Most atheists are more moral than many Christians.

[Autodidact]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral? O.K., great, here's my argument:

For most atheists, these things are always wrong.
For many Christians, they are wrong unless God commands them, in which case they are right.
Therefore, for many Christians, immoral things are sometimes right.
It is more moral to oppose wrong all the time than some of the time.
Therefore, most atheists are more moral than many Christians.

[Goat]

I thought you've abandoned this position after accepting it was irrational?

I did abandon my original position that moral values were brute facts, but I am still a step away from total relativism. Personally, I feel relativism is also irrational, and I will explain it more in this post.

If you make absolute claims then I expect you to be able to demostrate or explain it. The fact that you don't know why something things are absolutely wrong is good evidence that it's subjective, as in "I don't know why I like vanilla, I just do." Whatever biological explaination to this preference is secondary.

Currently, science cannot explain the exact mechanism behind gravity, i.e., they can't demonstrate exactly how it works. Does this mean that gravity does not exist? Of course not, the existence of gravity is obvious and the effects are measurable. It is the same for objective moral values -- we may not know the exact mechanism (if any) behind them, but it is obvious that, for instance, murder is absolutely wrong.

Is it though?What is murder? To some, purging a cluster of cells from a woman's body is murder, but using a drone to blast some Taliban fighters is not. To others, the exact opposite is true. One person will proclaim shooting someone coming to your door if you fear for your life is murder, other will say it's self defense.

How do you measure a moral?

“Any argument for moral skepticism will be based upon premises which are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.�

Is it not obvious that judgement requires a judge? Is it not obvious that the existence of value requires an evaluator? I would like to read more about her view on objective morality though.

Why do you think morals are "value judgments?" Louise Antony, for instance, is an ethical naturalist, who believes objective moral values are physical properties of nature. She doesn't see them as arbitrary value judgments, but as physically existing things. Here's a short rundown of her views:

/

Not me, I make do with appealing to the common consensus.

So might makes right? According to the logical conclusion of your view, the Nazis were right to exterminate Jews because the majority of Germans supported it at the time. Slavery was right because the majority of humans accepted it at the time. Women were inferior because the majority of people believed it at the time. If "common consensus" is the basis for morality, then you are committed to saying the above atrocities were right at one time. This is why moral relativism is irrational.

Yes, she appeals to emotions....

However, she did not make a case for 'objective morals' at all. She gives examples that everyone in modern society will admit is immoral.. yet.. if those values were OBJECTIVE, the issue of the samples would never have come up to begin with.

I don't see her coming out with a reason to consider our socially conditioned responses guiding our morality verses 'objective morality'..

[cnorman18]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral? O.K., great, here's my argument:

For most atheists, these things are always wrong.
For many Christians, they are wrong unless God commands them, in which case they are right.
Therefore, for many Christians, immoral things are sometimes right.
It is more moral to oppose wrong all the time than some of the time.
Therefore, most atheists are more moral than many Christians.

(Playing devil's advocate here, for demonstration purposes; for the record, I am pro-choice.)

If we agree that killing babies is wrong, then abortion is wrong.

The conclusion does not follow from the premise. First you have to establish that an embryo is a baby.

Ah, good. You see my point.

Most atheists support legal abortion.

Many Christians oppose it, and vehemently.

Also: Supporting baby-killing in the here and now as a real-world, practical matter is MUCH more immoral than supporting supposed baby-killing in tales found in a literary work written literally thousands of years ago and which cannot be verified as actual history.

Therefore, many Christians are more moral than most atheists.

If we agree that an embryo is a baby. I don't even think that the Christians who assert this really believe it.

So you think it's morally OK to tell people what they believe and overrule their moral judgment on that basis?

See, it kind of depends on your assumptions and premises.

Yes, but I think we all agree that killing babies, genocide and slavery are wrong. We don't all agree that



is the same as this

So what? Is the opinion of the majority the same as objective fact?

By that standard, slavery was moral till the 18th century, Jews really were collectively guilty of the murder of Jesus till the 20th, and interracial marriage was a sin until the mid-60s. By that standard, the vast majority of Americans paying usorious interest and going into enormous debt in order to own horrendously expensive, murderously dangerous, class-reinforcing, resource-destroying, pollution-belching two-ton machines in order to get from place to place is moral TODAY.

Who says what is Eternally Right and Wrong? You? Me? Those guys over there? A 2,000-year-old book that can be interpreted in myriad ways?

There are such things as right and wrong; but it's our responsibility to determine what they mean, collectively as a society and individually as human beings who are responsible for our own moral choices. The hardest part is when an individual's moral choices are not congruent with the current consensus. When does society have the moral right to overrule the choice of the individual? When does an individual have the right to defy society?

People have tried to peddle ways to make these standards simple and easy and non-negotiable for millennia. They aren't.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral? O.K., great, here's my argument:

For most atheists, these things are always wrong.
For many Christians, they are wrong unless God commands them, in which case they are right.

And for many atheists they are wrong unless Stalin or Mao, or Pol Pot, or ... commands them, in which case they are right.

Most folks would probably agree that thoughtlessly denigrating an entire group of people is ignorant, bigoted, and wrong. What do you think?

[Haven]

Is it though?What is murder?

The unjustified killing of a human being.

To some, purging a cluster of cells from a woman's body is murder, but using a drone to blast some Taliban fighters is not. To others, the exact opposite is true.

