Another Christian Being Offered On The PC Alter?

[Starlight]

No Star, he did nothing but assert. You seem to understand his argument so tell us all, how is his belief objective?

I've done so dozens of times, and each time you simply repeat the original question again.

[seer]

I've done so dozens of times, and each time you simply repeat the original question again.

Star, no you haven't. I showed clearly that any moral belief is subjective (person dependent) in a godless universe.

[Starlight]

I showed clearly that any moral belief is subjective (person dependent) in a godless universe.

I'm beginning to think you actually believe that repeating something often enough actually makes it true. That would explain a lot of your posts on these forums.

If you truly and honestly feel that your questions aren't being answered properly, and aren't just deliberately trolling people by a strategy of relentless stubbornness until everyone gives up in disgust, then I suggest that that's probably because you keep using words in non-standard ways and people don't understand what you are trying to ask. You could try abandoning all your technical terms and instead explain in plain words what you think you're trying to ask.

[seer]

I'm beginning to think you actually believe that repeating something often enough actually makes it true. That would explain a lot of your posts on these forums.

No answer again. You know morality is logically subjective in a godless universe Star, you just refuse to admit it. Any moral ideal you make up is person dependent, and no more correct or valid than its opposite. How could it be otherwise? And even if, by slight of hand, you could make a case for an objective moral standard, how on earth would that rule be morally binding on anyone? By what authority? It would be ultimately meaningless since it lacks enforcement.

[seer]

Ithen I suggest that that's probably because you keep using words in non-standard ways and people don't understand what you are trying to ask. You could try abandoning all your technical terms and instead explain in plain words what you think you're trying to ask.

But I did explain what I meant by objective, and it was not in a non-standard way - I gave you a dictionary definition. So again, the sun exists objectively, no matter what our subjective perception is. The sun's existence does not depend on us - it is not person dependent. God's law is subjective to Him, but objective to human kind. It does not depend on us. His law would exist whether we knew it or not.

So back to your link and his grounding for morality:

So a very broad definition of morality can be the distinction between right and wrong as it relates to conscious beings, with right actions being those that intend to positively affect conscious beings, and wrong actions being those that intend to negatively affect conscious beings when it cannot be avoided.

Now I have nothing against this ideal. And if one accepts this ideal then there are most likely objectively better ways to reach that goal. But the goal itself is subjective. Why is negatively affecting conscious beings wrong if your moral goal is to garner personal power or wealth for instance? It would not be.

[Joel]

That's not how the law works. Anti-discrimination laws in the U.S. don't force Men's Warehouse to sell ladies' dresses The law only requires that Men's Warehouse sell men's suits to women who wish to purchase them.

Are you serious?

Yep. That's how the Civil Rights Act works in the U.S. It looks like you don't live in the U.S., so you may not be familiar with how things work here?

See: http://www.menswearhouse.com/ for that example of a national chain store devoted to men's clothing.
There are also bridal shops that sell only ladies' things.
There are also religious stores that sell goods related to only one religion.
And so on.

If you own a cake shop that caters for weddings then you must provide a full service to all people eligible by law to marry, this includes same-sex couples.

Bridal shops focus only on weddings, and only sell ladies' things. It is targeted solely at women. They are legally required to provide this service for anyone (including men) who wishes to purchase wedding dresses, but they aren't required to sell anything in addition to dresses.

Maybe the law is different where you live. In the U.S., bridal shops are not required to stock men's suits.

[RumTumTugger]

Yep. That's how the Civil Rights Act works in the U.S. It looks like you don't live in the U.S., so you may not be familiar with how things work here?

See: http://www.menswearhouse.com/ for that example of a national chain store devoted to men's clothing.
There are also bridal shops that sell only ladies' things.
There are also religious stores that sell goods related to only one religion.
And so on.


Bridal shops focus only on weddings, and only sell ladies' things. It is targeted solely at women. They are legally required to provide this service for anyone (including men) who wishes to purchase wedding dresses, but they aren't required to sell anything in addition to dresses.

