What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Mister Agenda]

Or perhaps, by extension, how does god know what is good?

By godly fiat or because things are intrinsically good?

Hello JHC.

Are you asking me why I believe God knows what is good? I believe things are intrinsically good because God made them that way. I believe God, being master of the universe,  is the one who establishes goodness and morality. But the point of this thread was not for me to sit here and preach and tell you guys what I believe. My purpose for creating this thread was to hear *your* views and discuss them with you.

So, ya got anything?

Are you sure you're asking us? We get so many people trying to tell us in the guise of asking us that our abillity to trust such claims has been severely eroded.

However, hope springs eternal.

Normallly functioning humans, like other closely-related primates, have instinctive senses of reciprocity, fairness, and empathy. These are the emotional basis for morality. They're why we care about right and wrong. Over centuries of cultural experience and years of personal experience, we gain experience in interacting with othter people and life forms, and learn that some ways of interacting are more beneficial than others; that is, more likely to lead to good outcomes for more people. We are also able to use our reason to work out moral issues. This is what makes moral progress, however halting and mistake-ridden it may be, possible. We can learn that it's wrong to own people. We can learn that it's wrong to torture people. We can learn that it's wrong to rape. And we can reach these conclusions with very little help from Iron Age scriptures. Banning torture reduces our risk of being tortured, and understanding that there are better ways to elicit desired information from a prisoner helps us understand that we don't have to do it to protect ourselves.

There are centuries of writing on moral philosophy that don't revolve around God.

[FatAndFaithless]

The big "gotcha" is when theists accept your moral system as a moral system, but then they pull out the trump card and ask "without an objective source of morality how can you claim your moral system is better than any other society's moral system, it's all just opinion."

[abaris]

The big "gotcha" is when theists accept your moral system as a moral system, but then they pull out the trump card and ask "without an objective source of morality how can you claim your moral system is better than any other society's moral system, it's all just opinion."

And then go out, speaking about universal truths and murder being wrong, while supporting capital punishment.

Not adressing Lady here, since I don't know her stance, but we get that often enough.

[Mister Agenda]

2. Why is it immoral to promote suffering? Where does this law come from?

From people who don't want someone promoting suffering on them or on people they empathize with. There's actually not much disagreement on this one, could ypu pick something a little more mysterious to be mystified by?

[The Grand Nudger]

Therefore, ISTM that we have to examine WHY God might have instructed the Israelites to take certain actions at one point in OT history, only to command something different later in the NT.

But in order to discuss that intelligently, we have to agree on some examples of that behavior. To what are you referring when you say that God acted immorally in the past?

Sounds like a conversation you should have with your fellow follower of Cathol?   She says it was all allegory.

[Mister Agenda]

And we're not the only species working that way. Not by a long chalk. Virtually every social species refrains from hurting or killing their peers.

Hm.. Animals kill their own species more than we like to believe. I do know that felines (from lions to feral cats) will kill the babies that are not from their own group.

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And cats are so well known for how well they cooperate in large groups, I guess that blows the whole idea out of the water.

[Catholic_Lady]

...But isn't that what you are doing when you say you believe the story of Genesis is allegorical?

No, because I regard all of it as horseshit.  Pure, grade-A horseshit.

I believe ALL the Old Testament is allegorical. The nice parts, and the bad parts alike. I'm not sure why you are perturbed by this.

Because you're using this to dodge the question of why the same god is so entirely different from one book to the other. And because you have no way of knowing that you've applied the allegorical reading and the literal reading to the right portions of the book.

Would you rather me believe that the bad parts about slavery and stoning being acceptable are literal?

Facts are facts. Slavery and execution by stoning were facts. And according to the part of the book you disregard, your god ordered those things.

Why would you want me to believe such horrible things are true? They go against the teachings of Christ, so of course I am against them.  

In other words, you've made up your mind already, and feel obliged therefore to regard that part of the bible as allegory. This is exactly what I've been saying all along. Thanks you for finally admitting as much.

I regard them as allegorical because I regard the entire Old Testament as allegorical. I don't believe Moses spoke to a burning bush. I don't believe Jonah was in a whale for 3 days. I don't believe Eve was tempted by an apple. Above all, and most importantly, I  regard it all as allegorical because I'm Christian. And Christ *specifically* teaches that some stuff in the Old Testament is inaccurate. I am not trying to make an argument, just telling you what I believe because you seem to really want to know and understand.

What's funny is that he teaches that those moral precepts are outmoded, and that the time has come for a new set of values.

You see, even Christ, as written in the Bible, is a moral relativist.

You continue with your cherry-picking, young lady.  It's time for this old man to get some shut-eye.  Good night.

Parkers Tan, I am not dodging the question. A huge part of believing in God, in the Christian sense, is believing that He does not change. A big part is also believing that morals do not change. I am not dodging your question. Merely explaining my belief system as a Catholic.

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It isn't all about emotional inclinations. I use logic to get to this point. Christianity makes much more logical sense to me. Just as being an atheist makes more sense to you. Could someone else other than yourself be right? Sure, but you don't think so. Same with me.

Last point: how many other religions did you examine in the same depth as you examined Catholicism? How old were you when you converted?

The idea of Christianity being logical is risible.

I did not convert. I was born a Catholic.

But probably during the ages of 14 and 18 I did a lot of reexamination. And even know, I continue to grow in my faith and look for answers.

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I still can’t get over that you admitted that all the stories in the old testament are an allegory. Why can’t the New Testament be an allegory too? Noah’s Ark, Jonah, Samson, Moses parting the Red Sea, talking burning bushes, people living to be 900 years old, are all allegories, but jesus walking on water, turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from the dead, feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and two fishes, and cursing a fig tree…your skepticism isn’t raised in the slightest towards these things?

