₦airaland Forum

ReubenSandwich:
The most important point that I would want to make is that a person believing or not believing in the existence of a God doesn't tell us anything at all whatsoever about their character, their capacities, or anything else about what kind of person they are.

Apart from that, I don't think that believing or not believing in the existence of a God has anything to do with how much people can agree and learn together and from each other about what's right and wrong.

The first sentence is completely correct. People can act morally without belief in God. They have no reason to, but they can. They can be wonderful people in spite of not believing God exists.

The second statement is false. We cannot agree about right and wrong except where our beliefs intersect. We can learn nothing from one another unless it backs up our individual beliefs. Faith in the same God provides common ground to discuss morality. Without it we are left talking past each other.

Wilgrea7:
How exactly?

Well, because it is theoretically possible to convince him. It is good that he doesn't listen to what you regard as good or evil because it is simply your opinion. If you want to have better luck convincing theists in future appeal to the Bible, which we believe is the source of morality. By conveying the authors' intent correctly you have a standard against which you can be right or wrong. If you insist on explaining that something is wrong on your own, then you cannot expect to convince any believers.

Exactly. You're beginning to get my point. Even if we want to go by some sort of objective source for morality, we still need to determine where the source of said morality is.

Also, I don't think it is limited to just the abrahamic God. There are tons of other monotheistic religions that have existed throughout history. I personally don't think the fact that some have stopped existing invalidates them in any way.

So at the end of the day, we still run into the question of "which monotheistic God is right"... one has to be. Or they could even all be wrong, and the true objective moral laws are set by a different deity entirely, unknown to us throughout history.

I think it's something we have to consider as a possibility.

That's what I was trying to explain as the second problem in this thread.

This is quite different from the moral argument. The argument shifts from morality to something else.

ReubenSandwich:
I don't see how the question of which god is God is any less subjective than deciding what is right and wrong without a belief in any God.

Even for people who agree on which scriptures to use, I don't see how deciding what is right and wrong is any less subjective, because they have no way of resolving disagreements about what those scriptures are saying, and their ideas of what they're saying about what's right and wrong range as widely as the views of right and wrong in all of society.

The answer to the first line is: if there is only one God, there is only one. This is strangely apparent and yet elusive. The implication is that morals exist and can be discovered if one can find the belief system most likely to be true. To do this we'll have to examine the positive proofs of Christianity as well as the evidence against other religions. This is fairly difficult to do considering Christianity's rich 2,000 year old tradition, graced by the finest minds suited for the job. There are also certain other religions that fail to stand up to scrutiny. We can do away with these quite simply. However, the easiest means is the first one I suggested: examining Christianity's claims. If Christianity is true, no other faith can be as well, because of Christianity's claim to exclusivity.

On the other hand (so I'm not just playing defense) atheism does not have even this hope. On atheism, the goal isn't to find God. It is nothing, as there is no source of morals. The atheist can of course abandon morals as well as God (which is the threat of the moral argument anyway).

(later) Oh. Maybe you're thinking of morality based on belief in a God as being more objective because it gives you a standard of morality outside of yourself, that doesn't depend only on your own personal ideas and interests and/or the society around you. I think that's an illusion, because your choice of what scriptures to use, and what you think they're saying about what's right and wrong, depend on your own personal ideas and interests and the society around you, as much as anyone else's ideas about what's right and wrong.

I don't understand what you mean by our choice of scriptures to use. As a Christian, I obviously use the Bible. The existence of several versions only helps in ascertaining the message. Other than that, you've hit a vital point. The worse we can do in Christianity is pervert morality. If we are lucky, we approximate it. If we really work at it, we get it. Atheism, on the other hand, lacks morality in all its forms. It lacks that external standard you wrote of and is entirely dependent on the atheist's personal taste and heavily Christianized socialization, which he ironically works to rid himself of.

"I don't fancy killing, so killing others is wrong". Atheist pseudo-morality.
"Killing is wrong". Theist morality.

Anyone who objects can tell me why killing is wrong without providing the circular answer that it is wrong because it causes harm. In which case I'll reply: "Why is causing harm wrong?"

ReubenSandwich:
...

I'd also like to know how you knew those posts were being copied from another forum and reposted here. It is still very strange to me.

Kobojunkie:
What exactly is this relationship between Christianity and mortality? Where exactly is it defined?

I'm talking about how something is only really "good" or "bad" when it is from God. Anything else is just an opinion.

Well, what you are talking about is beautiful and complex. I admire your optimism and desire to make the world better. However, I would caution against utopian idealism; the desire for a world that cannot exist. The abandoning of the possible good for the unattainable excellent.

On that note, I think we can only have the kind of world you describe by starting small. Smaller communities of likeminded people would more easily fit in to, and perpetuate the communities you describe. Going from where we are now to there will likely take several lifetimes.

All in all, I guess the best way to create such a world is to start one yourself. At the most basic level, what you are describing is a family. It serves to raise and educate children, practice empathy and love for others, study scripture and a lot more. One family could be the genesis of a community of families aimed at the same purpose. These families become the building block for a society aimed at those same ends. Unfortunately, it is hardly ever that simple. Trying to be an honest man in a city of thieves hardly pays off.

In the end we will have to try a number of methods in the hope that we eventually find one that works. Here's a list:
- Start a family. Family grows over generations founded on your base principles. The downsides are obvious.
- Find a locate a community you believe is already trying to make the world a better place. Join them and do your best.
- Reach out to institutions created for this very purpose (churches, schools, charities). Pick one you feel is actually doing things right and pitch in.

I'm tired and sleepy now, so that's all I got. Let me know if you think of other ideas.

ReubenSandwich:
Do you see that happening anywhere? Do you have some ideas about what anyone who wants to can do in their everyday lives to help that happen and be part of it?

One of my ways of thinking about what I'm promoting is people learning to live the way Jesus says to live. In an earlier post, I wrote about some of my ideas for what people can do to practice and promote that. I'll re-post them here:
- Helping with the moral and spiritual education of children.
- Learning to be a better friend to more people, a safe, easy, fun and helpful person to talk to for all kinds of people in all kinds of situations.
- Learning to work with neighbors to help make community life in a neighborhood healthier, happier and more loving for every person in it.

I'll add to that, studying and practicing together, to improve our qualities and capacities for community service. That would inlude studying the scriptures, but also some study guides designed for that purpose.

Wilgrea7:
Of course here I'm not referring to all theists. Mostly the deeply religious kind. But i think it gets the message across. Which is that in some cases, belief in a God can hinder certain people from reevaluating their moral stance.

This is actually a good thing.

Using the “human wellbeing extending to enemies example"

One God can say it's okay to forgive your enemies. Another can say they all deserve to be slain by the sword. Another can say they should be punished for a while and then released.

We still run into serious problems on how to treat enemies, regardless of whether we're theists or atheists. Which is why I said even if we accept existence of a God, it doesn't really solve anything.

This isn't a problem for the theist (who is actually just a Christian, Muslim or Jew). Belief in one God means that there is only one objective choice regarding enemies. It is good to think of this from the perspective of an adherent of a theistic faith. He does not struggle with whether to believe Allah, Yahweh or God. He only believes in one. What you are saying does not imply that theism does not solve the problem-it certainly does when reduced to one faith. I believe the issue here is how we know which god is God, not whether God solves the problem of morality.

