Why not above?
The problem is that divine command theory is NOT the only variety of moral realism (the position that there are, to use your wording, "actual objective moral facts"), slavery is an ACTUAL MORAL EVIL if utilitarianism is correct, because slavery has objective features which must, according to the definition of "evil" in utilitarianism, be considered immoral or evil. Similarly with deontic ethics- if slavery is evil, then it is an objective, person-invariant fact that morality is evil; not because God or anyone else has decreed it, but due to objective facts about slavery.
What? What are dental ethics? I have already claimed ethics can be gained without God. We can define personal evils or good. We can't show they reflect anything objective. By person invariant I think you mean that for every person it would be evil. That is not the standard for objective in this context. Even if Hitler had exterminated everyone that disagreed killing Jews would still not be objectively right. I noticed you said "if" slavery is evil. Do you know of Sam Harris? He is a neuroscientist and the only atheistic debater I have ever seen claim objective morals exist. Craig (your nemesis apparently) finally boxed him in so tight that he admitted the atheist must assume they exist to begin with. Which it seems you have if I have interpreted you semantically gymnastics accurately. Why are almost all Christian arguments basic, easy to understand, lacking need of any terminological embellishment or obfuscation, and straightforward and atheists a literal circus of flowery rhetoric? You just are never getting objective moral truths without the transcendent no matter how much linguistic nuance is employed in the effort. Give me a simple objective standard for evil.
You're missing the point- that we evaluate the ethics of the situation the same way we evaluate the ethics of ANY situation; according to our ethical framework (which, if one is a utilitarian, is to maximize happiness and minimize suffering).
I have no interest or need for claims regarding perception, evaluation, or utility. I am discussing actual nature or quality given God and minus God. You can not redefine morality as being equal to happiness.
Again, missing the point- this was simply another example of an ethical principle we could use to evaluate the moral status of an act or situation (i.e. deontism).
Ethics can't comment on the nature or quality of moral fact. I am not missing but pointing out the irrelevance of your points. Your not discussing what I am.
Why should us being finite and God being infinite preclude us evaluating him according to ethical principles?
That is so easy and so simply it cannot even be obscured by rhetoric. We do not possess even a small percentage of the info he has to determine moral justification for an act. We may only see a baby die in the cradle but God saw a new Hitler lying there. We may kill a life in the womb but God saw the cure for cancer he would invent.
And you do realize that if right, this would cut both ways- if the finite cannot evaluate the morality of the infinite, and we cannot condemn God, then we cannot praise him either; our capacity for moral evaluation is as deficient at identifying good as well as evil.
Condemnation requires absolute knowledge. Praise requires personal desire. Even if he is right by default that does not mean my appreciation of him is invalid.
In other words, if you are correct here, then we have no license to describe God as good, because the finite cannot comprehend the infinite and all that jazz. Can't have your cake and eat it too, I'm afraid.
That is why I almost never use good. I use correct or right. I can consider him good personally and praise him but little grounds exists for labeling him as good or evil in a secular divine command theory context.
The problem is that if you assume God cannot have been mistaken, you're simply begging the question at hand here.
I spent years rejecting that conclusion based on preference. I still do not like "having" to determine he is right but it is so obviously true I have relented. However what is true using argumentation and what I feel is due or prefer to believe are two different issues.
1. I argue that God is consistent with what we general believe is good.
2. I argue that only with him is there grounds for claiming objective moral truth exists.
Your discussing whether personal preference (praise) is warranted in a argumentative sense and that is a personal matter.
Why not? If you could do so without risk to your own fitness, then sure, it would seem to be be moral, from an evolutionary point of view. Of course, killing every organism that doesn't contribute to your in-groups fitness but competes with you for resources may well be dangerous business that leads to your own demise- which is VERY bad for one's reproductive success...
I knew what the only argument that could be made was but did not think you would think of it so I did not head it off. Let me do so now. What you said about risk is invalid for two reasons. The weapons of today make actual morality the prohibitive not personal risk. Just last night I saw a show claiming humans had not only killed the mega beasts (Mastodon, Moa, Marsupial lion) but had over predated them and killed them of all together. What was the risk 50,000 years ago verses the gain of wiping out an entire food source? Risk is not prohibitive. It seemed to Hitler killing Jews was moral. It seems to modern secularists killing millions of human lives at some politically determined and ever changing point in time before birth is just fine but one second later is murder. We are nuts and for morality I want a second and higher opinion and fortunately I believe we have one.
(however, it isn't generally held that a descriptive account of morality- which is what we're talking about here- can provide prescriptive moral rules; in other words, it may not be moral to do what is moral from an evolutionary point of view)
Evolution is your moral source not mine. I think is almost comical to picture lawmakers and SC justices look at bone beds, guessing at behavior gain and loss, and carbon dating data to create law.
I have one primary claim.
1. Only with God do objective moral truths exist. That is not to say the ethics we invent are not objectively existent.
How simple is that. Look at what you have posted to get out of this simply claim. It looks like a pint shop exploded and interns were sent around looking for the most ambiguous and technical words to use in an attempt to show 1 + 1 = fruit loops.
You have two choices.
1. People are your source and that is not objective.
2. Evolution is your source and that is not moral. Unless you redefine morality as whatever someone (just like Hitler did in Eugenics and race superiority) claims evolution suggests.
I will applaud what you said about evolution and killing the competition. You did not exactly concede (you took the Buddhist middle path I guess) but you did not knee jerk react with a denial because it was inconvenient either.
