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Author Topic:   Are Fundamentalists Inherently Immoral
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 70 of 161 (521572)
08-27-2009 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Holyfire23
08-27-2009 11:35 PM


So then you are telling us that morality is indeed not absolute, but rather depends on the circumstances? It's all relative?
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Holyfire23, posted 08-27-2009 11:35 PM Holyfire23 has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 107 of 161 (521778)
08-29-2009 3:20 AM
Reply to: Message 104 by Lithodid-Man
08-28-2009 9:47 PM


Re: Changing People
Matthew 7:12 "In everything do to others as you have them do to you; for this the law and the prophets"
Ripped off from the Pharisees:
quote:
Do not to others that which is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law. Now go learn it.
(Pharisee Rabbi Hillel to a gentile who had challenged him to recite the whole of the Law while standing on one foot -- 20 BCE, a full half century before Jesus' ministry)
Please note that study in those days involved massive amounts of memorization, a tradition that continued for millenia in Talmudic study -- imagine having to memorize the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Thus, a rabbi would have been expected to have memorized the Law, AKA the Torah, AKA the Pentateuch, but that made the gentile's demand no less impertinent; Rabbi Shammai of the Sadduces had the gentile dismissed (some accounts have him chasing the jerk off with a blunt instrument).
If that story sounds strangely familiar, it might be because of an early first-season episode of the original Star Trek, "Dagger of the Mind". In it, Dr. Adams likens Kirk to the man who challenged a philospher to recite all the world's wisdom while standing on one foot. The writer of that episode was one Shimon bar-David, who, one might assume, was familiar with rabbinic literature. Pity that so many Christians are ignorant of that literature.
If one wishes to seek it out for themselves, it's in the Pirke Avoth, "Sayings of the Fathers".
Edited by dwise1, : Pirke Avoth

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 108 of 161 (521780)
08-29-2009 3:37 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Holyfire23
08-28-2009 12:01 PM


You are trying to change the subject. A local creationist calls that "rabbit trailing", just as a tracking dog can be thrown off the scent he's following in order to chase a rabbit. That creationist warns his followers to not fall for that trick, whereas he habitually (ie, not just repeatedly, but rather it was his standard modum operandi) would employ "rabbit-trailing" in his own actions.
Christians keep beating us over the head about morality being "absolute", whereas you have here attempted to argue that morality is relative and can change according to the circumstances. My impression is that you would be among those who would insist that morality is absolute, but here you are arguing that it is relative. My apologies if you are indeed not an "absolutist", but I feel that I am nonetheless not too mistaken about what you think that you believe.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 109 of 161 (521781)
08-29-2009 3:54 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by Rahvin
08-28-2009 2:45 PM


Re: Objective morality versus good and evil
It would be more honest of them to say "God's will be done" or something similar. They're obviously authoritarian - they don't believe in objective morality either, they believe in following the moral dictates of their deity. If God says kill these people, and then later says that we should turn the other cheek, well God knows best. They just confuse the issue by claiming God to hold up some objective, unchanging standard - when the Bible itself practically screams that that isn't the case.
Just using your post to comment on the thread's title.
I would disagree that fundamentalists are inherently immoral. Rather, I would say that they are amoral. They have no sense of morality. They have virtually no capacity for moral reasoning. They are, as you say, authoritatian. Whatever their god says, or rather what their religious leaders tell them that their god says, is what goes. And, of course, if they believe that their god is speaking to them, then whatever they believe their god is telling them to do, goes. Including murder. Including sacrificing the lives of their own children.
They are legalistic when it comes to morality. What does their god say? What does the Bible say? Years ago I saw a clip from an old silent film, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." The lady of the house had baked some pies and Rebecca want to eat them. But then she looked up and there was a sampler (a needle-point of a religious proverb) hanging on the wall admonishing her, "Thou Shalt Not Steal". Dejected, she turns away and sees yet another sampler: "God helps those who help themselves". So she helps herself to the pies.
This is where a legalistic approach leads. You end up looking for loopholes in order to do what you want to do. A moralistic approach would look at how what the actual outcomes of your actions will be. Fundamentalists are legalistic, whereas atheists are moralistic.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 118 of 161 (521847)
08-29-2009 4:41 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by Holyfire23
08-29-2009 9:13 AM


