Should a woman's bodily autonomy be disregarded when it comes to pregnancy?

[1robin]

If morality is subjective and based on societal evolution and well-being, Hitler would obviously be seen as immoral. His philosophy was icredibly detrimental to our global society. Why isn't it enough to lean on that for moral justification? Why do we need objective morality?

You may not, but before I send hundreds of thousands of people who will die in the effort to kill hundreds of thousands of Hitler's people, I would hope what Hitler was doing was actually wrong and not just out of social fashion. Hitler justified what he did by evolution. He said he was killing off the weak the make the strong stronger. Now you may disagree with him but without God there is no way to know who is right, in fact both of you are equally wrong because there is no actual right to be.

 

[1robin]

Naturalism simply is not an "everything is moral" system since so much of human behavior is programmed into our genes, plus all human societies need to establish order. Certainly different religions have some different takes on what should be moral and what shouldn't, but every single one does establish morality, and the morality they create tends to be very similar in a variety of areas, such as killing, rape, theft, war, etc.

Well nature as a whole only tells us what "is", it does not and cannot tell us what we "should do". Everything is equally amoral because there are no goals. Nature just is. No molecule has a moral property, there exists no objective standard without God, humans are merely genetic anomalies with no more inherent value than anything else, there is just a bunch of contradictory behaviors which some like to cherry pick and call that morality. Hitler picked his, others pick theirs and there is no actual right or wrong to judge them against, only preference.

Religions do differ on moral truths, since most religions make exclusive claims to absolute truth this is to be expected. However religion has the potential to ground objective moral duties and values in fact. If any religion is true and has a divine moral being then certain things are wrong and others right. Some strange religions may lack a moral deity but they are more philosophies than religions. Either way my claims are true of my religion not religion in general.

I am not sure what your conclusion is. What you arguing for or against so I don't know whether to agree or not.

 

[1robin]

Out of curiosity, is this even relevant to this thread?

Half the time I don't even know what thread I am in. I just go with the flow. Let me check. Ok, this one is about whether a women's "right" to autonomy supersedes a fetus' right to anything including life. My claim is that no one has any inherent rights without God. Even with God the right to autonomy is never absolute, (even in our laws it is severely restricted when it effects another), human life has infinite worth and so no right to autonomy would equal it.

Set aside the question of "God's morality" versus human morality for a moment. Are you claiming that God has deemed abortion immoral and prohibiting women from getting abortions moral? If so, where and when?

The bible can't list every specific moral right or wrong. It would not even fit into a library if it did. It instead gives quite a few specifics and the principles which the rest can be based on. The principles here would be.

1. It is wrong to deprive anyone of life unless there exists moral justification. Convenience is not moral justification.
2. Life has sanctity and should not be taken away without sufficient justification.
3. Human lives have equality before God. So the rights of one do not automatically supersede those of another. Even if it was the mothers life or the child's.

Etc.......

But you get the idea. God comes in a context where principles true of his existence can morally ground even rights and wrongs even when not specifically spelled out.

 

[1robin]

So, in your opinion, are there only two options ... either the Bible is entirely accurate when it comes it its portrayal of Jesus, or it is completely false? Because, imho, that is a foolish way of looking at it. I believe that words were put into Jesus' mouth through the years that the Gospels were being written. Then, when it comes to Paul, I think he might have had good intentions, but, since he had no first hand experience, I do not consider him a great source on anything. But, my point here is that I have the right to consider myself a Christian due to my belief in the divinity of Jesus. Further, I would say that my belief is that the Bible is pretty darn close.

Nope, again I have said the exact opposite. It has errors, even the highest possible ranges for those errors given by credible critics still make the bible extraordinarily accurate and we know where 99% of those errors are so they are irrelevant. Even Ehrman admits core doctrine (and being born again is as core as they get) has no meaningful error. IOW even if there are two n's in John, an order of magnitude error in how many chariots David had, or the last chapter in Mark had 12 verses of only half that, the necessity of being born again is not effected by errors. We know what was inserted and by who in most cases, what was a mistake in translation, what was a mistake in copying, and what was bad math, and almost always know why it occurred. I have already told you that you can do this yourself and see every error ( even more you can see every difference) in all the manuscript traditions.

