Is morality objective or subjective?

[Immanuel Can]

That's all very well, but quite irrelevant to me. I don't usually find myself trying to convince anybody of anything in the cause of morality. I just try to behave towards other people in a way that I judge to be morally correct. I might hope they behave towards me in a similar way, but I don't particularly expect it, and am not surprised when they don't. This seems to work pretty much okay for me, and very occasionally someone might even show signs of appreciation at my conduct towards them. You can shout out that subjective morality doesn't work as often as you like, but it is the only kind I know of, and it seems to be working just fine to me.

Well, that might be a narrow view, because you live in a society. That it happens to be one you currently like might be a temporary and changeable situation, depending on how the political winds shift. It might even only be a byproduct of your socialization, rather than any morality you happen to be able to defend. And a morality that might guide those political winds to shift in the right direction, so far as you're concerned, might well be a very good thing for you.

But if you only take the view of your own present and immediate satisfaction, and indifferent to the future of your country, the welfare of your fellow citizens, and even the actual rightness or wrongness of the moral postures encoded in your present society (such as, say, their immigration or economic policies) perhaps all that will seem unimportant. You're happy now, and may assume you'll always be. Perhaps that will work out for you.

And what good is that to anybody?

It means justice came to Stalin after all. Don't underestimate that.

It means no such thing. Stalin just carried on doing his thing right up to his death, and that is all that can be said.

From your perspective. We'll see if that perspective is the full one.

[Harbal]

That's all very well, but quite irrelevant to me. I don't usually find myself trying to convince anybody of anything in the cause of morality. I just try to behave towards other people in a way that I judge to be morally correct. I might hope they behave towards me in a similar way, but I don't particularly expect it, and am not surprised when they don't. This seems to work pretty much okay for me, and very occasionally someone might even show signs of appreciation at my conduct towards them. You can shout out that subjective morality doesn't work as often as you like, but it is the only kind I know of, and it seems to be working just fine to me.

Well, that might be a narrow view, because you live in a society. That it happens to be one you currently like might be a temporary and changeable situation, depending on how the political winds shift. It might even only be a byproduct of your socialization, rather than any morality you happen to be able to defend. And a morality that might guide those political winds to shift in the right direction, so far as you're concerned, might well be a very good thing for you.

But if you only take the view of your own present and immediate satisfaction, and indifferent to the future of your country, the welfare of your fellow citizens, and even the actual rightness or wrongness of the moral postures encoded in your present society (such as, say, their immigration or economic policies) perhaps all that will seem unimportant. You're happy now, and may assume you'll always be. Perhaps that will work out for you.

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

[Walker]

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... UTF-8#ip=1

*

Seek and ye shall find is an objective statement of causation, thus the morality is inherent, to be judged according to subjective interpretation.

One common subjective interpretation: Seeking requires effort and I'm too lazy for that.

Another common subjective interpretation: God is cruel because I must seek to know, when the knowing could have been implanted by a kind God who doesn't torment with doubt that requires my effort of seeking.

[Harbal]

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... UTF-8#ip=1

*

Seek and ye shall find is an objective statement of causation, thus the morality is inherent, to be judged according to subjective interpretation.

One common subjective interpretation: Seeking requires effort and I'm too lazy for that.

Another common subjective interpretation: God is cruel because I must seek to know, when the knowing could have been implanted by a kind God who doesn't torment with doubt that requires my effort of seeking.

If this was an attempt to shed light on the matter, your batteries need recharging again, Walker.

[Gary Childress]

Don't listen to men. Don't even listen to me. Listen to what Christ says. Then you'll know what to do.

I've read various parts of what Christ says, some of it from your posts, however, for some of it, I don't know if it's the truth or not. I can believe that there was a person named Jesus Christ. However, I don't know if he is what he said he is, or according to some (Bart Ehrmann among them), Christ himself may not have proclaimed himself God. Perhaps reading the Bible is a bit like reading Plato and thinking that Socrates said and believed everything Plato makes him out to. I don't know. And for me to walk into a church and say I'm a Christian, I would not be telling the truth. I am a skeptic and agnostic.

Just listen to the Man. You'll know, if you want to know.

It's laudable that the Christian Church encourages love and forgiveness, I'm just not sure that Christ was God. What if he wasn't? Would that mean that we shouldn't love and forgive others? I wouldn't think so. Such things seem like practices that can make a great society of caring people who look out for each other. There's a lot to be said for that. I don't knock Christ's teachings. I just don't know if Christ = creator of all that is. What difference does it make? Love is a powerful thing in and of itself. It can move people to do amazing things for each other. For many years I more or less followed Christ's ideas to a large extent, forgiving my enemies, loving people that are, nevertheless not family to me. The idea that I need to believe Christ = creator of all that is, seems unnecessary. I mean, does Christ not love everyone? Or does Christ only love those who believe he is God? I'm not seeing the harm in considering him, or else those who codified his teachings in the NT as possessing sage advice of the highest order, just maybe not God.

