Well that's an interesting observation.

If true, then I can only say that I have met a lot of mentally ill people during the course of my life.

Besides, everyone doesn't even agree on what's right or wrong.

A lot of same-gender couples feel that same-gender love is perfectly "right", whilst many heterosexual couples would disagree.

Who's 'right or wrong' in that case?

I'm not gay myself, yet at the same time I see absolutely nothing wrong with same-gender lovers if that's what they feel is right for them and they are not doing any other unethical behavior along with it.

Also, what is 'unethical behavior'?

Who's to decide that. I'm sure that most people would not agree on what's absolutely right or wrong.

Sure in very simple straight-forward things like murder, stealing, rape, etc., it's pretty clear-cut.

But in other more subtle matters such as intimate encounters, etc., they are many differing opinions.

What about monogamy versus polygamy? Questions like that?

I'm personally a very monogamous person, but can I say that polygamy would be wrong for other people? Woudln't that be their choice?

For me monogamy isn't even about ethics or morality. I just perfer the intimacy of a single partner. You might even say that it's due more to selfishness, or security, or some other personal factor. I don't view it as something I need to be for ethical reasons. I'm just naturally drawn to monogamy for personal reason, not moral reaons. So for me it's not even a question of morality or ethics.

Are you saying that we do not know that killing an innocent child is WRONG and helping a starving child is RIGHT ?.

well we already know that R vs W is a matter of interpretation. the question is, when we put the best intrest of humanity in the equazion, is it not a universal, solid 'code' that any religion has to respect.
go back to the example i gave of why we dont hit woman. its instinct. i believe right and rong are wired into us just like basic survival and the will to proseper...

Are you talking to me?

If so, then no, absolutely not.

What I'm saying is that the existence of right and wrong depends on God's existence. Right and Wrong are statements of ultimate morality. If God doesn't exist, then no ultimate morality exists. I believe that God exists and therefore an ultimate morality exists, which reveals to us what is right and wrong.

So a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim and a Atheist could all be equally moral in their actions, because they are acting under an ultimate morality that was put there by their creator. Nothing I have said argues the point that you have to belong to a particular religion in order to be moral or understand moral law.

The fact that we both know it is immoral to kill the innocent and it is right to feed the hungry is just further evidence that our morality has a source outside of our evolutionary, societal, geographic and religious differences.

No, I'm saying that I reject that belief.

I think it is always wrong to kill an innocent child. Can you tell me when it would be right to kill an innocent child? Can you tell me when rape is morally right? I don't believe such situations exist and I certainly hope that you do not.

You ask, "Is there another choice?" From the list you've given I think there is.

I believe that my conscience is something that I created myself.

I'm not sure if society played much of a role since my moral and ethical values seemed to always be far above those of society.

If I got my conscience from a God I didn't get it through a book. So once again, there would be no use for dogma. If God can give us a conscience directly through intuition, then we can know God directly and we have no need for any manmade dogma.

My conscience is far superior to anything that is written about in the Bible.

You don't seem certain about the source of your morals. Was it God or yourself? If it was yourself, then how do you believe those morals formed? Based on what criteria?



That's quite a grand claim, can you give us some examples of your far superior morality?

I'm saying that everything isn't that simple. You take the simplest things that most people will come down on the same side of.

Try some more difficult topics like same-gender marriage, or whether or not a person is worshiping the right god, etc.

Trying to reduce morals and ethics to simple questions about how innocent children should be treated is to ignore the real problems that society faces today.

You ask about how we should treat innocent children, I personally believe that telling them that they are sinners and that God had to have his only begotten son nailed to a pole to pay for their bad behavior is nothing short of psychological child abuse.

So where do we go from there?

Where does consience and personal ought come from?

The answer is so obvious. Conscience is a bi-product of experience. It is the sum total of what one deems as being acceptable given specific circumstances. The personal sense of ought is learned through individual experience, determines what constitutes right and wrong, and therefore cannot be universal.

Morality(right and wrong) in no way depends upon the existence of 'God' any more than my personal preference for sunny days over cloudy ones does.

