Is morality objective or subjective?

[FlashDangerpants]

Really I am only asking for a brief explanation of what, if you have any theory about this matter at all, makes moral fact inaccessible to human enquiry without the intervention of a divinity? You've already said that it is needed, in two different ways. I'm asking why?

What is it about the nature of moral properties that makes them visible to God but not to man?

To your first question, I've answered it multiple times. The grounds of morality is God. If you exclude God from your consideration, you've lost any chance of basing your morality on any facts, or any objectivity. You can only make up arbitrary "moralities," that nobody has any obligation to take seriously, because they depend on nothing but power; and power can be fooled or subverted. God cannot.

To your second, moral properties ARE visible to man; but man is not clear-eyed about them. His vision is present but blurry on moral questions, and his will is ungodly, so he tends to both desire and excuse a great many things that are immoral. He often knows what he should not do, but he does it anyway. Look at Gaza.

You present a contradictory picture there. What does "The grounds of morality is God" actually mean? What is a moral property? Either we can interract with these moral properties directly or we cannot, so how do we get this strange situation where there's some sort of blurry vision of them?

[Harbal]

Great. Then explain how rationality can inform us about morality.

We need principles on which the morality is founded, so that we can test any particular instance against them.

Okay. What's one of these "principles"?

Well that's what I was wondering, because the Bible doesn't seem to give us any.

No, he hasn't revealed his existence to me, nor most of the others on this forum, it seems.

It depends whom you believe.

I don't at all think it's true that the people here do not know there's a God. I think the people here often say they wish they could eliminate God. Those are not at all the same propositions.

Well I can only take them at their word, but then their word doesn't cause me the inconvenience that it seems to cause you. If the professed atheists among us really do believe in a god of some sort, It can't be the God that you believe in, and so anything you said about God would carry no weight with them. I mean, who in his right mind is going to deny the existence of God believing it will put him in Hell for eternity?

I was asking if you personally felt you needed an answer to the incest issue, since I do not. I had raised it only in an effort to find common ground with you, but if you don't feel a prohibition toward that particular action, then it wasn't useful for anything further, and I was suggesting we move on.

Okay, that's fine.

I very rarely see anything purely in black and white.

Is that a good thing?

Not if you value pragmatism over morality, it isn't. But I don't have a choice; it isn't a strategy, it's just the way I am.

I don't mean to say there's no time for greyness in issues, but if we are achieving any moral clarity, isn't the point to know the actual rightness and wrongness of things, rather than always to be caught in a grey muddle in the grey middle?

That is probably the aspect of religious morality I find the most worrying; everything is so clear cut.

I regard putting the demands of a supposed higher being before the interests of other members of my own species as wrong, if that will do.

What would make that objectively wrong?

I have no idea what would, or could, make that objectively wrong.

Well, I'm not a nihilist, of course. But what I can do is show you the path that so naturally leads from subjectivism to nihlism.

It wouldn't be the first time you've tried to lead me up the garden path, now would it?

That much is actually rather easy. And I'm not at all confident that if you are a rational person, and if you see the reasoning, you might not end up there.

Please don't worry about it, it isn't your responsibility.

Anyway, I'm still no closer to believing in objective morality; sorry.

[iambiguous]

...if human beings have free will about God, then it means they have the freedom to disbelieve in Him, if they wish to do so.

Right. You are free to believe that Jesus Christ is not your own personal savior. And then God is free to send you to Hell.

It doesn't imply they don't have sufficient reason to believe....

Indeed, pick one:

1] a leap of faith
2] because it says so in the Bible
3] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

As for the part where particular individuals might be indoctrinated to believe in other Gods, or may well go through their lives with little or no grasp of Christianity...?

Well, God is still free to judge them harshly in turn.

And that's before we get to this part:

"A traditionally difficult problem in the Philosophy of Religion is the one that divine omniscience, particularly divine foreknowledge, poses for free will. If God knows in advance how we will act, it looks as if we cannot act freely because we cannot act other than in accordance with God's foreknowledge. Thus, it looks like God's full omniscience and free will are incompatible." FSU

[Immanuel Can]

Really I am only asking for a brief explanation of what, if you have any theory about this matter at all, makes moral fact inaccessible to human enquiry without the intervention of a divinity? You've already said that it is needed, in two different ways. I'm asking why?

What is it about the nature of moral properties that makes them visible to God but not to man?

