Is Christianity Good for the World? Hitchens debate...

[Taraz]

NotReady,

Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality? I don't get that point. Everything isn't black and white. Was Thomas Jefferson good or evil? He owned slaves and slavery is wrong, so he must have been evil?

Almost every "evil" action is morally necessary at times. Isn't that the whole point in ethics? To figure out how to weigh different factors in every scenario.

[NotReady]

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?


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!

[NotReady]

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Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality?


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Somewhere in this country there is a bar of metal that weighs 1 kilogram and is considered the official standard for what constitutes 1 kg. If kg was relative my kg would not be your kg. See any problems with that? The analogy breaks down because WE could make a kg anything. I hope I don't have to type any more to illustrate why relative morality isn't morality. Some of you will now fight the hypothet, others will draw inferences that weren't part of the point the hypothet was meant to illustrate, someone in Timbucktoo may get it and not respond, who knows.

One final point - if you press the analogy and say since we can make a kg anything we want we can make morality anything we want then back to Hitler - he wasn't wrong, he was just setting the kg for his country.

[Hopey]

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1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it


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Since 1,2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 does not logically follow.

[Taraz]

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Why is it a problem is there is only relative morality?


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Somewhere in this country there is a bar of metal that weighs 1 kilogram and is considered the official standard for what constitutes 1 kg. If kg was relative my kg would not be your kg. See any problems with that? The analogy breaks down because WE could make a kg anything. I hope I don't have to type any more to illustrate why relative morality isn't morality. Some of you will now fight the hypothet, others will draw inferences that weren't part of the point the hypothet was meant to illustrate, someone in Timbucktoo may get it and not respond, who knows.

One final point - if you press the analogy and say since we can make a kg anything we want we can make morality anything we want then back to Hitler - he wasn't wrong, he was just setting the kg for his country.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you don't see any qualitative difference between a kg of metal and telling a lie? Is lying evil or not?

Is it moral for a someone to lie to a Nazi officer asking whether or not there are any Jews hiding in the basement? This is a completely honest question.

Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules that can be applied to every conceivable scenario in human experience. That legalistic approach to religion and morality was rejected by Jesus himself. What about when Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath and he replied, "the Sabbath was made for man, man was not made for the Sabbath"?

[NotReady]

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Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules


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Ok, I tried. See C.S. Lewis.

[Sephus]

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1. God exists
2. ought exists
3. Bible is correct
4. we ought to do it


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Since 1,2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 does not logically follow.

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actually, that doesn't follow.

[Subfallen]

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I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above)


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Fine. Who gets to tell us what constitutes average human nature? Ghandi or Hitler?

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Observation, genius, OBSERVATION. Look the [censored] around you and do a goddamn survey.

[PairTheBoard]

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Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

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We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

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I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

[luckyme]

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Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

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We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

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Travel broadens our horizons.
Since Gutenberg there has been a escalating exchange of ideas and a mix or exposure of cultures. Books, periodicals, letters, travel, radio, TV, movies, immigration, this mixing Blurs the we-they boundary.
We've witnessed the same in political structure. Tribal, city-states, nations, unions of nations. We've arrived at "european - north american" groupings, from Athenians and Romans. Empathy follows.

luckyme