Conflicting statements in the bible

[Statler Waldorf]

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I was raised Christian, and when I left religion and religious beliefs, I did not change my morals or behaviors for the most part. While I take (or try to take) a more practical approach to those questions, most of the morals I developed during my earlier years have stayed with me because I have not seen reason to abandon them. They served me well as I was growing up and I didn't want to discard them along with religion, that would be like cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I think that one factor is that I did not leave religion angrily or bitterly; I just drifted away and after a few years came to terms with what I did and did not believe. I didn't feel a need to rebel against a god that wasn't there or to 'sample the Devil's wares' as it were. The morals that got me safely this far remain useful and are not a reminder of any bad experience. I don't know if that answers your question. I haven't gone through my morals and determined which I retain and which I redefine, I kind of deal with those questions as they come.

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So would you say that for the purpose of your view on morality you are still assuming God exists because that allows you to adopt a view of morality that transcends mankind? Did I understand that correctly?

Of course not, no one ever claimed that it did, but if we're comparing the two and using our (shared, btw) concept of justice - then the godly offering you felt compelled to put on the table falls far far short of the bar.

No it doesn’t, I have never claimed that either of us have a perfect understanding of justice, so whether or not our understanding of justice matches with God’s is irrelevant.

No, we do not. You mentioned two separate crimes with 4 possible victims and failed to realize that in every case the system doling out punitive measures remained the same while your hypothetical sentences were variable. In each example offered - the crime itself, and particularly the victims involved - is being used as the measure of what measure of punitive action is deemed appropriate. So, thank you for demonstrating my point so wonderfully. This is the point where I get to remind you that the best you could hope for with this particular line of bullshit was tq. So congratulations, you managed to fail at making so much as a vacuous argument............

That paragraph doesn’t make any sense. Are you really suggesting that if you punched a civilian you’d get the exact same sentence as if you punched the President of the United States? Are you really suggesting that if you were disrespectful to a coworker you’d get the same punishment as you’d get if you were disrespectful to your boss? Are you really suggesting that if a Private verbally assaults another Private he’d get the same military punishment as if he’d verbally assaulted a Brigadier General? We punish according to authority in this country, that’s a fact. God holds infinite authority over us; therefore sins against God require infinite punishment; it’s a logical system.

There is no governing body that allows and approved a societies morals. The morals are a function of the society. It is not a "right" per se, it is a natural function or effect of organized society.

So then why did you put morals at the society level? Why not at the species level, family level, or individual level? What happens when the morals of a family contradict the morals of a society? Whose morals are correct?

Indeed we are. And from their perspective, they are morally right. They are not morally right by OUR societal standards, but right by theirs.

So then does one society have the moral right to intervene in the affairs of another society that it believes is doing moral wrong?

Being a moral outsider does not necessarily mean they are ACTING immorally. For instance, the denizens Iran, by and large, are not out killing people in terrorist attacks. However, their societal norms allow that kind of behavior. My guess is that they DON'T do it because they find it morally wrong.

If their social norms dictate that it is not morally wrong then how could anyone living in that society believe it was morally wrong since according to you morals are determined by the society a person lives in and not by the individual?

My point is that societal norms and morals do not necessarily dictate action or necessarily define morals for the individual.

Now I am confused, I thought it was your position that morals are determined by societies but now you are asserting that social norms do not necessarily determine morals, which is it?

That all depends on who you ask...

How do you know that really depends on who I ask?

Since that's what homosexuality means. Two heterosexual men can have sexual relations with each other - that doesn't make them homosexuals. (But proving homosexuality to any degree of certainty is almost impossible.)

Two men engaging in sex is a homosexual relationship.

There is no such "right" - they just do it.

So can members from one society murder and rape the women of another society as long as the first society believes it is morally right to do so?

Only if you attempt to dictate some absolute morality. What a society considers moral is moral - within that society. That's what morality is - what's acceptable to some group. To Catholicism, forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is moral.

How do you know any of this? What’s your authority? So was it morally wrong for abolitionists in the 19th century to believe slavery was morally wrong since it was viewed as morally right by America at the time?

Nothing - to that society, he's morally wrong. His being morally wrong would require an absolute morality - and there is no such thing.

Are you absolutely sure there’s no such thing? According to Baalzebutt there is a difference between a moral outsider and someone who is doing moral wrong, so who is right and why?