Science and Faith

[Bet51987]

I believe that a realistically-grounded system of morals must ultimately be based on divinity.

Hi Paul, I was going to make a comment on that statement above but Jeff250 explained it better.
By the way.....welcome to the DBB. And I also wanted to say your post had a lot of warmth and I like that a lot.

Bettina

[Paul]

I don't know if I like where this is going in general though anyways. If you're suggesting that we ought to believe in a higher power so that we can have a basis for morality, this argument just seems like an appeal to consequences. That is, suppose that there was conflicting evidence concerning whether or not a meteor was hurtling toward earth. It wouldn't be right to conclude that a meteor isn't heading toward earth because then all of humanity would be wiped out. I know that all you've said is that objective morality must be based on a higher power, but it sounds like its awfully close to saying that we ought to believe in God because then we would have an objective basis for morality. This last sort of statement I don't believe would be correct to argue.

I think you've understood me pretty well. For there to be absolutes, they must be built upon something... you can't derive "morality" from laws of nature and logic.

However, I don't think you ought to believe in God just to base your morality on something. If you don't believe in some form of God, I think you just ought to consider whether there actually can be morality.

Without anything supernatural, we're ultimately a collection of sub-microscopic particles, so where does morality come from?

[Paul]

I believe that a realistically-grounded system of morals must ultimately be based on divinity.

Hi Paul, I was going to make a comment on that statement above but Jeff250 explained it better.
By the way.....welcome to the DBB. And I also wanted to say your post had a lot of warmth and I like that a lot.

Bettina

Thanks

I think the best way to argue is just to politely present what you believe and explain why... attempting an intellectual browbeating or belittling what other people believe just makes people resent you.

[Diedel]

Your right about hatred. I hate child molesters and would throw the switch myself if given the chance. And, your remark "HOW THE F* COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN WITH YOUR F*N DESIGN OF THIS WORLD WHERE YOU ALREADY KNEW WHERE THIS ALL WOULD BE HEADING!" is pretty much why I reject him entirely. He is a false god. I could go on, but I've already gone thru this.

Thanks for trying anyway...

Bettina

You are only telling me that you have neither understood the concept nor the necessity nor the responsibility of freedom, nor do you appreciate it exists, because without it you wouldn't even be able to ask the questions you do.

You also don't seem to be capable to look beyond the intellectual tip of your nose, or you would see from my post that God has an answer to your questions as well as a solution for suffering that goes way beyond your very limited understanding of this world.

What I conclude from your replies so far is that actually you are not interested in following lines of thoughts that could lead to undermine your attitude. You are only reading what you like to hear from my posts, completely ignoring the rest and the conclusions that follow from it. Not only from my posts, btw.

If you want to define yourself via opposition, so be it. It's another act of free human will.

Go accuse God some more, I am sure it will make you happy and give you the feelings of warmth you like so much. I am not gonna play your game any more.

[Bet51987]

Your right about hatred. I hate child molesters and would throw the switch myself if given the chance. And, your remark "HOW THE F* COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN WITH YOUR F*N DESIGN OF THIS WORLD WHERE YOU ALREADY KNEW WHERE THIS ALL WOULD BE HEADING!" is pretty much why I reject him entirely. He is a false god. I could go on, but I've already gone thru this.

Thanks for trying anyway...

Bettina

You are only telling me that you have neither understood the concept nor the necessity nor the responsibility of freedom, nor do you appreciate it exists, because without it you wouldn't even be able to ask the questions you do.

You also don't seem to be capable to look beyond the intellectual tip of your nose, or you would see from my post that God has an answer to your questions as well as a solution for suffering that goes way beyond your very limited understanding of this world.

What I conclude from your replies so far is that actually you are not interested in following lines of thoughts that could lead to undermine your attitude. You are only reading what you like to hear from my posts, completely ignoring the rest and the conclusions that follow from it. Not only from my posts, btw.

If you want to define yourself via opposition, so be it. It's another act of free human will.

Go accuse God some more, I am sure it will make you happy and give you the feelings of warmth you like so much. I am not gonna play your game any more.

Diedel....As an A- honor student my intellect goes a little beyond my nose. However, I agree with you that I get an "F" for religion. I always get an "F" because I'm false. I've got my religious intructor believing that I stand next to god so I've become a good actress as far as religion goes.

My emotions rule me all the time and many times I say things that don't come across very well when conversing with theists.

You have always been nice to me in your posts so I just want to say I'm sorry for those comments I made to you. I just can't believe in a god that inflicts pain on others. If you would like to talk about the wonders of the universe instead...I'll be here on this dbb.

Again....I'm sorry.

Bettina

[Kilarin]

I don't think you ought to believe in God just to base your morality on something.

Although I think C. S. Lewis makes a very interesting argument in "Mere Christianity".

If there is no absolute authority behind ethics, then, as you pointed out, there can BE no ethics at all. And if the universe knows nothing of ethics, then why do we find that thought so abhorrent? The idea that murderers, terrorist, rapists and child mosesters aren't actually WRONG is unthinkable. The idea that they are just folks with a different opinion is unimaginable. But if there is no "authority" behind ethics, then thats the way the universe IS, and why would we be so far out of sync with what IS? Unless their really ARE absolutes, in which case our desire for ethics and morality is perfectly reasonable.

Like I said, I think it's an INTERESTING argument. Not necessarily a sufficent one.

[Duper]

inversly, if the universe was indeed formed by the \"big bang\" and life came to be through \"goo\" and a chemical \"oops\", then morals are human vanity. There are no absolutes, then as us being here is nuthing but a numbers game. right and wrong are irrelevant.
Of course, creation evolutionists would believe to hold premiss counter to this, but I don't stand in that circle.

[Diedel]

Bettina,

I couldn't care less of your grade as a student. I can see well enough how far your intellect's reach goes in the discussions going on here, and that's as far as I said already.

You hate God because you personally chose to do so, and I find your arguments short sighted, self centered and ignorant. It's the hatred in you that has looked for and found a target, not the target that has made you hate.

You are deliberately ignoring everything that leads your beliefs and attitude ad absurdum, because you simply don't want to hear it and be proven wrong.

You avoid every argument, be it as clear as it could be, that would require you to question or at least honestly discuss your views.

Your last remark is a blatant example of this: It is not God who inflicts pain on others, it's human beings.

