1000WaysToLive:
...-And why do you think that is?

Because one god somewhere, that none of them had ever heard of, is said to have said something...

Following his inability to supply places where stealing is approved and honoured, it clearly proves beyond doubt that one Mighty some where, DID WRAP UP THE WORLD WITH THE SAME MORALS, whether they have heard of Him or not, which was my point.

chryssanthe:

If you claim the "God of Morals" is so moral, would you become my slave under the connditions spelled out by Leviticus 25? Or anyone elses slave for that matter,?

Leviticus 25 is one the origins of Labour Laws and Contracts. Contract dictates that all debts must be paid, therefore, following a persons inability to satisfy a debt, therefore people offered themselves to the service of the creditor .exactly like washing plates today when you fall to pay for food in a canteen.

Therefore, Leviticus 25 is setting down what must happen in this case specially verse 43 even declares God being against any and every form of oppression

"Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God".

So, I have to be in your debt first before I can become your slave or servant. And in that Leviticus 25 is very beautiful for me or anyone as many of us have already seen worse. My own aunt deprived me of food when I worked with her because my mom (breadwinner) retired and went abroad for greener pastures and left me in her care. My day started from 5am and ended at 11:30 to 12 midnight.

So, I know what slavery is and I know that Leviticus 25 is indeed good and because of her wickedness and evil I verily found God, Whom I cried to day and night, year after year, until One Day, He Started speaking to me and telling me what to do and He made a Way and Rescued me from all my captors and set me free and made strong and blessed and increased me, As He did for Jacob in laban's house and Isreal in Egypt.

Which is how I found God and knew Him and understood His Ways which is why I am now His advocate. My Life is living miracle of one who has seen evil and hell and death BUT THE LORD HAD MERCY ON ME AND SAVED ME!

chryssanthe:

But, as I am in a funny mood, let's grant you are right: ur nammu never existed. Roman law is still, by far, not the oldest law we have, and it is not the only law our societies are following today, not even Christian societies.

You did not state which societies have legals older than the Romans.

midnight378:
Ephesians 6:5
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

Correction
Ephesians 6:5
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;

midnight378:

.. now look up on Google "The Law of Hammurabi" and come back and tell me what the two dates are.

One is FAR FAR earlier than the other .
Hint : It's not the Twelve Tables.

You forget it is not an old age debate but you called on me to show how far back men started creating legal. And I said legal then was based on Natural Laws and Natural Rights and not dependent on the wishes and desires of men who could kill and destroy other men and the society now called politicians and cabals.

Which is why we see every expression of Natural Law and Natural Right eg.

Damnum non facit qui iur suo uttitur - Harms no one, he who exercises his lawful rights.

Culpa ubi non est, nec poena esse debet- Where there is no guilt, there is no punishment.

And the famous
Volenti non fit injuria- Acting voluntarily, no harm was done.

midnight378:
The 1st century BC Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus indicates that the Roman institution of slavery began ...

Off Point. The issue is not that whether the Romans participated in slavery.

midnight378:

As we see "Natural law" did them a lot of good.
As the Roman would say "Nugae, ineptiae, gerrae"

We already know that people are not good and will disobey a good Law.

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.

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:


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:

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:

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?

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?

Endtimer:
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.

Maybe. But there are so many non-Christian nations that outlaw the same things that majority-Christian nations outlaw.

As for why I'm angered by Christian abuses, it's because they add hypocritical sanctimony to their crime.

Not only do they screw little boys in the ass, they have the nerve to lecture others on what is and is not moral, and why their own morality is "superior."

Endtimer:

List of fallacies invoked:
1. Appeal to authority.

This is false. Nowhere did I appeal to authority for the correctness of any point. As a matter of fact, I pointed out that my assessment was based upon the substance of these experts' work, not simply their position as an authority.

Endtimer:

2. Ad hominem.

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

Arrant nonsense. Nowhere did I say any such thing. I claimed you were ignorant. The rest is claptrap that you've chosen to make up.

Endtimer:

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

You made some unnecessary combative rants, and there were some questions contained in those rants, but since I frankly don't consider myself the type of atheist you described, I didn't see it as relevant. Please restate your question absent the bigoted rant and I will do my best to answer it.

Endtimer:

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

Once again, the argument I made was that I had not simply assumed that my characterization was true but had come to those conclusions through study. You didn't even know what metaethics was when you responded to my characterization of the conclusions of metaethics, so you were criticizing something which you clearly didn't understand. That's the act of a complete ding-dong twerp. I say this not to say that any of your points are necessarily wrong, but rather to suggest that you are out of your depth.