The fact of the matter remains that it should be theoretically easier to make someone reconsider an act as either good or evil if they are religious. This isn’t to say that this is the reality.

I know this is anecdotal but I’m one such person whose entire moral compass has been recalibrated by coming to believe I’d misunderstood or intentionally misinterpreted the Bible. The atheist on the other hand is unfortunately driven by what he finds in or out of taste. Morality depends on what appeals to him even if he adopts the useful fiction that human wellbeing is the root of all good. We’d still have atheists argue over what constitutes this wellbeing, whether or not it can be overridden, whether it should extend to enemies and so on. On this matter, it is clear that theism is the more consistent worldview.

Wilgrea7, it may interest you to know that I’m doing some reading on abstract objects and their relationship with God as an extension of our argument on morality. When (or if) I finally wrap my head around it I’ll update my views and let you know.

Wilgrea7:
Even if a non-religious person has their own “personal reasons" for doing bad, it is easier to reason with them, to show why if human well being is taken as the basis of morality, certain things will be objectively wrong.

Even if they carry on doing said bad thing, you've clearly shown them that said action, is objectively wrong. They may carry on doing the bad thing, but they cannot claim anymore that what they're doing is somehow “good".

The first paragraph might work; if the person in question is a saint! Otherwise, assuming they are averagely intelligent, they will inquire as to the choice of collective wellbeing as the standard for good, rather than just their own.

Then they can carry on in peace.

We are talking about two distinct, but related matters. Antinomians believe they are Christians yet compromise their morality in the face of even minor disturbances. They do this believing that their salvation is merely contingent on a perfunctory prayer of forgiveness. What you are describing is the overly supernaturalist bent of the modern church. The tendency to outsource all effort to God by permanently placing Him in the place of cosmic butler.

The two are related when we bring that magical supernaturalist thinking into the realm of morality. The ignorant Christian feels free to do as he pleases on the grounds that the Holy Ghost is at work refurbishing his soul and that God is ever at hand, desperate to forgive his sins.

I believe that the problem can be fixed through proper religious education. This would mean abandoning aspects of Christianity that we’ve derived from the culture around us and taking “Sola Scriptura” seriously. It would also compel us to “sort out our faith with fear and trembling”.

ReubenSandwich:
This might look like repeating what I’ve already said, but I’m thinking about it in a different way now. It looks to me like you’re arguing against antinomianism because of it being used as an excuse for people doing whatever they want to do. I’m seeing that as part of a larger problem of people ignoring, denying and excusing the harm in what they’re doing and in what they’re promoting, which happens with or without people believing in some kind of antinomianism. The entire belief system of today’s Christianity facilitates that, and facilities people excusing themselves from trying to improve their own attitudes and behavior and the way they lives, learning to live the way Jesus says to live. They can excuse themselves from all that by thinking that all that Jesus is calling for them to do is agree with some doctrine or creed, agree that they are sinners, and agre for Jesus to rule their life, without any efforts of their own to improve their own character and capacities and the way they live their lives. Pointing out that faith without works is dead, and promoting good works and social responsibility, does not solve the problem if “works” does not include people informing themselves about the effects of their attitudes and behavior, and the way they live their life, on all people everywhere, and continually trying to improve them.

ReubenSandwich:
You might want to know that some posts here including yours were being copied and pasted into other forums outside of Nairaland, and answers to those being copied back here under the names of Tamaratonye1, 1000WaysToLive, Near1, Midnight378, chryssanthe, Silverseed, and FemiAjani. That stopped more than a week ago, after it was pointed it out, and since then there haven't been any posts under those names.

Wow. That’s good to know. Thanks.

You’ve completely understood everything this post is about. I’m glad. The Old Testament punishments are still applicable and would have been just to institute if Christ hadn’t died. It’s why modern criminal justice is geared toward rehabilitation because these people have a chance to be saved. They (we all, actually) deserve to die, but we live because there is a chance we might be saved.

Repentance is coming to accept that you’ve been paid for and not insisting on paying your own bill.

You are correct that Christ’s sacrifice is conditioned on our acceptance of it. That’s a large part of the point.

You agree that it makes sense?

Wilgrea7:
2) Eternal Justice (Justice by God himself)

First of all, I'd like to address the issue of "repentance", because I think it's one major point where we may disagree. Now that I think about it, I wish I had addressed it sooner.

So I've noticed that you've made reference to people having to repent and accept Jesus' ways in order to be saved. But I see this as a contradiction to what you said earlier.

If you remember in our discussion about morality, you said the reason we don't go around stoning sabbath-day workers, non-virgins and disobedient children, is because Christ's sacrifice has paid for their sins. But if that's the case, then why repent? What exactly is the point of repentance if the sins have been paid for already?

If repentance is needed to activate this "divine payment", then why don't we punish people who haven't repented yet Old testament style? I believe I asked a similar question in our previous discussion.

From what I've gathered, the idea of temporal and eternal justice, only goes to show that Christ's sacrifice doesn't apply to all, but instead, comes with conditions, which of course I'm not trying to argue against.

But if that is the case once again, then why don't Christians today carry out "justice" against unbelievers as described in the Old testament? Because as far as repentance goes, they're unrepentant, and according to what you said earlier, the old testament rules still apply.

Endtimer:
Isn’t this exactly what I said in the post you quoted.

One last thing I’ll say is that I’m sure other theists dealt with the original question thoroughly.

From your replies, you agree that this post has nothing to do with the moral argument. However, in the original question you seemed to be describing morality as the 3-dimensional content of the inside of a cube and “God’s morality” as a point in the cube. The question seemed to be : “why should we strive towards that point in space?”

The problem with this is that morality is better represented by a scale with a maximum and minimum value, with God’s nature at one end. Whether we like it or not, all our actions are somewhere on that scale and the point of Christianity is inclining them to the maximum value by force of will.

Isn’t this exactly what I said in the post you quoted.

Wilgrea7:
Good day Sir.

I think you may have misunderstood my point here. I'm not asking for proof of the existence of A God, or e even any specific God in general.

All I'm asking, is for the theist, for example, the Christian to prove that it is indeed their God, and not any other one, who is the arbiter of the objective moral laws, if any, that exist in our universe.

Let me give an example.

Students in a school need to adhere to the rules set by the principal. The existence of a principal is not the issue here.

Now, let's say there were 20 people who claimed to be the principal, and demanded the students obey their rules.

Of course we can see right off the bat that only one of the 20 can indeed be the principal. In order to show that their rules are indeed binding on the students, one of them will have to prove that they are indeed the principal of the school, and hence, their rules, and not the ones of the other 19 people are what the students should obey.

It is always a pleasure to prove you wrong. It’s been a while, but here goes.

Morality on the theistic view doesn’t come from God’s opinion, it comes from his nature. In fact, morals only exist because God “adheres” (wrong term) to them in the first place. On the Christian view, God is also consistent in His actions, regardless of your uneducated framing of Mary’s mysterious pregnancy. However, we are talking about theistic morals being tenable and morality not existing on atheism and not Christianity in particular. Muslims and Jews can and do use the exact same arguments. With some variation, so do Hindus.