I consider it however a waste of my time to discuss with somebody who only constantly wants her own views confirmed and plainly ignores every valid counter argument, and have come to the conclusion that further discussion with you about faith and God will lead nowhere.

Diedel out

[Jeff250]

When you guys say that you believe in absolute morals, what exactly are you saying? That you think there are objective and uncompromisable morals out there, i.e. killing is always wrong, lying is always wrong, etc.?

[Jeff250]

Your last remark is a blatant example of this: It is not God who inflicts pain on others, it's human beings.

I think that Bettina was referring to "natural evils," a problem not so easily addressed as saying that they are our fault.

[Diedel]

When you guys say that you believe in absolute morals, what exactly are you saying? That you think there are objective and uncompromisable morals out there, i.e. killing is always wrong, lying is always wrong, etc.?

I think yes, but put "murder" in the place of "killing". If you still start to argue "how can God kill then?" next, let me tell you that God holds the right to judge as well as to execute his judgements, and he does so rightfully. The reason non-Christians cannot acknowledge that is that they do not understand how horrible a crime "sin" (let me use this terminus to describe every action that is in some way or the other directed against God) is.

[Bet51987]

Bettina,

I couldn't care less of your grade as a student. I can see well enough how far your intellect's reach goes in the discussions going on here, and that's as far as I said already.

You hate God because you personally chose to do so, and I find your arguments short sighted, self centered and ignorant. It's the hatred in you that has looked for and found a target, not the target that has made you hate.

You are deliberately ignoring everything that leads your beliefs and attitude ad absurdum, because you simply don't want to hear it and be proven wrong.

You avoid every argument, be it as clear as it could be, that would require you to question or at least honestly discuss your views.

Your last remark is a blatant example of this: It is not God who inflicts pain on others, it's human beings.

I consider it however a waste of my time to discuss with somebody who only constantly wants her own views confirmed and plainly ignores every valid counter argument, and have come to the conclusion that further discussion with you about faith and God will lead nowhere.

Diedel out

The "bible god" gave man free will already knowing what evil would be done to the little kids, so to me, he is to blame....and how can you prove me wrong....by showing me lines in a book?

There is nothing I can do about the "Diedel out" remark. That one hurt. I didn't think you took my disgust for god so personal. Your still ok with me.

Bettina

[Kilarin]

When you guys say that you believe in absolute morals, what exactly are you saying?

I do NOT mean that any persons view of right and wrong is absolutely correct, or that it is easy to define right and wrong in every circumstance. Exactly where the line is between justified killing and murder is NOT clear and sharp, there are areas with a lot of room for discussion.

For example, MOST people (not all) would say that it is clearly justified to kill in order to stop someone from hurting someone innocent. But is it justified to kill to protect property? I land on the yes side, a lot of reasonable folks would land on the no side, and we could certainly have a long and interesting debate on the topic.

BUT, and here is the important point, we can ONLY have a debate or discussion about the issue IF we agree that there really IS such a thing as right and wrong. IF there is an absolute judge of ethics that is outside of ourselves that we are attempting to measure up to. And THAT is what we mean (or at least what *I* mean) by saying there is such a thing as absolute truth, and an absolute standard of ethics.

Lets look at three examples of discussions you might have.

1: 3 people arguing about whether square root of 2 can be represted as a fraction.
2: 3 people arguing about who shot JFK.
3: 3 people arguing about what their favorite food is.

Now some people think that discussing ethics is like discussing the square root of 2. With a bit of clever reasoning we can prove the issue a shadow of a doubt to be one way or another. I find this view impossible. Our own sense of ethics, while still strong, is too corrupted and limited to make easy judgment on every case.

Other people think that discussing ethics is like discussing who shot JFK. We may not all agree, but it's NOT just a matter of opinion, the event was real and the people involved in the study are attempting to discover the TRUTH. We may not have answers to every question, but some things can be proven true, other things can be proven false. The reason you can have a debate is because the event was REAL, whether we fully understand all the details or not. This is where I believe discussions on the issues of ethics are. Some answers are obvious, some are not, but the TRUTH is absolute and real, whether we understand it all or not.

If you don't believe that there is any such thing as absolute truth, or an absolute arbiter of ethics, then you would have to believe that discussing ethics is like having an argument over what your favorite food is. You like pizza, she prefers enchiladas, and debating the issue is pointless. It all becomes a matter of opinion.

[Diedel]

The "bible god" gave man free will already knowing what evil would be done to the little kids, so to me, he is to blame....and how can you prove me wrong....by showing me lines in a book?

There is nothing I can do about the "Diedel out" remark. That one hurt. I didn't think you took my disgust for god so personal. Your still ok with me.

Bettina

Bet,

What somewhat overstretches my patience, Bet, is what I already said: From all the apologetic posts here you only pick what seems to fit in your line of argumentation, and I will not play that game with you. So I was determined to discontinue such a fruitless discussion with you.

I am replying because you still insist on a wrong concept, and that is something that can be argued about: You simply haven't understood that the abuse of freedom isn't God's fault. Allowing abuse by design doesn't mean abuse is desired. Actually, it is an appeal to taking up your responsibility and live according to proper standards.

It looks like you absolutely do not understand that the one who acts is responsible for the action, not the one who designed the system so that the action was possible.

You could as well blame the tool makers for those murders committed with a hammer (was a hammer ever meant to be a weapon by them? No way.) So while a hammer's design allows to use it as lethal weapon, murder is within the responsibility of the one using it as such, not within the manufacturer's.

The same goes for this world. That abuse is possible is a necessary part of it (as it permits actions driven by free will), doesn't mean God ever wanted it.

Btw, you seem to have completely ignored Shoku's post about God's character, or you haven't understood it.

You also seem to completely fail to understand that your possession of a free will is a vital part of your being. You do not seem to appreciate it as a great gift from God for you, but actually it is only your free will that makes you truly noteworthy in God's eyes. It's an essential part of 'being created in God's image'. 'Love' and 'hate' only make sense in the context of free will.

It is so very cheap to blame someone else for everything that is going on, including one's own life.

All this world proves is that man constantly fails - and that's part of its purpose, as Shoku has pointed out. This does not mean that God designed the world as a bad place, that would more or less enforce crime. The world is a bad place because man refuses to live with God and let Him deeply inspire him through personal relationship every moment of his life. Or hers, in your case.

