Roots of Human Morality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
182

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [/quote]

I can pull out passages from other religious texts. Why should I take what the Bible says over what others do?

You have to show me proof that I should care what the Bible says. Prove that it is indeed the word of god.[/quote]

Prove that it isn’t seeing how you just positively made a claim.[/quote]

No you are. You are quoting the Bible to prove god handed down morals to us. Therefore you are saying the Bible is the word of god. Again I’m saying I don’t believe that the Bible is the word of god, show me evidence.

Anyways it’s 1:15am here so I’ll just cut to the chase. You can’t prove god is the source of morality anymore than I can prove reason is the source of morality. Both of us are just holding personal opinions[/quote]

There is a lot of evidence to support that the bible is true, so if it says god is the source of morals then it implies that is also true. Google is best source of information for this since there does not seem to be any 1 piece of evidence that stands out strongly enough to make that the only argument.

183

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:<<< Ahhh…now we’re gettin’ somewhere.

Faith is all around and in us, my friend. You’ve got it. I’ve got it. Your neighbor has it. Mine does.
[/quote]Why is yours better than his?
[/quote]

You tell me.[/quote]I don’t believe it is. Unless you’ve joined the ranks of us accursed Calvinists.

EDIT: I’ll let you in on a little secret Push. You were on the top of my list of people who I thought would grasp the truly Christian epistemology. I tell you no lie. Comments I’ve seen from you the last couple weeks though shows me you are not even in the same solar system. I invited you into that new thread ya know. With all my heart I still believe you’re gonna get it. Romans 1 is a good start. How many times have I quoted that passage? 20? I’m bein totally sincere here. I want you on my team. Still. I am not setting you up. You have my word.

[quote]pushharder wrote:<<< I’ve told you before you lost your opportunity to engage me here. When you burn your bridges down like you have your requests become inconsequential to me. Shoo. [/quote]Yer fibbin. Come on.

184

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:<<< Everyone who is pro-choice and brings up objections to religion is “dull” in your opinion. >>>[/quote]I didn’t take the time to sort out the tag issue so I don’t know if you’re referring to him in particular or pro life people in general. I for one have never ever called anybody dull or stupid for any reason in these discussions. Quite the opposite. Intelligence and sin are not in any way mutually exclusive. Many of the most brilliant people who ever lived were 200 proof pagans.
[/quote]

That was aimed solely at Push. Push isn’t representational of the average poster on this board. Most try much harder to be respectful. Although I disagree with you and many others, I can tell that you are trying to treat others as you would like to be treated. Many others on this board also do that. Of course, we all mess up at times. It’s the purposeful derogatory terms at times when he isn’t even in the middle of a discussion that I have trouble with, especially with people who have been nothing but polite to him (and no, I’m not talking about myself). I don’t feel he adds any fun to my internet experience, so I’m not bothering.

185

Yer bein a little too tough on the ol boy. I don’t think he means it as bad as he sounds sometimes. You are right though btw. I invite anybody to treat me like I treat them. I insist. Even the strident criticisms.

188

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Yer bein a little too tough on the ol boy. I don’t think he means it as bad as he sounds sometimes. You are right though btw. I invite anybody to treat me like I treat them. I insist. Even the strident criticisms. [/quote]

Is deciding what you want for yourself the same thing as being purposefully tough on another person? I don’t see it as me being tough on him. I just expect that people treat each other with a certain amount of decency and if that consistently doesn’t happen, figure that I’m not going to change them and do what I can to improve my own experience. I can’t help what he does. But that doesn’t mean I need to make it a part of my experience.

189

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [/quote]

I can pull out passages from other religious texts. Why should I take what the Bible says over what others do?

You have to show me proof that I should care what the Bible says. Prove that it is indeed the word of god.[/quote]

Prove that it isn’t seeing how you just positively made a claim.[/quote]

No you are. You are quoting the Bible to prove god handed down morals to us. Therefore you are saying the Bible is the word of god. Again I’m saying I don’t believe that the Bible is the word of god, show me evidence.