No one can be certain about anything. Although they could potentially kid themselves into believing otherwise.

I think my criteria was very simple. I'm pretty certain that I used the very same thing that Jesus and Buddha taught, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Only I figured that out on my own long before I knew who Jesus or Buddha even were.

Of course that particular criteria was held by many wise men all throughout history so Jesus and Buddha certainly had no corner on the market for that tid bit of morality.

I guess I would just say that 'common sense' was the basis.

The other thing that is of utmost importance as far as I'm concerned is that I chose to be a good person simply because it's what I wanted to be. Not for the purpose of pleasing a God or avoiding punishment.



That's quite a grand claim, can you give us some examples of your far superior morality?


I personally don't think that it's such a grand claim. The Bible is horrible. It doesn't take much at all to have better morals than Yahweh. I would never ask anyone to stone anyone to death on my behalf. I would never ask anyone to sacrifice an animal to appease me. I would never suggest that women should be sold as property. I never condone slavery.

I could go on an on, but I think I covered enough already. It doesn't take much at all to out-do the morals of Yahweh. He was a terrible God in mythology. Even the Greek Zeus had better morals.

I can say this though, I can't out-do the morals of the Wiccan Mother Goddess, she has the highest morals of any God/dess I've every read about.

So perhaps I got my morals from her?

Who knows?

I clearly didn't get my morals from Yahweh. That God is horrible. I'd be a horrible person if I had gotten my morals from him.

Well, that's an excellent point right there.

If we're going to give a 'God' credit for our choice of morals then why stop there? We may as well give God credit for every choice we ever make about anything.

This begs the question of whether we have an ablity to choose anything on our own. And of course that opens the whole can of worms concerning a judgmental God who threatens eternal damnation for those who make the wrong choices.

Also, if God gives morals through the human conscience, then why the need to write a book fully of highly confusing moral teachings that even God would have to know would be used to fuel things like the crusades and witch burnings?

Surely an all-knowing God would have seen the folly in writing a book that supposedly contains his words and commands people to murder heathens. Such a God would have been a complete idiot. And then to just stand back and do nothing whilst his very 'word' is being used to torture and murder innocent people? Such a God would be worse than a demon.

Sorry, I got carried away here, but really the whole dogmatic God thing is just too much. It's so full of holes it's not even worthy of discussion truly. So I have no idea why I'm even discussing it.

Is is always wrong to rape a child?

I think there is a major fallacy in assuming there is any “absolute” right or wrong. Many posters have already said words to that effect. Creative said that any sense of right and wrong is relative to ones own experience. I would add to that, “one’s own purposes”. The measure of how right something is quite simply how well that thing aids in furthering a purpose. If the purpose is “protecting women and children”, then not hitting women or children is “right”.

It is easy to bring up extreme examples (i.e. rape, murder, infanticide, etc.) because pretty much everyone has the same goals concerning those situations. But those types of extreme examples are not truly representative of the whole spectrum of right-and-wrong.

Consider, for instance, a simple thing like table manners. I have heard that in some societies, it is considered a compliment to the cook to belch after eating. But in other societies it is considered an insult to everyone else at the dining table. So which is right and which is wrong? It totally depends on the purposes of the individuals and the circumstances they are in.

For a more extreme “hypothetical” example, consider this situation…

You are placed in front of a switch. You are told that if you flip it to the right, it will kill person A, if you flip it to the left, it will kill person B, and if you do not flip it in either direction, then it will kill both people. So you will be killing someone no matter what you do. Now if killing is “always” wrong, then it would be impossible for you to do the “right” thing.

The fallacy is in thinking that there is any such thing as “absolute” right or wrong. There are only “degrees” of right and wrong, which are always relative to the purposes of the people involved and the circumstances they are in.

You aren't God, therefore you aren't in a position to judge any of those things. By stating that your morals are higher than God's you must first admit that God exists. If God exists, then God is perfect and you are in no position to question God's actions as you are imperfect.

What morals are in the Bible that are intended for human use, which aren't up to your standards?