You somehow seem to expect that God shelters everybody (particularly you), regardless of where that person stands, and he doesn't. He respects the authority He has given to man even if it is abused. I told you before however that he will hold those responsable that do abuse it, and comfort and heal those that are abused - especially children.

Oh, and btw, stop yelling at God because of all the cruelty towards helpless children, when your actually angry because of what has happened to yourself.

[Bet51987]

Oh, and btw, stop yelling at God because of all the cruelty towards helpless children, when your actually angry because of what has happened to yourself.

Geez, with all the past posts I've written about how I felt when I saw old people in church, or read about a little boy or girl that was hurt, this would have been the last thing I thought I would ever hear anyone say to me.

I'm an empath and I see a physco once a week because of it. You should look that up and get an idea what people like that go through when they read about what happens when little kids get stolen. Have you ever wondered why some teens blow there brains out? Because they couldn't cope with the very things I see in life. When I was little, I only "wished" I was dead, but I was lucky that I had a father that told me he loved me a dozen times a day, a priest who has been a loyal friend, and good friends that know me. So before you say something like that to someone else, know them first.

And btw...I read Shoku's post and responded to him in a Private message.

I see now that we don't really know each other very well so I think we should stop commenting to each other...

Bettina

[Drakona]

Revelation can be seen as the record or the transmission of the result of any of the other three methods to gain knowledge. While it probably is the most easy way to gain useful knowledge, I discard it as uninteresting.

No, you're selling it short, as I defined it. Revelation is learning from an authoritative source or being taught by an authority. Where it's simply re-transmission of other methods of learning (e.g., in a physics paper--you should be able to reproduce the results from first principles), it isn't that interesting.

Where it's interesting is where an authoritative source is your only, or your best source. Eyewitness stories count here. So do human beings. So does God, if others have met him. Revelation as a method of learning new information is as reliable as your source together with your interpretation, and I submit that this can be very secure indeed--even rivalling the other methods in certainty.

Intuition is something inherently human -- it is personal and subjective, and as such it is worthless by itself.

I disagree with this. As a mathematician, I have learned to trust my mathematical intuitions that "that fact shouldn't be true." Not that I believe it based on that, mind you--but I believe it well enough to try proving it false, first. So I clearly have enough faith in that intuition to burn a few minutes.

One of my professors had so much faith in his mathematical intuition that he took a whole weekend trying to prove something true before trying to prove it false.

Whole communities also develop common intuitions. Descent players who have played Birdseye can watch a demo with his name on it and agree-"That isn't Birdseye, he isn't flying quite right"--and have a hard time articulating how they know and yet be under a very forceful impression.

I'd maybe define intuition as subconsiously recognized patterns. It can be quite forceful, and even virtually certain. Sometimes when watching a movie, you know what's going to happen next, and you're right.

logic isn't as universal as you think because it doesn't work without determinism; you need determinism as a prerequisite before logic can yield any useful result as a method to gain knowledge.

Wait a minute. Logic isn't universal, but I said it wasn't universal because secure axioms are hard to come by. Where are you getting determinism from?

Of course you can do logic regaurding non-deterministic systems. Shoot, that's what the whole field of probability is about. Mathematicians reason about stochiastic systems all the time...

And even if you can't find secure axioms, you can often find axioms that are secure enough for the problem you're trying to solve. Computers are like that. They aren't really deterministic--voltage spikes, radiation interferes, data corrupts...--but they're pretty darn close for certain applications. Close enough that you can do quite a lot of logic.

I find that solving little local problems is really all you can do, anyway. The world is too big, and my mind too small and childish, for me to ever solve anything but small, locally constrained problems. My assumptions are always in danger of being overwhelmed, so if I can't live rationally like that, I can't know anything at all. The hunger for absolute certainty that some exhibit is--on my view--intellectually unhealthy.

Maybe we're losing something in translation... but needing to assume philosophical determinism before being willing to apply logic sounds to me like an unhealthy level of skeptecism (as I defined it).

[Lothar]

Jeff,

The way I would argue it is simple: most of us would agree that we can say definitively \"the Nazis were wrong to do what they did.\" And we think we can say to other people \"it was wrong for you to do that thing in that situation; you shouldn't have hit that guy.\" That is, most of us believe there is some standard by which we can say someone has acted right or wrong -- and while we may not know what exactly the standard is all the time, the fact that we even discuss ethics demonstrates that we think there is one. (There are some who would disagree here and say \"ethics\" is a meaningless question, and that everyone should just do what they feel like. To me, this implies that Hitler's behavior was OK -- a conclusion I can't accept.)

This is different from something like the laws of physics, because the laws of physics describe the way the universe IS -- there's no breaking away from them. They say F=ma, and (if that's the correct statement of the law) F will always equal ma. We don't sometimes have F=2*m/a^3... the law describes the way the universe actually behaves, how it actually IS, without deviations. But when we're talking about ethics or morals, we're talking about what SHOULD BE, and how what IS deviates from it. So it's clearly not the same type of thing as the laws of physics.

The question is, where does that law come from? If it comes from culture, then we have no basis by which to say another culture (such as Nazi Germany, 300 BC Romans, etc.) acted wrongly OR rightly, as a whole. We can perhaps judge individuals from the perspective of their culture, but we can't say anything about the prevailing attitudes of the culture, nor can we say which culture is \"in the right\" when they come into conflict. (If ethics/morals come from culture, then Osama is right to send terrorists after America and we're right to kill anyone we have to in order to take him out. I can't accept that conclusion either.)

IMO, ethics has to have some transcendent source -- at the very least, a source that's bigger than culture. I don't see any room for it to come from life itself -- if life is just an arrangement of DNA and chemicals, it couldn't be \"unethical\" to kill; all you're doing is stopping some electrical or chemical processes using the laws of physics. And I don't see it coming from the universe -- again, the laws of physics don't care. They describe what IS, not what SHOULD BE. IMO, ethics and morals have to come from some source that's big enough to be authoritative AND has reason to care, so to speak.

Does that mean they have to come from the Christian conception of God? No, of course not; there are lots of other conceptions that would work. (They can, of course, be compared in other realms. I've found the Christian God to fit other evidence best, but YMMV.)

[Paul]

I think the thing about God creating free will and therefore being ultimately to blame for everything is a good point. I do believe in free will, and I believe that if someone hurts someone else it is not God's fault, but the fault of the person who injured the other. However, I certainly believe God knew that the person would get hurt and has the power to stop the hurt.

