Do Athiests have morals?

[1robin]

Yes, including God.

That is not true but even if it were it is irrelevant because God did not chose morality. He is morality, His nature determines moral truth. His commands are not opinion. They are reflections of his eternal nature which holds sovereignty over everything else.

 

[1robin]

Errr, I thought I gave you a pretty decent answer up there, post #384

Perhaps you did and I missed it. What question of mine was answered in that post? I re-read it and it seemed to only deal with the golden rule which I had not mentioned.

 

[Nietzsche]

Perhaps you did and I missed it. What question of mine was answered in that post? I re-read it and it seemed to only deal with the golden rule which I had not mentioned.

I kept with the Golden Rule, however it was a vehicle to elaborate further morality. A sort of proof that since we do have that, and that is unquestionably a human trait, and that we find such morality in religions because it is something greater than just 'opinion' that you can disagree with. It's something akin to an instinct, something even the most base & mentally challenged human is aware of.

You can argue that God put it there, but my argument is that it's the other way around. We put it in God('God' here means 'all religions'). We elevated it to such a level because it is already that important to us.

 

[1robin]

The problem is that you are trying to frame this debate in a very particular way, and insisting on certain assertions as already proved, and insisting that people have to respond in a particular way to your contrived positions. Sorry but I don't see why we should have to accept everything on your terms in a general debate forum.

It would be helpful if you started responding to the points that people are actually raising with you, that's how a debate usually works.

The way I am trying to frame this debate is by logic. I did not make any dogmatic statement about God's existence. I did not assume he existed. I merely said what necessarily follows if he exists. That is about as soft a point as you can find in theological debates. In most cases the first thing that is done is to logically establish God's likely existence. I did not do that. I left that question open. What more can you ask for?

 

[1robin]

That legal opinion reflects human morality and ethics. You still haven't demonstrated that "objective morality" exists. What is the evidence for it?

I did not try to establish God's existence nor did I try to establish objective moralities existence. I made the softest points I could possibly think of yet your still complaining. My point was only what follows if God exists and what is true if he does not. However if you want the argument for objective morality it usually goes like this.


1. Humanity almost universally apprehends a realm of objective moral truth.
2. It is as reasonable to assume our perceptions are accurate (all knowledge requires we do so) in the absence of any defeater.
3. It is as reasonable to trust our moral perceptions as it is to trust our visual perceptions.
5. Therefore the belief that objective morality exists is reasonable.


Now that is not a proof, it is a philosophically justified argument for belief. The only way to negate it is to make you criteria so technically demanding that al knowledge would fail the test except for the fact we think. If you use the same standards we use for the rest of human knowledge then belief that objective morality is as reasonable as any other form perception.

 

[1robin]

No, and this is a general discussion forum not an academic forum, so you will need to express your arguments in a straightforward way.

I did not say what you know is inappropriate. You seem to not understand the subject matter and so I wanted to know what your experience with these issues is so I can tailor my responses. Please start by looking up divine command theory. It explains why objective morality requires God's existence (and why God's morality is not subjective) in much more detail than I can in a post.

Here is a link to a legendary philosopher discussing it.
William Lane Craig - RationalWiki

If you do not want to do that then look up Harris versus Craig on morality on utube. It was a spirited debate between an atheist and a theist philosopher on the issue at hand. The atheist was forced to admit he assumed his claims were true.

 

[1robin]

These are all human concepts - hate, love, good, evil.

If God exists they are divine concepts. If he does not exist they are contrivances with one being no less wrong or right than another.

 

[Midnight Rain]

Let me ask this. If I am wrong and Socrates did not ground objective morality in the transcendent where did he ground it. Without something that transcends humanity you are left with no possible way to arrive at or discover objective moral facts because there is no source for them.

Something one must always keep in mind when talking about the Greeks is that they were very concerned with "sophia" or "wisdom". They believed, especially the Athenians, that true knowledge was out there. That we could find and reason the knowledge that exists without a shadow of a doubt. Its a very different approach to the scientific way we deal with things today where nothing is 100% certain.