To your first question, I've answered it multiple times. The grounds of morality is God. If you exclude God from your consideration, you've lost any chance of basing your morality on any facts, or any objectivity. You can only make up arbitrary "moralities," that nobody has any obligation to take seriously, because they depend on nothing but power; and power can be fooled or subverted. God cannot.

To your second, moral properties ARE visible to man; but man is not clear-eyed about them. His vision is present but blurry on moral questions, and his will is ungodly, so he tends to both desire and excuse a great many things that are immoral. He often knows what he should not do, but he does it anyway. Look at Gaza.

You present a contradictory picture there. What does "The grounds of morality is God" actually mean? What is a moral property?

Not at all contradictory.

To say that something is "moral" and to say that it reflects the character and will of God is to say exactly the same thing. You might not choose to believe that, but it's certainly not contradictory.

Either we can interract with these moral properties directly or we cannot, so how do we get this strange situation where there's some sort of blurry vision of them?

Christians use the word "fallenness" to explain that situation. It means that mankind was created to be moral, but has departed from being moral, and consequently has lost clear-sightedness of what morality requires. Or, to put it in Biblical language...

"All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way..."( Isaiah 53:6)

or as Romans says,

"For since the creation of the world His [God's] invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they [mankind] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (10:20-22)

[Immanuel Can]

We need principles on which the morality is founded, so that we can test any particular instance against them.

Okay. What's one of these "principles"?

Well that's what I was wondering, because the Bible doesn't seem to give us any.

It does. But you don't like them, apparently. You become annoyed whenever I quote it.

I don't mean to say there's no time for greyness in issues, but if we are achieving any moral clarity, isn't the point to know the actual rightness and wrongness of things, rather than always to be caught in a grey muddle in the grey middle?

That is probably the aspect of religious morality I find the most worrying; everything is so clear cut.

Isn't that exactly what we want? We want answers. We want information. We want to find moral certainty in the midst of an unduly confused situation. So if we find it, should we reject it because it's unlike the moral confusion to which we have become accustomed, or just be glad we found it?

I regard putting the demands of a supposed higher being before the interests of other members of my own species as wrong, if that will do.

What would make that objectively wrong?

I have no idea what would, or could, make that objectively wrong.

Then we can't say it's objectively wrong at all, can we? Maybe we, like all other lower animals, have every incentive to put our own needs and survival ahead of everything else, and no objective necessity of doing otherwise, if we so choose...and we're back to moral nihilism.

Nietzsche got there so much faster than that.

[FlashDangerpants]

To your first question, I've answered it multiple times. The grounds of morality is God. If you exclude God from your consideration, you've lost any chance of basing your morality on any facts, or any objectivity. You can only make up arbitrary "moralities," that nobody has any obligation to take seriously, because they depend on nothing but power; and power can be fooled or subverted. God cannot.

To your second, moral properties ARE visible to man; but man is not clear-eyed about them. His vision is present but blurry on moral questions, and his will is ungodly, so he tends to both desire and excuse a great many things that are immoral. He often knows what he should not do, but he does it anyway. Look at Gaza.

You present a contradictory picture there. What does "The grounds of morality is God" actually mean? What is a moral property?

Not at all contradictory.

To say that something is "moral" and to say that it reflects the character and will of God is to say exactly the same thing. You might not choose to believe that, but it's certainly not contradictory.

Choosing to believe it isn't really an option until we can say with some clarity what "it" is. So there is nothing "moral" that belongs to the object, to the situation, to the judgment, or any of that stuff. To put in a Kantian fashion for you, moral properties don't inhere to anything in the way that length, circumfrence and weight are inherent properties of physical objects.

Instead of that sort of inherent primary property, a moral property is the "design", or the "opinion", or the "intent" of God? Or does "reflecting the character and will" mean something more vague than that?

Either we can interract with these moral properties directly or we cannot, so how do we get this strange situation where there's some sort of blurry vision of them?

Christians use the word "fallenness" to explain that situation. It means that mankind was created to be moral, but has departed from being moral, and consequently has lost clear-sightedness of what morality requires. Or, to put it in Biblical language...

"All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way..."( Isaiah 53:6)

or as Romans says,

"For since the creation of the world His [God's] invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they [mankind] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (10:20-22)

And that says something about moral properties does it? Something about how we can or cannot reason about them unaided?

[iambiguous]

Instead, what he steers clear of is in acknowledging how all of the other God world folks insist that it is their own God or their own spiritual path that saves souls. He's just another infidel to them.

That's manifestly untrue. Far from "steering clear" of it, I've addressed it with you multiple times...

