Rights. Real Things or Soothing Noises?

_{Barry Arrington

July 4, 2020

Intelligent Design}

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A friend writes on Facebook:

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “with liberty and justice for all” still seem like pretty good concepts to build a country around. Lets start living it. Happy 4th everyone!

To which I responded that I agree wholeheartedly. But I would add that both of the quotations have context that is essential. Where do the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from? Men are “endowed by their creator” with those rights. And we are a nation “under God,” with liberty and justice for all.

All politics is downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from shared views about fundamental metaphysical ideas. And ideas about the existence of God are the most fundamental of all. Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, says: “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

Dawkins is wrong about that. The universe we observe is full of evil. But evil can exist only if good — of which evil is the privation — also exists. And good can exist only if God exists. I have spent decades debating these issues. Today, I am more firmly convinced than ever that our rights are secure only if they rest on a foundation of God’s existence. For if God does not exist, Dawkins is surely right and all of this rights talk amounts to nothing but soothing noises one animal makes to another.

Some might respond: We can have good without God. Of course, that depends on what you mean by “good.” If “good” means only “that which at a given point in time a particular society calls good,” then a 21st century liberal democracy is “good.” But so is a 15th century Aztec society that captured, enslaved, and ritually sacrificed members of other tribes. We can call Aztec human sacrifice evil and the principles of the Declaration good in any meaningful sense of those words only if there is an objective standard of measure by which to judge between the two. And that standard exists only if a God who has endowed His image bearers with certain inalienable rights exists.

And thankfully He does. As Sam said, happy 4th!

Comments

JVL, it is obvious that you are not truly engaging in a serious discussion as opposed to trying to find hooks to repeat talking points. What major change happened c 1450, them c 1520 then 1579 - 81 then in the 1640's to 90's, what major state document of England is dated 1688, and what impacts did it have across the following century? How do these relate to the model on government I have discussed? What did I recently clip from a history of the classical period, and what did it note on slavery and on the death penalty and judges? What does Ep Philemon say in vv 2 and 15 - 17? How did such come into the Antislavery society's mottoes? What does Mt 19:1 - 7 ff suggest on naturally evident creation order and hardness of hearts esp i/l/o Mal 2:16? In such context, what is the significance of 1 Cor 7 as cited? What happened leading up to prohibition, and what happened as a result? What does that say about limits of law making? Why is there a movement to decriminalise the even more dangerous ganja? I could ask more but I am not satisfied that I am dealing with responsible discussion at this point. KFkairosfocus_{July 9, 2020
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Kairosfocus: I have read the New Testament and I found much there to appreciate and admire which is why I am even more puzzled that it took so long for Christian nations to figure out that slavery should be abolished. I am not trying to be aggressive or overtly critical of anyone alive today; I think we've got it right now. What I don't understand is how a majority of Europeans were going to church frequently, being told what was said in the New Testament and yet there seems to have been little call to end the slave trade. By the 1500s literacy was on the rise and the Bible had been printed in the vernacular but the good world had been proclaimed and repeated in sermon after sermon for centuries! By the time Wilberforce came along Britain was a powerful nation with colonies and businesses all over the planet. People were literate and educated and it STILL took decades for the UK government to call a quit to treating people like cattle. (Arguably there is still a slave trade in the sweat shops of east asian and other places which, again, why do we put up with that?) It seems to me you are saying the everyday people, once they had a voice, stood up for what they thought was right. But they knew what was right for centuries! There had been peasant revolts in the past. Was it just because the rulers and the rich were greedy and wanted the money? Was that greed so great that they put aside their own professed Christian morals and went for the gold? And they kept the populace in their own kind of slavery? I don't think there is a good answer but the fact that Europe was far and away a Christian continent for just about a millennium before deciding slavery was evil bothers me greatly. And then it took even longer to recognise women as equal under the law. Something was very, very wrong for a very long time.JVL_{July 9, 2020