Concerning God “living” that is obviously a manner of speaking. I’d appreciate if you could stick to the important things rather than get excited over minor details to make yourself feel better.

As for your saying I have no answers for questions asked, feel free to respond to this one in the same way you always do. I’ll also have you know that revealing what you think of me is pointless: it doesn’t affect me and I happen to think worse of you. I just don’t type any of it because I’m content being the evil theist you can’t get rid of. Not the evil, misogynistic, narcissistic meanie who makes middle aged menopausal women cry.

I’ll be here to debunk your reply later. Happy Sunday.

Tamaratonye1:
No. Wilgrea7 is correct. There is nothing objective about morals if they come from a god's opinion of what is right or wrong. Truly objective morals would require the god itself to adhere to them - for instance, the god of Christianity would be guilty of violating its own commandment against adultery by impregnating the betrothed Mary.

FYI, this was never a debate about whether or not a god exists. When we criticize religious morality the god is simply there as a placeholder, a hypothetical with the subtext "If god X exists..."

---

Smh, lmfao, didn't know god was alive - so others could live like "he" does): If "he's" alive "he" excretes waste. I suppose that's what these kinds of your excretions into these threads are - "his" excrement. Pretty filthy, lol


I won't be holding my breath to read something of substance, rather than more ignorant ass twaddle from you "when you get back", Endtimer. You've shown quite clearly that when you have no answer you just pretend the questions weren't asked. You're as dishonest as the day is long, lol

The most important challenge antinomianism presents is the subversion of eternal justice or what I like to call sneaking into heaven. Of the countless leaflets I've read detailing how someone was "too late" to accept Christ and died before they could, I've always wondered why they didn't just say a short prayer and they would be seated next to the saints in heaven. This ease of forgiveness is touted as an advantage Christianity has over other faiths, but is just one more example of the bizarro world we live in. If anything, it is supposed to be an established heresy and one of the greatest enemies of the faith. This is what both the Apostle Paul and Luther addressed in their writings.

To be clear what I am addressing is the belief that we can do whatever we like and subsequently do X and be forgiven. In Luther's time, the papacy had declared X to be the paying of indulgences in order to buy your way into heaven. More commonly in our time is the "give your life to Christ" view which entails a simple prayer. X can be any act which when performed will simply allow the actor into heaven. I intend to show that this is not the case and to replace X with Y, a composite action that is biblically supported and does not simply allow anyone into heaven.

"What then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?", asked Paul in beginning the famous chapter. "God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" He seems to be discouraging exploiting an obvious hole in Christian theology, but He is in fact making clear that believers that regress into sin will face damnation like everybody else.

6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6:6 Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

The entire passage is peppered with covert threats concerning the loss of eternal life like the one above. It is in fact this very chapter that the following famous verse is drawn from:

6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The contrasting of sin with death and "gift of God" with eternal life makes it clear that death here refers to damnation. In Paul's view, there is no sneaking into heaven.

What then? Even if we cannot continue to sin without foregoing access to heaven, we haven't been furnished with how we can enter heaven and why we can't sin until our last moments and take Pascal's wager seriously by saying those magic words. The solution to the question of how to enter heaven was answered by Jesus himself in Matthew:

19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what
good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 19:17 And he said
unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
19:18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no
murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou
shalt not bear false witness, 19:19 Honour thy father and thy
mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself

But how can this be. The same Jesus whose message predominantly concerned the state of one's heart told the young man that he had to carry out a checklist of tasks to enter heaven? This is because Jesus' message here does not contradict his famous sermon on the mount. In fact, the state of one's heart and the actions one will have to carry out are connected, as Jesus makes clear in Luke:

6:43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a
corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
6:44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do
not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.
6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth
that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his
heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the
heart his mouth speaketh.

This is where Martin Luther comes into play. I've put his views into my own words as "composite action". When one plays with sticks in a certain manner, it is called field hockey. When another rides horses it is called horseback riding. When someone does both of them it is called polo. Not horseback hockey, field riding hockey or hockey riding. Polo is therefore a composite action. Christianity teaches that we are all forgiven and granted God's grace. In a sense, everybody is saved, but that is just a manner of speaking. To accept our salvation we are told to do X, where X is usually just a simple prayer. Jesus' teachings as Martin Luther understood them entailed that to give your life to Christ, you'd have to possess faith (the matters of the heart Jesus often spoke of such as believing you have wronged God through your sin, believing that Jesus is God who gave his life for our salvation and having an internal conviction to abstain from sin). This faith would necessarily manifest works as Jesus explained above and would form the composite action of (Faith + Works); which I posit as Y. With this it is obvious that you can't sin till you are on your death bed and repent because you'd still go to hell because you lack the Faith part of our composite action. Remember that we are using faith in a slightly different context from how it is usually used and the model is both representative of what other Christians seem to believe as well as biblically supported, not to mention that it solves the problem of antinomianism.

Final note: This post is primarily addressed to Wilgrea7, to whom I apologize for its length and rambling. This is the first time I'm using one of my own ideas in response to a challenge to theism. Given the rich two millennia tradition Christianity has, it is all too convenient to borrow from a vast collection of enlightened beliefs from diverse set of individuals. Since this is (mostly) the result of my own thinking I appreciate any attempts at rebutting it. That will only make it stronger. Also, anyone is welcome to chime in. It is my belief that the point of discourse with people of different beliefs is to understand one another. If someone's point cannot be understood it is either because it keeps flying over everyone else's head or it is incomprehensible (i.e., irrational) and cannot be understood as such. Either way, the only way to arrive at truth is to test these ideas against people who do not agree with them. Let the wahala commence.

To begin, antinomianism is mostly a threat to our senses of morality and justice. While our belief in objective morality persists regardless of it, it provides serious disincentive for moral living. On the other hand, it challenges our formulaic ideas of temporal and eternal justice. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes make clear that good things do not necessarily happen to good people and bad things do not necessarily happen to bad people. On the antinomian worldview, this is made worse because a cursory prayer to our "Lord and personal Saviour" (the personal part is undoubtedly stupid) and voila, a bad person is now a good person. Otherwise good people (and by that I mean Christians) may be tempted to indulge themselves out of self-interested pragmatism and return to being good later on because Jesus will forgive them if they halfheartedly recite a few lines; therefore allowing them to eat their cake and have it too and then providing them free tickets into heaven for winning the cake eating contest.

As I've already explained elsewhere, the challenge to morality is the most easily discarded. Antinomianism does not invalidate morality any more than the ocean invalidates the existence of dry land. Antinomianism is, in fact, firmly founded on the principles of good and evil. It simply claims that we have license to practice them as we see fit without fear of divine wrath on condition of ending our reconciliatory lies with Amen. It does this to escape eternal justice, but before we deal with eternal justice, we should concern ourselves with justice on earth.

