Believing in Christianity: A Major Life Decision?

[Divine Insight]

In another thread a Christian attempted to belittle me for having once believed in the religion only to discover later than the religion is false. His implication was that if I would change my mind concerning major life decisions like this then I can't be very credible. (the old: Discredit your debate opponent tactic)

So I've decided to put the question to Christians:

1. Does Christianity dictate your major life decisions?

2. And if so, how would you choose to live differently if you weren't a Christian?

Debate Questions:

If a Christian claims that they would live their life differently if they weren't a Christian, doesn't this imply that they aren't being true to themselves when living life as a Christian?

Also, wouldn't the manner they would choose to live their lives, if not a Christian, reveal who they truly are at the core of their character?

[Divine Insight]

Taking your 'more precise' position, it appears to be based on a judgmental opinion rather than anything productive to debate.

You can call it an opinion if you want, but for me it's a pretty obvious fact of reality. If a person desires to do bad things and the only thing that prevents them from doing them is religious beliefs then guess what?

They are still a person who desires to do bad things.

Why call that an opinion when it's clearly as factual as anything can possibly be?

These facts would still be true if I had never existed. Therefore it cannot be reliant on my opinion no matter how hard you try to twist it into that.

[The Tanager]

I see, so in other words, you are addressing the concept of "absolute morality" versus "subjective morality".

People use terms differently. I would normally use "absolute morality" to refer to a view like Kant's, where lying is never okay, no matter the situation one finds himself in. You can be a moral realist/objectivist while still being a situationalist.

And what about your personal moral values which are necessarily subjective?

Are your personal subjective moral values in harmony with the Biblical morals you believe to be dictated by the Bible?

If so, then there is no difference between your subjective morality and objective morality.

Are you saying that believing in objective morality is incoherent because I'd be saying morality is both subjective and objective? If so, then you would be equivocating on "subjective" here. My personal moral values are necessarily subjective only in the trivial sense: it is I that holds them. That is very different than what is usually meant by the subjective vs. objective debate. I feel like you must have meant something else.

[Divine Insight]

People use terms differently. I would normally use "absolute morality" to refer to a view like Kant's, where lying is never okay, no matter the situation one finds himself in. You can be a moral realist/objectivist while still being a situationalist.

How can that be objective morality if you need to subjectively decide whether you think a particular situation warrants the so-called objective moral code? Seems to me that in that case all you would be doing is passing off subjective morality as supposedly being objective morality.

[Menotu]

In another thread a Christian attempted to belittle me for having once believed in the religion only to discover later than the religion is false. His implication was that if I would change my mind concerning major life decisions like this then I can't be very credible. (the old: Discredit your debate opponent tactic)

So I've decided to put the question to Christians:

1. Does Christianity dictate your major life decisions?

2. And if so, how would you choose to live differently if you weren't a Christian?

Debate Questions:

If a Christian claims that they would live their life differently if they weren't a Christian, doesn't this imply that they aren't being true to themselves when living life as a Christian?

Also, wouldn't the manner they would choose to live their lives, if not a Christian, reveal who they truly are at the core of their character?

I've experienced the same thing as you. I was told I wasn't a 'real' Christian (and a myriad of other things). Meh... I don't care any more.
I think anyone with a decent character would be a decent person, though, in my experience, many Christians don't like that. In other words, if one's not a Christian (by their definition, though not all Christians can agree 100% what a Christian is (though I'm not surprised since their gospels can't all agree on the same story but OK whatever)), you're pretty much a no one.
Christian = good
Non Christian = bad

[Divine Insight]

Christian = good
Non Christian = bad

Exactly. It's basically a culture of religious bigotry. And it's not just Christianity but this is the nature of all the Abrahamic religions that are founded on their Jealous God.

The Hindus and Buddhists refer to the Abrahamic religions as basically nothing more than Middle Eastern cultural warfare. Not only to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims hate each other, as diverse religious groups, but they even hate themselves within their own sub-division groups. It's a religion of division to be sure.

So you can even break it down further:

Christians like my denomination = good
Christians of other demoninations = bad

They bring the religious bigotry home right to their own doorsteps.

[The Tanager]

People use terms differently. I would normally use "absolute morality" to refer to a view like Kant's, where lying is never okay, no matter the situation one finds himself in. You can be a moral realist/objectivist while still being a situationalist.

How can that be objective morality if you need to subjectively decide whether you think a particular situation warrants the so-called objective moral code? Seems to me that in that case all you would be doing is passing off subjective morality as supposedly being objective morality.

In the scenario I talked about, each situation has an objective truth for all people. For example, if it is morally good to lie when it would save a person's life, then it is morally good for every person who finds herself in that situation. Every single person should lie to save another's life.

Subjectivism, in this scenario, would be the belief that Person A is right for lying in that situation, while Person B is right for not lying in that situation.

[Divine Insight]

Subjectivism, in this scenario, would be the belief that Person A is right for lying in that situation, while Person B is right for not lying in that situation.

No, that's not Subjectivism. What you are trying to do is retain an absolute morality within the context of Subjectivism.

What is true for Subjectivism is the following:

Subjectivism, in this scenario, would be that Person A judges that it is right for lying in that situation, while Person B judges that it is right for not lying in that situation.

In fact, isn't all morality nothing more than a judgement?

Even if there exists a God, it would be the God who judges what's right or wrong.

By the way, even a God could judge contextually. A God could judge that Person A is right for lying in that situation, while Person B is right for not lying in that situation.

So "situational morality" could even be up to the subjective whim of a God to decide.

The fact is that our universe shows us that there is no absolute morality. Our universe is filled things that cause the suffering and death of innocent people. Therefore if it's absolutely immoral to cause the suffering and death of an innocent person and God designed the universe, then God himself would be guilty of violating absolute morality.

