Are Fundamentalists Inherently Immoral

Unfortunately the passage you cited doesn't define sexual immorality. There can't.However, you have a choice: Either human beings are capable of knowing right from wrong, therefore human beings are capable of knowing if the actions of YHWH are wrong (or right) OR human beings are not capable of knowing right from wrong, in which case you can't tell if YHWH upholds the absolute moral standard.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

In that case neither does good wine, manners, fashion or humour. I think it is wrong toa) cut the hands/feet off from thievesb) Whip a woman for wearing trousersc) Female genital circumcisiond) Hanging a black person because...well...for any reason.I could go on. Today, and historically people have honestly thought that these were morally right courses of action to take - and often they justified that they were acting on instruction from a deity (indeed - the god of Abraham).So yes - it is perfectly possible that something that modern western culture almost universally finds morally repugnant might be considered morally righteous by another. Yes, I think so. You don't think that people beat, poison and abuse children in our culture for entertainment? Or do you just think that everybody is doing it in Thailand?Anyway - we can agree that different cultures have different agreements on morality. Humans are accountable to other humans - it doesn't matter if those other humans think they are doing something morally right or not. Obviously, you highlight an issue which complicates life. If you've ever studied international affairs in an even casual manner you'll appreciate that this presents us with continuous difficulties.Should we interfere, when do we interfere, and how far should our interference go? It is a practical quandary as well as an ethical one.Or - we could believe that they will ultimately punished for their crimes by some Great Judge, meaning we don't need to worry about doing it ourselves. What do you think we should do? Forget that - you can't answer it since your opinion is irrelevant. What is your deity's solution to the moral problem of differing cultural norms? (kill them all? Kill them all except for their women and children who become your property? Turn the other cheek and let them carry on, giving them your complete love? Go to their cities and if you can't find ten people who are moral kill them all? Go to war with angels by your side and exterminate the entire culture and take their land as your own? Give them your children to be horrible to so that they won't be nasty to other people's children? What???) They've done something wrong according to my morality. I cannot speak for theirs, but the examples I gave above they certainly do think they are right.You may have noticed that we generally condemn the acts, but instead of essentially going to war with the culture (which will obviously lead to more suffering) we try other methods to persuade them to change their practices.Nobody said that being human was easy. What is the alternative? No. The problem you have is you assume that our meta-ethical position leads to our descriptive ethics just because that is the case with you.Not so. I prefer to use an evidence based moral system aimed towards approximately minimising suffering and maximising happiness. Essentially it is a form of Consequentialism. I appreciate it isn't perfect, but I don't fool myself into thinking that this life presents us with perfect solutions to our problems.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

In Message 140, Peg said: In the Bahamas they are currently putting a bill through that would outlaw marital rape. But many citizens have something to say about that:

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"It is ridiculous for them to try to make that a law, because I don’t think a man can rape his own wife. After two people get married, the Bible says that they become one — one flesh. How is it possible to rape what is yours?" -- Mr Pemmie Sutherland a taxi driver

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Yup - a fine example of Biblical morality right there. You can do what you like to a woman if she is foolish enough to say "I do.".But nobody really really thinks like that do they?

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Even if a woman says no to her husband it still can’t be considered rape because she is his wife. He already paid his dues at the church and she already said ‘I do,’ so from then on, even if [a man] forces sex on his wife, it isn’t rape -- Mr Elvis Russell

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Oh - well that's just men being misogynistic. Women would never consider being forced to have sex against their will as a good thing, right? I mean, even religious women would object - if given the opportunity to speak out?

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"I disagree with the bill because I disagree that a man can rape his wife. The Bible tells me that a man’s body is his wife’s and her body is his. How could he rape her?" - Ms Deanne Sweeting

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Of course, no woman would seriously permit a man to have sex with her if she had the flu and just wanted to get some bed rest, I mean - there are limits, right?

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If a man wants to have sex with his wife he is supposed to [have sex with her] regardless of what the circumstances [are]. I don’t see why he should be charged with raping his own wife, she is never supposed to say no
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If I were married and my husband wanted to have sex with me I wouldn’t stop him, [because] I’m not supposed to, even if I was tired or feeling sick, I wouldn’t tell him no. --Ms. Coralee Clarke

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Source.Yup some people are perfectly happy to sign control over their sex life over to another person unconditionally (and others are perfectly happy to exploit that) in the name of Biblical morality.It is clearly a perfect divine moral system that dictates that it is perfectly moral to do something to somebody that they don't want done to them. It is the height of glorious and righteous Mercy that this extends at least all the way to penetrative sexual acts.

