Joey Barton

I agree with both of you that you don't need god or religion for your moral compass, but I think Slimebeast, that you're underestimating the Biological aspect of morals. There is a biologically attributable reason for sociopaths and other social personality disorders that causes them to feel no empathy towards others. These people don't have the same standard of natural morals that we do. Biologically, we each have the ability to feel empathy and relate to other people of our species, and to a lesser extent with animals (hence pets).

In fact, pets are a good source of evidence for this, as we've bred the more social and docile animals and kept them as pets. These animals, even though many of them are carnivores by nature, have become far less "wild" and more social. Breeding programs of wild cats has shown that progressive breeding of these more sociable traits ensures that the ancestors will effectively be sociable and domesticated.

The reason morals have changed is two-fold. One is a social aspect and the whole "history is written by the victors", the other biological and our ability to feel empathy to those around us. However, these are both closely related. The plasticity of the brain means we can effectively cut off empathy for certain groups by de-humanising them and effectively become blaze' about doing horrific acts, hence why we have wars, and why certain cultures have determined the morals of the time.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with the alien thing. It sounds similar to the situation between Europe and the native Americans where the Europeans believed themselves superior due to there technology. They believed they were morally correct and superior because they had technology and god on there side and the natives were beneath them. Basically they were arrogant. Eventually this perspective changed. I think a similar scenario could play out if aliens landed and had the same morally superior attitude.

Note: the following post is not written in a state of sobriety whatsoever. Do not hold this against atheism.

Green:

Instinctively wrong is a good argument. Feeling instinctively wrong is good, it's our base instinct. <snipped out antagonising argument that would probably just insult, sorry. I'll take it up again in the morning>

As for aliens: I never said they would try to be compassionate, I said if they were. Perhaps through some evolutionary miracle they were completely peaceful. But the likelihood that if we ever came into contact, yeah they would see us as an ants nest in the way of their supernatural highway (to quote Michio Kaku), we would be flattened in seconds. To be honest, I'm not going to argue it because alien ethics is something we can only speculate on, and what I reckon is that they would be hostile and we wouldn't stand a chance.

To be honest, I know your alien argument is just a poorly disguised strawman because you want me to say that they would have a unified moral that would stop them destroying us. Well, I don't think that, and I'm not going to give you the pleasure.

Also, you have left out whether a Christian with a unified set of morals would go out and kill people like in the hermit example you gave. Surely you must recognise that amoral murderers exist, regardless of the moral base.

Blue:

So the plot thickens, ey? Now the old testament is defunct (no need to believe in Adam and Eve and Noah's ark anymore guys) once poor morals are used because it's pro-slavery and pro-murder, despite both new and old testaments being the word of the same God. Why is that? Has God's will of morals he has decreed onto humanity suddenly changed? Why? I mean he's the same Abrahamic God, so why has the morals of God changed from one book to the next? From the old testament to the new he represents a completely different set of morals. Why did he decide to change morals? Why are the morals he gave in the old testament better than the morals in the new testament? If God is all knowing, then why can his morals change? The questions are endless.

And I'm not making it complicated by using the bible, your unified morals come from the Bible and I'm questioning you on the morals that are kept in the bible.

People from Abrahamic religions have socially evolved past their unified morals without God, and this pretty much proves my point alone.

Orange: 

I certainly have no divine spark which keeps me moral. What proof have you got for this "divine spark"? How are my arguments weaker? I have plenty of scientific proof for the evolution of morals ([source 1] [source 2] [source 3] [source 4]... [source n]) and to be quite honest I can bring up quote after quote in the bible of examples of morals that would not fly today at all. 

And yes, our basis for our morals are the same. But trust me your morals are atheist morals, not the other way around, it's just that you have masked yours with a religion.

And another question, how are your set of unified divine morals are the sole set of unified morals over other sets of "infallible" divine unified sets of morals from religions such as Sikhism, Hinduism or Buddhism? Are these all wrong too?

If you define evil as intrduing on the freedom of others to pursue their own freedom, it would be a lack of respect for that freedom, and a priority to further their own happiness. In short, self interest unbound of anything.

Slavery is bad, m'kay.

When people come into power, they decided what is morally right based on what they want.

They make those laws happen and the people follow those because that's what they want as well.

