I am going back to reply to your responses to me that I didn’t get to. Some of these points have been covered by other posters, so I will attempt to avoid needless repetition, and only focus on things that I don’t think have been fully addressed.
The point is none of those are true unless God exists. Hurting people may be socially unfashionable but only with God is it actually wrong. Hitler actually thought (using the exact methods any atheist would employ) that he was helping mankind by hurting a certain group. As Dawkins so honestly put it without an objective standard no one can say he was actually wrong.
An objective criteria is not necessary to be able to claim that something is “actually” wrong.
Assume for a moment that morality has been developed solely by humans. What is right and what is wrong, therefore, is determined by humans. If humans claim that something is wrong, then it is “actually” wrong. Other people or societies may disagree with them, of course, but that does not negate the fact that, to the people making the proclamation, such a thing truly is wrong.
On a side note, do you really think that, if God was shown not to exist, you would feel that murder was okay? Would not the feeling of “wrongness” in regards to murder still remain?
So you have redefined morality as equal to the least suffering.
No, not quite. As johnhanks noted, I was providing a reason for how morality came about—basically, why it (likely) developed in humans.
Specific moral codes will change, but the general reason why a society develops morality (or a moral code) stays the same.
Note also that moral laws tended to only protect those belonging to the “group”. Those people outside of the group generally were not protected by moral laws. Note also that “making society run smoothly”, which was one of my reasons given for the development of morality, does not necessarily equate to “least suffering”.
I did not ask you to remove future Bundy's. I asked you to find a flaw in his reasoning if God does not exist.
The flaw in his reasoning is that his particular brand of amorality will remain in the minority, and thus, his antiosocial behavior will lead to ostracization and punishment.
The flaw in your reasoning is assuming that anything changes with the existence of God. God saying “murder is wrong” doesn’t make it feel any more wrong than it already does, nor will it convince those who feel that murder is fine to rethink things.
It is a clear and present horror. If we can consider the murder of human lives in the womb based on convenience by the hundreds of millions not something to be alarmed about then we are truly morally insane. There is a huge difference, one is based on fact and the other on preference and opinion. Try and re-write all natural laws based on guesswork and see ho many space shuttles you can make work.
The purpose of morality, as I see it, is to make interactions among humans less risky, more productive, and ultimately easier. Unlike space shuttles, preference and opinion (and innate nature) have seemed to work in the building of societies.
I do not see how making “murder is wrong” an objective fact makes murder any more or less likely to occur.
Hence, there is no real difference in result between divine command theory and moral relativism.
If you cannot see the necessity for what I requested I do not think elaboration will help.
For context, I asked “Why not?” in response to your claim that we could not say that something is morally wrong, if God does not provide morality.
While I think that morality is more than *just* opinion, think of it this way: I can claim that something is beautiful, even if, as most agree, there is no objective standard of beauty. And it will be true: That thing is beautiful (to me).
The difference with morality is that it is relatively standard across a particular culture, with some things even being generally standard across humanity. It’s less likely that something I consider to be morally wrong will only apply to me, personally. It is likely an objective fact based upon my society’s subjective determination.
Falvlun said:
If God gave us the ability to discern right from wrong, then surely it is valid to use this sense to determine whether something is right or wrong. I see no reason why God's actions should be exempt.
However this reasonable method would go horribly wrong if there were no God to give us this sense would it not? You cannot deny God but utilize what he provides.
You believe that God has given us a sense of morality. My point is that we should then be able to trust that morality in determining whether something is moral or not—assuming your narrative is true.
Here someone else made this point, and your reply:
Wait a minute though ... haven't you said that your god wrote his absolute morality on our hearts or something along those lines? So if we've all got the same morality written into our makeup, how it is that morality differs among individuals and cultures as well as over time?
I also must have said a thousand times we have made a career of ignoring what our conscience dictates. We can even as the bible says seer our consciences to a level we no longer hear anything from them.
I just wanted to point out that I am doing the exact opposite of ignoring my conscience: My conscience dictates that everyone should have an equal chance at salvation, that children should not be punished for the crimes of their ancestors, and that justice is not served by killing an innocent person. These are reasons that led to my rejection of the Christian narrative (rather than the other way around: I did not reject Christianity and then come to these conclusions.)
You bet. You seem like a respectful but committed debater.
Thank you! As do you! I know it’s often hard when two people are on such opposite spectrums, but so far, this has been enjoyable.
