Atheistic Double Standard?

[1robin]

Generally, I think of *acts* as being moral or immoral. Alternatively, I can see *rules* as being moral or immoral.

You can see them as whatever you wish, but what you seem them as, without God, has no connection to objective moral facts. Because (for the 20th time) nature cannot tell us what ought to be done.

I see alcoholics and drug addicts as having an *illness*. It is their disregard of other people that are involved that is immoral.

Forget the fact the fact that whether you refer to chemical dependency as a disease or not, it is still a voluntary act. I do agree that disregard for others is immoral, but only if God exists. If God does not exist then what they do is simply inconsistent with your subjective moral preference.

Yes, murder hurts another person.

How come no matter how obvious the context of my statements are in that is the only context in which you will not respond to them in. No one was discussing whether murder hurts anyone. We were discussing whether you blame amoral bullets, or the human moral agent that decided to use them without justification.

I don't see promiscuity as immoral, in general. Disregard of others is the immoral aspect. But if all people involved are in agreement and have full understanding of the situation, I have no issue with people having sex.

The only thing I can think of that has caused more human misery than promiscuity, is modern world wars. Of course you do not think it is moral (despite it not producing human well being) is because you have untethered morality from any objective fixed point and are free to connected it up to your preferences instead.

Again, I don't see the love of money as being the issue as much as the disregard of people. When *anything* becomes more important than the lives of other people, there is at least a potential moral issue. That is true whether it is money or a religious viewpoint. Very occasionally (such as a defensive war), this bias towards human life can be outweighed, but there is *always* a moral issue to be resolved.

They are two sides of the same coin.

And I disagree. The immorality, such as it exists, is in the disregard of other people.

Two sides of the same coin.

Funny, I'd say the religious folks get it exactly backwards.

Thousands of years ago God predicted this exact thing.

20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!…
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Lesbians are far *less* likely to spread AIDS than even straights. They do not harm lives of others. Your claims are simply not applicable to lesbians at all (they are weak when dealing with male homosexuals, also).

The only two Lesbians I know both used to be with men, one killed herself, and the other is in prison for selling drugs. Their beautiful daughter has been bounced around in foster so much that she has been arrested 3 times before age 18.

Lesbianism only modulates how unjustifiable it is. It still carries deadly risks, but does not have sufficient justification to balance them out. I had forgotten (and apparently you simply ignore) the fact I suspended discussions about homosexuality but it is back in force.

What are the damages?? Responsible sex prior to marriage is useful as a way to guarantee sexual compatibility in the married couple. That is a HUGE benefit. As long as birth control and protection from diseases is maintained, what are the damages?

Sexual compatibility is pretty much guaranteed by genetics. Of the weak rationalizations to defend the indefensible this may be the weakest. The more promiscuous a person is (just like homosexuality) the more likely the person is to engage in unsafe sex and there is no such thing as completely safe sex anyway. How many suicide victims need to be stacked up like cordwood, how many millions spent on depression treatment, and how many families are broken up by promiscuity before you admit it results in damage?

To even get close to safe sex. You would have to have to go to the clinic and be tested after every sexual encounter, have to have chips embedded in everyone to make sure both are single, the chips would also have to have some mechanism to prevent sex unless at least one partner is using birth control, etc......To even think about applying your moral preference produces nothing but absurdities.

Funny, I know of several married gay couples. Maybe it doesn't make headlines after the first in an area, but yes, gays want to be married also.

No, back when I debated homosexuality I accidentally found data that showed once allowed only a small fraction of homosexuals actually got married. If you want all my arguments and the mountains of data I posted about homosexuality search for it. I am not going to do it all again.

Given the fact that straights are also generally unwilling to be with one sexually, what is the distinction you want to make? Those who want to get married generally want monogamy (although not all do).

I did not say one partner, I said one sexual orientation. Every homosexual I have met had been with both orientations.

Yes, an unwillingness to use appropriate protection *is* a huge problem. Can we agree that we should encourage the use of condoms for those having sex?

The CDC statistics didn't cite the lack of condom use with aids, but they did link homosexuality with it. This is like saying can't we agree that everyone injecting heroin should use a new needle. Yes, but to start with homosexuals and very promiscuous heterosexuals are far more prone to reckless sexual behavior. Prohibition didn't stop widespread drinking and your recommendations will not stop widespread unsafe sex.