Right, back to this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

And your refusal to confront the arguments I make here: viewtopic.php?t=40750

Particularly in regard to the scientists and historians "proving" that the Christian God does exist.

...but can't seem to make the point simple enough for you to absorb:

It's very simple: any number of wrong answers, held by any number of wrong-thinking people, would not tell us that there was no right answer.

I'm just astounded that that simple realization, such common sense, is completely beyond you.

Right, as long as it is you and only you who gets to tell us who the wrong thinking people are. And what the one and the only right answer is. And that could not possibly be simpler to understand: you're wrong if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your own personal savior. And that is because by default [with you] the only right answer is Christianity.
.
Not only that, but any number of Christians will note the punishment for defending the wrong answer: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=5 ... =608&dpr=1

Of course, that's just common sense too, right?

[Immanuel Can]

To put in a Kantian fashion for you, moral properties don't inhere to anything in the way that length, circumfrence and weight are inherent properties of physical objects.

"Moral" is not a physical property, it's true. It's a relational description.

Either we can interract with these moral properties directly or we cannot, so how do we get this strange situation where there's some sort of blurry vision of them?

Christians use the word "fallenness" to explain that situation. It means that mankind was created to be moral, but has departed from being moral, and consequently has lost clear-sightedness of what morality requires. Or, to put it in Biblical language...

"All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way..."( Isaiah 53:6)

or as Romans says,

"For since the creation of the world His [God's] invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they [mankind] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (10:20-22)

And that says something about moral properties does it? Something about how we can or cannot reason about them unaided?

It actually says the opposite: it says you CAN reason about them IF you don't first reject God. It says God's "invisible" attributes and "divine nature" (which are the grounds of objective morality) can be "clearly understood" and one is "without excuse" for not knowing them.

But it says that once one rejects God, then there are no limits to how "futile" and "senseless" moral reasoning can become.

[Harbal]

Okay. What's one of these "principles"?

Well that's what I was wondering, because the Bible doesn't seem to give us any.

It does. But you don't like them, apparently. You become annoyed whenever I quote it.

Well they must have sneaked past me while I was putting all my attention into being annoyed. So what was the principle upon which the wrongness of incest was founded, according to the Bible?

That is probably the aspect of religious morality I find the most worrying; everything is so clear cut.

Isn't that exactly what we want? We want answers. We want information. We want to find moral certainty in the midst of an unduly confused situation. So if we find it, should we reject it because it's unlike the moral confusion to which we have become accustomed, or just be glad we found it?

Being acquainted with some of your moral certainties, all I can say is that we need to beware of them.

I have no idea what would, or could, make that objectively wrong.

Then we can't say it's objectively wrong at all, can we?

Isn't that what I've been saying all along?

[FlashDangerpants]

To put in a Kantian fashion for you, moral properties don't inhere to anything in the way that length, circumfrence and weight are inherent properties of physical objects.

"Moral" is not a physical property, it's true. It's a relational description.

I simply alluded to physical properties because they inhere to something. I wasn't asking if morality is physical, I was asking if moral properties are inherent properties that belong to something. Now I have to ask again. If I say that warmth is inherent to fire and ask if moral properties are similarly inherent to something, can I trust you this time not to accuse me of trying to set "moral" aflame?

Or is it true that moral properties don't inhere to the situations, and instead reflect the "opinion", or "character" of God?

Christians use the word "fallenness" to explain that situation. It means that mankind was created to be moral, but has departed from being moral, and consequently has lost clear-sightedness of what morality requires. Or, to put it in Biblical language...

"All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way..."( Isaiah 53:6)

or as Romans says,

"For since the creation of the world His [God's] invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they [mankind] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (10:20-22)

And that says something about moral properties does it? Something about how we can or cannot reason about them unaided?

It actually says the opposite: it says you CAN reason about them IF you don't first reject God. It says God's "invisible" attributes and "divine nature" (which are the grounds of objective morality) can be "clearly understood" and one is "without excuse" for not knowing them.

But it says that once one rejects God, then there are no limits to how "futile" and "senseless" moral reasoning can become.

So back to what I wrote earlier then.... there's no systematic way to know moral truth without relgious ritual?

Something still doesn't make sense though. How does us believing in God make it something we suddenly can know? Just in technical terms, that doesn't make any sense.

[Lacewing]

They have no good reason for their Atheism.

Wrong. Of course they do.

Great.

List those reasons.

> There is a great deal of physical evidence that our existence is natural within a system that is connected as one.
> Theism is full of inconsistencies and nonsense.
> There is no clear and Universal proof of a God that is not a fabrication of one man's/group's beliefs or another's.

