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Goodbye Jesus

Moral law


Jon

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Not this again. :49:

 

Societies, if they are to survive, develop a few rules about killing each other and stealing shit. It ain't rocket science or religion.

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3 hours ago, ironhorse said:

 

We know inwardly know sex with another person’s spouse is wrong.

 

Which is why the Seventh Day Adventists, a splinter christian group, has certain sects which practice bigamy.  Because they know that having sex with their spouse's spouse is espoused... or the spouse of their spouse's spouse.  Hang on... okay if she's his spouse, but he also has another spouse, then she's having sex with someone else's spouse even though he's her spouse.  Geez... this is complicated.  Care to clarify how this is a universal morality that "we" all know inwardly?

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9 hours ago, ironhorse said:

People inwardly know that stealing is wrong. We know inwardly know murder is wrong. We know inwardly know sex with another person’s spouse is wrong.

As humans, these red flags are built into us. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans. It is built-in to our consciousness.

If you read other ancient laws or codes, all them contain similar prohibitions against these basic behaviors.  

 

No we don't - we are taught these things as we grow up, we learn them through experience. Children will steal one another's toys, but they learn that having their toy stolen is not nice so they stop doing it to others. Added on top of that is parents teach kids what is right or wrong. Much of this is driven from empathy - our ability to feel what others feel, to put ourselves in their shoes. People with certain mental illnesses cannot distinguish this right and wrong area because they have no empathy, or cannot empathizes as well as others.

 

So I'd be interested in your definition of murder. Take for example the following verse in the bible:

"

Moses, the priest Eleazar, and all the leaders of the community went outside the camp to meet them. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of the companies and battalions, who were returning from battle.

15 “Why did you let all the women live?” he asked them. 16 “Remember, they were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused[a] the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the incident that took place at Peor. Yahweh’s community experienced a plague at that time. 17 So kill all the Midianite boys and every Midianite woman who has gone to bed with a man. 18 But save for yourselves every girl who has never gone to bed with a man"

 

This was not killing in a battle, this was the slaughter of helpless people. Would you say what happened in this verse was moral?

 

 

Speaking of objective moral facts, there are some scientists who think that it is possible to scientifically determine objective moral facts based on well being.

 

If you are interested in a discussion of objective moral values vs subjective moral values see video below.

 

 

PS I was independent fundamentalist mixed with many doctrines from all over the show.

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Lots of married people have sex outside their marriage, sometimes with their spose's consent or even active participation. It turns out the world didn't end.

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18 hours ago, ironhorse said:

 

 

People inwardly know that stealing is wrong. We know inwardly know murder is wrong. We know inwardly know sex with another person’s spouse is wrong.

As humans, these red flags are built into us. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans. It is built-in to our consciousness.

If you read other ancient laws or codes, all them contain similar prohibitions against these basic behaviors.

 

For example, ancient Egypt:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ethics.htm

Crimes of a cultic nature: blasphemy, stealing from temple offerings or offerings to the dead, defiling the purity of a sacred place

Crimes of an economic nature: tampering with the grain measure, the boundaries of fields, or the plummet of the balance

Criminal acts: theft and murder

Exploitation of the weak and causing injury: depriving orphans of their property, causing pain or grief, doing injury, causing hunger

Moral and social failings: lying, committing adultery, ignoring the truth, slandering servants before their master, being aggressive, eavesdropping, losing one's temper, speaking without thinking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you really know nothing at all about psychology, sociology and/or just natural consequences that fit into simple algorithms of cause and effect? No god or supreme being is needed to tell us or instill within us that I don't steal my neighbor's chickens or rape his daughters because I don't want him to steal my chickens or rape my daughters. Occam's razor slices off 98% of your position as superfluous. 

 

Meanwhile, your rules include a whole lot of extra moral guidelines that are completely unnecessary and nonsensical. The Hasidic Jews highlight just how ludicrous they are. The xians then try and get around some of this silliness by claiming they are no longer living under the law, but they are still stuck with ridiculous rituals and rules just the same. You will have a hard time claiming any of this is natural or innate. But no doubt you'll try. 

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i'm still here folks.

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30 minutes ago, Jon said:

i'm still here folks.

 

Welcome back.

 

Any opinions on this thread?

 

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can anyone shed some light on the moral law please

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1 hour ago, Jon said:

can anyone shed some light on the moral law please

Which one?

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4 hours ago, Jon said:

can anyone shed some light on the moral law please

All law is a human construct.

You're welcome.

