Animals Doing What Animals Do...

[Kelp(p)]

Oh. You're one of them.

NORM

Only occasionally.

[Truthseeker]

Some of the atheist posters seem to be using a definition of "objective" different from mine: I say a statement is objective if it remains meaningful and true absent every human being. A moral precept would be objective if God did exist and did command that. If there is no God, then how can any possible moral precept be objective? Now, if indeed an atheist did uphold a set of moral precepts as objective, then that may be God as far as the atheist is concerned. If that set is not the highest good, it's still part of what God commands, anyway.

I suspect that an atheist asserting that a set of "objective" moral precepts is true or good is self-refuting, as suggested above. What do you think?

[seer]

Is that right? Did they hold the view that harming other humans is unethical?

No, they held that ethics were relative. Which you must. And were the leaders of the Inquisition following the teachings of Christ?

[seer]

I think you might be confusing Enjolras' position with what seems to be the minority atheist position of Incompatibilism.

Actually no, I'm going by what I have been reading from scientific sources of late.

Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will, Scientists think they can prove that free will is an illusion. Philosophers are urging them to think again.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1108...l/477023a.html

[Enjolras]

No, they held that ethics were relative. Which you must.

Except that I don't, as you know.

And were the leaders of the Inquisition following the teachings of Christ?

They would hold to your view, just as you have put it:

my moral foundation is grounded in an immutable, perfectly good God. Which it both objective and authoritative, and transcends mere human opinion.

And just like the slavers and heretic burners, they defended their actions from the bible.

[Enjolras]

Some of the atheist posters seem to be using a definition of "objective" different from mine: I say a statement is objective if it remains meaningful and true absent every human being. A moral precept would be objective if God did exist and did command that. If there is no God, then how can any possible moral precept be objective? Now, if indeed an atheist did uphold a set of moral precepts as objective, then that may be God as far as the atheist is concerned. If that set is not the highest good, it's still part of what God commands, anyway.

I suspect that an atheist asserting that a set of "objective" moral precepts is true or good is self-refuting, as suggested above. What do you think?

Your definition is a bit idiosyncratic and question-begging. If something can only be objective if God exists, then naturally non-theistic systems are not objective. You are free to use whatever definition you please, of course, but you won't get far in advancing the conversation.

WL Craig uses a perfectly good definition: "to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether anybody believes it to be so." That's the one I've been using.

[Psychic Missile]

Some of the atheist posters seem to be using a definition of "objective" different from mine: I say a statement is objective if it remains meaningful and true absent every human being. A moral precept would be objective if God did exist and did command that. If there is no God, then how can any possible moral precept be objective? Now, if indeed an atheist did uphold a set of moral precepts as objective, then that may be God as far as the atheist is concerned. If that set is not the highest good, it's still part of what God commands, anyway.

I suspect that an atheist asserting that a set of "objective" moral precepts is true or good is self-refuting, as suggested above. What do you think?

Is a precept moral because God commands it, or does God command precepts because they are moral? If the former, than your definition of "objective" is God's subjective. If the latter, then those precepts need not be divine in origin.

[The Pixie]

All of us. Everybody who has ever thumbed their nose at God. Everybody who has refused to help their brother or sister in need. Every fat cat politician who pours more money into useless spending to appease their lobbyists than into schools and hospitals. Every idiot who votes them into office. Every corporate executive, every global warming denier. You, me, Adolf Eichmann, and Neville Chamberlain. We get the world moral world that our actions create. We are all sinners of whom I am chief.

You are deliberately picking bad people here. What about new born babies? What about charity volunteer workers? Are they also responsible for Jesus' temporary death?

It's not the fruit, but the disobedience. Adam was told straight up not to eat and that he would die if he did so. He listened to the lies of the serpent he'd never seen over God whom he had no reason to distrust. Then instead of owning up like he had balls, he tried to pin the blame on his wife.

First, he had no reason distrust the serpent either.

Second, the serpent did not lie. The serpent said Adam and Eve would not die the day they ate the fruit, and this proved to be true.

Third, we are talking about two people who were unable to tell right from wrong, which means they were not moral agents when they decided to eat the fruit.

Not that I take the story literally at all, but the lesson it teaches is clear. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

While I agree there is a lot of misery that is man-made, there is also a lot that is not.

And remember, this is about why Jesus had to get nailed to the cross.

And to anticipate your next argument regarding natural evil: to summarize my arguments from the current thread on the topic-

1. The natural world would be vastly different without bacteria that can also cause harm to humans, predation and anti-predatory defenses, volcanism, tectonic activity and all the other things that cause human suffering. The onus is on the skeptic to show that a natural world that could not possibly harm humanity could even evolve it in the first place, much less be half as fascinating a world to live in. Omnipotence does not mean that God can make a square circle.