Why then does evil exist? Evidently, God must for some reason value the ability of humans to act freely, without divine restriction. I can't say why, because I don't know. There is a verse, Jeremiah 9:24, that says \"I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.\" I believe this to be true, that God is kind, just, and righteous. For me, then, I can't explain why there is evil, I just have faith that God is good and knows what he is doing better than I do.

[Duper]

..... However, I certainly believe God knew that the person would get hurt and has the power to stop the hurt....

this of course would infringe on free will. However, I have lost count of the number of "near misses" I've had in my life time, not to mention the ones I've seen in my duaghter's. This doesn't even take into account of the near misses I'm NOT aware of.

[Jeff250]

Well now I'm curious. For those of you that accept the Bible and an old earth and to some extent evolution, how would you explain the existence of natural evil before man was created? It seems to me that if man was responsible for natural evil, it wouldn't have existed before he arrived on the scene. However, the very evolution of man itself requires death, and when we study the earth we can discover all sorts of natural disasters. How can this be reconciled?

BUT, and here is the important point, we can ONLY have a debate or discussion about the issue IF we agree that there really IS such a thing as right and wrong. IF there is an absolute judge of ethics that is outside of ourselves that we are attempting to measure up to. And THAT is what we mean (or at least what *I* mean) by saying there is such a thing as absolute truth, and an absolute standard of ethics.

The way I would argue it is simple: most of us would agree that we can say definitively "the Nazis were wrong to do what they did." And we think we can say to other people "it was wrong for you to do that thing in that situation; you shouldn't have hit that guy." That is, most of us believe there is some standard by which we can say someone has acted right or wrong -- and while we may not know what exactly the standard is all the time, the fact that we even discuss ethics demonstrates that we think there is one.

Throughout the ages, there have been a lot of suggested measuring rods for ethics that do not involve God. Some might suggest that we ought to perform actions that produce the best net happiness. Others would say that we ought to follow the "categorical imperative." How would choosing one of these standards be different than choosing the standard in the Bible? And I don't mean that question in the sense that you may think that the Bible might be slightly better or worse at the job. I mean in principle, how would it be different? Is it because God would provide an "ultimate judgment"?

Still, why is it necessary to even have an external standard to begin with? I mean, if you can't take an action and explain why it would be wrong according to the consequences themselves, then it probably shouldn't be considered wrong anyways.

I think that using an external standard such as God that doesn't directly correspond with the consequences of one's actions is an unnecessary abstraction. (I'm not saying that the Bible doesn't often explain why some things are wrong with regard to the consequences, but ultimately using God as the ultimate standard comes down to "because God said so.") But consider this: If God said that murder was right, would that be ethical? I would hope not. That's because somehow we can judge that it would be wrong to murder according to its consequences in themselves without God. Of course, now if we assume that God wouldn't say something like that and that to God, what is right is always what is ultimately best for us, well then we're just in exactly the same situation we were before God: trying to figure out what is best for us.

Granted, if the Bible is true, then it might help us in figuring out what really is best for us and not. But in a sense, it really doesn't get the job done. Earlier, I asked if absolute morality were something like "killing is always wrong," to which Diedel responded to the effect of "not quite--murder is always wrong." I think this once again leaves us in exactly the same position we were in before the Bible. Well, what exactly is murder? Killing that is wrong? So what makes something right or wrong? It seems that at some point or another, it just becomes the same old question again and it's up to human contrivance. Then again, this part may be a moot point. I know that to many people it's necessary to have an absolute moral standard, but I recall anyone saying that it had to be in any way revealed to us?

[Diedel]

Jeff,

what is \"natural evil\"? Nature isn't evil. Being evil has something to do with your motivation and purposefully executed actions.

Btw, as I said before: If there is an omnipotent God, he may easily have created the universe(s) and our earth in an instant and have it look like everything was ages old (\"built-in\" age so to speak).

Actually as a Christian that is the explanation I prefer, and if it is true, there is absolutely nothing evolutionists can do about or say against it, because it will allow for their interpretation of our current world although it is wrong.

Now you cannot neither prove God, nor prove he isn't.

So?

[Paul]

Still, why is it necessary to even have an external standard to begin with? I mean, if you can't take an action and explain why it would be wrong according to the consequences themselves, then it probably shouldn't be considered wrong anyways.

What determines whether the consequences are good or bad? Suppose you kill a street bum with no friends or relatives. He was an economic drain on society, an eyesore to everyone who saw him, and he decreased their happiness by making them feel guilty. Based on the consequences, maybe killing this guy was a good thing!

I think that using an external standard such as God that doesn't directly correspond with the consequences of one's actions is an unnecessary abstraction. (I'm not saying that the Bible doesn't often explain why some things are wrong with regard to the consequences, but ultimately using God as the ultimate standard comes down to "because God said so."). But consider this: If God said that murder was right, would that be ethical? I would hope not. That's because somehow we can judge that it would be wrong to murder according to its consequences in themselves without God.

Why do you think it is wrong to murder? What are these "consequences" you keep mentioning, and how are they to be judged? Someone somewhere has to determine whether the consequences are "good" or "bad," and if that person is a human, another human could just as well determine the other way. You need someone external to the system to establish an absolute framework.

[Duper]

...murder is always wrong." I think this once again leaves us in exactly the same position we were in before the Bible. Well, what exactly is murder? Killing that is wrong? So what makes something right or wrong? It seems that at some point or another, it just becomes the same old question again and it's up to human contrivance. Then again, this part may be a moot point. I know that to many people it's necessary to have an absolute moral standard, but I recall anyone saying that it had to be in any way revealed to us?

Jeff, I recommend that you read the entirety of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Murder is explained quite thoroughly. ..It's a long read I know, but God gives some very complete parameters to judge by.

No. I'm not picking on you, that just jumped out at me.

Diedle, I wasn't able to find where you got Jeff's quote so forgive me if this a a bit outta context. Nature is technically evil, just as man is due to the fall. Our inhereant nature is evil, but not our intended nature. Although, I'm not sure where/what "natural evil" comes into anything or means. (at work, no time )

[Lothar]

Throughout the ages, there have been a lot of suggested measuring rods for ethics that do not involve God.

