-an eternal aspect of his own character .

You are so wise when it comes to revelations – it seems , on the character of God… So these… moral values were then , innate ( could that be exchanged for eternal)? How does one possess what he has no purpose to , reason to … experience of ? How do you create something which you have no parts for ? If indeed they were not arbitrarily decided upon, how did they come to be eternal aspects of God ? I’ve always said Christians are best finding answers between the lines of scripture, like a magic scripture only they can read.

To not to covet ? Not to have sex with goats ? To no kill ( I won’t even get into that.) ….What is the purpose of God having these eternal morals without experience to make them relevant? Where are they exampled in his existence , for having a need …Man wasn’t always existent according to creation theories…. so then god was here- always … so why did he have these eternal values always – if they were solely for his creation ; which then he needed them not eternally …. unless God has always had creation ; other life forms and etc to instill …

So either God has experienced need for these morals , or they are arbitrary.

In any-case – my humble , ignorant … obviously not as intuitive as to the nature of God – mostly because I don’t sit around presuming … and instilling my own morals and etc into an empty cookie jar of my massive religious ego…

If God were an actual , coherent ( a lot of incoherency in the multitude of faiths) – this discussion wouldn’t be taking place. There would be no need for theologians , scholars , variations of religions and etc. I believe it wouldn’t be a case of knowing God- I believe it would be a case of innate knowledge of my creator. I would have no need of books, and church … or dry long entries on philosophy as to the nature of God.

I don’t believe for a moment , that man , or woman ; would deny an actual God. It’d be a very extraordinary event in lives of all , witnessed by all, felt by all …

If I have to event , such as you ” intellectuals” do , aspects for God, natures of God … answers for God … books for God and etc…

Then… there is no God.

There’s just people like you. I meet people like you all day . I’m not kissing your feet though or eating stale crackers. Well .. maybe if you did some cool parlor tricks.

I have been studying moral realism for about a year and certainly don’t know everything I would like, but it seems like common sense. It’s part of our experience in such an ordinary way that God doesn’t seem helpful. “I gave him an aspirin because pain is bad” doesn’t require, “Oh yeah, God made sure of it. That’s how I know.” The experience of pain being bad seems good enough here.

* What is a moral value or duty; specifically, to whom or what is it a value, and to whom or what is the duty directed, owed, or pointed?

Intrinsic value. Somethings are good, and others are bad no matter what anyone believes.

* To whom or what was it directed, owed, or pointed when there was no person in the universe toward whom it could have been so pointed?

Not sure what that means. The badness of pain points at the badness of the experience of pain I suppose. The goodness of existence might point at the existence itself.

* Who or what held any responsibility for these moral values or duties before there was any intelligent life?

Idiots might not be held responsible. Intelligent people hold themselves responsible. It’s a choice isn’t it? And punishment doesn’t exactly explain morality very well. It’s wrong to do something immoral even if you never get punished.

* In what did these values or duties inhere, or in other words, where did they exist?

When you realize how horrible it is to cause pain, torture, and kill, you might as well call it a “duty” to refrain from such actions. Other than that ask moral theorists. Duties might not exist the way some people think they do.

Obligations are promises. You commit yourself. Morality is forced upon us all, and not necessarily the same thing as obligation-promises. We are forced into morality once we realize that so much value is at stake.

* Was there such a thing as evil while the stars and planets were forming? What was it?

No. I don’t know if evil exists even when people do, but as soon as something of value exists, moral implications exist. If you can cause pain, that is a moral implication.

* Was killing immoral for the first 3 billion or so years of evolution, before humans arrived? Jordan says yes; but animals killing animals certainly wasn’t immoral then, nor is it now. There was no immoral killing until humans came, as far as I know.

Animals killing animals has implications for intrinsic value, but animals don’t know anything about it. Animals don’t have duties insofar as they are incapable of them. Greater apes might be capable.

* When humans arrived, what was it about us that made it (frequently) immoral for us to kill? Note that we take it that it’s not just about killing each other; we often consider it immoral to kill animals, too.

Human existence might have intrinsic value. If so, taking away life would cause non-existence and destroy something of value. If we have an afterlife, it is much more confusing why death is bad. It might be good to kill innocents before they have a chance to sin and deserve going to hell. Martyrs are also not afraid to die because they will be rewarded in the afterlife, which sometimes leads to suicide bombing and so forth.