Temporal justice is an important part of Christian belief. It is my opinion that Christian moral ideas (or some corruption of them) underlie every moral argument made in the world today and a good amount of legislation. The topic is so important that I've lost one friend because I didn't believe that good things necessarily happen to good people. On rethinking the event, what I meant to say to my friend was that God does not go out of His way to supernaturally produce good effects for actions carried out by good (and by that, I mean Christian) people. My own belief is that God has sometimes provided ways to succeed as unimportant by-products of His moral law and consequently does not bother with making good people successful (which is what we mean when we talk about "good things" ). Instead, God has entrusted the upholding of that moral law to us. There never was a time that it was the norm for angels to drive by your tent and shoot you, your wife, children and flock for disobeying God. I concede that God has sometimes punished bad people explicitly in the Bible, but most bad people in the good book are simply ignored, unless people decide to punish them for their badness. Delilah, for instance goes scot-free while Haman was hanged on his own gallows. Temporal justice, therefore, is and has always been the job of people like you and I. We are commanded to uphold the moral law and hold those accountable who do not. We already do this by putting criminals in prison and passing the death sentence for those deemed irredeemable, whereas it was done before Christ's time by stoning offenders. We could take it further by making good people successful in society. We have the power to make good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It has and will always be our responsibility.

Few Nigerians hear the words "give your life to Christ" anymore. Not because they aren't being said all the time. In fact, they have probably never been uttered less frequently in the history of this country, however, if someone hears something unimportant enough times, they tend to block it out forever. It wasn't always so easy to ignore what preachers had to say, as one man discovered centuries ago. The year was 1520; the place: Germany; his name: Martin Luther; his duty: to change the world by being the great reformer and leading figure in Protestantism. Unfortunately, his ideas were as groundbreaking as they were misunderstood. As a result of this, he coined the term antinomianism in response to warped implications drawn from his views by his friend Agricola (yes, it does sound like a soda).

Antinomianism as understood by Luther was the belief that Christians can live as they please because of Christ's sacrifice and God's forgiveness (sin now, repent later). I will try to address the issue as best I can and will anticipate feedback from people anywhere on the theological spectrum so we can hopefully arrive at a model that solves the problem.

Christians across time have scarcely confronted the threat of antinomianism. This must be because Christianity as they understood had very little inclination toward a moral-free life. My motive here is to approximate that mindset as closely as possible; to propose a feasible, possible mindset they might have had that invalidates antinomian lawlessness.

Prominent theologians' work on the question includes the Apostle Paul's Romans 6, and Martin Luther's Against the Antinomians (important because Luther created the term "antinomianism" here and Protestant ideology has been corrupted so thoroughly that it bears little resemblance with the reformation of Luther's day). My thesis will focus on these two works, their conclusions and a number of Bible verses.

Wilgrea7:
1) Human morality vs God's morality

It is commonly said, that if a God exists, then it would be the arbiter of good and evil, and therefore, we can only be good by aligning ourselves with its definition of good, and any deviation from that, would be evil.

For this position to make sense, anything, and I mean, ANYTHING, can be considered good, as long as a God says so. And even if we humans see something as subjectively good, that thing would not be objectively good except it is in line with what a God sets as good.

Now, on to my example. This was given to me by a brilliant Christian here, by the name of TenQ. He made reference to a toilet owner, and the germs of a toilet.

If I, the toilet owner, decides to disinfect my toilet, I will be killing millions of bacteria. To me, disinfecting my toilet is good. To the bacteria, it is clearly bad. But assuming I'm the arbiter of good and evil, my moral standards trump that of the bacteria.

But here's the question. Are the bacteria wrong for not wanting to die? If I murder millions of them, are they somehow wrong for seeing my actions as bad?

Now let's bring God into this scenario.

If a God decides that it is moral and good to boil all first babies in hot oil till they die, and humans consider that bad, are they wrong for doing so?

Even if a God, who is the arbiter of good and bad exists, on what basis are we to say that it's definition of good and bad have to be the one we adhere to? If I choose not to boil my child in oil, that will be seen as bad as per the God's standard. But am I really wrong for not wanting to do so?

Why exactly do we need to adhere to this God's definition of right and wrong?

The above is hardly representative of theistic consensus. You still think God just decides arbitrarily to do X or Y. It isn't God's definition of right and wrong; those are just words created to describe God's characteristics and their antithesis respectively. Also your argument's appeal is essentially ethical (ironic for someone trying to establish moral subjectivity). You must be aware that what the bacteria in the toilet feel has no bearing on moral objectivity. Therefore, you are trying to make us feel sorry for them rather than address the philosophical underpinnings of the moral argument.

The last sentence makes sense. As someone must have already pointed out to you, the answer is: you don't. You have free will to do as you wish, however, you may find that lifelong marriage will fulfill you and that homosexuality will give you diseases; this isn't a form of the prosperity gospel (check out my post on antinomianism for more on that) but it is true in several instances. The reason for this is that:

- You are made in God's image and your nature and mine are corrupted versions of His own. Living like He does therefore strangely provides otherworldly fulfillment.

- God is not only omnibenevolent but omniscient. His knowledge of everything means that we have good reason to trust and emulate Him.

- This is what you want to hear, so I'll be direct: failure to live like God will result in damnation. This and the two above are some reasons to live like God.

This is from the top of my-tired-head so I expect to do a lot of qualifying and explaining when I get back.

Wilgrea7:
2) The existence of objective moral laws

Objective morality is something theists seem to believe in, which is fine.

However, the issue I have with theists here, is their inability to prove that the objective moral values, if they exist, are indeed coming from their specific God, and not another one. That somehow, the God who they serve, is indeed the arbiter of good and evil, and therefore the source of objective moral values.

For example, a Muslim can say it is wrong to eat pork, while a Christian can say it is right to do so. (please note: This is an example to prove a point, and should not be taken as an accurate representation of either faith).

Both of them believe in a God, who happens to be the the source of objective moral values. For the Christian, eating pork is objectively Ok, while to the muslim, it is objectively wrong. However, everyone knows that isn't how the word "objective" works.

At the end of the day, they are both subjective. Subjective in the sense that the definitions of right and wrong have shifted from personal opinion among different humans, to personal opinion among different gods.

Until the theist can prove that whatever God they serve is indeed the source of objective morality, their claims to any sort of objective moral truth is nonetheless subjective.

The laws given by the god of the bible, quran, vedas or any other religious text CANNOT be taken as objective, until the believer of the respective faith can show that their specific God, as described in their book, is indeed the creator of the universe, and hence, the source of objective moral laws.

Of course, this doesn't in any way mean we need to adhere to them, as explained in my earlier post, but it does get us a step closer to something.

A few glancing blows as I am otherwise preoccupied. This bit is an obviously disingenuous red herring. You purport to address the moral argument which presupposes God's existence and quickly tell us to prove God's existence. You've defeated your own point by making it clear that objective morals do exist in the theistic faiths, so you've adjusted to arguing which set of morals should be considered objective. The argument is about morality and not the existence of God and is completely sound on its own. If you wish to address God's existence and why we are Christians rather than Muslims or Jews, go ahead a create a post to discuss it, but do not pretend that this is a challenge to the moral argument.

1000WaysToLive:
As another poster has asked, would you have the courage to tell a god no? I'd add another question.

