Morality without god

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Opinions are facts.

You really didn't just say this, did you?

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You know what "facts" are, yes?

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You know what it means when we label something as a "fact"?

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The difference between fact and opinion is that one is apt to change in differing situations. The other will hold in all situations.

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I'll leave it to you to sort out the details.

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Sorry, I'm not saying that the content of the opinion is a fact. I'm saying that the ownership of the opinion, that it is stated and represents a real state of mind, is a fact. Some people think the Earth is 6000 years old. While this is not a fact, that they think so is a fact.

Huh?Sorry but that makes no sense; I can't really find any content in that salad.

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Huh?
Sorry but that makes no sense; I can't really find any content in that salad.

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The moral question is "what do you think", not "what does society think?"Sally likes oranges. Bob does not like oranges. In fact, they make him sick. Everyone except Bob likes oranges. Both Sally and Bob are hungry.It is morally okay to give Sally an orange but to give something else to Bob, because his condition is different.

Huh?What does that have to do with morality?

... and how do we get married today?We promote a culture where marriage is unacceptable until a couple can afford the rent and cost of a family which is now @age 26.This means that the Institution of Matrimony is no longer concerned with providing a Socially acceptable way for young people to express the god-given hormonal instincts.Then we provide the sexually stimulating culture that suggests promiscuity is fun and adult, sure to entice the adolescents into recreational sex for 14 years, while we pretend either they are smart enough to get away with it, or worthy of the priesthood for abstaining for 14 years.Then when the babies come, which marriage was supposed to accommodated, we kill the baby or pay welfare mothers to raise the criminal element and otherwise abused half of the next population of the nation.

Both you and I and everyone reading this thread would agree on what is good and what is evil.Here's a test.Was the the holocaust good or evil?
Is rescuing a baby from a burning building good or evil?Did you pass? Correct. But you passed the test above too didn't you. Explain why. I think you need to re-think or re-phrase this because it's loaded with supposition, strawmen and assertion. Simplify it and you may have a point. Do you really mean to say that law enforcement is mob rule? Are you sure? There are many? If there where as many as a majority claiming our institutions were evil, we wouldn't have the institutions we have - you know, that's why we call it a democracy, the majority opinion wins.And btw, I have plenty to say to them.

I can only reiterate that an absolute moral standard and the actual morality practiced are 2 different things. See message 502.

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The term morality may be used normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

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The absolute moral standard tells me that forcing someone to get married against their will is immoral because it is harmful and can be shown to be so. No matter what the year is and no matter what everybody else is doing. Muhammad was not applying the standard. He was doing what everybody else was doing. It is the fact that one of the parties is being forced into a marriage against their will that makes the practice immoral. The fact that some people force others into marriage against their will means that they are immoral people and not that there is no standard with which to assess the morality of their behaviour. It is not immoral because I do not like it. It is immoral because it causes harm. The standard is simply to determine if the net effects of the action are harmful and if there is any culpability for that harm that belongs to the actor. Yes, I am applying an assessment of harm that is reliant on my beliefs. My beliefs, in turn, are reliant on scientific evidence that can objectively verify things like when some harm has occurred. Objective in the sense that they can be verified by many different observers again and again. Tell you what, if you run into him ask for both of us. Let me know what you hear. Some of us are and probably more than ever before. Just as the absolutely correct physics existed in nature even while Aristotle was wrong about them, the absolutely correct moral behaviour exists as a possibility even while many of us are ignorant of it.

I really hope so - I'm generally not a fan of intellectual snobbery. Plain, low-brow, thoughtful a precise, non-jargon filled speaking is fine by me. You obviously missed where I said that morality is instinctual (we are born with the base emotions that allow us to empathise with others which forms the start point of our morality) and is informed by our society and community and that it is developmental. We have developed skills that transcend generations - ie language and writing, so that the generation following us can learn from us and society can progress - instead of rediscovering what works every time.

Ah. An Emily Litella moment for me.Never mind.

You haven't been to Alabama or Arkansas in the last +- 100 years, have you.

Yeah,...Arkansas is a perfect example of how the Single Mother Family is the norm now, instead of marriage and shame on the illegitimacy that is both a $1 Billion dollar expense to America now and a breeding ground for every social problem in the Nation.The present process of tribute to the large and ever growing barbarians within is a time bomb as it was for ancient Rome. Thery are approaching a point where half of the families are welfare fatherless Single Mother entities as the red on the map tells you.Edited by kofh2u, : No reason given.

I get U.The attitudes are factual.
The way people perceive Reality is fixed and will not change as the Fundamentalists on the one side hold to what they say and these atheists progreesive liberal defend their twisted ideas about whether morals actually exist or are just man made ideas that restrain behavior for no reason at all.Those opinions are facts.

The norm?No wonder you have such difficulties in these forums. You don't speak the english none too good.In your own diagram, there is not one, NOT ONE, county where the single female head is over 50%. Actually, what the map shows is quite the opposite, unless of course, you deliberately ignore all the white and pink areas. And ignore the fact that of the top 8 population centers, 5 are white and 3 are pink. And ignore the fact that you presented no historical data by which you conclude "they are approaching" or maybe receding (had you thought of that?), from anything whatsoever.

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Huh?
What does that have to do with morality?

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The example illustrates that moral agents are individual people, not groups. The way you treat someone should have some correspondence to the way they want, or would want if they were in a state of complete understanding, to be treated. As such, things like rape, forced marriage, slavery, and genital mutilation of infants can be regarded as necessarily evil. This is totally different to Tangle's opinion which is that such things are only morally evil if society accepts that they are, regardless of their reason.Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.

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Both you and I and everyone reading this thread would agree on what is good and what is evil.

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Apparently not because your opinion is that things are not, in themselves, good or evil. They are only treated as such, and such treatment is tentative and variable.

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Here's a test.

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Was the the holocaust good or evil?
Is rescuing a baby from a burning building good or evil?

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Did you pass?

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How do you demonstrate that the holocaust was evil? In my case it is blatantly obvious. In your case it seems totally unclear. If the axis powers won, what they did might have been considered a moral duty.

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There are many? If there where as many as a majority claiming our institutions were evil, we wouldn't have the institutions we have - you know, that's why we call it a democracy, the majority opinion wins.

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Of course we would. Last I checked there are hundreds of countries and about 7 billion people on this planet. If your view is correct we have nothing to say to Saudi Arabia or North Korea about their politics, except that we don't like their methods and that we think ours are better.Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.