Laera

What would you say to a liberal xian who suggests the following (an argument I hear from my family):

Any traits or morals that appear constant accross cultures or might be supposed to be "objective morality" are present in all of humanity because we were made in god's image through the process of evolution. God guided evolution in such a way as to instill these objective values and morals in us no-matter our societal influences.

Essentially it's a "god works through nature" cop out that makes it essentially impossible to test, since god's actions would obviously be what we would expect from nature since god created nature and the natural laws.

So no-matter the process by which we developed these "objective traits," they're still a "gift from god" and I'm an arrogant bitch for not thanking him for them. (no bitterness here...)

I almost wish I could effectively argue against any objectively human morals just to make her god impotent. But wishing doesn't make it so...

K

Marz Blak:

I'm with you. I've always disliked the term "moral relativist" used to question others' morals. If they are saying that a moral relativist is someone who believes that the situation or individual determines what is moral in a particular situation, I believe nearly everyone is a moral relativist. I have yet to meet a person who doesn't use conscience or gut feeling to decide what to do in situations that are not clearly spelled out by their diety.

Laera:

That's a tough one. Like you said, it's impossible to test. But, if morals really do evolve along with the species, evidence of this would at least show that God is changing. This is something most religions would have a tough time with. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how one would go about finding that evidence.

The Other Michael

You might try "prove it".

It seems to me that in many of those discussions you are overlooking the root question: the existence of the diety in question. Isn't it fruitless to argue if "goddidit" before resolving the question of "does that god exist"?

So if you drop back to the root question and they can't answer to your satisfaction, you've got a good reason for not continuing the discussion.

But if you just want to argue for fun you can always make clear that you'll stipulate the existence of the diety in order to facilitate the discussion process.

cheers,
Michael