A standard that says how people "should" behave comes from something that is valued (morals come from values, not from thin air), and nature doesn't value anything but following the laws of physics. A standard that says "maximize happiness" comes from a shared cultural valuing of happiness, and there's no way to extend that beyond your culture to one that doesn't share that same value. You can't say "the Nazis were wrong" unless you have a transcendent basis for saying happiness should be valued the most. A standard that says to follow the Categorical Imperative ("act such that if everyone acted like you, the world would rock") comes from individual values of fairness, but you have no authority on which to extend that to someone who doesn't share that value -- if somebody else acts according to the principle "game the system and abuse the fact that everyone else acts according to the CI" you have no recourse.

But I think all of us would say, Nazi Germany really WAS wrong -- the things they chose to value really were wrong, and the standard they chose to follow because of it really was wrong. And it really IS wrong for someone to game the system and abuse people because he's figured out how to use their own ethical limits against them. This implies there has to be some transcendent authority that can define what SHOULD be valued. Again, not necessarily anything resembling the Christian conception of God, but it does have to be something transcendent.

You agree to the existance of some transcendent system when you say "somehow we can judge that it would be wrong to murder according to its consequences in themselves without God." What I'm saying is, the "somehow" has to ultimately come from some transcendent source that has values -- it can't simply come from "nature" because nature follows the laws of physics (what "is") and doesn't give a damn about morality (what "should be"). The only possible source is some sort of God.

Notice that I haven't said "the only way to learn about that ultimate value system that leads to ethical/moral behavior is to read a religious text". I'm only saying, in principle, in order for such a value system to exist, there has to be some sort of God in existance as well. How you find out about that value system is a whole other question.

if you can't take an action and explain why it would be wrong according to the consequences themselves.....

How do you determine which consequences are good or bad, right or wrong? Again, this comes back to what you value. Many of us would disagree with each other about whether specific actions were right or wrong, even given all the same facts about the situation, simply because we value things differently from each other.

A transcendent source is necessary if we want to say "you SHOULD value X this much and Y that much." A transcendent source is necessary if we want to say "this consequence outweighs this other one." If we don't have such a source, then we can only judge our OWN behavior according to our OWN values (or, behavior within a culture according to the culture's values.) There's no way to go outside of that and say "you there, from another culture, your behavior is still wrong" without a way to say what someone from a different culture should value.

ultimately using God as the ultimate standard comes down to "because God said so."

Exactly right. Using God as the ultimate standard says "God's choice of what to value is the correct choice for all people".

If God said that murder was right, would that be ethical?

That God would have to have an ethical system based on values, in which "murder is right" fits. It's not simply a matter of saying "murder is right", but of saying "life is valued below [other things] such that murder ends up being the right thing to do whenever [other things] come in to play".

Now, I think that fictional God's value system is messed up, because it doesn't match the value system my God has given. I don't see any reason why, in principle, there couldn't exist a universe with a God that didn't strongly value life... but it's not this universe.

Earlier, I asked if absolute morality were something like "killing is always wrong," to which Diedel responded to the effect of "not quite--murder is always wrong."

I would strongly disagree with Diedel here. There is no absolute morality -- it's not that killing is ALWAYS wrong regardless of circumstance, or even that murder is ALWAYS wrong regardless of circumstance. Rather, there is a value system in which killing and murder both damage one of the things that is valued, and killing and murder only become acceptable if, in the specific circumstance, they protect or enhance other things that are valued more than they damage the value of "life".

Now, I personally think the Bible describes the real God who really exists (for a multitude of reasons), and therefore is a really good source for learning about what God values. I think every command it gives, from "do not murder" to "don't harvest your field all the way to the edge" to "love your enemy", is meant to teach people about who God is and what He values. Some of the commands are direct statements of values ("love [entity]") while some are statements of general consequences of values ("do not lie" comes from valuing truth, but when truth is not the most important value, lying becomes justified or even righteous.)

-----

In summary:
- Morals and ethics all come from VALUES (and when we judge things according to consequences, we're analyzing the effect of those consequences on the things valued.)
- In order to be able to say "other cultures were wrong in their choice of values", we need a TRANSCENDENT SOURCE of values
- That transcendent source must have the capacity to actually, you know, value things. It must also have the authority to declare a value system. That makes it a GOD of some sort.
- I personally find the Bible to be a good source of information about the aforementioned God and His values, but my reasons for doing so belong in an entirely different discussion.

[Gooberman]

You need someone external to the system to establish an absolute framework.

A few years ago there was a woman in texas, who killed all of her children. She claimed that God told her to do so. Lets assume that God did tell her to kill her children. Would she be right in doing so?

The problems you listed of one man establishing what is right and wrong can easily be extended to any observer who is external to the system.

[dissent]

Well, so why is dying bad? If you think that the life we normally perceive is all that there is, then I could see where you might think so. But how do you know? Perhaps what we are experiencing now is just some sort of physical (from our POV) gestation period for our \"true\" metaphysical being.

I'm not saying I believe this. I'm just commenting on the unspoken assumptions in a number of posts as to what is considered evil or not.

[Lothar]

Goob, your questions are addressed in my previous post.

[Gooberman]

It wasn't there when I posted, they were posted at nearly the same time.

[Lothar]

I know. That's why I pointed it out. Didn't want you to miss what I said and not think anyone had addressed your questions.

[Kilarin]

Some repitition here since I started on this this morning, then got interrupted, So, Lothar has already addressed many of these points, and better, but here is my take anyway.

Some might suggest that we ought to perform actions that produce the best net happiness. Others would say that we ought to follow the "categorical imperative."

Why the "ought"? The only reason we "ought" to increase net happiness is that it would be GOOD to increase net happines. In other words, the ought assumes an external standard.

Still, why is it necessary to even have an external standard to begin with? I mean, if you can't take an action and explain why it would be wrong according to the consequences themselves, then it probably shouldn't be considered wrong anyways.

You can explain why something would be inconvieniant according to the consequences, but how can you explain that it would be WRONG? I elaborated my position on absolutes in this post

If God said that murder was right, would that be ethical?

God's "Goodness" is not arbitrary. See Aquinas: "Summa Theologica".

if there is an omnipotent God, he may easily have created the universe(s) and our earth in an instant and have it look like everything was ages old ("built-in" age so to speak).

True, but a very UNATRACTIVE answer. The only possible reason I can come up with for planting a fake fossile record is to decieve us. And creating light from stars that never existed just seems... untidy. I really do NOT like this option, and I think it is unecessary to call upon it.