Would you feel like a -bad- person if you refused to kill a man or a woman or a child on the whims of some god?

First, this is called a loaded question. Like, have you stopped beating your wife? It is quite obviously a setup, but it touches on the point of what we are talking about. The reason you are concerned with what I'd do is that you believe that killing someone is objectively wrong. As a true Nigerian, I'll redirect the question to gain a more thorough understanding of your meta ethics. Why is robbing people wrong (for example)? I've told you that it is wrong theistically because it isn't imitative of God's nature. Anticipating the obvious atheist response, I should point out that this is a singular example of a larger position, stated thusly: good is a term used to describe God's nature. I've asked two questions now:

- Why is robbing people wrong?
-What is "good" itself?

YOU SAID: Concerning what you wrote, the important part is that “we” decided that harm arbitrarily constitutes immorality. There is nothing intrinsic in harm that can make it bad without appealing to unspoken first principles. We could have as well decided that anything that doesn’t cause harm is immoral and that harm is the highest good.

Well, IDK if that's true.

If it were up to us to decide what's harmful... then..self interested creatures that we are, we'd decide that nothing would be harmful to us.

This is an extremely important point but your response isn't a counterpoint to something I said. I didn't say we decide what harm is. I said we cannot decide that something is bad because it causes harm. That would be an arbitrary definition of bad. We might as well define bad as anything that makes people happy. I define bad as a term used to describe a set of values antithetical to God's nature. How do you define bad?

As far as principles..there's nothing we can say about anything..logically, without employing principles.

I agree. But our belief in these principles must be justified. The first principles you appealed to are without basis atheistically: you cannot appeal to harm as bad without telling us what makes harm bad. You have to give reasons why something is bad.

The good or bad making properties are not accurately reported facts of the properties of x, but asserted properties of some gods particular nature.

Alright then, tell me what intrinsic fact of rape, murder, theft or any other crimes that make them bad. It is not illogical to assert that actions have moral contingence on things beyond them. That is, in fact, the conventional view rather than yours. It is also simpler and more tenable than yours. Your meta ethics seems to introduce unnecessary complexity to explain away simple things; in the same manner that one could to explain that the sun orbits the earth. In the end you are left with no basis for moral belief and a dangerous arbitrariness.

Presupposing God's existence we have reason to continue believing all we do. In the absence of that, we do not. A foolish person might ignore that I just said presupposing and ask me to prove that God exists. To be clear, what I am saying is if God exists we have reason to hold first principles for morality. If He doesn't we do not. You believe He doesn't so you will have to provide a basis for morality as I have.

Your own position falls into a metaethical camp....and I do have to point out that it's odd to see a person who thinks that morality is subjective, (inaccurately) criticizing metaethics....for being subjective. Is subjectivism a problem?

I am a moral objectivist so you this doesn't apply to me.

If we don't think it's good to base our morals off what all moral agents are making up, why would it be any better to base our morals off of what a single moral agent made up?

Obviously because you are equating the agents and I am not. Think of it like class struggle. You assume discrimination on the grounds that both classes are functionally equal but a disparity in result persists. I point out that differences in the classes manifest differences in result. The morals agents in the first part of the sentence are you and I; functional equals. You can't tell a bomber he is wrong because you say so. You aren't the boss of him and you lack moral authority. The moral agent in the second part of the sentence is the tradition concept of God: omni-benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all. There is a difference between the agents and an obvious difference between the results.

Is it based on reporting facts about a matter x? Is it based on reporting facts about a society x? Is it based on reporting facts about a subject x? These are the cognitive positions. Objectivism, relativism, subjectivism.

Objectivism is saying that x is always bad. Relativism is saying that the morality of x depends on the context. Subjectivism is saying that morals depend on personal taste.

And that's why this christian "morality" of yours fails, in point of fact.

It's not based on facts of these matters.

It's based on fairy tales we come up with about what god says or does

I understand that you really super duper believe in gods, but that won't rescue the ethical system even so.


If we don't think it's good to base our morals off what all moral agents are making up, why would it be any better to base our morals off of what a single moral agent made up?

Why not facts, instead?

This, I believe is the whole point of your post (although I couldn't resist rebutting it entirely, which I'll refrain from in future). What you have is a false dichotomy where information about something is only true when we derive that information intrinsically; failing that it is false. This is an absurd position because we deal with contingence and relativity everyday. Attributes like being tall or fat depend on the heights and weights of others in a similar class (like the species for example). There is nothing intrinsic in 6ft that makes it tall; likewise there is nothing intrinsic in rape that makes it bad. Its morality is contingent on God. Since you don't believe in God, you will have to explain why rape is truly bad without appealing to baseless first principles.

1000WaysToLive:
YOU SAID: Good of you to explain what you mean when you use the term meta ethics. Maybe we can come to understand one another and have a discussion. Understanding one another is the entire point of these things.

First, I do not want to harm or kill anyone. That is just absurd: this is the internet so I can’t and more importantly, I don’t want to.

You're right there in the same boat with the vast majority of the rest of us.

However...there are any number of things we might believe we have a moral duty to act on, that we may not -want- to act on.


Insomuch as a persons "moral" system is satisfying the whims of a command issuer, if they're truly committed to that, it's unclear whether their wants will be operative.

Go kill all the fuckin amalekites you scrubs! "Well..shit, I'd rather not..but if you say so G-man". etc.

Amusingly, we find it related to us in magic book that some people did fail with respect to this command issuers orders..that they may have felt obligated towards...just couldn't pull the trigger.

They failed to kill, or failed to kill every single x..and for this...they were punished.

Do you imagine you'd have been one of those people, on account of how you don;t want to harm or kill anyone?

As another poster has asked, would you have the courage to tell a god no? I'd add another question.

Would you feel like a -bad- person if you refused to kill a man or a woman or a child on the whims of some god?

YOU SAID: Concerning what you wrote, the important part is that “we” decided that harm arbitrarily constitutes immorality. There is nothing intrinsic in harm that can make it bad without appealing to unspoken first principles. We could have as well decided that anything that doesn’t cause harm is immoral and that harm is the highest good.

Well, IDK if that's true.

If it were up to us to decide what's harmful... then..self interested creatures that we are, we'd decide that nothing would be harmful to us.


That's not the world we appear to live in, we don't appear to have any such power or ability.


As far as principles..there's nothing we can say about anything..logically, without employing principles.

We could have decided that anything that doesn't cause harm is what we'll call immoral, but we'd clearly be talking about something else if we did so.

YOU SAID: I also agree that if x is good, then it is good. In addition to that I only believe that x is good because it is in God’s nature. That it is imitative of God’s nature makes it moral. From what I can tell meta ethics simply decides that something is good or bad based on personal taste. For instance, harm is bad because we the people say it is; while it was good to vikings as they said it wasn’t. I’m not endorsing their terrorism, but it was also personal taste that flew those planes into those buildings back in 2001.

All well and good..but that's not an objective morality.

That's subjective (or even noncognitive) morality.


The good or bad making properties are not accurately reported facts of the properties of x, but asserted properties of some gods particular nature.

Metaethics is just how we classify the nature of morality under different understandings.

