1

Where I take exception with this is here:

It is worth noting first, as the standard embryology texts point out, that many of these unsuccessful pregnancies are really due to incomplete fertilizations. So, in many cases, what is lost is not actually a human embryo.

That's something that I'd like to see demonstrated, because that's not something I've heard before. (That doesn't make it untrue, it just makes it unproven.)

The naturalistic part bears a bit more weight:

Since embryonic death in early miscarriages happens with predictable frequency without the intervention of human agency, the argument goes, we are warranted in concluding that the deliberate destruction of human beings in the embryonic stage is morally acceptable.

Taken by itself, the fact that this happens in nature is not sufficient to make that destruction "morally acceptable." However, when we consider the result, from a religious perspective, it becomes moreso. It's a tough theological question, but does God treat a naturally miscarried "life" any differently than he does an artifically miscarried one, from a salvation standpoint? To make the argument he's trying to make, you'd have to argue that God treats these "lives" differently, and I think that would be a difficult case to make.

The question of "when life begins" has always been a sticky one, and one for which we don't have the answers. Some define it as beginning at birth, some at conception (as here on this site), some at viability (me, sort of). There's no hard-and-fast answer.

But to put standard contraception in the same category as late-term abortion to me is ridiculous.

If you believe that way, and are willing to go to the obvious next step of never, ever, ever having sexual congress unless you actually WANT a(nother) child, then that's admirable. If you're not willing to take that next step, then it's hypocritical, and we all know what Jesus had to say about hypocrites.

To me, contraception, including emergency contraception, is considerably better than abortion (at any stage), and should be encouraged, not vilified.

2

tgirsch, if you view contraception as considerably better than abortion then isn't it important to know whether the method employed is in fact contraception or abortion?

That's a question that can only be settled by a determination as to when life begins and, I think, the point of these articles.

Your point, however, about the ramifications of our beliefs as affects our own procreative activities is one that bears serious consideration.

3

tgirsch,

It's a tough theological question, but does God treat a naturally miscarried "life" any differently than he does an artificially miscarried one, from a salvation standpoint? To make the argument he's trying to make, you'd have to argue that God treats these "lives" differently, and I think that would be a difficult case to make.

I don't think this is correct. God's response to the subject of an action is not relevant to the morality of the action. Actually, this is not a theologically hard question because of the age of accountability doctrine. This doctrine holds that a person is not responsible for his sin until a person is able to understand the moral qualities of his act. For example, Adam and Eve were not condemned for their actions until they understood the morality of their actions; this, of course, did not happen until they ate the apple. Eating the apple gave them the knowledge of good and evil. Only after they ate the apple did they understand that they were naked and that this had moral implications. This is also the law's attitude to culpability. A person may use the insanity defense if he can prove that he did not understand the moral dimensions of his actions. http://www.psych.org/public_info/insanity.cfm Therefore, every miscarriage, every abortion, every baby, every two-year-old is not accountable for their sin, which means that their salvation is assured. Does this mean that killing a two-year-old is a moral act?

Of course not.

As we have agreed before, the issue boils down to when we consider the life to be a human life. Someone else called it the beard argument; this is exactly right. The standard accepted response to the beard argument is that we have to set an artificial bright line to distinguish between the two ends of the continuum. The problem is that people have a profound difference of opinion as to where to draw the line, and the difference is literally a matter of life and death.

4

tgirsh,

To make the argument he's trying to make, you'd have to argue that God treats these "lives" differently, and I think that would be a difficult case to make.

I don't understand what you are getting at here. Why does God have to treat these lives differently in order for one method of death (natural occuring) to be morally acceptable, and the other method of death (unnaturally occuring) to be morally unacceptable?

If you argue this, don't you have to then argue that God must necessarily treat the lives of those whose deaths occur when their life is taken by immoral means (and you must agree, leaving aside the argument over the morality of immorality of abortion, that some human beings have their lives taken by immoral means, right?) differently than those who die of illness, for instance?

I must be missing your point. Please explain.

5

Of course, true to my absent minded nature I forgot to sign the above post....

6

tgirsch,

If the fertilization did not happen correctly then it isn't a real blastocyst. It's not even full genetically human probably. If the chromosomes haven't matched up between the two gametes then it cannot be a real human. If a gamete is all that it takes to be human, then everytime a teenage boy masturbates he's committing genocide.....

7

JBP:
God's response to the subject of an action is not relevant to the morality of the action.

Well, this has the potential to open up large cans of worms. First, does God expressly define what morality is? If He does, then His own actions give us insight as to how we ought to behave (He does, after all, set the example). If not, it becomes a bit stickier, and morality becomes more of a moving target. Is terminating a pregnancy within the first few days inherently "immoral" in such a system? It depends what the alternatives are. It could be that it's the most moral choice available, for a number of reasons.

this, of course, did not happen until they ate the apple.

It's a nit, but the Bible never says the fruit was an apple.

Eating the apple gave them the knowledge of good and evil.

Which is what the serpent told them would happen, not what God told them would happen. But I digress.

The problem is that people have a profound difference of opinion as to where to draw the line, and the difference is literally a matter of life and death.

I disagree. To me, the problem is actually the desire to draw a line at all. People (scientists and doctors included, I might add) can generally agree that within the first few days, termination of pregnancy even by artificial means is probably okay. Similarly, they can generally agree that shortly before birth, termination of pregnancy in anything but the most extreme of circumstances (e.g. risk of death of mother) is unacceptable. Short of those two extremes, there isn't a lot people can agree on.

But I think the crux of the problem comes from looking at it from different frames of reference. I'm taking a completely naturalistic view, divorced completely from the Christian faith. But to a Christian, there's a hugely important underlying question: at what point does the embryo/fetus/baby have a soul?

If you're destroying a soul, and possibly in so doing damning that soul, then I could see why people might get so worked up about it. At the same time, God naturally destroys millions of souls by very similar means -- a cruel thing to do, in my estimation.

But there's simply no definitive way to answer the soul question, which is why even the most devoutly religious people turn to science (something many of them otherwise shun) to try and establish a point at which "life" begins.

But it's a recursive problem, because when "life" begins depends on how you define "life," meaning it's not a question of proof at all, but rather one of semantics. I think you'll find that all across the spectrum of opinion on abortion and reproductive health issues, you'll find widely varied definitions of "life."

Rebecca:

Why does God have to treat these lives differently in order for one method of death (natural occuring) to be morally acceptable, and the other method of death (unnaturally occuring) to be morally unacceptable?

It has to do with the soul question again. Somebody who's "already here," for lack of a better way of putting it, certainly has a soul. With a blob of embryonic cells, it's not so certain. As Part I points out, if these blobs do indeed have souls, then God's destroying a disproportionate number of souls before they ever see the proverbial light of day.

Mike:
If the fertilization did not happen correctly then it isn't a real blastocyst.

Possibly so. But I've seen the "incorrect fertilization" argument made here with no corroboration. I've seen no peer-reviewed studies that (1) this happens frequently; and (2) it accounts for the vast majority of failed implantations. Both of these are necessary assumptions to the larger point, and they have not been demonstrated.

Sorry for the long post, everybody. Just doing my best Kevin T. Keith impersonation.

8

Given that the age of accountability doctrine is not in the Bible but inferred (fallaciously in my view) from biblical texts that don't say so much, the worry that killing a fertilized egg might cause some soul to go to hell is a real one for any Christian who seriously realizes our epistemic insufficiency on these matters. I don't think that's the only relevant issue here. It seems right to me that it's much less of a tragedy if a miscarriage happens later in a pregnancy than if it happens in the first couple days. So the abortifacient pill is much less of a bad than an abortion in the middle of the first trimester even. Its being less bad doesn't make it ok, nor does it make the first trimester abortion wrong. Those issues have to be settled other ways.

9

One problem with thinking there's a soul there before the point when splitting can occur is with what happens when the splitting occurs. Does the soul split also? Presumably the point of thinking there's a soul is to distinguish between our core being and our physical body. Can our core being split into two core beings? I don't want to say so.

If we say no, we have a further difficulty. There must have been two souls all along. What makes there have been two souls? The fact that splitting later occurs. That's backward causation. Most people don't like that (though a theological explanation based on foreknowledge makes it seem less strange, though strange nonetheless).

The only other remotely tolerable possibility I can think of is that the soul doesn't appear until after the point when splitting can take place, but why would it all of a sudden attach to an organism that has existed for all that time?

