Godless morality

[DennisK]

Holy cow (is this a hindu saying?), you two!  I think your posts put me in a hypnotic state because I don't remember anything from earlier today.  I suggest calling each other to argue semantics and then write a 3 page summary each of your conclusions.  It would save a lot of time for the rest of us.  What was the subject of this thread anyway?

[Titan]

We just did that Kyu will admit I won handily...let's move on  

[Kyuuketsuki]

Exactly! So when you say: "What about this in the Bible?" Do you expect me to reply "Well, I believe that the evidence for God is thus" and then provide evidence that the God is the God of the Bible then provide evidence that the Bible is complete then provide evidence that the Bible is trust worthy then provide evidence for the inclusion of the manuscript or book of the Bible being addressed and THEN address your point?

If you expect to use the bible as evidence for your god or anything else then you must accept that it is valid to put that bible under the same kind of scrutiny any other rational explanation would be subject to ... it really isn't rocket science you know! NOTHING gets a free pass and religious claims and so-called evidence do not possess a get-out-of-jail-free pass.

Of course not! Which is why I would need to assume that all those other ones are true for an instant just to be able to address your point. That is all I'm saying...please pause and think about that for just a second because otherwise the ONLY thing we will be able to debate in this forum is the existence of God, you won't be able to attack the Bible because there will be no room for it.

As I said earlier, "if you want me to accept your assumption as valid I will but understand that it is purely for the purpose of debate, any time you base something on that assumption I will (in any response I make) point out that it invalidates the argument except from a totally hypothetical POV."

Kyu

[Titan]

If you expect to use the bible as evidence for your god or anything else then you must accept that it is valid to put that bible under the same kind of scrutiny any other rational explanation would be subject to ... it really isn't rocket science you know! NOTHING gets a free pass and religious claims and so-called evidence do not possess a get-out-of-jail-free pass.

No, no and a thousand times no! I do not expect to ever use the Bible as evidence for God...that's circular reasoning: The Bible is true because God wrote it, God exists because the Bible says he does. I KNOW THAT! Please listen to me, I only want to use the Bible to address questions and problems you guys have with it. That is all. I'm not going to prove that Jesus existed with the Bible, I'm not going to prove that there is a benevolent God with the Bible. I'm ONLY going to show you how certain instances that you guys point out are not problems from an internal perspective. I'm simply trying to answer all your questions.

As I said earlier, "if you want me to accept your assumption as valid I will but understand that it is purely for the purpose of debate, any time you base something on that assumption I will (in any response I make) point out that it invalidates the argument except from a totally hypothetical POV."

I know, and I'm just saying that you don't need to do that every time. I've debated enough to know that if I tried to validate assumptions via the argument I just made I would be using circular reasoning, I know that. If you want to point it out that is fine, but it will generally put a wrench in the works of the discussion as we will have to stop and have the same debate every time.

[curiosityandthecat]

I'm not going to prove that Jesus existed with the Bible, I'm not going to prove that there is a benevolent God with the Bible.

I appreciate you being such a good debater (that sounds really awkward, doesn't it?), Titan. In all sincerity, I do have a question, though: if the Bible isn't going to be used to prove a benevolent God, what is?

[PipeBox]

Okay, I'm back, this is going to be a LOOOONNGGGGG post. Please forgive me.

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sinâ€" 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness
 15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obeyâ€"whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

 19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hopefully that answers you fully.

Is it nice? No. Does it work? I sure hope so, or we've found ourselves an unforgivable sin.

Not quite, let's pull out the good old dictionary.

reâ‹...pentâ‹...ance
â€, â€,/rɪˈpÉ›ntns, -ˈpÉ›ntÉ™ns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-pen-tns, -pen-tuhns] Show IPA Pronunciation
â€"noun
1.    deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or the like.
2.    regret for any past action.

Acts 3:19 states: "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord"

No, how can you be actually repentant when you are planning on asking for forgiveness but still desire to live in sin? There are two choices from a Christian perspective: sin or Christ. There isn't a best of both worlds where you can choose both as I hope I've demonstrated.