* Moral standards have changed over time, and in fact have oscillated back and forth on some issues (abortion, infanticide, homosexual relationships, for example). Jordan seems to take it that this moment in history represents the “right” moment on abortion, I think; he definitely takes it that this is the “right” moment on homosexuality. So where we’re heading as a culture on homosexual rights is in the direction of what has been eternally morally true. How can he be sure of this? What is the measuring stick? Is this not possibly chronological/cultural chauvinism?

The question is, “Why is homosexuality wrong?” If it’s because of an irrational bias, then we have no reason to believe it’s wrong. Sometimes religions say that there are strange facts that cause bias, such as the idea that wives should do whatever their husband wants. There is some kind of inferior essence of women that supposedly makes this appropriate, but it’s metaphysical garbage.

* And to tie together two of the previous bullets, does Jordan think that seven billion years ago it was morally that same-sex couples should have the right to unite and call it marriage?

That question would simply not apply without intelligent life. There are contingent moral facts that arise out of the situation. The situation at that time was probably an amoral one.

As I said in the first paragraph, this post was not addressed as an argument for the existence of God, but as a commentary on moral relativism in the context of the reality of God.

But it was pointed at you, so it would not be fair for me not to respond. My belief in God rests on more than three legs; or if there are three legs, they are each one of them broad enough to support the whole.

There is more to the philosophical side of it than the Ontological Argument. There is the argument from reason, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, the argument from free will and agency, the contingency cosmological argument, the Kalam cosmological argument, the teleological argument in multiple forms, and the moral argument, to start with.

There is a lot to the historical argument. The various aspects of it don’t have such compact names as the philosophical arguments, but there are multiple different approaches represented by N.T. Wright, W.L. Craig, Gary Habermas, and the research compiled by Josh McDowell.

My personal experience is also convincing to me, though I do not present it as an argument for you to be convinced by.

Morality is part of both personal experience and philosophy. From personal experience I am thoroughly persuaded that it is accurate to say mugging, rape, pillage, and child torture (all examples you gave in the other thread) are wrong in themselves, and that it is not the observer’s attitude that makes them wrong. I am convinced that the only way you could come to the perverse conclusion that you have come to is that your theology forces you to it. The plain fact is that these things are wrong, but they cannot be wrong in themselves unless there is something about deep reality that makes “wrong” a meaningful word in that sense; but that deep reality is something you reject, so a fortiori you reject what should be plain to you a priori.

I can just imagine the lashing I would be in for if I claimed that the evidence for evolution meant I didn’t have to consider your arguments for moral realism.

I would just say you’re wrong, for the evidence for evolution, even if it were rock solid with no ID or creationist challenge, would not put a dent in my reasons for belief in God. It doesn’t even touch on any of them except the teleological argument, and that is still supported by the signs of teleology in the cosmos and in the origin of the first life.

The “lashing” I delivered this time, by the way, was not for your being wrong on arguments for the existence of God. You know from experience that I don’t respond that way. I wrote what I did not because you argued against God, or because you argued for moral relativism. I’m not even sure you did argue for moral relativism, in the sense of showing that it is logically or evidentially superior to the realist view. You tried once, but Thomas Reid pointed out that you missed it, and so did I. The rest of your case stands on your persistence in saying that moral feelings can explain morality, but all that does is re-define morality in a question-begging way (“Morality is only feelings by definition, therefore moral realism is false.”)

Now, I admit I have not re-read the thread to see if there is any exception to the above, any actual argument you have brought forth. I invite you to remind me of it if you have done so, in case I have forgotten it.

Regardless of that, that’s not what the “lashing” here and on the other post was about. It was not for your being wrong (in my strong opinion) about moral realism. It was for the perverse moral system you propose, in which you are your own king of morality and you can decide for yourself what is right and wrong, which is to set yourself idolatrously in the place of God, and to expose yourself to the corruption that flows from idolatry.

You said,

It doesn’t matter if it’s an exception or a test of faith. You just said that Thomas shouldn’t believe that it was Jesus telling him to torture his cat because Jesus wouldn’t do that. What if this was an exceptional test of faith? You can’t dismiss this so easily.

