My views on objective morality

[Catholic_Lady]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

We're all left wondering what criteria you use to ascertain the difference.

Some things about God have been revealed to us, others have not. I believe the Church's teachings on faith and morals come from God, and those are the things we have a firm belief in. Those are the things about God that we believe have been revealed to us. The rest are unknown, and among those unknowns are some of the questions I always see here, such as "why doesn't God just personally tell us He's real" ...or something along those lines. With questions like that, all we can do is speculate and come up with theories. But at the end of the day, they are still unknown because they have not been revealed to us.

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't believe God ever ordered people to do things like the OT stories say He did. But it should be noted that many of those things are still a step up for those times. 

Why? Far as I know, the Catholic church didn't declare the OT to be invalid.

You are correct. And I never said the OT is "invalid". But the Church does teach that a Catholic is free to either believe in the OT literally, or figuratively. As long as a Catholic adheres to Church doctrines, whether or not they believe that Adam actually talked to a snake, etc, is just details.

[robvalue]

Questions for CL

1) Is this objective morality any use to someone who already has empathy and can make their own sensible moral choices?

2) If my moral opinion in a matter differs from this objective morality, why should I consider changing my opinion?

3) If a psycopath does want guidance, how do they decide which religion to pick?

4) How can each religion all have "objective morality" but contradict each other?

5) If you don't know what the objective morality actually is, how can you ever tell you (or society) are close to it? What criteria do you use?

Thanks!

[The Grand Nudger]

Some things about God have been revealed to us, others have not.

I doubt that, but as a catholic...why would it matter?  Revelation is trumped by church dogma, end of story.

I believe the Church's teachings on faith and morals come from God, and those are the things we have a firm belief in. Those are the things about God that we believe have been revealed to us. The rest are unknown, and among those unknowns are some of the questions I always see here, such as "why doesn't God just personally tell us He's real" ...or something along those lines. With questions like that, all we can do is speculate and come up with theories. But at the end of the day, they are still unknown because they have not been revealed to us.

The churches teachings come from the church, not god...the church who reserves the right to decree -for- god...in god's silence or absence.  GL with that.

[bennyboy]

Why? Far as I know, the Catholic church didn't declare the OT to be invalid.

You are correct. And I never said the OT is "invalid". But the Church does teach that a Catholic is free to either believe in the OT literally, or figuratively. As long as a Catholic adheres to Church doctrines, whether or not they believe that Adam actually talked to a snake, etc, is just details.

That's a pretty generous example.  How about this:

• You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.  Leviticus 25:44-46
  

Is this "figurative"?  Are you free to take this passage literally, or not? Where are your "inherent human rights" now?

[robvalue]

I got one more question.

How does objective morality handle situations that aren't clear cut, where a compromise must be made between two outcomes? It's easy as pie if it's just "cut off someone's head" versus "not cut off someone's head". But what happens when both options have undesirable but very different consequences? How is this reconciled without resorting to anyone's particular evaluation of those outcomes?

I tried this before, asking for examples. Only one person ever gave me any, and their way of resolving it was to always make sure their accountability to God was OK. Everything and everyone else came second. Shocking and scary.

[Thumpalumpacus]

How do you know that anything you believe about him is true? How do you know what you don't know? What in your mind tells you that what you think you know is actually true?

How do I know what I don't know? If someone asks me a question, like "why doesn't God do ______", and I don't know why, then I know that I don't know. 

As for how do I know that what I believe is true, again, this is basically a "why are you Catholic" question. Not something that can ever be summed up in a forum post. The short answer is, given everything I have experienced/seen/learned in my life, the faith makes sense to me.

But how do you know that what you do believe is true, given the fact that you don't have a metric for it?

How do you know that what you think is free will is free will? How do you know that what you regard as moral behavior stems from your god? The short answer is that you don't know. You believe, you have faith, that it is; but you can't say that things like genocide aren't you god's will -- after all, he's ordered such things, if we're to believe the Bible.

If all you have to go on is faith, well then you're essentially saying that morality is subjective. Because at that point you've defined what you regard as moral, and then are saying "my god wouldn't do or order that". If your god is the author of morality, then the fact that he behaves in ways he tells us are immoral means that morality is subjective. If your god is not the author of morality, then it should be acknowledged that the acts attributed to him in your own scripture violate the moral code he is alleged to have passed down to us.

Your faith makes sense to you -- great. But the fact is that it doesn't make sense to the majority of the people in the world, and while you're here expounding it, you cannot explain why anyone else should believe as you do. How is that not, in its very essence, subjective? Can you justify your own morality in an objective manner without appealing to your own personal reasons for believing (which are entirely subjective, as you've just admitted)?

How is that not subjective morality?

Some things about God have been revealed to us, others have not. I believe the Church's teachings on faith and morals come from God, and those are the things we have a firm belief in. Those are the things about God that we believe have been revealed to us. The rest are unknown, and among those unknowns are some of the questions I always see here, such as "why doesn't God just personally tell us He's real" ...or something along those lines. With questions like that, all we can do is speculate and come up with theories. But at the end of the day, they are still unknown because they have not been revealed to us.

How do you know that what has been revealed is actually your god's mind, and not some human interpolation subject to the fancy, whim, and error that accompanies such an endeavor?

[robvalue]

Exactly, I have can faith that some other arbitrary set of rules are the "objective morality". Objective just means it doesn't change depending on the person using it; any set of fixed rules is objective. What religious people seem to be saying is that there is a "best" objective morality. But if you have no standard of your own, how can you possibly know what is and isn't best? If it's just what God wants, it's circular. If it's about being a good person, God is irrelevant. We know how to be good people and take care of each other.

The fact that CL would reject certain morals, even if they came from God, shows she does have another standard already in place that even God must adhere to.

That standard is subjective, because every theist has a different idea about what would and wouldn't be OK, even if God ordered it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I doubt she regards slavery as moral. I doubt she regards stoning adulterers as moral. I doubt she regards killing gays as moral. But the god of her Bible is fine with those things.

They can't both be right, and that tells me that morality is subjective, her own included.

[robvalue]

Exactly.

Everyone picks their own morality, that's just a fact. "Morality" is not objective, for this reason. The only difference is whether you're prepared to change your morality over time, as you learn more, or whether you pick one set of rules and stick with it forever. They are both subjective in the first instance, but one is malleable and one is "objective" in that it won't change. It can't improve, either, unless you're willing to update it; in which case, it's subjective again.

That leaves a "best" morality, but if that best morality is fixed, it is arbitrary and useless. If it happens to contain good bits, I'll use them. Any bits that I don't think are good I won't use. So it just reflects back to me my own morality, which is basically what religion does.

Having a fixed way to measure things like mass and length is very useful. Having a fixed way to measure morality is not, except to the person making the measurement, using their own subjective standard.