I - an atheist - have an objective standard for Good

[Christianbookworm]

Anyone from any group can become self righteous. If a "Christian" is behaving more like the Pharisees(thinking they are inherently worth more than "those people", being ableist jerks that victim blame people with disabilities, act religious just to get praise from other people, lip service, etc.) feel free to call them out. Likewise call out anyone of your own ingroup for acting like that. No noe should act like that.

[Sparko]

You don't understand what objective morality means. It isn't rules that people agree on. Your OP is not an objective standard of "good:, it is entirely arbitrary based on what rules you decided to use: ""Good" is that which reduces the unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures. The unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures is therefore "Evil".

That's just you deciding what rule you want to use.

Your God did the exact same thing.

That doesn't even make sense.

Objective morality means something is "good" or "evil" even if nobody in the world even believes it. Torturing babies for fun, is objectively evil. Even if everyone in the world suddenly started thinking it was good. Even if someone wrote it into law that you should torture your babies regularly for fun.

So you coming up with some "rule" saying what evil and good is, is just another example of subjective morality, not OBJECTIVE morality.

Same with your God's morality.

Again, nonsense. God didn't just make up rules. He built morality into reality, because of his nature. It exists whether or not there are any "rules". The rules in the bible just explain how to follow that moral reality. But even without the rules, the morality exists. That is what makes it objective.

Objective morality means something is not dependent on what people think, but it is just innately part of reality.

That's three times you've defined your God's morality out of objectivity.

Again, nonsense.

I can't tell if you understand how wrong you are and are trying to deflect with nonsense, or if you are really that ignorant.

Do you understand what objective morality means now? If so, please explain it back to me so I can see if you understand or not.

[Christianbookworm]

Thing is, fundy atheists think God is just a powerful human, like Superman or the pagan gods. But God is infinitely beyond those mere finite powerful entities.

[JimL]

"Good" is that which reduces the unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures. The unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures is therefore "Evil".

Suffering can be measured by MRI and other diagnostic technologies

Necessity should be obvious. Someone who takes a nasty tasting medicine has suffered a bit, but they had to take the medicine in order to get better. Someone who is robbed suffers unnecessarily, because the thief could have gotten the money via some other slower method.

This standard is objective in that anyone with access to the person and the aforementioned technology can look to see whether the person's suffering has lessened, and therefore, whether Good exists. The observer doesn't need to accept the standard as their own. All they need is to understand this standard, and to recognize when it's been met.

But being that suffering itself is subjective, can it also be said that unnecessary suffering is in and of itself objective? In other words unecessary suffering is not a thing in itself, it doesn't have existence outside of its subject, so how can a thing that doesn't exist in and of itself be said to be objective? The cause of unnecessary suffering would however be objective, but the cause of unnecessary suffering would be a moral agent, and a moral agent is neither good or evil but would simply be the active cause of the one or the other.

Thinking it through, I believe the problem I'm having with your idea is the problem of understanding exactly what is meant by "objective" here. If objective means existing of itself then the problem with the above is that nothing in that scenario exists of itself other than the moral agent, i.e. the cause of unnecessary suffering, but the moral agent, or cause of unnecessary suffering, is not himself or herself objectively good or evil.

[Tassman]

God by definition is the maximally great being. Now creating is a good thing, so a maximally evil being can't actually make anything. Just steal, kill, and destroy. So, God has to be morally perfect and the standard of Good. So, no annoying little primate can actually be better than him. Silly mammals!

It was the ”annoying little primates” that created gods in the first place, giving them the same attributes and moral strictures they themselves possessed – only bigger and better.

[Whateverman]

But being that suffering itself is subjective

As I wrote, suffering can be measured via MRI. It can literally be used to diagnostically measure things like pain, anger, fear and sadness.

[JimL]

As I wrote, suffering can be measured via MRI. It can literally be used to diagnostically measure things like pain, anger, fear and sadness.

