Algor
Well-known member
I think the idea that morals are 100% situational (outside of Christian righteousness) is not well supported. How would you demonstrate that?
God vs Human Rights
- Thread starter The Pixie
- Start date
Furion
Well-known member
I see you don't view morality as anything objective.
So ya, I can see you just don't want to get caught in what you do and then call it "pragmatic"
Bob Carabbio
Well-known member
Back in the '50s murdering the unborn was IMMORAL, and something UNETHICAL Doctors did for profit. It was something to be hidden and to be ashamed of. in Massachusetts pregnant girls used to "Visit relatives" in Connecticut, and come back 'Un-pregnant".
In 2021, however, Murdering the unborn is completely MORAL - even praiseworthy, and murdering the unborn is now ETHICAL for Doctors to do openly (for profit).
How's THAT for "Situational".
I'm pretty sure full term abortion, and voluntary assisted suicide on demand will the the next improvements to our medical "Ethics".
Voluntary suicide could have an interesting effect on our contact sports -
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Algor
Well-known member
This demonstrates that social ethics change over time. This is indisputable. However, it does not follow that what a person considers right and wrong is 100% situational. Those are 2 different things.
Bob Carabbio
Well-known member
Don't be silly!!! What "People" think is "right" and "wrong" IS "Social Ethics/Morals du jour. 100% situational.
Algor
Well-known member
You cited social shifts in ethics. These do not imply that all the people shifted their ethics (nor that the shift was situational, but I'll conced that for the purposes of discussion). Do you think it is only Christians who currently object to abortion, and everyone else changed their minds?
Put another way: do you think that nobody outside righteous Christians would refuse to participate in rape, no matter the context? Personally, I doubt it. What about you?
All were fine until the Europeans came...they brought smallpox and dysentery, that is historical facts.
You being convinced is not proof of anything. Where is the social evolution...prisons are full all over the world.
I agree with you, so why do you not follow the rules?
What man allows is also by fiat.
The Europeans did that without God's say-so or scripture...
Are you comparing slavery in the scripture with the Europeans enslavement of people?
What rubbish are you speaking about? Time does not evolve anything. Slavery is nothing new, it is a system to get the labour for little or no cost...The American system is still a slave system. It is legally called the minimum wage. Ask Bezos and Gates.
No one is forcing you to believe. Why the whining?
I am not sure what your internal critique entails since you are criticizing something you believe does not exist.
I did not spin anything...You wrote, "Morality evolved by individuals who could not get along, being exiled to become lion chow."
How would they ? You just said they were exiled to become lion chow..
Morality is just the distinction between right and wrong...It is not an ability nor is it a trait...
Mr Laurier
Well-known member
Wow, Still spinning.
The ones who could NOT get along, were the ones who became lion chow. Not the ones who could.
You keep trying to reverse this.
No, I see morality as very objective and rooted in an absolute reality about our common nature. There will be cultural variance in the social, but the human emotional is as dependable and perennial as a sunrise.
Bob, you have conflated an external social shift in attitudes with the still present emotional effect of capitalizing on that shift. I know 5 women that have had abortions. Some in my immediate family. While women receiving abortions may no longer be subject to a social shaming, the personal shame and regret lives, is real, and is very personally destructive.
Now you tell me. If this truth becomes folded into the social structure by choice as opposed to the fiat of law... which way expresses a truly self expressed morality?
You know too little of the pre revolution history of the American continent and the indigenous struggle prior to that event to have an educated conversation about this.
Social systems of law and order along with prisons are an expression of the evolution.
I do follow them. I just didn't need Moses or Jesus to do so. Why do you? Besides, belief and worship are not rules. they are inert and personal amoral choices.
You don't know what fiat means.
And yet they escaped Europe so they could be better Christians.... hmmmmmmm.
No need to. The Bible advocates human bondage and ownership of humans and their offspring.
Time does not evolve anything? You are thrashing hard here.
*face-palm..... That is what an internal critique is... taking on the interocular' s argument to illuminate its absurdity..
Those are the ones you claimed morality evolved by... "Morality evolved by individuals who could not get along, being exiled to become lion chow."
You said they were moral,, Morality evolved by individuals who could not get along...
You said nothing about the ones who could...you said those who had the trait a trait is a genetically determined characteristic, so you cannot be referring to morality. Morality is not a trait You said...Those who had the trait for cooperating with the group, lived to reproduce
I am not reversing anything...those are your words...
I know enough to realize that the indigenous people don't roam the lands as they did before anymore...and their numbers have dwindled under the Europeans.
No, they are not. They are an expression of rulership. Human rulers are not morally right but their subjects have to accept them as if they are.