I hold that both are murder.

Additionally, you are conflating "objective morality" with "universal morality." It is entirely possible for objective moral values and duties to exist AND for individuals to be mistaken about what such values and duties are. Arguing that not everyone has the same moral code and therefore objective morality does not exist is like arguing that not everyone knows algebra and therefore objective algebra does not exist. It's the logical fallacy of conflation.

How do you measure a moral?

I would argue that we can know at least some objective moral values a priori. As for providing a precise measurement for them, I can only answer that "we don't know."

Yes, she appeals to emotions....

No, she doesn't. Her entire thesis was that living beings (bot specifically humans) have intrinsic value, and that we have a duty to protect intrinsically valuable things.

[Baz]

I don’t think anybody can present any particular group as having the moral high ground, when all humans fall dramatically short of moral living in so many ways.
There isn’t a nation on this planet that hasn’t at some time or other been involved in mass human slaughter of one sort or another.
There are millions like myself well over weight at the same time as even more are starving.
We probably are killing our mother planet with our own carless behaviour. So many of our morel failures are shared by all groups, as groups individuals, or as nations. To try and portion good or bad morals to a religion or lack of is practically immaterial. In my opinion obviously.

cnorman 18 had two very good questions though.

There are such things as right and wrong; but it's our responsibility to determine what they mean, collectively as a society and individually as human beings who are responsible for our own moral choices. The hardest part is when an individual's moral choices are not congruent with the current consensus.
When does society have the moral right to overrule the choice of the individual?
When does an individual have the right to defy society?

[ttruscott]

[quote="Autodidact"]

Cute pictures but a change of name doesn't make a change in it's nature.

An acorn is not a tree but it is an oak.

Simplistic emotionalism to cover a claimed right to selfishness. <shrug>

Ted

[ttruscott]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral? O.K., great, here's my argument:

For most atheists, these things are always wrong.
For many Christians, they are wrong unless God commands them, in which case they are right.
Therefore, for many Christians, immoral things are sometimes right.
It is more moral to oppose wrong all the time than some of the time.
Therefore, most atheists are more moral than many Christians.

Sorry, just can't agree that the acts you mention or any act as having an intrinsic evil connotation outside of GOD's judgment.

All morality comes from God. Condemning a 6000 year old criminal with a 6000 year criminal career is morally required.

The fact this criminal has gotten into a baby's body is meaningless.

The prohibition against murder is to subdue our angers and selfish motives which are used to kill for our self interests and not as a legal judgment. Legal judgments are accepted eerywhere...the rejection of the nature of the spirits which reside in human bodies, babies and all, does not change the the moral certainty that GOD's right to judge is sancrosanct.

Peace, Ted

[Goat]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral? O.K., great, here's my argument:

For most atheists, these things are always wrong.
For many Christians, they are wrong unless God commands them, in which case they are right.
Therefore, for many Christians, immoral things are sometimes right.
It is more moral to oppose wrong all the time than some of the time.
Therefore, most atheists are more moral than many Christians.

Sorry, just can't agree that the acts you mention or any act as having an intrinsic evil connotation outside of GOD's judgment.

Please show that God has a judgment on it.

All morality comes from God. Condemning a 6000 year old criminal with a 6000 year criminal career is morally required.

How do you know that? Can you provide evidence for that. I can't see the basis for that claim.

The fact this criminal has gotten into a baby's body is meaningless.

The prohibition against murder is to subdue our angers and selfish motives which are used to kill for our self interests and not as a legal judgment. Legal judgments are accepted eerywhere...the rejection of the nature of the spirits which reside in human bodies, babies and all, does not change the the moral certainty that GOD's right to judge is sancrosanct.

Peace, Ted

Why?? Why is 'God's right to judge' sacrosanct. Can you show that God cares at all? How do you know what God's judgment is , and what it would be.

I keep on getting reminded by a quote by Susan B Anthony.

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

[Haven]

Cute pictures but a change of name doesn't make a change in it's nature.

An acorn is not a tree but it is an oak.

Simplistic emotionalism to cover a claimed right to selfishness. <shrug>

Ted

Ted, I'm with you on this one. Abortion is the killing of a human child, and I don't think it can be morally justified. Logically, if human life is sacred, then it is sacred at all stages, from conception until natural death.

I'm probably one of the only non-theists who feels this way, but so be it. I can't compromise on human life.

[Haven]

Sorry, just can't agree that the acts you mention or any act as having an intrinsic evil connotation outside of GOD's judgment.

You don't think human life has an intrinsic value?

Condemning a 6000 year old criminal with a 6000 year criminal career is morally required.

6000 years?! Oh, well, that's a discussion for another thread .

The fact this criminal has gotten into a baby's body is meaningless.

Do you have any evidence whatsoever for this brand of reincarnation? Empirical evidence, philosophical evidence, even Biblical evidence?

The prohibition against murder is to subdue our angers and selfish motives which are used to kill for our self interests and not as a legal judgment.

The prohibition against murder is to protect human life, which is sacred and has intrinsic value. Any other purpose is secondary.

Legal judgments are accepted eerywhere...the rejection of the nature of the spirits which reside in human bodies, babies and all, does not change the the moral certainty that GOD's right to judge is sacrosanct.

This is the fallacy of special pleading. If murder is wrong, it is wrong for all beings capable of grasping the concept, including God.