Is it based on reporting facts about a matter x? Is it based on reporting facts about a society x? Is it based on reporting facts about a subject x? These are the cognitive positions. Objectivism, relativism, subjectivism.

Then there are non cognitives like being based on a persons emotional response. On their sense of taste.

Hovering all around all of these things is error theory - which comes in as many flavors as there are metaethical theories. My favorite being the notion that there is an objective moral truth, but human beings always get it wrong for some or no reason.

Your own position falls into a metaethical camp....and I do have to point out that it's odd to see a person who thinks that morality is subjective, (inaccurately) criticizing metaethics....for being subjective. Is subjectivism a problem?


YOU SAID: I believe I started this discussion by stating that most here are making the mistake of looking at our ultra-civilized Christianish world and concluding that if we decide to make up good and bad as we go it’ll be alright. Perhaps those people would like to read about the ancient samurai tradition to sodomize little boys (and only little boys) to see what happens in the absence of the Christian morals they think are natural.

I probably wouldn't put christianity and sodomizing little boys in the same sentence..if I was trying to criticize some -other- thing.

Any rate, I don't think that it would be good if we just made up good and bad as we went along either

And that's why this christian "morality" of yours fails, in point of fact.

It's not based on facts of these matters.

It's based on fairy tales we come up with about what god says or does

I understand that you really super duper believe in gods, but that won't rescue the ethical system even so.


If we don't think it's good to base our morals off what all moral agents are making up, why would it be any better to base our morals off of what a single moral agent made up?

Why not facts, instead?

Tamaratonye1:
I wonder what Endtimer here's excuse for the rape of the Cathars is.

"Many historians consider the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars an act of genocide." ~ Wikipedia

This is pathetic. I mean that in the most utmost sense of the word.

I stated that objective morals cannot exist in God’s absence and people here rush to support me so quickly that I’m left blushing at their kindness.

If objective morals exist, then so do objective ”immorals”. The reason everyone here is rightly angered by abuses committed by some professed Christians is that they perceive those crimes as immoral. I’m stating that the reason you all perceive those crimes as evil is because you are culturally Christian. If you were Mongols, you’d revel in the destruction and subjugation of enemies. War history would be a matter of pride. If you were samurai, you’d see defiling pre-adolescent boys as normal.

The things you see as good and bad are the result of Christianity because you are in a predominantly Christian culture. It isn’t your nature or evolution. Christianity has major bearings on what you believe good and bad to be, which is why we can agree that these wars are silly and those boys should’ve been protected from those men.

Don’t you truly believe that your moral values are superior to those of others (homosexual predators for instance)? You certainly seem to believe they are superior to mine. Why then, would you disagree with objective morals?

Tamaratonye1:
I actually would like to read about this. Can you suggest some reading which would help inform me better regarding this episode in history?

Here’s the Wikipedia page (NSFW):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_Japan

Enjoy

Tamaratonye1:
My point is that you can't rule out these other meta-ethical frameworks as substantive any more than I can rule out the possible existence of God. Not only haven't you done so, with your analogies and examples, I have good reason to suspect that you are incapable of doing so, as having read the literature, I know the difficulty of the task.

Actually I can rule them out if they are obviously irrational and untenable, but first you’d have to state your position and defend it.

Tamaratonye1:
Well, you're wrong. If you don't know the meaning of a term being used, please either ask or look it up.


Internet Encyclopedia Of Philosophy || Metaethics

The entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is another resource (link).

Notice that your response doesn’t invalidate my claim that his meta ethics assumes good and evil based on personal taste.

Also, what everyone here calls meta ethics is part of what I already consider regular ethics. Soon we’ll be talking about things like the Euthyphro dilemma and what good is and how God is good. These are issues I’ve already addressed here on Nairaland so I’ll provide links to ease the discussion.

Tamaratonye1:
True, one does well not to simply assume, which is why I generally prefer, to instead base my overall assessment on a reading of the literature of those people who, for lack of a better description, are experts in the area.

My point is that you can't rule out these other meta-ethical frameworks as substantive any more than I can rule out the possible existence of God. Not only haven't you done so, with your analogies and examples, I have good reason to suspect that you are incapable of doing so, as having read the literature, I know the difficulty of the task.

You seem to think you have something novel to contribute which would set the great philosophers on their heels if they were to hear it, but so far, you do not. You simply have some tired, worn-out chestnuts, a heaping helping of ignorance, and the arrogance which leads you to tread recklessly where angels fear to do so, lol.

List of fallacies invoked:
1. Appeal to authority.
2. Ad hominem.

You are basically saying you don’t have to prove anything because I am too stupid to understand your gospel.

I predicted you’d dodge the question because you don’t want to reveal the weakness of your position.

Once again, we both used a lot of words, but I actually made a point.

Good of you to explain what you mean when you use the term meta ethics. Maybe we can come to understand one another and have a discussion. Understanding one another is the entire point of these things.

First, I do not want to harm or kill anyone. That is just absurd: this is the internet so I can’t and more importantly, I don’t want to.

Concerning what you wrote, the important part is that “we” decided that harm arbitrarily constitutes immorality. There is nothing intrinsic in harm that can make it bad without appealing to unspoken first principles. We could have as well decided that anything that doesn’t cause harm is immoral and that harm is the highest good.

I also agree that if x is good, then it is good. In addition to that I only believe that x is good because it is in God’s nature. That it is imitative of God’s nature makes it moral. From what I can tell meta ethics simply decides that something is good or bad based on personal taste. For instance, harm is bad because we the people say it is; while it was good to vikings as they said it wasn’t. I’m not endorsing their terrorism, but it was also personal taste that flew those planes into those buildings back in 2001.

I believe I started this discussion by stating that most here are making the mistake of looking at our ultra-civilized Christianish world and concluding that if we decide to make up good and bad as we go it’ll be alright. Perhaps those people would like to read about the ancient samurai tradition to sodomize little boys (and only little boys) to see what happens in the absence of the Christian morals they think are natural.

I look forward to your response.

1000WaysToLive:
A moral statement either is or is not true (can or cannot be true), no matter who utters it, or whether anyone is motivated or compelled to adhere to it.


You might not be accounting for the difference between metaethical statements, and statements of practical motivation..and, similarly, between descriptive subjectivity or relativity and metaethical relativity and subjectivity.

Adding or removing gods does not alter or effect any objective metaethical conclusion. It can..however, alter descriptively subjective or relative moral conclusions.

Would you -like- to understand these things? So that you might, for example, understand why an atheist might adhere to an objective moral sytem..and why..for example, your system of favor seeking is not a moral system at all..objective or otherwise?



The short version of a long story, is that moral realism or objectivism is so incredibly simple and intuitive to us, and we're so completely dedicated to acting it out all day every day, that it's surprises me when the faithful or the faithless fail to understand it (regardless of whether they agree with it).



If we understand badness to have -anything- to do with harm, for example, then the statement x is bad purports to report a fact about that act - not about someone's motivation, or some gods decrees.


It either does or does not cause the specified harm. That's it, that's all.

