Uphill Battle said:
To try to get a Christian to answer this question, and asking him or her to not use the source where they derive their truth, isn't logically possible. I am not going to go in to each different version, denomination, sect, cult, interpretation or point of view.
All I know is, many Christians hold that the bible is the word of God. So to ask them to separate their world view from their scripture doesn't make alot of sense.
Do I believe homosexuality is wrong? sure. That's what I read in the bible. That doesn't mean that I hate homosexuals. Any more than I hate an adulterer (I'd have to hate myself for my past) a liar (Ditto) or any other form of sin the bible describes.
But because of my faith in the bible as God's word, i cannot separate my point of view from it. Even when it goes against what I might want. (I.E. that fornication rule.... it isn't the easiest one to abide by!)
You are perfectly fine to cite the bible, however there are just practical reasons why I'd prefer not to see verses cited. Among these tend to be that citing the bible tells me
what is immoral, but not
why its immoral.
I assume that if the bible prescribes anything, then it does so with a good reason. And I want to know those reasons.
As an example, the bible mentions several verses similar promoting animal welfare (this is the whole idea behind kosher slaughter). If I were to ask you why anyone should look out for that, you would say "because it reduces gratuitous suffering", and I would find that explanation perfectly reasonable; because it takes a bible command and explains the reasoning for that command.
I'm not asking you seperate morality from scripture in an explicit sense. I am asking you to explain the reasoning behind the commands in scripture, in an effort to show that the commands are not simply arbitrary or silly (after all, no one should be bound to moral commands that are arbitrary or have no moral foundation). I believe this can be done with the majority of biblical commands, but I have yet to see the explanation behind the wrongness of homosexuality.
DrummerWench said:
Eh, let's try it from a different angle.
Why is murder wrong? Can you answer that without appeal to Bible verses?
Why is testifying falsely in court wrong? Ditto.
Why are theft and robbery wrong? Adultery?
All these questions can be answered with strictly secular arguments. Go ahead, try it.
This is easy.
Note: I dont want to derail my thread, all I am doing is to show you that secular morality can be achieved relatively easily. So if you would like to challenge my reasoning on any of these examples, feel free to start a new thread and do so.
One of the things that is morally relevant is the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of preferences, and the capacity to suffer. You can see my explanation for why this is
here, you can see Peter Singer's explanation
here and
here (those articles have to do with the animal liberation movement, but they explain preference utilitarianism perfectly well).
Understanding that what is morally relevant (preferences and the capacity to suffer), it is now important to understand that the most ethical actions are going to be the ones that satisfy the greatest number of preferences while frustrating the fewest. This is roughly known as preference utilitarianism.
To answer your questions:
Murder is wrong because people have the capacity to suffer and an interest in continued existence. To translate this in roughly utilitarian terms, it satisfies very few preferences (namely, the murderers preference to kill) at the expense of a phenomenal number of preferences frustrated (namely, the victims interest in continued existence, the interest to start a family, achieve goals, satisfy future preferences, etc.) - this means all of the victim's interests are reduced down to nothingness at a most trivial gain; clearly, this is an imbalace in the neat little utilitarian scheme defined above, so taking the life of a human who does not want to die cannot be moral. To kill someone against their wishes morally, there has to be a strong compelling reason for why killing would be better than not killing (for instance, you would be very justified in killing Osama bin Laden).
Falsely testifying in court is wrong for the same reasons, because it satisfies fewer preferences than that it frustrates, and even worse it causes gratuitous undue suffering on everyone involved.
Theft and robbery are wrong for the same reasons. I explained in
another thread why these are wrong, so I'll copy and paste: "
not all preferences satisfied or dissatisfied carry the same moral weight. For instance, if two people have an interest in taking your money (2 against 1), then the most moral action is for you to keep your money. This is because you will suffer a great deal more for losing your money than the other two people will suffer for not being able to take it".
There you have it, reasons to be moral that dont rely on the bible. Hopefully you'll find this explanation to be a little more-to-the-point than saying "it violates a persons right" (because stating a person has a right is, in actuality, begging the question. However, the way I've explained it does not beg the question).
DrummerWench said:
Then you'll be in a position to try and answer "why is homosexuality wrong?".
Certainly correct, I am in deed in the position to try to answer "why is homosexuality wrong". But, I've given this a lot of thought, and I honestly cannot see any reason why consentual homosexuality is any more immoral than consexual heterosexuality.
I'm convinced that neither is immoral, however I'll leave open the possibility that I could be simply mistaken. However, this means the burden to show that it is wrong is on you, not me.
there is my veiw like it are not there it is
