If God were real, you wouldn’t need a book

[Into the Night]

morality is a set of behaviors and attitudes that facilitate voluntary, cooperative, and mutually beneficial relationships.

Redefinition fallacy.

of course, tyrants hate every aspect of this.

Even tyrants have a morality of their own.

Go learn what 'morality' means.

 

[Into the Night]

So you admit to being in a position you cannot say what the Nazis did was objectively wrong by a universal standard of absolute right and wrong.

There is no 'objectively wrong'. There is just 'wrong' and 'right', defined by morals.
To you (I assume from your post), and to me, what the Nazis did was wrong.

To the Nazis, what they did was right.

There is no such thing as a 'universal standard of absolute write and wrong'.

And you are in no position to say ritual human sacrifice or female genital mutilation are really and truly wrong because they are social conventions of those cultures.

You don't get to dictate everything to everyone. You are not the king. You are not lord of the Earth. Omniscience fallacy.

Those cultures are what they are. To them, it's right. To you and me, it's wrong.

 

[Into the Night]

MAGAts loooove Nazis. They are weak both morally and physically thus requiring a Daddy to protect them.

Nazi fallacy.

 

[Into the Night]

you nailed into the night. thank you.

Don't think so. Like you, he figures there is something called an 'absolute morality' which he can dictate at will.

but can you say murdering Gaza babies is wrong?

It quite literally depends on who you ask, and the context you ask it in.

 

[Into the Night]

I disagree, but that's a separate topic.

Absolutely not.

Yes. Lots of immoral behaviors were acceptable, and endorsed by the Bible/God, thousands of years ago. Man, who wrote the Bible and was the determiner of right/wrong and moral/immoral, was far more barbaric and far less civilized in OT times and less barbaric in NT times, which is why God changed his mind about what was moral/immoral in the NT.

He didn't.

Maybe. Maybe not. Someone(s) had ronstaet the conversation that questioned certain behaviors. It could have been me!

Yes. Morality has improve from OT to NT and continues to improve today, though ,even among Christians, there is disagreement because some are slower to adjust because some want to hold on to the barbaric morality of their God's book longer than others.

What is barbaric about the gospel of God and Jesus Christ?

 

[Into the Night]

I disagree, but that's a separate topic.

Absolutely not.

Yes. Lots of immoral behaviors were acceptable, and endorsed by the Bible/God, thousands of years ago. Man, who wrote the Bible and was the determiner of right/wrong and moral/immoral, was far more barbaric and far less civilized in OT times and less barbaric in NT times, which is why God changed his mind about what was moral/immoral in the NT.

You don't get to dictate everything for everyone. You are not the king. Omniscience fallacy.

Maybe. Maybe not. Someone(s) had ronstaet the conversation that questioned certain behaviors. It could have been me!

Yes. Morality has improve from OT to NT and continues to improve today, though ,even among Christians, there is disagreement because some are slower to adjust because some want to hold on to the barbaric morality of their God's book longer than others.

Morality is not an 'improvement'. It simply exists.
The gospel of God and Jesus Christ has not changed.

 

[Into the Night]

Atheism is the religion of communism,

Redefinition fallacy. Atheism is not a religion.

as proved by both Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Name dropping is not a proof.

They murdered millions of innocent people in the name of an atheist state.

No, they simply murdered millions of people. The Church of State as God is not atheism. It is tyranny.

 

[Into the Night]

Correlation doesn't mean causation.

Atheist, agnostics and religious people of all types have come up with bad ideas and done terrible things. That doesn't mean their religious views were the direct cause of that. For example, I bet that every single school shooter, in the US, has eaten french fries.

That's a terrible thing? What have you got against potatoes?

In some cases it does. Islamic fundamentalists are known to slice up the genitals of their females and murder homosexuals specifically because of their religious views.

And to them that is moral. It is right.

 

[Into the Night]

There is no universal standard of absolute right and wrong in your moral relativism.

There is no such thing as 'moral relativisim'. There is just morals.

You have no basis to say there is an absolute right or wrong.

There is no such thing as 'absolute right or wrong'. 'Right' and 'wrong' are morals.

In a world where nothing is real but matter and energy, morality is a delusion.

Nope. Morality is quite real. Every religion has morals. Every individual has morals.

It's not based on any objective truth.