Why are there so many different religions?

It does not follow that if there are many wrong answers to some question, there's less likely to be a right one.

The point was, 'if an all-powerful, ever-present god had clarified the singular truth for all, providing proof that is witnessed by everyone' -- which you just claimed has been done -- then why are there so many different religions?

So between an all-powerful god and limited human man, everything is the limited human man's fault.

if human beings have free will about God, then it means they have the freedom to disbelieve in Him, if they wish to do so.
It doesn't imply they don't have sufficient reason to believe, nor that their problem is not one of will. It just means that "freedom" means having a choice between things.

So, a human being is expected to believe and make choices although an all-powerful god is incapable of reaching every human with the same clarity -- and even theist beliefs vary and don't agree?

Most of what's in it is not "guidebook" stuff at all. Much of it is narrative, some of it is poetry, lots of it is history, some is ethics, and so on.

You know The Bible is used as a guidebook. Theists (including yourself) point to it repeatedly -- even though it's convoluted and stagnant, and completely medieval as a representation for a vibrant, present, all-powerful god.

If one sends a message, then the recipient has to "interpret" it.

If it is spoken with clarity they can understand, they don't need an interpreter. Why would God be so incapable of communicating with absolute clarity to absolutely anyone in the present moment and tense without an interpreter or an archaic book? It is human beings who want to interpret for others... putting themselves between people and God. And it's not hard to recognize what that's really all about.

...can you recognize IN OTHERS the hypnotizing power their beliefs have on them

What are you thinking of?

My sentence started out: 'In considering all the different types of theism'. So why did you leave that out and then act like you didn't know?

So you could redirect like this (below), yes?

Wokies? Leftists? Communists? Feminists?

Of course, any belief system can be affected in this way... but I'm asking you how you perceive other types of theism as compared with your own? Could it be that you dismiss their type of theism in a similar way that atheists dismiss all theism? And if you're able to acknowledge that, isn't it clear that both you and atheists are using discernment about theism.

people get ideologically committed to particular beliefs, and then begin to build their lives around the assumptions of that ideology, and can become resistant and unreasonable when they're challenged, because changing one's beliefs can involve all sorts of consequences they have been trusting their ideology to fend off.

Okay, great description. It should be understandable and reasonable to consider that people who do this (for any reason) are not necessarily discerning truth beyond the particular beliefs they are committed to. Furthermore, to preserve and defend what their lives are built around, they might use deception and distortion to fend off challenges -- rather than choosing clarity and truth.

There has been a great deal of deception and distortion all throughout the practices and preaching of theism (again, consider the types of theism you don't agree with) -- yet there is so much resistance by theists in acknowledging it. They tend to blame and face off against atheists, rather than saying anything against theist beliefs. Perhaps they fear the discrediting of their own beliefs. But theists would seem more credible and honest if they acknowledged what actually occurs and where it comes from. Atheists are not 'the enemy'.

You can't say that the Atheists both know what Theism's about (because they were allegedly Theists already) and that they need to "explore" Theism. Those two things don't make sense together.

I didn't say that. You mangled together something you could disagree with.

I find the objections Atheists throw up against Atheism tend to fall into a very small group of very predictable and superficial claims.

Theist claims sound predictable and superficial to atheists.

I think that if they were trying harder to understand Theism, they'd have more sophisticated criticisms. It actually gets quite boring when we Theists have to respond to the same few canards over, and over

But you don't even acknowledge the challenging questions as they are presented on this forum. Instead, you distort and deflect -- many forum members have pointed this out to you. I've been unable to figure out whether you're doing this consciously or unconsciously. It's curious that there cannot be an honest conversation about this ideology of God, and how to explain all of the things that DON'T ADD UP. We should care about that in philosophy, shouldn't we?

The claim was not that they weren't "sincere" in some vague sense; it's that they never had a method for knowing how to test whether or not God existed

How do you know?

What is your method?

[Dubious]

The important point is rather that the Atheist claims to have no evidence for God, while refusing to set any test for evidence.

The test has already been ongoing...

So you know what it is?

Great.

What is it?

I already told you. It's not that you're too stupid to understand but as a rabid theist too prejudiced against anything which provides no credence to your nihilistic beliefs. One thing's for certain; you lack the brains to argue sufficiently against all arguments that counter your convictions in a worn out tome which hardly has any merit left except as a source for Hollywood movies.

Nevertheless, the test is still ongoing in continuing to prove that no god ever appeared on this planet except the ones we created. Clearly you haven't anything more to show for it yourself; ergo the usual distortions and avoidance of having to respond intelligently.