Re: Objective morality versus good and evil
You know, it would really help you if you were to get to know some atheists. So that you can discover how we really think, rather than just simply believing the nonsense that your religious leaders have been feeding you.
Though you could serve a useful purpose. There are a few ridiculous misconceptions about atheists that I had repeatedly heard from Christians over the years and then about a year ago I saw an ex-Christian provide Bible verses that say exactly the same things. Do you think you could tell us what the Bible says about non-believers? Since the fundamentalist line is that if the Bible is wrong about even one thing, then the entire Bible is wrong, showing that the Bible is dead wrong about what atheists think and believe would do immense good in this world. Well, one problem would be that fundamentalists have such an incredibly bizaare misunderstanding of atheism that they will undoubtedly completely screw things up when their religion suddenly forces them to become atheists.
There have been a few topics here discussing morality. You might want to read through them in order to learn how atheists really do think about morality. That way, you will no longer be trying to argue from ignorance. Just in case it needs to be pointed out explicitly, arguing from ignorance is never a good idea and should be avoided.
I heard on the news just last night that a 29 year old girl called the local police. She had been kidnapped in 1991 and had been kept in a cage as a sex slave ever since. Her kidnappers were a husband and wife team. If man can reason morally, how do people get like this?
Thank you for raising that point again. But when you raised it in Msg #69, you were praising such an action as being good morality, yet now you are condemning it. Why is such rape a good thing in one case and utterly contemptible in another?
The only difference is that your god was behind the one case. So any act, regardless of how contemptible, is worthy of the highest praise if your god did it. How much more relativistic could it possibly get?
Moral reasoning involves thinking about what you need to do and working out and weighing the consequences of your actions on everyone involved. Fundamentalist "absolute moral standards" does not involve any concern for anybody else, but rather involves nothing more than worrying about what you think God has commanded you to do or to not do because you want to escape punishment. And if you believe that God wants you to perform the most deplorable act possible, then that is what you would do ... especially if you fear punishment should you refuse to comply, a point that you have argued strongly. How is that supposed to be moral?
The reason that fundamentalists have virtually no capacity for moral reasoning is that they don't exercise it. They are not taught to use moral reasoning. If anything, they are even discouraged from engaging in moral reasoning. If you're not taught moral reasoning and you fear God's punishment should you dare to use it, then how could you have any capacity for moral reasoning?

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 128 of 161 (522965)
09-07-2009 3:15 AM
Reply to: Message 127 by Holyfire23
09-06-2009 8:00 PM


