Is There Something Wrong In The World?

[seer]

If you were to program a robot to take random actions, in any situation that had a morally good option and a morally bad one, it would make the morally good choice 50% of the time.

I observe that humans in general tend to take the morally good choice in such situations 99%+ of the time.

Therefore no 'tendency to evil' exists, it's a 'tendency to good' that exists. If your theology teaches that humans have a tendency to evil, then your theology is outright empirically false.

Good grief man! What or who is defining what is morally good or not? The greatest moral wickedness is not loving God with all your heart or not loving your neighbor as yourself. We all fail drastically on both counts. And I could go down the list.

[Starlight]

That all depends on your definition of what is "morally good" Starlight.

I disagree. You can use Christian morality if you like.

How often does the average person pay for what they buy rather than steal it? Of the hundred or so items your family purchases weekly, how many are paid for rather than stolen? Presumably 99%+.

When walking down the street and meeting strangers, how often do you politely say "hi" rather than murdering them? Presumably 99%+.

If that is the case then you have led an incredibly lucky life. Outside of a small group of close friends my experience has been the opposite with 99% or greater people choosing to treat each other terribly. Even within my own family there is quite a bit skewed towards the wrong end.

I don't think you're thinking it through properly. Consider each and every incident, each and every interaction as its own separate moral choice. Don't just say "my gut says they treat each other 'terribly'" because you can think of a few anecdotes of bad behavior that loom large in your mind. Rather consider every single decision no matter how small where they had even the smallest interaction with others and made the smallest moral choices. All those times they didn't murder each other, all those times they weren't stealing, weren't committing adultery, weren't physically attacking another person. You might personally feel like the times when they did bad things were bad, but time-wise the incidents that loom large to you would be only seconds or minutes of their lives, and the rest of the time they weren't doing those things.

If you were to program a robot that had a 50% chance every minute of trying to commit murder, or trying to steal, or trying to physically attack someone, you'd notice extremely rapidly that the people you describe as 'skewed towards the wrong end' are saints by comparison, and compared to the random robot are actually hugely skewed toward doing good to others.

[Starlight]

either there are universal moral truths that are enforceable and binding or there are not.

Well that is a way of describing it a bit different to your normal way. I would say that clearly, empirically speaking, there definitely aren't ones that are enforceable and binding in the sense that it is an obvious fact that a person can commit murder without immediately having the morality police magically appear and take him away. When a wrong is committed, there's no major physical enforcement.

If you handwavingly mean a post-death judgement, then once again I would point out to you that almost no form of Christianity actually teaches an equitable judgement of humanity in the afterlife for their actions, because the whole point of the gospel in most versions of Christianity is that Christ took on himself the judgement humanity deserved and that therefore humans don't suffer it.

So Christianity is precisely about morally deserved judgement not being enforced on us. Therefore it's deeply deceptive of you to pretend in these discussions that Christianity offers moral enforcement. It does precisely the opposite.

So your own religion fails on precisely the principle on which you are fraudulently trying to laud its imagined superiority.

[Cerebrum123]

I disagree. You can use Christian morality if you like.

How often does the average person pay for what they buy rather than steal it? Of the hundred or so items your family purchases weekly, how many are paid for rather than stolen? Presumably 99%+.

When walking down the street and meeting strangers, how often do you politely say "hi" rather than murdering them? Presumably 99%+.


I don't think you're thinking it through properly. Consider each and every incident, each and every interaction as its own separate moral choice. Don't just say "my gut says they treat each other 'terribly'" because you can think of a few anecdotes of bad behavior that loom large in your mind. Rather consider every single decision no matter how small where they had even the smallest interaction with others and made the smallest moral choices. All those times they didn't murder each other, all those times they weren't stealing, weren't committing adultery, weren't physically attacking another person. You might personally feel like the times when they did bad things were bad, but time-wise the incidents that loom large to you would be only seconds or minutes of their lives, and the rest of the time they weren't doing those things.

Being beaten down mentally and physically for much of my life I still have to disagree even when you try and restate your position with more detail. For all of the people who were nice, there were more who were not, and the rest just ignored things even when they saw how bad it was. It wasn't just a handful of kids in my school years, but teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. who all joined in on doing terrible things to either me, my family, or my friends. This was on a daily basis for a large portion of my life.