That’s not how you intended the question when you set it forth. If you want to nuance it that way, by all means give it a try. But before you do that, I suggest you study the full nuances of the Abraham incident. Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling is a good source, but you ought also consider the typology of Christ that’s present in Genesis 22 also. You should also take into account the connections that it has to the Passover, the Old Testament sacrificial system, and the fulfilling and end of that sacrificial system by Christ as described at length in the book of Hebrews. In other words, if you make this test of faith for Thomas a simple one-off ad hoc kind of thing, you’ll fall considerably short of any parallel to the Abraham incident. But go ahead and try, as I said, if that’s what you want to do.

Oh yeah?! Well everything you say is logically impossible if I’m right!!
Does that sort of argument really work for anyone?

Examine your own arguments, my friend, not that you’ve made any (unless I’ve forgotten it, see above). As far as I can see, there’s only one basis on which anyone could conclude that moral relativism is true. It can’t flow from experience, because in experience we all take it that some things are objectively wrong, and other things actually, objectively right. So it could only come from:

A) There is no God.
B) Therefore moral relativism.

My argument, which you just scoffed at, was:

A’) There is a good God, who has revealed the reality of morals.
B’) Therefore moral realism.

Both arguments are valid (or at least they could be expanded from this highly compressed form here into logically valid arguments). The question is which premise is true, A or A’. Since neither of us has tried in this thread to put forth an argument for our positions on A and A1, my argument in this case is as strong as yours has been all along. The only difference is that I made the form of the argument more plain to see.

But mine has also been:

C) We know from experience that moral realism exists.
D) Therefore moral realism.

and also

E) Moral relativism entails absurd conclusions like “mugging, rape, pillage, and child torture are not immoral in themselves.”
F) Therefore moral realism.

Your argument has been,

G) Morality is defined in terms of one’s feelings.
H) Therefore morality is only a matter of feelings.

and also something like this,

I) I could imagine alternatives to the NT God.
J) Those alternatives are not necessarily good.
K) Therefore moral relativism.

Does that sort of argument really work for anyone?

You accuse me of living in some sort of bubble, yet I’m not the one who is refusing to reason about the issues. You say it’s not difficult for you to imagine no God, heaven or hell, but you simply refuse to do so. You’ve long since decided that God exists, morality is absolute, and so it’s not worth considering the alternatives or questioning your beliefs.

Your belief in God is like a table that rests on three legs. There’s philosophy, history, and personal experience. Whenever the debate gets deep to the point of knocking-down a leg, you say the other two legs keep the table from falling down. And around we go again.

Morality is part of the personal experience leg. You’re invoking philosophy (the Ontological Argument is my guess) to claim God is a necessary being, so you don’t have to consider any alternate explanations for human experiences.

I can just imagine the lashing I would be in for if I claimed that the evidence for evolution meant I didn’t have to consider your arguments for moral realism.

God’s command for Abraham to kill his son was not that, in fact. It was not set forth as a principle of life, so it does not express God’s principles for living. It was exceptional, it was for the purpose of testing Abraham’s faith, and God himself provided the way out of it in the end.

It doesn’t matter if it’s an exception or a test of faith. You just said that Thomas shouldn’t believe that it was Jesus telling him to torture his cat because Jesus wouldn’t do that. What if this was an exceptional test of faith? You can’t dismiss this so easily.

Of course [alternatives to the Christian view of the NT are logically impossible], if one already knows that the God of the NT exists.

Oh yeah?! Well everything you say is logically impossible if I’m right!!

Does that sort of argument really work for anyone?

But I think this book may well start where our argument started –in the neighbourhood of the mad-house. Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin — a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Reverend R.J.Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.

The standard is not arbitrary, though. The standard is in the character of the One who is the source of everything that exists. It’s silly to call that “arbitrary.”

You insist on treating it all subjectively, so you are bound to come up with a subjective answer. You insist on treating it all as relative (your space ship example), so you are bound to come up with a relativistic answer. You apparently think that Horace ought to weight his own feelings about morality equally with God’s commands about morality, so you are bound to come up with an answer in which God’s morality is worth about as much as Horace’s, or your own.

It’s not difficult for me to imagine, with John Lennon, that there’s no God, no heaven, no hell. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I can’t think of a good reason for me to do that. It would be like me asking you to imagine there’s no such thing as moral opinions. You already know there are, so why should you bother with a thought experiment like that?

There is no oracle with the ability to pronounce objectively that rape is a moral duty, because God is ruler of all possible worlds, and God has already decreed otherwise. We don’t need to play what-if games like that. I would no more play that game than play the game of “what if your mathematics teacher was shaped like a square circle, and asked you to sum the three obtuse angles forming his pentagonal perimeter?”