Anyways it’s 1:15am here so I’ll just cut to the chase. You can’t prove god is the source of morality anymore than I can prove reason is the source of morality. Both of us are just holding personal opinions[/quote]

There is a lot of evidence to support that the bible is true, so if it says god is the source of morals then it implies that is also true. Google is best source of information for this since there does not seem to be any 1 piece of evidence that stands out strongly enough to make that the only argument.[/quote]

There is no evidence that supports the god-myth as depicted in the bible is true. The bible needs a disclaimer that says, “Although inspired in part by a true incident, the following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.”

The fact remains that the question rajraj asked can’t be answered without admitting that there’s no proof that god exists, and that therefore it can’t be proven that morality has an absolute source.

And that’s pretty much it.

190

191

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [/quote]

I can pull out passages from other religious texts. Why should I take what the Bible says over what others do?

You have to show me proof that I should care what the Bible says. Prove that it is indeed the word of god.[/quote]

Prove that it isn’t seeing how you just positively made a claim.[/quote]

No you are. You are quoting the Bible to prove god handed down morals to us. Therefore you are saying the Bible is the word of god. Again I’m saying I don’t believe that the Bible is the word of god, show me evidence.

Anyways it’s 1:15am here so I’ll just cut to the chase. You can’t prove god is the source of morality anymore than I can prove reason is the source of morality. Both of us are just holding personal opinions[/quote]

There is a lot of evidence to support that the bible is true, so if it says god is the source of morals then it implies that is also true. Google is best source of information for this since there does not seem to be any 1 piece of evidence that stands out strongly enough to make that the only argument.[/quote]

No there’s not and it’s sad you think non-Christians simply haven’t googled “bible evidence.”

Go to a library, not a Christian/atheist site and do some research on the topic instead of making dumb statements.

Short Version: Bible was written ~40 years after the alleged crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ by someone who didn’t witness it firsthand. There is also no extra biblical evidence for existence of Jesus, which is especially odd since the Romans were known for good record keeping for their time.

If there was tons of evidence for the bible I would be a Christian.The more I learn about different religions and the more I learn about science, the less I think it’s possible any of them are true.

Have you followed the Kepler spacecraft launch at all? Anyways, one of the targets of the mission was to find out how many planets there are in the goldilocks zone (planets close enough to a star so the planet is warmed, but not too close so that it cooks -like Earth). Through this we have discovered that in our galaxy alone, there are 30,000+ Earth like planets located in the goldilocks zone where life could be supported. All these religions love to prop up man as being special. With the probability of intelligent life elsewhere, I find it extremely hard to believe. IIRC the Bible says Earth is the centre of the universe.

That’s just one example of many.

192

[quote]Makavali wrote:

Again, you give me opinon. Show me how it’s supposed to be rational. Go on, in depth.

The Nazis were never rational about it, they were dumb enough to listen to the loudest voice.[/quote]

No, it isn’t opinion - it speaks for itself. Imagine the money saved if we killed everyone who has been on the government dole for the last two years - young or old. We’d save billions. We’d be able to commit the resources we spent on them to other worthwhile projects. And there would be additional dividends - people would be scared to fall into government assistance knowing that their lives would be in danger, so we would effectively cure laziness and dependency. It’d be chocked full of harsh but good incentives.

Now, what I just described is disgustingly evil and immoral, but it’s rational.

193

[quote]Oleena wrote:

Murder and cannibalism is evil, even when starving. To a reasonaught, it might be moral in such circumstances. To a naturalist, it (murder and eat) might be the best adaptive response. Morals, you take intact to the grave, if need be.
How do you know for sure that your own view on whether or not cannibalism is evil isn’t ethnocentric and that you wouldn’t be supporting cannibalism as highly moral if you had been raised in a place where it was practiced to honor the dead?[/quote]

Because, despite it’s acceptance, harm is done. Unless you are cannablizing someone who is already dead for the basis of survival.
I would also argue it really depends on the marinade.

