Nature's Laws

[Simon Moon]

How do we know when we've gotten something wrong?  The point I'm attempting to make is that by what measure (standard) do we determine that a society got something wrong?  How do we decide that the Nazis were wrong to haul the Jews away and kill millions of them?  Without God, it seems to me that we are left to decide what is just or unjust by majority opinion.  I think that is unacceptable given the history of even the past century.  It is as though human beings are incapable of truly living up to their potential.  Do you think that the past 100 years of human history shows that humans have learned anything useful about morality and how to promote justice for all? 

Maybe you missed my earlier post. 

Here it is again:

The standard is the physical reality we all share. 


We all have (more or less) the same physical bodies, inhabiting the same physical universe. From this, we can extrapolate that what I need for my well being is almost assuredly the same things as the vast majority of humanity also needs. 

Life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, comfort is preferable to pain, etc. 

It doesn't take much to figure out that, since I do not want to live in a society that is  rampant with murder, theft, torture, rape, etc, it is best to create laws to prevent them, and to live by them myself. 




You want a simple test on knowing when we get something wrong?


Ask the victims. 


You know how you can tell that the Nazis got it wrong? Ask the victims in the concentration camps how their well being was.

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The problem isn't in the idea that all human beings have certain inherent rights as human beings, in this case the problem was with those who wanted to oppress and enslave other human beings...merely on the basis of race.  If there is no God, how would we have determined that race-based slavery was wrong?

I could play the easy card, and quote the passages in the Bible where Yahweh condones slavery. You should read Exodus 21. Your god condones owning slaves from neighboring countries.

But more to the point, we can tell that slavery is wrong by asking the slaves how they feel about it. Then, using empathy, put yourself in the same place and imagine how you would feel.