First you deny a belief in absolute right and wrong and then you confirm that it exists. Doesn't that seem contradictory to you?



Table manners aren't morals, they are mores. Social norms, under which people in a society live. Morals apply to how our behavior effects other people. While someone might be offended at your poor behavior at the dinner table, it wouldn't effect them in a significant way as rape, murder or theft would effect them.



The right thing to do should be obvious. If you flip the switch either way, you are actively murdering someone. If you refuse to flip the switch, then the person who put you into this position is committing murder. Why not stop the person who did this and remove Persons A & B from the situation? But really, when do such silly situations exist aside from the "Saw" movies?



Really? So there are situations in which rape is the right thing to do?

Yes. "Themselves"

That isn't an option for obvious reasons. Societies that have never encountered outsiders exhibit the same moral beliefs as all others. You, yourself, admitted that everyone would agree that killing a child is wrong. If that's true, then how did every single sane human come to that same conclusion?

killing a child or raping a woman is not in the best intrest of human kind, there for it wrong. your misunderstanding me. re read my post, i think were over complicating this.
right and wrong in terms of you or me is irelivant. we see things differently. W vs R in terms of our relitve relationship to humanity
is perfect. IE rape is wrong for the same reason hitting woman is wrog(refer to orig. post)
killing a child is wrong because if we kill all our children...
anyways, im looking for relivant holes in that argument.
Justice in terms of preserving and protecting whats in the best intrest of humanity, is the universal right or wrong. its wired into our head the same way its wired into a cows head to stop at nothing to find her calf in a blizard.

You are under simplifying things. According to you, morality is the result of society. If that's true, if evolution had made it so that women absolutely hated intercourse, would it be right for men to rape women to perpetuation society? In that scenario, the only possible way for the species to perpetuate itself would be through rape. In order for an action to be called "right" it must be universally and unchanging right. What you are saying is that a change in evolution or society would make actions which are despicable crimes today into the morally right thing to do.

Oh but I am in a position to judge these things.

You are taking two a two-fold position here which I disagree with on both counts.

First, you're suggesting that I need to admit that this God exists in order to 'pass judgments' on it. To begin with this is wrong thinking. I view all dogmatic 'gods' as the mythological inventions of men. Therefore I have every right to pass judgment on whether or not I think any particular mythology is 'moral'.

Secondly, you're taking the stance that if God exists, then God must be perfect.

Actually if I were to accept this hypothesis then the Biblical account of God could certainly not be true because there is nothing 'perfect' about a God who asks people to pass judgments on each other and stone each other to death when a person is judged to be a sinner. Or to murder heathens, including their wives and children.

There's nothing "perfect" about any of those things, IMHO.

All you could do at this stage is argue with my own ideology of the concept of "perfection".

However, in order for me to agree that the Biblical God is "perfect", I would need to lower my standards of what I consider to be perfection.

So the bottom line here is simple. The very term 'perfect' would be a meaningless word in this context.

If what you claim to be a 'perfect' God is what I see as being a 'demented idiot', then we have a serious problem.

How low do I need to reduce my idea of 'perfection' to make it fit your God?

The very idea of a God who would be appeased by blood sacrifices, or one who is so lame as to have to have his son nailed to a pole to solve a problem, would be far from a perfect being, IMHO.

So the very idea that the Biblical God could even remotely be deemed to be 'perfect' is an utter absurdity, IMHO.

If the Biblical God was 'perfect' I would expect this to show in the stories concerning him.

As far as I'm concerned any God who can't even deliver a 'promised land' that isn't already infested with heathens that need to be murdered before it can be occupied, is far from perfect.

Now only that, but even looking to the New Testament we have Jesus telling people that anything they pray to god and ask for in his name will be granted, yet we clearly see that this has not come to pass. Thus we have a god who doesn't keep his work. Again, far from perfect.

I don't see any reason whatsoever to think that the biblical God has any qualities that even remotely approach 'perfection'.

Creating a book of instructions and then allowing it to be abused for things like the crusades and witch burnings is also far from perfect.

There's nothing about the bible that I can see that even remotely resembles perfection.