Objective morality is one of the most common arguments for the existence of God. This topic has been covered thoroughly, but I wanted to just kind of share my personal take. The argument goes like this; objective morality can not exist without God, and we have objective morality, therefore God must exist. Simple enough, right?
Well the problem is that no one is actually quite sure we have objective reality. In fact, there are quite a lot of people who argue morality is subjective, which is the side of the fence I too fall on. Morality is not objective. Our perception of morality changes as society changes. Things that were not acceptable half a century ago, are extremely common and hardly noticed in today's society. Many aspects of sexuality is a prime example. But what about bigger things, muder, rape, pedophilia, surely every one knows these things to be immoral so it must be objective. Well, what about the people that commit these acts? Did they believe, or know, these things are immoral. In many cases, they may, but impulses may have taken over, maybe the person was intoxicated. Who knows? I think in many cases people don't see their acts as immoral because of subjective emotions, which are for each one of us our moral compass. Morality can not be objective if determined by our emotions.
What about children? Do they know what is moral and immoral? Let's say around the age 10-13, do these young minds know that murder is wrong no matter what? Wait, but murder isn't wrong no matter what. I mean even in the justice system of our "Christian nation" there is such a thing as justifiable homicide. Of course, this person was defending their life, their home and their family, surely that is not immoral. And we can't make that distinction with objective morality. If morality is objective, then murder is either wrong, or it is right. When we are talking about absolutes there can not be gray areas. What about Hitler? A Catholic. Did he believe what he did to the Jewish people was immoral? Of course not, he thought he was doing something righteous. In his mind his actions were not immoral. Subjective morality.
Stop and think this through. Everything is subjective. We subject everything to our own judgement, to our mind's perception, to the emotions we feel. Everything. War, genocide, rape, and even disasters beyond our control. Why do people commit the most depraved acts imaginable if we KNOW it is wrong because of objective morality. Because it's God's plan? Humans have free will and evil is necessary for God to teach us virtue. Is it? If God uses evil to teach us virtue, then he is not omnibenevolent. He can not be all good, and use evils to teach us. If he can not stop those evils then he is not omnipotent. If he was unable to foresee evil to come, then God doesn't have a plan, and he his not omniscient. Yes, the Creationist's favorite dilemma. The problem of evil. There is no objective morality, and there is no explanation for evil that upholds the Christian belief system. You can solve the problem of evil, but at the cost of destroying your belief structure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This post brings to mind those Westboro Baptist crazies. Even though God supposedly said, "Love thy neighbor," they hate homosexuals with a passion because they're immoral. There is so much wrong with that, I don't even know where to begin. You see what I'm saying.
Also, this is where I have a problem with the death penalty. If murder is wrong.. if killing people is wrong and a punishable crime.. how can we use the government to put people in the electric chair? Not sure where you stand on that, but that's part of my opinion.
I feel like I had more to say, but my head hurts and it's time for bed. Thanks again for another great post.
PS - I like the blog URL :o)
Well as far as the death penalty I think it has it's place. I think people who can not be rehabilitated and will continue to cause havoc in society would be candidates. However, I see what you're saying about how two wrongs don't make a right. If we are to hold the position of objective morality then we must adhere to that in our means of punishment as well.
However I don't think in general it is moral to lock someone in a box and take away their freedom, but obviously we must remove these people from society and they must have consequences to their actions. But now we're picking the lesser of two evils. But I am extremely happy with your comment because it shows perfectly why morality is subjective. We wouldn't have this dilemma if it wasn't.
Post a Comment