Maybe the law is different where you live. In the U.S., bridal shops are not required to stock men's suits.

Joel stop trying to confuse Tass with the facts that show that all he has is assertions.

[The Thinker]

But I did explain what I meant by objective, and it was not in a non-standard way - I gave you a dictionary definition. So again, the sun exists objectively, no matter what our subjective perception is. The sun's existence does not depend on us - it is not person dependent. God's law is subjective to Him, but objective to human kind. It does not depend on us. His law would exist whether we knew it or not.

So back to your link and his grounding for morality:

So a very broad definition of morality can be the distinction between right and wrong as it relates to conscious beings, with right actions being those that intend to positively affect conscious beings, and wrong actions being those that intend to negatively affect conscious beings when it cannot be avoided.

Now I have nothing against this ideal. And if one accepts this ideal then there are most likely objectively better ways to reach that goal. But the goal itself is subjective. Why is negatively affecting conscious beings wrong if your moral goal is to garner personal power or wealth for instance? It would not be.

[Joel]

Because for morality to make any sense it has to depend on the existence of sentient beings because they're alive and can suffer. This is logically deduced from the first paragraph:

Imagine a universe devoid of all life. In this universe there are stars shining, quasars pulsating, and septillions of rocks smashing into each other, but not a single specimen of life anywhere to experience it. Such a universe would also be a universe devoid of all morality. For if planets collide, stars explode, and back holes devour entire worlds and there is no life to be affected by these events, there isn't a moral component to this universe. So therefore we can say that at some very basic and fundamental level, morality has to concern living things. Living things must exist, because life can respond physically and emotionally where it can either benefit or suffer at the result of actions that happen to it. And the higher the level of sentiment of the creature, that is to say, the more conscious it is to respond and be aware of its environment, the more sensitive it will be to external actions that affect it. Therefore, it would logically follow that if morality depends on life, the more sensitive and consciously aware a living being is, the greater the moral concern should be with regards to actions that affect them.

I'm sure Seer is capable of responding to you, but I just want to see if I'm following what you are saying. It seems you are saying that: if there is objective morality, it must pertain to living (feeling, conscious, etc) things. And that, therefore, it must pertain more greatly to those things that are more greatly feeling/conscious/etc.
Wouldn't your reasoning here be consistent with an objective morality that required maximizing suffering?

One more question: You seem to be referring here only to external actions on a conscious being. Would you also include internal actions affecting one's self? Moral philosophers throughout history have attributed moral judgement also to internal actions and actions that affect one's self (such as in speaking of fortitude, temperance, pride). (Of course these things also require living beings, so this may not change your reasoning here.)

I think you mis-state the "standard response". The response is not just that God is loving, but that the objective standard that "loving is good" is also a property of God. The fact that God is loving is not the same thing as the standard that loving is good. But both are eternal properties of God.

It's the same thing with the laws of logic. They are neither arbitrary commands of God, nor a standard existing eternally apart from God, but are an eternal property of God. The fact that God is non-contradictory is different than the property of God that requires that "no contradiction is possible".

So sure, we can say that God conforms to the objective standard of morality (as well as the immutable laws of logic), and thus God is good (or logical) because He conforms to that standard. But neither does the standard exist independently of God. Both exist eternally in God.

The theist would bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that they wouldn't be good without god, which I haven't yet seen anyone successfully achieve.

The theist also says that there wouldn't exist anything without God, because being itself is a property of God. This follows from God's basic attributes such as God's eternality and self-existence. For the theist to hypothesize the existence of other living beings apart from the existence of God, the theist would have to hypothesize negating the fundamental attributes of God, leading the theist to a contradiction.
Or put into the terms of your first reasoning in your post: For the theist, the existence of all other living things depends on God. Without God, they do not exist, and without any living beings (according to your own premise) morality doesn't exist.