One way out would be to say that a soul's coming into existence takes time and is a matter of vagueness. There's a period (with vague boundaries) during which it's not true that the soul is formed yet but it's not false either, just as is the case with something's being red and being not red. One quantum difference in wavelength (or however it's measured) doesn't make the difference between red and not red. For this to work, it would have to be coming into existence starting with the organism's beginning and then finally in place fully later on. I don't like this idea at all for metaphysics reasons (and it becomes not clearly morally right or wrong to kill it, presumably, which is another reason not to like the view).

10

if these blobs do indeed have souls, then God's destroying a disproportionate number of souls before they ever see the proverbial light of day.

Which then comes round again to your assumption that when "a blob" dies, the "blob's" soul (if we agree it has one) is necessarily destroyed. On what basis would you make that assumption?

Personally, I don't see this so much as a when the "blob" has a soul (what is a soul, anyway?) issue, but when the "blob" is made in the image of God. If being made in God's image comes automatically with humanness, then the question would be, when does the "blob" become human? And that might be an easier question to answer, both philosophically and scientifically.

11

Jeremy,

A God that damns a soul to hell whose body didn't attach to its mother's womb and thus didn't even have a fighting chance is a sick, evil deity. The last time someone tried to convince me that original sin not only exists, but is a perfectly justified system got a very simple response out of me:

"What's the difference between the god of the Old Testament and a major corporation? When the major corporation makes a highly inferior product that complete goes outside of its intended design, it can humble itself to do a recall and start over from scratch."

12

Leaving the theological points to others...

The article is correct about the cause of most early natural miscarriages. Just took a course on Human Heredity, and I found out that there are a great number of defects either in meiosis (which creates the eggs and sperm), in the process of fertilization, or the early divisions, which give the embryo a genome which cannot under any circumstances develop into a human being. Things tend to go awry very early. Incidentally, this is why researchers wouldn't use natural miscarriages to find stem cells; most of them have severely flawed genetic makeup.

So, in short, most early miscarried embryos do not have the actual potential to develop into an adult, or even to be born.

13

I went to a conference at a medical meeting about the ethics of using embryos for stem cells. The moderator proposed that we use the same standard for beginning of life that we use for the end: measurable brain electrical activity. What an interesting idea he had!

My response was simple: You'll be savaged from the left because it's too early and from the right because it's too late. What I admired was this: he was actually trying to apply logical arguments, not just trying to rationalize the desire to have consequence-free sex.

My favorite treatment of this issue is Healing the Culture by Robert Spitzer. Tightly argued, logical, well written, a bit dense and hard to work through, but you'll understand the issues better. In essence, a human being is a living unique being of human origin, personhood comes with human-ness, end of story. Conception.

14

A biologist can take one of your fat or marrow cells and persuade it to form a twin of you.

Does that mean that you are not alive now? That your mother can legally hire an assassin to kill you, preferrably by spiking your head and vacuuming out your brains?

That a baby early in growth can have a twin made from part of it no more makes the baby less human than yourself, or for that matter, when God made Eve out of Adam.

15

tgirsch,
The flaw in your understanding at this particular point, is that you don't realize that Christians believe that there was a Fall of Man that cursed all of creation. Before that, there wasn't death. Now there is a lot of it. Including, apparently very young babies.

That isn't an argument against God, or against the humanity of human babies. It is an argument for the Jewish and Christian doctrine of the Fall.

16

Mike,
You also are unfamiliar with the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of the Fall.

God didn't create the race of Men defective. We made ourselves that way.

The Bible does not tell us (so far as I know) the fate of babies who die before the age of reason.

For that and other reasons, you cannot conclude that the doctrine of original sin means that God damns people to eternal hell because of genetic defects or murder by mother.

17

Rebecca:
Which then comes round again to your assumption that when "a blob" dies, the "blob's" soul (if we agree it has one) is necessarily destroyed. On what basis would you make that assumption?

I don't make that assumption. My question (no assumption involved) is whether the souls in those scenarios suffer a different fate or the same one. According to some Christian faiths, people who are never baptised cannot be saved, and obviously these people won't have been baptised, regardless of whether the termination was natural or artificial, accidental or intentional. That's the only reason I brought up that scenario.

I don't see this so much as a when the "blob" has a soul (what is a soul, anyway?) issue, but when the "blob" is made in the image of God.

Theologically speaking, we are made in the "image of God" not insofar as looking like God, but rather in having free will, and in being able to know God, communicate with Him, worship Him, and rule for Him. Obviously, it's not until well after birth that a person can do these things, so it takes a while for a person to take on God's "image" or "likeness." But hey, don't take my word for what the "image of God" means, find out for yourself.

Patrick:

If you've got references, I'd love to see them.

Jim:
I went to a conference at a medical meeting about the ethics of using embryos for stem cells. The moderator proposed that we use the same standard for beginning of life that we use for the end: measurable brain electrical activity. What an interesting idea he had!

I agree, that is intriguing. Any idea when measurable brain activity begins?

Steve:

God didn't create the race of Men defective. We made ourselves that way.

Prithee, how did we do that? How could we be perfect and then make ourselves not so? It's not difficult to argue that Adam and Eve's susceptibility to temptation was itself a defect -- an imperfection. After all, a person without defect would be immune to the serpent's temptations.

Sorry, but I've heard that before, and it's an incredibly weak theological argument.

For that and other reasons, you cannot conclude that the doctrine of original sin means that God damns people to eternal hell because of genetic defects or murder by mother.

However, Exodus 21:22-25 shows us that less value is clearly placed upon the unborn than upon the already here:

Exodus 21
22 "When there's a fight and in the fight a pregnant woman is hit so that she miscarries but is not otherwise hurt, the one responsible has to pay whatever the husband demands in compensation. 23 But if there is further damage, then you must give life for life 24 -eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Newer translations try to get around this embarrassing snit by rendering "miscarries" as "gives birth prematurely," but the "miscarries" translation is consistent with talmudic tradition, and the "gives birth prematurely" translation ignores the fact that in Mosaic times, premature birth meant almost certain death anyway.

18

TGirsch,
You say that you think that the doctrine of the Fall is incredibly weak theology? Read G. K. Chesterton's _Orthodoxy_ on that. I think you will find that you have missed something.

Less value? Let's see: if the baby loses and eye, the men do, if the baby dies, the men die.
Nope, don't see it.

19

tgirsch,

First, does God expressly define what morality is? If He does, then His own actions give us insight as to how we ought to behave (He does, after all, set the example).

Yes he does. Noting in the natural world is capable of defining morality. In fact, if we only have the natural world, it is not clear that we can even know what morality is. This is in large part why I am a Christian.

It's a nit, but the Bible never says the fruit was an apple.

O.K. sure your are right, but the name "fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is not the most eloquent name to write.

Which is what the serpent told them would happen, not what God told them would happen.

Why do your posts typically end up discussing who said what and when? Why is nearly all our conversations about what someone said or did not say? I wonder if this does not explain a lot about why we think what we think, but now I digress. While it is true that Satan not God tells Eve about the knowledge, the fruit does give man the knowledge of good and evil:

Genesis 3:6-7 "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened ..."

Genesis 3:22 "Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil ..."

I agree that we are should look to God's behavior, but the question is what behavior is relevant. In addition, we should remember that we are not God, and therefore, a different moral relationship exists between two people and between God and man. I have no right to judge another person as a person. I may, at times, judge the behavior, but not the heart. I have no right to kill someone who is merely displeasing. Since every breath I draw is a gift from God, it is right to withhold such gifts. See Acts 17:25 Thus, I could sin by blindly acting like I think God will.

What we should look to is God's instructions to us.

I disagree. To me, the problem is actually the desire to draw a line at all.

If we do not draw a line, the we are incapable of knowing if we have killed someone. Like I said before some of the attributes of personhood do not appear until a child is two years old. Did you ever hear of the terrible 2's. This phenomena is caused by the fact that, at about 2 years old, a child starts to realize that they are an individual -- they become completely self aware. But even if we say "you cannot kill an adult" then we have drawn a line somewhere between conception and adulthood.

tgirsch and Steve,

Prithee, how did we do that? How could we be perfect and then make ourselves not so? It's not difficult to argue that Adam and Eve's susceptibility to temptation was itself a defect -- an imperfection. After all, a person without defect would be immune to the serpent's temptations.

Thank you. So many people do not understand the doctrine of original sin that they think man is greater than God or that God damns people merely because of Adam's sin. Yes, each man faces condemnation because of Adam's sin, but such condemnation is not a punishment for Adam's sin, but the consequence of Adam's sin. Here is the authoritive passage on original sin, Romans 5:12-20:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-- for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

Notice is says that death spread to all men "because all sinned" not because Adam sinned. The passage even makes a point of distinguishing Adam's sin from ours: "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam."

