Is morality objective or subjective?

[Sculptor]

I'm not sure what your question is supposed to be asking, or what particular point among many is what you're trying to address here. The most direct answer is, "quite a lot of things," but I'm pretty sure that's not what you want. Can you refine the question?

Such obfuscation.
We ask for proof and you cannot even say of what.

Where is the word "proof" in your question? I didn't even know what you are asking for. You just said, "What do you believe, etc...?" That's one heck of a broad question to ask about anything, let alone the Supreme Being.

So what did you want, by way of proof?

Try this.
1) define what you mean by God
2) What is your reason, if any, for thinking such a thing is responsible for morals?
3) Do you think this can amount to morals being objective, and how?

[Immanuel Can]

I believe Cinderella exists, I've seen her in a Disney Movie.

That's a good comment on subjective morality, actually: "I imagined my actions were moral, so they were."

Cinderella's image can be seen as imaged.

Say something intelligent and relevant, or just don't bother.

[Immanuel Can]

It strikes me that you could convince yourself of almost anything if you put all your heart and all your soul into persuading yourself to believe it.

Except you're not being told to "convince yourself" of anything. You're being invited to reach out, to search, to examine the case.

You're being promised success, if you will genuinely seek for God.

I have no reason to think there is a God, and more than enough reason to think there isn't, which leaves me rather short of motivation to go looking for him.

Actually, you have plenty of reason to suppose it's worth investigating. If it is, you stand to gain everything; and if it is and you don't find out, you lose everything. So your own interests could be quite enough to motivate an inquiry. And you're not being asked to be motivated more than that.

Btw, you didn't respond to my reply on page 412. Am I to assume we are no longer perusing that particular line of enquiry?

I'll have to look back. Give me a few minutes.

[Iwannaplato]

Actually, you have plenty of reason to suppose it's worth investigating. If it is, you stand to gain everything; and if it is and you don't find out, you lose everything.

If that's the God that's out there, one that allows/wants/aims for such things. If it is another God, then, well no.
Or if it's even more complicated than that, also no.
So many theists, so many ways to investigate so many different theologies.

[Harbal]

Except you're not being told to "convince yourself" of anything. You're being invited to reach out, to search, to examine the case.

You're being promised success, if you will genuinely seek for God.

I have no reason to think there is a God, and more than enough reason to think there isn't, which leaves me rather short of motivation to go looking for him.

Actually, you have plenty of reason to suppose it's worth investigating. If it is, you stand to gain everything; and if it is and you don't find out, you lose everything. So your own interests could be quite enough to motivate an inquiry. And you're not being asked to be motivated more than that.

But it isn't enough that the reasons for my investigating appeal to you, they also need to appeal to me.

[Immanuel Can]

Harbal:

My apologies. I somehow missed this message. I didn't intend to skip it.

But they're only hints, of course. And they're broad things, like that which tends to flourishing, for example. The problems with them are twofold, at least: first, that they have to be deduced, and something's not always right with the deducer. The second is that even when they are correctly deduced, they tend to cover only very broad cases, leaving too many details to be worked out for us to generate a code of behaviour out of them. But what they do give us is a starting point: the realization that we live in an orderly, purposeful, teleological universe, and hence there is a God who has designed it. This "natural law" kind of knowledge is universal: all ancient cultures throughout history have had it. And even today, the vast majority of people (96% of the world's population, according to CIA Factbook) thinks it's at least possible, and more often likely, that there's a God.

I am not among that 96%, but trying to see from the point of view of someone who is, I could go in various directions from there, but, knowing where I will inevitably end up, I may as well save time and head straight in your direction.

I can't claim to have read the Bible, but I have attempted to read parts of it, and have never managed to get very far. I find the archaic language hard to understand, and far too tedious to have much patience with.

Don't read in the KJV. There are excellent modern translations. I recommend the NASB for those interested in sticking close to the original languages in translation, or something like the NLT or NIV, if you want something in much more common language, but that still gives a faithful sense of the text.