So.
1. The bible is not perfect.
2. It is dang closer and a lot closer than anything else, of any type, at any time in ancient history.
3. The errors are known and do not effect core doctrine, and since known don't effect anything.
4. You cannot possibly imagine how many ways scribes had to verify their work and how many people had to double and triple check it.

Conclusion: By every test possible the bible is extremely accurate and in core doctrine nearly perfect.

You can say what Jesus claimed was wrong, but you cannot claim we don't know what he taught.

 

[1robin]

You claim that all of this stuff is agreed upon by historians, but there are plenty of modern biblical scholars that question the accuracy of the Gospels. The further back in history you go, the less skeptical analyses you will find, but that is easily correlated with advancement in scientific discovery. So, I think modern examples are much more useful than writings from the 18th-19th centuries.

So IOW your cherished preference means you will dismiss the greatest scholars in the most relevant fields. The bible is only showing it's self to be more reliable as time goes on. We have found more early manuscripts in the last century than the rest combined. Take the dead sea scrolls for instance. It's most complete book was Isaiah. It was found to be 99% accurate with modern bibles and that is for an even older OT book. There are entire museums packed with artifacts from cultures recently discovered that your critics said never existed.

Among many there are four core facts that the majority of NT historians agree are historically reliable.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. He was crucified.
3. His tomb was found empty and despite having every incentive to do so not the nation of Israel nor the might of the Roman empire could find his body.
4. Even his enemies claimed to see him post mortem.

Despite the bible winning every history disagreement that can be settled and astronomically superseding the textual accuracy of any text in ancient history, and Jesus being the most attested figure in ancient history, lets pretend the bible was not reliable. How is it you claim to have faith when the book that leads to faith is said by you to be unreliable? How does that even happen?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Half the time I don't even know what thread I am in. I just go with the flow. Let me check. Ok, this one is about whether a women's "right" to autonomy supersedes a fetus' right to anything including life. My claim is that no one has any inherent rights without God. Even with God the right to autonomy is never absolute,

How about our right to deny women access to abortions? Is that right absolute?

(even in our laws it is severely restricted when it effects another),

It is? Can you give an example?

human life has infinite worth and so no right to autonomy would equal it.

If human life has no more worth than your god sees fit to grant it, why would human life necessarily have infinite value?

The bible can't list every specific moral right or wrong. It would not even fit into a library if it did.

So you only have your interpretation, not any explicit direction one way or the other.

It instead gives quite a few specifics and the principles which the rest can be based on. The principles here would be.

1. It is wrong to deprive anyone of life unless there exists moral justification. Convenience is not moral justification.
2. Life has sanctity and should not be taken away without sufficient justification.
3. Human lives have equality before God. So the rights of one do not automatically supersede those of another. Even if it was the mothers life or the child's.

How do you reconcile this with the fact that, in Mosaic law, the penalty for murder was death but the penalty for causing a miscarriage by assaulting a pregnant woman was a fine? Doesn't this suggest that causing a miscarriage is nowhere near as bad as murder?

Etc.......

But you get the idea. God comes in a context where principles true of his existence can morally ground even rights and wrongs even when not specifically spelled out.

What I think is really going on here is that you're simply attributing your opinion to God.

 

[metis]

Well nature as a whole only tells us what "is", it does not and cannot tell us what we "should do". Everything is equally amoral because there are no goals. Nature just is. No molecule has a moral property, there exists no objective standard without God, ...

I am not sure what your conclusion is. What you arguing for or against so I don't know whether to agree or not.

To the first paragraph, we know with certainty that there are some behaviors are characteristic of our species, so I'm not speculating on this. This all gets wrapped up in the moral teachings that simply can be found in every single human society we've ever studied. However, how this is manifested and also the details do tend to vary from one society to another, and some of this is influenced by environmental difference, using a very broad definition of "environmental".

As to your last sentence, what I'm not saying is that religion has no role in the development of morality, as it certain can and does, and I for one am appreciative of that or I wouldn't be affiliated with any religion.

 

[metis]

If any religion is true and has a divine moral being then certain things are wrong and others right.

But does any one religion contain all truths? Do you believe that your version of Christianity bats 1000?

Some strange religions may lack a moral deity but they are more philosophies than religions. Either way my claims are true of my religion not religion in general.

"... strange religions...". Really?

 

[metis]

Take the dead sea scrolls for instance. It's most complete book was Isaiah. It was found to be 99% accurate with modern bibles and that is for an even older OT book.