It is a bit more complicated than this, but simply put: Because of the original sin, we have the knowledge of good and evil and therefore are justly held accountable for our sins not Adam's sin. Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Jeremy,

Given that the age of accountability doctrine is not in the Bible but inferred (fallaciously in my view) from biblical texts that don't say so much

Go back and read Genesis 3 and Romans 5. Notice the Romans passage that says "sin is not imputed when there is no law." Does that mean that no one was a sinner? Of course not. In the same passage, it says that all have sinned. I wonder what he could be getting at? Could it be that some people have sinned but do not have their sins imputed to them. Why not? Could it be that their sins are not imputed to them because they did not know they were sinning, and therefore, are not accountable? This is basic law and morality. What punishes children for sinning? Saddam is justly condemned for imprisoning children. Under the law, it is typically between ages 10 and 12 that society holds children accountable.

Notice also that in Genesis their nakedness was not an issue until they ate the fruit.
Clearly, we can agree that God did not hold Adam and Eve accountable until they ate the fruit. If God endorses this principle at times, then why should we believe that he would not apply the principle with children, whom he professes to have a special fondness for?

20

Steve:
Less value? Let's see: if the baby loses and eye, the men do, if the baby dies, the men die.

Nope. If the woman miscarries, i.e. the baby dies, the man merely pays a fine. If the woman dies or is injured, the man is punsihed in a likewise manner. Read it again.

JBP:
Yes he does. Noting in the natural world is capable of defining morality. In fact, if we only have the natural world, it is not clear that we can even know what morality is.

Why, then, has the common definition of morality changed so drastically even over the last 200 years, when scripture hasn't been updated in nearly 2000? Why was it considered widely morally acceptable just 40 years ago to discriminate on the basis of race? Why was it considered morally acceptable to own slaves just 150 years ago (and, indeed, the Bible never speaks out against this, and was in fact used to defend slavery)?

If God defines what morality is, then he did a piss-poor job of spelling it out for us. So much so that even the most devout of people still can't agree on what's moral and what's not.

Why do your posts typically end up discussing who said what and when? Why is nearly all our conversations about what someone said or did not say?

Frankly, because it's important, particularly in Christian discussions. Fundamentalist Christians believe that the only "Truth" is revealed truth, so it becomes highly relevant what was "revealed" when, and by whom.

While it is true that Satan not God tells Eve about the knowledge...

Actually, that's not true. It was the serpent, not Satan, and I'm not aware that the Bible ever tells us that they are one in the same. Truth to tell, Satan doesn't even show up until 1 Chron 21, and there only as a passing reference (and indeed, probably a mistransaltion). He doesn't show up in earnest until Job.

Genesis 3:22 "Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil ..."

Us? But I thought there was only one God? Who's the "us?" Never mind, your answer probably involves some trinity "three gods for the price of one" mumbo jumbo (although since the Jews share this passage, I wonder what their answer is? I seem to recall it involving the "Lord of Hosts" or something ... ).

What we should look to is God's instructions to us.

Strictly speaking within a Christian context, I would agree. However, I'm not aware that God ever directly addresses the issue. What then?

If we do not draw a line, the we are incapable of knowing if we have killed someone.

Fair enough. But why must it be so fine a line? Why not say that beyond hypothetical point A, we can all agree that it's killing someone, and define it there, leaving it to individuals to decide if they want a finer definition? Why must that line be defined by the most restrictive definition?

I'll freely admit that in my reasoning, there's a pragmatic aspect. People are going to have sex, and unintended pregnancies are going to happen. There is simply no stopping this. Based on that, how best to deal with this unfortunate outcome, while minimizing unnecessary pain, suffering, discomfort, etc.? Contraception is a very good start, preventing the unintended pregnancies from even occurring (although some of that definition is being debated here). Abortion, the earlier the better, is another such option.

It does bring me to a side point that has always troubled me: how cruel God must be to give us such strong urges and desires, upon which we are virtually always disallowed to act.

21

tgirsch,

You raise several issues that would take a book to address adequately. Nevertheless, I will foolishly attempt to give you a simple answer.

Why, then, has the common definition of morality changed so drastically even over the last 200 years, when scripture hasn't been updated in nearly 2000? Why was it considered widely morally acceptable just 40 years ago to discriminate on the basis of race? Why was it considered morally acceptable to own slaves just 150 years ago (and, indeed, the Bible never speaks out against this, and was in fact used to defend slavery)?

This is not very accurate. First, I do not think that morality has changed, but that our understanding has changed. Second, basic morality is actually rather static. Which one of the ten commandments concerning man's interaction with man, does the world not basically accept? Theft? Lying? Murder? Adultery? Envy? Disobeying Parents? Third, take your examples, the Bible actually condemns racial discrimination and involuntary enslavement. Exodus 22:21 "You shall not wrong a foreigner or oppress him, for you were foreigner in the land of Egypt." Exodus 21:16 "He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death." The slavery of the ancient world was not the chattel slavery familiar to the western world. Joseph ruled Egypt as a slave. Under God's law, Slaves had rights and had to be released every 7 years. In the ancient word, people frequently sold themselves into slavery to get a job skill.

If God defines what morality is, then he did a piss-poor job of spelling it out for us. So much so that even the most devout of people still can't agree on what's moral and what's not.

Well, I think that the problem is not God but people. Two explanations: (1) Wilful ignorance and interest induced beliefs, man frequently does not want to know the truth so much as he wants morality to be in his best interest. The souther slavery apologists you site are a good example. If they truly cared about what the Bible said, then why did they not free all their slaves every 7 years? Oh, missed that verse! This is why we do not let Judges preside over their own cases. 1 Timothy 4:1-2 "... paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared ..."

But, even when he is sincere, his biases and understanding will cloud the truth.

(2) Even when we are not so biased, morality can be a hard subject. For every moral rule, there is an exception. Even simple rules are quite complex when they interact. We send people to school for years to learn a similar but simpler subject -- Law.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 8, "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven-- A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.

It was the serpent, not Satan, and I'm not aware that the Bible ever tells us that they are one in the same.

Revelations 20:2, "And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." Revelations 12:9, "And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan ..."

Do you know any talking snakes?

Us? But I thought there was only one God?

Come on, that is an old discredited canard. There is the trinity, and did not the angels also know good and evil? Finally, what about the royal we?

Why not say that beyond hypothetical point A, we can all agree that it's killing someone, and define it there, leaving it to individuals to decide if they want a finer definition? Why must that line be defined by the most restrictive definition?

I have not argued that it must be the most restrictive definition. It is something about which reasonable people may disagree. I have not decided myself about the implantation issue. Frankly, I did not know about such vagaries. I do prefer a stricter definition because we do not know at what point we can confidently know if we are killing a human being. I would rather avoid doing something that may be murder.

It does bring me to a side point that has always troubled me: how cruel God must be to give us such strong urges and desires, upon which we are virtually always disallowed to act.

Name one! Except for self manufactured evil desires, all desires have a proper time and place to be fulfilled. In fact, if we do it God's way, we enjoy the fulfillment more. Sex? God gave us marriage. I am too lazy to find the site, but I remember reading a study that concluded that the best sex was found in marriage. Alcohol? Jesus's first miracle was to turn water into wine.

1 Timothy 4:3-5 "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer."

Finally, I have a question for you. If one only relies on natural explanations, on what basis can one make a moral claim?

22

JBP:
Which one of the ten commandments concerning man's interaction with man, does the world not basically accept? Theft? Lying? Murder? Adultery? Envy? Disobeying Parents?

Theft? It depends. If you have to steal to feed your child, I would expect that this is a more moral option than allowing your child to starve. But maybe that's un-Christian of me.

Lying is sin? Make sure your kid understands that the next time a stranger comes to the door and asks "Are your parents home?" Or even the next time your wife asks "does this make me look fat?"

Murder? That one, at least, we can generally agree on.

But what's funny to me is that commandments against murder and theft are in no way unique or original to Judeo-Christian tradition, and there are good reasons to have such rules that have completely naturalistic explanations. (It's probably not a good idea for me to do things to other people that I don't want them doing to me...)

Re: Slavery, at least we can agree that the American South, which used the Bible to justify slavery, was wrong in doing so. But again, this brings up the point about God not being terribly clear in what He wanted from us, morally speaking. Nobody at the time seemed to bother to say "Hey look, everybody! It says right here that we shouldn't do this! Let's stop!"

