I am relatively new on this site but I have come to realize that sometimes it becomes very dificult to debate a person when you don't even know exactly where he or she is coming from. I am calling on Logicboy, Martian, Cyrexx e.t.c. and whoever wants to join in to give a clear definition of their worldview, their stance on God, morality and nature.

For instance I'll start by saying: I am a Christian, I believe in God as defined by the bible. I believe that all creation i.e. all things we observe in nature was made by Him and without God, nothing can exist. I believe in moral absolutes that without God there is no standard for good and evil. I believe that God is Good. I believe that the only way to live a fulfilled life is to live a life that glorifies God. This is what I believe. This is my worldview/philosophy

I have stated my stance, I would like to hear yours and based on our worldviews perhaps we can ponder over what is good. Thanks y'all.

Good = Perfection

if you are asking what is good,
it can be defined as actions which leads to benefit of humanity, both for others and for yourself.
it means do no harm to a fellow human being, only that which will benefit him/her.
it means do unto him/her as you would want to be done for yourself(golden rule which actually predates christianity),
it means be good, kind and compassionate to others for goodness sake, not because of threats of hell or promise of heaven.

i believe i have answered your question.
thanxx

Kay 17: Good = Perfection

and what is perfection?

cyrexx: if you are asking what is good,
it can be defined as actions which leads to benefit of humanity, both for others and for yourself.
it means do no harm to a fellow human being, only that which will benefit him/her.
it means do unto him/her as you would want to be done for yourself(golden rule which actually predates christianity),
it means be good, kind and compassionate to others for goodness sake, not because of threats of hell or promise of heaven.

i believe i have answered your question.
thanxx

You see I can relate with your explanation of what good is but I can't identify what your good is based on. what does it mean to be good for goodness sake? Is there a universal standard for what good is or is good anything you think will benefit another? Is good represented in your thoughts and motives or solely in your actions? Is your good subjective or is there an objective measure we can evaluate it with?

Mr_Anony:
You see I can relate with your explanation of what good is but I can't identify what your good is based on. what does it mean to be good for goodness sake? Is there a universal standard for what good is or is good anything you think will benefit another? Is good represented in your thoughts and motives or solely in your actions? Is your good subjective or is there an objective measure we can evaluate it with?

my definition of good (or morality) is not based on anything mysterious or metaphysical but objective general sense of well-being we humans desire for ourselves. The way to be good or moral is to first learn what causes harm and how to avoid it. This means investigating nature—especially human nature: who we are, what we need, where we live, how we function and why we behave the way we do. Why should I treat my neighbor nicely? Because we are all connected. We are part of the same species, genetically linked. Since I value myself and my species, and the other species to which we are related, I recognize that when someone is hurting, my natural family is suffering.

By nature, those of us who are mentally healthy recoil from pain and wish to see it ended. Of course, we often act in positive ways to stop the pain of others. This is compassion. You can be considered moral if you are passively not causing unnecessary harm—I do think most human beings who are mentally healthy will empathize with the sufferings of others and will naturally want to reach out.

that is what my definition of morality is based on. that is the true meaning of being good for goodness sake, not because of hell or heaven.
that is the universal standard for what good (morality) is and good is always any intentions and actions that will benefit another human being both locally and globally, both in the short term or the long term.

morality is represented in "mentally healthy" human thoughts and motives and consequently actions.

morality is first of all subjective and consequently as a social beings, we humans we can formulate laws that regulate our society to have an objective basis for this morality. we can do all these without resorting to an imaginary higher power.

Good is superior(perfect) knowlege, in other words: anything that works, as weighed against other alternatives.
For me, Anything good must benefit me both spiritually and materially, it starts with a love of myself, then my neighbor later.
My good started with the bible and has expanded onto all things.

