New religion

[Carnavon]

I'd first like to know what you mean by "objective measure of morality" and what you think this would be like. Perhaps I'm wrong here but what distinguishes objective from subjective is whether the quality of something is measurable independent of a being's personal feelings, tastes or judgment.

Things like mass, velocity or temperature are measurable in an objective sense. These things can be mathematically measured by instruments and expressed in agreed upon units of measure like degrees with temperature.

So if morality is objective, does this mean we might be able to measure moral action in degrees or some other unit of measure? Does this mean we can plug numbers into a spreadsheet and determine with precision the most moral course of action?

Now you may laugh at this but there was one attempt that I know of at such a system. Jeremy Bentham attempted to articulate a system by which we could measure the pleasure in the universe generated by an action vs. the pain it generated. Actions could be determined to be moral or immoral accordingly. The obvious problem is how does one mathematically measure such qualities?

What I mean with objective measure of morality is some standard independent of our subjective judgement of issues. As an example, the Bible acts as an objective measure for me – which is independent of what I regard as “proper. This is also independent of what others think.
Some of the issues that “modern man” has an issue with is for instance the “husband/wife”relationship. The Bible states that the husband is the head of the wife. Now this does not go down too well with many. From my perspective -taking the relevant verses into consideration, it is a wonderful relationship where the husband accepts responsibility for his wife and serves her as Jesus came to serve. (Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.)
There have been many that regard this as justification for treating their wives as “slaves” and not showing respect. This may happen when there is selective reading of verses and not interpretation based on wider understanding of relevant topics- and I would like to suggest also an improper spirit.
Seeing that the issue of slaves were raised, and a topic of a recent a sermon at our church, the following will be guidelines for employer/employee relationships.
Col 3:22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
Col 4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.

(If you do set a standard -as per your definition- why is that true?)-

Fair question. I came by my three rules thinking about why I reacted the way I did to certain things. When I found myself saying "that's not right", I asked myself why it wasn't. The three rules were not things I created by rather born of a way to explain and predict what would or wouldn't be right. I found they seem to more-or-less cover all the bases.

Now, I admit even my rules require some subjective evaluation. Are some lies morally justifiable? What are the rights of others and how can they be weighed against the needs of the community?

My current view is that morality is subjective, as understood by our very use of the term "moral judgment" and qualitative assessments as "good" or "bad". These are terms not often used when calculating objective measurements.

Let me be clear that morality being "subjective" is not to say "anything goes". We still can make logical arguments as to why we feel that something is moral or immoral and refine our understanding and moral judgment in this way.

Subjective evaluations are still evaluations.

You seem to be a level-headed type of person and I would consider that your judgements will be fair. But the question could be then “How can you judge others by your standards as they are not accepted as "universally applicable” or use your criteria to judge what should generally be accepted as morally right? This is the predicament.
It is now accepted that children may be aborted – and this has the result that babies which are born live (botched abortion) apparently sometimes live as long as a full shift without any attention being paid to them, is “legal” but really immoral. Please have a look at some of the footage available on what happens during an abortion and tell me if you think that is morally acceptable.

The existence or lack thereof of a god is further a separate issue from whether morality is objectively or subjectively measured. If morality is indeed objective, then units of measurements can be discovered even if God does not exist. If morality is subjective, then what God feels about a certain action is still a subjective evaluation from a being's point of view, regardless of how powerful, wise or benevolent that being may be.

This is one reason why GodWillsIt is unsatisfying to our understanding of moral issues. This is not objective morality but surrendering subjective judgment to another being.

I agree that you “surrender” your judgment on issues to another “person”. I think you hit the nail on the head. We want to do it “our way”, whatever that means- and who’s way is it? We do not accept that which God has proclaimed. It is much like the owner of a car deciding to what pressure he should inflate his tires, without reference to the guidelines of the manufacturer.

It gets even shakier when you consider that, from my view, deferring to "God" is like deferring to an imaginary friend. This is another reason why GodWillsIt is unsatisfying an answer and doesn't advance our understanding of morality. You may say "my God says slavery is wrong" but a Christian southern plantation owner before the Civil War felt his imaginary friend said slavery is OK.

The question is really not what he may think of it, the question is what does the Bible say?
The Bible does not address the issue of slavery as either right or wrong, but it does give very clear guidelines on how we should treat others (including those who work for us). I was reading on Joseph this morning. Although his “master” was not a man of God, Joseph acted in such a manner that his “owner” could trust him with everything. You will know that even at this time when slavery does not exist in a legal sense, your “free” employees seldom show the same commitment towards your business. Trade unions and the Industrial Relations Acts in various countries exist because of the way many employers treat their “free” employees.

We are becoming more “moral”.
It would seem to me that the first two arguments cannot both be true for to make a judgement you need a standard.

You make a valid point. If we are to say that we're becoming more moral, we must first believe that such things like war crimes, aggressive warfare, sexual harassment at work, slavery, and other issues we've so far discusses are "bad" things. I'm perfectly comfortable evaluating them as "bad" and therefore coming to my conclusion that things are "better" now. How about you?

OK, let's take an issue you might feel more comfortable debating. Our society is now less hostile toward homosexuality then in previous generations. I evaluate this as "getting better". Bullying people, driving them to suicide, forcing them to be what they are not, destroying their happiness, infringing on their rights, and other problems created by a homophobic society are all what I would call "bad".

How about your view? Can you explain to me why love is evil when the body parts are similar? Can you explain to me why tolerating people with similar body parts doing things to each other is such a horrible evil as to justify the evils I articulated above?

You see, this is how we advance our understanding of morality. We debate the issue in a rational fashion.

