The Absoluteness of God's Law. (atheism, faith, contradiction, evolution)

[LogicIsYourFriend]

Originally Posted by c'est la vie

You are appealing to absolutes, LIYF.

Why should anyone accept the Golden Rule as authoritative? What if it is more important to them to get what they want at the moment?

I never said it was absolute. If it was, everyone would have the same morality. But we do have tendencies, which are culturally and genetically inherited. Empathy, emotions.. Evolution has amplified these, or else we would have died a long time ago for lack of social cohesiveness. Why do mother gorillas care for their young?

I want people to follow the golden rule because it benefits society, and that in turn benefits me. I don't want to be a victim of a "murder is legal" society, for instance. But looking at our society, hardly anyone strictly follows the golden rule, and many people do follow what benefits them regardless of collateral damage.

[AREQUIPA]

Originally Posted by c'est la vie

You are appealing to absolutes, LIYF.

Why should anyone accept the Golden Rule as authoritative? What if it is more important to them to get what they want at the moment?

You really don't understand anything. The golden Rule isn't authoritative, It is not even a concensus, though I think (in a modified form) it should be
because it encapsulates tolerance which reason tells us is the best way to give everybody a fair crack. You are still thinking in terms of some god - given rule that will act like a magic wand. Ain't gonna happen fella.

It's obvious that people have an evolutionary instinct to be selfish. We have a rational golden rule to counter that. What if people don't abide by it? Then we go on as we are. Secular morality doesn't claim to have divine power. We have to keep talikng reasoning and encouraging people to see that reasoned tolerant concensus is the only answer in the end.

It won't be easy. People prefer to listen to their instincts.

"You really don't understand anything."

No, no, sorry. It's a bit late and I'm getting impatient. Maybe you do understand and are just getting us to explain our ideas, as we should of course. Explaining is the only way to re-examine ideas.Otherwise one thinks they are ok when maybe they are not.

[c'est la vie]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Jesus, don't you understand anything?
You should be able to see it yourself. The slaves didn't want it done to them. That is the only thing that is near to an absolute. It is an instinct. We all have it. It is one of the the only things we can use as a basis that isn't concensus. Slavery was, borne out of convenience, tradition and need to make profit and supported from Bible writ if needed.

Others opposed it using other Bible arguments. mainly that blacks had converted to christianity so they must be saved, right? So they must have souls to be saved so...etc. up to the Other concensus, that people with souls should not be slaves.

Of course, 'what we want' is our evolutionary basic but we can think. We can see that sometime what we want conflicts with what others want. It might be argued that, if we're strong enough, who cares what they want. 'Might is right' is tempting. The superman ethic appeals to those who assume, of course, they will be the supermen.

However, we should know by now that there is going to someone out there who is going to have what he wants even if we don't like it.
Theus we have got to moderate what our instincts are if we are going to survive. We can be tolerant of 'other' concensus'. We can try to persuade if we don't approve, but in the end it's their concensus.

Either morals are the product of societal consensus.......

........or they are not.

You seem to want to have it both ways.

[AREQUIPA]

Morals are the product of social concensus. If one is looking for a basis on which we all seem to agree, the evolutionary preference - instincts, evaluated to see whether they are helpful to our co-existing together or not are the only one that answer.

They are, to survive and to have a fair chance in life.

[mzjamiedawn]

Originally Posted by ovcatto

This seems to be a recurring theme amongst some theist, God's law is immutable. Well, if that were the case, why must God's law be interpreted through ministers, imans, rabbis, or priests? Why do theist reshape those laws over time, rejecting some and holding on to others?

Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend

But why does God rely on fallible people to proclaim his absolute law, when it is obvious there will be mistakes in translation?

No person should rely on a minister, rabbi, priest, or whomever. They should read and study the Bible for themselves. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".

[cleatis]

Originally Posted by c'est la vie

Secularists default to moral absolutes in spite of themselves.

It's very easy to find a point at which they do.

As soon as they say 'That (behavior or action) is wrong. And it doesn't matter if the whole world thinks it's ok, it's still wrong' , they've appealed to a moral absolute.

The things about absilutes is that they have their place and unfortunately they are over used.

There are indeed absolutes that we can apply every day, we simply assume that too many things can be absolute, or place absolutes in the improper place of reference.

But something does not necessarily have to be an absolute if it is ethically wrong. The problem with generally western ideology is that it applies right and wrong on an absolute scale somewhat like good and evil. We tend to forget that some little bits of good always come from the worst things. It doesn't always compensate for the damage of the bad however.

It's not so easy to assign absolute right and wrong. It's most likely absolutely wrong to shoot someone for simply walking down the street, but not so wrong to shoot them if they are breaking into your home. But some however would see it as taking a life over material belonging is wrong, so maybe it was wrong to shoot them after all. Maybe it was neither right or wrong and maybe it was both. Or maybe, it just seemed like the best solution available at the time. Many things break down to be generally right or wrong because choices are usually a set of trade offs.

The problem with absolutes is that humans simply are not absolute in nature. Right and wrong are essentially theories, or a set of ideals. And at some point it all breaks down to arbitrary actions and the repercussions of of actions from flawed human nature.

[cleatis]

Originally Posted by c'est la vie

Either morals are the product of societal consensus.......

........or they are not.

You seem to want to have it both ways.

This is essentially asking whether or not morals are absulute. If morals are absolute, again, they will have few realistic applications, very few. In this case it would most likely that the vast majority of things are misunderstood, or mislabeled as being a moral when they in fact have no absolute status.

[LogicIsYourFriend]

Originally Posted by mzjamiedawn

No person should rely on a minister, rabbi, priest, or whomever. They should read and study the Bible for themselves. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".

But, studying the bible IS relying on people to tell you what God allegedly wants you to know. People wrote the bible, remember?

[mzjamiedawn]

Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend

But, studying the bible IS relying on people to tell you what God allegedly wants you to know. People wrote the bible, remember?

Inspiration. We'll never agree.

[LogicIsYourFriend]

Originally Posted by mzjamiedawn

Inspiration. We'll never agree.

And how do you know the people who wrote the bible were "inspired," (nevermind the inconsistencies and contradictions) but the ministers, rabbis and priests are not "inspired"? What's the difference? Chronological separation?