I don’t know what flat earth has to do with morality, but whatever.
Of course morality is decided by what the majority thinks. I’m sure the fine people of Holland don’t think they are depraved just because the legislature there have decided that the age of consent should be 12. I’m equally sure that many Americans find this appalling.
If the majority didn’t decide what morality was, then how do youaccount for the difference in attitude towards punishment of criminals in countries with the same tradition and religeous background? The states in the U.S. can go on executing criminals, as long as there is a majority who supports the death penalty, or at least don’t raise their voices against it. The majority of some states have decided that same-sex marriage is not moral and should be forbidden, at about the same time as the Lutheran Church of Sweden has decided to give official blessings to gay marriages.
So yes, at one point, slavery was indeed moral. And morality is subjective.
Having already answered it (twice), you get a turn.
Does Jupiter exist? Only yes or no is acceptable.
It is merely a restatement of faith. You haven’t offered any meta-ethical justification for your assumption that “wanting to make other people feel a certain way” is any more valid than “wanting to make other people feel a different way”.
What box is that?
I am saying that, if atheism is true, then no one knows the difference between right and wrong, because there is no difference between right and wrong. Atheists don’t know any more than anyone else. Both atheists and theists are equally mistaken - no distinction can be drawn between right and wrong.
What is the difference between bleen and goob? There is no difference, both are equally meaningless.
So your dilemma doesn’t work. Do humans know the difference between right and wrong? No, there is no difference. Since they don’t, then atheist doctrine is wrong, no one can "sin’, and atheist morality is invalidated along with every other moral doctrine.
If you like to argue that all morality is purely subjective, then theist morality is just as valid as atheism. So is belief in the Fatherland and the Fuhrerprinzip, manifest destiny, killing abortionists, etc., etc.
Regards,
Shodan
Your examples seem to flow from Christian Values. (Hatreed of Jews, belief in the immortal soul, tribalism, etc.)
Oh, come off it. For everyone but an omnipotent being, “I don’t know” is a perfectly valid response. Contrapuntal is doing you the favour of assuming you at least know what you believe, which is why insisting on a yes or no answer to “do you believe in Zeus” is a perfectly reasonable demand. Unless, that is, you’re either happy to admit that you don’t in fact know what you believe, or can show some other sort of invalidating assumption built in to the question. Can you?
Of course we know the difference: we’re the ones who invented the concepts in the first place. If there were no humans, there would be no “right” or “wrong.”
In an external sense, you’re right, there is no difference. If Hitler had won WWII, killing Jews would have been seen as heroic, and not monstrous. But that doesn’t mean that an individual can’t decide that certain actions are reprehensible to their personal moral code. Moral relativism doesn’t preclude one from taking a moral stand. Some ideas/principals/actions are fundamentally incompatible with others. There is no external justification that makes democracy better than fascism, but recognizing this doesn’t mean that an adherent to one side as to accept the exsistence of the opposing philosophy.
At no point did I state my morals were “valid”. Do you mean, perhaps, “morally good/ethical”? If that’s so, then I did - making people feel good/happy/not sad. Regardless of anything, we can know at least that people do feel emotion - because, well, we’re people and we feel emotion. It is my aim to foster the happy emotions over the sad emotions, to generalise. Is that more moral than anything else? Nope, it’s just what’s moral to me. If you want to argue why this point, I did address it in the rest of my post.
With all due respect, Shodan, you have not answered **Contrapuntal’s ** question. As far as I can tell, the closest you’ve come is in post 76 when you said:
Saying his existence has not been proven doesn’t tell us if you personally believe in him. After all, you’re a Christian but you’d probably be the first to admit that the existence of the Christian God has not been proven. If you do not personally believe in Jupiter, do you think that your lack of belief constitutes a religion. The word religion, in this context, is defined as “A set of beliefs about God, based on an unproveable assertion”.
If you feel your lack of belief in Jupiter is not a religion, why do you think that a lack of belief in the Christian God is a religion?