What other communicable disease do you discriminate against those likely to get it? Would you be willing to say someone with shingles (which is highly contagious) should not be allowed to go out in public? Would you consider it to be immoral for them to do so?

I am not against anyone, I am against certain behaviors. BTW this is the 4th tactic defenders of homosexuality use. They try to find something else that causes harm, and if I do not condemn it they think that resurrects homosexuality by proxy. So far you just checking the same boxes off the same list used every time.

1. Claim that some subgroup of homosexuality is less destructive, therefor it's all justifiable by proxy.
2. They try to distract from their clients guilt by pointing to something else that is wrong and claim they all stand of fall together.
3. They blame some amoral substance or entity which is not a moral agent with a choice, instead of the actual moral agent with an actual choice.
4. They find something else that causes harm, and if I do not condemn it they consider homosexuality resurrected.

I could name the next 5 or 6 you will use, they will all crash and burn and we will eventually wind up in the same place all these debates do with the defender of the indefensible yelling homophobe, homophobe, over and over ending rational discussion. Look up my other debates and you will see the full list, all those who defend homosexuality using everything on the list, and the conversation ending right where I said they do.

Well, you have been repetitive and ignore my points repeatedly. You have stated your basis for objective morality several times, but haven't shown where my standards violate that.

I have not deleted nor intentionally ignored a single letter you have posted (unlike you have repeatedly without cause), including why human well being is an objective thing, but it's use as the goal for morality is completely subject, and fails every description for objectivity I quoted. So everything you said here is intellectually disingenuous.

 

[ArtieE]

I do agree that disregard for others is immoral, but only if God exists. If God does not exist then what they do is simply inconsistent with your subjective moral preference

Disregarding others is detrimental to the well-being and survival of my society and the people in it and therefore immoral regardless whether a god exists or not.

 

[ArtieE]

There is no argument that homosexuality, promiscuity, and abortion do not massively increase human suffering.

Is that why some theists advocate the death penalty for gays and adulterers and abortion providers? After all, Phillip Kayser "writes that government officials are “subject to Biblical statutes and judgments,” claiming that “Christians should advocate the full implementation of all God’s civil penalties in every age…. Every Old Testament statue continues on the books, and without those statutes, we could not have a consistent ethical standard.”
‘Death Penalty For Gays’ Literature At Right-Wing Conference | Right Wing Watch

 

[1robin]

We agreed that human well-being is an objective standard. And, I think you would agree that there is a general consensus that anything that goes against human well-being is wrong. We would not consider anything to be objectively moral if, for example, it killed off all humans.

I agree that human well being exists, I do not agree that it is an objective moral standard for anything.

So, we have an objective basis for morality. Does it answer every possible moral question? Not at this point, and perhaps not ever. But it is an objective kernel for morality.

I can't believe we are still back in grammar school at this stage. At this point, if your not getting it I must conclude that you have a blind spot concerning morality that no light can penetrate. I will give it a few more attempts, I sure hope you eventually get it.

1. Human well being is an objective concept (in truth I am not sure it is, but I am happy to grant that it is for simplicities sake). In fact I am pretty sure it isn't objective either but will pretend it is anyway.
2. So we both agree human well being is an objective thing.
3. However we would both also agree that a shovel, the sun, the chair I am sitting in, etc... ad infinitum are objective things.
4. The problem arises when you claim human well being is an objective goal for morality. We do not agree on that and your position is actually not possible unless a personal humanist God exists.
5. The first 3 claims pass (I think) all my definitions for objectivity, while your position 4 violates them all.
6. Position 4 is simply a preference that exists only in a human's mind.
7. Nature (which is all that is left if you reject the supernatural) can only tell us what is, never what should be. That is an axiom which has no known exception. It does not even seem an exception would be logically coherent.

Ok, I am going to pause here in the hopes that you will finally get the difference. I have shown in about 6 different ways why the above is true. If you still can't get it I don't think anything else worth the effort. Do you or do you not understand that human well being is at best an objective thing, but not an objective moral goal?

 

[1robin]

Yes, excessive wealth, just like excessive poverty, tends to decrease overall well-being. Of the two, though, poverty is much worse than wealth at causing a lack of well-being.

