Allow me to explain in greater detail. If morality is an external, objective "entity," rather than human invention, then we should not see multiple systems of ethics, and different moral values according to culture.
I should first clarify (as I did not earlier, my apologies) that although I refer to morals as "an entity" I believe that they are derived from God, and are not by themselves. I believe all things consist in God, and I do believe that there is one, specific set of morals, which are derived from God. But we do not always follow these morals. In fact, some have deluded themselves into thinking that, say, cannibalism is right. This is absolutely not another set of morals, but a delusion of the morals that be. There is ONE set of morals derived from God, the other "moral systems" that may exist are merely derisions of God's moral standard.
Babies are not born with any sense of morality. Their initial social instincts are selfish in nature - they want food, they want attention, etc. They have no built-in concept of property. They have no idea what "death" is, and thus no concept of "murder." They don't know about sexuality, and so don;t have any opinions on whether a given sexual orientation is moral or immoral. They don;t know what the Sabbath is, and so can't tell wehter working on it is good or bad.
Once again, the statement "babies are not born with any sense of morality" is an assumption, whether I agree with it or not. You may say that this can be proven, but when you attempt to prove it, you will make other assumptions, and to prove those assumptions, you will make more assumptions, and so on and so on. But I will not focus in on this inconsistency right now.
Suppose (as you do) that a long time ago, you have a baby born, whose parents were some form of an ape (we will not get picky about the specifics), and thus, had no way of conveying to their child the concepts of morals and ethics (they would do this via language, which apes do not have). Thus, when this baby grows up and has children, it will not teach its children the concepts of morals and ethics, because its parents did not teach it these concepts. So then we continue on, with more and more children coming into being that do not know of the concepts of morals and ethics. When did these concepts arise, and how were they then conveyed to the offspring?
or would condemn the Bible's instruction to execute rebellious children.
I guess this statement comes from a lack of understanding of the "covenants" of the Bible. I would like to discuss this, but it would be a rather long topic. All I will say is that ultimately, in Jewish law you were to execute rebellious children. I ask, if these children were then disobeying God's commandment (Honor thy father and mother), why shouldn't they be executed, for sinning against an infinitely Holy God. Basically, we do not follow these laws now because Christ fulfilled the law by dying on the cross. I would like to explain this in further detail to make better sense of it, but this would drag on for some time.
It's not an assumption at all, even if you disagree with my conclusion based on the evidence.
Here you still have an assumption. This time, the assumption is not that morals are man-made, but that the evidence is supreme in defining truth, in this case, your truth being that morals are man-made. This may be frustrating to you, but I hold that any arguments you make have an underlying assumption, and you may seek to prove that assumption by other means, but those means will inevitably have an underlying assumption attached along to them as well.
Yet those cultures had no concept of the Hebrew "God" before it was told to them. Various cultures around the world have worshipped nature itself; animal spirits; ancestors; multiple pantheons of wildly different deities; enlightened human beings; and all manner of other things. There is no evidence that any of them "knew" your deity and "chose" nott o worship him. The words of your book are not themselves evidence - they are an assertion that has not been supported.
The word "knew" in the passage I mentioned does not mean that God revealed Himself to them (cannibals or what have you) in the sense that He reveals Himself to Christians. The evidence of God is plainly there for those who don't believe, yet they are blind. From my point of view, I see the evidence, plainly before me, and I see the same evidence directly in front of unbelievers, they simply do not open their eyes and see it in the way that I do. There are true stories of savages in the middle of nowhere, who had not specifically been introduced to the God of the Bible, that when they were witnessed to, they would say things like "I knew there was a God, but now I know who He is." These were the men whose eyes were opened, and were then introduced to the one and only true God by missionaries perhaps.
From my understanding, most cannibalistic societies that still exist are South American tribes.
In any case, I am a member of Western society, and specifically I am a Utilitarian and a Secular Humanist. I value human life in and of itself, and judge morality based on the preservation of that life and the increase in its quality for the greatest number of people. I would judge cannibalism to be immoral if it involves murder. While I feel generally grossed out by cannibalism of someone who has died of natural causes, I see nothing ethically wrong so long as his family consents to the consumption of the corpse (because I value the potential emotional harm to the family).
