My views on objective morality

[Catholic_Lady]

Ok that's fair, and I agree. 

Catholicism DOES cherry pick from the bible. I'm glad it does. The reason we do so is because we think the Church is above the bible. Church first, bible second. Poca did a good job of explaining for me that Catholicism isn't about following the bible as closely as possible. We believe the Church was founded by Jesus Himself and has ties to the divine. We believe that takes precedence.

Being that the church isn't one individual's opinion, and even the popes get replaced when they die, then how can you call that source of morality "objective"? You know papal opinions change your doctrines, therefore how can you possibly regard any papal opinion as an objective and perfect source of morality? You surely can't call that "eternal"!

Actually, papal opinions don't change doctrines. Papal infallibility only applies when a pope makes an official infallible pronouncement. This is a huge deal and has only happened like 2 times in Church history. It's not like every opinion the pope has about something becomes doctrinal teaching.

[Catholic_Lady]

I personally don't know any evangelicals, but I don't think they take the bible completely literally either, do they?

Don't you watch your own politicians? Ted Cruz, only to give one example? Read up on what he says on the bible. Don't you follow what guys like Drippy or GC say here, on these very boards? Huggy?

Many of them take the bible very literal.

So do they think what the OT says about eating certain foods and wearing certain clothes, for example, are binding?

[abaris]

So do they think what the OT says about eating certain foods and wearing certain clothes, for example, are binding?

That's the hypocrisy, isn't it? They always wear cloths of different fabrics, shave their beards, cut their hair and if asked, if they eat lobster, I'm pretty sure, the answer would be yes. It's only another part in the same section, they take seriously, the one attributed to gays.

Doesn't matter though, they feel themselves to be bible literalists. They always keep claiming it to be the literal and unchangeable word of god, to be followed to the letter. And that's what's making them dangerous.

[The Grand Nudger]

They, like you, have many excuses for ignoring what they claim to adhere to.  That doesn't change their claim.

[LadyForCamus]

No, the church is already doing the cherry picking for you. As I pointed out earlier, I didn't have the liberty to discount the OT as being alllegorical, as far as the priests were concerned. I'm speaking of the early 70ies. A time that's not so long ago.

Ok that's fair, and I agree. 

Catholicism DOES cherry pick from the bible. I'm glad it does. The reason we do so is because we think the Church is above the bible. Church first, bible second. Poca did a good job of explaining for me that Catholicism isn't about following the bible as closely as possible. We believe the Church was founded by Jesus Himself and has ties to the divine. We believe that takes precedence.

But if the bible is sub-standard, and by necessity subject to cherry picking for it to be relevant or useful in today's society, what possible reason would anyone have for accepting it is as the word of God? I mean, this is HIS book. It shouldn't need an editor.

[abaris]

They, like you, have many excuses for ignoring what they claim to adhere to.  That doesn't change their claim.

They want to discriminate against others. But they themselves don't want to be discriminated. That's why they don't read past the passage condemning gays.

[The Grand Nudger]

They don't even read that passage.  Believers are notoriously and demonstrably ignorant with regards to scriptures....even relative to atheists, which ought to be a canary in the mines moment...but it isn't, at least not for them. A man who sat upfront -told them- that god hates the gay. Too often to stomach...the men who delivered this oh-so-important life lesson wore a dress and diddled little boys when they weren't busy defrauding their customers.

[Mystic]

That's no metric for an objective morality, given that perception is itself subjective. You must interpret allegory, you must decide whether the "divine light" (whatever that is) is actually divine or simply extraordinary activity in your left parietal lobe, and whatever you mean  by "eternal light mixed with the light of time" -- which is clearly a subjective metric on its own, given the vagueness of such terminology.

I wouldn't get to caught up with the word subjective and objective. Can we know true things? I would say we can. Given that we have the light of God that stems from his own essence in us, our witnessing of the truth of morality and God and the divine link,  stems from how God witnesses himself, his absolute uniqueness, unity, and oneness. Just as God witnesses himself, so do the Angels. While you are right, we have to interpret the light to be a living reality linked to God, that it's of his glory and light that guides humanity and Angels, it doesn't mean we cannot know it to be true. This specially considering the perspective that it stems from God's own knowledge of himself, and God is the perfection of all things and glories and beauties, where he is each glory in it's ultimate, which is nothing but the absolute glory that unites all glories. We witness the truth of existence and it's nature, and our link to it, by knowledge that stems from God's knowledge of himself.
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[Emphasis added -- Thump]

In other words through subjective means.

[/quote]

Depending on how you are defining subjective, it may not be problem as far as yielding knowledge. If you mean it takes individual effort and perception, then I don't see how this is necessarily problematic. 
As I stated earlier subjective and objective perceptions and morality are not anti-thesis to each other, but compliment each other. Both are true and work with one another.

That doesn't answer my question at all. How do you know that?

Additionally, I have taken the liberty of empahsizing where you are engaged in circular reasoning. 

Through the divine link itself. The divine link gives you knowledge that there is a divine link.7

No. The pertinent denotation in this context, from the OED, is:

2 Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

That is inherently a subjective state of mind. This means that if your morality is based solely on your faith, which is not shared by the majority of people the world over, your morality is itself inherently subjective.

In the Quran, faith is given context that it is seeing power and degree of submission of the heart to clear proofs of the truth of God and his Affair and guidance and Signs.

It condemns following what we have no knowledge and emphasized on following clear proofs and signs.

So as I said, perhaps, religions that lack clear proof emphasize on spiritual taste without proof, while I know in Islam, it emphasizes on clear proofs regarding religion, and not blind following.

So faith as defined in the Quran is different then the definition you provide.

So what?  Most of the world at one time believed that the Sun orbited the Earth.  Subjectively, that seems true, but objectively it is false.

Also, appealing to the beliefs of any majority is ipso facto appealing to subjectivity.  When we are talking about objective morality, we are talking about an ethical-moral system which is provable without appeal to human perceptions.  Nothing you have written here -- nothing -- does not at one point or another eschew such an appeal.

You were saying that majority was against such notion and it doesn't make sense. I was merely correcting that.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Being that the church isn't one individual's opinion, and even the popes get replaced when they die, then how can you call that source of morality "objective"? You know papal opinions change your doctrines, therefore how can you possibly regard any papal opinion as an objective and perfect source of morality? You surely can't call that "eternal"!

Actually, papal opinions don't change doctrines. Papal infallibility only applies when a pope makes an official infallible pronouncement. This is a huge deal and has only happened like 2 times in Church history. It's not like every opinion the pope has about something becomes doctrinal teaching.

So Pope Leo bullied Galileo with threats of torture over an opinion, when his reports which falsified geocentrism did not even violate his church doctrine? Somehow that papal power looks more than it should be IMHO.

[Catholic_Lady]

Ok that's fair, and I agree. 

Catholicism DOES cherry pick from the bible. I'm glad it does. The reason we do so is because we think the Church is above the bible. Church first, bible second. Poca did a good job of explaining for me that Catholicism isn't about following the bible as closely as possible. We believe the Church was founded by Jesus Himself and has ties to the divine. We believe that takes precedence.

But if the bible is sub-standard, and by necessity subject to cherry picking for it to relevant or useful in today's society, what possible reason would anyone have for accepting it is as the word of God?  I mean, this is HIS book.  It shouldn't need an editor.  

We believe HIS Church comes before HIS book.