Anyone who goes against this is evil.

My $.02.

Just for the record, that section you mentioned from Exodus wasn't talking about the type of slavery that has been common throughout the world.

Slavery, for the most part, has been the involuntary servitude of one person to another for their lifetime. In the Judaic culture, it was far different. In Exodus, the type of servanthood mentioned was more akin to indentured servanthood - where one enters into a 6-7 year contract with the master to serve them. Unless I am thinking wrong, slavery is usually (if not always) a permanant status for that person...In the Bible, it was a much different situation. I could go more into the expository aspect of it, but I do believe its a far cry from what we understand as traditional slavery.

As for Timothy 6 - do not forget that Paul's audience were under Roman culture - a culture that had many abhorrent slave practices...Watch Sparticus: Blood and Sand for a good reminder of what slavery was like during that time period. Christians owning slaves was a far cry, as Paul requested that both parties - the slave and master - enter into a mutual servanthood towards eachother. Don't forget the entire book of Philemon which was dedicated to slavery.

Here is the book, regarding slavery:

Normally, in such a situation, the Roman would murder the returning slave. Instead, Paul told Philemon to treat him as an equal in his household. Although one would hope that the Bible would go out more to attack slavery, the fact is that it did far more for the betterment of slaves than any culture of that time...Not to mention that the most prominent American abolitionists were all Christians.

Most american slave owners were christians too. The fact that most all americans were christians in slave times means you can say pretty much anything and apply it to christians in that time. Most american Cannibals in the 1800s were christians, and most abusive husbands in america were christians too, so lets all think about that.

You can sugar coat the slaves of the old testament, but they were slaves and treated as such.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Want to try and put a positive spin on being able to beat your property half to death as long as she survives for 24 hours after the beating?

My actual thoughts on good and evil I'll put in my next post.

Good and evil aren't real tangible objective things, they are entirely decided by the cultural zeitgeist of the day. One could say that we "just know" about certain kinds of atrocities, but that unfortunately just is not the case. The bible and the religious in general provide good examples of that. If A dictator tries to commit genocide in order to gain land, or further his culture or legacy it is evil. Unless he is from the bible, in which case he is just and righteous...but only if you're a christian, to a Buddhist there may not be any difference between Joshua and Stalin.

The average non-liberal christian only finds the murder of civilian women and children abhorrent if it is not one of god's servants doing it. When the bible talks about dashing infants against rocks it does not instinctively make all humans think "this is evil". Even on something as fundamental as "it is wrong to smash a baby against a rock" there is contention. Psalm 137 verse 7, 8 and 9 read

O Lord, remember what the Edomites did

on the day the armies of Babylon captured Jerusalem.

“Destroy it!” they yelled.

“Level it to the ground!”

8O Babylon, you will be destroyed.

Happy is the one who pays you back

for what you have done to us.

9Happy is the one who takes your babies

and smashes them against the rocks!

Evil is entirely relative, and is decided by the culture that is doing the labeling. If we cannot even agree that under no circumstance a group of children should be executed, that there is never a justification for the rampant murder of children and infants, then we cannot say that there is objectively a sense of good and evil.

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword.  Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.  Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes.  For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off.  The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows.  They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.  (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

If anyone can say with a straight face that the above passage is not evil, then they shouldn't be able to say with a straight face that as human beings we have an objective sense of morality. Shouldn't be able to, but will anyway.

Evil is the act of performing actions with little concern for how these acts will (negatively) impact others; typically for the personal gratification of ourselves. As you can see the source of evil would be within ourselves, and could be argued to be following our more basic animal instincts.

While I don’t prescribe to a utilitarian worldview, the general consensus on evil seems to be that the more harm is done to another individual the more evil an act is; and the less gain an individual had for performing that act the more evil it is. To put this into an example, torturing an individual to gain important information from someone is (generally speaking) less evil than torturing someone because it is amusing to you; assuming the harm from the torture is equivalent in both cases.

What is interesting is that I just read that section in the Bible about slavery. You forgot the part that says that if the owner did so much as knocked a tooth out from the slave, they were to be freed immediately. Any permanant damage resulted in forefiture of the slave.

I'm wondering. Do you read the Bible on a regular basis, or are you just hunting for areas to attack Christians to justify your own code of morality?