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...and just because the only moral laws that exist are the ones that we make does not mean that we have no true morality. Human laws are real, moral or otherwise.

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1 hour ago, Orbit said:

All law is a human construct.

You're welcome.

Why?  Where did you define in our history that law was a construct......and then why.  Where did the desire to make them a construct originate?

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1 minute ago, end3 said:

Why?  Where did you define in our history that law was a construct......and then why.  Where did the desire to make them a construct originate?

 

Humans construct everything in society. They collectively decide what law is, where it applies, and to whom. The earliest known law is the Code of Hammurabi, and it was written by men, at the behest of their king. All law, moral or otherwise, comes from people.

 

Why do humans construct law? To prevent disputes/murder/revenge and to keep the social order, in any given time period.

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47 minutes ago, end3 said:

Why?  Where did you define in our history that law was a construct......and then why.  Where did the desire to make them a construct originate?

I know chemistry is more your forte; but surely you've heard about evolution via natural selection at least once during your career.

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1 hour ago, end3 said:

Why?  Where did you define in our history that law was a construct......and then why.  Where did the desire to make them a construct originate?

 

Where do laws come from? From Congress and your state legislature, county commission, town council. People ask other people to make laws.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, Orbit said:

 

Humans construct everything in society. They collectively decide what law is, where it applies, and to whom. The earliest known law is the Code of Hammurabi, and it was written by men, at the behest of their king. All law, moral or otherwise, comes from people.

 

Why do humans construct law? To prevent disputes/murder/revenge and to keep the social order, in any given time period.

I gather that humanity has the ability to define a law, thx.  With that, there is natural law and possibly divine law.  Seems like Hans and I had this discussion with "Thou shall not kill" with respect to lion society.  I'll have to think about it.....as much as the fog permits.   

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Not all laws are human constructs.  Certainly, there are classes of laws which are, but there are classes of laws which are not.  I think the difference is whether the law in question is prescriptive or descriptive.  For example, a law which forbids certain human conduct is prescriptive, such as the law against theft of another's property.  On the other hand,  Issac Newton's law of motion is descriptive.  It is not a human construct because humans did not have to declare it before it became operative.

 

SImilarly, not all moral (or immoral or amoral or ethical or unethical) behavior is codified into laws which are enforceable by a particular society of humans, and societies of humans often differ on what is codified.  For example, some societies have laws against the mistreatment of animals and some societies do not have such laws.

 

Historically, some human behavior was acceptable (i.e., moral) in the past but is no longer acceptable (i.e., immoral) today.  Human slavery is an example.  Punishing offspring for the unacceptable conduct of their parents or ancestors is another example.

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On 28/07/2017 at 6:13 PM, midniterider said:

 

At least we know IH is a Baptist. I used to be Pentecostal but now generally lean towards advaita vedanta and pagan stuff. Hey, everybody, just a quick shout out for everyone to share their prior denomination on the thread.

 

Plymouth Brethren - specifically the more conservative end of the "open" Brethren.  Bible bashers in the extreme sense of extremity.  Now a bizarre and individualistic form of Hellenist, who also thinks it makes sod all difference what you believe, as long as you don't try to push it onto anyone else.

 

On 28/07/2017 at 8:07 PM, ironhorse said:

 

 

People inwardly know that stealing is wrong. We know inwardly know murder is wrong. We know inwardly know sex with another person’s spouse is wrong.

As humans, these red flags are built into us. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans. It is built-in to our consciousness.

If you read other ancient laws or codes, all them contain similar prohibitions against these basic behaviors.

 

For example, ancient Egypt:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ethics.htm

Crimes of a cultic nature: blasphemy, stealing from temple offerings or offerings to the dead, defiling the purity of a sacred place

Crimes of an economic nature: tampering with the grain measure, the boundaries of fields, or the plummet of the balance

Criminal acts: theft and murder

Exploitation of the weak and causing injury: depriving orphans of their property, causing pain or grief, doing injury, causing hunger

Moral and social failings: lying, committing adultery, ignoring the truth, slandering servants before their master, being aggressive, eavesdropping, losing one's temper, speaking without thinking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does use of extra large font make a post more convincing?

 

Anyway - in ancient Sparta it was considered acceptable to chuck weak children off a cliff and to toughen up the rest of them by whipping seven colours of crap out of them whilst they tried to steal cheese in rather surreal ritual.  Ancient society habitually exploited the weak via slavery - a condition in which the owner had the power of life and death and could simply dispose of the unprofitable.  Adultery is merely institutionalised and given another name in polygamous societies (including the earlier old testament way of doing things).  Rape and murder has long been an accompaniment of conquest.  I could go on (aggression for instance - the Roman army made modern terrorist organisations look like a jam making committee of the Womens' Institute; sorry if that terminology doesn't translate into anything familiar to US members).