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JVL, have you ever read the NT as an adult, recognising that there are people who take it seriously? If you do, you will learn that the true Christian is a disciple -- "apprentice" is close -- of Jesus [" . . . the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch"], with penitent trust that leads to a transformation of self, thought, word and deed. Further to this, when such disciples form a community, they create a counter culture. The consequence of which is that such a counter culture community becomes an embassy of the Kingdom of God, and historically, that has affected the wider community for the good through heart softening and mind opening. Had you seriously read recent contributions here at UD, you would for example have learned much regarding how the ferment of Christian discipleship in the context of invention of printing, resulting publication of the Bible, rise of books, literacy, bills and newspapers as well as chocolate or coffee houses etc created a democratising influence that for the first time since the failure of classical democracies created the cultural buttresses which made a modern representational, high freedom democratic polity a possibility. That is the context in which especially the Wesley-Whitefield revivals were directly connected to the rise of dozens of movements of social moderation and upliftment. Wilberforce alone was involved in something like seventy such movements. That is a big -- and too often unacknowledged -- part of why from 1650 - 1790, the first Constitutional Republic of we the people democratic character emerged in the Anglophone world. It is also connected to civil rights and other movements of upliftment from the 1700's to the 1900's. And now that there are aggressive de-Christianising movements running increasing riot across our civilisation, those buttresses are being undermined never mind any number of warnings to the contrary. For years, I have used an historically anchored cube framework of government possibilities to draw out dynamics of warning as to predictable consequences: threat of anarchy repelling into vortex of tyranny under autocrats and lawless nihilistic will to power oligarchies. It will again take rivers of blood and tears to climb back out of that vortex. But of course the stubborn, ideologised and angry are unlikely to listen to such as the undersigned and have likely never heard of say Plato's parable of the ship of state. I am afraid, that is no accident, it is a signature of hostile intent towards genuine liberty by power hungry elites in our civilisation. We cannot say that we were not given fair warning in good time or that in an Internet age, we did not have access to corrective materials. But of course, that is not the same as narrative dominance. For example, I find it utterly telling to pick up even from my family and circles of friends who are not generally engaged in politics or history etc, feedback on the aggressive trashing of Thomas Jefferson and other Founders/Framers of the American Republic. Highly significant, I am not picking up a serious minded, responsible discussion of the crucial second paragraph of the US DoI, much less the Federalist papers etc. Smoking gun. KF PS: Your continued ignorance regarding the history of Christian objection to slavery and other abuses shows that you have not read, not taken seriously recent discussion on the relevant history and dynamics here at UD in recent weeks. That means you have been more interested to make aggressive talking points than in truth, fairness or prudence. Such is enabling behaviour regarding the ongoing undermining of cultural buttresses for genuine liberty. I will simply note that the "I hate Divorce" case and regulating established evils in the face of the hardness of hearts principle -- as in, why did liquor prohibition fail in the USA 100 years ago? -- show that amelioration of entrenched evils is a first step to changing a critical mass of minds and hearts towards reformation. Where, c 61, chained to a soldier while facing potential capital charges and dealing with a runaway slave and thief, St Paul penned Philemon, the manumission letter that broke the moral dynamic of enslavement through the premise of brotherhood and sisterhood. In antiquity, that decisively undermined slavery and once revival reached critical mass with democratising forces, it again had decisive impact. Had you bothered to look, you would have seen from an infographic I again posted (after several years) that shows how Philemon provided the primary and secondary mottoes of the Antislavery movement. I mentioned the Jamaican Baptist War uprising, the role of William Knibb and how British Emancipation -- the pivotal case -- came about. And the infographic has in it a citation from a letter penned c 55 AD when Paul was not chained to a Roman Soldier with a potentially capital charge hanging over his head:
1 Cor 7:21 Were you a slave when you were called? Do not worry about that [since your status as a believer is [j]equal to that of a freeborn believer]; but if you are able to gain your freedom, [k]do that. 22 For he who was a slave when he was called in the Lord is a freedman of the Lord, likewise he who was free when he was called is a slave of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price [a precious price paid by Christ]; do not become slaves to men [but to Christ]. [AMP]
That could not be plainer. You will therefore understand why I refer you to the hardness of heart principle and extend it by alluding to Eph 4:17 ff where we see that such heart hardness en-darkens the mind also as conscience becomes benumbed and as the soul is ensnared in addictive, escalating evils.kairosfocus_{July 9, 2020