Also, truth has it's rewards, and punishments for disobedience.

okeyxyz: Also, truth has it's rewards, and punishments for disobedience.

but do you think it is commendable if people are good because of reward or punishment.
i know that some mentally sick people has to be threatened to be good, but is that how humans necessarily have to be treated for them to be good.
i believe the greatest goodness is when you are good because it is good to be good not because you fear punishment or expect reward
just my opinion

cyrexx:

but do you think it is commendable if people are good because of reward or punishment.
i know that some mentally sick people has to be threatened to be good, but is that how humans necessarily have to be treated for them to be good.
i believe the greatest goodness is when you are good because it is good to be good not because you fear punishment or expect reward
just my opinion

There has to be evil to inspire good. eg: i study to acquire economic skills so i can avoid poverty(evil)
Good(rewards) also inspire good, both work for same purpose.

cyrexx:

my definition of good (or morality) is not based on anything mysterious or metaphysical but objective general sense of well-being we humans desire for ourselves. The way to be good or moral is to first learn what causes harm and how to avoid it. This means investigating nature—especially human nature: who we are, what we need, where we live, how we function and why we behave the way we do. Why should I treat my neighbor nicely? Because we are all connected. We are part of the same species, genetically linked. Since I value myself and my species, and the other species to which we are related, I recognize that when someone is hurting, my natural family is suffering.

By nature, those of us who are mentally healthy recoil from pain and wish to see it ended. Of course, we often act in positive ways to stop the pain of others. This is compassion. You can be considered moral if you are passively not causing unnecessary harm—I do think most human beings who are mentally healthy will empathize with the sufferings of others and will naturally want to reach out.

that is what my definition of morality is based on. that is the true meaning of being good for goodness sake, not because of hell or heaven.
that is the universal standard for what good (morality) is and good is always any intentions and actions that will benefit another human being both locally and globally, both in the short term or the long term.

morality is represented in "mentally healthy" human thoughts and motives and consequently actions.

morality is first of all subjective and consequently as a social beings, we humans we can formulate laws that regulate our society to have an objective basis for this morality. we can do all these without resorting to an imaginary higher power.

It seems to me that you are defining your stance based on negatives. You first start by defining what it is not based on rather than what it is based on. next you move on to defining good based on people's general desires, this assumes that people have the same desires for themselves. You mention an objective sense of wellbeing without naming what this objective measure is. next you move on to talking about harm. this I can understand but you lose me when you say the reason you don't harm you neighbor is because you are the same species and species you are related to but you don't define the limits of this family since according to genetics, you are related monkeys, birds, fishes, insects, and plants in varying levels.

In your second paragraph you move on to mental health and morality. The question will now arise how do you know that you are mentally healthy? because there are varying degrees of mental health. You are only taking it for granted that you are mentally healthy and that other people are mentally healthy. How do you know that you know what you think you know?

You have made it quite clear to me that morality includes intentions as well as actions. this I agree with but what you haven't done is given me a true objective basis for morality. In your last paragraph, you confuse me a bit more by saying morality is first subjective then when we reach a consensus as humans, then it becomes objective. This does not logically follow with your previous description of objective morality because if there are 100 people who all have different ways of viewing murder but reach a consensus which makes murder good, this would deviate from your original statement that good does no harm. Don't you agree?

You still have not given me an objective basis for morality which is no respecter of persons. I know you have made it quite clear that it is not an "imaginary higher power" (by which I'll assume you are referring to God). The question still remains what exactly is your basis for what is good?

okeyxyz:

There has to be evil to inspire good. eg: i study to acquire economic skills so i can avoid poverty(evil)

i quite agree with you there,

but how about if humans see poverty as an evil/harm that should be collectively eradicated (like they are almost successfully doing in less religious advanced countries) and they work toward eradicating it altogether- to me that is goodness.

instead of seeing poverty as a punishment or as a motivation tool to do good (e.g. acquire economic skills) i will still say the greatest good is if humanity will rise up and eradicate this evil. pls note that many nigerians cannot still escape this evil (poverty) despite all their acquired economic skills because they lack the opportunity that should be provided if we all aspire to eliminate poverty.

religion has made us believe our greatest reward is in the next life and thus greatly reduced our motivation to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

i will still say the greatest good is if humanity will rise up and eradicate this evil

@ Mr Anony

i have given you a clear rational objective basis for morality and goodness, i will request that you kindly deactivate your religious mind for just 5 minutes only and read my post again and you will see clearly.

what you want me to do is to refer to a mysterious or mystical being defined by religions whose laws man must obey.

you will do well to define your version of this mysterious being who is "no respecter of persons" and we can both examine him and his moral codes.

