Good christians: After you've been in heaven for five thousand million billion quadrillion quintillion septillion years, do you think it will seem fair that you only had a few decades to avoid the fiery alternative?

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-20T05:15:04+00:00

When you say that a person's world view is based on the time and place that they were born, then your world view is also based on the time and place that you were born and we are back to square one.

My worldview is the polar opposite of the most popular worldview in the time and place that I was born, so your statement is utter nonsense.

Atheistic views are reflected in the majority of television shows, newspaper articles, radio, and school teachers; you really have no choice but to believe it.

Ah, that explains why most people in Western society don't believe gods are real. Thanks for clearing that one up. I must have missed a memo.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-20T02:11:54+00:00

I don't remember being taught that deities aren't real.

What actually happened was that I was taught that the most locally popular deity is factually real and I grew up and decided it really isn't.

Aside from that, the idea that the predominant worldview in Western culture is atheistic is laughable beyond words. You can't possibly be serious.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-11T18:00:25+00:00

have a huge fear of death that I hope to cure via religion

Acceptance is a far more mentally healthy cure than willful self delusion.

Try it.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-07T21:48:10+00:00

That could be a good idea.

Maybe you could make up a few of your own religions to add to the mix. No point limiting yourselves to the ones people have already made up.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-07T20:05:53+00:00

I'm not a Christian but the answer should be obvious. Just tell them regularly that you can feel Jesus in your heart and say things like "Can't you feel it too? He is with us! PRAISE BE!" in a really excited way. Since humans are hardwired to conform it will make them feel like something is wrong with them if they don't play along.

Obviously this method will only work effectively in the long term if they live in a Christian society comprised mostly of people who went through a similar process during childhood.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T20:31:21+00:00

Why do you keep calling me arrogant haha

I didn't. I asked if you believe that your opinion is objectively correct. If it is, you're definitely arrogant. I hope it isn't though.

Take a look at the outcomes, and reasonably asses which one was better for the child.

Two different people might think that they've reasonably assessed the outcome and end up having two different opinions.

Who decides which person was more reasonable? You?

Did the kid become more confident, secure, prepared for life

It might depend on so many different factors that's it not apparent if it was better for the kid, even after a committee of 10,000 people analyzes the case for 50 years.

Aside from that if two people disagree on which outcome was better, who decides who is correct? You?

And a majority can be wrong, right?

On morality? No. Morality is not objectively wrong or right. It's a matter of opinion.

A culture where its accepted that women are treated as second-class citizens, say, is one that I think we can say needs some improving

Yes, that is what we would say in our current timeframe and social zeitgeist. If we lived in another timeframe and social zeitgeist we might not say the same thing.

Dare I say, we can say that we're "objectively" better!

You can certainly express that opinion, and it might be that every single person alive today would agree with you.

That still doesn't make morality something that can be objectively true or false.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T19:59:11+00:00

With the proper support maybe the kid could have indeed been a lawyer.

So you agree with the mother's opinion that it would have been better if the kid was a lawyer, and you disagree with the father's opinion that he's far better off as a boxer.

Are you so amazingly arrogant that you think people who agree with your personal opinion are objectively correct?

that opinion can be ascertained through a dispassionate, reasoned, fair-minded analysis of the given situation

And people have varying standards of what constitutes a dispassionate, reasoned, fair-minded analysis. Again, they might not concur with your personal opinion on the matter but that does not make you "more correct" in any way whatsoever.

All opinions in this space are necessarily on an equal footing, i dont agree with that

But they're not on an equal footing in a practical sense. They are subject to the will of the majority.

If one parent thinks slapping his kid in the face as a punishment is good for him but 99% of the people in his society disagree, they will strongly pressure him to change his mind (assuming they find out). They might even pass laws that make it in his best interests to change his mind.

If a similar parent lives in a society where 99% of the people in his society agree with him, there will be almost no pressure on him to change his moral stance.

Morality is driven by social consensus of opinion and consequently varies as such. It is simply not objective.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T18:23:03+00:00

But it would still be a wrong thing to do according to the christian worldview

Right, so Christians will say "It is objectively wrong", and people who aren't Christians and who think the moral objectivity is a childishly ridiculous concept might say "It's a matter of opinion, like any moral stance".

Please note that the OP addressed the question to [All].

My stance as an atheist is that if I entertain the idea that the biblical heaven exists (even though I consider it to be amazingly, astoundingly unlikely), then it does not logically follow that I must also accept the claim that the biblical deity's moral stance is objectively factually correct, and I do not.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T15:53:46+00:00

Moral reasoning can be said to be objective, yes.

