Objective morality as a proper basic belief

[Mister Agenda]

He's omnipotent and omniscient, so he can do anything but can't do anything that he hasn't foreseen he will do.

He's omniscient and knows everything he's going to do and can't change that, but he has free will.

He is incapable of evil because his nature is ultimate goodness but he's a moral agent.

[The Grand Nudger]

Morality is tied to wellbeing, a VERY strong component of that is harm. Secular morality, well done, seeks to reduce harm and increase wellbeing. It ain't easy, but morality by divine fiat, that includes immorality by modern standards, fails ever time.

Good luck with your bible, I prefer an honest discussion about difficult stuff.

IKR, especially considering the subject.  People generally find honesty to be a moral virtue.....but not a batshit christer tripping over his own dick because he can't brook such a conversation.

In any case, I aim low and omit wellbeing.  The weakest form of a secular objective morality seeks only to reduce harm, but leaves out any compulsion to increase wellbeing.  Baby steps with these fuckers, lol...they're always showing up asking us why they can't gangrape someone if there isn't a god.  Their brilliant retort invariably being "but that's just your opinion". God's moral opinions, somehow, are better...even though they include exhortations to gangrape as part of his "infinite goodness".

[mordant]

The weakest form of a secular objective morality seeks only to reduce harm, but leaves out any compulsion to increase wellbeing.

Seems to me like the two go hand-in-hand. Overlooking increased wellbeing contemplates only the absence of negatives. Fortunately, in some cases reducing or removing harms inherently involves substituting a boon of some kind. Reduce disease, you get more health whether you want it or not. That's not true of everything of course; take a poor man, make his lame leg whole, and send him back into penury and want to eke out an existence in some violent urban dystopia and he'll probably die about as quickly and be about as miserable, just for different reasons.

Of course Christianity has (to put it kindly) a ... complex relationship with pleasure. We mustn't enjoy life TOO much. That would make us all into profligates. Even just simple ease or contentment are suspect to some Christians. Life is supposed to be a STRUGGLE against the forces of evil and your flesh, and if they're not, something is Just Not Right. Not least, they envy someone who has it easier than them.

[SteveII]

No, I don't think there is any evidence that God's moral qualities have changed even between the testaments. God has traits such as holiness and justice in addition to love and compassion that must be satisfied. Also, ensuring the necessary conditions for Jesus' first coming (the greater good) has to be factored in.

Ok, god gave us free-will, yet he hardened pharaoh's heart. [1]

God does not murder, but then the poor fool who stumbled and fell against the Ark was obliterated. [2]

OT gods and the OT message are different. And they both contain things any modern western human, at least, would say is immoral.[3]

1. So? An argument could easily be made that God was ensuring circumstances conducive to a greater good. Are you saying that an omniscient God who can see the trillion upon trillions of effects every ancient decision has, did not desire a specific outcome? What moral lapse does this represent?
2. God cannot murder by definition. The ark represented God's presence on earth. Holiness trumped mercy. 
3. Immoral if a person made those decisions. Why can't God judge people? What does timing have to do with anything? Do you think that God 'owes' anyone a long life? If you believe the incarnation was by far the greatest good, any preservation of the events that led to it would be morally justified coming from an omniscient God.

[The Grand Nudger]

1. So? An argument could easily be made that God was ensuring circumstances conducive to a greater good. Are you saying that an omniscient God who can see the trillion upon trillions of effects every ancient decision has, did not desire a specific outcome? What moral lapse does this represent?

Why would the "greater good" matter?  If morality is determined by gods nature than what's all this greater good shit?  Why would there be any need to make any argument?  Good did it, therefore it's moral, end of.  Or...not? Didn't turn out well for all those firstborn, did it....and it wasn't -their- hearts that were hardened. I doubt that they were all slavers, for that matter. OFC, that was just the intro...gods chosen people would rape and pillage their way into the "holy" land afterwards. Some greater good, some god.

2. God cannot murder by definition. The ark represented God's presence on earth. Holiness trumped mercy. 

He just creatively ended that guy...and then everything else's life?  This is getting silly.  Speaking of holiness trumping mercy...is that the kind of case where, even though you know you shouldn't riddle an apartment complex with 20mm...you do it because god wills it?

