Sure, I should have clarified the differentiation I was making. The father or parent doesn't change (or shouldn't) in the sense of who he is as a parent. But of course the example is limited because the father in that example is human and is of course "changing" and growing too. I like how you relate it to your own experience with your daughter though. Some of the deepest mysteries of who God is sometimes can only be understood in the context of the family/relationships we have here. I think that's how God intended to reveal Himself....
So, to answer my objection that all you did was cherry pick verses out of context without trying to understand the historical situation, you cherry pick more verses? I disagree that you have to cherry pick. I believe understanding the historical context is key to understanding what the author was trying to convey, as well as the situation. But if you want to isolate more verses from the Bible to "prove" how immoral the God of the Bible is, then go right ahead.
So it is now the job of the objector to say how else objective morality could have arisen. If there is no other way, then premise one stands. It is a perfectly rational argument.
If there is no outside source of objective morality, then morality wouldn't be objective. It would be subjective. Subjective defined as "dependent upon people's opinions." Objective defined as "independent of people's opinions." And the question has nothing to do with the argument. Once again, I am not talking about how we come to know what is moral. I am talking about what morality is grounded in. If you think there is another way to ground objective morality, outside of a transcendent being, (not necessarily the Christian God) then feel free to share it. And I say you sound defensive because of the tone of your post. It is very sarcastic, and at times condescending.
Except that would still presuppose that objective morality does in fact exist. Again that is another apriori assumption that has to be made for your argument to stand. Your arguments essentially function only within very narrow context based on assumptions that must be accepted first. I think why you are finding so much resistance is that no one you are discussing this with are accepting your assumptions.
No it does not assume objective morality exists. The premise is, "If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist." This does not presuppose objective morality. It is asserting that God must exist for objective morality to exist. To prove the premise wrong, all one has to do is think of another way that objective morality, if it exists, could have arisen. All someone has to assume in trying to prove premise one wrong is that objective morality is a possibility. This premise could very well be true, but objective morality still wouldn't be proven to exist. Which means that there is no presupposition of objective morals existing. That is why premise two is: "Objective morality does exist."
Yup. Historically, gender inequality and obedient slaves prevail. The morals in all religious books are absolutely cherry picked.
I really don't know what you are arguing for here, but in my argument no religious book was used, just a maximally great being. Which means it would be maximally good. You brought up the Bible, and then proceeded to try to prove how immoral you think the God of Christianity is, which has no bearing on the argument at hand.
Every time someone disagrees with you you just fall back on either "You don't understand the argument" (posts #261 and 267 being the first to come to mind) or some other pablum about people being condescending towards you. Of course, some of your first words to me were, "If you would have read the rest of the thread..." which reeks of condescention. Perhaps you should re-read John 8:7 or is that suggestion condescending? You've also been given the other source of objective morals several times (Hint: Evolution) but hand wave it away. As others have pointed out, your world view has such a narrow set of parameters that it only works for a small subset of people, which seems fairly subjective to me. I like Dawkins' explanation of it, personally. <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qCL63d66frs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> There are several reasons that a diety isn't needed for objective morals and several that indicate it may even be counter to the concept. Morals have evolved over time. What was once ok, like slavery, child abuse, and rape are not exactly considered ok these days, but to the writers of the big books of religion they were the norm. There's also the fact that faith, by definition, means doing what you're told regardless of what's right. Morality, on the other hand, is doing what's right, no matter what you're told. To claim to know god's will, I'd have to defer to Susan B. Anthony, who said, "I distrust those who know what God wills, because it so often fits their own desires." Interpretting scripture to fit whatever is needed at the moment has a long and glorious tradition. It seems like more and more people are treating jesus like a glorified self-reflection. Then you get into things like Euthypho's dilemma: Is something good because god says it is or does god say it's good because it truly is? If it's just good because god says so then he's not being objective, is he? If it's already good and god just points it out then the goodness exists outside of god and therefore there is no need for him to dictate what is good. I know you talk about it not being the christian god, but some maximally great being, but it seems like much of the laws and wisdom from the bible are more about protecting the relgion than being objectively moral. Just look at the 10 commandments, for example - the first four deal with crimes against the religion, not fellow man. How can that be objective? Only 40% of the ten deal with crimes against your fellow man. That just doesn't seem to objective to me. Then you get to things like not eating certain things on certain days or calling for the killing of homosexuals, how are those objective? I just don't get it.