Mr_Anony:
if there are 100 people who all have different ways of viewing murder but reach a consensus which makes murder good, this would deviate from your original statement that good does no harm. Don't you agree?

i disagree
if you read my post very well without religious assumptions, you will see that murder is doing harm to a fellow human being and those 100 people would not have been doing good to agree to such a harmful consensus in the first place. the consensus can only be a true objective moral code if it does no harm to human beings both in the short or long term

remember that early european christians justified slavery because of their religious consensus. This, you will agree, is both harmful and wrong. they think they are doing good but they are clearly not. so also is islamic fundamentalism

cyrexx:

i disagree
if you read my post very well without religious assumptions, you will see that murder is doing harm to a fellow human being and those 100 people would not have been doing good to agree to such a harmful consensus in the first place. the consensus can only be a true objective moral code if it does no harm to human beings both in the short or long term

remember that early european christians justified slavery because of their religious consensus. This, you will agree, is both harmful and wrong. they think they are doing good but they are clearly not. so also is islamic fundamentalism

Perhaps we should define what objective is. For instance Time is objective it does not respect anybody a minute is a minute whichever way you look at it. It will always be 60 seconds. The morality you are defining does not have any such concrete measurement. It depends on too many variables. harm is in varying degrees so is mental health and genetic relationships e.t.c. How do all these variables end up in a definite? You have not sufficiently explained this.

Now you can say early european "christians" justified slavery because of a religious consensus. To know whether it is wrong or not, I have to refer it to the life of Christ. was Christ pro-slavery? If the answer is no, then they were not acting according to their christianity hence they were sinning and what they did would be wrong. Notice how I have compared their morality to what the bible commands of Christians.

What you are doing on the other hand is saying:

(a)Is it harmful? What is the basis of harm? Is sadomasochism wrong?

(b)Are they genetically linked? To what extent is this genetic family? Is locking a pet monkey in a cage wrong?

(c)are they mentally healthy? By what standards of mental health? how do you know you are mentally healthy?

(d)What is the consensus of all their subjective moralities? Is a consensus really a basis for objective morality? If a country decides to move the age of consent from 18 to 12 so that people can have sex with youngsters, is it wrong? after all sex is not really harming anyone when you look at it "objectively".

Mr_Anony:

Perhaps we should define what objective is. For instance Time is objective it does not respect anybody a minute is a minute whichever way you look at it. It will always be 60 seconds. The morality you are defining does not have any such concrete measurement. It depends on too many variables. harm is in varying degrees so is mental health and genetic relationships e.t.c. How do all these variables end up in a definite? You have not sufficiently explained this.

so also is human laws formulated to regulate human behaviour without respecter of persons. there are many nations that follow the rule of law without respecter of personality. while harm is in varing degrees, there is no disagreement by healthy minds that murder is wrong. no modern country legalise murder.

you are trying to compare physical phenomena, i.e. time, with social phenomena, i.e.laws and morality. that is innacurate.

even christians dont have a generally accepted definitions of most of what they believe. that is so unlike physically defined realities. so what is the objectivity here.

i have explained all these sufficiently in my earlier posts.

Mr_Anony:

Now you can say early european "christians" justified slavery because of a religious consensus. To know whether it is wrong or not, I have to refer it to the life of Christ. was Christ pro-slavery? If the answer is no,

wrong, Jesus being an "omniscient god", should have been ahead of his time and condemn slavery but he did not, he was silent about condemning it.
Slavery was also condoned and regulated in many passages of the in the Bible. There is no record of Jesus having commented on it. Paul had every opportunity to condemn slavery, particularly in his Epistle to Philemon. But he remained silent, except to urge slaves to be content with their lot and to obey their owners.

Early European Christians traditionally believed that Canaan, according to Geenesis had settled in Africa. The dark skin of Africans became associated with this "curse of Ham." Thus slavery of Africans became religiously justifiable.

By today's secular and religious standards:
1. slavery is clearly immoral.
2. cursing all of an individual's descendents into perpetual slavery because of an inappropriate act by an ancestor is immoral.
3. laying a curse on the son of the person who committed the act is immoral.


But in ancient times, cursing a whole race into slavery was considered acceptable because it was in the Bible. The European and American slave owner felt that he was carrying out God's plan by buying and using slaves.