3. Immoral if a person made those decisions. Why can't God judge people? What does timing have to do with anything? Do you think that God 'owes' anyone a long life? If you believe the incarnation was by far the greatest good, any preservation of the events that led to it would be morally justified coming from an omniscient God.

Objective morality has a double standard? The god of do as I say and not as I do?

I think I've pinpointed the problem. It's not just the god of magic book that doesn't quite understand morality, objective or otherwise.....................no wonder you guys have so many horrid moral questions.

---

The weakest form of a secular objective morality seeks only to reduce harm, but leaves out any compulsion to increase wellbeing.

Seems to me like the two go hand-in-hand. Overlooking increased wellbeing contemplates only the absence of negatives. Fortunately, in some cases reducing or removing harms inherently involves substituting a boon of some kind. Reduce disease, you get more health whether you want it or not. That's not true of everything of course; take a poor man, make his lame leg whole, and send him back into penury and want to eke out an existence in some violent urban dystopia and he'll probably die about as quickly and be about as miserable, just for different reasons.

Yeah, wellbeing as a happy consequence.  I'll take it, lol.

Of course Christianity has (to put it kindly) a ... complex relationship with pleasure. We mustn't enjoy life TOO much. That would make us all into profligates. Even just simple ease or contentment are suspect to some Christians. Life is supposed to be a STRUGGLE against the forces of evil and your flesh, and if they're not, something is Just Not Right. Not least, they envy someone who has it easier than them.

Christian Moral Character: The fear thought that somebody, somewhere, might be having some fun.

[SteveII]

If a god exists, its mere existence can't logically define morality. Might doesn't make right. No one being defines the morality of every single living thing because rules and laws aren't morals. [1] Morality doesn't have an "opt-out" option either. So either the god that supposedly exists is subject to the same moral principles, or it is doesn't behave morally considering the stories attributed to it. [2]

What then is more likely? 1) humans assigned the morals/rules/laws that they wanted to govern their society to a god so as to try and assign their morals/rules/laws to some sort of unquestionable authority? or 2) a god exists but created a set of objective moral standards that aren't actually able to be objective in practice and that change through time in such a way so as to conform to the evolution of moral values through time? [3]

1. That's completely wrong.  If God exists, then by definition, his nature is the only objective source of morals. All questions then have an explanatory ultimate. Without it, all you have is subjective morality. No one made any 'might makes right' argument. 

2. A point of clarification (I was not clear in previous posts). God is bound by his nature. We are bound by God's commands. They are not the same thing.

3. None of your choices are correct. God could not create a set of moral objective standards. They would not be objective. The first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma. Lastly, moral values have not evolved--then they would have been subjective and again, you would be stuck with the first horn of the dilemma. If you are going to lay out the options for the opposing view, you should understand it.

Why do you think that nearly everyone believes there is a such thing as objective moral truths yet can't really articulate where they come from?

---

1. If God's actions are constrained by his infinite nature, then that is the explanatory stopping place for morality.  Just as the meter stick in Paris confers the property of meter-hood on all other meters in the world but itself does not rely on the property of meter-hood to explain or ground the fact that it is one meter long, God's nature does not rely on the property of good to explain itself, but all other morality is judged by it. It makes no sense to keep asking "why" about the meter stick so likewise it make no sense to keep asking "why" about morality. 

3. Everything is constrained by its intrinsic nature--especially a being that possesses superlative traits. 

4. Define in a few sentences how, in your opinion, the basis or morality can be tied to harm. Otherwise I am going to waste time answering points I am not sure you are making.

"If God's actions are constrained by his infinite nature..."

By definition, something that is infinite is unconstrained. Your god has paradoxical qualities

Infinite is clearly modifying nature in that sentence. His nature had no beginning. 

By definition, something that is infinite most certainly could be constrained. Infinite is a measure of duration, not ability.