There is no such thing as 'objective truth'. There is either truth, or there is not. Morals are not about 'truth' or 'false'. They are about 'right' and 'wrong'.

All you have are opinions and social conventions that could change with time and whim.

Morals don't change with time and whim. They rarely change at all, since they act as a core code of conduct. Thus, different religions don't change their morals much. Same with an individual. Even individuals (even Democrats!) don't change their morals much.

 

[Into the Night]

It's social conditioning. Europeans, culturally, are antisemitic. Americans are culturally racist. Education seems to mitigate those issues.

Culture, by its very nature, is immersive. It's all around us in many ways be it the overt claims of bigots (be they racial, sexist or religious), the more subtle influences of media (especially television including entertainment older than a couple generations), and local cultures of friends, family and work associates. Culture is very difficult to change and overt attempts to change it are often met with resistance. "The Culture Wars" being a common observation.

IMHO, like the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, slow and steady wins the race. Education is the key. Not "Whites bad, blacks good" or any other finger-pointing but teaching the value of tolerance and teamwork. This is one of the top reasons why I believe eliminating the draft had a negative impact upon what used to be the Great American Melting Pot. We were no longer melting together, but subdividing ourselves into enclaves.

The Impact of Education on Inter-Group Attitudes: A Multiracial Analysis - PMC

How does education affect racial attitudes? Past studies focus almost exclusively on Whites’ attitudes toward Blacks, neglecting important minority populations. This study extends previous research by analyzing the effects of education on beliefs ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

For all racial groups, education seems to foster meritocratic and individualistic values, at least in considerations of racial policy. Those with higher levels of education tend to be more inclined to support special job training, an opportunity-enhancing policy, as opposed to racial preferences, a more radical redistributive approach to redressing racial inequality.

Culture wars: How identity became the center of politics in America

The so-called culture wars taking over politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election have been decades in the making.

abcnews.go.com

You don't get to speak for everyone. You only get to speak for you. Omniscience fallacy.
Your racism is YOUR problem, not anybody else's. Only YOU can deal with YOUR problems.

Not going to get much chance to agree with you often, Zen...so I will take this opportunity to do so.

Anyone who "believes" the god of the Bible is actually a GOD...and who attempts to justify or rationalize the many disgusting and reprehensible actions and commands of that god...has no real self-esteem. The god, as I have indicated in several posts through the years, seems to be a god invented by a relatively unsophisticated, unknowledgeable, superstitious people who had many enemies with barbarous, vengeful, wrathful, unforgiving, demanding, murderous, petty gods. In to combat those gods, the people (ancient Hebrews) made their invented god a particularly barbarous, vengeful, wrathful, unforgiving, demanding, murderous, petty god...who could easily kick the asses of their enemies' a relatively unsophisticated, unknowledgeable, superstitious people.

Rationalizing the killing of the "first born" of Egypt** is pathetic. Rationalizing the "commands" of the god enumerated in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is even more pathetic.

The god seems to me (it would be my guess) about as real as the gods of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia.

I can easily understand the ancient Hebrews inventing the god, I am dismayed that any modern people still feel the god is what the ancient Hebrews thought it was.

**Pharoah was almost certainly a "first born"...as were the fathers of many of the babies killed. I wonder why they were not killed.

First born were not necessarily babies. Pharaoh's curse rebounded upon Egypt. Pharaoh's son died instead of the first born of the faithful Hewbrew. The curse was place not on the fathers, but on their first born.

 

[Cypress]

to me, what the Nazis did was wrong.
To the Nazis, what they did was right!
There is no such thing as a 'universal standard of absolute write and wrong'!

So if it's all just a matter of opinion and perspective, then if the Nazis had conquered the world their propaganda machine and totalitarian control of information could have convinced a majority of people that the Jews were indeed a threat to Western civilization and needed to be eliminated.

You're free to believe gassing Jews is just a matter of opinion;
But I think gassing Jews is always objectively wrong no matter what the Nazis say.

 

[Into the Night]

So no defense or rationalization of moral relativism?

There is no such thing as 'moral relativism'. Buzzword fallacy.

You are obsessed with complaining about Christianity.

That he is. He belongs to the Church of No God. What do you expect?

All I'm saying is that there seems to be a universal moral law humans cultivate which seems to somehow be more than just matter and energy, and which is more than the requirements for scientific Darwinian survival.

