Without God, a collection of subjective preferences based on the personal opinions and desires of the collective whole of society and the declared moral truth that unnecessary suffering is wrong, is the best that can be offered without God. But, ultimately, it fails because it is subjective, not universal. If you think it is universal because all people don't like unnecessary suffering, then think again. There are people who prefer unnecessary suffering. The mentally ill, for example. Are they wrong for preferring it? If you say it's okay for them, then the moral is not universal since it doesn't apply to them. If you say it's not okay for them, then you are imposing of value on others and what gives you the right to do that in a subjective world?
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The thing is, metally ill are, well, metally ill. Their illnesses negatively affect their judgements and preferences. Therefor, they're not much of an authority when it comes to... a lot of things, I guess.
"Without God, a collection of subjective preferences based on the personal opinions and desires of the collective whole of society and the declared moral truth that unnecessary suffering is wrong, is the best that can be offered without God."
This is what you have, because your god is imaginary. Except that you imagine god commands unnecessary suffering.
So atheism is still better.
Subjective morals are not universal, this is true.
Any given political belief is not universal either. Hence why we have a democracy to find the (supposed) best representation of political belief for the nation and govern ourselves accordingly.
With a subjective moral system, we follow a democratic method. The morals are governed by society's opinions, by the accumulated subjective beliefs of the population at large.
Objective morality according to a single figure (god) is more comparable to a political dictatorship. One person tells the rest what the rules are and shan't hear any other suggestion.
But I suppose you'd probably be all for a theocracy.
Nothing is universal, everything is subjective. Christian denominations alone, so a god is hardly universal or objective either.
Human rights are fairly universal and objective, and reciprocal; if you want to have the rights, you have to respect others' rights in return. Right to life is a very basic human right (which groups like IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh (apparently they hate being called Daesh, and we hate them raping and killing indiscriminately) refuse to respect, but then very few is ready to respect their right to life in return).
What gives you the right to impose your god and his rules on a subjective world. What about all the other thousands of gods, goddesses and other deities?
Matt, you are a Calvinist. You believe that "objective good" means Yahweh creates people solely to torture them, all so he can masturbate to it, uh, I mean, uh, demonstrate his capacity for "justice". With that sort of "absolute standard", remind me why it is so horrible to imagine a world where morality is determined by society?
Also, I would recommend against debating Matt Slick in an extended format. Most people on here define truth to be largely synonymous with external reality. By contrast, Matt has a more Orwellian definition of truth; whatever God declares, that is what the truth automatically and exclusively is, such that a world without God is a world without truth. That is more or less what the villains of 1984 believed about Big Brother.
1) They're still subjective preferences. They're God's subjective preferences, or, more accurately, those preferences put into the mouth of God.
Matt, is it universally immoral to kill someone?
If yes, then God has carried out innumerable immoral actions...
If no, then you've just shown that subjective morals are all you have... fucking over your claim.
Choose one... an immoral God or subjective morals. It's really that simple.
> Without God, a collection of subjective preferences based on the personal opinions and desires of the collective whole of society and the declared moral truth that unnecessary suffering is wrong, is the best that can be offered without God.
And since God doesn't exist, it's what we're stuck with. I'm sure we'll manage, since we've been managing this whole time.
@1712473,
Matt would argue with you as follows: God is the perfect King and he can do whatever he wants. You have no right to mimic him or even raise an eyebrow, because God says he is perfect and you are a rotten, peasant weakling! This is all objectively true because God is the perfect King and he said so. Are you perfect? Are you perfect according to God? Then HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THE KING?! And it doesn't matter that God isn't perfect outside of his own claims of perfection, because he is a perfect King.
Matt would then repeat the argument until your ears bleed and your neurons commit suicide.
Given the varying beliefs of what God wants, even within branches of Christianity, it could be said that the theist's take on morality is influenced by their own subjectivity, with them projecting their own opinions on to God.
Just because it was arrived at by logic doesn't mean that it's subjective. Many moral philosophers believe in a non-religious objective morality, which is based on logic and reason. The categorical imperative, I think, was like this.
Here's thing, dickface. Morality pre-dates christianity by a long shot. Morality does NOT come from the bible. It has, like most things with humans, evolved. And that has been PROVEN by these people called "scientists" who do something called "research" where they conduct "experiments" that yield "results". This is opposed to your preferred method of pulling facts from your anus.
If the bible were the end all be all of human morality I would have liked a little more clarity. Perhaps we could have concentrated a little less on the coveting and said in plain language, oh I don't know, OWNING OTHER HUMAN BEINGS is WRONG! Yes, the bible could have been a whole lot clearer on the whole slavery thing...
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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