I am not sure why any of this is relevant. The original point was that you said that we could quickly figure our which methods produce the most human well being, like we had with human wealth. I responded that after 100,000 years we have more views on how to build wealth not less. When Madoff's methods failed thousands lost money, when the latest human well being fad fails millions could loose their lives.

Again, you make this claim that there are no objective moral facts without God when I have shown a system that satisfies ALL your criteria for objective morality. Furthermore, it is only your *subjective* viewpoint that the nature of God is a moral standard that is appropriate for humans.

See previous post.

Again, it seems to be exactly the reverse to me: you define God to be morally perfect and then use that perfection to claim a moral standard. If God cannot go against God's 'nature' and if sinning is 'going against God's nature', then God cannot sin. So what? What does that have to do with *humans*?

Quote any statement I made that said that God's moral perfection is the attribute that makes his nature the foundation of morality.

I am quite so oriented, I just disagree with what you are claiming at almost every step. If you our philosophy on Aristotelian ideas, you will find that I disagree. I prefer Hume, Russell, and Rawls to Aquinas, Augustine, and Plotinus.

Until you understand the difference between a thing's objective existence, and it's objective purpose as the goal of morality it does not matter what philosophers you name.

Some people take 'survival of the strongest' as the moral lesson of evolution. This is a mistake. Evolution has shown that we are better cooperating with others, forming societies that protect the weak, and allowing freedoms to do those things that do not hurt others. That is human nature. Morality is based upon that human nature.

The behavior that exists in actual nature instead of theories almost always resolves into tribal competition. The ratio of tigers who protect the human child that falls in the enclosure, compared with tigers ripping humans apart and eating them in Indian. Is about 1 - 1000. While you mainly find tribal conflict and predator versus prey in nature you can find anything you can think of like serial rape, infanticide, over predation, torture, singular dominance in a mating relationships, parasitic behavior, and one mate eating the other. That is why the saying nature - red tooth and claw is so well known, and why barbaric actions are referred to as sub human. Our societies did not copy nature, or at least finally stopped copying it, and profited in every way.

Yes, I am quite familiar with it. yes, there is an assumption that has to be made in going from 'is' to 'ought'. You make this leap by claiming a revealed nature of God as the basis of morality (not seeming to realize that is far from an objective standard), while I make that leap by saying the morality is based on human well-being. But even in *your* system, human well-being is a standard that is adopted because of the claim that following God's directives lead to better well-being.

Nope, I have no leap to make if God exists. I met God before I knew he was necessary to explain a myriad of things. I didn't find a gap and invent or select a God to plug up the gap. It was ten years after I was born again that I heard of the is - ought gap and why morality does not and cannot come from nature and realized that before I knew God existed I had never questioned the moral foundations for the things I believed. Of course half the moral things I believed as an atheist were simply self centered assumption. As an atheist I invented a morality that pleased me then made up silly rationalizations to defend them. That is why it is so easy for me to recognize the same pattern in others.

 

[ArtieE]

Ok, I am going to pause here in the hopes that you will finally get the difference. I have shown in about 6 different ways why the above is true. If you still can't get it I don't think anything else worth the effort. Do you or do you not understand that human well being is at best an objective thing, but not an objective moral goal?

In your opinion, exactly what is it your god wanted to achieve by giving us commandments and moral rules to follow? What was his goal?

 

[ArtieE]

Our societies did not copy nature, or at least finally stopped copying it, and profited in every way.

Our societies are simply a result of evolution and natural selection, since people who joined forces and cooperated in societies stood a better chance of surviving than those who didn't.

 

[Polymath257]

I agree that human well being exists, I do not agree that it is an objective moral standard for anything.

Which one of your criteria does it violate, and why?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

God is perfectly knowable, and has no internal contradictions.

Not the Christian god. We can rule it out by the various mutually exclusive qualities it is alleged to have.

Those are core Christian doctrines which have survived all scrutiny for millennia, and are even stronger because of it.

Faith survives everything. What does the world have to offer that can defeat the will to believe without reason or evidence?

• "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water"? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over." - Sam Harris

Faith transcends reason the way a thief transcends the law.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Unlike your moral world view my "subjective" opinion may (and probably does) correspond to objective fact.