For years I thought that it must be my fault somehow that many if not most treated me badly. Having a bunch of different people gaslight you can really twist how you perceive things. Only after I was able to get away from constantly being under some form of attack, for no discernable reason* I might add, was I able to start seeing things for how they really were. Not that I was perfect, or did no wrong, but I wasn't doing anything that should have attracted that amount of attacks.

You also seem to be unaware of the Milgram Experiment. More recent attempts at testing this capacity of people to hurt others have nearly as bad, or even worse results than Milgram's.

If you were to program a robot that had a 50% chance every minute of trying to commit murder, or trying to steal, or trying to physically attack someone, you'd notice extremely rapidly that the people you describe as 'skewed towards the wrong end' are saints by comparison, and compared to the random robot are actually hugely skewed toward doing good to others.

That's a really, really low bar you set with those robots. Even then there I some I encountered who would make those robots seem like saints. I was stuck around way too many people who thrived on making other people miserable.

I stand my statement that you must have led a very lucky life to see the vast majority of people as good greater than 99% of the time.

*I will admit there were some things that admittedly deserved a negative response, but those are few and far between.

[seer]

I disagree. You can use Christian morality if you like.

How often does the average person pay for what they buy rather than steal it? Of the hundred or so items your family purchases weekly, how many are paid for rather than stolen? Presumably 99%+.

When walking down the street and meeting strangers, how often do you politely say "hi" rather than murdering them? Presumably 99%+.

Star, you don't get to tell the Christian which standard he must use. And by our standard all men fall short. So by our worldview original sin is evident. Rebellion against God is the most serious of all moral wrongs...

[seer]

Well that is a way of describing it a bit different to your normal way. I would say that clearly, empirically speaking, there definitely aren't ones that are enforceable and binding in the sense that it is an obvious fact that a person can commit murder without immediately having the morality police magically appear and take him away. When a wrong is committed, there's no major physical enforcement.

If you handwavingly mean a post-death judgement, then once again I would point out to you that almost no form of Christianity actually teaches an equitable judgement of humanity in the afterlife for their actions, because the whole point of the gospel in most versions of Christianity is that Christ took on himself the judgement humanity deserved and that therefore humans don't suffer it.

There you go again! Who decides what it equitable? If God's sense of justice is satisfied on what basis do we object? And as I also said in the past all men are judged for their behavior, even Christians - there are degrees of rewards (or lack thereof) for us too the after life. Just as I don't believe the average unbeliever would face the same severe punishment as a Stalin or Hitler. The larger point is that we do live moral universe rather than an amoral universe. The problem is Star you know that moral relativism is ethically untenable (good on you) that is why you are grasping at theories like moral realism but you can't get to universal moral truths apart from theism.

So Christianity is precisely about morally deserved judgement not being enforced on us. Therefore it's deeply deceptive of you to pretend in these discussions that Christianity offers moral enforcement. It does precisely the opposite.

There are two sides to justice in the Christian sense as I have stated in the past, One being punishment for the rebel - the severity of which depending on the degree of sin(s). And rewards or lack up for the saved man. The other aspect of justice is the bad man being made good through repentance and genuine sorrow. Now you may not agree with any of this, but why would that matter? Really?

[Sparko]

I disagree. You can use Christian morality if you like.

How often does the average person pay for what they buy rather than steal it? Of the hundred or so items your family purchases weekly, how many are paid for rather than stolen? Presumably 99%+.

When walking down the street and meeting strangers, how often do you politely say "hi" rather than murdering them? Presumably 99%+.

But are they doing so out of innate altruism or fear of punishment from the law? Just look at all of the riots, destruction and looting that went on last year when people thought they could get away with it. Or after a natural disaster when many start looting rather than helping their fellow man.

But you are also choosing what you consider to be good or at least neutral while ignoring what a Christian might call bad. Like say sex outside of marriage. Or homosexuality. Or lying.

Everyone does things that they know are bad, but excuse as necessary, or not "that bad" or even try to convince themselves is "good."