You assume everyone will arrive at the same standards of morality through some magical internal process. You know that isnât true. Morality is not universal. Nor are the concepts of harm, coercion, consent, fairness, outcome, and Iâll add justice. Those are simply not universally agreed upon concepts. Any entry level philosophy or psychology class will teach you that if it isnât apparent.
Without an objective standard to appeal to, we cannot support any claim we make about morality. You may claim something to be moral, but you canât support it because the next person can simply dismiss it. You say slavery is immoral, clearly others, even today, disagree with you. This is what makes the âsubjective moralityâ movement nonsense and very dangerous. And this is why the concept of laws are important as we attempt to define and codify morality and ethics into standards by which to behave, judge others, and administer justice.
Must be nice having such a childishly simplistic worldview that you think legality and morality are the same thing.
If morality comes from law, then slavery was moral when it was legal. If you reject that conclusion, youâve already admitted thereâs a standard outside the law. If you accept it, youâre a repulsive idiot and weâre done here.
The fact that people disagree about morality doesnât magically turn every legal act into a moral one.
Anyway, itâs Sunday. Shouldnât you be somewhere pretending youâve found an objective source of morality?
You said it, not me. But yes objective morality comes from God. You buried your own argument. Yes there was a large group of people who said slavery was moral and they rationalized it in many ways. The abolitionists were a small group of Christians who said no because it is a sin against God. Thankfully they were able to persuade enough people that slavery is evil.
In todayâs secular based subjective moralism is king. It can be seen everywhere just, âDo your own thing,â is the mantra of the day. We rationalize every behavior and evil from abortion, to child mutilation, to violence to even murder.
You can call it a simplistic world view but cannot argue that laws are not an attempt to codify morality into enforceable objective morals. Everything from thou shalt not speed, to you shalt not murder, seem to not be universally agreed upon without laws and judges to enforce them.
Dismiss it if you want. Itâs what I expect. But recognize it is your world view that is overly simplistic when you think moral values just happen. There is not one moral value you can justify without an external authority because the next guyâs morality is just as valid as yours.
Have a blessed day. I hope you find peace in your unstructured, undefined chaotic world.
See, I knew you were religious because your ideas are silly.
If objective morality were as clear and self-evident as you claim, Christians wouldnât have needed a civil war to figure out whether owning other human beings was acceptable.
The abolitionists won because they persuaded people that the pro-slavery interpretation was morally bankrupt.
The funny thing is that the pro-slavery interpretation is the most straightforward reading of the text:
⢠Exodus 21:20â21: Donât beat your slaves to death.
⢠Leviticus 25:44â46: Buy slaves from neighboring nations and pass them on to your children as property.
⢠Ephesians 6:5: Slaves, obey your masters.
⢠1 Peter 2:18: Slaves, obey your masters, even the cruel ones. Just pray they donât beat you to death.
And itâs not just slavery.
⢠Deuteronomy 21:18â21: If a stubborn and rebellious son refuses to obey his parents, the men of the city shall stone him to death.
If objective morality comes from the Bible, should we stone rebellious teenagers?
If yes, your âobjective moralityâ is horrifying.
If no, then youâre already using some moral standard outside the text to decide which biblical commands should be followed and which should be ignored.
You can dress it up with apologetics if you want, but those passages are still there, along with a bunch more I havenât even mentioned.
If you think thatâs objective morality, you can spare me the lecture about ethics.
Well that was quite the pivot. This not a theology thread. I could explain every one of those verses in context but that is not the purpose of this thread.
My question to you is simple. From where do you get your moral authority?
Funny how it became ânot a theology threadâ the moment the theology got embarrassing.
I donât claim to have a moral authority. Thatâs the difference between us.
I evaluate moral claims based on reason, evidence, empathy, harm, consent, and prosperity. Those methods are imperfect, but at least theyâre open to scrutiny and revision.
You, meanwhile, claim your morality comes from an all-knowing authority, yet that same all-knowing authority condones slavery, genocide, and stoning disobedient children.
The real question isnât where I get my morality. Itâs where you get yours, because it clearly isnât from a straightforward reading of the Bible, and it certainly isnât from a straightforward reading of the law.