194

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Oleena wrote:

Murder and cannibalism is evil, even when starving. To a reasonaught, it might be moral in such circumstances. To a naturalist, it (murder and eat) might be the best adaptive response. Morals, you take intact to the grave, if need be.[/quote]

How do you know for sure that your own view on whether or not cannibalism is evil isn’t ethnocentric and that you wouldn’t be supporting cannibalism as highly moral if you had been raised in a place where it was practiced to honor the dead?[/quote]

Because, despite it’s acceptance, harm is done. Unless you are cannablizing someone who is already dead for the basis of survival.
I would also argue it really depends on the marinade.[/quote]

Societies where they eat (ate. they actually don’t do this any more because of Kuru) their dead relatives to honor them, they definitely are already dead and they weren’t killed by the people eating them.

I have no objection to your second point. For some reason I think teriyaki probably wouldn’t do the trick.

195

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
In any event, the author actually thinks human morality (or immorality) is impulsive, emotional. That reason really only catches up later to justify the action/thought that that already occurred. That’s not morality. That’s executing a program. And it says nothing about the execution or the result.[/quote]

From the article:

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality.

In other words, empathy gave rise to morality.

Are you dyslexic Sloth? You really seem to have trouble understanding written word.[/quote]

Yeah, except that’s false. Being empathetic isn’t the same as being moral. People are empathitic to Scott Peterson who murdered his wife and kid, but that’s not a moral act. Morality implies freewill. If you don’t have the option to choose otherwise, then you cannot be culpable for what you do and hence are not morally responsible.
Since empathy can be misplaced, and is often a feeling that is involuntarily felt, it cannot be the basis for morality. It may be the component of a moral act, but it itself isn’t related.

196

[quote]Oleena wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Oleena wrote:

Murder and cannibalism is evil, even when starving. To a reasonaught, it might be moral in such circumstances. To a naturalist, it (murder and eat) might be the best adaptive response. Morals, you take intact to the grave, if need be.

How do you know for sure that your own view on whether or not cannibalism is evil isn’t ethnocentric and that you wouldn’t be supporting cannibalism as highly moral if you had been raised in a place where it was practiced to honor the dead?[/quote]

Because, despite it’s acceptance, harm is done. Unless you are cannablizing someone who is already dead for the basis of survival.
I would also argue it really depends on the marinade.[/quote]

Societies where they eat (ate. they actually don’t do this any more because of Kuru) their dead relatives to honor them, they definitely are already dead and they weren’t killed by the people eating them.

I have no objection to your second point. For some reason I think teriyaki probably wouldn’t do the trick.[/quote]

Well bon apatite.
Cannibalism usually implies killing said person. If the person is already dead, it may be gross and disease ridden, but not inherently immoral.

197

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [/quote]

I can pull out passages from other religious texts. Why should I take what the Bible says over what others do? [/quote]

You have to show me proof that I should care what the Bible says. Prove that it is indeed the word of god.[/quote]

Prove that it isn’t seeing how you just positively made a claim.[/quote]

No you are. You are quoting the Bible to prove god handed down morals to us. Therefore you are saying the Bible is the word of god. Again I’m saying I don’t believe that the Bible is the word of god, show me evidence.

Anyways it’s 1:15am here so I’ll just cut to the chase. You can’t prove god is the source of morality anymore than I can prove reason is the source of morality. Both of us are just holding personal opinions[/quote]

There is a lot of evidence to support that the bible is true, so if it says god is the source of morals then it implies that is also true. Google is best source of information for this since there does not seem to be any 1 piece of evidence that stands out strongly enough to make that the only argument.

No there’s not and it’s sad you think non-Christians simply haven’t googled “bible evidence.”

Go to a library, not a Christian/atheist site and do some research on the topic instead of making dumb statements.

Short Version: Bible was written ~40 years after the alleged crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ by someone who didn’t witness it firsthand. There is also no extra biblical evidence for existence of Jesus, which is especially odd since the Romans were known for good record keeping for their time.
[/quote]
False on both counts. There is extra biblical evidence for Jesus existence and the bible was not written 40 years after the crucifixion. Further, despite the Romans meticulous record keeping, most of the records are lost forever. Maybe you should use some more reliable sites then ones who make such stupid and ridiculous false claims.
Further, very few things from 2000 years ago have multiple sources of verification. And further, further, archaeologists are finding biblical evidences all the time in the said Holy Land. You can expect that number to go up since Iraq is a friendly nation and much of biblical history takes place around the Euphrates.

