Keith

This sounds like a tautology. If that is all this statement is, once again, I must ask you...how does this statement matter to our discussion? Are such statements shedding any light on the topic of moral right/wrong? In what way is it?

Mageth

But earlier in the thread you said it was morally wrong for a parent to kill a rebellious child. So God commanded the Israelites to commit a moral wrong???

Can't you see that you are admitting that the God depicted in the Bible does not provide an objective morality, but instead subjective, arbitrary moralities? That is the only conclusion I can reach from your above statement.

You have established absolutely no basis on this thread for an objective morality based on God, the Bible, or the back of a cereal box (which I would come closer to believing as a good source for morality than the Bible). In fact, you have provided evidence for the opposite. And yet you claim victory?

Mageth

A tautology can be true, and this one is. For something to be morally wrong, there has to be a moral system that declares that thing morally wrong.

And you just said:

It was God's command to the Israelites, and not intended as a command for all people, everywhere, in every period of time. Do you get it now?

In other words, you seem to be in agreement with my statement "It was morally wrong only under the moral standards that held such actions to be morally wrong."

Further, as I said, you yourself have admitted this when you made your point about actions committed by those who did not know or realize those things were "morally wrong" not being morally wrong for the committers.

The only difference between my statement and your stance on the case of killing a rebellious child is that you are saying "it was not morally wrong under the moral standard (given by god) that held the action to not be morally wrong".

Keith

But not because it was "outside of moral standards" (I don't really understand what you meant). BTW Mageth, I appreciate your patience, arguing skill, and politeness. It's a pleasure.

Keith

Thanks for the clarification.

Mageth

But not because it was "outside of moral standards" (I don't really understand what you meant).

If there's no moral standard, there can be no moral wrong. As I said, this is the same argument you made that doing something without knowing or realizing that action was morally wrong is not morally wrong. In your argument, you seem to be assuming that there is some moral system somewhere that the person does not know about that labels the action morally wrong. But by extension, if no such moral standard exists, then there is no moral wrong. That's what I mean by "Outside of moral standards". For clarity, I perhaps should have said "With no moral standards".

BTW Mageth, I appreciate your patience, arguing skill, and politeness. It's a pleasure.

Thanx. Back at ya.

Pain Paien

I get that you're simply making another baseless assertation. What within the bible would make you think the statement is not universal? The passage clearly uses "every one" (and other such universals, in various versions). If what you believe to be the correct interpretation were accurate, why would it not read "every Isrealite" or something of that nature? Can you supply any evidence that it is not meant to be universal? Or, as I asked before (and you failed to answer), is the default interpetation of any passage in the bible that it does not apply to you?


Meaning, essentially, that you have nothing meaningful to say that counters my arguments, so you've decided to dodge the issue by attacking me in their place. It was not my intent to either preach or condescend you, but merely to be honest. If you actually care to address the issues of this argument (instead of using issue-dodging and straw-men instead), and thereby become a participant, be my guest, but at this point you're merely a spectator.

Vorkosigan

Only if you subscribe to the rather impoverished view that morals are just personal opinions. Which neither of us does.

And in any case, while "inhuman" and "evil" are certainly values, "incomplete," is an objectively demonstratable description. God's ethics are hopelessly incomplete -- where in the Bible does it tell us:

the right way to manage river basins
whether to subsidize infant industries
what the proper level of individual and social risk is
how to site incinerators and nuclear plants
what level of radiation is safe
what level of coverage national health insurance should provide
how nuclear waste should stored
what level of carcinogens in the food supply is acceptable
what level and types of environmental protections should be implemented...

..I could go on and on. Whole areas of ethics are missing from the Bible. Clearly.

Vorkosigan

Queen of Swords

Keith, if you addressed these comments earlier, I must have failed to see it. Please let me know what your response is.

Joe V.

No, I don't know that. What I do know is that there a lot of fallible human beings - yourself included - claiming that it is God's word. If you could really back up this claim with convincing evidence, our Founding Fathers would never have made America a secular government.

- Joe