The cannibal himself may of course disagree, and that proves my very point - morality is not universal and objective, but is subjective and unique to individuals and societies.
The fact that you or I can make a moral judgment does not make our moral values objective, Sac, even if we were to agree. The fact that others come to different moral conclusions in the same circumstances means that morality is subjective and is determined by the individual.
Once again, you have an assumption, and that assumption is that the preservation of human life should be valued above all else, even a cannibals desire to eat. You may seek to prove this assumption in some other way, but as I have said before, that proof will inevitably have an assumption.
But you did not answer the question. Would it be right for the cannibal to cannibalize the American, or not? And once again, if in the cannibals mind, it is right to eat other humans, this does not prove that there are different moral systems, in fact it proves the opposite (this proof is in the following sentences). If, as you say, that in the cannibals moral system, it is right to cannibalize, then who are you to prevent him from cannibalizing? You say you have a right to stop him from eating you; he says he has a right to eat you...this is a stalemate. How then do we decide which view is the correct one? If there is a correct side, there is no good way to decide which one is the correct side. If there is no correct view, then how can justice be established? The very fact that there is controversy over what is right and wrong inexplicably denotes that there IS right and wrong. It follows then that either the cannibal or the American is wrong. How do we decide which is right?...
But the statement was not about someone who does believe in Santa. It was about someone who does not. To not believe in Santa, one could actively believe that particulars of the Santa myth are impossible, and thus there is no such thing. This, admittedly, requires that one have previously determined (by assumption or by other evidence) that the particulars of the Santa myth are impossible.
However, one could instead passively lack belief in Santa simply because they have not been convinced. This requires no assumption at all - it doesn't even require a pre-existing conclusion regarding the possibility of the individual aspects of the myth. This would also describe someone who has never heard of Santa - if you've never heard of a thing, you can hardly believe it exists.
Excuse me for not realizing that you meant someone who does not believe in Santa Claus.
Santa, however, is not a good example. The reason I do not believe in Santa is because I know that it was purposely made up by men. The men who made up the myth did not really believe in the myth they had created. Thus, I don't not believe in Santa because of a lack of evidence, but because the very men who created the idea meant for it to be a myth.
Except for those who believe in many gods. Or those who have never heard of god. Or those who passively lack belief because they aren't convinced.
Please, do tell me which deity I worship? I don't recall praying lately.
There are clearly a few misconceptions here. I guess that I should first change the question to being more like "Do you believe in god(s)". This would account for those who worship multiple gods. As to the agnostics, they would absolutely have to answer in the "no" column. This is because they do not genuinely believe in a god (perhaps in some cases they do worship a god, in which case they would answer yes). To genuinely believe in a god, you must follow the specifics of that religion. If you do not follow the specifics of any religion based on the assumption that you don't know whether or not there is a god, then you are, in effect, saying that you do not believe in a god. IF you TRULY believed in a god, you would follow that religion. IF you DO NOT follow a certain religion, you do NOT believe in a god, and whether your premise is that you don't know, or that you believe the evidence is inadequate, you still do NOT follow a particular religion, and thus cannot say that you TRULY believe in a god.
Then let me rephrase.
I presume you do not believe in fairies or leprechauns. Is that an accurate assumption on my part?
This is a topic that I could speak much of. No, I do not believe in fairies of leprechauns. But people often wonder about the many, many stories there are of kidnappings by aliens, or stories of fairies and other such things. Once again, I do not believe in these things, but this does not preclude the possibility of the King of Lies sending his demons out masquerading as aliens (or whatever the case may be) in order to fool people into believing these things. But I do not know whether or not you would like to get into a lengthy discussion of this. But no, I do not believe in fairies and leprechauns. This is because I believe that the Devil can take on many different forms, and thus decept us.
Once again, I hope you can understand that all beliefs have an assumption, and that those assumptions, even if they can be proven true, will lead to more assumptions, and that the only place this ongoing process can end is with God, who can explain and make sense of all these things. I hope and pray that you can truly understand this, so that perhaps you can be converted to (not mine) God's line of thinking.
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