The More We Evolve, the Less We Need God

[Sparko]

It's only a problem for the person claiming universal absolutes. It's not a problem for me.

believing in moral absolutes doesn't mean every moral is clearly defined in the bible. Many are, some are vague. And some, like woman preaching or not have nothing to do with morality. That is ecclesiastical.


...And it also doesn't mean that the punishments for breaking a moral law are absolute either, even under the mosaic law. The OT punishment for adultery was death. Yet Jesus did not stone the adulterous woman, did he?

[carpedm9587]

believing in moral absolutes doesn't mean every moral is clearly defined in the bible. Many are, some are vague. And some, like woman preaching or not have nothing to do with morality. That is ecclesiastical.

...to you. Many women, however, see a moral issue in it and disagree with you.

...And it also doesn't mean that the punishments for breaking a moral law are absolute either, even under the mosaic law. The OT punishment for adultery was death. Yet Jesus did not stone the adulterous woman, did he?

Sparko - I do not believe moral absolutes exist, nor do I use the bible as a basis (for all of the reasons I've cited) - so you're a definitely talking to the wrong person.

[Tassman]

So what? The fact that we may not fully understand universal moral truths, or get it wrong, does not mean that they don't exist.

What makes you think that universal objective moral truths exist when we haven’t discovered what they are during millennia of Judeo/Christian morality?

We are wicked and tend to twist even the best moral principles for our own selfish ends.

I don’t believe we are innately wicked. We value kindness and mutual respect and devise systems of law and order to keep our anti-social instincts in check.

[carpedm9587]

I don’t believe we are innately wicked. We value kindness and mutual respect and devise systems of law and order to keep our anti-social instincts in check.

Indeed - the foundational principle of society is "trust." If we truly saw one another as "innately wicked," society simply would not function. Think of the simple act of taking a pill. That pill has been "touched" by an enormous number of people before it got to that bottle in your home. Anywhere along the way, a "wicked" person could wreak havoc and basically end your life. It has even happened once or twice (e.g., the great Tylenol poisoning). What made that such a remarkable event is that the underlying trust we all have was compromised. Even so, millions of us still reach for a Tylenol when we have a headache and don't give it a second thought.

The fact is that the vast majority of people a innately good. They do the right thing most of the time. They care about their neighbors and their families and their community. But we are fascinated by evil and harm and the negative side of the world. It is why we watch the videos of that hurricane or tsunami over and over. It is why we end up in long lines as people rubber neck to see what happened in that accident. So, that is what the media focuses on: the bad things that happen in the world. But for every negative thing reported, there are thousands of small acts of kindness and generosity performed by people everywhere - of almost every faith - every ethnicity - every gender and orientation - and every country.

One of the greatest harms many religions have done over the years (and they have done many good things as well) is promote this "we are evil" and "we are wicked" mantra. We are far from perfect. But the vast majority of us are not evil or wicked.

[Tassman]

One of the greatest harms many religions have done over the years (and they have done many good things as well) is promote this "we are evil" and "we are wicked" mantra. We are far from perfect. But the vast majority of us are not evil or wicked.

Yes, I agree.

The problem for the Christian religion in this regard is that the essential "depravity of Man" is the reason that Jesus supposedly had to come and save us. If we are not essentially sinful then Jesus is out of a job.

[Doug Shaver]

But Plato's perfect forms only existed in heaven, so we would have to had existed there before our physical births, because our present understanding of these truths are merely the remembering of this past existence/experience.

I do not recall Plato saying where the forms existed, but it doesn't matter if he did. Atheists generally do not regard any authority as infallible. We don't have to believe everything Plato said about a topic in order to believe some of it.

We can accept the existence of Plato's forms without agreeing with the idea he attributed to Socrates about how we learn things. If the forms exist and if we have souls that perceive them, there is no reason we cannot perceive them for the first time during our present lives.

[Doug Shaver]

The issue is whether Christians have to comply with Bible's instructions or if they are at liberty to reinterpret those instructions to accommodate changes in society's attitudes about killing witches.

You will have to show where Christians were told to kill witches then.

Is that your way of saying they were never told to comply with the Bible's instructions?

[seer]

I do not recall Plato saying where the forms existed, but it doesn't matter if he did. Atheists generally do not regard any authority as infallible. We don't have to believe everything Plato said about a topic in order to believe some of it.

We can accept the existence of Plato's forms without agreeing with the idea he attributed to Socrates about how we learn things. If the forms exist and if we have souls that perceive them, there is no reason we cannot perceive them for the first time during our present lives.

I think that is key though, that knowledge of these forms comes from remembrance, if not how does a soul come to know them? Here is something I found this morning:

Plato believed that long before our bodies ever existed, our souls existed and inhabited heaven, where they became directly acquainted with the forms themselves. Real knowledge, to him, was knowledge of the forms. But knowledge of the forms cannot be gained through sensory experience because the forms are not in the physical world. Therefore, our real knowledge of the forms must be the memory of our initial acquaintance with the forms in heaven. Therefore, what we seem to learn is in fact just remembering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms

[seer]

The fact is that the vast majority of people a innately good. They do the right thing most of the time.

How do you even get off the ground with this? What is innately good is that which conforms to your personal opinion? Collective opinion?

[seer]

Sparko - I do not believe moral absolutes exist, nor do I use the bible as a basis (for all of the reasons I've cited) - so you're a definitely talking to the wrong person.

The point is Carp, Scripture is not as gray as you suggest, whether you believe these are God given commands or not, there are many, even most, that are clearly understood.

[Tassman]

How do you even get off the ground with this? What is innately good is that which conforms to your personal opinion? Collective opinion?

What is considered "innately good" is subjective to the moral values of a society. This as opposed to that which is considered objectively good according to the dictates of religion as interpreted via the moral values of a society.

[seer]

What is considered "innately good" is subjective to the moral values of a society.

Then that is not innate:belonging to the essential nature of something - if it is subjective it is not innate.

[Tassman]

Then that is not innate:belonging to the essential nature of something - if it is subjective it is not innate.

It is the essential characteristic of a social species such as us to instinctively exhibit direct and indirect reciprocity and altruism. Because, for any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group outweigh the benefits of individualism. The moral values upon which we base our laws derive from these evolved qualities. And when we introduce a creator deity into the equation, as did our more primitive ancestors, we attribute to this deity the same qualities...only writ large.

BTW: I'm with Starlight, your signature is hilarious.

[Doug Shaver]

I think that is key though, that knowledge of these forms comes from remembrance

Plato might have said so. Nobody is obliged to believe everything he said on the matter.

if not how does a soul come to know them?

You'll have to ask someone who believes in souls to explain how they perceive anything. All I know is that since I can see physical things without remembering them, I don't see why I could not see a form without remembering it.

[seer]

You'll have to ask someone who believes in souls to explain how they perceive anything. All I know is that since I can see physical things without remembering them, I don't see why I could not see a form without remembering it.

Doug that would kind of be an important thing, don't you think? A physical objective presents itself to your senses, forms are non-physical.