I have never understood the theists fixation with objective morality. As an atheist, objective morality is simply some other persons subjective morality put up on a pedestal. Just because a moral precept is ancient does not make it objective.

(November 20, 2016 at 11:34 am)Chad32 Wrote:

(November 20, 2016 at 11:14 am)The Joker Wrote: This raises a problem: is something good just because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The answer is: neither one! Rather, God wills something because He is good.

God is the standard of moral values just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God’s nature, the better it is.

But if atheism is true, there is no ultimate standard so there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon us? No one.

But this isn't the case, Everyone has a sense of right and wrong. Murder, lying, stealing, and immorality are almost universally rejected. Where did this sense of right and wrong come from?

Answer: Objective Morality needs a moral giver, the moral giver is God.

Objective morality cannot have a moral giver, because that would make it subjective. He wills it because he's good.....

In the old testament you have a guy that's stoned to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week. Slavery, mass murder, and rape are fine, within certain boundaries, yet two consenting same sex adults making love is a death sentence.

The problem with biblical morality is that at best it's only slightly more progressive than contemporary views. We've gone beyond that. There is no objective morality, yet there are things that societies can generally agree on.

Ironically, morality tends to fall apart the most when people in power are left unchecked. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Your god is not all that different than Human dictators. No checks and balances. He does things that most people would see as horrible if it was anyone else, yet when it's him it's good?

This goes back to the word objective. If it's objective, then it's absolute. Meaning it's wrong, no matter who does it. If you start making exceptions, then it isn't objective. If I had a gardener that I told not to work on Sundays, and kill him because he swept my drive on Sunday, that would be wrong. If this act is objectively wrong, then it's wrong no matter who does it. Even your god.

I don't find anything wrong with what God did in the Old testament. God was good in the Old testament. You need to read it in context.

Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature – highly evolved animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat kills a mouse, it hasn’t done anything morally wrong. The cat’s just being a cat. If God doesn’t exist then we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong.

But the problem is – good and bad, right and wrong do exist! Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time you say, “Hey, that’s not fair! That’s wrong! That’s an injustice!” you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals.

(November 20, 2016 at 11:44 am)The Joker Wrote: I don't find anything wrong with what God did in the Old testament. God was good in the Old testament. You need to read it in context.

It is never, ever a good idea to drown your children for misbehaving. New Testament also - It is never a good idea to torture one of your kids to death because the others are misbehaving. Just thought I could introduce a little basic moral reasoning into the argument.

(November 20, 2016 at 9:21 am)The Joker Wrote: Christianit,y on Morality: Morality is objective(Objective morals are those that are based outside of yourself). Morality is absolute and unchanging and comes from God

It is? Then why are you not killing children for being disrespectful? Or not killing women for having premarital sex?

(November 20, 2016 at 11:44 am)The Joker Wrote:

(November 20, 2016 at 11:34 am)Chad32 Wrote: Objective morality cannot have a moral giver, because that would make it subjective. He wills it because he's good.....

In the old testament you have a guy that's stoned to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week. Slavery, mass murder, and rape are fine, within certain boundaries, yet two consenting same sex adults making love is a death sentence.

The problem with biblical morality is that at best it's only slightly more progressive than contemporary views. We've gone beyond that. There is no objective morality, yet there are things that societies can generally agree on.

Ironically, morality tends to fall apart the most when people in power are left unchecked. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Your god is not all that different than Human dictators. No checks and balances. He does things that most people would see as horrible if it was anyone else, yet when it's him it's good?

This goes back to the word objective. If it's objective, then it's absolute. Meaning it's wrong, no matter who does it. If you start making exceptions, then it isn't objective. If I had a gardener that I told not to work on Sundays, and kill him because he swept my drive on Sunday, that would be wrong. If this act is objectively wrong, then it's wrong no matter who does it. Even your god.

I don't find anything wrong with what God did in the Old testament. God was good in the Old testament. You need to read it in context.

Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature – highly evolved animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat kills a mouse, it hasn’t done anything morally wrong. The cat’s just being a cat. If God doesn’t exist then we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong.

But the problem is – good and bad, right and wrong do exist! Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time you say, “Hey, that’s not fair! That’s wrong! That’s an injustice!” you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals.

Well if you see nothing wrong in the old testament, then we're probably not going to come to an agreement here. There's not much I can say on morality if our thinking is that divergent.

We are animals. We have a moral obligation to our people because we're social animals. we need each other for long, healthy lives. There are instances of people living off in the woods by themselves, but generally it's a much riskier situation. Especially if you live in an area with large predators. Morality comes about because we are social animals that need rules in order to coexist.

As far as right or wrong, we obviously have an example of how different people's views on that can be. I find the majority of the bible deplorable, while you just say I need to read it "in context", and act as if your god is good by definition. Why should we think he is good, anyway? Because he says he is? 

There are no objective morals, and this is proven by the fact that people right on this message board can talk so passionately from opposite sides of major issues. A person's morals can change with age, given new information. Mine changed as I grew up, and left the church. Someone's can change as they grow up to become religious. Morality is flexible.

(November 20, 2016 at 11:47 am)chimp3 Wrote:

(November 20, 2016 at 11:44 am)The Joker Wrote: I don't find anything wrong with what God did in the Old testament. God was good in the Old testament. You need to read it in context.

It is never, ever a good idea to drown your children for misbehaving. New Testament also - It is never a good idea to torture one of your kids to death because the others are misbehaving. Just thought I could introduce a little basic moral reasoning into the argument.

No point arguing with that one his morals are fixed, authoritarian and not his own.  What is it he calls them?  Oh yeah, objective.

(November 20, 2016 at 9:21 am)The Joker Wrote: Christianit,y on Morality: Morality is objective
Atheism on Morality: Morality is subjective

Atheism is not a position on the status of morality.  Christianity's claims regarding morality are just that, claims.  

Quote:Greatest Role model’s for Christianity: Jesus, Mary and the apostles, the martyrs of faith and saints.
Greatest Role model’s for Atheism: Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Napoleon and Jim Jones.

Hehehe, Jim Jones....an atheist role model, you think?  Honestly none of the people you listed above are role models in my opinion, for either "side".  

Quote:True Christian Family: Family hierarchy the husband the head, children properly disciplined and brought up in the Christian order, Children obey parents and daily worship and pray and visits to church. Peace at home. No divorce rates in a true Christian family.  
The Atheistic Family: No family hierarchy but democracy where everyone rules, husband not the head, no family order, no family discipline children rebelling against parents, husbands and wives quarrelling often, wife not obeying & husband not listening. Divorce rates extremely high, moral standards very low-morality is subjective. No peace in the family. Envies against one another.

I think you're ignoring the huge number of christian housholds in which the wife wears the pants and her feckless husband is unable to corral their coke addled spawn.  You got the relationship between faith and divorce rates entirely wrong, it's the bible thumpers running off with the nanny and the manny at an astonishing rate.  Can't say I blame them, I couldn't live my life with a dedicated thumper either.  Those people are insufferable.  

Quote:The Atheist agenda:  Self-Righteous, Very high egoticism, Pride is essentially self-worship. Anything we accomplish in this world would not have been possible were it not for God enabling and sustaining us. (Admitting sin and acknowledging that in our own strength we can do nothing to inherit eternal life is a constant stumbling block for prideful people.)
Christianity: To Accomplish God’s will daily, always ready to repent when sinned, striving for humility and meekness. To the carry the cross.

There is no atheist agenda.  Atheism is a statement regarding one's status of belief concerning gods, nothing more, nothing less.

Quote:Why Atheists have still not found God: They aren’t looking and second they want to avoid him. Just assuming the God of the Bible is evil without reading within context or based on what other people think.

Atheists have better things to do than to worry about gods they don;t believe in.  Things like keeping their marriages from imploding, for example.  

Quote:Main fundamental doctrine of Atheism: The denial of God through lack of belief, Core foundation is self will and trusting in the theory of evolution.

