James,

Could you send me an email to tell me if you are just trolling or if you really believe this stuff? I won't tell anyone what you say, I just want to know. I really can't tell, because your posts are so wandering and rarely hit the target.

You said


I replied


Your response was this...


The problem is that you have completely ignored my point.

You originally said that no two religious people can agree on right and wrong.

I pointed out that nearly everyone, if not everyone agrees that stealing, murder, adultery and lying are wrong.

You then you make it a debate about the meaning of words. It's NOT. If one society makes exemptions that say certain killings aren't murder, that isn't important. What is import is that they all declare murder as being wrong. Morality has nothing to do with it. You still don't see the distinction between right and wrong and morality and it's as clear as day. I've given analogies till I was blue in the face and you never address them. You don't comment on them at all. I really don't understand how you think discussions take place. If you disagree with my point, correct or pick apart my analogy. Show me where my mistake is. 20 paragraphs of "The God of Abraham is a demon! PUKE!!!!" does nothing to further the debate. Nobody learns anything. You just spout your beliefs unchecked in these little rage episodes you have.

did i say anything about moral statdards? ouit attacking people. be nice. do unto others. do you have a bible? read it.
i have never or will never say your wrong. that doesnt mean i wont make a statment like right and wrong is a matter of interpritation and judgment. openmindedness has nothing to do with believing or not beliveing. its understanding. something you clearly lack.


......if you attack, they defend.....
if you attack they defend spider.

you cant control me, but you can control yourself.

and ill never hold that against you like i said if we all belived in the same thing, we wouldnt have gotten this far. cudos

Trolling?

I don't thing that term would even come close to applying to the content of this thread.



And I pointed out the fact that you're using terms that already imply that the act is wrong.

The very term, "murder", means to kill without justification.

The question then become "When is killing justified"

And I pointed out that everyone clearly doe not agree on that.

So I'm right on target.

You're accusations of people 'trolling' and addressing 'personal issues' it what's way out of line.

I'm addressing specifically the topics that are brought up.



Well, that comes directly from the fact that it is the Abrahamic religion that you referenced as having a doctrine that contains 'absolute laws of moral conduct'.

I merely showed how the God in that is referenced by that same doctrine is a totally unjust God.

In fact, my comments in that regard where even in response to your claim that this same God was justified because people 'chose' not to worship him.

Moreover, that particular "justification" could only be had if I accept all of the 10 Commandments, and also believe that all of the people this God turned his back on knowingly rejected him.

Every point that I made was in direct repsonse to points that you brought up.

So where do you get off accusing me of 'trolling'?

You're the one who is attempting to assert that a particular doctrine contains an "absolute moral code".

So it is not out of line at all to give my reasons why I feel that doctrine is every bit as absurd as Greek Mythology if not more so.

I'm only addressing the topics that you bring up.

So you're accusations that I'm somehow 'trolling' are totally fallacious.

Besides if you are going to argue for the biblical morality shouldn't you be doing this in the religion forums anyway?

In particular the Christain forums? That way -------->

quite correct. he difines each killing separately. one is not murder to him, the other is.



you are making my point brilliantly.

[quote/I have seen an Imam say "Of course killing innocents (murder) is wrong, but Kuffir (non-Muslims) are not innocent". People instinctively understand that murder is wrong, but they will make loopholes or exceptions in their own morality to excuse the act Your hypothetical Muslim would think something like "I'm not murdering Abdul, I'm just punishing him for holding hands with a Christian girl."

you're still making my point. in our muslim's eyes he was not commiting murder. if you were to say that murder is absolutely always immoral as long as it is agreed on what constitutes murder then you have a point. that's precisely why we have laws and courts. because we cannot all agree on what is murder. as i said earlier, an abortion dr does not think he is commiting murder and the courts agree. and yet i don't know a right wing christian who would not think it murder.



well can you produce any evidence that suggests murder is a moral absolute? scripture won't work.