Not sure it's important or of interest to anyone at all...but it's amazing to me how disconnected these threads about Jesus feel from the Jesus of my faith. The back and forth that happens here...the preconceived notions that those who don't share my faith throw out here about Christianity or the Bible...it just couldn't be more irrelevant to my faith, personally. I realize that's MY faith and antecdotal in that sense, so I promise I'm not really trying to make an argument here or counter anyone at all. I just find it curious that there's so many threads about Jesus here, and yet they evolve to something that has so little to do with the Jesus I know.
both from time to time. i find that those who are really super-duper anti-Christian often share some of my frustrations with the Church, but really don't understand Jesus very well. they understand doctrine. (really not trying to generalize everyone, just talking about general impressions) but in some ways, they're a lot closer to Jesus than those who are super-religious. on the other hand, i read these posts where people are trying soooooo hard to prove up God and i have a difficult time relating to that as well. or starting from the assumption they're right, you're wrong, and "you'll see after we die!!!" that just cracks me up. and then makes me cry a little (not really, but i really don't like that) all of this is hypocritical judgment, of course, so take it all with a tremendously huge grain of salt.
I noticed the same thing as well. I read the title of the thread and skimmed it only to noticed it really became about something unrelated to the person of Jesus. I will say though that such a discussion about morality, objectivity/subjectivity, truth, etc....is inevitable when discussing theology/philosophy. The reason being is because in order to have any discussion about what "truth" is, you MUST at some point have a discussion on epistemology (how we can "know" anything at all). Systematic theology structures these issues so we can talk about them intelligently (the person of Jesus, soteriology, sanctification, hermeneutics, etc). It's hard to debate about any of those things without questioning how we as finite minds can "know" anything at all. Sad as it might be that the discussion deviates from what some might believe to be the more important or relevant matters (such as a Jesus who saves), it is necessary in order to keep us distilling our dialogue in search for truth. I just hope it doesn't devolve into personal/character attacks or cause the Church to lose focus on her primary mandate. I come from a seminary background, so people from all backgrounds would sit around and debate about sometimes silly and meaningless things. I've come to see the importance, however for scholars to debate these things to ensure we keep thinking through the tough issues and "do" theology in each generation so that we don't just blindly accept what's taught to us by the generation that precedes us. In the end though, fundamental orthodoxy always seems to re-establish itself as tried and true. If you find that the debate becomes too discouraging though, what I do is take a page from Jesus or Paul....when engaging in a dialogue about who Christ is, people in the New Testament often respond off topic usually dealing with some other philosophy or deviant theology (Pilate, Pharisees, Woman at the well, Paul's debate at Mar's Hill, etc). The response by Christ (and Paul) is usually to focus back on who He is and what He's doing. In light of Good Friday I think it an appropriate reminder to remain focused on the cross.... thanks for sharing your thoughts....