Endtimer:


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.

There is no branch of philosophy called regular ethics. So I don't know what you're trying to say here. Words and terms have meanings. Learn them.

As to your point that I didn't invalidate your claim, since the term metaethics doesn't necessarily refer to an ethics based upon personal taste, I did in fact invalidate your claim by showing that it doesn't necessarily follow. As a more mundane matter, I have had quite a few discussions with 1000WaysToLive through PMs and know from them that he is a moral realist, which is most assuredly not an ethics based upon personal taste, so your failing to understand the meaning of the words being used has led you to a rather absurd contention.

Endtimer:


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.

Actually you can't, as they may appear obviously irrational to you for reasons other than them being irrational or incorrect. This is why the argument that it is obviously true is not a valid support for one's conclusions, especially in the face of people who do not agree with you in your conclusions as to what is obvious. This is the dense excuse of a lazy and brainless person.

And I did state my position, namely that nobody has been able to show that all of the metaethical positions being discussed here are necessarily false, and I even supported it by pointing out that

[1] Many people who have expertise in the area both have not ruled them out but also acknowledge the difficulty in doing so, and

[2] By pointing out that my assessment was not simply based upon their status as authorities.

That being said, I do not claim that it cannot be shown that one or more of these metaethical frameworks is necessarily false, but no one to my knowledge has credibly done so, imho, least of all some endtime slowpoke nerd who doesn't even know what metaethics is, lol.

Endtimer:


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?

You seem to have missed the point that the exemplars of Christian piety and morality engaged in genocide. Hardly shining beacons of morality, but quite consistent with your god who advocated turning against those who spurned your Christian ways a la "I come not to bring peace, but a sword".

For your claim that the morals of our society owe to the influence of Christianity would first require that the morals advocated by such were not patently evil, given that there is good reason to believe that we are not. You have to explain not just the good that has come from Christianity, which I will acknowledge does exist, but also the evils of Christianity, and why we no longer agree with those Christians regarding morality if they were in fact the source of our morals.

It's interesting how obsessed with intrinsic behaviors Christianity is. We have souls, so we, too, have a nature. And according to the bible, right and wrong are "written in our hearts." Is our heart different from our soul? Do we have not one but two intrinsic natures, each warring with each other? And yet we are also cursed with original sin. Does that mean our nature is inherently bad, or only that we start off hobbled in the race to be good by an inherited burden?

I'm reminded of Buddhist culture which posits that certain people, having reached a certain point in their karmic development, are fated never to regress prior to that point. This strikes me as being doubly blessed, that is, getting twice the mileage on the same karma that in crossing that line, they not only have accrued karma due, but that karma accrued is then used also as insurance against backsliding in addition to functioning just as an advancement toward nibbana. It seems there's a bit of double-dipping in the metaphysics of both Christianity and Buddhism.

YOU SAID: 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?

That's not actually a loaded question


I think you mean that it's a -psychologically- loaded question..and perhaps it is, for you - but not for me.

The reason that I think anything is wrong, is down to harm.

You could ask about any number of specific and different things, items of a moral import, but I will always begin a moral calculus with determining whether or not a thing is harmful.

YOU SAID: 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 above, I always begin by seeing if we can determine harm.

You could, of course, decide to call anything that makes people happy bad..


But then..of course, you and I would not be talking about the same thing, would we?

Do you, btw, think that this is what bad is?

Anything that makes people happy?

I don't mind that you define bad as whatever is against whatever a gods nature is, it's certainly up to you to do so - but I can point out that such a definition is a metaethically subjective or even noncognitive position.


It's also completely arbitrary in ways that defining bad as -either- harmful things or things that make people happy isn't.

YOU SAID: 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

...as above..again, whether or not an act is harmful.

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

You may be, but you've been arguing as and for moral subjectivism.


Perhaps, if you mean to argue as and for objectivism, you could take an assist from another objectivist, like myself, who's spent some time learning how to accurately and cogently communicate that position to other people?

YOU SAID: 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.

Well...I -could- tell a bomber that he's wrong because I say so..but I wouldn't.

I would explain to that bomber the harm his actions will cause.

Then..in the likely event that he poo poos all that and says his god wills it - I'd shoot him twice in the chest and once in the head.

YOU SAID: 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.


