Morality Without God?

[PaulSacramento]

Paul you seriously baffle me (and trust me, I'm not easily baffled ).

First you come up with an absolute gem like this one:

Where on earth did you get that idea?
God forgives those that ask forgiveness AND repent of their sins.
Repentance doesn't just mean "feel sorry about what they did", it means accepting the consequences of their actions and making amends for them.
Think of it this way:
You did something horrific and you realize that and now ask God for forgivness and you repent, that repenteance means that the full FORCE and WEIGHT of what you have done becomes self-realized, you feel/understand/bare ALL the pain that you h ave caused and you are compelled to seek forgiveness from those wronged and to make amends in whatever way possible.
People speak of "just repent" and you'll be fine as if the act of repentance comes "free" and with no consequences.
When one truly seeks forgiveness and truly repents, God's Holy SPirit awakens them to ALL they have done.

Then you immediately follow it with this:

Actually, if we are to take the bible as literal and concrete (that is another story of course) then Yes, according to the telling of the great flood in Genesis, God did commit Genocide when He killed "all the inhabitants" of Earth.

Seriously, what is up with that man?

Note what I said:
IF we take the bible as LITERAL AND CONCRETE...
Fact is that there is no reason for us to take ALL of the bible that way since it was not written that way.
For us to take something in it's literal sense we must first KNOW what type of literature it is, yes?
One thing I have found is that bible literalist AND bible critics have in common is their reluctance to do just that.

Ah, I see what you're trying to say. Thanks for the clarification.

Glad I was able to clear that up.
As someone that for many years, viewed the bible with much issues and suspicion, I can understand where some people are coming from.

[Spock]

This thread is in sore need of some basic philosophical orientation about the extremely complex "multidimensional conceptual space" in which theories of moral realism reside. Here is a quote from the paper Moral Realism published in The Philosophical Review (Duke University Press) by Peter Railton Ph.D. who is the John Stephenson Perrin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I. Species of Moral Realism

Claims - and accusations - of moral realism typically extend along some or all of the following dimensions. Roughly put:

(1) Cognitivism - Are moral judgments capable of truth and falsity?
(2) Theories of truth - If moral judgments do have truth values, in what sense?
(3) Objectivity - In what ways, if any, does the existence of moral properties depend upon the actual or possible states of mind of intelligent beings?
(4) Reductionism - Are moral properties reducible to, or do they in some weaker sense supervene upon, nonmoral properties? (5) Naturalism-Are moral properties natural properties?
(6) Empiricism - Do we come to know moral facts in the same way we come to know the facts of empirical science, or are they revealed by reason or by some special mode of apprehension?
(7) Bivalence - Does the principle of the excluded middle apply to moral judgments?
(8) Determinateness - Given whatever procedures we have for assessing moral judgments, how much of morality is likely to be determinable?
(9) Categoricity - Do all rational agents necessarily have some reason to obey moral imperatives?
(10) Universality - Are moral imperatives applicable to all rationalagents, even (should such exist) those who lack a reason to comply with them?
(11) Assessment of existing moralities - Are present moral beliefs approximately true, or do prevailing moral intuitions in some other sense constitute privileged data?
(12) Relativism - Does the truth or warrant of moraljudgments depend directly upon individually- or socially-adopted norms or practices?
(13) Pluralism - Is there a uniquely good form of life or a uniquely right moral code, or could different forms of life or moral codes be
appropriate in different circumstances?

Here, then, are the approximate coordinates of my own view in this multidimensional conceptual space. I will argue for a form of moral realism which holds that moral judgments can bear truth values in a fundamentally non-epistemic sense of truth; that moral properties are objective, though relational; that moral properties supervene upon natural properties, and may be reducible to them; that moral inquiry is of a piece with empirical inquiry; that it cannot be known a priori whether bivalence holds for moral judgments or how determinately such judgments can be assessed; that there is reason to think we know a fair amount about morality, but also reason to think that current moralities are wrong in certain ways and could be wrong in quite general ways; that a rational agent may fail to have a reason for obeying moral imperatives, although they may nonetheless be applicable to him; and that, while there are perfectly general criteria of moral assessment, nonetheless, by the nature of these criteria no one kind of life is likely to be appropriate for all individuals and no one set of norms appropriate for all societies and all times. The position thus described might well be called 'stark, raving moral realism', but for the sake of syntax, I will colorlessly call it 'moral realism'. This usage is not proprietary. Other positions, occupying more or less different coordinates, may have equal claim to either name.

Craig's assumption and assertion of naive realism ignores all these philosophical questions. That's how he deceives his philosophically ignorant audience.

[PaulSacramento]

Is Philosophy objective or subjective?

[Spock]

Is Philosophy objective or subjective?

Is the interpretation of the Bible objective or subjective?