[Gary Childress]

BTW, I went to Easter service today at a Church. It was very nice. A lot of nice smiling people there. It's a beautiful thing.

[Immanuel Can]

That's all very well, but quite irrelevant to me. I don't usually find myself trying to convince anybody of anything in the cause of morality. I just try to behave towards other people in a way that I judge to be morally correct. I might hope they behave towards me in a similar way, but I don't particularly expect it, and am not surprised when they don't. This seems to work pretty much okay for me, and very occasionally someone might even show signs of appreciation at my conduct towards them. You can shout out that subjective morality doesn't work as often as you like, but it is the only kind I know of, and it seems to be working just fine to me.

Well, that might be a narrow view, because you live in a society. That it happens to be one you currently like might be a temporary and changeable situation, depending on how the political winds shift. It might even only be a byproduct of your socialization, rather than any morality you happen to be able to defend. And a morality that might guide those political winds to shift in the right direction, so far as you're concerned, might well be a very good thing for you.

But if you only take the view of your own present and immediate satisfaction, and indifferent to the future of your country, the welfare of your fellow citizens, and even the actual rightness or wrongness of the moral postures encoded in your present society (such as, say, their immigration or economic policies) perhaps all that will seem unimportant. You're happy now, and may assume you'll always be. Perhaps that will work out for you.

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

It gives the moral framework necessary to make moral decisions about such things. Morality, as you've already realized, is about how we treat each other: and "policy" is another word for, "the rules we decided to set for how we're going to treat each other."

But absent any such framework, what guidance do we have for what a proper policy might be? We're out of luck for that, because people's intuitions are often quite different, and even oppositional.

[Harbal]

Well, that might be a narrow view, because you live in a society. That it happens to be one you currently like might be a temporary and changeable situation, depending on how the political winds shift. It might even only be a byproduct of your socialization, rather than any morality you happen to be able to defend. And a morality that might guide those political winds to shift in the right direction, so far as you're concerned, might well be a very good thing for you.

But if you only take the view of your own present and immediate satisfaction, and indifferent to the future of your country, the welfare of your fellow citizens, and even the actual rightness or wrongness of the moral postures encoded in your present society (such as, say, their immigration or economic policies) perhaps all that will seem unimportant. You're happy now, and may assume you'll always be. Perhaps that will work out for you.

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

It gives the moral framework necessary to make moral decisions about such things. Morality, as you've already realized, is about how we treat each other: and "policy" is another word for, "the rules we decided to set for how we're going to treat each other."

But absent any such framework, what guidance do we have for what a proper policy might be? We're out of luck for that, because people's intuitions are often quite different, and even oppositional.

I keep telling you that I have my own preferred framework, and the fact that it is based on my own moral values and opinions is why I prefer it. And what happens if I don't happen to like your so called objective framework that is Bible based?

[Immanuel Can]

I've read various parts of what Christ says, some of it from your posts, however, for some of it, I don't know if it's the truth or not. I can believe that there was a person named Jesus Christ. However, I don't know if he is what he said he is, or according to some (Bart Ehrmann among them), Christ himself may not have proclaimed himself God. Perhaps reading the Bible is a bit like reading Plato and thinking that Socrates said and believed everything Plato makes him out to. I don't know. And for me to walk into a church and say I'm a Christian, I would not be telling the truth. I am a skeptic and agnostic.

Just listen to the Man. You'll know, if you want to know.

It's laudable that the Christian Church encourages love and forgiveness, I'm just not sure that Christ was God. What if he wasn't?

This is where faith makes its stand. God requires very little of it from you; but it must be enough to consider it possible that God exists and that He will reward you for searching that out.

Would that mean that we shouldn't love and forgive others? I wouldn't think so.

But why would you think so? What would be your reason for thinking that, say, "love" wasn't an absurd sentimentality toward underserving others, and "forgiveness" was a form of letting malefactors off the hook? Why would you think those are good things, if there's no objective goodness to them?

The idea that I need to believe Christ = creator of all that is, seems unnecessary. I mean, does Christ not love everyone? Or does Christ only love those who believe he is God? I'm not seeing the harm in considering him, or else those who codified his teachings in the NT as possessing sage advice of the highest order, just maybe not God.