You say you are trying to think logically, and had a period of doubt, how are those stories convincing when the others aren’t? They are all stories, that’s it. I feel you need to apply a bit more skepticism to these claims, instead of just believing them because they are written in a book.

If muhammad was said to walk on water, and there was never a mention of jesus doing it, you’d probably think that story was nuts, but because it’s in your religion, you just believe it without even being all that skeptical. You just accept the good and miraculous parts, ignore the bad parts, and don’t seriously question the validity of the claims. If you’ve seriously questioned it, you probably wouldn’t be believing in it.

If I believed the NT was all allegorical, I would not be Christian. As Christians we must believe that Jesus was a real man and that His teachings and His story are real as told in the Gospels. But we are not required (at least in the Catholic faith) to believe any of the OT stories were written literally.

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In those instances where it's clear that your beliefs (and not just your religious beliefs, but your beliefs about things like subjective morality) are an impediment to understanding the responses you've been given to your questions....they are going to end up being discussed, sure.   That -might- be unavoidable.  It's been fun, nice to meet you, see you next time.

Same to you!

[Mister Agenda]

Do you realize you couldn't even get consensus on your"murder is universally wrong" proposition?  This alone should be showing you that there simply are no universal morals.

Killing other humans is often considered wrong, but there are always situations where it is also acceptable.  Even, sometimes, what we would call murder.

Take the common college class example.  There is a train coming, and the track divides nearby. On track A you see 10 people are tied to the tracks, and this is the track the train is on. They will die of you do nothing.  There is one person tied to track B.  You cannot reach the people to untie them in time, but you can flip the track switch to switch the train to track B.  Do you actively take action to kill one person?  It's murder to do so, even if it saves the lives of 10 other people.
So, do you murder one person to save 10?

Another common one, is, would you murder a Hitler as a baby, if you had a chance?

These are thought experiments, but real life examples have come up.  The point is, you can't universally say anything is morally right or wrong because everything is conditional.

In general, I would personally go with the least harm thing.  The best moral choices are those that cause the least harm.  Then we all get to sit around defining and weighing what constitutes harm. 

I would say that there is a core morality that is, if not universal, so common that it transcends culture. The problems are painful to work through, but only because the ideal option (no one getting hit by a train) is off the table. It's actually hard to train soldiers to kill the enemy without remorse, let alone civilians, so a lot of their training is to get them to a point where they fire at the enemy without much thought. Of course, once you get them there, it's possible they will take it even farther and commit what are considered atrocities, at least partly because we've unanchored them from their moral instincts and placed them in situations where they must kill to survive.

Some ways of living are objectively better than others, given human well being as a standard. We have 'moral instincts' but we also have 'immoral instincts'; or if you like, prosocial and antisocial instincts; that are in tension and can shift in prominence with situational changes. A previously perfectly nice guy may strangle you for your oxygen so he can live a little longer if you're both trapped underwater with a limited air supply; though I think that guy is the exception rather than the rule, a criminal might regard getting your money as a matter of survival, and people will do things to survive they would never do otherwise.

I know I'm rambling. My main point is that there can be very basic morality common to humans that is difficult to forumlate in general rules without going to extremes and specifying motivation (e.g., there are no circumstances where it's okay to use a live human baby as a hockey puck in an otherwise-regular hockey game for sport).

[Catholic_Lady]

Good night then Thanks for answering my questions.

When you rejoin us, maybe you could define what "good" and "morality" actually mean to you, specifically? Are they about wellbeing versus harm, and if not, why should I care about them? If they are, isn't it pretty obvious on the whole what causes harm and what aids wellbeing? You admit we all differ on the finer points, that is to be expected from subjective but not objective morality. Also, "what God says is good" is subjective to God, not objective. If it was objective, it would also apply to God, and he couldn't change it.

Also, what logic did you use to decide Christianity is true? You've already discarded most of the bible as irrelevant. If I picked up a book and wanted to learn something from it and I was three quarters of the way through and so far it was getting it all wrong, why on Earth would I read any more or expect it to suddenly be right?

There's not a lot to say from our perspective. On the whole, we use empathy and reason. Not a lot more to it. We know what hurts us, so we don't do that to other people. The more general explanation is evolution, the natural selection of those who cooperate. All religion does is try and credit "God" with all this.

I'm back.

Yes, I can explain that to you. In the simplest form, morality comes down to treating others the way you would want to be treated. I believe that going against this moral law is always wrong, whether you do it by killing, stealing, disrespecting, etc. It doesn't matter who you are or what you believe. If you murder someone, you have committed an immoral act. Period. I believe this is a moral truth.

(Of course, there are instances in self defense or in justifiable war where you have the right to exert as much force as is necessary to stop an aggressor. If that amount of force causes death, it is justified and not immoral on your part. But even in these cases we must be very careful.)

The question isn't so much *what* is moral. I think we'd all agree on what I said above. The question is *who or what* has established this moral law? Well, I believe God has. I believe God created human life as a sacred thing, and so to destroy or mistreat or hurt something sacred is always going to be objectively immoral. I do not believe this is subjective. I believe it is a moral truth.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hey, morning, welcome back.  We were just discussing the OT with Randy, a fellow catholic.  He's busy looking for ways to make douchegod of the OT "right", he seems to feel that allegory isn't a proper explanation for those stories.  God really commanded the israelites to "such and such" and so there must be a reason that all of this is right, after all, god did it.  

What say you, is this how we should determine morality? If god engineered the death of the firstborn, must that be right? If god called for the genocide of a competing tribe, is there any requirement that we accept this as a just act?