Do you believe in heaven?

If you do, then you believe God can create a place where people can be happy, presumably without bacteria, tectonic plates, etc. Omnipotence certainly does mean he can do it twice.

2. The miracles of Christ show us a glimpse of a world in which morally perfect humans would have had command over nature and death. So, yes, it really is our fault as a species that babies die of cancer.

Are you saying that if we were without sin we would be able to perform miracles like Jesus supposedly did? And that would stop earthquakes? Can babies do this, before they sin?

The Incarnation is the crowning achievement of God's activity on earth. It is the "marriage" of Creator and creation on the most intimate level possible. Christ would have become man even in a world where no human ever sinned.

To quote the Easter Troparion of the Orthodox Chruch, "Christ is risen from the dead/Trampling down death by death/and on those in the tombs bestowing life"
Since we could not do so ourselves, Christ came to earth in order to draw all of what we are into Himself. He was born, He grew and studied, He suffered the ordinary aches and pains and temptations that we all do, He had friends and family, He ate and slept and relieved His bowls, He had a job, He went to synagogue, He experienced the hatred and unjust treatment of others, and He died a brutal death- experiencing the wrath of humanity at some of its most depraved in history. And finally, He rose from the dead, transcending the most common of all human experiences.

So, yes, Christ was a sacrifice, but only metaphorically. The Jewish Temple cultus was only ever a type and shadow of the death that God the Son would die- not to meet some legal blood sacrifice ordinance, but to conquer death in Himself. To quote St. Gregory the Theologian, "He was a ransom for us to death itself."

But death has the same hold on us after the crucifixion as it did before.

[The Pixie]

No, that is exactly what you are saying. If there is no God, then we decide what it right or wrong. Period. And if the majority says that A is good and B is bad then that is all there is. Morality by majority.

So you are ignoring everything I have argued up to now, and telling me actually I mean something else.

Again, a non answer. Even if I agree with you, that does not get us anywhere - we are still right back to morality by majority. Most people believe that A is bad - therefore A must be bad. It is a non sequitur.

That straw man again.

But there is no "right thing." There is only opinion. Let me again bring up this point - we live in a purposeless, meaningless, amoral universe. We are, in essence, biological accidents living on an inconsequential planet - yet somehow our moral choices have real significance. Nonsense...

It is not inconsequential to us.

The bit you are missing is that humans have inherent worth. At least in an atheist worldview.

[seer]

Except that I don't, as you know.

Yes, but you have yet to show how ethics can be anything but relative. Just asserting it is not an argument.

And just like the slavers and heretic burners, they defended their actions from the bible.

Like I asked - what teachings of Christ were leaders of the Inquisition following? Remember Enjolras, I'm a Christian, we get out moral marching orders from the New Testament. But again, the bottom line, if there is no God our sense of justice, love, goodness are the accidental by product of the evolutionary process - we just happened to develop and think this way. If I am right our sense of sense of justice, love and goodness are grounded in that which is eternal, transcendent and perfectly good.

[seer]

So you are ignoring everything I have argued up to now, and telling me actually I mean something else.

No Pixie, you are the one who keeps using the term "most people." That is morality by majority. You have nothing else.

The bit you are missing is that humans have inherent worth. At least in an atheist worldview.

How do human beings have any more inherent worth than a common housefly? Base on what - your assertion? And whose atheist worldview are you speaking of - the Maoists the Stalinists the North Korean's?

[seer]

Is a precept moral because God commands it, or does God command precepts because they are moral? If the former, than your definition of "objective" is God's subjective. If the latter, then those precepts need not be divine in origin.

Well yes, they are subjective to God, grounded in His perfect, immutable moral character. But they are objective to us and authoritative.

[Kelp(p)]

It is not inconsequential to us.

The bit you are missing is that humans have inherent worth. At least in an atheist worldview.

Depends on what you mean by "inherent." A nihilist like Camus would say that worth is just a practical fiction that we all have to subjectively develop to keep us from committing suicide.

[The Pixie]

No Pixie, you are the one who keeps using the term "most people." That is morality by majority. You have nothing else.

I use the term to indicate that your morality is well outside the norm, not to support that morality.

Murder is intrinsically wrong. Most people understand that.

See the difference?

How do human beings have any more inherent worth than a common housefly?

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

[Psychic Missile]

Well yes, they are subjective to God, grounded in His perfect, immutable moral character. But they are objective to us and authoritative.

The Christian God's moral character is immutable? Are we still supposed to stone people for breaking the Sabbath? The quality of a person's (or entity's) judgment doesn't change their subjective ideas into objective ideas unless they are discovering those objective ideas as universal properties.