Mr_Anony:

(a)Is it harmful? What is the basis of harm? Is sadomasochism wrong?

(b)Are they genetically linked? To what extent is this genetic family? Is locking a pet monkey in a cage wrong?

(c)are they mentally healthy? By what standards of mental health? how do you know you are mentally healthy?

(d)What is the consensus of all their subjective moralities? Is a consensus really a basis for objective morality? If a country decides to move the age of consent from 18 to 12 so that people can have sex with youngsters, is it wrong? after all sex is not really harming anyone when you look at it "objectively".

a. masochism is a mental disorder and should be treated as such. it is clearly wrong.

b. locking a non-human species monkey inside a cage is not wrong. it is morally wrong among monkey species but not human species, especially for greater good of human research. but we are dealing with human morality here. if animals can somehow protest and debate and reach consensus on their morality, then we humans can amend our laws to suit them. but i dont know of any animal that has such morality. we are rational species and no other species share that with us.

c. standard of mental health. do i need to define that. who does not recognise a mentally unhealthy human. his irrational behaviour will show this of course.


d. moving the age of consent to 12 is morally wrong, because only an inconsiderate adult will be "favoured" and this will do a great irrepairable harm to a fellow human growing child. this is clear.


by the way, dont forget that Yahweh orders his worshippers to murder every man, woman and child who worships a non-Yahweh deity after "creating" those children to be born in cultures where non-Yahweh is recognised as the Almighty.

dont also forget how he cursed innocent children because of what their parents did.

justify this acts of wickedness to children. is it moral or not.

cyrexx:


so also is human laws formulated to regulate human behaviour without respecter of persons. there are many nations that follow the rule of law without respecter of personality. while harm is in varing degrees, there is no disagreement by healthy minds that murder is wrong. no modern country legalise murder.
the question is not what they legalise or don't legalise, My point is that murder will still be wrong whether it is legal or not. A more realistic example is divorce. Divorce is wrong whether it is legal or not. God hates divorce, it is only permitted if there is sexual immorality.

you are trying to compare physical phenomena, i.e. time, with social phenomena, i.e.laws and morality. that is innacurate. you are purposely misrepresenting what I am saying. It is the objective nature of time that I was referring to and not it's physical nature

even christians dont have a generally accepted definitions of most of what they believe. that is so unlike physically defined realities. so what is the objectivity here. Christians have the bible as our guide and Christ as our example. Anything outside Christ is not Christian no matter how many "christians" agree on it

i have explained all these sufficiently in my earlier posts. No you haven't explained anything sufficiently. You have not shown how different subjective phenomena can form an objective standard





wrong, Jesus being an "omniscient god", should have been ahead of his time and condemn slavery but he did not, he was silent about condemning it.
You cannot attribute omniscience to a person and then dictate what he should have done
Slavery was also condoned and regulated in many passages of the in the Bible. There is no record of Jesus having commented on it. Paul had every opportunity to condemn slavery, particularly in his Epistle to Philemon. But he remained silent, except to urge slaves to be content with their lot and to obey their owners.
What is wrong with slavery if not the inequality? Paul declared that both slaves and free were equal. (Galatians 3:28)

Early European Christians traditionally believed that Canaan, according to Geenesis had settled in Africa. The dark skin of Africans became associated with this "curse of Ham." Thus slavery of Africans became religiously justifiable.

By today's secular and religious standards:
1. slavery is clearly immoral.
2. cursing all of an individual's descendents into perpetual slavery because of an inappropriate act by an ancestor is immoral.
3. laying a curse on the son of the person who committed the act is immoral.


But in ancient times, cursing a whole race into slavery was considered acceptable because it was in the Bible. The European and American slave owner felt that he was carrying out God's plan by buying and using slaves.
Believing something to be lawful when it is not lawful does not nullify the law or excuse the offender even if the offender was sincerely offending and claims to be law abiding


a. masochism is a mental disorder and should be treated as such. it is clearly wrong. [/color]

b. locking a non-human species monkey inside a cage is not wrong. it is morally wrong among monkey species but not human species, especially for greater good of human research. but we are dealing with human morality here. if animals can somehow protest and debate and reach consensus on their morality, then we humans can amend our laws to suit them. but i dont know of any animal that has such morality. we are rational species and no other species share that with us.
[color=#990000]Thanks for clarifying the extent of your good and evil is human beings and does not extend beyond our species

c. standard of mental health. do i need to define that. who does not recognise a mentally unhealthy human. his irrational behaviour will show this of course.the point is that there is no objective standard for mental health that I know of. If we were all nudist cannibals in Nigeria for instance, our psychiatrists would regard it as perfectly normal behaviour.
You assume that you are mentally healthy, the truth is that you cannot know for sure, you are only taking it for granted that you are. If you don't know this for sure, how can you know for sure that based on your mental health, A is good while B is evil?


