Image via Wikipedia... without God and purposeful ends, there is no such thing as justice to begin with. Justice is the situation that results when people get what they morally deserve. Without objective morality there is no proper action and, therefore, no deserved outcome. -- Charlie, in the Comments section at Tom Gilson's blog.Good one.
4 comments:
SDC said:
this is no more of a justified claim than "an invisible magic man in the sky created us all just for his enjoyment", and you implicitly accept that when you dismiss certain parts of your own little magic book as atavistic barbarism. "Morality" is based on not imposing your actions on anyone else without that person's consent, and has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever some bronze-age warlord wanted to give himself permission to do under the guise of "hey guys, god said it's cool".
I need to run and look "atavistic" up in the dictionary...
Thanks, SDC.
SDC said:
"Atavistic" = "primitive", "brutal", or "sadistic", as in:
Numbers 31 - "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man", or
Hosea 13 - "their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up". Anyone looking in your little magic book for advice on morality is looking in the wrong place.
SDC -- your comments on "the book" are off-topic, as no mention was made of it in the quote. The issue is what a world looks like where there is no God, and therefore, no foundation for objective morality.
You provide a pretty good definition of morality: "Morality is based on not imposing your actions on anyone else without that person's consent", but you need to defend it. A prisoner objects to being executed, and indeed, imprisoned. A serial killer objects to being stopped in his tracks -- so there has to be more to it than consent.
And what is wrong with imposing actions on anyone or anything else without its consent? Is smashing a rock immoral? Smashing a pumpkin? Killing a pig? The pig objects! Swatting a fly?
Your definition presupposes that humans have worth and rights greater than the rest of the material universe, but you have to provide reasons for thinking so.
Otherwise, you are merely presenting your argument as a brute fact, or, perhaps, a personal subjective view or preference.
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