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What "objective" moral truths exist that could not have been made by the consensus of a group of people? And, even if there is such a thing as "God's objective moral code" what about his Law? He wanted his people to stone transgressors of some of the things in his Law to death? Why don't Bible-believers do exactly what God says to do? Also, the dietary laws, where are they today? Some Jews follow them, but Christians don't. God changed his mind? Even though the Bible says his Laws are meant to last forever? So what about his moral code? Does it stay the same, or does it change with time?
If torture was such a substantial and universally agreed wrong why did it take almost 5000 years to make an agreement that it was? BTW not every nation signed of on it's torture parts. In general nations signed only certain proportions contained in certain aspects of that accord. In other words there is only universal agreement on a few issues.
War is not the subject you should challenge me in. They all did not stop Hitler. Japan, Italy, Russia (at first), and even Islam among many others fought on Hitler's side. Even England, France, and the US did not want to fight him and tried not to and wound up doing so because of security reasons. We did use objective moral values to justify our actions which do not even exist if God does not, but our real motivation was security of the free-world not what Hitler was doing to Jews.
Those are strange questions. Anything acquired by a pole is be definition the opposite of objective. It is pretty much the archetype of a system that produces the subjective. For the future in this context subjective means a system of values derived from the opinions of the subjects of that system of values. Objective means a system derived independently of the subjects of it. Something true regardless of opinion is objective.
So what? I've never said that morals can't or don't change over time.
The fact of the matter is the allied forces had a problem with what Hitler was doing and sought to stop it.
No, he wouldnt have been perfectly good by my standards. I value human life, as do most humans who in the very least, value their own life and the lives of their family and friends.
I would tell them that if they keep it up, theyre going to wipe themselves out.
We would fight them, because we value our existence (and I would bet that they would value theirs).
That is irrelevant. If you say morals are universal then history comes into play. If there are commonly accepted universal rights and wrongs then morality history should show this. What history actually shows is that some cultures loved their neighbors, some ate them. Some practiced a passive peace or neutrality, others killed their way through most of the civilized world. Some would do anything for their God, and some would do anything to kill those that had faith. Some sent missionaries to feed and teach the savages, some savages killed those same missionaries. Some made military service an option, some took all children away at seven and trained them into the most lethal soldiers for their time in history. Some protect all life, some throw sick babies off cliffs, and some kill them in the womb. History shows that man has adopted every extreme there is concerning morality. What happens to be going on today (which was not properly illustrated by you) is only a tiny fraction of what is relevant to any claims about universality.
The Romans didn't. They would kill or torture 1 out of ten of their own men if a unit failed in battle randomly. Alexander would hack everyone in an entire town to death. So would Caesar. The Aztecs cut hearts out of tens of thousands of their neighbors per year while alive. Tribes make torture a right of passage for everyone including being stung repeatedly by the most painful insect in existence. Some stick objects through their bodies. Regardless what a nation publically agrees to has little relevance to what they do. Almost all nations practice torture at some level. We water board, almost all confine prisoners in atrocious conditions for years, and some systematically use every form of torture known. Even if you could prove humans generally have a consistent core morality (and I grant you can make that case, though far more than the Geneva convention is necessary) it would be far better evidence for a transcendent moral architect that the inherent moral ability of people to arrive at consistent opinions.
That is probably true but not of any help to your argument. In fact they used absolute violations of absolute and objective moral truths (which do not exist without God) to justify their actions. For example Churchill asked C.S. Lewis not any atheist to address his people concerning the morality or the war.
Now this is my kind of a discussion.
I think you misunderstood. I am not saying atheist do not have morals they believe in. I am not saying godless nations may not produce ethics. I am saying those opinions and ethics are not actually true or binding unless God exists. If an atheist said murder was wrong. He has made a moral decision that in my view is true. However it would not be true unless God existed and he has no foundation to enable him to ever know if murder actually was wrong. The inherent problems of opinion based morals do not show up until a Hitler a thousand other problems do, that cause your system to fail completely. That is why moral absolutes are used in speeches like what you provided. They did not say anything that would actually be true if no God existed in them. In times of trouble God is almost always looked to, not atheism. Atheism adds nothing to but only subtracts from a theistic system.
I am not talking about whether you would agree with his conclusions. I meant that he used the exact same methodology as you but arrived at another conclusion. You would have to contradict your methodology to condemn him. As an analogy you could not say that morality is determined by rolling a dice. You get a 3 and Hitler got a 5 and you then claim his result was invalid. You can not both keep your methodology (reason and even empathy) and condemn a person who used it.
I never suggested for a minute that people would not do it. I said it would have been a far harder decision to make, and BTW that follows necessarily. It is not an opinion it is a fact. I have no way to know but I guarantee you that most of those that risked their lives to defy the Nazi's did so either as a result of faith or because of things that are only true if God exists. I said it was stupid to risk the few years you have to save someone else if God did not exist and it is. I did not say people would not occasionally do it, again however that could even be an argument for a God given conscience as well.
In my analogy they were not wiping themselves out. They were maintaining a smaller but far more healthy population and genetically that should have made them more and more capable by wiping out the weak and infirm before they could produce. In fact Sparta operated under that same mentality and produced the most lethal army that ever existed for it's time. They did not cease to exist until an earthquake leveled their nation. Even Alexander would not mess with them. They thought killing sick babies, training children to kill without mercy, having no economy, and enslaving their neighbors was the perfect society using your exact methodology.
If God does not exist this would probably be close to true. It is also irrelevant and an assumption. I find many things that suggest this is not true, or at least not all that is true. I find many things inconsistent with this world view and many things inherently granted as necessary to ensure justice absent from it.
So now your methodology has been abandoned and it is self interest and only self interest that governs what is right. I am glad the cows and horses have not revolted. BTW how do you justify our self interest at the expense of all other type of life's self interest? I have a justifiable way to suggest our lives have more value than chickens and turnips, you do not. I have a reason to suggest humans were given sovereignty over animals for food, you must assume it by a form of speciesm just as immoral (without God )as racism.
There are many verses that suggest that the God of the Bible cannot or will not do evil or be tempted by evil. Of course this is discussable but I need justification for that claim first.