Then demonstrate it. That's what objective means. If you can't, your claim is empty. You might as well have said that Santa Claus probably corresponds to objective fact.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I use subjective in quotes above because even though my experience with God is objective, it's objectivity isn't available to you.

Pretty much the definition of subjective.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

nature cannot tell us what ought to be done.

Correct, and there goes your argument for an objective morality. We have to look within - the sine qua non of subjectivity.

I do agree that disregard for others is immoral, but only if God exists.

Wrong.

In fact, I would argue that for you, regarding others isn't a moral action at all, since you can't see any reason to show respect or affection for others if there isn't somebody watching you, listening to your thoughts, and judging you with intent to reward or punishing you 24/7.

I'd say that those without god beliefs are more concerned about the welfare of others than those with. Most of us are secular humanists, an ideology based on human well-being.

The only thing I can think of that has caused more human misery than promiscuity, is modern world wars.

Don't forget organized religion. This is what organized religion taught somebody that would go on to be the head of a chain of hospices for the suffering terminally ill:

• "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering." - Mother Teresa

How much unnecessary suffering do you think that that one person is responsible for? The only thing that separates her from a sadist is that she allowed rather than caused suffering, and that she thought that she was doing good thanks to her faith.

How much fear has hell thology generated?

How much guilt and shame has Christianity caused for people that happen to be attracted to the same sex?

How many unwanted babies have been born and how many teen-aged mothers have been forced to turn to waitressing at age 16 thanks to abstinence only advice?

How many scientifically illiterate people unqualified to compete in the technological job market have been generated by faith in creationism and anti-intellectual Christian movements like the quiverfull?

Homosexuality harms nobody, but faith based homophobic bigotry does.

Promiscuity is all around you and in and of itself causes zero harm. UNsafe sex and betrayal of loved ones harms people, but not promiscuity. That's a religious notion. It's irrational and ignores human nature.

There is no argument that homosexuality, promiscuity, and abortion do not massively increase human suffering.

Wrong again.

By the way, abortion belongs to Christianity as you have already been shown. If abortion has increased human misery, blame Christians.

 

[Polymath257]

No, because whatever ethics an alien race may have, without God, they would be no less subjective than the ethics of a human atheist.

But if they don't arrive at the same concept of God as you naturally, then even if they base their morality on a belief in a deity, it may well be a different morality than the one you have.

Since it is incredibly unlikely that they will arrive at the same concept of God (even different human civilizations have not), this shows that both your concept of God and the derived morality fail to be objective.

On the other hand, even an alien species would be able to determine human well-being in the clear cases, so the human morality derived from human well-being would be an objective criterion which even a non-human intelligence would comprehend.

 

[Polymath257]

No, because whatever ethics an alien race may have, without God, they would be no less subjective than the ethics of a human atheist.

But if they don't arrive at the same concept of God as you naturally, then even if they base their morality on a belief in a deity, it may well be a different morality than the one you have.

Since it is incredibly unlikely that they will arrive at the same concept of God (even different human civilizations have not), this shows that both your concept of God and the derived morality fail to be objective.

On the other hand, even an alien species would be able to determine human well-being in the clear cases, so the human morality derived from human well-being would be an objective criterion which even a non-human intelligence would comprehend.

 

[Polymath257]

No, because whatever ethics an alien race may have, without God, they would be no less subjective than the ethics of a human atheist.

Well, even if an alien race has a concept of God, it is incredibly unlikely that they would arrive at the *same* concept of God as you have (even other human societies have not). And so it is quite likely that they would arrive at a different concept of morality than you.

Which means that, ultimately, both your concept of God and the derived concept of morality are *subjective* and not objective.

On the other hand, even an alien race would understand the concept of human well-being and so human morality defined as actions that promote human well-being would be agreed upon even by another species. So, it is an *objective* criterion, and not simply something that varies with individual personalities.

But we can go further. Your claim is that the nature of God is a basis for an objective morality. How, precisely, does that work? You still have the same old is-ought dichotomy: how does the nature of God allow us to derive rules for behavior? For example, how does the *nature* of God determine that murder is wrong (as opposed to the opinion of God being that it is wrong)? Even if it is 'against God's nature' to murder (so God would not murder), how does that translate into a directive for humans not to murder?

