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I wish I could find where I posted it... I think it was on the Christianity forum approximately a week before this thread started... anyway I can't remember if I said "I hope it doesn't..." or if I said "This is going to turn into..." but basically I was referring to the fact that some people are going to view the Colorado shooter as an act of his faith or lack thereof, and people are going to take the mall shooting/Finland shooter as atheists acting upon their atheism. I don't think that their faith's really had much at all to do with what they did.
MRiedl, we are talking about OBJECTIVE moral values. Things like rape and murder. Things we know are wrong whether we were taught them or not.
For example, even if Germany won WWII and went on with the slaughtering of Jews, this does not make it right. Sure, there were more incidents in history like this, but that did not make them right and nor did they last forever.
Do you agree that murder and rape of a little child are objectively wrong?
I like what Christopher Hitchens brought up in a debate. I think it was the one with Al Sharpton. He said something to the effect of "I highly doubt that all the time wandering in the desert, that the Jews on their mass exodus had no idea that raping, murdering, and coveting were sins prior to god giving Moses the Ten Commandments."
one has to consider that humans are essentially another another animal. we of course form societies because the physically stronger of us would weed out the physically weaker of us. pretty much the main foundation of any society is security of citizens therein.
in nature, rape, murder, pedophilia and the like are no problem, and if it is, fight to the death... the winner is right.
things like incest taboo exist in much of the animal world. and i hate to sound harsh or abrasive, but in much of the very religious areas, the gene pool can be pretty shallow, showing that religion and it's so called morals don't have a problem with incest either.
the only real reason that we don't kill rape and whatnot is because it is a society taboo in pretty much any society, cause like i said the society will fail.
what would the world be like without morals? like caveman life. by and large, morals only exist when a society first exists.
Mr. Eidi,
Thanks for your comments. I thikn the bigger issue right now is whether you believe that objective moral values exist. You don't think they do. I, on the other hand, believe that objective moral values exist. When we say objective moral values, we are talking about things that we know to be right and wrong, regardless of whether one believe it's true or not. Things like raping a baby, torturing an innocent old man, and the like.
Most atheists say that we don’t really need moral accountability, to have sound moral foundations. Atheists believe each person should just try to develop his virtues in order to be happy.
Is this your main viewpoint? I'm trying to get a handle on what it is you are saying.
I'll address your other question, but it's just a red herring right now. I want to be sure I understand where you're going with the main premise of this thread.
I like what Christopher Hitchens brought up in a debate. I think it was the one with Al Sharpton. He said something to the effect of "I highly doubt that all the time wandering in the desert, that the Jews on their mass exodus had no idea that raping, murdering, and coveting were sins prior to god giving Moses the Ten Commandments."
They were the children of Abraham and had a moral tradition that while not as explicit as the mosaic law, still came from the same God according to the scriptural account.
I assume you are referring to me with this one. My account name is MRiedl. It is my first initial and last name, ending in an L. I just figured I would clarify.
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Thanks for your comments. I thikn the bigger issue right now is whether you believe that objective moral values exist. You don't think they do. I, on the other hand, believe that objective moral values exist. When we say objective moral values, we are talking about things that we know to be right and wrong, regardless of whether one believe it's true or not.
I think you'll have to clarify a bit here. What exactly are you referring to when you say:
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...we are talking about things that we know to be right and wrong, regardless of whether one believe it's true or not...
Regardless of whether we believe what is true or not?
I guess I just don't understand what you are trying to ask. You asked something very similar the last time though, so I will try to restate my position on this more clearly.
I don't believe in objective morality. What people often consider objective morality is, I think, just common ground between different subjective moral systems. As to the origin of it, I can't say specifically. In many cases I imagine it is simple pragmatic common sense. Someone who does harm without cause is a threat to people as a whole, and as a result they will shun such an individual. Even animals will shun one of their own who breaks the rules of their simple societies. It is simple survival behavior in that case in the form of collective self protection. It is no great surprise that humans have similar rules with similar survival oriented purposes.
As to the question of whether people will believe things of that nature whether taught so or not, I honestly haven't the slightest idea. As far as I know there haven't been any studies of humans growing up outside of a society which teaches them a set of rules.
I honestly doubt though that such morality is very strong though, as throughout our history as a species, we have had radically different concepts of what constitutes things like innocence and guilt and what behavior is inappropriate and which is not. For example, our conception of what constitutes murder is very different than what ancient cultures considered murder.