That is not true, you don't follow "Christian"(God) rules
They followed God's rules. You are not required to need then you are required to follow the rules.
Who said they were? They are not rules there are rules in them.
That is a strawman argument...no one is arguing that belief and worship are rules
you are assuming...Your government decree to its subjects.
escaped Europe? why would they be escaping a morally evolved place? They called themselves Christians but they were not followers of Christ.
So why did you?
There you go...You are using the bible to justify the evils the Europeans practiced as slavery.
Time is a concept it does not (gradually develop) evolve anything...
How does taking on your own argument help your situation? You have narrowed the discussion to your own personal space...
You certainly don't realize that left to their own social evolution that the Iroquois nation would have created a hegemony as far as their battle-axes could reach, and that reach included genocide, slavery, rape, and torture. So instead of you looking around asking "where are all the Indians?" you'd be asking "What happened to the Algonquin, the Cherokee, the Fox, and the Sioux?"
Rulership takes on many responsibilities of expressing and attempting to satisfy the human condition. Creating systems that express the landscape of human morality is one of them. Such moral codes show up in cultures that don't even know of your Moses or your Jesus.
I don't need to follow them to be moral. In fact it helps me be moral that I don't.
God did..... I think you forget your commandments. The first 3 commandments in your Decalogue are not ethical dictates at all but are injunctions of worship. #'s 4, 9 and 10 are merely thought crimes. It seems only 4 rules are against non-ethical actions, actions that no one needed Moses to tell them were not good societal practice as is evidenced by moral codes that arose in societies that knew nothing of Yahweh, Moses, or Jesus.
Are you claiming that the folks that came over and instigated the American land grab from the American Indian were not reformed Christians? Not only are you blind to American history but you are also blind to your own.
I didn't. The Bible's acceptance of slavery stands on it's own damnable right without reference to how American Christians used scripture to justify their treatment of blacks as well.
No need to... see above...
Time is a real measurement, not a concept. Time is a measurable factor in all physics as well as social and physical evolution.
Christianity is not my argument. You are making less and less sense as we go. It betrays a desperation in you to just make comments without being germane.
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Try to keep your story straight. Please decide one way or another if new born babies deserve to go to hell.
"Humans (all of us), because of our SIN, are already under a death sentence, and condemned to HELL."
"ALL Humans - with only one exception."
Or not:
" And since a baby doesn't even know where their nose is, I rather doubt that they have any SIN or their own (Catholic heresies not withstanding)"
As far as I can see they go hand-in-hand, and all you are arguing here is how we label it.
God is all-powerful. He chooses who he sends to hell and who he forgives. We can say his criterium is whether you are born again of the Holy Spirit or we can say it is whether or not you love him, but I am not seeing a real difference.
But none of that ultimately matters, does it? Love God, and get born again, and you go to heaven, fail to do that and you go to hell.
Okay, you can label that as righteousness if you want, but it is really just hiding the reality. Rape, murder, slave-keeping and even genocide are simple not part of the consideration.
Or is your point that it is only human morality that says these are wrong, and my opinion that rape is wrong does not mean "spit" to God?
But then you are using the word to mean something else. You were "free" to practice religion in communist Russia, according to your usage of the word, but not according to how I am using it, which I think is pretty clear in the OP.
If you are obliged to re-defining meanings to make your point, you have no argument.
So in your view murder is only wrong because God said it is? If he had chosen otherwise, then murder would be okay.
What about eating shellfish? God said that that is not okay, and yet Christians still do it.
It is curious how Christians say that God gets to choose what is right and wrong, but then Christians get to choose which bits of what God said to keep and which to ignore.
I find it fascinating that the Southern Baptist Convention was pro-abortion in 1970 (in some situations). From here:
Be it further RESOLVED, That we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother
With 10 years they are completely switched to the antiabortion stance they have today (some suggest to take down Carter, after he stopped segregation in schools).
A great example of how flexible Christian morality is.
Mr Laurier
Well-known member
Wow, You still spin and spin.
Morality is indeed a trait. The trait of getting along in groups. And yes, that trait made it possible for humanity to survive.
Those who could NOT get along on groups, ended up being exiled from the group, and became one man alone on the savanna.
One man alone on the savanna, is lion chow.
Furion
Well-known member
lol
So now you think morality is objective?
Or is that typical sophistry of the atheist?
I don't believe you think it objective, just more 'hiding the argument'
Algor
Well-known member
To me, morality is objective in the way language is objective:
It is learned, but the capacity for it is innate, and absence of the capacity is pathological
It has rules that are highly variable between cultures, but aren't set by any individual
It is dependant on neurological substrates that can be identified
It has a characteristic developmental trajectory
Nobody says that language is subjective. Why morality?