Your “research” is seemingly one sided. Prove the bible false, period. Then you won’t have to worry about it.

[quote]
If there was tons of evidence for the bible I would be a Christian.The more I learn about different religions and the more I learn about science, the less I think it’s possible any of them are true.

Have you followed the Kepler spacecraft launch at all? Anyways, one of the targets of the mission was to find out how many planets there are in the goldilocks zone (planets close enough to a star so the planet is warmed, but not too close so that it cooks -like Earth). Through this we have discovered that in our galaxy alone, there are 30,000+ Earth like planets located in the goldilocks zone where life could be supported. All these religions love to prop up man as being special. With the probability of intelligent life elsewhere, I find it extremely hard to believe. IIRC the Bible says Earth is the centre of the universe.

That’s just one example of many.[/quote]

I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Sure, we are a drop in the bucket in terms of the universe. That doesn’t mean shit.

198

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
In any event, the author actually thinks human morality (or immorality) is impulsive, emotional. That reason really only catches up later to justify the action/thought that that already occurred. That’s not morality. That’s executing a program. And it says nothing about the execution or the result.[/quote]

From the article:

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality.

In other words, empathy gave rise to morality.

Are you dyslexic Sloth? You really seem to have trouble understanding written word.[/quote]

Yeah, except that’s false. Being empathetic isn’t the same as being moral. People are empathitic to Scott Peterson who murdered his wife and kid, but that’s not a moral act. Morality implies freewill. If you don’t have the option to choose otherwise, then you cannot be culpable for what you do and hence are not morally responsible.
Since empathy can be misplaced, and is often a feeling that is involuntarily felt, it cannot be the basis for morality. It may be the component of a moral act, but it itself isn’t related.[/quote]

You’re right; being empathetic isn’t the same as being moral. I never said it was.

However, I don’t know who Scott Peterson is but from the wiki I must admit I’ve trouble understanding why anyone would have empathy for him.

The problem I’m having discussing this with you is that you’ll never be able to shift your position away from the divine. Anything I say, or any inference I can make based on research will be denied by you.

I realise this can be turned around but thenagain; I have a theory that makes sense.

199

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
So tell me theists, where does morality come from?[/quote]

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [/quote]

Cool.

Now demonstrate

  1. god exists

  2. That he/she/it handed down morals to us[/quote]

Do you really want to go there with number one? Do you have that much time? I don’t believe I have leveled my cosmology spiel on you, but if you are willing to do some work, we can discuss.

200

[quote]pat wrote:

False on both counts. There is extra biblical evidence for Jesus existence and the bible was not written 40 years after the crucifixion. Further, despite the Romans meticulous record keeping, most of the records are lost forever. Maybe you should use some more reliable sites then ones who make such stupid and ridiculous false claims.
Further, very few things from 2000 years ago have multiple sources of verification. And further, further, archaeologists are finding biblical evidences all the time in the said Holy Land. You can expect that number to go up since Iraq is a friendly nation and much of biblical history takes place around the Euphrates.

Your “research” is seemingly one sided. Prove the bible false, period. Then you won’t have to worry about it.

[/quote]

  1. There is no extra biblical evidence for Jesus’s existence, I have looked. If you have some evidence I overlooked please share.

  2. Here is a link from a Christian site:

“The gospel message was preserved in oral form for many years before being written down. Bible scholars believe the letters of Paul are the oldest books in the New Testament, written between 50 and 60 A.D. Mark was written around 70 A.D., about 40 years after Jesus was crucified. Matthew and Luke were written between 80 and 90 A.D. Finally, The Gospel of John appeared in its final form around 95 A.D. Bible Scholars believe Matthew and Luke incorporated much of the material from Mark into their gospels. They also included unique material of their own plus common material from a presumed source called “Q” (from the German, quelle, meaning “source”), which has not been preserved.”