Morality

[Aletheia]

Where does morality come from?

How is it possible?

What does it mean to be a good person?

This particular video pretty much sums up how I view morality and also shines light on some of the problems with "Christian Morality." It's a little lengthy, but well worth it.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Yeah, Christianity "spawned" abolitionism. You know what else it spawned? Justifications for the very system of slavery they were abolishing.

Don't give religion undeserved credit for people being and not being assholes.

[Contemporary Protestant]

Are y'all aware that transatlantic slavery was different than slavery before hand?

[Moralnihilist]

Are y'all aware that transatlantic slavery was different than slavery before hand?

Are you referring to the slavery practice of only being a slave for a set amount of time, and then being a free person? Or the taking slaves from opposing countries/clans/citystates in time of war and again them being slaves for a set period of time and then being freed? Or the option for all slaves to earn or buy their freedom?


But as someone with a PhD in history, yes I am quite aware of the differences between transatlantic slavery and the slavery that came before.

[Drummer Guy]

Are y'all aware that transatlantic slavery was different than slavery before hand?

It honestly doesn't matter, the bible could have just clearly said "Slavery is wrong" but it doesn't.  I mean, god felt the need to clarify that eating shelled fish is detestable, and that we should not wear cloths of mixed linen, but he couldn't be bothered to mention that owning people as slaves is wrong?  Isn't he omniscient, meaning he could have seen all the suffering that his lack of clarification would cause?

[pioteir]

The challenge isn't logical, it begs the question of naturalistic morality.  Your standard for what is "good" is derived from a naturalistic worldview, and if you assume that standard to judge the answer, then it's staged so that it can never be answered.

If you have methods A and B for determining what is "right" and "wrong", and you ask for something from method B that is considered "right" that A could not say is "right", then of course A will consider it to be "wrong", but that would be a legitimate answer.  However, if you use A to judge the answer, then of course you will find it to be "wrong" and the challenge could never be met.

I'm sorry but this is a fallacious challenge.

I don't find the challenge to be fallacious at all. Religious people assert that human morality derived from their god is superior to other value systems. They state god gives objective moral standards for everyone to live by, even now. So when I want a believer to find me something that really is superior to my morals I only want them to meet their burden of proof. It's like weighing apples and pears. They are different but You can weigh them all the same. Even if we assume that there are different moral standards being used by me and theists, they still say their morality is "better" (like saying 1 kg of apples weighs more than 1kg of pears). If anything, the challenge shows they can not say their morality is "better", beause, as You pointed out, we can be using very different standards to begin with. And another thing is that the challenge shows theists are using the same moral standards as anyone else but they credit religion for them. They don't stone people to death, they don't do many other things described in the bible because they know it's immoral by today's standards. It's cherry-picking caused by cognitive dissonance.

ps. Sorry if the apples and pears example is wrong, I really suck at making this sort of analogies :)

[Mr.Obvious]

apples and pears...
Is your native language Dutch by any chance?
Always heard people who speak English compare apples and oranges.

[pioteir]

I'm Polish :)

[Mr.Obvious]

Good to know there's other places that compare apples and pears then :p

[pioteir]

Yea. I love Your work on the debate with Casper btw. I don't think he's going to change his mind but still it's a great treat to organize my own thoughts and regain perspective.

ps. I don't have the brain capacity to understand and interpret the physics mentioned there (even as a layman) :) so again much props for You.

[GSOgymrat]

It honestly doesn't matter, the bible could have just clearly said "Slavery is wrong" but it doesn't.  I mean, god felt the need to clarify that eating shelled fish is detestable, and that we should not wear cloths of mixed linen, but he couldn't be bothered to mention that owning people as slaves is wrong?  Isn't he omniscient, meaning he could have seen all the suffering that his lack of clarification would cause?

The fact Jesus didn't condemn slavery, and even tacitly condoned it, is probably the biggest single indicator to me that he isn't the moral authority Christians claim.

[La Dolce Vita]

Good to know there's other places that compare apples and pears then :p

We do that in Norway too. :)