Sorry, but you appear to be answering that this would be unforgivable, otherwise it still works.  It doesn't matter how underhanded or pathetic it is, nor how much time it takes for you to actually be sincere, it either works or it doesn't, you can't have it both ways.   But if you're really so adverse to it, I'll stop pushing.

Sorry, what I had said was confusing, I was merely retelling a previous discussion I had. I couldn't accept the terms of the hypothetical situation because in order to do so I would have to recant BASIC doctrinal philosophy. I want to be fair to you. This debate won't lead anywhere noble if we corrupt our own beliefs in order to take on small challenges.

[strike:1yrucry1]I contend that you would't have to recant anything beyond taking whatever side is favorable in a biblical/logical contradiction.  I say that harshly, but it either works or it doesn't, and either way I'm going to give you a hard time about it (if it isn't forgivable based soley on your belief that you can't repent, you wouldn't be redeemed by Grace, would ya?).[/strike:1yrucry1] I'm not at the top of my game, too tired.

Very well thought out and honest, thank you. So, hypothetically, since morality is individual and actualized through society, will you stop the Hutu from killing the Tutsi in Africa? You said you don't want to die for a cause you don't believe in. Well, if there is no universal, absolute and morality is based on individuals as they live life through a society and further more you don't want to lose your own life for a purpose not all together real to you, then is it even logical for you to stop the violence or foreign genocide that in NO way threatens your societies livelihood?

My empathy, that my morals are based on, demands that I despise that they kill each other.  It doesn't demand I intercede, though, or I'd make more of an effort to stop them.  So I hate that they kill each other, AND my life is too valuable to me (and unthreatened) for me to bother taking a more active role.  I suspect this is true of you as well.  If not for this specific incident, then for another.  At some point you have to concede that there are more problems in the world than you can fix and you must prioritize for your lifetime.

But in order to make the statement "I can't say that it's bloody brilliant" you have to have a moral standpoint to point to. What would be "bloody brilliant?" Why? Even within your claims for no absolute morality in the universal sense you STILL point to an absolute morality.

Err, no.  I point to the facts that I cannot claim it is the best (which does not rule out it being equal to all others), and that I, personally, might consider another morality superior.  And that morality is neither that of society at large nor that of the Bible.  My personal bias, though, doesn't mean I consider any morality absolute.

You've proven yourself well up to the challenges of my questions...I won't hold anything like that against you. Whenever you feel the need to clarify something please tell me and I'll gladly take that into account.

Sure.   :eek:
I also would be unable to justify it.  But I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.

[Kyuuketsuki]

No, no and a thousand times no! I do not expect to ever use the Bible as evidence for God...that's circular reasoning: The Bible is true because God wrote it, God exists because the Bible says he does. I KNOW THAT! Please listen to me, I only want to use the Bible to address questions and problems you guys have with it. That is all. I'm not going to prove that Jesus existed with the Bible, I'm not going to prove that there is a benevolent God with the Bible. I'm ONLY going to show you how certain instances that you guys point out are not problems from an internal perspective. I'm simply trying to answer all your questions.

Fair enough ...

I know, and I'm just saying that you don't need to do that every time. I've debated enough to know that if I tried to validate assumptions via the argument I just made I would be using circular reasoning, I know that. If you want to point it out that is fine, but it will generally put a wrench in the works of the discussion as we will have to stop and have the same debate every time.

... and again.

Kyu

[Kyuuketsuki]

if there is no universal, absolute and morality is based on individuals as they live life through a society and further more you don't want to lose your own life for a purpose not all together real to you, then is it even logical for you to stop the violence or foreign genocide that in NO way threatens your societies livelihood?

