Why does God not stop the evil?

[seeking Christ]

Apparently I'm a Prophet:

It amazes me that christians will use such twisted logic to justify genocide.

This is a very interesting and challenging notion to ponder. Unfortunately, this forum doesn't seem conducive to discussing it; very emotional subject material, with all sorts of shoot-from-the-hip injected everywhere.

 

[Davian]

Apparently I'm a Prophet:

This is a very interesting and challenging notion to ponder. Unfortunately, this forum doesn't seem conducive to discussing it; very emotional subject material, with all sorts of shoot-from-the-hip injected everywhere.

Criticizing his style does not address the accuracy of his shots.

 

[seeking Christ]

This much is obvious. Why do you feel the need to establish that?

To make it clear to you that God knows that this is a world with people suffering horribly, and that he could stop that horrible suffering if he wanted to, and yet he doesn't.

This much is obvious. Why do you feel the need to establish that?

You have forfeited your right to even speak of Christians using circular logic.

You say to your friends and loved ones, "Gee, I really hope you're going to buy me birthday presents this year!" And they reply, "Wow, it's lucky you asked! We weren't going to gt you anything!"

Surely you have the intellectual capacity to see for yourself that this is completely out of place and not by any means a valid comparison.

Hey, if we weren't talking about people dying horribly here, I might agree with you.

But when you start telling me that there are millions of people around the world who will die today in horrible ways and that God could do something about it and yet doesn't, then I think that is sick.

See that bolded part? Yeah, you made that up. Try listening instead: if anything is going to get done around here, it will be PEOPLE. This is what it means for God to "give man dominion."

 

[Elioenai26]

This don't make sense.

It's saying that Moral objectivism is the idea that there is an objective morality, hence most philosophers consider it to be objective morality.

LOL, Tiberius, when philosophers call objective moral values and duties moral facts, they use the terms interchangeably. Its just a shorter way of saying it. That is all that statement means. Its like a geography teacher saying to her class:

"It is objectively true that Canberra is the capital of Australia."

"She could also say:

"It is a fact that Canberra is the capital of Australia."

It is a distinction without a difference. Shes sayin the same thing. Understand now?

2 + 1 = 3 is externally testable. How can I test externally if it is wrong to smack a disobedient child?

2+1=3 is known to us via our reasoning capacties which take place in our brains and is void of a moral context.

Asking if smacking a disobedient child is wrong, is a question regarding moral duty or moral obligation and specifically, with an emphasis on applied ethics or how we should discipline disobedient children. Some say they should be placed in timeout, some say they should be spanked on the bottom or on the back of the hand. Some people even think a good smack across the face is best. This is a question of what is the best means of disciplining a child.

What is not in question is that disobedient children should be disciplined. This is the underlying objective duty that dictates that children's disobedience should not be rewarded, but reprimanded.

It is true for all people, in all places, and all times, regardless of their own opinions, that disobedient children should be in some way disciplined. To not discipline a disobedient child would be seen as a failure of the parent's duty to properly raise a child.

if it is possible that our ideas about morality are wrong, how can we claim it is objective?

The same way we can objectively claim that the external world is real and that it was not created five minutes ago with the appearance of age.

It is possible that we are wrong in saying that the external world is real and that it has existed for eons, but does that mean that we cannot claim that it is objectively true that the external world is real?

Of course not!

By what testing procedure can I determine if something is OBJECTIVELY wrong?

How do you determine if anything is wrong at all? Forget the word objective and just think about that question. How do you determine if anything is wrong?

All you have been able to say is that I should use my own conscience, but that would seem to indicate a SUBJECTIVE, not objective morality.

I did not say that you should use your own conscience. I said we intuitively apprehend moral values and duties. Some call it conscience some call it intuition. The words refer to that process of reasoning by which we make moral judgments.

You seem to think that just because individuals are the ones who make moral judgments, that therefore moral values and duties themselves are subjective.

This is the same as saying that since scientists used their own individual minds to assimilate the evidence for the shape of the earth, that therefore the earth's shape was subjective?

But that does not even make sense. How can the world in which we live be said to have a subjective shape? That does not even make sense. The world is either flat or round. The earth's shape is an objective fact independent of scientist's minds. Scientist's discovered that the earth was round. They did not make it round by thinking it was round!

See the difference?

 

[Tiberius]

LOL, Tiberius, when philosophers call objective moral values and duties moral facts, they use the terms interchangeably. Its just a shorter way of saying it. That is all that statement means. Its like a geography teacher saying to her class:

"It is objectively true that Canberra is the capital of Australia."

"She could also say:

"It is a fact that Canberra is the capital of Australia."