And that makes you uncomfortable? Actually morality can be judged within and without that particular society. Watch...Whipping a woman for wearing trousers is morally wrong.You see how I judged another society? How did I do that? You might argue that there are multiple societies.I am Mancunian.
I am English.
I am British.
I am European.
I am human.I belong to more social groups that, obviously.However, if someone who belongs to any of those social groups commits an act I can freely comment on my opinion as to whether I think that doing what they are doing is conducive to the kind of society I want to be a part of and that I think is ideal.I can also say 'Hmm, bit of a grey area there'.I might be wrong. Maybe whipping women for their clothing choices is a great way to create the perfect society that I'd really want to be a part of. So I ask - why do you whip the women? The answer is "Because somebody centuries ago thought that someone centuries before him thought that some invisible being believed it was the right thing to do" and I know that there is no real justification for whipping women for their trouser wearing antics. Well, yes. But a consequentialist could easily say that under any realistically likely circumstances rape is wrong - even if we might imagine an unrealistic situation when rape is the moral imperative (for example - if raping a single woman could have prevented the holocaust).The odd thing is that this is the exact argument religious people could be using, that the rape and genocide in the Bible served some greater, but undetectable good. But to do that they have to abandon moral absolutism which they seem to be married to.For ease of conversation - it can be simplified to 'rape is always wrong in the real world' or 'rape is always wrong' (since the last part is redundant) It depends on our goals doesn't it? If our goals are to make a happier society then we can start to rule out those standards that empirically cause everybody to be unhappy, if our goal is to make a society productive again we can set benchmarks against which to judge.The question is - which goal is the one to drive towards? Who knows? How about we try reasoning it out, experimenting with ideas, slowly teasing out what humanity as a whole wants while attempting to convince others to shift their ideas.Or we could just pick one standard and dogmatically defend it even if it seems it could lead to potentially terrible consequences. I prefer the former, I have no idea why you'd want to prefer the latter.So which is more moral? To pick one morality and stick to it regardless of the consequences, or to confer with other humans and try and figure out a way that works for the most people?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Oh yeah - or if super powerful aliens/god demanded that it be done or all residents of India will be killed. Not realistic scenarios though, eh? So you'd condemn thousands of Jewish women (and probably not a few men), not to mention non-Jewish residents of conquered lands to be raped, tortured and millions to be murdered? It's not like they were responsible for the Holocaust either.Sure it's distasteful - I'd have difficulty doing it. I might not be able to do it. But I'd still consider it a moral imperative if I knew that doing it would remove the Holocaust. Unless we think that Hitler's actions made for a more secure future so that the violent deaths of millions enabled the peaceful existence of billions.

I'd just like to clarify, since a few people have jumped into this subthread, that the Hitler example was not of my choosing. The original point I was making is that it might be possible to conceive of a situation where raping somebody is the moral imperative, though such a situation is likely to be unrealistic or at best unlikely. Therefore, saying 'rape is always wrong' is just a convenient linguistic shortcut. Technically what it means is 'rape is wrong in the vast majority of situations that might realistically occur'.In direct response to your post, I agree - it is the lesser of two evils - but when the decision is yours to make the morally right choice is to pick the lesser of two evils, yes? It is of course incredibly rare that 'rape' happens to be the lesser of two (or more) evils.

He paid them all?
And they all consented to cursing Israel?
And they were all fully informed of what doing so would mean?
Even the ones that were literally born yesterday?

I do not believe that any god exists. I think the role that many theists insist a god is necessary for can be replaced by humanity. In context, the role of policing other human's conduct can be performed by other humans (I have evidence that this is the case, see 'the police force' as a singular example).There are other animals who probably don't believe in a god who are able to regulate social conduct amongst themselves - I'm fairly sure humans are capable of doing likewise. Name five atheists that do this. Nope. Man is basically self-interested (this is a simplification). So when there is good reason to behave (there are rewards for behaving or punishments for not behaving) we behave. Remove those reasons and the tendency to misbehave increases (look at soldiers in warzones where crimes are less likely to be investigated and pursued). The powers that be did fairly well out of it, and would have done very well out of it had they succeeded in their plans. They took a risk.
The rank and file officers and soldiers involved faced a self interest situation (don't do it and get killed, do it and survive). And also the Milgram effect, in which people can essentially be made to commit murder or torture as long as an authority figure tells them to (and assures them that they will take responsibility). There is also game theory and morality. In any moral environment there are two possibilities:1) Cheat and try to gain an advantage
2) Comply.There are stable mixtures of these strategies that are capable of existing together. This occurs in other animals, can be mathematically modelled and there is no reason to assume we are an exception. See Hawk-Dove for a simplified idea of this.If you want to study non-theistic morality, there are plenty of resources out there. You are wrong then. Humanism "attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities" (wiki). Crappy things happening is humanity. You are part of it. You might one day do something terrible yourself (or maybe you already have). I'd wager that you just think their standards are lower than they actually are. I have very high moral standards. I certainly don't live up to my standards. Pretty much.Evidence seems to suggest that there is a lot of imperfect morality around. Seems indicative of their being an imperfect being (or collection of beings to be more accurate) behind it.YHWH's instructions seem to be pretty imperfect to me. So how are we to know whose standards are better? Human morality construction seems perfectly linear to me:Humans have certain motivations and desires.
They try and use their minds to reason how they want others to act.
They also use reason to work out how they should act in relation to others in order to obtain their goals and fulfil their motivations.
Additionally they try and work out ways to encourage others to act that way. They disagree. They may act in ways that differ from one another, and then, if called on it, try and justify their actions. You know - exactly what we observe to happen. I'm sure you know this to be true.If one man disagrees with the consensus, then he will probably be penalised if he does not comply with the social rules set up by the group. He can try to argue his case, he better hope that the group's social rules include allowing him to voice his opinion freely. If they don't, if there are rules against questioning the moral authority (such as blasphemy laws) - then he's out of luck.

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That doesn't seem to be a great defence for the charge that fundamentalists are inherently immoral. Is a person who beats a woman with a belt for being disrespectful immoral? If that person is doing so because they believe a deity told them to, are they immoral? How do we know which deities instructions, and whose interpretation of those instructions are the moral ones?It seems to me that you have to concede that a lot of fundamentalists are inherently immoral because they are following the wrong deity, or the wrong writings about that deity, or the wrong interpretations, or some such.