Re: Definition
Uh, sorry, but you are still ducking out on the question. Plus, you are still supporting my own statement:
dwise1; Msg 109 writes:
I would disagree that fundamentalists are inherently immoral. Rather, I would say that they are amoral. They have no sense of morality. They have virtually no capacity for moral reasoning. They are, as you say, authoritatian. Whatever their god says, or rather what their religious leaders tell them that their god says, is what goes. And, of course, if they believe that their god is speaking to them, then whatever they believe their god is telling them to do, goes. Including murder. Including sacrificing the lives of their own children.
You "responded" in Msg 112, but have, so far as I can tell, refused to respond to any of the five responses to that message. In particular, there's the one particular moral issue of taking a young woman, a virgin, captive by force and holding her captive and raping her for the rest of her life, albeit under the auspices of "marriage" (in both cases). As I responded in Msg 118, to which you have so far refused to respond:
holyfire23 writes:
I heard on the news just last night that a 29 year old girl called the local police. She had been kidnapped in 1991 and had been kept in a cage as a sex slave ever since. Her kidnappers were a husband and wife team. If man can reason morally, how do people get like this?
Thank you for raising that point again. But when you raised it in Msg #69, you were praising such an action as being good morality, yet now you are condemning it. Why is such rape a good thing in one case and utterly contemptible in another?
The only difference is that your god was behind the one case. So any act, regardless of how contemptible, is worthy of the highest praise if your god did it. How much more relativistic could it possibly get?
So, your only moral sense is, "Yeah, what He said!"? Any act, no matter how horrifically immoral, is deemed moral if your god had ordered it? Sin is disobeying God, so it is not a sin if God commands you to go out and take a young virgin captive by force and rape her repeatedly for the rest of her life? That is your defense of the offense against the virgins of the Midianites (we're not even going to review the issue of the gross immorality of genocide, which is similar to the rape issue only in spades to the n-th degree).
As I have stated, you are amoral. You have abrogated your moral reasoning to your sectarian misinterpretation of the particular parts of Scripture that you have selectively chosen to use.
Quote all the Scripture you want to; all you are doing is further demonstrating your amoraility, your inability to engage in moral reasoning.
PS
You keep being up "sin". Sin only has to do with disobeying God's commands. Whatever is that supposed to have to do with morality? As we have already seen, many of God's commands directly contradicted morality, in which case moral conduct would have been the "sin".
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : PS

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by Holyfire23, posted 09-07-2009 2:30 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 133 of 161 (523032)
09-07-2009 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Holyfire23
09-07-2009 2:30 PM