 

[Polymath257]

You can see them as whatever you wish, but what you seem them as, without God, has no connection to objective moral facts. Because (for the 20th time) nature cannot tell us what ought to be done.

And how does 'God's nature' tell us what is to be done? How do *you* get around the is-ought dichotomy?

Forget the fact the fact that whether you refer to chemical dependency as a disease or not, it is still a voluntary act. I do agree that disregard for others is immoral, but only if God exists. If God does not exist then what they do is simply inconsistent with your subjective moral preference.

No, it is against the moral standard of human well-being.

How come no matter how obvious the context of my statements are in that is the only context in which you will not respond to them in. No one was discussing whether murder hurts anyone. We were discussing whether you blame amoral bullets, or the human moral agent that decided to use them without justification.

There is enough blame to spread around. The moral agent that pulled the trigger, the moral agent that built the gun and ammo, the moral agents that promote guns in our society, etc. But in *all* cases, the issue of good or bad comes down to human well-being and how to evaluate it, not whether some deity expressed an opinion (or a nature).

The only thing I can think of that has caused more human misery than promiscuity, is modern world wars. Of course you do not think it is moral (despite it not producing human well being) is because you have untethered morality from any objective fixed point and are free to connected it up to your preferences instead.

Really? Nothing? Say, jealousy? The urge to control another person? Domestic violence? All of those cause less human misery than promiscuity? Or is it the default to monogamy that is the problem? The concept that you can only love one person romantically all your life? Maybe that is the real issue?

They are two sides of the same coin.

Two sides of the same coin.

And to the extent that they are two sides of the same coin, the real issue is the tendency to ignore the suffering of others.

Thousands of years ago God predicted this exact thing.

20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!…
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Sorry, that isn't a prediction. That is a trivial observation that whatever stance you take, others will disagree.

The only two Lesbians I know both used to be with men, one killed herself, and the other is in prison for selling drugs. Their beautiful daughter has been bounced around in foster so much that she has been arrested 3 times before age 18.

Maybe you need to get a larger sample size? Or, perhaps, the lesbians you know don't come out to you because of your clear bigotry?

Lesbianism only modulates how unjustifiable it is. It still carries deadly risks, but does not have sufficient justification to balance them out. I had forgotten (and apparently you simply ignore) the fact I suspended discussions about homosexuality but it is back in force.

The main risks you have presented were AIDS (which lesbians are much less likely than heterosexuals to get), and that it doesn't 'produce life', which I consider to be a distinct advantage.

Sexual compatibility is pretty much guaranteed by genetics.

WOW. This is *so far* from being true it is amazing that you can seriously state it.

Of the weak rationalizations to defend the indefensible this may be the weakest. The more promiscuous a person is (just like homosexuality) the more likely the person is to engage in unsafe sex and there is no such thing as completely safe sex anyway.

So the problem is 'unsafe sex' and not promiscuity? So, a responsible person that makes sure not not spread disease would be fine? I doubt that is your position.

How many suicide victims need to be stacked up like cordwood, how many millions spent on depression treatment, and how many families are broken up by promiscuity before you admit it results in damage?

Families are broken up by dishonesty, by breaches in trust, by domestic violence, and by having unreasonable expectations of another or yourself. Usually, promiscuity itself is not the reason for a family being broken up. It is a symptom of a more serious underlying problem.

To even get close to safe sex. You would have to have to go to the clinic and be tested after every sexual encounter, have to have chips embedded in everyone to make sure both are single, the chips would also have to have some mechanism to prevent sex unless at least one partner is using birth control, etc......To even think about applying your moral preference produces nothing but absurdities.

As with most activities (say, driving a car), we don't expect perfect safety. What we should expect is honesty, knowledge of the risks and benefits, and reasonable decision making. The fact that driving a car carries a large risk of death is not, in and of itself, a reason to abandon cars. The risk has to be balanced with the benefits. You seem to ignore the huge benefits of sexuality. Yes, even outside of a marriage.

No, back when I debated homosexuality I accidentally found data that showed once allowed only a small fraction of homosexuals actually got married. If you want all my arguments and the mountains of data I posted about homosexuality search for it. I am not going to do it all again.