There is no such thing as 'universal moral law'. Each individual and each religion has it's own set of morals.
Darwin isn't a survival scheme. Buzzwords are not science.

God didn't write either the Old testament or the NT.

So who do you think did?

They were written by men. Your complaints should be directed towards those men.

Men called by God to write these things.

The Hebrew scribes didn't get God right,

How do you know?

Galen didn't get medical science right,

Medical is not science. Science is not a proof nor a moral.

and Aristotle didn't get physics right.

Science has not 'right' or 'wrong'. Science is just a set of falsifiable theories. No theory is ever proven True.

But that doesn't mean they were not basically on the right track in probing the boundaries of a higher truth or higher reality.

Science isn't a Universal Truth. Reality has no altitude. Buzzword fallacies.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

So if it's all just a matter of opinion and perspective, then if the Nazis had conquered the world their propaganda machine and totalitarian control of information could have convinced a majority of people that the Jews were indeed a threat to Western civilization and needed to be eliminated.

You're free to believe gassing Jews is just a matter of opinion;
But I think gassing Jews is always objectively wrong no matter what the Nazis say.

While I agree 100%, I strongly doubt Sybil will be able to absorb anything outside his little bubble.

 

[Into the Night]

So if it's all just a matter of opinion and perspective,

Correct, however, morals do not change on a whim. They act as a core conduct and describe what is 'right' and what is 'wrong.

then if the Nazis had conquered the world their propaganda machine and totalitarian control of information could have convinced a majority of people that the Jews were indeed a threat to Western civilization and needed to be eliminated.

To the Nazis, this was 'right' to exterminate the Jews and anyone else that was 'impure'.

You're free to believe gassing Jews is just a matter of opinion;
But I think gassing Jews is always objectively wrong no matter what the Nazis say.

An interesting thing about that...

While the morals of those involved in the gassing of Jews considered it 'right', they also knew that others considered it 'wrong', even within their own party. Thus, the practice was kept secret from the population and even the military at large. The DID all believe that 'Jews were evil', and to 'dispose of them' is 'right'. The difference was the method used to dispose of them.

According to your morals, which are different from theirs, you think this practice is 'wrong'. So do I. However, you must realize that your morals are not the same as mine, and neither is the same as any in the Nazi party or for the Nazi party itself.

The Nazis used a form of socialism known as 'fascism', and had some communistic aspects. The word 'fascism' stems from the word 'fascia' (meaning bundling, as in a bundle of sticks. The word also appears in house building construction, where the fascia is the part that bundles the roof ribbing (either as rafters or as trusses) into one end piece. This is the board just under the gutter system. It ties all of the roof ribbing into one surface. 'Fascism' itself 'bundles' all business under one government control and manipulation. Thus, 'fascism' is government manipulation of markets.

Communism is government ownership of markets, where the government owns the businesses and there are no private businesses in that market.

Both are forms of socialism. Both are based on theft of wealth. Since this is so, it is generally implemented by oligarchies or dictatorships and by force. People don't like their wealth stolen. The Nazis were no exception to this.

 

[Cypress]

Correct!

I do not agree that morality is based on opinion, whim, or cultural convention.

There is no 'objectively wrong'!
To the Nazis, what they did was right!!
There is no such thing as a 'universal standard of absolute right and wrong'!!!

 

[Into the Night]

I do not agree that morality is based on opinion, whim, or cultural convention.

It is not based on whim. I already said this. I already explained why it's not based on whim. Drop this here. I'm not going to go through explaining the same thing to you endlessly. RQAA

It is not based on opinion. I already said this. RQAA.

It IS based on cultural convention, religions, and even individual models. It does not change on a whim. It is not an opinion. It is a working model for each individual on what they consider 'right' and 'wrong'. Morals act as a core model of conduct. It doesn't change much at all.

It DOES change, as the core models of an individual change, but generally morals are that stable part of our own model of 'right' and 'wrong'.

You might benefit from the book or TV series "The Day the Universe Changed", by James Burke. It examines morals, reality, and how they form and are unique to individuals, and to groups of individuals, and why. He concentrates on mostly 'reality', but morals are part of the discussion just as 'reality' and how it's defined is part of this discussion.

 

[Into the Night]

While I agree 100%, I strongly doubt Sybil will be able to absorb anything outside his little bubble.

You are apparently right. You haven't absorbed ANYTHING as far as I've seen you post on this forum.