Re: Definition
OK, let's see if I have this straight. Your position is for absolute morality and against relative morality, correct? Well, if that is the case, then why do you repeatedly argue for morality being relative and not absolute?
The scenario is a young teenage girl being abducted by force and against the wishes of both her and her family and held captive for years and forced to have sex with her captor and even bearing him children.
But while you denounce a recently reported case of this as immoral, with which we all agree, you not only condone but praise as moral an ancient case of this being perpetrated against an entire people, along with the wholesale slaughter of those not taken captive for a life-time of rape. Just because it is written that your god had commanded it.
So we have the first instance of you effectively arguing that morality is relative in that if God commanded it, even though it violated another law in the Bible, then it is moral.
Then you argued that they were doing the moral thing by taking in those poor war orphans and caring for them. Such an argument just boggles the mind, since they were responsible for those war orphans' plight. It's like that old sick joke about the teenager who murders both his parents in a most brutal manner and then at his trial he implores the court to take pity on him since he has so recently and suddenly become orphaned.
And why did the Israelites not take care of the other war orphans? Or the other surviving Midianites? Had they been acting in the moral and caring manner that you claim, then they would have. But, no, only the female virgins of rapable age were taken. And now, just to be funny, you threw in:
the virgins were spared because it was safe to say that they had not participated in any sexual immorality.
Oh? So the infants and small children who were slaughtered had participated in sexual immorality? Who would'a thunk that?
But now you have also added another argument for morality being relative:
You accuse the Isrealites of being immoral but you conveniently leave out the context of the times they were living in. Marriages back then were always arranged. Girls were forced to marry whomever their father told them to. This was true of the Isrealites, Midianites, and all the other "ites". It wasn't rape.
Yes, arranged marriages were indeed a fact and are still a fact in parts of the world. But what happened to the hapless survivors of the Midianite genocide was not the same thing. Arranged marriages are brokered with the bride's family, during which some kind of compensation for her family is negotiated, at the end of which an agreement is arrived at and the family gives its consent. How was the "arranged marriages" of the Midianite girls negotiated? And with whom? After all, their entire families had been slaughtered. There was no family left to give their consent. No consent, abduction by force and captivity. Calling that a marriage befitting the custom of arranged marriage is just a sick joke.
But, now we also see you arguing ardantly that different moral systems are in operation at different times and in different societies. You are arguing for morality being relative. How, by any stretch of the imagination, could you think that you're actually arguing for absolute morality here?
dwise1 writes:
As I have stated, you are amoral. You have abrogated your moral reasoning to your sectarian misinterpretation of the particular parts of Scripture that you have selectively chosen to use.
So I have no moral capacity because I define right and wrong based on what God says?
Insomuch as that causes you to neglect to employ moral reasoning, then, yes, that is correct. It's like doing mathematical calculations in your head; if you don't use it, you lose it. Furthermore, insomuch as that has you tossing out morality in favor of dogma and whatever new doctrine your church has cooked up this week, then of course that would lead you to amorality.
And yet, you hold that morality is determined by society and upbringing. You are trading one god for another.
No, no gods are involved. And, yes, morality is developed collectively within a society, not by individual whim as you have suggested in your new topic.
What makes society a better base for morality than God? Look at all the societies that have existed. All of them had there own definition of morality. Some of them were similiar to ours; some of them were radically different. How can you say that rape is wrong in all circumstances and then hold something as fickle as society to be your basis for morality?
Yes, by George! He's got it! Morality exists in every society and is most often different in various ways in each society. Morality is relative, not absolute ... but then you keep arguing for that anyway.
And, yes, our condemning rape is indeed our projecting our own morality onto a different society, judging by our standards instead of by theirs ... but you wouldn't be familiar with that practice, now would you?
However, even though most moral codes do differ from each other in many details and attitudes, there are a number constants that keep cropping up. After all, they all concern themselves with groups of humans having to live together and to get along with each other and to function as a society; that is after all why morality even exists. They will all need to address common issues; it's just how they address those issues that they will differ.
As I stated earlier, if there is no such thing as an infinite and all-knowing being to define morality, there must be a finite and fallible being to to take its place. Do you agree?
No, I do not agree, because it's a ridiculous claim.
First of all, morality exists. Even if your "infinite and all-knowing being" doesn't exist, morality does still exist. You are constructing a ridiculous and contrived false dilemma here.
Second, there's certainly no need to place an individual person into a role replacing God, especially not when it comes to morality. Only your God could be expected to get away with make all those arbitrary rules, but not human could. Instead, morality develops by social consensus over many generations, such that the parts that work are kept and the parts that don't work are dropped or modified until they do finally work.
Now, it is true that many societies have also constructed mythologies to explain where their moral code came from. The Code of Hammurabi was attributed Bel and Anu. And the Jews attributed their Torah to Moses and YHWH. That's right, your "absolute morality" is just the relative morality of an ancient, foreign society.
Which is why it's so important to develop moral reasoning instead of just following arbitrary rules from an ancient, foreign society. Thinking those rules through. Trying to understand why they were needed at that ancient time. Thinking about how they fit into our own society. Thinking about the consequences of following those rules. Thinking about how our actions affect ourselves and others.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 136 of 161 (523042)
09-08-2009 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 135 by Holyfire23
09-07-2009 10:35 PM


HolyFire23 writes:
Can you, in your own words, define what God's law is?
I have no idea to whom you are addressing that question. Nor can I see how it could be relevent. You're asking a purely religious question, which has almost nothing to do with morality.
Your religious question should normally be directed to practitioners of the religion in question or to those who have studied that religion to a sufficient extent. For example, even though they all profess to believe in the same god, Jews, Muslims, and Christians (of which there are so many different varieties that one would need to ask each denomination), they would also have very different definitions to offer to that question.
Obviously, the religious writings of the various religions would be a source in answering your puzzling question. And also obvious, since all gods are products of human invention, is that those religious writings are similarly of human invention.
So, did you have any constructive reason to ask such an off-the-wall question?
Edited by dwise1, : Include quote from message to which I am responding

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Robert Colbert on NPR

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 141 of 161 (523142)
09-08-2009 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by Holyfire23
09-08-2009 2:18 PM