It is a distinction without a difference. Shes sayin the same thing. Understand now?

I knew this. Something that is objectively true is a fact. I'd even say that is what the definition of a fact is.

But the fact that canberra is the capital of Australia is testable. How is morality testable?

2+1=3 is known to us via our reasoning capacties which take place in our brains and is void of a moral context.

Asking if smacking a disobedient child is wrong, is a question regarding moral duty or moral obligation and specifically, with an emphasis on applied ethics or how we should discipline disobedient children. Some say they should be placed in timeout, some say they should be spanked on the bottom or on the back of the hand. Some people even think a good smack across the face is best. This is a question of what is the best means of disciplining a child.

What is not in question is that disobedient children should be disciplined. This is the underlying objective duty that dictates that children's disobedience should not be rewarded, but reprimanded.

It is true for all people, in all places, and all times, regardless of their own opinions, that disobedient children should be in some way disciplined. To not discipline a disobedient child would be seen as a failure of the parent's duty to properly raise a child.

Way to avoid the question.

The same way we can objectively claim that the external world is real and that it was not created five minutes ago with the appearance of age.

And, pray tell, how do you know that OBJECTIVELY?

It is possible that we are wrong in saying that the external world is real and that it has existed for eons, but does that mean that we cannot claim that it is objectively true that the external world is real?

Of course not!

So you are saying that we can say that something is OBJECTIVELY TRUE, even though it might be false.

How do you determine if anything is wrong at all? Forget the word objective and just think about that question. How do you determine if anything is wrong?

I base my determination of what I expect the other person to feel, and what I would prefer if I were in that particular situation.

For example, if I see someone being mugged, I will try to help if I can, because if I were being mugged I would appreciate it if someone helped me.

But since this decision is based on MY OWN VIEWPOINT and others might have a different viewpoint, much decision is based on a SUBJECTIVE morality, not an objective one.

I did not say that you should use your own conscience. I said we intuitively apprehend moral values and duties. Some call it conscience some call it intuition. The words refer to that process of reasoning by which we make moral judgments.

And the fact that different people have consciences that lead them to do different things kinda voids the idea of it being an OBJECTIVE morality, doesn't it?

You seem to think that just because individuals are the ones who make moral judgments, that therefore moral values and duties themselves are subjective.

No, I claim that the moral values and duties are subjective because they are entirely the product of the person making them and are in no way determined by an outside source.

This is the same as saying that since scientists used their own individual minds to assimilate the evidence for the shape of the earth, that therefore the earth's shape was subjective?

No it isn't, because the conclusion was not the result of one person. It was the result of many people working together, with results that were testable by anyone.

But that does not even make sense. How can the world in which we live be said to have a subjective shape? That does not even make sense. The world is either flat or round. The earth's shape is an objective fact independent of scientist's minds. Scientist's discovered that the earth was round. They did not make it round by thinking it was round!

See the difference?

I fail to see the relevance.

The shape of the earth was determined by examining EXTERNAL DATA. What external data do you examine in order to determine morality?

 

[Tiberius]

You have forfeited your right to even speak of Christians using circular logic.

It doesn't seem to be obvious to you, since your logic has lead you to a God who allows people to suffer when he could stop it and yet you defend it.

If your child was suffering a horrible painful death, and you had the ability to stop it, would you?

Surely you have the intellectual capacity to see for yourself that this is completely out of place and not by any means a valid comparison.

Excuse me? You yourself said, "A gift is not automatically received: ask and you will receive..."

Before you receive a gift, you must ask for it. Do you have to ask for birthday gifts before you receive them?

See that bolded part? Yeah, you made that up. Try listening instead: if anything is going to get done around here, it will be PEOPLE. This is what it means for God to "give man dominion."

Also exactly what we'd expect if God didn't exist.

And anyway, why wouldn't God do something? He did it plenty in the Bible.

 

[Davian]

...
Try listening instead: if anything is going to get done around here, it will be PEOPLE. This is what it means for God to "give man dominion."

You never did comment on my resolution to the 'problem of evil' that you asked for, here.

 

[Elioenai26]

I base my determination of what I expect the other person to feel, and what I would prefer if I were in that particular situation.

For example, if I see someone being mugged, I will try to help if I can, because if I were being mugged I would appreciate it if someone helped me.

What do you use to come to these conclusions?

But since this decision is based on MY OWN VIEWPOINT and others might have a different viewpoint, much decision is based on a SUBJECTIVE morality, not an objective one.

Ok, you just said it was a decision. This answers your question about how you determine what is right and wrong. You use reasoning and intuition which are NOT testable by the way, but nontheless valid.

Now you say your decision is based on your viewpoint.