Re: Satan/serpent, point taken. I'll admit that I'm prejudiced by my scholarly (rather than canonical) view of the scriptures. All the revelation passage tells us is that the author of revelation thought they were the same. Clearly nobody else up until that point bothered to mention it. But if Revelations is indeed revelation, then of course it must be so. And the Jehovah's Witnesses must be right that only 144,000 of us will be saved...

I would rather avoid doing something that may be murder.

Agreed. But your uncertainty on that matter would seem to indicate that you wouldn't impose your view of the matter on somebody else. And if that's the case, we really have no quarrel.

Name one! [Strong urge]

Sex. God gave us marriage. But if I have six kids and don't want a seventh, God didn't take away the urge, now did He? From a Christian perspective, sex exists solely for procreation. I am happily married, but my wife and I don't want children. Should we then refrain completely from sex?

And quality of sex inside of marriage versus outside is irrelevant, in my mind. God still gave man the urge not just to have sex, but to have sex lots of times with lots of different people. Maybe YOU don't have such urges, but most men do.

So I stand by the idea that sex is one such strong urge upon which we are generally disallowed to act. (ONLY if you're married, and ONLY if you're willing to have more children.)

Your inclusion of alcohol clearly identifies you as NOT being a Baptist. :) But I wouldn't include that as a strong natural urge.

If one only relies on natural explanations, on what basis can one make a moral claim?

The basis of consensus, which is why morality (or at least our collective view of it) changes so dramatically over time. Societies have to have rules to work. Look at ants or bees -- is that morality? Probably not by your definition, but there's an order of things that makes things work. Call that order human morality, and what keeps us from devolving into chaos.

I could flip it around on you and ask you if your view of morality is so simplistic as to simply be "do what God tells you?" Also, by that definition, if God were to appear before you and declare that abortion (or murder, or torture) is moral, you would have to accept that without question.

23

Tgirsch, you claim that philosophical naturalism is a sufficient base for morality. Then you advocate the murder of babies.

Hmm.

Go read the passage again. You've misread it for whatever purposes you have in doing so.

24

Steve:

At what point do I ever advocate the murder of babies? Only if you define "the termination of a pregnancy in the early stages of embryonic development" as "murdering babies" do I advocate any such thing.

By the way, if life begins at fertilization, then you guys better get cracking on closing down all those fertility clinics which knowingly create embryos, the vast majority of which will be "murdered." Why no cries from the pro-life crowd to close them down?

25

tgirsch,

If you have to steal to feed your child, I would expect that this is a more moral option than allowing your child to starve. But maybe that's un-Christian of me. ... Lying is sin? Make sure your kid understands that the next time a stranger comes to the door and asks "Are your parents home?" Or even the next time your wife asks "does this make me look fat?"

This represents an inaccurate view of morality and the Bible's teachings. Exodus 20:16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Notice it does not say you shall never ever lie, but that you shall not lie against someone. The verse recognizes that some lies may not be wrong. I think we can all agree that answering yes when you wife asks if she looks fat does no good whatsoever and is a positive evil:)

In addition, the Bible recognizes a principle the law calls the "necessity principle." According to Colorado law, "conduct which would otherwise constitute an offense is justifiable and not criminal when it is necessary ..." Exodus 21: 12 "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death." But in Exodus 22:2 "If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account." If you think the first verse means that every person who strikes someone must always die, then the second verse makes no sense. If, however, you understand that the first is a general rule, and the second is an exception, then the rules make perfect sense and conforms to the law and our moral intuitions.

For example, theft is intentionally depriving someone of their property without consent, and therefore, destroying someone's yard gnome, however desirable, is theft. On the other hand, if you are driving down the road and observe a baby carriage in the road, and the only way to avoid killing the baby is to run over the yard gnome, I doubt any Christian would say "theft is always wrong; therefore, kill the baby." Like I posted last time, there is an exception for every rule!

But what's funny to me is that commandments against murder and theft are in no way unique or original to Judeo-Christian tradition, and there are good reasons to have such rules that have completely naturalistic explanations. (It's probably not a good idea for me to do things to other people that I don't want them doing to me...)

Or, it could be that God loves us and made morality and rules for our benefit; and therefore, acting moral is not merely a duty but a blessing. After all, it does not do God any good.

But if I have six kids and don't want a seventh, God didn't take away the urge, now did He? From a Christian perspective, sex exists solely for procreation.

While this is what the Catholic church teaches it is definitely not what the Bible teaches. 1 Corinthians Ch7, "The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, ... for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

It does not say that it is better to marry so that one can have lots of children. It says that it is good to marry so that you may fulfill those urges you, and I, are concerned about.

And quality of sex inside of marriage versus outside is irrelevant, in my mind. God still gave man the urge not just to have sex, but to have sex lots of times with lots of different people. Maybe YOU don't have such urges, but most men do.

Sure I do, but God loves us and understands that fulfilling such urges are bad for us. Like I posted, the sex in marriage is better. If we were to fulfill such urges, then we would forfeit the better sex within marriage -- not only because we may lose a wife, but because sex with our wife becomes less special. A good friend's life was ruined for a good decade because of fulfilling such a desire. This served as a warning to me. When I was offered and very much tempted by adulterous sex, I remembered my friends tears and fled. Frankly, without his example, I probably would have done it, but now I am glad I did not.

I could flip it around on you and ask you if your view of morality is so simplistic as to simply be "do what God tells you?" Also, by that definition, if God were to appear before you and declare that abortion (or murder, or torture) is moral, you would have to accept that without question.

Yes and no. In a sense, yes, but in the sense that you mean it, no. The reason God tells us to do things flows from the nature of God and the nature of creation. These things are more or less static. After all, God created creation the way he wanted it, and God is unchanging. That is why miracles are so darned rare -- even in the Bible. God uses miracles to teach that he is God, not because he did not like the way things were going. Why would an omnipotent and omniscient God change? There are reasons God instructs us, and I do not think those reasons will ever change.

The basis of consensus, which is why morality (or at least our collective view of it) changes so dramatically over time. Societies have to have rules to work. Look at ants or bees -- is that morality? Probably not by your definition, but there's an order of things that makes things work. Call that order human morality, and what keeps us from devolving into chaos.

Not by any reasonable person's definition. You are, of course, making a practical not moral claim. Not that they are unrelated: Morality is typically a practical blessing, but there are times when acting immoral would to be in my best interest. But God does not only love me he loves the person I would hurt with my immorality.

The German society in the late 1930's and early 1940's more or less decided that killing all the Jews in Europe was the moral thing to do. A decade ago, Rwanda's society decided that genocide was the thing to do. The consensus in America used to be that chattel slavery was a moral act. Last year, America decided that invading Iraq was the right thing to do:p Are you willing to say that the holocaust, Rwanda's genocide, and chattel slavery were moral acts? If you find fault with such acts, then you are moving beyond the basis of consensus. Or even, if everybody agreed that they were moral acts, that they would still be wrong.

I know that you could argue that Nazi society did not have consensus, but that is irrelevant so long as it was possible for such a consensus to have emerged. Which is not exactly far fetched since Hitler did gain power through elections. What if Hitler simply killed everybody who disagreed? Then there would have been consensus. Thus, the idea of consensus reduces to who best able to kill. If truth is a chimera, then let the strongest opinions win!

If morality is consensus, then the notion of reform is nonsense. Objective morality is essential to the liberal notion of progress.

The funny thing is that, other than Christians, Liberals are America's biggest moralist and not in the practical sense. Liberals say things like feed the poor, don't kill, and don't be racist. What if America agreed that society would be better off killing the poor or that racism is a really useful tool? Heck, there is a pretty good argument to be made that the middle east would be practically better off in every measurable sense if we enslaved all of them. (Of course, I do not advocate enslaving the middle east because it would be wrong!) This is actually what I admire about Liberals -- they want our society to be more moral despite the fact that it may be impractical. Liberals tend to argue for the purest type of morality; they tend to do it despite the practicality; and they tend to do it when the consensus is against them.

The problem is that Liberal analysis is frequently wrong, as is the conservative.

26

JBP:
It does not say that it is better to marry so that one can have lots of children. It says that it is good to marry so that you may fulfill those urges you, and I, are concerned about.

You're not addressing the actual point. What am I to do if I don't want (more) children? Or is it forbidden for me to not want (more) children?