Re: God Has No Legal System
Uh, excuse me please, but why did you put my words into purpledawn's mouth? That is not right, it is not nice, and it is totally uncalled for. Is that an living example of your "moral absolutes"?
dwise1, not purpledawn as Holyfire23 so falsely claims, writes:
Your religious question should normally be directed to practitioners of the religion in question or to those who have studied that religion to a sufficient extent.
So you admit that you have not studied the subject of God and His Law? My question now is this, since you cannot give me the definition of God's Law and since you admit that you have not studied it to a sufficient extent, how can you pass judgements on it? How can you say that God breaches His own Law when you cannot even define it? Have you read the Bible?
That is not at all what I said. I was merely stating that practitioners and students of a particular religion would be the one to answer the question, not making any kind of admission about myself.
The Law, in Judaism, is the Torah, AKA the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. In ancient times, students at the academies were required to memorize the books they were studying, a practice which continued in the yeshivas where the students also memorized the Talmud, a truly encyclopedic work rivaling the Encyclopedia Britannica in sheer volume and containing Scripture, commentary on that Scripture, commentary on the commentary, and commentary on that.
Out of that volume of Rabbinic literature comes a book, Pirke Avoth (Sayings of the Fathers, some of which you heard if you ever saw that movie, Yentl). In that book is the story of a Gentile who went to the head rabbis of the academies and demanded that they recite the whole of the Law (ie, the Torah) while standing on one foot. Rabbi Shammai of the Sadduces is said to have grabbed a stick and chased the man out, as that fool so richly deserved. Rabbi Hillel of the Pharisees, however, replied (quoting from memory):
quote:
Do not to others that which is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law. Now go practice it.
BTW, that story dates from 20 BCE.
You are like that Gentile, making ridiculous demands of others. Why? What purpose could it serve? How could it possibly promote discussion. Especially considering that the discussion here is about morality, not about religious beliefs that have no bearing on morality.
And, yes, I have read the Bible. Was one of the best things I have done for myself, because it turned me into an atheist. I also have had many close associations with fundamentalists and especially learned a lot about that theology when close friends converted during the "Jesus Freak" movement circa 1970. I had studied much about Christianity when I was younger, but have since moved on to much more important subjects, like C#.
dwise1, not purpledawn as Holyfire23 so falsely claims, writes:
Morals are the acceptable modes of conduct for a society or group.
According to this view, morality can only be judged within that society or group then. Who cares what other societies do because they have there own "acceptable modes of conduct".
Answer me this, using your mode of moral reasoning, please tell me who is more moral. The ancient Aztecs, or todays western society? FYI, the ancient Aztecs regularly made child sacrifices to their rain gods. They believed the more tears the child shed before they died, the more rain would come. Who is more moral?
I hope you don't mind too terribly much that I am not standing on one foot while responding.
The real question is not who is more moral. The Aztecs undoubtedly believed that what they were doing was both right and necessary.
Rather, the real question is what we are supposed to do when somebody in our own society insists that the Aztec religion teaches moral absolutes and insists that we must impose those foreign Aztec moral absolutes upon our own society. Within that context (which really is what's going on here), we would be quite correct to point out that those Aztec "moral absolutes" are not absolutes, but rather relative values that pertained only to that ancient and foreign culture and that have no place in our own society. We would be quite correct in pointing out where the Aztec moral system differs from our own and in evaluating what would happen if Aztec morality were to be implemented within our own society. And we would be totally justified in being appalled at the very thought!
The ancient and foreign laws of the Israelites are no different.
BTW, the whole question of "God" is irrelevent to morality, just as it is irrelevent to gravity or the water cycle. Those things exist regardless of anyone's religious beliefs and they function quite well regardless of anyone's religious beliefs. You, personally, do not need to reject your God in order to benefit from gravity or rain, yet it appears that you feel that you must reject your God in order to stop being amoral. That is not the case. You can still learn to understand morality and how it works and why it is so vitally important (has nothing to do with "God", but everything to do with humans getting along and functioning within society) and believe that your God had set that up. You can even accept that specific aspects of moral codes are relative -- something you've repeatedly argued for -- and still believe in your God. There doesn't have to be a conflict.
PS
I thought that PurpleDawn's actual reply raised a lot of good points. I do hope that you will reply to it.
Edited by dwise1, : cleaned up qs blocks
Edited by dwise1, : PS

