re: A fact worth remembering: Those who don't believe in God argue against absolutes

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FooManChoo

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I believe

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I believe

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I've been arguing

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The gospel alone is the power of God to salvation and His scriptures are the only source of divine truth for understanding moral rightness.

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Maybe so, according to your beliefs. Your religious beliefs are not automatically the "objective truth" because you really really believe it or because you have studied your particular religion's philosophical justifications for its own existence.

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i don't know what this means or what this has to do with morals

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the way we lived pre-society is our natural state and isn't really conducive to efficient living in society

morality is a codified version of societal trial and error, after thousands of years of learning what behaviors disrupt society. those become "sins" to use the Christian term. the fundamental building blocks of Christianity are based in the Torah, which was literally a guidebook for living given by god to his chosen people in exchange for worship. let's not act like my theory is a stretch.

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no you're referring to ethics, not morals.

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no i'm referring to what we call morality

for an example. stealing disrupts society. stealing is codified into religious law by the ruler-king. stealing becomes an affront to morality. over thousands of years, it isn't even considered a function of societal living and is only seen in terms of morality (after changing hands from god to god, especially)

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it's also true in a moral sense but not for the reason you are implying

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Confucius was teaching things similar to the golden rule over 500 years before Jesus, to people who had very little, if any, interaction with Jews

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For those who call themselves Christians, their consciences should be held captive by the word of God alone.

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And what about those that call themselves something other than Christians?

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if this is what you think of christianity, then you are ignorant.

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i think you need to mingle with the flock a little more

and, to be clear, that statement is not negative towards Christianity

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appealing to semiotics or derrida's differance or wittgenstein's language games or postmodern deconstruction

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the thing you're missing is that they are doing this more than i am. i'm just keeping their choice even across the board

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there is no way to explicate any moral premise without adding "based on x." and of course, x makes all the difference in the world

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well earlier people were saying the faith in religion was the rational derivation of this search, so...

i have clearly explained where i see where our concept of morality has originated

but if "based on x" means an ideal that is beyond our human comprehension (ie, divine truth), then this discussion becomes somewhat irrelevant because (a) nobody will ever understand that truth and (b) in the living of life, it's the exact same process for believers and non-believers

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Yet, there is zero objective basis for this statement. Every single post/explanation in this thread to the contrary is based 100% in religious beliefs.

No shite people who believe in and have been educated in their own religion's teachings think that (a) god is necessary for "objective morality". That would be the only way that these religions were able to spread for the last several thousand years. "Our way is the only way, God said so."

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This isn't a religious argument but a logical one based on the definitions of words.

An objective moral standard is one that applies equally and universally to all humanity, who are moral beings; it's a standard that originates outside of the human experience.

Given that understanding, where does an objective moral standard come from if all morality is derived from the human mind and from the human experience? That is subjectivity not objectivity. The existence of God provides the possibility for objective moral reasoning that doesn't exist without His existence, which is why these discussions tend to move towards religion because only religion provides a rational basis for objective moral reasoning.

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Yet, there is zero objective basis for this statement. Every single post/explanation in this thread to the contrary is based 100% in religious beliefs.

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You just don’t know what you’re talking about. Plenty of atheists accept this argument, and admit they don’t believe in objective morality.

But if there’s another source besides the supernatural, centuries of philosophy hasn’t found it, so you’re really in to something if you’re correct.

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An objective moral standard is one that applies equally and universally to all humanity, who are moral beings; it's a standard that originates outside of the human experience.

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the problem is the bold part. i don't think that has to be true

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The irony is that you are saying that killing children is evil without providing a rational basis for doing so.

wow

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What makes it evil? Lions do it, and we’re just advanced animals.

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the problem is the bold part. i don't think that has to be true

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If you want to use the word “objective” then it’s true by definition.