The other major hurdle that divine command theory suffers from is the epistemic problem. That is, even if people believe in god, no one is going to fully agree on what god or what version of god is the correct one, or what commands are authentic and how to properly interpret them. You're going to be faced ultimately with moral relativism in practice, as is evident from the wide range of beliefs and practices of all religions. Thus the moral argument fails in theory and in practice.

Not a big deal. It's no problem for Christians to admit that every human being has their own subjective values/priorities, which may correspond or deviate from the ultimate, objective standard, more or less, and that every person may be judged, justly, by God accordingly.

[Starlight]

But I did explain what I meant by objective, and it was not in a non-standard way - I gave you a dictionary definition. So again, the sun exists objectively, no matter what our subjective perception is. The sun's existence does not depend on us - it is not person dependent. God's law is subjective to Him, but objective to human kind. It does not depend on us. His law would exist whether we knew it or not.

I think you are misunderstanding whatever dictionary you are using. The sense in which something 'objective' is "person independent" is that it is independent of all conscious beings (God included). Something being independent of humans but dependent on God is not a distinction that philosophers make and is not what the word 'objective' means. If something depends on God then it is 'subjective' and you are using the word correctly when you say above: "God's law is subjective to Him".

So what you're trying to say is that you think a moral code ought to be external to humanity. I personally don't think that's a good requirement for a moral code, and don't see any good reason to place such a restriction on a moral code. I think morality arises from the nature of humanity as conscious beings - so I think morality is intrinsic to humanity (and any spiritual beings, God included) as a result of the fact that we are sentient beings. Demanding that a moral code be external to humanity rather than intrinsic to humanity strikes me as being like demanding that I solve a math problem without using math.

Here is my attempt at explaining objective morality as simply as I possibly can:
Whenever there are conscious beings in the universe - beings capable of experiencing reality - it makes sense to ask whether those experiences are positive or negative in nature. Whenever two conscious and intelligent beings interact, they do so with values and intentions toward each other. It makes sense to ask whether their intentions were to increase the positive experiences of the other, or to increase the negative experiences of the other, or neither. On that concept we pin the label of "morality". And that's it. The only arbitrary thing there was the choice to use the word "morality" to refer to that concept and not to some other concept. But this is always going to be a problem, because the definition of all words is intersubjective (they are defined by society) and you can never escape the subjectivity of the definition itself. But the concept the word refers to - the positive or negative intentions of conscious beings toward each other - clearly objectively exists.

[Tassman]

I am sure we can count on homosexuals to 'test' through the courts whether I will or not.

Not just homosexuals but everyone concerned with equal civil rights for all citizens...and I believe it already has been tested and the cake shop had to pay up.

Yep. That's how the Civil Rights Act works in the U.S. It looks like you don't live in the U.S., so you may not be familiar with how things work here?

See: http://www.menswearhouse.com/ for that example of a national chain store devoted to men's clothing.
There are also bridal shops that sell only ladies' things.
There are also religious stores that sell goods related to only one religion.
And so on.


Bridal shops focus only on weddings, and only sell ladies' things. It is targeted solely at women. They are legally required to provide this service for anyone (including men) who wishes to purchase wedding dresses, but they aren't required to sell anything in addition to dresses.

Maybe the law is different where you live. In the U.S., bridal shops are not required to stock men's suits.

One wouldn't expect a bridal shop to stock men's suits, but one would expect cakes shops that cater for weddings to cater for all weddings, not just heterosexual weddings, which is the point.

[Tassman]

That is just silly Tass. First, if your standard of "social cohesion" is our guide then totalitarian rule is just as effective as anything else. So by your definition, it is a good thing. As a matter of fact Democracy is much more messy and factional.

For any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group outweigh the benefits of individualism. Hence the evolutionary goal for social species such as us is social cohesion however it’s achieved. Most advanced nations prefer the encompassing benefits of democracy and equal rights for all, but it seems you prefer totalitarianism, as befitting someone who wants theocratic governance.

And moving from where?