No, objectivism doesn't say that.

Objetivism is, very simply, the idea that a moral statement reports a fact of a matter. Facts of matters can change, therefore objective moral statements can change.

Are you..in light of this, actually a moral objectivist, or do you think there might be a more accurate term for what you're describing?

YOU SAID: 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.

Well, there you have it - you are not an objectivist at all.

You do not believe that there's something -about rape- that makes it bad. I do. Harm.

Your morality..if it even makes sense to call it a morality... may be contingent upon a god, but mine..as a moral objectivist... is not.

Endtimer:


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?



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?



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.



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.



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



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.



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.



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.

Tamaratonye1:
It's interesting how obsessed with intrinsic behaviors Christianity is. We have souls, so we, too, have a nature. And according to the bible, right and wrong are "written in our hearts." Is our heart different from our soul? Do we have not one but two intrinsic natures, each warring with each other? And yet we are also cursed with original sin. Does that mean our nature is inherently bad, or only that we start off hobbled in the race to be good by an inherited burden?

First, soul and heart is the one and same.

Secondly as you correctly observed, you truly have 2 Natures (good and evil).

But along your growing up, you chose one nature over and above the other, of course the more popular and the most promoted nature, evil, which always always condemns and covers the good at all costs including bringing murder upon children who would not choose evil.

And having chosen that way, hence your nature becomes a sin loving and sin doing nature, just as happened to the first sinner.

Dtruthspeaker:

I bet that Bible does not contain that He commands that every 7 years a person in bonds must be free and his debt (liability) cancelled.

That was a rule for Hebrew slaves only. And in verse 17, god tells you how to trick fellow hebrews into permanent slavery!
Want to read verse 17 for us?
It did, of course escape you, that not only slavery was permissible for your god, no, there was even injustice within the system of gods slavery: Heathen slaves had less rights than hebrew slaves!

Do you deny that your god commanded, in Leviticus (Deuteronomy and Exodus), humans to own another human as property?
Do you hold this as being morally permissible?

You cant! Your religious programming is blocking your brain, by becoming rather dishonest and evasive, than admitting what is painfully obvious. Thats what you allowed religion to do to your mind. It made you an ignorant LIAR!!

How do i know you are a liar!?

Dtruthspeaker:


Leviticus 25 is one the origins of Labour Laws and Contracts. Contract dictates that all debts must be paid, therefore, following a persons inability to satisfy a debt, therefore people offered themselves to the service of the creditor .exactly like washing plates today when you fall to pay for food in a canteen.

Which is immoral too!

Evidence for lying #1: Lying by omission

Therefore, Leviticus 25 is setting down what must happen in this case specially verse 43 even declares God being against any and every form of oppression

Is owning another human being as property a form of oppression? ...as described in the very next verse, which you left conveniently out, you slimy liar!

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves

Evidence for lying #2:

So, I have to be in your debt first before I can become your slave or servant.

Wasnt it "bondsmen" a day ago!?

But to answer just a short and quick one, first change your Bible to KJV and see that Leviticus 25 deliberately said "bondsmen and bondsmaid" AND NOT SLAVES.

And in that Leviticus 25 is very beautiful for me or anyone as many of us have already seen worse. My own aunt deprived me of food when I worked with her because my mom (breadwinner) retired and went abroad for greener pastures and left me in her care. My day started from 5am and ended at 11:30 to 12 midnight.

You had long, hard working days. Booo hooo. Cry me a river!
How about your aunt beats you so hard that you die within 4 days!? Because thats totally aok, according to your bible!!

You know, i dont mind your immorality, your evasions, your willful ignorance. All of this is condoned by your god.
But.please.stop.lying!!!
Because, liars go to hell!!!

chryssanthe:

That was a rule for Hebrew slaves only. And in verse 17, god tells you how to trick fellow hebrews into permanent slavery!

Which Verse 17?

This one says "ye shall not oppress one another"; Leviticus 25:17

chryssanthe:

That was a rule for Hebrew slaves only. And in verse 17, god tells you how to trick fellow hebrews into permanent slavery!

Which Verse 17?