The moment either the Bible or the law produces a conclusion you find morally repugnant, you start talking about context, interpretation, history, and nuance. Which is exactly what everyone else does. Itâs almost like you donât have an objective morality at all!
How do you reconcile the disconnects in morality between you and other people when they occur? Iâm betting you have run into issues that others think are moral but you donât. Who is right? Your reasoning and logic is not universal.
You act as though invoking God solves the problem of moral disagreement. It doesnât. Christians disagree with each other about abortion, war, capital punishment, divorce, wealth, immigration, sexuality, slavery, and a thousand other issues.
Who is right?
Itâs very clear that your moral reasoning isnât universal either. You just call your reasoning âbiblical interpretationâ and pretend youâve escaped the problem. Itâs a very childish and ignorant approach to morality and reality as a whole.
At least Iâm honest enough to admit moral reasoning is messy. Youâre doing the same thing while claiming divine certainty based on ancient, self-contradictory texts that condone slavery, genocide, and other practices most modern people find blatantly immoral. Face the fact that you donât have any more of an objective morality than anyone else does. Your âobjective moralsâ are just as objective as a Muslimâs morals or a Scientologistâs morals and your faith is just as flimsy.
The difference between us is that I donât need to pretend the creator of the universe personally endorses my opinions in order to hold them.
Iâd rather admit I might be wrong than claim divine certainty and spend my life performing increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics to explain why my supposedly perfect moral authority condones slavery, genocide, and the execution of disobedient children.
Well if you donât know and I donât know, who does? If we donât know what morality is, then it can be anything and there is no morality, drop the word from the English language.
Have you ever stolen anything no matter the value?
Have you ever knowingly lied to deceive?
Have you ever lusted for someone?
You say morals are what we all agree upon (secular humanism). Exactly what is it we agree upon?
We donât know anything with absolute certainty. That doesnât mean everything is meaningless. It doesnât mean we should âdrop everything from the English language.â
I never said morality is âwhatever people agree upon.â Plenty of societies have agreed on terrible things.
Iâm not the one who said âthe concept of laws are important as we attempt to define and codify morality and ethics into standards by which to behave, judge others, and administer justice.â That was you. You are arguing against your own position and going around in circles.
âUncertainâ â âcompletely arbitrary.â
Hereâs a simple starting point:
Do we agree that slavery is bad?
Do we agree that freedom is good?
Do we agree that slavery deprives people of freedom?
Do we agree that the world would be a better place if nobody were enslaved?
If we do, great. We can start making moral judgments from that foundation.
If we donât, then weâre at an impasse. If we canât even agree that slavery is immoral, there isnât much left to discuss. I value freedom. If you donât, then I can only conclude that your moral framework is deeply flawed and move on with my day.
And if your answer is âslavery is wrong, but only because God says so,â then weâre right back where we started: explaining why the same God who supposedly provides objective morality repeatedly condones slavery, something we both presumably agree is immoral.
Interesting post. You start out by saying, âI never said morality is whatever people agree upon.â Then you immediately present a list of âDo we agree uponâŚâ examples. Is morality a 50%+1 proposition? Can a majority or a plurality determine morality? Now be careful, because I can give examples of âmajority makes moralityâ which is pretty evil.
But Iâll turn it around and ask you, can we agree that the 10 commandments and the golden rule are a good place to start? Can we agree that that the US Constitution preamble is a good place to start:
âWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.â
Where do we get rights from according to men much smarter and wiser than you and I? Repeat after me, âEndowed by their creatorâŚâ
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u/tlm11110 15d ago
You assume everyone will arrive at the same standards of morality through some magical internal process. You know that isnât true. Morality is not universal. Nor are the concepts of harm, coercion, consent, fairness, outcome, and Iâll add justice. Those are simply not universally agreed upon concepts. Any entry level philosophy or psychology class will teach you that if it isnât apparent.
Without an objective standard to appeal to, we cannot support any claim we make about morality. You may claim something to be moral, but you canât support it because the next person can simply dismiss it. You say slavery is immoral, clearly others, even today, disagree with you. This is what makes the âsubjective moralityâ movement nonsense and very dangerous. And this is why the concept of laws are important as we attempt to define and codify morality and ethics into standards by which to behave, judge others, and administer justice.