On Moral Authorities

[robvalue]

Mind you, there is one way out of my dilemma, which is to say that there is no "best thing for our wellbeing"; it's entirely a subjective concept. This is of course my position, but anyone who wants morality to be objective obviously can't use it.

[Edwardo Piet]

There's no absolute proof of what is best for our well being... but some things are certainly more likely to be better for our well being than others. I can safely say that having all my wildest hopes and dreams fulfilled and being physically and mentally healthy is better for my well being than having my nob chopped off, my face kicked in, and not only never fulfilling any of my wildest dreams but not having even my most basic desires fulfilled and instead being given the minimum food, water and sleep just to live in a constant state of despair, exhaustion, anxiety and all-round agony and torture.

I can't prove absolutely that the former would be better for my well-being than the latter... but science doesn't deal with absolute proof anyway. There's no absolute proof of what food is good for us or bad for us either, but there's still a clear difference between food and poison.

It's true that someone can say "Why should anyone give a fuck about suffering or well being?" but we should react to those people the same way we react to the theists who don't give a fuck about evidence.



To draw an analogy here... if someone doesn't give a fuck about compassion, what compassion can you show them to convince them that they ought to care about compassion for the suffering of others?

If someone doesn't care about compassion or suffering then the conversation should be over just as much as someone who doesn't care about evidence or logic. Sure, we can't prove that compassion ought to be valued... but we can't prove that science, evidence or logic ought to be valued either. But those who don't value compassion, science, evidence or logic can bugger off.

[theologian]

But, does God say rape is good? To the contrary, God says love your neighbor.

Now, what's wrong basing morality from God Whom is the Perfect Being? Or, it is just that atheism are biased against Him? Any other reason aside from being biased? For, if morality is based from God's will, then it will just be arbitrary according to you, as if God is like human whose will may be arbitrary.

If you will not consider God in your morality, then your morality is subjective. If your morality is subjective, then you don't have the right to be protected based from your subjective opinion, as that is equal to imposing one's opinion to others. Hence, if you are used as a fish bait, you cannot appeal to your subjective morality to be saved from being used. That is just your opinion, if God will not be considered.

You don't know what God says. You read books, and people tell you things. Rape, in the bible, is often nothing more than a property crime. And sometimes God simply allowed people to do it to the survivors of cities his "people" pillaged. Slavery is also permitted.

Yes, my morality is subjective. But I'm not imposing my opinion on anyone. I own my morality as subjective. I make arguments as to why my morality is the way it is. If I'm used as fish bait, it doesn't much matter what my opinion of it is, does it? Morality doesn't save you from things happening to you. I think murder is wrong, but I can still be murdered.

Your morality is also subjective; it is god's opinion. You have chosen that reference point. I use my opinion instead.

We know what God says through Jesus Whom is True God and True Man and through the Church he has founded, the Catholic Church.

The Bible, just as it was declared to be the Word of God by the Church, must be interpreted by the Church to know its true meaning. You appeal to the Old Testament, and to interpret the Old Testament, one must interpret it in the light of Christ. Hence, one cannot rely on the Old Testament alone. The Old Testament is like topics for first grader. If teach justice first. It is fulfilled by Christ Whom paid for what we can't pay by ourselves. That is a great act of mercy.

So, in Christ, we can see that justice and mercy are one in love.

Thus, invalidating my reasoning here that God is the basis of morality by the use of Old Testament and its improper reading is improper.

Thus, my morality, is not stemming from me, nor terminating from other humans. Hence, it is not subjective.

If morality is not just a subjective opinion, then you cannot be used as a fish bait lawfully. Thus, I was not talking about avoiding murder absolutely, but avoiding murder reasonably. Atheists claim to be reasonable. However, in matters of morality, they can't be reasonable. As, no subjective opinion can be reasonable.

God's opinion, on the other hand, matters. For, He, the matter around us, and all other objective things, are created by His mind.

Also, divine commandment morality is clearly not objective anyway.

Is it moral to walk into a town and kill everyone there, including all the children?

It depends on whether the correct voice in your head told you to. If it did, it's moral. If it didn't, it's immoral. So it's not objectively moral or immoral.

That is confusing Divine Commandment per se, with every claim that can be made. However, one can know whether it is from God through the Church.

If yes, the fact that he is God is irrelevant. He just happens to want us to do what we do anyway. He's like an expert analyst or something, nothing more.

If no, then you are compromising the wellbeing of people in order to please this God.