[Byblos]

Is Philosophy objective or subjective?

Is the interpretation of the Bible objective or subjective?

Is truth knowable?

[PaulSacramento]

Is Philosophy objective or subjective?

Is the interpretation of the Bible objective or subjective?

Are we answering a question with a question?

If we are being honest then YES, every interpretation of the bible is subjective, BUT we have to make it clear to WHAT it is subjective.
If I interpret the bible under the context of it's TOTALITY, then that is one thing.
If I interpret it book by book, that is another.
If I interpret the bible books base don their literary genre, that is another.
If I interpret the bible as historical, that is one thing.
If I interpret the bible books theologically, that is another.
So yes, bible interpretation is subjective.

Same goes for philosophy and, if we are still being honest, pretty much anything as well.

[Beanybag]

Spock and Butterfly (those who are trying to attack the morality of God). These attacks hold on two conditions: 1) Morality is outside of God (and thus, he's not real) or 2) God is not the God of the Bible. In either case, God has not committed an atrocity. To get people to believe this is to get them to undermine their belief in the Biblical God. So, in order to convince them that God is not moral, you must first convince them that God is either not real, or is not the God of the Bible. The Biblical God may have committed genocide, but this does not make him immoral. To say otherwise is to misunderstand the very position you are attacking.

[PaulSacramento]

Is Philosophy objective or subjective?

Is the interpretation of the Bible objective or subjective?

Is truth knowable?

Truth is based on perception and perception needs to be "interpreted" into "truth".
Reality is based on perception since man CAN'T know anything outside what he/she can perceive, so how we perceive ANYTHING is the only truth we have.
Unless it is a truth BEYOND or INDEPENDENT of our limitations.

[Spock]

Spock and Butterfly (those who are trying to attack the morality of God). These attacks hold on two conditions: 1) Morality is outside of God (and thus, he's not real) or 2) God is not the God of the Bible. In either case, God has not committed an atrocity. To get people to believe this is to get them to undermine their belief in the Biblical God. So, in order to convince them that God is not moral, you must first convince them that God is either not real, or is not the God of the Bible. The Biblical God may have committed genocide, but this does not make him immoral. To say otherwise is to misunderstand the very position you are attacking.

Your comment seems confused. Neither Rose nor I have said a word about the morality of the true God (if such exists) other than that it must be good. We are talking about the morality that the Bible attributes to Yahweh. If that morality is actually immoral, then we must conclude that Yahweh is not the true God. If we cannot judge what the Bible says about Yahweh then we cannot judge Yahweh to be moral (good) or immoral (bad) and all moral qualities the Bible attributes to Yahweh are emptied of meaning.

[Beanybag]

If we cannot judge what the Bible says about Yahweh then we cannot judge Yahweh to be moral (good) or immoral (bad) and all moral qualities the Bible attributes to Yahweh are emptied of meaning.

Again, this is based on a misunderstanding of the moral philosophy of God.

[PaulSacramento]

IS it moral to kill the one to save the many?
Is it moral to kill the few to save millions?
Would it have been moral to kill the Nazis to save the 10's of millions that died in WW2?
Would it have been moral to kill Stalin or Lenin or Mao and save 10's of millions?

[Spock]

If we cannot judge what the Bible says about Yahweh then we cannot judge Yahweh to be moral (good) or immoral (bad) and all moral qualities the Bible attributes to Yahweh are emptied of meaning.

Again, this is based on a misunderstanding of the moral philosophy of God.

I think I understand your argument - please correct me if I am wrong. I think you think that God's nature defines morality. Therefore, anything God does is necessarily good which means that if God commanded the Israelites to slaughter babies, then slaughtering babies in that context is "good." Is this what you meant?

[PaulSacramento]

If one applies the GR to those subject to a violent regime, like the communist under Stalin or Chinese under Mao or nazis under Hitler, since I don't want the Nazi's to treat ME badly, I should NOT treat them badly and if I want them to treat me nice ( ie not persecute and kill me) I should go along with them and treat them nice.
Of course we KNOW that to be immoral, one should NOT allow what is "not good" to be simply because it would follow the GR, right?

[Beanybag]

If we cannot judge what the Bible says about Yahweh then we cannot judge Yahweh to be moral (good) or immoral (bad) and all moral qualities the Bible attributes to Yahweh are emptied of meaning.

Again, this is based on a misunderstanding of the moral philosophy of God.

I think I understand your argument - please correct me if I am wrong. I think you think that God's nature defines morality. Therefore, anything God does is necessarily good which means that if God commanded the Israelites to slaughter babies, then slaughtering babies in that context is "good." Is this what you meant?

Yes, but this is not what I believe.

[PaulSacramento]

Would the killing of any of these children BEFORE they commited these crimes, be moral or immoral?
http://listverse.com/2011/05/14/top-10-young-killers/