So the whole concept of absolute or objective morality doesn't work in our universe. God would be guilty of violating absolute moral principles anyway.

So the very notion of absolute morality is a philosophical dream that can never be made to work in our universe.

The very concept of moral principles are a subjective human invention.

In fact, think about it. How many humans would think it is immoral to kill a baby rat? Probably not too many. How about a baby monkey? There would no doubt be more humans who feel it isn't right to kill baby monkey because they're cute. But probably no one would suggest that the penalty for killing a baby monkey should be death.

But a baby human? Oh, yeah, almost all humans would agree that killing a baby human is extremely immoral and deserves the death penalty for the person who kills human babies.

What do we learn from this? Humans invent moral principles and they create their subjective moral values based on extremely human-centric values. The universe apparently doesn't care about humans, and if there was a creator who created the universe, then he certainly doesn't care about humans either.

Humans invented their own morality and made into religious fantasies pretending that some God agrees with human-centric values.

As far as lying goes, I take the position that there are a lot of people who deserve to be lied to because they aren't worthy of hearing the truth. They would abuse the truth and use it to hurt others. Therefore the "True Sin" (if there was such a thing) would be to tell them the truth when they deserve to be lied to.

There is no God of absolute morality, and even if there was, he certainly wouldn't have behaved as immorally as the God described in the Bible anyway. So you'd need to look elsewhere to find a God of good moral values anyway. You're not going to find a moral God in Hebrew mythology.

[The Tanager]

I'm not sure what your comments have to do with the original topic of this thread. I already said that subjectivism being true would not affect any major life decision for me (as far as I can tell). But if you want to talk about subjectivism vs. objectivism we have to get on the same page with terms and you just aren't using them correctly.

No, that's not Subjectivism. What you are trying to do is retain an absolute morality within the context of Subjectivism.

What is true for Subjectivism is the following:

Subjectivism, in this scenario, would be that Person A judges that it is right for lying in that situation, while Person B judges that it is right for not lying in that situation.

Subjectivism is not the view that people make different judgments, that's just an obvious statement. Subjectivism is a meta-ethical theory about the goodness or value of those different judgments. Subjectivism is the belief that people who make different judgments in identical cases can both be "morally right" to do so.

Even if there exists a God, it would be the God who judges what's right or wrong.

By the way, even a God could judge contextually. A God could judge that Person A is right for lying in that situation, while Person B is right for not lying in that situation.

So "situational morality" could even be up to the subjective whim of a God to decide.

When philosophers, all throughout history, talk about morality being objective they have been talking about human morality having a source outside of human minds. If God is the source of moral value for humans, then our morality is objective, by this definition. You are right that this grounds our objective morality in God's subjective nature or will but that does not contradict what traditional philosophers have always meant by morality being objective.

[William]

[Replying to post 21 ]

Divine Insight: You can call it an opinion if you want, but for me it's a pretty obvious fact of reality.

William: Even so, 'obvious facts of reality' can be distorted by personal bias - also an 'obvious fact of reality',
Without some kind of objective evidence we all can look over together, what you have to say on the matter is merely personal opinion, no more and no less.

Divine Insight: If a person desires to do bad things and the only thing that prevents them from doing them is religious beliefs then guess what?

They are still a person who desires to do bad things.

William: How have you established that it is even factual, that such personalities 'still desire to do bad things'?

How is that observation connected to your claim that this is "the core of their character"?

That is the question I am attempting to get you to answer DI.

As a type of example, there are many atheists who believe in and claim that they are born atheists. They believe that is the default position of every human being.

That is their "Core Position" as they believe.

I have seen no scientific evidence from anyone to support this claim.

You are suggesting that their are also human beings born with core character of "bad".

I have seen no scientific evidence from you, to support this claim.
And if you are saying that they learn to be "bad", then that is not - cannot be - their "core character".

Divine Insight: These facts would still be true if I had never existed.

William: My argument being, you have yet to establish such are facts. Until you do so, one can only regard your expression as personal opinion.

As you wrote;

• Divine Insight:"For me it's a pretty obvious fact of reality"

William: That is not anything but personal opinion, and will remain so until you provide the science to back up the opinion.

Like I said. If you do not have that evidence, just say so.

[Divine Insight]

Subjectivism is the belief that people who make different judgments in identical cases can both be "morally right" to do so.

Morally right with respect to what?

I don't care who's making these claims. Even philosophers often make absurd claims.

What would it mean to be "morally right"?

With respect to what? Some objective morality?

If that's the idea, then the concept of objective morality was never abandoned to begin with.

The only way that subjective morality makes any sense at all is after one has accepted that moral judgements are nothing other than human opinions. And once this has been recognized then it's meaningless to speak about who's "morally right or wrong" in any absolute sense.

This is a common mistake that many theists and philosophers both make. They can't seem to get past the idea of objective or absolute morality. They always want to come back to saying who's "morally right or wrong". But once subjective morality has been accepted then morality becomes nothing other than human opinions.

Actually that's all it ever has been. There is no absolute morality. If there such a thing as absolute m orality then humans would be just as guilty for murder when they kill a mosquito as they would be if they killed another human. The reason we consider killing other humans to be immoral is precisely because we are humans. And we even make exceptions for that. Most people have no problem seeing heinous criminals put to death. In fact, the Biblical God demands this. He even demands that people should be put to death for trivial things, like being Gay, or collecting wood on the Sabbath, or looking back at a city he's destroying. The Biblical God has no problem at all killing humans. Even human babies.

So if he represents absolute objective morality, then there isn't much to his moral principles. He'll kill a human just as a human will kill a mosquito.