Explain to me what your viewpoint is and how it is formed and why it consists of what it does.

And the fact that different people have consciences that lead them to do different things kinda voids the idea of it being an OBJECTIVE morality, doesn't it?

No more than different opinions regarding particle physics voids the idea of there being an objective truth regarding the true nature of physics.

No, I claim that the moral values and duties are subjective because they are entirely the product of the person making them and are in no way determined by an outside source.

Discussion regarding normative morals point to an outside source. That is what makes them objective.

What external data do you examine in order to determine morality?

If you need external data to tell you that torturing babies for fun is objectively wrong, then you are morally impaired, kind of like a blind person is visually impaired.

 

[Elioenai26]

No, you have not. You have just promoted consensus of opinion.

Moral objectivism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. Moral objectivism - Psychology Wiki

Is the above a consensus of opinion? Or a standard usage technical definition?

I think that, based on human wellness and empathy, an argument for objective values can be made.

(my bold)
With that bolded qualifier in your statement you have just lost your objectivity.

Should not "objective morals" apply to every person (no qualifiers)?

If something is objective it is independent of human opinion.

If I say that murder is objectively wrong, that simply means its wrong independent of human opinion. Since the proposition is a normative or prescriptive proposition, it is binding or applicable to every person.

In the quote you responded to, I was speaking of our knowing what objective moral values and duties are. This is epistemology Davian. It is not ontology. Do not confuse the two.

Let's try again. If I exceed the speed limit, get caught, I get a ticket. Rob a bank, and get caught, I go to jail. If I commit blasphemy, I don't go to heaven. Slaughter a large population, I can still go to heaven.

Based on human wellness, that last one would be a bad thing. But I am asking about your morals. Allow me to slightly change the phrasing.

If one can commit genocide, and still qualify for this hypothetical heaven of yours, why consider it wrong?

You present a caricature of Christianity and then attack it.

You insinuate that Christianity teaches that a person can just say:

"Well, if all I gotta do is say a prayer to get into heaven, then I can live like hell while im on earth and then when I have done all the evil I want, I can just say a prayer and boom Im heaven bound."

I think you know this is not what Christianity teaches. In fact, it teaches just the opposite.

 

[Elioenai26]

It doesn't seem to be obvious to you, since your logic has lead you to a God who allows people to suffer when he could stop it and yet you defend it.

Are you saying God should not allow people to suffer when He could stop it?

If so, then you are speaking as a moral objectivist.

 

[Davian]

It is actually substantiated for the following reason:

Many critics of moral relativism, including Ibn Warraq and Eddie Tabash, have suggested that meta-ethical relativists essentially take themselves out of any discussion of normative morality, since they seem to be rejecting an assumption of such discussions: the premise that there are right and wrong answers that can be discovered through reason. Practically speaking, such critics will argue that meta-ethical relativism may amount to Moral nihilism, or else incoherence. *Wikipedia*

<snip irrelevant text on moral nihilism >

I went to wiki to read that reference in context, and it no more substantiates your claim than your searching and finding a definition of atheism that says "believes God does not exist" substantiates your claim that all atheists believe that gods do not exist. Critics of moral relativism don't get to redefine moral relativism any more than you do.

Moral nihilism is indeed distinct from moral relativism in the sense that they are two different meta-ethical views. This is not in dispute and I agree with you. The thing you are not understanding is that with regards to NORMATIVE moral discussion, a relativist's views lead to the same restrictive conclusions that a moral nihilist encounters.

Only if you have defined NORMATIVE as STRAWMAN. And you do have problems with your definitions. Is your position so weak that you have to do that?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Oh of course they can. I have never said they could not.

But if you say that genocide is objectively wrong, then you are a moral objectivist. Not a relativist.

So which are you?

Are you a moral objectivist that maintains that genocide is objectively wrong, or are you a moral relativist who maintains that it is your opinion that genocide is wrong?

I was talking about subjectivism, not relativism. They are not interchangeable terms.

But a relativist cannot say that that act was objectively wrong.

See?

In the same way that you cannot consistently maintain that genocide is wrong. It's all relative to the god you believe in.

Why are you trying to convince people of objective moral values when you all but admitted to being a relativist yourself?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Are you saying God should not allow people to suffer when He could stop it?

If so, then you are speaking as a moral objectivist.

Not necessarily. A subjectivist could also make such a statement. You said you understood this earlier?

 

[Elioenai26]

Not necessarily. A subjectivist could also make such a statement. You said you understood this earlier?

Ethical subjectivism stands in opposition to moral realism, which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts.

 

[Tiberius]

Are you saying God should not allow people to suffer when He could stop it?

If so, then you are speaking as a moral objectivist.

