@avalanchethecat said
I agree up to this point.

PROGRESS, I'll take it!

@avalanchethecat said
You don't 'make it up' though. You learn it. From where do you get this idea that if there's no god, then everyone is free to choose their own morality? It's a nonsensical false dichotomy. We all, or at least, the sane ones among us, develop a conscience as we grow and mature.

Scripture is entirely unnecessary, although I can offer pointers I'll grant you.

Can you tell me this? Progress requires some way to know you have improved. If there are no markers, no permanent goalposts as it were, how do you know if you are going forward or backward, that you are on the right path or off of it?

This is to make a point not accusing you of anything:

Who is to say which is better, a nature-nurture moral, the survival of the fittest only the strong survive, an amoral anything goes, or some version or a mix of each? If there isn't something that can place all of these on a scale to check them, are they not the same, one no better than the next?

@kellyjay said
Can you tell me this? Progress requires some way to know you have improved. If there are no markers, no permanent goalposts as it were, how do you know if you are going forward or backward, that you are on the right path or off of it?

This is to make a point not accusing you of anything:

Who is to say which is better, a nature-nurture moral, the survival of the fittest ...[text shortened]... can place all of these on a scale to check them, are they not the same, one no better than the next?

You know you're going forwards when you recognise that opinions and actions which you once considered to be morally and ethically positive are not necessarily so even without the addition of new data. You know when you improve. 'Permanent goalposts' are only useful if they are clear and absolute in their positivity. I would say that there are situations when at least some of the commandments - presumably permanent goalposts for you - should be ignored, would you not agree?

As for your second point, we are all of us capable of determining which moral position of the options you describe is better. It is self-evident that for a social animal such as humankind, 'survival of the fittest' and 'amoral anything goes' are not positive choices with equal standing to learned and considered social morality and ethics.

@avalanchethecat said
You know you're going forwards when you recognise that opinions and actions which you once considered to be morally and ethically positive are not necessarily so even without the addition of new data. You know when you improve. 'Permanent goalposts' are only useful if they are clear and absolute in their positivity. I would say that there are situations when at least ...[text shortened]... ' are not positive choices with equal standing to learned and considered social morality and ethics.

I see what you are saying, but you still have not given me a reason to know how one would know you were going forward or not. Those who prescribe to the survival of the fittest may think caring about those that require resources that could go to the healthy may think carrying for weak and sick is a step backward, while someone who has a nature/nurture view of life by seeing things quite differently. If there isn't something that both of these can be compared to see which is better, they are just one idea no different from the other.

No, absolutes are just that, absolutes; I don't think you can come up with a good reason to murder. If we can justify going against those things we call absolutes, then they are not absolutes to us; they are merely suggestions looking for an excellent excuse to do or not do. I can only think of selfish ones when it comes to stealing what isn't yours, and alike. For something to be self-evident to all is acknowledging a goal post, not of our own making, but something more significant than us, we can all see it, understand, and should mold ourselves around.

You cannot call something better without an idea of what good is, or worse without those you are only looking within to see how we feel about it right now, knowing we can change our minds later if desire and opportunity arise where we might have to do things we now claim are wrong to do what we will. Taking us back to, we do what we want because we want to, nothing more.

We are arguing with each other (not speaking about me and you) because we know when we are telling someone they did something wrong, that they know and we have this innate knowledge of good and evil we are appealing to, if we didn't think we could grasp, why argue, fight like animals?

@kellyjay said
I see what you are saying, but you still have not given me a reason to know how one would know you were going forward or not. Those who prescribe to the survival of the fittest may think caring about those that require resources that could go to the healthy may think carrying for weak and sick is a step backward, while someone who has a nature/nurture view of life by seeing ...[text shortened]... good and evil we are appealing to, if we didn't think we could grasp, why argue, fight like animals?

I did tell you how you know you're going forward.

Do you think it's wrong for a person to steal food to feed their hungry children?

@avalanchethecat said
I did tell you how you know you're going forward.

Do you think it's wrong for a person to steal food to feed their hungry children?

If you present a situation where it's a binary choice to do this evil, or that one occurs, I could suggest those too, but what does it do? Some take care of children, and others have been murdered them and the children because of their religion, or they were the wrong color, or they wanted something there, all of the above. Everyone was making choices, those carrying for the kids, and those who killed them, were each choice being made something we can justify, or were some of those choices and reasons absolutely wrong?

@kellyjay said
If you present a situation where it's a binary choice to do this evil, or that one occurs, I could suggest those too, but what does it do? Some take care of children, and others have been murdered them and the children because of their religion, or they were the wrong color, or they wanted something there, all of the above. Everyone was making choices, those carrying for the ...[text shortened]... ice being made something we can justify, or were some of those choices and reasons absolutely wrong?

But you are asserting that it's always morally wrong to steal, aren't you?

@josephw said
Is the assertion you're making by asking why Christians can't answer an honest question an honest assertion?

Or are you merely trying to say the Christians posting in this forum are just liars?

Get my assertion?

I’m not interested in your blithering, you are nothing more than trumped-up Trumpist who isn’t allowed to teach in his church (for obvious reasons) and instead is the self proclaimed “spiritual muscle”

You’re a joke to me Joseph.

@avalanchethecat said
But you are asserting that it's always morally wrong to steal, aren't you?

A binary choice to do one evil thing or another evil thing only leads to an evil thing.

@kellyjay said
A binary choice to do one evil thing or another evil thing only leads to an evil thing.

I don't accept that stealing to feed one's starving children - or even oneself in extremis - is an evil choice at all. Obviously you are obliged to believe it so by your 'permanent goalposts' and that, I suggest, adequately demonstrates a significant weakness in your position.

@avalanchethecat said
I don't accept that stealing to feed one's starving children - or even oneself in extremis - is an evil choice at all. Obviously you are obliged to believe it so by your 'permanent goalposts' and that, I suggest, adequately demonstrates a significant weakness in your position.

Well if you think some rationale is all that is required everything is permissible.

@kellyjay said
Well if you think some rationale is all that is required everything is permissible.

This conclusion cannot be reached logically from what I have been saying. Please explain how you think a learned and considered morality can lead to a state where 'everything is permissable'.

@avalanchethecat said
This conclusion cannot be reached logically from what I have been saying. Please explain how you think a learned and considered morality can lead to a state where 'everything is permissable'.

If I decide what I value want or believe is best, I can therefore justify any action or inaction, I alone am the sole measure of all things. If it is always an internal question with out regard to anything other than me, it will never be anything else.

All things that can be justified given motivation, desire, taste, and anything else the drives me. If we all do this than one no matter how repulsive to me comes from the same place within a different person, since we all choose there is no standard that all are held to without absolutes.

@divegeester said

You’re a joke to me Joseph.

I don't care what I am to you.

Maybe someday you'll stop being pretentious and begin being a genuine Christian that believes what God's Word says.

@josephw said
I don't care what I am to you.

Maybe someday you'll stop being pretentious and begin being a genuine Christian that believes what God's Word says.

The shut up speaking to me, you’re obsessed with gaining my attention.