From my perspective, I find the concept of the murder of a slave to be just as abhorrant as the murder of anyone else. For that matter, I view slavery in general as being immoral in the extreme.
For some in the past though, it was a simple civil matter which could be solved by a matter of a few coins.
In modern society we view rape as being a brutal form of assault in most instances. In ancient societies, it was viewed more as property damage.
For someone to kidnap a woman and force her to become his wife in modern times is something most cultures view as evil. In biblical times, it was just another way of getting a wife.
Another good example is genocide. In ancient times it was commonplace. Now, we view it as one of the most extreme evils imaginable.
The point I am trying to get at is simple. If there is some sort of objective morality, it must be easily overrided by the subjective morality of various cultures. Why? Because different cultures have had wildly different views on the morality of most any sort of action you want to assign a moral value to, oftentimes with completely opposite views. About the only common threads you will see will be very simple and pragmatic concepts which aid in survival.
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Most atheists say that we don’t really need moral accountability, to have sound moral foundations. Atheists believe each person should just try to develop his virtues in order to be happy.
Is this your main viewpoint? I'm trying to get a handle on what it is you are saying.
Not in the least. I don't think there are many Atheists or people in general who make the claim that some form of moral accountability isn't necessary for moral foundations.
People need some form of boundaries. Without such, it is impossible to teach why right and wrong matter in the first place, and for that matter what they are.
It is part of human nature to try to get ahead after all, and there has to be a level of enforcement in order to learn. To use an example of this, consider a child trying to learn to do multiplication problems.
Now, the incentive for him to learn comes from positive and negative reinforcement:
1. Negative reinforcement such as being denied access to TV or dessert, or being reprimanded by his parents.
2. Positive reinforcement such as gaining approval from parents, teachers, etc.
If none of these are put into play and the child is given no incentive to learn, then the consequence of not being able to do multiplication problems is an automatic negative which at a bare minimum is a lost skill which will put him at a disadvantage against anyone who can do it.
The same sort of thing is needed for morality. We have to learn what is and is not acceptable behavior in the same way.
I am not sure that anyone ever fully breaks away from the postive and negative reinforcement. We can look beyond it to a degree and for example do what we believe is right for its own sake or for the collective good. In the end though I imagine that one still has to be chalked up to positive reinforcement, even if it is all in the individuals head.
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I'll address your other question, but it's just a red herring right now. I want to be sure I understand where you're going with the main premise of this thread.
Going off on a related tangent is nothing new to this discussion.
Still, I think it is something worth exploration. I have created a brand new thread just for its discussion. It can't be a red herring if it is the subject after all, and we won't have to worry about derailing the thread.
Sorry for not getting your name right. I've been so busy lately I apologize I haven't kept up with this thread. For now, let me address the heart of this thread. If you don't mind, I'll answer your other questions after Christmas.
About Objective Moral Values -- To say that objective moral values exist is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. For example, Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good. It would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.
Objective moral values exist, therefore God exists. If God exists, then there is meaning forl life and a moral sense of duty. The atheist kid in Finland did not think God existed.
An aetheist (J.L. Mackie of Oxford University) said:
""If . . . there are . . . objective values, they make the existence of a God more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a God."
Nonetheless, do you agree that objective moral values exist? You said NO. Then, why do you condemn the Finland shooting? At this point, it won't matter if one is a saint or a Stalin.
Merry Christmas my friends. Have a good Holiday. Talk to you in 2008.
Sorry for not getting your name right. I've been so busy lately I apologize I haven't kept up with this thread.
It's no problem. You just seemed to be struggling with it.
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About Objective Moral Values -- To say that objective moral values exist is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so.
Do you have any evidence that such a thing exists outside of human thought?
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For example, Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good. It would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.
It would be wrong to everyone who disagreed with them, but by their own standards they would see nothing wrong with it I imagine. You and I may both find it morally objectionable from our perspectives, but pointing out conflicting moral standpoints is only evidence of conflicting moral standpoints.
You can assert your position on the matter a thousand times if you like, but unless there is in fact some sort of actual objective morality in existance the statements are meaningless. Since the main point of disagreement here is on whether or not objective morality exists, making arguments that require prior belief in objective morality are far from convincing.
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Objective moral values exist, therefore God exists. If God exists, then there is meaning forl life and a moral sense of duty.
You can make the claim that objective morality exists all you like, but just saying so is far from a convincing argument.
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The atheist kid in Finland did not think God existed.