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 144 of 161 (523224)
09-08-2009 11:13 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Holyfire23
09-08-2009 10:09 PM


Rahvin writes:
Under what ethical system, using what assumptions?
Assuming the theory of moral relativism is true, please tell me who is more moral---the ancient Aztecs or our modern society?
Uh, assuming the theory of moral relativism is true, isn't asking such a question total nonsense? If anything, that question would only make any sense to an absolutist.
Besides, Rahvin did already give you an answer to that question. A very good answer. So why are you ignoring it? Shouldn't you be responding to his answer instead of trying to pretend that it doesn't exist?
For that matter, I also answered that question and you also ignored my answer! Here it is again:
dwise1 writes:
Rather, the real question is what we are supposed to do when somebody in our own society insists that the Aztec religion teaches moral absolutes and insists that we must impose those foreign Aztec moral absolutes upon our own society. Within that context (which really is what's going on here), we would be quite correct to point out that those Aztec "moral absolutes" are not absolutes, but rather relative values that pertained only to that ancient and foreign culture and that have no place in our own society. We would be quite correct in pointing out where the Aztec moral system differs from our own and in evaluating what would happen if Aztec morality were to be implemented within our own society. And we would be totally justified in being appalled at the very thought!
The ancient and foreign laws of the Israelites are no different.
Are you just going to ignore it again?
purpledawn writes:
How do you come up with just 10 laws and the Jews have 613 commandments from the OT? The question was, which set of the 10 do you use and why?
I use the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God in Exodus 20:3-17.
You ducked again. Which "Ten Commandments"? Jewish, Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic/Lutheran? And why would something "absolute" have so many different versions?
Rahvin writes:
There is no such thing as a moral absolute.
That is an absolute statement. This implies that truth is absolute (I agree with this). However, if you adhere to the belief that truth is absolute, then you are forced to say that their is an absolute definition of right and wrong. Absolute truth implies absolute morality, therefore, your statment is a contradictory one.
I'll let Rahvin deal with your twisted illogic there, since he can do a better job of it.
Why do you claim that morality is absolute? Especially considering that you have repeatedly argued emphatically for moral relativism, including applying it to the source of your so-called "moral absolute", the Bible.
Let me ask all of you this question. Do you agree with me that veiwing child pornography is absolutely evil and wrong?
OK, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. You have already demonstrated that you will ignore our answers to your questions, so how dare you try to pull that same stupid trick on us again?
Instead of trying to play stupid mind games on us, why don't you engage in discussion honestly?
Edited by dwise1, : Hey! What about my answer?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by Holyfire23, posted 09-08-2009 10:09 PM Holyfire23 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 148 of 161 (523284)
09-09-2009 10:51 AM
Reply to: Message 143 by Holyfire23
09-08-2009 10:09 PM


Let me ask all of you this question. Do you agree with me that veiwing child pornography is absolutely evil and wrong?
Since you are claim that this is a moral absolute, please answer some questions about your claim. Since your past conduct indicates that you will dodge these simple and pertinent questions, I will include what I would anticipate the absolutist response to be.
What makes it a moral absolute? "Moral absolute" means "it's in the Bible". Therefore, please provide the citation, complete with book, chapter, and verse.
But then that would raise the corollary that if we do not find it in the Bible, then it cannot be a "moral absolute". Since you do not enjoy the convenience of "continuing revelation", you cannot create new "moral absolutes" on the fly by dreaming about them (which I understand to be how God continues to provide revelation to Mormons).
Interestingly, out of the 613 Mitzvot', you absolve yourself of responsibility to follow the vast majority of them, only committing yourself to the 10 Commandments. Since I am quite certain that I've never seen "Thou shalt not gaze longing upon graven images of under-age children" in the Decalogue, that would mean that you also absolve yourself of any obligation to not partake of child porn. It's a very slippery slope, you know, when you start to pick and choose which "moral absolutes" to follow and which to ignore.
Why is it wrong? I would anticipate the absolutist response to be: "Because God said that it is."
What will happen when you violate that "moral absolute"? I would anticipate the absolutist response to be that God would punish you and/or that you would face eternal damnation.
How does one atone for that sin? I would anticipate the absolutist response to be that one repents and asks God for foregiveness, which God will do as any half-way decent invisible friend would. And then when you relapse, you repent and ask for and receive forgiveness again. And then when you relapse again, you again repent and ask for and receive forgiveness again. And then when you relapse yet again, you yet again repent and ask for and receive forgiveness again. Etc, ad infinitum.
Do please provide your answers to those questions. They are needed to carry this discussion forward. We really do need to gain a thorough understanding of how your "moral absolutes" work.
Edited by dwise1, : Corollary