We were asking you. Quit stalling
Atheism cannot be “true or false” because it is not a statement or a belief. It’s the absence of a belief. It has no “truth” value.
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No one knows the difference between (what God thinks is) right and wrong even if God exists because God has chosen not to tell humans anything about it.
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There is still a SUBJECTIVE difference between right and wrong, regardless, just like there’s a subjective difference between ugly and beautiful. If morality exists subjectively (and that’s the only way it CAN exist, even if there’s a God), then morality exists.
ALL “meaning” for ANYTHING is purely subjective. “Meaning,” is an aesthetic. “Morality” is an aesthetic. These ideas exist just as subjectively as “beauty” and are “valid” to exactly the same extent. Even the existence of God cannot make morality objective or externally “valid,” any more than it can make beauty externally valid.
You’re evading my question and twisting my words. I don’t blame you. You have no other options.
First of all, I think humans DO know the difference between right and wrong, just like they know the difference between what they think smells good and smells bad. Their opinions are always subjectively valid, even if they don’t agree with each other. YOU are the one who thinks that morality can exist objectively, not me. That position is unique to you in this discussion so it cannot be made symmetrical with mine. I’ll ask the question again and hopefully you’ll answer it this time.
IF morality exists objectively (which is YOUR position, not mine) then do you believe that (as your Bible claims) all human beings inherently know what that objective morality IS? Do all human beings know the difference between objective right and wrong? It’s a yes or no question. What do you say?
Theist morality is just as subjective as atheist morality. External “validity” is a non-sequitur with regards to morality.
Those things are subjectively “wrong” to me. If they’re wrong to me, they’re wrong. Wrongness is an aesthetic. This is true even if God exists.
I’m guessing that you mean by this that right and wrong are absolutes. First, why should we think so? We can distinguish between right and wrong using both our personal and our society’s moral code, with no problems at all. Since they are not absolute, we acknowledge that we can change our opinion about this over time and with additional experience.
If you do think right and wrong are absolute, where are they defined? In the Bible? Is stoning to death a person who breaks the Sabbath right or wrong? Even if there is a god, his words have been filtered through people with agendas, and the interpretation of his words have also been filtered through people with agendas. Maybe you think you have a direct link to god, if so you might enlighten us.
Then we can get into where God gets his definition of right and wrong from. Is it some sort of cosmic law which he alone can read, or does he define it anyway he wants?
BTW, there are many meta-ethical ways of deciding moral issues. Empathy was mentioned, long term utility is another. None are perfect, which we acknowledge, but it lets us grow morally. Believing you get absolute morals from a book freezes you into a position, just as the slaveholders were frozen into support of the morality of slavery because they thought the Bible supported their position. Thinking you have the answer makes you ethically static.
I didn’t know that, as a Christian, I was supposed to hate Jews.
If you define “Christian Values” as only the good things that Jesus said, then no, you are not suppose to hate jews. However, if by “Christian values” you mean ideas that Christians hold to be valuable, then yes, anti-Semitism is most definitely a Christian concept.
Besides, last time I looked, “Hate the Jews, for they killed Newdow” isn’t in The Big Boo O’ Atheism.
I think he was hoping that someone would classify that as immoral. Since he is unable to produce any rational basis for the statement that “hating Jews is immoral” than is any better than "I feel that hating Jews is immoral and “I feel that hating Jews is perfectly fine”, I won’t worry about it.
You’re guessing wrong, as I think I have stated about twenty times. It’s all the atheists who are arguing that right and wrong are subjective, and cannot come up with any reason why one subjective standard is any better than any other. Other than “everybody thinks so”, and I think we have covered that.
Stalling my ass - I answered the question back in post 76.
Really? Is that statement objectively true, or not?
If it is subjectively true only, then for someone else it might be objectively true. And things that are objectively true are not only subjectively true. Or it might be objectively true, in which case some things are not only subjectively true.