And for the record, Catholics do not all teach that you have to have lots of babies. They do teach that children are a gift from God and should be accepted as they come, but if in the natural course of things you don't have lots of babies, that's okay too. It's only when you introduce unnatrual stuff (e.g. rubbers) that Catholics have a problem with it. Heck, Catholics even teach that planning intercourse for those times when the woman is least likely to get pregnant is A-OK. Hardly the teaching of a church that puts "lots of babies" as priority #1.

Why would an omnipotent and omniscient God change?

Good question. But He did, if we are to believe the flood story. And anyway, to say that God does not and/or cannot change is to limit God, something I don't think you're willing to do.

Morality is typically a practical blessing, but there are times when acting immoral would to be in my best interest.

Of course there are, and people do it all the time. Yet lots of people (even non-religious people) won't do so. Their morality exists independently of their religion. So I fail to see how this is relevant to the source of morality.

The German society in the late 1930's and early 1940's more or less decided that killing all the Jews in Europe was the moral thing to do. A decade ago, Rwanda's society decided that genocide was the thing to do. The consensus in America used to be that chattel slavery was a moral act. Last year, America decided that invading Iraq was the right thing to do:p Are you willing to say that the holocaust, Rwanda's genocide, and chattel slavery were moral acts?

No, I'm not willing to say that. I'm also not willing to concede that there was ever any concensus that those acts were "moral," even at the time they were committed.

If morality is consensus, then the notion of reform is nonsense.

That's a non-sequitur. If, collectively, the people decide that the current moral code isn't working or is somehow lacking, they can and do collectively change it. That's what reform is.

But what's interesting to me is that whether you're right or I'm right about what the source of morality is, and whether or not it's something that's "out there" or just a human-imposed construct, we as humans don't seem to be able to get it right. History seems to indicate that collectively and individually, people don't have a friggin' clue how to behave in anything resembling a moral manner.

What if America agreed that society would be better off killing the poor or that racism is a really useful tool?

You would need world agreement, not just American agreement. The consensus also needs to include virtually everyone involved, and I doubt that you'd get the poor and minorities to concede such points.

27

tgirsch,

You're not addressing the actual point. What am I to do if I don't want (more) children? Or is it forbidden for me to not want (more) children?

Huh? The Bible says nothing about birth control. What it does say is that spouses should not deny each other sex and that a married couple should have sex regularly. As a Christian, I use birth control and feel no qualms about it. Like I wrote, this is a Catholic not Biblical doctrine. God not only gave us the urge to have sex, but sex itself.

And for the record, Catholics do not all teach that you have to have lots of babies.

I did not say that. I said that the doctrine that you cited is a Catholic doctrine, and you never said "lots of babies."

Good question. But He did [change], if we are to believe the flood story.

No. God did not change, but the relationship between God and man changed; this is because man changed, not because God changed. I really do not want to get into the whole Nephilim thing, but a large part of the reason for the flood was to wipe out the Nephilim. Now that they are gone, there is no need for such an event.

And anyway, to say that God does not and/or cannot change is to limit God, something I don't think you're willing to do.

No. To say that God changes, limits God because it binds him to the dimension of time. If God created time, who is the master? You are fallaciously reasoning from man to God. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and is not bound by time, then God would not want to change.

Yet lots of people (even non-religious people) won't do so. Their morality exists independently of their religion. So I fail to see how this is relevant to the source of morality.

The point is that if nothing but the natural world exists, then morality does not exist. It is nothing more than power. If I can control society, like Stalin or Saddam, then why need I concern myself with morality. What is the practical reason an absolute dictator should not kill whomever he or she pleases?

No, I'm not willing to say that. I'm also not willing to concede that there was ever any consensus that those acts were "moral," even at the time they were committed.

O.K. I will stipulate for the sake of argument that there was no consensus, but what if there was? Four years ago, 230 members of a Ugandan doomsday cult committed suicide. What if a charismatic person was able convince all Asians that they are better off being chattel slaves to the Europeans, and he was able to convince everybody else that such enslavement was moral. Would that make it moral? What if the Governments of the world were able to convince every single person that treating diseases was bad for society and therefore, immoral? What if this caused the governments to impose the death penalty on the practice of medicine? Would it then be moral to execute a doctor who took pity on a dying child whom she could easily cure?

That's a non-sequitur. If, collectively, the people decide that the current moral code isn't working or is somehow lacking, they can and do collectively change it. That's what reform is.

Actually, it is not a non-sequitur. I have failed to argue the point well. I will endeavor to improve.

Reform in this context is defined by my dictionary as "cause to abandon an immoral or criminal behavior." In other words, reform is a change for the better in the moral sense. If morality is created by consensus, then you have merely made a point about the nature of consensus not morality. Consider, the consensus before a change is that the present state is moral, and the consensus after this change is that the present state is moral. Morally, we cannot say that the latter is better if we use consensus to measure morality. Both states were equally moral under that definition. Therefore, what we have is a change, but we do not have progress.

But what's interesting to me is that whether you're right or I'm right about what the source of morality is, and whether or not it's something that's "out there" or just a human-imposed construct, we as humans don't seem to be able to get it right. History seems to indicate that collectively and individually, people don't have a friggin' clue how to behave in anything resembling a moral manner.

Reexamine this statement closely, because you assume that morality is objective. If morality is a human construct, then one cannot "get it right." It is what it is and it only is valuable to the degree that it is useful. Slavery was a useful tool in the South a hundred years ago. Heck, given the near universality of the institution 200 years ago, there appears to have been a consensus that it was a useful institution. 200 years ago, black people sold millions of white people as slaves. The human construct seemed to be that slavery was a useful and practical institution to order society. So now, on second thought, you agree that Slavery was moral?

Actually, people do not behave morally because they are sinners.

You would need world agreement, not just American agreement.

The distinction between consensus at the national level and of the entire world is irrelevant. If a person had the means to kill virtually everybody in the world who disagreed, would that make racism after that point a moral act?

The consensus also needs to include virtually everyone involved, and I doubt that you'd get the poor and minorities to concede such points.

But if I could get them to agree, then it would be O.K. to discriminate against, enslave, or kill the poor?

Why do I need everybody's consensus? Why do I need anybody's consensus? This sounds like a metaphysical statement to me. This is merely the state of nature after all. Lions do not get the consensus of the Deer before eating them. Survival of the fittest seems to work for the rest of nature, why are we too good for it?

Why do you care about consensus? If your only concern is chaos, then all kinds of immoral acts can give us order. Order can be imposed from above. And, you are prohibited from saying anything about rights because rights are another word for morality.

28

Theologically speaking, we are made in the "image of God" not insofar as looking like God, but rather in having free will, and in being able to know God, communicate with Him, worship Him, and rule for Him.

Actually, we don't KNOW what being made in the image of God is. We know it isn't looking like God, since God is spirit, but other than that, exactly what it means is just speculation. What we do know from revelation is that it accompanies humanness, and its why we can't just go out and kill people--because killing other people is an affront to God whose image we are destroying. And if we don't know much about what being made in God's image means, there's no way we can have any criteria for judging whether or not someone is made in God's image except the one criteria we're given--it's a property of being made human. If it's human, its made in God's likeness. That's the only rule we have, cuz it's the only one we're given.

We're stuck taking what we're given on this, because its really all we've got. The rest is just blind guys leading blind guys in pea soup fog, trying to determine where the rainbow is.

29

JBP:
Huh? The Bible says nothing about birth control. What it does say is that spouses should not deny each other sex and that a married couple should have sex regularly. As a Christian, I use birth control and feel no qualms about it. Like I wrote, this is a Catholic not Biblical doctrine

You miss the point (and also seem to be trying to make this into a Catholic thing when it's not). As pro-life types love to point out, no method of birth control is foolproof. So what happens if your birth control fails? Knowing that birth control is not foolproof, you're still playing a sort of russian roulette if you have sex when you don't want children.

Similarly, if you look at what the root of this whole debate was, it's people arguing that emergency contraception, and indeed potentially the birth control pill, isn't contraception at all but rather a very, very early form of abortion.

The whole God and change thing is a sidebar, and (to me) a silly one at that. It seems like one of those "how many angels on the head of a pin" type arguments, so I'm willing to say "whatever, God is unchanging, he just appears to change to us."

The point is that if nothing but the natural world exists, then morality does not exist.

Frankly, I agree, to an extent. Morality does not "exist," the way trees "exist." It's a human construct that we impose upon the world for convenience, even though it's not inherently "there." Where I would disagree is with the idea that the concept of morality is meaningless without God. Maybe morality as YOU define it, but not as I define it.