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ET: Did JVL ever stop and think that these alleged christians were just christian when it was convenient? So, how can you tell who is a true Christian then? Surely there were some over the centuries? Why didn't they push for an end to slavery before the late 1700s?JVL_{July 9, 2020
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MatSpirit, If you ahead and read Psalm 137 in context of its entirety and understand what the Babylonians had just done to the Israelites, you will understand that this lament was actually about the brutality that was committed against the children of Israel and it expresses hope--and correctly predicts--that the same brutalities would in turn be inflicted against the Babylonians, which is what happened when the Medes and the Persians later conquered the Babylon. See Jeremiah 51 concerning what he foresaw and the history books on what actually happened (which is quite interesting). But many people do indeed use this portion of Psalm 137 to find fault with the Bible. In truth, the source of their anger is due to something else and they just use it to justify their anger. -QQuerius_{July 8, 2020
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MS, you overlook that in said foundational texts there is implicit and explicit endorsement of core built in moral government manifesting laws of morally responsible freedom. You are so used to Fundy bashing that you fail to see inescapable first duties, to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, to fairness and to justice etc. Let me cite one such text as a reference:
Rom 2:14 When Gentiles, who do not have the [--> written, Mosaic] Law [since it was given only to Jews], do [c]instinctively the things the Law requires [guided only by their conscience], they are a law to themselves, though they do not have the Law. 15 They show that the [d]essential requirements of the Law are written in their hearts; and their conscience [their sense of right and wrong, their moral choices] bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or perhaps defending them [AMP]
With that (and a lot more like it), your rhetoric collapses. And indeed, here is what you need to start from:
We can readily identify at least seven inescapable first duties of reason. Inescapable, as they are so antecedent to reasoning that even the objector implicitly appeals to them; i.e. they are self-evident. Duties, to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so also to fairness and justice etc. Such built in law is not invented by parliaments or courts, nor can these principles and duties be abolished by such. (Cf. Cicero in De Legibus, c. 50 BC.) Indeed, it is on this framework that we can set out to soundly understand and duly balance rights, freedoms and duties; which is justice. The legitimate main task of government, then, is to uphold and defend the civil peace of justice through sound community order reflecting the built in, intelligible law of our nature. Where, as my right implies your duty a true right is a binding moral claim to be respected in life, liberty, honestly aquired property, innocent reputation etc. To so justly claim a right, one must therefore demonstrably be in the right. Thus, too, we may compose sound civil law informed by that built-in law of our responsibly, rationally free morally governed nature; from such, we may identify what is unsound or false thus to be reformed or replaced even though enacted under the colour and solemn ceremonies of law.
Are you willing to re-think? Fair warning, once you start on a journey of the seven plus first duties, you will be led to see much that is against the built-in law of our inescapably morally governed nature and will have much to answer for before conscience. That is going to include gradually recognising how cringe-worthy much of the fundy bashing you so glibly indulged above is. Fashionable evils, follies, immorality and perversity posing as righteous, etc remain wrongs regardless of the rhetoric we may whip up. And a sober appreciation for the challenge of regulating societies in which hardness of heart cannot be waved away with a magic wand will be a lesson. Ponder here a formerly much used example of your ilk, due to want of critical mass of support, prohibition failed in the US. KFkairosfocus_{July 8, 2020
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MatSpirit: Talk about building your morals on sand! Those 15th century Aztecs Barry was talking about certainly thought they were highly moral because their god demanded human sacrifices and they sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people to him. Of course, your god is much nicer than that. He only killed off the entire human race, sans Noah and his family. But I’m sure there weren’t many people alive back then and every one of them was evil and deserved to drown, especially the children and babies. And the fetuses. They were evil fetuses. Just as nasty as the babes in arms. And we won’t even discuss the children. All evil in God’s sight. You seem to be arguing as if there is something actually wrong with what those the Aztec and Hebrew gods allegedly did. Are those acts really wrong, or are you just belching another one of those, "there is no objective morality, but this stuff is repulsive to me personally" kinds of statements? I imagine you are outraged when a lion eats a gazelle too. Meh. No need to reply. I just lost interest.mike1962_{July 8, 2020
