Theistic morality

[The Omnissiunt One]

This is an interesting claim.

Is this merely your opinion or do you rely on some objective standard of morality that leads you to this conclusion? If the latter, what is that objective standard? (I have somewhat been following your conversation with PR and I think you have alluded to some objective standard but I did not read anything where you explained what it was. Maybe I missed something. If so, could you please at least point me to your explanation?) If the former, doesn't that throw you back into moral relativism which you seem to reject?

My morality is basically based on preference utilitarianism, as formulated by Peter Singer, the contemporary utilitarian (and Aussie). If we give the idea of morality any credence whatsoever, we must accept that others' interests (wishes, emotions, plans for the future, etc.) are just as important as ours. All interests are equal, provided their intensity is the same. From this, we can therefore say that an action is good if it fulfils others' interests, and bad if it hinders them.

When I said what I did about the Bible, I was referring to our general conceptions of what a moral guide, or indeed any guide, should do. A motorbike handbook which said, 'Putting in sawdust instead of fuel is acceptable' would be no handbook. Any football rulebook which didn't ban violent play, or indeed said that it was acceptable, would be no rulebook. Similarly, a moral guide that is supposed to provide rules for our lives, or at least principles from which we can extrapolate rules, should surely say something about a matter as important as slavery, rather than explicitly saying that it was acceptable. You may think that these examples are wrong, or think that they are not analogous, but that is what I think.