God’s command for Abraham to kill his son was not quite that simple, and not the contradiction to God’s morality that you it seems if considered apart from context. It was not set forth as a principle of life, so it does not express God’s principles for living. It was exceptional, it was for the purpose of testing Abraham’s faith, and God himself provided the way out of it in the end.

There’s nothing problematic about the concept of a god who seems subjectively evil to us. Sure, it may not be the [G]od of the NT, but you wouldn’t say alternatives to the NT are not logically possible, would you?

Of course they are, if one already knows that the God of the NT exists. Of course the God of the NT did and does seem objectively evil to those who are determined to resist him, to set themselves up as their own gods; that’s not news. But here’s the story on those people: they are wrong.

You always say this, but never give a reason for saying so.

You’ve been reading this blog for years, dl. You know that I have reasons for believing what I believe about God, and you know that I’ve put them forth here hundreds of times.

There is no possible world in which God is like that, so there is no point in a thought experiment like that.

You always say this, but never give a reason for saying so. There’s nothing problematic about the concept of a god who seems subjectively evil to us. Sure, it may not be the god of the NT, but you wouldn’t say alternatives to the NT are not logically possible, would you?

To Horace, God is subjectively evil, even if he believed God was objectively good.

If my space ship approaches yours, and relatively, our ships are inverted, I could say you were subjectively upside down. If the universe had an objective “up” direction, we might agree that you were right-side-up, but you would still be subjectively upside down to me.

I’m saying that, to Horace, God’s directive for him not to rape is like the fictitious evil god’s directive to torture the cat. You can’t just hide from the analogy by saying that God isn’t possibly like that, when clearly a hypothetical god could possibly be like that.

If that’s too difficult for you to contemplate, let’s instead imagine there’s no God, no heaven, no hell. Suppose there is an oracle which informs you about absolute moral truths. You go to the oracle, and it says rape is an absolute moral duty. I put it to you that you would rather be absolutely evil and not rape, then be subjectively evil and absolutely good.

Seriously, why be good at all? Why would you be good if it entailed doing things you thought were subjectively evil? You all talk to me of standards, but your standards make no sense. What is the point of conforming to an arbitrary standard? Is the point to avoid punishment or gain reward? You just got through telling me that isn’t what morality is about. So what is it about?

The difference between the “you” of the first and Horace of the second example is that “you” are objectively wrong to think that this was Jesus. This is not the way Jesus is. Horace’s conclusions, on the other hand, are objectively right: this is very consistent with who Jesus is.

Um, God commanded Abraham to kill his son. Torturing a cat seems far less nasty. You’ve got an impossible case to make, there.

A feeling is a temporary state of sensory, subjective experience. It has different properties than a belief. It is not possible for a feeling to be true or false (my “happiness” is not false).

So we see that a feeling is not a belief, and therefore it is impossible for one to have a feeling of a moral proposition. This is not to say that feelings cannot have beliefs as their causual antecedents, of course.

Jesus appears to you, produces some bread and wine out of nowhere, and walks across your outdoor swimming pool for good measure. Then he asks you to torture your cat to death. Since Jesus tells you to do this, you know it is absolutely right to torture your cat to death. Does torturing your cat feel right just because you’ve been told it’s right by someone in authority?

and then

Look, let’s suppose Horace is a rapist. He likes raping for lots of reasons, including the feeling of power he gets. He thinks that girls who dress in revealing clothes deserve it. He’s integrated his rape behavior into his personal identity. Jesus comes along and says that rape is objectively evil. If Horace believes Jesus is real, tells the truth, and is an authority on morality, wouldn’t Horace then be in some sort of conflict?

The difference between the “you” of the first and Horace of the second example is that “you” are objectively wrong to think that this was Jesus. This is not the way Jesus is. Horace’s conclusions, on the other hand, are objectively right: this is very consistent with who Jesus is. Horace’s conflict I have already addressed below.

Note that there is an objective right and wrong here at the very basis of reality: the existence and identity of Jesus; and that this flows directly into an objective moral right and wrong.

If you thought there was some logical problem to theism in these two examples you have put forth, then you have not tried hard enough to understand theism. There’s no problem at all there.

Are you saying that there are no facts of the matter about what I prefer or how I feel? It is not a fact of reality that I prefer chocolate to vanilla?

See here and here. Your failure to accept the claim that God and Christian’s (realists) are actually making is simply astounding. Nobody is claiming that moral statements are statements of preference. Get it?