Also with the history of the Socratics starts with Socrates but only through the lens of Plato. Plato very specifically believed that all knowledge that could be considered "true knowledge", "sophia" or "wisdom" could be derived from logic and reason within one's own intellect. Socrates in Plato's writings sought knowledge through endless questioning till one would get to the essence of what it was. The Socratic method as it was called was in some ways a precursor to the scientific approach we have today though still fundamentally different in practical applications.

But we can assume that since Socrates as Plato describes insinuates that there is "true knowledge" and that "morality" can be found in true knowledge, as in discerned from the pure logic and reason of the mind, and yet at the same time there was no god that could dictate it, we are left with the assumption that it is simply a truth. Just as no god could ever produce a square circle no god could change the truth of what is moral and what is not.

Since haggling over what specific Greeks said would be a sidebar here lets use another source. Jefferson said when asked what foundation for human rights and duties exists. He (and he was certainly no Christian) replied that nature and nature's God was the only possible source for them.

Actually he said

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315​

He didn't say god. He said "creator". At this time it is well understood that it is mostly a political verbiage but not necessarily out of line. As a deist he would have assumed that by whatever means that something was created, it is not of this substance. Jefferson, a well known Aristotelian, would have taken the idea and the concepts and this didn't necessary require anything else. However to say that we are simply innate among ourselves without saying we are "endowed" would not have come off as great.

Though again we fall into the same ontological situation where it does not matter if he said "god", "creator", "evolution" ect. The meaning was the same. That by whatever means that we were created we have now been endowed with equality (though that really only applied to White men who were land-owners so I don't know how accurate we want to say this very specific quote is to his views but none-the less).

In other words not explained by nature but by something beyond nature or the supernatural.

In a way yes. But typically it was not to god but to himself in who he is. The mystery of life and all that. Though again I would like to stress that he has not appealed to a god at this point.

Of course I was not suggesting Socrates had any Christian type of world view. Just that morality having two definitions (one objective and the other subjective) is a well established historical understanding. It is not Christianity which grounds morality. It is the presence of a transcendent, personal, moral God. Christianity happens to posit such a God but other types of theism and deism do as well at times. I am not arguing for the biblical God but for objective moralities necessary foundation.

I understand your point. If there is a deeply person moral god that created the very fabric of morality then it would be hard pressed to argue against that. However there is no reason to assume that it is logically impossible to have an objective morality in the absence of such a being.

For example what if there is no single creator but there are natural laws of spirituality? Certain things such as the Brahman or "the all" which would be pantheistic in nature so it is no longer deeply personal or innately moral but there could be objective moral truth's. Such as Buddhism and Hinduism takes Karma without deeply personal morally dictating gods. It simply is part of the universe despite there not being a being such as you described.

I would love to investigate Socrates a bit further, however that would be an off ramp from what I am primarily stating, there is so little known about him that getting any certainty about him is unlikely, I am swamped with posts that I need to reply to, and my lab is having testing problems that require my time. For now I will defer to your knowledge of him since it does not affect my argument. One last note. IMO the Greeks were the first to ask the right questions but they seldom got the right answers. I think the Romans began to answer the Greeks questions. Did you see the Roman definitions of Mallum in se and Mallum prohibitum I posted?

Yes. The Greeks I think had the best answers for interpersonal moral questions in some cases (especially Aristotle) but the Romans were very practical in the way that they systematically defined and conceptualized ethics rather than morality. In truth the only difference is that morality is dependent upon the personal while Ethics is from the perspective of the community. And which would be considered the better or greater cause for "goodness"? Personal moral capability or ethical responsibilities as realized from the whole group?

Though this is also what I was getting into earlier about different levels of subjectivity to moral truths. Not all morality and moral opinion is objective no matter which way we talk about god or not god. But there are things that do seem to be universally applicable.