The DSS copy of Isaiah, which I've seen in person for what it's worth btw, is not the original writing, so we cannot entirely attest to it's accuracy from the original. However, the fact that the DSS version so closely matches later copies is indeed an indicator that there was careful work by scribes to make certain they copied it accurately.

 

[leibowde84]

You may not, but before I send hundreds of thousands of people who will die in the effort to kill hundreds of thousands of Hitler's people, I would hope what Hitler was doing was actually wrong and not just out of social fashion. Hitler justified what he did by evolution. He said he was killing off the weak the make the strong stronger. Now you may disagree with him but without God there is no way to know who is right, in fact both of you are equally wrong because there is no actual right to be.

No, that is certainly not the case. And, Hitler did not use evolution in his reasoning, even according to your logic. The entire idea behind evolution is that it happens naturally and over an extremely long time period. Simply "killing off the weak to benefit the strong" is in no way related to evolution ... 1. it is not natural, 2. it man made and is, in fact, contradicting natural evolution (killing those off that would not have died naturally), and 3. evolution is not a person or animal, so it cannot "do" anything. It is merely an explanation of what has and is happening. Evolution, and other ideas such as this, are man made inventions in that they are "concepts." Thus, to say that a man murdering millions of Jews is merely following the "law of evolution" is without merit and pretty darn absurd, imho.

All in all, using this scientific theory in this way is counterintuitive, as it is personifying something that cannot "act," "choose," "kill," ect. in the way that you mean. Once Hitler took his first action to "inflict" his philosophy on the world, he parted ways with every scientific theory in existence. Your comparison is without merit.

 

[leibowde84]

You may not, but before I send hundreds of thousands of people who will die in the effort to kill hundreds of thousands of Hitler's people, I would hope what Hitler was doing was actually wrong and not just out of social fashion. Hitler justified what he did by evolution. He said he was killing off the weak the make the strong stronger. Now you may disagree with him but without God there is no way to know who is right, in fact both of you are equally wrong because there is no actual right to be.

Where did you get this "out of social fashion" idea?! I'm pretty sure none of us has claimed that this is any kind of measure. Hitler was wrong because he was immensely DESTRUCTIVE toward society. He was destroying it, not just "making it feel bad." When something is destructive to society, it should be stopped. "Wrong" and "right" are merely words. Intent matters quite a bit, as does social justice. Why is an objective morality so important when this can be achieved without one?

 

[leibowde84]

So IOW your cherished preference means you will dismiss the greatest scholars in the most relevant fields. The bible is only showing it's self to be more reliable as time goes on. We have found more early manuscripts in the last century than the rest combined. Take the dead sea scrolls for instance. It's most complete book was Isaiah. It was found to be 99% accurate with modern bibles and that is for an even older OT book. There are entire museums packed with artifacts from cultures recently discovered that your critics said never existed.

Among many there are four core facts that the majority of NT historians agree are historically reliable.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. He was crucified.
3. His tomb was found empty and despite having every incentive to do so not the nation of Israel nor the might of the Roman empire could find his body.
4. Even his enemies claimed to see him post mortem.

Despite the bible winning every history disagreement that can be settled and astronomically superseding the textual accuracy of any text in ancient history, and Jesus being the most attested figure in ancient history, lets pretend the bible was not reliable. How is it you claim to have faith when the book that leads to faith is said by you to be unreliable? How does that even happen?

Can you prove that these things happened without using the Bible as a source? Because, there is nothing written about Jesus until long after his death (which includes the Gospels). To say that "even his enemies claimed to see him post mortem," cannot be true (unless you are referring to Paul, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were not) unless you know of another source. For, in the Bible, it would merely be heresay.

 

[metis]

One problem that we see here so frequently is that many are so convinced that their religion is correct that they fail to recognize their beliefs are not necessarily facts. We can't even prove beyond any shadow of doubt that there's one god, many gods, or no gods, and yet some people give us all sorts of details as to why even some of the most minor teachings they believe in are absolutely correct.

As Confucius said about education: the more you know, the more you know you really don't know [that much].

 

[1robin]

I think it depends very much on the definition. Actually, the word comes from mora = ethos = customs. That it is something more than that is why we are debating. And, usually, my side tries to explain things like altruism which, prima facie, defy naturalism.