Why? Morality isn't (BTW) individual it is societal; it is a systems ethics that have socially evolved to allow humans to deal with each other. If that is so (and I think it is hard to convincingly argue it is anything else) then it is reasonably clear that morality can vary by culture and over time. That means that if I declare someone else's actions (another society or a person from another society) immoral I am clearly evaluating their actions against my own society's morality. In Kosovo for instance it seems clear to me that NATO stepped in for humanitarian reasons based on European/US morality; that those carrying out the ethnic cleansing had no particular moral issues with what they were doing. Likewise, in the Second World War, we have deemed the holocaust and the extermination of others to be morally wrong yet quite clearly at that time many individuals had no moral issues killing such people and the Germans considered Jews/Poles/Slavs/Russians etc. to be sub-human and treated them as such.

But in order to make the statement "I can't say that it's bloody brilliant" you have to have a moral standpoint to point to. What would be "bloody brilliant?" Why? Even within your claims for no absolute morality in the universal sense you STILL point to an absolute morality.

You don't need an absolute morality to act as if the moral code of your own culture is absolute and it seems to me many act that way.

Many atheists (I don't believe most) will actually argue that morality is meaningless. Since the logical atheist realizes that he doesn't have value then he must realize that he has no way of valuing his own opinion on a constructed subject such as morality.

I haven't heard any atheists do that ... I argue that morality is inherently flexible, inherently non-absolute but it certainly isn't meaningless to those who adopt a given mortality.

Kyu

[Titan]

Kyuuketsuki

Why? Morality isn't (BTW) individual it is societal

From the discussion it appears that the consensus is that it is individual but that societies are conglomerations of those with like minded morals.

If that is so (and I think it is hard to convincingly argue it is anything else)

I think you guys are right, you have provided evidence that this is the best theory from an atheistic perspective.

That means that if I declare someone else's actions (another society or a person from another society) immoral I am clearly evaluating their actions against my own society's morality.

I disagree from a rationalistic perspective.
1. Societies create morals in order to function and continue existence.
2. External knowledge of this via atheism helps us lead to an understanding that morality is constructed and transitive.
3. If ethics are constructed and transitive can I rationally apply mine to other people; knowing as they do that mine is simply "a different perspective" on value, as it were?
As I see it, and I may be wrong, my vantage point is limited and I want to be corrected if it is mistaken, but if you truly understand the transitivity of morality then how can you justify action against someone else when what they are doing may be the future of ethics, perhaps they have a better grasp of the best method for a culture to survive.

You don't need an absolute morality to act as if the moral code of your own culture is absolute and it seems to me many act that way.

I'm sorry for being repetitive here, but if you understand that morality is a social construct and will simply follow societies path in the future how can you rule out their morality? They may be right on the money. Shouldn't you consider their genocidal ideologies as perhaps holding the key to the betterment of the human race?

I haven't heard any atheists do that ... I argue that morality is inherently flexible, inherently non-absolute but it certainly isn't meaningless to those who adopt a given mortality.

I think we are using a different definition of meaningless (my fault, not yours). I was talking about meaningless in the scope of all existence as defined by space and time from the universes inception to it's ultimate demise. It seems that you are using meaningless as it applies to people today, which I would be inclined to agree with you on.

Pipebox

Sorry, but you appear to be answering that this would be unforgivable, otherwise it still works. It doesn't matter how underhanded or pathetic it is, nor how much time it takes for you to actually be sincere, it either works or it doesn't, you can't have it both ways. But if you're really so adverse to it, I'll stop pushing.

It is only unforgivable in that you cannot be forgiven unless you are truly repentant. Forgiveness is a simple formula in Christianity:
1. Existence of a sinful person (check, your hypothetical situation possesses that)
2. Belief in a God who forgives (check, your hypothetical situation possesses that)
3. True regret for committing an act (no, this is where it falls apart, planning on asking for forgiveness isn't being repentant)
4. God forgiving your transgressions (check, your hypothetical situation possesses that)
I'm only adverse to it in that it will ultimately not answer anything because it doesn't have the right criteria to be from a Christian ideological standpoint.

I'm not at the top of my game, too tired.

Don't worry about it, I can tell you have a valid objection. I'm patient enough to wait and hear it. Take your time.