You can find them all here, for free, as a matter of fact. https://www.biblegateway.com/.

But don't read the whole thing, because that's 66 books. Make your job easy: just read the Gospel of John, the fourth book in the New Testament, which gives you the "thesis" or essence of the entire book. Then, if you're still interested, go to the book of Romans, two books forward, and read that.

Even when I get the gist of what the words are saying, I find very little sense in what I am reading. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't stand a chance of arriving at a coherent impression of what morality is supposed to look like according to the Bible. The Bible would be useless to me without someone who understands it to interpret it for me. I would then have two problems; how do I know that the Bible is a reliable source, and how do I know my interpreter is not filtering what he passes on to me through his own biases?

That's a reasonable worry. But you can beat that concern rather easily, too. There are so many translations of the Bible into English, done at various times and by different people who never knew each other, that you can compare them on any particular point, and figure out what the original says. And if you want to go deeper, you can even go to Greek interlinear translations, and find out if the translators of each version did a good job of that or not.

It's nowhere near so difficult to do as you might imagine. But https://www.biblegateway.com/ would give you everything you need.

However, the test I'm proposing doesn't even ask Bible reading of you. I'm just saying, start the conversation with God directly, yourself, in your own language, and with your own concerns, and see where He takes you from there. There could actually hardly be an easier starting point than that.

So there's another course: God, presuming He exists, would be capable of being more explicit with his instructions than what we have in nature, and could give us the criteria for judging among the gurus, and could impart to us standards that would allow us to judge when our own subjective feelings or consciences were leading us right or wrong. So the question, then, comes down to a simple one: has God spoken? If He has, where would it be, and how would we know it when we found the right source of moral information?

I am assuming that the only account of God and what he has spoken of is in the Bible, is that correct? Maybe we could look at some sample moral issues and see what God has to say about them, but I would be entirely dependent on you to tell me what to look at, and how to understand it. What do you think?

We could. But where to start....

Well, an obvious place would be with the most famous moral instructions, the famed "10 Commandments." Most people think those are kind of basic. What about if you pick one, and we talk about it? You can find them listed here: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/10-c ... ents-list/

[Immanuel Can]

But it isn't enough that the reasons for my investigating appeal to you, they also need to appeal to me.

If your own self-interest doesn't appeal to you, then I don't know what to tell you about that. I'm not exactly in a position to offer you more motivation.

[Immanuel Can]

So many theists, so many ways to investigate so many different theologies.

It's not nearly so hard as you might imagine. You'll find you don't need every detail of every system. Each religion has its own "core" or central idea, and by comparing those, you can cover a lot of ground fast.

[Harbal]

But it isn't enough that the reasons for my investigating appeal to you, they also need to appeal to me.

If your own self-interest doesn't appeal to you, then I don't know what to tell you about that. I'm not exactly in a position to offer you more motivation.

My self interest was uppermost in my mind, actually.

[Lacewing]

I'm just saying, start the conversation with God directly, yourself, in your own language, and with your own concerns, and see where He takes you from there. There could actually hardly be an easier starting point than that.

But the starting point is to believe in what you're talking to, yes?

[Iwannaplato]

It's not nearly so hard as you might imagine. You'll find you don't need every detail of every system. Each religion has its own "core" or central idea, and by comparing those, you can cover a lot of ground fast.

Sure, in one's head one could take a quick peak. And sure, some people get a sudden conversation event or strong pull. But most religions assume long enagagement in practices is going to be there before participants feel a connection (and certainly some kind of stable one) to the deity or religion. Your version of the deity had the characteristics that led to your Pascal's Wager-ish response the Harbal. There a number of large religions that do not hang eternal damnation over the head of someone giving a quick peak that the core idea of the religion.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm just saying, start the conversation with God directly, yourself, in your own language, and with your own concerns, and see where He takes you from there. There could actually hardly be an easier starting point than that.

But the starting point is to believe in what you're talking to, yes?

