A Short Essay on Christian "Morality"

WolfgangSenff
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A Short Essay on Christian "Morality"

Forgive me if this has been stated already. I've been pissed off about this for some time and wanted to get it out of my system. Thanks for letting me rant, and let me know what you think! 


Good and Evil: The Ultimate Black and White Fallacy?

Every argument I have with my Christian friend ends up with him basically saying, "Where do you have your basis for morality? How can you decide what is right and wrong? What is good and what is evil?
I'm not really that old in cosmic terms, just 25. But even in my short time here on this planet, I've never really thought in terms of "good" and "evil". Why is it that religious people tend to think that for every situation, one can logically come to a conclusion that one specific event is either good or bad? Furthermore, they often think that any other person must come to the same conclusion that they would.
This never happens in real life, or very, very rarely. We can take an example of a mass murderer. He gets sentenced to death and is killed. Many people would agree that that was a good thing. Do you think his mother thought it was a good thing? Many people, I think, disagree with capital punishment, so that's not even a good example, I suppose.
So let's try a different example. Let's take it with respect to Christianity too, cause I know that best. If a young child in an Indonesian whorehouse ends up going insane and killing the person raping them, was that wrong? Was that young child at fault? Is God going to say, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO KILL ANYONE!" This, to me, is utterly stupid.
When I bring an idea like this to my Christian friend, he tends to resort to the, "You can't always know the end outcome. It may have had a positive outcome." I would argue, then, that he indeed has no basis for his morality, as he says he does. If he cannot conclusively say one way or the other that a tidal wave killing a quarter of a million people is good or bad, then I don't believe he is a moral person. He may not be immoral, but he is at least certainly amoral.
From my perspective, it seems like all apologists (to my knowledge anyway) are not realizing that their "good book" (if the religion has one) uses a black and white fallacy in its statement of morality. Furthermore, when they say they have a standard for their morals, what they're really saying is they're full of bullshit. "That tidal wave may have had a positive outcome." Bullshit my friends, bullshit.
So, in one way they're using a black and white fallacy saying everything comes down to either good or evil. Then they're admitting that they can't really know that the outcome of specific events are good or evil. This, to me, says that they truly don't have a basis for their morality. Not even that they're necessarily "afraid" of going to hell. They literally do not have a basis for it.


Hambydammit
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Any theist position on

Any theist position on morality must steal from natural morality.  If we can think of a reason why something is good or bad, then by definition, there is a natural explanation for it.  In other words, if we believe there is a reason for something being good or bad, it is rational.  Reason and rationality are natural, having a natural ontology and epistemology.  (And, consequently, having the capacity for axiology.)

If the theist position was true, and things were good or bad based on something supernatural (hence, unknowable!), then we would simply be following a set of instructions, completely oblivious of any rhyme or reason.  But, as we can demonstrate for ourselves, virtually any theist can give you reasons why something "God demands" is good or bad.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Strafio
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Here's more is more on how

Here's more is more on how Christians steal from secular morality.
That's a good catch on double standards.
They claim they have an absolute standard and then claim a fuzziness on morality when we try to judge controversial actions. (especially the ones that God command in the Bible!)

Are you new here btw?
Welcome to RRS! Smiling


WolfgangSenff
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I've been here for a little

I've been here for a little while, but thanks. Much appreciated.

 I suppose my point here was not so much that they steal from us. I'd rather stick it to them. If they are going to claim their morality comes from god, we should be able to limit them to only getting it from there and still being accurate. If they can't make a decision about something that really is clearly bad, I'm tempted to really grill them for it. 

They do, of course, use that stupid argument against the argument from suffering and evil. That's how this whole issue came to mind first. Jackal had a brilliant statement of the argument from suffering in another forum and it made me think about how my Christian friends really don't have spines.

"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.


Strafio
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Ofcourse. It was a good

Ofcourse. It was a good catch on their double standards.
We just did what we always like to do and bring in other points against theistic morality as well.