To repeat: No actual god has ever appeared or interfered for any reason since the first day humans thought about gods.

So the question remains: How long must a test provide the same continuous data without the slightest exception in all the thousands of years which have passed and the question ceases to be a question, perennial silence in god's existence being its conclusion!

I can barely wait for the next stupid response!

[Immanuel Can]

Well that's what I was wondering, because the Bible doesn't seem to give us any.

It does. But you don't like them, apparently. You become annoyed whenever I quote it.

Well they must have sneaked past me while I was putting all my attention into being annoyed. So what was the principle upon which the wrongness of incest was founded, according to the Bible?

It's founded on the nature of God Himself, on the fact that God is a loving, attentive and diligent Father, not an exploiter or betrayer. And there's really no better basis on which for it to be founded.

I have no idea what would, or could, make that objectively wrong.

Then we can't say it's objectively wrong at all, can we?

Isn't that what I've been saying all along?

Yes. But then, you can't say anything is ever wrong at all...so, we're back to moral nihilism.

[Immanuel Can]

To put in a Kantian fashion for you, moral properties don't inhere to anything in the way that length, circumfrence and weight are inherent properties of physical objects.

"Moral" is not a physical property, it's true. It's a relational description.

I simply alluded to physical properties because they inhere to something. I wasn't asking if morality is physical, I was asking if moral properties are inherent properties that belong to something.

The inherent properties behind morality "belong" to God. They're not attached to objects, or even to situations, or to persons, apart from that.

I think you've got a bit of a Platonic idea about morality -- except that I see you don't really have a philosophy education, and so probably don't know Plato, so you're getting the same idea from somewhere else, apparently. But that's it actual origin, I would think. You seem to imagine "moral" as being independent of the identity and character of God. But it's not.

And that says something about moral properties does it? Something about how we can or cannot reason about them unaided?

It actually says the opposite: it says you CAN reason about them IF you don't first reject God. It says God's "invisible" attributes and "divine nature" (which are the grounds of objective morality) can be "clearly understood" and one is "without excuse" for not knowing them.

But it says that once one rejects God, then there are no limits to how "futile" and "senseless" moral reasoning can become.

So back to what I wrote earlier then.... there's no systematic way to know moral truth without relgious ritual?

Show me the word "ritual" in what I suggested, and I'll respond to it.

Something still doesn't make sense though. How does us believing in God make it something we suddenly can know? Just in technical terms, that doesn't make any sense.

Actually it's just what H. and I have been discussing in the last few pages. There are two ways at looking at the world: in its relation to God, and out of that relation. If you look at it as in that relation, then you can see its moral features; if you deny that relationship exists, then you can only see "nature red in tooth and claw," the bare facts of physical laws and entropy, and none of it has any purposive or moral characteristics for you.

But the problem is in the original disposition of the onlooker, not in morality itself. It's like if you put on clear eyeglasses, you can see all colours; but if you put on rose-coloured glasses, you not only stop seeing other colours, but because you only see red, there's no point in seeing any colours at all. They're not distinct from one another. There's nothing to detect.

Just so, if one insists on seeing the world's landscape as a product of mere time and chance, and devoid of any Creator or purpose, what one sees is only the external shape of things, and not their moral tinges. But if one sees the world as a purposeful creation of a loving God, then one sees quite differently: purpose, intention, providence, meaning, morality...they all leap into sharper focus, and you start to see the world as it actually is, instead of divested of its moral character.

But you'll never know if you've never done that. The tinted glasses will not permit you to see anything but accidents and oddities, not adding up to or tending toward anything at all. So I understand why you feel committed to the proposition that there is no objective morality to detect.

[Immanuel Can]

The test has already been ongoing...

So you know what it is?

Great.

What is it?

To repeat: No actual god has ever appeared or interfered for any reason since the first day humans thought about gods.

Actually, there's very good reason to believe that's not at all true: the Monotheistic claim is that God can and does involve Himself periodically in human affairs, and continues to do so. But either way, that's not a "test." It's just a confession that you personally don't know of any such evidence.

Now, you might be skeptical, and you can be, if you want: but you can't say you've "tested" and found out anything there. What you've done, instead, is to make a hopeful assertion of your belief that God has not done that, and then drawn your conclusion as if you knew it was true. But you don't.

If, for example, Israel says they escaped through the Red Sea by way of a miraculous intervention from God, which they do, in fact, say, by what test did you prove them liars?