This one says "ye shall not oppress one another"; Leviticus 25:17

And this is not for Hebrews alone but for everyone in the land of Israel

Dtruthspeaker:


Correction
Ephesians 6:5
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;

unfortunately for you , the Greek word "δοῦλοι" is here and most other places in the New Testament translated as "slave" or at least "bondservant" .
After you get a real education, you might have some credibility . You have none now . since you are mostly ignorant of Biblical things, you don't know that there are three times the word is translated as "slave", and there have been long fierce debates about whether the NT (known to all real scholars) endorses slavery. When you get beyond your first semester , you may learn about this long historic debate :

"Ephesians 6:5 reads,
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
Colossians 3:22 reads,
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.”
1 Peter 2:18 reads,
“Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.”

You forget it is not an old age debate but you called on me to show how far back men started creating legal. And I said legal then was based on Natural Laws and Natural Rights and not dependent on the wishes and desires of men who could kill and destroy other men and the society now called politicians and cabals.

I forgot nothing . Too bad you forgot that YOU MADE IT AN OLD age debate by making the claim that the first laws were made in Roman law.
YOU said :

And Roman legal is the oldest of all man made laws and all other places copied from them.[b]

I called on you to do no such thing . You're lying . It's "the Roman legal system" not "Roman legal", (when you take English and learn to write correctly).
what you ignorantly and falsely claimed was proven to be totally wrong , as was your rubbish about the Twelve Tablets.....
your false claim also exposed the fact you basically don't even know the first thing about human history .

Which is why we see every expression of Natural Law and Natural Right eg.

this is not a sentence in the English language . It means nothing, and is not referenced.
You're not really going to make it even out of college, if you can't even write an English sentence.

[b]Damnum non facit qui iur suo uttitur - Harms no one, he who exercises his lawful rights.

See above. It means nothing , and is out of context.

Culpa ubi non est, nec poena esse debet- Where there is no guilt, there is no punishment.

Pointless drivel . See above

And the famous
Volenti non fit injuria- Acting voluntarily, no harm was done.

And what is the point ? You can copy-paste Latin ?
This is your first debate isn't it ?

chryssanthe:

Do you deny that your god commanded, in Leviticus (Deuteronomy and Exodus), humans to own another human as property?

I denied it and you saw I told you to blame your evil bible for that.

chryssanthe:

Do you hold this as being morally permissible?

Having denied that God did not command the doing of slavery, therefore the reasonable question is the good (moral) He was doing?

Answer: Providing Law to control and regulate the labour relationship.

chryssanthe:

Which is immoral too!

You call paying off of debts owed in a contract immoral?

That clearly proves how deficient your moral meter is!

chryssanthe:

Is owning another human being as property a form of oppression? ...as described in the very next verse, which you left conveniently out, you slimy liar!

As I said, your moral meter does not work else you would have seen how people are willingly offering themselves up to serve other human beings. No force or duress. Even joyfully!

chryssanthe:

How about your aunt beats you so hard that you die within 4 days!? Because thats totally aok, according to your bible!!

If she had killed me then, I'll be dead and my problems over. So, you have nothing.

Dtruthspeaker:

Off Point. The issue is not that whether the Romans participated in slavery.

see you are unable to keep to your own point.
The issue is very much whether the Romans participated in slavery as YOU CLAIMED in your off-point bullshit about the Romans that :

"Romans gave to Natural law a great importance in their daily lives . They mentioned once "ius naturale est quod natura omnia animalia docuit", which means the right that nature gave to all living things".

You were proven wrong .

We already know that people are not good and will disobey a good Law.

What "good law" are you talking about ? totally unsubstantiated, off-point, and yet another diversion . YOU made the claim:

"Romans gave to Natural law a great importance in their daily lives. They mentioned once "ius naturale est quod natura omnia animalia docuit", which means the right that nature gave to all living things."

The fact is the society permitted slavery, and your (unreferenced/identified) quote is obviously false.
You are seriously embarrassing yourself here .... this is a new low for Christian apologetics

Here's a little education for you : https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery...-societies
Slavery was widespread in Greece, Rome and many other SOCIETIES. Your attempt to make it about "individuals" "breaking a good law" ... is total nonsense.
The point is the societies in general accepted slavery, and when you learn about it, the slave population was HUGE, and thus Paul and the others telling them to obey
was very much in context of there being such huge numbers and many likely to be members of their congregations. You really don't get this do you ?
Oh well . I guess everyone starts as a newbie.
In general, even fundy Christians accept the translation as "slave".
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages...-testament
https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studie...-nt-world/
"While this might shock Christian readers, the NT authors do claim that slaves should be submissive. For instance, Paul writes, “Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth” (Col. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:1; Titus 2:9; Eph. 6:5). Likewise, Peter writes, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable” (1 Pet. 2:18). How should believers understand these passages, and why do the NT authors seem to be passive in regards to slavery?"
https://www.evidenceunseen.com/articles/...d-slavery/
You really should try actually reading your Bible some time. You missed the Philemon business with Paul who sends a "slave" back to his master.
https://bibletalk.tv/slavery-and-the-early-church

since you can barely write a sentence in English , I'll assume you actually know no Greek or Latin.