And again, as I mentioned forty or fifty times, if all meaning (and morality) is subjective, then there is absolutely no basis for preferring one standard over any other, and Naziism is just as valid as anything else. And so this statement -
is obvious horseshit. There is no difference between right and wrong. It is merely a matter of subjectivity, and any moral decision - any moral decision, including mass murder and Christian-based morality - is exactly equivalent.
And again, as I mentioned in another thread, killing you would not be wrong, since after you are dead, no standard exists. And it wouldn’t be subjectively wrong to me, or I wouldn’t have done it.
Then killing is not wrong. Agreed? Especially if we started a nuclear war and wiped humanity off the planet. No humans left, ergo no right or wrong.
All due respect right back, but I have answered the question directly and completely. I am not willing to go beyond the evidence, and the existence of Zeus is not demonstrated.
If I were to go beyond the evidence, and make statements like “Zeus exists”, I would be a dogmatic, fundamentalist atheist on the subject. Because it would be an unproveable statement, like the other statement that dogmatic, fundamentalist atheists make. And, as has also been mentioned earlier in this thread, they have an unfortunate tendency to drop into many or most threads about religion on the SDMB to mock religious belief in general, call believers names, etc., etc. In the same way, proponents of other forms of fundamentalist, dogmatic faiths no doubt harass atheists on other message boards by hijacking their threads and/or abusing them. Polycarp is the Doper I remember most mentioning this behavior, on another message board which I believe he moderates.
Which is another characteristic of many dogmatic, fundamentalist religions, including some flavors of atheism - the compulsion to witness, regardless of circumstance. And to misrepresent the positions of people on the other side as well. 
I am not sure how your morals can be “morally good/ethical” if they are not valid.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, I certainly don’t agree. I, personally, as a free-willed human being, find killing other humans to be reprehensible. You can disagree, and there’s no external evidence that one of us is more right than the other. That doesn’t mean I have to sit back and let you commit murder. Recognizing a lack of external, objective morality doesn’t mean one can’t take a moral stand. It just means that one can’t point to a Big Beard in the Sky as “proof” that one is correct.
No, he was assuming that YOU would classify antisemitism as immoral and that you would have to acknowledge that your own religious tradition was capable of producing attitudes and behaviors that even you would Since he is unable to produce any rational basis for the statement that even you would say were “wrong.”
Having said that, anti-Semitism is neither original, nor exclusive, nor remotely universal to Christians so it probably wasn’t a good example to make that point with.
What do you mean by “better?” You really aren’t getting this, are you? What we’re trying to get across to you is that trying to attach objective standards or external “validity” to subjective values is a logical non-sequitur. Are you reading these posts at all? “good and evil” is exactly the same as “delicious and yucky.” There is no such thing as objective or “valid” deliciousness. The word itself desribes an individual, subjective experience and nothing more. It is senseless to try to argue that something which I think tastes delicious actually tastes yucky on some kind of imaginary, illogical, objective “meta” level. Arguing about whose morality is “better” is like arguing about whose taste in music is more orange. subjective morality (and ALL morality is subjective, including yours and including God’s) does not require objective justification because it is not intended to be a statement about objective reality. It is only a statement about how “I” as an indivudual, choose to experience the universe.
No you didn’t.
Yes.
You’re confusing your terms. I didn’t nothing could be objectively true, I said that nothing could have objective meaning. Meaning and truth are two different things. It is objectively true that I exist. Any meaning I attach to that existence is subjective. Meaning is an aesthetic. Morality is an aesthetic. Aesthetics cannot exist objectively. Morality can ONLY exist subjectively even if Goid exists.
For the 50th time, yes there is. The standard is SUBJECTIVE. The standard is AUTONOMOUS. The standard is MY VERY OWN SAY SO. Please replace the word “morality” with “deliciousness” and maybe you will finally understand the argument.
Yes there is. It’s whatever I say it is.