Well, not meaning to sound condescending, but you just brought up points that have already been discussed. Evolution cannot produce objective morals. They can produce subjective morals. If we were to rewind history, and start evolution all over again, it is very possible that a very different set of morals would have evolved. So morality would be a sort of illusion that helps us to survive as a species, which means that nothing is really right or wrong, just beneficial to survival or not. Also, on your view, there has been no moral progress throughout time. There have just been moral changes, as no state of morality is intrinsicly better than any other moral state, as morality would be grounded on what it was evolved to be and nothing more. Yes the end of slavery was good for the flourishing of humanity, but there is nothing inherently good about that. On your point of view, humans have no more intrinsic value than ants or dogs. We just happened to have evolved with a higher intelligence. Why would our flourishing be any better than theirs? On a strictly evolutionary view of morality arising there is no reason. Once again, God is not a book. Morality wouldn't be grounded in God's book, it would be grounded in His character. Moral duties however, (which evolution could not explain at all) would be grounded in His commands, possibly from His book. Although this doesn't mean that every command in the Bible (since this is the book that you are talking about and that I believe in) should be taken as an objective moral duty. As for the Euthyphro dilemma, I have already discussed this in post 233. I never said every single one of God's commands for ancient Israel was objective. You are claiming that I am making an argument that I am not making. I am not arguing for the Bible setting up objective morality. I am arguing that without a transcendent being, there can be no grounding for objective morality, and it would be subjective. I have discussed much of this stuff before, which is why I wondered if you had read the rest of the thread. Once again, I am sorry if my assumption was wrong.
By the way, I am not trying to say that evolution did not play a part in how we know what is moral. We could have very well evolved to recognize what is right and wrong. But this doesn't ground morality in anything, thereby not making it objective. All it does is say how we came to believe what is moral and what is not. (epistemology)
Evolution cannot produce objective morals. They can produce subjective morals Any definition of morality is subjective. You assume yours are objective because you presuppose a deity. But that just subjects you to your assumptions and biases. I'm agnostic, but I would have told Professor Milgram to F*** Off, I'm not shocking anybody.
More handwaving. Isn't it also possible that if we rewound history that the exact same set of morals would evolve? They have evolved independently in isolated cultures so why not? More on this in s bit. Also, where did you get my view is that there has been no moral progress over time? I'm fairly sure I'm arguing just the opposite when I say, "Morals have evolved over time. What was once ok, like slavery, child abuse, and rape are not exactly considered ok these days, but to the writers of the big books of religion they were the norm." That's progress in my book (hah) but you seem to think that there is nothing intrinsically good about not having human slavery? Really? "Yes the end of slavery was good for the flourishing of humanity, but there is nothing inherently good about that. " Really? Wow. Just...wow. How does that qualify as one of your objective morals? It's ok as long as you treat them well? Wow. What about child abuse and rape? Now, for the other words you tried to put in my mouth - humans have more intrinsic value to other humans than dogs or ants have to humans. We've brought up kin selection, the fact that man evolved as a social animal, and many other evolutionary reasons for this, but you hand wave them away because they don't fit into your exceedingly narrow presuppositions and world view. How do we know god's character? Typically it's from the book that he supposedly divinely inspired, no? Yet now you crawfish on even that and say that every command in the bible doesn't have to be taken as an objective moral duty? And you complained about other people cherry picking? Wow again. It seems as if you can convince yourself of almost anything. Also, I'd like to hear a brief summary of what you know of evolutionary theory. I'm not sure we're on the same page there. While you're working on that, I suggest reading a book or two. Start with Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue. As for God's commands to ancient Israel not being objective, how can a maximally great (again, whatever that means) being be both subjective and objective in his morals? Can he cherry pick too? This is why your explanation for the Euthyphro dilemma falls flat. If god is good and cannot change then how can his commands to Israel not be objectively moral while the rest are? That seems pretty arbitrary to me. Yes, you've discussed much of this before, with handwaving, cherry picking, and falling back on, "You just don't understand." arguments. I'm just trying to tease more information from you.
I will say that most people who argue against the religion seem to take the most fundamentalist interpretation of that religion. Usually I don't recognize what they are arguing against as being anything like the religion I follow.
It is pretty clear that we are just going to keep saying the same thing over and over again. This argument is getting nowhere. I have talked about some of the points you brought up in previous posts, and we keep coming back to the same hang ups. So obviously we have irreconcilable differences of opinion, and no amount of arguing is going to come close to changing each other's minds. I still do not appreciate the condescending nature of your posts, and since it has actually gotten worse, I have no desire to continue the discussion. If you would like to say that I don't have any answers to your objections then that is fine. I just have no desire to continue talking about this stuff to someone who continually responds the way you do. Thanks for your time.
