Objective Morality

1. Objective Morality

   
   

   First, let's define these two words:

   
   

   ob·jec·tive

   əbˈjektiv/

   adjective

   1. 

   (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

   "historians try to be objective and impartial"

   synonyms:    impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan, disinterested, neutral, uninvolved, even-handed, equitable, fair, fair-minded, just, open-minded, dispassionate, detached, neutral

   "I was hoping to get an objective and pragmatic report"

    

   mo·ral·i·ty

   məˈralədē/

   noun

   principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

   synonyms:    ethics, rights and wrongs, ethicality More

   
   

   
   

   
   

   So together it is “A set of principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.”

   
   

   So if you have a standard of morality that cannot be influenced by your own feelings, you can have objective morality. 

   
   

   My proposed standard:

   
   

   Does the action cause unnecessary mental, physical or emotional suffering?

   
   

   Note: some suffering is necessary and even good for us, such as the mental anguish a child “suffers” when denied a cookie. Yes, it is possible to objectively show giving the child the cookie would do more harm than good. i.e. too many sweets are bad for your teeth along other possible health risks.

   
   

   One could argue about whether something is necessary or not, but good luck justifying how the harm caused to a rape victim might be necessary. One scenario might be “Rape the girl or the whole village dies.” But then the person making the threat would be the one acting immoral since the threat is unnecessary not the one being forced to make the choice.

   
   

   Does the action diminish the other person in some meaningful way?

   
   

   Example: Stealing diminishes another person's wealth, however, stealing from someone with an excess of resources likely won't diminish the other person in a meaningful way and if the theft was to reduce suffering such as feeding your starving family, it can easily be argued that the theft was more moral than allowing your family to starve. A theft that doesn't meaningfully diminish another, but equally doesn't reduce the suffering of others, such as illegally downloading music, is unnecessary and thus can be said to do more harm than good.  I admit that there is some subjectivity to what constitutes “meaningful”, but I think it can be defined as “if it causes the person to suffer hardship such as they themselves would then starve”.

   
   

   If the answer is “Yes” to either 1 or 2, it's objectively immoral. It is difficult for personal feelings or preferences to rationally influence the answer, at least not in a way that can't further be examined objectively to remove the personal bias. 

   
   

   Is God required to have objective morality? No, you just need a standard to compare the behavior to.

   
   

   
   

Crosses & Kaaba's

Mankind pulled himself out of the darkness of the base instincts shared with his animal cousins.

In his initial confusion, that lasted thousands of years, Man made up stories to explain that which He didn't understand.

Unable to grasp why He was so different than his animal brethren, He could only assume there was something special about him.

It was almost like Man had been chosen by someone. Given the gifts of intellect & consciousness to bring Order to the Chaos.

It was in this time of confusion that Man created the Gods, but as this veil of confusion lifted, the gods began disappearing.

As Man started understanding more & more, they consolidated the Gods into ever more powerful versions to explain the greater complexity they saw.

Until finally Tribes began claiming their God was the only God. The most powerful God, the Creator God.

Over the years, this God grew in power & acceptance. Still, Man's knowledge continued to grow, He saw less and less need for a God.

It saddens me that Man became so comfortable with confusion that He held tightly to its veil, keeping it there for hundreds of years longer than needed.

But, as with previous gods, this Creator God slowly lost its believers. One by one & two by two.

Until only the most crazy, most fanatical & most ignorant were left kneeling before  Crosses & Kaaba's.

The fog of confusion had finally left Mankind and he could finally understand his place in the universe.

A place that was simultaneously incredibly special and blandly ordinary.

A place shared by a nigh infinite number of other "chosen" species from one end of the Universe to the other.

Counter to Cosmological Argument

Authors note: This post was a counter response to Matthew (@Redsox_239) who said he'd respond:

but instead did this:

Ah well, I got an interesting post out of it.

****

Matthew (M): "Okay so two options on the table..Necessary being or Necessary Substance (like energy). Its true that both of these would avoid an infinite regress, but the former also makes a lot more sense then the latter."

Me/Bruce (B): I disagree. We know energy is necessary for existence & that it exists. Also, thermodynamics says energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. So eternal energy fits with known physics. An eternal being is an unsubstantiated claim, so obviously eternal energy makes more sense.

M: "A Necessary being has a non-physical necessary mind, and comes with intelligence and ability to create"

B: There is no evidence a mind can exist without a physical structure such as a brain. So this is purely an unsubstantiated claim.

M: "A Necessary substance is simply an existing substance. To create it has to have the ability to do something by itself."

B: Nature has the ability to do things by itself via the four fundamental forces, although this is at risk of anthropomorphizing nature.

M: "So it would have to be conscious. It would have to be intelligence to create a variety of contingent things, and power to do anything. This just starts to sound like a necessary being."

B: As noted above, nature has forces in place that remove the need for a concious being to create things. Eternal energy is just energy constantly changing its state, something we know happens, in fact, it's something we see & do  every second of our lives. Breathing, fusion in stars, walking, eating, water boiling is all just energy changing it's state. No intelligence needed for energy to change state.

M: "So clearly a being makes much more sense. Maybe you know about cosmic fine-tuning. This could perhaps be seen as supporting evidence for a being rather then just some substance as necessary."

B: Nothing clear at all about it. An eternal being requires unsubstantiated claims & presuppositions. With eternal energy, it's unsurprising energy would eventually hit a state that can support life as we know it & it's wholly (pun intended) unsurprising we find ourselves existing at a moment when this is possible since it's the only possible time we could exist.

So in conclusion, I think I have soundly shown that a concious being is not the most probable option since it requires going against known physics while eternal energy fits perfectly within known physics.

A brief history of Yahweh

Yahweh started out as a small time tribal god, just one of many in the Middle East several thousand years ago. He stayed this way for a long time until a guy named Saul, aka Paul, (2) pulled off one of the greatest PR campaigns in history and started convincing Gentiles to follow Yahweh (not having to cut off the tip of their dicks really helped increase the numbers). This set off yet another branch (with many twigs) in the family tree of Judaism.

Then Constantine, the Roman Emperor, stopped the persecution of Christians and eventually declared himself a Christian. While his unfettered support for the Catholic Church surely helped increase Yahweh's stature, it wasn't until Theodosius I made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire that Yahweh really spread throughout Europe…usually at the end of a sword.

In one of the great ironies of history, one of the most persecuted religious sects in history, became, arguably, the greatest persecutors of other religious sects in history. By doing so, they managed to turn a small time Bronze Age tribal god into the most worshipped god in the world…but yeah, Yahweh is totally real.