Moving from where we were. Do you seriously contend we were better off in say the virtual theocracy of the Middle Ages with its violence, disease, superstition and squalidness?

How do you know where mankind will be in a hundred years? Perhaps we all will be under Islamic rule.

Yes it's possible we'll revert to the tribal barbarism of religious intolerance as we're seeing right now in many parts of the world.

The illusion of choice is not choice.

Of course it’s “choice”; is the chimp that chooses the best banana off the tree exhibiting any less choice than seer choosing whether to have bacon or porridge for breakfast? Answer, NO!

Now, for the umpteenth time, answer the question: Given you argue that humans are exempt from causal ‘determinism’, unlike the rest of the universe, exactly at what point in the evolutionary chain did humans obtain the freewill to override the consequences of antecedent states of affairs? I'm waiting.

So the the 1% are just doing what nature created them to do.

No, the 1% are doing what they choose to do, determinism is not fatalism.

And Tass, you don't have any problem with nature - do you?

Of course not, "nature" is all there is, do you have substantive evidence of anything that isn't “nature”?

Yes, but we are just a meaningless accident of nature - so...

Meaningless for whom, it’s not meaningless for those at risk of extinction!

That the survival instinct is useless.

The survival instinct is not useless, all living creatures instinctively resist death…ever tried to swat a housefly?

[Abigail]

Not just homosexuals but everyone concerned with equal civil rights for all citizens...and I believe it already has been tested and the cake shop had to pay up.

The cake shop in the case were sued because they wouldn't make a cake with the slogan "Support Gay Marriage" for a rally. It was nothing to do with a wedding cake.

[seer]

Because for morality to make any sense it has to depend on the existence of sentient beings because they're alive and can suffer. This is logically deduced from the first paragraph:

Imagine a universe devoid of all life. In this universe there are stars shining, quasars pulsating, and septillions of rocks smashing into each other, but not a single specimen of life anywhere to experience it. Such a universe would also be a universe devoid of all morality. For if planets collide, stars explode, and back holes devour entire worlds and there is no life to be affected by these events, there isn't a moral component to this universe. So therefore we can say that at some very basic and fundamental level, morality has to concern living things. Living things must exist, because life can respond physically and emotionally where it can either benefit or suffer at the result of actions that happen to it. And the higher the level of sentiment of the creature, that is to say, the more conscious it is to respond and be aware of its environment, the more sensitive it will be to external actions that affect it. Therefore, it would logically follow that if morality depends on life, the more sensitive and consciously aware a living being is, the greater the moral concern should be with regards to actions that affect them.

Welcome Thinker! First question: Why should we be concerned with our fellow man? We know our history is littered with those who are not necessarily concerned with their fellow man, or use their fellow man for personal gain. In other words why, objectively, is a Mother Teresa morally right and a Stalin morally wrong?

As for the Euthyphro dilemma:

I'll let Joel handle this for now.

[Adrift]

I think you mis-state the "standard response". The response is not just that God is loving, but that the objective standard that "loving is good" is also a property of God. The fact that God is loving is not the same thing as the standard that loving is good. But both are eternal properties of God.

It's the same thing with the laws of logic. They are neither arbitrary commands of God, nor a standard existing eternally apart from God, but are an eternal property of God. The fact that God is non-contradictory is different than the property of God that requires that "no contradiction is possible".

So sure, we can say that God conforms to the objective standard of morality (as well as the immutable laws of logic), and thus God is good (or logical) because He conforms to that standard. But neither does the standard exist independently of God. Both exist eternally in God.

Yeah, this sort of scrambling to get around the answer to the dilemma comes up all the time. Here William Craig deals with it in his podcast some years back.