What do I mean when I say morality is subjective? I mean that if I draw a line around the mugger and his victim, morality is nowhere to be found there. But if I draw the line around you (as observer), the mugger and his victim, then morality is objectively in your preferences. It will be an objective fact that you will disapprove or feel bad about the mugging you are observing. However, the immorality will not be in the mugging itself.

Holo has figuratively beat you over the head about this repeatedly, yet you keep coming back to this misplaced ‘argument’.

If you draw a line around the ink blots forming this pattern “I am a real person”, meaning is nowhere to be found. If I include you or me in that circle then meaning suddenly appears – presto! Is the meaning ‘in’ the ink and paper like morality is ‘in’ the mugger and victim? No. Is either one subjective? No.

Good point, though. God doesn’t ask you to do anything you don’t actually want to do. He only asks other people to do what they don’t want to do.

You are possessed of a stunningly simple opinion of theology. Which, I might add, perfectly compliments you opinions on philosophy and logic. “A mind is like a door, it must open if it is to be of any use.”

If Horace believes Jesus is real, tells the truth, and is an authority on morality, wouldn’t Horace then be in some sort of conflict?

Of course he would! And then he would realize he needs to change in order to come into alignment with truth and with the God of truth, and that he needs help with that change because he cannot make that change on his own, and that he needs Jesus not only to tell him what is true but to give him the life of God to enable him to live according to what is true. It’s called conversion.

Isn’t Jesus’s request to Horace (the rapist) like the cat torture request to Thomas (the pet friend)?

No. Jesus’s word to Horace the rapist is not a request. It is a call for him to align himself with truth or else face true consequences. The supposed cat torture “request” is a contradiction to the name and reality of Jesus–and by the way, also an extremely offensive one, to those of us who know his goodness. I didn’t say “feel” his goodness, by the way, though I do feel it; I said “know” his goodness, because it is not just a feeling.

Good point, though. God doesn’t ask you to do anything you don’t actually want to do. He only asks other people to do what they don’t want to do.

…

What do I mean when I say morality is subjective? I mean that if I draw a line around the mugger and his victim, morality is nowhere to be found there…. the immorality will not be in the mugging itself.

You are more confused, and your understanding of Christianity is more twisted, than I had ever thought before.

If some people said what you are saying here I would respond with a sense of failure; that we Christians have not communicated the reality of Jesus Christ clearly enough. But you, doctor(logic), have been on this forum and many others often enough that I cannot conclude that your failure to understand is due to a lack of our communicating. You are simply determined to twist the truth. It’s perverse, and it’s going to land you in a long, long eternity of personal regret. It’s not too late to change your mind.

Are you saying that there are no facts of the matter about what I prefer or how I feel? It is not a fact of reality that I prefer chocolate to vanilla?

You have to draw a line around the object and the subject. When you say a thing has an objective property, you mean that the property exists within the object line, outside of the subject boundary. A property that is subjective is a property that depends on the interaction of the subject with the object.

So, if the subject is me, and the object is chocolate ice cream, we will find that my preference for chocolate is not in the chocolate itself, but in my and my interaction with chocolate.

However, if we draw the object line around me and my ice cream, and the subject line around you, then you will find that my preference for chocolate is objectively in the DL-ice cream system, and not just in your interaction with me and my ice cream.

What do I mean when I say morality is subjective? I mean that if I draw a line around the mugger and his victim, morality is nowhere to be found there. But if I draw the line around you (as observer), the mugger and his victim, then morality is objectively in your preferences. It will be an objective fact that you will disapprove or feel bad about the mugging you are observing. However, the immorality will not be in the mugging itself.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to torture cats to death.

Hee hee! Sometimes, I think the concept of a thought experiment is wasted on you guys.

Look, let’s suppose Horace is a rapist. He likes raping for lots of reasons, including the feeling of power he gets. He thinks that girls who dress in revealing clothes deserve it. He’s integrated his rape behavior into his personal identity. Jesus comes along and says that rape is objectively evil. If Horace believes Jesus is real, tells the truth, and is an authority on morality, wouldn’t Horace then be in some sort of conflict? Isn’t Jesus’s request to Horace (the rapist) like the cat torture request to Thomas (the pet friend)?

Good point, though. God doesn’t ask you to do anything you don’t actually want to do. He only asks other people to do what they don’t want to do.