No it isn’t. I think mass murder is wrong, therefore it’s wrong. Mine is the only opinion that counts. Once again, this is aakin to arguing that since all taste in food is subjective, then there is no difference between deliciouness and yuckiness. The subjective difference is the only difference that CAN exist.
Let me out it this way, if I do not exist, then there is no right and wrong, but as long as I DO exist then killing me is wrong. Trying to kill me is wrong. Wanting to kill me is wrong. As long as I exist, it is impossible for you to even THINK about killing me without being wrong. This is true simply because I say so. My morality is the only one that matters. Yours is only “valid” to whatever extent it might coincide with my own. I make the rules. Not you. Not God.
If I don’t exist, there is no right or wrong, that is correct. As long as I DO exist, murder is wrong and starting a nuclear war is wrong.
But you ARE willing to go beyond the evidence for Christianity and even to base your (entirely SUBJECTIVE) morality on it. The existence of the Christian God has not been demonstrated either so how can you justify saying there is any god at all?
No, you would be a theist. Atheists do not believe in Zeus. Surely you know that.
This whole thing is out to lunch, as far as I’m concerned.
Atheism is a philosophical reasoning that no supernatural deities exist. Not the Judaeo-Christian God, not the multi-epiphaniate Brahman of Hinduism, not Zeus, not Thor, none of them. Normal pragmatic atheism, which is what nearly all if not absolutely all atheist Dopers claim, is the statement that there is not enough evidence if any to demonstrate the existence of any of these claimed gods, so by Occam’s Razor it’s reasonable to operate as if they do not exist. If, living on a planet around a G-3 star in one arm of the Andromeda Galaxy, there exists an entity capable of performing miracles within a five-mile range of where it is located, we’ll rethink that definition when we have definite proof of it. If Jesus Christ returns on clouds of glory tomorrow, or Maitreya manifests himself, we’ll rethink it then. Meanwhile the conclusion is, no god exists.
In my mind, absolutist, dogmatic atheism: not only no god actually exists but no god can exist – is a different kettle of fish. That’s a statement made on reasoning from inconclusive evidence, otherwise backed solely by personal feeling. And it is, in fact, a belief. However, the number of such atheists who actually manifest themselves around here is about equal to the number of left-handed Lesbian Albanian dwarves who do likewise. Excluding the dread phenomenon of the Sophomore Evangelical Atheist, who has just discovered that what he was taught in Sunday School isn’t quite the truth, and is prepared in consequence to denounce all religion for as long as the folks in Great Debates will put up with him, in my experience not for long. We seem to prefer the use of reason over impassioned rhetoric in GD. So for all practical purposes, they can be discounted.
Now, where “atheism is a religion” is one useful set of sortation: when there are legitimate grounds for identifying persons by their religious faith, if any, as in when joining the military service, sentenced to prison, taking a ‘religious census,’ trying to establish a meaningful statistical cross-section sample of a publc “universe,” etc. It is the null set for “What religion are you?” Just as the single childless person living alone constitute a “household” and answer “zero” to the question, “How many children are there in your household?” so the atheist answers “zero” to the question “What religion are you?” It’s not, technically, calling atheism a religion, but identifying it as equal to a religion for purposes of sortation of people into meaningful categories where there’s a legitimate purpose for doing so.
Correct. There is no evidence that any moral stance is correct.
Or anything else.
Preferable to any other, or none. You claim that morality is whatever you say it is, but can produce no proof of the statement, it can safely be disregarded.
And again, if you say something is wrong, and I kill you, it is no longer wrong.
It was never wrong in the first place, since your opinion is useless and a meaningless string of noises, but you get my point. Your assertions are worthless, and your subjective opinion meaningless.
Nope, doesn’t count at all. You don’t establish meaning by assertion or by volume. Although many have tried.
Unsupported opinions are worthless, as you should have learned on the Dope by now. Your moral opinions are unsupported, thus worthless.
