What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[abaris]

But those acts are still objectively immoral, no matter what that society thinks. Don't you want those societies to stop doing these things? If so, then you too are what you describe in your very lest sentence.

I only quoted this part because it stands out. Maybe we have a semantic problem here. From where I am standing this is entirely wrong. But that's not the point, since it's also an entirely different society that obviously didn't move very far withing the last 2000 years. So yes, I would want them to change things.

But 200 years ago, it was perfectly OK to do just that in certain parts of the US and of Europe too. We have moved on. My point is and always was, that we have learned from past mistakes. We had the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment to teach us, we had bloody wars and revolutions that moved things along. So we as societies changed and also our perception of what is right or wrong.

I always keep arguing that the bible doesn't offer an objective morality. What it does is open a window into the past. It tells us, how people thought at a specific time and region. What they perceived as good and evil. That, if you don't believe that book to be the word of god, is the ultimate truth: There is no objective morality to be found in that book. Only the values of the people writing it down.

I would also argue that there's no objective morality to be found in our societies. In another 2000 years, things will look very differently again. And as much as I am convinced to be a pretty decent everyday life person, my views may be ancient history then.