Endtimer:


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.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander .
You have yet to state your premises (both explicit and assumed) for your "unassailable" logic claiming that morals without the gods are unwarranted .
You have yet to justify which logic you're using and how you know it applies to the given situation.
Before you keep telling others what they must do, troll, get busy and get your own business done .

Oh, and BTW, "appeal to authority" is not a fallacy *if* the experts invoked are actually experts in their field.
It's a fallacy when an authority in ANOTHER field is invoked in a question which they are not actually an expert.
Go take a class in Logic sometime . You can legitimately appeal to an authority. Do you ask your dentist to advise you on your lumbago and weight problems ?

You don't get appointed a judge in an objective moral system, anyway. You either can or can't observe a fact. That's all that matters.

Do you think you can observe a fact?

People do change, let's not be hyperbolic. There's nothing in your comments about why theft is wrong?

I guess you were asking an open ended question.

YOU SAID: You know this does not cut it. Giving a judgement setting a person free is not the same as lobbying.

.....I actually can't make heads or tails of this one, perhaps you could rephrase?

As for me...I would break down peoples doors - and have, to stop them from doing horrid things and to stop them from hurting other people.


People are different, I get that things like that aren't for everyone, but there are other ways to help...and I would like to explore the moral angle of this.


If you can do a good thing, or stop a bad thing...why wait for someone else, or something else, to do it?

YOU SAID: Following his inability to supply places where stealing is approved and honoured, it clearly proves beyond doubt that one Mighty some where, DID WRAP UP THE WORLD WITH THE SAME MORALS, whether they have heard of Him or not, which was my point.

-and I'm trying to explore that point with you.

I agree that there is a source for human morality. Everyone agrees with that statement, to put it bluntly, people simple disagree on what that source is.


Is the source of morality what some subject says, what some society says,


Or facts about a matter under consideration?

What do you think?

Dtruthspeaker:


You just had to give a low blow when all I have said is that no one appointed me Judge



No matter how good an argument is people never change. So to a thief, all I would tell him is that, it ends in death either by prison stabbings or by mobbing or by shooting.



You know this does not cut it. Giving a judgement setting a person free is not the same as lobbying.



True! But are you breaking down people's doors and offices judging them for keeping slaves at home or in the office? No.

We need The Creator and Owner of man. It is He Who the Power to break down all doors and no one will be able to stop Him.

So, I prefer to wait for Him.

Agreed at bolded..but how do you, or we, know which laws are the good laws?

Dtruthspeaker:


Off Point. The issue is not that whether the Romans participated in slavery.



We already know that people are not good and will disobey a good Law

It may not be a kindness. Have you considered the possibility that you are both wrong?

We don't accept that a thing is objectively true just because people agree....right?

YOU SAID: Why then, would you disagree with objective morals?

Can't speak for Tamaratonye1, but I don't disagree that there are objective morals.

Perhaps, though, you could explain why you think the existence or nonexistence of any god would be relevant to whether a moral statement accurately reported a fact about a matter x?

Endtimer:


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?

Dtruthspeaker:

No matter how good an argument is people never change. So to a thief, all I would tell him is that, it ends in death either by prison stabbings or by mobbing or by shooting.

Goodness !
And here I thought you people believed in redemption and salvation.

LOL

Endtimer:


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?



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?



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.



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.



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



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.



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.



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.

Hello again .
Still waiting for your premises and logical argument for why morality is unwarranted without the gods .
What ? You don't actually have any ?

I see you also would hold , that if someone held you down and shit in your mouth, without a god, it's not bad.
What a fucking (angry antisocial) m.oron.
Have you always been a sociopath ?

Dtruthspeaker:


Having denied that God did not command the doing of slavery, therefore the reasonable question is the good (moral) He was doing?

Wrong.
If he even "permitted it" (and being an almighty god), the reasonable question is, what the Bleep is wrong with Him ?

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

― Epicurus


BTW, your English is very poor.
You don't know how to use a grammar checker ?
(And someone here said you are a lawyer )