You have to have a modicum of hope that you'll find. Jesus said that your faith could be the size of a mustard seed. That's not asking much.

[Immanuel Can]

But most religions assume long enagagement in practices is going to be there before participants feel a connection (and certainly some kind of stable one) to the deity or religion.

Many do.

But you don't need to accept that assumption. You can use your God-given faculties to figure out what's worth checking further, and what's not. A great many religious disqualify themselves at the first post, you'll find. You'll quickly be down to five or six plausible ones, and from there, you'll quickly get to one or two. It's really not nearly so hard as people who don't really want to do it would like to make it.

[Harbal]

I can't claim to have read the Bible, but I have attempted to read parts of it, and have never managed to get very far. I find the archaic language hard to understand, and far too tedious to have much patience with.

Don't read in the KJV. There are excellent modern translations. I recommend the NASB for those interested in sticking close to the original languages in translation, or something like the NLT or NIV, if you want something in much more common language, but that still gives a faithful sense of the text.

NASB:

The translation work was done by a group sponsored by the Lockman Foundation.[16] According to the Lockman Foundation, the committee consisted of people from Christian institutions of higher learning and from evangelical Protestant, predominantly conservative, denominations (Presbyterian, Methodist, Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Nazarene, American Baptist, Fundamentalist, Conservative Baptist, Free Methodist, Congregational, Disciples of Christ, Evangelical Free, Independent Baptist, Independent Mennonite, Assembly of God, North American Baptist, and "other religious groups")

Reading this, I can't help questioning the objectivity of the translators.

However, the test I'm proposing doesn't even ask Bible reading of you. I'm just saying, start the conversation with God directly, yourself, in your own language, and with your own concerns, and see where He takes you from there. There could actually hardly be an easier starting point than that.

You have encouraged me to try this several times now, and I suspect it could be effective in some cases, but for reasons that have nothing to do with God. It sounds very much like some sort of psychological technique of persuasion. If it does work, I am betting it would work equally well if I went into the woods everyday and had a similar conversation with the spirit of the forest.

I am assuming that the only account of God and what he has spoken of is in the Bible, is that correct? Maybe we could look at some sample moral issues and see what God has to say about them, but I would be entirely dependent on you to tell me what to look at, and how to understand it. What do you think?

We could. But where to start....

Well, an obvious place would be with the most famous moral instructions, the famed "10 Commandments." Most people think those are kind of basic. What about if you pick one, and we talk about it? You can find them listed here: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/10-c ... ents-list/

Well my idea was to do it the other way round, and start with a moral issue that we wanted guidance on. I think that would more closely replicate a real life situation, as most people aren't Bible experts to start with.

What if we explore some issues that people most often seem to be divided on; abortion, homosexuality and capital punishment are three such that come most readily to my mind. I could give you my position on all three, and you could show me how I stand in relation to what the Bible has to say.

Abortion: I see two competing issues here; the right of the mother, and the right of the unborn baby. I think the woman's right of choice should take priority.

Homosexuality: I don't even see this as a moral issue, and would be interested to see how the Bible says it is.

Capital punishment: It isn't that I don't think some people deserve to be executed, it's just that I don't really see how society can demonstrate the wrongness of killing by practicing it itself.

This is just a suggestion.

[Iwannaplato]

But most religions assume long enagagement in practices is going to be there before participants feel a connection (and certainly some kind of stable one) to the deity or religion.

Many do.

But you don't need to accept that assumption. You can use your God-given faculties to figure out what's worth checking further, and what's not. A great many religious disqualify themselves at the first post, you'll find. You'll quickly be down to five or six plausible ones, and from there, you'll quickly get to one or two. It's really not nearly so hard as people who don't really want to do it would like to make it.

Sure, but again. You're presentation to him was as if there was one religion to check out and that THE situation is all or nothing. You're description sounds like shopping for a good computer or something. And even here, suddenly we went from what sounds like looking into one religion or the religion, to after some quick period, according to you, being down to 5 or 6 plausible ones.