The Romans realized this but they took it in function. Mallum Prohibitum deals with things that are not innately wrong in and of themselves but are prohibited due to law for usually side effects of those actions. For example running a stop sign is not innately evil in any way. It is not an immoral action. But it is an unethical action due to the saftey of others and the dedicated guidelines that hopefully have had full thought and reason put into it all for the greater good of the community or humanity in general.

Then there are things that are Malleum Se which would mean evil "cuz man its just evil". It hits our natural sense of morality and we have that gut wrenching feeling that it is wrong. We know this is innate. We know that it is more or less universal. But is it objective? All three of those things, innate, universal and objective are different in fundamental ways to this argument. One does not necessary mean the other.

 

[1robin]

Then your God is not omnipotent, but limited by its "eternal nature," whatever that is.

That would only be true if his nature was some limited finite entity. It isn't.

To say that we do not have a timeless universe is relatively meaningless; you suggest there was a beginning to time, and many scientists believe that there will be an end to time as well. Others deny time exists, others believe it to be a fundamental property and others an emergent one. There's no agreement on the nature of time or the universe; the existence of the Big Bang itself doesn't foreclose a cyclical universe, for that matter. Time itself, however viewed, does not foreclose the karmic universe, godless or otherwise.

1. Yes a timeless universe is not only not what all the evidence suggests is the case but is impossible.
2. There are great philosophical and logical reasons to think that space-time began and evidence demonstrates this. There exists no good argument that I have ever seen made that suggests space time will end. A universe cannot be infinite in the past but it can infinitely stretch into eternity. It will always be finite but will never end.
3. Now if God exists he has said he will restore this meandering universe back to it's original purpose and sustain it in that arrangement forever. This will begin after the apocalypse. However if God does not exist the universe will keep going eternally in it's meandering way. It will eventually cease to have structures in it clumped together and will dissipate it's heat and matter evenly throughout space but it will continue to exist.
4. Time is different than space time. Before space time existed I will call time God-time. I have no idea how it worked but no logical reason exists to suggest that time did not exist prior to space time.
5. Nothing evidences a cyclical universe. In fact the BGVT dismisses eternal universes and cyclical universes as candidates for our universe. It is one heck of a theorem designed to be so robust that no matter what vagary people invent to try to allow for whatever universe they wish we had it still applies. If you look it up you will find the best and most accepted model of our universe.
6. Well space time does suggest strongly the need for a non-natural cause of the universe but I am not really trying to make that point here.

Your god is not omnipotent then. Your god is constrained by his nature, and apparently incapable of altering it, which is strongly suggestive of a being that is created and bound by time and space. Basically the same as a living universe that contains a moral law.

This is the same point you made above. Only if his nature is limited is it a limiting factor. This can get hairy when you think about his moral nature limiting his capacity to act but scholars far more knowledgeable than I find no logical contradiction between omnipotence and a moral nature. We can investigate this more if you wish.

We don't need god to have Forms or a universe imbued with morality; the reality is that we probably don't have any such "objective" morality. Particularly since it is unlikely to apply to anything except humans.

We do if we live in universe where cause and effect determine all outcomes. get a universe that requires a cause without God. A form does not explain it's own existence. You must look external to and normally prior to it to explain it, then you must look prior to that cause to find it's cause. Eventually you run completely out of nature without ever having found it's ultimate cause. So you must have the supernatural to explain the existence of the natural ultimately.

 

[1robin]

Burden? More like an exciting opportunity, really. I love researching moral questions.

How about task then?

My favorite authors on the subject are Peter Singer (I'm quite a fan) and Sam Harris, who is however far better in formulating the theory than in applying it (his perspective is much too individualistic for me to accept).

Boy you just shipwrecked your argument. To begin wit ha name is not an argument. I am familiar with Singers name but will need a link to his argumentation. Harris I am very familiar with. If you look up Craig's debate with Harris. Harris was forced into a corner so tight he had to admit his claim that objective morality exists even if God does not was pure assumption. So Harris is going to be an anchor around your neck in this discussion.