Source: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/euthyphro-argument-revisited

Kevin Harris: Let’s go to this audio clip. If any of our listeners are wondering what the Euthyphro Dilemma is, let me tell you that we’ve got several podcasts on it that you can reference[1] and you can find it in Dr. Craig’s work as well. Study the moral argument. Also, we are going to let this atheist debater kind of spell out what it is. This is Dr. Zachary Moore and it was in a debate on basically the moral argument. I believe the name of the debate was “Is God Good?” He here describes what the Euthyphro Dilemma is and he interacts with it. Let’s go to that clip now from Dr. Zachary Moore:

[Start clip]

Is God good because he creates the good or because he recognizes the good? Think about that. If he creates the good – if he decides what is good – then he can make anything good. He can make murder good if it was up to him. But if he just recognizes good then why do we need God? If there is this other standard of good that God is recognizing, then why aren’t we appealing to that as our objective standard and not God? Now, this dilemma has been challenged many times. Christian apologists have interacted with it, I’m sure you know them. The typical claim is that it is not that God creates the good or he recognizes the good, it is that he has this nature and this nature is necessarily good.[2] But you see, this doesn’t solve the problem. This just pushes the dilemma back one step. Because we can easily rephrase the dilemma like this – is God’s nature good because it creates the good or because it recognizes the good? And we are back in the same dilemma.

[End clip]

Kevin Harris: OK, now he claims that what you write about the third alternative that splits the horns of this dilemma is insufficient because it only pushes it back one step. Interact a little bit with that clip.

Dr. Craig: He does try to attack the third alternative that I lay out although he doesn’t state it quite accurately. The way he states it is “God has this nature which is necessarily good.” That is not exactly right. Rather, what the alternative is is “God is good because his nature is The Good.” His nature defines or determines what is The Good. So that doesn’t lead to this then further dilemma which he wants to erect that “Is God’s nature good because it creates The Good or because it recognizes The Good?” That question in a sense doesn’t even make sense. Natures don’t create anything or recognize anything. When you are talking about the nature of God you are talking about his essential properties. And the nature of God neither creates nor recognizes things at all so the whole question is just malformed.

Rather what we want to say is that God’s nature is The Good and that this simply determines what goodness is. Therefore, to say “why is God’s nature good?” or “does it create the good or recognize the good?” is to fail to understand the alternative. It is sort of like asking, “Is The Good, good because it creates The Good or because it recognizes The Good?” Well, neither one – The Good is good because it is The Good. It defines what is The Good. It is the standard. It simply makes no sense to ask this further question.

Kevin Harris: What it brings up then is “What is a nature?” and “What is God’s nature?”

Dr. Craig: Right. It tends to think of God’s nature as some sort of a personal thing itself that can create or recognize things. By God’s nature, what we mean are his essential attributes or properties. The whole concept here of the third alternative is that God’s nature is definitive of what is good.

So the atheist, I think, would face exactly the same dilemma. I would ask him, how does he halt the infinite regress? What is his ultimate standard of goodness and then you can ask the same question of that – is it good because it creates The Good or because it recognizes The Good? Well, I’m sure he would say neither one – it just is the good, it is the ultimate standard. That is exactly what theists say about the nature of God.

Kevin Harris: You are looking for a proper stopping point. It is possible to have a stopping point rather than an infinite regress.

Dr. Craig: Sure. Unless you are some sort of a moral nihilist, which I don’t think he is; he believes that there are objective values – right and wrong. So he as an atheist will face exactly the same question – what is your stopping point that is definitive of what is good and evil? It makes no sense to ask of that ultimate stopping point whether it creates The Good or recognizes The Good. Rather, it just is The Good.

The question then will be: is your ultimate stopping point a plausible stopping point? I think that for the theist we have a plausible stopping point in God because God is the metaphysical ultimate. There is nothing beyond God; nothing higher than God by definition. Moreover, God by definition is a being that is worthy of worship. And any being that is worthy of worship, I think, will be the paradigm of goodness. So by the very concept of God, this is a plausible stopping point. But any other stopping point based in some finite creature, like humanity or rational consciousness or something like that, there the stopping point seems arbitrary and we wonder why is that the stopping point? That question does seem to force itself upon us. Where with God I think you have a plausible stopping point for this regress that he wants to construct.

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