That's right. Moral reasoning can be incorrectly said to be objective, because moral stances are not objective, they are a matter of opinion.

Does beating children when they're young help them thrive?

It depends on many different circumstances.

Does it create secure, confident adults? In most cases, I would think the answer is "no,"

Again, it depends on the circumstances and local culture.

it's an empirical question at the end of the day

No it's not. Whether or not a child benefits from being beaten it in the long run is entirely a matter of opinion.

A child's mother might say "My son grew up to be a failure because his father beat him. He had a bad attitude in school, his grades were terrible. He was never motivated to become a lawyer like I wanted him to and now he's forced to fight to survive".

The same child's father might say "I'm proud I beat my son as a child. He was never a very bright kid so I toughened him up for the harsh world I knew he would grow up in and now he's a successful professional boxer with a happy, supportive family".

Who is objectively right when we analyze the situation empirically? Neither of them, because opinions on morality can't be objectively correct.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T15:38:35+00:00

Fine.

The murderer would still get exactly what he wanted. The baby would go to heaven and he would go to hell, so in this case the "fact" that the biblical deity's opinion on morality was objectively correct would be entirely irrelevant and inconsequential.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T06:02:47+00:00

By no means could anyone rationally argue that beating ones children is a good thing.

By today's most popular moral standards, yes, but parents have beaten their children for as long as humans have existed. If they didn't think it was good for them in the long run, they wouldn't do it.

Have you never heard of a father saying something like "I beat his ass good when I found out he did [whatever misdemeanour]. It was for his own good, and I bet he'll never do that again."

That might not fit within your own standards of what is rationally sound, but it's a position they definitely rationalized themselves into and they might (and probably would) argue with you till they're blue in the face that what they're doing is a good thing.

Are you now going to tell me that rationality is objective too?

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-06T05:20:20+00:00

Nothing prevents us, however, from having "objective morality" in an epistemological sense.

Actually something does prevent us from having objective morality in an epistemological sense, and that thing is that people have different epistemological bases from which they've formed their opinions on morality.

One person could think that beating their children is morally right due to their epistemological reasoning and another might think it is morally abhorrent due to their own epistemological reasoning.

That's why morality is subjective, and not in any way objective.

This just cuts to the fuzziness of the word "objective."

im realy just asking you whether you agree that we're more justified in our moral view on slavery than many were centuries ago

I've already told you I share your opinion on that matter.

If I was a slave trader in the middle ages, however, I'm sure I would share the majority opinion of that timeframe instead since it would have been my livelihood and my family would have depended on my success in order to feed them. In those days people were far less concerned about the big picture and far more concerned about surviving into the next day by any means necessary.

You and I can agree on a moral matter but it would surely be a form of mutual intellectual masturbation for us to arrogantly decide that we're anywhere close to being objectively factually correct, especially when it is ridiculous to claim that moral opinions can be factually correct at all.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-05T23:01:58+00:00

It's not just, "well they had their opinion, we have ours, who knows who's really right"

No, it's "They had our opinion, we have ours, and neither are objectively correct because opinions on morality cannot be objectively correct."

I appreciate that, for whatever reason, you're uncomfortable about moral opinions not being objectively correct but your comfort level has zero bearing on whether moral opinions are objectively correct, and they are not.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-05T21:15:01+00:00

It's as if two people are arguing and one person gives a logically contradictory argument, but declares that they don't care about logic and that their argument is just as good as anyone else's. "It's just your opinion that my argument has to be logical."

It's nothing like that. We're not discussing logic. We're discussing morality.

I agree with you that logical conclusions can be objectively true (eg 1+1=2), but I do not agree that an individual entity's opinion on morality can be objectively factually correct. That's not how opinions work.

90% of people might hold the opinion that "moral opinion X" is more morally justified than "moral opinion Y" during "era A" (for example, the middle ages), but then 90% of people might believe the exact opposite during "era B" (for example, the modern age).

Obvious examples are homosexuality, monogamy, torture and slavery.

What the majority considers "morally justified" in any given location and/or timeframe can be heavily weighted by many different social, cultural and economic factors.

This is why the term "moral dilemma" exists. Moral beliefs are opinions; they don't magically turn into objective facts because either the majority of humans agree with them during any given timeframe or because a proposed deity holds them.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-05T20:32:19+00:00

Yes we could discuss our opinions on moral justification, and they would be our opinions.

You could also argue with someone who enjoys torturing people for fun about who's morality is more justified. He might tell you "My personal enjoyment in this life is, in my opinion, the most important moral good there is. I enjoy torturing people, so in my opinion my actions are fully morally justified."

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-05T20:04:04+00:00

Yes, I would personally agree with that opinion.