Yes, your side starts out with God does not exist but evolution does and can be used to explain even contradictory things, now get in the car, lets put on our atheistically polarized shades and go to the library and see why. To make this less semantically confusing let me re-supply the Latin.

1. 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.

This one is what is usually thought of by the word. It cannot exist without God because nothing in nature can produce it.

2. Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself.

This can be had without God. Calling them both morality is just confusing so for simplicity sake lets call this one ethics. Deal?

i don't know. If we consider things like the mathematical theory of games then it is possible that we evolve rules of behaviour that represent solutions of some differential equations. And that our sense of "should" hides the goal behind this adaptation in our inscrutable brain algorithms. Like our free will, so to speak. Seems free, but it isn't, under naturalism.

If you try hard you can find objective criteria, then paste on a subjective goal (nature gas no intent or goal), but this is ethics not morality according the definitions above. With God we have an objective goal and objective duties.

I don't think we have an evolutionary explanation for everything. Things like female orgasm seems evolutionary useless, for instance. Alas, things are complicated. We probably have things today that are evolutionary neutral or even detrimental, if they did not come in tandem with traits that offset them. Goose bumps, for instance, were useful when we looked like King Kong, very much less so today.

Trying too avoid an X rated response I think they do have evolutionary value but they contend with morality. Evolution wants to survive. Anything that encourages mating would be a "good" but morality is usually restrictive of those naturalistic "goods' in favor of moral "betters". All kinds of ideas like marriage, fidelity, etc...... contradict survival of at least the species as a whole. I not only agree that evolution is complex, it is even contradictory. It is geared for survival but 90% of species have died out. It is not a good system for anything, it is so bad at everything it's ever succeeding is almost a miracle.

Giving birth to a child is also a dangerous ordeal for a human. And our babies need a lot of time before they are independent. Nevertheless, the advantages offset the disadvantages and that is why we still have those problem.

This is a question of efficiency of optimality which will always produce a meaningless paradox. I am not sure why you posted it.

ANd survival at any cost does not have a lot to do with evolution. If it did, we would probably have evolved the capacity to live 10000 years or so.

I did not say all costs were possible. I said it selects for survival at anything else's expense, even truth.

The single organism (e.g. Animal) is not the thing that gets selected. What gets selected are the genes that build it and inhabit it. So, if a gene configuration forces a certain animal to scream when it sees a predator, betraying thereby its position, then it is OK, As long as other hosts of similar gene configurations are warned.

Since a female child screams at even an imaginary threat how did we survive. Your points here don't seem to contradict what I said and they all have counter points. For example screaming may alert the mother for protection. The point is evolution does everything it has the capacity to do and so would justify anything we have the capacity to do. Scream don't scream, rape don't rape, kill your young or don't, tribal war or cooperation. Anything I can do is present in evolution and would be justified..

As I said. What they usully dress up are things like altruism and self sacrifice, which are very likely natural adaptations, despite the naive interpretation of evolution by natural selection that theists insist on.

I have been a life long hunter and have read about the great hunters in history. Just sitting around watching what nature does very quickly shows that it is not geared for our ideas of morality. Sit at a water hole in India or Africa and you will not live long enough to dress anything up. Read man-eaters of India by Colonel Corbett and you won't venture off a paved road the rest of your life.

But in general I agree with you. There is no "should" that does not hide an adaptive goal or rule of engagement, under naturalism. Actually, I don't even think that "ought" without a goal makes sense under theism either. . I tried to convince my kids that they ought to brush their teeth, without a justification...with mixed results. Actually I used God watching them sometimes, after their many "why's".

Well even with God's commands there are usually drastic practical necessities. If your kids had any idea how bad the root canal I just had was they would probably stick a tooth brush in each hand on the hour every hour.

God: The ultimate baby sitter, lol.

Someone said if God did not exist we would have had to make him up anyway. I kind of agree. Our inherent ideas about morality, causality, rights, justice, etc.......scream out for a God so badly that we either have one or we become one to our selves.

That is a false dichotomy. When my husband brings me flowers, I am happy, even though I am perfectly aware they they will end in the trash bean in a couple of days and that it was an evolutionary motivated move showing his commitment to me by investing resources and time only for me, hopefully.

You misunderstood. I said roses have no inherent value. You might value them, Hitler may value exterminating Jews, Madoff may value your money, etc.......... societal laws can't be based on 6 billion different valuations. Morality and rights assume inherent value. It is not that I value X it that X has intrinsic value.

