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.

[Compassionist]

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.

In my view, ethics is independent of anything commanded by anyone including deities or alleged deities. Infanticides, genocides, rapes, slavery, robbery, murder, torture, etc. are all unethical and illegal in all civilised countries. If someone says that these things are fine as long as it is commanded by their deity, then I would say that they are blinded by their beliefs and are in the wrong.

[Bust Nak]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral?

Sure, with the caveat that morality is relative, as such, it's not always a clear cut and sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evil.

[Compassionist]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral?

Sure, with the caveat that morality is relative, as such, it's not always a clear cut and sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evil.

I agree that sometimes one has to choose the lesser of two evils and it's not always clear cut.

[Autodidact]

Can we start by agreeing that killing babies, genocide, and slavery are all immoral?

Sure, with the caveat that morality is relative, as such, it's not always a clear cut and sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evil.

I agree that sometimes one has to choose the lesser of two evils and it's not always clear cut.

Yes, I'm sure one could come up with some unlikely hypo in which it would be more moral to kill a baby than not, or at least arguably so. I will say these situations are so rare and unlikely that none of us are likely to confront them in our lifetime, and we can stick to the 99.99% of the situations in which all of these things are clearly wrong.

[Haven]

Sure, with the caveat that morality is relative, as such, it's not always a clear cut and sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evil.

I'd agree that some morality is relative, but I still feel it is obvious that some moral values are absolute.

For instance:

(1) Having premarital sex is relatively right/wrong -- it is an opinion-based proposition based on the individual.

(2) Killing babies is absolutely wrong -- it is never right, regardless of what the individual thinks.

Why are some things absolutely wrong? All I can say is "I don't know." There are several theories, including evolutionary biology, human consensus, or transcendental brute facts, but as there is limited evidence for such claims, I remain agnostic to all of them. However, I know some things are absolutely immoral, even if I can't explain why such things are absolutely immoral. This quote from philosophy professor Louise Antony explains it all:

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

Objective moral values exist. That is fact, and nearly everyone, including professing moral skeptics and relativists, appeal to them at some times.

[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.

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.

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

[Bust Nak]

Yes, I'm sure one could come up with some unlikely hypo in which it would be more moral to kill a baby than not, or at least arguably so. I will say these situations are so rare and unlikely that none of us are likely to confront them in our lifetime, and we can stick to the 99.99% of the situations in which all of these things are clearly wrong.

Well, it's easy to come up with "what if the only to save the galaxy was to kill puppies?" scenario, we've seen such "what if's" that recently here. So it's important to make this clear. But there are prenty real life morally ambiguous situration, such as the decision to withdrawing artifical life support for babies.

I'd agree that some morality is relative, but I still feel it is obvious that some moral values are absolute.

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

Why are some things absolutely wrong? All I can say is "I don't know." There are several theories, including evolutionary biology, human consensus, or transcendental brute facts, but as there is limited evidence for such claims, I remain agnostic to all of them. However, I know some things are absolutely immoral, even if I can't explain why such things are absolutely immoral.

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.

“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.

Objective moral values exist. That is fact, and nearly everyone, including professing moral skeptics and relativists, appeal to them at some times.

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

[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.

(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.

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.

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

[Haven]

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.

“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:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... minus-god/

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.