Morality without God is impossible

Since neither has been shown to have any moral decision-making sense the answer is, "We don't know."

Certainly, we today see slavery as immoral. With help from retroactive morality, we can say that in accord with our enlightened intellectual development today, slavery has always been immoral.Unfortunately, back in 1st century BCE Rome, this was not a prevalent point of view. Slavery was just the worst status assigned to people by the various classes, castes, in society. Just another reality that had always been there and no one questioned. Slavery, was once seen as useful for the elite and therefore to the benefit of society.Different strokes for different folks. That is the very definition of relative morality. There is no hint of any objective moral guidance, biologically innate or otherwise, showing in the decisions of either era. Yes.

What makes you think we are right now? Your view is rather arbitrary to be insisting you are right.In the same way we look at ancient Rome, judging today's morality can best be made by others some 2000 years hence. The future may condemn our view of slavery as too limited in scope and needed to include extreme poverty. Who knows?You cannot say your present morality is right in all things for all time. You cannot say your present morality is proper, right, humane or good. That judgement lies in future societies to decide the same way we judge the ancients today.By future standards your present morality may be abhorrently barbaric. That slavery is wrong now and always has been is our present morality speaking. The ancient romans didn't think slavery was immoral then or ever. The difference is the evolution of human thought and morality.You are seeking an entry for your gods to intervene. There appears to be only the evolution of humanity. From today's perspective this is correct. From the perspective of Caesar, this is way wrong. And Caesar was no more disconnected from humanity than you are right now. His view was sanctioned by the society he grew up in. His view was right ... back then.Our morality evolved. There never was, apparently, any divinely set principles of conduct in the ape lineage or before. We have to learn our morality the hard way by stumbling blindly through existence and making it up as we go.

Right and wrong in morality are subjective value judgements that may differ by person, community, location, millennium and on and on.There are also moral social movements over time in societies. Took about 400 years for the abolitionist view to reach from France to the colonies. Took another 200 years and a war for the morality on slavery today to become the rule. In the colonies, the collective human consciousness learned, changed, fought, warred … evolved slowly from slavery = meh to slavery = bad. The “meh” part was the $$$ and political entrenchment of the powerful oligarchs of the time.Did we know back in ancient Roman times that slavery was bad? No. The morality of the time didn’t register any objections. When the Servile wars ended and thousands of slaves were crucified along the Appian Way to Rome, there were no great, or little, protests by the greater society. In their view, slavery in that time was not wrong and neither was the mass execution of prisoners of war. Those are no longer acceptable in our modern societies.Of course, we have learned (evolved) a moral repugnance of slavery since ancient times. We evolve all our morality from the past. I don’t see the logic of the quote or of the entire article. Acknowledging the ancient view that slavery was acceptable does not mean we have to accept their reasoning or their view. And I fail to see how such implies anything about our present reasoning. Slavery is atrocious, inhumane and, by today’s standard, very bad indeed. Caesar saw it differently. Our view on slavery is different from the ancients. The quote seems to imply otherwise.As for right or wrong … the only right morality is the one you and society presently support. Be assured that view will change with time.

[offended]Fuck no! Your reading comprehension sucks.[/offended]As I said:- Slavery was practiced in the ancient Roman empire.
- They didn't care.
- 2000 years later, we do care.
- Just because we acknowledge their historical use of the practice does not mean we condone it.Is this clear? Is this understandable?So, now, again, we have a morality where slavery was accepted as normal by societyand,we have a later morality where slavery is abhorred.All the evidence of reality shows the difference to be due to 2000 years of human evolution.No god whispers evident. That is the entire point of this discussion (my part of it anyway).And remember this. When you think of our initial morality judgements think australopithecus not human. That is where the family tribe began. We evolved our base group morality from them.

In your case I would blame your religious upbringing for that sense of shame and guilt you feel when you consider keeping it. It's only $50. Not worth the bad emotion. Give it back.Me? Serious? I got to think real hard. Do I need this? Do I care? Dinner at Sizzling Sirloin? Ahh shit. My own guilt. Mom's still watching from inside my head. Give it back.Acculturation takes many forms in a society. Religion is but one ... or rather some 40,000 or so at last count.

Make it ok to whom? To them? Slavery was normal to them. They didn't give a good god damn. Was jelly on their toast good, bad, indifferent? They didn't give a damn, GDR.Of course today the practice is abominable, but that doesn't count. The slavery bit not the jelly part. That's ancient history back there and no matter how hard and deep your anguish there is no path from there to here for your whispering god. The road from slavery to abolition was one of human evolution not some susurrant deity. That is the major point not to be missed.