We should be careful to distinguish between a first person view vs. a third person view of things. From a first person view, i appreciate his flowers. This the view that gives meaning to things and people usually use.

I thought that was assumed. I even gave examples of the difference. Life is supposed to have rights even if no one valued it. That is unless..................I won't bore you with the abortion speech again.

From the third person perspective, I am aware that some adaptive mechanisms in his brain compelled him to show his readiness to share his resources for me, so that I know that our kids will have a stable environment to grow up. From this view I see that romantic love is an adaptation motivated by the fact that human babies need both parents for a long time before they can be independent. Love = Selection of dumb replicators, so to speak.

Roses don't have intrinsic value or rights so it is not a good analogy. I can stomp my rose garden to dust and violate no moral code. If I try that with kindergarteners I will be put to death in conservative states.

IN the first person view, life is sacred. In the third its sacreness is the product of mechanical processes that depend on our biology.

No biological equation equals sacredness.

Which one is more important? I think they both are. You don't, I presume.

And there is the problem, we all value different things. We need a source for value that does not depend on opinion.

These problems arise only when we see things from one perspective. And they are resolved when we analyze them from both.

If you think inventing something that can't be true solves the problem then maybe.

Same thing. I am perfectly aware that I, and my legacy, and their legacy, and their legacy and everything we did will disappear in a boring ocean of diluted matter. It will be like we never existed. That does not prevent me to enjoy pizza with my kids, though.

But it does stop us from thinking life has intrinsic value, sanctity, or equality. BTW an expiration date is an effect not the cause. Having no God is the cause of all these other things.

I m not sure I am a nihilist. I actually think that Christian are more so. Prima facie, they sound like without a (possibly imaginary) God life is wortheless. Some even think they run the risk of turning into Jack the Rapist/Ripper the day they do not hear those God's voices in their head, anymore.

I was joking. Atheism results in categorical nihilism that most atheists just seem to live as if it were the opposite. I of course does not produce total nihilism. If you search list of the ten most important questions of mankind's history. None of them have ultimate answers without God to the best of my memory.

1. What is our ultimate origin? No clue without God.
2. What is objective moral truth? Nothing without God.
3. What is the purpose of the universe? No clue without God.
4. Why (not how) am I here? No clue without God.
etc.....................

 

[1robin]

How about our right to deny women access to abortions? Is that right absolute?

I never proposed that right existed. I rarely ever get into telling anyone how to act. I discuss whether a behavior is justifiable or not and leave prohibitions to others. The argument here was that a woman has the right to autonomy (and in this context) that exceeds the autonomy or even right to live of the child in the womb. It was the burden of those who claim that to prove it. The one who claims a right exists to exterminate another human life is the one with the burden. When I go to writing laws then you can ask me this.

It is? Can you give an example?

Of course you do not have any right to stab me without moral justification by virtue of autonomy. In fact the punishment for most crimes is the loss of autonomy. I can see that you are going to answer questions I ask but asking me ones in return.

If human life has no more worth than your god sees fit to grant it, why would human life necessarily have infinite value?

Because God decreed it. Actually that is a common Christian saying, I don't know what it is based on. Let me restate my claim as having great intrinsic value compared with other assignments of value we acknowledge.

So you only have your interpretation, not any explicit direction one way or the other.

Depends on what duty your talking about. I have no right to adultery, I have a right to kill with justification, and I can easily ground rights on certain principles, and I imagine there are many things I have no idea about. The difference is that with God we have a truth to try and get at and divine help getting there. We have an actual source for objective morality which has indicated he wishes us to know it. Without him there is no truth of the matter to find. One opinion is as good as another without God.

How do you reconcile this with the fact that, in Mosaic law, the penalty for murder was death but the penalty for causing a miscarriage by assaulting a pregnant woman was a fine? Doesn't this suggest that causing a miscarriage is nowhere near as bad as murder?

I am not familiar with that verse. Let me ask you a question. Have you looked up a single scholastic commentary on whatever this verse is? Looking up stuff non-theists use as weapons against the bible has led to an unbroken of perfectly (or very close, I think there are two I just can't buy) reasonable explanations for all the so called problems. I usually find they don't want there to be answers and so I waste hours of my time contending with preference. Anyway book, chapter, and verse please.