Nature isn't evil. Being evil has something to do with your motivation and purposefully executed actions.

I'll have to disagree with you there. If God's intention was to create a universe that was red in tooth and claw; where creatures lives were nasty, brutal and short; where parasites eat their victims alive and the beautiful tiger can only survive by ripping the life out of a baby gazelle... Well, if that was the way it was MEANT to be I have some SERIOUS questions for God.

But I don't believe that was the way things were meant to be. Which brings us to:

Well now I'm curious. For those of you that accept the Bible and an old earth and to some extent evolution, how would you explain the existence of natural evil before man was created?

This IS one of the difficulties of abandoning a young earth theory. But it CAN be easily reconciled. The Bible teaches us that Satan fell before (presumably long before) the garden of eden incident. The assumption would have to be that somehow, Satan ended up having influence on this universe from long before man arrived, probably from the big bang. We weren't given the details on this event because, as C. S. Lewis says, "That's someone ELSES story". The Eden story then takes on a very different perspective. The first true Man and Woman were were placed in a perfect, isolated, protected garden and given a chance to regain rulership of this universe. They chose to stay under the rulership of Satan. A very unfortunant choice.

Which is, even from a Christian perspective, a LOT of speculation and very few facts. But from a Christian perspective, it's not actually considered to be an important question. We have been told the following:
1: God created everything that is.
2: Satan is in control of this universe, and thats the reason it is in such bad shape.
3: Mankind's choice is in some manner responsible for Satan being in charge.
4: Christ came to reconcile God and Man. To suffer the results of sin so that we wouldn't have to. To do the one thing Divinity had never done, surrender, so that He can teach US to surrender.

Anything else is just gravy.

[Duper]

I would strongly disagree with Diedel here. There is no absolute morality -- it's not that killing is ALWAYS wrong regardless of circumstance, or even that murder is ALWAYS wrong regardless of circumstance.

um.. what happened to "You shall not murder."?? o_0

[Warhammer]

Which is, even from a Christian perspective, a LOT of speculation and very few facts. But from a Christian perspective, it's not actually considered to be an important question. We have been told the following:
1: God created everything that is.
2: Satan is in control of this universe, and thats the reason it is in such bad shape.
3: Mankind's choice is in some manner responsible for Satan being in charge.
4: Christ came to reconcile God and Man. To suffer the results of sin so that we wouldn't have to. To do the one thing Divinity had never done, surrender, so that He can teach US to surrender.

Anything else is just gravy.

Where is #2 coming from? I have never heard that anywhere. People giving into temptation, I've heard of. I am just curious.

Since we are on the subject, here are some of my random thoughts.

1) Science is an attempt by people to place a system on what we see in the universe around us. For example, why do objects always fall to the ground? Why is water wet? Etc.

2) God created the universe, but nothing rules out the Big Bang theory, and even that is just the best current theory through which man attempts to explain the creation of the universe.

3) God works in a system. That system is nature. We do not understand all of God's thought or rationale for the universe.

4) God created man with free will. Free will is important because otherwise, we are chained to his will, and are not independent creatures. We would be mere puppets. Not actual independent beings.

5) The Bible is the result of divine inspiration, but since it was written by man is subject to inconsistancies and can be interpreted in different ways. Also, because of translations, some passages have evolved through the years. What is important is the message, not the minutiae.

6) Faith in God does not equal religion. Religions are manmade creations that we have created in our attempt to worship God in the best way. Since they are run by man, it is possible for any religious hierarchy to become corrupt and wayward. That does not make the followers of that religion wrong (unless it goes against God, i.e. if your pastor told you to go on a killing spree, and you do it, it is on your soul.).

Just a few quick thoughts of mine at work.

[Jeff250]

what is "natural evil"? Nature isn't evil. Being evil has something to do with your motivation and purposefully executed actions.

What I mean to say is natural calamity, such as disease, flood, etc. It may be the wrong term, but it was a term I've heard used before.

What determines whether the consequences are good or bad? Suppose you kill a street bum with no friends or relatives. He was an economic drain on society, an eyesore to everyone who saw him, and he decreased their happiness by making them feel guilty. Based on the consequences, maybe killing this guy was a good thing!

OK, I agree that this is wrong, and I could go on to explain how the perpetrator hurts for doing the deed, how it is deleterious to society, or how life has inherent value, but how are you in any different of an obligation? Does God make ethical decisions arbitrarily, or are they not for our best interests? If you were in a society that did not believe in God, how would you explain why this is wrong?

Someone somewhere has to determine whether the consequences are "good" or "bad," and if that person is a human, another human could just as well determine the other way.

What if everything you said so far was true? There is a God, and he legislates right and wrong. But now I'm going to add something: suppose that there is no heaven or hell or any sort of divine reward or retribution. Everyone gets the same thing when they die. How is having an externally-founded framework significant now?

A standard that says "maximize happiness" comes from a shared cultural valuing of happiness, and there's no way to extend that beyond your culture to one that doesn't share that same value.

Well, different cultures may disagree about what happiness consists in, but can you really point out a person that would not be happy with happiness? I think that just the way the terms are defined makes it impossible.

if somebody else acts according to the principle "game the system and abuse the fact that everyone else acts according to the CI" you have no recourse.

Whereas otherwise, you could tell him that he is going to hell? Or what's the significance in having an external framework?

But I think all of us would say, Nazi Germany really WAS wrong

I agree. (I think that a godless argument could be made against Nazism, but first I'd like to know:) Why is it necessary that we have the ability to judge other cultures? Would the universe fold in on itself if we couldn't?

Now, I think that fictional God's value system is messed up, because it doesn't match the value system my God has given. I don't see any reason why, in principle, there couldn't exist a universe with a God that didn't strongly value life... but it's not this universe.

Well, I think that this demands the question whether something is right because God says that it is right or whether God says something because is just right. I really think that if a God said that murder was OK that that would still be unethical. The only reason why following God's commandments would work would be if we thought that they would be in our best interests to begin with. Otherwise, an external framework is worthless.

[Lothar]

Remember \"you shall not lie\"? It's in the very same list as \"you shall not murder\".

So why does God call Rahab righteous for lying to hide the spies? Not just \"forgiven\" or \"covered under grace\", but actually RIGHTEOUS for lying...

