What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

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Yes, thank you for the reply. I understand what you are saying. You believe that, if to them, killing infidels is not immoral, then they are not definitively doing anything immoral as a reality. You do not believe that there is a moral truth. And that is where we differ.

What the heck do you mean by "moral truth"? Define the term please...

1) If murder or any such action is morally wrong in one situation but not wrong in another, and if the same morality isn't universally applicable then morality is NOT a universal truth, but a subjective truth.
2) If it is subjective, then suggesting it is universally defined by a supreme being is false.
3) Thus simply presuming a supreme being, and jumping from that to christianity or any particular god is a huge leap in logic.

It means that it IS immoral regardless of what some people believe. So, going around butchring infidel men, women, and children for the sole reason that they are not radical Islamists, is immoral, period. This is a moral truth.

I keep using Isis as an example because it's the big thing going on right now. But it's just an example and is not limited to them.

I agree with your point #3.

[FatAndFaithless]

So, your morality is based on your presupposition of God?

[Mister Agenda]

It would obviously be wrong via the wife's feelings at being murdered by the man whom she thought loved her above all else.  

Not to mention that killing of one's own clan in primitive times was considered wrong due to the fact that survival was of the up-most importance; thus morality was born.

But if the man thought that it was GOOD to kill her so that he could marry someone else that he was interested in, would THAT be good from his perspective?

Are you familiar with the fallacy of equivocation? It's when you use a word that has mutliple senses in a deceptive or confusing way. For example, in your sentence, it's unclear whether you mean 'morally good' or 'in the man's best interests'; or whether you mean it in one sense the first time and a different sense the second time.

Bear in mind that not all atheists agree on moral issues (and neither do all Christians or even all Catholics). 'The man' was wrong in thinking it was morally good to kill his wife, but he may have been correct in thinking that it would work out to his advantage; especially if he is a sociopath incapable of being damaged by emotional consequences for his act. But there's no system of morality that can prevent sociopaths from being sociopaths, is there?

[The Grand Nudger]

It means that it IS immoral regardless of what some people believe. So, going around butchring infidel men, women, and children for the sole reason that they are not radical Islamists, is immoral, period.

-agreed.

 This is a moral truth. 

To you and I, sure....lol, why not..but obviously, they disagree. Subjective morality, yet again.

[Mister Agenda]

Some atheists who believe that objective moral right and wrong really do exist, a position also called moral realism, say they simply know that these moral truths exist, and that’s good enough for them. For example, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong answers the question, “Why is it wrong to cause harm without a good reason?” by saying, “It just is, don’t you agree?” Erik Wielenberg, in his book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, writes, “Of the ethical states of affairs that obtain necessarily, at least some are brute facts.”

Is it fair for atheists merely to assume that moral truths exist as unexplained brute facts? Luke Muehlhausesr, the founder of Common Sense Atheism, writes:

It's at least as fair as declaring whatever God says good because God said it, and God is good. All philosophies rest on at least one axiom that can't be proven and which you either find acceptable as a brute fact or you don't. The 'ultimate moral grounding' that so many Christians say they alone possess is not 'ultimately grounded' at all. They have to find the premise acceptable. They can't evade being ultimately responsible for their own ethics, since even handing over all their moral decisions to someone else is a decision that can only be reached by moral reasoning, whether sound or not.

[pocaracas]

The question is *who or what* has established this moral law?

Would you believe me if I said, most likely, society did it?

Well, I believe God has. I believe God created human life as a sacred thing, and so to destroy or mistreat or hurt something sacred is always going to be objectively immoral. I do not believe this is subjective. I believe it is a moral truth.

One must first accept that there is a god, before one can delve into the possibility that such a moral system was provided by said god, don't you think?
Atheists, *sort of* don't accept the existence of a god as a given in a discussion... sure, we may, once in a while, use the hypothetical existence just to show that some tale spun around it ends up making little sense...

[Catholic_Lady]

Catholic_Lady. You are going to work early and you're up at 3:00am!
You must love discussing this stuff with us!  hehe.   We're happy if you're happy.

fight the good fight!

Why I rarely bother discussing these topics (with anyone - (I'm in it for the dirty jokes!)) is that if you were born in eg: middle east, china, Eastern Europe, Africa etc, all your "absolutes" would be different.  This categorically proves (to me) that the whole notion of "which god" and "objective morality" is subjective and relative.
So basically your most personal beliefs are a direct result of the geo political climate you happen to be born in.

Catch tomorrow.

Thank you so much for the kind words, but you are giving me way too much credit!

I actually do not have to get up early to work. My husband had to get up early to work, and I like to get up with him to see him off and prepare his breakfast/lunch. I actually don't have a job currently. My husband is an Air Force pilot and we currently live in a very small town in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas. So I stay home and take care of house work and of our cats.

I agree with you that if I was born in the middle east I would probably be Muslim. I'd like to think I'd convert to Christianity, but I cannot say for sure since I have never been in that position.

Either way, I do not think the fact that there are many religions out there is a disproof of God. I believe it makes it tricky to *choose* one and have faith in it, but I do not believe it disproves all of them. In the end of the day, ONE of us is right... even if that is you, fellow atheist!

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[The Grand Nudger]

At the end of the day it may be that -none- of us are right.  Your confidence that one of the answers available is the right answer might be misplaced.  That's not the thrust of the thread though, eh, and picking up where we left off last night....so what if the catholics story were accurarate, does that make the catholic story morally right?  I don't think that it does. I, like you, am at least capable of assessing the morality expressed in the narrative (as you've done with the OT) and I can reach a similar conclusion about the NT as you have the regarding the prequel. I can do this, I'm doing it now for your benefit just to show you that no objective standard is required to make announcements of ones own moral truths. So, the answer to the OP question would seem to be

"any number of ways"

eh? Hell, could be that the toaster tells me whats right and wrong, subjectively, even -absurdly- and I agree with the toaster. We tend to keep those folks under lock and key but they exist, and they have a way of determining right from wrong that differs from -both- of our ways. It's a wide field.

[Longhorn]

I guess my reply was buried under dozens of others, but I'd like to ask Lady, how can you view Jesus as a moral person-let alone a moral TEACHER-with the context of thought crime and eternal torment in mind?

[Catholic_Lady]

So here it is:

To be able to tell the difference between the evil, menacing maniac "bad" God and the nice fuzzy helpful "good" Jesus, you must already be aware of what "good" is. Otherwise, what standard are you using? It would be all the same to you if you had no idea.

I'll stop grilling you now You've done well answering all these questions! Don't feel you have to address all my stupid points. They're just something to think about while hitting a punching bag or something.

No problem, I appreciate your discussion!

You are correct... Christianity would not exist if people kept believing in the OT's depiction of God, over Jesus Christ and His teachings.

I think love speaks to people and that is what Jesus brought. Like I said earlier, I think we instinctively know what is good and moral, at least with the more obvious things.