 

[Nakosis]

That is not true but even if it were it is irrelevant because God did not chose morality. He is morality, His nature determines moral truth. His commands are not opinion. They are reflections of his eternal nature which holds sovereignty over everything else.

This would seem to make it subjective to God. Not necessarily man.

That being said, the issue then would be how that transitions to a moral code for man. I know you have your reasoning for accepting the Bible as the Word of God so I don't know what can be debated on that front.

The Bible itself seems to have been used to support differing moral ideology. Slavery, torture, war. So even if using the Bible as a moral guide we are still left to individuals to interpret that morality.

You can say you can correctly discern the morality of the Bible. Any can claim so and believe this of themselves. For example, are we allowed to kill witches?

Any person with a little charisma can gather a following of people to support the harassment of homosexuals at their funerals using their interpretation of the Bible. So God is sovereign, what does that mean to man who seems unable to correctly understand God's desire?

 

[LuisDantas]

How about task then?

"Task then"? What do you mean?

Boy you just shipwrecked your argument. To begin wit ha name is not an argument. I am familiar with Singers name but will need a link to his argumentation. Harris I am very familiar with. If you look up Craig's debate with Harris. Harris was forced into a corner so tight he had to admit his claim that objective morality exists even if God does not was pure assumption. So Harris is going to be an anchor around your neck in this discussion.

Eh, I will take my chances. In any case, I do not need to limit myself to Harris.

Even if the "anchor" does exist (yet to be determined), I can simply ignore it. Do you have a video of it?

As for Peter Singer, may I recommend:

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty

How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest

 

[1robin]

By usually I mean we have agreed definitions of right and wrong that appear to be universal. However we have plenty of moral grey that suggests that there is varying degrees of subjectivity in the essence of the moral fabric across different societies and cultures.

Regardless even if there was 100% agreement that X was wrong among humanity, without God it actually would not be. We can make laws about it, we can make rules about it, we can philosophically pick it to pieces, however even if 100 million planets worth of mere humans agree to it we still can't make it objectively wrong. It would still be exactly equal opinion.

So objective in that there is something beyond humans that is "objective" right and wrong? No. But is there universally understood concepts that can be treated as "objective" yes. But it would only be pragmatically and functionally objective rather than objective in essence.

The universality of agreement has no power to make anything true. We can all get together and insist the sun is cold as we all get sun burns anyway. Objective in this context means free from the opinions of it's adherents. Man's laws cannot be free from opinion unless a transcendent fact of the matter exists.

I cannot think of a god version who would have total control of all morality as we have undeniably subjective morality. There are some very few moral "truths' that seem to exist in at least it is universally held but there is far more than is uncertain.

I am not talking about subjective morality. I am talking about objective moral truth. My God is specifically defined as the source of not just all natural reality, not just all truth, but the moral locus of the universe. His nature has determined what the actual moral truth of the entire universe is. Again let me restate my points.

1. If God exist objective morality (morality free from the opinions of it's adherents) exists.
2. If he does not it does not. All we are left with is opinion produced contrivances that have no relationship to actual moral truth because there is no source of actual moral truth.

As in the homosexuality thread almost every response I get is a misunderstanding of one or both of those simplistic points. However unlike the homosexuality these misunderstandings are excusable and understandable to a certain point.

If you do not like my definition of objefctive morality let me give the official definition as it means the excat same thing.

Objective morality is the idea that a certain system of ethics or set of moral judgments is not just true according to a person's subjective opinion, but factually true. Proponents of this theory would argue that a statement like "Murder is wrong" can be as objectively true as "1 + 1 = 2." Most of the time, the alleged source is God

So in what way would you justify that your god concept is morally ultimate and justification of total objective morality? I believe in gods and goddesses but I don't believe that they are the root to my morality.

This is complex let me first supply the rational and then I will explain whatever part you do not agree with.

