[quote]Vegita wrote:
Cortes I apologise if you have already done this, but I don’t feel like you or push has clearly stated WHY you think moral authority comes from god. Perhaps thats not what you are arguing, and in that case, I don’t even know what I am arguing for.
Let me make my final point that societies direct morality.
First a standard definition of morality:
The term â??moralityâ?? can be used either
descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
some other group, such as a religion, or
accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons. -End
So going by that definition of the word alone, Morality CAN stem from religion, in which case for those followers of religion, it would stem from god. BUT the absence of religion or belief in god does not mean an absence of morality.
Allow me to use my own example and you will probably have to use your imagination on this one, but it should paint the picture I intend. Pretend for a second that God doesn’t exist. That all of creation is just random and chance that it turned out the way it did. Complex organisms are just a luck set of basic universal physics and chemistry priciples who stack upon eachother to form complex structures. Every human response, emotion, thought etc… is the direct result of trillions of individual chemical reactions, in essence, you really don’t have free will or free choice, you just have extremely complex chemical reactions going on. We can’t count them or predict them (yet) so we assume some other force has input, Spirit if you will. But in this reality, there really is no spirit, or god.
Ok Now, amongst all these chemical reactions, there develops a certain type of chemical that has an interesting set of properties. It seems this specific cluster of chemicals will duplicate itself. Now due to more complex physics and chemical properties, certain clusters of these chemicals started attracting other chemicals which increased thier ability to duplicate themselves. Over millenia, things like cells started to come into existance because they allowed the origional chemicals with a propensity to duplicate themsleves to duplicate faster.
Another millenia or two later, chemical reactions between cells led to even further advancement of the chemical systems, organisms began to form. By random encounter yet staying within the physical laws of the univers, differnet things began to happen. Some things resulted in the destruction of the complex chemical organisms, some things led to the organisms to flourish. This progressed even further, where too much of a good thing could lead to the elimination of a resource and thus the end result was a bad thing. Through pure chance, certain chemical reactions ultimately had a better chance of duplicating than others, or others simply wiped themselves out or where wiped out bu outside forces out of thier direct involvement.
And now we arrive at the present day, even millenia further down the scope of things and those chemical reactions are still taking place. The reactions have become so complex that entire clusters of organisms have started acting together, much the same way the first cells did, random and very complex actions and reactions taking place. Those chemical traits which prove detrimental to the replication of the chemicals (DNA) eventually are out replicated by good chemical traits that help the chemicals replicate.
With each increase in organism coplexity, new forms of communication came into being beyone chemical. Things like interacting with radiation, light and sound made things even more complex. Organsisms could interact on levels previously unthinkable. The ultimate desire of the root chemicals (DNA) could begin to actively manipulate thier environment instead of just floating along bumping into shit.
With this action came societies and morals. for the base desire for those chemicals to replicate is the driving force in all of this random cluster called life. It’s the ONLY rule of law, duplicate oneself. This is the foundation for moral code. What brings one the highest chances of duplicating oneself.
No god, just a chemical trying to replicate. And we still get morals.
V[/quote]
Okay, I’ve finally got some time to dedicate to replying here.
First off, let me say that it may seem this thing has been going in circles for upwards of 20 pages, and we keep getting led back to this place. And I think this, what we’re discussing here, is the important distinction we have to finally agree upon if we are ever finally going to get out of this rut we’ve dug and take the argument to its next logical step, in one direction or the other (the step you guys keep trying to push push and I into before we have adequately examined all of the aspects of this angle of the problem that we need to know FIRST).
I may believe in God, and you may believe or believe in something else, but I really don’t think that you and I, or ephrem and I, for another example, actually disagree too much on the idea of WHAT is morally “right.” Sure, you can come at me with an exception to any moral absolute I can provide (hell, you came up with one for boy butt-rape!). Thing is, neither you nor I, even if we were able to carry out the act, could do so with a clean conscience.
To use a more realistic example. You are a Jew in a group of more than a dozen others, living in a cellar hiding from the Nazis. There is a 5 month old baby in the group, and she lacks adequate food and sanitation, and she is sick and has begun to wail uncontrollably. You can hear marching down the street. Enemy soldiers will arrive at any minute, and you do the only thing you can do. You strangle the baby. Now, what do you think you will feel more strongly afterward? That you have saved the lives of 15 people? Or that you have just murdered an innocent little baby?
When you get to the bottom of things, neither you, nor I, nor, I think, ephrem, will honestly admit that he really thinks certain principles are violable. Somebody can make up as many excuses and reasons as he wants, but in your heart, you do believe that certain things are Right, and certain are Wrong. I find it hard to believe that anyone (outside of maybe Sartre) magically teleported back to Mexico D.F. circa 1500 would be able to look with his own eyes at the murder, mutilation, gore, cannibalism, and insanity that was that society and say, “Well, certainly they are only responding to environmental stimuli and the cultural metaconsciousness. An indifferent interpretation of the data will surely show that this is all perfectly reasonable.”
Like it or not, we are ALL moral absolutists.
I’ll make my next point in the following post.