There is no doctrine of atheism, foundational or otherwise.  It;s just a term for people who don;t believe in gods.  

Quote:True Christian Thoughts: God created everything, no evolution,  myths can’t be accepted as facts.

Some christians truly think that, granted.  

Quote:What atheism has done for humanity: Godless homes, The blurring away of sexual morality now LGBT in society and Genocide: Pol Pot (Cambodia): 1,700,000 people killed, Atheistic Hitler Killed (Germany): 12,000,000,  Atheistic Stalin Killed (Russia): 35,000,000 killed, Mao Zedong (China): 100,000,000+ killed

Not sure how atheism did any of that.  Atheism doesn;t do anything, it;s just a statement regarding beliefs, for the umpteenth time.

Quote:What Christianity has done for humanity: Laws that required justice among all people. (Before this, power and oppression ruled.) Laws that required providing for the feeding of the poor by leaving grains and produce for the poor in the fields.(Law of Moses) Dietary laws instituted hygeine at a time when few practiced it. Christianity is the force behind fairness for the poor, orphans, widows, and the disenfranchised of every age. Christianity is the basis of our jurisprudence, economics, and owning property. Christian first ever Hospitals, which essentially began during the Middle Ages. Universities, which also began during the Middle Ages. In addition, most of the world’s greatest universities were started for Christian purposes. The abolition of slavery, both in antiquity and in more modern times, Equal in dignity for Men and Women as they are both in God’s Images however different roles and etc.

Laws, fairness, charity, equality, these things all precede christianity and christianity has often found itself to be an obstruction to each and every one.  

Quote:Evidence for God: The Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Ontological Argument, The Moral Argument,

Those are arguments, not evidence.

Quote:Fulfilled prophecies in the Bible,  Biblical Manuscripts, the historical accuracy of the Bible

This is fantasy, fiction, and fantasy fiction.....respectively.  

Quote:Christianity based on: Faith and Reason

As a christian, you really shouldn;t get this one wrong.  Christianity is based upon the belief espoused in the new testament that christ died for your sins.

Quote:Atheism based on: Feelings, self will for example why won’t God do it my way and Ignorance of reason, trusting in pseudo science like Biological evolution.

There were atheists long before the theory of evolution, in fact there were atheists long before christianity as well.  It really doesn't have anything to do with your god in particular, and never has.

Quote:A)Prove Naturalistic Evolution to be true and you take out God's existence because this shows a natural explanation of how everything came into existence without the assistance of the supernatural.
B)Take out Naturalistic Evolution and the existence of God is automatically Proven.

I'm afraid that's not how it works.  No amount of the other guy being wrong will ever make you right.  

Quote:A):We came here by an accident without true meaning or purpose, but we are just some random living organism in space, Or
B):God created us with a meaning and purpose to life, not including our private wants.

We didn't "come here" at all, we've always been here.  We have never been anywhere else, our being here can hardly be described as accidental, nor can we be described as random organisms.  

Quote:A) Is there convincing evidence for Naturalistic Evolution?
or
B) Is there convincing evidence against Naturalistic Evolution?

There's a reason it's called a theory, and not just a hypothesis.

(November 20, 2016 at 11:56 am)LostLocke Wrote:

(November 20, 2016 at 9:21 am)The Joker Wrote: Christianit,y on Morality: Morality is objective(Objective morals are those that are based outside of yourself). Morality is absolute and unchanging and comes from God

It is? Then why are you not killing children for being disrespectful? Or not killing women for having premarital sex?

Because it is not what the Bible teaches, read the Bible for yourself instead of listening to opinions of people.

(November 20, 2016 at 12:06 pm)The Joker Wrote:

(November 20, 2016 at 11:56 am)LostLocke Wrote: It is? Then why are you not killing children for being disrespectful? Or not killing women for having premarital sex?

Because it is not what the Bible teaches, read the Bible for yourself instead of listening to opinions of people.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21King James Version (KJV)
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.