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Barry @ 50: Barry, Christians don't have an absolute transcendent morality. What they have is a material book, called the bible. The Bible was written by mortal men, some of whom claimed that God had dictated or otherwise determined their words. The original words have been edited, sometimes extensively (for example the five books of Moses) and translated many times since. The writing, editing and translation were all done by fallible humans. If you read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, you find that a lot of the people who feature in it and many of the authors who wrote it were nasty people – very nasty. Nasty, as in murdering innocent men, women, children and infants. Nasty as in slaving. Nasty as in, “Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Psalm 137:9) Hitler quality nasty. Nevertheless, Christians and Jews have been trying to use this book of horrors to construct a usable morality for thousands of years with a notable lack of success. However, in the process they have become very good at the various forms of logical fallacies and slagging their moral superiors. Non Christians have noted that Christian moralities either ignore “embarrassing” parts of the Bible altogether (when's the last time you heard Psalm 137:9 in a sermon?) or they come up with something that can't pass the Golden Rule test, which even Jesus endorsed. The whole world is waking up to this fact and turning their back on the Biblical mish-mash of wanton immorality in favor of a moral system based on the Golden Rule. Typically, most conservative Christians see this as evidence that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Actually, it's just rejecting the grossly flawed Christian morality. The world is getting better and better while the Church sinks deeper and deeper into its moral cesspool. Richard Dawkins wrote, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” I know that you've read it because you've repeated it several times. Tell me which charges you think are untrue (vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, misogynistic, homophobic – take your pick from the quote above) and I'll quote Bible verses backing up every one of them. I dare you.MatSpirit_{July 8, 2020
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Did JVL ever stop and think that these alleged christians were just christian when it was convenient?ET_{July 8, 2020
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Querius: From history, you’ll learn that many Christians were impoverished, enslaved, and marginalized by the few people with money and power. If you examine the history of slavery, I think you’ll be able to answer your own question when you look for who’s actually benefiting. Ummm . . . by the year 1000 most European countries were Christian ruled by Christians. In fact The Holy Roman Emperor came before. Many Christians were abolitionists during the time when slavery was a major part of the world’s economic engine. Some were, some weren't. Since Christians were a vast majority of the European population why wasn't there a push for the abolition of slavery until the late 1700s? I agree that there are still implicit forms of slavery but my question had to do with the historical record. Why did it take Christian Europe so long to start abolishing slavery? Christianity is supposed to provide a objective moral standard. If slavery is against that moral standard then there should have been many, many calls to abolish slavery over the centuries and yet . . .JVL_{July 8, 2020
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Ugh. Here in Florida 56 ICUs are now maxxed out. Strokes, lung damage, possibly an induced form of diabetes... Just because you survive this thing doesn’t mean you’re all good. I’m glad I know how to cook.Retired Physicist_{July 7, 2020
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JVL, From history, you'll learn that many Christians were impoverished, enslaved, and marginalized by the few people with money and power. If you examine the history of slavery, I think you'll be able to answer your own question when you look for who's actually benefiting. Many Christians were abolitionists during the time when slavery was a major part of the world's economic engine. Unfortunately, slave labor really hasn't ended yet. Many popular products today, perhaps some you own or wear, were produced by offshore slave labor. A quick search of the internet will give you the links to organizations that are currently fighting against this mostly hidden but persistent problem. In addition, many people consider H1B Visas in the US, a modern form of slavery. For example, see https://www.quora.com/Will-history-consider-H1B-GC-as-a-modern-slavery In my opinion, H1B workers are more like indentured servitude that's been abused--if they complain, they get deported. Also, prison labor has likewise been abused for profit. You can also look that up. Where does this leave us who benefit from modern slavery (which also includes child labor and sex workers)? In general, people are too busy to educate themselves, don't care, or just don't know. It's not in the news and no one is protesting against slavery. Have you ever looked into the pay received by farm workers? Here's a link to one such organization fighting modern day slavery: https://www.freedomunited.org/freedom-university/products-of-slavery/ What appalls me is that it would cost consumers very little more for slavery-free products. -QQuerius_{July 7, 2020
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Upright Biped, Help me understand why Seversky's being a materialist has anything to do with what he originally said. Where exactly did he claim the "bravery" of his position as you claim here?
To admit to this distortion in reality is sold as being brave.