I did not say one partner, I said one sexual orientation. Every homosexual I have met had been with both orientations.

Actually, most *people* have both orientations to some degree. Very few are at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

I am not against anyone, I am against certain behaviors.

Are you equally against the damaging behaviors of eating red meat? Or drinking sodas? Or do you make allowances for those that do these things in moderation and with responsibility? I suspect there is a very wide range of dangerous behaviors that are *much* worse for people than homosexual behavior but that you find no moral issue with.

 

[Polymath257]

You can see them as whatever you wish, but what you seem them as, without God, has no connection to objective moral facts. Because (for the 20th time) nature cannot tell us what ought to be done.

And how does 'God's nature' tell us what is to be done? How do *you* get around the is-ought dichotomy?

Forget the fact the fact that whether you refer to chemical dependency as a disease or not, it is still a voluntary act. I do agree that disregard for others is immoral, but only if God exists. If God does not exist then what they do is simply inconsistent with your subjective moral preference.

No, it is against the moral standard of human well-being.

How come no matter how obvious the context of my statements are in that is the only context in which you will not respond to them in. No one was discussing whether murder hurts anyone. We were discussing whether you blame amoral bullets, or the human moral agent that decided to use them without justification.

There is enough blame to spread around. The moral agent that pulled the trigger, the moral agent that built the gun and ammo, the moral agents that promote guns in our society, etc. But in *all* cases, the issue of good or bad comes down to human well-being and how to evaluate it, not whether some deity expressed an opinion (or a nature).

The only thing I can think of that has caused more human misery than promiscuity, is modern world wars. Of course you do not think it is moral (despite it not producing human well being) is because you have untethered morality from any objective fixed point and are free to connected it up to your preferences instead.

Really? Nothing? Say, jealousy? The urge to control another person? Domestic violence? All of those cause less human misery than promiscuity? Or is it the default to monogamy that is the problem? The concept that you can only love one person romantically all your life? Maybe that is the real issue?

They are two sides of the same coin.

Two sides of the same coin.

And to the extent that they are two sides of the same coin, the real issue is the tendency to ignore the suffering of others.

Thousands of years ago God predicted this exact thing.

20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!…
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Sorry, that isn't a prediction. That is a trivial observation that whatever stance you take, others will disagree.

The only two Lesbians I know both used to be with men, one killed herself, and the other is in prison for selling drugs. Their beautiful daughter has been bounced around in foster so much that she has been arrested 3 times before age 18.

Maybe you need to get a larger sample size? Or, perhaps, the lesbians you know don't come out to you because of your clear bigotry?

Lesbianism only modulates how unjustifiable it is. It still carries deadly risks, but does not have sufficient justification to balance them out. I had forgotten (and apparently you simply ignore) the fact I suspended discussions about homosexuality but it is back in force.

The main risks you have presented were AIDS (which lesbians are much less likely than heterosexuals to get), and that it doesn't 'produce life', which I consider to be a distinct advantage.

Sexual compatibility is pretty much guaranteed by genetics.

WOW. This is *so far* from being true it is amazing that you can seriously state it.

Of the weak rationalizations to defend the indefensible this may be the weakest. The more promiscuous a person is (just like homosexuality) the more likely the person is to engage in unsafe sex and there is no such thing as completely safe sex anyway.

So the problem is 'unsafe sex' and not promiscuity? So, a responsible person that makes sure not not spread disease would be fine? I doubt that is your position.

How many suicide victims need to be stacked up like cordwood, how many millions spent on depression treatment, and how many families are broken up by promiscuity before you admit it results in damage?

Families are broken up by dishonesty, by breaches in trust, by domestic violence, and by having unreasonable expectations of another or yourself. Usually, promiscuity itself is not the reason for a family being broken up. It is a symptom of a more serious underlying problem.

To even get close to safe sex. You would have to have to go to the clinic and be tested after every sexual encounter, have to have chips embedded in everyone to make sure both are single, the chips would also have to have some mechanism to prevent sex unless at least one partner is using birth control, etc......To even think about applying your moral preference produces nothing but absurdities.

