Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 5:03 pm
I raised the example of abortion to demonstrate -to some extent- how I would approach a moral issue, not to discuss the issue itself. But, seeing as you have used it as an opportunity to voice your view on abortion, I have to say that your attitude seems very black and white, whereas the majority of moral issues are far more nuanced than that. Needless to say, I strongly disagree with your comments about abortion.
Deliberate murder is quite a black and white issue, actually. And while "nuance" is a virtue in discussions that are not black and white, in issues that are, it's just compromise with rank evil.
I have no hesitancy at all in saying that creating a baby willfully and then murdering her is wrong...without conditions.
...behaving in a way I consider to be morally right is important to me.
I can believe that. But I can't see any reason why a person who doesn't believe in God would think he had to. And as you say, he doesn't really have to. So there's actually nothing to be celebrated, commended or praised if he does act morally...and no shame if he does not.
But I don't believe any of that, of course. I just can't find a reason in Atheism to think otherwise.
IC wrote:...except that he doesn't believe morality is real.
My moral values and feelings exist within me, so they are real in that sense; they are real to me.
THAT you have moral feelings is real. What the moral feelings are signalling to you, you must believe, is pure delusion...if you go with Atheism. But I don't think you really do. You take conscience too seriously to be a thoroughgoing and consistent Atheist -- they have to believe that conscience is not related to anything objective or real. You seem not to feel that way, even while speaking the opposite.
That's interesting.
IC wrote:That's a different question. Nobody is wondering whether or not you objectively have a (delusory) feeling about morality. We're debating whether that feeling has any objective substance. And you're saying you objectively feel morally, but that that feeling itself is merely subjective, in that it refers to no objective fact.
I have a sense of morality, consisting of values and moral opinions, which I can reference. That's a fact.
That's the first one. It doesn't help at all with the second one. THAT you have the feelings is a fact. That the feelings are WARRANTED or can provide an accurate "reference" to anything, that's not a fact, according to moral subjectivism; that's merely a delusion.
But what my morality has that yours lacks is this: the appeal to objective truth.
You only believe it to be objective truth, and no one else is obliged to accept it as objective truth,
Actually, they are obliged to make a decision. Either they believe what I say (so long as it also properly represents what God says) or they don't. Either they obey God, or they don't. Either they choose to affirm righteousness, or they don't. And if they don't, they answer for what they choose.: and that's an obligation that nobody gets to dodge.
(Heb. 9:27 -- "...it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment...") That's free will.
Your claim, from the start, is that your morality is nothing but your own feeling. Mine is that my moral judgment conforms to the truth that ought to govern the relations between the woman and the baby
A woman's relationship with her baby is her business, not yours.
You know that's not true. The baby is not "hers." It's a new person. And if you don't want to admit it today, then give it nine months, and you'll surely change your mind. It's at least a potential independent, unique creation that rightfully belongs not to the woman at all, but to God.
And all this objective truth deception is about controlling people's behaviour, not morality.
There is no objective morality, you say...and then you say it's "not moral" to "control people's behaviour"? The great secular despots of the 20th Century and today certainly know how to apply your axiom more consistently than you're applying it. They cut to the chase, and simply say, "I can do anything I want to anybody I want." And from an Atheist perspective, they're correct, and you're the one who's trying to have your cake and eat it too.
If subjectivism is true, tyranny is not wrong. Nor is murder, whether of babies or adults. Nor is racism, inequality, torture... Nor is anything.
Your point is that I have no right to appeal to objective truth
My point is that there is no objective moral truth to appeal to. I may think you are misguided, but I have no interest in talking you out of your opinion, and I certainly would not deny you the right to look to wherever you like for moral guidance.
Yet you don't believe in "moral guidance," because there is no objective reality to moral anything. You're like a guy who has a compass with no directional north, south, east or west on it...it gives you no information about anything, but might give you an artificial feeling of direction, even when that direction is dead wrong.
Your determination to demolish any and all alternative views to yours does make me wonder, though, just how secure you feel with your "objective" morality.
Quite secure, actually. But then, I never put the 'compass' down in the first place. I just check the needle, and I can find out where I am, for good or ill, in any situation.
Relativism isn't that hard to demolish. It's not much of a threat to moral objectivism. It's more like the protests of the wandering than the clarion pronouncements of those who are onto a truth. (How could it be? They don't believe it's objective.) But I'm not out to get relativists; I'm out to see if I can put the good compass back in the hands of a few people who've maybe dropped it. That's our society today...people with a readingless compass in their hands, trying to tell themselves they're "good," when they actually have no idea where they are.
I'm sorry...I don't get that. Can you explain?