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by Holyfire23, posted 09-08-2009 10:09 PM Holyfire23 has not replied

  
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
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Message 155 of 161 (523479)
09-10-2009 4:16 PM
Reply to: Message 153 by Holyfire23
09-10-2009 1:33 PM


Re: Ethics and morality
Here we have a fundamental difference in our modes of reasoning. I base my reasoning off a Creator, you do not. Until one of us is able to agree with the other on this level, we cannot effectively argue the specifics i.e. the things created. This is what turns so many arguments between atheists and theists into circular arguments. In order to argue a point effectively, we must agree on some level of assumption. If we cannot agree on the level of assumption, all arguments past the level of assumption become circular or dead-ended. We get nowhere. This argument was doomed from the beginning. None of us set up a good foundation on which to build an effective argument, and thus, no good argument has come about. I am, therefore, done posting on this thread.
Here you have a golden opportunity to inform us about your "moral absolutes" and yet you run away from it. The questions I asked in Message 148 were intended to elicit that information from you in order to get us onto some common ground so that we could further the discussion.
However, I do understand your difficulty here. A former fundamentalist minister, Dan Barker, described it as "when their theology becomes their psychology". He grew up a fundamentalist, completely immersed in it -- his mother would sing in tongues all the times as she did her housework --, and was personally called to the ministry by God, so he is very familiar with how the fundamentalist mind works. In my association with a mega-church which is less out-there than many, I repeatedly saw in their outreach and recovery programs how very differently their minds worked and how utterly useless their programs would be for non-Christians or even some mainstream Christians (eg, their DivorceCare program's repeated emphasis that "only Jesus can help you recover", a recovery program in which they sought to break down your defenses so that the Holy Spirit could enter you). Even a very popular and long-running series of relationships lectures given by a pair of Christian counselors, even though it used and presented many concepts that other counselors use, put such spins on those concepts to make them conform to fundamentalist psychology that they became almost nonsensical and barely useful to a normal person.
I do believe you when you saw that you see the world so very differently than those of us rooted in reality see it. That is why I asked those questions, so that we could come to some common understanding. But that is where our minds differ: we wish to increase our understanding of things, whereas you do not.
Here's a brief and slightly modified list of those questions:
quote:
When you say that something is a "moral absolute", what makes it one?
When you regard some moral precept, how do you determine objectively whether it is absolute or relative?
When your "moral absolute" says that something is wrong, then why is it wrong? What makes it wrong?
What are the consequences when you violate that "moral absolute"? And for whom?
How is the violator of a "moral absolute" supposed to pay for that violation. I'm not talking about punishment here, but rather if a person regrets having violated a "moral absolute", then how is he supposed to do that?
And here's a new one: if you obey one of your "moral absolutes" and it directly causes great harm to someone, then who's responsible for that harm? Whose fault is it?
These are very basic questions that you should be able to answer with very little difficulty.
Unless you have never thought of them before, in which case you have yet again proven my statement that fundamentalists are amoral since they do not practice moral reasoning.
Edited by dwise1, : slight clean-up; added quote tags

This message is a reply to:
 Message 153 by Holyfire23, posted 09-10-2009 1:33 PM Holyfire23 has not replied

  
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