Well, there are two aspects to divine righteousness, and without one of them, God is seriously flawed. One is love, or mercy, as you point out; but the other is justice. On the one hand, God cannot be good and be indifferent to the suffering and struggles of his creatures; but then again, God cannot be good and be indifferent to cruelty, injustice, wickedness, and so forth.

At first, maybe, it looks like that puts God in quite a bind: if He is at all hard on our wickedness, is He not deficient in loving? But if he isn't a thorough-dealer with injustice, how can He be ultimately good?

And here, to use a wordplay, is the crux of the matter. In Christ, as the Bible says, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them..." To "reconcile" means "to bring back into a right relationship with." By placing the burden of the justice due against His creatures on His Son, instead of on us, He was making the means for us to be brought back into a right relationship with Him, and "not counting our wrongdoings against" us. God was being fully just, but also "the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." So God remains both good as the Upholder of righteous justice, and good as the One who loves the world.

However, for a very good reason, we are not forced to accept that. If it seems unfair to us that God would place the justice rightly due to us upon His Son, we can demand the right to pay for our own crimes. And God grants us the right to determine what we will accept as fair. We can reject the offer of salvation by Christ's sacrifice, and approach the bar on our own feet, demanding that our own righteousness, not His, should speak for us.

But just how much of that righteousness does any of us have? Will we really march up to the perfect Judge, and demand on the basis of his justness, that He should pronounce the sentence we deserve? Or would we be better to accept the better Way He has made, and be reconciled to God before that day comes?

As Jesus Himself advised, "Come to good terms with your accuser quickly, while you are with him on the way to court, so that your accuser will not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you will not be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last [penny]."

[Immanuel Can]

What does God and the Bible have to say on the moral aspects of things like immigration or economic policies?

It gives the moral framework necessary to make moral decisions about such things. Morality, as you've already realized, is about how we treat each other: and "policy" is another word for, "the rules we decided to set for how we're going to treat each other."

But absent any such framework, what guidance do we have for what a proper policy might be? We're out of luck for that, because people's intuitions are often quite different, and even oppositional.

I keep telling you that I have my own preferred framework, and the fact that it is based on my own moral values and opinions is why I prefer it. And what happens if I don't happen to like your so called objective framework that is Bible based?

But you don't have a framework. A single person who is thinking solipsistically doesn't even need a framework, and can't make any use of one, because he has nothing rational about his beliefs. To whom does he owe a showing of reasonableness, of a "fit" between the "framework" and the behavioural axioms he's generating? He's his own boss, and has nobody to account to. So he doesn't need to explain or rationalize a thing.

Instead, he's going on impulse, on twinges. And a "framework" is just irrelevant to those. You don't even need one, in order to experience a twinge.

[Harbal]

It gives the moral framework necessary to make moral decisions about such things. Morality, as you've already realized, is about how we treat each other: and "policy" is another word for, "the rules we decided to set for how we're going to treat each other."

But absent any such framework, what guidance do we have for what a proper policy might be? We're out of luck for that, because people's intuitions are often quite different, and even oppositional.

I keep telling you that I have my own preferred framework, and the fact that it is based on my own moral values and opinions is why I prefer it. And what happens if I don't happen to like your so called objective framework that is Bible based?

But you don't have a framework.

But I believe I've got one, and nothing you say to the contrary seems able to make any difference.

I asked you another question: what if I don't like Bible morality?

[Immanuel Can]

I keep telling you that I have my own preferred framework, and the fact that it is based on my own moral values and opinions is why I prefer it. And what happens if I don't happen to like your so called objective framework that is Bible based?

But you don't have a framework.

But I believe I've got one, and nothing you say to the contrary seems able to make any difference.

I asked you another question: what if I don't like Bible morality?

What if I don't like cancer treatments?

[Harbal]

But you don't have a framework.

But I believe I've got one, and nothing you say to the contrary seems able to make any difference.

I asked you another question: what if I don't like Bible morality?

What if I don't like cancer treatments?

I'd like a proper answer, please.

[Immanuel Can]

But I believe I've got one, and nothing you say to the contrary seems able to make any difference.

I asked you another question: what if I don't like Bible morality?

What if I don't like cancer treatments?

I'd like a proper answer, please.

That is one. In both cases, what does the antipathy change?

[Harbal]

What if I don't like cancer treatments?

I'd like a proper answer, please.

That is one. In both cases, what does the antipathy change?

In my case, the antipathy means I'll stick with my own moral values, in your case it probably means you will ask God to cure you.