Doesn't the sociopath disprove your hardwire statement?
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God, Morals, and Atheists
by UnDisfellowshipped 151 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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UnDisfellowshipped
As C.S. Lewis said:
"If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something -- some real Morality -- for them to be true about."
It all boils down to this:
If you want to accept the idea that there is no objective moral values or laws, then that's up to you. Then no one has any right to say that anyone else is morally wrong, and no one has any right to say that something is unjust, and anyone can live any way they desire, based on his own moral opinions, and treat anyone else anyway he wants, and no one has any right to say that he is wrong morally.
No one could objectively say that torturing children is wrong, or racism is wrong. No one could say that it would be objectively wrong for the United States to enforce a State Religion and force everyone to become JW's or Muslims or Fundamentalist Christians, and no one could claim that it is objectively wrong for a country to outlaw Atheism.
In my opinion, this is a very slippery slope....
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parakeet
There are no true atheists. Everyone has a god that they serve.
I'm an atheist. What god do I serve?
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UnDisfellowshipped
Parakeet said:
"I'm an atheist. What god do I serve?"
According to the Bible, your god would be yourself and your desires (a form of idolatry).
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Satanus
If the set of laws was hard wired, laws would all be basically the same, in all countries. The fact that laws vary from country to country shows that your premise is wrong, and the alternate that you state is the reality. See, for instance the taliban method of ruling. However, most of us do have empathy hardwired. Evolution allows for variants that do not. However, they tend not to survive as well as those better emotionally balanced.
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UnDisfellowshipped
Satanus said:
"Doesn't the sociopath disprove your hardwire statement?"
Quote:
"Is there in fact a universal moral law, one that everyone agrees with? Is there a moral law such that when one disagrees with that law they are just as wrong as when saying two plus two equals five? It should be noted that determining that there are absolute moral laws and determining what they are are two different tasks. All that is need to show that premise number two is true is to find one example. I give as an example the following: torturing babies for fun is an absolute moral wrong. Now, one might object that if you search hard enough you could find someone who disagrees about that being a moral wrong. First of all, anyone who thinks that torturing babies is morally alright under any circumstance is a sociopath. Second, in all cases with no exceptions, such persons had some traumatic experience, something out of the normal that changed them. So, all people at least started out knowing that torturing babies for fun is morally wrong."
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parakeet
According to the Bible, your god would be yourself and your desires (a form of idolatry).
I've always put my family before myself. Does that make my family "gods" and my love for them "idolatrous"? If a desire to love others is all it takes to make them "gods," then how is a desire to love and worship "God" not also idolatrous?
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UnDisfellowshipped
Satanus said:
"If the set of laws was hard wired, laws would all be basically the same, in all countries. The fact that laws vary from country to country shows that your premise is wrong, and the alternate that you state is the reality. See, for instance the taliban method of ruling."
First, there are certain laws that are almost universal in all societies (murder -- killing someone without justification; taking another man's wife; stealing, etc.) Even the Taliban probably hold to these beliefs, they have a horribly misguided sense of what "justification" for killing is though.
But, the Objective Moral Law does not DESCRIBE how people WILL act, it PRESCRIBES how people SHOULD act.
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Satanus
You get the same standard about torturing babies among the animals. You also get some sociopathic animals. Guess they are hardwired for morals, too.
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UnDisfellowshipped
Satanus said:
"Evolution allows for variants that do not. However, they tend not to survive as well as those better emotionally balanced."
I am very curious, how can scientists possibly know whether or not humans in the past (thousands upon thousands of years of evolution) had empathy? How do we know which ones had empathy and which ones didn't? How do we know that it was the ones who had empathy that survived better?