---

Morality is tied to wellbeing, a VERY strong component of that is harm. Secular morality, well done, seeks to reduce harm and increase wellbeing. It ain't easy, but morality by divine fiat, that includes immorality by modern standards, fails ever time.

Good luck with your bible, I prefer an honest discussion about difficult stuff.

Isn't well being just a scientific measurement? That is decidedly a non-moral measurement and use of the word good and not a matter of moral value. Seems to be you are just redefining the word good in non-moral terms. With the redefinition, you cannot ask the question "is the pursuit of human well-being good?" because you would really be saying "is the pursuit of human well-being the pursuit of human well-being?". 

Secondly, such a foundation of morality does nothing for the what ought to be question, What, if any, are our obligations? Science can tell us how we are but it does not tell us what it wrong with how we are. It cannot tell us that we have a moral obligation to take actions that are conducive to the pursuit of human well-being.

[SteveII]

He's omnipotent and omniscient, so he can do anything but can't do anything that he hasn't foreseen he will do.

He's omniscient and knows everything he's going to do and can't change that, but he has free will.

He is incapable of evil because his nature is ultimate goodness but he's a moral agent.

1. Why would God, with perfect knowledge of all things, have a reason to change his mind? You are creating a logical problem where none exists.
2. More of the same. Free will means God could have chosen otherwise--not that he changed his mind. 
3. I'm not sure 'moral agent' captures the complete picture of an omniscient God with perfect moral qualities.  It seems somehow insufficient.

[The Grand Nudger]

1. This just keeps getting worse and worse.  Whether or not a person will change their mind..and whether or not they -can-....are not even remotely the same subject.  God may never change his mind about those children he sent a bear to kill...but could he have?  

2. There we go.  So god -can- change his mind, he just doesn't.  Not at all the mindless amoral automaton.  Bit of a recalcitrant monster, on account of it, though.  Oh well, give and take?  

3.  Just as "moral agent" is an insufficient description of any given human being....nevertheless, either god is capable of good -and- evil or god simply is what it is.  Amoral, same as a rock, a tree, my t-shirt.

Yet again you bring up another interesting point. You contend that god -could- change his mind..but, knowing the outcomes of this or that, doesn't. Well, what is it that god refers to in making that timeless decision? What metrics, what specifics? What is weighed, today, in full view of eternity, that causes god to decide one way or another on some moral matter?

---

Here, lets use some specific examples.  

Whats good about gods plan (I assume god makes his decisions based upon whether or not they fulfill that plan, primarily).  

What's bad about death?

What's good about salvation?

-Mind you, there's no impetus that you respond on the boards...but when you consider the answers that immediately spring to your own mind, in your own head....just remember what I said about your own moral foundations.

[Amarok]

1. This just keeps getting worse and worse.  Whether or not a person will change their mind..and whether or not they -can-....are not even remotely the same subject.  God may never change his mind about those children he sent a bear to kill...but could he have?  

2. There we go.  So god -can- change his mind, he just doesn't.  Not at all the mindless amoral automaton.  Bit of a recalcitrant monster, on account of it, though.  Oh well, give and take?  

3.  Just as "moral agent" is an insufficient description of any given human being....nevertheless, either god is capable of good -and- evil or god simply is what it is.  Amoral, same as a rock, a tree, my t-shirt.

Yet again you bring up another interesting point.  You contend that god -could- change his mind..but, knowing the outcomes of this or that, doesn't.  Well, what is it that god refers to in making that timeless decision?  What metrics, what specifics?  What is weighed, today, in full view of eternity, that causes god to decide one way or another on some moral matter?

---

Here, lets use some specific examples.  

Whats good about gods plan (I assume god makes his decisions based upon whether or not they fulfill that plan, primarily).  

What's bad about death?

What's good about salvation?

-Mind you, there's no impetus that you respond on the boards...but when you consider the answers that immediately spring to your own mind, in your own head....just remember what I said about your own moral foundations.

Prepare for a long stream of assertion and non answers .

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I'm familiar /w Steve.  Strangest thing, is that the quality of his non-arguments hasn't improved over these past few years.  You'd sort of expect it to happen by default, but, like the second coming...we're all still waiting.