RE: General question about the possibility of objective moral truth
September 14, 2015 at 1:53 pm
(September 14, 2015 at 1:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: 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.
It's a common misspelling found on fundamentalist forums that discuss the issue. If it had been a simple error of memory, I doubt it would have precisely duplicated the error of others. "Eurthyphro" or somesuch, I could believe was plain error, but an exact duplicate... not so much.
It's not an argument from incredulity, in the sense that you mean it. You are the one claiming you have a Book of Ultimate (and thus Objective) Morality, yet when I look in there, I find numerous things that are plainly immoral to the modern (subjective, admittedly, but only if you think such radical post-Enlightnment thoughts as "all are created equal" and "women are people") concept of personhood and inherent, unalienable rights... rights which we constantly expand and improve upon, because they are subjective and manmade. That is not a bad thing!
You say that I am presupposing that God's best play was to go along with the culture of the time and slowly dispense moral knowledge, yet "God" in the Old Testament forbade several things which were common in the societies surrounding the ancient Israelites, with the Ten Commandments and other similar instructions. To say that He had to slowly dispense such basic ideas as "slavery, rape, and unequal treatment of women is BAD, m'kay?" slowly over time is the height of insanity.
The source of my venom is at anyone who claims to have the Ultimate Moral Authoritarian's direct guidebook, yet can't see that humans have been "updating" His Ultimate Morals for centuries, and that the Bronze Age versions are really really bad... but they didn't have to be.
Seriously, why is there not a Commandment saying something like, "Thou shalt not physically, sexually, or emotionally abuse children", or "Thou shalt not have sex with anyone without their affirmative consent", or "Slavery and genocide are beneath you, People of Israel, thou shalt not do those things", "thus saith the Lord"?
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