i'm not sure you understand what absolute means. for a moral to be absolute such as rape then absolutely everybody on the planet must agree on just what rape is. in the US an adult having sex with a minor is considered rape. in many countries it is not. our spies lifted many secret documents from the former ussr and the "stealing" country did not consider it stealing and made no excuses. and that you think that adultery is considered absolutely immoral by absolutely every person on the planet is laughable. many people sleep with people outside their marriage and don't even begin to excuse the practice because they see nothing wrong with it. indeed they find enjoyment and even happiness in it often. if someone did commit one of these "sins" you listed as absolute and did cosnider them absolute as you do then you would have a point, excusing the practice does not make it moral. my argument is that not everybody defines morals the same.

you've effectively put the cart before the proverbial horse. instead of proving god first and then suggesting we all best take heed of what the bible's been saying all along or else, you take the morals as outlined in the bible, call them absolute because you say so and then expect me to accept it as a given that god exists. not at all unlike my granddaughter saying that since there was a quarter where her tooth was under her pillow it's a given that the tooth fairy put it there.

finaly you agree that it's at least possible that not everyone absolutely agrees that stealing, murder, adultery and lying are wrong.

jrbogie,

I'm trying to explain this, but you haven't read everything in the thread. Let me try one more time, okay?

Please, just keep reading until the end and then respond.

There is a difference between morality and right and wrong.

Morality is how you go about doing right and wrong. It's a code of conduct or a belief.

Right and Wrong are the landscape of dos and do nots on which we build our morality.

I'm going to use an analogy. You know the story of Robin Hood, right? Rob from the rich and give to the poor and all that. Okay, Robin Hood understood that stealing was wrong. That's evident from the fact that he didn't steal from everyone. His morality said that it was acceptable to steal from the rich, because they had more than they needed or they got it illegally or whatever excuse he used. Robin Hood knew it was wrong to steal, but he subjectively applied his morality based on the wealth of the potential victim. He stole, but only from people whom he believed could afford it.

Do you see the difference between the "Right and Wrong" and Morality?

I'm not very good at getting my point across and I want to know you understand my position before I continue.

Then Spider goes on to say:



But Spider himself just gave an example where the very killing of someone is determined to be 'murder' based on whether or not it is "justified". If they feel that killing someone is justified then they don't call it "murder".



It is then silly to argue that everyong agrees that murder is a 'moral absolute'. Because by pure definition to 'murder' someone is to wrongfully kill them.

So it's just a mere semantic definition.

Here's the real problem!

Everyone will agree that "murder" is wrong because by semantic definition the very term "murder" means to kill somone unjustly.

However, what everyone will NOT agree on, is what constitutes "murder".

So it's a totally fallacious argument that truly being confused by the very semantic definition of the very term "murder".

Besides, referring back to the 10 commandment which was used as the original example, the term "murder" wasn't even used. It was "Thou shalt not kill", not thou shalt not "murder".

And it didn't even specify that it was only referring to humans. For all we know it could mean not to kill any living thing.

I've never said that. If you want to have fulfilling conversations you have to understand the other person's positions on the subject.

Read my most recent post to jrbogie. Make sure you understand my point there, because what you said above is nothing like what I have claimed.

The thing I said yesterday about 'giving Abra a point for not being Christian' could easily be interpreted as a slight against Christians or Christianity - so for any Christians participating or just reading this thread I would like to apologize and clarify:

I was joking, and exaggerating my bias as a slight myself having any bias at all.

regarding trolling, Abra said:



I'm taking this statement completely out of context (sorry!), but I do feel that several posts in this thread, by several people, had a 'trolling' component to them. Some may even have had 'good intentions' behind them. I'm not trying to start an argument about trolling, I'm just saying its there.

I fully understand what you're saying Spider. I fully understand how you are using the terms "Right and Wrong" and "Morality" to mean different thing.

You are appealing to the idea of "Absolute right and wrong" that everyone supposedly agrees on and "Personal morality" which you gave an example using Robin Hood.

You accept the Robin Hood knew that he was doing something that was "absolutely wrong" but he did it anyway because he felt that it served a higher good which he felt out-weighed the 'wrong'.

That's a perfectly good example.

However, if you're going to demand that people understand each other than consider the following example.

Some people feel that same-gender intimate love is "absolutely wrong".

However, other people do not feel that way. There are people who feel that same-gender intimate love is "absolutely right". Not just for them, but universally. They don't see anything "wrong" with it at all.