My empathy, that my morals are based on, demands that I despise that they kill each other. It doesn't demand I intercede, though, or I'd make more of an effort to stop them. So I hate that they kill each other, AND my life is too valuable to me (and unthreatened) for me to bother taking a more active role. I suspect this is true of you as well. If not for this specific incident, then for another. At some point you have to concede that there are more problems in the world than you can fix and you must prioritize for your lifetime.

True, but I'm not really scared about dying. I don't want to experience a ton of pain at my death (who does) but if that was my calling (sorry for using Christianity here) I would face it with boldness (or at least I believe I would). I actually want to go to the middle east in the future on a permanent basis. People ask me where I want to go and I'm always tempted to point to the one with the most hardship and bloodshed because I believe I could do the most good. But the truth is that Christians who don't fear death are the ones who are changing the world the most, for the better (that is when they don't take over the government  :eek:
I also would be unable to justify it. But I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.[/quote]
I think I ended up quoting four different people in that post. I may have accidentally jumbled their beliefs into yours. If that was the case, I'm sorry.

curiosityandthecat

I appreciate you being such a good debater (that sounds really awkward, doesn't it?), Titan. In all sincerity, I do have a question, though: if the Bible isn't going to be used to prove a benevolent God, what is?

Wow, that was a good question. Caught me off guard for a second. Give me a second to formulate my answer. I don't know why I'm typing that, since in a forum setting the time it takes to make a post isn't taken into account.
I believe that it will not PROVE a benevolent God but what happens (hypothetically take a big leap you can imagine and say that I had somehow brought us all to the point of a debate over which version of theism was correct) is that the religions ultimately hold up their conception of God as EXPRESSED through the sacred texts and compare them as they account for modern man, ancient man, evil, good, life, experiences, etc. and find which one has the best, most complete and flawless conception and see what kind of deity comes out. I know that sounds confusing, I'll try to word it better  

[Asmodean]

...I'm staying back and watching this but lemme crawl out and commend Titan for the way his replies are organised. Very easy to read. Look nohing like the usual mile long theist lump of text.  

[Titan]

I'm not smart enough to have long winded rants  

[Kyuuketsuki]

From the discussion it appears that the consensus is that it is individual but that societies are conglomerations of those with like minded morals.

If that is what they said then, at the risk of upsetting my compatriots, they are wrong ... morality is an ethical system, ethics are social and it is our individual consciences that we use to weigh up issues against the morality of a given society. There's more here if you are interested.

I think you guys are right, you have provided evidence that this is the best theory from an atheistic perspective.

The best explanation period :evil: ).[/quote]

Agreed on the last bit (religion and government shouldn't mix) but you're going to have to justify your first assertion.

Pipebox, you're rational, that being so, how can you rationally say someone else's morals are wrong when you know that you both are ultimately just matter. You know that they have the same vantage point as you, how can you argue that your morals are even applicable to a situation knowing, as you do, that their opinions are JUST as true (or just as false) as yours are?

Because we are evaluate others actions against our morality which we tend to treat as absolute even though it isn't.

I believe that it will not PROVE a benevolent God but what happens (hypothetically take a big leap you can imagine and say that I had somehow brought us all to the point of a debate over which version of theism was correct) is that the religions ultimately hold up their conception of God as EXPRESSED through the sacred texts and compare them as they account for modern man, ancient man, evil, good, life, experiences, etc. and find which one has the best, most complete and flawless conception and see what kind of deity comes out. I know that sounds confusing, I'll try to word it better  

Kyu

[Sophus]

We should follow society's laws.

Bullocks... Don't follow society. Follow yourself; what you know to be right. Depending on the location society is gonna be screwed up in at lest one way or another.

[Kyuuketsuki]

We should follow society's laws.

Bullocks... Don't follow society. Follow yourself; what you know to be right. Depending on the location society is gonna be screwed up in at lest one way or another.

No ... well kinda ... my view is that we follow the laws but as intelligent (presumably socially aware) citizens of a given society we validate them and struggle against them if they are inherently unfair.

Kyu

[Jolly Sapper]

Just because its a law or a societal norm doesn't mean that it should be set in stone for eternity.  Things change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

Its like democracy, just because we can choose doesn't meant that we will always choose to do the right thing.