d. moving the age of consent to 12 is morally wrong, because only an inconsiderate adult will be "favoured" and this will do a great irrepairable harm to a fellow human growing child. this is clear.
I'll give you a scenario, a 40yr old man having sex with a 15yr old girl. What is morally wrong with this arrangement according to your worldview because (1) If a 15yr old has sex with another 15yr old, it is not really considered harmful so sex is not necessarily harming the 15yr old. As for who is favoured; they are both enjoying it. Can you point out exactly what is objectively wrong in this scenario?


by the way, dont forget that Yahweh orders his worshippers to murder every man, woman and child who worships a non-Yahweh deity after "creating" those children to be born in cultures where non-Yahweh is recognised as the Almighty.

dont also forget how he cursed innocent children because of what their parents did.

justify this acts of wickedness to children. is it moral or not.
There is no basis for morality if there is no justice: i.e. punishment for sin and reward for righteousness. When a lawgiver orders the execution of a lawbreaker, the law does not commit murder neither does the hand that kills. Also remember that God is creator, there is no creator/owner that does not have the right to treat his creation/property as he deems fit. The wickedness you are referring to is your subjective perception

My friend, your work is still cut out ahead of you. Just a recap of what your morality is based on. According to you, A moral person must be mentally healthy, not do harm to other members of his species but benefit them for the sake of not doing harm and benefiting other members of his species. This person should also come to a consensus with other members of his species and agree on good and evil. This will form an objective morality for them (...yeah and it must not involve any higher power or God).
The problem with this is that you cannot come to an objective conclusion from subjective premises. The only sure thing in your description is that there is no God in it.

Let me make it a bit more straightforward

Do you believe in moral absolutes? Yes or no

If yes, what or who defines these absolutes?

If no, how can you have an objective morality without moral absolutes?

^^^^

i dont know what you are up to
but what i know is that you like to "beg the question"
merriam-webster defines this as: to pass over or ignore a question or a proposition by assuming it to be established or settled

most of what you have highlighted now (about 70%) have been effectively addressed but you ignored it.
pls go thru it again and lay out only the ones i have not addressed.
circular reasoning can be tiresome.
LOL

.

^^^ On the contrary, I am only asking you to clarify your point. There is nowhere I know of that an objective measure is based on a consensus of subjectives. We seem to agree on the necessity of an objective morality. What we don't agree on is the basis.

I claim that God, my basis for morality is objective i.e. unwavering and totally independent of personal sentiments.

You also claim an objective morality but you base it on subjective phenomena. this doesn't follow.

Since you are determined to deny God as a basis for morality, you are free to do so but whatever basis for good and evil you come up with must be strictly objective, invariable and totally independent of people's whims.

Mr_Anony: ^^^ On the contrary, I am only asking you to clarify your point. There is nowhere I know of that an objective measure is based on a consensus of subjectives. We seem to agree on the necessity of an objective morality. What we don't agree on is the basis.

I claim that God, my basis for morality is objective i.e. unwavering and totally independent of personal sentiments.

You also claim an objective morality but you base it on subjective phenomena. this doesn't follow.

Since you are determined to deny God as a basis for morality, you are free to do so but whatever basis for good and evil you come up with must be strictly objective, invariable and totally independent of people's whims.

Excellently correct: otherwise the inter-subjectivity of aztec agreement on human sacrifice would render such right.

Afterall, in line with cyrexx's supposition on benefit to the society, the aztec believed that human sacrifice was of benefit to their society and even the world at large.

