General question about the possibility of objective moral truth

[LastPoet]

Gee wiz, RocketSurgeon, that’s quite a bit of venom for relying on my memory to spell a difficult Greek name and relying too much on spell check.  

Apparently you do not fully understand the Euthyphro dilemma (thank you for the correct spelling) as it applies to monotheism. That is understandable since your knowledge of it appears to come directly from a quick scan of Wikipedia. In classical monotheism the divine good and the divine will are inalienable aspects of god’s essential nature. As such, the dilemma has no meaning .

With respect to my point about the ancient Hebrew theocratic laws’ in-applicability of this dispensation (sorry about the earlier spell-check error), you merely responded with an argument from incredulity.

Your response to my critique of secular based moral systems often misrepresented my position. Perhaps my brevity did not provide you adequate context for an intelligent response.

First I acknowledged the absurdist position as consistent. For some reason you thought I did not.

Secondly, nearly all of the atheists on AF hold to either nominalism or conceptualism. Both of these stances deny essentialism. Therefore by logical extension they must deny any essential nature shared by all humans.

Thirdly, most AF atheists will tell you that they get their moral guidance from empathy and attribute the source of that empathy as natural selection.  Why do they privilege empathy as the voice of conscience? No reason at all. Evaluating between competing natural impulses requires making reference to some higher, more authoritative standard. In this respect, evolutionary psychology is of little help. It purports to describe the survival value of certain behaviors mathematically, but it does not address the moral value of behavior.

For example the SF story “Feasibility Project.” Aliens test various intergalactic species, including humans, to see which would be most suitable to serve them as a slave race. They kidnap a small town for evaluation. Having an advanced alien society depending on your survival would be a definite advantage. However, whe the people learn that their own survival would doom all of humanity to slavery, they opt to commit mass suicide to preserve the transcendent value of Freedom for everyone else.

Finally, when I spoke of enlightened self-interest and the highest Good, I was mostly thinking about Aristotle’s Nicomachean (sp) Ethics. You might try reading it sometime.

Is it just me, or have I read a little Rik amount of bullshit? Is it just me? Get a grip man.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I feel I should provide a bit more commentary on the issue of slavery in the Mosaic laws.

I honestly do not know why God permitted slavery. I can only suppose that immediate abolition would have been more harmful to the divine plan than temporary regulations for insuring the humane treatment of slaves. Sometimes our choices are between bad and worse. On Thursday, my wife and I were spared the heartbreaking choice between euthanizing or prolonging the suffering of our little dog Asta, our friend and companion of 13 years. His last gift to us was to die peacefully in our arms. So if you want an answer, I can only point you to Job 39, which in addition to Rev 21, has given me great comfort in my grief.

A close reading shows that God told Moses that Aaron would speak to the people and that Moses would be “as a god to him” (Ex 4:16). This elevates Moses to the divine council and because he was human the laws and ordinance he issued after the preamble of 'Thus saith the Lord' represent how he chose to govern the people over whom he was given charge.

Nestor, I do believe that most all the events in the biblical text happened as generally described. Recently a compelling case has been made for the Exodus in a documentary titled “Patterns of Evidence.”

[Mudhammam]

@ChadW

What's wrong with the following?

If God is the essence of the Good, that excludes the possibility of God doing wrong. That eliminates his freedom of the will, as all his actions would proceed on account of necessity (given his inability to do less than what he might otherwise choose to do) and lack the essential moral quality that the Good as embodied in willful action requires. How do you reconcile God's supposed freedom to act on the one hand, and his lack of freedom to do other than what is - on account of a standard he is both bound to by necessity and owes to fortune (if it is his nature, he cannot credit himself for what he lacked the freedom to attain) - essentially Good? In other words, the Good theoretical free beings attain or bring about is actually qualitatively better than the Good that is represented by such a God or his acts as as you define them.

All of this, of course, ignores the inherent contradiction entailed by an unchanging being acting in the first place.

[Chad32]

I guess modern day societies are smarter than Yahweh, if they manage to run a successful economy without employing slaves. Who cares what people wear, and who they're having sex with? Women and men are being treated like chattel, and the most he does is say don't kill your slave outright, don't knock their eyes out, and release your male isrealite servant after 6-7 years unless you are willing to offer them a wife.

[Simon Moon]

Hello to everyone

I have a general question about moral: The discussion between religious people and atheists often turns around the question if someone needs to be believer in order to follow moral rules.
In my opinion an atheist can be as much a person of high moral standards as a religious person (and some atheists can even have a higher moral standard than some religious people). Just to say that right at the beginning.

Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?

Thanks for any answers!

I am the odd atheist out on the question of morality here.

I believe there is an objective moral standard. That standard is reality.

To summarize:

Let me start with stating that, IMO, the best functional definition of morality, are actions and behavior that increases the well being of other humans. or does not harm the well being of others. 

We all live in the same physical universe, subject to the same physical laws, with more or less the same bodies and brains. This leads to the understanding that: life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, comfort is preferable to discomfort, etc.

I can easily extrapolate from the above, that what I require for my well being, is almost assuredly what others also require.

Murder is wrong because it violates the well being of another person.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Ok, there are obviously 2 sides here. I only have one question. If you don't believe in God, what if you are wrong and go to hell? It only takes a minute to be saved so that you can be sure.

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Now go away you silly person.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Nestor, I do believe that most all the events in the biblical text happened as generally described. Recently a compelling case has been made for the Exodus in a documentary titled “Patterns of Evidence.”

Oh, by the way, you should be very careful with that "documentary" of yours.

Your "compelling case" is not recent, and has been debunked thoroughly even by Christian researchers.

http://biblicalremains.com/another-broke...-evidence/

[Simon Moon]

Ok, there are obviously 2 sides here. I only have one question. If you don't believe in God, what if you are wrong and go to hell? It only takes a minute to be saved so that you can be sure.

Oh please...

Not Pascal's Wager.

The most flawed argument, ever.

As others have already pointed out, there are many more than 2 sides. We could both end up in the hell of a god that neither of us believe exists.

From what I understand, Allah has a very special place in Jahannam for Christians, I'll wave to you as we're both having our flesh stripped by Iblis.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Nestor, I do believe that most all the events in the biblical text happened as generally described. Recently a compelling case has been made for the Exodus in a documentary titled “Patterns of Evidence.”

Oh, by the way, you should be very careful with that "documentary" of yours.

Your "compelling case" is not recent, and has been debunked thoroughly even by Christian researchers.

http://biblicalremains.com/another-broke...-evidence/

Wow! You did a keyword search and found a contrary opinion with lots of scare quotes. I'm amazed! Simply amazed! (douche)

[Neo-Scholastic]

If God is the essence of the Good, that excludes the possibility of God doing wrong. That eliminates his freedom of the will, as all his actions would proceed on account of necessity (given his inability to do less than what he might otherwise choose to do) and lack the essential moral quality that the Good as embodied in willful action requires.

I see your point and do not see much of a problem. Thinking about humans' and other sentient beings' (if there are any) free will revolves around the question of whether someone could do otherwise than did. To my mind, the question in not whether God could do otherwise; but rather why would He?

The 'free' part of free will concerns whether or not the chooser is constrained by outside circumstances and/or compelled by external forces outside the chooser's control. The 'will' part of free will concerns whether the chooser is acting with real intention; as opposed to a mindless causal series. A prisoner may have the will to roam but freedom. A fire may have freedom to spread without the will to do so. In the case of God, He would have complete freedom to act (who could oppose Him) in accordance with His Will. And since He is the highest Good that which He wills is the best of all possible outcomes.