(January 2, 2014 at 12:06 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: And who's concensus has authority? The state? The tribe? The mob? And just how is the content of said concensus determined? By vote? The name of the king?
The consensus is what is agreed upon that would contribute to the well being of the maximum number of people, and be detrimental to the well being of the minimum number.
The above can be agreed upon by empathetic, rational, critical thinking people.
The parameters should be based on the following; life is preferable to death, comfort is preferable to pain, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, etc.
The above may not always lead to the correct answer to every circumstance and situation, but at least it is a framework to critically examine possibly complex moral dilemmas.
In a theist beliefs, morality is an edict from a god.
I don't seem to remember when your god cam down and corrected Exodus 21. It sure wasn't in the New Testament where the Jesus character tells Christians to obey their masters, even the cruel ones.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
