Theistic morality

[Eilonnwy]

Well the verse is certainly condemnatory of beating a slave to such a degree that he/she dies on the spot...and you seem to agree with this based on your commentary on the verse.

What I find morally reprehensible about this verse is that it's okay to beat slaves as long as they don't die right away. But if they suffer and die after an acceptable period of time, that's totally okay.

Which is worse, dying on the spot, or dying after suffering for a few days?

And notice it does not condemn the beating, simply gives instructions for when the slave can die from the severity of the beating. It's appalling.

So morality is what's socially acceptable, and nothing more? That surely confounds the idea of moral progress. Maybe you don't believe in moral progress, but denying any objectivity seems to leave us in a difficult position. In a society where half of people believe that euthanasia is right and half believe it's wrong, who is right? How do we decide what to do? You may be right that morality is nothing more than what society disapproves of, or approves of, but moral decision-making seems necessary to some extent.

Progression is a part of morality, and that includes what is socially acceptable. As morality evolves we learn why previously held moral ideals are wrong. It used to be morally appropriate to have slaves, beat your wives, etc... Now we know better. There are things we do now that may seem moral correct, but maybe a hundred years from now people will say, "What were they thinking?" I think euthanasia is moving into the direction of becoming socially acceptable and therefore morally acceptable. It may be a slow progression, but I think as we as a society refine our thinking on human suffering when no other viable option is available for saving them, the stigma on euthanasia will change.

Ultimately, morality is an agreement between people. A social agreement was constructed to not kill people because people understood the desire not to die, and therefore agreeing within a society that killing people is wrong and to punish those who do, you start the basis for morality.

Slavery used to be beneficial to those who owned slaves, but when people realized it was not so good for the slaves and they wouldn't want to be slaves, opinion changed and now it's considered abhorrent.

Those who believe in the objective and absolute morality of God confound me. You need only look at history to see that morality is subjective and has changed through time. If you believe God is where this objective morality comes from, why did he not instruct his people that beating woman, treating them as property is wrong? Why did he not object to slavery, and racism, and homo bigotry? People object saying it was appropriate for the time, which absurd and contradictory. If it's morally true now, and morality is objective, then it was morally true then and if God is all powerful and benevolent, could he and should he not have instructed his people better.

Obviously I believe no such God exists and that the morality displayed in the bible is the one that was socially acceptable at the time by the men that wrote them.