It's because the command \"do not lie\" is not the absolute, it's just an illustration that God values truth. But sometimes, something else (like, the lives of the spies) is more valuable. And \"do not kill\" or \"do not murder\" (frankly, both are poor translations; the same word is used when discussing unintentional killing and fleeing to cities of refuge) are not the absolutes, they just illustrate that God values life. Sometimes, other things are more valuable, though.

Like I said before... the commands aren't absolutes, they're illustrations. They teach you who God is and what He values.

[Paul]

What determines whether the consequences are good or bad? Suppose you kill a street bum with no friends or relatives. He was an economic drain on society, an eyesore to everyone who saw him, and he decreased their happiness by making them feel guilty. Based on the consequences, maybe killing this guy was a good thing!

OK, I agree that this is wrong, and I could go on to explain how the perpetrator hurts for doing the deed, how it is deleterious to society, or how life has inherent value, but how are you in any different of an obligation? Does God make ethical decisions arbitrarily, or are they not for our best interests? If you were in a society that did not believe in God, how would you explain why this is wrong?

If you don't mind, I would be interested to hear your explanation of how it is deleterious to society (and why that matters) and how life as inherent value.

Someone somewhere has to determine whether the consequences are "good" or "bad," and if that person is a human, another human could just as well determine the other way.

What if everything you said so far was true? There is a God, and he legislates right and wrong. But now I'm going to add something: suppose that there is no heaven or hell or any sort of divine reward or retribution. Everyone gets the same thing when they die. How is having an externally-founded framework significant now?

Supposing God created the universe, he would therefore have the power to define what was right and what was wrong. Now, if there are no consequences, doing what is right may not be most pleasurable to you, and you may not care about whether what you are doing is actually right or wrong (based on the absolute framework). On the other hand, if there is no afterlife, there is not really any point to this life either... sure, you might have some fun, but then you'll be dead and it won't have mattered. Meaningless. Pointless.

A standard that says "maximize happiness" comes from a shared cultural valuing of happiness, and there's no way to extend that beyond your culture to one that doesn't share that same value.

Well, different cultures may disagree about what happiness consists in, but can you really point out a person that would not be happy with happiness? I think that just the way the terms are defined makes it impossible.

What about sadists and masochists? But what's so good about happiness, anyway? It's just a chemical response to stimuli, realized as electrical impulses passing among cells that happen to form a brain.

if somebody else acts according to the principle "game the system and abuse the fact that everyone else acts according to the CI" you have no recourse.

Whereas otherwise, you could tell him that he is going to hell? Or what's the significance in having an external framework?

But I think all of us would say, Nazi Germany really WAS wrong

I agree. (I think that a godless argument could be made against Nazism, but first I'd like to know:) Why is it necessary that we have the ability to judge other cultures? Would the universe fold in on itself if we couldn't?

Actually, since I believe God created the univese and the absolute morality which allows judgments, I think the universe would never have existed.

Now, I think that fictional God's value system is messed up, because it doesn't match the value system my God has given. I don't see any reason why, in principle, there couldn't exist a universe with a God that didn't strongly value life... but it's not this universe.

Well, I think that this demands the question whether something is right because God says that it is right or whether God says something because is just right. I really think that if a God said that murder was OK that that would still be unethical. The only reason why following God's commandments would work would be if we thought that they would be in our best interests to begin with. Otherwise, an external framework is worthless.

Why is anything "just right" other than that God said it is? If there is no external framework, you can't say anything is "just right."

[Lothar]

can you really point out a person that would not be happy with happiness?

That's beside the point. The question is not what people would be happy with. It's what is ethical or good -- and I don't think it makes sense to just assume happiness must automatically be ethical or good. (Even so, there are people who would be unhappy with other peoples' happiness, and whole cultures that have considered other cultures' happiness as completely irrelevant. See WWII Germany, the Civil War South, and so on.)

if somebody else acts according to the principle "game the system and abuse the fact that everyone else acts according to the CI" you have no recourse.

Whereas otherwise, you could tell him that he is going to hell? Or what's the significance in having an external framework?

The point isn't that I could *convince him* or *force him* or anything of the sort. It's not that I could threaten him into compliance.

It's that I could honestly say "you are wrong" and not just "your moral system differs from mine". That's where the external framework is necessary. Without that, all I can do is give an opinion about how much I like or dislike his system. Without anything external, I can't actually truthfully say "your system is wrong". Without anything external, I have to admit he's perfectly justified in behaving according to his moral system. That's not acceptable to me, or to you.

Why is it necessary that we have the ability to judge other cultures? Would the universe fold in on itself if we couldn't?

I'm not saying it's necessary. I'm saying it's something both of us believe to be true.

I think that this demands the question whether something is right because God says that it is right or whether God says something because is just right.

By definition, something is right if it matches up with the right value system. The "right value system" can't come from nature -- because all nature does is follows the laws of physics. It doesn't care one bit about "right" or "wrong", only energy and entropy and such. It has to come from something that can care about values. If it doesn't come from God, it has to come from a mind bigger than God, which means we've mis-applied the title of God.

The only reason why following God's commandments would work would be if we thought that they would be in our best interests to begin with. Otherwise, an external framework is worthless.

I'm not arguing that the external framework is useful or in our best interests or significant or helpful. Only that we both already believe such a thing exists. Its relevance, usefulness, etc. is of no importance.

Let's go back to the common ground we both established: you can judge a thing to be right or wrong based on the consequences. Now, as I asked, what's your basis for judging? You didn't attempt to answer that, so I'll restate my answer: you judge actions based on whether the consequences are positive or negative with respect to those things which you value. Whether something is moral/ethical/right or not depends entirely on the value system from which it's being judged. It doesn't even make sense to talk about morals, ethics, or rightness without an underlying value system.

So, in order to even talk about the question, we need a value system. And if you think we can judge other cultures -- which you clearly *do* -- then we need a value system that's bigger than a single culture. But values only come from things with the ability to care -- from minds, consciousnesses, or whatever you want to call them. That means we need a mind that's bigger than any culture; at a minimum, we need a (possibly collective) mind as big as all cultures put together, and that mind needs to have authority to actually decide what things are valued. We only have two choices: the right values come from the whole collective mind of all people throughout history (which, IMO, is entirely false -- what gives "human culture" the right to determine what my value system should be?) or the right values come from a mind that rightly deserves the title "God".