Suppose you became convinced tomorrow that God did not exist. Would you suddenly feel as though you could do whatever you wanted, with no regard for "morality" or anything like it? That hey, now that God's not a worry of mine, I can kill and rape and torture whomever I want? Of course not! And I frankly find your assertion insulting, because implicit in it is that I, as an atheist, cannot have morality.

Morality defined as "the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct." Nothing in that definition implies that God must be the one who sets the standard.

What is the practical reason an absolute dictator should not kill whomever he or she pleases?

What is the practical reason an omnipotent God should not do this? But this points out a good example of why we work very hard to NOT allow absolute dictators to come to power. ;)

But the bottom line is we're getting hung up on incompatible definitons. You consider God to be inherent in morality, and I do not. We can argue definitions all day, but you can't "prove" them, because they're definitions. You have to agree on the frame of reference before you can argue it.

I still take profound exception to one implication of your way of thinking: that anyone who is a non-Christian (or, at least non-Judeo-Christian) cannot have morality, by your definition. You'll of course understand how I might not take very kindly to being called immoral (or being told that my morality comes from God and I'm just to stupid or silly or stubborn to realize it).

Reexamine this statement closely, because you assume that morality is objective. If morality is a human construct, then one cannot "get it right."

Well, in a sense, yes, I agree. What I'm saying is that we're unable to come up with a moral code that we can agree upon and stay happy with. Regardless of where morality comes from, or why we can't stick to a moral code, we can't. As I've said repeatedly, the source of this morality is irrelevant to the question.

So now, on second thought, you agree that Slavery was moral?

Nope. Though many people at the time thought it was. To me personally, anything that perpetuates inequality among people is immoral, and I don't need the authority of God to tell me so. But back then, it was defined as moral and proper, so for all intents and purposes, it was. I disagree, but if I were the only one who disagreed and could not convince people to my way of thinking, then I'd be wrong.

But if I could get them to agree, then it would be O.K. to discriminate against, enslave, or kill the poor?

Every bit as OK as it would be if God said it was okay...

Why do you care about consensus?

Because I have to live with others, and I want to get along with those others.

And, you are prohibited from saying anything about rights because rights are another word for morality.

Now you've lost me completely. I just checked the Thesaurus, and rights is definitely not listed for morality.

Basically, it's called "ethics" and the concept predates Christianity by quite a sight.

I'm honestly not so sure it's even worth debating this with you any more. Your limited definition of morality is engrained in your mind, and God is inherently tied to this, and there's nothing I can do to get you to believe otherwise.

rebecca:

Whatever you're smoking, I wish you'd share. :)

30

I'm honestly not so sure it's even worth debating this with you any more. Your limited definition of morality is engrained in your mind, and God is inherently tied to this, and there's nothing I can do to get you to believe otherwise.

It's not worth debating, not because anyone's definition of morality is too limited, but because our definitions don't even intersect. Your definition is just as limited as anyone elses, just limited differently.

You've got a god, you know, whether you admit it or not, and his name is Consensus. And you're right, he does change....

So, why does Consensus get to be the boss? And why is he so hard to find? Why should I trust him to determine what's right?

Whatever you're smoking, I wish you'd share. :)

It's called revelation. Direct revelation from the God who is, whether you recognize Him or not. Makes life a whole lot easier--then you don't have to go looking for Consensus.

31

When Jesus was conceived, did he have a soul? Of course.

32

Rebecca:
You've got a god, you know, whether you admit it or not, and his name is Consensus.

Yawn. Really, you can do better than that. I do not worship concensus. I do not give Tithes to concensus. I can defy consensus and not suffer eteranl hellfire.

As for our non-intersecting definitions of "morality," mine intersects with some obscure book called the "dictionary" (perhaps you've heard of it), so I guess a whole lot of people are every bit as wrong about what the word means as I am.

But I'm glad to hear you admit that without God, you would happily rape and murder and steal and torture.

33

tgirsch,

You miss the point (and also seem to be trying to make this into a Catholic thing when it's not). ... no method of birth control is foolproof. ... Knowing that birth control is not foolproof, you're still playing a sort of russian roulette if you have sex when you don't want children.

First, I was not trying to make it a Catholic thing. I thought you were arguing about birth control, which is typically pre-conception. I only know of two religions that consider birth control wrong: Catholics and Mormons.

Second, fair enough. Nevertheless, I think it is a weakness of Liberals that so many of them are offended by the fact that choices have consequences. (I am not saying that this is inherent in Liberal ideology, in fact, it surprises me.) If you choose to drive, then you are taking the risk of being maimed, killed, or worse. That is life. If you choose to have sex in such a way as to risk pregnancy, then you face the possibility of choosing between an immoral act and having a child. Actually, given how many people are desperate to adopt an infant, you don't really even face that choice.

Morality does not "exist," the way trees "exist." It's a human construct that we impose upon the world for convenience, even though it's not inherently "there." Where I would disagree is with the idea that the concept of morality is meaningless without God. Maybe morality as YOU define it, but not as I define it.

Actually you have gone beyond what I said. I did not say that morality was meaningless without God, but I did say that objective morality is not a product of the natural world. Which you seem to agree with. If you think that objective morality points to God, good, so do I.

Can we not make this a discussion about definitions but about truth? My concept of morality is objective morality because it is universal. It exists in man's mind because a metaphysical reality put it there. Your concept of morality is subjective morality because it only is practical and personal preferences.

Suppose you became convinced tomorrow that God did not exist. Would you suddenly feel as though you could do whatever you wanted, with no regard for "morality" or anything like it? That hey, now that God's not a worry of mine, I can kill and rape and torture whomever I want? Of course not!

Actually, yes, more or less. I will admit that I may not be right about the nature of God, and therefore, morality may stem from some other metaphysical reality. To put the question more accurately, if I were to become convinced that nothing exists but the natural world, I would feel as though morality constrained me. In such a case, I would not think that I could do whatever I wanted, because of practical reasons. But if I could get away with it, I would do whatever I wanted. The natural world is clearly amoral. That is not to say that lions are immoral for killing the offspring of their rivals. Such acts are neither moral or immoral, they are amoral. Survival of the fittest is the natural world's ethos.

And I frankly find your assertion insulting, because implicit in it is that I, as an atheist, cannot have morality.

Well, I did not intend to insult. And, as a factual point, I find many naturalist to be quite moral. Indeed, that is my point, their behavior, including telling the world about what it ought to do, implicitly acknowledges that which you explicitly deny. I wanted to see if you would embrace the logical deductions from your denial.

After all, if one does not believe in objective morality, then one believes that any action or behavior may be moral.

Morality defined as "the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct." Nothing in that definition implies that God must be the one who sets the standard.

Well that, of course, seems to be what we are discussing.

What is the practical reason an omnipotent God should not do this?

But this points out a good example of why we work very hard to NOT allow absolute dictators to come to power. ;)

But the bottom line is we're getting hung up on incompatible definitions. You consider God to be inherent in morality, and I do not. We can argue definitions all day, but you can't "prove" them, because they're definitions. You have to agree on the frame of reference before you can argue it.

This is nonsense. We have been discussing objective verses subjective morality, and what factual states are or are not necessary to achieve objective morality. Indeed, I think we have agreed that naturalism means that there is no such thing as objective morality.

I still take profound exception to one implication of your way of thinking: that anyone who is a non-Christian (or, at least non-Judeo-Christian) cannot have morality, by your definition. You'll of course understand how I might not take very kindly to being called immoral (or being told that my morality comes from God and I'm just to stupid or silly or stubborn to realize it).

That is, of course, not what I posted. I did not say or imply that no one who is a non-Judeo-Christian cannot act morally. What I did say is that naturalism cannot explain objective morality, although it can explain subjective morality, and that if nothing more than the natural world exists, then objective morality does not exist. If objective morality does not exist, then you have no basis to say that ought not to kill other people. You can say that you would prefer it if they did not, or that it is a impractical. But if they prefer to kill others and if it is practical, then you really do not have any standing to judge their behavior. Morality becomes well I wish they would not do that, but boys will be boys ...

To me personally, anything that perpetuates inequality among people is immoral

Well if your dislike of inequality is simply a personal preference, then do you have standing to tell others they ought to treat people equally? Should laws be based upon personal preference? Are anti discrimination laws something more than an exercise in power, whether it is physical or persuasive?

Every bit as OK as it would be if God said it was okay...