Since Seversky never "sold" anything like this in his previous post, nor was he himself selling a distorted position of bravery, it leaves your post open for a different interpretation, one that disparages the intents and courage of those originally involved. -QQuerius_{July 7, 2020
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FYI - Atheists Launch No Lives Matter Movement - (The Babylon Bee)Heartlander_{July 7, 2020
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seversky:
No, my claim is that there is no absolute, transcendent morality.
And you are wrong.
What we have are social constructs that evolve within societies based on the principle that it is better to belong to a society that offers protections for your interests than to be outside with no such guarantees.
This is true. We took the original and absolute transcendent morality and changed it to suit us.
Yes, my moral beliefs are subjective and so are those of every other individual – including any deity.
That is your opinion but it is based on your asinine idea that minds arose from then mindless via blind and mindless processes.ET_{July 7, 2020
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MatSpirt concludes that God does not exist because God fails to measure up to a standard that does not exist unless God exists. When the incoherence of this position was pointed out to him, he doubled down. Typical.Barry Arrington_{July 7, 2020
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MatSpirit at 41, LOL, nothing like helping yourself to a heaping helping of the Christian's objective morality before trying to trash God as being beneath your non-existent atheistic moral standards, eh? Perhaps you would you like to shoot yourself in your other foot now? https://www.shutterstock.com/search/shooting+yourself+in+the+foot :)bornagain77_{July 7, 2020
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The American situation aside . . . since we all agree that all people of both sexes are created equally and if that is a basic tenet of the Christian message . . . Why did it take over 1800 years from Christ's life for slavery to be generally abolished over the planet? For much of that time most educated Europeans were Christian and yet for hundreds of years they made no moves at all to abolish slavery. The Pope was a very powerful figure, both religiously and politically and yet not one of them called for slavery to be abolished. What was holding people back since they all professed the same basic beliefs? It took even longer for women to gain the right to vote. Again, if all people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights why didn't Christians demand equal rights for women centuries earlier?JVL_{July 7, 2020
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. Querius, my words were fully clarified for you at the very top of this exchange in comment #26. You might remember it:
Seversky is a man who believes that there are no intrinsic or inherent values in the universe, or anything within the universe. He sees it that any moral standards in any given society come only from an agreement of people in that society, not from any transcendent moral reality. He refers to it by the sciencey-sounding brand ”consensus theory” and sells himself as a brave intellectual prepared to acknowledge the dirty truth.
You had no reason to carry out your mistaken perception past that point. You've known from the start of this exchange that your initial perception was wrong, but you've carried it out anyway, fully aware of your error.Upright BiPed_{July 6, 2020
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The American founders were not of one mind and had a great many disagreements. Not all the founders were part of the Constitutional Convention, which wasn't supposed to happen. Those who worked on the US Constitution were there to solve problems with the confederacy, which is what predated the Republic in America. The only thing keeping them together was the belief that a new system was needed. Everyone had to give a little to get it done, including staunch abolitionists. Some people hated and despised others that were there, but set aside their hatred enough to work on the Constitution. The reason the branches all have limited power, particularly the executive, is their concern that someone they hated might come to power. They wanted to limit the worst of themselves, rather than hope the best would come to power.BobRyan_{July 6, 2020
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Upright Biped @ 42, Yes, that's exactly how I read your response to Seversky. That your opinion was
To admit to this distortion in reality is sold as being brave.
Seversky never said anything like that in his post--you asserted it and I strongly disagreed with your assessment of the distortion and bravery demonstrated by the people of that time. -QQuerius_{July 6, 2020
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Seversky @ 40,
The rights that were proclaimed by the white society that held power at that time were clearly intended to be universal and were, to that extent, noble ideals. In practice, they were denied to black people and women which was somewhat less noble or ideal.