Let me ask you this...

If your children were suffering (and I'm not talking about a not-having-a-candy-bar kind of suffering, I'm talking eaten-alive-by-cancer kind of suffering) and you had the ability to stop it, to snap your fingers and have it so they could all live long happy lives and then die a peaceful and pain free death, would you do it or not?

And I am not speaking as a moral objectivist. I'm speaking based on what I would want done to me, and what I would do to other people if I had the power to.

And let me ask you...

Is it OBJECTIVELY GOOD that people suffer horribly from things that God could stop yet chooses not to?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Ethical subjectivism stands in opposition to moral realism, which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts.

And? That doesn't preclude subjectivists from making moral statements. You said you understood this earlier. Yet you continue to beat a dead horse into the ground by assuming that only realists can make moral claims with any force. Regardless of what one believes about meta-ethics, when a person makes a moral claim they are, of course, still making a moral claim.

 

[Tiberius]

What do you use to come to these conclusions?

Are you actually asking me how I come to the conclusion that I'd like someone to help me if I am being mugged?

Really?

Ok, you just said it was a decision. This answers your question about how you determine what is right and wrong. You use reasoning and intuition which are NOT testable by the way, but nontheless valid.

Yeah, I know. That's what SUBJECTIVE means - not externally testable.

Now you say your decision is based on your viewpoint.

You make it sound like I once said it was not.

Explain to me what your viewpoint is and how it is formed and why it consists of what it does.

Experience.

No more than different opinions regarding particle physics voids the idea of there being an objective truth regarding the true nature of physics.

Rubbish. If two scientists disagree about some aspect of particle physics, then can work together, come up with an experiment to test this aspect, then perform the experiment and see what REALITY shows to be true.

Do you even know how to science?

Discussion regarding normative morals point to an outside source. That is what makes them objective.

No it doesn't. How does the ability to discuss opinions on a matter mean those opinions come from an outside source?

If you need external data to tell you that torturing babies for fun is objectively wrong, then you are morally impaired, kind of like a blind person is visually impaired.

Oh, here we go. Always, and I mean ALWAYS when people try to show that there is an objective morality they go for an extreme. Torturing babies, or murder or something else like that.

But if you are right and there is an objective morality, then it must apply to ALL morality. So lets use the example of whether it is right to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family. If you are right, you shouldn't need to appeal to extremes, should you?

So answer me this. Is it objectively wrong to steal a loaf of bread so your starving family can eat?

 

[Davian]

Moral objectivism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. Moral objectivism - Psychology Wiki

Is the above a consensus of opinion? Or a standard usage technical definition?

I don't disagree with the information on those links.

I was referring to your repeated asking of 'is this objectively moral' as only demonstrating consensus of opinion.

If something is objective it is independent of human opinion.

If I say that murder is objectively wrong, that simply means its wrong independent of human opinion. Since the proposition is a normative or prescriptive proposition, it is binding or applicable to every person.

Murder is unlawful, so not a great example. What if I kill my neighbour and bury him in the back yard, never to get caught. What if I killed him in self-defence?

Is it a sin if you kill but don't get prosecuted for murder?

In the quote you responded to, I was speaking of our knowing what objective moral values and duties are. This is epistemology Davian. It is not ontology. Do not confuse the two.

You present a caricature of Christianity and then attack it.

You insinuate that Christianity teaches that a person can just say:

"Well, if all I gotta do is say a prayer to get into heaven, then I can live like hell while im on earth and then when I have done all the evil I want, I can just say a prayer and boom Im heaven bound."

I think you know this is not what Christianity teaches. In fact, it teaches just the opposite.

Red herring. In fact, "Christianity" teaches nothing. People teach their interpretation of it, and from what I gather everyone has their own take on it. That is not the issue at hand. And, even if Christians teach it, it does not make it objective.

Also, you just broke my irony meter. Try this on:

- You present a caricature of atheism then attack it.

- You insinuate that atheism is fundamentally the same as nihilism.

- I think you know that is not what atheism is.

- In fact, for myself and my teenage children, there is no overlap. We do not have beliefs in deties, and we are not nihlists. Get over it.

Now, is it possible for you to answer the question at hand?

Putting all of the window dressing of your religion aside, if one can commit genocide, and still qualify for this hypothetical heaven of yours, why consider it wrong?

 

[seeking Christ]

And anyway, why wouldn't God do something? He did it plenty in the Bible.

No. You actually read all that and missed it demonstrating dominion being given to man?

 

[seeking Christ]

You never did comment on my resolution to the 'problem of evil' that you asked for, here.

Some things are better not being dignified with a response. If all you've got is strawmen, I don't need to weigh in on that.