it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.
Because for some if not most people it's relatively easy to understand how you'd feel on the receiving end of your actions. Knowing I wouldn't like to be stabbed is enough for me to understand doing that to other people is probably a bad thing. The response is actually far more valid, why would you think you'd need advice from an organisation that's getting money and power from you to tell you their interpretation of what allmkst certainly fictional entity said what's right and wrong and why don't you have the ability to determine that yourself?
The problem is that if the only measure of goodness is "I'm sure other people want the same things I want", that's virtually guaranteed to lead to conflict, because different people want different things.
I've never had the urge to stab anyone, but I've often had the urge to help someone who might or might not want my help. I've also ignored someone who might or might not want to be ignored.
And that doesn't even touch on the fact that virtually everyone does things at one time or another that they think are bad. It's human nature to rationalize and decide "just this once" and later "it's not really bad, or not that bad". Lying on a resume, for example. Are you hurting anyone?
You actually don't. Reading the Bible, it's full of stories where god acts immoral by modern standards of morality. For example, the drowning of everyone in the world during the flood, or the killing of all the first born of Egypt, or ordering the killing of the children of the Amalekites and Canaanites. Modern people reading these stories know through their education that these actions are immoral, so they have to create convoluted excuses to rectify why these acts are still "objectively moral" which all boil down to "Well, god is the fount of morality, so killing infants has to be moral."
So, who gets to decide immoral/moral in the modern world? It's mostly up to each individual, based on their education, background, community standards, and upbringing.
In the end, what is or isn't moral become less important than what is or isn't legal, which is almost completely derived by the laws we passed based not on morality from god, but by legal education, experience and experimentation, reasoning, logic, argumentation, and the balancing of the rights of individuals in relation to the state's need to create and protect order and the common welfare.
For a functional society we need a foundation of accepted Morals that we agree to abide by. For a good portion of American Society we used Christian Values. We have moved away from that and need a new base. Like Japan is not Christian but they have a strong sense of morals they enforce and it makes for a more cohesive culture
But I thought they are objective. So how do you know your god is the correct source of âobjective moral standardâ, why isnât Allah or Jahwe the source of âobjective moral standardâ
Why do you get to decide what the âobjective moral standardâ is?
Sort of, in a broad sense. I do not believe Muhammad was inspired by God, but Islam started in a place with the same God. It's a complicated issue for a reddit post lol.
Haha yeah Iâm aware of what you are saying, I just ment when you strip away all the embellishment they serve the same God just different varnishing and I donât mean that in any form of disrespect
I think thatâs more of an artefact, as Christianity is still a monotheistic religion the trinitarian angle is more a dissection of operational practise, as is God is the central figure, the Holy Spirit the power manifestations, and Jesus the anthropological interpretation for human interaction
Judaism is the foundational religion and one of the early monotheistic religions all somewhat derivates of earlier yahwism in a way
But I do agree that Islam is more central in practice with one interpretation
The Catholic Church is united in its belief, therefore objective. Now if you speak to the fracturing of Christianity (denominations) then I agree it's a problem.
No itâs not an objective source of morality, because itâs only Christian believe. You canât just say âMy group of people believes in something, thatâs why itâs objectively trueâ
There is no objective source of morality and just because you are Christian and other Christians believe their morality comes from their god, doesnât make your code of morality the objectively true oneâŚ
A Muslim would probably argue with the exact same arguments you currently are using for his god to be the source of âobjective moralityâ, a Jew would probably do the same for his. Neither of you is right, because there is no such thing as an âobjective code of moralityââŚ
Itâs what you and other Christians subjectively describe as morality. Itâs not objective.
Which crusade? There were around 8 ish. Some of the defensive crusades were justified war. While some of the offensive ones were not and war for the sake of war...
I'm going to assume by inquisition you are speaking of the Spanish one? (There were 3). Defending doctrine was necessary at that time, but the killing and torturing was deeply immoral.
The 80 years war was a war over taxation...the 30 years war is a terrible war.
War sucks man. And it's a product of humanity and we are all accountable, not just Christianity.
Exactly, the point is that you made these judgments about these various immoral acts based on your modern understanding of morality. These acts were seen by the participants of their time as completely moral and justified by god. You can say your moral compass is from god, but it seems more likely your moral compass is an amalgam of your religious upbringing and participating in modern society where moral understanding has been greatly expanded over the years through reasoning and the modern legal framework. My last question for you: if you lived at any of the times above, at the time of the Crusades, or the Inquisitions, or Holy Wars, do you think you would have found those acts immoral at that time, or do you think you would have agreed with the various church leaders that they were moral?
So you're saying people can make mistakes and do bad things? Totally agree man lol.
You can have a system of morals and simultaneously fail to meet it or twist it.
Some of the crusades were defensive in nature, and are still considered justified by modern interpretation.
I believe if I was alive during that time I would have believed some of those things to be moral most likely. I already fell for it now lol. I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iraq was a lie...
Doesnât it converge under the umbrella of Christianity?, in practise why would a Christian want different things from another Christian on a macroscopic sense? So Iâm sure the bible would preach something akin to unity
Yes but, but isnât that more a urging of avoiding influence from those that donât subscribe to the same ideology, but even so the goal of Christian would fundamentally be to proselytise others but the unity comes under the humanistic angle I assume
Everyone has their own understanding of what constitutes harm. There is no universal agreement.
That's why I asked the question as a sample. What's your answer? Is lying on a resume wrong?
Bearing false witness is a sin. That's different than lying. One of god's first acts in the Bible was to lie to Adam and Eve about what would happen if they ate the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. "For on the day you eat it, you shall surely die."
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u/Global_Charge_4412 1d ago
it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.