Objectivly true. Got it now. I was confusing objective existence with objective truth and trying to figure out how suffering, which is subjective to the subject, could at the same time be said to be objective. But, as some here like to remind me, I'm not the brightest bulb in the "socket" and it finally came to me that the fact that suffering exists in the world is itself an objective truth independent of opinion even though suffering as a thing in itself, doesn't exist. But from that perspective, it isn't unnecessary suffering itself that is evil, it's the cause of unnecessary suffering that would be evil, and that would mean that there's no such thing as evil itself there are only wrong actions or behaviors, actions which cause suffering, actions which we call evil.

[Esther]

Your text I colored in red is either wrong, or Christians have the same problem.

Yes. Self righteousness afflicts the atheist and Christian alike. The difference is that the Christian should know better.

I take credit for my high moral standards, but they're subject to change.

I see it as God giving us and every person a conscience (high moral standards) but he does not force our decisions.

If a thing can't be seen directly or indirectly, and if its existence is assumed even when there's credible evidence to the contrary - that existence is not objective. If God's morality is written on my heart in such a way that it's obscured by a seared conscience - the existence of God's morality is not objective.

I think we do not understand objective morality the same way and this is confusing. Even a seared conscience will still know to some degree that killing and stealing and committing adultery etc is wrong.

Can you agree that every person has a conscience which has to do only with what is morally right and wrong?

That everyone knows without being taught that it is wrong to lie, kill steal cheat etc? We are all born knowing innately what is right and what is wrong.

There are times when my conscience says it's a moral Good to do most of the things you said my conscience should be telling me are wrong. It was a moral Good to lie in order to hide Jews from the Nazis, for example.

Yes but this is another discussion I think.

[Sparko]

As I wrote, suffering can be measured via MRI. It can literally be used to diagnostically measure things like pain, anger, fear and sadness.

uh no it can't.

[JimL]

uh no it can't.

Doesn't really matter if it can be measured or not, we no suffering when we see and experience it. Wm's argument is simply that what we call evil is that which causes unnecessary suffering.

[Sparko]

Doesn't really matter if it can be measured or not, we no suffering when we see and experience it. Wm's argument is simply that what we call evil is that which causes unnecessary suffering.

Uh yeah it would since he is using that as a central point of his "how to know it is objective"

and it's "we know suffering" not "we no suffering"

And as already pointed out, his standard of "unnecessary suffering = evil" is just another subjective standard.

[JimL]

Uh yeah it would since he is using that as a central point of his "how to know it is objective"

and it's "we know suffering" not "we no suffering"

And as already pointed out, his standard of "unnecessary suffering = evil" is just another subjective standard.

Yeah, that's the only part of his hypothesis that I think I kind of, sort of, disagree with, or am still confused about. But I'm not sure it's a difference with much of a distinction. Re-thinking once again, if the act of a moral agent is the cause of unnecessary suffering, the cause of evil, then the act is only evil because of it's effect. So one could argue, I think, that it is the effect itself, i.e. the unnecesary suffering itself, that is objectively evil. So suffering, being that itself an objective reality, then I think it could be argued that unnecessary suffering is in fact objectively evil.
I know, I just contradicted my previous post a bit and am back to agreeing with Wm's concept of unnecesary suffering being objectively evil. And now I'm getting dizzy so I leave it to you to point out my illogic.

[Tassman]

uh no it can't.

Yes, “suffering can be measured via MRI” inasmuch as it correlates with what we know suffering to be.

[Sparko]

Yes, “suffering can be measured via MRI” inasmuch as it correlates with what we know suffering to be.

No it can't. An MRI can't measure pain. It can only show physical damage. It can't show active areas of the brain, or nerve impulses or what a person is feeling.

You could have a broken leg that shows up on an MRI but that doesn't mean you are suffering. You might not feel anything at all at the moment. And even if you did, it would not mean you were "suffering"

[JimL]

No it can't. An MRI can't measure pain. It can only show physical damage. It can't show active areas of the brain, or nerve impulses or what a person is feeling.

You could have a broken leg that shows up on an MRI but that doesn't mean you are suffering. You might not feel anything at all at the moment. And even if you did, it would not mean you were "suffering"

I would think that if a person/persons are in pain and that pain correlates with the active areas of the brain, then you can pretty much measure pain. You may not be able to detail the source or intensity of the pain, like a broken leg, but the patient can inform you of that.