What I think is really going on here is that you're simply attributing your opinion to God.

I am using my opinion that is deduced from biblical principles. At least there is a truth that we can discuss opinions about in God's case. Without we must invent a goal from amoral processes and then guess at what best meets the goal we chose. What we actually get are thousands of differencing goals, and the mighty impose theirs, then we get conflicting and contradictory rules on how to achieve those goals. Without any ultimate truth existing to find.

Take abortion. First we have to invent that female adult autonomy is a right out of thin air, then we had to invent that it justifies the taking of the fetus' life, then we have switched at what time period the magical event happens that gives it rights, that it nor anything else actually has. It is not only all not true, it can't possibly be true. At least with God our arguments can be an effort to find a truth that does actually exist.

 

[1robin]

To the first paragraph, we know with certainty that there are some behaviors are characteristic of our species, so I'm not speculating on this. This all gets wrapped up in the moral teachings that simply can be found in every single human society we've ever studied. However, how this is manifested and also the details do tend to vary from one society to another, and some of this is influenced by environmental difference, using a very broad definition of "environmental".

As to your last sentence, what I'm not saying is that religion has no role in the development of morality, as it certain can and does, and I for one am appreciative of that or I wouldn't be affiliated with any religion.

Lets take a set of behaviors (x,y,z) that are the products of evolution. The problem is that without God x , y, and z merely are. They are not right or wrong they simply exist. As behaviors they are also choices. While they may range anywhere from a whim to a instinct none are automatic and all should be evaluated. Without God there is nothing to evaluate them against except preference. There are no "should" unless there are goals and any goal would be just as right or wrong as any other. However if you have God then you can potentially say that x is an objective wrong and should be stopped, y can be wrong or right and requires standards regarding circumstances, and z may be actually good.

Regardless, while I do see what your not saying I don't see the point you are saying. Are you countering something I said, agreeing, clarifying, or just wanting to shoot the breeze?

 

[metis]

Lets take a set of behaviors (x,y,z) that are the products of evolution. The problem is that without God x , y, and z merely are. They are not right or wrong they simply exist. As behaviors they are also choices. While they may range anywhere from a whim to a instinct none are automatic and all should be evaluated. Without God there is nothing to evaluate them against except preference. There are no "should" unless there are goals and any goal would be just as right or wrong as any other. However if you have God then you can potentially say that x is an objective wrong and should be stopped, y can be wrong or right and requires standards regarding circumstances, and z may be actually good.

Regardless, while I do see what your not saying I don't see the point you are saying. Are you countering something I said, agreeing, clarifying, or just wanting to shoot the breeze?

I'm just not taking what I believe is an extremist position, namely that somehow the only source of morality is religion. It's simply not true. Yes, there's no doubt that religion more specifies what's to be allowed and what's not, so we do agree on that.

 

[leibowde84]

Yes, your side starts out with God does not exist but evolution does and can be used to explain even contradictory things, now get in the car, lets put on our atheistically polarized shades and go to the library and see why. To make this less semantically confusing let me re-supply the Latin.

1. 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.

This one is what is usually thought of by the word. It cannot exist without God because nothing in nature can produce it.

2. Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself.

This can be had without God. Calling them both morality is just confusing so for simplicity sake lets call this one ethics. Deal?

If you try hard you can find objective criteria, then paste on a subjective goal (nature gas no intent or goal), but this is ethics not morality according the definitions above. With God we have an objective goal and objective duties.

Trying too avoid an X rated response I think they do have evolutionary value but they contend with morality. Evolution wants to survive. Anything that encourages mating would be a "good" but morality is usually restrictive of those naturalistic "goods' in favor of moral "betters". All kinds of ideas like marriage, fidelity, etc...... contradict survival of at least the species as a whole. I not only agree that evolution is complex, it is even contradictory. It is geared for survival but 90% of species have died out. It is not a good system for anything, it is so bad at everything it's ever succeeding is almost a miracle.

This is a question of efficiency of optimality which will always produce a meaningless paradox. I am not sure why you posted it.

I did not say all costs were possible. I said it selects for survival at anything else's expense, even truth.

Since a female child screams at even an imaginary threat how did we survive. Your points here don't seem to contradict what I said and they all have counter points. For example screaming may alert the mother for protection. The point is evolution does everything it has the capacity to do and so would justify anything we have the capacity to do. Scream don't scream, rape don't rape, kill your young or don't, tribal war or cooperation. Anything I can do is present in evolution and would be justified..