-----

It should be noted, when you say "if a God commanded ______ it would be unethical", the argument really ends up as circular -- because God's values are otherwise, if God commanded that thing, He'd be going against His own values and therefore be doing something unethical. The problem here is that we're hypothesizing about the values of a generic hypothetical God, but we all exist within a framework where we've already got values either from an actual God or from all of humanity. So we're arguing about something hypothetical clashing with something actual, in which case we're inclined to discard the hypothetical.

[Duper]

When God says, do not murder or lie, that's absolute. There is no \"if\" or \"unless\" in that. It's sin. period.

It does not address our nature which makes it impossible to adhere to that 100% of the time. That's why he sent Christ. Whether or not we can obey does not affect whether or not the Lord wants it so.

don't start splitting hairs about what kinda lie is or is not ok. ..or what if? Scripture is pretty clear on it. Murder is described in the scriptures as \"lying in wait\". That means you're planning to kill someone. What we call man slaughter is in there too.

[Diedel]

I have read of a different explanation for the current shape of the earth as well as for fossils.

The way the Bible describes the great flood it is made clear that it does not describe a local event (like the area of the Euphrates being catastrophically flooded). It describes a global cataclysm. Now there's a geological thesis that the earth once contained enormous subterran water reservoirs as well as having had a cloud sphere completely shielding it from the sun. The great deluge was the result of both the ground above the reservoirs breaking in and the clouds starting to completely rain off. The way the bible describes it, the sun was a completely new and unknown experience to the few humans surviving the flood.

Many geological formations and fossils can be explained with that, even their layering - it just depended on the time the corpses need to sink to the ground. I have read that on satellite images you can still see enormous river systems e.g. on the North American continent, where tremendous amounts of water must have flown back from the rising continent.

Interestingly enough it has been shown a few years ago that oil doesn't necessarily need eons to be created from wood that has been sunk into the ground - a few millenia are enough.

This is not very detailled, just a brief overview over this thesis.

Many age estimations of the earth are based on radiological methods (measuring the amount of radioactive isotopes and the amount of the products of their decay). It would be sufficient to have way more of the decay products already initially existing than is assumed to render all current estimations worthless. Again, I don't know enough for a proof - this is just an attempt of an explanation of some \"built-in age\" (which actually wouldn't really be built-in, wouldn't be a deliberate deception if it would be like that).

Finally, afaik the Bible doesn't say \"the earth was formless and empty\" (NIV), it actually says \"the earth became desolate and deserted\". That's quite a difference. Put that together with the description of Satan's fall, where a third of the stars (angels) were wiped from the sky. You can also read from the Bible that Satan was the first keeper of the earth, and devastated it during his fall. There is also an interpretation that demons actually are spirits of beings killed during that event, because they seek to inhabit material life forms - something a fallen angelic spirit would never do, as it disdains our being \"made from soil\". Fossils could also stem from that \"first earth\".

Maybe some interpretations few Christians have heard about, and so much less non Christians.

Some of these interpretations come from Derek Prince, and that man's teaching anointing is beyond the shadow of a doubt.

But - actually we Christians look forward, not back, and God proves himself to those who believe. There is no proof for God, nor against him, and this entire debate about science and God is futile, imho.

[Lothar]

When God says, do not murder or lie, that's absolute.

So why does God call Rahab "righteous for what she did"? What she did was she lied in order to hide the Hebrew spies. And she isn't said to be forgiven for it, but RIGHTEOUS. That's pretty disturbing from the "not lying is a moral absolute" perspective.

God says "do not lie" pretty clearly. Elsewhere, He says "do not wear two kinds of fabric" with the exact same clarity. Neither one are moral absolutes; rather, both are meant to teach what God cares about.

[Bet51987]

I had to go back out of curiosity and think about where my morality and ethical codes came from .....and speaking of absolutes, nothing is absolute. Newton was wrong with absolute space and absolute time.

To me, morals and ethics are neccessary standards that were defined by tradition, culture, and yes I'm going to say it..the belief that a higher power was ultimately going to judge you for your actions. \"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you\" was, I think, the driving thought in religion. For others it was pretty much what the majority of the people deemed acceptable or unacceptable behavior. Different cultures have different ideas as to what is right or wrong, but in the end, the only guide is what is acceptable in your part of the world at that particular point in time. Its all relative. At one time, the christians used to burn witches and atheists because it was deemed morally right.....to them.

The history books are full of examples...In the old west, some towns began banning guns in response to social outcry. Nobody wanted to walk down the street and trip over dead bodies all day long so without morals, which are really rules, society as a whole
would fall apart as was seen with Nazi germany as well as the earlier civilizations. Ultimately its the people collectively who decide what is moral and what is not. The people rule... and over time those morals are passed down to children. I will admit that religious beliefs play a major role in what a society deems acceptable. Sadly, places like the middle east, have a much different set of rules
which govern how they behave.

I really believe that the majority of us are already born with an inherent set of rules before being taught right from wrong because the principle of morality is empathy. When I was little for example, I cried when my dad killed a spider. It was very traumatic for me to see that and I was sick for days but he never did it again. Nobody taught me my moral code. I already knew. So, since I was too young for
him to have taught me right and wrong, where did my set of morals...or yours... come from. I think your born that way. I have seen little kids hit other little kids and make them cry only to find it made them feel awful. As they grow up, they continue that trait and will learn from the example set for them by adults that are important in their life....my father is my example. Empathy is too big a topic to
talk about here.

So, you have some inherent morals when your born, influence by your environment, and the rest you learn from people around you. Does religion play a part? It depends on what you believe. Parts of the ten commandments, for example, is a good code by itself. Its also dependent on how your taught. When I'm here, I admit I'm not a good role model, but when I'm home, out, or in church, I very much am. I see little kids who look up to me and seniors who believe in me. Others tell me that I give them inspiration but what I'm really giving them is, in a sense, religion...and this is what the television evangelists do best. I do not believe in the bible god, but I believe in the power of a good decent parish with good people. I can also go further and tear out 90% of the pages of the bible and throw them out. I learned that from reading Einsteins works.....He thought in simple terms. The 10% I would have left would be a very good code to live by.

The last thing I will say is that good moral values have to be defended. I never forgot what StarTreks Dr. Leonard McCoy once said,\"It has been my experience that evil often wins unless good is very, very strong.\" ..... So, the bottom line for me is that you don't have to believe in god to be good. Its not just a religious choice. Its a human choice and anyone who trys to tell you its only a spiritual thing is fooling you.

Bettina