Well, now your opinions are a great deal more volatile than God's. Maybe that discussion about God's immutable character was not so silly and irrelevant after all. In addition, if you believe in a Creator, then if the Creator instructs us to do something, it has a great deal more authority than consensus. After all, we have a moral authority over our children that we do not have over other people's children. We gave our children life and we continue to give them life -- we feed, shelter, and protect them.

[I care about consensus] Because I have to live with others, and I want to get along with those others.

Maybe you have to live with others, but not everybody does. Stalin did not have to live with the Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, and Don Cossacks. He simply exterminated them.

Maybe you want to get along with others, but not everybody wants to live with others or has to. According to your post, consensus depends upon and personal preferences, so it is not a particularly useful idea if one wants to argue that a person ought to get consensus. In addition, this says nothing about whether it is reasonable to lie to get consensus.

When you say that we should have gotten UN approval before invading Iraq and that the President mislead us, are merely saying, "Gee, I would have preferred it, but I have not any reason to criticize Bush beyond him not following my wishes?" If so, then, you do not have anything as interesting to say as a Liberal who thinks what he did was objectively wrong. Bush had his opinion, you have yours, but his was stronger and there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past.

I just checked the Thesaurus, and rights is definitely not listed for morality.

I guess I do not consider the Thesaurus to be the final word on philosophy;) Seriously, what is a right except a statement that is it immoral to violate the right. I have the right to life because it is immoral to kill me; I have the right to liberty because it is immoral to enslave me; and I have the right to property because it is wrong to steal.

I do not see how one can have inalienable rights without objective morality.

Basically, it's called "ethics" and the concept predates Christianity by quite a sight.

This is beneath you.

Your limited definition of morality is engrained in your mind, and God is inherently tied to this, and there's nothing I can do to get you to believe otherwise.

My definition of morality is limited? You appear to think that morality is personal preference writ large, nothing more. I think it is something more. But the real question is not whether a definition of morality is limited or whether I am convinced I am right, but whether there exists objective morality and where does it come from.

Sure you can get me to believe otherwise, simply prove me wrong. Far from that, you have actually agreed with the crux of my arguments: Objective morality does not exist in a merely naturalistic world.

34

Yawn. Really, you can do better than that. I do not worship concensus. I do not give Tithes to concensus. I can defy consensus and not suffer eteranl hellfire.

Ahh..but Consensus determines "rightness" for you. Perhaps Consensus doesn't demand worship and tithes, or compliance to avoid eternal hellfire. If he/she/it doesn't, then he/she/it can still be your god without those things.

As for our non-intersecting definitions of "morality," mine intersects with some obscure book called the "dictionary" (perhaps you've heard of it),

Believe it or not, I have heard of it. And I agree with it, even the particular definition you chose yourself from the dictionary:

Morality defined as "the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct."

The non-intersection of definitions comes because we don't agree on how "standards of right or good conduct" are determined. We don't agree on the meaning of the words within the definition.

so I guess a whole lot of people are every bit as wrong about what the word means as I am

Which of course, only helps your argument out if the one you're discussing with accepts that good 'ol Concensus ought to be put on the same elevated plane that you do. And you've yet to explain why we ought to put Consensus up there. Why?

But I'm glad to hear you admit that without God, you would happily rape and murder and steal and torture.

I didn't admit that, and you know it. Without God I wouldn't exist, so your hypothetical scenario is a completely nonsense one to someone who believes as I do. I can't go there, because the scenario is an impossibility within my system.

Let me turn it around and ask you: If Consensus decided that rape, murder, theft and torture were "in accord with standards of right or good conduct", would you do them? And you can't weasel out under the aforementioned "impossible within my system" exception clause, because it isn't impossible within your system.

35

JBP:
Can we not make this a discussion about definitions but about truth?

I think this is the crux of it. To you, "truth" is an absolute thing, something that exists "out there," but to me it is not. Things are not just black or white, there are shades of gray. This is a fundamental difference in our respective frames of reference that make our difficult at best. Without a common frame of reference, informed debate is impossible.

As for the "actions have consequences" thing, I don't deny that. You simply rule out one way of dealing with those consequences that I don't rule out.

Oh, and I thought that some Baptists oppose birth control, but I could be wrong.

Maybe you have to live with others, but not everybody does. Stalin did not have to live with the Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, and Don Cossacks. He simply exterminated them.

I'm completely missing your point here. They either violated the consensus, or violated God's will. Why does it matter which? Obviously neither is sufficient to prevent such things from happening. And on the flip side of the coin, Hitler was a practicing Catholic when he orchestrated the holocaust. So having religion doesn't make one any more "moral," either.

I do not see how one can have inalienable rights without objective morality.

I will concede one overriding moral "absolute": That it is immoral for humans to do things that are clearly detrimental to the human race. But I don't need a higher power to tell me that; all I need is common sense.

This is beneath you.

How so? Does ethics not predate Christianity?

My definition of morality is limited?

Perhaps I misunderstand your definition of morality. My understanding of how you view morality is this: that it can only come from (the Christian) God, and that without the Christian God, there can be no morality. If that is your definition, then indeed I would call that limited.

Far from that, you have actually agreed with the crux of my arguments: Objective morality does not exist in a merely naturalistic world.

Well, you're right. But I'm not sure that I ever said morality was objective. I'm pretty sure that all along my argument has been that morality is subjective, but that this doesn't make it somehow not morality.

So it seems that the crux of our argument can be traced back to the question of whether or not morality is objective. You say yes, and I say no. My evidence? If there is some unchanging objective code of morality out there, we've never been able to comply with it, nor have we even been able to succinctly identify it.

Even in your "objective" morality, the answer to the question "is it moral to do X?" is almost always "It depends."

Is it moral to kill?
Is it moral to steal?
Is it moral to lie?

Your answers to all of these has been "it depends," and that's subjective, not objective.

36

Rebecca:

Yep, you're right, consensus is my "god." Never mind that you had to dramatically redefine what "god" means to make that stretch, but sure.

Regarding your question about "would I do it," I will say that all of this debate has gotten me to rethink morality to some extent, and I think the "consensus" argument is by itself a bit weak. So I'll revise: morality has a societal component (which is where consensus comes in) and an individual component.

So even if the consensus was that all of these things were moral, my personal moral compass would disagree, and I would not do them.

That actually strengthens my argument, now that I think about it. There are many times when an individual's personal moral compass is out of sync with the consensus, and this helps explain the type of aberrations (like Stalin) to which JBP keeps referring. But most of the time, for most people, the moral compasses of the group are largely aligned, and those points of detail upon which we can mostly agree are what we collectively call "morality."

Turning it back around on you yet again, if God told you that rape / murder / theft were moral, would you do them? You can't weasel behind the "impossible in my system" thing any more, either, because you'd be limiting God by saying it's impossible that he would do such a thing.

37

Don't feed the troll.

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Steve:
Don't feed the troll.

Sorry, but Rebecca addressed me personally, so I felt compelled to respond. ;)

39

Turning it back around on you yet again, if God told you that rape / murder / theft were moral, would you do them? You can't weasel behind the "impossible in my system" thing any more, either, because you'd be limiting God by saying it's impossible that he would do such a thing.

Well, under my system, God is limited (if you want to call it that) by His character, which is unchanging as a necessary part of being eternal rather than temporal. He is absolutely free (which is what I would mean by His being unlimited) to express His unchanging character.

What determines standards of moral behaviour is God's unchanging character. What reflects His righteous character is the standard of rightness. So, if He has prohibited rape, murder, etc, then we know that those things go AGAINST his character, and there is no possibility, based on His unchanging character that He would ever say they are moral.

So it is "impossible under my system", and I hope that explains why.

40

Don't feed the troll.

I don't think he's a troll. Just because he doesn't agree with an argument and continues to argue against it doesn't make him a troll, does it? I get the feeling he actually takes time to try to understand the argument (missing the boat sometimes, which is to be expected).

Anyway, I might have to be away for a bit, but I'll check back here when I can.

41

Okay, I'm back because it was bothering me that my comment about missing the boat might be misconstrued. I really just meant that misunderstandings are par for the course when two people with such divergent viewpoints try to wrap their minds around something so foreign to them.

And as long as I dragged myself back to this deskchair, let me ask a couple of questions about the rest of your comment so that I can understand your viewpoint better.

So even if the consensus was that all of these things were moral, my personal moral compass would disagree, and I would not do them.

