In deed, why rely on god's subjective morality?
Objective Moral Truth
- Thread starter swivel
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In deed, why rely on god's subjective morality?
John Nash worked out the mathematical proof for this and won the Nobel prize for it. The optimum solution is to work both for your benefit and the benefit of the group.
If what you offer is not worthy of respect, why should it be respected?
Also you defining what god means to you sounds like its just some personal fantasy.
If I were carrying a lump of shit about and call it a diamond while proclaiming you must respect it since I define what "diamond" means to me; what would you actually think?
Would you pay me $1,000,000 for it?
Only if you look from a distance while squinting. There are omnivors who just don't have meat at the moment, vegetarians with exceptions, "moral" vegetarians and "health" vegetarians. Buddhist vegetarians happy to eat meat as long as it wasn't made for them. Vegetarians who are so deperate for meat they eat that horrendous fake stuff.
If you are careful how you pick your audience and are sufficiently vague you can get momentary seeming agreement. But I'm not convinced that runs deep enough to qualify as more than social cohesion good only for the moment.
Are you saying vegitarian opinions don't count?
Wouldn't that make life easy.
Cool. That's basically what Richard Dawkins was saying as well.
While everyone may lie, they don't lie all the time. I personally also like following quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
The truth gets out sooner or later
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
George W. Bush
If a comedian said that, it'd sound hilarious. If you apply it to things such as the the official story on 9/11, or the reasons for going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, however...
I'm speaking of what God means to me. If you don't want to respect my definition of what God means, I don't think there's really much point in talking about it.
swarm said:
Definitions aren't fantasies. Whether what's defined exists is another matter. However, I think that most people agree that everything exists.
swarm said:
I would think that you define a lump of sh$$ as a diamond. I may think that you'd be better off using the word sh$$ but I'd respect your definition.
swarm said:
Not a chance
.Agreed.
James R said:
The only thing that comes to mind is 'do unto others as you would have done unto you' or something like that.
Most but not all people claim to believe that. Of those who claim to believe it, not many practice it well.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I agree. People would do well using that as a guideline though.
But there would be statements of morality that one could say are, objectively, intrinsic to human nature. "Betrayal is wrong" is probably one of them - of course what counts as betrayal would vary by culture and circumstance.nasor said:
So the same general kinds of objectively true claims can be made about human morality as about human physiology.
You want "cannot", or "can't". I think using "can not" makes a false statement, tragically enough - telling the truth is not as easy as it sounds.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Using 'can not' just puts the emphasis on 'not'.
Telling the truth isn't easy???
I certainly agree that this might be possible. I'm simply saying that the statements of morality are not themselves objectively true, even if it is objectively true that most humans agree on them. "Humans usually agree that it's wrong to betray people" an objectively true statement. "It's wrong to betray people" is not.
It's only best to work together as a group if you're in a situation that has a "Nash equilibrium". Not all systems do; sometimes it's best to compete. Particularly in situations were there's finite resources that are already being used.
Seconded. But most importantly (for this thread), I think we have an answer as to whether there is objective moral truth- the answer is, yes.
The answer is NO.
I think you are engaged in special pleading. You are expecting me to make a special exception concerning god and to grant you special rights one would not expect ordinarily when discussing a topic.
I don't know if this is intentional because there is a long history of people expecting exceptions for this topic, but I don't really see why I should grant you these privileges.
If we were talking about string theory and I complained you weren't giving me proper respect when I spoke of what string theory means to me, I suspect you would not be impressed with that argument. I doubt you would respect my definition of what string theory means either.
If your ideas have merit on their own I will duly respect them. But just because they are your ideas or just because they are about god? No.
Oh come on. Everything exists as itself. So "god" or "unicorn" exist as concepts and instances of words on a page. But as nouns they can also have actual referents. "Rock" for example can refer to actual rocks. "God" and "unicorn" have no actual referent.
Now if by defining "god" you are saying it has no referent and its only existence is as a word or concept, then we have agreement.
It seems to me that people are confusing ethics and morals.
Ethics are situationally applies morals.
Whether incest is right or wrong is outside the scope of morality.
I can certainly acknowledge a core set of objective morals based on survival of the individual and species - which is our core instincts.
Murder, for example, is immoral because without that very basic core of trust and right to life, communities could never have been built and without cooperation and communities we would not have survived as a species.
What about Capital Punishment? That's a question of ethics, not morals.
Ethics are situationally applies morals.
Whether incest is right or wrong is outside the scope of morality.
I can certainly acknowledge a core set of objective morals based on survival of the individual and species - which is our core instincts.
Murder, for example, is immoral because without that very basic core of trust and right to life, communities could never have been built and without cooperation and communities we would not have survived as a species.
What about Capital Punishment? That's a question of ethics, not morals.