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All moral standards and values and all gods are man-made.
Your reason implies that it's society who determines what's bad and wrong through government. If you can get enough people to vote a certain way, then you can change morals to be whatever you want.....so that cannot really determine what's right and wrong.
Or, if morality is determined by what's the most beneficial to the most number of people, then we shouldn't help the sick or the weak - since letting them die out is the most beneficial to the most numbers of people. By killing them, we could also be doing them a favor.
Homosexuals would also have to belong to that group since they don't benefit the species in the way of reproduction.
Absolutely.
In America, today, it is considered "immoral" to marry and have sex with children below a certain age, or to use children of the same gender as sex toys, or to have sex with animals.
It's illegal to do those things, but it's also considered immoral.
There was a time in America when it was perfectly legal and moral for grown men to marry and have sex with 14-year-old girls.
There are countries in the world today where all of the things I mentioned are considered both legal and moral.
Disagree. It is generally considered immoral to chat on your spouse but it is not illegal
It is illegal to smoke pot (not everywhere anymore) but it is no longer considered immoral by a large % of the population.
Laws do not equate to morality, they can go together but not necessarily
Though the concept originally depended upon an appeal to God
That's what Hard Truth had claimed in another section.
I'm saying, God is the basis for all morals - it's the standard from which moral values are based.
Exodus 21:20-21
"If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property.…"
The real question is, do you find this moral?
Keep to the subject - read the OP.
It doesn't apply.
Soot is speaking from inside a "framework". You know that.
Absent said "framework, you shooting someone in the face is just an action and is neither good, bad/evil, right/wrong.
There is no universal morality. It is all based on beliefs which are man made.
In antiquity it was believed that there was a "natural law" which imposed obligations upon the individual (such as being a good and contributing member of society, defending the homeland, and such).
The concept of natural (or inalienable, or self-evident, or human) rights (as opposed to obligations) arose during the Enlightenment as a means of challenging the concept of the Divine Right of Kings, which essentially held that kings were bound by no earthly authority and could, consequently, do whatever they wanted and treat people (their subjects) however they wanted.
Natural rights, the most fundamental human rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or property, depending upon which point in the developing conversation on natural rights you happen to jump in on), it was proposed, were God-given to people as a natural consequence of being people, as opposed to being something that could be given or taken away by other people.
As such these rights couldn't be usurped by a monarch/sovereign who, while not bound by any earthly law, was subject to the laws of God[/COLOR].
When we (here in America but later in Europe and then all over the world) began to transition away from monarchies we maintained the concept of God-given natural rights.
Basically natural rights are rights because we, the people, say they are.
It's directly on topic. If values aren't man made and they are handed down by god, then what ever god tells you that you can do must be moral, and therefor slavery is moral and you can beat your slave as long as they don't die right away. Do you believe this? Or do you think that morality doesn't come from god and this is immoral?
Absolutely.
In America, today, it is considered "immoral" to marry and have sex with children below a certain age, or to use children of the same gender as sex toys, or to have sex with animals.
It's illegal to do those things, but it's also considered immoral.
There was a time in America when it was perfectly legal and moral for grown men to marry and have sex with 14-year-old girls.
There are countries in the world today where all of the things I mentioned are considered both legal and moral.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that most of us are going to get old.
It's also a fact of life that self-preservation is an inherent aspect of all life.
In order to pass the laws you're talking about the majority of people, knowing that they will one day get old and likely sick, would have to willingly sign their own death warrant.
Isn't gonna happen.
Same thing for childless couples I guess? Or the celibate clergy?
There are more ways for people to contribute to society, many more ways, than by just procreating.
So, it is flexible. It can change. What's "bad" today maybe "good" tomorrow.
That doesn't really determine what's bad and wrong.
That's what Hard Truth had claimed in another section.
I'm saying, God is the basis for all morals - it's the standard from which moral values are based.
I'd like to try to prove this. So I'd like for you to please answer this.
If I shoot a pedestrian in the face with a shotgun.......is that good or bad?
Well, that's not exactly an answer, is it? We're trying to find out if it's true that moral values are man-made!
Okay, explain it then...WHY IS IT "IMMORAL?"
However, the attitude labeled “moral relativism” by the pope and others who worry about the moral health of contemporary society is not a well defined or rigorously defended philosophical position. It typically amounts to little more than a skepticism about objective moral truth, often expressed as the idea that beliefs and actions are not right or wrong per se, only right or wrong for someone. Philosophers like Gilbert Harman, David Wong, and Richard Rorty who defend forms of moral relativism seek to articulate and defend philosophically sophisticated alternatives to objectivism. As they see it, they are not countenancing immorality, injustice, or moral nihilism; rather, they are trying to say something about the nature of moral claims and the justifications given for them. The main problem they face is to show how the denial of objective moral truth need not entail a subjectivism that drains the rationality out of moral discourse. Their critics, on the other hand, face the possibly even more challenging task of justifying the claim that there is such a thing as objective moral truth.
Apart from the fact that the driving people in the Nazi regime did not concern themselves with morality or at least perverted it in their minds beyond recognition, it is idiotic to purvey that 12 years of that regime succeeded in creating a culture that ran contrary to what at least Western society considered right or wrong. Most German were aware of the difference for centuries before, during the years from '33 to '45 and afterwards. That in the dark years many did not act accordingly is a different matter, causes ranging from denial to fear for one's life to self serving hypocrisy.If culture determines right and wrong, how could we have judged the Nazis? After all, they were only following their culture's morality. Only if murder is universally wrong were the Nazis wrong. The fact that they had “their morality” does not change that.
Fact is? Where do we keep hearing this?The fact is that all people are born with a conscience, and we all instinctively know when we have been wronged or when we have wronged others.
.....
If culture determines right and wrong, how could we have judged the Nazis? After all, they were only following their culture's morality. Only if murder is universally wrong were the Nazis wrong. The fact that they had “their morality” does not change that....
If I shoot a pedestrian in the face with a shotgun.......is that good or bad?
Good find!Hitler and the Nazis thought they were following the morality of the Bible. I don't blame the Bible for their acts (very much) but it shows that the absolute morality of Christianity does not prevent evil acts.
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty
Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”
[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a
fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded
by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and
summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest
not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian
and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord
at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the
Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight
against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with
deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact
that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As
a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have
the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is
anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is
the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty
to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and
work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only
for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning
and see these men standing in their queues and look into their
pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very
devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two
thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people
are plundered and exposed.”
[Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich on April 12, 1922, countering a
political opponent, Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed antisemitism on
his personal Christian feelings. Published in “My New Order”, quoted
in Freethought Today April 1990]
That's what Hard Truth had claimed in another section.
I'm saying, God is the basis for all morals - it's the standard from which moral values are based.
I'd like to try to prove this. So I'd like for you to please answer this.
If I shoot a pedestrian in the face with a shotgun.......is that good or bad?
There you go again not paying attention to what was said.No, you can't say an action is neither good or bad when we label actions as such! So your argument doesn't apply. It's not realistic.
I'm not asking whether it's legal or not. I'm asking if it's good or bad (wrong or right).