1. Nothing in the universe contains the ultimate explanation of it's self.
2. No matter how the universe is portioned (whether as a whole or atom by atom) does it contain a ful explanation of it's existence.
3. No matter what you start with you get locked into explaining it by an external cause and almost always a prior cause.
4. This inevitably leads to our running out of causal explanations before we run out of things in need of them.
5. The only choice left is to seek a non-natural (or supernatural explanation) for everything else in any ultimate sense.
6. An infinite regression of causation is impossible. All causal chains must trace back to a single uncaused first cause. God being the by far greatest candidate for that (there is not even a distant second).
7. Therefor God is the only possibly ultimate explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.

Children without knowing why seem to be aware of this. If you tell a child you must do X the likely response will be "oh yeah who says". God says.

 

[Midnight Rain]

Regardless even if there was 100% agreement that X was wrong among humanity, without God it actually would not be. We can make laws about it, we can make rules about it, we can philosophically pick it to pieces, however even if 100 million planets worth of mere humans agree to it we still can't make it objectively wrong. It would still be exactly equal opinion.

The universality of agreement has no power to make anything true. We can all get together and insist the sun is cold as we all get sun burns anyway. Objective in this context means free from the opinions of it's adherents. Man's laws cannot be free from opinion unless a transcendent fact of the matter exists.

Unless it was an objective moral truth that existed. Just as there cannot be a square circle. At this is believed by some people. I don't argue that objective morality is a truth .Just that in many cases it appears to be so.

I am not talking about subjective morality. I am talking about objective moral truth. My God is specifically defined as the source of not just all natural reality, not just all truth, but the moral locus of the universe. His nature has determined what the actual moral truth of the entire universe is. Again let me restate my points.

I would argue that if you can have any defined god then it would be a false perception of that god but I'll take a crack at the list.

1. If God exist objective morality (morality free from the opinions of it's adherents) exists.
2. If he does not it does not. All we are left with is opinion produced contrivances that have no relationship to actual moral truth because there is no source of actual moral truth.

As in the homosexuality thread almost every response I get is a misunderstanding of one or both of those simplistic points. However unlike the homosexuality these misunderstandings are excusable and understandable to a certain point.

If you do not like my definition of objefctive morality let me give the official definition as it means the excat same thing.

Objective morality is the idea that a certain system of ethics or set of moral judgments is not just true according to a person's subjective opinion, but factually true. Proponents of this theory would argue that a statement like "Murder is wrong" can be as objectively true as "1 + 1 = 2." Most of the time, the alleged source is God

Key word is "most of the time".
The difference I think that Socrates would have with you on objective morality is "why would it come from god"?

I could put you through the Socratic method if you think that would help the discussion. But it is an interesting point as to wondering why it "must" be god rather than something else. Is it possible your definition of god is wrong and there is no grand architect and the universe simply "is"? In that scenario objective morality "could" exist but it would be no different than 1+1=2 and that it could be reasoned.

This is complex let me first supply the rational and then I will explain whatever part you do not agree with.

1. Nothing in the universe contains the ultimate explanation of it's self.
2. No matter how the universe is portioned (whether as a whole or atom by atom) does it contain a ful explanation of it's existence.
3. No matter what you start with you get locked into explaining it by an external cause and almost always a prior cause.
4. This inevitably leads to our running out of causal explanations before we run out of things in need of them.
5. The only choice left is to seek a non-natural (or supernatural explanation) for everything else in any ultimate sense.
6. An infinite regression of causation is impossible. All causal chains must trace back to a single uncaused first cause. God being the by far greatest candidate for that (there is not even a distant second).
7. Therefor God is the only possibly ultimate explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.

Children without knowing why seem to be aware of this. If you tell a child you must do X the likely response will be "oh yeah who says". God says.

