Refuting Christians with their Own Bible

[Veritas_Vincit]

So - you make a very good point. If we don't have an objective standard then it's just your word against mine. Fortunately it's not as simple as that. Let me explain.

You know how frustrating it is when you make a point and some smart ass comes back with "yeah well that's just your opinion."? It's annoying and insulting - and we know intuitively that it's a bullshit response. But why?

Because the strength of an argument does not depend on who is making it, but on its own merit, and the logic and reason and evidence that backs it up. Whether the world is flat isn't a matter of your opinion against mine. Whether cancer is bad isn't a matter of your word against mine.

People are entitled to their own opinions, but they aren't entitled to their own facts.

If one person says slavery is fine and another says it's wrong, you aren't just lost at sea. One person can be objectively right and another can be objectively wrong.

As I said, morality concerns the wellbeing of conscious creatures. It's like health - it's hard to define health as one thing, but it's easy to say what health isn't, e.g. Throwing up, getting cancer etc.

In the same way, wellbeing includes health but in this sense I would include things like Freedom. If I own you and can beat you and you are my property, you do not have freedom. You are a prisoner. You are controlled under threat of violence. Therefore it can be argued that my owning you is immoral, because it takes away your freedom and infringes on your wellbeing.

I would contrast this with many so-called moral systems that are systems of controlling human behaviour within society which do not hold human wellbeing as the highest value, such as in India where widows throw themselves on their dead husband's funeral pyres.

If you think of morality in terms of wellbeing vs suffering you have an objective standard for morality. What's that you say? I said morality isn't objective? That's not actually what I said. What I said was, there isn't some standard abstract from conscious creatures. Morality isn't like a cosmological constant. But that doesn't mean it's just whatever we feel like at the time. It's about all of us as a species realising that we all experience life in first person, we can all suffer, and we can all flourish, and that it is in everyone's best interests if we work together and agree to respect each other, that we agree that my freedom to swing my fist ends at your face. It's about valuing each other's wellbeing enough not to infringe upon it for individual gain.

[Angrboda]

As I said, morality concerns the wellbeing of conscious creatures.

[Veritas_Vincit]

Hahahaha exactly

[Mr.wizard]

'Objective morality' doesn't exist abstract from humans, it is a social construct. I don't see how that makes it any less valid or valuable. Morality is meaningless without conscious creatures as it concerns their wellbeing and suffering.

It's less valuable because it is subjective. 

This brings up a question. How do you justify your moral indignation for slavery in the OT times? If morality is a social construct and society decided it was a benefit in ages past, who are you to judge it now? It seems to me on your view, morality is rooted in habit, custom, feeling and/or fashion--nothing objective about those.

It's not a question of whether or not older civilizations thought slavery was moral. Slavery probably seemed like a good idea to the ruling classes of those times but we now know how harmful it is, not just from a moral standpoint but an economic standpoint as well. The question is why didn't god know, why did he endorse slavery? Your answer seems to be, well people needed to realize the mistake on their own, which in my opinion completely ignores the slaves point of view. If slave owners where really interested in knowing whether slavery was morally wrong all they had to do was ask a slave how they felt about it.

[purplepurpose]

Its a miracle to me how dead matter in the end created such neat order. Mind or the host of body is being supported by instincts. Feeling of hunger to prevent starvation and reward to the host in the form of dosages of "endorphin". Lust to prevent extinction. Fear and anger to prevent extinction as well. Envy to provoke progress. Its full of mysteries, no wonder people like fill it with Gods magic.

When people are in danger of dying. Like pre WW2 germany, they consciously abandon morality in order to survive. Majority of people become "mad" when they are suffering severely.

[robvalue]

https://youtu.be/44ilZq3R900

[purplepurpose]

https://youtu.be/44ilZq3R900

Believers usually argue that God graced us with his mercy and used his absolute authority to soften the laws. The previous laws in old testament were for badass and brutal mad savages. We evolved and God presented us with more civilized divine laws.

[SteveII]

It's less valuable because it is subjective. 

This brings up a question. How do you justify your moral indignation for slavery in the OT times? If morality is a social construct and society decided it was a benefit in ages past, who are you to judge it now? It seems to me on your view, morality is rooted in habit, custom, feeling and/or fashion--nothing objective about those.

Yes, you might want to give this a good think yourself. Maybe one day you'll realize morality isn't as simple as you make it out to be.

You mean because you believe that morality is naturalistic and subjective, it is complicated. I agree.

[Minimalist]

https://youtu.be/44ilZq3R900

Believers usually argue that God graced us with his mercy and used his absolute authority to soften the laws. The previous laws in old testament were for badass and brutal mad savages. We evolved and God presented us with more civilized divine laws.

I daresay that history would not back you up on that one.

[SteveII]

As I said, morality concerns the wellbeing of conscious creatures. It's like health - it's hard to define health as one thing, but it's easy to say what health isn't, e.g. Throwing up, getting cancer etc.

In the same way, wellbeing includes health but in this sense I would include things like Freedom. If I own you and can beat you and you are my property, you do not have freedom. You are a prisoner. You are controlled under threat of violence. Therefore it can be argued that my owning you is immoral, because it takes away your freedom and infringes on your wellbeing.

I would contrast this with many so-called moral systems that are systems of controlling human behaviour within society which do not hold human wellbeing as the highest value, such as in India where widows throw themselves on their dead husband's funeral pyres.

So far you have not described anything objective. These are all value judgments and subject to opinion.

If you think of morality in terms of wellbeing vs suffering you have an objective standard for morality. What's that you say? I said morality isn't objective? That's not actually what I said. What I said was, there isn't some standard abstract from conscious creatures. Morality isn't like a cosmological constant. But that doesn't mean it's just whatever we feel like at the time. It's about all of us as a species realising that we all experience life in first person, we can all suffer, and we can all flourish, and that it is in everyone's best interests if we work together and agree to respect each other, that we agree that my freedom to swing my fist ends at your face. It's about valuing each other's wellbeing enough not to infringe upon it for individual gain.

So why is the "well-being of conscious creatures" objectively 'good'? Ontologically speaking, why with evolution do you think we have a moral obligation to maximize well-being of conscious creatures? That is not even addressing the fact who gets to decide what well-being is? What if one person's suffering or denial of 'rights' creates well-being for many?

Our 'evolved' instinctive self-centeredness and selfishness will often undermine human flourishing. So, are we to say that up until this point evolved instincts and traits were beneficial but now are to be subjugated to a greater good mentality? Wouldn't that be the very definition of subjective?