So what? I don't either. A lot of people don't.
As we have already established that most atheists are just as moral as anyone else:
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Originally Posted by TexasNick
I AM NOT SAYING that we must believe in God in order to live moral lives.
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An aetheist (J.L. Mackie of Oxford University) said:
""If . . . there are . . . objective values, they make the existence of a God more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a God."
I am guessing you copied this directly from the same apologetics article I found when I googled it. There is one very important word in that quote. It is, in fact the first word:
If
Mackie didn't believe in objective morality any more than I do:
"It is easy to explain this moral sense as a natural product of biological and social evolution." - J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)
Mackie was most well known for his contributions to the fields of meta-ethics, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics ... He conjoined moral skepticism with error theory in semantics, holding that moral judgments, while cognitive, are all false since there are no moral facts.
Regardless, the argument you've put forward is circular reasoning with a hidden premise, which has to be assumed in order for the argument to work.
Circular arguments are considered a logical fallacy because they are worthless since the premise is the same as the conclusion. In other words you have to already agree with the conclusion in order to reach the conclusion:
Nonetheless, do you agree that objective moral values exist? You said NO. Then, why do you condemn the Finland shooting? At this point, it won't matter if one is a saint or a Stalin.
I condemn the shooting because it is against my subjective moral stance, as well as for the simple practical purpose of realizing that such behavior is destructive.
It does, actually, matter whether we are moral or immoral in our day to day lives. Sure, people like me don't believe there is some eternal reward/punishment involved, but there are real world consequences that have impact on our lives.
Just because we don't believe there is something after this life doesn't mean we don't value our brief existances. Indeed, I think life and quality of life take on more value for being fleeting.
Do you have any evidence that such a thing exists outside of human thought?
Right, but then we might as well deny the objective reality of the physical world, no?
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It would be wrong to everyone who disagreed with them, but by their own standards they would see nothing wrong with it I imagine. You and I may both find it morally objectionable from our perspectives, but pointing out conflicting moral standpoints is only evidence of conflicting moral standpoints.
And so, the entire world believed the world was flat. Does that make it right? No. What you are pointing out is the difference between beliefs and truths. Either there is life on Mars, or there is not. Only one is true.
I would also encourage you to read "Morality After Auschwitz; The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic" by Peter Haas. Haas seeks to understand how an entire society, not just Nazi party members, willingly participated in a state sponsored program of mass torture and genocide for over a decade without serious opposition from political, legal, medical or even religious leaders. According to Haas, far from being contemptuous of ethics, the perpetrators acted in strict conformity with an ethic which held that, however difficult and unpleasant the task may have been, mass extermination of the Jews and Gypsies were entirely justified." He goes on further to state, "The Holocaust as a sustained effort was possible only because a new ethic was in place that did not define the arrest and deportation of Jews as wrong and in fact defined it as ethically tolerable and ever good."
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You can assert your position on the matter a thousand times if you like, but unless there is in fact some sort of actual objective morality in existance the statements are meaningless. Since the main point of disagreement here is on whether or not objective morality exists, making arguments that require prior belief in objective morality are far from convincing."
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"It is easy to explain this moral sense as a natural product of biological and social evolution." - J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)
Right, he denies objective morals exist. He also believes it's a product of biological and social evolution. But the problem for he and you is that objective morals do exist and we all know it. As stated above, there's no more reason to deny this existance than the extistance of the physical world. Actions like rape, torture, and child abuse aren't just socially unacceptable behavior—they're moral abominations. If you think this is a product of naturalism, then you are mistaken just as much as me saying 1 + 1 = 3. Objectively, we also know that things like love, equality and self-sacrifice are good. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. But, objective moral values do exist, therefore, God exists.
To answer your other question, I believe God is the ground of our morality (this is what you were asking earlier). If you want to get into scripture, The Bible also says that God embeds moral code in us at birth.
Right, but then we might as well deny the objective reality of the physical world, no?
And so, the entire world believed the world was flat. Does that make it right? No. What you are pointing out is the difference between beliefs and truths. Either there is life on Mars, or there is not. Only one is true.
The thing is, repeatedly asserting that objective morality is in the same league as physical reality as we know it is not the same thing as proving it.
Most people believe in a physical reality simply because it is the best explanation we can come up with. In the end, all we have to go by is our perception though. People have come up with other explanations for those perceptions, but given the nature of the evidence involved being entirely perceptual, no one is really any better founded than anyone else. Still, we accept what we will on this one, and I think the vast majority simply trust to their senses and exercise Occam's razor to remove any superfluous explanations we don't have evidence of.