Was the Holocaust moral, or no? When it happened, you didn’t exist, thus there was no standard by which it could be judged. After you are dead, again, no standard. And there is no scrap of evidence that your standard is worth an empty beer can now, so you haven’t established that it is immoral now. So your standard is quite without merit.
Unless you want to play the game of “it’s only immoral for me”, in which it would not be immoral for the Nazis.
If you want to say “all morality is merely a matter of taste”, then tastes differ and you need some way to judge between them. Or there is no way, and so every single statement that claims that such and such an action - no matter what the action is - FGM, shooting abortionists, the Holocaust, the Crusades, invading Iraq, Clinton lying under oath - any action - is an act of the rankest hypocrisy.
So do you agree - “all moral objections to the Holocaust are purely a matter of personal taste”? Or if you want to say “it’s immoral because I don’t like it”, why are you the authority, and Hitler not?
Regards,
Shodan
“Sortation?”
Following this silly debate with interest.
Shodan, you indeed have never answered the question and it is completely a disingenuous to say you have. Bad form.
Oh, go saltate off a pier! 
Nor does there need to be because the word “correct” is not objectively applicable to morality.
Preferrable for whom? It is preferrable for ME and the only morality which I am deciding is my own.
Once again, the point sails over your head. Try my little trick of replacing the word “morality” with “deliciousness.” Can you PROVE that anything tastes delicious? Morality is an aesthetic. It CANNOT be otherwise. It MUST be subjective. When you ask for proof that someone else’s morality is “valid” you are asking for something which is logically impossible.
Morality is contingent upon awareness. When awareness ends, morality ends. Morality is a property of consciousness itself. Ending my consciousness would end my morality but as long as I am conscious my morality is the only ruling authority. Trying to kill me is wrong. Since you can’t kill me without first trying, then you can’t kill me without being wrong. If you’re wrong at any point during my consciousness, you’re wrong forever because I say so.
I don’t get your point at all. My opinion is not “useless” to ME and I’m the only one who matters. I have no obligation at all to justify my morality to you or anyone else. Your approval does not make it valid. Gods approval does not make it valid. What makes it valid is that it’s an accurate descriptor on my own responses to experiential phenomena.
These statements only prove that you have no grasp at all of this debate. You seem to have the misapprehension that I’m trying to convince you that my morality has any sort of objective reality and I’m saying just the opposite. Morality is nothing but a descriptive term for emotional and behavioral responses to certain kinds of stimuli. It is an experiential descriptor, not an attempt to make a statement about objective reality. One more time, morality is an aesthetic It can only exist experientially. It CANNOT exist objectively any more than deliciousness can exist objectively.
Count for what? meaning to who? If it has meaning for me it has meaning.
Um…no, fatcual assertions need to be supported, opinions are juts opinions. What do you think I’ve asserted as fact that I can’t support?
No.
Doesn’t matter. As long as I can have an emotional reaction to something I can attach a moral value to it. When it happened is irrelevant because morality is nothing BUT my emotional responses to information.
See above, Same deal. If I think it’s morally abhorrent while I’m alive, then it’s morally abhorrent.
Worth an empty beer can to who? Without merit to who? If it has merit to me it has merit and I’m the only one that matters.
It’s amusing that you would take this tack, though since you also can’t prove your religious morality has the slightest external validity.
No. it’s immoral for them too. I decide what’s immoral, not the Nazis. If I think they did something immoral, they did something immoral.
It’s easy to judge between them. I’m always right. See how easy that is.
I think you forgot to add a word somewhere in this paragraph. You’re said “Every statement that claims an action is __________ is hypocricy.” what goes in the blank? If the missing word is something like “wrong” or “immoral,” then it’s not hypocritical at all. I decide what is immoral all by myself. If my perception of what is moral clashes with someone else’s then they are wrong and I am right. It’s qute simple. My morality is the only one which has authority.
Basically, yes, but my tastes are the only ones with authority.
Because morality is a descriptor of MY aesthetic, not Hitler’s