I have been a life long hunter and have read about the great hunters in history. Just sitting around watching what nature does very quickly shows that it is not geared for our ideas of morality. Sit at a water hole in India or Africa and you will not live long enough to dress anything up. Read man-eaters of India by Colonel Corbett and you won't venture off a paved road the rest of your life.

Well even with God's commands there are usually drastic practical necessities. If your kids had any idea how bad the root canal I just had was they would probably stick a tooth brush in each hand on the hour every hour.

Someone said if God did not exist we would have had to make him up anyway. I kind of agree. Our inherent ideas about morality, causality, rights, justice, etc.......scream out for a God so badly that we either have one or we become one to our selves.

You misunderstood. I said roses have no inherent value. You might value them, Hitler may value exterminating Jews, Madoff may value your money, etc.......... societal laws can't be based on 6 billion different valuations. Morality and rights assume inherent value. It is not that I value X it that X has intrinsic value.

I thought that was assumed. I even gave examples of the difference. Life is supposed to have rights even if no one valued it. That is unless..................I won't bore you with the abortion speech again.

Roses don't have intrinsic value or rights so it is not a good analogy. I can stomp my rose garden to dust and violate no moral code. If I try that with kindergarteners I will be put to death in conservative states.

No biological equation equals sacredness.

And there is the problem, we all value different things. We need a source for value that does not depend on opinion.



If you think inventing something that can't be true solves the problem then maybe.

But it does stop us from thinking life has intrinsic value, sanctity, or equality. BTW an expiration date is an effect not the cause. Having no God is the cause of all these other things.

I was joking. Atheism results in categorical nihilism that most atheists just seem to live as if it were the opposite. I of course does not produce total nihilism. If you search list of the ten most important questions of mankind's history. None of them have ultimate answers without God to the best of my memory.

1. What is our ultimate origin? No clue without God.
2. What is objective moral truth? Nothing without God.
3. What is the purpose of the universe? No clue without God.
4. Why (not how) am I here? No clue without God.
etc.....................

Your first point is my main problem with your reasoning. There is no way to prove that nature cannot create anything naturally. That would be a logical fallacy because you cannot prove a negative. In other words, the absolute best argument you could claim is that, to the best of our scientific knowledge and discovery, we have not yet been able to find a source in nature for ____. This goes for literally everything, and is the basis for the Gods of the gaps argument.

 

[1robin]

But does any one religion contain all truths? Do you believe that your version of Christianity bats 1000?

I believe that any benevolent God would give one pure revelation instead of hiding Easter eggs of truth in mountains of man made garbage. That is not to say that other faiths do not contain but I don't think they contain revelation. The Christian doctrine is that revelation was 100% pure but copying has left us with modern bibles that are about 95% accurate. I can give you the whole argument with numbers and equations if you want but even Bart Ehrman agrees. I in fact I use his error rates to avoid contention. Our faiths would be a little different in that mine contains yours so there is no discrepancy. Most faiths at their core are contradictory with each other in claims to exclusive truth and so all but at most one can be true (meaning God's intended revelation, not that they get math wrong).

"... strange religions...". Really?

Yes, Pantheism to me is strange. To say everything is God and God is everything adds nothing to either one. It's a meaningless tautology. I think that strange for a religion. Hinduism is strange because re-incarnation defeats the purpose of re-incarnation. Baha'i is strange in that they claim all religions are true and to make them all true they distort them all into unrecognizable forms.

 

[1robin]

The DSS copy of Isaiah, which I've seen in person for what it's worth btw, is not the original writing, so we cannot entirely attest to it's accuracy from the original. However, the fact that the DSS version so closely matches later copies is indeed an indicator that there was careful work by scribes to make certain they copied it accurately.

That is not what I was claiming. I was talking about textual veracity. The DSS are so valuable because they went missing a long time ago and recently resurfaced, so they spell out exactly how much took place in bibles (of the books that compose it) from about 200Bc until today. The textual veracity of bible's is so strong that errors once they appeared were retained until modern times. The men who copied the mainstream texts were so committed to copying the original that virtually all mistakes are known and indicated in most modern bibles. If someone put two N's in john everyone from then on did. I am out of time but biblical text integrity is something I can argue to almost a certainty.