I am sorry to drag this aspect into the discussion again. Better suggests a standard. If the standard is not universally accepted, it is only “better” for those that ascribe to that standard and in itself has no meaning.
War crimes: they are continuously in the news despite conventions as early as 1899 and other agreements for centuries before that. As we agreed, legislation or codes do not actually necessarily have a positive effect. As you have indicated before, it may have a negative effect. War crimes continue unabated. A recent example is the Libyan war, with claims of war crimes in the Yemeni Uprising, The Syrian uprising and I am sure most of the others as well. Definitely not proof of us “getting better”. I would suggest the contrary position as there were claims of war crimes on all of the ones I have checked- and that is during 2011 only!
Aggressive warfare is daily in the news. How many wars in 2011? Seven? With 12 ongoing. Compare with +- 68 for the 1000 years from the year 1 to 999. I do not know when warfare was preferred over peace.
Sexual harassment at work. In my many years of employment I only experienced one occasion when there was a case of such harassment and it was never condoned. To the contrary, the guy was not welcome in any conversation. To suggest that it is now better because there is “legislation” could actually indicate that it seems to be on the increase as legislation is required. If there is not continuous transgression, there would hardly be a need for such legislation? Stats also seem to indicate that there is an increase in sexual harassment. (SHRM)
I would submit that sexual harassment, wherever it takes place, is unacceptable. The Bible has reference to dealing with others:
1Ti 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
Eph 5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
Eph 5:4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
On slavery, it is evident that the cruelty often associated with slavery was a travesty of justice. It seems to me that the problem was not so much the slavery issue as the treatment of slaves. The issue is thus the treatment of people and clear guidelines are given in this respect in the Bible.
Interesting to note the concern that people had for their “slaves/servants”. See Math 8:6 as an example. I could not find any indication in the Bible of a slave being spoken of in a derogatory manner because of his/her social standing/position. To the contrary, Paul describe himself as a servant, and hardly a title to be despised. (Rom 1:1)
Homosexuality
It is not relevant to the discussion, but the few homosexuals I have known were really nice people and I enjoyed their company.
That they are treated with disrespect and that it has driven some to extreme measures is very, very sad. People treating them disrespectful have a self-righteous attitude in that they condemn others when they themselves are sinners. There is no justification for mistreating others.
Why is homosexual behaviour accepted as fine? On what basis? If you believe in evolution, it seems to me that nature has worked out a really great method to ensure the survival of the specie- which is jeopardized by homosexual behaviour.
If you are a Christian, the Bible is clear that it is a sin. Any sinner is welcome in the house of the Lord. If it was not the case, nobody would be allowed. We are saved by grace, and it is not our good works that make us “acceptable” to God. To consider yourself “acceptable” based on your “performance” is totally removed from the truth.

Yet you judge previous moral standards although they were the ones that were considered appropriate at the time (their preferences) and thus we cannot judge them as it was “agreed” that they were right. How can you now judge them. If you do, you assume that there is an ultimate right and wrong that is is slowly being “revealed”. Where does this standard originate?:)

Let me put to rest now this idea you and others have that I think that morality is determined by majority rules. I don't believe that and have never said otherwise.

I've said before that the existence of God doesn't make much difference in our discussion of morality. If it turns out that God has given me this conscience by which we evaluate "right and wrong", what then? Does that make our conscience any better or worse than if it were simply the product of our evolution as community beings that depend on each other to survive and therefore we developed said conscience as the means for survival?

But let's suppose that you're right and there is a god who is watching over us now, who prescribes our moral behavior and judges us by how we adhere to it. How has God determined this code of morality?

If God has invented the code as a celestial lawgiver, that things are good because God commands them, this is not objective morality by definition. This is a being inventing arbitrary laws.

If God has determined the proper code, as a celestial judge, and things are commanded by God because they are good, then morality exists outside of and independent to God. That which is "right" or "wrong" would continue to be so regardless of whether God changes his mind, goes away to another universe or turns out never to have existed at all.

This is called "Euthephro's Dilemma". Sophisticated Christian apologists try to escape it by babbling that "the essence of moral goodness is bound into the very nature of God". In addition to the problem of WTF does that even mean and how have they managed to determine this, this is begging the question. They define God as "good" and that's how they know God is good.

This is just one reason why religion is neither necessary nor helpful to understand morality.

What is the principle then to decide what is right and wrong? Is man the eventual judge as you seem to suggest? Knowing mankind, you will forgive me for really having my doubts at the outcome. None of the aspects that you have put forward as being “better” has a rational basis for deciding it is better. You have failed to produce any rationale. Even having a standard is no reason for accepting that as the proper standard. If human judgment was the eventual criterium, it has shown itself to have poor prognoses as it keeps changing. God’s law does not change and does not have to. We just don't like it and especially not being told.

We all know what is better as we have been given a conscience. We want peace, honesty, integrity, love for our neighbour. These are the things that the Bible teaches. The problem now is that we wish to do that which is contrary to God’s commands.

On the issue of better or worse, makes me think of the comment I heard that once upon a time contracts were closed with the shake of a hand as there was trust and integrity. Nowadays not even a contract drawn up by a professional is always adequate protection. You would have experienced that in your business as well.

Just one last comment. Even if you accepted all of my arguments, nobody would have gained anything. None of us. The issue is not the argument. The issue is Jesus Christ, who was by all accounts having all his faculties, and claiming to be the Son of God and equal to God, laying down his life so you could have eternal life in fulfillment of the prophecy :
Isa 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
God has shown his love towards you in a remarkable way. He has paid the price for your transgressions, however serious it may be.