They don't view it as something that is "absolutely wrong" but they are going to chose to do it anyway for reasons of "personal morality".

So you're argument of everyone agreeing with what's "absolutely wrong" no longer holds when we get to that level of moral conduct.

And I would suggest that Sky's arguments concerning abortion would also fit into this category.

Maby people feel that terminating a pregnancy in the very early going is not 'murder' or even the 'killing of a human' because at that stage they haven't yet recognized the embryo to be a fully developed 'human'.

And of course, we could take that right down to using stem-cells in research.

You're trying to base all your arguments on the most obvious things that most eveyone will agree with. But you've got a very long way to go from there, and so Sky and I are just looking FORWARD to where this is all leading and recognizing that it's not going to hold for anything other than the most obvious primal concepts.

Therefore it's not going to hold overall. Period.

I think that's a fair conclusion.

You're argument is heading for breakdown city as soon as you step away from the absolute most primal concepts.

And since you had pointed to the 10 commandants, I would like to point out that it's going to break down immediately when you start talking about the commandment "Thou shalt honor thy mother and father".

That one is going to come into question as soon as we have mothers and fathers who are themselves not honorable.

So it's an argument that's never truly going to get off the ground.

That's all we're saying.

Spider,

I know this is going to be redundant, and I apologize, but I am trying to understand something. (I see merit in Abra's argument about semantics wrt to 'murder is wrong'.) I think that, among other things, you are saying that there is a 'right and wrong' which we mostly all recognize, even if we deny it, and therefore on some level we all agree/know that 'murder is wrong'.

But what does that mean, really? What is it? To me, this is immediately a semantic issue to address as we move forward.

Are you saying that any and all killing of people really is murder, and that we know this, but we rationalize it away to only be certain kinds of killings?

Or are you saying that at the 'right and wrong' step we inherently recognize that some (not necessarily all) killings are wrong, but only at the 'morality' step do we decide which?

Or that at the level of 'right and wrong' there is a sense or a feeling about the general wrongness of killing, vaguely expressed as the phrase 'murder is wrong', which transcends semantics? (Pre-verbal?)

Or something else entirely?

James,

Great, I'm glad and relieved that you understand, but you have jumped way ahead to conclusions without hearing my arguments.

You mention homosexuality and abortion.

I don't see homosexuality as important to this conversation. If one moral absolute exists, that is all that is necessary to establish my point. And honestly, maybe there is no moral absolute against homosexuality. That's entirely possible and wouldn't detract from my position one bit.

Abortion is a tricky subject. The problem I have is what is the scientific argument / proof that supports the belief that a fetus isn't a human or that it isn't a life? This isn't a case where opinion comes into play, we need to know for sure. You see, if there is the possibility that a fetus is a human, then it is unconscionable to allow abortions to continue. Here's an analogy. A building is going to be demolished. Someone says "Are there any people in the building?" and the demolition crews says "We don't think so." and proceed to destroy the building. I think everyone could agree such behavior would be unacceptable. It is the same way with abortion, if the fetus might be a human, we can't take the risk in killing it. Science must prove if a fetus is human and until they do so, it should be illegal except in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

But with both of your arguments on homosexuality and abortion, you have ignored the possible that a moral absolute exists, but the majority of people have a morality that excuses such behavior. How many people say that a person should be able to get an abortion just because? I always hear "It's a woman's body or "It's her right to privacy". Some people say there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, but many others say "Hey, as long as they are in love, who can say it's wrong?" In both cases, those could be seen as subjectively applied morals to situations which one knows to be wrong. I don't want to get caught up in the details of arguing these points.

Let me say that my position on the examples you gave is this: Any behavior that is seen as moral or immoral could have it's roots in a moral absolute. Not all morals must be derived from Moral Absolutes, since morals are the product of human minds. There is no guarantee that morals developed by humans are perfect or accurately reflect moral absolutes. For instance, I do not believe it is a moral absolute that eating pork is wrong. Jews and Muslims would disagree with me. One of us is right and the other isn't.

No need to apologize, I'm not here just to babble endlessly without a concern. At the root, I want to be understood. If something isn't clear, I will do my best to make it so.