You might notice that god based moralities hijack this? That it's insisted by the faithful that there is some specific harm to the bad x's - the problem being how often they either fail to report facts accurately..or, indeed, invent non facts whole cloth.


You might not think that your god or your religion does that, but I assume you're at least vaguely aware of when other god based..supposedly moral..supposedly objective...systems do so?


You might also notice (either in your own or others) that gods are said to dislike things or make prohibitions against things with no moral import whatsoever. Items like ritual construction and purity. Dietary restrictions?

Now, to sum it all up..it actually would be a pretty safe bet that a person who genuinely believes that that no moral statement has any objective warrant is sick, and prone to do terrible shit - but, in mere reality..no one believes you when you say this. They think that you're adding dishonesty to ignorance.


Would that be bad..do you think? Howsabout your god? Got a position on dishonesty? Your comments themselves are evidence of your compulsion to do so...so, it seems like we have a little microcosm for testing all your questions about objectivity, warrant, motivation, and it's relationship to the real or hypothetical divine...just in that.

Judas1X:
You're damn right, stupid. The world will damn well be a better place if the September 11 hijackers had been detained BEFORE they carried out their moral imperative, based on their god belief

You are not offering us any assurance whatsoever that you won't ravage some portion of society because your god told you to do it. Your highest moral aspiration is to do god's will. You've said that repeatedly. With a mindset like that you are a dangerous little cunt. You're a ticking time-bomb. So I fully support that they should lock you up and put your ass away, out of reach of society so you don't hurt people, or a whole plaza of people.

Or prove once and for all, irrefutably, that you won't follow any command by your god that would wreak lethal destruction. That the world is safe from you even if it isn't safe from your god. Do you even have the guts? The audacity to tell your god NO? Prove it.

Ok. I promise not to kill you. Pinky swear even.
Doesn’t change the fact that I believe God died for people like you to live forever and she believes that people who don’t do what she decides is good should be jailed.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it is good planes into buildings. I have a set of things that I think are good (getting married, giving to poor people, helping those in need for example). She thinks that whatever she wants to do is good. Can’t you see who’s more dangerous here?

FemiAjani:
People behave decent because we are a social animal that lives in groups, and the welfare of the group is very important to us. When no one murders others etc., we are all much safer. We also innately enjoy helping others. No one needs to tell us that. People who don't have these types of emotions are disordered. Social animals take good care of their own. Look at how wolves travel. The sick and the old go first, so they set the pace for the group so they don't get left behind. Then comes a group of animals in their prime to protect the first group and take on any dangers. Then comes the general group, and the rear is brought up by the best who watch over the whole group. They take good care of each other. Every example of social animal takes care of its group. Why would we be any different?

I respect your measured approach.However your hypothesis doesn’t mimic reality. We are social animals but the problem is that we identify with smaller groups than one would hope. Those groups go to war with one another. That’s how it’s always been. WWII for example was the axis forces vs the allies. Nigeria has constant ethnic tensions as one group battles another. This is the way it is among most primates: small groups form and protect their own interests even at the expense of other groups.

Notice, however that powerful nations send aid to countries in need and armies march to protect people on the other side of the world. This is not “natural” human behavior. It is benevolence borne by the ghost of Christianity in the western world.

Tamaratonye1:
I'm a bit tied up, so I'll whip up a relatively short rebuttal to this cute little spiel here. I might add more when I've got more time to spare.

Meta-ethical frameworks based in naturalism may stretch the boundaries of what is commonly conceived of as ethics, but then so does error theory, and even divine command theory has its issues. The nutshell version is that no specific meta-ethical position has been demonstrated to be necessarily inconsistent with ethics and morals as they exist in the real world. As always, it's useful to keep the Duhem-Quine thesis in mind, to wit, any system can be made consistent in its major premises by an adjustment of its minor or tertiary premises.

As a consequence, where you end up on morals depends to a large extent upon where you began, being limited more by the assumptions you conceive as reasonable in the beginning than any of the chess moves that you make further down the line. You have certain requirements and propositions that you hold true, some of which, if questioned, lead to other equitably reasonable meta-ethical stances. That you are unwilling to enlarge your mind to entertain the larger domain of meta-ethics, and not just solely with regard to naturalism, is a you problem, not a me problem, or a them problem, lol.

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I was going to post a variant of the trolley problem meme attached just below, but am limited in my tools atm, so I'll just describe it. Instead of the trolley being diverted to either a single person or multiple persons, it would include a third path that runs headlong into a church. "Problem solved!", lol

We both used a lot of words, but I actually made a point.

If you’re intellectually honest you’ll accept that you’ve got nothing to smart to write, so you wax philosophical about meta-ethics and what not. At bottom your response was an admission that your position is based on assumptions (which you are reluctant to explicate) of “morals as they exist in the real world”. Isn’t that objective morality you’ve got there or are you just trying to say that whatever people do in today’s Christianity-influenced world is what you consider “morals as they exist in the real world”. I’d say you were wickedly ignorant of history, but you are the same girl who talks about abhorrent practices in the Old Testament. Doesn’t that count as the real world? Couldn’t someone use your logic to justify those actions by using them as starting assumptions?

Not to mention that you state your points as conclusions rather than provide evidence for outlandish claims or explanations as to how I deserve to be detained for my evil and how you are now the sole arbiter of all that is good and lawful in the land. To be frank, I laugh when atheists like you think that you’re ushering in a new Age of Enlightenment. I concede that most Christians (people in general actually) are not smart, but neither are you. You are atheists of convenience, going along with a trend, self-righteous about your superior “understanding” and knowledge of the Truth^TM. Ignorant masses smug that they excel ignorant masses of another persuasion in the magnanimity of their ignorance.

Other than that, your point is, once again an admission of what I’ve been saying all along, as you sheepishly admit here:

Tamaratonye1:
The nutshell version is that no specific meta-ethical position has been demonstrated to be necessarily inconsistent with ethics and morals as they exist in the real world.

In other words, you want us to both be right as none of our positions has “specifically...been demonstrated to be necessarily inconsistent with ethics”. I agree that I am right. You, on the other hand will do well to not assume that anyone agrees with you and prove your points with examples and analogies like the rest of us educated folks do. When you attempt that (you won’t, you will instead dodge the question); you will see how easy it will be to tear down the fallacies of someone who simultaneously believes that good should be done because “we. want. to”, that good doesn’t exist and that somehow 9/11 bombers and Endtimer are bad people for doing what they want to do.

You can choose to demonstrate how your nonsense is rational (other than by repeating it), or continue at the womanly, tongue-in-cheek, play at words you’ve employed until now. Until then sis, don’t talk when big folks are talking.

Tamaratonye1:
Because. We. Want. To.

It's called empathy. Its exact origins are unknown but it exists in many species, not just in humans. My guess is that it's partially derived from early childhood socialization, partially from evolution. TL;DR version: If you don't care about others they won't go out of their way to assist you, and this decreases your survival prospects.

I'm happy when others are safe, happy and have their basic needs taken care of. I'm unhappy when others are hungry, homeless, injured or in mortal danger. It really is that simple, Endtimer.