As with most activities (say, driving a car), we don't expect perfect safety. What we should expect is honesty, knowledge of the risks and benefits, and reasonable decision making. The fact that driving a car carries a large risk of death is not, in and of itself, a reason to abandon cars. The risk has to be balanced with the benefits. You seem to ignore the huge benefits of sexuality. Yes, even outside of a marriage.

No, back when I debated homosexuality I accidentally found data that showed once allowed only a small fraction of homosexuals actually got married. If you want all my arguments and the mountains of data I posted about homosexuality search for it. I am not going to do it all again.

I did not say one partner, I said one sexual orientation. Every homosexual I have met had been with both orientations.

Actually, most *people* have both orientations to some degree. Very few are at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

I am not against anyone, I am against certain behaviors.

Are you equally against the damaging behaviors of eating red meat? Or drinking sodas? Or do you make allowances for those that do these things in moderation and with responsibility? I suspect there is a very wide range of dangerous behaviors that are *much* worse for people than homosexual behavior but that you find no moral issue with.

 

[Polymath257]

I have not deleted nor intentionally ignored a single letter you have posted (unlike you have repeatedly without cause), including why human well being is an objective thing, but it's use as the goal for morality is completely subject, and fails every description for objectivity I quoted. So everything you said here is intellectually disingenuous.

On the contrary, I went through your criteria and showed how human well-being satisfies each and every one of them. You replied with, essentially, 'does not'. Can you respond in detail to my post #729? Which *specific* criteria does human well-being as a standard for morality fail?

 

[1robin]

In your opinion, exactly what is it your god wanted to achieve by giving us commandments and moral rules to follow? What was his goal?

To create a just world, with far less suffering than we experience. Also the law was a kind of moral mirror to show us our faults and need of a savior.

 

[ArtieE]

To create a just world, with far less suffering than we experience.

So the goal of objective morals would be to increase human well being?

 

[Polymath257]

To create a just world, with far less suffering than we experience. Also the law was a kind of moral mirror to show us our faults and need of a savior.

Define the word 'just' without a moral system first. And, I notice that you use the exact same 'human well-being' only lessened somewhat by 'less suffering' that I do.

Why would we need a savior from anyone other than a deity that will punish us if we go against its 'nature'?

 

[1robin]

Disregarding others is detrimental to the well-being and survival of my society and the people in it and therefore immoral regardless whether a god exists or not.

Nope, disregarding other is something you do not like, because you don't like the result.

That does not make it objectively moral. It just makes it contradictory to your preference, which basically means that morality equals whatever you prefer. Find me something in nature that shows us that hum well being is the goal for objective morality. I will make it even easier think of anything that could happen, even a theoretical action that could take place which would actually be objectively evil. Without appealing to the supernatural.

Since I know it will be required let me post what descriptions of what objective morality is.

1. Let's start with what objective means given the word’s versatility. In philosophy, objective refers to existence apart from perception. An object independent of perception does not change with our feelings, interpretations, or prejudices. Applied to moral values; if they are objective, then they are discovered, not invented. Contrast this with subjective moral values which change from person to person, culture to culture, etc. If morality is objective, it is reasonable to ask: What is the mind-independent basis for objective morality and is this basis sufficiently binding? In other words, it is not enough to show some external ground for morality and then subjectively link that grounding with obligation. Obligation to a particular ethical system must transcend personal preference and also have some significant grounding in the object of perception.
apologetics.net | What is objective morality?

2. By “objective” morality we mean a system of ethics which universally pertains irrespective of the opinions or tastes of human persons: for example, the holocaust was morally wrong irrespective of what Hitler and the Nazis believed about it, and it would have remained morally wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and compelled everyone into compliance with their values.
Moral Argument

3. A proposition is objective if its truth value is independent of the person uttering it. A fact is objective in the same way. For morality to be objective, moral propositions such as "Killing is bad", "Stealing is bad", etc... need to be true independently of the person who is stating them. Moral statements are basically statements of value. Some value statements are clearly subjective: "Tabasco flavored ice cream tastes good" can be true for me, but false for you.
What is objective morality?

4. “Objective” means “independent of people’s (including one’s own) opinion.”
Read more: “Objective” or “Absolute” Moral Values? | Reasonable Faith

5. And finally the one I use the most. Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. It is distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited.

The criteria you described in your post fail every test for objective truth.