That is a false dichotomy. For the first horn ignores the truth that wellbeing of people is perfectly known to God, as He is their Creator. The second horn on the other hand cannot be true, considering God is Infinitely Good. But, every dilemma must at least have one true horn to be true. Thus, it is a false dilemma.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh good god, watching these guys try to reason is painful.  Stick to faith, fellas.

[Edwardo Piet]

I will insist on calling false dichotomies false dichotomies. If someone wants to tell me to stop over and over they need to know I don't take orders to stop discussing during a discussion. If they don't want to discuss, they can stop. I'll ignore them if they're going to double down rather than make basic admissions. There's no point discussing if someone is going to ignore the basic definition of a false dichotomy.

[FallentoReason]

*Plato. And I don't mean to appeal to authority, but in this case it's justified, because do you really think Plato would be taught for the last ~2500 years if he was obviously an idiot that got it wrong that easily? Go ahead Rhythm, teach an ethics class, because obviously you know something we don't. I mean c'mon...

-an appeal to authority won't make it any less of a false dichotomy.  A false dichotomy is an issue of valid argument structure, not ethics, or who's an idiot...so this little bit of nonsense here is as pointless as the last bit.

The reason he still gets taught is because maybe, just maybe, there's something there worth learning. But clearly it's going way over your head.

There *is* only a or b, because it's mutually exclusive.

inb4 "but god doesn't exist" - no one cares. That doesn't suddenly make it a false dichotomy, because your belief doesn't negate philosophical arguments. And no, it's not even a logical third choice either, because otherwise what would it mean to philosophize? To repeat to yourself over and over again what you believe, so you can sleep warm at night? You're no better than Ham at philosophy parties, and that sucks Rhythm, because I remember you being different. Not sure what happened while I was gone.

It doesn't matter whether or not god exists, an invalid argument is an invalid argument.  A person who believes in god can -also- answer with a third option.  That's the reason that a false dichotomy is uninformative. You know what else is uninformative? Anything you might think regarding fun at philosophy parties, other people, or my relative level of warmth at night and where that originates from. Toasty by the way, ass and titties.

Yes, and whenever the theist says 'neither' and they try explain why... well, we've all seen that mess before. Therefore, the dilemma still stands the test of time as an argument for atheistic morals.

Congratulations, you've also failed ethics 101.

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh I get it now, you're just trolling.

[FallentoReason]

Here's an example:

Suppose you need to really badly pass an exam. You will it that selling cheat sheets is universally acceptable. Now cheat sheets are the norm, which means the lecturers have to change the way exams are done to remove the problem, I dunno, a unique set of questions for each student on the computer. Your universal rule didn't logically help you achieve your will, and coincidentally it's often regarded that cheating is wrong.

And another one:

Suppose you need to borrow money from your friend but you have no way of paying back. You will it that keeping promises isn't necessary. Now your friend can't trust any promises since it might be a lie. Therefore you weren't able to get what you wanted, and coincidentally it's often regarded that lying is wrong.

Cheating and lying are against the truth. Now, God is Being Himself, as proven by sound theistic arguments for God's existence.

Which arguments do you regard to be sound? We won't discuss them here, but I'd like to know your context please.

But, Being, and Truth and Goodness are one and the same reality, those are just viewed in different ways : Being is Being in Itself, Truth is just Being viewed in Intellect, and Goodness is just Being viewed in the will.

Why does it have to be Truth and Goodness? Why not Lies and Badness?

So, since cheating and lying are against truth, and God is Truth Himself; lying and cheating is against God; and that God is the end of man, and the morality of man is based on the end of him, it follows that lying and cheating are bad.

How does all of this fare with the Old Testament? Is God really all that you say if he once upon a time commanded to kill and rape?

[robvalue]

The problem here is getting theists to define exactly what they mean by morality in the first place. Even this guy who admits he'll roll over on anything God says is still trying to insist that it must also be what's best for wellbeing. The problem is that when you put absolute trust in an authority, you have no standard by which to check what they are doing. If they in fact don't have our best interests at heart, we'll never realise.

I don't give a monkey spit what God does and doesn't consider "moral". He has to explain why, like everyone else. If he tells me to go murder and rape a load of people, I'm not going to do it just because he says so. And he has indeed said so in the past, according to the bible.

So God gives us a brain, then wants us to turn it off and blindly follow what he tells us to do? That's just really stupid. He may as well have made robots. Oh wait, he wouldn't get to torture anyone then. And that would be a terrible shame.

[FallentoReason]

So God gives us a brain, then wants us to turn it off and blindly follow what he tells us to do?

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."  ~  Galileo Galilei