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21 years ago a bunch of Saudi Arabians, acting on instructions from god, flew 3 hijacked airliners full of passengers into large buildings full of occupants, and would have done the same with a 4th airliner but were overpowered by a bunch of people who had different ideas about what constituted "the right thing".

I suspect you might say those Saudi Arabians were taking instructions from the wrong god. Yet, compared to your god, the god that issued those instructions was relatively merciful in that the suffering inflicted was far less than the suffering inflicted on innocents in the bible.

The fact that you can't comprehend why someone would act "rightly" unless prodded by some god makes you a menace, and someone who should not be allowed to roam freely at large in society. You have no restraints, and will willingly and perhaps even joyfully shoot up a saloon, or burn down a clinic, or commit some heinous piece of mayhem because you think your god has instructed you to do so, exactly as this god of yours has instructed others to do.

Since I've come to understand your point, I can't say this discussion has been fruitless; painful perhaps, but far from fruitless. I'll use your post to illustrate something to someone who thinks. Wilgrea7, this woman has demonstrated exactly what we've been talking about for a while now, so I'm going to demonstrate the untenability of Godless morality using her ideas as a foil. That way something sensible can result from my interaction with her and perhaps objective third parties can come to see what I'm talking about.

She starts her reply by indicating that morality is sourced from individual wants. She quickly refutes herself, but I'll stick to debunking her claims for now (you might want to read the quoted text in its entirety for context). If morals really did come from what people want, then the Holocaust would certainly be the greatest moral accomplishment in the history of the world as it fulfilled Hitler's desires admirably.

She undoes herself by following her first point with a short paragraph where she struggles to demonstrate innate human goodness through evolutionary appeal. I'm not one to reference Richard Dawkins but she might want to read The Selfish Gene. Contrary to her Powerpuff Girls influenced fantasy, humans are demonstrably bad. We've been at war throughout our existence and when we take time off from that, it's to enjoy the spoils of battles won: captive women, slaves, stolen goods and property. If her argument here is that we naturally manifest (what her Christianity-influenced mind considers) moral sentiment it is only because we live in a civilization only 3% as old as the time we've spent on this earth. Furthermore, her point about survival being contingent on empathy is as ludicrous as it is absurd. Empathy is hardly an important trait in determining the survival of a species; not to mention that survival cannot be seen as determinant of morality because it often involves killing (another thing most Christian-influenced atheist minds consider bad). If that was the case anything required for survival (essentially doing your part in perpetuating your genetic heritage) would be moral. Things like killing, stealing, rape, theft, and most of the other things constitutions ban would be alright depending on the situation.

Next, is another short paragraph where she states that her happiness about the wellbeing of others is enough to bring about morality. If people should do good things only because they make us happy, then the same can be said about bad things. No sensible person can honestly believe this (as we'll see at the end of her post). Once again she fails to grasp that some people do not think like she does and solipsistically declares that people will be good little boys and behave in the absence of objective morals because it makes her happy to see others happy. It also made Nazis happy to throw people in gas chambers and Bin Laden happy when the second plane hit the building. Furthermore, no adult should believe that goodness is contingent on our happiness because happiness is a flimsy emotion. One moment we wish to be alone in the world and the next to be surrounded by friends and family. Emotional transience would render all morals super-arbitrary as they not only change when one person's happiness fades but were never even in place as different people are made happy by different things. Some people would be happy if we all died so they could claim our land.

She says something about Saudi's.

Then, she assumes the ironic position of the holier-than-thou atheist by borrowing my morals and attacking me for believing in a God that commands the "suffering of innocents"; all this despite having stated her disbelief in objective morality elsewhere. How can I be bad, if good and bad are matters of personal taste. Isn't that just her isolated, valueless opinion.

Finally, she proves my point by accusing me of evil and demanding my immediate arrest and imprisonment without the possibility of bail and without a fair trial, all because I, the Christian, am a mass shooter and arsonist (I'm as shocked as you are, as I was just informed). Her last paragraph is proof of what I've been saying all along: she wants me locked up for not believing what she believes. The significance of this is that atheist morality is dependent on personal opinion. Our laws are codified morals and would-be tyrants would have me (and all other believers) locked up for believing a logically unassailable position (moral contingence on deity). Ironically, from her post history she feels oppressed as an atheist in Nigeria, but finds it within herself to call for the arrest of someone for believing in God. I'm curious as to whose morals would inevitably lead to totalitarianism as they aren't morals at all; just what she woke up feeling.

Sorry for the long text. I'm tired so I'll post my proposed solution to Christian antinomianism some other day. Happy independence.

Happy independence.

Wilgrea7:
But how exactly are they immoral? Also, since Christ's sacrifice apparently eradicates all sin, doesn't that mean that even the Islamic terrorists are sinless, since the sacrifice of Christ allows people to commit sin without the Old Testament punishments being applied to them?

If Christ's sacrifice covers all sin, then immorality cannot exist in any sense. Since all sins committed are automatically washed away by him.

They are immoral because God would neither recommend nor do them, at the very least for the reasons extremists would. For instance, God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and as a result of that event eradicated child sacrifice throughout time by stopping Abraham and telling him to use a ram instead. Christianity's eventual global cultural influence came to play a massive role in putting a stop to infanticide. Assuming an extremist chooses to instruct someone to kill their child, in order to sell the child's parts, it would be definitionally immoral. This is a strange example, but it works just fine.

As for the existence of immorality, it is obvious that lack of incentive does not eliminate the concept. Just because you can do whatever you want with reckless abandon doesn't mean that what you are doing is right. I've thought through my position on this and will actually post something later to deal with antinomianism in general.

Wilgrea7:
I understand the divinity of Christ you're trying to portray in this situation. However.. I don't think it really solves the problem.

What i was trying to say was that, a scapegoat, whether normal or divine, has not been used as a remedy for the “death penalty" sins described in the OT.

If we accept that God only acts in line with how he acted before, then scapegoating of any kind, cannot be accepted.. without the shifting of morality.

Sure, i get that the sin was committed against him. But the very idea of shifting the penalty of the crime from the guilty, to the “offended" in this case, is the very thing i see as a disparity in God's actions.

Plus, i don't see how it is in any way just. If someone commits a crime against me. I don't see how further punishing myself is supposed to vindictive the offender.

You are correct that there had not been a divine substitution prior to Christ's death; however, that doesn't invalidate the substitutionary atonement. The atonement is a unique event in history and is moral based on our accepted premises despite its lack of precedent. It was the first and only time God had died for man's sin. So it is, in fact, in line with God's previous actions as it is there are none to compare it with.

Additionally, the atonement is proof of God's kindness first and foremost; think of His justice as the reason necessitating it. God is just, so He will not allow crimes go unpunished. Because He does this, it is moral and something we should emulate (this is an important theme in my future post on antinomianism). He is also kind and does not want us to die for our sins. So He pays the penalty for a crime He never committed against Himself on behalf of those who did. In the classic, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Much the miller's son kills the king's deer in an early scene. The penalty for his crime is death. Imagine that the king himself sought to free Much, without disrespecting law and tradition and offered to pay for the crime himself. Much is vindicated by the king as it is his law that would have condemned him; the same law that commands that a life be given in recompense for the deer's. In that case, the crime is paid for.