No trace of human DNA or Deity DNA found in local eucharist

[CaptainFritz28]

B) Morality is what society, as a collective, perceives it to be. Absent of a book of instructions from a mythical sky daddy, how else are we to arrive at a moral standpoint? We must look within and around ourselves. Are my morals based on myself? To some degree, yes, as they are partly a product of my thought process over many years of living, self reflection, and discussion. They are also based on the moral positions, and the actions, of others around me, as I perceive them. They are based on the history of our society and the social norms and contracts that have accompanied the progress of our society over generations.

Just to highlight the variety of non-religious moral thought, it's also totally consistent to be agnostic or atheist and disagree with Jamie's point here.

I think morality is probably something more like mathematics - a set of objective principles that humans can discover through inquiry and trial-and-error. The Roman numeral system was, in fact, wrong and incomplete for lacking the concept of "0", even though it was widely used and believed in. Even if this error had been repeated for centuries, it would have still been wrong.

I believe the same is true with morality. I don't think the majority gets to decide what's moral, or that I get to decide what's moral. There are many objective non-religious traditions that do just this:

Kant convincingly suggested that something cannot be morally right unless it can be applied universally - the definition of objectivity. If his argument is convincing to you, then lying isn't wrong because society disapproves of it, but because if everyone lied, trust and communication would break down, which is a logically inconsistent outcome.

Utilitarianism frequently gets criticized for ostensibly endorsing extreme measures like mass murder or for imposing a subjective notion of "utility", but it is actually grounded in an objective ethical framework. At its core, Utilitarianism posits the existence of an objective metric for assessing the moral value of actions based on their outcomes. This metric is centered on the concept of maximizing overall happiness or well-being, and minimizing suffering. A consistent utilitarian doesn't arbitrarily decide what counts as 'good' or 'bad'; rather, they aim to evaluate actions based on their impact on the collective well-being. This approach to ethics insists on a moral responsibility to enhance the net balance of good over harm in the world. This is actually quite similar to how CF goes about deciding what actions produce the most "love".

The Golden Rule isn't just Christian, but rather a fact about human morality that has been discovered many times over: treat others how you want to be treated is as close to a scientific discovery about how to improve human flourishing as we may even get.

From these objective, non-religious moral traditions, I can stand beside myself and my society and criticize all sorts of moral evils even if they're popular. A Kantian, consistent Utilitarian, and a non-religious Golden Rule adherent would all have condemned slavery even if they lived in a pro-slavery society. They all know the wrongness of wanton murder, etc.

Similar to my response to Jamie's post, I'll just make one reply here and then I'm done, as I think we're going a bit in circles.

I'm glad you recognize the necessity of an objective standard.
I agree with Kant's belief about universal application, I agree with the Golden Rule, and about Utilitarianism I mostly agree, but I also think that there is more to the morality of an action than just its consequences. So if lying saves a life, I would agree that it is justified, but the lie is still itself immoral. I expect you would agree with this.
Our difference then is simply a question of why one moral standard is better or worse than another. I believe mine is better because I believe God has authority above all and thus whatever morality the creator of the universe gives us ought to be followed, and will be the best set of morals. You may say there are subjective interpretations, but even if we assume you are correct, it is still less subjective than the set of morals you mentioned. Utilitarianism, especially, is rather subjective. Even the Golden Rule is subjective, as one person might want to be treated themself differently than another person would have themself be treated, resulting in different interpretations of it. The Bible gives a reason to prefer it, being that it was instituted by the creator of morality Himself. Your doctrines of morality don't give such a reason to be preferred, other than the assumption that people will recognize them as inherently good, which cannot be guaranteed.

So that is why I believe the Bible is the best moral standard. It not only gives the most objective morals I have seen in any standard, but it also gives an inherent reason to be followed.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Similar to my response to Jamie's post, I'll just make one reply here and then I'm done, as I think we're going a bit in circles.

Of course, you're allowed to stop responding any time. I'm happy to keep making somewhat repetitive arguments to you until you engage with them a little more deeply :) Despite the circles we've been treading, I suspect your views are actually a little less absolute than when we started, which is huge progress for a forum conversation.

I'm glad you recognize the necessity of an objective standard.
I agree with Kant's belief about universal application, I agree with the Golden Rule, and about Utilitarianism I mostly agree, but I also think that there is more to the morality of an action than just its consequences. So if lying saves a life, I would agree that it is justified, but the lie is still itself immoral. I expect you would agree with this.

Great, and I'm glad you're no longer claiming that Christianity is the only objective moral standard and that Christianity was the sole source of Golden Rule morality.

Our difference then is simply a question of why one moral standard is better or worse than another. I believe mine is better because I believe God has authority above all and thus whatever morality the creator of the universe gives us ought to be followed, and will be the best set of morals. You may say there are subjective interpretations, but even if we assume you are correct, it is still less subjective than the set of morals you mentioned. Utilitarianism, especially, is rather subjective. Even the Golden Rule is subjective, as one person might want to be treated themself differently than another person would have themself be treated, resulting in different interpretations of it. The Bible gives a reason to prefer it, being that it was instituted by the creator of morality Himself. Your doctrines of morality don't give such a reason to be preferred, other than the assumption that people will recognize them as inherently good, which cannot be guaranteed.

So that is why I believe the Bible is the best moral standard. It not only gives the most objective morals I have seen in any standard, but it also gives an inherent reason to be followed.

Yes, if I believed in the same God as you I would also prefer its moral standard to others. Even in that case, however, I would have to acknowledge that (i) my God didn't give me an especially clear moral standard to go on via the Bible, so (ii) I'm going to have to engage in human moral reasoning not unlike what non-believers have to do in order to make real life moral decisions.

Utiliatarianism and Christian morality are either equally subjective or equally objective. Utilitarianism commands its adherents to engage in a good faith exercise to really determine the ultimate objective truth about human flourishing and to promote it. Since the ultimate objective truth about human flourishing is unknowable, they have to reason through different ways of assessing what actions are probably better at promoting human flourishing than others. This is the same as Christian ethics: God commands you to love everyone (among other, sometimes conflicting moral commandments) and these commandments are objective moral codes straight from God - the problem is, they were given to us in book form and, without a living God to clarify what he/she/it meant, it's left to Christians to reason through different ways of assessing what actions promote God's vision more than others. We've already discussed, at length, the many ways in which the Bible is subject to all sorts of interpretation and why a simple literalist reading of the Bible is not a solution to perfect morality.

Non-religious people also have reasons to be moral. In the same way that you're convinced of the rightness of the Bible and the need to follow it, I'm convinced of the rightness of the Golden Rule and the need to follow it. I think we both have a moral impulse, independent of our beliefs, that's grounded in our evolved nature - most intellectually normal people prefer to think they are doing good in the world, most people feel guilty about unnecessary harm they cause even when they don't expect punishment. Kindness, fairness, and respect for others are nearly universally regarded as good across human societies, whether or not they contain many Christians. You will be insulting a lot of people if you hold tight to your bigoted assumption that, if someone isn't your particular brand of Christian, they are either immoral or amoral - I think if you look around carefully in your own life, you'll see this isn't true.

And we're going to fundamentally disagree that the Bible itself is proof that one should follow the Bible. Most humans through most of history have found that not to be the case, although many are also clearly convinced by it.