I think your description is far too much of a broad brush. Wikipedia (yeah, I know) has a pretty comprehensive article on slavery that you might want to review: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#First_continental_African_slaves As you can see, slavery in America was highly contentious right from the beginning, and was the major cause of the Civil War. One also needs to put slavery into context with what was going on in the world. While figures vary depending on the source, there were two major slave trades out of Africa totaling about 22 million African people: Islamic slave trade: from the 600s to the 1800s, 11.5 million people were taken from Africa to all over the Middle East. The ratio of males to females was about 1:2. American slavery: from the 1500s to the 1800s, 10.5 million people were taken from Africa to South America (6.6 million), the Caribbean (3.5 million), and to the U.S. (0.4 million). The ratio of males to females was 2:1. Again, these figures vary depending on the source. The question debated in the U.S. was how to operate in a world filled with slavery. Powerful economic interests behind slavery as a low cost source of labor were pitted against the moral outrage of the majority of U.S. society. Lest we feel too smug, I'd point out a relatively recent update (March 2020) listing 83 popular brands from China that employ slave labor in producing goods for sale in the U.S. Can you name one of these brands? I couldn't either, but I looked them up. Here are some relevant links that I found so far: https://polarisproject.org/blog/2016/02/eight-decades-later-congress-closes-loophole-that-allowed-slave-made-products-into-the-us/ https://www.endslaverynow.org/media/4100/slave-free-guide.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/ListofGoods.pdf https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/china-83-major-brands-implicated-in-report-on-forced-labour-of-ethnic-minorities-from-xinjiang-assigned-to-factories-across-provinces-includes-company-responses -QQuerius_{July 6, 2020
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. Seversky, despite your desire to tuck-in the entailments of your belief system, the fact remains that, under your beliefs, black slaves held in America had no inalienable right to life and liberty. Such things only exist as a transcendent value, which you do not believe in.Upright BiPed_{July 6, 2020
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. Let me get this straight Querius -- you completely and utterly mistook a comment I made about the worldview of a resident materialist (one who has been consistent and unambiguous about his beliefs for years on end) -- a worldview that (if accepted as it is continuously presented on these pages) logically entails that blacks in America were given the right to life and liberty only because the whites in American decided to give it to them (i.e. there are no such things as inalienable rights, only the subjective output of the majority in power). My comment was specifically about that worldview. And in the first 25 words of your response, you a) give yourself permission to proceed with your wildly mistaken assumptions, b) accuse me of attempting to justify the South during the Civil War, and c) accuse me of mocking the bravery of union soldiers. (!?!) And now, having completely ignored every attempt to dissuade you from your gross error, you want to advise me to not jump too quick to criticize? You are quite a piece of work Querius.Upright BiPed_{July 6, 2020
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Barry @ 21: "Miss the point much? You are doing the very thing your metaphysical premises prevent you from doing. I know you can’t help yourself. But the logical incoherence of judging while denying there is any standard by which to judge is there just the same." Barry, I know you wrote the OP, but did you read it? If you did, how did you not notice your fine Aztec example of doing evil at the command of God? Why didn't you notice that they did monstrous evil because they followed divine commands? I would say it's because like just about everybody else in Conservative Christianity, you started out with your conclusions and set out to justify them with whatever came to hand. You don't have any idea of my "metaphysical premises". For that matter, you, KF and the rest of the boys don't have any idea of what morality is, what it's for or where it comes from, let alone what good, bad and evil really are. As far as you're concerned, if some long dead human says that God said "Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (1 Samuel 15:2,3) Kill every man, woman, infant and baby PLUS every ox, sheep, camel and ass for something the forefathers of Amalek supposedly did centuries ago! And that's what you call Absolute Biblical Morality! But evil King Saul did not follow all of God's orders. "But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (1 Sam 15:9) But that does lead to one of the best lines in the Bible: "And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of Jehovah: I have performed the commandment of Jehovah. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" (1 Sam 15:13,14) Can't you just hear Mel Brooks saying that? But Saul suffers greatly for disobeying part of God's orders. "... Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, he hath also rejected thee from being king." (1 Sam 15,23) So Saul lost his job and his life because he obeyed God's orders to kill the men, women, children and babies for something the Amalekites supposedly did centuries previously, but he spared the best of their livestock to sacrifice to the Lord. This Absolute Morality stuff is a little hard to understand, sometimes.MatSpirit_{July 6, 2020
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Upright BiPed @ 23
If we are to live up to the standards set by the Founding Fathers, it is no honor to their memory to allow the good to blind us to the bad
Says the guy who’s worldview propels the idea that the only reason black people in America have any right to life and liberty is because white people in America decided to give it to them. To admit to this distortion in reality is sold as being brave.