Mr_Anony:
whatever basis for good and evil you come up with must be strictly objective, invariable and totally independent of people's whims.

according to what or whom?

you see, you carry a lot of religious baggage and assumptions and you still "beg the question"
its like the difficullty of dealing with a wife who carried a lot of emotional baggage from her previous marriage.

let me briefly recap
you asked for objective basis for morality and i clearly provided one, but you assumed that it must be based on a law of a higher power who is no respecter of persons.
i then showed you some immoral acts of this objective deity and you claimed i cannot fault him.

by your logic, if a similar deity asked boko haram man to kill you as an infidel and he did, he is definitely a very morally good person. to his own deity he is perfectly moral. but to the sound objective morality i just provided, which you rejected, he is immoral because he causes harm to a fellow human.

i also pointed out that the so-called objective moral codes of this deity has different interpretation that many contradictory views can be scripturally justified on it, but you also ignored my statements because you assumed he MUST be justified by all means.

a typical example of contradictory views of this deity is the nature of hell. different christians have different views that are honestly justifiable from the same bible. but i know you will ignore this.

its impossible to intellectually engage further with this emotional, sorry spiritual, baggage

Deep Sight:
Afterall, in line with cyrexx's supposition on benefit to the society, the aztec believed that human sacrifice was of benefit to their society and even the world at large.

nice example, so how do you separate the barbaric acts of Aztec deity from the barbaric acts of Jewish deity and Islamic deity or even African deity.

while those iron age barbarism is prevalent in those days, we are entering a new age when man will be able to rationally provide a sound principles to govern himself successfully.

take a look a the current atheistic nations like Denmark, Sweden, Japan etc
these so-called objective moral laws has no effect on human behaviour if man cannot of himself rise up and decide to be good for goodness sake.

cyrexx:

according to what or whom?

This is the question I am asking you. Unless you are claiming that your standard for morality is subjective in which case we cannot define what exactly is good and evil.

you see, you carry a lot of religious baggage and assumptions and you still "beg the question"
its like the difficullty of dealing with a wife who carried a lot of emotional baggage from her previous marriage.

I don't quite get your point here

let me briefly recap
you asked for objective basis for morality and i clearly provided one, but you assumed that it must be based on a law of a higher power who is no respecter of persons.
i then showed you some immoral acts of this objective deity and you claimed i cannot fault him.

You did not provide any objective basis neither did I make it a must that you must ascribe to a higher power. those were what you assumed I was saying. I have only asked that your standard be truly objective higher power or not.

by your logic, if a similar deity asked boko haram man to kill you as an infidel and he did, he is definitely a very morally good person. to his own deity he is perfectly moral. but to the sound objective morality i just provided, which you rejected, he is immoral because he causes harm to a fellow human.

Understand the premises of my argument. I have claimed an objective and supreme God existing as God alone beside which no other God must exist. To claim that a similar deity exists is goes contrary to my argument

i also pointed out that the so-called objective moral codes of this deity has different interpretation that many contradictory views can be scripturally justified on it, but you also ignored my statements because you assumed he MUST be justified by all means.

To which I replied that different interpretations of a law does not nullify the law. There can only be one true interpretation of a law and others must be wrong. to be justified means that God must justify and not a man justifying himself by misquoting God's law

a typical example of contradictory views of this deity is the nature of hell. different christians have different views that are honestly justifiable from the same bible. but i know you will ignore this.

This is like saying that if people disagree on what prison looks like then the law is invalid. It is not the business of any law whatsoever to accurately describe it's prison in it's constitution

its impossible to intellectually engage further with this emotional, sorry spiritual, baggage

You simply have not put up any logical argument whatsoever

cyrexx:


so also is human laws formulated to regulate human behaviour without respecter of persons. there are many nations that follow the rule of law without respecter of personality. while harm is in varing degrees, there is no disagreement by healthy minds that murder is wrong. no modern country legalise murder.

you are trying to compare physical phenomena, i.e. time, with social phenomena, i.e.laws and morality. that is innacurate.

even christians dont have a generally accepted definitions of most of what they believe. that is so unlike physically defined realities. so what is the objectivity here.

i have explained all these sufficiently in my earlier posts.







wrong, Jesus being an "omniscient god", should have been ahead of his time and condemn slavery but he did not, he was silent about condemning it.
Slavery was also condoned and regulated in many passages of the in the Bible. There is no record of Jesus having commented on it. Paul had every opportunity to condemn slavery, particularly in his Epistle to Philemon. But he remained silent, except to urge slaves to be content with their lot and to obey their owners.