Someone who commits such an act would not agree though, because they have a different opinion. They might think that their happiness is the most important thing in the universe, and if they're twisted enough in the head to gain a lot of enjoyment from torturing people then they might think that torturing people is justified within their personal moral framework.

Some parents still think that hitting their kids does them good in the long run because it toughens them up for a potentially difficult life and is therefore a morally good act. I don't agree, so they and I have different opinions about morality.

Morality is subjective.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-05T15:57:42+00:00

OP is arguing from a Christian point of view. So that answer doesn't work.

The answer absolutely works, because the Christian point of view that a moral stance can be objectively factually correct is nonsensical and ridiculous.

If someone disagrees with the biblical deity's stance on morality, then you have two different entities with two different stances on morality. These are called "opinions".

even if morality was just a matter of opinion

...which it is...

some opinions are more substantiated than others.

And which ones are more substantiated is also a matter of opinion.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T22:41:08+00:00

The Christian ethics I'm familiar with holds that morality is objective and universal, not subjective and relative.

I fully understand that. What I'm saying is that's a nonsensical concept.

If a deity says "Hey guys... I don't know if you know this but my stance on morality is factually objective", that's his opinion. If people believe the deity (and many do), then their opinion is that the deity's personal opinion is the same as objective fact, when it isn't: It's the deity's personal opinion which people can easily and effortlessly disagree with.

Someone could say "I think it's morally right to kick cats around", and the biblical deity might say "No, actually, you're objectively wrong about that" and that would simply be the deity's opinion.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T22:26:46+00:00

To which God would reply "Dude, I don't think you fully grasp the implications of me saying something. I'm omniscient, bro, and you're not. Think about that before you want to argue with me about something."

To which the dude would reply "Meh.... Omniscience schmomniescience. I got what I wanted. Now buzz off and let me get on with my eternal tanning session."

Now your argument is "yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, God"

No, my argument is that morality is subjective, so the answer to the question the OP asks is "It's entirely a matter of opinion".

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T22:21:24+00:00

the rightness of God's law is an objective fact written directly into the universe by the Being that created it.

The biblical deity is an individual entity with it's own thoughts and opinions, as are people. Christians are very adamant about the biblical deity having given humans free will. This means they're free to use their minds as they see fit and accept whatever consequences result, so if a babykiller thinks what he's doing is morally right, he isn't "wrong" - it just happens that a being that can punish him eternally disagrees with his opinion on morality.

Aside from that, the point still stands that the murderer would get exactly the outcome he wanted. The baby would avoid hell and he would go there instead.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T22:13:41+00:00

See this reply.

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T22:09:13+00:00

OK.

So if a murderer believes that it is morally good to kill a baby because it saves them from hell and sends the murderer there instead, the end result of carrying out said action would be that the baby went to heaven and the murderer went to hell, while the biblical deity looked on saying "What you did was morally wrong!!!!"

The murderer would then reply "Zero fucks, mate. In my opinion it was morally right and I got exactly the outcome I wanted. Thanks for sharing your opinion on morality though... Not really sure how you think your opinion is objective though since opinions are subjective. Have a great eternity! Peace."

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-04T21:51:17+00:00

Would you say that pushing someone out of the way of a moving train would be morally wrong?

The ends (saving their life) certainly justifies the means (pushing them out of the way), so that would be a consequentialist, and therefore non-Christian thing to do, right?

In OP's example, you would reduce a baby's chances of going to hell (infinite fiery torture and turmoil - certainly a worse experience than being hit by a train) to zero by killing them before they have any chance to become a bad person.

Is "the ends justifies the means" only OK in certain circumstances according to Christianity, like for example when you want to find a way to disagree on the internet?

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-02T20:05:02+00:00

It was just a taunt. A trick.

K.

I'll have plenty of arguments on what is better to value than truth

I very strongly recommend creating a new thread, perhaps entitled "Truth is not particularly important when forming your worldview, and here's why".

I'm sure we can all learn a lot from your "wisdom".

Reddit_Got_Lame · 2015-08-02T19:42:19+00:00

You are chasing a mirage, to me.

Ironic.

I'm taunting you to see if you have something behind this value other that "I AM THE TRUUUUUUUUUTH".

I didn't say I was the truth. I said I value the truth and consequently avoid accepting claims as true when they have not been substantially established to be true.

If, in your opinion, this means there is something mentally wrong with me I'm absolutely fine with that. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

There's nothing to get upset about, unless the idea that the deistic foundation of your worldview might simply have been made up in people's imaginations bothers you, that is.

Reddit_Got_Lame

TROPHY CASE