The belief that the earth is flat is a far better example. Simply put, we stopped believing in a flat earth because the evidence pointed to a spherical earth. This is in fact a very good example, because it doesn't matter how many people believe that objective morality exists. What matters is what sort of evidence we can put to the test. Sadly, in cases like this where we are dealing with something that exists only in our thoughts we are faced with the age old problems of not being able to prove a negative.
That's why we have burden of proof(see previous post.)
There is overwhelming evidence suggesting the existance of the physical world. There is nowhere near the same amount of evidence in favor of the existance of objective morality.
The best you have put forth so far is pointing out a few examples that most of the people in the developed world find objectionable, and then declaring that objective morality exists.
The same evidence is just as compatable with subjective morality though. Your arguments in this area would be far more convincing if there were indeed a core morality which runs through the vast majority of the laws of our species, past and present. There really is very little of that though, and most of that is easily explained by simple practicality being a useful quality in lawmaking.
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But the problem for he and you is that objective morals do exist and we all know it.
Hardly.
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As stated above, there's no more reason to deny this existance than the extistance of the physical world. Actions like rape, torture, and child abuse aren't just socially unacceptable behavior—they're moral abominations. If you think this is a product of naturalism, then you are mistaken just as much as me saying 1 + 1 = 3. Objectively, we also know that things like love, equality and self-sacrifice are good. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. But, objective moral values do exist, therefore, God exists.
Once again you are simply repeating yourself. You've been declaring that objective morality exists since we started and citing claims of behavior that most societies now consider abominable as evidence.
This is not very convincing. Why? Because the area of overlap has historically been very small.
You mention rape for an example. Well, as I have mentioned before, these days most developed nations consider it a form of assault.
But you needn't search hard to find a different view of the matter:
In ancient times rape was largely looked upon as nothing more severe than property damage.
I'll present some evidence:
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Throughout the history of criminal justice, evolving forms of punishment, added rights for offenders and victims, and policing reforms have reflected changing customs, political ideals, and economic conditions.
The Ten Abominations (十惡) were a list of offenses under traditional Chinese law which were regarded as the most abhorrent, and which threatened the well-being of civilized society. They are listed below. The first three were capital offences:
How about homosexuality? Some nations even now still consider it a capital offense, while it is legal and socially acceptable in much of the developed world:
Even things as basic as murder have been treated differently by different civilizations.
For some, murder was a legal way to better your fortunes:
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Professional duelists used holmgangs as a form of legalized robbery; they could claim rights to land, women, or property, and then prove their claims in the duel at the expense of the legitimate owner. Many sagas describe berserks who abused holmgang in this way.
Sometimes it was considered something for the family to deal with:
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For the most part, crime was viewed as a private matter in Ancient Greece and Rome. Even with offenses as serious as murder, justice was the prerogative of the victim's family.
And now most of the developed world frowns on vigilante justice.
Sometimes, killing the other guy was just a way to settle major disputes:
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Trial by combat (also wager of battle, or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession, in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it is a judicially-sanctioned duel.
Most people now don't look at that sort of thing as justice.
For that matter, dueling in general was often condoned as a method of settling disputes, and not even considered a crime in some cases.
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Indeed, duels were often illegal, though in most societies where dueling was socially accepted, participants in a fair duel were not prosecuted, or if they were, were not convicted.
You look at any of these from the perspective of most people in the developed world and you get a similar view. You look at it from the perspective of people who lived by these laws and you get an entirely different view.
You can claim that they are violating a set of objective morals which they have and yet choose to ignore, but I don't find such declarations very convincing.
Fact of the matter is none of us really know if the other guy believes what he says when he claims the moral high ground. Still, given the massive amount of variance on human views on even the most basic matters, I tend to imagine most people aren't lying about it.
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To answer your other question, I believe God is the ground of our morality (this is what you were asking earlier). If you want to get into scripture, The Bible also says that God embeds moral code in us at birth.
Sounds like fun. How about a little humor to get us started?
Throughout the course of this discussion you have made repeated examples of many of the same acts here. Genocide by the Nazis, murder of children, and rape being three that have come up repeatedly now.
You've used them as examples of what you believe to be objectively immoral acts which everyone has always known to be utterly wrong.
I am curious how you rationalize this sort of thing with those beliefs.
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