Early European Christians traditionally believed that Canaan, according to Geenesis had settled in Africa. The dark skin of Africans became associated with this "curse of Ham." Thus slavery of Africans became religiously justifiable.

By today's secular and religious standards:
1. slavery is clearly immoral.
2. cursing all of an individual's descendents into perpetual slavery because of an inappropriate act by an ancestor is immoral.
3. laying a curse on the son of the person who committed the act is immoral.


But in ancient times, cursing a whole race into slavery was considered acceptable because it was in the Bible. The European and American slave owner felt that he was carrying out God's plan by buying and using slaves.







a. masochism is a mental disorder and should be treated as such. it is clearly wrong.

b. locking a non-human species monkey inside a cage is not wrong. it is morally wrong among monkey species but not human species, especially for greater good of human research. but we are dealing with human morality here. if animals can somehow protest and debate and reach consensus on their morality, then we humans can amend our laws to suit them. but i dont know of any animal that has such morality. we are rational species and no other species share that with us.

c. standard of mental health. do i need to define that. who does not recognise a mentally unhealthy human. his irrational behaviour will show this of course.


d. moving the age of consent to 12 is morally wrong, because only an inconsiderate adult will be "favoured" and this will do a great irrepairable harm to a fellow human growing child. this is clear.


by the way, dont forget that Yahweh orders his worshippers to murder every man, woman and child who worships a non-Yahweh deity after "creating" those children to be born in cultures where non-Yahweh is recognised as the Almighty.

dont also forget how he cursed innocent children because of what their parents did.

justify this acts of wickedness to children. is it moral or not.

there is the saying that what u dont know, see, or understand is greater than u.

Since u dont believe that God does exist, it goes without a say that u dont also beieve that satan exist.

However, sinec God sees satan and sees all is plans and intent it is him that knows when and how to thwart his plans and uproot his seeds,

when people open thereself to satan, they are vulnerable to his exploitations, and they can be a tool in the hand of satan, even there children,
when God that sees the big picture takes actions to ensure that his plans to redeem humanity is not thwarted, u with limited sight will then call him to account to u,
well done.

God says that Human should not be involve in socery, human will not know why, but it opens them up to satans manipulations.

Such it was with the so call wise men from the east that followed a supernatural sign (star in this instance)
that, instead of the star leading them to infant Jesus took them to harod an enemy of Jesus that led to innocent children being killed, but for the fact that God interven it will have led them to kill Baby Jesus.

When God sees this exposure and knows the future consequencies and took prompt action to ensure that his plans to free human from satans control materialises u find fault with him not being able to see that u dont have the whole facts.
Read the bible again, u will find that all those expose to satan, God always demand that they be killed.
This instances led to babies being kill, be them Jews or Gentile nations,
that it not always said, almost all what u read in the bible
follows this trend.

I wount blame u since u dont have all the facts.
Take care.
Peace

I'm a Christian pantheist. A pentecostal Christian and hence what defines my stance on moral issues is the Bible. My pantheism follows from my foray into philosophy. I came to discover that virtually all religions speak of the same thing a being or God who is responsible for all of life. I therefore came to believe that all religions are a mode of inquiry into God or put in other terms a way of understanding God.

@cyrexx, to help you clarify, I even went on to make it a bit easier for you and I quote

Mr_Anony:

Let me make it a bit more straightforward

Do you believe in moral absolutes? Yes or no

If yes, what or who defines these absolutes?

If no, how can you have an objective morality without moral absolutes?

^^^ As with many things, the issue has been discussed here before and in one case not even that long ago.

See from this post and onwards (or the whole thread): https://www.nairaland.com/810960/god-evil#9636315

In that thread, one of the forum's atheist was at least honest enough to accept that there is no objective morality (i.e. in the atheistic worldview). Also if you look in the last page of the thread, you will see quotes from atheist thinkers, like Russell, Sartre etc etc acknowledging that in the atheistic worldview there cannot be an objective moral standard.