1, 2 we don't know. 3 is conjecture. 4 is a possibility yes but there are philosophical ways around it. One of the answers being god or more specifically your concept of god. 6 should be before 5 as 5 doesn't make sense until 6 is substantiated. Though there are alternatives to an external force as it could also be self creating or it could be endless in another form such as circular. 7 is only accepted if we add on that the "first cause" was sentient, intentional, loving, moral and a whole mess of other things that even if 1-6 were correct wouldn't make true.

My personal belief is that Gods and Goddesses are simply part of a whole called the All. The all encompasses "all". You. Me. The internet all matter and energy (physical and spiritual) and unifies it. There is nothing greater and it was self creating. It may even be infinite. In this scenario it is being in and of itself and self governing so to speak. So if there are objective moral truths then it isn't a design from above but its innate nature.

Though again I still don't think that there are objective moral truths but that doesn't mean that they are meaningless or simply pure opinion otherwise.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

If he does not exist they are contrivances with one being no less wrong or right than another.

But it's all "contrivance", including the belief in God. And morality is more consistent across different cultures than ideas about God, that is self-evident.

 

[1robin]

True. In fact Socrates argued that god were NOT the source of morality but it was simply innate to the reality of our existence. It was through reason and intellect that we could derive moral truths. I don't know how true this to be as Socrates himself never fully attained it but he did find that there were virtues. However those virtues may have roots in evolution as markers of personal satisfaction on the social scale.

What does innate to our existence mean. That sounds exactly like Socrates opinion and not something that is logically deducted. It actually sounds just like Sam Harris.

I personally believe the opposite. I think the reason why we find this debate more reasonable is that you do not have an axiom against this one. Or at least we can debate the axiom itself rather than from the point of view of the axiom. But again I don't care for that debate any longer at least with you.

Well I can't change what you believe. I learned a long time ago people in Forums arrive here with a position they will not relinquish at any cost. So I learned to argue to my own satisfaction and let others believe whatever they wish. I am satisfied that no significant counter point to my primary points were ever going to arise in that thread so eventually I gave it up. Your free to believe as you wish but I am not re-opening that debate for quite some time. I have been in three of those threads and the exact same thing happens every time. I may never visit one again.

I have as much of a dogmatic faith position about morality as I do homosexuality. I think the difference is no one views general morality as personally as homosexuality. I have never seen anything defended by as much emotion and as little evidence as homosexuality. That is the main problem. I get 10 posts in those threads for every one I get in any of the other threads I am in. They are usually not even interesting, nothing new, no evidence, no applicability, they seem to be almost exclusively tactical in nature. There are exceptions but they are few and swamped by the rule.

I like your posts in this thread much better because I don't see the same emotion or lack of evidence here. I think my propositions have no weak points but your attempts to find one are much more scholastic and much less preferential IMO. We also run into interesting people like Aristotle, Socrates, Craig, Zacharias, Ruse, etc.... in this thread and that is much more interesting.

 

[1robin]

I kept with the Golden Rule, however it was a vehicle to elaborate further morality. A sort of proof that since we do have that, and that is unquestionably a human trait, and that we find such morality in religions because it is something greater than just 'opinion' that you can disagree with. It's something akin to an instinct, something even the most base & mentally challenged human is aware of.

It does not apply to my claims. I am not arguing about what specific morality is objectively true. That is an epistemological issue, I am making a ontological argument.

You can find entire hordes of completely contradictory traits in human behavior. We love and we hate, we save and we kill, we treat our neighbors like friends or we eat them, etc....... My point is that without God none of those actions is actually wrong or right, with God some are right and some wrong.

You can argue that God put it there, but my argument is that it's the other way around. We put it in God('God' here means 'all religions'). We elevated it to such a level because it is already that important to us.

That is actually not a bad argument, however it is no better than mine. My claim that humanity is granted a God given conscience which we chose to obey or deny explains the facts of our history at least as good and probably better on the whole than yours but yours is not devoid of merit. How do you explain so many cultures crediting all manner of God's with the exact opposite demands?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

You can find entire hordes of completely contradictory traits in human behavior. We love and we hate, we save and we kill, we treat our neighbors like friends or we eat them, etc....... My point is that without God none of those actions is actually wrong or right, with God some are right and some wrong.