The rights that were proclaimed by the white society that held power at that time were clearly intended to be universal and were, to that extent, noble ideals. In practice, they were denied to black people and women which was somewhat less noble or ideal. The other failing is that moral principles derive their ultimate authority from being the creation of all those who are to be voluntarily subject to them. The views of black people and women were neither sought nor wanted.Seversky_{July 6, 2020
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John_a_designer @ 20
When someone claims, as Seversky has claimed here at UD many time before, there is no moral truth (because morality in his view it is “subjective”) he is making a universal truth claim about moral truth which is obviously self-refuting. By analogy he is making a claim like, “This sentence is false.”
No, my claim is that there is no absolute, transcendent morality. What we have are social constructs that evolve within societies based on the principle that it is better to belong to a society that offers protections for your interests than to be outside with no such guarantees. There are no moral "truths" if by "true" you mean the extent to which a claim about observable reality corresponds to what it purports to describe or explain - the correspondence theory of truth. In other words, a claim about what is can be determined to be true or false by comparing it with what we observe. By this understanding of truth, a claim about what should be the case cannot be true or false as it is not about the nature of what we observe so cannot be tested.
Secondly, if his “morality” is completely subjective then he is the one who sets the moral standards for himself. His moral standards don’t apply to anyone else. How could they?
Yes, my moral beliefs are subjective and so are those of every other individual - including any deity. But if we all have at least some of those beliefs in common because we have interests in common then we have the basis for an intersubjective moral code.Seversky_{July 6, 2020
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John_a_designer @ 17
But if we reject a morality that is based on some sort higher transcendent good as Nietzcche wanted to do, with what do we replace it? That is a question for which atheistic naturalists/materialists do not appear to have an adequate answer– or if they do it is not forthcoming.
The answer is always that the apparent function of morality is to regulate human behavior for the benefit of all, to prevent harm being done to the person or interests of each member of a society by other members of that society. To that end, is there any good reason why those who are expected to be governed by those moral principles should not contribute to the formulation of those principles? Why should they be imposed from above? Why should anyone want them imposed from above?
The question is whether you as an atheist have any kind of sufficient basis for any kind of morality at all. If you do tell us what it is.
Our basis is the protection of interests all human beings have in common. Not only is that sufficient, what better foundation could there be? I note that, for all the moral prescriptions decreed by the Christian God, there is no detailed explanation of why they were chosen. Christians believe that they are for the benefit of humanity but evidence from the Old Testament suggests otherwise and as those events have not been disclaimed and purged from the text we have to assume that they remain tenets of the faith.Seversky_{July 6, 2020
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Upright Biped, Except that in Seversky's original reply, he didn't claim that "black slaves in America received their right to life and liberty only by an act of agreement on the part of the white people who made up the American majority." Thus, I read it as your opinion. Maybe Seversky deserves to be pounced on from some of his other posts, but it's a little more respectful not to immediately criticize what he writes. For example, it's popular to say something like "If we are to live up to the standards set by the Founding Fathers, it is no honor to their memory to allow the good to blind us to the bad." Actually, I think Seversky is correct. However it's also more common nowadays to allow the bad to blind us of the good, especially considering that no one, including the founding fathers were without their faults. As to his comments about the often-criticized actions of God in the Old Testament, his opinion is primarily an error of perspective. For example, he assumes that dying is the worst possible and most unfair thing that can happen to anyone. And yet everyone dies. Some sooner, some later. I'm sure that Seversky doesn't claim that he cannot believe in Nature or that Nature is inherently evil because of all the random tragedies and deaths that Nature is responsible for. Again, Seversky's objection is due to a flawed perspective of God, life, and why we're here. -QQuerius_{July 6, 2020
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. Querius, you can't really be this dense, can you? Listen very closely to these words, don't get ahead of yourself, just listen to these words: You have totally misunderstood what is being said. Understand? Let me say it again: You think I am talking about brave union soldiers fighting to free the union of the scourge of slavery, but I am actually talking about materialists who believe black slaves in America received their right to life and liberty only by an act of agreement on the part of the white people who made up the American majority. Have you not paid any attention to the topic of the OP at all? The slaves always had the right to life and liberty; it is an inalienable right (I can’t believe I am having to argue this point with you) of all people. It was being deprived from them by white America, not given to them by white America. Is there any chance in hell you understand now? No, I rather think not.Upright BiPed_{July 6, 2020
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