The only way that there can be objective morality is first to acknowledge or grant the existence of God.

we can continue talking back and forth like this forever while you continue to ignore my clear explanations.

you have not defined nor proved that your objective morality is different from other religions morality. you falsely believe your deity is the right one while other are false. but they are so similar. infact your religion borrowed at lot from ancient religions

if we are not careful, this argument will invariably lead to questioning the existence of god for which you are required to believe and justify "by faith" without any objective evidence.

but since the topic of this thread is on moral goodness. i have provided a sound objective moral basis, which you refuse to acknowledge.

let me just say that despite all the "objective moral religious laws" among the religious people in nigeria, has it been of any impact to the nation. we are very religious and still very corrupt. if man cannot be good for goodness sake but for religious sake he will look for loopholes in his religion and act wickedly thinking he will appease his deity later. but if he is good because he wants to be good, he wont need an external deity to make him do good to his fellow human being.

take a look at less religious countries like England, Denmark, Sweden, Japan etc and compare with deeply religious nigeria.
these are clear evidence without any need for religious assumptions

As a follow up to my earlier post, this quote from Nietszche demonstrates the point being made about objective morality:

morality has truth only if God is truth—it stands or falls with faith in God.

Previously posted here: https://www.nairaland.com/810960/god-evil/4#9657776

Mr_Anony:
You simply have not put up any logical argument whatsoever

i have clearly done that, but you choose to ignore it because of your religious assumptions, which you cannot successfully justify.

your "religious mind" is obviously overiding your "rational mind"

cyrexx: we can continue talking back and forth like this forever while you continue to ignore my clear explanations.

you have not defined nor proved that your objective morality is different from other religions morality. you falsely believe your deity is the right one while other are false. but they are so similar. infact your religion borrowed at lot from ancient religions

if we are not careful, this argument will invariably lead to questioning the existence of god for which you are required to believe and justify "by faith" without any objective evidence.

but since the topic of this thread is on moral goodness. i have provided a sound objective moral basis, which you refuse to acknowledge.

let me just say that despite all the "objective moral religious laws" among the religious people in nigeria, has it been of any impact to the nation. we are very religious and still very corrupt. if man cannot be good for goodness sake but for religious sake he will look for loopholes in his religion and act wickedly thinking he will appease his deity later. but if he is good because he wants to be good, he wont need an external deity to make him do good to his fellow human being.

take a look at less religious countries like England, Denmark, Sweden, Japan etc and compare with deeply religious nigeria.
these are clear evidence without any need for religious assumptions

Cyrexx, I need you to use some logic here.
In my worldview there is only one God who is creator and impartial lawgiver. It is based on His laws that I define what is good or evil.

In your worldview, there is no God so the question arises how can you be sure if something is good or evil? The approach you took was to ascribe to a consensus and my reply is that there is no way a consensus of subjective moralities can end up in an objective moral standard, this does not follow logically.
Rather than admit it or try to fix your stance by telling me how an objective morality fits in your worldview;
You have attempted to edit my worldview by introducing other deities that don't exist in it,
you have tried to say that my standard for morality is not good when you haven't provided an objective standard by which mine could now be judged by,
you have even pointed at people who break God's law as examples that God is evil (doesn't help you because it would mean that God exists in your worldview and besides that, the fact that a person breaks a law does not prove that the law does not exist or is evil.)

Don't borrow from my world view. My challenge is simple: come up with an objective measure for morality other than any higher power. The morality of this measure doesn't need to be questioned, all it has to do is be objective and be capable of defining good and evil

^^^^I will go on to say that for anything to be a true standard for morality
1. It must be all-powerful or at least more powerful than man i.e. must be powerful enough to punish evil and reward good.
2. It must be omniscient i.e. must be able to properly know and understand everything and every motive
3. It must be all-seeing i.e. must be able to see a case from every possible angle. No evidence should escape it.
4. It's laws must agree with man's conscience but must be able to determine when man deviates from the dictates of his conscience.
5. It must be impartial and must deliver justice irrespective of persons.
6. It must not waver and must not change with the wind i.e. what was once evil will not suddenly become good and vice versa(note this is different from it's permissiveness)
7. It must essentially be singular i.e. it must be of one mind and purpose and must not be self-contradicting.

It is to the extent that our legal systems meet these criteria that we justify them. Do you agree?