At the "Right and Wrong" level, we inherently recognize that killing an innocent person is wrong (regardless of intention), but at the morality level, we can develop a rational for why a killing can be or was justified.

(sigh) I still don't understand, and it has become even more of a semantic issue for me if we're explicitly saying its an 'innocent' person. I don't see meaning inherent in most peoples words - I see various kinds of meanings which can be given to their words - and unfortunately there are still too many different meanings I can give your words.

Is there ambiguity about what qualifies as 'an act of murder' at a the level of 'right and wrong'?

The jihadist who kills the (supposedly) non-innocent unbeliever - they are wrong, right? How can we say they are wrong unless we have a means of knowing 'right and wrong' better than their 'morality rationalization'? And if we can see this better than they, does this mean that there is a spectrum of ability to see 'right and wrong' despite our 'moralities' - and is there an end point to this spectrum? And if there is, can someone say definitively and absolutely which killings are murders, without invoking/applying morality - but do so directly from the level of 'right and wrong'?

That came across like an attempted chain of logic veiled in rhetorical questions - but they are not rhetorical. Each one is fair game for argument, and I'm not trying to prove anything, just find out what really constitutes the 'right and wrong' of killing people.

First off, I'm not sure what you're 'point' would be in that case.

I would disagree that showing that one 'moral absolute' exists would be proof of a God. Especially if the idea of 'proof' was simply based on the idea that the vast majority of humans would choose life over death if given that choice.

I think we would all concede that most animals have an 'insticnt' to choose life over death. That wouldn't even be unique to humans. Most animals clearly try to survive in most cases thus answering the question of what they would choose.

So I don't even see what you're point would be in such a mundane primordial cause. I think most atheists would agree that most living animals (especially humans) would prefer to live over dying.

Although I would hold that there are even exceptions in that case. There are people who would choose euthanasia if they could. In fact many people do choose this, we call it "suicide".

So I'm not sure you could even make a case for the most obvious instinct.

Especially when it comes to killing other people. There people who would have absolutely no feelings of remorse or wrong doing associated with killing certain other humans.

If I lived in a village where I saw some man going around seriously hurting people are a regular basis and nothing could be done to stop him I'm sure I would have absolutely no problem killing that man just as I would kill a rabid bear. And I would have no feelings of 'wrong-doing' for having done it.

In fact, that's how we ended up with people known as "police officers".

So I personally don't believe that you could even made a case for an 'absolute wrong' in the matter of killing.

I personally believe there is a time for everything, and that under certian cirumstancing even killing is not "absolutely wrong".

So I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then.

Because clearly you don't seem to agree that killing is ever the 'right' thing to do. And there we have a basic disagreement.

But that's what you claim doesn't exist. You claim that everyone would agree. Otherwise how could you 'prove' that such a thing as an 'absolute wrong' exists if everyone isn't in agreement.

The only 'proof' you could ever obtain would be 'proof by consensus' and you won't get consensus here.

So, I'm one human who doesn't agree even on the most primal level.

I also believe in euthanasia for people who are suffering in situations that have little or no hope of recovery.

I put 'quality of life' above a beating heart in a suffering body.

A beating heart in a suffering body does not constitute 'life', IMHO.

So I can see lots of obstacles even on the most rudimetary issue of basic life and death.

So, like I say, I'll just agree to disagree. Since we obviously are never going to come to a consensus on this.

up versus down!!

I do not believe in moral relativism. there is a definite distinction between good and evil and we can call the symmetry breaking operation "God". Now, how do we distinguish between good and evil? Is it something that we decide only on the basis of social convention? Tell me Nicias, what is the nature of courage? Who really knows good and evil?

Murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.

Innocent: 1 a : free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil
b : harmless in effect or intention



I'm not sure I know what you mean. Someone killed in war, self defense or executed by the state is considered a simple killing, not murder.



You are asking how do we know that killing an innocent is wrong? I don't know, we just do. This was what CS was asking about. There is no concrete reason to justify our morality, it just exists. It is just further proof of the existence of moral absolutes.



Right and wrong is instinctual, it's nothing I can point to. I can't say why it's wrong, we are just aware it's wrong. Kind of strange, like it was put there by a person.