that opinion. I agree subjective morality is useless when it comes to determining what is absolutely true. That is why we use objective morality to determine universal rights and wrongs. The United nations could not have made the universal declarations of human rights unless they relied on some universal truths about what is right and wrong for how to treat humans.
If we assume morality is “objective” (meaning “X” is true regardless of time, culture, context, or others agree or not) how do you know “X” is true? Perhaps you are mistaken concerning “X”, or perhaps the standard you are using is the wrong standard. Anyone can simply proclaim "X" to be an objective truth, but how do you know? IOW What method do you employ to verify “X” is true?
As I have mentioned the main way those who do not believe in a God use scientific reasoning and logic by looking at human behaviour. This allows someone to determine that certain moral positions are best based on how they support the wellbeing of conscious humans. So if we look at say, abusing children, we can say that this is not good for the wellbeing of a child or raping women is not good for that women's wellbeing. This is regardless of context because if a certain religion believes that it is OK to rape women it is not about the religious person beliefs or view but about the victim and whether it affects their well-being. I don't think any women want to be raped regardless of what their religion or culture may say.
Why would the non-believer use a different method to determine “X” than the believer? This would likely result in them reaching different conclusions concerning “X”. Remember in order for “X” to be objective morally right/true, it must be regardless of culture, context or beliefs; this includes religious beliefs.
Satan mistreated Job, not God. He allowed Satan to mistreat him for a greater good for Job. How is that unfair? How were citizens of Egypt treated unfair? Ever hear of corporate guilt? If you allow the nation that you live in to do bad things, then you are guilty too, almost as much as the specific people that did the things. Look at Nazi Germany, the citizens were treated harshly because they knew what the leadership was doing yet most them condoned what the leaders were doing, so they deserved harsh treatment.
If the Christian God exists then all of these things are quite possible. And there is strong evidence that He exists. And btw the creation account has been confirmed in many ways when understood combined with God's other book, ie Nature. The bible taught that the universe had a definite beginning, is expanding, and winding down energetically 3000 years before those things were confirmed by science and the big bang theory.
It is not really a different method as in the end it is the same objective morals. It is just the origins for the morals are different. Non religious people will say objective morals are a scientifically reasoned and logiical position that fosters human wellbeing and can be found in nature or some say the universe. I guess they believe that morals are a part of nature and are just there like gravity which is just there.
It is actually the opposite. People recognise that there is something objectively wrong with killing or lying and that is why they seek to make justifications for their actions.
As a society, we recognise that we need certain moral standards to function and have peace and harmony. The repercussions of not having them are great and can create disorder and chaos. How the normative morals are decided goes back to how people measure objective morality through scientific reasoning based on human behaviour and how there are certain moral positions that support the well-being of conscious humans.
Some say it is just something that humans intuitively know about that is in nature or the universe. They are reasoned and logically determined rather than open to personal views. As with anything reasoned through scientific and logic, it stands on its own. But as I mentioned before to acknowledge objective morals is to acknowledge that there is a moral lawgiver because morals imply a personal aspect and logic and scientific reasoning cannot have any personal component to it.
There are not all these conditions. There is only a rare justification or two which only come into play because there may be a risk of breaching a greater moral position. An objective moral does not operate in isolation and the person can be at risk of breaching another objective moral when upholding the first one. IE killing in self-defence to protect your, family/children. Protecting life that is precious is also morally good. But this is the only time and it does not mean that you have as you said "all these views creep in that make it OK to kill for this reason or that reason. Once again the rare justification acknowledges that there is an objective morality that needs to have a rare act of self-defence justified against it.
I agree consensus does not make a moral truth. But with subjective morality, this is how it is often done. Society will implement a law or code based on what they say was the majority view. Later it turns out that this was wrong. The problem is sometimes power and money can corrupt and they influence the people that this is the best thing to do and everyone goes along or vested interest taint the evidence or there is just lack of knowledge for what is best and it turns out wrong. But through scientific reasoning and logic will usually show that there are certain moral positions that are best for human wellbeing because it stands alone and cannot be influenced by personal opinion, and biases.
I think you will find that all people will have similar sets of morals in order to survive because there is not more than one way to survive. If you steal from each other you disrupt the group/society and this undermines peace and harmony and leads to division and revenge acts and therefore is no good for human well-being. This is the same for all people/groups. If you kill others in the group/society without justification you undermine the group/society etc and this is not conducive to human wellbeing and therefore threatens survival. It is as simple as that. Try and show me a group/society that can steal or kill without bringing negative consequences which threaten its survival.
If right and wrong come down to interpretations does not that imply that people can then explain their way out of any act good or bad because it is not good and bad. Everything is a matter of opinion, likes and dislikes. The fact you want to label certain things in the bible as good or bad implies that there must be a moral objective to measure that good or bad. Otherwise what measure of good or bad are you using, "your own opinion" which speaks nothing of things being truly good or bad. I am interested as to what you mean.
Could be any version of morality. Like you say They have power and influence over many. It is like someone ruling from afar on our behalf and never really having a say in things.