Each culture and society decides what is right or wrong for itself over a period of time, those values are enshrined in law.
God is entirely unnecessary. The fact that different cultures have had different values and laws through history argues against some sort of objective morality.

 

[Nietzsche]

It does not apply to my claims. I am not arguing about what specific morality is objectively true. That is an epistemological issue, I am making a ontological argument.

You can find entire hordes of completely contradictory traits in human behavior. We love and we hate, we save and we kill, we treat our neighbors like friends or we eat them, etc....... My point is that without God none of those actions is actually wrong or right, with God some are right and some wrong.

Hm. I will address this below.

That is actually not a bad argument, however it is no better than mine. My claim that humanity is granted a God given conscience which we chose to obey or deny explains the facts of our history at least as good and probably better on the whole than yours but yours is not devoid of merit. How do you explain so many cultures crediting all manner of God's with the exact opposite demands?

Human differences.In this regard it is better, I think, to look at the common thread. There are some things that are obviously universal. No stealing, no murder, and the 'Golden Rule' notion just to name a few.

The differences that come in really only involve how one worships their gods, and societal roles. The basic laws remain the same, however. If you look at Biblical Law as practiced in the year 214, and then look at how law is practiced in 2014, you'll see that while they may share some common root, the practice and punishments are far different. Things change over time based on how people have to live. The laws and such that seem strange to us or odd today probably made some concrete sense back when they were new.

The laws against adultery for instance. Way back when, the only way to determine paternity was, you know, knowing where and when your wife had been. This was important because it had to do with inheritance.

 

[1robin]

This would seem to make it subjective to God. Not necessarily man.

Actually it makes it objective to both, though whether it is objective to God might be debatable. What makes a moral objective is if it is free from the opinions of it's adherents. If God's nature determines morality then it was not God's opinion and certainly not man's so it is subjective to neither.

That being said, the issue then would be how that transitions to a moral code for man. I know you have your reasoning for accepting the Bible as the Word of God so I don't know what can be debated on that front.

That is true divine command theory leaves little to debate. I don't even like it but had to give up and accept it because it is necessarily the fact if God exists. Now as regards to what morals are true. I have not attempted to illustrate that any specific morals objective facts. My point was that none can possibly be without God, they are with God but which ones are is another subject.

The Bible itself seems to have been used to support differing moral ideology. Slavery, torture, war. So even if using the Bible as a moral guide we are still left to individuals to interpret that morality.

That is one complex issue and depends on what the bible says. That depends on what scriptures you refer to. So please specifically state a verse and what morals drawn from it you question. There is another issue that complicates this. While God's nature does not change his moral commands are between two parties. Just as some things are right for a teenager which are not for a child even though the parents nature may not have changed, certain unchanging moral principles are applied in differing ways depending on God's purpose and our abilities. So God's moral nature does not change, moral principles do not change, but his commands might vary depending on our abilities. This is one complex issue.

You can say you can correctly discern the morality of the Bible. Any can claim so and believe this of themselves. For example, are we allowed to kill witches?

No, and that one is demonstrable. The covenant under which witches were to be exterminated applied only to Hebrews in Israel and has not applied to anyone in over 2000 years. That covenant is over. That is not to say that witch craft is now right or excusable but the reason God could not allow witches to pervert Israel is now over.

Any person with a little charisma can gather a following of people to support the harassment of homosexuals at their funerals using their interpretation of the Bible. So God is sovereign, what does that mean to man who seems unable to correctly understand God's desire?

This entire post is about another issue entirely. I am making an argument about the nature of morality given God or minus God. Your responses are about how we come to know morality or how we interpret the bible. Both valid issues but not the argument I made. If you want to discuss them then please be very specific like with the witches.