Okay, fair enough. But you seem to be assuming that consensus has just said that murder etc, were included in the actions that were considered okay, so that you wouldn't be breaking any rules by avoiding them. What if consensus said that ugly people, for example, needed to be kept off the street, and your moral compass said that ugly people ought to be left alone to do what all non-ugly people are allowed to do? How would you determine whether to trust your own moral compass or the consensual moral compass? How would you know you weren't just an aberration, like Stalin? What criteria would you use in judging whether to go with your own compass or that of the consensus?

But most of the time, for most people, the moral compasses of the group are largely aligned, and those points of detail upon which we can mostly agree are what we collectively call "morality."

Yes, I agree that on the majority of issues this is so. I'm curious as to how you would explain this. Why are most people's compasses mostly in sync?

Also, did you ever explain why consensus ought to be considered the determiner of morality? If you did, I missed it, so could you point me to your answer?

42

Rebecca:
So it is "impossible under my system", and I hope that explains why.

At the risk of sounding condescending, what seems to be impossible under your system is you answering a hypothetical question. ;)

How would you determine whether to trust your own moral compass or the consensual moral compass? How would you know you weren't just an aberration, like Stalin? What criteria would you use in judging whether to go with your own compass or that of the consensus?

The "who does it hurt" litmus test is how I would determine it. Does it hurt anyone to follow the rule / not follow it? If it hurts someone to go with my personal moral compass over the consensus compass, then I need to reassess my compass. :)

Why are most people's compasses mostly in sync?

Because we are social creatures, and we spend time together and thus influence one another. But suppose you have two groups completely out of touch with one another. I would expect to see significant differences in the "consensus" in the two groups. This may explain why apartheid was considered OK in South Africa when it was considered appalling virtually everywhere else.

Also, did you ever explain why consensus ought to be considered the determiner of morality?

Frankly, I'm not sure I ever actually said that it ought to be the determiner. My argument is that it is (or at least seems to be) the determiner. Whehter or not that's as it should be, I can't say for certain. Although I do think that humankind probably ought to have some degree of autonomy on the matter.

Why do I say it "seems to be" the determiner? Let's look at scripture, which some have argued is the determiner. People tend to use scripture to advance those moral admonitions with which they agree (e.g., "don't murder"), and simply ignore those admonitions with which they disagree (e.g., "boot the menstruating woman out of the village," "sacrifice two doves," etc.). This would seem to imply that morality (as most people understand it) exists independently of the scripture, and that people simply use the scripture where it suits them.

43

tgirsch,

Things are not just black or white, there are shades of gray.

Is not a shade of gray an objective truth? A laser printer creates the shade of gray by printing black and white dots closely together. Morality is the same way, from a distance it looks gray because we cannot discern all the dots, but up close we understand that the effect of gray is the complex interaction of black and white.

You simply rule out one way of dealing with those consequences that I don't rule out.

This, of course, is the very essence of objective morality. Some actions are wrong even if they are practically useful.

I'm completely missing your point here. They either violated the consensus, or violated God's will. Why does it matter which?

For my purposes in this discussion it does not matter. So long as you are willing to admit that consensus is a metaphysical notion, then we can agree that your deference to consensus is beyond the physical world. I had asked you why consensus was an important moral indicator, and you replied because one has to live with other people. To wit, I responded that Stalin did not have to live with the Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, and Don Cossacks. Therefore, consensus did not matter to Stalin. Your enunciation of consensus, then, does not apply to Stalin and gives us no moral reason to condemn these genocides beyond personal preference.

Hitler was a practicing Catholic when he orchestrated the holocaust.

Uh no, Hitler was a naturalist. He believed in social and racial Darwinianism, survival of the fittest at a racial and social level. Yes, he was baptized as a boy, etc., but this was because he lived in a Catholic land. He sometimes would appeal to providence, God, etc, but these were clearly disingenuous. Hitler said, "It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity," and "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." And, "Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature." Hitler put word to deed. When he controlled Poland, he arrested 2/3 of the Catholic clergy and executed thousand of Catholic Polish priests. By 1940, only 20 Priest presided over parishes in Poland.

Some Catholic.

I will concede one overriding moral "absolute": That it is immoral for humans to do things that are clearly detrimental to the human race.

This is an interesting statement from a naturalist or a liberal. First, once you have conceded this, you have conceded my entire argument. Why do I have a moral duty to do what is in the best interest of my race? I do not see how one can intellectually honestly answer that question without indirectly using metaphysics. Indeed, unless you conceded that consensus is noting more than the raw exercise of power, then you have indirectly used metaphysics in the notion of consensus. Without metaphysics, one cannot even account for choice. You are pro choice? If we are merely very complex chemical reactions, then it is not clear that there exists such a thing as choice. Fires do not choose to burn. My red blood cells do not choose to oxygenate. The sun does not choose to shine. Do such things do not have any moral implications in and of themselves. How can chemical reactions have moral implications?

Second, many liberal policies fly in face of this statement. Is treating diabetes in the best interest of the race? Before we discovered insulin diabetes was a very rare disease because most sufferers died and therefore, produced few offspring. Now, diabetes is a common disease because it is strongly influenced by genetics. Hitler took this a step further and decided that killing homosexuals and disabled people was a good policy because it made the race stronger. (He believed that homosexuality was genetic, and therefore, that homosexuals were "sub human.") It was in the best interests of the Human race. If you would give people free food and healthcare, then you would at least impede the natural processes that cause the human race to evolve for the better. Is liberalism immoral?

Does ethics not predate Christianity?

If you mean the Christian Church, sure, but the point is that God created ethics, the universe, and Christianity. According to the bible, Christ created the universe. Therefore, Christ predates everything. Nevertheless, even if Christianity is false, it is still true that a merely natural world cannot account for objective morality. It cannot even account for choice. Therefore, this is a rather bad straw man, and given our typical level of discourse, I thought this type of silly argument beneath you.

My understanding of how you view morality is this: that it can only come from (the Christian) God, and that without the Christian God, there can be no morality.

My point is that "Objective morality does not exist in a merely naturalistic world." Therefore we have to look for it beyond the naturalistic world. This is by definition God. The eternal reasons. I happen to believe that the Christian God is actually God, but that is a factual assertion. I have admitted that I may be wrong about Christ, but that still leaves us with the point that objective reality cannot come from the natural world.

... all along my argument has been that morality is subjective, but that this doesn't make it somehow not morality.

Subjective morality exists. A good example is the rule that one drive on the right side of the road. Objectively, one cannot say that this is superior to driving on the left side of the road, but a rule is necessary for practical reasons. (As an aside, a client of my who is a Danish businessman once told said to me in frustration: You do not know how hard it is to work with the English? Everything is upside down over there -- They drive on the left side of the road over there, don't you know!) Nevertheless, the reason the right-side-of-the-road rule has any claim to our allegiance is because objective morality requires us to avoid harming our neighbor..

If there is some unchanging objective code of morality out there, we've never been able to comply with it, nor have we even been able to succinctly identify it.

Yes, well the inability to comply is evidence, I suppose, but it is not exactly compelling because theists can explain these facts. After all, the reason why we care about morality is that people have choices. If everybody did everything correctly without thought, then we would not even need morality. We have morality because we have a choice. So, choice is implicit in morality, and therefore, people will choose to be immoral.

Second, I think the succinct requirement is rather contrived. Can you succinctly state the principles of quantum physics? How about the theory of relativity? Does that mean that these things do not objectively exist? Like physics, morality is rather complex. Morality depends upon ideas like causation, which as you probably know is a rather complex idea in and of itself. If you want to impose this requirement on objective morality, then you are going to have to say a whole lot more than you have. Frankly, I cannot see how this case can be made.

Is it moral to kill?
Is it moral to steal?
Is it moral to lie?

Your answers to all of these has been "it depends," and that's subjective, not objective.

Come on, tgirsch, this is just plain silly. But if you insist,

Will striking a match start a fire?
It depends on whether one is under water.
Will having sex create a baby?
It depends upon whether the people having sex are male and female.
Will starting an atomic explosion kill people?
It depend upon whether people will be within the blast radius.

Are atomic explosions and biological processes dependent upon the mind of persons? In other words, are they subjective?

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JBP:
Some actions are wrong even if they are practically useful.

OK, but wrong according to who or what? If morality is outside of human control, how do we know for certain whether or not we're behaving morally?

For my purposes in this discussion it does not matter. So long as you are willing to admit that consensus is a metaphysical notion, then we can agree that your deference to consensus is beyond the physical world.

No, we can't agree on that. The consensus is something over which I have a certain degree of control, in that I can convince others to my way of thinking (and, to be fair,