The usual requirements religionists cannot seem to fathom: Evidence.Nothing but natural processes seen in the history of slavery in any era ever and the lack of anything obviously supernatural anywhere ever. Yeah it does.Seems it was only universal for the last 200 years, having had no effects on our creation of slavery in the prior 200,000. Your 'universal' wasn't. Isn't.Yes. We created slavery. We humans, so subject to this universal right/wrong, invented slavery under its influence. That is BS.

(from wiki info)Wilberforce headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 20 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.In 1315, Louis X, king of France, published the first anti-slavery decree proclaiming that "France signifies freedom" and that any slave setting foot on French soil should be freed.Add to that 400+ years another 50 and a devastatingly bloody war and we have the final success in the USofA of what was supposed to have been a human-species-wide universal good since forever. Only 200,000 years late.Your universal good murmur in the human consciousness was ineffective at best. Totally bogus most evidently. Do I have to detail the process that a natural process takes? We know how moralities work. We know how they evolve. This is a big field in philosophy. If you want scholarly papers^** on the subject I'll look but we both know what those will say.All the processes identified in morality development and dissemination look naturally occurring. That is evidence whether you care to acknowledge it or not.No spooks were evident. Yes, that is another whole big bunch of data points in evidence, one for each opportunity where your supernatural intervention coulda/shoulda/woulda occurred but didn't.That's kind of an infinite set of evidence against you. Now, good news, all it would take to destroy ALL of this irrefutable evidence is one, just one, verified^** instance of a supernatural occurrence. Got any?^** Science, baby! Hard physical evidence.

What? You two get different ChatPriests?

I fail to see any problem with this. This is the reality.Any meaning or purpose found is subjective and personal. Note I did not say such is bad as long as one realizes it is self-generated.

Those commentaries, god or not, are violently repressive and espouse moralities that, if this still small voice of your god were real, would be to humanities benefit to ignore. You are allowed to fantasize for yourself but not for others.

... and fish, octopus, arachnids, crabs ... Animalia is a rather diverse lot, not just mammals.I don't know how basically you want to get but humans are basically bacteria that got smart. Some would say too smart.But, yes, all the evidence of reality we do have makes us but another animal. Does that bother you?

I've seen that claim. I don't know about fun but my cats sometimes bring me little presents of love. Apparently not a lot of intellectual empathy in those samples.
​ We don't. Who says otherwise? As stated, yes. A number of reasons. Social constructs all.That appellation seems to be reserved for describing some humans and our gods. Though I seem to recall a bengal tiger in 1903 being so labeled after its reign of hundreds of dead. Just didn't like humans. No, no, this gal really hated us. Bad KittyAnd, for most part, animals are not deemed sufficiently morally aware to completely overcome instinct. We acknowledge their drive in the face of instinct, we forgive them our own hateful thoughts, then we shoot them dead for revenge anyway and go hunt their families for sport.For most of human history we did this with humans, too. Not the forgiving part but the hunting and shooting part. We are not yet removed from the religious violence of the last few centuries. Excellent advice. For the vast majority of people that means setting up a fruitful, productive, pain-free life with friends.Your Satan has the right idea. Yes, it would be to our benefit ("our" being those not slaughtered, incinerated, starved). Thank you for that reminder, Comrade Joseph. We'll give your religious recommendations to the death committees in the next plenary session. We could. I know you religionists try that from time to time, like now in Afghanistan, Rwanda.But there is a big problem taking over big parts of the world. Secular Humanism. You're not allowed to do that anymore.Yes, Candle2, you are a human: a population of animals evolved on and presently ravaging, raping and ruining the Earth.

Who said these things are acceptable? Are you that sick?They smack too much of religious sacrifice and are abhorrent in modern morality. You think it is "freedom" to torture and kill? Do you accept these in human society? Good god, Candle2, you already have my answer to that stupidity. Read my responses. Message 371Yes, in the areas of problem solving, critical thinking, intellectual awareness, we humans are superior. But then a bear is superior in climbing trees to a fish. Bears and fish are different but they're both animals. Still, we judge tree-climbing standards different between them. One even eats its young. That doesn't alter the fact that fish, bears and humans are animals with differing controls over their instincts.So, we're different from the other animals in the same way a fish is different from the other animals. The fish's super power is to breath water. Ours is intellectual.None of that requires a god. Aristotle's rational soul is one of physio-chemical intellect, not pixie dust. There is no need nor evidence for anything majik.