 

So, yeah, I'm really impressed by the idea that people and societies have an innate concept of right and wrong (sarcasm employed there, for the less perceptive of you).

 

Also, I don't understand how a Christian can at once claim that man has an innate moral code and then claim that men are nothing but evils sinners through and through.  I'll re-phrase that.  I don't understand how a Christian can support the logical somersaults needed to claim that man has an innate moral code and then claim that men are nothing but evils sinners through and through.

 

16 hours ago, Orbit said:

All law is a human construct.

You're welcome.

 

Bingo.

I take Sdelsolray's point save insofar as "law" in this thread seems not to be employed in the sense of laws of nature or physics but of the rules governing human behaviour within society.

Law is what the legislature says it is.  In fact, to be strictly, if cynically, accurate, law is what the judiciary says the legislature has said it is.  There is no moral law because morality is not codified into a legal framework.  Indeed, I know Christians who dispute the morality of much of modern UK law.  But law it is, and law it remains.  When I deal with a case, I do so in relation to courts of law.  I have never seen and do not know of a court of morality.

Hence, there is no moral law.  It's a myth, convenient for those who maintain what, in jurisprudential terms (i.e. philosophy of law), is the concept of "Natural Law" - a quasi theocratic view of legal validity that is, quite frankly, twaddle when compared with positivist based ideas.

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20 minutes ago, sdelsolray said:

Not all laws are human constructs.  Certainly, there are classes of laws which are, but there are classes of laws which are not.  I think the difference is whether the law in question is prescriptive or descriptive.  For example, a law which forbids certain human conduct is prescriptive, such as the law against theft of another's property.  On the other hand,  Issac Newton's law of motion is descriptive.  It is not a human construct because humans did not have to declare it before it became operative.

 

 

If neither Newton nor anyone else took the time to write down their observations about motion and assert their opinion about that observation, would there be a law of motion?

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5 minutes ago, midniterider said:

 

If neither Newton nor anyone else took the time to write down their observations about motion and assert their opinion about that observation, would there be a law of motion?

 

Our solar system would not have formed without it.  (I'm leaving aside any minute flaws in Newton's description contained in his Law of Motion.)

 

Whether humans are aware of it does not affect its function.

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10 minutes ago, midniterider said:

 

If neither Newton nor anyone else took the time to write down their observations about motion and assert their opinion about that observation, would there be a law of motion?

Very very interesting my dear.  The group here will tell you that the laws exist outside our subjectivity yet will simultaneously tell you the whole thing is subject to our will.  WTF indeed.

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15 minutes ago, Ellinas said:

...

Bingo.

I take Sdelsolray's point save insofar as "law" in this thread seems not to be employed in the sense of laws of nature or physics but of the rules governing human behaviour within society.

Law is what the legislature says it is.  In fact, to be strictly, if cynically, accurate, law is what the judiciary says the legislature has said it is.  There is no moral law because morality is not codified into a legal framework.  Indeed, I know Christians who dispute the morality of much of modern UK law.  But law it is, and law it remains.  When I deal with a case, I do so in relation to courts of law.  I have never seen and do not know of a court of morality.

Hence, there is no moral law.  It's a myth, convenient for those who maintain what, in jurisprudential terms (i.e. philosophy of law), is the concept of "Natural Law" - a quasi theocratic view of legal validity that is, quite frankly, twaddle when compared with positivist based ideas.

 

I disagree.  Many human-made laws contain moral or ethical precepts in the form of prohibitions of certain behavior.  Murder is an example, unless you want to claim murder is not a moral issue.  Of course, many human-made laws do not contain a moral component, such as a sales tax law.

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2 minutes ago, end3 said:

Very very interesting my dear.  The group here will tell you that the laws exist outside our subjectivity while simultaneously tell you the whole thing is subject to our will.  WTF indeed.

 

Leave me out of the "group" you claim to have identified.

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Just now, sdelsolray said:

 

Leave me out of the "group" you claim to have identified.

Yes, I noticed.  Apologies. 

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12 minutes ago, end3 said:

Yes, I noticed.  Apologies. 

 

To address your claim, some laws exist outside of our subjectivity (e.g., scientific laws) and some laws do not and are codified based on our choices (e.g., human-made laws, regulations and ordinances).

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